The Commissioners appointed to inquire into our Cathedrals and Capitular
Establishments have presented their report, and it has been laid before Parliament. The Commissioners were instructed " to have regard to the purposes for which cathedrals and collegiate churches were originally founded"; and amongst various ques- tions respecting the efficiency of those establishments for their purposes, the Commissioners were also required "to suggest such measures as may render the cathedral and collegiate churches, and the revenues thereof, available in the aid of erection of new sees or of other arrangements in discharge of episcopal duties." On this hint they speak, recommending the creation of several new sees; particularly, in the first instance, St. Columb for Cornwall, West- minster, and Southwell, with a division of Gloucester and Bristol, and with other creations in prospect—probably making the whole number of new prelates about ten. This is a startling proposition at the present day ; since the tendency, for a long period, has been rather to abolish than to create bishoprics. The Commissioners stick, properly enough, to the immediate purposes of the Commission ; but in their very direct and practical suggestions for restoring efficiency to the esta- blishments which they had to examine, they do not furnish the information which would enable us exactly to understand the character of their bishop-creating proposition. If it is only in the sense of church-extension, their labour is lost; for a simple numerical increase of bishops, or even an augmentation for pur- poses of a martinet regulation of the formal duties of the Esta- blishment, would be rejected by Parliament, because the public would scout it. There have, however, been evidences that the clergy have at last awakened to the necessity of adaptingtheir exertions, their teaching, and their organization, to the intelligence and requirements of the present day. The admonition of Arch- deacon Sinclair to the clergy of Middlesex on the subject of preach- ing is a proof of this practical spirit amongst the higher members of the order; and it is known to exist amongst the parochial clergy. If the Bishops are to be instruments for carrying out this better spirit, then the report of the Commissioners may be virtually a new lease for the Established Church of England.
