Page:A Pastoral Letter to the Parishioners of Frome.djvu/11

 and altogether agreed on every single item of the faith of the Church. I am quite aware that difference of opinion must exist when men begin to exercise the powers of reflection: that the same things are presented to different men in such different aspects according as their education is different, their habits different, their tempers different, and their hearts different; that it would be childish to think that all should be mere machine work moving about at the will of any one religious teacher, or community, or Church. No; there must be differences,—but then the point is this;—when we do have such differences, how ought we to act? Ought we to quarrel and hate each other? Ought we to backbite and slander one another? Ought we to foment controversies and disputes with one another in such a way as to provoke "hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings;" which S. Paul tells us are manifestly "the works of the flesh?" (Gal. v. 20, 21.) Nay, ought we even to separate from each other, and deny each other communion, and rush to different places of worship, as if we could not join to adore and praise our One Common ?

If you will look back upon the history of our country you will remember that by far the greater causes of religious separation in England have been of the most trivial description: whether a man ought to preach in a white gown or a black;—whether men ought to have organs or no organs in churches;—whether they ought to baptize with the sign of the Cross or without it;—whether men ought to kneel or stand;—to bow or not to bow;—to wear a vestment or no vestment;—to sing or to say. Alas, my brethren, was it not so? and is it not so even still?

The times of which I speak, instead of bearing the mark of Christian love, which our Divine Master has taught us; instead of tolerating little differences of religious opinion, and merging them all in the greater bonds of our common Creed;—instead of attempting to pour oil upon the troubled waters of strife, so as to