Gleanings of past years, 1843-1878, vol 6

GLEANINGS

Past Years,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

1,

A

GLEANINGS .OF PAST YEARS,

1843-78.

BY THE RIGHT HON.

W, E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

VOL. VI.
ECCLESIASTICAL.

LONDON:
JOHN MUKKAY, ALBEMABLE STREET.

1879.

GLEANINGS OF PAST YEAES,

1851-75.

BY THE RIGHT HON.

W, E, GLADSTONE, M.P.

ECCLESIASTICAL.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
JOHN MUKRAY, ALBEMAKLE STREET.

1879.

CONTENTS.

ON THE FUNCTIONS OF LAYMEN IN THE CHURCH.

1851.

PACK

1. Progress of constitutional principles ..... 1

2. Double danger of a Church 2

3-7. Risks of judicial interference with religion ... 2
8, 9. Incoherence of religious profession in the modern

State 6

10, 11. The Scottish Church Establishment 7

12, 13. Best defence of religious freedom lies in a vigorous

public opinion 9

14, 15. Its benefit to the State 10

16. Case of the United States of America .... 11

17-20. Public opinion within the religious bodies ... 11

21-3. State and prospects of the Episcopal Communion . 14

24, 25. Concord of freedom and authority civilly ... 15

26-8. And in religion as received by Episcopalians . . 17

29. Argument applied to lay functions in the Church . 19

30, 31. Examples in the United States and the Colonies . 20

32-4. Great need for strengthening the Episcopal polity. 21

35, 36. Encouragement from American experience. . . 22

37-40. Low tone of Church life 25

41, 42. Clerical order too strong and too weak .... 28
43-6. Correction of injurious tendencies and general

increase of strength anticipated 29

47-9. Exercise of discipline promoted ...... 31

VI. b

v CONTENTS.

PAGE

50-3. Increase of support Xor authority 33

54-7. Share of the people in questions of Ritual ... 35

58. Sum of the general argument 38

59, 60. Apprehension of a democratic temper .... 39

61-3. Outline of possible plan 40

64. Apprehension of lay apathy 42

65-70. Reasons for leading rather than waiting to follow ;

difficulties of the Colonial Churches . 43

II.
THE BILL FOB DIVOECE. 1857.

1-4. Temper of the time, and movements affecting the

law of marriage 47

5, 6. Law of Divorce, how brought into question . . 50

7. Report of the Commission 51

8-10. Former abortive Bills, and Bill in progress ... 51

11. Its tendency to produce further Bills .... 53

12. Heads of the argument intended 54

13. Wild assumptions of some advocates of Divorce . 54

14. Ambiguities in the use of this and other terms . 55

15-19. (I.) Scripture argument for Divorce 56

20-31. Scripture argument against Divorce generally . . 58
32-43. (a) Against Divorce under the alleged exception

in St. Matt. v. 32 67

44. Inconsistency of the Bill under this head ... 75

45-8. (6) Against Divorce for desertion 76

49. (II.) Outline of the history of marriage. Its

Magna Charta 78

50, 51. Marriages in Homer 79

52. In later Greece, and in Rome 80

53, 54. In the three first centuries of Christianity ... 81

55-7. In the period immediately succeeding .... 83

58. In the Middle Ages 85

59-62. Law of the Latin Church 86

63-5. The Reformat Legurn 88

66, Case of the Marquis of Northampton .... 90

CONTENTS.

PAGE

67, 68. English law down to 1670 : opinions of Milton . 90

69, 70. The first Privilegium 92

71. Laud and the historical authorities 93

72,73. Gradual increase of Privilegia, and enlargement

of their provisions 94

74, 75. The parties are hardly censurable 96

76. (III.) Scope of the Bill 97

77-80. Weight of authorities against it 98

81. Its incoherency 100

82, 83. Christian rationale of marriage 101

84. Law of nature 102

85, 86. Degradation of woman by the Bill 103

87-9. And of the Church. 104

IIL
THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 1874-5.

(I.) RITUAL AND RITUALISM.

1-4. Meaning of the phrase Ritualism 108

5-7. Meaning of Ritual 110

8, 9. Our want of faculty for adaptation of the outward

to the inward 112

10-12. Good example of Greece 113

13-16. The rule and the exceptions among us .... 114

17-19. Exaggeration and miscarriage of divers efforts. . 116

20. Involving the same idea as Ritualism . . . . 118

21-5. State of Anglican worship before Ritualism began 118

26-8. What was then held to constitute Ritualism . . 121

29. Growth of Ritual in the non-episcopal communions 123

30. Clerical costume or habit 123

31. The growth in the Church of England is general . 124

32. Js it to be viewed with satisfaction, or displeasure ? 125
33, 34. Relation of Ritual to Doctrine is far from uniform. 126

35. The question of a Romanising movement . . . 127
36-9. Nearer danger in excess of outward observance

over the inward process 128

Yl CONTEXTS.

PAGE

40, 41. Arduous nature ,ofthe work of worship . . . . 130

42, 43. How Ritual may be a snare 131

44-7. Causes now tending to derange the relation be-
tween ritual and worship 132

48. Coercion no sufficient remedy 134

49, 50. Presumptions against and for changes in Ritual . 134

51-4. Tests of allowable or beneficial change .... 135

55. Office of Preaching, in relation to Ritual . . . 137
56-9. Respective shares of the clergyman and the con-
gregation in giving a due character to Divine

Service 138

CO. Authority of St. Paul applied to present disputes . 140
Resolutions on the Public Worship Bill . . .141

(II.) Is THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND WORTH PRESERVING?

1. Purpose of Part 1 143

2-4. Partisanship in matters of Ritual disclaimed . . 143
5-7. Against attaching doctrinal significance either way

to the Eastward position 145

8-14. Admissible arguments both ways from legitimate

sources 147

15-17. Whether tolerance has in all respects increased

since the Sixteenth Century 151

18. The contention is not a mere suit between parties 152

19, 20. Analogous practice in politics 153

21-3. Objection pressed 154

24-6. Bad effect of the penal suits of our day .... 156

27, 28. Wiser treatment of the Evangelical controversy . 157

29. Other suits perhaps to come 158

30-2. Is the Church of England worth preserving ? . . 159
33, 34. Debates of 1874 menacing to her as an Establish-
ment 160

35. Disunion in the Church 161

36-8. Union also existing in the Church 162

39-42. Duty of maintaining union, why enhanced at the

present time 163

CONTENTS. vii

PAGE

43-7. Especially in the English Church, for her position

and office 165

48, 49. Charge of resembling the Church of Eome . . . 167

50-2. The suits have been on points aifecting large bodies

of clergy and of laity 169

53-9. Avoidance, mitigation, or postponement, of conten-
tious issues 170

60-4. Against shifting the balance of doctrinal expression 173
65,66. The Kubrics are generally in the sense of the

Anglican High Church 175

67. Effect of abolition of Doctors' Commons . . . . 176

68. The Episcopal Assessors 177

69-72. Judgments on Ritual sometimes literary rather than

legal productions 177

73-9. Illustrated from the Purchas Judgment .... 180

80. Peculiar use of the word "Evidence" .... 18-4

81. Necessity of positive decisions in the face of doubts 184
82, 83. Change in the modern idea of Law 185

84. Illustration from Magna Cliarta 186

85, 86. Eeign of Elizabeth 186

87. Summing up in Five Propositions 188

Postscript 189

IV.
ITALY AND HEK CHURCH. 1875.

1. Rome as the central point of Christendom . . . 193

2, 3. England as a point not central but special . . . 194

4-7. Relation of Italy to the Temporal Popedom . . 195

8,9. Greatness of the change since 1849 198

10,11. A remaining danger 199

12-14. Comparative indifference of Italy to the Papal

claims 201

15. Its wise but not uniform tolerance 204

16-18. The maxim of Cavour : Libera Chiesa in libero Stato 204
19-21. Difficulties in its unconditional application to

European countries 206

VI.

Ylll CONTEXTS.

PAGE

22, 23. Illustration from the Act for Disestablishment in

Ireland 208

24, 25. The Statute of Guarantees 210

26, 27. Indications of a false assumption respecting religion 211
28-31. Abolition of the Faculties of Theology .... 212
32-6. Abstention from interference in Episcopal appoint-
ments 215

37-40. Efforts of , the people at San Giovanni del Dosso to

right themselves 219

41-4. Immemorial right and practice of popular election

in certain places 221

45. Proceedings at Frassino and Paludano .... 223
46-9. Views of Ricanti, and Speeches in the Chamber, on

behalf of the Church rights of the people . . 224
50-6. Suit and Judgment in the case of San Giovanni del

Dosso 227

57, 58. Important issues depending 230

59. Course taken by General Garibaldi 231

60. Comparison with the case of Auchterarder in

Scotland ..." 232

61-3. Forecast of the struggle for popular election . . 233

64. Case of Pignano 235

65. The Protestant Propaganda 235

66-8. "National Italian Catholic Church" in Naples . 236

69, 70. Waiting attitude of a portion of the Clergy. . . 238

71, 72. Fall of the temporal Power, and its religious effect 239
73-5. Likelihood of measures of defence for the clergy

and laity of Italy 242

ON THE FUNCTIONS OF LAYMEN IN THE
CHURCH.*

1851.

A LETTER TO THE BIGHT REV. WILLIAM SKINNER, D.D., BISHOP OP

ABERDEEN, AND PRIMUS.

EIGHT REVEREND AXD DEAR SIR,

1 . THE times in which we live add greatly to the
cares and responsibilities of the Fathers of the Church,
most of all if they are set and determined, as their office
requires, upon facing unbelief in its insidious beginnings,
and upon a jealous watch and ward for the precious
deposit committed to their charge. But they seem, here-
with, to present this peculiar feature, that, as in civil,
so in spiritual matters, they tend to devolve upon the
governed a portion of the work of government. It is that
tendency, when working without method or control, that
makes the period revolutionary ; but which, when kept
within due bounds, and trained to act according to stable
and well-adjusted laws, seems capable of being so used
as to give increased vigour to legitimate authority, along
with increased scope for reasonable freedom. On this
account, and from the experimental evidence afforded
by the recent history of several States, it would seem
that what is called a constitutional system, though not

* Printed, at the desire of the Scottish Bishops, in 1852. Reprinted
in 1869.

YI. B

2 ON THE FUNCTIONS OF

always easy to realise, is* when it can be attained, for the
present period of human destinies, the great Providential
instrument for effective resistance to anarchical designs.

2. But the Church may, it is probable, have a double
danger to encounter. In common with States, she has to
fear the consequences, which may be wrought upon her
established order by an unregulated appetite among her
own members for the exercise of power. But she has in
some countries a further danger to apprehend, from the side
of the State itself : the exercise, namely, of State influence
and of State power, not only by way of due check and
control over her movements, but by way of assuming
(whether professedly or not is not now the question, and,
if it is to be at all, it were far better that it should
be professedly) the privilege or function of ultimately
deciding both her doctrine and her discipline.

3. I do not indeed say that this is a fact already pal-
pable to all. On the contrary, many are still blind to it :
so blind, that they recklessly precipitate the danger : so
blind, that we have only to wish their day of vision may
not come too late. But I speak of it as a fact plain
enough to those who watch for the signs of the times, and
who, in the moral hemisphere, can portend foul weather
when " the sky is red and lowering."

4. Now this assumption may make its advances in more
ways than one. It may be under direct legislative pro-
visions. It may be through the exercise of patronage and
what is termed the power of the purse. It may be, and
that almost ex necessitate rei, through the administration
of the judicial office. The first of these modes must be
mainly applicable to an Established religion ; and has no
application worth naming to that Episcopal Communion
over which you, Right Reverend Sir, and your Brethren,

LAYMEN IN THE CHURCH. 3

preside with, the universal reverence of its members.
Neither is the second felt, if it be understood with regard
to secular influence from the State, as contra-distinguished
from other secular influences. But from the third you
neither are nor can you be exempt. The mere establish-
ment by law of religious freedom, it should be well
recollected by all, but especially by the members of un-
established communities, cannot of itself s^cjire their
liberty of conscience from practical invasion and curtail-
ment by the judicial power. As bodies, they must have
rules. As bodies of human beings, they must occasionally
have refractory or dissentient members, perhaps dishonestly
seeking to evade the operation of those rules, perhaps
honestly but erroneously, nay, perhaps in given cases, both
honestly and correctly, desirous to fix upon them a con-
struction different from that attached to them by the
general sense of the religious community to which they
belong. And lastly, as bodies regularly organised, they
must usually have paid officers, and very commonly also
purchasable privileges; so that the sheer laws of their
existence necessarily carry us to a point where spiritual
rights come to intermix with temporal. "When, there-
fore, any minority, or any individuals, go into a Court, and
raise there a question relating to these paid offices or
endowments, or these purchasable privileges, they raise a
question of temporal and civil rights, which does not cease
to be such because some other question of spiritual rights
runs upon a parallel line with it. And I apprehend it
will be found very difficult so to frame the [contracts (for
such are our Canons, and the rules of other unestablished
bodies) between the members of a religious society, as to
exonerate the Courts from the duty of entertaining, indi-
rectly indeed, but in supposable cases most substantially,

B 2

4 ON THE FUNCTIONS OP

questions upon the vital/construction of our ecclesiastical
laws. Not perhaps with the same frequency, or the same
directness, or the same breadth of scope, as in the case of
an Established Church ; but yet sufficiently to remind us
that, if we wish to be wholly free from meddling, we
must not rely implicitly on any written document, but
must have arms in our hands for self-defence.

5. The very last imputation I should think of casting
on the time-honoured Courts of this country would be that
of a desire to trespass upon the sphere of religious liberty.
It is their conscientiousness, not their want of conscience,
which has led, and may again lead, them into it. In the
celebrated case of Lady Hewley's charity, Sir Lancelot
Shadwell, the late highly respected Yice-Chancellor of
England, delivered from the bench something very like a
dogmatic treatise, and concluded with a judgment that
alienated dissenting endowments from purposes to which
they had theretofore been applied, upon grounds avowedly
dogmatic. Now, though, as I have said, there may be no
undue disposition to enter the sphere of religion and of
the rights of conscience, and though, when a judge has
entered it, there will be no conscious deviation from strict
equity, yet I for one frankly own that I view the temporal
judge, when he has once got there, with the greatest
jealousy. I am jealous, partly because he has to try
a subject-matter with which he is not competently
acquainted, while his lack of competence is not supplied
by fixed rules of reference to experts, as it sometimes is
when non-legal issues are indirectly raised. And, further,
because in countries where, as in Scotland, there is an
established religion, whose laws have a thousand points of
contact with those of the State, a habit of mind may very
naturally, nay, must ordinarily, be formed more or less in

LAYMEN IN THE CHT7ECH. 5

judges, which may lead them, unconsciously to them-
selves, to make the ideas belonging to the State religion
the measure and standard for the corresponding subjects
in other systems, and to claim more than properly belongs
to them, upon occasions when they have to deal with the
interpretation of the canons or rules of an unestablished
community.

6. Ecclesiastical discipline, together with theology,
representing organised and historic systems, are full of
technical terms, which are to be learned only like the
technical terms of other sciences or arts. And lawyers
have no greater inborn or spontaneous knowledge of these
terms, than they have of the differential calculus.
Neither have they, in virtue of their being lawyers, the
theological habit of mind, without which these technical
terms are in many cases ill to be apprehended. We may
frequently observe that, when they get into people's
mouths, they are, because misunderstood, only instruments
of delusion to those who use and those who hear them.
For example, many men, and even occasionally a judge or
two, will talk about an opus operatum, meaning thereby a
perfunctory or ceremonial act ; a sense, I need not say,
absolutely different from the true one. In short, Right
Reverend Sir, to lay aside circumlocution, and utter out-
right the word which solicits me, there is great fear lest
judges, dragged pro re natd into theology, should, and
of course to the detriment of somebody or other, talk
nonsense.

7. Now, this danger is not of the fatal kind to us, of
which it would be, if any such judgment of the civil
courts involved an obligation upon conscience beyond the
limit of the temporalities concerned. Up to that limit of
course they do, even for a voluntary society, involve such

6 ON THE FUNCTIONS OP

an obligation ; but whan they pass beyond it, they are
waste-paper. Yet still this is a danger that might lead
to very formidable evils ; a danger (which is my present
point) that ought to be guarded against. Perhaps we are
not justified in excluding wholly from our view the further
fact, that more direct interference with your religious
freedom, which is also ours, may not be wholly out of the
question; inasmuch as, during the present year, your
Reverences have rather narrowly escaped the proscription
by statute of your regular, and your only regular, eccle-
siastical designations. True, this was owing to singular
and unexampled causes ; but yet, what has happened may,
as a general rule, happen again.

8. Mere law, then, as I have said, is not of itself a
sufficient guarantee for religious freedom. But God forbid
I should underrate its importance. The time has been
when, as I think, it was the duty of a good citizen to look
with utter aversion on whatever seemed to impair strict-
ness of religious character and profession in the State.
With that religious character, consistently and rigidly
maintained, it is hard, as we must admit, to reconcile full
liberty of conscience ; but in maintaining it, for the times
of which I speak, the greater good was preserved, and the
lesser sacrificed. It is not so now. It is now so utter an
impossibility to uphold a consistent religious profession in
the State, that we must be satisfied with an inconsistent
one ; and thankful, if it do not shock the common reason
and sense of justice planted in mankind, by affecting a
bastard and deceptive consistency. I am jealous of all
attempts at consistency in this matter, most of all because
I am convinced that they would and must result in the
greatest of civil calamities ; the mutilation, under the seal
of civil authority, of the Christian religion itself. The

LAYMEN IN THE CHURCH. 7

garment will not fit the wearer ; and if it is to be put on,
as his figure cannot change to suit it, it therefore must
change to suit him ; must stretch here, and draggle there,
and tear everywhere. If such would be the necessary
result of aiming at consistency, we may well be content
to forego the effort for attaining it.

9. But then this inconsistency of profession, being
radical and systematic, palpably and greatly alters the
qualifications and authority of the State in respect to
religion ; and reduces it more and more to the character,
although employed circa sacra, of a temporal agency and
influence. The great, all- conquering wave of Christianity
may indeed be receding from the summits of society,
which it took centuries to reach. "We have now had
before us for many years the undeniable and singular fact
that, while the tone and amount of personal religion have
been rising in general society, the religious character of
the State, as such, has progressively declined. But the
provision made by the Almighty for the everlasting main-
tenance of His truth can never fail, if and where His
Church is true to herself. What, then, we (I mean the
members of all independent religious bodies, in which
capacity only, and as one connected with Scotland, I now
write) have to desire, is, generally to be let alone, and
specially not to be put upon the bed of Procrustes, a mode
of accommodation by no means out of favour in some
quarters.

10. The duties of Christian and citizen now, as ever,
coincide. The religious peace which the latter must
desire, can only be had by the maintenance of the religious
freedom, which nothing should induce us to compromise.
I do not indeed think that our religious freedom in Scot-
land is impaired by a cordial and thorough observance of

8 ON THE FUNCTIONS OP

the legal rights and privileges of the Church Establish-
ment. I say frankly, I view those privileges as con-
stituting no infringement whatever of what is essential
in religious freedom. That cordial observance I trust we
are all prepared to pay. But, on the other hand, I am
sure the clergy and members of the Establishment gener-
ally are too wise to follow the ridiculous example set
by a handful among them, who last year* petitioned
Parliament to proscribe the appellations belonging to
our Diocesan Episcopacy.

11. Against all such encroachments I for one will
steadily set my face, and will labour to the uttermost,
whether it be ostensibly on our own behalf or on behalf of
others, whether for the sake of common justice, or of
religious peace, or of Divine truth itself, to assert the
principle, vital to us all, of a full religious freedom. That
principle, I contend, when the State has ceased to bear
a definite and full religious character, it is no less our
interest than our duty to maintain. Away with the ser-
vile doctrine, that religion cannot live but by the aid of
Parliaments. That aid is a greater or a lesser good,
according to circumstances ; but conditions are also sup-
posable, under which it would be a great evil. The
security of religion lies, first in the Providence of God and
the promise of Christ : next in the religious character, and
strong sentiment of personal duty and responsibility, so
deeply graven on this country and its people. But if that
character and sentiment be the mainstay of our reliance
here on earth, our first duty must be to see that full
scope is given to it ; that the development of conscientious

* [On the occasion of the ill-starred Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.
W. E. G., 1878.]

LAYMEN IN THE CHTTECH. 9

convictions, in whatever quarter, is not artificially im-
peded by legislative meddling; that however wary and
patient we may be as to any question of moving forwards,
above all we be careful not to move backwards, nor for
one moment acquiesce in any kind of tampering with
the existing liberty of conscience in the persons either of
ourselves or of others.

12. But if, as I have thus far striven to show, the
simple assertion of this freedom by law, positively or
negatively, be not of itself, especially in a country having
a national establishment of religion, enough for the reason-
able security of conscience, the question arises, by what
further and other means can it be defended ? I answer,
by the creation of a vigorous and watchful public opinion,
both in the different religious communions and among the
people at large, in its favour.

Now this public opinion, so far as it is extrinsic to the
religious bodies themselves, will thrive in proportion as it
shall be seen, by the community at large, that the energies
of these bodies are effectively exerted for the promotion of
social peace, order, and morality. The next inquiry, then,
must obviously be, how are they to make themselves con-
ducive to these purposes in the highest attainable degree ?
My answer is, by the full and free development of their
energies from within : that full and free development,
which can only be realised through a regular constitu-
tional organisation.

13. Nor let it be apprehended that this organisation,
and this increase of spiritual vitality and strength, will be
regarded with jealousy even by the most ardent among
the rational and consistent lovers of civil freedom. This
good, at least, our religious divisions have brought to us,
along with their many evils, that, where they prevail so

10 ON THE FUNCTIONS OF

extensively as among us,* no fears need be entertained of
the effective or general use of ecclesiastical influences in a
manner hostile to public liberty. I say public liberty,
because that private and inward freedom which depends
upon the will, no laws can uphold where the will itself
fails or flags in its office ; and law ought not to aim at
defending individuals against the faulty working of
systems which are not under the cognisance of law, but
which they have themselves chosen and contrived, or to
which they have voluntarily attached themselves.

14. The time has been, when the power of the Church
was so great and unruly, that it threatened to absorb the
co-ordinate and independent power of civil authority.
But, in order to carry on such a struggle with a prospect
of success, the Church must be, if not wholly, yet nearly
coextensive with the State. "Where the nation is split,
as in Scotland, into so very great a variety of religious
communions, with no one of them absolutely pre-
ponderating in numbers and influence, we have, I should
say, much more than the needful assurances, that no such
danger can recur ; unless, indeed, by its encroachments on
religious freedom in general, the State should compel all
sects and churches, that value their respective liberties,
to unite against a common danger.

15. Plenary religious freedom, on the other hand,
brings out into full vigour, and also into fair and impartial
rivalry, the internal energies of each communion, so that
they stand simply upon their merits before the world.
Should any one of them attempt to trespass on the civil
power, all the rest will combine with that power against
it. And while freedom of conscience, impartially granted
to a variety of communions, is thus the best security
against collisions between civil and spiritual authority.

LAYMEN IN THE CHTJECH. 11

it likewise directly serves the social purposes for which
States exist. For these diverse, and to a considerable
extent competing, bodies do in many ways, through the
Divine mercy constraining evil to be the minister of good,
provoke one another to love and to good works, and are,
generally speaking, effective, in something near the ratio
of the free development of their energies, towards the
maintenance of order and of external or public morality.

16. In proof of the soundness of this reasoning, I would
appeal to the United States of America. There surely, of
all countries in the Christian world, the peril of encroach-
ment by ecclesiastical on civil authority is the least. And
there, also, religious freedom is the most full and unre-
strained, and the most universally and dearly valued, both
by those who deem it an indispensable safeguard to the
revelation of the Gospel, and by those who witness the
effect which, at least for a country where it has started
with a clear and open field, it produces, in keeping the
peace between Church and State, and in applying the
energies of all communions in the manner most favourable
to the elementary purposes of civil society. I quote this
case only to show, that full religious freedom, while it is
the object to which, of all in the political hemisphere, an
unestablished body of Christians must naturally look with
the most profound interest, is likewise highly beneficial to
public order and morality, and need entail no danger
whatever to political harmony and the well-being of the
State. Let a Minister adopt this for the principle of his
ecclesiastical police ; to deal liberally with religious com-
munities, and give them all fair play;" and to let them
stand sentry upon one another. The laws will be all the
more respected, the peace all the better kept.

17. We have reached, then, this point in the argument^

12 ON THE FUNCTIONS OP

that, in a country like Scotland, where religious influence
and profession are so much divided, a thorough and regular
organisation for ecclesiastical purposes, being among the
legitimate means of raising to its maximum the proper
activity of the several religious communions, will likewise
be a means of enlisting public opinion, so far as it is
extrinsic to religious bodies, in favour of their freedom.

18. But the remaining part, and a very important part,
of the public opinion of the country, is that which may
be called the public opinion of religious bodies them-
selves : the opinion of those who are either primarily, or
at least definitely and deeply interested in their welfare,
and who act with a direct and systematic view to it.
Now this portion of public opinion is already in favour of
religious freedom in a very great and an evidently grow-
ing degree : and this among all bodies of Scottish
religionists, although with various distinctions of amount
and kind. But I may observe that in one point we all
are pretty much agreed ; we are all, without any excep-
tion whatever, in favour of religious freedom for ourselves.
Even those, who would seat the civil power upon the altar
of God, are so minded because there is nothing in their
views of doctrine or of discipline, with which they think
the State is likely to interfere. But when I speak of a
lover of religious freedom, I mean one who, desiring the
full enjoyment of it for his own communion, is not will-
ing only, but anxious, as he prizes the sacred principle of
justice, to accord to all other religious bodies precisely the
same measure; and to guard all alike against secular
interference in their concerns, so long as they do not tres-
pass upon the sphere of secular affairs.

19. In this sense of religious freedom, it is certainly a
principle still but imperfectly apprehended; a principle

LAYMEN IN THE CHURCH. 13

more imperfectly apprehended, more darkened by selfish-
ness and sophistry now, than it was fifteen months ago.
But its future progress is absolutely certain. For as
every class is now with increasing boldness asking the
boon on its own behalf, only a little time and experience
are requisite to show to each that in religion, just as in
matters of civil interest, what he wants to get or keep
himself, he must be ready to confer or defend, on the same
terms, for others. As with property, so with religious
freedom : the rights of each man are the rights of his
neighbour ; he that defends one is the defender of all ; and
he that trespasses on one assails all. And in these matters
the mass of the community will judge fairly, when once
the facts are fairly before them, however they may require
time to clear their view of the case, or however they may
occasionally tread awry. Given, I say, these two con-
ditions : first, the principle of civil equality before the
law, and secondly, the general desire in each man for his
own religious freedom ; and then the ultimate recognition
of such freedom for all is as secure, as the maintenance of
such equality.

20. But what I further humbly propound is, that, while
the progress of the desire for religious freedom within
our religious communities is a certainty, those will most
fully profit by its advantages who shall have learned its
lessons earliest ; and those best neutralise its hazards,
who shall have accepted it with cordiality and grace. My
earnest desire then is, that we should be early learners in
that school. It is on that subject, and with that view,
that I now lay my thoughts before your Reverence.

But assuredly the true mode of learning freedom is by
its practice. Not by a transition from one violent extreme
to another, but by the careful use and the steady extension

14 ON THE FUNCTIONS OP

of such machinery and mfcans as we possess, in the direc-
tion of the purposes we have in view.

21. What I have hitherto said has been upon grounds,
and in language, common I think to the members of all
religious communities indiscriminately, other than those
established by law. I come now to speak as a member of
a particular religious body, and in the phraseology which
belongs to it.

I venture to represent to your Reverence, and to your
right Reverend and highly esteemed Brethren of the
Episcopal College, that the means of extension and pro-
gress in this matter are possessed in a high degree by the
Episcopal communion of Scotland. It is not practically
galled, at least within Scotland, by the smallest legislative
restraint. It is in no way mixed up with political party.
It lives upon terms of perfect good will with its numerous
and variegated neighbours. It has a ruling body strong
in the respect and attachment of its members, strong in
historical descent, strong in the remembrance of a long
period of depression and proscription not ignobly borne,
strong (I waive descanting on personal qualities) above all
in the conviction of the society that those, who bear rule
within its pale, bear rule according to the Word of Christ
and the tradition of the Apostles. It has the profession,
and some at least of the practice, of Church discipline.
It honestly professes, and to a great degree realises and
enjoys, unity of belief on all the Articles of the Christian
Paith. It is in a state of steady expansion, and where
it strikes) its roots, appears to strike them deeply and
securely.

22. It has escaped the painful and scandalous differ-
ences and controversies upon matters of belief, which have
so sorely torn the Church of England ; which have been

lAYMEJST IN" THE CHURCH. 15

attended (wherever the blame may lie) with the loss of
many able and learned, and, what is more, of many most
zealous and devout men from among her clergy and her
members ; and which, under the handling they have re-
ceived within these last four or five years, have become
progressively more menacing and angry. These contro-
versies, I say, it has escaped ; and the small portion of
discord or dispute, that has found its way here, would
seem to have been imported from beyond the border. Dis-
cussions without doubt we have had among those of our
own body, but commonly upon matters of minor moment ;
or if upon matters of moment, yet the dispute has in-
volved their form and order, rather than their essence.
Of course I do not apply the name of a dispute to the
exercise of legitimate authority, which has severed the
link of communion between our Church and some few
gentlemen who were once her ministers, but found them-
selves unable to acquiesce in her laws.

23. But there yet remains to be noticed the advantage
most relevant of all to the present purpose. "We have
already a system of Church government in action, and the
only question can be, whether we should have an exten-
sion of its basis, effected through the free choice, and the
spontaneous boon, of those in whom it now resides. It is
not required to create, but only to enlarge, and the field,
in which the enlargement is to be made, is a clear and
open field.

24. Miserable indeed would be the prospect of the
coming times, if we believed that authority and freedom
were simply conflicting and contradictory elements in the
constitution of a community, so that whatever is given to
the one must be deducted from the other. But no Briton,
who has clnvotofl any portion of hiB thoughts to the history

16 ON THE FUNCTIONS OF

of his country, or the character of its inhabitants, can for
a moment be ensnared into that, for him, false and de-
grading belief. It has been providentially allotted to this
favoured isle that it should show to all the world, how
freedom and authority, in their due and wise develop-
ments, not only may coexist in the same body, but may,
instead of impairing, sustain and strengthen one another.
Among Britons, it is the extent and security of freedom
which renders it safe to entrust large powers to Govern-
ment, and it is the very largeness of those powers and the
vigour of their exercise, which constitute, to each indi-
vidual of the community, the great practical safeguard of
his liberties in return. The free expression of opinion, as
our experience has taught us, is the safety-valve of pas-
sion. That noise of the rushing steam, when it escapes,
alarms the timid ; but it is the sign that we are safe. The
concession of reasonable privilege anticipates the growth
of furious appetite.

25. Eegularity, combination, and order, especially when
joined with publicity, have of themselves a marvellous
virtue ; they tend to subordinate the individual to the
mass, they enlarge by healthy exercise the better and
nobler parts of our nature, and depress the poorer and
meaner ; they make man more a creature of habits, and
less of mere impulse ; they weaken the relative influence
of the present, by strengthening his hold upon the future
and the past, and their hold upon him. By gathering, too,
into organised forms the various influences that bear sway
in a mixed community, and leaving them to work within
prescribed channels, those which are good acquire the
multiplied strength of union, while the bad neutralise
one another by reciprocal elimination. It is a great and
noble secret, that of constitutional freedom, which has

LAYMEN IN THE CHURCH. 17

given to us the largest liberties, with the steadiest throne,
and the most vigorous executive, in Christendom. I con-
fess to my strong faith in the virtue of this principle. I
have lived now for many years in the midst of the hottest
and noisiest of its workshops, and have seen that amidst
the clatter and the din a ceaseless labour is going on;
stubborn matter is reduced to obedience, and the brute
powers of society, like the fire, air, water, and mineral of
nature, are with clamour indeed, but also with might,
educated and shaped into the most refined and regular
forms of usefulness for man. I am deeply convinced, that
among us all systems, whether religious or political, which
rest on a principle of absolutism, must of necessity be, not
indeed tyrannical, but feeble and ineffective systems ; and
that methodically to enlist the members of a community,
with due regard to their several capacities, in the per-
formance of its public duties, is the way to make that
community powerful and healthful, to give a firm seat to
its rulers, and to engender a warm and intelligent devotion
in those beneath their sway.

26. Can it be thought that this, being true of civil, is
false in regard to ecclesiastical affairs ? To my mind there
could be no more monstrous paradox, than such a propo-
sition would involve. It seems to suppose that the office
of Christianity is not to regulate, but to derange and
overset the structure, and to reverse the processes, of
human nature, or to place its powers in abeyance. There
are, indeed, systems of theology, which might prepare us
for eliminating in one way or another from that nature
the fundamental element of its freedom ; but they are
systems which on that account you, Eight Reverend
Father, would regard as dangerous, or even as heretical.
Now what I cannot well conceive is this : how it can be

vi. o

18 ON THE FUNCTIONS OF

maintained, not only thaft man is metaphysically free, but
likewise that each person ought in his spiritual concerns
to hold the reins over his own being and conduct, and yet
denied that the lay community of the Church ought to
have denned and recognised functions in relation to her
government. The habits of freedom and self-direction,
formed in the sphere of the personal life, will not well
brook total and systematic exclusion from the exercise of
public influence in the Church : and the result of such an
arrangement has too often been, as, indeed, were it not for
the all-powerful corrective influence of our religion, it
would ever be, either unappeasable turbulence, or im-
movable supineness and indifference.

27. The prevailing policy of the Church of Rome is
more consistent. That policy is indeed proverbially most
jealous of admitting laymen to any share in ecclesiastical
functions ; but then it begins at the beginning, and takes
away from the individual (if he will suffer this to be done)
the decision in the last resort upon his own moral conduct,
not only by rendering his access to the Holy Sacraments
dependent under all circumstances on the will of the
priest, but by the modern and very remarkable and
ominous development of her discipline, in the form of
what is called Direction.

28. But I understand the Reformation, such as you re-
ceive it, to have re-established a most important ethical and
social principle, in throwing upon each individual Chris-
tian the weighty responsibility of being, except in the
case of open and palpable offences of whatever kind, his
own spiritual director, and himself the sole judge of his
own need for help in that kind. Now I do not believe
that those who, in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies, gave statutory form to the religious changes in

LAYMEN IN THE CHUECH. 19

England, intended or did anything so absurd, as to eman-
cipate the lay community of the Church in respect to
their personal action, and then utterly to exclude them,
as a lay community, from any regular share in the
management of Church affairs, any liberty of assenting to,
or dissenting from, the laws ecclesiastical by which they
were to be governed. JSTo course could have tended so
powerfully as one of this kind to the ultimate disorgani-
sation of the body. But the sanction of Parliament to
the laws ecclesiastical was, both historically and consti-
tutionally, the assent of the laity to those laws. I speak
here of England rather than of Scotland, where the
relations of Church and State remained, from the middle
of the sixteenth century down even to the last years of
Anne and the Act of Patronages, in almost constant
vicissitude, convulsion, and confusion.

29. If, therefore, I venture to open the question, whether
the lay element might not, at an early date, receive with
great advantage, under the hands of the Eight Reverend
College of Bishops, a regular organisation, I beg to point
out that this is a principle not only recommended by
abstract argument, but deeply embedded in the Refor-
mation, according to its actual and historical development
in English history. I cannot here do better than invoke
the authority of Hooker ; more especially, because his
theories upon these questions of polity were manifestly
formed in great part from, and therefore very much reflect
the sense and meaning of, our history. " "Were it so that
the clergy alone might give laws unto all the rest, foras-
much as every estate doth desire to enlarge the bounds of
their own liberties, is it not easy to see how injurious this
might prove to men of other conditions ? Peace and
justice are maintained by preserving unto eveiy order

20 ON THE FUNCTIONS OF

their right, and by keeping all estates as it were in an
even balance."* It is sufficient for my purpose to quote
this authority in general terms, without going back to
early precedent either in the Acts of the Apostles or in
the ordinary law or usages of the Church. The facts,
however, of our own Anglo-Saxon history alone amply
suffice to show that the principle for which I would plead
is no new-fangled invention, but one well known to a
period to which Englishmen are justly and wisely fond of
carrying back the origin of their system of jurisprudence.

30. Nor can we put aside, as superannuated, the prece-
dents of the Reformation. Antiquated, indeed, they are in
one sense, namely, as to the particular form in which the
principle was applied. That form depended on the close
alliance, coming near amalgamation, of the Church and
the State in England ; but the vitality of the principle
itself has received recent, nay is receiving almost daily,
testimony. The Episcopal Church in the United States
has given a distinct place and vote to the lay order in
its Ecclesiastical Assemblies. No doubt that Church is
far from presenting to us anything like a perfect system ;
but the whole weight of testimony from the most com-
petent and dispassionate authorities, quite irrespective of
particular leanings of opinion, is in favour of this lay
representation, as being not the cause but the corrective
of passion and disorder, as adding greatly to what may be
called the ballast of the Church, while it is likewise
found to be an incalculable and an indispensable source
of expansive strength.

31 . Such, then, being the case of America, the Church in
our own Colonies has, by a simultaneous movement at

Hooker, Eccl. Pol. b. viii. : Of the Authority of making Laws.

LAYMEN IN THE CHT7ECH. 21

opposite extremities of the world, borne signal testimony
to the same principle and need. In Canada, the Legisla-
tive Council of a Colony with nearly two millions of
inhabitants, as well as a Synod or Assembly of five
Bishops of British North America ; and in Australasia a
similar Synod of six Bishops, backed, I believe, in both
instances, by the very general assent of laity and clergy,
have declared in favour of an organised Church govern-
ment, on the footing of voluntary contract, and with some
form of lay representation. The very last arrivals from
the Cape of Good Hope have brought a similar declaration
from the indefatigable Bishop of that Colony.

32. If such be our case in regard, first, to facilities and
inducements, and secondly, to historical authority and
precedent ; on the other hand, there are circumstances in
our condition, which seem evidently to point out a need
for doing whatever can be done to strengthen and improve
our ecclesiastical organisation. Our laws are too weak on
all sides, and our discipline but defective. The laity,
having no regular and constitutional means of exercising
an influence on the policy of the Church, even by the
expression of opinion, too often hang loosely in their rela-
tion to it, and sometimes are led, from want of defined
and legitimate privilege, to the use of means essentially
anarchical as well as unecclesiasti.cal, such as the local and
irresponsible exercise of the power of the purse.

33. Although we are in the happy condition of having
only to build upon foundations already laid, yet the need
of building, I must confess, seems to me to be as urgent
as it well can be. Not but that, if the Rulers of this
Church were content to close their eyes upon the broad
field opening around them, and to confine themselves to
meeting inevitable calls, and discharging the duties of

22 ON TITE FUtfCTIONS 0*

routine within the present narrow limits of their com-
munion, it might be in their power to pursue such a
course. But it is easy to predict that, claiming to occupy
the ancient Sees of Scotland, and to represent her sainted
Missionaries and her [earliest Episcopate, they will feel
that such a claim is one of responsibility even more than
of dignity ; and their efforts to meet that responsibility
will, without doubt, be bounded only by the means and
opportunities, which Providence is manifestly and rapidly
enlarging.

34. If, Eight Eeverend Sir, there be any of our mem-
bers who doubt whether our ecclesiastical polity have
enough of intrinsic vigour to bear the strain and pressure,
with more or less of which all effective government is
carried on, I trust they will ask themselves whether their
faith in the power of truth, and in the soundness and im-
pregnability of their own position, is altogether what it
ought to be. For my own part, I feel that the multi-
tude of extraordinary lessons which the Church history
of England during these last years has conveyed, ought
not to remain unimproved ; and that unimproved they
would remain, if they should leave behind them, either
here or there, any of that bias which existed in many
quarters antecedently to them, in favour of trusting to
the force of inertia, to the chapter of accidents, to the
assistance of the civil power, to the influence of property,
to anything, in short, and everything, except the full,
free, and fearless reliance on the Divine Mission and
Doctrine of the Church, and the unhesitating resolution
to stake and spend all upon that issue.

35. Still, a strain like this is not the sedative which I
for one would recommend to mitigate the alarms of the
timid and reluctant. To them I would presume to say,

TffE CHtmCS. 23

as the spirit of wisdom will not permit the wilful accelera-
tion of a crisis, so, when the crisis has arrived, futile
efforts at procrastination can only purchase a miserable
momentary respite at an unbounded cost, and the path of
safety lies only through a tempered and calculating bold-
ness. Let us travel back once more to the case of the
United States. Every danger, which could attend the
attempt to organise the Church on an extended basis,
was far more menacing there than it is here. Every
safeguard, to which we might look for encountering such
dangers, is far stronger here than it was there. Let us
for a moment consider the deplorable condition of the
Episcopalian body in America, at the time when the
Union commenced its wonderful career. For generations
they had laboured under the disabilities of legal and
political establishment, while they had sensibly shared in
none of its advantages. Their system was at once in-
flexible and feeble ; and the want of Bishops was not a
want only, it was the absolute and total inversion of the
structure of their polity, and it cut them off, in no small
degree, not only from the guarantees of order and dis-
cipline, but from the sources of spiritual vitality. Weak
in numbers, they were weaker in spirits; and, though
their outward extension had been so much curtailed, they
were a mass as loose and promiscuous as the fullest legal
establishment and the swelling titles of nationality could
have made them, while within their narrow limits there
was found room enough for the spirit of dissension, sure
to enter where the spirit of order and the tempering hand
of law do not bear sway. Lastly, their political opinions,
running parallel to their religion, had set their sympathies
on the side of the Power which for years had been locked
in a sanguinary struggle with their country, now exulting

24 ON THE FUNCTIONS OF

in the proud consciousness of youth and triumph, and still
warm with the recollection of her wrongs ; so that to be a
Churchman was of itself almost to be half a traitor. Thus
the American Episcopalians had, besides every imaginable
external object to surmount, every imaginable source of
weakness within; except, indeed, their one great but
then disused and secret source of strength, in the radical
soundness of their cause, and the promises of Christ on
its behalf.

36. "What was their course ? They obtained, at length
(though not without much difficulty, and through the kind
intervention at the outset, be it remarked, of our Scottish
Bishops), their own Episcopate, and they established a
regular government for their Church, in which all orders
took their several shares. When they began, it is not too
much to say of the vast majority among them, clergy as
well as laity, they had all their own principles of polity
to learn for themselves, and to work out into practical
forms for others. If insubordination, if indifference, if
ignorance, if the pride of purse, if heat of temper, if
worldly minds intruding into the sanctuary, if self-love
and egoism in all their shapes are to be apprehended here,
which one among all these formidable foes was not, I ask,
antecedently to experience, far more formidable there?
If with a clergy new to the work of government, with an
Episcopate just struggling into existence, with a ritual
and creed of necessity unfixed, this free and extended
scheme of ecclesiastical government, by a mixed synod or
convention, was the means at once of checking dissension
and disorder, and of developing life and vigour in America,
have we not less ground to dread the inconveniences, and
more title to anticipate the benefits in Scotland, where
our Synodical Government by the Clergy is already

LAYMEN IN THE CHTERCH. 25

organised and at work, where the Episcopate, strong in
historical and personal as well as in spiritual claims,
enjoys the unanimous veneration of our communion, where
the standards of our ritual and creed are fixed and no
question raised about them, and where we have nothing in
the main to desire, but better, stronger, more efficient
modes of practical administration and development " for
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ." *

37. I shall now endeavour to sketch, with a light and
sparing hand, and without any reference, direct or indi-
rect, to any personal matter or particular case, some of
the practical defects to be removed, or advantages to be
gained (though the terms are of course correlative), by
the invigoration of our Church government through the
enlargement of its basis. And I shall, as in duty bound,
confine myself to matters of polity and external organisa-
tion, regarding all questions as from beneath and from
without, and with a layman's eye. I only promise, for
the satisfaction not of my own conscience alone, but of
the consciences of others, that of course the true end and
aim of all these measures, unless they be but sounding
brass and a tinkling cymbal, is the greater glory of God in
the mystical Body of His Son, the gathering up of the
souls of men from a troubled and an evil world, and
rearing and moulding them into the likeness of that Head
with whom they are vitally incorporated, until the day
come for their translation to the place of their rest and
peace.

38. I suppose the low tone of spiritual life to be the
source of our prevailing evils. Yet I do not mean, that

* Eph. iv. 12.

