30 



ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



far as to quote a constitution made by a council 

 held under the Archbishop of Canterbury in 

 1322. The court dismissed those references as 

 irrelevant, and lay it down, in direct opposition 

 to the principle of the ritualists, that all cere- 

 monies are abolished which are not expressly 

 retained in the Prayer Book. This they regard 

 as being placed beyond doubt by Elizabeth's 

 act of uniformity, now applicable to the present 

 Prayer Book, which prohibits any rite, cer- 

 emony, order, or form which is eot mentioned 

 in the Prayer Book, and declares void all prior 

 usages and ordinances. The opening rubric, 

 again, orders that "such ornaments of the 

 Church and of the ministers thereof shall be 

 retained, and be in use, as were in this Church 

 of England, by authority of Parliament, in the 

 second year of King Edward VI." The ritual- 

 ists have argued from this, that whatever was 

 lawful in the designated year of Edward VI. 

 is lawful now. The Court, however, now dis- 

 tinctly explain that those things only possess 

 the authority of Parliament which are ex- 

 pressly in the named Prayer Book referred to. 

 It is nothing to the point, that the candles were 

 lawful at the time when the Prayer Book was 

 issued. They are not prescribed in it, and they 

 are, therefore, abolished. In the Dominion of 

 Canada, the Provincial Synod, which met at 

 Montreal, adopted a resolution prohibiting the 

 elevation of the elements, the use of incense, 

 the mixing of water with wine, the use of the 

 water-bread, of lights on the communion-table, 

 and the wearing of vestments while saying 

 prayers. 



It is commonly stated, that the number of 

 monastic and similar institutions in the Church 

 of England is on the increase. According to 

 a statement in the Rock, a Low-Church 

 organ, the Order of St. Benedict, over which 

 the Eev. J. L. Lyne (Father Ignatius) pre- 

 sides, numbers fifteen thousand Brothers and 

 Sisters. For the daily use of Anglican Bene- 

 dictines a volume has been published, entitled 

 "The Monastic Breviary for all those Fighting 

 against the World, under the rule of our Most 

 Holy Father Benedict." This Benedictine 

 office is now regularly used at the Monastery 

 of Laleham, the nunnery at Feltham, the Con- 

 vent of Second Order Sisters in London and in 

 Scotland, and at the Convent of Benedictine 

 Tertiaries in London, Newcastle, and Norwich. 

 Among the new religious associations, is a 

 " Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament of the 

 Body and Blood of Christ." The " Order for 

 Intercessory Prayer," of which the Eev. E. 

 Benson is Superior, has a home for the celi- 

 bate clergy at Cowley, near Oxford. In Lon- 

 don, the " Sisters of St. John the Evangelist " 

 have been for several years under the patron- 

 age of Bishop Tait, of London, who in 1868 

 was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. 

 The city of New York has two Sisterhoods : 

 the Sisterhood of the Holy Communion, estab- 

 lished, in 1845, by the Eev. Dr. Muhlenberg, 

 after the model of the Deaconesses of Kaiser- 



werth, in Prussia ; and the Sisterhood of St. 

 Mary. The former comprise United or Full 

 Sisters, Probationers, and Eesident Associates. 

 The superintending lady is styled the First 

 Sister. The Sisters have charge of St. Luke's 

 Hospital in the city of New York ; and at St. 

 John, L. I., have a house for crippled boys and 

 girls. There is also the Parish Sisterhood of 

 St. Luke's Hospital,. and the Sisterhood of St. 

 Luke's Hospital, at Cincinnati, Ohio. Dr. 

 Muhlenberg, the pastor and founder of the 

 Sisterhood, desires it to be understood that 

 " it is distinctively an evangelical association, 

 not an ecclesiastical organization." He has 

 published a small work entitled "Evangelical 

 Sisterhoods," in which he describes the charac- 

 ter and principle of action of this community, 

 and the mode in which he proposes to extend 

 its operations. The Sisterhood of St. Mary 

 consists of three orders : Sisters living in com- 

 munity and rigidly observing the rules of their 

 order; Associate Sisters, who are unable to live 

 in community, but who do so whenever they 

 have the opportunity, and who are bound by 

 less strict rules than the Sisters ; and Associates 

 who, having domestic ties, are nevertheless 

 desirous of laboring among the poor, and gladly 

 avail themselves of the advantages and assist- 

 ance to be derived from working in connection 

 with, and under the guidance of, the Sisters. 

 The Sisterhood, which now comprises twenty 

 Sisters of the first order, is entirely directed 

 and governed by the Mother Superior. The 

 Eight Eev. Bishop Potter is the visitor ; the 

 Eev. Morgan Dix, Eector of Trinity Parish, is 

 the chaplain. The Sisters occupy three separate 

 houses, one of which is their home, and where 

 they also have an educational establishment 

 for young ladies ; another where they have an 

 asylum called The Sheltering Arms, in which 

 they have at present ninety-four poor children ; 

 and the House of Mercy, for fallen women, 

 where they have at present (January, 1869) 

 forty-five penitents. The Sisters of St. Mary 

 rigidly observe the canonical hours, and on 

 Thursday they have always an early celebra- 

 tion of the Holy Communion. The walls of 

 their oratory are 'hung with the Fourteen Sta- 

 tions of the Cross, and the little altar, which 

 is beautifully vested, has all the proper acces- 

 sories. The work that has been done by the 

 Sisterhood since it was first established, four 

 years ago, is highly appreciated by several 

 bishops, and the Mother Superior is constantly 

 receiving applications from all parts to open^ 

 branches of the order. w 



The excitement which has been produced 

 by the Colenso case has begun to subside. 

 His standing in the Church was again the sub- 

 ject of a long discussion in the Convocation of 

 Canterbury. The bishops, in reply to numer- 

 ous petitions asking them to recognize the valid- 

 ity of the sentence of deposition pronounced 

 by the Bishop of Capetown on Dr. Colenso, de- 

 clared that they were of opinion 1. That sub- 

 stantial justice was done to the accused. 2. 



