Another question that is increasingly discussed is the practice of praying for the dead. In some forms of prayer and in Churches it is answered that death in battle is of itself a kind of atonement for sin and through falling on the field of honor men obtain special recognition from God. Their deaths are a plea for the divine compassion. Those who urge this forget it is equally applicable to the enemy and ourselves. Under modern conditions men do not die as volunteers. They die in obedience to their country's compulsion and are not judges of the rightness or the wrongness of the cause. On sentimental grounds there is much to favor the popular contention, and it is far from me to assert what the divine compassion will do. But the Christian Church has no power to pronounce a verdict or to anticipate the judgment of God. It is its function as the steward of the revelation of God, to declare His teaching, to act upon what His Son taught. No one has ventured to assert that our Lord and His apostles made death in the Lord synonymous with death in battle and unless this is the case there is no ground for the new teaching that is so popular. It is a different matter to remember before God the noble lives and deaths of those who have laid down their lives in the war. Their examples of patient endurance and self-forgetfulness ought to be brought before congregations. This can be done without any unwarrantable suggestions that they have won the crown of martyrdom through patriotic bravery. The Gospel of Christ is a call to follow the Saviour and this is the message God has entrusted to his ministers.

The Pope's peace efforts have raised in an acute form the proper power and functions of the Papacy. Very few believe that the Pope is so far elevated above ordinary human frailties as not to be biassed by the pressure of Austria and the desire to stand well with the

Central Powers. Your President's reply has won the approval of Englishmen who are delighted with his emphasis on the true character of the struggle and the need of pressing it to its only possible end. The Pope's passage calling for "mutual condonation" has roused anger for our people are certain that they entered upon the war with clean hands and against their own wishes. They see in the Papal letter an indifference to "right and wrong" and contrast his anxiety for peace now when the Central Powers feel the strain, with his silence when Belgium suffered invasion and the cruel wrongs of "frightfulness." The Pope, according to Cardinal Gibbons-I quote Dr. Barry's new book, "The World's Debate"-has by the definition of infallibility rescued the Church from the dominion of the State more than by anything in modern history. He maintains his "Nuncios" at many courts and claims ambassadorial privileges for them. They claim to be in a position to judge public affairs better than other diplomatists. Dr. Barry bemoans the passing of medievalism in which the Pope as God's vicar was suzerian of earthly states. Roman priesthood now demands that the Pope should be represented at any Council Board of Nations that may be set up to give moral sanction to conclusions reached. Had the Papacy shown impartiality during the war, the principles of the past might have been reviewed. Now they are confirmed by knowledge of contemporary facts.

The

We are evidently approaching a very serious position on the subject of divorce. At present divorce is only granted for cruelty and adultery, desertion and adultery in the case of husbands and adultery in the case of wives. A system of separation orders permits our lowest courts to separate husbands and wives and to give wives separation allowances. It is estimated that at least one million adults are living under these orders. They are not free to marry

again and in too many instances lapse instead and form irregular unions. The war has made the extent of the evil evident through our support of wives and families of soldiers. A very influential committee has been formed for the purpose of obtaining legislation that will grant automatically divorce to husbands and wives that have been separated for five years. Feeling in support of the committee is unexpectedly widespread. Among its active advocates are men and women recognized as social and religious leaders, against whose Christian service record no word can be said. The law of the Church on the subject is dead against any such legislation by the State and a very awkward conflict will arise. It may be found that the majority of the Christian population is prepared to stand behind the reformers, although, for my part, I think they do so in opposition to our Lord's teaching. A better way is to make the separation orders subject to periodic review and by so doing try to effect reunion. Marriage problems are the most difficult of all social problems to solve satisfactorily. We cannot possibly sacrifice Christian ethics to the tenderness we feel towards the hard cases that cross our path.

I expect you may be faced by the problem of the clergy as combatant officers. Here the higher Church authorities began by condemning our clergy obtaining commissions then they felt unsure of their ground and now the combatant cleric in holy orders is no longer considered a man who has forfeited his place as minister of the Gospel. Public opinion and experience have worked the change and the influence of the Church was undoubtedly weakened by the veto placed by our bishops on men volunteering for military service on account of their clerical character. Some of our clerical combatants have exercised a very deep influence on their companions in arms and have shown their Godliness by their deeds and not

by their dress. I am disappointed by the small number of discharged soldiers who volunteer for preparation for the ministry. It was expected that we would have had before now a considerable proportion of our ordinary applicants for admission to our theological colleges from men who had been invalided out of the army. This has not been the case and it is to be hoped that it is due to the national employment in nonmilitary duties of many of our exofficers. The ministry of the next ten years will determine the character of the Church of the future.

