ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



toted as one of inquiry rather than as a com- 

 mittee to make any report or recommendation. 

 In the course of the discussion which followed, 

 while some of the bishops thought that the 

 Salvation Army was doing a good work in par- 

 ticular places, and others conceded that its 

 promoters were actuated by good intentions 

 and motives, the general expression of opinion 

 was, that many of the methods employed by it 

 were unhealthful and likely to lead to immo- 

 rality. The committee was reconstituted, and 

 instructed to consider whether the Church 

 should take any steps having particular refer- 

 ence to the unsatisfactory spiritual state of 

 large masses of the population, especially in the 

 towns. 



The subject of the " Affirmation Bill," which 

 was pending in Parliament, was brought be- 

 fore the lower house upon a recommendation 

 of a committee that the members of the upper 

 house be requested to oppose the bill. A mo- 

 tion was offered in amendment that their lord- 

 ships be requested to watch the progress of 

 the bill through the Houses of Parliament, in 

 order to prevent its being enacted with retro- 

 spective powers. Some of the members of the 

 house expressed a preference of affirmations 

 to oaths, on grounds of principle. Canon 

 Gregory contended that the real question was, 

 whether the house was anxious to support the 

 introduction into Parliament of Mr. Bradlaugh, 

 or whether they were anxious to prevent peo- 

 ple of that description from polluting the legis- 

 lature of the country. Prebendary Stephens 

 considered that oath-taking was most injurious, 

 in that it had a pernicious tendency to cause a 

 belief in two kinds of truth oath-truth and 

 ordinary truth. The proposal of the committee 

 was agreed to. 



The convocation met again on July 3d. The 

 following address to the upper house was adopt- 

 ed in the lower house : 



The lower house of Convocation of the Province of 

 Canterbury, in humble thankfulness to Almighty 

 God for the rejection by the House of Lords on Thurs- 



day, June 28, 1S83 ; of the bill for legalizing marriage 

 witli a deceased wife's sister, make this their dutiful 

 representation and prayer to the upper house. 



They represent that there is reason to apprehend 

 un immediate renewal of the agitation upon this ques- 

 tion. 



^ That, inasmuch as holy matrimony is the founda- 

 tion of human society ; and inasmuch as there is a 

 wide-spread ignorance of the principles of Christian 

 marriage, the lower house, as in love and duty bound, 

 turn- to the Archbishop and Bishops in Convocation 

 assembled ; earnestly praying them to exhort all who 

 have cure of souls in the "province of Canterbury to 

 set forth plainly, from time to time, in their addresses 

 to their flocks the aforesaid principles ; as embodied 

 in the Table of Prohibited Degjrees, in the 99th Can- 

 on, and in the form of Solemnization of Matrimony ; 

 and, in particular, to remind their people that the 

 union of a man with his wife's sister has been forbid- 

 den by the Church of Christ from the beginning, as 

 being contrary to the Word of God. 



The lower house venture further to call special at- 

 tention to the injury which would be done to the 

 moral and spiritual welfare of the English people 

 also to the disruption of domestic and social relations 

 necessarily involved in the success of the agitation 



above referred to; and, lastly, to the grave conse- 

 quences which must ensue if the law of the Church 

 and the law of the state be brought into open opposi- 

 tion. 



The subject was referred in the upper house 

 to a committee, whose report, which was 

 adopted, besides minutely setting forth the con- 

 siderations on which the action was based, 

 embodied a resolution to the effect that u this 

 house concurs with the lower house in their 

 earnest desire for the maintenance in its integ- 

 rity of the Table of Prohibited Degrees, set 

 forth in the year of our Lord 1563, in order to be 

 publicly set up in churches by the 99th canon." 

 A resolution was adopted that the Church, 

 " though always insisting on the use of wine in 

 the holy communion, has never prescribed the 

 strength or the weakness of the wine to be 

 used, and consequently it is always possible to 

 deal with even extreme cases without depart- 

 ure from the custom observed by the Church, 

 and it is most convenient that the clergy should 

 conform to ancient and unbroken usage, and 

 to discountenance all attempts to deviate from 

 it." 



Enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

 The Eev. Edward White Benson, D. D., Bishop 

 of Truro, having been nominated by the Queen, 

 was formally elected Archbishop of Canterbury 

 at a special session of the Dean and Chapter of 

 the See, Jan. 28th. The election was confirmed 

 by the Bishop of London and a commission of 

 bishops of the Southern Province, March 3d. 

 The new archbishop was enthroned with im- 

 posing ceremonies at the Cathedral of Canter- 

 bury, March 29th. The proceedings were par- 

 ticipated in or witnessed by a large assemblage 

 of clergy and laity, and home, colonial, and 

 foreign bishops, among whom the Duke of 

 Edinburgh represented the royal family, and 

 Bishop Littlejohn. of Long Island, the Protes- 

 tant Episcopal Church in the United States. 



The Ritualistic Controversy. The late Arch- 

 bishop Tait, of Canterbury, a short time before 

 Ins death, in December, 1882, had devised and 

 partly carried into effect a plan for indirectly 

 removing from the courts the suit against the 

 Rev. A. H. Mackonochie, of St. Alban's, who 

 was still under prosecution for contumacy, 

 hoping that one of the results of his action 

 might be to help allay the ritualistic agitation. 

 He induced Mr. Mackonochie to resign his bene- 

 fice in the interest of the peace of the Church, 

 while the Bishop of London offered him an- 

 other benefice, that of St. Peter's, London 

 Docks, at the same time transferring the in- 

 cumbent of that benefice to Mr. Mackonochie's 

 former parish of St. Alban's. The Church As- 

 sociation refused to acquiesce in this proceed- 

 ing. It published a statement showing that 

 illegal acts were still practiced at St. Alban's 

 and St. Peter's, and addressed resolutions of 

 protest against the fulfillment by the Bishop of 

 London of the compromise which had been 

 arranged. The Bishop of London replied to 

 these resolutions : 



