THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES XX \ ^ ^ I a A STEAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE ABOUT THE SCHOOLS. A35 r » s * € » « . * « « • < c • • « A SIRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITlbli i'EOrLl': AJiUUT THE SCHOOLS: AND ABOUT "QUE UNHAPPY DIVISIONS," AND THEIR IlEMEDY— BACK TO THE CHURCH. WITH AN APPENDIX. BY EEV. J. B. FEEEY, HECTOR OP EAST AND WEST BARKWITH, LINCQLNSHIRE. AUGVST 29th, 1907. LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD. 1907. Price ONE SHILLING. A*U //4 CONTENTS Introduction ..... The Education Bill of 1906 .... " Simple liiblo Teaching "... The Church Catechism . The Object of Pieligious Instruction What the Church must Fight for . Undenominationalism .... State-taught Undenominationalism is State Dissent . The Professed Objects of the liill— Uniformity . The Single- School Area .... Freedom for Teachers .... Why FaciUties were not Offered in the Bill . The Real Object of the Bill Popular Control ..... Public Payment for Denominational Teaching . Why Public Money goes to Voluntary Schools History of Government Payments to Voluntary Schools Grants give no Claim to Possession . Rates and Denonainational Teaching No Betrayal of Church Children How Voluntary Schools save the Rates . Taxes and Denominational Teaching The Real Cause of the Bill of 1906 The Passive Resisters' Bill, 1907 .... The Ne\V Regulations concerning Traiuhig Colleges and Seconda Schools .....•• The Mandate for the Bill of 19UG ..... Justice before Interests ....•• i-y •AGE 9 15 17 17 18 18 19 21 21 22 23 23 24 24 25 25 26 27 28 30 30 32 33 34 35 41 41 VI CONTENTS What is to be Done ?...... The Obvious Settlement ..... The Teachers to teach Religion ..... No Trifling with the Religious Question A Safer Plan ....... Payment for Religious Instruction .... No Outside Payment for Teachers on the Staff . Is School Teaching Civil Service '? . Moral Instruction without Religion powerless The Plea of the Children ..... The Real Question at Issue ..... The Creed Necessary ...... " Our Unhappy Divisions " ..... The Church of England United .... The Prospect of " the Holy Cathohc Church " . The Church the Security of Religious Instruction The Natural Consequence of Dissent .... " The Church " ...... In Britain ........ The Archbishops of Canterbury .... The Apostolic Ministry preserved in the Church of England at the Reformation ....... " The Church " in Ireland ..... " The Church " in Scotland ..... Christianity circling round the British Isles The Apostolic Ministry Perpetual .... Episcopal Ordination the Only Door to Christ's Ministry " Ministers " and " Stewards " still .... St. Paul and the Church of England .... Episcopacy Universal for 1,500 Years .... The Propagation of the Church. The Strawberry' Plant Independence of National Churches .... The Ministry of the Church of England is Apostolic The Praj'er Book in agreement with the whole Catholic Church of Christ ........ The Roman Church in England . . The Deed of Separation between England and Rome "Catholics" ....... The Old Faith ....... PAliK 42 CONTENTS Vll The Word " Protestant " ...... Church of England Teachmg not Sectarian . The High Churchman not a Romanist .... Mr. Gladstone and the Prayer Book .... The Nonconformist Ministries ..... The Principle of Succession Acknowledged as Necessary Man-made Ministries no Equivalent of Chi-ist's Ministry Dissenting Bodies not Branches of the Catholic Church A False Interpretation ...... In Germany ....... Ke-ordination of Dissenting Minister.^ .... Why the Church of Rome Re-ordains Anglican I'riests The Oxford Movement a Proof of -Jurisdiction . The Bible does not give Ministerial Authority Church Improvement from Within, not from Without . ^\'Tio are Members of the Church of England Baptism by Laymen ...... Divisions no Gain to Religion ..... 'WTiy so many Dissenting Chapels .... ^^^ly Dissenters will come " Back to the Church " Nonconformists have done much good without, but would have done more good within, the Church .... Wesley's Ideal of Methodist Churchmen The Effect of true Churchmanship .... Faith in Christ and His Church .... Christ's Hand passed on . The Unwortliiness of Ministers does not Hinder the Effect of the Sacrament ....... The Church iMigland's First Necessity .... The Church not Political ... The Bishops in the House of Lords .... Establishment no Favour ..... Towards Unity ....... The Attractiveness of the Anglican Ministry . All Parishioners in the Church's Care .... The Church and Dissenters ..... Cathedrals, Churches, Endowments : whose are they ? . Lay Patronage ....... The Appointment of Archbishops and IJishops . TAOe 77 78 79 80 81 82 82 83 85 86 86 86 87 88 88 89 90 91 92 93 93 94 95 96 96 97 98 99 99 100 100 101 102 103 103 107 108 Vlll CONTENTS The Church in Wales ..... Is it wise for Churchpeople to desire DisestabUshment ? The Church's PoHtical Aims .... Back to the Church ; and Back to the Land . In Greater Britain . . . . . Christian Schools Necessary to the Empire . Returning to the Chi;rch . . . . . The Drawing of the Ministry .... The Care of the Ministry . . . . . The Growth of the Anglican Church . Pan-Anglican Conference of 1908 Pan -Anglican Congress of 1908 ." Back to the Church " . . . . . PAOK 109 109 110 111 111 111 112 113 114 115 11;-) 116 117 APPENDIX. At Church . A Prayer for Unity 119 123 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE ABOUT THE SCHOOLS; AND ABOUT OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS AND THEIR REMEDY- BACK TO THE CHURCH. Introduction. The coming and going of the Education Bill of 190(3, and of the "Education (Special Religious Instruction) Bill" of 1907, have forced upon the minds of the thoughtful the great question of " Church or Dissent ? " And the House of Commons added urgency to the question by adopting, on February 26, by a majority of 108, the following resolution : " That in the interests alike of religion and the nation it is desirable to disestablish and disendow the Church of England in England and Wales." And what seriousness is added to this question also by the recent appearance in the ranks of Dissent of the so-called "New Theology"! And now the high-handed undenominationalising of the Denominational Training Colleges for Teachers and Secondary Schools by mere " Regulations " of the Board of Education exasperates the situation immensely. Certainly this is a time when a review of the past, and of 10 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE the outlook of the present, is necessary in order to determine what is best for the future ; and that not only in the matter of national education, but also with regard to national religion. If the Church is in the right and Dissent in the wrong, then there will be a stiffening of fidelity among Churchpeople, and a return to the Church of many who are estranged from her; but if Dissent is in the right and the Church in the wrong, then things will happen accordingly. In that this small attempt at such a review must deal with the very highest concern of man— religion ; and in that every man — every Christian man, at least — should be con- cerned as to his neighbour's loelfare, and seek to do him good and not harm, every attempt is made in these pages at least to respect the individual ; for the soul of man is always loveable, whatever his carnal disfigurement. If the truth is stated quite plainly it is because there is charity in truth but none in error ; and because it is contrar}^ to charity to leave a man in the dai'k when you have the light in your hand. No one denies that the exertions of Nonconformists, as represented by the " Free Church Councils " in particular, at the recent election, contributed very largely to the result of that election. And in the House of Commons all know that it was the Nonconformist members who pressed the Govern- ment to produce such education measures as those in ques- tion. So here we have a fair demonstration of the policy of Nonconformity as regards the education of the children of the working classes, nay of the nation at large, for there were clauses in the Bill of 1906, as it was introduced into the House of Commons, which would have brought all Secondary Schools and Colleges, with a few exceptions, under the exclusive con- trol of the State, as well as all Elementary schools. Mr. P. Whitwell Wilson, in his book entitled " Liberty and Eeligion," p. 60, states the aim thus : " The nation itself has taken the ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNlIAPl'i DIVISIONS 11 business in hand, and is slowly elaborating one comprehensive system of schools, colleges, and universities, where no differ- ence of creed and none of social distinction will be recognised, but where men will be known by themselves, not by their labels." Thus we are told that, beginnmg with the Elemen- tary schools, the whole of the schools, colleges, and universi- ties of the country which are not yet under the power of the State are to be confiscated and commonised ; and that Churchpeople, for instance, are not to be allowed to retain or provide Church schools— though they would do it entirely at their own expense — no, not even for the children of the clergy. Thus Mr. P. W. Wilson, and those for whom he speaks, would " stamp out denominational education " (p. 59) throughout the land. But the fate of the Bill of 1906, and its want of mourners, and subsequent elections, have shown plainly enough that ■' the nation itself " is not so bent upon this degrading educational policy as its advocates may imagine. And we say deliberately, for reasons given later on, that this policy of " stamping out denominational educa- tion " is a degrading policy; and more, it is a tyrannical policy also, as the very words " stamp out " prove, and those words exactly express the leading aim of the Bill of 190G, which was to " stamp out denominational teaching" as part of the normal curriculum of the Elementary schools of the day. So we are compelled to charge the Nonconformist world, in so far as it was engaged in the promotion of that Bill, with being more political than spiritual. In that their aim is a "civic" aim, and in that that aim is a "political" aim, their efforts in support of their aim were pohtical efforts. The two words "political" and "civic" mean the same thing, for each is derived from a word that means a city, only in one case the original word is a Greek word, and in the other it is a Latin word. It was not as keen friends of education that the 12 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE Nonconformists acted, because the few schools that they have built on their own account indicate but small concern for education ; nor was it as friends of religion that they acted, for they voted in the House of Commons for the total exclusion of religion from the syllabus of all Elementary schools — that is, they degraded religion to the position of an optional subject. The only true explanation of this action on their part is that they wanted to exclude the clergy of the National Church from the 11,400 Church schools, and to make it impossible for them to enter any other schools, as "spiritual pastors." The clergy were to be got out of the way, so that the civic ideal might be carried out in all the schools, and applied even to such modicum of religious instruction as might be locally allowed. Nor have the Nonconformists in the least abated their demands since the defeat of the Bill of 1906. On March 5, 1907, the following resolution was unanimously adopted by some 1,500 delegates, representing 950 Local and District Free Church Councils, at their Annual Assembly held at Leeds : " The Council feels it necessary to urge its strong conviction that it would be a violation of its education policy as adopted at Newcastle, Manchester, and Birmingham — (1) to include in any education measure such provisions as those of Clause IV in the 1906 Bill : provisions involving preferential treatment on sectarian grounds ; (2) to permit sectarian teaching to be given by any member of the school staff; (3) to confer upon a parents' committee any power whatever with regard to the appointment of teachers or the regulations of the schools." Thus the dissenting world, as represented by the Free Church Councils, still insists (1) that the title deeds of all denominational schools should be torn up as regards religious instruction ; (2) that all teachers on the staff should be rigidly muzzled as regards the teaching of their own beliefs ; (3) that the parents are to be forbidden ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 13 to exercise their parental right as to the moral or religious training of their children in the Elementary schools, save that of keeping them away from whatever religious instruc- tion is given in them. Such a pronouncement as this, from such a body, amounts to a distinct challenge to all who prefer denominational teaching to " civic " teaching, and to the Church of England in particular, still to try conclusions upon the matter. So the issue must be fought out. And the National Church, at least, is morally bound to hold the battle in hand until justice is done to the convictions of the parents and their children in all the schools in the land. We do not charge the political Dissenter with irreligion ; but we do say that the intensity of his political passion accords with the magnitude of his misunderstanding of the Church and her motives. And we do say that his fierce effort to compass the destruction of the Church schools — for no other schools would have been so hardly dealt with if that Bill had become law — in order to impose his own ideal upon those schools in the place of the ideal of the Church, has deliberately forced the question of " Church or Dissent?" We do not forget the rationalist, but, in the main, the issue of the education question certainly depends upon the issue of this question — " Church or Dissent ; which is to be guide in matters educational? " And when we remember that the ivhole future of the nation is con- cerned in this issue, we at once realise that it is a subject which cannot be treated lightly, and which must not be shirked for reasons of sentiment, or for the sake of false peace. During the education controversy nothing has been more evident than the confusion that exists in the minds of most people as to the true historical position of the Church of England, on one side in relation to the Church of Eome, and 14 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE on the other side in relation to the Nonconformist bodies. And there can be Httle doubt that this education controversy will never be satisfactorily concluded while that confusion is so prevalent. For it is not secular education that is the bone of contention, but religious education. As regards the Church of England and the Church of Rome in England, historical enquiry is necessary if only to meet the strange view of the education case from which, for instance, the Prime Minister comes to consider that the Roman Catholics ought to have different treatment from the English Catholics ; for we cannot help wondering on what historical grounds it can be that Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman bases his opinion that Roman Catholics ought to have preferential treatment. We earnestly urge that Roman Catholics should have the fair and just treatment that they ask for ; but the ancient Church of England will certainly not take a back seat in this matter, and that behind a foreign Church. It is not supposed that the Roman Catholics themselves desire any unfair advantage whatever ; indeed, in common with the Church of England, what they demand is a frank and fair recognition of denominational rights on denominational premises. As regards the Church of England and the Nonconformist bodies, two things in particular must be noticed : one is that, whilst those bodies appear to present a united front politi- ally, they are religiously very much divided, indeed a con- glomeration of modern sects ; and the other is that no one of those bodies is in any historical or ecclesiastical sense whatever the equivalent of the Church of England. But before we look into our ecclesiastical history, we will briefly examine the Education Bills of 1906 and 1907 on the "Regulations," and then consider what the educational policy of the future should be. This education controversy has already worn out the patience of many ; but the National ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 15 Church can never be tired of the education question so long as there is anything to be done to safeguard the rehgious instruction of the children of the nation. To care for the children is her perpetual responsibility. Those readers who are impatient of the education con- troversy may prefer to pass on at once to consider the more historical pages of this pamphlet, which more especially develop the theme of the latter part of its title. The Education Bill of 1906. If that Bill had become law as it passed the House of Commons, 14,000 Voluntary schools, built for definite re- ligious instruction, would either have had all public support withdrawn from them, which would usually have meant closing them, or they would have been taken over by the Local Education Authorities ; and in that event, which would have happened in the vast majority of cases, the transferred schools would have been turned into the very kind of schools that over 6,000 of them, since 1870, were specially built to avoid ; that is, they would have been turned into undenominational schools. This would have been like making a law to confiscate all Conservative clubs, for an insulting rent, so as to turn them into Liberal clubs. By the third clause the present owners of these confis- cated schools would have had a chance of sending outside teachers twice a week to give special religious instruction in the schools but out of conqmlsory school hours, and if the children chose to come for it, and if the Local Education Authority permitted any religious instruction to be given in those schools at all. That would have been like allowing the Conservatives the use of a committee room in their own club twice a week at bed time. But a loophole was made in the fourth clause of the Bill with the hope of pleasing the Koman Catholics, who send 16 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE eighty votes to Parliament from Ireland ; and the Jews, who find the Government money when they want it. But very few indeed of the 11,400 Church schools could have squeezed through that loop-hole. It was evidently meant to be too small for them ; they were all to be captured if possible. This clause provided that lolien the parents of at least four- fifths of the children attending" the school desired denomina- tional teaching, the Local Education Authority might allow the teachers to give that teaching. As to the bishops and clergy — who have been the leading builders of 10,000 schools, and who have put more heart and soul and hard work into promoting the education of the children of the working classes than any other body of men in the country — they, of all men, as spiritual pastors, were to be specially turned out of those very schools which are more theirs than anybody's : the Church Schools were specially to be delivered " from the heel of the priests." But the country is not so ungrateful as that. The probability is that, when the country sees things in their right light, it will decide, once for all, that the National Church shall have the first chance of teaching the children of the nation, and not the last, wherever the parents wish for it. The teachers in the 14,000 Voluntary schools, according to the Bill, were to be rigidly muzzled ; except perchance, and it would have been very much perchance, in the loop- hole schools. They might have given undenominational teaching if they had liked, whether they were believers, misbelievers, or unbelievers; for "no tests for teachers" meant it did not matter which they were themselves ; but they were strictly forbidden to teach their own special beliefs, if they were believers of any kind, unless those beliefs came in the County Council Commentary on the Bible. Imagine it. Teachers, who might be believers. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 17 misbelievers, or unbelievers, might give the religious in- struction prescribed by the County Council Education Committee, the members of which Committee might them- selves be believers, misbelievers, or unbelievers ; or possibly it might have been religious instruction as prescribed by the Board of Education, the authorities of which again might be believers, misbelievers, or unbelievers, for the suggestion was heard that that Board might possibly provide a common undenominational syllabus for adoption by the Local Educa- tion Authorities. But the teachers were absolutely forbidden to give the special spiritual instruction prescribed by the spiritual authorities of the denominations who provided the schools in which they might be employed. What is this tut religious tyranny ? As to the children. They were to do as they liked, according to the Bill, about going to school for religious instruction at all, of whatever kind it might be. Was there ever such folly ? "Simple Bible Teaching-." Much has been said about " Simple Bible Teaching," but all attempts to prescribe the limits of the word " simple " have failed ignominiously. Here is Dr. Clifford's definition of it : "A knowledge of the best literature, the most vital and vitalising history, and the loftiest ethic the world contains " — a definition which banishes doctrine, that is the true Word of God, from the children's Bible. The Church Catechism. And much has been said about the Church Catechism as a thing to be specially banished from the schools. Yet where is " simple Bible teaching " more beautifully and simply condensed for the use of children than in that li 18 A STliAlGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE Catechism ? The Catechism is the Bible, as it applies to the Christian child. The Church Catechism is abundantly substantiated by Holy Scripture, and its teaching is wholly drawn from Scripture. Anyway, do not let Churchpeople fall into the trap of political Dissenters, and allow, as they ever infer, that the Bible and the Church Catechism teach different things. They do not. The Object of Religrious Instruction. The primary object of religious instruction is to show the child how to live his religious life. The lessons are drawn from the Bible, bvit the Christian life must be lived in relation to the Christian Church. And yet undenomi- nationalism requires that the child shall only be allowed to nibble round religious truth ; and it absolutely forbids him to be taught how he is to live his religious life. What the Church must Fight for. It is not for bricks and mortar that Churchpeople fight when opposing these measures ; nor is it for denomi- national ascendency ; much less is it for money ; but it is for the children that they fight — for those nearly 6,000,000 children who are ever in the Elementary schools of this country, and who, w^hile there, are starting upon their everlasting career ; for man belongs to two worlds, the temporal and the eternal. To start the child well is a duty which can only be neglected at the peril of the souls of those who neglect them, to say nothing of the peril to che children themselves. And how can the child be started well except in God's way ? To hide God's Word, and God's way, from God's child, or to make light of either, is an offence against God Himself. ABOUT THK SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 19 Undenominationalism. No better answer to the question, " What is Undenomi- nationalism ? " can be given than that of Mr. Gladstone, who wrote to the DaiJij Neirs, November 9, 1894, as follows : — " 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. " Churchmen and Roman Catholics tell us that it is not their religion, and that the teaching of it is against their religion. Nonconformists, on the contrary, though they declare that it is not their religion, are enthusiastic for it ; from which circumstance we may fairly infer that as between them and Churchmen it is on their side. " It excludes everything on which all professing Christians are not agreed. Baptism is not undenominational because some Christians (the Baptists) declare that it is not for the very young, and others deny the necessity of baptism with water. The Lord's Supper is not undenommational, be- cause some who profess Christianity have no such sacra- ment. Confirmation is not undenominational, because it is chiefly peculiar to Episcopal Christians. The Church itself, its worship, its membership, and organisation, are not undenominational, because Christians disagree about these things. " In theory, therefore, and at its best, undenomina- tionalism emphasises some doctrines which are common to Nonconformists ; while it ignores or excludes, as though optional of belief, truths held dear by Churchmen. But 20 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE there is really no undenominational faith. Undenomina- tionalism in practice is either what the teacher chooses to teach when the choice is — as frequently — left to him, or else it is what the Local Educational Authority selects as its syllabus when that authority does not delegate its discretion to the teacher. In one locality it has one string of teach- ings, in another locality it has another. It has no Faith for the whole country, for all children, or for all time. At its best it is but broken fragments of the Faith, and those dis- proportioned and displaced. At its worst it would exclude the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ. " To feed the spiritual life on undenominationalism is to hope to heal the diseases of our spiritual nature without the medicines ordained by Christ. It is as if a sick man should consult a doctor and then determine what parts of the prescription he should allow himself to take. The first ingre- dient was a poison : no man should persuade him to swallow that. The second a tonic : tonics never agreed with him. The third was bitter : he never liked bitter tastes. The fourth he could not decipher : no one should make him take what he could not understand. He would drink the residuum — water. " Undenominationalism is of little value in making people good. What is wanted is to teach children to be truly devout, and devotion must be according to the faith of some particular religious body. Let every child, then, learn to pray and worship according to the faith its parents may choose. " At any rate it is preposterous that a shifting, uncertain set of teachings in religion, favourable to Nonconformity and hostile to all Churchmanship, should be inflicted on the children and consciences of Churchpeople and Eoman Catholics. To establish and endow this State religion in all schools, at the expense of all, would be an outrage upon ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 21 half the population, and a religious tyranny over 2,500,000 children." State-taught Undenominationalism is State Dissent. If undenominationalism is specified and taught under the authority of the State, then it becomes State Dissent, opposed to, in that it disregards, the teaching of the National Church. So it is no wonder that the advocates of disestablishment favour this side-issue method of displacing the teaching of the National Church from amongst the children of the nation. And this view of the matter compels the National Church to assert her national rights in the Council schools, whence she has hitherto been ousted by what is, in fact, State Dissent. The Professed Objects of the Bill. Uniformity . But what were the professed objects of the Bill '? The first object was said to be to secure one kind of schools instead of two. Yet before the Bill had left the House of Commons the Government had so altered it as to increase the kinds of schools from two to five. But, in so far as that aim was true, the universal kind of school was to have been that kind which would have suited the Dissenters, but which would have outraged the consciences of Church- people. Thus evidently the Bill was definitely intended to be a triumph for Dissent, and that was thought to bring religious peace to England. No, tyranny does not make peace. It is all very well for Mr. P. W. Wilson to say (p. 15) that Nonconformists " are lost, deservedly lost, if they ask either more or less than strictly equal treatment for all 22 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE denominations alike." For what Mr. Wilson really means is, that the cap that fits the Nonconformist must be forced on to the head of the Churchman and the Roman Catholic, whether it fits him or not; it is to be undenominationalism for all, whether they like it or not. This certainly cannot be called " strictly equal treatment for all denominations alike," except in the tyrannical sense. For " strictly equal treatment," in the equitable sense, really means — let every man wear the cap that fits him. The Single-School Area. The next professed object of the Bill was to relieve the Nonconformists from the necessity of sending their children, in single-school areas, to Church schools. Yes ; but how was it to be done ? By compelling Churchpeople, in the selfsame areas, to send their children to Nonconformist schools held in their own Church buildings ; that is, the remedy was simply to turn the tables ; to turn Church schools into Dissenting schools and then make the Church children go to them ; for undenominational schools, it is sad to acknowledge, do satisfy Dissenters as a rule, and therefore they may be described as Dissenting schools, and especially so when it is remembered that nothing is allowed to be said about the Church in those schools, on which account they are anti-Church or Dissenting schools. So Dissenters v»^ere to have schools to their liking everywhere, entirely main- tained at the public expense, and Churchpeople nowhere — not even in the buildings they had built themselves — and notwithstanding the fact that they pay the lion's share of the rates and taxes. As to this grievance of children of Nonconformists having to attend Church schools, it is well known that this is more a x^olitical agitators' grievance than a parents' grievance. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UiNHAPl'V Dlv ISIOXS 23 As a matter of fact, in all the country there are but the merest handful of parents who object to the Church atmo- sphere in Church schools. The vast majority of them appreciate it rather. But this grievance serves as a hill upon which to mount one of the batteries of political Dissent. Freedom for Teachers. And this Bill was to secure greater freedom for the teachers. But it was a strange form of freedom for teachers that would rigidly apply the muzzle to them and forbid them to teach their own faiths. Besides, it is the require- ments of the children that must prescribe what is to be required of the teachers. The teachers exist for the children, and not the children for the teachers. If the children re- quire to be taught reading, the teachers must be qualified to teach them reading; and just so, if the children require religious instruction, which is a parents' question, the teachers must have the necessary qualifications to impart that instruction. It is for the parents to insist firmly on the principle that if the State undertakes the obligation of the parents, and compels them to send their children to school for secular instruction, the State must also discharge that higher part of the parental obhgation and provide, or allow provision to be made for, their religious instruction as well. To do one, and to refuse to do the other, would be grossly dishonourable, and cruel injustice. Why Facilities were not offered in the Bill. If the Government had really desired to remove the grievances of Nonconformists in single-school areas they would have offered them facilities to go into denominational 24 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE schools to teach their own children themselves. But they would not do that, for two reasons in particular : one was because facilities in denominational schools would neces- sarily involve facilities being provided in Council schools for those children whose parents desire denominational teaching for them. And the other reason was because the Nonconformists have very little desire to teach their own children, and less desire to pay for them being taught ; but they want it done for them, and at the public expense. Well, there would be no objection to Noncon- formist children being taught according to their parents' wishes at the public expense — if it was the same all round. But it is not fair that Dissenters should have everything and Churchpeople nothing. The Real Object of the Bill. But the removal of Nonconformist grievances was not the aim of the Government, nor was it the aim of their Nonconformist followers in the House of Commons ; but the wholesale capture of the Church schools was their great aim. This must have been the case, as this is just what the Bill would have accomplished. Popular Control. Again, " Popular control " was said to be a leading object of the Bill of 1906. As the secular instruction is already under popular control, the intention could only have been to bring the religious instruction in denominational schools under popular control also, as in the Council schools. But is there popular control in the Council schools as regards religious instruction? Can it be called " popular control " when the law binds everybody that has to do with those schools down to undenominational teaching or none'? Popular control ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 25 there only means the hare possihiHty of saying "Yes" or "No" to Cowper-Templeism ; and the dead Bill would have extended the hard lines of the Council schools to the denominational schools, and placed them all alike, not so much under "popular control" as under "agitators', control," which was the real aim of the promoters of the Bill as regards control. Public Payment for Denominational Teaching". The foundation reason for this capture of the denomi- national schools was stated to be the fact that the de- nominational education given in them is paid for out of public funds. A plausible reason at first sight, but one that wholly breaks down when it comes to be looked into. Why should the Dissenters claim the merits of the public funds for themselves? or the sole control over them ? If the truth were known, it would probably be that they themselves, especially the political portion of them, do not contribute even a third of those moneys which go to the public exchequer, nor perhaps a quarter of them. If they object to this comparison as to the smallness of their numbers, then let them give up their long-standing ob- jection to a religions census when 1911 draws near, and they will see where they are without mistake. As the biggest contributors to the public funds, Churchpeople have far more right than Dissenters, on the grounds of proportionate contribution, to say what is to be done with those funds. But the funds contributed by all are for the benefit of all. Why Public Money goes to Voluntary Schools. But why does the State pay for the education given in the Voluntary schools? Because it gives its orders as to 26 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE the education that is to be given in them, and then it com- mands the children to attend those schools to receive that education. Just as if a kindly person ordered a hundred buns at a baker's shop and then told a hundred children to go to that shop and get those buns and eat them, he would naturally expect to have to pay for his order. But the baker would be mightily surprised if that benevolent person were to claim any right of commandeering his shop because of that order, or even because he gave him orders enough to keep his business going. Just so the owners of the Volun- tary schools utterly resent the Government's claim to forcible possession of their school buildings, even for school purposes, just because their orders are discharged in them. History of Government Payments to Voluntary Schools. The history of the Government pay for education given in the Voluntary schools is briefly this : — " In 1833, the year after the passing of the Eeform Bill, the first grant was made out of pubhc funds towards educa- tion. This grant of 20,000/. was proposed by Lord Althorpe, and was appHed exclusively for building purposes to schools in union with the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society ; it was provided that each Society should benefit by one-half of the grant, so that Churchmen and Dissenters might feel themselves placed on an absolute equality." ^ And be it noted that Churchmen and Dissenters have had equal treatment at the hands of the Education Authorities ever since, or until the present Government came into power. In 1839 the Committee of Council was formed to administer the grant, which was then increased to 30,000/., and still given for building purposes. Building grants from ' Elementary Education, by Dean Gregory, p. 29. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UXIlAri>V DIVISIONS 27 the public funds to voluntary schools came to an end after the year of grace allowed by the Act of 1870, and after they had amounted in all since 1883 to rather more than 1,500,000/. As to maintenance grants, capitation grants were intro- duced in 1853, and have been apportioned and allotted by various methods ever since. So from 1835 to 1870 the Government gave comparatively small grants to encourage the provision and maintenance of schools, which were then entirely voluntary ; and about 7,000 of them, in 1870, were Church schools. From 1870, when Board schools were created, to the present time the Government have continued to encourage the building and maintenance of Denominational schools by paying grants which have been given according to results — that is, accord- ing to the character of the education given in them, as tested by their own inspectors. In 1902, the Government of the day saw how unfair it was to make just the same demands of the Board schools and the Voluntary schools, and to pay the entire cost of those demands in the Board schools, even to the costs of all buildings and repairs, out of rates and taxes, and only to pay for their demands of the managers of the Voluntary schools in part, and yet expect them to pay out of their own pockets the costs of providing and maintaining their school buildings. So, as a matter of simple fairness, they completed the pay- ment for their educational orders out of the rates by the Act of 1902. Grants g^ive no Claim to Possession. These building and maintenance grants do not establish any claim on the part of the State to possession of the buildings of the Denominational schools, nor do they justify 28 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BR[TJSH PEOPLE the conversion of those schools into undenominational schools. The cost to Churchpeople of building and main- taining the Church schools alone, since 1811, has been over 47,000,000^. ; and to this sum Government building grants have been added amounting to about 1,500,000Z. ; and those grants were expressly given to aid the building of Church schools. Where is the justice, or even decency, of claiming any right, upon the strength of those grants, to turn all Church schools into Dissenting schools ? A man w^ho had given one hundred pounds tov^ards building a Wesleyan chapel might just as v/ell claim, upon the strength of that gift, and if he so wished, that that chapel should be turned over to the Koman Catholics. And as to the costs of the secular instruction being now met entirely out of public funds, we say again the real explanation is that the schools earji the money, just as, for instance, a private factory earns payment from public funds by making boots for soldiers. And earnings are not purchase money. Rates and Denominational Teaching". As to the iniquity of the costs of the religious teaching of a " special character," given in denominational schools, being paid for out of the rates — let us see where it comes in. In denominational schools the Government payments, all put together, only pay for the secular education given, and materials used, and for inside wear and tear of buildings, or tenant's responsibilities. And though the education authorities practically act as tenants of the schools for school time, they pay no rents for them whatever. So this unpaid rent is the contribution of the owners of the school for the costs of the religious instruction given ; that is, the owners practically make the education authorities a present of the ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 29 receipt for the rent out of consideration of the fact that they must retain the control of the rehgious instruction for which the school was built. The very fact that, in connection with the Bill of 1906, the Government offered, or let it be thought that they offered, rent for the school buildings — though, with all the considerations to be taken into account, the offer would have amounted to very little in detail — and then freed the teachers from the necessity of giving religious instruction, and the children from the necessity of attending it if given, showed that they themselves looked upon such a rent as a set-oflf against the loss of the religious instruction which was to be banished from the school syllabus, that they acknowledged that the prohibition of the religious instruction hitherto given required the payment of rent as compensation. That is, the rent not paid now because of the religious instruction given was to be paid in the future, so that the religious instruction need not be given in school hours or by the school staff ; there- fore the Government have themselves reasoned that the cost of religious instruction in denominational schools is quite covered by the unpaid rent as things are, and that therefore denominational teaching is not paid for out of the rates. And yet they have not a word to say against what is called " passive resistance," but actually brought in a Bill to justify it. And, further, it was suggested that the rent paid to the owners of the school for its use for secular instruction might be utilised in supplying outside teachers of " religious instruction of a special character " on two days a week. So the rent not paid now was to be paid then, and it was to be spent on religious instruction still ; and this rent was to be paid, after all, out of Mr. Birrell's doubtful million. Where do the rates come in here? Noioliere—for denominational teaching. The capital value of the Church school buildings alone 80 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE is stated to be, at the very least, 22,000,000Z., so that any- one can see that the interest on these 22,000,000/., which at 8|^ per cent, is 715,000/. a year, pkis the cost of the up- keep, and the required improvements of the buildings — easily 1,000,000/. a year more — far more than pays for all the costs of the Church schools during the very short daily time that is given to religious instruction in them. That is, instead of actually receiving interest for the capital they have sunk in their buildings, whether on building, repairs, or im- provements, the owners take it out, as it were, in the definite religious instruction given to the children, and in the defi- nite religious tone provided for the school. " It is sound commercial instinct," says Mr. P. W. Wilson (p. 61), "which demands a voice in the spending of one's own money." And yet he denies to Churchmen any voice in saying what is to be done for or with all the money which they have spent, and are spending, on their own schools. No Betrayal of Church Children. Let all the world know that the Church of England will not take even 22,000,000/., no, nor 50,000,000/., for her title to her schools, for she will not betray her children for any money. Nor, of course, will the Koman Catholics. How Voluntary Schools save the Rates. The English citizen, whose thermometer is his pocket, should not forget the enormous saving to the rates which has been effected, and is still being effected, by the voluntary provision of 14,000 schools. If all the schools of that class had been wiped out in 1870, and if no more of them had been allowed, 60,000,000/. is not too high a figure to express an idea of what the ratepayers would have had to find, within the last thirty-six years, to build and maintain Board ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNIIAl'PY DIVISIONS 31 schools in their place ; and that on the top of the enormous expenditure which has been incurred in building and main- taining the 6,000 Board schools, now Council schools, which do exist, and which have been built with loans, chargeable to the rates, amounting to 53,201,51 GZ. 10s. 2,cl, A. writer in the School Guardian of May 4, 1097, calcu- lates that it would now cost the ratepayers, from first to last, in interest on, and in repayment of, loans for the pur- pose, at least 80,000,000/. to build Council schools in the place of all the Voluntary schools of to-day. As things are, the general conclusion to be drawn from " The Keport of the Departmental Committee on Edu- cation Kates," is this — where Voluntary schools abound, there the education rates are the lowest, but where the Voluntary schools are few and far between, there the education rate is highest, and sometimes tremendous. So does the English nation relish the idea of such an enormous increase in compulsory expenditure as the dead Bill would have incurred sooner or later, just so that the parson may he turned out of the Church school ? Figures were published in the School Guardian of March 9, 1907, showing very plainly to what extent the Voluntary schools save the rates in three given districts. In the West Biding of Yorkshire the expenditure from the rates upon education last year was : in Council schools containing 88,823 children, 30s. per child ; in Voluntary schools, containing 85,494 children, it was only about iSs. per child. In Nottingham, during the year ending March 31, 1900, each child in the Council schools cost the ratepayers 11. 6s. 6(7., whereas each child in the Voluntary schools cost them 16s. iid. And further, in Nottingham the Voluntary schools contributed towards the costs of education 5,0587. more than they received from the rates in that same year. 32 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE 111 Willesden the Voluntary schools are shown to have saved the ratepayers 9,5S3l., or the equivalent of a three- penny rate, in the year ending March 31, 1906. What can Passive Eesisters say to these figures ? And how they make Mr. McKenna's Passive liesistance Bill reek with injustice, especially when it is remembered that, in the aggregate, the greatest contributors to the rates are Churchpeople. And these figures do but show the state of things that exists generally in the country. Taxes and Denominational Teaching". But if a fraction of the rates is utilised for denomi- national teaching under the Bill of 1902, and it could only be a fraction, then a fraction of the taxes has been so used for generations past. Both are " public moneys." But one form of revenue is mostly paid through tea and sugar and other things, and the other is paid entirely in cash — that is the only difference. It would be just as reasonable for "Passive Besisters " to object to buying tea and sugar as it is to object to paying the education rate. But as to the grossly one-sided objection of the Passive Besisters to pay rates towards denominational schools, it must be again and again insisted on that the objection cuts both ways, or almost entirely the denominationalists' way. Why should it be right for the Churchman to have to pay rates towards Council schools where the religious instruc- tion, which is entirely paid for out of the public funds, is on a plan that he hates ; and wrong for the Dissenter to have to pay rates towards Church schools where the religious instruction is not what he likes, but where, as we have seen, the religious teaching is really otherwise paid for? Lord Hugh Cecil, in a letter to the Times of January 7, put the question unanswerably thus : " Why do Liberals think ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 33 that it is unfair and tyrannical to make Dr. Clifford pay for Church teaching, and not unfair and tyrannical to make the Bishop of Birmingham pay for Cowper-Temple teaching? " If the Dissenter says to the Churchman : " I pay rates, and you shan't teach the Catechism in your school " ; the Churchman has a perfect right to reply, "And I pay rates, and I pay more than you do, so I will teach the Catechism in my school." The Real Cause of the Bill of 1906. As a matter of fact, all this violent ojoposition to the Act of 1902 represents, more than anything else, the hitter resentment of a great disappointment. Up to 1902 the political Nonconformists had been deliberately working for an opportunity of turning all the Church schools in Eng- land and Wales into Board schools. They would have done it in 1870 if they could. Then the Act of 1902 was passed, which seemed to dash their hopes to the ground : for it turned all the Board schools into Council schools, and it established the position of the Voluntary schools by full payment for their services out of public funds. It was then that they discovered the iniquity of public money being used for denominational teaching, though they had been blind to that iniquity for generations before. The lost Bill of 1906 is proof in itself of the real mean- ing of passive resistance. That Bill was clearly the Bill of political Nonconformity. It was forced upon the Govern- ment by their Nonconformist followers in the House of Commons, backed up by others in Parliament, and by their confederate organisations outside Parliament ; and its dominant aim was, after all, to turn the Church schools into Board schools. The Nonconformist element, rejoic- ing in their numbers in the House of Commons, said to c 34 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE themselves : " Now is our opportunity ; we shall get the Church schools this time." But the House of Lords did their duty to the country, though, as many think, none too vigorously ; and they would have been disgraced for ever if they had not done so. For they are the standing pro- tectors of the country against ill-conceived and ill-considered legislation. The Passive Resisters' Bill, 1907. In this Bill we had the Government's reply to the House of Lords upon the subject of education, or rather upon the subject of the denominational schools. And this Bill may justly be described as a Bill to penalise trustees and managers for doing their duty as the law requires. By its provisions this Bill was to make the foundation managers of all denominational schools pay out of their own pockets to the Local Education Authority, for the relief of the rates, a sum equal to 6^. 