SUMMARY.

I. Extend by making all posssible use of every existing church, chapel, and school.

II. Extend by securing the living agency of active clergymen, wherever such agency is wanting.

III. Extend by services in temporary buildings, or even in the factory, the mine, and the weaving shed.

IV. Extend by the formation of new parishes, wherever the population has outgrown the possibilities of the ancient unmatched parochial system.

V. Extend by a gradual increase of the episcopate.

VI. Extend by securing the thorough co-operation of the laity, whom this great work concerns more than it affects the clergy.

VII. Extend by a wise organisation of your forces so as to get aid from every one, and yet to be economical in your mode of collection. But do all only as an extension of methods of usefulness, which you verily believe have been ordained of Christ, or sanctioned by the Apostles, and blessed by the Holy Spirit of our God.

Do all, with the feeling, "Though I be nothing" with the persuasion, "Your labour is not in vain in the Lord:" with the assurance still sweetly sounding as from Him who spake it, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

CHURCH EXTENSION.

BY MR. JAMES MURRAY DALE.

I PROPOSE in the present paper to consider this question practically and in its legal aspect, under the following heads, viz. :-(1) The facilities, very inadequate, and but too little understood, which the existing law on this subject affords for the promotion of Church Extension; (2) Some of the impediments in the way of Church Extension, arising, on the one hand, from the defects in the existing law, and, on the other, from the defective administration of that law; and (3) The alterations in the law necessary, in my judgment, to adequately increase those facilities, and remove those impediments. A short historical glance at the statutes which have been passed upon this subject will, perhaps, tend to illustrate the foregoing heads of inquiry.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

Prior to any special or general legislation with a view to promote the building of new churches, or the sub-division of populous parishes, the law was at once too simple and too severe. It afforded no adequate scope for the accomplishment of the latter object; and, practically, afforded none as regards the former. To use the words of Dr. Lushington-" No person could erect a new church or chapel forming part of the Ecclesiastical Establishment of the Church of England without the consent of incumbent, patron, and ordinary," whilst a parish could only be divided by a special Act of Parliament. It was almost invariably very difficult to obtain the consents required

in the former case. The incumbents would, and indeed still very frequently do, object to the erection, by any third parties, of any new church within the limits of their parishes, and the bishops frequently declined under such circumstances to interfere. Indeed the necessity for these consents and the cost of special Acts of Parliament offered an almost insuperable barrier to effectual Church Extension.

PROPRIETARY CHAPELS.

Proprietary Chapels could, indeed, be erected for public worship, but these edifices in no sense came within the proper objects of the parochial system.

In the case of these chapels the licence of the bishop and the consent of the incumbent are both requisite. Moreover these chapels when erected could, and can, only be regarded as the private speculations of their founders, and were and indeed still are capable of being converted, or rather perverted, to any profane purpose. At the same time when judiciously placed, with an able minister, they almost invariably produced a considerable income from seat rents, and thus went far to establish the utility of that system. Indeed, subsequent legislation was, to a great extent, influenced by the success which had attended the erection of these chapels.

Dismissing, then, these anomalous edifices from our consideration, as having no part whatever in the parochial system of the Church of England, we come to Legislation by Special and General Acts of Parliament.

Until the commencement of the present century there had been no systematic effort of the legislature to promote the building of churches and the sub-division of populous districts.

Acts had been passed, it is true, in the reigns of Charles II., Queen Anne, and George I., for the erection of some particular churches and to promote the augmentation of poor livings. Chapels of ease augmented under those acts became benefices, and in many cases, where isolated from the mother church, gradually acquired independent parochial rights; but the great and increasing evil of the want of Church Extension was left, comparatively speaking, untouched.

