THE LAMBETH CONFERENCE AND ANGLICAN UNITY. T WENTY years a g o, it
was the fashion to speak with good or ill humoured contempt of every attempt the Anglican Church made to realise or give expression to the immense responsibilities which have come upon her, almost without either her knowledge or her will. The Lambeth Conferences may not have had much to do with changing this, but they are excellent examples of the fact that the change has come. In 1868, the gathering of Bishops at Lambeth was disliked, or ridiculed, or ignored. In 1888, there is scarcely a trace of any one of these feelings. The contrast, no doubt, is only a part of the wider contrast be which is to seen in the whole attitude of the world to the Church. Religious forces are once more recognised as essential factors in the making of history. The com- fortable belief that religion is played out, that the world may go on its way without taking any trouble about it, has proved a delusion. Men who care nothing for religion as it affects themselves are forced to care for it as it affects others. The change is most of all visible in the relations between the Pope and European Sovereigns; but it is visible also in the relations between the Anglican Church and lay society in England. Formerly the great body of English laymen were divided between two theories of the Anglican Church. According to one, it was strictly identified with the Church of England as by law established. According to another, it was in merged the general body of Protestants all over the world. " Catholics " and " Protestants " were the two halves into which Christendom was divided. Neither theory is now found to correspond exactly with the facts. There are something like two hundred Sees belonging to the Anglican communion; and of these, only about forty— less than one-fourth--can in any sense whatever be called Established. Again, in all the countries where the Anglican Church is fully organised—in the Colonies, in India, in Ireland, in the United States—there are large bodies of Protestants which remain quite distinct from it. It does not matter to our present purpose whether this -is a cause for sorrow or a cause for rejoicing. Whichever ;view we take, there is no question as to the fact. The .natural thing, it might have been thought, when the .stumbling-block of an Establishment was removed, would have been for these various Protestant bodies to draw closer together, and outside the Anglican Church they mostly -have done so. But between the Anglican Church and the rest the distinction grows stronger every day. Proba- ,bilities and predictions have been alike falsified, and the separate existence of Anglicanism as a third element of Christendom is more patent to-day than it has ever been before. Men may like its presence, or they may dislike it; but they cannot help admitting it. This change gives a new kind of interest to the meeting of the Conference this beyeas. The Archbishop of Canter- bury's invitation has been accepted by 141 Bishops, and nearly all of them have this week assembled in the chapel and library of Lambeth Palace. It would be difficult to exaggerate the diversities of conditions in the dioceses there represented. There are Bishops from every quarter ,of the globe, ruling flocks taken from every great race that ...exists upon its surface. It would be hardly less difficult to exaggerate the diversities of opinion in the Bishops them- selves. The history and circumstances of the Church of Eng- land have fostered this diversity at home, and it has been reproduced with equal vividness in the Anglican Churches elsewhere. But a certain unity of type has everywhere been preserved, and as yet there is not a single Anglican Bishop who finds himself out of place at Lambeth. Indeed, the existence and growth of the Conference is the strongest possible testimony to the typical unity on which we are insisting. In 1868, the Lambeth Conference was an experiment,—an experiment which Archbishop Tait perhaps half-expected to fail even while he thought it right to try it. In 1888, all fear of failure seems to have passed away. The Conference may do things that some a us may rejoice at and others regret; but there will be no doubt as to its vitality, or as to the great and increasing attention with which its action will be watched. And as this unity of type has made it possible for the Anglican Bishops to come together decade after decade in increasing numbers, and. with an increasing sense of responsibility, so these decennial gatherings will tend to strengthen and extend that unity. Each Bishop will go back to his See more of an Anglican than lie came,—more sensible, that is, that the Anglican Church, as marked off on the one hand from the Established Church of England, and on the other from Protestantism generally, has a distinct and separate part to sustain. For a whole month, episcopacy will be to them as the very air they breathe, and however uncongenial the unaccustomed atmosphere may seem to some of them, it will, nevertheless, leave its mark. Besides strengthening and extending Anglican unity in idea, the Conference may hereafter play an important part in in preserving it practice. The Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury have increased and multi- plied with remarkable rapidity. As yet, therefore, the younger among them have hardly realised their inde- pendent existence. There is little question, however, that this realisation will come, and will exercise, when it does come, a very strong separating force. Canada, with its three metropolitan and fifteen suffragan Sees; Australasia, with its two metropolitan and eighteen suffragan Sees, will naturally, as they feel their strength. begin to wish to try their wings. Inevitably, therefore, the tendency towards separation will begin to make itself felt. Its fruits were seen in the Irish Church imme- diately after Disestablishment ; and though Angli- canism in Ireland has a peculiar aspect not likely to be reproduced elsewhere in its integrity, some of controversies ntroversies which at once agitated the disestab- lished Church there have, and will long continue to have, their parallels in every Anglican community. In the absence of anything answering to the Lambeth Conference, this separatist tendency would probably have the upper hand. The Colonial Churches would not wish for separation for its own sake; but they would be eager about the particular changes they wished to introduce, and inclined to ignore or risk the effect which these changes might have upon their relations with the Church of England. The Lambeth Conference will serve as a useful check upon this inclination. It will neither exercise nor claim any definite authority over the several Churches represented in it; but it will strengthen the resistance of the Bishops of the innovating Church if they are on the side of leaving things as they are, and show them reasons for holding their hand if they are on the side of change. Indeed, the very fact that no definite authority is claimed by the Conference, is likely to add. to its real influence. In an Episcopal as opposed to a Papal communion, the submission of distant Sees to a central authority must be founded wholly on consent. The chair of Augustine is not a divine institution, and any authority it possesses must be exercised over willing sub- jects. From anything more than this there would be a. constant temptation to revolt; but where this temptation is wanting, the advantages of a dignified and historic arbitrator whose decisions may secure the due combination of con- tinuity with development, will be obvious to all. What is immediately needed to strengthen this function of the Lam- beth Conference, is some provision for its continuity between the years in which it meets, and for its information at the times of its meeting. A suggestion, made originally in the St. .Taraes's Gazette, and adopted, we observe, by the Guardian, would go far to securing both these ends. If the Conference would appoint, or authorise the Arch- bishop to appoint, a committee of theological and legal experts who might be referred to by the Bishops while the Conference was sitting, and might determine questions voluntarily submitted to them in the interval between the . decennial periods, an unconscious pressure would be exerted on all the Churches included in the Anglican communion, to resist which would either require a very good cause or argue very great presumption.
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