the acceptance of certain dogmas. They all hold, moreover, that man, unaided by authoritative teaching, is incapable of constructing for himself a saving faith, and that therefore God, in compassion to his ignorance and infirmity, has given him an infallible teacher supernaturally endowed with the faculty of guiding him into all truth. But do you really mean to contend that these various Churches and sects have no logical alternative but to abandon the propositions which they all accept, or to submit themselves to Rome, which they all repudiate?

LEONARD

Such is my pretension-a pretension which, you must be aware, is not exclusively mine, but is shared by many Roman Catholic writers, and notably by Dr. Newman, as will be seen from some undeveloped suggestions in his Apologia pro vitâ suâ.' My only doubt is, whether my case would require the admission of more than the first two of our three propositions. The third seems to me to be an almost necessary inference from the others; for, if religion is dogmatic— if, moreover, our salvation is contingent upon our acceptance of certain dogmas-a plain man, without an infallible monitor to show him truth, and to warn him from error, might well despair of finding any assured prospect of peace in this world or the next. It would be an idle mockery to tell such a man to pray for God's help. If he should ask how he should pray, he will at once be met by twenty different dogmas as to what is necessary to make prayer effectual with God;

and is it possible to doubt that men of the purest lives and most spiritual minds are often led, notwithstanding their earnest prayers, into great dogmatic errors? Take Lacordaire and Chalmers as the types of two classes of holy men. We all believe that they were both often on their knees in urgent prayer to Almighty God, for the guidance of His Holy Spirit; and yet Lacordaire held as essential to salvation dogmas which Chalmers considered to be dangerous superstitions, and Chalmers acknowledged the divinity of dogmas which Lacordaire would have regarded as mischievous fancies, if not as damnable heresies. Amidst the din of contending controversialists, metaphysicians, philosophers, Biblical critics, rival Churches, and the speculative suggestions of our own minds, what man amongst us can feel strong enough to rely absolutely on the convictions of himself, or of anyone as fallible as himself? And if men, who to great intellectual gifts add, perhaps, a profound acquaintance with all the resources of modern criticism, shrink in dismay from the task of framing for themselves a complete scheme of dogmatic truth, what qualifications for such a task can the great mass of mankind possess-men of business and men of pleasure, women and children, artizans and ploughboys? It would be idle to tell such persons to apply to good and learned men for guidance. The good and learned men are as much at fault as themselves; and to what men should they apply-to Dr. Pusey, or to Dr. Newman, or to Dr. Colenso, or to Mr. Baptist Noel, or to Mr. Mill, or to Mr. Martineau? If there is not in the world any guide which bears upon

its front, so conspicuously as to be apparent to the learned and the ignorant alike, some plain, unmistakable indications of a Divine authority, it would be difficult to impose upon man a more terrible curse than would accompany the belief that his condition, both here and hereafter, was in any respect contingent upon the orthodoxy of his dogmatic creed.

BASIL

Though we are, I fear, destined to part company before long, I see no reason as yet to dissent from anything you have said. The argument on behalf of the Church of Rome, for which you wish to prepare us, is -as I understand it-an argumentum ad hominem, addressed to those only who accept the three propositions embraced in the sermon of our Canterbury friend. Well, I accept these propositions; and I believe that they are generally admitted by all Episcopalians and orthodox Dissenters. So far, there is no difference between us. I am, moreover, disposed to agree with you in thinking that the third proposition is a natural corollary from the others: but it may be well to say (though the point is immaterial to the course of your argument) that there is in our Church a small party— commonly called the Broad Church party-which seems to hold that, though religion is essentially dogmatic, there is no infallible guide to essential dogma, and that our only hope of arriving at a pure religion depends upon the natural progress of the human mind, which, if left to itself, will ultimately evolve all necessary truth.

MAX

Are you quite right in representing the Broad Church party as holding the essentially dogmatic character of religion? I was the other day looking over a volume entitled 'Essays on Church Polity,' which is supposed to embody the views of Broad Churchmen, and I was struck by the following passage in an essay by the Rev. W. L. Clay :—

A dogma is a doctrine for which acceptance is demanded because it is promulgated by authority. This definition conceded, the objection to dogmatic teaching is at once apparent. It is immoral teaching, because, instead of appealing to the conscience, it imposes itself by authority.

BASIL

I know Mr. Clay's essay well; and though the passage which you have quoted, taken by itself, is calculated to suggest your question, he nevertheless distinctly acknowledges the dogmatic character of true religion. Thus he argues at length, that if children are made to read the Old and New Testaments, and taught that all leads up to Christ (what, by the way, is this but dogmatic teaching?) they will end, without any dogmatic teaching, in believing, 'not profoundly of course, but genuinely, in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost '—that is to say, I presume, in the Trinity. This, I think, indicates how much importance Mr. Clay attaches to the doctrine of the Trinity; and surely this doctrine is a dogma-in other words, a doctrine for which acceptance is demanded, because it is promulgated by authority.' But there is more than this. After

insisting upon the duty of submitting all dogmas to the influence of the strongest intellectual solvents, Mr. Clay observes:

One of the orthodox after reading this essay will be sure to ask, Where is the process of dogma-dissolving to cease? The answer has been implied, but it may be well to repeat it explicitly. A certain measure of common belief is essential to the coherence of a Church, and must therefore be required of the clergy. You may change one essential (in this sense) belief for another, but you cannot diminish the minimum. Here, then, we have a security for some belief . . The

truth of truths then, God manifest in the flesh, is safe, whatever betides. We cannot abandon that faith in the Incarnation which is destined to be the great dynamic idea of our future civilisation.

In the absence of any statement to the contrary, we must suppose that Mr. Clay, like all orthodox Anglicans, includes in his idea of the Incarnation the essential Godhead of the Son; but according to his own definition of dogma, this truth of truths' is manifestly a dogma; and therefore I am warranted in representing Mr. Clay as holding the first of our three propositions-viz. that dogma is an essential part of true religion.—It is also equally plain that he denies the existence of, or the necessity for, any other guidance in religious matters than may be supplied by the progressive faculties of man. Christendom, he observes, may not unfairly be said to be divided into two parties characterised by opposite tendencies, and 'irreconcilably at variance, for the one rests on a profound faith, the other on a profound want of faith in human nature.' Then again :