10 



ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ag- 

 gregated 20(>,799, being 28,402 more than were 

 received in 11)00. The whole of the sum sub- 

 scribed to the Bicentenary fund, 84,027, would 

 be available for mission purposes, owing to the 

 able financing of the money as it had come to 

 hand. The sums had been temporarily invested 

 or placed on deposit at once, and the entire ex- 

 penses of the fund would have been met by the 

 ensuing July out of the dividends. The number 

 of ordained missionaries, including 11 bishops, on 

 the society's list, was 753; of whom 251 were in 

 Asia, 1 Hit' in Africa, 46 in Australia and the Pa- 

 cific, 16tt in North America, 54 in the West In- 

 dies and C'entral and South America, and 37 

 chaplains in Europe. Of these, 127 were natives 

 laboring in Asia and 55 in Africa; and there were 

 also in the various missions about 3,000 layteach- 

 -ers, 3,200 students in the society's colleges, and 

 40,000 children in the mission schools in Asia 

 and Africa. It was represented in the general 

 introduction to the report that the bicentenary 

 commemoration had drawn many people to help 

 the society who had not hitherto done so. 



A special meeting of the Standing Committee 

 of the society was held March 21, to consider 

 a request from the General Synod of the Epis- 

 copal Church in Ireland that it forbid the connec- 

 tion of any of its agents with party organiza- 

 tions, " as required even by its own rules." The 

 reference in this last clause is to instructions is- 

 sued in 1700, which are bound up with the report 

 of each year's work. The Standing Committee 

 responded to this request in the words of a min- 

 ute adopted in 1900, that the society had no 

 power over the opinions or convictions of the 

 missionaries whom it maintained; that it did 

 not select the clergy whom it employed, and so 

 long as they held the license of their respective 

 bishops, the society was bound not to remove 

 them. " The only alternative would be that the 

 society should assume a spiritual jurisdiction, to 

 which it can justify no claim. The instructions 

 .given at the very foundation of the society to the 

 missionaries to which the resolution of the 

 synod refers represent the conviction of the soci- 

 ety as to the ideal which all Christian people 

 should aim at. The Standing Committee assure 

 the synod that in its work both at home and 

 abroad the society knows nothing of party dis- 

 tinctions. They sincerely hope that it may en- 

 iililc i lie friends of the society in Ireland to con- 

 vince the Church that the Society for the Propa- 

 gation of the Gospel is not a party society. But 

 the Standing Committee assure the synod that 

 they will be most careful to bring under the no- 

 tice of missionaries placed on the list the instruc- 

 tinus of the year 17<M>." 



The Women's Mission Association for the Pro- 

 motion of Female Education among the Heathen, 

 in connection with the Society for the Propaga- 

 tion of the Gospel, had received 11,583, showing 

 an increase of 911. The balances had risen 

 from 4,04 to 5,678. A steadily growing de- 

 mand for missionaries, and especially for quali- 

 fied teachers, was observed in India. A large in- 

 crease of work was expected in the dioceses of 

 Bombay and Madras. In Burma the standard of 

 education was rising and the demand for it in- 

 creasing. The association also appealed for offers 

 of service to meet the needs of Japan, South 

 Africa, and Madagascar. 



The Melaneslan Mission. The work of the 

 Melanesia!! Mission had been carried on at the 

 time of its anniversary meeting in November, 



01, for fifty years with steady and growing suc- 

 cess, with the aid of sailing 'and steam vessels 



plying from island to island. The general fund 

 for the past year had been the highest on rec- 

 ord, and the subscriptions to the fund for the 

 provision of a more suitable vessel, which was 

 greatly needed, had reached 13,000, a sum 

 which was, however, not at all adequate. It was 

 shown that in the fifty years of its operation the 

 mission had worked a complete revolution in the 

 region. When Bishop Selwyn began his work 

 Melanesia was entirely heathen, whereas there ! 

 were now 12,000 baptized Christians in the is- 

 lands. 



Voluntary Societies. The object of the Na- 

 tional Protestant Church Union is defined in its 

 annual report for 1902 as being " to promote the 

 principles of the Reformation as set forth in the 

 Prayer-Book and Articles of the Church of Eng- 

 land." The president is Mr. W. D. Cruddas; 

 Prebendary Webb-Peploe is the chairman; and 

 among the vice-presidents are the Bishop of Dur- 

 ham, the Bishop of Sodor and Man, and Bishops 

 Perowne, Ingham, Marsden, and Royston. The 

 work of the union is largely educational in its 

 character, and as a part of it a steady growth 

 in the number of lectures and general meetings 

 is recorded as having taken place during the 

 year. The intention of the council is announced 

 to publish a History of the Church of England, 

 by the Rev. Charles Hole, and a reissue of Dr. 

 Vogan's True Doctrine of the Eucharist; and a 

 Manual of Christian Doctrine is in hand. A 

 number of recent appointments by his Majesty's 

 Government are cited as showing that the in- 

 creased activity among Protestant Churchmen 

 has not been without effect in the selection of 

 men for ecclesiastical preferment. 



At a meeting of the union held Dec. 3, 

 1901, a resolution was adopted expressing the 

 opinion that in view of the continuance in the 

 Church of practises and doctrines which are both 

 illegal and contrary to the spirit of the Reforma- 

 tion, " further legislation is urgently required in 

 order to secure a reasonable conformity to the 

 law of the Church and the realm." 



An address issued by the Church Association 

 in July, in answer to an appeal in behalf of the 

 ritualists, bore the heading, " Now that the war 

 is over, the Protestant question must come 

 first." Representing that the union had already 

 a political organization in 225 out of 443 Eng- 

 lish constituencies, with 0,000 enrolling agents, it 

 asked for 1,000 more volunteers to gather the 

 names of those who were determined to put Prot- 

 estantism before party and prevent the complete 

 " capture of the Church of England " by the 

 " disloyal and Romanizing clergy." 



The forty-third annual meeting of the English 

 Church Union was held in London in June, the 

 occasion being preceded by special communion 

 services held in the morning in 1,232 churches 

 throughout the kingdom. In his presidential 

 address Lord Halifax said that the battle begun 

 by Mr. Keble had been won ; that the substan- 

 tials of Catholic doctrine and ritual and the es- 

 .-nitial liberties of the Church were secure; and 

 the question now to be faced was that of the 

 general relation of national churches to the 

 Church universal, which rested on the wider 

 question of what was Hie ultimate authority in 

 matters of belief. The act of supremacy was 

 responsible for an Erastian view which had pro- 

 duced a great deal of mischief largely so for the 

 conception of the Church of England as an inde- 

 pendent self-governing body with no obligations 

 to the rest of Christendom. The Church Union 

 had been accused of disloyalty for ignoring An- 

 glican tradition; but if there was any Anglican 



