OUR

SEPARATED

BRETHREN

BYREV. LUKE RIVINGTON, M.A

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First published 1893A public domain workPrinted by Createspace

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ContentsPublisher’s Introduction

Author’s Preface

1. The Present State of Things2. The Present State of Things (continued)3. A Coming Danger4. The Forces At Work5. The Good of Ritualism 6. The Dark Side7. A Darker Side8. The Anglican Stronghold9. Döllinger and St. Vincent

10. Rest in the Church

Publisher’s IntroductionAn Englishman, a clergyman and writer, the Reverend Luke Rivington was acontroversial figure in 19th Century Anglo-Christianity, defecting from Protestantism toCatholicism.

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He was critical of the atheism and Protestantism of England at his time, which means heperhaps would be tremendously shocked at the irreligion of England in today’s time.Alluding to an array of Catholic and Anglican figures, as well as their ideological relationto early church fathers, Rivington commentates on the dialogue between the two sides ofEnglish and Continental Christianity. Rev. Rivington can sometimes be, towards hisopponents, irreverent yet many a time amiable to seek and disseminate absolute truth.Rivington’s book is of interest to seekers of history.This text is an exact reproduction of the Rev. Rivington’s words, containing the originalinconsistencies of writing style. The emphasis included is original. All content in thisbook, Our Separated Brethren, painstakingly copied, does not necessarily represent theopinions of the publisher. Every statement on history and theology needs to be taken onits own merits.

Author’s PrefaceThe following chapters appeared (with one exception) in the Catholic Times, apropos ofa subject discussed at the Catholic Conference in Liverpool. They are now reprinted bythe kind permission of the Editor, at the request of many friends. They were notoriginally intended for republication; but I have thought it best to leave them much asthey first appeared.

Luke Rivington.

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OUR SEPARATED BRETHREN

CHAPTER I.THE PRESENT STATE OF THINGS.

WHEN we step forth from the paradise of the Catholic Church, in which by the graceof God we live, and look on the wilderness of English life outside the Church, we must, Ithink, be struck with two features of that life—its moral earnestness, and its lack ofdogmatic religion. Each of these must be taken into account in our endeavours to leadour fellow-countrymen back to the Church.

First, then, we have a source of encouragement in the fact that there is so much onwhich to work in the moral earnestness of the English people, taken as a whole. It would,of course, be easy to present a formidable indictment against the existence of any respectfor the moral code, if we were to deal with the statistics of English life, as ProfessorDraper, in his popular book called the “Conflict Between Religion and Science,” dealswith the history of Christianity. Running the dark spots of Christian history together as ina kaleidoscope, and fixing the combined effect before the mind, to the exclusion of thebright picture in the midst of which those blots occur, he is able to make the Christianrecord sufficiently gloomy for the purpose of his argument.

Or if we were to do as many an enthusiastic adherent of the Church of England doeswhen he visits Rome, viz., go and see the Bambino, watch a peasant at the twentieth partof his prayers—which may consist of asking the help of our Lady’s intercession beforesome framed daub—go to some service at St. Peter’s, which is never attended by thedevout, or to some service which is frequented by all sorts, and notice only the indevout—listen to some scandal which, unknown to our tourist, has been refuted a hundredtimes; and then, being in profound ignorance of the true life of Rome, to which he hadno access, depart and tell his less travelled friends at home, that if you want to be curedof all “temptations” to join the Church of Rome, you should go for a week or two to thecity of Rome—if, I say, we were to pursue such a method as this, it would be easy toquestion the statement that the English people are distinguished for their moralearnestness. It would be easy to give a list of Whitechapel horrors, and note theindulgence in intoxicating liquors by ladies of high birth, and point out how Ireland standsabove England in the matter of chastity, and Spain above them both, or who cabmen lie,and shopmen cheat, and ladies dress—and then maintain that England has no monopolyof moral earnestness. A monopoly it certainly has not; but in spite of all these indicationsof moral disorder, and many more that might be added, it is certain that foreigners dogive us credit for a special amount of moral stamina, and that Englishmen are generallyconscious that the verdict is somehow based on facts. The declension of the English inthe moral life at the era of the so-called Reformation was admitted by the so-called

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reformers themselves; but, nevertheless, the Church’s high moral teaching had left animpress on our national life, which burst over it and seemed to survive the storm ofwickedness which burst over it and seemed likely to obliterate every trace of theChurch’s lofty ideal. The witness which Blessed John Fisher and Blessed Thomas Moreand, after them, the rest of the English martyrs, bore to the supremacy of conscience hasnever really been effaced from the memory of the English people. After the shipwreck ofdoctrinal teaching in the 16th Century, Englishmen did not cease to cling to thesacredness of moral truth as sailors to the last plank of the broken vessel.

The next most obvious characteristic of our national life is its indifference to dogmatictruth. I speak of English life at this present moment. No race of men has been moreprofoundly penetrated with dogmatic religion than our own in the past. No people everturned with such fond devotion to the See of St. Peter, or exhibited such warm devotionto Our Blessed Lady, as the English people in their Catholic days. And all the miseries ofthe sixteenth century did not avail to destroy their religious impulses, which came to themfrom the “Mother and Mistress” of the Churches, and were originally based on her fulldogmatic teaching. But the flower of religion was torn from its dogmatic stem; and likeevery cut flower, it soon lost its sweetness. Under James the nation finally repudiated itsSpiritual Mother, and entered upon the hopeless task of tearing the Catholic faith fromthe warm hearts of the Irish race. The last century saw the “Establishment” undisputedmaster of the position. That establishment was the device of the Evil One for bindingtogether the people of England in a false religion. The idea was, as is testified by themost frequent use of the term in the sixteenth century, to “establish” unity, peace andconcord, not with the rest of Christendom but within the national bounds. The idea wasborrowed from the conception of Peter, the Czar; and it succeeded in keeping the nationisolated from the rest of the Christian world, but tightly bound together in a religiondifferent from any that the world has as yet seen.

Now and then a king, or the clergy, or both, eagerly disclaimed having departed fromthe faith of Christendom on the other side of the Channel, in any point in whichChristendom had not departed from its former self. But the Nonjurors in the beginning ofthe eighteenth century discovered that, at any rate, Christendom thought otherwise.When they stretched out their hands towards the Photian schism, which they called theEastern Church, they found that that Eastern body considered that the Englishestablishment had very considerably departed from primitive Christian teaching—(1) inits mutilation of the Bible, (2) in its repudiation of Transubstantiation, (3) in itscondemnation of Invocation of Saints, and (4) in its attitude towards Our Blessed Lady.The Eastern authorities remitted to the Nonjurors the sentence of excommunicationwhich they passed in the previous Synod of Bethlehem, on a Protestantising Patriarch ofConstantinople, containing those four points of condemnation. All further intercoursebetween the Nonjuring English “Bishops” and the schismatic East was henceforth at anend. Their isolation from the rest of Christendom was a fact which they had to endure asbest they could.

Now, the net result of this isolation from the rest of Christendom has been what might

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have been expected. The pulse of life no longer beating from the heart of the ChristianChurch, English Christianity becoming insular and separate from the aggregate ofChurches, with which it had hitherto been in communion, doctrine after doctrine lost itsplace in the scheme of English teaching.

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CHAPTER II.THE PRESENT STATE OF THINGS (continued).

I HAVE said that the isolation of English religious life from the rest of Christendomconstitutes one of the causes of the peculiar indifference to dogmatic truth, whichcharacterises our “separated brethren.” Three centuries of such separation paved the wayfor this disastrous result.

No sooner had the Establishment started on its path of negation, and left the shelter ofSt. Peter’s See, than doctrine after doctrine became a matter of aversion or indifference,and lost its place in the scheme of teaching which became prevalent in England. The sumof that teaching speedily became as follows: Rome is Antichrist; Christ died for our sins,so that there is no need for any satisfaction on our part for our past sins; believing thisfact constitutes our safety; the Bible, and the Bible only, is the rule of faith; the RoyalSupremacy is the most primitive and Christian form of government; we shouldoccasionally refresh our remembrance of the death of Christ by a more solemn andaffecting mode of reminiscence than is otherwise possible, viz., by eating bread anddrinking wine, and so feeding by faith on the Passion of our Redeemer.

Such was the exposition of faith which was generally given from the pulpits of theEstablishment for more than 200 years. I do not think this will be denied by any who arefairly well acquainted with the religious literature of the 17th and 18th Centuries. I do notforget such writers as Andrewes and Laud, and other High Church divines, who taught ahigher doctrine about Holy Communion, though falling far short of what is called bymodern Anglican divines the Objective Presence. But these did not really mould thenation’s religious thought. They did but protest against the prevailing notions, which werewhat I have briefly described. John Wesley and my own great-grandfather were, Ibelieve, the first to bring into prominence and English translation of Thomas à Kempis’“Imitation of Christ” for the use of members of the English Church. But they used thescissors freely, cutting out the Catholic doctrine which it contains on the subject of theHoly Sacrifice of the Mass. The astonishment was great and general when the writings ofAndrewes, containing an approximation to Catholic teaching, were unearthed by theTractarians, so thoroughly had he and his fellow-workers failed to impregnate the mindof the nation with their higher, though not actually Catholic teaching.

But even this modicum of teaching, which I have given in summary, was losing itshold on the English people when the Evangelical movement at Cambridge commenced inthe early part of this century; and Simeon was pelted with rotten eggs for preaching ahigher morality based on gratitude to Our Lord for His Atoning Love. There had neverarisen in England, since the great breach with Rome, an Ignatius Loyola, or a Theresa,

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nor a Vincent de Paul or Camillus de Lellis. The idea of an absorbing personal love toour Divine Lord, such as animated the lives of those great saints, was dying out, and thewhole doctrinal scheme of Christianity had been mutilated, almost to the point ofexcision. Sobriety, the natural side of religion, was the chief characteristic; enthusiasmwas at a discount. There were not among the English clergy such glaring cases ofhypocrisy and immorality as were occasionally witnessed on the Continent in the days ofVoltaire; but on the other hand, there was none of the heroism of self-sacrifice thatconstantly emerged in those Catholic countries. England, after the fatal 1558, neverproduced a Carlo Borromeo for home work; nor a Francis Xavier for missionary workabroad. On the Continent the dogmatic faith of the people continued what it ever hadbeen; unbelievers sprang up, but not any number of religious people with a mutilatedfaith such as characterised the only religion thereafter known in England.

And what was the consequence? Why, that generation after generation the Englishbecame less habituated to the religious enthusiasm that is inspired by the glories of theCatholic Liturgy and by the glorious diapason of Catholic doctrine in its unimpairedintegrity.

One life in England stands out in conspicuous contrast with the rest of his fellow-countrymen, exhibiting more of the features of a Catholic saint, than have ever beenproduced within the Establishment, and that was the life of John Wesley. But JohnWesley’s soul had drunk at Catholic sources to which religious English people werestrangers. He fed his religious convictions on the ideals of a Catholic monk; he wasdevoted to Thomas à Kempis. Wesley’s life provoked a perfect explosion ofcontemplation; the innate Protestantism of the Establishment hissed him out of itsborders. For it was not his doctrine itself that offended so much as his dogmaticearnestness.

The Establishment was, in fact, not a Divine institution. It was not the old CatholicChurch allied to the State but a religious expression at the first of a sovereign’s will, andthen of the national mind. It was national and natural, not catholic and supernatural. Theidea of the Church as a kingdom died out and the idea of a religious body, with its ownspiritual officers, but under the government of the sovereign, took its place. As a religiousbody it had no living voice. It has presented the extraordinary spectacle of a religiousinstitution never so much as drawing up a single canon for centuries past. It was but theother day that the present titular Archbishop of Canterbury made it his boast thatconvocation had drawn up the first binding canon for nearly three centuries, and thatcanon was to bind the Archbishop and Bishops to accept the ruling of the civil courts asto the criminality of any clerk in holy orders who shall have been accused of offencesagainst the moral law.

Now dogma cannot live in the air, unembodied and unvoiced. Such dogma as theChurch of England retained was buried in the four corners of the Book of CommonPrayer, including thirty-nine articles of religion. But there is no provision for authoritativeexplanation, as the shifting scene may present new combinations of thought, and call fornew adaptations of language. The usual contention of the Anglican, at its best, is that of

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Nestorius and Eutyches. We have the Nicene Creed; what more do we want?Consequently the Establishment has been an entire stranger to all that activity of

thought, and that movement of régime and discipline, which is part of the life of theCatholic Church. Its dogma is not a body of truth committed to a living body; it wassimply enshrined in a book. It has depended on individual believers what should be takenout of the casket, not on a living authority speaking in the name of a living Lord. “Itmatters not what the Bishops teach, so long as we have the Book of Common Prayer,” isthe constant shout from the Anglican camp. Hence the dogmatic formula tends tobecome dry; and men rightly see that progress is impossible, that progress which St.Vincent of Lerins described as “advance, but not change.”

