s^^ 
 
 VTO^: 
 
 (Uotumltla Unixversiti} 
 In tilt ©ita of ^txo ^ovh 
 
 l^ibntry 
 
 GIVEN BY 
 
 M\v 
 
 t>T 
 
A NATIONAL CHUECH 
 
332 ^6^ ^^^^ ^itt{)flr : 
 
 The Chukch Idea: 
 Cloth 50 cents, paper 25 cents. 
 
 The National Church: 
 Cloth 50 cents, paper 25 cents. 
 
 The Peace of the Church : 
 
 Cloth $1.00, paper 50 cents. 
 
A NATIONAL CHURCH 
 
 WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON D.D. 
 
 RECTOR OF GRACE CHURCH NEW YORK 
 
 E Pluribus Unum 
 
 Neto f orft 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1899 
 
Copyright, 1897, 
 
 By the Trustees of Kenton College, 
 Gambiek, 0. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
TO THE 
 
 PRESIDENT AND FACULTY 
 
 OF 
 
 KENYON COLLEGE 
 
 WHAT WAS FIRST SPOKEN IX THEIR HOSPITABLE HEARING 
 IS NOW GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED. 
 
 O; '^ C /■:* o o 
 
C O ]^ T E ]S^ T S. 
 
 The Theory 
 
 I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 
 Practicability 
 
 II. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A. Concerning Neutralization of Territory in 
 
 THE Region of Sacramental Theology 77 
 
 B. The Place of Temperament in Religion . 92 
 
 C. A Bibliography of Irenic Literature, Amer- 
 
 ican AND English 100 
 
THE THEOEY. 
 
A NATIONAL CHURCK 
 
 I. 
 
 THE THEORY. 
 
 The philosophy of national Churches deserves an 
 ampler discussion than it has ever yet received. 
 Books in plent}^, and very able ones, have been written 
 upon the doctrine of the Church as a whole. Special 
 " Establishments " of religion, such as the Episcopal 
 Church of England and the Presbyterian Church of 
 Scotland, have also polemic and irenic literatures of 
 their own. But for the national Church pure and 
 simple, the national Church considered as an entity, 
 existing within and yet in a sense apart from the 
 Church universal, while at the same time wholly in- 
 dependent of the civil State, — for this we seem still 
 to lack any lucid or self-consistent theory. In fact, 
 a dispassionate inquirer might well be pardoned were 
 he to raise the question, Is such an organism as 
 a national Church expedient, even if possible? 
 
 What account did Jesus Christ take of "nations,'' 
 in the ordering of his kingdom, that we should pre- 
 sume to parcel out his world-wide realm in accord- 
 
4 , , , A, IJTAXIQIS^AL CHURCH. 
 
 ance with the shifting moats and alterable hedges of 
 the treaty-makers? /'. 'cj \<^\ ] \ 
 
 The local Church we know, the single pastor with 
 his flock about him ; the Church Catholic we know, 
 " the blessed company of all faithful people " : but 
 what is this intermediary concept of a national 
 Church ? What is it better than a mere geographical 
 expression, a name for something that has no sub- 
 stantive existence, a ghost of Gallicanism,an ecclesi- 
 astical No-man's Land ? These are questions which 
 the convinced Congregationalist and the convinced 
 Ultramontanist agree in asking. Unless they can be 
 met and answered, the advocates of national Churches 
 may as well learn to hold their peace ; they are on 
 seas where navigation is dangerous, and neither the 
 pilot of the barque of Peter nor the helmsman of the 
 Mayflower will care a straw for their signals. On 
 every account, therefore, it behooves us to be clear 
 in our own minds as to what we are purposing to 
 consider, and, however disinclined we may feel to 
 the formality of definitions, not to attempt to dis- 
 cuss national Churches until we shall first have 
 come to at least an approximative understanding as 
 to what "nations" are. Perhaps some such state- 
 ment as the following will serve us, at least for 
 working purposes: A nation is a people organized 
 under one civil polity^ established upon a definite 
 territory^ and possessed of sovereign poivers. 
 
 We need not deny that to the perfection of 
 national life characteristics other than these which 
 
THE THEORY. 5 
 
 I have named do greatly contribute. As respects 
 the fulness and symmetry of their national life, 
 some peoples arc more blessed than others. It is 
 much to be desired, for example, that a nation 
 should be "of one language and of one speech; " but 
 were we to make this requirement a part of our 
 definition, we should rule out of the family of nations 
 some of its oldest and strongest members. It is 
 much to be desired, also, that a nation should be of 
 one blood, one racial stock; but if we were to insist 
 upon this point, we should kill the claim of the United 
 States to nationality. No, the three all-important 
 notes of nationality are those that stand out sharply in 
 our definition, — polity, territory, sovereignty ; there 
 must be discipline, there must be area, there must be 
 independence. How passionately the model nation 
 of the former age clung to all three of these posses- 
 sions every reader of the Old Testament remembers. 
 Their law, their land, their freedom, — these, for the 
 Hebrews of the monarchy, made the very essence of 
 national life. At the wall of wailing in the modern 
 city of Jerusalem, you may to-day see men and 
 women lamenting with strong crying and tears the 
 loss of these credentials of nationality. When 
 Christ came, the Jews had already forfeited one of 
 the three essentials, the sovereignty; but they 
 still kept hold of the other two, their law and 
 their land. They tried hard to persuade themselves 
 that they were still a nation, but really they were no 
 longer such. Their cry, "We have a law," availed 
 
6 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 them nothing, so long as it must needs be supple- 
 mented by that other cry, "We have no king but 
 Ca3sar." Sovereignty having been lost, neither law 
 nor land, nor both together, could make a nation of 
 them. Since then, law, land, and sovereignty all 
 have gone ; they are a people still, but they are not 
 a nation any more. Whether "Zionism" will make 
 them such remains to be seen. 
 
 When the pioneers of Christianity began their 
 enterprise, they found themselves, to all intents and 
 purposes, face to face with but a single nation, the 
 Roman. It was a nation conspicuously lacking in 
 those non-essential notes of unity of which I was 
 just speaking, oneness of language and oneness of 
 blood ; but, all the same, it met the requirements of 
 our definition, in that it covered a recognized area, 
 the basin of the Mediterranean, was under a single, 
 even though variously adapted discipline, and pos- 
 sessed a sovereignty not derivative but original. 
 
 The sacred society, the ecclesia, which grew up 
 under these conditions, w^as necessarily national in 
 its scope, — not national, as we know, in the sense 
 of receiving any formal recognition at the hands of 
 the nation's rulers, for, on the contrary, it was 
 officially persecuted ; but national in the sense that 
 it permeated the nation and took possession of it 
 from within, as the sap of a tree mounts through the 
 trunk until it has infiltrated limb and bough and 
 twig and leaf. The Churches founded by St. Paul 
 and his companions in diiferent regions of the 
 
THE THEORY. 7 
 
 Roman Empire were not national Churches at all, 
 nor is there any evidence that they regarded them- 
 selves as such; there was but one nation, the 
 Empire; and the conversion of the Empire brought 
 into existence, by necessary process, the first of 
 national Churches, the Roman, — not yet the Papal, 
 be it observed, but assuredly the Roman. And this 
 came about, let us never suffer ourselves to forget, 
 by growth rather than by manufacture. It was a 
 true genesis, not a forced contrivance. The Emperor 
 Constantino did not make the Church national by 
 establishing it, he established it because he found 
 that by an unobserved process it had already become 
 national. It would have continued national even if 
 he had not established it, for everywhere through- 
 out that whole Roman world it stood rooted at the 
 centres of life. 
 
 We come, just at this point, upon one of the most 
 striking of the characteristics that difference Chris- 
 tianity from Mohammedanism, the Church from 
 the Mosque. Islam could carve out caliphates by 
 the sword, irrespective of existing civil lines, for 
 the plain reason that the sword was Islam's recog- 
 nized and acknowledged instrument. But Christ's 
 word to the Church is, " Put up thy sword into his 
 sheath." The cross is not merely the symbol and 
 token of Christianity, it is the implement as well ; 
 the conquests of the Gospel are conquests of love; 
 and hence it follows that instead of creating terri- 
 torial jurisdictions, as Islam, at whatever cost of 
 
8 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 blood, is eager to do, the Christian Church simply 
 accepts the jurisdictions which she finds made ready 
 to her hand, only too thankful to let political geog- 
 raphy alone, that she may bend all her energies to 
 her proper task of blessing human life. The Church 
 is militant, indeed, but her militancy is of the 
 spirit, and her sword "bathed in heaven." She is 
 content to let the powers that be district the earth 
 as they will, and fix the metes and bounds at their 
 discretion, if only upon the territory thus delimited 
 she be allowed to enter, and to scatter over the ready 
 furrows the good seed of the kingdom. 
 
 So far as the things justly and properly denom- 
 inated things of Caesar were concerned, primi- 
 tive Christianity simply followed the line of least 
 resistance; and as a consequence the first national 
 Church found itself as perfectly fitted to the national 
 administrative scheme as water, when the gate is 
 lifted, fits itself to the arterial system of a modern 
 city. 
 
 The bearing of all this upon the rise and growth 
 of the Papal power it would be superfluous to trace. 
 The story has been often told. Happily it is no 
 longer necessary for one to prove his loyalty to 
 Reformation principles by vilifying the Pope. The 
 argument which Romanists base upon the Petrine 
 texts in the Gospels is not so wholly devoid of plausi- 
 bility that we must needs take for fools or knaves 
 those who have accepted it as sound. It is a start- 
 ling thought, but it is difficult for an observant 
 
THE THEORY, 9 
 
 investigator of the past not to think it, — that it iuuy 
 have pleased Almighty God to make some use of the 
 principle of illusion in his education of the race. 
 The illusion that the Empire was the world, and that 
 its chief ecclesiastic must necessarily be accepted as 
 the world's spiritual head, may possibly have had a 
 use and a value in its time of which we moderns are 
 but ill-provisioned critics. Be that as it may, the 
 point I am making holds good, that the early Church, 
 both before its establishment by imperial edict, and 
 after its establishment (so long as the frontiers of 
 the Empire were unbroken), was a national Church, 
 not ecumenical at all, or, if ecumenical, ecumenical 
 only in the sense in which Rome meant the world, 
 and the world meant Rome. 
 
