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N the second of October the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States assembles in Trinity Church, San Francisco, for what promises to be one of the most influential gatherings of this legislative council held since the Constitutional Convention of 1785, which met in Philadelphia and revolutionized Anglican precedent by the introduction of lay representation into the councils of the Church, and even indicated the lines on which the National Constitution was, two years later, organized. The General Convention retains the impress of this early assemblage of Churchmen seeking to construct a National Church from the ruined and disjointed parishes of anteRevolutionary days. It is a National organization, the States its component units, each diocese of each State retaining in its own hand sovereign authority. Its sessions are triennial, the bishops, who are ex officio members of the Convention, forming an upper house; the delegates, clerical and lay, four of each order being

elected to represent each diocese, a lower; to these are added single representatives of each order for the several missionary jurisdictions. The personnel of the delegates now traversing the several transcontinental routes to the Pacific coast is as varied as the broad geographical area which they represent. Some of the bishops who have influence in the House come from the far East, where they are trained to meet pressing questions of social life and order. Others from the mid-West may be more conservative and lay greater emphasis on questions of ecclesiastical tradition and order, while all will unite with the far Western bishops, all of whom are of necessity missionary bishops, in feeling that an important function of even a legislative convention of a missionary church may be to enlarge the boundaries and deepen existing lines of missionary service within the United States, and to arouse such public enthusiasm as shall place in the hands of the Missionary Board means for the extension of the work, both within existing limits

and beyond the great waters, where Hawaii, the Philippines, Japan, and China seem to have been providentially opened for new efforts.

An unusually large number of sessions will be allotted to the meetings of the Board of Missions. Many missionary services in adjacent churches will be held, and the Rt. Rev. Frederick R. Graves, Bishop of Shanghai, China, will preach at missionary sermon in the Convention church.

Trinity is the historic church of San Francisco. Organized in 1849 by the Rev. Flavel Scott Mines, who reached San Francisco on July 4, its first service was held on July 8. No one being present to lead the musical portion of the service, Mr. Mines prophetically raised. the missionary hymn, " From Greenland's Icy Mountains." The splendid new church on the corner of Bush and Gough Streets, where the sessions of the Convention will be held, is the fourth edifice occupied by Trinity parish. Its rector is the Rev. F. W. Clampett, D.D. The Bishop of California, the Rt. Rev. William Ford Nichols, D.D., has his residence at San Mateo, in the Divinity School of the Pacific, but for the present month will occupy the home of Mr. Scott, in which President McKinley resided during his recent visit to San Francisco. The Bishop is a man in the prime of life, energetic, forceful, and imbued with the missionary spirit of self-sacrifice. The Bishop of Sacramento, the Rt. Rev. William H. Moreland, D.D., whose diocese is distinctively a missionary one, and the Rt. Rev. Joseph H. Johnson, D.D., Bishop of Los Angeles, worthily complete the list of the bishops in California. The Rt. Rev. Benjamin Wistar Morris, D.D., Bishop of Oregon, the senior bishop on the Pacific coast, will preach the opening sermon. Consecrated in 1868, he has seen much missionary service, both in pioneer days and in later years. The diocese of the Rt. Rev. Lemuel H. Wells, D.D., Missionary Bishop of Spokane, and at present in charge of Olympia, is the northernmost of the jurisdictions of the Pacific slope.

The opening service of Trinity parish, in 1849, was not the first worship of the Episcopal Church heard in San Francisco. In 1579 Sir Francis Drake sailed, first of Europeans, into the waters of the beauti

ful bay and remained some time refitting his vessel, the Golden Hinde. On one occasion, with the gathered Indians of the place, Francis Fletcher, Chaplain, and all Drake's company "fell to prayers," reading the Prayer-Book service and beseeching the Father of all to enlighten these Gentiles with the light of the everlasting Gospel. This was the first Christian service in the English tongue on the coast, the first use of the Book of Common Prayer in America, and one of the earliest missionary prayers on the continent. A great stone cross fifty-five feet high, erected in Golden Gate Park by George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, and visible from the ocean, commemorates this service.

The Presiding Bishop of the Church, the Rt. Rev. Thomas M. Clark, D.D., Bishop of Rhode Island, fills this office as the Senior Bishop of the Church in the order of his consecration, which took place in 1854. As his health will not permit him to be present, the Rt. Rev. William Croswell Doane, D.D., Bishop of Albany and Chairman of the House of Bishops, will take his place. Bishop Doane's great interest in stricter legislation on the question of marriage and divorce, to which he has been urging forward the Church, will make him a figure of special interest during the coming Convention, when action is likely to be taken on part at least of the suggested canons on this subject. The House of Clerical and Lay Deputies will lose the advantage of its elected President, the Rev. Morgan Dix, D.D., D.C.L., rector of Trinity Church, New York, whose rare administrative ability and marked tact and impartiality have been for fifteen years at the service of his brethren. Dr. Dix, who has made the best of Presidents ever chosen, has declined re-election, and it will be necessary for the House to choose a new officer. At the outset, the Rev. Charles L. Hutchins, D.D., Secretary of the House, will preside. Among leaders in the debates in the House of Deputies the Rev. William R. Huntington, D.D., stands easily first. Notable names of speakers in the House are the Rev. Drs. McConnell, Fulton, Parks, Mann, Donald, Lindsay, Eccleston, Greer, McKim, Mackay-Smith, and Jewell, and Messrs. Packard, Paine, Low, Cutting, Thomas, Andrews, Earl, and Prince.