The Bishops of Lichfield (Dr. Maclagan) and of Salisbury (Dr.
Wordsworth) have been on a mission to Austria to examine the belief and attitude of the Old Catholics, who are greatly in want of a Bishop, and cannot, of course, get a Bishop from the Roman Catholic Church. They are in hopes that they may receive one from the Anglican Church ; and it is with a view to con- sidering whether or not this wish might be gratified, that the Archbishop of Canterbury has entrusted these two Bishops with the duty of examining into the doctrine and ritual of the Old Catholics. Their report, when made, will be considered, it is said, by the next Pan-Anglican Synod, in July next. Dr. Bollinger, though now very old, has been visited, and we sup- pose consulted, as the leading theologian of the Old Catholics. He is reported not unfavourable. Should the mission result in a fusion of the Old Catholics with the Anglican Church, how far would the approbation given by the Convocation of 1562 to our very un-Catholic Thirty-nine Articles affect the new element in our Church P Surely the Old Catholics would never lend any kind of sanction to those obsolete and misleading Articles of the milder Calvinists ?
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