yesterday by Mr. Carlile, the founder of the Church Army, on a subject I am interested in more than anything else, that is special agencies for getting at men other than the ordinary services of the Church. Mr. Carlile said: "I wear that little bit of red which shows I belong to the Church Army.' Now I want you to be temperate and pure, and churchmen too. I wish other bodies of them heartily success; but we feel there is something wanting in them, and that the sacramental system of the Church by which men are joined to the Lord as by living bonds, is necessary to keep men steadfast in the faith, and to enable them to go on from strength to strength. Now here are these three things-temperance, purity, churchmanship. Let us strive after these with the help of Jesus Christ.

The Rev. J. B. HARBORD, Chaplain of the Fleet.

ONE difficulty in the way of those who are working among sailors and soldiers is that they have to deal with them in masses, and there is a danger of losing that personal, individual intercourse which is all important. This is the case of late years, specially with reference to the young, and I may illustrate it by the training ships where from 500 to 800 boys are collected for instruction. The chaplain and others interested in their welfare can only carry out their objects effectually by the co-operation of the men. As time permits me to say only a few words, I will confine myself to this one important point. When I entered the Navy it was the custom for each of the older and better men to take a young seaman or boy under his wing, and he was known by what was then a familiar and endearing name. Now each of you may help to supply the modern need of personal influence if you would adopt, as it were, one of your younger shipmates or comrades who could seek your advice in difficulties, come to you for support in temptation, for comfort in distress, and sympathy in his loneliness. You may do much work for God if each of you would thus become, in the best sense of the term, a 66 sea-daddy."

WESLEYAN SCHOOL-ROOM,

GREEN ROW,

THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOber 8th.

The Right Rev. the BISHOP OF GIBRALTAR in the first instance, and subsequently His Grace the ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN in the Chair.

ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH WITH RESPECT TO MOVEMENTS IN FOREIGN CHURCHES.

PAPERS.

The Most Rev. Lord PLUNKET, Archbishop of Dublin.

WHAT should be the attitude of our Church with respect to movements in foreign Churches? This is the question with which I have been asked to deal. I shall at once answer it, but in words not my own.

Six

years ago a similar question was submitted to the hundred Bishops

of the Anglican Communion assembled for Conference at Lambeth. They were asked to express their opinion as to the position which the Anglican Church should assume towards the "Old Catholics," and towards other persons on the Continent of Europe who had renounced their allegiance to the Church of Rome, and who were desirous of forming some connection with the Anglican Church, either English or American. Their reply to this question was drafted by one whose name will be held in honour so long as the Church of England endures, and of whom, as a true friend and valiant defender of the Church of Ireland in her darkest days, I must now and always speak with grateful reverence-I refer to the late Bishop Wordsworth, of Lincoln. From his report (as finally adopted by the Conference) I quote the following:"We gladly welcome every effort for Reform upon the model of the Primitive Church. We do not demand a rigid uniformity; we deprecate needless divisions; but to those who are drawn to us in the endeavour to free themselves from the yoke of error and superstition, we are ready to offer all help, and such privileges as may be acceptable to them, and are consistent with the maintenance of our own principles, as enunciated in our formularies."

This is the answer which I give this evening to the question before us. I cannot imagine a better one; and it has this advantage, that it comes with an authority which I could not claim for myself.

But what, it may be asked, are these movements-these efforts for Reform-to which our attention is called? To this question an answer will be given this evening by witnesses who will speak of what they have not only heard but seen. And their witness will have this further significance, that they will tell of what has taken place not in one or two favoured and contiguous spots, but in many widely-distant parts of Christendom, thereby assuring us that these movements are not isolated spasmodic results of local excitement and artificial pressure, but that they are in very truth the tokens of a wider, deeper, more pervading influence-even the mighty working of that Blessed Spirit by whom the whole body of the Church is sanctified and governed.

Here, however, I must make a reservation. Among those who in these latter days, on the Continent and elsewhere, have renounced allegiance to the Church of Rome, multitudes, I am well aware, have been influenced simply by a spirit of indifference, a desire to follow their own fleshly lusts, an evil heart of unbelief. Our attitude towards these must be one of stern rebuke. When, for example, as in France, we see all religion trampled in the mire by these recreants, our sympathies must be all with the Church of Rome, rather than with her assailants. Such seceders from her ranks are deserters to the camp of a common foe. We cannot welcome them.

