The Church Congress opened on Tuesday morning at Newcastle. Dr.
Jacob, the Bishop of Newcastle, who delivered the inaugural address, after some preliminary remarks on the growth of Tyneside in the century, and the history of the See and its endowment, passed in review the various subjects chosen for discussion during the week, and briefly indicated the spirit which should govern their debates. He held that the question of the higher criticism of the Old Testament should be bravely faced, and laid down the two great principles which they must grasp in dealing with the question to what had the Reformation committed the Church of England. These were the entire continuity in doctrine and Apostolic order of the Church of to-day with the Church of Apostolic times, and the "absolute legitimacy, nay, the painful necessity, of that claim of national rights, that reversion to primitive doctrines and practices. that assertion of the supremacy of the Word of God, which we associate with the Reformation." As for the question of concerted action by the Church, he declared that the discussion practically resolved itself into the best way of securing the representation of the laity,—not of a few laymen of ecclesiastical tendencies, but of the rank-and-file of the laity of the Church. Autonomy was the leading practical problem for the Church to solve, and autonomy implied the real representation of clergy and laity in parish, diocese, Province, and Church.
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