26 ON" THE FUNCTIONS OF

the tone of personal religion is peculiarly low in our own
body as compared with the rest of the community, but
that it is sadly low as compared with the standard of doc-
trine, of duty, of grace and privilege, to which our Church
calls us to conform and offers us the means of conforming.
This spring of evil betrays itself in many outward shapes
and tokens. And indeed I must confess it would seem
that, whether individual piety among us will or will not
bear comparison with the fruits of other systems, the
spirit of corporate religion, the appreciation of Church
polity as a channel and an engine of spiritual good, is,
among our laity at any rate, or to speak plainly, among
those of the more powerful and opulent classes, with
exceptions but too easy to count up, lower than in other
religious communions around us ; especially, perhaps, than
in the Free Kirk of Scotland, which I must say has gained
honour far beyond the bounds of this kingdom, or this isle
honour with Christendom at large, for energy and the
spirit of self-sacrifice.

39. I must note, then, among the outward and material
signs of this low tone of life, the mean provision gener-
ally made among us for the support of our Clergy, and
especially our Bishops ; for the fabrics and furniture of
our Churches; and, lastly, for the instruction of the
children of our poor, an object to which it is only within
these latest years that any systematic efforts have been
directed. I feel a strong conviction that every one of
these blots would be removed, and that speedily, from our
escutcheon, when a more intelligent and more active spirit
of Church-membership should have been matured among
us by the serious, regular, and authorised discharge of
important functions appertaining to us as the laity of the
Church.

tATMEN IN THE CHTJECH. 27

40. But further. In a thoroughly well- constituted
community, every man, unless it be his own fault, has a
clear and vivid, and a tolerably accurate general know-
ledge of the duties, and of the rights, belonging to his
position ; whether they be personal only, or whether they
be official also. Now this knowledge is an indispensable
preliminary, and a powerful help, to willing and prompt
compliance with the first, and to confident, orderly, and
temperate assertion of the last. I humbly submit it to
your Reverence and your Eight Reverend Brethren, as
the result of my own observation within the Episcopal
Communion of Scotland, and of the impressions I have
derived from other and better-qualified observers, that
among us law, method, and constituted order do not afford
the aid which they might, and ought to afford to the
individual, in any one of our ecclesiastical ranks, towards
the knowledge of his duties or of his rights. JN"ot, most
certainly, among the laity, whose ill-defined position is
our main source of weakness and of danger, the master
evil which I fondly long to see mitigated or removed :
not, I believe, among the Presbyters, nor even among
the Bishops. I do not mean that there is widespread
ignorance or gross confusion of ideas among us as to the
general position and functions of the Holy Ministry, or as
to the governing power in the Episcopate : but I do mean
that we know of these things on paper rather than in
practice; that authority, which is fully admitted in
theory, yet through disuse, becomes strange and repulsive,
and even prompts misgiving and resistance ; that the
machinery for applying our principles to executory details
is very weak and very imperfect ; and that it cannot be
made strong or complete without careful definitions of
relative rights and duties, upon which definitions, by

28 Off THE FUNCTION'S OF

means of law or canon, ihe clergy could not in prudence,
and I am quite certain would not, enter, so long as they
remain an isolated body in respect to their legislative
powers ; but which might very well proceed from the
concurrent energies of all the orders of the Church, work-
ing according to regular and duly constituted form.

41. My complaint, then, of our present state, is by no
means a complaint that the Bishops or the clergy possess
too much power among us ; although in theory they are
absolute, because by their sole decisions in General Synod,
over which we of the laity have not the smallest recog-
nised control or influence of any description whatsoever,
we are nevertheless finally and unconditionally bound.
But this excess of central power in the clergy is incon-
veniently, rudely, and dangerously balanced by the dead
weight of indifference and phlegm, and likewise by
another excess of power in the laity ; that, too, not in the
laity as such, as communicants of the Church, but in
those among them, who happen to exceed in the possession
of worldly goods and the advantages of social position.
The distribution of local power, as between clergyman
and vestry, is the irregular, disorderly, and hazardous
compensation for the absorption of central power in the
clergy at large, as contra-distinguished from the laity at
large. I do not say, then, that the exclusive prerogative
of legislation in the clergy makes them too much our
masters ; far from it ; but I say this : it exalts their
power at the expense of their influence ; it exalts the
shadow at the expense of the substance ; it exalts the
name at the expense of the thing ; it increases what they
cannot use, and takes from them what they could.

42. It is by influence, and by influence only, that our
clergy can be really powerful. By influence individuals

LAYMEN IN THE CHUBCH. 29

of a class will be powerful here and there, under any
system, however cross and wry : but a class cannot
uniformly present the qualities by which such individuals
acquire weight : a class, as a class, can only have influence
by virtue of something which belongs to it as a class,
by virtue of office, or by virtue of discipline and good
organisation. Now in order that our clergy may gain the
power which it is desirable for the good of the whole body
that they should possess, we seem to require an elasticity
of system, and a freedom of play among its several parts,
which is in entire contrast with our rather stark and
rigid methods.

43. In like manner, I do not say that the power of
vestries is always too great perhaps it may not in all
cases and points be great enough ; but that it is a bad
kind of power. It is a bad kind of power, because it
brings the pastor and his flock into contact upon grounds
far lower, to say the least, than those which properly
belong to the holy and exalted relation between them. It
is a bad kind of power, because it virtually determines who
shall represent and speak for the flock at large by qualifi-
cations which belong to the kingdoms of this world, and
not to the Kingdom of God. It is a bad kind of power,
because it tends directly to the isolation of our several
churches one from another, through the want of a common
law, or principle, or collection of precedents, or con-
trolling authority. If difficulty or dispute arises in the
vestry itself, or with the clergyman, each local body has
to find, I should say rather to burrow, its own way ; to
construe, and often to make, the law for itself.

44. .The Bishop is the centre of unity, and his inter-
ference will tend to preserve it : but the limits of his
power to interfere are by no means invariably clear : and

30 ON THE FUNCTIONS OP

before he is appealed to, the humours may have grown too
acute and angry to be allayed by him. "When the law is
at hand to aid men in self-guidance, we may fairly expect
them to keep their heats within due bounds ; but when
there is a very great want of determinate rules for the
settlement of questions likely to be differently viewed by
different members of a congregation, or upon which the
clergyman may lean one way and the flock another, there
is no centripetal attraction to balance the centrifugal
impetus ; men having no guide before their eyes but their
own will and inclinations, naturally follow them, and,
mistaking vehemence of temper in themselves for weight
and moment in the subject of the contention, they will
rush on, and no wonder amidst such circumstances, aye
even to schism, from which, by the existence of definite
and intelligible rules, applicable to the management
of the question in its beginnings, both they and the
Church might have been saved.

45. So far, then, as relates to the power of the clergy,
I say that for useful purposes, and as a power working
through the medium of intelligent consent, it will be in-
creased by the measure I presume to suggest ; and while
the legitimate sphere of recognised privilege, and of
recognised duty along with it, will be enlarged for the
laity, any opportunities for the abusive employment of the
power of wealth over poverty will be diminished by the
extension and consolidation of our representative system.

46. At the same time, the main object which presents
itself to my view and desire is not in any sense that of
strengthening one class and weakening another, in this
sense or in that not the shifting of the balance of power
as between one portion of the body and another ; but it is
to have a strong Church instead of a weak one ; a Church

LAYMEN IN THE CHURCH. 31

with her principles developed in her organisation and
daily life, instead of a Church in the state of a chrysalis,
of a Church with her principles only existing potentially,
and to be found chiefly in dusty folios on the shelves of
her libraries ; a Church governed by law and established
in order, instead of one dependent mainly on sufferance
and good feeling, which are excellent auxiliaries to well-
defined and well-sustained authority, and no doubt the
best substitutes for it where it is not to be had, but which
no more afford an argument for declining to avail our-
selves of its advantages, than my happening to have an
umbrella in a storm of rain is a reason for determining to
live day and night under it.

Distinct, however, from the question how is power dis-
tributed among the different classes in a body ? is the
inquiry, what is the power of the body as a whole over its
members individually or in classes ?

47. The exercise of discipline, as all are aware, was a
note of the Apostolic Church in its infancy ; and it seems
hardly too much to say that, without such exercise, it
would not have been Apostolic. The neglect and perver-
sion of it were among the very chiefest causes of the
Reformation, and an anxiety for its restoration was one of
the most prominent, and also one of the most honourable,
characteristics of that immense and not yet concluded
movement. In Scotland it has never been absent from
either the Episcopal or the Presbyterian communions ; and
the shameful state of it in the Church of England is both
a grief and scandal to its zealous members, and a cause of
painful astonishment to foreigners interested in its wel-
fare : while it is indignantly alleged by pious Dissenters
as a main, in many cases as the sole, cause for their
separation.

32 ON THE FUNCTIONS OP

48. The exercise of discipline may be considered as
either over Bishops, over Presbyters and Deacons, or over
laymen. The instruments may differ according as the
person to be subjected to discipline belongs to one or
another of these classes; but its administration must
always be under the authority of the body. Now I ven-
ture to observe, that while a real and effective discipline
is essential to the sanctity and spiritual glory of t"he
Church, and while she would utterly betray her office as
the Witness of the Gospel if she failed (when the facts
are clear) to draw in practice those lines of severance
between truth and falsehood, between right and wrong,
which she incessantly professes to proclaim upon the
authority of Christ, yet the delicacy of this function is no
less clear than its importance, and the dangers of miscar-
riage are only less formidable than those arising from
systematic disregard of the duty. Two things, then,
appear to me essential to a good administration of Church
discipline. The first is, that the laws themselves should
be strongly based upon general consent; the second is,
that the mode of their administration should be hedged in
with the best securities against abuse: such as strict
regularity, and, on every due occasion, publicity of pro-
cedure ; weight in the tribunal adequate to the office it has
to perform ; adequate assistance from persons conversant
with judicial principles and processes; ready recourse
against tyranny ; and suitable provisions for discouraging
frivolous, vexatious, and impertinent charges.

49. For all this, a full and free Synodical Government
is surely requisite in a Church like ours. Not that I
would contemplate any visionary aims. My idea of
discipline is simply this : first, vigorous enforcement of
the whole system of their public duties upon the officers

LAYMEN IN THE CHURCH. 33

of the Church, clerical and lay ; and due provision,
secondly, against the profanation of her ordinances by any
persons, clerical or lay, whose overt and flagrant acts
should prove them to be unworthy. But even for these
moderate ends a strong arm is required ; a stronger arm
than authority is now in a condition to wield among us.
That strength, unless I am grossly deceived, can from no
possible source be obtained for our system, except from
general and solemn consent, embodied in the form of law.
50. Furthermore, let us consider our present state, not
with reference to the imperfect securities it affords against
abuse of power, but with reference to the inadequate
support it secures for a bishop when engaged in its
legitimate exercise. In his dealings with a contumacious
clergyman, he must proceed as he best can. He must
construe the Church law for himself, in the face of an
antagonist on the alert to detect his accidental slips, and
perhaps supported by a knot of persons vigilantly hostile
to his authority. Having no prescribed forms to follow,
whatever course he takes may be imputed at every step to
his arbitrary disposition, and each item of his procedure
enveloped in a separate cloud of debate, of suspicion, and
of passion. Now, a Bishop cannot ex officio have the legal
mind. It is not desirable that he always should. The
aid of his Synod cannot be certainly relied on to supply
the deficiency. But as the intervention of the legal mind
is, in the long run, absolutely essential to distributive
justice, we ought to have provisions for securing to our
Bishops such aid of this kind as might according to cir-
cumstances be requisite. The law should likewise assist
them by defining more carefully and largely their course
of procedure, and thus at once strengthen their hands,
lighten their responsibility, diminish the temptation they

YI. D

34 Otf THE FUNCTIONS OF

must now often feel toninch from their duty on account
of those difficulties and uncertainties attending its per-
formance, which they are called upon to encounter
virtually single-handed, and insure to them more uni-
formly, and in more active and lively forms, that
sympathising support from the members of their com-
munion generally, which the public and authoritative acts
of our Spiritual Fathers ought obviously to receive.

51. And it should be observed that in this point the
need of the Episcopal Communion in Scotland is really
much more urgent than that of the English Church, so far
as regards ordinary judicial purposes ; because the Church
of England has a code of ecclesiastical law partly general,
partly proper to herself, together with a body of lawyers
competently instructed, and Courts which are conducted
according to recognised judicial principles. Whatever be
the defects of these laws or Courts whatever dangers to
the very life of the Church the present unprecedented
and base-born, but really fortuitous, provision for appeals
may entail, yet as to ordinary causes in their ordinary
course through the diocesan and provincial courts, the
judicial system in England is, on the one hand, a security
to the public and to individuals that the main principles of
justice shall not be contravened, and on the other it affords
a living and very effective assistance to the authority of
the Bishop. It has this further advantage, that it tends
to divest a Bishop's efforts for maintaining discipline of
the character of personal contention, which they are
otherwise so likely to assume.

52. In these points, the Scottish Episcopal Communion
offers nothing but a blank. In judicial matters the
authority of the Bishop stands almost naked and solitary.
It is neither protected against assault, nor limited and

LAYMEN IN THE CHURCH. 35

hedged in by publicity and adequate forms ; and such an
authority, wisely and mildly as we know that it is exer-
cised, cannot secure, as of course, that easy, familiar, and
settled confidence, which it is to be desired it should
enjoy.

53. The settlement of contested questions between man
and man, or between private persons and public authority,
in which all the forces of individual interest and passion
are aroused and enlisted to defeat or baffle justice, is a
great difficulty even with the civil power, which has
coercive sanctions at its disposal. Much more, then, for a
religious society : and where such a society is organised
like ours, with a liberal regard to the principles of human
freedom, I believe but two alternatives are offered ; one of
them, a strong judicial system, calling to its aid the
general opinion and sense of the body ; the other a weak
one, divested of that aid, dealing with some few questions
fearfully, and with many not at all. When we turn to
our Book of Canons, well and wisely as it has been drawn
with reference to the circumstances of a Church just
raising her head from a crushing proscription, and still
parva metu primo ; and when we find our whole judicial
system comprised in two canons only, occupying as many
pages ; when we read those canons, and observe what,
and for what cases, they provide, and begin to con-
sider with ourselves even a small fraction of that for
which they make no provision whatever, we seem to
see that they were meant for a state of things which has
fairly been outgrown, and we are reminded that the simple
legislation of the nursery must be enlarged and invigorated
when manhood is coming into view.

54. I shall now touch lightly on that much- vexed
question of ritual, which has, as I believe, on account of

D2

36 ON THE FUNCTIONS OF

the immediate and palpable appeal it makes in all its
forms to the general mind, and yet more to the general
eye, afforded the chief material for the present lamentable
heats and controversies in England ; and which, although
it has not had here the same formidable operation, yet
does not stand altogether well among us, inasmuch as we
too want due and adequate means for determining how
the numerous points of detail belonging to Divine service
in which one congregation may lawfully and innocently
differ from another are to be settled as they arise in each
case.

55. I shall venture two remarks upon ritual changes
generally, in which I am bold enough to anticipate ex-
tensive agreement. The first is, that as ceremonial is but
the dress of devotion, it ought to follow upon rather than
to precede spiritual growth, of which it must be the con-
sequence before it can become the cause ; and, except as
to the removal of palpable indecency and scandal, it should
be left for its increase to such spontaneous demand as
may arise out of our gradual return to that temper of
elevated and concentrated devotion, which has unhappily
become rare among us. The second is, that many of the
points, which have given rise to dissension, are in them-
selves really but secondary, and have derived their im-
portance from prepossessions conventionally rather than
essentially connected with them. Now both of these
remarks point to one and the same conclusion; namely,
that diversities and changes of ritual, so far as they are
properly open questions at all, are a matter to which the
people ought to have something to say. If ceremonial be
in general not so much a means of awakening as an
instrument of edification for those already awakened, then
the expediency of ritual restorations must, it is evident,

LAYMEN IN THE CHTTRCH. 37

vary greatly with the religious temper of each congrega-
tion. If, again, its details are as it were prejudged by
prepossessions for or against them, then manifestly there is
a tender and irritable state of mind to deal with, which
will become hopeless under anything like an exasperating
treatment.

56. The way to conquer men's prejudices is to appeal
freely to their good sense, and allow some reasonable scope
to their free will and choice. Such appeal involves, or at
the very least harmonises with, the idea of giving them a
share of discretion in determining the points at issue.
Nothing can be more painful or disgraceful than to see
questions of divine service settled, as they were some
years ago settled in Exeter, by riot and uproar. Such
modes of proceeding are fitter for Turkey than for Eng-
land. But we probably never should have witnessed
them, had it not been for the anarchical state into which
congregational organisation has there been allowed to
lapse. Besides the things in themselves, nay, besides
the prejudices attaching to them, there was, I believe, at
the root of all, a sentiment in the people that they were
over-ridden, which generated, as it were in self-defence,
a strong and unmanageable reaction. Had there been
in those cases a regularly constituted congregation, or to
borrow a phrase from our Presbyterian friends, a roll of
communicants, and had these had the means of making
known their sentiments, and of acting by their duly
chosen officers, the clergy would have derived from them
the most valuable aid at the outset, instead of being left to
work out their way as it were blindfold ; a general har-
mony would have been secured between the forms of
divine service and the tone of feeling in the congrega-
tions, to which, as we have seen, they ought to bear a

38 ON THE FUNCTIONS OF

close regard; and authority, too weak already, would
have been spared some heavy blows.

57. It would be transgressing my proper sphere were
I, in touching on this question, to point out particulars
which might advantageously be left to vary with the will
of each pastor and congregation, or in which usage of a
certain duration should be held to give a title as against
written laws until the pastor and the congregation jointly
were prepared and desirous to reform it. I assume of
course all along, that the leading principles and usages
of the ritual will remain fixed, as at present, by canon ;
and that the Episcopal authority will still hold its place
above merely local discretion. My suggestion is, that
over and above all this the clergy may most advantageously
take counsel with their people, as members of a Christian
Church, according to the principles of a sound eccle-
siastical constitution, on matters like these ; and that
such counsel, and its results, will be found an admirable
specific for the practical solution of the question, when it
arises, between custom and written law, or between
allowable varieties of taste and predilection, subject
always to the general principle of uniformity within the
limits determined by our Church law.

58. Thankful for that wholesome stir of life and pro-
gress which marks the present condition of our commu-
nion, and anxious for the regular development of measures
by which, under God, it may from a weak Church become
a strong one, and deepen its foundation as it extends its
borders ; I have now, Eight Reverend Father, submitted
in a general form some of the considerations which have
led me to the belief that, if it be the Divine will that
your Reverence should as our Primus inaugurate among
us a representative system, and if, with the other Eight

LAYMEN IN THE CHITECH. 39

Beverend Fathers of our Church, you call upon your lay
flocks to communicate and advise freely with you, and
to strengthen your hands for the work of the ministry,
then your name and the names of your brethren will
be remembered among us in connection with a noble
epoch of restoration and revival, a great ingathering and
edification of Christian souls.

59. But I have yet a few words to say upon two points.
First, how are we to prevent liberty from deviating into
licence? Do I propose to place the government of the
Church on such a footing, that the main seat of power
shall really be in its popular branch ? If lay privileges
and powers have fallen into desuetude, must it not be
dangerous to place weapons so keen and trenchant in the
hands of raw recruits ?

And, secondly, is this the time for the Scottish Episcopal
Communion to stand forth as the prcerogativa tribus of
what may be called the Anglican Churches to act for
herself, and by acting to teach others how to act ; or should
she modestly wait upon their steps, and follow in their
line?

60. As to the first, it will be remembered that we live
in a season of peril, when the rose of safety can only be
plucked from amid the thorns of danger. We need not
go far to perceive by example the sad consequences of a
cowardly and narrow-minded policy, which takes this for
its maxim, to give as little as possible, and has this for its
reward, that for what it gives (and in time it is forced
to give all) it gets neither thanks nor compensation in
return; a policy which when pursued by the strong is
ungenerous, when aped by the weak is mad. But whil<?
I presume to hold this language, I admit freely that it is
only capable of a general application, and that, if it were

40 ON THE FUNCTIONS OF

to supersede care and laution in detail, we should only
have cured one set of mischiefs with another. I am far
indeed, then, from proposing that the Church should be
democratically organised. Nay, in my view, it cannot be
so organised ; for whatever man may choose to ordain or
adjust about chambers and branches and the like, must
of necessity be for ever and wholly subordinate to the
unchangeable conditions of her Divine Charter.

61. I will therefore, Eight Eeverend Bishop, state in
few and simple words what I humbly believe would be
found at once a free, a vigorous, and a safe form of con-
stitutional organ for the Scottish Episcopal Communion.

First. That the Synod or Assembly for Legislation
should consist of three houses or chambers the first that
of the Bishops, the second that of their clergy, the third
that of the laity. It might deserve consideration, whether
the second and third of these, of course voting separately,
should, either permanently or for a time, sit and deliberate
together on certain or on all occasions.

Secondly. That the lay representative system should be
based exclusively upon an ecclesiastical qualification, and
not upon a pecuniary franchise in any form : in oftier
words, that communicants only should be either eligible
or electors. But, I may add, it may be found necessary
first to limit this privilege somewhat further, (1) by age,
and (2) by requiring persons to have been communicants
for a certain space of time antecedent to its exercise, in
order to exclude all electioneering practices from the pre-
cincts of the Church. And further, a different rule might
still be required for the settlement of questions of temporal
or proprietary right in particular congregations, and for
the protection of all vested interests.

Thirdly. That the mode of procedure should not be to

LAYMEN IN THE CHURCH. 41

constitute arbitrarily, so to speak, a central organisation
before providing local institutions fitted to give it a broad
and solid groundwork, but to take the local institutions
first. That is to say, to begin by inviting the clergy of
the various incumbencies, in conjunction with the principal
members of their congregations, to frame, where such a
thing does not exist already, lists of such persons of given
age as have been communicants for a certain time ; to
make provisional arrangements for the preservation and
due correction of such lists ; and to move those on each
list to choose from among themselves delegates for a
Diocesan Synod should the ordinary think fit to hold one,
and should it be deemed wise to obtain the sense of the
Diocesan Synods thus constituted as consultative assem-
blies only, on the intended measure, before its taking
effect. Or otherwise, to give their suffrages directly, in
common with the communicants of every other congrega-
tion thinking fit to act on the said invitation, for duly
qualified persons to represent them in any General Synod
of the Church.

62. The body issuing, or giving power to issue, the in-
vitation, and thus setting the new machinery in motion,
must, I presume, be the General Synod according to its
present constitution ; which, if summoned by the wisdom
of your Reverences the Bishops for such a purpose, it
might probably be thought fit to summon for that purpose
(with its cognate particulars and executory provisions)
alone.

Thus, then, the mechanism proposed would be self-
acting. Congregations desirous of such franchises, and
prepared for the discharge of the duties they entail, would
act upon the invitation. Congregations not prepared for
these things, if any such there were, would not be dam-

42 ON THE FUNCTIONS OF

nified, since they would be no more subject to the
General Synod as newly organised, than they now are to
the General Synods composed of clerical members only.

63. Fourthly and lastly. As the governing power over
the Church resides most properly and strictly in the
Bishops, and as they are supremely responsible in par-
ticular for the decision of doctrine, I cannot but express
the strongest conviction, that the initiative of all legisla-
tion should rest with them absolutely and exclusively ;
and that it should be competent to either of the other
chambers to approach them spontaneously in the way of
petition only. Their veto would, of course, remain com-
plete; and between these two powers duly carried
through the whole scheme, I hope adequate provison
would have been made for preventing any collision
between such a constitution and the great and immovable
principles of our ecclesiastical polity.

64. To these provisions on behalf of order and authority,
I may append a remark touching an apprehension that
proceeds from an opposite quarter. It is feared by some
that the laity would not act, so that their synodical func-
tions would remain a dead letter.

I do not doubt, that our Eight Reverend Fathers must
reckon upon finding a certain amount of apathy in a
mixed body, which has been long unaccustomed to public
duties. Still, I venture to think this would not be so
widely spread, as not to leave accessible and available a
great mass of zealous and intelligent co-operation. This
complaint of inertness on the part of the laity when the
burden and heat of duty has to be borne, is made, and
justly made, in England; yet cannot it be said that any
important plan has fallen to the ground through such in-
ertness. Some evade their duties, but some also perform

LAYMEN IN THE CHTJKCH. 43

them : and even though attendance might, not certainly
but possibly, at first be slack, yet this evil would diminish
with the lapse of time, as the representative system should
take root among us, and enter, gradually and gently, into
our ecclesiastical habits and ideas. In America, where
the demand and pressure of material pursuits is even more
absorbing than with us, it is not found to prevent the
laity of the Church from taking an active part in its
general concerns.

65. And now, finally, should the Scottish Episcopal
Communion, in the person of its Bishops, proceed to
deliberate forthwith on this weighty subject, or should
they wait to be led by other Churches of the Anglican
origin or communion? Where, by other Churches, we
must mean those of the colonies ; for the Church in the
United States has led the way already ; and the Church
of England, as well as that of Ireland, can only move
slowly in a matter which, for them, is beset with real as
well as with factitious difficulties. But the colonial
Churches of British North America, and of the Austral-
asian colonies, have already so far got in advance of the
Scots Episcopal Communion, that they have largely
declared, in their several orders, their anxiety for a regular
ecclesiastical constitution, including the lay element.

66. Yet, Eight Reverend Sir, after a long and anxious
observation of the condition of these Churches, I venture
unhesitatingly to assert, that it is not for you to be their
debtors or followers in such a matter, but for them to be
yours ; and that, had they possessed anything like the
facilities and means of action that happily belong to you,
they would not now have been expressing their desires,
but exhibiting finished results.

The vantage ground, as I understand it, which your

44 ON THE FUNCTIONS OP

Reverences possess, and which is wanting to the colonial
Churches, is twofold. First, an entire freedom from the
fetters and entanglements of the law : secondly, a defined
ecclesiastical " platform," and a legislative power in
actual existence, with a clear, unquestioned title.

67. But how different is the condition of the Churches
in the Colonies ! It is scarcely too much, to say that,
while for the purposes of internal subordination they
are without law or legal sanctions of any kind, they are
subject, without mitigation, to the worst of its incon-
veniences. On every side they are involved in the meshes
of the net of legal doubt. There is a doubt whether, if
their members meet in Synod, they are subject to penalty ;
a doubt whether they can pass any Canon; a doubt
whether they can set up even phantom officers in eccle-
siastical courts ; a doubt whether they can come to any
binding voluntary agreement whatever among them-
selves. Of one thing only there is no doubt, that they
are practically without the means, either of protecting
innocence against oppression, or of punishing wrong, or
of fulfilling for themselves any of the purposes of
Church government. Nor, as I believe, can they, without
an Act of the Imperial Parliament, be relieved from these
veiy cruel disabilities, or attain to that footing of equality
with the Presbyterian and Dissenting denominations in
the Colonies, to which they fondly and ardently aspire.

Kone of these most formidable impediments to organic
measures exist for the Scottish Episcopal Communion.

68. But suppose the colonial Churches emancipated,
how are they to proceed to act ? They have no existing
framework of a legislative organ ; they have not even the
pattern of an English Convocation to work by ; for they
have no deans, no chapters, in some dioceses no arch-

LAYMEN IN THE CH.UECH. 45

deacons, in many no parishes. They hare under God two
constitutive elements only, the Apostolical power in the
Episcopate, and their own good principle and good sense.
That, by virtue of the great gifts of the covenant of
Christ, they will work their way to an adequate organisa-
tion, what they have already done, in a state almost
chaotic, affords us ample assurance. Yet at the same time
we must admit that they will have to begin by digging
the foundations, and then laying, with elaborate care,
every stone of the building. For the Scottish Episcopal
Communion, again, I say, these difficulties do not exist.
"We have foundations already, and building too. It rests,
beyond all question, with your Reverences of the Episcopal
College to devise a plan in your wisdom, to bring it before
a general clerical Synod by your prerogative, and, with
the assent of that Synod, to tender it as a graceful and
spontaneous boon .to the laity of your communion.

69. It is plain that we who now live must not look for
days of ease and calm, even of such ease and calm as have
at certain periods been permitted to the Church, being, as
she must ever be, a wayfarer and a pilgrim upon earth.
"We must never think to say

" Suave micant fluctus, ac detumuere procellce."

But while making this confession, I, for one, am fondly
perhaps, but yet firmly, assured, that, on the day when
our Bishops shall be bold to show their confidence in their
own position, and in the vital energies of their Church,
by propounding a measure which must tend, first search-
ingly to test, and then powerfully to invigorate and
multiply those vital energies, they will strengthen many
a weak hand, confirm many a feeble knee, chase away
the gloom from many a desponding heart, breathe the new

46 ON THE FUNCTIONS OF LAYMEN IN THE CHUKCH.

life of hope into spirits that have nagged under accumu-
lating misfortune, stir up many a voice of joy and health
and thankfulness to God fro.m the dwellings of the
righteous, and quicken the footsteps of them that tread,
or that ask, the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward.
70. In thus submitting to your Eeverence my thoughts
upon a deeply interesting and momentous question, I do
not for an instant presume that I shall convey to your
Eeverence, or your Eight Eeverend Brethren, any view of
this subject either new or serviceable to such a body ; but
I have written with the desire and hope, that I might be
made the instrument of stirring up the minds of others,
my brethren in the Church, to a careful and practical
consideration of the actual position of our Communion ; of
its dangers, its duties, the genial promise which it gives,
and the means required to enable it duly to fill its rapidly
expanding sphere.

I remain, Eight Eeverend Father,

"With cordial and dutiful respect,

Your obedient and faithful servant,
W. E. GLADSTONE.

Fasquc, Kincardineshire, Dec. 1851.

II.

THE BILL FOR DIVORCE.*

1857.

1. THE age in which we live claims, and in some respects
deserves, the praise of being active, prudent, and practi-
cal : active in the endeavour to detect evils, prudent in
being content with limited remedies, and practical in
choosing them according to effectiveness rather than to
the canons of ideology. But if an eulogist, contemplating
the course of events from one point of view, may hold
this language without fear of confutation, a censor may,
from his opposite standing-ground, launch his rebukes
with equal confidence and equal justice. He may urge
that we are, at least in the sphere of public affairs,
restless, violent, and feeble : restless, in our impatience of
evils which belong to our human state, and in attempting
the removal of which we can hope nothing better than to
exchange them for others far more grievous ; violent, in
laying irreverent hands upon good laws and institutions
on account of some imperfection which attaches to them,
or it may be only to our use of them ; lastly, and most of
all, feeble in our partial and narrow modes of handling
emergencies, our inability to solve problems with which
other times and men have not feared to grapple. Nay, he
may accuse us of incapacity even to measure the scope of
our own arguments ; or to learn, at the very time when

* Reprinted from the Quarterly Scciew for July 1857.

48 THE BILL FOR DIVORCE.

we are setting forth under their guidance, how far they
are likely to lead us, and on what kind of ground they will
permit or enable us to rest.

2. In general it may be said that the censor and the
eulogist of the age are not, when thus speaking each for him-
self, absolutely in conflict. They find respectively their
subject-matter in different fields of legislation. Where
the work to be done is mechanical and external, the
eulogist may be justified. Where it touches the more
inward and subtle forces which operate upon the relations
of man, the censor is in the right. Appreciating com-
plaints by their loudness, and remedies by the hardihood
of the promises their projectors offer; choosing subjects
according to the immediate profit or popularity they will
yield, and not for real urgency ; thinking more of the
present than the past, and of the future less than either ;
we forswear the qualities, and invert the habits of mind,
necessary for an occupation where men should dig deep,
for their foundations, and learn to be content with slow,
and for a long time perhaps invisible, results.

3. Thus it is, in such a temper and with such prospects,
that we appear to be dealing with the greatest, oldest, and
most universal of all social institutions, the great institu-
tion of marriage. An active agitation has for some
twenty years been carried on against the Table of pro-
hibited Degrees, or, in other words, the law of incest ; for
this it is that is really in question. In regard to this
subject our law was settled with admirable wisdom at the
Reformation, upon the basis of the scriptural prohibitions ;
and, until within the time we have named, these just
restraints appear to have been in harmony with the entire
public opinion of the country ; although, as is well known,
there were cases, and there still are cases, some of them

THE BILL FOR DIVORCE. 49

much worse than that of the wife's sister, where prohibited
marriages are contracted de facto. Indeed, we must do
our forefathers of the last century the justice to say, that
their only general legislation upon marriage was conceived
in the intention not of impairing, but of restoring and
heightening the fences which inclose the sacred precinct.
"We speak not of the enactments respecting Royal Marri-
ages in the twelfth year of George III. (on which has
been laid the blame rather due to the policy pursued under
them), but of the general provisions of the Act 26
Geo. II. c. 33, which were directed to the prevention of
marriages either clandestine, or between persons judged to
be incompetent by age. At that period these evils must
have attained, at least in the great towns, to an alarming
height ; for it is stated that at St. Ann's, the church
of one of the most populous parishes in London, the
marriages were but fifty in a year, while those irregu-
larly and clandestinely made at " Keith's " were six
thousand.*

4. It seems to be a sign of the general decay of
the spirit of traditionary discipline in our own day, that
so determined an assault should have been made upon a
part of the Levitical Prohibitions, now forming the basis
of our ecclesiastical law. It has, indeed, been repelled,
up to this time, by an equally determined resistance. We
presume, however, that the assailants are now only lying
in wait to see the issue of the yet more formidable attack
on the indissolubility of the contract, in the hope of
obtaining, through its success, a vantage ground from
which their operations will acquire resistless force. f

* Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xxiii. p. 400.

t [At the date of these observations, the proposal had commonly
been to alter the ecclesiastical law, as above stated, by vote of
TI. B

50 THE BILL FOB DIVOECE.

5. This greater movement is not, as far as appears, due
to any general dissatisfaction with, the state of the law
of divorce in England. That law is, indeed, beset by
a double anomaly. First, by the existence of a very
different law in Scotland ; which, at the Eeformation, if
not before it, deviated from the general rule of Western
Christendom. Hence arose an inconvenient conflict of
jurisdiction between English and Scottish Courts, of which
the results may be read in a former number of this
Journal.* Secondly, the unsatisfactory course of pro-
ceeding on the part of the legislature, which for nearly
two centuries has, from time to time, granted the
ill-starred boon of divorce a vinculo in certain cases where
there was wealth enough to undergo the heavy charge
necessary both for the preliminary suits and for a private
Act of Parliament. But the passing of from one to half a
dozen divorce bills per annum, and the occasional occur-
rence of a practical solecism through the variance of
Scotch law from our own, did not practically affect
the state either of facts or of feelings for the mass of
the community in England and Ireland, with their two
hundred thousand marriages a year.

6. It was not the law of marriage which brought itself
into danger, but rather it was the feeling entertained,
whether justly or unjustly, about the Court, by which
that law was administered. The disposal of a large part
of the testamentary business of the country under episco-
pal authority was a clear anomaly ; and what was much
more, it was one of those anomalies which most powerful

Parliament. More recently it has been to permit only the civil
marriage with the sister of a deceased wife. This concession I have
long supported. W. E. G., 1878.]
* Quarterly Eevtew, vol. ixv. p. 229.

THE BILL FOE DIVORCE. 51

bodies of men were interested in attacking, while only a
feeble one was arrayed in its defence. Attention readily
passed from the Court to the law in its different branches ;
and when once that branch of it, which dealt with the
contract of marriage as a life-long engagement, was
brought under criticism, its existence could not long
remain undisturbed : it was too Spartan and severe for
the relaxed tone of modern society ; and the other principal
Protestant countries had long ago set us the example of its
surrender. A Commission was accordingly appointed to
inquire into the law of Marriage ; and, in the year 1853,
this Commission reported in favour of a change in the law
which should embody the principle of divorce a vinculo for
adultery. Lord Redesdale, one of the Commissioners,
dissented, and manfully took his stand on the total
prohibition of divorce as the true doctrine of Scripture.

7. We wish it were in our power either to pass by the
proceedings and the Eeport of the Commission in total
silence, or to speak of it with the respect personally due
to those who signed that most ill-omened document.
With trivial exceptions, they took no original evidence.
They did not examine a single divine. They have not
touched the question of the Scripture prohibition ; except
by a brief reference, in a note, to the opinion, forsooth, of
Beza. They have not only not sounded the depths of this
great subject, but they can scarcely be said even to have
attempted an investigation of its social, much less its
religious, aspects. Inconsistent in its several parts,
slovenly and inaccurate in its references, the Eeport seems
to have been the work of men who decided before they
discussed, and who simply felt it necessary to introduce
their recommendations with some yards of preface.

8. Since that time, various Bills have been brought into

E 2

62 THE BILL FOE DIVORCE.

Parliament to give effect to these proposals ; but in all
Sessions previous to the present one they have broken
down, either from the pressure of other public business,
or from the quarrels of the various families of lawyers
over the contemplated spoil. Meantime, as it is the
fashion of the country never to consider a question of this
kind until the last moment but one before it is irrevocably
decided, not only has little or no attention been paid
by the public to the menaced innovation, but even from
the clergy, who have a special as well as a very deep
interest in the matter, it has as yet attracted no general
notice. The pamphlet by Mr. Keble, named first at the
head of this article, led the way, we believe, in sounding
the alarm. It has been followed by others, among which
we must highly commend the careful and closely reasoned
pages of ' Considerations by a Barrister '; * and the
speech of Baron Yon Gerlach,f which should ring like
a knell in the ears of England.

9. And the hour for " Considerations" is indeed come.
A Bill introduced by Her Majesty's Government has even
when we write passed the House of Lords, and may,
perhaps, before these pages can appear, have made no
inconsiderable progress in the Commons. It has been
resolutely opposed by a portion of the Bishops. The law
lords, except Lord AVensleydale, are in its favour. Its
principle has been affirmed by large majorities ; and though
it has been battered by formidable amendments, yet the
promoters have in all cases either kept their ground
or regained it. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in the
Committee on the Bill, carried words which restrained all

London, 1857.

( With a Preface by Mr. Henry Druinmoncl. London, 1857.

THE BILL FOE DIVORCE. 53

guilty persons from re-marriage after divorce; but they
were thrown out at a subsequent stage. A like fate befell
that part of the amendment of the Bishop of Oxford, which
made the guilty parties punishable by imprisonment as
well as fine.

10. The parts of the measure material to our inquiry
may, as it now stands, be described as follows. It
transfers to a secular court the entire cognisance of
matrimonial causes. It retains the judicial separation, 01
what is now called the ecclesiastical divorce a, mensd
et thoro. It allows the marriage to be dissolved, as
against the wife, for adultery simpliciter ; as against the
husband for incestuous adultery, or bigamy, or adultery with
cruelty, or adultery with desertion during two years. The
suit is to fail in case of connivance, or of condonation, or of
the establishment of the counter-charge. The adulterous
woman is, as a general rule, to be made a co-respondent ;
and the adulterous man may be punished by fine. Liberty
to re-marry is expressly given, " as if the prior marriage
had been dissolved by death."* There are other accessory
and directory provisions ; and of the former, some, which
are apart from the main purpose of the Bill, seem to
be humanely and judiciously constructed for the protection
of married women in certain cases.

11. We shall pass lightly by many points of interest
in the discussion. Among these is the evident tendency
of a Bill which establishes a Central Court of Divorce on
the ground that the old method of proceeding is accessible
only to the very rich, to produce by necessary consequence
further extensions of the jurisdiction to a number of local
courts, in order to provide for the equal rights of the

Clause 49.

54 THE BILL FOB DIVOHCE.

poor, who cannot resort to a metropolitan court. I omit,
too, the strange anomaly created by the well-meant effort
to force adultery into the category of quasi- criminal
offences ; for, as the Bill stands, when one only of a
married couple is guilty of adultery punishment may
ensue, "but when both have been guilty the suit drops,
and no penalty can be inflicted on either the one or the
other. Never surely was there before an application,
either so practical or so ludicrous, of the principle that
two negatives make an affirmative !

12. The question opened before us is as old, and as
wide, as the history of revealed religion, and of civilised
man. We can neither pretend to exhaust nor even to skim
it; but we shall endeavour to present some portions
(I.) of the argument from Holy Scripture, and (II.) of
the history of the question of Divorce. We shall also
(III.) hazard a few suggestions with regard to the
question of policy which the measure involves, and to
the particular structure of the present Bill.

13. (I.) It is somewhat provoking, in a case where
weighty and large interests are involved, to see the earnest
labours of the greatest minds passed by, and their doubts
and misgivings contemptuously brushed away, by the hasty
foot of modern sciolism. Lord Chief Justice Campbell is
reported to have denounced, as no better than quibbling,
any argument in contravention of his position that the
Scripture allows divorce and re-marriage upon adultery ;
and the Postmaster-General is said to have observed, that,
though in a difficult question we might do well to invoke
theological aid, yet the sense of the Divine Word is here so
absolutely plain as to make it wholly superfluous.* Against

Times, of May 20, 1857,

THE BILL FOR DIVORCE. 55

these great luminaries from beyond the Tweed, we shall
venture to oppose two of a brilliancy not short of theirs.
The first is Selden, who closes a disquisition on one vital
portion of the subject, the meaning of the cardinal word
in St. Matthew (v. 32),' by the words nihil hie definimus ;
consideranda tamen proponimus.* The second is St. Augus-
tine. He, more tolerant than our modem worthies, says
that Scripture is so obscure upon' the point whether a
husband, being a catechumen only, who has rightfully
dismissed an adulterous wife, married in heathenism, may
re-marry without the guilt of adultery, that (while he
himself denied the existence of any such liberty) in his
judgment any one may go wrong in the interpretation of
the sacred text upon this particular with small blame. f

14. Under cover of these apologies, we proceed to
remark, in the first place, that no trifling part of the
difficulty of this inquiry arises from the uncertain and
varied uses of the terms employed in it. The principal
word of all, divorce, is used in three chief senses, all
different, and two of them contradictory to one another.
For it means (1) separation of a married pair without any
right of re-marriage, (2) the like separation with that
right, and (3) the declaratory sentence, pronouncing a
marriage to be void db initio that is, never to have
existed in law. Paley gives the word a sense different
from any of these, and understands by divorce " the dis-
solution of the marriage contract by the act, and at the will,
of the husband. "J Against these ambiguities we must
be on our guard. There is also some dispute upon the
meaning of the Greek words a-n-oXvew, d<ieVcu,

* Uxor Hebraica, iii. 27. f S. Aug. de Fide et Opp. c. 35.

J Mor. Phil. b. iii. p. iii. c. 7,

56 THE BILL FOE DIVORCE.

But the most serious difficulty is that which arises out of
the use of the word Tropvtia (rendered in the English Bible
fornication) in the Sermon on the Mount.

15. Now the questions to which we seek a reply are
these : Whether the marriage contract between Christians
can be dissolved so as to permit either or both parties
to marry again consistently with the word of God ? And
if so, then for what causes such a dissolution may take
place ?

And we will begin by constructing in good faith the
argument from Holy Scripture, as we conceive it may best
be stated on behalf of the Bill.

16. In two places of St. Matthew's Gospel, our Lord
adverts to the subject of marriage and divorce, and con-
trasts either the Mosaic system or the prevailing practice
of the time with that which He was about to establish.
The first allusion is spontaneous, in the Sermon on the
Mount. The second is drawn from Him by the invidious
question of the Pharisees. In the first he says

" I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away (airoXvoy') his
wife, saving for the cause of fornication (irapeVros \6yov iropvtias),
causeth her to commit adultery; and whosoever shall marry her
that is divorced (fcs e'&y ctTroXeA-u/icV^v ya^ff-fi) committeth adultery."*

In the second passage the words are as follows :

*' Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to
put away your wives ; but from the beginning it was not so.

" And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away (atroXva-ri) hia
wife, except it be for fornication (e< ^ eVi iropveiq. according to the
reading followed in our translation}, and shall marry another,
committeth adultery, and whoso marrieth her which is put away
(6 &iro\\vfj.fi'r)v ya/j.-fjaras') doth commit adultery."!

* Matt. v. 32. f Matt. xix. 8, 9.

THE BILL FOE DIVORCE. 57

17. As our Lord puts His own precept in contrast with
a system which had become one of unlimited licence, the
general scope of this discourse does not require us to
construe it of the extinction, but only of the limitation
of divorce. Accordingly, while laying it down as a
general rule, firstly, that divorce is sinful, and secondly,
that the re-marriage of a divorced person involves the sin
of adultery, our Saviour makes an apparent exception to
the first precept, expressed by our translation in the words
" saving for the cause of fornication." Thus far the ground
is firm ; but now follow a slippery series of assumptions,
where difficulty rises upon difficulty, like Alp on Alp.

18. a. It is assumed, that the clause of exception, which in
both cases is found in the first member of the passage, runs
through and governs the whole of it, so that, wherever
putting away is authorised, re-marriage is also permitted.

I. It is assumed that the word translated " fornication"
means adultery.

c. It is assumed that the last member of each of the
two passages refers not to all women put away by their
husbands, but only to certain women, i.e. those put away
otherwise than for adultery.

d. It is assumed that the whole, or some part, of the
liberty of putting away for adultery, and of re-marriage
thereupon, thus given to the husband, may likewise be
claimed for the wife.

e. It is assumed that the statement of St. Matthew, as
being more full, ought to import the exception into the
Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke, both of whom render
the prohibition of re-marriage absolutely ; and into the
argument of St. Paul, who tells the Eomans* simply that

* Rom. vii. 1-3.

