NONCONFORMISTS AND THE HOLY COMMUNION. [To THE EDITOR or THE
" SPECTATOR."1 Sim—The Bishop of Oxford presented to the House of Bishops a petition signed by fourteen" representative elerygmen " who Kay "It is not permissible to admit members of non-Episcopal Churches to Communion, except in the case of a dying person who has expressed a desire for reconciliation with the Church." The Revision proposals make no change in the Confirmation Rubric. "And there shall none be admitted to the holy Com- munion; until such time as Ile be confirmed, or he ready and desirous to be confirmed." Under the Prayer Book as it is, we are entitled to contend that the history of the Rubric and the decisions of high legal and ecclesiastical authorities permit an interpretation different from that insisted upon by the four- teen" representative clergymen." If theRevisiou scheme receive legal confirmation; we can no longer do this, and the practice of many of the most loyal and peaceable sons of the Church of England must he abandoned. This fart has strangely escaped notice in the discussions on Reunion. Perhaps the new claims of the Episcopate to be " lawful authority " may provide " dis- pensations." Something more than a dispensation is required to secure the right of Christian Englishmen who have not been confirmed to approach the Lord's Table in their National
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