 When the final break-up of the Empire came to 
 pass, what had been the nation became the nations; 
 and as each of these gradually sphered itself into a 
 oneness of its own, the Christianity of each naturally 
 took on, or, to speak more accurately, revealed a 
 distinctive coloring. A converted people is as sure 
 to retain a fractional part of its inborn characteris- 
 tics, its constitutional habit, as a converted person 
 is. To drive out nature with a club is as impossible 
 in the case of races as in the case of individuals. A 
 Celtic tribe, converted, and a German tribe, converted, 
 did not cease to retain each its Celtic Oi* its German 
 traits. This is not in contravention of the truth 
 that God has made of one blood all peoples, but 
 simply goes to show that the one blood is subject to 
 
10 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 some law of differentiation not dissimilar to that 
 which endues with varying shades of green the 
 leaves of one and the same tree. At any rate, the 
 religious mind of the northern nations finally waked 
 up to the fact that it had grown out of sympathy 
 with the Christianity of the South, and, as a result, 
 the Churches of the Reformation came into being, 
 each of them national to such extent as circum- 
 stances permitted, but no one of them possessed of 
 so strong a principle of internal coherence as the 
 imperial body from which it had shaken itself loose. 
 Meanwhile the old national Church, still centred, 
 as before, at Rome, bated no jot of her masterful 
 claim ; and in addition to the schismatical tenden- 
 cies that disturbed them from within, the Churches 
 of the Reformation had also to face the constant 
 pressure of proselytizing approaches from without. 
 Under these circumstances the philosophy of national 
 Churches found breathing a little difficult; and only 
 in a country blessed, like England, with splendid 
 isolation, was such an intellectual achievement as 
 the immortal " Polity '' of Richard Hooker possible. 
 
 Simultaneously with the Reformation movement, 
 came the discovery and tentative colonization of the 
 two Americas, with the consequent struggle of the 
 creeds to gain possession. South America fell to 
 the lot of the still vigorous survivor of the old 
 national Church of Rome, while North America, 
 after many struggles, came to be recognized as the 
 fair field without favor, within whose limits the 
 
THE THEORY. 11 
 
 problem of the non-Roman national Church might 
 conceivably, in some distant future, be worked out. 
 
 And thus, after our rapid glance at a far-spreading 
 past, we find that we have reached to-day, — to-day 
 with all its agitating anxieties and dreads; to-day 
 with all its invigorating promise, its invincibility 
 of hope. But our having reached to-day in our 
 inquiry by no means releases us from the necessity 
 of philosophizing; on the contrary, that duty lies 
 all the more heavily upon us. Under the condi- 
 tions of life in the United States of America, the 
 difficult questions of national churchmanship lend 
 themselves to discussion with better promise of 
 fruitful results than anywhere else in Christendom. 
 They mount the great telescopes nowadays in regions 
 where the atmosphere is known to be exceptionally 
 clear; doubtless we Americans have many motes 
 in our sunbeam, but of the particular variety of 
 mote known as ecclesiastial prejudice the air has, 
 by many rains, been washed clean. Unhampered 
 by establishmentariau prejudices, and without the 
 slightest fear that the civil power will either lay an 
 embargo upon our inquiry or flout us for the con- 
 clusions reached, we can work away at our problem 
 with a perfectly free hand. There will be time 
 enough for dealing with the practical side of the 
 subject by and by. For the present the rationale, 
 the theory, the why and wherefore of the matter, 
 must still detain us. 
 
 For example, there is a concession to be made, 
 
12 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 and a most important one. We are bound, I think, 
 to concede to the Ultramontanist that his conception 
 of the Kingdom of Christ as being world-wide in its 
 scope and range is, as a conception, far loftier, far 
 more soul-inspiring, than what is apparently the 
 Nationalist's notion of the thing. The Nationalist 
 can of course appeal and does appeal to the strong 
 instincts of patriotism. The enthusiasm which the 
 present-day Englishman, for instance, feels for his 
 national Church is unquestionably very much mixed 
 up with the enthusiasm which he feels for England. 
 But it is wonderful how little the New Testament 
 has to say about the duty of patriotism. When 
 clergymen are minded to preach political sermons, 
 they commonly are driven to the books of the Old 
 Testament in search of their texts. The polity of 
 Jesus Christ is ecumenical, not national. When in 
 his character of conqueror He goes forth to war, 
 his "far-flung battle-line" reaches to the ends of 
 the earth. In the beginnings of his ministry. He 
 had, indeed, much to say of a special mission to 
 Israel. His language to more than one of the for- 
 eigners with whom He was brought in contact had a 
 distinctly Hebraic tincture. But as the end draws 
 near, the catholic scope of his mission is disclosed. 
 "And I, if I be lifted up," He cried, "will draw all 
 men unto Me. " 
 
 It was in this sense that Paul, from the outset, 
 understood his Master. Language more comprehen- 
 sive than St. Paul's with respect to the largeness 
 
THE THEORY. 13 
 
 of the Kingdom, it would be impossible to frame. 
 If he mentions national and race distinctions, it is 
 only that he may slur them. No Jacobin or Inter- 
 nationalist was ever more intolerant of patriotism, 
 in the narrow sense, than he. He valued his Roman 
 citizenship, to be sure, for, as a man of sense, he 
 was not indifferent to the practical advantages which 
 it secured ; but whenever it was seen to be a ques- 
 tion of the Kingdom, Scythian and barbarian drew 
 upon his sympathies, and challenged his interest as 
 powerfully as the best Roman of them all. We must 
 therefore, as I said, concede to the Ultramontanist a 
 superiority over the Nationalist as touching the aims 
 which the two respectively hold up to themselves. 
 How, then, are we to avoid the conclusion that it 
 is our duty as good Christians, pupils of the New 
 Testament rather than of the Old, to forsake 
 nationalism altogether, and to follow the Ultramon- 
 tanist whithersoever he may lead, even though our 
 doing so take us across the mountains, and bring 
 us to the city where the man holding the keys sits? 
 We cannot avoid that conclusion, save by taking the 
 ground that nationalism in religion is a temporary 
 expedient, a policy forced upon us by the necessities 
 of the present, and destined in due time, unless 
 indeed the course of this world be meanwhile inter- 
 rupted by the personal coming of the King, to merge 
 in the larger ecclesia in which are to be gathered 
 all the nations of the earth. The Ultramontanist's 
 error is not in claiminGr a world-wide dominion for 
 
14 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 the Church, — there he is right; but rather in failing 
 to see that the Church of Rome, magnificent as her 
 career has been, and deep as our gratitude to her 
 must always be, was never, after all, anything but a 
 national Church herself, and that hence her attempt 
 to administer this modern world which long since 
 ceased to be a single nation is an anachronism. If 
 at this the Ultramontanist turns upon us, as he is 
 very likely to do, with a charge of inconsistency, in 
 that we acknowledge the necessarily fragmentary 
 and inchoate character of national Churches, but at 
 the same time have no scheme to offer for an ecu- 
 menical polity that shall be large enough for the 
 whole world, our answer is the old one that Moses 
 gave to Pharaoh when the king sought to bind him 
 down to terms in the matter of the exodus, "We 
 know not with what we must serve the Lord until 
 we come thither.'' Even so we Nationalists know 
 not precisely what will be the proper ecclesiastical 
 framework for "the Federation of the World" until 
 we "come thither." Certainly that goal is far 
 enough away at present, nor may we hope to see it 
 heave in sight until what our Lord, in a most 
 suggestive phrase, calls " the times of the Gentiles " 
 shall have been fulfilled. 
 
 For the present it is plain that the Sovereign 
 Commander of all the world has use for nations; 
 and since no one of these nations can interfere in 
 the internal affairs of any other one without there 
 ensuing a clash of sovereignties, the best that the 
 
THE THEORY. 15 
 
 Christianity of each nation can do is to orb itself 
 into a unity of its own. The Roman Church seeks 
 to avoid this difficulty by its device of concordats, — 
 solemn treaties, that is to say, negotiated from time 
 to time between the papal see and the various govern- 
 ments of Christendom, whereby certain rights and 
 privileges are guaranteed by the secular to the sacred 
 society ; but the fact that it has proved impossible to 
 carry out this scheme with anything like symmet- 
 rical completeness would seem to be the sufficient 
 condemnation of the principle upon which it is based. 
 The method of the concordat offers too many oppor- 
 tunities for intrigue. It tempts the Church into the 
 sins that beset diplomacy. It is only too likely 
 to promote a substitution of finesse and adroitness 
 for the transparent sincerity which Christ and his 
 Apostles twelve commend. 
 
 But it is urged, and with much show of reason, 
 that it will not do to intrust the Christian religion 
 to the nations in severalty, since there is a danger, 
 if we do so, that the substance of the faith may 
 suffer wrong, may be depraved in quality or impov- 
 erished in quantity. The argument by aid of which 
 the Roman Church defends its continued use of the 
 Latin tongue for the purposes of worship is this, 
 that there would be danger of the liturgy's becoming 
 corrupt were it to be translated into the various 
 languages of the modern world. The Mass, it is 
 urged, might under such circumstances grow to 
 mean one thing to one people and another to another. 
 
16 A NATIOI^AL CHURCH. 
 
 If this reasoning holds good with respect to the 
 liturgy, with tenfold force must it apply to dogma. 
 " What guarantee have we, " asks the Ultramontanist, 
 " that the very essence of the faith itself may not be 
 at any moment put in jeopardy, if each national 
 Church is to be allowed to frame its own doctrinal 
 system, lengthen or shorten its creed at will? " 
 
 This raises at once the whole question of the basis 
 of authority in matters of religious belief, and brings 
 nationalist and infallibilist face to face. 
 