58 THE BILL FOE DITOECE.

marriage is for life, and that a woman re-marrying during
the joint lives is an adulteress; and who tells the
Corinthians* that a man must not dismiss his wife, and
a woman must not leave her husband ; but that, if she
does leave him, she must remain unmarried.

f. After all these passages of Scripture have been thus
distended, by forcing into them the exception fetched from
St. Matthew, that exception is itself by some persons put
under a similar process, to introduce the case of desertion
as a second justifying cause for divorce and re-marriage.
And inasmuch as St. Paul has declared that a Christian
husband or wife married to an unbeliever is to suffer the
unbelieving yokemate to depart if so minded, it is assumed
that this constitutes a licence among married Christians
for a husband or a wife when deserted to obtain a divorce
a vinculo and to re-marry.

19. Such is the " Scripture argument" for divorce.
And, with the exception of the case of desertion, which
is not included in the present proposal, such is the
Scripture argument for the Bill. And in these circum-
stances it is, that any one, who feels somewhat choked
by this gigantic mass of assumptions, is told by a Chief
Justice that he is quibbling; and that any one, whose
back groans under the burden of them is comforted by a
Postmaster-General with the assurance that he requires
no help at all.

The amount of licence in the interpretation of Scripture
which is involved in the first five propositions above
stated is absolutely indispensable, in order to sustain the
Christian character of the Divorce Bill. Yet, on the face
of them, they are such as when simply brought together

1 Cor. vii. 10, 11,

THE BILL FOR DIYORCE. 59

must startle, so at least we think, the understanding and
the conscience of those who have supported this Bill under
the strange, but we believe actually prevalent, idea that
they are bringing back our law to the standard of the
Divine Word. When the case has been further stated
with regard to them, we think it will appear that they
are such as go far towards that most wretched consum-
mation, which reduces all exegesis to a profane and
deluding art ; with no other business than to frame con-
trivances, under which we may hug the supposition that we
are obeying God, when in truth we are denying His laws.

20. It will be observed that the whole force of the
so-called Scripture argument for divorces with re-marriage
rests, first, upon an assumed sense of St. Matthew ; next,
an assumed opposition between St. Matthew and other
parts of Scripture ; then, an accommodation in each case
of the narrower and straighter to the more relaxed decla-
ration; and lastly, a further accommodation of the relaxed
declaration itself to the notions with which we have pre-
determined that it shall square. St. Matthew, let us
suppose, gives divorce for adultery. St. Mark, St. Luke,
St. Paul, where they are narrower, must yield to St.
Matthew, who is wider ; St. Matthew must then be
widened to admit St. Paul on another point ; and then,
by a great and last effort, the whole of them, seeing that
they do not contain one word on behalf of re-marriage,
must be carried forward to this necessary point by the
assumption that power to put away includes power to
choose anew, and that liberty to suffer desertion without
following the deserter includes liberty to bring in some
one to supply his place.

21. Accustomed as we are, personally and by tradition,
to conceive of the sacred writings only as collected into

60 THE BILL FOR DIVORCE.

a whole, we have need* in order to arrive at right con-
ditions of judgment for the question before us, to go back
to the period when they were respectively composed. It
is not difficult, when in one part of a volume we find a
doctrine laid down without exception, to bear in mind
.mother part of the same volume where an exception is
specified, and to construe the separate passages as one by
making the more general submit to the more detailed.
But the case assumes a very different aspect when we
bear in mind that the three Gospels now in question are
proved, from internal evidence, to have been written
separately for different descriptions of persons, and that
those who were acquainted with the one remained, in all
likelihood for no inconsiderable time, unacquainted with
the others. St. Matthew* wrote for the Jewish Christians,
and probably in Hebrew f ; St. Mark probably for the
Gentiles at Kome, or, as some think, for the converts from
among the foreign Jews or Hellenists ; St. Luke for the
Gentiles, and probably for those of Greece.

22. AVe have no title to say that these Evangelists were
respectively acquainted with each other's works. And it
would indeed be strange, were it true, that the doctrine
of divorce should be so positively delivered by each of
them, and yet in terms which were irreconcilable. J For
what was the condition, previously to the formation of

* Bishop Tomline's ' Elements,' part ii. chaps, ii. Hi. iv. ; Davies
Morgan, ' Doctrine,' &c., vol. ii. 102.

f [The opinion formerly current that St. Matthew wrote in Hebrew
is now, I presume, widely discredited : but not so the belief that he
writes with a view specially to his Jewish countrymen. See Arch-
bishop Thomson's 'Introduction to the Gospels,' .sections 17-25.
W. E. G., 1878.]

J Considerations, p. 12.

THE BILL FOR DIVOECE. 61

the Canon, of those who had only the Gospel of St. Mark
or St. Luke, or even of those who, while acquainted with
both these Gentile Gospels, knew nothing of the Hebrew
Gospel of the Jews ? We are, of course, open to the reply
that a difference is undeniable between the language of
St. Matthew on the one hand, and that of St. Mark and
St. Luke on the other. But the question is, what is the
nature of that difference ? Is it a difference which affects
universally the structure of the Christian law of marriage,
as the adversary contends ? If so, it is strange and pain-
fully difficult to account for. Or is it, on the other hand,
a difference not affecting the Christian law of marriage
at all, but having reference to circumstances that do not
touch the validity of the contract, or that were peculiar
to the Jewish polity, and fugitive, like that polity ? If
so, then, as taken in connexion with what we know from
other sources of the purposes of these Gospels respectively,
the difference, so far from constituting a flaw in the com-
position of the Holy Scripture, is in admirable accordance
with its purpose, and contributes to its perfection.

23. And here it is time for us to remark, that, as
regards the essential point in the whole dispute, that of
freedom to re-marry, the opposition between the three
Gospels, on which so formidable a fabric has been reared,
does not in reality exist at all. It is not St. Matthew,
but it is the expositors of St. Matthew, who place him in
conflict with St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. Paul. We make
our appeal to the text as it stands ; and, first of all, even
as it stands in our own Authorised Yersion.

24. The words of St. Mark, in which we insert paren-
theses only to direct attention to the point at issue, are :
' ' Whosoever shall (put away his wife and) marry another,
committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall

62 THE BILL FOE DIYOECE.

(put away her husband* and) be married to another, she
coramitteth adultery." *

The words of St. Luke are : " Whosoever (putteth away
his wife and) marrieth another, committeth adultery : and
whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her
husband, committeth adultery." f

The words of St. Matthew, his only words relating to
re-marriage, are : " Whosoever shall marry her that is
divorced, committeth adultery ;" and again, " Whosoever
shall (put away his wife except it be for fornication, and
shall) marry another, committeth adultery ; and whoso
marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery." J

25. St. Mark and St. Luke declare to be guilty of
adultery not those who put away their wives, but those
who, having put away their wives, marry others. St.
Matthew nowhere declares to be innocent of adultery
those who marry others ; but only (by implication) those,
who put away their wives for a particular cause, termed
in our Bible fornication. But, like St. Mark and St.
Luke, he declares of a divorced woman what they declare
both of a divorced woman and of a divorced man, namely,
that to marry with such a person is adultery.

26. But here it will be said that the leave given by
implication in St. Matthew to put away a wife for forni-
cation includes, by similar implication, a permission to
marry another. Granting, for the moment, that the leave
to put away is given, we demur to this extension of it.
'Why are we to hold that leave to put away is leave to
re-marry? We admit that the Mosaic permission to
divorce in Deuteronomyg included a permission of re-

* Mark x. 11, 12. t Luke xvi. 18.

J Matt. v. 32, and xix. 9. Deut. xxiv. 2.

THE BILL FOE DIVOECE. 63

marriage ; but this Mosaic permission is, in express terms,
related by St. Matthew himself, to have been cancelled
by our Lord. " Moses, because of the hardness of your
hearts, suffered you to put away your wives : but from
the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you," &c.*
So that, whatever else may have been substituted, it is
clear that, at least, the law of Moses on this head has
been displaced. And we have the clearest scriptural proof
from another source that, under the Christian law, the
severance of husband and wife does not of itself include
re-marriage ; because St. Paul has separated the two
things, and where he reluctantly permits the former has
expressly prohibited the latter. " Let not the wife depart
from her husband : and if she depart, let her remain
unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband, "f By what
authority, then, or upon what ground of reason, is it
assumed that a permission to put away for fornication is
also, per se, a permission to re-marry ?

27. It would be surely enough to throw the burden of
reply on those whose construction of St. Matthew would
place him in conflict with two other Evangelists and with
an Apostle. But we need not shrink from adducing
positive ground to show that no permission of re-marriage
is here given.

In the first place, the exceptive words " saving for the
cause of fornication" (chap, v.), and "except it be for
fornication" (chap, xix.), are in both the passages of St..
Matthew connected by the laws of syntax with the putting
away, and not with the re-marriage. Let us illustrate
this by a parallel case. Suppose we found this precept :
" "Whosoever shall flog his son, except it be for disobedi-

* Matt. xix. 8, 9. f 1 Cor. vii. 10, 11.

64 THE BILL FOE DIVORCE.

ence, and put him to death, shall be punishable by law."
What should we think of the interpreter who founded
upon this sentence the position that a father might, for
disobedience, flog his son to death ? If the lawgiver
intended to give this Draconic permission, the rules of
speech would inevitably lead him to a different arrange-
ment of his words ; and he would say, " Except it be for
disobedience, whosoever shall flog his son and put him to
death shall be punishable by law;" or else, " Whosoever
shall flog his son and put him to death, except it be for
disobedience, shall be punishable by law." And yet St.
Matthew, avoiding (on the showing of these torturing
expositors) both these natural and regular modes of ex-
pression, adopts a method which, by the laws of syntax,
defeats his own intention, and this not on one only, but
on both the occasions when he deals with the subject.

28. But now let us look at the case on the other side.
If the exceptive words give a permission, as we contend,
only for putting away and not for re-marriage, everything
becomes at once clear and simple ; for then the words
could only be put in one place of the sentence, and that is
the one place in which we actually find them. So that a
violent strain must be first of all inflicted on St. Matthew,
in defiance of grammatical rules, in order that, through
him, a like process may subsequently be applied to the
other sacred writers.

29. Even this, however, is not all. We pray the reader
to give for the moment a more particular attention to the
closing words of St. Matthew in the fifth Chapter, " Who-
soever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adul-
tery," and to the corresponding words in the nineteenth
chapter. It seems too probable that we translate, in the
first case, and in the second, Greek words that are clear

THE BILL FOR DIVORCE. 65

into English words that are ambiguous. The phrases
"her that is divorced" in chap, v., and "her which is
put away " in chap, xix., are certainly capable of being
understood either as "a divorced woman" universally, or
"the divorced woman," that is the woman divorced under
the particular circumstances just before described, namely,
otherwise than for "fornication." But the Greek original
is, according to the highest authority, liable to no such
ambiguity. We make our appeal to Bishop Middleton,*
who has studied the use of the article in the Hellenistic
Greek of the New Testament under the lights of modern
criticism, and who without hesitation propounds this
assertion. He considers it certain, from the now ascer-
tained laws of the Greek language, that, if St. Matthew
had meant only to condemn the re-marriage of women
divorced otherwise than for " fornication," he must have
used the article both in v. 32 and in xix. 9 : whereas he
has inserted it in neither instance. His expressions are
os eav aTToXeXu/ACV^v ya/x^tn;, and 6 a.7ro\\v(jievr)v ya/x,^<ras.
They precisely correspond in breadth with the expression
of St. Luke 6 aTroXeXv/xev^v airb avftpos yafjiwv : f the

* Middleton on the Greek Article, p. 184, on Matt. v. 32:

" o.iTo\( : \viJi4vT}v. _ Not her that is divorced,' but any one that is
divorced. The distinction may appear frivolous, but the principle of
the distinction is important. The force of the precept is, indeed, here
the same ; but that will not always happen."

Scholefield, Bishop Middleton's editor, suggests a proper verbal
amendment, " when she is divorced "; but does not express his dissent
from the substance of the Bishop's suggestion. See also pp. 6, 156.
In the former the Bishop commends Lord Monboddo's definition of the
Greek Article.

" It is the prefix of a noun, denoting simply that the noun to which
it is prefixed is the same with that which was before mentioned or is
otherwise well known." M'uMeton, p. 6.

t -xvi. 18.

VI. -a

66 THE BILL FOR DIVORCE.

sense of St. Mark is the same, though the arrangement of
the sentence is somewhat different.* The words of all
three, therefore, condemn re-marriage of a divorced woman,
and condemn it universally, in terms which grammatically
admit of no other construction. St. Mark and St. Luke differ
from St. Matthew in expressly prohibiting the re-marriage
of the divorced man, as well as of the woman ; but under
the sanction of none of the three Evangelists can any
divorced woman be re-married ; a fact which cannot be
denied, which is of itself directly conclusive of half the
question, and which, on the principles of the Christian
law, ought to settle the whole of it.

30. Sustained by such authority as we have quoted, we
press even up to the condemnation of re-marriage the
argument derived from the absence of the article in St.
Matthew. But this argument, though sound, is not
necessaiy. In vain is an attempt made to exempt from
the general condemnation of re-marriage with a divorced
woman the particular case of a woman divorced for
adultery and then re-married ; because under the Jewish
law no such case could exist, since the only judicial
method of dealing with adultery was by capital punish-
ment.

31. In fact, it appears, upon a close inspection of the
several passages, that the popular sentiment rather strongly
inverts the truth of the case, as between the three Evan-
gelists. On the re-marriage of the woman they are, both
in the spirit and in the letter, precisely at one. On the
re-marriage of the man they are admitted to agree, except
in the case where the woman has been put away for
" fornication," and there too they agree, if the words of

* Mark x. 12.

!TEE BILL FOB, DIVORCE. 6*7

St. Matthew in his nineteenth Chapter are taken in their
natural order and meaning, and not read under the influ-
ence of extraneous prepossession. But it is curious to
remark that, as respects the simple putting away of the
woman, St. Matthew is in reality the most stringent
among them. For St. Mark and St. Luke have no pro-
hibition against the putting away of the woman for any
cause, unless re-marriage follows. But St. Matthew, by
intimating that in a particular case it may be permitted,
infercntially condemns it in every other case.

32. "We have brought the argument up to this point,
on the supposition that the words of St. Matthew in
chap. v. 32, and chap. xix. 9, set up a real exception,
and that, setting apart re-marriage, a full divorce may
take place under their authority in the case of " fornica-
tion " or adultery by the wife. But we must now pro-
ceed to question the whole even of this supposition. "We
have shown that the exception, if set up, goes naturally
only to the point of putting away, and not to that of
liberty to re-marry. But, moreover, we demur to the
assumption that the words necessarily set up an exception
at all ; and we demur to the further assumption that, if
set up, it can be certainly said to be set up in favour of
the case of adultery.

33. This subject has been discussed with care and
learning by the ' Barrister.' The words of exception in
St. Matthew, v. 32, are Trape/cros Xoyov Tropveias : and he
justly argues that their whole force is to exclude the
thing named from the scope of the proposition altogether,
but that they rule nothing whatever in an affirmative
sense respecting it.* They would, he observes, instead

* Considerations, p. 17.

F 2

68 THE BILL FOE DIVORCE.

of " saving for the cause of," be more correctly rendered
" apart from the question of," " without reference to the
subject of," or " independently of a case of." By an excep-
tion we mean that which is capable of coming within a
rule, but is taken out of it. The words TrapeVrog Xoyov far
more properly designate that which does not belong to
the rule at all in its proper signification, but is really
irrelevant, though standing in some apparent relation to
it. The one is a case of what contradicts a rule ; the
other a case of what does not belong to it, and is in no
manner touched by it.

34. In the corresponding passage of the nineteenth
chapter of St. Matthew, the received reading of the words
of exception, on which our translation has been founded,
was ei ft)] eVt TTopvctob. In this case the rendering is unim-
peachable ; but it is far otherwise with the reading itself.
The ' Barrister ' shows * that long ago high authorities
have given the preference to //,?) ri iropvcici, non ob
fornicationem, which seems to reduce the phrase nearly to
an equivalent of that in St. Matthew. Among these
authorities it appears that we may name the Complu-
tensian edition, Griesbach, Lucas Brugensis, Selden, and
the late Dr. Burton. But the result of the most recent
researches upon the text is to be found, we apprehend,
in the Greek Testament of Lachmann ; and he reads the
clause in the very words of St. Matthew, TrapeVros Xoyov
Tropva'as. Thus the evidence upon the words f all tends
to show that their operation is not to except, properly so
called, but to set aside, by what, borrowing from the

* Page 32.

f [The words translated " and shall marry another " are not in the
Codex Vaticanus. See the Tischendorf N. T., Tauchnitz Ed. W. E. G.,
1878.]

THE BILL FOR DIVORCE. 69

fashion of our betters, expressed in Parliamentary usage,
we may term the previous question. Our Lord therefore
in this clause should be understood to say, "I do not now
speak at all of the case of Tropveca, but as to every other
case I tell you that whosoever," and so forth.

35. But now we come to that question which the acute-
ness and learning of Selden found incapable of clear
solution; what is the meaning of the " fornication " of
the English, the Tropveta of the Greek text ? The only
thing clear about it is, that the word is not used in its
ordinary sense, which confines it to an offence committed
by unmarried persons. It has received three principal
constructions. Popularly it is and has now for a long
time been assumed to mean adultery. Some would make
it include all forms of sensual sin. Mr. Davies Morgan,
in his well-thought though not so well-written work,
' The Doctrine and Law of Marriage,'* has an elaborate
dissertation to show that it means all spiritual incest or
apostacy. On the other hand, Milton and the more
rebellious spirits, so far as they condescend to deal with
Scripture at all, extend it virtually to everything that
can be the subject of dislike, which entirely nullifies our
Lord's palpable intention to issue, if not a prohibition,
yet a limitation of divorce. But very grave and early
writers, Origen for example, and even St. Augustine, have
greatly questioned whether the meaning of the word
could be restricted to a single and that a simply carnal
offence.

36. There are certainly serious objections to the re-
ceived and popularly established sense of adultery for the
word " fornication " in this place. For adultery is desig-

2 vols. 8vo. Oxford, 1826.

70 THE BILL FOE DIVOECE.

nated by its own proper name in the Greek language
(/Aoixeia), which, unless it be in this clause of exception,
is exclusively employed for it throughout the five pas-
sages of the Gospels which bear upon the subject of
divorce. There is therefore something strange in the
introduction of a different word to express the same idea,
the more so as it is marked by being used both times in
the clause of exception, as well as by being used in that
clause only. In Matthew xv. 19, and in Mark vii. 21,
we find /AGi^cta along with Tropm'a in the enumeration of
sins, from which the latter term would seem to mean, not
merely not adultery in particular, but rather every form
of incontinence except adultery ; and again it appears
clear that there is no other passage in the J^ew Testa-
ment in which the word can be shown to bear the specific
sense of adultery.*

37. Still, we are far from saying it may not be properly
so understood by a derivative process ; that is to say, as
the established meaning of the word relates to mercenary
lusts, and as from this it passes to incontinence in general,
and as the common form of incontinence in a married
person is denominated adultery, we do not venture to
deny, and will now for argument's sake assume, the con-
struction to be correct. We may, therefore, suppose our
Lord to declare in this clause that, setting apart the
question of adultery, a man may not put away his wife.

38. But this concession will not in the slightest degree
assist the adversary. His aim is to show that a wife may
be put away for adultery, so as to leave him free, during
her lifetime, to re-marry. But our Saviour's words con-
tain no such statement. Even our opponents, with the

* Schleusner, Lex. Nov. Test.

THE BILL FOR DIVORCE. 71

Greek text in their eye, will admit that they do not con-
tain it explicitly or plainly. But the proposition was one
which, if it was meant to be conveyed, especially required
to be conveyed in the clearest manner; inasmuch as it
was one wholly foreign to the laws of Judrca, which
nowhere speak of divorce for adultery. Had such a law
existed among the Jews, no doubt an equivocal and
indirect allusion might have sufficed ; but such a form of
speech never could have been the vehicle of an intention
of our Lord's, which would actually have gone to repeal
an existing and familiar Jewish law, and to put a wholly
new one in its place.

39. Instead of doing all this elaborate and ineffectual
violence to the text, let us just remember what was the
law of the Jews respecting adultery. It was, that both
the parties to it should be put to death.* Now, the
surrender of a wife to such an operation was evidently
susceptible of the general appellation of " putting away,"
while it was not in reality of the nature of a divorce as
far as regards the main question of re-marriage, during
the term of the joint lives, since the death of the wife as
a matter of course made the husband free. From that
passage in St. John, which relates to the woman taken in
adultery, we perceive that it was not our Lord's intention
to disturb, by direct injunction of his own, the existing
judicial and penal system. For he did not forbid the
stoning, but only exacted that it should be done by those
who had not themselves offended; a proceeding which
was in entire harmony with the trial by the waters of
jealousy ordered in Deuteronomy. Just as plainly, when
He said, " Neither do I condemn thee," he did not give

* Deut. xxii. 20-24.

72 THE 1ULL FOE DIVOECE.

his sanction to her being divorced, but rather pointed to
her being again received by her husband.

40. Viewed in this light, the supposed exception of
St. Matthew is no exception at all so far as concerns the
case of re-marriage, but is a simple parenthesis ; while
the tenor of the passage is restored to perfect harmony
and clearness, and St. Matthew stands in entire unison
with the other Evangelists. The force of the passage,
with the parenthesis, appears then to be expressed by a
paraphrase such as this : " On the subject of divorce,
setting aside the case of adultery or the wife's incontinence,
which is provided for by a separate law, I tell you that
whosoever puts away his wife causes her to commit
adultery; and whosoever marries a woman put away
commits adultery." Such a construction of the passage,
presuming the parenthesis to refer to adultery, is in every
way consistent. It adheres to syntax, follows the natural
import of the words, tallies exactly with the state of the
Jewish laws, fulfils the condition of intelligibility to the
hearers, and not only leaves no discrepancy, between St.
Matthew and his co-Evangelists, but gives force and pro-
priety at once to his insertion and to their omission ; to
the insertion, because it has reference to the ideas and
practices of Jews, for whom St. Matthew wrote ; and to
the omission, because the clause had absolutely no meaning
for Gentiles, whom St. Mark and St. Luke had it for their
purpose to inform. Nor is it less natural, that St. Paul
should avoid any reference to the subject in addressing
the Christians of Borne.

41. If, then, we travel so far in company with our
opponents as to adopt the common opinion about the
meaning of the word translated " fornication," even with
this assumption brought in aid their conclusion

THE BILL FOE DIVORCE. 73

stand. On the contrary, it has been justly observed by
Bishop Burgess,* that, as the one exception designated by
the parenthesis, if it be properly so termed at all, derives
its force from the death of the party, cessante causa cessat
effectus, it is and can be of no force except where the party
dies. But that common opinion of the meaning of the
word is far from being supported either by universal
authority, or by demonstrative reason. On the contrary,
there is no small likelihood that, in conformity with the
known language of the Old Testament, the word " forni-
cation" may designate a spiritual and not a sensual evil.
Etymologically it is not tied to the one rather than the
other sense ; and usage will sanction either. The original
idea is that of sale and transfer; and some are of opinion
that the original word Tropvrj means a harlot, because in
Greece those unhappy persons had usually been purchased
or were purchasable as being slaves. "We refer the reader to
the Lexicon of Schleusner for instances (take for example
Rev. ii. 22), where the unlawful commerce indicated is
that of the soul ; and to the work of Mr. Davies Morgan, f
for reasons and authorities in support of the conclusion
that in this passage we ought so to understand it. It will
then mean heathenism, idolatry, or apostacy from God.
And it is easy to show that such a signification har-
monises, perhaps even more remarkably than the sense
of adultery, with the Jewish laws, while it is entirely
consonant with the doctrine of St. Paul.

42. First as to the Jewish laws. It was absolutely
forbidden under the Mosaic law to contract marriages with
aliens in religion, as may be seen from Exodus xxxiv.
14-16, and from Deuteronomy vii. 3: "Neither shalt

* Quoted in Morgan, ii, 61. | Vol. P- 88 > an< l Appendix I.

74 TIIE BILL FOR DIYOECE.

thou make marriages with them : thy daughter thou shalt
not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take
unto thy son." They were, therefore, in law originally
void. And upon this principle we find that, after the
captivity, Ezra rebuked the people in the mass for having
taken such wives, and required that they should all be
put away ; to which the people assented. Nehemiah, for
a similar purpose, " contended with them, and cursed
them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their
hair, and made them swear by God."* If, then, our
Saviour refers to marriages which had been contracted with
women that were in spiritual fornication, either they were
so when married, or they had become so since. If the
former, the case is not one of divorce at all, but of a
declaratory process where the marriage had been originally
null. If the latter, if the wife had become idolatrous or
apostate, the case might be one of divorce in the sense of
putting away, and in that sense the words of our Saviour
harmonise with the directions of St. Paul ; but, as we have
already shown, the authority to put away does not, per se,
involve -authority to re-marry, and the question of re-
marriage receives its direct and decisive settlement, so far
as she is concerned, under the consentient words of St.
Luke, St. Mark, and finally St. Matthew in each of his
two passages.

43. As regards the liberty of the man to re-marry, we
refer to the previous argument, and to what will presently
be said on the subject of desertion. And as to that con-
struction of the word iropvcta, not in our opinion the
best supported, which makes it mean all incontinence,
the argument of the pamphlet named at the head of

Ezra, chap. ix. and chap. x. 1-14 ; Nehemiah xiii, 23-31,

THE BILL FOR DIVOECE. 75

our list sufficiently proves that the parenthesis when thus
understood is still essentially and exclusively Jewish,
and ceases to operate with the cessation of the Mosaic
dispensation.

44. We will now release the reader from this wearisome
but necessary inquiry, so far as it relates to the grand
fiction of the case, the supposed authority to re-marry in
the case of adultery; only subjoining two remarks. The
first remark is, that this authority is extended by the Bill
from the man to the woman with a strange and self-
condemning inconsistency. In the express words of
St. Paul and of two Evangelists, with whom the third
as we have seen stands in harmony, by the adamantine
laws of grammar, the re-marriage of the woman is con-
demned. "With the aid of licentious construing and of
arbitrary deduction from the supposed liberty of the man,
it is set up again for the case of adultery. It then
becomes, one would suppose, a sacred Scriptural right,
and nothing remains but the proof of adultery in the
husband to entitle the innocent wife to a divorce. But,
strange to say, our misinterpreters of Scripture, after
having by force extorted from it this freedom for the
woman, then by like force withhold from her hands all
but a very small modicum of the ill-gotten treasure ; for
the adultery of the husband is not to entitle the wife to a
divorce a vinculo ; she can only have it when the adultery
is joined with desertion, cruelty, bigamy, or incest. Our
second remark is, that the misinterpretation of Scripture,
now before us, betrays itself, at every step, by new
inconsistencies. For if it were tenable, the consequence
would be that a woman justly divorced for adultery
might re-marry, but that a woman improperly divorced,
without fault on her own part, could not. All the re-

76 THE BILL FOE DIVORCE.

marriages, therefore,* of women who have been divorced
for adulteries have been innocent ; but the re-marriages of
those, who had been innocent, have been adulteries !

45. We shall deal much more summarily with the
other supposed case of Scriptural divorce a vinculo, that
of desertion; for it admits of being simply handled;
and, though we may shortly hear more of it, it has
no refer,e_nce to the legislative scheme now before the
world.

St. Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians,
positively forbids the contraction of marriages with un-
believers : fJLrj yivtcrOe erepo^iryowrcs aTriVrot?, " be ye
not unequally yoked together with unbelievers:"* an
awkward translation, for the meaning seems rather to be
simply "become not yoke-fellows with unbelievers." A
question, however, could not but arise in infant commu-
nities, formed piecemeal out of the Gentile world, how to
deal with those cases where one only of a married couple
had embraced the Gospel. And this question St. Paul had
solved in his First Epistle, but by way of counsel on his
own authority. The words where he proceeds to grant a
certain liberty are, "But to the rest speak I, not the.
Lord ;" f and, we ask, can anything more touchingly
indicate the jealous care of our Lord and Saviour over
the great institution of marriage, than that, when a case
of temporary anomaly had occurred, which seemed to
require a provision in apparent conflict with the general
character of its obligations, this leave should be conveyed
not direct from the fountainhead of sacred inspiration, but
simply as the human thought of Christian wisdom ? The
effect is that, if in this licence, given by St. Paul, there

2 Cor. vi. 13. f 1 Cor. vii. 12.

THE BILL FOB, DIVORCE. 77

seem to be anything at variance with the divinely
described character of marriage, it is ipso facto null.

46. But there is no such contrariety. St. Paul's
counsel is that, if the believing husband and unbelieving
wife are jointly minded to continue in conjugal union,
they may and shall so continue.** " But if the unbelieving
depart, let him depart." The words that follow are, " a
brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases :"
and if they refer to the case just before described, the
meaning seems to be, "if he is resolved to separate,
accept the separation ; do not attempt to follow him ; the
marriage tie does not bind you in such cases against
the tie of the Christian covenant." But in this con-
tingency of desertion, there is not the faintest allusion to
the liberty of re-marriage. That question seems to bo
ruled effectually, and for the woman expressly, in the
negative by the antecedent words (ver. 11), in which
St. Paul, speaking now by inspiration, says, " But and if
she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to
her husband."

47. And, finally, let us observe what was the nature
of the marriage contract, with which the Apostle is here
dealing. It was not the high Christian rite, celebrated by
the Church and before God, and by His authority exalted
to be a figure of the indissoluble union between Christ
and His universal Church ; it was the simple contract of
marriage, into which men entered by the law of nature
outside the pale of revelation, and which, though a
healthful institution, and a valid agreement, was not
and could not be a full parallel to the marriage of
Christians. It is this natural and civil marriage, which

* Ver. 12-15.

& THE BILL FOfc DIVORC.fi.

St. Paul says may, for, difference of religion, be broken
by separation. But we leave the reader to judge what
parallel there is in the cases, or what inference can be
drawn from the liberty of a Christian to remain separate,
without re-marriage, upon being deserted by an unbeliever,
after a marriage made in heathenism, in favour of the
opinion that a Christian, after a Christian marriage, may,
when deserted, not simply remain separate, but proceed
to re-marry.

48. We have done now with the Scripture argument ;
and we aver that St. Paul does no more than echo the
consentient teaching of all parts of the New Testament
when he says to the Romans :*

" The woman, which hath an husband, is bound by the law to her
husband so long as he livetli ; but if the husband be dead, she is
loosed from the law of her husband.

" So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another
man, she shall be called an adulteress ; but if her husband be dead,
she is free from that law ; so that she is no adulteress, though she be
married to another man."

For Christian marriage is, according to the Holy
Scripture, a lifelong compact, which may sometimes be
put in abeyance by the separation of a couple, but which
never can be rightfully dissolved, so as to set them free,
during their joint lives, to unite with other persons.

49. (II.) And now it will be instructive to take a rapid
survey of the varied history of marriage in different
countries and ages of the world, with reference to some
of those restraints upon which its efficacy and sanctity
depend.

In setting aside the Mosaic law of divorce, our Lord

* vii. 2, 3.

!THE BILL FOR DIVORCE. ?9

has emphatically told us that, at and from the beginning,
marriage was perpetual, and was on both sides single.

"Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to
put away your wives ; but from the beginning it was not so ....

" Have ye not read that he, which made them at the beginning,
made them male and female.

" And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother,
and shall cleave to his wife ; and they twain shall be one flesh ?

" Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh."*

Such is the JSIagna Charta of marriage.

50. And with this majestic and beautiful delineation the
manners of Greece, in the simplicity of the heroic age,
remarkably correspond. Among the Greeks of Homer we
find no trace of polygamy, though, to judge from the
case of Priam, he imputes it to the Asiatics ; and it seems
also likely that they may have lapsed into the practice of
divorce. On the Greek side, however, as a general rule,
we meet with even concubinage only in its mildest form :
that is among a part of the Greek chiefs (some would say
the whole of them, except Menelaos )f when encamped
before Troy, in a prolonged absence from their homes, and
with every sign that even this concubinage was single.
Agamemnon \ intimates an intention to retain Chryseis as
a concubine ; but in words which seem to show, that this
was by no means an ordinary licence. Again, one of the
fictions of Odusseus in the Odyssey makes him the grand-
son of a woman of this class. The only case, however,
in which the practice is actually set before us in Greece
(except as it is to be inferred from the designation of such
and such persons as spurious children), is that of Amuntor,
the father of Phoinix ; and here, through the active re-

* Matt. xix. 8, 4-6. f Athenseus, xiii. 3. \ II. I. iii.

80 THE BILL FOR DIVORCE.

sentment of the mother, it at once becomes the foundation
of a fearful domestic feud. In the families of Odusseus,
Laertes, Nestor, Alkinoos, we have no trace of it. Mega-
penthes, the son of Menelaos, was born of a slave, but
this appears to have been after the abduction of Helen ; *
and the very name, by marking him for a child of sorrow,
contains a touching allusion to the calamity which had
befallen the father.

51. The illustrious Bellerophon repeats the conduct
perhaps represents the tradition of Joseph in the house
of Potiphar. In Clutaimnestra f the guilt of adultery is
by no means swallowed up in that of assassination, and
the crimes of Aigisthos are mentioned in the Odyssey as a
twofold horror. In the view which the Greeks take of
Paris, the criminality of the adulterer is mixed with the
shame of poltroonery; in Helen it is palliated by the
violence she had suffered. But this last example tells
powerfully against the supposition that divorce with re-
marriage, or even without it, was practised, or perhaps so
much as known, in that age and country. For during the
very long absence of Helen, Menelaos does not re-marry ;
and when Troy is taken, she returns naturally and without
question to her place both in his household and in his
heart. And it is not a little curious, that, as the Iliad dis-
poses of the case of adultery, so the Odyssey settles that of
desertion : for Penelope is represented as waiting, after an
interval of nineteen years, for positive tidings of the death
of her husband, before she will contract a new engagement.

52. In later Greece and Rome, as among the Mahome-
tans of the present day, the practice of divorce was
established and regulated by law. It is, however, asserted

* Od. IV. 10-14. f Od. I. 36.

THE BILL FOR DIVORCE. 81

with respect to Rome that there is no case of it on record
before that of Carvilius Ruga,* above five hundred years
later than the reputed foundation of the city. But, as
time passed on, marriage lost its religious and solemn
character, and became a loose and voluntary compact ; so
that, at the period of our Lord's advent, divorce was
frightfully common. At this we must not wonder. It
would be too much to expect that a strictness, from which
the Jews were perforce as it were allowed to depart, and
which even Christian nations have not always been able
to bear, should have been maintained through thousands
of years in the heathen world. It is rather a thing
marvellous and admirable, that at any period of heathen
history we should find the tie of marriage quite indis-
soluble, as we seem to find it in Homeric Greece, and in
the patriarchal age. "With the general decline of manners,
we find a constant increase of the boasted liberty of
divorce ; and Gibbon, no straitlaced judge, after reviewing
the course of Roman marriages, records his judgment in
these words :

" A specious theory is refuted by this free and perfect experiment ;
which demonstrates that the liberty of divorce does not contribute to
happiness and virtue."f

53. "We must now cast a glance upon the Christian
history of marriage. And here the proposition can be
made good that, for almost three hundred years from the
birth of Christ, we have no appearance whatever of either
separation or divorce, except in the case of unbelief; and
no licence, however qualified, to re-marry, which it is
now pretended that Scripture gives. Nay, even after that

* A.u.C. 525. f * Decline and Fall,' chap. xliv. vol. viii. p. 60.

[Hume, k\ his Essays, arrives at a similar judgment. W. E. G., 1878.]

vi.

82 THE BILL FOE DIVORCE.

time, it was very gradually that licence crept in. The
Pastor of Hennas allows the husband to separate from
the wife for idolatry, but not to marry another woman, or
to disable himself from receiving her back upon repent-
ance.*' Justin Martyr mentions "a Christian woman
who separated herself from a heathen and adulterous
husband, not on the ground of his adultery, but for the
preservation of her own faith and piety ; " and the Virgin
Thecla cancelled her espousals, on the ground of the
hatred of her betrothed husband to the Gospel.f Ptolemaios
notices the opposition of the Mosaic law to the Christian
one, in that it made marriage dissoluble. J Athenagoras
treats the prohibition of re-marriage as binding for life
even upon widowers and widows. We have to ascertain
the sentiments of Tertullian under the disadvantage
caused by his obscurity ; but it would be strange indeed
if he, who wrote a treatise against such second marriages
generally, even after the bond was broken by death, had
in any case admitted of them before that rupture. In
fact, he appears to have admitted of no exception unless
in the case of alien marriages, which he takes to be meant
by the term " fornication," and which he treats, not as dis-
soluble in the proper sense, but as null and void. Marcion,
whom he opposed, like Ptolemaios, contrasted the Chris-
tian prohibition with the Mosaic permission.

54. Clemens Alexandrines appears to treat the bond as
absolute, and, while allowing not re-marriages but second
marriages, commends, nevertheless, those who abstain
from them. || Origen treats the re-marriage during the

* I. Mand, 4 ; Morgan, ii. 148. f Morgan, ii. 151. J ii. 152.
Morgan, 154-69 ; Tertull. de Monog. and adv. Marc. iv. 44.
5 Morgan, 172.

THE BILL FOE DIVORCE. 83

consort's life as forbidden by Scripture ; yet thinks it may
be conceded, with qualification, to the infirmity of incon-
tinent men. And this is apparently the very first sign of
a disposition in the Church to yield anything to the pre-
vailing manners. The Apostolical Canons, which belong
to this period, declare as follows: "If a layman divorce
his wife and marry another, or marry a wife divorced by
another, let him be separated (from the Church)."* The
Council of Eliberis forbids the re-marriage of women,
even if they have left their husbands for adultery ; but at
this time divorce for adultery with re-marriage had begun
to be partially recognised for men. The first Council of
Aries (A.D. 314) dissuades, but yet does not absolutely
condemn, re-marriage of a man who has divorced his wife
for adultery. f Late in the third century Lactantius
denounces all re-marriage except that of a man for the
wife's adultery, thereby conveying the permission in that
case ; and he is the first of the Fathers who acknowledges
the proceeding as a rightful one.

55. In the end of the fourth century, St. Augustine
holds that Scripture is obscure upon the point of re-
marriage for any husband who is only in the condition of
a catechumen ; but even in this peculiar case his own
judgment condemns it. And he subscribed in A.D. 416
the canon of the Milevitan Council, which absolutely
forbids all re-marriage. Prom this time forward, some
division of opinion on the principle of re-marriage of
divorced persons must, we apprehend, be admitted to have
existed among Christians. But the utmost difficulty still
besets the case of those, who seek to show that the
Church of Christ gave any sanction to the re-marriage of

* Canon xlvii. ; Labbe and Cossart, i. 35. f Morgan, ii. 177.

G 2

84 THE BILL FOB DIVORCE.

women, or to the *re-marriage of adulterers, or to the
intermarriage of the persons between whom the adultery
had taken place. The Apostolical Canon, indeed, which
we have quoted, appears to have had the authority of a
law of the universal Church ; * and it never was set aside
at any period by any regulation of equal authoiity.

56. It seems then that, in the exercise of her com-
mission from Christ, the Church was able to maintain the
absolute obligation of the marriage contract, until the
extent of her conquests over the masses of a corrupt society,
and her alliance with the civil power, brought her into
conflict with such a tide of worldly opinion and propensity,
as she was not able wholly to withstand. Accordingly
the principle of divorce, handed over from Paganism,
forced its way into the legislation of the Christian empire,
and subsisted there, sometimes, as under Constantine, with
a moderate, sometimes, as under Anastasius and the
later laws of Justinian, f with a frightful extension ; for
in these latter cases the principle of divorce by con-
sent, or lond gratia, was largely acknowledged. And
strange to say, those Scripturalists of the present day,
who conceive that the measure now impending aims at
the vindication of Bible freedom against the tyranny of
the Church, must fetch almost every one of the authorities
that can avail in support of their own interpretation from
the post-Mcene period of ecclesiastical history ; and the
paternity of the system of divorce runs up straight on the
one side to Judaism, on the other to the pagan legislation
of Rome in its decay.

57. We do not believe that the representation which,

* Sequel of the Argument/ &c., p. 173.
T f See the Summary in Pouget, Inst. Cathol. ix. 338.

THE BILL FOR D1VOKCE. 85

with Mr. Morgan's aid, we have given of the early testi-
monies can be contradicted. Bingham's account is not
so precise as could be wished ; but he adduces no evidence
which is adverse to it.* The learned and candid author of
the ' Sequel,' after a full and comprehensive review, states
his conclusion (pp. 173, 187) in yet stronger terms than
ours. Milton examined this subject with abundant learn-
ing and keen solicitude, and has given us the result
towards the close of his Tetrachordon. He cites from the
first three centuries only Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and
Origen : the first as a witness for severance, not for re-
marriage; the second to deduce, by an arbitrary and
slippery inference in opposition to the general, and as we
think unequivocal sense of the writer, a probability that
Tertullian did not condemn re-marriage ; and the third
with the fair admission that Origen thought Scripture
went the other way, but evidently, for the sake of taking
advantage of that author's opinion that the " fornication J>
of St. Matthew could not be confined to simple and literal
adultery, f

58. We now traverse a long period, ending with the
middle ages, during which the Eastern Church remained
in direct alliance and harmony with the State, while the
Church of the "West, especially in its centre of power at
Rome, was comparatively remote from ordinary political
influences, and frequently involved in great crises of conflict
with the civil power. The consequence was, as might be
expected, that the Eastern Church compounded in some
degree with the spirit of the Byzantine State, and gave
more or less of sanction to re-marriage after divorce.

* Book xxii. chap. ii. sect. 12.

f Milton's Tetrachordon : Prose Works, vol. i. p. 314 (4to. 1753).

86 THE BILL FOE,

We say more or less, for this among other reasons, that,
as we arc informed, Mr. Neale, the very learned historian
of the Eastern Church, contests the wider admissions that
have heen made on this subject. Douhtless, hoth in West
and East, there was a struggle against the primitive and
always unrepealed law ; but it ended in the West with
the firm establishment (subject only to very rare evasion
by legal fictions as to grounds of nullity) of the indis-
solubility of marriage as a principle of the Canon and of
the Statute Law. Thus it was found by the Reformation
in England ; and thus, thank God, it still continues.

59. But an attempt is made to prepossess our minds
adversely to this ancient and venerable law, by insisting
upon the fact that we owe it to the times of popery.
Now, we have shown that we owe it in the first instance
to our Saviour Christ, and to the Apostles and Evangelists.
We owe it, next, to the primitive Church. What we owe
to the Western Church, and to the Pope as its head
during the middle ages, is this ; that they vindicated the
Christian law of indissoluble marriage against the rude-
ness of barbarism, and against the rottenness of an ex-
hausted and dead civilisation. " Why should it be thought
a thing incredible " with us, that the Church of Borne
might here and there, by accident at least, do right ?

60. Here, however, we are entertained to another
argument of that deplorably fatuous description, which
almost makes a man despair of his age, if not of the
whole future of his kind. Marriage we are told with the
Boman Church is a sacrament, and therefore indissoluble :
with us it is not a sacrament, and therefore it should be
dissoluble. It moves astonishment to see what a multi-
tude of errors can upon occasion be crowded into a small
space ; only it unfortunately happens that, instead of

THE BILL FOR DIVOECE. 87

being crushed to death by crowding, like human beings,
they live and thrive the better in proportion as the pres-
sure is close and the atmosphere foul, and as the daylight
is prevented from getting in among them. Marriage is
indissoluble, forsooth, because a sacrament. But the
Eastern Church treats marriage as a sacrament, yet its
ritual, and, as our antagonists give us to understand, its
law, do not treat it as indissoluble.* As, therefore,
marriage may be a sacrament and yet dissoluble, so may
it cease to be a sacrament and yet remain indissoluble.
"Why, however, should we be the dupes of a word ? As
to the substance, it would not be easy, so far as we
perceive, to detect much variance from Scripture in the
description of marriage by the Council of Trent in the
Doctrina de Sacramento Matrimonii.] But, to sum up all,
not even as respects the mere skeleton of the word can
this unhappy argument be sustained. For if those who
use it will turn to the Homilies of the Church of England,
which are approved by the Articles, they will find these
words : " By like holy promise, the sacrament of matrimony
knitteth man and wife in perpetual love." J

61. The opinion of the Boman Church itself does not
found the indissolubility of marriage on its character as a
sacrament, but only conceives the obligation to be enhanced
by that circumstance. Matrimonium, ut natures officium
consideratur, et maxime ut Sacramentum, dissolvi nonpotcst.
Nor will those friends of the principle of divorce, who
admit that Scripture is to be considered in this matter,
take any benefit from being rid of the word sacrament,

* See, for instance, Glen King's Rites of the Greek Church, 235 and
seqq. t Cone. Trid. Sess. xxiv.

