By the very fact of baptism men are incorporated into the one Church of Christ. A large number of Christians, it is true, do not consider themselves members of the Mother Church. Yet all those who were baptised in the name of the triune God outside the pale of the Catholic Church belong to her. Everyone wishing to baptise and doing so in the prescribed way, baptises validly, and anyone may do so in case of emergency. The Council of Trent has laid down that whoever denies that baptism, even if administered by heretics, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the Church does, is true baptism, shall be anathema. Anyone who has been validly baptised is and remains a member of the Apostolic Church. A son does not cease to be the child of his parents though he grows up far from his home. In like manner the character of regeneration and of membership in Christ, bestowed by baptism, is not obliterated, though a man be brought up in ignorance of Mother Church, without her instruction, and without receiving her other sacraments.

It has been said that baptism gives grace to live according to the precepts of the Gospel. Our separated brethren bear witness to this fact, in as much as they faithfully adhere to the Apostolic Creed, believe in the divinity of Christ, and keep the ten commandments; devoutly pray the Our Father, and in simplicity of heart make the teaching of Scripture the foundation of their lives.

In May 1939 the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury humbly requested His Grace the President (in conjunction with the President of the Convocation of York) to appoint a Commission to consider the whole question of the revision and codification of the Canon Law. Later on in the summer of 1939 the Commission was appointed under the title “Canon Law Commission” by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Lang) in conjunction with the Archbishop of York (Dr Temple) with the following terms of reference:

A—To consider and report on the questions:

(1) What is the present status of Canon Law in England (a) as regards canons in force before the Reformation; (b) as regards canons made and promulgated since the Reformation; and (2) What method should be followed to determine which canons are to be regarded as obsolete and to provide the Church with a body of canons certainly operative and apart from which none would be operative or reasonably regarded as operative.

B—To prepare, if after such consideration this seems expedient, a revised body of canons based on the conclusions reached under A above, for submission to Convocation.

‘In order to make its conclusions intelligible to the ordinary reader the Commission has written much of its report in the form of a short history of Canon Law, dealing with its origins and the part which it has played in the life of the Church of England. The report is divided into seven chapters. Chapter I deals with the place of law in the Christian Church.

The newspapers, some months ago, announced and commented on the proposal to revise the canon law of the Church of England, and a handsome volume was produced by the Commission appointed in 1939 by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. It was published by the S.P.C.K. in 1947, and contains, together with a number of very scholarly introductory articles, the draft of a proposed scheme of ‘The constitutions and canons ecclesiastical of the Church of England, 194—, with annotations’.

This publication is of the greatest interest, not only to members of the Church of England, but to all students of canon law, who cannot but welcome the perfecting of ecclesiastical discipline, wherever it may be, and the reading of these proposed canons will most certainly evoke in every canonist’s breast sentiments of sincere admiration, of puzzled wonder, or of charitable disapproval, as the case may be. Therefore, it should cause no offence if, in a review like Blackfriars, we take the liberty of putting on paper some observations which it has occurred to us to make when running through this interesting document. This we do in no spirit of carping criticism, but with the sincere desire of contributing something objective, and possibly constructive, to this important undertaking.

There are few places in England where it is so easy to lose events as it is in Oxford; and there are few times in Oxford when it is so easy for events to be washed over by the term as in summer, when the river and the parks claim all who have not already been absorbed into political meetings or into polite afternoon tea with the man one knew in Colombo and whom one expected—even, possibly, hoped—never to see again. Yet there is one event, in particular, which it would be well to rescue from the spate of term’s activities, for in it were embodied many of the virtues which our own age has neglected, the virtues of stabilitas, of patience and of the unhurried building for a time beyond the span of our own individual lives. We refer to three farewell lectures delivered by the Regius Professor of Modern History, Powicke, in which he dealt with the movements in the Oxford history school over the fifty years of his association with it.

There was much in the lectures of direct and immediate interest to the Catholic student—even to those who did not sit on the south side of Balliol hall, and were thus unable to let their gaze wander occasionally to where the late afternoon sun lit up the portrait of Manning, giving a radiance to the ascetic countenance of the Cardinal, whose benediction, it is not entirely fanciful to suppose, was granted both to the lecturer and to his audience.

The world today is struggling to shift immovable blocs, but there is one fast-forming bloc which, despite its great inherent dangers, seems to have received little notice. The extension of education and the emphasis laid on its purely formal side are tending to introduce a trade union as it were, of ‘men of letters’, whose blessing it will be necessary to obtain before being accepted for any profession or administrative post—I say ‘men of letters’, referring to those symbols of academic prowess which follow their names rather than to any knowledge of the humanities which might, in a more liberal age, have led to their acquiring them. In the academic world at the moment, fortunately, there are still many fine representatives of this more enlightened past, but it is very hard to see how they can find worthy successors under the present system, particularly if education is to be state-controlled. The more obvious characteristics of this system are excessive specialisation and an undue respect for the expert, but more harmful is the attitude that lies behind it. The modern pundits are not misled, as the Victorians were, into an over-optimistic belief in the powers of the human mind and its ability to obtain not only physical luxury by scientific research but also spiritual satisfaction by an idealistic philosophy of its own making; but rather, cynically disillusioned by the failure of their predecessors, they limit the sphere of the human mind, even in the so-called humane faculties, to that accumulation of facts or manipulation of words which can be tested by examinations.

I think that even before this letter Your Piety will have had intelligence of the outrages committed here. When events so terrible have happened, what place in the world can remain in ignorance of the dire calamity? Report of it has been carried to the ends of the earth, and has brought with it everywhere wide sorrow and lamentation. But the time is not one for lamentation only, but for remedy and for counsel—how best to stay the terrible tempest that has fallen upon the Church. I have therefore considered it my duty to urge certain holy and reverend bishops—Demetrius, Pansophius, Pappus and Demetrius—to leave the churches committed to them, brave the great stretch of seas, embark on this distant journey and make all speed to Your Charity; they can then put all before you clearly and help to contrive an early remedy. With them I have sent my honoured friends the deacons Paul and Cyriacus; I myself will briefly relate events as well as the space of a letter allows.

The Emperor had had laid before him some charges against Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria. He summoned him to, appear alone, but the Patriarch brought along with him a great number of Egyptian bishops, meaning, it would seem, to show at the outset that he had come to give pitched battle. Upon reaching Constantinople—this majestic and sacred capital—he flouted custom and long tradition by not entering the cathedral church and not visiting myself; he would neither speak nor pray nor communicate with me.