The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-03 00:00:00

THE BISHOP OP CHESTER ON RITUALISM.

The Bishop of Chester has returned the follow-
ing answer to • memorial signed by 128 clergymen of
Liverpool and the district:
" Hawarden Castle, Chester, Dec. 28.
"My dear sir,—l have been requested to send to you
my answer to an address signed by 128c1ergymen of Liver-
pool and the neighbourhood. In connexion with one of
the heads of cow plaint contained therein, viz., practices,'
which the memorlslisfa consider 'unwarranted,' which are
afterwards explained to mean ' gestures, ceremonies, and
vestments,' they with good reason regret that 'the law is
ambiguous.' That ambiguity has recently been aggra-
vated by the conflicting opinions given by very eminent
lawyers. And no good result could be expected from any
exertion of authority which cannot be sustained by law.
I In the exercise of ' free thought,' with which the memorial.
ista ' deprecate any undue interference,' they will, doubt.
less, be prepared to allow that our public service, according
to local circumstances, admits of various degrees of cabal-
ligament, when such embellishment is not employed to
symbolise doctrines repudiated by our church, but is kept
within its due limits, as offering additional legitimate at.
traction, as ministering to the ascertained edification of the
congregation, and, therefore, adopted with their concur.
rence. The particular ceremony specified in the address,
' the elevation for worship of the consecrated elements',
appears to me to be contrary to the concluding
of the 28th article, to the declaration subjoined"' fors&
rubric at the end of the communion office, and to the
obligation under which ear clergy place themselves to
give their faithful diligence always so to minister the
doctrine and sacraments . . . . as this church and
realm bath received the same.' The second head
of complaint is ' the use of services not contained in
the Book of Common Prayer.' As no came of this
kind has been reported to me from either archdeaconry,
it may, I hope be concluded that no presentation of such
practices has been made by any of the churchwardens, to
all of whom this question is put Tear by year, Does your
officiating minister, properly hahited, perform the service
of the shun& as prescribed in the Book of Common
Prayer?' The use of such services is in my Judgment
irreconcilable with the declaration solemnly made by our
clergy, that they will ' use the forms in the said book
prescribed and none other.' I have no sympathy with
ceremonial innovations or revivals. But, while I offer my
thanks to the memorialists for the respect which they ex-
press for my °Moe, I will beg their permission to remind
them that if the law is invoked for the suppression of
errors on the side of excess, it must be expected that strict
conformity to the Rubric will be insisted upon whenever
variations or omissions in any of the offices of the church
have come to have the sanction of custom.—l remain, my
dear sir, very faithfully young, " WILLIAM CiIIZSTER.
" Tho Rev. Augustus Campbell, rector of LiverpooL"

Nsw NATIONAL GALLIERY.—WO are requested
to state that foreign ministers, members of the two Hoene
of Parliament, royal academicians, and the competing
architects, will, on presentation of their cards at the
entrance door, by the Victoria Tower, in the New Palace
at Westminster, be admitted on Monday and Tuesday,
the 7th and Bth instant, between 10 and 4, to view the
designs for the new National Gallery, in the Royal
Gallery ; and that the public will be admitted on Wed.
nesday, the 9th instant, and the three following days,
and also on the four last days of each of the two succeed.
ing weskit
MR. SPURGEON'S ALMSHOUSES AND ORPHANAGL
—The Rev. C. H. Spurgeon ham just concluded the par.
chase of two and a half acres of land, adjacent to Clap.
ham Common, upon which the buildings for the purposes
of the new orphanage, under his auspices, will be erected.
It is, however, not intended to commence the whole
structure at once. In the centre of the site the schools,
chapel, and other nacemary buildings, will be first pro.
ceded with ; after which small houses will be reared, in
which the children can live to the number of 10 or 20 to
each. It is pei;ectly ecerect as stated some time since,
that a benevolent lady has placed a sum of 20,000 f. at his
command for the pr-Pose of the orphanage ; but it is ac-
companied by a condition that only B,ooof. out of it shall
be spent, the remaining 12,0001. to go to (*pits/ account
for the permanent benefit of the institution. The first
batch of orphans who will be admitted will number 50,
and Mr. Spurgeon has intimated a hope that the metr
ben of his congregation will make their clothes, and that
tailors and cloth-dealers will be found to give them the
cloth, S 8 in the case of the Bristol Orphanage. He also
invitee working bricklayers to give a day or two's work by
way of their contribution. The almshouses and day
schools, which will stand next to the Metropolitan Taber-
nacle, at Walworth, are now sufficiently advanced toadmit
of the laying of the foundation-stuns during the present
month.

