the case for Anglicanism is not thereby strengthened. For the Anglican Church, as a matter of fact, has taken her stand on an appeal to sound learning, and has always prided herself on the possession of a learned clergy. Enthusiasm is not a quality which she has ever over-rated or allowed to run to seed. She has left that to Quakers, the people called Methodists, and to the Salvation Army. When other bodies, then, enter the arena of humanism as competitors with her, they enter on her own chosen ground, and if they beat her, or run a dead heat, or even press her hard for the prize, then her defeat is the more significant. Turn it how we will, the growth of intellectual activity on the part of Nonconformists holds out no reason for predicting a more vigorous life for Anglicanism. It may be urged by way of demurrer to the preceding evidence that, granting its truth, it is after all but one side of the picture, and that that bas been painted with quite unnecessary blackness. I have passed by, it will be said, the many evidences of healthy, active, and earnest work, which are to be found up and down the country to an extent which in all probability has seldom been equalled. No, I do not forget these testimonies, and I thank God for them; for, if they did not exist, dread of the future of religion as well as of Anglicanism might well take possession of the heart. But this argument to have validity against my argument must be shown to have its motive force in Anglicanism as such, and to be inseparable from it, instead of being the outcome, as I believe it to be, of that deep sense of religion which characterises the English mind, and will continue to flourish whether Anglicanism survive the atrophy with which it is threatened, or perish because its work has been done. The real truth would seem to be that Anglicanism has outgrown the idea which gave it birth, and lives on because of the inherent conservatism of human nature, with its profound respect for venerable institutions, if only because they are ivy-covered and grey and weather-beaten by the storms of time. But history is explicit in declaring that organisations such as the Church of England are but the material clothing and instruments of an idea, and begin to perish when the idea is dead. The period of dissolution may be long; it may in some cases linger on through a century or two; but the end is not doubtful to one who has watched over the rise and decline of human institutions. Thoughtful men to-day are saying to themselves that Anglicanism as an inspiring idea has spent its force, and they are calculating the days of the Anglican Church as its embodiment, and this even when they are the first to mourn an idea which they still think worthy of a high place in the spiritual hierarchy. There remains but to ask whether, supposing the estimate taken here of the older Anglicanism is true, any possibility is before us of reviving it in a new form, and one better adapted to our modern circumstances. I think there is one way, and only one way, and that, though theoretically possible, has before it so many practical difficulties that its attainment may perhaps be despaired of. The Establishment might be so enlarged as to include at least the greater part of the Nonconforming bodies. What has long stood in the way of this new departure has been the question of the ministry, but now that such conservative scholars as Dr. Sanday and Canon Armitage Robinson have published their conclusions on the origin of the Christian ministry, by which Apostolic Succession is rejected as a dogma and retained only as an historical fact, this lion no longer bars the road. What does still stand in the way, and seems likely to continue to do so, is the hostile sentiment of both Churchmen and Nonconformists. The latter are opposed on principle, I think mistakenly, to any formal establishment of religion, and regard connection between Church and State as adulterous, on the tacit assumption that the State is one of the powers which is not ordained of God. On the other hand, Churchmen, under the gentle teaching of Ritualism, have got into the habit of holding more vigorously than ever the belief that Nonconformists are heretics, and that, therefore, any recognition of their rightful place in the Church is of the nature of allowing a concord between Christ and Belial. The one cannot and the other will not fraternise, or allow that God fulfils Himself in many ways. On the other hand, it is not without interest to note that in the Annual Report of the Congregational Union is a clause which runs: The spirit of ecclesiastical exclusiveness did not, it was said, find much sympathy among the intelligent Anglican laity, and there was a growing section of the Church, it was recognised, which was in sympathy with a broader and more sensible policy. Advances of this kind the Union had always been prepared to reciprocate. These words have the right ring about them, and if the line of action they foreshadow be bravely carried out a brighter future may be in store for English Christianity. The reference to the Broad Church portion of the Anglican Church points to the direction in which Anglicanism may find its salvation if it is so disposed. At the present moment it is in the position of an ancient building from which time has removed one support after another, until so small a portion is left that it is now a pyramid standing on its apex in a state of most unstable equilibrium. It is a question now of life and death for it whether other supports can be made to take the place of the old ones, and whether they will be accepted if offered. If the foundation can be enlarged to cover the centre of gravity, then Anglicanism may take a fresh lease of life. But if the fatuous policy of the ordinary Church defender be per sisted in, if an appeal to history be trusted to alone as all-powerful to bring back the wanderers from the Anglican fold, then Anglicanism is most inevitably doomed. Even the British throne would not stand the stress and storm of modern democratic requirements if it were content to point to its venerable records. It is fruits not roots that men look to to-day, and the old adage, 'By their fruits ye shall know them,' is the one which, rightly or wrongly, is used as the test of all institutions, all societies, and all claimants for popular support. The questions by which the issue before us will be decided are such as these: Is the Church a force in the land for righteousness, peace, and purity? Is she fulfilling