25 FEBRUARY 1871, Page 3

Bus locutus est. A prodigy has happened in the Church.

The Lower House of Convocation, shamed by Dean Stanley into some • dim sense of what the conscience of the external world thinks of the bad faith of the Bishops, has,—not rejected the Episcopal ,proposal, but shelved it in a very curious way. The Dean of Westminster lost his motion for the previous question by 2 to 1 00 to 20), but neither could the supporters of the Episcopal reso- lution get it carried. In place thereof, a resolution was carried requesting the Upper House to allow it to postpone its opinion on -the Bishops' resolution till after the Committee of Revision has presented its report,—i.e., for some six years or so, when the reso- lution cannot possibly be acted on. In fact, the Lower House "wanted to shelve the question, but did not want to follow the dead of Dean Stanley, so it rejected his way of shelving it, and adopted another, under the less formidable patronage of Canon Lloyd. It is the first time the Lower House has been more liberal than the Bishops, or we should be tempted to remark that a Church whose rulers propose to break faith, while the repre- sentatives of the clergy decline to say they won't break faith, though declining also to say they will, is hardly in a condition to command popular reverence.