and New Testaments,' which it is its duty to remove. It rejects the worship of Christ for the reason that He is God, and substitutes (as we are here told) 'because our spirits place Him, and cannot but place Him, by the side of the Majesty on high.' That is true enough, no doubt, of those who have been brought up under more religious, i.e. more believing influences; but in the case of persons who had been shaped under other influences, the answer might be altogether different: the recognition of the ideal character of Christ might not come; and there appears no substantial argument to fall back upon when it does not. In chap. ii. he goes on with more of the same kind. We' (he says now) shall note the gradual amplification of the miraculous element in the narrative of the Incarnation and the Resurrection' (p. 36). . . . ‘This analysis, by enabling us to detach later accretions from the living words of the Lord Himself,' &c. These late additions to the Gospel, though possibly or probably not historical, nevertheless represent spiritual truths.' So again, on p. 39, he declares of those who believe that 'Jesus is, spiritually, the only begotten Son of God,' that He healed the souls of men, that He rose from death, and so on, and that the accounts are 'historically' true; and those other persons who regard them as 'not historical'-i.e. in plain words, as false--that 'we are spiritually agreed; the difference between us and them is merely an intellectual one.' But we take leave to say that it is more than this; nor do we see how spiritual agreement, that is, in spiritual truth, can arise out of what is materially false; for with things and concerns that are material, i.e. which have to do with matter, the material truth, as truth of fact, lies at the root, and is the necessary condition of what shall be spiri tually true. And we do not think that exceptions are producible to this canon.

But we have devoted as much space as we can spare to a book which may have the praise of good intentions, but which we can approve in no other way whatsoever.

ARTHUR RAWSON ASHWELL.

In Memoriam.

On the 23rd of October, only eight days after the publication of the last number of the Church Quarterly Review, Canon Ashwell, who had edited it without assistance, and written one of its articles, entered into his rest. About a month previously he had returned from a holiday in Switzerland, with, as all his friends hoped, renewed health. But he was attacked with congestion of the lungs, and, with a constitution impaired by excessive work, he had no power of rallying, and so, in his fifty-fifth year, his valuable life was lost to the Church Militant.

For three years we have had the great advantage of his learning and energy in conducting this Review, and it is with most unfeigned sorrow, and with great admiration for his brilliant talents, religious consistency, and indomitable industry, that we mourn his removal from amongst us. He possessed in a remarkable degree the power of rapidly grasping a subject in all its bearings, and of placing it clearly and forcibly before others, so that he could convincingly set forth the views which he approved, and smite with keen satire and happy retort those in which he detected errors or sophistries. Some of the ablest papers which have adorned this Review proceeded from his pen; and two articles of his in the Quarterly, one on Education, and the other on Bishop Wilberforce, attracted a large amount of attention. We believe it was the appearance of the article last named, which led to his being selected to write the Life of that great Bishop; and all will regret that he lived to complete only the first portion of that important biography.

The distinguishing characteristic of Canon Ashwell's life was his power of work. His life may be said to have been devoted to two pursuits, either of which, prosecuted as he prosecuted it, would have formed ample employment for a man endowed with ordinary energy. After graduating as fifteenth wrangler at Cambridge, and filling for a short time the curacy of Speldhurst, in Kent, and studying theology for two years under Professor Blunt, at Cambridge, he devoted himself, with only one short interval, to education, whilst at the same time he laboured hard at literary work. At S. Mark's College, Chelsea, as Vice-Principal, at Culham and Durham as Principal, he trained schoolmasters for their important duties; and in 1870 he was selected by the present Bishop of Chichester, though personally unknown to him, on account of the skill and efficiency with which he had fulfilled the offices just named, for the important position of Principal of the Chichester Theological College, joined with a Canonry in the Cathedral. Whether as an educator of schoolmasters or of clergymen, his distinguishing characteristic was the same he compelled his students to work by his own restless activity; they were ashamed to be idle when they saw how much he did; whilst his powers of lucid exposition, clear analysis, and vigorous utterance interested them in their work.

