THE ORATORY HOUSE 
 
 Ex librt's 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 University of California 
 IRVJNE
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH
 
 THE 
 
 HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 PORTRAITS AND ESSAYS 
 
 . 
 
 GEORGE W: E 1 . RUSSELL 
 
 Operemur bonum ad omnes, maxime autem ad domcsticos fidei 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW 
 
 1902
 
 75"? 
 R1 
 
 Print** by ffattli, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
 
 WITH LOYAL AND LOVING GRATITUDE 
 
 FOR BLESSINGS RECEIVED THROUGH HIS 
 
 FRIENDSHIP AND MINISTRY 
 
 18711902
 
 PREFACE 
 
 book owes its existence to Dr. Robertson Nicoll, 
 who suggested that I should collect and reprint 
 some papers, more or less closely connected with 
 Religion, which I had published during the last few 
 years. 
 
 My sincere thanks are due to the various Editors, 
 whose kindness has enabled me to act on the 
 suggestion. The paper on Cardinal Manning is ex- 
 tracted, by permission of Messrs. Smith & Elder, from 
 a book called " Collections and Recollections." 
 
 By my title, I have endeavoured to convey that the 
 book, both in its descriptive and in its critical parts, 
 is throughout concerned with those whom St. Paul 
 calls TOW oiWot><? T^? Tr/o-rewf, or (as Bishop Lightfoot 
 renders the words) " the members of the household 
 of the faith." 
 
 That Household, like all large families, contains a 
 rich variety of type and character. The twofold object 
 of this book is to exhibit the unifying element
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 supplied by personal devotion to Him Whom all call 
 Master, and to suggest some practical inferences from 
 the laws which He has laid down for the government 
 
 of His House. 
 
 G. W. E, R. 
 
 Advent, 1902.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 1 
 
 EDWARD BOUVERIR PUSEY 44 
 
 ARCHBISHOP TAIT 60 
 
 ALEXANDER HERIOT MACKONOCHIE . . ; '- ;. 79 
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON . .V . . 95 
 
 ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 132
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CARDINAL MANNING 146 
 
 ARCHBISHOP BENSON 158 
 
 THEODORE TALBOT . .166 
 
 HENRY CARY SHUTTLEWORTH 174 
 
 ION KEITH-FALCONER . . .181 
 
 MRS. GLADSTONE . 187 
 
 BISHOP WESTCOTT . 
 
 RICHARD HOLT BUTTON . . . 200 
 
 BROADLANDS 205
 
 CONTENTS xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " THE ANGfcL OF THE CHURCH OF LINCOLN " . . 216 
 
 ZACHARY MACAULAY AND HIS FRIENDS . . . 224 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS . .231 
 
 A CENTURY OF EVANGELICALISM . 246 
 
 THE " PLYMOUTH BRETHREN " . 251 
 
 THE " RESTORED APOSTOLATE " 264 
 
 A MODERN MIRACLE 275 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS AND MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS . 286 
 
 LIBERALISM AND THE CHURCH -.-.-. -^ ., 297
 
 xii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 AN EVENING AT ST. FAUI/S . 305 
 
 THE COMMON CREED OF CATHOLICS AND EVAN- 
 GELICALS . . .313 
 
 CATHOLIC CONTINUITY IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 330 
 
 REFORMATION AND REUNION 344 
 
 THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT . .361 
 
 RITUALISM AND DISESTABLISHMENT 377 
 
 " A MOCKERY, A DELUSION, AND A SNARE " . . 397 
 
 " CHURCH REFORM " , 409 
 
 PROSPECTS OF RELIGION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 414
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT l 
 
 HEREDITY has, I suppose, its bearing on religion, 
 as on all human concerns. Mr. Gladstone was 
 accustomed to declare that, so far as he knew, there was 
 not a drop of blood in his veins which was not Scottish. 
 All his ancestry was Presbyterian ; but his father, John 
 Gladstone, leaving Scotland in early youth, and settling 
 at Liverpool, conformed to the Church of England, 
 and became a munificent promoter of church-building 
 and church-endowment. John Gladstone was a God- 
 fearing man of an old-fashioned type ; not identified, 
 as far as I can learn, with any party in the Church. 
 His wife (Anne Robertson) was a fervent Evangelical, 
 of saintly character and personal charm ; and it is, of 
 course, to his mother that a boy generally owes his first 
 impressions of religion. 
 
 In 1818 or 1819 Mrs. Gladstone said in a letter to 
 a friend that she believed her son William had been 
 " truly converted [to God." 2 That is the Evangelical 
 mode of expression. Probably it was not a case of 
 conversion from evil to good, but one of those thrice- 
 happy instances where baptismal grace has not been 
 forfeited by wilful sin, and where the spiritual life 
 
 1 A paper read in Christ Church, Oxford, 1899. 
 * Communicated by J. Macdonald, of 21, Thistle Street, 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 I
 
 2 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 developes, as it were, by a natural growth. Tertnllian 
 recognizes the anima naturaliter Christiana. 
 
 At eleven William Gladstone went to Eton. The 
 Public Schools of England, even after seventy years 
 of strenuous reform, leave a good deal to be desired 
 in the way of faith and morals ; and what they were 
 in the first quarter of the century we know from con- 
 temporary records. " Public Schools are the seats and 
 nurseries of vice," was written in a religious diary ; and 
 I have no reason to think that the judgment was too 
 severe. 
 
 But the prevenient and restraining grace of God is 
 stronger than environment, and William Gladstone came 
 scathless through the searching trials of school-life. 
 " I remember him at Eton, a pure and noble boy," 
 writes the venerable Canon Carter. " At Eton," said 
 Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury, " I was a thoroughly 
 idle boy ; but I was saved from some worse things by 
 getting to know Gladstone." Sixty years afterwards 
 a schoolfellow told me that he remembered seeing 
 Gladstone turn his glass upside down, and decline to 
 drink an indecent toast proposed at a school-dinner at 
 the Christopher. 
 
 In October, 1828, William Ewart Gladstone became 
 a member of the illustrious House in which I have 
 the honour of paying this tribute to his memory. 
 
 The distinctly religious effect of Oxford on Mr. 
 Gladstone's mind was less direct than has been com- 
 monly supposed. When he was an undergraduate the 
 Catholic revival had not yet begun. Cardinal Newman 
 taught us to date it from July 14, 1833. With the 
 exception of a handful of Evangelicals at St. Edmund's 
 Hall, the religious clergy and laity of Oxford were 
 High Churchmen of the traditional type. Dr. Routh 
 still survived to " report," as Newman said, " to a
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 3 
 
 forgetful generation what had been the theology of 
 their fathers " ; but his influence was not felt beyond 
 the walls of Magdalen. The Caroline divinity still 
 lingered. Men believed in the Church as a Divine 
 society, as well as a chief institution of the realm ; they 
 set store upon her Orders and Sacraments, and at least 
 professed great respect for, if they did not cultivate 
 intimate acquaintance with, the writings of her standard 
 divines. At the same time, they had a holy horror 
 of Popish usurpation, and Sir Robert Peel's concession 
 of the Roman Catholic claims had just cost him his 
 seat for the University. But these influences produced 
 no immediate or conscious effect on Mr. Gladstone's 
 mind. The ecclesiastical atmosphere of the place was 
 high and dry, and therefore as little as possible 
 attractive to an ardent and spiritual nature. The 
 fascinating genius and austere sanctity of John Henry 
 Newman had not yet begun to leaven the University. 
 Between 1828 and 1832 there was no leader of para- 
 mount authority in the religious world of Oxford, and 
 the young student of Christ Church was left to develope 
 his own opinions and frame his own course. The 
 blameless schoolboy became a blameless undergraduate, 
 diligent, sober, regular alike in study and devotion, 
 giving his whole energies to the duties of the place, 
 and quietly abiding in the religious faith in which he 
 had been trained. At the Union, when he opposed the 
 removal of Jewish disabilities, he argued, as we are told 
 by a contemporary, " on the part of the Evangelicals." 
 
 His life corresponded to his belief. He was con- 
 spicuously moderate in the use of wine. His good 
 example in this respect affected, only only his con- 
 temporaries, but also his successors at the University. 
 The present Archbishop of Canterbury, who followed 
 him to Oxford ten years later, found it still operative,
 
 4 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 and declares that undergraduates drank less in the 
 'forties, because Gladstone had been courageously 
 abstemious in the 'thirties. Bishop Charles Wordsworth 
 said that no man of his standing in the University 
 habitually read his Bible more or knew it better. 
 Cardinal Manning described him to me as walking to 
 church with his " Bible and Prayer-book tucked under 
 his arm." He paid surreptitious visits to Dissenting 
 chapels to hear celebrated preachers ; was enraged by 
 a University sermon in which Calvin had been placed 
 on as low a level of orthodoxy as Socinus ; and passed 
 through Oxford with a religious belief still untinctured 
 by Catholic theology. But the great change was not 
 far distant, and he had already formed some of the 
 friendships which, in their development, were destined 
 to affect so profoundly the course of his religious thought. 
 During the Long Vacation of 1830 he joined a 
 reading-party at Cuddesdon, and one of the party wrote 
 in after-years : 
 
 It is curious to remember seeing Manning hard at work 
 getting up the text of the Bible, so as to command great 
 facility in applying it, and Gladstone working at Hooker. 
 
 In reading for the Schools, he became intimately 
 acquainted with two great masters, who dominated all 
 his subsequent thinking. " Butler and Aristotle would 
 carry you anywhere in those days," he said to me, in 
 looking back over an interspace of more than sixty 
 years. 
 
 At Christmas, 1831, he got his Double First, and now 
 came the choice of a profession. Conscious of great 
 powers, keenly anxious to use them for God's glory and 
 the service of men, and relieved by his father's wealth 
 from the necessity of making his own fortune, he turned 
 his thoughts to Holy Orders. There still exists a
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 5 
 
 deeply interesting letter in which he urges, with 
 characteristic earnestness, the reasons which impelled 
 him to that career. In old age Cardinal Manning 
 wrote : " He was nearer to being a clergyman than I 
 was. He was, I believe, as fit for it as I was unfit." 
 But his father had resolved to make him a politician, 
 and the paternal will prevailed. 
 
 I do not pause to-night to speculate on might-have- 
 beens ; but I record the fact that, in after-life, Mr. 
 Gladstone used to denounce, even with vehemence, that 
 over-weening exercise of the patria potestas which 
 diverts a young man from the course on which his 
 heart is set. 
 
 The last of the unreformed Parliaments was dissolved 
 on December 3, 1832. Mr. Gladstone was returned for 
 Newark, and took his seat in the House of Commons on 
 January 29, 1833. 
 
 A quotation from one of his early speeches throws a 
 striking light on the life which he had lived at Oxford, 
 and the kind of company that he had kept there. In a 
 debate on a Bill to abolish subscription at matriculation, 
 Lord Palmerston had expressed a reasonable dislike of 
 a system which compelled the undergraduates to go 
 " from wine to prayers, and prayers to wine." But Mr. 
 Gladstone had a better opinion of the men who had so 
 lately been his companions. " He did not believe that 
 even in their most convivial moments they were unfit to 
 enter the House of Prayer" Oxford produces few men, 
 in any generation, to whom this would suggest itself as 
 a possible vindication of compulsory Chapel. 
 
 The first act of the Whig Government in the reformed 
 Parliament was an attempt to remodel the Irish Church. 
 A large part of its revenues was to be secularized ; and 
 ten Irish bishoprics were destroyed. Lord Grey told 
 the English bishops to set their house in order. The
 
 6 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 process begun in Ireland might soon extend to England. 
 John Keble thought that the time had come when 
 " scoundrels must be called scoundrels." On July 14, 
 1833, he preached at St. Mary's his famous Assize 
 Sermon on " National Apostasy," and immediately after- 
 wards the issue of the " Tracts for the Times " began. 
 
 J. H. Newman, organizing the crusade, and reckoning 
 up his actual and possible allies, writes on October 2, 
 1833 : " As to Gladstone, perhaps it would be wrong 
 to ask a young man so to commit himself." But on 
 November 13 he records : " The Duke of Newcastle 
 has joined us ... Gladstone, etc." 
 
 Interpreting these notes in the light of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's subsequent declarations, I should say that they 
 do not imply any definite acceptance as yet of the 
 doctrines specifically Tractarian. They mean, I fancy, 
 that the young Christian statesman eagerly responded 
 to a call which bade him enlist in an army embattled 
 against Liberalism and irreligion in his view, synony- 
 mous terms. 
 
 The " Tracts for the Times " soon saturated England 
 with new influences. The passionate, almost despairing, 
 appeal of half a dozen gifted and holy men at Oxford 
 had awoke a response in every corner of the kingdom. 
 " We did," they said, " but light a beacon-fire on the 
 summit of a lonely hill : and now we are amazed to find 
 the firmament on every side red with the light of some 
 responsive flame." 
 
 But it was not through the Tracts that the influence 
 of the Oxford Movement " or the " Catholic Revival " 
 reached the young Member for Newark. It reached 
 him through his friendship with James Robert Hope, 
 Fellow of Merton, and afterwards Hope-Scott of Abbots- 
 ford. Of this eminent man Mr. Gladstone wrote in 
 later years to his daughter Mrs. Maxwell-Scott :
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 7 
 
 Few men, perhaps, have had a wider contact with their 
 generation, or a more varied experience of personal friend- 
 ships, than myself. Among the large number of estimable 
 and remarkable people whom I have known, and who have 
 now passed away, there is in my memory an inner circle, 
 and within it are the forms of those who were marked off 
 from the comparative crowd, even of the estimable and 
 remarkable, by the peculiarity and privilege of their type. 
 Of these very few some four or five, I think, only your 
 father was one : and with regard to them it always seemed to 
 me as if the type in each case was that of the individual 
 exclusively, and as if there could be but one such person in 
 our world at a time. After the early death of Arthur 
 Hallam, I used to regard your father distinctly as at the 
 head of all his contemporaries in the brightness and beauty 
 of his gifts. 
 
 We were at Eton at the same time, but he was considerably 
 my junior, so that we were not in the way of being drawn 
 together. At Christ Church we were again contemporaries, 
 but acquaintances only, scarcely friends. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The next occasion on which I remember to have seen 
 him was in his sitting-room at Chelsea Hospital. 1 There 
 must, however, have been some shortly preceding contact, or 
 I should not have gone there to visit him. I found him 
 among folios and books of grave appearance. It must have 
 been about this year 1836. He opened a conversation on the 
 controversies which were then agitated in the Chnrch of 
 England, and which had Oxford for their centre. I do not 
 think I had paid them much attention ; but I was an ardent 
 student of Dante, and likewise of Saint Augustine ; both of 
 them had acted powerfully upon my mind ; and this was in 
 truth the best preparation I had for anything like mental 
 communion with a person of his elevation. He then told me 
 that he had been seriously studying the controversy, and that 
 in his opinion the Oxford authors were right. He spoke not 
 only with seriousness, but with solemnity, as if this was for 
 him a great epoch ; not merely the adoption of a speculative 
 opinion, but the reception of a profound and powerful religious 
 impulse." 2 
 
 1 Of which Hope's father was Governor. 
 
 1 " Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott," vol. ii., appendix iii.
 
 8 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's mind and heart were already attuned 
 to the new teaching, and prepared to receive it, even 
 though he " had not paid much attention " to the 
 controversy. It was in 1836 that he wrote his hymn 
 on the Holy Communion. Let me quote five verses : 
 
 Here, where Thine angels overhead 
 Do warn the Tempter's powers away, 
 
 And where the bodies of the dead 
 For life and resurrection stay ; 
 
 And many a generation's prayer 
 
 Hath perfumed and hath blest the air ; 
 
 O lead my blindness by the hand, 
 
 Lead me to Thy familiar Feast, 
 Not here or now to understand, 
 
 Yet even here and now to taste, 
 How the eternal Word of Heaven 
 On earth in broken bread is given. 
 
 We, who this holy precinct round 
 
 In one adoring circle kneel, 
 May we in one intent be bound, 
 
 And one serene devotion feel ; 
 And grow around Thy sacred shrine 
 Like tendrils of the deathless Vine. 
 
 We, who with one blest Food are fed, 
 
 Into one body may we grow, 
 And one pure life from Thee, the Head, 
 
 Informing all the members flow ; 
 One pulse be felt in every vein, 
 One law of pleasure and of pain. 
 
 O let the virtue all divine, 
 The Gift of this true Sabbath morn, 
 
 Stored in my spirit's inner shrine 
 Be purely and be meekly borne ; 
 
 Be husbanded with thrifty care, 
 
 And sweetened and refreshed with prayer. 
 
 That conversation on the " controversies which had 
 Oxford for their centre," and Hope's grave judgment
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 9 
 
 that " the Oxford authors were right," set Mr. Gladstone 
 on studying the question for himself. He went to work 
 by a characteristically thorough yet simple method. 
 He made a close examination of the Occasional Offices 
 of the Prayer-book. " Those offices opened my eyes," 
 he said sixty years later to Father Puller of Cowley. 
 
 From Bishop Phillpotts " Harry of Exeter "he 
 learned that the opinions of the Reformers were nothing 
 to us, and that for the authoritative interpretation of 
 the Prayer-book we must go to the divines of 1662. 
 His previous study of Hooker had prepared him for 
 this change of view, and the process was completed 
 by Sir William Palmer's " Treatise on the Church of 
 Christ " a book which Dr. Dollinger placed at the very 
 top of English theological writing. 
 
 From this process of independent examination Mr. 
 Gladstone emerged what he remained to the end of 
 his life an English Catholic Churchman. There was 
 no break with his religious past. He was from first 
 to last an Evangelical. But Catholic doctrine and 
 practice were superimposed, so to say, on the Evangelical 
 foundation. This is curiously illustrated by a letter 
 of the late Lord Houghton, who, describing in 1838 
 the bachelor parties which he gives on Sunday evenings, 
 says : 
 
 This arrangement unfortunately excludes the more severe 
 members Gladstone, etc. I really think that, when people 
 keep Friday as a fast, they might make a feast of Sunday. 
 
 The year 1838 saw the publication of Mr. Gladstone's 
 first book, " The State in its Relations with the Church." 
 He thus described its genesis : 
 
 The question of the relations of Church and State was 
 forced into prominence at that time by a variety of causes, 
 and among them not least by a series of lectures, which 
 Dr. Chalmers delivered in Hanover Square Rooms, to dis-
 
 10 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 tinguished audiences, with a profuse eloquence and a noble and 
 almost irresistible fervour. These lectures drove me upon 
 the hazardous enterprise of handling the same subject upon 
 what I thought a sounder basis. 
 
 Hence came " The State in its Relations with the 
 Church." 1 
 
 The distinctive principle of the book was supposed to be, 
 that the State had a conscience. . . . 
 
 The one master-idea of the system, that the State as it 
 then stood was capable in this age, as it had been in ages 
 long gone by, of assuming beneficially a responsibility for 
 the inculcation of a particular religion, carried me through 
 all. My doctrine was, that the Church, as established by 
 law, was to be maintained for its truth ; that this was the 
 only principle on which it could be properly and permanently 
 upheld ; that this principle, if good in England, was good 
 also for Ireland; that truth is of all possessions the most 
 precious to the soul of man ; and that to remove, as I then 
 erroneously thought we should remove, this priceless treasure 
 from the view and the reach of the Irish people, would be 
 meanly to purchase their momentary favour at the expense 
 of their permanent interests, and would be a high offence 
 against our own sacred obligations. 2 
 
 The work was brought to a successful issue in the 
 winter of 1838. Lord Houghton used to say that Sir 
 Robert Peel, on receiving a copy as a gift from his 
 young follower, exclaimed with truly official horror : 
 " With such a career before him, why should he write 
 books ? " But more emotional people took a very 
 different view. Writing on December 13, 1838, Baron 
 Bunsen says : 
 
 Last night at eleven, when I came from the Duke, 
 Gladstone's book was lying on my table, having come out at 
 seven o'clock. It is the book of the time, a great event the 
 first book since Burke that goes to the bottom of the vital 
 question ; far above his party and his time. I sat up till 
 after midnight, and this morning I continued until I had 
 
 1 "Gleanings of Past Years," vol. vii., p. 104. 
 1 Ibid., p. 108.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 11 
 
 read the whole. . . . Gladstone is the first man in England 
 as to intellectual power, and he has heard higher tones than 
 any one else in this land. 
 
 Writing a few days later to Dr. Arnold, the Baron 
 again extols the book, and, while lamenting what he 
 conceives to be its author's entanglement in Tractarian 
 tradition, adds : 
 
 His genius will soon free itself entirely, and fly towards 
 Heaven with its own wings. 
 
 On January 9, 1839, J. H. Newman writes : 
 Gladstone's book, you see, is making a sensation. 
 On the 22nd : 
 
 The Times is again at poor Gladstone. Really I feel as 
 if I could do anything for him. I have not read his book, 
 but its consequences speak for it. Poor fellow ! it is so noble 
 a thing. 
 
 The book soon reached a third edition, and drew from 
 Macaulay that trenchant review in which Mr. Gladstone 
 was described, for the infinite gratification of later 
 critics, as the " rising hope of the stern and unbending 
 Tories." 
 
 " The State in its Kelations " is mainly a political 
 book, in that higher sense of politics which is concerned 
 with the nature, functions, and well-being of the IState. 
 But it contains some theological passages of great 
 interest, notably those in which the writer criticizes the 
 actual working, as distinct from the formal teaching, of 
 the Church of Rome. 
 
 At Midsummer, 1840, Mr. Gladstone was one of the 
 examiners for the Newcastle Scholarship at Eton. A 
 boy whom he examined wrote to me just fifty years 
 later : 
 
 It was the golden time of " retrograding transcendental-
 
 ism," as the hard heads called the Anglo-Catholic symphony. 
 He seemed to me then an apostle of unworldly ardour, bridling 
 his life. 
 
 He was the first young good man I had ever seen. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Gladstone was busy with his second 
 book, " Church Principles considered in their Results." 
 It attracted much less attention than " The State in 
 its Relations " ; but has, I think, more permanent value. 
 It maintains the visibility and office of the Church, 
 the mathematical certainty of the Apostolic Succession, 
 and the nature and efficacy of the Sacraments. It 
 defines the relations between Authority and Private 
 Judgment, and vindicates the Church of England as 
 the Divinely-appointed exponent of Christian truth 
 for the people of this country. On St. Stephen's Day, 
 1840, Newman wrote : 
 
 Gladstone's book is ... doctrinaire, and (I think) some- 
 what self-confident; but it will do good. 
 
 Two days later F. D. Maurice wrote this acute 
 criticism : 
 
 His Aristotelianism is, it strikes me, more deeply fixed 
 in him than before, and, on that account, I do not see how 
 he can ever enter enough into the feeling and truth of 
 Rationalism to refute it. 
 
 Theory, in Mr. Gladstone, was never long divorced 
 from practice, and his growing devotion to the Sacra- 
 mental principle produced the following letter, written 
 on April 24, 1841, to a clergyman designated for the 
 first incumbency of St. Thomas's Church, Liverpool, 
 which his father had just built and endowed : 
 
 There are some objects which I have much at heart, in 
 connection with this church, and which I venture to mention. 
 . . . They generally have reference to restoration of the rules 
 of the Church, which have fallen more or less into desuetude ;
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 13 
 
 which it may be difficult to re-establish against the contrary 
 usage ; but to which the way seems open where the whole 
 machinery is of new formation and no injurious precedents 
 exist. 
 
 The main one is the Celebration of the Holy Communion 
 weekly, as well as on the great festivals. 
 
 This would of course bring with it the Weekly Offertory, 
 and I trust the time is approaching when it will be practicable 
 at least for many members of the Church to make this the 
 usual vehicle of their alms and religious contributions. . . . 
 There is a difficulty connected with the weekly Communion 
 in the extreme length of the service. It is usual, I think, 
 to meet this by administering the Eucharist at eight o'clock 
 in the morning. This practice has been dictated by the 
 desire to avoid interference with the habits which members 
 of congregations may have already formed. But it seems 
 clearly to invert the order, and mar the harmony, of the 
 services of the Church. Our Morning Prayer comes in 
 strangely at near mid-day ; most peculiarly to those who 
 have already performed in the morning the consummating 
 act of Christian worship. 
 
 * # * * 
 
 The greatest object of all appears to me to be the re- 
 establishment of the Eucharist in its proper and Scriptural 
 place as the central act of at least our weekly worship where 
 an easy opportunity is afforded by the opening of a new 
 church. 
 
 In this same year 1841 Mr. Gladstone became 
 involved in that ill-starred scheme for planting at 
 Jerusalem a Bishop who should rule both the English 
 and the Lutheran clergy, which finally " broke " 
 Cardinal Newman. It would appear that he gave his 
 adherence to the scheme rather inadvertently, and 
 under pressure from two prelates whom he greatly 
 revered Dr. Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
 Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London. He soon began to 
 draw back. 
 
 On November 20 he writes to James Hope : 
 
 I am ready individually to brave misconstruction for the
 
 14 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 sake of union with any Christian men, provided the terms 
 of the union be not contrary to sound principle ; and perhaps 
 in this respect might go further, at least in one of the possible 
 directions, than you. But to declare the living constitution 
 of a Christian Church to be of secondary moment is of course 
 in my view equivalent to a denial of a portion of the faith. 
 
 It is curious that, in the last conversation which I 
 had with Mr. Gladstone before I visited his death-bed, 
 he harked back to this ancient .controversy about the 
 Jerusalem Bishopric ( propos of Dr. Pusey's Life), 
 and spoke with a good deal of bitterness, as if he had 
 been misled and his action in the matter misrepresented. 
 
 I suppose that the maxim Lex precandi, lex credendi, 
 applies to individuals as well as' to Churches ; and this 
 lends a peculiar interest to a Manual of Eucharistic 
 Devotions which Mr. Gladstone compiled for his own 
 use in 1842. It is drawn partly from ancient sources, 
 chiefly Eastern ; partly from Andrewes, partly from 
 Laud, partly from the Scotch Office, and is in part 
 original. The whole is written with exquisite neatness 
 in a booklet which could easily be carried in the waist- 
 coat pocket. After his death Mrs. Gladstone allowed 
 me to see this precious relic, and to make the following 
 citations from it : 
 
 Before the Consecration. 
 
 O Lord God : 
 
 We offer unto Thee the creatures of bread and wine. Make 
 them to become the Body and Blood of Thy most dearly- 
 beloved Son. 
 
 We offer unto Thee our bodies and our souls : make them 
 to become body of the Body, and soul of the Soul, of Thy 
 most dearly-beloved Son. 
 
 Before Communion. 
 
 my God, enable me to receive the Body of the Lord. 
 O awful Sacrament of the Body of the Lord.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 15 
 
 Lamb of God, before all things and above all things my 
 delight : 
 
 Accept, for Thine own mercy's sake, this sacrifice which 
 I offer my soul and my body. 
 
 At Communion. 
 
 Thou That wast Incarnate, and made Man : 
 
 That didst suffer so great pains : 
 
 Broken and Crucified : 
 
 Dead and Buried : 
 
 Returned from Hell : 
 
 Lifted up into Heaven : 
 
 Reigning in Glory : 
 
 To come unto Judgment : 
 
 Let mine unclean body be cleansed in Thee. 
 
 After Communion. 
 
 mighty power of the Death and Resurrection of the 
 Lord, enter into my spirit and into my body and possess them, 
 and make me live the life of the Lord, and from day to day 
 to look for His most glorious appearing. 
 
 Grant us to acquire continually 
 
 the increase of Thy likeness, 
 
 And through the gates of Death, 
 
 Through the abyss of darkness, 
 
 To enter into the Kingdom of GOD 
 
 The bosom of everlasting rest. 
 
 All this, Heavenly FATHER, 
 
 Through CHRIST alone, 
 
 Through the shedding of His Blood, 
 
 Through the Resurrection of His Body, 
 
 I beseech with my whole heart, 
 
 I the most miserable of sinners. 
 
 From the correspondence of the year 1845 I take 
 a letter which beautifully illustrates the Apostolic idea 
 of Faith which worketh by Love. To his friend James 
 Hope he writes with reference to " temporal works " 
 of mercy : 
 
 If you mean temporal works otherwise than in money,
 
 16 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 T would to God we could join hands upon a subject of the 
 kind which interested you much two years ago. 
 
 The desire we then both felt passed off, as far as I am 
 concerned, into a plan of asking only a donation and sub- 
 scription. Now it is very difficult to satisfy the demands 
 of duty to the poor by money alone. On the other hand, 
 it is extremely hard for me (and I suppose possibly for you) 
 to give them much in the shape of time and thought, for 
 both with me are already tasked up to and beyond their 
 powers, and by matters which I cannot displace. I much 
 wish we could execute some plan which, without demanding 
 much time, would entail the discharge of some humble and 
 humbling offices. 
 
 What those "humble and humbling offices" were 
 was explained by the present Bishop of St. Andrews 
 (who had ministered to Mr. Gladstone on his death-bed) 
 when he preached his funeral sermon on May 22, 1898. 
 
 On this day I think of one who, last Thursday, on that 
 bright Ascension morning, passed out of the toil and pain 
 of this suffering life into the rest for which he was pleading. 
 ... I like to think of him when a boy at Eton, with hard 
 discipline training himself so that he should never allow his 
 eyes to look at anything that was evil, nor his mind to 
 dwell upon anything that was not pure and lovely and of 
 good report. I like to think of him in his young manhood 
 on that day when in the presence of only one intimate friend 
 he solemnly made up his mind that whatever else he accom- 
 plished in life, whether he was successful or whether he failed, 
 he would by God's help not rest unless he was able to bring 
 back from the dreary wilderness of sin some of those poor 
 women whose lives have been ruined by man's selfishness, 
 man's thoughtless cruelty. I like to see him like the young 
 knight in the ancient legend girding on his armour for that 
 life-long effort. 
 
 At Christmas, 1845, Mr. Gladstone re-entered the 
 Cabinet after a year's retirement from office, and wrote to 
 his friend H. E. Manning, then Archdeacon of Chichester, 
 who had sent him a volume of sermons, a most interest- 
 ing letter, in which he describes his rule of life ; the
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 17 
 
 amount of time which he bestows, daily and weekly, on 
 devotion ; his practice as to fasting, and the amount of 
 sleep which he allows himself : 
 
 My needs for sleep are great : as long as I rise feeling 
 like a stone, I do not think there is too much, and this is 
 the general description of my waking sense, in office and 
 during the session ; but I consider seven and a half hours the 
 least I ought then to have, and I should be better with eight. 
 I know the old stories about retrenching sleep, and how 
 people are deceived themselves ; with me it may be so, but 
 I think it is not. ... I hope I may be preserved from the 
 guilt and ingratitude of indulging sensual sloth, under the 
 mask of wise and necessary precautions. 
 
 To this year 1845 belongs a letter, important as 
 bearing on an event which still lay twenty-four years 
 ahead the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. Evi- 
 dently the optimistic theory of that Establishment which 
 had been set forth in " The State in its Relations " 
 was beginning to give way. On August 16 he wrote 
 to Samuel Wilberforce : 
 
 I am sorry to express my apprehension that the Irish 
 Church is not in a large sense efficient ; the working results 
 of the last ten years have disappointed me. It may be 
 answered, " Have faith in the ordinance of God " ; but then 
 I must see the seal and signature, and these how can I 
 separate from ecclesiastical descent ? The title, in short, is 
 questioned, and vehemently, not only by the Radicalism of 
 the day, but by the Roman Bishops, who claim to hold the 
 succession of St. Patrick, and this claim has been alive all 
 along from the Reformation, so that lapse of years does 
 nothing against it. 
 
 Anticipating for a moment, I would say that this 
 declaration should be read in connexion with the Letter 
 on " The Functions of Laymen in the Church " which, 
 in 1851, Mr. Gladstone addressed to Dr. Skinner, Bishop 
 of Aberdeen and Primus. 
 
 That letter is remarkable because, as was detected
 
 18 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 at the time by Dr. Charles Wordsworth, Bishop of St. 
 Andrews, "it contained the germ of Liberation, and 
 the political equality of all religions." The Bishop 
 published a controversial reply, which drew from Dean 
 Gaisford these ominous words : " You have proved to 
 my satisfaction that this gentleman is unfit to represent 
 the University." 
 
 Those were days of spiritual stress and conflict. The 
 period from 1845 to 1858 was rightly christened by Dr. 
 Liddon " The Struggle." The first principles of Catholic 
 truth were struggling to live in the Church of England, 
 and were beset by all imaginable forms of difficulty and 
 danger. In 1850 the Gorham Judgment seemed to 
 jeopardize the orthodoxy of the Church in respect of 
 Holy Baptism, and the supremacy of the Privy Council 
 was felt to be an intolerable burden. Mr. Gladstone, 
 whose two most intimate friends James Hope and 
 Henry Manning were now on the verge of secession, 
 was profoundly moved. He liberated his soul in an 
 Open Letter to the Bishop of London. This letter 
 sought to prove that, as settled at the Reformation, 
 the Royal Supremacy was not inconsistent with the 
 spiritual life and inherent jurisdiction of the Church, but 
 that the recent establishment of the Privy Council as 
 the ultimate court of appeal in religious causes was 
 " an injurious, and even dangerous, departure from 
 the Reformation Settlement." 
 
 After urging, with impassioned earnestness, the claim 
 of the Church to be the final judge in all questions of 
 doctrine, and, contemplating the possibility that the 
 State may formally reject this claim, he says : 
 
 We should, indeed, have a consolation, the greatest 
 perhaps which times of heavy trouble and affliction can 
 afford, in the reduction of the whole matter to a short, 
 clear, and simple issue ; because such a resolution, when
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 19 
 
 once unequivocally made clear by acts, would sum up the 
 whole case before the Church to the effect of these words : 
 " You have our decision ; take your own ; choose between 
 the mess of pottage, and the birthright of the Bride of 
 Christ." 
 
 Those that are awake might hardly require a voice of 
 such appalling clearness; those that sleep, it surely would 
 awaken ; of those that would not hear it must be said, 
 "Neither would they hear, though one rose from the dead." 
 
 But She that, a stranger and a pilgrim in this world, 
 is wedded to the Lord, and lives only in the hope of His 
 Coming, would know her part ; and, while going forth to 
 her work with steady step and bounding heart, would look back 
 with deep compassion upon the region she had quitted 
 upon the slumbering millions, no less blind to the Future 
 than ungrateful to the Past. 
 
 Hardly had the scandal and commotion caused by an 
 attack on the doctrine of Holy Baptism died out, when 
 an attack on the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist was 
 begun. Archdeacon Denison was prosecuted for teaching 
 the Real Objective Presence. On August 13, 1856, 
 Mr. Gladstone wrote to his friend and leader, Lord 
 Aberdeen : 
 
 Dr. Lushington has declared the intention of the Court 
 to condemn George Denison, not only as to some secondary 
 expressions or shades of his doctrine, which may be thought 
 to belong to him individually, but likewise as to his profession 
 of those principles which imply belief in the Eucharist as 
 a substantive Reality. I use the expression advisedly, for 
 the Eucharist, in the character of a touching spectacle and 
 emblem, requires no belief and admits of none. My mind 
 is quite made up, that if belief in the Eucharist as a Reality 
 is proscribed by law in the Church of England, all I hold 
 dear in life shall be given and devoted to over-setting and 
 tearing in pieces such law, whatever consequences, of what- 
 ever kind, may follow. 
 
 On August 23 he writes to Bishop Wilberforce : 
 
 It is high time that there should be a careful argument 
 upon the justice and morality of late ecclesiastical proceedings
 
 20 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 . . . and it must likewise be shown how judicial proceedings 
 are governed by extra-judicial considerations, and a system is 
 growing up under which ecclesiastical judges are becoming the 
 virtual legislators of the Church, while its legislature is silent. 
 
 The need for devising some method by which the 
 mind of the Church of England, as distinct from the 
 State, could be ascertained and declared, seems to have 
 pressed on Mr. Gladstone with an almost insupportable 
 weight. On November 2, 1857, he wrote again to 
 Bishop Wilberforce : 
 
 If the mind of those who rule and of those who compose 
 the Church is deliberately anti- Catholic, I have no right 
 to seek a hiding-place within the pale of her possessions by 
 keeping her in a condition of voicelessness. 
 
 / ham no right to seek a hiding-place within the pale 
 of her possessions. 
 
 What was at the back of Mr. Gladstone's mind when 
 he wrote those words ? For my own part, I feel certain 
 that it was not secession to Home. In 1873 he wrote 
 to Mrs. Maxwell-Scott about the secession of her father, 
 James Hope, in the following terms : 
 
 Our friendship continued to live, but only, or almost only, 
 as it lives between those who inhabit separate worlds. On 
 no day since that date, I think, was he absent from my 
 thoughts ; and now I can scarcely tear myself from the 
 fascination of writing about him. And so, too, you will 
 feel the fascination of reading about him ; and it will serve 
 to relieve the weariness with which otherwise you would 
 have toiled through so long a letter. ... If anything which 
 it contains has hurt you, recollect the chasm which separates 
 our points of view ; recollect that what came to him as 
 light and blessing and emancipation, had never offered itself 
 to me otherwise than as a temptation and a sin ; recollect 
 that when he found what he held his " pearl of great price," 
 his discovery was to me beyond what I could describe, not 
 only a shock and a grief, but a danger too." * 
 
 1 " Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott," vol. ii., appendix iii.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 21 
 
 A temptation and a sin. The conviction which had 
 withstood that temptation and avoided that sin in the 
 dark days of 1845, when Cardinal Newman "drew after 
 him a third part of the stars of Heaven," and in the 
 even darker days of 1851, when, in the secessions of 
 Hope and Manning, Mr. Gladstone " felt as if he had 
 lost his two eyes," was not likely to be reversed merely 
 because the Bishops were misbehaving themselves in 
 1857. In old age Mr. Gladstone said to me: "I am 
 the strongest anti-papalist in the world. The Papacy is 
 a tyranny all through a tyranny of the Pope over the 
 Bishops, of the Bishops over the Priesthood, of the 
 Priesthood over the Laity." And the Temporal Power 
 he always regarded as a kind of Antichrist. 
 
 No, I am persuaded that it was not to Rome that 
 Mr. Gladstone looked for a refuge if the Church of 
 England failed him. We know from Cardinal Manning's 
 Life that in 1850 some distressed Churchmen contem- 
 plated the plan of setting up a separate Church, which 
 should maintain its Orders, Sacraments, and doctrine 
 in independence alike of the State and of Rome. 
 Possibly Mr. Gladstone favoured this scheme. The 
 passage which I quoted from his letter to Bishop Blom- 
 field looks like it. But, on the whole, I am inclined to 
 think that, if he had been driven out of the Church of 
 England, he would have transferred his allegiance to 
 the Episcopal Church of Scotland, to which his father 
 and family had conformed when they made their home 
 in Kincardineshire, and of which he had himself been an 
 active promoter and benefactor. (One 1 of my hearers to- 
 night knows what he did for Trinity College, Glenal- 
 mond.) Happily, however, the necessity for a change 
 never arose. By 1860 "The Struggle" was ended. 
 Catholic principles of faith and practice had made good 
 1 Dr. Bright.
 
 22 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 their foothold in the Church of England, and Mr. 
 Gladstone's increasing ascendency in political life was 
 really, though " not with observation," working towards 
 the full development and triumph of the Movement 
 which had issued from Oxford in 1833. 
 
 At this point I may lay aside the chronological method 
 which I have pursued while I was tracing the growth 
 and formation of Mr. Gladstone's religious opinions. 
 The growth is now ended. The formation is complete. 
 I turn to his recorded judgments on crucial points of 
 Catholic theology, and I ask you to note the wonderful 
 consistency of thought, and often of phrase, in a series 
 of extracts ranging from 1838 to 1897. 
 
 THE INCARNATION 
 
 [1893] All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is 
 based upon the Divinity of Our Lord the one central hope 
 of our poor, wayward race. 1 
 
 [1894] The Incarnation brought righteousness out of the 
 region of cold abstractions, clothed it in flesh and blood, 
 opened for it the shortest and the broadest way to all our 
 sympathies, gave it the firmest command over the springs of 
 human action, by incorporating it in a Person, and making 
 it, as has been beautifully said, liable to love. 2 
 
 [1872] You will hear much to the effect that the divisions 
 among Christians render it impossible to say what Christianity 
 is, and so destroy the certainty of Religion. But if the 
 divisions among Christians are remarkable, not less so is 
 their unity in the greatest doctrines that they hold. Well- 
 nigh fifteen hundred years years of a more sustained activity 
 than the world had ever before seen have passed away since 
 the great controversies concerning the Deity and the Person 
 of the Redeemer were, after a long agony, determined. As 
 before that time, in a manner less defined but adequate for 
 its day, so ever since that time, amid all chance and change 
 more ay, many more than ninety-nine in every hundred 
 Christians have with one will confessed the Deity and In- 
 
 1 Letter to a young man at Denver, Colorado. 
 8 " Later Gleanings," p. 331.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 23 
 
 carnation of Our Lord as the cardinal and central truths 
 of our religion. Surely there is some comfort here, some 
 sense of brotherhood, some glory in the past, some hope for 
 the times that are to come. 1 
 
 [1894] There are, it may be, upon earth, four hundred and 
 fifty millions of professing Christians. There is no longer 
 one fold under one visible shepherd, and the majority of 
 Christians is content with its one Shepherd in Heaven, and 
 with the other provisions He has made on earth. His flock 
 is broken up into scores, it may be hundreds, of sections. 
 But they all profess the Gospel ; and what is the Gospel ? . . . 
 The reply is still the same as it was in the Apostolic age : 
 the central truth of the Gospel lies in the Trinity and the 
 Incarnation in the God That made us, and the Saviour 
 That redeemed us. When I consider what human nature 
 and human history have been, and how feeble is the spirit 
 in its warfare with the flesh, I bow my head in amazement 
 before this mighty moral miracle this marvellous concurrence 
 evolved from the very heart of discord. 2 
 
 THE NICENE CREED 
 
 [1896] The Creed elaborated at Nice and Constantinople 
 represents, even more than any other document, the prolonged, 
 concentrated, and most severely- tested action of the mind 
 of the Universal Church. In the last of these particulars 
 it stands alone. It was through the agonies of the fourth 
 century the hardest of all the trials, the noblest of all 
 the victories, of the Church of God that this Creed made 
 its way to a position unrivalled alike in loftiness and in 
 solidity. In the East it may be said to enjoy an exclusive 
 dominance. In the West, through the Eucharistic Oftice, 
 it holds the grandest of all positions in Christian worship. 3 
 
 REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM 
 
 [1843 ; republished 1879] God forbid that, by our asperity 
 and rancour, or by our narrowness and exclusiveness, by our 
 obtruding matters of opinion into the region sacred to matters 
 of faith, by our setting up standards of orthodoxy more 
 
 1 Address to the students of Liverpool College. 
 
 " Later Gleanings," p. 299. 
 3 " Studies Subsidiary to Bishop Butler," p. 229.
 
 24 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 extended or more rigid than those which God has commanded 
 to be used as such, the auspicious day should be averted 
 or postponed, in which the children of all Christian Churches 
 should kneel around a common altar, and, receiving from 
 the same hands the Pledges of Salvation, should again be 
 one, even as they of old were one, and as He, with Whom 
 in all things they seek to be identified, would have them 
 to be one for ever. 1 
 
 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 [1878] No doubt (as I for one believe) the Church began 
 with a clergy ; nay, began in a clergy. It had its centre 
 of life, and of self-propagating power, in the Apostolic College, 
 which gradually called into being those orders that form 
 the full equipment of the Christian Ministry. 2 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 
 
 [1840] The Bishop conveys the power of administering 
 Sacraments, whereby the Church is constantly replenished 
 with children ; of ordaining Priests, by whom Sacraments are 
 administered ; and of consecrating Bishops, by whom in turn 
 these powers may be communicated anew to others, who may 
 replace the actual holders, and hand them on from one 
 generation to another. In this line, therefore, alone it is 
 that the effectual principle of continued propagation is 
 carried down from the Apostles of Christ to the latest age. 3 
 
 PAPAL SUPREMACY 
 
 [1878] We are often told it was necessary that there 
 should be an ecclesiastical organization with one head ex- 
 ercising supremacy over the entire body. But when we 
 look through or over the wall of the Western Church into 
 the precincts of the Eastern, we seem to find a living con- 
 futation of this argument. For there a vast body, nearly 
 a fourth of Christendom, has subsisted from the great Day 
 of Pentecost to our day, which not only does riot enjoy, but 
 which renounces and condemns the whole doctrine of Supre- 
 macy ; and which, under the old Patriarchal constitution 
 
 1 " Gleanings," vol. v., p. 54. s " Church Principles," p. 274. 
 * Ibid., vol. hi., p. 262.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 25 
 
 of the Church, retains the Christian faith entire by the 
 acknowledgment of Rome herself, which invites, and invites 
 in vain, to her Councils those unyielding Patriarchs of the 
 East. . . . The score of millions of those Christians who in- 
 habit the Turkish Empire have for almost a corresponding 
 tale of generations enjoyed the highest of all honours : they 
 have been sufferers for their faith. They have been its 
 martyrs and its confessors. . . . Ever since the Turkish hoof 
 began to lay waste the Levant, these twenty millions have 
 had before them, on the one side, peace and freedom on 
 the other side, the Gospel. They have chosen the Gospel, 
 and have paid the forfeit. 1 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 [1838] In England . . . the course of events was widely 
 different [from that on the Continent]. Her Reformation, 
 through the Providence of God, succeeded in maintaining 
 the Unity and Continuity of the Church in her Apostolical 
 Ministry. We have, therefore, still among us the ordained 
 hereditary witnesses of the truth, conveying it to us through 
 an unbroken series, from our Lord Jesus Christ and His 
 Apostles. This is to us the ordinary voice of Authority; 
 of authority equally reasonable and equally true, whether 
 we will hear or whether we will forbear ; of authority which 
 does not supersede either the exercise of private judgment, 
 or the sense of the Church at large, or the supremacy of 
 the Scripture ; but assists the first, locally applies the second, 
 and publicly witnesses to the last. 2 
 
 [1840] " She [the Church of England] gives credibility to 
 her doctrine, and clear authority to her ministrations, by 
 the fact that she teaches no articles of faith but such as 
 have been drawn out of Scripture by the universal consent 
 of the Church from the beginning, and that she is to this 
 day historically the same institution through which the Gospel 
 was originally preached to the English Nation preached then, 
 as it is preached now, by the ascertained commission of 
 the Apostles of Christ, and through them by the Will of 
 Christ Himself. 3 
 
 [1895] The Church of England, I am persuaded, will do 
 
 1 " Gleanings," vol. iii., p. 257. 
 
 3 The State in its Relations," vol. ii., p. 95. 
 
 3 " Church Principles," p. 313.
 
 26 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 nothing, in regard to faith and discipline, to compromise 
 or impair her character as the Catholic and Apostolic Church 
 of this country. 1 
 
 [1895] It will surprise you to learn my belief that I 
 was born, and have always lived, in the Catholic Church 
 of this country, founded long before St. Augustine extended 
 it ; and that by leaving it I should commit an act of rashness 
 and a great sin. 2 
 
 THE VALIDITY OF ANGLICAN ORDERS 
 
 [1896] For the clergy of the Anglican Communions, 
 numbering between thirty thousand and forty thousand, and 
 for their flocks, the whole subject is one of settled solidity. 3 
 
 THE BETTER WAY 
 
 [1897] We cannot be content with mutilated Sacraments, 
 with an imprisoned Bible, with Aristotelian metaphysics 
 exalted into definitions of faith, with the transfer to any 
 human tribunal of an allegiance due to God alone. 4 
 
 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 [1845] The Church in which our lot has been cast has 
 come to the birth, and the question is, Will she have strength 
 to bring forth ? I am persuaded it is written in God's decrees 
 that she shall ; and that, after deep repentance and deep 
 suffering, a high and peculiar part remains for her in healing 
 the wounds of Christendom. 5 
 
 [1850] It is nearly sixty years since thus a stranger and 
 an alien [De Maistre], a stickler to the extremest point for 
 the prerogatives of his Church, and nursed in every pre- 
 possession against ours, though he could then only see her 
 in the lethargy of her organization, and the dull twilight 
 of her learning, could nevertheless discern that there was a 
 special work written -of God for her in Heaven, and that she 
 was VERY PRECIOUS to the Christian world. . . . What a word 
 of hope and encouragement to every one who, as convinced 
 
 1 From the Scheme of St. Deiniol's Library. 
 
 ' Letter to Rev. Father Tagliabue. 
 
 3 " Later Gleanings," p. 384. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 406. 
 
 6 " Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott," vol. ii., p. 77.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 2? 
 
 in his heart of the glory of her providential mission, shall 
 unshrinkingly devote himself to defending within her borders 
 the full and whole doctrine of the Cross, with that mystic 
 symbol now as ever gleaming down on him from Heaven, now 
 as ever showing forth its inscription In hoc signo vinces. 1 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 [1879] That personal and experimental life of the human 
 soul with God, which profits by all ordinances, but is tied 
 to none, dwelling ever, through all its varying moods, in the 
 inner court of the Sanctuary whereof the walls are not built 
 with hands. 2 
 
 THE Two GREAT SACRAMENTS 
 
 [1840] There is an important verbal question which may 
 be raised on the meaning of the word Sacrament, which 
 appears to exhibit considerable diversity of sense. . . . Under 
 the term Sacrament, I deal only with those two Institutions 
 which our Church declares to be generally necessary to salvation. 3 
 
 Undoubtedly we should reckon as the highest and main 
 use of Sacraments their office of specially and peculiarly 
 imparting to us the participation of the Divine Nature. 4 
 
 And so taught the ancient Church. Her idea was of an 
 intrinsic virtue, residing by Divine appointment in the 
 Sacraments, but capable of being intercepted in its passage 
 to the soul of man by his unfaithfulness and insincerity. 5 
 
 HOLY BAPTISM 
 
 [1840] A spiritual power and operation belong to Baptism. 6 
 The exercise of a spiritual power, whose office it specifically 
 is to impart a principle of spiritual life. 7 
 
 THE HOLY COMMUNION 
 
 [1840] As regards the Holy Communion, our Church 
 teaches a similar doctrine. She does not feel that the solemn 
 words of the Institution of the Eucharist are adequately, that 
 
 1 " Gleanings," vol. v., p. 289. 5 Ibid., p. 163. 
 
 * Ibid., vol. vii., p. 223. 6 Ibid., p. 160. 
 
 3 " Church Principles," p. 164. 7 Ibid., p. 161. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 176.
 
 28 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 is Scripturally, represented by any explanation which resolves 
 them into mere figure. . . . She believes that there is a real, 
 though not a carnal, truth in the solemn words, THIS is MY 
 BODY, and THIS is MY BLOOD ; in just conformity with the 
 precept in which St. Paul desires us to discern, that is dis- 
 criminate from common elements, the Body and Blood of the 
 Lord. . . . Here is also comprised the idea of a spiritual power 
 feeding that new life, which we have in the Church or body 
 of Jesus Christ our Redeemer, and which was first given us 
 at our Baptism, when we became by covenant, whether for 
 good or evil, members of that Church or body. 1 
 
 The word preached is mingled with human imperfection ; 
 whereas That which is received in the Sacrament is wholly 
 Divine. 2 
 
 On this point I must pause for a moment. I have 
 never known any one, priest or layman, who had a 
 more profound or more childlike faith in the Reality 
 of the Most Blessed Presence under the forms of Bread 
 and Wine. The Real Objective Presence, depending 
 on the Lord's act in Consecration, independent of the 
 receiver and prior to the act of Communion this 
 characteristic truth of Catholic theology was held and 
 taught by Mr. Gladstone with all his heart, and soul, 
 and mind, and strength. 
 
 And his practice conformed with his belief. He never 
 missed an opportunity of Communion. During a Mission 
 at Hawarden, after he had turned seventy, he climbed 
 up to church in the cold and darkness of a January 
 morning, in order to communicate with his pitmen at 
 a 4 o'clock Celebration. To see him at Communion 
 was to have an object-lesson in adoring worship. He 
 was, visibly and unmistakably, solus cum Solo. The 
 Bishop of St. Andrews has thus described him as he 
 appeared in St. Peter's Church, Windmill Street, on 
 Sunday, December 6, 1868, when the Queen had just 
 commanded him to form his first administration : 
 
 1 " Church Principles," p. 161. > Ibid., p. 171.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 29 
 
 I remember him coming, as he always did on every 
 emergency, great or small, to receive the Life of Christ at 
 the Holy Table. I see him now kneeling there. The Sacra- 
 ment of the Body and Blood of Christ had been received. 
 His soul was feeding spiritually on that Body and Blood. 
 Communicants went up and came back, but he remained 
 absorbed evidently in communion with his Saviour. He was 
 there till the end of the service. He had lost all thought of 
 man. . . . 
 
 He had no sympathy either with that flippant irreverence 
 with which nowadays so many crowd to the holy altar of our 
 God. It was to him a very solemn thing to receive the Holy 
 Communion. Shall I ever forget the Friday in Passion Week, 
 when I gave him the last Holy Communion that I was 
 allowed to administer to him ? It was early in the morning. 
 He was obliged to be in his bed, and he was ordered to 
 remain there, but the time had come for the confession of 
 sin and the receiving of absolution. Out from his bed he 
 came. Alone he knelt in the presence of his God till the 
 absolution had been spoken, and the Sacred Elements had 
 been received. " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty ! " 
 that was the keynote of his life. May the Lord bless him 
 and keep him ! May the Lord make His face to shine upon 
 him, and be gracious to him ! May the Lord lift up the light 
 of His countenance upon him, and give him joy never-ending 
 in that quiet home of the redeemed ! "Blessed are the dead 
 which die in the Lord : even so saith the Spirit." 
 
 In 1875 Mr. Gladstone wrote, with reference to 
 controversies then current, a passage which applies with 
 singular force to the events of the present hour : 
 
 Unhappily, men of no small account announce that they 
 care not for the sign, but must deal with the Thing Signified. 
 They desire the negation by authority of the doctrine of the 
 Real Presence of our Lord and Saviour Christ, and of the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice ; negations which again are synonymous 
 with the disruption of the English Church. . . . There are 
 even those in the English Church who urge with sincerity, 
 and without being questioned by authority, the duty of 
 preaching the "Real Absence"; and, though these be few, 
 yet some who shrink from the word may yet be with them 
 in the thing. On the other side . . . there are multitudes of
 
 30 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 men who can patiently endure differences which they believe 
 to be provisional, and adjourn their settlement to a future 
 day ; but who believe that the lowering of Sacramental 
 teaching of the English Church in any of its parts will involve, 
 together with a real mutilation of Scriptural and Catholic 
 truth, a loss of her Christian dignity and a forfeiture of all 
 the hopes associated with her special position in Christendom. 
 Of all Sacramental doctrine none is so tender in this respect 
 as that which relates to the Eucharist. The gross abuses of 
 practice, and the fanciful excesses of theological speculation in 
 the Western Church before the Reformation, compelled the 
 Anglican Reformers to retrench their statements to a minimum 
 which can bear no reduction. 1 
 
 THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE 
 
 [1878] If, in the current doctrine and practice of the 
 Eucharist, the Sacrificial idea had, before the Reformation, 
 and not for the best purposes, been allowed to assume an 
 undue and erroneous predominance over that of Communion, 
 it came in the course of controversy to be so depressed on 
 the Protestant side that it was almost effaced from the 
 common mind. This could hardly be done without a serious 
 dislocation of the historical relations between that great 
 Sacrament and its types. Nor again without seriously 
 lowering the general conception of life and worship as a true 
 sacrifice to God which had the Eucharistic Sacrifice for its 
 central point. 2 
 
 THE POWER OF THE KEYS 
 
 [1840] Now let us suppose a mind . . . seeking advice and 
 counsel from a minister of God, it may be upon the bed of 
 agony or in the very grasp of death. . . . He who lias 
 come to supply its need is able to say, in addition to the 
 ostensible goodness and comfort of his assurances, " That 
 which I say is said under an awful responsibility. I who 
 speak have been commissioned to carry a message from God 
 to man, the message of the Gospel of Christ. His comir.iasion 
 came to me by no mere fancy or conclusion of my own, but 
 from the hands of those to whom He, in the flesh, seen by 
 their eyes, heard by their ears, handled by their hands, 
 
 1 " Gleanings,'\vol. r vi., p. 172. ' Ibid., vol. iii., p. 235.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 31 
 
 entrusted it, to be delivered down in perpetual descent. So 
 not the wit or will of man, but He, the Holy One, has given 
 me the power and the charge to minister to your soul, at the 
 most awful peril of my own." l 
 
 This last quotation leads me to say a word about 
 Mr. Gladstone's views concerning Confession and Abso- 
 lution. 
 
 Here certainly what have been called his " Anglican 
 limitations " are very visible. He believed, of course, 
 in the reality of the absolving power as part of the 
 ministerial commission. He felt strongly about the 
 obligation which binds English priests to move sick 
 persons to make their confession. And I apprehend 
 though of course I do not know that on his own death- 
 bed he made his confession to the Bishop of St. Andrews. 
 But with regard to habitual confession, he seems to 
 have been more alive to its perils than to its advantages. 
 The word " peril " may be unduly strong, but nothing is 
 more conspicuous in his writings on the grave subject 
 of repentance than his apprehension lest spiritual lazi- 
 ness should lead people to substitute a merely mechanical 
 process for the saving realities of heart-searching and 
 self-abasement before the All-seeing Judge. 
 
 In 1838 he wrote as follows about what he conceived 
 to be the actual system of Rome : 
 
 The tide of sin flows back upon us* the moment it has 
 been repelled, and to be delivered from its flood, to be washed 
 from day to day, to have our justification renewed and 
 restored by the perpetual cleansing of the Blood of Our Lord 
 this is the very pre-condition of all acceptable and Christian 
 service. Yet even here the Roman arts have infused a 
 poison. St. Augustine calls the Lord's Prayer Quotidiana, 
 purgatio nostra, showing how he regarded this striving and 
 supplication for pardon as a work incessantly required, and 
 likewise depending on the exercise of the soul in confession 
 
 " Church Principles," p. 271.
 
 32 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 and prayer before God. But what routine are men permitted 
 in the Roman discipline to substitute ? I do not say that she 
 teaches so, but that so the mass of human nature will be 
 found to use it. They will make confession at distant intervals 
 to a priest, discharge the acts of penance which he enjoins, 
 and receive his absolution. And a Sacramental character has 
 been given to these acts acts, none of them blameworthy, but 
 the reverse acts, however, taken out of their own place in 
 the Roman doctrine. 1 
 
 It must be borne in mind that throughout this 
 passage Mr. Gladstone is dealing with the Roman 
 practice, and not with the Catholic theory, and even 
 with regard to the practice he makes exceptions. He 
 says : 
 
 The holy men of Romanism have been great lights of 
 Christianity. Penance with them would be a kind of thank- 
 offering a beseeching God, as it were, to accept their humble 
 and feeble, their sinful and punishable, efforts at self-discipline : 
 Absolution, a comfort which they would receive with trembling ; 
 and pain and shame, freely undergone, would co-operate with 
 love so keep them steadfast in their allegiance. 2 
 
 His own view is that " our habitual exercise " should 
 be lt those inward works of confession and prayer, self- 
 inspection and self-government," to which "external 
 Confession appears in the main to be properly subsidiary, 
 when employed as a test or verification of that which 
 is inward." 3 
 
 In 1841 he wrote, with reference to what are called 
 " scandalous marriages," and to the revival of dis- 
 cipline : 
 
 Why should not a man having a small flock, and his 
 churchwardens and persons of influence with him, devise 
 sober rules, with the allowance of his Bishop, for his own 
 people, and introduce them by degrees ? May he not require 
 the private confession and contrition of the parties ? Would 
 
 1 " The State in its Relations," vol. ii., p. 73. 
 J Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 75.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE ^ 33 
 
 it be impossible to secure this in a small rural parish by 
 means of persuasion and influence 1 May we not make a 
 good use of the rubric enjoining or advising Communion 
 after matrimony, in combination with the exhortation to con- 
 fess before Communion in certain cases ? l 
 
 The following passage, written in 1844, and repub- 
 lished in 1890, may be taken as representing bis view 
 of the system enjoined by the Church of England : 
 
 We ought to remember the Church's solemn admonitions of 
 repentance ; her constant witness in favour of holy discipline 
 for the souls of her children; the heavy responsibility in 
 self-examination and self-judgment which she throws upon 
 them ; the means of authoritative support, of consolation ever 
 Divine though ministered through the weakness and foolishness 
 of a fleshly organ, to which she habitually points the way as 
 their meet refuge, if they shall not of themselves suffice to the 
 discharge of that awful duty. 2 
 
 I turn now to another point of Catholic practice round 
 which recent controversy has raged Prayer for the 
 Departed. On this point Mr. Gladstone's testimony is 
 unequivocal. 
 
 The strong and just reaction from the Purgatorial system 
 prevailing in the Latin Church of the period [the Reformation] 
 went far to account for, and even excuse, that stark and 
 rigid conception of the effect of death on the state of the 
 human being, which led to an abandonment of the uniform 
 practice of the earliest ages of the Church, as testified by the 
 Liturgies, in the commendation of the Faithful Departed to 
 God for an increase of their rest and peace. But what 
 caused nay, even what might excuse the violence thus done 
 to Nature as well as to Religion did not frustrate its 
 mischievous effects in narrowing the range of Christian 
 sympathies, and establishing an anomaly in the general 
 doctrine of prayer. With the obscuration of an universal 
 tradition, there came indeed manifold confusion of doctrine ; 
 the Final Judgment, with its solemn import, seemed to have 
 
 1 Life of Cardinal Manning, vol. i., p. 198. 
 * Merry England, February, 1890. 
 
 3
 
 34 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 no place left for it when the Intermediate State of Souls 
 had been reduced almost to a cypher. Worst of all, the new 
 standard appeared to be in hopeless conflict with the widest 
 experience ; for it implied that the entire work of discipline 
 was in every case fully accomplished on this side the grave 
 that every soul passed away into the unseen in a state of 
 ripeness for a final destiny of bliss or woe. 1 
 
 [1896] The Church has walked in the path opened for it 
 by St. Paul through his prayer on behalf of Onesiphorus. 
 [The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord 
 in that day. 2 Tim. i. 18.] 2 
 
 [1873 Of a deceased friend] I turn now to the brighter 
 thought of his present light, and peace, and progress. May 
 they be his more and more abundantly. 3 
 
 [1894 To a friend who had lost his father] May he enjoy 
 the rest, light, and peace of the Just, until you are permitted 
 to rejoin him. 
 
 THE INTEKMEDIATE STATE 
 
 [1896] The Christian Dead are in a progressive state ; and 
 the appointed office of the interval between Death and 
 Resurrection is reasonably believed to be the corroboration of 
 every good and holy habit, and the effacement of all remains 
 of human infirmity and vice. 4 
 
 A process of discipline, happy indeed in its result, but of 
 which we have no right to assert . . . that the redeeming 
 and consummating process will be accomplished without on 
 admixture of salutary and accepted pain. 6 
 
 RELIGION AND THE WORLD 
 
 [1851] Away with the servile doctrine that Religion cannot 
 live but by the aid of Parliaments ! . . . The security of 
 Religion lies, first in the Providence of God and the promise 
 of Christ : next in the religious character, and strong senti- 
 ment of personal duty and responsibility, so deeply graven on 
 this country and its people. 6 
 
 [1894] Foul fall the day when the persons of this world 
 shall, on whatever pretext, take into their uncommissioned 
 
 1 "Gleanings," vol. iii., p. 234. J "Studies Subsidiary," p. 253 
 " Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott," vol. ii., appendix iii. 
 " Studies Subsidiary," p. 253. 
 
 5 Ibid., p. 234. 6 " Gleanings," vol. vi., p. 8.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 35 
 
 hands the manipulation of the Religion of our Lord and 
 Saviour. 1 
 
 UNDENOMINATIONAL RELIGION 
 
 [1894] An undenominational system of religion framed by 
 or under the authority of the State is a moral monster. The 
 State has no charter from Heaven such as may belong to the 
 Church or to the individual conscience. It would, as I think, 
 be better for the State to limit itself to giving secular 
 instruction which, of course, is no complete education than 
 rashly to adventure upon such a system. 2 
 
 EKASTIANISM 
 
 [1876] If we follow the Erastian idea, it does not matter 
 what God we worship, or how we worship Him, provided we 
 derive both belief and worship from the civil ruler, or hold 
 them subject to his orders. Many most respectable persons 
 have been, or have thought themselves to be, Erastians ; but 
 the system, in the developments of which it is capable, is 
 among the most debased ever known to man. 3 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 [1897] I write entirely from one defined and immovable 
 point of view. According to my mind the whole interests of 
 the human race eventually depend upon one question the 
 question of Belief ; as, again, Belief is summed up in 
 Christianity, and Christianity in Christ. He is for us the 
 true Alpha and the true Omega. . . . Every measure and 
 every movement in matters of religion, without any exception, 
 ought to be tried by its tendency to bring mankind nearer to 
 Christ, or to remove them further from Him. 4 
 
 In the extracts which I have read the Evangelical 
 and the Catholic elements in Mr. Gladstone's system of 
 religion have been almost equally conspicuous. Indeed, 
 he wrote in 1879 that the leaders of the Oxford Move- 
 ment accepted the preceding labours of the Evangelical 
 
 1 " Later Gleanings," p. 302. 
 
 * The Daily News, November 9, 1894. 
 
 1 " Gleanings," vol. iii., p. 100. 
 
 4 " Later Gleanings," p. 396.
 
 36 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 school as " part of a restoring work which it was their 
 aim to complete," 1 and in the fulfilment of which his 
 own heart and will were deeply involved. It remains 
 to enquire if he had any sympathy with the Broad, 
 Liberal, or Latitndinarian school. 
 
 For my own part, I seem to find some traces of such 
 sympathy in his high regard for Charles Kingsley, 
 whom he twice promoted ; in his vigorous eiforts to keep 
 Mr. Manrice at King's College ; in his early and per- 
 sistent confidence in the present Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury ; in that Essay in which, as Dr. Liddon says in 
 the notes to his Bampton Lectures, " genius and ortho- 
 doxy have done their best for the Christian honour of 
 Ecce Homo " ; in his disparagement of the Athanasian, 
 as compared with the Nicene, Creed ; and in his very 
 lenient judgment on the nature and limits of culpable 
 schism. 
 
 But his most conspicuous departure from the rigid 
 traditionalism of his earlier theology was his adoption, 
 in " Studies Subsidiary to the works of Bishop Butler," 
 of the doctrine which is commonly called Conditional 
 Immortality. 
 
 In August, 1895, it was my privilege to spend a week 
 at Hawarden, and, during a great part of the time, to 
 be alone with Mr. Gladstone. He opened his mind to 
 me with a fulness and a frankness which he had never 
 used before. He spoke of his own memories and 
 experiences ; of political prospects and political men 
 of our colleagues in his last Ministry ; of the increasing 
 disadvantages of public life ; of the natural beauties of 
 the place ; and of material improvements, actual and 
 prospective, in the labourer's lot. What he said on 
 these subjects, though well remembered by me, need 
 not now be recalled. But two topics may be com- 
 1 " Gleanings," vol. vii., p. 223.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 37 
 
 memorated in connexion with the subject of religion. 
 One was that grave branch of social duty which respects 
 our fallen sisters. The other was the doctrine of the 
 Immortality of the Soul. (He was then at work on his 
 " Studies Subsidiary.") Never shall I forget the hour 
 when I sat with him in the park at Hawarden, while a 
 thunderstorm was gathering over our heads, and he, all 
 unheeding, poured forth, in those organ-tones of profound 
 conviction, his belief that the human soul is not neces- 
 sarily indestructible, but that Immortality is the gift of 
 God in Christ to the believer. The impression of that 
 discourse will not be effaced until the tablets of memory 
 are finally blotted. 
 
 I feel that the occasion is not suitable, and that I 
 am not qualified, for an enquiry into the question how 
 far Mr. Gladstone's doctrine on this most solemn of all 
 topics accords with the general sense of the Catholic 
 Church. But, as a disciple jealous for his master's theo- 
 logical honour, I am bound to remind my hearers that, 
 whether successfully or not, he labours most sedulously 
 to prove that his theory does not conflict with the mind 
 of the Church as exhibited in the Catholic Creeds. 
 
 The limits of time do not allow me to enter into 
 such topics as the alteration of Mr. Gladstone's theory 
 about Established Churches ; his dealings with the Law 
 of Marriage and Divorce ; his rigidly conservative views 
 on the criticism of the Sacred Text. On all these and 
 many similar topics, theological or closely connected 
 with theology, I might have much to say ; but I pass 
 on to matters of more immediate concern. 
 
 A word must be said about Ritual. Mr. Gladstone's 
 temperament, which was essentially artistic, gave him 
 a natural taste for Ceremonial ; and he deplored the 
 want of the aesthetic sense in ordinary Englishmen, 
 with characteristic fervour.
 
 38 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 As in the Italian language scarcely a word can be found 
 which is not musical, so a " music of the eye " (I borrow 
 the figure from Wordsworth) should pervade all visible pro- 
 duction and construction whatever, whether of objects in 
 themselves permanent, or of those where a temporary 
 collocation only of the parts is in view. This state of things 
 was realized, to a great extent, in the Italian life of the 
 Middle Ages. But its grand and normal example is to be 
 sought in ancient Greece. . . . The law that governed the 
 design of an amphora or a lamp governed also the order 
 of a spectacle, a procession, or a ceremonial. 1 
 
 On the other hand 
 
 Put Englishmen to march in a procession, and see how, 
 instead of feeling instinctively the music and sympathy of 
 motion, they will loll and stroll and straggle. It never 
 occurs to them that there is beauty or solemnity in ordered 
 movement. 2 
 
 But, while Mr. Gladstone held thus strongly the 
 value of Beauty in the general scheme of social life, 
 and particularly in that highest part of our life which 
 lifts us nearest to Heaven, he had no special or technical 
 knowledge of religious ritual, and he never regulated 
 his attendance at a church by reference to the amount 
 or kind of ceremonial practised in it. In 1867 he wrote 
 to Bishop Wilberforce : 
 
 Yesterday I saw, for the first time, the service in a 
 Ritualistic church proper. There was much in it that I did 
 not like, could not defend as good ; perhaps could not claim 
 toleration for. But that must be in the last the very last 
 resort? 
 
 In 1874 he wrote of All Saints', Margaret Street, 
 as it had been thirty years before : 
 
 Mr. Oakley (now alas ! ours no more) and Mr. Upton 
 
 1 " Gleanings," vol. vi., p. 112. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 116. 
 
 3 Life of Bishop Wilberforce, vol. iii., p. 208.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 39 
 
 Richards gave to its very simple services, such as would now 
 scarcely satisfy an average congregation, and where the fabric 
 was truly hideous, that true solemnity which is in perfect 
 accord with simplicity. Mr. Oakley . . . had then gathered 
 round him a congregation the most devout and hearty that 
 I (for one) have ever seen in any communion of the Christian 
 world. 1 
 
 In the same year he wrote : 
 
 Ritualism surely means an undue disposition to Ritual. 
 Ritual itself is founded on the Apostolic precept, " Let all 
 things be done decently and in order" eio-^/xovws KOL Kara 
 ra^Lv in right, graceful, or becoming figure, and by fore- 
 ordered arrangement. The exterior modes of Divine Service 
 are thus laid down as a distinct and proper subject for the 
 consideration of Christians. 2 
 
 Ritual, then, is the clothing which, in some form and in 
 some degree, men naturally and inevitably give to the per- 
 formance of the public duties of Religion. 3 
 
 The life and teaching of Christ Himself are marked by 
 frequent employment of signs in which are laid the ground, 
 and the foreshadowing, both of Sacraments and of Ritual. 4 
 
 He sums Tip the whole case in words peculiarly 
 applicable to current controversies : 
 
 No ritual is too much, provided it is subsidiary to the 
 inner work of worship ; and all ritual is too much, unless it 
 ministers to that purpose. 6 
 
 So far, I have spoken almost exclusively of opinion. 
 But conduct, as Matthew Arnold taught us, is three- 
 fourths of human life ; and I feel that my hearers 
 have a right to ask, What manner of man was he 
 whose opinions you have unfolded to us at this in- 
 ordinate length ? 
 
 In some points you can answer the question for 
 yourselves. Probably you all know something of his 
 
 1 "Gleanings," vol. vi., p. 140. * Ibid., p. 111. 
 
 3 Ibid.,-p. 109. s Ibid., p. 130.
 
 40 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 incessant diligence ; his strong self-mastery ; bis abiding 
 remembrance of " that solemn account wbich we rnnst 
 one day give before the judgment-seat of CHRIST " ; 
 his scrupulous attention to the weekly and daily offices 
 of public worship ; his rigorous reservation of the 
 Sunday for sacred uses. 
 
 Sunday [he wrote in 1845] is reserved, with rare exceptions, 
 for religious employments ; and it was my practice, in general, 
 to receive the Holy Communion weekly. ... It is Sunday, 
 I am convinced, that has kept me alive and well, even to a 
 marvel, in times of considerable labour. 1 
 
 And just fifty years later he wrote : 
 
 What is essential is that to the New Life should belong the 
 flower and vigour of the day. We are born, on each Lord's 
 Day morning, into a new climate, a new atmosphere ; and in 
 that atmosphere (so to speak), by the law of a renovated 
 nature, the lungs and heart of the Christian life should 
 spontaneously and continuously drink in the vital air. 2 
 
 Few, however, can know his splendid munificence 
 in charity, not haphazard or impulsive, but regulated 
 and disciplined ; the alms not bequeathed, but given, 
 so that the surrender could be felt. Be it remembered 
 that he was one of the founders of the first Sisterhood 
 that was ever opened in the Church of England (near 
 the Regent's Park, in 1845), and of the House of 
 Mercy at Clewer in 1852. One of his latest acts 
 was to give not bequeath 30,000 for St. DeinioFs 
 Library. 
 
 None except those who lived close to him can realize 
 the fibre of his religious life, combining the profundity 
 of a saint with the simplicity of a school-boy. It was 
 conspicuously marked by method, by discipline, and 
 by a strict dutifulness. When he came home to die, 
 
 1 Life of Cardinal Manning, vol. i., p. 436. 
 " Later Gleanings," p. 347.
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 41 
 
 he asked for a fresh rale of life ; and when, in the 
 extremity of weakness, it was proposed to communicate 
 him with the Reserved Sacrament, he enquired of the 
 clergyman if he was quite satisfied that such a practice 
 was consistent with the Church's order. During the 
 last weeks of his life we all heard what was perfectly 
 true that "Rock of Ages" was in his judgment the 
 grandest of hymns, and that " Praise to the Holiest " 
 was constantly on his lips. But let me add a third 
 hymn in which his innermost heart seemed to utter 
 itself, and which he deemed only too sacred and too 
 intimate for promiscuous use in public worship. 
 
 Hark, my soul ! it is the Lord ; 
 'Tis thy Saviour, hear His word ; 
 Jesus speaks, and speaks to thee, 
 " Say, poor sinner, lov'st thou Me 1 " 
 
 As he had lived, so he died. The Bishop of St. 
 Andrews, who perhaps shared his religions confidence 
 more deeply than any other clergyman, spoke thus 
 in his Funeral Sermon : 
 
 Shall I ever forget one hour a few months ago in the 
 library at Hawarden, which is for ever to me consecrated 
 ground ? He had no sympathy with the new ideas by which 
 sin and Satan have been eliminated from our modern 
 enlightenment. He felt that sin was a horrible thing, a 
 cursed thing, that nailed the Son of God to the Cross, that 
 any little sin was an abomination in the sight of God; and 
 I wish that every young man here could have seen him as 
 he weighed his life, not in the balance of earth, but of 
 Heaven, as he reviewed the past and anticipated the future. 
 " Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness. 
 Wash me throughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me 
 from my sin." He did not know what was meant by the 
 outside idea of sin and goodness. He knew what it was to 
 have the light of God the Holy Ghost shining into his heart. 
 He anticipated what every one of us here will one day learn 
 when the books are opened and the record of life is revealed.
 
 42 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 A friend wrote thus on the Friday in Passion Week, 
 
 1898 : 
 
 This morning's Eucharist was memorable. . . . The altar ; 
 the crucifix ; his rich voice swelling out with that deep 
 devotion lin the Gloria and in the confession ; his determina- 
 tion to get out of bed and kneel for the confession, absolution, 
 and reception it was not to be forgotten. Then after his 
 breakfast he went to sleep, and is sleeping the sleep of a 
 little child. 
 
 Qualis ab incepto. This was all of a piece with what 
 had gone before. The spell by which my great master 
 and leader held me was the sense that, amid all the 
 turmoils and distractions of the most secular and most 
 exciting occupation, his inner life was lived unbrokenly 
 with God. It has been my happiness to know great 
 saints in various communions ; but they have been 
 either ministers of religion by profession, or recluses 
 from the world by choice. Here was a man who 
 did human work, and fought his human battles, with 
 the most scrupulous diligence and the most masterful 
 resolution ; and yet, all the while, was dwelling (to use 
 his own phrase) "in the inner court of the Sanctuary 
 whereof the walls are not built with hands." On 
 May 10, 1898, I knelt by his death-bed, and received 
 his parting benediction. As I turned away, I felt 
 that I had been on the Mount of Transfiguration, 
 and had seen a glimpse of Paradise through the 
 Gates Ajar. 
 
 From that death-bed, as most of you remember, he 
 sent his farewell message to this place : 
 
 There is no expression of Christian sympathy which I 
 value more than that of the God-fearing and God-sustaining 
 University of Oxford. I served her, perhaps mistakenly, but 
 to the best of my ability. My most earnest prayers are hers, 
 to the uttermost and to the last,
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE 43 
 
 My brothers, let those prayers be returned into his 
 own bosom. Let us, as the Apostle bids us, " Remember 
 our Guides," * and remember them where remembrance 
 is of most avail. With prayer let thanksgiving be 
 mingled for all that this great son of Oxford was 
 enabled to do for the cause of Christianity in his day 
 and generation. His life illustrated, in the full view 
 of his countrymen and of the world, the lesson which 
 Dr. Liddon taught from the pulpit of St. Mary's, in 
 the first University Sermon which I ever heard that 
 " the one thing worth thinking of, worth living for, 
 if need were, worth dying for, is the unmutilated 
 faith of Jesus our Lord." 
 
 If ever we should be tempted to despond about the 
 possibilities of human nature, we shall bethink ourselves 
 of him and take courage. 1 If our faith should ever be 
 perplexed by the 
 
 Blank misgivings of a Creature, 
 Moving about in worlds not realized, 
 
 the memory of his strong confidence will reassure us. 
 And, if ever we should be told by the flippancy of 
 Scepticism that " Religion is a disease," then we can 
 point to him who, up to the very verge of ninety 
 years, displayed a fulness of vigorous and manly life 
 beyond all that we had ever known. 
 
 1 Heb. xiii. 7.
 
 EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 1 
 
 IT was only at mid-day on Monday last that I received 
 your Rector's summons to fill the gap created by 
 the regretted illness of Mr. Mackay. The suddenness 
 of the demand, and the pressure of business which could 
 not be displaced, will, I hope, be my sufficient excuse 
 for the utterly inadequate handling of a great theme. 
 
 For the sake of clearness and lucidus ordo, let me 
 begin with a few leading dates. Edward Boriverie Pusey 
 was born on August 22, 1800. His father was the Hon. 
 Philip Bouverie, a younger son of Lord Folkestone, 
 and took the name of Pusey when he inherited the 
 property called " Pusey " near the Yale of White Horse. 
 This Mr. Philip Bouverie-Pusey married Lady Lucy 
 Sherard, daughter of the fourth Earl of Harborongh, who 
 was a clergyman. Lady Lucy Pusey lived till 1858, 
 when she died at the age of eighty-six. She is an 
 important link in the chain ; for Dr. Pnsey said in 
 1879, " The doctrine of the Real Presence I learned 
 from my mother's explanation of the Catechism, which 
 she had learned to understand from older clergy." This 
 roughly links the Sacramental theology of 1880 with 
 that of 1780, when Lady Lucy was a child, or even 
 with 1712, when her father, the clergyman, was born. 
 
 In 1812 Edward Bouverie Pusey went to Eton ; from 
 
 1 A lecture delivered at St. Margaret Pattens, Rood Lane, 
 1901. 
 
 44
 
 EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 45 
 
 Eton to a private tutor's ; and thence to Christ Church, 
 Oxford. In the summer of 1822 he took his degree, 
 being examined by Mr. Keble, and placed in the First 
 Class. In 1823 he was elected to a Fellowship at Oriel 
 College; and he then made two prolonged visits to 
 Germany, where he became personally acquainted with 
 some of the pioneers of free thought and Biblical 
 criticism. 
 
 Returning to England, he was ordained Deacon on 
 Trinity Sunday, 1828, and immediately afterwards 
 married a lady to whom he had long been attached. In 
 the winter of the same year he was appointed Regius 
 Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, and became, in virtue 
 of his professorship, a Canon of Christ Church. It was 
 his first and last preferment. On November 23, 1828, 
 he was ordained Priest by Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of Oxford ; 
 and on Christmas Day following he celebrated the Holy 
 Communion for the first time. On September 16, 1882, 
 he died. What happened in that long interval must 
 now be briefly summarized. 
 
 In reviewing cursorily so prolonged, so laborious, and 
 so crowded a life, it is palpably impossible to enter 
 minutely into dates and details. The chronological 
 method must, therefore, now be laid aside ; and we must 
 confine our attention to three or four principal and 
 transcendent services which Dr. Pusey was raised up 
 by God to perform. Those services, of course, were 
 rendered in close connexion with what men have come 
 to call " the Catholic Revival in the Church of England," 
 or, more briefly, " The Oxford Movement." That move- 
 ment began in 1833, and had its origin in the actual 
 and threatened attacks on the Church, which immediately 
 succeeded the Reform Act of 1832. On July 14, 1833, 
 John Keble preached in St. Mary's, Oxford, his famous 
 Assize Sermon on " National Apostasy," and immediately
 
 46 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 afterwards the issue of the famous "Tracts for the 
 Times " began. 
 
 The first Tracts were a series of short papers in many 
 cases hardly more than notes on great questions which 
 the attack on the Church had suddenly forced into 
 prominence. They affirmed, in emphatic and purposely 
 startling form, the true and essential nature of the 
 Church as a spiritual society founded by our Lord 
 Himself, entirely independent of the State. They put 
 in the very forefront the trnth of the Apostolical 
 Succession, and its necessity to a valid ministry. They 
 went on to deal with such topics as the Standing 
 Ordinances of Religion, the] | Prayer-book, Fasting, and 
 Ecclesiastical Discipline. The motive power of the 
 Tracts the author of many, the inspirer of all was 
 John Henry Newman ; and he must unquestionably be 
 regarded as the leader of the Catholic Revival in its 
 earliest years, with the potent, though unseen, influence 
 of John Keble in the background, and the enthusiastic 
 aid of a band of younger disciples whom he had gathered 
 round him at Oxford. 
 
 But soon an event occurred which had a decisive 
 effect upon the character and fortunes of the Movement. 
 This was the accession of Dr. Pusey. In earlier days 
 he had been thought to have some sympathy with the 
 " Liberal " theology of Germany, and he had not been 
 closely associated with the beginning of the Movement, 
 which was pre-eminently, and before all else, an attack 
 on what is miscalled " Liberalism " in the sphere of 
 religion. But he had been gradually drawn to the 
 Movement, partly by his friendship with Newman, and 
 partly by the development of his own convictions. The 
 effect of his adhesion is thus described by a contemporary : 
 I quote from Dean Church's " History of the Oxford 
 Movement " :
 
 EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 47 
 
 Cardinal Newman, in the "Apologia," has attributed to 
 Dr. Pusey's unreserved adhesion to the cause which the Tracts 
 represented a great change in regard to the weight and com- 
 pleteness of what was written and done. "Dr. Pusey," he 
 writes, " gave us at once position and a name. Without him 
 we should have had no chance, especially at the early date of 
 1834, of making any serious resistance to the Liberal aggres- 
 sion. But Dr. Pusey was a Professor and Canon of Christ 
 Church ; he had a vast influence in consequence of his deep 
 religious seriousness, the munificence of his charities, his 
 Professorship, his family connexions, and his easy relations 
 with the University authorities. . . . There was henceforth 
 a man who could be the head and centre of the zealous people 
 in every part of the country who were adopting the new 
 opinions ; and not only so, but there was one who furnished 
 the Movement with a front to the world, and gained for it a 
 recognition from other parties in the University." 
 
 This is not too much to say of the effect of Dr. Pusey's 
 adhesion. It gave the Movement a second head, in close 
 sympathy with its original leader, but in many ways different 
 from him. Dr. Pusey became, as it were, its official chief in 
 the eyes of the world. He became also, in a remarkable 
 degree, a guarantee for its stability and steadiness, a guarantee 
 that its chiefs knew what they were about, and meant no- 
 thing but what was for the benefit of the English Church. 
 " He was," we read in the " Apologia," " a man of large designs ; 
 he had a hopeful, sanguine mind ; he had no fear of others ; 
 he was haunted by no intellectual perplexities. ... If con- 
 fidence in his position is (as it is) a first essential in the leader 
 of a party, Dr. Pusey had it." An inflexible patience, a 
 serene composure, a meek, resolute self-possession, was the 
 habit of his mind, and never deserted him in the most trying 
 days. He never for an instant, as the paragraph witnesses, 
 wavered or doubted about the position of the English Church. 
 
 From 1835 to 1845 Newman and Pusey may be said 
 to have jointly led the Catholic Revival. In October, 
 1845, Newman seceded to the Church of Rome, saying, 
 " We trusted our Bishops, and they have failed us." 
 Pusey said, " I never trusted the Bishops ; I trusted 
 the Church of England." And he therefore stood firm. 
 
 After Newman's secession Dr. Pusey was left in an
 
 48 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 unique position of undivided authority, and this, in spite 
 of all changes and chances, he occupied till his death. 
 For the rest of his life he devoted his whole time and 
 his whole being to a triune cause the maintenance of 
 the Catholic Faith in its entirety against all assaults, 
 from whatever quarter proceeding ; the vindication of 
 the position and claims of the Church of England as 
 the Catholic Church in this land ; and the cultivation of 
 personal sanctity in individual souls. 
 
 He was left a widower in 1839, and from that date 
 onwards the mark of a profound asceticism was un- 
 mistakably impressed on his character and life. He 
 lived in a deep seclusion of prayer and discipline and 
 study, from which he was only drawn forth by the 
 imperative claims of his professorship, or by the 
 necessity of championing some imperilled truth. The 
 result of his life-long labours may be read in the titles 
 of his published writings, which occupy fifty closely- 
 printed pages in the fourth volume of his Life. 
 
 In considering this huge output of devout and learned 
 labour, I must perforce dismiss everything of secondary 
 consideration. I shall, therefore, say nothing about the 
 criticism of the Old Testament, or the limits of ceremonial, 
 or the Athanasian Creed, or the relations of the Church 
 to the State, or the principles of " Healthful Reunion " 
 in Christendom. I will take just four, or, at most, five 
 topics. 
 
 And first, I put the signal work which Dr. Pusey 
 did in reaffirming and establishing the true doctrine of 
 Holy Baptism. His first definite contribution to the 
 Oxford Movement was to write three of the Tracts 
 (67, 68, 69), afterwards collected into one volume, and
 
 49 
 
 published (in 1836) under the title of " Scriptural Views 
 of Holy Baptism." 
 
 u A pupil of mine," Pusey said forty-five years later, 
 " was on the verge of leaving the Church for Dissent, 
 and on the ground that the Church taught Baptismal 
 Regeneration in the Prayer-book. So I set myself to 
 show what the teaching of Scripture about Holy Baptism 
 was. My tract was called ' Scriptural Views of Holy 
 Baptism.' By news I did not mean doctrines, but only 
 such aspects as Baptism would present to anyone who 
 looks at Holy Scripture." 
 
