RESURGAM. BY N. W. RUTHERFORD. THE hyacinthian bells are ringing, ringing, While drowsy seed have oped their ears to hear, Have clapped their tiny cymbals in the air, Will break death's bonds and spring to meet our God. THE MONTH: IN THE CHURCH AND IN THE WORLD. THE opening weeks of the new Parliament can scarcely be said to have been marked by any very happy experiences for the Government, for apart from the ministerial discomfitures and apologies which immediately preluded its meeting Mr. Gladstone has since found that within the walls of St. Stephen's there is still some independence of thought and action, and that a powerful majority does not necessarily carry with it a practical dictatorship. The indiscreet attempt made by the Prime Minister to silence Mr. O'Donnell by an utterly unprecedented resort to a vote of the House, on the occasion of the Irish member's most offensive interpellation in reference to the new French Ambassador, was greeted all over the House by a chorus of disapproval, although there were but few who sympathized with Mr. O'Donnell; and it soon became evident that the House had determined not to allow its liberties to be infringed. When in accordance with the ultimate decision of the House Mr. O'Donnell proceeded three days later to put his questions in a formal shape, the Speaker showed his perfect competence to deal with the case without any resort to extreme measures, and the collapse of the Hibernian querist after a few indications of his unwillingness to be put down afforded an ample justification of the conduct of the House in declining to allow Mr. Gladstone to take the law into his own hands. More striking still as an evidence of singular incapacity was Mr. Forster's proposed addition to the Irish Relief Bill of a clause aimed at the landlord's rights and property, and nothing could be more ignominious than the way in which the Ministry secured itself against defeat by withdrawing the proposal en bloc when the fact that its true character was perceived, and that it would never be accepted was forced upon the Chief Secretary's attention. The success of Sir Wilfrid Lawson in carrying his resolution in favour of Local Option was virtually secured because the Member for Carlisle gave the Premier the go-by, and declined to wait his pleasure, and in the Bradlaugh Episode the actual defeat Having of cabinet has been complete. Nor has the Government been more successful in the House of Lords. altered the Code for 1880 in the direction of additional expenditure by the infusion in the syllabus of the Primary School of a host of languages, 'isms and 'ologies, the Lord President of the Council was compelled to stand the test of what was in effect a debate upon the expediency of the proceeding, and the fact that the scheme sanctioned by Earl Spencer and Mr. Mundella amounted to a transformation of the Elementary Education Acts into measures for the provision of a mixed system of primary and secondary education was so clearly demonstrated by Lord Norton and the Bishop of Exeter that their colleagues condemned it by a majority of two to one. In vain did His Grace of Argyll descant upon the merits of the Scottish system and its fruits, as seen in the success of many a north-countryman; in vain did Lord Spencer piteously beseech the House not to pass a hard judgment on his first bantling:the House listened to the sound and forcible words of Lord Norton and Dr. Temple and adopted his Lordship's proposal to petition Her Majesty for the withdrawal from the Code of the objectionable schedule. Nor has Lord Selborne fared much better with that marvellous production of two of the most distinguished sons of the Church-the Burials Bill. Although its second reading was carried by a majority which included, we regret to say, many of our bishops, it goes down to the Commons' chamber utterly emasculated from the political Nonconformist's standpoint, their Lordships having by a majority as large as that which voted the second reading excluded from the operation of the Bill the churchyards of parishes where cemeteries or Nonconformist burying-grounds exist. The Bill has in fact been deprived of one of its most objectionable features, in the very teeth of the learned lord who has watched over it and so strongly is the effect of the amendments seen that a Welsh clergyman, who is not ashamed to describe himself as "the rector of the largest Nonconformist parish in Wales," has no hesitation in saying that they are "simply disastrous amendments of the Bill." It does not follow, indeed it is most improbable, that these amendments will be accepted in the Commons; but setting aside the more infamous clauses of the Bill, which ignore the orders of the clergy and the value of consecration, it is at least satisfactory to find that the provisions which would give Dissenters the right to invade and desecrate churchyards, even when by the possession of separate burial grounds for their own sects, or by the access to public cemeteries, they have no excuse for