[TO TIM EDITOZ O TKI " BPECTATOP.:1
happen to have as my Church Council about a dozen typical business men, independent, sensible, and wide awake. Last night I called them together to pronounce an opinion on the new scheme for the election of representatives by duly- qualifie d laymen.
How I should have liked Mr. Athelstan Riley and other inventors of the " duly-qualified " to have heard how promptly they all, with one consent, pronounced the whole scheme "a farce."
I fear, Sir, it is worse than a farce. It is a conspiracy to unchurch the huge majority of Christian Englishmen, and to insult them by the pretence that the whole Church is " represented " by a little clique of persons who make a hobby of interesting themselves in ecclesiastical affairs.
Our conformity to the Church Order and to an nnrevised Prayer-book, be it strict or lax, regular or occasional, is no measure of our hold on Christianity or of our right to a voice in the management of " national " Church affairs. Give us proportional representation and the Christian people of ous country will be far better represented in the House of Com- mons than they are ever likely to be by any system of election by "duly-qualified persons."
The half of the nation who happen to have been brought up to conformity are no more members of Christ's Church in England than the half who happen to have been brought up otherwise.—I am, Sir, Itc. F. DAUSTINI CREMER. The Vicarage, Eccles, Manchester.
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