The result is that the dogma, not being clothed with the freshness of living adaptation,loses its interest. And the English people have become the most undogmatic race on theface of the earth. All the glorious devotion of the Catholic Church, all that in her Ritual ismost majestic and warm, and that connects her children with the earliest ages, wasextruded from the splendid English of the Book of Common Prayer, and from the holeand corner administration, four times a year at best, of the chief service of theEstablishment. The great mass of the English people are simply untaught in dogma. Untillately, all teaching through the eye was studiously avoided as Popery; and indeed thevery latest utterance of the Episcopate of the Establishment is that the movements andritual of the highest act of Christian worship are void of any dogmatic significance. Andexactly those points of the Church’s teaching, which have what I may call the ring ofDivine poetry, although couched in the most exact definitions, are missing in the ordinaryteaching of the guardians of the Established faith. We have but recently been made awarethat the late excellent, and hard-working, and fair-minded Bishop of Carlisle, has been allhis life simply and purely Nestorian in his thoughts about the mystery of the Incarnation,having never been able to accept the truth that (to use his own words) “in virtue of OurLord’s Divinity, we may rightly substitute the phrase Almighty God for the phrase JesusChrist, wherever Our Lord’s doings or sufferings are made the subject of narration ofdiscussion.” This, which is part of the Catholic faith, he calls a “fallacy.” And it was onlytwelve months ago that the present Bishop of Manchester informed the assembledCongress at Rhyl that the mystery of the Christian faith involved the belief that theGodhead dwelt “within the limits of a human personality” in Our Blessed Lord. Whenthe dogmatic teaching of “Bishops” is thus impregnated with Nestorianism, not throughany desire to be Nestorian, but from pure haziness and the absence of dogmatic training,what amount of mistiness may not be expected in the general run of religious minds?

The result of all this is that the masses of our English people do not even make adefinite act of faith when they come to their last hour. They die, not as in Catholiccountries, with a fairly adequate knowledge of the essentials of a death-bed repentance,whether practising or rejecting them, but in absolute ignorance of those essentials. Theylive as brutes, and die as dogs. Whilst the number of death-bed repentances is greatamongst the Catholic poor, in England outside the Church it is agonisingly small. “Onereligion is as good as another” or “all religions are equally effete” or “religion is all very

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well for the naturally good, and for the well-to-do people, but as for me, I have to lookout for this world and have no time for religion” or “as long as one is honest and the like,one may trust that all will be well.” Such are the sentiments of the great multitude thatinhabit this land. They have simply drifted off into absolute disregard of the wholesubject. We have lately been interested in the deathbed of a conspicuous figure in ournineteenth century life, and the picturesque character of that scene was described by onewho, I have understood, cannot be accused of indifference to religion. But thedescription was all of nature, and was to the popular taste. We were asked to admire thepoetical character of the scene, the moonlit features of the dying poet, and the right handclasping the works of the English dramatist—a picture which contained no singlesuggestion of any preparation to meet the Eternal Judge of the living and the dead, intoWhose presence-chamber the poet passed. It is, I believe, the case that Lord Tennysondid not know that he was in his last agony; and his clasp of Shakespeare rather than acrucifix, or even a Bible, was probably not meant to suggest that he wished to die withthat volume in his hand, but simply that is was a solace to him in his weakness. Buthowever that may be, an end which had no religion in it, no idea of any revealed truth inits passage into eternity, commended itself to the average Englishman, to judge by thepublic press. Much the same was, according to all accounts, the end of one of our mostprominent statesmen in this century, and it, too, excited but little notice, though I believethat, as a matter of fact, it is an error to suppose that the said statesman so utterlyignored all religious assistance, for it has been asserted on good authority that he had sentfor a member of the Society of Jesus, who, however, was denied access to the quondamPremier’s room. But this was not generally known, and his supposed unreligious endexcited no surprise, and in no way interfered with his admirers’ laudatory comments.

But, as for the masses of our people, they, at any rate, show no sign; they have nodogmatic religion in life, and they have no notion of what ought to be done in death.There is not even a theory about it; whereas the theory, at any rate, still holds its groundthat a man ought to respect the moral code contained in the last half of the TenCommandments.

The utter loss, then, of all knowledge of the supernatural, the divorce, so far aspossible, of religion from dogma, is the most prominent feature of English life,considered from a religious point of view; and this forms our great difficulty inmissionary work amongst the heathen, as they are often called, of our large towns, and(we might add with equal truth) of our rural districts.

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(Magdalen College, Oxford, where Rivington was educated)

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CHAPTER III.A COMING DANGER

I HAVE insisted on the singular lack of all sense of the supernatural whichdistinguishes our fellow-countrymen. One consequence of this phenomenon is that theyare certain to be the most ready victims of an organisation which promises to be a mostpowerful instrument in the hands of the Evil One, of any that the has succeeded in callinginto existence in these latter days. I mean Freemasonry. It is my strong conviction thatwe should not be doing our duty to our separated brethren if we failed to emphasise theevils of that society.1

It is well known that the Catholic Church refuses the Sacraments to all who are knownto be Freemasons. It is an exercise of authority, which is felt by Catholics to be amplyjustified, both on account of the secret oath, and the actual character of Freemasonry onthe Continent. But here I am anxious to emphasise the danger that threatens alike religionand our social fabric through the increase amongst ourselves of Masonic lodges. I myselftook the Freemasons’ oath, when an undergraduate at Oxford, and thought I was doing areligious act; but, although I do not as a Catholic consider myself bound by that oath,having repudiated all connection with the Freemasons as soon as I discovered the truestate of things, and having solemnly condemned them on entering the Catholic Church, Iam not, as a matter of fact, about to disclose anything that was guarded by that illicitpromise. But this circumstance has led me to watch the action of Freemasonry with moreattention than, perhaps, I should otherwise have done.

The principles of Freemasonry are specially, though not, so far as I know, intentionallyadapted to the special weakness of English modes of thought on religious matters. Thelove of secrecy is not generally considered specially English. But it is too deeplyimbedded in human nature for any English idiosyncrasies to contend against it, whenaccompanied by the bribes which are held out by the Masonic programme. Thatprogramme promises the advantages of a brotherhood without the drawbacks, as mencall them, of revealed dogma. Freemasonry, at its best, is the organisation of naturalreligion; at its lowest it is the studied absence of all religion. I speak of the Scotch riteonly, which alone, I believe, prevails in England. Abroad it has become not merely non-religious, but definitely anti-Catholic and diabolically anti-social. But in England it issimply the glorification of philanthropy without religion.

Nothing can be more untrue than Dr. Döllinger’s statement in his “Conversations,”recently published (p. 73), that “Recent events testified how strongly English Freemasonsstill hold to the necessity of making the Christian creed and confession a condition ofadmission to the Order.” In England no question is asked as to a man’s creed, although itis, I believe, true that a Jew would not be able to get a proposer; but that is for other

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reasons. In India the English Freemasons admit any one who professes Monotheism, ofthe most watery description.

But what can be more harmless, it will be said, than the mere omission of religion,which can be supplied by each individual from other sources?

Now, first, Freemasonry is rapidly assuming a rôle in some of our trades, whichproclaims its true position in the moral sphere. You cannot succeed in some lines unlessyou are a Freemason. This is sheer tyranny; and tyranny spells Satan.

Next, Freemasonry in England is not so disconnected from Freemasonry abroad assome would have us believe. It is admitted by respectable members of the craft inEngland, that Continental Freemasonry is anti-Christian, and indeed, utterly godless. “Weare happy to announce,” writes the Monde Maçonnique, in April 1867, “that thesubscriptions for the education league and the statue of Brother Voltaire meet with thewarmest sympathy in all our lodges. It would be impossible to have two subscriptionsmore in harmony with each other: Voltaire, that is to say, the destruction of all prejudicesand superstitions; and the education league, that is to say, the building up of a newsociety based on science and instruction alone,” Since that date the French Freemasonshave deliberately expunged the Name of God from their first article, and we know whathas befallen Government education in that country of saints and devils. It was notwithout a contest that the Name of the Creator was obliterated from their Masonic creed,for the older Masons maintained that the retention of the Name was of value in the wayof retaining many in their rank who, whilst ignorant of the true principles and tendenciesof the Order, gave a certain prestige to the lodges, which enabled them to pursue theiraims with greater ease. Such is Freemasonry in France, and there and in Italy it is the realopponent of the Holy See. “Throw the Vatican into the Tiber!” is the motto which theinner guiding circle murmurs to itself, a result which would long ago have been achievedwere it not that there is a controlling Hand over the evolution of human affairs. And thedeadly hatred with which Continental Freemasonry regards the Vatican is not due merelyto the fact that the Vatican is the home of the Papacy, but to their conviction that thePapacy and Christianity are identical.

It is usual, however, whilst admitting to some extent the undesirable nature ofContinental Freemasonry, to add in the same breath that English Freemasonry isaltogether unlike it, and thoroughly disconnected from the Continental lodges.

But this is not altogether true. The links are there. The coupling irons are but hangingidle. The present severance, such as it is, is accidental. It needs but a little ingenuity andintrigue to hitch on the English lines to the central bureau on the Continent. Indeed—which is worse—it needs simply a little growth of the network of Masonic organisation atits present rate, and a little development of its real spirit, to bring it on to the same levelof destructive capacity which it has attained in France and Italy. How easily it may beemployed to the damage of the Christians religion may be seen from the followingincident, which I purposely select as but a weak type of its possibilities.

When I was in Bombay engaged in missionary work, His Royal Highness the Prince ofWales paid us a visit, in which, as usual, he won golden opinions for his unrivalled

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address and royal bearing. But one unfortunate incident occurred. The foundation-stoneof a new dock for that important harbour of our empire was to be laid—with Masonichonours. The Catholic Bishop of Bombay publicly protested against this procedure,preventing, as it did, the Catholic subjects of Her Majesty from attending on an occasionwhen as loyal fellow-subjects they would like to have shown their respect to the heir tothe throne. But the Bishop could hardly have been prepared for the depreciation ofdogmatic Christianity, which was actually exhibited before the eyes of the natives ofIndia. In the procession, three ministers of religion walked abreast, each of themmembers of the Freemason’s lodge, bound together in this brotherly act by means of theFreemasons’ rule in India, which admits all professors of theistic doctrine into theirliberal-minded family. On one side walked a Moulvi, the teacher of Islam—with theKoran in his hand. On the other side walked a Parsee Dustoor, with the Zendavesta;whilst in the middle was an S.P.G. missionary with the Bible. The three religions werethus practically bracketed as equally divine; and Freemasonry had the credit of unitingthem in this “edifying” alliance. It is, in fact, not possible for a Christian man to becomea member of a Freemason’s lodge without casting a slight upon his religion. ForFreemasonry at the best proclaims the possibility of a universal brotherhood based onnatural religion.

Now all this is peculiarly to the taste of the undogmatic Englishman. He is, therefore,in the necessity of things, an easy prey to this devouring organisation—an organisationwhich may be so easily utilised for the purposes of socialism and anarchy.

It may be said that this is impossible, whilst so many persons of high dignity in theState, and at least a sprinkling of English clergymen belong to the lodges, and whilst theScotch rite alone is used, which differs considerably from that in use by the Fréres desTrois Points. I myself took the oath, as an undergraduate, from the lips of an Englishclergyman who presided at the lodge, and I knelt side by side with a nobleman who holdsone of the highest positions in the realm. How can any political, social, or religious harmbe apprehended under such circumstances as these?

My answer is, that those who argue thus can have read the history of Freemasonry tolittle purpose, if at all. How many of these well-meaning supporters of the craft are awarethat there are usually Secretaries appointed for foreign correspondence? How many canhave reflected, that on the occasion of the installation of the present Grand Master, theContinental lodges sent their congratulations and asserted their unity and brotherhoodwith the English Masons? Listen to their words. “Italian Masonry rejoices at this newlustre shed upon ‘our world-wide institution,’ and sincerely prays that between the twoMasonic communities may be drawn ever more closely those fraternal ties which,through want of that official recognition, which we venture to hope will soon be effected,have always bound us to our English brethren,” &c.

The official recognition speedily followed. The Times of July 19, 1875, contained thefollowing information:—

“Italian and English Freemasons.—The announcement was made on Saturday, at theconsecration of a new lodge, named after the Princess of Wales, at the Alexandra Palace,

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that His Royal Highness, the Grand Master of English Freemasons, had given officialrecognition to the Grand Orient of Italy, and the announcement was received with warmapplause by the large body of eminent Freemasons assembled on the occasion.”

England, then, may be isolated now, but it is obvious that there is nothing to preventher lodges being ever so closely connected with the French or Italian, or both, at anytime. True, the great personages who, by lending their names, have helped to create itsprestige, would soon separate themselves from such a brotherhood if they found itmaking dangerous advances towards an anti-Christian and anti-social crusade. But thenetwork will have been formed; and though they may separate, it will continue. Thewirepullers will be wirepullers still; they will only have shed the respectable members oftheir organisation, who lent the cover of their names to a brotherhood of naturalphilanthropy which professed to do what every true Christian looks to the Church toaccomplish. The forces which are at work to undermine the social fabric, after stormingthe citadel of religion, will have a ready instrument at hand; and men will discover, whenit is too late, that the whole social problem was bound up with the existence of theMasonic craft; and that so long as we ignore this, we are but playing with the figures inthe front, whilst the most important factors in the drama of socialism are left tothemselves.

