The reform of Convocation has at last become a subject
of a certain mild interest to Convocation, and was discussed at the last session of the Province of Canterbury, both in the Upper and Lower Ilouse,—in the Upper House, in relation to the better representation of the clergy, and in the Lower House, in relation to some kind of make-shift representation of the laity,—not, however, one really giving the laity any legal right to belong to Convocation. Lord Alwyne Compton's motion for a consultative lay assembly of this kind—one without constitutional rights—was carried yesterday week, by a majority of 31 to 6, in a rather thin House, but it was evident that the mere idea of giving laymen a voice which might make itself heard above their own was received with great alarm by many of the clergy, and that but for the special suggestion which pointed, as we have elsewhere shown, to a somewhat cliquish House of ecclesiastical laymen, it pro- bably would not have been accepted at all. Thus Dr. Fraser 4, hoped it would not be recorded in history that the Lower House voted away its ancient position in the apace of about an hour and three-quarters, in a very thin House ;" and even most of the supporters of the proposal for a lay House agreed that they would not have voted for it, if a legal veto were to be accorded to the lay House on the acts of the clergy. The laity, in short, are wanted chiefly as providing a motive power to be directed by the clergy. Unfortunately, however, English laymen do not understand that sort of subservience, and are inconveniently apt to take their own way.
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