Holy Scripture. It now runs: " Do you unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as given of God to convey to us in many parts and in divers man- ners the Revelation of Himself which is fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ ? "
The Scottish Revision. The Church in Scotland has also revised its Prayer Book, and a tentative revision is now in use. In 1910 the Episcopal Synod prepared a revised Scottish Com- munion Office, and in the same year the Consultative Council on Church Legislation prepared a schedule of permissive addi- tions to and deviations from the Book of Common Prayer. The new and revised forms were finally sanctioned and came into operation in a permissive form in 1912. In the Communion Office, according to both the Scottish and the English rite, either of which may be used in Scotland, the Commandments may be omitted and replaced by Our Lord's Summary of the Law. The collects for the king may also be omitted. When there are many communicants the words of administration may be said once, the first half of the words only being recited to each person. The mixed chalice and reservation for the sick are authorized by rubric. New Proper Prefaces have been provided for festivals which hitherto lacked them and new collects, Epistles and Gospels for marriages, funerals and other special occasions and for certain festivals. There is now power, with the bishop's consent, to omit the Litany altogether on the three great festivals. Certain portions may be omitted at other times; new suffrages have, however, been added for the king's forces, for missions, and for Parliament. A variety of addi- tional prayers have been added, together with commemorations of the dead. In the Marriage Service the exhortation has been altered and abbreviated, and there are alternative Lessons in the Burial Service. In the Confirmation Service the sign of the cross may be used. Considerable difficulty was experienced in preparing a revised Psalter which should be generally acceptable, but in 1915 a committee appointed by the Scottish bishops produced a new distribution of the Psalms, which is now in permissive use. Its distinct feature is the provision of separate Sunday and week-day courses. The Sunday course allows of the recitation of the whole, with the exception of some of the minatory Psalms, once a year; the week-day cycle is completed every 28 days. A new Lectionary which prescribes Proper Lessons for the eve of festivals and other special occasions, and makes larger use of the Apocrypha, was adopted in 1918. A committee appointed in 1918 by the Consultative Councilon Church Legislation to consider further revision of the Prayer Book reported in June 1921, and the Council agreed that a complete new Scottish Prayer Book should be published.
Church Reunion. The movement which rendered possible the " Appeal " put forth by the Lambeth Conference began definitely in 1910 when the General Convention of the American Episcopal Church resolved unanimously to invite the Christian Communions all over the world to hold a World Conference " for the consideration of questions touching Faith and Order." The World War seriously delayed progress, though much was done to clear the ground. A committee representing the Church of England and the Free Churches produced two interim reports containing a statement of agreement on matters of faith, and a similar statement regarding order, the latter of which accepted the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper and recog- nized that there had been conferred upon " the whole Church " " a ministry of manifold gifts and functions." The questions upon which differences still remained in 1921 were how far the visible society involves uniformity or allows variety in policy, creed, and worship, the conditions, objective and subjective, in the ministration of the Sacraments upon which their validity depends, and whether the ministry derives its authority through an episcopal or a presbyterial succession, or through the com- munity of believers, or by a combination of them. The second interim report recognized that continuity with the historic episcopate should be preserved, but that the episcopate ought to resume a constitutional form. The acceptance of the fact only ' of episcopacy should be expected, theories as to its character
being set aside. " The acceptance of episcopacy on these terms should not involve any Christian community in the necessity of disowning its past, but should enable all to witness and influence as heirs and trustees of types of Christian thought, life, and order not only of value to themselves, but to the Church as a whole." A meeting preliminary to the Conference was held at Geneva in Aug. 1920 at which 40 countries and 70 religious communions were represented, and a Continuation Committee was appointed to make further preparations for the World Conference on Faith and Order. The date of the Con- ference had not been fixed in June 1921, but the Patriarch of Jerusalem had invited it to meet in the Holy City. Meanwhile there was much domestic discussion on the subject of reunion. The propriety of the exchange of pulpits between ministers of the Church of England and of the Free Churches was hotly debated, but such exchanges were frequently taking place. The most remarkable instances occurred when a Baptist minister preached in Canterbury cathedral on the occasion of a war anniversary, and Dr. Jowett (Congregationalist) preached in Durham cathedral, in each case at the invitation of the dean. In 1919 the Bishop of London formulated a scheme for reunion with the Wesleyan Methodists, the main features of which were that the Wesleyan Church should be a society within the Church; that a certain number of presidents and superintendents should be consecrated bishops, and that ordinations in each Church should be in a form which would satisfy the other. No practical result has yet followed. A conference of Church- men and Nonconformists at Mansfield College, Oxford, resolved in favour of interchange of pulpits, mutual admission to the Holy Communion, and " acceptance by ministers, serving in any one denomination, who may desire it, of such authorization as shall enable them to minister fully and freely in the churches of other denominations." The Federal Council of the Evangelical Free Churches has expressed a desire to discuss with repre- sentatives of the Anglican Communion the proposals of the Lambeth Conference for the avoidance of misunderstandings.
Reform of Church Finance. The chaotic condition of the finances of the Church of England, the overlapping and waste of effort resulting from innumerable more or less isolated en- deavours to accomplish a given end, the existence of many societies with aims and policies of their own, led in 1909 to the appointment of the Archbishops' Committee on Church Finance. After more than two years' inquiry and deliberation this Com- mittee reported in 1911, and its recommendations were sub- sequently carried into effect. The keynote of the report was the recommendation that the diocese and not the parish should be the unit of Church life and that responsibility for the work of the Church should be brought home to every member. There is now a Board of Finance in every diocese elected by and affiliated to the Diocesan Conference. These boards arrange a system for the assessment of every parish according to its means and population. There is a Central Incorporated Board of Finance, a Committee of Maintenance of the Clergy and a Central Advisory Council on Training for the Ministry. These general provisions include arrangements present or prospective for recruiting and training ordination candidates who are unable in whole or in part to provide the cost of their own education; for maintaining the ministry by the endowment and augmentation of benefices, etc.; for the provision of clergy pensions; for providing for the widows and children of the clergy and making grants to clergy in difficulties through mis- fortune; for the erection of new churches and other parochial buildings, and the repair of those already existing. The most noteworthy result is that the Church of England now possesses, for the first time in its history, a legal corporate existence. A bequest of money to " The Church of England " is now valid and effective; previous to these important rearrangements it would have been void, since under English law no one was en- titled to give a receipt on behalf of the Church as a corporate body. So soon as it was in working order (in the autumn of 1918) the Central Board of Finance began an attempt to raise a cen- tral fund of 5,000,000 for the maintenance of the clergy,