her appointed task of preparing the way for the Kingdom of God on earth? Does she lift up her voice as a trumpet against oppression, sensuality, secularity, and selfishness in its hydra-headed forms? What is she doing to secure human homes, decent leisure, and healthy conditions of work for the toiling millions? Is she on the side of freedom and progress in thought, in ethics, and in spirituality? Has she secured the love of the good and the hatred of those who are hateful by her faithful discharge of her prophetic mission, or is she listening to the counsels which bid her seek the ways that are quiet and the primrose path of easy dalliance, where no warfare is found because nothing worthy of conflict is attempted? If Anglicanism can answer these questions satisfactorily no one need be anxious about its future, for if it maintains such high endeavours it will survive because it deserves to survive, and even if it were to perish we should not mourn, but write over its ruins the glorious epitaph, 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.' But I have my misgivings : I backward cast my e'e On prospects drear, And forward tho' I canna see The average Anglican is too ready to fight over his private tastes. in the mode of celebrating divine worship. He is too fond of heresyhunting, too narrow-minded, too ecclesiastical, too unspiritual, and altogether too belligerent, to be able to see the real issue at stake. Unless he does so, and that speedily, so far as man can see, Anglicanism, as it is, will perish for lack of the power of selfadaptation to environment. W. F. COBB. LIBERALISM AND INTRANSIGEANCE. WE have witnessed in the course of the last year a curious display of hostility on the part of a small section of English Catholics towards the powers that be. Its peculiarity has been the note of strong irritation on the one hand, and on the other the absence of specific practical proposals. The Roman Curia, the Jesuits, the whole Ultramontane party (whatever that may mean), the scholastic system, the temporal power, the Roman Congregations -especially the Index and the Inquisition-have been vaguely denounced as parts of a corrupt system. Intriguing Cardinals, mercenary papal delegates, French and Italian clergy conspiring against their civil rulers-these are among the dramatis persona of the burlesque which was for some time presented almost daily in the papers. The only obvious solution is that the corrupt 'system-which it is hard to distinguish from the existing Catholic Church-should be abolished: and one sometimes wonders why those who so think belong to it at all. It would be easy to ascribe these vague extragavances to mere wanton disaffection. They might plausibly be put down in some instances to the Irishman's love of a grievance or wish to be 'agin the Government,' in others to want of good taste or good temper, as the case may be, and not taken seriously at all. At a time when the Church shows so much zeal and devotion throughout nearly all Europe; when one saintly Pontiff has reigned for twenty years in succession to another saintly Pontiff who reigned for thirty; when the morality of the Roman Curia is above suspicion; when the much-abused Jesuits are living heroic lives and winning converts in many countries;-a vague denunciation of the existing Catholic system as signally corrupt is so ludicrous to those who know the facts of the case, that it might very well be simply dismissed as of no account. A good deal of the vague declamation we have heard is indeed unsubstantial smoke. But the proverb tells us that there is no smoke without fire. It may be well to examine the neighbourhood in which the smoke has appeared, in case there may be a fire somewhere-something which needs serious consideration, which may afford a pretext for the ill-conditioned to break the laws of manners and of charity; which may urge men of impatient zeal to exaggerate what is true and view it out of proportion. It is noteworthy that the agitators themselves are generally anonymous, or comparative tyros in the theological arena. But they claim to make common cause with thinkers or scholars of great weight. The Abbé Duchesne is cited with approval, or the Abbé Loisy, or Father Tyrrell. Still more freely are the names invoked of those who are now no more. A liberal Catholic writer in this Review recently claimed-with remarkable courage-to be representing the ideas held in common by Möhler, Cardinal Newman, Montalembert, Lacordaire, and Dupanloup.2 It is perhaps not too much to say that the precise measure in which such claims are believed is the measure of the influence of these modern liberal Catholic writers on intelligent public opinion; and the degree to which such claims can be substantiated is the ineasure of the real substance underlying random denunciation-of real fire behind the smoke. I do not say that the claim on the part of the extremists to solidarity with the wise is significant of a fact; but it is widely believed. And it may at least be significant of a tendency or a danger. The extreme right and The latter desire the sup It is widely believed for a simple reason. the extreme left both affirm that it is so. port of names which the world respects. The former are for various reasons the enemies of all change-including the changes which mark off the living being from the fossil. Consequently while the left try to identify their excesses with the programme of the wise— destructive liberalism with the plea for reality and life-the extreme right try to identify the programme of the wise with the excesses in question-adaptation to the times with destruction of the faith. Both are agreed in applying the vague word 'liberalism' alike to the plea for life within the Church, and to the travesty of that plea by the extreme left. Both have good reason for wishing that the word should be indiscriminately used. Extremists invariably talk loudest and circulate their views most energetically. Consequently the solidarity in question and the studious confusion of ideas on which it rests come to be widely accepted. That the world at large should be for a time undiscriminating on such a subject matters comparatively little. That those in authority should share its mistake, and accept as true the confusion propagated 'I do not include the late Dr. Mivart, whose letters, in defence of his articles, showed that he was not a Catholic at all. 2 See Mr. Dell's letter to the Pilot (April 7) in explanation of his article. VOL XLVII-No. 280 3 R |