the
Report is classified with, the great coal-field of South Wales.

ENGLAND, THE CHURCH OF. The Church of England claims to be a branch of
the Catholic and Apostolic Church; it is episcopal in its essence and
administration, and is established by law in that the state recognizes
it as the national church of the English people, an integral part of the
constitution of the realm. It existed, in name and in fact, as the
church of the English people centuries before that people became a
united nation, and, in spite of changes in doctrine and ritual, it
remains the same church that was planted in England at the end of the
6th century. From it the various tribes which had conquered the land
received a bond of union, and in it they beheld a pattern of a single
organized government administered by local officers, to which they
gradually attained in their secular polity. In England, then, the state
is in a sense the child of the church. The doctrines of the English
Church may be gathered from its Book of Common Prayer (see PRAYER, BOOK
OF COMMON) as finally revised in 1661, with the form of ordaining and
consecrating bishops, priests and deacons, with the exception of the
services for certain days which were abrogated in 1859; from the XXXIX
Articles (see CREEDS), published with royal authority in 1571; and from
the First and Second Books of Homilies of 1549 and 1562 respectively,
which are declared in Article XXXV. to contain sound doctrine.

Christianity in Roman Britain.

The British church.

_Precursors._--Christianity reached Britain during the 3rd century, and
perhaps earlier, probably from Gaul. An early tradition records the
death of a martyr Alban at Verulamium, the present St Albans. A fully
grown British Church existed in the 4th century: bishops of London, York
and Lincoln attended the council of Arles in 314; the church assented to
the council of Nicaea in 325, and some of its bishops were present at
the council of Rimini in 359. The church held the Catholic faith.
Britons made pilgrimages, to Rome and to Palestine, and some joined the
monks who gathered round St Martin, bishop of Tours. Among these was
Ninian, who preached to the southern Picts, and about 400 built a church
of stone on Wigton Bay; its whiteness struck the people and their name
for it is commemorated in the modern name Whithorn. From northern
Britain, St Patrick (see PATRICK, ST) went to accomplish his work as the
apostle of Irel