LI B RARY 
 
 OF THL 
 
 U N I VLRS ITY 
 
 OF I LL1 NOIS
 
 H 
 
 A CHARGEf^T^j,^ 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY AND CHURCHWARDENS 
 OF THE DIOCESE OF NEWCASTLE, 
 
 AT HIS PRIMARY VISITATION, J] 
 
 May 30TH, 31ST, June ist, 2nd, 1899. 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 A CHARGE, 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 HIS PRIMARY VISITATION OF S. NICHOLAS' CATHEDRAL, 
 
 NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, 
 
 June 6th, 1899. 
 
 Edgar Jacob, d.d., 
 
 BISHOP OF NEWCASTLE. 
 
 NEWCASTEE-ON-TYNE : 
 MAWSON, SWAN, & MORGAN. 
 
 LONDON : 
 1'ARK.ER & Co.
 
 CONTENTS OF CHARGE, 
 
 I. NEWCASTLE. 
 Diocesan Progress and Needs. 
 
 Pages. 
 
 Introduction. Nature of Diocese. Different 
 
 Religious Bodies - i 
 
 Losses in Clergy and Laity since 1896 - 4 
 
 Roll of Clergy. Ordinations ... 5 
 
 Confirmation Statistics. Preparation for 
 
 Confirmation - 6 
 
 Baptism. Sponsorship. Resolutions of Lambeth 
 
 Conference ..... 8 
 
 Spiritual Work of the Laity. Illustrations. 
 
 Diocesan Lay Helpers' Association - 13 
 
 Parochial Buildings and Mission Halls. Their 
 
 Need and Use - 16 
 
 Increased Population on Tyneside. New Parishes. 
 
 Large Parishes with Associated Clergy 17 
 
 Exchange of Patronage with the Crown - ig 
 
 Diocesan Society. Bishops' Additional Clergy 
 Fund. Chaplain to Deaf and Dumb. 
 
 Central Societies ... 2 o 
 
 Slender Incomes of Clergy. Queen Victoria. 
 Clergy Sustentation Fund. Clergy Pensions 
 Institution ----- 20 
 
 Diocesan Homes. House of Mercy. Homes for 
 
 Waifs and Strays - 21
 
 111. 
 
 II. HEXHAM. 
 The Unrest in the Church. 
 
 Pages. 
 
 Grounds for Confidence ... 22 
 
 1. Drawing together of Men of Different 
 
 Schools, and assistance privately given to 
 the Bishops as compared with thirty years 
 ago - 23 
 
 2. Growing position of the Laity. Effect of this 24 
 
 Causes of Uneasiness .... 25 
 
 (i.) Additional and unauthorised Services 26 
 
 To be met by appeals to Episcopal 
 authority and common sense. 
 
 How far this charge affects the Diocese. 
 
 (ii.) Alteration in Prayer Book Services, or 
 
 Violations of Directions 27 
 
 How tar this charge affects the Diocese. 
 
 Judgment in case. Read v. Bishop of 
 
 Lincoln - 28 
 
 (iii.) Questions of Doctrine - 30 
 
 (a.) Confession 30 
 
 (b.) Doctrine of Holy Communion 35 
 
 (c.) Prayers for the dead 39 
 
 Far greater importance of matters in which 
 
 Christian Men are agreed 41 
 
 Importance of Time. Repression by law, a bad 
 remedy, the last to which recourse should be 
 
 HAD ...... ^ T
 
 IV. 
 
 III. MORPETH. 
 
 The Church in connection with the State. 
 
 Pages. 
 
 Unbroken continuity of the Church from the 
 
 first - - . - - 42 
 
 Church brought into contact with the State in 
 respect of 
 
 (i.) Clergy - - - 43 
 
 (a.) Patronage. Benefices Act, 1898 44 
 
 Presentation is to the Bishop who confers 
 cure of souls. 
 
 (b.) Legal Status of Incumbent. Rector. 
 
 Vicar. Perpetual Curate - 45 
 
 Memorandum by Chancellor. Some 
 
 unintentional irregularities 45 
 
 Vicars of" New parishes" not "instituted" 
 
 but " licensed and admitted " 48 
 
 (c.) Parsonages. Dilapidations 49 
 
 (d.) Clergy Discipline, as affected by Acts of 
 
 1892 and 1898 - - 50 
 
 Questions of ritual and doctrine 50 
 
 (ii.) Churches. Insurance. Faculties. Laws 
 
 of Health - - - 51 
 
 (iii.) The Laity. (a.) Education. 53 
 
 (b.) Marriage 55 
 
 (c.) Burial Laws 56 
 
 (iv.) Spiritual Autonomy - . - 58 
 
 The Laity in Council. 
 
 Need of Patience. What each 
 may do. 

 
 V. 
 
 IV. ALNWICK. 
 
 Church Extension. 
 
 Pages. 
 
 Stages of Church Extension 62 
 
 (i.) Lives of the Clergy 62 
 
 (ii.) The inner circle in every parish 63 
 
 (iii.) Church of England principles - 64 
 
 (iv.) The masses outside religion. How to be won 66 
 
 Christianity taught, lived, applied 68 
 Ethical Extension of the Kingdom. 
 
 (v.) Responsibility for the entire Church 69 
 
 < vi.) Foreign Missions 69 
 Gradual expansion of Soul 70 
 Missionary Centenaries and Bicentenaries 73 
 Day of Intercession 74. 
 Lambeth Conference Report and Reso- 
 lutions - 74 
 
 Conclusion .... "77
 
 CHARGE AT THE VISITATION OF THE 
 CATHEDRAL. 
 
 June 6th, 1899. 
 
 First Visitation of S. Nicholas Cathedral: 
 
 1. Archbishop Benson's Picture of Lincoln 
 
 Cathedral in old days. 52 Prebendaries. 
 No line between great and small Chapters. 
 Legists aswell as theologians and preachers. 
 Schools of Architecture, Music, Grammar, 
 and Divinity. The Senate of the Diocese 79 
 
 2. The Bishop's duty in Visitation which went 
 
 on till 1724 when lethargy came over the 
 
 Church - 81 
 
 3. Revival of Cathedra] life. The conciliar idea 
 
 prominent - - 82 
 
 4. Newcastle Chapter Act and its provision. 
 
 Near completion of Canonry to be attached 
 to Vicarage of Newcastle. Munificence of 
 Mr. Thomas Spencer. Appeal to complete 
 these two Stalls 83 
 
 5. Functions of Canons - 85 
 
 6. Proposal to amend the Chapter Act, 1884, 
 
 and to detach Eglingham from Arch- 
 deaconry of Lindisfarne ... 89 
 
 7. Importance of Cathedral system. Canons. 
 
 Clergy. Churchwardens. Organist. Choir. 
 
 Vergers - - - - 89
 
 CHARGE, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF S. NICHOLAS, 
 ON THE 30TH DAY OF MAY, 1899. 
 
 I. — Diocesan Progress and Needs. 
 
 My Brethren of the Clergy and Laity : 
 
 A visitation is a very solemn gathering together of 
 clergy and churchwardens, with a legal and a spiritual aspect. 
 Legally, it is a court at which churchwardens are admitted 
 to office, and presentments, if needed, made. Spiritually, it 
 is an occasion for prayer and intercession, exhortation and 
 conference. We meet together to consider what progress 
 we have made, as a Diocese, and as a part of a still larger 
 body, the Church of Christ planted in this land, to review the 
 past, to acknowledge our shortcomings, to thank God for the 
 many tokens of His Blessing, and to see in what ways we 
 may be the better prepared to respond to the call that is made 
 upon the Church in times of trial. To me at any rate, a 
 Primary visitation is a very special care. Three years and a 
 half are all too short a time for a thorough knowledge of all 
 our needs and circumstances, and yet I must not hesitate to 
 speak to you frankly my mind on matters which are our 
 common concern. I shall not easily forget the cordial 
 welcome given to me by clergy and laity of the Diocese on 
 my coming, as a Southerner, to live amongst you in the 
 most Northern Diocese of England early in 1896. Nor can 
 I forget to acknowledge the unwearied labours of my pre- 
 decessor, the first Bishop of this See, and of those, both 
 clergy and laity, — among whom I may without invidiousness
 
 specially mention the late Vicar of Newcastle, now Bishop 
 of Thetford, — to whom the admirable organisation which I 
 found in this Diocese are due. It has been mine, not 
 primarily to construct or re-construct, but to develop. The 
 lines of Diocesan organisation were well and soundly laid. 
 Modification and development, indeed, are needed in the 
 progress of all human Society, but I have found nothing 
 which I have not thankfully received, and which I desired 
 constitutionally to change. There has been, and I thank 
 God for it, cordial co-operation between clergy and laity in 
 promoting the good of the Diocese through all these three 
 and a half years. We have worked together without a tinge 
 of party spirit for the advancement of the Diocese as a whole, 
 and the sorrow and the sickness, which fell to the lot of me 
 and mine last year, only served to emphasize the sympathy 
 which has marked our common work, and to elicit its 
 expression. 
 
 The Diocese is one which from its history, its position 
 and its circumstances, may well inspire a man who is 
 entrusted with its oversight. An ordination on Sunday last 
 in a Parish Church (Berwick-upon-Tweed), built during the 
 Commonwealth, opened in the presence of Oliver Cromwell, 
 and within sight of the Holy Island which was the chief 
 scene of the labours of the first apostle to Northern England, 
 S. Aidan, distant but comparatively few miles from the scene 
 of the bloodiest battle between English and Scots, helps to 
 remind us of the strange vicissitudes that are part of the 
 history of Northumberland. What scenes of Saxon Christ- 
 ianity can rival Lindisfarne and Hexham ? What proof of 
 Danish ravage can exceed the witness of the remains in 
 Holy Island to-day ? What would we not give to have not 
 only Saxon Towers on the Tyne, but the real remains of the 
 Saxon architecture on Holy Island, rather than simply 
 those of a Norman or later date ? What proof of Roman
 
 3 
 occupation can exceed in interest the Roman wall, and the 
 crypt of Hexham Abbey ? Every style of English architecture 
 is to be found among us, while some Churches bear traces 
 not only of various styles but of the border wars which 
 characterised our early history, and sometimes destroyed a 
 Church twice in a single century. 
 
 But the Newcastle and Northumberland of to-day have 
 features of their own. Our neighbourhood to Scotland means 
 not warfare but the friendly contact of hard-headed educated 
 men of every grade, and the efforts of Episcopacy and Presby- 
 terianism side by side for the common good. I venture to say 
 that the fact is significant, for in no other English diocese 
 is it so marked. It gives us the opportunity of striving 
 worthily to represent the doctrine and discipline of the 
 Church of England without compromise of principle, but 
 with the frankest recognition of the Christian labours of 
 others who worship God in ways as dear and sacred to 
 them as ours to us. I desire personally to acknowledge the 
 cordiality with which I have been always met by Presby- 
 terians, and I venture to think that with respect to them 
 and to other bodies of Christians not in communion with 
 our own Church, there is in the diocese, amongst churchmen 
 and others, a kindlier spirit and a more reasonable attitude 
 than are to be found in many parts of England, and I thank 
 God for it. There is a tolerance which comes not of 
 shallowness but of depth. If I am deeply convinced of the 
 truth that I hold I can afford to be tolerant of what other 
 men hold, and I am more likely to win them if I am tolerant 
 and charitable, and respect their convictions and co-operate 
 with them in ways open to me, than if I hold aloof and fail 
 to recognize motives and efforts as conscientious as my own. 
 I have been struck since I came into residence in your midst 
 with this kindlier spirit and wiser toleration, both among 
 schools of thought in our own Church, and as between our
 
 4 
 own Church and members of other Christian bodies. The 
 atmosphere is congenial to one who abhors party spirit and 
 faction, and loves to see agreement rather than difference; 
 and I am convinced that in such an atmosphere there is 
 real promise of the effective building up of the Church of 
 Christ. 
 
 But it is not only in its history and the contact of 
 forms of Christianity that this diocese is so profoundly 
 interesting a study. What a variety of classes we have 
 amongst us, and how strangely the population is gathered 
 together or scattered abroad : Old Northumbrian families, 
 Scotch shepherds on the Cheviots, strong tillers of the soil, 
 who are better fed and educated and do more work than 
 most of their brothers in the South, miners who are largely 
 an hereditary class, sons and grandsons of miners, without 
 that large importation from Ireland or Wales that has been 
 necessary in the smaller area but far more rapidly developing 
 mineral fields of Durham, artizans on Tyneside, merchants 
 and shipbuilders of Newcastle, form the material that has 
 to be welded together into one Divine society in this diocese. 
 While of the half-million or more of the people, three-fifths 
 live within the ten miles that separate Benwell Tower and 
 the sea, and if another fifth be allowed for the colliery district 
 of the East Coast, the other fifth is scattered over a county 
 which is in area the fifth, and one of the most beautiful, of 
 England, and which with some quarter of a million more 
 acres than Lancashire contains but one eighth of its 
 population. The variety of class is suggestive as to the 
 character of the diocese, while the grouping of the people 
 shews where the increasing pressure on the Church's 
 resources is most severely felt, 
 bosses I find it impossible to attempt any review of the 
 
 since 1896. r . . . 
 
 Diocese since my predecessor's last visitation in 1891. He 
 was prevented by illness from visiting in 1895, the chancellor
 
 5 
 going alone to admit the churchwardens, and on January 
 16th, 1896, he ceased to be Bishop of Newcastle. I shall 
 attempt, therefore, simply to deal with the period since my 
 consecration on January 25th, 1896. 
 
 We have lost from the Diocese, in good old age, 
 Canon Edmunds, who retained his connection with Durham, 
 and died in ripe old age ; Canons Bird, Lintott, and 
 Baldwin, from among our own Honorary Canons ; and, by 
 retirement, alike from his benefice and his stall, Canon 
 Sanders, Vicar of St. Paul's, Newcastle. Canon Barker, 
 though he has retired from the Rectory of Hexham, and 
 Mr. Wilson, who has retired from Ellingham, still happily 
 live amongst us. But death has removed from our ranks 
 A. T. Coates, Vicar of Percy Main, T. W. Gibson, Rector 
 of Kirkhaugh, W. D. Ground, Rector of Kirkharle, 
 M. Lazenby, Vicar of Doddington, R. Measham, Rector of 
 Bellingham, J. Oliver, Vicar of Lucker, H. Parminter, 
 Incumbent of Humshaugh. From amongst the laity perhaps 
 I may single out the late Colonel Mitford, who died just 
 before I came into residence in 1896, John Henry 
 Ingledew, Secretary to the two first Bishops of this See, 
 the late Duke of Northumberland, so large a benefactor of 
 the Diocese, Andrew J. Blackett-Ord, who devoted himself, 
 among much other Church work, specially to the Clergy 
 Pensions Institution, and, within the past week, Robert 
 Gurney Hoare, as losses which deserve special mention. 
 Four incumbents have left us by exchange of benefice, and 
 three, in addition to not a few curates, by acceptance of 
 preferment in other dioceses. 
 
 Not to mention the Vicar of St. Aidan's, Benwell clergy ami 
 
 ' Ordina- 
 
 whose appointment was one of my predecessor's last acts, tions - 
 I have instituted or admitted to their benefices, twenty- 
 eight incumbents, but none since the Benefices Act came 
 into force on January 1st, last. I have collated and
 
 6 
 
 installed four Honorary Canons, licensed four chaplains, 
 admitted one warden to office in the Diocesan House of 
 Mercy, and licensed 133 curates. 
 
 There were on the books of the Diocese on Trinity 
 Sunday 320 clergy, or 102 more than appear to have 
 belonged to the Diocese at the time of its severance from 
 Durham in 1882. But this number, though it takes no 
 account of eight vacant curacies and two vacant Diocesan 
 chaplaincies, includes two incumbents not yet admitted to 
 benefices, three non-resident Honorary Canons, two incum- 
 bents and one lecturer, who are permitted to reside out of 
 the diocese, and three retired clergy who have no licences to 
 officiate in the diocese. There are 169 incumbents, but 
 three of these hold two cures each, which might be held 
 separately. There were on Trinity Sunday 129 curates, but 
 the full number, if all vacancies were filled, would be 137. 
 The other clergy include the Archdeacon of Northumberland, 
 and others licensed in various ways to serve or officiate in 
 the diocese. The number of clergy whom I have ordained 
 is rather beyond the average of former years. In 1896, 
 I ordained thirteen deacons (in addition to one by letters 
 dimissory for the Bishop of Grahamstown) and ten priests, 
 in 1897, fifteen deacons and seven priests, in 1898, fourteen 
 deacons and sixteen priests. On Sunday last I ordained 
 nine deacons and nine priests. The total number in three- 
 and-a-half years is, for the diocese, fifty one deacons and 
 forty-two priests. 
 
 conftrma- The Confirmations in like manner somewhat exceed 
 
 tions. . .... 
 
 the average of the previous five years, since the last Episcopal 
 visitation in 1891. 
 
 For the years 1891-95, the average was : 
 43 centres. 1,123 males. 1,727 females. Total 2,850.
 
 7 
 
 The returns for the past three years are : 
 
 Year Centres. Males. Females. Totals. 
 
 1896 53 1,382 1,907 3,289 
 
 1897 65 1,226 1,993 3,219 
 189S 58 r --53 1.657 2.910 
 
 I note with satisfaction that of the increased average 
 of 289, 164 represent males and 125 females, and I notice 
 that while the number for 1898 showed a diminution of 309, 
 compared with the previous year, there was an actual 
 increase of 27 male candidates. So far this year, the number 
 confirmed up to the present time is in excess of any of my 
 previous years, and gives promise of a large total for the 
 year. 
 
 Mere numbers at confirmations mean but little, but I 
 should not be true to my convictions if I did not say that 
 I have been increasingly struck with the careful preparation 
 and reverent receptive demeanour of the candidates. It is 
 quite a rare exception to see any degree of thoughtlessness, 
 and when I compare this with the state of things which 
 prevailed half-a-century ago, I can only heartily thank God. 
 As one who has himself prepared large numbers of persons 
 of all ages for this holy ordinance, I wish to testify to its 
 extraordinary value in advancing the spiritual life of our 
 people, and not unfrequently being quite the turning point 
 of a life. I am certain that no pains can be too great in 
 the preparation, and that no pastoral work is in the best 
 sense more remunerative. It is an ordinance for all ages. 
 I have both presented and confirmed aged men and women, 
 and it is always a real pleasure to me when adults, and often 
 married couples, kneel to receive the laying on of hands 
 with prayer. Such persons set a tone to the confirmation and 
 prevent it from being regarded as a mere religious form 
 denoting a particular age in life. The preparation should 
 be extended over an adequate time, for I am persuaded that
 
 time is a most important element in the preparation. Three 
 months are not too long a time for classes to go on, and 
 I was always unwilling myself, as a Parish Priest, to con- 
 centrate the teaching into a shorter period than ten weeks. 
 I urge incumbents who give titles for Holy Orders not to 
 entrust deacons in their parishes with the important work 
 of preparation, but rather to teach their deacons how to 
 prepare by requesting them to attend some classes con- 
 dueled by the incumbents themselves. The responsibility 
 which this involves will often be a great blessing to the 
 incumbent himself, by stimulating him to be continually 
 improving his own methods and deepening the spirituality 
 with which he seeks to influence the souls which he is 
 training for the future Christian life. Let me further 
 suggest the importance in this preparation of placing in the 
 foreground the blessings which God the Holy Spirit conveys 
 through the ordinance, whether direclly or by the further 
 blessings to which it leads. What is needed is to engender 
 such a sense of the Fatherly love of God and such depth 
 of gratitude that the fulfilment of the baptismal vows may 
 be felt to be no burden, but rather the natural and eager 
 response of the grateful heart. The vows being simply the 
 expression of the Christian life, and inseparably connected 
 with the very idea of Christianity, are binding on us all, 
 whether any Godparents, or we ourselves, have acknow- 
 ledged them or not ; but I have known cases in which per- 
 sons have shrunk from responsibilities that seem so great, 
 when they have been represented as the leading idea in 
 confirmation rather than as the response of a grateful heart 
 to love which has already found expression in Baptism, and 
 finds fresh outlet in the apostolic ordinance of the laying on 
 of hands. 
 
 Confirmation in every case presupposes Baptism, and 
 I desire upon this point to address some words to the clergy.
 
 9 
 I have noticed with pleasure that in the visitation returns 
 made to me it is rare to find that there has been any neglect 
 of infant Baptism. The Christian bodies outside the Church 
 of England with which, in this diocese, we are most brought 
 into contact, the Presbyterians, Wesleyans, and Primitive 
 Methodists, are careful to baptize their children, and the 
 result of all working in the same direction is that the neglect 
 of Baptism, except in a few parishes, is rare. This condition 
 is far more favourable than in other large town populations 
 in which my lot has been hitherto cast. The difficult 
 problem, what should be the Church's attitude in view of the 
 frequent carelessness and the difficulty of finding suitable 
 sponsors, is one which was considered by a committee of 
 Bishops at the recent Lambeth conference. 1 could not 
 publish and endorse the resolutions arrived at by the 
 Bishops, in my judgment somewhat too broadly and with- 
 out adequate qualification, unless I were able to add a few 
 words of explanation. The resolutions were these : 
 
 (48) "That in the opinion of this conference it is of 
 '•much importance that in all cases of Infant Baptism the 
 "clergyman should take all possible care to see that provi- 
 " sion is made for the Christian training of the child, but 
 " that, unless in cases of great and exceptional difficulty, the 
 "baptism should not be deferred." 
 
 (49) " That the baptismal promise of repentance, 
 " faith, and obedience should be made either privately or 
 " publicly by those who, having been baptized without these 
 " promises, are brought by our clergy to confirmation by 
 "the Bishop." 
 
 The first remark I wish to make is that these resolu- 
 tions must be interpreted bv the Encyclical Letter, and 
 must not be understood as of universal application. They 
 certainly do not apply to the mission field, or to some 
 
 branches of our Church, such as the West Indies, where 
 
 n
 
 10 
 
 the Archbishop has addressed to his Clergy in Jamaica 
 weighty words of counsel suitable to their special circum- 
 stances. The words of the Encyclical are : — 
 
 " We find that too many of the Clergy, especially in the 
 "large towns of England, are troubled by doubts, whether, in 
 " the present circumstances of life, especially where popu- 
 lation is perpetually moving, infants ought to be baptized, 
 " when there seems to be so little security for their due 
 " instruction. We desire to impress upon the Clergy the 
 " need of taking all possible care to see that provision is 
 " made for the Christian training of the child, but that, 
 " unless in cases of great and exceptional difficulty, the 
 "baptism of the child should not be deferred." 
 
 But I think these words need some further guarding. 
 I have been familiar with the difficulties that have often 
 arisen in the mission field with respect to the right time of 
 baptism. I have, myself, been responsible for the baptism 
 of upwards of 700 persons of riper years in England, and 
 probably few Clergy have been responsible for the baptism 
 of more children of various ages, and there is only one 
 justification for the baptism of children when there is from 
 circumstances of family real doubt as to their Christian 
 training. 
 
