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upon a safe basis at home , he could boldly meet her enemies abroad , and contribute to the foundation of that colonial empire which forms so important a part of our present greatness ; and honour be to him for his endeavour to place this foundation upon the rock of the Church . ( Renewed cheers . ) The first jubilee of the society fell in times when religious apathy had succeeded to the over-excitement of the preceding age . Lax morals and a sceptical philosophy began to undermine the Christian faith ( hear , hear ) , treating with indifference , and even with ridicule , the most sacred objects . Still this society persevered in its labours with unremitting seal , turning its chief attention to the North American continent , where a young and vigorous society was
rapidly growing into a people . ( Hear , hear . ) The second jubilee found this country in a most critical position . She had obtained by the Peace of Amiens a moment ' s respite from the tremendous contest in which she had been engaged with her Continental rival , and which she had soon to renew in order to maintain her own existence , and to secure a permanent peace to Europe . Since the last jubilee the American colonies , which had originally been peopled chiefly by British subjects who had left their homes to escape the yoke of religious intolerance and oppression , had thrown off their allegiance to the mother country in defence of civil rights , the attachment to which they had carried with them from the British soil . ( Cheers . ) Yet this society was not dismayed , but
in a truly Christian spirit continued its labours in the neighbouring North American and West Indian settlements . ( Hear , hear . ) This , the third jubilee , falls in a happier epoch ( hear , hear ) , when peace is established in Europe , and religious fervour is rekindled ( hear , hear ) , and at an auspicious moment , when we are celebrating a festival of the civilization of mankind ( cheers ) , to which all quarters of the globe have contributed their productions and are sending their people ( cheers )—for the first time recognizing their advancement as a common goodtheir interests as identical—their mission on earth the same . _ ( Loud cheering . ) And this civilization rests on Christianity—could only be raised on Christianity—can only be maintained by Christianity ( cheers ) : the blessings
of which are now cariied by this society to the vast territories of India and Australasia , which last are again to be peopled by the . Anglo-Saxon race . ( Hear . ) While we have thus to congratulate ourselves upon our state of temporal prosperity—harmony at home and peace abroad—we cannot help deploring that the Church , whose exertions for the progress of Christianity and civilization we are to-day acknowledging , should be afflicted by internal dissensions—( hear , hear )—and attacks from without . ( Hear , hear . ) I have no fear , however , for her safety and ultimate welfare—( cheers )—so long as she holds fast to what our ancestors gained for us at the Reformationthe Gospel , and the unfettered right of its use . ( Cheers . ) The dissensions and difficulties which we witness in this , as in every other Church , arise from the natural and necessary conflict of the two antagonistic principles which move human society in Church as well as State—I mean
the principles of individual liberty , and of allegiance and submission to the will of the community , exacted by it for its own preservation . These two conflicting principles cannot be disregarded—they must be reconciled . ( Hear , hear . ) To this country belongs the honour of having succeeded in thia mighty task as far as the State is concerned , while other nations are wrestling with it . And I feel persuaded that the same earnest zeal and practical wisdom which have made her political constitution an object of admiration to other nations , will , under God ' s blessing , make her Church likewise a model to the world . ( Hear , hear . ) Let us look upon this assembly as a token of future hope ; and may the harmony which reigns among us at this moment , and which we owe to having met in furtherance of a common holy object , be , by the Almighty , permanently bestowed upon the Church ! ( Hear , hear . )
The report was then read and the Bishop of London moved the first resolution , which simply expressed , the thankfulness of the society for the blessings of Providence , under whose guidance the society had worked , and prayed still to work . The Bishop then alluded to the fact that the third jubilee had fallen in 1851 , the year of the Exposition—an undertaking whose tendency would be to mitigate , if not remove , national antipathies and prejudices , and to soften and harmonize feelings which , at present ,
perhaps , went to alienate the inhabitants of different but neighbouring countries from one another . ( Cheers . ) The society had wrought successfully for the interests of the Gospel at Cape Town , in the East Indies , conspicuously in Prince Rupert ' s Inland , where a number of Indians were first taught tho rudiments of agriculture , and the manufactures necessary for the comforts of life , and then became sincere and faithful Christians ; and in Borneo . In ench territory " evangelization and civilization" had gone hand in hand .
Lord John Kussell seconded the resolution . He contrasted the period of the formation of the Hocicty with its present state , and pointed to the millions vrho now , in far-off lands , had the blessing of Hie Dible , compared to the few who could read it , or hud it to read , in 1701 . Territories Under Ohrintian rule , in which Christinn bishops prenehed , in which Christian people worshipped , were formerly overrun by infidel and Mahometan conquerors ; but he thought that the nrts , and the sciences ' , Wo now poHBe . ssed , would in future be an effectual noeurity for Christianity .
