Page:Correspondence between the Warden of St Columba's College and the Primate of Armagh.djvu/35

31 You are perhaps aware that I was appointed by the late Archbishop of Canterbury to accompany Bishop Alexander to Jerusalem as his Chaplain, in which capacity it was my duty, not only to communicate the letter to the Patriarchs and Bishops of the Eastern Churches, but to assure them of the good faith of the English Church, in the friendly professions contained in that letter; and to do my utmost to allay the apprehensions and remove the suspicions of hostile intentions which they not unnaturally entertained, with the sad experience of Papal aggression before their eyes. Independently, therefore, of the conviction that our character for probity and truthfulness has grievously suffered by this direct violation of a solemn engagement, I have cause to feel personally aggrieved, that pledges which I gave in the name of the English Church, and with the knowledge and sanction of my Bishop, have been violated by his successor.

Secondly, I am persuaded that the aggressive measures of Bishop Gobat must prove a formidable hindrance to the reformation of the Eastern Churches. I have no kind of sympathy with their manifold errors, doctrinal and practical; and it is because I so heartily desire to see these grievous blemishes removed, that I deeply regret those ill-advised attempts to disturb the peace and unity of those communities, the result of which must be to shake the confidence of the people in their ecclesiastical superiors, from whom the reformation must proceed, if it is to be solid and permanent; nor was the expectation of such a happy change hopeless—however it may be now. I knew many intelligent members of the Eastern Church, who deplored its errors sincerely, and earnestly desired their removal, and would have used all their influence to this end. The effect of these anarchical proceedings can only be to disgust them, and to counteract their endeavours.

Thirdly, I am convinced that any further divisions among the Eastern Christians must expose them to still more fatal injury from the attacks of the Church of Rome, which has already made terrible havoc in those parts through the insidious assaults of the Jesuit missionaries; and believing, as I do, that the united protest of Eastern Christendom against the Papal claims, which it has maintained consistently and uniformly for so many centuries prior to our reformation, is an important subsidiary argument against those claims, I cannot regard but as exceedingly mischievous anything