THE PROPOSED CHURCH COUNCIL.
(To TIM EDITOR. OS THZ "SPHOTAT01.1 had expected some-comments on Dr. Rashdall's letter from an abler pea than mine. No one who has felt the keenness of Dr. Rashdall's argumentative sword is specially anxious to encounter It. But I think some of his friends must miss in his present letter some of that judicial temper which we are accustomed to expect from him. His criticism of the composition of the Committee is so far justified that it does not include anyone who exactly represents the views of Dr. Reshdall. It is quite another thing to suggest that a list which included the Doan of Christ Church, the Master of Balliol and the late Warden of All Souls', to say nothing of Mr. Balfour, was framed in the interest of a narrow ecclesiasticism, and to declare that there is not one on the list except Mr. Balfour who can be considered in any way representative of religious thought and learning BOMA to imply a somewhat hasty and prejudiced judgment. Of such haste and prejudice there are signs in the objections to the scheme which Dr. Rashdall makes. He sass the object of our device I. quite transparent and that the reason for the manoeuvre of excluding Deans is, of course, that the Deans represent the most liberal section of the existing Convocation. But if Dr. Raahdall has read the report care- fully ho will see that there is no exclusion of Deans. On the contrary, It expressly says that the Proctor of the Chapter may be the Dean. There is universal agreement that the ex-officio element in Convocation should be diminished. The method suggested may or may not be the best. There is no justification for the suggestion that there is an eccle- siastical bias in the proposition. The broad question, however, lies in your own note. You say you want a National Church. Do you really mean a thing of which every Englishman is not only potentially but actually a member by virtue of his nationality and without satisfying any other condition whatsoever 1 That, permit Me to say, would not be a Church. If there are conditions of any sort then the Church must so far be exclusive. It would not be a sect, because " sect " has a connot& bon which I repudiate, but it would be a section of the community, and I presume you would not object to its being EpiaeopaL—I am, Sir, ace., St. Mary's Vicarage, Nottingham. T. Mem, D.D. [We deal with Dr. Field's letter in our "News of the Week" solumns.—En. Spectator.]
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