and the long journeys involved, we can only meet once in seven years in Provincial Synod)-but in that which affects the laity (I am speaking now of my own diocese), the laity are consulted, and they are very delicate indeed about expressing their opinions on matters which they consider more properly belong to the Bishops and clergy.

The Rev. R. W. RANDALL, All Saints', Clifton, Bristol.

66

I HAVE risen because I have been requested to say one or two words about the Scottish Church, and the request came from one to whom, as a churchman, I owe some obedience, because he is one of the Bishops of the Church. I only wish we could have brought him out of the body of the hall, that he might himself have spoken. I am referring to one whom all who know him love deeply and honour very highly-the Bishop of Argyll. He wishes me to say something to correct what fell from the Dean of Chester, but I so heartily agree with part of the Dean's speech, that I find it difficult to say anything in contradicton to him. He told us that we meet here to differ," but the bell must have stopped him before he had time to finish his sentence. It ought to have concluded :- "We meet here to differ in order that we may find out how to agree." I hope that I shall bring him to agree with me. He referred to one of the Canons of 1604, which he said might be quoted as a sign of union between the Church of England and the Established Kirk of Scotland, but he seemed to imagine, what I believe is an historical mistake, that the Canons of 1604 were enacted when the Presbyterian Church was established. They were enacted when the Church of Scotland, with its Bishops to govern it, was established. To turn to another point. As we have met here to learn something from the Church of Ireland, I may, with great deference and hesitation, ask one of the prelates who has preceded me, Bishop Perry, to study what Archbishop Bramhall has said about the celebrating of the Holy Eucharist and the pleading of the meritorious sacrifice of Christ, and I think he will find that what is put forward by the Scotch Episcopal Synod, is very much like what that Archbishop said in defending the Church of Ireland against the errors of the Church of Rome. And now, having obeyed the Bishop of Argyll, I may say a few words for myself. We are considering what we may learn from the Church of Scotland. I have learnt one very simple lesson, and it is the strange power of the pastoral relationship existing between the Bishops and the people of the Scotch Church. I well remember that I was once in Scotland, just after an election to a Bishopric had taken place, and the man who had been put aside was a man of strong powers and great gifts. The Scotch people had, however passed him over, and when I asked the reason, I was told, "You see, sir, he would not do for us. What we want is a Bishop who will go about among the people, and visit the poor and get to know them as any parish priest does." I speak what I know, for I have been amongst his people with one of the Scotch Bishops-a man who will row from one part of his parish to another; who will find a path in the mountains for you, and will mingle among his people, and treat them with a tenderness which shows the strength of the tie which subsists in all the deepest home ministrations of the Church between the people and their chief pastor. In old days, I remember Bishop Wilberforce asked one of the American Bishops, in order to test the depth of the pastoral relations between the American Bishops and the American people-" Do the people ever come to you and ask for a Bishop's blessing? The reply was-"No." Well," said Bishop Wilberforce, "I look upon that as one of the signs that the relations between me and the people of my diocese are what they ought to be-that they come to me for advice and for my pastoral blessing." When I came home from Scotland I felt that there was a strangely close tie between the Bishops and the people. As to the Church in Ireland, I have a great love for that Church, because I do believe that, notwithstanding all those difficulties which have been so nobly and so well put before us by the Bishop of Derry, the Church in Ireland is making a stand against error, which no sound Church of England man can fail for a moment to feel is deadly error. Whatever be their deficiencies, they have at any rate borne witness for, and stood up for, the old Catholic Church and the old faith, as against the obscuration of that faith by the novelties put forward by the Church of Rome. Once in my life it happened that, almost on the invitation of the present Archbishop of Dublin, I gave a retreat in Dublin-I believe it was the first that had taken place there for many hundred years

-to the clergy of the Irish Church. Never can I forget the piety and the earnestness of the prayers of those who attended it. So much was I moved by what I saw, that I could not help writing this one line to the Archbishop-"If you have only got these men in the Church of Ireland, they are enough to save it, whatever be its perils."

