That during the last half-century there has been a fresh outburst of spiritual life in the Church of England. Large numbers of persons, who were previously indifferent, have been led to take an increasing interest in religion; an unprecedented number of churches have been erected to supply the spiritual wants of a rapidly increasing population; immense sums of money have been expended in beautifying churches and making them more attractive to worshippers, who have learned to delight in them to an extent not previously realised. Under the influences of an age characterised by great freedom of thought and action, there have been developed among loyal Churchmen wide diversities of taste and feeling as to the mode of conducting the services of the Church. Together with these changes, there has grown up in the minds of many of our brethren an anxious desire to adopt whatever they believed to be ordered or permitted by the Book of Common Prayer, and calculated to promote reverence and solemnity in public worship, and especially to bring into greater prominence the celebration of the Holy Communion.

And that during the last few years not a few difficulties and conflicts have arisen both in feeling and in practice, partly owing to a desire on the one hand to revive disused ritual, which is believed by many to be ordered by the Book of Common Prayer, and partly from suspicion on the other hand, and a natural dislike of ceremonial which was novel and seemed to many to be unauthorised. And that attempts made to remove these difficulties and to compel uniformity by having recourse to proceedings at law have not only failed, but have given rise to heart-burnings and to severities, causing pain and distress to others, as well as to those who have suffered imprisonment and loss.

Reformandum.-This House, therefore, prays that your lordships, having regard to the uncertainties which have been widely thought to surround some interpretations of ecclesiastical law, as well as to the peculiar character of parishes and congregations placed in the most dissimilar religious circumstances, would discountenance, so far as possible, legal proceedings in these matters.

In making this request, the House feels that such action on the part of your lordships must be conditioned by limitations, but prefers to remit the consideration of those limitations to your lordships assembled in this sacred Synod under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The gravamen was then put as amended, and adopted as an articulus cleri with one dissentient.

The Benediction was pronounced by the ARCHDEACON OF STOW (Bishop-Suffragan of Nottingham), and the PROLOCUTOR afterwards stated that he had received the directions of his Grace the President to continue and prorogue the present sitting of this Convocation to and until Friday, the 11th inst., to a certain Upper Chamber called the Board-room of the Bounty-office, in Dean's Yard, Westminster.

UPPER HOUSE.

SESSION XX.-Friday, February 11, 1881.

The proceedings commenced shortly after eleven o'clock.. His Grace the ARCHBISHOP presided. The other right rev. Prelates present were the Bishops of London, Winchester, Bangor, Gloucester and Bristol, Salisbury, Bath and Wells, Chichester, Exeter, St. Asaph, Ely, Rochester, St. Alban's, Hereford, Truro, Llandaff, Oxford, Norwich, Lincoln, and Lichfield. Prayers were

read.

BAPTISMS.

The PRESIDENT-I have to state that the Bishop of Gloucester was on the point of bringing before us some information as to the infrequence of baptism in certain parishes in connection with a complaint that had come from the Lower House, and we were ready to have listened to a proposal from him on the subject; but his lordship has expressed a wish to postpone the matter, in order that the information which has been given may be more satisfactorily tested, and he therefore withdraws the intention of proceeding with the subject on the present occasion.

The BISHOP OF LLANDAFF-I should like to mention, in reference to this subject, the gratifying fact that in my diocese the number of baptisms of persons of riper years has amazingly increased within the last few years. This I regard as a very favourable evidence of the work the Church of England is doing.

The BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL-I am glad to be able to confirm the statement just made by the Bishop of Llandaff by reference to what is going on in the great city with which I am connected, and it is because I know there is a good deal to be said on the other side that I am anxious, with all due respect for what has been sent up from the Lower House, to pause before any unguarded statements should be allowed to go forth on this very important subject. If your lordships will permit me to enter into it as far as I am able to do, I will promise to bring the subject before your lordships, if I live, at the next meeting.

EXPENSES.

The BISHOP OF LINCOLN-Does your Grace wish for the appointment of a small Committee to consider the matter of expenses?

The PRESIDENT-Yes; that is a matter of importance. I am requested by the Registrar to lay before you the expenses of the

House during the year ended in February, 1880. The statement is that for that year, which terminated at the beginning of February, your lordships were indebted to the amount of 1057. 4s. 4d., which is one-third part of the expenses of printing, and that besides that you have to pay for the reprinting of your own Book of Prayers, the amount of which is 421. 15s., which brings the total to 1477. 19s. 4d. I do not know that there is anything more to be said about it except that it will be necessary to pay the money.

PEWS, STAINED GLASS, FACULTIES, AND CONCERTS IN CHURCHES. The PRESIDENT-I am requested by a well-known member of the Church of England, Mr. Parker, of Oxford, to call your lordships' attention to a matter which he thinks is one of very considerable importance. The matter has reference to the appropriation of pews in parish churches, and not only to their appropriation at the beginning of the service, but to the system of continuing to keep the pews shut and not given up to the use of the public after the service has commenced. I believe the attention of most of your lordships has from time to time been directed to this subject, and that your lordships are quite ready to take whatever steps it is in your power to take in order to ensure the parish churches being made as really available for access on the part of all parishioners as possible.

