The Church Congress was opened at Exeter, on October 9th,
with an address from the Bishop, which is excellent in tone, but does not contain much except a veiled statement .of the opinion of his school that Roman Catholicism is not much less dangerous than unbelief. The papers as yet read cover a wide field, and seem to outsiders a great deal too dis- cursive. We do not see why most of them could not be pub- lished elsewhere, or what is the use of a Congress unless it concentrates a large supply of mind, which is light, upon closely defined subjects. The managers of such Congresses probably know their business best ; but we cannot but think that if each year a great variety of views were brought to bear upon, say, two subjects, Churchmen would not only be more enlightened, but what is at least as important, more convinced. Nothing can be more interesting, for example, than Dr. Jessopp upon East Anglian labourers and their relation to the Church ; but suppose half the papers had been devoted to that sub- ject alone, should we not have risen from their study with a mass of information which could hardly fail to develop a working opinion P We suppose the difficulty is to induce many men to treat a subject which is not specially theirs, but that might surely he overcome. Even Parliament, with all its inclination to discursiveness, concentrates itself now and again upon some big topic.
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