In addition to this arduous and weary task, he was a diligent student and a constant writer. In 1864 he became editor of the Literary Churchman, to which he was also a regular contributor: this office he held till 1876, when he became editor of this Review, but he had undertaken it anew immediately before his death. He also wrote for the Quarterly and other Reviews, and some of his articles were afterwards published separately at the request of friends. One or two volumes of sermons were his only independent works; and those who knew him well and appreciated his ability looked upon his authorship of Bishop Wilberforce's Life as a probable turning point in his literary career, and as the possible commencement of extended efforts in the field of Literature.

But amid the diligent discharge of his duties as a teacher, VOL. IX.-NO. XVIII. 00

and unwearied labours as a student and writer, Canon Ashwell never forgot the higher calls of his profession. Earnest and popular as a preacher, he never refused to assist those who claimed his help when it was possible to comply. In many important churches in London and elsewhere, as well as in his own Cathedral, he was a frequent and acceptable preacher; perpetually depriving himself of all rest in order to accomplish what he had promised. Of few men could it be so truly said that in change of work he found his only recreation. An earnest and devoted Churchman, he sought to further the truths he dearly loved by every means in his power. And so, to the great grief of all who knew him, his strength was overtaxed and prematurely exhausted, and he was called away at a time when his great powers were beginning to be generally recognized and fully appreciated. In his removal from their midst his friends seem to see the fulfilment of those words of the Book of Wisdom: 'He being made perfect in a short time fulfilled a long time.'

THE RETROSPECT OF 1879.

I.

THE great ecclesiastical event of the past year, the conclusion of the debates in the Convocation of Canterbury over the Rubrics, under the Royal Letters of Business, has been so fully discussed in an article on 'The Situation,' which we gave in July, and in the first article of the present number, that we decline to offer another continuous history of this interesting episode. But we will record a few undoubted facts which must be accepted as rules of action in further proceedings. 1. The Convocation of York has shown its perfect independence and equality by dissenting from all the principal conclusions which its sister of Canterbury reached. 2. Therefore, for the purpose of approaching the State, nothing yet has been decided on by Convocation taken as a whole. 3. In accepting the Bishops' addition to the Ornaments Rubric in lieu of its own, the Lower House of Canterbury believed that it was accepting something which conceded a modus vivendi for the distinctive Eucharistic vesture. Both Houses of Canterbury pledged themselves not to resort to Parliament for legislation upon the Rubrics, until a certain proposed Bill had passed, and then only according to the provisions of that Bill. This Bill, which was, in its general outlines, originally introduced by the Bishop of London into the House of Lords in 1874, and again by the Bishop of Carlisle during the last Session, proposes that rubrical legislation, to which it is limited, shall not be by way of Act of Parliament, but by that of Convocational schemes, which shall lie for forty days on the table of both Houses of Parliament, and shall then, if not objected to in either one by an address to the Crown, become law. Those who are sanguine over the prospects

4.

of this Bill reaching the Statute Book look with great and most reasonable satisfaction at the additional power and elasticity which they conceive that it would give to the Church of managing its own concerns in its own assemblies. Those, on the contrary, who are most alive to the difficulties of the undertaking, recognize the courage of initiation on the part of Convocation, while they are not sorry that it should have bound itself to a declaration of principles which will practically keep the Prayer-Book as it is, including the retention of the Athanasian Creed, and of the Ornaments Rubric, owing to the Church legislature having elected to advance exclusively along one impossible track. On the other hand, those who are alike enemies of the Church, of Convocation, and of the Prayer-Book, have not troubled themselves to express any opinion at all upon the London-Carlisle Bill. The general result is that, so far as the movement has gone, it has as yet produced nothing but contentment, and we most sincerely trust that it will continue to merit this good character by being arrested at its present happy stage. We admit to the uttermost that we are sincerely grateful for the good intentions of the authors of the Bill, and of the Convocation which has adopted it. But these feelings do not make us less apprehensive of the dangers which must environ the attempt to press the measure. Such a Bill cannot be introduced by any private member with any rational hope of success. It must be either brought in by the Government, with the assent of the hierarchy, or by the hierarchy with or without the assent of the Government. As to these three alternatives, it is no secret that leaders on both sides and in both Houses have confessed to a deep-seated dread of, and aversion to, any attempted Prayer-Book legislation; and we do not credit the Episcopate with the recklessness which the adoption of the third alternative would involve. Let it be brought in, and then—

venti, velut agmine facto,

Quâ data porta ruunt, et terram turbine perflant.

