of that year 60 missionaries, representing the different mission- ary societies working in British East Africa, met at the Church of Scotland station at Kikuyu, on the Uganda railway, to dis- cuss the possibility of a federation between the Christian bodies working in that region. Among those present were the Bishop of Uganda, who presided, and the Bishop of Mombasa; repre- sentatives of the Church of Scotland; the (American) Africa Inland Mission; the Friends' Industrial Mission; the United Methodists; the Lutheran Mission, and the Seventh-Day Adventists. The Conference adopted a " constitution," the preamble of which declared that " with a view to ultimate union of the native Churches, a federation of missionary societies should be formed." The " constitution " settled the following basis of federation: " The loyal acceptance of the Holy Scriptures as our supreme rule of faith and practice; of the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds as a general expression of fundamental Christian belief, and in particular belief in the absolute authority of Holy Scripture as the Word of God, in the Deity of Jesus Christ, and in the atoning death of our Lord as the ground of our forgiveness; recognition of common member- ship between the Churches in the federation; regular ad- ministration of the two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, by outward signs; a common form of Church organiza- tion." At the end of the conference there was a corporate Com- munion celebrated by the Bishop of Mombasa, in which the whole of the delegates participated. The inevitable storm speedily broke. In Nov. the Bishop of Zanzibar published an open letter to the Bishop of St. Albans entitled " Ecclesia Anglicana: what does she stand for?" in which, declaring that " there has not been a conference of such importance to the life of the Ecclesia Anglicana since the Reformation," he charged the Bishops of Mombasa and Uganda with heresy, and asked for the judgment of his fellow bishops of the Province of Canter- bury upon what had happened. The Bishop of Uganda imme- diately replied, defending his action and explaining that the corporate Communion was an exceptional incident standing apart from any general scheme of federation. After further controversy the Archbishop of Canterbury, having refused to take proceedings for heresy and schism against the incriminated bishops, referred the subject to the Central Consultative Body of the Lambeth Conference, which consisted of 14 bishops representing various parts of the Anglican Communion. The following is a summary of the decisions (April 1915) of this body, which actually consisted of the Archbishops of York, Armagh, the West Indies, Rupert's Land, and the Primus of Scotland, the Bishops of Winchester, Exeter and Gibraltar, Bishops Copleston, Wallis, and Ryle:
" Ministers recognized in their own bodies may be welcomed as visitors to preach in Anglican churches provided they are accredited by the Diocesan Bishop. 2. Non-Anglicans may be admitted to the Holy Communion at the discretion of the Diocesan Bishops, on condition of the acceptance of the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the absolute authority of Scripture as the VVord of God, and the Deity of our Lord. 3. Anglicans must not receive the Holy Commu- nion from ministers not episcopally ordained or whose orders are otherwise irregular."
With reference to the corporate Communion, the Consultative Body, while recognizing that it was an abnormal and spontaneous act of devotion, added that " any attempt to treat it as a precedent, or to encourage habitual action of the kind, must be held to be inconsistent with principles accepted by the Church of England. ... So far from promoting unity it would, in our judgment, rather imperil the measure of unity which we now possess." Meanwhile the Bishop of Zanzibar had renounced communion with the Bishop of Hereford (Dr. Percival) on the ground that he had given a Canonry in his cathedral to the Rev. H. Streeter, who was accused of " Modernist " teaching. Prolonged controversy followed both of these events, in the
ourse of which in 1917 the bishops of the Province of South Africa, assembled in Synod, criticised the Kikuyu scheme on the grounds that it dealt exclusively with natives and ignored the essential difficulties between the various denominations,
tid that more could be done " by holding fast to Catholic
order " than " by laxity and compromise." In July 1918 another conference was held at Kikuyu at which an " alliance of missionary societies in British East Africa " was concluded, after an alternative scheme for a united Church, as distinguished from an alliance, proposed by the Bishop of Zanzibar, had been rejected. The alliance consists of the Church Missionary Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Church of Scotland Mission, the United Methodists, and the Africa Inland Mission. The societies forming the alliance pledge them- selves to respect one another's spheres, and the autonomy of each member of the alliance within its own sphere; to foster the desire for union; to develop local Church organizations along similar lines of councils, parochial and district; to recognize the status of each other's Church members; to discourage proselytiz- ing; and to respect the disciplinary decisions of the allied societies regarding their own members.
