others, that largely contributed to repel the attack.
It was seen that the Welsh suspensory bill was only a first step to general disestablishment, and the archbishop took measures in view of the larger issue. He organised an enormous meeting in the Albert Hall (16 May 1893), preceded by a great communion at St. Paul's, consisting of both convocations and the houses of laymen, together with other elected representatives of the laity. It was not only an imposing demonstration: it was the beginning of a new organisation for the defence of the church, which gradually absorbed the older 'Church Defence Institution,' and exists now as the Central Church Committee for Church Defence and Instruction. The organisation is one to touch every parish, and the work is chiefly that of diffusing true information on the subject of the church. Quieter times followed; but the organisation still exists.
The event of Benson's primacy which is generally considered to be the most important was the trial of Dr. Edward King, bishop of Lincoln, before him for alleged ritual offences. In 1888 the body known as the Church Association prayed him, as metropolitan, to judge the case. Only one undoubted precedent since the Reformation could be adduced for the trial of a bishop before his metropolitan. The charges themselves were of a frivolous character. The archbishop might have declined upon that ground to entertain them. The strongest pressure was brought upon him to do so. To this course he would not consent. He saw that, if he did so, the complainants would apply to queen's bench for a mandamus, and that, if the mandamus were granted, he should be forced to hear the case after all; while if it were refused on the ground that he had no jurisdiction, he would be in the position of having claimed, by the use of his discretion, a power which the queen's bench did not recognise. Besides, in the abeyance of other courts which high church-men could acknowledge, he was not sorry to give proofs that there was a really spiritual court in existence, before which they might plead. In former cases, before the public worship regulation court, they had felt unable to produce their evidence. While petitions were poured in upon him, begging him to dismiss the suit, Benson had the strength, almost unsupported, to determine to proceed with it, if his jurisdiction were once established. The prosecution appealed to the privy council upon that question, and the judicial committee decided that the jurisdiction existed.
On 12 Feb. 1889 the trial opened. The bishop's counsel began by a protest against the constitution of the court, alleging that the case ought to be tried before the bishops of the province. Benson allowed the question to be fully argued before him, and on 11 May gave an elaborate judgment, asserting the competence of the court. The hearing of the case proper began in the following February. The archbishop sat with five bishops as assessors. Judgment was given on 21 Nov.—the archbishop's eldest daughter having died a few weeks before. Meantime he had been laboriously occupied, even during his brief holiday in Switzerland, in studies bearing upon the case. From his youth up he had taken a great interest in liturgical matters, and so brought to the case the knowledge of an expert. His judgment was a masterpiece of erudition as well as of judicial lucidity. But the main merits of it were, first, that it refused to base itself upon previous decisions of the privy council, but went de novo into every question raised, admitting the light of fresh evidence; and, secondly, it treated the prayer-book not as a merely legal document to be interpreted by nothing beyond its own explicit language, but in an historical manner, with an eye to the usages of the church before the Reformation. The chief points of it were that it allowed the celebrant at the eucharist to assume what is called the eastward position, the mixing of water with the wine in such a way as not to constitute a 'ceremony,' the ablution of the vessels before leaving the altar, and the use of candles at the celebration when not required for the purpose of giving light. Benson's judgment was, in the words of Dean Church, 'the most courageous thing that has come from Lambeth for the last two hundred years.' In those of Bishop Westcott, it 'vindicated beyond reversal one master principle of his faith, the historic continuity of our church. The Reformation was shown to be not its beginning but a critical stage in its growth.'
While Benson thus spent himself for the good of the church at home, he bestowed more care upon the church abroad than any archbishop of Canterbury before him. He threw himself into the missionary work of the church not only with ardour and sagacity, but with a philosophic largeness of view. The founding of a new mission, like that to Corea for example, gave him profound delight. He guided the young church on the Niger through a most grave crisis. When the bishop of Madagascar returned to England at the moment of the French occupa-