 As we read in his Life : 
 
 The keynote of the subject, then, is struck in the title, 
 " Scriptural Views of Holy Baptism." The object of the 
 writer is to show that the teaching of Scripture on the 
 point is plain enough ; that " difficulties raised against 
 Baptismal Regeneration seeni to lie entirely in ... collateral 
 questions, not in the defect of Scripture evidence for its 
 truth." Accordingly, Pusey begins by insisting at length that 
 tbe evidence for the doctrine must be considered without 
 reference to its supposed influence, or the supposed religious 
 character of those who held it at a given time. Understanding 
 regeneration to mean " the act by which God takes us out of 
 our relation to Adam, and makes us actual members of His 
 Son," Pusey goes on to show that whereas generation is 
 connected in Scripture with Baptism, there is nothing in 
 Scripture to sever it from Baptism. . . . 
 
 That which might strike an unprejudiced reader is Pusey 's 
 anxiety to arrive at the inmost meaning of Scripture ; 
 his anxious attention to its passing hints and its indirect 
 teaching. But the doctrine is directly grounded by him first 
 on tbe explicit words of our Lord, and then of St. Paul, 
 combined with the words in which the Sacrament was in- 
 stituted, and St. Peter's assertion that it is a present means of 
 salvation. Then follows a review of passages in which Holy 
 Scripture speaks of gifts of God, while modern writers often 
 see only duties of man, or to whicb modern writers appeal 
 when appropriating to themselves the privileges of Baptism, 
 without thinking of tbe means by which they are conveyed. 
 Not the least striking parts of the Tract are the discussions 
 
 4
 
 50 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 of the incidental mention of Baptism in Holy Scripture, and 
 the indications of its importance as inferred from the language 
 of Scripture about it when conferred on individuals, and the 
 Baptism of our Lord Himself, as sanctifying water. The 
 types are discussed last : they illustrate to a believer the place 
 assigned to the doctrine by Holy Scripture ; they do not by 
 themselves prove it. 
 
 II 
 
 I now approach the all-important service which Dr. 
 Pusey rendered to religion in reaffirming the true and 
 substantive doctrine of the Most Holy Eucharist. As 
 in the case of Baptism, I deliberately use the word 
 "reaffirming"; because, though frequently ignored, or 
 forgotten, or even denied, the true Eucharistic doctrine 
 has, by God's mercy, never perished out of the Church 
 of England. And Pusey, as we saw at the outset, 
 himself learned it from his mother, who had been taught 
 it by divines belonging to the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 On May 14, 1843, Dr. Pusey preached before the 
 University of Oxford the most important sermon of his 
 life. It was called " The Holy Eucharist a Comfort to 
 the Penitent." His previous teaching on Baptism had, 
 to use his own word, " scared " certain people with the 
 notion that post-Baptismal sin was unforgivable. And, 
 in order to correct this painful misapprehension, he set 
 himself to show the divinely-appointed comforts for the 
 penitent. Of these, naturally, the Holy Eucharist was 
 the chief. The sermon, as Pusey himself said, " implied, 
 rather than stated, even the doctrine of the Real 
 Objective Presence, and was written chiefly in the 
 language of the Fathers. Its one object was to inculcate 
 the love' of our Redeemer for us sinners in the Holy 
 Eucharist, both as a Sacrament and a Commemorative
 
 EDWARD BOUVER1E PUSEY 51 
 
 Sacrifice : as a Sacrament, in that He, onr Redeemer, 
 God and Man, vouchsafes to be " our spiritual food and 
 sustenance in that Holy Sacrament " ; as a Commemora- 
 tive Sacrifice, in that He enables us therein to plead to 
 the Father that one meritorious Sacrifice on the Cross, 
 which He, our High Priest, unceasingly pleads in His 
 own Divine Person in Heaven. The sermon was purely 
 for edification ; it did not invite, or even suggest, con- 
 troversy. It was only a plain reaffirmation, in language 
 venerated all over Christendom, of the Eucharistic truth 
 which has been held from the beginning. Nothing was 
 further from the preacher's wish than that his application 
 of this truth to the spiritual needs of the repentant 
 sinner should startle his hearers or create disputations. 
 
 But 1843 was an electrical time. The Oxford Move- 
 ment was nearing its crisis. The air was thick with 
 rumours of Romanizing ; and the Eucharistic language 
 of the most orthodox divines even of the Fathers had 
 come to sound strange in unaccustomed ears. Complaint 
 was made to the Vice-Chancellor of the University, who 
 asked for a copy of the sermon. He called to his aid 
 Six Doctors of Divinity. They examined the sermon in 
 secret, without giving Pusey an opportunity of self- 
 defence. They condemned the teaching as erroneous ; 
 and Pusey was suspended from preaching before the 
 University for two years. 
 
 Whatever this performance was intended to effect 
 and that was known only to its authors, now long gone 
 to their account what it actually effected is certain. 
 It called public attention to a most precious doctrine of 
 the Catholic Faith which had been strangely neglected. 
 It gave Pusey an unequalled opportunity of demonstrat- 
 ing the soundness of that doctrine, both according to 
 Catholic and Anglican authorities ; and it, indirectly, 
 but most really, helped to make him throughout the
 
 52 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 remainder of his long life the special champion and the 
 most insistent teacher of the Real Presence and all that 
 it involves. 
 
 I cannot better close this section of my subject than 
 by quoting the beautiful and most true words in which 
 my friend and your neighbour, Henry Scott Holland, 
 has summarized the leading characteristics of Pusey's 
 Eucharistic teaching. He singles out three such Awe, 
 Spirituality, and Richness. He says : 
 
 There is, first, the wonderful awe with which he hallows 
 all his speech. This is so remarkable just because it is awe 
 which familiarity seems to replenish, instead of to dissolve or 
 disturb. He is insisting on constant nearness to the Blessed 
 Sacrament, he is surrounding It with incessant attention, with 
 the routine of order and regular service, with accurate rules 
 of preparation, with formal methods of intimacy. He him- 
 self is felt to be living, year by year, and day by day, in 
 unfailing and familiar intercourse with Its grace. It is to 
 him necessary and near as his daily food. It has all the 
 common and unquestioned frequency of air, and earth, and 
 sky. Yet ever his awe and wonder grow. Nothing ceases 
 of that hushed and thrilling rapture which belongs to strange 
 surprises, to unanticipated discoveries, to sudden intuitions. 
 Nay, his reverence, his humiliation, his trembling, his fear, 
 all seem to increase with the increase of familiarity ; there is 
 ever in his voice the sound of searching alarm, the sense of 
 the fire about the Mount, into which no unclean thing may 
 enter lest it be consumed. That Altar, near and dear as 
 it is, is ringed round to him with unflagging terrors ; his 
 tones shake, his knees bow, his soul quivers, with the same 
 wonderful awe as that with which a young child kneels, for 
 the first time, in the hush of some still sanctuary, and hears 
 the murmuring words of the priest who bends over him to 
 lay, in the child-hands uplifted, the adorable Gift over which 
 the bowing angels stoop, and gaze, and adore. . . . 
 
 And then, secondly, no one can help feeling the spiritu- 
 ality of such Sacramentalism, as we find laid out in page 
 after page of these addresses. We should have thought it 
 impossible for anyone who once had read them to indulge in 
 crude contrasts between the carnal form and the inward 
 spirit, or between technical dogmatism and the living faith.
 
 EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 53 
 
 Everyone can see that the entire belief rests on the robust 
 reality of the actual event, which takes place on this or that 
 Altar, through the mediation of a consecrated formula, used 
 with exact ritualistic definiteness, over earthly elements that 
 have been duly presented before God, and in the sight of 
 the people, in literal obedience to sanctioned usage. Every- 
 one can detect how accurate and watchful and complicated 
 a theology informs every fragment of his language. And 
 yet the external and formal fact glows through and through 
 with the warmth of the heartfelt devotion, as a coal filled 
 full with the splendour of flame. The outward form in- 
 tensifies the heat. It supplies it with scope, and radiation, 
 and vent. It feeds it with fuel. The flame leaps and rejoices, 
 just because the material is given it ; it knows a new strength, 
 it glows with a new ardour, as it lays hold of this external 
 matter, and fills it, and infolds it, and inhabits it, and 
 absorbs it. A fire lives on the fuel given ; and, to the flame 
 of adoration, Sacramental fact is the fuel that feeds it. Never, 
 surely, has the heart of man bent itself to innermost com- 
 munion with the very life of Jesus, the Master and Lover 
 of souls, in more direct, and evangelical, and unveiled contact 
 than here is made known in every glowing word of love, and 
 joy, and peace, and devotion. . . . 
 
 Lastly, we should notice how it is this explicitness of 
 apprehension which causes the third characteristic of Dr. 
 Pusey's Eucharistic teaching, its marvellous richness. Im- 
 plicit and unalterable faith may be strong, but it cannot be 
 full. But here the inner strength of the faith, which has 
 been enabled to emerge, and to lay hold of its objective 
 material, and to develope its distinct expression, exhibits 
 itself in the fulness and the variety with which it can apply 
 itself to the whole round of practical life, or make use of the 
 entire wealth of the imagination and the emotions. Every- 
 thing seems to become Eucharistic under the doctor's 
 handling everywhere the Sacramental blessing reaches. . . . 
 As we let our eyes travel through page after page, we are 
 always in face of one thought, the thought of that Most 
 Blessed Presence under the forms of bread and wine, yet ever 
 the thought offers novel variety of guidance, of direction, of 
 illumination ever it prompts a new motion of the desires, 
 a new effort of the will, a new hope of the affections. It is 
 in writings such as these that we learn something of the 
 unfading efficacy of the Sacramental theology the unfailing
 
 54 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 attraction of the Sacramental life why it is that all other 
 forms of adoration and communion, however real, cannot 
 but appear imperfect, partial, inadequate, thin, meagre, 
 shadowy, to those who have once felt this abundance, and 
 have tasted of its treasures, and have sat at its feasts. To 
 them it is known why word should be added to word in the 
 effort to tell how the Eucharist has been to them both Hope, 
 and Refuge, and Peace, and Sweetness, and Tranquillity, and 
 Wisdom, and Portion, and Possession, and Treasure. 
 
 All this the Eucharist was to Dr. Pusey his Sustenance, 
 his Comfort, his Nurture through day after day of those 
 long years that he spent with us ; and it is out of the holy 
 fulness of such a life-long intimacy that he speaks to us the 
 secrets of Eucharistic Communion with God. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The two years' suspension from preaching before the 
 University expired in June, 1845. Dr. Pusey's next 
 turn as preacher came on February 1, 1846. With char- 
 acteristic courage he chose as his subject the Doctrine 
 of Absolution. He took for his text St. John xx. 21-23, 
 " Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you : 
 as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. 
 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, 
 and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost : 
 whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto 
 them, and whose soever sins ye retain, they are re- 
 tained." He began in these words : " It will be in 
 the memory of some that when, 'nearly three years 
 past, Almighty God (for ' secret faults ' which 
 He knoweth, and from which, I trust, He willed 
 thereby the rather to ' cleanse ' me) allowed me to 
 be deprived for a time of my office among you, I 
 was endeavouring to mitigate the stern doctrine of 
 the heavy character of a Christian's sins, by pointing 
 out the mercies of God which might reassure the
 
 EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 55 
 
 penitent, the means of his restoration, the earnest of 
 his pardon." In the censured sermon, which he now 
 reasserted to the very full of its doctrinal position, 
 he had shown the blessing conveyed through the Holy 
 Eucharist. He now continued the same line of thought. 
 All forgiveness is of God. The Church or her ministers 
 are not substitutes for, but instruments of, Christ, the 
 One Absolver. But that the One Absolver did delegate 
 to His Church the absolving power was plain from the 
 words of the text ; and that the Church of England 
 claims the right to exercise this awful gift is plain from 
 the formula of absolution in the Visitation Office, when 
 read in connexion with the Ordinal. " The Church 
 of England teaches the reality of priestly absolution 
 as explicitly as it has ever been taught, or is taught 
 to-day, in any part of Christendom." 
 
 Against this sermon, strange to say, no objection 
 was raised. Pusey's opponents had begun to realize 
 that the thoroughness of his theological knowledge 
 placed him in an unassailable position. The doctrine 
 of the Keys was now triumphantly vindicated ; and 
 a great part of Pusey's remaining life was spent in 
 applying it practically. Of course, I am speaking 
 without book, but I should imagine that no priest in 
 the Church of England heard so many confessions or 
 directed so many consciences. 
 
 Two personal reminiscences may close this part of 
 my subject. (1) When, at the beginning of the summer 
 of 1873, Dr. Pusey returned to Oxford from a long 
 illness abroad, I myself saw the crowd of ancient 
 penitents who thronged his door in Christ Church 
 like the impotent folk round the Pool of Bethesda. 
 (2) I can never forget the tremendous solemnity with 
 which, from the University pulpit, he urged on under- 
 graduates who had fallen into evil courses the benefit
 
 56 
 
 of Confession. " My sons, for sins of the flesh it is 
 the remedy. If yonr conscience is troubled, you know 
 who they are to whom our Lord has said, ' Whose 
 sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven.' '' 
 
 IV 
 
 I am particularly instructed by the Rector to say a 
 word about Dr. Pusey's relation to the establishment of 
 English Sisterhoods. As far back as 1839 we find 
 him corresponding with Mr. Keble about the possibility 
 of establishing Sisters of Charity in the Church of 
 England. His daughter Lucy had, from very early 
 childhood, expressed a wish to lead a single life, and 
 dedicate herself wholly to good works. Dr. Pusey 
 regarded this as a Divine leading, and it seems to have 
 made him keener in pursuit of this new ideal. He 
 wrote to several friends for information and advice ; 
 and very soon the project gained ground. By 1840 
 several vocations had been inwardly realized. On 
 Trinity Sunday, 1841, a young lady took the vow of 
 Holy Celibacy, and sealed it at the altar of St. Mary's, 
 Oxford. She was the first English Sister of Mercy. 
 She is with us still, the Foundress-Mother of the 
 Convent of the Holy Trinity, Oxford ; and by her 
 kindness I can lay before you the passage which, under 
 God, determined the dedication of her life. It occurs 
 in Newman's " Church of the Fathers " (chapter xiv.). 
 After speaking of the help to single women which the 
 Community-Life affords, Newman says : 
 
 And if women have themselves lost so much by the present 
 state of things, what has been the loss of the poor, sick, 
 and aged, to whose service they might consecrate the life 
 which they refuse to shackle by the marriage vow? What 
 has been the loss of the ignorant, sinful, and miserable among
 
 EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 57 
 
 whom they only can move without indignity who bear a 
 religious character upon them ; for whom they only can inter- 
 cede or exert themselves who have taken leave of earthly 
 hopes and fears ; who are secured by their holy resolve from 
 the admiring eye or persuasive tongue ; and can address 
 themselves to the one heavenly duty to which they have 
 set themselves with singleness of mind? 
 
 When the first English Sister of Mercy resolved 
 to dedicate herself to Holy Celibacy, there was no 
 community or institution for her to join, and she was 
 not, at the time, able to take upon herself the responsi- 
 bilities of a foundress. It was not till 1845 that the 
 first English Sisterhood came into being. Lucy Pusey 
 had died the year before ; and her father charged her 
 to " pray for the institutions to which she had hoped to 
 belong." The prayer, if it was offered, was answered. 
 Through the munificence of some lay Churchmen 
 (Mr. Gladstone was one of them ; the present Duke 
 of Rutland is the only survivor) a suitable house was 
 procured in London, near the Regent's Park. Its 
 working expenses were guaranteed ; and it opened its 
 doors on March 26, 1845. Dr. Pusey was always 
 regarded as the Founder, and he was the spiritual 
 director of the inmates. The example soon spread. In 
 1849 Miss Priscilla Lydia Sellon started at Devonport 
 a Sisterhood with which Dr. Pnsey was closely asso- 
 ciated from its beginning till his death. This Sisterhood 
 survives to the present hour in the beautiful Priory 
 at Ascot, where Dr. Pusey died. 
 
 Later came the great communities and widespread 
 organizations of Wantage, Clewer, and East Grinstead, 
 besides many smaller societies of like intent. All in 
 turn profited by the experiences some felicitous, and 
 some unfortunate of those who had led the way. 
 To-day the principle of Sisterhoods is an organic element 
 in the life of the Church of England, and I suppose
 
 58 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 that the total number of Sisters and Associates in 
 Great Britain and in our dependencies must be counted 
 by thousands. And it cannot, I think, be doubted 
 that Dr. Pusey did more than any other one man to 
 lay the bases of Community-Life in a day of rebuke 
 and blasphemy. Other, and perhaps more dexterous, 
 architects built on his massive foundations. 
 
 A concluding word must now be said about Dr. 
 Pusey as a preacher. He had absolutely no pretensions 
 to oratorical skill. He read every word, generally 
 from a printed copy, in a low, deep, rather monotonous 
 voice, which, in his later years, was husky and thick. 
 His sermons were immensely long, packed with learn- 
 ing, and exhaustive of the subjects with which they 
 dealt. His style of composition was extremely strange ; 
 so crabbed and so quaint that it now reads more like a 
 bad translation from the German than genuine English. 
 But occasionally there were passages of a solemn 
 rhetoric, which rose very near to eloquence ; and, when 
 he came to practical exhortation to the searching of 
 the heart's secrets, and the enforcement of repentance 
 it was like the voice of a god. Let one passage stand 
 for all, and bring this most imperfect study to a close. 
 
 It is Septuagesima Sunday, 1875, and Dr. Pusey 
 is preaching before the University of Oxford from St. 
 Luke ix. 23 : " If any man will come after Me, let 
 him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and 
 follow Me." He begins : " Does then our Redeeming 
 Lord indeed speak these words to us ? Is there no 
 way out of them ? " And then, after an hour's solemn 
 argument for the absolute necessity of self-sacrifice, he
 
 EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY 59 
 
 turns to the Undergraduates' Gallery, and this is how 
 he ends : 
 
 Many of you, my sons, are provided with superfluities. You 
 have not to stint yourselves as to the pleasures of your age. 
 Day by day passes, I suppose, with all conveniences of life 
 or amusement, or some self-indulgences which, though not 
 directly sinful, are rather injurious. If our Lord was to come 
 now, in how many do you think that you could tell Him 
 that you had fed Him, clothed Him, supplied Him when 
 sick ? Some, I fear, could not say that they had bestowed as 
 much on Christ as upon their dogs. 
 
 We are to-day at the vestibule of those days wherein, bearing 
 the cross of this yearly abstinence, we are, if we are His 
 disciples, to follow Him Who for our sakes did fast forty 
 days and forty nights. . . . Three weeks hence you will plead 
 that fasting to Him, and pray Him that, after His likeness, 
 you too may use such abstinence, that, your flesh being sub- 
 dued to the spirit, you may ever obey His godly motions in 
 righteousness and true holiness. Let not your prayers be a 
 witness against you. 
 
 He does not put hard things upon you. He Who accepts 
 the cup of cold water will accept petty self-denials. Self- 
 indulgence is a hard master not Jesus. Yice wears the 
 body : self -denial braces it. Sin is an exacting tryant : the 
 service of God is perfect freedom. 
 
 Give yourselves anew to Him, Who gave Himself for you. 
 He grudged not for you one drop of His Heart's Blood : 
 grudge not to Him the price of His Blood yourselves. Think 
 ,of that place around the Eternal Throne which He by that 
 Blood has individually prepared for you. Jesus will impart 
 to your petty cross some of the virtue of His Saving Cross. 
 He will make any hardness sweet to you, Who is Himself 
 all sweetness, and every pleasurable delight.
 
 A RCHBISHOP TAIT'S biography, written by his 
 XJL son-in-law and his chaplain, has been received 
 with general favonr. Even in quarters which were 
 most resolutely opposed to the Archbishop's ecclesiastical 
 policy, there has been a generous disposition to forget 
 buried animosities, and to do the fullest justice to the 
 fine aspects of his character and career. In much of 
 this general eulogy we must all concur. The Arch- 
 bishop's deep and fervent piety, his manly courage under 
 the pressure of illness and sorrow, his calm resolve in 
 following out what he believed to be a right policy, and 
 his strong sense of personal and official dignity, are 
 qualities which command unstinted admiration.. 
 
 But, in other respects, the eulogy seems to have been 
 overdone. Admiration has been claimed for the least 
 admirable parts of his conduct, and, while more than 
 justice has been rendered to his successes, no notice has 
 been taken of frequent and disastrous errors. I do not 
 propose now to recapitulate the events of his life. That 
 has been done sufficiently by previous writers, even 
 exhaustively in the Quarterly Review. I purpose here 
 to consider some aspects of his character and policy 
 which have been either ignored or misleadingly treated 
 alike by the biographers and by the reviewers. 
 
 That Archibald Campbell Tait should ever have 
 
 1 Contemporary Review, 1891. 
 60
 
 61 
 
 attained to the office of Chief Pastor of the Church of 
 England is a curious, and even a startling, result of our 
 highly-mixed Constitution. Such an event would only 
 be possible where the relations between Church and 
 State were unnatural and anomalous. Whatever else he 
 may or may not have been, Archibald Tait was specially 
 and essentially a Scotchman. His intellectual habits and 
 interests, his moral sympathies, his temperament and 
 feelings, all were characteristic of the land from which 
 he came. After all, blood is thicker than water, and 
 racial affinities count for much in the social and political 
 intercourse of mankind. This Scotchman, by the 
 accident of his education, became established for life 
 on English soil ; but he never took root in it never 
 thoroughly understood the English people in some of 
 their moods and tenses ; never quite comprehended the 
 thought, on some important topics, of those with whom 
 he worked or over whom he bore rule. 
 
 But the Archbishop was not only a Scotchman : he 
 seems to have been more than half a Presbyterian. 
 He was a devout and orthodox Christian, but on 
 those ecclesiastical topics which distinguish Anglicanism 
 from other systems of Reformed religion, his sympathies 
 seem to have been rather with the Scotch Kirk than 
 with the Church of England. If he had any theological 
 reason for joining the English Church, it was a negative 
 one. The English Church did not accept those doctrines 
 of Reprobation and Assurance to which the Kirk is 
 pledged, and which Tait conscientiously repudiated. 
 But the main reason for his change of communion was 
 not strictly theological. He was a firm believer in 
 the principle of religious Establishment, and, as he 
 had determined to make England his home, it followed 
 of necessity that he should join the Established 
 Church of England. Dislike of Calvinism and love of
 
 62 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Establishments were the two causes which changed Tait 
 from a Presbyterian to an Anglican. On all questions 
 affecting Sacramental doctrine, the structure of the 
 Church, and the nature of the ministry, he remained to 
 the end of his life what he had been in his Presbyterian 
 youth. In an article on " The Courses of Religious 
 Thought," published in 1876, Mr. Gladstone reckoned, 
 as one of five great schools, or systems of religion, 
 "those who, rejecting the Papal Monarchy and the 
 visibility of the Church, believe in the great central 
 dogmas of the Christian system the Trinity and the 
 Incarnation." On this the Archbishop briefly remarks 
 that the school thus described " is the Christian school 
 of the Apostolic days." A divine who holds that the 
 Christianity of the Apostolic days ignored the visibility 
 of the Church would, I venture to think, have been 
 more at home in the Moderator's Chair at the General 
 Assembly than on the throne of St. Augustine. 
 
 While Tait was thus essentially a Presbyterian, he was 
 not at all essentially a clergyman. He had, as far as one 
 can judge, no special vocation to Holy Orders. He would 
 have been a religious lawyer, or a religious merchant, 
 or a religious country-gentleman, according to the cir- 
 cumstances in which he had been placed ; but his 
 early history gives no signs either of peculiar aptitude 
 or of strong desire for the work of the priesthood, as 
 it is understood by Churchmen, or even for any form 
 of the clerical profession. Still, Tait was ordained as 
 a matter of course. He was a Fellow of Balliol, and, 
 as such, he was bound by law to take Holy Orders 
 within a given time from his M.A. degree. He had 
 not the least desire to do otherwise. Indeed he felt 
 that the clerical character would help him in his tutorial 
 work ; and, when once ordained, he became an active 
 clergyman. But, as far as I can judge, he was led
 
 ARCHBISHOP TAIT 63 
 
 to Holy Orders rather by the external circumstances of 
 his position than by inward desire or special fitness. 
 
 In the first twenty years of his ministerial life there 
 is little of distinctively ecclesiastical interest. As a 
 tutor, a schoolmaster, and a Royal Commissioner, he was 
 mainly occupied with public work, useful and admirable 
 in itself, but not specially clerical. Even as a Dean 
 he seems to have busied himself more with the secular 
 than with the spiritual side of his office. His sudden 
 and surprising elevation in 1856 to the See of London 
 brought him for the first time into close contact with 
 spiritual and ecclesiastical concerns of great pith and 
 moment. 
 
 All that was wise and skilful and effective in his 
 episcopal administration has been abundantly eulogized. 
 It is a less gracious, but a not less necessary, task to point 
 out instances in which his judgment and his sympathy 
 seemed alike at fault. First with respect to Ritualism. 
 Where, as in Mr. Liddell's case, the offending clergy- 
 man submitted at once, the Bishop could claim a 
 success ; but, where the innovator was made of sterner 
 stuff, the Bishop's action was less fortunate. The 
 Consistory Court condemned lighted candles on the 
 altar. Mr. Edward Stuart introduced them into his 
 church St. Mary Magdalene's, Munster Square. Bishop 
 Tait " laid his commands " on Mr. Stuart to discontinue 
 them. Mr. Stuart " respectfully declined to obey " 
 these commands, holding that the Bishop, in issuing 
 them, had " transgressed the limits of that authority 
 which the Church of England has committed to her 
 bishops." Thus matters reached a deadlock, and in 
 the correspondence which took place the Bishop showed, 
 unhappily not for the last time, his total incapacity 
 to understand the mental attitude of a clergyman who 
 felt himself bound by the plain letter of the Rubric,
 
 64 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 and could not construe the obligation of canonical 
 obedience as meaning that whatever a bishop commands 
 a presbyter is bound to do. 
 
 Unluckily for the Bishop, Ritualism grew and 
 flourished, in spite of his unsparing opposition. It 
 touched particularly the young and the poor. It spread 
 from parish to parish, and its propagators were deter- 
 mined people, whom it was extremely difficult either 
 to coerce or to wheedle. For twenty years, first 
 as Bishop and then as Archbishop, Tait waged an 
 unrelenting war against Ritualism. The boldest 
 mano3iivre of the whole campaign the Public Worship 
 Regulation Act will be noticed separately. The net 
 result of so many pitched battles, of incessant 
 skirmishing, and not a few ambuscades, was that, in 
 spite of Tait's generalship and resources, the Ritualists 
 won the day and held the field. Late in life he 
 recognized the fact. 
 
 In. 1875, flushed with his recent success in es- 
 tablishing Lord Penzance's Court, the Archbishop re- 
 ceived a deputation of working men connected with 
 St. Alban's, Holborn, who came to ask his sympathy 
 and help in some of their chronic troubles. He treated 
 them and their cause and their clergy in very charac- 
 teristic fashion scolded them soundly, lectured them 
 on their duty, pooh-poohed them for liking elaborate 
 ritual, and had nothing to offer them, in their obviously 
 real distress, but his dry husks of hard legality. And 
 this was the kind of treatment which he continued for 
 several years to mete out to all sorts and conditions 
 of Ritualists. The law of the Church of England 
 was laid down by the Judicial Committee and Lord 
 Penzance, and anyone who disobeyed it must take 
 the consequences. But, as time went on, it seems to 
 have dawned upon the Archbishop's mind that this kind
 
 ARCHBISHOP TAIT 65 
 
 of treatment was not quite adequate to the case. 
 Whether right or wrong, the Ritualists were numerous 
 and were resolute ; they could give a very good account 
 of themselves historically and theologically ; they con- 
 ceived, however mistakenly, that they had a right to 
 exist in the Church of England, and this right they had 
 the hardihood to maintain. Clearly they could not be 
 snuffed out, and some more reasonable method of dealing 
 with them must be devised. To this alteration in the 
 Archbishop's view other influences, no doubt, contributed. 
 Those who knew him best saw that his twofold bereave- 
 ment in 1878 did much to soften him. He was inclined 
 to rely less on the strong hand, and more on fatherly 
 persuasion ; he began to perceive that Ritualists were 
 not a parcel of obstinate children who amused themselves 
 by dressing-up, but rational men, who, whether rightly 
 or wrongly, thought that ritual served religious ends. 
 He sought with new care for points of agreement with 
 those from whom in some matters he differed, and was 
 more inclined than he had been formerly to make 
 common cause against common evils with men whose 
 eyes were so holden that they could not discern the 
 divine claims of the Judicial Committee. Another cause 
 of the Archbishop's altered attitude towards Ritualism 
 was a personal one his feeling for Mr. Mackonochie. 
 As Bishop of London he had long known that devoted 
 man, first as curate of St. George's-in-the-East, and later 
 as Vicar of St. Alban's ; and, while he condemned his 
 proceedings, he retained a sincere regard for his 
 character. Much of this was due to the fact that they 
 both were Scotchmen ; and people who knew the prelate 
 and the presbyter were amused to see that each re- 
 cognized something of a kindred spirit in the other 
 each thought the other by far the best representative 
 of a dangerous school. The events and controversies of 
 
 5
 
 66 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 later years brought the two men into more frequent 
 relations with each other. The Archbishop learned to 
 set an increasingly high value on Mr. Mackonochie's 
 self-sacrificing devotion ; and everyone remembers the 
 touching effort which he made on his death-bed to undo 
 the mischievous effects of earlier policy, and end the 
 persecution to which St. Alban's had been subjected. It 
 was the act of a brave and a great man great enough 
 to admit that he had been in the wrong. 
 
 But in spite of all this softening change in the Arch- 
 bishop's bearing, there was still a rather provoking vein 
 of condescension to the Ritualists, as to a feeble folk, 
 and a curious failure to understand their position and 
 beliefs, even when he was really bestirring himself to 
 spare their feelings and to do them substantial justice. 
 This was strangely illustrated in the sequel to the 
 Bordesley case, where the Consecrated Wafer had been 
 sacrilegiously abstracted and used as evidence in Court. 
 The natural piety of every instructed Churchman was 
 horrified by this outrage, and the Archbishop was im- 
 plored to rescue the Sacred Species from the registry 
 of the court in which It had been impounded. This he 
 did ; strongly condemned the conduct of the persons who 
 had abstracted It ; and duly consumed the Wafer in his 
 own private chapel. But, his biographer tells us, the 
 gratitude of Churchmen for this relief to their feelings 
 distressed and surprised the Archbishop almost as much 
 as their previous horror. " He refused with unwonted 
 sternness to receive a deputation which desired to thank 
 him," and he replied to a memorial on the subject in terms 
 which showed that, with all the will in the world to do what 
 was right, he did not even faintly comprehend the feeling 
 with which devout Anglicans regard the Consecrated 
 Elements, by reason of their relation to Things Unseen. 
 The old methods of forcible repression, having utterly
 
 67 
 
 failed of their object, were thus replaced by a sort of 
 contemptuous kindness. The change was perhaps an 
 improvement as far as it went ; but it left much to be 
 desired. It is to be hoped that those who have inherited 
 the Archbishop's tradition, and aspire to carry on his 
 policy, will realize that pitying patronage is scarcely 
 less offensive than persecution ; and that there is no 
 hope of abating ritual difficulties in the Church until 
 onr rulers recognize that Ritualists, as well as Puritans 
 and Neologians, may be capable and intelligent, though 
 perhaps mistaken, men. 
 
 Even more unfortunate were Tait's dealings, as Bishop 
 of London, with the vexed question of Confession. Mr. 
 Poole, a curate of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, had been 
 accused of scandalous conduct, and had triumphantly 
 routed his accusers. But he was arbitrarily deprived of 
 his licence, because he had presumed to exercise, in a 
 manner and degree which the Bishop disapproved, that 
 Ministry of Reconciliation which the Church of England 
 entrusts without restriction to all her priests. The 
 Bishop's willingness to license Mr. Poole elsewhere puts 
 his own previous conduct in an even more unfavourable 
 light ; for it seems to show that, in silencing the curate 
 at St. Paul's, he acted not so much in obedience to prin- 
 ciple as in deference to a local clamour which had been 
 proved to be unfounded. But, from first to last, Tait 
 always paid an even excessive respect to lay opinion, 
 unless it happened to be that of Ritualists ; in which 
 case he commonly treated it as if it emanated from 
 Earlswood or Hauwell. 
 
 In the matter of Confession, as of Ritualism, time 
 decided against the Archbishop, and the warmest admirers 
 of his consistency will hardly allege that he would have 
 ventured to repeat in 1876 the high-handed conduct 
 of 1856.
 
 68 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 During the earlier years of Tait's episcopate the minds 
 of English Churchmen were long and seriously perturbed 
 by Bishop Colenso's theological aberrations, and the 
 consequent difficulties of the Church in South Africa. 
 Throughout these troubles Bishop Tait displayed great 
 powers of character and judgment. He kept his head 
 amid universal clamour ; saw his own way, and pursued 
 it through evil report and good. But, from the point of 
 view of spiritual Churchmanship, his action was little 
 less than deplorable. More than almost any man of equal 
 ability, he was incapable of mental change. Throughout 
 these interminable debates he appears exactly as he 
 was in old days at Balliol and Rugby, and as he 
 remained to the end. He was, to all appearance, con- 
 stitutionally unable to conceive of the Catliolic Church 
 as a spiritual society, essentially distinct from, though 
 accidentally allied with, the State ; founded by our 
 Lord Himself, and by Him endowed with a constitution, 
 laws, and traditions of her own. This being so, of 
 course it follows that he could not apprehend the 
 English Church, or the South African Church, as 
 being a part of that Universal Church, and having her 
 share in that great birthright of self-governance. To 
 Tait's mind the Church of England seems to have 
 been a Department of the State, like the Customs or 
 the Police ; charged by law with the duty of main- 
 taining such theological beliefs and moral practices as 
 Parliament might, for the time being, approve ; and 
 subject in every question, however momentous, of doctrine 
 or discipline, to the authority of a tribunal which spoke 
 of " the Inferior Persons of the Trinity." It was this 
 ingrained Erastianism of the Bishop's mind that made 
 him so wholly unsympathetic to those who were fighting 
 the battle of the Faith in South Africa. Not that 
 he had much sympathy with the offending prelate. He
 
 ARCHBISHOP TAIT 69 
 
 saw as clearly as anyone the mischievous nature of 
 his opinions, and the frivolity of his critical tone. But 
 he was so tightly tied and bound to the chariot- wheels 
 of the State, that he could not move a finger unless 
 and until Crown and Cabinet and Parliament and Law- 
 Courts should graciously permit him and his episcopal 
 brethren to exercise the sacred powers entrusted to 
 them by the Divine Head of the Church. 
 
 During the debates of the first Pan-Anglican Confer- 
 ence in 1867, Tait's passionate Erastianism carried him 
 beyond the bounds of his usual self-control, and threw 
 him into vehement antagonism to the majority of his 
 brethren, especially those who came from the free 
 Churches of America and the Colonies. Bishop Wilber- 
 force wrote to a friend : " The Lambeth gathering was 
 a very great success. Its strongly anti-Erastian tone, 
 rebuking the Bishop of London, and strengthening those 
 who hope to maintain the Establishment by maintaining, 
 instead of surrendering, the dogmatic character of the 
 Church, was quite remarkable." 
 
 His Erastianism was one of the elements of failure in 
 the Archbishop's long, consistent, and in many respects 
 sagacious administration. It threw him hopelessly out 
 of harmony, not only with the best traditions of our 
 older divinity, but even more fatally so with that new 
 movement which sprang from Oxford in 1833, and 
 which still lives and works, under changed aspects, 
 but with unchanged spirit. That movement, whatever 
 else might be said of it, was pre-eminently distinguished 
 by its intense and austere unworldliness. Its leaders 
 and disciples could not have much in common with 
 a prelate whose counsel to the Church, at every crisis, 
 was to accept the mess of pottage and surrender the 
 birthright of the Bride of Christ. Throughout his 
 working life Archbishop Tait found himself in bitter,
 
 70 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 and often bewildered, opposition to men who made 
 their appeal, alike in doctrine and in practice, not to 
 Acts of Parliament or decrees of secular Courts, nor 
 even to the episcopal edicts by which bishops sought to 
 give a spiritual colour to those very mundane mandates ; 
 but to the Faith once for all delivered to the saints, 
 and the customs always and everywhere observed by 
 them ; to historical testimony and to Catholic consent. 
 
 I spoke just now of Archbishop Tait's excessive 
 deference to lay opinion, so long as it was not the 
 opinion of Ritualists. This was curiously illustrated 
 in the controversy about the Athanasian Creed. 
 
 Towards the year 1871 a smouldering hostility to 
 that venerable symbol was quickened, by judicious 
 fanning, into the semblance of a flame. All at once 
 an agitation sprang up. People not remarkable for 
 the regularity of their attendance at Divine Worship 
 (and least of all on week-days) suddenly found that 
 their lives had been made a burden to them by dogmatic 
 assertions to which they were forced to listen some 
 five times a year. They clamoured for relief from the 
 annoyance. Various ways of escape were suggested. 
 The Creed might be altogether disused ; its use might 
 be made optional ; it might be used only once a year ; 
 the " damnatory clauses " might be struck out ; it might 
 be retranslated ; it might be explained away in a 
 note anything rather than that its precise teaching 
 and emphatic warnings should still ring in the ears to 
 which all positive faith was an affront. The attack on 
 the Creed was attended by an impressive amount of 
 sound and fury ; but, as we look back on it after the 
 lapse of twenty years, it seems to have been to a 
 great extent fraudulent. 
 
 It was an agitation under false pretences. No doubt 
 there were, as there still are, some well-instructed
 
 ARCHBISHOP TAIT 71 
 
 * 
 
 Churchmen, of unimpreachable orthodoxy, who, abso- 
 lutely believing every statement of the Creed, considered 
 it out of place where it stands in the Prayer-book, and 
 would have been content to place it with the Articles, 
 as being in its form unfitted for public recitation. No 
 doubt there were also a certain number of persons, 
 themselves devout believers in the constructive parts 
 of the Athauasian theology, who yet felt that the 
 " damnatory clauses " were inconsistent with Christian 
 charity, and would have been glad to see them ex- 
 punged, if only a National Church were competent to 
 alter a document of world-wide authority. But it was 
 not from either of these sections that the agitation 
 against the Creed proceeded. 
 
 It proceeded from those to whom the fundamental 
 doctrine of the Creed was distasteful. Beneath a fair- 
 seeming show of charity and candour, there lay concealed 
 a disbelief, which hardly cared to avow itself, in the 
 central doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation ; 
 and the attack, thus organized by the enemies of the 
 Christian Faith, was reinforced by the indifferent and 
 the irreligious, the vaguely speculative and the merely 
 ignorant, and by those who had never troubled them- 
 selves to ascertain the meaning of theological terms. 
 
 These external foes of the Creed had their allies 
 inside the citadel. There were distinguished clergymen, 
 highly placed in the Church and the Universities, who, 
 themselves disbelieving in the theology which they 
 were pledged to teach, welcomed with effusion whatever 
 tended to disparage it. Dr. Pusey and Dr. Liddon saw 
 at once the true bearings of the case, and faced the 
 danger with courageous front. If the Creed were 
 multilated or defaced, they would resign their prefer- 
 ments and retire into lay -communion. Men who were 
 resident at Oxford in the autumn of 1872 have probably
 
 72 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 
 
 not forgotten the trumpet-blasts which those two great 
 champions of the Faith delivered from the University 
 pulpit Dr. Liddon preaching on October 20 on " The 
 Life of Faith and the Athanasian Creed," and Dr. 
 Fuse) 7 on Advent Sunday on " The Responsibility of 
 Intellect in Matters of Faith." These trumpets, at 
 any rate, gave no uncertain sound, and their summons 
 roused the great mass of the clergy, and almost every 
 layman who could, by any stretch of terms, be called a 
 High Churchman. 
 
 Unluckily the Archbishop, though himself an orthodox 
 believer, lent his great authority to the movement 
 against the Creed. He wished to remove it from its 
 honoured place in the sanctuary, and bury it in some 
 lumber-room where it could not offend the susceptibilities 
 of even the most delicate heterodoxy. Speaking in 
 Convocation, he justified the course which he proposed 
 by saying that no one in the Church of England took 
 the "damnatory clauses " in their plain and literal sense ; 
 and he thereby elicited from an aggrieved clergyman of 
 his Province such a rebuke as has seldom been suffered 
 by a chief pastor of the Church. 1 
 
 The opposition to the attack on the Creed proved 
 infinitely stronger than Tait had anticipated ; and, 
 while retaining his original opinion, he fell back upon 
 the rather feeble compromise of an explanatory note 
 or declaration, which, as it was only accepted by 
 Convocation and not inserted in the Prayer-book, 
 disturbed no one, while it possibly comforted some 
 remarkably tender souls. Thus the attack was foiled, 
 the Creed was saved, and a schism averted. But the 
 credit of the result can hardly be claimed for the 
 Archbishop. 
 
 Tait's admirers have always been in the habit of 
 See p. Ill,
 
 ARCHBISHOP TA1T 73 
 
 laying peculiar stress upon his statesmanship. His 
 reputation for that great quality has been made to 
 rest, in large measure, upon the Public Worship 
 Regulation Act of 1874. The sudden death of Bishop 
 Wilberforce, in July, 1873, removed the only prelate 
 who, in Parliament, in Convocation, and in private 
 dealing, could meet the Archbishop on equal terms. 
 The consequences of this lamentable event were soon 
 seen. " Now that Wilberforce is gone, we shall have 
 strange doings " was a prophecy on many lips, and 
 the Church had not to wait long for its fulfilment. 
 We have seen already the Archbishop's inveterate 
 dislike of Ritualism. Of the two chief forces that 
 had restrained him from short and easy methods of 
 repression, the one Bishop Wilberforce was removed 
 by death, and the other Mr. Gladstone by the result 
 of the General Election. Early in 1874 the Bishops met 
 at Lambeth, and decided on immediate action. Arch- 
 bishop Tait and Archbishop Thomson undertook to draft 
 a Bill. They seem to have honestly believed that, if 
 they took in hand the suppression of Ritualism, their 
 high position would secure the acquiescence of all loyal 
 Churchmen, and that the only opposition they would 
 have to encounter would proceed from quarters unfriendly 
 to the Church. Considering the attitude of these Most 
 Reverend prelates towards all questions of Ritualism, 
 and to some of graver importance, throughout their 
 episcopal careers, this touching confidence in the docility 
 of those whom they had systematically snubbed strikes 
 one as a very remarkable instance of self-deception. 
 
 The famous Bill in due course appeared. Its provisions 
 were as follows : " In every diocese there was to be 
 set up a Council, presided over by the Bishop, and 
 consisting of three incumbents and five laymen, elected 
 respectively by the clergy and the churchwardens, in
 
 74 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 addition to the Chancellor, Dean, and Archdeacons. 
 The members of this Council were to be a kind of 
 grand jury ; any complaint of irregularity in ritual was 
 to be referred to them in the first instance, and they 
 were to advise the Bishop whether there was any 
 ground for further proceedings. If such proceedings 
 were taken, the Bishop was to decide the point at 
 issue, and his decision was subject only to an appeal 
 to the Archbishop. The Archbishop's decision was to 
 be final." 
 
 With regard to this revolutionary proposal, Tait's 
 biographers mildly say that it merely " aimed at re- 
 viving in a practical shape the forum domesticum of the 
 Bishops, with just so much of coercive force added as 
 seemed necessary to meet the changed circumstances of 
 modern times." Forum domesticum is distinctly good, 
 and so is " coercive force." Delightful mitigation of 
 unpleasant facts ! Surely, as Master Shallow says, 
 " Good phrases are, and ever were, very commendable." 
 The forum domesticum of the Bishops has really quite a 
 comfortable sound. It suggests a pleasing picture of 
 the fatherly Bishop and the filial Ritualist amicably 
 settling their little differences over a quiet cup of tea in 
 the episcopal study ; while, as to the " coercive force " 
 which lurks in the background, why, it would surely 
 argue a morbid curiosity to enquire too closely into its 
 nature. The biographers seem to think that the natural 
 effect of such proposals must have been to inspire every 
 reasonable Ritualist with the halcyon calm of absolute 
 security. It is much as though the Archbishops had 
 said : "We do not suggest hanging as the proper 
 remedy for Ritualism. We merely propose to revive 
 the secular jurisdiction of the Episcopal Courts, with 
 power to apply so much of a suspensory process as ' the 
 changed circumstances of modern times ' may seem to
 
 ARCHBISHOP TA1T 75 
 
 require." What could be a more encouraging prospect ? 
 However much men might dislike being hanged, surely 
 they had no right to object to a " suspensory process." 
 And yet, such is the innate and incurable perversity of 
 Ritualistic nature, that, no sooner were the archiepiscopal 
 proposals made known than a storm of remonstrance 
 broke out, and High Churchmen of every shade joined 
 in the protest. 
 
 It has never been a foible of the Anglican Episcopate 
 to bear itself with too high a front in the face of secular 
 opinion ; but it has made up for this rather excessive 
 modesty by as much peremptoriness towards the inferior : 
 clergy as the law permitted. Fortunately that law, | 
 as it stood, set very definite limits to the episcopal 
 authority, and it was even brutally indifferent to the 
 forum, domesticum. Here, probably, was the true, if 
 unrealized, origin of the Public Worship Regulation 
 Act. Archbishop Tait was a man who knew his own 
 mind, and liked to have his own way. An authoritative- 
 ness which was part of his nature was enhanced by 
 every circumstance of his career. As tutor of his 
 college, as headmaster of a Public School, as dean of a 
 Cathedral Church, as a bishop, and as a primate, he had 
 been placed in a succession of stations where his will 
 was necessarily law for a great many people subjected to 
 it. But in dealing with the parochial clergy, he learned 
 that their position was an uncommonly strong one ; 
 voluntas could no longer stand pro rations ; and he was 
 forced to persuade, advise, exhort, instead of commanding 
 and threatening. The Public Worship Regulation Act 
 was a distinct attempt to abrogate this freedom of the 
 parish-priest, and to place him under the diocesan's 
 absolute control ; and, considering the natural weakness 
 of even episcopal flesh and blood, it is obvious that the 
 prospect of these greatly extended powers would not be
 
 76 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 unwelcome to the meekest bishop who ever sate on the 
 bench. 
 
 The Bill was introduced by the Archbishop on 
 April 20, 1874. In Committee it was transmogrified 
 at the instance of Lord Shaftesbnry, acting for Lord 
 Cairns. The forum domesticum was abolished, and it 
 was provided that a single lay-judge should be appointed 
 by the two Archbishops to hear and determine all 
 representations under the Act, in either Province, with- 
 out the intervention of any such diocesan council as had 
 been originally proposed. 
 
 When the Bill reached the House of Commons it was 
 powerfully opposed by Mr. Gladstone ; but the feeling of 
 the House was dead against him, and Mr. Disraeli used 
 the opportunity with characteristic skill. He adopted the 
 Bill with great cordiality. He rejected all the glozing 
 euphemisms which had lulled the House of Lords. He 
 uttered no pribbles and prabbles about forum domesticum 
 and paternal guidance, and the authoritative inter- 
 pretation of ambiguous formularies. " This," he said, 
 " is a Bill to put down Ritualism." That was the naked 
 truth, long and carefully shrouded from view in aprons 
 and lawn-sleeves, bat now displayed in all its native 
 charm. Its success was instantaneous and overwhelm- 
 ing. The House of Commons read the Bill a second 
 time without a division, and it passed, without material 
 change, into law. The Archbishop wrote in his journal : 
 "I received congratulations on all hands." Perhaps 
 they were a little premature. The working and results 
 of the Public Worship Regulation Act, as we have seen 
 them exhibited during the last fifteen years, are scarcely 
 such as to justify the theory that its principal author 
 was distinguished by prescient statesmanship. 
 
 In connexion with the subject of statesmanship, it 
 is natural to say a word about the Archbishop's parlia-
 
 ARCHBISHOP TAIT 77 
 
 mentary performances. It may be cheerfully conceded, 
 even by those who most disliked his policy, that he 
 played a great part in the House of Lords. With his 
 dignity of person and bearing, his weighty and fluent 
 speech, and his practical sagacity, he worthily re- 
 presented the great institution over which he presided. 
 His speeches were always heard with interest and 
 respect, and not seldom they turned votes. In any 
 parliamentary business with which he concerned himself, 
 he wielded important influence. He had a natural turn 
 for strategy and arrangement, and a keen eye for a 
 working compromise. He had close relations with the 
 Queen, and, in spite of his Whiggish antecedents, with 
 the leaders of the Tory party. He showed great skill 
 in getting men to sink minor differences, and in com- 
 bining more or less discordant elements for the attain- 
 ment of important ends which he had at heart. All 
 these arts of management he practised with untiring 
 industry, and, as far as the House of Lords was con- 
 cerned, with conspicuous success. 
 
 Parliamentary power is a great gift, and its possession 
 carries with it a heavy responsibility. The only possible 
 justification of a system which gives seats in the 
 legislature to the chief ministers of a religions body 
 is that they should represent moral sense and Christian 
 principle, laboriously promote whatever tends to the 
 ethical aud physical improvement of the people, and 
 guide the national conscience aright in those great crises 
 of public controversy where, as in the Eastern Question, 
 the path of politics crosses the path of religion. Arch- 
 bishop Tait was, according to his panegyrists, the great 
 statesman-ecclesiastic of our day; to put it at the 
 lowest, he was a parliamentary manager of much tact 
 and experience. He sat in the House of Lords for 
 five-and-twenty years, and took a leading part in its
 
 78 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 business. In purely ecclesiastical matters his influence, 
 whether for good or evil, was constantly and effectively 
 exercised ; but his biographers do not, I think, mention 
 a single spiritual or moral cause which gained the 
 slightest assistance from the fact that the Chief Pastor 
 of the Church of England was also a Peer of Parliament. 
 What is the use of Bishops in the House of Lords ?
 
 ON December 15, 1887, there came to a strange and 
 yet most appropriate close a life which, without 
 the name or profession of Christian Socialism, had yet 
 been saturated by its spirit and spent in its work. After 
 the lapse of ten years I venture to lay before the 
 readers of The Commonwealth some memorials (written 
 at the time of Mr. Mackonochie's death) of a remarkable 
 character and a noble life. 
 
 Before I speak of the man I must describe his en- 
 vironment. 
 
 " Baldwin's Gardens." A traveller who had nothing 
 more than this name to guide him would probably 
 take some time before he discovered the nook which 
 bears it, and which lies in the angle formed by the 
 junction of Gray's Inn Road and Holborn. Neither 
 eye nor nose suggests the presence of a garden, and 
 all traces of " Baldwin," if ever he existed, have 
 departed as completely as the odour of his flowers. 
 In Baldwin's Gardens stands St. Alban's Church, and 
 St. Alban's parish is bounded by Holborn, Leather 
 Lane, Gray's Inn Lane, and Clerkenwell Road. Whole- 
 sale demolitions of over-crowded and insanitary dwellings 
 have of late years materially improved the physical 
 condition of the place, as the exemplary labours of a 
 devoted clergy have bettered it morally. But it is 
 
 1 The substance of this paper appeared in The Times, 1888. 
 79
 
 80 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 necessary for our present purpose to recall it as it 
 was some five-and-thirty years ago. What is now 
 St. Alban's parish was then part of the parish of St. 
 Andrew's, Holborn, and its tiny area five hundred yards 
 by two hundred contained some eight thousand souls. 
 Decent people seldom ventured into its courts and 
 alleys. If they did, they ran the risk of being assailed 
 with filthy missiles and filthier words from inhabitants 
 who resented all intrusion. The very policemen ap- 
 peared rarely, and then in pairs. A notorious Thieves' 
 Kitchen stood on the spot which is now occupied by 
 the font of St. Alban's Church. About the year 1860 
 that munificent son of the Church of England, Mr. 
 John Gellibrand Hubbard afterwards Lord Addington 
 resolved on a brave and bountiful attempt to evan- 
 gelize this squalid slum. He took the legal steps 
 to erect it into an ecclesiastical district. On a site 
 generously given by Lord Leigh he built a church, 
 which he dedicated to St. Alban, the proto-martyr of 
 Britain, and endowed it with 5,000 in the Three per 
 Cents. He further gave the use of a clergy-house, 
 and 100 a year for each of two curates. These prepara- 
 tions made, he looked round him for some clergyman 
 fitted, by self-denial, power of work, and love of souls, 
 to take the command of this new crusade. The recent 
 disturbances at St. George's-in-the-East had directed 
 the eyes of all Churchmen to that remote parish ; 
 and in connexion with those disturbances it is interest- 
 ing to learn, on the recent testimony of Mr. J. M. 
 Ludlow, that they were " nominally, and in part really, 
 caused by Mr. Bryan King's ritualistic practices, but 
 largely stimulated by the Jewish sweaters of the East 
 End, whose proceedings Mr. Bryan King's curates, 
 Messrs. Mackonochie and Lowder, had the unheard-of 
 impertinence to denounce and interfere with." One
 
 ALEXANDER HERIOT MACKONOCHIE 81 
 
 of those curates is the subject of the present sketch ; 
 and what manner of man he was we will now try to 
 see. First, we mnst briefly recall the few and simple 
 facts of his career. His father was Colonel Mackonochie, 
 of the Honourable East India Company's service, and 
 he was born August 11, 1825, at Fareham, in Hamp- 
 shire, where^ his father Kacf settled on his return 
 from India. He received his early education at private 
 schools at Bath and Exeter, and, after studying for a 
 short time at the University of Edinburgh, he went 
 up to Wadham College, Oxford. He obtained a Second 
 Class in the Final Classical School, and then, in 
 obedience to a vocation which he had felt from his 
 earliest years, he dedicated himself to the ministerial 
 career. He was ordained Deacon by Bishop Denison at 
 Salisbury in 1849, and Priest in 1850. His first curacy 
 was at Westbury, in Wiltshire. Thence he removed 
 to Wantage, where Dr. Liddon was one of his fellow- 
 curates. During a visit to London in 1857 he went 
 to St. George's-in-the-East ; and he was so deeply 
 impressed by the strenuous work which Mr. Lowder 
 was there carrying on, that in the following year he 
 joined the Mission, and came to live at the Mission 
 House in Wellclose Square. It was at this time that, 
 unknown to himself, he fell under the watchful eye 
 of Mr. Hubbard, who discerned in him a man fitted 
 beyond all others for the difficult and laborious charge 
 of his new church in Baldwin's Gardens. Never was 
 a more judicious selection made, for in many aspects 
 of his character and constitution Mr. Mackonochie was 
 the ideal priest. In early youth his health had been 
 delicate, but strength had come with years, and long 
 self-discipline had rendered him almost insensible to 
 fatigue and impervious to common ailments. His head 
 was as hard as his body clear, cold, and strong. His 
 
 6
 
 82 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 habit of mind was characteristically Scotch in its dry 
 logic and theoretical consistency. No one wonld have 
 thought of describing him as a very clever man ; but 
 its astonishing powers of " grind " enabled him to attain 
 'at the University and subsequently a degree of in- 
 tellectual success out of proportion to his purely mental 
 gifts. Nothing was more characteristic of the man 
 than the dogged resolution with which he would address 
 himself to the study of some quite uncongenial branch 
 of knowledge, such as an unfamiliar school of painting 
 or a fresh discovery in science. At these he wonld 
 " toil terribly " ; and, holding that a religious teacher 
 should keep abreast of all new knowledge, he would 
 dutifully endeavour to familiarize himself with ideas 
 and phenomena which in themselves had only the 
 faintest interest for him. This intense habit of con- 
 scientious study was only a form of his invincible will. 
 A more resolute man never lived. When once he 
 had deliberately adopted a course, he pursued it with 
 grim tenacity, and his power of resistance to pressure 
 was at least as strong as his constructive volition. 
 
 Hence arose that unfortunate disagreement between 
 himself and the founder of St. Alban's, which caused 
 so much pain to two excellent men. When Mr. 
 Hubbard offered him the living, he refused to entertain 
 the offer except on the condition that he should be 
 absolutely free, and unfettered by any understandings 
 except those which bound him as a clergyman of the 
 Church of England. He frankly stated that his 
 principles of doctrine and worship were those which 
 have since come to be called " Ritualistic " ; and, 
 in his own words, he made it plain that he could not 
 accept the responsibility of such a parish 
 
 except on the basis that my duty to God and to the souls 
 of His people, according to the best judgment that I could
 
 ALEXANDER HERIOT MACKONOCHIE 83 
 
 form of it, would have to be paramount over every other 
 consideration. The point I kept before myself, and as forcibly 
 as I could impressed on others, was that when once a priest 
 was licensed to the parish, and the church consecrated, the 
 work would be neither his nor Mr. Hubbard's, but God's. 
 With the priest, as God's steward, would rest the responsibility, 
 and, therefore, with him alone, after such security for sound 
 judgment as he might be able to take, must rest the decision 
 for which he alone would answer at the Judgment. 
 
 These considerations, strongly urged by Mr. Mackonochie, 
 were duly weighed by Mr. Hubbard and other friends 
 of the new church, with the result that they implored 
 Mr. Mackonochie to raise no farther difficulties, but to 
 accept the charge on his own terms. This he cheer- 
 fully did. All he asked was a free hand. His was 
 the responsibility, and his must be the power. He 
 could not share the one ; he dared not share the other. 
 From the moment when he accepted the living of St. 
 Alban's, he sketched out for himself a line of action 
 which, whether wise or unwise, was bound to develope 
 into the form which it ultimately assumed. Strong in 
 his Scotch love of logical coherence, nothing could turn 
 him back, or modify his judgment, or stay his hand. 
 Prosecutions, persecutions, admonitions, abase, ridicule, 
 calamny all ran off this robust constitution like water 
 off a duck's back. And yet, except in matters where 
 his ecclesiastical conscience and judgment were involved, 
 he was the humblest and most teachable of men. He 
 was modestly aware of his intellectual defects, always 
 ready to be informed and full of touching confidence in 
 the superior wisdqjr of much younger men. By them //] 
 in turn he was greatly loved. His absolute honesty, 
 sincerity, directness, and fearlessness commanded their 
 respect. His contempt for wealth, ease, enjoyment, 
 and honours fascinated their imagination. He had 
 acquired, in the most sacred of all confidences, a
 
 84 
 
 deep insight into the inner springs of character and 
 conduct, which was as helpful as it sometimes was 
 startling. His intense and most practical sympathy with 
 poverty, sickness, pain, and trouble, whether material or 
 mental, endeared him to thousands who would have been 
 repelled by his stern fidelity to the letter of an unpopular 
 creed, by his prosaic and unimaginative temperament, 
 and by the dignified austerity of his personal demeanour. 
 When Mr. Mackonochie entered on his duties at 
 St. Alban's, the beautiful church a masterpiece of 
 Mr. Butterfield's Gothic skill was not finished, and 
 the first services were held in a room over a coster- 
 monger's fish-shop, at the corner of Baldwin's Gardens, 
 on Sunday, May 11, 1862. In June the services 
 were removed to the cellar below the basement of a 
 printer's shop in Greville Street. This cellar 
 
 was about twenty feet long. The printing-machines overhead 
 rattled down dust on the worshippers beneath. The printer's 
 boys in the midst of evensong used to come down to turn 
 on the gas for the rooms above, borrowing chairs from the 
 congregation to enable them to reach the meter. The yamins 
 of the neighbourhood crowded round the windows of the 
 house, and noisily joined in the Gregorian tones which pro- 
 ceeded from the basement. 
 
 Here the services were conducted for nine months, 
 the furniture of the cellar consisting of a temporary 
 altar, a few chairs, and some matting. Yet from the 
 first the Holy Communion was celebrated with lights 
 and vestments. Meanwhile, the church was approaching 
 completion, and, amply stored with all the appliances 
 of a seemly worship, it was consecrated on February 
 21, 1863, by Bishop Tait, of London. A tablet over 
 the south door bears this inscription : 
 
 Free to Christ's poor for ever, on a site given by William 
 Henry, second Baron Leigh, this church is erected by a 
 Merchant of London.
 
 ALEXANDER HERIOT MACKONOCHIE 85 
 
 In view of subsequent events, it is important to 
 bear in mind that the mixed chalice, unleavened bread, 
 lights, and vestments were used from the first. 
 
 Mr. Mackonochie was not long before he gathered 
 round him a gallant band of like-minded fellow- 
 workers, and the parochial machinery organized by 
 these devoted priests was elaborate and thorough in 
 a very high degree. True to their vocation as I 
 " fishers of men," they made ample provision for the l 
 needs of the body and the mind as well as the soul. 
 The purely spiritual ministrations of the Church I 
 celebrations, services, sermons, and the like were 
 of course frequent, reverent, hearty, and full alike of 
 outward attractiveness and inward edification. There 
 was absolute freedom of private Confession, which was 
 heard openly in the church. Outside the church, the 
 agencies for good included a Sisterhood ; a Burial 
 Society ; Guilds and Associations for Men, Boys, Women, 
 and Girls ; a Working-men's Club ; an Infant Nursery ; 
 a Choir-School ; Parochial Schools, built at a cost of 
 6,000, and educating 500 children ; Night Schools for 
 Boys and Girls ; a Soup-Kitchen ; a Blanket Loan Fund ; 
 a Lying-in Charity ; a Clothing Fund ; a Coal-Charity ; 
 a Savings-Bank and Clothing Club ; a Shoe-Club ; 
 provision and food for the destitute, and relief for the 
 sick, to the amount of some 500 a year. 
 
 What, it may be asked, was the result of all this varied 
 and munificent endeavour ? The answer is not far to seek. 
 
 In such a district as Baldwin's Gardens, the three 
 main evils are practical heathenism, immorality, and 
 poverty. The following figures will tell, more elo- 
 quently than the most elaborate rhetoric, what the - 
 ministrations of St. Alban's did towards overcoming : 
 these three chief enemies of good. Within seven i 
 years from the consecration of the church, and, as
 
 86 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 respects some of the figures, in less time, the number 
 of baptisms had risen from 295 to 537, marriages from 
 5 to 28, Easter communicants from 291 to 569, and 
 offertories from 541 to 2,184. In brief, whatever 
 may be thought of the theological lines on which it 
 was conducted, the work of St. Alban's was earnest, 
 was practical, and was eminently successful. 
 
 But trouble was impending. The high ritual practised 
 in the church attracted public notice. The daily papers 
 described it in " graphic " articles. The angry bigotry 
 of a Puritan section wholly unconnected with the parish 
 was aroused ; and it was determined to test the legality 
 of the ceremonial used at St. Alban's. 
 
 The difficulty was to obtain a local prosecutor, for 
 the great majority of the parishioners were devoted to 
 their clergy and church. At worst they were indifferent. 
 No one was hostile. 
 
 The real prosecutor was the notorious Church Associa- 
 tion, described by Archbishop Magee as " The Persecution 
 Company, Limited," and it secured the co-operation of a 
 certain Mr. Martin, a resident in St. George's, Blooms- 
 bury, whose sole connexion with St. Alban's was that his 
 name stood on the parish rate-book for some schools of 
 which he was secretary. At Mr. Martin's instance, legal 
 proceedings against Mr. Mackonochie were begun on 
 March 28, 1867, when the Bishop of London sent the 
 case by Letters of Request to the Court of Arches. 
 
 The charge against Mr. Mackonochie was that he 
 used in Divine worship certain specified practices which 
 were contrary to, or inconsistent with, the rubrics of 
 the Church of England. The case was tried in the 
 Court of Arches before Sir Robert Phillimore, who 
 decided against Mr. Mackonochie on certain points ; 
 but with regard to three namely, altar-lights, kneeling 
 at the Consecration, and elevating the Holy Sacrament
 
 ALEXANDER HEHIOT MACKONOCHIE 8? 
 
 pronounced that they were legal. On these three points 
 Mr. Martin forthwith appealed to the Judicial Committee 
 of the Privy Council ; and an enquiry touching the 
 niceties of Eucharistic ritual was conducted by a 
 tribunal including a Presbyterian, an ex-representative 
 of the Orange town of Belfast, a partisan Archbishop, 
 a lay Low Churchman, and a theologian who talked 
 about " the Inferior Persons of the Trinity." It is 
 not surprising that, under such judges, a Ritualist 
 fared badly. The case was given against Mr. 
 Mackouochie, and he was condemned in costs. Mr. 
 Mackonochie, who in truth cared little for the precise 
 forms of ecclesiastical ceremony, so long as reverence, 
 seemliness, and intelligible teaching were secured, h 
 immediately conformed to the letter of the judgment. 
 But his prosecutors were not satisfied with the extent 
 of his compliance, and delated him to the Privy Council 
 for disobedience to its monition. It may not be unin- 
 teresting, as illustrating the spirit and methods of this 
 prosecution, to cite a portion of the bill of costs presented 
 by the proctors for the Church Association to Mr. Mac- 
 konochie, exceeding, before taxation, 400, and relating 
 only to that part of the case heard on December 4, 1 869 : 
 
 July, 1869. . -s. d. 
 
 Attending Mr. Pond, instructing him 
 to attend St. Alban's on Sunday, 
 
 July 11 068 
 
 Taking his statement and fair copy . . 18 4 
 Paid him for his attendance . . . .220 
 Attending Mr. Pond, instructing him 
 to attend the early Communion on 
 July 12 (i.e. the next day, Mon- 
 day) and four following days . . .068 
 Taking his statement and fair copy . . 18 4 
 Paid him for his attendance . . . .650 
 (Two guineas for Sunday, one each week-day.) 
 Three persons were employed.
 
 Similar entries occur all through, exceeding in the 
 
 whole 100. Though judgment was given in Mr. 
 
 Mackonochie's favour on two charges out of three, he 
 
 was ordered to pay the whole costs. Not satisfied 
 
 with this partial victory, the prosecutors now proceeded 
 
 against Mr. Mackonochie for sanctioning the performance 
 
 by others of illegal acts. Hired spies were again sent 
 
 to make observations at the church ; and, although 
 
 their evidence was contradicted on some main points 
 
 by the affidavits of clergy, churchwardens, and lay- 
 
 , communicants, the Privy Council found Mr. Mackonochie 
 
 guilty of disobedience to their judgment, and suspended 
 
 ! him from the performance of his clerical duties for 
 
 i.three months. During this period the services were 
 
 carried on precisely as before. Mr. Mackonochie 
 
 returned to his post when the term of his suspension 
 
 had expired, and for three years the parish was left 
 
 in peace. In 1874 the second " London Mission'" 
 
 was held, and, partly in connexion with the mode in 
 
 . which it had been conducted in St. Alban's parish, a 
 
 fresh prosecution was begun by the indefatigable Mr. 
 
 Martin, and Mr. Mackonochie was again suspended. 
 
 This second suspension was the signal for some very 
 decisive proceedings. A Committee of Defence was 
 formed in the parish, and an emphatic remonstrance 
 against the treatment of the vicar was presented to 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Bishop of London 
 refused to receive a similar deputation. During Mr. 
 Mackonochie's suspension, Mr. Stanton, as curate-in- 
 charge, refused to celebrate the Holy Communion with 
 maimed rites, and the congregation of St. Alban's 
 moved in a body to St. Vedast's, Foster Lane. When 
 Mr. Mackonochie returned to the parish, some alterations 
 were made in the accustomed ceremonial, and the 
 enemy seemed to be for a while appeased. Then came
 
 ALEXANDER HERIOT MACKONOCHIE 89 
 
 seven years of quiet and successful work, and ever- 
 increasing activity in the service of the poor. But in 
 1882 the inveterate Church Association prepared a fresh I] 
 law-suit with a view to Mr. Mackonochie's deprivation. ; . 
 At this time Archbishop Tait was on his death-bed, 
 and he resolved, with noble freedom from all petty 
 pride, to acknowledge and, as far as in him lay, to repair 
 the unhappy effects of his own Public Worship Regula- 
 tion Act. From his death-bed he arranged with Mr. 
 Mackonochie that he should exchange livings with 
 Mr. Suckling, Vicar of St. Peter's, London Docks ; and 
 he procured the sanction of the Bishop of London to 
 this arrangement, which defeated the projected law- suit. 
 To St. Peter's Mr. Mackonochie accordingly went at 
 the beginning of 1883, and there he continued until 
 the threat of yet another prosecution, promoted by the 
 agency which had done so much to embitter his life, 
 made it desirable, in the interests of St. Peter's parish, 
 that its much-persecuted vicar should resign his charge. 
 Signs were not wanting that the anxieties and hard- 
 ships of his life had told on him more severely than 
 his friends had guessed. He resigned St. Peter's, and 
 returned as a curate_to_ his__iJ_d_parish of St. jAlban's^ 
 where he was welcomed with touching and chivalrous 
 loyalty by his friend and successor, the Rev. R. A. J. 
 Suckling. During the last two years a gradual failure 
 of strength compelled him to withdraw from ministerial 
 work, and to live mainly with his own family in the 
 country, where he still keenly enjoyed the society of . , 
 intimate friends and the beauties of nature. On Thursday, X. 
 December 15, 1887, while on a visit to the Bishop of 
 Argyll, at Ballachulish, he went out for a long walk, 
 and, being overtaken by snowstorm and darkness, lost his 
 way in the Mamore deer-forest. He was found there 
 on the following Saturday, lying dead in a snowdrift,
 
 90 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 his body guarded by two dogs which had accompanied 
 him on his walk. Death came as a merciful release 
 from increasing infirmity, and closed a life which had 
 been spent with prodigal self-sacrifice in the service 
 of his fellow-men. The following words are from the 
 pen of Mr. Stanton : 
 
 It is ungracious, and beyond just surmise, to say that 
 the enfeeblement of his manly, strong, loving life was the 
 necessary result of the repeated prosecutions which the 
 Church Association thought it their duty to maintain ; but 
 there can be little doubt that underneath the brave cheer- 
 fulness with which he met all the reverses, and submitted 
 to the indignities consequent upon them, there lay a very 
 keen sensitiveness, and that the " iron entered his soul." 
 For although never admitted by him, it was observable, so 
 that no one wondered at the storm-beaten expression on his 
 face and the broken utterances of his lips which marked 
 the two declining years of his life. 
 
 The mystery of his stern, hard, self-devoted life completed 
 itself in the weird circumstances of his death. He seems to 
 have walked round and round the hollow in which he had taken 
 shelter from the mountain storm, trying to keep life in him 
 as long as he could ; then, as if he knew his hour had come, 
 deliberately to have uncovered his head to say his last prayers, 
 and then to have laid his head upon his hand and died, 
 sheltered in ' the hollow of the hand ' of God, Whom he served 
 so faithfully ; and at His bidding the wild wind from off 
 the moor wreathed his head with snow. 
 
 This dramatic ending of a noble life awoke a general 
 and kindly interest in the history and character of 
 Alexander Heriot Mackonochie. A generation has 
 arisen which never heard of the riots at St. George's- 
 in-the-East, and barely remembers the acrimonious liti- 
 gation which so long harassed St. Alban's. Modern 
 society has learned the lesson of toleration its critics 
 would say, of indifference so rapidly and so completely, 
 that it can only recall by an effort the passionate 
 animosities which twenty-five years ago made eccle-
 
 siastical controversy so furious and so vindictive. In 
 this altered condition of the public mind it may not 
 be uninteresting to recall the kind of life, of opinion, 
 and of practice which earned for Mr. Mackonochie the 
 guerdon of personal violence, protracted persecution, 
 judicial penalties, pecuniary loss, professional discredit, 
 shattered health, and ruined happiness. The writer 
 stands sufficiently removed from the scene and the 
 chief actor in it to write, as he believes, with complete 
 impartiality. His sole object is to reproduce some 
 remarkable characteristics, and to correct some mis- 
 apprehensions which have prevailed even in quarters 
 where there was a sincere wish to be fair. 
 
 In handling the question of religious opinion, it is 
 necessary to disclaim all theological partisanship. No 
 attempt will here be made to decide on the soundness 
 or unsoundness of the doctrines preached at St. Alban's. 
 The writer only seeks to show what those doctrines 
 were, and what they were not. A notion was at one 
 time current that the teaching at St. Alban's was of 
 the Roman type, and tended in a Romeward direction. 
 This was pure delusion. The clergy of St. Alban's 
 were entirely out of sympathy with Italian views of 
 religious truth, and, as a natural consequence, the 
 congregation of St. Alban's has been remarkably free 
 from those secessions to Rome which have so often 
 marred the work and belied the teaching of Ritualistic 
 Churches. The doctrines held and taught by Mr. Mac- 
 konochie and his colleagues on such subjects as sin, 
 redemption, and grace, the constitution of the Church, 
 the functions of the ministry, and the nature of the 
 Sacraments, were the doctrines which, whether true or 
 false, have notoriously been held by a large, learned, 
 and devout section of the Church of England at every 
 period of her history. The modern and exotic accretions
 
 92 
 
 I which are the peculiar property of the Church of 
 [ Rome found no place either in the explicit or the 
 implied teaching of St. Alban's. On the contrary, the 
 clergy of that church had a strong grasp of " Bible 
 Christianity," a fearless and emphatic way of preaching 
 the unfettered Gospel, and a fidelity to the letter as 
 well as to the spirit of Holy Scripture, which favourably 
 distinguished their teaching from that of a narrower 
 and more mechanical school. In particular, the writer 
 would record his own personal experience, that he has 
 never heard more strictly and thoroughly Evangelical 
 preaching than that of Mr. Stan ton, nor known a man 
 whose zeal for the open Bible and the Protestant Sunday 
 was more characteristically English. 
 
 But when we turn from the question of doctrine to 
 the outward medium through which it was conveyed 
 in a word, to Ritual it is difficult to pronounce so 
 entirely favourable a judgment. As has been said 
 before, Mr. Mackonochie personally had no taste for 
 ritual, and was even said by experts to know little 
 about it. " Ceremonial, purely by itself," he wrote in 
 1877, " is an infinitely small thing." All he insisted 
 on was that the ritual for which he was responsible 
 should forcibly express the Sacramental doctrine in which 
 he believed as firmly as in his own existence. If this 
 point was secured, he cared little for details. And thus, 
 in mere indifference to what he considered trifles, he 
 permitted usages in his church for which no authority, 
 Anglican or ancient, could be cited ; which were asso- 
 ciated in the public mind and eye with the most modern 
 developments of Romanism ; and which, as far as they 
 expressed anything, expressed what Mr. Mackonochie 
 would have considered unauthorized or even erroneous. 
 There were many loyal friends of St. Alban's who 
 would gladly have seen these exotic growths abandoned,
 
 ALEXANDER HERIOT MACKONOCHIE 93 
 
 and the enemy thereby deprived of an occasion to 
 blaspheme. But it is to be borne in mind that, when- 
 ever Mr. Mackouochie, in obedience to a legal judg- 
 ment, in deference to his bishop, or for peace' sake, gave 
 np any particular practice or symbol, the concession, 
 instead of pacifying objectors, was immediately inter- 
 preted to justify past persecution, and made the signal 
 and starting-point for renewed attack. 
 
 We turn now from these questions of dogma and 
 form, which after all have only a limited and technical 
 interest, and we ask, What manner ^of^ life did these V /: , 
 men lead ? And here itT may be^permltted to include" 
 in a common description the entire family no more 
 formal word seems appropriate of those who during 
 the last five-and-thirty years have lived and laboured 
 at St. Alban's. Their lives may be expressed in three 
 words Sacerdotium est Sacrijiciiim^ Men of good j 
 position, of private fortune, of University education, 
 of abilities certainly not below the average in some 1 
 respects, which conduce to professional success, con-/ 
 spicuously above it they gave up, to the work of the; 
 Church and the service of the poor, health, means, 
 ease, comfort, the countenance of their ecclesiastical 
 superiors, and all hope of preferment. They made the! 
 surrender, not in a sudden gust of soon-repented en- 
 thusiasm, but by a deliberate and sustained act of 
 calculated sacrifice. And the sacrifice was not more 
 deliberate than complete. In youth and middle age 
 and advancing years, at morning, at noon, at night, 
 jn summer and winter, in sickness and in health, in 
 workdays and holiday-time, in popularity and in per- 
 secution, these men gave themselves, body and mind 
 and soul, to the work which they had undertaken. 
 Indefatigable in the duties of their sacred office, they 
 laboured far beyond its limits for all that could serve
 
 94 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 the material and moral interests of their fellow-men. 
 They worked for public health, for higher and wider 
 education, for all innocent and rational recreation. Not 
 content with teaching, and preaching, and visiting the 
 sick, and guiding the perplexed, they instructed the 
 ignorant, and comforted the sorrowful, and fed the hungry, 
 and clothed the naked, and helped without pauperizing 
 the industrious poor. 
 
 Never at even, pillowed on a pleasure, 
 
 Sleep with the wings of aspiration furled ; 
 
 Hide the last mite of the forbidden treasure ; 
 Keep for my joys a world within the world. 
 
 Every priest who worked at St. Alban's might have 
 taken this stanza for his motto ; and it is not to be 
 conceived that such lives, lived with unflagging purpose 
 for five-and-thirty years in one of the poorest and most 
 degraded quarters of a crowded city, could fail to 
 produce their moral effect. " There is nothing fruitful 
 but sacrifice," cried Lamennais, and the sacrifice of 
 the St. Alban's clergy, whatever may be thought of 
 its theological accompaniments, has been rich in ethical 
 and social results, which certainly deserve at least (his 
 imperfect commemoration in a magazine devoted to the 
 Social Ideal of the Christian Character.
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 1 
 
 ""VTOMEN intra has eedes semper venerandtim." 
 j_l These words, taken from the inscription under 
 Cardinal Wolsey's bust in the Quadrangle of Christ 
 Church, may not unsuitably be prefixed to an article 
 on Dean Burgon in The Quarterly Review. Within 
 these precincts, if anywhere, the Dean's name is to 
 be held in respectful remembrance. With this Review 
 his relations were long and intimate : to those re- 
 sponsible for its conduct he was bound by ties of mutual 
 regard. Here some of his most brilliant and most 
 characteristic writing first saw the light. It was here 
 that, by his dashing onslaught on prosaic pedantry, 
 he so effectually routed the authors of the Revised 
 Version of the New Testament, and taught the public, 
 and we trust also the Revisers themselves, to rate 
 more modestly, and therefore more accurately, the valne 
 of their handiwork. 
 
 John William Burgon was born on August 21, 1813. 
 His father, Mr. Thomas Burgon, was a merchant of 
 London, and, paternally, his descent was purely English. 
 But his mother, Catherine de Cramer, was the daughter 
 of the Austrian Consul at Smyrna, by a Miss Maltass, 
 a lady who had Greek or Smyrniote blood in her veins, 
 and a sister of that Mrs. Baldwin (born Jane Maltass) 
 whose beauty " created a great sensation both at 
 Vienna and in London, procured for her attentions 
 1 The Quarterly Review, 1892. 
 95
 
 96 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 from the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., 
 and elicited even from Dr. Johnson a burst of clumsy 
 amorousness," and whose portrait by Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, formerly in the collection at Strawberry Hill, 
 was this spring sold by Messrs. Christie. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Burgon was a High Tory and a High 
 Churchman, an antiquary and a connoisseur. He dealt 
 in Greek and Turkish produce, and the nature of his 
 business obliged him to reside for several years at 
 Smyrna, where his eldest son John William was 
 born. But shortly after the boy's birth he returned 
 to England, and London was henceforth his home. 
 
 John William Bnrgon, during the first eleven years 
 of his life, was taught by his mother. In 1824 he was 
 sent to a private school ut Putney, and subsequently 
 to one at Blackheath. We do not find that he made 
 any special proficiency in classical study, bat he was a 
 thoughtful and precocious boy in fact, we suspect, not 
 a little of a prig. Reviewing at the age of twenty- 
 one some records of his school-days, he says, " I 
 notice the same love of books and of study, the 
 same hatred of school and contempt for the society of 
 my equals in age, which since I was eleven, and first 
 went to school, I have neverbeen able to shake off." 
 
 From early days his mind was of a seriously, though 
 not an emotionally, religious cast. At the age of 
 sixteen he was confirmed, and it is curious to find 
 that, though he was constant in his attendance at 
 church, he only communicated twice in the next five 
 years. What makes this fact the more remarkable 
 is that at this period his heart was set on taking 
 Holy Orders, though the fulfilment of this design was 
 unavoidably deferred. Difficulties, destined before long 
 to be fatal, were beginning to gather round his father's 
 business, and it became necessary for young Burgon,
 
 9? 
 
 instead of proceeding to Oxford or Cambridge, to enter 
 the paternal counting-honse. " He disliked it more 
 than I can tell," writes his sister, "and found relief 
 only in the pursuit of Poetry and Art during his leisure 
 moments, when he returned from the City." These 
 scanty intervals of leisure he used with praiseworthy 
 diligence. He attended lectures at the University of 
 London ; worked hard at archeology and kindred 
 studies ; published a considerable number of fugitive 
 pieces, both in prose and verse, and one work of more 
 pretension a historical treatise on " The Life and Times 
 of Sir Thomas Gresham." Meanwhile, he had the 
 advantage of early and frequent access to the society 
 of literary men whom he met at his father's table, and 
 his annual holidays were occupied in excursions, which 
 seem generally to have had historical or archaeological 
 research for their object. A visit paid to Mr. Dawson 
 Turner, at Yarmouth, in April, 1838, had, however, 
 an interest of a different kind ; and we gather from 
 his biographer's hint, that it was only the constraining 
 sense of domestic duty, and the absolute necessity of 
 trying to relieve his father's embarrassed finances, 
 that restrained him from offering marriage to his 
 host's daughter. 
 
 And so some ten years rolled by, and the skies were 
 darkening for a storm. It broke on August 19, 1841, 
 when Mr. Thomas Burgon's house suspended payment, 
 and bankruptcy ensued. 
 
 The crash of his father's fortunes proved an un- 
 speakable blessing to John William Bnrgon. It 
 terminated his commercial career at a stroke, and 
 left him free to follow the bent of his own inclinations. 
 He had long desired to go to Oxford with a view to 
 seeking Holy Orders, and this desire was now ful- 
 filled. On August 23, 1841, he wrote to his friend, 
 
 7
 
 98 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Mr. Dawson Turner, who had generously offered him 
 pecuniary aid : 
 
 My backwardness (in Greek especially) is what you would 
 not believe; and indeed my ignorance generally is frightful. 
 I can only hope by a few months' serious application to get 
 into a condition to be fit to go to Oxford. Then my necessities 
 will begin. What they will be, I know not. If it depended 
 on me, I should say little enough. ... I shall keep no society ; 
 get into a garret, if I can (for two reasons) my habits are 
 quite the reverse of expensive, and I have books. On the 
 other hand, a good tutor I will have, coute que coute. I cannot 
 suppose that I shall want much more than 100. a year, 
 at least I fix that sum in my mind as a kind of point to 
 reason from. 
 
 On October 21, 1841, Burgon matriculated at 
 Oxford, as a Commoner of Worcester College, having 
 chosen that Society on the recommendation of Dr. Pusey, 
 whose brother-in-law, Dr. Cotton, was its Provost. 
 Owing to domestic engagements, connected with the 
 winding-up of his father's affairs, and his family's re- 
 moval from the old home, he did not begin residence at 
 Oxford till the following year. Once established there, 
 he threw himself with characteristic earnestness into 
 his new life ; was equally attentive to the religious and 
 the educational duties of the place, and " toiled terribly " 
 to make up for lost time. 
 
 Never [writes a contemporary] did a more devoted, humble, 
 loyal, dutiful alumnus pass the threshold of Alma Mater; 
 never did any student strive more vigorously to avail himself 
 of all advantages within his reach. Day and night were all 
 alike to him ; and I have ever marvelled how his consti- 
 tution bore the excessive strain, continuous as it was, and 
 how in the intervals of meals, and slight, restricted re- 
 creation, he invariably maintained a buoyant, exuberant 
 cheerfulness and fun, which made happy all who had the good 
 fortune to be associated with him. Burgou took no more 
 than a Second Class. How was this ? You are doubtless 
 aware of his disadvantageous start. I do not attribute his
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 99 
 
 failure (shall I so call it?) to this; but as in a march a 
 forced march through a territory the man \\ho now and 
 again steps aside in botanical or geological research is re- 
 tarded in his progress, so Burgon was never satisfied without 
 a nice exact ferreting- out of every difficulty, sometimes 
 amusingly apparent in the lecture-room, where the tutor 
 always indulged and appreciated his integrity and zeal. He 
 never rested until he had acquired all that could be known 
 respecting the matter before him. His interruptions of the 
 lecture were to be seen as well as heard, and his humble, 
 plaintive manner of enquiry was a striking contrast to the dry, 
 solemn mode of the tutor's reply, who nevertheless, I believe, 
 always appreciated Bui'gon's earnest thirst for information. 
 I believe his notes on the Classics would wonderfully testify 
 to the fact of his probing every question to the depth, and 
 would thus tell of hours lost ; I mean by lost, that a much 
 more superficial acquaintance would have answered his 
 purpose in the Schools. 
 
 The foregoing account of Burgon's reading is fnlly 
 confirmed by a letter of his own, written just after the 
 examination : 
 
 I cannot fully realize the notion that the heavy labour 
 I was going through is all ended. It seems impossible that I 
 may go to bed at twelve, if I like ; that I may breakfast 
 without Butler's Sermons before me, or take tea without 
 reading so many hundred lines of a Greek Play ; nay, that I 
 may breakfast or dine when I please. Even Magazines and 
 Reviews are open to me now, which they have not been foi 
 the last three years. . . . How my health has stood it, I cannot 
 understand. I did not let anyone know how I was going 
 on ; but fear I was, at last, acting as it would have been 
 impossible for me to have gone on acting. For many weeks 
 past I have not had five hours' sleep and in order to read 
 without molestation, abridged myself in food and exercise to 
 the minimum point (consistent with comfort). The very eve 
 of going in for vivd voce, I read for nineteen hours without 
 stirring, except to chapel. 
 
 This excessive strain produced its natural result. 
 During his Public Examination he was giddy and tired, 
 and his memory failed him. The Examination, on th
 
 100 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 whole, " went against him," and he felt that, from one 
 cause or another, he had done much less well than he 
 had a right to expect. On November 26, 1845, the 
 result was declared, and Burgon was in the Second 
 Class. His keen and ambitions temper was deeply 
 mortified. The only notice of the event in his diary is 
 the modest ejaculation, " Thank God I am no lower ! " 
 but to a friend he writes : " If the Examiners had been 
 IN me, they would have given me a First Class. To 
 judge from my papers, I had perhaps no right to hope 
 for more than a Second. But the report had got abroad 
 that I was to have been at the top of the tree ; and I 
 am conscious that the power is not lacking and so I 
 cannot but feel a little crest-fallen." 
 
 It is impossible not to sympathize with this natural 
 outbreak of vexation ; but, when the disadvantages 
 of his early training and his late entrance into the 
 University are taken into account, the attainment of 
 a Second Class in an examination so drastic and so 
 far-reaching as " Greats " at Oxford may well be 
 regarded as a triumph. Meanwhile, the technical 
 studies required for " the Schools " were not allowed 
 to engross the whole of Burgon's time. They were 
 lightened and brightened by a more romantic pursuit. 
 He had a genuine and inborn love of, and capacity 
 for, Poetry, as may be seen by his volume of collected 
 poems published in 1885. In his first, second, and 
 third years of residence at Oxford, he competed for 
 the Newdigate Prize. All three attempts were un- 
 successful ; but in 1845, he won the prize with a 
 poem on Petra one of the very few prize-exercises 
 that have even been remembered and quoted beyond 
 the academical circle, and half a century after their 
 first publication. It is not often that a poet contrives 
 to produce in two lines so complete an effect both
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 101 
 
 of local colour and of historic interest as Burgon in 
 his famous couplet : 
 
 Match me such marvel, save in Eastern clime 
 A rose-red city half as old as time. 
 