EXETER-HALL.—The Creation will be performed
this even' by the National Choral Society, conducted by
Mr. G. W. Martin. The solo parts will be sung by Riau
Louisa Pyne, Mr. Leigh Wilson, and Mr. Santley.
SCHOLASTIC REGISTRATION ASSOCIATION. —The
that annual general meeting of this association, open to
all schoolmasters and teachers, will be held on Tuesday,
Bth January, et 3 p.m., at the rooms of the Society of Arts,
John-street, Adelphi, W.C. The honorary secretary will
read a report of the progress of the movement to this date,
and will fully explain the constitution and operations of
the association. Several gentlemen of influence will take
part in the meeting ; and it is earnestly hoped that all
promoters of educational reform will endeavour to attend,
and co-operate with those whose object is to obtain far
the public some protection against incompetent educators,
and for the profession the position to which its character
and importance entitle it..—Edueutional Times.
THE NEW BISHOP POE NATAL.—The Vicar of
Wantage, who was lately elected bishop by a number of
the clergy of Natal, writes to the Guardian •—" Sir,—
May I be permitted to state in your columns, for the sake
of many friends, and for the information of your readers,
that I received only on Christmas-eve the moat unlooked•
for tidings that the dean and clergy of the diocese of Natal
had elected me their bishop! After most anxious cons&
deration, I have felt myself quite unable to decide between
conflicting duties, and I have therefore left the matter in
the hands of those on whose judgment and knowledge and
love of God's church every one, were I at liberty to mem
ton their names, would implicitly rely.—W. J. lICTLE/1.-.
Wantage Vioartge, Deo. 31, 186 b."
LAST AND NEXT NOVEMBER STAR SHOWERS.—A
comparison of the whole number of meteors observed
with the numerical results of previous showers shows that
this shower was far less significant than some of its prede-
cessors. Whether other parts of the world witnessed •
grander phase in the display than we in England did, we
cannot say, for there is at present no authentic informs.
tion on the point. M. Coulvier Gravier, who ought to be
an authority, at a recent sitting of the French Academy
of Sciences, suggested that the maximum display of the
epoch might be expected in November, 1867 ; because, ha
said, the really great showers ere 34 years apart instead of
33, and the last of these was that of DIM. Moreover, be
called attention to the fact that every very grand shower
is preceded b 7 one not so grand in the year before it. This
was the uses in 1532.33; whether it will be so this tiros
we must wait till next November to leant—The Gentle.
man's Ma'arine.
THE RECENT DISCOVERY OF COAL IN SHEAF,
AHIRE.—The works in connection with the sinking of a
pair of shafts in the reputed dead ground near Priors Lee,
the successful issue of which has opened up a new coal-
field, are now complete, the miners having reached the
" clod coal," the ultimate stratum of the bed. In accom-
plishing this they have passed through the several seams
of coal usually found in this district, the aggregate thick-
ness being in this case not less than 29 feet. Of this the
clod coal just reached is 6 feet thick, and the " readies*
which immediately overlies it, separated merely by a thin
stratum, is 4 feet, the two fornunge coal seam 10 feet is
thickness. The original estimate of the yield from this
mine is fully confirmed by the working, and it is computed
to contain upwards of ten million tons of coal. The
shafts have been named the Granville I'its, in compliment
to Earl Granville, one of the principal partners in the
Lilleshall Company, who are working the mine. The
Granville Pits were experimentally sunk to the east of
the line geologically known as the Great Shropshire vault,
and the result having demonstrated the fallacy of the dic-
tum that no coal could exist in that direction at a point
nearer than that at which the Staffordshire coabfield is
worked, a fresh district has been opened to mining enter,
prise, and the Lilleshall Company are about to follow cep
their first encores by sinking another mine further east.
THE LIVERPOOL CORPORATION AND JUVENILE
Rseonmaromem—At their meeting yesterday, the Liver-
pool Town Council resolved to rent some land near Liven
pool, end to erect on it buildings suitable for a juvenile
reformatory, at a cost of 3,000 L, and also to pay Is. Per
bead for each boy committed by the local meg-Wren to
the reformatory. The Juvenile Reformatory Association
are to manage the reformatory, and pay the corporation
4i per cent. on the above outlay, the corporate officials
having at all times access to the establishment.
Thedonationareceived yesterday by the Mansion-
house Committee amounted to 6.121., including the follow-
ing :--Collection from the city of Gloucester, 1501. ; 0?1-
lection from Torquay, 31/. ss. Offertory money from Christ I
Church, Paddington, 129/. 11s. 3d. ; Mr. J. H. Fiske
20/. ; Mr. Walford Greater's, Mt. ; the agents and woe,"
men at Granville Colliery, 121. 9a. 11d. ; the Carpenters'
Company, 21/. ; and from Mr. Arthur Leslie, 10/.
We regret to announce that Mr. Hyde, of Barns-
ley, one of the four persons who were injured by a carristo
accident on Friday last, near Barnsley, died on Monday
evening. He was attended by Dn. Jackson and Sadler
to the evening he died, bet a fracture of the spine clod
the unfortunate gentleman sustained put an end to Int
sufferings. He was 77 years of age, and was brother-
in-law to the late Mr. Locke, M.P. for Honiton. 111.
Locke, of Manchester, who was in the conveyance, 0
better.

ACCIDENT TO A HONTSMAN.—Loyd Fitzhardinge..
bead whip, Henry Edwards, met with a bad accident wbe•
nut with the hounds on Monday. lie was attempting,r_
t dee a fence near the Three Gates, at Kington, when to,
horse made a balk, and fell bsokwards upon its rider.
Assistance was immediately at hand, and a surgeon wl,°
fortunately happened to be in the 'muting field was woo
present, and rendered all n medical aid. Althoufb
no limbs were broken, Edwards has sustained some ref
serious injuries.