ART. II. THE GENERAL CONVENTION OF 1856.

In the absence of the authorized journal, which is not to be expected from the press before our present number is in type, we can not grace this article with such caption as reviewers are wont to use when they would seem to persuade themselves and their readers that they are reviewing a book, while they are only discussing a theme.

The theme is ours, while the book is not yet. And therefore, discarding the common illusion, we announce our subject simply, intending only a sort of resumé of the character and doings of the General Convention of 1856. It was a notable meeting, and therefore memorable. Viewed from before, from behind, or within, it was a Convention that is not to be ignored by a faithful registrar of the times. It loomed high in expectancy, was interesting in its progress, and we think not unimportant in its consequences. This three-fold statement may suggest the order of our review.

First, then, important things were anticipated from the Convention, and the general expectation had gathered itself mainly to two points. One of these was connected with the socalled "Memorial," of whose origin and character we gave a cursory account in our number for January, 1854. We then remarked that the spirit of unity, which developed itself so signally in the Convention of 1853, was in no respect more remarkable than in the character of the signatures appended to the Memorial. Among them might be found the names of clergymen of almost every style of Churchmanship, and of every shade of the Church's permitted theology-names so promiscuously gathered as to obliterate all partisan distinctions and to baffle all attempts to assign to the Memorial any known status or title of party. In the House of Bishops, likewise, the diverse greeting given to this document was in keeping with the heterogeneous character of its signatures. Bishops who were not wont to symbolize with each other, were found to sympathize at least in their feelings, on

the Memorial. The House so far conformed to the wishes of the memorialists as to appoint a Commission of five Bishops to act in their discretion upon the subject during the interim. So that when the Convention of 1855 adjourned, there arose a general jubilate for the Church's unity, of which the Memorial itself was a monument and pledge. But it very soon became manifest that the signers of the Memorial were not recognized by the rest of the Church as representative men. In all parts, and among all parties, were found persons who feared, suspected, and disliked the whole aim of the Memorial. Some snuffed the taint of Romanism in it, others feared that its proposed latitude in the use of rituals would degenerate into fatal latitudinarianism of doctrine, and others, again, in its professions of kindly feeling towards Christians of other names, recognized only the abnegation of all churchly feeling, an assimilation to the sects only next to profane, and a prostration of the divine characteristics and claims of the Church to worldly expediency, or to a puritanical influence hardly less odious. So that instead of being a watchword of unity, "the Memorial" threatened to become a battle-cry. If it promised to harmonize old differences, it seemed to erect a platform for the quarrel of new antagonisms. It is true indeed that a controversy upon such issues as were suggested by the Memorial, practical, moral, outward, could never enter so deeply towards the hearts of men as those perennial questions of Christian doctrine and faith on which the mind of the Church has been split in times past. These questions sometimes penetrate to those deep convictions from which the whole Christian character is developed, and which are identified in the Christian's heart with the dearest and most sacred consciousnesses of his spiritual life. Questions they are, which, as they are sometimes argued on one side or the other, seem to make two essentially hostile systems of our common creed. They rise up from bottom to top in such a perfect parallelism of opposition as refuses all reconciliation. If one be a Gospel, its antithesis must be that other Gospel, which yet is not another-must be no Gospel at all. The discussions of such differences as these, which touch the quick of the Christian character, seize the heart of faith and make it quiver with fear, must always be

more vehement, not to say more fierce, than any other contest. And that which gives the contest violence makes it permanent likewise. The differences being vital, must be life-long. There can be no compromise but silence; no other peace. than a truce. Such a peace may be sometimes best. Though the war be one of principle, yet when a victory is to either side hopeless, it may be that the warfare had better cease for a time, in order that the parties may wipe off the sweat and dust, and blood of conflict, recruit their strength, bury their dead, relieve the sufferings of those non-combatants whose very homes and harvests have been foraged to feed the fight.

Just such a time, many persons think, is the present. Doctrinal discussion has sounded the full depth of the Church's need-has touched bottom. We know where we are. Little or nothing is to be gained by the controversy of the old points of theology, and the full life and power of the Church should now be turned into channels of practical usefulness to the world, which needs the sympathy of the whole Church. This would seem to be the principle and purpose of the Memorial. But either from the want of sympathy with this purpose, or from suspicion of its honesty or its feasibility, arose the diverse opposition to which we have alluded, and which indicated a new front of parties in the Church.