 To be parodied is at once the proof and the penalty 
 of successful authorship ; and when an Oxford wag 
 wished to commemorate the astonishing longevity of 
 the nonagenarian Thomas Short, Fellow of Trinity and 
 sometime tutor to Cardinal Newman, he instinctively 
 exclaimed : 
 
 Match me such marvel, save in college port, 
 That rose-red liquor half as old as Short ! 
 
 The mortification caused by failure to obtain a First 
 Class was in Burgon's case soon and fully outweighed 
 by a notable triumph. On April 17, 1846, he was 
 elected to the Fellowship of Oriel, which Mr. J. H. 
 Newman had just vacated. " There was a tradition," 
 writes a contemporary, " that his elegant and felicitous 
 translations got him his Fellowship." In his diary he 
 writes : " How full of blessings has my life been till 
 now ! . . . May God give me grace and help me to live 
 as if I loved Him, and was sensible of His exceeding 
 favour and mercy." 
 
 Burgon now began his residence in that famous 
 College which was destined to be his home for exactly 
 thirty years. As a Fellow of Oriel, of course he had 
 no difficulty in obtaining private pupils, with whom he 
 read for the Pass Examinations. It would seem that 
 his pupils liked and admired him ; but tuition was 
 scarcely the work for which he was best fitted. His next 
 literary achievement was a Letter addressed to the Rev. 
 R. Greswell, on " Art with Reference to the Studies of 
 the University." The purpose of this Letter was to urge
 
 102 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 upon the authorities of the University the duty of making 
 some provision for the study of Ancient and Modern Art. 
 Ancient Literature and Ancient Art, the writer argues, 
 are so inseparably connected that no one can understand 
 the one without studying the other ; while of Modern 
 Art, so far as it is concerned with Sacred Painting, he 
 holds that it is invaluable as an instrument of moral and 
 spiritual improvement. In connexion with this Letter, 
 it is to be noted that Burgon's fondness for art was by 
 no means a matter of mere theory or sentiment. He 
 was a facile and vigorous draftsman, and had a singular 
 knack of reproducing with pen or pencil, not only a 
 characteristic likeness or a striking bit of landscape, but 
 the niceties of a classical coin or an Egyptian vase. 
 
 This excursion into the realm of aesthetic study was 
 merely a digression, though a congenial one, from the 
 path which Burgon had marked out for himself. His 
 whole heart and mind were set towards the attainment 
 of Holy Orders, and towards theological study as the 
 means thereto. He wrote for, and won, the Ellerton 
 Essay-Prize, with a discourse on " The Importance of 
 Translation of the Holy Scriptures," in which he entered, 
 as it were by prophetic foresight, a vigorous protest 
 against such rash and inconsiderate handling of the 
 Sacred Text as, five-and-thirty years afterwards, he saw 
 exemplified in the Revised Version of the New Testa- 
 ment. He attended the Theological Lectures of Pro- 
 fessors Hussey and Jacobson, and bestowed his whole 
 time on the systematic study of standard divinity. " I 
 was all this time," he writes, " fagging at Pearson 
 and some of the Fathers often for twelve hours a 
 day." He was ordained Deacon by Bishop Wilberforce in 
 Christ Church Cathedral on Christmas Eve, 1848, being 
 chosen to read the Gospel at the Ordination Service. 
 On the next Sunday he preached his first sermon at
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 103 
 
 Christ Church, Albany Street ; and at the beginning 
 of the ensuing term he returned to Oxford. His 
 Fellowship had of course been his title to Orders, bat he 
 was full of pastoral yearnings, and he satisfied them by 
 undertaking a curacy at the obscure village of West 
 Ilsley, on the Berkshire Downs. He used to walk to 
 this place on the Saturday, after his week's work in 
 College was done, officiate on the Sunday, and return 
 to Oxford on the Monday. He threw himself into his 
 pastoral duties with intense energy and earnestness, and 
 lavished his affectionate but eccentric kindness on the 
 poor people committed to his charge. On December 23, 
 1849, he was ordained Priest, and on January 20, 1850, 
 he celebrated the Holy Communion for the first time 
 in Ilsley Church. In the spring of that year his curacy 
 at Ilsley came to an end, and, after a short engagement 
 at a village called Worton, he became curate to the 
 Rev. William Jocelyn Palmer, Rector of Mixbury and 
 Finmere, in Oxfordshire. 
 
 Mr. Palmer, the father of William Palmer of Mag- 
 dalen, Lord Selborne, and Archdeacon Edwin Palmer, 
 was a man of remarkable character and influence. 
 Burgon thus describes him : " Mr. Palmer is a clergy- 
 man of the George Herbert class. He is absolute 
 monarch of his parishes, and exercises the functions of 
 lawyer and physician, as well as parson. He is the 
 father and friend of all." From this truly venerable 
 man, who had been a pupil of the saintly Jones of 
 Nay land, Burgon gained invaluable instruction in the 
 methods both of quickening spiritual life in the rural 
 poor and of administering the practical business of a 
 parish. Mr. Palmer himself lived at Mixbury, and 
 Finmere, which was two miles off, became Burgon's 
 peculiar charge. Here he soon made full proof of his 
 ministry. He came to Finmere from Oxford every
 
 104 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Saturday afternoon. That evening he called, as a 
 rule, at every house in the village. On the Sunday, 
 besides his work in church and school, he visited alt 
 the sick in the parish. On the Monday morning he 
 commonly entertained a dozen of the school-children 
 at breakfast. His love of children was from first to 
 last one of his most characteristic traits, and to young 
 and old alike he was generous to a fault. On the 
 Monday he used to return to Oxford, and was immersed 
 in study and college-work till the Saturday again came 
 round. At this time he was busy with his " Harmony 
 of the Gospels," out of which his admirable " Plain 
 Commentary " w-as developed ; and in 1851 and 1852 
 he brought out, in conjunction with his brother-in-law, 
 the Rev. Henry John Rose, Rector of Houghton Con- 
 quest, two excellent series of engravings from the sacred 
 pictures of the great masters. This publication was 
 designed to convey a clear idea of the leading events of 
 sacred history to the minds of the poor and uneducated, 
 whose notions of such events were even painfully 
 obscure. 
 
 No one [wrote that most experienced parish -priest, the 
 Rev. F. E. Paget, of Elford] who does not live among 
 cottagers can have the faintest conception how indispensable 
 pictures are for the purpose of conveying instruction (and, 
 I may add, comfort) to their minds ; nor how intense is their 
 ignorance with respect to matters with which it is assumed 
 that they are familiar, but which have not been brought 
 before them through the medium of pictures. . . . There are 
 grown persons who had no idea of the manner of our Blessed 
 LORD'S death until a print of the Crucifixion was, of late 
 years, brought before them. 
 
 On April 26, 1851, Burgon preached for the first 
 time before the University of Oxford. Its subject 
 was " The Interpretation of Holy Scripture," and it 
 was the nucleus from which, in later years, grew his
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 105 
 
 controversial volume on " Inspiration and Interpretation." 
 His ministry at Finraere came to an end in the summer 
 of 1853. Henceforward he resided in Oriel almost 
 continuously till his removal to Chichester in 1876, 
 spending his Long Vacations with his sister and brother- 
 in-law at the moated Rectory of Houghton Conquest, 
 near Ampthill. In 1854 the "Plain Commentary on 
 the Four Holy Gospels " was published, at first anony- 
 mously. It is an admirable piece of work, and a 
 notable monument of patient and reverent study. Its 
 leading principle is the minutely careful comparison 
 of Scripture with Scripture. In matters of interpreta- 
 tion, reference is always made to the consent of the 
 Fathers. Where they speak with virtual unanimity, 
 as on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary and the Miracle 
 that attended the Piercing of Our Lord's Side, the 
 point is regarded as settled ; where they are divided, 
 the commentator weighs and balances their judgments, 
 and gives the reasons which finally determine his own 
 view. 
 
 Immediately after the " Plain Commentary " Burgon 
 published a series of " Short Sermons for Family 
 Reading." He published also a volume of " Historical 
 Notes on the Oxford Colleges." He entered freely into 
 the political and academical controversies of the time. 
 All the while he was eking out his narrow means by 
 taking private pupils, and fulfilling the official duties 
 which devolved on him as a Fellow of his College. 
 Concurrently with all this varied eifert he laboured 
 zealously in the functions of his sacred calling ; " reading 
 Genesis with a class of citizens in the Town Hall" at 
 Oxford ; officiating constantly in local churches ; and 
 bearing part, as a special preacher, in the Diocesan 
 Missions which Bishop Wilberforce inaugurated in the 
 large towns of Oxfordshire, Bucks, and Berks.
 
 106 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 On September 7, 1854, Burgon lost his mother, to 
 whom he was passionately and romantically attached, 
 and four years later his father followed her. There is 
 no more endearing trait than the warm affection which 
 often underlies a fiery temper and an aggressive bearing. 
 Those who only knew Burgon in the arena of con- 
 troversy, and shrank in astonished alarm from the 
 fierceness of his polemical methods, will read, perhaps 
 with surprise, but certainly with pleasure, Burgon's 
 emotions and conduct in the presence of these domestic 
 sorrows. In a small volume of private memoranda, 
 written immediately after his mother's death, and by 
 the bed on which her body lay, Burgon records that 
 he and his brother and sister 
 
 laid her out on the bed where she had died. A heavy task 
 it was for us all. Still, we were wonderfully supported ; and 
 we preferred doing this, a thousand times, than that profane 
 hands should meddle with our grief. The wedding-ring which 
 I drew off the fourth finger of her left hand, the kind ones 
 present urged on me to wear myself. . . . Accordingly I 
 placed it on my little finger, and there, please GOD, I will 
 wear it till I die. ... I slept on the sofa in my beloved 
 mother's room that night Thursday. It was awful, but 
 pleasant. I prayed near her, very happily. 
 
 Every detail of the funeral, and the preparation and 
 dedication of the grave, was the subject of Burgon's 
 minutest care. For years he visited her grave daily, 
 standing over it bareheaded. On the fourteenth anni- 
 versary of her death, he writes in his private journal : 
 
 Sept. 7th, 1868, between 6 and 7 P.M. This is the day and 
 the hour which always seems to bring me nearest to my 
 beloved, a day of sweet and solemn recollection, as well as 
 of awful meditation. For I ask myself, Where is she abiding ? 
 and I tell myself that it must be in the place of perfect 
 peace; and so I seem to stand in adoration near the half- 
 opened gates of paradise, and something tells me that the 
 Beatific Vision is the bliss of those who dwell within, Does
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 107 
 
 she think of me ? Yes. And she has prayed for me, and 
 for us all, often ; and her prayers have been heard. 
 
 Under the date " August 28th, 1859, about twenty 
 minutes to 10 P.M.," he writes : 
 
 It is a year exactly, within a few minutes, since I lost 
 my dearest father. . . . There is no one now no one, to 
 whom I can turn for unmingled sympathy in joy or sorrow ; 
 ho one who can and will rejoice in my joy and sorrow for 
 my sorrow, as something which belongs to himself. . . . 
 From infancy, through boyhood, on to early manhood, we 
 were together. Two days arrived September 7th, 1854, and 
 August 28th, 1858 and O the difference ! at first a be- 
 reaved and broken heart, and next a desolate, or rather a 
 destroyed home. All seems quite changed. 
 
 In 1859, Burgon published " The Portrait of a Christian 
 Gentleman," a memoir of his friend Patrick Fraser 
 Tytler, author of the "History of Scotland." This 
 memoir, the product of an overflowing affection, and a 
 perfect sympathy between author and subject, met with 
 an instant and a gratifying success, a second edition 
 being called for within two months. 
 
 In the early part of 1860, Burgon paid his first 
 visit to Rome, and undertook the duties of the 
 English chaplain there. The results of his visit were 
 embodied in a series of letters to the Guardian, 
 afterwards republished in a single volume. Of these 
 letters, some, and perhaps the most valuable, dealt in a 
 trenchant and popular style with the claims and authority 
 of the celebrated Codex B. In the rest, he gives us a 
 lively account of his investigations into the antiquities, 
 the religious life, and the natural phenomena of Italy : 
 
 His ears and eyes are wide open to every object of attrac- 
 tion offered by the Eternal City ; his note-book, sketch-book, 
 and pencil are, as usual, in his hand all day long. He at- 
 tends observantly all Roman services and forms of devotion, 
 and compares them with the Anglican, not unfairly, though
 
 108 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 always of course with a decided preference for the latter ; 
 he listens to and reports sermons and dialogos (showing that 
 he must have possessed a fair working knowledge of Italian 
 probably he obtained the rudiments of it in childhood from 
 his mother) ; he witnesses processions, missions, and the 
 grotesque absurdities of relic-worship ; he has interviews with 
 the superiors of convents, and elicits from them the truth as 
 to the exact observance of the Seven Hours of Prayer ; he 
 visits and minutely describes the catacombs, copying and 
 commenting upon many of the inscriptions, and showing 
 therefrom the unequivocal sympathy of the Primitive Age 
 with the English rather than with the Romish branch of the 
 Catholic Church ; he gets access to several of the more rarely 
 visited objects of interest, as well as to those which all the 
 world makes a point of seeing ; and before leaving Italy 
 he visits Naples and Pompeii, and makes the ascent of 
 Vesuvius, an incident which he records in his usual vivid 
 and picturesque strain. 
 
 From this memorable and instructive journey, Burgon 
 returned to Oxford in the summer of 1860, having in 
 the meantime been appointed one of the Select Preachers 
 before the University. 
 
 The year 1860 was signalized by the appearance of 
 " Essays and Reviews," a volume now forgotten, but at 
 the time of its appearance worthy of Carlyle's graphic 
 epithet " Famous-infamous." The British Association 
 had met at Oxford in June, and the present Bishop of 
 London preached before the Association a sermon " On 
 the Education of the World." The sermon passed at 
 the time without much comment, and, indeed, it is in 
 itself a harmless composition enough ; but later in the 
 year it reappeared in the forefront of " Essays and 
 Reviews," in which five of the higher clergy (besides 
 Dr. Temple), and one layman (" Seven Champions not 
 exactly of Christendom," as Burgon styles them), set 
 out to apply, with greater or less degrees of audacity, 
 the principles of scientific criticism to the credentials 
 and claims of Christianity,
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 109 
 
 The book created an extraordinary stir. Bishop 
 Wilberforce attacked it |in the pages of this Review, 
 roundly accusing its authors of moral dishonesty, and 
 the entire Bench of Bishops condemned it. Burgon 
 was not slow to seize the opportunity thus offered. 
 He devoted his sermons as Select Preacher to the dis- 
 comfiture of the Essayists, and then enlarged and repro- 
 duced them in a powerful treatise, partly destructive, 
 and partly constructive, on Inspiration and Interpreta- 
 tion. We shall speak of his views on these momentous 
 subjects rather more at length when we come to consider 
 his standing as a Theologian. 
 
 In 1861 Burgon joined a party of friends in a journey 
 it might almost be called a pilgrimage to Palestine. 
 They started from Constance across the Alps to Milan, 
 Venice, and Trieste, and thence to Alexandria and Cairo. 
 They went up the Nile to the Second Cataract, and back 
 to Cairo. Thence to Petra (the theme of Burgon's early 
 poem), Sinai, Hebron, and Jerusalem. The visit was, 
 of course, full of the profoundest interest for Burgon ; 
 but, unluckily, he was laid low by malarial fever at 
 Jerusalem, and was brought back to England in a state 
 of great suffering and exhaustion. He reached home in 
 July, 1802, but his recovery was tedious and protracted, 
 and it was not till October, 1863, that he was sufficiently 
 restored to resume his residence in Oxford. When he 
 did so, it was in a new capacity, for he had in the 
 meantime accepted the Vicarage of St. Mary the Virgin, 
 the patronage of this, the University Church, being in 
 the hands of Oriel College. Many years before, he had 
 written to an intimate friend, " What I do desire is not 
 to die till I have had the shepherding of a flock " ; and 
 now that such a charge was entrusted to him, he threw 
 himself into the work with all the energy of his singularly 
 energetic nature. It was highly characteristic of him
 
 110 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 that, when he had not had more than a month's experi- 
 ence of pastoral work in a town, he completed and 
 brought out his elaborate " Treatise on the Pastoral 
 Office," which he had begun years before, in the days 
 of his rural curacies. 
 
 In 18G7, Burgon was appointed Professor of Divinity 
 at Gresham College, London, on the foundation of the 
 worthy whose biographer he had been, and he gave his 
 Inaugural Lecture in January, 1868. He was now bound 
 officially, as well as led by personal inclination, to make 
 Divinity his special study ; and, as an outward and 
 visible sign of this occupation, he determined to proceed 
 to the degree of B.D. It was at that time required from 
 candidates for that degree that they should compose and 
 read publicly two Theological Exercises. Burgon chose 
 for his theme "A Vindication of the Genuineness of the 
 Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark's Gospel." These exer- 
 cises were published in a volume which, according to so 
 competent a judge as Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, 
 "constituted a new era in the history of the science of 
 the criticism of the Sacred Text " ; but which, according 
 to Dr. Farrar, is " entirely unconvincing." 
 
 In this narrative of Burgon's life, we have deemed it 
 unnecessary to expatiate on the innumerable contro- 
 versies in which he was perennially engaged. His 
 " zeal " for the truth, as he understood it, fairly " con- 
 sumed " him, and his patience and prudence at the same 
 time. The subjects with which he dealt polemically in- 
 cluded in turn the Doctrine of Inspiration ; the Relation 
 between the University and the College, and between 
 the College and the Parish, at Oxford ; the Consecration 
 of Bishop Temple ; the Enforcement of a New Lectionary ; 
 the Admission of an Unitarian to a Share in the Revision 
 of the New Testament, and to Communion ; the Develop- 
 ment of Ritualism in Oxford ; and the Election of Dean
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 111 
 
 Stanley to a Select Preachership. The first election of a 
 woman to serve on a School-Board elicited from Burgon 
 a protest which, on account of the admirable lady to 
 whom it referred, was long remembered in Oxford as 
 " Miss Smith's Sermon." When Archbishop Tait joined 
 in an assault upon the Athanasian Creed, Burgon's 
 passionate zeal for Orthodoxy, his contempt for con- 
 sequences, his readiness to rebuke faithlessness in high 
 places, his unconventional vehemence of tone, and his 
 absolute self-reliance were seen in their highest per- 
 fection. The subjoined letter, which is not quoted by 
 his biographer, may be taken as a fair sample of his 
 controversial method. We record it for the edification 
 of those who would know what manner of man he was 
 when sacred interests seemed to be imperilled : 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF 
 CANTERBURY. 
 
 MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, 
 
 On the ninth day of February last, with reference to the 
 Warning Clauses in the Athanasian Greed, you deliberately 
 in the presence of your assembled Suffragans made the follow- 
 ing portentous declaration : " We do not, there is not a 
 soul in this room who does, nobody in the Church of England 
 takes them in their plain and literal sense." 
 
 Speaking for myself, I beg leave to declare in the most 
 solemn manner that I am quite incapable of the baseness you 
 thereby imputed to me. I have ever taken, I shall ever (Goo 
 helping me) take, the Church's formularies " in their plain 
 and literal sense." 
 
 I forbear, most Reverend Father in GOD, to say how the 
 sight affects me of an Archbishop of Canterbury heading 
 the assault which is just now being made against one of 
 " the three Creeds " of the Church ; a Creed which we of 
 this nation have enjoyed for upwards of a thousand years ; a 
 Creed to which we are most of all indebted for the measure of 
 Right Faith which yet subsists among us ; a Creed which the 
 whole body of the Clergy, at the most solemn moment of their
 
 112 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 lives, in accepting the Eighth Article of the Church, have 
 accepted as most certainly true. I will not trust myself to 
 say how this sight amazes, troubles, oppresses me. I might 
 be betrayed, like the great Apostle, into the use of stronger 
 language than may lawfully be addressed to " GOD'S High 
 Priest " ; and I should be without the Apostle's excuse, 
 namely, that he had spoken " without consideration." 
 
 I am, most Reverend Father in GOD, your afflicted servant 
 and much-injured son in CHRIST, 
 
 JOHN W. BURGON. 
 ORIEL, 
 
 S. Mark's Day, 1872. 
 
 The next three years, like those that had preceded 
 them, were divided between controversy, parochial work, 
 and laborious study. Burgon's main occupation at this 
 period was the magnum opus of his life : a dissertation 
 on the " True Principles of the Textual Criticism of 
 the New Testament," which he left incomplete, but 
 which, we are happy to learn, is to see the light 
 under the competent editorship of the Rev. Edward 
 Miller, Rector of Bucknell. And now his time of 
 residence in Oxford was drawing to a close. On 
 November 1, 1875, he received a letter from the Prime 
 Minister, Mr. Disraeli, proposing that he should succeed 
 Dr. Hook in the Deanery of Chichester ; and on Quin- 
 quagesima Sunday, 1876, he took leave of Oxford in 
 a sermon before the University, entitled " Humility 
 ad Clerum." The analysis of contents which he prefixed 
 to this sermon, when published, is so characteristic of 
 the writer's mind and method that it deserves repro- 
 duction here. The text is Job xi. 12, " Vain man would 
 be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt," 
 and the analysis runs thus : 
 
 The text explained the clergy wanting in humility, when 
 they profess a science which they have not cared to acquire. 
 Need of humility to the clergy, illustrated in several par- 
 ticulars. The lawlessness and undutifulness of a certain
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 113 
 
 section of their body. Some account of the great Church 
 movement which took place fifty years ago. Proof that the 
 Ritualists of the present day do not represent that movement; 
 for it taught submission to authority, sobriety, loyalty to the 
 Church of England, whereas lawlessness, extravagance, affecta- 
 tion of Romanism characterize this new sect. The younger 
 men apostrophized. 
 
 From this concluding apostrophe the following words 
 are taken. After quoting Bishop Ridley's account of 
 his theological studies at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, 
 Burgon thus applies it to his undergraduate hearers : 
 
 These, these, be your studies, ye younger men ! The like 
 of this be your method ! There is nothing of the " wild ass's 
 colt " recognizable Jiere. It is all, from first to last, the method 
 of profound HUMILITY; a method which will influence your 
 conduct ; shape your views ; eventually colour your whole 
 life. And O the peace and satisfaction it will bring you so 
 to have approached your sacred calling ! O the holy confi- 
 dence with which at last you will take upon yourselves the 
 teacher's office ! O the honest joy and gratitude unutterable 
 with which, when the bitter moment of severance from Oxford 
 comes (for come at last it must !), you will look back on 
 vanished opportunities and studious hours, of which the 
 blessed fragrance at least can never quite forsake you ! . . . 
 yea, rather it is to be hoped (in Ridley's phrase) that 
 we shall " carry the sweet smell " of our sacred studies 
 (Goo grant it !) with us, yea, into the very bowers of 
 bliss ! 
 
 Dean Burgon entered on his residence at Chichester 
 in the early summer of 1876 ; but the long-deferred 
 promotion brought him, we fear, very little happiness. 
 The place was dull he called it " Sleepy Hollow." He 
 was from the first embroiled in bitter disputes with his 
 colleagues in the Chapter. The income was altogether 
 inadequate to the office. And in addition to these 
 domestic troubles he had mortifications from without. 
 His name had been inserted in the list of Royal 
 Commissioners who were to be appointed, under " The 
 
 8
 
 114 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Act," to carry 
 out far-reaching changes in the Universities ; and then, 
 in deference to some Parliamentary clamour, the Tory 
 Government asked him to let himself be withdrawn. The 
 Regius Professorship of Divinity at Oxford, which had 
 been the most cherished object of his ambition, became 
 vacant, but he was told that it would be contrary to 
 precedent to remove him from a higher to a lower 
 dignity. His curious arrogance and imperious temper 
 made him unpopular and ineffective in Convocation, 
 and before long he ceased to attend its sittings, and 
 plunged himself into the seclusion of his Deanery. All 
 this time he was, as usual, engaged in a running fire 
 of controversy, academical and ecclesiastical, and the 
 years 1881-2 saw his best achievements in that field 
 of effort. 
 
 Tlie Revised Version of the New Testament was 
 published in May, 1881, and in the October number 
 of this Review Burgon published his first article on 
 "The New Greek Text." He writes thus to Lord 
 Cranbrook, between whom and himself there had long 
 subsisted a close friendship, based on theological and 
 political agreement : 
 
 The appearance of the Revision exercised me much ; for 
 I found that the Greek Text had been remodelled on what 
 I consider entirely mistaken principles. Mr. Murray was 
 willing to admit an article upon the subject ; and accordingly 
 in the October number appeared the fruit of not a little 
 labour. Let me request you, if you have not yet seen that 
 number of the Quarterly, to give what you will find there 
 a patient hearing. My performance seems to have fallen 
 like a shell into the enemy's position. It sold the Quarterly, 
 and another edition is called for. A shower of letters from 
 every quarter convinced me that I had been passing the 
 long summer days not unprofitably. Not least surprised was 
 I to learn from Murray that Mr. Gladstone had driven to 
 his door, and sat with him to discuss the merits of Burgon's
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 115 
 
 article (for the authorship of it, in spite of all my endeavours, 
 transpired instantly), with which he said he agreed entirely. 
 
 In the January number of 1882, the Dean returned 
 to the charge with an article on " The New English 
 Version," and this he followed up in April with a 
 third, on "Westcott and Hort's New Textual Theory." 
 These three articles he reprinted, together with a reply 
 to Bishop Ellicott's championship of the New Version, 
 in a substantial volume, which was published under 
 the title of " The Revision Revised," at the end of 1883. 
 Considerations both of space and of fitness forbid us 
 to enter here and now upon an examination of Burgon's 
 views concerning the Greek Text, and the threefold 
 testimony of " Copies, Versions, and Citations," to which 
 he habitually appealed. It is enough to say that in 
 this masterly volume he urges them with characteristic 
 liveliness and vigour. Even more effective, because 
 appealing to the taste and knowledge of a far wider 
 circle of readers, were his strictures on the diction of 
 the Revised English Version. A critic so little pre- 
 judiced in favour of theologians as Matthew Arnold 
 wrote : 
 
 The Dean of Chichester has attacked the revisers with 
 exceeding great vehemence, and many of his reasons for 
 hostility to them I do not share. But when he finally fixes 
 on a test -passage, and condemns them by it, he shows, I must 
 say, a genuine literary instinct, a true sense for style. . . . 
 The Dean of Chichester takes for his text the well-known 
 passage in the first chapter of the Second Epistle of Peter : 
 " And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith 
 virtue ; and to virtue knowledge ; and to knowledge temper- 
 ance ; and to temperance patience ; and to patience godliness ; 
 and to godliness brotherly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness 
 charity." By this work of the old translators he then places 
 the work of the revisers : " Yea, and for this very cause 
 adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue ; 
 and in your virtue knowledge; and in your knowledge
 
 116 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 temperance ; and in your temperance patience ; arid in your 
 patience godliness ; and in your godliness love of the brethren ; 
 aud in your love of the brethren love." 
 
 In merely placing these versions side by side, the Dean 
 of Chichester thinks that he has done enough to condemn 
 the revised version. And so, in truth, he has. 
 
 The publication of " The Revision Revised " was the 
 last fully-accomplished work of Burgon's life. His 
 " Twelve Good Men " a series of tense and brilliant 
 biographies, many of which appeared in this Review 
 occupied him during his latter days, bnt he did not 
 live to see it published ; and his crowning work on 
 the " True Principles of Textual Criticism " is, as we 
 have seen, still incomplete. 
 
 At the beginning of the summer of 1888 he fell into 
 bad health, less, apparently, the result of any specific 
 disease than of worry, over-work, nervous exhaustion, 
 and a systematic disregard of the conditions of healthy 
 living. He was moved from Chichester to Folkestone, 
 and after a few weeks' residence there returned to 
 the Deanery partially restored. But the improvement 
 was only transient, and the end came, after much 
 suffering, on August 4. 
 
 Such in brief outline was the life of John William 
 Bnrgon. It remains that we should attempt some 
 estimate of his personal qualities, and of his standing 
 in the theological world. 
 
 There probably have been few men in our generation 
 whose public and private demeanour presented a greater 
 contrast to one another than those of Dean Burgon 
 few whose reputation with the world at large less 
 resembled the impression which they made upon their 
 personal friends. The world knew Bnrgon as an ex- 
 traordinarily bitter controversialist ; at war with all 
 mankind in turn ; sarcastic, uncharitable, censorious ;
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 117 
 
 reckless in the imputation of motives, and dealing 
 habitually in language which led so genial a critic 
 as Dean Church to call him " that dear old learned 
 Professor of Billingsgate." Those, on the other hand, 
 who were admitted to the circle of his intimacy knew 
 him as an exceptionally warm-hearted and tender-hearted 
 man ; loyal in friendship, passionately attached to Auld 
 Lang Syne, abounding in sympathy, delighting in 
 hospitality, and generous to the verge of imprudence. 
 In public controversy it too often seemed as if he aimed 
 at giving pain. In private dealings his constant study 
 was to give pleasure. 
 
 One of the most marked features of his character, 
 as portrayed in his biography, is his feeling towards 
 women. We saw how, very early in his career, he 
 contemplated marriage. In middle life it became neces- 
 sary for him formally to deny the report that he was 
 engaged. His confidante, counsellor, and referee in the 
 gravest matters, both of action and opinion, was a lady 
 with whom he was very distantly connected. To the 
 very end he was surrounded by the care and affection 
 of devout and honourable women, old and young, to 
 whom, in the sacred intercourse of private life, he 
 habitually addressed himself in terms of the warmest 
 affection. Yet the outside world would probably have 
 regarded him as a kind of unprofessed monk, for whom 
 ladies' society had no charms, and who was totally unfitted, 
 by temperament and experience, to participate in it 
 
 His love of children was as marked a feature of his 
 character as his love of ladies. It was manifested in the 
 days of his earliest curacies, when the school-children 
 
 Plucked his gown to share the good man's smile ; 
 
 when he entertained them at breakfast-parties and 
 bribed them with sugar-plums, and carried a little boy,
 
 118 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 enfeebled by illness, pick-a-back over the hilly roads of 
 Berkshire. Oxford men will recall the tall, attenuated 
 form of the Vicar of St. Mary's, clad in cap and gown, 
 and bent almost double to pat the head or pinch the cheeks 
 of some tiny urchin trotting along the High Street. 
 To " children of a larger growth " the undergraduates 
 who attended his Sunday evening lectures, the young 
 ladies who composed his parochial Bible-class, and 
 theological students who sought his guidance in view 
 of their Ordination he was equally accessible, obliging, 
 and even playfully affectionate. He would spare no 
 pains or labour to stimulate their interest in sacred 
 studies ; and on Sunday evenings, though thoroughly 
 exhausted by the day's public ministrations, he seemed 
 to revive and throw off all fatigue when, being in truth 
 " a Scribe instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven," he 
 brought forth out of his treasure things new and old. 
 
 It is certainly true no one who knew Burgon would 
 deny it that all this warmth of heart and depth of 
 feeling were associated with a marked oddness of 
 demeanour. He was not the least like anyone else. 
 His appearance, manner, style of speech, turn of thought, 
 way of looking at things, were all his own. Much of 
 this individuality may, not unreasonably, be traced to 
 his foreign extraction. The current saying in Oxford 
 was that he was " half a Greek." This was a mistake ; 
 but he was half an Austrian, and the Austrian half 
 of his nature was tinged with Greek or Smyrniote 
 blood. The un-English bias deduced from his birth 
 was reinforced by the circumstances of his home and 
 education. His earliest thoughts were shaped by a 
 foreign mother ; his boyish mind was formed by inter- 
 course with a middle-aged society of dilettanti, anti- 
 quarians, and men of letters. A brief experience of some 
 indifferent private schools could not supply the moulding
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 119 
 
 and inspiring influences which he would have received 
 at Winchester or Westminster ; and the wholly uncon- 
 genial atmosphere of a merchant's counting-house, 
 which occupied in Burgon's life the years usually 
 dedicated to the University, drove him in upon him- 
 self and his own resources ; made him introspective, 
 thoughtful, studious ; and gave him a curious aloofness 
 from his equals in age and standing. Going up to 
 Oxford at an age when most men have been long 
 embarked upon their life's work ; with narrow means, 
 a darkened home, and an intellectual equipment, if not 
 inferior to, at least quite different from, that of other 
 men, he had little chance of shaking off the habits 
 which his earlier experience had engendered, or of learn- 
 ing, from association with his fellow-undergraduates, 
 to think and speak and act as they did. In brief, every 
 circumstance of Burgon's training tended to make him 
 what he was a man absolutely sui generis as indi- 
 vidual in his charms and graces as in his faults and 
 foibles. 
 
 Among these last, candour compels us to reckon a 
 temper which had never learnt to curb itself ; a 
 " cocksureness " which was partly ludicrous and partly 
 irritating ; an absolute intolerance of contradiction or 
 even disagreement ; and an irresistible tendency to play 
 the universal censor. It is obvious to observe that 
 these are exactly the faults most likely to beset a 
 youth brought up in a narrow circle, where he is con- 
 spicuously the leading spirit, and exactly those which 
 the training of a Public School, or a University 
 entered at the usual age, would most effectually correct. 
 To constituted authorities, official superiors, and the 
 powers that be, Burgon professed, as a matter of 
 principle, the utmost loyalty and reverence ; though not 
 seldom his practice, when engaged in controversy,
 
 120 
 
 clashed rather roughly with his theory. To those who 
 submitted themselves absolutely to his guidance, whether 
 ladies or curates or school-children or theological students, 
 he was full of fatherly kindness and patience ; but the 
 footing of equality was one which he could not under- 
 stand or endure. In College, in the University, in the 
 Convocation of Canterbury, and in the Chapter of 
 Chichester, this fatal love of pre-eminence destroyed his 
 influence, crippled his power for good, and alienated 
 those who ought to have been his friends. Even in 
 the field of public controversy, it diminished the effect 
 of his brilliant polemics, by suggesting the suspicion 
 that a controversialist who so systematically ignored all 
 his fellow-soldiers, and even his commanding officers, 
 might not improbably be less than fair to those who 
 were fighting in the opposite ranks. 
 
 To Burgon's inveterate love of controversy we have 
 already referred. There never was so irrepressible a 
 pamphleteer. Armed with the positive conviction that 
 he was right and everyone else wrong, he took the 
 field against all comers, eagerly disclaiming all 
 hampering or compromising alliances on this side or 
 on that ; made enemies of all parties at once, and 
 seldom won any practical victory for the cause which 
 he championed. 
 
 Impetuosity was indeed the leading feature of 
 Burgon's character, and beyond doubt it had its in- 
 convenient side ; but it is bare justice to say that it 
 was allied in him with some of the finest qualities of 
 a manly nature. He was self-reliant and courageous 
 to a fault. Like John Knox, he never feared the 
 face of man. He did not care a jot if he made enemies 
 in the most influential quarters. Wherever he saw 
 disloyalty to faith or morals, he exposed and denounced 
 it without the faintest regard to consequences. He was
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 121 
 
 by no means destitute of an honourable ambition ; 
 bnt, whenever truth was at stake, he flung to the 
 winds all considerations of expediency and all calcula- 
 tions about promotion, and was perhaps even more 
 outspoken when his opponent was a man in high place, 
 as conceiving that the betrayal of trust was in such 
 a case the more heinous. The same courage supported 
 him in his intellectual enterprises. No difficulties, 
 whether arising from health or means, deficient re- 
 sources or opposing circumstances, ever daunted or 
 deterred him when once he had seen a worthy object 
 and resolved to pursue it. He was absolutely inde- 
 pendent in pecuniary matters. He had known affluence 
 and known poverty ; had faced trial and difficulty with 
 undaunted front ; had supported himself and those 
 who belonged to him by his own unaided efforts. He 
 never sought money, nor went a yard out of his way 
 to obtain it ; but, practising the severest self-denial 
 in his own life, was able to be munificent to deserving 
 people and to good causes, far beyond the usual pro- 
 portion of charity to income. 
 
 Bnt what has just been said about peculiarities of 
 temper, isolated habits, and systematic self-denial, must 
 not be understood to imply that Burgon was a morose or 
 gloomy man ; indeed, he was conspicuously the reverse. 
 He delighted in congenial company, had the keenest 
 enjoyment both in giving and in receiving hospitality, 
 and had a genuine though fantastic sense of humour. 
 Lord Sherbrooke once publicly called him a "jocose 
 fanatic." A " humorous enthusiast " would perhaps 
 convey the same thought in less contemptuous phrase. 
 An enthusiast he certainly was, with all the enthusiast's 
 blindness to moral proportion and perspective ; but his 
 passionate zeal for the causes which he espoused was 
 relieved and enlivened by his love of the ludicrous.
 
 122 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 He was as quick as lightning to recognize the humour 
 of a phrase, of a situation, of a character ; he had 
 a sharp eye for vanity, pretentiousness, and inflated 
 ignorance, and knew exactly how to prick the bladder 
 of pompous humbug. His power of sarcasm and knack 
 of satirical allusion were leading elements in his con- 
 troversial method ; and, if only they had been allied 
 with good taste and good temper, they would have been 
 infinitely more efficacious than they were. Though one 
 of the most devout and reverent of men, he was riot 
 afraid to let his sense of fun play over Scriptural 
 incidents and phrases, or flash from the pulpit of 
 St. Mary's. The remorseless analysts of academical 
 tradition have suggested " historic doubts " concerning 
 the most cherished stories of Burgon's facetious 
 preaching ; but enough remains engraven on the 
 faithful tablets of memory to satisfy the writer that 
 those stories, if not literally true, were closely akin 
 to the truth. In fact, Burgon loved a joke, and could 
 not resist the opportunity of making it ; and, unlike 
 some professed humourists, he appreciated other people's 
 jokes quite as keenly as his own. We have been told 
 that one of the most popular purveyors of laughable 
 entertainment the accomplished Mr. Corney Grain- 
 after performing at Chichester, received a visit from 
 the Dean, who called early in the morning on purpose 
 to express his high appreciation of the amusement 
 afforded over-night, and to offer some suggestions for 
 the enrichment of the performance. 
 
 The brief epitome of his life and labours which we 
 have given at the beginning of this article will suffice 
 to show that Burgon was fundamentally and essentially 
 a student. Whatever department of study he under- 
 took, he worked in (he spirit of Browning's Grammarian, 
 with an intense, minute, and exhaustive industry, which
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 123 
 
 would lavish precious time and profound thought on 
 a comma or a hyphen. It was this keen eye for 
 the smallest details, this unconquerable patience in 
 ascertaining them, this rigid accuracy in stating them, 
 which made him so consummate an authority on 
 Textual Criticism, and gave its special value to all 
 his literary work, whether theological, biographical, 
 or antiquarian. Though a great student, Burgon was 
 not a fine scholar, in that restricted sense of the term 
 which means a faculty for translating English into 
 Greek or Latin, or for original composition in the 
 classical languages. The highly desultory nature of his 
 early education would have put such accomplishments 
 beyond his reach ; but he had a competent knowledge 
 of, and an unfeigned love for, the great writers of 
 antiquity. Homer and Herodotus appealed alike to his 
 poetic sense, which never missed the fine aspects of 
 a phrase, a scene, or an event, and to his antiquarian 
 zeal, which made the life and acts of primeval man, and 
 whatever tends to illustrate them, quite as real to him 
 as the transactions of the present hour, and much more 
 interesting. 
 
 This reverent love of antiquity an inborn taste which 
 his father's favourite studies had fostered was one of 
 the elements which coloured the whole of Burgon's life 
 and thought. All that was old was precious to him, 
 whether it was a Greek bust or an Egyptian mummy ; 
 an inscription in the Catacombs or a fine manuscript of 
 the Gospels ; a tradition of the Fathers, or a maxim 
 of the Constitution ; a relic of King Charles L, or an 
 oracle of Dr. Routh. It was inevitable that a man who 
 thus worshipped antiquity should be in every department 
 and aspect of life, in Church and in State, in religion and 
 politics, in education and society, the stiffest of Tories. 
 For the utilitarian Conservatism of modern days he had
 
 124 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 only the scantest sympathy ; at best it seemed to him 
 a compromise ; and his politics were founded on 
 principles which were part of his religion ; which knew 
 nothing of accommodation or expediency ; which paid 
 the utmost reverence, in their several spheres, to the 
 Altar and the Throne, and all the hierarchy of consti- 
 tuted society ; regarded them as inseparably knitted 
 together by Divine appointment, and shrank from every 
 project of reforming zeal as from blasphemy and 
 treason. 
 
 Having now traced the course of Burgon's life, and 
 sketched some leading features of his character, it is 
 time to consider his theological standing ; and here 
 we may suitably cite the eloquent language of his 
 biographer, Dean Goulburn : 
 
 It may perhaps be questioned even by some of those who 
 greatly esteemed and admired John William Btirgon . . . 
 whether the part he played in ecclesiastical affairs, and in 
 the history of religious thought during the past half-century, 
 was of sufficient importance to justify so detailed a record 
 of his life as is attempted in these volumes. The author 
 entirely thinks it was so, and for the following reason. 
 Burgon was in this country the leading religious teacher of 
 his time, who brought all the resources of genius and pro- 
 found theological learning to rebut the encroachments of 
 Rationalism, by maintaining inviolate the integrity of the 
 written Word of God as the Church has received it; by 
 pointing out its depth, its versatility of application, and 
 absolute inexhaustibility of significance ; and by insisting upon 
 its paramount claims to the humble and reverent reception 
 of mankind, as having been "given by Inspiration of God." 
 
 This is, of course, the glowing language of personal 
 affection, and, as such, is perhaps liable to the reproach 
 of over-statement. For our own part, indeed, if Dean 
 Goulburn's judgment on his friend had ended with the 
 words, " the leading religious teacher of his time," we 
 could not have endorsed it ; but we take the remainder
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 125 
 
 of the sentence as qualifying this emphatic eulogy, and 
 we understand the Dean to affirm that Burgon stood 
 foremost among those of his contemporaries who opposed 
 the onslaughts of Rationalism by maintaining the Divine 
 claims of the Written Word. Even this is a very strong 
 statement, when we are dealing with an age which pro- 
 duced Dr. Pusey, Bishop Wordsworth, Bishop Lightfoot, 
 and Bishop Westcott ; and it needs very considerable 
 deductions and modifications before it can be accepted. 
 It might perhaps be a more exact presentment of the 
 case if we were to say that, in the great battle for the 
 Faith against Infidelity, Burgon was the most expert 
 and vigorous wielder of a particular weapon. Some 
 divines had combated the enemy by dwelling on the 
 historical evidences of Christianity ; others by showing 
 how exactly it had fulfilled prophetical forecasts ; others 
 by urging its essential adaptation to the constitution 
 and needs of man. Some, again, had called attention 
 to the processes by which the Sacred Scriptures were 
 collected and received in the Church, and had laid 
 stress on the immemorial and world-wide tradition of 
 Christendom concerning Holy Writ. Others, again, 
 had concentrated all their energies on the defence of 
 some particular book, or had sought, by applying a 
 rigid system of literary and historical criticism, to 
 establish a Sacred Text, of which the claims should 
 be beyond the reach of controversy. All these various 
 forms of defence were of use some of them of incal- 
 culable use against the common foe; but of Burgon 
 it may be safely said that the weapon on which he 
 absolutely relied, of which he had unique mastery, and 
 which he used with unequalled effect, was the doctrine 
 that the Received Text of the New Testament is in all 
 its parts the Revealed Word of God. He was in truth 
 the most strenuous and the most learned advocate of the
 
 126 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 doctrine of Verbal Inspiration. Into the merits of 
 that doctrine this is not the place to enter. They 
 have long engaged, and probably will never cease to 
 engage, the earnest thought of professed theologians ; 
 and, in the absence of anything like an authoritative 
 judgment of the Church upon the subject, it may be 
 permitted to hold a less rigorous theory than that of 
 Dean Burgon, without for a moment compromising the 
 claims of Christian faith and dogmatic orthodoxy. But 
 those who, after due consideration of the various diffi- 
 culties involved, and the balance both of probability 
 and of authority, adhere to the doctrine of Verbal 
 Inspiration, may well regard John William Burgon as 
 the most powerful champion of their belief whom these 
 latter days have seen. 
 
 Having said so much about Burgon's theory of in- 
 spiration, it remains to say a word about his exegetical 
 method. Here he combined in the most curious har- 
 mony an austere literalness with an unbridled mysticism. 
 According to Burgon, every statement in the sacred 
 volume meant, in the first instance, exactly and liter- 
 ally what it said. The Six Days of Creation were 
 days of twenty-four hours each, which could have been 
 measured by the clock. The Garden of Eden was not 
 a district or a country, still less an expression or a 
 symbol, but "a square garden with a wall round it." 
 The waters of the Deluge covered the whole earth, and 
 not merely the inhabited part of it. The whale was 
 a whale, as zoology understands that word, and Jonah 
 was imprisoned for three days and three nights in its 
 belly. But it is needless to multiply instances. What 
 the Bible said, Burgon believed, literally and implicitly, 
 and emphatic were his warnings to those who approached 
 the sacred narrative in a more critical spirit. Just 
 before he left Oxford, in 1876, he took a walk with
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 127 
 
 a young clergyman, who is now one of our most 
 influential theologians. The conversation dealt from 
 first to last with the difficult problems arising out 
 of the interpretation of the Old Testament. As they 
 parted, Burgon said, with solemn and affectionate 
 eagerness, " If you give up believing that the Six 
 Days of Creation were six literal days of our time, 
 you will infallibly be led on to deny the Incarnation. 
 1 haven't the time just now to prove this, but rely upon 
 it that it is so." This was Burgon's method all over. 
 With the minutest care to ascertain what the Bible 
 exactly said, arid the most dutiful submission in ac- 
 cepting it, he combined a singular love of inferential 
 teaching, and a quaint dogmatism on points absolutely 
 beyond the reach of proof. " This is certain " was his 
 favourite formula, when " This is what I think, but 
 equally competent authorities think otherwise " would 
 have been the exacter statement. When a Presbyterian 
 friend pointed out to him that there was nothing about 
 Episcopacy in the Bible, said Burgon : " Of course there 
 is. Don't you remember how we are told that our 
 Lord, before His ascension, talked a great deal to His 
 disciples about His kingdom? Of course He was telling 
 them of the necessity of Episcopacy." 
 
 But this was what may be called Burgon's private 
 method of interpretation the process which he applied 
 to points on which his own mind was clear, but on 
 which the Church has not spoken. In graver matters, 
 his method was more cautious. In every question which 
 involved doctrine, his first care, after ascertaining the 
 precise language of the Sacred Text, and comparing 
 it with every corresponding passage, was to collect with 
 laborious industry the comments of every Father, both 
 of East and West, who had handled the passage; to com- 
 pare, and if possible harmonize, their interpretations ;
 
 128 
 
 or, where that was impossible, to count up the authorities 
 on each side, and then dutifully to accept the decision 
 of the greater number. It was remarked, perhaps not 
 unjustly, by a flippant critic, that this exegetical method 
 seemed to be founded on Mr. Pickwick's precept 
 " Where there are two mobs, shout with the largest." 
 
 Of course, in questions of vital doctrine, the absolute 
 unanimity of patristic teaching made this balancing 
 process unnecessary, and even in questions of less than 
 vital importance the agreement is often so general as 
 to be practically conclusive. Where such agreement 
 exists, Burgon considered it the end of controversy. 
 
 No divine [he said in his farewell sermon at Oxford] 
 who deserves the name, however well furnished he may 
 be, will ever think of interpreting in defiance of the ascer- 
 tained mind of antiquity. I am saying that where the 
 ancients have spoken unequivocally, he finds it impossible 
 to set up his own imaginations in opposition to their emphatic 
 teaching. 
 
 Thus Burgon's method was, in the first place, to 
 ascertain exactly what the Sacred Text says, and, that 
 done, to accept such statement as the literal record 
 of actual fact. Secondly, in all places where doctrinal 
 meaning is involved, to appeal to Catholic consent ; and 
 then, when those fundamental duties were discharged, 
 to indulge to the full his love of type and symbol. 
 The objects of his search were, first the literal, then 
 the dogmatic, and then the mystical sense of every 
 passage. In mystical interpretations he frankly revelled. 
 With a minute knowledge of the Sacred Text and an 
 unfailing recollection of parallel passages, a strong 
 sense of the picturesque and the poetic, and an inex- 
 haustible knowledge of the best patristic and mediae val 
 comments, he was able to trace types, allusions, paral- 
 lelisms, and forecasts which would escape the notice
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 129 
 
 of nine readers out of ten, and to draw the most 
 graceful and interesting, if fanciful, lessons from names 
 and numbers and figures and forms and colours, and 
 from every minutest detail of the material and verbal 
 medium through which the Divine Author of the Bible 
 has been pleased to work. 
 
 Thus the foundation of Burgon's theology was what 
 every sound divine's should be the Bible as accepted 
 and interpreted by the Universal Church. No one was 
 a keener champion of the supreme claims of the Written 
 Word ; but, at the same time, no one more vigorously 
 opposed the notion that every man is at liberty to make 
 his own theology. For working purposes he referred 
 enquirers to the Book of Common Prayer, which not 
 only in its dogmatic statements, but in its general 
 tone and spirit, most compendiously represented the 
 mind of primitive Christendom. Burgon was an English 
 Churchman to the backbone ; he gave the devotion of 
 his heart and the service of a lifetime to the Church 
 of England " as it stands distinguished from all Papal 
 and Puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the 
 doctrine of the Cross." His horror of Romanism, as 
 the corruptio optimi, was almost fanatical ; and his 
 feeling towards Dissent, as a rebellion against Autho- 
 rity, was angry and contemptuous. Even within the 
 precincts of the Church of England his sympathies 
 were by no means all-embracing. The Evangelical 
 school offended him by its indifference to Sacramental 
 doctrine, and by its external slovenliness. He dreaded 
 the Romanizing tendencies which he thought he per- 
 ceived in Ritualism, and he severely denounced resist- 
 ance to Episcopal control. His own doctrinal position 
 was the via media of a day gone by. He clung 
 tenaciously to the doctrines of Apostolic Succession and 
 Baptismal Regeneration ; held Bishop Bull's theory of 
 
 9
 
 130 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Justification and Sanctification ; taught a doctrine of 
 the Real Presence which guarded itself very carefully 
 against material imaginings ; and insisted strongly on 
 the " medicinal " or " occasional " view of ministerial 
 absolution. In externals, he had a vehement distaste 
 for what he termed " solemn foppery," but he loved 
 a restored church and a surpliced choir, a vase of 
 flowers on the Holy Table and a chalice studded with 
 jewels. Nothing was too rich or too beautiful for God's 
 house ; and, in the service of the sanctuary, he aimed at 
 perfection in all the parts, and the utmost reverence of 
 spirit and demeanour. 
 
 This, indeed, was the inevitable product of his inmost 
 heart and mind. A more genuinely pious man, a more 
 devout and humble-minded Christian, we have not 
 known. It is true that after all he was "frankly 
 human," and that certain foibles of character were never 
 wholly vanquished in him. But they were as the dust 
 of the balance when weighed against his deep and awful 
 sense of the majesty and goodness of God ; his fervent 
 devotion to and reliance on the Person and Work of 
 our Divine Lord ; his consuming zeal for the Bible, the 
 Church, and the ordinances of the Gospel ; and the 
 life-long devotion with which, in various fields of effort, 
 he " laboured to promote the glory of God and the 
 present and future welfare of mankind, remembering 
 always that solemn account which we must one day 
 give before the judgment-seat of Christ." 
 
 There are [wrote his friend and biographer, Dean Goulburn] 
 still the " seven thousand in Israel," " the remnant according 
 to the election of Grace," who value the inspired volume of 
 Holy Scripture above all earthly treasure, and whose simple 
 childlike faith in its testimonies is proof against all the 
 suggestions of its fallibility thrown out by the (so-called) 
 Higher Criticism. In the hearts of all such persons the 
 memory of John William Burgon will be embalmed for ever.
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGON 131 
 
 The supreme object of his life was, as we have seen, 
 the establishment and defence, against assaults from 
 whatever quarter proceeding, of the Inspired and 
 Written Word of God. His consuming labours in that 
 great cause were not permitted, as far as the author's 
 consciousness and the rewards of earth are concerned, 
 to be crowned with success. But the life-long toil 
 and zeal bestowed on it have assuredly not been 
 thrown away, and we may confidently believe that 
 as, in life, " his work was before him," so now " his 
 reward is with him."
 
 ARCHBISHOP MAQEE 1 
 
 fTlHE " mealy mouth " of British biography, at which 
 _L Carlyle justly scoffed, is now a thing of the remote 
 past. The sage's own life was exhibited by Froude 
 in a fashion which had nothing " mealy-mouthed " 
 about it. Bishop Wilberforce was drawn by his son's 
 hand with a fidelity unapproached till that time. 
 Mr. Reginald Wilberforce's performance again has been 
 surpassed by the monumental candour of the artless 
 Mr. Purcell. To this " later manner," as the critics 
 would call it, of biography-writing, Canon Macdonnell 
 has made an excellent contribution. His object has 
 been simply to present his friend, Archbishop Magee, 
 as he was in life to let us see at once his powers and 
 his weaknesses, his genius and his limitations. Like 
 Mr. Sampson Brass drawing up the description of Mr. 
 Quilp, when that worthy was supposed to be drowned, 
 Canon Macdonnell might say of his handiwork : " This 
 is an occupation which seems to bring him before 
 my eyes like the ghost of Hamlet's father, in the 
 very clothes that he wore on work-days. His wit and 
 humour, his pathos and his umbrella, all come before 
 me like visions of my youth." For the Canon and 
 the Archbishop were life-long friends. They corre- 
 sponded regularly with one another for fifty years, 
 and the Archbishop's share of this correspondence, 
 reinforced by his letters to other friends, practically 
 
 1 The Guardian, 1896. 
 132
 
 ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 133 
 
 makes the book. 1 Indeed, the biographer has carried self- 
 repression to an inconvenient length, for he leaves the 
 letters to tell their own tale, and has been sparing of ex- 
 planatory footnotes, almost to the point of niggardliness. 
 William Connor Magee was born of clerical parentage 
 and archiepiscopal descent on December 17, 1821. On 
 his mother's side he had Scotch blood in his veins. 
 His birthplace was Cork, and he was educated at 
 Kilkenny College and Trinity College, Dublin. As a 
 boy he hated games, and read omnivoroasly, and when 
 barely thirteen he showed a most precocious talent 
 for rhetorical declamation. At college he was much what 
 he had been at school. He read largely, but desultorily. 
 He disliked mathematics, enjoyed classics, and excelled 
 in divinity. He took the leading part in the restoration 
 of the famous Historical Society, which had been dis- 
 solved by authority as a seminary of revolution, but 
 was revived in the more peaceful semblance of the 
 Oxford and Cambridge Unions. His amusements were 
 chess, whist, and fishing, and the last-named con- 
 tinued to be his favourite refreshment to the end of 
 his life. Of that life the leading dates are as follows : 
 In 1844 Magee was ordained Deacon, under letters 
 dimissory, at Chester, and became Curate of St. Thomas's, 
 Dublin, being ordained Priest the following year. Some 
 signs of incipient lung-trouble made it desirable for him 
 to seek a better climate, and in 1849 he took a curacy 
 at St. Saviour's, Bath. In 1851 he became minister 
 of the Octagon Chapel in that city, and in the same 
 year he married his cousin, Anne Smith. In 1860 he 
 was appointed minister of Quebec Chapel, London, but 
 left it in 1861 to become Rector of Enniskillen. In 
 1864 he was made Dean of Cork, and in 1866 Dean 
 
 1 "The Life and Correspondence of William Connor Magee, 
 Archbishop of York." By John Cotter Macdonnell, D.D.
 
 134 
 
 of the Chapel Royal, Dublin. In 1868 he was .un- 
 expectedly raised to the See of Peterborough, vacant 
 by the death of Dr. Jeune. In January, 1891, he 
 succeeded Dr. Thomson in the archiepiscopal See of 
 York, and on the 5th of the ensuing May he died. 
 
 Such are the outward facts of Archbishop Magee's 
 life. A perfectly frank disclosure of its inward part- 
 its basis, its motives, its principles, its aims, its theories 
 is given in these two volumes of confidential letters ; 
 and the impression which that disclosure produces upon 
 the reader is exactly the same as the impression pro- 
 duced by personal contact with the Archbishop in 
 life. Probably every Churchman who ever met him 
 in society, or heard him on the platform, or even " sate 
 under him " in the pulpit, must have felt that he was 
 the most unecclesiastical of ecclesiastics. There have, 
 alas ! been many prelates whose hold on the funda- 
 mental truths of the Church's faith has been infinitely 
 weaker ; but men of that stamp have generally tried 
 and often successfully to veil their essential scepticism 
 under the solemn plausibilities of an official language 
 and demeanour. Sanctimonious humbug of that sort 
 would have stunk in the nostrils of Archbishop Magee. 
 What he was, and what he thought, and what he felt, 
 that he was willing that all the world should know ; 
 and, confident in the strength of his own convictions, 
 he paid scant regard to the flaccid nerves or feeble 
 brain-processes of those mild pietists, male and female, 
 whose ideal of a bishop is a kind of mincing demigod. 
 
 I am conscious [he wrote] of my defects for my high office 
 lack of dignity, impulsive speech, too great fondness for sharp 
 and sarcastic utterances, impatience of dulness and folly. 
 
 Magee spoke, thought, and acted like a thorough- 
 going man of the world, who was also a thorough- 
 going Christian with keen humour, strong opinions,
 
 ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 135 
 
 remorseless logic, and a legal bent of mind. It 
 would be absurd, according to worldly standards, to 
 say that a man who reached the highest place but 
 one in his profession had mistaken his vocation ; but 
 one cannot help feeling that Magee would have been 
 even more at home in the House of Commons or on 
 the Woolsack than in Convocation or on an episcopal 
 throne. The secular turn of his mind is evinced by 
 his outspoken desire for promotion, his keen sense 
 of the value of money, his faith in law and legal 
 processes and in the religious value of Establishment. 
 From Bath he wrote in 1858 : 
 
 I am, I fear, a fixture here for life, fishing always in my 
 little glass bowl of an Octagon for such gold and silver fish as 
 can be coaxed into it. I see no way out of Bath, much as I 
 long and seek for it. 
 
 When the offer of Quebec Chapel comes, it is to 
 be considered " as a clear and marked promotion, and 
 likely to lead to more." In 1863 :- 
 
 My chances of promotion of any degree, never very great, 
 diminish yearly. ... I am fixed in Enniskillen for my 
 natural life. 
 
 When Dean of Cork, he writes, with reference to 
 a rumour that he would be raised to the Irish 
 Episcopate : 
 
 As to what you say of promotion, I am trying to put all 
 thoughts of it out of my head, and to settle contentedly down 
 to 500 a year and six children. 
 
 In 1866, just after he had been appointed Dean of 
 -the Chapel Royal, the Government were beaten on an 
 amendment to the Reform Bill, and resigned. There 
 was reason to believe that the See of Meath would soon 
 be vacant, and that it would be conferred upon Magee. 
 He writes on June 20 : 
 
 Celeres quatit pennas. My little fortune has shaken her
 
 136 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 wings, and flown away with the Ministry and the 7-pounders. 
 ... So here I am stranded fairly ; iny little cock-boat has 
 gone down with bigger ships. I only wish my 7 9s. of 
 office fees had not gone down in her ! 
 
 On August 1, 1866, he writes : 
 
 The Bishopric of Meath would, I believe, have been mine, 
 had Dr. Singer's death taken place just three weeks sooner 
 than it did. Three weeks of an expiring, and seemingly 
 useless, life lay between me and all that the bishopric implies. 
 The goal of a life of severe toil and effort was in view ; and 
 now it is indefinitely remote, if not absolutely and certainly 
 beyond my reach. 
 
 In 1867 he wrote :- 
 
 The Tories will not promote me ; the Whigs will leave no 
 Church to be promoted in. So there is an end of it. 
 
 But in 1868 he wrote to Disraeli, asking for 
 some minor appointment in England ; and in reply 
 obtained the information that his request could not 
 be granted, because he was already nominated to the 
 See of Peterborough. 
 
 In 1879, he wrote about Dr. Lightfoot's appointment 
 to the See of Durham : 
 
 Happily for me, I am not of a sanguine temperament, 
 and never, from the first, had serious expectations of the 
 appointment. 
 
 In 1891, when he received the offer of York, he 
 approached the consideration of it : 
 
 Setting aside, as far as I could, all thoughts of increased 
 dignity and income. 
 
 So much for Magee's desire for promotion and appre- 
 ciation of money, both frankly human and not the 
 least blameworthy. Closely allied with this business- 
 like temper was his zeal for Establishment, which he 
 regarded, not only as a blessing to the State, but as a
 
 ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 137 
 
 guarantee of order, sanity, orthodoxy, and comprehensive 
 tolerance, in the national religion. Irish Disestablish- 
 ment was the haunting dread of his earlier manhood ; 
 we shall see in due time his attemps to stave it off, 
 and to defeat it when the struggle came to close 
 quarters. But, when once the fate of the Irish Church 
 was settled, English Disestablishment became his favour- 
 ite bugbear. By a rough-and-ready process of reasoning 
 he lumped it together with socialism, democracy, and 
 revolution generally, and he rather grotesquely assumed 
 that Mr. Gladstone was to be the leader and champion 
 of these allied abominations. 
 
 In 1866, during the debates on Lord Russell's Reform 
 Bill, he writes : 
 
 Gladstone's speech was the inauguration of an ultra-demo- 
 cratic career, taken up as much from pique and passion as 
 conviction. He and Russell and Bright are an ominous 
 conjunction. 
 
 In 1874 : 
 
 Gladstone, turned Radical and backed by all the unbelief 
 and all the High Church Ritualistic Radicalism in the country, 
 is a very awkward element in the future. 
 
 In 1879 : 
 
 The British Constitution is very dear at the money. Free 
 institutions are becoming unworkable. The revolutionary 
 party in the House received its leader last night in the person 
 of W. E. Gladstone. . . . What bearing this will have on 
 coming domestic legislation it is not difficult to foresee. Dis- 
 establishment comes nearer by a great deal in consequence of 
 it, and, moreover, Disestablishment by Gladstone the Radical, 
 and not Gladstone the Liberal. Marry ! this is miching 
 mallecho, and means mischief. 
 
 After the General Election of 1880 : 
 
 The Liberal party will then be Radical, pure and simple, 
 and headed by Gladstone. Then comes the last struggle
 
 138 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 between Church and Democracy, and there is no doubt which 
 will win. 
 
 In the same year : 
 
 This Disturbance Bill will go very near to evicting the 
 Ministry, or would do so were it not that Gladstone has still 
 his trump-card to play a new Reform Bill and a dictatorship 
 afterwards for the term of his natural life. 
 
 After the General Election of 1885 : 
 
 This means Irish revolution first, and then an embittered 
 struggle between the revolutionary and Conservative forces 
 in England and Scotland, the revolution winning and being 
 merciless after the bitterness of the fight. I give the Church 
 of England two Parliaments to live through, this one now 
 coming, in which she will be merely worried and humiliated ; 
 the next, in which she will be assailed and disestablished in the 
 Commons ; the third, in which the Peers will give way and 
 the thing is done. . . . Say ten years for all this. Now, 
 please put this letter by, and let us read it, if spared, ten years 
 hence, on the Lake of Como, whither we shall have gone to 
 spend our few remaining disestablished years. 
 
 After this singular collection of gloomy views and 
 unfulfilled prophecies, it is pleasant to read in 1890 : 
 
 I had an immensely interesting two days at Judge Bowen's 
 with G. O. M. ; but how could I tell you the hundredth part of 
 the conversation of a man who talked incessantly from 9 o'clock 
 a.m. to 11 o'clock p.m. on every conceivable subject. Assuredly 
 I spent those two days in the company of the most amazing 
 old man in Europe. 
 
 We said above that Irish Disestablishment was the 
 haunting dread of Magee's early manhood. He foresaw 
 a day of reckoning for the intolerable mischief of Orange 
 bigotry, of uneducated Evangelicalism, of blind and 
 unreasoning hostility to everything that did not utter 
 the current shibboleths of Puritanism. He saw that 
 the utter negation and abandonment of all distinctively 
 Church ideas was destroying the Church's reason for
 
 ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 139 
 
 existence and preparing men's minds for the fatal 
 question, " Why cmnbereth it the ground ? " Staunch 
 Establishmentarian as he was, he was no Erastian. 
 He believed, like Archbishop Whately, in the separate 
 existence, rights, and duties of the Church as a spiritual 
 society, and he laboured to restore such synodal action 
 as would enable the Church to examine her own affairs, 
 speak her own mind, and set her own house in order. 
 But before these prudent counsels could obtain a hearing, 
 the General Election of 1868 took place, and the Irish 
 Establishment was doomed for ever. The last desperate 
 device of the Establishmentarians had been to hold 
 the English Church Congress at Dublin in the October 
 preceding the election, and Magee's opening sermon 
 on the apt text, " They beckoned unto their partners 
 which were in the other ship that they should come 
 and help them," won him the Bishopric of Peterborough. 
 And now begins a most interesting passage in his life. 
 The Biography of Bishop Wilberforce produced the 
 impression of a sudden and unaccountable change in 
 the attitude of Bishop Magee towards the Disestablish- 
 ment of the Irish Church. It appeared that, whereas, 
 when he learned the result of Mr. Gladstone's appeal 
 to the constituencies, he gave up the Establishment as 
 a lost cause, and counselled the hopelessness of further 
 resistance, he had himself headed and championed that 
 resistance by the most impassioned speech which was 
 delivered against the Second Reading of the Bill. The 
 Bishop's letters of this period should be carefully studied 
 in conjunction with the contemporary Journals of Bishop 
 Wilberforce and the Biography of Archbishop Tait ; 
 and it will then be seen that Magee fully recognized 
 the conclusive character of the national verdict ; that 
 he hoped nothing from prolonged resistance ; that he 
 urged his Irish friends to agree with their adversary
 
 140 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 quickly, and make terms with Mr. Gladstone before 
 it was too late. At the same time he hated the Bill 
 with all his heart ; and, when his Irish brethren declined 
 all compromise and arrayed themselves for battle, he 
 threw himself with all his energies on to their side, and 
 fought his hardest for a cause which yet, in his reason, 
 he believed to be hopeless. 
 
 The immense success of Magee's speech on the Second 
 Reading and bis own natural aptitude for affairs marked 
 him out at once as a Bishop who would have to take 
 a prominent part in the Parliamentary business of the 
 Church. He said of himself that he was better suited 
 for the haute politigue of the Church than for some other 
 Episcopal duties. He was a consummate orator, a born 
 debater, a master of organization and machinery ; and, 
 though he disliked the House of Lords, and felt that 
 the Bishops were in a false position there, he was not 
 afraid of his audience. Thus he became, what for good 
 or for evil is increasingly rare, a Parliamentary Bishop, 
 and as such he was brought into very close relations 
 with Archbishop Tait, who seems to have desired to 
 use him as a fighting lieutenant. But nothing in these 
 volumes is more remarkable than the want of sympathy 
 between the two men, or the Bishop of Peterborough's 
 shrewd insight into the faults and limitations of his 
 chief. The Life of Archbishop Tait gave what may 
 be called the Domestic Chaplain's view of its hero. As 
 such it was natural and becoming, and, from its own 
 standpoint, true. But let us see how the matter presented 
 itself to a very clever man, trained in the rough-and- 
 tumble of the world, and promoted by the sheer force 
 of his own genius to the front rank : 
 
 The Archbishop's Scotch caution amounts to a disease, 
 with odd outbreaks, at intervals, of impulsiveness. And 
 he is, besides, so utter an Erastian that any move of his for
 
 ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 141 
 
 increased power for the Bench will be of a kind generally 
 distasteful even to moderate Churchmen. 
 
 In 1874, with reference to the Public Worship 
 Regulation Act : 
 
 The Archbishop has turned the Ganges into our garden, 
 and I fear it will sweep away other things than the Ritualistic 
 weeds. . . . Evidently we are entering on a great crisis, and 
 alas ! we do not trust our pilots either of Cantuar or York. 
 
 The Bishops are sore at the way the Archbishop has over- 
 ridden them in the conduct of the Bill. . . . We sorely need a 
 strong and yet a gentle hand at the helm of the Church, and 
 the Archbishop has neither of these now. 
 
 In 1876 : 
 
 The Archbishop so entirely believes in Parliaments, and so 
 entirely ignores the clergy, that he is becoming, with all his 
 noble qualities and great practical sagacity, a great peril to 
 the Church. He regards the clergy as a big Sixth Form, and 
 acts accordingly. 
 
 We are drifting, and getting nearer and nearer to our 
 Niagara ; Cantuar at the helm, quite satisfied that a good 
 strong Erastian wind from St. Stephen's is carrying us steadily 
 and safely along. 
 
 It is certainly a misfortune at this moment to have two 
 Primates nearly alike in Church views, and singularly alike in 
 their want of imagination, and therefore of power of sympathy 
 with others, or anticipation of events. 
 
 In 1877 : 
 
 He [Tait] will never be a leader; and his office is not 
 powerful enough to make him a ruler who is not something 
 of a leader too. 
 
 In 1879 : 
 
 The laity are astride of them [the Bishops] and the clergy, 
 and they will hold their place. Cantuar likes this ! He said 
 so to me lately. He is infatuated for laity and Parliament, 
 and will one day have a rude awakening. 
 
 In 1880 : 
 
 When will the Archbishop of Canterbury give up driving,
 
 142 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 and take to leading, the Church ? More and more I am con- 
 vinced that the Episcopate under his government is letting the 
 Church drift on the breakers, when a strong hand on the helm 
 might have saved her. 
 
 On the Amendments to the Burial Bill : 
 
 On these points Cantuar may be trusted. It is just in 
 such lesser points, involving caution and canniness, that he 
 shines. 
 
 In 1881 : 
 
 A. Cantuar managed his little speech for the Queen Anne's 
 Bounty Bill admirably. He muddled it up so judiciously that 
 no one knew exactly what it meant. 
 
 On the Archbishop's death : 
 
 He never could endure opposition well, but on the other 
 hand he never bore malice. He was a good man, and in some 
 respects a great one. 
 
 Of course the political affairs with which Archbishop 
 Magee mainly concerned himself were those which affect 
 the Church. In the general field of secular politics he 
 seems to have been a moderate Conservative of the 
 Utilitarian type, abhorring democracy, and regarding 
 his own countrymen with that singular mixture of in- 
 tellectual admiration and practical mistrust which is 
 the characteristic of the educated Irishman. In his 
 whole moral and mental constitution he belonged to his 
 early time, and was completely out of touch with the 
 sentimental ethics and poetical economics which play 
 so large a part in the thought of to-day. And as in 
 the social and political fields, so in that of theology. 
 Magee belonged essentially to what Mr. R. H. Hutton 
 so well described as " the Hard Church." He seems 
 never to have been troubled by a single doubt. He 
 saw the fundamental facts of the Christian revelation 
 with intense clearness, and regarded all who had a
 
 ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 143 
 
 wider vision as visionaries, and all who saw less as 
 wilfully blind. We do not learn how he established 
 his premisses ; but, those granted, his deductions from 
 them were of irrefragable force. " Logic," he said, " is 
 as real a fact as steam " ; and he would have seen 
 nothing but nonsense in the wisdom of St. Ambrose 
 Non in dialecticd complacuit Deo salvumfacere populum 
 Suum. 
 
 We are quite unable to understand why Magee was 
 ever reckoned as Evangelical, and he himself shared 
 the inability. In 1867 he wrote : 
 
 I fear to the end of my days I shall be reckoned amongst 
 the Evangelicals ; why, I cannot imagine. 
 
 Probably the good people who originally brought him 
 to Bath thought that any Irish clergyman was neces- 
 sarily of that school, and so took him on trust ; but 
 we think that the Simeon Trustees displayed the truer 
 theological instinct when they declined to present him 
 to one of their livings. He was strongly opposed to 
 Romanism and Puseyism, and in his earlier days, at 
 any rate, held no High Church doctrine. But, eloquent 
 and forcible and convincing as he was in the pulpit 
 (and he avowed that he was much more a preacher than a 
 pastor), he had absolutely none of that " unction " which 
 is the true note of Evangelical preaching ; nor, as far 
 as one can see, of that passionate zeal for the salvation 
 of the individual soul which is the Alpha and Omega 
 of all Evangelical ministrations. He was stoutly opposed 
 to Calvinism. He was not the least afraid of Biblical 
 criticism (the first preferment in his gift was bestowed 
 on Dr. Westcott). He confessed himself quite unable 
 to " howl the Gospel." He had nothing but sneers for 
 the " sweet young clergyman of the Simeonite type." 
 The preaching of an aged Low Churchman reminded him
 
 144 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 of a cracked spinnet. Truly this is not the language 
 of Evangelicalism. Of his famous sermon before the 
 Church Congress at Dublin, the Evangelical Bishop 
 of Cork declared that "it had not Gospel enough in 
 it to save a torn-tit," and the preacher thought the 
 criticism " delicious." 
 
 On the other hand, Magee had an unbounded contempt 
 for Ritualism in all its forms and phases, though after 
 the Ridsdale Judgment he conformed, as a matter of 
 obedience, to the use of the cope in his cathedral. His 
 notion of liturgical reform seems to have been such a 
 reconstruction of the rubrics as should make ceremonial 
 impossible ; but he was shrewd enough to see that 
 any attempt to meddle with doctrine must rend the 
 Church in twain. His own views of such matters as 
 Orders and Sacraments are nowhere clearly set forth, 
 but he wrote in 1867 : 
 
 I have just refused going to a meeting of " Evangelical " 
 clergy at Southport, to give an address on the Church of 
 England doctrine of the Sacraments. Oh my ! if I had 
 gone and said my say, in how many little pieces should I have 
 been sent home to my sorrowing wife and bereaved orphans ! 
 
 His general tone would appear to have been what 
 is characterized as " Broad-Low." All the more 
 remarkable is his letter in 1883 on Prayer for the 
 Departed : 
 
 What an unspeakable comfort and refreshment to mourners 
 on earth was lost to us when we were entirely deprived of it. 
 It is so natural, so entirely innocent, it does bring those who 
 are gone so near again, it does so realize for us the oneness of 
 the great Kingdom of Christ in all time and place, that I for 
 one have always lamented its loss, and had one grudge the 
 more at the Church of Rome for so spotting that part of the 
 robe of worship with the flesh that we had to tear it all away. 
 
 We have intentionally forborne to enlarge on the
 
 ARCHBISHOP MAGEE 145 
 
 Archbishop's wit, humour, and sarcasm. They flash and 
 sparkle in his letters as freely and as naturally as they 
 did in his conversation ; and it is to be remarked that 
 his jokes, like those of Sydney Smith, were never mere 
 appendages, but always form part of the texture of 
 the argument, and help to establish the point for which 
 he is contending. It would, therefore, rob them of 
 half their merit to tear them from their context, where 
 they can be read and enjoyed by every admirer of this 
 brave, brilliant, and high-minded man. 
 
 10
 
 CARDINAL MANNING 1 
 
 r. PURCELL has given us, in his Life 2 of 
 Cardinal Manning, a peculiarly fascinating, be- 
 cause a perfectly candid, biography. He is entitled 
 to the gratitude of everyone who is interested either 
 in the Cardinal's remarkable personality, or in the 
 practical working of the system by which the Church 
 of Rome operates at home and abroad. I do not 
 propose to enter into the dispute between Mr. Purcell 
 and those who have assailed him in the Nineteenth 
 Century and elsewhere, beyond saying that, so far as 
 I have the means of judging, the biographer has 
 effectually justified himself against his critics. 
 
 In Chapters I. to XI. of his First Volume, Mr. Purcell 
 narrates Manning's parentage, early surroundings, and 
 education ; the development of his character ; his 
 tastes, inclinations, and his secular ambitions ; the 
 dislocation of all his plans by his father's failure in 
 business ; the religious influence brought to bear upon 
 him by his Evangelical friends ; the gradual substitution 
 of spiritual for worldly aspirations ; his entrance into 
 Holy Orders ; the happiness of his short married life ; his 
 growing absorption in the duties of the sacred ministry ; 
 his aloofness from the Oxford Movement ; his independent 
 line of ecclesiastical action; the gradual concentration 
 of all his heart and mind on the Unity of the Church. 
 
 1 The Commonwealth, 1896. 
 
 1 " Life of Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster." 
 By Edmund Sheridan Purcell. 
 
 146
 
 CARDINAL MANNING 147 
 
 The beauty and desirability of Unity and its neces- 
 sity to an ideal condition had long occupied a leading 
 place in Manning's thoughts. He dealt with it in his 
 first published sermon on " The English Church : its 
 Succession and Witness for Christ," preached at a 
 Visitation, in Chichester Cathedral, in 1835. Again 
 and again he returned to it in his Archidiaconal Charges. 
 In 1842 he elaborated his views about it in a formal 
 treatise, " affectionately inscribed " to his friend Mr. 
 Gladstone. The main part of the book is occupied 
 with the theory of Unity as set forth in Holy Scripture 
 and the Fathers, and a strong enforcement of its moral 
 and theological importance. It is only in the last 
 twenty pages that the author grapples with the practical 
 difficulties of the subject,, and compares the ideal of 
 Unity with the actual condition of Christendom. In 
 these pages he substantially reproduces the argument 
 of Bramhall, and justifies, while he minimizes, the 
 Anglican claim to independence of Roman control. 
 This part of the book is sketchy and superficial ; and 
 critics have wondered how so keen an intellect as 
 Manning's could have been satisfied with such inadequate 
 handling of an urgent problem. Nearly fifty years after 
 the publication of the book, its venerable author placed 
 it in my hands, and told me the circumstances under 
 which it was written. In 1838 Mr. Gladstone brought 
 out his famous book on The State in its Relations with 
 the Church, and Manning, while fully appreciating his 
 friend's desire to serve the Church of England, thought 
 that he based his advocacy on mistaken grounds, and 
 attributed too much value to her alliance with the 
 State. To supply a more spiritual view of the Church 
 of England as part of the Universal Church, and to 
 assert her claims on higher ground than that of legal 
 establishment, were the objects which Manning proposed
 
 148 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 to himself. His theory of Church and State, and of 
 the relations of Anglicanism to " the Holy Church 
 Universal," was perfectly clear in his own mind ; and 
 all went on swimmingly till he approached the con- 
 sideration of things as they actually were, and tried to 
 square his theory with the facts. " Then," he said, " it 
 all broke down, and I could not get through the last 
 chapter." It was a significant failure ; but its full 
 significance was not yet clear even to Manning himself. 
 He thought that the difficulty of reconciling the Anglican 
 position with the doctrine of One Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church was a misfortune which we owed to our unhappy 
 divisions. It marred the logical symmetry and com- 
 pleteness of the Anglican position, but it suggested as 
 yet no disloyal or distrustful thoughts. Duties were 
 ours ; events were God's. Difficulties would vanish in 
 His own good time ; and in the meantime we must 
 put up with the intellectual annoyance of a theoretical 
 inconsistency. 
 
 These main outlines of Manning's Anglican life were 
 sufficiently well known. Mr. Purcell has filled-in the 
 picture with a vast number of interesting and novel 
 touches. Few people probably knew that Manning's 
 devotion to Caroline Sargent was not his earliest love- 
 affair ; few realized the keen struggle that went on in 
 him between conscience and the cravings of ecclesiastical 
 ambition ; few his growing mistrust of, and alienation 
 from, his wife's brother-in-law, Samuel Wilberforce. 
 Nobody, as far as I know, was prepared for what we 
 find in his secret correspondence with Robert Wilberforce, 
 namely, that, from the time of Newman's secession, 
 Manning, whose public utterances led men to regard 
 him as the mainstay and champion of the Anglican 
 position, was grievously afflicted with misgivings 
 about the character and claims of the Church of
 
 CARDINAL MANNING 149 
 
 England. Reviewing this correspondence, Mr. Pnrcell 
 says : 
 
 The letters to Robert Wilberforce give a clear and connected 
 history of the changes in Manning's religious opinions, the 
 gradual growth and remorseless strengthening of his doubts 
 as to the character and position of the English Church ; the 
 dra wing of heart and intellect towards the Church of Rome ; 
 and the development of a belief, fatal to Anglicanism, in the 
 unity and infallibility of the Church. It was not the Gorham 
 Case which shattered Manning's faith in the Church of 
 England, for before the Gorham judgment was pronounced or 
 formulated he had utterly lost all belief in Anglicanism as 
 forming a part of the Church of Christ. 
 
 The discovery of this fact is by far the most important 
 result of Mr. Purcell's researches into the hidden records 
 of Manning's Anglican days. 
 
 But it is with the Second Volume that the intense 
 interest of the narrative begins. Manning was received 
 into the Church of Rome on Passion Sunday, April 6, 
 1851, and was ordained Priest on the ensuing Trinity 
 Sunday. He then entered as a student of the Academia 
 Ecclesiastica at Rome ; and the first chapter of the 
 Second Volume is devoted to the musings and self- 
 commnnings of the neophyte beginning life again at 
 forty-three, amid new and strange surroundings. 
 
 On March 28, 1852, he writes in his private journal : 
 
 I am now more detached, isolated, cut round about, without 
 future, or thought of home, or desire in life, than ever. God 
 alone and the great Forty Days are all I desire, till faith 
 is swallowed up in sight. The one visible, infallible, imperish- 
 able kingdom in which, in 1833, I believed in confuso, I have 
 found am in it, and am its servant. Wonderful grace 
 carrying me through all. If after this I perish, I perish 
 indeed. God be merciful to me a sinner. 
 
 This is the genuine utterance of Manning's spiritual 
 part ; but man is composite, and accordingly, as time 
 goes on, we find the old Adam in Manning's nature
 
 150 
 
 reasserting itself. In 1854 he writes in his journal, 
 " I am conscious of a desire to be in such a position 
 as 1 had in time past " ; and, even without this frank 
 admission it would be easy enough to perceive, as 
 we pursue the narrative of his Roman life, that the 
 characteristics which had marked him ever since his 
 school-days at Harrow the love of prominence, the 
 taste for rulership, the determination to be aut Ccssar 
 aut nullus were still strong and active within him 
 under the changed conditions of his new career. But 
 the difference is this. Inclinations which, in his 
 Anglican days, he had regarded as snares to be 
 shunned were now providential leadings to be duti- 
 fully followed. He felt an inborn capacity for rule 
 and administration, and a natural love of doing that 
 which he did supremely well. But in Anglican days he 
 was haunted by the fear that ecclesiastical office and 
 pre-eminence among his fellows would, by their very 
 suitableness to his aptitudes and tastes, insensibly deafen 
 him to that voice of conscience which even then seemed 
 to be whispering, " Come out of Her, that ye receive 
 not of Her plagues." 
 
 It used to be currently believed, and Bishop Wilber- 
 force's diary sanctioned the view, that Manning left the 
 Church of England because he saw no chance of being 
 a bishop here that an Anglican mitre would have kept 
 him in the Church of England, and that the remote 
 prospect of a Roman one lured him across the border. 
 It is satisfactory to see, in the history of his refusal 
 of the Sub-Almonership offered him by Archbishop 
 Harcourt, and the reasons which dictated it, the working 
 of an exactly opposite spirit. Among his reasons for 
 refusing, he mentions : 
 
 That anything which complicated my thoughts and position 
 may affect the indifference with which I wish to revolve my
 
 CARDINAL MANNING 151 
 
 mind cm the great issue. Visions of a future certainly would. 
 ... I am afraid of venturing out of the Church into the 
 Court. It is a /Aera/foo-is cts dXXoycvets, the first point in 
 the line, and therefore involves the whole principle. ... I 
 would fain simply deny myself as an offering to Him Who 
 pleased not Himself, and perhaps, in a distinction and an 
 honour having worldly estimation, such a denial is better for 
 me, than in money and the like. 
 
 And again, after the decision is made, he writes : 
 
 The associations of the world came about me, and made 
 me feel that I had played the fool and lost a great opportunity. 
 I cannot deny that in the region of the world, even of the 
 fair, not irreligious, view of self-advancement, ... I have 
 made a mistake. But in the region of counsels, self -chastise- 
 ment, humiliation, self-discipline, penance, and of the Cross, I 
 think I have done right. 
 
 Yet great humility alone can keep me from being robbed 
 of all this. 
 
 To learn to say No, to disappoint myself, to choose the 
 harder side, to deny my inclination, to prefer to be less 
 thought of, and to have fewer gifts of the world ; this is 
 no mistake, and is most like the Cross, only with humility 
 God grant it to me. 
 
 But when once Manning had crossed the Rubicon, all 
 this was changed. Henceforward there was no fear, no 
 misgiving, no self-distrust. If a call to higher place 
 or greater power came, it came from God, and must be 
 obeyed without question or delay. At each successive 
 step in his ecclesiastical advancement, this feeling is 
 uppermost ; and, indeed, as years went on, it seems to 
 have been accompanied by something very like a desire 
 that a still more important call should come. 
 
 Manning had what has been called " the ambition of 
 distinctiveness." He felt that he had a special mission, 
 which no other man could so adequately fulfil, and that 
 was to establish and popularize in England his own 
 robust faith in the cause of the Papacy as identical with 
 the cause of God. There never lived a stronger Papalist.
 
 152 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 He was more ultramontane than the Ultramontanes. 
 Everything Roman was to him Divine. Italian archi- 
 tecture, Italian vestments, the Italian mode of pro- 
 nouncing ecclesiastical Latin, were precious in his heart, 
 because they visibly and audibly implied the all- 
 pervading presence and power of Rome. Rightly or 
 wrongly, he conceived that English Romanism was 
 practically Gallicariism ; that it minimized the Papal 
 supremacy, was disloyal to the Temporal power, and was 
 prone to accommodate itself to its Protestant and secular 
 environment. Against this temporizing spirit he set his 
 face like a flint. He believed that he had been appointed 
 to Papalize England. In Cardinal Wiseman lie found 
 a superior after his own heart, and they worked in 
 perfect accord for an end equally dear to both. But 
 Wiseman was old and feeble, and Manning was forced 
 to look forward. As long as Wiseman ruled Catholic 
 England, Manning could shape its policy ; but there was 
 danger ahead. Wiseman had appointed as his coadjutor 
 with right of succession Dr. Errington, a man of old 
 English family, and tainted, in Manning's view, with the 
 characteristic faults of English Catholicism. If Erring- 
 ton should succeed Wiseman in the Archiepiscopate, a 
 substantial alteration in policy was to be apprehended ; 
 and quite certainly Manning would no longer be able to 
 " shape the whispers of a throne," as he had so long 
 shaped them in the ultramontane sense. The danger 
 was imminent, and Manning's course was obvious. Dr. 
 Errington must be dispossessed of his right of succession. 
 Now, as always, Manning, willing the end, willed the 
 means ; and a careful study of the methods by which, 
 single-handed, he carried his point, will disclose a 
 fertility of resource, a tenacity of purpose, an intrepidity, 
 and a rernorselessness which would have been remarkable 
 in the fiercest conflicts of political or commercial life.
 
 CARDINAL MANNING 153 
 
 It is charitable to hope that, in Manning's case, they 
 were sanctified by the sincerity with which he identified 
 his own purposes with the Will of God ; but the im- 
 pression which this part of the narrative leaves on the 
 mind is that of Mr. Chamberlain in a cassock. 
 
 Errington was duly shunted, but, somehow or other, 
 Manning was not installed in his place ; and so, when 
 Wiseman died, and the Archbishopric became vacant, 
 there arose a fresh necessity for prompt, energetic, and 
 persistent agitation. The wrong successor might be 
 Appointed after all, and the machinations which had 
 dislodged Errington might prove to have been labour 
 in vain. 
 
