The Church Congress is in session at Northampton, and its debates have been of exceptional interest. The subjects of warmest controversy have been Ritualism and the Confessional; but a matter of even greater importance to the Church is the attitude which it ought to adopt towards modern Biblical criticism. At a debate on this question yesterday, speaker after speaker urged the necessity recognising the results of scientific criticism and acknowledging the impossibility of regarding the Old 'Testament, at all events, in the same light that it was regarded fifty ears ago. As Professor Kirkpatrick put it, " many students of the Old 'Testament, probably a majority of them, have found it necessary to revise their' views of its textual, literary, and historical character." On the other hand, there are of course some who, like Prebendary Wace, "do not believe that any conclusion has been established which seriously shakes the historical character of the Old Testament narratives." The general effect of the discussion was to disclose an immense general broadening of view on the part of the Church, Mr, Kensit.
General sympathy has been evoked by tthe sad circumstances of the death of Mr. iKensit. How far his death, which was primarily due to pneumonia, may be ho sustained at Birkenhead ast week, attributed to the serious injury which
when a large file was thrown at him, piercing his face above the eye, has to be proved at the inquest and at the trial of the man accused of throwing the file; but there can be very little doubt that that outrage was the real cause of his death. The great majority of Protestants, Dis-penters es well as" Churchmen, strongly disapprove of the methods by which Kensit and his -Wycliffites have sought to combat what they consider to be idola~ trous and Romanist practices in Anglican Churches; but the merciful decision of the Home Secretary by which Mr. Ken-sit's son has been. released from prison since his father's death is generally approved. He had been imprisoned in con-to sequence of his refusal sureties to find be of good behaviour.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.