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Nonconformity. have failed to effect may at last be brought about by sacerdotalism-by the foes of the Church's own household. This word "sacerdotalism" must be understood in its widest sense as a convenient term to express that general drift of opinion among the clergy of the Established Church which is widening and accentuating the breach between them and the laity, and so far, in the opinion of many, preparing the way for disestablishment. Let us, however, consider these three heads of possible danger in the order stated above.

mixed up with party politics the better; for there is a good deal of truth in the cynical saying that the managers of no political party will support a Church for five minutes longer than the interest of their party requires. A partisan Church can hardly be in the truest sense a national Church.

Of all these political dangers the Church has had ample warning. The fate of the Irish Establishment and the more recent attack upon the Welsh portion of the English Establishment are a warning of what Parliament may do in the hands of a Liberal or Radical ministry. Nor have recent events been altogether reassuring to the expectations entertained by Churchmen from their Parliamentary friends. It is no secret that some of the lukewarmness of min

1. Political danger. To this an establishment must always be liable in the natural course of political change. Over its head there hangs, like the sword of Damocles, the possibility of an adverse vote in Parliament; and though_isters and their supporters towards the the consumption of such a vote may, and no doubt would for a time, be delayed by the House of Lords, it could not be finally averted. "Put not your trust in princes" is a warning to institutions as well as to individuals. "Put not your trust in political parties" is a variant of the same advice to which the rulers of the Church would do well to take heed. At a time like the present, when a party avowedly favorable to the Church-or, at any rate, unfavorable to her declared opponents-holds an immense numerical majority in Parliament, the temptation is strong for Churchmen to associate themselves and the Church more closely than ever with that party and trust to its protecting care, forgetting that a Church which claims to be the national Church must, if it is to keep that title, be the Church of all parties alike, not of one set of political opinions. Those whose general line of policy is to uphold existing institutions will naturally be the friends, as those who like to destroy and upset them will be the foes, of the Church when questions arise affecting her status or her property; and so far it is natural that Churchmen should look for support to the Conservative party in Parliament, the more so that the Radical party have shown their hand so plainly. But the less the Church is

late Educational Bill was due to reluctance that their educational policy should be dictated by the bishops. They wanted, in fact, to help voluntary schools as educational, but not apparently as ecclesiastical, institutions. The refusal of the government to take up a measure of much-needed Church reform such as the Benefices Bill, and its almost contemptuous indifference to the cry of clerical tithe-owners against the really "intolerable strain" of rates upon their whole income, must have come as a sad disillusionment to sanguine expectations. With Lord Salisbury in power, and a majority of one hundred and fifty in the House of Commons behind him, it was excusable if in the first flush of victory some Churchmen thought that the golden age had dawned and exaggerated the importance of their own share in the triumph. They forgot for the moment the composite character of the new government, some of the most influential members of which, though at present working loyally with the Conservatives to prevent the disintegration of the empire, have not abandoned all the traditions of Liberalism. Does any one suppose, for instance, that Mr. Chamberlain supported the Education Bill in the interest of the Church; or that, if ever disestablishment becomes the main

question of the hour, his powerful force, and acquired that specially politadvocacy will be heard on her side? ical character with which we are all He, at least, has never encouraged such familiar. Now, however, that political a belief, and the same is no doubt true power has been transferred to the workof other Liberal Unionists. But this is ing classes, Nonconformity as a purely not all. It is better to look facts in the political force will, perhaps, be less face; and there seems to be spreading influential than it has been. The workamong the rank and file of Conservative ing classes are not so largely or so M.P.'s, the traditional supporters of the earnestly Nonconformists as the lower Church, a certain feeling of indiffer- middle classes. Many of them are ence with regard to it. They are be- nominally members of the Church of ginning to ask themselves whether the England; many are indifferent to any support of the Church is quite as vital form of religious organization. And to their party as it is supposed to be- any hostility which they may hereafter whether, in fact, the interests of the show to the Church will be more probChurch and of Conservatism are any ably due to a feeling that the Church is longer identical. Nor are such doubts identified with capital and privileges— likely to be diminished in the minds of that it is, in fact, the Church of the average English gentlemen by the in- "classes"-than to any sectarian jealcreasing drift of the clergy towards ousy. The Church, it is true, has done what has already been alluded to as much within living memory to remove "sacerdotalism," and which, despite its this reproach, and her undoubtedly inassociation with great improvement in creased popularity is due to the efforts the Church's work, is likely (as will that her clergy have made and are presently be shown) to be a serious dan- every day making to get into touch with ger to the Establishment. This in- the working classes. But still in every difference of the Conservative party is part of England, and especially in not yet strongly marked or openly ex- country districts, it is as a rule the rich pressed; but it will have to be reckoned and those of good social position who with. And when one reads or hears are Church people, the smaller people that the present political situation is a and the poor who are Dissenters. And golden opportunity for the Church it is it is of the utmost importance that the impossible to help thinking of the warn impression of exclusiveness should be ing, "Put not your trust in princes, for diminished or removed if the national there is no help in them." Church is to defend her title in the eyes of the democracy. We have made great improvement, but we are still far behind the Church of Rome in being the Church of high and low, rich and poor.

