Status of the Laity.

The lay members of the Church in all colonial dioceses have been encouraged, as we all know, to exercise an equal voice, both deliberative and definitive, with any page break other order. This has never been so before in the history of the Church, and the call to the laity to exercise their voice, is now almost unanimous throughout the Anglican communion. The change is but of yesterday, and I think it speaks volumes for the right feeling of the laity that such a change has brought with it so little of a revolutionary character. They have had no special training—indeed the most magnificent field of study open to mortal minds, known as theology, has been of late looked upon by most laymen with suspicion, or avoided as positively injurious—a result explicable only upon the hypothesis that they have come to regard as theology the narrow definitions and warped conclusions of certain modern systems instead of finding in theology the length and breadth and depth and height of a knowledge which passes knowledge, a science which is at once the mother and sum of all sciences, and which even the great Stagirite, heathen as he was, recognised as queen of all. I repeat, this world-wide introduction of the lay vote is absolutely new, and were the laity in a carnal spirit to push to an extreme the power they possess without the study and devout preparation such responsibility demands, there would be infinite danger to the more delicate, but nevertheless vital, structures of the spiritual body and consequent injury to the functions of the same. Nor does the danger stop here. It sometimes happens that the clergy themselves, moved by the laudable desire for the sympathetic co-operation of the lay brethren, are tempted to put aside, if not altogether to surrender, points with which they suspect what is called the lay mind is not in harmony. I am quite sure that this is wrong. I repudiate all distinctions of kind between the lay mind and the clerical—"For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body, and have been made to drink into one Spirit"—the difference is only of degree, and, if I may allude to myself for a moment, having in my past career received credit for enlisting to a more than usual extent the intelligent co-operation of my lay people entirely on the lines of our Church's teaching, I may say that it was always by recognising this truth. I am always hurt when I hear any talking about "conciliating the laity." I think the laity have a right to feel insulted by such language; it argues that we think that they can never be anything but "carnal and walk as men." The right thing to do, O consecrated priest, is in private and tender communication to display, as Christ to Nicodemus, the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, which it is given you by office and opportunity to know. I have seldom met with anything but gratitude, and sometimes with an almost awful solemnising of whole man—as these things begin to possess the mind and spirit, such will grasp them with that trembling yet glad avidity which proves that the fountains of the great depths of the soul have been broken into, and the truths of God's unseen world in their Wondrous relations have entered into vital power and all-adjusting influence.

Dear friends, I hope my meaning is sufficiently clear to all. I trust my words will give offence to none; nay, let these words sink down into your ears. I have prepared this part of my address with care and almost on my knees. Many will think there is but little in it, and that all might have been comprised in a few sentences; yet, I will ask you not hastily to dismiss these words: the principles involved will bear on many a motion which now or hereafter will be brought before the Synod. And I will add that should any desire, as I hope they will, to enter more fully into the study of the Church, her character, and powers, they may get much help from books already to be found in the small theological library: which I have founded, and which, I trust, will before long be located in Dunedin, but which until that time may be obtained by application to myself.

"Of the things of which I have spoken this is the sum." "If we live in the spirit"—kingdom, "let us also walk in the spirit"—rule. Framing and using our canons and resolutions in this light, they will be to us rather helpful directions than penal enactments or irrefragible laws; not that a decision of the Synod may be lightly set aside—on the contrary, in the view I have put forth every such decision becomes invested with a weight of sacred obligation, which can never belong to any penal law, and that though the subject-matter of the regulation appear to be very secular or of trifling importance, it is surely on this principle that the first Synod brought in the sacred name of the Holy Ghost in the decision of such a matter as the eating of things killed strangling or of blood.

This recognition of our spiritual character should greatly solemnise our action and purify our motives, and it should cause each order in the Synod to accord due honor to the other as invested with some special qualification for the benefit of all; and if the laity hare now been asked to come and use their gift, surely they will never try to secularise the Kingdom of God, but rather to spiritualise themselves. It is the whole Church which has asked them to come and which welcomes them as parts of the spirit-bearing body. Thus acting together, without suspicion, without covert desire of one to curtail the authority of another, but "of one accord, of one mind," we shall regain the influence as we regain the spirit which animated the primitive councils of the Church—an influence which was never greater than when she had no power to enforce her law other than the power of obedience to the law of love. This is the testimony of the Abbé Fleury, and with his description of the ancient Synods I close this part of my address. He says: "They were religions acts, and those who took part in them were page break guided by the will of God as read in His Word and exhibited in the simultaneous practice of the Catholic Church. There was neither struggle for pre-eminence, nor unfair advantage taken of opponents; modesty of opinion was accompanied with deference for the thoughts and spiritual experiences of others; the wisest counsels were honestly sought and loyally carried into practice. Mutual respect as a bond of union gave to such assemblies an immense force. The placita of such counsels easily obtained the force of law even beyond the limits of legitimate authority."