In some of the larger and more populous parishes in London, and in growing provincial towns, the want of new churches became so urgent that special local acts were obtained, under which new churches were built and new parishes formed; but this process, besides being costly and difficult of accomplishment, introduced evils only less than those which it sought to remedy. It led to great confusion, arising from the accumulation of novel, and imperfect, and diverse pieces of legislation, for many of those acts went in the very teeth of the parochial system. Indeed these local acts are in the present day considered by the highest authorities to be great obstacles in the way of making, where it is most needed, adequate provisions for the cure of souls; and it is highly desirable that the General Church Building Acts should be made to over-ride them. Those acts have only to a partial extent overcome the difficulties now alluded to.

In the year 1803, however, an act (43 Geo. III., cap. 108) was passed "to promote the building, repairing, or otherwise providing of churches and chapels, parsonages, churchyards, and glebes.'

This act simply enabled persons to grant land for the purposes mentioned. It is important, however, for its implied recognition of the legality of " pew rents," and of their importance also, the fifth section providing that," in every church or chapel thereafter erected ample provision should be made for the accommodation of all persons, of what rank or degree soever, who might be entitled to resort to the same, and whose circumstances might render them unable to pay for such accommodation."

THE CHURCH BUILDING ACTS.

The first important Church Building Act was the 58th Geo. IIl., cap. 45, by which £1,500,000 was granted by Parliament for that purpose. Commissioners were appointed to administer it, and to inquire into the state of parishes; and they were empowered to subdivide populous parishes (a), either with consent of bishop and patron, into complete "distinct and separate parishes," including a subdivision of the glebe, tithes, endowment, and ecclesiastical dues of the mother parish; or (b), with the consent of the bishop only, into ecclesiastical districts, called "district parishes." These latter were parishes for all ecclesiastical purposes, but the glebe, tithes, and endowments of the mother parish were not affected. Pew rents were expressly authorised to be taken in the churches of each of these divisions.

In both cases, however, the division did not take effect until the avoidance of the incumbent of the mother parish, the churches remaining chapels of ease in the interim; whilst the latter class of sub-division remained liable to the rate for the repair of the mother church, in addition to their own, for twenty years after consecration of their own churches.

This latter was a very obnoxious provision, and has had an evil tendency in many ways. Where a "district parish" has been again sub-divided a treble liability to church rates has been incurred. This act also enabled the commissioners to promote the building of pew rent chapels without districts. It, however, fell far short of the occasion. Valuable as it was in some respects, only 40 distinct and separate parishes and 81 district parishes have been formed since the act passed, whilst none of either class has been constituted for several years.

In the next year, the 59 Geo. III., c. 134, was passed, amending and extending the 58 Geo. III., and, as subsequently amended, became the most important and valuable of all the "Church Building Acts." This act impowered the commissioners to constitute two new classes of ecclesiastical divisions, viz., the "District Chapelry" and the "Consolidated Chapelry," in the former case by assigning a district out of ONE parish to a consecrated church or chapel; in the other by taking the district out of Two or more adjoining parishes. These districts they might assign to any church or chapel.

The "District Chapelry" and the "Consolidated Chapelry" form the most valuable class of sub-division of parishes. Indeed, out of the 1,592 divisions of parishes constituted under these acts up to October, 1862, by the late Church Building Commissioners and by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 1,055 are of this particular class. rents were the groundwork upon which the commissioners proceeded

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in all these cases. Originally the churches of these new divisions were merely chapels of ease to the mother churches until the avoidance of the latter, but in 1845 they were made "perpetual curacies," their incumbents having "exclusive cure of souls. As a general rule their incumbents had also conferred upon them the right to perform all the offices of the church, but the fees were reserved to the incumbent of the mother church until his avoidance.

The consent of the bishop alone being requisite to the constitution of this form of division, it naturally became, and in fact still is, the division most easily to be constituted, as well as the most practically efficient when actually formed. Indeed, out of 554 divisions created under these and the New Parishes Acts, by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners since the Church Building Commission was abolished, 261 have been formed under their Church Building Act Powers.

But in none of the foregoing instances was any material inducement held out to private individuals to interest themselves in the work of Church Extension.

In the year 1831, however, the act of 1 and 2 Wm. IV., c. 38, was passed, which practically inaugurated a new and most important era in the history of Church Extension.

