The Manchester Diocesan Conference has been debating about the position
of laymen in the Church, and the Liberals of the Conference appear to concede almost every function to a layman that a clergyman can perform, except the priestly functions of absolution and benediction. The Radicals in Manchester ask, with a sneer, if all this is to be conceded to laymen, what is left for the clergy ? Why, as much, we suppose, as for Dissenting ministers, if not a little more. Nothing can be more absurd than to suppose that because there is no magic in a clergyman's office, there is nothing left for him to do which laymen could not do as well. He is overseer of the spiritual work of the Church, and has all its organisation in his hands. You might just as well say that because there is no magic in an officer's work, and any of his brother-officers or soldiers could, if the opportunity arose, take his place, yet that there is no good in committing the duty to a single person's hands. The clergy are apt to be rather hardly treated in this country. If they are exclusive, they are ridiculed for their exclusiveness ; and if they are not exclusive, they
are asked What use they are. It is obvious enough, we suppose, that if any Church be a reality at all, the laymen who mostly constitute it must take the greatest part in its work.
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