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Chapter IV.THE FORCES AT WORK.

HAVING insisted on the moral earnestness of the English people on the whole, and theloss of all serious sense of the value of dogmatic truth which they have sustained, it istime to consider the religious forces at work outside the Church.

One of the most portentous phenomena of the present hour is the secular andnaturalistic tendency of that class of men and women who were once profoundlyinfluenced by Wesleyan pietism. I use “naturalistic” in the sense of opposed to thesupernatural. In Catholic theology the natural is the basis of the supernatural, whichtransforms it without destroying it, so that nature and grace work hand in hand. But, inpoint of fact, in England the natural is pitted against the supernatural; it becomesexclusive of it, and ends with being its opposite. The root of this evil amongst the class ofwhich I speak is to be found in the idea of the future life, which Wesleyan Methodismhas practically placed before its adherents. In Catholic theology, our supernatural destinyis the key to the whole position. It is the explanation of the order of grace. The beatificvision, to which the powers of human nature are, even in their integrity, unequal, is thepivot on which all Catholic teaching turns. Now the teaching of Wesleyanism has, as amatter of fact, introduced amongst our people such a steady and persistent considerationof the accidental joys of Heaven to the eventual exclusion of the thought of its essentialbliss—the natural and touching descriptions of Heaven have so taken the place of thesupernatural and less intelligible aspect of our future life, that the whole idea of thesupernatural order has suffered dislocation.

Dr. Pusey’s famous sermons on the Essential Bliss of Heaven, preached at the openingof St. Saviour’s, Leeds, were a noble attempt to rescue this almost forgotten truth fromoblivion. He saw the blot in Wesleyan teaching, which he called “soul-destroying.” Thespecially destructive feature of that teaching was, indeed, its perversion of the term “newbirth;” but Dr. Pusey saw the connection of this perversion with the loss of the Catholicdoctrine as to the supernatural destiny of man. How far he and his followers havesucceeded in arresting this dogmatic declension I shall consider at another time; but itmay be noted here, that there is only one divine in all previous Anglican theology whohad treated the subject of man’s condition before the fall with any approach to theCatholic doctrine, and this treatise had long been consigned to the lumber-rooms ofAnglican libraries—I speak of Dr. Bull’s account of Adam’s original justice. And I neednot say to Catholics that the doctrines of original justice and of our supernatural destinystand and fall together.

Error on the subject of original justice, which vitiates all Protestant theology, has led tomany of the difficulties that people have felt about everlasting punishment, and precluded

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them from dealing satisfactorily with its essential feature, the loss of the Beatific Vision.Such books on Heaven and Hell, as Dr. Macdonald has translated or edited, from theGerman, witness by their large circulation to the prevailing impression on these topics,and that impression is altogether inadequate.

Now the consequence of this defect in teaching has been the general adoption of whatis at bottom a “natural” theory of grace. The “conversion,” on which so much stress islaid (and which is, in truth, in its Catholic surroundings, of vital importance), when it isdivorced, as it is by Wesleyanism, from the reconstruction of our moral being which isinvolved in the Church’s teaching on the new birth, soon descends to the order of nature.And a system which makes it the pivot and end-all of its teaching, necessarily ends inbecoming “natural” in other ways. Wesleyanism has, accordingly, done its best of late todestroy the Christian faith in England by its attitude of sympathy towards secular SchoolBoards, and its refusal to work with the Church of England in the matter ofdenominational education. The Church of England has failed sufficiently, in all goodconscience. Archdeacon Denison describes most vividly in his “Notes of my Life,” whatwe may call the drama of compromise, act after act, which has been enacted by thatbody. But Wesleyanism has still more conspicuously failed in this crisis of our nationalhistory.

The fact is, that only a true grasp of the supernatural order, and a keen sense of itsoverwhelming importance, could keep a religious body straight in its aims and modes ofoperation in the difficult circumstances that have for some time surrounded the subject ofeducation. The Catholic Church can throw herself into philanthropic schemes, and usethe natural, without jeopardy to her primary aims; when other religious bodies attempt tobe generous or philanthropic, or sympathetic, they lose their bearing, and are sooner orlater swallowed up in their lower, to the detriment of their religious aims. The Wesleyanbody is thus being dragged inevitably downwards; and little help can be expected from itin bringing our fellow-countrymen back to a sense of the supreme value and determiningcharacter of the future life. Unitarianism is far too able, from an intellectual point ofview, for Wesleyanism to cope with it on the field of logic; and the supernatural order hassuffered far too serious a mutilation in Wesleyan teaching for it to be able to counteractthe Unitarian forces by an exhibition of the transcendent majesty of the spiritual world.And Unitarianism is simply natural religion.

What, then, of the quondam ally of Wesleyan Methodism in the Church of England,viz., the Evangelical school?

That school has been so weakened by the Wesleyan poison that it, too, can hardly bereckoned upon for any appreciable aid in the conflict between “naturalism” and “thesupernatural” which has begun to rage in England. It has been itself affected by theprevailing germs. It has fallen an easy prey to a principle which is steadily devouring thevitals of the whole Church of England, as by law established—a principle which is firstcousin to naturalism itself. That principle is “peace at any price.” If the Evangelicalschool had not lost its keenness and sensitiveness about the truth of revelation, it musthave assumed a very different attitude from what it has towards the Lincoln judgement.

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That judgement has proclaimed the astounding and profoundly non-Christian principlethat certain movements and externals of the highest act of Christian worship, which havereceived from the Christian Church a symbolical significance, have no meaning whatever.The evangelical school might have condoned this principle, without prejudice to their pastdogmatic platform, had it not made these very externals, used by others, their battlefield.As it is, they avow that their opponents value them as symbolising doctrines which these“Evangelical” teachers consider anti-Christian. Bishop Alford, in the circular which hehas been distributing, as representing the views of his school, speaks of the absurdity ofmen sitting down together at the “Lord’s table,” some of whom believe that Our Lord isthere to be adored, whilst others believe this teaching to be that of the harlot in theApocalypse. Nevertheless, he and his friends have elected to walk under the sameumbrella, as they say in the East, with these teachers of anti-Christian doctrines. Hadthey retained any of their original sensitiveness to heretical teaching, they would notremain where they are. But they have decided, so he tells us, not to resign their “livings,”the token of earnestness which alone English people understand. And in electing toremain where they are, they have so far failed to emphasise the supreme value of Divinefaith. There are two persons who call themselves Bishop of Liverpool. One was ourpresident at the late conference of the Catholic Truth Society, who with his bright eyeand kind face, nevertheless holds a creed which acts on the principle, “Truth before allelse.” The other, who took the highest honours that Oxford could bestow, and thereforecannot be supposed in any way devoid of natural intellectual power, yet belongs to aschool of thought which has now become the vapid patron of paper-protests. What cansuch a school do in the religious world by way of stemming the tide of undogmaticEnglish notions on the subject of Divine revelation? Unlike the clergy and laity ofConstantinople, who withdrew themselves from their Archbishop Nestorius, long beforehe was synodically condemned, when he began to teach that Mary was not the Motherof God, these men decide and publish it in the broad daylight, that they elect to remainpart and parcel of an institution which throws its ægis over teachers that, according tothem, contradict the faith of Apostles and the doctrine of Christ. The blood of martyrs isthe seed of the Church. Where no blood flows, we suspect it is a stone, and the Englishpeople require bread, not a stone.

I pass, then, to the High Church school and its advance-guard, the so-called Ritualists.And I will at once state what seems to be, in general, our duty towards them in the regionof thought; for our duty towards these will determine our duty towards the rest. I hold,then, that in the first place they are having considerable success at this moment; in thesecond place, that we have good reasons for rejoicing at their success; and lastly, thatthere is every reason for predicting their ultimate and total failure to establish themselvesas the teachers of any large number of our fellow-countrymen. Their success is atpresent considerable. They have elbow-room; and they have, in part, made it forthemselves, though it is in part due to the darkest blot in their religious community, viz.,the growing indifference to dogma. They have renovated the external appearance of theland by the churches they have built, and, still more, by those they have restored. They

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are interesting to many of the young in place of being dull and dreary. They get youngladies to work in the East-end, and young men to devote their evenings to assisting intheir various good works. They have their guilds, and organ recitals, and confraternitiesand unions, and a multitude of associations which cluster round the parsonage, or clergy-house, and form a ready nucleus of listeners to Mr. Lane when he turns all history topsy-turvy, and shows to their delight that they are all one with that pre-Reformation Church,whose Bishops one and all swore obedience to the See of St. Peter, and taught sevenSacraments as part of the faith, and at every turn of their lives invoked our BlessedLady. This, according to their fond delusion, was but the grime and smut which theChurch wiped from her face when she emerged from mediæval darkness and substitutedHenry VIII. for the occupant of St. Peter’s See, denounced Transubstantiation and theSacrament of Penance, and expunged the name of Mary from her future prayers. Inpersuading crowded audiences that this theory of continuity with the pre-ReformationChurch is based on history, they have, at this moment, considerable success.

But I seem to hear some reader of these lines ask, “How can one rejoice in thesuccess of such a remorseless slaughter of historical facts as this their theory ofcontinuity involves?” Well, we cannot rejoice in the spread of a lie. But there issomething more in this movement than the tremendous triumph over history which Mr.Lane and Mr. Nye (in his “Story of the Church”) have achieved: and there is somethingmore than the increase of philanthropy in their manifold activities, which, however, itselfin the baptized has a merit that is not to be counted for nothing, where it is combinedwith invincible prejudice as to the claims of the Church. What this element of good is willappear in another chapter.

Meanwhile, I conclude with one word as to the Salvation Army. It is rather itself asymptom of the disease in the intellectual and religious life of our fellow-countrymen,than any sort of counteracting force. It eschews dogma; it is both the product and parentof inaccurate, that is to say, undogmatic thought on religious matters, the very weaknessof the English mind. Its obedience is, or has been, marvellous; but it is not obedience to areligious authority, but a consent to be drilled into marching order, without marchinganywhere in particular.

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Chapter V.THE GOOD OF RITUALISM.

I HAVE said that we have reasons for rejoicing at the present successes achieved bythe High Church party. I am conscious myself of a tendency to abhor the wholemovement, because it entraps so many souls, who seem on their way to the Church, andleads them to put up with the semblance for the reality of the Sacraments. This is thenatural tendency of a Catholic. We abhor shams, for we know the blessed reality.

But I am persuaded that there is a deeper view of the whole matter, which leads to asympathetic attitude towards these Ritualistic rebels. You are sitting, I will suppose, atyour window, overlooking the garden on which you have spent so much time andtrouble; and the spring flowers have burst into bloom, and both delight the eye and scentthe air. Suddenly you see some one treading heavily on your borders, and your choicestflowers are being crushed by his heedless foot. You rush out from your window seat tohandle the intruder with some roughness, but you suddenly discover that he is blind. Youtake him by the hand and lead him to the gravel path. Now these men, who are rebellingagainst the Holy See and leading souls astray, are many of them (experto crede) as blindas the intruder into your garden.

But it is not only that. The good which they do, whilst it is not unmixed good, is alsonot unmixed evil. And the good is the work of the Church. In what sense it is so will bestbe seen if I indulge in a short summary of the causes which have brought these menwhere they are.

Their history is as follows. English religion lay wallowing in the mire of pure and utterProtestantism, when suddenly an explosion of Continental wickedness sent FrenchCatholic priests into every part of our country. I have for some years felt that this wasthe turning-point of our religious history in England during this century. It was a greatsatisfaction to hear the interesting and able exposition of this theory by the Bishop ofEmmaus (himself an Oxford convert), at the Liverpool conference. Good French priestsfound refuge in the bosom of English families. England treated them well; she had acertain political sympathy with them, and she harboured them in the name of “commonChristianity,” and even in some cases made unexpected and generous provision for them.She has reaped a reward. As the Holy Child blessed the land of His exile, so theseFrench refugee priests silently and unconsciously prepared the way for a religiousmovement, which has not had its like for many centuries. Without men knowing it, theseholy men, with their unobtrusive piety, were diffusing ideas of Catholic truth, which hadall but died away in our country. Meanwhile, one of the most earnest converts we haveever had, Father Ignatius Spencer, brother to the earl of that name, himself the result of

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this happy invasion of French priests, set to work to gain Masses for the conversion ofEngland. He “wearied Heaven” with the supplications that he was the means of obtainingfrom every Bishop and priest on the Continent that he came across. Prayer was now atwork, and the light began to dawn. It has been said that no nation ever rises in the scaleof civilisation except by contact with a nation higher up in that scale than itself. Whetherthat be true or not, a higher form of religion, the only divinely-instituted form, had nowentered England to touch with a congenial power the hidden fire that lurked in our midst.

