the Clergy of the Province, now, and for some years past, assembled in their Convocation in pursuance of the Queen's writ, on account of the care and wisdom, the prudence and moderation, with which their deliberations have been conducted.

"That the Clergy of the Lower House are, in a special manner, entitled to the thanks of the United Church, on account of the dutiful spirit towards your Lordship's House with which the proceedings have been conducted.

"That the practical development of synodical action may be much promoted by the universal establishment of parochial associations, either limited to communicants or not so limited, as the case may be; and associations to meet and act, as far as possible, under the guidance of the Clergy, and to have in view the general action and interests of the Church, as well as the immediate duties and edification of each several member.

"That when such associations shall have become general and are regularly at work, but not before, a larger sympathy may be anticipated between the Clergy and both Houses of Parliament, now too often apparently hostile, for want of a more practical communication between the Clergy and their flocks.

"That the best thanks of the faithful Laity are due, for the valuable report on Lay Agency, presented by the Lord Bishop of London and Convocation, not to say in provincial synod, in the month of April,

1864.

"That since God's holy name may be glorified, and His blessed kingdom enlarged, not only by His ordained ministers, but also by those over whom they are appointed ministers, your petitioners desire to acknowledge, with gratitude, the distinct assertion which the said report on the Lay Agency contains, touching the duty of every private member of the Church to act as a fellow helper of the Clergy, apart from the agency of Laymen more especially contemplated there. "Your petitioners, therefore, pray, that you will be graciously pleased to take such steps as you deem meet, to encourage the promoters of parochial Church associations, and also to appoint a Committee of Bishops to prepare such books as may be needful for the guidance of Laymen employed in conducting religious services, under due sanction from the diocesan, and from the parochial Clergy, and with a view to the better carrying out of the 13th Canon of 1603, which books, being afterwards submitted to consideration by the Clergy, or as many dioceses or archidiaconal synods as the chief pastors may see fit to assemble, or may permit to be assembled, previous to final revision by your Lordships."

The Bishop of Oxford moved the following resolution:-"That an humble address be presented to her Majesty, praying her Majesty to take into her Royal consideration the need which exists, from a vast increase of the population of England, for an increase of the English Episcopate, and that we would humbly specify St. Albans, Southwell, and Bodmin, or Truro, as places we would desire to see constituted cathedral cities, with their cathedral chapters and churches, to be the seats of Bishops, thus making better spiritual provision

for the populations of the present dioceses of London and Winchester, Exeter and Lincoln, and Lichfield."

The movement was supported by all the Bishops who spoke on the subject, and the Resolution was unanimously adopted, and ordered to be communicated to the Lower House.

In the Lower House, a Committee was appointed to inform the Upper House, of agreement to the Resolutions adopted by their Lordships in reference to the proposed creation of the new Sees of St. Albans, Southwell, and Bodmin, (or Truro,) adding, however, the words, "in the first instance."

On the subject of the Russo-Greek Church, the Rev. Chancellor Massingberd brought up the Report of the Committee appointed by command of his Grace, the President, and their Lordships of the Upper House, 1863, "to communicate with the Committee appointed at a recent Synod of the Bishops and Clergy of the United States of America, as to intercommunication with the Russo-Greek Church, and to communicate the result to Convocation at a future Session, which was read, as follows:-"That as the limited power conferred upon your Committee, by the terms of their appointment, did not authorize them to enter into direct intercourse with the authorities of the Eastern Church, the report of their proceedings will be mainly occupied with. the account of their communications with the Committee of the Convention of the Church in the United States, on the same subject."

After stating what has been done by the American Church, the Report thus proceeds :-"It is an instance of the increasing interest that is taken in this question at home, that your Committee are enabled to state to the House, that there has been formed in England an association called "The Eastern Church Association,' which already numbers, among its patrons, the Most Rev. the Archbishop of Belgrade, the Most Rev. the Archbishop of Dublin, with several more of our English Bishops, the principal objects of which are to inform the English public as to the state of the Eastern churches, and to make known the doctrines and principles of the Anglican Church to the Christians of the East. Your Committee have been favored, at their last meeting, with the presence of the Very Rev. Archpriests Popoff and Wassilieff, chaplains to the Imperial Embassies of Russia, at London and Paris, from both of whom they have received the most cordial assurances of personal coöperation. It would be premature to lay down any principles or conditions on which it may seem to your Committee that such intercommunion as is contemplated may be brought about; further than this-to establish such relations between the two communions as shall enable the Laity and Clergy of either to join in the Sacraments and Offices of the other, without forfeiting the communion of their own Church. That any overtures towards such an object should be made, if possible, in coöperation with those Churches with which the Church of England is in Communion; and that such overtures, whenever made, should be extended to the other Eastern Patriarchates, and not confined to the Russo-Greek Church."

