Volume 2, Part 1 Part 7 (1/2)
The plan was taken up with enthusiasm, and on Whitsun Tuesday of 1841 the bishops of the United Kingdom met and issued a declaration which inaugurated the Colonial Bishoprics Council. Subsequent declarations in 1872 and 1891 have served both to record progress and to stimulate to new effort. The diocese of New Zealand was founded in 1841, being endowed by the Church Missionary Society through the council, and George Augustus Selwyn was chosen as the first bishop. Since then the increase has gone on, as the result both of home effort and of the action of the colonial churches. Moreover, in many cases bishops have been sent to inaugurate new missions, as in the cases of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, Lebombo, Corea and New Guinea; and the missionary jurisdictions so founded develop in time into dioceses. Thus, instead of the ten colonial jurisdictions of 1841, there are now about a hundred foreign and colonial jurisdictions, in addition to those of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States.
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It was only very gradually that these dioceses acquired legislative independence and a determinate organization. At first, sees were created and bishops were nominated by the crown by means of letters patent; and in some cases an income was a.s.signed out of public funds. Moreover, for many years all bishops alike were consecrated in England, took the customary ”oath of due obedience” to the archbishop of Canterbury, and were regarded as his extra-territorial suffragans.
But by degrees changes have been made on all these points.
_Provincial Organization._
(1) Local conditions soon made a provincial organization necessary, and it was gradually introduced. The bishop of Calcutta received letters patent as metropolitan of India when the sees of Madras and Bombay were founded; and fresh patents were issued to Bishop Broughton in 1847 and Bishop Gray in 1853, as metropolitans of Australia and South Africa respectively. Similar action was taken in 1858, when Bishop Selwyn became metropolitan of New Zealand; and again in 1860, when, on the pet.i.tion of the Canadian bishops to the crown and the colonial legislature for permission to elect a metropolitan, letters patent were issued appointing Bishop Fulford of Montreal to that office. Since then metropolitans have been chosen and provinces formed by regular synodical action, a process greatly encouraged by the resolutions of the Lambeth conferences on the subject. The const.i.tution of these provinces is not uniform. In some cases, as South Africa, New South Wales, and Queensland, the metropolitan see is fixed. Elsewhere, as in New Zealand, where no single city can claim pre-eminence, the metropolitan is either elected or else is the senior bishop by consecration. Two further developments must be mentioned: (a) The creation of diocesan and provincial synods, the first diocesan synod to meet being that of New Zealand in 1844, whilst the formation of a provincial synod was foreshadowed by a conference of Australasian bishops at Sydney in 1850; (b) towards the close of the 19th century the t.i.tle of _archbishop_ began to be a.s.sumed by the metropolitans of several provinces. It was first a.s.sumed by the metropolitans of Canada and Rupert's Land, at the desire of the Canadian general synod in 1893; and subsequently, in accordance with a resolution of the Lambeth conference of 1897, it was given by their synods to the bishop of Sydney as metropolitan of New South Wales and to the bishop of Cape Town as metropolitan of South Africa. Civil obstacles have hitherto delayed its adoption by the metropolitan of India.
_Freedom from state control._
(2) By degrees, also, the colonial churches have been freed from their rather burdensome relations with the state. The church of the West Indies was disestablished and disendowed in 1868. In 1857 it was decided, in _Regina_ v. _Eton College_, that the crown could not claim the presentation to a living when it had appointed the former inc.u.mbent to a colonial bishopric, as it does in the case of an English bishopric. In 1861, after some protest from the crown lawyers, two missionary bishops were consecrated without letters patent for regions outside British territory: C.F. Mackenzie for the Zambezi region and J.C. Patteson for Melanesia, by the metropolitans of Cape Town and New Zealand respectively. In 1863 the privy council declared, in _Long_ v. _The Bishop of Cape Town_, that ”the Church of England, in places where there is no church established by law, is in the same situation with any other religious body.” In 1865 it adjudged Bishop Gray's letters patent, as metropolitan of Cape Town, to be powerless to enable him ”to exercise any coercive jurisdiction, or hold any court or tribunal for that purpose,” since the Cape colony already possessed legislative inst.i.tutions when they were issued; and his deposition of Bishop Colenso was declared to be ”null and void in law”
(_re The Bishop of Natal_). With the exception of Colenso the South African bishops forthwith surrendered their patents, and formally accepted Bishop Gray as their metropolitan, an example followed in 1865 in the province of New Zealand. In 1862, when the diocese of Ontario was formed, the bishop was elected in Canada, and consecrated under a royal mandate, letters patent being by this time entirely discredited. And when, in 1867, a coadjutor was chosen for the bishop of Toronto, an application for a royal mandate produced the reply from the colonial secretary that ”it was not the part of the crown to interfere in the creation of a new bishop or bishopric, and not consistent with the dignity of the crown that he should advise Her Majesty to issue a mandate which would not be worth the paper on which it was written, and which, having been sent out to Canada, might be disregarded in the most complete manner.” And at the present day the colonial churches are entirely free in this matter. This, however, is not the case with the church in India. Here the bishops of sees founded down to 1879 receive a stipend from the revenue (with the exception of the bishop of Ceylon, who no longer does so). They are not only nominated by the crown and consecrated under letters patent, but the appointment is expressly subjected ”to such power of revocation and recall as is by law vested” in the crown; and where additional oversight was necessary for the church in Tinnevelly, it could only be secured by the consecration of two a.s.sistant bishops, who worked under a commission for the archbishop of Canterbury which was to expire on the death of the bishop of Madras. Since then, however, new sees have been founded which are under no such restrictions: by the creation of dioceses either in native states (Travancore and Cochin), or out of the existing dioceses (Chota Nagpur, Lucknow, &c.). In the latter case there is no _legal_ subdivision of the older diocese, the new bishop administering such districts as belonged to it under commission from its bishop, provision being made, however, that in all matters ecclesiastical there shall be no appeal but to the metropolitan of India.