When the Convention met, therefore, the frequent question, passing from mouth to mouth, was: "What will be done with the Memorial?" The question was variously guessed out, accordingly as the wish or the fear prevailed. All that was known was the fact that the Commission appointed by the House of Bishops had determined to recommend nothing upon which they were not unanimous, and that something they had agreed to recommend. But how far they had gone towards answering the prayer of the memorialists-whether their recommendations would be acceptable to their own House-whether they were such as to be of any practical avail, without the concurrence of the House of Deputies-whether that concurrence could be had on any terms, were all matters of doubt very unsatisfactory at the time; but which, as we shall have occasion to say in the sequel, were developed into very satisfactory matters of fact.

Leaving, therefore, for the present this first topic of interest to which the general expectation had been turned, we find another which drew from a certain class of minds a considerable share of regard.

This topic pertained to the Judiciary system of the Church. The revision of the whole penal law of our canons had been submitted by the Convention of 1853, to a joint committee of both Houses, to sit during the interim, and report to the next Convention.

That committee embraced some of the best talent and erudition, both ecclesiastical and legal, that belong to our Church. Some of its members were already distinguished by their published disquisitions on Canon Law, by their known zeal in endeavoring to bring our system of legislation into harmony with approved decisions, and the accredited principles of church government. Projects of a system of canons had been elaborately drawn and circulated at the Convention of 1853, which it was supposed would become at least the basis of the system to be proposed. The committee had met and conferred diligently during the three years, and one of their number, we are told, had made the journey between Baltimore and NewYork no less than eighteen times.

Their report had been agreed upon, published, and sent to the members elect of the Convention for some time before its session. Besides proposing an entirely new canon for the trial of Bishops, the report contemplated a change in the Constitution, by which the General Convention might establish a uniform system of trials for clergymen throughout the Church.

The subject could not, from its nature, be expected to awaken so broad an interest as the Memorial, for it touched only a class in the Church, and touched them only in relations as rare and exceptional as we may well presume the crimes and offenses of the clergy will always be. The Memorial proposed measures for developing the Church's strength and piety-the Judiciary system for curing her sicknesses and sins. The former was adapted to her normal condition of vigor and grace the latter, to her abnormal. If that was as food, this was a medicine, and had an interest mainly for those who were likely to administer or to receive it.

It might have been supposed that to the clergy in general, the proposed plan of a uniform system of trials, established by the collective wisdom of the Church, in its General Convention, would seem preferable to such methods, necessarily more loose and disjointed, as might be arranged by the dioceses. For the Diocesan Convention, holding generally sessions of only two or three days, and composed often of persons new in the Church, uninformed of her history and wants, and unpractised in her legislation, are, it seems to us, the very bodies par excellence, to whom the work of providing a just and accurate system of penal laws ought not to be committed.

We have had experience in the Conventions of more than one diocese, and have seen more than once or twice how reluctantly the canons for trials are approached, how easily they are postponed to other business, with what impatience they are discussed, and how at last, when they have been burdened and broken down with objections, they have received their coup de grace by an acclamation as full and glad as the shout of the hunters when they are in at the death.

There were, however, very many who held an opinion dif ferent from that which we have here expressed, and the discussions of the Convention were somewhat anticipated by the press. Some of our Church periodicals argued against the proposed change from fear of the centralization of power, a form of objection which called into new life the old traditional arguments with which our political parties used to batter each other when our generation of Churchmen were boys, and resuscitated the hereditary antipathies of Federalists and Democrats. Without undertaking to determine on any general principles how much of centralization might be too much, there seems to us to be enough of propriety in the proposed plan to escape the odium which in so many minds clings about the theory of centralization. That there is a central power which alone can determine the doctrine and worship of our Church is a fact which we act upon and rejoice in daily. Dogmatic forms and liturgical forms are both within the competency of the General Convention to enunciate, and decree. But since the theory of the Church comprehends discipline not less than worship and doctrine, why should not its forms and methods be within