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ST. DAVIDS DIOCESAN CONFERENCE.…

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ST. DAVIDS DIOCESAN CONFERENCE. CATIiOLICI'F'Y'-OF, TIIE, CHURCH. ST. DAVID'S iJiocesan* Conference was opened on Wednesday in Swansea. A special service was held in the parish church, when a stirring sermon, which we publish on another page, was preached by .Canon Barnes, of Westminster Abbey. The Bishop of St. Davids, in his presi- dential address, pointed out that it is twenty-one years since the Diocesan Con- ference last met in Swansea. Since the Conference met last year four of its lead- ing members had been called to their rest- Dean Allan Smith, Archdeacon Hilbers, General Sir James Hills-Johnes,, -G.C.B., V.C., and Mr. 11. T. Raikes. The Bishop vent on to speak of the catholicity of the Church. "In the first place, faith in ,Christ means confidence in the future of the Church because- it is His. The com- ing change in the external relation's of the Church in Wales to the State means no change of any kind, direct or indirect, in the nature-of the Church itself. Natural science has taught us that to understand aright any part of a living organism it is necessary always to study the whole of jvhich it is a part. Life is more than an aggregate of fractions. So .then the first truth to realise in regard to the Church in Wales at the present time is that it is an integral part of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ, which is a fundamental article of the Christian faith enshrined in the Apostles' Creed. It is in its catholicity, not in its recognition by the State, that its qualification for its national mission consists. The best corrective to any doubt-tliat the Church of England is not one whit less Catholic because it is Re- formed is a steady personal study of the marvellous fidelity of the whole spirit of the Prayer Book to the Word of God. Welsh Churchmen may, therefore, face the future with confidence that the Church in Wales may rely without any shadow of misgiving in proportion to its needs and to its faith upon the Divine promises made t6 the whole Church of Christ. Our faith to be strong must be posi- tive. It is in negations that the root of bitterness and of its inevitable conse- quence, feebleness, is to be found. No combination is more irrational than that of catholicity in theory, with sectarianism in spirit, or particularism in practice. Belief in catholicity is mere vanity unless it is an aspect of faith in Christ, for it is in Him that the unity of the Church's life entirely consists. Meaning and Scope of the Church. A second aspect of faith in Christ is belief in the mission of the Church be- cause it comes from Him. In the grave situation which our country and the whole world have to face for many years after the war, we are called upon to realise afresh in the new light of the war the meaning and scope of the mission of the J Church. Two duties have been in the past too much isolated from each other. The first of these two duties is to deepen per- sonal religion. The second duty is to take part in the mission of the Church. When the first duty was isolated from the second there was an inevitable temptation to look upon personal religion primarily as a means of personal security in the future life and a means of personal happiness in the present life. An atmosphere of spiri- tual utilitarianism was created. The social aspect of the Gospel was obscured, and spiritual service came to be regarded as the call of a few, esppcially the clergy, rather than as the universal bounden duty of all. When the second duty, on the other hand, was isolated from the first, a ten- dency to ineffectual, because unspiritual, Church activity was a sore temptation. Inordinate stress was laid on organisation, and the necessity of raising money for Church' purposes led to dubious devices for that object which weakened the true spirit of sacrifice. The isolation of the first duty led young men and young women, full of generous enthusiasm for active enterprise, to misconceive the Church as an institution of use only for the weak and the aged, and to seek scope for their energy in secular combinations or in the pursuit of pleasure. The isolation of the second duty from the first, on the other hand, tended to a view of the Church as an end in itself instead of a means in the hands of God for the service of mankind, with the inevitable consequence that the Church tended to become secularised in spirit. The growing needs of our country at the present time urgently call upon the Church to grasp with fresh vigour the vital unity of these two duties, which have been far too much separated. It is upon a real unification of these two sides of its duty that the future effectiveness of the Church's mission turns. Faith and Difficulties, H The third aspect of faith in Christ, with which I close to-day, is the way in which it turns difficulties into encourage- ments. It is. easy to see the difficulties which beset the Church in Wales at the present time. The most obvious, though not, I think, the chief difficulty, is the financial difficulty. It sounds at first simply appalling that the Church in Wales, which was not well endowed be- fore, should lose an incevme of Y,48,000 a year at a time when the cost of living is more than doubled since 1914, and when the country is heavily burdened with na- tional deBt and high taxation on account of the cost of the war. The Representa- tive Body came to the c-onclusian on Octo- ber 30 that, in addition to the voluntary contributions now raised for all church purposes, an additional sum of at least < £ '150,000 a year will have to be raised in voluntary contributions if the efficiency of church work in Wales is to meet the needs of our time. We have to face all our difficulties squarely. When we come to close quarters with our financial diffi- culty, the plan followed for the last twenty-one years in this diocese, first by the Diocesan Fund Board, and afterwards, for the last five years, by the Diocesan Board of Finance, suggests the way to ¡ meet it. If all church communicants in Wales were to give in parochial contribu- tions a shilling a month on an average in addition to what they now give for all church purposes, and if those who have larger means were all to give,. each accord- ing to his or her means, personal contri- butions, either in capital sums or in annual subscriptions, or in both ways, the amount that is necessary would be raised without too great a burden upon anybody. The question- is whether all Church people will do their duty in this respect with the same faithfulness as many do now. It is in the uncertainty as to the answer to this question that our financial difficulty precisely consists. A well-considered or- ganisation will have, of course, to be arranged, but the success of the appeal, when it is made, will depend, after all, not on organisation, but on the united prayer of all faithful Church people that God may move the hearts of all to do their duty."

ANCIENT ESSEX CHURCH.

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