SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[tinder this heading we notice such Books of tits week as haw not boon reserved for roving in other ferns.] The Official Year-Book of the Church of England. Edited by the Rev. F. H. Burnside. (S.P.C.K. 3s.)—If we could only compare with this volume one that should bear the date of a century ago ! We find on pp. xiv.-xix. a list of dioceses, with particulars financial and other. Ten of the dioceses are new (out of thirty-seven, or more than a quarter). The voluntary. contributions are set down at £6,241,673. What would• be the 1806 figure ? Further, we come to clerical education (extra-University). This is quite new. Church building, &c., between 1882-1903 shows a total of £30,076,121. What was done in this way between 1782.1803? The catalogue of Home Missions' work, of various kinds, covers a hundred and sixty-eight pages. This is almost entirely new. The reformatories, homes for penitents, convalescent homes, orphanages, almost without exception, date after the century. But we must not lay ourselves open to the charge of Pharisaism. We are conscious of a quite humbling sense of what• remains to do. Still, we have at least got beyond the stage when ecclesi- astical authorities discountenanced the starting of Sunday-schools as something that had a distinct savour of revolution. This Official Year-Book is a volume of very great interest. To quote this or that set of figures from it would be of very little use. No real idea can be got of what it is and what it means without an inspection of its pages—between six and seven hundred in number— filled, one may say, with particulars of the work that is, or is to be, done.
Previous page
