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498th OEDINAKY MEETIXa. 



MONDAY, MAY 17th, 1909. 

 Professor H. Langhorne Orchard, M.A., B.Sc, in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the previous Meetmg were read and confirmed. 

 The following paper was then read by the author : — 



AUTHORITY. 

 By The Very Eev. H. Wage, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. 



IT will hardly, I think, be questioned that the subject of 

 Authority, on which I am venturing to offer a few 

 observations, is one of urgent practical importance at the 

 present time. An indisposition to defer to authority is a 

 conspicuous feature of life at the present day. The family life, 

 the authority of parents — to modify a well-known phrase — has 

 diminished, is diminisiiing, and grievously needs reinforcement. 

 In politics we witness the growth of movements which, if not 

 directly anarchical, propose to reconstitute life on bases of 

 equality, from which the old authoritative organization would be 

 excluded. Agitations, even by women, are conducted by means 

 which involve violent repudiation of existing rules of order. 

 In the Church, of which it has hitherto been considered a special 

 duty to set an example of order, and of obedience to authority, we 

 find clergy disregarding the directions of their ecclesiastical 

 superiors, and openly and avowedly repudiating any obligation 

 to obey the civil authority by which they and their Church 

 are established. Abroad, particularly in France, we see the 

 order of society threatened with entire subversion in the name 



