At a Meeting, called by advertisement, of the friends to a proposed Bath Association, the Rev. Josiah Thomas, the Archdeacon of Bath, appeared; and before the secretary of the Society could explain the nature of the projected undertaking, delivered an Address and Protest, which he has since published, and which has appeared in most of the London and many of the country newspapers. This proceeding has, of course, attracted much public attention ; but the reasons by which it is supported, are, as I trust will appear, utterly insufficient to justify so unprecedented a measure.

The objections urged by the Archdeacon are of two sorts: the first regards the AUTHORITY BY WHICH THE PROPOSED ASSOCIATION WAS FORMED; the second, the NATURE AND DESIGNS OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY, with which it was to be united.

On the subject of Authority, the reverend speaker states, that he came to the meeting officially; that, in delivering the Address which he has now published, under the name of a Protest, he was executing his office; that the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of the diocese, and the vast majority of the clergy in his jurisdiction, disclaimed the Society; and that the institution was an irregular association, tending to the subversion of ecclesiastical order. He charges the Right Reverend Prelate, who took the chair at the Meeting, with invading the province of his venerable brother, and thrusting his sickle into another man's harvest. He pointedly intimates, that the Society assumed a title to which it had no right. He expresses his conviction, that the formation of the proposed association at Bath would be pernicious, and would render that city a hot-bed of heresy and schism. As Archdeacon, therefore, of Bath, in the name of his Diocesan, in his own name, in the name of the rectors of Bath, and in the name of nineteen-twentieths of the clergy of his jurisdiction, the Reverend speaker protested against the formation of the proposed Society.

The tendency of this language, as well as of the whole Address delivered by the Archdeacon, was to represent the formation of the Bath Missionary association as an irregular, unauthorised, and uncanonical act—as an act so irregular, that it became at once his right and duty to interpose; and, by a personal and solemn protest, to effect either the suppression of the design, or at least the secession of all its clerical promoters.

The question, then, is, In what respect was this Meeting irregular or uncanonical? What were the circumstances, and what the laws applicable to those circumstances, that warranted the Archdeacon in a measure of interference, which, if not justified on the grounds claimed for it, he himself must allow to have been an

outrage on the rights of private judgment, and a flagrant departure from the decorum ordinarily observed in civilized society.

1. The Archdeacon appears to found his claim of jurisdiction over the Meeting, on the circumstance of our Missionary Society being a Church of England Society. He will not, indeed, allow, what he states to be its pretensions to the title; but he obviously assumes his right of interference on that ground. Now it is manifest, that the Society never affected or pretended to represent the Church of England; still less to act by any commission or delegation from that venerable authority. It neither is, nor ever assumed to be, any other than a Voluntary Institution, supported by the free contributions of individuals, in conformity with the doctrine and discipline of the Church. No mistake could arise, on this head, to any one at all acquainted with its design, principles or proceedings. All misapprehension was effectually precluded, by the publicity with which the Society has uniformly acted. The title The Church Missionary Society, never meant-it was never intended to mean-a Society supported by the collective authority of the Church of England; but simply, a Society conducted by members of that Church, and by members of that Church only. It merely imports that the individuals who compose the Society are attached, not to the Lutheran, or Calvinistic, or Presbyterian, or baptist, or Moravian, or Methodist religious communities, but to the English establishment; and that it is the christian religion, as taught by that establishment, which they wish to diffuse among mankind. For many years, the title was "The Society for Missions to Africa and the East, conducted by members of the established Church." When the rise and progress of other Missionary institutions, and the extending labors of its own, made a shorter and more definite name desirable, The Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East was gradually, and almost imperceptibly, substituted. Thus the familiar title, The Bartlett's Buildings Society is sometimes used for the longer and less convenient appellation, The Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, meeting in Bartlett's Buildings. In short the Church Missionary Society is a voluntary association, formed for a lawful object, but not pretending to be established by law-conducted with a due respect to constituted authorities, but preferring no claims, as of right, to their countenance or patronage. In all points which fall within the province of ecclesiastical enactment, its members conscientiously submit to the canons and usages of the Church in matters, like those of voluntary charity, which the wisdom of the Church has left, with a thousand others, to the decision of private conscience and feeling, they claim, as Britons and as Protestants, the right of being guided by their own. In

effect, every voluntary Society conducted by members of our Church, rests, in these respects, precisely on the same grounds. No institution of this nature possesses, or can claim, any ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Such a jurisdiction could be conferred on it only by a direct grant from the legislature, which no existing Society in our Church, however highly respectable, and whether incorporated by charter or not, has received.

Such being the nature of the Church Missionary Society, and such the object of the meeting, it is not very easy to discover in what manner the Archdeacon had acquired the jurisdiction which he claimed over it, or what was that official title by which he felt himself warranted to reprove and inveigh against its proceedings. The lawful jurisdiction of an Archdeacon of the Church; the visitatorial authority by which he is empowered to inspect the state of the churches, and the sufficiency and ability" of the parochial clergy; the judicial functions by which he takes cognizance of scandalous or notorious immorality-in which respects he is figuratively called The Bishop's Eye: all these rights and powers he possesses without dispute. But it is not apparent how any of these, or all of them together, should entitle him " officially" to force his denunciations on such an assembly as has been described -an assembly pretending to no ecclesiastical commission or character; not a meeting of the clergy in visitation, nor a chapter of the canons of a cathedral, nor, strictly speaking, a religious meeting of any kind; but simply a voluntary association of benevolent persons met to form a charitable institution, under the protection of the laws of the land. If this meeting acted irregularly, it was amenable, not to the Archdeacon of Bath, but to the civil power.

