THE CHURCH QUARTERLY REVIEW. No LV. APRIL 1889. ART. I.-EPISCOPAL COMMENTS ON THE 1. The Counsels and Principles of the Lambeth Conference of 1888. A Charge delivered to the Clergy and Church Committee-men of the Diocese of Bombay, in St. Thomas's Cathedral, on Wednesday, January 9, 1889, by LOUIS GEORGE MYLNE, fourth Bishop of Bombay. (Bombay, 1889.) 2. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Meath, in St. Patrick's National Cathedral, at his Third Annual Visitation, August 30, 1888, by C. P. REICHEL, D.D., Bishop of Meath. (Dublin, 1888.) 3. Home Re-union and the Lambeth Conference. An Address delivered at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Dublin Christian Convention, October 23, 1888, by the Most Reverend LORD PLUNKET, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. (Dublin, 1888.) 4. The Lambeth Conference and Church Reform in Spain and Portugal. Being the Substance of an Address delivered by the Archbishop of Dublin at the Annual Meeting of the Spanish and Portuguese Church Aid Society, August 7, 1888. (Dublin, 1888.) 5. Diocese of Albany: The Bishop's Address, 1888. 6. The Lambeth Conference and Church Reunion. A Charge delivered at the Annual Synod of the United Diocese of St. Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane, at St. Ninian's Cathedral, Perth, on Wednesday, August 29, 1888, with Preface and Appendix. By CHARLES WORDSWORTH, D.D., D.C.L., Bishop of the Diocese. (Edinburgh, 1889.) BESIDES the publications which appear at the head of this article the Church newspapers in America, in the Colonies, and at home, have printed many Charges and Addresses VOL. XXVIII.-NO. LV. B delivered by bishops at their diocesan visitations, synods, conventions, councils, &c., which have treated with more or less fulness the subject of the Lambeth Conference of last year and its results, and many of which do not appear to have been issued in a separate form. It is not without its interest to consider the commentaries upon the proceedings of the Conference furnished by those who themselves took part in it. And nothing could more completely establish the great moral weight and authority which attaches to the utterances of the Lambeth Conference than the manner in which the text of its Resolutions and of its Encyclical Letter are treated by its own members. We are not unacquainted with the sight presented by bishops of the Roman obedience examining with scrupulous care the text of a Papal Rescript, all professing readiness to submit to its decisions, but differing among themselves as to its precise sense and application in certain particulars. And it certainly speaks with clear voice to the singular importance which the bishops themselves attribute to the Lambeth Resolutions when, even on the occasion of sharply defined differences, each claims to have the true sense of the Conference's judgment on his side. The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol and the Archbishop of Dublin may differ on the sense that properly belongs to the Lambeth Resolutions dealing with the reforming movement in Spain and Portugal; the Bishop of Albany, with the Bishop of Bombay, may be separated by as wide a divergence from the Bishop of St. Andrews in the interpretations of the Resolutions on Home Reunion; but all alike profess to be in accord with the Conference's decisions. Indeed, already the formal pronouncements of the Conference are treated with a respect that reminds one of the words of 'his Majesty's Declaration' prefixed in our Prayer Book to the Articles of Religion: Even in those curious points in which the present differences lie, men of all sorts take the Articles of the Church of England to be for them.' It is certainly remarkable that an assembly in no sense claiming the authoritative position of a synod, and in no sense so constituted as legitimately to make such a claim, is yet regarded throughout the whole Anglican Communion with a measure of consideration akin to reverence. And mature reflection justifies the growing sentiment. In a recent number1 we dealt with the results of the Conference as they presented themselves in its Resolutions, Reports, and Encyclical Letter. But in view of various subsequent utterances of the bishops on the topics discussed, and in con1 Church Quarterly Review, October 1888. sideration of the essential importance of certain of the questions treated, we make no apology for again bringing the subject before our readers. And let us in the first instance endeavour to estimate fairly the real position which the Lambeth Conference of 1888 is likely to occupy in the historical records of the Anglican Communion, to picture its form and methods of procedure, and to present some of the lessons which the gathering of that great assembly may fitly suggest to Church men. It will be remembered that not many weeks after the close of the Conference Canon Liddon communicated to the Guardian (September 19, 1888) the estimate which had been formed of its importance by Dr. Von Döllinger. 