20 



ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



baptism, and brought 2,070 to schools; had 

 brought forward 490 persons for confirmation, 

 induced 9,200 to attend service, and reported 

 13,840 cases to the clergy for relief; and had con- 

 ducted or taken part in 21,520 services and meet- 

 ings. The income, 12,071, showed an increase of 

 1,701, legacies having risen from 900 to 2,- 

 484. Grants had been received from the Bishop 

 of London's and other diocesan funds, the par- 

 ishes, and a number of companies. 



The Church Historical Society was formed in 

 1894 to meet attacks on the historical position of 

 the Church of England. The report issued in 

 January, 1901, mentions courses of lectures that 

 had been delivered during the past year at Liver- 

 pool, Wood-Green, Birmingham, Manchester, and 

 Birkenhead, and the issue of a number of new 

 publications. A course of twelve lectures on 

 Typical English Churchmen was to be delivered 

 in the spring of 1901 at St. Margaret's, Westmin- 

 ster, and at St. Alban's Abbey. 



A Queen Victoria Memorial fund has been 

 instituted by the council of the Church Army as 

 a memorial of the sympathy shown by the late 

 Queen with its work. It is intended to raise 

 6,000, to be devoted to such purposes as the pro- 

 vision and equipment of a home for inebriate 

 women; the endowment of a Victorian evan- 

 gelist and mission nurse for work in the poorest 

 parishes; and the provision of a home of rest 

 for mission workers. 



Sunday-school Institute. The annual re- 

 port of the Church of England Sunday-school In- 

 stitute, presented May 8, referred to a diminished 

 attendance on Sunday-schools, which was attrib- 

 uted to- a slackening fervor in church work and a 

 growing interest in pleasure. The returns for 

 1899 had shown a net decrease of 7,000 scholars, 

 though the number in the infant classes had in- 

 creased by 10,000. The past year's returns 

 showed decreases of nearly 10,000 infants and 

 1,027 boys, and an increase of 3,727 girls. The 

 number of members of Bible classes had fallen 

 from 470,000 to 454,000, and the number of 

 teachers was smaller than a year previous. Train- 

 ing lessons or lectures had been given under the 

 direction of the institute all over the country to 

 thousands of teachers, of whom 519 entered for 

 examination, and 404 obtained prizes or certifi- 

 cates. There were now in union with the insti- 

 tute 36 associations in London, 339 in other parts 

 of the kingdom, and 20 in India and the colonies. 

 The year's income had been 9,171 from sales and 

 1,530 from other sources. 



The committee declared that no other organized 

 church work could show such results as had been 

 achieved by the Sunday-school in the last century. 

 The Bishop of Exeter said he was glad the Bible 

 stood first as the foundation of all the institute's 

 teaching. It was right to teach the Prayer-Book 

 and Church history, but it was absolutely essen- 

 tial that nothing should be put before the Bible. 



Liberation Society. The triennial Conference 

 of the Society for the Liberation of Religion from 

 the Patronage and Control of the State was held 

 in London, April 30, Mr. J. Carvell Williams pre- 

 siding. The report reviewed the public discussions 

 of the past three years as related to the cause 

 which the society was seeking to promote and 

 the aspects of legislation that bore upon it. It 

 claimed that, in spite of the most unfavorable con- 

 ditions, the strength of the liberation party in 

 Parliament had not been weakened by the elec- 

 tions of 1900. Of the 30 Welsh members of Par- 

 liament, all but 4 were pledged to support dises- 

 tablishment. In Scotland, however, a majority 

 of members were now opposed to disestablish- 



ment, instead of supporting it. The demand for 

 church reform and self-government was touched 

 upon, and it was asserted as a significant fact 

 that a large body of Churchmen were now at one 

 with the society in desiring the liberation of re- 

 ligion from state control; but it was also inti- 

 mated that these persons had yet to learn that 

 such freedom could exist with the retention of 

 state support. The income of the society for the 

 past year had been 4,321, and the expenditure 

 4,159. The chairman of the meeting in his ad- 

 dress, referring to a suggestion made by the Rev. 

 Dr. Joseph Parker at the meeting of the Congrega- 

 tional Union that the Liberation Society should 

 cooperate with the Free Church councils, said 

 that they had offered to send deputations to 

 meetings convened by those bodies ; but while some 

 of these councils regarded it as their duty to pro- 

 mote Free Church principles by openly advocating 

 them, there were other councils which held that 

 their action should be of a strictly religious char- 

 acter; and they regarded the promotion of dis- 

 establishment as political or semipolitical. Then 

 some of the members of those councils belonged 

 to churches which had not yet formed a pro- 

 nounced opinion in favor of disestablishment, and 

 they were unwilling to be placed in a false posi- 

 tion by any combined action. Resolutions were 

 passed opposing a Roman Catholic university for 

 Ireland, to be created and endowed by the state; 

 protesting against "a professedly national sys- 

 tem of education which leaves a large part of the 

 nation without any local control over the schools 

 which it is called upon to support." Another 

 resolution declared that " the conference gladly 

 recognizes the desire for greater freedom now 

 everywhere prevalent in the English Episcopal 

 Church ; together with an increasing conviction on 

 the part of the members that as a spiritual insti- 

 tution it should be able to adapt itself to exist- 

 ing religious requirements. But so long as the 

 Church has rights and privileges conferred upon 

 it by the state, and is in possession of large na- 

 tional endowments, the conference feels bound to 

 oppose all attempts to diminish the control of 

 Parliament over Church affairs, or to alter its 

 character as a national institution. It regards 

 with great satisfaction the acknowledgment by a 

 growing number of Episcopalians that their 

 Church will not be entitled to enjoy the right 

 of self-government possessed by nonconformist 

 churches until it ceases to be established and en- 

 dowed by the state." The meeting further pro- 

 tested against the "tithe rent-charge" scheme, 

 relieving the clergy from payment of half the rates 

 on tithes, and advised that the relief of clerical 

 distress, if granted from national sources, should 

 come from certain available funds, but expressed 

 the opinion " that the adequate maintenance of 

 the Church's ministers will be best secured by re- 

 liance upon the free-will offerings of those to 

 whom they minister now withheld because of 

 the existence of large state endowments 'for eccle- 

 siastical purposes." The proceedings at the an- 

 nual meeting of the society included a number 

 of addresses on subjects connected with its pur- 

 poses. 



At the autumnal meeting of the council of this 

 society, in October, a resolution was passed ex- 

 pressing the opinion that " the time has arrived 

 when new and more aggressive efforts should be 

 made to produce a general conviction that only 

 by means of disestablishment will the Church be 

 enabled to correct admitted evils and the state be 

 freed from obligations which it is now admitted 

 to be unfitted to discharge." Another resolution 

 condemned the establishment by law of the 