_Spiritual autonomy._
(3) By degrees, also, the relations of colonial churches to the archbishop of Canterbury have changed. Until 1855 no colonial bishop was consecrated outside the British Isles, the first instance being Dr. MacDougall of Labuan, consecrated in India under a commission from the archbishop of Canterbury; and until 1874 it was held to be unlawful for a bishop to be consecrated in England without taking the suffragan's oath of due obedience. This necessity was removed by the Colonial Clergy Act of 1874, which permits the archbishop at his discretion to dispense with the oath. This, however, has not been done in all cases; and as late as 1890 it was taken by the metropolitan of Sydney at his consecration. Thus the const.i.tuent parts of the Anglican communion gradually acquire autonomy: missionary jurisdictions develop into organized dioceses, and dioceses are grouped into provinces with canons of their own. But the most complete autonomy does not involve isolation. The churches are in full communion with one another, and act together in many ways; missionary jurisdictions and dioceses are mapped out by common arrangement, and even transferred if it seems advisable; _e.g._ the diocese Honolulu (Hawaii), previously under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Canterbury, was transferred in 1900 to the Episcopal Church in the United States on account of political changes. Though the see of Canterbury claims no primacy over the Anglican communion a.n.a.logous to that exercised over the Roman Church by the popes, it is regarded with a strong affection and deference, which shows itself by frequent consultation and interchange of greetings. There is also a strong common life emphasized by common action.
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_Pan-Anglican Congress._
The conference of Anglican bishops from all parts of the world, inst.i.tuted by Archbishop Longley in 1867, and known as the Lambeth Conferences (_q.v._), though even for the Anglican communion they have not the authority of an ec.u.menical synod, and their decisions are rather of the nature of counsels than commands, have done much to promote the harmony and co-operation of the various branches of the Church. An even more imposing manifestation of this common life was given by the great pan-Anglican congress held in London between the 12th and 24th of June 1908, which preceded the Lambeth conference opened on the 5th of July. The idea of this originated with Bishop Montgomery, secretary to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and was endorsed by a resolution of the United Boards of Mission in 1903. As the result of negotiations and preparations extending over five years, 250 bishops, together with delegates, clerical and lay, from every diocese in the Anglican communion, met in London, the opening service of intercession being held in Westminster Abbey. In its general character, the meeting was but a Church congress on an enlarged scale, and the subjects discussed, _e.g._. the att.i.tude of churchmen towards the question of the marriage laws or that of socialism, followed much the same lines. The congress, of course, had no power to decide or to legislate for the Church, its main value being in drawing its scattered members closer together, in bringing the newer and more isolated branches into consciousness of their contact with the parent stem, and in opening the eyes of the Church of England to the point of view and the peculiar problems of the daughter-churches.
The Anglican communion consists of the following:--(1) The Church of England, 2 provinces, Canterbury and York, with 24 and 11 dioceses respectively. (2) The Church of Ireland, 2 provinces, Armagh and Dublin, with 7 and 6 dioceses respectively. (3) The Scottish Episcopal Church, with 7 dioceses. (4) The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, with 89 dioceses and missionary jurisdictions, including North Tokyo, Kyoto, Shanghai, Cape Palmas, and the independent dioceses of Hayti and Brazil. (5) The Canadian Church, consisting of (a) the province of Canada, with 10 dioceses; (b) the province of Rupert's Land, with 8 dioceses. (6) The Church in India and Ceylon, 1 province of 11 dioceses. (7) The Church of the West Indies, 1 province of 8 dioceses, of which Barbados and the Windward Islands are at present united. (8) The Australian Church, consisting of (a) the province of New South Wales, with 10 dioceses; (b) the province of Queensland, with 5 dioceses; (c) the province of Victoria, with 5 dioceses. (9) The Church of New Zealand, 1 province of 7 dioceses, together with the missionary jurisdiction of Melanesia.
