RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 930, 27 December 1889, Page 7

RELIGIOUS.

THE PROSECUTION OF THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN.

The Proctor for the Bishop of Lincoln, Mr E. F. Jenkins, on Tuesday filed in the Registry of the Archbishop’s Court the Responsive Plea of the Bishop to the charges made against him. This plea seta forth that the defendant did, in St Peter’s at Gowts, Lincoln, on December 4, 1887, and in Lincoln Cathedral, on December 18, 1887, celebrate the Communion. He admits that there were two lighted candles on the Communion table in the church, where one of the assistant priests mixed water with the wine, which mixture was subsequently consecrated and administered. The defendant also states that on both occasions he stood with his hack to the people while reading the prayer of consecration, that the choir sang the Agnus Dei, and that he made the sign of the Cross both while pronouncing the Absolution and Blessing. The next statement is as follows : ‘After the Blessing the remains .of the consecrated Elements were, as far as could be so, reverently eaten and drunk and then one of the assistant priests with his (the Bishop’s) sanction poured water into the paten and into the chalice, and the contents of the paten and chalice were then reverently con-

sumed by the Bishop ; and thus the remains of thatwhich was consecrated werecompletely and reverently eaten and drunk, in accordance with the Rubric.’ The Proctors submit that ‘ The acts stated in this plea are not, nor are any of them, illegal acts forbidden by the Laws, Canons, and Constitutions Ecclesiastical of this Church and Realm.' RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. The very eagerness on the part of their opponents to deprive the children in elementary schools of definite religious instruc tion should be an incentive to (. hurchmen to insist upon it and promote it by every legitimate means in their power. The religion of the future is very much in the hands of the children of the present, ami the integrity of the faith of the twentieth century depends very much on the faithfulness and determination of Catholics iu the nineteenth. That they have borne the brunt of the battle bravely and unflinchingly even their bitterest enemies cannot deny. That they will soon continue to acquit themselves like men in the fight no one can doubt. It ne.eds no prophet to foretell what the religion of the future will be if the effort of the opponents of religious inabruction in our schools are to be suocesßful. It means a religion without dogma, a something without backbone, so weak and nerveless that it is liable to be carried about by every wind and wane of doctrine, only at last to fall into the hands of those whose determination it is that the religion of the future shall be no religion at all. And we repeat that the only way, humanly speaking, to avert this issue will be by the definite, systematic, early religious training of the young, and the indoctrinating them by every lawful means, on Sundays and weekdays, in the unchanging principles of the Catholic faith.—Church Review.