 So the indefatigable Manning sets to work again, this 
 time in close alliance with his friend Mousignore Talbot, 
 who lived in the Vatican, and had constant access to 
 Pius IX. Papal Infallibility could be absolutely trusted 
 iu the region of faith and morals, but in that of adminis- 
 trative action it needed a little judicious wire-pulling, 
 lest its decisions should go astray. 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman died on February 15, 1865. Mr. 
 Purcell remarks, in a significant footnote : 
 
 Between the 24th of February and the 18th of March, 
 there is a break in the correspondence between Dr. Manning 
 and Mgr. Talbot. Either no letters were exchanged during 
 those weeks of suspense and expectation, or the correspondence 
 has not been preserved. 
 
 I incline to the latter hypothesis. Anyhow, from 
 March 18 to April 30, the correspondence is brisk, 
 animated, and profoundly interesting. Never before, I 
 should fancy, has the Protestant world been allowed so 
 clear a view of the inner working of Vaticanism ; but 
 I am not writing for controversial purposes, and I 
 willingly leave this episode to those who will know 
 how to make the most of it. On April 30 Pius IX.,
 
 154 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 overriding the choice of the Chapter of Westminster, 
 appointed Manning Archbishop ; and the faithful Mgr. 
 Talbot, writing from the Vatican, thus comments on 
 the event: 
 
 My policy throughout was never to propose you directly 
 to the Pope, but to make others do so ; so that both you and 
 I always can say that it was not I who induced the Holy 
 Father to name you, which would lessen the weight of your 
 appointment. This I say, because many have said that your 
 being named was all my doing. I do not say that the Pope 
 did not know that I thought you the only man eligible ; as 
 / took care to tell him over and over again what was against 
 all the other candidates; and in consequence he was almost 
 driven into naming you. 
 
 Surely the electioneering correspondence of the Caucus, 
 or the most privileged communications of the Tammany 
 Ring, never produced a more deliciously frank avowal 
 of the wire-puller's spirit and methods. 
 
 The same principle which I have indicated as under- 
 lying Manning's views about ecclesiastical preferments 
 emanating from the Vicar of Christ, governed all his 
 public policy and all his private dealing. The cause of 
 the Pope was the cause of God ; Manning was the 
 person who could best serve the Pope's cause, and 
 therefore all forces which opposed him were in effect 
 opposing the Divine Will. This seems to have been his 
 simple and sufficient creed, and certainly it had the 
 merit of supplying a clear rule of action. One of the 
 parts of Manning's policy which, I suppose, will be new 
 to most Protestants was his steady opposition to all 
 Religious Orders, and especially the Society of Jesus ; 
 his dealings with which form the only subject on which 
 Mr. Purcell has practised suppression. 1 Viewed in the 
 light of the principle stated above, this opposition was 
 
 1 See "Hindrances to the Spread of the Catholic Church in 
 England," Manning's Life, vol. ii., chap, xxvii.
 
 CARDINAL MANNING 155 
 
 reasonable enough. Religions Orders are extra-episcopal. 
 The Jesuits are scarcely subject to the Pope himself. 
 Certainly neither the Orders nor the Society would, or 
 could, be subject to Manning. A power independent of 
 or hostile to his authority was inimical to religion, and 
 must, as a religious duty, be checked, and if possible 
 destroyed. 
 
 Exactly the same principle animated his dealings 
 with Cardinal Newman. Rightly or wrongly, Manning 
 thought Newman a half-hearted Papalist. He dreaded 
 alike his way of putting things and his practical policy. 
 Newman's favourite scheme of establishing a Roman 
 Catholic college or institute at Oxford, Manning regarded 
 as fraught with peril to the faith of the rising generation. 
 The scheme must therefore be crushed and its author 
 snubbed. I must in candour add that these diiferences 
 of opinion between the two Cardinals were mixed with 
 and embittered by a sense of personal dislike. This 
 surely breathes in Newman's graphic letter (of which 
 Manning grimly remarked that it " was in terms which 
 made a reply hardly fitting on my part ") : " My dear 
 Archbishop, I do not know whether I am on my 
 head or my heels when I have active relations with you." 
 
 Nor was Manning at all backward in reciprocating 
 these compliments. When Newman died, there 
 appeared in a monthly magazine a series of very un- 
 flattering sketches by one who had known him well. 
 I ventured to ask Cardinal Manning if he had seen 
 these sketches. He replied that he had, and thought 
 them very shocking ; the writer must have a very 
 unenviable mind, etc. ; and then, having thus sacrificed 
 to propriety, after a moment's pause he added, " But 
 if you ask me if they are like poor Newman, I am bound 
 to say a photograph." 
 
 It was, 1 suppose, matter of common knowledge that
 
 156 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Manning's early and conspicuous ascendency in the 
 counsels of the Papacy rested on the intimacy of his 
 personal relations with Pius IX. ; though it is not 
 necessary to give literal credence to that account of 
 those relations which Bishop Wilberforce, in his diary, 
 reported from my lamented cousin Odo Russell. But 
 it is news to most of us that Manning, as Mr. Purcell 
 seems to hint, wished to succeed Antonelli as Secretary 
 of State in 1876, and to transfer the scene of his 
 activities from Westminster to Rome ; and that he 
 attributed the Pope's disregard of his wishes to mental 
 decrepitude. The point, if true, is an important one ; 
 for Manning's accession to the Secretaryship of State, 
 and permanent residence in Rome, could not have failed 
 to affect the development of events when, two years 
 later, the Papal throne became vacant by the death of 
 Pius IX. But Deo aliter visum. It was ordained that 
 Manning should pass the evening of his days in 
 England, and that he should outlive his intimacy at 
 the Vatican, and his influence on the general policy of 
 the Church of Rome. With the accession of Leo XIII. 
 a new order began, and Newman's elevation to the 
 Sacred Purple seemed to affix the sanction of Infalli- 
 bility to principles, modes, and methods against which 
 Manning had waged a Thirty Years' War. Henceforward 
 he felt himself a stranger at the Vatican, and powerless 
 beyond the limits of his own jurisdiction. 
 
 It is Mr. Purcell's opinion that this restriction of 
 exterior activities in the ecclesiastical sphere drove the 
 venerable Cardinal to find a vent for his untiring energies 
 in those various efforts of social reform in which, during 
 the last ten years of his life, he played so conspicuous 
 and so useful a part. If this be so, though Rome may 
 have lost, England was unquestionably a gainer. 
 
 It was during those ten years that 1 was honoured
 
 CARDINAL MANNING 157 
 
 by his friendship. The storms, the struggles, the 
 ambitions, the intrigues, which had filled so large a 
 part of his middle life, lay far behind. He was revered, 
 useful, and, I think, contented in his present life, and 
 looked forward with serene confidence to the fiual, and 
 not distant, issue. As I close Mr. Purcell's fascinating 
 book, and once again compare the character which he 
 has drawn with that which I remember, the words rise 
 unbidden to my lips, 
 
 JEcce, Sacerdos Magnus. 
 
 Here was a man who was a priest in every fibre 
 of his being ; who was utterly devoted to the Will of 
 God, and to the Church, which, for him, was the organ 
 of that Will ; who served it through a long life of 
 absolute and calculated sacrifice ; and who now enjoys 
 his everlasting reward in the company of "just men," 
 once like himself, encompassed with human infirmity, 
 but now, through grace, " made perfect."
 
 FOR a son to attempt his father's biography is indeed 
 to court disaster ; and that Mr. Arthur Benson has 
 avoided it is due to a very rare power. This is indicated 
 by his own words : 
 
 If the attitude I have adopted may seem almost too 
 detached or critical, I honoured and loved my father too 
 much to be misunderstood by any who knew what our 
 relations were. 
 
 We may extend this just self-judgment far beyond 
 the circle of those who knew the son and his father. 
 Every reader of the book, 2 if only he has moderate 
 sympathy and discernment, will see that the author's 
 filial instinct is a master-passion, and that the power 
 which has enabled him to be as good a biographer as 
 he was a son is, as he himself would say, " detach- 
 ment." He has an idol we all have our idols his 
 is his father. He stands in front of it and worships 
 it, and all the time sees its defects, and even calls 
 upon the world to notice them. Perhaps there are 
 stains in the marble and rough corners in the sculpture, 
 but the statue as a whole is glorious, and the wor- 
 shipper's faith is courageous just because it is absolute. 
 In the first sentence of his book Mr. Benson tells us 
 that, unlike most people of his name, our late Arch- 
 
 1 The Manchester Guardian, 1899. 
 
 * "The Life of Edward White Benson, sometime Archbishop 
 of Canterbury," By his son, Arthur Christopher Benson, of Eton 
 College. 
 
 158
 
 ARCHBISHOP BENSON 159 
 
 bishop was not a Jew. He was a Yorkshireman, 
 descended from a long line of yeomen or " dalesmen," 
 and the family was well-to-do until the inevitable 
 spendthrift appeared. Then the usual results ensued, 
 and the spendthrift's son found his way into business at 
 Birmingham, where he married, and became, in 1829, 
 the father of Edward White Benson, afterwards Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. The boy was educated by the 
 famous Prince Lee, Head Master of King Edward's 
 School, Birmingham, and had among his school-fellows 
 J. B. Lightfoot and B. F. Westcott. From school 
 Edward Benson went up as a sizar to Trinity College, 
 Cambridge. His father had died while he was still at 
 school, leaving a widow and family slenderly provided for. 
 When Edward Benson was about half-way through his 
 career at Cambridge his mother died, and her children 
 were found to be virtually destitute. Then a guardian 
 angel appeared in the shape of an old Fellow of Trinity, 
 who, having noticed young Benson's aptitude and dili- 
 gence, resolved that his University career should not 
 be ruined, and generously undertook his maintenance until 
 he should be able to support himself. In 1852 Benson 
 came out eighth in the First Class of the Classical Tripos 
 and Senior Chancellor's Medallist. He then took an 
 assistant mastership at Rugby under Dr. Goulburn, and 
 was presently elected Fellow of Trinity. In 1854 he 
 was ordained Deacon, and in 1856 Priest. In 1858 
 he was elected Master of the newly-created Wellington 
 College. He married his cousin, Mary Sidgwick, in 
 1859. In 1873 he left Wellington for the Chancellor- 
 ship of Lincoln, to which a canonry was attached. In 
 1877 he was made by Lord Beaconsfield first Bishop 
 of Trnro. In 1882 he was chosen by Mr. Gladstone 
 to succeed Archbishop Tait at Canterbury. In 1896 
 he died.
 
 160 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Dr. Benson's appointment to Wellington was due 
 to Dr. Temple, then Head Master of Rugby, who 
 recommended him to Prince Albert. Benson excelled 
 as a courtier ; and the Queen, always well inclined 
 towards her husband's favourites, eagerly concurred in, 
 if she did not suggest, his elevation to the Episcopate. 
 Of what determined his selection for Canterbury his 
 biographer professes ignorance, but it is an open secret. 
 Mr. Gladstone wished to place Dean Church, whom 
 he thought the greatest of English Churchmen, on the 
 vacant throne. But the Dean's refusal (in advance) 
 was so absolute that the offer was never definitely made. 
 Mr. Gladstone then thought of Bishop Harold Browne, 
 but he was too old, and, after all-round consideration, 
 he decided on the Bishop of Truro. His reasons were 
 two : first, that it was desirable to appoint a man of 
 whom it might be reasonably conjectured that he would 
 have a long tenure ; and, second, that Bishop Benson 
 had given his proofs of capacity and rightmindedness 
 in organizing a new diocese and building a cathedral. 
 "All had been done on ecclesiastical lines." The 
 appointment was extremely unpopular with the Liberal 
 party. The Bishop was known to be a very high Tory, 
 and suspected of being a very High Churchman ; and, 
 to make bad worse, he had just given his name to the 
 Tory committee at a by-election for the University of 
 Cambridge. Some mischief-maker eagerly reported this 
 circumstance to Mr. Gladstone, who received it very 
 characteristically. " Is that so ? then it is very much 
 to the Bishop's credit. A worldly man, or an ambitious 
 man, or a self-seeking man would not have joined a 
 Tory committee when Canterbury was vacant and I 
 was Prime Minister." 
 
 Of Archbishop Benson's rule at Lambeth, the chief 
 events were the Lincoln Judgment, which vindicated
 
 ABCHBISHOP BENSON 161 
 
 moderate Ritualism ; that movement for the defence of 
 the Establishment which did such untold harm to the 
 Church by identifying her with a political party ; and a 
 refusal to enter into informal correspondence with the 
 Pope about Anglican Orders, which subsequent events 
 proved to have been eminently wise. 
 
 So much for the main outlines of a life which, though 
 eminently prosperous, was scarcely eventful. A much 
 more interesting study is the man himself. And here 
 photography comes to our aid,'and the portraits with which 
 the book abounds powerfully confirm and illustrate the 
 letterpress perhaps, indeed, it would be more true to 
 say that the letterpress illustrates the portraits. These 
 show a noble forehead, from which unusually long hair 
 is dragged back, deep-set and far-looking eyes, a strongly- 
 shaped and trenchant nose, a wide mouth, and a chin 
 of abnormal development. Every feature tells its tale 
 an imperious will, a violent temper, a strong sensuous- 
 ness ; dominated by a romantic idealism and a true 
 spirituality ; the whole combined with a perceptible love 
 of pose and effect. If this is what the portraits suggest, 
 the letterpress tells us that it is a true suggestion. 
 Benson was a troublesome child and a passionate boy. 
 When he was a schoolmaster, his punishments were often 
 excessive. His devoted disciple Canon Mason described 
 with unpleasing unction his mode of caning a liar. His 
 biography gives instances of harsh and severe sayings to 
 people who could not reply. Again, he was essentially 
 masterful. He saw clearly what he wanted, was im- 
 patient of contradiction or opposition, and generally 
 attained his objects by the sheer intensity with which, 
 willing the end, he also willed the means. Then, again, 
 his nature was (as Milton says that poetry should be) 
 sensuous. Though his actual life was of ascetic sim- 
 plicity, yet the things of sense, and of all the senses, 
 
 11
 
 162 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 yielded him acute enjoyment. He loved flowers and 
 sunshine, jewels and marbles, bright colours and pine- 
 scented air, a well-ordered ceremonial, a gallop on a good 
 horse, a " plain but perfect table." " I always think 
 that good claret tastes very like a good creature of God " 
 is a characteristic saying reported by one of his disciples ; 
 and Bishop Westcott remarks rather ruefully, " He was 
 even able to look upon the splendid shows of society 
 without feeling the distress or anxiety which they bring 
 to many." The love of pose and the striving after effect 
 were cognate elements. Nature had given him a striking 
 appearance. From early manhood he filled ceremonious 
 parts ; he was perfectly aware that his natural man 
 became them, and he never forgot for an instant either 
 the part or what was due to it. He held high debate 
 on the length to which he should let his hair grow ; he 
 lavished time and thought on the design for his signet- 
 ring and the precise shade of purple for his cassock. 
 But all this belongs to the lower part of the face, and 
 to its environment. As we look at the upper part, and 
 look at it apart from its background, the elements of 
 moral grandeur become visible. There we see the ideal- 
 ism, the poetry, the romance, so often allied with the 
 better sort of sensuousness which, indeed, is only a 
 keen faculty of physical perception. There we see 
 the look of high purposes and noble dreams " admira- 
 tion, hope, and love." We detect that unmistakable 
 reality of spiritual devotion which was, before and 
 above all else, the characteristic of the man. This 
 biography tells no tale of sudden conversion from 
 evil to good, from darkness to light, but rather the 
 gradual development of the anima naturaliter Christiana 
 into the " measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ." No one ever had a more unwavering grasp 
 on the central dogma of the Christian Revelation, or a
 
 ARCHBISHOP BENSON 163 
 
 more passionate enthusiasm for the Christian Kingdom. 
 Witness after witness tells us of his gradually-acquired 
 mastery over temper and petulance, his increasing con- 
 trol over his tongue, his growing devotion to the in- 
 teriora of his sacred office. All these were steps towards 
 a " predestined perfection " ; but the root of the matter 
 was in him from the beginning. From his very earliest 
 years he had shown a Samuel-like love of private prayer 
 and of the Divine sanctuary. As a boy he furnished 
 himself a little oratory ; as an undergraduate at Cam- 
 bridge he observed the Canonical Hours. Architecture, 
 ritual, vesture, hymnology, every form and aspect of 
 Christian antiquity, were dear to him, and all was 
 studied in enthusiastic subordination to that priest- 
 hood which was the ideal as well as the occupation 
 of his life. 
 
 Theologically, Benson was not exactly what the 
 world thought him. He intensely loved ornament 
 and ceremony, posture and gesture, but he loved them 
 eclectically, and applied them in practice as he felt 
 that circumstances and edification demanded. Thus 
 at Wellington College, though he used the mixed 
 chalice and took the ablutions, he celebrated in the 
 afternoon and stood at the north end of the Holy 
 Table. He spoke of the Holy Communion as the Mass, 
 but he condemned Father Goulden for teaching the 
 Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence. He commended 
 the Departed to God at the altar, but his doctrine of 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice seems to have been something 
 peculiar to himself. He believed intensely in the 
 Apostolic Succession, but he is understood to have 
 favoured the recognition of Presbyterian Orders. He 
 was enthusiastic about monkish ideals, but assigned 
 stalls in his private chapel to his daughters. In short, 
 though he loved expressive rites and beautiful words
 
 164 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 and long-descended graces of worship, it is difficult to 
 rank him as a Catholic theologian, or even as, in the 
 conventional sense of the term, a High Churchman. 
 He was, in truth, a law unto himself. It would perhaps 
 be incorrect, in view of the determined courage with 
 which he set np his archiepiscopal court and publicly 
 ignored the rulings of the Privy Council, to call him 
 an Erastian. But his devotion to the principle of 
 Establishment was a monomania, and every link which 
 bound the Church to the State was precious in his 
 eyes. It would even seem as if he resented the fate 
 which decreed that he should be called to Lambeth 
 by Mr. Gladstone, from whose policy he so profoundly 
 dissented ; and he appears to have regarded the Queen's 
 civil wish that he should accept the offer as being 
 really his Divine call to the Primacy. In fact, the 
 Archbishop's view of the relations between the Church 
 and the State was closely akin to those which Mr. 
 Shorthouse set forth in " John Inglesant " : "The Church 
 of England as established by the law of England offers 
 the Supernatural to all who choose to come." 
 
 But the very mention of John Inglesant's name 
 suggests, by way of contrast, one of the Archbishop's 
 most marked characteristics. Artist, antiquary, scholar, 
 aesthete, he was no visionary, no dilettante, no mere 
 praiser of an unreturning past ; but, on the contrary, 
 the most practical of men. From the days of boyhood 
 and early manhood, when iron necessity stimulated hia 
 industry and curbed his whims, down to the last night 
 of his strenuous life, he was pre-eminently a worker. 
 All the qualities of the best workman were his belief 
 in his vocation, pride in his task, the resolute deter- 
 mination to do it as well as it could be done, absolute 
 concentration on the work in hand, and a fiery industry 
 which consumed the whole of every day and trenched
 
 ARCHBISHOP BENSON 165 
 
 cruelly on times of rest. As far as the biography reveals 
 his life, it is difficult to lay one's finger on an idle hour. 
 It is a splendid record of life-long energy for great causes 
 and high, though perhaps mistaken, ideals. It would 
 be forced and unreal for those who strongly dissented 
 from his theory of the public good to say that Arch- 
 bishop Benson always succeeded in " rightly dividing 
 the word of truth " ; but beyond all question he was 
 " a workman that needed not to be ashamed."
 
 THEODORE TALBOT 1 
 
 JUST twenty years have passed since the death of 
 a man whose life conspicuously illustrated the grace 
 and power of Christian Socialism, though, so far as I 
 know, the phrase never crossed his lips. 
 
 Theodore Mansel Talbot was born in 1839. He was 
 the only son of Mr. Christopher Talbot, of Margam, a 
 man of great possessions and position in South Wales, 
 who sat as a Liberal for Glamorganshire from 1830 
 till 1890, and was Father of the House of Commons. 
 Theodore's mother, Lady Charlotte Talbot, a daughter 
 of Lord Glengall, died when her son was only seven 
 years old. He was brought up at home, and taught by 
 private tutors under the careful superintendence of his 
 father, himself a man of high attainments in mathe- 
 matics and physical science. At the age of eighteen 
 he went up to Christ Church. He hunted, he debated 
 (taking always a vehemently Liberal line), he cultivated 
 music, he practised Freemasonry, and he read sufficiently 
 hard to obtain a Second Class in the Final Mathematical 
 School. On going down from Oxford, he threw himself 
 with great energy into the Volunteer movement, be- 
 coming successively Captain, Major, and Lieutenant- 
 Colonel of his county corps. He was an admirable shot, a 
 strict disciplinarian, and a thorough master of drill. He 
 took a farm of his father's, and worked it on commercial 
 principles, not using it as a toy, but carefully studying 
 
 1 The Commonwealth, 1896. 
 166
 
 THEODORE TALBOT 167 
 
 to make two ends meet. His letters on agricultural 
 topics, and those connected with the business and finance 
 of the county, show a keen interest in local affairs, and 
 the clear judgment which comes of practical experience. 
 But, after all, farming was scarcely the pursuit best 
 adapted to the impetuous and daring spirit of Theodore 
 Talbot. As heir to his father's immense possessions, 
 he had been brought up to no profession. Without 
 occupation he would have been miserable, and his zealous 
 temperament found its vent in hunting. He first tried 
 his hand with a pack of harriers in Glamorganshire ; then 
 he took the Ledbury hounds ; and in 1873 he organized 
 a fresh country in the neighbourhood of his home, and 
 undertook the mastership of the newly-formed pack. 
 
 He showed considerable powers of organization, forming 
 a Hunt Club, laying out fox-coverts, and establishing earth- 
 stoppers' funds, etc. He also purchased foxes, and arranged 
 a sort of breeding-den in a cave in the Yale, where at one 
 time there were fifty foxes taken from the hills. 
 
 He was a martinet in the field ; and, though ordinarily 
 quite indifferent to all matters of personal appearance, 
 was scrupulously particular about his own turn-out for 
 hunting, and that of those who hunted with him. 
 
 He was keenly solicitous for the physical welfare of 
 his poorer neighbours; and finding that there was no resi- 
 dent doctor in the neighbourhood, he himself guaranteed 
 the stipend of a competent practitioner. The material 
 development of his father's vast estates of course 
 afforded all connected with them constant employment 
 and interest ; and Theodore Talbot predicted as long 
 ago as 1872 that the Rhondda Valley would become 
 an industrial centre of the first importance, and would 
 return a Member of its own to Parliament. For him- 
 self, however, he persistently declined Parliamentary 
 honours ; he might, indeed, have consented to stand,
 
 168 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 had it been an unmistakable duty to do so, but it was 
 a prospect from which he instinctively shrank. 
 
 No doubt some feeling of disgust at the hollowness and 
 insincerity of Parliamentary and political life was the 
 repelling influence here ; but his whole character and 
 temperament was the antithesis of an ordinary M.P., and 
 he felt his sphere of usefulness to be elsewhere. 
 
 That sphere was found to lie in a very unexpected 
 quarter. 
 
 From his early days Theodore Talbot had been of a 
 devout and thoughtful temperament. He had a high 
 conception of his duty towards God, keen sympathy with 
 the sufferings of his fellow-men, and an abiding sense 
 of responsibility for the gifts of life, health, activity, 
 wealth, position, and social influence. He told an 
 intimate friend that he had always had an ideal of a 
 church or religious community in his mind, but he had 
 never seen it realized until Providence led him to St. 
 Alban's, Holborn. That church, its work, its services, 
 and its ministers, were destined to exercise a dominant 
 and enduring influence over Talbot's heart and life. The 
 history of the parish, and the processes by which its 
 high perfection of spiritual and material organization 
 was evolved out of a chaos of sin and misery, are now 
 pretty generally known. 1 This was not the case when, 
 in the London Mission of 1869, Theodore Talbot made 
 acquaintance with the Rev. Arthur Stanton, of St. 
 Alban's, who became thenceforward his most intimate 
 friend. Through this friendship he was drawn to St. 
 Alban's Church, and in its parochial work he found 
 his true vocation, and developed the most characteristic 
 and most beautiful parts of his noble nature. 
 
 From this period he practically disappeared from 
 
 1 See p. 79,
 
 THEODORE TALBC' 11 169 
 
 society. When he was in London, his time was spent 
 in the slums of Holborn instead of the drawing-rooms 
 of Belgravia and the clubs of Pall Mall. He joined the 
 St. Alban's Parochial Guild, of which the object was to 
 bring young working-men and lads together in a real 
 brotherhood. He stood god-father for the street-arabs 
 at their Baptism ; he would sit up all night nursing 
 a sick child ; he carried the dead to burial ; he fed 
 the hungry, reasoned with the sceptical, and taught 
 the ignorant in the Sunday Schools. He walked in 
 procession with his Guild in the Parish Church, and 
 freely spent his money and his time on the adornment 
 of the sanctuary to which he was so deeply attached. 
 It is recorded of him that once, when the child of 
 some poor parents lay dead in the house, and, owing 
 to its being outside the parish, the undertaker had 
 refused to be at the trouble to bring the little coffin 
 to the church, Talbot, with friends of the Guild, went 
 and fetched it himself to the church, so that the sorrow- 
 ing parents might not be deprived of the consolation 
 of that last Eucharist. 
 
 After the early Communion, he would often bring 
 back some of the ragged lads he found in the church 
 or about, and give them breakfast, and try to bring 
 them under the influence of one of the Guilds. One 
 day, when Talbot was kneeling in church during the 
 Holy Communion, he saw one of these little urchins 
 pounce upon a trap which had been set for the 
 benefit of the proverbial church-mouse, and secrete it 
 in his pocket. As soon as they got out of church, 
 Talbot collared the offender and demanded restitution 
 of the mouse-trap, which the little urchin handed over 
 with the tearful protest, " If I'd a-knowed it belonged 
 to you, Guv'nor, I wouldn't a' ' pinched ' it." 
 
 On his father's estate in Wales, Talbot laboured
 
 170 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 earnestly in the same cause ; promoting the restoration of 
 neglected churches, and the improvement of Divine wor- 
 ship, and in all possible ways strengthening the hands 
 and co-operating in the work of earnest-minded clergy. 
 On the restoration of his own Parish Church he bestowed 
 infinite pains ; and, just as the workmen began the 
 process of dismantling, he said to the Vicar, " Let us 
 begin by demolishing the Squire's and Parson's pews : 
 there must be no vested interests here." Though 
 he was so keenly devoted to the Church, he never 
 wavered in his Liberalism. Indeed, he called him- 
 self a Radical, and on religious grounds, and in the 
 interests of the Church herself, he was an advocate of 
 Disestablishment. 
 
 He had wonderful sympathy and love for the working- 
 man. He loved him for the sake of the Divine Workman 
 of Nazareth. That was his Liberalism a pure, unselfish, 
 disinterested love of the poor and helpless. 
 
 All this exuberance of outward eifort was only the 
 expression of an inward spirituality as vivid and intense 
 as ever animated a human life. He had in a singular 
 degree the gift of a child-like faith in the Unseen, 
 in the Fatherhood of God and the mysteries of the 
 Mediatorial Kingdom. From the Fatherhood of God, 
 he learned the Brotherhood of man. The Vicar of 
 Margarn writes : 
 
 His was not the condescension of the rich towards the poor, 
 which expects in return a slavish adulation, but a real 
 brotherly feeling towards every man because he was a Chris- 
 tian. No man realized more than he did the great universal 
 brotherhood of mankind. Had he been spared, he would 
 have devoted himself to the service of his fellow-men. And 
 the real spring of all this was his devotion to the glory of 
 God. His philanthropy, his zeal for the Church and for the 
 Catholic Faith, sprang from this. I remember standing with 
 him in, the ruined Chapter-house of Margam Abbey, and
 
 THEODORE TALBOT 171 
 
 speaking together of what he hoped might some day be done, 
 when he suddenly but quietly exclaimed, " I only live for 
 God's glory." I verily believe he would have sacrificed every- 
 thing, if convinced that God's glory demanded it. 
 
 His progress in the spiritual life was steady and manifest. 
 He gradually learned to control the impatience of a natu- 
 rally quick temper, to submit to rebuke, and to humble 
 himself before those whom he had wronged, not least 
 gladly when they were socially his inferiors. Thus, alike 
 in his inward character and in his outward life, he showed 
 the reality of a living faith. He bore constant and 
 enthusiastic witness to what he believed to be the truth. 
 He cared passionately and laboured ceaselessly for the 
 spiritual and material welfare of his brother-men ; and, 
 while utterly free from all taint of worldliness and 
 conformity with worldliness, he looked forward with 
 serious anticipation to the great work which seemed 
 to be in store for him, whenever the process of nature 
 should make him master of his vast inheritance in 
 South Wales. In view of these great responsibilities, 
 his friends often urged him to give up hunting, or at 
 any rate to ride less recklessly. The same thought 
 seemed to cross his own mind, for he once said, in 
 reference to his hunting, " I sometimes think I am 
 not justified in risking my life so much, in view of all 
 the responsibility that lies before me here." The words 
 were only too true. At the beginning of the hunting 
 season of 1875, he had a fall which injured him severely. 
 He was laid up for some months, but at the very end 
 of the season obtained the doctor's permission to have 
 one more day with the hounds. Jumping a small ditch 
 towards the end of the day, he received a slight con- 
 cussion of the spine, and from this injury he never 
 recovered. He became hopelessly paralyzed, and was 
 carried to his father's house in London, where he
 
 172 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 endured three months' of intense and increasing suffering. 
 His patience was exemplary. He lived in and by prayer. 
 He repeatedly received the Holy Communion, always 
 with the greatest faith and fervour. 
 
 Every preparation in his sick-room that might honour 
 the advent of the Blessed Sacrament was scrupulously 
 attended to. His devotion to the Sacrament of the Altar 
 was supreme. He revelled in the thought of all the honour 
 that was done to that Mystery ; and the last Corpus Christi 
 Day of his life, when he lay waiting for death, he made 
 the clergyman who attended him promise that no Catholic 
 rite should be omitted in his last agony. 
 
 As an English Churchman, he believed he could live 
 
 as a Catholic ; and, as he had lived, so he wished to die. 
 
 On June 17, 1876, Mr. Stan ton wrote to a friend : 
 
 Dear Theodore Talbot is, I fear, dying. Pray for him as 
 such. No words of mine can describe this heart-breaking 
 calamity. He is simply at peace with God. 
 
 The day before his death was St. Alban's Day, and his 
 heart was at St. Alban's Church. " I have been think- 
 ing about all you will have done," he said. " Give 
 my love to all the dear priests, and wish them all 
 happiness and prosperity at St. Alban's." This was the 
 message sent by the dying man, whose own happiness 
 never dimmed as the loss of all earthly joy became 
 imminent; whose faith and love flamed up as life was 
 flickering in the socket. 
 
 On the early morning of June 18, he fell asleep in 
 the Lord, his last words being, " Let God's will be done 
 in me." 
 
 He died in the Everlasting Arms. All felt that 
 faith blessed him to the very last. In speaking sub- 
 sequently of his illness and death, his father, who did 
 not share his theological tendencies, mentioned the fact 
 that struck him most ;
 
 THEODORE TALBOT 173 
 
 The unruffled serenity of that faith which stood by him, 
 and made him happy to the last, when all earthly happiness 
 was gone. 
 
 The life had been hid with Christ in God, and death 
 was swallowed up in victory. 
 
 To those who remember and regarded him, some echo of 
 his life, its surroundings, and its aspirations may come back 
 in a record of how he lived and how he died. For in these 
 days of shallow intellectuality, of callous indifference, and 
 selfish materialism, an example of chivalrous manliness and 
 an intense feeling of brotherhood, combined with a religious 
 control that coloured all a life, is as rare as it is beautiful. 1 
 
 1 From "Recollections of Theodore Mansel Talbot and his 
 Time," by Sir Baldwyn Leighton, Bart.
 
 HENRY GARY SHUTTLE WORTH l 
 
 notices of the late Professor Shuttleworth which 
 JL appeared immediately after his death were, almost 
 inevitably, engrossed with his life and work in London. 
 I have been asked to contribute a few recollections of 
 his earlier manhood. 
 
 It is necessary to look back over twenty-eight years ; 
 but to do so requires no effort. The impressions of a 
 man's first term at Oxford are not effaced until the 
 whole tablet is blotted ; and among those impressions 
 my first sight of St. Barnabas' church, people, and 
 worship stands out with peculiar clearness. 
 
 The church was opened on October 19, 1869. Bishop 
 Wilberforce consecrated it. It was almost his last 
 act as Bishop of Oxford, and he characteristically 
 noted in his diary : " Disagreeable service. Acolyte 
 running about. Paste squares for bread, etc., but the 
 church a great gift." Three years later, a boy fresh 
 from Harrow, and less sensitively Protestant than the 
 good Bishop, not only thought " the church a great gift," 
 but enjoyed the " acolyte running about," and found the 
 whole service the most inspiring and uplifting worship 
 in which he had ever joined. My impressions of it are 
 as clear as yesterday's the unadorned simplicity of the 
 fabric, emphasizing by contrast the blaze of light and 
 colour round the altar ; the floating cloud of incense ; 
 the expressive and unfussy ceremonial ; the straight- 
 
 1 The Commonwealth, 1901. 
 174
 
 HENRY GARY SHUTTLEWORTH 175 
 
 forward preaching ; and, most impressive of all, the 
 large congregation of men, old and young, rich and poor, 
 undergraduates and artizans, all singing Evangelical 
 hymns with one heart and one voice. It was, if ever 
 there was on earth, congregational worship ; and I, for 
 one, have never seen its like. The people's pride in the 
 church was very characteristic : they habitually spoke 
 of it as " our Barnabas." The clergy and worshippers 
 were a family, and the church was a home. 
 
 I went up to Oxford in October, 1872. Very shortly 
 afterwards I found my way to St. Barnabas, being led 
 thither by a Harrow friend, one Charles Gore, Scholar of 
 Balliol. The church was keeping its Dedication Festival. 
 The service was Solemn Evensong ; and the Lessons 
 were read by an undergraduate, whose name, as I 
 learned, was Shuttleworth. He was just 22 years old, 
 ruddy like David, and of a cheerful countenance, with 
 blue-black hair and vivacious eyes. Alike in face, 
 utterance, and movement he was singularly alert and 
 vigorous. He read dramatically, and with a great 
 deal perhaps too much of facial play, but thoroughly 
 as if he meant what he read, and entered into it, and 
 intended his hearers to enter into it too ; and all his 
 movements and gestures in the choir suggested a man 
 who was intensely interested in his business, and would 
 have it done as well and as accurately as it could be 
 done. 
 
 Such was Henry Shuttleworth as I first saw him. Our 
 acquaintance began that evening, and very soon ripened 
 into friendship. He had already gone out of college, 
 and was living in the funny little Clergy-House of 
 St. Barnabas a sort of six-roomed cottage with a 
 back-kitchen ; bright with high spirits and joyful work. 
 Of its other inmates, much as I liked and respected 
 them, nothing need now be said. My business is with
 
 176 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Shuttleworth. Somehow, schoolboy slang rises naturally 
 to the lips as I attempt to describe one who was still at 
 heart a schoolboy. He was a bit of a "Know-all." 
 There was nothing in the world that didn't interest 
 him ; nothing about which he had not at least some 
 information ; nothing on which he had not a formed 
 opinion. He had what may be called the journalistic 
 mind the knack of seizing the salient points, and of 
 saying, whether by instinct or by acquisition, the exactly 
 right thing about each fresh topic as it arose. As a 
 matter of fact, he was already a practising journalist, 
 and habitually contributed articles to one of the local 
 papers. He was not a specially good scholar, and not 
 at all a profound student ; but he had the happy knack 
 of reading so as to assimilate and apply what he read ; 
 and no one excelled him in the art of beating out his 
 gold very thin. Music was his special gift : there he 
 was thoroughly at home ; there he was an authority 
 at once a performer and a critic. I doubt if he had 
 any taste for pure theology. He went in for the 
 Theological School ; but that was only because his 
 intensely practical nature preferred to read what he 
 could turn to definite account the moment he had 
 taken his degree. Even then, though he was a red- 
 hot Ritualist, the authors to whom he most inclined 
 were not Newman or Faber, but Maurice and Kingsley. 
 There was a vigorous strain of Liberalism in his nature, 
 which rebelled against trammels and was impatient 
 of grooves. In politics he was a Christian Socialist, 
 or Social Democrat on Christian lines. Like Arthur 
 Stanton, he " knew no Radicalism, except what he had 
 sucked in from the breasts of the Gospel." His 
 Liberalism, like Theodore Talbot's, was " a pure love 
 of the poor and helpless," founded on personal de- 
 votion to the Divine Workman of Nazareth. All
 
 HENRY GARY SHUTTLEWORTH 177 
 
 his opinions political, religious, social were beliefs. 
 He was absolutely confident in his own judgment. He 
 called no man master ; and I cannot recall that, in 
 those distant days, I ever heard him express a doubt. 
 At that time there was a good deal of " Roman Fever " 
 in Oxford. Most of us took it more or less severely. 
 Some succumbed ; many barely recovered ; some had 
 it very slightly. Shuttleworth seemed absolutely proof 
 against the infection. Nothing Roman had the slightest 
 attraction for him. He felt safe, happy, and confident 
 where he was ; and he was, then as later, profoundly 
 convinced that the Church of England is the Society 
 which is commissioned by God to proclaim His Message 
 to the English people. 
 
 As a companion he excelled. He was enthusiastic, 
 buoyant, light-hearted, sanguine. His health was 
 perfect, his activity untiring, his spirits always at the 
 highest pitch. Pain and weakness and fear and failure 
 were to him unknown and unthinkable strange contrast 
 to the experience of his last year on earth. Half an 
 hour in his company was a certain cure for low spirits 
 or morbid fancies. He was religious without being 
 superstitious ; and lived from hour to hour in the 
 unclouded sunshine of Our Father's realized favour. 
 My recollection is that, after he went to live at 
 St. Barnabas, he mixed very little in the general life 
 of the University. He gave himself, body and soul, 
 to the Church and parish, his very devotion surrounding 
 them with a halo of romance which the aspect of the 
 locality would scarcely suggest. I fancy that I was 
 the undergraduate of whom he saw most ; and never to 
 be forgotten by me are our long rambles over Hincksey 
 and by the Upper River. There is nothing in Heaven 
 or earth which we did not discuss. We had our 
 schemes for setting the universe right, our far-reaching 
 
 12
 
 178 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 plans of life, and oar keen delight in present enjoyments. 
 Shuttleworth used to flare up into contagious enthusiasm 
 over a fine bit of literature (two such occur to me as 
 I write Raskin's Inaugural Lecture and Miss F. 
 Skene's paper on the Martyrdom of the Archbishop 
 of Paris). He revelled in the physical beauties of 
 Oxford and its setting. His sense of the ludicrous 
 knew no bounds except those of kindness and charity. 
 
 But the basis of his whole nature, the root of all his 
 activity, was his Arthur-like devotion to our Divine 
 Master. Be it remembered that at the time of which 
 I am writing he was still a layman ; but he had been 
 called, like Samuel, in his cradle, and had worn the 
 Lord's ephod from his earliest boyhood. He was born 
 in a Tractarian vicarage, and, after graduating as 
 chorister and altar-server, he had passed on into the 
 active and zealous performance of whatever ministries 
 are possible to a layman. His ambition was to be a 
 perfect Parish Priest, and he spared no pains in equipping 
 himself for the work. His speciality was his gift for 
 dealing with boys and young men. To them he had a 
 genuine devotion ; on them he expended all the riches 
 of his nature. He played their games ; he invited them 
 to his rooms ; he lent them books ; he corresponded 
 with them in absence ; he lived with them on the 
 terms of the frankest equality ; and yet all the time 
 he contrived and some of us who have tried it and 
 failed know how difficult this is to steer clear of 
 spoiling them, or making them forward and conceited, 
 or losing his natural dignity, or lowering his social 
 standard to theirs. And, indeed, it was not easy for 
 boys or anyone else to take a liberty with Shuttleworth. 
 The " natural man " in him had a hot temper, and it 
 blazed out into a sudden flame at the touch of 
 impertinence or incivility
 
 HENRY GARY SHUTTLEWORTH 179 
 
 The boys were bis parish. His influence on them was 
 wholly good. His manly and cheerful piety was the 
 sworn foe of effeminacy and sickliness. I remember, as 
 if it was yesterday, the infinite pains and tact with 
 which he drew back a lapsed lad to Confession and 
 Communion ; the pleading letter in which he urged one 
 who had been unjustly treated to kneel down before the 
 Crucifix, and consider his grievance in the light of the 
 Passion ; his urgency with myself when I had written 
 a sarcastic letter which he wished and compelled 
 me to destroy. In this connexion I would urge Mr. 
 Mowbray to reprint the " St. Barnabas Tales," which 
 Shuttleworth wrote for the amusement of the St. 
 Barnabas boys, and which reveal his ideals and aims 
 and methods far more illuminatingly than any words 
 of mine. 
 
 Shuttleworth took his degree in the summer of 1873, 
 and, true to his lifelong purpose, was ordained Deacon 
 in the following Advent, and Priest a year later. But 
 to a nature so trained, to a life so ordered, the entrance 
 on the Holy Ministry made little outward change. His 
 social, educational, and parochial work went on just as 
 before, though of course some fresh cares were added. 
 His preaching vigorous, unconventional, passionately 
 earnest, exuberantly rhetorical was very popular. Soon 
 his musical accomplishments won him a Chaplaincy at 
 Christ Church, and, though he remained a Curate of 
 St. Barnabas, he ceased to reside in the parish. A year 
 later came his removal to London ; and then the develop- 
 ments which resulted from his connexion with St. Paul's. 
 The story of his ministry during these last twenty-four 
 years has been described by others more closely con- 
 versant with it than I was. But I am persuaded that 
 those who knew his work, whether at Oxford or in 
 London, will feel that they hear his very voice speaking
 
 180 
 
 to them in the words with which he concluded the 
 Three Hours' Service at St. Barnabas, on Good Friday, 
 
 1875:- 
 
 When the hour comes for us to close the last chapter of 
 life ; the winding-up of all things, the rush of unknown dark- 
 ness on our spirits, the awful wrench from all we have loved 
 on earth oh ! brethren, I ask you and I ask myself, fear- 
 fully and humbly, what will then be finished ? When it is 
 finished, what will it be? A life of self -gratification and 
 sin ? A life of mere money-seeking ? An unfinished, in- 
 complete, imperfect life ? Or will it be, Father, I have 
 finished the work which Thou gavest me to dol 
 
 They are words worthy of a workman who never spared 
 himself in the task to which he had set his hand. 
 Farewell, true friend of all these years, bright comrade, 
 gallant soldier. May we meet once more, and meet for 
 ever, in the Eternal Blessedness !
 
 ION KEITH-FALCONER 1 
 
 Not surely a week since we saw him, 
 
 Health brimming in feature and limb ; 
 Let me try to imagine and draw him, 
 
 Ere fancy and feature are dim. 
 Tall, eager, a face to remember, 
 
 A flush that could change as the day ; 
 A. spirit that knew not December, 
 
 That brightened the sunshine of May. 
 
 verse, from an elegy on another Harrow boy, 
 J_ has been running in my head ever since the Editor 
 asked me to write my recollections of the school-days of 
 Ion Keith-Falconer. But, alas ! it is a great deal more 
 than " a week " it is fall ten years since I saw him 
 last, and more than a quarter of a century since our 
 friendship began. 
 
 Ion Grant Neville Keith-Falconer was the third son 
 of the eighth Earl of Kintore. He entered Harrow 
 School in September, 1869. He boarded at the house 
 of one of the classical masters the well-known and 
 much-respected Mr. A. G. Watson ; and it was there 
 at a a breaking-up supper," on the eve of the Christmas 
 
 1 The Sunday-School Magazine, 1896. 
 
 The Hon. Ion Grant Neville Keith- Falconer was born July 5, 
 1856. Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 Jeremie Septuagint Prizeman, 1876. Graduated B.A. as First 
 Class in the Theological Tripos, and Hebrew Prizeman, 1878. 
 Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholar, 1879. First Class in the Semitic 
 Languages Tripos, 1880. Married Gwendolen Bevan, 1884. 
 Appointed Lord Almoner's Reader in Arabic at Cambridge, 1886. 
 Died of fever, on a missionary journey, at Sheikh Othman, in 
 Arabia, May 11, 1887. 
 
 181
 
 182 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 holidays of 1869 that I first set eyes on Keith-Falconer. 
 I see him now, in mental vision, exactly as I saw him 
 then. He was tall for his age thirteen and looked 
 older than his years; long-limbed, loosely built; with 
 a great crop of fair, almost golden, hair ; rosy cheeks ; 
 and blue, dreamy, distant-looking eyes. His features 
 were irregular ; but his brow was nobly formed, and 
 he had then, as in after-life, " that look of habitual 
 meditative abstraction from objects of mere personal 
 vanity or desire which is the peculiar stamp of culture, 
 and makes a roughly-cut face worthy to be called the 
 human face divine." 
 
 The arrangements of Harrow School make it difficult 
 for boys who board in different Houses to see much 
 of one another ; and if, in addition to being in different 
 Boarding-Houses, they are also in different " forms " or 
 school-classes, they scarcely cross one another's paths. 
 I had been two years in the school when Keith-Falconer 
 entered it, and I was not at that time a member of Mr. 
 Watson's House, though I was present as a guest at 
 the supper where I first saw my future friend. For the 
 next year, therefore, we saw very little of one another ; 
 but at the beginning of 1871 I entered Mr. Watson's 
 House as a boarder, and remained there for the rest 
 of my school-life. By that time Keith-Falconer had 
 reached the Sixth Form, in which I was, and from that 
 date our intimacy began. As members of the same 
 Form and House, our intercourse was of necessity close 
 and continuous. At lessons, at games, at meals, in 
 daily and hourly walks to school and back again, in 
 preparation of work, in country rambles, at the Scientific 
 Society, at the Debating Society, in all our various 
 forms of duty and pleasure, we were incessantly in one 
 another's company. No two people in the world could 
 have better opportunities of watching one another's
 
 ION KEITH-FALCONER 183 
 
 conduct and appraising one another's characters, and in 
 what I now set down I speak that which I know and 
 testify that which I have seen. 
 
 In the first place, Ion Keith-Falconer was a very fine 
 creature, physically. The look of delicacy which he had 
 worn in earlier years completely disappeared. He was 
 extremely tall, but in no sense overgrown, for his chest 
 and limbs developed in harmony with his height, and he 
 gave abundant promise of being what he became a 
 magnificently-formed man. Strong and vigorous as he 
 was, I do not think he excelled in school games. I 
 have an impression that at his previous school (in 
 Scotland) he had missed that early initiation into 
 cricket and football which so largely determines sub- 
 sequent proficiency. And I fancy also that his mind 
 young as he was, was imbued with the belief that 
 " bodily exercise profiteth little " ; or, as the Revised 
 Version has it, " is profitable for a little " a slightly 
 more complimentary view, but equally incompatible 
 with that all-consuming absorption in competitive 
 athletics which is the Moloch of Public Schools. In 
 after-years, as some of my readers probably recollect, 
 Keith-Falconer became a famous cyclist, and won inter- 
 University honours in that capacity ; and it was in 
 exact accordance with the fine balance of his nature, and 
 his early habit of weighing and discriminating, to throw 
 himself more earnestly into a bodily exercise of visible 
 utility than into the all-absorbing rivalry of an idle 
 game. 
 
 Intellectually, Keith-Falconer was not quite in tune 
 with his surroundings at Harrow. The spirit of the 
 place, so far as it recognized intellect at all, was 
 classical. Some spasmodic attempts were indeed made 
 to stimulate and reward intellectual effort in other fields, 
 but the high road to honour and promotion lay through
 
 184 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 the Classics, and for classical languages and literature 
 Keith-Falconer had no taste. That remarkable aptitude 
 for Oriental languages which brought him so much 
 honour in his University course, and, indeed, went far 
 to determine the complexion of his life, was as yet 
 undiscovered ; and, if it had been discovered, Harrow 
 offered no means of developing it. Of the subjects 
 recognized by the school-curriculum, Mathematics and 
 German were the two in which he most excelled ; and 
 he took an active and an interested part in the discussions 
 and researches of the School Scientific Society. As 
 regards the intellectual quality of his conversation and 
 companionship, it will probably surprise those who 
 know him only through the strangely one-sided bio- 
 graphy compiled by the Rev. Mr. Sinker, to learn that 
 his most marked characteristic was his sense of humour. 
 I have never known a human being who more intensely 
 loved a joke. My first sight of him was, as I said 
 above, at a supper-party, and after supper there was 
 speech-making of the festive and humorous character 
 befitting such an occasion. Even now I fancy that I 
 can see Keith-Falconer leaning back on his chair, as 
 he abandoned himself with child-like whole-heartedness 
 to the wholesome fun of a happy after-supper speech. 
 And so all through our intercourse, whatever tickled his 
 sense of humour overcame him utterly. Laughter was 
 a sort of intoxication to him. He lost all self-control 
 in his paroxysms of infectious mirth. A word or a 
 nudge was enough to set him off a glance at a ludicrous 
 object, or a whispered phrase from one of his dearly- 
 loved American humourists. And if the time and place 
 rendered joking unsuitable or even perilous ; if we were 
 ranging ourselves in order for House-Prayers, or conning 
 our Juvenal under the austere eye of our unsmiling 
 tutor, the very sense of incongruity redoubled the
 
 ION KEITH-FALCONER 185 
 
 temptation, and Keith-Falconer gave himself up, an 
 unresisting prey, to the demon, or the angel, of pure 
 fun. 
 
 But be it borne in mind that this spirit of humour 
 was never marred by the slightest touch of what was 
 profane or unclean or unkind. At a wicked joke Keith- 
 Falconer could not have laughed, and for the best of 
 reasons it would have been no joke to him. For he 
 was, from first to last, outwardly and inwardly, in his 
 whole mind and soul and spirit, a loving child of God, 
 and a single-hearted servant of the Lord That bought 
 him. " Called and chosen and faithful " might well 
 have been his motto. I know not when or how the 
 Divine Voice first reached him, but it was probably in 
 his earliest years. His father was well known for his 
 evangelistic labours, and his home was conspicuously 
 stamped with the Christian character. Anyhow, when 
 I first came to know him, he was not merely a Christian, 
 but, if such a word is permissible in such a context, an 
 accomplished Christian. He had, in full perfection, a 
 child's confidence in his Father's Love and Goodness, 
 and the intuitive peace of an unclouded faith. All 
 this he had, but he had more than this. He had a 
 reason for the hope that was in him. He had faced diffi- 
 culties, and thought out problems, and weighed and 
 compared differing and sometimes conflicting views of 
 religious truth. With a boy's zeal and light-hearted- 
 ness, he combined a man's reasoned and resolved con- 
 viction. He was an Evangelical to his heart's core. He 
 belonged, by deliberate choice, to the Free Church of 
 Scotland. When the time came round for the Con- 
 firmation in the School Chapel, he declined to be 
 confirmed, alleging that he could find no Scriptural 
 authority for the rite. Still, he was absolutely free 
 from religious uncharitableness, and was genially
 
 186 
 
 tolerant of ecclesiastical opinions (like my own) which 
 he did not share. His heart and life were, as far 
 as human eye could see, of unsullied purity. In his 
 presence all evil things seemed to shrink away ashamed. 
 His character and influence in his House were powerful 
 for good, and he was the more influential because he 
 never courted popularity. He was a good, brave, 
 wholesome, manly-minded boy, doing his daily duty 
 with unostentatious exactness, keen to improve his time 
 and talents, eager to engage in any harmless fun or 
 recreation, but, at all times and in all things, a loyal 
 and loving soldier of the Lord Jesus. His Christian life 
 was continuous and complete. What he was in boyhood, 
 that he was in manhood. An artist who met him at 
 a country-house described him as " that beautiful young 
 giant, with his angel face and roars of laughter." His 
 powers developed year by year. Intellectual distinction, 
 social popularity, domestic happiness all were his. And 
 he laid the mall down at the call of Christ, and followed 
 the Master's voice whithersoever it led him. 
 
 " The three highest titles that can be given to man 
 are those of Martyr, Hero, Saint ; and which of the 
 three is there that in substance it would be irrational 
 to attach to the name of" Ion Keith-Falconer ?
 
 MRS. GLADSTONE 1 
 
 Her thoughts were detached from the world, and only visited it, 
 with an interest like that which Guardian Angels take for their charge, 
 in behalf of those friends with whom she lived in love, or of the 
 poor whom she could serve and comfort. Thus passed her life, 
 enjoying, from all who approached her, an affection enhanced by 
 reverence ; insomuch that, when her friends sorrowed for her death, 
 which arrived at a late period of her existence, they were comforted 
 by the fond reflection, that the humanity which she then laid down 
 was the only circumstance which had placed her, in the words of 
 Scripture, " a little lower than the angels." 
 
 SIR WALTEB SCOTT. 
 
 OIK STEPHEN RICHARD GLYNNE, eighth Baronet, 
 k3 of Hawarden, married in 1806 the Hon. Mary 
 Neville, daughter of the second Lord Braybrooke, by 
 Catherine Grenville, sister of the first Marquis of Buck- 
 ingham. This alliance is worth noting in connexion 
 with the present subject, inasmuch as the historic house 
 of Grenville had, directly or in its ramifications, supplied 
 England with four Prime Ministers. Lady Glynne, 
 while still a young woman and an extremely handsome 
 one, was left a widow, charged with the care of two 
 sons and two daughters. These were Sir Stephen 
 Glynne, ninth and last baronet ; the Rev. Henry Glynne, 
 for many years Rector of Hawarden ; Catherine, who 
 became Mrs. Gladstone ; and Mary, wife of the fourth 
 Lord Lyttelton. Lady Glynne, whose whole time and 
 thought were bestowed on her children, lived with her 
 daughters at Hawarden Castle ; but there were regular 
 
 1 The Times, 1900. 
 187
 
 188 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 visits to London, and occasional journeys undertaken 
 for health or education. One winter was spent at 
 Hastings ; and, in the next house to that occupied by 
 Lady Glynne and her daughters, two young Royal 
 cousins, Prince George of Cambridge and Prince 
 George of Hanover, were living with a private tutor. 
 The acquaintance thus begun ripened into mutual 
 regard, and to the end of her life Mrs. Gladstone 
 had no warmer friend and admirer than the Duke of 
 Cambridge. 
 
 Some ten years ago the present writer was dining 
 in company with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone in a private 
 hotel in York Street, St. James's. Mr. Gladstone, after 
 glancing round the drawing-room, asked Mrs. Gladstone 
 if she had ever been in the room before or had any 
 recollection of it, and, on her answering in the negative, 
 he said, " Think again. Don't you remember Lady 
 Theresa Lister's musical parties in this room, and a 
 young Member of Parliament whose singing you ad- 
 mired ? " Those musical parties, and others like them, 
 were responsible for much. Mr. Gladstone, who became 
 Member for Newark in 1832, had been a friend of Sir 
 Stephen Glynne at Oxford, and had stayed with him 
 at Hawarden in 1835. He often met Lady Glynne and 
 her daughters in London, and in the winter of 1838-9 
 he fell in with them travelling in Italy. At Home he 
 became engaged to Miss Glynne, and on July 25, 1839, 
 the wedding took place at Hawarden. At the same 
 time Miss Mary Glynne was married to the fourth Lord 
 Lyttelton. Tradition relates that one of the villagers of 
 Hawarden, seeing the two bridegrooms together, and 
 struck by the " aristocratic pallor " of Mr. Gladstone's 
 face, exclaimed, " Well, there is no mistaking which 
 is the lord ! " Sir Francis Doyle, who officiated 
 as Mr. Gladstone's Best Man, thus beautifully apos-
 
 MRS. GLADSTONE 189 
 
 trophized Mrs. Gladstone, in a poem on " The Sister 
 Brides " :- 
 
 High hopes are thine, oh ! eldest flower ! 
 
 Great duties to be greatly done ; 
 To soothe, in many a toil-worn hour, 
 
 The noble heart which thou hast won. 
 
 Covet not then the rest of those, 
 Who sleep through life unknown to fame ; 
 
 Fate grants not passionless repose 
 To her, who weds a glorious name. 
 
 He presses on through calm and storm 
 
 Unshaken, let what will betide; 
 Thou hast an office to perform, 
 
 To be his answering spirit-bride. 
 
 The path appointed for his feet 
 Through desert-wilds and rocks may go, 
 
 Where the eye looks in vain to greet 
 The gales, that from the waters blow. 
 
 Be thou a balmy breeze to him, 
 
 A fountain singing at his side ; 
 A star whose light is never dim, 
 
 A pillar, through the waste to guide. 
 
 This bright ideal of wifely duty was fulfilled to the 
 letter. By 1839 Mr. Gladstone had been twice in 
 office, and it was certain that, when the Tories came 
 in again, he wonld hold a more important post. " Look 
 well at that young man," a friend had said to Miss 
 Glynne, " he is going to be Prime Minister " ; and, 
 in giving her hand to the Member for Newark, the 
 " answering spirit-bride " knew well the arduous voca- 
 tion which lay before her. It is recorded that at the 
 very outset of their married life her husband, forecasting 
 his probable career, gave her a choice of two alternatives : 
 to know nothing, and be free from all responsibility ; 
 to know everything, and be bound to secrecy. Who
 
 190 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 can doubt which alternative was chosen ? Fifty years 
 later Mr. Gladstone said to a friend, " My wife has 
 known every political secret I have ever had, and has 
 never betrayed my confidence." One exception, which 
 delightfully illustrates this general rule, is too pretty 
 to be omitted. In Mr. Gladstone's early days of Cabinet 
 office his young wife dropped a word in the presence 
 of some of his colleagues which implied that she knew 
 some matter of confidential importance. Immediately 
 realizing that she had made a slip, she left the room 
 and wrote a penitential note, which she sent in by a 
 servant. Instantaneously came back the reply in some 
 such words as these : 
 
 DEAREST C., Don't blame yourself. I 'don't blame you. 
 It is the only little mistake you ever made. Your affect. 
 
 W. E. G. 
 
 In more recent years Mrs. Gladstone's friends have 
 found a peculiar enjoyment in watching her while she 
 was undergoing the operation of being " pumped." The 
 smile was so childlike and bland ; the look of ignor- 
 ance so sunny and convincing ; the discomfiture of the 
 pumper so palpable and so complete. " Well, Mrs. 
 Gladstone, what is Mr. Gladstone going to do about 
 the House of Lords ? or the Irish Church ? or the 
 Sudan ? " or whatever the topic of present interest 
 might be. " Well, I wonder. Don't you ? What do 
 you think he ought to do ? " and the questioner retired 
 as wise as he came. 
 
 No one would have called Mrs. Gladstone a highly- 
 educated woman. As a girl she had lived out of doors, 
 in the saddle, on the water, on the hills, in the archery- 
 field, and in whatever form of athletic exercise that 
 iron age permitted to young ladies ; and her married 
 life, full of public and private interests, had left her
 
 MRS. GLADSTONE 191 
 
 no leisure for reading. But she had that much better 
 gift than education an immense natural shrewdness, 
 concealed by a simplicity of manner which completely 
 deceived superficial observers. She was entirely superior 
 to affectation, and, when she did not know a fact or 
 understand a question, she was eager to ask for informa- 
 tion, and then she took the point with singular readiness 
 and hit it off in some quaintly-humorous phrase. A 
 sense of humour was, indeed, one of her most marked 
 traits. She saw the absurdities of situations, speeches, 
 characters, and appearances with peculiar keenness, and 
 could scarcely keep her sense of amusement under control. 
 She was peculiarly intolerant of bores and prosers, 
 dealers in solemn commonplace, " sedentary weavers 
 of long tales " ; and her skill in extricating herself 
 from their meshes without hurting their self-esteem 
 amounted to genius. Like many geniuses, she was, 
 in the petty concerns of life, untidy and unmethodical ; 
 and this quality, playing round the social duties of 
 a Premier's wife, not seldom landed her in difficulties. 
 But here, again, her mother-wit always came to her 
 aid, and Mr. Gladstone once proudly said to the present 
 writer, " My wife has a marvellous faculty of getting 
 into scrapes, but an even more marvellous faculty of 
 getting out of them." 
 
 Mrs. Gladstone's manner was full of grace and charm. 
 The genuine amiability of a completely unspoilt nature 
 showed itself in every word and look. Her husband's 
 friend, Hope-Scott, has left it on record that in old 
 days she was a potent canvasser, and no one entered 
 more naturally into the frolics of the young or the 
 little interests of the poor. But she was also essen- 
 tially grande dame. Her walk and bearing as she 
 passed the Royal presence at the Drawing-room were 
 long the admiration of those whose duty obliged them
 
 192 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 to stand by the Throne or in the " General Circle " ; 
 and in her habits, manners, and style of speech she was 
 a great lady of the old school. This quality gave a 
 peculiar effectiveness to her dealings with pertness, 
 forwardness, or undue familiarity ; and, when she thought 
 it her duty to administer a snub, no one snubbed so 
 aptly. It was impossible for the subject not to feel 
 the process, and equally impossible for him (or her) to 
 rebel against it. But these exercises of social discipline 
 were rare ; and, for the rest, Mrs. Gladstone diffused 
 geniality, good temper, and cheerfulness wherever she 
 went. Few women of her generation had so wide a 
 circle of attached friends. She was an indefatigable 
 letter-writer, and her correspondence, accumulated 
 through sixty years, contained letters of the highest 
 interest from the most famous personages, Royal, political, 
 and ecclesiastical, of the present reign. But it was in 
 the home that she excelled. She had been a devoted 
 daughter and sister ; she was to the last an exemplary 
 mother and head of a family ; and, when we think of 
 what she was as a wife, Mr. Gladstone's words about 
 the Queen's marriage may, with perfect exactness, be 
 applied to his own : " Even among happy marriages 
 it was exceptional, so nearly did the union of thought, 
 heart, and action both fulfil the ideal and bring duality 
 near to the borders of identity." From the earliest 
 days of their married life, Mrs. Gladstone made her 
 husband's health, not always so robust as in later years, 
 her prime care ; and her skill and watchfulness in this 
 regard drew from him the characteristic compliment, 
 " My wife is no inconsiderable physician." An even 
 more valuable contribution to his happiness (if not to 
 his success) was the sedulous care with which she warded 
 off whatever might tend to disturb the " vulnerable 
 temper and impetuous moods " which, forty years ago,
 
 MRS. GLADSTONE 193 
 
 he acknowleged as his own. Their married life was 
 one long honeymoon ; and though, indeed, fully charged 
 with solemn interests and issues, it had also a jocose 
 and genial side which was inexpressibly attractive. No 
 one who ever heard it will forget the quaint enjoyment 
 with which Mr. Gladstone, grasping his wife's hand, 
 used to sing the refrain of his favourite " Fiddler's 
 Song " : 
 
 A ragamuffin husband and a rantipoling wife, 
 
 We'll fiddle it and scrape it through the ups and downs of life. 
 
 The slightest sketch of Mrs. Gladstone's character 
 would be glaringly incomplete, if it disregarded her 
 religion. This was not a mere aspect or attribute of 
 her character : it was the basis of her nature and the 
 mainspring of her life. Her views were those of the 
 traditional High Anglican school, which she illustrated 
 in its characteristic graces of reverence, gravity, and 
 unobtrusive devotion. But her heart knew no dis- 
 tinctions of sect. She " walked in wisdom toward 
 them that are without," and her life-long works of 
 mercy were literally all-embracing. The House of 
 Charity in Soho, the Newport Market Refuge, the 
 Woodford Convalescent Home, the House of Mercy at 
 Clewer, the Orphanage at Hawarden, are only a few 
 of the good works with which she was intimately 
 connected. On the occasion of her Golden Wedding, 
 Cardinal Manning wrote : 
 
 I have watched you both out on the sea of public tumults 
 from my quiet shores. You know how nearly I have agreed 
 in William's political career, especially in his Irish policy 
 of the last twenty years. And I have seen also your works 
 of charity for the people, in which, as you know, I heartily 
 share with you. There are few who keep such a Jubilee as 
 yours : and how few of our old friends and companions now 
 survive ! We have had a long climb up those eighty steps 
 
 13
 
 194 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 for even you are not far behind and I hope we shall 
 not " break the pitcher at the fountain." I wonder at your 
 activity and endurance of weather. May every blessing be 
 with you both to the end ! 
 
 On the same occasion Mr. Gladstone said, " It 
 would not be possible to unfold in words the value of the 
 gifts which the bounty of Providence has conferred upon 
 me, however unworthy I may be, through her." And 
 in his will he wrote, " I desire to be buried where my 
 wife can also lie." It was the tribute of a grateful love 
 nobly earned and richly given. Mr. Gladstone's political 
 career awaits the verdict of history ; but, wherever he 
 is remembered, there will also be remembrance of that 
 pure and courageous spirit which was the guiding-star 
 of his fortunes and the Good Angel of his house.
 
 BISHOP WESTCOTT 1 
 
 FTIHERE will be plenty of panegyrists to describe 
 _L Dr. Westcott as critic and author, professor and 
 bishop. Comparatively few people remember him as 
 schoolmaster. I look back over three-and-thirty years, 
 and recall him as I first knew him at Harrow, with 
 his " puny body," anxious forehead, and faint voice, one 
 of the few noticeable and interesting figures in a profes- 
 sional society dominated by convention and commonplace. 
 The great majority of our masters I think we honestly 
 contemned, or at best regarded with a good-humoured 
 tolerance. But there was a kind of mystery about 
 Westcott which was distinctly impressive. He was 
 hardly visible in the common life of the School. He 
 lived remote, aloof, apart, above. It must be presumed 
 that the boys who boarded in his House knew something 
 of him, but with the School in general he never came 
 in contact. His special work was to supervise the 
 composition, English and classical, of the Sixth Form ; 
 and on this task he lavished all his minute and 
 scrupulous scholarship, all his genuine enthusiasm for 
 literary beauty. But, till we reached the Sixth, we 
 saw Westcott only on public occasions, and one of these 
 occasions was the calling-over of names on half-holidays, 
 styled " Absence " at Eton and " Bill " at Harrow. To 
 see Westcott performing this function made one, even 
 in those puerile days, feel that the beautifully-delicate 
 
 1 The Pilot, 1901. 
 195
 
 196 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 instrument was eminently unfitted for the rough work 
 of mere routine on which it was employed. We had 
 sense enough to know that Westcott was a man of 
 learning and distinction, altogether outside the beaten 
 track of schoolmasters' accomplishments ; and that he 
 had performed achievements in scholarship and divinity 
 which great men recognized as great. " Calling Bill " 
 was an occupation well enough suited for his colleagues 
 for Huggins or Buggins or Brown or Green but it 
 was actually pathetic to see this frail embodiment of 
 culture and piety contending with the clamour and 
 tumult of five hundred obstreperous boys. 
 
 It was not only as a great scholar that we revered 
 Westcott. We knew, by that mysterious process by 
 which school-boys get to know something of the real, as 
 distinct from the official, characters of their masters, 
 that he was a saint. There were strange stories in 
 the School about his ascetic way of living. We were 
 told that he wrote his sermons on his knees. We heard 
 that he never went into local society, and that he read 
 no newspaper except The Guardian. When Dr. Liddon, 
 at the height of his fame as " The man of '66," came 
 to Harrow to preach on Founder's Day, Westcott would 
 not dine with the Head Master to meet him. He 
 could not spare three hours from prayer and study ; 
 but he came in for half an hour's conversation after 
 dinner. 
 
 All that we saw and heard in Chapel confirmed what 
 we were told. We saw the bowed form, the clasped 
 hands, the rapt gaze, as of a man who in worship was 
 really solus cum Solo, and not, as the manner of some 
 of his colleagues was, sleeping the sleep of the just, or 
 watching for the devotional delinquencies of the Human 
 Boy. Various incidents, trifling but significant, went 
 to confirm the same impression. When Westcott cele-
 
 BISHOP WESTCOTT 197 
 
 brated the Holy Communion in the Parish Church, he 
 always took the Ablutions, though they were not custom- 
 ary there ; and, after celebrating in the Church in the 
 early morning, he remained for prayer and worship at 
 the late Celebration in the School-Chapel. But it was 
 as a preacher to the boys that he made the deepest 
 impression. His sermons were rare events ; but we 
 looked forward to them as to something quite out of 
 the common groove. There were none of the accessories 
 which generally attract boyish admiration. No rhetoric, 
 no purple patches, no declamation, no pretence of 
 spontaneity. The voice was so faint as to be almost 
 inaudible ; the language was totally unadorned ; the 
 sentences were closely packed with meaning ; and the 
 meaning was not always easy. But the charm lay in 
 distinction, aloofness from common ways of thinking 
 and speaking, a wide outlook on events and movements 
 in the Church, and a fiery enthusiasm all the more 
 telling because sedulously restrained. I remember as 
 well as if I heard it yesterday a reference in December, 
 1869, to "that august assemblage which gathers to- 
 morrow under the dome of St. Peter's," and I remember 
 feeling pretty sure at the moment that there was no 
 other schoolmaster in England who would preach to 
 his boys about the Vatican Council. But by far the 
 most momentous of Westcott's sermons at Harrow was 
 that which he preached on the Twentieth Sunday after 
 Trinity, 1868. The text was Ephesians v. 15 : " See 
 then that ye walk circumspectly." The sermon was 
 an earnest plea for the revival of the ascetic life, and 
 the preacher endeavoured to show " what new blessings 
 God has in store for absolute self-sacrifice " by telling 
 his hearers about the great victories of asceticism in 
 history. He took first the instance of St. Antony, as 
 the type of personal asceticism ; then that of St,
 
 198 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Benedict, as the author of the Common Life of Equality 
 and Brotherhood ; and then that of St. Francis, who, 
 "in the midst of a Church endowed with all that art 
 and learning and wealth and power could give, reasserted 
 the love of God to the poorest, the meanest, the most 
 repulsive of His children, and placed again the simple 
 Cross over all the treasures of the world." Even " the 
 unparalleled achievements, the matchless energy, of the 
 Jesuits," were duly recognized as triumphs of faith and 
 discipline ; and the sermon ended with a passionate 
 appeal to the Harrow boys to follow the example of 
 the young Antony or the still younger Benedict, and 
 prepare themselves to take their part in reviving the 
 ascetic life of the English Church. 
 
 It is to a congregation like this that the call comes with 
 the most solemn and the most cheering voice. The young 
 alone have the fresh enthusiasm which in former times God 
 has been pleased to consecrate to like services. . . . And 
 if, as I do believe most deeply, a work at present awaits 
 England, and our English Church, greater than the world 
 has yet seen, I cannot but pray every one who hears me to 
 listen humbly for the promptings of God's Spirit, if so be 
 that He is even now calling him to take a foremost part in 
 it. It is for us, perhaps, first to hear the call, but it is for 
 you to interpret it and fulfil it. Our work is already sealed 
 by the past : yours is still rich in boundless possibilities. 
 
 It may readily be conceived that this discourse did 
 not please either the British Parent or the Common 
 Schoolmaster. A rumour went abroad that Mr. Westcott 
 was going to turn all the boys into monks, and loud 
 was the clamour of ignorance and superstition. Westcott 
 made the only dignified reply. He printed (without 
 publishing) the peccant sermon, under the title " Dis- 
 ciplined Life," and gave a copy to every boy in the 
 school, expressing the hope that " God, in His great 
 Jove, will even thus, by words most unworthily spoken,
 
 BISHOP WESTCOTT 199 
 
 lead someone among us to think on one peculiar work 
 of the English Church, and in due time to offer himself 
 for the fulfilment of it as His Spirit shall teach." 
 Those who remember that Charles Gore was one of the 
 boys who heard the sermon may be inclined to think 
 that the prayer was answered. 
 
 Dr. Westcott's career at Harrow ended with two 
 incidents, so characteristic that they should be re- 
 produced : 
 
 1. He begged, as his parting request, that a weekly 
 Celebration might be established in the School-Chapel. 
 (N.B. Thirty-one years have passed, and it has not 
 been established yet.) 
 
 2. In taking leave of the Sixth Form, he said that his 
 best wish for them was that, whatever befell them in 
 life, they might always retain " a firm faith in Criticism 
 and a firm faith in God."
 
 RICHARD HOLT HUTTON l 
 
 essays 2 are sure of a warm welcome, for they 
 _ remind us of an old friend. That friend was not 
 solely the essayist R. H. Button but the dear old 
 Spectator itself, as we knew it, and loved it, and laughed 
 at it for so many years. Our reasons for reading it 
 were various. One man read it because he agreed with 
 it on political or moral issues, such as the Eastern 
 Question or Vivisection ; another, because he was in- 
 terested by its romantic tales of logical lap-dogs and 
 conscientious cats ; some, because it was an excellent 
 compendium of the week's sayings and doings ; others, 
 because with its mysterious High Churchmanship there 
 was blended an aroma of far-distant free-thought, from 
 which the timid Anglican might " snatch a fearful 
 joy " without compromising his orthodoxy. 
 
 But all these reasons were merely subsidiary. What 
 made the Spectator beloved alike of the Philhellene and 
 of the Animals' Friend, and even of the ordinary reader 
 who had no special cult or hobby, was the fact that 
 it was the utterance of a mind absolutely original. 
 Whatever subject it handled, from Impaled Bulgarians 
 to the Credibility of Miracles, was certain to be pre- 
 sented in a new and unlooked-for aspect. The essays 
 which compose this book are stated in the preface to 
 
 1 The Church Beview, 1899. 
 
 3 " Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thought." By the late 
 liichard Holt Hutton 
 
 200
 
 RICHARD HOLT HUTTON 201 
 
 be " published as they appeared " ; but one change has 
 most properly been made. The editorial " we " has 
 given place to the personal " I." It is no disparagement 
 to the able and accomplished persons who were associated 
 with Mr. Hntton in the editorship of the Spectator, 
 to say that one cannot by the utmost stretch of the 
 imagination conceive these essays as proceeding from 
 any pen but one. Alike in their striking excellences 
 and in their exasperating faults, they are Mr. Button's, 
 and his alone. The style is pre-eminently characteristic 
 of the man tangled, untidy, ungraceful, disfigured with 
 " trailing relatives " and accumulated epithets ; and 
 yet all the time conveying the sense of some real 
 and even profound thought striving in vain to express 
 itself intelligibly. 
 
 As the style, so the substance. " The Spectator" 
 wrote Matthew Arnold in 1865, "is very well, but the 
 article has Hutton's fault of seeing so very far into 
 a millstone." And, two years later, " The Spectator 
 has an article in which Hutton shows his strange 
 aptitude for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick." 
 Both were sound criticisms, and both are amply illus- 
 trated in the volume before us. When Mr. Hutton 
 addressed himself to a deep topic of abstract speculation, 
 he " saw so very far into " it that even his most earnest 
 admirers could not follow the visual act. When he 
 handled the more commonplace subjects of thought 
 or action with which ordinary men concern themselves, 
 he seemed to miss the most obvious and palpable points. 
 For an example of the former process we may refer 
 to Essay XXXV. of this collection, in which he sets 
 himself to explain the glorious inexplicabilities of 
 F. D. Maurice : for an example of the latter, to Essay 
 XXX., in which he confesses himself unable to dis- 
 tinguish between adoration of the Consecrated Elements
 
 202 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 in the Eucharist and adoration of Onr Lord present 
 in the Sacrament under the form of Bread and Wine. 
 On this point, he might have profitably taken counsel 
 with Dr. Johnson, who, when Bozzy asked him if 
 he justified the idolatry of the Mass, replied, " Sir, 
 there is no idolatry in the Mass. They believe God 
 to be there, and they adore Him." 
 
 The distinction between worshipping bread and 
 worshipping God would not seem, even to the natural 
 man, far-fetched, and it would be obvious to anyone 
 who had even a smattering of theology ; but, in truth, 
 Mr. Hutton was not, and did not profess to be, a 
 theologian. He was a philosophical thinker, with a 
 natural bent towards the abstract and the mystical 
 a Platonist rather than an Aristotelian. He saw things 
 invisible to grosser eyes ; he heard voices not intelligible 
 to ordinary ears ; and, when he was once fairly launched 
 on such a speculation as that in Essay XX., on Personal 
 Identity, he 
 
 Found no end, in wandering mazes lost. 
 
 But the very quality of aloofness from his fellow-men, 
 which made it impossible for him to be the exponent 
 of a system or the founder of a school, made him a 
 peculiarly interesting friend. In homely phrase, you 
 never knew where to have him ; he was always breaking 
 out in a fresh place. He was as full of splendid gleams 
 as a landscape by Turner, and as free from all formal 
 rules of art and method. He was an independent 
 thinker, if ever there was one, and as honest as he was 
 independent. In his belief truth was the most precious 
 of treasures, to be sought at all hazards, and, when 
 acquired, to be safeguarded at all costs. His zeal for 
 truth was closely allied with his sense of justice. His 
 mind came as near absolute fairness as is possible for
 
 RICHARD HOLT HUTTON 203 
 
 a man who takes any part in live controversies. He 
 never used an unfair argument to establish his point, 
 nor pressed a fair argument unduly. He was scrupu- 
 lously careful in stating his adversary's case, and did 
 all in his power to secure a judicial and patient hearing 
 even for the causes with which he had least sympathy. 
 
 It is, I suppose, common knowledge that Mr. Hutton 
 was born and brought up in Unitarianism, and that 
 he emancipated himself from that most dismal of all 
 forms of religion. I gathered that Mr. Maurice was 
 the teacher to whom he owed most ; but I cannot 
 suppose that an intellect so original and so self-reliant 
 owed much to any human guide. I imagine that in 
 his search for truth he " conferred not with flesh 
 and blood." As far as I know he never made public 
 the steps and stages of his great transition. In the 
 result, they led him to the full and devout acceptance 
 of the Incarnation ; and thenceforward he regarded 
 all religious and moral problems, and all the practical 
 issues which spring from them, in the light of that 
 sublime and central truth. He was, indeed, a Christian 
 through and through ; but among Christians it would 
 be difficult to fix his exact place. He admired the 
 Established Church, and conformed to it. He accepted 
 " The Sacramental Principle " (Essay XXX.) because 
 he held that " the spirit is spiritualized through the 
 Divine influence acting on the body as well as the 
 spirit." He justified Prayer for the Departed (Essay 
 XXXI.) because he thought it part and parcel of the 
 general doctrine of Prayer. He repudiated Ritualism, 
 because he could not understand the " moral logic " 
 of Ritualists ; but his aesthetic sympathy with some 
 prettinesses of Romanism led to a mild flirtation with 
 a Popish Chapel, and thereby to a rumour that he 
 had joined the Church of Rome from which, as he
 
 204 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 himself said, lie was preserved (like Dr. Johnson) by 
 "an obstinate rationality." But, after all, the value 
 and the interest of this book are not, in any strict sense, 
 theological. It is valuable and it is interesting because 
 it vividly recalls to the mind (and by its admirable 
 frontispiece to the eye) a man unique in his mental 
 formation, his excellences, and his influence. By the 
 incessant writing of some forty years Mr. Button 
 enforced the fundamental truth of human redemption 
 through God made Man on the attention of people to 
 whom professional preachers speak in vain, and he 
 steadily impressed on the conscience of his fellow- 
 Christians those ethical duties of justice and mercy 
 which are the characteristic fruits of their creed. It 
 was a high function, excellently fulfilled.
 
 BROADLANDS 
 
 I HAVE grouped four notices under this one head ; 
 for Broadlands was the home of Lady Mount-Temple, 
 and it was the " Broadlands Conference " of 1879 which 
 first gave me the privilege of knowing Mr. Jukes and 
 Mr. Gurney. 
 
 GEORGINA, LADY MOUNT-TEMPLED was the youngest 
 and the most beautiful of several beautiful sisters 
 daughters of Admiral Tollemache and sisters of the first 
 Lord Tollemache of Helmingham. She was married in 
 1848 to the Hon. William Cowper, who assumed the 
 name of Temple on succeeding to the estates of his 
 step-father, Lord Palmerston, and was the author of 
 the famous " Cowper-Temple clause." Mr. Cowper- 
 Temple, during his long career in Parliament, was an 
 enthusiastic supporter of all social reforms, and more 
 especially of Temperance. When in 1880 Mr. Gladstone 
 made him a peer, he took the title of Mount-Temple, 
 from one of his Irish properties, and thereby inspired 
 Lord Honghton to run about town saying, " Do you 
 know the precedent for Billy Cowper's title ? It's in 
 ' Don Juan ' : 
 
 And Lord Mount Coffee-house, the Irish peer, 
 Who killed himself for love with drink last year." 
 
 Lady Mount-Temple was one of the most remarkable 
 
 1 The Manchester Guardian, 1901. 
 205
 
 206 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 women of her time. She had, besides an almost fault- 
 less beauty, an extraordinary dignity of presence and 
 bearing, which was the outward and visible sign of a 
 nature singularly noble and elevated. Ruskin described 
 her as " eminent in her grace above a stunted group " 
 of Roman worshippers. He tells us in " Praeterita " 
 how he spent the winter of 1840 in pursuing her 
 
 a fair English girl, who was not only the admitted Queen 
 of beauty in the English circle of that winter in Rome, but 
 was so, in the kind of beauty which I had only hitherto 
 dreamed of as possible, but never yet seen living : statuesque 
 severity with womanly sweetness joined. I don't think I 
 ever succeeded in getting nearer than within fifty yards of 
 her ; but she was the light and solace of all the Roman winter 
 to me, in the mere chance glimpses of her far away, and the 
 hope of them. 
 
 The dominant note of Lady Mount-Temple's character 
 was her passionate indignation against cruelty and in- 
 justice. She had a genuine love of the outcast and down- 
 trodden, a chivalry of spirit which always instinctively 
 allied her with the weaker side, with " lost causes and 
 forsaken beliefs," and which made her the champion of 
 people whom the world casts out of its synagogue, and 
 of enterprises which it regards as offensive insanities. 
 Her husband shared to the full her zeal for social 
 service ; and, as this zeal was allied with an absorbing 
 interest in religious, ethical, and psychological problems, 
 the result was that their beautiful home Broadlands, 
 near Romsey was the scene of strange gatherings. 
 Thither came the High Priestess of the Shakers when 
 she was evicted from her dwelling for refusing to pay 
 rates, and Pearsall Smith the American evangelist, and 
 Richard Booth the inventor of the Blue Ribbon, and Lord 
 Shaftesbury, and Archbishop Benson, and Burne-Jones, 
 and Antoinette Sterling, and preaching negresses, and 
 Ritualistic curates, and vegetarians, and clairvoyantes,
 
 BROADLANDS 207 
 
 and " spiritual wives " ; all these have I met in that 
 beautiful house, amid an unequalled environment of 
 Italian pictures and of gardens where the saints seemed 
 to walk under trees of Paradise by the crystal river. 
 
 It is almost impossible to avoid transcendentalism 
 when one thinks of Broadlands and the company which 
 gathered in it. I do not think that the host and hostess 
 would have harboured a vivisector, for cruelty was the 
 one sin with which they could make no terms. But 
 with this sole exception it mattered not how low one 
 had sunk in social disgrace, how far one had wandered 
 from the paths of sane thinking and the jog-trot customs 
 of the world ; the doors of Broadlands were always 
 open wide, and the wanderer passing through them 
 found himself in a circle where the stately traditions 
 of the vieille cour were mingled with an openness of 
 mind to which no conceivable aspect of truth was 
 unwelcome, and a largeness of heart to which no 
 experience of humanity appealed in vain. In that 
 atmosphere nothing that was mean or base or cruel, 
 could live. Truth and love, "mercy and self-sacrifice, 
 were the vital air. Of that strangely unworldly society 
 unlike anything in the whole of my social experience 
 Lady Mount-Temple was the soul and the sun. Since 
 1888 she had been a widow, and death has come as 
 a merciful deliverance to a soul too sensitive to know 
 happiness in a world where others suffered. 
 
 THE death of Lady Mount-Temple 1 is an event of 
 which the general world took very slight notice ; but 
 in the hearts of those who knew her it has awakened 
 thoughts too deep for tears. She was a woman on 
 1 The Pilot, 1901.
 
 208 
 
 whom Nature had lavished gifts beauty, grace, intellect, 
 character, position, influence ; but all these were quali- 
 fied should we not rather say enhanced ? by a sympathy 
 with suffering so keen that she could never be happy in 
 a world where others were miserable. To her all the 
 cruelties and tyrannies that are done under the sun, 
 all the pangs and tears of a groaning and travailing 
 creation, were 
 
 Desperate tides of the whole great world's anguish, 
 Forced through the channels of a single heart ; 
 
 and the problem of pain was one of the unsearchable 
 mysteries of God. To know the truth about Him, 
 and to lessen the load of earthly suffering, were the 
 two objects to which her long life was unbrokenly 
 devoted. 
 
 Nothing like a biography of Lady Mount-Temple (nor 
 of her husband, who predeceased her in 1888) will be 
 attempted here. But perhaps it may be worth while 
 to recall a curious phase of religious life which was 
 identified with their name. This was the " Broadlands 
 Conference." The idea was borrowed from the American 
 camp-meetings, and the first Conference was held in 
 July, 1874, at Broadlands the beautiful home near 
 Romsey which Mr. Cowper-Temple inherited from his 
 step-father, Lord Palmerston. 
 
 The order of proceedings was something like what 
 follows. Mr. and Mrs. Cowper-Temple (to use the 
 name by which they were known till 1880) invited a 
 large number of friends and acquaintances, male and 
 female, who had this much in common that they were 
 interested in religious enquiry and nothing more. A 
 few weeks before the Conference began a syllabus of 
 subjects for consideration was circulated among those 
 who had accepted the invitation. On Monday evening
 
 BROADLANDS 209 
 
 the gathering assembled ; the house at Broadlands was 
 filled to the attics, and many of the guests overflowed 
 into the inns of Romsey. On Tuesday morning there 
 was an early Celebration in Romsey Abbey. For those 
 who preferred non-Sacramental religion, devotions were 
 provided in the house. After breakfast we had Family 
 Prayers and expositions. At eleven the whole company 
 assembled in a glorious grove of beeches on the lawn, 
 where a rostrum and seats had been arranged. Lord 
 Mount-Temple presided with infinite grace and devout- 
 ness, and the Conference began. Let me enumerate 
 only a few people who attended it Mr. Russell Gurney, 
 Mr. Andrew Jukes, Bishop Wilkinson, Father Corbet 
 of Stoke, Basil Wilberforce, Theodore Monod, Pearsall 
 Smith, George Macdonald, Arthur Stanton, Alfred 
 Gurney, Canon Body, Bishop Boyd-Carpenter, Lord 
 Radstock, Ion Keith-Falconer, Roden Noel, and Edward 
 Clifford. To these must be added Lady Gainsborough, 
 Lady Waterford, Lady Ashbnrton, Mrs. Charles, Miss 
 Yonge, Miss Ellice Hopkins, Miss Marsh, Antoinette 
 Sterling, Mrs. Sumner, Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. Pearsall Smith, 
 and Mrs. Russell Gurney. It will be readily perceived 
 that in this society there was a considerable variety 
 of religious opinion ; and among the orators I recall 
 (without naming them) a Jew who had been converted 
 by studying the Law of Sacrifice, a negress who had 
 been a slave, and a working printer who taught that 
 sin was a disease. The debate was animated, amiable, 
 and desultory. No one kept to the prescribed subject. 
 Everyone had his own gospel, and preached it. Every- 
 one agreed immensely with the last speaker, and forth- 
 with proceeded to launch some entirely different theory 
 of his own. There was no quarrelling, and the mutual 
 admiration was perfectly sincere. After luncheon the 
 Conference was resumed, and we went on debating till 
 
 14
 
 210 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 tea-time. In the evening there was a mission-service 
 in the Park, and the day was wound up with Family 
 Prayers and more expositions. The next day and the 
 next exactly the same order was pursued, and then, after 
 farewell services and meetings, the Conference broke up. 
 
