ANGLICAN CHURCH ITEMS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 3, 16 May 1890, Page 20

ANGLICAN CHURCH ITEMS.

(.From Truth.')

It wbb but the other day that loud and persistent complaints were being made in a Church paper that our Bishops were at best but very imperfectly acquainted with the etiquette of the mitre and crosier, and now they are being angrily assured in the Bame journal that they do not know even how to dress. Not only is their full canonical costume described as " a hideou9ly ugly garb, which has no symbolical or ecclesiastical character whatever," but the wholly undiatinctive character of their ordinary walking attire is also made the Bubjact of ribald remark. "A. returned empty," we are informed (for this is how the Church 2lm.es alludes to an ex-colonial bishop), " wears the same dress in the street as the Primate of all England "! And it is suggested that, as a cure for this terrible state of affairs, our home prelates should in future exchange thoir black aprons for violet. But this sartorial innovation would not go far enough. If " ex -colonials " are to be distinguished from the heads of English dioceses, it would be still more necessary, I' think, to clearly mark the difference between those real working bishops who honestly do their duty, and those bishop faineants who are content to enjoy the fat emoluments of the high office whose functiona they are unwilling or unable to perform.

Lord Grinthorpe had a discussion the other day with " one o£ the more sensible of the bishops," respecting the proposed office for the reception of penitents, in which he expressed himself with characteristic thoroughness : "Do you know, my lord, that you would be liable to prosecution if you went through this humbug ? " "No, that I do not," was the reply, whereupon Lord Grimthorpe enlightened the dismayed prelate by pointing out that, under the Act of Uniformity, aDyone reading such an office in church would be liable to suspension for the first offence, deprivation for the second, and imprisonment for lite for the third. I fancy that we are not likely to hear any more about this fantastical nonsense from Convocation.

A rich Catholic manufacturer in Canada, M. Cbanteloup, who died lately, left a million sterling to be divided among bis employee! and servants, whom he makes his heirs.