£100, or, with one, to £90. This year the Society has extended its benefits to sixty Incumbents and the maximum grant has been £65, -every Incumbent receiving a grant whose stipend, irrespective of a parsonage, did not amount to £120. The retired and supernumerary clergy have received this year more than double the amount granted to them the year before, while the Educational Grants this year are less than those of the year before by only £25. So far, the expenditure of this year admits of being compared with last year's, and on the whole a great improvement is manifest. The farther expenditure this year embraces objects which were not previously within the scope of the Society. Eleven Incumbencies have received grants towards endowment, ranging from £125 to £125), and amounting together to £3500—an annual expenditure which the Endowment Association, now amalgamated with the Church Society, never succeeded in attaining. Six of the Bishops have each received an addition to their Episcopal incomes of fifty guíneas, and ten were voted towards the expenses of the Primacy. Twenty guineas were voted to each of the seven Deans of the Church. The Society has thus done something towards each of the various objects contemplated in its new rules, with the single exception of Diocesan endowment, for which no claim was made. That the Society should not have fully attained the aims with which it was re-constituted need not perhaps have caused surprise, although its new rules had received a full year's trial; but when it is considered that the new rules were only adopted by the Society on 13th January last, and that, with few exceptions, their practical application in the congregations was delayed till each in its turn was visited by the Organising Secret ɩry, whose appointment, again, was not made till 3d March last, surprise can only be felt that, in the interval of less than eight months ending 1st October last, when the accounts of the Society closed, such results have been accomplished. And here we cannot refrain from congratulating the Society on having secured and re-acquired for this good work the services of one, without whose indefatigable zeal, and tact, and ability, the Society's new rules must have been in many places like good seed scattered upon stony ground. It has been often remarked, and, we are convinced, with truth, that the laity of our Church require only information and organisation to prove themselves as just and grateful to those who minister in our beloved Church as the members of any other in Christendom. The immediate and hearty response already given by the laity is assurance enough that the modest requirements of the Church Society will, when again made known by Mr. Flemyng to every congregation of the Church, be more than fully met. If we may be permitted one suggestion for the future, it is merely this, that in place of the trifling sum of fifty guineas voted this year to the Bishop of each diocese which cast in its lost with the Society's General Episcopal Fund, the laity should take care during the year now current that by a liberal offertory in every congregation they enable the Society, in November next, at once to raise the Episcopal incomes to the very moderate standard it has adopted. The shortcoming this year in that respect we attribute solely to the fact that many whose donations went to make up the sum of nearly £5000 raised for Episcopal Incomes, forgot that, by the rules of the Society, all donations are capitalised, the interest only being available to supplement the incomes of the Bishops. While, like Dean Ramsay in his " Earnest Appeal," "we are quite convinced that there is a duty attached to certain members of the Church to endow the Church with capital," we are, with him, “equally convinced of the duty which attaches to all its members to supply a constant income," and we trust it will not in future be forgotten by any that the only means of increasing the incomes of the Bishops, so long disgracefully overlooked, is by contributing to the annual offertory recommended by the Society to be made in every church for Episcopal Income. We would conclude our remarks on the Church Society in its pecuniary aspect by quoting, as still most appropriate, the last words of an article that appeared on 31st December, 1863, in the Journal that preceded this Magazine :-" At this season, it is not unusual for heads of families to review the expenditure of the year that is closing, and to forecast, by a sort of domestic budget, that of the year that is before them. We would recommend all engaged in this most salutary process to calculate what during the past year they have contributed to the Church, and to consider what for the future it is their duty to give. Let them consider the remuneration they have had to bestow for the services of their lawyers and doctors, and, if they have children, what education has cost, and comparing the services thus paid for with the benefits they received from the Church, let them set aside for her Society such proportion of their incomes as, after such comparison, they consider an equivalent for the services the Church is fitted to render. Some, conscientiously regarding their duty in this light, may feel that, during past years, they have withheld more than was meet, and will, we hope, be disposed, if they can, not only to discharge their duty for the future, but to make amends for past neglect. The Church will not, through her lay committees, ask alms from any one. Justice is all she requires, and we feel convinced, now that the laity have taken up the subject in earnest, that justice will be done her by all her members, not one of whom will lose his reward." There is another aspect of the Church Society-not less cheering than what we have been treating as its main object-which, even at the risk of being tedious, we cannot altogether overlook. We allude to what Dean Ramsay has well described as "the benefits of another kind which this Society has conferred upon the Church-advantages not of a pecuniary kind, but not less important. Such benefits as those of making known the wants of the Church at large, the bond of union which the Society established between the different portions of the Church, the interest which it awakened in the welfare of the Body beyond the limits of special congregations, and the assistance and cooperation which it has been the means of calling forth in the lay members of our communion." In these respects also the Society may congratulate itself on having made a vast stride. It is scarcely more than a year ago since one who had ample opportunities for observation thus characterised the Society's meetings: "The meetings of the Society have hitherto been of the most dry and uninteresting character. The meeting in December has been, if possible, still more dreary and