A, to pay 2567. 5s. in one sum to secure 100l. a year for life after the age of sixty, whether he be then beneficed or not. Under Section C he will be required to pay only one-fourth of that sum, namely 647. IS. 3d., on the estimate that out of every four members who join there will be three of them beneficed at age sixty and only one unbeneficed; in which event the 647. 1s. 3d. paid at the outset by each of the four will provide 100l. a year to that one of their number who is then unbeneficed. In cases in which it is not convenient for the member himself, or by the aid of others, to pay 64%. 1s. 3d. in one sum, he may pay as its equivalent either five yearly premiums of 137. 135. each, or ten of 77. 10s. each, every such annual premium paid securing its proportion of the whole pension of 100%.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Income derived from external sources, and not designed for specified individuals, but for the benefit of members of the institution generally, will be allocated under such sections, and to such classes of beneficiaries under those sections, as may be appointed by the contributors, and in default of such appointment, by a committee. While the scheme is founded upon self-help, it also allows scope for giving practical effect to the conviction that the whole income of the Church is not more than enough-if it be enough-to support a sufficiently large body of vigorous clergy in active service, and that it is inadequate to support in addition those members of that body who become unfit for active service, and to enable all to provide for their widows and orphans besides. In reference also to the necessity for extraneous contributions in respect even of the feature of selfhelp, it has to be kept in view that before any definite benefit can be guaranteed to any member in return for a definite payment made by him, it will be necessary in terms of the Act of 33 and 34 Vict., cap. 61, to deposit 20,000l. with the Accountant-General of the Court of Chancery.

We will conclude with a few remarks on alleged objections to this scheme. These objections are, firstly, that it is not compulsory, and does not include widows and orphans ; secondly, that it is eleemosynary; and, thirdly, that Section C is founded on a basis of compulsion, and cannot be carried out in a voluntary form.

We have already stated that the first step taken by the committee was, by an overwhelming majority, to exclude compulsion from their purview, and that for the reasons we have already stated, fortified by the additional very important considerations that no advocate of compulsion, notwithstanding the alleged popularity of the proposal, was able to offer any reasonable proof of its practicability. It was therefore felt that its advocacy at the present time would obstruct, instead of furthering, the great objects in view. The same

initial difficulty probably weighed with the committee in not specially suggesting compulsory provision for widows and orphans.

It will, however, be observed that though the committee absolutely refused to make compulsory pension-provision in any form part of its recommendation, it has in its Report carefully made a place for the collection and administration of compulsory funds 'should they at any future time be found desirable and practicable.'

The second point of objection is based on the alleged eleemosynary character of the provisions. In this respect it is very important to distinguish between the initial payments contributed by members and the ultimate augmentation which may accrue from benefactions to the funds.

For these latter, contributed, and very largely, as indeed they would be, by Churchmen, for the good and efficiency of the Church herself, would be altogether wrongly regarded as eleemosynary. They would take the form of a bonus on the members' own independent contributions, and, so far as they went to increase retiring pensions, would be met on the part of each aged recipient by a very important quid pro quo, in the fact of his retiring in favour of a younger man from a benefice from which neither law nor justice could eject him. And being in every case contributed voluntarily for Church purposes by Church people, the augmentations would be endowments of the very same character as those which the retiring incumbent would resign, and the receipt of which, during his incumbency, he had never thought of regarding as an alms.

Initial payments of the premiums for pensions on the other hand might partake of an occasional eleemosynary character, but that would be only outside of the Society itself and its constitution, which therefore must not be saddled with any blame, if blame there be, in the matter. Suppose a curate at ordination knows that a payment of sixty odd pounds would secure him almost a certainty of a pension of 100% or more after sixty if unbeneficed, and were desirous of securing such a contract; supposing him able at most to contribute 15. of this sum himself (or roughly about 57. a year for three years); supposing further that, on application and a statement of his means, the Church Society of his diocese were willing to double his contribution; that, we will say, some of the very many existing clergy charities were willing, as securing them from the possibility of future far more pressing claims on their funds in his behalf, to contribute as much as

the Diocesan Society; and that a sum specially entrusted for aid of special cases to some central society were ready to pay the remaining fourth part, the thing would be done. The curate would make his contract on the fixed terms in the institution, and his policy, paid for at the fixed rate, would receive its own share of augmentation. Three-fourths of his initial payment might be eleemosynary, but with that the Pensions Institution need have nothing whatever to do or to inquire; all its business would be done on an independent footing, and the source of the initial payment would be simply the contractors' affair.

The dissent grounded on the supposition that Canon Blackley's proposal, provided for in Section C, can only succeed on a compulsory basis, is simply due to a misapprehension of his distinct statement to the contrary. Nor, were the supposition well founded, would it in the least affect the action of the institution, which only would guarantee, under Section C, the sum actually paid for, plus the due ascertained share of accretions, which in any case whatever must, as has been shown, be necessarily very great.

