We regret that the demands on our space render it
impos- sible for us to do more than briefly summarise the more important passages of the Bishop of Carlisle's admirable diocesan address delivered on Tuesday. Dr. Diggle holds that denationalisation, not disestablishment or disendowment, is the great danger by which the Church of England is now beset. Denationalisation, as he defines it, means the belittlement and sectarianising of the Church, and he regretfully notes that while the Parliamentary annals of the last half-century furnish abundant evidence of the rapidly deepening and widening gulf that is fixing itself between the English Church and the English nation, multitudes of Churchmen are steadily playing into the hands of the adversary by still further sectarianising the Church, and fomenting quarrels within their own ranks. In proof of this, he adduces the narrowing of the borders of the Church by the establishing of an ecclesiastical test of discipleship, and by the enforcing of the rubric connecting Confirmation' with the Holy Communion ; the reception of the Report of the Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline ; and the publication of the " English Hymnal."
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