and deliberately declared in favour of the legality of practices hitherto supposed to be illegal innovations. It is obvious that the extreme party occupy a stronger position than formerly. It must by this time have become clear to everybody that room has to be found for observances which our fathers would have deemed impossible in the Church of England. The real question before us is not whether this is to be done, but how. The attempt to draw the line very tight has failed, and, perhaps because we have been too stiff, the danger now is that we shall become too lax.

Happily for the prospects of the English Church, the various schools representing very different opinions understand one another better than formerly. The result of this growth of knowledge is that the suspicion that the aim of the innovating party is really Roman is passing away. With deeper study of history there has come a juster recognition of the Anglican point of view. Much that seemed dangerous when the ultimate issue was either concealed or misunderstood may safely be tolerated now that mutual trust is being restored. The bulk of the English clergy occupy as firmly as ever the great historical position of unmistakable separation from the teaching and practice of the Church of Rome. Dean Church's description of the standpoint of the majority of the Oxford leaders in 1839, truly expresses the feeling now predominant amongst the clergy :

Their content with the Church in which they had been brought up, and in which they had taken service, their deep and affectionate loyalty and piety to it, in spite of all its faults, remained unimpaired; and unimpaired, also, was their sense of vast masses of practical evil in the Roman Church, evils from which they shrank, both as Englishmen and as Christians, and which seemed as incurable as they were undeniable. Beyond the hope which they vaguely cherished that some day or other, by some great act of Divine mercy, these evils might disappear, and the whole Church become once more united, there was nothing to draw them towards Rome; submission was out of the question, and they could only see in its attitude in England the hostility of a jealous and unscrupulous disturber of their Master's work.' *

But there are, as there always have been, a section, probably a very small section, of clergymen, some sinister, but most of them only silly, who are not really loyal to the English Church. The confusion of recent years, the over-strictness of the theoretical standard, coupled with the practical abeyance of all control, have given them an opportunity, and probably swelled the *The Oxford Movement' (Twelve years, 1833-1845), p. 233.

number

number of those willing to use it. If, therefore, on the one hand, there is reason for more toleration, on the other there is need for better discipline. The former has in substance been granted, but the latter remains the most urgent and the most comprehensive of all demands for Church Reform. The regulation of ritual is the phase of discipline which the Archbishop's Judgment most naturally suggests, but it is by no means the only one, and under present circumstances illustrations of another sort will be equally useful and less invidious. The present state of things is deplorable. The Court of Arches, which for most purposes has absorbed the functions of the other Church Courts, is all but closed. Its sittings are extremely rare, and its sentences are often inoperative. We do not stop to discuss whether there is or is not good reason for the effeteness of this tribunal, but we note the fact. What would happen if any of the Civil Courts, even the obscurest County Court, were deserted as the Court of Arches is deserted? Unfortunately the paralysis of business does not indicate that we have reached an ecclesiastical millennium in which pastors and people cease from quarrelling and churchwardens are at rest. Clerical scandals, when they once become public, are usually exaggerated. For political and other purposes there are always people eager and anxious to blacken a parson, and then to hold him up as a typical specimen of his class. But while this is as mean as it is untrue, it is inevitable that in a very large number of men, most of them placed in circumstances where there is slight control and considerable temptation, there should be here and there cases of neglect and worse. The machinery for dealing with such cases is at present cumbersome and costly, and it is worked timidly and ineffectively. It may be hoped that the Primate's Clergy Discipline (Immorality) Bill will become law during the present Session, and that it will be used with caution, but also with firmness. But it is the moderately bad cases that can hardly be touched by such an Act which are the most difficult to deal with. A man who does something notoriously bad is often, though not always, punished; but a man who does nothing at all, who is simply incorrigibly lazy and useless, is almost invariably left alone. The Pluralities Amendment Act (1885) was intended to meet such cases, but it is not, perhaps it cannot be, much used.

In the care and preservation of churches there is a similar, though happily a somewhat decreasing, looseness of control. Our ecclesiastical buildings comprise the most numerous and valuable architectural remains of the past to be found in England, or probably in Europe. The oversight of these fabrics is

confided

confided by the constitution to the Bishops, to be exercised through their Consistory Courts. The 'Faculties' or orders of these Courts, which are legally requisite before any alteration, either of addition or subtraction, can be made to the church or its furniture and ornaments, were formerly extremely costly, and the machinery for obtaining them of harassing complexity. The result was that Faculties were systematically evaded, and every kind of mischief was done which local ingenuity could devise under the specious name of restoration.' Now, every diocese in England has, we believe, reformed its practice and moderated its tariff. But the old neglect-partly, no doubt, as a survival, and partly out of dislike of any control-continues to a much larger extent than is creditable. Very recently a contested faculty case was reported from the Diocese of St. Albans. A clergyman had of his own motion, and without authority, placed flower vases on the Holy Table. The churchwardens objected. A faculty was then applied for, and at length obtained; but as it was the result of a costly struggle, these harmless flower vases cost the clergyman probably nearly one hundred pounds in costs, and, in addition, a parochial feud. Had he proceeded regularly, a pound or two would have been the outside limit of the expense. A few years ago some churchwardens were keenly anxious to suspend a picture of Queen Anne over the altar of their church, and nothing but the necessity of a Faculty restrained them. A long list of similar bêtises might be given, e.g. chimney-stacks built into ancient church walls, ancient glass broken out of windows to make room for more gorgeous colours, foundations undermined for hot-water apparatus, brasses torn from church pavements to make way for Doulton's glazed tiles, old bells melted down, old oak doors replaced with sticky pine, and so on. Such vandalisms as these are common. The most effective, though by no means infallible check, is that provided by law, the supervision of the Consistory Court.

