LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
CONVOCATION AND THE LAITY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR SIX —The significant fact that a Conservative Government las not given leave to the Convocation of the Southern
Province to alter the composition of its own Lower House has led the Bishop of Oxford to what seems to me, though I see that you argue against it, a reasonable conclusion. He dissuades the "Church Reform" party from applying to the Legislature. It is not likely that a Bill to cleric,alise the government of the Church of England would find favour with the House of Commons. It is very natural that High Churchmen, and the majority of the clergy, should desire to reform the Erastian Constitution of the Church ; but the English people must be much changed if they have any intention of giving the control of their Church into the hands of the clergy. You observe that "Convocation is the legisla- ture of the Church of England ; " but that is no doubt a slip, for further on you speak of the Bill of the Church Reform League as "asking Parliament to give legislative powers to Convocation." Certainly, if the Convocations of the two. Provinces are in any sense a legislature, they are at present. without legislative powers. The function of Convocation is "to pass resolutions ; " and the resolutions they pees are not taken very seriously by the mass of the people.
Certain resolutions, however, which have just been passed by the Canterbury Lower House, are instructive and useful, as showing how differently the place of the laity in the Church is likely to be understood by the clergy and by the laity. It has long been felt that in parishes the people are, to a quite. unreasonable degree, at the mercy of the individual incum- bent. The abolition of Church-rates has tended to increase during the last half-century the personal power of the clergy- man who " runs " the parish church. Many of the clergy have recognised that this helplessness of the congregation and parishioners has had the effect of depressing injuriously the active church-life of the laity. It is especially humili- ating at a change of incumbents. The incumbent has un- questioned power to alter the services considerably; and at this time, when prosecutions are thought such wicked things,. the new clergyman is apt to feel himself free to introduce even illegal alterations according to his own sense of what is desirable. There has been a good deal of discussion about parochial Church Councils, as agencies through which the people might express their views, and attempts have been made to give legal form and functions to such bodies. The- clerical members of the Lower House of the Canterbury Convocation have taken the subject into their consideration ;. and this Assembly, in which the parochial clergy are said to be inadequately represented to a degree which provokes their grave discontent, has resolved, "That the initiative in forming Church Councils, and the power of dissolving them, should rest on the incumbent, subject to the approval of the Bishop of the diocese, but that in a case of voidance of a. benefice the Council shall cease to exist ; " "and that the duties of the Council should be to assist the incum- bent and to advise him on matters on which he
thinks it expedient to consult them." If the clergymen of the- Canterbury Lower House had had much sense of humour, / think they would have refrained from passing these resolu- tions. The laity have already abundant Church power in Parliament, in the Administration, and in the Courts; if they, wish to have a little more in parishes, they will understand/ that they must take it for themselves, and not ask the clergy to give it to them.—I am, Sir, Sze., J. LLEWELYN DAVIES.
Kirkby-Lonsdale, February 28th.
Previous page