'Nothing of equal importance in the history of the Church of England,' the veteran historian declared, 'had taken place for, at any rate, more than two centuries.' 'The spectacle,' he added, 'of an assembly of 146 bishops dealing with burning questions, and deliberating with perfect freedom, could not but have a considerable effect throughout Europe-throughout Christendom.' We believe that the closer study of the proceedings at Lambeth, while revealing some defects and errors which it was perhaps scarcely possible to wholly avoid, will not fail to justify the judgment of Dr. Döllinger.. During the course of seven centuries many events of deep interest in the regions of both civil and ecclesiastical history have been associated with the ancient pile of buildings that, under various changes, has formed the archiepiscopal residence at Lambeth. But none of the scenes witnessed by those venerable walls can be held, when rightly estimated, to have surpassed in real importance and far-reaching influence the great assemblies of bishops of the Anglican Communion who have met together in council on three different occasions within the last twenty-one years. In the main the incidents that connect themselves with the older historical records of Lambeth Palace were confined, even when of widest concern, to the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury, or at most to the realm of England. But the assemblies of 1867 and 1878, and notably that of 1888, possess, and will continue to possess, interests, direct and indirect, for millions of English-speaking people who may never set foot upon the shores of Great Britain, and for millions of other and alien races that occupy the wide-spread field of Anglican missionary effort. From almost every quarter of the globe the fathers and rulers of the Church were drawn together. The episcopate of England, Ireland, and Scotland naturally bulked largely; but Canada, the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, our great Indian Empire in the East, the great independent Republic of the United States in the West, were all well represented. To the meeting-place at Lambeth they gathered from the most varied fields of labour, from centres of the busy life of trade such as Manchester, Liverpool, New York, Chicago, Quebec, Toronto, Calcutta, Bombay, Sydney, Colombo, and Capetown, and again from wide districts, sparsely populated, such as the remoter regions of our North American and Australian possessions, and distant territories in the Far West of the United States. Some came from ancient ecclesiastical sees, representing the history and ordered life of many centuries. Of these we may take as examples Lincoln and York and London, from each of which cities fifteen hundred years ago, and while the empire of old Rome stood intact, a bishop had journeyed to the Council of Arles on the summons of the Emperor Constantine, as a representative of the British Church. Or we may think of Armagh, founded (as the bishops at Lambeth were reminded by the present occupant of the see of St. Patrick) a hundred and fifty years before the missionary St. Augustine planted his episcopal chair at Canterbury. But, indeed, the progress of civilization in these islands is inextricably interwoven with the history of the episcopate; and memories crowd quick upon the mind at the mention of such names as Durham, Exeter, Lincoln, Lichfield, Salisbury, St. Andrews, Elgin, Kilkenny, Cashel, Dublin. But at Lambeth, side by side with the occupants of ancient and historic bishoprics, sat those whose episcopal dignity was associated with remote regions even now scarcely within the borderland of civilized life, the uncouth and unfamiliar titles of whose sees- such as Moosonee, Saskatchewan, and Waiapu-remind us at once of the contact of the English race with other blood and other tongues.2 1 Bishop Herzog, who was present at the closing service in St. Paul's, records his impressions in the Katholik of August 18, 1888. The cecumenical character of the gathering, he declares, was forcibly brought home to him on finding himself asking the Bishop of Japan whether he intended travelling back to his diocese east or west.' 2 The writer of this article is not ashamed to confess that till recently he knew nothing of the diocese of Moosonee. He is now informed that the Bishop exercises jurisdiction over an area as large as Europe, extending all round the Hudson's Bay territory. Ten thousand people are under his charge, scattered through this vast region, and there is no resident minister of any other body of Christians beside the Bishop and his seven clergy. The distances are enormous, and the shortest way to the northern part of his diocese is to |