The fact that the law requires the deposit of 20,000l. on formation of any new annuity society, needs a word of remark as bearing on the wrongly supposed eleemosynary character of the institution. For it need not be imagined that in requiring for its beneficent purposes the initial deposit of 20,000l. anything like a gift of such a sum is asked for. It would hardly, were such the case, be a proceeding consistent with the self-help' principle laid down as essential to the success of such a scheme that its promoters should begin by 'asking an alms' of 20,000l. The deposit required would be only temporary, the persons depositing it being entitled to draw the interest of their securities lodged, and to withdraw the entire sum when once the accumulations of independent payments for benefits contracted for under the proposed scheme had reached to 20,000l. The law requires this sum to be deposited, because, in the case of any ordinary life office, large claims might by some exceptional fatality arise almost immediately after the foundation of the institution requiring a larger sum in cash than the whole premium income in hand would reach. But in a Clergy Pension Institution all the pensions would be deferred, nearly all for at least twenty-five years, and a great proportion for thirty-five years, during which time the premiums, paid chiefly in lump sums, on completion of contract, and all, if not in lump sums, in instalments within ten years at the utmost, would set free by

its great accumulation the initial deposit of 20,000l. within a very short time indeed of the institution of the fund.

In short, beyond the mere preliminary and administrative expenses, the latter only growing with the growth of the fund, no need could ever arise for drawing from the deposited fund, and no risk could be run by the depositors.

This seems so clearly obvious under the proposed constitution of the fund, that we can see no reason why the Ecclesiastical Commission, Queen Anne's Bounty Board, or any such institution, need hesitate to aid the proposed Church movement by the temporary deposit, without expending a halfpenny of cost or incurring a particle of risk, of securities to the value of 20,000l. with the Accountant-General of the Court of Chancery, in order to satisfy the wise requirements of the law.

SHORT NOTICES.

Primitive Consecration of the Eucharistic Oblation. By the Rev. E. S. FFOULKES. (London: J. T. Hayes, 1885.)

Is it the case that every celebration of the Holy Eucharist in the Western Church since the ninth century has been an insult to the Holy Ghost-only not a sin in that it has been committed ignorantly? This is one conclusion to which this remarkable book asks

our assent.

The ordinary belief of the Church for ages has been that the consecration of the elements in the Holy Eucharist is not effected without the words of institution; the difference between Eastern and Western theology on this point being that the Western Church believes the words of Christ alone to be sufficient, Jesus Christ Himself being the real officiant, as well as the victim, whereas the Eastern Church considers a verbal invocation of the Holy Spirit to be also necessary in order to complete the consecration.

As a matter of fact the words of institution form an integral part of every important extant Liturgy but one, that is the Liturgy of SS. Adæus and Maris, the oldest of the East Syrian (sometimes called the Nestorian') family of Liturgies. There are three more less important exceptions among the large group of Syro-Jacobite Liturgies; while three more of the same group, and one Copto-Jacobite Liturgy, are without one member of the words of institution. We call these exceptions less important' because these Liturgies are all non-orthodox. The absence of the words in their full form from Liturgies of the Gallican family makes only an apparent exception, for the cue-words Qui pridie,' or 'Ipse enim pridie,' are always inserted in the text, and show that the regular formula was supplied

from memory by the celebrant. It has been thought by some that this was also the case with the East Syrian Liturgy above mentioned.

On the other hand, an invocation of the Holy Ghost is found in every Eastern Liturgy; and sufficient traces of it are discoverable in Western Sacramentaries to have made most students of the subject feel quite sure that it was originally an integral part of the Gallican type of Liturgy, and to raise a strong suspicion that it once was a part of the Roman Liturgy too.

The object of Mr. Ffoulkes's book is first to prove that down to about the middle of the ninth century consecration of the eucharistic elements was universally held to be effected by a prayer for the descent of the Holy Ghost, and that the words of institution were only used at the distribution of the consecrated elements to the communicants. Mr. Ffoulkes says (p. 418), 'invariably repeated by the celebrant in distributing.' This is certainly a slip; for the earliest account of the matter (Justin Martyr's) informs us that the distribution was made by the deacons. Secondly, he attempts to show by what means the theology of the whole Church has come to be altered, how the words of institution have had the consecrating efficacy attributed to them, and how the prayer of invocation has dropped out of all Western Liturgies. We are to believe that the whole of this mighty change has been brought about by the influence of the Clementine Liturgy! A summary sketch of part of Mr. Ffoulkes's theory appeared in his article Eucharist,' in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography, which was partially dealt with in a former number of this Review (April 1882, On the Clementine Liturgy). His estimate of that Liturgy is thus stated in his present work (p. 212)

'As an instrument put into the hands of the author of evil, and mainly through its insertion in a collection of ordinances supposed to be the work of the Apostles, this Liturgy may be called historically the dpxn Kak@v with perfect truth, the root of all the bloody controversies, and false doctrines, and interminable divisions, that have so long distracted Christendom, in connection with what Christ ordained for a sacrament of love.'

The following is an attempt to represent, we hope not unfairly, certainly not intentionally so, Mr. Ffoulkes's line of argument. This so-called Clementine Liturgy, we are told, is obviously an offspring of the Macedonian heresy, and was very probably composed by Eusebius of Emesa, who must have been a personal friend of Arius, and may well have spent his leisure in compiling the Apostolical Constitutions. He, however, apparently shrank from becoming known as the author of that work, but may have entrusted his friend George, Bishop of Laodicea, to bring it out after his death so as best to secure their incognito'; and the name of Clement may have suggested itself to one or both of them for that purpose. We may suppose George of Laodicea to have exhibited them as the work of Clement to Eustathius of Sebaste, and Eustathius in turn to S. Basil. We know further that S. Chrysostom was an admirer of, and