The Bishop of Peterborough made a most important and most
manly speech to the Diocesan Conference on Thursday. He declared that he would promote no reform merely to resist Disestablishment. The object of reform, the single object, must be the development of the working power of the Church, and of the service which it can do to the people to whom it undertakes to minister. Four projects of reform are widely accepted, and are good. Of these, the first, the condition of Church patronage, is being legislated on ; the second, Church discipline, will be legislated on when the lawyers can be induced to move ; the third, the introduction of the lay element., has begun with the establishment of a House of Laymen to consult with Convocation ; and the fourth is the greater equalisation of clerical revenues. Upon this last subject the Bishop was emphatic. He did not want a pauperised clergy ; but the Church had not money enough to do her work with, that work being now two- thirds urban and only one-third rural. The money could only be obtained from the laity, and they would not give it while such inequalities existed. He was in favour of a austentation fund, to be raised by taxing the richer livings as they fell vacant. We neither assent to nor dissent from any of these propositions ; but they are widely different from the gelatinous suggestions to which we are accustomed in Church affairs. Dr. Magee knows his own mind, and says his own say in masculine English, and that is an immense improvement. Atmosphere is good round anything ; but some Bishops, we fear, see holiness in haze.
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