13s. 4tZ. for every 100?. paid through the Local Education Authority in salaries to the teachers who gave definite religious instruction in their schools, whether those salaries were paid out of rates or taxes did not seem to matter. And yet, as regards Church schools, Churchpeople already contribute in many districts, if not in most, 101. or 80/. per cent, of those rates, and no doubt they also contribute a greatly preponderating proportion of the taxes which are applied to education. Then if the managers would not or could not pay this unjust imposition all education grants were to be withdrawn from their schools, which were, accordingly, to be closed by starvation. And that done, Council schools were to be built by the side of them, entirely out of the rates ; where again the Churchman as ratepayer must pay the piper in the shape of 70i. or 80Z. per cent, of the entire cost of building those anti- ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 30 Churcli schools. So this was a Bill to make the Churchman kill his own child and take another in its place, and that to please the political Nonconformist. And yet it is quite doubtful whether the political Nonconformist, as distinct from the more religious Nonconformist, contributes as much as 51. per cent, of either the rates or the taxes. And this Bill was to be retrospective. If it became law, the fines would have had to be paid for the year ending March 31, 1907. And this could only have been to save the face of the Government in the eyes of its supporters for not having otherwise done their bidding, as regards denomina- tional schools, during their first year of office. The New Reg-ulations concerning- Training- Colleges and Secondary Schools. The new regulations of the Board of Education, which received the sanction of the House of Commons on July 11, and were to come into force partly on August 1, 1907, and partly a year later, to quote the School Guardian of July 13, " taken together . . . constitute a comprehensive, elaborately devised, and most dangerous attack on the very existence of genuine and definite religious teaching throuf^h- out the educational system of the country. The training college regulations will absolutely prevent the establish- ment of any denominational training college or hostel in the future, and in the case of those now existing will do everything possible, short of abolishing them, to defeat the purposes of their founders. The secondary schools regula- tions will establish a system of differential grants, directed to penalising denominational foundations or bribing those connected with them into a breach of their trusts." Beyond question these regulations are an act of religious tyranny, in that they withhold public money from those c 2 36 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE public institutions to whom it is, or may become, otherwise legally due on religious grounds. The Government is using the public purse for partisan purposes, and that in a way which is almost, if not quite, an offence against the Consti- tution, and possibly it is a violation of fundamental law. The Houses of Parliament, acting constitutionally, would not do such a thing ; so the Government, by a money manipulation, does it, and is satisfied with the indirect sanc- tion of a majority of 99 members of the House of Commons only, as the House of Lords has no voice in the money matters of the State. That is, a principle which the law upholds — that those who earn public money shall have it — is defeated by mere cunning on the part of the Education Department. Happily, as the House of Commons was warned on July 11, what " Eegulations " do " Eegulations " can undo. So we need not be hopeless about the matter. If Conservative A and Radical B, the partners in a trade establishment, could not agree to the exclusive employment of Conservative workmen on their premises, it would be distinctly dishonourable and tyrannical on the part of A if, whilst B was incapacitated from attending to business, he went to the clerk of the firm and instructed him to put up a notice to the effect that after a certain date Radical workmen already employed by the firm would only get half-pay, and that no more Radicals need apply for employment by the firm. But that is the kind of way in which the present Government have treated the Upper House of Parliament by means of these monetary Regulations. And Mr. McKenna's chief defence of his action — for it is his action mostly — is that the grant money is " public " money, and therefore it should not be paid to denomina- tional institutions. But do not Churchpeople and Roman Catholics belong to the British public as much as any ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY IMVrSIONS o? others? Yes, and there are more of them too than there are of any others ; and they contribute more of the " pubhc " money than do any others. And yet the minority, for this purpose, is called " the pubHc,'" and it is boldly assumed that the money is theirs to do what they like with ; for certainly no one can claim that, at the last election, the public .voted for these partisan "regulations" of Mr. McKenna's, the more exact result of which may be stated as follows, as regards training colleges : — 1. The building of new denominational colleges is made impossible. 2. The building of new denominational hostels, or places of residence for students attending colleges which may be denominational or undenominational, is also made impossible. 3. And all denominational Colleges and Hostels already existing are to put up the conscience clause, which really means, for instance, that Church students may be crowded out of the residential Church Colleges, which have been built at great cost by Churchpeople, by students of any beliefs or none. And yet many of the Church colleges are already open to the daily attendance of all comers ; and the rest are willing to follow their example. During the last twelve years only some '210,000/. has been spent on training colleges by Churchpeople alone ; and of that sum, in that same time, no less than 27,000/. was contributed, from purely Church sources, to the Church of England Men's College at Cheltenham ; and yet Mr. McKenna considers that unbelievers, [for instance, have as much right to be admitted to that college as the Churchmen for whom it was built. The following further extract from the School Guardian of July 13 gives some useful information and comments about the training colleges : — ^ f^C\>% c:ci 38 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE " The training colleges at present in existence provide accommodation as under : — Resident Students Day Students Church of England . . 3,337 484 Undenominational residential . 1,128 305 Wesleyan 269 12 Roman Catholic .... 629 — Day colleges .... — 3,541 " All the day training colleges are undenominational, and the places for day students in the Church of England residential colleges are open to undenominational students. Therefore the accommodation may be classified as follows : — Members of the Church of England only . . . 3,337 Undenominational . 5,458 Wesleyan 281 Eoman Catholic 629 " It will be seen that the number of places restricted to members of the Church of England is over '2,000 fewer than those which are entirely undenominational, and there are in addition 910 places for Boman Catholic and Wesleyan teachers. From this it is evident that the Church of England training colleges do not supply more places than are required for teachers belonging to that denomination. It is ridiculously untrue to say, as is sometimes stated, that the Church of England has a mono- poly of the training college accommodation, and that the Nonconformists are debarred from receiving training for the teaching profession. The great value of the denominational residential college lies in the religious character of the family life of the college. It was for this that the colleges were founded, and it was in the full expectation that their essential character would continue to be recognised that they were originally built and have in quite recent years ABOUT THE SCHOOLS ANJ) Oni UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 30 been greatly extended at a very large capital outlay on the part of members of the Church of England. " It will be seen at once that the imposition of the con- science clause as provided for in Article 8 would^ " 1. Destroy the family religious life of the college ; " 2. Seriously undermine the discipline by making it pos- sible for students to treat with indifference, or even active hostility, an important part of the college daily life and work. "The further question arises as to whether it is possible for the existing Church of England training colleges, whose trust deeds are very generally of a strictly denominational character, to comply with these new regulations without breach of trust." As regards secondary schools, the effect of these bitterl}' partisan " Regulations " is described by the Ijishop of Manchester, in a letter to the Manchester Diocemn Maga- zine, as follows :— " A Secondary School is, speaking generally, a school in which young people are taught from the ages of twelve to seventeen. The Government proposes to increase its grant to these schools, but only on condition that they surrender any denominational trust-deed under which they exist, and accept purely undenominational government, and appoint all teachers without reference to their religious opinions. By this act, for the first time, religious strife is introduced into schools from which it has been conspicuously absent, and a sordid bribe is offered to trustees of Church schools to betray their trusts, and divert schools built by Churchmen from the object for which they were founded. Practically, a fine is imposed upon Church- men for loyalty to their convictions. The public funds are devoted to schools which either give no religious teaching at all, or only the vaguest religious instruction, which will be 40 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE more approved by the real promoters of these measures the less religion there is in it. Educationally these Eegulations are disastrous. It is not easy to obtain teachers for secondary schools now. These Eegulations will frighten away those who are attracted to educational work by religious motives. But all these considerations are sub- ordinated to the desire to make the teaching of the Catechism and Prayer Book as difficult as possible." Mr. McKenna's 100,000/., which he has obtained by setting law against law, for the Act of 1870 lays it down that money from the Imperial Exchequer may not be spent on building elementary schools, is to be applied, by " Regula- tions " of the Board of Education, in building second schools in our school areas, where provision for religious facilities in the existing schools would have been, generally speaking, quite sufficient for parental requirements. Let ratepayers take notice of this scheme for imposing the costs of a second school upon them where one is quite sufficient for ordinary purposes. And let everybody notice further that this, strictly speaking, " illegal " use of " public money " is designed to suit the wishes of one section of the community only — those who prefer undenominational teaching — for not a penny of it is to go, directly or indirectly, to the benefit of denominational schools, but rather it is to be employed in setting up schools which will be in direct opposition to them. In this way "public funds" are to be employed in supporting the aims of one section of the community against another. This is not justice, nor is it an honourable pro- ceeding ; and it is utterly unworthy of the British Government. Thus "the sword " is applied to denominational colleges and secondary schools this year, and we are told that that instrument is to be applied without mercy to the elementarj'^ schools next year. And in the meantime Mr. McKenna is ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUli UNHAPl'V UIVJSKJXS 41 relentlessly administering his Department, and Church school after Church school is being closed that need not be closed. But all this is forcing a reaction ■which will before long greatly surprise all those who are thus attempt- ing "to stamp out denominational education." The Mandate for the Bill of 1906. Nothing has happened yet in the country at large to show that a majority of the electors are disappointed at the failure of the Government to pass their Education Bill of 1906. But there are unmistakable evidences to the con- trary. So it is fair to conclude that the country did not vote for such a Bill at the last election. Justice before Interests. But what if a majority of the electors did vote for such injustice as this Bill contained ? Ought legislators to make unjust laws to please anybody ? If a mob is misled and goes wrong, is it in the right because it is a mob ? If the judges who have to administer the law must be men of conspicuous justice, much more ought legislators, the men who make the law, to be men of conspicuous justice. But the Education Bill has revealed the shocking fact that in the present House of Commons there are hundreds of men who put interests before justice. Not that former Parliaments have been free from this iniquity by any means ; but the present generation, at least, have not seen so much of it before in the British Parliament. Law-making at the command of interests is fatal to any nation, and if that is allowed to be the principle of English government, then England, and her Empire, will soon be unmade. Let no interests dominate the Legislature ; but let all interests have justice. 42 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE What is to be Done? But something might be done to improve the present scheme of Elementary schools, especially as regards reli- gious instruction. "With regard to secular instruction, that is entirely under " popular control," both as to the syllabus and expenditure. Every penny of the money spent on it is voted by popularly elected councils as represented by their education committees. The managers have no power what- ever to decide how much is to be spent on salaries, coals stationery, or anything else. All such items are decided by the Local Education Authority. It is difficult to see how much further " popular control " could go than that in controlling the financial side of school management. The owners of Voluntary schools have no objection to any reasonable and wise form of "popular control" over the secular side of their schools ; but they will resist to the bitter end any "public" control over the religious instruc- tion for which their schools were built, any " public " com- mentary on the Bible being forced upon them, or head teachers, at least, of any religion or none being imposed upon their schools. This brings us to the main question. What is to be done to secure a settlement as regards the religious side of school management ? There are, in the main, three parties to the consideration : — - 1. The State, which represents all and acts for all. 2. The owners or trustees of the 14,000 Voluntary schools. 3. The parents of the children in attendance in all Elementary schools. The State commands the parents of the working classes to send their children to school ; and requires them to learn reading, writing, arithmetic, &c., and to attend during the time of religious instruction, subject to the Conscience ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AXD OLTK LNIIAPi'V DIMSTONS 43 Clause. That Conscience Clause protects all children from compulsory religion. At present, in the Council school, the child must receive undenominational teaching, or none, whatever his belief ; and, in the denominational school, the child receives the teaching of the denomination to which the school belongs, whether by means of a religious formulary or not, or none, whatever his belief. The Obvious Settlement. The obvious settlement of this double hardship is to square it — that is, in the Council schools let undenomina- tional teaching be the normal teaching, the head teacher being responsible for it in the main ; then, in the second place, let facilities be granted for denominational teachers, either from within the school or from without, to give such denominational teaching as parents may require for their children in attendance at those schools. In the denominational schools, let the normal teaching be that of the denominations to which the schools belong, the head teacher being of the same denomination ; and then, in the second place, let other denominational teaching, or undenominational teaching, be given according to parental requirement. By this plan both the denominations and the parents would be squared ; and surely the denominations and the parents between them can square the mere politicians, or the " Down with the Church " party. The denominations would be free to teach their own children in all schools ; and no parent would anywhere be obliged to send his child to religious teaching to which he objected. In schools which might be so circumstanced that the parents' requests could not be fully complied with, no doubt their wishes 44 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE would be considered as far as possible ; for instance, if, in a Church school, a parent requested that his child should not be taught to repeat the Church Catechism, that wish would doubtless be complied with. We may fairly assume that the demand for facilities, in all schools, would not be so great as to overtax the possi- bilities of supply, as it would be a matter in which, in each school, either demand would create supply, or supply would create demand. The Teachers to teach Religion. Certainly the teachers should be employed in giving religious instruction in all schools as far as possible. The teachers must be qualified to meet the requirements of the schools or not enter them. Certainly a man who knows nothing of the Christian Faith is as unfit to take charge of a Christian school as a man who knows nothing of arith- metic is. We do not want infidel teachers in our Christian schools, any more than we want infidel ofiicers in our places of Christian worship It is bold effrontery of them to think that because they come into a school Christ must go out. The cry of " No tests for teachers " amounts to nothing less than an infidel attack upon our Christian schools ; and there are infidel agencies at work deliberately pressing this attack. No ; Christian England must be decided : the Saviour shall have the first place in our schools, and not the last ; much less shall His Holy Name be banished from them altogether. No rich Christian man would send his child to a school where he knew he would be impressed by infidelity : why, then, should the poor Christian man be compelled to send his child to spend all the most impressionable years of his life under the influence of an unbeliever, even if the un- believing teacher does not pretend to give religious in- struction ? The mere fact that he would have nothing to ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 45 do with teaching Christianity would have a terribly pre- judicial effect upon the children as regards the Christian Faith ; and the atmosphere of the school would be an infidel atmosphere for all but a very short time daily ; and during that short time there would be serious differences in the air. The main question is : Shall our schools be Christian schools or not ? And the consequent question is : Must not religious instruction be guaranteed to the parents for their children as a moral obligation ? If the first question is answered in the affirmative, as practically all England and Wales does answer it, then why let the infidel, and indifferent, teacher, backed by his sym- pathisers, draw 2ip his own indentures ? Why submit the school to his wishes ? If the second question is answered in the affirmative, as it must be, then, to guarantee to the parents that the teaching they require for their children shall be forthcoming, the teachers of the schools must be qualified to give that teaching. For if there are to be " no tests for teachers," if the teachers, 2vho are always there, are to be released from all responsibility as regards religious instruction — for that follows upon "no tests" — then the guarantee must depend upon outside teachers. And to de- pend upon outside teachers in meeting the Jirst requirement of the school is, to say the least, a precarious and unwise principle, and one that would distinctly jeopardise the re- ligious instruction altogether in thousands of schools. The outside possibilities will vary in relation to every school, and it is safe to say, with " no tests for teachers " in force, not a few schools will, by force of circumstances, be closed to religious instruction altogether, whether in school hours or out of school hours. In cases where the school teachers are unwilling to give religious instruction, and where no teachers are available from outside, the children must go without what they need most of all. 46 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE "Why has the Church of England built her thirty-two training colleges for teachers? In the first place, in order to provide Church teachers for Church schools. And having done that, is it equitable that the Church should now be denied the right of placing teachers trained in her own colleges in her own schools as Church teachers ? The grievance that the head teacherships in the Church schools are closed to teachers who are not adherents of the Church does not look very serious when we consider the comparative numbers of trained teachers in the Church of England schools and in the Council schools respectively. In the Council schools there are 29,292 trained teachers ; in the Church schools there are only 11,914 trained teachers; while in the Koman Catholic schools there are 1,945, and in the Wesleyan schools 533. So surely there are plenty of good posts for teachers who are not Churchpeople in the Council schools. Besides, why should Church teachers be supplanted in Church schools by teachers of any belief or none? Wlio wants it? Certainly the parents, who are most of all concerned, do not want it. If there was one thing in particular which made the parents sign the petitions against the Bill of 1906 it was their dread of " no tests for teachers." People who advocate respect for the parents' wishes should remember that. And certainly trustees and foundation managers do not want it. We are all law makers, each in his own degree. So why should we not continue to insist by law upon tests for head teachers at least, as regards religious instruction ; for we cannot consent to less than this in our denominational schools without grossly betraying our trusts. In many a school the good denominational teacher has saved the credit of Christianity by his faithfulness to the religious requirements of his children. But let it become the "proper thing" for teachers to snap their thumbs at ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISrONS 47 religion in the schools, and the children will learn to do the same ; and the result will he— disaster. We have warn- ing enough in the " hoohgan " turned out oi' the schools where religion is taught without creed, and, perhaps, with- out conviction. " They don't teach manners in our Council schools," remarked a London working man. But we plainly see disaster overtaking intelligence in those countries where the children's teacher does not teach religion. Teachers and children both require religious intercourse. No Trifling- with the Relig-ious Question. , In a Christian country like England and Wales we must not play fast and loose with Christianity. The child must have the first consideration, and not the teacher. The child must be taught religion if the parent requires it, and the teacher must be (|ualified, by conviction and tuition, to take part in teaching it. A Safer Plan. But a safer plan, especially in this age of " New Theolo- gies," a plan that would protect the future religious character of the English and Welsh people for the surest and for the longest time, w-ould be to allow facilities in denominational schools, as explained already, but in the Council schools, in the first place, to allow the Scriptures to be taught according to the interpretation of the National C/m/•c7^, which would be no "private interpretation,"' but the Scriptures according to their original meaning ; but not to allow the Church Catechism to be learnt for repetition by the children in those Council schools, except in such cases as individual parents may wish them to learn it. Then, in the second place, in those schools, allow facilities for other ' -2 Pet. i. '22. 48 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE denominational teaching, or for undenominational teaching as parents may require, and as may be practicable. Payment for Relig-ious Instruction. As to payment for religious instruction given in both kinds of schools, it is quite within the power of the country to settle the matter by deciding that all teachers on the school staffs giving religious instruction, of whatever kind, and in all schools alike, should be paid for it out of the public funds as an addition to their salaries for their other duties. We all alike contribute the " public funds," so we have all the same claim to the benefits of those funds. So if all pay, and if all benefit as they wish, it w^ould be perfectly fair. And the whole matter would equalise itself in that each denomination would, in practice, benefit in the same proportion that it contributes to the funds ; that is, the larger denominations, who would contribute more, would get more benefit ; and the smaller denominations, who would contribute less, would get less benefit ; but each would get its own fair and proper share of the benefit. The political Dissenter's shilling is not of more value than the Church- man's halfcrown. No Outside Payment for Teachers on the Staff. As to the suggestion made since the death of the Bill of 1906, that ChurcLpeople should at once subscribe the money necessary to pay that portion of the teacher's salary which is represented by the proportion of his time that is given to religious teaching in Church schools, this is a proposal which is very meritorious as showing the real concern of Churchpeople for the definitely religious character of their schools ; but it is a distinctly dangerous proposal, in that it ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUll UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 49 makes a present to the political Dissenters, and their anti- Church associates, of the rates and taxes. It appears to concede to them the sole right to say what shall be done with those moneys even in Church schools. 13ut that sole right must be denied to them at all costs. Churchpeople must also take their places as citizens, as well as be faithful to the Church. Is School Teaching- Civil Service ? It is freely argued that Elementary school teaching has become a branch of the Civil Service, and that, therefore, school teachers should be free from religious responsibility in the schools. Keligious minded people cannot possibly accept this argument, for the simple and evident reason that child-training is a rehgious duty first and foremost. If child-training is in any sense a branch of Civil Service, it is much more a branch of Church Service. As such the Church of England has considered it hitherto, and as such she will continue to consider it. The Church of the nation, the greatest power in the country, will not be driven off from the children of the nation by anybody, and certainly not by mere politicians. The children of the nation are her very first care : the command she has received is " Feed My lambs." 1 On the contrary, this educational crisis is acting as a loud and irresistible summons to the Church to claim her own children in all schools alike ; to claim her special pre- rogative, and her national right, to teach the children of the nation wherever the parents may wish it. But, further, child-training is first and foremost a Parent Service. The fifth commandment settles that for ever. Therefore, though the State may rightly see that all the • St. John xxi. 15. Ti 50 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE children are educated, the State has no just right whatever to deny the parents a choice as to the moral and rehgious training of their children. So as Parent and Church come before the State in this matter of child-training, the State can do no other than allow Parent and Church to arrange for the moral and religious training of the child. Therefore, let us demand it. And if we cannot get it " next year," we shall get it before long if we go for it, because it is a wise and just demand. Moral Instruction without Relig-ion powerless. To advocate " systematic non-theological moral instruc- tion in all schools," as the Moral Instruction League does, is like advocating the bricking-up of all the windows in the school buildings, and the exclusive adoption of artificial light instead of the light of the sun. It is altogether inconsistent to advocate morals among the children, and to deny to them any knowledge of God Who is the source of all moral law, and to Whom " vengeance " belongs ; ^ and of Jesus Christ the Son of God, Who is the world's Teacher of morals ; and Who, in the end, is to be the Judge as to how all men have kept the moral law.