Page:Church Politics and Church Prospects.djvu/29

Rh aspect of the assertion of the possibility of an outwardly divided Catholic Church. The Roman assault on our position always begins, and often ends, with the denial of that possibility. Our rejoinder is that its possibility proves itself by facts. Such a premise must be fertile in conclusions, and these conclusions can hardly tend in the way of unity. We beg that we may not be misunderstood, A divided Christendom, or a national Church with variances between its inward and its outward life, are equally misfortunes. But they are misfortunes which must be faced and accepted by the man who holds to the English Church, nothing wavering. When England is on its trial as against Rome, or Greece, or Irvingism, or that ignis fatuus a 'Free Church,' other considerations come in; but 1850 ought to have taught Churchmen the dangers of choosing their physicians from men who are experimenting on the vitality of the body which they are professing to cure.

The contrast of the inward and the outward lives was not unmanifest during the past summer in the pastorals with which the two Archbishops addressed the Church and the public, in free criticism, well argued and congruously framed, upon the Judgment. The publication of these documents led to the preparation of an address of thanks to the primates for their really excellent publications. The address was, as far as its terms went, quite unexceptionable, and it received at first starting the signatures of persons who concluded that it was to be confined to the select few who might be supposed to have some reasonable comprehension of the writings on either side. But no sooner was this nucleus of names obtained, than the document was sown broadcast through the land, addressed to clergymen and to church-wardens, to gather up all or any signatures of men or women who might be induced to thank the archbishops for issuing two brochures, which many of them never had read, nor meant to read, and could not understand if they did read them, in reply to obnoxious writings which they equally never had and never meant to read, and, if they did read them, could not understand. How many doubts this fresh advertisement of the Essays might raise to one which it could allay, never seems to have occurred to the promoters. However, 137,000 signatures were obtained—no great number, if it really were that crucial movement for Christianity itself, which the promoters seemed to assume—and the Archbishops received and replied to the memorialists in speeches in which the practical and wise advice to live down Essayist infidelity by unwearying zeal in the missionary work of the Church shone out conspicuous.

It was natural that the Judicial Committee, being the fons et origo of the scandals and troubles, should have provoked