The BISHOP OF OXFORD-Your lordships' attention has been called to the complaint of a well-known Churchman in the diocese of Oxford with regard to the use of the parish churches, and I should here like to put the question whether the attention of your lordships has been also called to the increasing tendency to lessen the utility of the churches by putting in very dark stained windows? I think that this matter is one well worth the attention of the Bishops assembled here, and it has occurred to me to take some notice of the subject generally. I have found that in a large number of the churches a kind of stained glass is being put into the windows which has had the effect of rendering them more or less useless, especially to the aged parishioners and persons of weak sight who have any difficulty in reading their books, and I think the matter quite deserving of your lordships' attention. I should like to ask whether steps will be taken that will in any way impose a limit on the action of those who are putting in this kind of glass, and require them to use only that sort of glass which is capable of admitting light?

The PRESIDENT-The putting in of a stained-glass window is properly the subject of a faculty, and, therefore, the Diocesan and the Chancellor ought to have their attention directed to this very important matter. I may say for myself that I have had no complaints on the subject.

The BISHOP OF OXFORD-My attention has been for some time directed to it.

The BISHOP OF ST. ALBAN'S-I would state, in reference to this matter, that in a newly built church in my diocese the windows have been filled with stained glass of so dark a character that candles require to be lighted at every service, except, perhaps, on the brightest summer mornings. I was first made aware of this circumstance when I went to consecrate the church; but it was then too late to speak about it. It is, however, a very grave evil, and I am informed that many of the parishioners are very much hurt by what has been done.

The BISHOP OF OXFORD-I think there are many subjects of gravamina brought before us that are of far less practical importance than this. I may observe-it is, perhaps, only a matter of taste that there is another kind of painted glass which in the opinion of many persons is much superior to the heavy, dull, opaque glass of which I have spoken, and which, for some reason best known to those who resort to it, seems to have come into favour lately. The evil arising from this apparently small thing is of a very serious character. The case stated by the Bishop of St. Alban's is an extreme one; but there are many that approach very nearly to it, and I myself have had to ask for a light at morning service. I do not know whether anything occurs to your lordships as desirable on this matter.

The PRESIDENT-I think that your having called attention to it here will have the effect of inducing attention to the subject. I suppose painted windows are never put in without an application to the Bishop?

The BISHOP OF ST. ALBAN'S-Always.

The PRESIDENT-If it were understood that in putting in a painted window the matter was to be submitted to the Diocesan he could say, "Unless this window is a proper one I shall insist on your having a faculty."

The BISHOP OF OXFORD-And then the Chancellor passes it unless it strikes him that there is something contrary to ecclesiastical law.

The PRESIDENT-With regard to the question of a faculty, I always require that I myself shall see the thing for which it is wanted, and sign that I approve before the faculty is issued.

The BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL-I think we are placed in a great difficulty at the present moment, in consequence of the sum that is usually demanded for the issue of a faculty. It would strengthen the hands of a good many of us if his Grace our President and his Grace the Archbishop of York and the Lord High Chancellor could before very long so regulate the table of fees that we might be able to insist on a faculty not only in regard to this, but on various other matters which, probably, we are now very often induced to pass over from a feeling that we do not wish to put people who desire a small change, or a so-called improvement, in a

church to an expense which is nearly as large, perhaps, as the cost of the thing itself. I feel assured that the proper mode of correcting this and some other kindred evils is by having a moderate charge for a faculty in the first instance, and then insisting that a faculty should be obtained.

The BISHOP OF LLANDAFF-We were told the other day that we shall never cheapen the proceedings in our courts until an Act of Parliament is passed that no lawyer or barrister shall interfere. This remark applies to the subject of faculties. There may have been a good deal of unnecessary interference on the part of the Proctors with regard to faculties, and the expense of obtaining faculties has in some instances been diminished by curtailing the business which they had in their hands before. Acting on the knowledge of this, I have lately insisted, much more strictly than I used to do, on the necessity of having faculties in every case, and I have at this moment in my pocket a correspondence that has taken place on this subject. Certain alterations were required in one of my churches-alterations that were not of very much importance, and they were made without any application to the Bishop's Court. It was only through the medium of the newspaper that I came to know that these alterations had been made. In consequence of this the correspondence has taken place. The expense of a faculty is much reduced by limiting the work of the lawyers, and there is no reason why a faculty should not be demanded in every case.

The BISHOP OF HEREFORD-Can the Bishop of Llandaff tell me what is the expense of a faculty?

The BISHOP OF LLANDAFF-It used to be about 151. It is now in some cases 5l. 5s. In others it does not exceed 31. 3s.

The PRESIDENT-In my diocese the document is 21. and the stamp 10s.

The BISHOP OF WINCHESTER-If you think the cost of a faculty can be reduced to 21. that would be conclusive, but the Bishop of Gloucester says that when a window costs 201., the faculty for the window sometimes costs 157.

The BISHOP OF LINCOLN-As soon as the present scale of fees was current in the archdiocese of Canterbury, it was agreed that it should be adopted in Lincoln, and an unopposed faculty can be obtained for 27.; but what an opposed faculty may cost is a different thing. The consequence has been that I have said I will never give a subscription to any church for which they do not obtain a faculty when alterations are needed, and this has had the effect of making the faculties universally accepted.

The BISHOP OF SALISBURY-I should like to say that there are Registrars and Registrars.

The BISHOP OF ELY-It seems to me that it is not the mere expense which deters the Clergy from obtaining faculties; it is rather the somewhat cumbrous process which has to be gone through in the