any legislation affecting a Provincial Synod? This is clear, that if no Australian Provincial Synod is summoned, the other dioceses cannot recognise the New South Wales Province,' and hence may arise all manner of difficulties.

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I asserted that the Metropolitan could not consistently sit in two distinct Provincial Synods. You admit that it would be so if they were of equal authority; but you deny that they are of equal authority-seeing that one is confined to the members of the Church in New South Wales: you confuse equal jurisdiction with equal territorial divisions. The two Provincial Synods would meet with equal authority, i.e. to discuss the same points, &c. the only difference would be that one would affect the whole Province, the other a few dioceses only. A Diocesan Synod in certain matters bows to the Provincial Synod. Their respective claims do not clash. The Bishop of Sydney, as Bishop, is inferior in power to the Metropolitan ; he would have to bow to the decisions of the Provincial Synod. But who is to decide between the Provincial Synods of New South Wales and of Australia, if they happen to clash? There is I believe no precedent for this double Metropolitanship, or this imperium in imperio in Provincial Synods.

"I trust that practically my fears may prove groundless, as, should the Colonial Bishoprics' Bill pass, the question of the consecration, discipline, resignation, &c. of future Bishops in Australia, may make an Australian Provincial Synod a matter of immediate importance, and even necessity." This rejoinder brought out "the Chancellor of the Diocese of Sydney," in a letter in which he says:—

"The Writer' complains that the Bishop of Sydney has formed a Provincial Synod confined to the dioceses of New South Wales. My answer is (putting aside for the present the question of name, which I will deal with hereafter), that a Provincial Synod has not been formed. The Writer' will see that I am correct, if he will refer to the 24th of the Constitutions, which defines the powers of the body or Synod, to the formation of which he objects. These powers are limited to two purposes, the first being the determination of any matter which may have been made the subject of joint reference by all the Diocesan Synods of the colony, and the second being the determination of any matter which may have been referred from a Diocesan Synod under the 6th Constitution, that is, some rule or ordinance agreed to by the clergy and laity, but to which the Bishop has refused his assent. All therefore that this Synod has to do, is to deal with matters falling originally under the cognizance of Diocesan Synods, and to determine these in cases where either uniformity of action is desirable in the several dioceses (leading therefore to the joint reference) or where a difference which it is wished to settle has arisen in the Synod of any one of these dioceses (leading therefore to the separate reference). It is, as it seems to me, impossible seriously to maintain that a body possessed of these limited powers, by whatever name it may be called, is a Synod the meeting and action of which can in any way interfere with the meeting and action of the Provincial Synod of the Australian dioceses. If, as the Writer' admits, 'the dioceses of New South Wales have a perfect right to meet for conference on account of their accidental connexion with New South Wales,' I am at a loss NO. CCLII.

to discover why the Synods also of these dioceses may not meet for conference, the utility of and even the necessity for such conference arising out of the accidental circumstance that they exist in the same colony, and that their ecclesiastical action has reference to and is to a certain degree influenced by one and the same code of temporal laws. Apologising for referring to anything personal to myself, I may mention that so strongly have I always been impressed with the idea that Provincial action must be the action of the whole of the Australian dioceses, that, when the Constitutions were under discussion before the Committee of the General Conference, I strenuously opposed the more extensive powers which some desired to give to the Synod of the New South Wales dioceses; and I had no small share in prevailing on the Committee to limit them in the manner above stated.

"The Writer' may however ask, how it came to pass that the name 'Provincial Synod' was given to the meeting of the New South Wales dioceses? Speaking for myself, I admit that I should at the time have preferred a designation which could not by any possibility have led to the mistake into which the Writer' has fallen; and I went so far, on the occasion already referred to, as to propose a more distinctive appellation; but the 'Provincial Synod' in its limited sense had been so long used in the discussion on Synodical constitution in New South Wales, and its meaning as thus used was so well understood, that it appeared on the whole desirable still to retain it."

With all respect for the learned Chancellor we would ask, Is this "testimony of one who had some share in the alleged act of schism” altogether reassuring? And is it easy to credit him for much earnestness on behalf of the real Provincial system so long as he leaves uncontradicted his share in the following astounding statement of the Australian Churchman of February 8th ?—

"The Chancellors of the Bishop of Sydney and the Bishop of Goulburn are understood to have advised those prelates not to recognise the excommunication and deposition of the Bishop of Natal on the part of the Bishop of Capetown acting as Metropolitan of South Africa!"

