ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



ANGLICAN RITUAL. CONTROVERSY. 15 



ments of Towns and Rural Districts " ; " The 

 Responsibility of the Clyirch as regards the 

 Opium-Trade with China " ; " The Relation of 

 the Church to the Social Movements of the Age, 

 with Special Reference to Trades-Unions and 

 Co-operation, and to the Local Administration 

 of the License Laws"; "The Principles of 

 the English Reformation as bearing on Ques- 

 tions of the Present Day " ; " The Temperance 

 Work of the Church, especially in Relation to 

 its Parochial Organization " ; " The Proper At- 

 titude of the Church toward the Question of 

 Sunday Observance " ; " The Claims of the 

 Revised Version of the New Testament to Gen- 

 eral Acceptance" ; " Modes in which Religious 

 Life and Thought may be influenced by Archi- 

 tecture, Painting, Sculpture, and Music " ; and 

 questions relating to the diocese of Durham, 

 and the Elementary Education Act. 



A judgment on the appeal of Mr. Mackono- 

 chie, a clergyman under censure for ritualism, 

 against a decision of the Court of Arches, de- 

 priving him of his office, was given in the 

 House of Lords, April 6th. The substantial 

 question in the case, which had been argued a 

 few weeks before, was whether Lord Pen- 

 zance had power, as Dean of Arches, to pro- 

 nounce a sentence suspending Mr. Mackono- 

 chie, db officio et beneficio, for disobedience to 

 a previous monition. The sentence of the 

 Court of Arches had been upheld by the Court 

 of Appeal, and their lordships now affirmed 

 the decision of that court, and dismissed the 

 appeal, with costs. 



The fourth meeting of the General Synod of 

 the Irish Episcopal Church was held in April. 

 The Representative Body reported a summary 

 of its work during the past ten years. The Body 

 had now in its hands a capital of 7,500,000, of 

 which 3,000,000 would be left after all claims 

 and annuities were fully discharged, for the 

 future re-endowment of the Church. Of this 

 amount about 1,500,000 had been derived 

 directly from the composition of annuities, and 

 about 2,000,000 from voluntary contributions 

 made to church funds during the last eleven 

 years. About 130,000 a year was provided 

 by way of parochial endowment, which, with 

 parochial assessments amounting to 136,000, 

 would provide about 266,000 for clerical sus- 

 tentation. About 12,901 per annum would 

 be secured for episcopal sustentation, and 

 25,000 would be set apart as the nucleus of a 

 fund to provide for aged ministers. Glebe- 

 houses would be provided for 935 out of 1,140 

 parishes, at a cost of 543,000. A resolution 

 was adopted looking to the revival of the bish- 

 opric of Clogher, which has been for a long 

 time amalgamated with the primacy of Ar- 

 magh. 



The British Government having determined 

 to discontinue the ecclesiastical subsidies which 

 had hitherto been paid out of the colonial 

 revenues to the Church of England in Ceylon, 

 requested the Bishop of Colombo to take steps 

 to have a trust body elected for the Church of 



England, to which the property and interests 

 held by the Church might be transferred, and 

 to have provision made for the future mainte- 

 nance of the churches which had hitherto en- 

 joyed the governmental endowments. The 

 bishop called a representative assembly, to 

 consist of all the presbyters of the diocese and 

 two laymen for each presbyter, elected by the 

 congregations, to meet on the 5th of July. 

 On the meeting of the synod, differences arose 

 respecting the apportionment of delegates, the 

 representatives of the Church Missionary So- 

 ciety claiming that it should have been made 

 according to the number of members in the 

 churches, and complaining that, according to 

 the actual allotment, their churches with six 

 thousand members had only thirty-four dele- 

 gates, while the other churches in the island, 

 with only seven thousand members, were al- 

 lowed seventy delegates. A motion was made 

 to assert the incompetency of the Assembly 

 to deal with the questions before it, as it was 

 not a fully representative body. This being 

 ruled out of order, the representatives of the 

 churches of the Church Missionary Society 

 withdrew in a body. Four trustees were 

 chosen to take care, under the control of a 

 Central Board of Finance, of all the property 

 to be transferred by the crown ; and provision 

 was made for the election of a bishop in case 

 a vacancy in the office should occur before the 

 Constitution of the Church is settled. A com- 

 mittee to consist of clergymen of all the shades 

 of theological thought, and one layman to bo 

 selected by each clergyman, was agreed to by 

 both sides, to which should be referred the 

 question of the organization of the synod. 



ANGLICAN RITUALISTIC CONTRO- 

 VERSY. The controversy concerning the rit- 

 ual, and with it the collateral question of the 

 jurisdiction of civil courts over ecclesiastical 

 affairs, engaged attention in the Church of 

 England above all other subjects. These ques- 

 tions, or points connected with them, were the 

 subjects of numerous memorials to the bishops, 

 archbishops, convocation, and officers of the 

 Government, of many addresses and letters by 

 bishops, of public meetings, and of important 

 discussions in the convocations. 



The Archbishop of Canterbury having in- 

 vited those of the clergy who felt dissatisfied 

 or alarmed at the present circumstances of the 

 Church to state what they desired in the way 

 of remedy, the Dean of St. Paul's and about 

 three thousand clergymen and others addressed 

 to him a memorial, as follows : 



First of all, and especially, we would respectfully 

 express our desire for a distinctly avowed policy of 

 toleration and forbearance on the part of our ecclesi- 

 astical superiors in dealing with questions of ritual. 

 Such a policy appears to us to bo demanded alike by 

 justice and by the best interests of religion. For jus- 

 tice would seem to require that unless a rigid observ- 

 ance of the rubrical law of the Church, or of recent 

 interpretations of it, be equally exacted from all the 

 parties within her pale, it should no longer be exacted 

 from one party alone, and under circumstances which 

 often increase the difficulty of complying with the 