- To teach moral law without religion is to represent that morals are optional ; whereas they are the Will of God, Who blesses or punishes according to obedience or disobedience. A godless morality is without constraint ; it is powerless. The Plea of the Children. It is to be hoped that one outcome of this great con- troversy about religious instruction in the elementary schools will be to make the whole matter so urgent, to make it so evident that religious instruction is of absolutely first im- portance to the children ; and to give such striking pro- "• Deut. xxxii. 35 ; Rom. xii. 19. - St. John v. 22. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS ~>l minence to the Saviour's command to the Church, " Feed My lamhs"; that the ah'eady great numbers of teachers whose first desire is to bring the children under their care to God, will be increased by a great influx into the teaching profession of thousands of earnest and devoted young people whose first desire will be, not to gratify ambition, nor to get good pay, but to consecrate their lives to this, perhaps, highest form of divine service open to them, and so crowd out of the teaching profession the cold-blooded civil service idea which some attach to it. The power for good of a Christian teacher in a Christian school is unspeakable ; for, in truth, he is impressing countless generations in those children gathered before him. It is in the schools that the history of a people is made more than anywhere. But what if the impression upon the future made in the school is that of the infidel? or that of godless silence ? No ; it shall not be so in the schools of either England or Wales. The Real Question at Issue. The real question at issue in this education controversy is nothing less than this : Shall there be a standard of Bible interpretation in the schools, or not? Shall the Christian Creed be used to point the teaching of the Christian Bible, or nothing ? And there is no more serious question to be faced than this. Those who argue that the Bible will do by itself should remember that the experience of the Church at the beginning, and in this later age, proves that the P>ible by itself will not do. The Creed Necessary. Notwithstanding the general use of the Sacred Scrip- tures in the Christian Church at the beginning — that is, during the first, second, third, and fourth centuries — such n 2 52 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE terrible heresies found place in the Church as those which first denied the Godhead of Jesus Christ, and then denied the Godhead of the Holy Ghost. And it was the existence of these two great heresies in particular that required the first two General Church Councils — that of Nicsea in the year 325, and that of Constantinople in the year 381, to correct them. That is, it became necessary, notwithstanding the circulation of the Scriptures, for the Bishops of the whole Church then on earth to meet together, and state the truth once for all. And this statement of the truth, of " the faith " — that is, as the undivided Church held it then — we have in the Nicene Creed ; this Creed is, therefore, the standard of Scriptural interpretation of the whole Church of Christ for all time. Truth is truth for ever. And the Church has always given this Creed the place of honour among the Creeds — that is, a place in her chief service, the Holy Eu- charist. Place the Nicene Creed upon the Athanasian Creed, and the Apostles' Creed upon the Nicene Creed, and you have "the Faith of the Gospel " as it may be progressively understood by child, man, and saint. In these modern times, what more clearly proves the absolute necessity of a standard by which the Scriptures are to be read and interpreted than the present chaotic state of Protestant Nonconformity on its religious side ? For that chaos is the direct outcome of independent Bible reading. The formation of some 300 sects, or Denominations, and they are still being added to, in the past 350 years is a teri-ible fact. But if we are to have " the Bible and the Bible only" in all our schools, with doubtful and unguided teachers to teach it, then who shall say how many more sects, how many more "new theologies" will arise in the next 350 years; or whether the Bible will not become a more and more forsaken book? He who professes to believe in the Bible, and yet who AIJOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUK UNIIAITV DIVISIONS 53 refuses to be guided by the Creed in reading it, is incon- sistent, to say the least. For while he accepts the indi- vidual writings of the eight or nine authors of the books which comprise the New Testament, he rejects the one short writing, consisting of but a few sentences, the Nicene Creed, which was jointly written by the whole Episcopate of the Church, acting in full inheritance of the ministerial power and authority of the whole of the Apostles for the government of the Church ; for as many as 31G bishops, out of 318 present, set their ncwies to that Creed at the first General Council of the Church held at Nictea in the year 325. And in the second General Council held at Constanti- nople in the year 381, 148 eastern Bishops, in order to correct the eastern heresy which denied the Godhead of the Holy Ghost, amplified and confirmed that same Creed, and that to the satisfaction of the whole Church, east and west. And that Creed, so confirmed and consummated, has been received and maintained in the Church Universal ever since. It is surely inconsistent to accept the New Testament Scriptures from the Church, and yet reject the Church's Creed ; for it was the Church which sorted out the books of the New Testament from very many other books, and declared them to be the inspired writings which give a faithful account of the Christian religion. The Church it was which settled both the Scriptural standard and the Creedal standard, affirming the latter from the former. So, indeed, the Creeds are the security of the Scriptures, in that they declare what the Scriptures meant to the Primitive Church ? " Our Unhappy Divisions." The following list of Keligious Denominations is very significant in its length. It is given, by the kind permission 54 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE of the Editor, just as it appeared, for the last time, in Whitaker's Almanack for 1895, and it was carefully gathered from the Records of the Begistrar General : — " Advent Christians Advents, The Alethians Anglican Church ApostoHcs Arminian New Society Army of the King's Own Army of the Lord Baptists Baptised Behevers Beith Hamedresh Misnah Society Behevers in Christ Behevers in Joanna Southcott Behevers meeting in the name of the L. J. C. Benevolent Methodists Bethesda Mission Bible Christians Bible Defence Association Blackburn Psychological Society Blue Ribbon Gospel Army Brethren British Israelites British and Foreign Sailors Bunyan Baptists Calvinistic Baptists Calvinistic Independents Calvinists and Welsh Calvinists Canonbury Hall Mission Catholic Apostolic Church Catholics of Newport Chevra Torah Society Children of God Children's Special Service Association Chribtadelphians Christian Army Christian Believers Christian Brethren Christian Community Christian Convention Christian Disciples Christian Eliasites Christian Evangelists Christian Israelites Christian Lay Church Christian Mission Christian Pioneers Christian Soldiers Christian Teetotalers Christian Temperance Men Christian Unionists Christian Workers Christian Zoce Perissos Society Christians Christians owning no name but Lord Jesus Church of Christ Church of England Church of Islam Church of Progress Church of Scotland Church of the People Church of England (unattached) Congregation of the Son of the Covenant Congregational Baptists Congregational Temperance Free Church Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion Covenanters Coventry Mission Band Crusade Mission Army Danish Lutherans Deaf and Dumb Mission Dependents Disciples in Christ Disciples of Jesus Christ Eastern Orthodox Greek Church Ecclesia of the Messiah Eclectics Ejjiscopalian Dissenters Ethical Society Evangelical Free Church Evangelical Mission Evangelical Unionists Evangelists Exeter Free Spiritual Research So- ciety Followers of the L J. C. Free Catholic Christians Free Christian Association Free Christians Free Church Free Church (Episcopal) Free Church of England Free Evangelical Christians Free Gospel and Christian Brethren Free Gospel Church Free Gospellers Free Grace Gospel Christians Free Methodists Free Salvation Army Free Union Church French Protestants ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY niVISIONS ")•"» French Refonned Church Full Salvationists General Baptist General Baptist New Connection German Evan}j;elical German Lutherans German llcformed Congregation German Boman Catholics German Wesleyans Glassites Glazebrook Army Glory Band God's Own, and Christian Worship- pers Gospel Army Mission Gospel Band Gospel Lifeboat Missioners Gospel Temperance Bine Piihhon Army Gospel Unionists Greek Catholic Grimsby Faith Union Hackney Juvenile Mission Halifax Psychological Society Halleluiah Band Hebrews Holiness Army Hope Mission Hosanna Army Humanitarians Independent Church of England Independent Methodists Lidependent Order of Good Templars Independent lleligious Eeiormers Independent Unionists Independents Inghamites Israel, New and Latter House of Israelites Jews Jews who believe in Jesus Christ as Messiah and Saviour King Jesus' Army King's Own Army Labour Church Ijattcr Day Saints Latter Day Saints (Anti-Polygamy) Lay (!hristians Lodging House Mission Association London City Mission Loving Brethren Lutherans Members of Church of England Methodist Army Methodist Reform Union Mildmay Mission to the Jews Mission Army Mission of Love Missionaries Modern Methodists Moravians Mormons Moslems Nazarenes New Church New Connection General Baptists New Connection Wesleyans New Hebrew Congregation New Jerusalem Church New Methodist New Spiritual Church Newcastle Sailors' Society Old Baptists Open Baptists Open Brethren Open Plymouth Brethren Orthodox Eastern Church Orthodox Jews Particular Baptists Peculiar People Pentecostal Mission People's Gospel Mission People's League Pilgrim Band Plymouth Brethren Polish Jews Political Society Portsmouth Mission Positivists Presbyterian Baptists Presbyterian Church in England Presbyterian Church of Scotland Primitive Congregation I'rimitive Free Churcii Primitive Methodists Progressionists Protestant Members of the Church of England Protestant Trinitarians Protestant Union Protestants adhering to Articles 1 to 18 Providence Psalms of David Society Quakei's Ranters Railway Mission Rational Christians Recreative Religionists Red Ribbon Army Redeemed Army Reformed Free Church Wesleyan Methodists Reformed Church of England Reformed Episcopal Church Reformed Presbyterians 56 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE Keformed Presbyterians or Cove- nanters Reformers Eefuge Methodists Rescue and Evangelisation Mission Revivalists Revival Band Rock Mission Roman Catholics Royal Gospel Army Saints Salem Society Salvation Army Salvation Navy Salvationists Sandemanians Scotch Baptists Second Advent Brethren Seamen Secularists Separatists (Protestant) Seventh Day Baptists Sheffield Highway Mission Society for Visiting the Sick Society of the New Church Spiritual Church Spiritualist Investigation Society Spiritualists Stockton Hebrew Congregation Strict Baptists Strictly Undenominational Swedenborgians Temperance Methodists Testimony Congregational Church Theistie Church Trinitarians True Spiritual Worshippers Union Baptists Union Churchmen Union Congregationalists Union Free Cliurch Unionists Unitarian Baptists Unitarian Christians Unitarians United Brethren or Moravians United Christian Army United Christian Church United Evangelical Church of Ger- many United Free Methodist Church United Presbyterians Universal Christians Unsectarian Welsh Calvinistic Methodists Welsh Free Presbyterians Welsh Wesleyan Methodists Wesleyan Methodist Association Wesleyan Reform Glory Band Wesleyan Reformers Wesleyan s White Ribbon Gospel Army Wiggan's Evangelistic Mission Woman's Mission Working Men's Evangelistic Mission Chapels Worshippers of God Young Men's Christian Association Young Women's Christian Associa- tion. It will be observed that the same religious body or denomi- nation is in some instances variously described in this list. The Church of England United. On the other hand, on matters " de fide," the Church of England is fundamentally solid, and the lost Education Bill has been the means of a wonderful demonstration of that solidity. Notwithstanding the existence of every variety of Churchmanship in the Church of England — that is, notwith- standing the existence of every degree of appreciation of doctrine and discipline and ritual amongst her members — the old, old standards of the whole Catholic Church, the Apostles ABOUT niE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNIIAPPV DIVISIONS o7 Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed, still hold her firmly together; and those creeds, together with the Holy Scriptures and the apostolic ministry, are the threefold cord which, we believe, will hold the whole Anglican communion solidly together, as they do now, for all time ; and they alone are the lines upon which all Christendom can ever become united ; and great observers tell us that it will be the Anglican Church that will prove to be the rallying ground of Christendom, because she so firmly holds the balance between excess and deficiency in matters of faith. The Prospect of "the Holy Catholic Church." Of all the many heretical and schismatical denominations which existed in the Church during the first four or five centuries not a trace of any of them has existed for many centuries past, though some of their errors have been revived in modern times. Similarly it may reasonably be expected that all the unorthodox denominations which have come nto existence during the last four centuries will in time disappear, and again leave the Holy Catholic Church going forward to embrace all nations in accordance with her mission, and, w^e may hope, universally reformed upon the primitive model. The present-day sects are necessarily changeable, as they are dependent upon the present-day ideas of those who con- trol them. Man-made societies are of course subject to man-made alterations. The very existence of the "National Union of Free Churches " demonstrates the truth that the " Free Churches " are losing their distinctive features, and that they are paying less regard to distinctive doctrine. All this means change. But the Catholic Church, not being the creation of man, cannot be altered by man ; its character 58 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE and constitution were settled by Christ and His apostles for all time. The Church the Security of Religious Instruction. Looking to the future, then, the Church is the surest and most enduring guarantee of religious instruction. Un- denominationalism has neither conviction nor certainty, nor certainly has it any authority ; what is taught under this title, or its equivalent, will vary in every County Council, or Urban Council, district, and it may vary again at the hands of every teacher ; and, as things are, any County or Urban Council may abolish even that uncertain modicum of religious teaching from their schools. And the dead Bill would have placed all tJie denominational schools as loell in this same precarious, nay dangerous, condition as regards religious instruction. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the British people, after calm reflection, will be well disposed to trust their own National Church with the duty of attending to the moral and religious training of the children of the nation in as many schools as possible, but always subject to the wishes of the parents of the children in those schools. Of course all this is the very opposite to what the dead Bill aimed at. But as the Nonconformist promoters of that unjust Bill at last turned against it because, at the finish, it was not unjust enough, they must be left to their mistaken ideas ; and the thinking public w^ill, no doubt, take less and less notice of them, for after all their one dominating aim is the down- fall of the Church by disestablishment, first in the schools and then in the parishes. But the tide of the Church is flowing, not ebbing. Truth is on the move, and " wisdom is more moving than any motion."^ ' Wisdom, vii. 24, ABOUT THE SCll<)Ul,S AM> (tl'l! FMIAl'I'V lil\ (SIONS 50 The Natural Consequence of Dissent. The lost Education Bill has served, perhaps more than anything else, to demonstrate the natural consequence of Dissent. Let it be carefully noticed that it is Dissent, the principle of separation from the Church, and especially jwlitical Dissent, that is liere inveighed against, and not the Dissenter. Dissent must do harm : it cannot be otherwise, if only because it must be in antagonism to the Church. " He that is not with Me is against Me." Tliose words settle the principle. To go out from the Church is to go against the Church. And the further people differ from the Church the more opposed to her they become. "The Church." " But," it may be replied, " Is the Church of England the Church in England?" Yes, undoubtedly yes; her history, and her life, prove her so to be. First as to her history. God sent His son Jesus Christ into this world ; and He, Jesus Christ, founded a visible kingdom in this world before He left, appointing his Apostles as its first ministers and rulers. And the Apostles, in compliance with the " commandments " which Jesus Christ had previously given them, and acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Who certainly came to them, and suddenly made differeni^ men of them, at Pentecost, in their turn shared their power of ruling and ministering with others, formally ordaining them to "take x^art " in their ministry. Certainly before St. John, the last of the Apostles, died in the year 100, the whole Church was under the govern- ment and ministry of the threefold order of ministry — of bishops, priests, and deacons. The learned Bishop Sanderson, who becunie J3ishop of Lincoln in iO(3U, described the origin of the ministry thus : 60 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE " My opinion is that Episcopal Government is not derived merely from Apostolic practice or institution, but that it is originally founded in the Person and Office of the Messiah, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, who, being sent by His Heavenly Father to be the great Apostle, Shepherd, and Bishop of His Church, and anointed to that office immedi- ately after His baptism by John, with Power and the Holy Ghost descendmg then upon Him in a bodily shape, did afterwards before His Ascension into heaven, send and em- power His holy Apostles, giving them the Holy Ghost like- wise, as His Father had given Him, in like manner as His Father had before sent Him to execute the same Apostolic, Episcopal, and Pastoral office, for the ordering and govern- ing of His Church, until His coming again ; and so the same office to continue in them and their successors unto the end of the world." In Britain. And certainly it was that same ministry which found its way into this country in the days of the Britons ; for at the Church Council held at Aries in the year 314 three British bishops, a priest, and a deacon were present ; and they would not have been admitted there on equal terms with all the others if they were not equal to them in office. The names of these episcopal delegates of the British Church were Eborius, Bishop of York ; Eesiitutus, Bishop of London ; and Adelphius, supposed to have been Bishop of Caerleon-on-Usk, in Wales, though Dr. E. Mansel Sympson, in his book on " Lincoln," recently published (Methuen), gives reasons, supported by other authors also, why it may be supposed that Adelphius was the Bishop of Lincoln of that time. The British Church was partly destroyed, and partly ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUK U.MIAPl'V I »I VISIONS 61 driven westward into Cornwall and C'umberland, hut n ostly into Wales, by the Anglo-Saxons, who came and took up their abode in " Angleland " when the Roman legions aban- doned these islands. And it was to these heathen English supplanters of the British that Augustine came at the bidding of the Bishop of Borne in 597 ; and it was this Augustine who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. And though England owes her Christianity in part to the Ancient British Church, and partly to missionaries from Ireland and Scotland, yet " The Church of the English " has the roots of its main stock, as it were, at Canterbury. But our main point is this : from whichever direction the missionaries who laid the foundations of the Church of England came, they were all of the same apostolic ministry, and consisted of bishops, priests, and deacons. Certainly Augustine found British bishops here who would not have him for their archbishop, and who would not recognise any infallibility in Rome. But as to that point the claim to Papal infallibility was certainly not made by the Pope Gregory who sent Augustine ; that is a subsequent assumption. But to return to our main point. Whatever the ministry of the Church was everywhere else in the world, it was the same ministry in these islands of ours, wherever it came from. As Archbishop Bramhall stated it : " Before Austin, there were in Britain British bishops and Scottish bishops, to which he added English bishops. These three successions, in tract of time, came to be united into one, so as every English bishop now derives his succession from British, Scottish, and English bishops." In the following list of the Archbishops of Canterbury you have the central strand of the Church of England, con- necting the Church of to-day with the Church of Britain and of Angleland of long ago. It is the same ministry right through. And further, through Augustine our Church is 62 A STEAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE brought into certain connection with St. Paul, who, at least as much as any one else, may be said to have founded the Church at Kome ; and with St. Peter, who had apostolic associations with Eome ; and with St. John, through Poly- carp, Bishop of Smyrna 104 a.d., and Artherius, Bishop of Lyons, who assisted in the consecration of Augustine. But in that the apostolic ministry was the same in all the Apostles, and in that it has been the same ever since in all their direct successors, it matters not what lines of succession can be traced, so long as we have, as we most certainly have in the Church of England, the ministry. A List of the Archbishops of Canterhurij, with the date of their Accession. Augustine . 597 William de Corbeuil . 1123 Laurentius . 604 Theobald . . 1139 Mellitus . . 619 Thomas a Becket . 1162 Justus 624 Richard . . 1174 Honoiius . . 627 Baldwin . . 1185 Deuscledit . 655 Hubert Fitzwalter . 1193 Theodore . . 668 Stephen Langton . 1207 Brihtwald . 693 Richard Grant . . 1229 Tatwin 731 Edmund Rich . . 1234 Nothelm . . 735 Boniface . . 1245 Cuthbert . 741 Robert Kilwardby . 1273 Bregwin . . 759 John Peekham . 1279 Jaenbeit 766 Robert Winchelsey . 1294 Ethelbard 793 Walter Reynolds . 1313 Wulfred . 805 Simon Mepeham . 1328 Theologild 832 John Stratford . 1333 Ceolnoth . 833 Thomas Bradwardin e . . 1349 Ethelred . 870 Simon Islip . 1349 Plegmund 890 Simon Langham . 1366 Athelm 914 William Whittlesey . 1368 Wulfhebii 923 Simon Sudbury . 1375 Odo . 942 William Courtenay . 1381 Dunstan . 960 Thomas Arundel . 1397 Etbelgar . 988 Roger Walden . . 1398 Siric 990 Thomas Arundel (re instated) . 1399 Elfric 995 Henry Chicheley . 1414 Elphege . 1005 John Stafford . 1443 Living 1013 John Kemp . 1452 Etbelnotb 1020 Thomas Bouchier . . 1454 Eadsige . 1038 John Morton . . 1486 Robert 1051 Henry Dean . 1501 Stigand . 1052 William Warham . 1503 Lanfranc . 1070 Thomas Crannif'r . 1538 Anselm . 1093 Reginald Pole . . 1556 Ralph d'Escure s 1114 Matthew Parker . 1559 ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AMJ OUR UMIAPPV J»l\ I.^IONS 63 Eclmund Grindal 1.170 Matthew Hutton . 17.17 John Whit^'ift . 15K:{ Thomas Seeker . 17-18 llichard ]>ancioft i(;oi Frederick Cornwallis . 1768 George Abbot . Kill .lolni Moore . 1783 William Laud . n\x; Charles Manners Sutton . . 180.5 William Juxon IGC.O William Howley . 1828 Gilbert Sheldon 106:J John Bird Sumner . . 1848 William Sancroit 1678 Charles Thomas Longle.v . 1862 John Tillotson lO'.tl Archibald Campbell Tail . . 1868 Thomas Tenison 1095 Edward White Benson . 1883 William Wake . 1716 Frederick Temple . . 1897 John Potter 1737 Randall Tho. Davidson . . iy03 Thomas Herring . 