 There was a time when Mother Church could hush 
 inquiry, as any mother hushes any child, with a 
 "Never mind 'Why?' Believe what I tell you 
 because it is I who tell you ; do as I bid you because 
 it is I who bid you." The sixteenth century move- 
 ment upset all that, and by a somewhat rough 
 process drove the children into inquiring for them- 
 selves, not always wisely, though always eagerly, 
 as to what the truth might be with regard to the 
 foundations of faith. To-day, whether you are un- 
 dertaking to tell a man what he ought to believe or 
 what he ought to do, he is equally likely to turn on 
 you with a peremptory and unceremonious Why ? 
 Alike on agenda and on credenda is stamped the 
 interrogation mark. 
 
 Just at present the storm-centre happens to be 
 immediately over Holy Scripture. We have fallen 
 upon times when the well-worn formula, "The 
 Bible, and the Bible only, the Religion of Protes- 
 tants," scarcely suffices for controversial needs. 
 
THE THEORY. 17 
 
 The issues of to-day lie back of the Bible, and it 
 is no longer possible to silence the inquirer by 
 throwing a text at him. Men have raised the ques- 
 tion, "What is the Bible ? " and they are discussing 
 it in hot earnest. You and I believe that the Bible 
 is coming out of the fires stronger than ever, but 
 we must not let that belief blind us to our need of 
 authoritative guidance in the interpretation of the 
 book. The individual mind is not sufficient for 
 these things, it must have help. A deep philosophy 
 underlay the question with which an ancient Bible- 
 student parried the inquiry, " Understandest thou 
 what thou readest?" "How can I, except some 
 man should guide me ? " 
 
 There are four possible ways of construing the 
 promise of Christ that the Spirit should guide the 
 disciples into all the truth; we may call them, re- 
 spectively, the pietistic, the patristic, the infalli- 
 bilist, and the ecumenical. The pietistic theologian 
 (and I use the adjective not contemptuously, but 
 only with a view to clearness) finds in Christ's 
 promise an encouragement to the individual believer 
 to count upon ascertaining in every instance the 
 true meaning of psalm, parable, and prophecy, if 
 only he read his Bible with an honest prayer upon 
 his lips for spiritual light. It will scarcely be 
 alleged, even by the most ardent devotees of this 
 method, that it conduces to corporate unity. They 
 are more likely to take the ground that corporate 
 unity is a delusion and a snare ; glorying in rather 
 
 2 
 
18 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 than lamenting over the diversity of result which 
 the working out of this theory of interpretation 
 brings to pass. Their appeal is to the heavenly 
 city, and they are quite content to postpone the ac- 
 complishment of any unity, other than an emotional 
 one to the celestial calends. 
 
 What the far future is to the pietist, that, as 
 respects the secret of outward doctrinal agreement, 
 the far past is to the man who stakes everything 
 upon the Fathers. For the one the golden age lies 
 distantly ahead ; for the other, that blessed era was 
 hermetically sealed up centuries ago. If you want 
 to know the mind of the Spirit as it was originally 
 injected into Holy Scripture, provide yourself with 
 a Library of the Fathers (the Benedictine edition is 
 the best), and, wholly oblivious to the changes which 
 fifty generations of Christian study and Christian dis- 
 covery have wrought in the intellectual sky, give 
 yourself patiently to the task of disengaging from 
 a badly tangled skein the one precious thread of 
 unanimous patristic consent. This is what is known 
 as the appeal to antiquity. That it has immense 
 value as an element in the ascertainment of truth 
 only a smatterer in theology will deny. To put it 
 forward as the alone all-sufficient organon is to court 
 discomfiture. 
 
 The retroactive influence which too much harping 
 upon this single string, "antiquity," exerted over 
 the mind of a well-remembered ecclesiastic of our 
 day had much to do with bringing to a head the 
 
THE THEORY. 19 
 
 third of the four great theories, —the infallibilist. 
 Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, 
 had heard so much, while an Anglican, about the 
 authority of the Fathers, that he had grown into 
 that mood of mind which prompted Coleridge in an 
 impatient moment to cry out, "Evidences of Chris- 
 tianity ? I am weary of the word." Manning grew 
 weary of "antiquity." He had the eye to see that 
 there were a good many anxious questions floating 
 about in the modern atmosphere which the Fathers, 
 whether Ante-Nicene or Post-Nicene, had never so 
 much as touched with the tips of their fingers ; and 
 it w^as deeply borne in upon his mind that it would 
 be an immense relief to see established somewhere 
 — and if somewhere, where so appropriately as at 
 Rome ? — an oracle of present-day truth to which 
 discouraged seekers might resort with confidence. 
 Aided by others like-minded with himself, he brought 
 to pass, in the memorable year of our Lord 1870, the 
 enactment by the Vatican Council of a constitu- 
 tion the most significant passage of which reads as 
 follows : — 
 
 " The Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that 
 is, when in discharge of the office of pastor and teacher of 
 all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic author- 
 ity he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to 
 be held by the universal Church, is, through the divine 
 assistance promised him in blessed Peter, possessed of 
 that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed 
 that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine 
 
20 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 about faith and morals, and therefore such definitions of 
 the Eoman pontiff are irreformable of themselves and 
 not from the consent of the Church." ^ 
 
 The facts with regard to the passing of this resolve 
 are these : The whole number of prelates entitled to 
 take part in the proceedings of the Council was one 
 thousand and thirty-seven. Of these the largest 
 number present at any one session was seven hun- 
 dred and twenty-seven. At the first ballot, which 
 was held on the thirteenth day of July, six hundred 
 and one members were present. Of these four hun- 
 dred and fifty-one voted Aye, eighty-eight Nay, and 
 sixty -two Placet juxta modum, or "Aye, with quali- 
 fications. '* At the solemn session, or, as we should 
 call it, the "formal ballot," on the eighteenth day 
 of July, when the final vote was taken, five hundred 
 and thirty-five prelates participated, of whom five 
 hundred and thirty-three voted Placet, and two Non 
 placet. The two dissenters subsequently gave in 
 their adhesion. From these figures it appears that 
 on the occasion when the balloting was entirely 
 unbiassed, that is to say, at the session of July the 
 thirteenth, those who voted Placet had a majority 
 
 1 " Romanum Pontijicem, cum ex Cathedra loquitur, id est cum omnium 
 Christianorum pastoris et doctoris munere fungens pro suprema sua Apos- 
 tolica auctoritate doctrinam de Jide vel moribus ah universa ecclesia ienen- 
 dam definit, per assistentiam divinam, ipsi in heato Petro promissam, ea 
 infallibilitate pollere, qua divinus Redemptor Ecchsiam suam in dejinima 
 doctrina de fide vel moribus instructam esse voluit ; ideoque ejusmodi Ro- 
 mani Pontificis definitiones ex sese, non autem ex consensu Eccksice irre- 
 formabiles esse," — Constitut. Dogmat. Prima. Cap. IV. 
 
THE THEORY. 21 
 
 of one hundred and fifty out of a total of six hundred 
 and one present and voting, although they were less 
 numerous by five hundred and eighty-six than the 
 whole number entitled to attend the Council. With 
 this hollow show of unanimity was promulgated the 
 most momentous decree of modern times. It is said 
 that during that solemn hour a heavy storm passed 
 over the city where the Council was assembled, dark- 
 ening the spaces of the great church, and punctuat- 
 ing the decree with thunder-peals. Can we wonder 
 that the omen should have been variously inter- 
 preted, — that some should have been quick to say, 
 "It is the voice of an angel," while others murmured 
 beneath their breath, "It is the Noii placet of 
 Almighty God " ? 
 
 Time will show which augury was true, and which 
 was false. For there is but one pair of alternatives. 
 The papal claim to be, in the last resort, the sole 
 arbiter of the things that most concern our peace is 
 either just or unjust; it is quite impossible that it 
 should be both. If Jesus Christ really speaks by 
 Leo, to Leo we must go. If, on the other hand, the 
 decree of July was but the capstone of an edifice 
 already undermined, and doomed as soon as finished 
 to vanish away, nothing so much behooves us as to 
 find a basis of authority not liable to shock, some 
 floor broad enough and strong enough for the nations 
 to build upon it and be safe. 
 
 In what I have further to say, my endeavor will 
 be to show that we have such a foundation. A phi- 
 
22 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 losophy there is which at once strikes deeper than 
 the pietistic and stretches farther than the patristic 
 theory. It recognizes and allows for an important 
 element of truth in each of these others, while it 
 superadds an increment of value which is all its own. 
 I have called it, for lack of a better name, the ecu- 
 menical philosophy of authority. It is a philosophy 
 adherence to which will save a national Church from 
 lapsing into provincialism, while at the same time 
 safeguarding it from the encroachments of any 
 alleged Mother and Mistress of all Churches. 
 
 This philosophy is summed up in the brief maxim 
 of St. Augustine, which Cardinal Newman has made 
 famous, Securus judieat orhis terrarum. In that 
 most instructive of all autobiographies, " The History 
 of my Religious Opinions," better known under its 
 first title. Apologia pro Vita Sua, Newman gives us 
 a graphic account of the manner in which that sono- 
 rous sentence of the great Latin Father broke on 
 his conscience like a revelation. He calls them 
 "palmary words." They kept ringing in his ears. 
 He found himself repeating them again and again. 
 "The words of St. Augustine," he says, "struck me 
 with a power which I had never felt from any words 
 before. To take a familiar instance, they were like 
 the * Turn again, Whittington, ' of the chime; or, to 
 take a more serious one, they were like the ' Tolle, 
 lege, — Tolle, lege,^ of the child which converted 
 St. Augustine himself. Securus judieat orhis ter- 
 rarum. By those great words of the ancient Father, 
 
THE THEORY. 23 
 
 interpreting and summing up the long and varied 
 course of ecclesiastical history, the theory of the 
 Via Media was absolutely pulverized. " ^ 
 
 How little did the proud, eager, passionate soul 
 of John Henry Newman dream that in less than six 
 years after the making of this frank disclosure of 
 the chief reason that had carried him to Rome, he 
 would himself be called upon to accept, at the very 
 point of the sword, as we may say, a doctrine of 
 religious certitude the very opposite of the one he 
 here so eloquently sets forth. He turned his face 
 Rome ward because he had become convinced that 
 England was in isolation, and that only the voice of 
 the Church Catholic (for so he translated Augustine's 
 orhis terrarum) could be trusted; but he had not 
 been long housed in his new spiritual home before 
 he was informed that not at the lips of the orhis 
 terrarum at all, but rather at the lips of a single 
 ecclesiastic enthroned at the capital of a dead em- 
 pire, he was thenceforth to drink in truth. It was 
 like being called upon to exchange the voice of many 
 waters for the piping of a phonograph, — an instru- 
 ment which only reproduces words that have been 
 put into it. Can we wonder that in a hasty moment, 
 as he saw the evil day approaching, he should have 
 characterized as " an insolent faction " the people 
 who were moving sea and land to bring about the 
 definition of the new dogma ? 
 
