28 



ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



have conducted their inquiry, and that they re- 

 port, on the assumption that the Irish Church 

 will continue hy law established and endowed. 



The question of effecting a union between 

 the Anglican and other divisions of the Chris- 

 tian world continued to be the subject of an 

 earnest discussion. As regards the Eastern 

 Churches, public opinion both in the Protes- 

 tant Episcopal Church of the United States 

 and in the Church of England, clearly favors 

 the project of, at least, intercommunion. The 

 action of the Triennial Convention of the 

 American Church has already been referred to. 

 In England the subject was debated at consid- 

 erable length, in the Convocation of Canter- 

 bury, on the 4th of July, at which the differ- 

 ence in the creed of the two churches, and the 

 former and present relations to each other, re- 

 ceived a thorough review. A committee had 

 submitted a report, declaring the object sought 

 by the movement to be not a fusion of the two 

 bodies or a submission of either to the superior 

 authority of the other, or a modification of the 

 services of one to correspond with those of 

 the other, but " simply the mutual acknowl- 

 edgment that all churches which are one in 

 the possession of a true episcopate, one in 

 sacraments, and one in their creed, are, by 

 their union in their common Lord, bound to 

 receive one another to full communion in 

 prayers and sacraments as members of the 

 same household of faith." 



A new project of this kind was brought for- 

 ward in England, in the early part of the year, 

 having for its object a union between the 

 Anglicans and the Wesleyans. The plan was 

 briefly advocated by an Anglican paper of 

 High-Church tendencies, the Guardian, which 

 proposed to the Wesleyans an adhesion to the 

 established order of the Church of England, 

 Episcopal supervision, confinement of the ad- 

 ministration of the sacraments to persons Epis- 

 copally ordained, with ordination of such Wes- 

 leyan ministers as might desire it, who might 

 retain their itinerancy, and minister in their 

 churches as licensed chapels-of-ease, subor- 

 dinate to the jurisdiction of the parish in 

 which they are situated, other Wesleyans to 

 be licensed as lay readers. The Anglicans 

 would make no alterations in their services 

 and Prayer Book, but would allow the Wesley- 

 ans the use of a set of subsidiary services. The 

 attention of the Convocation of York, on the 

 6th of February, was directed to the subject, 

 and the bishops resolved that they would cor- 

 dialjy welcome any practical attempt to effect 

 a brotherly reconciliation between the Wes- 

 leyan body and the Church of England. As 

 this plan proposed to treat with the Wesleyans 

 as an inferior body, the latter were not able to 

 consider it with a view to adopting it. The 

 same plan was the subject of considerable dis- 

 cussion in the Protestant Episcopal Church of 

 the United States. A number of Anglican 

 clergymen signed a memorial to the Quadren- 

 nial General Conference of the Methodist 



Episcopal Church to appoint a commission, 

 with a view to a reunion of -the two churches. 

 The Methodist Conference complied with this 

 request ; but the House of Bishops of the Tri- 

 ennial General Convention of the Protestant 

 Episcopal Church, to which a numerously- 

 signed petition for the appointment of a simi- 

 lar commission was presented, contented it- 

 self with the appointment of a General Com- 

 mittee on Christian Unity, without instructing 

 the committee as to negotiations with any 

 particular religious denomination. For the 

 object of promoting a union between the An- 

 glican, the Eastern, and the Roman Catholic 

 Churches, the " Association for promoting the 

 Unity of Christendom " was founded in 

 1857. In September of 1858 a year after the 

 formation of the society 675 members had 

 been enrolled, and the following numbers 

 were added to the lists in the years enumer- 

 ated below respectively: In 1859, 833 mem- 

 bers; in 1860, 1,060; in 1861, 1,007; in 1862, 

 1,393; in 1863, 1,202; in 1864, 1,340; in 1865, 

 1,317; in 1866, 1,401; in 1867, 1,647; in Sep- 

 tember, 1868, 803; making a total of 12,684. 

 The division of these, as given by the Rev. 

 George F. Lee, D. 0. L., who in 1868 retired 

 from the office of general secretary, is interest- 

 ing. Of the 12,684 members of the society, 1,881 

 belong to the Roman Catholic Church in vari- 

 ous countries ; 685 are Orientals ; 92 are at- 

 tached to such uncertain or miscellaneous 

 communities, whose names the secretary was 

 unwilling to take upon himself to decline ; and 

 10,026 belong to the Church of England and 

 other churches in communion with the same. 

 The names have been obtained by a systematic 

 circulation of the formal prospectus of the as- 

 sociation in English, Latin, French, German, 

 Spanish, and Italian. The following paragraph 

 from Dr. Lee's report is indicative of the ob- 

 jects of the Association: "It has been the 

 secretary's honor and privilege to correspond 

 with a large number of distinguished Catholics 

 of many rites, whose private letters to himself 

 officially have been carefully preserved, as they 

 may in future throw considerable light on the 

 great movement for effecting corporate re- 

 union, which the late Cardinal Wiseman theo- 

 retically inaugurated in 1841, and which the 

 Association for promoting the Unity of Chris- 

 tendom first put in practical shape in 1857." 



The ritualistic controversy continues to oc- 

 cupy a prominent place in all the branches of 

 the Anglican Church. The action taken with 

 regard to it, by the Triennial General Conven- 

 tion of the Protestant Episcopal Church, has 

 already been stated. It was regarded, by both 

 parties in the Church, as favorable to the hopes 

 of the ritualists. In England, the Royal Com- 

 mission on Ritualism * presented their second 



* On the appointment of this commission and their first 

 Report, see ANNUAL AMERICAN CYCLOPAEDIA for 1867. 

 The recommendations of the commissioners with respect 

 to the rubrics, orders, and directions contained in the 

 Prayer Book will form the subject of the next report. 