On the other hand, when we see earnest men and women driven from the Church of Rome by a craving for something more in the way of spiritual food than the husks which that Church can supply-to them, in the words of Bishop Wordsworth, we should be ready to offer not only empty sympathy, but "all help."

One further reservation. Among those who have just left the Church of Rome because of a yearning after better things, there are not a few who have done as did the Continental Reformers of the sixteenth century. While renouncing that which is new and false in the

Church of Rome, they have, alas, abandoned much that is old and true as well. I am far from saying that these Reformers have not strong claims on our brotherly love and good-will. By many of them, as I know, Christ is preached, and I therefore rejoice and will rejoice. But the special outgoings of our sympathy will naturally be reserved for those who have followed in the steps of our own Reformers-for those, in other words, who have shown a desire to abide by the ancient institution of the Episcopate, to use a fixed Liturgy, based, as is our own, on early Catholic ritual, and otherwise to build themselves up on the model of the Primitive Church.

Some movements of this type I need only refer to in the most cursory manner, inasmuch as they will be dealt with by those who follow. My friend, Canon Meyrick, to whom as editor of the Foreign Church Chronicle, and secretary of the Anglo-Continental Society, the cause of Church reform owes a debt of lasting gratitude, will tell us about the 100,000 "old Catholics," of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Dr. Nevin will give information respecting the work of Count Campello, and Signor Savarese, in Rome. There are, besides these, other efforts in the same direction on which time forbids me to dwell-such, for example, as the brave stand which Pere Hyacinthe is making, almost single-handed, in France, against Romanism on the one side and Infidelity on the other; the persevering labours of Pasteur Varnier in Sicily, and the Sabrevois mission among the French Canadians. These have each a special interest of their own. But I must pass on to notice those tokens of reformation abroad, of which personally I have special cognisance-those, I mean, which are manifesting themselves among the Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking nations of the world. Tidings of an awakening among those who represent, as these do, the ancient Church of Spain ought, as it seems to me, to be welcomed with a special interest. When we remember the prominent position which that Church once held in Christendom-how for a thousand years it proudly refused submission to the Church of Rome; how in the sixteenth century, its lion-hearted reformers dared the rack and the stake, rather than deny the faith; how at last the remorseless machinations of the Inquisition had their bloody triumph; and how the voice of truth was then hushed as if for ever, and gross darkness reigned over all-which of us must not rejoice to hear of light again bursting through the cloud-rift, of truth again making herself heard!

With regard to some of these tokens of revival, I can speak only on the credible testimony of others. I have, for example, seen and received letters telling of efforts towards reform in Brazil, in Chili, in Peru-isolated efforts, no doubt, yet full of promise. I have read, as many of you no doubt have done, the thrilling reports published by the Bishop of Florida (in that interesting American periodical The Spirit of Missions) telling of reformation work in Cuba, where, within a few years, nearly 2,000 Spaniards have left the Church of Rome, and formed themselves into congregations under the Bishop's care. I have heard from Bishop Riley himself the remarkable and touching history of the Reformed Church of Mexico; of its martyr-heroes faithful unto death; and of the gathering together of its many congregations, numbering

some 5,000 souls. That Church, as many of you are aware, has had of late to encounter many difficulties, and to suffer some reverses. I am not prepared to defend the course pursued by Bishop Riley, or by others, in respect to these complications. But, having had communications with almost all the American Bishops who sat upon the Mexican Commission, I am sure that I express their opinions as well as my own when I say, first, as regards Bishop Riley, that though he may have shown himself lacking in some of the qualities of a leader, his integrity and his self-devotion have not been, for a moment, open to question, and secondly, as regards the work of reform itself, that notwithstanding all these troubles and perplexities, it remains a great work, demanding our sympathy and giving much hope of future blessing.

It is, however, of the movement in Spain and Portugal that I myself can speak with greatest confidence. For I have not only watched its progress with anxious care for the past six years, but I have also, during that period, twice visited the Peninsula, for the purpose of testing the accuracy of the reports that had reached my ears.

Did time permit me to tell you in detail what I have seen and heard I should not fail, I know, to interest you deeply. For the present all I can do is to state briefly certain leading facts.

