The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-08 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, YONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 8, 1869.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

Reform- al* he still thofight the Eriglish Ginirch
to be a part of the kingdom of God. The Church
had a perfect right to suppress monasteries, to drop
the issue of indulgences, to allow the clergy to marry,
and to alter her creed. The question therefore was
whether Archbishop Parker was properly conse-
crated, whether through him the Church received
apostolic succession. No denial of her apostolic
succession was raised until seventy years
after the consecration, and we have historical
evidence to prove that Archbishop Parker was
legally and canonically consecrated by four other
bishops who were themselves consecrated by the Pope.
They might, therefore, boldly declare that the Church
of England possessed apostolic authority. Nor was
the Church guilty of heresy, seeing that she held the
Nicene Creed. Moreover, as to Christian worship, the
Church—as such, and distinguishing it from the
State—had never abolished vestments, lights, the
mass, or the other practices of the -Universal
Church. It is difficult to conceive of that state of
mind in which the right of the clergy to teach the
Word of God and to administer the Sacraments was
thought to be dependent upon the decision of
antiquaries as to whether an Elizabethan prelate
was properly consecrated or not. If the Church of
England depends solely upon the solatioa of that
question for the validity of her mission ; if she has
established no claim upon the affection of the people;
if she can shew no proof of the soundness of the tree
in the shape of the fruit, the sooner she is cut down
as a cumberer of the ground the better.
Father Ignatius has greatly scandalised the Roman
Catholics, by stating that he has lately received the
Holy Communion at the hands of a Roman
Catholic priest in a Roman Catholic church.
The " Father" rather gloried in this achieve-
ment, we presume because he considered
it a step towards the reunion of Christendom. We
can see small occasion for gratification. Mr. Lyne
must have known well enough that no Roman
Catholic priest would have dared or wished to
administer to him, if it had been known that he was
not a member of the Roman Church. If he com-
municatisd he did so under false pretences, and how
that will advance reunion we fail to see. At Glasgow
a similar piece of deception has led to a rule by which
every intending communicant is obliged to exhibit
a ticket signed by a priest before he is allowed by the
vergers to approach the rails.

deny that it would be advantageous to seriously consmer
the policy of accepting the Paris declaration. But they.
urged that their previous line of conduct was such as to
place an unconditional submission out of the question, and
they therefore offered their resignation. Several attempts
were made to find a set of politicians who would be willing
to take office and adopt a conciliatory policy ; but
such could not be found. The King made another
appeal to the patriotism of his Government. A compromise
was the result, and Delyannis was instructed to draw up a
reply which should give explicit adhesion to the declara-
tion of the powers, and yet preserve for the future the
national rights and aspirations of Greece. But the repre-
sentatives of the Powers, sounded apparently beforehand,
declared th is reply inadinissible. They might h ave urged that
acquiescence in a condemnation of the Greek violators of
international law, accompanied by a reservation of the
right to violate such law in future, was a contradiction in
terms. The Ministry have again offered its resignation,
and King George was compelled to accept it. This state
of affairs is not necessary. All the members of the Cabinet
were not opposed to a policy of peace; the Minister of Finance
especially was decisively in favour of such a course, and
the inability of this statesman to form a Peace Cabinet is
incomprehensible save on the supposition that public
opinion is with the warlike Bulgari9 and his followers. In
leG4 the Cretan malcontents offered to rise on condition
of receiving the secret but effectual assistance of Greece.
The courage and prudence of some Greek politicians
secured the rejection of this offer. What has become of
this pacific element ?
Later advices state that the difficulty of forming a
Ministry is so great that a further delay of eight days has
been granted,