 The late Dean Stanley is credited with the epi- 
 
 1 Apologia pro Vita Sua, p. 118, Am. ed. 
 
24 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 grammatic remark, "How differently might the 
 history of the Church of England have read if 
 Dr. Newman had only understood German!" An 
 American Christian may be pardoned for adding, 
 " How differently might Dr. Newman have trans- 
 lated Augustine's Securus judical orhis ter varum 
 had he once put the Atlantic between himself and 
 the Europe of his studies ! " For truly the orhis 
 terrarum has become a different thing from what 
 it was in the day when the son of Monica looked out 
 upon it and put his trust in its judgment. But his 
 argument has lost nothing of its strength; on the 
 contrary, it has been found to possess a cumulative 
 value, gaining in force from century to century as 
 man becomes more and more aware of the largeness 
 of the plans of God. The world of Augustine's time 
 was a "round world," in the sense in which a circle 
 is round, — there was doubt as to its circumference, 
 but practically no doubt as to its centre ; our round 
 world is round in the sense in which a globe is 
 round, — we are certain of its circumference, but no 
 spot upon its surface can claim to be an exclusive 
 centre any longer ; and yet by so much as a sphere 
 is better than a surface, by that much is the argu- 
 ment from general consent, which is what the Securus 
 judicat orhis terrarum really means, stronger to-day 
 than it ever was. It has been to our advantage, not 
 our loss, that " umbilical " and " ecumenical " have 
 ceased to be convertible terms. 
 
 But let us not dwell in parables. The thesis I 
 
THE THEORY. 25 
 
 seek to maintain, as the point most central to an 
 ecumenical philosophy of authority in the region of 
 religious belief, is this, that Christ's promise ^ of the 
 guidance of the Spirit runs to the Church as a whole, 
 to the ecclesia diffusa, and is self-registering from 
 age to age. This is not a theory which will satisfy 
 precise minds that must have everything cut and 
 dried, and cannot believe that God will ever do a 
 new thing unless they personally shall have been 
 informed as to the when and where of the birth; 
 but possibly it may commend itself to those who, 
 patiently pondering in a docile temper the general 
 drift of things, have learned to account deliberate- 
 ness one of the most infallible notes of divinity. 
 
 In effect, this was the method by which the two 
 burning questions of the early Church — the question 
 of the canon of Holy Scripture and the question of 
 the limits of the catholic Creed — were settled. The 
 Councils which dealt with these questions did but 
 gather to a head and put into more definite shape 
 what was generally held among the faithful to be the 
 truth of the matter. The Bishops were representa- 
 tive men, who came together, not for the purpose of 
 concocting anything of their own, but simply to 
 report what it was that in their several neighbor- 
 hoods was commonly believed. This is the way 
 St. Luke puts it in the Preface to his Gospel. 
 Others, he says, have written their narratives con- 
 cerning those matters which have been fully estab- 
 lished, and now he proposes to add his. 
 
 1 St. John xvi. 13. 
 
26 A NATIONAL CHUECH. 
 
 Really it was the steady, unnoticed, pervasive 
 action of the ecclesia diffusa, in a word, the general 
 belief, the public opinion of the early Church, which 
 settled both the Canon and the Creed. This public 
 opinion found a mouthpiece in Councils, but it 
 existed before the Councils were convened, and was 
 the implicit even before it had become the explicit 
 belief of the Church. This is in line with what the 
 best theologians have always held with respect to 
 General Councils; namely, that they ought not to be 
 accounted " general " until there has been time enough 
 to ascertain whether their findings be acceptable to 
 the Church at large. The Church, not the Council, 
 is the Spirit-bearing body; it is to the whole Church 
 rather than to its representative assembly that the 
 promise of guidance runs ; and although Councils are 
 of the greatest value as a means of ascertaining what 
 the mind of the Church is, nevertheless, if it be 
 made afterwards perfectly plain by the course of 
 events, that any Council, instead of having fairly 
 represented, did really misrepresent the actual mind 
 of the Church with respect to some disputed point, 
 that Council must be content to go into history with 
 a black mark against its name. This is really very 
 High Church doctrine, although the fact that I am 
 assigning so much importance to the rank and file 
 of the Christian body, and comparatively so little to 
 the ofiicial portion of it, may blind the eyes of some 
 to the true character of my contention. 
 
 Assuredly it is no slight or cheap prerogative that 
 
THE THEORY. 27 
 
 one claims for the Church Catholic when he sets it 
 up as the umpire and teacher of the human race, 
 maintaining, as I am seeking to maintain, that its 
 united testimony with respect to any matter of faith 
 or morals comes nearer to an infallible utterance 
 than any other voice which it is given to man to 
 hear. The saints shall judge the world. 
 
 Do you complain that the doctrine is shadowy 
 and nebulous as compared with the crisp and handy 
 formula of the Vatican Council? No doubt it is 
 open to that charge ; and probably no single incen- 
 tive to the promulgation of the infallibility dogma 
 was more powerful than the desire to cut short debate 
 over disputes which refused to be settled otherwise 
 than by the old and wearisome process of simmering 
 and simmering until the public opinion of the Church 
 at large should confess itself content. It was like the 
 introduction of the parliamentary device known as 
 the closure, or a moving of "the previous question" 
 in an assembly sick and weary of the prolixities of 
 debate. But if it be true, and the wise and good 
 assure us it is, that things are never settled until 
 they are settled right, the slow way may prove the 
 better way, in fact, the only way. " Closure " and 
 "previous question" are all very well, where it is a 
 matter of adjourning and going home to luncheon; 
 but for the purposes of such legislation as is expected 
 to survive and to endure, nothing is one half so good 
 as " general consent, " even if it has to be waited for 
 with long patience, like the early and the latter rain. 
 
28 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 But " nebulous " and " shadowy " are not the only 
 epithets of dispraise which the ecumenical theory of 
 authority is likely to draw to itself. It will be called 
 foolhardy and hare-brained, because of its seeming to 
 launch a very precious freight upon a most tenuous 
 and impalpable medium, — an iron-clad, for instance, 
 upon a sea of vapor which only simulates the great 
 deep. But even so, there is still the question, What 
 is Almighty God's own method of launching? 
 
 Foolhardy, indeed, at its first announcement, must 
 have seemed that theory of the heavenly mechanics 
 which knocked all visible supports from under sun 
 and moon and planets, leaving them, one and all, bal- 
 anced apparently on nothing. 
 
 We think otherwise to-day, for we have learned 
 that the all-pervasive, everywhere energizing force 
 which really holds the stars to their courses, is a far 
 better guarantee of order^ a far more trustworthy 
 underpinning than any celestial trestle-work, whether 
 of steel or adamant. Surely, what gravitation does 
 for stars the eternal Spirit may be counted upon to do 
 for souls, holding them invisibly to a unity in the 
 truth which no mechanical device of ecclesiasticism 
 such as the dogma of 1870 possibly can produce. 
 
 " God builds on liquid air ; " the beams of his cham- 
 bers are laid on ocean's unstable floor ; yet is there 
 no sub-structure so secure as his, for He hath founded 
 it upon the seas and established it upon the floods. 
 Poor Simon Peter, like his putative successor, Pio 
 Nono, was unequal to this conception of what firm 
 
THE THEORY. 29 
 
 footing means. He, too, was struck with a sudden 
 panic as to this question of support from underneath. 
 Beginning to sink, he cried, " Lord, save me." How 
 gentle but how searching Christ's lesson in the first 
 principles of certitude, " thou of little faith, where- 
 fore didst thou doubt ? " 
 
 Again, it will be said that this ecumenical theory 
 of authority never can compete with Vaticanism, be- 
 cause what is wanted is a court of immediate resort. 
 Rome is accessible, we are acquainted with its lati- 
 tude and longitude, we know its place upon the map, 
 and we can journey thither with our hard questions 
 any day we will ; whereas the twenty-first century is 
 a long way off, and none of us can hope to live to see 
 the day when by patient brooding over the mind of 
 the Church the Holy Spirit of Truth shall have 
 brought to pass general consent as to the doubts and 
 difficulties that now so grievously oppress us. But 
 has Ultramontanism as a matter of fact the superi- 
 ority in this respect that is claimed for it? Can 
 answers be extracted from the oracle at Rome as 
 promptly as the vulgar suppose? What is the ad- 
 vantage of a rapid-firing gun if one never fires it? 
 Since the promulgation of the Vatican decree, the 
 Roman Pontiff has written a number of letters to the 
 world, embracing, in all, many hundreds of proposi- 
 tions ; but it does not appear that infallibility is 
 claimed for any single one of these propositions, inas- 
 much as the letters containing them are not known 
 to have been issued ex cathedra^ — in accordance, that 
 
30 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 is to say, with the conditions which the dogma of 
 1870 itself lays down as necessary to the putting 
 forth of an inerrant utterance. 
 
