THE HIGH-CHURCH MEMORIAL.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPEOTATOR."]
SIR,—Allow me as an earnest Churchman to thank you heartily for your admirable leader on the High-Church Memorial. As one of the late honorary secretaries of the Association for the Reform of Convocation, by a fair representation of the laity (as in the existing Irish Synod), permit me to suggest that there is nothing utopian or strange in such a proposition. What seems strictly feasible—first of all, in an extraordinary Synod, by way of experiment—is to call on the diocesan Synods throughout the country to choose certain lay and clerical representatives, to be added to the existing members of both Convocations, these bodies being summoned to sit together for the occasion, the Archbishops and Bishops sitting in the same chamber with them, to see whether any and what working compromise can be arrived at by the majority, without breaking up the Church.
It may be said that the whole body of the laity would not be represented. Are they in Parliament ? We have neither female nor universal male suffrage. Is it not an error to make numbers and their representation a matter of such great import? Would not .what is really sought for be far better obtained by the Arch-
bishops and Bishops having power, singly or collectively, to add a certain number of leading laymen of all schools to those chosen by the diocesan Synods? In such a body we want Lord Shaftes- bury, Mr. 13eresford Hope, and Mr. Thomas Hughes,—Low Church, High Church, and Broad Church.
But such an extraordinary Synod, or a permanently reformed Convocation on the same model, would in nowise interfere with the prerogatives of Parliament and the Crown. As long as the Church is a national establishment, (Esto perpetua !) so long the entire body of the population, including Protestant Noncon- formists, Roman Catholics, and Freethinkers, will have an in- direct, if not a direct, interest in the well-being of the National Church, and a right to guard against the prevalence of a small sectarian spirit, or any narrowing of the terms of communion. This is surely self-evident to every thinker. But is this a reason why Parliament should be troubled with the details of ecclesi- astical legislation? To approve or disapprove is a right reserved by the Constitution and by the nature of things to Parliament and the Crown. But there would seem to be nothing less than an imperative necessity that ecclesiastical measures should be freely canvassed in an ecclesiastical assembly, in the first place. Parliament used to be such when it consisted entirely of Church laity, flanked by the Bishops. The admission of Non- conformists, Roman Catholics, and avowed Free-thinkers, in- volves the necessity for change, as the Archbishop of Canterbury almost admits, in his recent admirable letter.
is it not monstrous that although the lay brothers took their official part in the Church's first Council at Jerusalem, in spite of the presence of inspired Apostles among the so-called " spiritualty," we should have to argue, after 1800 years, when ninety-nine hundredths of Churchmen are laymea, and there is so much know- ledge, learning, and piety among them, for their right to a formal place in the preparatory Councils of the Church ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
St. Mary's, Castlegate, York, April 11. ARCHER GURNEY.
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