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The Commissioners recognized the change which had been going on in the feeling with regard to the tie which binds together the cathedral and the people, and their recommendations lead up, as they themselves profess, to “the grand conception of the Bishop of a diocese working from his cathedral as a spiritual centre, of the machinery there supplied being intended to produce an influence far beyond the cathedral precincts, of the capitular body being interested in the whole diocese, and of the whole diocese having claims on the capitular body”.

This conception, apart from its technical phraseology, may be taken as satisfactory. “A live Cathedral in a live Diocese” is, in the American phrase, what all desire. It may be questioned, however, in the light of thirteen years’ further experience of growing humanity, whether their recommendations would bring the conception much nearer to realization.

Their recommendations are somewhat difficult to generalize. The peculiarities and eccentricities in the constitution of each cathedral are infinite. Some are on the old foundation, with their Deans, Precentors, Chancellors, and Prebendaries. Some date from Henry VIII, and have only a Dean and a small number of residentiary Canons. Some possess statutes which are hopelessly obsolete, and one claims validity for a new body of statutes adopted by itself. Some are under the control of the chapter only, some have minor corporations. Some have striven to act up to the letter of old orders, some have statutes which are of no legal authority. But the difference of constitution of the several cathedrals was by no means the only difficulty with which the Commissioners had to contend.