Untitled - Electric Scotland

i866-68] FIRST LAMBKTH CONFERENCE 375
York and the Bishops of Durham, Carlisle, Ripon, Peter
borough, and Manchester, who all resolved upon declining
to attend the Conference. Bishop Tait had been expected
to join them, but he took a bolder course, and expressed
his cordial approval of such a gathering, provided its nature
and the limits of its authority should be carefully specified
beforehand. 1
Archbishop Longley
consented to this
course, and his letter of invitation stated clearly that
"
such
a meeting as is proposed would not be competent to make
declarations or lay down definitions on points of doctrine."
To allay the fears of the Bishop of St. David s, and to
gain for the Conference the weight of his presence, the
Archbishop gave him privately a further undertaking that
the question of Bishop Colcnso s position should not be
one of those debated at Lambeth. On these conditions
Bishop Thirlwall consented to attend. But whatever the
value of these *
understandings,
it was certain that the
conflict must be sharp between those who still desired, so
far as possible, to preserve in the Colonies the same degree
of liberty and discipline as are characteristic of the Church
of England, and those who aimed at the virtual inde
pendence of each Colonial Church, and the authoritative
recognition of its acts throughout the Anglican Communion,
whatever the Civil Courts might say to the contrary.
Bishop Gray was naturally regarded as the champion of
the latter party, and he had the warm sympathy of several
Colonial Bishops, and of some of those belonging to the
United States. His whole mind was set, with charac
teristic enthusiasm, upon securing that Mr. Butler should
be summoned as Bishop-elect to the Conference in place
of Bishop Colenso, who had received no invitation, and
that thus Bishop Colenso s deposition should be officially
1
See Chronicle of Convocation , February 15, 1867, p. 807.
-
See The Lambeth Conferences of \^ , 1878, and i888(S.P.C.K.), p. 12.