ANGLICAN CHURCH KS. 



13 



illegally introduced into it Church. The scheme 

 tlii-ii proceeds tu recommend in detail future, 

 action in regird to organisation, mission work, 

 parliamentary work, use of tho press and of 

 publications, and individual activity. 



Church Defense Institution. The annual 

 meeting of t lie ( 'liurcli Defense Institution was 

 held in London, July 5. Tho annual report re- 

 marked upon the eventful period which Church 

 and stale had passed through since the last an- 

 nual meeting, reviewed the steps that had been 

 taken to agitate against the Welsh Suspensory 

 bill, and expressed thankfulness for many signs 

 of Church progress which had been witnessed 

 during the year. The Institution had issued 

 more than two million copies of publications, 

 including 100,000 copies of the letters sent to 

 the " Times " by Earl Grey, Dean Vaughan, and 

 Mr. Hosworth Smith. Its receipts had been 

 8,444. Resolutions were adopted recognizing 

 the enthusiasm shown by Churchmen, without 

 distinction of party, as displayed in public, meet- 

 ings to resist " the Government attack " upon 

 the endowments of the Church and in the Arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury's meeting of May 16, and 

 pledging continued energy in the same direction. 



A small body of clergymen withdrew from the 

 Established Church in the latter months of 1892, 

 with the intention of forming a sect on strictly 

 evangelical lines. They prepared an appeal to 

 Protestants in which the question of ritualism 

 was dealt with at length. A prayer book com- 

 pletely revised on Protestant lines was contem- 

 plated; and some of the existing religious com- 

 munities external to the Established Church were 

 expected to supply episcopal organization. 



At the instance of the Central Committee of 

 the Union of Clerical and Lay Associations, a 

 company has been formed with the title of " The 

 Church of England Evangelical College and 

 School Committee (Limited)," in order to pro- 

 mote institutions in which, together with a gen- 

 eral education, instruction shall be given in ac- 

 cordance with the evangelical principles of the 

 Church of England. 



Free and Open Churches. The twenty- 

 seventh annual meeting of the Incorporated 

 Free and Open Church Association was held 

 March 16. Earl Nelson presided. The report 

 stwke of the increased public interest taken in 

 the movement for free churches, and reviewed 

 the history of its growth during the past fifty 

 years. During the first half of the century pew 

 rents flourished, especially in large towns. Pews 

 were considered an effective mode of raising a 

 stipend for the minister. Now, though some- 

 what tardily, pew rents had been found to be 

 out of harmony with the spirit of the age. They 

 had ceased to be a certain means of income, and 

 in many cases had failed to provide any income 

 worthy of the name. The decadence of pew 

 rents was, however, not synonymous with a 

 collapse of the pew system. The old private 

 pew and the old exclusiveness had disappeared, 

 but the appropriated churches remained. There 

 was never more reason than to-day to preach 

 true religious equality. A special fund had 

 been started in aid of the movement, toward 

 which, as a nucleus, the council had set aside 

 one tenth of their income. 



The eight hundredth anniversary of the 



consecration of Winchester Cathedral, which it 

 i- recorded was dedicated April H, 1093, was 

 celebrated April 8 and 9 by a series of musical 



services. 



I. rural Questions. The first sentence under 

 the Clergy Discipline act, 1892, was pronoum d 

 by the Bishop of Rochester, in the Con>i>torial 

 Court of the Diocese, upon the Rev. Alfred Kd- 

 ward Ormonde Harris, vicar of the parish of 

 Stoke, who had been convicted of being intoxi- 

 cated on divers occasions while conducting public 

 service. After an address on the heinousness of 

 the offense of the defendant, a " definite sen- 

 tence and final decree" was pronounced and 

 signed in due legal form, depriving him of " all 

 his ecclesiastical promotions within the diocese 

 of Rochester." 



The court of the General Synod of the Church 

 of Ireland gave judgment, Nov. 18, 1892, in an 

 appeal lodged in behalf of Col. Fox Grant 

 against a decision of the Dublin Diocesan Court- 

 dismissing a petition that the existence of a 

 " cross on or immediately behind the commun- 

 ion table " in St. Bartholomew's Church should 

 be declared an offense against the ecclesiastical 

 laws, and a violation of the canons of the Church. 

 The cross was erected in a wooden stand, the top 

 of which was level with the communion rail, and 

 was placed between the rail and the reredos. The 

 petition complained that it appeared to the con- 

 gregation to stand on the table, or to be connect- 

 ed with it. The court reversed the decision of 

 the court 'below, and adjudged that the gilt cross 

 mentioned in the petition was, in the position in 

 which it stood, a violation of the constitution and 

 canons of the Church of Ireland, and that each 

 party should pay his own costs in the appeal. 



Episcopal Church in Japan. A memo- 

 randum regarding the Episcopal Church in 

 Japan, signed by Bishop Hare, of the Protestant 

 Episcopal Church, and Bishop Bickersteth, of 

 the Church of England, sets forth that the 

 Church should be presented to the Japanese in 

 its composite form, as exhibited in its English 

 and American branches, rather than in the spe- 

 cific form in which it would be represented by 

 either branch alone. The work of foreign bish- 

 ops is regarded as provisional. The whole state 

 of thought and feeling among the Japanese for- 

 bids the introduction into Japan, as permanent 

 institutions, of branches of either the English or 

 the American Church, and nothing would offend 

 the national feeling and hinder the extension of 

 the Church more than giving the Japanese just 

 cause for suspecting a desire or intention to im- 



Ejse upon them a permanent foreign episcopate, 

 very wise principle of propagating tne gospel 

 in Japan demands that the work of the bishops 

 should be regarded as that of so directing the 

 missions of the American and English Churches 

 that a Japanese independent and self-supporting 

 Church shall be the result. Indeed, these churches 

 have so far committed themselves to this policy 

 that a Japanese Church with its own constitu- 

 tion and canons has been in existence for four 

 years. The English apd American bishops are 

 not regarded by the Japanese, and should not be 

 regarded by us, as having jurisdiction over dio- 

 ceses fully delimited, but rather as forerunners 

 in the episcopate of Japanese bishops who will 

 exercise jurisdiction over such permanently de- 



