a House of Laymen. The clergy and lay representatives are elected by the Diocesan Synods, one representative for every ten members. The Diocesan Synods consist of the bishop, the working clergy, with one layman for each parish, who must be a communicant. In the election of a bishop the clergy choose, and submit to the laity for acceptance or rejection, the election being subject to the confirmation of the House of Bishops. Owing to the troubles which arose in the case of Bishop Colenso, the Church of South Africa has been careful to state its entire rejection of the decisions of the Privy Council, in the following proviso in its constitution :

'Provided also that in the interpretation of the aforesaid standards and formularies, the Church of this Province be not held to be bound by decisions in questions of faith and doctrine, or in questions of discipline relating to faith and doctrine, other than those of its own ecclesiastical tribunals, or of such other tribunal as may be accepted by the Provincial Synod as a Tribunal of Appeal.'

The last clause shows that the South African Church contemplates the erection of a grand Final Court of Appeal for the whole Anglican Communion, when the Archbishop of Canterbury shall be recognised as the Patriarch, the visible centre

round which all the daughter churches shall gather in one great federation. The attainment of this ideal will make our communion the strongest and most free of all Christian Churches, for we shall possess all the strength of a Papacy without its tyranny. But this cannot be attained so long as the Church at home is still hampered by the usurped jurisdiction of Parliament, for the free Churches of the Colonies and of America could not recognise the jurisdiction of a Patriarch who was not himself free from all civil control as to his spiritual character.

The remaining Colonial Churches, of Australia, New Zealand, India, and the West Indies, are all being organised on the same general lines, and there is no need to describe them all. We need only point out that, looking to Scotland and Sweden, it is quite clear that all the liberty of action enjoyed by these non-established Churches may equally be enjoyed by an established Church.

Much has been done during the past decade, and our Diocesan Conferences, Church Congress, and Convocations have prepared the way for the National Council which is now at work. We trust that at no distant date we may have our Diocesan Synods and Parish Church Councils on lines similar to those of the daughter churches,

and that so the Church may be set free to do her great work for the nation, with an increased zeal and devotion on the part of the laity, who will feel that membership at last means something serious, and involves responsibilities to the City of God corresponding to, though far greater than, those of the citizen towards the State.

The ideal to be aimed at would seem to be the full recognition by the State of an alliance of honour with the Church so closely intertwined with the national life-an alliance which should not make the Church subservient to the State, but like the alliance referred to when treating of an earlier period, the union of husband and wife, each giving support to the other, and neither attempting to dominate the other. The State would cast its protective shield before the Church, to guard her in the exercise of her holy functions, whilst the Church would cast the halo of her sanctity round the public actions of the State. The unit of Church life would be the parish gathering of the baptized, i.e. those who had claimed the privileges of the baptized by confirmation and communion. For executive purposes the baptized communicants of the parish would elect a Parish Church Council, from which delegates would go to form the Diocesan Council,

above which would be the Reformed Convocations, joined in a great National Council.1

Beyond this would be the greater Pan-Anglican Council of representatives from the daughter churches, out of which would grow a final Court of Reference, presided over by the Patriarch of Canterbury as the visible head of the Anglican Communion.

Who can foretell the spiritual power of the Church when thus organised? Possessing the grand combination of a pure and primitive Faith, Apostolic Order, and Historic Continuity; freed from the corruptions which injure so seriously the life of other parts of the Catholic Church; and having at command all the zealous devotion and sanctified common-sense of the Anglo-Saxon race, —she will without doubt become the unifying force which shall at length draw together the sundered communions into one great Catholic Church, One in doctrine, purpose, and devotion, as at her birth, and at last realising the desire of her Lord that she might be One even as the Father and the Son are One. God help us to realise and work for this ideal.

1 See Appendix E, Note 2.

APPENDIX A

LIST OF AUTHORITIES CONSULTED

The Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History.

Bright, W., Chapters of Early English Church History.
Lingard, J., Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church.

Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents.
Gee and Hardy, Documents illustrative of English Church
History.

Stubbs, W., Constitutional History of England.

Stephens, Dean; Hunt, W. (Editors), History of the English Church.

Dixon, Canon, History of the Church of England (Reformation Period).

Perry, Archdeacon, Student's English Church History.

Green, J. R., Short History of the English People; The Making of England.

Lathbury, T., History of Convocation.

Statutes at large.

Blackstone, Sir W., Commentaries on the Laws of England. Hook, Dean, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury.

Gladstone, W. E., The State in its Relations with the Church. Wake, Archbishop, The Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods.

Dodd, J., History of Canon Law.

Wilberforce, R. I., A Sketch of the History of Erastianism. Frere, W. H., The Relation of Church and Parliament in Regard to Ecclesiastical Discipline.

Wirgman, A. G., The Church and the Civil Power.

Reports of Convocation and Church Congresses.

Wakeman, H. O., History of the Church of England.

Sloane, W. M., The French Revolution and Religious Reform.