 While, therefore, the letters are plainly valuable 
 on account of the large measure of wholesome and 
 timely truth which they contain, they do not essen- 
 tially differ in character from letters of counsel that 
 reach us from other ecclesiastical sources, as, for ex- 
 ample, the mild pastoral set forth by the recent 
 Anglican Conference at Lambeth. In fact, it seems 
 probable that tlie Holy See, under the new constitu- 
 tion, will never commit itself irrevocably to either 
 side of any momentous controversy, whether ecclesi- 
 astical, theological, or social, until the straw shall 
 have been thoroughly thrashed out, and a practical 
 unanimity, at least within the Roman Communion, 
 already reached. It need not, therefore, necessarily 
 be conceded to the Ultramontanists that their theory 
 has even the poor advantage of celerity in its favor. 
 Appeal still lies with them, as with us, to the next 
 age.^ 
 
 1 " I know well that the decree in question is capable of many inter- 
 pretations. There is a sense in which it expresses, I will not say a 
 truth, but even a truism. When the Pope speaks as the representative 
 of the Church, he cannot but speak truly. I grant it. Tlie question 
 is, When does the Pope speak as the representative of the Church? 
 A Roman Catholic of my acquaintance ventured to talk to Leo XIII. 
 about this dogma, and the obstacle which it presented to reunion be- 
 tween England and him. The Pope was distressed, and said that the 
 dogma must be explained. . . . ' The truth,' he said, pointing to his 
 own breast, ' is not in me but in the Church.' He needed, he said, to 
 take the proper means to find out the truth, before he could pronounce. 
 
THE THEORY. 31 
 
 And, after all, why should we fret against the fact 
 that under any system time must always be an im- 
 portant element in the task of ascertaining truth ? 
 How was the slavery question finally settled in Chris- 
 tendom ? Certainly not by the vote of any ecclesias- 
 tical Council ; certainly not by the formal decree of 
 any Pope : it was settled by a slow process in which 
 orators, divines, jurists, story- writers, and soldiers, all 
 of them had part. The Spirit of Truth certainly did 
 not make the Bishops and Clergy the only instruments 
 in this vast work, but all estates of men in God's holy 
 Church, from the highest to the lowest, bore severally 
 their parts. It was the Christian Orbis Terrarum 
 exercising its high right of giving final judgment. 
 
 This is an ethical illustration. A theological one 
 would be equally to the point. How has the question 
 of the six days of creation been settled, and from 
 having been an open become a closed one ? Has it 
 been by conciliar vote ? No. Has it been by papal 
 bull ? No. How then ? By general consent. Gradu- 
 ally the truth with respect to questions that have 
 been long vexed gets into the atmosphere, and the 
 Church finds herself saying, '' Whereas I was blind, 
 now I see." Christians believe that this slow but 
 sure illuminating process is the work of the Spirit of 
 Truth ; that it is in fulfilment of a definite promise 
 made by the incarnate Son of God ; and they account 
 
 It was a very true sentiment ; but if it is true, then the practical value 
 of the dogma is gone." — Mason's Principles of Ecclesiastical Unittft 
 p. 112. 
 
32 A NATIOXAL CHURCH. 
 
 for the more swift advance of the Christianized as 
 compared with the non-Christianized peoples of the 
 world, by alleging this cause. 
 
 I have endeavored to show that in the all-impor- 
 tant region of faith and doctrine, it is possible for a 
 national Church, however it may be limited in other 
 directions, to hold ecumenical ground. I have laid 
 the main stress here, because without a clear phi- 
 losophy of authority back of it a national Church can 
 neither understand itself nor justify itself. It may 
 seem to some that the argument has been unduly 
 labored, and that I might safely have treated the 
 newly formulated papal claim as a negligible quantity. 
 
 Others, however, will perhaps agree with me in 
 thinking that the world has not yet begun to appre- 
 ciate the full significance of what was effected under 
 St. Peter's dome in 1870. In religious controversy, 
 definiteness counts for very, very much. Devout 
 minds, especially the minds of devout women (and 
 we must remember that the interests of religion are 
 largely in the custody of women), yield readily to the 
 fascination of a sufficiently emphatic " Thus saith 
 the Lord." Logical and scientific difficulties such as 
 those suggested by the dogma of transubstantiation ; 
 questions of historical accuracy like those that en- 
 cumber the Petrine claim ; even ethical misgivings 
 prompted by the abuses of the Confessional, the doc- 
 trine of indulgences, and the cultus of the saints, — • 
 will all of them sometimes fade swiftly away in the 
 face of the strong assertion, " Rome has spoken ; the 
 
THE THEORY. 33 
 
 case is closed." In this world of dimmed eyes and 
 wayward wills, absolutism has a charm all its own. 
 The Roman Empire dies hard. It is a flippant mind 
 that can lightly cast ridicule upon the Holy Father's 
 tremendous claim. Some of the keenest thinkers of 
 our day, men not easily fooled, have succumbed to 
 the magic of it. 
 
 So ardent, in deep natures, is the longing for the 
 full assurance of downright conviction, so quenchless 
 the thirst for certitude, that the mere spectacle of a 
 venerable teacher who demands assent to what he 
 says on the plea of a divine right is of itself eloquent 
 with persuasion. Almost any harbor that offers an- 
 chorage is grateful to storm-beaten and half-ship- 
 wrecked men. 
 
 " Surely, sui'ely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore 
 Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar ; 
 Oh, rest ye, brother-mariners, we will not wander more." 
 
 The struggle which culminated in the Roman Com- 
 munion in 1870 is the old struggle between central- 
 ization and that genuine catholicity which would 
 render to every member of the vast body its due. 
 In civil society the contention has gone on under the 
 style. Monarch versus People ; in the spiritual society 
 under the style. Pope versus Council. The plea I 
 have been making is identical, though put forward 
 under a somewhat altered form, with that by which 
 the great politicians of the Church of England have 
 stood fast ever since Trent. The appeal of England 
 
 3 
 
34 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 was, in a sense, an appeal to antiquity, in that it 
 insisted on Holy Scripture and the primitive Creeds 
 as the all-sufficient reservoir of revealed truth; but 
 that appeal had also in it, be it noted, a present-day 
 element, in that it made petition for a fair and truly 
 representative General Council, so constituted as to 
 do full justice (as for obvious reasons Trent could not 
 do) to all the interests of Christendom. 
 
 In the supreme position assigned to Holy Scripture 
 and the Creeds, the pietistic and the patristic scliools 
 have found, and rightly enough, their stronghold; 
 while in the demand for the fair General Council 
 there has lain latent all along that recognition of our 
 need of a present-day interpretative voice which, as I 
 have sought to show, only the common consent of the 
 best minds and hearts of Christendom can be counted 
 upon to meet and satisfy. " I read," said the late Sir 
 John Seeley, " the Bible and the Times." 
 
 It is certainly among things conceivable — who 
 shall say that it is not ? — that God in his providence 
 may be preparing the way for a General Council of 
 Christendom that shall be truly such. If a Parlia- 
 ment of Religions is possible, surely a gathering rep- 
 resentative of Christendom ought not to be impossible. 
 It may be that the convening of such a Council will 
 prove itself the ripest outcome of, and the worthiest 
 employment for, the marvellous facilities for inter- 
 course which modern inventiveness — the child, be it 
 observed, of Christian faith— has made ready. Curi- 
 ously enough, these new-fangled contrivances lend 
 
THE THEORY. 35 
 
 themselves with almost equal readiness and efficiency 
 to both of the two philosophies of authority we have 
 been studying. On the one hand, telegraph and tele- 
 phone may be so employed as to turn the Vatican 
 into a veritable " Ear of Dionysius " where shall be 
 audible whisperings from every remotest corner of 
 the Pontiff's world-wide realm ; while, on the other 
 hand, transcontinental railroads and the great ocean- 
 liners have brought the ends of the earth so close 
 togetlier that never, since the days when James of 
 Jerusalem could convene the Church at a few hours' 
 notice, have the physical difficulties in the way of 
 assembling a truly Ecumenical Council been so few 
 as they are now. Perhaps there was more of literal- 
 ness in John the Baptist's prophecy than has com- 
 monly been supposed ; and perhaps all this filling up 
 of valleys, levelling of hills, and general shortening 
 and straightening of paths and ways may have for its 
 chief object that drawing together of the scattered 
 family of man which is destined to make government 
 bj " general consent," or, as they called it on the day 
 of Pentecost, " one accord," a more practicable thing 
 than government by edict and emissary, rescript and 
 concordat. 
 
 I speak of what is far away ; but meanwhile, and 
 pending time's answer — nay, let us rather say God's 
 answer — to the appeal of the Protestant peoples for 
 a fair hearing in council assembled, surely our best 
 interpreter, alike of Holy Scripture and of current 
 events, is that communis sensus of the Church Uni- 
 
36 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 versal which somehow we contrive to get at, if only 
 we are patient, and from which there is seldom, if 
 ever, any going back. One of the oldest of Greek 
 proverbs says that " the half is greater than the 
 whole." Would you be a good Catholic ? Be a good 
 Nationalist first. The rest will come in time. 
 
II. 
 
 PRACTICABILITY. 
 
n. 
 
 PRACTICABILITY. 
 
 From the philosophical, we pass to the practical 
 aspects of national churchmanship, as these disclose 
 themselves in our own land. 
 
 The moment we do this, we are confronted by a 
 startling spectacle, — a vision which seems to negative 
 all hope ; which looks to be, so far as any prospect of 
 unity is concerned, a veritable apocalypse of despair. 
 I know of no book which an intelligent American 
 who is both a lover of his country and a believer in 
 the teachings of Jesus Christ, is under a more solemn 
 obligation to study than that volume of the United 
 States Census of 1890 which deals with the statistics 
 of religion.^ Aside from all ecclesiastical interests, 
 the work is worthy of attention on its own merits. 
 Merely as a sociological achievement, it ranks with 
 such monumental achievements as Charles Booth's 
 Enquiry into the Industrial Condition of the London 
 Poor. 
 
