CHURCH REFORM.* THE recent discussions about Church discipline in our
lead- ing journals, however much we may regret the scandalous incidents which first provoked them, will not be without advantage if they direct attention once more to the very general desire that prevails within the Church itself for the reform of its own abuses. Twenty years ago the cry for Church reform came almost entirely from outside, or at any rate from the Extreme Left; it comes to-day from the dominant party in the Church. The movement, associated with the name of Mr. Albert Grey, was ostensibly a layman's appeal against the autocracy of the clergyman ; and its most characteristic proposal was for the establishment of statutory Councils in every parish, to limit the discretion of the minister
• Essays on Church Reform. Edited by Canon Gore. London: John Murray. 110s. 6d.]
in the arrangement of Church services and in other parochial business. It is a curious and interesting sign of the times that the new Church Reform League, which is largely manned by High Church clergymen, should now be making the same proposal. What is the explanation of the change? The real explanation is, we believe, the simple and obvious one that Church feeling in the interval has become more democratic. Church history is more studied than it used to be, and English Churchmen have come to realise that while the Church of Rome rests upon a feudal and medimval idea, the Church of England is independent of any particular historical tradition, and may shape and reshape its polity according to circumstances, unless, indeed, by the very fact of its Protestantism, it implies an appeal to primitive times, when the constitution of its society was undeniably demo- cratic.
The paramount idea, then, of the new Church reform movement is that the laity have, and should be called upon to .exercise. a duty in Church government ; with the ultimate end in view, that when they are fairly represented, the Church may be allowed by Parliament a freer hand to manage its own business. The cynic will, no doubt, say that this ultimate end of self-government is the real explanation of the sudden re-cburching of the laity; and he may say so if he pleases. Everybody knows, and Canon Gore in his introductory essay admits, that self-government could be conceded on no other terms. But we agree with Mr. Gore and Mr. Lyttelton and the other writers who handle the topic, that if once a repre- sentative series of Councils could be arranged from the parish to the diocese and the Province, in which laymen were adequately represented by laymen, there would no longer remain the same reason as at present for confining legislation upon Church matters to the Houses of Parliament. The resolutions of a reformed Convocation might receive the Royal assent after lying unopposed upon the table of both Houses.
Before, however, such a consummation can be reached, and the Church be treated as respectfully as the Charity Com- mission, two parties have to be convinced; the clergy must be convinced that they will be surrendering no right, and the laity that the whole scheme is feasible. To those objects the writers of the various essays in this volume address them- selves. Mr. Rackham takes in hand the clergy. He summons to his aid philology of a somewhat doubtful character, and assures the clergy that the title of "layman," so far from being simply the antithesis of "clerk," is the most honour- able title possible, and means a member of the Laos, or people of God. Then he goes to history, and shows that the laity had once a well-recognised and important share in all church functions, from which by degrees they have been ex- truded. Perhaps neither he nor Mr. Gore has made it sufficiently clear to the ordinary parson how authority can reside at one and the same time in the Bishop and in the people; and we can understand the parson objecting that while he had certainly promised to obey his Bishop, he had never promised to obey his congregation. The country parson might go farther and retort upon Mr. Gore that there is no evidence that the Diotrephes mentioned by him, "who loved to have the pre-eminence," was a cleric, while his own experience would lead him to conjecture that he was a church- warden. Laymen, on the other hand, will not need Mr. Rackham's learning to convince them that they have been defrauded for centuries of their rightful prerogatives. They will turn with more interest to the essays dealing with prac- tical proposals, and written by practical laymen.
Into the details of these schemes we cannot at this moment enter. The question as to what constitutes the "churchman- ship," that must be the condition of the new franchise, bristles with occasions of offence, but, after all, it is only a detail. We prefer instead to call attention to the essays dealing with the self-government of other Churches, American, South African, Irish, and Scotch, both Episcopal and Pres- byterian, from all of which much can be learnt. Especially interesting is the essay by Lord Balfour of Burleigh upon "The Principles and Conditions of the Scottish Establish- ment." Probably not a few English laymen who consider that Establishment is altogether a bar to self-government, do not reflect, or do not know, how large powers are exercised, and have been exercised for three centuries, by the Estab- lished Chnrch of Seorlawl without friction with the State. Its government is by Kirk Sessions, Presbyteries, Synods, and a General Assembly, which would correspond to Councils of the parish, rural deanery or archdeaconry, diocese, and kingdom; the decisions of the inferior Courts being subject to revision by those above. We believe that the experiment of regulating parish affairs by a Church Council has been tried in a good many parishes during the last quarter of a century, and it would be interesting if the editor of this volume could in a future edition see his way to collecting some information as to its success or failure. For un- doubtedly it is with the parish, not with Convocation, that any system of representative government must first concern itself.
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