Mr. Asquith to invite the Unionists in May to join in a Coalition Government. A change at the Admiralty was imperative. Mr. Churchill had shown enormous vigour, industry, imagination and patriotism; but insufficient judgment and discretion. He was transferred to the sinecure office of the Duchy of Lancaster, but held it only till Nov., when, on the appointment of a small war committee of the Cabinet from which he was excluded, he resigned, being unwilling to accept a position of general responsibility for war policy if he had no effective control. He placed himself at the disposal of the military authorities and was sent to France as a major in the Grenadier Guards. He was accordingly little seen in Parliament for the next year or more, though he was in his place to criticize the navy estimates of his successor Mr. Balfour, to reproach him for want of energy, and to recommend the recall of Lord Fisher.
The report of the Dardanelles commission, which was published in March 1917, confirmed the view of the public that some of the blame for that mismanaged enterprise rightly attached to Mr. Churchill. It was therefore with surprise and some disapproval that people found Mr. Lloyd George, who appreciated his powers, admitting him into his Government in July 1917 as Minister of Munitions, a post in which he did good work for a year and a half, but did not come specially before the public. After the war, however, when Mr. Lloyd George reconstructed his Government, he became Secretary of State both for War and for Air, a conjunction of offices which was much criticized. As War Minister he had the gigantic task of demobilizing armies of between four and five millions who had been in the war, of providing armies of occupation and forces for immediate garrisoning of the Empire, of building up an after-war army, and of re-creating the territorial army. He made considerable progress in the following two years, but he was greatly criticized for the size of his estimates, and especially for the large forces retained in Mesopotamia and Palestine. On Lord Milner's retirement in the spring of 1921 he succeeded him as Secretary of State for the Colonies; and a new arrangement was made by which the responsibility for Mesopotamia and Palestine was taken over by the Colonial Office. Mr. Churchill went out to Egypt, and held in Cairo a conference of the British civil and military officers then administering those countries. On his return, he outlined to Parliament a scheme by which the cost might be greatly reduced, mainly through the transference of authority to Arab chiefs.
He and his wife had a son and three daughters. His mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, divorced her second husband, George Cornwallis-West, in 1913; and married in 1918, as her third husband, Montague Phippen Porch, formerly a Government official in Nigeria. She died June 29 1921. (G. E. B.)
CHURCH HISTORY (see 6.330). (I.) Church of England (see 9.442). The most important event in the Anglican Communion in the decade 1910–20 was the sixth Lambeth Conference, held at Lambeth Palace under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury from July 5 to Aug. 7 1920. There were present 252 bishops, as compared with 76 out of the then total of 144 at the first gathering in 1867. These Conferences claim no conciliar or legislative authority, i.e. it is left to the various branches of the Church throughout the world to act upon their decisions or recommendations, in whole or in part, or to ignore them altogether. Their claim is to present a consensus of Anglican opinion upon subjects vitally affecting the welfare of the Church and the world, and to set forth, so far as diverse conditions may admit, general principles of action. The subjects considered at the Conference of 1920, in the order in which they are arranged in the Encyclical Letter wherein the bishops set forth their conclusions, were: the reunion of Christendom, the ministry of women, Spiritualism, Christian Science and Theosophy, problems of marriage, the Church and industrial problems, international relations, missionary problems and the development of ecclesiastical provinces.
Reunion of Christendom.—By far the most momentous of these subjects is the reestablishment of the broken unity of the universal Church, and in relation thereto the Conference put out an "Appeal to all Christian people." This document recognizes that "the causes of division lie deep in the past, and are by no means simple or wholly blameworthy," but insists that the time has come for "a new outlook and new measures," and for "reaching out towards the goal of a reunited Catholic Church." The essentials of visible unity are defined as the acceptance of the Scriptures as the ultimate standard of faith and of the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of that faith, of the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Communion, and of "a ministry acknowledged by every part of the Church as possessing not only the inward call of the Spirit, but also the commission of Christ and the authority of the whole body." On this last-named crucial point, upon which the real difficulty of reunion turns, the bishops say:—
"May we not reasonably claim that the Episcopate is the one means of providing such a ministry? It is not that we call in question for a moment the spiritual reality of the ministries of those Communions which do not possess the Episcopate. On the contrary we thankfully acknowledge that these ministries have been manifestly blessed and owned by the Holy Spirit as effective means of grace. But we submit that considerations alike of history and of present experience justify the claim which we make on behalf of the Episcopate. Moreover, we would urge that it is now, and will prove to be in the future, the best instrument for maintaining the unity and continuity of the Church. But we greatly desire that the office of a Bishop should be everywhere exercised in a representative and constitutional manner, and more truly express all that ought to be involved for the life of the Christian Family in the title of Father-in-God."
By way of practical suggestion the Appeal goes on to say:—
"If the authorities of other Communions should so desire, we are persuaded that, terms of union having been otherwise satisfactorily adjusted, Bishops and clergy of our Communion would willingly accept from these authorities a form of commission or recognition which would commend our ministry to their congregations, as having its place in the one family life. . . . It is our hope that the same motives would lead ministers who have not received it to accept a commission through episcopal ordination, in obtaining for them a ministry throughout the whole fellowship."
The resolutions, of which the Appeal formed part, recommended that the Churches of the Anglican Communion should invite conference with other religious bodies concerning the possibility of taking definite steps to cooperate in a common endeavour on these lines to restore unity. In the committee's report it was suggested that authority might be given to bishops to permit ministers not episcopally ordained to preach in churches within their dioceses and to their own clergy to preach in the churches of such ministers, and "in the few years between the initiation and the completion of a definite scheme of union," to admit to Communion baptized but unconfirmed communicants of the non-episcopal congregations concerned. The bishops, however, disapproved of "general schemes of intercommunion or exchange of pulpits." It was expressly stated that these decisions were "all but unanimous." In further pursuance of the desire for reunion the Conference approved of Anglican bishops taking part in the consecration of Swedish bishops, being satisfied that those bishops possess the Apostolical succession, and on Sept. 19 1920 the bishops of Durham and Peterborough joined in the consecration of the Swedish bishops of Visby and Vesteras. Both before and after the Conference rapid progress was made towards a better understanding between the Church of England and the Orthodox Eastern churches.
Ministry of Women.—The committee of the Conference was of opinion that there is nothing to prevent the belief that the Apostolic commission recorded in St. John xx. 19–23 was delivered to women as well as to men, and dealing with the disciplinary directions of St. Paul as to the subordination of women in the churches, declared that:—"To transfer with slavish literalness the Apostle's injunctions to our own time and to all parts of our own world, would be to renounce alike our inalienable responsibility of judgment and the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free." The bishops went on to lay down the conditions for the constitutional restoration of the ancient Order of Deaconesses. For some sixty years past there have been Anglican deaconesses, but save in the United States, where they are formally recognized, they have derived their
