ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



19 



At a meeting of the Ladies' League for the 

 Defense of the Reformed Faith of the Church of 

 England, held March 22, Lady Wimborne, presid- 

 ing, explained that the work of the league was 

 mainly educational. Its endeavor was, by the 

 circulation of suitable literature and the delivery 

 of lectures in various districts, to diffuse a wider 

 knowledge of the history of the Church and of its 

 teachings regarding the great doctrinal truths. 



The Ladies' Protestant League was organized in 

 1899 for the purpose of enlisting the influence of 

 women in opposition to ritualism. It was repre- 

 sented at the meeting held in London, May 10, 

 that 2,000 members had been enrolled. The sum 

 of 10,000 was needed for the establishment of 

 a young ladies' high-class boarding school with 

 teaching in accordance with the principles of the 

 Reformed and Protestant Church of England. 



On June 18 deputations representing the 

 Church Association and other Protestant bodies 

 waited on Sir W. Walrond, chief Conservative 

 whip, and Mr. Hei'bert Gladstone, chief Liberal 

 whip, to urge the necessity for Church reform and 

 for the adoption of candidates prepared to put 

 down ritualistic excesses by further legislation. 

 Sir W. Walrond declined to go into the question 

 of policy or to criticise the advisability of making 

 the Church question a test at the next general 

 election, but assured the deputation that head- 

 quarters would give them any assistance in their 

 power, and that he would inform Mr. Balfour, 

 who he was sure was alive to the gravity of the 

 situation, of what had happened. Mr. Herbert 

 Gladstone said that he could not undertake the 

 responsibility of the Liberal party, but would 

 communicate with Sir Campbell Bannerman and 

 his colleagues. 



At the thirty-fifth annual meeting of the 

 Church Association, in May, Captain Cobbham, 

 presiding, claimed that much had been done by 

 the society during the past year in concentrating 

 and making effectual the Protestant vote of the 

 country. The annual report accused the arch- 

 bishops themselves of illegally encroaching upon 

 the rights of the Church. A resolution was 

 adopted pledging the meeting to support only 

 Protestant candidates at parliamentary elections. 



At the anniversary meeting of the English 

 Church Union, held in the Church House, June 21, 

 the following declaration, proposed by Lord Hali- 

 fax, was adopted by a standing vote : " We, mem- 

 bers of the English Church Union, holding fast 

 to the faith and teaching of the one Holy Catholic 

 and Apostolic Church that in the sacrament of 

 the Lord's Supper the bread and wine, through 

 the operation of the Holy Ghost, become, in and 

 by consecration, according to our Lord's institu- 

 tion, verily and indeed the body and blood of 

 Christ, and that Christ our Lord, present in the 

 same most holy sacrament of the altar under the 

 form of bread and wine, is to be worshiped and 

 adored desire, in view of present circumstances, 

 to reaffirm, in accordance with the teaching of the 

 Church, our belief in the verity of the Christian 

 faith, and to declare that we shall abide by all 

 such teaching and practice as follow from this 

 doctrine of the whole Catholic Church of Christ." 

 Other resolutions declared that the Church Union, 

 believing that many of the differences which di- 

 vide the members of the Church of England 

 are largely due to misunderstandings, and are 

 often more apparent than real, expresses its 

 thankfulness that the holding 'of a conference for 

 mutual explanation has been brought before the 

 London Diocesan Conference, and the desire of its 

 members to support by all means in their power 

 this effort to promote the peace of the Church," 



and " that the Church of England can not dis- 

 charge her responsibilities unless she herself freely 

 interprets her own formularies and is free to take 

 all such other steps as in the light of her living 

 experience she may deem necessary for the spirit- 

 ual welfare of the people committed to her 

 charge." 



It was represented, pending the adoption of the 

 annual report of the council of the union, that 

 the organization had now nearly 40,000 members, 

 the increase having been as great during the past 

 thirty months as in the previous eight years. 



Reservation of the Sacrament. The Arch- 

 bishops of Canterbury and York gave decisions, 

 May 1, on three cases involving the question of 

 the reservation of the sacrament, the arguments 

 in which had been heard in July, 1899. In two 

 of the cases the Archbishop of Canterbury was 

 the principal and the Archbishop of York the 

 assessor, while the Archbishop of York was the 

 principal in the third case. The question was 

 defined by the Archbishop of Canterbury in ren- 

 dering his opinion as being whether the clergy of 

 the Church of England are at liberty to reserve 

 a portion of the bread and wine that have been 

 consecrated in their churches at the holy com- 

 munion and administer it to those who are not 

 present in the church at the time when the prayer 

 of consecration has been said. The practice, which 

 is commonly spoken of as reservation, takes three 

 distinct forms. In the first place, it is sometimes 

 the practice to treat sick persons who are not in 

 the church, but are living close by, as if they were 

 part of the congregation, and at the time 'of ad- 

 ministration to the communicants generally to 

 take the elements out of the church to them as 

 well as to those who are actually present. It is 

 claimed that this is not reservation at all, inas- 

 much as the administration goes on without in- 

 terruption, and it can not be said that what is 

 sent in this way is part of what remains after 

 the service is over. The second form of the prac- 

 tice is, instead of consuming all that remains of 

 the consecrated elements asg the rubric directs, to 

 keep a portion back and to administer this portion 

 to people known to be sick at some later period 

 of the day. This is acknowledged by all to be 

 reservation, and the reserved elements are kept in 

 the church until the time when they are taken 

 to the sick. Third, the elements after consecra- 

 tion are sometimes reserved, not only to be used 

 for those who are known to be sick at the time, 

 but also for any case of sudden emergency which 

 may occasion a demand for the sacrament in the 

 course of the week. Now, the canon requires 

 that every clergyman shall promise that in the 

 administration of the sacraments he will use the 

 form prescribed in the Prayer Book and none 

 other, except so far as shall be otherwise ordered 

 by lawful authority. On examining the. Prayer 

 Book, we do not find any single mention of or 

 allusion to the practice of reservation except in 

 the close of the twenty-eighth article, where it 

 is said the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was 

 not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, 

 lifted up, or worshiped. It will obviously re- 

 quire overwhelming evidence to prove that reser- 

 vation in any sense whatever is part of the form 

 prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. Fur- 

 ther, the language of the Thirty-nine Articles can 

 not be taken otherwise than as condemning the 

 practice altogether. All the four prohibitions 

 must be taken together, and all of them in con- 

 nection with the doctrine of transubstantiation 

 emphatically repudiated just before. The reason 

 for the prohibition is clear. These practices led 

 to gross abuse which the Church of England felt 