In the Lower House, on motion of the Dean of Westminster, Canon Selwyn, the old question of the "Essays and Reviews" came up, and

in a House of fifty-one members, eighteen voted, in effect, to rescind the former vote of Convocation, condemning the book. Other matters of discussion were, the membership of Convocation, and mode of appointments; also the present anomalous condition of the Court of Appeal. Convocation was prorogued to Tuesday, May 16th.

THE CHURCH CONGRESS AT BRISTOL.-An English paper thus describes the meeting held in October last :-Hardly any topic was left untouched which excites at this moment a practical interest. The Increase of the Episcopate, the Synodical Action of the Church, Foreign Missions, the Peculiar Difficulties of Great Towns, the social hindrances which exist no less in the country, and the special organizations required for counteracting these; the Education of the Poor, of the Middle Classes, of the Clergy; the hotly-debated question of Free and Open Churches, the pleasant controversies of Church Architecture and Church Music, the Imperial topic-so much slighted hitherto, but now so rapidly rising into one of supreme importanceof the mutual relations between the separated portions of the Church. in England and Ireland-all received some share, though several, necessarily, a small one, of the public attention.

Another distinguishing feature in this Congress has been, we think, the active part taken in its deliberations by the rank and file, and the inferior officers of the Church. There were not wanting, it is true, a fair number of distinguished and famous speakers. The wide learning, ruled ever by the soundest sense, of the Dean of Canterbury, the impetuous eloquence of the Dean of Cork, the genial and happy addresses of the Dean of Ely, these evident overflowings of a warm heart and well-stored and ready intellect, which formed so conspicuous an element in the success of the meeting,-the ripe experience and practised elocution of Dr. Goulburn, the honored names of Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble, among the Clergy, and among the Laity the wellknown and long-tested services of Lord Lyttleton, and Mr. BeresfordHope, the active and sensible assistance so often yielded in nice conjunctures by Lord Harrowby, and the cordial coöperation of Lord Fortescue, are more than sufficient to refute any charge of defection from the Congress of its natural and proper leaders.

Ore of the most valuable papers read, was that by Mr. J. M. Knott, Secretary to the Committee of Laymen, at the Bristol Congress, on the Origin and Progressive Development of the Parochial System, from which we give a brief extract:

When Christianity spread over the nations, we see that in France, Spain, Germany, and in our most favored country, as Christian men and Sovereigns were influenced by the true faith, the preachers of the Gospel were provided for by first fruits, and instead of weekly, as in Apostolic times, by monthly oblations of the converts; and next in order, as civilization advanced, and under the authority of the great Fathers of the Church, by tithes under Scriptural injunction-jure divino. Such payments were primarily made to Bishops, who were coëval with Christianity in England, some of whom may be traced as present at Councils of the fourth century. In the earlier years of the Bish

ops, the ordained Clergy lived with them in common, the latter proceeding in their work of evangelizing, from the Churches in which the Bishops presided, as from centres, which became dioceses. As the Clergy gradually settled in distinct spheres, or incipient parishes, appropriate funds were distributed among them by their ecclesiastical superiors; and we also find that, in accordance with the practice of the Jews in the time of Ezra, the Clergy were relieved from tribute, impositions, and civil service.

As kingly rule obtained, though in Saxon times subdivided, the proprietors of the soil, acting in the spirit of the Old Testament precedent, and with the higher motives of the New, erected churches on their manors and estates, endowed them with revenues from their lands, with parsonages and glebe, and ultimately with tithe, for the support of the Clergy. That which was done at first voluntarily, gradually became recognized by law, and we find, as recorded by authorities already named, in the reign of Athelstan, Edgar, and Canute, laws directing the due payment of tithes; thus proving that a course, morally right in practice, becomes generally binding, and thus, that so beneficent an institution as Christianity ultimately received the support of all-religious and irreligious. We hear, too, in the last-named reign, of "Church Sceat," or "Scot," which seems to have been for external things of the Church, and to have answered to Church-rates in our day.

