ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



13 



ANGLICAN CHURCHES. The Convoca- 

 tion of Canterbury met on February 12th. A 

 petition was presented, signed by 15,008 of the 

 clergy and 30,140 of the laity of the Church 

 of England, declaring that " we consider the 

 churchyards, subject to the legal right of the 

 parishioners to interment, to be the property 

 of the Church of England ; that we are op- 

 posed to any legislation which shall permit 

 persons, not being ministers of that Church, 

 to claim as a right to officiate in our church- 

 yards, and to use forms and ceremonies there- 

 in which are not sanctioned by the English 

 Church." A committee which had been ap- 

 pointed in the Lower House in June preceding, 

 on the subject of the " burials question," made 

 a report holding that the present law was the 

 only security against the making of the grave- 

 yards the scene of strife and unchristian con- 

 troversy. A resolution was adopted asserting 

 that the Church can not, without a breach of 

 faith, permit in its own burial grounds services 

 not its own, but suggesting that the difficulties 

 of nonconformists might be met by an alterna- 

 tive service. A report on ecclesiastical law 

 was adopted in the Lower House, providing 

 that the Convocation might frame canons to 

 be, by permission of the Queen in Privy Coun- 

 cil, laid before Parliament, when, if not ob- 

 jected to, they might by royal license become 

 a law. The Upper House approved the re- 

 port, and recommended that a draft of a bill 

 be made in accordance with its suggestions, 

 and submitted to Parliament. A committee 

 was appointed to prepare forms of family and 

 private prayer, to be considered, and if thought 

 fit authorized, by Convocation. The Convo- 

 cation met again May 14th. The Lower House 

 adopted recommendations for the amendment 

 of the Lection ary, to the effect that in the 

 course of the lessons the Gospel should be 

 read thrice in the year instead of twice as at 

 present, and the whole of the Apocalypse 

 should be read. It also requested the Upper 

 House to take means to obtain an improved 

 form of baptismal register. In the Upper 

 House, a report was presented which recom- 

 mended an increase in the amount of stipends 

 to curates in parishes where the incumbent is 

 non-resident, and that in no case should it be 

 less than 120, or the amount of the income 

 of the incumbent. Some attention was given 

 to the proceedings of the Reformed Episcopal 

 Church, which had been recently organized in 

 the kingdom, under the superintendence of 

 Bishop Gregg, and a committee was appointed 

 to consider the matter. 



The Convocation of York met February 19th. 

 The Bishop of Carlisle introduced resolutions 

 proposing a scheme of changes in legislation, 

 of which the first was amended and adopted, 

 declaring that u in the judgment of this Con- 

 vocation the time has arrived when it has be- 

 come necessary that the mode of legislation 

 upon matters affecting the spiritual affairs of 

 the Church of England should be reviewed 



and rearranged." Further, the Convocation 

 resolved that " some regulating power is ne- 

 cessary by means of which, while the faith and 

 doctrine of the Church remain unaltered, she 

 may be enabled to adapt her ceremonies to the 

 changiVig circumstances of the time," and re- 

 quested the Bishop of Carlisle to embody the 

 provisions of the scheme which he proposed in 

 the form of a draft bill, to be submitted tol 

 Convocation, and if approved by it introduced 

 into Parliament. 



The seventy-ninth annual meeting of the 

 Church Missionary Society was held in Lon- 

 don, April 30th. The Earl of Chichester pre- 

 sided. The general receipts of the Society for 

 the year had been 207,053 ; adding what had 

 been received for the India and China famine 

 funds, and for special missions, the whole 

 amount intrusted to the Society had been 

 223,038. The total expenditures had been 

 208,346. The total number of clergymen 

 employed by the Society was 385, of whom 

 203 were Europeans, and 182 native clergy. 

 Fifty-seven European laymen were also at work 

 under the direction of the Society. A report 

 was made of the condition of the missions in 

 West and East Africa, Turkey, Persia, north- 

 ern, southern, and western India, Ceylon, Mau- 

 ritius, the Seychelles islands, China, Japan, 

 New Zealand, and northwest America. Some 

 steps had been taken toward completing the 

 independence of the church in Sierra Leone. 

 Converts from Islam had publicly professed 

 Christianity at Lagos. Measures had been 

 taken for consolidating and extending the Ni- 

 ger mission. Two of the agents connected 

 with the mission on the Victoria Nyanza Lake 

 had been killed in an affray with which the 

 mission had no direct connection, but men 

 were .to be sent immediately to take their 

 places. The troubles which had interrupted 

 the progress of the work at the Tamil Coo- 

 ly mission in Ceylon during the past two 

 years had been settled, and the Bishop of Co- 

 lombo had consented to give to the mission the 

 same recognition as had been accorded to it by 

 his predecessors, upon a guarantee being given 

 that it should be conducted consistently with 

 the principles of the Church of England. 



The total receipts of the Society for the Pro- 

 pagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts for 

 the year ending in May, 1878, were 148,438, 

 of which 17,000 were given for distribution 

 by missionaries of the Society to sufferers 

 from the Indian famine. There were 547 

 missionaries and about 1,100 catechists and lay 

 teachers employed by the Society during the 

 year. Of the missionaries, one was engaged 

 in Europe, 64 labored in Australia and the Pa- 

 cific, 120 in Africa, 135 in Asia, and 227 in 

 America and the West Indies. The Society 

 had also 255 students in colleges abroad. Hin- 

 doo students of Bishop's College, Calcutta, 

 had begun to pass the preliminary theological 

 examination of the University of Cambridge. 

 The ordination of Peter Masiza as a priest in 