doing so, have been seen in their true light. We are now told on all sides that if the Bill passes with these amendments it will only leave the whole matter to be re-opened and re-discussed; but as this is equivalent to a suggestion that while the slightest wish of the smallest sect is to be complied with, the rights of the members of the National Church are to be needlessly outraged, it is not worth consideration. Taken as a whole the Bill is an impudent robbery of the Church, connived at by those who are her appointed guardians, and by others who claim to be among her loyal sons; and we therefore rejoice that the Government has been defeated, if only temporarily, while Lord Beaconsfield, in scathing terms, has rebuked the Episcopate on its action. In its dealings with our foreign possessions the Administration of Mr. Gladstone has been almost as singularly unfortunate, his nomination of Lord Ripon a pervert from the English to the Roman Church, with no reputation for special ability, either as a statesman or a ruler―to the office of Viceroy of India having even alienated his own supporters. It is, indeed, difficult to see how it can be argued that a Romanist is a fit representative in the Viceroyalty of a Sovereign who must, by virtue of the Constitution, be a Protestant; while, as a proof that this is no isolated instance of Mr. Gladstone's personal acts of disestablishment towards the English Church, he has presented another Romanist peer to the office of Lord Chamberlain. These appointments are in themselves enough to show what sort of future we have to anticipate while Mr. Gladstone is in power; and therefore, in resolving to oppose to the utmost his mischievous procedure, we are, we hold, discharging a duty which is due to the Church and to the country. That Nonconformists, consoled by the Burials Bill, should find themselves able to condone such appointments as that of Lord Ripon, deeply as they affect to regret it, is not surprising to those who know the inveterate hatred of the genuine political Dissenter towards the Established Church; but the fact that the Premier is thus forgiven a wrong which from Lord Beaconsfield would have been beyond the pale of forgiveness, only adds another element to the contempt which we must feel for a policy based on the lines of conciliating all those who are the avowed enemies of the Church of England. The session of the Canterbury Convocation has been to the Church one of the most important events of the month, although to follow the debates of the Lower House, which alone were worthy of note, the proceedings of the Upper House having been little more than formal, would be simply to record the unequivocal condemnation passed upon the Burials Bill. The other main question debated was the necessity for the internal reform, or rather for the extension of Convocation itself in order to make it numerically more truly representative than it now is of all the beneficed and licensed clergy of the province. There is much to be said for the view that even as matters stand the clergy, although they do not elect archdeacons and deans are to a very considerable extent represented by them, and it would for instance have been difficult to find in the College Hall at Westminster during the recent session more stalwart defenders of the rights of the parochial clergy than the Dean of Chichester, Archdeacon Denison, and Canon Gregory. At the same time it is manifestly unjust that the licensed curates, schoolmasters, and chaplains who exercise their holy orders should not have votes for the election of what is declared to be "the clergy by representation," but which is now, and that only in a limited sense, the beneficed clergy by representation; and it is just as contrary to fairness that while cathedral chapters send one proctor in addition to the dean, the clergy of a vast diocese should only send two, leaving the archdeacon-who is, as a matter of fact, more often representative of the Close than the diocese-out of consideration. The fact that the need of some reform in this direction was set forth in the Address to the Crown prepared by the bishops is a matter for satisfaction, although their lordships, mainly on technical grounds, refused to agree to Canon Gregory's addition to the address asking the Queen to grant letters of business to Convocation to revise its representation. That the reform must come is obvious, and the sooner it is effected the better. The month has witnessed the laying of the first stone of Truro Cathedral by the Prince of Wales in the presence of the Princess and her sailor sons—a work in which, by the establishment of a Mansion House Fund, the citizens of London are, we are glad to see, to be invited to take an active part. For an equally necessary task nearer home the aid of the chief magistrate of the great city has also been invoked, and the civic chamber has witnessed the establishment of the East London Mission for carrying out the plans of the Bishop of Bedford, including the establishment |