It is a theory much in vogue amongst High Churchmen, that the inherent power of thetruths left in the Book of Common Prayer, in spite of the endeavour made to excludethem, asserted itself after lying dormant for centuries. Father Gasquet’s researches intocontemporary evidence have remorselessly shattered this curious theory. He has shownthat the Prayer-book was intended to be, at the best, Lutheran. The Lincoln judgementof the Archbishop of Canterbury made an expiring effort in favour of Father Gasquet’sbook shows that the ground on which the Archbishop relied does not exist. But, ofcourse, no one denies that some Catholic Truth was enshrined in the Book of CommonPrayer. Only it was not this Catholic truth which commended itself to after generations. Iremember as an undergraduate at Oxford asking one of my tutors why the provision forConfession made in one of the services contained in that book was never used. Hereplied that it was in small print. Most people in my younger days did not know as muchas that. It was really the Lutheran and Zwinglian doctrine, which forms the substance ofthe Prayer-book, that moulded the national religion. Or rather, it was this that people, leftto themselves as they were, picked out for their pleasurable sensations. It was only whenCatholic priests came from France for refuge here, and reanimated the hopes and prayersof our scattered Catholics, who had the honour of having remained true to the old faith—it was only when the Catholic Church in the persons of bishops and priests on theContinent, at the instigation of men like Father Spencer, began to besiege the ear ofHeaven for the conversion of England—it was only then that the Catholic faith began torenew its vigour in this country.

And as Catholic truth began to spread secretly and from scattered centres, men beganto look into their Prayer-book to see if they were justified in holding some further truththan they had as yet learnt to believe. It was a true instinct which led them to do this;truth must come to men by some authority; and the Prayer-book was put into their handsfrom which to teach. Each point of the Catholic faith that came before them seemed tosome to be possibly enshrined in their formularies, to others to be certainly there. And sothey taught as best they could, with stammering lips, and bit by bit, as men in a fog witha lantern, without knowing where they were going.

But it was the Catholic Church—the Church in communion with the See of St. Peter—which was leading them on. She had taught these truths all along in the rest of theworld, to man, woman, and child. She now laid her spell over these; she had made hervoice heard in England, though the listeners did not recognise that it was hers, nay,declared it was not. But she was preparing the way for their return to her bosom. At lastthe question, not merely “Are these things true?” but “Is there a divine teacher by whose

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authority they can be taught?” came before men’s minds, and the conflict was at an end.The Tractarians started with emphasising the “Scriptural doctrine” of the Church askingdom; and the education, then received, so inferior to its present successor, was asufficient instrument in the hands of grace to lead them to see that a kingdom cannot becomposed of detached, independent, conflicting bodies. An article in a Catholic review(the Dublin) opened a vista in the mind of the greatest genius in religious thought that thiscentury has produced in England, and he at last saw that his “historical” difficulties hadno sufficient ground. The late Archdeacon Allen once told me on noticing the works ofThomassinus in my library, that when he saw that book on Archdeacon Manning’sshelves, and found that he had gone into the question of discipline and jurisdiction, hefelt at once that there was only one probable end to his thoughts also. And so theCatholic Church took back into her bosom Newman and Manning, and they have madethe state of thought in the Church of England which they found for ever impossible in thefuture.

But the Church has not ended her triumphs there, nor even with the large army ofzealous converts whose traces are to be found in the slums of cities, in our literature, andin the services of our churches. She is still teaching the people through the successors ofthe Tractarians. I do not forget that these men are in open rebellion against the Vicar ofChrist; but I cannot either deny that they are also working for Rome. It is true they arecovering England with books, and pamphlets, and tracts to prove what ought to makemen hoarse with laughter, viz., that they are continuous with the Church in Englandbefore the so-called Reformation. It is true that they exact illicit promises from theirfollowers, which it is a virtue to break, binding them not to enter a “Roman” Church inEngland. It is true that they too often feed their minds on the garbage of exciting storiesas to dark deeds committed, or supposed to be committed, by the children of theChurch. But in spite of all this they are preparing the way for the Catholic Church. Theirleaders, like the Canaanites of old, help to build the ark which they do not enter, andthough some of them may lose their souls, they are drawing England strongly towardsthe Catholic Church in spite of themselves. There are men amongst them who reallythink that the 28th Canon of Chalcedon is the voice of the Church; and that St. Aidanwas not in communion with Rome. But these, although their false history does its harm,are not the real leaders of the people. They keep those leaders back, but they do not leadthemselves. The real leaders are those who go furthest; and come nearest in externalappearance and in the teaching of their catechisms—of which the idea, shape, andlanguage is borrowed from Rome—to the teaching of the Catholic Church. Some ofthem use the rosary, which certainly is not primitive; some of them yearn forBenediction, but in vain; some of them use our books of casuistry in dealing with their“penitents.” Some of their preachers use our sermons, and none but ours. Their missionsand retreats are a close copy of our own, though less so, it is to be feared, than theywere.

And what is all this but the indirect work of the Catholic Church? The Catholic Church(and this is most strictly and rigorously true) has taught them to baptize, so that many

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more may reach Purgatory than could be the case with multitudes in the last century. It istoo late to save their orders; for the laxity of practice on the subject of baptism in thepast has made the chain of succession too doubtful for its acceptance by Catholics, apartfrom all other defects in its start. But the increase of correct baptism means that we haveto do with many more separated “brethren” than would otherwise be the case.

Then, again, the increase of confession amongst them is a distinct gain to the CatholicChurch, for it means acts of contrition. And since they lack the Sacrament of Penanceand the Sacrament of the Altar, it is a matter of life and death that they should be led tomake acts of contrition. And acts of real contrition in any large body of men musteventually lead them back to the mother and mistress of the Churches.

A devout Ritualist will sometimes go morning after morning and use Catholic devotionswith continued appreciation at the “daily celebration,” as it is called, and this for yearstogether; and who does not feel that this claims our respect? For even if it be materialidolatry, it is yet formal virtue. All this must work for good, and end in bringing anothergeneration into the Church. They will go to their annual retreat, and although those whoknow by experience between that and an Anglican retreat, still the latter is a considerablespiritual reality. Women by the hundred consecrate their virginity to God, and die withtheir vows of chastity unrecalled; and what Catholic with not respect this? And althoughthe difference between an Anglican Sister of Mercy and a Catholic nun is indescribable,still who would not respect the self-sacrifice that draws near to God in such reverentimitation of the Catholic saint?

It is necessary to take all this into account, when we are considering our properattitude towards our separated brethren. And all this claims from us a certain respect andsympathy, and the most patient endeavours to lead them back to the Catholic Church.Such considerations help us to answer the question which is sometimes asked, whetherwe had not better confine our attentions to our own people, and leave those outside thefold to feel their way in of themselves? The answer is, that when you see men actuallygroping about for the door in the fog, divine charity forbids you to leave them tothemselves. They are feeling after the Church. The Holy Spirit will not let them rest; butneither will He do all the work. He bids us “take away the stone;” remove the hindrance,do what in us lies, and Lazarus will walk forth into the Saviour’s Presence, having hisgraveclothes unloosed by the Apostolic ministrations of the Catholic Church.

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(The Highgate Grammar School crest, at whichschool Rivington also attended)

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CHAPTER VI.THE DARK SIDE.

I HAVE said that it is not within the competency of the High Church section of theChurch of England (in which I include the so-called Ritualists) to win the ear of theEnglish people at large. I must add that, if it were, it would be a grievous calamity. Itwould be a calamity, because it would mean that the English people were to be givenover to a false principle on the very subject on which they are at present so weak, viz.,the value of dogma. It is in the tone which animated men like the late BishopWordsworth and Bishop Hamilton that High Churchmen conspicuously fail at the presentmoment. These men acted as if there were such a thing as absolute truth on matters onwhich now the High Churchman only cares to be tolerated. They thought they wereunder a practically infallible authority. But now we are told that it is not even desirable tohave such an authority; and the idea of obedience to any living exponent of Church ruleshas been relegated to limbo.

It was not always so. When Tractarianism began, its adherents firmly and universallybelieved that the Church of England taught, or would very soon teach, authoritatively,the truths which they found so congenial to their ardent souls. John Henry Newman’sattitude towards his Bishop is the only one that can be justified on the early High Churchprinciples. Those principles involve a recognition of the Bishop in each diocese as thesuccessor of the Apostles, whilst they at the same time repudiate the possibility of anyjurisdiction of one Bishop over another. This autonomy of the various autocephalousdioceses was a most cherished principle at one time, side by side with the idea of theBishop being a successor of the Apostles. Mr. Keble in one of his tracts teaches thatwhen we see a Bishop we should imagine we see an Apostle. And this for many yearswe endeavoured to do, and, in accordance with Tractarian teaching, held, as Dr.Newman did, that the lightest word of a Bishop was a weighty matter. But the unrealityof the position was forced upon us from time to time.

I came, for instance, myself under the authority of a religious-minded Bishop of adifferent persuasion from the one who ordained me, and discovered that not one of thepractices which I considered most primitive was sanctioned by him. He told the membersof our largest Sisterhood, a few days after their profession, that they must be sure toremember that they were free to leave at any moment in spite of their vow of obedience.He considered vows “unscriptural.” He would not support me in my practice of hearingconfessions. In churches where he “celebrated” he would not take the slightest notice ofwhat remained on the paten after the people had made their Communion. It hadanswered its purpose, and deserved no further reverence. He did his best to get rid of theAthanasian Creed, and he very highly disapproved of wearing vestments, which he

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considered only tended to confuse men’s minds and make them think that the“Protestant Communion service” was the same as “the Popish Mass.” Yet I tried to thinkof him as an Apostle. He was soon in a position than which there was for us no higherauthority on earth in spiritual matters, for he became Archbishop of Canterbury. Forthough we held that he had no real jurisdiction over the Bishops of his Province, still heoccupied a See with great memories, and took the chair at any meeting of Bishops. Andthis was all, according to our teaching, that the Pope himself could do. It was a curiousstate of mind in which the Tractarian movement brought us up. The Bishops were allteaching wrong; and yet they were each one of them an Apostle to us.

But at length one Bishop2 appeared on the scene who taught what was right, and justas Protestants, in defiance of history, imagine that the Council of Chalcedon sanctionedthe tome of St. Leo, so we sanctioned the Bishop’s teaching in the court of our ownjudgement. That one Bishop should actually teach the truth was such a gain that we feltindescribably comforted. In spite of all their errors, we clung to the belief that they wereyet Apostles. We could not apply to them the words of our Lord, Who guarded theChurch against supposing that morally defective rulers were impossible, but at the sametime bade us listen to what they said. This was precisely what we couldn’t do; wecouldn’t think of listening to what they said, although they sat in the chair of Moses.They lived moral lives, so far as we could tell, but we were sure that their teaching wasfalse. They were in that matter wolves, and yet Apostles. So we took refuge in a theorywhich is only a new variation of the ultra-Protestant notion of authority. They clung to abook, and we did the same. They clung to the Holy Scripture; we clung to the Prayer-book also, as its interpreter. It mattered not, we said, what the Bishops teach. Be it thatthe Archbishop was heretical in his teaching on every one of the Sacraments; that onlyone Bishop taught rightly on the Holy Eucharist, and that no single Bishop, not even ourchampion, was known to treat what was left on the paten as consecrated, “still” (wesaid) “there is the Book of Common Prayer; and as long as the ink remains on thosepages, are all safe—there is a Church still, a teaching Church—namely, the Book ofCommon Prayer.”