The peculiarity of the case, however, is, that the meeting was held under the sanction of the civil power; the Guildhall having been expressly granted for the purpose, by the Mayor of the city: and yet it was under such circumstances that the Archdeacon of Bath entered, with the avowed purpose of compelling the assembly to hear his vehement censures; thus claiming, without even a plausible argument, and exercising in a manner which in fact bordered on a breach of the peace, a right which, had it been peremptorily resisted, he would certainly have had no legal means of enforcing.

2. If the Reverend speaker thus mistakes the nature of his authority as Archdeacon, it is natural that his other assumptions should be equally erroneous.

The opinion which he seems to entertain, that the proposal of a Missionary Association at Bath went to impose the measure on the clergy, is altogether destitute of foundation. No such intention was ever entertained. The design was to give an opportunity to

such persons to attend, as might be disposed to aid the Society with their subscriptions. The idea of there being any thing irregular in the establishment of such an association, because the majority of the clergy of the neighbourhood did not happen to be present, is wholly untenable. The Society appeared as a supplicant not to claim or impose, but to explain, petition, and entreat. No voluntary Society ever received universal support. The friends of the proposed measure never expected to unite every suffrage in its favour, until its spirit and proceedings had become known, and it had outgrown the uncertainty and suspicions which naturally attach to an infant undertaking. All other Societies in our Church, however ancient they may now be, were formed at first by a few individuals, and had, like our own, to pass through a season of doubt, and difficulty and objection.

3. The Archdeacon equally mistakes, when he confounds the circumstance of the clergy declining, or omitting from whatever cause, to join the proposed institution, and their actually disclaiming and protesting against it. He ventured, indeed, to issue his Protest, not only in his own name, but in that of his Diocesan, the Bishop of Bath and Wells; but by what authority does not appear. Certain it is, that the Bishop of Bath and Wells, in a letter to which his respectable name is affixed by his own hand, and addressed to the provisional secretary of the intended association, though he declines the particular office of patron, which had been offered to him, does so in terms of courtesy and respect.' His Lordship fulminates no Protest against the Society, nor does he even hint the slightest disapprobation of it; though he would naturally have done so, if he had thought and felt with the Archdeacon of Bath. Nor does it appear that the Reverend Gentleman had any better title to include in his protest the names of the clergy of his jurisdiction, than that of his Diocesan. He expressly says, that he had neither directly nor indirectly communicated to any of them his intention of appearing at the meeting. If this disavowal be really what, in fairness, it ought to be, it must imply that he had not communicated to the clergy even his intention of entering an official Protest against the Society. With what propriety, then, could he afterward enter, as he does, this very Protest in their names? Mr. Archdeacon Thomas is unquestionably called upon, by this apparent inconsistency, to produce his authority for employing the names of his venerable Diocesan and of the vast majority of the clergy. If he received such authority, he can, of course, prove the fact; and, till he does so, the assumption which he makes must be considered as utterly unwarrantable.

See his Lordship's letter, in an address from the Bath committee, printed in Appendix I.

4. But the most extraordinary, and really indecorous part of the Archdeacon's denunciations, is that which he ventures to make against the Honourable and Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Gloucester, who took the chair at the Meeting.

What interference there could be with ecclesiastical jurisdiction, in simply being the chairman at a voluntary meeting of a benevolent society, does not immediately appear, and is unfortunately not explained by the Reverend Protester. Surely it never could occur, to any unbiassed mind, that the yielding to the wish of the friends of the proposed association, to direct the proceedings of their meeting, was any invasion of episcopal authority. Any other nobleman or gentleman might have been invited to the same brief and harmless duty. Such circumstances take place in every city of every diocese of Great Britain, without the slightest offence or umbrage.

The choice fell on the Bishop of Gloucester merely from the natural and high respect entertained for the character and rank of his lordship. As one of the vice-patrons of the Church Missionary Society, he was almost necessarily led to comply with an invitation which related to a proposed branch of the parent institution; and especially in the chief city of a diocese, in which his lordship held the distinguished station of Dean.

But, in fact, any one who had heard of the name of the Lord Bishop of Gloucester, of his assiduity in his parochial duties previous to his elevation to the Episcopal Bench, as well as in the discharge of his high ecclesiastical functions since that event, of his zeal for the establishment of National Schools, his activity in espousing the cause of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the British and Foreign Bible Society, and his ardor for forwarding the salvation of the heathen world, would immediately be induced to apply to him for aid on such an occasion as gave rise to the Protest. Undoubtedly it was impossible for a man of his lordship's principles and character, when he was once requested to take the chair at such a meeting, to decline the task: undoubtedly he could never endure that the proposed society should in any measure fail of success, because he refused to give it any aid which it might be in his power to furnish.

But these statements, though more than sufficient to silence the voice of intemperate censure, are rendered unnecessary by the circumstance that his lordship actually did consult the Bishop of Bath and Wells previously to his consenting to preach on the subject at Bath, and acquainted his lordship with his design of attending the Meeting. The following short statement under his own hand is to be seen at his lordship's bookseller's in London, which places