\ Homily on Swearing, part. i.
Catech. Rom. ii. De Sacr. Matr. 11.

88 THE BILL FOE DIVORCfi.

when they remember* that St. Paul terms marriage "a
great mystery " ; TO /xvcrr^piov rouro /xe'ya CCTTLV.*

62. Nor yet is it easy to ascribe to evil motives the
successful struggle of the Western Church to keep marriage
indissoluble. This doctrine was not needed in order to
secure the intervention of the priest ; for this might, as in
the East, have been rigidly required, even though the
contract were one capable, for certain causes, of determin-
ing. And if the Court of Eome has, under the actual
state of things, enjoyed a valuable privilege in dealing with
cases of nullity, she might on the other hand, by permit-
ting, and at the same time, like the Council of Aries,
dissuading divorces, have opened for herself a far wider
and richer gold-field in granting dispensations for them.

63. At a particular moment of the Reformation, when
foreign influence over the counsels of the English leaders
in that great movement was at its zenith, the Reformatio
Legum was compiled. It abolishes the minor form of
divorce a mensa et thoro, and establishes divorce with the
right of re-marriage (1) for adultery, (2) for desertion,
(3) for deadly quarrels, (4) for cruelty of the husband,
(5) for his too long absence ; but subject in the last case
to the rather ludicrous provision that, if the returning
partner can prove that he has been detained from home
otherwise than by his own will, he shall again be received
into favour, and the unhappy bodkin, though a true and
lawful husband, shall be turned adrift.

64. There are probably few who agree with Milton, as
to marriage at least, in deeply deploring that this monu-
ment of our "sincerest" time did not become law ; but
in two points the handiwork of the time of Edward VI.

Eph. y. 30.

THE BILL FOR DIVORCE. 89

is far more highly toned than the slipshod contrivances of
the present day. For every privilege (if the word must
be so applied) which it secures for the man, it secures
equally for the woman also ; and it testifies with un-
equivocal force to the stern reality of the desire to stop
adultery. It asserts that that crime might properly be
punished with death ; and it actually imposes on the
offender the penalty not only of forfeiture of half his
goods, but with this of exile, or else imprisonment for
life.* And when a charge of adultery is met by successful
recrimination, both parties are to suffer the penalty of the
offence, f

65. It is sometimes stated to have been owing to
accident that this code never became law. And an
attempt is thus made, as, for example, by the Commis-
sioners of 1853, to invest it with a peculiar force,
different from that of other unfulfilled projects of public
authority. But the plea is futile. The book, says
Strype, "had certainly been ratified, had God spared
that King's life (Edward VI.) till another parliament."
This appears doubtful. J It is of course to be assumed
that, even in Tudor times, a code, containing enactments
so highly penal, could not have taken practical effect as
law without the assent of Parliament. But had it become
law under Edward, it would, with the rest of his laws
respecting religion, have been repealed by Mary, and its
re-enactment would have been considered afresh upon
its merits under Elizabeth. It had not then passed into
oblivion. It was revised by Archbishop Parker, whose

* Reformatio Legum, p. 50, ed. 1850.
t Ibid. p. 57 (De Adult, cap. 17).

j Cardwell's Preface to Ref. Legum, p. ix. note ; Strype's Parker,
vol. ii. p. 62, ed. Oxford, 1821 ; and elsewhere.

THE BILL FOE DIVORCE.

copy of it is not known to exist, but is presumed to
be that lately reprinted at Oxford. Foxe and others
actually laboured for its adoption by Parliament, while
they were taking exception to the Book of Common
Prayer. It was referred to a committee of the same
party in the House of Commons.* But it proceeded no
further. The just presumption is, that it was regarded
as one of those measures of " further reformation " which
the puritans and foreigners desired, but which were not
approved by the Queen, the leading Churchmen, and the
bulk of the nation.

66. In the reign of Edward YI. a practical step had,
however, already been taken towards the unsettling of
that law of marriage, which had prevailed in Christian
England from the very earliest times. The Marquis of
Northampton had obtained a divorce a mensd et tlioro for
adultery. The King's delegates pronounced that this
was equivalent to a divorce a vinculo, and authorised
re-marriage. Northampton, who had anticipated the
decision by taking another wife, obtained an Act of Par-
liament to confirm it, evidently upon legal advice, in the
last year of the young King's reign. But the Act was
repealed under Mary, and was heard of no more.f It
serves no other purpose than to show, that, even when
sustained by the authority of the Crown, he could not
rely on his re-marriage as valid under English law.

67. For nearly a century and a half from the time of
the breach with Borne, that is until the year 1670, with
the single and transient exception that has just been
mentioned, there was no divorce, properly so called, in
England. During the Commonwealth, adultery was made

* C'anl wall's Tivt'w, p. xii. f Davids Mor^nii, ii. 229-31.

THE BILL FOR DIYOECE. 1

Capital ; but the marriage contract remained indissoluble.
Yet in this period Scottish influence was strong, and
Milton employed his powerful pen, in a variety of pieces,
on behalf of an extended change. In studying these
pieces at the present day, the mind may well be divided
between admiration of the force and grandeur of their
language, and thankfulness that England was found proof
against the seduction of the pestilent ideas they convey.
It is sad to see, between Judaism, puritanism, and repub-
licanism, how depressed were the conceptions of the
Christian doctrine and system, which this lofty genius
was not only content to embrace, but enthusiastic to
propagate. That, for which he pleads, is a licence of
divorce for aversion or incompatibility ; the wildest liber-
tine, the veriest Mormon, could not devise words more
conformable to his ideas, if indeed we are just to the
Mormon sages in assuming that they alienate as freely as
they acquire. And all this energetic emotion of Milton's
betrays its selfish origin, by the fact that it is man only,
whose sufferings in unhappy marriages he commiserates ;
the wrongs and sorrows of women seem to have been in
his view a very secondary affair ; indeed he but faintly
shows that he was even conscious of their existence.

68. Marriage, he says, was made for man, but woman
was made for marriage. When his third wife, who
cherished' him in blindness and old age, importuned him
to accept the generous offer of the Government after the
Restoration, and resume his official situation, his con-
siderate reply to her was, " You as other women would
ride in your coach ; my aim is to live and die an honest
man."* The credit due to the Presbyterian party for

* Symmons's 'Life of Milton,' p. 375, 376.

92 THE BILL TOR DIVOKCE.

declining to follow this charmer is great, because he,
without doubt, charmed most skilfully. The following
passage is a fair sample of the powerful strain of his
writings on divorce. Nowhere is he more a Poet, whether
for music or for majesty, than in his prose :

" Him I hold more in the way to perfection who foregoes an unfit,
ungodly, and discordant wedlock, to live according to peace and
love and God's institution in a fitter choice, than he who debars
himself the happy experience of all godly, which is peaceful conver-
sation in his family, to live a contentious and unchristian life not to
be avoided, in temptations not to be lived in, only for the false keep-
ing of a most unreal nullity, a marriage that hath no affinity with
God's intention, a daring phantasm, a mere toy of terror, awing
weak senses to the lamentable superstition of ruining themselves,
the remedy whereof God in his law vouchsafes us. Which not to
dare use, he warranting, is not our perfection, is our infirmity, our
little faith, our timorous and low conceit of charity ; and in them
who force us, it is their masking pride and vanity, to seem holier and
more circumspect than God."*

09. We come now to the commencement of the prim-
legia, or private Acts, which have been passed to release
individuals of high station or of fortune from the opera-
tion of the law of England, which by common law, by
canon, by immemorial tradition and usage, and by the
combined force of statute and canon in the Book of
Common Prayer, makes marriage indissoluble. And cer-
tainly, if a practice can earn condemnation on account of
the circumstances in which it has had its rise, this is
the very case for such condemnation. The Bill for the
divorce of Lord Eosse, granting him leave to marry again,
was pushed forward by those who represented the natural
feeling of the people at the time, who desired to bar the

Tetrachordon, Works, i. p. 301.

THE BILL FOE DIVORCE. 93

succession of the Duke of York by means milder than an
Exclusion Bill, and who hoped to draw the King into
their measures by opening to him, through this precedent,
the prospect of a divorce from his wife, and thus of future
issue. Charles himself, as we learn from Evelyn, attended
the debate in the House of Lords : *

" I went to Westminster, where in the House of Lords I saw his
Majesty sit on his throne, but without his robes, all the Peers sitting
with their hats on ; the business of the day being the divorce of my
Lord Rosse. Such an occasion and sight had not been seen in
England since the time of Henry VIII. "f

70. Of eighteen Bishops present, only two, Wilkins and
Cosin, supported the Bill, if Evelyn may be trusted. To
these the Parliamentary History adds Eeynolds, well
known as a distinguished Puritan who had conformed.
Wilkins was a reputed Latitudinarian. Cosin has left his
views upon record. On the Scripture argument he throws
no light ; assumes the readings and the translation, and
appears, where he argues that putting away implies liberty
to re-marry, to confound together from carelessness the
phraseology of different passages . J A partial examination
of the historical authorities he quotes has shown us that
they cannot be trusted.

71. For instance, he cites as a precedent the marriage
by Laud (of which that prelate repented ever after as a
"foul offence") of Lady Rich, who had been divorced
a mensd et thoro, to the Earl of Devonshire. But it
appears that in this case there had been a pre-contract ||

* March 22, 1670. f Evelyn's Memoirs, i. 425.

% Cosin's Works, vol. iv. p. 489 (Oxford, 1851).
Le Bas, ; Life of Laud,' p. 10.

|| By 32 Henry VIII. c. 38 (A.D. 1541), it was enacted, that no
marriage solemnised in the face of the Church and consummate with

94 THE BILL FOR DIVOHCE.

between the parties, which Laud at the time took upon
himself to treat as annulling the marriage to Lord Eich.
Again, he quotes the Constitutions of the Apostles, and
those of the English Church under Elizabeth. As to the
former, the reference supplied by his editor is to a passage
wholly irrelevant:* and as to the Canons of 1597, the
reader will be astonished, on referring to them, to find |
that they not only are confined to the cases of nullity and
separation, but that they actually require that the parties
separated shall give that very bond against re-marriage
which is still, we believe, uniformly exacted from them.

72. But the Bill passed, though only by a majority of
two ; the dike was pierced, and the piercing of it was like
the letting out of water. Yet the materials of it were
stout and firm, and the progress of the evil slow.

bodily knowledge and fruit of children should be rendered void on
account of any pre-contract not so consummate.

By the 2 Edw. VI. (A.D. 1548) this Act (so far as it related to pre-
contracts) was repealed.

And in the 3rd year of Queen Anne (Collins v. Fesset, Salkeld's
Rep. ii. p. 437) it was said by Chief Justice Holt, and agreed to by the
whole bench, " that if a contract be per verba de prccsenti, it amounts
to an actual marriage, which the very parties themselves cannot dis-
solve by release or other mutual agreement; for it is as much a
marriage in the sight of God as if it had been in facie Ecclcsicc : with
this difference, that, if they cohabit before marriage in facie Ecclesioe,
they are for that punishable by ecclesiastical censures ; and if, after
such contract, either of them lies with another, they will punish such
offender as an adulterer.

" That if the contract be per verba de future, and after, either of the
parties so contracting, without a previous release or discharge of the
contract, marry another, it will be good cause of a dissolution of a
second marriage, and of decreeing the first contract's being perfected
into a marriage."

In 1753, by the 26 Geo. II. c. 33 (Lord Hardwicke's Act), s. 13, the
force of pre-contracts was at last conclusively cancelled.

* Const, Apost. vi. 17. f Cardwell's Synodalia, ii. 154.

THE BILL FOR DIVORCE. 95

"In the 130 years which followed this assumed method of
divorce, there were 132 bills of divorce granted by Parliament,
namely, eight in the first 45 years, 50 in the succeeding 60 years,
and 74 in the last 25 years, terminating in the year 1799."*

73. In the four last years of the series, there had been
no less than twenty-nine Divorce Bills. Again, the scope
of the Bills has been gradually extended. Cosin forbade
the adulteress to re-marry, and such was the rule of the
earlier Bills ; but the restriction has been withdrawn.
There has been maintained, we believe, until the present
day, under an order of the House of Lords, f a sham con-
test between its rules and its practice, which always ends
in the establishment of the power of the guilty parties
to intermarry if they please. Hence may arise, as Mr.
Davies Morgan observes, " a complicated system of collu-
sion and connivance. The wife conceals the faults of the
husband, that he may not be debarred of his Bill of
Divorce, in the ' benefits ' of which she is to participate." {
The husband and the adulterer may, in certain cases, have
their motives for acting in concert. And the House of
Commons likewise takes care, in passing Divorce Bills,
that the dismissed wife shall not be left without pecuniary
provision. The practice of passing these bills is bad, not
only because the principle of individual exemptions from
general laws is vicious and destructive, but because they
exhibit in the face of the country a most offensive example
of the power of wealth, and of the privileges of the great,
yet indeed they are aScopa Sajpa, privileges of the class
which have been termed the "mournful privileges" of
Scotland with respect to divorce ; while the plea of neces-

* Davies Morgan, ii. 240. See also Parl. Paper, No. 123, Session 2
of 1857 (Commons). f Parl. Rep. vol. li. p. 231.

J ii. 242. Compare Paley, iii. 3, 7 (Works, iv. 219).

96 THE BILL FOR DIVORCE.

sity is conclusively answered by the fact, that at no time
since the Gospel came into England has divorce ever been
accessible to any, except one very limited class of the
community.

74. In giving utterance to these strong opinions with
respect to the principle of divorce, to the practice of the
legislature, and to the corrupt encouragements inseparable
from either, it will not we trust be thought, that we
impute either licentious or irreligious motives to those
who from time to time have accepted what Parliament
has unwisely offered them. It is not to be supposed that
every individual can for himself examine critically the
text of Scripture, and unfold the ponderous tomes of
ancient lore, to trace the records of divorce. There is
nothing in it, as we freely confess with Paley, that con-
stitutes an offence against that law of universal nature
which we have a right to consider as absolutely and
unalterably binding on the whole community. IVIany an
afflicted husband has, we doubt not, thought it his abso-
lute duty to society to avail himself of what, if not the
law, the legislature tendered to him, as the appointed
mode of punishing a great moral and social offence. He
may have braced himself to the decision amidst tears and
prayers ; it may have been to him not only as a stroke
of vengeance or an effort for what is called freedom, but
an act of heroic and stern self-sacrifice, offered on the
altar of public justice.

75. The error has lain not with him, but with us all ;
with the Parliament that makes a practice of passing
these Bills, with the country which has not disapproved
the practice of the Parliament. Nay, it ascends still
higher, and we must here especially beware of allowing
strong and clear conviction on the merits of the argument

THE BILL FOR DIVORCE. 97

to draw us into sweeping censures ; because some writers
of the Church have themselves yielded in this case, and
a considerable part of Christendom has from a remote
period been induced to admit that divorce under certain
circumstances was allowable, and such divorce as might
be followed by re-marriage.

76. (III.) But we must draw towards a close.

It is now proposed that we should, for the sake of
meeting a proportion of miscarriages which is at present
infinitcsimally small, alter the conditions of every marriage
contract throughout the kingdom, present as well as
prospective, by opening it to contingencies of dissolution
which did not exist when it was framed, and which may
hereafter, by further onward steps, be greatly multiplied.

It is also proposed that we should change a law
which, independently of its higher titles to our assent, is
eminently definite and clear; which permits the active obli-
gations of marriage to pass into abeyance for a few well-
defined and well-known causes ; and which never, for any
consideration whatever, permits more. It is plain that
great objections may be taken to the minor or ecclesiastical
divorce ; but it appears to have some sanction from Scrip-
ture : * it does not permit the void place to be filled up ;
it holds out no corrupt inducement, for it offers only
privation as the condition, and the safeguard, of relief;
above all, it establishes no unpardonable sin, no unalter-
able severance ; the way of penitence, the door of pardon,
are still open ; and the angels of heaven, who rejoice over
a returning offender, may let all their sympathies flow
forth when Satan sees his wiles utterly defeated by the
complete reinstation, between two separated persons, of

* 1 Cor. vii. 11.
71.

98 THE BILL Foil DltOfcCli.

the sacred harmony, the profound and matchless oneness",
of Christian marriage.

77. In taking our leap from this well-defined position,
we have a right to ask whether we are to land on
terra finna, or in a quicksand ? Is the change now pro-
posed to be the first of an interminable series ? Or if not,
what are the qualities in it which, when it shall have
been adopted, are to guarantee it against other changes ?
Is it Scripture, is it authority, or is it reason, on which
we are to rely ? As to the first, the measure neither
stands, nor even proposes to stand, upon Scripture : its
promoters use the Divine Word as a pick to disturb
the solid fabric of the existing law, and then cast it
aside. For the rights of the woman, as drawn from that
sacred source, are either much less, or else infinitely
greater, than those conceded by the Bill. "With respect to
reason, we recommend those who favour the measure to
ask themselves what possible inducement, except the force
of truth, could have led Gibbon, after reviewing the
history of marriage and divorce at Rome, and, almost in
the very page where he sneers at investing it with a
religious character, to pronounce against its dissolution by
divorce ?

78. Again, let them read the statement of a man who,
if ever any man, contemplated the subject in the dry
light of pure utility. Paley observes that we cannot
justly say that divorce is prohibited by the law of nature ;
assumes that our Lord permitted it in the single case
of adultery; but gives his own judgment upon what
the "greatest happiness of the greatest number" would
require, in terms which seem to us to imply a rule
absolutely without exception :

**A lawgiver, whose counsels are directed by views of general

TfiE BILL FOR DIVORCE. 99

Utility, and obstructed by no local impediment, would make the
marriage contract indissoluble during the joint lives of the parties. . .
" Upon the whole, the power of divorce is evidently and greatly
to the disadvantage of the woman ; and the only question appears to
be, whether the real and permanent happiness of one-half of the
species should be surrendered to the caprice and voluptuousness of
the other."*

79. A testimony not less remarkable than any of these
is that rendered by Hume, who, in his Nineteenth Essay,
establishes his conclusions against Divorce, without any
exception whatever.

Once more, let them listen to the judgment of Lord
Stowell, when, in the name of humanity, he was
urged to separate a couple who were living together
unhappily :

" The general happiness of the married life is secured by its
indissolubility. When people understand that they must live
together, except for a very few reasons known to the law, they
learn to soften, by mutual accommodation, that yoke which they
know they cannot shake off; they become good husbands and good
wives from the necessity of remaining husbands and wives; for
necessity is a powerful master in teaching the duties it imposes."f

80. Again, as respects authority : this not inconsider-
able power wholly refuses its shelter to the Bill. "We do
not follow Christian antiquity, we do not follow Roman
Imperial law indeed this would be difficult, from its
many fluctuations : we are not to follow the Eastern
Church, nor the Church of Rome, nor the foreign
Reformers, among whom Bucer went the lengths of
Milton, and has accordingly been translated by him, with
abridgment :J we are not to follow the ReformatioLegum;
we are not even to conform to the Scottish law, which

* Paley, Mor. Phil. iii. 3, 7. f Sir W. Scott, Tibbs, p. 231.

J The Judgment of Martin Bucer ' (Works, i. 240).

H 2

100 THE BILL FOR DIVORCE.

permits divorce for adultery at the suit of the wife, as
well as of the husband.* The Bill contemplates a system
which has been selected by a purely arbitrary choice, and
is by no means better provided with defences for what of
restraint it retains, than with reasons for condemning
what it abolishes. It is as severely hit by the un j
answerable protests of Lord Lyndhurst, as it can be
by the powerful eloquence of the Bishop of Oxford, the
research of Mr. Keble, or the facts of Yan Gerlach.
Doubtless its authors have done their best: but the
state of the case appears to be this, that, when once the
clear ground of indissolubility has been abandoned, there
are scanty means, from the very nature of the case, for
drawing sharp lines of demarcation between one system
and another.

81. If one such line could be drawn anywhere, it
would be drawn to separate the case of adultery, or the
joint cases of adultery and desertion,- from every other
case. But neither of these is done by the Bill : it does
not recognise the principle of desertion, which can be not
less plausibly sustained, as a ground of divorce, from
Scripture, than that of adultery ; nor does it give effect
to its own rule when it forbids the suit of the woman.
And in truth, though the case of adultery is different
from every other, we demur entirely to the doctrine of
those who say, that it differs by being stronger than any
other. We earnestly wish that those, who think them-
selves secure in adopting generally the rule of no divorce
except for adultery, would consider the arguments of
Milton on the equal or greater virulence of other offences
against the contract. Nor would they do ill, supposing

Morgan Davies, ii. 344 ; Q. R. xlix. 237.

THE BILL FOR DIVORCE. 101

that they really wish to learn the extent of the dangers
they are provoking, to read ' Observations on the Mar-
riage Laws, particularly with reference to the case of
Desertion;'* and even the ' Thelypththora, or Defence
of Polygamy,' by Mr. Madan, which charges the whole
chapter of sins and miseries connected with the relation
of man and woman, to the account of marriage, except
when mitigated in its strictness by polygamy and divorce.

82. Man, restless under suffering, is apathetic enough
as to ascertaining the source of the blessings he enjoys, or
paying the debt of gratitude he owes in their behalf. And
now we do not seem to know by what great Providence
of God by what vigilance, labour, and courage of men
the institution of marriage has been wrought up, in this
fallen and disordered world, to the state of strictness in
which we see it, and which renders it the most potent
instrument by far, among all laws and institutions, both in
mitigating the principle of personal selfishness, and in
sustaining and consolidating the fabric of society. When
we allow ourselves to speak lightly about vindicating rights
and liberties, we forget that beyond all things else marriage
derives its essential and specific character from restraint :
restraint from the choice of more than a single wife ;
restraint from choosing her among near relatives by blood
or affinity ; restraint from the carnal use of woman in any
relation inferior to marriage ; restraint from forming any
temporary, or any other than a life-long, contract.

83. By the prohibition of polygamy, the great institu-
tion of marriage concentrates the affection, which its first
tendency is to diffuse ; by the prohibition of incest,
it secures the union of families as well as individuals,

London, 1815, Hatchard.

102 THE BILL FOE DIVOKCE.

and keeps the scenes of dawning life and early intimacy
free from the smallest taint of appetite ; by the prohibi-
tion of concubinage, it guards the dignity of woman and
chastens whatever might be dangerous as a temptation in
marriage, through the weight of domestic cares and
responsibilities; by the prohibition of divorce, above
all, it makes the conjugal union not a mere indulgence of
taste and provision for enjoyment, but a powerful instru-
ment of discipline and self-subjugation, worthy to take
rank in that subtle and wonderful system of appointed
means, by which the life of man on earth becomes his
school for heaven. But whence came all this elaborate
apparatus? It has been Christianity alone, which has
been able to restore to us the primitive treasure of
mankind, and even to enlarge that treasure.

84. Let it not for a moment be supposed that, when we
have set at nought the Christian sanctions, we can look
into what we call the law of nature as into a dictionary,
which will yield to us, when asked, a certain, and clear,
and safe response. The law of nature, that is, its per-
petual and universal law, does not, as we know, prohibit
much that we now justly repel as incest. The law of
nature does not prohibit polygamy or concubinage, or they
would not have been permitted to the patriarchs. The
law of nature fixes no particular limit to divorce ; and we
may be travelling towards the time when it will be
demanded and obtained for many causes, none of which
are forbidden by the law of nature : for sterility ; for
sensual offences other than adultery ; for attempts on life,
and other cruelty and violence ; for crime ; for lengthened
absence ; for lunacy and idiocy ; for contagious or incur-
able disease : lastly, for that which Scripture seems
to place first, for change of religion. We might even ad4

THE BILL FOR DIVOKCE. 103

to the dismal catalogue. If we desire to shut up these
sources of progressive innovation, it is not the law of
nature which will stand us in stead. The truth is, that
our conception of the law of nature itself is, in the
main, formed by Christian traditions, habits, and ideas ;
and that, as we unbind and let down our standard
of Christian law, our standard of the natiual law will
spontaneously sink in proportion.

85. AVe shall conclude by the brief mention of two
other points. One of them is the momentous character of
this change, as it regards woman. One of the noblest
social achievements of the Gospel has been to elevate the
11 ministering angel " of the world to a position of perfect
equality with a man, in all that relates to the essential
prerogatives of personal and spiritual being. It is the
most splendid example, without exception, which history
affords of the triumph on a large scale of the law of right
over the law of force, and of the law of love over the law
of lust. This equality, which the piercing sagacity of
Aristotle could not discern, nor the ethereal imagination
of Plato conceive, is now the simplest elementary concep-
tion of every Christian child ; for our nurseries know no
distinction between the reverence due to the one parent
and to the other. Many and many a long century did it
take to work out this great result ; and those who reproach
the English law of marriage with its having subsisted
under papal guardianship, should remember that the same
period, and the same tract of Christendom, which brought
it down in safety, delivered to us along with it that
precious legacy of customs and ideas, which has established
woman upon the very highest levels of our moral and
spiritual existence, for man's benefit no less than for
Jier own,

104 THE BILL FOR DIVORCE.

86. "We earnestly protest against a measure, by means
of which she is for the first time to be branded by our
Statute Book with a revived inequality. We are not
careful to weigh the differences in the moral guilt and
degradation of adultery, as between man and woman,
because they are differences of degree, not principle ; of
shade, not esserice ; for the essential heinousness of carnal
sin consists, for man and for woman alike, in the profana-
tion it offers to that Lord, into whose Body they are both
incorporated by the provisions of the Christian covenant.
But this measure, which divorces the woman for adultery,
and refuses to divorce the man unless he has added to the
adultery certain other acts of very peculiar contumely or
cruelty, while it in the first place exempts from punish-
ment at least nineteen twentieths, we might perhaps more
correctly say ninety-nine hundredths, of all the adulteries
that are committed in England ; in the second place too
plainly shows, at least in germ, that, while woman in mar-
riage is a servant, the service is not reciprocal ; that what
is to be punished in man is not the violation of contract
with an equal, but is rather the ill-usage of a dependent ;
savouring by far too much of that saying of Milton,
of whose system we are now adopting the first instalment,
that marriage was made indeed for man, but woman was
made for marriage.*

87. Our last word shall be for the Church, for the
reverence due to the religion she teaches, and for the
justice and consideration that ought to be paid to the
clergy she employs. She has hitherto had in the hands
of her officers the general discipline of divorce ; and she
administers, with the full authority of Parliament, the

* TetrachordoD, Works, i. 282,

THE BILL FOE DIVORCE. 105

sacred rite of marriage in terms which, with the utmost
solemnity, stamp it as an engagement for life. By law
she can marry no persons except such as shall absolutely
and unconditionally promise to be man and wife " so long
as they both shall live," and " until death them do part."
It is not a little remarkable that the terms of this contract
became at the Eeformation even more stringent than they
had been, for before it they were " till death us depart, if
holy Church it will ordain."*

88. "With what propriety or decency can it be exacted f
of the clergy that they shall forget this compact, which
in its terms is absolute, and which by Holy Scripture,
and by the law of the Church following Holy Scripture,
is for life, and shall re-marry, in virtue of the sentence
of a civil court, those who are married already by a sacred
rite done and never undone ? Only last year the clergy
were released by Parliament from a difficulty of a far
inferior order; for, being bound by a mere rubrical
direction of the Office to marry only upon banns or
licence, they were carefully exempted from any com-
pulsion to marry upon the certificate of a registrar.
The legislation now threatened will be, we do not
hesitate to say, an intolerable burden upon conscience;
and it will in our opinion strike a blow at the time-
honoured union between Church and State heavier than
any which it has yet received. Nor is it less an insult
to our religion supposing for a moment that it were
worked not by men but by steam, or by water-power like

* Maskell's 'Occasional Offices,' p. 46; and 'Ancient Liturgies,'
Preface, p. civ.

t [The Bill in its progress underwent a modification in this respect,
which narrowed and abated these particular objections : but did not
do more. W. E. G,, 1878.]

106 THE BILL FOR DIYOBCE.

the prayer-mill in Thibet that we should pretend to
efface, by a merely civil process, a rite which that religion
consecrates as " a great mystery of the Gospel."

89. A time may come, when society cannot bear the
strictness of the Christian law, and will reject the drill,
that is necessary to make the soldier. It will then
doubtless largely fall back upon that lower conception of
marriage, which treats it as a purely civil contract
between individuals. It may be said that that time has
already come, in a country like England : where, according
to the last returns, out of one hundred and sixty thousand
marriages, seven thousand six hundred, a number rela-
tively small but absolutely considerable, were celebrated
by the Registrar, and therefore with no special religious
authority. We are far from saying that the law offends
by permitting such marriages as these to persons whose
consciences do not enable them to enter into marriage by
the way properly Christian. So, then, if there must be
re-marriage, let that too be the Registrar's privilege.
The day, when marriage is made dissoluble by law in
England, will at best be noted in our Calendar with
charcoal, not with chalk. But if we are not strong
enough to hold the lower portion of society up to
Christianity, let us not be mad enough to drag the
very rites of Christianity down to the lowered and
lowering level of society. Let the salt of the earth
still keep its savour, and the darkness of the body be
illumined, as far as it may, by the eye that still wakes
within it.*

* [I record with regret, after twenty-one years, my conviction that
the general soundness of these arguments and anticipations has been
too sadly illustrated by the mischievous effect of the measure on the
conjugal morality of the country. W. E. G. ? 1878.J

III.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.*

a/j-epai 5' eTTiAomot
fiaprupey <ro$wTccTO<.

PlNDAB.

ADVERTISEMENT.

To this reprint of two articles from the Contemporary
Review, on subjects which have much disturbed the
Church of England, I prefix an observation on a single
point, that of attaching doctrinal significance to external
usages.

I have nowhere questioned that there are outward
usages, which may and must be of doctrinal significance.
!My proposition is simply this; that, where external
usages have become subjects of contention, and that
contention is carried to issue in courts of law, the field
should not be unnecessarily widened ; and the usage
should not be interpreted for judicial purposes with
reference to this or that particular dogma, so long, but
of course only so long, as it naturally and unconstrainedly
bears (p. 145) some sense not entailing such a consequence.

"Within the last few weeks has been withdrawn from

* [First reprinted, with revision, in 1875, from the Contemporary
Review of October 1874 and of July 1875. Now reprinted anew.}

108 THE CHUHCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

amongst us by Death, in the maturity of his years and
honour, the venerated Dean Hook, the greatest parish
priest of his age. I helieve he had taken his part, in a
decided and public manner, against the prohibition of the
eastward position of the consecrator in the celebration of
the Lord's Supper. I am glad to have an opportunity of
showing, as I think conclusively, how little it was in his
mind hereby to exclude the laity from their full partici-
pation in the solemn act, by citing a passage from a
private letter which he addressed to a young clergyman
in 1842, when questions of outward usage were debated
among us with what all now see to have been a needless
heat and violence. " I am afraid that many in their zeal
for the Church forget Christ, and in maintaining the
rights of the Clergy forget the rights of the laity ; who
are, as well as the Clergy, priests unto the Most High
God, and who indeed have as large a portion of the
Sacrifice of Prayer and Praise assigned to them in the
Prayer Book as the Clergy."

I seek to show, by this extract, how innocent must
have been, in the mind of this admirable man, the usage
of the eastern position; and how unwise and unjust it
would have been, in his case among others, to attach to it
the " doctrinal significance " of an intention to exclude
the laity from their share in the Eucharistic offering.

I believe it may be stated with confidence that there
have been times, when the northward position has been
recommended, with authority and learning, as being more
adapted than the eastward one to give full effect to the
teaching of the Sacrifice in the Lord's Supper.

The notes appended to this reprint are in brackets.

W. E. G.

12th Noveniber, 1875.

THE CHTJECH OF ENGLAND AND EITUALISM. 109

(I.) RITUAL AOT) RITUALISM.

1. FOE some months past, and particularly during the
closing weeks of the Session of Parliament, the word
Ritualism has had, in a remarkable degree, possession of
the public ear, and of the public mind. So much is clear.
The road is not so easy, when we proceed to search for
the exact meaning of the term. And yet the term itself
is not in fault. It admits, at first sight, of an easy and
unexceptionable definition. Ritualism surely means an
undue disposition to ritual. Ritual itself is founded on
the Apostolic precept, " Let all things be done decently
and in order ;" evo-^^tovws KOL Kara ratv, in right, graceful,
or becoming figure, and by fore-ordered arrangement,
1 Cor. xiv. 40. The exterior modes of divine service are
thus laid down as a distinct and proper subject for the
consideration of Christians.

2. But the word Ritualism passes, in the public mind,
for something more specific in terms, and also for some-
thing more variable, if not more vague, in character. In
a more specific form it signifies such a kind and such a
manner of undue disposition to ritual as indicate a design
to alter at least the ceremonial of religion established in
and by this nation, for the purpose of assimilating it to
the Roman or Popish ceremonial ; and, further, of intro-
ducing the Roman or Papal religion into this country,
under the insidious form, and silent but steady suasion,
of its ceremonial.

3. All this is intelligible enough ; and, if we start with
such a conception of Ritualism, we, as a people, ought to
know what we think, say, and do about it. But there is
another and a briefer account which may be given of it.

110 THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AXt) EITTTAtlSM.

There is a definition purely subjective, but in practice
more widely prevalent than any other. According to this
definition, Ritualism is to each man that which, in matter
of ritual, each man dislikes, and holds to be in excess.
"When the term is thus used, it becomes in the highest
degree deceptive ; for it covers, under an apparent unity,
meanings as many as the ripples of the smiling sea; as
the shades of antagonism to, or divergence from, the
most overloaded Roman ceremonial. When the term is
thus employed, sympathy flics, as if it were electricity,
through the crowd ; but it is sympathy based upon the
sound and not upon the sense. Men thus impelled mis-
chievously, but naturally, mistake the strength of their
feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated
mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of
logic. There could be no advantage, especially at the
present time, in approaching such a theme from this
point of view.

4. But perhaps it may be allowable to make an endea-
vour to carry this subject for a few moments out of the
polemical field into the domain of thought. I have but
little faith in coercion applied to matter of opinion and
feeling, let its titles be ever so clear. But a word spoken
in quietness, and by way of appeal to the free judgment
and reason of men, can rarely fail to be in season. I pro-
pose, accordingly, to consider what is the true measure
and meaning of Ritual, in order thus to arrive at a clear
conception of that vice in its use which is designated by
the name of Ritualism.

5. Ritual, then, is the clothing which, in some form,
and in some degree, men naturally and inevitably give to
the performance of the public duties of religion. Beyond
the religious sphere the phrase is never carried ; but the

THE CfltJTtCfl: Of EKGLAtfD A&D HITUALISU. Ill

thing appears, and cannot but appear, under other names.
In all the more solemn and stated public acts of man, we
find employed that investiture of the acts themselves with
an appropriate exterior, which is the essential idea of
ritual. The subject-matter is different, but the principle
is the same : it is the use and adaptation of the outward
for the expression of the inward.

6. It may be asked, "Why should there be any such
adaptation ? "Why not leave things to take their course ?
Is not the inward enough, if it be genuine and pure ?
And may not the outward overlay and smother it ? But
human nature itself, with a thousand tongues, utters the
reply. The marriage of the outward and the inward per-
vades the universe.

11 They blended form with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life."

And the life and teaching of Christ Himself are marked
by a frequent employment of signs in which are laid the
ground, and the foreshowing, both of Sacraments and of
Kitual.

7. True indeed it is that the fire, meant to warm, may
burn us ; the light, meant to guide, may blind us ; the
food, meant to sustain, may poison us ; but fire and light
and food are not only useful, they are indispensable. And
so it is with that universal and perpetual instinct of
human nature which exacts of us, that the form given ex-
ternally to our thoughts in word and act shall be one
appropriate to their substance. Applied to the circle of
civilised life, this principle, which gives us ritual in
religion, gives us the ceremonial of Courts, the costume of
Judges, the uniform of regiments, all the language of
heraldry and symbol, all the hierarchy of rank and title ;

112 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND EITUALISM.

and which, descending through all classes, presents itself
in the badges and the bands of Foresters' and Shepherds'
Clubs and Benefit Societies.

8. But if there be a marriage ordained by Providence,
and pervading Nature of the outward and the inward, it
is required in this, as in other marriages, that there be
some harmony of disposition between the partners. In
the perception of this harmony, a life-long observation has
impressed me with the belief that we as a people are, as a
rule, and apart from special training, singularly deficient.
In the inward realms of thought and of imagination, the
title of England to stand in the first rank of civilised
nations need not be argued, for it is admitted. It would
be equally idle to offer any special plea on its behalf in
reference to all classes of developments purely external.
The railway and the telegraph, the factory, the forge, and
the mine ; the highways beaten upon every ocean ; the
first place in the trade of the world, where population
would give us but the fifth ; a commercial marine equal-
ling that of the whole of Continental Europe : these may
be left to tell their own tale.

9. When we come to pure Art, we find ourselves beaten
by great countries, and even, in one case at least, by
small.*" But it is not of pure Art that I would now speak.
It is of that vast and diversified region of human life and
action, where a distinct purpose of utility is pursued, and
where the instrument employed aspires at the same time
to an outward form of beauty. Here lies the great mass
and substance of the JTunst-leben the Art-life, of a people.
Its sphere is so large, that nothing except pure thought is
of right excluded from it. As in the Italian language
scarcely a word can be found which is not musical, so a

* Belgium.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 113

music of the eye (I borrow the figure from Wordsworth)
should pervade all visible production and construction
whatever, whether of objects in themselves permanent, or
of those where a temporary collocation only of the parts
is in view.

10. This state of things was realised, to a great extent,
in the Italian life of the middle ages. But its grand and
normal example is to be sought in ancient Greece, where
the spirit of Beauty was so profusely poured forth, that it
seemed to fill the life and action of man as it fills the
kingdoms of Nature : the one, like the other, was in its
way a Kosmos. The elements of production, everything
embodied under the hand or thought of man, fell spon-
taneously into beautiful form, like the glasses in a kaleido-
scope. It was the gallant endeavour to give beauty as a
matter of course, and in full harmony with purpose, to all
that he manufactured and sold, which has made the name
of Wedgwood now, and I trust for ever, famous. The
Greeks, at least the Attic Greeks, were, so to speak, a
people of Wedgwoods. Most objects, among those which
we produce, we calmly and without a sigh surrender to
Ugliness, as if we were coolly passing our children through
the fire to Moloch. But in Athens, as we know from the
numberless relics of Greek art and industry in every form,
the production of anything ugly would have startled men
by its strangeness, as much as it would have vexed them
by its deformity ; and a deviation from the law of Taste,
the faculty by which Beauty is discerned, would have been
treated simply as a deviation from the law of nature.

1 1 . One and the same principle, it need hardly be ob-
served, applies to material objects which are produced
once for all, and to matters in which, though the parts
may subsist before and after, the combination of them is

VI.

114 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

for the moment only. The law that governed the design
of an amphora or a lamp, governed also the order of
a spectacle, a procession, or a ceremonial. It was not
the sacrifice of the inward meaning to the outward show :
that method of proceeding was a glorious discovery re-
served for the later, and especially for our own, time.
Neither was it the sacrifice even of the outward to the
inward. The Greek did not find it requisite : Nature had
not imposed upon him such a necessity. It was the
determination of their meeting-point; the expression of
the harmony between the two.

12. It is in regard to the perception and observance of
this law that the English, nay, the British people, ought
probably to be placed last among the civilised nations of
Europe. And if it be so, the first thing is to bring into
existence and into activity a real consciousness of the
defect. We need not, if it exist, set it down to natural
and therefore incurable inaptitude. It is more probably-
due to the disproportionate application of our given store
of faculties in other directions. To a great extent it may
be true that for the worship of beauty we have substi-
tuted a successful pursuit of comfort. But are the two in
conflict ? And first of all, is the charge against us, as we
are, a just one ?

13. To make good imputations of any kind against our-
selves is but an invidious office. It would be more agree-
able to leave the trial to the impartial reflection and
judgment of each man. But one of the features of the
case is this, that so few among us have taken the pains to
form, in such matters, even a habit of observation. And,
again, there are certain cases of exception to the general
rule. For example, take the instance of our rural habi-
tations. I do not speak of their architecture, nor espe-

THE CHU11CH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 115

cially do I speak of our more pretentious dwellings. But
the English garden is proverbial for beauty; and the
English cottage garden stands almost alone in the world.
Except where smoke, stench, and the havoc of manu-
facturing and mining operations have utterly deformed
the blessed face of Nature, the English cottager commonly
and spontaneously provides some little pasture for his eye
by clothing his home in the beauty of shrubs and flowers.
And even where he has been thus violently deprived of
his life-long communion with Nature, or where his lot is
cast in huge cities from which he scarcely ever escapes,
he still resorts to potted flowers and to the song of caged
birds for solace. This love of natural objects, which are
scarcely ever without beauty or grace, ought to supply a
basis on which to build all that is still wanting.

14. But I turn to another chapter. The ancient eccle-
siastical architecture of this country indicates a more
copiously diffused love and pursuit of beauty, and a richer
faculty for its production, in connection with purpose,
than is to be found in the churches of any other part of
Christendom. Not that we possess in our cathedrals and
greater edifices the most splendid of all examples. But
the parish churches of England are as a whole unrivalled ;
and it has been the opinion of persons of the widest know-
ledge, that they might even challengo without fear the
united parish churches of Europe, from their wealth of
beauty in all the particulars of their own styles of
architecture.

15. Still, it does not appear that these exceptions im-
pair the force of the general proposition, which is that as
a people we are, in the business of combining beauty with
utility, singularly uninstructed, unaccomplished, mal-
adroit, unhandy. If instances must be cited, they are not

I 2

116 THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND AND EITTTALISM.

far to seek. Consider the unrivalled ugliness of our towns
in general. Or put Englishmen to march in a procession,
and see how, instead of feeling instinctively the music
and sympathy of motion, they will loll, and stroll, and
straggle ; it never occurs to them that there is beauty or
solemnity in ordered movement, and that the instruction
required is only that simple instruction which, without
speech, Nature should herself supply to her pupils.

" Quid facerent, ipsi nullo didicere magistro."

16. Take again sad as it is to strike for once at the
softer portion of the species the dress of Englishwomen,
which, apart from rank and special gift or training or
opportunity, is reputed to be the worst in the European
world, and the most wanting alike in character and in
adaptation. Take the degraded state, in point of beauty,
at which all the arts of design, and all industrial produc-
tion, had arrived among us some fifty years ago, in the
iron age of George IV., and before the reaction which has
redeemed many of them from disgrace, and raised some
to real excellence.

17. But, indeed, in too many cases, our repentance is
almost worse than our transgressions. When we begin
to imbibe the conception that, after all, there is no reason
why attempts should not be made to associate Beauty with
usefulness, the manner of our attempts is too frequently
open to the severest criticism. The so-called Beauty is
administered in portentous doses of ornamentation some-
times running to actual deformity. Quantity is tho
measure, not quality, nor proportion. Who shall now
compete with the awakened Englishwoman for the house
of hair built upon her head, or for the measureless exten-
sion of her draggling train ? Who shall be the rival of

THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND HltfALISlI. 117

some English architects plastering their work with an
infinity of pretentious detail in order to screen from
attention inharmonious dimension and poverty of lines ?

18. Or that I may without disguise direct the charge
against the mind and spirit of the nation, embodied in its
Parliament and its Government what age or country can
match the practical solecisms exhibited in the following
facts and others like them? Forty years ago, we
determined to 'erect the most extensive building of
Pointed architecture in the world; namely, our Houses
of Parliament, or, as they are called, the Palace of
Westminster. "We entrusted the work to our most
eminent Italian architect. Once was pretty well ; but
once was not enough. So, twenty years ago, we deter-
mined to erect another vast building in the Italian style ;
namely, a pile of public offices, or, as some would call it,
a Palace of Administration ; and we committed the erec-
tion of it to our most experienced and famous architect in
the Pointed species. Thus each man was selected for his
unacquaintance with the genius of the method in which
he was to work.

19. Who can wonder, in circumstances like these, that
the spirit and soul of style are so often forgotten in its
letter ; that beauty itself unlearns itself, and degenerates
into mere display ; that for the attainment of a given end,
not economy of means, but profusion of means, becomes
our law and our boast ; that, in the Houses of Parliament,
dispersion of the essential parts over the widest possible
space marks a building where the closest concentration
should have been the rule ; and that the Foreign Office,
which is a workshop, exhibits a Staircase which no palace
of the Sovereign can match in its dimensions ?

If from the work of creation we turn to the world of

118 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

action, the same inoapacity of detecting discord, and the
same tendency to solecism will appear. In what country
except ours could (as I know to have happened) a parish
ball have been got up in order to supply funds for pro-
curing a parish hearse ?

20. I shall not admit that, in these remarks, I have
gone astray from the title and subject of the paper. What
is Ritualism ? It is unwise, undisciplined reaction from
poverty, from coldness, from barrenness, from nakedness ;
it is overlaying Purpose with adventitious and obstructive
incumbrance; it is departure from measure and from
harmony in the annexation of appearance to substance,
of the outward to the inward ; it is the caricature of the
Beautiful ; it is the conversion of helps into hindrances ;
it is the attempted substitution of the secondary for the
primary aim, and the real failure and paralysis of both.
A great deal of our architecture, a great share of our in-
dustrial production has been or is, it may be feared, very
Ritualistic indeed.

