ef centre in
Japan is at Osaka, another huge commercial city, some twenty miles from
Kyoto where there is a considerable European settlement. Bishop
Bickersteth--as does also the American Bishop, Dr. Williams(32)--resides at
Tokio, the capital; where the services at St. Andrew's Church, adjoining
the Episcopal residence, are such as may well gladden the heart of an
English Churchman, who finds himself 11,000 miles from home. They include,
I may mention, a Daily Celebration. A striking feature of the Nippon Sei
Kokwai is presented in its Biennial Synods, three, if not four, of which
have already been held. The Synods are composed of clergy and laity, every
congregation of twenty persons being entitled to send its representative;
and they indicate a stage of organization rarely, if ever, attained to by
so youthful a Church. In a word, what is being aimed at throughout is not
to Europeanize, but to Christianize; not to form a "branch of the Church
of England," but to establish, on those lines of Catholic and Apostolic
Christianity which we believe the Church of England faithfully represents,
a _Japanese Church_, which may be committed, as soon as ever circumstances
allow, entirely into the hands of the Japanese themselves.

The Bishop's Pastoral Letter to his Clergy (Advent 1892) treats, among
other matters, of the Marriage Law of the Church, of Old Testament
Criticism,--in the course of his comments upon which, he makes the
quotation, "The central object of our Faith is not the Bible, but our
Lord"--and of the Bishop of Lincoln's case. It exhibits throughout a tone
of earnest Catholicity, of sanctified prudence, and of Apostolic charity.
The Bishop's observations on the confirmation by the Privy Council of the
Lambeth Judgment will be read with satisfaction by many:--

"The principle of allowed variety in matters of ritual has now been
authoritatively recognized. Such recognition is essential to the welfare
of a great and living Church in our day. Among other good results which
may follow from the decision, I cannot but hope will be the liberation of
the energies and interests of a great and historic party, hitherto far too
closely confined within the boundaries of our own country, for wider and
more extended work, above all in eastern countries. Its own position is
now legally secured. Any outstanding questions of ritual could be speedily
settled by the application to them of the same principles which are
embodied in the