into your parish, and, laying your hand on the shoulder of the working man at the street corner, tell him that God loves him and is trying to save him. When people remember that the message is coming to us from our Father, "where is thy brother," I am confident we shall have in the Church such an army of zealous workers, such a power of genuine enthusiasm, backed up by consistent godly living, as shall reach out to the masses of the people and draw them unto Christ. I ask your prayers, your sympathy, and your earnest help for the work of the Church Army.

T. MARTIN TILBY, Esq., Lay Secretary, Church of England
Scripture Readers' Association, 56, Haymarket,
London.

I

PERHAPS a few words are necessary in reference to the work of the Church of England Scripture Readers' Association. That society may claim that forty years ago it made the first movement in the direction of lay agency. It was established in 1844, and was the first organisation of the sort for supplying Church workers to the Church in London and the suburbs. At the present time we have about 130 workers in what is called greater London. A previous speaker said that Scripture Readers had no training, but I think it right to say that all those employed by our society have to pass a careful examination under the auspices of a responsible committee and by clerical examiners, whose appointments receive episcopal sanction, and they work under the written sanction of the bishop of each diocese, in which their various parishes are situated. I wish I could take you to the large parishes in the poorest parts of the Metropolis where some of our men are at work. Not only is house to house visitation-the basis of our work—thoroughly carried on by them, but they are able to undertake tract distribution, open-air preaching, bible classes, cottage lectures, and all the varieties of useful parish work. I hardly agree with everything that was said by a previous speaker in reference to the services held in churches. think the experience very largely is that where workers are able to get working men into a mission chapel or a plain mission-room, they are able to do far more with them than they could do by taking them into the church itself. I do not mean to say that the church should not be used as much as possible for the working people, but it is not only difficult, in the first instance, to get them into church, but plain, simple, services conducted in a mission-room are more attractive and helpful to this class. I am glad to say that the Church Army and our society are able to work hand in hand. The Scripture Readers are able to find the people and to send them to the services, which are conducted under Mr. Carlile's society, and also to follow up the work in parishes after the Army has been withdrawn, so that there is no antagonism in the work of the two agencies. It is impossible for the clergy, with such large populations around them, to systematically visit all those for whose pastoral care they are responsible, and the object of our society is to send earnest, pious, loyal churchmen to the homes of the people to supplement the work of the clergy, and to endeavour to bring those they visit to the knowledge and love of God, and to attach the people to our beloved Church.

The CHAIRMAN.

I WOULD point out that there has been a wonderful unanimity amongst the speakers who have addressed the Congress this afternoon. I think we may congratulate ourselves on this, that the parochial system of the Church of England is so elastic as to contain all these various organisations, and that they can co-exist in our several parishes without any clashing whatever. It only shows how marvellous was the direction given by Almighty God to those who founded the parochial system, and I trust that, whatever dark shadows are hanging over us at present, this nation will not be mad enough, will not be foolish enough to destroy that parochial system. But the old parochial system is not sufficient. Five hundred thousand persons are being added yearly to the population. A coal-pit is discovered somewhere, and there immediately springs up around it a large population, or a railway is constructed, and a large population springs up during the progress of the work. For such increases in the

66

population as these, the organisation of the parochial system is plainly not sufficient. Again, the attacks which have been made for years past on the deepest mysteries of our religion; upon the life, the doctrine, the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ have aroused the enthusiasm of those who believe in Him, who know that their life is lived in dependence on His life, that their hearts have been made strong, and their lives firm by what has been given to them by Him. They can no longer tolerate these attacks, and, like some sudden flame, enthusiasm is springing up from one end of England to another. And remember that enthusiasm cannot be tied up with red tape. Nor can it be swaddled in the long clothes of a baby. It must walk, and it must run. I can say, thank God, that amongst the bishops, well-directed enthusiasm in the Church of England is recognised as one of the most precious gifts of the present day. The work of the Church of England must be more aggressive than it is at the present moment. I will point to the work of our northernmost diocese. When I began work there it was found that we wanted no less than twelve new parishes in Newcastle, and the immediate surroundings. The clergy were doing what they could, but the Church was under-manned, and there were not parishes enough. Those twelve new parishes are in process of formation. We have not begun with bricks and mortar, but with the living agents. We have given where we could a school-room or a temporary building-and there the living agent is gathering together his congregation. In many cases, the congregation already exceeds the limits of the building. Yet, we find that there is a vast number of people who are not reached at the present moment, not only not by the Church, but by no other spiritual agency whatever. We are trying special evening services, to which those who are known not to be Church-goers are asked to come after the ordinary evening congregation has gone. We are trying the Church Army also. I think Mr. Carlile will bear me out, when I say that when he came to see me about the Church Army I was somewhat in a doubt. I did not altogether see my way, and I asked him three questions. The first was, Is it definite church work?" and the answer was heartily, "Yes." The next was, "Do you ever go into a parish where you are not invited?" The reply was emphatically, "No." The third was, "Do you ever stay in a parish where you have been invited if the clergy afterwards want you to go?" The answer was again as heartily, "No." Well, I, for one, am most thankful for the work of the Church Army in the towns and in the country parishes of Northumberland. There has been failure, and the reasons are not far to seek, and there are dangers. You will, however, never bring new work to perfection unless that perfection is attained by some mistakes. I want just to point to the elements of success in this work. First, there must be a suitable place for the agents of the organisation to work in. Next, the clergyman of the parish must, for the time being, be the head of the branch of the army working in his parish. Then it must be remembered that it is no good sending people out unless they have some training. In one parish in the suburbs of Newcastle, grand work has been done by the Church Army. There the clergyman got the leaders of the army twice a week into his study and taught them the doctrine they were deficient in. In that parish I had the pleasure of confirming a large number of people, from 80 years of age downwards, including one grandmother leading her grandchild, mostly reached by the work of the army. I have also had the honour of speaking in a large and densely crowded mission-room, where the faces of those to whom I had been speaking told of the awful previous life of the people-faces on which the traces of former sin were still apparent, faces, however, which showed that the heart had been lifted up to take in the words of life. As to the work of the Church Army in the country, I may say that I have just had a requisition from the clergy of some parishes in my diocese to go over and confirm a number of adult pitmen, who have been brought by the agency of the Church Army to a recognition of their baptismal vows, and a knowledge of the necessity of a Christian life. Thank God for such work as that. Let us remember that these men, every one of them, will go and speak to their fellow-men. When a working man has got the knowledge of, and a belief in, the love of God for him, when once he knows what the power of God will do for him-how it will raise his whole life, how it will make his home sweet, and his life happy; then that man cannot help going out and saying to his fellow-workmen, "Do you know what I know." If we can strengthen this and other agencies, what a marvellous power there will be before long in the ranks of our Church! We shall be able to carry out the schemes of old John Wesley. One curious difficulty I have found on the part of these pitmen is, that they think that they cannot have their prayer meetings as churchmen. When we make them understand that the Church of England is based upon prayer, that they shall have their prayer meetings, and that the very essence of their life shall be prayer,