Lord Grey moved the second resolution , purporting that it wan the duty of the Church of KiiKlnud to provide spiritual instruction for Unlink emigrants . Mr . Sidney Herbert , in seconding this resolution , eaid that tho agsiatunoe ef the society wrw likely to
be required more than ever , as the stream of emigration increased . " The working-classes were becoming more aware of the benefits emigration afforded to them , and the pressure at home was very great ; with all swimming in this great sea of competition so close that a man could scarcely strike out for his own safety without injuring his neighbour—( Hear , hear ) ;—and the working-classes were undertaking for themselves that which they could do better for themselves than any others could help them to—( hear , Aear);—and they were finding means to convey themselves and their families to the vast field which was open to their energies . ( Hear . ) It was true , indeed , as had
been eloquently stated , that we lived in a happier epoch than that which saw the creation of this society ; but we lived in a time which had its peculiar difficulties , and one of them might be too great security—( hear , hear ) , —too great a self-complacency with our own state . ( Hear , hear . ) God help the age which dubbed itself a religious age ! ( Hear , hear . ) We might not be sure how much of the external decorum and external moral observance which we saw was the result , not so much of a strong religious conviction , as of the greater diffusion of the pressure of public opinion through the increased means of communication and publicity—( hear )—of that public opinion which could not create virtue , but which could and did exact respectability . "
The Bishop of Oxford moved the third resolution , to the effect that , great as had been the success of missionaries , the hopes of the society must be founded on a native ministry . " Although the first missionary efforts among a people must come from "without , the Church could never truly be the Church of that people until it was reproduced out of the blood of the people . ( Hear , hear . ) The work , till then , was done at a manifest disadvantage . The Gospel had not , or scarcely had , the advantage of coming in the
accents of the mother-tongue , nor had it the benefit of the great law of family life . ( Hear , hear . ) The essential nature of the Church of Christ was , that it was a leavening principle ; that it was not to come as a foreign thing to any people , but that it was to penetrate the whole life of that people , purifying and elevating all that it found in them , and so bearing a certain national character in each people , while it had certain great lines of common truth , common organization , and common blessing . ( Hear , hear . ) What we had to do , then , was to raise up a native ministry . ( Hear , hear . )"
He contended that England was better fitted for this mission than any other nation ; for was not her language and her power more extensive than that of any other nation ? " Something had been said of divisions , and sorrows , and griefs of heart , and God knew how they pressed on those to whom in any degree the duty of governing at this time was committed ( hear , hear ); but let us not look only at the gloomy side . In some respects these things were the necessary correlative of intense and active life . ( Hear . ) There had been times of greater quietness in the Church , but were they always times of equal activity ? ( Hear . ) There had been times of greater union ; but when men were asleep , they did not find out their disunion . " ( Loud cries of' Hear . ' )
The resolution was seconded by Sir Robert Inglis . The remaining proceedings were wholly unimportant ; and after a vote of thanks to Prince Albert , tendered through the Archbishop of Canterbury , the meeting separated . The clergy of tlie diocese of Chichester have presented an address to their bishop in reply to that forwarded through him from the archbishops and bishops of the Church in tho spring . The address states -that the signers have been pained by the " novelties" introduced into the order of the services of the Church , and that they regret beyond
expression " tho seeming encouragement given to those irregularities by some of their chief pastors , whilst counteracting appeals made to them , whether by private communication or through the press , have not unfrequently boon received with a most chilling and forbidden coldness . " They deprecate any alteration of the " all but inspired Book of Common Prayer "; and they beg to " express a hope that no countenance will be given by those in authority to the maintainersand progagators of strife and jangling , of indifferentism and negligence , or of Roiniuh error and superstition ; " and add : —
" For , as to the principle lately avowed , and alluded to in the address of the epiHOopate , ' That as the Church of England is the undent Catholic Church nettled in thin land before the Reformation , and was then reformed only by ousting away certain strictly defined corruptions ; therefore ? , whatever form or usage exiated in the Church before the Reformation niay , now be freely introduced and observed , unless there can bo alleged against it the diminct letter of some formal prohibition '—we beg utterly to deny it , and to unnert our right to deny a Romanizing tendency ho insidioim and ho dangerous , on the grounds laid down in the 34 th article of our Church "
The London Union , on Church Matters held its annual meeting at St . Martin ' H-hall , on Thursday week . A report was read containing the opinions of the Union on the following topics : — . Revival of Hvnodicul action ; baptismal t ; o » tr « - vorny ; proposed new tests of orthodoxy ; the Papal rescript ; attacks on the due observance of ritual matters ; threatened attack on the . 'Hook of Common Prayer ; grievances of the clergy respecting buriul service ; foreign ch » x > huiicics ; parliamentary proceedings mid royal commissions : national education ;
popular publications and intercourse with foreign Protestants . 4 B Upon all these subjects the committee came to coz £ elusions in a Tractarian sense . Synodical action * should be revived ; a new Court of Appeal established for spiritual cases ; the refusal of the Pope " to recog * nize the Catholicity of the English Church , which has perpetuated the lamentable schism of Western Europe "is protested against , but the proposed legislation on the rescript unequivocally condemned j the attack on ritualism is lamented ; and the Tevision of the Book of Common Prayer is denounced . The last paragraph of the report condemns ) asa" wrong done to the Church " the invitations given to various pastors of foreign communities to preach in proprietary chapels .
