WELSH CHURCH

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 121, 22 May 1920, Page 5

WELSH CHURCH

NEW ACT IN FORCE EXIT FOUR BISHOPS (FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, Btb April. The Welsh Church Act is now in operation, and the Episcopal Church in Wales stands disestablished and disendowed. The following are briefly the changes 'affected by the Act: — 1. The separation of the Anglican Church in Wales from the State in establishment and control. 2. The four Welsh bishops cease to be spiritual peers, and surrender their seats in the_House of.Lords. 3. The constitution of the four disestablished Welsh dioceses as a separate province of Wales, with its own archbishop, who will bo chosen next week at Llandrindod Welle. 4. All endowments prior to 1662 held by the church in Wales to be surrendered, representing ;i capital sum of £1:000,000, and an annual value uf £45,000. 5. Compulsory commutation of all life interests from a. fund «f over £3,000,000, placed by the Treasury in the hands of the. Welsh County Councils. Last week the 'House of Lords witnessed a unique event—the departure of four bishops from its midst. They were tho Welsh Prelates of Bangor, Llandaff, St. Asaph, and St. David's. Their places will be taken by the Bishops of Chelmsford, Ipswich, Exeter, -and Bristol, while the late Bishop of Carlisle will in due course he succeeded by the Bishop of Peterborough. The Bishop of Chelmsford will best be remembered in New Zealand is the Rev. J. E. Watts Ditehfitld. THE FIRST ARCHBISHOP.

The governing; body of the Church in Wales met in Llandrindod yesterday for the first time as tlie actual executive body of the disestablished and disendowed church, the session being mainly devoted to considering recommendations of the representative body of the church in Wales with regard to stipends of the clergy. £250 AND A HOUSE. The governing body decided to fix'the minimum stipend at £250, together with a house, or an allowance for a house ; an amendftient that a maximum df £SQO should be imposed until a minimum of £400 had been secured for all benefices, being defeated. SOUL-DESTROYING OCCUPA- - TIONS. A discussion upon the usefulness of minor canons arose upon a recommendation that not more than two minor canons should be appointed to each cathedral, at a minimum stipend of £250, with, a house, or an allowance for a house. An amendment was moved to reduce to one, but this was finally rejected. Mr. Walter Thomas, of Llandaff, described the office of minor canon as of a soul-destroying kind. Almost the whole of his work was reciting morning and evening prayer, to the npgleet of the chief part of his duty as priest of tho church. . The Bishop of Jhnpror defencV>d the minor ca.non, to spaak of v/hiuim as a loiterer in the cathedral was, he considered, a mistaken idea. Minor canons of all cathedrals were like, a sparo horse, and did everything that, everybody else was too busy to undertake. The recommendation to appoint not more than two minor canons was adopted. ] ECCLESIASTICAL MUMMIES. ■

The future function of the four cathedrals of Wales was mentioned by Canon Daniel Davies (St. Asaph), who expressed a hope that the cathedrals would he linked up more closely with the parishes: At. present they might be described as ecclesiastical mummies. ELECTION OF BISHOPS. At the old parish church of Llandrindod Wells yesterday, the Synod of Welsh Bishops elected the first Archbishop of Wales. Their decision is not yet announced, but it is understood that the choice fell unanimously upon the Bishop of St.■ Asaph, the senior Welsh Diocesan, and that he will be formally declared Archbishop.' Dr.. Alfred Edwards, who has presided over the See of St. Asaph since 1889, has spent nearly all his life in the Prin- . cipality. Born at the Vicarage of Llangollen, he, after taking- his degree at Jesus College, Oxford, was ordined to a 1 curacy at Llandingat. From 1875 till 1885, he was headmaster of the Llandovery College, and was mainly instrumental in raising the institution to its present high position among the publicschools. He was than Vicar of Carmarthen, Rural Dean of Carmarthen, and Chaplain to the Bishop of St. David's till his consecration, as Bishop of St. Asaph. NONCONFORMIST. SYMPATHY. A sympathetic article, addressed to the Church in-Wales and its new Archbishop, has been written by the Rev. Thomas Charles Williams, the leading Calvinistic Methodist minister of the Principality, who says :— "It would be a grave misfortune if any members of the Church in Wales should still hold the opinion that Welsh Nonconformists hate, or even dislike, their Church. There are thousands in my own communion who hold that Church in deeip veneration and affection, though they do not belong to it. They have not yet forgotten what they owe to that Church. lam confident that when the list is published of those who have contributed to the special fund now organised for the Church it will be found to contain the names of many of my own people, and I am very anxious that it should be so. WHY NOT BIS ONE CHURCH? "Many of us are now thinking that since the Church in Wales is as spiritually active as any Church in Christendom, and since the connection between that Church and the State, which was to so many a matter of conscience, has. been severed, the reason for our keeping any longer apart has largely disappeared. We are already one in aim and one in doctrine, why not be one Church?" OPPORTUNITY FOR RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. Mr. Williams places education as a subject of urgency, and, in his opinion, '^Education without a religious basis is surely not only an absurdity, but a great public danger. It is to me appalling that the children should have no. religious training, and that the Bible should be kept out of the schools, simply because the Christian Churches, after all these years, cannot agree. The creation of Wales into a separata Ecclesiastical Province is to every sane mind a most significant opportunity to remedy this, and to reconsider, and even remove, many of the. causes that gave rise to Nonconformity in Wales. ... It will rest with the Church in Wales, -with its venerable traditions and high prestige, to determine'whether slio is to become a narrow, ■exclusive kind of relieious f-'eirl or the foundation of thn one Holy National Church of Wales. 1'