I do not say that we called the Prayer-book the Church, but we made it the Church.Those who have never lived in this strange atmosphere of thought will hardly credit whatI say. And yet this is at bottom the standpoint of nearly every High Churchman to thisday. It is not quite Mr. Gore’s platform; but of that I shall speak presently. But it is thatof the more advanced High Churchmen. To a Catholic, the fact of a clergyman teachingwhat his Bishop does not teach, or doing in Holy Mass what his Bishop does notsanction, is so contrary to all ideas of order, honesty, and Catholic action, that it is naturalfor him when confronted with a Ritualist to say at once, “But your Bishops don’t teachalike, or as you do.” It settles the question as to its being a living Church in the eyes of aCatholic. But it has no such effect on a Ritualist. He replies: “I cannot help what theBishops teach; there is the Prayer-book.” The Prayer-book, of course, in such casesmeans “the Prayer book as interpreted by me.” In other words, they admit no livingauthoritative interpreter, except themselves, of the ambiguous statements which are

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contained in that book.And this is what I mean by calling their rule of faith thoroughly Protestant, which

unfits them to be the guides of others. The vital question of the day, viz., authority,receives from them a fatal answer. According to Catholic teaching the Word of God iscontained in Scripture and Tradition, but it is not left to private judgement to say what isScripture and what is Tradition. According to Protestant teaching, the material of ourfaith is found either in Scripture alone, which is the “Low Church” contention, or inScripture and Tradition, which is the High Church account; but in both cases, theultimate judge of the one or both is the individual. According to Catholic theology therule of faith does not end with deciding the matter of our faith: it goes on to say, that it ishe office of the Church to bring right up to the faithful soul, Scripture and Tradition,giving the right meaning of each. The reason of this is obvious. Faith rests on the Wordof God. It is because this or that truth is Divinely revealed, that we are able to believe itwith divine faith; but we know that it is revealed, not by our own most fallible judgementbut by the voice of the Church. And when the Church has proposed a dogmatic formulato the assent of her children, and that formula becomes the object of perverseinterpretation, she steps in and rights or stays the thought of her children. Heresy thencomes into being in the act of obstinate refusal to accept the Church’s own interpretationof her own formularies. Heresy has most often harked back upon a previous definition,and proposed that this should suffice. This was what Nestorius and Eutyches each intheir turn proposed. Each of them offered to sign the Nicene Creed, and deprecatedanything further in the way of explanation. But the Church, in the person of Pope St.Celestine, and then in the person of St. Leo, gave her explanation and enforced in underanathema. Their refusal to accept this definition, which was an explanation not anaddition to the faith, a development in the way of clearness, constituted their rebellion.They maintained that the new definition was a change rather than a normal development;and for this they found themselves outside the visible Church.

For the Church is a living teacher, ever present with the ages as they succeeded eachother, presenting to them not a dead formula, but a continuous interpretation, unfoldingits stores as occasion arises, and sweetly compelling the obedience of her children. It ison this point that the Anglican theory conspicuously fails—it depraves the idea ofauthority. There is no teaching Church to him; nothing but a book variously interpretedby fallible authorities who present it to him and leave him to pick his way amongst themanifold interpretations. It is enough if he sign a document, saying that he accepts thestatements of the Prayer-book; in what sense, matters not. On certain occasions, he mayhave to sign the Thirty-nine Articles; but the late Archbishop of Canterbury fathered abill in Parliament which took away the sting of this act for those who believe them tocontain doctrine that is unscriptural, by declaring that their signature is to be understoodto cover only a conviction as to their orthodoxy in general, not as to particulars. Theepiscopate thereby resigned one of the last remnants of teaching authority.

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CHAPTER VII.A DARKER SIDE.

THE bewilderment of a logical mind confronted with the phenomenon of a religioussystem claiming any sort of authority, whilst it sanctions contradictory teaching as to thepath towards Heaven, does not make itself felt in the case of those Anglicans who havedecided, at any cost, to “cling to the Church of their baptism.”

This curious phrase, which has the sanction of the entire episcopate of the Church ofEngland, and that of the Protestant Episcopal Church in American (occurring, as it does,in one of the pronouncements of the Lambeth Conference), witnesses to the utterconfusion of thought which has taken hold of the Anglican mind on the subject ofreligion. If it is meant to be anything more than a verbal fling, it must condemn everyperson who leaves the Catholic Church for the Church of England, or indeed everymember of the Wesleyan body who become a member of the Establishment—unless itcontains the absurd contention that no one can be baptized into anything but the Anglicanfold.

When, however, any one discovers that the Church of England is a religious body thathas departed from her allegiance to the Divine Spouse, and entered upon an alliance witha new supreme head in religious matters; and when he discovers that what everyArchbishop of Canterbury and Bishop in England for 1000 years solemnly swore to beDivine truth, at the hour of his consecration, is indeed true—viz., that obedience is dueto the Bishop of Rome as the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ—when, I say, aman becomes firmly persuaded that this is truth necessary to be believed, andaccordingly returns to the Mother whom he had previously ignored, viz., the Catholicand Roman Church, he is then said to have deserted the Church of his baptism. It isimplied that he has forsaken the home of his mother, that there was some authoritywhich had a lien upon him.

It is into the character of that authority that I propose to inquire still further. I proposeto show that so far as concerns any right to exercise a mother’s authority over our mindsand hearts, the Church of England is in the position of a claimant with not title-deeds.She has played with our religious instincts, and what we took for her voice was often thejudgement of our own minds, or the echo of truth from the Eternal City. The hills lendtheir barren sides to the sequence of sounds which carries on the yodelling of themountaineer, but the voice is his, and not that of earth and stone.

Now I take it that no one will dispute that if contradictory orders are given by theofficer in command, it is he who fails in duty, and not the subaltern, if disobedienceensues. And I must add to this, for the sake of clearness, that if the Church’s trumpetdoes not give a distinct sound on matters essential, she has separated herself from the

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Divine Spouse, and is not his bride but something else. Apply these principles to theChurch of England. Those of her members who in some matters of doctrine, and insome points of Ritual, most nearly resemble the Catholic Church, make us a present oftheir Bishops and refer us to the Prayer-book. As long as that remains, there is, we aretold, authority for teaching what they do. “If the Prayer-book were altered, our positionwould be altered; for then both Bishops and Prayer-book would be false guides.” Theyare not quite so absurd as to maintain theoretically that they can with any show ofrational conduct teach that which they have no authority of any kind to teach.

But here is the difficulty. Two grave departures from the received interpretations ofthat book have made their footing good within the Anglican communion. 1. Thelatitudinarian section has had its Archbishop in the late eminent occupant of the titularSee of Canterbury; and I suppose I might add that it counts another in his successor,though with a more ecclesiastical turn of mind. It has appeared in the University pulpit atOxford in a series of lectures by a Canon of Canterbury Cathedral, which hardly left ashred of Christian doctrine intact; and it has expressed itself in the kindly action of aprominent Bishop blessing a religious system at the grave of its deceased minister whichrefuses to admit children to the kingdom of God on earth. It has enthroned itself atOxford, and is powerful at Cambridge; it is welcome, of course, in Parliament, and findsa home in Court. It lauds the Prayer-book, or at least is content to use it as a bond ofunion between its brethren in the same communion, whose sacerdotalism it forgives,because its own disintegrating principles have won a place within the fold.

2. On the other hand, by the help of the Latitudinarian section, an extreme form ofHigh Church teaching has secured toleration from their rulers. Sisterhoods were firsttolerated, and their vows, taken sub rosâ, were condoned in view of their philanthropicaims. They are now more than thus tolerated by those who do not teach the samedoctrines, but are glad to avail themselves of the ornament of their good works, and whofeel that they at any rate “keep some minds from Rome.” They show, it is thought, thatRome has no monopoly of devotion to the sick and poor, as was once clear to all. Noteaching of any kind seems likely to undergo persecution in the future, if only people will“remain in the Church of England.” There are clergymen in London who use the rosaryin their churches, and practise on Good Friday, at an alternative service, the adoration ofthe Cross. So long as they will not swell the ranks of those who “leave for Rome,” theymay teach as they please.

And, what is more—they may do what they please. In the letter which the Archbishopof Canterbury addressed to England in the Times, after the Lincoln judgement, heendeavoured to allay the apprehensions of men as to any possible Romeward movementon the part of the Anglican clergy, by pointing out that they have two advantages whichthey are not likely to forgo in haste, viz., the solace of domestic life and independence.Certainly the Anglican clergyman has a marvellous independence of his Bishop; but, as iscertain to prove not far hence, at the cost of power to enforce conviction as to histeaching. He has not to consult his Bishop as in the primitive times; contrary to allCatholic teaching he may consider himself, and not the Bishop, the guardian of what he

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calls the Blessed Sacrament. He may, as some do, reserve and give Benediction withwhat he considers the Blessed Sacrament—but in the vestry, not in the church, althoughI have seen this done even in church. He may teach that it is a mortal sin tocommunicate after food, although his Bishop continually does so communicate; and hemay teach that the remedy for mortal sin after baptism is confession and absolution,although his Bishop does not practise the one nor admit the right to give the other, except“in service.”

Some are beginning to feel that the omission of a Sacrament is a dark shadow on thepicture, and must merit the Divine displeasure. But how to restore a Sacrament? Astatement appeared in Catholic Opinion to the effect, that a clergyman who told a Sisterof Mercy he meant to anoint a dying person was at once asked how he could get the oilconsecrated. He replied that since the Bishop would not do it, he must do it himself,which he accordingly did. No words, of course, can be too severe for such trifling with asacred subject. The Sister of Mercy became a Catholic, and probably the clergyman didnot repeat the experiment. But now there are Bishops to be found who would give aclergyman leave to consecrate the oil as well as he can, and, indeed, such a thing is to befound as a Bishop who will do it as well as he can himself.

The position is gained; and advance has been made; the Church of the future, onwhich such stress is laid, seems to them to be looming in the distance—a Church inwhich there shall be a more and more perfect imitation of Roman doctrine and Romanpractices. But at what a cost! It is at the cost of the first principles of Church order, andof a principle which is absolutely fatal to the existence of an ecclesia docens. SomeBishops tolerate the secret performance of a Sacrament! Such is the comfortingassurance given to a mind in doubt as to whether all this development is not only anotherform of private judgement. Some Bishops! then the Bishops are not agreed! And howdare men who are not agreed ask for the allegiance of their fellow-men?

But there is one point on which the entire episcopate of the Establishment is agreed,and that is on the expediency of obedience to the Lincoln judgement, which has theauthority of the Archbishop and the Privy Council. Without the former it would notcommand the obedience of some; without the latter it would not commend itself toothers. But the two together constitute an authority, which has bound together High, Lowand Broad. There seems, then, to be some agreement at last, something like anauthoritative pronouncement. Let us examine this rara avis.

The High Church has been struggling to gain their people’s adhesion to more Catholicteaching on the subject of the Holy Eucharist. For this purpose they have adopted muchof the ritual of the Catholic Church. The Eastward position, for Anglicans are fond of theEast, has been the flag about which they have fought. Canon Liddon, who was not aritualist in the ordinary sense of the term, considered that the symbolism of the Eastwardposition was so momentous that he decided rather to resign his canonry at St. Paul’s thanrenounce that position. He considered that it symbolised vital truth. And as Mr. Keblestated publicly that the Anglican formularies had, in his judgement, gone so far neartowards depraving the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice (within a “hair’s breadth,” he

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said, of denying it) that any wavering on that subject would be fatal, Canon Liddon madehis stand in the public letter which he and the present Dean addressed to the Bishop ofLondon. That position symbolised, in his opinion, the Catholic as opposed to theProtestant view of the Holy Sacrifice.

But the Lincoln judgement has with one blow destroyed this instrument of teaching.The Eastward position signifies nothing, and anybody who likes may use it, and have thepublic assurance of the Archbishop that he is permitted to use it simply because itsignifies nothing. Many will use it, still with the understanding that it does teach theSacrifice, that is to say, in disagreement with the Archbishop.

And this is but a symbol of the whole position. The primitive formula was, “Donothing without the Bishop.” The laity were to do nothing without the Bishop andpresbyters: the presbyters were to do nothing without the bishop. A contrary mode ofaction exposes a religious system to the charge of inefficiency, and passes a slight on thenote of unity. It makes it impossible for the body, so disunited, to claim authority inreligious matters. Here, then, is the vital difference between the early Tractarian and theRitualist; the former began with obedience to the Bishop, and when he discovered theBishop in primitive times meant one who was in communion with the rest ofChristendom, he joined the majority; and dying to the Church of England, he lived in theCatholic Church; the latter flies from his Bishop to his Prayer-book, and stays where heis. He has no teaching Church. He teaches the Church, teaches the Bishop. He has onlyScripture and Tradition at the most; but he has no authority that propounds to him andguards either the one or the other. In the Catholic Church the Episcopate is the appointedguardian of the faith; but to the Ritualist the Bishops are dumb, or wrong. In otherwords, there is no living authority that claims to be Divine, and consequently there is nounity that can be called supernatural.

Mr. Gore, however, in his recent book on the “Mission of the Church,” contends thatthe unity of the Church consists (in the case of the English Church) in the harmoniousco-operation of the High, Evangelical, and Broad Church sections, and that, indeed, abeautiful spectacle of comprehensive presentation of the truth is exhibited in their mutualinclusion within the same fold. He sees in each the complement of the other, so that thewhole of that portion of the Christian Faith, which according to him, it is the peculiarprovince of the Church of England to uphold, is presented by this triple alliance. Hemaintains that “Romanism” is not the “whole” of Christianity, but that the Christian Faithis, if I may so say, shot through the prism of three divisions of Christendom. We mayassume that he would not say that Anglicanism is the “whole.” But it has, we are told,some message for the age; only that message again is given through three sections. Sothat each of these parties must, on this theory, teach a vital element of truth which isignored, or slurred by the others. Consequently, nowhere in the world can a man beunder the influence of the whole Christian revelation. For he must be at once a Romanand an Anglican and a Greek; and, moreover, he must belong to the High, Low, andBroad sections of the Anglican “branch.” Was there ever a theory so obviously contraryto reason and requiring such a lack of the gift of humour to propound it gravely to

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thinking men!Besides, according to this theory, no one ever teaches with authority. A man who has

only a sixth part of the revelation can hardly be the voice of the Church, for you mustcarefully winnow out of this teaching all his negatives, by which process you constituteyourself the voice of the Church instead of himself. Mr. Gore seems to claim in his bookalluded to above, to belong to the High Church section of the Establishment; but, on hisown showing, the Broad Church has a message for the world which he does not deliver,and the Low Church has another, so that Mr. Gore’s message is a mutilated tale of thetruth, shorn of two-thirds of the full message of the Establishment, which itself, on histheory, only presents one-third of the whole message to mankind—unless we are tosuppose that, standing outside them all, he is able to transcend them all and give asynthesis of the whole, so that Pusey House is the Pharos of the nineteenth century. It is,in fact, a theory—this idea that each is the complement of the others—which mayinterest some and mislead others; but it is not in the nature of things that it shouldcommand permanent respect. There is a good deal of logic left in men yet, and such atheory is pulverised by the first application of common sense.