 A religious newspaper, reporting the spiritual exercises 
 of the week, concluded its notice with this characteristic 
 touch, " We are informed that the noble host's income 
 is not less than 30,000 a year " ; and the luxurious 
 appliances of the " Broadlands Retreat " made capital 
 fun for people accustomed to the more austere regimen 
 of Cowley or Keble. And yet, though it was so very 
 easy to laugh at them, the Broadlands Conferences 
 had their own special grace and value. They brought 
 together people who certainly would never have met 
 elsewhere. They enabled Ritualists to understand the 
 vital element of Evangelical religion. They showed 
 Evangelicals that Ritualists were not necessarily slaves 
 of the husk and the letter. Even more usefully still, 
 they opened the eyes of orthodox religionists to the 
 mysterious workings of the Divine Spirit of Truth in 
 regions far beyond the precincts of all recognized Churches. 
 
 I look back through the vista of years upon the 
 scene in which the Conference assembled, and see the 
 over-arching trees, the glowing garden, the river gliding 
 softly through the quiet green lawns. All is pervaded 
 and beautified by the presence of the loved and honoured 
 lady who on Monday last was laid to rest beside her 
 husband in the cemetery at Romsey. 
 
 Vattene in pace, alma beata e bella. 
 
 A FEW years ago, when the question was asked, " Has 
 the prophetical gift ceased out of the Church ? " the
 
 BROADLANDS 211 
 
 answer was, " Not so long as Mr. Jukes is alive." 1 And 
 now Mr. Jukes is dead, and the Church of England has 
 lost one of the most interesting characters that have 
 adorned it in these latter days. 
 
 Andrew John Jukes was born in 1815, the son of 
 an Indian Civil Servant. When he was twelve, he 
 entered Harrow School, under the mastership of Dr. 
 George Butler, afterwards Dean of Peterborough. Among 
 his school-fellows were Edward Munro, of Harrow Weald ; 
 Frederick Faber, of the Oratory ; Hugh Pearson, of 
 Sonning ; Sir Henry Acland, of Oxford ; and George 
 Butler, Canon of Winchester. From Harrow, Andrew 
 Jukes went into the army, but he soon found a better 
 use for his life. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 where he took his degree in 1842, having in the pre- 
 vious year won the Hulsean Prize for an essay on the 
 Principles of Prophetical Interpretation. Immediately 
 after taking his degree he was ordained Deacon, and a 
 Deacon he remained till the end of his long life. His 
 only curacy was at St. John's, Hull, where he worked 
 from 1842 to 1844. 
 
 An intense and ardent spirituality was from first to 
 last the keynote of his nature, and he revolted from the 
 legal bondage of an Established Church. For a moment 
 he hovered between Plymouthism and Rome, and then 
 cast in his lot with the Plymouth Brethren. One of 
 the characteristic principles of that strange but spiritually- 
 minded sect is its repudiation of a stated ministry. 
 Accordingly, Mr. Jukes discarded clerical dress, dropped 
 the title of " Reverend," and removed his name from 
 the Clergy-List. For many years he lived withdrawn 
 from the world, and wholly immersed in sacred study. 
 
 These things [he wrote in the preface to one of his books] 
 were not first shewn me by the Fathers, but opened in solitary 
 
 1 The Pilot, 1901.
 
 212 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 communings with the Word of God ; yet I am thankful to 
 see that I am in the same great circle, and in the same spirit, 
 with the Church of other days. 
 
 All his writing was full of one thought the spiritual 
 significance of the Literal and the Material, as dis- 
 closed to the enlightened understanding of the Church 
 in all ages. His first book was " The Law of the 
 Offerings, considered as the Appointed Figure of the 
 Various Aspects of the Offering of the Body of Jesus 
 Christ." Then came " The Characteristic Differences 
 of the Four Gospels, considered as revealing Various 
 Relations of the Lord Jesus Christ " ; " The Mystery 
 of the Kingdom, traced through the Books of Kings " ; 
 and " The Types of Genesis, as revealing the Development 
 of Human Nature within and without." All these books 
 ran through many editions, and, by cumulative force, 
 they led a large number of earnest Protestants, while 
 retaining all their devotion to the letter of Scripture, to 
 look below the surface of it into the deeps of spiritual 
 significance. 
 
 Meanwhile, a momentous change was proceeding in 
 Mr. Jukes' mind, and he made it known in a book called 
 " The Second Death and the Restitution of all Things," 
 published in 1867. 
 
 A thought [he wrote], conceived but not expressed, is at 
 best only an unborn child, not only without any influence on 
 the world, but of whose very existence the world may be 
 unconscious ; but once brought forth, it becomes part of 
 the living, working universe, to work there its appointed 
 season, and possibly to leave its mark for good or evil on all 
 successive time. 
 
 The eventual victory of Divine goodness over evil was 
 a thought which had " long been growing in the writer's 
 heart, hidden at first and unconfessed." Now he was con- 
 strained by an overmastering sense of his duty to truth
 
 BROADLANDS 213 
 
 to make his convictions known. There was no levity 
 about the mode of the disclosure nothing hurried, 
 or casual, or premature. " The writer feels the solemn 
 responsibility of dissenting on such a question from the 
 current creed of Christendom " ; and he is only impelled 
 to open the subject by "his most assured conviction 
 that the popular notion of never-ending punishment is 
 as thorough a misunderstanding of God's Word as the 
 doctrine of Transubstantiation, and that the one as much 
 as the other conduces directly to infidelity, though both 
 equally claim to stand on the express words of Scripture." 
 
 When writing of the current creed of Christendom, 
 Mr. Jukes laid all possible stress on current. He found 
 himself at variance with the popular doctrine of the 
 time, but he was earnest in contending for what one 
 of his most attached disciples, Alfred Gurney, of St. 
 Barnabas', Pimlico, called " our Catholic Inheritance in 
 the Larger Hope." He stoutly maintained that the 
 Universal Church had never asserted the doctrine of 
 endless torment. The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene 
 Creed knew nothing of such a doctrine ; and some of 
 the greatest of the Fathers repudiated it. As regards 
 the Greek Fathers, even so conservative a divine as 
 Dr. Bright held that Mr. Jukes had made out his case. 
 
 The publication of " The Restitution of All Things " 
 was a turning-point in the writer's life. The Plymouth 
 Brethren, or at least the vast majority of them, cling 
 desperately to the doctrine of endless torment; and 
 Mr. Jukes found himself gravely and increasingly out 
 of sympathy with them. Before long, he returned to 
 communion with the Church of England. He resumed 
 his clerical garb. His name reappeared in the Clergy 
 List. He applied for, and exercised, a preacher's license 
 in the dioceses of London and Rochester. His later 
 books were more avowedly written from the standpoint
 
 214 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 of churchmanship. Their spirit is sufficiently indicated 
 by their titles: "The Sabbath ( and the Lord's Day," 
 " Pharisaism and Self-sacrifice : being some Thoughts on 
 Schism and its Remedy," and " Try the Spirits : being 
 a Reply to Socinian, Arian, and Sabellian Objections to 
 the Doctrine of the Trinity." His treatise on " The New 
 Man and the Eternal Life " is thought by some of his 
 disciples the most valuable of all his writings. 
 
 At private gatherings for sacred study and devotion 
 Mr. Jukes was a most welcome guest. His intimate 
 familiarity with the heights and depths of Scripture, his 
 wide acquaintance with patristic writings, and his poetic 
 faculty of spiritualizing whatever he touched made him 
 the most interesting expositor I have ever heard. He 
 was, indeed, a scribe instructed unto the Kingdom of 
 Heaven, who brought forth out of his treasure things 
 new and old ; and these productions not seldom caused 
 amusing perplexity to miscellaneous gatherings of Low 
 Churchmen and Nonconformists, who had expected quite 
 a different type of teaching. His appeal to the semper, 
 ubique, ab omnibus was loyal and constant ; and I can 
 remember after more than twenty years two sayings which 
 at a Broadlands Conference fell on astonished ears : 
 
 (i) They found the Lord in Bethlehem, the House of 
 Bread. We who were at the early Celebration in Roinsey 
 Abbey this morning realize what that means. 
 
 (ii) Remember that Rome preserves, amid accretions and 
 distortions, the whole body of revealed truth. 
 
 THE Rev. Alfred Gurney * (son of the Rev. J. Hampden 
 Gurney, formerly Vicar of St. Mary's, Bryanston Square) 
 was born in 1843, and was from 1879 to 1898 Vicar of 
 the famous Church of St. Barnabas, Pimlico. He was a 
 1 The Manchester Guardian, 1898.
 
 BROADLANDS 215 
 
 man who shrank from publicity. He was quite unknown 
 in the world, and not widely known even among Church- 
 people. He was eminently not one of those who strive 
 and cry and make their voice heard in the street. Alike 
 as a preacher, a poet, and an essayist, the audience to 
 which he spoke was fit, but few. Those who knew him 
 intimately knew that he possessed a rare combination 
 of gifts and graces, crowned by the most genuine and 
 child-like humility. Theologically, he was a Catholic of 
 the mystical school, delighting in the symbolic beauty 
 of finely-ordered worship, but delighting much more in 
 the spiritual contemplation of eternal verities. He com- 
 bined a robust hold upon dogmatic truth with a spirit 
 of reverent yet courageous speculation, which led him 
 far beyond the beaten track of traditional divinity. His 
 treatise on " Our Catholic Inheritance in the Larger 
 Hope " is an attempt to reconcile the doctrines of 
 Universalism with the definitions of Orthodoxy. In all 
 he wrote and in all he said ; alike in his sermons, his 
 letters, and his ordinary conversation ; even in his voice, 
 appearance, and manners, it was evident to the most 
 casual observer that he realized the invisible world 
 with a keenness only vouchsafed to pre-eminent saints. 
 Indeed, it might be said of Alfred Gurney, if it could 
 be truly said of any child of Adam, that he was too 
 good 'for this world, and that for him death was 
 merely the transition to a higher state of being. One 
 more distinctly human touch should not go unrecorded. 
 Mr. Gurney was the master of great wealth, and it was 
 used with an unostentatious generosity to which I have 
 rarely, if ever, known a parallel. To the destitute, 
 the bereaved, and the overworked he was an earthly 
 Providence. 
 
 Talium est regnum Dei.
 
 "THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF 
 LINCOLN " ! 
 
 THDWARD KING, Sixty-first Bishop of Lincoln in 
 Jj succession to Remigius, was born in 1829. His 
 father was Archdeacon of Rochester ; but he is by 
 descent a Yorkshireman, and those who speculate in 
 matters of race and pedigree may be inclined to attribute 
 to this fact his shrewdness of judgment and his love 
 of a horse. He was privately educated till he went 
 to Oriel College, Oxford, the nursery of the Catholic 
 Revival. 
 
 The Provost of Oriel, when Edward King was an 
 undergraduate, was the famous and formidable Dr. 
 Hawkins (who first taught Cardinal Newman the 
 office of Tradition in the Christian system). Being, 
 like other great and good men, burdened with an 
 over-exacting conscience, Dr. Hawkins never let slip 
 an opportunity of criticism or rebuke. Thus it is 
 narrated that, at the end of King's first term, the 
 Provost called him up to the High Table in the 
 College Hall, and, after inspecting the Chapel Register, 
 said, " It would appear, Mr. King, that you have 
 attended Divine Service in the College Chapel twice 
 a day, every day since the commencement of the term." 
 King modestly admitted that it was so, and probably 
 expected a word of praise. Bnt he did not know the 
 Provost, who promptly said, " Beware, Mr. King, of 
 
 1 Misericordia, 1901. 
 216
 
 THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF LINCOLN 217 
 
 letting your religion degenerate into a routine. Yon 
 can go." 
 
 Happily, Oriel contained at that period other spirits 
 more sympathetic to the devotional instincts of young 
 men, and pre-eminent among the tutors was the Rev. 
 Charles Marriott (1811-1855), both Saint and Scholar, 
 of whom a brother-Fellow said that " he seemed to move 
 in a spiritual region out of the reach of us ordinary 
 mortals." Marriott was a man who exercised a religious 
 influence of the most potent kind upon undergraduates 
 with whom he was brought in contact. One of his 
 favourite pupils was King, whom he used to call " a 
 royal fellow " ; and King, in turn, has put it on record 
 that, " if I have any good in me, I owe it to Charles 
 Marriott." 
 
 The outward events of the future Bishop's life were 
 few and unexciting. He took his degree in 1851, and 
 was ordained Deacon in 1854, and Priest in 1855, by 
 Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. His first curacy was at 
 Wheatley, near Oxford, where he remained till 1858, 
 and in that year he was appointed Chaplain and Lecturer 
 of the Theological College at Caddesdon. In 1863 he 
 became Principal of the College ; in 1873 he was 
 made, on Mr. Gladstone's recommendation, Begins 
 Professor of Pastoral Theology at Oxford ; and in 1885 
 he was chosen, on the same recommendation, to succeed 
 Bishop Wordsworth in the See of Lincoln. He was 
 consecrated in St. Paul's Cathedral on St. Mark's 
 Day, 1885, the sermon "A Father in Christ" being 
 preached by his life-long friend, Dr. Liddon. 
 
 Each of the earlier positions which Bishop King filled 
 developed in him some special faculty, for which his 
 later offices gave full scope and play. As a curate at 
 Wheatley, he learned the ways and thoughts and wants 
 and troubles of the Agricultural Labourer, and those who
 
 218 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 have had the happiness of attending him at Confirma- 
 tions in Lincolnshire say that he is never so truly 
 himself as when addressing the ploughboys and carters 
 on their duties and temptations. In this connexion it 
 is worthy of remark that, though in general politics 
 he is a stout Tory, the Bishop was a keen supporter 
 of Mr. Gladstone's Act extending the Parliamentary 
 suffrage to the labourers. " They must be taught to 
 be citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven by being citizens 
 of the kingdom of England." 
 
 Then, again, Dr. King's fifteen years' experience of 
 dealing with the young men preparing for Holy Orders 
 at Cuddesdon gave him a unique fitness for the Pro- 
 fessorship of Pastoral Theology at Oxford ; and this 
 was recognized by Mr. Gladstone, then Prime Minister, 
 whose son, the Rev. Stephen Gladstone, had been 
 trained under Dr. King at Cuddesdon. The appoint- 
 ment created great scandal in puritan, latitudinarian, 
 and worldly quarters, for King was known to have 
 sympathies with Ritualism. It is believed that Arch- 
 bishop Tait wrote a letter of remonstrance to Mr. 
 Gladstone, and received such a reply as did not tend 
 to prolong the correspondence. " A High Churchman 
 of the Old School" (time-honoured synonym for all 
 that is dull and prejudiced and reactionary) wrote : 
 
 It is impossible not to feel the greatest distrust of the 
 newly-appointed Pastoral Professor at Oxford. His only re- 
 commendation seems to have been the success which he has 
 had at Cuddesdon, mainly by his personal influence, in training 
 priestlings under the auspices of two Bishops of Oxford. 
 At the Leeds Congress, he is reported in the Times of October 
 12th, 1872, as exhorting his hearers not to shrink from 
 the discipline which the Church offered them in Confession 
 and Absolution. What will Pastoral Theology become in his 
 hand&? 
 
 Well, that wistful question may now be answered by
 
 THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF LINCOLN 219 
 
 saying that it became, instead of a dry system of 
 perfunctory lectures, a living, moving, and effective 
 power. Of course, the Professor's immediate duties 
 were concerned with the candidates for Holy Orders ; 
 but his influence extended to a far wider circle. 
 Men who, with no thought of taking Orders, were in 
 earnest about religion, found themselves drawn by an 
 irresistible attraction to the private lectures which he 
 gave in his house in Christ Church. Those lectures 
 dealt, not with disputed points of doctrine, but with 
 the deepest (and often the most secret) facts of moral 
 and spiritual experience. His power of sympathy 
 amounted to genius, and gave him an almost miraculous 
 insight into human hearts. He combined the keenest 
 spirituality with a sanctified common-sense which good 
 people sometimes lack. He spoke to us of our past 
 lives, of our future prospects, of our present temptations, 
 of our besetting sins, with an intimate penetration 
 engendered by long experience in personal contact with 
 souls. He told us truths about ourselves which were 
 part of our consciousness, but which we believed to 
 have been hidden from all except ourselves. It was the 
 same when he preached before the University. There 
 was no rhetoric, no straining after effect, no parade of 
 learning, no attempt to be startling or novel or para- 
 doxical. There was the bowed head, the searching gaze, 
 the exquisitely sympathetic voice, which " made you 
 squirm," as one undergraduate said which " felt like 
 cold water down your back," as another put it. There 
 was the clear statement of theological truth, so gently 
 worded that even controversial questions like Confession 
 were touched without offence or jar. There were plain 
 and urgent lessons of moral duty from which one might 
 shrink, but which one could not gainsay. And every 
 now and then there was some keen phrase about our
 
 220 
 
 experience, past or present, which, once heard, was 
 never forgotten. " Some of us look back to-night to 
 old school-friendships, when Satan was transformed into 
 an Angel of Light." That was a shaft which still 
 sticks in memory, after a lapse of more than five-and- 
 twenty years. 
 
 While labouring incessantly for the undergraduates 
 who were his prime care, Dr. King did not forget his 
 obligations to the city of Oxford. He often preached 
 in the parish churches, and was particularly kind to 
 St. Barnabas, then in the heyday of its ritualistic youth. 
 His addresses on the Three Hours, delivered there on 
 Good Friday, 1874, form one of the very few books 
 which he has published. 
 
 Dr. King's professorial residence at Christ Church was 
 the scene of a bright and constant hospitality. His 
 house was kept by his truly .beautiful and venerable 
 mother ; and a story used to be current which, even 
 if not true, so exactly illustrates his character that it 
 must be reproduced. Mrs. King was, as became her 
 age, a lady of the old school, and she made it a boast 
 that she found no difficulty in getting or keeping good 
 servants, although she had never departed from the scale 
 of wages which prevailed in her earlier days. The truth 
 was that, when she offered a new cook 20 a year, 
 Dr. King used secretly to add the promise of another 
 20, saying, " But don't tell Mrs. King, for she likes 
 to think that things are still as they were when she 
 was young." 
 
 Thus happily passed the twelve years of the Pastoral 
 Professorship, and those who loved Oxford could not 
 help feeling a pang of regret when they learned that 
 an influence so human, so winning, so potent for good, 
 was to be removed from the University, just when it 
 seemed to be most needed. And yet, at the same
 
 THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF LINCOLN 221 
 
 time, there was a widespread satisfaction that there 
 should at length be numbered among the Bishops of 
 the Church of England a man who not only upheld the 
 Catholic Faith in its entirety and its precision, but 
 who also had constantly ministered its consolations in 
 Holy Absolution, and had expressed it in the visible 
 forms of ceremonial worship. 
 
 Once enthroned in the Chair of St. Hugh, the new 
 Bishop threw his whole soul into the work of the 
 diocese. He began by selling a vast and rambling 
 country-house, in which his predecessors had lived, and 
 established himself in the city of Lincoln, close to that 
 exquisite minster which is the glory of the See. He 
 disappeared almost completely from old scenes and old 
 associations. He went occasionally to London for the 
 meeting of Convocation, or for special sermons at the 
 churches of old friends ; but his time and thought and 
 energy were given to his diocese. He came like a good 
 angel of hope and encouragement to isolated parishes 
 and disheartened priests, preaching to the labourers in 
 language which they could understand ; and, while he 
 urged the claims of the Faith and the treasures of the 
 Church, he so phrased his teaching that the stiff'er 
 Church-folk regarded him as "nowt but an old 
 Methody." Early in his Episcopate, a young man was* 
 condemned to death at Lincoln for the murder of his 
 sweetheart. The chaplain of the gaol, new to his work, 
 broke down under the terrible duty of preparing the 
 murderer for death ; and the Bishop, hearing of his 
 distress, took the duty on himself. The guilty man 
 was an absolute heathen. He had been a fisher-lad from 
 Grimsby ; his whole life had been passed at sea, and he 
 was as ignorant of religion even of right and wrong 
 as a South Sea islander. The Bishop baptized him, con- 
 firmed him, and gave him his first and last Communion
 
 222 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 in the condemned cell. On the night before the execu- 
 tion he slept in the prison, and on the fatal morning 
 walked by the culprit to the scaffold, praying with him 
 and supporting him till the drop went down. 
 
 This was of a piece with all the Bishop's actions. 
 He gave his sympathy and assistance to all earnest 
 work, not excluding that of the despised Ritualists ; 
 and his attitude towards these last involved him in 
 the anxieties and ignominies of the " Lincoln Trial " 
 of 1889. At this time of day there is no need to retrace 
 in detail the steps of that litigation. It is enough to 
 say that the result was to establish the legality of the 
 Mixed Chalice, the Eastward Position, the singing of 
 the Agnus, the Ablutions, and the Altar-Lights. On 
 the morrow of the Judgment, Mr. Gladstone said in 
 a letter to the present writer : " Pray make my kindest 
 and best respects to the Bishop. I hope, and incline 
 to think, that some principles of deep moment have 
 gained a ground from which they will not be easily 
 dislodged." 
 
 The Judgment had indeed been in the main highly 
 favourable to the Catholic contention ; but, in the 
 course of it, the Bishop was admonished so to stand 
 at the Altar that the manual acts of the Consecration 
 should not be concealed from the people, and to abstain 
 from making the Sign of the Cross in the Absolution 
 and Blessing. Having submitted himself to the judgment 
 of the Archbishop's Court, the Bishop felt bound to 
 obey these admonitions, and he has always done so, both 
 in church and in his private chapel. 
 
 Of late years the Bishop has been more and more 
 engrossed by his diocese. He is undoubtedly and 
 deservedly the most popular man in Lincolnshire not 
 only with the clergy and the squires, but also with 
 the artizans of the city and the labourers of the Fens.
 
 THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF LINCOLN 223 
 
 And that this is so was the universal testimony of 
 the goodly company who lately subscribed for a portrait 
 of their Diocesan, and presented it by the hands of 
 the Lord Lieutenant of the county. Ecclesiastically, 
 there is some reason to believe that the Bishop is a 
 little perturbed by what he believes to be insubordination 
 and extravagance on the part of some of the younger 
 Ritualists. But these misgivings are almost inseparable 
 from advancing years, and are no more liable to censure 
 than grey hairs or furrowed brows. Nothing can ever 
 alter or impair the devoted and grateful love, with 
 which those who in any stage of life have been brought 
 under his influence, regard their spiritual father, Bishop 
 Edward King. In him they see not only the power, 
 but the beauty and the attractiveness, of the Christian 
 character ; and, as they contemplate his life, they seem 
 to learn something of what St. Paul meant when he 
 spoke of " the meekness and gentleness " * of the Divine 
 Master. 
 
 1 8ia TTJS TrpadrT/roy KOI firieucdas rov Xpiarrov.
 
 ZACHARY MACAULAY AND HIS 
 FRIENDS l 
 
 TjWERYONE who loves Evangelical religion and 
 Jj reveres the memory of " the Clapham Sect " will 
 thank Lady Knutsford for her handiwork. 2 In another 
 chapter of this book I give my Recollections of the 
 Evangelicals as they were between 1850 and 1870. Lady 
 Knutsford describes them in an earlier stage of their 
 development, and at a time when they were keeping 
 alive the flame of spiritual religion amid an almost 
 universal deadness. The influence of those great days 
 still lives, for, as Mr. Gladstone wrote in 1879 : 
 
 The pith and life of the Evangelical teaching, as it consists 
 in the reintroduction of Christ our Lord to be the woof and 
 warp of preaching, was the great gift of the movement to 
 the teaching Church, and has now penetrated and possessed 
 it on a scale so general that it may be considered as pervading 
 the whole mass. 
 
 One of the most conspicuous and most admirable 
 figures among the older Evangelicals was Zachary 
 Macaulay. I do not propose to trace in detail the 
 history of his career. He was, in the copious but not 
 exaggerated language of his epitaph (written by Sir 
 James Stephen) 
 
 1 The Pilot, 1900. 
 
 2 " Life and Letters of Zachary Macaulay." By his grand- 
 daughter, Viscountess Knutsford 
 
 224
 
 ZACHARY MACAULAY AND HIS FRIENDS 225 
 
 A Man 
 
 Who, throughout a protracted life, 
 Devoted all the resources of a comprehensive understanding 
 
 and 
 
 All the energies of an affectionate Heart, 
 To the diffusion of Christianity, 
 
 and 
 
 The relief of human wretchedness : 
 
 Who, during forty successive years, 
 
 Partaking in the counsels and the labours, 
 
 Which, guided by favouring Providence, 
 
 Rescued Africa from the woes, 
 And the British Empire from the guilt, 
 
 Of Slavery and the Slave-Trade ; 
 
 Meekly endured the toil, the privation, and the reproach, 
 Resigning to others the praise and the reward. 
 
 The same testimony was borne by Sir Henry Taylor, 
 who, describing William Wilberforce, said : 
 
 A winning amenity of manner, peculiar grace and fervour 
 in conversation, and an easy eloquence in public speaking, 
 planted him the foremost of his party in the eyes of mankind, 
 and placed his name in the title-page (as it were) of a great 
 cause. But Mr. Zachary Macaulky was the man who rose 
 and took pen in hand at four o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Macaulay was born in 1768 and died in 1838. He had 
 been all his life a leading figure in Evangelical society ; 
 and it is to some of the characteristic traits of that 
 society, as displayed in Lady Knutsford's delightful 
 book, that I propose to call attention. 
 
 Mr. Henry Thornton, the author of the famous " Family 
 Prayers," returning with his family from Yorkshire 
 through Leicestershire, and finding that he had a day 
 to spare, turned out of the road, and stopped his carriage 
 at the house of Mr. Babington (Zachary Macaulay's 
 brother-in-law) to ask if they could stay for the night 
 there. They were warmly welcomed by the host, but Mr. 
 Thornton still pressed to know if it was quite convenient 
 to receive such a large party unexpectedly. "No, 
 
 15
 
 226 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 indeed," replied Mr. Babington, " it is very inconvenient, 
 and I cannot imagine how we shall contrive to take 
 you in, but the pleasure of seeing you is so great that 
 we shall gladly submit to the inconvenience." 
 
 This uncompromising zeal for truth led the Evan- 
 gelicals to be extremely candid in dealing with the faults 
 of their friends. Zachary Macaulay had a friend who 
 preached rather above the comprehension of his hearers. 
 " This is an error his academic education exposes him to, 
 but he tries to correct it, and I take care to remind him 
 of it whenever I find him soaring out of sight." In this 
 unsparing frankness Henry Thornton was supreme, and 
 Zachary Macaulay seems to have received the same kind 
 of discipline as he administered. " Mr. Thornton's 
 letter, in which were only eight lines, was long enough 
 to give me the satisfaction of knowing that he had 
 nothing particularly to blame ; a negative, but from 
 Henry Thornton no mean, praise." An officer who 
 casually met Macaulay in society was so rash as to ask 
 him whether there was any wickedness in swearing 
 " a practice, he said, which harmed no one." The 
 excellent Macaulay jumped at the opening, and subse- 
 quently "feared he might have been offensively strong 
 on the subject." Certainly his admonitions, as recorded 
 by himself, do not lack plainness, and four days later 
 he is able to record that : 
 
 My success with the swearing gentleman has been more 
 than I supposed. I find he swears no more, and am told 
 by his companions that he has become exceedingly restless 
 and uneasy about that and other matters. 
 
 A sick man whom Macaulay exhorted to repentance 
 said he could not fix on any particular sins : 
 
 I was at no loss, however, to remind him of numberless 
 particular sins, of the commission of which I myself had 
 been a witness. I set them before him with all their 
 aggravations.
 
 ZACHARY MACAULAY AND HIS FRIENDS 227 
 
 A young lady " showed some very striking marks of 
 a vain mind " ; whereupon this untiring censor " had some 
 very serious conversation with herself and her father. 
 The young lady did not altogether relish my plain but, 
 I am sure, friendly expostulation." A few days later the 
 damsel had realized that Mr. Macaulay spoke the words 
 of truth and soberness, and " had by this time got rid 
 of her monstrous, misshapen dress, and reverted to the 
 use of plain and simple attire, and her lowly looks were, 
 I hope, no fallacious indication of a humbled mind." 
 
 An admirable characteristic of the Evangelicals was 
 their systematic liberality. Henry Thornton was in the 
 habit of devoting two-thirds of his income to charitable 
 purposes, " while others of the band of friends even 
 exceeded this proportion." The right use of money was, 
 indeed, one of the practical forms in which the Evan- 
 gelicals expressed their tremendous and abiding sense of 
 personal responsibility : 
 
 May we both feel daily more and more how entirely 
 subordinate all things else should be to the great considera- 
 tion of saving our own souls and the souls of those entrusted 
 to our care. May we feel the weight of our responsibility 
 in this respect more and more, and labour and strive to be 
 found of God in peace when He comes to call us hence. 
 
 And thus, in comparing his two most intimate friends, 
 Macaulay writes : 
 
 Wilberforce has stronger and more lively views of the 
 beauties of holiness and of the Saviour's love ; but Thornton 
 has a more uniform and abiding impression of his accountable- 
 ness to God for every moment of his time, and for every 
 word he utters. 
 
 It was long ago pointed out by Lord Macaulay that 
 the vivid, and in other respects accurate, picture of the 
 Clapham Sect in " The Newcomes " is in one respect 
 erroneous. Thackeray makes out that the Claphamites
 
 228 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 were Nonconformists. As a matter of fact, they were con- 
 vinced and resolute Church-people. They were willing to 
 join with Nonconformists in all works of secular benefi- 
 cence, such as the abolition of the Slave-Trade ; and in 
 such religious efforts as the Bible Society, where the 
 specific principles of Churchmanship were not involved. 
 But " they had a strong belief that the Church's 
 Missions stood on a different footing, and that their 
 duty lay in insisting upon native Christian communities 
 being united to that Church of which they were members, 
 and to which they professed a warm attachment." 
 Hence arose the Church Missionary Society. The great 
 Charles Simeon used to say, "The Bible first, the 
 Prayer-book next, and all other books in subordination 
 to those." And, in a similar spirit, Zachary Macaulay 
 eulogizes his favourite " Prayer-book and Homily 
 Society." He finds that nothing so conduces to the 
 stability of converts from heathenism as the use of 
 " the language in which the martyrs of the Anglican 
 Church breathed out their souls before the Throne of 
 Grace." At a meeting for the Society, " we had a 
 Chinese Missionary and a South American Missionary 
 all testifying with one consent to the extraordinary 
 acceptableness of our Liturgy when it was made known. 
 One is almost led to conceive a hope that this same 
 Church of ours may literally in time become the Catholic 
 Church, and not the less, therefore, because that Church 
 which arrogates to itself the name of Catholic is about 
 to be relieved from all Civil pains and penalties." 
 
 In vivid contrast with these high conceptions of 
 Anglicanism, we catch a horrid glimpse of a Baptist 
 lady who lived at Clapham a kind of Uitlander among 
 the Evangelical Church-folk who on Christmas Day 
 sat at her window ostentatiously knitting, when the 
 congregation of the Parish Church was dispersing ; and,
 
 ZACHARY MAGAULAY AND HIS FRIENDS 229 
 
 according to local rumour, made her Christmas dinner 
 off roast veal and apple-pie, as a protest against the 
 beef and plum-pudding of Orthodoxy. 
 
 Undenominational religion, that " Moral Monster," 
 was held by Zachary Macaulay in just abhorrence : 
 
 There is something very plausible in Mr. Lancaster's pro- 
 posal of a society established on general Christian principles; 
 but who shall fix what are those general principles of 
 Christianity which, as essential verities, must be made the 
 system of a basis of instruction ? By " general Christian 
 principles " Mr. Lancaster has left room to conjecture that 
 he may have meant something which might coalesce as well 
 with Deism as with Christianity. What right have those 
 to be considered Christians who deem it unnecessary to 
 introduce into their plans of education any reference to the 
 salvation purchased for us by the Blood of Christ ? 
 
 One of the most curious features in all Evangelical 
 memoirs is the unique and extraordinary position in 
 Evangelical society which was occupied by Mrs. 
 Hannah More. Her admirers placed her writings in 
 the very first rank of literature, sacred or profane ; and 
 beyond question her books sold capitally. She was 
 extolled as " one of the most truly Evangelical divines 
 of the whole age perhaps of any age not Apostolic." 
 Bishop Porteus recommended her writings in his 
 charges and sermons ; and she was universally 
 recognized as having a special mission to the highly- 
 placed and influential. Macaulay reports that she is 
 staying with the Bishop of London, and " has a duchess 
 to convert while she stays in these parts." In writing to 
 her, he says, " I am glad to find that the Bishop of 
 Bristol courts your correspondence. I would it might 
 tend, poor man, to quicken him in his spiritual course." 
 And the good lady, duly responsive to these amenities, 
 announces that she has received a letter from " our 
 Princess Elizabeth, now Princess of Hesse-Homburg,"
 
 230 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 so flattering that she could not send it. " It is gratify- 
 ing, however, as to the piety of her own mind. I have 
 also a very pions letter from Princess Sophia Matilda." 
 
 I find it difficult to tear myself away from the society 
 of these excellent people ; but time and space forbid 
 me to prolong this paper. Let me conclude with two 
 extracts from Zachary Macaulay's writings, in which 
 the essential spirit of Evangelical religion speaks with 
 characteristic, and, to me, most moving, voice. In 
 1798 he wrote : 
 
 I know, and God knows, how miserably poor and defective 
 I am, and how little I merit commendation, even for those 
 parts of my conduct which may have the most splendid 
 exterior. Alas ! it is not praise we want ; it is pardon. 
 
 And forty years later he wrote in his will : 
 
 I desire, with all humility and deference, to commend to 
 the mercies of my God and Saviour the soul which He hath 
 redeemed by His precious Blood, and in some feeble measure, 
 I trust, restored to His image which sin has so miserably 
 defaced and polluted. On His mercy alone I place all my 
 hope that my transgressions may be pardoned. 
 
 And then, after deprecating posthumous panegyric, 
 he adds : 
 
 I desire to live in the affections of those dear friends and 
 relations whose attachment formed one of the main consolations 
 of my chequered and sinful life, but I should feel anything 
 beyond this to be so wholly unmerited as to be a reproach 
 to my sincerity.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 1 
 
 I AM an Evangelical born and bred. And I speak of 
 " Recollections " because the type of Evangelicalism 
 which I knew in my youth seems to have perished 
 from the earth. Whether the new type is an improve- 
 ment on its predecessor I do not presume to say. I 
 merely recall the past, and describe that which I have 
 seen and known. 
 
 Let me put in the very forefront of my description 
 the happiest and deepest of all my impressions. The 
 Evangelicals were the most religious people whom I 
 have ever known. I was brought up among the spiritual 
 descendants of the men and women who constituted 
 the Clapham Sect, and attended Henry Drummond's 
 Prophetical Conferences at Albury ; who had seen, in 
 the French Revolution, the first Reform Bill, and the 
 first invasion of the cholera, unmistakable signs of that 
 Great Tribulation which is appointed to precede the 
 Second Coming of the Lord ; and who went to their 
 graves in utter disappointment because, through lack of 
 faith, they were to share the common lot of Adam's 
 sons instead of remaining alive to meet the Lord in 
 the air. 
 
 The fathers were gone, the children survived ; and 
 they in turn were the parents of the generation to which 
 I belong. To those parents I look back with loving 1 
 and grateful reverence, and I recall an abiding senge I 
 
 * The Pilot, 1901. 
 
 231
 
 232 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 u 
 
 of religious responsibility, a self-sacrificing energy in 
 works of mercy, an evangelistic zeal, an aloofness 
 from the world, and a level of saintliness in daily life, 
 such as I do not expect again to see realized on earth. 
 
 Be it borne in mind that Evangelicals of this type 
 were not Calvinists. They believed that Christ's salva- 
 tion was offered to all ; and that to secure an interest 
 in it was the one object worth considering in human 
 life. But they looked with dark misgiving on the 
 actual state of the world. They were haunted by the 
 awful question, Lord, are there few that be saved? And 
 all their evangelistic zeal, in private and in public, 
 derived its vivid intensity from the ever-present thought 
 of " a mysterious eternity of anguish reserved for those 
 who put from them through life the proffered salvation, 
 and do final despite to the Spirit of Grace." 
 
 When once the great object of life had been secured 
 when once the individual soul had "closed with the offer 
 of God in Christ," and had " acquired a saving interest 
 in the Blood of Jesus " - a high standard of holiness in 
 living was required, or, rather, was regarded as inevit- 
 able. Reliance on " Good Works " was of course 
 impossible. No work of man could justify him with 
 God. But the Evangelicals were no Antinomians. 
 Good Works were not meritorious, but evidential. A 
 disposition towards them, a persistence in them, was 
 evidence to oneself and to one's neighbour that one was 
 really converted. The Converted Man could have no 
 pleasure in sin ; the Converted Man must desire to work 
 for God's glory and the salvation of his fellows. This 
 view of life produced some admirable results. Every- 
 thing, down to the minutest details of action and speech, 
 was " considered with reference to eternity." Daily 
 duty was done as " in the great Taskmaster's eye." 
 Money was regarded as a sacred trust, and people of
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 233 
 
 good positions and comfortable incomes habitually kept ; 
 their personal expenditure within narrow limits in order 
 that they might contribute more largely to objects 
 which they held sacred. 
 
 The Evangelical idea of the relation between faith 
 and works cannot be better expressed than by this 
 verse from a favourite hymn : 
 
 Chosen, not for good in me ; 
 Waken'd up, from wrath to flee ; 
 Hidden in the Saviour's side ; 
 By the Spirit sanctified ; 
 Teach me, Lord, on earth to show, 
 By my life, how much I owe. 
 
 Aloofness from the world was also regarded as in- 
 evitable. " The friendship of the world is enmity with 
 God," and Christians must be " a holy nation, a peculiar 
 people." But, when it came to practice, it was found 
 difficult to maintain this tenet consistently. All Evan- 
 gelicals agreed that worldliness was wicked, and that 
 a worldly man was in a bad way. But they took 
 different views as to what constituted worldliness. 
 There were shades and distinctions of view among the 
 very elect. All, I think, would have condemned gambling, 
 horse-racing, and card-playing. I can remember that 
 when, at a children's party, I had won money at " the 
 race-game," it was impounded for the beneBt of 
 missionaries. But I also remember Bezique being 
 sanctioned for the use of an invalid. The Opera and 
 the Theatre were held in horror ; but the German Reeds' 
 Entertainment was permitted, because it was performed 
 by daylight, and the scenes were called " illustrations." 
 Ball-going was condemned ; but certain palliatives were 
 admitted. In some families square dances were allowed, 
 while round dances were forbidden. In others you 
 might go to balls, provided that you came down to
 
 il 
 
 234 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 prayers at eight next morning. An invitation to the 
 Queen's Ball was obeyed by families who would have 
 thought an after-dinner dance in Mrs. Footer's back 
 drawing-room an unpardonable worldliness. 
 
 Again, with regard to field-sports. No one condemned 
 shooting ; but some thought hunting wicked a dis- 
 tinction not altogether clear in principle. My father 
 was an inveterate fox-hunter, and our vicar, who was 
 a fine horseman, said, with marked expression, " I too 
 should like to hunt, if I could hunt with a field of 
 saints." 
 
 These slight inconsistencies of excellent people really 
 do not deserve much criticism ; but a less admirable 
 feature was the extraordinary severity with which the 
 abstainer from each particular amusement condemned 
 the non-abstainer. I fear it must be admitted that the 
 Evangelicals rated the law of truth higher than the 
 law of charity. 
 
 The word " abstainer," which I used a moment ago 
 reminds me of a marked difference between those days 
 and these. We had no Blue Ribbon. Teetotalism 
 was looked upon with suspicion, if not disfavour. It 
 was regarded as being a subtle form of " works," and 
 tending to self-reliance and self-righteousness. I can- 
 not remember that at my father's house 1 ever saw a 
 water-drinker. Debarred from wordliness, the Evan- 
 gelicals went in for comfort ; and the pleasures of the 
 table were among the few which everyone could enjoy 
 with a good conscience. Our house was much frequented 
 by clergymen, Anglican and Nonconformist ; and, though 
 I never saw one who suffered from the characteristic 
 weakness of Mr. Stiggins, I have often encountered the 
 gastronomical instinct of Mr. Chadband. " I am not 
 ashamed to confess that I am an alimentary man " is 
 a clerical confession which lingers pleasantly on the
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 235 
 
 ear. The occasions which brought these eupeptic divines 
 together were " High Teas " before meetings of religious 
 societies, such as the Bible Society and the London 
 City Mission, where differences between Establishment 
 and Dissent were disregarded. When the late Master 
 of the Temple was asked if the Inner and the Middle 
 Temple had any connexion with one another, he replied, 
 " As our dear Dissenting friends would say, they meet 
 in their common Master." But the annual crown of 
 meetings was that of the Church Missionary Society, 
 from which the dear Dissenting friend necessarily stood 
 aloof, but which drew a great gathering to hear a 
 gifted " Deputation." What then ensued has been 
 described by the hand of a master : 
 
 The missionary appeared on the platform ; he was hailed 
 with enthusiasm. He repeated a dialogue he had heard 
 between two negroes behind a hedge ; the approbation was 
 tumultuous. He gave an imitation of the two negroes in 
 broken English ; the roof was rent with applause. 
 
 And again : 
 
 The orator (an Irishman) came. He talked of green isles 
 other shores vast Atlantic bosom of the deep Christian 
 charity blood and extermination mercy in hearts arms in 
 hands altars and homes household gods. He wiped his 
 eyes ; he blew his nose ; he quoted Latin. The effect was 
 tremendous. The Latin was a decided hit. Nobody knew 
 exactly what it was about, but everybody knew it must be 
 affecting, because even the orator was overcome. 
 
 Dickens wrote these words in 1835, but they describe 
 with precision the missionary eloquence to which I 
 have listened between 1860 and 1870. 
 
 It was about the latter year that I heard the Depu- 
 tation from the Parent Society involve himself very 
 delightfully in extemporaneous imagery. He had been 
 explaining that here in England we hear so much of
 
 236 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 the rival systems and operations of the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel and the Church Missionary 
 Society that we are often led to regard them as hostile 
 institutions ; whereas if, as he himself had done, his 
 hearers would go out to the mission-field and observe 
 the working of the societies at close quarters, they would 
 find them to be in essential unison. "Even so," he 
 exclaimed, " as I walked in the beautiful park which 
 adjoins your town to-day, I noticed what appeared at 
 a distance to be one gigantic tree. It was only when 
 I got close to it and sat down under its shade that I 
 perceived that what I had thought was one tree was 
 really two trees as completely distinct in origin, growth, 
 and nature as if they had stood a hundred miles apart." 
 Such is the force of Rhetoric, that no one in the 
 audience (beside myself) noticed the infelicity of the 
 illustration. 
 
 The strict observance of Sunday was a marked 
 characteristic of Evangelical religion. No hospitality 
 could be given or accepted on that day. All kinds of 
 games were forbidden, and all such exercises as riding 
 and driving. The distinction between " Sunday books " 
 and others was rigidly enforced ; but the mild pietistic 
 fiction of the Sunday at Home was permitted. Meals 
 were scrupulously regulated so as to allow of the 
 servants going to church ; and in some houses, more 
 rigorous than my home, there was no hot food on 
 Sunday, except, I think, eggs at breakfast, and soup 
 and potatoes at dinner. The Sunday menu, drawn by 
 an illiterate artist, is still remembered in a family with 
 which I am connected : 
 
 SOUP. 
 COLD BEEF. 
 
 SALAD. 
 COLD SWEATS.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 237 
 
 My home was in a country town of fifteen hundred 
 inhabitants. Their spiritual needs were supplied by a 
 Parish Church, an Independent Chapel, a Wesleyan 
 Chapel, and two Baptist Meetings. But, as a child, I 
 never saw the inside of the Nonconformist edifices. 
 My family, though Evangelicals, were Church-people. 
 The Parish Church had never been restored, but had 
 been decorated by a former patron of the living, a 
 refined nobleman who loved the arts. The east window 
 was filled with stained glass, the central subject being 
 the patron's coat-of-arms, with patriarchs and saints 
 grouped round it in due subordination. Beneath the 
 window, and between the Commandments, was a picture 
 of the Holy Family (which, by the way, the donor's 
 successor has quietly resumed and hung in his own 
 gallery). 
 
 The Holy Table was a table indeed, with legs and 
 drawers after the manner of a writing-table. In these 
 drawers the candles for the reading-desk and pulpit 
 were kept ; and I have a clear vision of the clerk 
 hitching up the red-velvet cloth and extracting the 
 candles just before service on a winter afternoon. The 
 chancel was long ; and one side of it was entirely 
 engrossed by the patron's pew, which was enclosed in 
 high walls and thick curtains, and contained a fireplace, 
 two wood-baskets, and two wash-leather gloves for the 
 use of any chilly patrician who wished to mend the fire. 
 The opposite side of the chancel was equally engrossed 
 by a pew for the patron's servants, but they had neither 
 wall nor curtain, fireplace nor wood-basket. The choir, 
 male and female after their kind, surrounded the organ 
 in a gallery at the west end. The whole church, of 
 course, was pewed throughout and white-washed ; and 
 on the capital of each pillar was a scutcheon, bearing 
 the arms of some family allied to the patron. The
 
 238 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 largest and most vivid presentment of the Royal 
 Arms which I have ever seen crowned the chancel- 
 arch. 
 
 Onr clerical staff consisted of a vicar and a curate. 
 Our list of services was as follows : Sundays 11 A.M., 
 Morning Prayer, Litany, Table-prayers, and sermon ; 
 6 P.M., Evening Prayer and sermon. There was 
 Evening Prayer and a sermon on Thursdays, and a 
 prayer-meeting in the schoolroom on Tuesday evenings. 
 There were no extra services in Lent or Advent, nor 
 on any Holy Days except Good Friday, when we had 
 Morning Prayer, and Ascension Day, when we had 
 Evening Prayer. The Holy Communion was adminis- 
 tered after Morning Service on the first Sunday of the 
 I month, and on Christmas and Easter Days. Evening 
 Communions on the third Sunday of the month were 
 introduced about 1865 ; and the Athanasian Creed was 
 discontinued about the same time. The Elements were 
 always placed on the table before Morning Service 
 began, and the words of administration were said once 
 to a " rail-full." The black gown was, of course, worn 
 in preaching, and I remember a mild sensation caused 
 by the disuse of bands. The prayers were preached ; 
 the Psalms were read ; and the hymn-book in use was 
 the "Mitre" collection, succeeded in 1864 by "The 
 Church and Home Metrical Psalter and Hymnal " a 
 collection which I have never seen elsewhere. It would 
 not be easy to describe the disinalness of the services ; 
 and the preaching corresponded to them. This is curious, 
 for Evangelical preaching generally was rousing and 
 effective. I remember that one heard preaching of that 
 type from strangers who occasionally " took duty " or 
 " pleaded for societies " ; but our own pastors always 
 expatiated on Justification by Faith only. I cannot 
 recall any other subject ; and topical allusions and
 
 HECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 239 
 
 illustrations, whether from Nature or from books, were 
 rigorously eschewed. Looking back, I find it impossible 
 to believe that my parents enjoyed this preaching, or 
 got any good from it. Bat they were satisfied. It was 
 " the Gospel," and they asked for no more. 
 
 I have often thought that our vicar must have been 
 the very Lowest Churchman who ever lived. He was born 
 in 1810, and died not long ago. He was a Cambridge 
 man ; a thorough gentleman ; well-read ; wholly devoted 
 to his sacred calling ; and fearless in his assertion of 
 what he believed to be right. (He once refused to let 
 Jowett preach in our pulpit, though the noble patron 
 desired it.) He was entirely insensible to poetry, beauty, 
 romance, and imagination ; but his mind was essentially 
 logical, and he followed his creed to its extremest 
 consequences. In Baptismal Grace, of course, he ' 
 absolutely disbelieved. He prepared me for Confirma- 
 tion, and his preparation consisted in trying to destroy 
 my faith in the Presence and the Succession. He 
 defined Confirmation as " a coming of age in the things 
 of the soul." I perfectly remember a sermon preached 
 on " Sacrament Sunday," which ended with some such 
 words as these : " I go to yonder table to-day, not ; 
 expecting to meet the Lord, because I know He will j 
 not be there." I have seldom heard the doctrine of; 
 the Real Absence stated with equal frankness. 
 
 I turn from the church to the home, and from a rather 
 austere clergyman to the gentlest, the wisest, the most 
 winning of teachers. 
 
 Oh that those lips had language ! Life has passed 
 With me but roughly since I heard thee last. 
 
 What was Evangelical training in the home ? First 
 and foremost we were taught "the Gospel Plan," which 
 was, briefly, that all mankind were utterly sinful, and
 
 240 
 
 therefore in danger of hell ; that God had provided 
 deliverance in the Atoning Death of Christ ; and that, 
 if only we would accept the offer of salvation so made, 
 we were forgiven, reconciled, and safe. That acceptance 
 was " Conversion." The word was constantly in use. 
 " A converted character " was one who had " closed 
 with the offer." An unconverted character was one 
 who had not ; and that was the vital difference which 
 divided the whole human family into two groups. 
 Some people were held to have been "converted" in 
 their infancy ; to others, the change occurred at various 
 stages ; but a date could generally be assigned. With 
 the einulousiiess of childhood, one envied one's con- 
 verted elders, and wished to be converted too. The 
 idea of conversion as a dateable event came so natu- 
 rally to one that I remember telling a High Church 
 visitor that such and such a year had been the year of 
 my youngest sister's conversion, and the High Church- 
 man replied, " I think, my dear, you must mean her 
 Confirmation." But I didn't, for the excellent reason 
 that she had been admitted to Communion without 
 Confirmation. 
 
 Such was the substance of our teaching ; the method 
 was as follows. From our very earliest years we were 
 taught the Bible, at first orally ; and later we were 
 encouraged to read it, by gifts of handsomely bound 
 copies. I remember that our aids to study were Adam 
 Clarke's Commentary, Nicholl's " Helps to Reading the 
 Bible," and a book called " Light in the Dwelling." 
 Hymns played a great part in our training. As 
 soon as we could speak we learned " When rising 
 from the bed of death " and " Beautiful Zion built 
 above " ; " Rock of Ages " and " Jesu, Lover of my 
 soul " were soon added. The Catechism we were || 
 never taught. 1 was confirmed without learning it. |l
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 241 
 
 It was said to be too difficult ; of course, it really 
 was too Sacramental. By way of an easier exercise 
 I was constrained to learn the " Shorter Catechism 
 of the General Assembly of Divines at Westminster " ! 
 We had Family Prayers twice every day. My father 
 read a chapter, very much as the fancy took him, or 
 where the Bible opened of itself ; and he read without 
 note or comment. I remember a very distinct impression 
 on my infant mind that the portions of the Bible which 
 were read at Prayers had no meaning, and that the 
 public reading of the words, without reference to sense, 
 was an act of piety. After the chapter, my father 
 read one of " Thornton's Family Prayers," and, indeed, 
 the use of that book was a distinctive sign of true 
 Evangelicalism. Some friends of ours tried extempore 
 prayers, and one worthy baronet went so far as to invite 
 contributions from the servants. As long as only the 
 butler and the housekeeper voiced the aspirations of 
 their fellows, all was decorous ; but one fine day an 
 insubordinate kitchen-maid took up her parable, saying, 
 " And we pray for Sir Thomas and her Ladyship too. 
 Oh, may they have new hearts given to them I " The 
 bare idea that there was room for such renovation 
 caused a prompt return to the lively oracles of Henry 
 Thornton. 
 
 While we were still very young children, we were 
 carefully incited to acts of practical charity. We began 
 by carrying dinners to the sick and aged poor ; then we 
 went on to reading hymns and bits of Bible to the blind 
 and unlettered. As soon as we were old enough, we 
 became teachers in Sunday Schools, and conducted 
 classes and cottage-meetings. From the very beginning 
 we were taught to save up our money for good causes. 
 Each of us had a " missionary-box " ; and I remember 
 another box, in the counterfeit presentment of a Gothic 
 
 16
 
 242 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 church, which received contributions for the Church 
 Pastoral Aid Society. 
 
 An aunt of mine, bursting into unlooked-for melody, 
 wrote for the benefit of her young relations : 
 
 Would you like to be told the best use for a penny 1 
 I can tell you a use which is better than any 
 Not on toys, nor on fruit, nor on sweetmeats to spend it, 
 But over the seas to the heathen to send it. 
 
 1 wonder if this moving lyric is still to be found in 
 Evangelical collections ? 
 
 So far, all was well. We worshipped our parents, 
 and loved our home, and took for granted all that we 
 were taught. But the serpent was at the door, and the 
 poison of Sacerdotalism entered through an unsuspected 
 medium. Our parents were Christians ; therefore they 
 gave us Bibles. But they were also Church-people ; 
 therefore they gave us Prayer-books. And the Prayer- 
 book did the mischief. I can remember our square 
 pew, with its snug corners and comfortable cushions ; 
 and the grating monotone of the vicar overhead, explain- 
 ing for the thousandth time the Pauline doctrine of 
 Justification. From such exercises juvenile flesh and 
 blood needed some relief ; and, when I had done envying 
 the publican's son at the other side of the aisle for the 
 gilt buttons on his white waistcoat, and when the joy 
 of pulling the hair of the vicar's daughters in the 
 adjacent pew had palled, I turned to my Prayer-book 
 for mental distraction. Morning and Evening Prayer, 
 of course, one knew by heart, and, in sheer desire of 
 finding something new, one strayed into the less familiar 
 parts of the book, and thence arose surprises, perplexities, 
 and enquiries. Every rightly-constituted child, I suppose, 
 takes its difficulties to its mother ; and very soon I 
 began to ask, " What is the Visitation of the Sick ? "
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 243 
 
 " What does Absolving mean ? Is it the same as the 
 priests did in 'The Monastery' and 'The Abbot'?" 
 " Ought a clergyman to read the service every day ? 
 Why doesn't Mr. C. (oar vicar) do it ? " 
 
 I feel confident that neither of my dear parents 
 had ever read the Prayer-book through, and this 
 placed them at a considerable disadvantage. The 
 process of examination, once begun, went on rapidly ; 
 and the enquirer's thirst for knowledge was stimu- 
 lated by the obvious embarrassment of those whom he 
 questioned. Some of the desperate shifts by which 
 Authority sought to stifle Enquiry are vivid in my 
 memory. The Absolution and the Baptismal Service 
 did not mean what they said, but something quite 
 unlike. Different parts of the Prayer-book were of 
 different authority. The Rubrics were " bound up 
 with the Prayer-book," but were not part of it. 
 " Scripture must be read with Scripture," and our 
 Lord, though certainly He said the Words of Institution, 
 said also that He was a Vine and a Door. 
 
 Here let a characteristic anecdote be inserted, from 
 the annals of an Evangelical family, not my own. 
 
 A young girl, through sheer nervousness, dropped 
 the chalice at the Holy Communion. On returning 
 home, her mother found her in tears, and, to comfort 
 her, said, " I've often dropped my Prayer-book, but 
 I never thought of crying about it." 
 
 It is, however, only right to say that, whatever theories 
 were entertained about the Sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper, our preparation at home for our first Com- 
 munion was most careful, earnest, and solemn ; and the 
 manual put into our hands Ashton Oxenden's " Earnest 
 Communicant " breathes a spirit of most fervent piety. 
 Our whole training, indeed, illustrated the wise say- 
 ing of Henry Drummond, the Irvingite Apostle, that
 
 244 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 " religions people are generally right in what they affirm 
 and wrong in what they deny." The constructive part 
 of my early teaching has always been, and is, the 
 bed-rock of my religions life ; but as time went on the 
 negative dialectics seemed to wear a little thin. 
 
 The enquirer was now at a Public School. Influences 
 very unlike those of home began to sway his mind. He 
 heard new and strange doctrines, and was beginning to 
 feel his way toward Ritualism. By a strange irony of 
 fate his only knowledge of Ritualistic teaching came 
 through extracts from Ritualistic books, held up to 
 reprobation in the Monthly Intelligencer of the Church 
 Association. It was not likely that Evangelical parents 
 would see a son falling into doctrinal error without a 
 vigorous struggle to keep him right. Echoes of the old 
 controversy come back on memory's ear. " Dr. Pusey 
 has no moral sense." " A High Church layman may 
 be honest, but a High Church clergyman cannot, for 
 he eats the bread of a Protestant Church while he 
 undermines its bulwarks." "Infidelity and superstition, 
 those kindred evils, go hand in hand." "Baptismal 
 Regeneration is a soul-destroying error " (because it 
 was supposed to mean that everyone baptized in 
 infancy, whatever his subsequent life, must be finally 
 saved). " No sin which you have to confess could be 
 so bad as the sin of confessing it." And, whatever 
 the subject under discussion might be, it was briefly 
 concluded in the saying, " It's all very well to talk, 
 my dear, but there's one Mediator between God and 
 men." 
 
 Yes, in the insistence on that text, however oddly 
 misapplied, there spoke what was best and most charac- 
 teristic in Evangelical Religion the passionate zeal 
 for our Lord's unshared prerogatives, and the profound 
 conviction thatj in the supreme work of salvation, no
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVANGELICALS 245 
 
 human being and no created thing might interpose 
 between the soul and its Creator. Happy is the man 
 whose religious life has been built on the impregnable 
 rock of that belief. Sit anima mea cum Sanctis. May 
 my lot be with the Evangelical Saints from whose lips 
 I first learned the doctrine of the Cross. 
 
 It is a pleasure to commemorate in this place the 
 truly venerable lady through whom I am myself linked 
 to the Earlier Evangelicals, and to the " Clapham Sect." 
 Of that sect she was the last survivor. A tablet in the 
 Parish Church of Clapham bears this inscription : 
 
 BORN MARCH 10, 1797 
 DIED NOVEMBER 5, 1887 
 
 "She opened her mouth with wisdom"
 
 A CENTURY OF EVANGELICALISM 1 
 
 AS an Evangelical born and bred, I have found 
 a special interest in Professor Handley Moule's 
 new book on the Evangelical School in the Nineteenth 
 Century. Everything that Dr. Motile writes is marked 
 by spiritual fervour and literary grace. But fervour 
 and grace will not produce history unless they are 
 combined with knowledge ; and, in writing of Evan- 
 gelicalism, Dr. Moule writes of that which he intimately 
 knows. He belongs, indeed, to the second half of the 
 nineteenth century, but he tells us that his father, an 
 Evangelical clergyman, whose opinions he inherited, was 
 born in 1801, and he is therefore qualified, partly by 
 personal observation and partly by direct tradition, to 
 describe the Evangelical school of the last hundred 
 years. 
 
 For the purposes of his survey Dr. Moule divides the 
 late century into three periods. The first he calls 
 " the period of Simeon and Wilberforce," and it closes 
 about the time of Queen Victoria's accession. The 
 second is "the period of Shaftesbury," and it lasts 
 until the eighties. The third period " does not connect 
 itself so much with great personalities as with a great 
 institution," and that institution is the Church Missionary 
 Society, which " within these twenty years has so greatly 
 developed its resources, its energy, and its influence as 
 
 1 The Pilot, 1901. 
 246
 
 A CENTURY OF EVANGELICALISM 247 
 
 to form a phenomenon of commanding import in our 
 Evangelical history." 
 
 With respect to Dr. Moule's first period, it may 
 perhaps be suggested that he scarcely does justice to 
 Charles Simeon's definite Chnrchmanship. One of that 
 great man's watchwords was : " The Bible first, the 
 Prayer-book next, and all other books and doings in 
 subordination to both." It was even made a ground of 
 reproach against him that he was " more of a Churchman 
 than a Gospelman" Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, 
 was a notable name among Simeon's followers ; and he 
 used language about the Font, the Altar, and the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice which a later generation would 
 have stigmatized as rank Popery. The bitterness of 
 fratricidal controversy had not as yet checked the free 
 expression of Evangelical Churchman ship. Dr. Moule's 
 first period is crowded with great names. Henry 
 Martyn can never be recalled by Churchmen of any 
 type without the liveliest affection and reverence. 
 Henry Venn was for years the wise autocrat of the 
 Church Missionary Society, and Bishop Wilberforce 
 wrote on the occasion of his death, " Once or twice he 
 has smitten me hard when he thought I in any way 
 wronged the C.M.S., but I no more resented it than 
 I should have resented Sir Lancelot's chivalry for 
 his Queen." Dr. Moule reckons the late Professor 
 Birks as "one of the later Simeonites," although 
 his Eschatological doctrines would scarcely have com- 
 mended themselves to his great master. 
 
 Birks died in 1880, and so, according to Dr. Moule's 
 division of the century, he links the first to the third 
 period. The second is dominated by Lord Shaftesbury, 
 " dominated " is the right word. I regard my acquaint- 
 ance with Lord Shaftesbury as one of the highest 
 honours of my life ; and I always felt that he combined
 
 248 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 in singular degree, the gifts which make a leader. He 
 had an imperious will, a perfervid temper, unbounded 
 enthusiasm, untiring industry. Any movement with 
 which he was connected he controlled. He brooked 
 neither opposition nor criticism. His authority was re- 
 inforced by advantages of aspect and bearing, by a 
 stately manner, by a noble and commanding eloquence, 
 by high station, and by close relationship to an omni- 
 potent Premier. But all these advantages were as 
 nothing when compared with the power of his lifelong 
 consistency. When he was a boy at Harrow, a brutal 
 scene at a pauper's funeral (not, as Dr. Moule says, an 
 act of cruelty to an animal) awoke his lifelong devotion 
 to the cause of the poor and the helpless. Seventy years 
 later, when he lay on his death-bed, his only regret 
 was that he must leave the world with so much misery 
 in it. From first to last he was an Evangelical of the 
 highest and purest type, displaying all the religions and 
 social virtues of the school in singular perfection ; and 
 yet he left it on record that he had been more harshly 
 treated by the Evangelical party than by any other. Per- 
 haps the explanation is that those excellent people were 
 only kicking against the pricks of a too-absolute control. 
 Among the events of Lord Shaftesbury's period, 
 Dr. Moule gives an interesting description of the 
 mysterious "Revival" which in 1858 and the next 
 few years spread from the United States to the North 
 of Ireland, and to a large part of England. Among 
 the effects of that Revival, as it reacted on the Church of 
 England, was the development of the Parochial " Mission." 
 Dr. Moule dates the institution of Missions from 1869 ; 
 but in so doing he seems to ignore the Diocesan Missions, 
 which as long ago as 1850 Bishop Wilberforce in- 
 augurated in the populous centres of the Oxford Diocese, 
 and worked for twenty years with admirable effect.
 
 A CENTURY OF EVANGELICALISM 249 
 
 In connexion with the subject of Missions, it is 
 amazing to find that Dr. Moule has not a word to say 
 about Aitken of Pendean, Twigg of Wednesbury, or the 
 present Bishop of St. Andrews. Even if we put on one 
 side missioners of the distinctively Catholic School, 
 the three men whom we have named must be reckoned 
 among the most powerful exponents of Evangelical 
 truth in a form which arrests the attention of the care- 
 less, the ignorant, and the ungodly. Is a staunch belief 
 in Orders and Sacraments to be taken as excluding a 
 man from the Evangelical ranks ? 
 
 Towards the movement connected with the name 
 of Mr. Pearsall Smith in 1874 Dr. Moule is far too 
 indulgent. That movement was marked by spiritual 
 disasters of which the nature can best be indicated 
 by a characteristic saying which, after a quarter of 
 a century, I recall with the shock of sudden pain : 
 " The believer's conflict with sin is all stuff." 
 
 Of the mission of Messrs. Moody and Sankey in 1875, 
 Dr. Moule speaks generously, though not more generously 
 than Dr. Liddon, who said, in his sermon before the 
 University of Oxford on Whitsunday, 1876 : 
 
 Last year two American preachers visited this country, 
 to whom God had given, together with earnest belief in some 
 portions of the Gospel, a corresponding spirit of fearless 
 enterprise. Certainly they had no such credentials of an 
 Apostolic Ministry as a well-instructed and believing Church- 
 man would require. . . . And yet, acting according to the 
 light which God had given them, they threw themselves on 
 our great cities with the ardour of Apostles ; spoke of a 
 higher world to thousands who pass the greater part of life 
 in dreaming only of this; and made many of us feel that 
 we owe them at least the debt of an example, which He 
 Who breatheth where He listeth must surely have inspired 
 them to give us. 
 
 Dr. Moule's third period covers only the last twenty
 
 250 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 years. Little need be said about it here, for the 
 astonishing statistics of the Church Missionary Society's 
 work daring that period are easily accessible. In such 
 statistics it is impossible not to glory ; but the Society's 
 actions in India and in Palestine have sometimes 
 suggested that it has forgotten the first word of its 
 threefold title. 
 
 Dr. Moule concludes his interesting and valuable 
 work with a devout aspiration for the Second Advent 
 "the Eternal Morning, the Return and Triumph of 
 our King." 
 
 Hark what a sound, and too Divine for hearing, 
 Stirs on the earth and trembles in the air ! 
 
 Is it the thunder of the Lord's appearing? 
 Is it the music of His people's prayer? 
 
 Surely He cometh, and a thousand voices 
 Shout to the saints, and to the deaf are dumb ; 
 
 Surely He cometh, and the earth rejoices, 
 Glad in His coming, Who hath sworn, I come. 
 
 The lively realization of that far-off Divine event was 
 once a characteristic of Evangelical Churchmanship. 
 Can Dr. Moule explain why so many of the most 
 earnest believers in it wandered off into the devious 
 tracts of Irvingism and Plymouthism ?
 
 THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 1 
 
 THE most interesting paths in the world are the 
 by-ways of religion. Certainly the highways are 
 interesting enough, with their majestic sweep across 
 the wide landscape of history, their rapid ascents and 
 descents, and their colossal milestones. Bnt the by- 
 ways fascinate the curious wayfarer by a certain sense 
 of mystery and elusiveness, and, where they run parallel 
 to the main track, it is profitable to note how nearly 
 they touch, and then, again, how widely they diverge 
 (Pace mathematicorum dixerim). 
 
 Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton have just published a 
 " History of the Plymouth Brethren," by a certain 
 Mr. Neatby, who seems to have been nurtured in that 
 strange community ; and the narrative is profoundly 
 interesting when read in connexion with the simul- 
 taneous movements in other parts of the Christian body. 
 It should be premised that " Plymouth Brethrenism " 
 is in strictness a misnomer. The movement originated 
 in Ireland, and only became associated in the public 
 mind with Plymouth on account of some vehement con- 
 troversies between the Brethren, of which in later years 
 Plymouth was the centre. 
 
 That Brethrenism, in spite of its interesting history 
 and its high ideal, is now a practical failure, Mr. Neatby, 
 no unfriendly commentator, seems constrained to admit ; 
 and his theory of the matter may be profitably pondered 
 
 1 The Commonwealth, 1902. 
 251
 
 252 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 in connexion with the very similar experiences of 
 Irvingism, which was a creation of the same spiritual 
 upheaval : 
 
 Brethrenism is the child of the study of unfulfilled prophecy, 
 and of the expectation of the immediate return of the Saviour. 
 If anyone had told the first Brethren that three-quarters 
 of a century might elapse and the Church be still on earth, 
 the answer would probably have been a smile, partly of 
 pity, partly of disapproval, wholly of incredulity. Yet so 
 it has proved. It is impossible not to respect hopes so 
 congenial to an ardent devotion ; yet it is clear now that 
 Brethrenism took shape under the influence of a delusion, and 
 that that delusion was a decisive element in all its distinctive 
 features. 
 
 The more closely one studies the private and social 
 history of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, 
 the more keenly one realizes that it was a marked period 
 of religious revival. This, according to Archbishop 
 Howley (1766-1 848) and Thomas Grenville (1755-1846) 
 was a reaction from the horrors of the French Revolu- 
 tion, which drove terrified minds and anxious hearts to 
 seek supernatural peace. Be the cause what it may, 
 the results were manifest in several awakenings, 
 separated from one another in time and place, but in- 
 spired, apparently, by the same impulse, and marked 
 in their beginnings by many of the same characteristics. 
 In Germany, Herder (1744-1803) had earnestly preached 
 the imminence of the Second Advent. Stilling (1740- 
 1817) proclaimed that the Eleventh Hour of the 
 Christian dispensation had arrived. In South America 
 the Jesuit who wrote under the name of " Ben-Ezra " 
 elucidated the Patristic tradition about the Second 
 Advent, and his teaching produced a profound effect 
 on the mind of Edward Irving. In Russia, Schubert, 
 Director of St. Peter's Theological College, announced in 
 1820 the arrival of the " Times of Refreshing " and the
 
 THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 253 
 
 separation between the children of God and the children 
 of the world. In 1827 and 1828 a most remarkable 
 revival took place among the Roman Catholic population 
 of Carlshnld on the Danube, some 250 miles above 
 Vienna. Stirred by the preaching of a young Mission 
 Priest, the population thronged to Confession and 
 Communion. This revival was attended by visions and 
 prophecies, and, after some extraordinary vicissitudes, 
 ended in a large adhesion to what is now called Irvingism, 
 The movement which is known by that rather mislead- 
 ing nickname took its rise in the Conferences for the 
 Study of Prophecy which Henry Drummond, Banker 
 and M.P., gathered round him at Albury between 1826 
 and 1830. The Reform Bill, the Cholera, and the 
 Revolution in Paris were regarded as heralding the end 
 of the world. Miraculous gifts were said to have been 
 restored in the West of Scotland, and by 1835 the 
 believers in these gifts and in the imminence of the 
 Second Advent had become a separate sect, organized 
 under twelve so-called " Apostles," and commonly 
 known by the name of their most conspicuous teacher, 
 the great Edward Irving. The Oxford Movement, as 
 we all know, dates from 1833 ; but there had been 
 some preparatory shaking of the dry bones as far back 
 as 1826, and Hugh James Rose had bidden his fellow- 
 churchmen " stir up the gift that was in them, and 
 betake themselves to their true Mother." " Brethren- 
 ism" belongs to the same period, but dates from an 
 earlier point in it. How and why and with whom it 
 began are questions on which its adherents have been 
 sharply divided. It may be best to follow Mr. Neatby's 
 method, and trace the history of some of the most 
 conspicuous names associated with the movement. 
 
 Anthony Norris Groves was born in 1795. He was 
 a dentist in good practice, but early in life determined
 
 254 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 to be a missionary, and offered himself to the service 
 of the Church Missionary Society. With a view to 
 taking Holy Orders, he entered at Trinity College, 
 Dublin, and, during his visit to that city, he became 
 acquainted with a small band of religious people 
 who took refuge from the prevailing worldliness and 
 Erastianism of the Irish Establishment in private 
 gatherings for devotion and mutual instruction. In this 
 circle a very high standard of personal piety and self- 
 denial was exhibited, and "devotedness to Christ and 
 union among all the people of God" were objects of 
 special solicitude. In the spring of 1827 Groves took 
 a decisive step. He came to the conclusion that 
 " Believers, meeting together as disciples of Christ, 
 were free to break bread together, as their Lord had 
 admonished them ; and that, in as far as the practice 
 of the Apostles could be a guide, every Lord's Day 
 should be set apart for thus remembering the Lord's 
 death, and obeying His parting command." What 
 Groves thought right his friends in Dublin eagerly 
 accepted. The weekly Breaking of Bread was begun 
 in private houses, and has continued as the characteristic 
 ordinance of Brethrenism till this day. An Eucharist 
 without a priest sounds strange to Catholic ears ; but 
 to " The Brethren " belongs the credit of having been 
 the first to revive the weekly celebration of the Lord's 
 Supper. In 1827, owing to a sudden loss of money, 
 Groves was forced to retire from Trinity College. Imme- 
 diately afterwards he came to the conclusion that he 
 could not take Holy Orders, as he held all war to be 
 unlawful, and therefore could not subscribe to the 37th 
 Article. He then thought of going out as a lay- 
 missionary under the C.M.S., but he would not go unless 
 the Society allowed him to administer the Lord's Supper, 
 which they naturally declined to do. Suddenly, in the
 
 THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 255 
 
 midst of his perplexities, it was borne in upon him, as 
 a sort of revelation from Heaven, that ordination was 
 under any circumstances superfluous. Every believer 
 was at liberty to minister as the Holy Spirit led him, 
 without human authorization. So the second charac- 
 teristic of Brethrenism was affixed to it, and before 
 long " Open Ministry " became its test of the standing 
 or falling Church. 
 
 One of the persons on whom Groves's example pro- 
 duced the greatest effect was John Gifford Bellett. He 
 was born in Dublin in 1795, and he was called to the 
 Irish Bar. He was a man of profoundly religious 
 temperament, and was drawn to Groves by similarity of 
 thought and feeling about serious topics. It was to him 
 that Groves first communicated his conviction about 
 the Breaking of Bread, and in 1828 he unfolded to him 
 his doctrine of Open Ministry. These are Bellett's own 
 words : 
 
 Walking one day with him, as we were passing down 
 Lower Pembroke Street, he said to me, " This I doubt not 
 is the mind of God concerning us we should come together 
 in all simplicity as disciples, not waiting on any pulpit or 
 ministry, but trusting that the Lord would edify us together 
 by ministering as He pleased and saw good from the midst 
 of ourselves." 
 
 At the moment he spoke these words, I was assured my 
 soul had got the right idea. ... It was the birthday of my 
 mind as a Brother. 
 
 Bellett was the most important figure in the Brethren- 
 ism of Dublin, for he lived there permanently, whereas 
 Groves only paid occasional visits. He was a man not 
 only of deepest piety, but of the most sincere humility, 
 and he used in after-days to say, " If I deserve any 
 credit, it is that 1 early discovered what there was 
 in John Darby." And so we are introduced to " the 
 extraordinary man who, more than all his associates
 
 256 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 put together, stamped the whole movement with his 
 personal impress, and to whom is due nearly all the 
 interest with which it has been invested, whether for 
 the general public, or for the philosophical enquirer." 
 John Nelson Darby was born in 1800, and died in 
 1882. He was of purely Irish blood, but born in 
 London and educated at Westminster, from whence 
 he went to Trinity College, Dublin. He was called to 
 the Bar, but soon forsook it for Holy Orders, being- 
 ordained to a curacy in Wicklow in 1825. He was a 
 Puseyite before Pusey was heard of, and a Tractarian 
 before the Tracts. In later years he wrote thus of his 
 practice as a layman : " I fasted in Lent so as to be 
 weak in body at the end of it ; ate no meat on week- 
 days, nothing till evening on Wednesdays, Fridays, 
 and Saturdays, then a little bread, or nothing ; observed 
 strictly the weekly fasts too. I went to my clergyman 
 always, if I wished to take the Sacrament, that he might 
 judge of the matter. I held Apostolic Succession fully, 
 and the channels of Grace to be there only. I held 
 then Luther and Calvin and their followers to be out- 
 side. I was not their judge, but I left them to the 
 uncovenanted mercies of God. I searched with earnest 
 diligence into the evidences of Apostolic Succession in 
 England, and just saved their validity for myself and 
 my conscience. The union of Church and State I held 
 to be Babylonish, that the Church ought to govern itself, 
 and that she was in bondage, but was the Church." 
 It is not easy, at this distance of time, to trace the 
 gradual steps by which Darby departed from his early 
 ecclesiasticism ; but it is certain that what chiefly 
 disgusted him with the Established Church of Ireland 
 was its unblushing Erastianism. Roman Catholic 
 Emancipation was seen to be impending. The Archbishop 
 of Dublin, Magee, delivered a charge denouncing Roman
 
 THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 257 
 
 Catholicism and claiming special protection and favour 
 for the Established Church, on the ground that Romanism 
 was opposed to the State, while the Established system 
 was allied with it, or even subservient, to it. The clergy 
 of Dublin followed suit, with a petition to Parliament 
 in the same sense ; and Darby drew up and circulated 
 a protest against their miserably low view of the Church 
 and her claims. Bat this protest was of no avail. 
 " The Establishment was everything with the church- 
 men of that time, and the Church of God was nothing 
 regarded." Meanwhile Darby laboured among the 
 peasants of the Wicklow mountains with all the ardour 
 of an apostle. " So ascetic was his life, so rigorous 
 his self-denial, so unceasing his labours, that his Roman 
 Catholic parishioners concluded that one of the old 
 saints had risen again in his person." It was while 
 he was serving this curacy that Darby became acquainted 
 with F. W. Newman, then acting as tutor to some of 
 Darby's nephews, and acquired an extraordinary though 
 transient influence over that truly remarkable character. 
 At the same time he imbibed, through his neighbour 
 Lady Powerscourt, who had been an attendant at the 
 Albury Conferences, some of Irving's theories about 
 the interpretation of prophecy, and a strong conviction 
 of the imminence of the Second Advent. From time 
 to time he visited Dublin, where Bellett and some 
 like-minded friends continued their private meetings 
 for devotion of which we spoke above. It was at one 
 of these that Darby for the first time joined in the 
 Breaking of Bread in the winter of 1827-8. And in 
 the latter year he resigned his curacy, though he did 
 not forsake communion with the Church of Ireland till 
 four or five years later. 
 
 Time would fail to enumerate the names of all those 
 with whom Darby was now associated. Edward Cronin 
 
 17
 
 258 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 was a convert from Romanism, who could not join the 
 Irish Church or any Protestant body because he objected 
 to a Stated Ministry. John Parnell, afterwards second 
 Lord Congleton, played an important part among the 
 Brethren. He had transferred the religious gatherings in 
 which Bread was broken from a private house to " a large 
 auction-room in Aungier Street," Dublin, and by 1830 
 this meeting had become the recognized centre of the 
 movement. " Brethrenism was indeed formed out of 
 a variety of little meetings of more or less similar 
 character, . . . but its history cannot be truly told 
 without locating its original force in Dublin and in 
 Aungier Street." 1830 may be taken as the year from 
 which Brethrenism, as a permanent institution, dates. 
 
 On that narrow stage there are few of the tendencies of 
 universal Church history that have not been illustrated, and 
 not many of its movements that have not been re-enacted 
 in little. The Brethren sought to effect a fresh start without 
 authority, precedent, or guidance beyond the letter of Holy 
 Scripture. For them, essentially, the garnered experience of 
 eighteen Christian centuries was as though it were not. Such 
 an experiment in the hands of eminent men could scarcely 
 fail to yield a considerable harvest of interest and instruction ; 
 and it has actually shed, if I mistake not, a flood of light 
 on many of the obscurities and incredibilities of the history 
 of the Church. 
 
 The sound of Brethrenism soon went forth into all 
 lands. Groves carried the work to India, Miiller to 
 Germany, Darby to the Canton de Vaud. Twenty years 
 later Darby was organizing the Brethren in Germany. 
 In 1871 he undertook a mission to Italy. In 1872 
 he was in the United States. In 1877 he made a 
 descent upon New Zealand ; and in 1878 he was hard 
 at work at Pau. However the honours of Foundership 
 may be assigned, there can be no question about the 
 dominant figure when we enter the period of expansion.
 
 THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 259 
 
 One figure stands out unmistakeably ; at times it fills the 
 canvas. Brethrenism was destined to exercise a world-wide 
 influence ; to establish itself as a force to be reckoned with 
 in every corner of Christendom ; to give rise to a most 
 voluminous literature ; and to establish, we may surely say, 
 a strong prima fade claim to be heard at the bar of history 
 for a long time to come. These destinies lay in the hand of 
 one man. He had helpers of mark ; and there were in- 
 dependent workers among the Brethren Miiller, Groves, 
 Tregelles, and others who achieved great results in other 
 lines of activity. But the maker of Brethrenism as a system 
 its guiding and energizing spirit throughout, was John Nelson 
 Darby. In the grandeur of his conceptions, in the irresistible 
 vehemence of his will, in his consummate strategical instinct, 
 in his genius for administration, and most of all in his 
 immense personal ascendency, he stands unrivalled amongst 
 the Brethren. His energy was stupendous. He was working 
 for Brethreuism before he was thirty, and when he was eighty 
 he was working as hard as ever ; nor had he been known 
 to relax his efforts efforts put forth to the full measure of 
 his great strength, and often beyond it during the whole of 
 the intervening time. 
 
 The theory of Brethrenism, so far as it can be stated 
 in words, is that the Church of God is the aggregate 
 of all believers in Christ, and a local meeting of those 
 believers is the local Church. " Their meeting in any 
 place is the sole ' expression ' of the Church of God 
 there. It is Divinely recognized. Nothing else is. 
 It is graced by the promised presence of the Lord to 
 two or three gathered in His Name ; and no other 
 congregation, however scriptural or godly, can have 
 ' the Lord in their midst,' according to the terms of 
 the promise." The proceedings of the Meeting were 
 austerely simple. The place of assembly was a barn 
 or a stable, or a plainly-furnished room in a private 
 house or public hall. No order of ministry was 
 tolerated. Each one there might speak as the Spirit 
 led him. No prepared utterances were acceptable. It 
 was even thought better that a frequent speaker should
 
 260 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 not speak habitually from the same part of the room, 
 lest a semblance of officialdom or clericalism should 
 mar the absolute equality of Christian membership. 
 " The Brethren had the disciplinary power of the Church 
 committed to them, because they only met on Scriptural 
 ground. Any person on whom they pronounced sentence 
 of excommunication was by that act cast forth from 
 the Church of God on earth." 
 
 The religious system which Darby thus consolidated 
 is on the whole the most purely spiritual which exists 
 in the world. It is true that it retains two sacramental 
 observances, the Breaking of Bread, and Baptism by 
 Immersion of believing adults, and in that respect 
 Quakerism, which rejects all outward signs, may claim 
 an even more purely spiritual character. But against 
 this must be set the fact that Quakers are as a rule 
 actively employed in secular pursuits, trades, manu- 
 factures, and money-makings of various kinds, and are 
 also keen politicians and energetic citizens. All such 
 trafficking with the world is abhorrent to Brethrenism. 
 The iron necessity of living compels the poorer brethren 
 to follow trades or handicrafts ; but the number of 
 professions in which they may engage is extremely 
 limited. A " Brother " must not be a soldier or sailor, 
 or a lawyer or judge or magistrate. He will not sit 
 in Parliament, or take any part in political or civil 
 life. The Brethren will not go to law, however grossly 
 they may have been wronged ; and it is regarded as 
 a sign of imperfect spirituality to look at a secular 
 newspaper. In a word, separation from the world is 
 carried out more consistently by the Brethren than 
 by any set of people, except monks, with whom I am 
 acquainted. And the Brethren have one supreme 
 merit, that of self-denying liberality. They " give them- 
 selves poor." Many deny themselves every luxury, and
 
 THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 261 
 
 even what some would call necessaries. Lord Congleton 
 would not have carpets in his rooms, and spent his whole 
 income in charity. " The Brethren entirely keep their 
 own poor " ; and a Brother in distress has an inde- 
 feasible claim upon the purse of a Brother who is 
 better off. The claims of " Brethren " are regarded 
 as far more pressing than those of one's own family, 
 if the family happens to be outside Brethrenism. A 
 Brother well known to the present writer used to say, 
 "When I have clothed my children, and fed them, 
 and punished them, I have done all that duty requires 
 of me." 
 
 As to the theology of Brethrenism, it is not easy 
 to speak positively in the absence of an authorized 
 confession of faith. But John Nelson Darby was 
 intensely and scrupulously orthodox about the central 
 verities, and his orthodoxy produced a memorable schism 
 in the body. About the year 1845 Mr. Benjamin Wills 
 Newton, one of the early leaders of the movement, 
 was the centre of a very influential meeting at Plymouth. 
 He was an able and an amiable man, but not a 
 trained theologian ; and he had puzzled himself by 
 trying to interpret prophecy, and was led into some 
 erroneous views about the Person of our Lord. Darby 
 instantly excommunicated Newton, delivered him over 
 to Satan, and called on all the Brethren throughout 
 the world to save themselves from this contamination. 
 But there was one who would not obey. This was 
 George Miiller, founder of " Bethesda," the famous and 
 faith-supported Orphanage at Bristol. Miiller was not, 
 any more than Newton, a conscious or willing heretic ; 
 but he had none of Darby's theological instinct. He 
 could not see the vital defect of Newton's teaching, 
 and he declined to join in the exclusive policy enjoined 
 by Darby. He admitted to the Lord's Table all
 
 262 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Brethren who chose to present themselves, whether 
 they repudiated Newton or not. Darby, on the other 
 hand, declined communion with all and sundry who 
 either followed Newton's teaching, or even stood neutral 
 like Miiller. In later years he wrote : " I reject Bethesda 
 as wickedness, as I ever did when the blasphemous 
 doctrine of Mr. Newton came out. Bethesda deliberately 
 nurtured and accredited it. It is all one to me if it 
 is a Baptist Church, or anything else. It has been 
 untrue to Christ, and no persuasion, with the help of 
 God, will ever lead me a step nearer to it." The 
 schism produced two separate bodies, the Open Brethren, 
 who followed Newton and Mtiller, and the Exclusives, 
 who clung to Darby. 
 
 The depth of the division which sundered them can 
 hardly be understood by those who stand aloof from 
 the quarrel. A man and his wife lived on a farm in 
 the far west of America, a hundred miles from any 
 other Brethren : the wife followed Darby ; her husband 
 denied his authority ; and from that moment they could 
 no longer " break Bread " together. An " Exclusive " 
 declined all intercourse with has own mother, because 
 she had broken Bread with a rebellious Brother. The 
 Exclusives would not willingly shalfce hands with an 
 Open Brother. They regarded marriage outside their 
 own ranks as blameworthy ; and anyone who with- 
 drew from them " would be pretty sure to lose all 
 his friends at a stroke." 
 
 Notwithstanding this intense and watchful system 
 of discipline, and his own transcendent power of will, 
 Darby lived long enough to see his authority under- 
 mined. Schism proved to be, as ever, fissiparous, 
 and both the Exclusives and the Open Brethren were 
 gradually broken up into further subdivisions. The 
 Open Brethren have long been divided into Miillerites
 
 THE "PLYMOUTH BRETHREN" 263 
 
 and Newtonians ; and now the Exclusives fall asunder 
 into Darbyites, Kellyites, and Cluffites. Darby himself 
 never bated a jot of his high pretensions. As years 
 went on he developed ever stronger and stronger claims 
 for his own following. Those who agreed with him 
 were the Church on earth. Those who disagreed on 
 any point of doctrine or even of management, he ex- 
 communicated, and placed outside the covenanted mercies 
 of God. As long as his strong personality survived, he 
 maintained a semblance of unity among his followers; 
 on his demise the whole edifice which he had reared 
 with such untiring labour and such consummate skill 
 broke up in unsightly ruin. But in spite, or perhaps 
 because, of all these tragedies and failures, Brethrenism 
 will always have a peculiar fascination for those who 
 revere an austere unworldliness and a life absolutely 
 consistent with its theory.
 
 THE "RESTORED APOSTOLATE" 1 
 
 On the 3rd inst., at The Grange, Albury, Guildford, Francis 
 Valentine Woodhouse, barrister-at-law, in his ninety-sixth 
 year. 
 
