CO129-148 - Public Offices & Others - 1870 — Page 654

to take

am

step with

regard to the proposed

alteration of these letters

patent

as the Couchtishofe

of Canterbury, the Foreign

office

shull

and

Your Londlif

ree to recommend

agree

72

Jam J.R.

Memorandum

On the Appointment of a Missionary Bishop in China, read by the Bishop of Victoria to the Committee of the Church Missionary Society, August 8th, 1870; with the RESOLUTION of the Committee.

THE RIGHT HON. RUSSELL GURNEY, M.P.,

IN THE CHAIR,

AFTER a few preliminary sentences, the Bishop of Victoria read as follows:-

The division of episcopal jurisdiction in China, whereby it was proposed to place Clergymen unconnected with the C. M. S. under the episcopal jurisdiction of one of your Missionaries—i. e. to place above 28 N. British and Consular interests as distinguished from Mission work to the Heathen under au episcopal Missionary of your own, supported by your funds and subject to your direction and control---would be, to my personal knowledge, so objectionable to Chaplains and to many influential Laymen in North China, espe cially at Shanghai, I could not be a party to the measure.

Besides, this scheme would involve both your Missionary and this Committee in questions of difficulty not only foreign to Mission- work, but such as, I am persuaded, this Committee would be most unwilling to entertain.

I think this Committee will be glad that a scheme which would connect the Missionary Bishop exclusively with the Missions, should be substituted for it.

Can such a scheme be suggested?

The Bishop-Coadjutor scheme for the Missions you have declined.

The consecration of a Missionary for the Ningpo Mission-unless be be at liberty, on conventional terms with the Bishop of Victoria,

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