21. Let us now trace the operation of the same prin-
ciple in the subject-matter of religion. We encounter the
same defects, the same difficulties, the same excesses ; the
same want of trained habits of observation ; the same
forgetfulness of proportion ; the same danger of burying
it under a mass of ornament.

22. It must be admitted that the state of things, from
which the thing popularly known as Ritualism took his-
torically its point of departure, was dishonouring to Chris-
tianity, disgraceful to the nation ; disgraceful most of all
to that much-vaunted religious sentiment of the English
public, which in impenetrable somnolence endured it, and
resented all interference with it. Nakedness enough
there was, fifty and forty years ago, of divine service and

THE CHTJECH OP ENGLAND AND KITUALISif. 119

of religious edifices, among the Presbyterians of Scotland,
and among the Nonconformists of England. But, among
these, the outward fault was to a great extent redeemed
by the cardinal virtues of earnestness and fervour. The
prayer of the minister was at least listened to with a
pious attention, and the noblest of all the sounds that can
reach the human ear was usually heard in the massive
swell, and solemn fall, of the united voices of the con-
gregations.

23. But within the ordinary English Parish Church of
town or country, there was no such redeeming feature in
the action of the living, though the inanimate treasure
of the Prayer Book yet remained. Its warmth was stored,
like the material of fire in our coal-seams, for better
days. It was still the surviving bed or mould, in which
higher forms of religious thought and feeling were some
day to be cast. But the actual state of things, as to
worship, was bad beyond all parallel known to me in
experience or reading. Taking together the expulsion of
the poor and labouring classes (especially from the town
churches), the mutilations and blockages of the fabrics,
the baldness of the service, the elaborate horrors of the
so-called music, with the jargon of parts contrived to
exhibit the powers of every village roarer, and to pre-
vent all congregational singing ; and above all, the cold-
ness and indifference of the lounging or sleeping congre-
gations, our services were probably without a parallel in
the world for their debasement. As they would have
shocked a Brahmin or a Buddhist, so they hardly could
have been endured in this country had not the faculty of
taste, and the perception of the seemly or unseemly, been
as dead as the spirit of devotion.

24. There were exceptions, and the exceptions were

120 THE CHURCH 6I 1 EttGLA&D AND

beginning slowly to grow in number : but I speak of
the general state of things, such as I can myself recollect
it. In some places the older traditions and spirit of the
Church had survived all the paralysing influences of
the first Hanoverian generations ; in others they were
commended to the people by the lofty spirit, and English
pluck, of men like Dr. Hook ; in many cathedrals, with
stateliness, a remnant of true dignity was preserved. In
a third class of cases the clergy known as Evangelical had
infused into their congregations a reverent sense of the
purpose for which they met together. For this and for
other services these Evangelical clergymen were pointed at
with the finger of scorn by men of the very same stamp,
as those who are now most fervid in denouncing the
opposite section. And it was for reasons not very different ;
both were open to the charge that they did not thoroughly
conform to the prescriptions of the Prayer Book ; both
were apt to slide into the attitude and feeling of a clique ;
both Kither abounded in self-confidence, and were viewed
askance by authority ; both, it must be added, were zealous,
and felt, or held, to be troublesome.

25. But of the general tone of the services in the
Church of England at that time I do not hesitate to say,
it was such as when carefully considered would have
shocked not only an earnest Christian of whatever com-
munion, but any sincere believer in God ; any one who
held that there was a Creator and Governor of the world,
and that His creatures ought to worship Him. And that
which I wish to press upon the mind of the reader is,
that this state of things was one with which the members
of the Church generally were quite content. It was not
by lay associations with long purses that the people were
with difficulty and with much resistance awakened out

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 121

of this state of things. It was by the reforming Bishops
and Clergy of the Church of England. And, though the
main source of the evil without doubt lay deeper, such an
amount of effort could hardly have been needed, had the
faculties and life of Art been more widely diffused in the
country.

26. Had we, as a people, been possessed in reasonable
measure of that sense of harmony between the inward
and the outward, of which I have been lamenting the
weakness, it could not indeed have supplied the place of a
fervent religious life; but Divine worship, the great
public symbol and pledge of that life, never could have
fallen so low among us. 'And I think it has been in
some measure from the same defect that, during the
exterior revivals of the last forty years, there has been
so much misapprehension and miscarriage, so much dis-
satisfaction and disturbance. More than thirty years have
passed since agitation in London, and riot in Exeter,
were resorted to for the purpose, as was conscientiously
believed, of preserving the purity of the Reformed Reli-
gion against the use of the surplice in the pulpit, and
of the Prayer for the Church Militant. In vain the
Bishops and the clergy concerned made their protests,
and averred that they were advising, or acting in simple
" obedience to the law." The appeal to that watchword,
now so sacred, was utterly unavailing : Popery, and
nothing less than Popery, it was insisted, must be the
meaning of these changes.

27. To me it appeared at the time that their introduc-
tion, however legal, was, if not effected with the full and
intelligent concurrence of the flocks, decidedly unwise.
But as to these particular usages themselves, I held then,
and hold now, that their tendency, when calmly viewed,

22 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND HITUALISM.

must have been seen to be rather Protestant than Popish j
that Popery would have led to the use of a different and
lower garb in preaching, not to the use of the same vest-
ment which was also to be used for the celebration of the
Eucharist ; and that no prayer in the Prayer Book bears
so visibly the mark of the Reformation, as the Prayer for
the Church Militant. Be that as it may, I recollect with
pain a particular case, which may serve as a sample of
the feeling, and the occurrences, of that day. An able
and devoted young clergyman had accepted the charge of
a new district parish in one of our largest towns, with
trifling emoluments, and with large masses of neglected
poor, whom he had begun steadily and successfully to
gather in.* AVithin a year or two an agitation was raised,
not in his parish, but in the town at large ; it had grown
too hot to hold him ; and he was morally compelled to
retire from his benefice and from the place, for the offences
of having preached the morning sermon in the surplice,
read the Prayer for the Church Militant, and opened
his church for Divine service, not daily, but on all Festivals.
28. The inference to be drawn from this is not an
inference of self -laudation : not the ^/ACIS rot Trarcpcw
piy d/xtvovs ev;(o/A0' eu/arf but an inference in behalf
of a little self-mistrust, and a great deal of deliberation
and circumspection in these important matters. For, from
a view of the modes which have become usual for the
celebration of Divine service, in average churches not
saddled with a party name, there appears this rather
startling fact, that the congregations of the Church of
England in general now practise without suspicion, and

* [The town was Liverpool ; the church that of St. Thomas, Tox-
teth ; the clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Wilson. W. E. G., 1878 ]
f 11. iv.'405.

CHUEClt OP ENGLAND AND EITTJALISM. 123

the Parliament, representing the general feeling out of
doors, is disposed to enforce, by the establishment of more
stringent procedure, what thirty years ago was denounced,
and rather more than denounced, as Ritualism.

29. The truth is, that, in the word Ritualism, there is
involved much more than the popular mind seems to
suppose. The present movement in favour of ritual is
not confined to ritualists, neither is it confined even to
Churchmen. It has been, when all things are considered,
quite as remarkable among Nonconformists and Presby-
terians; not because they have as much of it, but because
they formerly had none, and because their system appeared
to have been devised and adjusted in order to prevent its
introduction, and to fix upon it even in limine the aspect
of a flagrant departure from first principles. Crosses on
the outside of chapels ; organs within them ; rich pointed
architecture ; that flagrant piece of symbolism, the steeple;
windows filled with subjects in stained glass ; elaborate
chanting ; the use of the Lord's prayer, which is no more
than the thin end of the wedge that is to introduce fixed
forms ; and the partial movements in favour of such forma
already developed ; these are among the signs which, taken
all together, form a group of phenomena evidently refer-
able to some cause far more deep, and wide- working than
mere servile imitation, or the fashion of the day. In the
case of the organ, be it recollected that many who form
part of the creme de la creme of Protestantism have now
begun to use that which the Pope, adhering in this res-
pect to primitive usage, does not hear in his own Chapel
or his sublime Basilica, and which the entire Eastern
Church has ever shrunk from employing in its services.

30. AVith this I will mention a familiar matter, though it
may provoke a smile. It is the matter of clerical costume ;

124 THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND

on which I will not scruple to say that, in my judgment,
the party of costume is right. A costume for the clergy
is as much connected with discipline and self-respect, as
an uniform for the army ; and is no small guarantee for
conduct. The disuse of clerical costume was a recent inno-
vation ; but thirty-five or forty years ago the abuse had
become almost universal. It was consummated by the
change in lay fashions a very singular one to a nearly
exclusive use by men of black. The reaction began in
the cut of the waistcoat, which, as worn by the innovators,
was buttoned all the way up to the cravat. This was
deemed so distinctly Popish, that it acquired the nickname
of "The Mark of the Beast "; and it is a fact that, among
the tailors of the west-end of London, this shape of waist-
coat was familiarly known as " the M. B. waistcoat." Any
one who will now take the pains to notice the dress of the
regular Presbyterian or Dissenting minister will, I think,
find that, in a great majority of instances, he too, when in
his best, wears, like the clergyman, the M. B. waistcoat.
31. True, the distance between these Presbyterian and
Nonconforming services, and those of the Church of Eng-
land, in point of ritual, remains as great, or perhaps
greater, than before ; but that is because one and the
same forward movement has taken possession of both,
only the speeds may have been different. I will give a
case in point. Five-and-thirty years ago hardly any one
had dreamt of a surpliced choir in a parish church. When
such an use came in, it was thought to be like a sign of
the double superlative in High Churchmanship, and was
deemed the most violent experiment yet made upon the
patience of the laity. How stands the matter now ? As
the purity of Welsh Protestantism is well known, I will
take an instance from Wales. In a Welsh town, of no

THE CHUKCH OF ENGLAND AND HITUALISM. 125

great size, the clergyman of the parish was moved, not
long ago, to introduce the surplice for his choir. He
determined upon a plebiscite ; and placed printed slips of
paper about the seats, requesting a written aye or no.
Near two hundred and fifty answers were given : and of
the answers more than four-fifths were ayes.* In truth,
there is a kind of ritual race ; all have set their faces the
same way, and none like to have their relative backward-
ness enhanced, while the absolute standing-point is con-
tinually moved forward.

32. This is matter of fact, and of the very widest reach,
compassing a field of which but a little corner was covered
by the recent Act of Parliament ; and now the question
rises to the lip, Ought this matter of fact, which will
scarcely be disputed, to be viewed with satisfaction or
with displeasure ?

In my opinion this is a question extremely difficult to
answer; and I will not affect to be able to give it a com-
plete reply. It seems to me that ritual is, in what amount
I do not attempt now to inquire, a legitimate accom-
paniment, nay, effect, of the religious life; but I view
with mistrust and jealousy all tendency, wherever shown,
either to employ ritual as its substitute, or to treat ritual
as its producing cause. All, however, that I have thus
far endeavoured to insinuate is, that the subject is a very
large one that it cannot be dealt with offhand that it is
exceedingly significant and pregnant in the manifestations
it supplies. If we do not live in one of the great thinking
ages, we live in an age which supplies abundant materials
of thought ; and with the many problems, which we shall

* [Another case almost exactly similar has recently been reported
in the newspapers at East Harborne, near Birmingham.]

126 THE CHFKCH OF ENGLAND AND EITTJALISM.

leave to our children -for solution, we may hand down to
them the cordial wish that they may make more profitable
use of these materials than we have done.

33. If we survey the Christian world, we shall have
occasion to observe that ritual does not bear an unvarying
relation to doctrine. The most notable proof of this asser-
tion is to be found in the Lutheran communion. It is
strongly and, except where opinion has deviated in the
direction of rationalism, uniformly Protestant. But in
portions of the considerable area over which it stretches,
as for example in Denmark, in Sweden and Norway, even
on the inhospitable shores of Iceland, altars, vestments,
lights (if not even incense) are retained : the clergyman
is called the priest, and the Communion Office is termed
the Mass. But there is no distinction of doctrine whatever
between Swedish or Danish, and German Lutherans : nor,
according to the best authorities, has the chain of the
Episcopal succession been maintained in those countries.
Even in this country, there are some of those clergy who
are called Broadchurchmen, nay some who have a marked
indifference to doctrine, and what might almost be called
a hatred of dogma, yet who also are inclined to musical
ornament, and other paraphernalia of Divine service.

34. From these facts, as well as from the growing ritual
of the non-Episcopal Christians of this country, we may
perceive that the unqualified breadth with which the
argument has been drawn from ritual to doctrine in our
discussions has evinced something of that precipitancy
to which, from the narrow and insular character of his
knowledge, as well as from the vigour of his will, the
Englishman is particularly liable. Here also, from that
deficiency which I have noted in the faculty of adapting
the outward to the inward, he is apt to blunder into con-

THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 127

founding what is only appropriate and seemly with what
partakes of excess or invidious meaning. At the same
time, an important connection between high doctrine and
high ritual is to he traced to a considerable extent in the
Church of England, and in commenting on over-statement
I do not seek to understate. This connection is, however,
for the present hopelessly mixed with polemical con-
siderations, and therefore excluded from the field of these
remarks.

35. But there is a question, which it is the special
purpose of this paper to suggest for consideration by my
fellow-Christians generally, which is more practical and
of greater importance, as it seems, to me, and has far
stronger claims on the attention of the nation and of the
rulers of the Church, than the question whether a handful
of the clergy are or not engaged in an utterly hopeless
and visionary effort to Eomanise the Church and people of
England. At no time since the sanguinary reign of Mary
has such a scheme been possible. But if it had been
possible in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, it
would still have become impossible in the nineteenth ;
when Borne has substituted for the proud boast of semper
eadem a policy of violence and change in faith ; when she
has refurbished and paraded anew every rusty tool she
was fondly thought to have disused; when no one can
become her convert without renouncing his moral and
mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty
at the mercy of another;* and when she has equally

* [Without receding from the opinion given in the text, I nevertheless
believe, as well as hope, that some, at least, who have joined the Latin
Church since the great change effected by the Vatican Council, would
upon occasion given, whether with logical warrant or not, adhere under
all circumstances to their civil loyalty and duty. W. E. G., 1878.]

128 THE CHUECH OP ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

repudiated modern thought and ancient history. I
cannot persuade myself to feel alarm as to the final issue
of her crusades in England, and this although I do not
undervalue her great powers of mischief by persevering
proselytism.

36. But there are questions of our own religious well-
being that lie nearer home. And one of them is whether,
as individuals, we can justly and truly say that the present
movement in favour of ritual is a healthy movement for
each of us ; that is whether it gives or does not give us
assistance in offering a more collected act of worship, when
we enter the temple of the Most High, and think we go
there to offer before Him the sacrifice of praise and prayer,
and thanksgiving ? Of one thing we may be quite certain,
and it is this. To accumulate observances of ritual is to
accumulate responsibility. It is the adoption of a higher
standard of religious profession ; and it requires a higher
standard of religious practice. If we study, by appropriate
or by rich embellishment, to make the Church more like
the ideal of the House of God, and the services in it more
impressive, by outward signs of His greatness and good-
ness, and of our littleness and meanness, all these are so
many voices addressing us, voices audible and intelligible,
though inarticulate ; and to let them sound in our ears,
unheeded, is an offence against His majesty. If we are
not the better for more ritual, we are the worse for it. A
general augmentation of ritual, such as we see on every
side around us, if it be without any corresponding enhance-
ment of devotion, means more light, but not more love.

37. Indeed, it is even conceivable, nay far from improb-
able, that augmentation of ritual may import not in-
crease but even diminution of fervour. Such must be the
result in every case where the imagery of the eye and

THE CHUBCE OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 129

ear, actively multiplied, is allowed to draw off the energy,
which ought to have its centre in the heart. There cannot
be a doubt that the beauty of the edifice, the furniture,
and the service, though their purpose be to carry the mind
forward, may induce it to rest upon those objects them-
selves. Wherever the growth and progress of ritual,
though that ritual be in itself suitable and proper, is
accepted, whether consciously or unconsciously, and
whether in whole or in part, by the individual, as
standing in the stead of his own concentration and travail
of spirit in devotion, there the ritual, though good in
itself, becomes for him so much formality, that is so
much deadness.

38. Now there are multitudes of people who will accede
at once to this proposition, who will even hold it to be no
more than a truism, but with a complacent conviction, in
the background of their minds, that it does not touch their
case at all. They may be Presbyterians or Noncon-
formists ; or they may be Churchmen whose clergyman
preaches against Popery open or concealed, or who have
themselves subscribed liberally to prosecute the Rev. this,
or the Rev. that, for Ritualism. ]STo matter. They, and
their clergyman too, may nevertheless be flagrant Ritual-
ists. For the barest minimum of ritual may be a screen
hiding from the worshipper the Object of his worship:
nay, will be such a screen, unless the worshipper bestirs
himself to use it as a help, and to see that it is not a
snare.

39. In the class of cases supposed, the ready acquies-
cence of a few moments back has by this time probably
been converted into a wondering scepticism. And there is
at first sight something of paradox in the assertion that
all ritual, not only elaborate but modest, not only copious

VI. K

130 THE CHTJBCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

but scanty, has its Dangers. It seems hard to preach sus-
picion and misgiving against what is generally approved
or accepted by the most undeniable Protestants. But the
very same person, who errs by making his own conscience
in ritual a measure for the consciences of other men, lest
they should run to excess, may be himself in surfeit while
he dooms them to starve, for what is famine to them may
be to him excess ; what they can assimilate may be to
him indigestible. It is difficult, I think, to fix a maximum
of ritual for all times and persons, and to predicate that
all beyond the line must be harmful ; but it is impossible
to fix a minimum, and then to say, up to that point we
are safe. No ritual is too much, provided it is subsidiary
to the inner work of worship ; and all ritual is too much,
unless it ministers to that purpose.

40. If there be paradox in this assertion, the explana-
tion of it is not far to seek. It will be found in the
removal of a prevailing and dangerous, error in kindred
subject-matter. It is too commonly assumed that, pro-
vided only we repair to our church or our chapel, as the
case may be, the performance of the work of adoration is
a thing which may be taken for granted. And so it is,
in the absence of unequivocal signs to the contrary, as
between man and man. Eut not as between the indi-
vidual man and his own conscience in the hour of self-
review. If he knows anything of himself, and unless he
be a person of singularly favoured gifts, he will know that
the work of Divine worship, so far from being a thing of
course even among those who outwardly address them-
selves to its performance, is one of the most arduous
which the human spirit can possibly set about.

41. The processes of simple self-knowledge are difficult
enough. All these, when a man worships, should be fresh

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 131

in his consciousness : and this is the first indispensable
condition for a right attitude of the soul before the foot-
stool of the Eternal. The next is a frame of the affections
adjusted on the one hand to this self-knowledge, and on
the other to the attributes and the more nearly felt
presence, of the Being before Whom we stand. And the
third is the sustained mental effort necessary to complete
the act, wherein every Christian is a priest ; to carry our
whole selves, as it were with our own hands, into that
nearer Presence, and, uniting the humble and unworthy
prosphora with the one full perfect and sufficient Sacrifice,
to offer it upon the altar of the heart : putting aside every
distraction of the outward sense, and endeavouring to
complete the individual act as fully, as when in loneliness,
after departing out of the flesh, we shall see eternal things
no longer through, but without, a veil.

42. Now, considering how we live, and must live, our
common life in and by the senses, how all sustained
mental abstraction is an effort, how the exercise of
sympathy itself, which is such a power in Christian
worship, is also a kind of bond to the visible ; and then
last of all, with what feebleness and fluctuation, not to
say with what wayward duplicity, of intention we under-
take the work, is it not too clear that in such a work we
shall instinctively be too apt to remit our energies, and to
slide unawares into mere perfunctory performance ? And
where and in proportion as the service of the body is more
careful, and the exterior decency and solemnity of the
public assembling mere unimpeachable, these things them-
selves may contribute to form important elements of that
inward self-complacency which makes it so easy for us,
whenever we ourselves are judge and jury as well as
" prisoner at the bar," to obtain a verdict of acquittal.

* 2

132 THE CHTJECH OP ENGLAND AND EITTrALISM 1 .

43. In other words, the very things, which find their
only sufficient warrant in their capacity and fitness to
assist the work of inward worship, are particularly apt to
"be accepted by the individual himself as a substitute for
inward worship, on account of that very capacity and
fitness, of their inherent beauty and solemnity, of their
peculiar and unworldly type. So that ritual, because it is
full of uses, is also full of dangers. Though it is clear that
men increase responsibility by augmenting it, they do not
escape from danger by its diminution : nothing can make
ritual safe except the strict observance of its purpose,
namely, that it shall supply wings to the human soul in
its callow efforts at upward flight. And such being the
meaning of true ritual, the just measure of it is to be
found in the degree in which it furnishes that assistance
to the individual Christian.

44. The changes, then, in our modes of performing
Divine service ought to be answers to the inward call of
minds advancing and working upwards in the great work
of inward devotion. But, when we see the extraordinary
progress of ritual observance during the last generation,
who is there that can be so sanguine as to suppose that
there has been a corresponding growth of inward fervour,
and of mental intelligence, in our general congregations ?
There is indeed a rule of simple decency to which, under
all circumstances, we should strive to rise for indecency
in public worship is acted profanity, and is grossly
irreligious in its effects. But, when the standard of
decency has once been attained, ought not the further
steps to be vigilantly watched, I do not say by law, but
but by conscience ?

45. There are influences at work among us, far from
spiritual, which may work in the direction of formalism.

THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND fcfTUALIStf. 133

through the medium of ritual. The vast amount of new-
made wealth in the country does not indeed lead to a
display as profuse in the embellishment of the house
of God, as in our own mansions, equipages, or dresses.
Tet the wealthy, as such, have a preference for churches
and for services with a certain amount of ornament:
and it is quite possible that no small part of what we
call the improvements in fabrics and in worship may
be due simply to the demand of the richer man for a more
costly article, and thus may represent not the spiritual
growth but the materialising tendencies of the age.
Again, there is a wider diffusion of taste among the
many, though the faculty itself may not, with the few,
have gained a finer edge ; and, with this, the sense of the
incongruous, and the grotesque, cannot but make some
way. Here is another agency, adapted to improving the
face and form of our religious services, without that
which, as I would contend, is the indispensable condition
of all real and durable improvement; namely, a corre-
sponding growth in the appreciation 'of the inward work
of devotion.

46. But a third and very important cause, working in
the same direction, has been this. The standard of life
and of devotion has risen among the clergy far more gener-
ally, and doubtless also more rapidly, than among the
laity. It is more than possible that, in many instances,
their own enlarged and elevated conception of what
Divine service ought to be in order to answer the genuine
demands of their own inward life, may have induced
them to raise it in their several churches beyond any real
capacity of their congregations to appreciate and turn it
to account.

47. Even in the theatres of our day, the spectacle

134 THE CHURCH OF ENGlAND AKD HITtJALISM.

threatens to absorb the drama ; and show, which should
be the servant, to become the master. Much more is the
danger real in the sanctuary, for the function of an
audience is mainly passive, but that of a congregation is
one of high and arduous, though unseen, activity.
. 48. But it is time to draw together the threads of this
slight discourse upon a subject very far indeed from
flight. "Whatever may be said of the merits of authori-
tative and coercive repression in matters of ritual and
I am not very sanguine as to its effects assuredly they
never can dispense with the necessity, or perform the
office, of the moral restraints of an awakened conscience.
Some may be found to dispute the proposition that their
gripe is hard, where a tender touch is needed ; but who
can question this at least, that they will reach but few,
where many require a lesson ? Attendance on religious
services is governed among us to a great extent, especially
in towns, and most of all in the metropolis, by fashion,
taste, and liking : but no preference is really admissible
in such a matter, except the strict answer of the conscious
mind to the question, What degree and form of ritual is it
that helps me, and what is it that hampers and impedes
me, in the performance of the work for which all congre-
gations of Christians assemble in their several churches ?

49. If we consider the nature of Divine Service alto-
gether at large, the presumption is against alteration, as
such, in the manner of it. For the nature of God and
the nature of man, and the relation of the one to the
other, are constant ; and in this solemn subject-matter,
mere fashion, which is a principle of change questionable
even in other departments, and which may be denned as
change for its own sake, ought to have no place whatever.
TJTe varieties required by local circumstances or tempera-

!EHE cmmcs OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 135

ments can be no novelties, and will probably in the lapse
of time have asserted themselves sufficiently in the sub-
sisting arrangements.

50. But if we limit and regulate our consideration of
the case by a careful reference to our own time and
country, the presumption is much weakened, possibly in
one sense even reversed. For we have been emerging
from a period, in which the public worship of God had
confessedly been reduced to a state of great external
debasement. In this state of things, a Reformation was
necessary. Happily, it came ; and it surmounted the
breakers and the floods of prejudice. There was therefore
a presumption not against, but in favour of change of
some kind. When, however, the further question was
reached of what kind the change ought to be, it remained
true that each particular change required to be examined
on its own merits, and to make its own case.

51. The tests to be applied would, in language rather
popular than exact, be such as the following questions
might supply :

a. Is the change legally binding ? an inquiry, in which
the element of desuetude cannot be absolutely excluded
from the view of a clergyman or of his flock.

b. Is it in its own nature favourable to devout and
intelligent adoration of God in the sanctuary ?

c. "Will it increase, or will it limit, the active partici-
pation of the flock in the service ?

d. Is it conformable to the spirit of the Prayer Book ?

e. Is it agreeable to the desires of this particular con-
gregation ?

/. Is it adapted to their religious and their mental
condition ; and likely to bring them nearer to God in the
act of worship, or to keep them further from Him ; to

136 THE cmracBt OP ENGLAND AND

collect or to disperse their thoughts, to warm or to freeze
their affections ?

It seems to me that, as a general rule, an answer to all
these questions should be ready before a change in ritual
is adopted : and that, where law interposes no impedi-
ment, still, if any of them has to be answered in the
negative, such changes can hardly be allowable.

52. Except in the single case where the standard of
decency has not been reached, I am wholly at a loss to
conceive any excuse for contravening the general sense
of a congregation by optional changes in ritual. If the
clergyman thinks the matter to be one of principle, should
he not instruct them ? If he sees it to be one of taste
and liking, should he not give way to them ? Should he
not be the first to perceive and hold that unsettlement in
matters of religion is in itself no small evil : and to reflect
that, by making precipitately some change which he
approves, he may prepare the way and establish the pre-
cedent for a like precipitancy in other changes which he
does not approve ? Especially, what case can there be
(except that of decency, and such a case can hardly
be probable) in which he will be justified in repelling
and dispersing his congregation for the sake of his
service ?

53. Doubtless it is conceivable, that Divine Service
may be rendered by careful litual more suitable to the
dignity of its purpose. But let us take, on the other
hand, a church where a ritual thus improved has been
forced upon a congregation to whom its provisions were
like an unknown tongue, and whom it has therefore
banished from the walls of the sanctuary. Is it conceiv-
able that such a spectacle can be a pleasing one in the
sight of the Most High ? Did Christianity itself come

THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND ErTUALISlt. 137

down into the world in abstract perfection and in full
development ? or was it not rather opened on the world
with nice regard to the contracted pupil of the human
eye, which it was gradually to enlarge, unfolding itself
from day to day, in successive lessons of doctrine and
event, here a little and there a little ? The jewels in the
crown of the Bride are the flocks within the walls of the
temple ; and men ever so hard of hearing are better than
an empty bench.

54. I will, however, presume to express a favourable
inclination towards one class of usages, with a corre-
sponding aversion to their opposites. I heartily appre-
ciate whatever, within the limits of the Prayer Book,
tends to augment the active participation of the laity in
the services: as, for example, their joining audibly in the
recital of the General Thanksgiving ; or the aid they may
give the clergyman (often so valuable even in a physical
point of view) by reading the Lessons.*

55. Again, if ritual be on the increase among us, ought
it not to receive at once its complement and (in one
sense) its counterpoise, in a greater care, fervency, and
power, of preaching? Nothing, in my opinion, is of
more equivocal tendency than high ritual with a low
appreciation of Christian doctrine. But if there be high
ritual and sound doctrine too, these will not excuse in-
adequate appreciation or use of the power of the pulpit.

* [I notice with pleasure that this practice has not yet suffered the
blight of association with party. Again ; it is observed truly that there
is no pointing of the clauses in the General Thanksgiving, as there is
in the General Confession. But the epithet General, used in both
cases, appears to suggest like practice in each ; though I admit it may
also mean a thanksgiving for blessings generally, as distinguished from
particular blessings. Without presuming to give an opinion, I may be
allowed to hope the practice is not illegal.]

138 THE CHTJUCH OP ENGLAND AND EITTTALISM.

If ritual does its work in raising the temper of devotion,
it is a preparation for corresponding elevation in the work
of the preacher : and if the preacher is able to warm, to
interest, and to edify his hearers, then he improves their
means of profiting by ritual, and arms them against its
dangers.

56. But if self-will and want of consideration for others
have been, and, in a diminished degree, are still, a snare
to the clergy, have not we of the laity the same in-
firmities with far less excuse ? Is it not strange to see
with what tenacity many a one of us will, when he
casually attends a church other than his usual one, adhere
to some usage or non-usage perfectly indifferent, but with
the effect either of giving positive scandal or of exciting
notice, that is, of distracting those around him from their
proper work ? How is this like the Apostle's rule, who
was all things to all men ? Or have we found out that
the rules of Scripture were made, as well as the discipline
of the Church, for the clergy alone ? But even if it be
the layman's privilege at once to rule the Church and
to disobey it at his will, how is it that he does not respect
the feelings of other laymen by decently conforming in
all matters indifferent to the usages of the congregation
to which he has chosen for the nonce to attach himself ?

57. It is much to be feared that when the clergyman
has unlearned his own unreasonableness, he may still
have to endure much from the unreasonableness of some
handful of units among his flock. But if he be indeed
worthy of his exalted office, he will see in the first place
how little charity to the recalcitrant there will be in
forcing on them even improvements which to them cai
only be stumbling-blocks. Next, if he put on the armour
of patience and of love, he will soon become aware of its

CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND IUTFALISM. 139

winning efficacy. Lastly, there is an expedient which
is in his own hands, and to which he cannot be prevented
from resorting. Those defective perceptions of the out-
ward manner of things, which I take to be national, must
often make their mark on the clergy as well as on us of
the laity. I remember long ago hearing a clergyman
(who left the Church of England a few days later) com-
plain of a want of reverence in his choir boys, with a
demeanour, though it was in his beautiful church, fit for
a tavern.

58. The first, and last, and most effective article of
ritual is deep reverence in the clergyman himself.
Nothing can supply its place ; and it will go far to supply
the place of everything. It abhors affectation; and it
does not consist in bowings and genuflexions, or in any
definite acts : nequeo monstrare, et sentio tantum. The
reason why this reverence is the most precious part of
ritual, is because ritual in general consists ex vi termini in
symbol; but reverence means, together with a sign, a
thing signified. It lives and moves and has its being in a
profound sense of the Divine presence, expressing itself
through a suitable outward demeanour. But if the de-
meanour be without the sentiment, it is not reverence, it
is only the husk and shell of reverence.

59. The clergyman is necessarily the central point of
his congregation. Their reverence cannot rise above his ;
and their reverence will if insensibly yet continually
approach his. If this be the key-note of the service,
questions of ritual will adjust themselves in harmony
with it. And one reason why the point may be more
safely pressed is, because reverence need not be the pro-
perty or characteristic of any school in particular. It
distinguished the Margaret Chapel of forty years ago,

140 THE CHTTRCa OP ENGLAND AND UlTtTALISM.

when the pastors of that church were termed Evangelical.
It subsisted in that same chapel thirty years ago, when
Mr. Oakley (now, alas ! ours no more) and Mr. Upton
Richards gave to its very simple services, such as would
now scarcely satisfy an average congregation, and where
the fabric was little less than hideous, that true solemnity
which is in perfect concord with simplicity. The Papal
Church now enjoys the advantages of the labours of Mr.
Oakley ; who united to a fine musical taste, a much finer
and much rarer gift, in discerning and expressing the
harmony between the inward purposes of Christian worship
and its outward investiture, and who then had gathered
round him a congregation the most devout and hearty that
I (for one) have ever seen in any communion of the
Christian world.

60. And now, for my last word, I will appeal to high
authority.

In the fourteenth chapter of Saint Paul's First Epistle
to the Corinthians may be found, what I would call the
code of the New Testament upon ritual. The rules laid
down by the Apostle to determine the comparative value
of the gifts then so common in the Church will be found
to contain the principles applicable to the regulation of
Divine service ; and it is touching to observe that they
are immediately subjoined to that wonderful effusion
describing " Charity,' 7 with which no ethical eloquence of
Greece or Rome can suitably compare. The highest end,
in the Apostle's mind, seems to be (v. 5) " that the Church
may receive edifying." At present there is a disposition
to treat a handful of men as scapegoats ; and my fear is
Hot only that they may suffer injustice, but lest far wider
evils, than any within their power to cause or cure, should
creep onwards unobserved. As rank bigotry, and what is

THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 141

far worse, base egotistic selfishness may find their account,
at moments like this, in swelling the cry of Protestantism,
so much of no less rank worldliness may lurk in the
fashionable tendency not only to excessive but even to
moderate ritual. The best touchstone for dividing what
is wrong and defining what is right in the exterior apparel
of Divine service will be found in the holy desire and
authoritative demand of the Apostle, "that the Church
may receive edifying," rather than in abstract imagery of
perfection on the one hand, or any form of narrow tra-
ditional prejudice on the other.

NOTE. I subjoin to the article, now reprinted, Six Resolutions,
in which, when the Public Worship Bill was before the House of
Commons (July 1874), I endeavoured to set forth what appeared to
me to offer a more safe and wise basis of legislation.

[1. That, in proceeding to consider the provisions of the bill for
the Regulation of Public Worship, this House cannot do otherwise
than take into view the lapse of more than two centuries since the
enactment of the present Rubrics of the Common Prayer Book of
the Church of England ; the multitude of particulars embraced in
the conduct of divine service under their provisions ; the doubts
occasionally attaching to their interpretation, and the number of
points they are thought to leave undecided ; the diversities of local
custom which under these circumstances have long prevailed ; and
the unreasonableness of proscribing all varieties of opinion and
usage among the many thousands of congregations of the Church
distributed throughout the land.

2. That this House is therefore reluctant to place in the hands of
every single Bishop, on the motion of one or of three persons howso-
ever defined, greatly increased facilities towards procuring an abso-
lute ruling of many points hitherto left open and reasonably allow-
ing of diversity ; and thereby towards the establishment of an
inflexible rule of uniformity throughout the land, to the prejudice,
in matters indifferent, of the liberty now practically existing.

142 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

3. That the House willingly acknowledges the great and exem-
plary devotion of the clergy in general to their sacred calling, but
is not on that account the less disposed to guard against the indis-
cretion, or thirst for power, or other fault of individuals.

4. That the House is therefore willing to lend its best assistance
to any measure recommended by adequate authority, with a view to
provide more effectual securities against any neglect of or departure
from strict law which may give evidence of a design to alter,
without the consent of the nation, the spirit or substance of the
established religion.

5. That, in the opinion of the House, it is also to be desired that
the members of the Church, having a legitimate interest in her
services, should receive ample protection against precipitate and
arbitrary changes of established custom by the sole will of the
clergyman, and against the wishes locally prevalent among them ;
and that such protection does not appear to be afforded by the
provisions of the bill now before the House.

6. That the House attaches a high value to the concurrence of
Her Majesty's Government with the ecclesiastical authorities in the
initiative of legislation affecting the Established Church.]

[I cannot refuse myself the satisfaction of referring to vol. i., p. 89,
where will be found the opinions of the Prince Consort on the best
method of checking innovation in the Church. W. E. G., 1878.]

THE CHUKCH OF ENGLAND AND KITUALISM. 143

(II.) IS THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND WORTH
PRESERVING?

" De vita et sanguine certant"M$. xii. 763.

1. A PAPEK contributed to the Contemporary Review for
October 1874, elicited, together with many expressions
of interest and approval, many also of disappointment.
There seemed to have been an expectation that the Eseay
might untie, or cut, the knot of the questions which had
been so warmly, if not fiercely, agitated during the pre-
ceding Session of Parliament. But it had no such ambi-
tious aim. Its object was, within the limited sphere of
my means, simply to dispose men towards reflection ; to
substitute for the temper of the battle-field, good or
needful as in its place that may be, the temper of the
chamber, where we commune with our own hearts, and are
still. And this was done for two reasons ; the first, be-
cause all true meditation is dispassionate, and a dis-
passionate mood is the first indispensable condition for the
resolution of controversies; the second, because there
seemed to me to be real dangers connected, in the present
day*, with the merely fashionable accumulation of ritual,
more subtle and very much more widely spread than the
pronounced manifestations which had recently been so
much debated.

2. The season is now tranquil ; the furnace, no longer
fed by the fuel of Parliamentary contentions among the
highest authorities, has grown cool, and may be ap-
proached with safety, or, at least, with diminished risk.
Those who opposed the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, in 1851,

144 THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

in some cases had for 'their reward (as I have reason to
know) paragraphs in " religious " newspapers, stating
circumstantially that they had joined the Church of Rome.
Those who questioned the Public "Worship Act, in 1874,
were more mildly, hut as summarily, punished in being
set down as Ritualists. In the heat of the period, it
would have been mere folly to dispute the justice of the
"ticketing," or classification.

3. Perhaps it may now be allowed me to say, that I
do not approach this question as a partisan. Were the
question one between historical Christianity and systems
opposed to or divergent from it, I could not honestly
profess that I did not take a side. But as regards Ritual,
by which I understand the exterior forms of Divine
Worship, I have never, at any time of my life, been
employed in promoting its extension ; never engaged in
any either of its general, or its local, controversies. In
the question of attendance at this church or that, I have
never been governed by the abundance or the scantiness
of its ritual, which I regard purely as an instrument,
aiming at an end ; as one of many instruments, and not
as the first among them. To uphold the integrity of the
Christian dogma, to trace its working, and to exhibit its
adaptation to human thought and human welfare, in all
the varying experience of the ages, is, in my view,
perhaps the noblest of all tasks which it is given to the
human mind to pursue. This is the guardianship of the
great fountain of human hope, happiness, and virtue.
But with respect to the clothing, which the Gospel may
take to itself, my mind has a large margin of indulgence,
if not of laxity, both ways.

4. Much is to be allowed, I can hardly say how much,
to national, sectional, and personal divergencies ; and to

TH CHTraCH OP ENGLAND AND BTftAIISM. 145

me it is indeed grievous to think that any range of liberty
in these respects, which was respected during the storms
of the sixteenth century, should be denounced and threat-
ened in the comparative calm of the nineteenth. Rever-
ence, indeed, is a thing indispensable and invaluable ; but
reverence is one thing, and ritual another ; and while
reverence is preserved, I would never, according to my
own inclination individually, quarrel with my brother
about ritual. Nothing, therefore, would be easier than
for me, after the manner of those who affect impartiality,
to censure sharply the faults which, from our elevated
point of view, we detect on both sides. Nothing easier,
but few things more mischievous ; for what is impartiality
between the two, is often gross partiality and one-sided-
ness in the judgment of each, by reason of its ruthlessly
shutting out of view those kernels of truth which are
probably on both sides to be found under the respective
husks of warring prejudice.

5. Without, however, any assumption of the tone of
the critic or the pedagogue, there is one recommendation
which may be addressed to both parties in the controversy
of ritualism. They should surely be exhorted to cease
altogether, or at least to reduce to its minimum, the
practice of importing into questions concerning the ex-
ternals of religion the element of doctrinal significance.
The phrase is borrowed from a pamphlet by Dr. Trevor,*
which bears the stamp, not only of ability, but of an.
independent mind. The topic is, in my belief, of deep
moment. It cannot, perhaps, be more effectively illus-
trated than by a reference to the particular article of
ritual which has been, more than any other, the subject

* 'Trevor's Disputed Rubrics' (Parker), pp, 13 and seqq.
VT. L

146 THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND BlTtfALlsM.

of recent contest namely, the question whether, during
the prayer of consecration in the Office of Communion,
the priest shall stand with his face towards the East, or
towards the South.

6. By some mental process, which it seems difficult for
an unbiassed understanding to comprehend, a controversy,
which may almost be called furious, has been raised on
this matter. It of course transcends indeed, it almost
scorns the bounds of the narrower question, whether the
one or the other posture is agreeable, or, as may perhaps
better be said, is more agreeable, to the legal prescriptions
of the rubrics. For it is held, and held on both sides by
persons not inconsiderable either in weight or number,
that, if the priest looks eastwards at this point of the
service, he thereby affirms the doctrines of the Real
Presence and the Eucharistic Sacrifice, but that, if on the
contrary he takes his place at the north end of the altar
or table, he thereby puts a negative on those doctrines.

7. If the truth of this contention be admitted, without
doubt the most formidable consequences may then be
apprehended from any possible issue of the debate. It is
idle to hope that even judges can preserve the balance of
their minds, when the air comes to be so thickly charged
with storm. We may say almost with certainty that
there are many, now reckoned as members of the Church
of England, whom, on the one side, the affirmation of
those principles would distract and might displace, while,
on the other, their negation would precipitate a schism of
an enduring character. But if this be even partially
true, does it not elevate into an imperious duty, for all
right*minded men, that which is in itself a rule of reason
namely, that we should steadily resolve not to annex to
any particular acts of external Usage a special dogmatic

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 147

interpretation, so long as they will naturally and uncon-
strainedlybear some sense not entailing that consequence?*

8. Now, it seems pretty evident that, in the present
instance, the contentions of each of the two parties arc
perfectly capable of being explained and supported upon
grounds having no reference to the doctrines, with which
they have been somewhat wilfully placed in a connection
as stringent, and perhaps as perilous, as that of the folds
of the boa-constrictor. Take, for example, the case in
favour of what we may be allowed to call orientation.
The bishops of the Savoy Conference laid down the prin-
ciple, as one founded in general propriety and reason, that
when the minister addresses the people he should turn,
himself towards them, as, for example, in preaching or in
reading the lessons from Holy Scripture ; but that when,
for and with them, he addresses himself to God, there is
solecism and incongruity in his being placed as if he were
addressing them.

9. The natural course, then, they held to be, that
congregation and minister, engaged in a common act,
should, unless conformity between the inward and the
outward is to be entirely expelled from the regulation
of human demeanour, look together in a common direc-
tion. "When this is done by a clergyman reading the
Litany at a faldstool, he commonly turns his back on part
of the congregation, and part of the congregation on him.
"WTien the same rule is followed in the prayer of conse-
cration, the back of the clergyman is turned towards the
entire congregation only from the circumstance that he
officiates at the extreme East end of the church. The
proper idea of the position is, not that he turns his back

* * Trevor's Disputed Rubrics ' (Parker), pp. 13 and seqq.

L 2

148 THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

on the congregation, % but that, placed at the head of the
congregation, and acting for as well as with them in the
capacity of the public organ of the assembled flock, he
and they all turn in the same direction, and his back is
towards the whole only as the back of the first line of
worshippers behind him is towards all their fellow-
worshippers. He simply does that, which every one does
in sitting or standing at the head of a column or body of
men.

10. And if he be a believer in the Real Presence and
the Eucharistic Sacrifice, woe be to him in that capacity,
unless he has some other and firmer defence for these
doctrines than the assumed symbolism of an attitude that
he shares with so many Protestant clergymen of Contin-
ental Europe, who are known to be bound but little to
the first, and are generally adverse to the second of these
doctrines. Thus, then, we have, in a particular view of
the mere proprieties of the case, a perfectly adequate
explanation of the desire to assume the eastward position,
without any reference whatever to any given doctrinal
significance, be it cherished or be it obnoxious. Let us
now turn to the other side of the question, and see
whether similar reasoning will not hold good.

11. It does not follow, upon the expulsion of this
transcendental element from the discussion, that the
objector to the plan of facing eastwards is left without a
case, which again is one of simple policy and expediency,
from his own point of view. He may, like many of his
countrymen, be so wanting in the rudiments of the
aesthetic sense, as to think that the most advantageous
position for a Christian pastor towards the people is that
in which he speaks all the prayers straight into their
faces, and the best arrangement for the flock that of the

THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AtfD BITUALISM. 149

double pews, in which they are set to look at one another
through the service, in order to correct, by mutual con-
templation, any excessive tendency to rapt and collected
devotion. But it is not necessary to impute to him this
irrational frame of mind. He may admit that in the act
of prayer, as a rule, minister and people may advantage-
ously look in the same direction. He may renounce the
imputation upon his adversaries that, by facing eastwards,
they express adhesion to certain doctrines. And he may
still point out that there is more to be said.