2. Under the head of social dangers threatening the Establishment, we may consider-first, its association, real or supposed, with the gentry and aristocracy; secondly, the attitude of Nonconformists, influenced, as it undoubt edly is to some extent, by social jealousy. No one can deny that the Church has been in former days too exclusively the Church of the "classes," as distinct from the "masses." Church has attracted the gentry, while the strength of Nonconformity has always lain in the middle and lower classes-among the small tradesmen in towns and agricultural laborers in the country. When the first Reform Bill transferred political power from the aristocracy to the middle classes, Nonconformity became a strong political

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From Nonconformity, especially from political Nonconformity, the Established Church must expect, as in the past, the bitterest opposition. Recent events have shown that it is Dissenters rather than Churchmen who make it impossible for the friends of religious education to present a united front and press unanimous demands. In the history of religious and educational controversy there have been few more humiliating episodes than that of the Wesleyan deputation to the prime minister last autumn, the leaders of which devoted themselves, not to secure consideration of how best to secure

religious teaching in elementary wise have claimed. Nor can it, we fear, schools, but to a disingenuous attempt to misrepresent the character of that teaching in the schools of the Church of England. From incidents like this, and from the temper and spirit in which certain prominent Nonconformists denounced what one of them was pleased to term the "damnable" Education Bill of last session, it is excusable to infer that with such persons the interests of religious education, nay, of peace and tolerance in religion itself, are as nothing in the balance against the smallest opportunity for humiliating and discrediting the Church. Not that this animus, politico-theological or theologico-political, represents the real inner spirit of Nonconformity. It is blatant and loud-voiced, but it does not speak for all. And there are signs that many earnest Nonconformists feel deeply that the religious aspect of Nonconformity has been too much obscured by party politics, and regret the tendency to make every minister a Radical agent and every chapel an electioneering platform. Right-thinking Dissenters, no less than right-thinking Churchmen, are beginning to realize that religion is, after all, the first and the main business of religious organizations and of their appointed officers; and this feeling is undoubtedly shared by the community at large. The Christian Church in its various denominations may leaven politics and social life with religion, but not bring religion down to the level of politics, except at its own peril.

3. More serious for the Established Church are the dangers from within. The "unhappy divisions" among Church people, which apparently make it difficult for them to come to an agreement even upon so vital a question as the religious teaching of the young, cannot but discredit the Church in the eyes of practical men. Whenever its position as the Established Church of the nation is seriously threatened, it is inevitable that a Church so divided against itself on important points of doctrine and practice will forfeit some of the sympathy which it might other

be said that the clergy of the Established Church are holding their own with the present generation. Their social position is admittedly not what it was. The decline in her worldly prospects, and the opening of so many other careers, or means of earning a livelihood, to the sons of the gentry and upper middle classes, have deprived the Church of some of the best material for her service. And, though it may be good to have relieved the ministry of some who formerly entered it from purely worldly motives, the substitution of "literates" and others from a lower stratum of society, however much in earnest such men may be for the spiritual side of their calling, is not calculated to increase the influence of the Church in the country. Intellectually, too, the clergy are, it is to be feared, dropping behind. The average level of culture in general, and of insight into theological questions in particular, among the laity has distinctly risen. But have the clergy kept pace with the rise? Do we not hear on all hands complaints of want of reading and study, of crude and ill-informed pulpit treatment of questions with which many of their hearers have, at least, an intelligent acquaintance and look for help, too often in vain, from their spiritual guides? Is not this, with the educated classes at any rate, one cause of that increasing disinclination to attend church services, which is an admitted fact?

Another reason why, as many think, the clergy of the Establishment are in danger of losing touch with the laity is their increasing drift to what had already been alluded to under the convenient term "sacerdotalism"-that is to say, a tendency to magnify the clerical office, and to accentuate and widen the difference between clergy and laity until they move in almost a different plane of thought and action. I wish to speak with the utmost respect of the "High Church" party as a whole. Every one must recognize their efforts during the past fifty years to put new life into dry bones, to raise the standard

of clerical life and duty, to improve and beautify Divine worship. The Tractarian revival, no less than the Evangelical revival before it, has stamped its mark for good upon the Church and people of this country. But every such movement has its errors and excesses almost in proportion to, perhaps even as a consequence of, its earnestness and its success. And the extreme into which this particular religious movement sometimes drifts is for many good reasons abhorrent to Englishmen. Anything approaching to or savoring of Romanism will always have a cold reception among us; and nothing is more likely to lessen the influence of the Church of England upon the nation at large than the idea that she wishes to imitate or adopt the doctrines and practices of Rome. That some handle to such an idea is given by the less judicious of her members is beyond dispute. The ostentatious assumption of the title of "priest," harmless in itself and even justifiable by the language of the Prayer-book, is unfortunate from the special associations of that word with the clergy of the Church of Rome, and with the ideas embodied in such a term as "priestcraft." More serious than this is the adoption, by some of the more extreme ritualistic clergy, of terms and practices that were deliberately abandoned at the Reformation and are contrary to the letter or spirit, or both, of the Prayer-book. The term "mass," now openly used in some churches; the "reservation" of the consecrated ele. ments at Holy Communion; the teaching about "fasting communion" and "non-communicating attendance” ·