1747 The Apostolic Ministry preserved in the Church of England at the Reformation. At the time of the Keformation, when, after the reac- tionary period of Queen's Mary's reign, it finally came to the point ; that is when, in 1559, the bishops and clergy had to choose whether they would submit to Kome or not ; 189 ecclesiastics decided for submission to Rome, and some 9,200 decided against submission to Rome. That is, there were over 9,000 clergy and some bishops who were in the apostolic ministry of the Church of England before that date, and after it. There were eleven vacant sees at the time, yet as many as fifteen bishops out of the seventeen who held sees in that year decided for Rome ; the Bishops of Llandaff and Sodor and Man being the two who decided against sub- mission. But these two, who held their sees in Mary's reign, together with two bishops who had been deposed under Queen Mary, and were now Bishops Elect of Chichester and Hereford, consecrated Dr. Parker, who then became Arch- bishop of Canterbury ; and thus the apostolic succession was preserved in the Church of England ; and no Protestant ministry of man's making was substituted for the apostolic ministry of Jesus Christ's making. " The Church " in Ireland. In the year 155b the same thing happened in Ireland ; only there, not only the great bulk of the clergy but all but 64 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE two of the bishops who held sees, with the approval of the Pope, in Queen Mary's reign, decided against any further submission to Eome, and that after the Papal usurpations had lasted in Ireland practically since 1152, And as Kome did not get a footing in Ireland before that year, 1152, it is very evident that St. Patrick, who went to Ireland in 432, was no Koman, nor were any of his successors in the see of Armagh for 700 years in any way subject to Eome. So in Ireland, as in England, at the present time, the Eoman Church is the intruder, and therefore in a state of schism : but the Church of St. Patrick is the Catholic Church of Ireland, and always will be : and the more that Church re- joices in her Catholic heritage, the more she employs herself as the Catholic Church of Ireland, the more she will win Ireland from the foreign domination of Eome. "The Church" in Scotland. In Scotland it was a priest of the Church of Ireland, St. Columba, who may be said to have founded the Church, estabhshing his mission in the Island of lona in the year 563. There again the influence of Eome began to be felt after the Norman Conquest in 1066, but not till then, and corruption in doctrine and morals crept in. But in Scotland, in the sixteenth century, a revolution was sub- stituted for a reformation, for in 1560 not only was the usurped supremacy of Eome rejected, but the apostoHc ministry and primitive liturgic worship were overthrown, and Presbyterianism was invented; and the Presbyterian sect set up as " the Church of Scotland " according to " civil law." But in truth, according to universal Church law, " the Church of Scotland " is still that Church which was founded by St. Columba, and not that society which owes its origin to John Knox. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AXD OUH UNHAPPY !»1\ 1>]()N8 (i-l Christianity circling- round the British Isles. As St. Patrick was the son of a deacon of the iiritish Church and a grandson of a priest, it is most interesting to note how that Christianity thus circled round from Britain to Ireland through the mission of St. Patrick, though he was educated, ordained, and consecrated a bishop, in France ; and from Ireland to Scotland through the mission of St. Columba ; and then from Scotland back to Angleland again by missionaries from the north, among the earliest of whom the names of St. Aidan, St. Chad, and St. Cuth- bert figure so largely. And thus St. Patrick was like Joseph of old, in that he was sold into slavery when a boy, and, by the after-effects of his labours, ultimately became a saviour of his own people, and their strange fellow-citizens, from that spiritual famine which followed upon the Saxon invasion. The Apostolic Ministry Perpetual. Between His w^ords " Go ye into all the world " and His words " Lo ! I am with you alway [all the days] even unto the end of the world," ' there stretched out in the mind of the Saviour His Apostolic Ministry, reaching from Himself, as He then stood on earth as Redeemer and Saviour, and with " all power " already in His hand, to Himself when He comes to earth again as Judge of all men. From start to finish, it was to be one endless employment, and passing on, of the ministerial "power and authority" which the Christ first issued forth from His Own Sacred Person, when, having been so sent Himself by His Father, as He said, and being risen from the dead, " He breathed on His apostles, 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 retained." So the Apostolic Succession means nothing less than the passing nn frrju^jjod thrnnrh ' St. Matt, xxviii. '20. , . " 66 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE the Person of Christ, through the Apostles, and, from them, on, on, on through the bishops, those sacred gifts and powers which were actually bestowed upon this ministry by that actual breathing and bestowal by Christ. And thus Christ sets Himself in actual personal connection with each one that enters into His ministry. He is behind him, at the far end of the vista of the apostolic ministry, as sending him ; and He is " with him " to make good his ministrations, "working with them." ^ Episcopal Ordination the only door to Christ's Ministry. Now how can any man claim to receive this ministerial connection with Christ, or to receive from Him this ministerial " power and authority," otherwise than in the way in which He Himself has commanded '? Who can improve upon Christ's own plan ? That the Church of England believes that her ministerial constitution is in accordance with Christ's commands is certain, if only from the third question asked of the candidates at the Ordination of Priests, which is as follows : " Will you then give your faithful diligence always so to minister the Doctrine and Sacraments and the Discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded, and as this Church and Eealm hath received the same, according to the Commandments of God ; so that you may teach the people committed to your care or charge with all diligence to keep and observe the same ? " He that said to his Apostles, " He that receiveth whom- soever I send receiveth Me : and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me," - also said to them, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." " Unto the end of the world " — these words can only mean " with you and your successors right through time to the Judgment Day." It cannot be thought that the Saviour would ' St. Mark xvi. 20. = St. John xiii. 20. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 07 institute a ministry which would change, or break down, or come to a stop before " the end of the world " ; or that He would leave it to localities, or communities, to invent ministries of their own. It must be the same ministry right through ; the needs of mankind would always be the same, so the means of grace must always be the same ; and the only way to secure for all time that sameness of the means of grace, that sameness of efficiency in the Church, was by providing one, continuous, and fully authorised ministry for all time, and for all the world. " Ministers " and " Stewards " still. St. Paul said, " Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." The " us " would include the whole of the ministry then ministering in the Church, including the Apostles and those whom they had ordained. When did this definition of the Apostolic Ministry cease to be true '? Never ; as the Church of England maintains, for instance, in the Collect for the Third Sunday in Advent : " Grant that the ministers and stewards of Thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready Thy way," &c. St. Paul and the Church of Eng-land. So, again, it is a stimulating fact to us, and we are con- sidering facts rather than doctrines, that St. Paul himself, at least through his ministerial association with the Church at Rome, is in one of the lines of succession between Christ and the ministry of the Church of England. And when we remember that St. Paul received his call to the Apostolate from Christ openly from heaven, we conclude that the Orders of the Church of England are derived from Christ on earth, after His resurrection, through the Apostles generally, and from Christ in heaven, after His ascension, K -.i 68 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE through St. Paul, the laying on of hands upon " Barnabas and Paul " ' bringing the Apostle of the Gentiles into full accord with the other Apostles. Episcopacy Universal for 1,500 Years. For fifteen hundred years after Christ there was never anywhere in the whole Christian Church any other kind of ministry than the Apostolic ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons. During those fifteen centuries there were no non- episcopal Churches anywhere ; and certainly there were no unordained ministers exercising the functions of ordained ministers. All this kind of thing has arisen since the time of the Eeformation. The first non-episcopal bodies to arise were : in Germany, the Zwinghans, 1523, and the Lutherans, 1529 ; in Scotland, the Presbyterians, 1520- 1560 ; and in England the Congregationalists or Inde- pendents, 1568, and the Baptists in 1689. The Methodists first formally separated from the Church in 1799, and have since divided themselves up into several bodies. Here are quotations from some authorities upon the universality of episcopal orders. Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, the late Bishop of Lin- coln^: "The universal practice of the Church of Christ, from its foundation for more than fifteen hundred years without interruption, shows Episcopacy to be of divine institution, and to have been regarded by the Church as of inviolable authority." Again, there is strong confirmation of the divine institu- tion of Episcopacy, " in the fact, that not only Catholics, but also heretics and schismatics, differing from the Church and from each other in many other respects, all agreed in recog- nising the necessity of Episcopal Government, with one single exception, that of Aerius (of Sebastia, in Pontus) in; ' 2 Cor, iv. 1. ^ Theophiliis Anglicanus, pp. 87, 88, 89. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS G'J the fourth century, who on that account, as well as for other reasons, is placed among heretics by the Fathers of the Church, and whose doctrine on that point was condemned by the Church as sacrilegious." Bishop Bilson : " No example before our age can be showed, that ever the Church of Christ, in any place or time, since the Apostles died, had any other form of govern- ment than by Bishops, succeeding and ruling as well the Presbyters as the people that were under them." Hooker ^ : " We require you to find out one Church iqwn the face of the whole earth, that hath not been ordered by Episcopal Kegiment, since the time that the blessed Apostles were here conversant." Hooker again - : " Let us not fear to be herein bold and peremptory, that if anything in the Church's government surely the first institution of Bishops was from heaven, even of God; the Holy Ghost was the Author of it." The Propag-ation of the Church. The Strawberry Plant. The growth and extension of the Church is well illus- trated by the propagation of the strawberry plant ; with its threefold leaf representing the work of the Triune God ; and with its red fruit representing the Passion — and its fruition in penitence and pardon, and in self-sacrificing service of God. The original plant was planted by our Blessed Lord Himself at Jerusalem — it was the Apostolic Band. The Apostles went forth in all du-ections, like the runners of the strawberry plant. And wherever the Apostolic runners stopped, the Church struck root, and grew into plants again. And in their turn those plants sent forth their runners, which again struck root, and again sent forth runners. And so it went on; and so it will go on to "the end of the world." ' Theophilim Anglicaniis, pp. 87, 88, 89. - Ibid. 70 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE But the runner was always apostle or bishop ; for it was only in the power of apostle or bishop to strike root, that is to absorb the people of the place into the Church, that is into the ministry as well as into the communion, and so make the local Church for ever a self -propagating branch of the universal Church. Independence of National Churches. But notice also that the strawberries, plants and' fruit, belong to the owner of the garden in which they grow. So a fully-appointed branch of the Church is always inde- pendent, or should be so, within the realm of the nation that comprises it. But, alas ! the gardener at Kome claims the ownership (jurisdiction) of the strawberries in all the gardens throughout the world, whether the plants came originally through Eome or not. It was this claim that the English Church and the English nation repudiated at the Keformation, and many times before. And it is this foreign claim to ownership (jurisdiction) that is causing so much trouble in France at the present time. The Archbishop of Canterbury may be described as the Patriarch of the Anglican Communion. But, as the Patri- arch of the Anghcan Communion, he does not dream of exercising any sort of control over the Church of America, for instance, now that that Church is well rooted in the United States, although it is a direct corporate extension of the Enghsh Church ; just so the Popes of Rome have never had adequate support for their claim to exercise any canonical authority over the Church of England since it became rooted in this country. It is only Eome's claim to supremacy over the whole Catholic Church that suggests that the Church of England was the Church of Rome in England before the Reformation. But banish that claim to supremacy, as history does, and you banish Rome's claim to the Church of England. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UXIIAPPV DH fSTOXS 71 The Ministry of the Church of Eng-land is Apostolic. Thus the bishops and clergy of the Church of England of to-day, through all those who have intervened in the direct lines of apostolic ordination, join hands, ministerially, with the Apostles ; and through them, and the Christ who originated their Order, they form, in truth, the true and lawful ministry of that part of the Catholic Church whicn is in this countr}'. A careful study of " The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests and Deacons according to the Order of the Church of England," which is given at the end of the Prayer Book, will satisfy the inquir- ing mind that this is so. The bishop's cope, or cloak " without seam," is a symbol of the fact that in him rests the authority of the universal Episcopate, the ministry of " the Body of Christ," and that this ministry is derived from Jesus Christ, Who Himself wore a " coat . . . without seam." The bishop's mitre is a symbol of the Jact that he is a direct successor of the Apostles, upon whose heads the cloven tongues of fire settled at Pentecost, and that he ministerially inherits from them the pentecostal gift of " power from on high " ' for the purposes of the ministry. It is just as true, historically true, that the bishops of to-day sit in the Apostles' seats, as it was true, historically true, that the Scribes and Pharisees, in the time of Our Lord's sojourn upon earth, sat " in Moses' seat ; '" - and that notwithstanding all the varying characters of themselves and their predecessors. So we may properly assume that the injunction of Our Lord with regard to the respect due to the Scribes and Pharisees, by reason of their office, has a parallel application to the bishops of to-da}' ; though those bishops ' St. Luke .\.\iv. 49. '^ St. Matt, \xiii. '_'. 72 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE can only issue injunctions in accordance with the laws of the Church : " All things whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." And with reference to the Saviour's next words — " but do not ye after their works : for they say, and do not ; " though not one of them claims to be perfect, it is doubtful whether the Church of England ever before contained so many bishops and priests as she does to-day who are honestly trying to " do " what they " say " ; for they are realising more and more, that, by reason of the apostolic character of their ministry, St. Paul's illustration of the ministerial position and its purpose still holds good : " Now, then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us : we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." ^ The Prayer Book in agreement with the whole Catholic Church of Christ. " Of the sundry alterations proposed unto us," say the compilers of the Prayer Book, in the Preface thereto, " we have rejected all such as were either of dangerous conse- quence (as secretly striking at some established Doctrine, or laudable Practice of the Church of England, or indeed of the whole Catholic Church of Christ) or else of no conse- quence at all, but utterly frivolous and vain." So in the mind of those compilers, and, indeed, of those who took part in the Eeformation of the Church of England generally, the teaching and practice of the Church of England, when reformed, was at one with that of "the whole Catholic Church of Christ " ; and they took care not to make altera- tions in the Prayer Book which would make it different. Very explicit, too, is the Third Canon of 1603. " Who- soever shall hereafter afhrm, that the Church of England, « 2 Cor. V. 20. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 73 by law established under the King's Majesty, is not a true and Apostolical Church, teaching and maintaining the doc- trine of the Apostles ; let him be excommunicated ipso facto," &c. « The Roman Church in Eng-land. On two sides objections will be made to this claim, wliich, nevertheless, is a fact. Those of the Boman Catholic ministry in England and Wales will say : " Then what are we ? " The answer to them is this : "In that your Orders are derived from apostolic sources, your Orders are Apostolic ; but in that you do what the whole Catholic Church forbids — you appoint bishops where bishops are already appointed — you are, in this country, schismatics." With all due deference to his august personality, and with all due regard to his high office, the present Eoman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, for instance, is, accord- ing to this view of history, a great schismatic. In the first place he assumes the title of Archbishop in the province of Canterbury, which has had an archbishop for 1310 years ; and in the province of York, which has been a primacy since the year 664 at least ; and, in Canterbury, he seeks to supplant a primacy with the founding of which the Church of Rome herself had so much to do. It is true that he does not seek to meddle with the Church of England ; but it is also true that his presence at Westminister suggests that the Orders of the English Church are not orthodox. But hard history corrects that seeming reflection. In the second place Archbishop Bourne assumes episco- pal jurisdiction in a diocese (London) that has had a bishop for 1590 years at least, excepting during intervals of persecu- tion. There is no apostolic authority for two diocesans in 74 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE one diocese. The Great (Ecumenical Council of Ephesus of 431 A.D. laid it down in one of its canons, " That .... all intrusions into foreign provinces should be forbidden." The Deed of Separation between England and Rome. The Church of England never performed any act of cor- porate separation from the Church of Eome ; she merely- rejected the Papal errors and claims to jurisdiction and authority over her. But there w&b a formal separation effected ; and it was entirely the act of Pope Pius V., who, in the year 1570, when he found that neither Parhament, Church, or Queen would yield to his claims, issued his famous Bull of Excommunication, which constitutes the deed of separation between the Churches of Kome and England, and which runs thus : " Elizabeth the pretended Queen of England, the servant of wickedness lending thereunto her helping hand, with whom, as in a sanctuary the most per- nicious of all have found a refuge. This very woman .... hath again brought back the said kingdom into miserable destruction which was then newly reduced to the Catholic faith and good fruits. . . . We do out of the fulness of our Apostolic powder declare the aforesaid Eliza- beth to have incurred the sentence of Anathema and to be cut ofi' from the unity of the Body of Christ, and more- over, we declare her to be deprived of her pretended title to the kingdom and of all dominion, dignity and privilege whatsoever : and also the nobility, subjects, and peoples of the said kingdom, and all others who have in any way sworn unto her, to be for ever absolved from any such oath and all manner of duty, allegiance, and obedience. . . . And we do also by authority of these presents absolve them and deprive the said Elizabeth of her pretended title to the kingdom and all other things before named, and we command ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPl'V DIVISIONS 75 and interdict all and every — the noblemen, subjects, peoples and others aforesaid — that they presume not to obey her or her orders, mandates and laws, and those that shall do the contrary we include also in this sentence of Anathema." ' And yet the preceding Pope, Pius IV., had offered Elizabeth " that on condition of her adhesion to the see of Kome, he would approve the Book of Common Prayer, including the Liturgy of the Communion Service, and the Ordinal. . . . He was prepared to authorise the Book if the Queen would receive it from him and on his authority." - So one Pope acknowledges that the Orders of the English Church are valid, and her Liturgy orthodox ; but the next Pope excom- municates Queen, people and Church because they would not submit to him. In the year 1054 the Church of Rome excommunicated the Greek Churches — the Churches of the East. In 1570 she excommunicated the Church of England. Now if, as we believe, the claims to Papal supremacy are not supported either by Scripture or by ancient history, and therefore are false, the Church of Eome has never had the power or authority to excommunicate either the Greek Churches or the English Church. But in that she did effect, by her own act in each case, a separation, or estrangement, between herself and those churches, she has quite as much excom- municated herself as them. And that is the true position of Rome at the present time. She is a branch of the Catholic Church that holds herself aloof from the rest of Christendom, because of her supposed superiority. From 1570 up to 18'29 the Romanists in England were " a mere collection of individuals," as Cardinal Manning once said. Early in the nineteenth century the Pope sent titular bishops to England to look after these individuals. But in ' " Why I am an Anglo-Catholic," p. U2. P. H. Piitchett. - "Cutts,"p. 237. 76 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE 1850 Pope Pius IX., contrary to Catholic order, " sent the second ItaHan mission into England, establishing a new Roman Catholic hierarchy, consisting of a metropohtan see at Westminster, and twelve suffragan sees of England and Wales. No assent of the two metropolitans (Canterbury and York), suffragans, clergy and laity of the Church of England was asked or had. This intrusion was the act of Pius IX. alone, in contravention of his own coronation oath, and a monstrous act of schism,"^ for "they set up altar against altar, deny the rightful claims of the native Church, and endeavour to entice away its members, and that, not to a purer rehgion and holier standard, but to heresy in doctrine, idolatry, or at least gross superstition in practice, and an altogether lower level of Christian ethics." ^ " Catholics." In these days Romanists seem to assume to themselves the sole right to the term " Catholic." But history shows that the assumption is presumptuous, and that in England it is the Church of England that is the Catholic Church. For Churchpeople to speak of the Romanists as " the Catholics " of course pleases the Romanists, as it is tan- tamount to acquiescing in the excommunication of the Sovereigns and Church of England which has been again and again pronounced by the Popes of Rome. So if mem- bers of the Church of England scorn the presumptuous and ineffective excommunication of Rome, as they certainly do, then they must be consistent, and adhere to the term " Catholic " as applying to themselves quite as much as it does to Romanists, if not more so. It seems to be part of ' " Why I am an Anglo-Calholic," p. 145. - " Plain Keasons against Joining the Church of Rome," pp. 213-5 Littledale. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUE UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 77 the Eoman method tacitly to enforce excommunication by squeezing Churchpeople out of the realm of Catholicism by common parlance. The Old Faith. Another common mistake is to allow that the Koman Cathohc faith is the old faith, and that of the Church of England a new faith. A newspaper correspondent, for instance, states that a certain Roman Catholic is " a true son of the old Faith." Whereas the Faith of the Church of England is the old Faith, but without novelties ; while the Faith of the Roman Church is the old Faith with novelties added to it. But among the numerous non-episcopalian bodies the old Faith is torn to pieces. The Word "Protestant." It may be well to notice here also that the word " Pro- testant " does not occur once in all the formularies of the Church of England, except that it occurs in the Coronation Office, where, however, the term — " the Protestant Reformed Rehgion established by Law " — means neither more nor less than the Religion set out in the Prayer Book. The Religion of the Church of England is a Protestant Religion as regards the Religion of the Church of Rome ; but the Church of England is a Catholic Church, holding that Protestant Religion which, as set out in the Prayer Book, is the Catholic Religion and not the Boman Catholic Religion. The word " Protestant " is a negative word, with nothing to stand on or to build on ; but it is a word which anyone who has a grievance against truth can make use of. But the word " Catholic " at once gives the Church of England her proper footing as the continuation of the Holy Catholic Church in this country. Churchpeople should be careful 78 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE not to give away their position, either by allowing the Romanists their claim to the exclusive use of the term " Catholic " — they are Komanists or Eoman Catholics — or by giving too much heed to the term "Protestant" which is now being so largely used as against what is "Catholic," though not " Eoman," in the Church of England. Many Dissenters seem to argue that, because they call themselves Protestants, and because the Church of England is Pro- testant, though it is only so in the limited degree already described, therefore the Parish Church ought to be the same as the Dissenting Chapel, that Nonconformists and Con- formists ought to be ahke, that the Church from which they dissent should be like their dissenting bodies themselves, and that any Englishman who calls himself a Protestant can do what he likes with the Protestant Church of England. The Prayer Book quite sufficiently estabhshes the difference between the English Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Church of England Teaching- not Sectarian. And when people are talking of " sectarian teaching" they should remember that, in this country, they are talking of all kinds of reHgious teaching except that of the Church of England, for the Church of England is the only religious body in England which is not a sect. There is the Roman sect, the Presbyterian sect, the Baptist sect, and there are the Methodist sects, and there are many more ; and they are all sects because they are composed of sections of the Church of England — that is, of members of the Church of England who have separated themselves from the Church of England and formed themselves into separate sections. So to call the Church of England a sect is like calling the nation a political party. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUK UNITAPPV DIVISIONS 711 The Hig-h Churchman not a Romanist. It is not true to say that a High Churchman is a Koman Cathohc in disguise. It is false ; he is a Cathohc, but not "a Bo7na)i." He is a thorough Churchman; he takes the Prayer Book hterally. Indeed, if it were not for the great bulwark against Kome which is formed by the High Church portion of the Church of England, Kome would make much greater headway in England ; for, as it is, her easiest converts are those who do not really know what it is to belong to the Catholic Church of England ; who are not High Church, if Church at all. It is true that we occa- sionally see a carefully published paragraph in the news- papers announcing that some High Church priest of the Church of England has gone over to Eome. But why do we not see hundreds more of them, for there are 24,000 clergy in the Church of England? Because the High Church- man as a rule knows better. And it was Dr. Pusey who, in his day, set the example of intelligent steadfastness to the Church of England, and who said in a letter written in 1842, and recently published in the Guardian : " Our Church is the institution of God for our salvation, into which we have been brought, and in which having been brought it is our duty as well as our privilege to remain." There always will be, within the pale of the Church of England, among clergy and laity, some who believe too much and do too much, and some who believe too little and do too little. Nevertheless, taken all in all, there is no sounder branch of the Church of God on earth than is the Church of England. "We are not in error as a Church," said Dr. Pusey in the letter just quoted. And all that talk which we so often hear about the iniquities of the extremes is the talk, as a rule, of those who are not yet themselves alive to the responsibilities of their own membership of the Church, 80 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITFSH PEOPLE or of the ministry, as the case may be. Church laymen, specially perhaps members of Parliament and writers in news- papers, often talk great nonsense, and freely give away the Church in their own ecclesiastical indifference. Let them do as the late Mr. Gladstone did, who was never wihing to compromise the principles of the Church, and steadily read through the occasional offices in the Prayer Book, and see for themselves what the Church is, and what it is to be a Churchman. And inquirers, who not only want to know what the Church of England is, but also what her teaching really is in detail, would do well to make use of a book which has just been published, entitled " Some Teachings of the Book of Common Prayer," ^ in which, in three parallel columns, quotations from the Bible, quotations from the Prayer Book, and a brief exposition of the Church's teaching, are given upon each subject considered. Mr. Gladstone and the Prayer Book. Here is Mr. Gladstone's own account of how the Prayer Book opened his eyes, when on a visit to Naples. It is quoted from Mr. Morley's Life of Mr. Gladstone : — " One Sunday (May 13, 183'2) something, I know not what, set me on examining the occasional offices of the Church in the Prayer Book. They made a strong impression upon me on that very day, and the impression has never been effaced. I had previously taken a great deal of teaching direct from the Bible, as best I could, but now the figure of the Church arose before me as a teacher too, and I gradually found in how incomplete and fragmentarj'^ a manner I had drawn divine truth from the sacred volume, as, indeed, I ' By Eev. C. E. Laing. (W. K. Morton & Sons, High Street, Lincoln.) ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPrY DIVISIONS 81 had also missed in the Thirty-nine Articles some things which ought to have taught me better. Such, for I believe that I have given the fact as it occurred, in its silence and its solitude, was my first introduction to the august con- ception of the Church of Christ. It presented to me Christianity under an aspect in which I had not known it ; its ministry of symbols, its cliannels of grace, its unending line of teachers joining from the Head ; a sublime con- struction, based throughout upon historic fact, uplifting the idea of the community in which we live, and of the access which it enjoys through the new and living way to the presence of the Most High. From this time I began to feel my way by degrees into or towards a true notion of the Church. It became a definite and organised idea when, at the suggestion of James Hope, I read the just published and remarkable work of Palmer. But the charm of fresh- ness lay upon that first disclosure of 183*2." The Nonconformist Ministries. To return to the question of the ministry of the Church of England compared with other ministries in England. We have seen that the ministry of the Church of Kome is orthodox but schismatical. On the other side — What are the Nonconformist ministries ? They are no more than the self - made ministries of voluntary societies ; and all the authority they have is what those societies respectively give them. Not one of those ministries claims to be in the apostolic succession ; some of their members even despise the idea. But that is a frank confession that they are not the equivalent of the ministry of the Church of England. Personally the men themselves may be superior, but officially they must be inferior. It is no sign of charity to make light of the vast discrepancy there is between the ministry 82 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE of the Church and the ministry of the voluntary society ; for it is, at bottom, a question of obeying God rather than man. The Principle of Succession Acknowledged as Necessary. All these ministries do insist upon the principle of succession ; for no minister can be authorised to act as a minister except by those who have been authorised before him. But, alas ! how soon that succession breaks down ! The very oldest of our non-episcopal bodies, the Scotch Presbyterian Kirk, cannot go back for its authority further than the middle of the sixteenth century ; and the oldest English dissenting body, the Independents or Congrega- tionalists, must stop at the year 1568 in its research for authority. But if the chain snaps, it matters not if it breaks at the second link or at the ninety-ninth ; if it breaks it breaks, and the apostolic power is not there ; for no one can really issue ministerial authority independently of Christ's own plan. Man-made Ministries no Equivalent of Christ's Ministry. Is it not, then, impossible to consider that these man- made ministries are equal to the ministry which had its origin in the Apostles ? Let us look the question fully in the face. If these ministries are not ministries of the Church of God — and how can they be ? — how can it be supposed that their official acts have the same effect as the acts of those who are ministers of the Church of God? Indeed, does not the spiritual decay of Dissent — or the " down-grade movement," as Mr. Spurgeon called it, strongly suggest that Dissenters are missing much through being separated from the true ministry? On the other hand, the ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UXHAPPY DIVISIONS 83 British people will judge for themselves whether the Church of England of the present time is remarkable for spiritual decay. A voluntary association has no more power to appoint a minister for Christ than it has to appoint a magistrate for the king. The people may choose the man for the ministry of the Church, but they cannot really give him the authority he requires for the discharge of its ministerial duties. In the Church of England the congregation has a voice in the selection of the candidate for Holy Orders, but the Bishop only can ordain him. Personal sincerity and natural gifts may do much to make an irregular minister a man of God ; but who sends him / Where does his mission actually and openly come from ? Pious assumptions will not do ; openly given " lawful " authority is necessary to the ministry of the Church of God. Let all possible credit be given to the Dissenting minister for his personal goodness in devoting himself to the highest good of man, and in surrendering his life to the exclusive service of God. But, is there not need for a reconsideration of his ministerial position ? Dissenting Bodies not Branches of the Catholic Church. The different branches of the Catholic Church have their different faults, but those branches do represent the Holy Catholic Church all the same. But Dissenting bodies are not branches of the Catholic Church, because they have not the constitution of the Catholic Church. They are self-consti- tuted societies consisting of members of the Catholic Church ; but a society is not, in truth, a Church in the Scriptural and Apostolic sense. Bishop Christopher Wordsworth stated it thus :. " That a religious community is not duly and /////// a Church without them (the three Orders of Bishop, Priest F 2 84 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE and Deacon) is evident ' from Scripture and ancient authors ' (see the Preface to the Ordinal) ; especially from the writings of St. Ignatius, the disciple of St. John, and bishop of Antioch, and martyr ; of St. Polycarp, the disciple and companion of St. John, the bishop of Smyrna, and martyr ; of St. Irenaeus, disciple of Polycarp, bishop of Lyons, and martyr ; and of St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, and martyr ; and of other Fathers and Doctors of the Christian Church in succession ; from General and Pro- vincial Synods, and from the universal primitive and successive ^rac^ice of the Christian Church." ^ " The word ' Churches ' is continually used in the plural or congregational sense," says Mr. Wilson (p. 164), in the New Testament. But it is not so really, unless the word "congregational" is taken to mean what is meant by the word "congregations" in "the Prayer for the Clergy and People" in the Prayer Book — that is, the people of the dioceses of the Bishops and of the parishes of the Clergy. The " Churches " of the New Testament were the churches of places and localities, branches of the one Apostolic Church in those places and localities, all of the same order and con- stitution. There was absolutely nothing among them in the least like the "Free Churches" of to-day. "The seven Churches which are in Asia" were the branches of the Church in the seven places, or dioceses, of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea ; each with its one " angel," or bishop. The word " Church " was used then as we use the words " diocese " and "parish " now. In no case were there several separately and differently organised bodies in the same city, as we have several sepa- rately and differently organised bodies in the same city now. ' Theophilus Anglicanus, p. 78. ABOL'T THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNliAi'l'i UIVISIOXS 85 A False Interpretation. And we must notice, in this connection, another very sad, and very terrible, perversion of Scripture, by which it is presumably shown, to quote Mr. Wilson again (p. 161), " that Jesus Christ dealt specifically with this very problem of Dissent as a permanent, healthy, and divinely ordered feature of the Christian Church." " Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them " (St. Matthew xviii. 20). This, says Mr. Wilson, speaking for " the great Protestant commurions of the world," is the "charter of denomina- tional liberty." True it is that these blessed words assure the faithful few of the Divine Presence with them, whoever they may be, and wherever they meet, if they are faithful, and if they meet together in faith, and " agree as touching anything that they shall ask " (v. 19) ; these words certainly do assure the "two or three" faithful members of "the Church" (v. 17) that their united prayer shall be heard; but there is certainly no "charter for denominational liberty" whatever contained in that blessed utterance ; it most certainly does not authorise denominational license ; it most certainly does not authorise the setting up of opposition temples at Bethel and at Dan ; nor, to continue the simile of " the sin of Jeroboam," does it sanction the setting up of ministries which are not of the Levites ; it gives no authority whatever for either opposition temples, or for opposition ministries. To say that those words do authorise such things is to make Christ deny Himself, and sanction the very opposite to what He prayed for when, in the upper room, on the evening before His crucifixion. He prayed to His Father thus : " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word ; That tlieij may he one ; as thou. Father, art in me, and I in 86 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE thee, that they also may be one in us : that the world may believe that Thou has sent Me " (St. John xvii. 20, 21). Besides, does not Whitaker's list of denominations demonstrate beyond contradiction the evil consequence of such an interpretation of these vv^ords ? How can that list be said to represent a " healthy and divinely ordered feature of the Christian Church ? " And further, what is this present education controversy but another evil consequence of that wrong and licentious interpretation? And if the result of the interpretation is evil, then the interpretation itself must he wrong. In Germany. The same "down-grade" movement is to be seen in Germany also. And is not that a result of the fact that the Lutheran Church failed to preserve the Apostolic ministry ? And does not that fact account for the many " new theo- logies " that have come from Germany? Re-ordination of Dissenting" Ministers. The fact that the ministers of non-Episcopal bodies are not sufficiently ordained, is supported by the universal law and custom of the Catholic Church not to admit any such ministers to the Apostolic ministry of the Church except by Episcopal ordination. Why the Church of Rome Re-ordains Anglican Priests. It may naturally be asked, in reply to this statement. Then why does the Church of Kome ignore the orders of the Anglican Church, and re-ordain those Anghcan priests who secede to Kome if they desire to enter the Koman ministry? " For a long time the Romanists denied that the ABOUT THE SCHOOLS ANT) OUR UNHAIM'Y DIVISIONS 87 Apostolic succession was preserved in the Church of England at all ; but the revelations of history have made it so evident that that succession has not broken down in the Church of England that the Komanists now limit their denial to the existence of jurisdiction in the Anglican Episcopacy. They say to us in effect : " If your bishops are in the succession, and do lay their hands on men for the purpose of ordination, their hands are empty, and therefore no ordination is really effected." And why do they say the Anglican bishops' hands are empty ? Only because they do not receive jurisdiction from the Pope : only because the Church of England still adheres to her Keformation decision that the Pope of Kome is 7iot the sole source of spiritual jurisdiction in the Church of God. The sole source of spiritual jurisdiction is Christ, "the Head of the Body, the Church," and He personally communicated that jurisdiction equally to each and all of His Apostles in the first instance, and they communicated it equally to each of the bishops whom they respectively ordained. And that Apostohc jurisdiction hasbeen perpetuated ever since in all the bishops who have directly succeeded the Apostles. The Oxford Movement a Proof of Jurisdiction. But apart from the proofs of history, tlie proof of "fruits" is also evident in the Church of England, as to its possession of jurisdiction. " By their fruits je shall know them." All acknowledge that the Oxford Movement has had a wonderfully reviving effect upon the Church of England. And what was that movement but a conscious realisation of jurisdiction? It was the awakening of the ministry to its inherent powers, and a consequent employment of those powers in the purposes for which they are given. If those powers had not been verily present the results would have 88 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BPJTISH PEOPLE been far different, the movement would have flickered out. But instead of that the whole world has felt the difference in some degree. Not only within the Anglican communion has that difference been felt, but even the Roman fraternity in our midst has been stimulated by it ; and hence it is, perhaps, that it is said that in England is to be seen the best type of Eoman CathoHcs. And on the other side, the Nonconformist bodies have been the better for it — though all unconsciously, of course. And may the Anglican Church make her spiritual power more and more felt in all directions, and so prepare the way for a unity in Christendom hardly to be dreamt of yet ! The Bible does not give Ministerial Authority. A Methodist minister was once led to see how that the succession of his ministry broke down ; and when asked " Where, then, do you get your orders from? " he replied " Oh ! from the Bible I suppose." But ordination is not a deduction from a group of books; it is "power and authority," which must be handed on by those who have received it, to those who beheve they are called of God to His ministry. And, further, Apostolic ordination was in full force in the Church long before the New Testament Scriptures were all written. And it is this x^re- Scriptural ministry which is continued, in this country, in the Church of England. Church Improvement from Within, not from Without. Though the Church of England is constitutionally sound, and fully authorised, improvements and corrections are required in her methods and machinery, as all will admit. And the Church is always worrying herself about these needed improvements ; and the very fact that, in her con- ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUK T'NIT APl'V mvrRTOXS 89 sultative assemblies, she is troubling about these things, is a sure sign of her spiritual life. The mind of the Church of England was never more set upon self-improvement than it is now. But improvement from outside is impossible in the Church of God : it must be done from within ; and the improvements accepted or rejected by the outside world, as far as they may concern them. Parliament has no internal authority over the Church whatsoever : it can deal with the temporalities of the Church, just as it can deal with the belongings of the Methodists ; but it cannot touch the Prayer Book ; it can only accept or reject it on behalf of the nation. The Church, and the Church only, in her own synods, can alter, amend, or add to, the Prayer Book. As to the claim of Protestant Dissenters of all sorts to mend the Church, the thing is preposterous. What have they to do with the Church which they have forsaken ? If they leave the Church, let them be consistent and leave the Church alone. Who are Members of the Church of Eng-land. A man is not a member of the Church of England because he is an Englishman, though the Church would care for him. It is ba.ptism, and nothing else, that gives him membership of the Church. It is at his baptism that "he goes into the Church," and not at ordination, as it is sometimes carelessly said. And, being baptized, he must show allegiance to the Church if he wants to have anything to do with her amendment. Then the question comes : " Are all English people in England, and Welsh people in Wales, who have been baptized, members of the Church of England '? " The answer 90 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE is "Yes, if they have really been baptized." But we must explain further. " By one Spirit we are all baptised into one Body." ^ " One Body " : so there is but one Church in the eye of the Holy Spirit. He does not sort us out into different bodies at the time of our individual baptisms. But 2ve sort ourselves out. Baptism by Laymen. Baptism by laymen, under emergency, has always been held by the Church to be effective, though not regular, if the proper words, and water, are used. Therefore, all who have been baptized by the use of the proper words, with the use of water, are members of the Church of God. So, as all non-episcopalian ministers are insufficiently ordained according to the teaching and practice of the Apostolic Church from the first, the baptism they administer is irregular, but it is effective if properly administered ; and all whom they baptize are "baptized into one body" — the Church, because they themselves are members of that " one body," and because the Holy Spirit baptizes into no other. So, if our baptism is valid, we are members of the Church of God in England, which is the Church of England. 'But wJt at sort of members are wef That is the question. Loyal or disloyal ? Good or bad ? Faithful or schismatic ? Careless or careful ? In full communion with the Church, or self-excommunicated ? The parable of the wheat and the tares ^ clearly foretold the possibility of this state of things. And they began to form sects in Corinth once : but see how severely St. Paul rebuked them for doing so.^ ' 1 Cor. xii. 13. - St. Matt. xiii. 24-30. ' 1 Cor. iii. 3, 4. Read also i. 10-13 ; and xii., xiii. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 91 Divisions no Gain to Relig-ion. Some will assert that the iiiulliplication of religious bodies results in more religion. That argument is entirely contrary to the Saviour's great prayer, "That they may be one " ; ^ and against His great reason for that prayer, " That the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." And if everyone acknowledges, as he must, that " unity is strength," then he must also acknowledge that disunion is weakness. Who cannot see that " our unhappy divisions " ^ are causing a great deal of infidelity, and that they make it easier for the worldly to shake off religious restraint ? And that they most certainly do enormously reduce the convincing power of the Church of God ? And that they certainly do give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme ? And that they certainly make the work of the bishops and clergy of the Church very hard ; for it is extremely difficult for them to work against acknowledged evils while they are simply surrounded by sectarian prejudice and opposition. A parish priest corrects a parishioner who attends church, so he takes refuge in the Dissenting chapel near by. A child in the Church Sunday-school does not get a prize because he does not deserve it : off he goes to the chapel Sunday- school, where he does, get one. And so, and in many another way, the influence of the Church for good is terribly under- mined by "our unhappy divisions." A clergyman who had worked as a missionary among the heathen in Africa for many years, took up work in an English country parish, in which, besides the church, there were several Dissenting chapels and Council schools ; and he said that his work in the English parish was much harder than his work in Africa had been. One day a Methodist minister called upon a country ' .St. John xvii. 20, 21. - Prayer for Unity in the Accession Service in the Prayer Book. 92 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE vicar, and asked him to take part in a missionary meeting in the Methodist chapel in his parish that evening. The vicar declined, courteously explaining that he could not consistently do so, as he would be thereby encouraging his people to dissent from the Church of vi^hich he w&s the accredited minister in that parish. That evening that minister spent two whole hours in turning that clergyman's parishioners against him. The single village in which there is a parish church large enough for all in the parish, with a resident clergyman, and in which there are also two, three, or perhaps more Dissenting chapels, is a state of things for which it is not possible to produce Scriptural sanction ; and it is a state of things which deliberately breeds ill-feeling, for each " place of worship " is doing all it can to keep its own door open, perhaps by means of "attractions," and so is necessarily doing what it can to close the doors of the other places. And what a waste of money, and of spiritual force, it all means ! If all went to the parish church, and centred their activities and their offerings there, and worshipped God as one undivided family, the whole place would be much happier, and much hoHer too ; and the work of the Church in the distant Mission Field would be much better supported. The Mission Field suffers enormously from our divisions at home. Why so many Dissenting Chapels. But how came there to be these chapels in so many parishes ? Generally the first chapel was built by sincere people who were really intent on rightousness ; and in many cases they were not cared for by the Church clergyman, or perhaps there was not one living in the parish. But the building of the second chapel has very often been the result of a quarrel among the members of the first chapel. And the third and fourth chapels have sometimes been the ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 03 outcome of disagreement also. But, on the other hand, there have been outlying places where the practice of religion would almost have died out but for the Dissenting chapels that were built there. It cannot be denied that the clergy themselves have been in many cases responsible for much of the drifting from the Church that has gone on. So it is only to be expected that it will be a great struggle for the Church to regain, to any great extent, the allegiance of those of her members who are now estranged from her. But that she will regain that allegiance, and to a very large extent indeed, there can be no doubt ; for the movements of the time, under the surface at least, are all pointing in that direction. Why Dissenters will come " Back to the Church." As they come to see that, after all, the Church is the Church ; and that she is full of spiritual life ; and that she really does