Note 188 — THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XXII., No. 130.—JANUARY, 1876. (continued 3)

With regard to the powers of the sovereign over the episcopate we quote the following from the London Tablet for March 27, 1875: “Among other tremendous stumbling-blocks against the claims for the Church (of England) by the High Church party a candid writer in the Church Herald is ‘sorely staggered by the oath of allegiance, according to which we have the chief pastors of the church declaring in the most solemn manner that they receive the spiritualities of their office only from the queen, and are bishops by her grace only.’”

In connection with the foregoing we cannot refrain from citing a passage from Marshall, which is as follows: “Any bishops can only obtain spiritual jurisdiction in one of two ways—either by receiving it from those who already possess it, in which case their (the English bishops’) search must extend beyond their own communion, or by imitating the two lay travellers in China of whom we have somewhere read, who fancied they should like to be missionaries, whereupon the one ordained the other, and was then in turn ordained by him, to the great satisfaction of both.”