APPENDIX B (see page 264).

HOME REUNION.

The Rev. VINCENT STUCKEY STRATTON COLES, of the Pusey House, Oxford.*

I MADE my way to this hall this afternoon attracted by the name of the Dean of Peterborough, because I wished to give my small tribute of sympathy with him in the charitable and wise efforts he has lately made as to that part of reunion to which no reference has been made this afternoon, and it is therefore with the greatest regret that I am obliged to say a word, as no one has said it better, in regard to one part of this subject. The Dean of Peterborough, and the Bishop of Ballarat who followed him, desired that we should be ready, for the sake of reunion, to sacrifice the requirement of Episcopal Ordination and to receive those who have been admitted to the Nonconformist ministry to our altars without re-ordination. I submit that any such proposal would cause a far greater rift in our ranks than any rift to which reference has been made this afternoon. Those bishops who are present must be aware that it was with an immense feeling of relief that a large party of the Church at home became aware that such a proposal had been, not withdrawn, but negatived by the Fathers assembled at the Lambeth Conference, and for this reason—that it would be a cruel wrong to many of the tender children of the Church. They have been taught that to receive the Holy Communion from episcopally ordained clergy is their chief security for its being according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ. It must be well-known that this is the teaching of a very large number of the clergy of the Church of England. They so teach because they are firmly convinced that the principle of an ordained ministry is a scriptural principle, that it is, further, a scriptural principle that the authority of ordination should come not from below, nor from the equals of the man ordained, but from above; and that, therefore, the founders of bodies, such as Scotch Presbyterianism or foreign Lutheranism, under whatever pressure of painful and difficult circumstances, did depart from a definite principle of holy Scripture witnessed to from the beginning by the Catholic Church. I say that this has been taught, I will not say universally, but very largely, by clergy of the Church of England from the Reformation. I will not deny that between the time of the separation and the time of Archbishop Laud the Puritan party in the Church was so dominant that the witness to this truth was almost forgotten, but we are firmly convinced that what God has given to the Church of England was truly recognised and rightly set forth by Archbishop Laud and those who worked with him. We therefore unhesitatingly teach our children not that God cannot bless them through the ministry of others, but that since in Divine things the truest and most careful waiting on His revealed will is humility and wisdom, they are always to see that for their part they never venture to take His great and Divine gift of the Sacrament except when duly consecrated by a duly ordained priest. To bring these simple souls into the distressed condition of peril which would be caused by any such proposal as that which the fathers have already refused, would be more uncharitable and cruel than anything the Church has ever done to Dissenters. And, while I say that, let me guard myself against being supposed to judge them. Reference was made by the Dean of Peterborough to a catechism, the bare crudeness of which we must all join in regretting. But it is not the only bare and crude thing which has been said in these days; and with the principle which underlies it, and which is capable of being explained in harmony with what I have said, a very large number of the clergy of the Church of England are bound to agree. They are bound to say, "While I have no doubt whatever that God is blessing Dissenters through the ministry of their ministers, it would be a sin in me" (that is the way to put it) "if I submitted to these ministers, and therefore to anyone whom I teach I am bound to witness that it would be probably a sin in him also." If it is a sin it must be brought under the Ten Commandments, not by any forced interpretation, but by seeking to know their real meaning, and there is no other commandment under which it can be brought than the second. Therefore, although we

*This is the corrected version of Mr. Coles' speech, which was returned too late to be published corrected in its proper place.

may regret the crudeness of the catechism, we say that when sin and idolatry were spoken of, that was not a mere isolated expression, but a witness common to the whole of these who believe in the scriptural truth of episcopacy. Speaking in the presence of the Bishop of Lichfield, I am certain I may say that those who have taken the noble part he has done in seeking to find out what is stirring in the minds of foreign Catholics, must be aware that the strong words which we meet with from English Roman Catholics are no more to be taken as covering the whole ground of the feeling of this great communion than the extracts from the Freeman newspaper may be taken as representing the whole of the Baptist community. Those who are for union are meek and silent, those who are against it are loud and blatant. In the pious desires of those who are seldom heard lies our great hope of reunion, and I would venture to hope that as it was the attraction of the Dean of Peterborough's proposal that brought some of us here this afternoon, nothing which has seemed hard in that which has been said now may discourage him from going on and trying at least to find a ground of agreement, by which every faithful member of the Church of England may receive the Holy Communion in every one of her churches without scandal and without pain.

APPENDIX C. to Mr. W. S. de Winton's Paper on "The Church

in Wales," see page 142.

population only the thousands are given.

1887, of the then Dioceses in England and Wales.

Subjoined is a Tabular Statement from The "Guardian" of 28th September,

Under acreage and

579

List of Church Congresses.

DATE.

TOWN.

PRESIDENT.

Archdeacon of Ely (Dr. France).

Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Wilberforce).

Bishop of Manchester (Dr. Prince Lee).

Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol (Dr. Ellicott).

Bishop of Norwich (Hon. Dr. Pelham).
Archbishop of York (Dr. Thomson).

Bishop of Lichfield (Dr. Lonsdale).
Archbishop of Dublin (Dr. Trench).
Bishop of Chester (Dr. Jacobson).
Bishop of Winchester (Dr. Wilberforce).

Bishop of Lincoln (Dr. Wordsworth).

Bishop of Ripon (Dr. Bickersteth).

Bishop of Bath and Wells (Lord Arthur Hervey).

Bishop of Chichester (Dr. Durnford).

Bishop of Lichfield (Dr. Selwyn).

Bishop of Exeter (Dr. Temple).

Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Tait).
Archbishop of York (Dr. Thomson).

Bishop of S. David's (Dr. Jones).

Bishop of Peterborough (Dr. Magee).

Bishop of Durham (Dr. Lightfoot).

Bishop of Lichfield (Dr. William Dalrymple Maclagan).

1880-Leicester..

1881-Newcastle

1882-Derby

1883-Reading ..

Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Mackarness).

1884-Carlisle

Bishop of Carlisle (Dr. Goodwin).

1885-Portsmouth

Bishop of Winchester (Dr. Harold Browne).

1886-Wakefield

Bishop of Ripon (Dr. William Boyd-Carpenter).

1887-Wolverhampton.. Bishop of Lichfield (Dr. William Dalrymple Maclagan)

1888-Manchester

1889-Cardiff

Bishop of Manchester (Dr. James Moorhouse).

Bishop of Llandaff (Dr. Richard Lewis).

Appointment for 1890-Hull.

INDEX OF SPEAKERS.