Your

public meetings and in the Upper House, abundantly attest the fact. A vast movement of sacerdotalism, a movement more comprehensive, bold, and formidable than has been witnessed in Europe since the Jesuits went forth to conquer back Christendom for Rome, is in progress. Its leaders have learned to disdain the weapons of force. They do little by formal controversy. They diffuse their spirit through the intellectual and moral atmosphere of the time, and transform Protestant institutions by internal influence, instead of attacking them from without. Their power in England and their prospects of success depend almost entirely on the extent to which this transformation has been effected in the Ecclesiastical Establishment. Lordship has affirmed in the House of Peers that Englishmen are becoming indifferent to the Church of England for the express reason that they cannot discover the difference between her and the Church of Rome. Some of the shrewdest observers of the day, men occupying a position of energetic indifference to all theological opinion, have described the ecclesiastical situation of the country by remarking that the Church of Rome is being established in England "under an alias." To make the word Protestant a term of reproach; to possess the public mind with the idea that the Church of England, in so far as she was altered in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was defaced rather than reformed; to compass by every art of ecclesiastical strategy the removal of those stains left upon the garment of the Church by "utterly unredeemed villains," like Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley; to give scope and prevalence to the theory that salvation is of the priest and the Sacrament instead of the Word and the Spirit,-such are the aims of the party. Their intrepidity and their steadfastness have been crowned with signal success; but their visible triumphs are of slight importance compared with those which are unseen and unregarded. With subtle, stealthy, penetrating influence, Popery has been reasserting itself in the Church of England. The enthusiasm of Protestantism has been giving place to the enthusiasm of Catholicism. This is the ardour which has of late inflamed religious youth in the Church of England. The dominant ideas have become not Evangelical, but medieval. Apostolical succession, baptismal regeneration, mystic efficacy of sacramental rites, sacerdotal mediation between God and man, have laid their spell upon the Anglican imagination. The Rev. Mr. Mossman, of West Torrington Vicarage, Wragby, Yorkshire, writes to Dr. Newman respecting an opinion pronounced by the latter unfavourable to the validity of Anglican orders. "I feel sure," he says, "you will not misunderstand my motive in thus writing to you. I think I know something of the troubles of this distracted English Church; and it is because I feel so strongly that those terrible distractions are to be healed, not by Anglican priests

coming to a belief that they are only laymen-even if it be unbaptised laymen-but by their believing in their priesthood, and acting upon it. And then, when they do this, I feel sure that, in God's own good time, it will come to pass that Anglicans will also see that it is God's will that they should submit to the Holy Apostolic See, and that it is their duty as well as their privilege to be in communion with that Bishop who alone is the true successor of Peter, and, by Divine Providence, the Primate of the Catholic Church. The lurid, murky flame of Protestantism, enkindled in the sixteenth century, is rapidly becoming quenched, and the true light of the Gospel, which twice before came to England from Rome, is once more beginning to beam upon us from the Eternal City, where the Prince of the Apostles and the Doctor of the Gentiles shed their blood." How naturally this Anglican priest looks toward Rome! Not that his orders have the signet of the Almighty, but that they are countersigned by some fellow-mortal, and may one day be ratified by the Pope, is the anchor of his hope. Such has been steadily becoming the tone of feeling in the Church of England for forty years. It is the saturation of the Establishment with Romish ideas-the insensible transformation of Protestant pastors into Romish priests-that constitutes the danger.

If this is so and your Lordship will not call it in questionit is a positive ground of satisfaction that Ritualists are not wise enough in their generation to disguise their belief. The extravagances of Ritualism have never made a proselyte. They are the indications of a work which has been already done. Ritualism is but the latest product, probably a transitory product, of those Romish and medieval elements which, side by side with Protestant elements, have always lain in the formularies of the Reformed Church of England. Would your Lordship attempt to take the fire out of the heart of Etna by shovelling away those little cones of ashes and slagg and lava with which successive eruptions have fretted the sides of the mountain? As well attempt, by counting buttons and adjusting vestments, to check Romanism in the Church of England.

It is not the character of the people of this island to quail before an open foe; and there is not on earth a more tolerant population than the English. A fair field, no favour, and God defend the right!—this is the maxim that finds an echo in every heart. But the present ecclesiastical arrangements of the country give Romanists an advantage which every Protestant beyond the pale of the Church of England feels to be unfair, and which Protestants within the Church cannot persuade themselves to tolerate. Protestant Nonconformists declare with one voice that Roman Catholicism shall not become established in England under the mask of the existing

Church; and Protestant Churchmen, beholding the transformation going on before their eyes, lose their self-command and break out into actual rioting. Must it not be the heart's wish of every genuine Protestant that a compact, well-defined Protestant army, each division, Episcopalian, Wesleyan, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, taking its place in the general array, the banner of the Reformation floating over all, should confront the sacerdotalism of the age? It is comparatively of little consequence whether the numbers of the host are small or great, but it is of infinite importance that each man shall be able to trust his fellow, and that the keys of the citadel shall not be handed to the enemy in the night. Frederick the Great with but a few millions of subjects withstood the Continent in arms; the vast host of the Viceroy of Bengal at Plassey became a panic-stricken mob through the whisper of a traitor. This is the sentiment of ten thousand Englishmen : "We should have no fear of Rome were it not for the Established Church!"

