ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



The gross income of the Church Pastoral Aid 

 Society for the year just closed reached nearly 

 70,000, which is a considerable advance upon 

 all previous years the highest amount before 

 received in one year being 60,288, in 1864-'65. 



The annual report of the Poor Relief Cor- 

 poration shows that 1,084 appeals were received 

 during the year and 784 grants were made of 

 sums ranging from 5 to 25. The subscrip- 

 tions amounted to 2,951, against 2,799 in the 

 previous year, and the donations to 5,103, 

 against 4,298. 



The report of the Society for Promoting the 

 Employment of Additional Curates gives its in- 

 come as 87,476, or 121,511, including grants 

 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and di- 

 ocesan and other societies. The shrinkage in 

 receipts was continuing, and the most obvious 

 cause of it was the decrease in clerical incomes. 

 The society had renewed 1,111 grants and made 

 50 new ones, and the committee wished to put 

 another 50 recommended cases on the list, but 

 had had to decline for lack of sufficient means. 



The Liberation Society. The annual meet- 

 ing of the Society for the Liberation of Religion 

 from State Patronage and Control was held in 

 London, May 3. Mr. Illingsworth, M. P., pre- 

 sided. The year's receipts of the society had 

 been 5,475, and its expenditures 5,066. The 

 report mentioned the choice at the last general 

 election of a larger number of members favorable 

 to disestablishment than had ever sat in a pre- 

 vious Parliament, and referred to several bills be- 

 fore Parliament as favorable to the principle of 

 disestablishment. Resolutions were adopted 

 recognizing the importance of the measures to 

 prevent the creation of new vested interests in 

 Wales and Scotland, prior to the disestablish- 

 ment of the churches in those countries ; express- 

 ing satisfaction at the evidences of a majority in 

 the House of Commons in favor of the Sus- 

 pensory bill for Wales ; disapproving the Church 

 Patronage bill ; opposing certain acts by the Lon- 

 don School Board bearing on religious equality 

 in the schools, and particularly efforts to disturb 

 the existing compromise in regard to reading 

 the Bible in schools, " which had worked satis- 

 factorily for the past twenty-two years." 



At a meeting of the council of the Liberation 

 Society, held Nov. 15, 1892, facts were presented 

 showing that at the last election Liberal candi- 

 dates had been generally found in harmony with 

 the friends of religious equality. Twelve members 

 of the committee of the society had sat in the last 

 Parliament. In the present Parliament were 18 

 members of the committee, while nearly 100 mem- 

 bers of the House of Commons were members of t he 

 society. In Wales, 31 out of 34 members elected at 

 the last election were in favor of disestablishment. 

 In Scotland, 48 out of 72 members were pledged 

 to support the disestablishment of the Church in 

 that kingdom an increase over the previous 

 numbers. The entire Liberal party were pledged 

 to support disestablishment in Wales and Scot- 

 land, and the number of members in favor of 

 disestablishment in England was unprecedent- 

 edly great. 



Resolutions were passed expressing satisfac- 

 tion at the improved prospects for disestablish- 

 ment ; invoking public support to measures for 

 disestablishment in Wales and Scotland ; urging 



further amendments in favor of nonconformists, 

 of the burial laws, and the passage of the Places 

 of Worship and Leaseholds of Chapels Enfran- 

 chisement bills ; and calling for the removal of 

 religious disabilities, the adequate representation 

 in the public offices of all sections of the com- 

 munity, and such legislative and administrative 

 changes in the appointment of magistrates as will 

 remove discriminations against nonconformists. 

 The Church Association. The report of 

 the Church Association, made at its twenty- 

 eighth annual meeting in May, represented that 

 owing to the legal confusion, as it was described, 

 produced by recent judgments in ecclesiastical 

 cases, the association had abandoned litigation 

 for the present, and had undertaken greater 

 activity in other directions. The scheme of 

 future policy adopted by the conference of 

 October, 1892, included a demand for Church 

 reform, the inevitable though disastrous alter- 

 native being disestablishment and disendow- 

 ment ; and a Church reform bill now under con- 

 sideration would be introduced in due course. 

 The National Protestant League had increased 

 in membership to 6,775, and 19 new leagues had 

 been opened. The general receipts had increased 

 by 30 per cent., and were now 4,962, including 

 a loan of 250 from the guarantee fund. The 

 meeting resolved 



That, so long as a large section of the clergy, en- 

 couraged by the bishops, were avowedly disloyal to 

 the Protestant religion established by law, abused 

 their trust by introducing sacerdotal teaching into the 

 national schools, and rested the defense of the Church's 

 endowments on the dishonest plea that no serious 

 change of doctrine ever took place at the Keforma- 

 tion, the Protestant laity could not he expected to 

 contribute to the endowments of the national Church, 

 however willing they might be to strengthen the 

 hands of individual clergymen who remained faithful 

 to their engagements. 



In a detailed scheme of future policy, issued 

 in October, 1892, the council of this association 

 explained that the outcome of the judgment of 

 the Privy Council in the case of the Bishop of 

 Lincoln imposed on Protestants the duty of 

 witnessing more publicly and systematically than 

 heretofore against the false doctrines embodied 

 and symbolized in a ritual, now for the first time 

 pronounced to be legally permissible in the Re- 

 formed Church of England, provided that cere- 

 monious acts be avoided. Church reform was 

 therefore suggested as an aim, " the inevitable, 

 the disastrous alternative being disestablish- 

 ment." The heads of necessary reform to be in- 

 sisted on were : (a) The granting of legal redress 

 to the laity, without any hindrance of justice by 

 the episcopal veto ; (b) the fusion of the ecclesi- 

 astical courts into the High Court of Justice, or 

 the assimilation of their procedure to that of 

 the civil courts; (c) the substitution of depri- 

 vation for imprisonment in the case of contuma- 

 cious clergymen who refuse obedience to the or- 

 ders of the courts; (d) an ecclesiastical franchise 

 for lay members of the Church, secured and 

 capable of enforcement by law, as in the case of 

 churchwardens; (e) the concession to the laity, 

 " as of right,"- of an effective share in the ad- 

 ministration of Church matters ; (/) the power 

 being given to the incumbent, or to any church- 

 warden of the parish, to remove without a faculty 

 any ornament or addition which may have been 



