CHURCH OF ENGLAND 3II 



marriage as a civil contract, and that therefore the parties could not be repelled as 

 " notorious evil livers/' to use the language of the Rubric which the defendant held to 

 justify his refusal. The High Court by a majority upheld this decision, which was 

 endorsed by the Court of Appeal, and confirmed by the House of Lords in June 1912, 

 In 191 1 the Rev. J. M. Thompson, Fellow, Tutor and Dean of Divinity of Magdalen 

 College, Oxford, published Miracles in the New Testament, which produced an animated 

 controversy. In the result the Bishop of Winchester, as Visitor of the College, withdrew 

 Mr. Thompson's licence as Dean of Divinity on the ground that the book denied the 

 articles of the Creed affirming the Incarnation and the Resurrection. In 1911 the 

 Church of England took part in the undenominational World Missionary Conference at 

 Edinburgh. The Standing Committee of the S.P.G. decided in 1908 not to be officially 

 represented at the Conference, but reversed its attitude in 1910. In reply to a remon- 

 strance from a large number of the members the Committee affirmed its determination 

 " to uphold in all parts of the mission field the principles, order, discipline, doctrine 

 and sacraments of the Church." In 1908 the Rt. Rev. A. H. Mathew was consecrated 

 by the Old Catholic Church of Holland as Bishop for the Old Catholics in England, and 

 at first much sympathy was expressed among those members of the Church of England 

 who had long been anxious for an Anglican-Old Catholic entente; but when Dr. Mathew 

 a year or two later declared against the validity of English Orders the budding under- 

 standing died a sudden and violent death. The movement for inter-communion with 

 the Swedish Church had a happier issue. In 1911 a committee appointed in accordance 

 with the desire of the Lambeth Conference of 1908 reported that the Church of Sweden 

 was a true Episcopal church and recommended the admission of its members to com- 

 munion at English altars. The Church Congress kept its Jubilee in 1910 at Cambridge, 

 the place of its birth. One of the most important results of the Lambeth Conference of 

 1908 has been an increased interest in the spread and efficiency of Sunday Schools, and 

 the Bishop of London in 1911 established a Sunday School Council and appointed a 

 Director of Sunday Schools. When this example has been generally followed it is 

 reasonably believed that the Sunday Schools of the Church, which in many places are 

 conducted upon old-fashioned and ineffective lines, will become valuable aids to the 

 spread of Churchmanship. The dissatisfaction of the unbeneficed clergy with their 

 status generally, and especially with their exclusion from representation in, or the right 

 to vote for, the Convocations has led to an organised attempt to obtain these things, and 

 to make curates diocesan rather than parochial officers. During the past four years the 

 magnificent undertaking of building a cathedral at Liverpool only the second Anglican 

 cathedral erected in England since the Reformation, the first being Truro has made 

 substantial progress. The lady chapel was consecrated in 1910, and other large por- 

 tions of the work are in hand. Winchester Cathedral, which in 1906 was found to be in 

 imminent danger owing to the insecurity of its foundations, has been completely under- 

 pinned and, in effect, floated upon a bed of concrete, at a cost of 115,000. The work 

 was completed and Thanksgiving services held in 1912. The important church of 

 Selby Abbey, which was almost completely burned in 1906, has been rebuilt and was re- 

 opened in 1909; additions have since been made which have practically restored it to 

 its pristine condition. (J. PENDEREL-BRODHURST.) 



THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, 1910-1912 



ipio. The death of King Edward VII in 1910 revived, and in an acute form, the 

 old controversy in England about the Royal Declaration, with its antiquated terms of 



vituperation against Roman Catholic beliefs. At first it seemed that 

 accession ^ Roman Catholic demand for remedial legislation would have to be met 

 oath. by the same plea which had proved fatal to the hopes of Cardinal Vaughan 



in 1901. At that time Lord Chancellor Halsbury in reply to a question 

 put to him by the Catholic Peers, explained that only Parliament could modify the 

 Declaration, and that the making of the Declaration was a condition precedent to legis- 

 lation. The Bill of Rights required that the Declaration should be made either at the 