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CHAPTER VIII.THE ANGLICAN STRONGHOLD.

I.—“OUR HISTORIANS.”THERE is a stronghold, in which the greater number of those who are so persistently

—and in many cases in thorough good faith—attempting to prove themselves Catholics,have retrenched themselves, which falls at the first touch of Divine faith, but which,apart from the gift of faith, seems built for eternity. Many of us have thought the wallswere built of stone and the roof of adamant, only to find that we were but childrenplaying with cards.

I speak of the stronghold of supposed history. No one who has not lived and workedas a Ritualist can appreciate the depth of conviction with which the High Churchmanspeaks of himself as “on the side of history.” It is a conviction that is surpassed only bythe certainty of faith. It falls short of that by the immeasurable distance which separatesthe natural from the supernatural, but it amounts to a deep, genuine, practical, andpenetrating conviction. It is enough to mention the name of history, and a certain air ofsatisfaction is at once apparent in the manner of the High Churchman. So deeplyengrained in his mind is the idea that history is on his side, that a really large number ofearnest-minded men belonging to that section of the Establishment seriously believe thatCatholics ignore history, or negligently pervert it, or deliberately misrepresent it.

Canon Liddon once told me that one passage in the history of the early Church wasenough for him. It was the fact (as he supposed it to be) that St. Augustine’s attitudetowards the Papacy was substantially the same as that of the English Church! It seemsalmost incredible that a man of Canon Liddon’s calibre could rely on such a perfectlyrotten foundation. He told me that in this matter he trusted Dr. Pusey. Canon Liddon soidolised Dr. Pusey that I have known friends of his to be quite shocked at the extent ofthe reliance which he placed in a single man like the late Professor of Hebrew. But so itwas.

Now Dr. Pusey was under the delusion that St. Augustine signed a certain letter fromAfrica, which certainly has not the Catholic ring about it, but which, even so, does notwarrant the conclusions drawn from it by Dr. Pusey and his followers. It certainly doesnot represent the attitude of St. Augustine towards what he called “the Apostolic See,”viz., the See of Rome. His words, which are often, and most justly, paraphrased, “Romehas spoken; the cause is finished,” express his judgement, from which he never swervedin act or word. But these very words of St. Augustine, or rather this paraphrase of hiswords, is often quoted as a good instance of the “extent to which Roman Catholics willgo in the way of misquotation.” As a matter of fact, St. Augustine’s actual words couldnot be better paraphrased. He says that the “rescripts have come,” i.e., from Rome. The

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rescripts consisted of an expression of approbation from the Holy See as the final tribunalof the Church; this is expressly stated by Innocent, and the reception of this answer fromthe Holy See did, to St. Augustine’s mind, conclude the matter.

Now this has been shown again and again by Catholic writers. Nevertheless, it isseldom that a person who is being drawn by the Holy Spirit towards the Catholic Churchapplies to an Anglican High Churchman without having this African “history” trotted outin favour of the Anglican position. It requires patience to go over the same ground againand again. But it must be done. Again and again we have to point out that nothing can befurther from the truth than this their presentation of history.

But one of the greatest offenders against history that the High Church section has everproduced was the late Bishop of Lincoln. Some of his statements in “TheophilusAnglicanus” are perfectly astounding, such as the calm assertion that Constantinople“was raised, A.D. 381, to the dignity of the second among the fourteen Patriarchs.” Youwould think that he had never turned over a page of the Acts of the Council, or that hehad not the remotest idea of what a General Council is. From talking of the Pope and theCouncil, as though they were something separate, most Anglicans are under thetemptation of thinking that the utterances of an Eastern Council are of authority beforethey have received the sanction of the Holy See. They speak as though a GeneralCouncil were a Council of Bishops minus the Bishop of Rome. Otherwise, how could acanon which was repudiated by the entire West, be deemed of Œcumenical authority?Surely it is talking sheer nonsense to quote the proposed arrangement of some EasternBishops, as though it were the voice of the Catholic Church.

Dr. Bright talks of the 28th canon of the “Council of Chalcedon” in much the samestrain—as though it were a canon of the “Council.” But does not the Catholic Churchinclude the West? How, then, can that be a canon of the “Council” in the strict sense ofthe word, i.e., as giving the judgement of the Universal Church, which was neverreceived by the West? Yet we have been gravely told for many years that the Anglicannotion that the superiority of the See of Rome was traced by the early Church to its civilposition and not to its Petrine privilege, was sanctioned by the fourth General Council.

But Bishop Wordsworth, whose work was subjected to a severe criticism by BishopIves, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, when the latter was in process of making hissubmission to the Catholic Church—Bishop Wordsworth, I say, was accuracy itself bythe side of a writer, who has exercised an extraordinary influence on the Church ofEngland. I mean the late Dr. Littledale. His books on the subject of Rome are the darkestspot in the history of the High Church movement. I should perhaps rather say that theway in which they have been received, is the ugliest phenomenon which that movementrepresents. They are gangrened with falsehood. Not a page that will bear the light ofdownright investigation. I know, indeed, of people who have been brought into theChurch by these books of Dr. Littledale. They have felt the falseness of the positionwhich could rely on such a rotten basis. But there are numbers who have received such afalse notion of the whole question from reading these books, that the idea of thewickedness and untruthfulness of Rome, which is the burden of his miserable song, has

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remained as a stain on their imagination for years. It is a simple disgrace to the Societyfor Promoting Christian Knowledge that it should consent to go on distributing assertionswhich have been proved so audaciously false by (for instance) such a careful andcourteous writer as Father Ryder. When the last book on the Petrine claims, came out, itwas exposed by Father Sydney Smith in a way that demanded some reply, if that bookwas meant to be a serious statement of truth. But in vain. Now we Catholics love ourEnglish fellow-countrymen; and we are grieved to the depths of our hearts to see thembeguiled by such a tissue of misrepresentations. Let any one take Dr. Littledale’s chapteron casuistry, and his remarks on equivocation, and compare Father Jones’ book“Dishonest Criticism,” and say whether (if he is an “English Churchman”) he does notblush to his eyes at the monstrous misrepresentation of which Dr. Littledale has beenguilty. And let him consider whether it becomes a society such as that for “PromotingChristian Knowledge” to disseminate such inaccuracy?

I turn now to a different order of writing. I mean the historical works of BishopStubbs. No one doubts his lordship’s learning; though if report speaks truly, many doubthis theology. With such a champion, is not the Church of England safe in her boast thathistory is on her side? I will only ask two questions. What are we to say of a writer whorefers to Peckham’s code as though it were that of an independent national Church?Why Peckham himself speaks of the constitutions which Bishop Stubbs considers to bethe beginning of a national code (in the sense of an independent authority) as theconstitutions of Otho and Othobon, the two Roman Legates! Again, what are we to sayof Bishop Stubbs’ treatment of this question by “Haddan on Bramhall,” which, in thelight of our present knowledge, unquestionably fails to prove its point. Yet history, saysthe Anglican, is our strong point.

II.—“OUR CONTINUITY.”There is, however, another supposed verdict of history on which the High Council

section relies with the greatest assurance at the present moment. We are (they say)identical, substantially identical, with the Church of England before the sixteenth century.Now I do not propose to enter at length into the “continuity” argument. But there are oneor two points about it which can never be insisted upon too often.

The first is the simple fact that every Bishop from St. Augustine downwards, untilCranmer came on to the scene, held that the Bishop of Rome is the successor of St.Peter, and as such the ruler of the Universal Church. When Bishops took their oaths ofobedience to Rome, they bore a witness to the belief of the English Church, which isfatal—absolutely fatal—to the Anglican “continuity” theory. It is idle to call thedifference between regarding the See of Peter a Divine institution in the Church andregarding it as only a human institution, a difference merely such as is exhibited by aperson who was on first appearance bespattered with mud and on his next appearancewashed in the face. Considering how the English mind has fixed on Popery as the termbest expressing the religion which hails from Rome, the difference between a Papal and a

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non-Papal institution must be considered vital. And the man who asserts that the Churchof England before the 16th century was not Papal has schooled himself into a profounddisregard for historical facts. He may, if he likes, fall back on the British Church, andimagine that it was not Papal. He has even then to face the fact that Dr. Döllinger andBishop Wordsworth scouted the notion that the question of the observance of Easter, andof the tonsure, and of a certain mode of baptizing, constituted vital differences betweenRome and Britain, and the fact that in regard to Easter the Britons observed the oldRoman style—but we might make him a present of the British Church. What he cannotdeny without producing a romance like Mr. Nye’s “Story of the Church,” of Mr. Lane’slucubrations, is that the Church in England embraced the Papal form of Christianity forat least a thousand years.

He may play with words, as Lord Selborne does, when he says, “It was the Church ofEngland, and not the Church of Rome,” which was declared free by Magna Charta—when the real question is whether it was the Church of England in communion with theChurch of Rome and forming part of the circumference of which Rome was the centre.He may boldly assert, with Mr. Nye, that when St. Wilfrid was incarcerated in adungeon, “so ended the first appeal to Rome”—ignoring St. Wilfrid’s restoration to allthat was considered necessary by Rome, omitting, too, the fact that, in dealing withWilfrid, St. Theodore called himself the Legate of the Apostolic See, and at leastprofessed to be carrying out the behests of Rome, and, above all, omitting the repentanceof Theodore, before his death, for his conduct towards St. Wilfrid. Our Anglicanupholder of continuity may even go so far as to speak of Papal Supremacy (again withMr. Nye) as having been “always illegal, and unconstitutional.” He may quote the 189,who refused the oath tendered to them in Elizabeth’s reign, as comprising the entirenumber of clergy who refused to conform, and so complete the imaginary picture ofcontinuity.

But he has to reckon, not merely with the Catholic writers, who have refuted theseand many similar statements, but his own co-religionists claim to be heard. Dr. GilbertChild completely shatters Lord Selborne’s contention, and shows that the Church ofEngland was “an extension of the Latin Church” into England; and Professor Brewer, anacknowledged expert, convicts Mr. Nye, by anticipation, of falsifying history, when he(the Professor) shows from documentary evidence that Henry VIII. established a “totallynew order of things” by his supremacy; and Mr. Pocock, a specialist, in one of his recentarticles in the Guardian, supplies additional evidence to that which we already possessed,that the 189 were not the inferior clergy, but simply the number of dignitaries whorefused to conform to the new state of things inaugurated by Elizabeth. In fact, it isdifficult to suppose that men will not soon wake up to see that an Episcopate whichreceived the Pall from Rome for so many centuries, cannot, in any religious sense, becontinuous with a body which claims to be Episcopal and sits by and looks on, whilst oneof their number, in full communion with themselves, inaugurated a new ministry in theSouth of Europe to hamper and hinder if possible the efforts of the Bishops of Spain tokeep their people true to God. A succession of titles, the possession of buildings, the use

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of endowments, is certainly continuity; but when the persons, who possess the titles,buildings, and endowments, maintain a different doctrine and an entirely different formof government, it is not, from a religious point of view, the continuity of substantialidentity.

But this continuity question has to meet a further difficulty. Dr. Döllinger and the Neo-Protestants, or (as they call themselves) the Old Catholics, tell us that the Church sincethe era of the Forged Decretals, and the Church before those unhappy forgeries, aresevered by an impassable chasm. And every Anglican appears to maintain that theChurch was entirely changed by those spurious decretals. To revert, then, to the state ofthings before those creative documents (as the Anglican contention holds them to be)cannot be simply cleansing one’s face. We are told they changed the whole face ofthings, which means much more than contracting dust or dirt on one’s face. Yet theChurch in England, previous to the sixteenth century, was penetrated to the depths of herbeing with the principles which those Decretals rightly assume, or how could Henry VI.have declared that for a Council to imagine itself above a Pope was a proposition somonstrous as to touch the “very marrow of religion?” And how could the Archbishops ofCanterbury have called themselves legates of “the Apostolic See,” and receive the Pallfrom Rome? It will not do to say with one breath that the very constitution of the Churchwas changed in the ninth century, and that the Anglican form of Church government,which stands alone in the world, is a change so superficial, that it does not destroy theidentity of the Church as it was before, with its “Mariolatry,” its tenacious hold on sevenSacraments, its fabric “based on forged Decretals,” its “Popery,” and multiform“superstitions.”