offered up week by week in little mission-rooms, in gatherings of twos and threes together, when we make them understand the method of old John Wesley, and that this is church method, we may depend upon it that there will begin that marvellous tide of progress, which, I believe, God the Holy Ghost is now instituting amongst us, which will in time fully enable the old Church of England to prove herself to be the spiritual mother of the people of this land. Happy are the people in such a case; yea, blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God."

LECTURE HALL,

WEDNESDAY

AFTERNOON, OCTOBER 7TH.

The Right Rev. the PRESIDENT in the Chair.

THE CATHEDRAL IN ITS RELATION TO THE DIOCESE AND THE CHURCH AT LARGE.

PAPERS.

The Very Rev. EDWARD H. PLUMTRE, D.D., Dean of Wells. THE history of our cathedrals is, I fear, little else than the record of ideals unrealised, large resources wasted, the corruptio optimi. The Dean and Chapter were meant to be the free electors of the bishop, and we have the simulacrum of the congè d'elire. They were to be the permanent guardians of the temporalities of the See, and their confirmation of the bishop's acts in the appointment of permanent officials, chancellors, and registrars has been given and received as a thing of course. They were to be the chief advisers of the bishop, acting under his fatherly guidance, and their Chapter Acts are full of disputes as to their respective jurisdictions, and he has preached or read the commandments in his own cathedral only by a patronising sufferance. They were to be models of an unworldly life, nursing a high standard of devotion, and deans and canons came to be as they are painted in the Chronicles of Barchester, and non-communicant singing men, and ill-cared for boys, lost, in their round of services and anthems, the very capacity for worship. Their rich endowments were to be the rewards of learned labour or pastoral zeal, and too often Dean Law's answer to the Cathedral Commissioners in 1850, has been applicable with fatal truthfulness. "In our own Cathedral (Wells) there is no notice upon record of any services being rendered to learning, or of any appointment being made for other considerations than politics or family." They were to be centres of educational activity+ (this was specially the

*

See the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech at Diocesan Conference, 1885, (Guardian, July 3), and Bishop Warburton on Crown Appointments in his dedication of his Divine Legation (B. iv.-vi.), as quoted by Dr. Pusey (Remarks p. 12).

+See Cranmer's proposal for establishing Readerships of Divinity, Greek and Hebrew in each Cathedral. Burnet's History of Reformation, B. III., A.D., 1540. See also the Reformatio Legum Eccles., as quoted by Pusey. Remarks p. 139.

idea of the Cathedrals of the New Foundation), and not a single cathedral school, as such, has risen to any eminence, comparable with that of Rugby or of Harrow. They were to be centres of evangelising mission work, and their record till lately has been a blank. Lazarus has lain for centuries at the gates of the cathedral Dives, and is as "full of sores" as ever.

One may note, from time to time, efforts after better things. The collegiate Cathedrals of the Old Foundation aimed at a higher standard of culture than that of the older abbeys. The Precentor was to maintain the musical element of worship at its highest point. The Chancellor was also the Archischola, and was to superintend the general education of the choir-boys, as the Precentor did their musical instruction and of the younger vicars choral. The ideal of a vicar's life was that he was to study as well as sing. Canons were to be ready to undertake public burdens and labours for the common benefit of the Church. How the system worked in pre-Reformation periods I have not time to discuss. Chaucer has left us no portraits of a dean or canon, and it may, perhaps, be scored to their credit that they did not go on Canterbury pilgrimages.

