THE BISHOP OF LICHFIELD AND THE NEW ZEALAND CHURCH.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXII, Issue 2669, 18 April 1868, Page 6

THE BISHOP OF LICHFIELD AND THE NEW ZEALAND CHURCH.

[From the Record.] We were unwilling to believe the report, and yet, froni his speech at the Mansion House, we conclude that it is the fact, that Bishop Selwyn is about to return to New Zealand before he enters on his duties, as the new Bishop of Lichfield. We cannot regard this as a wise arrangement, either on the part of the Government or on the part of the Bishop. A great deal has been attempted of late to exalt the mysterious pretensions of the episcopal office, and yet at the same time much more has been done to disparage its real dignity, and so to make Bishops appear far less important than they were. If a Bishop can be absent from his diocese without being much missed, during the time which is requisite for a voyage to and from the Antipodes, the alleged necessity fop an increase of the Episcopate is proved to be a frivolous imagination. In regard to our diocese at the present moment, the question of capax or noncapux is bandied about the courts of Westminster Hall, whilst there are at least three other dioceses in which the mitred chief is, from age or infirmity, unable fitly to discharge his active duties. If the example of a fifth diocese is to be exhibited with a non-resident Bishop, we need not say that the precedent is calculated effectually to satisfy reflecting men that the cry for more Bishops so loudly raised in the last session was very unnecessary. It is said, indeed, that the Bishop designate of Lichfield is to provide a colonial to undertake his duties, just as in the halcyon days of pluralities, a fortunate rector was enabled to hold several livings, which he served by deputy. The fact that there are so many colonial Bishops who find it convenient to spend a large portion of their, time at home on episcopal furlough, has often been a topic of sarcastic wife. Are we, however, about to initiate a new system, and are our English prelates about to migrate to the colonies for purposes of recreation, or in order to promote that new political organization by which the astute prelate of Cudderdon hopes to emancipate the time-honored Church of England from the yoke of the Royal supremacy and legislative control ? We honestly confess that it is when viewing the subject from this point of view that we chiefly object to the long leave of absence •which seems to have been accorded to Bishop Selwyn. His Lordship is regarded as a brave and- manly assertor of the loftiest principles of High-Churchism. At the Mansion House he sconned to pass over in silence Mr Robert Bevan's apposite allusion to opposite forms of error as symbolised by Bishop Colenso and the Bishop of Salisbury. The Bishop designate of Lichfield boldly claimed his friend and brother of Salisbury as one in whose views he generally concurred; and although we give all credit to his large and liberal support of the Church Missionary Society— to whose endowment of £600 a year ho originally owed his mitre — we cannot forget that he has all along held the doctrine of the Objective Real Presence, and the mysterious episcopal power of absolution connected with the revolting practice of auricular confession on bended knees before the priest. Bishop Selwyn may be as tolerant as it is possible for one holding his sentiments to be ; he may be able to discern the piety and zeal of what he calls " a Low Church" missionary ; but admitting that with greater discretion and a larger toleration, he holds the principles in which his friend the Bishop of Salisbury, glories, we cannot but deplore the inevitably injurious influence in these respects of his example and his teaching. It will be curious to observe which of the colonials will be deputed to discharge bis duties in his absence. He cannot, happily, without an act of Parliament, confer jicrisdiction on his deputy. Confirmation is purely an ecclesiastical act, and may be performed by any Bishop ; but even with the aid of the Bishop of Oxford, acting under his commission or the commission of the Archbishop of Canterbury, there must be a good deal of confusion during Bishop -Selwyn 1 s absence. We confess, however, that our fears do not exclusively concern " the black country," or the rest of the diocese of Li hfield. They extend to New Zealand. It is no secret that the language used by Bishop Selwyn in the Pan- Anglican Synod was such as to rejoice the Ritualistic journalist, whilst it alarmed sober and pious prelates b©th on this side of the Atlantic and beyond it. He spoke with withering scorn of the Church of England as leaning on the broken reed of a "National Establishment, and contrasted with, it his own freedom from all such shackles. The hope expressed was that by a Pan- Anglican Synod and intercommunication, something might be done for the fettered Church of England. The idea that Bishop Selwyn would deign to accept an English mitre seemed preposterous to those who listened to his scornful allusions to the fetters aud manacles of our National Church. His first refusal was no more than was expected ; and how he yielded to Lord Derby's subsequent urgent Request to relieve him from his difficulties in a high quarter, \s still., as we know, a marvel to those who sat with him and heard him speak in the Pan-Anglican Council. It is understood that his desire to revisit New Zealand exclusively relates to ecclesiastical affairs. He has been the life and soul of the new colonial system, after the attainment of which the Bishop of Oxford so ardently pants. The Bishop of Cape Town lias been equally eager in the same cause ; but the South African Prelate has not attended to Talleyrand's sagacious counsel, " Surtout, Monsieur, point de zele." His indiscretion plunged him into a costly lawsuit when he sought to humble Mr Long beneath his crozier, and he had the mortification to be obliged to restore the oppressed clergyman he had deposed. In selecting such a Bishop as Dr Coienso, and consecrating him to the see of Natal," lie committed a second error, along with the Bishop of Oxford, although we earnestly warned them both, at the time of the egregious mistake they were then committing. More recently the «ame parties selected as a substitute for Bishop Colenao one of the Bishop of Oxford's clergy, a Mr Butler, who signed with Archdeacon Denison and Dr Pnsey, a memorial, which proves that he holds Romanizing views of the Sacraments. The people of Natal were thus to have their choice between Romanism and Scepticism. Dr Selwyn has acted with far greater caution, and exhibited a larger mind ; but we confess that on this account we the more dread the objects and the policy which he has in his projected voyage to New Zealand.