PRAYER-BOOK REVISION: THE BISHOP KNOX MEMORIAL.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sm,—Memorials, as we have grown, accustomed to use the word since the War, are suggestive of mortality ; . but the Bishop is very much alive. His vigour recalls the days of his great missions on the sands at Blackpool, and the great campaign which he led in Lancashire. and carried to
London, on behalf of Christian education. Now he wields the sword—or waves the banner—which Sir William Harcourt wielded (or waved) in the Times on behalf—as it is asserted —of the great mass of plain people in lay communion who thank heaven that they are not ecclesiastically minded.
The Bishop is consistent. He opposed the measure which set up the Church Assembly, and himself drafted an alternam tine measure which was rejected ; and he distrusts the Assembly as it now exists. But his • want of confidence seems, to those who have taken part in its deliberations from the beginning, to be exaggerated. It is unkind to stigmatize the evangelicals in the Assembly as " pliable," nor does it fit the facts as known. And certainly the majority of the clergy would, on various grounds, deny the justice of applying to them the title of High Church. The Assembly is not yet fully representative of the Church of England ; but it is the most representative body that we have or have had for centuries ; and the franchise on which it rests is a very broad one, namely, a deelaration on the part of electors that they are [baptized] " members of the Church
of England." Let us give the Assembly a chance, and not prejudge it until the result of its labours is before us. This is the English way, whether in national or ecclesiastical policy.
As broader and more generous views prevail, the rights
of minorities tend to be safeguarded. Bishop Knox's Memorialists number 80,000 communicants, and may number when the list finally closes twice that number. If it reaches, by vigorous propaganda, 200,000, it will then represent one-tenth of the communicants of the Church of England. This should not justify Parliament in rejecting a composition of our difficulties which is attainable ; and if the rights of minorities are treated' with consideration Ephraim need not envy Judah, not Judah vex Ephraim.—I am, Sir, &e.,
G. L. RICHARDSON (Hon. Canon, Member of the National Assembly). Uppingham Rectory, Rutland.
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