MY LORD ARCHBISHOP,
10, BARNSBURY SQUARE, LONDON, N.
25 November, 1871.
In reply to your communication in favour of the consecration of a Bishop for the superintendence of native Christians in China in connection with the Missions of our Church, I beg to assure your Grace that I am ready with the least possible delay to resign my Episcopal duties in connection with the native Church in China that any proposal you are pleased to sanction may take effect.
Your Grace is aware that, with a desire to meet the wishes of the Church Missionary Society, I have at various times assented to the consecration of a Missionary Bishop (1), for Ningpo to superintend both the European Missionaries and native Christians of that Mission exclusively; (2), for the Missions within the dominions of the Emperor of China on the same basis; (3), I have proposed a coadjutor Bishop to act for the Bishop of Victoria in the Missions; I have even expressed my readiness to resign the See of Victoria, that the Missions might be superintended by a successor who has been in the Mission field in connection with the Church Missionary Society; and I am sure your Grace cannot have forgotten that on my proceeding to China for my visitation of this year, I surrendered unreservedly into your Grace's hands the whole question of the alteration of my Diocese, appointing by power of attorney the Rev. Canon Miller (who most kindly undertook the office), to be my Commissary, to give immediate effect in my behalf to any measures your Grace might sanction during my absence,--the latter concessions being made by me under the conviction that my tenure of the Diocese had become impossible.
Permit me to point out to your Grace that the proposal now made involves the superintendence of the same Missions by two European Bishops-the Bishop of Victoria superintending the European Missionaries, the Missionary Bishop the native Church. My own experience in the Missions assures me that such an arrangement cannot fail to produce great embarrassment. It is a further important consideration that no endowment for the new Bishopric has been raised, or is contemplated; the Missionary Bishop therefore remains the stipendiary Missionary of the Church Missionary Society and the Secretary of their Missions in China, his
* The Missions of the Church Missionary Society in China comprise two native Clergymen; one a Priest at Fochow, the other a Deacon in Hong Kong. So varied is the vernacular of China they can neither of them communicate with a Missionary Bishop unacquainted with their own dialects, except through an interpreter. The Catechists do not exceed, as far as I could ascertain, thirty, the Communicants two hundred. The European Missionaries in the field are fifteen. Native Christians are under training for the Ministry.
official relationship toward the Bishop of Victoria having been thus explained—“He will communicate with us (his Committee) on all matters connected with the China Mission, and you (the Bishop of Victoria) may receive his official communications as the mind of the Parent Committee."
Under these circumstances, your Grace will not be surprised that I regard the present proposal as necessitating my surrender of the Episcopal charge of the Missions of the Church Missionary Society in China.
Apart from the Missions, your Grace is aware that the Bishop of Victoria has Episcopal duties to perform of a very limited character, and the altered circumstances of the See, as now proposed, greatly reconcile me to the painful necessity of resignation; especially when I observe, according to the terms of your Grace's note, that the arrangement applies to Hong Kong and the Mission there. In my estimation, the See will become another Bishopric than that for which I was consecrated; and I could not, under any circumstances, retain it.
I have no hesitation therefore, my Lord Archbishop, in notifying my resignation to your Grace, to take effect as soon as possible. At the same time, I ask the exercise of some consideration as it regards the exact date of avoidance; a request I think myself entitled to urge on account of the visitation in China and Japan, which I have this summer of 1871 concluded, and was prepared, if allowed to do so, to repeat next year; and because, apart from all other respects, I am constrained, without the prospect of any provision whatever, to resign in consequence of ecclesiastical arrangements, concerning which, with the utmost respect towards your Grace, I feel it a duty to say I do not approve of them, and could not accept them with any hope of successful co-operation.
My visitations in China and Japan will ever be remembered by me with the greatest interest.
I thank the Reverend the Clergy for their cordial co-operation,
and I call to mind with gratitude the many acts of friendship and liberality with which I have been so generally favoured; especially by his Excellency the Governor of Hong Kong, by Her Majesty's Ministers at Pekin and Yeddo, by Her Majesty's Consuls in the open ports of China and Japan, and more particularly by the merchants of the colony.
Your Grace will, I trust, allow me to regard this communication as of a public character.
I have the honour to be,
My Lord Archbishop,
Your obedient, faithful servant,
C. R. VICTORIA,
The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.