The parochial system, according to Selden, appears to have grown out of the diocesan, and to have increased very much between the eighth and twelfth centuries. After treating of the origin of parish churches in the diocese of Canterbury, that writer thus proceeds to trace their provincial extension:

But afterward, when devotion grew firmer, and most Laymen.of fair estate desired the country residence of some chaplains, that might be always ready for Christian instruction among them, their families, and adjoining tenants; oratories and churches began to be built by them also; being hallowed by the Bishops, were endowed with peculiar maintenance from the founders, for the incumbents that should there only reside. Which maintenance, with all other ecclesiastic profits that came to the hands of every such several incumbent (in regard, that now the lay founder had, according to the territory of his demesnes, tenancies, or neighboring possessions, made and assigned both the limits within which the holy function was to be exercised, and appointed the persons that should repair to the Church, and offer there, as also provided, a special salary for the performance,) was afterwards also restrained from that common treasury of the diocese, and made only the revenue, which became perpetually annexed to the church of that clerk who received it. Neither was it wonder that the Bishops should give way to such restraint; for had they denied that to lay founders, they had given no small cause also of restraining their devotion Out of these lay foundations chiefly, doubtless, came those kind of parishes which at this day are in every diocese, their differences in quantity being originally out of the difference of the several circuits of the demenses or territories possessed by the

founders. . . . . At what time these lay foundations began to be frequent, plainly enough, appears not. . . . . .... But some mention is made of them about the year A. D. 500, as you may see in Bede. . . . Some such more, of about that time, may be found. But about the year A. D. 800, many Churches founded by Laymen are recorded to have been appropriated to the Abbey of Crowland. . . . whence it may be observed, that by this time lay foundations were grown very common, and parochial limits, also, of the parishioners' devotions."

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This extract is from the ninth chapter of Selden's History of Tithes," section iv. (at pages 1209-10, of the third volume of his works, edition of 1736.) Were further quotation admissible, the circumstances under which parochial division proceeded, in that early day, might be explained. In a preceding page (1202) there is a curious record of the manner in which, in the absence of tithe upon land, the case of a town population was met. By the Act of 27 Hen. VIII., it was provided that in the City of London, and is still provided, as shown by Mr. Dale, that the Clergy of some parishes should be paid by a tax upon house-rent. Before the reign of that sovereign, there had been a payment of a farthing for every ten shillings of rent, payable every Sunday and great festival day. This original payment would seem to have produced about three shillings in the pound sterling. It appears to have been commuted to two shillings and ninepence annually, and is still levied. A portion of the tithes of the mother parish was conveyed to the new parish, under a certain condition.

Here, then, we have light upon the origin of parish churches, which may be traced, by examination of the same writer, through Saxon and Danish times, to a later period of England's history.

It is unquestionable that endowments, whether of first fruits, churches, glebe, or tithe, in their origin, were voluntary but permanent, and remained so, until the corrupt practices derived from Rome supervened. Then monasteries and monks wrought themselves into the parochial system, the latter appealing to those who paid the tithes, and still exercised a voluntary power over them, to accumulate them in their establishments. Subsequently the Dominican and Franciscan friars took a prominent part in the same grasping selfishness.

In this appropriation of tithes and other parochial endowments to the monasteries, we see the first steps of that mischief to the parishes which was consummated by the cupidity and spoliation of Henry VIII. Hence it was that a large portion of the legitimate provision for our parishes became impropriate, and that we hear so largely of vicarial tithes being the resort of our Clergy in the present day."

ORDINATION EXAMINATION,

The following paper will interest our Clergy and Candidates for Orders. It was sent to Candidates for the Diaconate, lately, in the Diocese of Lichfield. The examination in the Greek Testament was oral. The Bishop of Lichfield specially requested that Professor J. J. Blunt's work on the Undesigned Coincidences of Holy Scripture be read by all the Candidates.