 Remember that in the mission field no missionary of 
 any experience dreams of baptising a child unless there be 
 some adequate guarantee. To baptise a young Hindu or 
 Mahomedan child, and let him fall back to the care of 
 a non-Christian parent, would be a profanation of the 
 Sacrament. Baptism is far better understood even by many 
 heathen people in India than it is by many Christians at 
 home. It is the Sacrament of a new birth, and not of a new 
 growth. It is the initial step, the beginning that must lead 
 further, the transfer into a new condition with a view to 
 training and entire moulding to God's will, or to speak in
 
 II 
 
 metaphor, the seed which requires to be tended and watered 
 if it is to grow and bear fruit. To treat it as an end in itself, 
 as an adequate protection without the assurance of any 
 Christian training, would be to misunderstand its meaning 
 and risk the failure of its efficacy. When, therefore, the 
 Bishops say that, unless in cases of grave and exceptional 
 difficulty, the baptism should not be deferred, they mean, and 
 I honestly wish this had been more clearly brought out, that 
 they rely on the great doctrine of the sponsorship of the 
 Church, and that they advise as a general rule that baptism 
 should proceed, because they believe that in a Christian land 
 like England, with a Church in every parish and every house 
 being in some area called a parish, it is so possible to teach 
 the responsibility of the entire Church for the Christian 
 training of the young, that even if satisfactory individual 
 guarantee be not forthcoming, the child may be baptised on 
 the faith and guarantee of the Christian society, the Church 
 at large. This truth is well brought out in a book to which 
 I shall make frequent reference in this charge, and which 
 I commend, especially in these days of unrest, to every 
 Clergyman and many laymen in this Diocese, the late 
 Bishop Moberly's Bampton Lectures, published by Messrs. 
 J. Parker & Co., on the Administration of the Holy Spirit 
 in the Body of Christ, lectures which I heard delivered at 
 Oxford, and which have been more helpful to me than 
 almost any book of modern theology. 
 
 I quote the following passages, (Lecture V.) : — 
 "That which the mother brings is first faith. The 
 " infant, incapable by age of coming in faith of his own, 
 " comes in borrowed faith. But from whom is his faith 
 " borrowed ? Is it from his natural parents ? Yes, no 
 " doubt in part, if they be good and faithful. But what if 
 " they be evil and unfaithful ? Is it then from his sponsors ? 
 " Yes, if, again, they be good and faithful. But no man 
 " can say for certain that they are so. Nay, it is upon the
 
 12 
 
 "faith of the Church of Christ, whom the sponsors on the 
 " special occasion, and for the special purpose, represent. 
 " Hear again St. Augustine on this point : — 
 
 " ' Little children are presented to receive spiritual 
 "'grace not so much by those in whose hands they are 
 " 'carried, though it is done by them also, if they be them- 
 " ' selves good and faithful, as by the whole society of good 
 
 "' and faithful people So the whole Church; the 
 
 " 'mother, who is in all the Saints, doeth this thing. The 
 " ' whole Church beareth all, the whole Church beareth 
 " ' each.' 
 
 " But, secondly, the mother brings the promise of 
 '• breeding the children up in the faith of God, so as to enable 
 " them, by all the means which God has put into their power, 
 "to lead the rest of their lives according to their beginning. 
 " She undertakes that nothing shall be wanting to them of all 
 " the graces of which she is the authorised and empowered 
 " channel, whereby they may grow in the faith and obedience 
 '"of Christ, and realise at last the immortal inheritance of 
 '• which the right and title have in the sacrament of baptism 
 " been effectually conveyed to them." 
 
 "Though the sponsors be of course, personally charged 
 " with the undertaking of which I speak, yet is the Church 
 "• at large by no means wholly discharged from the obligation 
 " of it. Therefore, the supply of Church schools and the 
 " support of them, and in like manner the supply of Churches 
 " and of all the outward means necessary for the mainten- 
 " ance and growth of the spiritual life given in Holy Baptism 
 " is not to be regarded as a matter of Christian bounty or 
 "benevolence on the part of Christian people at large, but 
 " as a distinct obligation which ma)- not be disowned — an 
 " obligation as binding in its nature upon them as the breed- 
 •' ing of children with food and raiment and all things
 
 1 3 
 " necessary to make them good citizens is obligatory upon 
 "the natural parents. The spiritual mother can no more 
 " discharge herself of all that is necessary for the spiritual 
 "growth of him, whom by bearing she has undertaken to 
 " breed up for his Spiritual Father, than the natural parents 
 " can discharge themselves of the corresponding obligation 
 " in respect of the natural breeding of their own naturally 
 "born child." 
 
 These are weighty words, and I venture to commend 
 them to my brethren of the clergy. They constitute the 
 real argument for general baptizing of infants in a Christian 
 land. We could not dare to do it in default of thoroughly 
 satisfactory guarantee in each case, unless we relied on a 
 Christian Society, in each parish, regarding this Christian 
 training of the child as a part of- the entire Church's duty. 
 And I urge you my brethren in Christ, to urge this duty on 
 the laity of your parishes. They being members of the 
 Church share this duty. In a very true sense you are the 
 greatest sponsors of all, being the responsible guides and 
 ministers of the Church in your several cures. You cannot 
 so put off the duty on others, as though it were no care of 
 vours except to baptize those whom others brought and 
 whose Christian training they guaranteed. But you will 
 do good work in reminding the laity of the sponsorial duty 
 which falls on them of caring for the whole body of Christ. 
 
 This thought naturally leads me to the functions of the ^^ctfiflw 
 laity in the Church, and in this Diocese in particular. These Tjait > 
 functions are deliberative and executive, and I emphasise 
 the union of the two. Of the former I hope to speak at 
 Morpeth, when I come to consider some questions bearing 
 on our relation to the state, and on past or projected legis- 
 lation. But to-day I wish to say that the spiritual develop- 
 ment of the laity in the work which they must do for the 
 Master, is one of the problems which the Church must
 
 *4 
 
 work out. The revised version of the New Testament has 
 thrown a new light on an old text in the great passage in 
 Ephes. iv. n, 12, that "God gave some to be apostles and 
 " some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and 
 "teachers; for the perfecting of the Saints, unto the (i.e., their) 
 "work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of 
 " Christ." That is orders and offices in the Church of Christ 
 are intended to equip and develop the baptised laymen for 
 their work of service (ergon diakonias), a work, however, to be 
 done not at random, but in due orderly manner, so that the 
 whole body of Christ may be built up. 
 
 1 1 is our business, my brethren of the clergy, to equip the 
 laity for this task. However small or scattered a parish may 
 be, your work is not done when you have supplied ministra- 
 tions, visited sick, and taught the young. You have to equip 
 the baptised laity for their work of service. Only by constant 
 teaching of this truth shall we get laymen to understand 
 what a spiritual power they may be in a parish or in the 
 Diocese. 
 
 Let me illustrate ways in which this truth has lately 
 come out among us. 
 
 I have had the pleasure of dedicating two Church 
 Army vans, which go from parish to parish in the diocese, 
 manned by good laymen trained by the Church Army, 
 carrying on parochial missions with the glad concurrence of 
 the clergy and stirring up fresh spiritual life. Here is an 
 illustration of a layman's work of service. 
 
 Again, I lately had the pleasure of licensing, as lay 
 readers in a mining parish, five young men connected with 
 the collieries, carefully trained by the vicar with the help of 
 a trained Lichfield evangelist, and now giving up their spare 
 time to direct spiritual work. 
 
 Again, there are laymen in Newcastle who have bound 
 themselves in a missionary union to acquaint themselves
 
 15 
 with the history of certain foreign missions, and to give 
 addresses and lantern lectures to stimulate interest in 
 mission work. 
 
 Church Army evangelists — one, let me say, has recently 
 
 conducted a fruitful mission in our Newcastle prison, with 
 
 the glad concurrence of the authorities; police-court 
 
 missionaries — of whom I am thankful that we now have one, 
 
 to be followed, I trust, hereafter, by others ; nurses — let me 
 
 especiallv commend the admirable Cathedral Nurse and 
 
 Loan Society, and, in other parts of the count}-, the 
 
 excellent society and organisation started by the Duchess of 
 
 Northumberland ; Church Lads' or Boys' Brigades ; 
 
 Medical Missions in foreign fields ; and industrial missions, 
 
 by teaching how to build up a Christian society in a heathen 
 
 land — all these illustrate special works for which men and 
 
 women have been equipped. But we need something much 
 
 larger still, and I desire to make more widely known, and to 
 
 press the keen working of, the Diocesan Lay Helpers' 
 
 Association, the direct outcome of our Diocesan Conference, 
 
 and details of which are to be found on page 216 of our 
 
 Diocesan Calendar for 1899. The object of the association 
 
 is to develop and organise lay work in every rural deanery, 
 
 to give a Diocesan recognition to such lay helpers as are 
 
 now working or may hereafter work in any parish, and who 
 
 may desire thus to realise that they are members of a far larger 
 
 body than the parish to which they belong, and to develop 
 
 the already existing system of lay readers, and train others 
 
 to do evangelistic and pastoral work under the clergy in the 
 
 parishes where they live, and other parishes with the consent 
 
 of the incumbent. I utterly refuse to believe that there is a 
 
 single parish of this diocese in which some of the laity, men 
 
 and women, may not be equipped for some work of service. 
 
 When I hear that clergy have no one to help them, I simply 
 
 think what a grand work is waiting to be done in quickening
 
 i6 
 
 the laity of all classes to do some real spiritual work. You, 
 my brethren, who are churchwardens, have a most important 
 work of service to do. Your reverent care of the fabrics 
 intrusted to you — some of them of the deepest historical 
 interest — your wise administration of Church finances, your 
 zeal in helping your clergy, giving them such counsel as you, 
 the mouthpiece of the laity in your parishes, are able to give, 
 your efforts to make the Church and her ministrations 
 welcome to the parishioners — all this is a work of service, 
 necessary, honourable, of ancient tradition in this land of 
 ours, which you are enabled to render to our one Lord. 
 There is no one thing which more rouses my enthusiasm, 
 and for which I would not gladly make any sacrifice in my 
 power, than this work of training the laity to realise their 
 very real priesthood and the invaluable service which every 
 one of them can render, and every one of them is really 
 bound to render, to the Church of Christ. 
 
 May I add that if this joint work of clergy and laity is 
 to develop there is one thing which this diocese largely needs, 
 and that is a great addition to its mission halls and parochial 
 buildings. Our whole conception of parochial work has 
 made such advance during this last half-century that the 
 " plant," if I may use the expression, which contented 
 our forefathers, is quite insufficient now. The Church is 
 the spiritual centre, and the school will be the training ground 
 both on week-days and on Sundays. But there must be the 
 parochial building to be the workshop of the clergy and 
 lay workers, without which the work will be stunted and 
 dwarfed, classes and club cannot be maintained, or other 
 needful work done. Perhaps I may add that parish teas 
 have their very real importance, and that I have always 
 found a copper to be a necessary adjunct of every mission or 
 parochial building that I put up. If any men of wealth 
 would place at my disposal a sum of money to be used at
 
 *7 
 
 my discretion, or at the discretion of the Diocesan Society, 
 for the purpose of encouraging parishes to provide such 
 buildings, they would be doing a greater spiritual work than 
 perhaps they know. We want not merely to teach religion 
 and minister the Sacraments, but to build up a Society. 
 The work must be done parish by parish. In a city like 
 Newcastle it can be greatly aided by a Church Institute, 
 such as that which was provided by the energetic initiative 
 of the late Vicar of Newcastle, and which is only prevented 
 by the burden of a heavy mortgage from developing its work 
 and becoming a far greater centre of Church work. I wish 
 most heartily to commend the proposals made by the present 
 Vicar of Newcastle for relieving the institute of its debt, and 
 it will then, I trust, be considerably altered by a skilful 
 architect and adapted to meet further needs. But while a 
 large town may rightly have its social Church centre, 
 every parish needs its parochial building, and many 
 parishes need a couple of mission halls, either in crowded 
 streets or in scattered hamlets, where clergy and laymen 
 may minister, and teach, and draw men together, for the 
 extension of our Master's kingdom. 
 
 And yet I know full well that when we have drawn out 
 the powers of the laity to the fullest, there will still be the s^ yD H 
 need for more clergy. I thank God that our number has 
 increased almost fifty per cent since the See was formed, 
 but consider how great has been the development of the 
 industries of Tyneside, and of the population of Tyneside 
 towns, in these seventeen years. How are we to meet this 
 increase? To a certain extent by new parishes. I have 
 already been able to form one, S. Mary, Blyth, with 11,000 
 people, out of the great overgrown parish of Horton, which is 
 still left with 9,000, possibly 10,000, souls living in six centres. 
 I am hoping to consecrate in July, a new church, St. Gabriel's, 
 Heaton, to be a new centre among our east end artisans, 
 
 Increase of 
 population 
 
 How 
 to be met.
 
 and I am glad to announce that an anonymous friend has 
 placed at my disposal the sum of £"1,000, which with a site 
 offered by the kindness of Mr. Watson Armstrong will, 
 I doubt not, be met hereafter by the Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners in the space of the two successive years with 
 an equivalent for the purpose of building a parsonage house. 
 And I hope we may soon start a similar mission in the 
 extreme west, at Scotswood, in the parish of Benwell, in 
 which a large population will very soon gather and in which 
 a site has been kindly offered by a landowner, and another 
 sum has been anonymously promised of £1,000 for endow- 
 ment, to be met hereafter by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners 
 for the purpose of a parsonage house. I hope, too, a year 
 hence, having been disappointed this year, to hear that the 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners have been able, out of the 
 great tithes in their possession, to endow another new parish 
 out of the struggling parish of Newburn, to be called St. John's 
 Whorlton, where church and parsonage have been already 
 built. But while these are in the immediate future, and 
 there must be a few other new parishes, I venture to express 
 my conviction that we have almost come to an end of the 
 great development in this direction which followed on the 
 establishment of this See. In colliery districts it is 
 extremely important to be assured of the permanence of the 
 settlement before a new parish is formed. And in town 
 parishes I venture to submit that there is some danger of 
 forgetting the great power of numbers, which have been 
 realised as yet far less in religious than in political and 
 social matters. A large parish, manned by a capable man, 
 with the aid of a considerable staff of clergy living together, 
 may become a great power for good. The necessary business 
 of a parish can all be concentrated in one place, and there 
 is the more time and room for spiritual and social work. 
 There may, too, be a variety in the same parish of methods
 
 19 
 
 and forms of worship. The stately Parish Church with its 
 reverent and dignified services may appeal to some, while 
 the humbler Mission Room with its greater elasticity may 
 appeal to others. Even in a street which seems absolutely 
 of one level you will find a great variety of mind needing 
 a great variety of spiritual treatment. And I know from 
 some experience there is a rare power when a body of clergy 
 work together. Each learns something from the other. 
 Corners are rounded off. One man has one gift that the 
 parish needs, another has another gift, and all can be 
 developed, and men become so attached to this common life 
 that they are contented to give long years to it, without 
 craving for the so-called independence of an incumbency 
 which, as many know, may not have half the attractions, 
 while it may have double the cares and discouragements, of 
 the associated work in the town parish. 
 
 It is partly because I desire hereafter, if opportunity o/roSon* 
 should offer, to ensure better some kind of continuity of uieciowu 
 treatment of this kind in Newcastle parishes, that I have 
 lately come to an agreement with the Crown whereby, of the 
 nine livings now in the alternate patronage of Crown and 
 Bishop, four, including two of the largest in Newcastle (S. 
 Philip's S. Michael's, Byker, and S. Matthew's, Newcastle, 
 with Amble,) will in future be in the patronage of the 
 Bishop, while four others (S. Cuthbert's, Newcastle, Seghill, 
 Howden Panns, and Willington-on-Tyne,) will be in the 
 patronage of the Crown, the provisions of the A<ft under 
 which the Churches were built remaining otherwise un- 
 touched. But a considerable increase of clergy will be 
 needed. Jesmond, and S. George's (Jesmond), Byker, 
 Walker, and, perhaps most of all, Benwell, are so rapidly 
 developing that serious efforts must be made to meet the 
 increasing needs. When the census of igoi is taken it may 
 be necessary to take further joint steps for the extension of 
 the Church on the Tyne.
 
 20 
 
 Meanwhile, let me say how thankful I am to the clergy, 
 and especially the laity of the diocese, for the increased 
 support of the Diocesan Society, with its women's auxiliary, 
 and of its most important offshoot, the Bishop's Additional 
 Clergy Fund, which has already added a dozen to the clergy 
 of the diocese. One of these aided by the fund especially 
 deserves mention, because he represents a new institution 
 — a chaplain to the Deaf and Dumb, who is able to minister 
 to them in the manual and sign language. The Diocesan 
 Society with its subfunds, the Bishops' Additional Clergy 
 Fund, and the Diocesan Inspection Fund, to which I shall refer 
 again hereafter, is now raising nearly £4,000 a-year, or nearly 
 double what was raised in 1896. But we have not over- 
 taken the needs, and now that the Bishop of Newcastle's 
 Fund, which has done so great a work on Tyneside, has 
 ceased to exist, there is the more need strenuously to main- 
 tain the permanent agencies of the diocese. I know I shall 
 not appeal in vain to laymen who have treated me with 
 such generous consideration when I bring before them well 
 considered plans for further spiritual growth. I cannot say 
 how great is our debt to the great central societies which 
 provide clergy, such as the Additional Curates' and the 
 Church Pastoral Aid Societies, which receive as yet from us 
 but a poor return for their generous grants, or to those which 
 help our Schools, or Churches, or Mission Buildings — such 
 as the National Society, the Incorporated Church Building 
 Society, and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 
 
 One care, however, I feel bound to mention. These 
 Societies, Central and Diocesan, which help us to provide 
 additional clergy, do not solve the question of the scanty 
 incomes on which so many clergy have to do, and do, their 
 work of love. I know too well with what noble self-denial 
 many are labouring for Christ. Our Diocesan Branch of the 
 Queen Victoria Clergy Sustentation Fund has enabled us to
 
 21 
 
 distribute some £400 for two successive years, but it is very 
 inadequately known and supported. The Clergy Pensions 
 Institution appears to me full of the richest promise for the 
 future ; for already, through the generous help of the public, 
 a very moderate subscription, which by itself would ensure 
 £15 15s. a year at the age of sixty-five, now ensures a pension 
 of £50. I strongly advise all young clergy to join this 
 admirable institution at once and so develop self-help. But 
 still the cry of distress is sad and serious. Even with the 
 generous help of the Diocesan Sons of the Clergy, and the 
 Barrington and Crewe Funds, there is many an anxiety for 
 a child's education and many a care silently borne. I would 
 only say to the laity of those of whom I speak, " If we have 
 sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we 
 shall reap your worldly things ? " 
 
 I must close this part of our Diocesan Review, by 
 expressing my thankfulness that two Diocesan efforts in 
 which my predecessor and Mrs. Wilberforce took a deep 
 interest, and with which the names of Canon and Mrs. 
 Pennefather will be inseparably connected, the Diocesan 
 House of Mercy at Gosforth, and the Diocesan Home for 
 Waifs and Stravs at Cullercoats, have during the period 
 under review been completed and formally opened, and are 
 doing a most useful work. It gives me special satisfaction 
 to know that the income of the House of Mercy last year 
 sufficed to give a small sum to the liquidation of the debt, 
 which by the kindness of an anonymous donor of £1,000, is 
 now reduced to £1,000. and that the income of the Home 
 for Waifs and Strays last year permitted a substantial sum 
 to be remitted to the Central Society in London. 
 
 I have so far confined myself to our Diocesan needs 
 and Diocesan growth. I must proceed to-morrow to deal 
 with certain symptoms of unrest which betray themselves in 
 the Church of which we form a part. 
 
 Diocesan 
 Homes.
 
 CHARGE, 
 
 DELIVERED IN HEXHAM ABBEY, ON THE 3IST DAY OF 
 MAY, 1899. 
 
 II. — Disquiet in the Church. 
 
 We are passing, at the present time, through a period of 
 disquiet in the Church, which seems to me to be disturbing 
 the minds of some who do not examine causes, and have no 
 power of forecast, beyond what is necessary or historically 
 just. This old Church of ours has passed through many a 
 crisis before, and is likely to pass through many another. I 
 have known several in my own lifetime. The very vigour 
 and intellectual and spiritual activity that characterise our 
 day inevitably lead to some collision of conviction, while the 
 fact that the Church has not yet the spiritual autonomy that 
 would enable her representative bodies to meet difficulties as 
 they arise necessitates patience in the slower working out of 
 problems that for the moment seem to some to be insoluble. 
 Speaking for myself, as a man who has declined to identify 
 himself exclusively with any special school of thought in the 
 Church, and seeing as I do the real good to be found in all, 
 and having a passionate enthusiasm for the Church as a 
 whole, rather than for any special part of it, I honestly say 
 that I am not too much alarmed by the symptoms of unrest 
 and uneasiness which have found not always wise expression 
 during the past year and a half. 
 
 It is not that there have not been serious grounds for 
 concern, but simply that many of us have foreseen them and 
 discounted them, and felt certain that the very evil would 
 lead to its own cure. Before I go into details, I should like 
 to ask whether anyone seriously believes that the Church of
 
 23 
 
 England is in a more dangerous condition now than when, 
 more than thirty years ago, I was admitted to the ministry ? 
 I say, with some confidence, that she is in a much better 
 condition, despite all the troubles that have come to the 
 surface, and even in respect of ritual and the doctrine that it 
 is intended to symbolise. And I base my conviction on two 
 grounds. First, despite all this agitation, there is a much 
 better understanding between men of different schools of 
 thought than obtained thirty years ago, a much greater 
 disposition to work together, a much greater realisation of 
 the fact that they simply emphasize different features in one 
 Church, to which they are deeply attached. And this better 
 understanding is having the most wholesome effect on the 
 younger clergy, who are far less divided by party lines than 
 when I was ordained. It is sometimes represented that an 
 extreme school is domineering and undermining the estab- 
 lished position deliberately taken by the Church in the settle- 
 ment which took final shape in 1662, and that moderate men 
 are holding aloof and giving the Bishops no assistance in 
 their efforts to keep the doctrinal teaching and the ritual of 
 the Church in their defined limits. This is not my experience 
 at all. The best friends of the Church of England now are 
 not those who take part in wordy warfare, but those who by 
 quiet and private counsel are striving to create a deeper 
 enthusiasm for the principles whom the Church of England 
 enshrines, and I gladly testify to the hearty co-operation of 
 the best men of this diocese with their Bishop in his efforts 
 so to use the present feeling in the Church of England that 
 the Church may go on her way the stronger and purer for 
 the work to which God has called her. I doubt if, thirty 
 years ago, there would have been the same mutual under- 
 standing. Prosecutions in courts of law were causing many 
 good men to hold aloof altogether, and a Bishop could not 
 do then what I believe he will more and more be able to do
 
 24 
 
 now in influencing his clergy as their Father in God. The 
 things which men have deplored of late, and which have 
 caused much uneasiness, have done precisely what I antici- 
 pated in bringing to the private assistance of the Bishops 
 men whose churchmanship and moderation have been 
 invaluable in restraining excesses and teaching what they, 
 more than others, are able to persuade the too impetuous to 
 do or refrain from doing. In this process time is essential. 
 I may be sanguine, but my belief is that a true constitutional 
 episcopacy, realised far more than ever since I have had a 
 mind to think, will be the outcome of what men call this 
 crisis. 
 
