A NATIONAL CHURCH.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR:1 should like your correspondent (Spectator, June 27th) to know that in one Anglican archdeaconry—and I doubt not in many mere—the principle which he and you advocate has been carried out for years. In my Colonial archdeaconry we have a large number of educated right-living men and women who are not in the strict sense members of the Church of England, but who are, as I assure them, in another sense, as British subjects, members of the national Church. If we were to exclude them from Holy Communion because they are not confirmed, they would be driven either to joining our Church against their convictions, or abstaining from receiving the bene- fits of her ministrations. As it is practically impossible in a small Colony like ours that Nonconformist churches or chapels should exist. I have felt it my duty to treat Nonconformists who are British subjects pro tem. as Churchmen, provided they are baptised and are leading a Christian life. We also admit them to vote at our congregational gatherings, and have never sacrificed one single item of Church principle by so doing. The law of the Church of England so distinctly reserves control in spiritual matters to the clergy, subject to their Bishops' overruling, that there is no danger of this.—I am,
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