There is only one escape from the dilemma, and that is, to take refuge in real history.For it is the rigorous verdict of history, that in the way of supremacy, nothing can beadded to the actual exercise of jurisdiction by Nicolas I., in whose reign the Decretalsappeared. Dean Milman has given full play to his literary power in his description of thetremendous position occupied by that great Pope. What is his explanation of thatposition? The forged Decretals. Happy thought! then we can still remain Anglican, forthough the whole Western Church was Roman to the core in the days of Nicolas, it wasso by reason of forged Decretals. But Nicolas never once quoted them! With that factfalls half the history about the Papal supremacy concocted by Protestant narrators.“But,” it will be said, “he relied upon them.” Again, no evidence whatever. “But theyunderlay the people’s convictions.” What! the whole constitution of the Church changedin those few years by documents which were not used as authorities even by thesuccessor of Nicolas? Preposterous. No, we ask for some deference to our experience ofhuman nature.

The dilemma in which the Protestant appeal to history finds itself is this. The Papacywas full blown in the days of Nicolas, in whose reign the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretalappeared. Of course, I might add the same of the days of Gregory, or of Leo, or ofVictor. But I content myself with Nicolas, about whose utterly Papal position there canbe no question. The Papacy, then, either entered upon an inheritance of thought, and

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experience and conviction and action, which made the life of Nicolas possible, in whichcase there was nothing substantial for forged decretals to effect; or the Papacy suddenlyleapt into a position of authority and supremacy by means of those decretals. But thenthey must have been quoted by authority. Bishop Creighton says that—“Nicolas madehast to use them.” But there he is beyond his facts. Nicolas quoted the Nicene Canon,and Decretals which were genuine, but never once the forged Decretals. They were notin the Roman archives. He decided (it is true) that they were not on that accountspurious. But he never quotes them, at times when they would have been of service, hadhe seen them and thought them genuine. They are not, therefore, sufficient to bear theweight of the argument rested on them. They are too like other genuine Decretals; theytoo little differ in substance from accepted maxims; they enunciate principles too similarto those already at work, to be credited with changing the whole face of things.

But if the forged Decretals cannot be made responsible for more than an improvedmethod of administering a jurisdiction already universally acknowledged (and this is therôle they really played), then it is not too much to say that history, removing thepedestals on which the Papacy has seemed to some to rest, reveals it standing on itssupernatural and indestructible basis, namely, the loving institution of Him, Who is thesame yesterday, to-day, and for ever. For there is no alternative between the creativeword of Christ, and a cause like the Pseudo-Isidorian documents, to account for theexistence of the Papal régime. The Church of England for 1000 years believed thatPapal supremacy rested on that Divine basis—the word spoken to Peter. It needed noPseudo-Decretals to bring it, in its fundamental principles, into being, although theaccidents of its administration benefited by those documents, which only hastened on amethod of its exercise, which was already coming into vogue, and was destined to prevailwithout them. Thus the reign of Leo XIII. is in proper and natural continuity with thereign of Pius V., and that of Pius V. with the monarchical government of Leo the Great,whose relation to the Church was continuous with that of St. Clement, St. Anacletus, andSt. Linus, the immediate successors of the blessed Apostle Peter. And those who arebold enough to dispute any continuity of succession between the Apostle and the Popes,may be handed over to the tender mercies of a Protestant Archbishop, whom Mr. Gorehas quoted as one of the patrons of his own teaching—I mean Archbishop Bramhall. Hesays (“Works,” vol. ii. p. 373), “He must either be meanly versed in the primitiveFathers, or give little credit to them, who will deny the Pope to succeed S. Peter in theRoman bishopric.”

III.—PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.But a further resource is at hand. At any rate, our Anglican historian will say, Papal

Infallibility is new. History is clear about that. Now I will adduce two facts which speakvolumes. First, Archbishop Bramhall argued against Papal Infallibility as being theundoubted tenet of the Church of Rome in his day. He objects to it that it is such aninfallibility as he may justly scorn, because the Pope is only infallible in cathedrâ, which

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is exactly the Vatican definition. It cannot then be quite new. Again, St. Francis of Sales,in one of his tracts addressed to the Protestants of the Chablais country, deals with thesubject of Papal Infallibility. Now St. Francis was not the man to import into his writingsagainst those Protestants, for whom he was giving his life, any debateable matter. Yet hegives several pages to this subject of Infallibility. He compares the Pope, when speakingin cathedrâ, to the High Priest when he put on his sacerdotal vestments and the Urimand Thummim, and went into the Most Holy Place to inquire of the Lord. It would notbe possible to give a more beautiful and succinct account of Papal Infallibility than hasbeen done by this loving saint. He does not put it amongst debateable questions, but as apart of the Church’s teaching.

But, says our friend the Anglican, it was only promulgated twenty years ago; and hethinks this an insuperable difficulty. That is because the Anglican has no idea of thedifference between what is of divine faith and what is of Catholic faith. It was a matterof divine faith before the Nicene era that the Eternal Son was consubstantial with theFather. To those who had the full evidence of this truth before them, it was a matter ofnecessity to believe in the Consubstantiality of the Son. But the term became part of theCatholic faith when adopted into the Church’s creed. So to St. Francis, in the sixteenthcentury, the truth that the Pope, when speaking on matters of faith or morals to thewhole Christian Church and laying down what is of obligation, is secure of Divineassistance, was a matter of Divine faith. A man could not be excluded from theSacraments for not accepting this truth; he can now. The Church has spoken; Heavenhas opened its treasures and light has been diffused; we are better off, and what was ofDivine faith always, is, to our great advantage, of Catholic faith now.

It is not possible that the Anglican should understand or appreciate this; for notbelieving in any living speaking Church he cannot see the advantage of a definitionturning what was always of Divine faith into matter of Catholic faith. After Nestorius hadbeen condemned for refusing to apply the term Mother of God to Our Lady, andpreferring the expression Mother of Christ, an Anglican, if true to his principles, wouldhave held himself in suspense until he and others had accepted the ruling of the Council,and made a majority in the way of acceptance of its decision. He would have consideredthe question of John of Antioch’s absence, whether it invalidated the Council; or thevarious influences brought to bear upon the members; he would first accept it withoutauthority and then endeavour to enforce it with authority. A marvellous maze indeed. Onthe other hand, the Catholic spoke as the orthodox Bishops spoke when they said,“Compelled both by the holy canons, and by the letter of our most Holy Father, PopeCelestine,” &c. but these words are discreetly omitted from Anglican “histories” of theCouncil of Ephesus.

What, then, the Anglican has to prove is that Papal Infallibility was not the generalbelief of orthodox Christians. Its promulgation, as a matter of Catholic faith, does notmake it true or new; it only proclaims it to be true and old. It only makes that to bematter of Catholic faith which was a matter of Divine faith, when St. Clement wrote hisletter to Corinth. What Dr. Döllinger said in 1845, when addressing a body of savants at

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Munich, as a professed historian, is really historical truth, viz., that although the dogmaof Papal Infallibility had not been defined, “any one who denies it goes against theconscience of the whole Church, as in the past, so in the present.”

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CHAPTER IX.DÖLLINGER AND ST. VINCENT.

ANGLICAN IDOLS; OR, DÖLLINGER AND ST. VINCENT.“WE can come to no other conclusion,” wrote Dr. Döllinger of his old friend Baader,

“than that he had passed over the chasm which divides the calm convictions of a manstanding on the height of his mental development, from the childish and passionatemental impotence of old age.”

A dispassionate comparison of Döllinger’s middle life with the incidents of his old agewill lead to the same conclusion concerning himself. His earlier works postulated PapalInfallibility, and they were brilliant in the extreme. His early Church history suppliesmany a crisp description of the working of the Infallibility of the Church, whichcombines the Pope and Council as joint heirs of the prerogative of Infallibility, andsuggests that the informing power of the Council’s inerrancy was the privilege bestowedon the blessed Apostle Peter, and inherited by the occupants of the Apostolic See. In hisbrilliant essay on Mahomet, he attributes the weakness of Islam to the lack of amainspring such as the Catholic Church possesses in the person of the Holy Father. Sothat in 1845, he could inform the assembled savants at Munich, that “he who shoulddeny Papal Infallibility would go against the conscience of the whole Church, as in thepast, so in the present.”

What caused the change in Döllinger’s attitude towards the Holy See? Was it a deeperstudy of history? This could not really be the case, for we should have had some ofthose brilliant presentations of facts grouped by a master-hand, with which he oncedelighted the literary world. But he adduced no new facts, wrote no new brilliant essays,gave the world no one new production which his most enthusiastic admirer wouldventure to name as a fit symbol of his literary power. Was it that Döllinger had beenovermastered by a passion which caused the ruin of the world? Was it that, had therebeen a Henry VIII., he would have written to Döllinger as he wrote to Luther, and askingthe question why he who had once so strongly supported the Papacy as an integral partof Christianity now turned against it, have answered “ambition, pride, vanity?” Such, atleast, was Henry’s answer to his own question concerning Luther, and such is theconclusion as to Döllinger’s change forced upon the reader of a remarkable book whichhas lately appeared in Germany, by Emil Michael. A man of Döllinger’s powers, whokept on ringing the changes on Papal “omnipotence” and “tyranny,” who flatlycontradicted himself again and again, without giving anywhere a rational account of hisnew ideas, but simply declared that he had always held them—who appealed to thenational pride of Germans to induce them to join in his crusade against “Papaldomination”—who, as we now know, flooded the country with anonymous articles,

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giving the appearance of a widespread movement of dissatisfaction—who spoke of“thousands of the clergy and hundreds of thousands of the laity” being with him, and yetat the same time signed a petition to Government for the gift of a church because theirnumbers were so few—who read the tirade of a Lutheran professor against the Papacyas one of his own—I say a man who comported himself as Döllinger did in his oppositionto the Vatican Decree, forces upon us the question, Whence all this animosity against adoctrine which was the general teaching of the Church when he took part in her sacredministry?

Whatever be the true answer to this “question,” one thing is certain, viz., thatDöllinger’s attempts to rouse a general rebellion in the Church have miserably and utterlyfailed. But it is equally certain that he has exercised an enormous influence on the HighChurch section of the Establishment in England. A word from Döllinger went furtherthan the united judgement of saintly, and, in many cases, learned Bishops throughout theworld; further, that is, in settling the mind of Anglicans in their distortion of history. TheUniversity of Oxford proceeded to invest him with the honorary degree of D.C.L. onaccount of his “great learning;” and Anglican Bishops and divines flocked to visit thelearned heretic. In doing so they stultified their own position. For that position excludesthe right of one province of the Church to review and revise the judgements of another.Lord Plunket has been recently engaged in the most overt and, I must say plainly, themost cowardly act of schism amongst the poor people of Spain, that it would be possibleto commit. According to all primitive principles, the Church of England, being in fullcommunion with the Protestant Church in Ireland, is compromised by the sin which LordPlunket is committing in Madrid. But the Province of Canterbury, on being appealed toby some of the inferior clergy to free itself from complicity in this deadly act of schism,replied that it had nothing to do with the Province of Ireland in such matters. Yet (so-called) Bishops of the Province of Canterbury went and held religious meetings with thearch-heretic of Munich, in utter disloyalty to their own boasted principle of government.“Independent National Churches” is their perpetual cry. On what ground could theyinterfere with what they were bound to consider the Independent National Church ofGermany? Is England’s to be the only Independent National Church in the world? Howcan she in the same century utter all those shrieks of horror at what she called the“intrusion” of the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Rome into England, and then interfere withthe Church in Germany? To go and hold religious meetings in another man’s diocese witha man excommunicated by its Bishop is playing “ducks and drakes” with what Anglicanshold to be Catholic principles.

But Döllinger was “the greatest historian of the age.” So Anglicans thought, not whenin the zenith of his powers he exposed the Erastianism of the “English Church;” notwhen he taught that St. Peter was the head of the Apostles and gave the sentence at theCouncil of Jerusalem; not when he taught that Anglicans who imagined that St. Aidanwas not in communion with Rome were disregarding the verdict of history—all of which,and many more, distasteful truths, he taught for the first sixty years of his life—no, not inthe full exercise of his brilliant talents, but when he had begun to coquette with

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Lutheranism and to pass backwards and forwards from the Catholic to the Gallican ruleof faith, and from the Protestant back to the Gallican, and was one thing to the public asa Professor Döllinger and another thing as the anonymous contributor to the AllgemeineZeitung, and when he applied himself to rouse the national pride of his fellow-countrymen, and to determine theological issues by “German culture,” of which thepublic was informed, by the same anonymous writer, Dr. Döllinger was the foremostexponent and champion. The Anglican clergyman, all unaware of this side of the picture(of which, however, we now have the most perfect demonstration), imagined in Dr.Döllinger the secluded student of history, holding his hand on the past, and feeling itspulse with scientific touch, and unable, from a sense of truth, to acquiesce in a dogmawhich violated the verdict of history.