 THIS announcement, which appeared in the list of 
 deaths in the newspapers of February 7, 1901, 
 conveyed very little to the general world, but very 
 much to a small body of earnest Christians. They call 
 themselves the Adherents of a Restored Apostolate, 
 but other people call them Irvingites. The biographical 
 genius of Mrs. Oliphant has made us familiar with the 
 tragedy of Edward Irving's life and death, and we 
 know that he was not the founder, nor the organizer, 
 nor the ruler, of the community which has, unhistorically, 
 been called by his name. But that it should have been 
 so called is not wonderful. He was incomparably the 
 most majestic and the most attractive figure connected 
 with it. His keen spirituality, his heroic faith, his 
 magical eloquence, would have made him a chief orna- 
 ment of any Church which he served. And yet, in 
 the strange scheme of his life, it was ordered that he 
 should be only a herald and a forerunner a preparer 
 of the way for a movement which he did not control, 
 an adherent of a spiritual oligarchy in which he had no 
 place. Of that oligarchy the venerable man who died 
 last week at Albury was the last survivor ; and his 
 death seems a suitable occasion for a brief review of 
 
 1 The Pilot, 1901. 
 264
 
 THE " RESTORED APOSTOLATE " 265 
 
 that mysterious movement with which his long life 
 had been associated. 
 
 In the first quarter of the nineteenth century there 
 was a remarkable revival of religious earnestness both 
 inside and outside the Church of England. Mr. Glad- 
 stone has left it on record that, in the opinion of con- 
 temporary observers, such as Archbishop Howley and 
 Thomas Grenville, this revival was due to a reaction 
 from the horrors and impieties of the French Revolu- 
 tion in its later stages. Space would not allow me to 
 enter into all the forms in which the revival manifested 
 itself ; the one which most concerns my present purpose 
 was the increased attention bestowed on the study and 
 interpretation of sacred prophecy. One of the persons 
 most deeply interested in prophetical research was Mr. 
 Henry Drummond (1786-1860), banker and M.P. ; and 
 he gathered round him a company of Biblical students 
 like-minded with himself. The first of these Prophetical 
 Conferences was held at his house at Albury, in Advent, 
 1826, and the same gathering was repeated annually 
 for five years. Forty-four people in all took part in 
 these conferences, of whom nineteen were English clergy- 
 men, three were Dissenting ministers, four were ministers 
 of the Scotch Kirk, eleven were lay-members of the 
 Church of England, and seven were laymen of various 
 denominations. The tone of the whole gathering was 
 intensely evangelical. Edward Irving was one of the 
 party, and has left a graphic account of the gathering 
 and of the methods of discussion. The general con- 
 clusions at which the conference arrived may be sum- 
 marized thus : The Christian Dispensation was shortly 
 to be terminated by Divine judgments, ending in the 
 destruction of the visible Church and polity. These 
 judgments were to be succeeded by that period of 
 universal blessedness which is called the Millennium,
 
 266 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 A great period of 1,260 years commenced in the reign of 
 Justinian, and terminated at the French Revolution ; and 
 the vials of the Apocalypse began then to be poured out. 
 Our Blessed Lord will shortly appear, and therefore it is 
 the duty of all who so believe to press these considerations 
 on the attention of all men. 
 
 The last of the Prophetical Conferences was held 
 in July, 1830. The Reform Bill, the cholera, and the 
 Revolution in Paris were regarded as heralding the 
 end of the world. Men's hearts were failing them for 
 fear, and for looking after those things that were 
 coming on the earth. It was agreed at Albury that 
 the end was at hand ; that it was a duty to pray for 
 the revival of the miraculous gifts manifested in the 
 primitive Church ; " and that a responsibility lies on 
 us to enquire into the state of those gifts said to be 
 now present in the West of Scotland." 
 
 The West of Scotland had been the birthplace of 
 Edward Irving (1792-1834). He was educated for the 
 ministry of the Scotch Kirk, and acted as assistant to 
 Dr. Chalmers at Glasgow. In 1822 he was ordained 
 to the charge of the Caledonian Church in London, 
 then situate in Hatton Garden, but transferred in 1827 
 to Regent Square. The enormous popularity of his 
 preaching, and the deep impression which he made on 
 the religious, and even the fashionable, world of London, 
 have been so often and so fully described that I need 
 not enter into particulars. But it is interesting, and 
 characteristic of the man, that at the zenith of his 
 fame he kept himself in close touch with his Scottish 
 home ; and it was thus that he heard the first rumours 
 of what the Seers at Albury cautiously described as 
 " those gifts said to be now present in the West of 
 Scotland." 
 
 Among the devout souls who had been led, by con?
 
 THE "RESTORED APOSTOLATE " 267 
 
 templating the signs of the times, to expect a renewal 
 of the extraordinary gifts of the Early Church were 
 some working folk on the banks of the Clyde, at and 
 near Port Glasgow. In 1830 some of these folk found 
 themselves suddenly cured of long-standing illnesses ; 
 some burst out into unintelligible speech. It seemed 
 plain that the gifts of healing and of tongues had been 
 revived, and the hearts of the faithful were made glad. 
 The matter was brought before the last Conference at 
 Albury, with the result which we saw above ; and in 
 the following September a deputation, consisting of Mr. 
 Cardale, a London solicitor, Dr. Thompson, a physician, 
 and four friends, went to Scotland to investigate the 
 occurrences. They came back persuaded that the gifts 
 were genuine. Irving embraced the same belief with 
 characteristic enthusiasm ; and, in obedience to what 
 he believed to be the Divine Will, he permitted men 
 and women to interrupt the stated services of his church 
 by speaking in unknown tongues and by prophesying 
 in English. 
 
 For this breach of the order of the Scotch Kirk 
 Irving was deprived of his charge ; and he and those 
 who adhered to him, being evicted from the church in 
 Regent Square, established themselves in a room in 
 Gray's Inn Road, where Robert Owen, the Socialist, 
 had been accustomed to lecture ; and from there removed 
 to a disused picture-gallery in Newman Street, which 
 was fitted up as a church. Henceforward the believers 
 in the supernatural gifts had a corporate life, a local 
 habitation, and a name. Of course, prophecy and speak- 
 ing in tongues went on incessantly in this new congrega- 
 tion, and prayer was continually offered that further 
 developments of supernatural grace might be vouchsafed. 
 Soon the prophetic voices began to intimate that God 
 would shortly send forth Apostles to guide this revived
 
 268 
 
 life of the Church. In the autumn of 1832, when Mr. 
 Cardale was praying in the congregation for an out- 
 pouring of the Spirit, " there came a word of prophecy 
 announcing that God had called him to be an Apostle, 
 and to convey His holy unction." The announcement 
 was received with absolute faith and submission. Next 
 day Irving, as the presiding minister, publicly recognized 
 this call, and the Church learned that the Apostolate 
 had been restored. Mr. Cardale was not long left in 
 solitude. The mystic Twelve were soon, under prophetic 
 direction, completed. One had received the call and 
 declined to act on it ; but, after his place had been 
 filled by another, the Twelve were constituted as 
 follows : 
 
 1. J. Cardale, solicitor. 
 
 2. H. Drurnmond, banker. 
 
 3. N. Armstrong, Irish clergyman. 
 
 4. H. Dalton, English clergyman. 
 
 5. S. Perceval, ex-M.P. 
 
 6. T. Carlyle, Scottish advocate. 
 
 7. F. Sitwell, country gentleman. 
 
 8. W. Dow, Presbyterian minister. 
 
 9. J. Tudor, scholar and expositor. 
 
 10. H. King, Civil Servant. 
 
 11. D. Mackenzie, chemist. 
 
 12. F. Woodhouse, barrister. 
 
 The twelfth was the youngest. Mr. Francis Valentine 
 Woodhouse was born February 14, 1805 ; educated at 
 Exeter College, Oxford (M.A. 1829) ; called to the Bar 
 at the Inner Temple 1829 ; became an Apostle 1834 ; 
 died 1901. 
 
 It will be observed that Irving, the forerunner, never 
 attained to the Apostolate ; but he was ordained 
 ( ' Angel " or Bishop over the Church in Newman Street,
 
 He died in December, 1834 ; and the guidance of the 
 movement which has been associated with his name 
 was left to other and very different hands. The 
 Apostolic College being now complete, the Apostles 
 were " separated" for their great work on July 14, 1835. 
 This separation was not ordination. The Apostles were 
 held to have been ordained by the great Head of the 
 Church Himself, without the intervention of any human 
 agency, and the " Separation " was merely the formal 
 recognition by the assembled Church of its divinely- 
 appointed rulers. 
 
 Of the work entrusted to the restored Apostolate, the 
 loftiest views were entertained. The theory was that 
 the four-and-twenty seats in heaven belonged to the 
 Twelve Apostles who attended our Lord at the begin- 
 ning of the Christian Dispensation, and .the Twelve 
 whom He raised up at its close. The original Twelve 
 could not transmit their Apostolic powers, though they 
 could transmit the other forms of ministry, including 
 the episcopate. Apostles were made by God alone ; 
 and when the last of the original Twelve departed, 
 the Church was left without Apostles till God raised 
 them up again in 1832. The duty of the Restored 
 Apostolate was to rule the whole Catholic Church ; to 
 heal its schisms ; to teach it with authority ; to prepare 
 the world for the Second Coming ; and to present the 
 Church to the Lord when He should appear in glory. 
 
 Immediately after their Separation, the Apostles 
 spent a year in retirement at Albury, praying, studying, 
 and laying down the lines on which their great mission 
 was to proceed. At the end of that period they drew 
 up two Solemn Testimonies, the one addressed to the 
 King and the Privy Council, the other to the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury and the Bishops. These were 
 personally delivered by the Apostles or their emissaries
 
 270 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 to the persons directly concerned. It is said that when 
 these emissaries arrived at Holland House, in order to 
 deliver the Testimony to Lord Holland, then a Cabinet 
 Minister, Lady Holland stationed the servant outside 
 his door with instructions to run in if he heard his 
 lordship scream. Bishop Wilberforce, when Rector of 
 Brightstone, received a visit from one of the emissaries, 
 who came to announce the great tidings of restoration. 
 
 I kept him entirely to one point his commission to come 
 at all saying that, if would he satisfy me there, of course 
 I would receive, or, at least, most earnestly weigh, his 
 message. I called on him to show an ordinary, or the 
 signs of an extraordinary, commission. Of course, he could 
 do neither. It is a very painful sight to witness so strong 
 a deceit. 
 
 But a larger scheme was on foot. The two smaller 
 Testimonies were amalgamated in a " Great Testimony," 
 addressed "to the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, 
 and others in places of chief rule over the Church of 
 Christ throughout the earth, and to the Emperors, 
 Kings, Sovereign Princes, and Chief Governors over 
 the nations of the Baptized." This document, of por- 
 tentous length, sets forth the evils of the time, the 
 decay of faith, the shattered and enfeebled condition 
 of the Church, the nearness of the Second Advent, and 
 the necessity of being reunited to God through the 
 medium of the Restored Apostolate and a fourfold 
 ministry of Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers, 
 ordained by Apostles. 
 
 The last notes of the knell of this world's dispensation are 
 pealing the world passes away, and the things of the world ; 
 the only hope is that which hath ever been the hope of the 
 Church, to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and 
 so to be ever with Him, saved from the snare of the tempta- 
 tions and the great tribulations which are coming upon the 
 earth.
 
 THE "RESTORED APOSTOLATE" 271 
 
 This document was printed in English, French, 
 German, and Latin. Each Apostle had a district of 
 Christendom assigned to him ; and ten of them, ac- 
 companied by subordinate ministers, went out in 1838 
 to all the principal cities of Europe and America, 
 delivering the Testimony, proclaiming the restoration 
 of the Apostolate, and imploring men to escape from 
 the wrath to come. It is not easy to picture the 
 astonishment of the Papal Hierarchy when three English 
 gentlemen, to all appearance lay-folk, with whiskers 
 and satin stocks and frock-coats, arrived at the Vatican, 
 and announced that they were commissioned by God 
 to rule the Pope and his patriarchate as parts of that 
 Universal Church over which they had received supreme 
 authority direct from Christ Himself. Surely they must 
 have said that the religious eccentricity of the English 
 was never more conspicuously displayed. 
 
 By Christmas, 1838, the Twelve had returned from 
 their Apostolic wanderings, and were gathered at Albury, 
 where was the "Apostles' Chapel" and the seat of 
 (Ecumenical government. Though they had not suc- 
 ceeded in converting the Pope or the Emperor of 
 Austria or King Louis Philippe, their journeyings were 
 not without result. They had seen, for the first time, 
 the Divine wisdom of the Sacramental System, and 
 the beauty of Catholic worship. In brief, they went 
 out Puritans, and they came back Ritualists. The 
 change in their devotional temper resulted in the com- 
 pilation of the " Liturgy, and other Divine Offices of 
 the Church." This book is believed to have been the 
 handiwork of Mr. Cardale, but it was adopted by the 
 Apostolic College, and is the authorized manual of 
 worship for the " adherents of the Restored Aposto- 
 late." It is long, copious, and elaborate; providing 
 devotions for every act and contingency of life (though
 
 272 
 
 none for burial), and profoundly pervaded by the 
 Sacramental idea. The office of the Holy Eucharist 
 is founded on the Eastern liturgies, with a taste of 
 the First Book of Edward VI., and a large admix- 
 ture of devotions peculiar to believers in the Restored 
 Apostolate. The book is throughout disfigured by long- 
 winded exhortations, fashioned on the model of " Dearly 
 beloved," and dealing with the fallen and decayed 
 state of the Church, and the nearness of the Second 
 Advent. I have not room to trace the development 
 of liturgical worship among the " Adherents." It must 
 suffice to say that, under Apostolic guidance, a body 
 composed of Evangelicals, Presbyterians, and Dissenters 
 came gradually to accept a Fourfold Ministry, Seven 
 Sacraments, the Heal Presence, the Eucharistic Sacrifice, 
 Perpetual Reservation, and a worship embellished with 
 vestments, lights, incense, and holy water. That such 
 a revolution should have been effected without serious 
 resistance in a community profoundly Protestant by 
 origin is regarded by believers as one of the strongest 
 proofs that the Apostolic powers were genuine. At 
 least it was a remarkable triumph of strong wills and 
 tactful administration. 
 
 I spoke just now of " Seven Sacraments," including, in 
 that term of the Sacramental Ordinances ; but before long 
 the Church found itself possessed of what may, without 
 offence, be called an Eighth Sacrament, and this eighth 
 is the characteristic practice of the community, as the 
 imminence of the Second (Advent is its characteristic 
 belief. In 1847 the Apostles decided that, in order 
 to escape the Great Tribulation and to be numbered 
 with the 144,000 who are redeemed from the earth, 
 it is necessary to be " sealed." To " seal " was the 
 exclusive function of the Apostle. No inferior minister 
 could perform the rite. A form of administering it
 
 THE "RESTORED APOSTOLATE " 273 
 
 was drawn up, and the first sealings were performed 
 by Mr. Cardale on May 31, 1847. The act consists 
 in crossing on the forehead with consecrated chrism. 
 It conveys the gift of the Holy Ghost, and seals the 
 recipient unto eternal life. 
 
 The adherents of the Restored Apostolate had be- 
 lieved that the Twelve would remain intact until the 
 Lord's return. They were not daunted by the deser- 
 tion of one ; for his place, as we have already seen, 
 had been filled. They were not daunted by the refusal 
 of another to continue his Apostolic work. There still 
 were Twelve Apostles left alive and the Lord's return 
 was at hand. At Christmas, 1853, the splendid charch 
 in Gordon Square was opened, and a dentist was made 
 Angel of it a curious conjunction of ideas. But trouble 
 was at hand. In 1855 three of the Apostles died 
 Mackenzie, Carlyle, and Dow. It was evident, at any 
 rate, that the Twelve were not to await intact the Lord's 
 Coming. Perceval died in 1859 and Drummond in 
 1860, Tudor in 1862, Sit well and King in 1865. Dalton 
 died in 1871, Cardale in 1877, Armstrong in 1879. 
 And now one only was left alive. As the Apostolic 
 College diminished, the imminence of the Second Advent 
 was more and strenuously proclaimed. The signs of 
 the times were considered to point unmistakably to 
 the approaching end, and a close comparison of dates 
 led to a definite conclusion. On July 14, 1875, the 
 fortieth anniversary of the Separation of the Apostles, 
 a thousand communicants assembled in the church 
 in Gordon Square, expecting the Lord to return that 
 day ; and again and again, before that date and since, 
 expectations, equally well founded, have been equally 
 disappointed. 
 
 In 1885 the venerable Mr. Woodhouse, sole survivor 
 of the Twelve, added a postscript to his " Narrative of 
 
 18
 
 274 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Events," which had long been the authoritative history 
 of the movement. In that postscript he admitted, with 
 simple pathos, the discouragement of the faithful, who 
 saw the Apostolic College now reduced to a single 
 member of advanced age, and the Second Advent still 
 delayed. But the faith of the Church, he said, was 
 sustained by two texts : " Thou knowest not what 
 a day may bring forth," and " If I will that he tarry 
 till I come, what is that to thee ? " And now he, too, 
 is gone. The supreme disappointment has befallen the 
 believers. The last Apostle is removed ; Christendom 
 is not reunited ; and the Lord has not returned. 
 
 We need not suppose that the adherents will renounce 
 their beliefs, or abandon their worship. They believe 
 that they have an Episcopal Succession, transmitted 
 from the Apostles through the Angels, and this will 
 suffice for the daily needs of the faithful. But the 
 Apostles as such can have no successors. The Catholic 
 Church is once again without rulers. " Sealing " can 
 no longer be administered, and the Great Tribulation 
 must overtake us unprepared.
 
 A MODEKN MIRACLE 1 
 
 LET me hasten to say that this is not a theological 
 discourse. My title is none too strong for the 
 phenomenon which it describes ; but it is only of the 
 social and secular aspects of that phenomenon that I 
 am going to write. I have no taste for theological 
 discussion in a daily paper, and therefore I shall leave 
 out of sight some of Mr. Dolling's most vivid chapters, 2 
 such as " Our Saints," " Our Battles Ecclesiastical," 
 " Our Method of Services," " Our Method of Religion," 
 and shall confine myself strictly to those which narrate 
 his moral and material reforms., 
 
 And first a word of the Reformer himself. Mr. 
 Dolling is a man about forty-five years old, in 
 appearance curiously unlike the lean ascetic that 
 pious imagination may have pictured ; robustly strong, 
 passionately in love with the work of social reform, 
 and richly endowed with the saving gift of humour. 
 He is an Irishman by birth. After leaving Harrow 
 he worked for some years as a land-agent in Ireland. 
 Then he came up to London, and took part, as a 
 layman, in religious and social work connected with 
 St. Alban's, Holborn. Subsequently he was ordained 
 without a degree, and after two years in a country 
 
 1 The Daily Chronicle, 1896. 
 
 1 " Ten Years in a Portsmouth Slum." By Robert R Dolling, 
 late Priest-in-Charge of St. Agatha's, Landport (Winchester 
 College Mission). 
 
 ,275
 
 276 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 curacy he was requested, in 1885, to succeed Dr. 
 Linklater in charge of the Mission which is maintained 
 by members of Winchester College in the district of 
 Portsmouth called Landport. 
 
 The district contained six thousand souls. The wages 
 of the majority of the people in regular employment 
 were so small that they lived in continuous poverty. 
 The larger part had no settled wages at all, many 
 of them being hawkers, greengrocers with a capital 
 of five shillings, window-cleaners in a district where 
 no one wanted their windows cleaned, old pensioners 
 past work with a shilling or eighteenpence a day, 
 sailors' wives with three or four children living upon 
 2 a month, and soldiers' wives married " off the 
 strength " with no pay at all. One week's sickness of 
 the bread-winners meant a fortnight's living upon the 
 pawning of clothes and furniture, with nothing before 
 them but the workhouse, " and death sooner than 
 that." 
 
 Two notes [says Mr. Dolling] were always making them- 
 selves heard : one was the poverty, the other was the sin. 
 And surely they explained each other; they were sinful, as 
 a rule, because they were poor. Boys stole because stealing 
 seemed to them the only method of living ; men were drunken 
 because their stomachs were empty and the public-house was 
 the only cheerful place of entertainment, the only home of 
 good fellowship and kindliness ; girls sinned because their 
 mothers had sinned before them, oftentimes their grand- 
 mothers too, unconscious of any shame in it, regarding it 
 as a necessary circumstance of life, if they were to live at all. 
 
 And to cope with all this festering mass of evil, what 
 had been done by the official Church, as distinguished 
 from the purely voluntary efforts of Winchester 
 College? Let Mr. Dolling answer. " Literally nothing. 
 The enormous mother-parish of All Saints had its 
 twenty-seven thousand parishioners, one church, one
 
 A MODERN MIRACLE 27? 
 
 vicar, one curate " and for the special needs of Land- 
 port the Church seems to have made no provision 
 whatever. The zealous piety of the Winchester boys 
 and masters made the first attempt to supply this lack, 
 and the work was excellently initiated by Dr. Linklater, 
 who administered the Mission for three years from its 
 foundation. It is, however, the work as developed by 
 his successor that the book before us describes, and 
 it therefore is of that only that I can speak. 
 
 Having said that I would eschew theology, I must 
 leave on one side the strictly religious agencies which 
 Mr. Dolling employed, and the auxiliary efforts of earnest 
 Dissenters. The limits of space do not allow me to 
 describe in detail those more familiar methods of social 
 reform the Day-School, the Sunday-School, the Orphan- 
 age, the Penitentiary on all of which Mr. Dolling 
 writes with excellent sense and a large-hearted Liberal- 
 ism, having a good word to say even for the anathe- 
 matized Board-Schools. I must concentrate my attention 
 on three or four agencies which seem to bear, in a 
 special sense, the impress of Mr. Dolling's vigorous 
 and genial personality. First among these, as it seems 
 to have come first in order of time, I must place the 
 Gymnasium. One of Mr. Dolling's earliest acts was 
 to buy a building which had been a Baptist Chapel, 
 with a gallery all round, square pews, three-decker 
 pulpit, a font for immersions, and two dead ministers 
 buried in the middle ! With its appurtenances this 
 chapel cost over 3,000, and " I had not a penny of 
 money." But the money was begged or borrowed, the 
 chapel was converted, the boys' clubs were turned into 
 it, and it started on its new career as a gymnasium, 
 the gallery being used for music, games, and bagatelle. 
 The rules were the simplest " no gambling, no bad 
 language, no losing of temper, no annoying anybody
 
 278 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 else." These four rules have stood the test of ten 
 years' work among the roughest and the rowdiest, 
 and have come out triumphant. But at first it was 
 not peace. The instructors were lassoed, arms and 
 legs bound, and lashed to the gymnasium-ladder; 
 spread-eagled on the vaulting-horse; or, with a noose 
 under their armpits, run up to the ceiling. Mattresses 
 were ripped up, pianos knocked to bits, bagatelle- 
 tables used as points of vantage from which opposing 
 forces sprang at one another. 
 
 And yet [says Mr. Dolling] there rises before me the vision 
 of a use in that gymnasium, as the chief centre of reformation 
 in the parish ; a vision of lads who, amidst all this disorder 
 for the disorder arose merely from episodes of high spirits 
 or weak management gained their first lessons of self- 
 restraint and bodily, and even mental, development ; weak, 
 sickly lads coming to us (illness not always the cause of 
 their weakness), now healthy and strong ; bad-tempered, 
 sullen brutes licked into shape ; boys learning the priceless 
 benefit of wholesome play ; mean, unambitious people 
 quivering with the passion of desire to achieve success. How 
 often the lad, just needing the inch to become a soldier, 
 has won it by continuous use of our ladders ; how often 
 the lad, needing an inch in chest-measurement, has won it 
 by the use of our dumb-bells, many a smart regiment, many a 
 gallant ship, could testify to-day. How many it has won 
 from the awful fascination of the public-house, from the 
 vulgarity and worse of the sing-song room, from the delirium 
 of gambling, from hideous forms of sin, impossible for those 
 who desire to achieve a wholesome mind in a wholesome body ! 
 From all parts of the world, strong, healthy, self-respecting 
 men bless and praise God for the old gymnasium in 
 Clarence Street. 
 
 And next we must say a word of the Girls' Social 
 Club. This had been started by Dr. Linklater, and 
 did a world of good in giving the factory-girls, amidst 
 the swarming temptations of a seaport and a garrison, 
 a place of safe, comfortable, and wholesome resort after
 
 A MODERN MIRACLE 27D 
 
 working hours ; and in leading them on, through self- 
 respect and self-help, to self-denial and the joy of 
 helping others. 
 
 I can never tell what I owe to my elder girls, everyone 
 helping a circle of younger girls. It would be impossible 
 to measure the love which binds these girls together love 
 which proves itself in the highest acts of self-denial. I 
 have known, when there was little doing at the factory, a 
 girl lending another her good bonnet and jacket to come to 
 church in on Sunday, she coming in her week-day one. I 
 have known, when another girl was sick, three of them 
 arranging to surrender their night's rest, that the sick girl 
 might have someone with her at night, though the illness 
 lasted over six weeks. I have known a girl going with 
 Miss D. into the worst streets, the worst houses, looking 
 for one who had gone astray. This spirit has spread even 
 amongst the younger girls, and with it a spirit of self- 
 respect. . . . Wherever we go, their hosts always remark the 
 same things their naturalness and refinement. 
 
 But, excellent as all this was, Mr. Dolling, who is 
 frankly human, seems to have felt that there was 
 something lacking. There were good clubs for the boys, 
 and good clubs for the girls ; but no common meeting- 
 ground for both no provision, in short, for the social 
 instinct of humanity. The boys and girls were constant 
 in attendance at their respective clubs np to a certain 
 age, and then they gradually disappeared. What had 
 become of them ? They had begun to " keep company " 
 to " walk out " with one another. With the whole 
 day occupied by work, with overcrowded homes and 
 no respectable places of social entertainment, all courting 
 must perforce be done in evening walks, and more or 
 less clandestinely. The moral results are too obvious to 
 need stating. Turning the matter over in his mind, Mr. 
 Dolling came to the eminently sensible conclusion that 
 he was bound to supply these young people with what 
 the circumstances of their lives withheld a recognized
 
 280 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 opportunity of meeting and knowing each other. 
 The first attempt was a " Social Evening," a kind of 
 humble "At Home" in the gymnasium. But this 
 proved very unsuccessful, beginning with shy awkward- 
 ness, and ending in romps, kissing, and unedifying 
 games. Then Mr. Dolling boldly resolved to introduce 
 dancing. The girls had learned to dance in their own 
 clubs. Mr. Dolling taught the boys ; and now the 
 dancing class is one of the most highly valued of paro- 
 chial institutions. 
 
 Our blind organist presides at the piano. Nearly all the 
 members are communicants. Everyone pays twopence, and 
 we dance from eight till half -past ten p.m. It is extraordinary 
 the difference which this has effected in the manners of 
 our people. The dancing is, perhaps, a little more serious 
 than at a ball in Belgravia, for "squares" are danced with 
 a due attention to the figures. It has given one the most 
 happy opportunity of enabling our boys and girls to meet 
 naturally together, and I am more and more convinced by 
 experience that one of the great causes of sin, in places 
 like ours, is this want. Many of our boys and girls have 
 got engaged to be married through this dance, and, if any 
 of them get engaged to a girl outside the parish, the dance 
 gives them an excellent excuse to introduce her to us. It 
 would be very difficult to say, " You must come and see 
 my parson." It is very easy to say, " You must come and 
 see my dancing class." 
 
 Perhaps the most astonishing of all Mr. Dolling's 
 experiments, and certainly one of the most successful, 
 was his determination to keep open house for all and 
 sundry. 
 
 During the ten years I have been at the Mission we 
 have never sent away from the door anyone whom we thought 
 we could benefit. 
 
 A lad is picked np starving in the streets, and is 
 taken into the house as a free guest. Three months' food 
 and exercise, and he is fit for the Royal Artillery.
 
 A MODERN MIRACLE 281 
 
 " It costs perhaps 5. Think of it 5 ; and a man 
 made by it ! " A broken-down gentleman, after three 
 years of aid and supervision, becomes a prosperous 
 steward on the Australian line. Marines, footmen, clerks, 
 tramps, clergymen, Irish landlords, ex-prisoners, ex- 
 priests, ex-monks these are a few samples of Mr. 
 Dolling's guests. They were received just as they came. 
 No one but Mr. Dolling knew their names or circum- 
 stances. The rules of the house were simplicity itself 
 to be punctual at meals, not to annoy the other in- 
 mates, and always to be in by a quarter past ten at 
 night. 
 
 Vulgarity, ill- manners, or horse-play would have made a 
 home like ours insupportable, and I think by degrees we 
 all learned tenderness and forbearance with one another. 
 I suppose this is the best test of being what is called 
 " gentlemen." 
 
 All ate at a common table clergy, lay-helpers, visitors 
 from London or Winchester, and the waifs of the 
 Portsmouth slums. Anyone who remembers the aspect 
 and bearing of that apostolic but fastidious man the 
 late Bishop Thorold, can picture his expression when 
 his host told him one morning that the two com- 
 panions he had chosen to sit by at supper last night 
 when he stayed at the Mission-House were both 
 experienced thieves. 
 
 One had been in gaol three times, the other twice the 
 former a clergyman's son, the latter one of those curious 
 instances in which the lowest surroundings had not been 
 able to obliterate signs of a better heredity. The Bishop 
 found them very pleasant, and when I told him what I 
 knew about them he could hardly believe it was possible. 
 
 The housekeeper had to cook for an average of eighteen 
 every day, with dinner and tea for more than forty on 
 Sunday. And, as to the results of this undiscriminating
 
 282 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 hospitality, we read of puny boys reared to manhood, 
 and invalids coaxed back to health and bread-winning ; 
 anaemic faces growing ruddy, gloomy faces growing gay. 
 And as to moral results : 
 
 What a school for learning truths about humanity ! With 
 knife and fork in hand, all men are at ease together. . . . 
 Over and over again I have seen the look of polite horror and 
 disdain passing out of some cultured face, as the owner dis- 
 covered that the shoeblack next him was quite as intelligent 
 as himself. And then the splendid discipline of it all that 
 power of banter so cleansing for the priggish that power of 
 laughter so health-giving to the morose chasing away the 
 frown of set purpose fixed on the face. Eight years of that 
 common dining-table cost enormous sums of money, and 
 entailed continuous outpouring of strength and tact ; but I 
 doubt if, in all England, money has been better spent and 
 strength better expended. 
 
 AB no one was refused at the door, so no one was 
 expelled except for a very sufficient cause. " We kept 
 them as long as we saw any chance of doing them good." 
 The inmates stayed, in short, until they had found some 
 work to do, and were provided for elsewhere. In many 
 cases the experiment turned out splendidly ; sometimes, 
 of course, it failed, drink and thieving being the two 
 mischiefs most difficult to eradicate. 
 
 But [says this patient reformer] I don't think that even 
 when we failed altogether with a man we were disappointed. 
 How could we in a few months hope to set right what many 
 years had made wrong ? 
 
 I am tempted to prolong this study in unconventional 
 methods of philanthropy ; I am even more powerfully 
 tempted to follow Mr. Dolling in what evidently lies 
 nearest his heart that purely spiritual work to which 
 all this social effort is merely ancillary. But it is time 
 to leave methods and ask about results. What Landport 
 was fifteen years ago may be gathered from preceding
 
 A MODERN MIRACLE 283 
 
 paragraphs may be learned in full from this fascinating 
 book. To-day Mr. Dolling can say : 
 
 We have lost the outward and visible signs of slumdom. 
 Poverty, of course, remains it always will. But utter 
 hopelessness and callous depravity have, in a large measure, 
 passed away, not merely from our people, but from our very 
 streets. 
 
 Again : 
 
 In the last six years, I do not think we have had one 
 marriage amongst our people for which we have cause to 
 feel shame. 
 
 Again : 
 
 I hand over to the Bishop of Winchester all necessary 
 plant for the future of St. Agatha's church -schools, mission- 
 house, parsonage, gymnasium, clubs, almshouses which the 
 generosity of Wykehamists and my own friends has enabled 
 me to build for the Church of England. I hand him over 
 a parish with a communicants' roll of 441 so united that 
 for ten years there has never been a difference amongst us. 
 
 It is to be observed that these results, as well as all 
 the social and philanthropic work which I have already 
 indicated, have been produced by voluntary effort. Mr. 
 Dolling tells us that when he was appointed to Landport 
 he was the poorest man in England. We read of bis 
 pawning his watch to get a night's lodging, and selling 
 his books to meet a parochial emergency. The endow- 
 ment of the Mission is nominal. The demands are 
 infinite. Everything has been done by begging. " I 
 calculate," says Mr. Dolling, " that I have devoted one 
 day out of every week that I spent at Portsmouth to 
 this work alone" and to such good purpose that in 
 ten years 50,000 has been raised for the service, sacred 
 and secular, of the Mission-district. Even if moral 
 and social results were left out of sight, this one material 
 fact such a sum raised, in such a time, by such methods,
 
 2S4 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 for such an end would surely merit the title of a 
 Modern Miracle. Much more amazing than any help 
 from outside, though that in its way is remarkable 
 enough, is the amount raised in Landport itself. In 
 a district which does not contain one wealthy resident, 
 where no one keeps a servant, and where gold is an 
 unknown quantity in the alms-bag, the collection on 
 an ordinary Sunday averaged 4 with a considerable 
 addition on great days and all in coppers, threepences, 
 sixpences, and shillings. A Parochial Fund, maintained 
 by the subscriptions of regular Communicants, amounted 
 to 380 in four years. A special fund for the family 
 of a scavenger who had been killed brought 123 ; 
 another for the sufferers by the loss of the Victoria, 114, 
 " the mothers giving up their treat that year." Surely 
 Mr. Dolling deserves to be reckoned with the " sturdy 
 beggars " of old time ; but, sturdy though he is, he 
 leaves Landport with a burden of 2,000 debt upon his 
 shoulders. Till that burden is paid off he is not a 
 free man. Perhaps some social reformer who reads this 
 paper will give him a helping hand. 
 
 I said at the outset that I would forbear all theological 
 discussion. This is not the place to weigh the merits 
 of side-altars, adapted services, and Masses for the Dead. 
 Whether Mr. Dolling was wisely handled by his diocesan 
 is a question on which various opinions are possible ; 
 but it is beyond all controversy that his work has 
 enlarged God's kingdom on earth, and saved souls and 
 bodies for which Christ died. His Mission has been, 
 from first to last, a triumph of the voluntary principle. 
 It has owed singularly little to Establishment or Endow- 
 ment, to " Principalities and Powers." This ten years' 
 work at Laudport adds its emphatic testimony to the 
 truth which I am always striving, in season and out 
 of season, to impress upon my fellow-Churchmen that,
 
 A MODERN MIRACLE 285 
 
 where the Church is least established, there she is most 
 powerful for all spiritual, social, and humanitarian ends. 
 
 Postscript. The Rev. Robert William Ratcliffe Doll- 
 ing, after leaving Landport was left for two years without 
 a parochial charge. He then was appointed by the 
 present Bishop of Bloemfontein to the Vicarage of St. 
 Saviour's, Poplar. He died on the 15th of May, 1902, 
 in his fifty-second year, having worn away his life in 
 the service of the outcast and the lost. Euge, serve 
 bone et fidelis.
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS AND MUNICIPAL 
 ELECTIONS l 
 
 (CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS. Those.two words make 
 the keynote of my discourse. Both are essential 
 to my purpose. Neither would set the tune aright 
 without the other. If there are Christians who do not 
 recognize social obligations well, they are no concern 
 of ours ; to their own Master they stand or fall. And 
 Socialists who are not Christians lack one to put it 
 no higher of the most potent incentives to social 
 service. I address myself, then, to-night to men whose 
 faith, spiritual and social, I share to men who believe 
 with all their heart and soul and mind and strength 
 that our Lord Jesus Christ, being Very and Eternal 
 GOD, is also Perfect Man ; that He is the King of all 
 human life, secular as well as sacred ; and that our 
 loyalty to Him, if it is a reality, must govern our 
 conduct on week-days as well as on Sundays must 
 regulate not only our churchman ship but also our 
 citizenship, not only our worship but also our vote. 
 
 The vote is, in the Scriptural sense, a " talent," for 
 the right use of which we must one day render an 
 account. Citizenship is a trust confided to us, not only 
 or chiefly for our own advantage, but for the benefit 
 of those who are least able to help themselves. We, as 
 self-governing citizens ; as partners, in however small 
 
 1 A paper read before the Guild of St. Matthew, 1897. 
 286
 
 THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS 287 
 
 a degree, in this vast empire; as units, however in- 
 significant, in the great community of London, we are 
 trustees for those to whom misgovernment means, not 
 mortified pride or stinted luxury, but pain and want 
 and degradation and risk to their own lives and their 
 children's souls. The non-Christian Socialist recognizes 
 this as freely as we do, and we rejoice to meet him on 
 this common ground. But the Christian Socialist knows 
 that, in thus interpreting his civil duty, he is not merely 
 yielding to the persuasions of humanity, but is also 
 obeying the command and copying the example of a 
 Master whom he believes to be Divine. 
 
 Twenty years ago and more, I heard my friend Arthur 
 Stanton, of St. Alban's, say, " I know no Radicalism 
 except that which I sucked in from the breasts of the 
 Gospel," and of his lay friend and fellow-worker, 
 Theodore Talbot, that " young man of great possessions," 
 who did so much for the social work of St. Albans, it 
 was written in his Memoir : 
 
 He had wonderful sympathy and love for the working man. 
 He loved him for the sake of the Divine Workman of 
 Nazareth. That was his Liberalism a pure, unselfish, dis- 
 interested love of the poor and helpless. 
 
 I have now said enough to indicate the spirit in which 
 we should approach the coming elections in London, 
 and I proceed to give my counsel a little more in detail. 
 While setting out clearly the objects at which we ought 
 to aim, I shall not attempt to distinguish very closely 
 between one election and another School Board, County 
 Council, Board of Guardians, or Vestry. I shall not 
 offer the least suggestion about wire-pulling or vote- 
 combining. I shall not meddle with any of those 
 marvellous mystifications of electoral law by which the 
 governing classes, having failed to rob the workman 
 of his rights by violence, have endeavoured (as Burke
 
 288 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 says) to " shuffle them from him by chicane." All such 
 questions of tactics and management and electioneering 
 method I leave to those whose official business it is to 
 look after them. I speak only of the objects which, 
 as Christian Socialists, we should seek lying, all of 
 them, well within our scope and province as members 
 of a municipality, and attainable through the agency of 
 the various Local Bodies which within the next few 
 months we must take part in electing. 
 
 Believing, as we Christians -do, that Christ redeemed 
 our bodies as well as our souls, and that human life is 
 the most sacred thing in this world, we must place 
 first and foremost among the objects to be aimed at 
 the maintenance of the Public Health. 
 
 Too often in times past even, to some extent, I fear, 
 at the present public bodies have taken for their motto 
 the sarcastic couplet from Clough's " New Decalogue " : 
 
 Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive 
 Officiously to keep alive. 
 
 Well, our object must be exactly that " officiously 
 to keep alive " ; and for the attainment of that end alike 
 the County Council and the Vestries are armed with 
 formidable powers, if only they choose to use them. 
 Much of the sanitary neglect of the past has arisen 
 from the fact that the Acts conferring these powers are 
 generally permissive, and not compulsory. Gradually, 
 as I rejoice to think, the London County Council is as- 
 suming the position of a Ministry of Public Health, and 
 in choosing our representatives upon it we should have 
 careful regard to such questions as these : Will this 
 candidate do what lies in his power towards securing 
 an unlimited supply of pure water for the poor districts ? 
 Will he vote for needful expenditure on great systems 
 of main drainage ? Will he wage war on insanitary
 
 TO CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS 289 
 
 dwellings, wherever he finds them and to whomsoever 
 they belong ? This last is a question which may be 
 most pertinently asked with reference to elections for 
 the Vestry. I know not how the case stands now ; 
 but, when I was officially connected with the Local 
 Government Board, the Vestries of London were a 
 black-and-white patchwork of bad and good ; and in 
 the bad ones it was not uncommon to find the sanitary 
 committee packed with owners of the most insanitary 
 house-property. The question of the housing of the 
 poor has, of course, its obvious bearing not only on 
 health, but on morals. What chance is there for 
 decency or self-respect where whole families, with 
 children of different ages, are encamped together in 
 a single room ? 
 
 There is another department of effort in which the 
 Vestry can powerfully serve the cause of public morality 
 that is, by enforcing the Act of George II. against 
 Disorderly Houses. These houses are often places not 
 only of sin, but of crime, violence, cruelty, and robbery ; 
 and something very like slavery is imposed on the 
 wretched girls who live in them. It is for the Church 
 to deal with the sm, but the crime lies well within the 
 province of the secular authority, and it is our business 
 to promote the election of such vestrymen as will, on 
 information properly laid, exercise their legal powers to 
 abate the nuisance. 1 
 
 I approach the subject of Education. Here our duty 
 as Christian Socialists is as clear as daylight. We 
 must endeavour to return those candidates who will do 
 the most for the welfare, in the widest sense, of the 
 children. 
 
 The pitifullest and meanest outcry which can be 
 
 1 The foregoing remarks apply with equal force to the new 
 Borough Councils. 
 
 19
 
 290 
 
 uttered is the outcry of the well-to-do classes against 
 the expenditure of the School Board. To put the issue 
 in the vulgarest form, compare what, as a nation, we 
 spend on drink with what we spend on education, and 
 you will have good reason to be ashamed of our national 
 housekeeping. Sixty years ago, Sydney Smith, preach- 
 ing in St. Paul's Cathedral on the duty of public educa- 
 tion, said : 
 
 When I see the village school, and the tattered scholars, 
 and the aged master or mistress teaching the mechanical art 
 of reading or writing, and thinking that they are teaching that 
 alone, I feel that the aged instructor is protecting life, insuring 
 property, fencing the altar, guarding the throne, giving space 
 and liberty to all the fine powers of man, and lifting him 
 up to his own place in the order of creation. 
 
 Those are not bad words for a dignitary of the 
 Established Church in the year 1837, and we Churchmen 
 may take a reasonable pride in the fact that, in the 
 matter of public education, as in so many other spheres 
 of secular beneficence, the Church has preceded and led 
 the State. In the darkest days of a social exclusiveness 
 the Church was the nursing mother of the poor scholar, 
 and provided of her own free will that career for talent 
 which is now secured by law. Bishop Butler, preaching 
 in 1745 on behalf of the Charity Schools of London 
 and Westminster, anticipated, and rebutted by anticipa- 
 tion, the views of those who, a hundred and fifty years 
 later, should selfishly oppose the demands of popular 
 education. He speaks of the successive changes in the 
 world, and shows how they make certain knowledge 
 necessary which was not so formerly ; he urges the hard- 
 ship of exclusion from such knowledge ; and he ridicules 
 with characteristic satire the absurdity and selfishness 
 of those who are " so extremely apprehensive of the 
 danger that poor persons will make a perverse use of
 
 TO CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS 291 
 
 even the least advantage, whilst they do not appear 
 at all apprehensive of the like danger for themselves 
 or their own children, in respect of riches or power, 
 how much soever ; though the danger of perverting 
 these advantages is surely as great, and the perversion 
 itself of much greater and worse consequence." 
 
 The same great man in the same great sermon says, 
 with equal insight, " Of education, information itself 
 is really the least part." Most certainly it is, and yet, 
 the conditions of life for poor boys and girls being what 
 they are, information is a very necessary part. The 
 struggle for existence, the pressure of competition, the 
 rivalry of foreign nations, make it imperatively neces- 
 sary that, during the few years that these children 
 are in our hands, we should supply them with such an 
 outfit in the way of hard knowledge and definite 
 accomplishment as will save them from being crushed 
 to death in the struggle for self-support. This much 
 must be secured ; and, concurrently with it, there must 
 be the moral education which is supplied by order, 
 discipline, and cleanliness ; the sense of membership of 
 a body ; the encouragement of honest pride in good 
 work ; some provision for the aesthetic sense ; some 
 attempt to make good the inevitable shortcomings of 
 the perhaps squalid home. 
 
 If this is so, it means, of course, warm, healthy, and 
 convenient schoolrooms ; it means something at least 
 in the way of artistic decoration ; it means the cultiva- 
 tion of music ; and, above all, it means a well-paid staff 
 of teachers. No form of public meanness can be more 
 suicidal than that of " sweating " the men and the 
 women who are training the next generation of English 
 citizens. And, for my own part, in choosing a candidate 
 for the School Board, I would go a good deal further. 
 Physical exercises, such as drill and swimming -the
 
 292 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 training of the body as well as the intellect should 
 form a part of any system of rational education. And 
 this leads me to a further point Can all this work 
 of body and mind be done on an empty stomach, or, 
 at the best, a half-nourished frame ? 
 
 One free meal a day in every elementary school is, 
 as I conceive, positively due to ill-fed children whom 
 we compel to learn ; and, if anyone is found to grumble 
 at the cost, let him ask a Board-School teacher to 
 describe the scraps of food on which, even in the depth 
 of winter, so many of the children subsist ; let him 
 compare them with the succession of meals which he 
 deems essential for his own family and pray God to 
 take away the heart of stone, and give him a heart 
 of flesh. 
 
 Information, then, as Bishop Butler said, is the least 
 part of education. The greatest, I suppose, is the 
 development of the child's natural power to its utmost 
 extent and capacity ; and the duty of so developing it 
 must, I think, be admitted by everyone who ponders 
 our Lord's teaching about the buried talent, and the 
 pound laid up in the napkin. Unless we enable and 
 encourage every boy in England to bring whatever 
 physical and mental gifts he has to the highest point 
 of their possible perfection, we are shamefully and 
 culpably squandering the treasure which God has given 
 to England to be traded with and accounted for. And 
 we have no one but ourselves to blame if, as a Nemesis 
 on our neglect, we lose our present standing among the 
 nations of the world. My ideal for National Education 
 is the Golden Ladder, reaching from the elementary 
 schools, by exhibitions, to the secondary schools, and 
 from them again to the Universities. Only this very 
 year, the highest mathematical honours of Cambridge 
 are won by an ex-Board School boy. Let us not rest
 
 TO CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS 293 
 
 till we can say to every little urchin raked in from 
 Whiteehapel or Soho, "The road lies straight before 
 you ; go and do likewise." I will not further labour 
 this point, but will refer my hearers to the teaching of 
 our forerunner in Christian Socialism Charles Kingsley, 
 in "Alton Locke." 
 
 I should, I suppose, hardly be doing what is expected 
 of me to-night if I omitted from a discourse on our 
 duty at the coming elections all reference to the religious 
 question. 
 
 For my own part I believe in the central dogmas 
 of the Catholic Faith as confidently as I do in my 
 own existence ; but I do not desire to see them taught 
 at the expense of others who disbelieve in them ; and 
 it is no comfort to me to be told that the balance is 
 redressed by teaching false doctrine or " undogmatic 
 religion " at my expense. Two iniquities do not, as 
 some of my clerical friends seem to think, make one 
 equity in this or in any other case ; and for my own 
 part I consider that the State, comprising Jews, Turks, 
 Infidels, and Heretics, had better leave the teaching 
 of religion to the voluntary agency of religious bodies. 
 Let the State provide mental and physical training, and 
 let it give all ministers of religion free access to the 
 children, when and as their parents desire. Then the 
 claims of dogma will be amply secured ; and they will 
 be secured consistently with the equally sacred claims 
 of justice and freedom. 
 
 I approach now a department of my subject which I 
 have purposely kept for the last, in order more especially 
 to emphasize it, because, in a peculiar degree, it pertains 
 to our belief and action as Christian Socialists I mean 
 the elections to the Board of Guardians. 
 
 When we passed the Parish Councils Act, as it was 
 commonly called, I felt, and said, in Parliament and
 
 294 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 on the platform, that the most important part of it, 
 to my mind, was the reformation nay, rather the 
 revolution which it effected in the mode of electing 
 the Guardians of the Poor. Remember that before 1894 
 no one could be a guardian unless he had a certain 
 property-qualification. The voter had a plural vote, 
 greater or less according to the length of his purse ; 
 and the election was by open voting on paper. It was 
 impossible for a poor man to be a guardian, and almost 
 impossible for any number of poor men to return the 
 candidate of their choice. We reversed all that by a 
 stroke of the pen. We made the poorest man in the 
 parish equally eligible with the banker or the squire. 
 We established the principle of " one man, one vote," 
 and we gave the voter the protection of the ballot. 
 Surely, with the aid of this reform, it ought to be 
 possible for us Christian Socialists to bring the 
 administration of the Poor Law into something like 
 accordance with Christian charity. 
 
 Our palpable and inexorable duty is to return such 
 guardians as will distinguish between deserved poverty 
 and undeserved poverty. For deserved poverty the 
 poverty which comes of idleness, drunkenness, thriftless- 
 ness, rascality the workhouse is the proper place. For 
 undeserved poverty the poverty which overtakes honest, 
 industrious, sober old people, through years and sickness 
 and the loss of children provision should be made at 
 home. When a man has done his level best all through 
 a long life to serve his day and generation in his calling 
 as a labourer or an artizan, I submit that he is as much 
 entitled to public assistance in his old age and de- 
 crepitude as the soldier, the sailor, the policeman, or 
 the Civil Servant. And till Parliament gives us some 
 rational system of old-age pensions, carefully dis- 
 tinguishing between deserving and undeserving cases,
 
 TO CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS 295 
 
 Christian charity demands a much more liberal use of 
 out-door relief. 
 
 Men who, like myself, were undergraduates at Oxford 
 in 1875 will never forget a University sermon by Dr. 
 Pusey on " Christianity without the Cross a Corruption 
 of the Gospel." It had been suggested by a book, 
 just then widely popular among undergraduates, called 
 " Modern Christianity a Civilized Heathenism," and 
 the great Doctor spoke of the duty of the rich to the 
 poor in a passage which I might not have ventured to 
 write, but which I will venture to quote : 
 
 What shall we have to say to our Lord when He comes 
 down to be our Judge when we shall behold Him whom 
 by our sins we have pierced ? " True, Lord, I denied myself 
 nothing for Thee ; the times were changed, and I could not 
 but change with them. I ate and drank, for Thou too didst 
 eat and drink with the publicans and sinners. I did not give 
 to the poor, but I paid what I was compelled to the poor-rate, 
 of the height of which I complained. I did not take in little 
 children in Thy name, but they were provided for. They 
 were sent, severed indeed from father or mother, to the poor- 
 house, to be taught or no about Thee, as might be. I did 
 not feed Thee when hungry. Political economy forbade it ; 
 but I increased the labour-market with the manufacture of 
 my luxuries. I did not visit Thee when sick, but the parish 
 doctor looked in on his ill-paid rounds. I did not clothe Thee 
 when naked. I could not afford it, the rates were so high, 
 but there was the workhouse for Thee to go to. I did not 
 take Thee in as a stranger, but it was provided that Thou 
 mightest go to the casual ward. Had I known that it was 
 
 Thou " And He shall say, " Forasmuch as thou didst it 
 
 not to one of the least of these, thou didst it not to Me." 
 
 And in a foot-note to the sermon, the Doctor added : 
 
 Reliance on the Poor-law interferes with Christian charity ; 
 offers, in large towns, a mode of relief whicb the better poor 
 would rather starve than accept ; and in times of suffering, 
 as of an epidemic, offers relief in a way which degrades the 
 poor in their own eyes and of their compeers, if they accept 
 it. ... If the poor, like the lower animals, needed only
 
 S>96 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 food and warmth, the poor-house system provides these, I 
 doubt not. But the poor have souls and loving hearts, more 
 loving than many rich, and to separate those whom God has 
 joined, as the condition of supplying them with necessaries, 
 is un-Christian and anti-Christian. I fear that in the Great 
 Day many even kindly people will find that reliance on the 
 Poor-law has steeled their heart against Christ. 
 
 And now I have done. I thank you for allowing 
 me this opportunity of enforcing on your attention a 
 truth in which I am persuaded that you believe as 
 firmly as I do, and the practical application of which 
 vitally concerns our claim to the title of Christian 
 Socialists. Our Lord and Master has given us, as 
 citizens of this great city, the power, and with the 
 power most assuredly the duty, of promoting His 
 Kingdom on earth by brightening, purifying, and 
 humanizing the lives of men. To that great end let 
 us press forward with a single aim, not merely talking 
 the language of Christian Socialism, but doing its 
 work and living its life ; 
 
 In the undoubting faith, although 
 
 It be not granted us to see, 
 Yet that the coming age shall know 
 
 We have not wrought unmeaningly ; 
 When gold and chrysoprase adorn 
 A city brighter than the morn.
 
 LIBERALISM AND THE CHURCH 1 
 
 MR. CAINE, M.P. for the Camborne Division, pre- 
 siding the other day over a meeting of " The 
 Deputies of Protestant Dissenters of the three denomi- 
 nations Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists " 
 said that " Nonconformity was more and more dominating 
 the Liberal party. More than half the members of the 
 present House of Commons on the Liberal side were 
 Nonconformists, and the Liberal party were united as 
 one man in resisting Sacerdotalism. On the other side 
 of the House they were not without friends who might 
 be relied on to help them on all their special questions." 
 Now, Mr. Caine has (like Lord Macaulay) "his own 
 heightened and telling way of putting things," and this 
 must be taken into account when we consider his public 
 utterances, or, as Pennialinus would say, his Pronounce- 
 ments. But, making all due allowance for the way of 
 putting it, I fancy that Mr. Caine's opinion is in sub- 
 stance not far wrong. Liberalism and Nonconformity 
 are old allies. The later Whigs were a good deal tainted 
 with Socinianism, and eagerly co-operated with their Non- 
 conformist friends to keep the Church in its proper 
 place. Nonconformist Liberalism smashed the Education 
 clauses of Sir James Graham's Factory Act. The same 
 power in the present day makes a Religious Census impos- 
 sible. It says, with Matthew Arnold's friend, Mr. Bottles, 
 "No here I put down my foot. No Government on 
 1 The Pilot, 1901. 
 297
 
 298 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 earth shall ask me whether I am a Particular Baptist 
 or a Muggletonian." And so the insidious project is 
 defeated. That Nonconformists should be eagerly on 
 the watch for what they believe to be encroachments 
 on their liberties, and that they should actively co- 
 operate with the political party which will defend those 
 liberties, is highly natural, and even laudable. What 
 is less amiable is the desire, if it exists, to violate the 
 conscientious rights of Church-people, and to force the 
 Liberal party into a policy of persecution. This was 
 impossible as long as Mr. Gladstone lived. His hold 
 over the Nonconformist conscience was one of the most 
 curious phenomena in contemporary politics, and it 
 strengthened as time went on. When he first came over 
 to Liberalism, the chains of Oxford still hung about him, 
 and he was more than suspected of obscurantist leanings. 
 But during the last twenty years of his active life a 
 complete harmony was established ; and the Noncon- 
 formists, although they regarded his theology as an 
 irritating and dangerous delusion, gave him an enthu- 
 siastic and whole-hearted support. He on his part 
 was active in promoting those moral principles of 
 political action on which Nonconformists set the 
 greatest store, and he repeatedly did due homage to the 
 righteous influence of Nonconformity in great issues of 
 public controversy. Yet, highly as he esteemed the 
 political value of Nonconformity, he never suffered it 
 to affect his dealings with the Church. In 1870 he 
 strained the loyalty of his Nonconformist allies to 
 bursting-point by saving the Church schools when 
 he passed the Education Act. In 1874 he fought a 
 single-handed fight against the P. W. R. Act, which all 
 Protestantism demanded. In later years, when it was 
 proposed to penalize King's College for being a Denomi- 
 national institution, j he said : "It is no more virtuous
 
 to persecute Denominationalism than to persecute Unde- 
 nominationalism ; and, if anyone tells me that there is 
 a difference between exclusion from an advantage, and 
 persecution, I will undertake, like Sydney Smith, to prove 
 that there is no more difference between them than there 
 is between himself and a booby." The Welsh Disestab- 
 lishment Bill of 1895 seemed to Mr. Gladstone to be, 
 in its provisions with regard to cathedrals and church- 
 yards, a persecuting measure, and he renounced his 
 " pair " in order that he might be ready, if occasion 
 arose, to come back to the House and defeat it. 
 
 With such a chief at the head of the Liberal party, it 
 was not easy for Nonconformists or anyone else, even 
 if they wished it, to persecute the Church. But, since 
 Mr. Gladstone went, I think I can perceive a change. 
 The Nonconformists take a kindly interest in our in- 
 ternal concerns, are much opposed to Sacerdotalism 
 and Ritualism in the Establishment, and are anxious 
 to put those evils down. At a by-election in the West 
 of England a Liberal candidate was required to pledge 
 himself in advance to the Liverpool Clergy Discipline 
 Bill. At the General Election, Nonconformists all over 
 the country heckled the candidates about their atti- 
 tude towards Ritualism. No one connected with any 
 Ritualistic church or society could show his face on 
 a Liberal platform ; and a Tory candidate, who had 
 just joined the E.C.U., found it expedient to with- 
 draw from the Union before the polling took place. 
 Such just now is the Nonconformist spirit ; and if 
 it be true, as Mr. Caine avers, that Nonconformity 
 " dominates " the Liberal party, that party must be 
 prepared to forget a good deal that it used to profess 
 about the sacred principle of religious freedom. But I 
 believe that there is a problem ahead of us which will 
 separate those who at present are allies,
 
 300 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Broadly speaking, Nonconformists are in favour of 
 Disestablishment. With the great bulk of them (as 
 with myself) the principle of the Free Church in the 
 Free State is a sacred and unalterable faith. But there 
 are a considerable number of old-fashioned Liberals 
 not very keen Churchmen, but not Nonconformists 
 who are staunch upholders of Establishment. " As 
 long as we have an Established Church we can kick 
 the parsons. But once disestablish it, and, begad, 
 they will kick us." This is the Whig doctrine of 
 Church and State, as compendiously conveyed to me 
 in my youth by a Whiggish peer. That good man did 
 not stand alone. I am persuaded that there is a mass 
 of men in the Liberal party who, though prepared to 
 reform the Church out of recognition, to revolutionize 
 its Marriage Law, and re- write its Prayer-book, will 
 never willingly disestablish it. It is when the Noncon- 
 formists begin to press for Disestablishment as a 
 necessary part of the Liberal programme that we shall 
 see whether they do or do not " dominate " the Liberal 
 party. 
 
 In the meantime, and pending Disestablishment, I 
 recognize that subjection of the Liberal pp.rty to 
 Nonconformity, in which Mr. Caine rejoices. But I 
 ask myself, and I would ask my brother-Liberals, 
 if that subjection is likely to be advantageous to 
 Liberalism. 
 
 It is matter of common observation that, wherever 
 the Church is properly worked in any large centre of 
 population, there springs up round it a band of energetic, 
 capable, and enthusiastic young men, who care very 
 much for their religion and for humanity, and very little 
 for any political party. A quarter of a century ago 
 such young men were, as a rule, Radicals. Then, as 
 now, their religion had the first place in their affections ;
 
 LIBERALISM AND THE CHURCH 301 
 
 but, if they were Churchmen first, they were Radicals 
 afterwards. The Catholic idea, with its high contempt 
 for the world's authority, its faith in human equality, 
 and its devotion to the poor, led its adherents to the 
 Radical side. They were " Christian Socialists " before, 
 or after, their time. Young men are naturally hero- 
 worshippers, and Mr. Gladstone's splendid personality, 
 with his romantic devotion to the Church, attracted 
 to his cause great numbers who cared not a jot for 
 his views on Free Trade or the Income-Tax. The Dis- 
 establishment of the Irish Church, by driving men to 
 first principles and forcing them to consider the essential 
 nature of a Church as distinct from the State, made a 
 powerful appeal to all who believed in their own Church 
 as a spiritual mother. The P. W. R. Act, which, passed 
 by a Tory Government, set an ex-judge of the Divorce 
 Court to settle Eucharistic ritual, was a deliberate insult 
 to all that Churchmen hold sacred, and it brought its 
 own reward. The Eastern Question of 1876-9, when 
 Lord Beaconsfield did his best to force us into war on 
 behalf of the great anti-Christian power, awoke a counter- 
 feeling which was nothing less than a passion. Young 
 Churchmen who took their religion seriously rose every- 
 where in victorious rebellion against the godless old 
 cynic who had joked about " Mass in Masquerade," and 
 had scoifed at the red horrors of Bulgaria. 
 
 But all this is now ancient history. The two great 
 antagonists of that day are dead. We have been in- 
 formed by Mr. Balfour that Lord Beacons field's policy 
 is buried ; and Mr. Gladstone, in spite of all his per- 
 sonal power, signally failed to form a school or found a 
 tradition. The P. W. R. Act is forgotten, and the Sultan 
 has no apologist left among responsible politicians. 
 Thus many of the forces which tended to make Church- 
 men Liberals have ceased to operate, and meanwhile
 
 302 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 the Church of England is every day developing fresh 
 strength. In the new districts of great towns the 
 Church is practically a voluntary agency, and it is just 
 in those places where she relies least on legal privilege 
 that her most signal victories are won. The Catholic 
 religion has an immortal charm. Both on its moral and 
 on its aasthetic side it appeals with irresistible force to 
 the young, the ardent, and the hopeful ; to minds that 
 can imagine, and hearts that can sympathize ; to natures 
 which believe in, and long to prove, their own high 
 capacities. And so it is found, as a matter of practical 
 experience, that wherever the Church of England is 
 efficiently worked on popular lines and in a sympathetic 
 spirit, the young men crowd round her. In that respect, 
 what was true five-and-twenty years ago is only more 
 conspicuously true to-day. But the striking difference 
 is this that whereas then the young Churchman was a 
 Radical, to-day he either is a Tory, or else is absolutely 
 indifferent to all political issues. 
 
 Now, do those who are responsible for the manage- 
 ment of the Liberal party really desire the permanent 
 estrangement of the class which I have described ? 
 The Liberal party is just now not so numerous or so 
 influential that it can prudently refuse any section of 
 possible adherents ; and, least of all, one would have 
 thought, can it afford to despise the help of men who are 
 dominated, not by sordid selfishness, but by enthusiasm 
 for a cause. Did not Mill tell us that one man who 
 has a belief is worth a dozen who have only interests ? 
 But it may be said that it would be impossible for the 
 Liberal leaders to win support by professing a religious 
 or ecclesiastical zeal which they do not feel, and which 
 their Nonconformist supporters would regard with sus- 
 picion. No one asks them to make the attempt. If 
 the class which I have been describing, and of which
 
 LIBERALISM AND THE CHURCH 303 
 
 I have known something ever since I grew up, is to 
 be recovered for Liberalism, the Liberal leaders must 
 declare unmistakably for two great principles, both of 
 which have lately been allowed to lapse strangely out 
 of sight I mean Social Reform and Religious Liberty. 
 It is my firm belief that there is a great mass of 
 Churchmen, at present hostile or indifferent to Liberalism, 
 who are ready to make common cause with any political 
 party which will give the Church fair play, and carry 
 out her teaching in the social service of humanity. In 
 this respect they are the true successors of the Radical 
 Churchmen with whom I was associated in my early 
 manhood. Then we were taught by Dr. Pusey, with 
 a searching solemnity which seemed to anticipate the 
 disclosures of the Great Day, to weigh the bearing of 
 our Lord's teaching on our own social conduct and on 
 the lives and miseries of the poor. And what Dr. Pusey 
 taught us we saw translated into beneficent fact in the 
 working of the Church in Holborn and Shoreditch, and 
 at the London Docks, at Oxford and Leeds and Cardiff 
 and Plymouth. "To lessen the social pressure on 
 labour" was the Christ-like effort which then enlisted 
 the best workers, and made them Radicals in spite of 
 themselves ; and as long as human nature lasts, and 
 the Church witnesses for Christ and His poor, that spell 
 will not lose its power. If, then, when the present 
 tyranny of war is overpast, the Liberal leaders will 
 seriously take in hand a policy of social reform, and 
 will show their followers that Politics, rightly understood, 
 is the science of human happiness, I believe that they 
 may yet gain a great accession of support from earnest 
 Churchmen. 
 
 But, if we are to serve the Liberal party, we 
 must demand fair play for our religious beliefs. No 
 expediencies of electioneering, no necessities of the
 
 304 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Nonconformist alliance, must be allowed to invade our 
 spiritual freedom. We must claim our right to worship 
 God in the Church of England according to our own 
 conviction of truth, and of the system which He has 
 appointed. And surely this claim should not sound 
 unreasonable in the ears of a political party which has 
 been proclaiming for a century past that "the true 
 spirit is to search after God and for another life in 
 lowliness of heart, to fling down no man's altar, and 
 to punish no man's prayer."
 
 'HI 
 
 AN EVENING AT ST. PAUL'S 
 
 ~bJUNC formosissimus annus. September in London 
 has a peculiar charm. The days are exactly the 
 right length, and no one compels you to sit in the 
 garden after dinner, with centipedes falling into your 
 coffee-cup. The weather is neither hot nor cold. The 
 parks are in their highest beauty. The falling leaves 
 and misty glades in Kensington Gardens suggest all 
 the romantic associations of Gustave Dora's forests, 
 with a khaki-clad Yeoman and a nursery-maid for a 
 Red Cross Knight and an Enchanted Princess. Traffic 
 is mitigated, and it is possible for elderly gentlemen 
 to cross Piccadilly without being destroyed by omnibi 
 (as the classical lady said), or reviled in the vernacular 
 by conductors. The streets are pervaded by leisurely 
 passengers, who lounge and saunter and gaze into 
 shop- windows. Everywhere there is a sense of space 
 and freedom. You can breathe in the theatre and 
 kneel down in church. 
 
 From the uplands of Highgate and Hampstead you 
 look down upon a boundless and beautiful city, dimly 
 visible through a golden haze. 
 
 A winding and turbid river divided the city in unequal 
 parts, in one of which there rose a vast and glorious temple, 
 crowned with a dome of almost superhuman size and skill, 
 on which the favourite sign of Heaven flashed with trium- 
 phant truth. 
 
 1 The Pilot, 1901. 
 
 305 20
 
 306 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Of Lord Beaconsfield's English Robert Lowe once 
 amiably said that " after all, it was his native tongue," 
 but certainly he contrived to make it read like a rather 
 flamboyant translation of some foreign language. But 
 that description of the dome is a prime favourite of 
 mine ; and, though it was written of St. Peter's, it is 
 a perfect picture of St. Paul's. Sunday evening at 
 St. Paul's is a recognized fixture in the programme 
 of the provincial visitor to London, and the least ex- 
 pensive way of taking an autumn holiday is to put 
 on your country clothes and join the pilgrim-throng. 
 The great west doors are flung wide open, as if to 
 welcome the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Lord 
 Mayor, and all at once we find ourselves, hushed and 
 awestruck, in the illimitable perspective. 
 
 Just fifty years ago Charles Kingsley thus described 
 the scene : 
 
 The organ droned sadly in its iron cage to a few musical 
 amateurs. Some nursery -maids and foreign sailors stared 
 about within the spiked felon's-dock which shut off the body 
 of the cathedral, and tried in vain to hear what was going 
 on inside the choir. The scanty service rattled in the vast 
 building, like a dried kernel too small for its shell. The 
 place breathed imbecility and unreality, and sleepy life-in- 
 death, while the whole nineteenth century went roaring on 
 its way outside. When will life return to this cathedral 
 system ? 
 
 At all events, it is keeping your cathedrals rain-proof 
 for you, till you can put them to some better use than now. 
 And in the meantime there is life enough in them life that 
 will wake the dead some day. 
 
 Surely that prophecy has been fulfilled. The " better 
 use" has been discovered, and the pent-up life has 
 burst into activity. The material aspect of the huge 
 cathedral witnesses to the spiritual change. Even the 
 staunchest believer in Gothic, as the only religious 
 architecture, may admit, without disloyalty to his faith,
 
 AN EVENING AT ST. PAUL'S 307 
 
 that every year St. Paul's becomes more like a church, 
 and less like a glorified council-hall for an Imperial 
 Senate. Last Sunday evening the shadows had tempered 
 the garish splendour of mosaic and gold and electricity, 
 and enhanced the dominant sense of vastness and 
 grandeur. And prayer ascended, and sweet boy-voices 
 rang, and the distant altar with its gleaming lights 
 focussed the meaning and purpose of the whole. And 
 then we all realized the great " Communion of Hymns." 
 By a curious and happy conjunction, Bernard of Cluny, 
 William Cowper, and John Keble all contributed of their 
 best. " Brief life is here our portion " seemed to utter the 
 real heart's desire of a tired-looking mechanic who stood 
 beside me. " Hark, my soul ! " seemed to communicate 
 its own intensity to the very tone and look of the 
 people who sang it ; and " Sun of my soul " was an 
 evening prayer which sounded just as natural and as 
 fitting in the inmost heart of London's crowd and grind 
 and pressure as in the sweet solitude of the Hursley fields. 
 In the pulpit, a spiritual descendant of the Christian 
 Socialists of '48, with thrilling voice and uplifted hand, 
 was extolling the Cross as the test and strength and 
 glory of human life 
 
 While at his feet the human ocean lay, 
 And wave on wave rolled into space away. 
 
 A human ocean indeed, of all sorts and conditions old 
 men and maidens, young men and children, rich and 
 poor, English and foreigners, sightseers and citizens, 
 pale-faced clerks and toil-stained artizans and red-coated 
 soldiers all happy, and all interested, and all at ease, 
 and all at home all taking their conscious and definite 
 part in the worship, and all following with keen attention 
 the preacher's passionate pleadings. 
 
 " In certain quarters," Canon Henson has lately told
 
 308 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 us, " it is fashionable to make little of sermons " ; 
 and this fashion of belittlement he sets himself to 
 repudiate with all his energy, which, as his friends 
 know, is not a trifle. The pity is that this energy leads 
 him, at the very outset, into a startling exaggeration. 
 He calls preaching " the highest function of the Christian 
 ministry." One would have thought that the highest 
 function of the Christian ministry was the administration 
 of the Sacraments. After all, when it comes to a pinch, 
 a layman can preach; but there are certain offices of 
 the priesthood with which no layman can intermeddle. 
 
 The highest service [wrote Dr. Liddon] which a creature can 
 offer to the Supreme Being is the celebration of the Blessed 
 Eucharist. This is, indeed, the central and supreme act of 
 the Christian ministry, by which it is directly associated in the 
 mediatorial work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 But, after that unguarded phrase about the " highest 
 function," Canon Henson goes on to more moderate, 
 and therefore more convincing, language : 
 
 So far as the mass of his congregation is concerned, his 
 ministry as teacher and as pastor must be fulfilled in those 
 brief moments during which he speaks to them face to face 
 in his Master's name. 
 
 This is very true ; but it gains nothing in cogency from 
 a side-hit at " the much-vaunted wisdom of the Con- 
 fessional." If it were true, as Canon Henson alleges, that 
 in Confession human life is " studied only in its morbid 
 mood and darker aspects," the value of the Confessional 
 as a guide to the priest in dealing with his flock, though 
 still great, would be less than it is. But, when we 
 consider that those persons who practise Confession do 
 so as a rule habitually and regularly, in cloud and in 
 sunshine, in the joy of thankfulness as well as in the 
 agony of contrition, the experience so gained by the
 
 AN EVENING AT ST. PAUL'S 309 
 
 priest must surely be an enormous help to him when 
 he preaches to those of whose private lives he has no 
 personal knowledge. 
 
 But, after all, the people who habitually submit them- 
 selves to the discipline of Confession are comparatively 
 few ; whereas comparatively many submit themselves to 
 the discipline of sermons. 
 
 However reluctantly we may admit it, admit it we must 
 in the end, that our hold over the people depends mainly upon 
 our sermons. It must be our interest, as it certainly is our 
 duty, to set a high standard of preaching before us, and to 
 resist as an insult and a peril the modern fashion of belittling 
 the pulpit. 
 
 But is the fashion so modern ? In 1870 a secular 
 writer, extolling Liddon's famous Lent Lectures at St. 
 James's, Piccadilly, wrote : " ' As dull as a sermon ' : 
 no proverb is more trite. ' The age of the pulpit has 
 gone by ' : no idea is more readily taken for granted by 
 cultivated men." In 1867 the present Dean of Canter- 
 bury said : " It is too much of a modern and tin-Christian 
 fashion to disparage or discredit this ordinance in 
 itself. . . . These despised sermons may perhaps be 
 the invisible links of that golden chain which keeps our 
 souls from falling into utter forgetfulness of God." 
 Twenty years earlier Prince Albert asked Bishop Wilber- 
 force, "Sermons why so dull?" and supplied his 
 own answer, " No object." So the current disparagement 
 of preaching is no new fashion, but is rather a convention 
 of secular speech, and personally I doubt if it represents 
 any very deep feeling. Of course the great majority 
 of people are wholly indifferent to religion, while a 
 large section are actively hostile to it. These people 
 contemn or dislike sermons just as they contemn or 
 dislike religion. But among those who have in any way 
 or degree a right intention towards things unseen I
 
 310 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 always seem to find a keen appetite for .sermons. Indeed, 
 the prominence of preaching has often seemed to dwarf 
 all other religious effort, and it has become necessary 
 to remind people that the Church is, primarily, not the 
 place of hearing, but the place of worship. We all 
 know churches in London where the sermon on Sunday 
 morning is the be-all and end-all of congregational 
 religion. And, even where the ministry of preaching 
 is subordinated to worship, a good preacher invariably 
 attracts attention and draws an audience. Canon 
 Henson himself speaks of the " immense congregations " 
 which gather to Canon Gore. Go to St. Paul's or West- 
 minster Abbey and see the huge crowds which listen 
 to teachers so diverse as the Bishop of London, Canon 
 Holland, and Archdeacon Wilberforce. Go to the even- 
 ing services, under the Dome or in the Nave, and mark 
 the eager attention with which the utterances of quite 
 unknown preachers are followed ; and the conviction 
 is forced upon one that, if only a man has spiritual 
 earnestness, human sympathy, and simplicity of speech, 
 he will never preach to empty beaches. 
 
 But, says Canon Henson, the publishers assure us 
 that there is no market for sermons. If this be the 
 fact, it certainly marks a curious change. I remem- 
 ber the vast collections of Evangelical sermons under 
 which, in my youth, the bookshelves, and not seldom 
 the children, groaned. Then came the jocose common- 
 sense of Spurgeon, the stilted rhetoric of Henry 
 Melvill, Dr. Vaughan's reiterated editions, the long 
 blue series of Dr. Liddon's volumes. All these pro- 
 ductions sold widely and paid handsomely ; and yet 
 to-day no one will buy. What is the reason for this 
 change ? I believe that it lies in the increase, and 
 abuse, of extempore preaching. I do not disparage 
 the extempore method. If a man has the necessary
 
 AN EVENING AT ST. PAUL'S 311 
 
 fluency, and will consent to give the adequate preparation, 
 I believe that extempore preaching has an effect upon 
 the masses of mankind which is denied to manuscript. 
 But an extempore sermon, however well it may sound, 
 hardly ever reads well. It shares the failings and the 
 fate of the political speech. 1 believe that all political 
 speeches which are good to read were either written 
 before they were delivered, or else prepared with an 
 elaboration equivalent to writing. And some of the most 
 splendid orations which were ever delivered extempore 
 have been, when reported verbatim, unreadable. To the 
 extempore speaker, voice, manner, gesture, play of coun- 
 tenance, are at least half his apparatus. They all have 
 their part in the effect ; and that effect is instantaneous 
 it cannot be recaptured. And the same words, divorced 
 from the accessories which recommended and enforced 
 them, lose most of their significance and all their charm. 
 But the written sermon, carefully thought out, intelligibly 
 divided, and clothed in becoming English, is often a 
 great deal better in the reading than in the hearing. 
 The late Dr. Vaughan was pre-eminently a case in point. 
 His voice and utterance in the pulpit were absolutely 
 distressing. They suggested the insincerity of which 
 his friends knew him to be incapable. A Templar once 
 said to me about the performance on " Grand Night," 
 " It's enongh to set a man against his dinner to hear 
 Vanghan say Grace over it." But when once Vaughan's 
 sermons were dissociated from his voice, they seemed 
 and seem to me worthy to rank with the best, and 
 to combine in the most singular degree the power of 
 searching the conscience, insight into the meaning of 
 Scripture, and English of exquisite precision. Canon 
 Henson observes, with great justice, that it is a grave 
 blunder to discuss the two methods of reading sermons 
 and preaching extempore as mere alternatives. A free
 
 312 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 use of a carefully-prepared manuscript has often been 
 found to combine the advantages of both systems. Such, 
 if I remember aright, was Kingsley's method ; such, 
 at one period of his career, was Liddon's. But perhaps 
 the greatest exponent of it was the present Bishop 
 of St. Andrews, who, after twenty minutes of a written 
 sermon, would stuff the MS. into his pocket, and give 
 us five minutes of extempore hortation which sent us 
 home graver, if not wiser, people.
 
 THE COMMON CREED OF CATHOLICS AND 
 EVANGELICALS * 
 
 BY Lord Halifax's request I am here to-night, and I 
 am to attempt, in this paper, to remove some of 
 the strange misunderstandings which hinder English 
 Church-people from " godly union and concord." I have 
 called my paper " The Common Creed of Catholics and 
 Evangelicals " ; and my endeavour is to show our 
 Evangelical brethren, among whom I was brought up, 
 and whose devotion to our Lord I deeply revere, that 
 on many of the points just now most hotly contested 
 there is substantial unity between us. Catholic and 
 Evangelical, I say ; and on the last word I lay all the 
 stress I can command. I might have spoken of the 
 common creed of Catholics and Protestants, and, so far 
 as Protestantism means only a hearty repudiation of 
 the Pope and all his ways, my title would not have 
 been amiss. But, unfortunately, the name of " Pro- 
 testant " has been " soiled with all ignoble use," and 
 has been employed to cover and to justify the widest 
 departures from the doctrine of the Cross. A Bishop 
 of our admirable Establishment indeed thinks it appro- 
 priate to send "all good Christmas wishes " to a clergy- 
 man of his diocese who denies the Incarnation. There 
 was another Bishop of more primitive times who 
 warned the faithful against receiving such an one into 
 
 1 Read before the English Church Union, 1898. 
 313
 
 314 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 their houses, or bidding him God-speed ; and, for my 
 own part, I confess that I can find no common ground 
 in religion for those who believe, and those who deny, 
 that our Lord Jesus Christ is Very and Eternal God. 
 My attempt, then, is limited to finding common ground 
 for those two sections of English Church-people who 
 are respectively labelled " Catholic " and " Evangelical." 
 I hope to show that Catholic theology is truly 
 Evangelical, and Evangelical theology (so far as it is 
 constructive and affirmative) truly Catholic. 
 
 Among the most helpful sayings that I know is one 
 ascribed by a Cambridge tradition to Dr. Whewell : 
 " Truth emerges more readily from error than from con- 
 fusion." And another which I would parallel with this 
 was that of Henry Drummond, the Irvingite Apostle : 
 "Religious people are generally right in what they 
 affirm and wrong in what they deny." In the light of 
 these two sayings I approach my task, endeavouring, 
 in the first place, to clear away some of the confusion 
 which too often prevails in Evangelical minds about 
 what Catholics believe ; and, in the second, to show 
 my Catholic hearers how much of fundamental truth 
 there is in the affirmative parts of Evangelical theology. 
 
 I. I start with the most tremendous of all dogmas 
 the Being and Attributes of God. 
 
 Here, happily, there is no shade of difference between 
 Catholics and Evangelicals. Both sections, I believe, 
 accept, with the same unquestioning loyalty, the per- 
 fectly theological language of the First Article : 
 
 There is but One Living and True God, everlasting, with- 
 out body, parts, or passions ; of infinite power, wisdom, and 
 goodness ; the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible 
 and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be Three 
 Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
 
 CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 315 
 
 II. Again, with respect to the characteristic dogma 
 of Christianity, as against mere Theism, Deism, and 
 Free-thinking the Incarnation of our Lord Jesns Christ. 
 I have never heard of an Evangelical who questioned 
 the accuracy of our Second Article : 
 
 The Son, Which is the Word of the Father, begotten from 
 everlasting of the Father, the Very and Eternal God, and 
 of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the 
 womb of the Blessed Virgin, of her substance ; so that two 
 whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and 
 Manhood, were joined together in One Person, never to be 
 divided, whereof is One Christ, Very God, and Very Man ; 
 Who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to 
 reconcile His Father to us, and to be a Sacrifice, not only 
 for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men. 
 
 III. And, again, of the Person and Nature of God 
 the Holy Ghost. With one heart and one mouth 
 Catholics and Evangelicals confess that 
 
 The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son. 
 is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and 
 the Son, Very and Eternal God. 
 
 IV. So far, then, as the cardinal doctrines of the exist- 
 ence of the One True God and the mutual relations of 
 the Three Holy Persons are concerned, there is nothing 
 in dispute between Catholics and Evangelicals. And 
 even when we proceed to the next step in our demonstra- 
 tion, and touch that which is the characteristic of the 
 Evangelical school i.e. the doctrine of the forgiveness 
 of human sins we find, in spite of all misrepresentations 
 and misunderstandings, the same essential agreement : 
 
 We believe and profess that Almighty God has promised 
 forgiveness of sins, through the Precious Blood of Jesus 
 Christ, to all who turn to Him with true sorrow for sin, out 
 of unfeigned and sincere love to Him, with a lively faith in 
 Jesus Christ, and with full purpose of amendment of life.
 
 316 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Whose are these words ? They might be Charles 
 Simeon's or Hugh McNeile's. As a matter of fact, they 
 are Dr. Pusey's, and the Declaration of which they 
 form part was signed in 1873 by the present Bishop of 
 Lincoln, Father Benson, Canon Carter, Dr. Liddon, 
 and Mr. Mackonochie. It is impossible to write Mr. 
 Mackonochie's name without thinking of the church 
 where he ministered ; and if ever in my life I (an 
 Evangelical born and bred) have heard the doctrines 
 of sin, repentance, free grace, and pardon through the 
 Blood of Christ set forth with unflinching plainness, it 
 has been from the pulpit of St. Alban's, and by the 
 lips of Arthur Stanton. It has been said, with some- 
 thing of a boastful air, that " the Bible and the Bible 
 only is the religion of Protestants." We can reply, 
 with all humility, but with all sincerity. " Jesus and 
 Jesus only is the religion of Catholics.'" 
 
 V. And, as regards the spiritual life of the individual, 
 I do not find much difference between the theory of 
 the Catholics and that of the Evangelicals. It has 
 been described as 
 
 that personal and experimental life of the human soul with 
 God, which profits by all ordinances, but is tied to none, 
 dwelling ever, through all its varying moods, in the inner 
 court of that sanctuaiy whereof the walls are not made 
 with hands. 
 
 The language is not that of a Low Churchman, 
 but of a man so steeped in Sacramental theology as 
 Mr. Gladstone. The Evangelicals seem sometimes to 
 fancy that they have a monopoly of the teaching of 
 Conversion. If they would attend a mission-service 
 at a Ritualistic church, or a Retreat conducted by a 
 Ritualistic clergyman, they would know better. They 
 would learn that Catholics insist, with all the force of
 
 CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 317 
 
 which they are capable, on the absolute need of an 
 unconditional surrender of the will to the Will of God ; 
 and place the whole hope of salvation in pardon through 
 the Precious Blood, definitely sought by the individual 
 sinner, for sins actually done in the body. It was not 
 a Low Churchman who wrote : 
 
 If some poor wandering child of Thine 
 Have spurned to-day the Voice Divine, 
 Noiv, Lord, the gracious work begin ; 
 Let him no more lie down in sin. 
 
 According to all Catholic teaching, the sinner, in the 
 work of repentance, is solus cum Solo. If " the Voice 
 Divine " reaches him on a desert island, a thousand 
 miles from priest or altar or bible, he has only to turn 
 to the Crucified Lord in repentance and faith. Then 
 and there he is forgiven ; then and there he is at peace. 
 
 VI. And, if we have this in common about the 
 beginnings of the conscious life of the soul (I say 
 nothing for the moment about the antecedent grace 
 of Baptism), we have much in common about its 
 maintenance. No orthodox Evangelical believes in 
 instantaneous sanctification, however thoroughly he may 
 believe that conversions sometimes take place suddenly. 
 All Evangelicals teach growth in grace ; all urge careful 
 use of the means of grace. This leads me to consider 
 the Evangelical doctrine of the Sacraments, and to 
 compare it with the Catholic doctrine. 
 
 First, as regards Holy Baptism. No point was more 
 strongly urged by the Evangelicals among whom I was 
 brought up than that the doctrine of Baptismal Re- 
 generation was a " soul-destroying error." No wonder 
 that they so regarded it, for they believed it meant 
 that every human being who was baptized in infancy, 
 whatever his subsequent faith and life might be, must
 
 318 
 
 be finally saved ! I do not imagine that this delusion 
 prevails widely among Evangelicals of the present 
 day ; nor, on the other hand, do I contend that the 
 Evangelicals would interpret exactly as we do the 
 article of the Creed which teaches us that there is 
 " one Baptism for the remission of sins." Bat their 
 faith is proved by their practice. What Evangelical 
 Churchman ever fails to bring his child to the font ? 
 Catholics teach that what is done in Baptism is the work 
 of the Holy Ghost. Evangelicals admit that the seed 
 of Divine Grace may be imparted in Baptism ; and 
 many of them would agree with that great leader of 
 their school, William Wilberforce, who urged that 
 
 no man can see God without a change of heart. We 
 believe that infants do see God, and therefore he did not 
 doubt that their hearts were changed at Baptism. 1 
 
 In this connexion I may mention the fact that I have 
 been told by an Evangelical clergyman, who was a pupil 
 of Charles Simeon, that his master always interpreted 
 the verse about " the washing of regeneration " as 
 referring to Holy Baptism. 
 
 VII. Secondly, as regards the Holy Communion. The 
 Evangelicals no doubt repudiate the terminology in 
 which Catholics express their belief. They insist upon 
 the deep and positive truth of the Presence in the heart 
 of the recipient after Communion, and so far they are 
 right. They stumble only at the thought of a Presence 
 independent of, and exterior to, the act of Communion. 
 They seem to us imperfectly to apprehend the force 
 of the words by which our Lord Himself, and St. Paul 
 following Him, connect the Presence with the Consecrated 
 Elements. Yet they frequent the Holy Table with the 
 utmost regularity and fervour. Their hymns and Eucha- 
 1 Life of Bishop Wilberforce, vol. i., p. 46.
 
 CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 319 
 
 ristic manuals breathe a truly Catholic spirit, and in 
 this, as in other cases, the Lex Precandi is the Lex 
 Credendi : 
 
 Hail, Sacred Feast which Jesus makes, 
 Kich banquet of His Flesh and Blood ! 
 Thrice happy he who here partakes 
 That sacred Stream, that Heavenly Food. 
 
 The King of Heaven His table spreads 
 
 For every willing heart ; 
 Not Paradise with all its joys 
 
 Could such delight impart. 
 
 We need not now go up to Heaven 
 
 To bring the long-sought Saviour down ; 
 
 Thou art to all already given, 
 
 Thou dost e'en now Thy Banquet crown : 
 
 To every faithful soul appear, 
 
 And show Thy Real Presence here. 
 
 These are the words of Evangelical hymn-writers ; 
 and a king of Evangelicals Daniel Wilson, Bishop 
 of Calcutta wrote thus in his diary : 
 
 Blessed Lord, I am now about to partake of Thy Body 
 as broken, and Thy Blood as shed for me. Oh, enable me 
 to resign myself to Thee ! At Thy Altar may I renew my 
 dedication. 
 
 And Bishop Ashton Oxenden, in his " Earnest Commu- 
 nicant," gives these prayers before and after Com- 
 munion : 
 
 Thou Bread of Life, Which earnest down from Heaven 
 and givest life unto the world, come now into my heart 
 and cleanse it from all its defilements. Grant that I may with 
 reverence receive this Heavenly Manna, and be nourished 
 by it unto eternal life. 
 
 Glory be to Thee, Blessed Jesus, my Lord and my God, 
 for thus feeding my soul with Thy most Blessed Body and 
 Blood.
 
