The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. THURSDAY, NOV. 28, 1895.

Waikato Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3652, 28 November 1895, Page 4

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

THURSDAY, NOV. 28, 1895.

Equal and exact justice, to all men, Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political,

Tiiehe is to be another Pan-Anglican Church Conference in 1597. The Archbishop of Canterbury has written to that effect. This announcement is of interest to all English Churchmen throughout the world. Nearly thirty years have elapsed since the first Conference was held, and many changes have taken place since then. The picture of the events is varied in its colours. The Church has lost and gained in the interval, but reflection will compel the confession that the gain preponderates. The Church today presents a less unbroken front than in the peaceful times of thirty years ago. In Ireland she has been disestablished, and her revenues dealt with unjustly. In England the church rate has been lost. The church-yards are no longer her exclusive right and her predominance at the two great universities has shrunk. Nothwithstanding these losses she has grown in popularity. The increased energy and self-denial of her clergy have gained this for her. There has always been a doubt in the minds of the church's most earnest friends that she might not be able to stand a general and combined attack from her enemies. These doubts have now passed away. The church in Wales was at one time a source of weakness, it is now a source of strength, the attacks have led to the refutation of statements damaging to the establishment, which would perhaps never have been confuted had not the combined attacks of political dissenters and a great political party put her friends upon their metal. There is one matter which can only be properly considered by such a conference as the Archbishop contemplates, that is the overtures made to England by the Vatican, which have stirred up a question that has never been seriously entertained since the revolution of IGBB. It appears to us that it is important that the Church of England should seize every opportunity of demonstrating to the woild that Anglicanism represents a distinct and independent branch of the Church Catholic. His Holiness the Pope must bear in mind that in his attempts to heal the " western schism," ho has not enly England to reckon with, but the whole colonial empire of Great Britain and the Transatlantic Hepublic. Re - union

between the churches would be dearly bought on terms which excluded other Anglican churches. Much as the unity of Christian churches must be desired by all, it is not likely that English churchmen throughout the world will bend to the dictation of the Vatican.