But whether or not the erection of the so-called "Provincial Synod of New South Wales" is an intrusion on the rights of the Province of Australia, no one can deny that a serious blow has since been dealt at the Catholic organization of the Church by the Synod of the Sydney diocese, and the Metropolitan himself has said so. That Synod, by abolishing the fees for marriage-licenses, and imposing instead a tax on each congregation, has undoubtedly usurped the functions of a Synod of the whole Province (though we cannot go further, and say, with some remonstrants, that by repealing the 62d Canon of 1603, it has "exercised a dispensing power quite ultra vires, unless they are to renounce identity with the Church of England"). Surely the eyes of all our brethren in Australia will soon be opened to the importance of a speedy convention of a genuine Provincial Synod. Extension beyond the bounds of the British Empire has not prevented the corporate action of the Province of South Africa; ought, then, the mere division of colonies to impede that of the Province of Australia?

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN ITALY.

THE sudden death of Cardinal d'Andrea at Rome may have been an event of great importance with regard to the Reform movement in the Italian Church. Dr. Prota and his other old friends at Naples have never ceased to declare that his "retractation" at Rome was extorted from him by extreme intimidation, and that in heart he was still true to those principles of genuine Catholicity which he had formerly avowed. This event reminds us of the previous loss which the cause of Italian Church Reform sustained by the death of Bishop Caputo. But-"God's ways are not as our ways."

The Emancipatore Cattolico, which we receive weekly from Naples, seems to show that the movement has taken too firm a hold of the South as well as of the North of Italy to be arrested by any such apparent misfortune. The unjustly excommunicated priests of the Society of which this is the organ are manfully battling against poverty and all the other troubles which have become their lot. Among the contents of the Emancipatore which have struck us most we may specify the stirring articles by Dr. Prota, addressed graphically to the Pope himself; a series of historic notices of the Bishops of Rome from the beginning, from which readers will probably learn for the first time of such things as the errors of a Liberius and a Vigilius; and the communications indicative of strong sympathy with the Greek Church as well as our own. A resumé of the history of the present Reform movement in Italy, and an account of some of its chief leaders, will be found in the following extracts from a Report made by the Rev. C. W. Langdon, Secretary of the Italian Committee of the Church in the United States, to Bishop Whittingham of Maryland, and published by his authority. Many of our readers will have recently seen three wise and able letters from the same pen, in the London Churchman, on the subject of our own duties towards the movement:

"Florence, January 18th, 1868.

"1. If one may venture to speak of any individual men as originating great changes of thought and revulsions of action, which have been really ripened by the events of generations, it may be possible, in a general way, to say with whom began the present movement. Gioberti and Rosmini undoubtedly sowed the seeds of a new ecclesiastical and religious philosophy, with the fruits of which one is ever and everywhere coming in contact. The Primato' of the former and Le Cinque Piaghe della Santa Chiesa ' of the latter, have apparently contributed more than all other human causes to direct the thoughts of the better classes of the clergy—already alienated from the Papacy by its determined hostility to Italian Unityinto new channels. I do not except even the circulation and the study of the Bible-if this indeed can be called a human cause— -for this itself has been one of the great results of this marvellous religious awakening. I have not been able to find any evidence of an open published advocacy of religious reform in the Church, of any specific aim, of an earlier date than

the issue of that remarkable work of Monsignore Tiboni, 'La Secolarizzazione della Biblia.' This was in 1861. Long before this, indeed, Canonico Reali had been forced to flee from Rome, to escape the consequences of his avowed opinions about the Monastic Orders and the Jesuits. Already was Count Tasca, lately returned from exile, engaged in his efforts to make his neighbours and fellow-countrymen acquainted with the great truths of pure religion and the principles of the English Church. Already had Parroco Mongini, strong in the devotion of his parish on Lago Maggiore, begun his bold warfare with the Pope, by denouncing the use of arms to defend his temporal possessions. But Tiboni's publication was the first stroke from an ecclesiastical dignitary retaining his important post in the Church aimed full at the reform which must needs underlie all others-the necessity of the free circulation and of the study of the Word of God.