 Whether as respects ingenuity of method, fairness 
 of treatment, or thoroughness of detail, Dr. Carroll's 
 
 1 Conveniently summarized in The Religious Forces of the United 
 States. By H. K. Carroll, LL.D., in charge of the Division of Churches, 
 Eleventh Census. New York : The Christian Literature Co. 
 
40 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 conduct of the exceedingly delicate task intrusted to 
 him has been beyond praise. It is doubtful wliether 
 in any language there exists a conspectus of the 
 religious statistics of a people so complete as that 
 which he and his able helpers have succeeded in 
 putting before us. In English there is nothing tliat 
 approaches it. Not only are the figures with respect to 
 denominational strength marshalled and re-marshalled 
 in almost all possible combinations ; not only are we 
 told all there is to be known as to number of com- 
 municants, number of clergy, number of church edi- 
 fices, value of property, and the like ; but by a most 
 suggestive, I had almost said amusing, employment of 
 graphic symbols, the condition of things, both in the 
 Union as a whole and in the separate States, is made 
 vividly evident to the eye. We look, for instance, at 
 a circle entitled Maryland (I choose my example at 
 random), and we find it divided by radii into eight 
 sectors, each with a color of its own, and variously 
 named as follows : "• Catholic," " Methodist," " Lu- 
 theran," " Episcopalian," " Baptist," " Presbyterian," 
 " Reformed," " All Other," — the " All Other " sector 
 being in the case of this particular State, Maryland, 
 about one-thirteenth portion of the whole area of the 
 circle, while the Catholic and the Methodist sectors 
 cover, each of them, about one-third of the space en- 
 closed. If, again, we take the case of Ohio, we see the 
 circle divided into nine sectors, entitled respectively : 
 " Catholic," " Methodist," " Presbyterian," " Lu- 
 theran," " Baptist," " Disciples of Christ," " United 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 41 
 
 Brethren," " Reformed," " All Other." In this circle 
 the " Catholic " sector covers one-quarter of the area, 
 instead of one-third as in the case of Maryland ; the 
 " Methodist " sector suffers similar shrinkage ; the 
 " Baptist " sector (and, by the way, how admirably 
 this word " sector " seems to harmonize with the 
 whole business ! ) remains about what it was in the 
 older State, while the " Episcopalian " sector suffers 
 the mortification of being merged in the sad promis- 
 cuity of the quadrant known as " All Other." If, now, 
 we pass Mason and Dixon's line and go down into the 
 Gulf States, we find in the case of Georgia a circle 
 with only three sectors, respectively entitled " Bap- 
 tist," " Methodist," and " All Other." This is balanced, 
 and more than balanced, at the far West, by New 
 Mexico, where the '' All Other " sector covers only one- 
 fourteenth portion of the area, the entire remainder 
 of the circle being marked " Catholic." 
 
 Among the most interesting circles by way of 
 suggestion and reminiscence are Massachusetts and 
 Virginia ; Massachusetts, the Puritan Commonwealth, 
 showing a space of two-thirds marked " Catholic," and 
 another of one-tenth marked '' Congregationalist ; " 
 while in the home of the Cavaliers we have one full 
 half " Baptist," one full quarter " Methodist," and a 
 little less than one-twentieth " Episcopalian." If, last 
 of all, we turn our attention to the great circle which 
 represents the entire Republic, we note that the 
 " Catholic " sector covers a little more than one- 
 third of the whole area, the " Methodist " a little 
 
42 A NATIONAL CHUHCH. 
 
 more than one-fourth, the " Baptist " something less 
 than one-fifth, the " Presbyterian " about one-fifteenth, 
 and the " Protestant Episcopalian " almost exactly 
 one thirty-ninth. 
 
 But this is a cheerful showing for unity compared 
 with what we have to face when we turn from the 
 graphic method of circles to the numerical method of 
 tables. In the device of the circle all kinds of Pres- 
 byterians are massed in a single sector, and all kinds 
 of Methodists in another single sector, and all kinds 
 of Baptists in another single sector ; but as a matter of 
 fact there are twelve different denominations of Pres- 
 byterians, thirteen varieties of Baptists, and seventeen 
 sorts of Methodists. 
 
 In the case of the circles, the cumulative in contrast 
 with the particularist method was forced upon Dr. 
 Carroll by the exigencies of the situation ; for had he 
 undertaken to intersect the sectors by radii numerous 
 enough to represent all of these distinctions, and the 
 sub-dichotomies covered by the vague phrase " All 
 Other " as well, the eye of the student would have 
 been hopelessly confused and the intent of the graphic 
 device defeated. Moreover, in the matter of tints and 
 shading, chromo-lithography would have been utterly 
 unequal to the task. 
 
 But let us face the worst at once. The tables show 
 that there are in the United States one hundred and 
 forty-three distinct religious denominations. It should 
 be noted, however, that this generous figure includes 
 Jews, Theosophists, Ethical Culturists, and some thirty 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 43 
 
 organizations that number fewer than one thousand 
 adherents apiece. Of professedly Christian denomi- 
 nations claiming, severally, upwards of ten thousand 
 members, there are sixty-three^ ranging from the Roman 
 Catholics with their six millions to the Danish Lu- 
 therans with their ten thousand one hundred and 
 eiditv-one. The scandal of the situation is somewhat 
 farther relieved, when we find, as we do find if we 
 look into the matter, that the most of these organiza- 
 tions fall easily into families, the bond of kinship 
 being either a common doctrine or a common polity. 
 
 If we classify the denominations according to this 
 affinity-scheme, as we may call it, and agree to recog- 
 nize as important only such families as lay claim to a 
 quarter of a million of members, we shall find that we 
 have reduced the number of our varieties to ten, which 
 ten comprise almost, if not quite, nineteen-twentieths 
 of all communicants, of whatever name, within our 
 borders. 
 
 So, then, here lies the practical question with which 
 we have to grapple : Is there discoverable any per- 
 suasive or conciliatory method of bringing these ten 
 types of Christian life and thought, these ten tribes 
 as we may call them, into such a relation with one 
 another, that as Americans we may look forward not 
 merely to a retention of our common Christianity, but 
 to the gradual emergence of a national Church really 
 worthy of the name ? At first we are disposed to say, 
 " No. These great buildings scare us." Great build- 
 ings always do have a tendency to enslave the imagi- 
 
44 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 nation. And yet, I confess, I can think of no loftier 
 employment for the ecclesiastical mind, nay, for the 
 patriotic mind, of tlie coming century than a thorough 
 study of this question would afford. 
 
 Surely the time has come for a turn of the tide. 
 The reductio ad ahsurdum of sectarianism, as a philos- 
 ophy of Christianity, is complete. It has been wittily 
 said^ that the Kansas farmer of to-day, when the crops 
 fail, instead of trying, as his father would have done, 
 to improve the quality or the quantity of the fertilizers, 
 lets his hair grow long and starts a new political party ; 
 but few indeed are they who, with our present light, 
 would dream of seeking to improve the ratio of wheat 
 to tares in the ecclesiastical harvest field by organizing 
 to-morrow a new split. As a people we have ceased 
 to believe any longer in sectarianism ; but the task of 
 doing away with the thing, now that it has been saddled 
 upon us, looms so large as almost to incapacitate us 
 for effort.2 We see clearly enough that this jumble of 
 fragments has no proper claim to be called a national 
 Church, and yet we have mournfully to confess that, 
 taken in its entirety, it is the nearest approach to a 
 national Church that we can show. 
 
 1 By Professor Peck, of Columbia University. 
 
 2 " There can be no doubt that the reason why many minds abandon 
 the doctrine of unity, as it was believed by Christendom for fifteen 
 hundred years, is that they are at a loss how to square it with the anoma- 
 lies of the last three centuries. But for the unhappy rending of the 
 Western Church, no man would have any more dreamed of gainsaying 
 the mystery of the visible Church than of the visible sacraments. Men's 
 minds have been bribed by their wishes, or perplexed by their difficul- 
 ties, into lower and looser conceptions of unity." — Manning's Uniti/ of 
 the Church, p. 302, Am. ed. 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 45 
 
 Almost all are ready to admit that we have had dis- 
 integration enough, and that what we want now is 
 construction. The thing that takes the heart out of 
 us is the immensity of the undertaking. We feel as 
 a tribe of savages might feel if shown the " Teutonic " 
 or the " Campania,'' and told to substitute that type 
 of boat for their dug-outs and canoes. And yet the 
 ocean liner is but the final term in a long process of 
 evolution from the dug-out. With God all things are 
 possible ; and with man, God helping him, more things 
 are possible than we dare dream. 
 
 Weary of squabbles over tariffs and iuter-state com- 
 merce acts, we need in this country the inspiration of 
 some splendid purpose. It may be asked, has many 
 times been asked, will often be asked again : What 
 would your national Church accomplish, supposing it 
 came about, which the present conglomerate of sects 
 cannot already do for us fairly well ? 
 
 For an answer to this question we should look both 
 abroad and at home. Briefly put, the answer is, that 
 abroad we should be saved the spectacle of half a dozen 
 competing divinity schools in Tokyo ; and that at home 
 the maintenance of religion in our villages and towns 
 would cease to be dependent on the uncertainties of 
 " pink teas " and the doubtful aid of amateur theatri- 
 cals. When dignity wholly disappears from the ad- 
 ministration of religion, reverence presently takes wing. 
 It is perfectly possible for worship to be dignified, even 
 in dens and caves of the earth ; it is not possible for 
 dignity to coexist with a scramble ; and who will deny 
 
46 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 that in small communities where every man and every 
 dollar tells, the sectarian principle, from its very 
 nature, necessarily entails a scramble. Moreover, 
 the impression made upon the mind of the young 
 by the spectacle of a splintered Christianity is the 
 reverse of favorable. Accustomed to see law pre- 
 senting itself in the courts with a united front, the 
 young man learns to respect law. Were there as 
 many competing temples of justice in an American 
 city as there are rival temples of religion, the young 
 man would be as quick to unlearn civic virtue as he is 
 now disposed to throw up Christian faith. I shall 
 never forget the impression made upon my mind in 
 early life by my first sight of a Roman Catholic vil- 
 lage with its great Church overtopping all roofs. 
 Visible unity inspires respect, visible disintegration 
 genders contempt. 
 