 And my second ground of confidence is the growing 
 position of the laity in the Church. The clergy are but the 
 officers and ministers of the Church. The Church consists 
 of clergy and laity. And the laity have not taken their 
 proper place. The so-called autocracy of the clergy, while 
 I am not defending it, has frequently arisen from the ignor- 
 ance or indifference of laymen and from their leaving every 
 thing for the clergy to do. Thank God, times are changing. 
 Far greater interest is now being taken by laymen in Church 
 matters, whether local, diocesan, or general, and they are far 
 better instructed in what the Church of England really 
 holds, teaches and expects. We simply want this process 
 to go on. As it goes on it will be largely the remedy for 
 any excesses of clerical zeal. No clergyman, when he has 
 intelligent laity at his back, showing his enthusiasm for the 
 Church to which they alike belong, will desire or hazard the 
 alienation of their sympathy by autocratic conduct or 
 practices alien to the Church. He will prefer travelling 
 slowly if he carries his laity with him to express speed if he 
 is to travel on the engine alone. I spoke yesterday of the 
 sponsorship of the entire Church, clergy and laity, and the 
 need of the laity realizing that more. I spoke of the work
 
 25 
 
 of service which each layman, just because he is a layman, is 
 able and is bound to render. You, my brethren of the laity, 
 by entering into all the work of your clergy, by coming to 
 know more of the history of the grand old Church which we 
 serve, by . understanding with more intelligent knowledge 
 the history and meaning of the Prayer-book and all Church 
 institutions, will prove the best guarantee possible against 
 reactionary movements in the Church. You will be the best 
 support to the clergy in all right work, and the best check, 
 and that without friction or antagonism but by the sure 
 working of intelligible laws, in courses which seem to lead 
 to danger. No man who studies the real undercurrents in 
 English thought, who can see below the surface of painful 
 agitations, who is able to perceive the gradual working 
 towards a real and constitutional, not despotic, Episcopacy 
 on the one hand, and the gradual movement towards hearty, 
 instructed lay co-operation, alike in deliberation and in 
 practical work, on the other, can have one shadow of doubt 
 as to the issue of present complications. "The Lord sitteth 
 above the waterfloods. The Lord remaineth a King for 
 ever." 
 
 With these general considerations I pass on to con- 
 sider some of the causes of the disquiet to which I have 
 referred. They are mainly three, which I give in the inverse 
 order of their importance. First, the introduction of 
 additional services without authority and the use of the 
 church for purposes other than those expressly provided for 
 in the Prayer-book, and at the discretion of the incumbent 
 alone. 
 
 Secondly, the introduction of ceremonies, or variation 
 of offices, contrary to, or at least not prescribed in, the book 
 of Common Prayer. 
 
 Thirdly, the teaching, orally or by symbol, of doctrine 
 inconsistent with the settlement of 1662.
 
 26 
 
 (i.) As to the first complaint the chief cure is to be 
 found in an appeal to authority and common sense. If a 
 church could never be used for purposes other than those 
 expressly provided for in the Prayer-book, religion would 
 suffer damage ; and there is continuous precedent since the 
 Reformation for its occasional use, under the authority of 
 the Ordinary, for other purposes. Here in Northumberland 
 we should have no places for Sunday Schools in many 
 parishes if we might not use the churches. One of the best 
 Missionary Meetings I ever attended was at a Philadelphia 
 church, one Sunday evening after Evening Prayer, during 
 the holding of the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church, when three Bishops in succession gave addresses 
 which I have never forgotten. The one thing that is needed 
 is a central and responsible authority to regulate. It is 
 obvious that the result is chaos if each man is able to 
 exercise his own discretion and to use his church for any 
 additional services or purposes that he personally approves. 
 But the laity of this diocese need be under no apprehension 
 whatever. In my " Articles of Enquiry," addressed to the 
 clergy, I asked these questions : 
 
 " Is the church, or an)' consecrated chapel of Ease 
 " in your parish, used for any other purposes than Divine 
 " Service in accordance with the Prayer Book ? If so, 
 " specify the purposes." 
 
 " If it is so used, what forms of service or manuals are 
 "used at such additional services? Send a copy of each 
 " form of service or manual that may be used." 
 
 These questions have been most frankly and explicitly 
 answered. I have examined every manual or form of prayer 
 used. They are mainly connected with the Sunday Schools, 
 Communicants' .Guilds, Meetings for Home or Foreign 
 Missions, Mothers' Union, or Girls' Friendly Society 
 Services, and the like. I have had very little cause to
 
 2 7 
 
 criticise or amend. In some cases I have been struck with 
 the care taken by the Clergy to identify the church with 
 the common life of their people. In no single case has 
 there been anything but the frankest acceptance of any 
 emendation which I had to suggest or the most entire loyalty 
 to my direction as Bishop. I desire to be as inclusive, and 
 not exclusive, as possible, but I am responsible for definite 
 Church of England limits, and I maintain that on this 
 ground there is no just complaint against the Clergy of the 
 Diocese. At the same time the uneasiness has done real 
 good by enforcing what ought all along to have been done, 
 and will now not cease to be done, the submission to the 
 Bishop of every form of prayer to be used at additional 
 services, and the acceptance of his direction as to the uses 
 to which a church may be legitimately put. In this way 
 we have already gained something from our troubles, and it 
 is gained with the good will and concurrence of the Church 
 at large. 
 
 (ii.) With reference to the second cause of uneasiness, 
 I ought in like manner to give an assurance to the Diocese. 
 I asked in my Articles of Enquiry the following question : 
 
 " If in any way the order of the Book of Common 
 " Prayer is not strictly followed, state what variations or 
 " omissions are made ?" 
 
 The replies have been frank and explicit. I have found 
 no cases in which there has been any violation of the spirit 
 of the Prayer-book, although here and there I may have 
 thought that a little sounder judgment might have prevailed. 
 To observe the Prayer-book strictly it would be necessary 
 every Sunday morning to have full Morning Prayer, Litany, 
 and Communion Service, and it will be generally admitted 
 that there should be, subject to the ordinary, some discre- 
 tion in these matters with a view to greater edification. 
 But the variations have not been serious, and there has
 
 28 
 
 been no disloyalty to Church of England standards. The 
 more entirely we adhere to the direction of the Prayer-book 
 the more united shall we be. It would be, for instance, 
 that I may take a crucial case, entirely unauthorised to vary 
 or shorten the services prescribed for the administration 
 of the Sacraments, except in discretionary omission, in 
 accordance with custom that dates far back, of the long 
 invitations to the Holy Communion or the longer exhortation 
 to Communicants, and yet even in such cases with the 
 proviso that the passages omitted, which do not affect the 
 structure and spirit of the service, are from time to time 
 read so that the people may hear them. Before great 
 festivals, especially Easter, it is well to read the whole in- 
 vitation to Communicants, and sometimes the alternative 
 invitation, which will probably apply to some members of 
 the congregation, and which it is well for all to hear. Under 
 any exceptional circumstances, reference should be always 
 made to the Bishop. 
 
 With reference to matters of ritual, I shall be very 
 brief indeed. I ask the Clergy of the Diocese, though really 
 I have little need to ask them, to consider the decisions of 
 the late Archbishop of Canterbury and his assessors in the 
 case, " Read and others v. the Bishop of Lincoln," as 
 binding in this Diocese, though delivered in the Province of 
 Canterbury. I am sure that no one desires that these 
 matters should be brought before a Court again. They 
 were most carefully examined by a competent Ecclesiastical 
 Court, and they came under the scrutiny of a Court of 
 Appeal. In one case, indeed, the matter of lights on the 
 Holy Table, the Privy Council refrained, on a technical 
 ground, from expressing any opinion on the judgment, but 
 they might have done so, and the fact that they did not is 
 significant. I hold, therefore, that on this matter too the 
 judgment of the Archbishop's Court is in possession until it
 
 2 9 
 
 be altered by any higher authority. I shall append the 
 decisions to my charge, but briefly they are mainly these — that 
 the mixing of the wine with water in and as part of the 
 Communion Service is against the law of the Church, but 
 that there is no ground for pronouncing the use of a cup 
 mixed beforehand to be an ecclesiastical offence ; that the 
 eastward position in the Communion Service is a legitimate 
 interpretation of the rubric, but that the manual acts in the 
 Prayer of Consecration must be performed in such wise as 
 to be visible to the Communicants properly placed ; that 
 the singing of an anthem, such as " O Lamb of God,'" 
 immediately after the Prayer of Consecration is not an 
 illegal addition to the Service ; that the law is not broken 
 by the mere fact of two lighted candles, when not wanted 
 for the purpose of giving light, standing on the Holy Table 
 continuously through the service : and that making the Sign 
 of the Cross in the Absolution or in the Benediction is an 
 innovation, and may not be allowed. The question having 
 been raised, I am bound to say further that the rubric at 
 the end of the Communion Service is absolutely binding, 
 which prescribes that "there shall be no celebration of the 
 " Lord's Supper unless there be a convenient number to 
 "communicate with the Priest according to his discretion, 
 " the term ' convenient ' being limited by the rubric that 
 " follows, which explains it as not less than ' four or three at 
 " the least.' ' We are but little affected in this Diocese by 
 the questions which have been or are to be raised before the 
 two Archbishops as to Incense, Reservation of the Holy 
 Communion, and other points, but I am quite certain that 
 any decision come to will be by every clergyman frankly 
 accepted without the necessity of my saying one word. 
 Indeed, we are so little affected by the agitation on these 
 matters of ritual elsewhere that I should hardly feel it 
 necessary to deal with them if it were not true that we
 
 30 
 cannot evade our responsibilities as an integral part of the 
 Church of England. I believe that in no part of England 
 is there so little disquiet as in the three northern dioceses. 
 We have our different schools of thought and our different 
 practises, but I have found both sides alike reasonable, and 
 of all the blessings for which we have to thank Almighty 
 God in this Diocese I thank Him for none more than for 
 this comparative freedom from bitter antagonisms and party 
 spirit. 
 
 (iii.) The main questions, however, on which con- 
 troversy has raged during the last year have been less those 
 of ritual than such as are concerned directly with doctrine, 
 and I wish to speak to you frankly, upon three questions, 
 words which may, I hope, lead to a better understanding. 
 First, as to confession to a priest. This is, I am convinced, 
 the main point on which there has been uneasiness in 
 England during the pastyear. An idea has gained ground that 
 men are trying to introduce it, not as an exceptional remedy, 
 but as the habitual custom and discipline of the Church. 
 There have been proofs that it has been very strongly 
 pressed on candidates for confirmation, so strongly indeed 
 as to be something more than pressure. And it has been 
 freely urged that there has been a current teaching to the 
 effect that some sins can only be forgiven by absolution, 
 privately given after a special confession of sin, and that in 
 every case it is really requisite in the eyes of a well instructed 
 Churchman. And there is fear lest English character should 
 lose something of its robustness as this teaching grows and 
 is encouraged. 
 
 And yet I cannot think that this alleged danger has been 
 wisely met. Men have denied that confession is recognized 
 by the Church of England at all, and have so bitterly 
 opposed it as to make many men perplexed as to the 
 meaning of the words used in the ordination of Priests and 
 in the Visitation of the Sick.
 
 3i 
 I cannot hope to succeed where others have failed, and 
 yet I own to you, my brothers of clergy and laity alike, that 
 the position taken by the Church of England, as distinct from 
 that of the Church of Rome and from that of most non-epis- 
 copal bodies, appears to me the only position which an intelli- 
 gent study of the New Testament would lead an unprejudiced 
 man to take up. I seem to find in it so entirely the terra 
 firma on which I wish to stand that I hope I may help a few 
 to clearer views. The real key to the position is this — 
 What did our Lord mean when He said to His disciples on 
 the evening of the first Easter Day — "Whosoever sins ye 
 remit they are remitted unto them." It is His first message 
 to the little Church assembled together. From the narrative 
 of St. Luke it is clear that others besides Apostles were 
 present when these words were said, and therefore, as the 
 Bishop of Durham has pointed out, " The Commission must 
 be regarded properly as the Commission of the Christian 
 Society and not as that of the Christian Ministry." But 
 observe, it is a commission of absolution entrusted to this 
 Society, and the promise, I again quote the Bishop, " carries 
 with it of necessity the character of perpetuity. The Society 
 never dies." I say nothing yet as to the method of administer- 
 ing the absolution, but if our Lord's first words to the Society 
 are to entrust them with remitting sins in His name and by His 
 power, is it not a mistaken way of meeting current dangers 
 to deny that there is any power on earth to remit sin at all ? 
 Will it not be better and safer to enlarge our whole concep- 
 tion of absolution, and, instead of denying that a Priest has 
 any right or power to absolve, to realize that the duty of 
 absolving, that is of remitting sins, is " inherent in the whole 
 body as one of the main incidents of its collective priestliness." 
 If so, we must next examine the manner in which this duty 
 of remitting sins is administered by the body to whom it 
 was entrusted, and here we are at once struck with the fact
 
 32 
 
 that under certain circumstances any baptized layman can 
 exercise the priestly function of the Society and administer 
 a very real absolution. For there is no real doubt of the 
 validity, however irregular it may be, of lay baptism if 
 administered with water in the name of the Trinity, and 
 that baptism is a means of remission of sins can be doubted 
 by no man who remembers St. Peter's words : " Repent and 
 be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for 
 the remission of sins," and the words of Ananias to St. Paul: 
 " And now why tarriest thou ? arise and be baptized and 
 wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord." 
 
 As we examine further we find that the whole ministry 
 of the Church is a ministry of reconciliation, and that is of 
 necessity a ministry of absolution, by which God's pardon 
 comes to the penitent soul. Baptism is but the initial stage. 
 By it we are transferred from a condition represented in 
 type by the slavery in Egypt to a condition represented in 
 type by the freedom of the Israelites when they had crossed 
 the Red Sea, and the Egyptians were drowned. And this 
 initial absolution carries with it the right and promise of all 
 needed further absolution, the one condition of which is 
 penitence. " Even in baptism " (that I may quote from 
 Bishop Moberly's Bampton Lectures), "the general order of 
 " the Church confines the usual and orderly administration of 
 " the Sacrament to the Clergy, while to the Bishops alone is 
 "given the power of completing, by laying on of hands, the 
 "irregular and imperfect gift when given by lay or other 
 " unauthorized agency. But all the other methods of Divine 
 "forgiveness, subsequent to that of Baptism, in so far 
 "as they are conveyed through human agency to those who 
 "are by baptism made capable of receiving them, are with- 
 " out exception, delivered to the Clergy, Bishops, and Priests, 
 " under the original charter of the words of the Lord," acting, 
 let me add, as the Divinely appointed organ of the Divine
 
 33 
 Society, to which as a whole the right and duty of remitting 
 sins was forgiven. How then are the Clergy to exercise 
 this ministry ? surely they exercise it first in the ordinary 
 services of the Church. The absolution in morning and 
 evening prayer is everywhit as effectual to the penitent 
 and appropriating soul as the direct absolution in the 
 visitation of the sick. Then in the Holy Communion, just 
 as the repelling a notorious offender is a retaining of sin 
 with a view to after repentance and pardon, so not only 
 in the words of absolution after the confession, but in the 
 actual administration is the pardon of a penitent soul sealed, 
 for it is the application to the soul which can by faith receive 
 it of the Blood shed for many for the remission of sins. 
 More than this, every faithful ministry is in every detail 
 of its working a ministry of absolution, bringing home to 
 the soul in various ways the reality of sin and the equal 
 reality of God's pardon in and for the sake of Jesus Christ, 
 and encouraging that soul to remember that there is a true 
 personal priesthood whereby every Christian has a free access 
 to God in Jesus Christ. What then is the nature of 
 the confession and absolution allowed in the Communion 
 Service and the visitation of the sick? It is remedial and 
 exceptional. The burdened man who cannot quiet his 
 own conscience (and no other one should think of applying 
 for such a remedy), and who requires further comfort or 
 counsel is exhorted in the Communion Service to come to the 
 Priest who reads the exhortation " or to some other discreet 
 " and learned Minister of God's word and open his grief; that 
 ■"by the ministry of God's holy word he may receive the 
 " benefit of absolution together with ghostly counsel and 
 " advice." You will notice the emphasising of the Pastoral 
 Office in the administration of absolution. The sick man 
 " if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter" 
 (and to none other does the advice apply), is to be moved to
 
 34 
 make a special confession of his sin, and " if he humbly and 
 " heartily desire it," the Priest is to exercise his ministry of 
 absolution is the most direct and authoritative form. What 
 can be plainer than that the Church of England considers 
 the whole ministry to be a ministry of absolution, that on an 
 emergency the initial step may be however irregularly, 
 taken by any baptised layman, that the Clergy are bound to 
 apply it by Sacrament, preaching, pastoral dealings in 
 ordinary and special services, and that provision must be 
 made for the more special absolution to the burdened soul 
 which it would be cruel in such a case to withhold. It is not 
 by denying the power of remitting sins that we are to cure 
 an admitted evil, but by enlarging our whole idea of what 
 absolution means, and placing the private absolution in its 
 proper place as an exceptional remedy to be used by those 
 who are empowered and have the experience to do so. 
 
 But if this be true, then I would make these three 
 remarks : First, it would be absolutely wrong to bring the 
 smallest pressure on any man or woman to make any special 
 confession of sin unless there be an admitted burden on the 
 conscience. Anything like pressure brought to bear on 
 candidates for Confirmation — I believe there is none in this 
 diocese — would be reprehensible in the highest degree. 
 
 Secondly, the very object of the special confession and 
 absolution is to quiet the conscience and thus make the 
 ordinary methods afterwards to suffice, so that, while I admit 
 that there must be variety because of varying circumstances, 
 still, as Bishop Moberly wisely says, "The practice of con- 
 " tinual confession to a priest, and the craving for continual 
 "absolution at his hands, much more the habit of seeking 
 "constant 'direction' as it is called, of conscience from him, 
 " has a distinctly enfeebling effecl: upon the personal strength 
 " with which a Christian ought to learn to walk before God, 
 " and to order his steps according to His law."
 
 35 
 
 Thirdly, the exercise of the special and more difficult 
 ministry of absolution should not ordinarily be entrusted to 
 young and inexperienced Priests. It is no necessary part 
 of the exercise of the ministry of remitting sins, and 
 I strongly advise incumbents to keep this more difficult 
 work in their own hands, until they are sure that a young 
 man after his ordination to the Priesthood will not make 
 serious mistakes. 
 
 I have thus attempted to deal with a thorny question of 
 controversy by showing you the place of private confession 
 in the whole ministry of absolution, and I shall be thankful 
 indeed, if I have helped any one to thank God the more for 
 the wise, scriptural and primitive line which our Church has 
 taken, in spite of the efforts made on the one hand to bind 
 the Church with a chain of inflexible discipline in private 
 confession and absolution, and on the other to abandon 
 wholly what burdened souls have found to be a real comfort 
 and blessing. 
 
 I shall deal more briefly with the other two subjects 
 which have been agitating somewhat the public mind. 
 
 (b) Would it not be better before discussing the 
 question of sacrifice in connection with the Holy Communion, 
 to define terms ? 
 
 Among the Jews there were offerings of two kinds, the 
 sin and the trespass offerings, which were of a propitiatorv 
 character, and offerings of a sweet savour which had no 
 idea of propitiation at all, of which were the burnt offering, 
 the meat or meal offering, and the peace offering. Each 
 offering was a type of Christ, but in a different way. Each 
 finds something to correspond with it in the Sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper. In respect of propitiation for sin, let our 
 language be plain and clear. One sacrifice and one only 
 could atone for sin, and that was offered on Calvarv. Of
 
 36 
 
 this, the Holy Communion is the memorial. I cannot put 
 
 it better than in the words of Dr. Bright's well-known hymn : 
 
 " And now, O Father, mindful of the love, 
 
 That bought us once for all on Calvary's tree, 
 
 And having with us Him that pleads above, 
 We here present, we here spread forth to Thee, 
 
 That only offering perfect in Thine eyes, 
 
 The one true pure immortal sacrifice." 
 
 Undoubtedly unguarded words have been used which 
 I deplore, seeming to imply that the sacrifice of Calvary 
 needed the Eucharist to complete it. Hear Bishop Moberly 
 again : 
 
 " Shall I ask whether the feast which they then cele- 
 " brate is or is not a sacrifice ? Brethren bear with me while 
 " I venture to say that I am not very careful, so far as I can 
 "judge, to answer the question. Indeed it appears to me to 
 " be little more than a question of words, which bears upon 
 " no important issue. The feast is what it is — and whether 
 "that is or is not what constitutes a sacrifice must depend 
 "altogether upon the precise meaning attached to the word 
 " sacrifice, and the definition given to it. There are surely 
 " good and innocent senses in which it may well and rightly 
 " be so called ; there surely is a sense, the highest, that 
 " in which the actual offering of the Lord's Body and Blood 
 "upon the altar of the Cross was once offered, the only 
 " full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfac- 
 tion for the sins of the whole world in which we may 
 " not dare so to call it." Let us then be quite clear that in 
 respect to the propitiation the Holy Communion is the 
 memorial of the one sacrifice and cannot in any sense be 
 said to be propitiation itself. When I hear it said that 
 "Do this" must mean "offer this" in memory of Me, 
 I cannot help regretting that good scholarship should be 
 clouded over by Theological proclivities. It is not improbable 
 that the word may have some allusion to its use in connection
 
 37 
 
 with offerings, but the great Greek scholars would never 
 dare to translate it in any other way than " Do." 
 
