The Church Congress, held this year at Portsmouth, opened on
Tuesday. If we may judge by the fellness of the reporting, the proceedings excite unusual interest, though as yet semi- political questions have been rather avoided, and the dis- cussion on endowments was not full enough. Those who dealt with that subject make what we think the mistake of thinking that when the question comes up the solid attack will be delivered against the whole property of the Church. They will find, we fancy, that the serious question rages round tithe, which is considered a tax. They do not discuss sufficiently either the question of precedent, contenting themselves with saying that Henry VIII. robbed the Church. Granted ; but the assailants will plead that if Parliament could transfer pro- perty from a Church not subordinate to the State to a Church subordinated to the State, it claimed even then the right to deal with Church property. With the existing pressure on our space from the torrent of political speeches, it is impossible for us to give even bare notice to most of the subjects discussed, which have ranged from lofty speculations on the relation between morals and the divinity of Christ, tea discussion—which we confess we think a little out of place, not from its subject, but from the limited number of persons competent to discuss it— upon the Revision of the Old Testament. The 'Awning subjects this year are evidentlrEstablishment, upon wnich it is to be re- gretted that assailants are never present, methods of increasing social purity, and the relation of the Church to the poor. Some Bishop will have presently to offer a caution that dis- cussion without opponents is scarcely discussion ; that purity must ultimately come from within rather than from without, the early Christians maintaining it amid the license of a Pagau world ; and that Christianity is for mankind, and not only for the poor. Some of us are coming to believe that poverty is the sum of evils, which is an English idea, not a Christian doctrine. There have been saints wearing little raiment, sleeping in caves, and living on crushed millet and water.
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