$34
MY LORD ARCHBISHOP,
10, BARNSBURY SQUARE, LONDON, N.
25 November, 1871.
In reply to your communication in favour of the consecration of a" Bishop for the superintendence of native Christians in China in connection with the Missions of our Church," I beg to assure your Grace that I am ready with the least possible delay to resign my Episcopal duties in connection with the native Church in China that any proposal you are pleased to sanction may take effect.
Your Grace is aware that, with a desire to meet the wishes of the Church Missionary Society, I have at various times assented to the consecration of a Missionary Bishop (1), for Ningpo to superintend both the European Missionaries and native Christians of that Mission exclusively; (2), for the Missions within the dominions of the Emperor of China on the same basis; (3), I have proposed a coadjutor Bishop to act for the Bishop of Victoria in the Missions; I have even expressed my readiness to resign the See of Victoria, that the Missions might be superintended by a successor who has been in the Mission field in connection with the Church Missionary Society; and I am sure your Grace cannot have forgotten that on my proceeding to China for my visitation of this year, I surrendered unreservedly into your Grace's hands the whole question of the alteration of my Diocese, appointing by power of attorney the Rev. Canon Miller (who most kindly undertook the office), to be my Commissary, to give immediate effect in my behalf to any measures your Grace might sanction during my absence,--the latter concessions being made by me under the conviction that my tenure of the Diocese had become impossible.
Permit me to point out to your Grace that the proposal now made involves the superintendence of the same Missions by two European Bishops-the Bishop of Victoria superintending the European Missionaries, the Missionary Bishop the native Church. My own experience in the Missions assures me that such an arrangement cannot fail to produce great embarrassment. It is a further important consideration that no endowment for the new Bishopric has been raised, or is contemplated; the Missionary Bishop therefore remains the stipendiary Missionary of the Church Missionary Society and the Secretary of their Missions in China, his
* The Missions of the Church Missionary Society in China comprise two native Clergymen; one a Priest at Fochow, the other a Deacon in Hong Kong. So varied is the vernacular of China they can neither of them communicate with a Missionary Bishop anacquainted with their own dialects, except through an interpreter. The Catechists do not exceed, as far as I could ascertain, thirty, the Communi- cants two hundred. The European Missionaries in the field are fifteen. Native Christians are under training for the Ministry.
official relationship toward the Bishop of Victoria having been thus explained--“ He will communicate with us (his Committee) on all matters connected with the China Mission, and you (the Bishop of Victoria) may receive his official communi- cations as the mind of the Parent Committee."
Under these circumstances, your Grace will not be surprised that I regard the present proposal as necessitating my surrender of the Episcopal charge of the Missions of the Church Missionary Society in China.
Apart from the Missions, your Grace is aware that the Bishop of Victoria has Episcopal duties to perform of a very limited character, and the altered circumstances of the See, as now proposed, greatly reconcile me to the painful necessity of resignation; especially when I observe, according to the terms of your Grace's note, that the arrangement applies to Hong Kong and the Mission there. In my estimation, the See will become another Bishopric than that for which I was consecrated; and I could not, under any circumstances, retain it.
I have no hesitation therefore, my Lord Archbishop, in notifying my resignation to your Grace, to take effect as soon as possible. At the same time, I ask the exercise of some consideration as it regards the exact date of avoidance; a request I think myself entitled to urge on account of the visitation in China and Japan, which I have this summer of 1871 concluded, and was prepared, if allowed to do so, to repeat next year; and because, apart from all other respects, I am constrained, without the prospect of any provision whatever, to resign in consequence of ecclesiastical arrangements, concerning which, with the utmost respect towards your Grace, I feel it a duty to say I do not approve of them, and could not accept them with any hope of successful co-operation.
My visitations in China and Japan will ever be remembered by me with the greatest interest.
I thank the Reverend the Clergy for their cordial co-operation,
and I call to mind with gratitude the many acts of friendship and liberality with which I have been so generally favoured; especially by his Excellency the Governor of Hong Kong, by Her Majesty's Ministers at Pekin and Yeddo, by Her Majesty's Consuls in the open ports of China and Japan, and more particularly by the merchants of the colony.
Your Grace will, I trust, allow me to regard this communication as of a public character.
1 have the honour to be,
My Lord Archbishop,
Your obedient, faithful servant,
C. R. VICTORIA,
The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.
$34
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