 But as Bishop Moberly says there are other good and 
 innocent senses in which the Holy Communion is un- 
 doubtedly sacrificial. The burnt offering in which the 
 victim was wholly consumed had no relation to sin at all 
 but symbolized the entire consecration of the offerer to God. 
 And so in this Holy Sacrament we "offer and present our- 
 " selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and 
 " lively sacrifice." The peace offering had nothing to do 
 with sin, but being an offering in which Priest and offerer 
 shared with God (the part consumed being always con- 
 sidered God's share), betokened communion between God, 
 the Priest, and the offerer, and finds its counterpart to the 
 Christian precisely in His Holy Sacrament, in which "we 
 "are one with Christ and Christ with us." And so any 
 special acts of sacrifice on our part are fitly made in connection 
 with this Holy Communion. We offer of our substance as 
 well as our souls and bodies, and some of the chief acts of 
 personal dedication to God have been sealed in this Holy 
 Service. Would it not be well, therefore, carefully to define 
 terms before we say whether the Sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper is or is not sacrificial, and would it not be well 
 always to try to find points of agreement, and to avoid 
 language which is provocative and liable to be misunderstood ? 
 This only would I say that I do not see how anyone 
 can be said to take part in this memorial of our Lord's 
 sacrifice who does not actually communicate. It is " as 
 " often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the 
 " Lord's death till He come." There is a real danger lest 
 persons should believe that they can sever the act of 
 sacrifice (if we use this term in one of its innocent senses) 
 or the act of worship from the act of communion. I am 
 wholly unable to sever the two. And therefore I could
 
 38 
 never encourage what is called " non-communicating 
 " attendance," except in certain circumstances which are not 
 normal but exceptional and need not be considered here. 
 In early days there was very frequent communion, but it was 
 real communion. The danger now is lest we relapse into 
 frequent attendance but infrequent reception, and it 
 appears to me that all the blessing of the Sacrament is 
 bound up with the receiving. I need hardly say, therefore, 
 that I think that "Children's Eucharists" which have been 
 introduced in some churches in England, though I know 
 of none amongst us, are full of grave danger. There is 
 surely a sacred reserve in teaching these holy mysteries, and 
 I am unable to believe that young children can as a rule realise 
 a spiritual presence other than in a very material form. 
 
 On the doctrine of the Presence itself, indeed, I trust 
 the Church of England will always be as inclusive and 
 comprehensive as is possible within denned limits. On the 
 one hand she alleges that transubstantiation destroys the 
 nature of a sacrament ; on the other she maintains that 
 it is no mere " sign of the love that Christians ought to have 
 " among themselves, but rather . . . a partaking of the Body 
 "and Blood of Christ." But between these two limits she 
 lays down no law as to the method of the Presence. The 
 belief that it is confined to the heart of the believer, and the 
 belief that it is irrespective of the heart of the recipient, have 
 been loyally and reverently held continuously in the Church 
 of England by devout men and great theologians, and I am 
 wholly unwilling to narrow the Church down to one state- 
 ment to the exclusion of the other. But those who hold 
 what is called the objective view are bound to hold that the 
 Presence is wholly spiritual, and can only be received by the 
 spiritual mouth of the soul, faith, so that in no sense what- 
 ever can the wicked be said to receive the Body and Blood 
 of Christ. These are offered and given to them sacrament-
 
 39 
 ally, but having no spiritual mouth they cannot receive them ; 
 they receive simply the Sacrament and nothing more. Those 
 who hold the subjective view are bound equally to hold that 
 it is through the means of Sacrament that their faith 
 receives the spiritual food of the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 There is surely a holy reserve in dealing with these great 
 mysteries, and the devout soul will grow as he faithfully 
 communicates. Nothing can be more painful than the way 
 in which controversialists have dealt with these mysteries in 
 the press, as though it were possible simply to teach as a 
 matter of philosophy what requires the devout meditation 
 of a soul that adores his Lord. But I urge my brethren of 
 the clergy to remember this reserve in their reverent 
 teaching of the doctrine of the Holy Communion, and to 
 believe that however people may differ as to their statement 
 of the doctrine, there is far more real agreement between 
 Christian men, when they draw near with faith to this Holv 
 Sacrament, than the world supposes. I urge them to avoid 
 the use of words and phrases which are not in the Prayer 
 Book, and not authorized, such as the word "mass," which, 
 besides being unmeaning in itself, is associated in the public 
 mind with ideas which the Church has deliberately put aside. 
 I urge them to be careful in defining terms, to realize the 
 great comprehensiveness of the Church of England, to seek 
 to promote more frequent and more earnest reception of this 
 blessed Sacrament, and to avoid as far as possible contro- 
 versial teaching in what they give to their flocks. 
 
 On the third subject — prayers fcr the dead — my words Prayers foi 
 
 . . the dead. 
 
 must be few. Mediaeval superstition and Protestant preju- ■ 
 dice have so obscured the Scriptural and primitive view of 
 the state of the faithful departed that only gradually has 
 truer teaching been received. Let us say plainly that of the 
 state of the departed we know very little indeed, and that a 
 natural curiosity makes us all wish to know more. This
 
 4 o 
 
 curiosity some have not scrupled to satisfy by adding 
 traditions which cannot in any way be proved by the Word 
 of God. Neither the New Testament nor the Church of 
 England have ever forbidden prayers for the dead, as has 
 been pointed out by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the 
 Archbishop went on to say, " Nevertheless, it (the Church) 
 " does not authorise the introduction of such prayers into our 
 "public worship except in the most cautious and guarded 
 "manner." The silence of Scripture is a matter for study. 
 On the one hand, it is certain that the Jews prayed for the 
 dead, and that the early Church would receive this heritage 
 unless forbidden in the word of God, and there is nothing to 
 forbid, while there are two obscure passages which may 
 possibly slightly illustrate the position. On the other hand, 
 it is significant that as the New Testament is so explicit as to 
 the duty, nature, and condition of prayer, and in mention of 
 various persons for whom prayer should be offered there 
 should be nothing but an obscure reference to a possibly 
 dead man, Onesiphorus, and to certain souls below the 
 altar in the Revelation, to teach the duty of praying for 
 those who are gone. 
 
 The Early Church prayed not for a change of state 
 after death to the impenitent, but for peace, light, and 
 refreshment for the faithful dead, and I would that men had 
 rested contented with this ! To do this was to satisfy the 
 natural instincts of the Christian, and to realise communion 
 with those beyond the veil. But on this basis men in later 
 years built such a superstructure of purgatory with its 
 system of indulgences and claim on the part of the Church 
 here to control in some measure the next world, that, in the 
 Reformation settlement, it was not thought safe in public 
 worship even to revert to the restrained language of more 
 primitive times. There we must loyally leave it. We have 
 no right to teach anything as an Article of Faith that
 
 4i 
 cannot be proved by Hoi)' Scripture. In our private and 
 family worship we may linger lovingly in prayer (but with 
 guarded reserve and acknowledging our ignorance, which 
 for some wise purpose God must have allowed) in com- 
 munion with the faithful ones whom we have known and 
 loved and lost for the time. In our public worship we 
 must be still more restrained. "The souls of the righteous 
 "are in the hand of God and there shall no torment touch 
 " them." We may thank God for their example and pray 
 that we " with all those that are departed in the true faith 
 "of God's holy name may have our perfedt consummation 
 " and bliss both in body and soul in God's eternal and 
 " everlasting glory." 
 
 I have offered you, my brethren of the clergy and laity, 
 with perfect frankness, and in the hope of a better mutual 
 understanding in the Church, what are my own convictions 
 on these controversial matters. But let me close by stating 
 that I believe that the matters in which Churchmen are 
 agreed are infinitely greater and more important than those 
 in which they differ. I am quite persuaded that this con- 
 troversy, despite its painful incidents, will tend to the better 
 understanding of the wonderful position which God in His 
 Providence has called our Church to occupy. Already I see 
 signs of calmer counsels, of disputes turned to deeper study of 
 the word of God and to prayer, and of a great over-ruling of 
 present troubles. What is essential is time for all that is 
 spiritual to develop. Law courts and repression by law are 
 the last things to which a Church should have recourse. 
 We are Christian men who desire to know the will of God 
 and to do it. I am persuaded that the Church will rise the 
 stronger and purer to do her real work of winning the people 
 to the faith and obedience of Christ. 
 
 Conclusion
 
 CHARGE, 
 
 DELIVERED IN S. JAMES CHURCH, MORPETH, ON 
 THE FIRST DAY OF JUNE, 1899. 
 
 III. — The Church in connection with the State. 
 
 The Church in England is so intertwined with the body 
 politic that the functions of the State affect us and come 
 into contact with us at every turn of life. To any student of 
 English history this is natural and plain, and while some 
 good men conscientiously desire an entire severance between 
 the Church and the State, most of us feel that our position 
 is Providential and unique, that it hallows the English 
 nation, and that, provided there be a due recognition of the 
 legitimate claims of the State on the one hand and the 
 Church on the other, the severance which some propose 
 would weaken the religious life of the people and leave ills 
 and wrongs for which the expected gains would be no 
 adequate compensation. It is not as though at some period 
 of history the State had invented and established by law a 
 religious society which is called the Church of England. It 
 is rather that in primitive days Christian missionaries from 
 Iona and from Rome, after the almost complete suppression 
 of early British Christianity by Saxon heathen invaders,, 
 re-evangelised this land and planted the standard of the 
 Cross so firmly that the unity of the Church led to the unity 
 of the Nation, the Councils of the Church became the model 
 on which the English Parliament was based, the Church 
 indeed lending the very hall in which Parliament first met, 
 and thenceforth the Church became one of the great factors 
 of English life. I need not follow in detail the wonderful
 
 43 
 vicissitudes of the Church's history. The great fact to 
 remember is that from first to last it has been one and the 
 same Church with unbroken continuity. Even between the 
 Norman Conquest and the sixteenth century, when the 
 Roman yoke was heaviest, there were abundant assertions of 
 independent national Church life, and the political events of the 
 sixteenth century were rather the occasion than the cause of 
 the great change which then ensued. Since the Reformation 
 settlement, which took final shape in 1662, there has been 
 abundant proof of the continuity which the Church has 
 never ceased to assert. There has been no break whatever 
 in order of ministry, due administration of Sacrament, 
 transmission of the faith once delivered to the saints though 
 purged from mediaeval accretion, and historical Church 
 assemblies. Law has all along regulated and established, 
 in the sense of making firm, but has never claimed to have 
 originated anything spiritual, or to do more than find 
 orderly expression for the Church's spiritual life. The laws 
 of the Church have gradually been incorporated with and 
 become a part of the laws of the land, and hence in all our 
 development, so absolutely necessary amid the changes of 
 centuries, we find ourselves working within the sphere of law. 
 
 I propose to-day to offer some observations on the 
 life of the Church as it is especially brought into contact 
 with the State, and that in respect of the clergy, the 
 churches, the people, and the government of the Church. 
 
 I. The method whereby the cure of souls is intrusted 
 to a clergyman, by presentation to a Bishop and admission 
 by a Bishop, his status as an incumbent, his responsibility 
 for the care of the house in which he lives, the discipline 
 under which he works, the courts before which he is liable 
 to have to give account, are all regulated by law and have 
 been affected by more or less recent legislation. 
 
 C2 
 
 Clergy.
 
 44 
 (a) The Benefices Ac!:, which came into force on ist 
 January last, has largely affedted the question of Patronage. 
 I welcome it as an instalment of much needed reform. 
 Hereafter no advowson can be sold by public auction except 
 it be part of an estate which is sold with it. Every benefice 
 of private patronage has to be registered publicly in the 
 Diocesan Registry ; the sale of next presentations is absolutely 
 forbidden ; the powers of a Bishop to refuse to institute or 
 admit a clergyman to a benefice are (for the benefit of the 
 parishes) considerably enlarged : " donatives," which were 
 before largely independent of Episcopal jurisdiction, and 
 some of which gave ground for no little scandal in respect 
 to the sale of advowsons, have been changed into presenta- 
 tive benefices ; and, as a safeguard against any abuse of the 
 enlarged powers given to a Bishop in respect of admission 
 to benefices, an appeal is allowed to the Archbishop of the 
 Province and a Judge of the Supreme Court. I cannot doubt 
 the wisdom of these reforms. They were desired by the 
 clergy in general and not merely by the laity. It is hard to 
 defend the sale of advowsons at all, and it is only the good 
 sense and conscientious action of patrons in general that 
 have made our English custom work as satisfactorily as it 
 has, but the new Act has swept away all the main abuses 
 and has probably gone as far as it was safe and wise to go, 
 and the traffic in benefices has received a severe blow, which 
 speaks well for the quickened conscience of Church and 
 people. 
 
 It is well, however, to point out that, strictly speaking, 
 patrons present incumbents to the Bishop and not to bene- 
 fices. The Bishop alone, as the chief shepherd of a diocese, 
 has the power to confer cure of souls, and he does it on the 
 nomination or presentation of the authorised patron of the 
 living, after due enquiry as to the fitness of the nominee for 
 the charge, the grounds on which he is justified in not
 
 45 
 accepting the nomination being now clearly stated in the 
 new Act. I think it important that this should be brought 
 out in admitting a clergyman to a benefice, as it surely gives 
 him a higher sense of vocation than if he were merely 
 nominated by a patron who might have little other connec- 
 tion with the parish. 
 
 (b) The status of the incumbent so appointed varies 
 in different parishes, and as I have found some confusion on 
 this point, and there has been in the past some irregularity 
 in the official records of this diocese and that of the mother 
 diocese of Durham, I think it well to give a memorandum, 
 drawn up at my request by the learned chancellor of the 
 diocese, on the title Rector, Vicar, and Perpetual Curate. 
 
 MEMORANDUM. 
 
 " The idea, which is somewhat prevalent, that if the 
 Incumbent of a new parish is endowed with some tithe he is 
 entitled to call himself ' Rector ' is an erroneous one. 
 Some new parishes (there are five on North Tyne) have been 
 constituted by special local acts which have provided 
 that the Incumbents are to be ' Rectors.' There is also 
 a provision in 58 George III., Cap. 45, Sees. 16 and 19, 
 under which parishes ma}- be divided into two parts, 
 and the Rector, Vicar, or Perpetual Curate be con- 
 verted into two Rectors, Vicars, or Perpetual Curates. 
 Under 3 George IV., Cap. 72, Sees. 13 and 14, certain 
 Vicarages may be converted into Rectories by the surrender 
 of lay impropriations or sinecure Rectories for that purpose. 
 There is furthermore a provision in the statute 19 and 20 
 Vic, Cap. 104, sec. 26, (Lord Blandford's Act) that on the 
 constitution of a new parish or district, a re-settlement of the 
 Glebe lands tithe rent, charges, and other endowments, may 
 be made by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and upon any 
 such settlement wherever the whole of the Ecclesiastical 
 dues arising within the parish or district consisting of any 
 
 (b) LeyaJ 
 status of 
 Incum- 
 bents. 
 Meinor-" 
 andum by 
 the Chan- 
 cellor.
 
 Some 
 Irregulari- 
 ties in 
 designa- 
 tion of In- 
 cumbents. 
 
 4 6 
 
 rectorial or praedial tithes shall become payable to the 
 Incumbent, such parish shall become a Rectory and the 
 Incumbent a ' Rector.' For a short period, viz : from 
 June 19th, 1865 to July 31st, 1868, a statute, 28 Vic, 
 Cap. 42, Sec. 1, (District Church Tithes Act) was in force, 
 which enabled the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in cases 
 where any tithes arising within a parish were transferred to 
 the Incumbent, to declare that his Benefice should be either 
 a Rectory or Vicarage as they thought fit. This statute was, 
 however, repealed on July 31st, 1868, and the power it 
 gave no longer exists. In the foregoing cases the Incum- 
 bents are, by law, constituted ' Rectors ' and ' Vicars ' 
 and not mere 'Titular Rectors' or 'Titular Vicars.' The 
 Incumbents of most new parishes are perpetual curates, and 
 the possession of some Rectorial or Vicarial endowments 
 does not alter their legal status and make them legally 
 ' Rectors ' or ' Vicars,' but if they have districts legally 
 assigned, with consecrated Churches, in which districts and 
 Churches they can legally perform all the offices of the 
 Church and are entitled to all the fees arising from the 
 performance without reservation to the Incumbents of the 
 mother parishes, they are entitled by Bishop S. Wilber- 
 force's Act, 31 and 32 Vic, Cap. 117, Sec. 2, 'for the 
 purpose of style and designation, but not for any other 
 purpose ' to be called ' Vicars,' and this is therefore their 
 correct designation. There is no corresponding right to the 
 term ' Rector.' " 
 
 It is really of very little consequence whether a Clergy- 
 man be called Rector, Vicar, or Incumbent. It does not 
 in any way affect his cure of souls, and I am always careful, 
 in admitting to benefices, which I am thankful to be able to 
 do almost invariably in the presence of parishioners, and 
 in the Church where the new incumbent serves, to point out 
 that the admission has precisely the same spiritual effect
 
 47 
 and meaning whatever the title may be. There is no sort 
 of inferiority in the position of Perpetual Curate, who 
 perhaps from the marriage or burial fees, in whole or in part, 
 still being reserved for a time to the incumbent of the mother 
 Church, is not legally entitled to the courtesy title of " Vicar," 
 — which, by Bishop S. Wilberforce's Act (31 & 32 Vict. c. 1 17), 
 may be assumed at once by Perpetual Curates of " new 
 parishes " under Lord Blandford's Act (19 & 20 Vict. c. 104) — 
 to the position of the most ancient Rector in the land. They 
 are spiritually in full cure of souls under the ordinary. And 
 yet there should be an accurate statement of the legal 
 title. I have found that, in perfect faith, simply 
 following the custom of their immediate predecessors, no 
 fewer than nine incumbents of the Diocese have taken the 
 title of " Rector," and two of them have been instituted as 
 Rectors, although, in one case, the benefice was declared 
 a Vicarage in 1866 under the " District Church Titles Act " 
 (28 Vic. c. 42, sec. 9), and in every other case the benefice 
 was a Perpetual Curacy and titular Vicarage. You will 
 observe from the Chancellor's memorandum there is no 
 such thing as a titular " Rectory," though, by Bishop 
 Wilberforce's Act, there may be a titular Vicarage, and 
 such, indeed, is the status of about half the benefices of this 
 Diocese. The Chancellor has referred to the " District 
 Church Tithes Act," which was only in force for three 3 r ears. 
 Strangely enough, there was no record in the Registry of 
 Durham of the parishes which, under the operation of this 
 Act, had become Rectories or Vicarages — not (observe) 
 titular Vicarages, but as full Vicarages as any ancient 
 parish. I have ascertained, however, from the Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners, that, in the years 1866, 1867, and 1868, 
 St. John Lee, Throckington, Wallsend, Allendale, and 
 Hexham were declared Rectories, and Tweedmouth, Car- 
 ham, Cornhill, Bamburgh, Horton, Shotley, Widdrington,
 
 48 
 Duddo, Cambo, and Matfen were declared Vicarages. 
 Such was the confusion in respect to Cornhill, that the 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners write to me : " Cornhill appears 
 " to have been erroneously styled a Rectory in more than 
 " one document to which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners 
 *' were a party. These mistakes were entirely due to 
 " inadvertence, and in no wise alter the fact that the cure 
 " is, as it was declared to be in 1866, a Vicarage." In every 
 one of the nine cases in which the title " Rector" has been 
 by error assumed, the present incumbent is entirely 
 blameless. In two cases, Cornhill and Whittonstall, the 
 mistake was made in institution. In the others (Amble, 
 Chevington, Acklington, Newton Hall, Byrness, Gosforth, 
 and Willington-on-Tyne) it does not occur in the act of 
 admission, but the title was assumed by predecessors of the 
 present incumbents in the mistaken idea that endowment 
 by great tithe conferred it. But I have submitted the whole 
 case to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Chancellor, 
 with the result that I have stated. In two of these cases 
 (Amble and Willington) the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 
 after considering the point, have expressly described each 
 as a Vicarage in a recent order in Council effecting an 
 exchange of patronage. It is a very small matter indeed — 
 merely one of a name in which there has been no shadow of 
 any attempt to claim what was not legal, but it is well that 
 in future we should know the accurate legal designation 
 of every benefice in the Diocese. 
 
 One point indeed I desire to make plain. When on 
 the repeal of the District Church Tithes Act in 1868, Bishop 
 S. Wilberforce introduced and carried his short act, by which 
 incumbents of " New parishes," as they are technically called 
 under the operation of Lord Blandford's act (19 and 20 Vict., 
 C. 104, Sec. 26), were entitled to be called Vicars by courtesy, 
 he never intended to place a heavy financial burden on every
 
 49 
 incumbent thenceforth to be admitted to such a benefice. 
 The fees on licensing and admitting a Perpetual Curate are 
 much smaller than those on instituting a Rector or Vicar of 
 an ancient parish. But the custom grew up of " instituting," 
 these titular Vicars instead of licensing and admitting 
 them, and so of imposing higher fees. This custom still 
 prevails in some dioceses. In others, incumbents have the 
 option of being " instituted " or " licensed." In this diocese 
 and others they have no option at all. I will be no party to 
 the imposition of this higher fee. I license and admit everv 
 incumbent who is entitled to be called a Vicar by courtesy, 
 and the clergy may trust me that I take care to explain to 
 parishioners that the spiritual act is precisely the same and 
 that there is no atom of inferiority. The words of the license 
 are almost exactly the same as the form of institution. 
 There is the mere variation of the word. But no " induction " 
 (i.e. admission to temporalities by the Archdeacon or his 
 deputy) is required after licensing as the license carries both. 
 Every Rector and every Vicar of an ancient parish (those 
 declared Vicarages under the District Church Tithes Act 
 coming into this category), requires to be instituted and 
 inducted. 
 
 (c) When admitted to benefices most incumbents parsonages 
 have to live in and keep up and insure parsonage houses, tion. pi 
 and I simply want to place on record here my sense of the 
 frequent hard working of the Dilapidation Acts. I sincerely 
 hope that a bill which is being considered by laymen in the 
 diocese of London may be introduced, whereby some annual 
 charge may be imposed on a benefice for repairs of the 
 glebe property, and some central office (perhaps Queen 
 Anne's Bounty) may undertake responsibility for repairs. 
 The sections of such a bill will require to be carefully drawn, 
 but the present act frequently operates very hardly on a 
 family on the death of an incumbent, and sometimes hardly
 
 50 
 on his successor and on a parish if he die without sufficient 
 estate to discharge the dilapidation. 
 
 (d) In matters of clergy discipline perhaps it will be 
 well for me to sa}' that since the last episcopal visitation two 
 most important Acts have effected a considerable change. 
 By the Clergy Discipline Act, 1892, the proceedings formerly 
 needed to try a clergyman on a charge of immorality or 
 grave offences were greatly shortened and simplified, and 
 the Act has worked very well. Such cases are happily few, 
 but there was an universal feeling in the Church that she 
 should have power through her courts to free parishes of 
 incumbents of proved unworthy life. The Benefices Act of 
 1898 has introduced a further reform. A commission 
 appointed by the Bishop under the Pluralities Act and the 
 Pluralities Act Amendment Act, increased as it must now 
 be by two additional laymen, nominated usually by the 
 chairman of Quarter Sessions, can now take cognisance of 
 any wilful default in respect of the observance of the 
 promises as to conduct which every clergyman solemnly 
 makes at the time of his ordination. And a Bishop is able 
 (subject to appeal) if the commission report adversely, to 
 appoint a curate in charge of the parish and inhibit the 
 incumbent. 
 