The Rev. JULIUS LLOYD, Rector of St. Anne's, Manchester.

NINE years' experience in an important town charge of the Scottish Episcopal Church taught me some lessons which are obvious enough, but which require to be impressed on the minds of many English clergy, and more English laymen. The first lesson, I think, is to realise the truth that the Church is a spiritual society, and not a department of the civil service. Of course, as a general proposition we all know that; but in England we are apt to forget it, and sometimes even churchmen speak as if church membership depended upon residence and ratepaying, instead of upon the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. Valuing as I do the union of Church and State in our country, I cannot but think it important that we should all feel that that is not an essential condition of the Church. It is a providential accident, in the truest sense a "godsend," but not of the essence of the Church. The Church of Scotland teaches us a great lesson, which has been referred to by the President in his opening address, in the consecration of Bishop Seabury a hundred years ago, when "Scotland gave to America the priceless boon she had sought from England in vain." Another lesson which we may learn from Scotland is the maintenance of the broad, clear line which separates Church principles from Romanism. There are many churchmen in England who have not distinctly perceived that line. In the great ecclesiastical revival of the last half century it has happened unfortunately that some of the best and most gifted members of the Church of England have passed that line, and, being attracted first by Primitive Church principles, have gone on into Romanism, and so it has become a common suspicion of anyone who has begun to realise more than before the value of the Sacraments and of an Apostolic ministry, that he is going Romewards. Both to people at large and to those who have learned to appreciate the principles of the Primitive Church it gives invaluable support, if they turn to the history of the Scottish Church and see how for two centuries and a half they have stood fast by the principles of a Catholic Church, purified from Papal innovations, and adhering to the doctrine of the Cross. A third lesson to be learnt from Scotland, is the co-operation of clergy and laity in church affairs. It would do an English layman good to see the meeting of the representative church council, which assembles year by year in one or other of the principal cities, and to observe how men of the highest influence, socially and politically, and of the highest ability, devote themselves to the dry and tedious discussions which are necessary for the well-being of the Church, and then to see the liberality with which the people give. Something like 14s. a year per head is contributed for every soul, man, woman, and child, for the maintenance of their churches. See what this amounts to. A congregation of 500 souls contributes £350 a year for church purposes. These figures speak for themselves, and I will not attempt to enlarge upon them.

The Rev. E. J. FESSINDEN, Canada.

THERE are one or two points which, as a Canadian, I should like to address myself to on this subject. I feel strongly that the Church of England should never allow herself to be separated from the State of England. No Church separated from the State can lay hold of the national life, can send her influence throughout the whole of that life, can have the education of the children of the nation, can take her part as she ought in all the charities and all the christian work of the nation. The Church of England can do that to-day. The Reformation Settlement, which we now call the Establishment of the Church of England, may not be all that one would wish it to be, and no one says it is perfect; but let us remember that the Church of England is the mother of the State of England, that she established the nation, that she established

England as a nation, and if the child, now grown great and mighty, wishes to put the mother far away from him and to reject her counsel and advice, the course of the mother should not be to say to her offspring, "Go your way. I will not attempt to stop you," but to reason with her son, to claim the rights of a mother and hold to those rights if she has strength until, if it ever comes to that dire event, the child thrusts the mother out. Let me take, as an illustration, the Falls of Niagara, from which I come. It seems to me that the Church of England has done for the State of England what the Falls of Niagara have done for Canada. The falls for centuries have gathered their waters from thousands of miles away across the Continent and poured them out as an offering of praise to hymn forth the grand existence of the Continent, and to this day they have continued to offer a great thanksgiving. Thus faith comes from far-off rivers. They may turn the wheels of the lumber mills; they convey on their bosoms mighty ships which carry the commerce of the countries round about; but whatever those waters do for the wealth and greatness of the Continent, they eventually pour themselves out in praise and worship to Almighty God. Now, the Church here, as the national Church, as the Established Church, takes all the energies of this mighty people, takes your lives, wherever they are and however busy they may be about material things, and enables you to offer them in a grand Niagara of church work and praise in your cathedrals and parish churches. If you are disestablished, all this praise, all this church work, become things of the past.