The Bishop of London having declared that it is " contrary to the law of the land" for foreign pastora to preach in churches belonging to the Church of England , the Reverend J . Reeve , of Portman Chape ] , was obliged to close the doors upon the crowd assembled there on Sunday last . A dissenting chapel in Hinde-street , Manchester-square , was opened to them . Mr . Gorham has protested against the Exeter Synod as illegal , and refused , therefore , to attend the Rural Decanal Chapter to elect representatives . Lay meetings have been held in three parishes at Exeter , and protests agreed upon .
Meanwhile Henry of Exeter , nothing daunted by the storm of opposition raised throughout his diocese , had afield-day at Totness , on Friday week . The meeting was called a Visitation of the Bishop to the Clergy . After the business was over , the bishop and his ministers dined together ; and in acknowledging his own health the bishop made the following extraordinary statement : — " I wish to avoid differences ; but I will speak of what is notorious as having occurred at assemblies of persons calling themselves the laity of England . Now , I have the highest opinion of the rights of the real laity of the Church of England , or of the Church at large . I hold that the laity , considered as they ought to be—namely , as the faithful members of the Church—have great rights , great privileges—ay , and I will say , ought to have great powers . But then , as in all cases in which
privileges or powers belong to any description of persons , those persons must be prepared for the exercise of those powers and the enjoyment of those privileges . ( Applause . ) It is a great mistake to suppose that all those not in holy orders are the laity : the laity are the sound and faithful members of the Church not in holy orders ; and ^ those who act in defiance of the Church , in direct hostility to her governors , are not the laity—they are merely unordained persons . I do not scruple to say this , because it is not possible to be ignorant of the strong indication of feeling , on the part of persons who fancy themselves the laity , who fancy themselves churchmen , but whose proceedings have been , in fact ( I say it most seriously , yet most sorrowfully , without a particle of irritation , from the bottom of my heart ) , and as I deem them , ip « s * sinful , because most schismatic . " ( Applause . )
The whole animus of his speech is there ; from the beginning to the end it was one long excommunication of all lay persons , as laity of the Church , who were opposed to what the bishop and clergy believed to be lawful and right . Though himself ready and anxious to maintain the " true rights of the Queen , in the exercise of her supremacy , ' yet " when he heard it said that the Queen was supreme in matters of faith , he repelled the assertion with all tho power which he could command . " We read in the Western Times that the public
feeling against the approaching synod has been manifested this week with augmenting force . The feeling of the clergy is scarcely less opposed to tho usurpation of the bishop ; but their esprit de corps renders them more cautious in giving expression to it . One of the most determined of the clerical opponents of tho synod , and who has been greatly instrumental in defeating the bishop in his deanery , wishes it to be stated that many of the clergy , himself amongst the number , abstain from signing the protest under tha belief that it would limit their powers of opposition- —whereus they are determined to oppose the synod in every possible way . "
A meeting , designated a conversation * , took place * Willis ' s Rooms , on Monday , betwoun the foreign P " tors in London and « eveTal dignitaries of th * Church of England . The object of tho meeting was stated to be thut of affording foreign pastors and other religious foreigners the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the clergy of tho Churoh of England , and those lay members who take a » peoial interest in her affairs . " Mr . Terence Flanagan , architect , of Blackburn , has written to tho 7 W in defence of the imaginary " cells , " or " cellnW which Mr . Spopner sees in tho convent of JKdgbaston . Mr . Flanagan says , thut he euL'tfortted them ; that they are four feot above ground , on one wido ; and lighted better than most underground rooms in London . Ho adds :
" They all communicate with qach other , with the kitchen , and alno with the street , or public road , by an ordinary door , made of ordinary deal , of a very ordinary thioknesH ( 2 iaoben ) , and provided With a look , which may be picked without oalliug Into aid the ingenuity of tho eclabrated American who hue ao alarmed Chubb And
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576 1 &fyt ILea&et * [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 21, 1851, page 576, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1888/page/4/
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