 These acts in no way touch questions of ritual and 
 doctrine, and I have no intention of dealing with the reform 
 of Ecclesiastical Courts needed to consider such matters 
 to-day. We are still in the stage of conference and deliber- 
 ation. A draft bill, drawn at the request of the late Arch- 
 bishop Benson, has been laid before the two Convocations 
 and two Houses of Laymen as the basis of further action, 
 and until matters have reached a later stage I prefer to be 
 silent. My silence, moreover, will the better harmonise with 
 my conviction that while our Church courts must be reformed 
 if they are to win the entire confidence of the Church and
 
 5i 
 the public, our great need now is the development of a 
 spiritual process whereby many of our present evils will be 
 removed without any recourse to courts of law at all. 
 Violent repression, however necessary at times, is a poor 
 remedy for spiritual troubles. We need to examine the 
 causes which underlie the disquiet to which I referred 
 yesterday, and patiently to teach principles and inspire 
 a loyalty which shall make recourse to Church courts in 
 matters of doctrine and ritual exceptional and rare. 
 
 II. As to the Churches, I shall detain you but a few 
 minutes. But I desire to impress on clergy and church- 
 wardens the great responsibility which rests on them in 
 reference to the preservation of the fabric, and the comfort, 
 health, and facilities for worship, of the parishioners who 
 attend the services. Pardon me if I say that I have been 
 profoundly impressed with the conviction that the insurance 
 of very many Churches is far too low. Fires in Churches 
 are terrible calamities, and are happily rare. But they do 
 occur, and there is little public sympathy with the parish if 
 the building is inadequately insured. I am thankful to say 
 that, according to the returns, no Churches or glebe-houses 
 are uninsured. But I find that 42 Churches are insured for 
 sums of £1000 or under, one being actually insured for £200, 
 and 63 are insured for sums between £2000 and £1000. 
 When I think that each additional £100 means only about 
 1/6 per annum, that there is a very serious risk if the sum 
 insured be not adequate substantially to rebuild the Church, 
 and that all the profits of the Ecclesiastical Buildings Fire 
 Office, started largely by the efforts of that admirable lay- 
 man whom the Church so lately lost, Mr. G. A. Spottis- 
 woode, return to the Church herself, I cannot help hoping 
 that vicars and churchwardens will carefully consider the 
 adequacy of the insurance. Many of our Churches in North- 
 umberland are of the deepest historical interest, and on all 
 
 11.— 
 
 Churches' 
 Insurance.
 
 52 
 
 accounts we should treasure them and leave nothing undone 
 that prudence requires. 
 
 On the question of faculties, I desire to reproduce the 
 subjoined extract from a charge given by the learned Chan- 
 cellor to the churchwardens of the diocese, in 1891 : — " For 
 mere repairs it is not necessary that you should obtain the 
 authority of a Faculty nor can you insist that those who 
 seek to repair monuments to the memory of their ancestors 
 shall first obtain such a Faculty. You are bound to grant 
 leave unhampered by any such condition. Indeed, it is 
 your duty rather to encourage the repair of monuments 
 than to throw obstacles in the way. If, however, you 
 desire to effect any alterations in the church, whether 
 in the structure itself — walls, roof, or windows — or in the 
 seats, stalls, reading-desk, pulpit, or other fixtures, it is 
 your plain duty, first, to obtain the requisite legal 
 authorit)', a Faculty. In some matters of lesser moment, 
 such as the erection of ordinary tablets, the Ecclesiastical 
 Courts, while distinctly affirming the principle that in 
 strictness a Faculty is needed even in their case, have con- 
 sidered that where the}' are conveniently placed and there 
 is no opposition, the sanction of the Parson would be 
 sufficient. The courts are not. hungry for jurisdiction in 
 these matters. But such cases are to be regarded as 
 ' exceptional, and in general it is clear that no one, be he 
 ' Rector, Vicar, or Churchwarden, has the right to effect 
 'any alteration in the structure or fixtures of a Church 
 ' without first laying before the Bishop's Chancellor the 
 ' details of what he proposes to do, and obtaining his 
 ' sanction. Such sanction will not be granted until after 
 ' the proposals have been carefully considered, in order to 
 ' ascertain whether they comply with the provisions of the 
 ' law, and until an opportunity has been afforded to those 
 ' who object to appear and state reasons why the alterations
 
 Laws of 
 health. 
 
 53 
 *' should not be sanctioned. I do not think I can urge upon 
 *' you too strongly the importance of a strict observance of 
 " this requirement of the law." 
 
 And my last word on the matter of Churches shall be 
 this. The laws of health are the laws of God, and I do hope 
 that one of the chief requirements in churches and mission 
 buildings of the future will be that in matters of ventilation, 
 lighting, and heating, the ascertained laws of science shall 
 be observed. Vitiated air hinders worship, endangers 
 health, and is scarcely worthy of a Christian in a building 
 dedicated to the service of God. I would far rather sacrifice 
 some ornamentation in architecture than be responsible for 
 any violation of sanitary laws, and I feel that not enough 
 attention has been paid in matters of religion to these 
 very necessary matters., I am certain that our laity will 
 co-operate with the clergy in making good any deficiencies 
 of former days. 
 
 There is no fresh legislation in the matter of Churches Trusts. 
 or mission buildings, but as the question of trusts for 
 parochial buildings and mission chapels is often raised, I 
 wish to draw renewed attention to the fact that our Diocesan 
 Society is Incorporated, and able to hold property, and that 
 each year an increasing number of parishes takes advantage 
 of the admirable service which it may do in this way to the 
 Diocese at large. 
 
 III. Passing from clergy and churches to the laity as The Lait y 
 they are affected by the state in matters which concern 
 religion, I feel that I ought to speak to you on questions of 
 education, marriage and burial. 
 
 (a) EDUCATION. 
 
 Since I came amongst you a most important education 
 act has been passed which has had two good results. It 
 has met present needs, and has had a most valuable effect 
 in bringing the schools to be associated together. The 
 
 (a) Educa- 
 tion.
 
 54 
 Newcastle Diocesan Association of Schools has worked 
 smoothly, and I think effectively, with the aid of its unwearied 
 secretary, and largely by the co-operation of its Ruri-decanal 
 committees. It has received the warm commendation of 
 the Education Department. It has taught churchmen the 
 value of common action in matters of elementary education, 
 and while it is a Diocesan Association, it has received into 
 its ranks many schools not definitely connected with our 
 Church, and has thereby united in defence of voluntary 
 schools a wider body than churchmen alone. I am con- 
 vinced that this association was the very thing needed to 
 bring the schools into line, to level up the weaker and less 
 efficient schools, to bring the sympathy and resources of the 
 stronger to aid the weaker, and I desire to press upon the 
 Diocese the necessity of maintaining the Diocesan Inspection 
 Fund, a sub-fund of our Diocesan Society, in full efficiency, 
 as a fund most necessary for the due security of the religious 
 teaching in all our schools. But I cannot disguise from 
 myself the truth that the education problem has only 
 received a temporary solution. Personally I have in no way 
 receded from the position which I took before this act was 
 passed. The North of England strongly favoured rate aid as 
 the ultimate solution of the elementary school problem, and I 
 should be quite prepared to accept representation of rate- 
 payers on the boards of management on suitable terms. But 
 the feeling of the country generally was not ripe for this 
 solution, and we must quietly hold our own, and maintain 
 our voluntary schools as efficiently as we can. I welcome 
 heartily the proposed reform of the Education Department, 
 and I look forward to fresh legislation on the subject of 
 secondary education. It will probably be necessary after 
 this to revert to the problems which our elementary 
 education offers, and to work again for their solution.
 
 Sister. 
 
 55 
 
 (b) MARRIAGE. Car- 
 
 riage. 
 
 I could not be wholly silent on a subject in which {^cea^'d 
 Church and State are brought into such close contact as . j££. 8 
 marriage. But I intend to reserve to another occasion 
 hereafter what it may be needful to say on the question 
 of divorce. It would be impossible to treat this matter 
 adequately in the time at my disposal, and other matters 
 have pressed into a more prominent place for the time. 
 But no one can fail to see that on the one hand there are 
 serious differences in the Church herself as to what our 
 Lord Himself allows and what the Church has sanctioned, 
 and on the other that, whatever these differences may be, 
 the State itself in the Divorce Act did most dangerously 
 infringe upon the prerogative of the Church. The State 
 has power to make regulations for marriage as a most 
 important civil rite. It has no moral power to do violence 
 to the convictions of churchmen and alter the Church's law 
 without her consent. The State would never have attempted 
 this had there been, at the time of framing the Divorce Act, 
 the strong feeling which has grown of more recent years, 
 and the fact that the Church practically, for a long time, 
 seemed to condone what had been done, must make us very 
 patient in seeking a remedy now. I decline, without going 
 fully into the matter, to express further opinions as to the 
 extent of the State's infringement and as to what ought to 
 be done. The question must come up for solution when 
 present emergencies have passed away. 
 
 But this is not the only difficulty. I view with serious 
 concern the efforts made to alter the law as to marriage with 
 a deceased's wife sister. The principles on which the present 
 marriage law is based is that the relations of one of the 
 contracting parties are the relations of the other, and if this 
 principle is violated in one case I do not see how it can 
 stop there. I simply touch on these matters now with a
 
 56 
 feeling that they will give us serious trouble in the not 
 distant future, and that we shall need great wisdom in 
 dealing with them. 
 
 (c) BURIALS. 
 
 On the question of the Burial Laws I shall trouble you 
 in rather more detail. My last act in the spring of last 
 year before my very serious illness was to give evidence 
 before a committee of the House of Commons on the 
 revision of the Burial Laws, and I most entirely endorse the 
 main recommendations of the report accepted with striking 
 unanimity by a committee equally divided in political 
 sympathies. When men meet together with the real wish 
 to remove grievances and solve difficulties they can often 
 come to terms. In the present case both sides, if I may 
 say so, had wrongs to be righted. I have long'felt — I felt it 
 when a part of my income came from this very source — that 
 I could not defend the custom of incumbents receiving fees 
 in cemeteries provided b}' the rates on any other principle 
 than that of payment for services rendered. Such fees must 
 be adequate (and frequently they are not, the real remun- 
 eration coming from fees for vaults, headstones, &c), and 
 should be collected for clergy and all ministers by the Burial 
 authority, and regularly paid by the authority to those 
 concerned. But after providing for vested interests other 
 fees should cease. Nor could I defend the principle of 
 providing two chapels out of the rates for every small 
 cemetery that might be formed, and, as by the Parish 
 Councils A6t any parish council may become the Burial 
 Board and provide a cemetery, we are likely to have a great 
 increase of small cemeteries in the future. I felt that it 
 might be fairly left to any religious body that required it to 
 provide a chapel for its own exclusive use, and I remembered 
 that I had lived four years in a land where burials took place 
 in cemeteries without any chapel at all. The question of fees
 
 57 
 and Chapels I knew to be felt as grievances, and I thought 
 they injured the Church's work by keeping up a sense of 
 wrong. On the other hand I felt that churchmen had a very 
 real grievance, and chiefly under the Marten Act, of which 
 increasing use was being made by Urban or Rural District 
 Councils. For under this Act the provisions of an Act 
 framed in 1847 for a totally different purpose, viz., for 
 regulating commercial cemeteries, — the Cemetery Clauses 
 Act — were to be applied to a totally different set of 
 circumstances. Boards of Guardians, now District Councils, 
 were able to decide the important question affecting 
 religious disabilities, whether churchmen and others who 
 had always had the right of laying their dead in consecrated 
 ground were to retain the right any longer, and, moreover, 
 though only a single parish might pay for the burial ground, 
 this question which involved a religious disability to so 
 many people was to be decided by the representatives of the 
 whole district and not by the parish alone. 
 
 The result of the committee's deliberations have been 
 the issue of a report which seems to me to meet and 
 remove every real grievance, and on which the Home 
 Secretary has promised to base a bill, which is equally 
 desired on both sides of the House of Commons. I offer no 
 opinion on the purely departmental question — which govern- 
 ment department should in future be in charge of this work. 
 There has certainly been confusion hitherto in the fact that 
 most cemeteries are under the Home Office, while all under 
 Marten's Act are under the Local Government Board. But 
 in the provision of a simple intelligible burial authority, in 
 the settling of the question of fees or chapels on the lines 
 which I have already indicated, in the practical repeal of 
 Marten's Act, in providing that, if the Local Authority 
 do not apply for consecration, the central Government 
 Department may do so at the request of any reasonable
 
 58 
 number of parishioners, in the significant retention of the 
 existing authority of the ordinary in all consecrated ground — 
 an authority which has proved an unequalled guarantee of 
 security against any profane use of the ground, or any 
 unseemly practices — in all these main features of the report 
 I see a practical settlement of all existing grievances. The 
 Bishop of Durham, in seconding a resolution which I moved 
 in the Upper House of York Convocation and which was 
 unanimously carried, to the effect that the report was a 
 satisfactory basis for legislation, remarked that such a 
 solution would have removed all the difficulties with which 
 in these matters he has had to deal, and I cannot but 
 rejoice that the good sense of a House of Commons 
 Committee has given us such promise of a satisfactory 
 settlement of difficulties that have divided parishes. It 
 cannot be the interest of Christian men to have differences 
 on matters so tenderly affecting us as the burial of our dead, 
 and I hope that, if not this session at any rate the next, an 
 act may be placed on the statute book which shall consolidate 
 the Burial Laws and promote peace. 
 
 IV. There is one last point on which I wish to 
 address words to the Diocese to-day before I pass from 
 matters which touch our connection with the State, and it 
 is the spiritual autonomy that the Church needs for the 
 settlement of its affairs. At present we are necessarily 
 limited by statutes in many directions, in which more liberty 
 of action would stop a grievance or advance the Master's 
 Kingdom. Whatever reforms of our Ecclesiastical Courts 
 may be possible hereafter, and granted that we have courts 
 which may command the fullest confidence of the Church, 
 still courts' can never do what the voice of the living Church 
 can alone do, in meeting the fresh needs and dealing with 
 the changing circumstances of successive generations. 
 Self-adjustment is a right inherent in the divinely constituted
 
 59 
 society called the Church of Christ, and self-adjustment is 
 the necessity of any National Church. To have to exercise 
 this right in every case through Parliament is at best a long and 
 cumbersome process, and though Parliament is not averse as 
 a rule to granting what the clergy and laity of the Church 
 are really agreed in asking, yet the House of Commons has 
 but little time for such legislation and no one can seriously 
 maintain that it is a very fit body to have to deal with the 
 great variety of questions which a really representative 
 Church body would have to handle. What therefore we 
 need is some power of self-adjustment, and for this purpose 
 some greater spiritual autonomy. But this really depends 
 on working out the question of the constitutional rights 
 of the laity. The laity have a perfect right to take part 
 with the clergy in the general administration of the Church. 
 I thank God for the quickened life of the laity of to-day. 
 Compared with what I remember as a young man, it 
 shows a marked advance. But we must arrange for some 
 orderly method whereby the laity may be associated with the 
 clergy in the administration of the parish, the diocese, and 
 the Church at large. We have the nucleus of such organiza- 
 tion in our churchwardens and sidesmen, our members of 
 ruri-decanal and afterwards of diocesan conferences, and 
 our houses of laymen. But all these require to be co-ordi- 
 nated and developed, and the crucial test of the whole matter 
 is the qualification for elector and representative in the 
 parish. When such parish has its real representatives it 
 will not be difficult to go on to the Rural Deanery, the 
 Diocese, the Province, and, I hope, to the co-operation of 
 Provinces. It is the patient working out of this problem — 
 the true place of the laity in council, which must go side by 
 side with the working out of the parallel problem, the true 
 place of the laity in the spiritual work of the Church, which 
 will really solve the difficulty of Church government. It is
 
 6o 
 
 not likely that Parliament will concede greater power of 
 Church government until it is plain that the Church has 
 a really representative body, working up from the parish to 
 the diocese and the province, to which such powers may be 
 fitly given. Every diocese must take its share in working 
 out this problem. I am thankful to meet the laity in Ruri- 
 decanal and Diocesan conferences, and yet I feel we need 
 more real and more adequate representation and more 
 general interest taken in the Church's work. Spiritual 
 autonomy in some form is the great ideal at which we may 
 aim, but we must labour, clergy and laity alike, to be worthy 
 of it. We must have infinite patience in surmounting 
 difficulties. 
 
 Our present constitution in Church and State is the 
 result of centuries of English life. It is not lightly to be 
 modified, even with a view to the greater efficiency of the 
 Church's work. There must be a steady growth in public 
 conviction issuing at last in fruitful legislation, and meanwhile 
 we must patiently do the best we can even under the dis- 
 advantage of being only able to adjust ourselves to modern 
 circumstances under the cumbersome process of Parliamen- 
 tary legislation. It is marvellous to see what a growth 
 there has been in the past half century, with all our draw- 
 backs. The union of Church and State in England has 
 grown up, and is not the work of any definite date. Great 
 forbearance is needed on either side ; the State respecting 
 the rights and duties inherent in the society which our Lord 
 planted, and which no State could ever create ; and the 
 Church, on her side, respecting the legitimate functions of 
 the State in loyalty to the Sovereign and conformity to law. 
 Gradually we shall see our way to further re-adjustments. 
 
 Each parishioner may hasten the result by taking a 
 more intelligent interest in the Church work of his own 
 parish. To weld together a diocese of such varied elements
 
 6i 
 
 as ours into one homogeneous whole is a task of difficulty 
 but a task that inspires. Lindisfarne and Hexham bring up 
 memories that challenge us to revive and excel the active 
 Church life of those primitive days amid the changed 
 circumstances of to-day, and what makes the idea of the 
 organisation an inspiration is the knowledge that we work 
 not for ourselves, but for our Master, and that the Church 
 is " His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."
 
 CHARGE, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE PARISH CHURCH OF ALNWICK, ON 
 THE SECOND DAY OF JUNE, 1899. 
 
 IV. — Church Extension. 
 
 I have so far dealt with Diocesan growth, with questions of 
 controversy now being raised in the Church, and with 
 certain points in which the Church is brought into contact, 
 and sometimes into risk of collision, with the State. I 
 propose, to-day, to deal with our duty as a Church in the 
 future, apart from all questions of controversy. Here are 
 we, the northernmost diocese of England, an integral part 
 of the whole Church, bound to take our share in extending 
 our Lord's Kingdom. How are we to do it ? 
 
 (i.) The beginning of all Church extension in a parish 
 should be found in the lives of the clergy. If the Parish 
 Priest be not the centre of life and fire, where is it to be 
 found ? Hence, my brothers in the ministry, the unspeak- 
 able importance of all that concerns your own spiritual life. 
 Our Lord ordained twelve men first, "that they should be 
 with him," and, secondly, "that He might send them forth 
 to preach." (Mark ii. 14.) He still only sends forth to 
 preach those who are content to be with Him. The ministry 
 that is absorbed in work and ignores devotion will soon be 
 utterl)' barren, and, not improbably, in time will give up the 
 work unless the tempter find that it is too convenient a 
 snare by which his victim may be caught. I strongly 
 recommend all wise and spiritual means whereby this inner 
 life may be sustained. Retreats and Quiet Days are found 
 helpful by most of us. For myself, it has been a matter 
 of thankfulness to notice the yearly increase in the number
 
 63 
 of curates of the diocese attending the Quiet Day which my 
 predecessor wisely instituted at Benwell Tower. Last 
 December about three-fourths of our whole number attended. 
 The offer of beds on the previous night to all beyond 
 Morpeth and Hexham has enabled the more distant curates 
 to have the same advantages as those near at hand. I am 
 most grateful to those kind friends who have helped me by 
 conducting these Quiet Days. I took the first, in 1896, 
 myself, and since that time we have had the Vicar of Leeds 
 (Dr. Gibson) and the Bishop of Richmond, and death 
 only prevented us from having the late beloved Bishop of 
 Wakefield, Dr. Walsham How. I am convinced, too, that 
 clerical meetings, Ruri-decanal chapters and conferences, 
 and the like, all contribute to the maintenance of the high 
 standard of life and work at which we are bound to aim. 
 If we are not ourselves first afire we shall lack the power of 
 firing others. " Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the 
 Lord." (Isaiah Hi. 11.) 
 
 (ii.) I would say next to the Clergy — give your highest 
 
 (ii.)— The 
 Inner 
 
 and deepest teaching to those able to influence others in every 61 
 
 turn. You may not be able to influence all alike, and in a 
 large parish you certainly cannot, but you can so mould the 
 character of some that they, fired with your zeal and 
 equipped by your training, may carry your influence to 
 fields that you can never reach yourself. We must never 
 lose sight of the lesson that underlies the fad that our 
 Lord seemed to neglecl; the multitude to train twelve men. 
 If the Clergy will set themselves to equip as thoroughly as 
 possible their church workers and communicants, the inner 
 circle of those whose hearts are touched and whose heads 
 are instructed will be continually expanding, and the 
 society will be extending from the centre which is the only 
 safe course. It is sometimes forgotten that the best 
 Christian aggression is the attraction of a living: Church. 
 
 Parieh.
 
 64 
 A man may win and attract, but the society attracts far 
 more. It is the expression of thought and faith, the 
 embodiment of what as an abstract idea often fails to be 
 understood : it is the epistle in flesh and blood, illustrating and 
 parallel to the written epistle which is the doctrine in words. 
 Men who do not heed the one often heed the other, and, 
 when they find that the two agree, they are the more 
 inclined to believe both. I have already spoken of the 
 untold value of the co-operation of the laity. The Clergy 
 are never more truly doing their proper work than when 
 they train and equip laymen for their work of service. 
 