 320 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 VIII. On the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, 
 more perhaps than on any other point, Evangelicals 
 are estranged from Catholics simply by misunderstanding. 
 They believe that Catholics mean, by the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice, a fresh atonement for the sins of the world 
 effected each time a priest celebrates the Holy Com- 
 munion. This, indeed, would be a " soul-destroying 
 error." Dr. Pusey, Canon Carter, Mr. Butler of 
 Wantage, Mr. Mackonochie, Dr. Liddon, and all the 
 other Catholic leaders repudiated it in set terms more 
 than thirty years ago : 
 
 We repudiate the notion of any fresh sacrifice, or any view 
 of the Eucharistic sacrificial offering as of something apart 
 from the one all-sufficient Sacrifice and Oblation on the Cross, 
 which alone " is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and 
 satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original 
 and actual," and which alone is " meritorious." 
 
 In teaching the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, 
 we Catholics found ourselves solely upon the recorded 
 words of our Blessed Lord and His express revelation 
 to St. Paul, " Do this for a memorial of Me." " As 
 often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup, ye do 
 show the Lord's death till He come." 
 
 As for the Catholic interpretation of these texts, I 
 forbear to encumber my paper with a long chain of 
 Anglican authorities ; let one famous passage from 
 Jeremy Taylor suffice : 
 
 Now what Christ does in Heaven He hath commanded 
 us to do on earth that is, to represent His death, to 
 commemorate His Sacrifice by humble prayer and thankful 
 record ; and, by faithful manifestation and joyful Eucharist, to 
 lay it before the eyes of our Heavenly Father, so ministering 
 in His Priesthood, and doing according to His commandment 
 and example, the Church being the image of Heaven ; the 
 priest the minister of Christ ; the holy table being a copy 
 of the celestial altar ; and the Eternal Sacrifice of the Lamb 
 slain from the beginning of the world being always the same.
 
 CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 32i 
 
 So far the Catholic view of the matter. I now turn to 
 the testimony of unimpeachable Evangelicalism. John 
 Wesley wrote : 
 
 We believe there is, and always was, in every Christian 
 Church (whether dependent on the Bishop of Rome or not) 
 an outward priesthood, ordained by Jesus Christ, and an 
 outward Sacrifice offered therein by men, authorized to act 
 as ambassadors for Christ, and stewards of the mysteries 
 of God. On what grounds do you believe that Christ has 
 abolished that priesthood or Sacrifice ? ' 
 
 John and Charles Wesley prefaced their " Hymns 
 on the Lord's Snpper" with a treatise by Dr. Brevint 
 on "The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice." One 
 section of that book of hymns is specifically devoted 
 to " The Holy Eucharist as it implies a Sacrifice." 
 Let one quotation speak for the rest : 
 
 Why is the faithful seed decreased, 
 The Life of God extinct and dead? 
 
 The Daily Sacrifice is ceased, 
 And charity to Heaven is fled. 
 
 O would'st Thou to Thy Church return ! 
 
 For which the faithful remnant sighs, 
 For which the drooping nations mourn, 
 
 Restore the Daily Sacrifice. 
 
 There is no name more justly venerated in Evangelical 
 circles than that of the Rev. Edward Bickersteth, Rector 
 of Watton. From his " Treatise on the Lord's Supper," 
 which ran through I know not how many editions, I 
 make one concluding extract : 
 
 The Lord's Supper was designed to represent, commemo- 
 rate, and show forth the Lord's death as a sacrifice for sin, 
 This is done as a prevailing mode of pleading His merits 
 before God. It has been observed that "what we more 
 
 1 Wesley's Works, voL ii., p. 4. 
 
 21
 
 322 
 
 compendiously express in that usual conclusion of our prayers, 
 Through Jesus Christ our Lord, we more fully and forcibly 
 represent in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, when we 
 plead the virtues and merits of the same Sacrifice here which 
 our Great High Priest is continually urging for us in Heaven." 
 
 There is the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice 
 defined by an Evangelical divine in language which 
 every English Catholic would wish to make his own. 
 If any of my hearers care to pursue this branch of 
 my subject further, I would refer them to a remarkable 
 Eirenicon by the late Rev. E. F. Willis, sometime 
 Vice-Principal of Cuddesdon. 
 
 IX. I turn now to the doctrine of the Christian 
 ministry. Our Evangelical brethren are loud in their 
 denunciation of " a sacrificing priesthood " ; but the de- 
 nunciation is founded on that very misconception of the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice which I have just been trying to 
 clear away. If the Eucharistic Sacrifice merely presents 
 and pleads before the Eternal Father the one atoning 
 Sacrifice once for all oiFered on the Cross, and if the 
 Christian priest is a minister Divinely set apart for that 
 function, I doubt if the Evangelical clergy would 
 repudiate the title. In old days Evangelicals used to 
 denounce the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession ; but 
 dispassionate research has proved too much for them, 
 and they are now willing to recognize the fact of the 
 Historic Episcopate. They would still take a more 
 favourable view than is possible to us of Presbyterial 
 orders and all the " stated ministries " of Protes- 
 tantism. But, testing them again by their practice, who 
 ever heard of an Evangelical Churchman sending for a 
 Dissenting minister to give, for example, the Holy 
 Communion to a sick member of his family ? I have no 
 doubt that there is much more in common between 
 Catholics and Evangelicals, as touching the nature and
 
 CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 323 
 
 functions of the Christian ministry, than either would at 
 first sight recognize. 
 
 X. The mention of the functions of the ministry leads 
 me, by a natural transition, to the thorny subject of 
 Confession and Absolution. On no topic have the 
 organs of Evangelicalism in the past thundered more 
 loudly than on the Confessional. "I have never 
 grovelled in the filthy lair of the confessor," was the 
 animated rhetoric of 1873. " No sin that you can have 
 to confess could be so bad as the sin of confessing it," 
 was said to a school-boy contemplating his first Con- 
 fession. Surely all this was founded on misapprehension. 
 The very privacy with which the ordinance is necessarily 
 surrounded begat a hundred strange fancies as to what 
 was said and done in it. The genuine zeal for our Lord's 
 unshared prerogatives, which is the most excellent 
 feature of Evangelicalism, rose against the notion that 
 the power of pardoning sin lay in any hands but His. 
 The practice of the Roman Confessional had, whether 
 rightly or wrongly, given rise to the notion that resort 
 to a human absolver encouraged insincere repentances 
 and confessions made with no intention of amendment. 
 Some of this prejudice no doubt still lingers ; but much 
 of it has been rolled away. Dean Vaughan, who often 
 and strenuously condemned what he conceived to be the 
 evils of Confession, yet said in one of his " Addresses 
 to Young Clergymen" (Macmillan, 1875): 
 
 Most clergymen, whatever their Church views, find them- 
 selves compelled sometimes to receive confessions. In other 
 words, they are the natural referees in cases of conscience ; 
 and cannot, if they would, evade the necessity of ministering 
 privately to spiritual disease. It may be in the form of 
 difficulties of believing. It may be in the form of perplexities 
 in acting. It may be in the form of distresses about sin 
 the forgiveness of the past, or strength against the present.
 
 324 
 
 In some form or other, the Study must sometimes be a 
 Confessional ; and one of the most anxious, most trying, most 
 exhausting parts of the Clergyman's day is given of necessity 
 to this office. 
 
 Many an Evangelical clergyman as, for example, 
 Bishop Wilkinson of St. Andrews has, by this inevitable 
 dealing with troubled consciences, been led to see the 
 truth and value of the Church's ordinance. By degrees 
 men have come to see that Confession is made to God, 
 in the presence of the priest, as formerly in the presence 
 of the congregation ; that, in the Church of England, 
 Confession is absolutely free ; that the priest's office is 
 merely to apply to the penitent's conscience the pardon 
 once for all purchased by the Precious Blood ; that the 
 efficacy of the Absolution is conditioned by the penitent's 
 sincerity ; that the same blessing is conveyed whether, 
 as in the West, the form is indicative, or, as in the East, 
 precatory. 
 
 And here let me quote the words of Bishop Wilkinson, 
 a man both Evangelical and Catholic, about his own 
 dealings in the matter. After describing the lines on 
 which the Confession should proceed, he says : 
 
 When, so far as fallible man can be, I am satisfied that 
 the man is sincere, and repents, and believes in Jesus, then 
 I am told to stand up, without the shadow of a misgiving, 
 in the name of my Church in the Name of the Invisible 
 Head of my Church and to say, in the strongest possible 
 words : " Man, thou art loosed from thine infirmity ; thou 
 art free. Thy sins are forgiven. The Church forgives thee 
 for having sinned against thy fellow-Christians these many 
 years. Thy God forgives thee for having sinned against Him. 
 Jesus has atoned for thy sin. The power of the devil is 
 broken by Christ the Conqueror. Thy prison-doors are open. 
 Go out and use thy freedom ; I absolve thee from all thy 
 sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost." 
 
 This was Bishop Wilkinson's way of stating the
 
 CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 325 
 
 matter in 1874, when he was Vicar of St. Peter's, Eaton 
 Square, and when a storm like the present had broken 
 upon the Church of England. In twenty-four years a 
 good deal of misconception has been removed. Personal 
 contact with Catholic clergy nay, with the dreaded and 
 misguided Ritualists has convinced all except the most 
 hopelessly prejudiced that the Catholic religion inter- 
 poses no human being and no created thing between 
 the soul and God. I imagine that each one of us here 
 present to-night, if suddenly called to minister to a 
 fellow-creature in the imminent prospect of unforeseen 
 death, would say, in words or in effect, with John 
 Wesley, " Plead thou solely the Blood of the Covenant." 
 Let me quote from a letter written by one of the most 
 notorious Ritualists in London to a man whom circum- 
 stances hindered from making his Confession : 
 
 Bide God's time : wait His opportunity. This is real 
 religion ; and, if you don't see me or any priest till after 
 Easter, you and all your shortcomings and sins will be 
 bidden away in the side of the Riven Rock, where is rest 
 and peace. You know we said that nothing must ever take 
 away our rest in the old Evangelical love, and our trust 
 in Jesus. 
 
 That is a letter from a Catholic confessor which any 
 Evangelical clergyman might make his own. 
 
 XI. I have generally found Evangelicals very anxious 
 to repudiate the authority of the Church at large, and 
 the appeal to Catholic antiquity. In matters of inter- 
 pretation they are apt to take their own views of the 
 Bible, unhampered by any reference to what " larger 
 minds have thought out in calmer ages " ; and, for my 
 own part, I think that this profound reverence for the 
 Written Word, and this constant study of it for light 
 and guidance, are parts of the Evangelical system which 
 we Catholics should clo well to imitate, while nqt
 
 326 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 forgetting our loyalty to the authority of undivided 
 Christendom. Here again, as in so many other instances, 
 the Evangelical practice is better than its theory. 
 Theoretically, the Evangelical may repudiate the Church's 
 authority, but in practice he accepts it ; for he receives 
 the Bible on the authority of the Church, which tells 
 him that one book is canonical and another is not ; 
 he acquiesces in Baptism by affusion, because that is 
 the form substituted by the Church for primitive 
 immersion ; and, above all, he obeys the Church in 
 transferring from Saturday to Sunday the Divine 
 obligation to keep holy one day in seven. 
 
 XII. Recent controversies between Catholics and 
 Evangelicals have turned not a little on the relation 
 of the living to the Faithful Departed. The dogma 
 that the efficacy of prayer ceases at the moment when 
 he for whom it is offered departs out of the body has 
 always seemed to me to be, in an extraordinary degree, 
 " man-made," wilful, and unfounded in Scripture. It has 
 resulted, as Mr. Gladstone said, " in narrowing the range 
 of Christian sympathies, and establishing an anomaly in 
 the general doctrine of Prayer." It is true that we are 
 not specifically taught to pray for the Departed ; but 
 then we are not specifically taught to pray, e.g., for 
 women. Yet no one proposes to exclude our Christian 
 sisters from our prayers. Our duty is to pray for the 
 whole Christian family, that they may receive God's 
 blessings according to their several stations and necessi- 
 ties ; and to exclude from this prayer our brothers and 
 sisters who have gone before us with the Sign of Faith 
 is a cruel violation of natural religion. On this point, 
 again, I say nothing of the Catholic tradition, too 
 notorious and too world- wide to need illustration. I 
 turn to Evangelical authorities. John Wesley conceived
 
 CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 327 
 
 such prayers to be " clearly justified both by the earliest 
 antiquity, by the Church of England, and by the Lord's 
 Prayer ; although the Papists have corrupted this 
 Scriptural practice into praying for those who die in 
 their sins." l The saintly Reginald Heber was " in the 
 habit of recommending on some occasions, as after 
 receiving the Sacrament, my lost friends by name 
 to God's goodness and compassion, through His Son." 
 Lord Shaftesbciry clarum et venerabile nomen wrote 
 on the death of Canning : " I do feel compassion, 
 and pray sincerely, God rest his soul." And, after com- 
 memorating his departed wife, he wrote: "And, 
 God, may I pray that our blessed and pious children, gone 
 before us, Francis, Maurice, and Mary, may be with 
 us, for truly did they love Thee and Thy Blessed Son." 
 Archbishop Magee pleaded strongly for the practice of 
 Prayer for the Departed. 2 At the funeral of Prince 
 Henry of Battenberg a direct prayer for the repose of 
 his soul was offered " Give rest, Christ, to Thy 
 servant with Thy Saints " and not a single Evangelical 
 voice, so far as I know, was raised in protest. 
 
 All this appears to point to the dispersion of Con- 
 fusion. As long as Evangelicals thought that Catholics 
 talked of " praying souls out of hell," they denounced 
 "prayers for the dead." When they realize that our 
 petitions are offered on behalf of the Faithful Departed, 
 for an increase of their refreshment, light, and peace, 
 they are, it would seem, not unwilling to join in so 
 simple an act of natural piety. 
 
 XIII. I have spoken so far of doctrine. It remains 
 that I should say a brief word about ritual. 
 
 Here, manifestly, there is no room for a difference 
 
 1 Works, vol. ix., p. 35. 
 
 J See p. 144 Of. The Tirties of January 3, 1883,
 
 328 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 of principle between Catholics and Evangelicals ; it is 
 merely a question of degree. All Evangelicals use 
 more or less ritual. One flagrant piece of Ritualism 
 they have, indeed, generally discontinued the assump- 
 tion of a special vestment for the delivery of the 
 sermon but in other respects their ritual increases 
 year by year. Surpliced choirs, stained glass, chanted 
 psalms, lecterns, choir-stalls, floral decorations, em- 
 broidered frontals, and a dozen similar objects, testify 
 to that sense of the fitness of outward decency and 
 beauty in Divine worship which belongs to no one 
 theological school. When Archbishop Tait built his 
 chapel at Fulham Palace, he showed it to a Tractarian 
 incumbent of the diocese, and asked him what he 
 thought of it. " Very nice, my lord," was the reply, 
 " but twenty years ago it would have been thought the 
 height of Puseyism." Everything is moving in the 
 Evangelical world. Chasubles and altar-lights will 
 come in time. 
 
 Let me close this section with two Protestant testi- 
 monies to the value of the Crucifix. Lord Shaftesbury 
 writes from Padua in 1833: 
 
 Bought a small crucifix. ... The worship of the material 
 or the mere representation is senseless, wicked, and idolatrous ; 
 but to bear about a memorial of what God Himself once 
 exhibited to the world does but simply recall His Death and 
 Passion, and forces us, as Scripture has foretold, " to look 
 on Him Whom we pierced." 
 
 Dr. Arnold writes from Bourges in 1840: 
 
 In the crypt is a Calvary, and figures as large as life 
 representing the Burying of Our Lord. The woman who 
 showed us the crypt had her little girl with her, and she 
 lifted up the child, about three years old, to kiss the feet 
 of our Lord. Is this idolatry? Nay, verily, it may be so, 
 but it need not be, and assuredly is in itself right and 
 natural. I confess I rather envied the child,
 
 CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS 329 
 
 XIV. And now I bring to an end this most imperfect 
 but sincere attempt to promote the sacred cause of 
 Christian concord in " a day of rebuke and blasphemy." 
 To my Evangelical brethren, if ever this paper should 
 come into their hands, I would say, in the words of 
 a holy man who certainly had more sympathy with 
 them than with the Catholic school Bishop Cotton of 
 Calcutta : 
 
 If we will obey One Guide and listen to One Voice, we 
 shall be safely brought together when our life's voyage is 
 over, never again to be separated, never to wrong or grieve 
 or misunderstand each other, but to be holy and happy for 
 ever in our Father's home. 
 
 To you, who have so kindly followed me (and to 
 myself), I commend the creed of a truly English saint, 
 Thomas Ken : 
 
 As for my religion, I dye in the holy Catholic and 
 Apostolic Faith, professed by the whole Church before the 
 disunion of East and West; more particularly, I dye in the 
 communion of the Church of England, as it stands distin- 
 guished from all Papall and Puritan innovations, and as it 
 adheres to the doctrine of the Cross.
 
 CATHOLIC CONTINUITY IN THE CHURCH 
 OF ENGLAND 1 
 
 TO English Catholics July 14, 1833, is a sacred 
 date ; for, according to Cardinal Newman, it was 
 " the start " of the Oxford Movement. It is natural 
 and right that we should hold in high reverence the 
 birthday of a spiritual energy to which we owe so 
 much. But my object to-day is to remind my hearers 
 that the work of the Oxford Leaders was not a 
 creation, but a revival not a commencement, but a 
 renewal. 
 
 Too often we speak and think as if all Catholic truth 
 had perished out of the Church of England during the 
 eighteenth century, and had been brought in again by the 
 Tractarian writers. The fact is and it is a fact which 
 comes out more clearly the more closely we study the 
 religious records of the time that, even in the deadest 
 and darkest days of irreligion and misbelief, " God left 
 not Himself without witness " in the Church of England. 
 In spite of deformations and defections, the Catholic 
 tradition of doctrine and practice was maintained un- 
 broken, though attenuated, between 1700 and 1833. 
 
 The work of the Oxford Leaders was not to introduce 
 the Catholic Religion into a Church which was ignorant 
 of it not even to bring it back into a Church which 
 
 1 A paper read before the Confraternity of the Blessed 
 Sacrament, 1902. 
 
 330
 
 CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 331 
 
 had once possessed it and then lost it but to drag it 
 out of obscurity into the light of day, to call public 
 attention to it, to defend it, and to glorify it. The 
 Leaders fanned the embers till they burst into a flame. 
 They " strengthened the things which remained, that 
 were ready to die." 
 
 John Keble (1792-1866), born and brought up in 
 an English Parsonage, knew no higher testimony to 
 the truth of any doctrine than to say, " It seems to 
 me just what my father taught me " ; and that father 
 was born in 1745. 
 
 Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882) said of the 
 Doctrine of the Real Presence, that he had learnt 
 it from his mother, who was born in 1773, and 
 in turn had been taught it by the clergy of her 
 youth. 
 
 John Henry Newman had been brought up in a 
 different school ; but, as soon as he had apprehended the 
 Catholic Faith, he realized that Dr. Routh (1755-1854) 
 had survived to " report to a forgetful generation what 
 had been the theology of their fathers " ; and he 
 acknowledged Hugh James Rose (1795-1838) as the 
 teacher who, by insisting in 1826 on the Doctrine of 
 the Apostolic Succession, had led the English clergy 
 to " stir up the gift that was in them, and to betake 
 themselves to their true Mother." 
 
 Now, it is to be borne in mind that the older divines, 
 to whom the Tractarian Leaders thus appealed, were 
 not necessarily " High Churchmen " in any sectional 
 or partizan sense. They were ordinary Church-people, 
 who knew their Prayer-books, and lived and died in 
 the practice of sober religion, as it had been handed 
 down to them from times anterior by a century and 
 more to the Oxford Movement of 1833. 
 
 The limits of this paper would not permit me to
 
 332 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 trace the continuity of English theology through the 
 reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts. I must limit myself 
 to authorities who died in the eighteenth and nineteenth 
 centuries, and who had learned their own theology and 
 taught it to others, long before the Tractarian writers 
 began their devout and learned labours. 
 Such men were : 
 
 Bishop Wilson 16631755 
 
 William Law 16861761 
 
 Bishop Randolph 17011783 
 
 Dr. Johnson 17091784 
 
 John Wesley 17031791 
 
 Bishop Home 17301792 
 
 Jones of Nayland 17261800 
 
 Bishop Horsley 17331806 
 
 Bishop Middleton 17691823 
 
 Bishop Lloyd 17841829 
 
 Sikes of Guilsborough 17671834 
 
 Bishop Van Mildert 17651836 
 
 Hugh James Rose 17951838 
 
 Dr. Wordsworth 17741846 
 
 Archbishop Howley 17651848 
 
 John Oxlee 17791854 
 
 Oxlee's learned work on "The Christian Hierarchy" 
 won the warm praise of Dr. Routh, President of 
 Magdalen, whose life spanned the century from 1755 
 to 1854. 
 
 In addition to the names of persons, it may be worth 
 while to mention a few devotional books, all published 
 before 1833. In these the Sacramental theology of 
 the Church was set forth by writers who evidently 
 never doubted that what they taught was the traditional 
 doctrine of the Church of England. Besides such well- 
 known works as " The Whole Duty of Man," Nelson's 
 " Fasts and Festivals," and Lake's " Officium Eucharis^ 
 ticum," there were ;
 
 CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 333 
 
 Wesley's " Companion to the Altar," from 
 
 Thomas a Kempis 1742 
 
 Wesley's "Hymns on the Lord's Supper," with 
 
 Preface by Brevint 1745 
 
 " The New Manual" of the S.P.C.K 1771 
 
 " The Companion to the Altar " 1775 
 
 Annotated Prayer-book 1786 
 
 Bickersteth's " Treatise on the Lord's Supper" ... 1822 
 
 This last book ran through countless editions, and was 
 a special favourite of the Evangelical school. 
 
 I turn now from generalizations to particulars, and 
 trace the continuous testimony, during the period which 
 I have indicated, to certain characteristic truths of 
 Catholic theology. 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 
 
 On this I appeal, as I shall often have occasion to 
 do, to that truly great divine perhaps the greatest 
 of the eighteenth century Samuel Horsley, Bishop 
 successively of St. David's, Rochester, and St. Asaph. 
 
 He wrote thus in 1790 : 
 
 He who thinks of God's ministers as the mere servants 
 of the State is out of the Church, severed from it by a kind 
 of self-excommunication. 
 
 Thus Charles Daubeny (Archdeacon of Sarum) in 1798, 
 writes of 
 
 the Apostolic Government of the Church, as originally estab- 
 lished under the direction of the Holy Spirit by its Divine 
 Founder (from Whom alone a commission to minister in holy 
 things can properly be derived). 
 
 In 1804 Samuel Horsley said in a debate in the House 
 of Lords : 
 
 The sacerdotal character cannot be done away by the 
 secular power ; the Sacerdotium Catholicum is that which no
 
 334 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 secular power can either give or take away ; it is derived 
 from a higher source. 
 
 William Van Mildert (Bishop of Durham) in 1814 
 described the Church as 
 
 that which has from age to age borne rule upon the ground 
 of its pretensions to Apostolical Succession. 
 
 Francis Wrangham (Archdeacon of Cleveland) wrote 
 in 1823: 
 
 To God, and not to a patronizing Crown or to an electing 
 people, we authoritatively refer our origin as a Ministry. 
 For Christ, we are expressly told in Scripture, sent His 
 Apostles with a power to send others, thus providing an 
 unbroken succession for all coming ages. 
 
 It was "about" this same year, 1823, as we know 
 from the " Apologia," that Newman learned the doctrine 
 of the Succession, from his friend, the Rev. William 
 James (1787-1861), then Fellow of Oriel. And in 
 October, 1833, Samuel Wilberforce (who could scarcely 
 have acquired the doctrine since the previous July) 
 called upon his brother-clergy to 
 
 prize at a higher rate that unbroken Succession where- 
 by those who ordained us are joined unto Christ's own 
 Apostles. 
 
 THE REAL PRESENCE 
 
 Henry Englefield (a Roman Catholic recusant) wrote 
 in 1715: 
 
 The Real Presence of the Body and Blood of our Saviour in 
 the Sacrament of the Eucharist was always believed by the 
 Holy Catholic Church, maintained ever since the Reformation 
 by many of the most orthodox reformed divines of the Church 
 of England, fully asserted in the Church of England Catechism, 
 and plainly expressed in the Holy Scriptures.
 
 CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 335 
 
 This testimony, coming from a Roman Catholic who 
 
 suffered for his faith, seems to me to have a special value. 
 
 William Law wrote in " Christian Perfection," 1726 : 
 
 We are most of all to desire those prayers which are 
 offered up at the altar where the Body and Blood of Christ 
 are joined with them. 
 
 And again in the "Serious Call," 1728: 
 
 You would justly think it a great profaneness to contemn 
 and trample upon an altar, because it was appropriated to 
 holy uses, and had had the Body of Christ so often placed 
 upon it. 
 
 As Law grew older, his Sacramental teaching became 
 still more explicit. Thus, in 1740, he wrote, in "An 
 Appeal to All that Doubt": 
 
 Would you know what Blood this is, that has this atoning, 
 life-giving quality in It ? It is that Blood which is to be 
 received in the Holy Sacrament. Would you know why It 
 quickens, raises, and restores the inward man that died in 
 Paradise ? The answer is from Christ Himself : " He that 
 eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and 
 I in him." . . . Here, therefore, is plainly discovered to us 
 the true nature, necessity, and benefit of the Holy Sacrament 
 of the Lord's Supper ; both why, and how, and for what end 
 we must all of necessity eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of 
 Christ. No figurative meaning of the words is here to be 
 sought for ; we must eat Christ's Flesh, and drink His Blood 
 in the same reality as He took upon Him the real flesh and 
 blood of the Blessed Virgin. We can have no real relation to 
 Christ, can be no true members of His Mystical Body, but by 
 being real partakers of that same kind of Flesh and Blood, 
 which was truly His, and was His for that very end, that 
 through Him the same might be brought forth in us. All 
 this is strictly true of the Holy Sacrament, according to the 
 plain letter of the expression ; which Sacrament was thus 
 instituted, that the Great Service of the Church might con- 
 tinually show us, that the whole of our Redemption consisted 
 in receiving the Birth, Spirit, Life, and Nature of Jesus Christ 
 into us.
 
 336 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 A similar testimony is borne by the Annotated Prayer- 
 book of 1786 : 
 
 The Prayer of Consecration is not only the most antient, 
 but the most essential, part of the whole office. In every 
 liturgy of every church the priest repeats the words of our 
 Saviour's institution, and by those words the Consecration is 
 made. .For, it is not the power of the priest, but the efficacy 
 of the Author, which makes the elements become, Sacrament- 
 ally, the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 In 1806 Bishop Horsley wrote thus of the Scottish 
 Communion Office : 
 
 With respect to the comparative merits of the two offices 
 for England and Scotland, I have no scruple in declaring to 
 you that I think the Scotch Office more conformable to the 
 primitive models and, in my private judgment, more edifying 
 than that which we now use ; insomuch that, were I at 
 liberty to follow my own judgment, I should myself use the 
 Scotch Office in preference. The alterations which were made 
 in the Communion Service, as it stood in the First Book of 
 Edward VI., to humour the Calvinists, were, in my opinion, 
 much for the worse. Nevertheless, I think our present office 
 is very good; our form of consecration of the elements is 
 sufficient. I mean, that the elements are consecrated by it, 
 and made the Body and Blood of Christ, in the sense in which 
 our Lord Himself said the bread and wine were His Body and 
 Blood. 1 
 
 This testimony is curiously confirmed by an eminent 
 Dissenter, Dr. Martineau, in 1839, who, criticizing our 
 Office of Communion, says : 
 
 Respecting this Real Presence with the Elements, there is 
 no dispute between the Romish and the English Church ; both 
 unequivocally maintain it, and the only question is respecting 
 the " Real Absence " of the original and culinary bread and 
 wine. 
 
 However anxious, indeed, the clergy of the Evangelical 
 
 1 See Skinner's treatise on "The Office for the Sacrament of 
 the Lord's Supper " (Aberdeen, 1807), p. 157.
 
 CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 337 
 
 school may be to disguise the fact, it cannot be doubted that 
 their Church has always maintained a supernatural change 
 in the elements themselves, as well as in the mind of the 
 receiver. 
 
 The Rev. George Huntington, Hector of Tenby, who 
 was Curate of Wigan in 1848, sends me this interesting 
 story of a simple and traditional faith in the Reality 
 of the Presence : 
 
 James Daniel was an old yeoman, who lived in the 
 neighbourhood of Wigan, some four miles or thereabouts out. 
 He never missed the Holy Communion, and walked in to the 
 daily service whenever he could. . . . The custom then was, 
 in accordance with the rubric, to call up poor communicants 
 to consume what remained of the Consecrated Species. I 
 noticed that James Daniel always did this, and that he took 
 the piece of the Consecrated Bread, placed it reverently in 
 white paper, and then put it between the leaves of his large 
 Prayer-book. Then he explained (I wish I could give his 
 words as he spoke them), " I take it home to our Betty " (his 
 wife), " and we kneel down together, and I say with her all of 
 the service that a layman may say, and then I give it to her, 
 for it is our Lord's Body, and if it is good for me it is good for 
 her." Then in his quaint way he said, " Didn't Queen Bess 
 say, ' He took the Bread, and brake it, etc., etc.' ? I'm of 
 one mind with Queen Bess, and I take oiir Lord at His word." 
 James Daniel was almost a man of one book, with a know- 
 ledge of the Holy Scriptures I never saw equalled. I do not 
 think he possessed any books except such as Nelson's " Fasts 
 and Festivals," " The Monthly Preparation," and " The Whole 
 Duty of Man." 
 
 From Daniel Brevint, Dean of Lincoln, Wesley, in 
 the preface to his "Hymns on the Lord's Supper," 
 quotes this striking language : 
 
 As the Israelites, whenever they saw the cloud on the 
 Temple, which God had hallowed to be the sign of His 
 Presence, presently used to throw themselves on their faces, 
 not to worship the cloud, but God ; so, whenever I see these 
 Better Signs of the glorious mercies of God, I will not fail 
 
 22
 
 338 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 both to remember my Lord Who appointed them, and to 
 worship Him Whom they represent. 
 
 THE EUCHARISTIC SACKIFICB 
 
 William Beveridge (16371708), Bishop of St. 
 Asaph, wrote : 
 
 The Sacrifice that is most proper and peculiar to the Gospel 
 is the Sacrament of our Lord's Supper, instituted by our Lord 
 Himself, to succeed all the bloody sacrifices in the Mosaic 
 law. . . . This is properly our Christian Sacrifice, which 
 neither Jews nor Gentiles can have any share in, as the 
 Apostle observes : " We have an Altar, whereof they have 
 no right to eat which serve the tabernacle." 
 
 John Wesley taught the " outward Sacrifice " offered 
 by the " outward priesthood." And, with reference to 
 the Holy Communion, he wrote in 1742 : 
 
 I joined ... in the great Sacrifice of Thanksgiving. 
 His teaching was as emphatic in verse as in prose : 
 
 'Tis done ; the Lord sets-to His seal ; 
 
 The prayer is heard, the grace is given ; 
 With joy unspeakable we feel 
 
 The Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven : 
 The Altar streams with Sacred Blood, 
 And all the Temple flames with God. 
 
 Yet in this ordinance Divine 
 We still the sacred load may bear ; 
 
 And now we in Thy Offering join, 
 Thy Sacramental Passion share. 
 
 Yet may we celebrate below, 
 
 And daily thus Thine offering shew, 
 
 Expos'd before Thy Father's eyes; 
 In this tremendous Mystery 
 Present Thee bleeding on the Tree, 
 
 Our Everlasting Sacrifice.
 
 CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 339 
 
 Edward Bickersteth (Evangelical) wrote in 1822 : 
 
 The Lord's Supper was designed to represent, commemorate, 
 and show forth the Lord's death as a sacrifice for sin. This 
 is done as a prevailing mode pleading His merits before God. 
 
 Daniel Wilson (Bishop of Calcutta) wrote in 1826 : 
 
 I will present my child at the Font of Baptism. ... I 
 will lead him to the Altar of our Eucharistic Sacrifice. 
 
 And in 1827 John Keble, in " The Christian Year," 
 described the Holy Communion as " our glorious 
 Sacrifice." 
 
 HOLY BAPTISM 
 
 On this it is needless to encumber my paper with 
 citations from the older divines of the traditional school, 
 for without exception (so far as I know) they taught 
 Baptismal Regeneration. It may, however, be worth 
 while to cite the testimony of teachers who were styled 
 Evangelical. 
 
 John Wesley wrote in 1756 : 
 
 By water, then, as a means the water of Baptism we 
 are regenerated or born again, whence it is also -called by 
 the Apostle the Washing of Regeneration. Herein a principle 
 of grace is infused, which will not be wholly taken away 
 unless we quench the Holy Spirit of God by long- continued 
 wickedness. 
 
 Wesley's great Irish disciple, Alexander Knox (1757- 
 1831), wrote in 1820 : 
 
 All infants who are baptized infallibly participate in the 
 inward and spiritual grace which the Sacrament of Baptism 
 is intended to convey. 
 
 It would seem that William Wilberforce (1759-
 
 340 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 1833) held the same doctrine, for we read in a letter 
 by his son, Henry Wilberforce, that 
 
 Papa defended most strongly the doctrine of Baptismal 
 Regeneration. . . . His ground was, that we are told that no 
 man can see God without a change of heart. We believe 
 that infants do see God, and therefore he did not doubt that 
 their hearts were changed at Baptism. 
 
 In this connexion it is noteworthy that Newman was 
 led to receive the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration 
 by reading the " Treatise on Apostolical Preaching " 
 of that staunch Evangelical Archbishop Simmer (1780- 
 1862). 
 
 ABSOLUTION 
 
 On the Power of the Keys, I again disregard the 
 older teaching, and turn to the testimony of men who 
 were born in the eighteenth century. The Power of 
 the Keys was taught unmistakably by all these : 
 
 Archbishop Wake died in 1737 
 
 William Wheatley 1742 
 
 Bishop Wilson 
 John Wesley 
 Bishop Home 
 Bishop Tomline 
 Bishop Marsh 
 Professor Blunt 
 John Keble 
 Bishop Phillpotts 
 
 1755 
 1791 
 1792 
 1827 
 1839 
 1855 
 1866 
 1869 
 
 The doctrine was strongly urged by the Rev. J. Digby 
 Beste, in a sermon on " Priestly Absolution," preached 
 before the University of Oxford, in 1793. He laments 
 the practical disuse of Confession ; but this disuse cannot 
 have been universal, for John Nelson Darby, the chief 
 leader of the Plymouth Brethren (1800-1882), writes 
 thus of his early days :
 
 CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 341 
 
 I knew and walked in the system called Puseyism when 
 Dr. Pusey was not heard of. ... I went to my clergyman 
 always if I wished to take the Sacrament, that he might judge 
 of the matter. 
 
 (It is to be noted that this was in strict conformity 
 with the Nineteenth Canon of the Irish Church, repealed 
 after the Disestablishment.) 
 
 I have the following instance from the Rev. John 
 Wakeford. A metrical form of Confession was used 
 by people making their confessions during a Mission 
 held at Chardstock in 1897, and is apparently of im- 
 memorial antiquity : 
 
 To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost 
 To thee ; and all the Heavenly Host ; 
 I lift my hands and pour my prayers, 
 And tell my griefs and sins and cares. 
 For I have sinned, and I alone 
 Am cause of all the sins I own. 
 I pray God's pardon and His grace 
 Of you His priest, who, in His place, 
 Shalt judge of what I now confess, 
 And bind or loose, and blame or bless. 
 
 PRAYER FOR THE DEPARTED 
 
 The Doctrine of Prayer for the Faithful Departed 
 was taught by Barrow, Ken, Cosin, and Thorndike. 
 Bishop Andrewes's Devotions abound in such prayers, 
 and were for generations garbled by Puritan editors so 
 as to conceal the fact, which has lately been brought to 
 light by the learned labours of the Rev. P. G. Medd. 
 To these standard authorities let me add some quotations 
 from later Churchmen. 
 
 John Wesley : 
 
 I believe it a duty to observe, so far as I can, to pray 
 for the faithful departed.
 
 342 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Dr. Johnson : 
 
 Lord, so far as it may be lawful, I commend unto 
 Thy fatherly goodness my father, brother, wife, and mother, 
 beseeching Thee to make them happy, for Jesus Christ's sake. 
 
 Reginald Heber (Bishop of Calcutta) : 
 
 1 have been myself in the habit for some years of re- 
 commending on some occasions, as after receiving the 
 Sacrament, my lost friends by name to God's goodness and 
 compassion, through His Son. 
 
 In 1816, on the death of Princess Charlotte, Dr. Law, 
 Bishop of Chester and subsequently of Bath and Wells, 
 said in a sermon : 
 
 We commend to Thee, as far as we may, and as it 
 becometh us, the soul of her who has departed. We pray, 
 we humbly pray, that she may be received into the Mansions 
 of the Blest, that she may exchange a corruptible crown for 
 one that is incorruptible, and that fadeth not away. 
 
 At the same time Lord Charles Percy wrote, with 
 reference to the departed Princess : 
 
 May God of His mercy receive her soul into blessedness. 
 
 In 1827, Lord Shaftesbury, on hearing of the death 
 of Canning, writes in his diary : 
 
 I do feel true compassion, and pray sincerely God rest his 
 soul. 
 
 Dr. Routh wrote this epitaph for his own grave : 
 
 all ye who come here, in your Christian and charitable 
 hope, wish peace and felicity, and a consummation thereof 
 afterwards, to the soul of Martin Joseph Routh. . . . He 
 lies buried in the adjoining crypt, with his wife, Eliza Agnes 
 Blagrave, of Calcot : whom the Lord grant to find mercy from 
 the Lord in that day.
 
 CATHOLIC CONTINUITY 343 
 
 THE FAST BEFORE COMMUNION 
 
 This is a traditional practice, of which we find traces 
 all over England. We know from the Life of Bishop 
 Charles Sumner that it was observed by George IV. 
 (1762-1830). Lord John Beresford, Archbishop of 
 Armagh (1773-1862), who was educated at Eton and 
 Christ Church, taught it as a matter of course to a lady 
 now living whom he prepared for Confirmation. Bishop 
 Woodford (1820-1885) told me that, when he first 
 had a country parish in Gloucestershire, he found it an 
 established practice in reference to the Communion of 
 the Sick, and I have no doubt that similar instances 
 could be multiplied indefinitely. 
 
 And now I must conclude. 
 
 I am perfectly aware that I have merely touched the 
 fringes of a deeply-interesting and important subject. 
 The just limits of time forbid me to do more. But I 
 hope that enough has been said to show that, in holding 
 fast to the Catholic doctrine concerning the Sacraments, 
 the Power of the Keys, and our relation to the Faithful 
 Departed, we are not following a cunningly-devised 
 fable of the Tractarian writers, dating from 1833, or 
 an exotic theory imported into the Church of England 
 from Italy or France or Belgium. On the contrary, 
 our Holy Religion is both historic and indigenous. 
 After the way which only the ignorant or the malicious 
 call Popery, so worship we the God of our Fathers.
 
 REFORMATION AND REUNION 1 
 
 IN the April number of this Review, my friend Mr. 
 Birrell magnified the English Reformation. In the 
 May number, Lord .Halifax, certainly not less a friend, 
 pleaded for Reunion with Rome. The two essays 
 afforded an interesting contrast of thought and temper. 
 Each showed intelligence, information, sincerity, and 
 above all a sense of the supreme importance of religion 
 even in the life of this world. But the point of view, 
 the mental environment, the antecedent bias, of the two 
 writers were strikingly dissimilar, and my purpose in 
 this paper is to enquire whether either attains, not to 
 the whole truth of the matter, for that is not given to 
 man, but to so much of the truth as can create a better 
 understanding between members of the Church of Eng- 
 land and their fellow-Christians in other communions. 
 
 I begin with Mr. Birrell's essay headed " What, then, 
 did happen at the Reformation ? " and here, turning for 
 a moment from substance to method, I hope that Mr. 
 Birrell, who has a scholar-like knowledge of his Dickens, 
 will not be angry if I say that his mode o'f interrogative 
 argument reminds me of Rosa Dartle. He is so sur- 
 prisingly ingenuous. He is so conscious of his ignorance. 
 He asserts nothing. He asks much. He insinuates 
 more. "What, then," he asks, "did really happen at 
 the Reformation ? " He would not for the world say 
 
 1 The Nineteenth Century, 1896. 
 344
 
 345 
 
 what, though he has a little notion of his own, and 
 does not mind our seeing- what it is. Of Miss Dartle 
 we read that "she never said anything she wanted to 
 say outright, but hinted it, and made a great deal more 
 of it by this practice." Thus : 
 
 "Oh, really ? You know how ignorant I am, and that 
 I only ask for information, but isn't it always so? . . . I 
 want to be put right if I am wrong isn't it really ? " 
 
 " Really what 1 " said Mrs. Steerforth. 
 
 " Oh ! you mean it's not ! " returned Miss Dartle. " Well, 
 I'm very glad to hear it ! Now I know what to do ! That's 
 the advantage of asking." 
 
 Similarly Mr. Birrell, when asking what really did 
 happen at the Reformation, has a notion that a good 
 deal happened ; that, in particular, the Mass ceased to 
 be said in the Church of England ; and that, with 
 its departure, came a severance alike from mediaeval 
 England and from modern Rome, which it is idle for 
 Anglicans to ignore and impossible to repair. 
 
 This seems to be the idea at the back of Mr. Birrell's 
 mind, but, Dartle-like, he forbears, out of deference to 
 Anglican feelings, to formulate it. To him, as a Non- 
 conformist, really things look a little as if it were so ; 
 but he very much wishes to be put right if he is wrong. 
 He " only asks for information," and if any one can show 
 him good reasons for a different .view he will be eager 
 to exclaim, " ' Oh ! you mean it's not I Well, I'm very 
 glad to hear it ! Now I know what to do ! That's 
 the advantage of asking." To lead him to this happy 
 state of intellectual satisfaction and moral peace is my 
 immediate object. 
 
 Now, broadly speaking, I would venture to tell Mr. 
 Birrell that the following were the most important of 
 the many and far-reaching events which happened at 
 the period vaguely known as the Reformation :
 
 346 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 1. The translation of the Bible. 
 
 2. The revision of the Liturgy and Offices. 
 
 3. The dissolution of the monasteries. 
 
 4. The permission of marriage to the clergy. 
 
 5. The repudiation of the Pope's authority. 
 These five great changes will, I think, be found to 
 
 contain within themselves the germs of all that dis- 
 tinguishes the modern from the mediaeval Church of 
 England, and together they constitute my general reply 
 to Mr. Birrell's artless question. For my own part, I 
 regard the change which I have put last in the list the 
 repudiation of the Pope's authority as infinitely the 
 most important. Mr. Birrell, on the other hand, seems 
 to think that the most important is that which I have 
 numbered 2 ; and I will therefore examine it a little 
 more in detail. 
 
 When I speak of the " Revision " of the Liturgy and 
 Offices, I include " translation," and I use " Liturgy " 
 in its strict sense, as meaning the service of the Holy 
 Communion, to which the " Offices " of Morning and 
 Evening Prayer are ancillary. The substitution of a 
 vernacular liturgy for one performed in an unknown 
 tongue was an immense change, but, as Mr. Birrell does 
 not concern himself with it, I may pass it by. Again, he 
 disregards the ancillary Offices, and so may I. He 
 concentrates his whole attention on the Mass, and I 
 will do the same. " It is the Mass," he says, " that 
 matters " ; " It is the Mass that makes the difference." 
 And here it seems to me that Mr. Birrell attaches to 
 the word " Mass " some occult or esoteric meaning, 
 for which, as far as I know, he has no warrant. The 
 etymology of the word is obscure ; the very language 
 from which it is derived has been disputed. Our fore- 
 fathers did not trouble themselves with these linguistic 
 problems, but used the word a short, convenient,
 
 REFORMATION AND REUNION 347 
 
 practically English word to signify the Holy Eucharist. 
 When Sir Walter Scott describes the Lady Rowena as 
 having got wet in returning from " an Evening Mass," 
 he presumably adopts the less exact use which we find 
 in " Romeo and Juliet," and which applied the word to 
 any form of Divine Service. But before the Reformation 
 all public worship centred in the service of the altar, and 
 the Mass was the Eucharist. The Reformers regarded 
 the words as synonymous ; and the Prayer-book of 1549 
 sets forth "the Supper of the Lord, and the Holy 
 Communion, commonly called the Mass." 
 
 The Mass, then, is the service of the Holy Communion 
 nothing more, and nothing less ; but Mr. Birrell reads 
 into the phrase some other meaning of his own. 
 Abandoning for the moment all argument, historical, 
 theological, or etymological, he makes a sudden incursion 
 into the region of the emotions, and cries out that he 
 can feel the presence of the Mass at Havre and can feel 
 the absence of it at Cromer. Well, it is not for me to 
 disparage the emotions, or the employment of them in 
 religion. Once Robert Browning, looking on with a friend 
 at High Mass in a French cathedral, at the moment of 
 the elevation gripped the friend's arm and exclaimed, 
 " My dear Arthur, this is too good not to be true." 
 But an emotion of this kind affords only a sandy founda- 
 tion for the faith and practice of a lifetime ; and English 
 Churchmen will look, through the splendid accessories 
 which so impressed the picturesque sensibility of Mr. 
 Browning and Mr. Birrell, to the unseen Realities which 
 they enshrine. We turn from the sound of the Sanct- 
 bell, on which Mr. Birrell is eloquent, and the Divine 
 fragrance of the censer's wafted breath, to the plain 
 oaken table, the " fair white linen cloth," the worn 
 silver vessels of some English village-church, untouched 
 as yet by liturgical or aesthetic revival ; and, making
 
 348 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 our appeal, not to accessories or trappings however 
 suitable or beautiful or instructive, but to the recorded 
 words and acts of our Lord, to the unbroken usage of 
 His Church, and to the letter of our English liturgy, 
 we reach a definite and reasoned conclusion. It may be 
 formulated in the words of a writer whom I feel in- 
 stinctively sure that Mr. Birrell dislikes : " This day, as 
 I believe, the Blessed Sacrament has been in the church 
 before our eyes, and what can you or I desire more ? " l 
 
 So far, I do not understand that Mr. Birrell disagrees 
 with me. Like a prudent man, he declines to challenge 
 the historic continuity of English Orders. With a duly- 
 commissioned ministry, the words of institution, and the 
 prescribed elements, we have the essentials of a valid 
 Eucharist ; but Mr. Birrell seems to say that this is not 
 enough to disprove that organic severance between the 
 mediaeval and the modern Church of England which he 
 would like to establish. A valid Eucharist we may 
 have, but we have lost the Sacrifice of the Mass, and 
 this he seeks to prove by (A) the changes in our 
 Eucharistic service ; (B) the changes in the Ordinal ; 
 (C) the generel intention of those who were parties to 
 these changes ; (D) the teaching of the Church of 
 England since the Reformation. Let us examine these 
 proofs one by one. 
 
 (A) Mr. Birrell instances, as changes fatal to any 
 sacrificial view of our modern rite, the omission of the 
 Invocation of the Holy Spirit on the elements, and the 
 omission of the Prayer of Oblation. 
 
 With regard- to the Invocation, it is certainly a 
 liturgical feature of great antiquity and wide prevalence : 
 its insertion in our Office was a gain and its omission 
 a loss. But the Church of Rome does not possess it ; 
 and, if it is essential to the Sacrifice of the Mass, Mr. 
 1 "John Inglesant," vol. L, ch. iv.
 
 REFORMATION AND REUNION 349 
 
 Birrell, when he fancies that he can perceive the Mass 
 at Havre, is nurturing himself in a delusion, and might 
 as well be worshipping at Cromer. 
 
 As to the Prayer of Oblation, it has been, not removed, 
 but displaced, and put as an alternative to the Thanks- 
 giving at the end of the service. This, again, was a 
 change for the worse ; but surely, if the Sacrifice of the 
 Mass is of our Lord's instituting, it must be found in 
 that part of the service which He explicitly ordained, 
 and not in the devotional additions made by the piety of 
 men. And all that He ordained the Church of England 
 has scrupulously retain ed. 
 
 As to (B), Mr. Birrell merely alleges " ambiguity " 
 and " weakening " in the successive changes in the 
 English Ordinal. As he adduces no instance, we need 
 not stay to argue, but pass on, merely remarking that 
 here again the Church of England repeats the words 
 of her Divine Founder and the acts of His Apostles ; 
 and in so doing she presumably administers a valid 
 ordination, and confers the Christian ministry for all the 
 purposes for which it was instituted. 
 
 On (C) Mr. Birrell is even less augumentative, frankly 
 avowing that it is impossible to ascertain the intentions 
 of those who were parties to these changes. 
 
 We therefore pass on to (D). And here, without 
 encumbering the pages of this Review with a catena of 
 quotations from Cosin and Sparrow, and Beveridge and 
 Johnson, and fifty more, it may suffice to say that the 
 doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice (or the Sacrifice 
 of the Mass, for it is only a choice of terms) has never 
 ceased out of the Church of England, but has been 
 devoutly held and openly taught in each succeeding age. 
 The chain has never been broken. The Sacrifice of the 
 Eucharist is nowhere set forth with more emphatic 
 clearness than in the hymns, sermons, and devotional
 
 350 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 manuals of John and Charles Wesley. When John 
 Wesley died, in 1791, Henry Drnmmond, of Albury, was 
 five years old, and of Drummond Mr. Gladstone wrote : 
 " No man was in principle more opposed to the Chnrch 
 of Rome ; but he expressed in the House of Commons 
 a conception of the Eucharistic Sacrifice so lofty as must 
 have satisfied a divine of the Latin Church." l 
 
 John Keble, who was born in 1792 and died in 1866, 
 inherited his Eucharistic doctrine from his father, and 
 his teaching about " our glorious Sacrifice " was widely 
 diffused in the Church of England six years before the 
 Catholic Revival of 1833. Even Bishop Wilberforce 
 (1805-1873), steeped as he was in Evangelical traditions, 
 held, according to Bishop Woodford, " the doctrine of 
 there being in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper a 
 Commemorative Sacrifice, wherein the Church on earth 
 pleads before the Father the atoning death of the Son, 
 imitating in a divinely-appointed way our Lord's own 
 intercession above." 
 
 And, to add one living link to the chain, Mr. Gladstone 
 himself writes that the " effacement " of the " sacrificial 
 idea " from the doctrine of the Eucharist " could hardly 
 be accomplished without a serious dislocation of the 
 historical relations between that great Sacrament and 
 its historic types." 2 
 
 But perhaps Mr. Birrell will say, " Is this all ? There 
 is nothing here that an orthodox Nonconformist need 
 repudiate. The Presbyterian Milligan taught it just 
 as emphatically as you do. This is not the doctrine of 
 the Mass as I understand it." 
 
 Perhaps not ; but for all that it is the doctrine of 
 
 1 " The Courses of Religious Thought," Contemporary Review, 
 June, 1876. 
 
 J "The Sixteenth Century arraigned before the Nineteenth," 
 Contemporary Review, October, 1878.
 
 REFORMATION AND REUNION 351 
 
 the Mass, as the Catholic Church in East and West 
 understood it ; and against this the Reformers of the 
 Church of England struck no blow. Certainly they 
 repudiated, and we repudiate, some loose notions, of no 
 theological authority, which had become current in 
 England just before their time. " The sacrifices of 
 Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the 
 Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have 
 remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and 
 dangerous deceits." Strong language, though perhaps not 
 too strong for the unscriptural and untheological notion 
 which it condemns. But even in this emphatic article 
 there is no word levelled against the true and orthodox 
 doctrine of the Commemorative Sacrifice. Here, as in 
 every other controversy, the Reformers betook them- 
 selves to the law and to the testimony to the recorded 
 words of our Blessed Lord and His express revelation 
 to St. Paul : " Do this in remembrance of Me." " As 
 often as ye eat this Bread, and drink this Cup, ye do 
 shew the Lord's death till He come." Here is the 
 doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice as stated in 
 Scripture, and to this the Church of England has 
 unfalteringly adhered. " The Eucharist," says Bishop 
 Andrewes, " ever was, and by us is, considered both 
 as a Sacrament and as a Sacrifice." I said that I would 
 forbear to quote. Let one famous passage suffice : 
 
 The Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross being propitiatory 
 and impetratory both, it cannot be denied that the Sacrifice 
 of the Eucharist, inasmuch as it is the same Sacrifice of Christ 
 upon the Cross, (as that which is re-presentative, is truly said 
 to be the thing which it re-presenteth,) is also both propitiatory, 
 aud impetratory by virtue of the Consecration of it, whereby 
 it becometh the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. 1 
 
 The doctrine thus stated by Thorndike (who, it 
 1 Thorndike, Bk. Ill, ch. v., 19.
 
 352 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 should be remembered, had a principal hand in the last 
 revision of the Prayer-book), has been held by the 
 Church of England since the Reformation as before. 
 But, if Mr. Birrell asks me whether the Reformation 
 made no change in her way of presenting it, I frankly 
 reply that it did. Broadly speaking, the change was 
 this. Whereas in the mediaeval Church the idea 
 of Sacrifice in the Eucharist had overshadowed and 
 obscured the primary idea of Communion, the Church 
 of England at the Reformation laboured to restore 
 Communion to its supreme and unshared place in the 
 devotional life of the Christian soul. She reverted once 
 again to the letter of Scripture : to the ordinance of 
 Christ and the usage of His first disciples. She insisted 
 on the presence of Communicants at each celebration of 
 the Eucharist ; and she taught that, wherever there is 
 a strict compliance with the conditions of the Eucharist 
 as the Lord ordained It, there is a perfect fulfilment 
 of It in all Its aspects of communion, sacrifice, and 
 worship. 
 
 In the concluding part of his essay, Mr. Birrell, 
 admitting the unquestionable fact that this doctrine 
 of the Eucharist has always been held in the Church 
 of England, refers to the fact, equally unquestionable, 
 that in this, as in other matters of less than cardinal 
 importance, there are differences of opinion in the 
 Church, and calls aloud for an authoritative decision 
 as to which is right. There must, he cries, be in the 
 Catholic Church a defining authority which all her 
 members recognize and obey. And here, having accom- 
 panied Mr. Birrell to the end of his journey, I bid him 
 courteously farewell, and transfer my attentions to Lord 
 Halifax ; for the question of Authority leads naturally 
 to that of Reunion, and Reunion is the subject of Lord 
 Halifax's essay.
 
 REFORMATION AND REUNION 353 
 
 When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would 
 be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press 
 anything which he thought might promote it ; and, sitting 
 amongst his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent 
 sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ingeminate the word 
 Peace, Peace. 
 
 As Lord Falkland ingeminated Peace, so Lord 
 Halifax ingeminates Unity ; and in truth it is hardly 
 fanciful to trace some similarity between his character 
 and that of the high-souled Cavalier whom Clarendon 
 depicted, with his " inimitable sweetness and delight in 
 conversation," his " flowing and obliging humanity and 
 goodness to mankind," and his " primitive simplicity 
 and integrity of life." 
 
 Now, knowing Lord Halifax's intense convictions on 
 this subject of Reunion, I desire, even when I am con- 
 strained to differ from him, to treat his views with the 
 utmost sympathy and consideration. I begin therefore 
 by saying that I entirely concur in his sense of the 
 immense value of Unity among Christain people, and 
 the sacred duty of promoting it. No one who really 
 believes that our Lord uttered the words recorded in 
 St. John xvii. 20, 21, can feel otherwise. 
 But what is Christian Unity ? 
 
 It will, I suppose, be admitted on all hands that the 
 first condition of the Unity which our Lord desired for 
 His disciples is that Union with Himself by which alone 
 our fallen humanity can be restored and saved. A 
 common Union with the Head is the most potent 
 element of Unity among the members. But is this 
 enough to secure the absolute Unity for which our Lord 
 prayed ? 
 
 What saith the Scripture ? 
 
 To the " one God and Father," and " one Lord," and 
 " one faith," the Apostle adds " one Baptism," and, in 
 
 23
 
 354 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 another place, " one Bread." In other words, the Creed 
 and the Sacraments are the signs and means of Unity 
 among believers. And it would indeed be an enormous 
 addition to the ideal completeness of the Christian 
 Church, as well as to her practical power, if all who 
 hold the same creed could communicate together in 
 the same Eucharist. Intercommunion between different 
 Churches is indeed a consummation devoutly to be 
 wished. 
 
 But to some it seems that even this would not be 
 enough ; and they say or imply, with greater or less 
 distinctness, that, in order to realize Christian Unity 
 after our Lord's own Mind, all Christians must be 
 visibly united in one organization, governed by one 
 earthly Head, and that Head the Pope. Now, I do 
 not deny the theoretical attractiveness of this ideal of 
 the Christian Church ; but has it any warrant in 
 Scripture ? And how does it tally with the facts ? Do 
 we find after our Lord's Ascension the slightest trace 
 of a visible Head of the infant Church on earth ? Do 
 we not find, even in Apostolic days, Christian Churches 
 springing up in different localities, each with its in- 
 dependent life, and governed by no central authority ? 
 Do we not see distinct differences of teaching even 
 between one Apostle and another, on matters less than 
 vital ? And the Apostles, by mutual consent, taking 
 different departments of the human family under their 
 respective charge ? Does St. Paul's letter to the 
 Christians at Rome suggest that they had among them 
 an infallible guide in faith and morals ? Do St. Peter's 
 letters claim for their author the right to rule the 
 Universal Church ? In the Council of Jerusalem we 
 certainly see an instance of appeal, not to an individual, 
 but to a central body; but it is noteworthy that this 
 appeal is made, not on a question of vital doctrine, but
 
 REFORMATION AND REUNION 355 
 
 on a ceremonial observance of secondary importance. 
 And even if we infer from this instance (what, I think, 
 we have no right to infer) that it is a condition of 
 Christian Unity that all Christians should be ready to 
 refer their disputes to the judgment of one and the 
 same assembly, what becomes of the Papal claim ? It 
 might be conceivably, thongh fantastically, argued from 
 the precedent of the Council of Jerusalem, that the 
 visible head of the Church, and the presiding officer at 
 her Councils, must be the successor of St. James in the 
 See of Jerusalem ; but where does the Pope come in ? 
 For my own part, I am unable to recognize even that 
 Primacy of Peter which moderate Anglicans are some- 
 times ready to concede. St. Peter was indeed a con- 
 spicuous figure in the narrative of the New Testament, 
 but conspicuous, alas ! as much by shame as by honour. 
 I believe, with Chrysostom and Augustine and Cyril and 
 Leo, that the Rock on which the Church is built is the 
 fundamental truth of our Lord's Godhead, and that 
 Peter's outspoken testimony to this truth is the great 
 glory of his life, as it is the origin of his name. And, 
 of the two other so-called Petrine texts, I believe that 
 the one merely warned him of his fall, and the other 
 announced his restoration. 
 
 I know no proof that Peter had any headship over 
 the other Apostles (certainly he had none over St. Paul, 
 who " resisted him to the face because he stood con- 
 demned ") ; or that he ever was Bishop of Rome ; or 
 that he ever was at Rome ; or that, if ever he had been 
 Bishop there and had enjoyed any headship over the 
 rest of the Apostles, he transmitted that headship, or 
 had the power to transmit it, to his successors in the 
 Roman See. Something may, of course, be said for 
 every one of these notions ; but in the vital matters 
 of Christian faith, and the conditions of our spiritual
 
 356 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 life, we require something more substantial than an 
 ingeniously constructed system of assumptions and 
 conjectures. 
 
 And, turning from history to the actual state of the 
 present world, the Papal theory seems fatally at issue 
 with the facts. 
 
 When we look through or over the wall of the Western 
 Church, into the precincts of the Eastern, we seem to find 
 a living confutation of it. For there a vast body, nearly a 
 fourth of Christendom, has subsisted from the great Day 
 of Pentecost to our day, which not only does not enjoy, 
 but which denounces and condemns, the whole doctrine of 
 supremacy ; and which, under the old Patriarchal Constitution 
 of the Church, retains the Christian Faith entire, by the 
 acknowledgment of Rome herself, who invites, and invites 
 in vain, to her councils those unyielding Patriarchs of the 
 East. . . . 
 
 The score of millions of those Christians who inhabit the 
 Turkish Empire have for almost a corresponding tale of 
 generations enjoyed the highest of all honours : they have 
 been sufferers, for their faith. They have been its martyrs. 
 They alone have continuously filled that character. . . . 
 Ever since the Turkish hoof began to lay waste the Levant, 
 those twenty millions have had before them, on the one side 
 peace and freedom, on the other side the Gospel. They have 
 chosen the Gospel ; and have paid the forfeit. And, what- 
 ever be their faults and errors, it is not for us of the West, 
 amidst our ease and prosperity, our abundant sins and 
 scandals, to stigmatize them as professors of a dead or dying 
 Christianity, and thus to disparage the most splendid and 
 irrefragable perhaps of all the testimonies which man can 
 render to the Religion of the Cross. 1 
 
 No, assuredly the testimony of Eastern Christendom 
 is valid, and it is emphatic against the Papal claims. 
 
 But we have among us some who say : " We do not 
 concern ourselves about the Easterns. We admit that 
 they have strong ground. They stand where they did 
 
 1 Gladstone's " Gleanings," vol. iii., p. 257 seq.
 
 REFORMATION AND REUNION 357 
 
 before the great schism ; and we Westerns, who profess 
 the Filioque, stand on new ground. But there is no 
 need for further subdivision. Let us leave the East 
 alone, recognize the Pope as Head of the West, and 
 unite ourselves to him." 
 
 But what would be the conditions of such a surrender, 
 and what the resulting gain ? First, we should have to 
 admit that the Pope is infallible in matters of faith and 
 morals ; and I, for one, no more believe it than I believe 
 that the earth is square. We must abandon our secure 
 foothold on the Creeds and the Bible, for the varying 
 and perhaps inconsistent decisions of successive Popes. 
 We must exchange the characteristic virtues of the 
 Church of England an open Bible, a vernacular liturgy, 
 Communion in both kinds, freedom of marriage for the 
 clergy, freedom of Communion for the laity for the 
 opposite vices of the Roman system. And, in the region 
 of practical effort, we should renounce our passport to 
 the sympathies of the great Anglo-Saxon race, which 
 has, to all appearance, broken finally with Rome and 
 all that savours of her. 
 
 We come then to this. The headship of the Pope 
 is unsupported by Scripture or History ; is vehemently 
 repudiated by a great part of modern Christendom ; and 
 could not be accepted by us without grievous loss to 
 our spiritual privileges and opportunities. Is then the 
 cause of " Unity," as between the Church of England 
 and the Church of Rome, hopeless ? 
 
 If by " Unity " is meant Reunion, I neither expect 
 nor desire it. But Lord Halifax and his friends seem 
 to see another chance of Unity in a form which would 
 involve no compromising declarations by us. In plain 
 words, they think it conceivable that the Pope may 
 recognize the validity of English Orders, and all that 
 such validity implies. " Recognition," then, rather than
 
 358 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 " Reunion," is their immediate object. Now on this I 
 would briefly remark : 
 
 1. Lord Halifax, having discussed the matter in con- 
 fidential conversations with the Pope and other high 
 Roman authorities, is much better able than I am to 
 judge of the likelihood of this recognition ; but, for my 
 own part, I do not believe in it. We know that human 
 nature is very strong even in Cardinals ; it is part of 
 human nature to dislike being proved to be in the wrong ; 
 and this would be most conspicuously the case witli the 
 Anglo-Roman body if English Orders were pronounced 
 valid. My own belief, therefore, is that, whatever may 
 be the Pope's own sympathies, the Roman authorities in 
 England will fight tooth and nail against Recognition, 
 and will prevail. We have learned from Cardinal 
 Manning's Life that diplomacy and intrigue are not 
 unknown at the Vatican, and that Infallibility is often 
 subjected to a little judicious wire-pulling in order to 
 make its decisions conform with the prepossessions of 
 its environment. We must wait and see. 
 
 2. I entirely deny that the Pope and his Commission 
 of Cardinals, whether well or ill affected towards us, 
 have any power to decide for us whether our Orders 
 are valid or not. We are not believers in the Infallibility, 
 and on no other ground could the Pope's decision have 
 binding force. We can judge as well as he of the 
 historical facts of the case, and not less so of the 
 question whether the words and acts of the English 
 Ordinal comply with the requirements of our Lord. 
 
 3. Supposing, for argument's sake, that the Pope 
 decides that English Orders are valid, what is the 
 gain ? Some weak-kneed Anglicans might be comforted, 
 but people who need the Pope's comfort are better at 
 Rome. Romans could not communicate with us, nor 
 
 us to their altars, for we should still be, ex
 
 REFORMATION AND REUNION 359 
 
 hypothesi Romana, in a state of schism. Eome would 
 regard the Church of England as she now regards the 
 Oriental Churches, and I see no great gain in that. 
 I am told that there is a certain section of Anglicans 
 who long to submit to Rome, but cannot bring them- 
 selves to repudiate Anglican Orders and the Sacraments 
 by which they have lived. Well, certainly, if Rome 
 were to recognize our Orders, people of this class would 
 be able to betake themselves to Romanism without 
 disavowing their whole spiritual history. But this, 
 though it might be no great loss, can hardly be reckoned 
 as a gain. Although I do not expect the Pope to pro- 
 nounce in favour of our Orders, I still sincerely wish that 
 Lord Halifax's aspiration might be fulfilled. It would, 
 at any rate, have been an admission by Rome of what 
 we believe to be the truth ; it would tend to the increase 
 of Christian charity between two great Communions ; 
 and it might, in God's good Providence, do something 
 to accelerate the time when the separated branches of 
 the one great Christian family shall be able, without 
 surrendering their distinctive views of truth, to co-operate 
 for Christian ends. 
 
 More than this in the way of Unity I do not expect 
 to see ; and even this would be glaringly incomplete 
 if it did not include the great bodies of orthodox 
 Nonconformists. On that word orthodox I lay all 
 possible stress, for the great dividing-line between 
 religious truth and error is the doctrine of our Lord's 
 Godhead. Between all who accept it there must be 
 a vital union of heart and hope and worship, which 
 those who reject it, alas ! cannot share. 
 
 Henry Drummond, the Irvingite apostle, used to 
 say that religious people are commonly right in what 
 they affirm and wrong in what they deny. This saying 
 affords a good guide for our dealings with Nonconformist
 
 360 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Christians. They affirm the doctrines of the Holy 
 Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement of sin, 
 redemption, and grace ; and they are right. They affirm 
 that they administer a valid Baptism, and they are 
 right. They do not claim the Apostolic Succession, 
 conveying the power to consecrate the Eucharist and 
 to absolve the penitent; so we have no controversy 
 with them there. If they maintain that in their devout 
 celebration of the Memorial Feast they are spiritually 
 refreshed and strengthened, they speak that which 
 they know, and who is it that dare gainsay them ? 
 If, yearning for the blessings of an authenticated rite, 
 they present themselves for Communion at our altars, 
 " the English Church offers the Supernatural to all who 
 choose to come." If, on the other hand, they choose 
 to abide where they were placed by God's Providence 
 in birth and education, we, while devoutly thankful for 
 our different lot, can surely walk with them in charity 
 and mutual tolerance, and joint efforts for the objects 
 of the Christian Kingdom. After all, we must remember 
 that the Master promised, not " one fold," but " one 
 flock," under " One Shepherd," even Himself.
 
 THE MASS: PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 1 
 
 TO the February number of The Nineteenth Century 
 Mr. J. H. Round contributed a paper which was 
 called " The Elizabethan Religion," and which was 
 stated [in brackets] to be "in correction of Mr. George 
 Russell." If it had for its sub-title " In Display of 
 Erudition," it would not be ill described. To that 
 erudition I offer the homage of sincere respect. My 
 critic evidently is an historian. But it is only fair 
 to remark that he has had six months wherein to 
 acquire the information with which he belabours me ; 
 whereas present exigencies leave me scarcely as many 
 days for my reply. 
 
 Nor is this the only consideration which makes me 
 a little nervous in attempting to cope with Mr. Round. 
 I am apprehensive lest I should offend him by a mis- 
 placed levity. Sydney Smith remarks that " there is 
 nothing pompous gentlemen are so much afraid of as a 
 little humour." Mr. Birrell is not a pompous gentleman, 
 and has not the slightest objection to a joke in season ; 
 but Mr. Round is made of sterner stuff. It appears that 
 in my former paper I committed the offence of " making 
 merry," and of " feeling amused " ; nay, even, in one 
 gross instance, of putting a point " playfully." Now, 
 this is really very bad, and I must be careful not to 
 repeat in March the offensive pleasantry of July. 
 
 Mr. Round solemnly proclaims that there are three 
 
 1 The Nineteenth Century, 1897, 
 361
 
 362 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 ways in which his article may be met ridicule, silence, 
 and evasion. I shall presently try to show him a fourth. 
 In the meantime I shall equally forbear the three which 
 he has enumerated, if only he will allow me to pause 
 (just for a moment before we come to business) on 
 the damning sentence in which he dismisses my theory 
 of the Reformation : 
 
 The tide is bound to ebb. All that edifice of webs that 
 sophists have spun is doomed to be shattered and rent asunder, 
 even as Mr. Russell's amazing assertions vanish, in the light 
 of facts, like mists before the rising sun. 
 
 Here's richness ! as Mr. Squeers said of his pupils' 
 milk and water. Here is a noble confusion of poetic 
 imagery ! An ebbing tide and a rising sun an edifice 
 made of webs, and those webs spun by sophists ! Surely 
 since the days of " Satan " Montgomery we have had 
 nothing quite as good as this. Now, as then, 
 
 One great enchanter helmed the harmonious whole. 
 
 But in this case the enchanter is Mr. Round, and his 
 divinations demand an awful reverence. 
 
 Mr. Round's paper consists in great measure of 
 interesting extracts from historical records ; but these 
 extracts are not " in correction of Mr. George Russell," 
 for they neither affirm what I have denied nor deny 
 what I have affirmed. They amount to this : 
 
 (1) That at the Reformation there was a considerable 
 change in the religious beliefs and practice of England. 
 On this point I agree completely with Mr. Round. 
 
 (2) That the form of religion which was discarded 
 at the Reformation was " Poperie," or, more graphically, 
 " that sinck of errour and false doctrine of the Pope." 
 Exactly so. It was the repudiation of the Pope and 
 Popery which, as I said last July, was by far the most 
 important part of the English Reformation.
 
 THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 363 
 
 (3) That the English order of celebrating the Holy 
 Eucharist has, at and since the Reformation, been 
 largely and repeatedly modified. In this sentence I 
 purposely avoid the disputable word " Mass " ; but the 
 fact is too palpable to need stating. 
 
 (4) That the service of the Holy Eucharist, which 
 had, before the Reformation, been commonly called the 
 Mass, was after the Reformation generally called the 
 Communion or the Lord's Supper, and that the word 
 " Mass " was not revived in the Church of England till 
 the present reign. No one, I imagine, disputes this. 
 
 (5) That the stone altars which had been used before 
 the Reformation were generally destroyed ; that wooden 
 tables were generally substituted ; and that the de- 
 struction of sacred furniture was often attended with 
 shocking profanity and violence, both of act and speech. 
 This, again, is elementary knowledge. 
 
 So far, I think, we all are agreed, and Mr. Round's 
 citations only illustrate, with force and freshness, some 
 historical facts about which there is no dispute. But 
 scattered up and down among the citations are some 
 questions, statements, and inferences of a more con- 
 troversial sort. Let me take them one by one. 
 
 (a) Mr. Round adopts as his own two questions put 
 (in substance) by Mr. Birrell. First : " Was the 
 Reformation a break of the visible unity of the 
 Church ? " Second : " Has the English Church, as a 
 Church, after the Reformation continued to celebrate 
 the Mass after the same fashion and with the same 
 intention as before ? " My answer to the first question 
 is, Yes. The repudiation of the Pope's authority was 
 a " break of visible unity," because it severed the Church 
 of England from the rest of the Catholic Church in 
 Western Europe. My answer to the second question 
 is, No, The English Church has since the Reformation
 
 364 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 celebrated the Mass or Eucharist " after a fashion," 
 differing in some important respects from the " fashion " 
 which obtained before. Questions of intention are more 
 difficult to answer ; but, if the Church before the 
 Reformation celebrated Mass with the intention of a 
 sacrifice separate from, or additional to, or repetitory 
 of, the one Sacrifice on the Cross, then presumably the 
 Church since the Reformation has celebrated with a 
 different intention. 
 
 But, granting that both these answers of mine to 
 Mr. Round's queries are true, they involve no breach 
 with the past. The organic or structural continuity 
 of the Church of England is secured by the Episcopal 
 succession which neither Mr. Round, nor Mr. Birrell, 
 nor even Leo XIII. denies. A " break of unity " 
 with the contemporary and surrounding Church does 
 not make the Church of England a new, though 
 it may make her an isolated, body. And as to the 
 " fashion " and " intention " of her Eucharist, they do 
 not for a moment affect Its reality. This may be 
 illustrated from the case of the other great Sacrament 
 of the Gospel. There is a vast difference of " fashion " 
 between the immersion of an adult in a church and 
 the sprinkling of an infant in a sick-room ; but either 
 rite is Baptism. The intention of a Catholic priest is 
 to plant the seed of the New Life in the child whom 
 he baptizes : the intention of a Dissenting Minister 
 is merely to admit the child into the congregation 
 of the faithful. But either officiant, if he uses 
 the proper form and matter, administers a valid 
 Baptism. 
 
 (#) Mr. Round more than once takes me to task 
 because, in replying to Mr. Birrell, I said, " The Mass 
 is the service of the Holy Communion nothing more 
 and nothing less " ; and again, " The Reformers
 
 THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 365 
 
 regarded the words as synonymous." Mr. Round, 
 quivering with a just indignation, " hesitates to define " 
 these statements. He does well to keep silence even 
 from good words, until he has read what I have to 
 say in defence of my position. Among the " Reformers " 
 may, I presume, be reckoned the compilers of the 
 Prayer-book of 1549, and they set forth "The Supper 
 of the Lord, and the Holy Communion, commonly called 
 the Mass." Surely the men who framed this title 
 treated the three names as synonymous. They did 
 not purport to set forth (with reverence be it spoken) 
 a new Thing : but the former Thing under two new 
 names. To that which was commonly called the 
 Mass they gave the alternative names of the Supper 
 of the Lord and the Holy Communion, and those three 
 names were, in the strictest sense, synonymous. 
 
 Another Reformer not unknown to fame was Thomas 
 Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and he, when 
 arguing for the Protestant view of the Holy Eucharist 
 against Bishop Gardiner, 1 says : 
 
 When the old Fathers called the Mass or /Supper of the 
 Lord a sacrifice, they meant that it was a sacrifice of lauds 
 and thanksgiving (and so as well the people as the priest do 
 sacrifice), or else that it was a remembrance of the very 
 true sacrifice propitiatory of Christ. 
 
 Here, most certainly and strictly, "the Mass" and 
 the " Supper of the Lord " are used synonymously. 
 Again, Cranmer says : 
 
 The adversaries of Christ gather together a great heap 
 of authors which, as they say, call the Mass or Holy Com- 
 munion a sacrifice. But all those authors be answered unto 
 in this one sentence, that they call it not a sacrifice for sin 
 because that it taketh away our sin (which is taken away 
 only by the death of Christ), but because the Holy Communion 
 
 1 Reply to Gardiner, fifth book, c. 379.
 
 366 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 was ordained of Christ to put us in remembrance of the 
 sacrifice made by Him upon the Cross. For that cause it 
 beareth the name of that sacrifice. 1 
 
 Now for another excellent piece of divinity from the 
 same Reformer : 
 
 They, therefore, which gather of the doctors that the Mass 
 is a sacrifice for remission of sin, and that it is applied by 
 the priest to them for whom he saith and singeth, they which 
 so gather of the Doctors do to them most grievous injury 
 and wrong, most falsely belying them. For these monstrous 
 things were never seen nor known of the old and primitive 
 Church, nor there was not then in one Church many Masses 
 every day : but upon certain days there was a common table 
 of the Lord's Supper, where a number of people did together 
 receive the Body and Blood of the Lord ; but there were 
 then no daily private Masses where every priest received alone ; 
 like as until this day there is none in the Greek Churches, 
 but one common Mass in a day. Nor the holy Fathers of 
 the old Church would not have suffered such ungodly and 
 wicked abuses of the Lord's Supper. 2 
 
 Here it will be noticed that " a common table of the 
 Lord's Supper " is used as synonymous with " one 
 common Mass in a day." 
 
 Another divine, whom Mr. Round will surely admit 
 to have been a Reformer, is Bishop Ridley, and, when 
 formally charged with heresy September 30, 1555 
 it is instructive to note that, in his reply, he applies 
 the word " Communion " to that which in the charge 
 is called the " Mass," and this with no hint of a 
 distinction between the meanings of the two words. 
 
 Charge. That . . . thou hast openly affirmed, and obsti- 
 nately maintained, that in the Mass is no propitiatory sacrifice 
 for the quick and the dead. 
 
 Reply. Christ, as St. Paul writeth, made one perfect sacrifice 
 for the sins of the whole world, neither can any man reiterate 
 
 1 Reply to Gardiner, fifth book, c. 377. 
 1 Ibid., c. 378.
 
 THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 367 
 
 that sacrifice of His ; and yet is the Communion an acceptable 
 sacrifice to God of praise and thanksgiving. 
 
 Even more significant is the same Reformer's reply to 
 the theological proposition propounded to him at Oxford, 
 April 17, 1555 : 
 
 In the Mass the Passion of Christ is not in verity, but 
 in a mystery representing the same; yea, even there where 
 the Lord's Supper is duly administered. 
 
 Thus in Ridley's view the Lord's Supper is celebrated 
 in the Mass, and the Passion represented therein. So 
 much, then, for my outrageous assertion that the Mass 
 is the Holy Communion, and that the Reformers used 
 the terms synonymously. 
 
 In further illustration of the same points, it is not 
 irrelevant to cite the following answers to " certain 
 queries touching the abuses of the Mass " returned in 
 1548 by Cranmer and Ridley respectively : 
 
 The Mass, by Christ's institution, consisteth in those things 
 which be set forth in the Evangelists, Matt, xxvi., Mark xiv., 
 Luke xxii., 1 Cor. x. and xi. CRANMER. 
 
 I am not able to say that the Mass consisteth, by Christ's 
 institution, in other things than in those which be set forth 
 by the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in the Acts, 
 and in 1 Cor. x., xi. RIDLEY. 
 
 I think it not only convenient that such speech be used 
 in the Mass as the people might understand, but also to 
 speak it with such an audible voice that the people might 
 hear it, that they be not defrauded of their own. RIDLEY. 
 
 Here, as clearly as words can put it, the Mass is, 
 in the view of our leading Reformers, the Sacrament 
 ordained by Christ ; and the same point is further 
 illustrated by the fact that Gardiner, arguing on the 
 Roman side against Cranmer, uses the terms "the 
 Mass " and " the Holy Supper " as indiscriminately 
 as his opponent.
 
 368 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Some later instances of the use of the word " Mass " 
 may not be out of place. 
 
 1606. In this year Richard Field (Dean of Gloucester) 
 wrote, in controversy with Rome : 
 
 The celebration of the Holy Mystery and Sacrament of the 
 Lord's Body and Blood had the name of Mass, from the 
 dismissing of all non-communicants before the Consecration 
 began. 1 
 
 1659. In this year Henry Hammond, D.D., wrote, 
 in controversy with Rome : 
 
 The Protestants of the Church of England believe and 
 reverence, as much as any, the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, 
 as the most substantial and essential act of our Religion, 
 and doubt not but the word Mlssa, " Mass," hath fitly been 
 used by the Western Church to signifie it ; and herein abhor 
 or condemn nothing but the corruptions and mutilations 
 which the Church of Rome, without care of conforming them- 
 selves to the Universal, have admitted in the celebration. 2 
 
 1677. In this year died Isaac Barrow (Master of 
 Trinity College, Cambridge). On his death-bed he gave 
 to Archbishop Tillotson the manuscript of his " Treatise 
 of the Pope's Supremacy," which contains the following 
 question about the Roman practice : 
 
 Why is saying private Mass (or celebrating the Communion 
 in solitude) allowed? 3 
 
 1839. In this year James Martineau (Unitarian), 
 after denouncing our Office of Baptism, wrote as 
 follows : 
 
 The Office of Communion contains even stronger marks 
 of the same sacerdotal superstitions ; and, notwithstanding 
 
 1 "Of the Church," vol. ii., p. 10. 
 
 1 Works of Henry Hammond, vol. ii., p. 164. 
 
 3 Works of Isaac Barrow, vol. iii., p. 96.
 
 THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 369 
 
 the Protestant horror entertained of the Mass, approaches it 
 so nearly that no ingenuity can exhibit them in contrast. 1 
 
 1866. In this year Charles Merivale (Dean of Ely) 
 wrote as follows : 
 
 It is unlucky that the Ritualists have, as I apprehend, 
 both law and logic on their side. . . . The term Mass is 
 undoubtedly Edwardian and legal. 2 
 
 1859-1873. During these years Edward White 
 Benson (afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury) was 
 Master of Wellington College. One of assistant masters 
 the Rev. C. W. Penny wrote that, after he had 
 celebrated the Holy Communion for the first time, Dr. 
 Benson said to him : 
 
 I congratulate you on having celebrated your first Mass. 3 
 Mr. Penny adds : 
 
 At the time the word Mass jarred: upon my ears ; but 
 in view of subsequent events I think he used it deliberately 
 as it is used in the First Prayer-book of King Edward VI. 
 
 1877-1883. During these years Archbishop Benson 
 was Bishop of Truro ; and the following conversation 
 is recorded by the Rev. A. J. Mason, Lady Margaret 
 Professor of Divinity at Cambridge : 
 
 One day, walking up from Truro to Kenwyn, I was 
 urging the Bishop to use his efforts to procure the restoration 
 of Edward VI.'s First Prayer-book. . . . He sympathized 
 much with the desire, but saw, of course, the impossibility 
 of its accomplishment in present circumstances. The con- 
 versation ended in his saying, " Depend upon it, we have a 
 very good Mass; and we must mumble it." 4 
 
 Thus, by the mouth of Archbishop Cranmer in the 
 
 1 "Studies of Christianity," p. 51. 
 
 3 Autobiography of Dean Merivale, p. 362. 
 
 s Life of Archbishop Benson, vol. i., p. 174. 
 
 4 Ibid., vol. i., p. 480.
 
 370 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 sixteenth century and of his successor Archbishop 
 Benson in the nineteenth century, the Church of England 
 has affirmed the identity of the Mass and the Holy 
 Communion ; and, as Dr. Martineau discerned, " no 
 ingenuity can exhibit them in contrast." 
 
 1896. The conclusion of the whole matter was well 
 expressed by the present Bishop of Bristol (Dr. Browne) 
 when he said that 
 
 Mass was a good old English word, which there was no 
 harm in using. 1 
 
 (c) I learn from Mr. Round that I have authority with 
 " newspaper correspondents." I did not know it before, 
 but I take it as one of the results at which Mr. Round 
 has arrived in his six months' research. And it further 
 appears from his paper that my statements " represent 
 the attitude of a considerable school, which, having 
 brought into use the critical word ' altar,' so decisively 
 expunged at the Reformation, is now openly endeavour- 
 ing to do the same for ' Mass.' 5: 
 
 Surely Mr. Round here blinds himself, as Matthew 
 Arnold would have said, with the passions of an 
 extinct age. Does he really think that the " school " 
 which brought the word " altar " into common use 
 in England is still living and working ? If so, 
 indeed, there must be some unrecorded instances of 
 astounding longevity in this country, some mute, 
 inglorious Methuselahs, carrying down to the sixtieth 
 year of Queen Victoria the language and traditions 
 of the Caroline divines ! For at least two centuries 
 and a half the word " altar " has been widely used 
 and generally accepted, in the every-day parlance of 
 the Church of England, without the least distinction 
 of " high " and " low " theology. Have not our grand- 
 
 1 The Church fieview, November 19, 1896.
 
 THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 371 
 
 parents and great-grandparents communicated with 
 their " Companion to the Altar " in their hands ? l Have 
 not bride and bridegroom plighted their troth to one 
 another at "the village-altar"? 2 Have not our kings 
 been crowned at the " altar of Westminster Abbey " ? 3 
 Have not pious people of the strictest sect of the Evan- 
 gelicals " at the altar renewed their dedication " ? 4 
 
 For my own part, it seems to me a matter of great 
 indifference whether, following the writer to the Hebrews 
 and the general custom of the Western Church, we 
 speak of the Altar ; or whether, following St. Paul, 
 we speak of the Lord's Table ; or, with the Eastern 
 Churches, we speak of the Holy Table ; or, with the 
 Roman Gardiner, we " believe the very presence of 
 Christ's Body and Blood on God's Board." 5 
 
 The Prayer-book, we know, speaks both of the Holy 
 Table and of the Lord's Table ; and whether we 
 habitually say " Altar " or " Table," each word represents 
 one aspect of the truth. " To men, it is a sacred 
 Table, where God's minister is ordered to represent 
 from God his Master the Passion of His dear Son, as 
 still fresh and still powerful for their eternal salvation. 
 And to God it is an Altar, whereon men mystically 
 present to Him the same Sacrifice as still bleeding 
 and suing for mercy." 6 
 
 And so of the titles of That which is offered on 
 the Altar and dispensed from the Table. It is a 
 Sacrament in its binding force ; the Sacrament in its 
 pre-eminent honour ; the Lord's Supper in its sacred 
 memories ; the Communion in which many participate ; 
 the Eucharist in which all give thanks ; the Liturgy 
 
 1 Dean Comber. * Dean Stanley. 
 
 3 Tennyson. * Daniel Wilson. 
 
 5 Quoted in Cranmer's Reply, fifth book, c. 381. 
 
 6 Dr. Brevint in Preface to Wesley's " Hymns on the Lord's 
 Supper."
 
 372 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 which is onr " bounden duty and service." Or if, 
 discarding all these names of various and valuable 
 significance, we prefer to use one which is perfectly 
 colourless and indescriptive, it is the Mass which our 
 unreformed ancestors elaborately celebrated, and which 
 the Reformation stripped of its mediseval accretions. 
 
 (cT) I come now to the four points in which Mr. 
 Round has summed up the results of his research, and 
 which had better be given in his own words. 
 
 (1) That the " Mass" and its correlative, the "Altar," were 
 deliberately abolished and suppressed ; and that Catholics, 
 from prelates to laymen, were in no doubt whatever on the 
 point. 
 
 (2) That "Communion" was substituted for "Mass," and 
 " Table " for " Altar " (in practice, as in the Liturgy), the 
 latter change being made avowedly on the ground that " the 
 sacrifice of the Mass " had ceased. 
 
 (3) That the Ordinal (as is now familiar) was again altered 
 by deliberately excising the words conferring the power to 
 " offer sacrifice." 
 
 (4) That the Articles were made to harmonize precisely 
 with these changes, not only repudiating the doctrines asserted 
 so late as 1559 by the pre-Reformation Church of England 
 (as, indeed, by the whole Catholic Church), but even adding 
 (as the priest Raichoffsky cruelly observed to Mr. Palmer, 
 from the standpoint of the Eastern Church) " abusive 
 language." 
 
 Now, with the substance of these contentions I do not 
 in the main disagree, though I do not commit myself 
 to all Mr. Round's adverbs, nor to his charge against 
 " the whole Catholic Church." I agree that the word 
 " Mass " soon passed out of the use in which the great 
 Reformers had employed it, as a synonym for Holy 
 Communion, and that it came to mean the Roman 
 Mass only. I agree that the Roman Mass was made 
 unlawful, and, as far as might be, " suppressed." I
 
 THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 373 
 
 agree that the material things called " Altars " were 
 displaced or destroyed. I agree that the Holy Eucharist 
 was commonly called the Communion, instead of, as 
 aforetime, the Mass. I agree that the Ordinal was 
 altered by the excision of the words expressly conferring 
 the power to offer sacrifice. I agree that the Articles 
 were made to harmonize with these changes, and that 
 they contain strong language about the errors of 
 Romanism. 
 
