[To TIlE EDITOR OF TIM • arnorkron."j SIR,—Seme few years ago,
while resident in India, I asked permission of the Anglican chaplain of the station in which I lived to receive the Holy Communion, although unconfirmed, Permission was readily granted. Subsequently, desiring to regularise my position, I sought Confirmation, and was con- firmed by the diocesan Bishop. The chaplain then said to me: "I am very glad you are confirmed, because the admission
of so many unconfirmed persons to Communion in India makes it extremely difficult for us Indian chaplains to get our own Church-people to see the necessity of confirmation."
I may add two observations: (1) Rigorous exclusion of the unconfirmed may, and does, result in the loss to the Church of England of many Nonconformists who with some encourage- ment would make their spiritual home in the Anglican Communion; (2) an unconfirmed person who can continue indefinitely to exercise the privilege (specially granted to him) of Communion without becoming "desirous to be confirmed" seems to ate to be totally deficient in the conception of the Church as a society. After all, the Church is not a public convenience, like a free library, to be used or not used as one
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