 (iii.) But the inner circle which I desire to see thus 
 carefully trained in every parish for the greater extension of 
 the Master's kingdom, must be able to give an intelligent 
 account of the faith that is in them, and I plead for a more 
 systematic and definite teaching of the principles of the 
 Church of England. It is constantly said by American 
 Bishops that emigrants from England to the United States 
 have been often far less clearly taught by the Clergy what 
 are the principles of the Church of England, than members 
 of non-episcopal bodies have been taught the distinctive 
 features of the faith that they hold. Our people should 
 surely be taught why we are what we are, what is the 
 distinctive character of the Church of England as compared 
 with the Roman system on the one hand, and with the 
 various forms of nonconformity on the other. The 
 Providential position which she occupies, with affinities on 
 either side and yet herself all through, may enable her one 
 day to be a greater peacemaker than men can now realise as 
 possible. We have nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing 
 to apologise for, as English Churchmen. Men may 
 misunderstand and so misrepresent us. Members of our 
 own body may lose their balance and unduly emphasize one 
 side of truth, exaggerating it until the type of English
 
 65 
 Churchmanship seems hardly to be recognised. And yet 
 there is a distinct type of Anglican Churchmanship. 
 Hooker defended it and explained it so successfully in the 
 reign of Elizabeth, that his masterpiece on Ecclesiastical 
 Polity has ever since been a standard classic of English 
 Theology. But the position needs to be continually re-stated 
 and made plain. The Bishop of London, whom Northum- 
 berland likes to own as one of her own former sons, has in 
 an address to his Rural Deans, delivered and published some 
 six months ago, admirably laid down and indicated certain 
 positions which the Church of England takes, and principles 
 which she enshrines. The late Bishop of Grahamstown 
 (Bishop Webb), did good service some years ago by prefix- 
 ing to a little book of published addresses to candidates for 
 ordination, a preface on principles of Anglican ritual, a very 
 wholesome correction of some of the exaggerations to be 
 found in parts of England to-day. Bishop Moberly's Bampton 
 lectures on the administration of the Spirit in the Church of 
 Christ cleared my mind more than thirty years ago, and 
 have helped very many. The more I have studied the history 
 of the Reformation, the more have I thanked God that, as 
 Archbishop Benson reminded us, the leading theologians of the 
 time were men who knew how to steer the ship safely, and 
 no amateur pilots unaware of the shoals and the quicksands 
 on which the ship might be wrecked. The history of our 
 Church is a history of Providential leading since primitive 
 days through periods of depression and decay, of reform and 
 re-settlement, of lethargy and revival, of extension and 
 reproduction in other parts of the world. Here in North- 
 umberland the memories of the past are ever calling us to 
 trust a guidance that has given us a continuous history for 
 more than 1250 years, and in all our efforts for extension of 
 the kingdom of our Master to make it clear that we have no 
 shadow of doubt as to the position which He has called our 
 Church to fill.
 
 66 
 
 (iv.) But as we pass from clergy and the inner circle 
 of faithful men and women rilled with the love of God, and 
 definitely understanding the principles of the Church to 
 which we belong, we are confronted with the fact that a 
 large number of our people seem to live outside any distinct 
 religion. What is our duty towards these ? What does 
 church extension among them mean ? No one can go 
 through Newcastle on a Sunday and seriously maintain that 
 the majority of the hard-headed artizans on Tyneside are con- 
 nected with any church or chapel at all. I should exaggerate if 
 I said they were not actuated by any religious principle. I know 
 that as rule they have had some Christian teaching in 
 earlier life, and wish to lead upright lives as citizens, and 
 are glad for their families to have a Christian bringing up. 
 The world hardly realizes what the atmosphere of a 
 Christian society means to those who live within it, though 
 they do not seem to be of it. If men were transplanted to 
 where Christian principle seems to imply no binding 
 sanction at all, the effect of such an atmosphere would be 
 very soon apparent. But those of whom I speak are not 
 definitely connected with the Church of Christ at all. How 
 are they to be won ? Not, I venture to say, by merely 
 inviting them to attend our Churches. This is often the 
 very last way to reach their hearts at all. Many regard a 
 Church as a suitable place for women and children, but a 
 place with which they have no special concern. Our 
 matchless Liturgy, so helpful to those who have been trained 
 to understand it, makes no appeal to them. They have not 
 learned to pray, and prayer is uncongenial and foreign to 
 their nature. The sermon seems often not to touch their 
 interests. To them, the Church is no home. The real 
 thing that we need is to inspire them with a new motive, 
 and I don't know how to put this better than by saying that 
 by life teaching, example, as individuals, and as a society
 
 6 7 
 
 we must help them to understand the meaning of those old 
 words : " God so loved the world that He gave His only- 
 " begotten Son." Their whole point of view is wrong, and 
 we who have sunlight in our religion must put things right. 
 
 The first way thereto is surely making it plain in our 
 own life and religion that love is the spring of our faith and the 
 inspirer of our worship. I have often thought how utterly 
 strange those words of St. Paul must seem to many who 
 worship in our Churches : " If all prophesy, and there come 
 " in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced 
 "of all, he is judged of all : and thus are the secrets of his 
 " heart made manifest ; and so falling down on his face he 
 *' will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth." 
 (i Cor. xiv. 25.) 
 
 '' Falling down on his face he will worship God !" If this 
 result of the worship of a modern congregation seems so 
 strange, is it because the times are changed and phlegmatic 
 Englishmen are not emotional Greeks, or is it that there is 
 some lack of Divine love and fire in us who worship the 
 Eternal God ? I am persuaded that it is more personal 
 loyalty to and enthusiastic love of a crucified and living Lord 
 on our part that is needed to bring about this change. And 
 as the love of God shews itself in love to men, we have to win 
 those outside by a Christ-like tenderness and infinite patience. 
 The building up all around and amongst them of a Christian 
 society that is based on mutual love will be the concrete 
 expression of an abstract truth, and a magnet that cannot 
 fail in time to attract. The careful training of their children 
 will often affect the parents. Sympathy in sorrow and sick- 
 ness is another opportunity which touches in the tenderest 
 way, and at an hour when the strongest obstacles are with- 
 drawn. But our love must go further still. A Christ-like 
 love overflows and shews a power to be interested in all that 
 interests another. We shall not reach these men outside
 
 68 
 
 until we have found common ground, and worked up from 
 that. Find out what are their real interests in life, and shew 
 that Christianity can understand and hallow them. 
 
 It is from this point of view that the ethical extension 
 of our Lord's kingdom seems to me of the last importance. 
 Men ought not to be able to say with any truth : " You talk of 
 "Christianity, but your attendance at Church is consistent 
 " with the most selfish class interests, with taking rents from 
 "houses not fit for human habitation, with deceptive tricks 
 "in trade, with jobbery in municipal life, with a refined 
 " selfishness into which self-sacrifice does not enter." So long 
 as these things are true, the hindrances to persuasion are 
 appalling. I do not mean that anything short of the actual 
 Gospel will win to Christ, but I do mean that inconsistency 
 between the Gospel preached and the Gospel lived is fatal to 
 the success of even the Gospel itself, and the masses are to be 
 won not simply by Christianity preached, but by Christianity 
 applied. If parishioners think that our conception of 
 Christianity is compatible with. an utter indifference to what 
 is degrading man, e.g., to intemperance, injustice, and fraud, 
 the whole idea of religion is vitiated. The only way to win 
 to Christ is to preach Christ, live Christ, and claim all life 
 for Christ, keeping back no percentage which is outside the 
 consecrated portion, and to do all this with recollection of 
 the precept, " Be not weary in well doing." There are men 
 who claim to be Christians but are ashamed of enthusiasm 
 in religion, and such men must be ever strangers to the 
 conquests of the Cross. Once win a man to the love of the 
 Lord and he will love the house of the Lord and the day of 
 the Lord, and will try to keep the commandments of the 
 Lord. The first step needed is what has been called the 
 " moral dynamic," and every effort of our life must be 
 devoted to making it perfectly plain that God's love in Christ 
 has touched us and consecrated all our lives.
 
 6 9 
 
 Forgive me my brothers of the laity for speaking these 
 plain truths, but there must be no mistake whatever as to 
 what will win the unevangelised masses to a vital Christi- 
 anity and to an appreciation of the Church to which we 
 belong. Christianity must be taught, lived, and applied, to 
 the whole life, of ourselves and of society at large and it is 
 not clergy only who are to make this conquest. The 
 Christian Society must be inspired with a holy love which 
 must show itself in the consecration of life. 
 
 (v.) Let me carry this thought a step further. There 
 is too often a graduated selfishness even in religion. One 
 man is absorbed in individualism and seems unable to get 
 beyond his own soul. Even admit the doctrine of neigh- 
 bourhood, and yet, even then, how slowly the soul expands. 
 There is a hyper-parochialism which is perfectly contented 
 with realizing responsibility for the parish, and seems to 
 have no soul for anything beyond. Another gets as far as 
 the neighbourhood or the diocese, but can get no further. 
 I ask you to realize that we have a responsibility as members 
 of the Church of England for the entire Church, and that we 
 must take our share in Church extension in the Church at 
 large at home. The Additional Curates and Church 
 Pastoral Aid Societies made last year forty-five grants in aid 
 of additional clergy and a few lay workers in our diocese, 
 amounting to £2,035 an< ^ our return to these societies was 
 only £820. How can we be said to be taking any real and 
 effective share in the general work of Church extension ? 
 I own that I scruple greatly to accept this generous help 
 unless we do far more to support these great Central 
 Societies, and there are other Home Missionary Agencies 
 (amongst which I would class the Church of England 
 Temperance Society) which deserve our warm support. 
 
 (vi.) But let me pass on to urge the equal claim of 
 foreign missions. Why is it that foreign missions seem to 
 
 iv.) Our 
 responsi- 
 bility for 
 the entire 
 Church.J , 
 
 (vi. (Foreign 
 Missions.
 
 70 
 
 make no appeal whatever to a great many professing 
 Christians ? Did God the Father send His Son to live and 
 die on the Cross ? Did He tell us that eternal life was in 
 His Son ? If the realization of this makes all this difference 
 to us, have we any right to keep it to ourselves? What 
 would have happened if St. Aidan had never visited North- 
 umberland and no news of Christ had ever reached this land ? 
 Surely the claim of Christ for foreign missions depends on 
 our answer to these very simple questions, and our insensi- 
 bility merely proves the dwarfdom of our own spiritual life. 
 I ventured to express some of these thoughts in the Ramsden 
 sermon before the University of Cambridge on Whit-Sunday, 
 and I shall quote a part of it here. I tried to shew the 
 gradual expansion of St. Paul's own soul from the time 
 of his conversion to the time when flushed with the success 
 at Ephesus, in his third missionary journey, he cried out, 
 " After I have been there (i.e. to Jerusalem) I must also see 
 Rome." (Acts xix. 21.) 
 
 " You will not fail to notice how gradual this power of 
 expansion has been and what has brought it about. It is 
 simple obedience to the command : ' Arise and go into the 
 city and it shall be told thee what thou must do,' which 
 has led to this striking result. There is no evidence that we 
 are dealing with a spiritual genius, able at a glance to fore- 
 cast the future and realizing from the beginning what the 
 end would be. There is simply a record of obedience to 
 each Divine indication as clearly made known to a receptive 
 but discriminating soul. St. Paul stands before us as an 
 educated man with strongly marked individuality and pro- 
 foundly penetrated with the love of Christ. He must needs 
 go into the wilderness to realize his call, to Jerusalem to be 
 in touch with some of the Apostles, to Tarsus to prepare for 
 his future work, to Antioch to undertake an immediate work 
 to which the call was plain, to Cyprus and Galatia in
 
 7i 
 obedience to a direct Divine interposition, and so with 
 province after province until at last Rome enters into the 
 area of his spiritual conquests. Each fresh act of obedience 
 leads to a further vision. Each castle in the air, if so I may 
 call it, is based upon a very real castle which has passed into 
 his possession. There is no royal road to such a vision. 
 Only by patient acts of obedience, by steady use of opportu- 
 nities, by faithful preparation for further calls, does he at 
 last rise to the full conception which was ever in the mind 
 of God, but which could not but be slowly unfolded, if the 
 conception were ever to be practically attained. You will 
 remember our Lord's own words as to the necessary condi- 
 tion of apprehending spiritual truth. ' If any man will do 
 His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of 
 God, or whether I speak of myself.' (John vii. 17.) 
 Obedience to the will of God is alike necessary for the 
 apprehension of doctrine and for the expansion of a soul. I 
 can neither know God spiritually and apprehend the truth 
 concerning Him, nor can I realize the nature of His Kingdom 
 and His claims on me to extend it, unless I obey and do His 
 will, unless — that is — I strive to do my duty according to the 
 will of God at that stage which is immediately before me, 
 and keep my eyes and my heart open to apprehend and 
 realize what may be presented to me in my act of obedience. 
 
 You will observe, brethren, the two necessary coroll- 
 aries which follows from this truth. 
 
 First, interest in the missionary work of the Church 
 depends on the spirituality of our life and is a real test of it. 
 I can no more convince an unspiritual man of the claims of 
 the heathen world than a professor can succeed in teaching 
 high mathematics to a man who has never mastered the 
 elements. ' I have yet many things to say unto you,' said 
 our Lord to His disciples on the evening before His death, 
 ' but ye cannot hear them now.' (John xvi. 12.) As the
 
 72 
 
 wisest of teachers He knew the impossibility, if the laws of 
 human nature were to be obeyed, of attempting to teach 
 what the spiritual powers of His disciples were then unable 
 to grasp, and the lesson is of a permanent significance. 
 A man's spiritual horizon must ever be widening and 
 •covering fresh ground. As he obeys he can apprehend 
 more. The realization of the claim made on him by the 
 non-Christian world grows just as he acknowledges the 
 claim in what is within his reach and power. The failure 
 to acknowledge it is simply a proof of dwarfdom in the 
 spiritual life. 
 
 The second corollary is the unspeakable importance of 
 our daily work, whatever it may be. Each act of obedience 
 now, the conscientious development of each power, spiritual, 
 intellectual, physical ; the conscientious study of things 
 called secular or of things called sacred that may be needed 
 to mature our minds — if these be our immediate duty, then 
 surely will they enable us hereafter to enter into the wider 
 conceptions which God has for us in store. There is not an 
 incident in the study of this University which may not tend 
 to this widening of horizon and expansion of soul. There is 
 no short cut that leads to the mountain of vision whence the 
 prepared soul may gaze upon the kingdoms of this world as 
 now potentially, and hereafter actually, the kingdoms of 
 Christ. Many a man has bitterly repented in after years 
 that he had missed opportunities, which came to him once 
 but can never return, of mastering the ground-work which 
 would have led to the larger conceptions that enter into his 
 aspirations but seem beyond his grasp. Strive, brethren, to 
 give a larger and wider meaning to the conception of 
 Christian duty. Remember that each act of obedience 
 enables you the better to apprehend Christian truth and to 
 realize the claims of the kingdom of our Lord. Geographic- 
 ally, not less than ethically, that kingdom will only come as
 
 73 
 we consecrate common duty, and make Christ's law the law 
 of our common life." 
 
 If what I have written is true then the natural normal 
 expansion of a man's soul will lead him to interest himself 
 in Foreign Missions, and I venture very strongly to com- 
 mend to the diocese the systematic support in every parish 
 of one or other (if not both) of the two great handmaids of 
 the Church of England in her Foreign Missionary aspect, 
 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
 Parts and the Church Missionary Society. The latter 
 Society has been this year keeping her hundredth anniver- 
 sary, and the Centenary services and meetings — marked with 
 profound devotion, thanksgiving, resolution, charity — have 
 stirred up many and overflowed, so that a great stimulus has 
 been thereby given to all Foreign Missionary effort. The 
 elder Society, which for a century was confined to the North 
 American colonies, though able in those colonies to attempt 
 direct missionary work among the Red Indians, but has 
 subsequently extended its operations to direct missionary 
 work among the heathen not only, though primarily, in our 
 colonies and dependencies such as India, will be keeping its 
 200th anniversary in igoi, and the whole year, from June 
 igoo, will be a time of thanksgiving and fruitful effort. I 
 sincerely trust that the diocese will respond to this call, and 
 that there may result from the bicentenary such a stimulus 
 to the mission work of the Church that, as now, the whole 
 Church may get the benefit. Feeling that our own people 
 and British dependencies abroad have the first claim on our 
 sympathy, I hear with pleasure that the receipts from the 
 diocese for the past year on behalf of the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel, which alone of the two great 
 Societies takes British colonies under its fostering care, 
 shew a slight advance ; but I cannot feel contented, and I 
 am sure the diocese at large will gradually rise to a holy dis-
 
 74 
 content with the measure of interest as yet taken in what 
 the Bishops of the Anglican communion, assembled at 
 Lambeth in 1897, termed '"the work that at the present 
 "time stands in the first rank of all the tasks we have to 
 "fulfil." Thirteen parishes in the diocese sent no offertory 
 last year to any society or agency for foreign missions. In 
 the very front rank of all missionary duty comes that of 
 intercession, and I regret to find that a day of intercession 
 is not yet universally observed in the diocese. The Arch- 
 bishops and Bishops of the Anglican communion agreed to 
 recommend the eve of St. Andrew's or some day in which 
 the Festival falls. I find that one hundred and eleven (in) 
 parishes either observed this day or some other locally more 
 suitable, but I earnestly trust that every parish will come to 
 see that this is the most important work in which parishioners 
 can engage. One advance I record with pleasure — the in- 
 stitution of an annual diocesan intercession in the Cathedral 
 on St. Andrew's Day, which began last year, on which all 
 those who have left our diocese for the colonial or missionary 
 fields of labour are definitely prayed for by name. I desire 
 that the names of all such should be recorded in our Diocesan 
 Calendar, and I trust that it will tend to promote a steady 
 sending forth from our midst of our due share of the 
 missionary agents abroad. I commend earnestly to the 
 diocese the opening paragraphs of the report of the large 
 committee of Bishops appointed at the Lambeth Conference 
 in 1897, and the first resolution adopted by the whole body 
 of Bishops as based upon it. 
 
 " Your Committee heartily thank Almighty God that He 
 has kindled throughout our Communion an increasing zeal 
 for the extension of the Kingdom of Christ our Lord, and 
 for the salvation of souls, and that He has so abundantly 
 blessed the efforts which have been made — a blessing granted, 
 we doubt not, to encourage us all to far greater labours,
 
 75 
 
 prayers, and self-denial. In the last ten years we note 
 especially the great proofs of the regenerating power of the 
 Holy Spirit, and the fitness of the Gospel for all races, which 
 have been displayed in the newly-opened countries of Africa. 
 Yet we see that zeal in this cause is still the enthusiasm of 
 a few, and that the Church has yet to be far more fully 
 aroused to recognize, as a necessary and constant element 
 in the spiritual life of the Body and of each member of it, 
 the fulfilment of our Lord's great commission. Our respon- 
 sibility in this matter is vast and daily increasing, whether 
 we consider the awful fa6t that there are still so many of our 
 fellow-men unreached by the Gospel ; or consider that so 
 little interest has been taken in the evangelization of the 
 Jewish race, and that so little systematic effort has been 
 made to win the followers of Islam, although there is 
 abundant encouragement from what has been done, and the 
 opportunities now, especially in India, are unique ; or 
 whether we look at the great number of points at which 
 Churches of our Communion are in local contact with 
 heathen nations, or at the responsibilities of the British 
 Empire in India and in the new Protectorates in Africa, or 
 at the great fields ripening for harvest in such regions as 
 China and Japan — China, where Western influence seems to 
 be increasingly welcome, and where there are signs that the 
 blood of martyrs has not been shed in vain ; Japan, where, 
 from the characteristic independence of the people, a crisis 
 in the history of the Church seems to be imminent, and to 
 call for the utmost care in the higher Christian education, 
 and the training of those who are to hold office in the 
 Church. 
 
 Your Committee have entered with some detail into 
 the matters which have been referred to them, but they 
 desire first to draw attention to some general considerations 
 which cover the whole ground. 
 
 D2
 
 7 6 
 
 The first duty of the Church is intercession. The 
 observance of a special day of intercession in connection 
 with the Festival of St. Andrew appears to have led to a 
 considerable increase in the personal offers for missionary 
 work. Your Committee desire to urge upon the whole 
 Church the urgent duty of making these days of intercession 
 a reality in every diocese and every parish, and they desire 
 to commend for the general private use the admirable noon- 
 tide missionary prayers drawn up for the use of the Sister 
 Church of America. 
 
 Your Committee observe with gratitude to God that a 
 very large number of students in universities and colleges 
 throughout the world have realized so keenly the call to 
 missionary work that they have enrolled themselves in a 
 Student Volunteer Missionary Union, and have taken as 
 their watchword " The Evangelisation of the World in this 
 Generation." A large number of these students are members 
 of the Anglican Communion, and it seems the plain duty of 
 that Communion to provide channels through which such 
 newly-awakened zeal may find outlets in earnest, sound, wise 
 work. The time seems ripe for a forward movement in the 
 missionary campaign, and your Committee trust that one 
 result of this Conference will be to give missionary work a 
 far greater prominence than it has yet assumed in the minds 
 of many churchmen. 
 
 Experience has shown the necessity of strong 
 centres of work, the value of community missions, especially 
 in India, the special work of the universities in touching the 
 higher intellectual life of non-Christian nations, the value of 
 the work of women, of medical missionaries, of industrial 
 missions, and the importance of realising the principle, 
 "to him that hath shall be given," if a rich harvest is to be 
 reaped. With the accumulated experience of the last 
 century the Church has now a great opportunity to begin
 
 77 
 a fresh epoch with greater love for the Master and for the 
 souls for whom He shed His blood, and with greater know- 
 ledge than ever before. 
 
 The cause of missions is the cause of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. May this be our aim, as it will be our highest glory, 
 to be humble instruments in carrying out the loving will of 
 our Heavenly Father; in lowliness of mind, praying for the 
 Divine blessing, and confident in the Divine promises, 
 ministering the Gospel of the Grace of God to the souls 
 that we love ; and thus, in promoting the Kingdom of 
 Truth and Righteousness, may we fulfil the sacred mission 
 of the Church of God, by preparing the world for the 
 Second Advent of our Lord." 
 
 RESOLUTION. 
 
 " That while we heartily thank God for the missionary 
 zeal which He has kindled in our Communion, and for the 
 abundant blessing bestowed on such work as has been done, 
 we recommend that prompt and continuous efforts be made 
 to arouse the Church to recognise as a necessary and con- 
 sistent element in the spiritual life of the Body, and of each 
 member of it, the fulfilment of our Lord's great commission 
 to evangelise all nations." 
 
 I have now completed the Review of the subjects which 
 I have felt it my duty to bring before the Diocese at my 
 primary visitation. I am fully conscious of the imperfect 
 manner in which I have had to touch on many great 
 subjects, and yet I trust that our conference will lead to 
 a deeper and fuller consideration of topics which are of vital 
 importance to the well-being of the Church. Here in 
 Northumberland we have difficulties, opportunities, and 
 history of our own. There is no Diocese with greater 
 tradition. There is no Diocese that may not envy us the 
 memories of Lindisfarne and Hexham. A great scheme for 
 rendering Hexham Abbey worthy of its ancient history is
 
 7 8 
 
 likely very soon to be submitted to the public, and I venture 
 in anticipation to bespeak for it the heartiest support of the 
 Diocese of which Hexham Abbey is one of the chief glories. 
 The corporate life of the Diocese surely implies a warm 
 interest in all that concerns every part of the entire family. 
 We are one family in God. It is as the unworthy father of 
 that family that I come amongst you to-day, to thank God 
 for all that he has permitted us to do, to take account of 
 dangers and difficulties, of weaknesses and stumbling blocks, 
 to urge you to common action in the Diocese itself and in 
 promoting the extension of the Master's Kingdom at home 
 and abroad. May God bless our common labours, pardon 
 our infirmities for the sake of Jesus Christ, " and only look 
 on us as found in Him."
 
 CHARGE, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE VISITATION OF S. NICHOLAS CATHEDRAL, 
 NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, JUNE 6TH, 1899. 
 