The Rev. J. COWDEN-COLE, Vicar of Upton, Somerset.

IF time had permitted I might have been tempted to say something about Ireland from a different point of view to that which has been presented here this evening. You know that for several centuries past Ireland has been represented as a maiden, who has suffered very many wrongs. The phrase "Justice to Ireland" is one that has become pretty familiar to our ears. Well, to my mind, the greatest injustice that has been done to Ireland consists in the fact that she has been used as a means of showing to England what ought not to be done. She has, so to speak, become the victim of an experimental philosophy. Ireland at this time lies under a tremendous injustice. She has no Established Church. You have one here in England, and you have one in Scotland, but you give Ireland none. Lord Macaulay has told us that the Irish Church ought to have been disestablished because it was not fully representative of the people; and you say that the Church of England is representative of the people, and therefore ought to be established; and that the Presbyterian Church is representative of the people of Scotland, and so, also, ought to be established. I would ask the Scotch people, and the English people, whether reasoning of this description does not lead to the logical conclusion, that, if the Churches of Scotland and England respectively are established, Ireland ought to have an established Church as well; one, of course, which shall be representative of the people, and which shall thus put her on equal terms with England and Scotland. There are many lessons to be learnt from the present position of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland, and the great lesson, I think, is that we had better not allow ourselves to drift into the condition of that Church, for fear that its doom may overtake us. If the Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland had been true to the people, had studied their social wants, had tried to adequately fill the position she had come to occupy, the Irish people themselves would not have turned against her, and she would not have met the doom which overtook her in 1869.

Rev. A. W. MILROY, Preacher at the Rolls, London, Rector of Newnham, Hants.

I WILL confine my remarks to what England may learn from the Presbyterians of Scotland. First, with reference to constitution, the strength and vitality of the Scotch Presbyterian Churches lies in their general assemblies. The General Assembly is felt as a power throughout the length and breadth of the land. Every village shoemaker in any far off Highland parish takes an interest in its meetings, its decisions

are anxiously awaited and loyally obeyed. It is the collective spiritual voice of the Church. How many of our laity, nay, of our clergy, know where or when Convocation meets, or what it does, or take any interest in its business? Again, the English clergy may learn a lesson from the Scotch Presbyteries, which are composed of the ministers and elected laymen within a certain district, corresponding nearly to our rural deaneries. The Presbytery is a centre of religious life, in which social questions affecting the morals of the people are often discussed, and petitions are sometimes prepared and sent to Parliament. Why should not our rural deaneries serve the same purpose? Is there no way in which the clergy of a given centre can make their voice heard except by a letter to the Guardian, so that the people of a neighbourhood may look in questions of difficulty for the voice of their spiritual teachers and not look in vain? Secondly, with regard to the education of the ministry. The most important lesson of all, which we may learn from looking across the border, is that Scotland has a far better generally educated ministry than the Church of England. The Scotch minister after he has had four years of secular learning, is required to have four, or at least three years of theological training. Two courses of divinity lectures, which can be got over in a term or two of ten weeks, and a few examinations, suffice to make a man a clergyman of the Church of England. How few of our clergy know Hebrew, while every Scotch minister can read his Hebrew Bible. If this can be done in poor Scotland, which has to come to Parliament and beg for endowments for her Universities, why should it not be done in England, where Universities have hardly known what to do with their wealth? Again, Scotch students, while undergoing their theological training, are generally employed in home mission work. This system has been tried by Dr. Vaughan, Dean of Llandaff, and in Leeds, with admirable results. But as a rule, how often in England a young man appears in the pulpit for the first time with fear and trembling, and to the fear and trembling of his friends, to address a congregation before he has ever spoken a few words to even the smallest gathering of his fellow men. Another point which we may learn from Scotland is a much greater use of the laity, both for "serving tables," in the way in which the Scotch "deacons” are employed, and also as helps to render some of the services which the Presbyterian "elders" do. The relief to the clergyman would be immense; the gain both to the clergy and to the laity would be very great.