This act (which repealed an earlier but abortive attempt in the same direction) went upon the principle (almost as old as the parochial system itself) of granting the patronage of a church to the person building and endowing it. It will be necessary to refer to this act more particularly hereafter, but practically the case stands thus as regards Church Extension under this particular series of acts:

Whenever any necessity, immediate or in immediate prospect, for a new church, exists, any person or corporation may (upon providing out of their own resources, aided or not by others, a site and a church, and an endowment and repair fund, satisfactory to the commissioners) have the patronage assigned in perpetuity to him or them, or their nominees, without restriction as to selling it afterwards, unless the patron or incumbent step in and take the burthen of building the church upon themselves. Districts called "particular districts" assigned to these Churches when consecrated. The commissioners, fully alive to the valuable results to be derived from giving free scope to their powers under these patronage acts, are administering them with great zeal and energy.

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It is too late to find fault with lay patronage; indeed, as a rule, it is exercised as judiciously and beneficially as that in ecclesiastical hands; whilst the policy of giving a greater stimulus and readier facilities to laymen, whether to augment existing poor livings, or to build new churches, or to constitute and endow new districts, must obviously be most beneficial in its tendency.

It seems that only 122 such districts have as yet been formed. If the law had been better understood, and been made more readily available, the number would have been ten times as great.

In 1850, Manchester, ever ready to take a leading part in any progressive movement, obtained a Church Building Act of its own: this act is known as the "Parish of Manchester Division Act, 1850."

Under its provisions upwards of sixty new ecclesiastical divisions have been already formed in Manchester by the late Church Building Commissioners, and the present Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

This act is complete and simple in its character, as might naturally be expected, having regard to the source from which it emanates.

It evinces a practical knowledge of the subject with which it deals, and a degree of practical power and foresight which one would wish to see developed further to the south.

But another most important act in the series of general church building acts, viz., the 14 and 15 Vict., c. 97, was passed in 1851, with a view to carry out the recommendations of the Subdivision of Parishes Commission, whose report (which was made in July, 1849) should be read by all persons interested in Church Extension. It is short and pithy; and contains the essence of the most extensive practical knowledge and experience ever brought to bear upon this important subject. The tendency of this act was to give a complete and independent status to all divisions formed by the Church Building Commissioners. It comprised in a few clauses the pith and essence of the practical experience of those commissioners, gained during their long and most active and useful career. It is to be regretted that the functions of that Commission were shortly afterwards transferred to another and less efficiently constituted body.

In the year 1843 another new era in Church Extension had been introduced.

The first of the series of acts (now known as the "New Parishes Acts") viz., the 6 and 7 Vict., 37, generally called the "Peel Act of 1843" was passed, by which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were empowered to apply £600,000, borrowed from Queen Anne's bounty, in the endowment of new districts without churches, popularly known "Peel Districts," to become "Peel Parishes" as soon as their churches should be consecrated.

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THE NEW PARISHES ACTS.

It will be seen that the policy of the course of procedure under the Church Building Acts was, and indeed is, as their name imports, that of assigning a district to a new or other existing church.

Under the new Parishes Acts the course was to constitute and endow districts, leaving the church to follow.

Experience has shown that if a minister be appointed to a given district, with a licensed temporary place of worship, the congregation thus collected very speedily combines for the erection of a permanent church. Indeed, out of 287 such districts which had been thus constituted, up to October, 1862, twenty-seven only were then without churches.

But these districts must be endowed with £100 a year at least, and that endowment is required to be increased to £150 upon their churches being consecrated. The necessity for this endowment constitutes a great impediment to the more extensive adoption of these acts. But they have effected much in aid of Church Extension.

Under the three new Parishes' Acts, as now construed together, districts may be constituted under them with consecrated churches or chapels already existing therein. In these latter cases the endowment above-mentioned may be dispensed with, although it seems the Commissioners decline to constitute them without it.

As the law now is under these acts and the judicial decisions thereon, the districts constituted under these acts, and also all districts constituted under the Church Building Acts, wherever or