But nothing could be more unlike the original than this imaginary delineation of theProfessor of Munich. From 1863 a change had come over the entire man. His whole ruleof faith had changed. It became not even Gallican, but thoroughly Protestant. As hehimself said, if he were to finish his history, it would “turn out quite Protestant.” He wasdiscovered in the act of prejudicing his audience of students by tirades against Rometaken from a Lutheran writer. When he left his portfolio behind him by an unfortunatemistake, and it was discovered by one of the students, it was compared with the notesthey had taken, in order to make sure that they had before them the lecture he hadactually delivered, and it was ascertained as an absolute fact that he had treated them to aphilippic against Rome written by the Lutheran Professor Kurtz. And this when he wassupposed to be delivering the Catholic faith to his young audience. The fact is, that inGermany, whilst Dr. Döllinger became a pet name with every kind of unbeliever, he wastoo much distrusted to make the impression on orthodox Christians which was really dueto his intellectual powers. Those powers did not stand alone, or perhaps we should saythey did, alas! stand too much alone in his array of gifts. Men knew that in the verysanctuary, when the Professor appeared to be saying the Divine Office, he might becaught in the act of correcting sheets for the Press.

But Anglicans knew nothing of all this, but connected his name with learning andsimplicity. He became a name to conjure with, when any one was in doubt as to hisposition in the Church of England. How can you place yourself under a systemcondemned by the great historian Döllinger? I was myself asked to go and see him, thathe might settle me in the Church of England. I had the grace to spurn the suggestionfrom the depths of my heart. Go and see an excommunicated man! Why should he knowmore than Cardinal Newman of a matter which requires a combination of theologicalinstinct with historical perception? He was not famed for theological depth. In his greatspeech in 1863, he had given the most ridiculous description of theology that everdropped from the lips of a Catholic professor. Since the Vatican Council he had notshown the spirit and temper of a child, and yet “of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”Bishops, good and learned, had submitted their judgement to the authority which by theirown teaching they had always professed to own. The Pope and the Council—a Councilwith the Papal confirmation—this, as true Gallicans, was the authority to which they

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bowed. When, therefore, a Council confirmed by the Holy See, had declared that undercertain circumstances of special solemnity the successor of Peter is secure of Divineassistance, these Bishops showed that they were in possession of the gift of Divine Faith.They bowed to the authority which they had always professed to own. Whether therewere more than two who needed to submit their judgement, is not to the point here. Thepoint is that Dr. Döllinger refused to do the same. He had already more than once shownthe cloven foot in his anonymous writings. He had placed the final authority in theconsensus of learned men.

When, therefore, an Anglican is asked to delay his submission on the plea, so oftenurged, that a man like Döllinger repudiated the Vatican decree, he is really asked to leanon an arm of flesh. Dr. Döllinger’s position was a thoroughly worldly one. It wasprecisely that of Nestorius in respect of authority. I used to think that one whom I lovedintensely, the late Canon Liddon, underwent an entire intellectual change through contactwith this unhappy man. There is one thing, however, which must be said in his favour.Although he coquetted with the Neo-Protestants in Germany (called by themselves OldCatholics) he respected the excommunication so far as not to say Mass again. And Icherish the thought that just before his death he felt some movements of a contrite heartfor the sin that he had committed. He is said to have been willing at the last to enter intonegotiations with Rome concerning his reconciliation; but owing to his sudden death,these fell through. If it be true, as I am told his nearest relative asserts, that he wished tosee a Catholic priest, but was prevented, before he died, he will be, let us hope, amongstthe number of those who in their last moments have turned to their God and exchangedthe pains of hell for those of the purgatorial fire. But what of the Anglican reliance on“the great historian?”

There is one more feature of the Anglican dependence on history, on which I will nowbriefly touch before concluding. It is thought that there is one who may be called thePatron Saint of the Anglican appeal to history. I mean St. Vincent of Lerins. Be itremembered that the Anglican appeal to history is not that which the Catholic makes, byway of meeting the Anglican on his own ground, or by way of developing the harmonyof reason and faith, under the guidance of the latter. The Anglican appeals to history asthe ground of his faith, and against the teaching of surrounding Christendom. And hefortifies himself with certain words of St. Vincent of Lerins. You will often hear theAnglican say that nothing is to be held as of faith, except what can be shown to havebeen believed by all, at all times and in all places. St. Vincent never said anything of thekind. He only said that whatever has been so held by all, in all times and places, is partof the Catholic faith. He never said that we may refuse to believe what has not been soheld. Yet here a distinction must be made. St. Vincent was speaking of what had beenexplicitly held. Of course, according to all Catholic teaching, whatever the Churchteaches was held implicitly by the primitive Church, and nothing can ever be taught bythe Church that was not implicitly believed from the Apostles downwards. This is thevery reason of the Church’s Infallibility, viz., to secure us against novelty. But not all thatis now taught, was explicitly taught in all ages. St. Vincent distinctly says that many

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things will be taught by the Church more clearly and fully as time goes on. Thedifference between the Church of his day and the Church of the future world, accordingto him, be as great as between a child and a grown man. A person who had never seen achild grow might be embarrassed at being told that the grown man and the child weresubstantially identical. He would need experience, our best guide in such matters. But wecannot be guided by experience in this matter, for there is, and has been, but one Church.We, therefore, take the word of the Church for it, that her solemn teaching is identicalwith what she taught in the earliest ages, and under her guidance we see enough in manymatters to feel, even on grounds of reason, that she is right. But we can trust her, evenwhere we cannot see. The Anglican, on the contrary, trusts himself and his scientificculture. And in so doing he parts company with St. Vincent of Lerins. The saint was notspeaking of an appeal from the voice of the living Church. He even instances the case ofPope Stephen and Cyprian, in which St. Cyprian rightly yielded up his idea of history tothe judgement of the Pope, and ceased to re-baptize the penitent heretic. What St.Vincent does give his rule to meet, is the case of an emergent heresy, in which authorityhas not yet spoken. A Catholic then provisionally acts on the principle of observing, aswell as he can, what has been believe always and on all sides; but when authority hasspoken he acts upon the adage which expresses St. Augustine’s judgement on the matter;viz., “Rome has spoken; the cause is finished.” It is faith which has sprung from theAnglican perversion of St. Vincent’s words. And it is impossible to say what might be theresult amongst our separated brethren if any one could bring home to their minds the truemeaning of that saint’s exposition of Catholic obedience.

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(All Saints, Margaret Street Anglican Church in London,where Rivington preached before converting Catholic)

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CHAPTER XREST IN THE CHURCH.

It may be asked by a Catholic reader of the foregoing chapters, “How is it possiblethat an earnest Anglican can find rest in his system, if it be such as has been describedabove?” The answer is, that he does not find it.

Anglicans are divided into two classes; those who have never had a doubt about theirposition, and those who have. In neither of these cases does our Lord vouchsafe to giverest to the soul in the sense that the Catholic understands that word. Those who havenever had a doubt are comparatively at rest, but they are strangers to that peace, whichthe Catholic has, by the mercy of God, in the bosom of the Holy Church. These men arenot restless, it is true; but the transcendent peace which the Catholic knows, is not anegative but a positive element of his life. He is never in hear that some historicaldifficulty may arise to disturb his peace. He knows with Divine faith that the authorityunder which he lives and works is Divine, and therefore infallible. Peace is thetranquillity of order, says St. Augustine; and the Catholic knows that he is within thecircle of order established of God. He is in communion with the great Christian world; hecan trace the authority on which he relies in essential matters, straight up to the scenes atCæsarea Philippi and at the lake of Tiberias. This sort of rest is not given even to theAnglican who has never doubted his position. His absence of fear about it is a kind ofstupidity. He may be cleverness itself in secular interests, and a very genius in the regionof though with which mathematics and the physical sciences have to do; but in thisparticular matter of his ecclesiastical position, his rest is of the nature of a stupor.

But how many Anglicans have had at some time of their life sufficient difficultiesabout their relationship to the primitive Church and to the present Church of Rome toconstitute a doubt! And from that moment their life is restless. They will often deny thiswith much warmth, in very loyalty to what they think is their mother. But therestlessness is there. There are those who have lulled their thoughts about Rome to sleep.A glacial period of thought has come over them in that particular respect and covered upthe trouble that was once bubbling to the surface. Now and again rays of Divine truthmake an impression on the icebound surface; but another night of frost has supervened,and every trace of the commencing thaw is gone.

But many are in a normal state of disquietude. They are the trouble of their Anglicanconfessors. They try their patience, are said to waste their time, are plies with the usualarguments again and again, and yet the doubts remain. They are encouraged to lookupon these doubts as temptations: to deal with them as they would deal with other evilthoughts, disregard them, go to their Communion, and continue their “work for theChurch.” They are often specially warned to lay aside prayer for the intercession of Our

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Lady. Dr. Pusey used to say that such prayer was generally “fatal,” i.e., any one whobegan it, rarely stayed in the Church of England. These people are often pronounced “sogood,” and yet so tiresome on this one topic.

And so a theory has been framed to meet their case. It is, that their disquietude abouttheir position in the Church is a Cross, to be bravely borne. They are told that we werenever meant to be without such a Cross, or that, it is the inevitable result of presenttimes. There is, it is sometimes said, even a dignity about this disquietude. They must bethe chosen ones, the apple of His eye, who lays upon His elect specially sore burdens tobear. They should, therefore, above all things, “Go on with their work.” If they are inresponsible situations, such as the management of a guild or confraternity, they shouldnot give up their work, for that would lead them to brood over these evil thoughts. Theywould think too much of Rome, and end with “going over.” It is not a thing unknown fora clergyman to be one month determined to make his submission to Rome, and the nextmonth employed on work of such special responsibility as conducting Missions orRetreats. Anything to keep him back from Rome; and work is best calculated to havethat effect. It may seem strange to Catholics that people who talk so much about thesacredness of truth should be ready to commit the care of souls to men who are indanger of committing what they deem to be the sin of “going over to Rome;” but so it is.And so just as the soul that has begun with some pure love of God, and embarked ingood works as the expression of its love, may become attached to the works anddetached from the object of its love, so work, work, work, is deemed the best medicinefor a soul that hankers after Rome.

But, of course, it is not really at rest, as the Catholic understands that term. No, thereare souls in numbers, who stand on the brink of the river, all but plunge into it, retire,look again across the stream, and turn away, return, look into the waters, gaze at theother side where the Lamb is, declare they see a dark spot in the bright scene across theway, fix their minds on that, and saunter away sadly, or run away with feverish haste forvery fear of the attraction. What can we do for such as these?

I believe it is our duty to break through some of our natural reserve, and proclaim thepeace that God has given to ourselves. It is not easy to do this. Our humility is at stake;and if we lose that, we lose all. Our very love keeps us back, for how can we speak ofthe intimacies of Divine love? Still, gratitude is the primal duty of our life as converts.And gratitude, left to itself, will carve the name of the loved One on the bark of everytree, and the palm of every leaf, and tell what great things He hath done for us.Something, half of heaven, half of earth, may whisper within us, but what if you shouldfall away? The answer is, never mind, do your duty now, and leave the rest in the handsof God. You will be less likely to fall, from your very expressions of gratitude. Truegratitude refers all to its true Source. We therefore speak of the gift of faith. It is the freegift of God, and we shall sing,

“My God, how can it be, That Thou, Who art discerning Love,

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Shouldst give that gift to me?”

Yet so it is. It is ours, who have least deserved it.There is, however, a difficulty in this matter. Who will believe our report? It has

become so engrained in some minds, that those of us, who have “broken the snare” ofAnglicanism, and been delivered, are always wishing to return, that they will not believeus. Naturally we feel indignant at such an accusation, and are inclined to repudiate withsome warmth the idea that we would exchange our Jerusalem for the Jericho we haveleft. The present writer can only say that no words can be too strong to describe thechasm that separates the highest joys of Anglicanism from that peace, beyond allunderstanding, which our good Lord bestows on those who enter the Catholic Church.He knows how in Anglican circles they used to speak of the late Cardinal Newman; andhe is aware that the same sort of reports have been circulated concerning himself. It is aCross to any Catholic that former friends should stoop to such unworthy ways ofstopping others from entering the Church, and that he has no means of opening his heartand showing the blessedness that has visited its very depths. He can do more than assurethem that the burden of Divine joy which comes with submission to the Holy See is not amatter for words; it is beyond them, and refuses to be narrowed to their poor capacities.And such joy others may have, if they will; and they were made for it. Our cross wasnever meant to be where some place it, for has not the Prince of Peace said, “In Me yeshall have peace?”

THE END

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Notes[←1]

This was written before the Letter of Leo XIII, to the people of Italy on subject.

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[←2]Bishop Hamilton, of Salisbury

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Table of ContentsNotes

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