(10) The South African Church, 1 province of 10 dioceses, with the 2 missionary jurisdictions of Masbonaland and Lebombo. (11) Nearly 30 isolated dioceses and missionary jurisdictions holding mission from the see of Canterbury.
AUTHORITIES.--_Official Year-book of the Church of England_; Phillimore, _Ecclesiastical Law_, vol. ii. (London, 1895); _Digest of S.P.G. Records_ (London, 1893); E. Stock, _History of the Church Missionary Society_, 3 vols. (London, 1899); H.W. Tucker, _The English Church in Other Lands_ (London, 1886); A.T. Wirgman, _The Church and the Civil Power_ (London, 1893).
ANGLING, the art or practice of the sport of catching fish by means of a baited hook or ”angle” (from the Indo-European root _ank-_, meaning ”bend”).[1] It is among the most ancient of human activities, and may be said to date from the time when man was in the infancy of the Stone Age, eking out a precarious existence by the slaughter of any living thing which he could reach with the rude weapons at his command. It is probable that attack on fishes was at first much the same as attack on animals, a matter of force rather than of guile, and conducted by means of a rude spear with a flint head. It is probable, too, that the primitive harpooners were not signally successful in their efforts, and so set their wits to work to devise other means of getting at the abundant food which waited for them in every piece of water near their caves. Observation would soon show them that fish fed greedily on each other and on other inhabitants of the water or living things that fell into it, and so, no doubt, arose the idea of entangling the prey by means of its appet.i.te. Hence came the notion of the first hook, which, it seems certain, was not a hook at all but a ”gorge,” a piece of flint or stone which the fish could swallow with the bait but which it could not eject afterwards. From remains found in cave-dwellings and their neighbourhood in different parts of the world it is obvious that these gorges varied in shape, but in general the idea was the same, a narrow strip of stone or flake of flint, either straight or slightly curved at the ends, with a groove in the middle round which the line could be fastened. Buried in the bait it would be swallowed end first; then the tightening of the line would fix it cross-wise in the quarry's, stomach or gullet and so the capture would be a.s.sured. The device still lingers in France and in a few remote parts of England in the method of catching eels which is known as ”sniggling.” In this a needle buried in a worm plays the part of the prehistoric gorge.
The evolution of the fish-hook from the slightly curved gorge is easily intelligible. The ends became more and more curved, until eventually an object not unlike a double hook was attained. This development would be materially a.s.sisted by man's discovery of the uses of bronze and its adaptability to his requirements. The single hook, of the pattern more or less familiar to us, was possibly a concession of the lake-dweller to what may even then have been a problem--the ”education” of fish, and to a recognition of the fact that sport with the crude old methods was falling off. But it is also not improbable that in some parts of the world the single hook developed _pari pa.s.su_ with the double, and that, on the sea-sh.o.r.e for instance, where man was able to employ so adaptable a substance as sh.e.l.l, the first hook was a curved fragment of sh.e.l.l lashed with fibre to a piece of wood or bone, in such a way that the sh.e.l.l formed the bend of the hook while the wood or bone formed the shank. Both early remains and recent hooks from the Fiji Islands bear out this supposition. It is also likely that flint, horn and bone were pressed into service in a similar manner. The nature of the line or the rod that may have been used with these early hooks is largely a matter of conjecture. The first line was perhaps the tendril of a plant, the first rod possibly a sapling tree. But it is fairly obvious that the rod must have been suggested by the necessity of getting the bait out over obstacles which lay between the fisherman and the water, and that it was a device for increasing both the reach of the arm and the length of the line. It seems not improbable that the rod very early formed a part of the fisherman's equipment.
[Footnote 1: As to whether ”angling” necessarily implies a rod as well as a line and hook, see the discussion in the law case of _Barnard_ v.
_Roberts_ (_Times L.R._, April 13, 1907), when the question arose as to the use of night-lines being angling; but the decision against night-lines went on the ground of the absence of the personal element rather than on the absence of a rod. The various dictionaries are blind guides on this point, and the authorities cited are inconclusive; but, broadly speaking, angling now implies three necessary factors--a personal angler, the sporting element, and the use of recognized fis.h.i.+ng-tackle.]