To the statesman and moralist the spectacle of discord and confusion presented by the Church of England is appalling. It is not merely that places of worship have, for a considerable number of years, been at intervals scenes of riot; it is not only that a church has been dismantled by a churchwarden and a congregation, driven to extremities by a Ritualistic incumbent; the internecine strife which rends the Anglican Establishment has penetrated into every part of the ecclesiastical organisation, and wherever clergyman meets clergyman, Evangelical and Ritualist are at daggers drawn. You cannot look into a newspaper without meeting proofs of the truth of this statement. Let us take up, for example, a single number of the Record. The Editor gives an account of the proceedings at a meeting of "one of the oldest societies whose munificence has been co-extensive with the boundaries of the Church itself." Here are some touches from his report. "For more than three hours the board-room was converted into a perfect bear-garden. Persons laying claim to the title of Christian gentlemen bellowed forth their coarse personalities more like unreasoning animals than beings endowed with reason. Many of the loudest brawlers moreover were clergymen whose sacred office and grave responsibilities should have constrained them to behave with greater decorum. But they seemed to forget both decency and every ministerial obligation as they railed with intolerant insolence, &c." "In a scene of such uproar and confusion calm discussion was impossible, and many of the older friends of the society retired in sorrow and disgust." "Men who are animated by the spirit of their Divine Master, and who value the amenities of life, will not confront a mob of irritable zealots whose behaviour resembled that

of a body of roughs under the direction of such hot-headed demagogues as Finlen and Bradlaugh." There is no reason to believe that this description is too highly coloured. The Established Church, which is often represented as securing toleration for us all and teaching us good manners, has become an arena for ecclesiastical gladiators.

Turning again to the paper, we light on an account of the doctrinal position of the Church. It is given by a correspondent whose letter is eulogised in the editorial columns, printed in large type, and signed "Nestor." Three systems are, he tells us, preached in the Church. These are "immeasurably apart," " essentially antipodal," "as distinctly contradictory as yea and nay." "If one be true, the others are most false. If one be life, the others are sure death." In short, the Church of England is " a Babel of all discord-a Briareus with a hundred hands pointing all round the compass-a Proteus of every form-a chameleon changing colour with each changing ray-a weathercock unsteady as the wind."

Nevertheless, Nestor has a great admiration for the Thirty-nine Articles. They are so marvellous for perspicuity, conciseness, and fidelity, that extraordinary illumination has been accorded, not thoughtlessly, to those who framed them." And the Church, though requiring all that imagery of Babels, weathercocks, and chameleons, to describe her, is " pure as heaven's own light in her authoritative truth." If the Articles fail so completely in practice, their theoretic perfection, even if it could be proved, would be of little value; and, as for their "authority," that is determined by the interpretation, not of Nestor or the Editor of the Record, but of the Judicial Committee of Privy Council. It would be deemed astounding impertinence in a captain of infantry to print what he called an authoritative interpretation of the Articles of War. The clergy of the Established Church, being officials of the State, have to obey, not to interpret. Within the limits prescribed by the Dean of Arches and the Committee of Privy Council, the sacramentarian, evangelical, and rationalistic modes of interpreting the Articles have ample scope. Authoritative decisions as to the meaning of the Articles permit clergymen to believe and to preach what they like on inspiration, vicarious atonement, and eternal punishment. Time was when it could be plausibly urged that the Church of England is a compromise between the Arminian, the Calvinistic, and the sacramentarian systems of theology. But Anglican Arminianism has now stretched into free-thinking, and the sacramentarian has become a Roman Catholic. Lord Westbury's decisions, the latest boon of the State to the Church in England, have extended the terms of the compromise beyond what any man of sense will pronounce com

are his

patible with practical harmony. Practicable, however, or impracticable, it is law. For an Evangelical, therefore, to say that the Church of England is “ pure as heaven's own light in her authoritative truth" is either to say what is not true, or to affirm that Socinian and Roman Catholic theology is " pure as heaven's own light." Nestor tries to ease his conscience by playing the part of an ecclesiastical Paul Pry. "I now send my detective shameless words. He then tells us what his "detective" discovered in this abbey church and that cathedral. Unimpassioned observers, their powers of vision not eaten out by moral scrofula, perceive merely that Nestor has been acting in a way to disqualify him for admission into the society of gentlemen. The heartiest Evangelicals beyond the pale of the Church of England see that the party with which they sympathise in the Church have no ground to stand upon except such as is common to them with the opposing parties. An Evangelical clergyman, writing to Mr. Spurgeon to complain of the identification of the Church of England with Ritualism, is frankly informed by him that he considers the right of the Ritualists to remain in the Church to be exactly as good as that of the Evangelicals.

The statesman is the Minister of the nation, of the whole nation. If he maintains the Church with the nation's money, he is bound to assure himself that the Church, as a Moral Institute, does the nation good. We saw that the Church is a battle-ground for contending factions, for the raging, and tearing, and foaming of evil passions. Does this sweeten the moral atmosphere? Does this instruct the nation in the virtues of gentleness, mercy, and forbearance? What, in the second place, is the practical influence of the Church in respect of truth? The formularies of the Church-the Prayer Book and the Articles-yield no coherent and consistent meaning to the reader of plain sense and candid intelligence. They have never done so. The spirit of worldliness, the spirit of godless expediency, had a share in their original adjustment. Their ambiguity has been rendered incalculably more puzzling by recent decisions, and they are now, to all intents of Ecclesiastical discipline and theological guidance, devoid of meaning. A Church which Nestor of the Record and Dr. Newman join in calling a Babel of confusions cannot have a salutary moral influence upon the nation. That words issued under the authority of Parliament should be permitted to stand divorced from a distinct and explicit sense- -that the formularies of the Church should exist and yet no man be able to say what they mean-can this have any effect save to make duplicity respectable? An elaborate machinery for the exhibition and inculcation of double-mindedness is not a fitting object on which to expend the nation's money. What is the value of any teaching which compromises that virtue in the