The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-02-15
1HECoR0NA1IoN YEAR.

A Great aud Memorable Time for Eng
 Ind-rho State Church-The Nfetho.
 dists and Their Twentieth Century
 Fund-rhe Generous Scotchmen-In Tn
 Congregational CircIes--Dr, Joseph
 Parker, General Booth, Canon Gore
 and John kensIt.
 London, Feb 1,
 To the Editor of the Journal and Courier; Great and memorable will be this cor
 onation year, judging by what the first
 month has brought forth, for other req
 sons than the absorbing spectacle
 scheduled to take place in June. The
 crowning of King Edward and Queen
 Alexandria will stir the social and po-
 litical world as nothing has done since
 the lovely and youthful Victoria came
 to her inheritance in 1888. But behind | politics and the throne, and having, in
 this country, a vital relation to them,
 are the state church and the still wider
 circle of influence which embraces all i the churches and the cause of religion ] in general and it is interesting to note i that within that realm events are oc- l curing which are as certain to make 1 the year 1902 a red-letter one as is the ! brilliant ceremonial which will take place five months hence in Westminster
 Abbey. Unfortunately, some of these l 1a1i ioi 1+c f1p n baV 1 have gone in the first month of the l year, are omnous of strife and disrup l tion, But others presage churchly pros perty and the coming together of forces which have long been weakened by fool ish divisions.
 Canon Hensley Henson is still at the front as a pleader for denominational reunion, To properly rate this state church dgnitary one must remember that he is a canon of Westminster Ab'- bey, and also the rector of St. Marga ret's, that historic and aristocratic church which stands on the same site as the abbey and which, if you are seeking to enter the abbey by the north transept, seems, in it's chimes and beau tiful architecture, to be a rival of the larger and better-known temple in of fering you the opportunities of impress sive worship. To the readers of these letters it is already known that Canon Henson signalized the closing of the old year by series of remarkable sermons, delivered to crowded congregations in the church where the coronation will take place, In these he condemned the eXclusiVeness of his own fold and raised his voice in favor of intereommunica- tion-that is, the exchange of pulpits and other acts of brotherliness-be tween ministers of the Establishment and pastors of the dissenting denomina- tlons.
 Canon Henson doesn't believe in apos- tOlic succession in the sense in which his own church holds to it. On the con- trary, he recognizes that bodies like the Wesleyans, the Congregationalists, the Baptists and the Presbyterians are as really churches of Christ as is the Church of England, and that their min isters are as truly ministers of Christ This was strong doctrine to enunciate from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey Many thought his series of eight ser mons would be rudely broken in upon
 
 would be sienced But he was not. and now from having at the colse of the old year preached these doctrines in his own pulpit he has gone in the first month of the new year to repeat them at City Road chapel-John Wesley's a company of Methodist preachers. Here is a religious develop ment of the coronation year which dis tinctly presages good. It may be long before this daring ecclesiastic gains his point, but all must admire his broad minded courage, and all well-wishers of !. England should hope that eventually, under leadership of this kind, the Els tablished church and the Free churches will attain to something like working 
 This reference to the Methodists re- minds us that in what is known here as the Wesleyan church, the largest of the seven or eight bodies which own allegi- ance to John Wesley, the coronation | year will be memorable because at any from now the announcement may be made that this church has com- | pleted the raising of its twentieth cen tury fund. The total aimed at was five lllIllOll utIldFS dnu u KICKS now aDdut | two hundred thousand of that sum- On the last Sunday of the old year it's cash collections for this fund were over three hundred thousand dollars. Public appeals have now ceased, but, led by R. w. Perke M. P, who has engineered this enterprise from the first, the rich men of Methodism are at the present silently fumbing for the bal ance in their own pockets, and it is a oregone certainty that before King Ed ward is formally crowned this balance will be Forthcoming, and the cap stone 1e thus put upon an undertaking which s relatively far beyond what has been lone in the same line by American and so far beyond what ,ther English churches have done in wentieth century money raising that English critics are constantly holding it ID as a reproachful example to the oth- r churches. The state church, notwithstanding the poverty of many of it's clergy, has in ( no twentieth century fund, md for their remissness in situation if great need the authorities of that hllrcf are heinz severely Taken to task |