With the Reformation there came a great change in the work required of the cathedral staff. Instead of daily and manifold masses, and the round of services from prime to compline (priests and choir boys rising often at midnight +), there were simply matins and evensong, and weekly-too often only monthly-communions. That would have been the time for a keen and searching reform, reducing the staff, assigning definite new duties for the old ones that had lapsed, largely expanding the preaching and educational activities. The opportunity was not used, and the result was that there were more "idle hands," with the inevitable "mischief," as result. Cases of intemperance and worse, of quarrels and contumacy, thicken over the Chapter Acts. Elizabeth tried to enforce habits of devotion and study by the somewhat strong measure of forbidding the wives and children of deans, canons, prebendaries, and vicars choral, laymen as as well as priests, to reside with them, or even elsewhere, in the precincts. Her commissioners (Jewell being one) tried to develop the educational idea by making it the duty of all the vicars choral, or singing men, to 'resort unto the Gramer Schoole."§ The Canons of 1604 feebly required that the "petty canons and the vicars choral should have at least a Latin New Testament," which it was assumed that they could read (Can. 42). In other respects the remedies prescribed by the Canons throw light on the nature and strength of the disease. Deans were to reside not less than ninety days in the year (Can. 44). Residentiary canons were only so far tied to residence that they were not to leave the cathedral without one of their number, a condition which in many cases might have been satisfied by less than two months. They, and the canons, prebendaries, and other officers, lay or clerical, were to receive the Holy Communion four times a year, and

66

*See Statutes in Reynolds' Wells Cathedral, pp. 45, 55, 56, clxxvii. Dugdale's St. Paul's, app. 11, 36.

+ Reynolds' Wells Cathedral, p. clxxxiii.
§ Ibid, p. clxxvii.

Reynolds', p. clxxxvi.

on "principal feast days" the "principal minister" was to officiate in a cope (Can. 24). It was the last feeble attempt at a fair day's work for what were certainly a fair day's wages. The clean sweep of Parliamentary and Cromwellian rule, memorable for having called forth, in Hacket's speech before the Long Parliament (1641), something like an ideal of cathedral life, as well as an apologia, was followed, at the Restoration, by a reaction in which deans and canons seemed to have learned nothing but the art of accumulation, and forgotten nothing but the fact that there was an ideal to strive after, and a work to be done. Deaneries were held with bishoprics, canonries in two or more cathedrals, with one or more livings. The Crown, not content with its own patronage, encroached, under the Stuarts, by letters of provision, on that of chapters who co-opted, and the appointments were not seldom scandalous.* The one check upon the wide-spread plague of plurality was the cost of keeping up so many establishments. Here and there, indeed, even before the days of cathedral reform, the breath of the evangelical revival had found its way, as in the instance of Milner and Ryder, into the seclusion of the precincts. But, taken as a whole, the cathedral system of England had borne no fruit meet for repentance under the Georgian regime. The question might have been asked, "Can these dry bones live?" The sentence might have gone forth, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?"+

During the last fifty years there has been a great change in which we, who come to reap where others have sown, may thankfully rejoice. It is well to consider how that change was brought about. Not, be it noted, by any high ideal or elaborate legislation. The cathedral reform of 1836-40, the work of the Whigs and Sir Robert Peel, backed by Archbishop Howley and Bishop Blomfield, was simply economic. To get rid of the more glaring abuses, reduce the sinecures, and transfer the money that had been wasted, to the spiritual necessities of towns and villages,—this was their rough and ready rule. Such a reform seemed to Peel "possibly the last opportunity" of averting a destruction otherwise inevitable. Protests on behalf of an ideal of some kind came (names strangely matched) from Sydney Smith, Mr. Gladstone, Dr. Pusey, and Mr. Hope Scott, but passed unheeded. The result was, perhaps, all the happier. What the cathedral fig-tree needed was a vigorous pruning, and that it got, and though it bled and groaned in the process, it gained a new strength. What had been the minimum of four canons at Carlisle became the normal, almost procrustean, standard. And among the dry bones (you will pardon me if I mix my metaphors) there was a stir and

* Thorndyke's wish that cathedrals might become "schools of the prophets, seminaries of preachers," deserves to be noted as an exception to the general apathy. -Primitive Government of Churches, ad fin.

+ It is only fair to refer the reader to a moderately long list of divines of eminence connected with cathedrals given by Dr. Pusey in his Remarks, pp. 104-106.

See Sydney Smith's Letter to Archdeacon Singleton, Pusey's Remarks on Cathedral Institutions, and Mr. Hope's Speech before the House of Lords. It is worth noticing that Dr. Pusey dwelt chiefly on the plan of utilising cathedral foundations for purposes of theological study (pp. 73-80), Mr. Hope on their being the councils of the Bishops, and centres of preaching activity (pp. 64, 65). One of Dr. Pusey's remedies was to transfer all cathedral patronage to the Crown (p. 84).