Increase of the Episcopate. The movement for the division of unwieldy dioceses has resulted since 1914 in the erection of five new sees. In that year there were created : Sheffield (taken from York) ; Chelmsford (taken from St. Albans) ; and St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich (taken from Norwich and Ely). In 1918 the diocese of Coventry was formed (taken from Birmingham and Worcester) ; and in 1920 that of Bradford (taken from Ripon and Wakefield). A committee appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury prepared a comprehensive scheme for the division of large dioceses in the Southern Province, and several proposals to this end took more or less practical shape. A committee was considering in 1921 the best means of dividing London into two or three bishoprics, and a similar project was being prepared for Winchester, which presents peculiar difficulties owing to the complexities of a convenient division and the impossibility of a bishop with a reduced income living at Farnham Castle. In Manchester a diocese of Preston was to be carved out of the mother see. It was proposed to divide the diocese of Oxford into three portions, roughly coextensive with the three counties Ox- ford, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire of which it mainly consists, with new see towns at Reading for Berkshire and Aylesbury for Buckinghamshire, but the scheme made only slow progress. It was hoped to form a Shropshire diocese by the division of Lichfield, to relieve Southwell by taking from it the county of Derby, and to form a diocese of Plymouth from that of Exeter. Meanwhile the necessity for increased episcopal supervision was being inadequately met by the erection of new suffragan bishoprics. There were in 1921 42 dioceses in England and Wales.
The Supply of Clergy. The scarcity of clergy, which had been growing annually more acute, was accentuated by the war. But the possibilities of obtaining candidates from the services after the end of the war seemed to be so favourable that in 1917 a Service Candi- dates' Committee was formed for the training of ordinands who had served in the forces. By the time it got into working order the Church was short of 2,000 clergy. The disused prison at Knutsford in Cheshire was taken over as a school for the testing of vocations and intellectual fitness, and by the end of 1920 more than 1,500 men were at work and nearly 250 others had been ordained. The supply of ex-service men being exhausted, civilian candidates are now (1921) being tested there. There has been a necessary postponement of the intention of the bishops to enforce a higher standard of education by requiring candidates for Holy Orders to possess a recognized degree and to have undergone at least one year's training at a theological college. Meanwhile an agitation began in 1914 in favour of the ad- mission of women to the priesthood, and in 1916 the Central Council of the National Mission of Repentance and Hope gave a general approval to the " women's movement." In 1917 Miss Maude Royden, one of the leaders of the movement, began a ministry of preaching, first at the City Temple and subsequently in a hall taken for the purpose; in 1921, after preaching the Three Hours' addresses on Good Friday at St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, she acquired a chapel of her own. In a large number of dioceses women messengers and pilgrims are at work under the guidance of the parochial clergy.
The Church and the Stale. At the beginning of 1918 there was a lively controversy upon the appointment of Dr. H. Hensley Henspn, Dean of Durham, to the bishopric of Hereford, and a public meeting of churchmen in London asked that the Crown should appoint "a small Commission of Churchmen to assist in the exercise of its ecclesiastical patronage." In 1920 Canterbury Convocation re- solved that the two archbishops ought to be consulted by the Prime Minister before he submitted names for appointment to bishoprics. The Prime Minister replied that it had been his " invariable prac- tice " to do so. In consequence of the rapid increase in the value of tithe rent charge by reason of the high prices of agricultural pro- duce, an Act was passed in 1918 fixing the value at 109 33. lid. until 1926. The increase in local rates caused a determined agitation against the rating of tithe rent charge, on the ground that it is professional income, and that no other earned income is rated, which led in 1920 to the passing of the Ecclesiastical Tithe Rent Charge (Rates) Act. Under this measure the rates are restricted, during the