 The Colonies would never have become The United 
 States had the patriots of that day reasoned with 
 respect to civil nationality after the fashion in which 
 too many of us reason about ecclesiastical nationality. 
 Most certainly, after having lumped together a republic 
 in Massachusetts, a democracy in Rhode Island, a 
 monarchy in New York, and an aristocracy in New 
 Jersey, they would have declined to call the resulting 
 amorphous mass a nation. The conveners of the Con- 
 tinental Congress knew too much for that. You tell 
 me that those men had physical force at their disposal 
 and felt no scruple about using it. That is very true ; 
 but it does not annul my contention that the unity 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 47 
 
 which hopes to escape ridicule and to challenge 
 respect must be an evident and palpable thing, not 
 one that has to be continually explaining away ap- 
 pearances that make it seem the very opposite of what 
 it claims to be. A national Church would be, if 
 nothing else, a great evidence of religion. 
 
 The child who in a New England village of two 
 hundred years ago saw, or in a South German village 
 of to-day habitually sees, all the people passing on the 
 Lord's Day through one porch into the Lord's House, 
 grew up and grows up taking religion for granted. 
 The American child of the present generation who 
 sees his playmates, on six days of the week, go through 
 the one school-house door, and on the one day of the 
 week sees six differently labelled church doors crying 
 out to the same boys and girls " Come in," inevitably 
 conceives of religion as a matter in debate. " When 
 I grow up," he says to himself, " I will find out what 
 all this means. Somehow it looks as if our fathers 
 and mothers did not feel about praying as they do 
 about schooling." Yes, these things tell. Doubtless 
 in the triumvirate of evil, the world and the flesh are 
 the predominant partners as respects the number of 
 souls enticed away from God ; but, in any fair reck- 
 oning, the third member of the group, the devil of 
 division, should have his due. 
 
 Is it then my hope, you ask, that at some future 
 census, say two hundred years from now (a short time 
 in the Hfe of the Christian Cliurch), the great circle 
 which will then probably be named North America 
 
48 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 may show the same unbroken disc of color that in the 
 Census of 1890 distinguishes New Mexico ? I will 
 not resent being shoved into this corner, but will boldly 
 venture to answer, Yes, I do. For however strenu- 
 ously I may disbelieve in the method by which eccle- 
 siastical unity has been secured in New Mexico, I do 
 not see how I can disparage the thing itself without 
 by the same token censuring the Founder of the Church. 
 New Mexico may be, and in my judgment is, most 
 unfortunate in its type of Christianity, but in so far 
 as it is at one with respect to what it has. New Mexico 
 is to be congratulated. 
 
 Consider the characteristics, the notes, of a possible 
 national Church of the United States. Such a struc- 
 ture would, first of all, possess as a matter of course, 
 a basis of dogma. This foundation would be built, 
 however, not of small bricks, but rather of huge, rough- 
 hewn blocks of the sort that can be counted upon to 
 stay put without cement ; solid masses of fact, that is 
 to say, as distinguished from speculation ; basaltic 
 rock which critics and controversialists might chip 
 away at, as long as they pleased, without any very 
 serious results. The primitive Creeds, the Apostles' 
 and the Nicene, answer fairly well to this description. 
 To be sure, they are deficient in " anthropology," but, 
 on the other hand, it is to be remembered that they 
 are running over with " Christ his lore." Not that 
 I would speak disrespectfully of the great fabrics 
 of theological thought which solitary thinkers like 
 Aquinas and Calvin or grave assemblies of learned 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 49 
 
 men have, in former or in recent times, framed and 
 lifted. It is far easier to sneer at such architects than 
 it is to rival their architecture. But the truth is, we 
 need have no fear at all that the Church will ever 
 lack for labored explanations of the full purport of 
 the Christian revelation. That more treasures of 
 knowledge are wrapped up, undiscovered, in the arti- 
 cles of the Creed than have ever yet been dug out of 
 them, is certain. To lay an interdict upon the search 
 after this hidden wealth would be absurd ; but, for 
 the very reason that this search is going on contin- 
 ually and with success, a national Church is bound 
 carefully to avoid confusing with the temporary " sys- 
 tem " the everlasting Faith. The fact that our " little 
 systems," as the late Laureate contemptuously called 
 them, "have their day and cease to be," is no evi- 
 dence that in their day, and before they ceased to 
 be, they were not of considerable worth. The " sys- 
 tems " of the alchemists were as much more elaborate 
 than the systems of modern chemistry as the the- 
 ology of Anselm is more intricate than the theology 
 of Coleridge ; and yet it is doubtful whether without 
 Paracelsus and Raymond LuUy we should ever have 
 had Faraday and Dumas. The really urgent question 
 is, What is the special need of our day, this present, 
 this modern day that we are living through ? And 
 to that inquiry the ancient Creeds make answer by 
 simply holding up before our eyes the person Christ. 
 So much for theology ; is it not enough ? 
 
 And what of ethics ? Well, ethics is a form of 
 4 
 
50 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 dogma, and would be sure to be recognized as such 
 if men could only be persuaded to look deep enough. 
 The words " Thou shalt not steal," if we begin to 
 philosophize about them, are found to appeal to faith 
 quite as strongly as the words " God is One." The 
 fact that the former saying is cast in the imperative 
 mood and the latter in the indicative mood makes no 
 difference ; it is in the believing mood that you and 
 I receive them. Well, then, let us apply the same 
 reasoning to ethics that we applied to dogma. A 
 national Church must have an ethical Creed, not volu- 
 minous, but clearly legible ; not necessarily a code, but 
 most assuredly a standard. We need not postulate a 
 national Church of teetotallers, for instance ; but we 
 might as well have no Church at all as one that would 
 admit the drunkard to its privileges. A national 
 Church must not attempt to prove itself such by oblit- 
 erating all the state-lines of morality. It must not, 
 in a good-natured endeavor to be all things to all men, 
 forget its obligation to be something to some men. 
 There would have to be discipline, not minute, indeed, 
 but real. It would mean a definite thing to be in full 
 communion, and another definite thing not to be in 
 full communion, with the Catholic Church. In a word, 
 to change our figure of speech, as St. Paul when on 
 this subject so easily does his, from stone and mortar 
 to flesh and blood, we must remember that the mystical 
 body of our Lord Jesus Christ, though mystical, is not 
 invertebrate. So much for ethics. Is it not enough ? 
 Well, and what of polity ? First of all, let polity, 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 6l 
 
 whatever else it is, be frankly American. I say this 
 in no Jingo spirit. I loathe and detest Jingoism in 
 all its varieties. I know not which is worse, the native 
 or the foreign brand ; I abhor them equally. And yet I 
 am not ashamed of being an American. I should not 
 be running on in this way about national Churches did 
 I not believe in my heart that America, sect-ridden as 
 it is thought to be, offers a better field for the upbuild- 
 ing of a Church truly national than any other country 
 the world over. Yes, I would see the Church Ameri- 
 can in its length and breadth. Some people are so 
 nervously afraid of bigness. " Don't let us allow the 
 thing to get too large," they say, " lest we should be 
 unable to manage it." Manage it ? And shall not 
 God have care for his elect ? " Pray," said the Warden, 
 or Elder (it does not matter which) of an old, ancestral 
 parish somewhere on the North River, to the young 
 minister who was about starting a mission Sunday- 
 school, " Pray, don't introduce a novelty of this sort. 
 What we 've always had up here, and what we want to 
 continue to have, is a nice, snug little Zion of our own.'* 
 It is this " snug little Zion " idea that has got to be 
 torn up by the roots, if we are ever to know an Ameri- 
 can Catholic Church. The English ivy is a beautiful 
 plant, and nothing is one-half so becoming to church 
 walls; but unfortunately the English ivy does not 
 flourish in all climates, and to insist that it shall be 
 " Ivy or nothing " in a land where the woodbine and 
 other fairly presentable vines are indigenous is a 
 mistake. 
 
52 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 It was Mr. Ruskin who said that he would not visit 
 America, because he could not imagine himself con- 
 tent to live three months in a country where there 
 were no castles. That was pardonable enough in Mr. 
 Ruskin, but does his having said it lay any obligation 
 on you and me to try to make good our country's 
 deficiencies by reproducing on a small scale Stirling 
 or Warwick ? No, you and I must take America as 
 we find it ; comforting ourselves with the thought 
 that Time, as a greater than Ruskin puts it, has a 
 worthier task than merely 
 
 " To make old bareness picturesque, 
 And tuft with grass a feudal tower.** 
 
 Doubtless Americanism may be pushed too far. 
 The demand for a distinctively American doctrine of 
 Church unity is as fatuous as the demand for an 
 American poetry and an American sculpture. Good 
 poetry and good sculpture are what they are, quite 
 independently of national lines. And so with Catho- 
 licity ; the law of it is as fixed and definite as are the 
 laws of light. It is only when we come to the appli- 
 cation of the law that Americanism gets a standing 
 in the court. So then, by all means, let Anglican 
 influences and Anglican precedents be treated with 
 all proper respect, it is but just and right that so it 
 should be ; only let us waste no room-rent on the 
 fools' paradise of those who fancy that American 
 Christianity in its entirety can be Anglified. This 
 people is not English, though we owe more to Eng- 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 53 
 
 land than to all other countries put together; but 
 this people is not English, it is a composite people, now 
 in the course of being kneaded, as a woman kneads 
 the materials of bread, into a homogeneous nationality. 
 To assume that we are dealing with a pure English 
 stock and to base our ecclesiastical polity upon that 
 notion, is to invite collapse. The foundations of an 
 enduring Catholicism lie deeper down. 
 
