It will be seen, by a letter in another column,
that it was the paper of Canon Trevor, at the Church Congress, and not the paper of the Rev. D. Robertson (who only read it for the absent Canon,. though he was mistaken by the reporters for its author), in which the notion of giving the laity a regular representation in Convo- cation was so grotesquely ridiculed. Other members of the Con- gress held, as will be gathered from a letter in another column, that the feeling of the Congress was by no means obviously- one-sided on this subject. Nevertheless, Lord Harrowby writes to the Times of this day week to declare that the Brighton debate as to the policy of reforming Convocation, ought to leave on the minds of sensible persons the single word of counsel, " Don't." But the study of his letter would, we think, be very likely to leave on the person who was disposed previously to follow its advice precisely the same net result of practical counsel,—" Don't." The burden of the letter is the Conservatism of pure despair. Its argument is, that every step in reform would be so hard to settle, so hotly debated, so difficult to carry through Parliament, and so likely to lead to Disestablish- ment in the interval, that you cannot do better than leave it alone. No doubt there is always danger in reform, but all experience shows that there is ten times more danger in im- perviousness to reform. That the Establishment may crumble beneath rude hands is possible enough, but that it must tumble down beneath the weight of its own practical anachronisms and its moral dry-rot, if it is incapable of reform, is still more certain.. An institution of this day which is truly irreformable is an institution that is doomed. And to suppose that Parliament, constituted as it is, will ever enter upon the details of a great Church reform, is to dream the wildest of dreams.
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