 My Venerable and Reverend Brothers of the 
 Chapter, " Fratres Episcopi," and My Brethren 
 of the Laity holding office in this ancient 
 Church : 
 
 I greet you in all affection on this first occasion 
 of holding an Episcopal Visitation of S. Nicholas' Cathedral, 
 and I trust that our meeting together in worship and in 
 conference may enable us the better to realise our corporate 
 life and work together for the building up of the Cathedral 
 system in this Diocese, at once so ancient and so young. 
 
 The revival of Episcopal Visitations after a lethargy of 
 a century and a half, marks emphatically the Church's 
 quickened life. The late Archbishop Benson gave us, when 
 holding the See of Truro, a striking picture of the place of 
 the Cathedral in the life and work of the Church in old 
 days, and of the gradual decay from which God has 
 mercifully raised us. The records of the grand Cathedral of 
 Lincoln show us the great Bishop, St. Hugh, under Henry II. 
 "successfully resisting king and Pope in their endeavours to 
 " intrude persons into canonries," offering " stalls to 
 " suitable persons on the condition of their coming at once 
 " into residence, and devoting themselves to the discipline 
 "and preaching required of them." The Canons are 
 " selected for their sagacity and high character : they are in 
 "closest association with the Bishop. He relies on their 
 "advice and employs them in administration." The "new
 
 8o 
 
 register" of Lincoln of 1440 gives us a complete account 
 of the activity of the Cathedral. The worship of the 
 Diocese centred here, but yet this was the smallest part of 
 their work. The 52 Prebendaries resided at least for one 
 week each, but each resided chiefly on the " prebenda " 
 which formed his endowment, and which was a centre of 
 civilization to its district. There was no line between the 
 Small Chapter and the Great Chapter. There was one 
 body. Amongst them were not only theologians and 
 preachers, but famous legists. Prebendal life was laborious. 
 Bishop Alnwick speaks of " their daily expositions, and 
 " constant toils, and numerous burdens." The Cathedral 
 had its schools of architecture under " the Masters of the 
 " Fabric ;" of music under the Precentor, second in rank 
 only to the Dean ; and of grammar and of Divinity, 
 under the Chancellor, who had charge of education, " not 
 "for the Church only, but for the whole city," and who, to 
 quote Dean Colet, " is bound to lecture publicly in Divinity 
 " unto the knowledge of God and instruction of life in 
 " morals." The Cathedral had its treasurer to administer 
 its funds, its Archdeacons, who had jurisdiction in the seven 
 counties connected with the Cathedral, and its Vicars who 
 were the working staff of the Cathedral service, as the 
 Canons were of Cathedral work. There was in theory, and 
 at Lincoln, at least, largely in practice, a corporate life 
 which distinguished the bod}^, and which led to affectionate 
 friendships, consideration of subordinates, and active work. 
 Now the essential feature in all this organization was 
 that the chapter was to be " the senate of the Diocese ; whose 
 "duty is to aid the Bishop when the See is filled, to supply 
 " his place when it is vacant." I quote again from Arch- 
 bishop Benson, from whose book indeed these facts are all 
 gleaned. " Thomassin concludes from his mass of evidence 
 " that everywhere the clergy of Cathedral Churches formed
 
 "one body with the Bishop, and entered into their share of 
 " the anxiety, and into some association with his sacred 
 "sway." Van Espen says their "principal duty was to 
 "assist the Bishop by their work and their counsels, in the 
 "government of the Church." So our own Reginald Pole — 
 "The rationale and ground of instituting canonries and 
 "prebends in Churches was that they who are appointed to 
 "them may assist the Bishop and aid him with counsel and 
 "work in the discharge of his office and in Divine things." 
 The Chapter was at once a corporation subject to the 
 Bishop's visitation, and a council which the Bishop was 
 bound to consult, though he was not bound by the advice 
 tendered. The right and duty of the Bishop in visitation has Bishops 
 
 duty in 
 
 from time to time been in suspense, but never languished com- Vmtatid 
 pletely till about 1725. Before the middle of the 13th century 
 Grossteste, after a long controversy, recovered the right and 
 asserted the principle, which had almost dropped, and from 
 that time it was never disputed, and became the chief 
 means of reforming abuses. " In every act and function," 
 I quote from Archbishop Benson, " the Dean and Chapter 
 " are subject to the visitation of the Bishop. Inasmuch as 
 " he was bound to take care that they passed nothing illegal, 
 " he could require to see the capitular acts and resolutions. 
 "Canonists have held that he cannot ordinarily visit more than 
 " twice a year. The ordinary custom up till the last century 
 " was to commence the triennial visitation of the diocese by 
 "the visitation of the Cathedral." 
 
 " But the life which no convulsions checked, Decay, 
 lethargy overpowered." The visitation of Lincoln went 
 on till 1724. " Diocesan councils broken up, the Provincial 
 "Council fell next. Convocation was silenced. Simil- 
 "taneously with that came the cessation of Cathedral 
 "visitations, the last semblance and remnant of the 
 " Bishop's senate. Then the palmer worm, and the
 
 82 
 
 "canker worm, and the caterpillar; the family, the 
 " favourite, the party. Then blank oblivion of the Covenant 
 " and inability to decipher it." 
 »viva] From all this decay after a century and a half of leth- 
 
 ilation of ...... , , , . , 
 
 lapterto argy, Cathedral life is now, thank God, recovering. And the 
 
 e Bishop. _ 
 
 most important part of the recovery is the restoration of its 
 conciliar character. Archbishop Benson speaks of the 
 "modern solitarinessofthe Bishops' action," and asks whether 
 it be wise to take no steps to counteract causes " which 
 " have been reproducing in our episcopate nearly that 
 " isolation which Rome has effected for her Bishops, with 
 " the deliberate aim, in her case, of obliging them to turn for 
 "support to the Vatican." The Royal Commission for 
 enquiring into the condition of Cathedrals in England and 
 Wales, in their first report, issued in 1882, wrote — " The 
 "relation in which the Bishop of the diocese stands to the 
 " Cathedral has occupied our attention, and we have en- 
 " deavoured to lay down rules which shall reserve to the 
 "Bishop suitable right sand privileges, and at the same time pre- 
 " vent the possibility of difficult and painful questions being 
 "raised from time to time." In their final report, issued in 
 1885, they add — "We have made recommendations which, 
 "as we believe, will have the effect: of making the Cathedral 
 "body more helpful to the Bishop in the work of the diocese 
 " than has usually been the case in recent times." I turn to 
 you, my brothers of the Chapter, with the earnest desire that 
 we, to whom in the providence of God is assigned the 
 J responsible task of building up the Cathedral system in our 
 
 , diocese, shall at once seize its main idea, and develop wisely 
 
 and well that co-operation between Bishop and Chapter 
 which will be one of the greatest helps in the solution of 
 modern difficulties, and the surest guarantee for the advance 
 of the diocese. I have spoken, in my charge to the diocese, 
 of a true constitutional episcopacy being the right develop-
 
 83 
 
 ment to meet the disquiet of the day, and I look very largeh 
 to the increase of capitular action, supplemented by the 
 co-operation of clergy and laity, to place this authority on a 
 constitutional basis. 
 
 Here, in Newcastle, we occupy a position unlike that of Newcasti 
 any modern See. We have no ancient Cathedral establish- Act> 
 ment, but, unlike every modern Bishopric, except Truro and 
 Liverpool, we have a Newcastle Chapter Act, 1884, which 
 enables us gradually to introduce the complete Cathedral 
 system. Perhaps Truro, which has a legal Chapter already 
 established, is the most like to Newcastle, but there the diocese 
 has a new Cathedral, of which the Parish Church is only a 
 small part, whereas with us the entire Church of St. Nicholas, 
 worthy of being the Cathedral of any diocese, restored in two 
 sections with most loving care and at a total cost exceeding 
 £50,000, forms the entire Cathedral, and we have no desire 
 that it should be otherwise. By the Newcastle Chapter Act, 
 1884, there cannot be the formation of a legal Dean and Chap- 
 ter until four canonries have been established with a minimum 
 income of £300 each, and a deanery with an income of 
 /tooo. Hereafter, at a date long distant as we all hope, a 
 sum of £1000 per annum will be transferred from Durham, 
 which I have always wished to devote to two stalls, 
 and two only, with the endowment of the Archdeaconry of 
 Northumberland. But for this purpose, if the four canonries 
 contemplated in the Act are established — and each canonry 
 by section 6 can be established separately, by Order in 
 Council, without waiting for the completion of the Chapter 
 — it is necessary that two other canonries shall be endowed 
 by private benefaction. One of these two stalls will be, I AmlLxed 
 now rejoice to think, definitely annexed to the Vicarage of Neweafu 
 Newcastle, and, as by section 6 of the Newcastle Chapter 
 Act the Order in Council may define the duties of the Canon, 
 I hope it may be made plain that the Canon is to be the
 
 8 4 
 Vice-Dean of the Cathedral, the head of the Chapter in the 
 absence of the Bishop, and, subject to the regulations already 
 laid down and subscribed by every Honorary Canon on his 
 collation to office, in respect of the Parish Church simply 
 owing canonical obedience to the Bishop as his ordinary. 
 Towards the sum of £10,000 needed for the endowment of 
 this stall, two liberal laymen of this city, Mr. W. B. Wilkinson 
 and Mr. John Hall, raised two years ago £3,127, now invested 
 with the Diocesan Society, but, as I suggested, invested in 
 such a way that the capital can be at any time transferred to 
 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, when it will suffice to 
 make up a total of £10,000. I am glad to be able to report 
 further progress in this endowment. When I was Vicar of 
 Portsea, I was enabled to dispose of twelve acres of glebe, 
 valuable building land, by selling it to a friendly syndicate for 
 the purpose of realising all profits for the further endow- 
 ment of the benefice. I suggested this plan to able laymen 
 in this city, and the result has been that two, to whom the 
 Church in this diocese is already much indebted, Mr. Aid. 
 Gibson and Mr. Walter Scott, have purchased the eleven 
 acres of the vicar's glebe, situated at Benwell, at the market 
 price, and have every prospect of being able to add 
 thereby, as profit on re-sale after paying to the Ecclesi- 
 astical Commissioners the first purchase money, as 
 I have been recently assured and am permitted to state, 
 the sum of £3000 to the Vicar's Canonry Endowment Fund. 
 The exact profit will be probably known before the autumn 
 of next year, and as we are expecting at that time a visit 
 from the Church Congress, I am anxious definitely to connect 
 with that Congress the establishment of this first canon's 
 stall in our Cathedral, as the last Congress in 1880 was 
 closely connected with the final establishment of the See. I 
 appeal therefore to the laity of the diocese, and specially to 
 laymen connected with this city and proud of their Cathedral
 
 85 
 church, to aid in the provision of the balance — rather less 
 than £4000 — required to complete the endowment. It is 
 no very large sum for Tyneside to give. The generosity 
 which has found already such noble expression in the funds 
 for establishing this See and restoring this Cathedral, and 
 in raising in ten years £100,000 for the Bishop of Newcastle's 
 fund, will, I am persuaded, soon make that sum of £10,000 
 a completed fact. 
 
 They will do it, I am convinced, all the more readily Ku ^ t ' of 
 when I make a further announcement, which I do with a cin°onry 
 
 by Mr. T. 
 
 gratitude to Almighty God for which I cannot easily find spencer.' 
 expression, that on the day when the sum of £10,000 is 
 completed to endow a canonry to be attached to the Vicar- 
 age of Newcastle, another sum of £10,000 will be handed 
 over to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to endow a second 
 stall by one who has been already a most liberal donor to 
 the fund for establishing the Bishopric, as to every other 
 Diocesan work — Mr. Thomas Spencer. I cannot but ask 
 you, my friends, in the prospect of the establishment of 
 these two residentiary canonries in the near future, and with 
 the certainty that two others will follow, to make this service 
 of Holy Communion in which we are engaged, to be indeed 
 an Eucharist in which we shall offer up our praises and 
 thanksgivings for mercies already vouchsafed. The liberality 
 of the laity of this diocese will not end with these gifts. 
 Knowing that the interest of £10,000 will not by itself 
 provide all that is needed for a canon who is not to hold a 
 benefice but to devote himself to diocesan work, I am 
 persuaded that at least a house of residence will be provided, 
 and, if needed, some further annual support, that we may 
 obtain the services of as highly qualified a clergyman as is 
 possible for the work to which he will be called. 
 
 Suggested 
 
 The special functions to be assigned to the second tl 'n ctions 
 
 r ° of Reside: 
 
 den 
 
 canon will remain for future consideration. But I will men- c ^h.
 
 86 
 tion certain functions which ma)- well be discharged by 
 residentiary canons, though I shall not attempt to place 
 them in any special order. I have to thank you, my reverend 
 brethren, for many excellent suggestions made in answer to 
 my enquiries under this head. 
 
 The Royal Commission reported as follows in 1882 : — 
 " Besides the question of the services which take place in 
 " the Cathedral and matters connected with them, we have 
 " taken a wider view of the Cathedral in its relation to the 
 "whole diocese, and, indeed, to the Church at large. 
 
 "We have considered that in many cases the members 
 "of capitular bodies might be able to make the influence of 
 " the Cathedral felt in a beneficial manner throughout the 
 "diocese by giving instruction in theological or ecclesiastical 
 " subjects, either in the Cathedral city or in suitable centres 
 " throughout the diocese ; they might be able to make the 
 " same influence felt, also, by offering their services as 
 " preachers, where required ; we have endeavoured to em- 
 " body this view in the statutes of those Cathedrals to 
 " which it has appeared to us to be applicable." 
 
 The preaching power of the Cathedral and the Diocese 
 may, by way of illustration, be thus greatly increased. A 
 canon preaching from time to time in the Cathedral and 
 able to go to other churches of the Diocese, sometimes for 
 single sermons and sometimes for courses or for lectures, would 
 be a great strength to us. A canon missioner again, who 
 would be not merely a preacher, but at the head of the 
 special work for reviving the spiritual life of the Diocese, 
 and who might specially organize retreats or quiet days for 
 clergy, parochial missions, or courses of definite teaching for 
 building up the spiritual life in the Diocese, would again be 
 a great blessing. Then the Chancellor of the ancient 
 Cathedral, " principium et quasi fundamentum Ecclesi3e"as 
 he was termed, so important an officer in charge of religious
 
 87 
 
 and secular education that he was obliged to have a vice- 
 chancellor, needs his modern counterpart now. There is no 
 bishop and no examining chaplain who is not painfully 
 conscious of the imperfection too often of the special prepara- 
 tion for the ministry. Why should it be inferior to that of a 
 medical man ? Why should a mere degree at the university. 
 a fair test of general education, be thought sufficient, with a 
 smattering of theology extending over some six months, and 
 often ill digested, to qualify a young man for the most 
 important work to which anyone could be called ? I do not 
 want any forcing, in the hot-house sense, of young men 
 training for the ministry, still less of the moulding into one 
 groove, or the utterance of a party Shibboleth. One noble 
 characteristic of the late Dean Vaughan, who did such 
 admirable work for the English Church by preparing some 
 hundreds of young men for the ministry, attaching them to 
 himself in warmest affection, and developing in them, with 
 a power given to few, a sense of lofty vocation, was that he 
 trained a young man according to his natural development, 
 and never attempted to turn him into one uniform groove. 
 We want a strong manly training of our young men, 
 engendering in them an enthusiastic love of and loyalty to 
 the one Lord, enabling them clearly to understand, and 
 unswervingly, but in perfect charity, to teach the definite 
 principles of the Church of England without any hankering 
 after the uses of a foreign communion or any compromise of 
 principle to suit the breezes of the hour. And a man who, 
 as canon of the Cathedral, would enable our young graduates 
 — for it is such that I desire to bring into this Diocese 
 — to enter the ministry for work in the Diocese thus 
 equipped for their life's service, would earn the gratitude of 
 all the laity, and raise the standard of ministerial efficiency. 
 Again, a Canon who, as at Exeter, might take the guidance 
 •of foreign missions under his fostering care, would be a great
 
 blessing to the Church. Then surely our Church of England 
 should have some endowment of research. Ought not some 
 men to be free to study theology and Church history, and to 
 give through books and lectures the result of their researches 
 to those to whom God has given other work to do, but who 
 need the study of the patient toiler that they may, with 
 perhaps their own more practical knowledge of human 
 nature, the better apply great thoughts worked out in patient 
 meditation to the pressing necessities of the day. 
 
 These, my brothers, are but specimens of the dis- 
 tinctive service which canons residentiary, or honorary if 
 they have the needed leisure, might do to the Church of God 
 among us. I am convinced that God will awaken our 
 laymen more and more to see what they may do to build up 
 the diocese if they will give us the means of carrying such 
 projects out. 
 
 There is one word of warning with respect to the 
 functions of residentiary Canons, which I think it well to 
 give. It is not wise to tie down too closely the Canon to 
 the special duties assigned. There ought to be some dis- 
 pensing power in the Bishop, for a man may well discharge 
 certain functions for a term of years, and then be more 
 fitted to discharge others, but provision can without much 
 difficulty be made for this when the Canonry is established. 
 
 But I press for the conciliar idea as being, after all, 
 the most important function of all, and it is my hope and 
 purpose, God helping, more and more to avail myself of the 
 counsel of my Chapter in discharging the duties of the 
 office to which I have been called. Let us pray God to give 
 us a holy enthusiasm to realize the blessings of this 
 corporate life which He has given us in connection with 
 this noble Cathedral, and this diocese so fragrant with the 
 memories of primitive days.
 
 Act 
 
 8 9 
 
 It will be hardly possible for a legal Dean and Chapter Suggested 
 
 J r Ainend- 
 
 of Newcastle to be formed without some amending act, {£e n New- 
 somewhat, though with most important differences, after the chapter 
 analogy of Truro. I cannot but hope that if the functions 
 of the Vice-Dean can be carefully guarded in an Order in 
 Council so as to guard the rightful position of the Vicar of 
 Newcastle as working only under the ordinary in his own 
 parish church, it may be possible to follow the Truro 
 precedent in a clause making the Bishop to act as Dean. 
 If this be done a chapter will then be complete on the 
 endowment of the four canonries. 
 
 But if this be done, indeed possibly by a short act in 
 itself, I trust another anomaly ma) - be removed, and the Arch- 
 deaconry of Lindisfarne not tied inseparably to the vicarage 
 of Eglingham. It is unfair on the Bishop and the Diocese 
 that whenever a vacancy arises in that Archdeaconry the 
 Bishop should be obliged to look for a Clergyman with 
 sufficient private means to afford to take Eglingham, now 
 so greatly reduced in value, and at the same time to bury in 
 the midst of the country, seven miles from any first-class 
 railway station, a man who is constantly needed for diocesan 
 work. Such a severance of Archdeaconry and benefice can 
 only be done by Act of Parliament, as I am advised by the 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and it must be done if we are 
 to be free to do our work in the most efficient way. 
 
 I am anxious, however, to inspire, if I mav, even Responsi- 
 
 r J * bilityof all 
 
 Clergyman and lavman connected with this Cathedral with connected 
 
 OJ J with the 
 
 the responsibility and privilege that rest on him to make the Cathedral - 
 Cathedral system as efficient and as full of blessing as he 
 can. What post can be more important than that of 
 Churchwarden to such a Church ? I rei'oice, gentlemen, Ohmeh- 
 
 J ' ° ' wardens 
 
 that you have a prospect of raising a far larger sum of 
 money, by a judicious use of land vested in you under the 
 authority of the Charity Commissioners, for the benefit of
 
 go 
 
 this Church and the keeping up of its services. And yet, 
 I must say that I think this Cathedral should not hesitate 
 to appeal to the whole Diocese for whatever is needed to 
 make it really the mother Church of the Diocese, and the 
 centre of its spiritual life. The " Cathedral Service Main- 
 tenance Fund," referred to in one of the regulations con- 
 cerning honorary Canons, appears to me to be little more 
 than a name. 
 
 What service can be offered of greater value to a 
 congregation than the reverent rendering by Clergy, 
 Organist, and Choir, of a dignified Cathedral service? 
 " Due praises humbly paid (to quote from the Regula 
 " Canonicorum, a.d. 816) with such sweetness of reading 
 "and of melody as shall comfort the learned and educate 
 " the ignorant. Their purpose for people's edification rather 
 " than empty pleasingness." Should not the mother Church 
 always set the standard of reverent and real devotion, of 
 stately worship without a tinge of formalism, of true Church 
 of England principles in utterance, and symbol, and prayer, 
 which may make our people bless God increasingly for the 
 great heritage given to us in England's Church? I thank 
 God for all that this Cathedral already does. It sets a 
 noble example to the Diocese. It is the home of devotion. 
 Its daily offices and daily communions are offerings of 
 worship not for the parish or the city alone. Its monthly 
 intercession, its courses of Lenten and Advent teaching, its 
 now annual service on St. Andrew's Day, with intercession 
 for all our diocesan representatives in the mission field abroad, 
 its faithful ministries, have been blessed, I am assured, for 
 years to thirsting souls. I long to see all this developed 
 as we have the means. Some day we may perhaps have 
 our daily choral evensong, and may have our Diocesan 
 choral festivals, and men and women will increasingly say, 
 "I was glad when they said unto me: we will go into the
 
 9 1 
 " House* of the Lord." We may all take our part in thus 
 making the Cathedral life to bear on the life of the whole 
 Diocese — Bishop, Chapter, Clergy, Churchwardens, Organist, 
 Choir down to the youngest Chorister, Vergers, — surely to 
 be connected at all with such a building is an honour and 
 a privilege. 
 
 I cannot count the honour of a stall in such a Church 
 to be simply, or even chiefly, in its reference to the past or 
 as a recognition of past labour. It is all this, but it is far 
 more. Its chief characteristic is that it brings a man into 
 the corporate life of the Diocese at its centre, places him 
 at once in the Bishop's council, and claims from him a 
 share of the Diocesan work. The Royal Commissioners 
 have drawn out this point by inserting in the proposed 
 new statutes of the Cathedrals of Carlisle, Chester, Win- 
 chester, and Worcester, a clause : " Residence within 
 " the diocese shall be a condition of holding an Honorary 
 " Canonry, except in cases in which a dispensation shall 
 "be granted by the Bishop," and I am strongly con- 
 vinced, as my predecessor was, that the principle is a 
 right one if our Cathedrals are to be what they may be 
 to the several Dioceses. I have, after consulting the Arch- 
 bishop of the Province, and following his grace's own custom 
 when Bishop of Lichfield and the similar uses of Salisbury, 
 Southwell, and Wakefield, and various other Cathedrals, 
 made subscription to a similar proviso to be a condition of 
 acceptance of any Honorary Canonry which I have offered. 
 
 To-day the sad news has reached us of the death of 
 a much-loved member of our body in ripe old age, Canon 
 John Mason Mason, Rector of Whitfield. Each such call 
 is a warning to work while it is day. May we, my brothers, 
 rise more and more to a sense of the dignity of the calling 
 wherewith Christ has called us, and with one consent 
 
 beading 
 idea of 
 Hon. 
 Canonry. 
 
 ltesidenee 
 of Hon. 
 Canons 
 within thft 
 Diocese. 
 
