If in the lapse of time bishops have tended to become more and more despotic in their government; if they have isolated themselves and ignored their council of assessors till the function of these latter has become forgotten by neglect and disuse, whose fault is that? Our sovereigns have again and again tried to rule this country without summoning a Parliament. But who doubts that the experiment was always an attempt to violate the Constitution, or that it could not but be followed sooner or later by disastrous consequences? Lose sight of the original idea of a cathedral chapter and of the functions which from the beginning it was intended to discharge, and as a matter of course every survival of a bygone order of things becomes to the superficial observer not only an anomaly, but sometimes a scandal. Keep that idea steadily in view, and all these anomalies. receive their easy explanation. Yes, and the lines along which reform should travel become not crooked lines but straight ones, starting from an intelligible beginning in the past, and pointing to a future which shall be but the fuller development of a noble ideal whose growth was arrested by evil influences in the generations behind us.

Take a single instance which Mr. Dickson, in common with other ill-informed persons, has brought into prominence. In many cases, we are told, a bishop is not even entitled to preach as of right in his own cathedral. Why should he?

The regimen of our cathedrals is delegated to the chapter, who are responsible for the conduct of the services and the regulation of all those minute and complex arrangements which have to be made by somebody, unless 'confusion worse confounded' should ensue. Regard the cathedral chapter as it was in idea, and as it is devoutly to be wished it may sooner or later become in fact; regard it, say, as a permanent department of the government of the diocese, and how could a deadlock be avoided if the bishop should have the right, or the power, of stepping in at any moment and upsetting the order of proceedings which had been settled after long deliberation and careful provision for contingencies that were likely to arise? Would you have the Sovereign free to intervene at the debates in the Houses of Parliament? Would it be no breach of privilege if he should insist on setting aside the order for the day because he had a speech to make to his faithful Commons? In practice it is ridiculous to suppose that any bishop expressing a wish to preach in the cathedral would not be gladly welcomed; but not even kings or bishops may safely do violence to established customs and ordinances. Do we need to be reminded that the days of despotism and unlimited monarchy are past? Is it wise to hint at their possible revival? But revive the idea of the cathedral chapter, and you will bring back the true conception of the episcopal office as it is presented to us in the earliest Christian records. There the bishop stands before us as a ruling

elder, acting with the advice, co-operation, and cordial support of a deliberative assembly of his Presbyters. "It is not to fetter action, but to develop thought that [such] a council sits." As it was in the apostolic age, so it might be, so it ought to be, now.

It is true that in the lapse of centuries the two co-ordinates have been found too often to work in rivalry rather than in harmony. More than once has the College of Cardinals dominated over the Bishop of Rome to the extent of wellnigh converting him into a puppet of their own. Once at least—it is just seven hundred years ago— Archbishop Baldwin, convinced that the Christ Church monks were, in their corporate capacity, hinderers rather than helpers of their diocesan, attempted to create for himself a new chapter by founding a House of Canons within a mile of Canterbury Cathedral. It was an attempt to supersede the Monastic Chapter and to replace it by a council better qualified to act in co-operation with the Primate, and recruited, as occasion served, from the secular as distinct from the regular or monastic clergy—a council, the members of which would be more in sympathy with the parish priests of the outer world than with the men of the cloister, and whose loyalty to their diocesan would not be likely to be affected by any hopes or fears that the Prior of the monastery might be supposed to suggest to waverers. Unfortunately the Archbishop's attempt failed. The story is a very instructive one, but it cannot be repeated here. The monastery gained the day in the long struggle. The Hakington Canons vanished from the scene. Rome stamped them out. Future archbishops had no choice but to submit with what grace they could command, and ever since those days English bishops have tended to become not less but more uncontrolled than they had been. The chapters, whether of seculars or regulars, were ignored. The bishops managed as far as possible to do without them; it was safer to leave them to go their own way. Yet even down to the suppression of the religious houses there were occasions, not few nor unimportant, when the acts of the bishops required the ratification of the prior and seniors of the monastery in the one case and of the canons in the other; the idea of the bishop being powerless without the sanction of his council having still survived when so much had passed away.

When history has so much to teach us, if we will but study it, so much about the mistakes and the wisdom of our forefathers—the mistakes to guard against, the wisdom to guide us—when we are in possession of all that mass of evidence which the researches of the last half-century have brought ready to our hands, it is disappointing and discouraging indeed to find self-styled reformers taking up the crude notions of ignorant revolutionists such as we had supposed all thoughtful men had long since cast behind them.

By far the grandest scheme of cathedral reform which has ever been put forth in England was published fourteen years ago (though

written earlier) by His Grace the present Archbishop of Canterbury, then Bishop of Truro. It is a masterly and statesmanlike exposition of the true ideal of cathedral life and cathedral activity as it was once attempted to realise in fact, as it is earnestly to be desired might be carried out in practice now, as enthusiastic and heroic natures, strong in faith and fearlessly trusting in the great possibilities of the future, confidently believe will be realised in the days that are coming. The little volume is strong meat. It cannot be easily assimilated by shallow pretenders. Not only will it bear, it will require more than one reading if it is to be mastered. Perhaps this is why it has not commanded the wide circulation it deserves. But the man who presumes to write on the subject of cathedral reform without humble and careful study of the volume referred to requires to go to school again.

Fourteen years ago the Archbishop wrote:

Reserved for our days have been decanal propositions to diminish decanal difficulties by dissolving canonical corporations and making the dean into a grander rector, with vicars for curates. Let us trust we have heard the last

of these things.