We forbear to describe the strange and elaborate functions which, in what are called 'advanced' churches, take the place of the sober Morning and Evening Prayer. The Ceremonial and Ornaments, and the teaching (when there is any), are alike alien to the spirit, and contrary to the law, of the English Church. It is sometimes said that the Bishops are powerless to deal with rebellious priests. The parson's freehold is no doubt a well-guarded preserve, but, all the same, a Bishop has large powers of attack. Apart from the ordinary machinery of Church discipline, a Bishop can, without spending sixpence, or allowing a moment's delay, inhibit a clergyman from officiating anywhere in the diocese outside his own parish a very strin

gent

gent sentence. The result, to suggest another example, of a vigorous and sustained attempt to exercise the power reserved in the preface of the Prayer-book to the Bishop of the diocese to take order by his discretion for the quieting and appeasing of doubts, has yet to be ascertained. He would be a rash man who would predict that it must be slight.

It will hardly be questioned that this lack of effective discipline is a misfortune. It may even grow to be a great calamity. Disestablishment, though it might ultimately cure the evil, would, if it happened, be a far heavier disaster to a Church, the clergy of which were, so to speak, out of hand, than if the Church were organized as it well might be. But it is unnecessary to measure our needs by reference to what some regard as a mere bugbear, and others as an impending storm. This is not a day for martinet strictness, and we may be quite certain that while Church and State are connected, so that citizenship itself confers some ecclesiastical rights, it will be impossible to establish effective discipline over laymen, and difficult to do so in the case of the clergy. Nevertheless, there is a widespread feeling amongst Churchmen, which we believe to be perfectly well founded, if it is not even instinctive, that we should be governed better if we were governed more. We do not so much mean that new laws are necessary as that there should be greater vigour and courage in the exercise of existing powers. Probably at no time since the Reformation has there been so profound a respect felt amongst Churchmen for the Episcopal office. Unfortunately the most unbounded professions of reverence for the office are sometimes coupled with very scant regard in practice for the individual. A moderate and resolute use of power for purposes which the popular conscience acknowledges, such as the removal of scandals, the arrest of idleness, and the control of individual vagaries, would, we believe, be supported by the good sense and good feeling of the majority, while the necessity for recourse to drastic remedies would steadily decrease in proportion as it came to be understood that, if required, they would be used.

If the Archbishop's Judgment marks, as seems likely, the beginning of the end of the war of suppression which has been waged for half a century between High and Low Church, is it too much to hope that it may also be the first step towards the recovery, by the Church's own action, of that order which the long struggle has done much to weaken, and the need of which becomes more patent every day?

ART.

ART. IX.-A Plea for Liberty. An Argument against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation, consisting of an Introduction by Herbert Spencer and Essays by various Writers. Edited by Thomas Mackay, Author of The English Poor.' London,

1891.

A MARKED peculiarity of modern practical benevolence is

the continual tendency to seek and to provide those things for one another which each one can get, with infinitely greater benefit and more completeness, for himself; and to neglect those works which, to be properly provided, must be done by public influence and combination. We can see, with great concern, the failures of our fellow-citizens, each in his own peculiar sphere of personal or domestic duty; but we do not see how all of us are wanting in our corporate service to the erring individual. Each poor sufferer is blamed for his shortcomings or his misdemeanours; but the great municipality, that is his judge and executioner, may in its detailed censure be oblivious of the vast neglect by which the reprobated individual is daily troubled, owing to the misdirection of administrative public power. Municipalities are quick to indicate the mote that they discover in each individual eye, but very slow to mark the beam that so afflicts their own.

To ascertain and to distinguish the respective duties of each grade, from individual members of society up to the highest legislative rank and governmental power, is the most pressing subject for political consideration at the present time. No revolutionary movement is required; but full discernment of the natural aptitudes and social needs of men, and of the comprehensive or restricted methods by which all these various needs may be supplied, should be attained by those who are engaged in our political affairs. The time is getting sadly out of joint; and, owing to the constant course of hasty, inconsistent legislation, a wide scope of practical discrimination is required to set it right.

To the neglect of this discernment, and of wise and necessary action on the part of politicians, as distinct from statesmen, are now due the Irish difficulty and the rise of Socialism among us. Half a century ago, in Parliament, tenant-right was periodically brought before the public, in the endeavour to obtain some equitable settlement and definition of this much vexed question. At that time, the rights, respectively, of landlord and of tenant might have been with fairness ascertained, and finally adjusted. But for a whole generation the increasing irritation was permitted; until recently the so-called settlement has been a

grievous