12. The prayer of Consecration is a prayer not of peti-
tion only, but of action too. In the course of it, by no
less than five parenthetical rubrics, the Priest is directed
to perform as many manual acts ; and, quite apart from
the legal argument that the reference in the principal
rubric to breaking the bread before the people requires the
action to be performed in their view, he may contend, if
he thinks fit, that for the better comprehension of the
service, it is well that they should have the power of
seeing all that is required of the Priest respecting the
handling of the sacred elements, and that this cannot be
seen, or cannot so well be seen, if he faces eastwards,
as if, standing at the north end of the holy Table, he faces
towards the south.

13. I do not enter into the question whether this argur
ment be conclusive, either as to the legal interpretation of
the rubric, with which at present we have nothing to do,
or as to the advantage of actual view and the comparative
facilities for allowing it. It is enough to show that argu-
ments may be made in perfect good faith, and free from
anything irrational, against as well as for the eastward
position, without embracing the embittering element of
doctrinal significance ; that both from the one side

150 THE CHUKCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

the other the question may be reasonably debated on
general grounds of religious expediency. For if this
be so, it becomes in a high degree impolitic, and very
injurious to the interests of religion, to fasten upon these
questions of position, whether in the sense of approval or
of repudiation, significations which they do not require,
and which they will only so far bear that, by prejudice or
association, we can in any given case assign to words and
things a colour they do not of themselves possess. There
are surely enough real occasions for contention in the
world to satisfy the most greedy appetite, without adding
to them those which are conventional; that is to say,
those where the contention is not upon the things them-
selves, but upon the constructions which prejudice or
passion may attach to them.

14. Surely if a Zuinglian could persuade himself that the
English Communion Office was founded upon the basis of
Zuinglian ideas, he would act weakly and inconsistently
should he renounce the ministry of the Church because
he was ordered to face eastwards during the prayer of
consecration ; and at least as surely would one, believing
in the Catholic and primitive character of the office, be
open to similar blame if he in like manner repudiated his
function as a priest upon being required to take his place
only on the North. Preferences for the one or the other
position it is easy to conceive. To varying ideas of
worship and in these later times the idea of worship
does materially vary the one or the other may seem,
or may even be, more thoroughly conformable ; but
strange indeed, in my view, must be the composition
of the mind which can deliberately judge that the position
at the North end is in itself irreverent, or that facing
towards the East is in itself superstitious. Both cannot

THE CHUKCH OF EXGLAND AND RITUALISM:. 151

be right in a dispute, but both may be Avrong ; and one of
the many ways in which this comes about is when the
thing contended for is, by a common consent in error,
needlessly lifted out of the region of things indifferent
into that of things essential, and a distinction, founded
originally on the phantasy of man, becomes the articulus
stantis aut cadentis concordia.

15. It sometimes seems as though, even in the tumult
of the Reformation, when the fountains of the great deep
were broken up, the general mind must yet have been
more solid and steadier, perhaps even more charitable,
than now ; though the edge of controversies at that epoch
was physical as well as moral, and involved, at every
sweep of the weapon, national defence and the personal
safety or peril of life and limb. Members of the Church
of England, even now somewhat irreverent as a body with
reference to kneeling in ordinary worship, are neverthe-
less all content to kneel in the act of receiving the Holy
Communion ; a most becoming, most soothing, most fra-
ternal usage. General censure would descend upon the
man who should attempt to disturb it by alleging that
this humble attitude of obeisance too much favoured the
idea of paying worship to the consecrated elements. No
less certainly, and even more sharply, would he be con-
demned who, himself believing in the Heal Presence,
should endeavour to force it home on others as the
only key to the meaning of the usage.

16. But who can fail to see that for minds, I will not say
jaundiced, but preoccupied with the disposition to attach
extreme constructions to outward acts in the direction in
which they seem to lean, nothing is more easy than to
annex to the kneeling attitude of the receiver in the
Holy Eucharist the colour and idea of adoration of the

152 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND BITUALISM.

consecrated elements'? So, also, nothing would be more
difficult than, when once such a colour has been so an-
nexed, again to detach it effectually, and thus to bring
the practice to an equitable judgment. Yet the Church
of England, which has unitedly settled down upon the
question of kneeling at reception, has resolutely thrust
aside the extreme construction, through which a baleful
concurrence of opposing partisans might have rendered
it intolerable.

17. And this she did, carrying the practice itself without
shock or hesitation through all the fluctuations of her
Liturgy, during times when theological controversy was
exasperated by every mundane passion which either the
use of force, or its anticipation, can arouse. It will
indeed be strange should we not rather say it will
indeed be shameful if, after conducting the desperate
struggles of the Reformation to their issue, and when
we have realised its moral and social fruits for three
centuries and a half, we prove to be so much less wise
and less forbearing than our less civilised and refined
forefathers, that we are to be led, by an aggravated
misuse of this practice of gratuitous construction, to create
a breach upon a question so much less difficult, so much
less calling for or warranting extreme issues, than that
which they proved themselves able to accommodate ?

18. It may indeed be said, and not untruly, that in a
certain sense both the friends and the adversaries of the
practice I have been considering are agreed in attaching
to it the meaning I presume to deprecate. "Where both
parties to a suit are agreed, it is idle, we may be told, to
dispute what they concur in. Now the very point I
desire to bring into clear view is that this is not a suit
with two parties to it, but that many, perhaps most, of

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 153

those who are entitled to be heard, are not before the
court; many, aye multitudes, who think either this
question should be let alone, or that if it is not let
alone, it should be decided upon dry and cold considera-
tions of law, history, and science, so far as they are
found to inhere in it ; not judged by patches of glaring
colour, the symbols of party, which are fastened upon it
from without. If this be a just view, the concurrence of
the two parties named above in their construction of the
eastward position is no better a reason for the acquiescence
of the dispassionate community, than the agreement of two
boys at school or in the street to fight, in order to ascertain
who is the strongest, is a reason against the interference
of bystanders to stop them if they can.

19. There is in political life a practice analogous, as it
seems to me, to the practice of needlessly importing
doctrinal significance into discussions upon ceremonial.
It is indeed a very common fashion to urge that some-
thing, in itself good and allowable, has become bad and
inadmissible on account of motives imputed to those who
ask it. The reforms proposed in 1831 and 1866 were not
to be conceded, because they would be used as levers for
ulterior extensions of the franchise. The Irish Church
was not to be disestablished, because the change would
serve as an argument for disestablishing the Church of
England. Irish public-houses must not be closed on
Sunday where the people desire it, for fear the measure
should bring about a similar closing in England, where
public opinion is not ripe for it. But then, in the secular
world, this very practice is taken as the indication of an
illiberal mind, and a short-sighted policy.

20. The truly liberal maxim has ever been that, by
granting just claims, you disarm undue demands: thatj

154 THE CHUKCH OP ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

ihings should be judged as they are in themselves, and
not in the extraneous considerations, and remote eventu-
alities, which sanguine friends and bitter foes oftentimes
agree in annexing to them. It is, therefore, with un-
feigned surprise, that I read in the work of no mean
writer on this rubrical controversy, that in JVTay last he
"prayed" that the priest might be allowed to face east-
wards, but that he would now refuse it, because "this
eastward position is claimed for distinctively doctrinal
pin-poses." I am reluctant to cite a respected name, but
it is necessary to give the means of verifying my state-
ment by a reference to Dr. Swainson's ' Rubrical Ques-
tion of 1874,'* pp. 1, 5. I might, I believe, add other
instances of the same unfortunate line of thought ; but it
is needless, and I gladly refrain.

21. What, then, is the upshot of this extraordinary
preference of the worse over the better, the more arbitrary
over the direct and inherent construction ? It is this,
that it heats the blood and quickens the zeal of sympa-
thising partisans. But then it has exactly the same
effect upon the partisans of the two opposite opinions.
So that it widens breaches, feeds the spirit of mutual
defiance, and affords, like abundant alcohol, an intoxi-
cating satisfaction, to be followed by the remorse of the
morrow when the mischief has been done. It enhances
the difficulties of the Judge's task, and makes hearty
acquiescence in his decisions almost hopeless.

22. Wherever this importation of doctrinal significance,
I care not from which side, has been effected, it power-

* But, at p. 70, Dr. Swaiuson, with great candour, states that, if
the law be declared adversely to his view, he will at ouce renounce this
jmputatiou of doctrinal significance.

THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 155

fully tends to persuade the worsted party that the law
has been strained against him on grounds extraneous to
the argument, and to drive him either upon direct dis-
obedience, or upon circuitous modes of counteracting the
operation of any Judgment given. Those, against whom
the letter of the law seems to be turned invidiously, are
apt to think they may freely and justly avail themselves
of it, wherever it is in their favour. Supposing, for
example, that, by a judgment appearing to rest on con-
siderations of policy and not of law, the eastward position
were to be condemned, who does not see that those who
thought themselves wronged might discover ample means
of compensation ?

23. Some have contended that the clergy, sustained by
their flocks, might retrench the services of the parish
church; and that, offering within its walls a minimum
both of ritual and of the opportunities of worship, they
might elsewhere institute and attend services which,
under a recent Statute (18 & 19 Yict. c. 86), they believe
they might carry on without being subject to the restraints
of the Act of Uniformity. I am not aware that this con-
tention can be confuted. If not, it opens to view a real
and serious danger. Or again, in the churches themselves,
where the clergyman was forbidden to adopt a position
construed as implying an excessive reverence, not he only,
but, with certain immunity from consequences, his con-
gregation might, and probably would, resort to other
external acts, at least as effectual for the same purpose,
much more closely related to doctrinal significance, much
more conspicuous in themselves, and, perhaps, much more
offensive to fellow- worshippers, than the position which
had been prohibited. What, upon either of these suppo-
sitions, would have been gained by the most signal victory

156 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

in the courts, either for truth or for peace, or even for the
feelings and objects of those who would be called the
winners ?

24. I have dwelt at length on this particular subject,
not because I imagine the foregoing remarks to offer a
solution of existing difficulties, but in order to point out
and to avert, if possible, what would make a solution
impossible. The very first condition of healthy thought
and action is an effort at self-mastery, and the expulsion,
from the controversies concerning certain rubrics, of con-
siderations which aggravate those controversies into hope-
lessness, and which seem to dwell in them, as demons
dwell in the bodies of the possessed, till they were ex-
pelled by the beneficent Saviour, and left the sufferers at
length restored to their right mind. If we cannot fulfil
this first condition of sanity, it is, I fear, iopeless to
expect that the day of doom for the Established Church
of England can be long postponed.

25. It is bad enough, in my opinion, that we should
have to adjust these difficulties by the necessarily rude
and coarse machinery of Courts of law. I do not disguise
my belief, founded on very long and rather anxious
observation, that the series of penal proceedings in the
English Church during the last forty years, which, vir-
tually though not technically, began with the action of
the University of Oxford against Bishop Hampden, have
as a whole been mischievous. I make no accusation, in
speaking thus, against those who have promoted them. I
will not say that they have usually been without provoca-
tion, that they could easily have been avoided, that they
Jiave been dishonourably instituted, or even vindictively
pursued. I do not inquire whether, when they have been
ptrictly judicial, they have or have not generally adde4

emraca OF EKGLAN!) AJTD tatiAiisit. 157

to the fame of our British Judicature for power or fof
learning.

26. Unhappily they came upon a country little conver-
sant with theological, historical, or ecclesiastical science,
and a country which had not been used, for three hundred
years, with the rarest exceptions, to raise these questions
before the tribunals. The only one of them, in which I
have taken a part, was the summary proceeding of the
Council of King's College against Mr. Maurice. I made
an ineffectual endeavour, with the support of Judge
Patteson and Sir B. Brodie, and the approval of Bishop
Blomfield, to check what seemed to me the unwise and
ruthless vehemence of the majority which dismissed that
gentleman from his office. It may be that, in this or that
particular case, a balance of good over evil may have
resulted. It could not but be that in particular instances
some who would not have wished them to be instituted
could not wish them to fail. But I have very long been
convinced that, as a whole, they have exasperated strife
and not composed it ; have tempted men to employ a
substitute, at once violent and inefficient, for moral and
mental force; have aggravated perils which they were
honestly intended to avert ; have impaired confidence,
and shaken the fabric of the Church to its foundations.

27. The experience of half a century ago may, in
part, serve to illustrate an opinion which may have
startled many of my readers, but which long ago I for one
entertained and made known in quarters of great influ-
ence. Nothing could be sharper than was, at that time,
the animosity of Churchmen in general against what are
termed Evangelical opinions. There was language used
about them and their proposers in works of authority
such, for instance, as certain tracts of the Society for

158 (THE CHT7ECH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

Promoting Christian Knowledge which was not only
insolent, but almost libellous. But it seems that the Church
at least took to heart the wise counsel which Athene
offered to Achilles, that he should abuse Agamemnon,
but not strike him. " Fall foul of him with words, as
much as you have a mind : but keep your sword within
the scabbard."* The sword, at that period of our Church
history, was never drawn ; and the controversy settled itself
in an advantageous way. Are we driven to admit that
there was, among the rulers and the ruled of those days,
more of patience, or of faith in moral force, \>r both ; more
of the temper of Gamaliel, and less of the temper of Saul?

28. At a later date, it is true that Eishop Philpotts
broke the tradition of this pacific policy in the case of Mr.
Gorham. But all who knew that remarkable Prelate are
aware that he was a man of sole action, rather than
of counsel and concert ; and it was an individual, not a
body, that was responsible for striking the blow, of which
the recoil so seriously strained the Church of England.

29. While frankly avowing the estimate I form of the
results which have flowed from these penal proceedings
in matter belonging to law undoubtedly, but to con-
science as well as law, I am far from believing that the
public as yet fully shares these views. I must suppose,
especially after the legislative proceedings of last year,
that my countrymen are well satisfied with the general
or average results, and have detected in them what my
eyesight has not perceived, a tendency to compose the
troubles, and consolidate the fabric, of the Church. Ify
ambition does not, then, soar so high as to ask for a
renunciation of the comforts and advantages, which the*

* II. l. 210.

THE CHTJECH OP ENGLAND AND RITUALISM:. 159

Seem to find in religious litigation. All that I am now
contending for is that the suits, which may he raised,
ought not to be embittered by the opening of sources of
exasperation that do not properly belong to them ; that
contribute absolutely nothing to the legal argument on
either side for the elucidation of the rubrics ; and that,
on the contrary, by inflaming passion, and suggesting
prejudice, darken and weaken the intellects, while they
excite the susceptibilities, of all concerned.

30. If , as I hope, I may have carried with me some
degree of concurrence in the main proposition I have thus
far urged, let us now turn to survey a wider prospect.
Let us look for a while at the condition of the English
Church its fears and dangers on the one hand, its powers
and capacities on the other ; and let us then ask ourselves
whether duty binds and prudence recommends us to tear
it in pieces, or to hold it together.

31. It is necessary first to free the inquiry from a source
of _ verbal misunderstanding. In one and the same body,
we see two aspects, two characters, perfectly distinct.
That body declares herself, and is supposed by the law of
the country to be, the ancient and Catholic Church of the
country, while it is also the national Establishment of
Religion. In the first capacity, it derives its lineage and
commission from our Saviour and the Apostles; in the
second, it is officered and controlled by the State. We
may speak of holding the Church together, or of holding
the Church and the State together. I am far from placing
the two duties on the same ground, or assigning to them
a common elevation. Yet the subjects are, in a certain
form, closely connected ; and the form is this. It may
be that the continuing union of the Church within herself
will not secure without limit the continuing union of the

160 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

Church with the State. But it is certain, nevertheless/
that the splitting of the Church will destroy its union
with the State.

32. Not only as a Church, but as an endowed Establish-
ment, it is, without doubt, still very strong. Sir Robert
Peel said, over a quarter of a century ago, in discussing
the emancipation of the Jews, that the only dangers of
the Church consisted in its internal dissensions. Within
that quarter of a century the dangers have increased, but
with them has probably increased also the strength to
bear them. Menace and peril from without, against the
Church as an Establishment, have made ground, but are 1
still within measure. They still represent a minor, not a
major, social force ; though they are seconded by a general
movement of the time, very visible in other countries,-
and apparently pervading Christendom at large, yet with
a current certainly slow, perhaps indefinitely slow. But,
though the Church may be possessed of a sufficient fund
of strength, there is no redundancy that can be safely
parted with. Any secession, if of sensible amount, con-
stituting itself into a separate body, would operate on
the National Church with reference to its nationality, like
a rent in a wall, which is mainly important, not by tho
weight of material it detaches, but by the discontinuity
it leaves.

33. It is not, indeed, only the severance of the Church
into two bodies which might precipitate disestablishment.
Obstinacy and exasperation of internal strife might operate
yet more effectively towards the same end. The renewal
of scenes and occurrences like those of the session of 1874
would be felt, even more heavily than on that first occa-
sion, to involve not only pain, but degradation. The dis-
position of some to deny to the members of the National

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND BITUALI8M. 101

Church the commonest privileges belonging to a religious
communion, the determination of others to cancel her
birthright for a mess of pottage, the natural shrinking of
the better and more refined minds from indecent conflict,
the occasional exhibition of cynicism, presumption, ignor-
ance, and contumely, were, indeed, relieved by much
genial good sense and good feeling, found, perhaps, not
least conspicuously among those, who were by religious
profession most widely severed from the National Church.

34. But the mischief of one can inflict wounds on a
religious body, which the abstinence and silent disapproval
of a hundred cannot heal ; and, unless an English spirit
has departed wholly from the precincts of the English
Church, she will, when the outrage to feeling grows unen-
durable, at least in the persons of the most high-minded
among her children, absolutely decline the degrading
relation to which not a few seem to think her born. I
pass, then, to consider whether it be a duty or not to keep
the Church united, with the negative assumption implied
in these remarks, that without such union there cannot
be a reasonable hope of saving the Establishment.

35. But it may be said, what is this internal union of
the Church, which is professed to be of such value ? We
have within it men who build, or suppose themselves to
build, their religion only upon their private judgment,
unequally yoked with those who acknowledge the guiding
value of Christian history and witness ; men who believe
in a visible Church, and men who do not ; men who
desire a further Reformation, and men who think the
Reformation we have had already went too far ; men who
think a Church exists for the custody and teaching of the
truth, and men who view it as a magazine for the collec-
tion and parade of all sorts of opinions, to meet the tastes

YI. M

162 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND

of all sorts of customers. Nay, besides all this, are there
not those who, with such concealment only as prudence
may require, question the authority of Holy Scripture,
and doubt, or dissolve into misty figure, even the cardinal
facts of our redemption enshrined in the Apostles' Creed ?
"What union, compatible with the avowed or unavowed
existence of these diversities, can deserve the name, or
can be worth paying a price to maintain ?

36. Now, before we examine the value or no value of
this union, the first question is does it exist, and how
and where does it exist, as a fact ? It does ; and it is to
be found in the common law, common action and history,
common worship, and probably, above all, the common
Manual of worship, in the Church. Though it is accom-
panied with many divergencies of dogmatic leaning, and
though these differences are often prosecuted with a
lamentable bitterness, yet in the law, the history, the
worship, and the Manual, they have a common centre, to
which, upon the whole, all, or nearly all, the members of
the body are really and strongly, though it may be not
uniformly nor altogether consistently, attached, and which
is at once distinctive, and in its measure efficient.

37. Nay, more, it has been stated in public, and I in-
cline to believe with truth, that the rubrics of the Church
are at this moment more accurately followed than at any
period of her history since the Reformation. Twelve
months ago I scandalised the tender consciences of some
by pointing out that in a law which combined the three
conspicuous features of being extremely minute, very
ancient, and in its essence not prohibitive but directory,
absolute and uniform obedience was hardly to be expected ;
perhaps, in. the strict meaning of the terms, hardly even
to be desired.

SHE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AtfD EITTJALISM. 163

38. I admit the scandals of division, and the greater
scandals of dissension ; but there are, as I believe, fifteen
millions of people in this country who have not thrown
off their allegiance to its Church, and these people, when
they speak of it, to a great extent mean the same thing,
and, when they resort to it, willingly concur in the same
acts ; willingly, on the whole, though the different por-
tions of them each abate something from their individual
preferences to meet on common ground ; even as Tories,
Whigs, and Radicals do the like, to meet on the common
ground of our living and working constitution. This
union, then, I hold to be a fact, and I contend that it is a
fact worth preserving. I do not beg that question : I
only aver that it is the question really at issue ; and I
ask that it may be dispassionately considered, for many
questions of conduct depend upon it.

39. The duty of promoting union in religion is elevated
by special causes at the present day into a peculiar
solemnity: while these causes also envelop it in an ex-
traordinary intricacy. The religion of Christ as a whole,
nay, even the pallid scheme of Theism, is assailed with a
sweep and vehemence of hostility greater probably than
at any former period. While the war thus rages with-
out the wall, none can say that the reciprocal antagonism
of Christian bodies is perceptibly mitigated within it, or
that the demarcating spaces between them are narrower
than they were. Most singular of all, the greatest of
the Christian communions, to say nothing of the smaller,
are agitated singly and severally by the presence or
proximity of internal schism.

40. The Papal Church has gone to war with portions
of its adherents in Armenia, in Germany, in Italy, in
Switzerland, and elsewhere ; besides being in conflict

M 2

164 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

with the greater number of Christian states, especially of
those where the Roman religion is professed. The rela-
tions of the Church of England beyond St. George's
Channel, however euphemistically treated in some quar-
ters, are dark, and darkening still. Even the immovable
East is shaken. The Sclavonic, and the Hellenic, or non-
Sclavonic, elements are at present, though without doc-
trinal variance, yet in sharp ecclesiastical contention;
and a formidable schism in Bulgaria, not discountenanced
by Russian influences, disturbs at its own doors the
ancient and venerable See of Constantinople, with its
sister Patriarchates. This is a rude and slight, but I
believe an accurate outline. I do not say it carries us
beyond, but it certainly carries up to this point : that
now, more than ever, our steps should be wary and our
heads cool, and that, if we should not disguise the full
significance of controversies, neither should we aggra-
vate them by pouring Cayenne pepper into every open
wound.

41. I do not say that, in circumstances like these, it
becomes the duty of each man to sacrifice everything for
the internal unity of his own communion. When that
communion, by wanton innovation, betrays its duty, and
aggravates the controversies of Christendom, the very
best friend to its eventual unity may be he who at all
hazards, and to all lengths, resists the revolutionary
change. But it would seem that, in all cases where the
religious body to which we belong has not set up the
petra scandali, the presumptive duty of the individual
who remains in its communion, to study its peace, is
enhanced.

42. Nowhere, in my view, does this proposition apply
with such force as to the case of the English Church.

THE CHT7ECH OF ENGLAND AND EITUALISM. 165

This Church and nation, by an use of their reforming
powers, upon the whole wonderfully temperate, within
the sphere strictly religious, found for themselves, amidst
the tempests of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a
haven of comparative tranquillity, from which, for more
than two centuries, they have not once been dislodged.
Within this haven it has, especially of late years, been
amply proved that every good work of the Divine King-
dom may be prosecuted with effect, and every quality
that enlarges and ennobles human character may be
abundantly reared. I do not now speak of our British
Nonconformists, for whom I entertain a very cordial
respect, and whose case is not here in question : I confine
myself to what is still the National Church ; and I earnestly
urge it upon all her members that the more they study
her place and function in Christendom, the more they
will find that her unity, qualified but real, is worth
preserving.

43. I will dwell but very lightly on the arguments
which sustain this conclusion. They refer first to the
national office of this great institution. It can hardly be
described better than in a few words which I extract
from a recent article in the Edinburgh Review :

" The crown and flower of such a movement was the Elizabethan
Church of England. There the watchword was never destruction
or innovation; there a simple, Scriptural, Catholic, and objective
teaching has preserved us from superstitious and dogmatic vagaries
on the one hand, and from the subjective weakness of many of the
Protestant sects on the other. To the formation of such a Church
the nation gave its strength and its intelligence, viz., that of the
idea of More (?), of Shakespeare, and of Bacon ; and what is more*
the whole nation contributed its good sense, its sobriety, its stead-
fastness, and its appreciation of a manly and regulated freedom,"
Edinburgh lievieic, April 1875, p. 574.

166 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

44. There are those who think that bold changes in
the law and constitution of the Church, in the direction
of developed Protestantism, would bring within its borders
a larger proportion of the people. Ify own opinion is
the reverse of this. I look upon any changes whatever,
especially of the Prayer Book, if sensible in amount and
contentious in character, as simply synonymous with the
destruction of the National Establishment. But the matter
is one of opinion only ; and I fully admit the title of the
nation to make any such changes, if they think fit, with
such a purpose in view.

45. But, besides her national office and capabilities, the
Church of England, in her higher character as a form of
the Christian religion, has a position at once most peril-
ous and most precious (I here borrow the well-known
expression of De Maistre) with reference to Christendom
at large. She alone, of all Churches, has points of con-
tact, of access, of sympathy, touching upon all the im-
portant sections of the Christian commonwealth. Liable,
more than any other religious body, to see her less stable
or more fastidious members drop off from her, now in this
direction and now in that, she is, nevertheless, in a partial
but not an unreal sense, a link of union between the
several fractions of the Christian body. At every point
of her frontier, she is in close competition with the great
Latin communion, and with the varied, active, and in
no way other than respectable, forms of nonconformity.

46. Nor does this represent the whole of the danger
which, as to her sectional interests, she daily suffers in
detail. She inhabits a sphere of greater social activity
than is found in any other country of Europe ; she is in
closer neighbourhood, throughout her structure, than any
other Church, with the spirit of inquiry (I do not say of

THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND AND BITUALISM. 167

research), and is proportionally more liable to defections
in the direction of unbelief, or, if that word be invidious,
of non-belief, or negation. But this great amount of
actual peril and besetting weakness is, in at least a
corresponding degree, potential force and usefulness, for
others as well as for herself ; and no philosophic observer,
whatever be his sectional leanings, can exclude her from
a prominent place in his survey of Christendom.

47. These things, it seems to me, are not enough con-
sidered among us. If they were enough considered, we
should be less passionate in our internal controversies.
We should recollect that we hold what all admit to be a
middle place ; that the strain, as in a wheel, is greatest
at the centre, the tendency to dislocation is there most
difficult to subdue. So we should more contentedly ac-
cept the burdens of the position, for the sake of the high,
disinterested, and beneficent mission, with which they
seem to be allied. Even if I am wrong in the persuasion
that much ought to be borne rather than bring about a
rupture, I can hardly be wrong in claiming the assent
of all to the proposition that we had better not prosecute
our controversies wildly and at haphazard, but that we
should carefully examine, before each step is taken, what
other steps it will bring after it, and what consequences
the series may as a whole involve.

48. I am quite aware of the answer which will spring
to the lips of some. " The object of the long series of
prosecutions, and of the Act of 1874, is to cut out a
gangrene from the Church of England ; to defeat a con-
spiracy which aims at reversing the movement of the
^Reformation, and at remodelling her tenets, her worship,
and her discipline, on the basis of the Papal Church :
aye, even with all the aggravations of her earlier system,

168 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

which that Church has in the latter times adopted." But
the answer to this answer is again perfectly ready. If
there he within the Church of England a section of clergy
or laity, which is engaged in such a conspiracy, it is one
extremely, almost infinitesimally, small. I do not now
doal with the very different charge against doctrines and
practices which are said to tend towards the Church of
Rome. This charge was made against Laud by the
Puritans, and is made against the Prayer Book at large
by our Nonconforming friends, or by very many of
them.

49. Such allegations did not commence with the revi-
vals of our time. See for example the following extract
from ' The Catholic Question : addressed to the Free-
holders of the County of York;' on the General Election
of 1826, p. 24:

"All these things, however, are visible in the Church of
England : go to a cathedral, hear and see all the magnificent
things done there : behold the regiments of wax tapers, the white-
robed priests, the mace-bearers; the chaunters, the picture over
the altar, the wax-lights and the burnished gold plates and cupa
on the altar; then listen to the prayers repeated in chaunt, the
anthems, the musical responses, the thundering of the organ and
the echoes of the interminable roof; and then say, is not this
idolatry ? it is .nil the idolatry that the Catholics admit ; it is the
natural inclination that we have to those weak and beggarly
elements, pomp and pride ; and which both Catholics and the
High Church party think so important in religion. I boldly assert
that there is more idolatry in the Church of England than amongst
the English Catholics; and for this simple reason, because the
Church of England can better afford it. Two-thirds of the Church
service is pomp and grandeur ; it is as Charles II. used to say, ' the
service of gentlemen.' It is for show, and for a striking im-
pression ; the cathedral service is nothing more or less than a mass,
for it is all chaunted from beginning to end, and the people cannot
understand a word of it."

THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 169

50. My special observation on the charge, as it is now
advanced, is that those, who aim at Eomanising the
Church, are, at worst, a handful. If, then, the purpose
be to put them down, isolate them ; attack them (since
you think it worth while) in the points they distinctively
profess and practise. But is this the course actually taken?
Are these points the subjects of the recent prosecutions,
of the present threats, of the crowd of pamphlets, of the
volumes upon ritual controversy, which daily issue from
the press? On the contrary, these prosecutions, these
menaces, these voluminous productions, have always for
their main, and often for their exclusive, subject the two
points of Church law which relate to the position of the
consecrator, and to the rubric on ecclesiastical vestments.

51. But now we arrive at a formidable dilemma. Upon
the construction of the law on these two points, the
prosecuting parties are at variance, not with a handful,
but with a very large number, with thousands and tens of
thousands, both of the clergy and the laity of the Church
of England, whose averments I understand to be these :
first, that the law of 1662, fairly interpreted, enjoins the
vestments of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI., and
the eastward position of the consecrating priest ; secondly,
that it would be inequitable and unwise to enforce these
laws, and that the prevailing liberty should continue ;
thirdly, that it would be inequitable and unwise to alter
them. Are these propositions conclusive evidence of a
conspiracy to assimilate the Reformed religion of England
to the Papal Church ?

52. If they are not, why is the war to be conducted
mainly, and thus hotly, in the region they define ? If
they are, then our position is one of great danger, because
it is well known that a very large and very weighty

170 THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

portion of the clergy, with no inconsiderable number of
the laity, proceeding upon various grounds love of ritual,
love of liberty, dread of rupture are arrayed on the side
of toleration against the prosecuting party. It is said to
have been declared by persons in high authority, that a
large portion of both clergy and laity do entertain the
desire to Romanise the Church. I am convinced it is not
so ; but if it be so, our condition is indeed formidable, and
we are preparing (in the phrase of Mr. Carlyle) to ' ' shoot
Niagara." For I hold it to be beyond dispute that,
whether minor operations of the knife be or be not safe
for us, large excisions, large amputations, are what the
constitution of the patient will not bear. Under them
the Establishment will part into shreds ; and even the
Church may undergo sharp and searching consequences,
which as yet it would be hardly possible to forecast, either
in principle or detail.

53. For the avoidance of these dangers, my long
cherished conviction still subsists that the best and most
effectual remedy is to be found in more largely forbearing
to raise contentious issues, and in ceasing to aim at ruling
consciences by courts. I say this is the most effectual
remedy. For the next best, which is that the parties
shall, after full and decisive exposition of the law, submit
to the sentence of the tribunals, is manifestly at the best
incomplete. The prosecuting party, in the two matters
of the Rubric on vestments and the position of the conse-
crating minister, will doubtless submit to an adverse
judgment; but will as certainly, and not without reason
from its own point of view, transfer to the legislative
arena the agitations of the judicial forum.

54. The Dean of Bristol, who has argued these questions
with his usual force and directness, wishes that no altera-

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 171

tions should be made in the rubrics, if what is called the
Purchas judgment be maintained; but, with his acute
eye, he has perhaps shrewd suspicions on that subject ;
and accordingly he says, if that judgment be not main-
tained, he is "for such wide agitation, such strong and
determined measures, as shall compel [sic] the Legislature
to give back to the Church its old and happy character of
purity."* A pleasant prospect for our old age ! But the
Dean has this advantage over me. He does not object to
the voies defait, and, if only the judgment goes his way,
will be quite happy. I am one of those who have the
misfortune of being like Falkland in the war of King and
Parliament : I shall deplore all disturbing Judgments on
the points in question, wholly irrespective of my own
sympathies or antipathies.

55. If the prosecutors are defeated, who are strongly
(to use a barbarous word) establishmentarian, we shall
have agitation for a change in the law, too likely to end
in rupture. If they succeed (which I own I find it very
difficult to anticipate), we shall have exaggerated but un-
assailable manifestations of the feeling it has been sought
to put down ; and, while this is the employment of the
interim, the party hit, who are by no means so closely
tied to the alliance of the Church with the State, will,
despairing of any other settlement, seek peace through
its dissolution.

56, It may now perhaps in some degree appear why I
have pressed so earnestly the severance of these rubrical
suits from " doctrinal significance." Could we but expel
that noxious element from the debate, could we but see
that the two conflicting views of the position and the

* Better to Rev. Mr. Walker, pp. 23-26.

172 THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

vestments are just as capable, to say the least, of a large
and innocuous as of a specific and contentious interpreta-
tion, then we might hope to see therewith a frame of
mind among the litigators, capable of acquiescence in any
judgment which they may believe to be upright, and to
be given after full consideration of the case. Soreness
there might be, and murmuring; but good sense might
prevail, and the mischief would be limited within narrow
bounds.

57. Eut unhappily men of no small account announce
that they care not for the sign, they must deal with the
thing signified. They desire the negation by authority of
the doctrine of the Real Presence of our Lord and Saviour
Christ, and of the Eucharistic Sacrifice ; negations which,
again, are synonymous with the disruption of the English
Church.

58. When prudent men, or men made prudent by
responsibility, are associated together for given purposes,
whether in a cabinet, or a synod, or a committee, or a
board, and they find their union menaced by differences
of opinion, they are wont first to test very fully the minds
of one another by argument and persuasion. Failing
these instruments, both the instinct of self-preservation
and the laws of 'luty combine in prompting them to put
off the evil day, and thus to take the benefit of enlarged
information, of fresh experience, of the softening in-
fluences of association, and of whatever other facilities of
solution the unrevealed future may embrace. Why can
we not carry a little of this forbearance, founded upon
common sense, into religion, and at least fetch our con-
troversies out of the torrid into the temperate zone ?

59. The time may, and I hope will, arrive, when a
spirit of more diffusive charity, a wider acquaintance with

THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 173

the language and history of Christian dogma, and a less
jealous temper of self-assertion, will enable us to perceive
how much of what divides us in the Eucharistic contro-
versy is no better and no worse than logomachy, and how
capable men, ridding themselves of the subtleties of the
schools and of eschewing heated reactions, may solve what
passion and faction have often declared insoluble.

60. But that time has not yet arrived ; and, if the doc-
trine of the Eucharist must really be recast, there are no
alternatives before us except on the one hand disruption,
on the other postponement of the issue until we can
approach it under happier auspices. The auspices are not
happy now. There are even those in the English Church
who urge with sincerity, and without being questioned
by authority, the duty of preaching the " Real Absence,"*
and, though these be few, yet some who shrink from the
word may be nearly with them in the thing. On the
other side, wholly apart from the energy of partisanship,
from a Romanising disposition, and from a desire for the
exaltation of an order, there are multitudes of men who
can patiently endure differences which they believe to be
provisional, and adjourn their settlement to a future day;
but who believe that the lowering of the sacramental
doctrine of the English Church, in any of its parts, will
involve, together with a real mutilation of Scriptural and
Catholic truth, a loss of her Christian dignity, and a for-
feiture of all the hopes associated with her special position
in Christendom.

61. Of all sacramental doctrine, none is so tender in
this respect as that which relates to the Eucharist. The
gross abuses of practice, and the fanciful excesses of

Rev. Mr. Wolfe on the ' Eastward Position,' p. 4.

174 THE CHUECH Of ENGLAND AND UlTUALtSit.

theological speculation in the Western Church before the
Reformation, compelled the Anglican Reformers to retrench
their statements to a minimum, which can bear no reduc-
tion, whether in the shape of altered formulee, or of
binding constructions. If, in these times of heat, we
abandon the wise self-restraint which in the main has up
to a recent time prevailed, it is too probable that wanton
tongues, prompted by ill-trained minds, may reciprocally
launch their reproaches of superstition and idolatry on the
one. hand, of heresy and unbelief on the other.

62. Surely prudence would dictate that in these cir-
cumstances all existing latitude of law or well-established
practice should as a rule be respected ; that no conscience
be pressed by new theological tests, either of word or
action ; and that we should prefer the hope of a peaceful
understanding, in some even distant future, to the cer-
tainty of a ruinous discord, as the fruit of precipitancy
and violent courses. One of the strangest freaks of
human inconsistency I have ever witnessed is certainly
this. We are much (and justly) reminded, with refer-
ence to those beyond our pale, to think little of our
differences and much of our agreements ; but at the same
time, and often from the same quarters, we are taught
and tempted by example if not by precept, within our
own immediate " household of faith," to think incessantly
of our differences, and not at all of our much more
substantial and weighty agreements.

63. The proposition, then, on which I desire to dwell
as the capital and cardinal point of the case is, that heavy
will be the blame to those, be they who they may, who
may at this juncture endeavour, whether by legislation
or by judicial action, and whether by alteration of phrases
or by needlessly attaching doctrinal significance to the

!TH CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND KITUAUSM. 175

injunction or prohibition of ceremonial acts, to shift the
balance of doctrinal expression in the Church of England.
The several sections of Christendom are teeming with
lessons of all kinds. Let us, at least in this cardinal
matter of doctrinal expression, wait and learn.

64. We have received from the Almighty, within the
last half-century, such gifts as perhaps were hardly ever
bestowed within the same time on a religious community.
"We see a transformed clergy, a laity less cold and neglect-
ful, education vigorously pushed, human want and sorrow
zealously cared for, sin less feebly rebuked, worship
restored from frequent scandal and prevailing apathy to
uniform decency and frequent reverence, preaching re-
stored to an Evangelical tone and standard, the organisa-
tion of the Church extended throughout the Empire, and
this by the agency, in many cases that might be named,
of men who have indeed succeeded the Apostles not less
in character than in commission. If we are to fall to
pieces in the face of such experiences, it will be hard
to award the palm between our infatuation and our in-
gratitude ; and our just reward will be ridicule from
without our borders, and remorse from within our hearts.

65. This highly coloured description I desire to apply
within the limits only of the definite statement with
which it was introduced. But I am far from complaining
of those who think the evils of litigation ought to be
encountered, rather than permit even a handful of men
to introduce into our services evidences of a design to
Romanise the religion of the country. I have always,
too, been" of opinion that effective provision should be
made to check sudden and arbitrary innovation as such,
even when it does not present features of intrinsic mis-
chief. To me this still appears a wiser and safer basis

176 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

of proceeding than an attempt to establish a cast-iron rule
of uniform obedience to a vast multitude of provisions
sometimes obscure, sometimes obsolete, and very variously
understood, interpreted, and applied.

66. But this preference is not expressed in the interest
of any particular party, least of all of what is termed the
High Church party. For the rubrics, which the Public
"Worship Act is to enforce, may, with truth, be generally
described as High Church rubrics ; and the mere party
man, who takes to himself that designation, has reason
to be grateful to the opposing party for having so
zealously promoted the passing of the Act. For my own
part, I disclaim all satisfaction in such a compulsory
enforcement of rubrics that I approve ; and I would far
rather trust to the growth of a willing obedience among
those who are called Low Churchmen, where it is still
deficient. I am far, however, from asserting that all
enforcement of the law, beyond what I have above
described, must of necessity produce acute and fatal mis-
chiefs. Much folly both of "Reges" and of " Achivi "
has been borne, and may yet be borne, if only Judgments
shall be such as to carry on their front the note of im-
partiality, and so long as we avoid the rock of doctrinal
significance, and maintain the integrity of the Prayer
Book.

67. But I must endeavour, before closing these remarks,
to bring into view some further reasons against free and
large resort to penal proceedings in regard to the cere-
monial of the Church. The remarks I have to offer arc
critical in their nature, for they aim at exhibiting the
necessary imperfections even of the best tribunal ; but
they do not require the sinister aid either of bitterness
or of disrespect.

THE CHFECH. OF ENGLAND AND BITTJALIStt. 177

The first of these remarks is, that the extinction of the
separate profession of the civilian, now merged in the
general study and practice of the bar, and the consolida-
tion of the Courts of Probate and Admiralty with those
of Equity and Common Law, have materially impaired
the chances, which have hitherto existed, of not finding
in our Judges of ecclesiastical causes the form of fitness
growing out of special study. Any reader of the learned
Judgments of the Dean of Arches (Sir Robert Phillimore)
may perceive the great advantages they derive from this
source.

68. It may be thought, with some reason, that episcopal
assessors will, in doctrinal cases, help to supply the
defect ; but it would not be easy to arrange that the most
learned Bishops should be chosen as assessors ; and the
general standard of learning on the bench cannot, under
the hard conditions of modern times, be kept very high.
The number of individuals must at all times be small,
who can unite anything like deep or varied learning with
the administrative and pastoral qualities, and the great
powers of business and active work, which are now more
than ever necessary, and are almost invariably found, in
a Bishop.

69 But in questions of ceremonial, the difficulties are
greater still. Let any one turn, for example, to the
decision on appeal in the Purchas case, as it is the most
recent, and seems to be the most contested, of the rubrical
decisions. He will find, perhaps with surprise, that it
does not rest mainly on considerations of law, but much
more upon the results of historical and antiquarian study.
Though rightly termed a legal Judgment, and though it
of course has plenary authority as to the immediate
question it decides, it is in truth, and could not but be,

VI. N

178 THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND AND EITUALISM.

as to the determining and main portion of it, neither
more nor less than a purely literary labour. Now, the
authority of literary inquiries depends on care, compre-
hensiveness, and precision, in collecting facts, and on
great caution in concluding from them. There is no de-
mocracy so levelling as the Eepublic of Letters. Liberty
and equality here are absolute, though fraternity may be
sometimes absent on a holiday. And a literary labour,
be it critical, be it technical, be it archaeological, when it
has done its immediate duty of disposing of a cause,
cannot afterwards pass muster by being wrapped in the
folds of the judicial ermine. It must come out into the
light, and be turned round and round, just as freely
(though under more stringent obligations of respect) as
Professor Max Muller's doctrine of solar myths, or Pro-
fessor Sylvester's fourth dimension in space, or Dr. Schlie-
mann's promising theory that Hissarlik is Troy.

70. It is, I believe, customary, and perhaps wise, that
a prior judgment of the highest court of appeal should
govern a later one. It is alleged, nor is it for me to
rebut the allegation, that the Purchas Judgment contra-
dicts the Judgment in the case of Liddell v. Westerton ;
but, if so, this is accidental, and does not touch the
principle, which seems to be generally acknowledged.
Now, however well this may stand with respect to in-
terpretation of law, yet -with respect to historical and
antiquarian researches, and to Judgments which turn on
them, it would evidently be untenable, and even ludicrous.
And then comes the question, what right have we to
expect from our Judges, amidst the hurry and pressure
of their days, and often at a time of life when energy
must begin to flag, either the mental habits, or the acqui-
sitions, of the archaBologist, or the critic, or, above all,

THE CHTJECH OF ENGLAND AND BITTTALISM. 179

of the historian ? Why should we expect of the Bishop,
because he may be assumed to have a fair store of theology,
or of the Judge, because he has spent his life in pleading
or even in hearing causes, that they should be adepts in
historical research, or that they should be imbued with
that which is so rare in this country, the historic sense
and spirit, abundant, in this our day, nowhere but in
Germany ?

71. It may be said that Judges can and will avail
themselves of the labours of others ; but they are un-
happily not in the ordinary condition of courts of first
instance, who can collect evidence of all kinds at will.
They are confined to published labours, when they go
beyond the ex parte statements with which counsel may
supply them. Still, they are sure to do their best ; and
they may get on well enough, if the subject happens to
be one of those which have been thoroughly examined,
and where positive conclusions have been sufficiently
established. But what if, on the contrary, it has been
one neglected for many generations ? if the authorities, so
far as they go, are in serious if not hopeless conflict ? if
the study of the matter has but recently begun, and that
only amidst the din and heat, and for the purposes, of the
actual controversy ? What is the condition of a Judge
when he has to interpret the law by means of data, which
only the historian and the antiquarian can supply and
digest respectively, and when those valuable labourers
have not digested or supplied them ?

72. For example, what if he have to investigate the
question how a surplice is related to an alb, how far the
use of either accompanies or excludes the cope or the
chasuble (as a coat excludes a lady's gown), or in what
degree the altar- wise position of the holy Table had been

N 2

180 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

established at the time when the Commissioners at the
Savoy were engaged in the revision of the Liturgy ? In
this country a barrister cannot be his own attorney ; yet
a judge may not only have to digest his own legal
apparatus, but may also be required to dive, at a moment's
notice, into the tohu-lohu of inquiries, which have never
yet emerged from the stage of chaos ; and the decision of
matters of great pith and moment for Christian worship
and the peace of the Church comes to depend upon what
is at best, by no fault of his, random and fragmentary
knowledge.