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these are samples of innovations which, whether forbidden or not by the language of the reformed Prayer-book, are contrary to its spirit; the insistence upon which provokes uneasy suspicions in the minds of steady-going English Churchmen. Nothing is here implied as to either the theological importance of such points or the motives of those who insist upon them. All that is meant is that the growing tendency of which such things are a sign, as straws show the direction of the wind. is a danger

in the path of the Established Church that may one day be the cause of its political overthrow. From that overthrow the Church may rise, like Antæus from the ground, with fresh strength. Some of its friends think so; some of its enemies say so, making believe that they would chastise it for its good. But surely the true friends of the Church, who see the work that it is doing and yet may do, would prefer to avert the fall.

But how is the fall to be averted? How is the Church of England to become so strong in herself and in the affections of the people as to be unassailable by the forces arrayed against her? The Church has had rude warnings; how is she to profit by them? The two remedies that seem to find most favor with Church people are Church defence and Church reform. Church defence has the advantage of episcopal sanction and parochial organization. Its idea is to organize committees in every diocese, archdeaconry, rural deanery, and parish for the purpose of disseminating information about the history and work of the Church and her claims to the endowments which she possesses. Lectures, literature, and leaflets for distribution are to be the chief modus operandi. All these are nc doubt useful. Lectures on Church history will give much-needed information to those who can and will attend them. Books, if only people will read and remember them, should enlighten many ignorant minds and refute many ignorant statements. Above all, short, simple, and telling leaflets scattered broadcast over the country are (as the Liberation Society well knows) an effective means of propagating opinion. But a literary and historical campaign will not carry the war far. When proposals to disestablish and disendow the Church become a question of practical politics, perhaps amid all the excitement of a general election, the cause of Church defence will need other weapons than pens and notebooks. It must be strengthened by Church work and by Church reform. The work of the Church, it goes without saying, may be

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its passport to the good-will of tens of thousands of citizens who seldom read and to whom history does not appeal. And Church reform on proper lines might allay the misgivings of would-be defenders of the Church, who hesitate to take an active part in schemes for the defence of the Establishment because of abuses which they cannot defend. An earnest layman, asked to join a committee for Church defence, may conceivably ask: "What do you wish to defend? The Establishment as it is? Shall we then be committed to approval of inelastic rubrics, preventing the adaptation of worship to changed times and fresh ideas? To the system of clerical freehold in benefices, hindering the removal of scandals and the exercise of proper discipline over the officers of the Church? To the abuses of patronage and the virtual barter of the cure of souls? To a so-called representative assembly of the Church, which has no power but that of talk, and in which the representation of the parochial clergy is little better than a farce? To the practical exclusion of the laity from all voice in the choice of their ministers and the conduct of their worship?" It may, indeed, be said that one indispen sable preliminary-some would say, the only possible preliminary-to Church defence is Church reform. And it may be that those are right who hold that the Church has only two alternatives before it in the coming years-disestablishment or reform. The importance of Church reform has always been recognized by the enemies of the Church. They are more active and determined in opposing than the professed friends of the Church are in promoting any measure which comes before Parliament for the remedy of Church abuses. They wish to prevent Church reform for the same reason that they wish for disendowment-viz., to humble the prestige and diminish the efficiency of the Church; so that when the time comes for delivering their final attack they may not find the position strengthened. Despite, however, the opposition of foes and the indifference of friends, the cause of Church reform seems to be

attracting increased attention among Churchmen. Many of them recognize, perhaps better than the official heads of the Church, that they must put their shoulders to the wheel and help themselves. They cannot trust any minister or any government to play the part of Hercules and lift the wagon from the mire. Church reform, accordingly, is to occupy an important place in the deliberations of the forthcoming Church Congress at Shrewsbury, two meetings being assigned to the discussion of Church patronage and the position of the laity. Another sign of increased attention to this subject is the formation of a "Church Reform League," nonpolitical in character and embracing Churchmen of all schools of thought, inaugurated in November last at the Church House, Westminster. This body has recently issued a pamphlet, in which, after reciting the terms of the first clause of Magna Charta-"that the English Church be free and have its rights whole and its liberties unimpaired"-the principles of reform advocated by the league are set forth under the following heads: (1) Self-government of the Church.-That, saving the supremacy of the crown, and subject in legislation to the veto of Parliament, the Church should have freedom for self-government by means of reformed Houses of Convocation, which shall be thoroughly representative. (2) Position of the Laity.-That the laity have the principal share in the administration of finance, a real control in the appointing of their pastors, and in matters of administration a concurrent voice with the clergy. (3) Discipline.-That all ministers and church officers be removable by disciplinary process, benefices being made tenable only during the adequate performance of the duties. (4) Patronage.-That all transfers by sale of next presentations and advowsons. be made illegal, but that where patronage is transferred to a diocesan trust reasonable compensation should be given. (5) Finance.-That a diocesan trust be established in each diocese to receive and administer diocesan and parochial endowments on lines

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