Tur agreement arrived at by the American Bishops of Shanghai and Hankow and Bishop Molony of Mid-China in conference at Lambeth Palace on July 28 regarding the question of episcopal jurisdiction in the central portion of China brings to a close a controversy that has exercised the minds of Anglicans in this country for more than a decade. For sixty-four years concurrent jurisdiction has been exercised in Shanghai and over the Lower Yangtze basin by English and American bishops, and the system was understood to work with complete harmony and amity. At a conference of the Bishops in China held in 1897 the existing arrangement was challenged the American Bishop of Shanghai, who complained of misunderstandings caused by the overlapping of interests, and a claim was advanced for the surrender of all episcopal jurisdiction in Central China to the American Church. The Bishops then assembled contented themselves with a resolution, which, while not admitting grave cause for interference, expressed gratification "if the Bishops of the English and American Churches, in concert. with the missionary organizations of the Churches... can arrive at an adjustment which shall at once vindicate the due position of the American Bishop in Shanghai and the valley of the Lower Yangtze, and recognize the vested rights of the Bishop and members of the Church of England in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Shanghai." Six years later, however, at another conference the Bishops in China "went further and resolved that while the foreign clergy and the foreign congregations. of the English and American Churches: in China should continue their existing relations with their respective national Bishops, all Chinese Christians and bade the Anglican communion in Shanghai and the rest of the Province of Kiangsa should recognize the Bishop of the American Church their Bishop. At the Conference of 1897 it was decided that, while the resolution regarding the relation of the English and American Churches in China should be placed on record, it was expedient not to make it public, but to leave all initiative to the Home Churches. Within little more than a month, The H.-C. Werad ant S. Cc. & C. Gazelte, however, the American (Churches had appointed a committee of Bishops to lay their case before the Archbishop of Canterbury, and almost the first intimation of the new movement that reached the clergy of the Church of England in Mid-China was an undertaking on the part of the Archbishop of Canterbury "to do all in his power to correct the mistakes: of the past," and to obviate all future " interference."
In 1903 the Bishops decided formally to approach the Heads of the two Churches with a request to give effect to their resolution.
both occasions the Bishops in conference saw fit to arrive at their decisions without reference to their clergy or congregations, and though actuated with the best intentions for peace and goodwill in the Anglican communion, they entirely overlooked the wishes of the clergy and laity and the reception likely to be given to the proposed arrangement. At once a strong feeling of resentment was aroused. On the one hand the foreign section showed considerable anxiety regarding the ultimate designs of the American Church upon Holy Trinity Cathedral and other English congregations, while the Chinese Christians, notably in the case of St. Paul's Church, Shanghai, were so far ruffled as to express a determination not to allow themselves to be handed about from one jurisdiction to another without reference to their own wishes on the subject. 'The main line of argument against the Bishops' resolution was that: no change was required, and that even if it could be shown to be expedient, any proposals should be submitted first to the congregations concerned. It was to be expected that, in view of the strong opposition' to the change, the Bishops' scheme would be tacitly dropped but the American Church proved insistent, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, apparently unaware of the real situation in Mid-China, gave his assent to the Bishops' resolution, before the report of the opposition to which it had given rise reached his Grace. Through the services of Bishop Moale it was agreed that the Archbishop's raling should be noted and accepted pro forma; but that the whole subject should be referred to the Pan-Anglican Synod of 1908. From the Concordat which we publish to-day it will be seen that a working compromise has finally been achieved.
Judged by purely sectarian considerations, the agreement regarding episcopal jurisdiction in 637 the valley of the Lower Yangtze must be regretted on sentimental grounds as a surrender by the English Church of its unassailable rights in a field over which spirit tually as well as commercially and politically Great Britin's influence for sixty years been paramount. Fortunately, however, we may view the Concordat from an entirely different standpoint. It tells us that nothing more isto be heard of any "claim" on the part of the American Church to monopolize episcopal jurisdiction in Central China; but, inasmuch as the daughter Church has convinced herself that the cause of Christianity can be furthered by a division of jurisdiction, the Church of England has consented in a spirit of whole-hearted generosity to admit the experiment. It is to be hoped that it will ultimately promote the harmony and efficiency of the two Churches in China, although it has to be acknowledged that-up to the present the scheme has been provocative of schism rather than of goodwill. Among its most satisfactory features are the concessions won for St. Paul's Charch and the security given that Holy Trinity Cathedral is to remain permanently unaffected by all changes of jurisdiction in the Anglican Communion.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.