ANGLICAN CHURCIIKS. 







guards against the acquisition of rights of 

 patronage l>v unfit persons a- \M-IV i-nntainiMl in 

 the l)ill of 1887 as it wan passed \>y tin; House 

 uf Lords. In the upper house the Bishop of 

 London, in moving the approval of the bill, said 



They were hound to persist in their efforts until they 

 h:ul made a real change in the iiilministnition of the 

 patronage t' the <'lmrch. The speaker would like 

 M L"> \cr\ iiiueh further than the present liill went, 

 because [MT-omillv In 1 was of opinion that the evil 

 was not, merely ttie aluise which attended the sale 

 of advowsuns ainl of next presentations, but that the 

 sale itself was so great an evil that there ought to 

 be a means of L'ettiiiir rid of it altogether. The cir- 

 cumstances of the day made it even more important 

 that, it' possihle, the heads of the Church should 

 make it visible to the whole body of the people, as 

 well as to the Church itself, that they thought those 

 serious evils were a blot upon the system in which 

 they were living, and that those who were charged 

 witli the supervision of the Church recognized the 

 fact, and that it was not their fault that those evils 

 still continued to exist. They would have, no doubt, 

 to M niggle personally for their position in the coun- 

 try, and at any rate they ought to make it perfectly 

 clear that when they were doing so they were not 

 lighting for the maintenance of all those abuses 

 which had been so very frequently the ground of 

 attacks made upon them, and the ground, too, of the 

 charge that they thought very little of that which 

 touched the honor of the Church to which they be- 

 longed. They desired as heartily as any of their 

 assai lants desired that the Church should be purely 

 administered upon high principles, and that all 

 abuses should be corrected as soon as they were dis - 

 covered. 



The archbishop spoke concerning the Welsh 

 Suspensory bill as a measure involving the most 

 serious possible consequences, because it was 

 avowedly the first step toward disestablish- 

 ment, and as furnishing an occasion on which 

 the whole Church should speak. He proposed 

 that meetings be held, which should speak 

 clearly the opinions of the sections of the 

 Chnrch, and following them a meeting together 

 for the first time in their history of the Con- 

 vocations of York and Canterbury, with the 

 Houses of Laymen; besides them the church- 

 wardens of all England and Wales, and ten 

 laymen elected from each archdeaconry ; the 

 meeting to be held about Whitsuntide, and 

 questions of politics to be avoided in all the 

 proceedings. 



At the meeting in May petitions from lay mem- 

 bers of the Church of England were read, urging 

 the importance of placing in a succinct form be- 

 fore Church people a statement of the spiritual 

 and educational wants of the country. The Bish- 

 op of London suggested that if anything was to 

 be done in the matter, it should be by procuring 

 the insertion of a general statement in the offi- 

 cial yearbook. The following report was pre- 

 sented concerning the fasting reception of the 

 holy communion : 



(1) That in the apostolic age the holy com- 

 munion was administered in connection with the 

 gathering together of Christians to share in an ap- 

 pointed evening rneal. (2) That the practice of com- 

 municating in the early morning appears to have 

 arisen about the close of the first century, probably 

 in order to secure a safer as well as a more reverent 

 celebration, and by the time of St. Cyprian to have 

 become so fully established that it was regarded not 

 only as the preferable but as the proper practice, and 

 as commemorative of the Lord's resurrection. (3) 



That tin- practice of communicating in the early 



morning, together with the common association of 

 fasting with prayer, led to the practice of communi- 

 cating only when fasting, and that fasting reception 

 of the communion became the regular and reco^ 

 ni/cd usage of the Church before the end of the 



fourth century. (4) That from the close, of the 

 fourth century this regular and recognized usage wa 

 formulated in rules tor the clcnry in canons of local 

 and provincial councils. (5) That fasting reception 

 of the communion was the prescribed rule of the 

 Church of England during the Anglo-Saxon jn-riod, 

 and continued to be so to the time of the Reforma- 

 tion. (6) That these strict rules were nevertheless 

 subject to relaxation in cases of sickness or other 

 -itv. (7) That at the Reformation the Church 

 of England, in accordance with the principle of 

 liberty laid down in Article XXXIV. ceased to re- 

 quire the communion to be received lasting, though 

 the practice was observed by many as a reverent and 

 ancient custom, and as such is commended by several 

 of her eminent writers and divines down to the pres- 

 ent time. (8) That, regard being had to the practice 

 of the apostolic Church in this matter, to teach that 

 it is a sin to communicate otherwise than fasting is 

 contrary to the teaching and spirit of the Church of 

 England. 



A report was adopted upon evening commun- 

 ion in the following terms : 



(1) That in the apostolic age the holy commun- 

 ion was administered in connection with the gath- 

 ering together of Christians to share in an appoint- 

 ed evening meal. (2) That the celebration of the 

 holy communion in the evening was thus apparent- 

 ly the practice of the Church during a large part, 

 at least, of the first century. (3) That about the 

 close of the first century the celebration of the holy 

 communion is found separated from the agape or 

 appointed evening meal, and transferred to an early 

 hour in the morning ; and. except on certain special 

 occasions, evening celebrations of the holy com- 

 munion ceased in course of time throughout the 

 Church. (4) That at the Reformation the Church of 

 England made no express regulation concerning the 

 hour of celebrating the holy communion, the only 

 apparent rule being that it should be celebrated in 

 tne earlier portion of the day and in connection with 

 matins. (5) That evennig communion was intro- 

 duced into the Church or England in the present 

 century on account of alleged necessity, it being 

 maintained that many would not be able to receive 

 the holy communion unless it were occasionally 

 administered in the evening. (iJ) That, regard being 

 had to the continuous custom of the Church, as well 

 as to the necessity now alleged to exist, it is the 

 bounden duty of every one who publicly administers 

 the holy communion in the evening to assure him- 

 self of the reality of the need in the parish where he 

 is appointed to serve. 



A report from the committee appointed to 

 consider the distress prevalent among a large 

 number of the clergy showed that to raise the 

 income of all to 200 a year would require, at 

 the average of 50 a year for each, an income of 

 210,000, or a capital sum of 7,000,000. To 

 raise this capital sum at once would not be pos- 

 sible, nor perhaps to raise the income and con- 

 tinue to raise it for some time to come; but it 

 ought not to be impossible to raise 100,000 a 

 year. The report suggested that one half of 

 this sum should be raised as a general fund, and 

 the other half as diocesan funds and proposed 

 plans for raising and administering the funds. 

 The lower house voted a protest against any 

 attack upon the status or emoluments of the 

 Church of England as " entirely unjustified by 

 any lack of zeal or devotion to its work by the 