 Death of 
 
 Canon 
 Mason.
 
 92 
 
 resolve on our knees that by the intensity of our devotion, 
 the energy of our work, the harmony of our efforts, we shall 
 make this Cathedral witness to the unity of the Diocese, the 
 unity of the Church, and the Trinity in unity of the Eternal 
 God.
 
 93 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 CONVOCATION OF YORK. 
 
 UPPER HOUSE. 
 
 Report of tl)e Committee on the fasting Reception 
 of the fiolp Communion. 
 
 Adopted unanimously by the House, May 4th, 1899. 
 
 Our attention has been called to the teaching of various 
 Manuals of Instruction and Devotion which are widely circulated 
 among members of our Church, and to special pastoral directions, 
 in which Fasting Reception is made one of the things "required 
 of them who come to the Lord's Supper," though it is not included 
 in the requirements set out in the Catechism, and nowhere enjoined 
 in the Prayer Book or in any authoritative document of our Church. 
 
 We are very far from desiring to lessen in any degree the 
 devout reverence with which the Sacrament of Holy Communion 
 ought to be approached ; or to discourage Fasting Reception 
 where it is found to provide a salutary self-discipline. We readily 
 acknowledge that a custom which has prevailed from early times 
 throughout the Church generally till the sixteenth century, and 
 which has been advocated as helpful to the spiritual life by many 
 teachers of our own Church, is always likely to find wide accept- 
 ance among us. At the same time to describe reception without 
 fasting as a sin* is wholly unwarranted by the teaching of Holy 
 Scripture, and is therefore inconsistent with the Ordination Vow. 
 We further hold that there are grave reasons both from the history 
 of the custom and from its essential character against making the 
 practice of Fasting Reception one of obligation. 
 
 1 . The circumstances of the Institution of the Holy Euchar- 
 ist exclude the thought that taking food shortly before disqualifies 
 
 *See the Report on Fasting Communion adopted by the Upper House of the 
 Convocation of Canterbury, May 5th, 1893. Clause 8. " That, regard being had to the 
 practice of the Apostolic Church in this matter, to teach that it is a sin to communi- 
 cate otherwise than fasting, is contrary to the teaching and spirit of the Church of 
 England."
 
 94 
 for Reception. The same conclusion follows from St. Paul's treat- 
 ment of this Sacrament in i Cor. xi. Nor is the obligation of 
 Fasting Reception supported by any authority of Scripture or by 
 any apostolic ordinance. The conjecture of Augustine that it was 
 one of the points which St. Paul " set in order " (i Cor. xi. 24) 
 rests on no historical foundation. 
 
 The custom of Fasting Reception would naturally arise 
 when the service was transferred from a late hour in the evening 
 (according to our reckoning) to an early hour in the morning. The 
 cause of this change is not recorded. It may have been made in 
 the Gentile Churches, in which the Jewish reckoning of time was 
 superseded by the Roman, in order to place the service at the 
 beginning of the Roman day, as the institution had been at the 
 beginning of the Jewish day. But not to insist on any special 
 explanation of the origin of the change, it is enough to observe 
 that there is no reason for supposing that it was made in order to 
 secure a fast from the beginning of the day to the time of 
 Communion. 
 
 When the custom of Fasting Reception was once established 
 even in a limited range, it was likely to spread owing to the general 
 tendency of the Oriental mind towards ascetic practices. ::: But the 
 adoption of the custom was ultimately accompanied by serious evils. 
 Infrequent reception and non-communicating attendance, which 
 cannot be wholly dissociated from Fasting Communion, came to 
 be general; and these customs find no support in the teaching 
 and practice of the Primitive Church. 
 
 2. Fasting, again, is a means to an end and not an end in 
 itself. It is valuable or not according as it fulfils the proposed 
 object. It may be employed to obtain for the communicant the 
 fullest command over his powers of attention and devotion. But 
 it is evident that the fitness of fasting for obtaining this result 
 depends in a large degree upon climate, domestic habits, age and 
 the like ; and exhaustion, as we all know, is itself in most cases 
 
 ♦Consider e.g. the interpolation of the word "fasting" in later editions of the New 
 Testament. In 1 Cor. vii. 5, " fasting " is certainly not a part of the original text. In 
 Mark ix. 29. it is probably an interpolation. While the whole verse Matt xvii. 21, is 
 probably an interpolation based upon the later reading 01 Mark ix. 29.
 
 95 
 fatal to spiritual self-command. And more than this: while the 
 spontaneous combination of prayer and fasting corresponds with 
 a spiritual instinct, it is contrary to the tenor of apostolic teaching, 
 and indeed of the teaching of the Lord Himselff, to make the 
 observance of a period of materia] abstinence a necessary condition 
 of participating in the highest spiritual service of the church. The 
 inherent discordance between the custom of Fasting Reception and 
 its object becomes still more obvious, if fasting is made obligatory 
 from a fixed hour, when it is remembered that the duration of the 
 fast and its physical effects will necessarily vary in individual 
 cases, and are practically indeterminate. Nor can it be overlooked 
 that the different conditions of town and country parishes introduce 
 serious difficulties in the uniform application of any such rule. 
 It may be added that so far as Fasting Reception is advocated on 
 the ground of reverence for the Sacrament, the arguments have a 
 wider range. The)'- may be used with equal, and some will 
 think with greater, force in favour of fasting after reception. 
 
 Such considerations shew that Fasting Reception is one 
 of those matters of Ecclesiastical Discipline which every "par- 
 ticular or national church hath authority to ordain, change, 
 and abolish " with a view to the spiritual health of its members. 
 And that the English Church since the Reformation has ceased to 
 require fasting before Holy Communion, leaving the matter to 
 individual liberty, 1 ' appears to be clear from the fact that there is 
 no direction upon the subject in those passages of the Prayer 
 Book in which the requisites of individual preparation are plainly 
 specified, nor in any of our authoritative documents. If it be 
 urged that there was no need to prescribe the observance in 1549, 
 the same cannot be said of 16624 In other words our Church 
 
 +See e.g. St. Mark vii 15. "There is nothing from without a man, that, entering 
 into hiui, can defile him : but the things which come out of him, those are they that 
 defile the man." 
 
 *3ee the Report on Fasting Communion adopted by the Upper House of the 
 Convocation of Canterbury, May 5th, 1893. Clause 7. 'That at the Reformation 
 the Church of England, in accordance with the principle of liberty laid down in 
 Article xxxiv., ceased to require the Communion to be received fasting, though 
 the practice was observed by many as a reverent and ancient custom, an. I as such 
 is commended by several of our eminent writers and divines down to the present 
 time." 
 
 JCompare the first Rubric of the Service for Baptism of those of Riper Years, in 
 which Fasting is recommended (1662).
 
 96 
 
 has virtually applied to this matter the principle of St. Paul's 
 teaching on a similar question : Let not him that eateth set at nought 
 him that eateth not ; and let not him that eateth not judge him that 
 eateth; for God hath received him . ... Let each man be fully assured in 
 his own mind (Rom. xiv. 3, 5). 
 
 The following gravamen (1892), signed by members of the 
 Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury, gave rise to 
 the Report of the Upper House of that Convocation (1893), to 
 which reference is made in the foregoing Report. 
 
 The gravamen of the undersigned showeth — 
 
 1. That whereas it is admitted by all who have studied the subject 
 that from earl}' times it was the custom among Christians to communi- 
 cate fasting, and that this custom has been followed by many godly 
 persons in the Church of England subsequently to the Reformation ; 
 
 2. And whereas the said Church of England has nowhere in her 
 authorised formularies, articles, canons, or homilies inculcated or 
 recommended the said practice ; 
 
 3. And whereas Holy Scripture is altogether silent upon this 
 subject, albeit it censures other profanations of the Hoi} - Sacrament; 
 
 4. And whereas the Church of England expressly lays down in the 
 Sixth Article that whatsoever is not read in Holy Scripture nor may be 
 proved thereby is not to be thought requisite or necessary to salvation ; 
 and again in the Twentieth Article affirms that the Church ought not, 
 beside the same (Scripture) to enforce anything to be believed for 
 necessity of salvation ; 
 
 5. And whereas the Church of England exacts from all Priests at 
 their ordination a promise that the}- will teach nothing as required of 
 necessity to eternal salvation, but that which the} 7 shall be persuaded 
 may be concluded and proved by the Scripture; 
 
 6. And whereas the undersigned is credibly informed that certain 
 Priests of the Church of England do now teach that it is a sin to com- 
 municate otherwise than fasting; 
 
 7. And whereas this teaching is a burden to the conscience and 
 cause of distress to many Christian people ; 
 
 Reformandum. — That their lordships of the Upper House be humbly 
 prayed to take such steps as they may in their wisdom deem best on 
 this grave matter with a view to allaying the present distress and 
 perplexity. 
 
 John Mitchinson (Bishop), Archdeacon of Leicester. 
 
 P. F. ElioT, Dean of Windsor. 
 
 W. F. John Kaye, Archdeacon of Lincoln. 
 
 Edwin Palmer, Archdeacon of Oxford. 
 
 B. F. Smith, Archdeacon of Maidstone. 
 
 J. W. Sheringham, Archdeacon of Gloucester. 
 
 Robert Gregory, Dean of St. Paul's. 
 
 G. D. Boyle, Dean of Salisbury. 
 
 Alexander Colvin Ainslie, Proctor for Clergy of Bath and Wells. 
 
 G. R. Dover, Archdeacon of Canterbury. 
 
 F. W. Farrar, Archdeacon of Westminster. 
 
 Con. FrerE, Proctor for Archdeaconry of Suffolk.
 
 97 
 
 R. P. Lightfoot, Archdeacon of Oakham. 
 
 CHARLES Burxev, Archdeacon of Kingston. 
 
 Thomas Walters, Proctor for St. David's Diocese. 
 
 E. ARTHUR Salmon, Proctor for Clergy of Bath and Wells. 
 
 W. W. Douglas, Proctor for Clergy of Worcester. 
 
 W. Walters, Archdeacon of Worcester. 
 
 J. M. NlSBET, Canon for Chapter of Norwich. 
 
 W. J. Lawraxce, Archdeacou of St. Albau's. 
 
 Edward T. Yaughan, Proctor for Clergy of St. Alban's. 
 
 J. Henry Freer, Archdeacon of Derbj- 
 
 Charles J. Hamilton, Proctor for Clergy of Southwell. 
 
 Ernald Lane, Archdeacon of Stoke-on-Trent. 
 
 John C. McDonnell, Proctor for Chapter of Peterborough. 
 
 C. T. Wilkinson, Archdeacou of Totnes. 
 
 H. R. Hayward, Archdeacon of Cirencester. 
 
 E. Owen Phillips, Chancellor of St. David's Cathedral, Proctor 
 for Chapter. 
 
 J. Owen, Dean of St. Asaph. 
 
 Brough Majltby, Archdeacon of Nottingham. 
 
 H. Frank Johnson, Archdeacon of Essex. 
 
 H. A. Jeffreys, Proctor for the Clergy of Canterbury. 
 
 John Puckle, Proctor for the Clergy of Canterbury. 
 
 Vernon Musgrave, Proctor for Archdeaconry of Surrey. 
 
 William Warburton, Proctor for Chapter of Winchester. 
 
 H. Haigh, Archdeacou of the Isle of Wight. 
 
 F. V. Mather, Proctor for the Clergy of the diocese of Gloucester 
 
 and Bristol. 
 Eldon S. Bankes, Proctor for the Clergy of the diocese of Salisbury. 
 John R. Cornish, Archdeacon of Cornwall. 
 T. B. Buchanan, Archdeacou of Wiltshire. 
 
 R. S. Hutchings, Proctor for the Clergy of the diocese of Salisbury. 
 Arthur J. Ingram, Proctor for the Clergy of the diocese of London. 
 Charles S. Palmer, Proctor for the Clergy of the diocese of Hereford. 
 A. Colchester, Archdeacon of Colchester. 
 Frederick Bathurst, Archdeacon of Bedford. 
 William Bree, Archdeacon of Coveutry. 
 Berkeley L. Stanhope, Archdeacon of Hereford. 
 Reginald Hobhouse, Archdeacon of Bodmin. 
 Frederick J. Wilson, Proctor for the Clergy of Truro. 
 P. Goldsmith jIedd, Clergy Proctor, Gloucester aud Bristol. 
 George Perry, Clergy Proctor for Lincoln diocese. 
 George Herbert, Dean of Hereford. 
 M. F. Sadler, Proctor for diocese of Exeter. 
 Henry Bailey, Proctor for the Archdeaconry of Chichester. 
 Carey H. Borror, Proctor for the Archdeaconry of Lewes.
 
 9 8 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 READ AND OTHERS v. THE LORD BISHOP 
 OF LINCOLN. 
 
 Extracts from Judgment, November 2ist, 1890. 
 
 I. MIXING WATER WITH THE WINE. 
 
 The Court concludes : — 
 
 I. The Church of England has, and in the 34th article 
 declares itself to have, the same authority as any Church 
 Western or Eastern "to ordain change and abolish ceremonies 
 or rites of the Church, ordained only by man's authority." By 
 and within this authority the mixing of the cup was removed 
 from the place it had before held in the public service of the 
 Church. It was so removed in accordance with antient, primitive 
 and very general use of most Churches. To practise it as if it 
 had not been removed is to disregard those precedents and this 
 authority. 
 
 2. ADMINISTERING THE MIXED CHALICE. 
 
 II. No rule has been made to "change or abolish" the 
 all but universal use of a mixed cup from the beginning. When 
 it was desirable to modify the direction as to the uniform use of 
 unleavened wafers, a Rubric was enacted declaring Wheat 
 Bread sufficient. Without order it seems that no person had 
 a right to change the matter in the Chalice, any more than to 
 change the form of Bread. Wine alone may have been adopted 
 by general habit but not by law. No rule having been made, 
 it is not within the competency of this Court to make a new rule, 
 in fact a Rubric ; which it would do if it ordered that a mixed 
 cup should not be used. 
 
 The Court decides that the mixing of the Wine in and as 
 part of the Service is against the law of the Church, but finds no
 
 99 
 ground for pronouncing the use of a cup mixed beforehand to be 
 an ecclesiastical offence. 
 
 3. ABLUTION. 
 
 The Rubric gives a general direction as to what is to be 
 done in the way of consuming what remains after the service, 
 and is not so minute as to go beyond this, our Book having 
 abandoned many over-niceties of regulation. If a conscientious 
 scruple is felt as to not " carrying out of the church " slight rem- 
 nants even into the vestry, it is not the duty of this Court to 
 override it, and the Credence is a suitable place for completing 
 the consumption. In antient liturgies, which cannot be held to 
 fail in punctilious reverence, after the words of dismissal the 
 Minister goes into the prothesis (the side apse where the Credence 
 is) and there consumes the last remnants (see Goar, Eicch., p. 86). 
 In neither of those liturgies, which were in Cranmer's hands and 
 used by him (as we have seen), are any directions given. If it 
 were the duty of this Court to point out where and when, if not 
 at the Holy Table, the Minister would most properly complete 
 the consumption of the consecrated elements in such way as he 
 might think to be necessary in compliance with the Rubric, 
 the Court would unhesitatingly say At the Credence, or in the 
 place where they had been prepared. Nevertheless the Court 
 cannot hold that the Minister, who, after the Service was ended 
 and the Benediction given, in order that no part of the consecrated 
 elements should be carried out of the church, cleansed the 
 vessels of all remnants in a reverent way without Ceremony or 
 Prayers before finally leaving the Hol_y Table, would have sub- 
 jected himself to penal consequences by so doing. 
 
 In this case, it would have been illegal to vary the service 
 by making " the Ceremony of Ablution " charged in the articles, 
 or the like, appear to be part of it, but the evidence does not 
 shew that this was done. 
 
 This charge must be dismissed.
 
 100 
 
 4« EASTWARD POSITION IN THE FIRST PART OF THE 
 COMMUNION SERVICE. 
 
 The Court concludes. 
 
 The term North side was introduced into a Rubric of the 
 Liturgy to meet doubts which had arisen owing to a general 
 change in the position of the Holy Tables. It was at that time 
 perfectly definite and distinct in its meaning and application. 
 
 About eighty years after the first publication of that Rubric 
 a second general change was made under authority in the 
 position of the Tables, which were now moved to the East end. 
 
 This change made the North side direction impossible of 
 fulfilment in the sense originally intended. The new inter- 
 pretation or usage commonly adopted was not prescribed by 
 any statute or authoritative declaration. The evidence of the 
 Visitation Articles has been already adduced, and it has been 
 shown that the grounds which the liturgical commentators took 
 in its defence were mistaken. On the other hand there are 
 indications that a different interpretation, though probably small 
 in its range, was not unfamiliar in the Church. 
 
 It will be observed that the argument under this head is of 
 a cumulative character, and that no point of the evidence is 
 conclusive when isolated. It is the concurrence and coincidence 
 of such indications as have been referred to that gives them force. 
 It is possible that further research or argument may hereafter 
 throw additional and perhaps novel light upon this somewhat 
 obscure subject, devoid as it is of doctrinal interest. 
 
 So far then as the information before the Court extends 
 the Court is of opinion that a certain liberty in the application 
 of the term existed — a liberty exercised not without consideration. 
 This liberty was less and less exercised for a long time, but it 
 does not appear to be lost by that fact or taken away. 
 
 Such existing liberty it is not the function of a Court, but 
 only of legislation, to curtail. And the duty of the Court is not 
 to consider one word only as it stands, but to have regard both 
 to the original meaning and to the history of the term.
 
 101 
 
 It would be virtually attempting to make a new Rubric 
 if it were judicially to attach a secondary meaning, whenceso- 
 ever derived or inferred, to the definite, primary term, and to 
 declare under penal consequences that what has never been set 
 forth as the only possible form of obedience to the Rubric 
 under present conditions is alone admissible. 
 
 The Court is however distinctly called upon to state — the 
 point having been urged with a view to guiding its judgment — 
 that none of the alternative positions which have been mentioned 
 as adopted by different authorities in accommodating this Rubric 
 to the present situation of the Holy Table convey any intrinsic 
 error or erroneous shade of doctrine. 
 
 In order to make the act described an illegal act it would 
 be necessary to prove that no interpretation or accommodation 
 of the term ■ North side ' except ' North end ' was correct in 
 point of language, and that the position at the North end had 
 been required by at least some authority since the last Revision, 
 and that no other had been practically permitted. This is not 
 proved. 
 
 It is necessary, therefore, that the charge, presumably 
 intended to be brought against the Lord Bishop in the ninth 
 article, should be dismissed, although not on the ground alleged 
 in the Responsive plea. 
 
 5. BREAKING OF THE BREAD BEFORE THE PEOPLE. 
 
 The Court decides that the Order of the Holy Communion 
 requires that the Manual Acts should be visible. 
 
 II. The second question before the Court was Whether 
 the Order of the Holy Communion requiring that the Manual 
 Acts should be visible, the hiding of the Acts without the wish 
 or intention to hide them constitutes a transgression of that 
 order : in other words, Whether such being the requirement 
 of that Order, it is a sufficient answer to a charge that they have 
 been rendered invisible, to reply that there was no wish or 
 intention to prevent their being seen. 
 
 The Court decides that in the mind of a Minister there 
 ought to be a wish and intention to do what has to be done, not
 
 102 
 
 merely no wish or intention not to do it ; that in this case he 
 must not hide the acts by doing what must hide them ; that he 
 must not be so indifferent as to what the result of what he does 
 may be as to do that which is certain to make them invisible. 
 
 The Court therefore, reviewing the plea, rules that the 
 Lord Bishop has mistaken the true interpretation of the Order 
 of the Holy Communion in this particular, and that the Manual 
 Acts must be performed in such wise as to be visible to the 
 Communicants properly placed. 
 
 6. SINGING OF THE ANTHEM. " O LAMB OF GOD." 
 
 Seeing, then, that there is no evidence whatever to show 
 that Bishop Ridley or any one else objected to the Choir singing 
 this Anthem at this place upon any doctrinal ground, and seeing 
 that the Act of Parliament which established the Second Book 
 lays down expressly that the First Book was " agreeable to the 
 Word of God and the Primitive Church ; " and seeing also that 
 the typical Protestant Representatives at the Savoy desired the 
 restoration at this very place of the words in still stronger form, 
 there is no ground left for believing that the words had then, or 
 have now, any association with those Roman doctrines or 
 practices which the Church of England repudiates. 
 
 Under these circumstances, although we might readily 
 agree that the proximity of two other repetitions of the words 
 in the Litany and Gloria may make them not the aptest anthem 
 for use here and may suggest their disuse, as apparently it did to 
 the framers of the Second Book, the Court has not to consider 
 expediency but legality. That use of them could only be con- 
 demned on the ground that any and every hymn at this place 
 would be illegal, which cannot be maintained in the face of 
 concurrent, continuous, and sanctioned usage. To condemn 
 the singing of that text here as unsound in doctrine would be 
 contrary to the real force of Ridley's injunction, and to other 
 unexceptionable Protestant teaching. 
 
 The Court concludes that the singing of it by the choir was 
 not an illegal addition to the service.
 
 103 
 
 J. LIGHTS. 
 
 It would be contrary to the history and interpretation of 
 the two lights on the Holy Table to connect them with erroneous 
 and strange teaching as to the nature of the Sacrament. It is 
 not likely that they will cease to be distasteful to many minds, 
 and where that is the case, even in a small degree, charity and 
 good sense ought not to be violated. 
 
 The lawfulness of lighting the candles in the course of the 
 Service is- not before us. But the Court does not find sufficient 
 warrant for declaring that the law is broken by the mere fact of 
 two lighted candles, when not wanted for the purpose of giving 
 light, standing on the Holy Table continuously through the 
 Service ; nothing having been performed or done, which comes 
 under the definition of a Ceremony, by the presence of two still 
 lights alight before it begins and until after it ends. 
 
 8. THE SIGN OF THE CROSS IN THE ABSOLUTION. 
 
 Thus there is no ground to allege that to make the sign of 
 the Cross at the Absolution in the Communion Service is in any 
 sense a continuance of old prescription in the Church of England, 
 or a compliance with prescription which could historically affect 
 our service. 
 
 This Ceremony is an innovation which must be dis- 
 continued. 
 
 9. THE SIGN OF THE CROSS IN THE BENEDICTION. 
 
 The Court therefore finds that there is no justification 
 either in direction or usage for making the sign of the Cross in 
 giving the final Benediction ; that the action is a distinct ceremony, 
 not ' retained,' since it had not previously existed ; and that there- 
 fore it is a ceremony additional to the ceremonies of the Church 
 ' according to the Use of the Church of England ' {Title c. p. b.). 
 
 This ceremony also is an innovation which must be 
 discontinued. 
 
 PJUNTF.D BY MAWSOX, SWAN, AND MORGAN, NK W( ASTLE-UN-TVNi:.