 So far I can accompany Mr. Round, but no farther ; 
 and from the conclusions which he draws from the 
 facts, I respectfully dissent. We are not the slaves 
 of words. The fact if it be a fact that the word 
 " Mass " was dropped, and the word " Communion " 
 generally substituted for it as the title of the Holy 
 Eucharist when celebrated in the Church of England, 
 did not, and could not, affect the question whether the 
 Thing done under the two names remained after the 
 Reformation the same as before. In our judgment 
 it did, for the Sacramental conditions laid down by 
 the Divine Founder were scrupulously continued, and 
 where there are a priest, the elements, and the Words 
 of Consecration, there, according to our belief, are the 
 conditions of a valid Eucharist, or Communion, or 
 Liturgy, or Mass. 
 
 But if we are not the slaves of words, still less are 
 we the slaves of inanimate objects. Mr. Round lays 
 prodigious stress on the fact that the material altars 
 were destroyed. But if every altar in Christendom were 
 burnt to ashes, the Mass would remain untouched. It 
 is not the altar that makes the sacrifice, but the 
 sacrifice the altar ; and whether the Lord's Supper is 
 celebrated under the dome of St. Peter's, or on the 
 Holy Table of Moscow, or on a stone slab in the 
 catacombs, or on a boulder of the Alps, or by a
 
 374 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 sick-bed in a workhouse infirmary, the sacred Reality 
 is the same. 
 
 With respect to the changes in the Ordinal, it is 
 enough to say that words which were not necessary for 
 the institution of the Christian priesthood cannot be 
 necessary for its continuance. According to our belief, 
 the Commemorative Sacrifice inheres in the celebration 
 of the Eucharist ; and he who receives the Apostolic 
 commission to administer the Sacraments, receives ipso 
 facto the power to offer the Sacrifice. 
 
 As respects the anti-Roman language of the Articles, 
 it partakes, no doubt, of the controversial vehemence of 
 the time, but the theological judgment which it ex- 
 presses I believe to be strictly appropriate to the errors 
 with which it deals. 
 
 (<?) My last remark leads me, by a natural transition, 
 to enquire what were the errors, of faith and practice, 
 connected with the Holy Eucharist, which the Reformers 
 were trying to combat when they made their changes 
 in the Liturgy, formularies, and structural arrangements 
 of the Church of England ? 
 
 The answer is, to my mind, perfectly clear. Accord- 
 ing to Scriptural and primitive theology, the Sacrament 
 of the Lord's Supper consisted of Communion and 
 Commemoration. As Communion, it was the necessary 
 and constant food of the spiritual life. As Commemora- 
 tion, it represented before the Eternal Father the one 
 Sacrifice which was once for all offered on the Cross, 
 which could never be anticipated and never repeated, 
 and which alone is " meritorious." 
 
 The mediaeval Church, on the other hand, if not by 
 authoritative judgment, at any rate in working practice, 
 had come almost to disregard the primary idea of 
 Communion ; had substituted for it a vicarious and 
 solitary Sacrifice ; had commonly regarded that Sacrifice
 
 THE MASS : PRIMITIVE AND PROTESTANT 375 
 
 as a reiteration, new at each celebration, of the Atoning 
 Death ; and had surrounded it with a cloud of super- 
 stitious theory and mercenary practice. 
 
 Hence the honest indignation of the Reformers against 
 the Mass as actually taught and used by Roman 
 authority. In denouncing it, some of them employed 
 language of even brutal violence, and seemed to con- 
 found the use with the abuse, and the Mystery itself 
 with the errors which had encrusted it. But the more 
 orthodox, learned, and authoritative men for example, 
 Oranmer and Ridley hold language as remarkable for 
 its theological temperateness as for its Evangelical 
 fervour towards the one Sacrifice of the Cross. Let 
 two citations from Cranmer and two from Ridley 
 suffice: 
 
 These private masses sprang up of late years, partly through 
 the ignorance and superstition of unlearned monks and friars, 
 which knew not what a sacrifice was, but made of the 
 Mass a sacrifice propitiatory to remit both sin and the pain 
 due for the same ; but chiefly they sprang of lucre and gain, 
 when priests found the means to sell masses to the people, 
 which caused masses so to increase that every day was said 
 an infinite number. 1 
 
 The oblation and sacrifice of Christ in the Mass is not so 
 called because Christ indeed is there offered and sacrificed by 
 the priest and the people (for that was done but once by 
 Himself upon the Cross), but it is so called because it is a 
 memory and representation of that very true sacrifice and 
 immolation which before was made upon the Cross. 2 
 
 The whole substance of our sacrifice, which is frequenjed 
 of the Church in the Lord's Supper, consisteth in prsfyer, 
 praise, and giving of thanks, and in remembering and in 
 showing forth of that sacrifice once offered upon the altar 
 of the Cross : that the same might continually be had in 
 reverence by mystery, which once only and no more was 
 offered for the price of our redemption. 3 
 
 1 Cranmer, Reply to Gardiner, fifth book, c. 379. 
 3 Cranmer, Answers to " Queries " (1548). 
 3 Ridley, Disputation at Oxford, p. 211.
 
 376 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 The representation and commemoration of Christ's death 
 and passion, said and done in the Mass, is called the sacrifice, 
 oblation, or immolation of Christ, Non rei veritate (as learned 
 men do write) sed signiftcandi mysterio. 1 
 
 (/) What, then, is the conclusion of the whole 
 matter ? It is that the Church of England has main- 
 tained, through the succession of her bishops, an 
 unbroken continuity from the landing of Augustine till 
 the present day. At the Reformation some changes, 
 admittedly of great importance whether for good or 
 evil, were made in her doctrines and practices. But 
 these no more affect her continuous life and claims than 
 the fact that the House of Howard was formerly Whig 
 and now is Tory affects the continuity of the dukedom 
 of Norfolk and the ownership of Arundel Castle. And, 
 as respects the changes themselves, I submit that the 
 Reformers who made them were scrupulously careful to 
 guide themselves (in Cranmer's words) by " the collation 
 of Holy Scripture and the sayings of the old holy Catholic 
 authors " ; and the result of this care is that the 
 English formularies, while purged of medievalism, are 
 strictly consonant with the words of Scripture and the 
 practice of the early Church. I have ventured to call 
 this paper " The Mass : Primitive and Protestant ; " and 
 I have done so because I wished to bring out the 
 fact that the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice (as 
 corrected, but not abolished, at the Reformation) has its 
 recognized place in Protestant as well as in Primitive 
 theology. John Wesley, William Law, Daniel Wilson, 
 Samuel Wilberforce, and Henry Drummond taught a 
 doctrine which they had inherited, though perhaps un- 
 consciously, from St. Clement, St. Ignatius, St. Cyprian, 
 St. Cyril, and St. Augustine. 
 
 1 Ridley, Answers to "Queries" (1548).
 
 RITUALISM AND DISESTABLISHMENT 1 
 
 MY old friend Sir William Harconrt, finding his 
 services at a discount in the State, has generously 
 assumed the supreme government of the Church. It 
 is clearly a case of Atavism. The spirit of an archi- 
 episcopal grandfather has revived in him. He speaks ex 
 cathedra to his suffragans, to the parish-priests, and to 
 their flocks. He warns the Bishops fairly that, if they 
 neglect their duty, he will find means of making them 
 do it, and he visits the offences of the clergy with 
 rebukes which, if they are not exactly weighty, are at 
 least ponderous. To the laity he shows a less severe 
 countenance. For us, discipline is tempered by kindness, 
 and insults are exchanged for a sort of lumbering 
 pleasantry. Milton had this kind of thing in his mind 
 when, depicting the joys of our first parents, he said 
 that one of the most respectable members of the animal 
 creation 
 
 To make them mirth used all his might, and wreathed 
 His lithe proboscis. 
 
 Well, in this spirit of innocuous glee Sir William 
 has recently bestowed oh me the title of " Prolocutor 
 of the Catholic Revival." I feel that I have no claim 
 to any snch honourable style. In the present controversy 
 I represent no one and speak for no one but myself. 
 Belonging to no ecclesiastical party, but having points 
 
 1 The Nineteenth Century, 1899. 
 377
 
 378 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 of contact with several, I am concerned for the spiritual 
 welfare and efficiency of the Church of England as a 
 whole. I am not going to argue about the u nicely- 
 calculated less or more " of ritual. The Prayer-book 
 is the guide of English worship ; and I must leave 
 the interpretation of ambiguous rubrics to experts in 
 liturgical study. It is interesting to see the conster- 
 nation of a Low Churchman like Canon Fleming, who 
 has cried out for discipline, when his bishop forbids 
 him to mutilate the Communion Service ; but English- 
 men love fair play ; and, if the Bishops deal out an even- 
 handed justice to excess and to defect, even Ritualists 
 will not be inclined to quarrel with their rulings. 
 
 The real interest of the present controversy lies much 
 deeper than these externals. The circumstances of 1874 
 are reproduced with perfect exactness. Now, as then, 
 there is an attack, through ritual, on doctrine ; and 
 an attack on doctrine, or on the ritual which expresses 
 it, may go far towards disestablishing the Church of 
 England. Mr. Gladstone wrote in 1874 : 
 
 Unhappily, men of no small account announce that they 
 care not for the sign, but must deal with the Thing Signified. 
 They desire the negation by authority of the doctrine of the 
 Real Presence of our Lord and Saviour Christ, and of the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice negations which again are synonymous 
 with the disruption of the English Church. 1 
 
 The citation sufficiently indicates the line of thought 
 which in this paper I wish to pursue. I propose to 
 consider the recent disputes and the impending struggles 
 in their bearing on Disestablishment. For this purpose 
 it is necessary to look back upon the history of the 
 Church of England, and to draw from the lessons of the 
 past some guidance for the present and some light for 
 the future. I write as a consistent and lifelong advocate 
 
 1 " Gleanings," vol. vi., p. 172.
 
 RITUALISM AND DISESTABLISHMENT 379 
 
 for the severance of Church and State. I address 
 myself, of course, to opponents as well as friends ; 
 but I hope that I may begin by assuming a certain 
 amount of common ground. All my readers will agree 
 in repudiating the old-fashioned doctrine, derived, 1 
 think, from Mrs. Markham and the other historians 
 of our youth, that the Church of England was created 
 and endowed by Henry VIII. at a period of time 
 vaguely known as " the Reformation." From Mrs. 
 Markham we may appeal to Professor Freeman, who 
 thus described the birth and growth of the Church in 
 this country : 
 
 The conversion of England took place gradually when there 
 was no such thing as an English nation capable of a national 
 act. The land was still cut up into small kingdoms, and Kent 
 had been Christian for some generations at a time when 
 Sussex still remained heathen. 
 
 And again : 
 
 The churches of Canterbury and Rochester undoubtedly held 
 lands while men in Sussex still worshipped Woden. 
 
 Establishment was a gradual process. The Church 
 grew up with our national life, and the present Archbishop 
 of Canterbury is the direct descendant of Augustine and 
 Cranmer. But though we cannot lay our finger on a par- 
 ticular year and say, " This year the Church was estab- 
 lished," still it may be fairly said that the legal privilege 
 and prescription of the Church of England reached their 
 height about the beginning of this century ; and I shall 
 not be wrong, perhaps, in taking 1818 as the high-water 
 mark, for that year was the year in which Parliament 
 voted a million sterling to the building and endowment 
 of churches in populous places. It was the last great 
 act of Endowment. If I may take that year as 
 representing the high-water mark of prescription and 
 privilege, it is interesting to see how soon the process
 
 380 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 of Disestablishment began. The late Bishop of Ely, 
 Dr. Woodford, addressing his clergy in 1881, said, 
 " Disestablishment has been proceeding for the last fifty 
 years." First, in 1828, there was the repeal of the Test 
 and Corporation Acts ; second, there was Roman Catholic 
 emancipation ; third, the alteration of the marriage law, 
 permitting Dissenters to be married in their own chapels ; 
 fourth, the withdrawal of matrimonial and testamentary 
 jurisdictions from the ecclesiastical courts. Then came 
 a most epoch-making change the establishment of the 
 Ecclesiastical Commission, which for the first time 
 treated the properties of sees as a whole and placed 
 them under lay-administration. Subsequently came the 
 abolition of Church-Rates ; the admission of Dissenters, 
 first to membership, and then to office, in the Universities ; 
 and the concession to Dissenters of the right to bury their 
 dead with their own services in national churchyards : 
 
 Many of these changes [said Bishop Woodford] were, in my 
 opinion, just ; others rendered necsesary by the diversity of 
 religious creeds. But beyond doubt all wei-e steps in the 
 dissolution of the union between the Church and the State. 
 And, indeed, it has been a most gracious providence which has 
 thus spread the process over half a century. Hereby the 
 Church has been allowed time to quicken her spiritual 
 energies to strengthen the things which remained and were 
 ready to die. During this whole period she has been learning, 
 under the Divine hand, to stand alone. 1 
 
 I turn now, from the acts by which the State has 
 loosened its connexion with the Church, to the movement 
 inside the Church in favour of Disestablishment. 
 
 The Church's impatience of the State's control may be 
 said to date from the Oxford Movement of 1833. That 
 movement was started as a counter-move to the secular 
 Liberalism which, by suppressing Irish bishoprics and 
 warning the Church of England to set her house in 
 1 Charge to the Diocese of Ely, 1881.
 
 RITUALISM AND DISESTABLISHMENT 381 
 
 order, had seemed to lay its sacrilegious hand upon 
 the sacred ark. The doctrine that the Church and the 
 State were separate entities, bound together by a mutual 
 alliance, but each possessing functions and prerogatives 
 of its own, was not, indeed, new as a matter of abstract 
 theory. John Wesley taught that " the establishment 
 by Constantine was a gigantic evil." 1 In later days 
 the spiritual independence of the Church in its own 
 sphere was maintained by isolated High Churchmen 
 of the old school, such as Bishop Horsley, Archdeacon 
 Daubeny, Oxlee, Wrangham, and Sikes of Guilsborough ; 
 but this claim had been, for practical purposes, lost 
 in the all-pervading and all-subduing Erastianism of 
 the time. The Oxford Movement was, in one of its 
 most important aspects, an attempt to recall men's 
 minds to the conception of the Church of England as 
 a spiritual society, holding its essential constitution 
 direct from Christ, and only accidentally allied with 
 the secular State. This view of the Church appealed 
 to spiritually -minded Churchmen quite outside the ranks 
 of the Tract-writers, or even the Tract-readers. Whately 
 had taught it in the " Letters of an Episcopalian," seven 
 years before the first Tract was published, and Cardinal 
 Newman received it from him. The biography of Dr. 
 Samuel Butler, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, gives 
 an interesting letter in which Dr. Hook, then Vicar of 
 Coventry, maintains this view, with characteristic force, 
 against the traditional Erastianism of his diocesan. 
 Some of the more ardent spirits of the Movement 
 such as Hurrell Froude felt the galling fetters of 
 Establishment with special keenness ; and, generally 
 speaking, the attitude of the Oxford writers and those 
 who sympathized with them was that of 
 
 Watching, not dreading, the despoiler's hand. 
 
 1 See the "Minutes of Conference," 1747.
 
 382 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Their prevailing sentiment was expressed by the " Lyra 
 Apostolica " : 
 
 The Church shone brightly in her youthful days, 
 
 Ere the world on her smiled ; 
 So now, an outcast, she would pour her rays, 
 
 Keen, free, and undefiled. 
 Yet would I not that arm of force were mine 
 Which thrusts her from her awful, ancient shrine, 
 
 The foundation of the Jerusalem Bishopric (which 
 helped to " break " Cardinal Newman), the elevation 
 of Dr. Hampden to the Episcopate, the selection of a 
 Lutheran to be godfather to the Prince of Wales, the 
 Gorham Judgment, which imperilled the doctrine of 
 Baptismal Regeneration all these were incidents which 
 showed that the Church of England was powerless in the 
 grasp of the State, and each event produced in turn 
 a disheartening and disturbing effect on Churchmen who 
 had believed in and clung to the spiritual aspect of 
 their Church. Our loss by mere secession to Rome 
 cannot be lightly estimated. Cardinal Newman drew 
 after him, as Mr. Gladstone has said, " the third part 
 of the stars of Heaven." And Rome was not the 
 only communion which profited by our troubles. The 
 Plymouth Brethren, the Irvingites, the various Non- 
 conformist sects, all received recruits, who had been 
 driven out by the overmastering Erastianism of the 
 Established Church. The wrecks of Anglicanism lay 
 on every shore. But it is remarkable that, in that 
 day of rebuke and blasphemy, when the pretensions of 
 the secular authority were becoming intolerable, and when 
 men who believed in a spiritual Church were turning 
 hither and thither to find it, there seems to have been 
 a general feeling that only two courses were open to 
 English Churchmen departure to some other com- 
 munion, or meek acquiescence in existing conditions.
 
 BITUALISM AND DISESTABLISHMENT 383 
 
 The idea of remaining in the Church, and at the same 
 time endeavouring to cut the cords which bound her 
 to the chariot- wheels of the State, if it entered into 
 anyone's mindj took no practical shape. 
 
 The Gorham Judgment was delivered in 1850. In 
 1851 Mr. Gladstone addressed to the Bishop of Aberdeen 
 an Open Letter " On the Functions of Laymen in the 
 Church," 1 which, in the judgment of at least one 
 competent critic, Bishop Charles Wordsworth, " contained 
 the germ of Liberation and the political equality of 
 all religions." In the same year was founded the " Guild 
 of St. Alban," a remarkable association of lay Church- 
 men bound by rules of common life and devotion, of 
 whose objects one was " to support the independence of 
 the Church in purely spiritual matters against the 
 interference of the civil ruler." 
 
 Meanwhile, the movement for the revival of Con- 
 vocation was proceeding. Mr. Gladstone, claiming self- 
 government for the Church, wrote : 
 
 It is neither Disestablishment, nor even loss of dogmatic 
 truth, which I look upon as the greatest danger before us, 
 but it is the loss of those elementary principles of right 
 and wrong on which Christianity itself must be built. The 
 present position of the Church of England is gradually ap- 
 proximating to the Erastian theory, that the business of an 
 establishment is to teach all sorts of doctrines and to provide 
 Christian ordinances by way of comfort for all sorts of people, 
 to be used at their own option. It must become, if uncorrected, 
 in lapse of time a thoroughly immoral position. Her case 
 seems as if it were like that of Cranmer, to be disgraced first, 
 and then burned. ... I feel certain that the want of 
 combined and responsible ecclesiastical action is one of the 
 main evils, and that the regular duty of such action will 
 tend to check the spirit of Individualism, and to restore that 
 belief in a Church which we have almost lost. 2 
 
 1 "Gleanings," vol. vi., p. 1. 
 
 * Life of Bishop Wilberforce, vol. ii., p. 353.
 
 384 
 
 Convocation was formally restored in 1852, and each 
 succeeding session brought some slight increase of 
 activity. It was " the day of small things," indeed ; 
 but the mere habit of meeting, consulting, and debating 
 on topics, however trivial, connected with the well-being 
 of the Church seems to have educated bishops and 
 clergy, not, indeed, to the point, or anywhere near the 
 point, of desiring emancipation from the State ; but, at 
 any rate, to a clearer conception of the Church as a 
 spiritual society, with a life and a constitution of its 
 own. A powerful impulse to these independent leanings 
 was supplied by the Divorce Act of 1857, which, for the 
 first time, set the law of the State in flat opposition to 
 the law of the Church. The Judgment of the Judicial 
 Committee on the " Essays and Reviews " created pro- 
 found uneasiness. The case of Bishop Colenso showed 
 the impotence of the Church to acquit itself of complicity 
 in heresy ; and the ecclesiastical rule of that jovial 
 old heathen, Lord Palmerston, with its shameless 
 onesidedness in ecclesiastical patronage, drove earnest 
 Churchmen to the conclusion that the Establishment 
 was not an unmixed blessing. On Mr. Gladstone's 
 rejection by the University of Oxford at the General 
 Election of 1865, Dr. Pusey wrote to a triumphant Tory : 
 
 We have questions before us, compared with which that of 
 the Establishment (important as it is in respect to the posses- 
 sion of our parish churches) is as nothing. The grounds 
 alleged against Mr. Gladstone bore, at the utmost, upon the 
 Establishment. The Establishment might perish, and the 
 Church might come forth the purer. If the Church were 
 corrupted, the Establishment would become a curse in pro- 
 portion to its influence. 
 
 Two years later Bishop Wilberforce wrote : " I am 
 often tempted to believe that the days of our Estab- 
 lishment are numbered and few." In 1867 the first
 
 RITUALISM AND DISESTABLISHMENT 385 
 
 Pan-Anglican Conference met, and gave an object-lesson 
 in the vigorous life and keen spirituality of the 
 Free Churches of the Anglican communion. In 1868 
 the abolition of compulsory Church-Rates gave a 
 fresh impetus to Disestablishment. Even Dr. C. J. 
 Vaughan, the least excitable of men, published a 
 sermon 1 anticipating it. The great Act of 1869, by 
 organizing the Irish Church as a free Church, with a 
 self-governing constitution of its own, set English 
 Churchmen seriously thinking on the possible advantages 
 of such a system, and the duty of being prepared for 
 a similar change in their own circumstances. Bishop 
 Moberly's important Bampton Lectures, 2 published in 
 1868 and republished in 1869, forced these topics on 
 the consideration of High Churchmen. I was only 
 sixteen years old ; but looking back upon that time, my 
 impression is that the great bulk of the young High 
 Churchmen, then just coming to be called Ritualists, 
 were favourable to Irish Disestablishment, and that a 
 very considerable number of them desired to extend the 
 process to England. 
 
 That was the heyday of Ritualism, and its warmest 
 friends must now concede that its zeal was not always 
 according to knowledge. Protestant feeling was roused. 
 The law was invoked. Prosecutions touching ritual, and, 
 through ritual, doctrine, were set on foot. There was a 
 resolute and concerted move, backed by a great deal of 
 money, and not discountenanced by authority, to drive 
 the Ritualists out of the Church. In May, 1873, a band 
 of Ritualistic clergymen, some 400 in number, presented 
 a petition to the Upper House of Convocation praying 
 that, in view of the increasing use of Confession, the 
 
 1 " Prospects of the Church of England." 
 
 3 "The Administration of the Holy Spirit in the Body of 
 Christ." 
 
 25
 
 386 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 Bishops would license " duly qualified confessors." 
 Apparently the petitioners only felt what the Arch- 
 bishop of York now feels about the inexpediency of 
 promiscuous resort to young and inexperienced priests. 
 But the petition created a really splendid storm. Dear 
 old Lord Shaftesbury detected a fatal parallelism 
 between the number of the signatories and the four 
 hundred prophets which ate at Jezebel's table ! At a 
 meeting at Exeter Hall the petition was denounced as 
 a " foul rag stained with all the pollutions of the Red 
 Lady of Babylon " ; and a Conservative M.P. wrote : 
 " I look upon the Confessional as the masterpiece of 
 Satan in enslaving the souls of men." At this crisis the 
 great promoter of moderate and healing counsels, the 
 great dissuader from violence and extremities, was 
 Bishop Wilberforce. He died in July, 1873. Mr. 
 Gladstone, notoriously not unfriendly to the Ritualistic 
 movement, was hurled from power by the General 
 Election of 1874. Archbishop Tait, a Presbyterian at 
 heart and an Erastian through and through, now had it 
 all his own way, and was supported by a Semitic Prime 
 Minister. The immediate result was the Public Worship 
 Regulation Act of 1874. " This," said Lord Beaconsfield, 
 rudely exposing the naked truth, which the Archbishops 
 and their henchmen had studiously concealed " this 
 is a Bill to put down Ritualism." It was really, as 
 Mr. Gladstone saw, an attack, through the sign, on 
 the Thing Signified ; and then, for the first time, a 
 loud cry went up from within the Church in favour of 
 Disestablishment. " Turn the Bishops out of Parliament. 
 Take our endowments, deal with our legal privileges as 
 you will ; but set us free to order our own ceremonial, and 
 deliver us from the tyranny of a secular Parliament and 
 the paternal attentions of the ex-Divorce Judge." Mr. 
 Mackonochie published a draft Act of Disestablishment.
 
 RITUALISM AND DISESTABLISHMENT 387 
 
 Even that staunchest of pre- Adamite Tories, Archdeacon 
 Denison, joined the movement for Liberation. 
 
 In 1876 the Eastern Question kindled a flame of 
 national indignation, and eighteen months later there 
 was the most imminent danger that Christian England 
 would be committed to a war on behalf of the great anti- 
 Christian Power. Some splendid exceptions there were, 
 but the great bulk of the Established clergy supported 
 Lord Beaconsfield and the Turk ; and many sober 
 Churchmen who had never before concerned themselves 
 with Disestablishment began to ask themselves what 
 was the good of maintaining an Establishment if the 
 authorized teachers of religion thus threw their weight 
 on to the immoral and anti-Christian side. 
 
 The General Election of 1880 was immediately followed 
 by the Burials Act of the Liberal Government. The 
 parochial clergy were thrown into paroxysms of wrath 
 and alarm. The most extravagant protests poured 
 into Lambeth Palace from the rural parsonages ; and 
 one rector announced that he had provided pitchforks to 
 repel the first Nonconformist funeral which should invade 
 his churchyard. 1 When all the hubbub had died down, 
 that eminently reasonable Churchman, Bishop Woodford, 
 reminded his diocese that this Burials Act, which he 
 disapproved and had opposed, was only one more step 
 in the long process of gradual Disestablishment. The 
 completion of that process he dreaded, and would delay 
 as long as might be. But, he added : 
 
 The establishment of the Church may be purchased at too 
 dear a cost. It would be a fatal error, in our eagerness 
 to preserve the Establishment, to peril one jot or tittle of 
 the doctrine or discipline of the Catholic Church. 2 
 
 Meanwhile, the foundations of the Establishment 
 
 1 See Archbishop Tait's Life, vol. ii., p. 407. 
 * Charge to the Diocese of Ely, 1881.
 
 388 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 were rudely shaken by a very different set of machina- 
 tions. The ritual prosecutions, undertaken under Arch- 
 bishop Tait's much-loved Public Worship Regulation 
 Act, proved, some abortive, some scandalous, and all 
 futile. The cry of 1874 was heard again : " Let us 
 settle our own worship in our own way. If Parliament, 
 as the condition of Establishment, sets the Divorce 
 Judge to arrange our Eucharistic ritual, let us have 
 done with Establishment." And ordinary citizens 
 outside the Church began to say, " These fanatics are 
 no concern of ours. Why should Parliament, or Law- 
 Courts, or Ministers of State be occupied with their 
 futilities ? Let them go their own way, and cease from 
 worrying." At the end of 1882 Archbishop Tait 
 attempted on his death-bed to undo the work of his 
 lifetime, and to obtain toleration for the Ritualists 
 whom he had vainly tried to exterminate. Some hocus- 
 pocus arrangements, by which Mr. Mackonochie was 
 transferred from St. Alban's, Holborn, to St. Peter's, 
 London Docks, were dignified by the name of the 
 " Great Archbishop's Legacy of Peace." For a while 
 excitement subsided, and a holy calm diffused itself 
 through the breasts of those dignitaries whose first 
 article of faith is, I believe in an Established Church. 
 This peace was rudely dispelled by the prosecution of the 
 Bishop of Lincoln ; and then Archbishop Benson, who had 
 a keen eye for ecclesiastical politics, saw his opportunity. 
 The Lambeth Judgment vindicated moderate Ritualism, 
 and was supported by the Judicial Committee, which, 
 according to persistent rumour, had been " squared " 
 before the judgment was pronounced. The success of 
 the manoauvre was for the time complete, and ritual 
 prosecutions ceased. With the cessation of prosecutions 
 came a cessation of the cry from within the Church in 
 favour of Disestablishment. Delivered from perpetual
 
 RITUALISM AND DISESTABLISHMENT 389 
 
 worry, the High Church clergy settled down upon the 
 lees of a complacent optimism. The fetters of the 
 State no longer galled, and at any rate the loaves 
 and fishes were safe. The attempt to disestablish the 
 Welsh Church in 1895 was stoutly opposed by the 
 clergy of all schools. Things were well as they were. 
 Why not let them alone ? But during the last four 
 years this agreeable calm has been again disturbed, and 
 this time by more serious forces. 
 
 In 1882 that shrewd observer, Archbishop Magee, 
 wrote : 
 
 Whenever the State treats, and requires the Church to treat, 
 as married those whom, the Church declares to be not married 
 or marriageable, then will come a strain that will snap or 
 go near snapping the links that bind Church and State. 1 
 
 What Archbishop Magee foresaw came to pass. The 
 law of Christian Marriage was ostentatiously violated 
 by legal authority, and the Episcopate, agreeably to the 
 politic precedent of old Brer Rabbit, u lay low and said 
 nuffin'." The consciences of Churchmen were pro- 
 foundly stirred by this profanation of a chief Mystery 
 of the Gospel, and by the enforced use of the most 
 sacred words in a non-natural sense. Again priests and 
 laymen began to cry out that, if such scandals are 
 inseparable from Establishment, it would be better to 
 break the link and go free. 
 
 This was the condition of things at the beginning of 
 1898, when, to quote the Church Times, 
 
 nothing seemed less probable than a recrudescence of that 
 ignorant and violent Protestantism which obtained in the 
 years when the Public Worship Regulation Act had not 
 yet been relegated to obscurity. But Churchmen were soon 
 to be undeceived. Early in the year a Protestant bookseller, 
 
 1 Life of Archbishop Magee, vol. ii., p. 169.
 
 390 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 who had long been endeavouring to get the public to take 
 him seriously, rented an office in the parish of St. Ethelburga, 
 Bishopsgate, in order that he might be legally qualified to 
 communicate at the parish altar, and be in a position to 
 disturb the united congregation which worshipped there. 
 Firm and tactful treatment saved the situation ; but Mr. 
 Kensit soon sought further notoriety by violently interrupting 
 the service of the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday 
 at St. Cuthbert's, Philbeach Gardens. 
 
 The outrage of St. Cuthbert's was followed by similar 
 performances notably at St. Michael's, Shoreditch, and 
 St. Thomas's, Liverpool ; but decent Evangelicals soon 
 became disgusted with their champion and his methods. 
 It was found impossible to maintain the reign of 
 terror, and the promising scheme of a thousand riots in 
 as many churches on the first Sunday in November was 
 abandoned as impracticable. The conflict now became 
 a war of words. That stout champion of Erastianism 
 and other lost causes, Sir William Harcourt, renewed 
 his youth like an eagle, and flew into the fray. His 
 last achievement in this field had occurred during the 
 debates on the Public Worship Regulation Bill in 1874, 
 when Mr. Gladstone inflicted on him a deserved and 
 memorable castigation. The ground of Mr. Gladstone's 
 hostility to that ill-starred Bill may be gathered from 
 one of the Resolutions which he laid upon the table : 
 
 That this House is reluctant to place in the hands of every 
 single bishop, on the motion of one or of three persons, howso- 
 ever defined, greatly increased facilities towards procuring an 
 absolute ruling of many points hitherto left open and reason- 
 ably allowing of diversity, and thereby towards the establish- 
 ment of an inflexible rule of uniformity throughout the land, 
 to the prejudice, in matters indifferent, of the liberty now 
 practically existing. 
 
 That liberty would have been not merely " prejudiced," 
 but destroyed, by a provision which was introduced
 
 RITUALISM AND DISESTABLISHMENT 391 
 
 during the passage of the Bill. It was proposed to 
 overthrow the bishop's right of veto on proceedings to 
 be instituted in the new Court, and to invest the arch- 
 bishop with power to institute suits, or allow them to 
 be instituted, in a diocese not his own. This provision 
 Mr. Gladstone vehemently opposed, on the ground that 
 it was contrary to the whole tradition and structure of 
 the Church, and that it was fundamentally inconsistent 
 with the custom of Christendom as regards the relations 
 between metropolitans and their suffragans. In support 
 of this view he quoted at large from the canonist Van 
 Espen. Sir William Harcourt poured scorn on these 
 citations ; was proud to say he had never heard of Van 
 Espen ; pooh-poohed all canonists and casuists ; adopted 
 Mr. Bright's famous phrase about "ecclesiastical 
 rubbish " ; took the broad and manly ground of common 
 sense, common law, and the Constitution ; and roundly 
 accused Mr. Gladstone of having come back at the 
 eleventh hour for no other purpose than to wreck the 
 Bill. Five days afterwards Sir William resumed his 
 discourse. He had got up the case in the meantime, 
 and met Mr. Gladstone on his own ground. He argued 
 the question of canon law. He cited Ayliffe's " Parergon 
 Juris Canonici Anglicani," and Burn's " Ecclesiastical 
 Law," and sought to show that the power claimed 
 for the metropolitan was as sound canonically as 
 constitutionally. 
 
 This unexpected display of erudition gave Mr. Gladstone 
 an opportunity which he was not slow to use. Referring 
 to Sir William's canonical exercitations, he said : 
 
 I confess I greatly admire the manner in which the hon. 
 and learned gentleman has used his time since last Friday 
 night. On Friday night he was, as he says, taken by sur- 
 prise. The lawyer was taken by suprise, and so was the 
 Professor of Law in the University of Cambridge. The
 
 392 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 lawyer was taken by surprise, and, in consequence, he had 
 nothing to deliver to the House except a series of propositions, 
 on which I will not comment. . . . Finding that he has de- 
 livered to the House most extraordinary propositions of law 
 and history, that will not bear a moment's examination, my 
 hon. and learned friend has had the opportunity of spending 
 four or five days in better informing himself upon the subject, 
 and he is in a position to come down to this House, and 
 for an hour and an half to display and develope the erudition 
 he has thus rapidly and cleverly acquired. Human nature 
 could not possibly resist such a temptation, and my hon. 
 and learned friend has succumbed to it. 
 
 Since that unpleasant but salutary evening Sir 
 William had kept silence even from good words, though 
 it was pain and grief to him. But by Midsummer, 1898, 
 Mr. Gladstone was in his grave, and the attack might 
 be renewed with comparative safety. Accordingly, Sir 
 William broke loose in a series of speeches filled with 
 coarse abuse of the Ritualistic clergy. His controversial 
 methods recalled his " earlier manner " of 1874, when 
 he alleged that all the paraphernalia of Ritualistic 
 practice and doctrine were devised to lead up to the 
 priestly pretension " I hold your God in my hand, and 
 I have your wife at my feet." To refined and reverent 
 minds such language appeared both blasphemous and 
 indecent ; and the Ritualistic clergy of to-day, when 
 abused by Sir William Harcourt, may reflect that their 
 predecessors of 1874 endured even grosser calumny, and 
 emerged from it unharmed. 
 
 Parliament being prorogued, the indefatigable Sir 
 William took up his pen. He enlivened the Silly 
 Season with a course of letters to The Times, which in 
 their demands on our credulity rivalled the annual Sea 
 Serpent, and in their dimensions exceeded the Enormous 
 Gooseberry. Similar entertainment has been provided 
 for the Christmas recess ; and, encouraged by this heroic 
 example, smaller fry begin to talk airily of coercive
 
 RITUALISM AND DISESTABLISHMENT 393 
 
 legislation ; of the abolition of the Bishops' veto on 
 ritnal prosecutions ; of the substitution of deprivation 
 for imprisonment ; and of sundry other short and easy 
 methods for decatholicizing the Church of England. 
 The threats of 1873 and 1874 are heard again. We are 
 once more told that " the Mass " and " the confessional " 
 are to be put down by law. It remains to be seen if 
 these amiable imaginings take shape in attempted 
 legislation ; and if they do, how the Government, and, 
 above all, how the Bishops, will face the attempt. In 
 the issue of the present controversy Establishment is 
 deeply involved. If a Parliament, rightly including 
 Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics, lays its profane hands 
 on the Eucharistic faith and worship of the Church, or 
 upon the Ministry of Reconciliation, the demand for 
 Disestablishment will be heard in such a volume of 
 voices as will shake the Episcopal Bench with unwonted 
 tremors. If there be any Successors of the Apostles 
 whose first care is for palaces and patronage, seats in 
 the House of Lords, and the chief rooms at feasts, they 
 had better take heed in time ; for assuredly these 
 cherished possessions will not long survive another 
 Public Worship Regulation Act. But Disestablishment 
 has no terrors for the Church herself, or for those who 
 believe in her spiritual character and claims. 
 
 The free Episcopal Church of the United States is 
 one of the most vigorous, most orthodox, and best- 
 organized parts of Christendom. The saintly Bishop 
 Hamilton, of Salisbury, " thought that we had much to 
 learn from closer contact with the faith and vigour of 
 the American Episcopate." 
 
 As regards the Church of Australia, let us take the 
 testimony of Dr. Thornton, Bishop of Ballarat, delivered 
 at Dublin in 1896: 
 
 I ata here to-day, after living for twenty years within,
 
 394 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 and helping in the administration of, an unendowed and 
 unestabh'shed Church, and I will say that, however great 
 the disadvantages of such a condition of affairs are to the 
 State, I am not prepared to say that they are a disadvantage 
 to the spiritual well-being and prosperity of the Church her- 
 self. I for one should be very sorry to take any price I 
 can think of for the freedom of administration and govern- 
 ment which we enjoy, the power to promote reforms, and 
 the power of adaptation, more difficult to secure where there 
 is a State connexion. 
 
 As regards the Church of Ireland, in spite of all the 
 difficulties and dangers through which it has had to 
 pass, its chief rulers give like testimony. In October, 
 1882, Lord Plunket, then Bishop of Meath, and after- 
 wards Archbishop of Dublin, addressing the clergy of 
 his diocese at his annual visitation, used these re- 
 markable words in reference to the ordeal through 
 which Ireland had passed during the previous three 
 years : 
 
 Before we give way to querulous murmurings, let us re- 
 member that this dark cloud has not been allowed to burst 
 over our country until, in the providence of God, and by 
 ways that we should never have selected for ourselves, our 
 Church had been prepared to abide the fury of the storm. 
 Had we been called upon to face a Land League agitation 
 at the time when our clergy, as ministers of a State-protected 
 Church, received their tithes from the poor, or even when 
 they drew their tithe rent-charge from landlords, some of 
 them in very needy circumstances, how intolerable would have 
 been our position both as regards the obloquy and outrage 
 we should have had to endure, and the cruel straits to which 
 we should have been inevitably reduced ! Now, however, 
 the very disaster which seemed to threaten our downfall has 
 been overruled for our good. 
 
 After ten years' experience and reflection, Lord 
 Plunket said in 1892 : 
 
 When I count up the advantages which have followed 
 Disestablishment ; when I think of the renewed strength
 
 HITUALISM AND DISESTABLISHMENT 395 
 
 and vitality which our Church has derived from the admission 
 of the laity to an active and responsible participation in her 
 counsels, in the disposition of her patronage, and in the 
 financial departments of her work ; when I observe the spirit 
 of unity and mutual respect which has been engendered 
 by the ordeal of our common adversity, and the increased 
 loyalty and love which are being daily shown to their mother 
 Church by those who have had to make some sacrifice on 
 her behalf ; when I remember, too, the freedom from agrarian 
 complications which our disconnection from all questions of 
 tithe and rent-charge has brought about, and the more favour- 
 able attitude as regards our influence upon the surrounding 
 population which we occupy because of our severance from 
 any State connexion, when I remember all this counterpoise 
 of advantage which we enjoy in our new and independent 
 position, and when I try to hold the balance evenly and weigh 
 the losses and the gains on the whole, I say boldly and 
 without reserve that, in my opinion at least, the gain out- 
 weighs the loss. 
 
 This last autumn Dr. Alexander, Primate of All 
 Ireland, spoke as follows at Templepatrick : 
 
 He must say, in striking the balance between loss and gain, 
 there was something to be said on both sides. There were, at all 
 events, three or four circumstances of gain. Well, in the first 
 place, an occasion like that reminded him that opportunities 
 were much more frequent and more considerable for the inter- 
 change of ideas in our Churches between the bishops, clergy and 
 laity, and our friends, also, of other denominations and schools 
 of thought than there were in old times. He did not think 
 there were many of our people, and he was sure not many 
 of our friendly Presbyterian neighbours, who any longer 
 look upon a bishop, or even that dreadful being, an arch- 
 bishop, as a spiritual enemy. They knew very well he had 
 got no unusual wealth and no unusual privileges, and so 
 they looked upon him with patience and toleration at 
 least. . , . Besides bringing together all the constituent parts 
 of the Church, he thought there was another good brought 
 about by Disestablishment. The life of ideas made the great 
 part of the life of a Church, and the only way in which 
 it could be discovered whether the ideas were really vital, 
 whether they had real life in them or not, was to show 
 how they worked and whether they could last when clothed
 
 396 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 in totally different surroundings and investiture of circum- 
 stances; and so was it with many of their Church's ideas. 
 They all felt that they had an old Church, and they felt 
 that that Church was able to act upon new lines. 
 
 The third thing about Disestablishment to which he would 
 like to refer was that our present position gives our people 
 scope for liberality, and he must say, after making all allow- 
 ances, the liberality of Irish Churchmen has, on the whole, 
 been very conspicuous. It is a very simple fact, about which 
 there is no manner of doubt, that five millions of money has 
 been raised in our parishes since the time of the Disestablish- 
 ment in 1869, and when you take into account the building 
 of churches the five millions become six millions. That, he 
 thought, spoke well for liberality. There was a fourth point 
 to which he would just refer. Another privilege which the 
 disestablished Church enjoys is that it is free to legislate. 
 
 Such is the testimony of the free Churches ; and, 
 whatever be the upshot of present controversies, it will 
 always seem to some of us that the great issue which 
 lies before the Church of England is perfectly expressed 
 in the words of Mr. Gladstone, written half a century 
 ago : " You have our decision ; take your own : choose 
 between the Mess of Pottage and the Birthright of the 
 Bride of Christ."
 
 "A MOCKERY, A DELUSION, AND A SNARE" 1 
 
 M 
 
 1Y text is taken from the Life of Bishop Wilber- 
 force, the Second Volume, and the 323rd page. 
 
 It is high time that there should be a careful argument 
 upon the justice and morality of late ecclesiastical proceedings ; 
 that the Archbishop should be awakened out of his Fool's 
 Paradise, and made to understand that, though reverence for 
 his office has up to this time, in a wonderful manner, kept 
 people silent about his proceedings, yet the time has come 
 when a beginning must be made towards describing them 
 without circumlocution in their true colours. 
 
 Thus wrote Mr. Gladstone in 1856, when Archbishop 
 S umner was consenting to an attack on the doctrine 
 of the Real Presence, and I am grateful to my great 
 leader and master for setting this wholesome precedent 
 of plain-speaking. It is a precedent greatly needed, 
 and strictly applicable to the circumstances of the 
 present hour. Anyone who has the hardihood to criti- 
 cize the recent performance at Lambeth is reproached 
 with disloyalty to the Church and with speaking evil 
 of dignities. Surely no one will maintain that Mr. 
 Gladstone was disloyal to the Church, or that he under- 
 rated the episcopal office. And yet he plainly said that 
 the Archbishop lived in a Fool's Paradise, and that his 
 proceedings must be described in their true colours. 
 Again, critics of the performance at Lambeth are 
 
 1 The Nineteenth Century, 1899, 
 397
 
 398 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 impressively told by all sorts of dignitaries and would-be 
 dignitaries that they must hold their peace because the 
 Archbishop is " venerable " and " honest." Here, again, 
 Mr. Gladstone's precedent serves. Archbishop Sumner 
 was as "venerable" in 1856 as Archbishop Temple is 
 in 1899 ; and yet Mr. Gladstone did not suffer him to 
 go unrebuked when he endangered the doctrine of 
 the Holy Eucharist. To the plea that the present 
 Archbishop is " honest as the day," I can only reply 
 with Mrs. Gamp, " Who deniges of it ? " Honesty is 
 a homely virtue, which is commonly taken for granted 
 in bishops, to say nothing of archbishops ; and, if each 
 honest bishop in Christendom is to be regarded as 
 infallible, the Church has indeed received a highly 
 variegated revelation. 
 
 The fact is that the Church of England, at the present 
 moment, is suffering from two distinct, yet not un- 
 connected, evils. The first is that so many of her places 
 of authority are occupied by schoolmasters and college- 
 dons. To have flogged the young seems to be an 
 indispensable qualification for the See of Canterbury ; 
 but it has its drawbacks as a preparation for ruling 
 the Church. That venerable Tractarian, the Rev. F. E. 
 Paget, long ago described the 
 
 schoolmaster-bishop, who, having never done a day's parish 
 work in bis life, goes into his diocese knowing nothing of the 
 pastoral care, but in the expectation that he is to rule his 
 clergy as he has ruled his school namely, by fear instead 
 of love, and upon the principle that everyone is guilty who 
 is not proved to be innocent. 
 
 The petty despotism of a head-mastership is, without 
 exception, the worst possible training for any position 
 where feelings have to be considered, and persua- 
 sion has to be used, and criticism anticipated, and 
 even sometimes resistance encountered. But though
 
 "A DELUSION AND A SNARE" 399 
 
 head-mastership is the worst, all forms and phases of 
 the pedagogic life, whether at school or college, carry, 
 in greater or less degree, the same disqualification. Mr. 
 Paget again comes to my assistance with a life-like 
 description of a donnish clergyman : 
 
 For years he had been the Autocrat of All the Quadrangles. 
 His word had been law so pre-eminently so, that it had 
 become quite natural to him to speak as if he had a hot 
 potato in his mouth, and to walk as if Obedience were always 
 preceding him with a silver poker. Scouts, and bedmakers, 
 and undergraduates fled before his shadow. The world that 
 could be ruled by being " crossed at the buttery," fined, 
 confined, discommonsed, imposed, rusticated, expelled, lay at 
 his mercy. 
 
 To the pedagogic mind, authority is the one guiding 
 principle of human life, and liberty the most pestilent 
 of mischiefs ; and the promoted pedagogue carries these 
 convictions with him to the episcopal throne or the 
 canon's stall. 
 
 So much for the first of the two evils from which the 
 Church just now is suffering ; and the second is like 
 unto it. Is there such a word as Episcopolatry ? 
 Certainly there is such a thing ; and during the last 
 few years it has made rapid strides. 
 
 The whole Catholic revival in the Church of England 
 had been effected by prolonged resistance to bishops. 
 One has only to read the biographies of Archbishop 
 Tait and Bishop Wilberforce to see how, point by point, 
 everything that is most highly valued by Catholic 
 Churchmen was denounced and opposed by the Episco- 
 pate of the day ; and how, point by point, the Episcopate 
 was overcome. Dr. Pusey told us long ago that 
 Newman collapsed because he had relied on bishops, 
 and that he himself had stood firm because he relied on 
 the Church. Dr. Liddon used to say that the Founder 
 of the Church must have known what was best for its
 
 400 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 government, " but the advantages of the system are not 
 obvious on the surface." But, in spite of all this 
 experience, the present generation, either ignorant or 
 forgetful of the past, has rushed into the extreme of 
 episcopolatry. Reverence for the office has degenerated 
 into obsequiousness to the holder. It is regarded as 
 sacrilege to affirm that " we have this treasure in 
 earthen vessels." A bishop may call the Catholic 
 doctrine of the Eucharist " Lutheran," or fraternize 
 with a Socinian blasphemer, or communicate in a 
 Presbyterian kirk, or permit the remarriage of the 
 divorced in church ; and yet, in each individual case, we 
 are to declare that he is very wise, and very good, and 
 very " honest," and very " venerable " ; and take what 
 he tells us as law, and regulate our faith and worship 
 by his notions of what is right and becoming. One 
 episcopolator lately affirmed in a newspaper that, as the 
 Archbishops were understood to be considering the case 
 for incense during the Whitsun holidays, their decision 
 would be inspired by the Holy Ghost ! Surely the force 
 of unreason could no further go. 
 
 For my own part, I confess that I am built on different 
 lines, and some correspondence which I have lately seen, 
 between two bishops and their clergy, has reminded me 
 forcibly of what Mr. T. W. Allies once wrote about his 
 diocesan : 
 
 I lived under what I will not call his crosier, but his stick. 
 He had taken it from the civil ruler, and was bent on having 
 it thought a crosier ; but to me he used it as a pasha, simply 
 for the bastinado. And, not being exactly made for a slave, 
 I never conceived so great an antipathy for anyone as for this 
 brandisher of episcopal authority. 
 
 I now proceed to trace the effect of these concurrent 
 evils on the present condition of the Church, and to 
 enquire how far the recent proceedings of our School-
 
 "A DELUSION AND A SNARE" 401 
 
 master-Archbishop have affected the prospects of Dis- 
 establishment. 
 
 Down to July 31, 1899, I had steadily refused to 
 believe in " The Crisis." Certainly there had been a 
 bogus agitation, originated by Mr. Kensit, fomented by 
 Sir William Harcourt and The Times, and encouraged 
 by the moral cowardice of certain bishops whose first 
 article of faith is : / believe in an Established Church. 
 But there was nothing which could be properly called 
 a crisis. Now, however, a crisis, in its strictest sense 
 of a determining- or turning-point, has arrived ; and it 
 was created by the Archbishop of Canterbury on July 31. 
 
 On February 8 last the Archbishop announced that, 
 acting on the direction given in the Preface to the 
 Prayer-book, he would be prepared to hear cases where 
 doubts had arisen about the proper mode of performing 
 Divine Service ; and that he would judge such cases 
 with an open mind, disregarding even his own pre- 
 conceived opinions. He was further understood to say 
 that he would not consider himself bound by the 
 decisions of the Judicial Committee. 
 
 This offer was received with general (though by no 
 means universal) approbation. Here at last, men said, 
 is a chance of something like a spiritual tribunal. The 
 chief pastor of the Church of England has volunteered 
 to hear disputes about ritual, to consider the case on 
 purely spiritual and ecclesiastical grounds, and to decide 
 without reference to courts or Acts of Parliament. These 
 things will, for the first time, be judged, not by man- 
 made law, but by the custom of the Catholic Church in 
 general, and the Church of England in particular. 
 
 So his Grace's offer was understood. Perhaps it 
 ought not to have been so understood. Perhaps he 
 did not intend it to be so understood. Perhaps those 
 who so understood it were unduly sanguine or simple. 
 
 26
 
 402 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 "'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the spider to 
 the fly." But, as a matter of fact, it was so understood ; 
 and presently two clergymen were constrained to defend 
 their ritual practices before the Archbishop, sitting in 
 what he very properly said was not a court. I say 
 " constrained," because Mr. Ram, having no doubts, 
 declined to go to the Archbishop, and was sent, against 
 his will, by the Bishop of Norwich, while Mr. Westall 
 (as I understand) was over-persuaded by the Bishop of 
 London, and endeavoured, too late, to withdraw his 
 consent. The case for and against incense and the case 
 for and against portable lights were exhaustively argued. 
 Whether they were wisely or suitably presented by 
 those who supported them I do not now stop to enquire. 
 After a patient hearing, and a decent pause for con- 
 sideration, the Archbishop issued his " Opinion " on 
 July 31. We then learned, with inexpressible surprise, 
 that his Grace had overridden all considerations of 
 Catholic usage, ecclesiastical propriety, and the practice 
 of the Church of England before and since the Re- 
 formation, and based his decision on an obsolete Act 
 of Parliament, to which, at the time of passing, the 
 Church was not a party. Had the Archbishop an- 
 nounced in February that this was to be his mode 
 of procedure, his oifer would have been received with 
 the respect due to a good intention, but would have 
 been practically disregarded. No one would have paid 
 any more heed to it than to that allocution in which last 
 autumn he essayed to define the doctrine of the Holy 
 Eucharist. Here is the sting of the matter. It shows 
 the poisonous influence of Establishment on a good and 
 spiritually-minded man. That the Archbishop should 
 have promised an independent hearing, and then have 
 decided the case by reference to the Act of Uniformity, 
 has, indeed, the effect of treachery. His Grace cannot
 
 "A DELUSION AND A SNARE" 403 
 
 object to that phrase, for it is his own. When, in 1861, 
 he was championing "Essays and Reviews" against the 
 Episcopal Bench, he wrote to Bishop Tait : " What you 
 did had not the intention, but it had all the effect, of 
 treachery." And again : " Snch conduct has the effect 
 (I expressly said not the intention) of treachery. ... I 
 do not care for your severity. I do care for being 
 cheated." l What Dr. Temple said to Bishop Tait in 
 1861 we may, without offence, say to Archbishop 
 Temple in 1899. For a Metropolitan to offer, or seem 
 to offer, his priests a spiritual hearing, and then fob 
 them off with a musty Act of Parliament, " has the 
 effect (I expressly said not the intention) of treachery." 
 
 But this is not all. The Record, which, has special 
 opportunities of knowing what passes in episcopal 
 circles, has repeatedly declared that, long before the 
 enqniry at Lambeth, the Bishops in private conclave 
 had agreed to suppress the use of incense. If this is 
 true and it has not been denied the whole proceeding 
 before the Archbishop was (to quote what was said of 
 a more famous trial) " A MOCKERY, A DELUSION, AND 
 A SNARE." 
 
 But, assuming that The Record is wrongly informed, 
 and that the case was not prejudged, there was at any 
 rate a complete misunderstanding on the part of Mr. 
 Westall and Mr. Ram of the grounds on which their 
 case was to be heard. They expected spiritual judgment, 
 and they got mob-law. Expectant ut facerent judicium, 
 et ecce iniquitas ; et justitiam, et ecce clamor. They 
 cannot in reason, honour, or conscience be expected 
 to obey a ruling founded on principles which they 
 repudiate and abjure. From the beginning of the 
 hearing to the end, the Archbishop (I refer only to 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury, for the intervention of 
 1 See Archbishop Tait's Life, vol. i., p. 298,
 
 404 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 the Archbishop of York in the Southern Province was 
 a mere intrusion) was, to use Ruskin's admirable words, 
 " wrong with the intense wrongness which only an 
 honest man can achieve who has taken a false turn of 
 thought in the outset, and is following it, regardless of 
 consequences." Professor Sanday has shown us that his 
 history (to say nothing of his policy) was bad. Mr. 
 Burnie has shown us that his law was bad, and that 
 he has in sheer lightness of heart reversed a judgment 
 of the Court of King's Bench. Without touching such 
 high matters, a mere layman may protest against his 
 attempt to minimize the authority for incense by 
 misquoting the language of George Herbert, and pooh- 
 poohing the practice of Bishop Andrewes. 
 
 To my brother-laymen whose minds have been dis- 
 tressed and whose worship is likely to be disfigured 
 by this archiepiscopal " opinion," I have submitted 
 before, and would submit again, the following con- 
 siderations : 
 
 (1) The Archbishop, by basing his opinion on an 
 Act of Parliament, has deprived it of all spiritual 
 authority. 
 
 (2) An Act of Parliament is not converted into a 
 spiritual law by being " promulged " by an Archbishop. 
 For example, if the Archbishop " promulged " the 
 Divorce Act, he would not make that Act part of the 
 Divine Law. 
 
 (3) We affirm, with the 20th Article, that "the 
 Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies " ; and 
 we deny that the power to decree or to forbid rites or 
 ceremonies pertains to the State. 
 
 (4) If, as Canon Gore suggests, the Act of Uniformity 
 is part of a contract between the Church and the State, 
 we deny that the Archbishop is the proper interpreter 
 of it. The arcbiepiscopal office confers no competence
 
 "A DELUSION AND A SNARE" 405 
 
 to interpret Acts of Parliament. The function of 
 interpreting Acts of Parliament belongs to Courts 
 of Law. 
 
 It certainly is no part of my duty to counsel the 
 clergy ; but I see that Mr. Westall and Mr. Ram have 
 decided to give a technical compliance, and, in my 
 humble judgment, they have- done well. The fact that 
 they consented, under whatever pressure, to be repre- 
 sented at Lambeth differentiates their case from that 
 of other clergymen. The usual outcry, half ignorant 
 and half malicious, and old as the prosecution of Mr. 
 Mackonochie, has been raised against equivocation, 
 evasion, dodgery, and the like. This is all stuff, and 
 hypocritical stuff as well. A spiritual judgment would 
 have been very differently treated ; but when was any- 
 thing beyond a strict and literal obedience ever claimed 
 for an Act of Parliament ? Mr. Westall and Mr. Ram 
 are told that, because the Archbishop forbids incense 
 during the service, they must not use it before the 
 service. It would be as reasonable to tell a publican 
 that, because the law compels him to close at 11 P.M., 
 he ought to keep his house shut all day. 
 
 These points, however, are only of limited and second- 
 ary importance. The real interest of the performance 
 at Lambeth is that it has given a sensible impetus 
 to the movement for Disestablishment. For many 
 years I have maintained, as Mr. Mackonochie main- 
 tained before me, that Disestablishment (which of 
 course would include the right of electing our own 
 bishops) is our only way 'of escape from the mischiefs 
 with which we are surrounded. In quiet times, my 
 fellow-Churchmen are very unwilling to face this 
 remedy ; but the Archbishop has forced it on the 
 attention, and in some cases on the acceptance, of many 
 who have hitherto repudiated it. Men who, at episcopal
 
 406 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 bidding, laboured in 1895 to defeat the policy of Dis- 
 establishment are keenly alive to the fact that, when 
 it was a question of endowments, our Spiritual Fathers 
 waxed eloquent on the continuity of the Church of 
 England before and after the Reformation ; but that, 
 when the dignity of Eucharistic worship is at stake, 
 they are quite content to make our ecclesiastical history 
 begin in the reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 Once again the voices, so long hushed, are heard. 
 Once again men are saying that they will take the rules 
 of their public worship, not from Parliamentary drafts- 
 men, or amateur lawyers, or self-constituted popes, but 
 only from the Church of England, exercising her just 
 authority as part of "the Holy Church Universal." 
 In a word, Disestablishment was dead, and the proceed- 
 ings at Lambeth have revived it. So may such per- 
 formances always prosper. 
 
 I understand that the English Church Union will 
 hold a public meeting in London during the week of 
 the Church Congress, and that the subject for discussion 
 will be the bearing of the Archbishop's " Opinion " on 
 the life and work of the Church. At that meeting 
 some voices will surely be heard for Disestablishment ; 
 but I imagine that the more general demand will be 
 for the restoration to the Church of her self-governing 
 powers. What form are those powers to take ? 
 
 Three centuries ago our forefathers threw off the yoke 
 of the historic Papacy at Rome. Assuredly we are not 
 going to submit to a brand-new papacy at Lambeth. 
 The Bishops, as every Catholic gladly acknowledges, 
 have their Divinely-given prerogative of perpetuating 
 the sacred ministry and guarding the deposit of Faith ; 
 but the constitution of the Catholic Church is not 
 modelled on the type of an Oriental despotism, and 
 " where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
 
 "A DELUSION AND A SNARE" 407 
 
 Only a priest can break the Bread of Life and loose 
 the sinner in the name of Christ; but it is not in 
 archbishops, nor bishops, nor priests, isolated from the 
 general body of the Baptized, that the life of the 
 Church resides. In one of the neglected masterpieces 
 of English divinity, Bishop Moberly taught us that 
 the clergy, in their threefold order, are the repre- 
 sentatives and ministers of the Church at large, which 
 is " the entire Spirit-bearing body " of baptized persons. 
 
 It has been generally held by theologians (excepting always 
 those of the high Roman school) that the retrospective 
 acceptance of the whole Church, including lay-people as well 
 as clergy, is necessary in order to give conciliar decrees 
 their full oecumenical character and weight. This view the 
 view of Gerson and his friends at Constance, and of the 
 Gallican Church ; of Archbishop Laud, and the Anglican 
 High Church ; of " Janus " in modern Catholic Germany 
 involves the truth for which I desire to contend ; and, 
 borrowing the sentiment of my dear friend the late Rev. 
 John Keble, I venture to say that, if the assent of the 
 lay- people is thus necessary, even in the highest of all in- 
 stances, the settlement of the Faith, it is matter, not of 
 principle, but of convenience and wisdom, to settle at what 
 point, and in what proportion, this Christian counsel shall 
 be listened to and acknowledged. . . . The full co-operation 
 of the laity of the Church not as a matter of benevolence 
 or bounty, but as a matter of debt and duty is not more 
 absolutely necessary in practice than it is indispensable in 
 theory to the full power and efficacy of the Church. 1 
 
 Those wise words were written in full view of the 
 difficulties of the Irish Church, then just disestablished, 
 and " suddenly deprived," as the Bishop said, " of the 
 orderly but somewhat enervating direction of State 
 control." The principle which they express may, I 
 think, excellently serve for the guidance of the Church 
 of England, when at length she makes up her mind 
 
 1 Preface to the Second lEdition (1869) of the Bamptou 
 Lectures of 1868,
 
 408 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 to free herself from Acts of Uniformity and Church 
 Discipline Bills and Archiepiscopal misrulings and 
 State-made bishops ; from the interference of outsiders, 
 and the worship of the Jumping Cat, and the appeal 
 to the Man in the Street ; and all the degrading in- 
 cidents in which Establishment has involved her.
 
 "CHURCH REFORM" 1 
 
 I HEAR that the English Church Union is going to 
 discnss the question of Church Reform. This is 
 quite as it should be ; and I hope that the discussion will 
 be thorough and unflinching. At the present moment 
 Church Reform occupies much the same position as 
 was occupied by Concurrent Endowment in 1869. The 
 opponents of the Irish Church Bill, having failed to 
 defeat it on the Second Reading in the House of 
 Lords, tried to destroy it by introducing in Committee 
 the principle of Concurrent Endowment, which Mr. 
 Gladstone and his followers in the House of Commons 
 were pledged to refuse. Matthew Arnold wrote : 
 
 What made the proposition of the Lords so weak was 
 that the Lords did not seem to recommend it with their 
 whole heart, but rather to stumble into it as a means of 
 altering the Bill. One cannot imagine the Lords originating 
 such a proposition from a pure love of justice, if Gladstone's 
 counter-project had not been there. 
 
 Similarly, I find it difficult to believe that Bishops and 
 Deans, and members of the House of Laymen, and 
 "those bold, bad men" who haunt Diocesan Conferences, 
 would wax enthusiastic over Church Reform, if the 
 spectre of Disestablishment had not been raised from 
 its slumber by recent proceedings at Lambeth. The 
 advocates of Church Reform, as Mr. Arnold said, do not 
 seem to recommend it with their whole heart, but 
 
 1 The Pilot, 1901. 
 409
 
 410 
 
 rather to stumble into it as a means of staving-off 
 Disestablishment. Meanwhile, it is understood that the 
 principle of " Church Reform " (for it cannot yet be called 
 a scheme or a system) is sanctioned by high authority ; 
 and the Diocesan Conferences make haste to adopt it 
 after very inadequate debate, and with a most imperfect 
 knowledge of the contemplated changes. 
 
 The Church Reform League has just held its annual 
 meeting, and in reading the report of the proceedings 
 one could scarcely help being reminded of a certain 
 assembly at Ephesus. Alii autem aliud clamabant. 
 Erat enim ecclesia confusa ; et plures nesciebant qua ex 
 causa convenissent. 
 
 Once again the Reformers have adduced the entirely 
 misleading analogy of the Scotch Kirk. Certainly the 
 Kirk has large powers of enforcing its own discipline 
 in its own courts ; but in the all-important matter of 
 doctrine it is bound by law to its existing standards, and 
 is as powerless to alter them as we are powerless to 
 alter ours without the consent of Parliament. A Church 
 which cannot alter its own standards of doctrine is 
 certainly not free. 
 
 Then, again, there is the vital question of the lay- 
 franchise, and here the Church Reformers are hopelessly 
 divided. The League has many laudable objects, and 
 among them to secure the rights of the laity in the 
 Church of England. " But what is a Layman ? " cry 
 many. And the House of Laymen of the Northern 
 Province (which ought to know the pit whence it is 
 digged) replies that a Layman is a Ratepayer. There 
 is an admirable simplicity about this definition ; and if 
 my friend Canon Gore and the Church Reform League 
 will only accept it, they might find in it a clue to their 
 most pressing perplexities. One school of reformers 
 says that the laity are the whole body of baptized
 
 "CHURCH REFORM" 411 
 
 persons. In that case we must welcome to the electorate 
 of our Reformed Church Dr. Clifford and Dr. Parker, 
 Mr. Hugh Price Hughes and Mr. W. T. Stead. No, 
 cry others, The Layman must be not only baptized but 
 confirmed. Well, this test of Confirmation would admit 
 a large number of gentlemen whose attitude towards 
 religion is, to put it mildly, one of detachment. Then 
 comes a third school of Church Reformers, and says that 
 the layman must be a Communicant. Are we ready 
 to risk the exploded profanities of the Sacramental 
 Test ? or, on the other hand, are we to recognize as 
 Churchmen people who refuse to comply with the 
 Church's most characteristic rite ? A fourth school 
 would be satisfied with a declaration of bona-fide mem- 
 bership, which would, I presume, admit the unbaptized, 
 the unconfirmed, and the non-communicant ; for all 
 these classes are ready to declare that they are quite 
 as good Churchmen as their neighbours. 
 
 Then, again, there is the question of admitting women 
 to the ecclesiastical franchise. I gathered from the 
 debate at the Church Congress last year that Canon 
 Gore is a supporter of their claim. Here is a fresh 
 element of discord. The late Lord Coleridge, once 
 arguing in the House of Commons in support of Women's 
 Rights, urged that there was no essential difference 
 between the masculine and the feminine intellect. For 
 example, he said some of the most valuable qualities 
 of what is called the judicial genius sensibility, quick- 
 ness, delicacy are peculiarly feminine. In reply Ser- 
 jeant Dowse said, " The argument of the hon. and 
 learned Member, compendiously stated, amounts to this 
 because some judges are old women, therefore all old 
 women are fit to be judges." For my own part, I 
 go all lengths with that great ecclesiastical statesman 
 John Knox in repudiating the "monstrous regiment
 
 412 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 of women," and I deplore the ever-widening influence 
 of Mrs. Proudie's tradition. I frankly admit that 
 practising Churchwomen seem to stand to practising 
 Churchmen in the proportion of three to one ; but this 
 consideration only makes the prospect of giving them 
 the ecclesiastical franchise more alarming. We have 
 much to learn from the administrative sagacity of the 
 Church of Rome, which has always known how to make 
 the fullest use of feminine gifts and graces ; and yet, 
 perhaps because it is officered by bachelors, has always 
 known how to keep women in their proper place. 
 
 I understand that a certain section of the Church 
 Reformers proposes that the franchise should be con- 
 ferred, not on all, but on some, women. One does not 
 envy the authority which is to be charged with the 
 invidious duty of deciding which ladies are, and which 
 are not, fit to have a voice in the electoral business of 
 the Church. 
 
 If the debate at the English Church Union helps to 
 clear the minds of Church Reformers as to the franchise 
 on which they propose to base their reforms, it will have 
 done something ; but there will still remain the fatal 
 objection that the proposed revolution in the government 
 of the Church, however perfect in its principle and 
 details, can only be carried into effect by the vote of 
 a secular legislature. 
 
 Will my friends of the Church Reform League allow 
 me to remind them of one danger into which their zeal 
 is likely to hurry them ? It is that, if they ask Parlia- 
 ment for reform, they may get more than they bargain 
 for. I am old enough to remember Lord Grey's Church 
 Boards Bill, which I had the pleasure of talking out 
 of the House of Commons in 1881. The spirit which 
 animated that measure is still alive, and Parliament 
 may say : " You have asked us not to disestablish
 
 "CHURCH REFORM" 413 
 
 your Church, but to reform it. We agree. You 
 shall remain Established, and we will reform you. 
 You shall be made really what you are nominally a 
 National Establishment of Religion. Worship, and not 
 dogma, is the true basis of religious unity. We will 
 excise your creeds. We will overhaul your formularies. 
 We will reconstruct your discipline. A committee of 
 Socinians shall revise your Communion Service. Quakers 
 shall amend your office of Baptism. Nothing shall be 
 left that can offend anyone. The Church is co-extensive 
 with the nation. Be one, and be happy." 
 
 When the Queen was engaged to be married, she 
 pressed upon Lord Melbourne the desirability of making 
 Prince Albert King Consort by Act of Parliament ; and 
 the wise Whig said : " For God's sake, ma'am, let's 
 hear no more about it. Once get the English nation 
 into the way of making kings, and you'll get it into 
 the way of unmaking them." Similarly, I would say 
 to the Church Reform League : " Once get the House 
 of Commons into the way of reforming the Church, 
 and you will find it reformed beyond all recognition 
 the glory of Erastianism, and the laughing-stock of 
 Christendom."
 
 vast subject was suggested to me by the 
 _I_ kindness of the Editor. When I came to close 
 quarters with it, I was reminded that four years ago 
 I had uttered my opinions on it at a meeting at Sion 
 College, and subsequently in The Contemporary Review. 
 Those opinions have been strongly confirmed by the 
 events of the intervening years ; and I venture once 
 again to lay them before my brother-Churchmen. As 
 to substance, I am well aware that many, perhaps most, 
 " Anglo-Catholics " will consider my doctrine far too 
 lenient towards heresy and schism ; while, as to form, 
 I must plead the high authority of Mr. Morley, who 
 once justified some borrowings from his former self on 
 the principle that " a man may once say a thing as he 
 would have it said, 815 8e OVK eVSe^erat he cannot say 
 it twice." 
 
 I divide my subject into two parts the prospects 
 of religion inside the Church of England, and the 
 prospects beyond her pale. 
 
 As regards the first part of my subject, there is, I 
 think, no sign that any one of the three chief schools 
 of thought which have so long contended for mastery 
 
 1 The Anglo-Catholic, 1902. 
 414
 
 PROSPECTS OF RELIGION 415 
 
 in the Church of England will be able in the twentieth 
 century to claim a complete and absolute victory. It 
 is a commonplace of superficial observation that the 
 Evangelical school has utterly perished. So it was 
 said, after 1855, that the Peelite party had disappeared 
 from politics. True, the party had disappeared, but its 
 principles governed England. Similarly, the Evangelical 
 school, as a separate institution, seems to have perished, 
 but the special truth which it was Divinely commissioned 
 to proclaim the truth that " there is none other name 
 under heaven given to man, in whom and through 
 whom we may receive health and salvation, but only 
 the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ "is now the 
 doctrine of nearly every pulpit in the Church of England. 
 I have never heard it or seen it set forth with more 
 emphatic clearness than in the sermons and ceremonials 
 of Ritualistic churches, where every word and act is 
 directed towards the one great end of exhibiting Christ 
 Crucified before the gaze of perishing sinners. 
 
 In quarters where it is assumed that the Evangelical 
 school has come to naught, it is not less confidently 
 asserted that the High Church or Ritualistic school 
 has conquered and possessed the Church of England ; 
 and, OP the principle of segnius irritant, this view has 
 something to say for itself. Perhaps the most con- 
 spicuous characteristic of the present age is the 
 development of its aesthetic sense. There can be no 
 blinking this phenomenon. It is seen in every depart- 
 ment of public and private life. If we only compare 
 the outward aspect of things architecture, painting, 
 dress, decoration, and the like, as they are at the 
 beginning of the new century with that which prevailed 
 at the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign, the fact 
 forces itself on our notice. This aesthetic development 
 has naturally and necessarily favoured the revival of
 
 416 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 external grace and splendour in Divine worship ; and 
 in the spiritual realm there has been a correspond- 
 ing development. The principle of sacramentalism or 
 symbolism or mysticism, or whatever we choose to 
 call it the principle which sees spiritual truths and 
 forces under outward forms, and recognizes in material 
 beauty the visible vesture of the Divinity this principle, 
 taught in different ways and connexions by Coleridge 
 and Wordsworth, Keble and Newman, Maurice and 
 Ruskin, has entered into the very heart of English 
 thought and feeling, and has naturally led many of its 
 disciples into harmony with a Sacramental theology. 
 
 So far, then, the High Church school has triumphed, 
 but its triumph wears a very different aspect from the 
 hard, narrow, and exclusive air which it displayed in 
 its period of struggle. Now that its position is assured, 
 it has become more modest, more charitable, more 
 humane. It no longer talks of " uncovenanted mercies," 
 nor deals out damnation to heretics and schismatics. 
 
 And from within the very precincts of the High 
 Church school itself has issued another growth which 
 is its complement and its corrective. Forty years ago, 
 the " Liberal " school so called by an arrogant mis- 
 nomer loudly boasted that it had won the day, and 
 there were signs in the ecclesiastical sky which made 
 the vaunt seem reasonable. Some high places in the 
 Church and the Universities were occupied by men 
 whose hold on the Nicene let alone the Athanasian 
 theology seemed, to put it mildly, flaccid. When Dean 
 Stanley died, an amiable and pious Jewess said to me, 
 with tears in her eyes, " For the last fifteen years I 
 have been to the Abbey every Sunday afternoon that 
 the Dean preached, and have never heard a word from 
 him that I could not accept." But that is twenty years 
 ago. The decrease of the Socinian spirit inside the
 
 PROSPECTS OF RELIGION 417 
 
 Church of England is one of the most notable and to 
 me the most encouraging of its latter-day phenomena. 
 And in writing this sentence I do not forget some glaring 
 scandals in the Dioceses of Worcester and Ripon. 
 
 And yet, just as the Evangelical theology saturated our 
 preaching, and the Sacramental theology transfigured 
 the outward aspect of Church and worship, so the 
 Liberal theology has profoundly modified our authori- 
 tative exegesis and its relation to other branches of 
 human thought and knowledge. When the late Bishop 
 of Durham left Harrow for Peterborough, he told the 
 boys whom he had taught that his prayer for them was 
 that they might always have " a firm faith in criticism, 
 and a firm faith in God." And the prayer has certainly 
 been granted, with conspicuous and far-reaching res nits, 
 in the case of one of those for whom it was uttered 
 my friend and school-fellow, Charles Gore. When we 
 compare the theory of Inspiration, and the explanation 
 of, say, the Six Days of Creation, which we now hear 
 from preachers of unimpeached orthodoxy, with the 
 doctrines on the same subjects which were enforced 
 under pain of anathema by Low Churchmen like Lord 
 Shaftesbury or High Churchmen like Dean Burgon, 
 we realize how far we have travelled ; and our guides 
 along the road have been the contributors to " Lux 
 Mundi " and those from whom they learned. 
 
 I revert, then, to my original contention, that, accord- 
 ing to all appearances, no one school of thought will 
 be able in the twentieth century to claim an absolute 
 victory in the Church of England. All that was best 
 in these three schools will have been effectually blended 
 into a composite whole. The Evangelical doctrines of 
 sin, redemption, and free grace will be found to 
 harmonize with those Sacramental mysteries of the 
 Mediatorial Kingdom on which the High Church school 
 
 27
 
 418 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 has laid peculiar stress, with the more beautiful and 
 more expressive mode of Divine worship which we owe 
 to Ritualism, and with that free use of reason, enquiry, 
 and culture which is the special glory of the Liberal 
 school. 
 
 Probably some of my readers are acquainted with 
 a brilliant monograph on Cardinal Manning by that 
 accomplished publicist M. Edmond de Pressense*. The 
 book has a peculiar interest, because it enables us to 
 see the Church of England as it presents itself to the 
 view of an intelligent and devout seeker after truth in 
 another quarter of the Christian world. M. de Presseiise" 
 is an hereditary Protestant, whom the agitations of 
 modern criticism have rudely shaken from his moorings. 
 He sees no place of refuge except the port of Rome, 
 which still he cannot as yet persuade himself to enter. 
 It is not from a writer in this position that one would 
 naturally expect a fair appreciation of Anglicanism, and 
 therefore we are neither disappointed nor annoyed by 
 our critic's attitude and sentiments. To him the Church 
 of England is an extremely human makeshift, the 
 natural product of our national love of compromise ; 
 " halting between the two opinions " of Authority and 
 Freedom ; dogmatic, with no ground for its dogmas ; 
 founded on an emphatic negation, and yet resolutely 
 deaf to all questions about its own reason for existing. 
 In a passage of singular interest, M. de Pressense" 
 passes from Manning's experience, as he conceives it, 
 to his own, and seems to cry out almost passionately 
 for the light and peace of an authenticated faith. 
 
 Protestantism, he thinks, is on the eve of a profoundly 
 important crisis. The results of criticism are now 
 placed in the hands of everybody. For some time past 
 one of the ideas upon which the Reformers have based 
 their faith the plenary inspiration of Scripture has
 
 PROSPECTS OF RELIGION 419 
 
 been rudely shaken. A double process of demolition 
 and reconstruction has been going on, and they have 
 not always kept step. It is easier to pull down than 
 to build up. Protestantism has hitherto lived upon two 
 principles the authority of the Scriptures, and justifi- 
 cation by faith. They are in intimate relation. They 
 affirm (1) that each soul may receive directly and 
 personally the light that it needs in order to understand 
 the message of God in the documents of the history of 
 Redemption ; (2) that each soul may receive salvation 
 by direct and immediate contact with the Saviour. 
 Hitherto the simplest person might take his Bible and 
 turn its pages, and every word spoke as the voice of 
 God. Now he must begin by asking, Is this passage 
 authentic ? Is this word the Master's own, or a gloss 
 of John's ? Amid the perplexities of faith which are 
 thus forced upon the pious soul men cry aloud for 
 authoritative guidance, and to M. de Pressense" it seems 
 the most obvious course in the world to seek that 
 guidance where it has always been found upon the 
 throne of Peter. 
 
 But Anglicans prefer another solution. They remain 
 in the Church of England because they believe that it 
 is God's Will that they shall so remain. He placed 
 them there by birth, baptism, and education, and He 
 has shown them hitherto no reason for being dis- 
 satisfied with His appointment. Believing themselves, 
 as baptized Christians, to be inside the Catholic Church, 
 and holding fast to the Catholic creeds, they can look 
 without alarm on textual research and literary criticism. 
 They know that even if with reverence be it spoken 
 every book of the New Tastament were proved un- 
 authentic, they would still have the Catholic tradition, 
 which sufficed for Christians before the Canon was 
 completed, the fundamental dogmas that Christ is
 
 420 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 God ; that He died for us and rose again ; that He 
 founded a Church, a ministry, and Sacraments, to be 
 the eternal witness to His work, and the unfailing 
 means of union with Himself. All this Anglicans have 
 in the Church of England ; they could not have it more 
 perfectly at Rome ; and here they have as well a Church 
 which, holding and teaching the Catholic tradition, 
 refers it at every point, for correction or for confirmation, 
 to those lively oracles of the Written Word which the 
 advance of scientific criticism has only made more 
 intelligible and more helpful to the enquiring soul. 
 
 II 
 
 I now approach the second part of my subject the 
 prospects of religion beyond the borders of the Church 
 of England ; and it is obvious that, in the space at my 
 disposal, so large a subject can only be sketched in the 
 barest outline. 
 
 I will begin by reiterating some opinions which I 
 published when my friend Lord Halifax was negotiating 
 with Rome. They drew down on me at the time the 
 censure of some people whom I highly respect, and we 
 will now see how far events have confirmed them. 
 
 In July, 1896, I wrote in The Nineteenth Century : 
 
 If by Unity is meant Reunion, I neither expect nor desire 
 it. But Lord Halifax and his friends seem to see another 
 chance of Unity in a form which would involve no com- 
 promising declarations by us. In plain words, they think 
 it conceivable that the Pope may recognize the validity of 
 English Orders, and all that such validity implies. Recogni- 
 tion, then, rather than Reunion, is their immediate object. 
 Now, Lord Halifax, having discussed the matter in confi- 
 dential conversations with the Pope and other high Roman 
 authorities, is much better able than I am to judge of the 
 likelihood of this recognition; but, for my own part, I do
 
 PROSPECTS OF RELIGION 421 
 
 not believe in it. We know that human nature is very 
 strong even in Cardinals ; it is part of human nature to 
 dislike being proved in the wrong ; and this would be most 
 conspicuously the case with the Anglo-Roman body if 
 English Orders were pronounced valid. My own belief, 
 therefore, is that, whatever may be the Pope's own sympathies, 
 the Roman authorities in England will fight tooth and nail 
 against recognition, and will prevail. We have learned from 
 Cardinal Manning's Life that diplomacy and intrigue are 
 not unknown at the Vatican, and that Infallibility is often 
 subjected to a little judicious wire-pulling in order to make 
 its decisions conform with the prepossessions of its environ- 
 ment. We must wait and see. 
 
 We waited and saw the Pope's condemnation of 
 English Orders. 
 
 After five years' experience and reflection, I say 
 again that, if by unity is meant organic nnion nnder a 
 hnman head, I neither expect it nor desire it. Unity 
 in that sense does not seem to me to be the nnity 
 for which onr Lord prayed. Natural reverence shrinks 
 from pressing the analogy contained in His Divine 
 prayer. And yet there is food for profound reflection 
 in its terms : " That they may be one, even as We 
 are One." The Divine Unity has been manifested to 
 man in the Three Holy Persons. A real and essential 
 unity of believers, manifested under the forms of ex- 
 ternal distinctness, may be the analogous unity which 
 our Lord desires. And after all, we must remember 
 that He promised, not " one fold," but " one flock," 
 of which He Himself, and no mortal man, is Shepherd. 
 
 But, leaving this high and sacred ground, which 
 indeed can hardly be trodden without irreverence, and 
 turning from what may be Divinely ideal to what seems 
 humanly probable, I say again that I see no signs 
 which lead me to believe that Christendom is going to 
 be visibly and organically reunited. Rome, it is quite 
 obvious, means to bate no jot or tittle of her claims.
 
 422 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 The Churches of the East are, at least, as firmly rooted 
 in opposition to those claims. The Nonconformist bodies 
 are still intensely Protestant, and to leave them out of 
 sight in estimating the future of Christendom is to omit 
 a vital factor from the calculation. 
 
 The essential part, the heart and core, of the Christian 
 religion is, I take it, one and the same all the world 
 over. Dr. Mason has pointed out that the very form 
 of the word /ea#oXtAco9 suggests what is universally 
 applicable rather than what is universally extended ; 
 and, in this sense, the central verity of the Christian 
 Gospel is essentially Catholic. 
 
 But the outward form and mode the accidents and 
 accessories under which the Gospel presents itself to 
 men seems to be, to a great extent, governed by racial 
 considerations. Particular forms of religion seem to be 
 adapted to particular races of men. I do not expect 
 that we shall see the Irish people converted to 
 Protestantism, or the Scotch to Anglicanism, or the 
 Italians to the principles of the Society of Friends, or 
 the Greeks to the tenets of the Particular Baptists. 
 The Church of England has, indeed, certain qualities 
 which seem to make hers the appropriate form for the 
 Anglo-Saxon race ; and yet he would be a bold man 
 who would prophesy the extinction of Methodism in 
 America. But I need not enlarge upon the theme. 
 The reunion of all who call themselves by the 
 Name of Christ in one visible and cohesive society 
 does not seem to lie within the range of probable 
 events. 
 
 But must we, on this account, dismiss all thoughts 
 of a real unity among Christian believers ? 
 
 This question leads me to the confession of my deepest 
 conviction the faith which lies at the very root of 
 all that I believe and hope and expect. " He that
 
 PROSPECTS OF RELIGION 423 
 
 hath the Son hath the life ; and he that hath not 
 the Son of God hath not the life." The solution of 
 all difficulties, the regulation of all conduct, lies in 
 the Incarnation of the Son of God. The Lex orandi 
 is the Lex credendi. Now, as in the days of Pliny, 
 they are Christians, who sing hymns to Christ as 
 God. They are Christians, who can from their heart 
 say (as Mr. Gladstone wrote to a seeker after 
 truth), " All I write, and all I think, and all I 
 hope is based upon the Divinity of our Lord, the one 
 central hope of our poor, wayward race." Between 
 all those thronging multitudes of the great human 
 family, however widely separated by race or climate 
 or ecclesiastical differences, who really believe that the 
 Lord Jesus Christ is Very and Eternal God, there is 
 there must be a vital and essential unity. And, 
 between them and those unhappy beings who have 
 deliberately and consciously arrayed themselves in 
 hostility to Christ, there is a difference too profound 
 to be stated in words. It is no mere matter of skin- 
 deep dissimilarity. It is a separation " piercing- even 
 to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the 
 joints and marrow." And, while the common faith of 
 the believers involves a community of thought, and 
 sentiment, and hope, and interest, and effort, the sever- 
 ance between the believers and the enemies implies a 
 " war in which there is no discharge." De vita et 
 sanguine certant. It is my profound belief that 
 deep at the root of many a modern controversy, 
 political, international, literary, scientific, theological, 
 there lies this fundamental issue between Christ and 
 Belial. 
 
 It will be noticed that I say expressly that in my 
 judgment the issue is between those who really believe 
 this supreme truth and those who consciously array
 
 424 THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH 
 
 themselves in hostility to Christ. It is only too trne 
 that many a professing believer is a believer in little 
 more than name ; and, on the other hand, I rejoice 
 to know that among men who cannot conscientiously 
 accept the Nicene formula, among devout Unitarians, 
 even among a certain section of the Jews, there is a 
 reverent recognition of the Divine Master's character 
 and claims which does not stop far short of the 
 Christian's \arpeia. It is not of these, God forbid, that 
 I would speak a harsh-judging word. But, in spite of 
 all this, I am deeply persuaded that the Offence of the 
 Cross has not ceased ; that our Divine Lord has, at the 
 present day, deliberate and implacable enemies among 
 the men whom He died to redeem ; and that they hate 
 Him and His faith and His followers with a passionate 
 vindictiveness, which reviles Him as He kneels in the 
 Garden of the Agony or breathes His last upon the 
 bitter cross. This antipathy to Christianity can be traced 
 in all departments of life and literature, and is constantly 
 rearing its hideous head in new and unsuspected quarters. 
 
 What is the outlook ? 
 
 I said in an earlier passage that the Socinian spirit 
 inside the Church of England had manifestly declined, 
 and this, I think, is incontrovertibly trne. How stands 
 the case outside ? 
 
 I hear of an aggressive movement of Latitudinarian 
 Judaism, which, interpreting the promised reign of the 
 Messiah on earth to mean the universal acceptance of 
 the Jewish theory of the Godhead, is laying itself 
 out for a widespread proselytization. I hear that the 
 leaders of this movement reckon among their best 
 allies the disciples of that neo-Unitarianism which has 
 of late years become more or less fashionable under 
 the nickname of Elsmerism. I know that many people 
 who have good opportunities of judging feel a deep
 
 425 
 
 apprehension (which Mr. Spurgeon shared) that even 
 orthodox Nonconformity is becoming honeycombed by 
 a lax theology concerning the Person and Nature of 
 the Eternal Son. 
 
 All these things, if they are true, are signs of the 
 gathering battle ; and, if only \ve are faithful, they 
 should act as the most powerful incentives to closer union 
 among those who still profess the religion of the Cross. 
 Fixing my gaze on the prospects of religion beyond the 
 Church of England, I believe that I can see tokens 
 which encourage, or at least permit, the belief that 
 union, in this sense of the word, is on its way ; that, 
 as the foes of faith become more numerous and more 
 powerful, more insolent and more aggressive, those 
 who follow the Master will realize the necessity for a 
 closer alliance with one another ; that, while not sur- 
 rendering a single point of the Faith as they have 
 received it, they will recognize with increasing clear- 
 ness that the confession of the Lord's Godhead is the 
 Impregnable Rock on which the Church is built ; and 
 that, welcoming everyone who holds that supreme 
 truth as a " brother and companion," here " in tribula- 
 tion," and hereafter in triumph, they will press forward 
 in the holy rivalry of Christian service, until "the 
 kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of 
 our Lord and of His Christ." 
 
 Printed by ffazell, Wat$on <fc Viney, id., London and Aylabwry.
 
 Date Due 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S. CAT. NO. 24 161
 
 3 1970 00117 7929 
 
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