ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



17 



creasing. Yet, although the circumstance had 

 escaped notice, the number ordained into the 

 Anglican communion outside of England had 

 largely increar d in recent years, and it was only 

 fair to assume that there were some in that num- 

 ber who would otherwise have been ordained for 

 work in England. The inadequate pay of the 

 clergy was regarded as the chief cause of the 

 decline, and questions on matters of belief and the 

 attractions offered by other careers in various 

 parts of the empire were mentioned as other possi- 

 ble causes. In the lower house resolutions were 

 passed approving of the draft bill for the reform 

 of Convocation. The report of the Committee on 

 Elementary Education, embodying suggestions 

 concerning the organization of school boards, was 

 adopted. 



Both houses resolved themselves into committee 

 in order to sit in committee of the two convoca- 

 tions on the following day. 



In the Convocation of York, Feb. 22, a joint 

 committee was appointed to confer with the joint 

 committee appointed by the Convocation of Can- 

 terbury on the subject of the reform of ecclesias- 

 tical courts. A resolution was adopted in the 

 upper house directing the appointment of a com- 

 mittee to consider and report on the rights and 

 responsibilities of the state " as intrusted in the 

 Divine order with the guardianship of property 

 and with coercive powers." In the lower house 

 a gravamen protesting against the remarriage of 

 divorced persons was made an articulus cleri. 



The Convocation met again, April 25. A resolu- 

 tion was carried in both houses expressing the 

 opinion that the points of agreement between the 

 majority and minority reports of the Royal Com- 

 mission on the Licensing Law constituted a practi- 

 cal basis for legislation. The upper house adopted 

 the alternative evening service presented at its 

 previous session, with the proviso that it was to 

 be observed as an alternative service in mission 

 churches and as " additional " elsewhere. A 

 proposition was approved favoring the insertion 

 of the name of St. Patrick in the calendar of the 

 Prayer Book. The committee appointed at the 

 last group of sessions to consider and report on 

 the rights and responsibilities of the state as in- 

 trusted in the Divine order with the guardianship 

 of property and with coercive powers presented 

 as their opinion that " the true basis and charac- 

 ter of the committee of appeal, as representing 

 the state, not the Church, will be best understood, 

 and the limited range of its decisions most clearly 

 recognized, if it be divested altogether of eccle- 

 siastical appendages and appearances, expert theo- 

 logical opinion and information being obtained as 

 expert opinion is obtained in other cases, and in 

 such a way as neither to compromise the Church 

 in its corporate capacity nor to interfere with the 

 final responsibility of the state in temporal mat- 

 ters." A suggestion was approved in the lower 

 house in the consideration of the report of the 

 Committee on Elementary Education that it would 

 be expedient for the committee of the Convoca- 

 tions of Canterbury and York to meet in con- 

 sultation with the standing committee of the 

 National Society and the secretaries of the Aid 

 Grant Associations to consider the question of the 

 constitution and powers of the proposed local edu- 

 cational authorities. The report of the parlia- 

 mentary committee on the burial grounds bill 

 was received as a measure which might very well 

 be welcomed. This bill was likewise approved 

 in the House of Laymen. A motion, offered by 

 Lord Halifax. " that inasrmich as the main object 

 of the acts of uniformity of 1559 and 1062 has 

 been definitely abandoned by the toleration act 

 VOL. XL. 2 A 



of 1690 and the repeal of the test act and other 

 acts of the same kind, the question of the repeal 

 of the acts of uniformity should be seriously 

 considered," was defeated in the house by 22 

 votes to 4. 



The Convocation met as one house, July 4, and 

 resolved itself into committee of the whole'in order 

 to meet a similar committee of the Southern Con- 

 vocation in the Church House, Westminster, on 

 the next day. 



Joint Meeting of Convocations. The two 

 convocations, meeting jointly as committees of the 

 Avhole, July 5 and 6, agreed " that it is desirable to 

 strengthen the organization of the diocesan and 

 provincial courts in such a way that complaints 

 concerning ritual or doctrine should be tried in 

 the diocesan court in the first instance; and that 

 if an appeal be carried to the provincial court, it 

 should be heard before a body of judges who 

 would command general confidence; second, that 

 the bishop sit in the diocesan court, accompanied 

 by two theological and two legal assessors " ; and, 

 third, that appeals to the provincial court be 

 heard and determined by the archbishop and two 

 episcopal, two legal, and two theological assessors 

 appointed by the archbishop, the episcopal as- 

 sessors with the assent of the upper, and the theo- 

 logical assessors with that of the lower house of 

 the Convocation. The meeting also expressed a 

 desire " to see the laity of the Church taking their 

 definite place in the management of the affairs of 

 the Church in the parish, the diocese, and the 

 province," and commended the matter to the con- 

 vocations and the houses of laymen. 



The Ritualistic Agitation. In a pastoral 

 issued in December, 1899, the Archbishop of York 

 represented that the great majority of the clergy 

 who had adopted the doubtful practices reviewed 

 in the decision of the archbishops of July 31 (see 

 Annual Cyclopaedia for 1899) had yielded obedi- 

 ence to their bishops. There was still, how- 

 ever, a remnant of 30 out of the 300 clergymen 

 implicated who had declined to comply a num- 

 ber which in the whole of the clergy of the Church 

 of England need occasion little anxiety. Tha* 

 small number, however, had power to do harm. 

 The archbishop thought the bishops would not 

 of themselves prosecute the nonconforming clergy, 

 although they had the power, but that it was un- 

 likely that they would place any impediment in 

 the way of others who desired to take that step. 

 As to the disobedient clergy, it would be impossi- 

 ble to give them the same advantages as were 

 freely granted to the other clergy, or to place the 

 same confidence in their judgment, and particu- 

 larly in their fitness for dealing Avith their 

 younger brethren as they would otherwise have 

 deserved. The archbishop further discussed the 

 possibility of the law concerning the abandoned 

 customs being changed through the action of Con- 

 vocation, sanctioned by the Crown. 



A deputation waited on the Archbishop of Can- 

 terbury, Jan. 19, to express, on behalf of them- 

 selves and other signatories to a written protest 

 which was handed to his Grace, their objections 

 to the opirion of the two archbishops on the cere- 

 monial use of incense and processional lights. The 

 protest, to which 13.794 signatures were attached, 

 was based on the following grounds: " First, that 

 your Grace has attempted not merely to define by 

 an individual and autocratic exercise of power 

 the ceremonial practice of the Church in this land, 

 but also to press such definition upon dioceses of 

 which your Grace is not the ruler, and, however 

 ready your Grace's suffragans may be to submit 

 to this, we as Catholic lay people must strenu- 

 ously protest, and will resist to the utmost, a prece- 



