THE FIRST STEP FOR CHURCH REFORM.
IF the Memorial which the Cambridge Heads and Professors have sent to the Archbishops is to be fruitful of good results, there is no time to be lost. It is but too probable
that this Parliament will be a short one, and it is of all things the most desirable that the constitution of a new and genuinely representative assembly for the Church should, if possible, be sanctioned by Parliament before the next dissolution takes place. If the movement is to bring all the good that it may bring, we ought to have a popular constitution for the Church in good working order before the next agitation of Dis- establishment begins. And we say this by no means because we think that it will necessarily tend to prevent Disestablish-
ment. That will be as it may be. We agree with the Bishop of Worcester that it is the only course which can prevent Disestablishment coming sooner or later, but we by no means regard it as certain that it will tend in that direction. If Mr. Carvell Williams and his friends be right, it may tell in their favour instead of against them. It may prove that the internal divisions in the Church are so serious that no course which stimulates the proper energies of the Church can result in anything but the exaggeration of these divisions. But, be this as it may, the Church cannot remain united with the State, if it is so little of an organic unity that any attempt to popularise its constitution tends to disruption. It can only remain united with the State on condition that sufficient earnestness and enthusiasm exist among Church- men to overcome their various differences of opinion, and unite them in a great effort to make the Church of England, what every National Church certainly ought to be, a genuine Church of the people, a Church founded on popular sympathy, and conscious that her mission is to Christianise the whole people, and not merely the most cultivated classes on the one hand and the most dependent and helpless classes on the other.
What we hope that the Archbishops may see fit to propose to their colleagues, is to take steps for giving early effect to the expressed wishes of Convocation in favour of some Lay Assembly,—not, however, one elected by those very unreal representative bodies called Diocesan Conferences,—to co- operate in their deliberations ; as well as to the urgent prayer of the Cambridge Memorial. Of course, this could only be done in the end by the passing of some Act for the reform of Convocation in the manner proposed. But we imagine that the first step to be taken would be to summon an Assembly of Church Notables,—not too ecclesiastically minded,—for the discussion of a project of reform which, if adopted by a really influential body of men, and approved by the majority of the Bishops and the representative Clergy, would come before Parliament with reasonable hope of success. The Cambridge leaders who have prepared the recent Memorial might take into counsel some of the best and least cliquish members of the various Diocesan Conferences, for the purpose of agreeing on some general scheme of reform, to be subse- quently submitted to such a Conference of Notables as we have suggested. They might, for instance, take as a basis the constitution of the Disestablished Church of Ireland, and making such general alterations in that scheme as would seem beat adapted to suit it to the state of opinion on this side of the Channel, bring the scheme so altered, clause by clause, before a Conference of Notables, and then draft a Bill founded on the measure as it should come forth from that tentative revision. Of course, the chief points for decision would be the mode in which the representatives of the Clergy should in future be chosen,—some reform of the present constitution of Convocation is admitted to be almost essential,—the mode in which the Lay Assembly should be chosen, whether by a system of double or treble election,--first for the Parish Councils, then by the Parish Councils for the Diocesan Councils, and lastly by the Diocesan Councils for the General Council,—or directly from a register of Church electors to be prepared for each of the various dioceses ; and again, how the Church Parliament, when chosen, should deliberate, whether Clergy and laity together, though voting by orders, or with the Clergy and laity in separate Assemblies. All these are matters on which it would be quite premature to express as yet any confident opinion, but they are, nevertheless, matters of the very first importance for the successful issue of the movement. If the whole Clergy are not adequately represented in the clerical representation, and the whole laity in the lay representation, the Church Constitution will never attain the power with the people which is essential to success. We ought to get the sanction of Parlia- ment for the creation of such representative bodies, with full power to discuss all needful reforms in the Church, and to pass them subject to the veto, within a given date, of either House of Parliament ; and we ought to obtain that sanction within two or three years at most from this time, if we are to be prepared, as we ought to be prepared, for.the next move- ment for the separation of Church and State.
We do not believe that there will be any difficulty of a serious kind interposed on the part of the Liberation Society. We have already heard some of the most influential of the leaders of that party declare their hearty wish to see the Church prepared for her separation from the State ; and nothing certainly could prepare her for such a separation so well as a satisfactory organisation with a good deal of popular enthusiasm behind it. Of course, as we have already said, it may appear that no such organisation is possible on the lines of our existing Church. If so, the Disestablishers will take all the advantage, and the friends of Establishment all the disad- vantage, of that discovery. For this we must be prepared. If High Church and Low Church and Broad Church are so irre- concilable,—as some of our Dissenting friends conceive,—that they cannot act together in any popular constitution, then the Disestablishers will score heavily against us. We must run great risks in any attempt to make the National Church as national as it ought to be, and we must not try to conceal from ourselves that there are grave risks to be run. But the Irish example is, on the whole, one of good omen for us, and we do not believe that the conflicting forces which a popular consti- tution would develop, would prove to be anything like so potent as the forces of union which would also be developed contem- poraneously. We do not imagine, for instance, that the laity would contend for their right to force any reform on the Church which the separate vote of the Clergy nega- tived, or that the Clergy would hesitate for a moment to recognise the right of the laity to reject any change for which the Clergy wished. We do not suppose, again, that either Clergy or laity would wish to impose any monotony of worship on the individual parishes, or would desire to apply too strict a law to the regulation of public worship wherever it was already conducted in a fashion satisfactory to the individual parishes. We should expect to see a very large disposition to "live and let live" resulting from the more popular constitution of the Church, for without this it is quite certain that the disruptive would quickly over- power the constructive influences at work. What we should look for would be in the main,—first, a disposition to stand by the Prayer-book, but to leave the Clergy and laity in the indi- vidual parishes a very large discretion to use the Prayer-book with the same kind of discriminating liberty which is permitted now ; next, a very beneficial movement for the revision of endowments,—vested interests being, of course, reserved,— in the interest of the poorest and most destitute districts of the Kingdom ; and lastly, a great expansion of lay work both amongst women and amongst men.
But if these great results are to be gained, no time is to be lost. The constitutional changes proposed cannot be carried in a day ; and if Parliamentary sanction is to be obtained for a new Church Synod, the Church should be ready with practical proposals in the shape of a draft Bill, backed by names of great authority, before the beginning of the Session of 1887.
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