CONGRESS HALL,

WEDNESDAY MORNING, OCTOBER IST.

The Right Rev. the PRESIDENT in the Chair.

THE REPORT OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS
COMMISSION, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE
TO LEGISLATION.

PAPERS.

The Rt. Hon. Sir RICHARD A. CROSS, G.C.B., M.P.

PROBABLY the wisest advice that a lawyer can give to his client, in the majority of cases, is to avoid going to law. You will seldom find lawyers going to law in their own case; if such be the case in matters of ordinary life, how much the more is it wise to avoid disputes in ecclesiastical matters; if history teaches us anything, it certainly teaches us the misery of ecclesiastical disputes, and the bitterness with which

they have been fought out. It is not easy for the student of ecclesiastical history to exclaim, "See how these Christians love one another." Happily, in this country, the Church has laid down her doctrines and her ritual in accordance, as she believes, with the teaching of the Bible, in as clear a manner as can well be done, in her creeds, her articles, her homilies, and her invaluable Book of Common Prayer. Happily, too, the State has accepted this doctrine and this ritual, and has signified its assent by embodying this Book of Common Prayer in the statute law of the realm. Be it always remembered, that this doctrine and this ritual were not laid down, or drawn up, or made by the State, but that they were laid down, drawn up, and made by the Church herself; and have only been ratified, confirmed, and assented to by the State.

But whatever form of words might have been used, and whatever definitions might have been attempted, from the very necessities of the case, doubts as to the construction to be put upon these documents were almost certain to arise from time to time; and in a matter of such deep interest scruples, and conscientious scruples, were almost certain to be felt, and deeply felt, due in some cases to the alteration in the actual meaning of the terms employed (a change common to all languages and to all times); due in some cases to the changed temper of the times themselves; due in some cases to the idiosyncrasy of the individual. As the preface to the Prayer Book well remarks, "Nothing can be so plainly set forth but doubts may arise in the use and practise of the same. Happily the Church, foreseeing that difficulties would arise, was careful to provide a remedy, and the means of solution of such difficulties. Happily, too, the State has assented to the means so provided by the Church. This preface to the Prayer Book can never be too often or too carefully read over by those who are in doubt or difficulty, whether clergy or laity, for it equally affects both the one and the other; "To appease all such diversity (if any arise) and for the resolution of all doubt concerning the manner how to understand and do and execute the things contained in this book, the parties that so doubt or diversely take anything, shall alway resort to the Bishop of the diocese, who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same; so that the same order be not contrary to anything contained in this book; and if the Bishop of his diocese be in doubt, then he may send for the resolution thereof to the archbishop."

Here is a positive command for the Church always to resort to the Bishop; surely the cases must be rare in which the Bishop's order will not be sufficient to allay the scruples of the clergy, will not be sufficient to remove the responsibility from priest or deacon. Here is a positive command of the Church, ratified, confirmed, assented to, by the State; surely the cases must be rare in which the exercise of the Bishop's discretion will not fully command the respect and confidence of the laity. Probably one of the most valuable parts of the Report of the Commissioners is the passage in which they unanimously desire to recognise the fact that the Bishop has a paternal authority inherent in his office, which can rightly be exerted to avert litigation-the part in which they say that prior to any recommendation as to judicial proceedings, they feel bound to direct special attention to this passage in the preface to the Prayer Book, "by which (as they say) it was evidently intended to provide for the exercise of such paternal authority to which a clergyman and his