_Literary History_.--From prehistoric times down to comparatively late in the days of chronicles, angling appears to have remained a practice; its development into an art or sport is a modern idea. In the earliest literature references to angling are not very numerous, but there are pa.s.sages in the Old Testament which show that fish-taking with hook as well as net was one of the common industries in the East, and that fish, where it was obtainable, formed an important article of diet. In _Numbers_ (xi. 5) the children of Israel mourn for the fish which they ”did eat in Egypt freely.” So much too is proved by the monuments of Egypt; indeed more, for the figures found in some of the Egyptian fis.h.i.+ng pictures using short rods and stout lines are sometimes attired after the manner of those who were great in the land. This indicates that angling had already, in a highly civilized country, taken its place among the methods of diversion at the disposal of the wealthy, though from the uncompromising nature of the tackle depicted and the apparent simplicity of the fish it would scarcely be safe to a.s.sume that in Egypt angling arrived at the dignity of becoming an ”art.” In Europe it took very much longer for the taking of fish to be regarded even as an amus.e.m.e.nt, and the earliest references to it in the Greek and Latin cla.s.sics are not very satisfying to the sportsman.
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There is, however, a pa.s.sage in the _Odyssey_ (xii. 247) which is of considerable importance, as it shows that fis.h.i.+ng with rod and line was well enough understood in early Greece to be used as a popular ill.u.s.tration. It occurs in the well-known scene where Scylla seizes the companions of Odysseus out of the s.h.i.+p and bears them upwards, just as ”some fisher on a headland with a long rod” brings small fishes gasping to the sh.o.r.e. Another important, though comparatively late, pa.s.sage in Greek poetry is the twenty-first idyll of Theocritus.
In this the fisherman Asphalion relates how in a dream he hooked a large golden fish and describes graphically, albeit with some obscurity of language, how he ”played” it. Asphalion used a rod and fished from a rock, much after the manner of the Homeric angler. Among other Greek writers, Herodotus has a good many references to fish and fis.h.i.+ng; the capture of fish is once or twice mentioned or implied by Plato, notably in the _Laws_ (vii. 823); Aristotle deals with fishes in his _Natural History_, and there are one or two fis.h.i.+ng pa.s.sages in the anthology. But in Greek literature, as a whole the subject of angling is not at all prominent. In writers of late Greek, however, there is more material. Plutarch, for instance, gives us the famous story of the fis.h.i.+ng match between Antony and Cleopatra, which has been utilized by Shakespeare. Moreover, it is in Greek that the first complete treatise on fis.h.i.+ng which has come down to us is written, the _Halieutica_ of Oppian (c. A.D. 169). It is a hexameter poem in five books with perhaps more technical than sporting interest, and not so much even of that as the length of the work would suggest. Still it contains some information about tackle and methods, and some pa.s.sages describing battles with big fish, in the right spirit of enthusiasm.
Also in Greek is what is famous as the first reference in literature to fly-fis.h.i.+ng, in the fifteenth book of Aelian's _Natural History_ (3rd century A.D.). It is there described how the Macedonians captured a certain spotted fish in the river Astraeus by means of a lure composed of coloured wool and feathers, which was presumably used in the manner now known as ”dapping.” That there were other Greek writers who dealt with fish and fis.h.i.+ng and composed ”halieutics” we know from Athenaeus. In the first book of his _Deipnosophistae_ he gives a list of them. But he compares their work unfavourably with the pa.s.sage of Homer already cited, in a way which suggests that their knowledge of angling was not a great advance upon the knowledge of their remote literary ancestors. In Latin literature allusions to angling are rather more numerous than in Greek, but on the whole they are unimportant. Part of a poem by Ovid, the _Halieuticon_, composed during the poet's exile at Tomi after A.D. 9, still survives. In other Roman writers the subject is only treated by way of allusion or ill.u.s.tration. Martial, however, provides, among other pa.s.sages, what may perhaps be ent.i.tled to rank as the earliest notice of private fishery rights--the epigram _Ad Piscatorem_, which warns would-be poachers from casting a line in the Baian lake. Pliny the elder devoted the ninth book of his _Natural History_ to fishes and water-life, and Plautus, Cicero, Catullus, Horace, Juvenal, Pliny the younger and Suetonius all allude to angling here and there.
Agricultural writers, too, such as Varro and Columella, deal with the subject of fish ponds and stews rather fully. Later than any of these, but still just included in Latin literature, we have Ausonius (_c_.
A.D. 320) and his well-known idyll the _Mosella_, which contains a good deal about the fish of the Moselle and the methods of catching them. In this poem is to be found the first recognizable description of members of the salmon family, and, though the manner of their application is rather doubtful, the names _salmo, salar_ and _fario_ strike a responsive note in the breast of the modern angler.