captandum appeals and nice anecdotes prettily pointed, but the appeals and the anecdotes did not rise above the average platform level, and seemed to be rather addressed to the bonnets, which formed an indiscriminate stranger's gallery all about the meeting, than to the uncovered heads of the lords of the creation, both lay and clerical, in whose hands rested the practical arbitrament. The final lecture on Church music must also be exempted from our praise, as with singular want of tact the lecturer took advantage of his position to utter a tirade against recognised Church arrangements, going so far as to advocate the admission of women into choirs.
Next year's Congress stands fixed for the Eastern Counties at Norwich. The President will be Bishop Pelham, and the seat of the meeting the town in which Brother Ignatius has fixed his headquarters. We hope the meeting will be concluded as pleasantly for Church prospects as those which have gone before it, though there have been squally omens in the sky. In one respect the Norwich meeting might and ought to improve upon its predecessors—in the attendance, we mean, of Bishops. It is a very short-sighted policy in our prelates in these times, when, as we have said, opinion must often be substituted for authority, not to gain influence by showing a genial and unsuspicious readiness to take the lead in such gatherings, which if not formal and official, are assuredly not irregular in any offensive sense. At Manchester the episcopate was represented by the Bishops of Manchester, Oxford, Sydney, Mauritius, and, we believe, British Columbia; at Bristol by those of Gloucester and Bristol, Chichester, Ely, and Antigua; and the Archbishop of Armagh would, we believe, have been there had not business detained him. A bishop of this generation ought never to fear entering into a debate, even at a mixed meeting of clergy and laity. He may not be agreed with, but he certainly would be treated with respect and gain in future influence. Bishop Ellicott did, in fact, maintain a running line of comment on all the speeches, but the Chairman, of course, was not to be answered.
The Bristol Congress had been closed for about six weeks, when another Church event of the speaking kind came off. In the diocese of Oxford a society with a useful and definite, though not brilliant mission, has for some years been at work, having as its object the raising of funds wherewith to increase the endowments of poor livings within the three counties of which the diocese is composed. The Bishop of Oxford, wishing to give an impulse to the society, borrowed the Sheldonian Theatre for a meeting in the latter half of November, and bespoke a strong cast of speakers, comprising, among others, Mr. Cardwell, Mr. Walter, Mr. Beresford Hope, Mr. Hubbard, and Professor Bernard. There was also Mr.