Five and twenty years ago there was not, I suppose, a score of native Protestants in the whole Peninsula. Seventeen years ago there was not a single Protestant congregation. There are now some 10,000 Protestants, distributed among about fifty congregations. Of these 10,000 Protestants, nearly one-third have adopted an Episcopal constitution, and a fixed Liturgy, and have formed themselves into two Churches, named the Reformed Church of Spain and the Reformed Portuguese (or Lusitanian) Church respectively. Connected with the Reformed Episcopal Church of Spain there are eight organised congregrations, viz., one in Madrid, two in Seville, one in Malaga, two in the neighbourhood of Salamanca, and two in the neighbourhood of Barcelona. These, together with some scattered groups, represent in all (including the children attending the schools) nearly 2,000 souls, of whom about 700 are communicants. There are eight native ordained ministers (five of whom were priests of the Church of Rome), one lay-evangelist, and thirteen teachers.

In the Reformed Lusitanian or Portuguese Church there are five organised congregations, viz., two in Lisbon, one at Rio de Monro, and two in the neighbourhood of Oporto. These, together with school children, represent nearly 1,000 souls, of whom about 400 are communicants. There are five ordained ministers (three of whom were priests of the Church of Rome), a lay-helper, and other accredited teachers and workers.

Such are the statistics of these Churches. As regards the character of the movement, the impression left on my mind by my two visits is as follows:-The work appears to me to be clearly one of self-reform. Colporteurs, no doubt, prepared the way, and evangelistic agencies have subsequently lent their help, but the need and the craving was there before, and it has been by the spontaneous efforts of native reformers that the movement has acquired its real strength. Secondly, selfinterest has had no part in the result. Those who have left the Church of Rome have done so in the face of obloquy, social ostracism, and

persecution. They have had everything to lose, and nothing to gain. Thirdly, the movement is not a political one, nor due to any mere ephemeral outbreak of excitement. Rather is it the result of a deepseated longing for that truth and peace which Rome is powerless to supply. Lastly, so far at least as the two Episcopal Churches in question are concerned, the work would seem to have within it the elements of unity, order, and permanence. The congregations, though few and scattered widely apart, are bound together by a sense of corporate oneness. They send their delegates to a central Synod. They have, in Spain, chosen their Bishop-elect—a man with all those qualities of head and heart that fit him to be a leader in such a movement. In Portugal they are prepared to make a similar choice when the proper time arrives. In each Church, moreover, they have a Prayer Book of their own, compiled on the lines of that ancient ritual which was in use throughout Spain and Portugal before the intrusion of the Church of Rome in the 12th century. In each Church, too-and this is best of all—there seems to be growing among these reformers a profound conviction that few and weak and poor though they be, they have a mission to their native land, and are bound not to rest till it be accomplished.

One word more as to the character of this movement. Looking forth on the various efforts for Reform on the primitive model to which our attention is directed this evening, I myself am strongly of opinion that these Spanish and Portuguese Churches represent more nearly than any others that combination of Apostolic Order and Evangelic truth-that intermixture of the Catholic and the Protestant elements-which is the distinguishing mark of the Anglican Communion throughout the world. I cannot, of course, expect all whom I address to concur with me in this opinion. Some here present, looking at these movements from a different point of view will regard the "Old Catholic" and kindred efforts as more closely representing what they accept as the true standard of Anglican churchmanship. But, speaking to generous and largehearted men, as I do, I would ask whether, while taking each of us a special interest in some one phase of this work, our sympathies may not be large enough to embrace all. For my own part, as my friends are aware, the interest which I feel in the Spanish cause has not prevented me from extending sympathy and practical help to the old Catholics of Germany, Switzerland, France, and Rome as well. And why might it not so be with us all? We have all, I trust, come to the conclusion-and if we have not, a Congress such as this ought to teach us the lesson-that even more widely different schools of thought than those which differentiate these reformers can find each of them a legitimate standing ground within our own comprehensive Church. Why should not the loving arms of that mother Church be opened as widely towards those without her Communion as they are, thank God, to those within?

It only remains for me to notice one or two difficulties which are felt as to this whole question of foreign reform by some conscientious members of our Church. I do not speak of objections brought by those who regard our own Reformation as having been a mistake, or by those who from strong party feeling have come to regard this subject with inveterate distaste. I will hope that none such are present here this evening. I, therefore, address myself now rather to those who in their hearts