73. Any reader of the Purchas Judgment on Appeal
will perceive how truly I have said that it rests mainly,
not on judicial interpretations, but on the results of
literary research. In such interpretations, indeed, it is
not wanting ; but they are portions only of the fabric,
and are joined together by what seems plainly to be
literary and antiquarian inquiry. The Judicial Com-
mittee decide, for example, with regard to sacerdotal
vestments, that the Advertisements of 1564 have the
authority of law ; and to this decision the mere layman
must respectfully bow.* But they also rule that the
Advertisements in and by prescribing the use of the sur-
plice for parish churches, proscribe the use of the cope or
the chasuble, and that the canons of 1603-4 repeat the
prohibition. | ISTow, this is a proposition purely anti-
quarian. It depends upon a precise knowledge of the
usages of what is sometimes termed " ecclesiastical mil-

* Brooke's Reports, pp. 171, 176.

f Ibid. p. 178. " If the minister is ordered to wear a surplice at
all times of his ministration, he cannot wear an alb and tunicle when
assisting at the Holy Communion ; if he is to celebrate the Holy
Communion in a chasuble, he cannot celebrate in a surplice."

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 181

linery." Can Judges, or even Bishops, be expected to
possess this very special kind of knowledge, or be held
blamable for not possessing it ? I think not.

74. But when even Judges of great eminence, of the
highest station, and of the loftiest character, holding
themselves compelled to decide, aye or no, on the best
evidence they can get, as to every question brought
before them, proceed to determine that the use of the
surplice excludes the use of the chasuble, this is after all
a strictly literary conclusion, and is open to be confirmed,
impaired, or overthrown, by new or widened evidence,
such as further literary labour may accumulate. And,
indeed, it appears rather difficult to sustain the proposi-
tion that the surplice when used excludes all the more
elaborate vestments, since we find it actually prescribed
in one of the rubrics at the end of the Communion Office
in the Prayer Book of 1549, that the officiating minister is
ordered to "put upon him a plain alb or surplice -with a cope"

75. Again, the Judicial Committee, in construing the
rubrics as to the position of the minister, states that
before the revision of 1662, " the custom of placing the
table along the east wall was becoming general, and it
may fairly be said that the revisers must have had this
in view." This, of course, is a pure matter of history.
Before and since the Judgment was given, it has been
examined by a variety of competent writers ; and I gather
from their productions, that had these been before the
tribunal in 1871, it must have arrived, on this point, at
an opposite opinion. The conclusion of Mr. Scudamore,
indeed, is that the present position of the altars is the
work of the eighteenth century.

76. The literary conclusion with respect to the surplice
appears to be the foundation-stone of the Purchas judg-

182 THE CHUBCH OF ENGLAND AND EITTTALISM.

inent -with reference \o vestments. Eut it seems to be
also collaterally sustained by three other propositions:
one of which is, that the articles of Visitation, and the
proceedings of Commissions, in and after the reign of
Elizabeth, prescribe the destruction of vestments, albs,
tunicles, and other articles, as monuments of superstition
and idolatry ; the second, that the requisitions of Eishops
in these parochial articles are limited to the surplice ; the
third, that there is no evidence of the use of vestments
during the period. Now each and all of these are matters,
not of law, but of historical criticism.

77. The critics of the Judgment are numerous ; and few
of them, perhaps, make due allowance for the difficulties
under which it was framed. Their arguments are mani-
fold, and far beyond my power fully to cite. Among
other points, they admit the second of these three pro-
positions, and consider that the attempts of the ruling
authorities were limited, as regards enforcement, to the
surplice ; but hold that in those times what the law
prescribed was one thing, and what it enforced, or
attempted to enforce, was another. Mr. MacColl* cites a
remarkable example; namely, that while the Rubric
required the priest to read daily four chapters of Holy
Scripture, the Advertisements aimed at enforcing only
two. The orders of destruction raise a point of great
importance, which demands full inquiry. As far as I
have noticed, they seem uniformly to include " crosses "
as " monuments of superstition and idolatry;" yet the
Judicial Committee in Westerton v. Liddell, and in Her-
bert v. Purchas, both decide that crosses for decoration of
the building are lawful.

Lawlessness, Sacerdotalism, and Ritualism,' p. 76.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND EITTJALISiT. 183

78. As regards the actual use of vestments, Mr. Mac-
Coll (while presuming that, in a penal case, it is evidence
of disuse, not of use, that is demanded) supplies what he
thinks ample proof ;* and it is noticed that in the Judg-
ment itself there is evidence, viz., that of Dering (1593)
and Johnson (1573), sufficient to impede an universal
assertion. But into these matters I do not enter. There
is much more to be said upon them. My purpose is not
one of controversy. I confine myself to urging the
necessity of further historical and archaeological inquiries,
as absolutely necessary in order to warrant any judgments
restrictive, in whatever sense, of the apparent liberality
of our laws and practice; and I rejoice to see that for
this end so many persons of ability, beside those I have
named, are bringing in their respective contributions.!

79. I suppose it to be beyond doubt that in our times
the acts of the officers of the law may be taken as evid-
ence of what the law is, or is reported to be. The
burning of printed editions of English books by the Cus-
toms would prove that the importation of such works was
prohibited. But history seems to show that this appa-
rently obvious rule cannot be applied to times like those
of the Reformation without much caution and reserve.
For example. The Purchas Judgment states that the law
required the use of copes in cathedral and collegiate
churches, and generally treats authorised destruction as
evidence of illegality ; but it appears J that the Queen's
Commissioners at Oxford, in 1573 (when the anti-papal

* ' Lawlessness, Sacerdotalism, and Ritualism,' pp. 59-70.

f For example, Mr. Beresford Hope and Mr. Morton Shaw. Mi\
Droop has produced some useful illustrations, unhappily not well
arranged.

J Droop on Edwardian Vestments, p. 26.

184 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

tide was running very high), ordered in the College Chapel
of All Souls that all copes should be defaced and rendered
unfit for use.

There are three cautionary remarks, with which I shall
conclude.

80. The first is that, unless I am mistaken, the word
evidence is sometimes used, in judgments on ceremonial,
in a mode which involves a dangerous fallacy. It seems
to be used in a judicial sense, whereas it is really used in
a literary sense. As respects the testimony given in a
case, the Judge deals judicially, and with his full autho-
rity as a Judge ; but the illustrative matter he collects in
these suits from books or pamphlets, laborious as he may
be, and useful as it may be, is not evidence except in the
sense in which Dr. Schliemann thinks he has plenty of
evidence as to the site of Troy ; it is historical inquiry, or
literary or learned speculation.

81. The second is that, if I am right in laying down
as the grand requisite for arriving at truth in these cases
the historian's attainments and frame of mind, the Judge,
and the lawyer, labour in these cases under some peculiar
difficulties. It is almost a necessity for the Judge, as it
is absolutely for the advocate, that every cause be resolved
categorically by an Aye or a No. But the historical in-
quirer is not conversant with Aye and No alone : he is
familiar with a thousand shades of colour and of light
between them. The very first requisite of the historic
mind is suspense of judgment. Judicial business requires,
as a rule, a decision between two it is the judgment of
Solomon ; but the historian may have to mince the sub-
ject into many fragments, according to the probabilities
of the case ; he deals habitually with conjectures and
likelihoods, as well as positive assertions. The Judge

THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND EITTTALISM. 185

has to give all where he gives anything, and his mental
habit forms itself accordingly ; but the "I doubt " which
was so much criticised in Lord Eldon, is among the most
prominent characteristics of the philosophic and truth-
loving historian.

82. Lastly ; after the famous judgment Mr. Burke has
passed upon the immense merits, and besetting dangers,
of the legal mind, with direct relation to the character of
Mr. Grenville, that great master proceeds to state that
" Mr. Grenville thought better of the wisdom and power
of human legislation than in truth it deserves." * Most
eminently does this seem to me to be true, in observing
the manner after which our Judges sometimes deal with
ancient laws. Such as the character and efficacy of
law is now, such they are apt to assume it always must
have been. It has not been their business to consider
the enormous changes in the structure of society, on its
toilsome way through the rolling ages, from a low to a
high organisation.

83. The present efficiency of law presumes the full
previous inquiry and consultation of the deliberate power,
and the perfect strength of the executive. Eut that
strength depends on the magistracy, the police, the
judiciary, the standing army ; upon the intercommuni-
cation of men, of tidings, of ideas, by easy locomotion ;
upon a crowd of arrangements for the most part practi-
cally unknown to the loosely compacted structures of
mediaeval societies. The moral force, which abode in
them, had little aid, for the purposes of the supreme
power, except on the most pressing emergencies, from
material force ; partial approximations were then only

* Speech on American Taxation. Works, vol. ii. p. 389.

186 THE CHTTRCH OF ENGLAND AND EITT7ALISM.

possible, in cases where the modern provisions for instant
and general obedience are nearly complete. The law of
to-day is the expression of a supreme will, which has,
before deciding on its utterance, had ample means to
consult, to scrutinise the matter, to adapt itself to prac-
tical possibilities ; and it is justly construed as an instru-
ment which is meant to take, and takes, immediate and
uniform effect. But the laws of earlier times were to a
great extent merely in the nature of authoritative asser-
tions of principle, and tentative efforts towards giving it
effect ; and were frequently, not to say habitually, accord-
ing to the expediencies of the hour, trampled under foot,
even by those who were supposed to carry them into
execution.

84. Take the great case of Magna Charta, in which the
community had so vast an interest. It was incessantly
broken, to be incessantly, not renewed, but simply re-
affirmed. And law was thus broken by authority, as autho-
rity found it convenient : from the age when Henry III.
"passed his life in a series of perjuries," as is said by
Mr. Hallam,* to the date when Charles II. plundered the
bankers, Magna Charta was reasserted, we are told,
thirty-two times, without having been once repealed.
But we do not therefore, from, discovering either occa-
sional or even wholesale disobedience, find it necessary
to read it otherwise than in its natural sense.

85. The reign of Elizabeth bisects the period between
Magna Charta and ourselves. But very little progress
had been made in her times towards improving the ma-
terial order of society; and, from religious convulsion,
they were in truth semi-revolutionary times. Acceding

* Middle Ages,' ii. 451-3.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 187

to the throne, she had to struggle with an intense dualism
of feeling, which it was her arduous task to mould into
an unity. The clergy, except a handful, sympathised
largely with the? old order, and continued very much in
the old groove throughout the rural and less advanced
districts. To facilitate her operations on this side, she
wisely hrought in the Rubric of Ornaments. But there
had also sprung up in the kingdom, after the sad ex-
perience of Mary's reign, a determined Puritanism, lodged
principally at the main centres of population, and sus-
tained by the credit of the returning exiles (several of
them Bishops), and by the natural sympathies of the
Continental Reformation. Where this spirit was domin-
ant, the work of destruction did not wait for authority,
and far outran it.

86. In truth, the powers of the Queen and the law
were narrowly hedged in, on this side as well as on the
other. What could be more congenial to her mind and to
her necessities, than that, for all this second section of
her people, she should wink hard at neglect in a sore
point like that of vestments, and that in proceeding to
the Advertisements of 1564, though obliged to apply a
stronger hand, she should confine herself to expressing
what she thought absolute decency required, namely, the
surplice, and leave the rubric and the older forms, to be
held or modified according to the progressive action of
opinion ? Considering the violent divergencies with which
she had to deal, would it not have been the ruin of her
work if she had endeavoured to push to the extremes
.now sometimes supposed the idea of a present and imme-
diate uniformity throughout the land ? This I admit is
speculation, on a subject not yet fully elucidated ; but it
is speculation which is not in conflict with the facts thus

188 THE CHTJECH OF ENGLAND AND EITUALISM.

far known, and which requires no strain to be put upon
the language of the law.

87. " England expects every man to do his duty ;" and
this is an attempt at doing mine, not without a full
measure of respect for those who are charged with a
task now more than ever arduous in the declaration and
enforcement of the Act of Uniformity. To lessen the
chances of misapprehension, I sum up, in the following
propositions, a paper which, though lengthened, must,
I know, be dependent to a large extent upon liberal
interpretation.

(I.) The Church of this great nation is worth preserving;
and for that end much may well be borne.

(II.) In the existing state of minds, and of circum-
stances, preserved it cannot be, if we now shift its
balance of doctrinal expression, be it by an alteration
of the Prayer Book (either way) in contested points, or
be it by treating rubrical interpretations of the matters
heretofore most sharply contested on the basis of "doctrinal
significance."

(III.) The more we trust to moral forces, and the less
to penal proceedings (which are to a considerable extent
exclusive one of the other), the better for the Establish-
ment, and even for the Church.

(IV.) If litigation is to be continued, and to remain
within the bounds of safety, it is highly requisite that
it should be confined to the repression of such proceedings
as really imply unfaithfulness to the national religion.

(Y.) In order that judicial decisions on ceremonial may
habitually enjoy the large measure of authority, finality,
and respect, which attaches in general to the sentences
of our courts, it is requisite that they should have uniform
regard to the rules and results of full historical investiga-

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND EITCTALISil. 189

tion, and should, if possible, allow to stand over for the
future matters insufficiently cleared, rather than decide
them upon partial and fragmentary evidence.

[POSTSCRIPT. The Quarterly Eeview for July 1875 (p. 288 n.)
observes that I have " stated the difficulty of acquiring knowledge
on these subjects," and have " also illustrated it." Three instances
are given :

1. In relating a proceeding of the year 1573, 1 have u elevated "
a college chapel into a collegiate church. This the Eeviewer shows
to have been contrary to the law of 1573, by referring to the Canons
of 1603, and to the Act of Uniformity of 1662, which draws the
distinction clearly. No such distinction is drawn in the Act of
Elizabeth, which says, " In any cathedral or parish church, or
other place within this realm," &c. It has therefore to be considered
whether, unless and until the law dealt with them separately,
churches under the charge of a body of clergy were or were not
collegiate churches. The Kubric of 1559, prescribing weekly com-
munion in cathedral and collegiate churches, added the reason
of the provision, " where be many priests and deacons" : a descrip-
tion eminently applicable to colleges. This question, I presume,
can hardly be decided by the reviewer's very original method of
referring to enactments made, one thirty and the other ninety years
afterwards.

But it is a question of law, on which I can only guide myself by
the opinions of others. And the Reviewer is wrong in saying that
I stated the difficulty of " acquiring knowledge " on these subjects.
My remarks refer entirely to historical and antiquarian knowledge,
from which I have been careful to distinguish matters of law.

The Eeviewer's second point is that I have quoted as accurate a
statement of Mr. MacColl, that, as the Rubric required the clergy
to read four chapters of Holy Scripture daily, and the ' Advertise-
ments " two, we have here a case in which the statute prescribed a
major amount of observance, but the subaltern or executive
authority was content with a minor amount. The Reviewer holds
that the provision of the Advertisements was cumulative ; and that
it was obligatory on the Clergy of England, under severe penalties,

190 THE cnmicn OF ENGLAND AND RITUALISM.

to read, in all, six cBapters of the Bible daily. His proofs are
(p. 253) that

1. The two chapters are to be read "with good advisement to
the increase of my knowledge."

2. That " the service appointed " was to be read clearly and
audibly, " that all the people may hear and understand."

On this ground he dismisses the opinion contrary to his own as
" a gross misrepresentation." I leave it to Mr. MacColl to develop
and sustain his statements ; but to me the contention of the
Reviewer seems to border on the incredible ; and the " gross mis-
representation " to be a reasonable construction, if we bear in mind,
what the Reviewer forgets or omits, namely, that the rubrical
obligation of the clergyman as such not of the officiating " curate "
merely, with whom he confounds the wider class was to say daily
the morning and evening prayers in public or in private.

His third allegation is : " It is admitted that surplice and cope
are to be worn together in cathedrals." Admitted by whom ? By
him, perhaps, after he has been informed of a Rubric of 1549,
which perhaps he had also omitted to observe. But I was remark-
ing on the Purchas Judgment, and no such admission is contained
in the Purchas Judgment. It says, " The Vestment or Cope, Alb,
and Tunicle, were ordered by the First Prayer Book of Edward
VI. . . . The Canons . . . ordered the surplice only to be used
in parish churches." (Brooke's 'Judgments,' pp. 175-6.) The
Canons say nothing (Canon 58) of the surplice only. But the
Judges put in the word only. If the Reviewer is right, this was
a reckless or fraudulent interpolation. But he is wrong, and why?
Because they evidently believed the use of the surplice excluded
the use of the other vestments. This they have declared in
express terms (see note, p. 95) as to chasuble, alb, and tunicle ; and
from the words I have quoted, "the Vestment or Cope," it seems
they were not aware of any distinction between cope and chasuble :
as again they dwell upon "the determination to remove utterly
. . . all the vestments now in question." This, I may add, they
think was proved by the Lincoln MS. which Mr. Peacock has pub-
lished. Evidently the Judges proceeded upon the report of some
most ill-informed informant, and had not read as how could they
read ? the work itself. For Mr. Peacock's volume, which they
cite to show the destruction of " all the vestments," refers to some

THE CHTJECH: OP ENGLAND AND RITUALISM. 191

hundred parishes only, and, in no less than about a score of these,
reports that the cope was still retained.

I am sorry to have detained the reader with this exposure of the
errors of a Keviewer, who really has not the same excuse, as may
be reasonably alleged on behalf of the Judges of Appeal, for the
misapprehension and consequent misstatement of history ; in a dis-
cussion very wearisome in itself, but on which unhappily great
practical issues are made to depend by the error of one party or of
both.]

IV.

ITALY AND HER CHURCH *

1875.

1. LET no susceptibilities, Puritan, Protestant, Anglican,
or other, be startled if we observe that Borne is and may
long be, in some important respects, the centre of the
Christian world. It is indeed a centre which repels as
well as attracts ; which probably repels even more than
it attracts ; but which, whether repelling or attracting,
influences. It need not be feared ; but it ought not to be
overlooked : as the navigator fears not the tides, but yet
must take account of them. It influences that wide
Christendom in which England, with its Church, is but
an insulated though not an inconsiderable spot.

* Reprinted from the Church Quarterly Review for October 1875:
article on (1) ' Discorsi del Presidente del Consilio, Marco Minghetti,
sulla Politica Ecclesiastical Roma, Tip. Botta, 1875. (2) 'Discorso
del Deputato C. Tommasi-Crudeli sulle Relazioni dello Stato colla
Chiesa.' Roma, Tip. Botta, 1875. (3) Discorso del Deputato Guer-
rieri-Gonzaga sulle Relazioni dello Stato colla Chiesa.' Roma, Tip.
Botta, 1875. (4) ' I Parroci Eletti e la Questione Ecclesiastical Di
Carlo Guerrieri-Gonzaga. Firenze, Civelli, 1875. (5) < Lettera della
Fabbriceria di S. Giovanni del Dosso al Sindaco di Quistello.' Mantova,
Tip. Segna, 1873. Corresponding letters from Paludano, March 1874,
and Frassino, March 1874. (6) ' Statuto Dogmatico-Organico-
Disciplinare della Chiesa Cattolica Naziona.e Italiana.' > T apoli,
Morano, 1875. (7) 'Otto Mesi a Roma, durante il Concilio Vaticano.'
Per Pomponio Leto. Firenze, Le Monnier, 1873. (8) ' Cenni Biogra-
fici Documentati di Monsig. Domenico Panelli, Arcivescovo Cattolico
di Lydda.' Estratto dal Periodico L'Emancipatore Cattolico, Anno xir.
No. 15. (9) Libera Chiesa in Libero Stato : Genesi della Formola
Cavouriana.' Di Guido Padelletti. Estratto della Nuova Antologia.
Firenze, Luglio, 1875.

VI.

194 ITALY AND HER CHURCH.

2. The political* power of England is great ; but its
religious influence is limited. The sympathies even of
nonconforming England with Continental Protestantism
are, and must be, partial : the dominant tone and direction
of the two are far from identical. The Church, though in
rather more free contact than our Nonconforming bodies
with the learning of Protestant Germany, is of course
more remote from its religious tendencies. The Latin
communion forces the Church of England more and more
into sharp antagonism: and we are only beginning to
sound the possibilites of an honourable, but independent,
relation of friendship with the East. In matter of religion,
poetry might still with some truth sing of the penitus toto
divisos orbe Britannos. We of all nations have the greatest
amount, perhaps, of religious individuality, certainly of
religious self-sufficiency. A moral, as well as a natural,
sea surrounds us; and at once protects and isolates us
from the world. But this is, of course, in a sense which
is comparative, not absolute. The electric forces which
pervade the Christian atmosphere touch us largely, outer
barbarians though we be ; and they touch us increasingly.
And a multitude of circumstances make us aware that, if
we are at least as open to criticism as our 'neighbours, yet
we have like them a part to play in Christendom, and a
broad field to occupy with our sympathies, under the
guidance of such intelligence as we may possess.

3. In the endeavour to discuss the scope and limits of
this field, we should above all things beware of the
temptation to exact from others either the adoption, 01
even the exact appreciation, of our insular and national
peculiarities. Community of first principles is that for
which we needs must look, not identity in the form of
development. Now, in the religion of the Eeformed

ITALY AND HER CHURCH. 195

English Church, the conservation of authority is a first
principle, and the restoration of freedom and of the
respect due to the individual conscience is another : and
if there be anything, claiming the name and dignity of a
first principle, which it has been specifically and more
than others given to the Church of England to uphold,
it has been the maintenance, in their just combination, of
these two great vital forces, and the endeavour to draw
from their contact an harmonious result.

4. Let us now, turning our eyes towards Italy, inquire
whether we have anything, or anything special, to do with
it in reference to the religious question which lies so
perilously near its seat of national life. And first, Italy
is the country, in the very heart of which has been
planted that ominous phenomenon, unparalleled in
history, the Temporal Power of the Popedom. In the
claim of the Latin Church to territorial sovereignty, the
nations of Europe generally may be thought not to have
any other than a secondary concern. But for Italy it is
palpably matter of life and death. "We do not enter into
the question whether any of the possibilities of the past
years would have permitted the coexistence of a solid
Italian nationality with a Popedom exercising temporal
dominion. It doomed her to the weakness, and the dis-
honour, of existing only in fractions. If the head was to
be independent of the body, the members of the body
loved also to be independent one of another. The subtle
observant intelligence of Macchiavelli, and more than two
centuries before him, the vast, all-embracing genius of
Dante, saw in the Triregno the bane of their country.
It seems as though their prophetic insight had been
fully vindicated by the picture we now behold, where
the Pope-King and the National-King, confronting one

o 2

196 ITALY AND HEE CHUECH.

another on the same spot of ground, represent an in-
compatibility that cannot be overcome or even softened.
Italy must cease to be a nation, or the Papacy must
consent to the mutilation of the triple crown.

5. So far as this problem is one of material forces, it
seems to depend primarily on Italy herself. And in this
view it has been settled ; settled, with a settlement taken
to be final. But it does not depend wholly or ultimately
on Italy. There is a doctrine which had at one time the
countenance even of Montalembert, and which we do not
know that he ever retracted. According to this doctrine,
all members of the Latin communion, dispersed throughout
the world, are invested with a right of proper citizenship
in Italy ; which deprives the people of that Peninsula of
their moral title to dispose of their own soil, and which
authorises this fictitious entity, this non-resident majority,
to claim that in the very heart of the Peninsula a terri-
tory shall be set apart from their jurisdiction, for the
purpose of subserving the spiritual interests of Roman
Catholics and of their wide-spreading Church. The
votaries of this doctrine hold with perfect consistency,
that such a right, being one of proper citizenship, may
be enforced by the sword.

6. Nor is this a mere opinion of the schools. Neither
is it a tradition which, having once lived, is now dead.
In 1848, the people of the Papal State overthrew the
sacerdotal government, constituted themselves into a
Republic, and evinced every disposition to keep the peace,
and to respect the rights of neighbours. Eut the swords
of four States were at once drawn upon them. France,
Austria, Spain, and the Kingdom of Naples, upon the
preposterous plea of being invested, as Catholic nations,
with a title to dispose of the civil interests of several

ITALY AND HEE CHTTHCB:. 197

millions of men, put down the free State in 1849. The
operations of Naples and of Spain were feeble and in-
significant. The interventions of Austria, due in great
part to her false position as the mistress of Lombardy
and Yenetia, reached their final term many years ago, and
nothing can be more unlikely than their renewal. But
France, which had no territorial interest to defend, and
which is supposed to be rather more exempt than any
country in Europe from the weaknesses not only of
enthusiasm, but of belief, maintained by sheer force the
Papal throne, until the exigencies of the German crisis
compelled her in 1870 to evacuate Civita Yecchia. May
she not, or can she not, ever do this again ? A question
of vast and profound interest to Europe, and one of those
questions, to the cry of which England cannot altogether
shut her ears.

7. Certain it is that France can never perform the
same operation with the same ease, as in 1849. At that
time Italy had no friend among the nations, except
England. Even in England, sentiment was far from
being united. The Conservative party, even as it was
represented in its most liberal members, such as Lord
Aberdeen, was opposed to the popular sentiment of Italy ;
and to this division it may have been owing that Lord
Palmerston, who sympathised warmly with that senti-
ment, and refused to admit the doctrine that England
had, as a Protestant Power, no title to act in the matter,
nevertheless confined himself to contending that the Papal
Government should, upon its restoration, be reformed, and
the spiritual authority severed from the powers and insti-
tutions of the State.* Russia had the spectre of Poland

* Phillimore's ' International Law,' vol. ii. p. 501.

198 ITALY AKD HER CHURCH.

in her eye, and was associated in all European questions
with the anti-popular and anti-national cause. Prussia,
at that time, considered herself to be so bound by German
sympathies, as to hold that the possession of the Quadri-
lateral* by the Emperor of Austria was a German interest.
It was therefore easy for France to subjugate by sheer
force the Roman people. At the price of this unwarrant-
able act, the government of Louis Napoleon, then Presi-
dent, purchased the Ultramontane support, which upheld
him on his way to the Second of December, and probably
so turned a wavering scale in his favour as to give him
the Imperial throne.

8. The face of Europe has now, in this as in other
respects, undergone a great change. Italy is endowed
with the sense, the responsibility, and the power of
national existence ; and, though still beset by the gravest
financial difficulties, cannot without a struggle submit to
disintegration. ]N either Austria nor Russia are any longer
her enemies. Germany, victorious over France in a single-
handed fight, has been and is her friend ; and is bound by
the strongest considerations of self-interest to assist her
against any attempt to restore the Papal throne by means
of foreign force. This audacious claim is, indeed, not the
only claim of Yaticanism, which menaces in principle the
civil rights and order of Christendom. But it is the only
one which directly and immediately betrays its purpose ;
and the restoration by a French army of the Temporal
Power would unquestionably compromise the very exist-
ence of the German Empire.

9. Add to this, that France has no just or real interest

* The name, now happily almost forgotten, was given to the four
fortresses of Mantua, Verona, Peschiera, and Legnago.

ITALY AND HER CHUKCH. 199

in the accomplishment of this flagitious design. Nor is it
sanctioned by the general sense of her people. There is
no reason to doubt that the great majority of them view
it, on the merits, with decided disapproval. But then
there is no reason to suppose that the general sense of
Frenchmen was favourable to the act of violence com-
mitted in 1849. The Ultramontane sect evidently di-
rected it. The support of that sect was necessary to
give a majority to Napoleonism ; and the Government,
once installed, carried the reluctant country with it into
the war, even as, on the later and greater occasion of
1870, she was precipitated into the destructive strife with
Germany, from motives mostly identical on the part of the
projectors. Prance, with all her wonderful, and in many
respects unrivalled gifts, has yet, after a ninety-years'
apprenticeship, to learn the first lessons of the alphabet
of political freedom ;* and her relation not long ago to
the candidates for her government was well illustrated by
Montalembert as that of a railway train, with the steam
up and all things ready, waiting only for the driver of the
engine, when he who can first step up becomes, and for
the time, remains, absolute master of the situation.

10. That powerful setting of the current of human
motive and inclination, which we ill term Fate, seems at
least, to determine France towards another deadly contest
with Germany for the hegemony of the Continent. No
doubt her words, and, what is more, her thoughts to-day

* [See a like statement, and a note limiting it to the past, vol. iv.
p. 232. The paragraph which here follows not only is, but was at the
time, tainted with a radical defect, in pointing to one solution only of
a very formidable problem. But others are doubtless possible. May
that solution be attained which is best for religion, for freedom, and
for peace. W. E. G., 1878.]

200 ITALY AND TTPTR

are those of peace ;" but her under-thought, so to speak,
the embryo of her mind in the future, which waits for
its development, and for an atmosphere to live in, is war :
war for recovery, perhaps more than for supremacy. When
the time of that terrible war shall arrive, the very instinct
of nature will teach her to strengthen herself by associa-
tion with all the elements congenial to her purpose. Now
such an association can hardly arise in the normal shape
of alliance between State and State. Under this head she
may possibly reckon, according to general appearances,
upon the sympathy of Spain. But a country which, after
having risen so high, has sunk so low, and which
resembles France at present only in its incapacity of
self-government, can count for little.

1 1 . The true ally of France will be an ally without a
name ; it will be the Ultramontane minority which per-
vades the world; which triumphs in Belgium; which
brags in England; which partly governs, and partly
plots, in France ; which disquiets, though without
strength to alarm, Germany and Austria; which is weaker
perhaps in Italy than in any of those countries ; but
which is everywhere coherent, everywhere tenacious of
its purpose, everywhere knows its mind, follows its
leaders, and bides its time. This minority, which hates
Germany and persecutes Italy, will by a fatal and in-
evitable attraction be the one fast ally of France, if ever
France be again so far over-mastered by her own internal
foes, as to launch again upon a wild career of political
ambition wearing the dishonourable and fictitious garb of
religious fanaticism. Thus, then, there are two great
forces which, when the occasion comes, will menace
peace : the political resentment and self-recovering energy
of France, which has Germany for the object of its hos-

ITALY AND HER CHURCH. 201

tility ; and the venomous ambition of Curialism, deter-
mined to try another fall before finally renouncing its
dream of temporal dominion, which drives at Italy. And
these two may, in ill-assorted wedlock, even while hating
one another all the time, band themselves together, in
pursuit of their entirely distinct objects, by a common
and identical line of action.*

12. Ever since Italy, not wholly by her own might,
achieved her national unity, her successive governments
seem to have cast beside and behind them, as evil dreams,
all these dark speculations on the future. In this course
of proceeding, they have probably represented and re-
flected, with general accuracy, the sentiment if not of the
nation, yet of the governing classes of the nation. That
such a sentiment should have had currency in Italy is
among the most singular phenomena of the day. Germany
and Austria, which are not menaced by the claims of
Vaticanism, except in common with all civilised nations,
have deemed it needful to defend themselves, by regu-
lative or repressive laws, against the encroachments of

* [The events which have occurred in France since 1875 cannot,
perhaps, be said to have removed all risk of the contingencies contem-
plated in paragraphs 10, 11. But, as regards the question between the
two nations, they have widened the area of hope for peace, and the
practical admission of sound principle in regard to territorial distribu-
tion. As regards the likelihood which was so seriously estimated by
me, an attempt to seek for a restoration of the Temporal Power by
violent intervention from abroad, it has happily been reduced in a
larger measure, first by the triumph of the principles of free government
in France, and secondly by the change in the occupancy of the Papal
Chair. The initiative of 1859 laid upon Italy a debt of gratitude to
France, which remains weighty and substantial after allowing for
every set-off; and it may now be hoped that the two nations, alike
pledged to the cause of free government, will never be divided by an
unnatural cause of quarrel. W. E. G., 1878.]

202 ITALY AND HER CHUECH.

ecclesiastical power. But Italy lias pursued the negative
or neutral course. She stands by, and folds her arms.
And yet she is the country whose very heart it is the
fixed desire and design of the Roman Curia, and of its
abettors throughout Christendom, to tear out of its
bleeding body, for the purpose of erecting anew the
fabric of the Temporal Power now crumbled in the dust.
This indifference towards the Church, in the sphere of
religion, has been accompanied to some extent with
severity, and even with harshness, at its point of contact
with property which could be made available for the
needs of the State. But let us for the present con-
template it by itself, and give it the examination which,
in the view of history and philosophy, it so well
deserves.

13. The indifference of Italy, then, to Papal claims is
in our view due to her proximity to the local source
from whence they proceed ; and springs partly from the
knowledge, partly from the illusions, which belong to
that proximity. The master spirit of Dante, near six
hundred years ago, knew how to distinguish between the
Curia or Popedom, with its surrounding organisation, and
the Christian religion as professed in the Western Church.
But this privileged power of discrimination was committed
only to the highest minds. Even for Dante it would
probably have been far more difficult now to draw this
great distinction, to denounce his Antichrist without
losing hold of his Beatrice, his impersonated Christianity,
than it was at the period when he lived. At any rate, as
matter of fact, it is undeniable that, among the governing
classes of Italians, this distinction has not, from 1860
onwards, been effectually drawn. Profligacy, corruption,
and ambition, continued for ages, unitedly and severally,

ITALY AND HEE CHX7ECH. 203

their destructive work upon the country, through the
Curia and the Papal Chair ; and in doing it they of course
have heavily tainted the faith, of which that Chair was
the guardian. For a long time the principle of "belief
remained so vigorous in Christendom, that it was able to
bear up against these terrible deadweights, and yet to
retain its buoyancy. But, as its inward energies declined,
it gradually became unequal to sustaining the unnatural
burden : its power of floatation, to use a nautical term,
became less and less. The ill-starred alliance between
Curialism and the Dogma could not be dissolved.
Curialism long lived upon the credit of the Dogma:
in the discredit and repudiation of Curialism, the Dogma
has now been largely effaced from the educated mind of
Italy.

14. Therefore it is that the peculiar indifference of
Italy is due partly to its special knowledge, partly to
its besetting illusions. She has lived with Dagon at her
centre : she has been able daily to see, hear, touch, and
handle him : she has taken the measure of his pretensions :
she knows the materials he is made of. Of interdicts and
excommunications she has had the largest experience ;
and, though feared elsewhere, they have lost their terrors
for her and for her children. Eveiy thunderbolt of the
Vatican, as it was launched to whatever point of the
compass, has passed before her eye ; and familiarity has
bred contempt. She knows that the (Ecumenical Council
of Trent has excommunicated all who lay hands on the
Temporal Power ; and she feels herself no worse, perhaps
rather the better, for the excommunication. Strong in her
sense of national right and independence, in the high
endowments of her people, and, to a far greater extent
than is commonly known, in the enduring vitality of her

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Chur'.h from t; r '/ur who

,'iut,horif,;it,ivf, fl1

f'onnul;!., r LflwA OHii " ' IfbtTO StfttO

In CO1 f he fidoption and the app. ,f this

forrriul-'i., \t-.\. ir-. before all thin^i put a .'' the

1 it >>y til'; i^J' -')--. finfl ' -.ir^ur. .'), or

r.vf.n hy f ho-'; of oVh' ;

for^;t, t.hfit. Kr./ I 4 ITM for favour, in hi.H

;< H.r';hit.':';t,oni'; " bir-'in^-a of

.ity.

17. It wfi..H oprri to '.
j>l<-:j-<:'l upon tlif; policy, although it }>( a slippery policy,

of <'w.iwlnl.*,

compact thrj n:lati'' it wa

opf:ri to th'-rn to p.-

recently procc^d^d, ;i.nd in th f; t/ ; ^th of tlv;
by the law of tho State what it ' .<\\ for full

civil rights and duties. I>ut Cavour, unli/
begin with a proclamation of war against the I*
and the Curia, for the liberation of th >,'e by

the extinction of the Temporal dominion. Th f
their capitals; he wanted his. And he knew it could
only be had by for git and policy alik

that he should condemn the Temporal Power by
nising the Church as a reli, . ty, and should by

the acknowledgment of its liberty in its own gpher
emphasis to his title to prevent it from enslaving men in a
sphere not its own. Not a word of exception, then, can
be justly taken against the principle annoi,.
But on the headlong application of that principle a dif-
ferent verdict may have to be pronounced. It

-ary for our purpose to inqirire whether the great

ITALY AXP HT.K (TirRCH.

Minis: ^nsiblc not only for the formula, but also

for the in: n.*

If the States of the Church had been ir.

within the territories of the /.eriean Republic, it

might havi proclaim,

the maxim of I :.urch in a fi\ . ^ even while

putting down the Papal government and absorbing the

territory. For in A State has never had in

its hands any part of what primarily belongs to the

Church. In that country, before its great and needful

ipation. the rights of control over religious bodies,

'.:ng to the constitution of the British Empire, had

made over to the Colonial Governmei."
still belonged to the Imperial Crown and Legislature.
Thus the lathers of the Republic found themselv, -
from the embarrassment of inheriting, along with their
.;! independence, any powers and prerogatives
prop i -iastical.

19. But in the countries of Europe it is not so. In one
shape or another, the Regale pervades them all. And it
is a power which cannot be regarded as simply external
to the Church. "Whatever its specific varieties, its main
outlines have been, everywhere the same. It uniformly

* This question has been ft signal ability, by F

/.oses the list given in the note on p. 193.
I that hi> | - :.tith in the virtue and err

?. oman Court,

.;-e the bishops and the Church in an attitude of

made reservations which, perhaps, may prove

adequate. To the merely vulgar handling of the formula may be

:ng words of the Duke of Argyll : " It seems almost

of original genius can long escape the fate of

:ned to nonsense, by : : up at

second hand." Contemporary Btrieur, July 1S75 (p. 363).

, .. . . _, , . ... . . ., , ; - ,...,-.. :.,........,.. .

ymtsmtA oniTewaliy a command /;opal appoint-

ment* to '- . a* secured ft large infiner*

:...* .:.>.> : .':.-..

/, n//^r making q
-.'i* ciril '^rjwlMfe,

^ with B WM alio th*

U/l it* frtanding^rr/tuwi aeteallj
-. the eeelia<tiefll preetoet; and it
fanctioiii which eM^rtiallj appertained to the
Irimr. r within the Church, and an among her

withdrawal of tiie fttate from

its legal and coiurtitntir/nal action conld, tb^elore, wpplj

iem of % .rch in a free

tmk-ftfl . 1 not merelj the abaadonaea^

hat t; iipoal of the power* which were actually

in its hand.*.

20. rroandentfjftemofthegOTenimentof theCkmrek

wan a constitutional fjitem of balaaoed powen . The

bishop ordainfed. and in the Weirtern Chmdi inlifilfj

-.-rjry, but th- --m ; later on, the

n , eccletiartieal or lay, in virtue of the

I place or privilege. The
hinwelf wa* elected b; /y, with the

of t :. degrees a ctate of

thing in which, aa far as Italy wac con-

ad generally disappeared. Its powen
and functir/ns in appointing pastors and governor! of the
Church, together with thoK (for the most part) of tie

208 ITALY AND HER CHURCH.

priesthood, had either been inherited by the State, or
absorbed by the Pope. In England, lay influence is
very largely maintained, among other modes, by lay
patronage ; but in Italy lay patronage is comparatively
rare. Virtually these great powers were held principally
by the Pope in the name of the Church, partly by the
State on behalf of the people, and, to some extent, of the
clergy. As the Pope's best title was that he acted for
the prevention of secularism, so the State was undoubtedly
a trustee for liberty ; and the balance of powers, which
was a fundamental law of government in the ancient
Church, was, though in a strangely altered form, yet,
after a manner, and to a substantial extent, maintained.
The question then arose, to whom was the State, in
retiring from the sphere of ecclesiastical action, to make
over these most important functions ?

21. Surely, on every ground of principle, the State, as
a trustee, could not obtain a legitimate release, until it
should have deposited elsewhere the powers it was about
to surrender, in a manner agreeable to the spirit of its
trust. If they were to remain simply derelict, they
would be the object of a general scramble, resulting in
chaos ; or else, if there were one of the parties to the
strife which was possessed of an effective organisation,
while the others were without it, they would assuredly
become the prey of that party.

22. We are not without some means of illustrating,
from the history of our own country, the very important
issue thus raised. We, too, within the last few years,
have witnessed the establishment, by regular legislative
action, of a " free Church in a free State." The allusion,
of course, is to the case of the Church formerly established
by law in Ireland. In that country, the civil power,

ITALY AND HER CHURCH. 209

besides being patron of certain dignities and benefices,
had the power of appointing Bishops. It did not, as
in England, nominate to the Chapter, who are legally
punishable if they do not elect, but whose choice is,
notwithstanding, a moral choice, and laden with the
moral responsibilities of free and deliberate action. In
Ireland, royal nomination at once placed the person desig-
nated in the position which, on this side of the Channel
of St. George, he holds only when bishop elect. He was
in a condition to be confirmed and consecrated. Had the
Crown, by the Irish Church Act of 1869, simply extin-
guished its own action in this matter, it would probably,
or possibly, have been open to the archbishops of Ireland,
at any rate to them with the aid of their suffragans, to
appoint the successors to vacant sees, and thus to found
something dangerously near to at least a theoretical
absolutism.

23. But the view taken by the British Legislature was
that disestablishment did not extinguish right in the
Church, and that the prerogative of appointing or nomi-
nating could not thus be left to take its chance. In the
course of the measure through the House of Lords, that
most acute legist, Lord "Westbury, contended that Parlia-
ment was making a present of the governing power over
the Church to a mob. But in truth it was given by the
express words of the Act, not to a mob but a community
already constituted in three orders, to the Bishops, clergy,
and laity ; and these were put in a condition by their joint
action, as three orders jointly constituting an organised
body, to make provision for themselves by voluntary
contract. Thus the State, having been trustee for the
people, and having theretofore given its authority, in
that capacity, to laws for the Church, both left her in

210 ITALY AND HER CHTJECH.

a condition to pass such laws for herself, and took care
that the people should be parties to those laws.

24. In Italy a different course has been pursued. The
constitution of the Church rests, so far as the State is
concerned, upon the statute of Guarantees. By this law,
provision was made for the free action, security, and inde-
pendence of the Supreme Pontiff, and made in a spirit
not of justice only, but of lavish generosity, probably
with the hope, to which, at least, it was honourable
to cling, that by this liberal spirit, conjoined with the
force of circumstances, the hard and obstinate spirit of
the Curia would at length be brought to some kind of
conformity. But another division of the law deals with
appointments in the Church. The material portion of it
runs as follows :

" XV. The Government renounces the right of apostolic legazia
in Sicily, and the right of nomination or presentation in the grant
of the major appointments throughout the kingdom.

" The bishops shall not be required to swear fealty to the

king."*

*****

"XVI. The Exequatur and Koyal Placet are abolished, with
every other form of governmental assent to the publication and
execution of the acts of ecclesiastical authority."

25. Then follows a reservation, which we believe was
not comprised in the original design ; and which provides
that, until a further legislative arrangement shall be made
concerning Church property, the Exequatur and the royal
Placet shall be kept alive, but so far only as regards the

* *Loi relative aux Garanties, May 13, 1871': Florence, 1871.
The French version, from which we translate and cite, has official
authority.

ITALY AND HER CHT7ECH. 211

enjoyment of the temporalities whether of major or minor
appointments. The parochial patronage of the Crown is
also retained; but this seems to be of comparatively
limited range. Speaking generally, it would appear
that the civil power has kept its hold upon the bene-
ficium, but has surrendered the officium ; and the whole
of the deep interest, which the Christian people of Italy
have in its right disposal, is handed over to the tender
mercies of the ecclesiastical authority. Now, this, as we
should make bold to contend, was a breach of trust. The
share in Church appointments, which the State heretofore
had held, should have been given back to those, in whose
behalf it held that share, namely to the lower order of the
clergy, and to the people.

26. But no such breach of trust was intended. "WTien
the subject of a trust has become absolutely worthless, the
trustee is absolved from further duty in respect of it.
When he supposes it thus to have lost all value, he will,
of course, estimate his own duty as if the value was
really exhausted. There is no denying the awkward
fact, that the policy of Italian governments with regard
to Church power, perhaps with regard to religion in
general, has been founded upon an illusion alike palpable
and mischievous. They cannot be acquitted of the charge
of having surrendered the interests of the people in
Church appointments, by leaving those appointments to
the Pope and his agents ; unless upon the ground, which
seems to be the true ground, that they thought these
offices had lost their importance, and the religion, that
they were to teach, its power.

27. No rational man will quarrel, or take pains, except
about things which live. In Italy, the crust of Curialism
has so enveloped the Divine treasure of the Gospel, as to

p 2

212 ITALY AND HER CHT7ECH.

hide it from her most modern Parliaments and statesmen.
Against Curialism they know themselves to he well de-
fended hy the good sense of the country; of the kernel
that lies within Curialism, so long had it heen kept from
their view, they have seemed to think they need take
no account. Religion, they might have thought, if their
thoughts are to he gathered from their actions, has played
a great part in the past, but has no share in the future,
of mankind. New powers and principles have come into
action ; science, experience, art, culture, civil organisa-
tion, have reached a hulk and maturity which displaces
religion from the rational and manly mind, and which will
prevent any lack of it from heing felt. Like an individual
man, great when in his flower, hut now decrepit, let
religion, too, retire becomingly from the stage, and no
longer offend us with what has been a subjective, if not
also an objective, reality, but what would now be only
an imposture.