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'During this and the following year Mongini's position became more and more advanced, as pamphlet after pamphlet carried the contest with Rome forward into the realms of real reform. Reali wrote and published two of his profoundly thoughtful works. Count Tasca accepted the agency of the Anglo-Continental Society, and prosecuted his devoted labours with more system and greater efficiency. Perfetti's eloquent pen was enlisted in the same cause; and finally, that irrepressible priest Don Ambrogio, once driven from his little parish by the sentence of excommunication, began to preach the great truths of the Gospel, and to denounce the corruptions of Rome, in the piazzas and under the porticos of Turin, upon the steps of the Milan Cathedral, or wherever men would gather to hear him, with ever-increasing clearness and power.

"Many other names of less note are of course found in looking over the letters of this period, or are referred to by the reformers in retrospective conversations; but until the close of the year 1863 there was no bond of unity between these men, no centre of influence representing their several aspirations and efforts.

"2. Perhaps no more striking illustrations of the revolution which was taking place are to be found than the cartoons which follow week after week in the humorous journals, and which meet the eye on every side, in the shop windows and upon the walls. Almost every one of these refers to Rome, the Pope, and the priesthood; and these have been for years impressing upon the people the one great patriotic truth of the times, that the Papacy, and the Church as governed by it, are thoroughly corrupt, and utterly antagonistic to the true interests of Italy. I have referred to one of these cartoons in my article published in the American Quarterly Church Review, January, 1868. Another, which to be sure has just appeared, but which will serve as well as an older to illustrate the character of this continuous training which the people thus receive, is well worth a brief description. Below, Charon is represented ferrying across the Styx the coffined Papacy—the tiara, over which an owl mounts guard, upon the lid. Above, Italy, a turret-crowned female figure, leads forward Liberty, who, stretching out her arms, looks up in an ecstasy of gratitude to heaven; while Rome, shaking the fetters from her wrists, rushes wildly into her embrace. In the background, the Italian soldiers are pressing on towards the capital, and Father Time, seated high on a beetling cliff,

under the shadow of which the dead Papacy is borne away, points to the principal group with the words, Time does justice to all.'

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Perhaps still more remarkable, as having nothing whatever to do with politics, are two coloured prints, published here in Florence, which I found strung up against the wall, over a stall in one of the principal thoroughfares, and which I bought for five centesimi (one cent) each. One of these represents St. Peter, scarcely clothed in rags, checking the centurion Cornelius, as he is about to throw himself at his feet; with the title explaining the occasion, and quoting the Apostle's words, Stand up, I myself also am a man.' The scene of the other is a cave, where a number of early Christians are gathered round a rude board. Near the head, in the act of blessing, stands a Bishop, simply, though ecclesiastically, habited in white tunic and mitre, his wife with her nursling in her arms on one side, and a half-grown boy on the other. A white-bearded

old man gazes at the Bishop with a look of loving reverence; others bow their heads devoutly, and the title reads, "A Bishop of those directly chosen by the Apostles assists, together with his wife and sons, at an Agape."

"Yet one cannot but be convinced that, as a general thing, this revulsion was from one extreme to another, from superstition to practical, if not openly avowed, infidelity. This certainly was, and is still, the fact as regards the great mass of the laity, who take a political interest indeed of the most intense kind in ecclesiastical questions, but habitually regard religion as something with which they have no concern whatever. No small portion even of the priests, at heart, take exactly the same view; while for the sake of their living, which is at stake, they continue and support also the old routine. The point of view, therefore, from which the need of reform addresses the best and most truly religious of the clergy, is the necessity of saving Italy from infidelity, and the Church itself from utter overthrow. However different priests and different writers would define their aims in detail, assuredly Prior Bianchi spoke the convictions of almost the entire earnestly religious section of the Italian priesthood, when, rising at the close of a little conversation on the subject, he summed up all he had said in the words, In fine, Signori, è o riforma o rovina Ï'

different

"3. Divine Providence had, however, long been training a very person for this solemn trust. A generation ere human eyes perceived a ray of promise for even the political liberty of Italy, much less of hope of the return of her venerable Church to religious truth and purity—nay, while her truest sons yet mourned the utter overthrow of such hopes as had been awakened by the career of the first French Empire-an earnest Christian Tuscan, left, while still in the prime of life, a widower with an infant son, resolved to dedicate himself to the immediate service of God, to the memory of his wife, and to the education of his child. With the latter object especially in view, instead of the cloister he chose the priesthood. A truly religious, nay, a godly man-a devoted student of the Bible, a faithful parish priest, without the narrowing effects of an Italian Episcopal seminary training-his was an instance, rarely to be found among the clergy of the Church of Rome, of a priest who neither had been in