care for them at heart, her wandering children will return to her, to her great joy, and to their great comfort. The Church of England seeks no proud triumph, but to love and to be loved by her children ; and to deepen and widen her life and influence, both at home and abroad, to the glory of God and for the good of mankind. Nonconformists have done much g-ood without, but would have done more g-ood within, the Church. There is yet another great acknowledgment that must in honesty be made. The ministrations of the Nonconformist bodies have resulted in much, on the whole very much, spiritual good ; though still more good would have resulted if the same amount of effort had been put forth in the unity of the Church. And some may consider that the good done, to say nothing now of the harm done by disunion, by the 94 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE Nonconformist bodies amounts to a proof of the genuineness of the Nonconformist ministries. But is it so ? Whatever spiritual good has been done by or among Nonconformists has been done, as they will acknowledge, by the Word of God and the ever powerful name of Jesus. Wherever God sees true penitence and true faith, there He, according to His promise, grants grace and blessing. No sincere soul turns to God, to the best of his knowledge, bat that God turns to him. Let him that preaches, whatever his state or designation, speak in true love and faith, and he speaks for God if he speaks the truth. Brother can always plead with brother ; but the brother must be taught, and his knowledge tested by those who are in authority, before he can be sent forth as a recognised teacher. Wesley's Ideal of Methodist Churchmen. And is not this principle of brother pleading with brother the very principle upon which John Wesley raised up his forces? And those forces might still have been forces within the Church, multiplying her work greatly, if only they had remained loyal to the great aim and desire of their founder, and remained in communion with the Church, and gone on with their evangelical work as Church- people. Whatever good the dissenting bodies have done as such, the members of those bodies would have accomplished far more good work if they had spent their strength stirring up and supporting the work of the Church as her members. As it is, they have weakened the general effort, and hindered the Church enormously, by their separation. Is it impossible that John Wesley's ideal should come to prevail again, at least among the Methodists of to-day or of the ensuing generation, and that they should come back to the Church of their founder, and throw themselves into ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPl'V DIVISIONS Oo the work of that Church, where openings for such help are abounding on all sides '? Political Methodists will, of course, say it is impossible ; but the thoughtful will think, and the prayerful will pray. Oh that we could give up all inter- denominational competition and sink our individual wills in God's ! Do let it be remembered that it is God's glory that should be our first concern — not political or denominational gain, and that it is the saving of souls, everlasting souls, that should engross us next. Let those who belong to the Church devote themselves more earnestly to the Church ; and let those who are not in communion with the Church think earnestly and prayerfully as to whether it is not, after all, God's will that they should come " Back to the Church." When Saul the persecutor found out his great mistake, he turned round wholly and at once, and gave himself up so completely to the will of the Saviour that He could make of him a great Apostle. The Effect of true Churchmanship. An old naval officer stated, as a result of his observations through life, "that the best all-round characters that he had come across had been those which had been formed by a regular and devout use of the Prayer Book of the English Church." And there is no doubt about it : a sincere Church life is the greatest possible help that any man can have. And this Church life is the Saviour's gift to " all the world." Certainly this generation of English people should not forget that perhaps the two greatest Englishmen of their time, the late Mr. Gladstone and the late Lord Salisbury, both found the help they needed for their strenuous lives in the daily and Sunday services of the Church of England, including the weekly Communion — eloquent testimony that the altar of the Church knows no politics. 96 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE Faith in Christ and His Church. Faith in Christ really includes faith in the Church as He appointed it. To believe in the redeeming merits of Christ's death, and then to reject His ordinances, is not to believe in Him perfectly. To believe in the atonement, and then to make light of, or to neglect, the means by which the Saviour has chosen to apply the benefits of that atonement to individual penitents and believers, does not argue perfect trust in Christ ; it argues trust according to choice, which is heretical, and not according to faith or obedience. Means of receiving grace are also means of showing faith. " Go, wash in the pool of Siloam " ' : it was a means of showing faith ; the man went, and washed, and his faith was rewarded, for he that was " born blind " " came seeing." Christ's Hand passed on. At the institution of the Holy Eucharist, which is our greatest test of faith in Christ, our Blessed Lord " took bread," "brake it," "He took the cup," laid His hands upon them, "gave to His disciples." All these manual actions the priest is directed to repeat in the prayer for the con- secration of the elements, or at the administration. Why is the priest directed to do this ? Because, however unworthy of it he may be, his hand is, for this ministerial purpose, Christ's hand passed on : such is His amazing condescension. Just as in the miracles of feeding the multitudes recorded in the Gospels, Christ first blessed and broke the bread and distributed to the disciples, and then the disciples, Judas among them, broke the bread again and distributed to the people, so it is in this Sacrament. But it is all Christ's doing in this miracle of grace now, as it was then in those miracles of nature. ' St. John ix. 7. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 07 While Christ's representative hand is acting for Him thus at the altar on earth, His own uplifted and almighty hand is co-operating in heaven ; so that it is His divine power that, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, actually causes this Sacrament to fulfil its purpose in the souls and bodies of those of His penitent and faithful people who participate in it. And episcopal ordination is the only means of making sure that the hand that administers this Sacrament at the altar on earth is Christ's hand passed on. The Unworthiness of Ministers does not Hinder the Effect of the Sacrament. Though individual bishops, and priests, and deacons may have been, or are, personally unworthy of their high office — and who is not? — yet the fact remains — they are the ministry of God, and that fact is not destroyed by their personal unworthiness. If the brook is frozen over, the water runs beneath the ice. The twenty-sixth Article of Eeligion, in the Prayer Book, expressly declares : " Neither is the effect of Christ's ordinance taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God's gift diminished from such as by faith and rightly do receive the Sacraments ministered unto them ; which be effectual, because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men." A student of the Prayer Book will not omit to study carefully the XXXIX. Articles. Authority lives on, even in unworthy hands. A magistrate does not cease to be a magistrate because he commits a sin : no more does God's minister cease to be God's minister if he does wrong. This great Sacrament, then, if it is administered by one who has been lawfully ordained, and if he faithfully obeys G 98 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE the careful, most careful, and authoritative directions of the Church, is what Our Blessed Lord means it to be, both towards God and towards man, whether the administering priest or the communicant fully understands what that is or not ; a Sacrament is what Christ has made it, not what every man chooses to think it is. The Church England's First Necessity. People who sit back and think are being forced by the movements and circumstances of the time to see and to acknowledge that the Church, the old original Church, is England's first necessity still. Only the old Church, whose ministry and creeds have never changed ; only the old original Church of the land, who freed herself from Papal interference and from Pioman errors and superstitions at the Eeformation, but did not part with her apostolic ministry or with any Catholic essentials ; only this old Church of the land, which, after a period of comparative but culpable indifference to her great responsibilities towards the souls of England, is now as active as ever m the interests of those souls — only this Church can resist the encroachments of Kome on the one side, or the onrush of infidelity on the other. In the presence of all the dangers which threaten our country — morally, socially, reHgiously — the Church of Christ, in full order and life, is the first essential. It is the one great power that can, in every corner of the land, uphold the moral law of God ; that can correct the tone of social life ; that can make real the national recognition of God ; and, her members being loyal and dutiful and in earnest, each in his place and degree, she can recover her lost crround among the masses, and among them supply the heahng balm of hallowed sympathy. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNH.\PPY DIVISIONS 1)9 The Church not Political. At the election of the Members of Parliament last year nothing was more remarkable than the fact that the Church, as the Church, did not take sides. Bishops, clergy, adhe- rents, voted on both sides ; nay, on all sides. With many the desire was to defend the Church against unjust attack. With many the desire was to sympathise with the worker and the down-trodden in their hardships. Church sympathies went in all directions. And it is hoped, when this present attack upon the Church is spent, or at least reduced to less dangerous proportions, that English Churchpeople — that is, those of them who take their Church seriously — will be free, as they are not at the present time, to bestow their sympathies wherever those sympathies are needed. While political Dissent is in command of a political party, it is impossible for loyal Churchmen to support that party. The Bishops in the House of Lords. As to the bishops being in the House of Lords : the bishops are, officially, the very oldest statesmen in the country ; they are the veiy oldest members of the Councils that have been gathered round the kings of the land. They served their country at least as far back as the time of the Heptarchy ; and they have done so ever since. The rulers of the Church, as Barons of the Kingdom, have always been the Councillors of Christian kings in this country. Ages before the House of Commons came into existence this was so. As the rulers of the Church which had established herself, by her own growth and development, hkea tree; as the rulers of the Church of the land, and there was no other Church, the bishops naturally took a benevolent interest in the welfare of the State, and took their share in its law-making. 100 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE Establishment no Favour. In the light of these facts, is it reasonable on the part of the " Free Churches " to say now that the Church of England is "favoured " by the State in being recognised as the National Church, and in having bishops in the House of Lords : that is, is it reasonable for the crowd of saplings to complain that the great tree, spreading its branches far over their individual heads, and thrusting its roots deep down below theirs, has been unduly " favoured " in that it is so big and permanent — the tree. And Mr. Wilson says (p. 130) that in the United States and colonies " any such establishment would be denounced as a ridiculous anachronism." Yes ! it may be impossible to choose a National Church from among the numerous Christian bodies now to be found in those young countries, countries practically born in the age of Nonconformity ; but in those countries no religious body can face the future with more hopefulness than can the Anglican Church, for none other is so purely Catholic and Apostolic and Scriptural as she is ; and none other is so fast gaining in the estimation of the thoughtful and observant. No "Free Church," nor any federation of " Free Churches," can possibly outlive that Church which is the freest of them all from the meddle- someness of man : no one can unmake the Church. Towards Unity. The fact that several of the Methodist bodies are even now taking steps towards amalgamation among themselves plainly shows that they are finding out from experience that there is something wrong in separation. And this is as it should be. This reunion movement is one that all thought- ful people will approve of, for it is certainly a move in the right direction. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNIIA1'P^' DIVISIONS 101 It may reasonably be hoped that this movement towards union will be a continuous movement ; and that, if whole connections do not ultimately return to the Church of the land, whole congregations will do so ; and that chapels of opposition may become chapels of ease to the parish churches. One such case has already been announced in the papers since the Education Bill of 1906 was dropped ; and it may freely be hoped that very many pious Nonconformists, and some Nonconformist congregations, will seek the non- political atmosphere of their parish churches ; and the sound, Scriptural, and apostolic religion of the Prayer Book. A clergyman, when considering this question of unity with a Nonconformist minister, remarked : " The only place for unity is in the old, old Church." " If you can show that it is the Church," was that minister's reply, acknowledging the obvious truth of the clergyman's remark. So all who really do desire unity should study the matter, and seek assurance as to the reply to the question, " Is the Church of England the Church of England ? " If so, there is the place for unity. The Attractiveness of the Ang-lican Ministry. The increasing attractiveness of the Anglican Ministry re- ceives striking proof from the following facts. In the United States of America during the last ten years the Anglican Church has admitted to the ranks of its own ministry 109 former Methodist ministers, 38 Baptists, 57 Presby- terians, 8 Ixeformed Episcopalians, 11 Lutherans, 2 Adventists, 6 Unitarians, 21 Eoman Catholics, and 37 miscellaneous, making a total of 364 from the ministries of other bodies won over, prepared, and received into the ministry of that growing daughter Church of the Church of England within ten years. And in England and Wales a great many more 102 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE Nonconformist ministers are received into the ministry of the Church of England than there are clergy of the Church of England who secede to Rome. All Parishioners in the Church's Care. In the days when the Church of England was the only religious body in the land — that is, from the time of its first introduction into these islands up to the time of the Beformation — when a bishop appointed a priest to take charge of a place or parish, he committed to his care all the people residing there. The parish originated as an owner- ship, which became an ecclesiastical district also by reason of the provision, by the owner, of a church for his family and dependants to w^orship in, and of provision for the priest to serve it. And it was the duty of the priest to care for all on the estate or in the parish. And here we have the origin of parishes, of endowments, and of private patronage. Since the Reformation the Church has continued to do just the same. To this day the terms by which a bishop institutes a priest to a parish are these: " We do by these presents commit unto you the cure and government of the souls of the parishioners of the said parish, and authorise you to preach the Word of God and to administer the Holy Sacraments in the Parish Church." The idea in the mind of the Church is :— «A11 souls are the Saviour's by reason of the Redemption ; so His accredited ministers claim all souls as their care wherever they go. Hence the Church still recognises all in the parish as in her care, whether they own allegiance to her or not ; and, conversely, all parishioners can claim the ministrations of the clergyman of the parish, and places in the parish church at the time of divine service. AROINT THE SCHOOLS AND Ol'R UNIIAIM'V DIVISIONS I 08 The Church and Dissenters. As to Dissenters, the Church bears no maHce towards them whatever, but prays for them daily, though she must abhor " heresy and schism." Many a bishop and many a priest — yes, and many a Churchman too, to say the very least — bears Dissenters earnestly in heart and mind as he prays every Sunday, if not every day, "For the good estate of the Cathohc Church ; that it may be so guided and governed by God's good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life." May that prayer be abun- dantly answered during this next generation ! Cathedrals, Churches, Endowments : whose are they ? A prevalent delusion about the pre-Reformation cathe- drals, churches, and endowments of the Church of England is that they originally belonged to the Church of Rome. This is utterly untrue ; for the simple reason that the Church of England always was the Church of England, and never was the Church of Rome in England. It is true that the Church of England and the Church of Rome were in full communion with each other before the Reformation. And it is true that the Pope often usurped authority over the Church of England, and often by invitation ; but it is also true that that usurpation was many times resented, and that it was finally rejected in the year 1559. If A and B are great friends, and if, as time goes on, A provokes B by meddling in his household affairs, so that at last, after several little quarrels, B has to say to A : " Look here, I've had enough of this ; you go and mind your own business and I'll mind mine," who would say that B's house belongs to A ? Just so, the pre-Reformation 104 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE cathedrals and churches and endowments of the Church of England never did belong to the Church of Eome in her meddlesome days. There is neither historian, lawyer, ecclesiastic, nor anyone else who can prove, from Acts of Parliament, that the Church of Eome was ever entitled to the belongings of the Church of England. The real work of reformation was done by the Church herself in her Convocations, kings, queen, and Parhament aiding and abetting her in the task. A Komanist once asked an Enghsh Churchman this question: "Where was your Church before the Reformation '? " The Churchman rephed, " Where was your face before it was washed ? " The late Bishop of London, Bishop Creighton, the author of a great " History of the Papacy," thus concluded a paper which he read at the Church Congress at Norwich in 1895, entitled " The National Church in the Middle Ages " : — "People talk sometimes as if the Church of England came into being as a branch of the Eoman Church, or as if, at some period of its history, it was merged in the Eoman Church. It had varying relations with the Eoman Church, which were regulated, not by the claims of Eome, but by the advantage to be gained by England. I cannot put what seems to me to be the historical truth more clearly than in this form : the Church of England, while retaining its own continuity in all essentials, admitted the Papal jurisdiction on grounds of utility, and then passed through a long period in which it discovered that that jurisdiction was dangerous to Church and nation alike." The following statement as to the continuity of the Church of England "was made by Mr. Justice Philhmore in his judgment in the recent Darfield case: "We are sitting in a court of law, and I propose to confine myself entirely to legal considerations, and I say that the accepted legal doctrine as to which there is no controversy is that the ABOUt'tIIE schools AM) OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS ]():") Church of England is a continuous body from its earhest establishment in Saxon times." Here is a striking passage from a speech made in the House of Commons by Mr. Asquith on March 21, 1895 : — " I hold very strongly that it is an historical fallacy to represent the Church of England as ever having been a mere offshoot and dependency of the Church of Kome. I think the whole of our mediaeval history shows first of all that our Kings, then our Parliaments, as soon as they acquired a dominant position, kept a tight grip of the government of the Church, refused to allow the intrusion of any foreign Power or any outside ecclesiastical authority in the regulation of our National Church, the Statutes of Provisors, and a hundred Acts of Parliament. The State in this country has insisted that the position of the Church, its status, privileges, and endowments, should be kept con- stitutionally within the control of the supreme authority of the Crown and ParHament. We are often referred to the question of the legislation of the Keformation. It follows from what I have already said that I am not one of those who think, as used to be currently assumed, that the legis- lation of Henry VIII. transferred the privileges and endow- ments of a National Estabhshment from the Church of Eome to the Church of England. I believe that view rests upon imperfect historical information. I am quite prepared to admit, what, I believe, the best authorities of history now assert, that there has been amidst all these changes and developments a substantial identity and continuity of exist- ence in our National Church from earliest history down to the present time." But the Roman Catholic bishops of Great Britain have themselves repudiated any claim on the part of the Church of Rome to the endowments of the Church of England. In 1826 an important manifesto was drawn up, signed 106 A STEATGHT TALK WITH THE RRTTISH PEOPLE and issued by the " Catholic bishops, the vicars apostolic, and their coadjutors in Great Britain." This manifesto con- sisted of eleven sections, and the ninth section ran as follows, including the heading : — " On the Claim of British Catholics to the P7'operty of the Church Establishment in England. " British Catholics are charged with entertaining a pre- tended right to the property of the Established Church of England. " We consider such a charge to be totally without foundation. We declare that we entertain no pretension to such a claim. We regard all the revenues and tem- poralities of the Church Establishment as the property of those on whom they are settled by the laws of the land. We disclaim any right, title, or pretension with regard to the same." And this manifesto was reissued some twelve years later with additional signatures. As, then, the property of the Church of England never belonged to the nation, nor to the Church of Eome, but always only to the Church of England, how can anybody think that it would be right to disendow the Church of England, whether in England, or in Wales, or in both' — that is, to take her cathedrals, churches, schools, endow- ments, everything, from her by Act of Parliament ? No ; it would be rank robbery ; and the worst of all kinds of robbery too, for it would be robbing God ; for all these things have been given and dedicated to His service for ever. And if it is remembered that the endowments of the Church were all of them gifts to the Church, given in the course of many centuries, bit by bit, it will be plainly seen that those endowments are not national property merely ABf)U7 THE SCHOOLS AND ori! rXirAPrv DIVrSTONS 107 because they belong to the National Church— that is, to the Church which has expressed the religion of the nation for so many centuries. And it will be plainly seen that Parlia- ment has had nothing whatever to do with supplying the endowments of the Church, for a considerable portion of them were given to the Church hundreds of years before the first complete British Parliament came into existence in the 3^ear 1295. The endowments of the Church were all gifts to the Church in the first instance : the gifts of kings and queens, of nobles and landowners. None of them were voted by Parliament to the Church out of the National Exchequer or out of the Crown lands, except some church-building grants of no very great amount in comparatively modern times. Lay Patronage. As to lay patronage, its origin is easily stated. A Churchman supplies from his estate, by money, tithes, or land, a maintenance for the priest who ofiiciates at a particular church, generally at the church on his own estate. He accordingly is entitled by arrangement to choose the priest and to name him to the bishop, that he, the bishop, may give him the care, or cure, of all the souls in that parish, and institute him to "the living." In that the man chosen must be a priest, the requirements of the Church are satisfied — that is, he will have the full authority of the Church to perform the ministrations of religion. And as it is the bishop of the diocese, who is the chief pastor of all in the diocese, who gives him authority to minister in that parish in particular, he is, on all accounts, the proper person to do so. This right to choose the priest ior the parish has descended from father to son with the family estate. And if the estate is sold, the right to choose the priest, the 108 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE advowson as it is called, is generally sold with it, though not always, as it is a marketable thing in itself ; because if the patron has a relative in Holy Orders he can nominate him for the living, and so, as it were, keep the value of the living in the family. And it is this sort of thing that has led to so many scandals, with respect to the buying and selling of "livings." The Appointment of Archbishops and Bishops. While upon this subject of lay patronage we may refer to another remark of Mr. Wilson's (p. 137) : " It is pre- posterous," he says, " that a sceptical, or, worse still, a Dissenting Prime Minister should appoint dignitaries to the chair of St. Augustine." But the Prime Minister's hands are tied by the laws of the Church and realm in the matter : he must choose a man who is already a bishop or priest of the Church of England for the chair of St. Augustine. He has no more to do than to guide the Sovereign in choosing the man, who, by his orders and character, is qualified for the appointment ; and it remains for the Church herself to make him archbishop, or bishop and archbishop, as the case may require. No king or stateman has ever made, or helped to make, a bishop yet, unless he has been in episcopal orders himself. Bishops are made by the Church. " Kings do not make, but only place, bishops." ^ If a Prime Minister does choose a priest for a bishopric on account of his political propensities, then that is the Prime Minister's fault, and no one else's ; the scandal is his. To mention again two honoured names of our time, the late Mr. Gladstone and the late Lord Salisbury must always be gratefully remembered for the scrupulous care with which they made such appointments. ' Hooker, viii. vii. 1. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 109 The Church in Wales. In "Wales, where political Dissent is even now striv- ing to bring about disestablishment and disendowment. the Church, after her long sojourn there of 1,500 years or more, is gaining in spiritual life faster than any- where else in the British Isles, as far as statistics can show ; and surely this fact suggests that the Church becomes the more attractive where Dissent becomes the most political. So we may await the Eeport of the Royal Commission now sitting to inquire into the state of things jn Wales with equanimity, if not with pleasure. The Church never flinches from honest inquiry ; it generally turns out to her credit and benefit, as, indeed, it has done in the main in the case of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline ; though the report of that Commission has sug- gested, in some quarters, that a lay commission can give spiritual direction ; which is a thing impossible in the Church of Christ. Is it wise for Churchpeople to desire Disestablishment ? Some of us Churchpeople are sometimes sorely tempted ourselves to wish for disestablishment, not caring much about the disendowment side of the question, because of the Erastianism that is often shown towards the Church in hifrh places, or because Church appointments are not always made with consistent motives, or because the Church does not as yet enjoy that freedom of autonomy which she should have within her own spiritual realm, or for other reasons. But how much we have to be thankful for already ! Com- pare to-day with fifty years ago. Certainly we see the Church of England showing a far more corporate activity to-day than she has shown for centuries past. It does seem that what we Churchpeople have to do is to teach and be 110 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BEITISH PEOPLE patient, and wait for the improvement to go on, mitil at length the EstabHshed Church of England, by truth and service, recovers general recognition as the spiritual mother of the English nation. It might be better for the Church herself, as a spiritual body, in these days of "unhappy divisions," to be disentangled from certain State obligations ; but it will surely prove best for the nation, and therefore wiser in the long run, if she holds on to her national position, and patiently lifts the nation to a more consistent Christianity as a nation. "We must not forget that England is to her Empire what the nave is to the wheel — the centre of strength, and that it is the paramount business of the Church of England to strengthen that centre, and not merely to take care of herself. The balance of benefit accruing from the legal recog- nition of the established position of the Church of England is certainly with the nation rather than with the Church, in that it legally secures to every resident in the country a right to the ministrations of his parish priest, and to a place in his parish church for the time of divine service, and all that without any cost to the country whatever, for the Church pays her own way entirely out' of her own resources. The Church's Political Aims. The political aims of the Church 'of England are not those which they are represented to be by her traducers, but those which are indicated in her own daily prayer for Parliament as follows : — " The advancement of God's glory, the good of His Church, the safety, honour, and welfare of our Sovereign and his Dominions ; that all things may be so ordered and settled by their (Parliament's) endeavours, upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and happiness, truth and ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AXD OIT^ FXfl Al'l'^ DIVISIONS 11 1 ( justice, religion and piety may be established among us for all generations." Back to the Church ; and Back to the Land. There are two things necessary to our nation's health and happiness, and they are represented by the double cry "Back to the Church, and Back to the Land." Back to the land, by means of mutual interest, for health ; and back to the Church, by conviction, for happiness. And this double cry represents the old Scriptural picture of Israel at home with God ; a pastoral and agricultural people, working with God in making use of His gifts of nature ; and preserved and prospered by the presence of God among them. In Greater Britain. And in the colonies the same cry holds good : " To the Church, and to the Land." Or wherever our kith and kin go to in the British Dependencies and Colonies, it is the duty of the Church to follow them. And further, whatever peoples God places under the British sceptre, to theni also the Church must go ; to say nothing of other realms. Christian Schools Necessary to the Empire. And with this worldwide duty of preservation and evangelisation so abundantly on hand, the Church can never consent to the choking of religion in the very schools in which the character of the ruling nation of the vast British Empire is best formed. The electors must be trained in godly wisdom, or the empire goes to pieces. And it is the child that must be trained in the way that the man should go. How it would improve and brighten the imperial 112 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE citizenship of our children if, in our day schools, teachers and pupils, and managers with them, were joined together in voluntarily subscribing the £4 or £5 annually necessary for the maintenance and education of some child citizen in some missionary school in some heathen part of the empire, a picture of whom might be hung up in the school. We ought to train up our children to the whole duty of empire, which is both religious and civic. And we ought to remember that we are indebted to missionaries for the intro- duction of schools in the far past into our own land, and to show our gratitude by doing for other needy lands what has been done for our own. And in no country is this religious protection of education more urgently needed than in our own great India. Returning- to the Church. No doubt as the Church of England comes to be better understood, many from both sides will return to her fold. Many Roman Catholics will come to see, as some do now, that her ministrations are true and effective for spiritual good ; and that her more reasonable plan of encouraging willing loyalty, and willing devotion, is in- finitely better, and more spiritually healthy, than the sterner methods adopted in the Church of Rome. And, on the other hand, many Nonconformists will come to see that all that is really good in Nonconformity is to be had in the Church also ; and that the Church is the Church ; and that her set and orthodox forms and plans for worship and for teaching are infinitely preferable to the haphazard customs of Nonconformity in general ; and they too will return to her, as God calls them to do so. The bishops, and the clergy and their congregations, would be truly thankful to have the help of those fervent and devout ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNIIAI'I'^ DIVISIONS llo Dissenters, from whichever quarter they might come, who may see their way to returning to the Church. Much as there is ah'eady of what we might call evangelical fervour and corporate consciousness in the Church, we still want a great deal more of both ; and the more of both that returning Dissenters can bring with them into the life of the Church of England, the more will they be welcomed back to her fold. The Drawing- of the Ministry. As the real meaning of the Apostolic ministry comes to be better and better realised, it will be the ministry of the Church of England which, in this country, will attract those sincere young souls who crave to live for God to the full, and to serve as near to Him as is possible on earth— in His sacred ministry. Let the pious youth see clearly that the apostolic ministry offers him an opportunity for doing good of the very highest order possible to man ; let him see some- thing of the extreme beauty and the eternal worth of the work of bringing souls to God ; let him see the loveliness of the work of feeding the Saviour's " lambs " ; let him think of the unspeakable privilege of tending sin-sick souls, together with, never instead of, the Good Physician — "as workers together with Him " ; ^ let him consider what pre- cious and privileged work it is "to teach, to premonish, to feed and to provide for the Lord's family," - let him think of the often rapturous duty of the priest who almost lives the life of Paradise with the dying saint whom he helps to pre- pare to go there, and then, at the last, in joyous confidence, hands him over to the angel that comes to take him, and ' 2 Cov. vi. 1. '' The Bishop's Address in the form of Ordering of Priests, in the Prayer Book. H 114 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE commends him to the eternal keeping of the Great Father who sends for him. Yes, let the pious youth, or the young man who finds that he has no taste for mere worldly pleasure or prosperity, see, or know, or dream all this, and much more, of the beauty of the ministerial vocation ; and, if God is indeed calling him, no bright worldly prospects will hold him back as he hears the Blessed Saviour calling to him, as He called to the founders of the selfsame ministry, "Follow Me" ; he will desire, perhaps crave, to forsake all and follow Him, And with his young life given up to God he will at once, and henceforth, utter the cry of the sur- rendered heart — '• Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " ^ And in reply to that cry He who calls him will surely lead him on, to his Damascus, and to his place in the wilderness of studious seclusion, where he may receive the revelations he needs ; and which, with the grace of Holy Orders upon him, shall make him not an altogether unworthy successor, even at this distant date, and as God calls him from place to place of service, of the great Apostle of the Gentiles : for he will realise that he is actually taking up and carrying on the very work which he, among the other Apostles, com- menced, and that he is in full receipt of the self-same ministerial "ipower and authority " and grace which first issued from the very person of Christ, and has come down to him along that unbroken line of apostolic mission which is surely and only preserved and perpetuated in the Episcopate. The Care of the Ministry. With thousands of young men thus devoting them- selves to the work of the sacred ministry, drawn by the call of God from all classes of society, the care of the ministry will become such an ennobled duty that the laity will not fail Acts ix. 0. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AN]) OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 110 to see to it that the ministers of God shall never be objects of charity. To train, and then worthily to maintain, God's messengers, whom He is actually calling and sending to minister to them, will become a privilege, as it is with some now, which will be eagerly fulfilled by the faithful laity. But the Church must see to it that this training and main- taining of the ministry is carried out in a manner worthy of the purpose, and worthy of herself, and by such responsible methods as shall free the whole duty from eleemosynary suggestion. Surely it is a duty to God Himself devoutly to make provision for His ministers. The Growth of the Ang'lican Church. There is no room to boast of ecclesiastical greatness in a world that is but a third Christian even in name. Yet it is encouraging to glance round the world and see how wonder- fully the Anglican Church is thrusting its roots into the soil of every clime. But perhaps an anticipation of the greatest assembly she has ever yet held, may serve best to enable us to realise, and rejoice in, her great extension. But we must first sound a note of humiliation at the thought of the very long time during which the Church of England failed in her duty to the mission field, especially in that she delayed for so long to send forth bishops as well as priests. America and Australia, for instance, suffered very seriously through this delay. The strawberry plants could not take root and spread. But since bishops have been sent forth the growth of the Anglican Church has been phenomenal. Pan-Anglican Conference of 1908. Whereas it was not until the year 1784 that Bishop Seabury, the first Anglican Bishop sent forth from the British shores to the mission field, went to Connecticut, u 2 116 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE U.S.A., in July 1908 there will be assembled in conference in London, under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, some 300 Anglican bishops from all the world over. Every bishopric represented by these bishops means a permanent planting of the Catholic Church, the Church in her original character, where it will guarantee spiritual opportunities, perhaps to the end of time : for the Episcopal Church is everywhere self-perpetuating. The one Anglican bishop in America of 1784 has now become more than a hundred in number in that country. So that the Anglican Church is very firmly planted in the United States, and will for ever prove to be a real and great bond of union between the American and English peoples. Pan-Ang-lican Cong-ress of 1908. In the month of June 1908 a Pan-Anglican Congress is also to be held in London, so that, not only the bishops from all over the world may meet together, but so that the clergy and the laity also from all over the world may meet with the bishops, and all consider together subjects of interest and concern to them all. It will be a thrilling experience. The following two paragraphs taken from a circular about this Pan-Anglican Congress are remarkable : — " The Anglican Com.munion.'" " It is only within the last forty years that the idea of a world-wide communion — a section of the Church Catholic — comprising Churches linked in various ways and in diverse degrees with the Church of England, has come to be under- stood. But the members of these Churches are now realising that real intercommunion is quite consistent with fullest autonomy in self-government. Some of the Churches con- ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UMIAITV DIVISIONS 117 cerned are entirely independent, as the Church of Ireland, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the American Episcopal Church. Some, like the Churches of Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, are practically so. Some, as in India, China, Japan, Equatorial Africa, &c., are in a less advanced stage. Events have shown how it is possible to be essentially Anglican without being English, to be in the truest sense Catholic and yet in the fullest sense free. And yet, while independence has been everywhere developing, there has at the same time been an ever increasing realisa- tion of oneness." " This realisation of oneness in the Anglican communion has been fostered by the Decennial Conference of Anglican Bishops at Lambeth. Four times — in 1867, in 1878, in 1888, and in 1897— have they gathered from all parts of the world. Derided and disliked at first, the Lambeth Conference has attained a position of universal respect and commanding influence. The fifth meeting is appointed to be held in 1908, and, owing to the great extension of the Episcopate in recent years, will be on a scale that will manifest to all the world the reality of the Anglican com- munion." "Back to the Church." "Back to the Church" — then, is the cry of the hour among those who see the obvious necessity of unity among behevers in order to withstand unbelief, and in order to convince the world ; among those who believe that the great past of the Church of England is the guarantee of her great future ; among those who see in the quick- sands of Dissent great national and personal dangers; among those who remember that " the arm of the Lord " is a nation's greatest protection ; among those who would 118 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE lead tlieir fellow-citizens into a safe place ; among those who see in God's Church the nursing mother of His little children. " Be true to the Church "—to the original Church of England, the mother of all God's children in the land ; who pleads with her children who own her, for greater loyalty and devotion. "Back to the Church"— to the Cathohc Church of England, whose warm old heart pleads earnestly with those of her children who have preferred the Koman separation to return to her in peace. "Back to the Church "—to the Mother Church of England, who tenderly recahs those of her children who have left her fold for the wilderness of Dissent. " Back to the Church "—to the living Church of England, who earnestly pleads that all who know it not will come and see for themselves that her temples are their spiritual homes, each one being their "Father's house." And thus, in her heart of hearts, the Church of England, full of penitence for her past faults and neglects, and full of returning zeal and love, caUs especially to those of her children whom she has in any way wronged, and pleads that they will come back to her fold, and trust her agam. \ APPENDIX AT CHUECH To the Churchg-oer. Go to church as a trustful child goes to his father's house ; go as a hopeful sinner to the Saviour's Court ; go as a future saint to the school of worship and praise. Kemember the parish church is God's House. It was consecrated to His service alone, perhaps hundreds of years ago, and it has never been used for anything else. Enter it with reverence, conscious of the Presence you have come there to seek. Let the whole service be a matter of com- munion with God. He speaks to you ; you speak to Him. This goes on all through the service, line by Hne. It is holy inter- course ; " Divine Service." Do as the rubrics in the Prayer Book direct. Do not be too much influenced by surroundings ; by the numljers present ; by the music ; or by the personality of the Minister : he is there at the command of his Master, so he repre- sents Him ; so think only of tlie Sender ; and remember the One who sends is with the one sent, to make good his ministrations. In some churches the congregation rise to their feet as the bishop or clergy enter, just as all in a law court rise to their feet as the judge enters. In each case it is an act of homage to the Sender ; in the church it is Christ who is honoured ; in the law court it is the King who is honoured ; as their respective repre- sentatives appear to act for them. In the Service the words upon the Minister's lips are not his own, but the most carefully prepared words of the Church as a body ; the wisdom of the Holy Spirit is evident in them. And remember that you are taking part in a service in common with all the millions of Anglican ("hurclipeople who, as the world turns to the sun all through tliat self-same day are ofifering to 120 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE God those same prayers and praises, who are Hstening to those same passages of Holy Scripture, and who are generally listening to substantially the same living message ; and who are partak- ing of the same Holy Sacrament ; throughout the Anglican Com- munion, which everywhere, in all the world, uses the Prayer Book of the Church of England, with but slight local adaptations ; and thus, with the congregation in your parish church, you take your part in an act of united universal worship. Early in the Service of Morning or Evening Prayer you confess your sins to God ; His messenger immediately stands up and delivers His message of forgiveness which the Saviour sends to you by him. Take it to heart as from God to yourself, humbly kneeling, with closed eyes and bowed head ; your soul, for the moment, shut in upon itself. If you have really tried " to truly repent and unfeignedly beheve," if you have sincerely applied, in your heart, the " common " words of the general confession to your own state, your effort has been accepted ; you have received what you wanted once more — forgiveness from God. " "Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." ' Always be in church in good time so as not to miss this beautiful preparation of heart for the worship that follows. In the Pulpit the preacher, who there jBnds it more difficult than anywhere else to hide his own personality behind that of Christ, must still be received as sent from God to that very congregation amongst which you are before him. As with absolution, so with teaching, the gift comes straight down that long vista of the Apostolic Ministry, from Christ on earth to you there and then. The message is sent along the earth, as it were, and through the centuries ; but it is made good and effective straight from heaven—" the Lord working with them " ; so humbly receive the message. Be sure and be teachable, though of course you must exercise j'our judgment in receiving the teaching, for, alas ! sometimes the chaff of human opinion is offered for the wheat of God's truth. The Prayer Book is the Churchman's guide to truth, and the Bible is his proof of it. Indeed, the Prayer Book is the Bible in practice. At the Altar. There again Christ is ministering in, and through. His priest. So, without relying in the least upon accessories, ' St. Matt, xviii. 18. ABOUT THE SCHOOLS AND OUR UNHAPPY DIVISIONS 121 however helpful and beautiful they may be, you may absolutely depend upon that holy sacrament being what the Christ Himself makes it, both towards God and towards you : for, again, the priest does not speak a word of his own, but words of the Church as inspired by the Holy Spirit. So, if the right thing is said and done, and if the right man, that is the truly ordained man, says it and does it, that Sacrament is, in truth, what Jesus Christ means it to be. So believe in it as such : and rejoice in it as such. And con- stant and devout attendance at these holy mysteries will unfold to your enlarging heart and mind an untold wealth of love and truth ; and God's grace will abound in you more and more. What a pi-e- cious gift to come down that apostolic vista from Christ to you ! Go to church for it . yes, often. " Do this as oft as ye shall drink it." Nothing on earth is so precious to everlasting man. At the Font. Again, if the right thing is said and done, and that by the right man, and the Prayer Book secures all this, be- yond doubt the sacrament of the font is what the Saviour meant it to be. And, as there we see the Saviour's commands literally carried out, and by those who are certainly sent by Him to do it, the administration of that Baptism is really and truly His doing. So bringing a child to be baptized in the parish church is, in truth, bringing that child to Jesus. At Confirmation. Again, if the right thing is said and done, and by the right man — a bishop — beyond doubt the purpose of that holy rite is fulfilled in the penitent, faithful, and sincere recipient. God uses the Bishops of to-day as He used their earliest predeces- sors, the Apostles and Bishops of tlie first days of the Church's existence, for the bestowal of His Indwelling Spirit, whose help every baptized person needs, and may have. (Acts viii., xix.) At the Solemnisation of Matrimony. Jesus Christ still attends the marriage of His friends, not only as guest but as the One who " joins together " those who seek the marriage blessing at the hands of His ministers ; for, yet again, if the right thing is said and done, and by the right man, it is Christ's doing. At the Grave : where the Christian Faith is the most precious ; and where Christian Hope shines the brightest ; and where the next world seems the nearest ; and yet where the poor heart of flesh is the most wounded ; it is a strength and comfort to the mourners that Christ Himself should be represented in their midst ; that it should be His minister who commits the poor" body to the ground 122 A STRAIGHT TALK WITH THE BRITISH PEOPLE in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal hfe ; " and that so He should lay to rest Who will next say " Arise." ' At the Benediction. Just as the holy intercourse between the Blessed Saviour and His Apostles was closed with the Benediction at the great moment of His Ascension into heaven ; so also is the holy intercourse of the sanctuary closed with Blessing. And it is the same One Who blesses still, in that it is His minister, whom He has sent, that utters the words. So bow down, with open heart and still thirsting soul, and drink in a parting draught of heavenly grace, as the Sacred Hands of Christ in Heaven pour it over you whilst His minister utters the words of blessing in His Name. ' St. Luke vii. 14. Co2nes of this Appendix — "At Church"— in leaflet form, for insertion in Parish Magazines, dc, may be had from the Publishers, through Booksellers, at Is. per 100. A Flayer for Unity. Fkom the Accession Sebvice in the Pkayer Book. OGOD the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, the Prince of Peace ; Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great daugers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatsoever else may hinder us from godly Union and Concord : that, as there is but one Body, and one Spirit, and one Hope of our Calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may henceforth be all of one heart, and of one soul, united in one holy bond of Truth and Peace, of Faith and Charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify Thee ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 1 4 8 5 7' 8 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Aageles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. UNIVERSITY Or I AT LOS ANGEA.i^.«