28. Such, if we set aside the theory of Ultramontamsm,
which has certainly not been a direct agent in promoting
this course, is the only theory which can justify the sur-
render of the entire government of the Church, and of
the power to fill its offices without check, to the Pope and
his agents. Unhappily there is other evidence that this
theory has been powerfully operative in Italian policy.
It is one thing to separate the Church from the State, it
is another to separate religion from education and from
life. There has been a tendency to this latter separation
too. The faculty of Theology has been extinguished in
the Italian universities. "We do not doubt, that there
may have been a multitude of difficulties connected with
its maintenance. But surely it was worth while to
encounter some difficulties, rather than to adopt a measure

ITALY AND HEE CHT7ECH. 213

which denies to the lay student the means of obtaining
scientific instruction respecting his religion ; and which,
as regards the clerical student, practically excludes him
from the possibility of lay contact, and of knowledge of
the social body, on and in which he is to act, as well as
from the benefits of the higher education.

29. This unhappy measure was not required by the
religious divisions of the community, which have required
and justified the erection of the University of London in
our own time and country without a Faculty of Theology ;
for there are no such divisions. Setting aside a few
purely sporadic efforts, all the religion that Italy pos-
sesses is religion according to the creed, and within the
pale, of the Roman Church. By destroying these Facul-
ties in the universities, the shallow speculations and
most irreflective desires of a certain school of Radicalism,
long ago we trust repented of, were encouraged ; but the
most effective aid was given to the deeper designs of the
Roman Curia, which aims at nothing so sedulously, prizes
nothing so highly, as the total removal of the clergy
from the general, open, atmosphere of human life and
thought. It was in the theological Faculties of the
German Universities that that love of freedom was effec-
tually fostered, which is encouraged by, if not inseparable
from, devoted and scientific study. Not in them only had
the fiction of infallibility been detected and denounced ;
but in them only was the denunciation a living reality ;
in them alone was planted that centre of stout and
enduring resistance which has made them a signal of
rallying to the combatant, of shelter to the fugitive, of
consolation to the fallen. Hefele as a Bishop has given
way ; but Dollinger, Reinkens, and their friends, have
stood their ground ; and history may yet have to recog-

214 ITALY AND HER CHURCH.

nise in these Professors a new and true Band of
Immortals.

30. It should never he forgotten that this strange
dualism in religion, this contrast between a central body
given over to the lust of power, and a system of doctrine,
still fruitful (with all its drawbacks) of instruction, con-
solation, and inward renewal for mankind, is confined to
the Latin Church. It does not exist among Protestant
communions generally, in most of which the ministry has
nothing whatever, except moral strength, to depend upon ;
while in the Wesleyan body, where the pastoral class is
fortified with high constitutional powers, due to the spirit
of Wesley, they have not sufficed to raise either their
practical influence or their ecclesiastical standing to a
higher level. It is not felt in the Anglican Church, where
the disposition to any gross exaggeration of clerical power
has never been operative beyond a narrow circle. It is
nowhere discernible in the Oriental communions, where
the clergyman is essentially a citizen, and of which the
doctrinal aspect presents a closer approximation to Rome,
though very far from an identity with it.

31. It is, then, with regret and sympathy, but in no
spirit of affected superiority, that we notice the misdirec-
tion in some respects, as we deem it, of Italian policy.
In careful observation of the world and its life, we shall
not rarely find that some of the errors, which are materially
the gravest, are morally the least ; or, in other and plainer
words, that some of the greatest errors we commit are
also the most excusable. Moreover, in the case before us,
grave as would be the consequences of a blind tenacity,
we are under the comforting persuasion that Italy herself
has within herself the means of such recovery, as will
effectually retrieve the ground that has been lost. In

ITALY AND HER CHURCH. 215

explaining the signs, which suggest and sustain this per-
suasion, we shall endeavour to show that the opinions
given in the foregoing pages have not been merely the
officious observations of foreign criticism, but have had
high and weighty countenance in Italy itself, and are not
without some promise of becoming the great regulating
influence of her policy in the future.

32. The condition of things which we have deprecated
is, it will be remembered, a condition of Papal, or rather
Curial, absolutism within the Church. In the abstract,
this is secured by the declarations of the Vatican Council.
To give it effect, nothing more is required than these two
very simple arrangements, that the Pope should every-
where appoint the bishops, and the bishops everywhere,
or as a rule, the clergy; of their own free will and motion
in the two cases respectively, without check or participa-
tion from without. And this is the course which, in
the main, has been pursued in Italy until a very recent
date.

33. "We have not yet dwelt upon the important reser-
vation under which the Exequatur and the Placet were
still kept alive so far as the temporalities of the Church
were concerned. The rights of the clergy and people,
and of the State on their behalf, extended, indeed, far
beyond temporalities. Still, the temporalities were a
handle by means of which, when properly used, much of
what had been let fall might be recovered. Until a
recent period, however, very little use had been made of
this instrument. We take the facts from the able speeches
of Signer Minghetti, who holds the office of President of
the Council, or Prime Minister of Italy. In referring to
this distinguished person and his government, we beg it
to be understood that we do not presume to charge upon

216 ITALY AND HER CHUECH.

them any special or separate responsibility. They have
been acting as their predecessors apparently had acted,
and both alike, it is fair to state, have reflected the
spirit of the legislative body and of the classes who
there, as here, practically determine the ordinary direc-
tion of the policy of the day. Indeed, it is to them that
we look with confidence to avail themselves of the fresh
vital forces which have been exhibited in the country,
and of the co-operative disposition which the Chamber has
rather energetically manifested.

34. Let us now hear the facts as they are given by the
Minister :

"Since the law on Guarantees was promulgated* there have
been nominated by the Pope 135 bishops, and 15 coadjutor bishops
with right of succession, that is to say, in all 150. Of these, how
many have, directly or indirectly, asked for the Exequatur-? We
shall see further on, the mode in which it has been asked. It was
asked by 94. What has the Government done in these 94 cases?
It has granted 28, it has refused G5 ; one is not yet disposed of "
(P- 13).

The Minister proceeds to explain that, in all these
28 cases the several Papal Bulls, or a part of them,
always including the Bull of nomination, had been pre-
sented to the Government. In two cases they were
presented by the Bishop himself : in eight by the Chap-
ters, or by portions of them ; in seventeen, by the Syndic
of the Commune, with other individuals ; in only one, by
a private person, who, however, was also a Deputy.
The concurrence of the Bishop was exacted in all the
cases, and his recognition of the Royal Government. In

* That is to say, within four years. The Minister spoke on May 7,
1875.

ITALY AND HER CHUBCH. 217

giving the Exequatur and the Placet, it is, so the Minister
holds, the business of the Government to have regard
to the qualities of the person designated, the consent,
express or tacit, of the diocese, and the general opinion
of the country. He goes on to defend the conduct of
the Government in respect to the 28 Exequaturs issued.

35. Signer Minghetti had on this occasion to perform a
duty which often devolves on the ministers of this country :
to defend the Chamber, in effect, against itself. The
Government in Italy is loyally chosen by the Sovereign,
as it is chosen here. Its ecclesiastical policy was, there is
no reason to doubt, a reflection of their will. All there-
fore was calm. But when a breeze arises, and the air is
stirred, and those who represent the movement present a
case difficult to answer, the Chamber forgets its moral
identification with the Minister in what has previously
happened, and leaves him, at least until the voting comes,
to bear with little aid the brunt of the attack. Often a
representative body is in truth culprit as well as judge.
But, in defending the positive action of the Government,
the Minister passed lightly and in silence over what it had
not done ; and he was careful to acknowledge the unful-
filled obligation to propose a complementary law (pp. 20,
21). He went further. He declined indeed, and wisely
declined, to undertake a religious reform. But he affirmed
that the civil power had already become more stringent in
its procedure, and felt the touch of the breath of popular
opinion. When the promised measure is introduced

" Then will be the opportunity to observe whether, without direct
encouragements, without instigation from the Government, there
exists in the flocks of the Church such a spirit of initiative, such a
vivacity of religious sentiment, as to cause them to resume those
rights, which in other times the laity so highly prized" (p. 21).

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220 ITALY AND HER CHUECH.

among its members, at its head. The parish is in that
country an ecclesiastical, but not a civil, unit ; and rela-
tions with the State are conducted through the commune.
These communes, in the Northern and the greater portion
of Italy, are very ancient institutions ; and the habits of
local self-government, inherited from a long series of
generations, have without doubt had a large share in
endowing the people of that country with a capacity for
organising their own government, and managing their
affairs without creating any disquietude or apprehension
among their neighbours, which has placed them, in this,
important respect, at the head of the Latin nations of
Europe.

40. Through the Fallriceria, or Fabric-Vestry, of the
parish, the choice of Don Lonardi at San Giovanni was
made known to the Syndic of the commune, which is
called Quistello, by the transmission of the atto dinomina,
together with a letter, which charges upon the Bishop a
breach of his word, and sets forth very ingenuously that
only after months of correspondence they had thus pro-
ceeded to right themselves. They proceed to state that
now especially, under the action of the Vatican decree,
the inferior clergy had sunk to a position entirely new
(Letter, p. 6) in ecclesiastical history, and could not exer-
cise any freedom of thought, even in civil matters, except
at the peril of losing their daily bread. To men so
enslaved, they declare that they cannot give their confi-
dence or open their minds ; nor can they entrust to such
men (p. 7) the spiritual care of their wives, actual or
betrothed. Such a system would overturn their faith, and
make worship odious to the community. They think that
a remedy will be found in restoring to the people the
choice of their pastor, so that he may no longer be

ITALY AND HER CHTJBCH. 221

dependent upon the Bishop at any rate for his means of
support, and may moreover have some bonds of attach-
ment to the parishioners, and to the State. But all they
ask is the exercise of the civil right, and they would
protest against any invasion of the Bishop's title to
ordain and to institute (p. 10). Their desires are to
return to the primitive discipline of the Church, and
to separate effectually the lay from the ecclesiastical
power (pp. 11, 12).

41. Partly from information they have collected, and
partly from other information which their proceedings
have brought to light, it has been found that in various
parts of Italy there is a considerable sprinkling of parishes,
where popular election of the clergyman already prevails.
Sometimes it is direct, as in the cases of Schivenoglia,
Corregioli, Quatrelle, and Birbesi. Sometimes the power
is exercised on their behalf by the elective body of the
commune, as in Pozzuolo and Eolo. All these are in the
neighbourhood : and they mention the very singular fact,
that the priest of San Giovanni has a concurrent vote with
the parishioners of Schivenoglia in choosing the priest of
that parish. In the district of Trent, this principle of
election prevails (pp. 1315). Nor are examples wanting
of it farther south. In the lovely peninsula of Sorrento,
it is thus that the vacancies of many churches are
supplied.

42. The following is an account obtained from an
authentic source :

" In the parishes of Meta, Carrotto, Trinita, and Mortora, the
procedure is as follows :

" On the death of the priest, the archbishop puts a curate in
charge, until a new priest is chosen. Within six months, the arch-
bishop affixes to the church door, on a Sunday, a notice that on

222 ITALY AND HER CHUECH.

the following Sunday, at 10 A.M., the episcopal vicar appointed by
him will arrive at the parish church to collect the votes of the
parishioners of the age of twenty-one years complete.

" On the appointed Sunday, the vicar and his secretary take
their places on the high altar (seduti suW altare maggiore), with a
table before them. He calls the people (i filiani)* assembled in
the church one by one, and inquires in a low tone, * Whom do
you wish for your parish priest ? ' The answer is (suppose)
' Tizio.' Thereupon, always in an undertone, he repeats to his
secretary, ' Tizio.' He calls another, and puts the same question.
The answer is (say), ' Sempronio.' The vicar repeats this name to
his secretary, who notes down the votes given to each candidate.
When the voting is over, the vicar and his secretary sum up the
numbers ; after which the vicar rises and says, in the presence of
the people: * Tizio has obtained seventy votes; Sempronio has
twenty-five ; Caio nineteen. The election is now closed.' "

43. The list is then carried to the Archbishop : and,
if Tizio is deemed fit for the appointment in point of
learning, capacity, good conduct, and morality, the Arch-
bishop issues to him the Bull of investiture, and after a
few days, again within the parish church, the vicar
inducts him. If the Archbishop judges Tizio to be unfit,
he takes the next on the list ; and so the parish priest
is appointed.

After stating another case where secret voting prevails,
and an attempt to introduce it in Mortora, which was
stopped by the majority as an innovation, the account
we have quoted gives the gratifying informatioD that,
although the canon law authorises the Archbishop to
choose the most worthy of the candidates, in no case
has he found reason to do otherwise than institute the
person who had received the majority of votes.

* The word filiani, we presume, is local and technical. It is not
found in the admirable Tramater Dictionary, published at Naples in
1834.

ITALY AND HEE CHTJECH. 223

44. Other instances are before us ; such "as that of the
Church of San Silvestro at Collebrincione, where the
Bishop apparently went, on a recent occasion, beyond his
rights in proposing to the people a certain Massetti ; and
they, offended at his interference, elected another person,
who, however, was less highly qualified. The Bishop
hereupon refused institution; and only after a considerable
time the people became convinced that Massetti was the
better man, when they chose him themselves, and unani-
mously. In Santa Maria del Guasto, the members of the
University of Aquila, according to a deed of A.D. 1520,
appear to exercise the right of election on behalf of
themselves and of the people, probably by an encroach-
ment which, through their superior organisation, they
may at some time have effected on a more primitive right.
We observe with much pleasure that the exercise of this
very serious function by the Italian people, in the south
as well as the north, is exercised with gravity, order,
and moderation. From their example the ratepayers of
English parishes have much to learn.

Thus the principle of popular election subsists peace-
fully, and from an immemorial tradition, in Italy, by the
side of the more prevailing but more modern system of
nomination : so that, when brought into discussion, it does
not grate as a novelty upon the mind of a country, in
which the conservative instinct is of no small strength.

45. In November of the same year, 1873, which had
witnessed the bold proceeding at San Giovanni del Dosso,
the parish of Frassino followed the example, and with a
careful observance of similar forms, in the presence of the
notary Bertolini of Mantua, elected for their parish priest
Don Luigi Perrabo. The votes in his favour were 203, in
a parish with a population of less than 1,200 ; and they

224 ITALY AND HER CHUECH.

were unanimous. The letter of their Fallriceria states
their case to the Sindaco of San Giorgio di Mantova. It
points out with some force that election has now been
adopted as the main regulator of the operations of civil
society (p. 13) ; and that, if the Government he disposed
to view the application of this principle to the arrange-
ments of the Church with favour, they have only to make
over the right of election to the people in those parishes
which are in the gift of the Crown (p. 11). They again
were followed hy Paludano, which, in the month of March
1874, elected Don Paolo Orioli. The several letters to the
syndics have it for their ohject to obtain the sanction of
the Government, with a view to the admission of the
priest elect to the parsonage, and to other temporalities.
They are written in a tone indicative of more or less
misgiving as to the probable attitude of the Ministry ;
which any of those who may hereafter walk in their
steps will not, we hope, have any occasion to repeat.

46. We learn that when Baron Bicasoli took the helm
in 1861, after the deplorable loss which Italy had suffered
by the death of the great Cavour, in drawing the outline
of his ecclesiastical policy, he spoke as follows.

" We intend going to Rome, not to destroy, but to
construct ; to offer the opportunity, to open the way, for
the Church to reform herself; to grant her the liberty and
the independence which may supply both the means and the
incentive for self-renovation in that purity of the religious
sentiment, in the simplicity of life, and strictness of disci-
pline, which with so much honour and credit to the
Popedom made its early history glorious and venerable." ,

47. Prom the excellent speeches of Guerrieri-Gonzaga, '
Yillari, and Tommasi-Crudeli, lately delivered in the
Italian Chamber, we learn how, under the pressure,

ITALY AND HER CHTJECH. 225

perhaps, of urgent political anxieties, this outline has
for a time failed to he filled up : and how formidable
the results were likely to hecome. Villari, the author
of a work on Savonarola, which has for the first time
given to that remarkable man his assiette in history,
says (p. 13) : " Permit me to tell you, the thought which
more than any other makes me fear for the future is,
that we are now engaged in training a nation to consist
of Yoltairians and of clericals." "Never," says Tomrnasi-
Crudeli, ' ' did Cavour suppose that the liberty which he
promised was to be given only to a faction in the Eoman
Church" (p. 4), which always screams "for liberty in
Protestant countries and stands fast for monopoly and
exclusion in those which are Eoman Catholic." "We have
in Italy, in matter of religion, as he well explains, "not
one thing but two : the Eoman Curia and the Catholic
Church. The first is a political institution, enslaved to
the Jesuits, and sworn to make war upon modern civili-
sation. The other is a flock of human beings associated,
with more or less of personal conviction or adhesion, in a
religion which by no means requires them to be anti-
national." He vigorously contrasts the jealous repression
of the Eed International by Italian law with the profuse
liberties of mischief accorded to a sect or conspiracy of
far closer organisation, and armed with weapons of a far
higher temper. -For Italy, he thinks this prodigality has
been a piece of gross folly : but as against the Italian
Catholic clergy, it has been, he conceives, the consecration
of a tyranny without example. Yet that clergy, as he
states, and we believe with much truth, was once largely
imbued with patriotic feelings, and ought not now to
be given over to the oppressor. Some nine thousand of
them, it may be remembered, had, under the auspices

VI. Q

226 ITALY AND HER CHURCH.

of Passaglia, declared against the Temporal Power of the
Popedoin, years before its actual abolition. There was
indeed, according to this speaker, a scheme in 1865 for
placing the administration of the ecclesiastical patrimony
under the management of diocesan and parochial commit-
tees, wholly independent of the Court of Rome ; but no
step has been as yet taken towards their establishment.

48. The Pope covers all Italy with Yaticanist Bishops,
and the Bishops in their turn fill the parishes with
Yaticanist priests ; and the freedom, which was intended
to be given to the Church, has been conferred only on
the Court of Rome for the enslavement of the Church,
from lack of a right disposition to distinguish between
the two, and tinder the false and mischievous belief that
religion is an effete and superannuated thing, which has
no longer the power to affect society for good or for evil.

" Priests, whose patriotism had up to a certain point been proof
against retrograde suggestions, and against the resentment excited
by the suppression of the ecclesiastical corporations, alarmed and
irritated at this undeserved desertion, now pass over in troops to
the camp of the enemy. Every day lessens the number of a
remainder who, as being braver or more conscientious, take refuge
in a passive silence ; and, if matters continue to go thus, it is easy
to foresee that, after some few years, when all the present generation
of clergy shall be extinct, and with it extinct also the memory of
the sorrows and the joys that priests and laymen had in common
when we were trying to make for ourselves a country, the whole
religious administration of Italy will be in the hands of men
trained to hate and contemn their own land, and driven by a
centralised and irresistible authority, to instil this hatred and
contempt into the rising generation of Italians."*

49. To the same effect, the Marquis Anselmo Guer-
rieri-Gonzaga argued this case in a speech, which serves to

Speech of Tommasi-Crudeli,' p. 13.

ITALY AND HER CHURCH. 227

show how completely and effectually the Italians have
imbibed the spirit, and possess the power, of true parlia-
mentary debate. He- was able to speak from experience
of the state of affairs in the dioceses of Pavia and Mantua,
where this distinguished family, and especially the Marquis
Carlo Guerrieri-Gonzaga, have been able to give valuable
countenance and support to the courageous rural commu-
nities, whose proceedings we have narrated.

50. It was hardly to be expected that their election
of parish priests, which were undoubtedly in one sense
aggressive, should .pass unchallenged. The Bishop of
Mantua had nominated another priest, Don Antonio Prati,
to San Giovanni del Dosso ; and he, together with a dis-
senting minority in the parish, brought an action, before
the Civil and Correctional Court of Mantua, against Don
Lonardi. This minority purported to consist of 47 persons,
against the 207 supporters of Lonardi. But it is stated
that they were all dependents of two proprietors belonging
to the Papal party, and that the real instigator was "the
Marquis Annibale Cavriani, a well-known clerical par-
tisan.* When, in the course of the proceedings, it was
objected that some of these 47 were not parishioners, their
counsel replied that it did not matter ; it was enough if
some, or one, were. Two, according to the Judge, and
two only, were real parishioners of San Giovanni.

51. The object of the action was to oust Don Lonardi,
with Don Coelli, from the parsonage, and to deprive him
of the use of the church, and of the stipend assigned to
him by the Government out of the temporalities of the
parish. The arguments, reported in the Opinione of June
25, are full of interest, but it will be enough if we cite,

* I Parroci Eletti/ pp. 43, 44.

Q2

228 ITALY AND HER CHTJECH.

from the Diritto of the 5th of July, the substance of the
able Judgment given in the case.

52. The canonical regularity of Don Lonardi's position,
of course, could not be affirmed. He had, indeed, received
a formal induction, as the Judge tells us in his luminous
exposition on March 15, 1874, from the archpriest of
Cavriana; but this was while the bishop's nominee,
Prati, was still a claimant of the benefice. Together
with the priests Lonardi and Coelli, was sued a public
officer, entitled the Sub-steward of vacant benefices ; but
he pleaded by counsel, that the parties had no locus standi
against him. Lonardi had been subjected to something
in the nature of a competitive examination by the bishop,
in which he was worsted ; and this, among other points,
is urged on the side of the prosecution. Not, if we under-
stand rightly, as implying a want of clerical character or
qualifications (indeed he had been appointed by the bishop
to administer the parish during the vacancy), but on the
ground that the other was the better and the lawfully
entitled candidate.

53. The Court, first of all, declared its own competency,
under the law of Guarantees, to determine the juridical
effect of ecclesiastical acts. It finds in the first clause
of the Statute, or Constitutional Act, that the Roman
Catholic religion is the religion of the State, but that all
are entitled to have the observances of religion accord-
ing to their consciences. This principle of freedom has
been provided for by the Siccardi law, the law of Civil
Matrimony, and the law of Guarantees. And from this
principle, as the Court conceives, it follows that the
parishioners of San Giovanni were entitled to meet and
choose Don Lonardi to be their spiritual pastor. This
right, however, does not of itself imply possession of the

ITALY AND HER CHURCH. 229

church : and moreover the minority may, if they please,
take Don Prati for their priest by the same right and
title, as empowered the majority to choose Don Lonardi.
Neither of them will, in the estimation of the law, derive
a title from the canons ; each will be simply the minister
of religion to those who may choose, or may have chosen
him. The demand of the prosecutors, that Don Lonardi
be interdicted from all spiritual functions within the
parish, is reproved as well as repelled.

54. Addressing himself next to the question of the
Fabric, the judge finds there is no legal title to it in
any one person or body. But it has been from time im-
memorial available by law for the use of the parishioners ;
and by the Civil Code (Art. 432), it is appropriated, and
belongs to the commune, not to the Church Universal.
All property of this kind remains at the disposition of
the Communal Council, not of the Pope. And this Council
can only be represented by its head, the Syndic ; individual
parishioners cannot interfere unless in certain ways. These
are exceptionally pointed out by the law, and none of
them are here in question. Holding the church under the
sanction of this authority, Don Lonardi cannot be molested
in his use of it. The effect of these conclusions covers the
case of the coadjutor, Coelli, who had a like elective
title.

55. There remains the question of the parsonage, which
is part of the emoluments of the benefice. These emolu-
ments have not been conferred in block by the civil power,
which is alone entitled, upon either claimant. But the
sub-stewardship (sul-economato) of vacant benefices allows
to Don Lonardi the occupation of the residence ; and it is
not in any way responsible to the prosecutors, and ought
not to have been included in this action.

230 ITALY AND HER CHURCH.

56. We are not able even to conjecture whether this
remarkable Judgment will be sustained upon appeal ; for
there appears to be some degree of conflict between the
article of the Statuto, which declares the Roman Catholic
religion to be the religion of the State, and the principle
of freedom of conscience as it is interpreted by the Court ;
to say nothing of the severance of the Church from the
State, which is the basis of the law of Guarantees. But
the first of these is for Italy only a dead formula of the
past, while the second is the declared and energising rule
of prospective policy. There can be little doubt that,
when the promised and expected plan of settlement is
adopted by the Chambers, it must be founded in sub-
stance on the principles proclaimed at Mantua, and the
union of an Italian parish with the Eoman See will then
have to depend only upon voluntary ties.

57. It seems difficult to overrate the importance of the
results to which the action of these poor and hardy villa-
gers may thus be found to lead. The attitude of the
popular mind in Italy has, indeed, no bias towards
religious innovation ; perhaps we ought to say, it has
never become very sensible of the need of religious
improvement and reform. But, while contented with
the tenets and usages of the Latin Church, taught and
administered by such a clergy as they have usually had
to do with, the people of Italy appear to have arrived at
a state of marked indifference with regard to Papal and
episcopal proceedings ; and where they know the Bishop
to be anti-national, they seem quite prepared to dispense
with his aid in the government of their religious concerns.
Determined to part neither with their religion nor with
their patriotism, they think the lack of canonical institu-
tion for their priest a lighter loss. But this state of things

ITALY AND HER CHUBCII. 231

should, perhaps, be regarded as only provisional. Either
the Court of Kome must, probably under a new Pontiff,
relax the rigour of its Ultramontanism, and tolerate a race
of priests who can live in harmony with the people, or
else, if the parishes are left free to continue under Papal
jurisdiction, or to decline it at their will, we must prepare
to see great organic changes in the government of the
Church of Italy. It is probable that such changes in
the government of the Church would at some stage be
followed by reforms, possibly by something more than
reforms, in discipline, nay even in doctrine.

58. These, however, are for the present subjects only
of remote and doubtful conjecture. For ourselves, we
have no love for fiery agitation in matter of religion, and
we would still hope that wise and moderate counsels
may avert a dangerous crisis. What we contemplate with
deep interest and cordial sympathy is the stout and manful
resistance of a handful of Christian flocks to a system of
despotism, springing from the Roman Court, and forced
upon the Italian priesthood, a system which makes deadly
war upon freedom in every shape, not only upon political
and civil, but upon personal, inward, intellectual, and
moral freedom. If, in the ecclesiastical atmosphere of
Italy, the air of heaven is to be breathed without restraint ;
if, without ceasing to be Christians, men are to remain
men and patriots ; if the circle of family life is to be
independent, if the sanctuary of the private conscience is
to be saved from the trampling of the hosts of the Curia,
Italy will owe some part of its debt in respect of these
great blessings to the humble communities of San Giovanni,
of Prassino, and of Paludano.

59. We learn, indeed, with sincere regret that General
Garibaldi has expressed a disinclination to the election

232 ITALY AND HER CHURCH.

of priests by the people, on the ground that it will
tend to strengthen the hold of the Church upon the
country. There cannot be a more conclusive proof of
the deplorable working of the Papal and Curial policy
than that it should have thrown a man of his virtuous
and disinterested character into an attitude of such
violent and undiscriminating opposition. But his
authority in questions of this class is not what might
be supposed.

60. Our Scottish readers of the Free Kirk will be apt to
compare San Giovanni with Auchterarder. " Behold, how
great a matter a little fire kindleth ! "* Amid strong
dissimilarities of circumstance, both exhibited a spectacle,
edifying in itself, and valuable to a worldly and wealth-
worshipping age the spectacle of a struggle on behalf of
the human conscience against the aggression of superior
power ; and it is remarkable that in neither case was there
any uneasiness under the doctrine or the discipline of the
respective religious systems. In each, alike, the object
was to vindicate what was conceived to be the true and
original safeguard of their scheme of government, and to
establish the maxim that the people form at least an
element in the constitution of the Church. In the case
of Auchterarder, where the beacon-light of the Free
Church was first kindled, not only did the early formation
of a large, vigorous, and highly organised body ensue, but
that body, together with its predecessors of the original
Secession, has obtained a moral triumph unparalleled in
history, through the adoption, by the Legislature of 1874,
of an Act which introduces in its full breadth into the
National Establishment of Scotland all that the old

* St. James, iii. 5.

ITALY AND HER CHURCH. 233

Seceders asked, and more than would have contented the
men of Auchterarder.*

6 1 . We fear it is not likely that the Court of Rome
will reverse its policy, or, in homely phrase, eat its words,
as completely as the Scotch Establishment has been con-
tent, and even keen, to eat its words. What we may
hope, but must by no means assume, is that, for the sake
of avoiding more profound organic changes, she will stoop
to tolerate the existence in the Italian Church of moderate
views, and will no longer, by forbidding the Christian to*
be a patriot, prevent the patriot (as far as in her lies) from
being a Christian. But of this we are certain, that she
will not, such is the strength of the evil spirit that seems
to possess her, be brought into this better and milder
mood except under vigorous pressure. The experience of
a few years will show whether that pressure is likely to
be effectually applied.

62. Undoubtedly the Court of Rome, and its party,
have evoked a kind and amount of religious resistance to
its extravagant claims, since the Council of 1870, such as
had had no example since the Reformation in the sixteenth
century. We speak of resistance simply religious, and
not of those conflicts with numerous Christian States,
which it has so wantonly provoked. Germany and
Switzerland are the two countries, in which this resist-
ance is most conspicuous ; and in the first of these two, it
is by far the most important, resting as it does on the
double basis of a considerable popular adhesion, and of a

* We are aware that, as has been shown by Sir Henry Moncrieff
('The Identity of the Free Church Claim,' Edinburgh, 1875), the
ground widened in the course of the Free Church controversy, and it
came to embrace other claims, which are not affected by the Act of
1874,

234 ITALY AND HER CHURCH.

strong learned and historic force, rooted in more than one
of the Universities of the land. Until recently it seemed
as if the corrosion of indifferentism in the higher circles
would in Italy, as it has done in France, preclude the
possibility of any extended movement. But there has
been a shifting of circumstances and figures, which seems
now to give a different complexion to the scene. Nor is
it any one symptom taken alone, but the concurrence and
convergence of many, which appears to warrant the hope
that in one shape or another a stroke will be struck in
that country for the cause of freedom and of truth.

63. For ourselves, we do not doubt as to the shape
which the effect is likely, at all events in its first stage,
to assume. We believe that it will be that which has
been indicated by the village communities of the ^Manto-
vano : an effort to repel the prepotenza, the outrageous
excess of sacerdotal despotism, and to establish the prin-
ciple that the Christian community has something to say
to the management of its own religious affairs. What it
means to say and will say, we cannot fully know, until
the principle itself has obtained adequate recognition and
allowance. It certainly need not assume a revolutionary
character : for it is well established in the East, where
the conservative idea has run even perhaps into extremes,
but where considerable scope is notwithstanding allowed
in ecclesiastical matters to the popular element. The
union of Italy in one and the same Church, and the un-
likelihood of any considerable secession from that Church,
unless under extreme circumstances, greatly favour any
reasonable design for fixing on this basis some new regu-
lation of ecclesiastical affairs. On account of the principle
they involve, an imitation elsewhere of the proceedings
of the three village communities would be of all others

ITALY AND HEE CHURCH. 235

the best and most healthful sign. We do not mean that
the popular election of the parochial clergy is a panacea
for all ills, nor necessarily, that, that measure, in the
exact Mantuan fashion of it, is marked out for ultimate
and universal adoption ; but that it is the only and the
effectual form under which, according to present appear-
ance, resistance can be offered by the disarmed community
of the lower clergy, and by the laity, to an oppressive
and paralysing despotism.

64. The same journal, which contained the sentence of
the ^lantuan court, contained also intelligence of a case
which had just occurred at a considerable distance, in the
district of Friuli. The priest of Pignano, near Cividale,
having been removed by the Archiepiscopal Court of
TJdine, the parish became vacant. The inhabitants in-
vited a clergyman named Yogrig, who had been suspended
from the performance of Church offices (d divinis] several
years back as a liberal Catholic, to assume the charge.
Accepting the invitation, he made his entry into the
place on a Sunday about the beginning of July, amidst a
great concourse of people, and proceeded to celebrate the
mass. The Prefect of Udine was asked by the Papal
party to interfere ; but replied that his sole duty was to
look to public order. In this view he sent a handful of
caralnnieri to the place, whose active services do not
appear to have been called for. An early future, as
vacancies in parishes from time to time occur, will test
the popular feeling in regard to movements of this
description.

65. But there are other features discernible in the
present state of Italy, which cannot be omitted from an
outline such as we are endeavouring to present to view.
It is not merely the changes, which have taken place in.

236 ITALY AND HER CHURCH.

that country, have made an opening for the activity of
Protestant propagandism, and that its promoters have
been sanguine in their statements of results. We see,
indeed, no present reason to anticipate any appreciable
amount of permanent effect from these operations.

66. In Naples, again, there has emerged from the pre-
vailing irritation a body, which assumes the title of the
National Italian Catholic Church, and the proceedings of
which require some notice. It stands in a certain rela-
tionship to a journal which, since the year 1861, has
availed itself of the concession of freedom to the Press,
under the title (in our tongue) of ' The Catholic Eman-
cipator, and journal of the Italian Priesthood's National
Society for emancipation and mutual help.' It has pub-
lished a Statuto Dogmatico-Orgamco-Disciplinare, which
purports to have been adopted by its members in General
Assembly, and which is reputed to have been drawn by
the Cavaliere Prota Giurleo, a presit stated to be very
competent in learning. The Statuto acknowledges the
authority of Divine Eevelation, and of the Universal
Catholic Church, and adheres to the Episcopal government,
the theory of which, however, it expounds in terms so
low as to weaken, if not to efface, its essential distinction
from Presbytery. " The bishop is no more than the first
among brethren, all equals in the priesthood" (Art. 25),
'With this exception, the document may be said to eschew
organic change, and to set forth only moderate reforms.
But there is a remarkable contrast between this modus
operandi, and that of the Alt-Katholiken of Germany.
The Germans have resolutely taken time to consider
their course, before launching a scheme of reformation ;
whereas, this section of Italians have aspired as a religious
community, to spring full-grown and full-armed into life,

ITALY AND HER CHTTECH. 237

like Pallas from the head of Zeus. A form of oath is
appended to the Statuto, which, in terms (we should have
thought) rather too precise, sets forth the promise to
maintain it.

67. The preparation of this document was followed up
hy the election of Monsignor Domenico Panelli as the first
bishop. He hears the title of " Catholic Archbishop of
Lydda," and a short memoir of his life has been printed
in the Emancipatore Cattolico, Ts"o. 15, of the present year.
He is here certified by " Monsignor Benjamino Evsevidis,
Areiuescovo di Neapoli" to have been consecrated arch-
bishop by him, and an assistant prelate, in the year 1869,
at Constantinople. The name of " Benjaminm Emebides
Dimitrio, Neapoleos, rit. Grac." appears in the authentic
list of the signatures to the Acts of the Vatican Council,
among the Archbishops.* Monsignor Panelli himself was,
so says the narrative, summoned to Eome in 1863 with
flattering promises ; but on his arrival he was arrested by
order of the Inquisition, and, in March of the following
year, condemned to imprisonment for life, upon the charge
of having procured ordination and consecration according
to the forms of the Eastern Church, but really for opinions
favourable to Italian nationality. In 1869, he effected
his escape, and the narrative closes somewhat oddly with
the statement, not only that he was once more invited to
Eome by the Pope in 1872, but that he acted upon the
invitation, and received there the Pontifical benediction.
However, on the 16th of May 187o,f the Statuto to
which we have referred was solemnly inaugurated in his
chapel at Naples, when he swore to it in the presence of

* 'Acta et Decreta,' Romse 1872, p. 102.

t Emancipatore Cattolico,' May 22, 1875, No. 15.

238 ITALY AND HER CHURCH.

those assembled. About two hundred names, belonging
to various ranks and professions of society, are subscribed
to the record of the meeting. But it is stated upon
authority that the number of persons who had participated
in his election on May 2 was no less than 2532. Since
that date another episcopal election seems to have taken
place in the new communion : the name of the dignitary
thus chosen is Trabucco.*

68. Our general information respecting the body thus
organised, and respecting the society of priests from whose
bosom it appears to have sprung, is not sufficient to
warrant our giving an immediate opinion on the question
whether the schism is one of serious importance. But
we understand that at this early date Archbishop Panelli
is at issue with the frarner of the Statuto ; and it would
be at the very least premature to treat the movement as
a sister to that of the German Catholics.

69. It may, however, be observed with justice upon all
which we have thus far detailed, that no broad conclusion
can be drawn from manifestations which, if taken at the
best, are no more than partial or local. But the veiy
remarkable document of which we have already made
a passing mention, by which nine thousand Italian priests
virtually testified their opposition to Ultramontanism,
cannot be placed in the same category. It is probable,
indeed, that of late years the patriotic section of the
clergy may have dwindled under the action of the great
powers of patronage, as well as of pressure, wielded by
Eome and those who are the tools of Rome. Still there
remains enough to warrant a pretty confident belief in
the existence, among the clergy, of a somewhat wide-

Emaucipatore Cattolico,' No. 20, June 5, 1875.

ITALY AND HER CHUHCH. 239

spread sentiment adverse to despotism in the Church.
Unless we have been much deceived in the tidings which
reach us, this sentiment is represented in the clergy of
Rome itself by persons who are alike able and disposed to
make their voices heard when the proper time arrives,
and whose voices when heard will be respected.

70. Some men indeed there are, in all times, who are
always waiting for a proper time that never comes : men
who either beguile themselves with the idea that they
have manhood and resolution equal to acting in great
crises, when they have none, or who at best wait upon
the chapter of accidents, and find their subsistence in the
hope of crumbs which now and then may fall from
fortune's table. We must not hastily conclude that these
men are such. It is a serious matter to break away, even
in the best cause, from the constituted organisation of the
Church : though this is the destiny that, in the sharper
passages of ecclesiastical history, has oftentimes fallen to
the lot of her Fathers, her Saints, and her Heroes. But
the wise man will not embark his hopes in a scheme of
rupture, while he can reasonably place them elsewhere.
The disastrous changes of religion, which the present
generation has witnessed, are especially associated with
the personality of the reigning Pope : and, though his old
age be still a green old age, it is not unreasonable that
Roman clergymen should look forward to the epoch of his
demise as that which is likely to set its mark, once for
all, upon the time, and to determine the triumph or
decline of the principles and policy of Vaticanism in the
Latin communion. This their last hope, we are told,
they fondly refuse to abandon.

71. However obstinately the Ultramontane party is set
upon the restoration by foreign arms of the Temporal

240 ITALY AND HEK CHTJECH.

Power, it is a fact worthy of notice that Padre Curci,* a
prominent Jesuit, and for some thirty years or more a
well-known champion of the Papacy, has been permitted
to put forth a recommendation that peace, or a modus
vivcudi, should be established with the Italian Kingdom.
On the other hand, the purpose of Italy is fixed and irre-
vocable ; and her unity, power, and life as a nation are
staked on the maintenance of her hold on the city which
forms her traditional and historic centre. AVe are among
those, who believe that she may yet have to put forth all
her strength in self-defence for this purpose, and that the
conflict may for a time be grave. Of the ultimate result,
however, it seems impossible to doubt. The clerical
government of Rome had every vice under the sun. In
principle indefensible, in practice both materially and
morally bad, and at the same time incurably impotent,
its acceptance would imply so complete a departure from
all the tendencies and convictions of the age, that we
might as readily expect to see the Pope anathematise
Hildebrand or canonise John Knox, as to witness its
effectual re-establishment. Among the assured facts of
the future, we must reckon the eventual abandonment,
by all but hopeless and exceptional fanatics, of the tem-
poral dominion of the Church.

72. It is a subtle and a doubtful question, what may be
the result upon its spiritual position. If we regard the
Papal system as a religion only, there is no reason why it
should be a loser by the change. In these days, the con-
currence of secular authority adds little weight to religious

* See his ' Ragione dell' Opera,' Roma, Bencini, 1874, and the
comments on it in the official reply to M. Dupanloup's attack, entitled
* Les Lois ecclesiastiques de 1'Italie,' pp. 73-5.

ITALY AND HEE CHFECH. 241

appeals ; and that little seems from year to year rather to
diminish than to grow. The Oriental Church has a hold
on its adherents, and a promise of permanence, at least
as trustworthy and strong, as the Eoman system ever
has enjoyed; hut it has never possessed any temporal
dominion. But then the Roman scheme has habitually
included for so many centuries the unrestrained use of
secular and even coercive instruments for the maintenance
of spiritual power, that this bad custom has become to it
almost as a second nature. "We do not now speak of the
uniform tendency of the Roman Church towards the limi-
tation of civil liberty in all states where it has the
advantage of a majority. We speak of the actual exercise,
down to the latest hour of temporal dominion, by the
Court of Rome, of coercive power over bishops and clergy-
men within the dominions of the Pope. The method was
to summon them to Rome upon their spiritual allegiance ;
and, having got them bodily there, to apply to them what-
ever measure of restraint, up to the very highest, might
be deemed best for the purpose of repression. The reader
will have observed Monsignor Panelli's description of his
own case ; and it is in some ways sustained from other
sources. But there is no need of illustration by individual
instances ; the practice was well known, nor are we aware
that the intervention of foreign sovereigns on behalf of
their subjects ever was available to pierce into the dark
chambers of clerical administration, if indeed such aid ever
was invoked. No doubt the possession of a territorial
sovereignty, though limited, as was that of the Supreme
Pontiff, was an essential condition of the use of coercion
in this form, and there are persons of competent authority,
whose judgment is not only that the loss of the temporal

VI. B

212 ITALY A2sD HER CHURCH.

power will be felt, but that it will tell very sensibly, in
weakening the means of ecclesiastical government over the
clerical order. To laymen, the system had in modern
times little or no application.

73. We have spoken of particular manifestations in
Italy; and we have spoken also of the state of feeling
which has prevailed' among the Italian clergy, many of
whom long maintained in harmony their love of country
and their attachment to religion, with very little en-
couragement from their lay brethren. But it is in the lay
quarter that we have had the most recent and cheering
signs of a beneficial change. A group or nucleus of dis-
tinguished men has formed itself in Italy, and within the
circle of its Parliamentary and active life, who appear to
have grasped this fundamental truth, that religion, what-
ever be its source or ground, is an clement of power with
which States and statesmen must lay their account in the
future, instead of contemplating it only as an ornament, or
a curiosity, fit for the museums of the past. Through,
and behind, and beneath the dense medium of the lloman
Court, its worldly tactics, its subtle, constant, and enslaving
pressure, they see the religion of the country ; that power
which chastens and trains the heart, which consolidates
society, which everywhere replaces force with love ; our
guide in life, our stay and our illumination in the dark
precincts of the grave. It will not do, as is now more
and more felt, to leave all the mass of human action,
experience, and discipline towards good, which is expressed
in these ideas, to be trodden down by the banded foes
both of national and of personal freedom.

74. This wise and sound conviction has prompted the
sympathies, with which the courageous action of the
Mantuan parishes has been cheered. It has produced the

ITALY AND HER CHTTRCH. 243

work entitled Otto Mesi in Roma,* which records with
historic fidelity the disastrous proceedings of the Council
of 1870 ; and which describes, from the Christian point of
view, the -antichristian action of Yaticanism on the minds
and lives of menf with a power and sagacity worthy of
the best days of Italian thought. It has also led, during
the session of the present year, to a lengthened and pro-
foundly interesting debate in the Chamber, on the motion
of Signor Mancini. This discussion had for its object to
put aside the policy of indifferentism, and to encourage,
perhaps even to oblige, the Government to allow the clergy
and laity of the Italian Church to make use of their proper
and constitutional means of self-defence, against an over-
bearing tyranny in the Church.

75. The real tendency of the debate was perhaps best
exhibited by an amendment proposed by Marquis Anselm
Guerrieri, in a sense friendly to the Government. It
expressed the anxiety of the Chamber to turn to full
account the rights reserved under the law of Guarantees,
and invited the Government to proceed promptly in
framing the measures needed to give them full effect.
There is, we are confidently assured, much reason to
believe, as well as to desire, that, when these measures
take;their place upon the statute-book of Italy, they will
be found to provide effectually against the prevailing
oppression. The State may not assume the responsibility
of a protective action, for which it recognises its own

* We are informed that an English translation of this volume will
shortly appear. [A very interesting description of rural life in
Southern Italy, as to religion, is given by Sig. Campanella, in the first
volume of his recent autobiography. It gives a pleasing impression,
and is honourable both to the clergy and the people. W. E. G., 1878.]

t * Febbrajo,' iii. pp. 133-152.

244 ITALY AND HEK CHUECH.

unfitness. But this *need not impede its securing to the
clergy and people the means of self-protection ; so that
Ultramontane hishops shall not he thrust upon the dioceses,
nor shall flood the parishes with like-minded priests, to
the prejudice of the interests, and in defiance of the
wishes, of those whom it is their duty to feed in the
green pastures, and to lead forth heside the waters of
comfort.

IONDON: ruiicrKi> IJY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STASIKOUD STREET

AM> CHAKINQ CBOSS.