Alas! we have not 'heard the last of these things.' A minor canon of the Cathedral church of Ely, apparently with no suspicion that he was firing off an exploded cartridge, writes as follows:

To every cathedral we could attach a parochial cure, of which the dean should be rector. . . . The dean-rector would be assisted in the various duties of this cure by all the other clergy. . . . We alter entirely the status of the canon. Hitherto he has himself been a rector; under our scheme he might be properly described as a curate. We mean that the dignified personage now known as a canon would have no place in our cathedral of the future.

What, then, is to be the constitution of the cathedral of the future, which is to replace the cathedral of the present, and help us to forget the cathedral of the past? So far as we can make out its lineaments in the rather blotchy impressionist picture which Mr. Dickson attempts to delineate, the cathedral of the future comes out as follows:

1. The only dignified personage in the new cathedral is to be the dean, who is to be not only the dean-rector of the cathedral, but, besides that, a kind of chorepiscopus of the cathedral town. In the 'small town dignified by the title of a city' the dean is to occupy the position of a conquering general, planting his headquarters somewhere, not necessarily around the great church, and from headquarters issuing his orders.

2. The parochial clergy of the cathedral towns are to retain their benefices as now. Thus, the nine parish priests ministering to the 10,000 inhabitants of Canterbury, and those other nine who are ministering among the 8,000 at Chichester, and those other beneficed clergy who are fairly sufficient for the spiritual needs of Ripon, Ely,

and Wells, are to be graciously permitted to retain their several incumbencies-but they are to be carefully watched, they are to be overshadowed.

3. Under the dean-rector there is to be a staff of four or more priests,' to whom are to be entrusted 'the whole of the duties, collegiate and parochial, attached to his (the dean's) office.' These are the new canons, who are to do as they are told, and to carry out the bidding of their master, the dean.

4. This staff is moreover expected to perform some very peculiar duties. In point of fact they are to serve as a body of inspectors of the parochial clergy and of their congregations. They are to keep a strict watch over the conduct of the services in the parish churches: to see that there is no apeing of the cathedral ritual; to forbid the singing of anything but chants and hymns in the congregational worship; to do what in them lies to promote a spirit of humility in the inferior clergy, and by all means to discourage young men, young women, and boys-who would otherwise do their duty by singing the hymns and chants in their parish churches-from slinking into the cathedral at the wrong time!

5. But if there are still to be residentiary canons, with a new status and new duties, in the cathedral of the future, there is a clean sweep to be made, and at once, of two classes of dignified personages,' for whom Mr. Dickson has no toleration, and who are now exercising a most disastrous influence upon the cathedral bodies. These are, first, the representatives of the diocesan element in the chapters, and the nominees of the bishops, to wit, the archdeacons or the examining chaplains; and secondly, there are the representatives of learning and intellectual eminence in the Church, on whom canonries are sometimes bestowed by the Crown at the advice of the Prime Minister for the time being.

All these personages, says Mr. Dickson, including certain professors at Durham, Ely, and Oxford, and certain archdeacons whose official incomes are guaranteed to them . . . will be abolished under our scheme.' The guillotine is to be mercifully applied. The professors and other learned members of the chapters may keep their money, but their room is better than their company. So far from the residence of eminent academics being insisted on, they are no longer to be allowed to reside.

6. In fact they are to be paid to stay away! So with those three archdeacons who occupy stalls at Canterbury, and the score or so of others who are to be found among the most serviceable residentiaries elsewhere, and specially those two offensive and objectionable archdeacons always in residence at Ely-they are to carry themselves and their shovel hats elsewhere. They are to give place to What? Ah! what indeed?

Let it be remembered that it is no more than an accident that

mere

any great excellence in the musical services of the sanctuary has become the characteristic of our cathedrals. In so far as instrumentation has been raised to such a point of sensuous ravishment as to throw into the background the higher purposes and the nobler work which our cathedral foundations were intended to carry out, so far have our ornate musical services been a snare. But here comes a theorist so infatuated with the idolatry of his art that he gravely -almost passionately-pleads for our cathedrals being turned into academies of music-that and nothing more. We have all heard of

musical cant, but here is what I can only call musical rant.

The maintenance of musical services of a high order of artistic excellence is in the very forefront of the duties imposed upon the chapters, [and] the general public may be forgiven if they see in this the very raison d'être of the cathedrals, and if they fail to perceive any other. . . . The cathedral . .. is the one single church in each diocese in which pure worship may be placed above edification . the one church in which . . . the consecration of art may be ranked above the satisfying of spiritual needs.

If this means anything, it means that our cathedrals are not intended to be used as places of prayer and humble communion with the Heavenly Father, but mere vast music-halls, in which the organist and the choir are to reign supreme, without any regard to the spiritual cravings or needs of the assembly gathered together less to worship than to listen. It is not to be permitted that the audience shall take any part in the display. The preaching of the word, even the administration of the Sacrament, is to be subordinated to the perfect instrumentation of the choral body.'

A picture gallery is a place where people come to look and wonder. A cathedral is to be a place where people are to be allowed to hear the music if they keep their places and sit still!

What is sacred music?' was a question asked some forty years ago by one of the most enthusiastic and accomplished musical critics of his generation; and to that question he could never find a satisfactory answer. But now, at last, we are assured that sacred music is the end and object for which our cathedrals exist; and we are further assured that they who regard sacred music as no more than a means to an infinitely higher end, are blind and ignorant and all astray.

A man who is irrecoverably possessed by so strange a delusion as this is not the man to help us towards such reforms in our cathedral chapters, their government and their adaptability to the wants of the Church and the nation, as we most of us feel to be needed. The common sense of the people would promptly revolt against such a preposterous waste of resources upon so comparatively slight an object as is here proposed. Projects so inept must be put out of court promptly and decisively as a preliminary to any serious discussion of the great questions that are involved, and which call for all the sagacity and breadth of view which the ablest and most gifted among us can bring to bear. Never were the clergy of the Church of VOL. XXXV-No. 203 H