ANGLICAN CHURCHES. 



9 



gyman who, during suspension or deprivation, 

 attempts to conduct divine service in a church 

 forbidden to him, may be charged with dis- 

 turbance of public worship. The practical 

 effect of the act, if it is adopted by Parliament, 

 will be to repeal the Public Worship Regula- 

 tion Act, and restore the old courts to their 

 pristine vigor. By its provisions, the Dean of 

 Arches is to be elected, and to be required to 

 qualify in the ancient way. All spiritual sen- 

 tences are to be pronounced by the bishop in 

 person in the Diocesan Court, and by the arch- 

 bishop in the Provincial Court. And the two 

 primates are to be empowered, if they think 

 fit, to appoint the same person as official prin- 

 cipal for both provinces. 



Some of the features of the scheme of the 

 commission have been criticised in the dis- 

 cussions to which it has been subjected. Eight 

 of the 23 members of the commission itself ex- 

 pressed objections to the power of vetoing the 

 continuance of proceedings given by it to the 

 bishop. Among these are the Lord Chief- 

 Justice and the Archbishop of York. The 

 archbishop remarked, in expressing his dissent, 

 that under the operation of this rule the courts 

 might be entirely closed to laymen. The Lord 

 Chief-Justice, while he admitted that the power 

 of prosecution might be liable to abuse, if no 

 trammels were put upon it, thought it better 

 to run the risk of abuse than to override the 

 rights of the laity, and expressed himself per- 

 fectly confident that "competent judges, with 

 absolute power of costs, would very soon re- 

 strain, and indeed altogether put an end to 

 merely frivolous litigation." Similar objec- 

 tions were made by the Church Association, 

 which devoted the entire session, of its autum- 

 nal conference in October to the discussion of 

 the report. Besides this point, a number of 

 speakers at the Church Congress, and the chair- 

 man of the Church Association, offered objec- 

 tions to the feature of the constitution of the 

 final court of laymen. The Executive Com- 

 mittee of the Liberation Society has published 

 a statement of objections to the proposed 

 measure. It deprecates the investment with 

 judicial authority of bishops and judges ap- 

 pointed by the archbishops, so long as the 

 Church continues f o be a national establish- 

 ment, and protests against the recommendation 

 that the members of the courts shall declare 

 themselves to be " members of the Church of 

 England as by law established," as involving a 

 civil disqualification on ecclesiastical grounds, 

 as placing members of the Church of England 

 on a different footing from Nonconformists in 

 regard to the administration of justice, and as 

 being inconsistent with the position of .that 

 Church as a national institution. 



The Liberation Society. The triennial confer- 

 ence of the Liberation Society was held May 

 1st. Mr. H. P. Richard, M. P., presided. The 

 report represented that the friends of religious 

 equality, who had waited during the abnormal 

 pressure on Parliament, now claimed that the 



question of disestablishment should be dealt 

 with by the Legislature. The educational work 

 of the society during the past three years had 

 been carried on on a large scale. As many as 

 3,074,000 publications had been issued, and 

 1,247 meetings had been held. During the 

 course of the meetings Mr. John Bright made 

 a speech censuring the Established Church for 

 inefficiency. He discussed the questions, Is 

 the state the better for its union with the 

 Church? or is the Church the better for its 

 union with the state ? The theory of many 

 supporters of the union was that the Church 

 tends to make the state more Christian that 

 is, more just and gentle, more merciful and 

 peaceful. That theory the speaker declared 

 to be "unsound and baseless." The bishops 

 of the Established Church in the House of 

 Lords had never exercised their influence in 

 behalf of Christian and generous legislation. 

 In respect to the criminal code, when it was 

 most barbarous, the bishops and the clergy 

 never raised a voice against the cruelty of the 

 laws. The Church had provided no check, and 

 uttered no denunciation of the country's inces- 

 sant wars. " I complain, then," he added, u of 

 the Established Church in this broad manner, 

 that it does nothing to guide the state in the 

 way of righteousness; that it is, in certain re- 

 spects, the bond-slave of the state ; that, in all 

 the great matters which must affect our coun- 

 try, the bishops and the clergy are dumb, and 

 their activity is shown only when any com- 

 paratively small measure is discussed which 

 they think treads a little upon their position 

 and their supremacy." He predicted a better 

 future for the Church as a church, and as an 

 object of popular affection, after it shall have 

 been disestablished. 



The Church Congress. The Church Congress 

 met at Reading, Oct. 2d. The Bishop of Ox- 

 ford, being the bishop of the diocese in which 

 the congress was held, presided, and delivered 

 the opening address. He spoke of the subjects 

 which would engross the attention of the meet- 

 ing as being such as men of academic culture, 

 serious thinkers, and ardent seekers after knowl- 

 edge might properly discuss. The statement of 

 them implied no foregone conclusion, and as- 

 sumed no contradiction to exist between the 

 great generalizations of science and the Chris 

 tian faith. Believers in the one source of truth 

 and life, the members of the congress could not 

 conceive of any physical discovery which should 

 destroy that faith ; but they did not, therefore, 

 separate themselves from the votaries of sci- 

 ence, or ask them to be untrue to themselves ; 

 but rather believed that the seeming contra- 

 dictions would disappear. The president also 

 spoke of the subjects relating to social morality 

 that were upon the programme of the congress, 

 particularly on the one concerning the proposi- 

 tion to repeal the prohibition of marriage with 

 a deceased wife's sister. He knew, he said, 

 the bishops were threatened with expulsion 

 from the House of Lords because they refused 



