The Rev. W. J. Butler, M.A., Vicar of Wantage, still
hovers uncomfortably on the verge of consecration. His most reverend and right reverend advisers, his Grace of Canterbury and the Lord Bishop of Oxford, " have concluded that the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, having determined the position of our Church in South Africa to be that of a voluntary spiritual society, and that the letters patent held by Dr. Colenso confer on him no territorial jurisdiction or authority, there is nothing in his legal position to prevent the election of a Bishop to preside over them by those of our communion in South Africa, who, with ourselves, hold him to have been canonically deposed from his spiritual office." In this sentence Lord Homily's most important judgment is of course quite ignored, but even so, the Archbishop and Bishop „dare not advise Mr. Butler as yet to accept. There 'is the vety small number-Of clrgy and laynieU who agreed to electlim tobe considered, and the danger•of schism.
Above all, there is graat.hcene qpeation of pay. The twenty- nine laymen did not " pledge their order to make the needful provision for their. Bishop," with which sagacious practical hint the Archbishop and Bishop conclude by commending Mr. Butler to God in their prayers. Only twenty-nine laymen, and no men- tion of money ! Mr. Butler will not go.