discouraging." In the short space which has intervened since these lines were penned, the Society has amply redeemed the character of its meetings. Starting with that social meeting which inaugurated the new rules of the Society, than which we recollect none, upon any occasion or for any object, more genial and enthusiastic, the Society has had two great public meetings-one in Aberdeen, the other in Glasgow-both indebted for their existence chiefly to the energy and tact of Mr. Flemyng, and both fraught with incalculable benefit not only to the Society but to the Church at large. Mr. Flemyng has not confined his energies, however, to large meetings. In his very interesting Report to the General Committee, he stated that, with the exception of a few lowland congregations, now easily accessible, he had been enabled since last March to visit all those belonging to our Church throughout Scotland. Each visit, at least each of the congregations, numbering 130, in which a Finance Committee was formed, entailed the labour of a meeting more or less numerously attended. Many of these we have had the pleasure to report, and none of them, we can vouch, was either dry or uninteresting. Coming down to the meeting of the General Committee, already referred to, no one, we are certain, by whom it was attended, could characterise that meeting as dreary or discouraging. Preceded by the meeting of the Committee on Claims, consisting of about thirty members, which sat two long days, the General Committee, to the number of upwards of a hundred, sat fully five hours. These meetings were attended by at least as many laymen as clergymen, and their proceedings were full of interest and animation. The General Committee, while not neglecting the pecuniary matters forming its main business, did not, we were glad to find, confine its attention to £ s. d. We hail, as the precursor of many friendly discussions well fitted to animate and strengthen the whole Church, the Debate on Education that followed the motion of the Primus with regard to the Education Commission, and his inquiry as to the proposed withdrawal of the grant to the Training Institution. There are some among us, and their opinions are gaining ground, who look to the Church Society to become the central motive power of our Church. The recent development of the Society, as her motive power in finance, is regarded by such as only a step in the right direction. These persons feel that we have overlooked too long the distinction between our position as a voluntary Church, small in numbers and thinly scattered over the country, and that of the sister Church in England, supported by the State and strong in the union of a whole nation as her members. While in England, with her large Bishoprics, each numbering in congregations and members more than our whole Church, all movement must be diocesan, the Church in Scotland can find strength only in the union of all her members. Those to whom we have referred are strictly conservative of Episcopal government, and dubious as to the advantages to be derived from the further infusion of the lay element into the Synods of the Church. They feel that what is wanted is not a judicial but a deliberative assembly duly representing both Clergy and Laity, and they look forward to a time, not perhaps far distant, when the Church Society, constituting such a representative Assembly, and administering, under a less complicated, and more liberal system, ecclesiastical finances and missionary funds, shall take into consideration whatever may from time to time affect the welfare of our Church. To those who entertain these views, and to all others, we would commend the Church Society as worthy of their warmest sympathy and most liberal support. As now constituted, the Society is perhaps better fitted than a more ambitious scheme for developing the latent energies of the Church. Laying prejudice aside, and making allowance for the imperfections of all human institutions, and reposing full confidence, as well they may, in the impartiality and ability of those administering the Society's funds, let all the members of the Church co-operate in supporting her Canonical Society, and we venture to predict that the Church will become more and more like a tree planted by the waterside bringing forth her fruit in due season. THE PRESS ON THE RECENT CHARGE OF THE BISHOP OF ST. ANDREWS. Of all the misfortunes which can befall a publication, total neglect is the very worst. There are probably few authors who would not prefer some severity of criticism, nay, even a partial amount of misrepresentation, to that ominous silence which shows that the public mind has not been even reached. Against criticism it is possible to plead, and even misrepresentation may be exposed, but to be totally passed by is a trial for which it is difficult to suggest a remedy. Whatever may be the destiny of Bishop Wordsworth's Charge, it has, at any rate, escaped this first and fatal peril. Scotland has been addressed; and, if the Press may be accepted as the representative of the country-and in no inconsiderable degree it may be so acceptedScotland has certainly been an attentive listener. Edinburgh and Glasgow, Perth and Dundee, Elgin and Montrose, have all expressed their sentiments through local organs of opinion. We certainly cannot be accused of garbling these criticisms. With the full consent and approbation of the Bishop of St. Andrews, they were re-published in extenso in the November number of this Magazine. We have much pleasure in commencing our reference to these articles by calling attention to the following passages :— In the main its purpose, its temper, and its ability are such as to command respect."* "We write these few remarks, in the first place, to let our readers know what is the theme discussed in these formidable-looking columns ; and secondly, to express our admiration of the tone and temper with which the theme is discussed. O si sic omnes !-would that all ecclesiastical discussions, in Church Courts and out of them, were so conducted! "+ "But we make no pretension in these remarks to argue the question one way or another. We write them, as we have said, principally to express our good opinion of Bishop Wordsworth's charge, and to hold it up to ecclesiastics of all Churches as a model for imitation. 'Be courteous,' says an Apostle, and the injunction is not uncalled for, even in Church Courts, at the present day. We may be mistaken, but our impression is, that courtesy, even more than logic, has a power over men both in ecclesiastical and in civil affairs."‡ “The question is handled with the ability that might be expected from the Bishop's eminent learning and scholarship; and, what is more, with singular fairness, charity, and moderation."§ * North British Daily Mail. + Perthshire Advertiser. § Montrose Standard. |