The proper limitations of the Bill, restricting it to questions of ceremonial, would, of course, to amendment-mongers be only provocations of revolutionary change, and the battle would range over the whole of the Church of England's doctrines, Orders, Sacraments, and Creeds, no less than over its vestures and its postures.

To assume, for the sake of illustration, per impossibile, the introduction into the House of Commons of such a Bill. The repugnance which the more wise and moderate members of either House of Parliament feel to throwing the Prayer-Book down as booty to be fought over, would avail nothing if once it was to be so thrown. To put the matter clearly, the instinct of Parliament may be trusted to fight shy of taking up the Prayer-Book so long as Parliament is left to itself; but if the consideration of the Prayer-Book be thrust upon it, its interest would no longer be subject to the promptings of its wiser heads, and could not therefore be safely trusted to avoid the perils of the situation, because the invitation to do something would be addressed to its most foolish and most dangerous, no less than to its

most stable and right-minded elements. We are not so much taking into account the results of the London-Carlisle Bill passing, which we do not think likely, but of its being discussed. If it did pass, we imagine that the hopes of peace which are based upon it would not be fully realized; for, although its provisions might abridge discussion, they would not exclude it, while the reasons for opposing any scheme which the debate upon it would elicit would be very near of kin to formalized amendments. But it is ostensibly a measure to limit the powers of Parliament; or, in other words, to invite Parliament to do that which it is of all things most averse from, and most jealous about, and in reference, too, to a matter on which Parliament has been most effectually rubbed up the wrong way-Church ceremonial. It will be open to chatterers to tell Parliament that it is an invitation to commit 'the happy despatch' for the benefit of the Ritualists. But in proportion as the Bill may have little prospect of passing in its present shape, so would the danger be aggravated of its being made the convenient peg whereon to hang a variety of mischievous discussions and dangerous amendments.

Those members whose loyalty to the Church would prompt them to strain every nerve to limit perilous debate would, of course, not scruple to stifle the Bill if they could not in any other way avert the evil. But they could not do so without seeming to cast some contempt upon the Convocation and the Episcopate from which it had emanated; and thus in averting one evil, mischief on the other side would be, from no fault of theirs, incurred.

However inconvenient in particular ways may be the instinctive dread on the part of the House of Commons of touching ecclesiastical questions except under compulsion, the fault (if it be one) is certainly on the safe, and therefore on the better, side, and would be ill-replaced by a feverish impetuosity to overhaul and unsettle our constitution in Church no less than in State. These considerations -particularly the fact that the Bill is one for limiting the attributes of Parliament are the answer to a view which many excellent and intelligent Church people entertain, that because the London-Carlisle Bill seems for the future to promise relief to Parliament, as to considering the details of Church legislation, therefore Parliament would accept it readily and with little debate.

This inference hardly takes into account the elements of human nature. Because Parliament may not wish to meddle with any class of questions, it does not at all follow that it should desire to deprive itself of the power of ever meddling in the coming time with it. On the contrary, it may be the sense of retaining that power which makes it careless as to exercising it. The analogy of the Endowed School schemes is fallacious; for, in setting up this novel system, Parliament virtually made a raid on what had hitherto been the prerogative of the Court of Chancery. The new system of Provisional Orders is a precedent in the other direction, as every Provisional Order, however local may be its object, can only be confirmed by passing through every stage of any other Public Bill in both Houses, and so being made an Act of Parliament.