RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 662, 31 October 1884, Page 7

RELIGIOUS.

THE SWEDENBORGIAN CONFERENCE.

The proceedings of this gathering at Birmingham comprised many matters of interest to the members. The affairs of the Conference periodical, the New Church Magazine, were discussed at great length, and various arrangements made for its benefit. An address from the General Convention of the New Church in the United States was read by one of its appointed messengers, the Rev. James Reed. Grants of money were made from the education fund to ten New Church day schools and to the New Church Sunday School Union for the purposes of general examination of Sunday schools. The Societies at Stockport and Wincanton were received into connection with the Conference. Licenses to administer the Sacrament were granted to Mr Freeth for Hull, Mr Fairweather for Dalston, Mr Beilby for Sheffield, and Mr Lock for Worsley. The Conference students for the Ministry were re adopted, and pensions were given as in former years, with one addition to their number. A long discussion took place upon a proposal to alter the terms of the rules for the issue of licenses to administer the Sacrament; but the motion was lost. In the evening the majority of the members of the Conference availed themselves of an invitation to a garden party given by two members of the Birmingham Society. THE CHURCH ASSOCIATION. The nineteenth annual meeting of this Association was held recently at Willis’s Rooms. Mr J. Maden Holt, the Chairman of the Council, presided. There was a large attendance. An abstract of the annual report was read by the secretary, the Rev. Dr. Fleming. Having regretted the loss of several staunch friends through death, and expressed gratification that Mr J. Maden Holt had accepted the position of chairman of the Council, the report stated that illhealth had compelled Captain Palmer to retire from the active duties of the secretaryship, and that the office had been filled by the appointment of the Rev. I. P. Fleming, D.C.L. Several new branches of the Association had been formed. The judicial decisions in the Miles Platting and the Maekonochie cases were noticed with satisfaction, and the conduct of the Bishop of Londcn and of Mr Wainwright, in reference to the ritualistic practices at St. Peter’s, London Docks, was criticised. Strong objection was expressed to the report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission, The accounts showed that a balance of £S23 7s 6d had been brought forward to 18S4. The special fund contributed as a protest against the Bishop of London’s action in the Mackonochie-Suckling matter, and which amounted to £387 16s 6d, had, with the consent of the subscribers, been passed to the credit of the general and guarantee accounts. On the motion of the chairman, seconded by General Copland-Crawford, the report -was adopted; and other resolutions approving the action of the Council in issuing the ‘Memorial to the Crown,’ and ‘Manifesto to Churchmen,’ and lamenting the toleration accorded by some of the Bishops to practices discarded at the Reformation, and “absolutely condemned by the law of the Church of England,” were also passed.

CHURCH WORK IN SOUTH LONDON. A large benefaction of £30,000 and upwards has very recently been given for Church of England purposes in Bermondsey. The donor wishes it to remain, as far as possible, an anonymous gift ; but it is generally understood to be the gift of the same lady who recently contributed £2OOO to the restoration of the parish church of Bermondsey. The primary object of the fund is to augment the stipends of the seven incumbents in Bermondsey, and there is also a proviso in the trust which admits of_a grant being made for assistant clergy in special cases. The income will amount to £9OO per annum, and among the trustees are the Bishop of Rochester and the rector of Bermondsey ex officio. The parishes which will benefit under the trust are all slenderly endowed, and the number of clergy is at present far below what it ought to be for a population of 87,000.