Wales has elected the members of the General Convention that will determine the character and constitution of the disestablished Church. The Convention will consist of four hundred members, two-thirds of them laymen, and the most pressing matter to determine is the franchise qualification of the electors to the various governing bodies. The issuing of an anonymous circular recommending members of the diocesan conferences and other voters to confine their votes to those who will only support a communicant franchise has caused comment. There are two distinct schools in the Church, one is willing to give the initial franchise to all adults who register themselves as Churchmen. The other would confine the franchise to adult communicants. Both schools are prepared to confine membership of the governing bodies to communicants. The framing of a constitution is a precaution against the danger of the Disestablishment Act being put in force, as many Churchmen believe an after-thewar Parliament will repeal the Act.

Whatever hopes of repeal existedand the basis of expectation was goodit has been lessened by the unwise statement of representatives of "Life and Liberty" who wish to obtain self government for the Church even at the cost of disestablishment and disendowment. Events are moving very fast and it may not be so difficult to secure

generation have altered. The subject has been one of acute controversy in the past; and nothing is more remarkable than the new temper of the revived discussion. It is apparent that the attitude which gave rise to the sharp conflicts of days gone by has been largely modified. The demand that the canon should be repealed is by no means confined to the clergy. The impetus has been given by the laity, and the new temper given to our religious thought, and the new spirit breathed into our devotions by the war, are clearly its immediate cause. It is asked why this emphasis on difference should be continued, why our Church alone should make this rigid prohibition, at a time when the fractured forces of Christendom are conscious of the imperative need of being knitted together in a new bond. Churchmen of imagination, sympathy, and historic sense feel the break with the traditions of the past and the all but universal custom of present Christian practice. Their demand for the repeal of the canon has undoubtedly been quickened by the experience in France, where the cross so often stands strangely unharmed above the carnage of war, of the thousands of sons of Irish Church homes, clerical and lay, who have fought with the new armies. The repeal of the canon, of course, would not compel any rector to place a cross above the communion table of his church. With due safeguards, it would merely give liberty to do so where the demand is clear and general. In the face of this demand for reasonable liberty along the lines of Christian tradition and of human experience it remains to be shown why those who prefer to suppress the cross should press the prohibition upon those who would welcome the relaxation of a canon which they maintain always to have been objectionable and now to be obsolete, and whose repeal implies no question of doctrine and even makes no change in the simple ritual of our reformed Church.

The great Bishop Westcott, when on a visit to Ireland nearly twenty years ago, with that clear insight which was one of his most marked characteristics, said that the whole future of the Church of Ireland depended on how the Belfast problem was faced and solved. During the past few years the problem has been faced through the compulsion of events; but it is not yet solved. The Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Sterling Berry, one of the most outspoken members of the Bench of Bishops, proposed at the meeting of his diocesan synod in August a practical expedient which, though on a small scale, would be a step in the right direction. Since disestablishment there has been a reduction of nearly fifty per cent. in the Church population of the united dioceses of Killaloe, Kilfenora, Clonfert and Kilmacduagh. In these dioceses there are only two parishes with a Church population of over three hundred; there are twenty-five parishes, or unions of parishes, with less than a hundred. For a total Church population of less than seven thousand they employ the services of fifty-eight clergy, or on an average of one for every one hundred and seventeen people. In contrast, the Church population of the city of Belfast has increased since 1871 from about 50,000 to between 120,000 and 130,000. To meet the needs of this population provision is made for sixty-three clergy, nearly the same number as Killaloe. that there is one clergyman for every hundred people in that diocese, in Belfast there is only one for every two thousand. And it is not in Belfast alone that an increase in Church population has taken place; the same is true of many other industrial centres in the North of Ireland. If action is not taken speedily, thousands of these men and women will be lost to our Church. These are the facts on which is based the movement for redistribution of clerical man-power, of which movement the Bishop of Killaloe is a leader. The general synod, at its last meeting,

So