 Even the Church of England is not national in the 
 sense of comprising the great bulk of the people of 
 England. It is justly called national, in that it was 
 the core about which the nation, as a matter of his- 
 torical fact, grew into being. It is national in that 
 it is inwrought, as the late Lord Selborne^ so con- 
 clusively proved, not by the mere letter of a statute, 
 but by a thousand unnoticed ties, into the constitution 
 of the realm. But no one alleges that it has the sym- 
 pathy or can command the allegiance of the nation 
 as a whole. One may be an Englishman and a loyal 
 Englishman without being an Anglican. Her Majesty 
 herself, the Head of the Church, is a Presbyterian in 
 Edinburgh. And if the American people is far from 
 being English, still farther is the religious portion of 
 the American people from being Anglican. We must 
 remember this in all our reasonings about unity, or 
 we shall go astray. 
 
 But there is another feature of the Church of Enjr- 
 land that entitles her to be called national besides 
 
 1 A Defence of the Church of England against Disestablishment, by 
 Roundell, Earl of Selborne, pp. 28-31. 
 
54 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 the two which I just mentioned, and this other feature 
 is one in which any Church that in any country as- 
 pires to become national must resemble her. The 
 Church of England is national, because she lays stress 
 upon territory as such, and counts her children not 
 per capita merely, but also in connection with the 
 soil on which their homes are built. There is not a 
 square league of England which is not within the 
 borders of some one or another parish. This is the 
 right principle. If the spiritual interests of a whole 
 people are to be looked after systematically, if they 
 are to be shepherded with thoroughness, there must 
 be a recognition of metes and bounds. The names of 
 St. Paul's Epistles are evidence that he looked at the 
 matter in this light. He did not write out his theo- 
 logical views essay -fashion ; what he had to say he 
 put into the form of a letter to the people living in a 
 particular place with a recognized geographical posi- 
 tion. The truth taught in the letter may have been 
 one of universal interest; he may even have been 
 setting forth, as in the case of the Colossians, a cos- 
 mical theology as wide as the universe ; all the same, 
 he addresses himself to " the saints and faithful breth- 
 ren in Christ which are at Colosse," a town with town 
 limits, a definite unit among the units which in their 
 aggregate make up the Empire. 
 
 I am assuming, of course, that the territory in 
 question is both habitable and inhabited. Preten- 
 tious paper-schemes which cover deserts and proclaim 
 jurisdiction over wildernesses richly deserve the rid- 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 55 
 
 icule they receive. But where a territory has a popu- 
 lation, the Christian Church should aim at dealing 
 with that population territorially, holding some person 
 or persons answerable for the spiritual well-being of 
 all souls within the boundary lines. This is the theory 
 of the parish system, and it is a good theory. That 
 it is nowhere carried out to perfection is no argument 
 against it. Even the fishermen of the Gospel were 
 under the necessity of mending their nets now and 
 again. In a reticulation that covers a whole country, 
 some meshes, here and there, are bound to get torn 
 and to let through part of the catch. 
 
 In this Republic, the obvious territorial units of 
 structure are three in number, — the Union itself, the 
 State, and the County. It is true that a certain por- 
 tion of the national domain has not yet attained to 
 what, in our political parlance, is known as " state- 
 hood ; " and it is also true that in Louisiana the divi- 
 sions elsewhere known as counties are called parishes. 
 But these exceptions are not of a sort to encumber or 
 embarrass the argument. That the Territories are 
 destined, first or last, to be parcelled out into States, 
 is generally acknowledged ; while, as for Louisiana, 
 the fact of its having chosen to abide by the old 
 nomenclature of its French period makes no real 
 difference. 
 
 Of these three units, the Republic, the State, and 
 the County, the county is, historically speaking, by 
 far the most ancient. In fact, with the exception of 
 the city, there is perhaps no politico-geographical unit 
 
56 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 that can show an older lineage than the county. As 
 its name indicates, the county originally made the 
 jurisdiction of a comes, or count, so called because the 
 " companion " in administration of the still higher offi- 
 cial to whom the government of the province or pre- 
 fecture as the case might be, had been intrusted. 
 " With that tendency to division and subdivision," 
 says a recent writer ^ on this subject, " which is the 
 mark of thorough government, the provincial empire, 
 at any rate in Western Europe, gradually assumed the 
 shape of a mass of small districts, each administrated 
 by its own comes J^ From continental Europe this 
 county-system passed over into England, and from 
 England was transmitted to America, where it has 
 proved itself so well adapted to our civil needs as to 
 have secured what is practically an universal accept- 
 ance. It should be observed, in passing, that organi- 
 zation by counties includes cities, inasmuch as every 
 city is either by itself a county, or else is a constituent 
 portion of some county. If, therefore, the Christian 
 Church in this land is seeking for a self-consistent, 
 easily understood territorial basis of organization, it 
 cannot do better than accept for such a purpose the 
 scheme which Americans in their political capacity 
 have already fastened upon as the best ; namely, the 
 Republic, the State, and the County. 
 
 But what form shall the polity take on, supposing 
 the territorial scheme to have been adopted ? Do not 
 hastily charge me with Erastianism if I invite a return 
 
 1 Mr. Edward Jenks. 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 57 
 
 to the Census as a means of finding light. Upon con- 
 sulting such of the tables as bear upon this point we 
 make the cheerful discovery that, as respects polity, 
 there is among our Ten Tribes a far nearer approach 
 to unanimity than one who had been contemplating 
 exclusively their doctrinal divergences would have ex- 
 pected to find. Ecclesiastical polity in this country, 
 it appears, takes on one or other of three forms, ac- 
 cording as it inclines to emphasize the principle of 
 home-rule, the principle of counsel and advice, or 
 the principle of a strong executive. 
 
 With a view of getting out of the rut, I use these 
 phrases to indicate, respectively, what are commonly 
 known as Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, and 
 Episcopacy. We will waive, for the time being, 
 all jure divino points, and look at the whole thing 
 simply as a question of method. 
 
 The Congregationalists believe w^ith all their heart 
 in a method which makes much of the local flock 
 looked after by the local shepherd. This, they say, is 
 the true unit, this group of souls, large enough fully 
 to engage the energies of one pastor, and not too large 
 to be gathered within four walls. They remind us 
 that St. Paul speaks of being burdened with the care 
 of all the " Churches," not of " all the Church," and 
 they urge that when he does speak of "the Church" 
 in the singular number, what he has in mind is the 
 choir invisible of faithful souls rather than any hard- 
 and-fast general society by which the whole earth is to 
 be overspread. 
 
58 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 The Presbyterians are of opinion that this view of 
 the matter is too loose. They deprecate the isolation 
 of the single flock. They favor consultation among 
 the shepherds, and more concert of action in the 
 matter of tending and feeding the sheep ; for after all 
 the flock is one ; — that various reading about " the 
 fold " in St. John's tenth chapter does not really work 
 any serious amendment of Christ's parable : the flock 
 is one ; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. 
 
 The Episcopalians urge, with a good deal of insis- 
 tency, the value of headship in everything that has the 
 character of an enterprise. Jesus Christ, they argue, 
 has essayed the spiritual conquest of the world. The 
 task which He has laid upon his followers is a militant 
 task. He sanctioned leadership when He enrolled the 
 Twelve and placed Himself at their head. He sanc- 
 tioned it again, and for all time, when after his re- 
 surrection He said of these same companions of his 
 who had known his mind and become sharers of his 
 purpose, ''Go. Preach. Absolve. Baptize." That 
 the Episcopalians would be found so arguing, their 
 very name might have forewarned us. Episcopacy 
 is nothing if not executive, a bishop meaningless 
 save as a leader. 
 
 If now we turn to the Census Tables with a view to 
 finding how the religious mind of America stands 
 affected towards these various principles of polity, we 
 discover that of the twenty millions of communicants 
 (I speak in round numbers) nearly six millions are for 
 home-rule, something more than three millions for 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 59 
 
 recognition of a Church universal administered by the 
 conciliar method, and ahnost twelve millions for the 
 leadership principle ; in other words, the friends of a 
 polity of oversight outnumber all others by a clear 
 majority of well-nigh three millions, — a striking fact, 
 but one that is robbed of much of its apparent signifi- 
 cance when we are told that under this head have 
 been congregated three such dissonant and apparently 
 irreconcilable elements as the Roman Catholics, the 
 Methodists, and the Anglicans. 
 
 In quoting these comparative statistics, I am as far 
 as possible from wishing to suggest that the method 
 of arriving at a conclusion in this 'matter is by count 
 of heads or show of hands; God forbid. Rather 
 my purpose is to argue that since each one of the three 
 methods has so many adherents, the probability is 
 that there must be much good in each ; and that better 
 tlian the victory of any one would be the prevalence 
 of some wise combination of them all. Why need it 
 be thought a thing impossible that in the course of 
 the next century this should be brought to pass ? 
 
 Imagine a county Church. The centre of adminis- 
 tration is the county-town. Here dwells the chief 
 pastor of the Christians of the county. His position, 
 although one of dignity, is not one of splendor. His 
 duties are far more urgent than his honors are con- 
 spicuous. He is simply the master-missionary of the 
 region, which, although large enough to keep him busy, 
 is not so large as to make the personal care of souls 
 impossible. 
 
60 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 From time to time, at stated intervals, there gather 
 about this leader his counsellors, clerical and lay. 
 He and they consult together for the good of religion 
 in the county, talk over the spiritual needs of the 
 various towns and villages, plan anew the ever-shift- 
 ing campaign, and make provision for the sinews of 
 war. It is not necessary to suppose that all the nom- 
 inal Christians in the County have given in their ad- 
 hesion to this arrangement ; for the purposes of our 
 " iridescent dream " it will suffice if the great bulk of 
 them have done so. 
 
 Well, then, have we not here a microcosm of the 
 United Church ? What is lacking ? Anything ? The 
 home-rule principle has justice done to it ; for the lo- 
 cal Church of each town, each village, is, as respects 
 the management of its affairs, the choice of its pastor, 
 the handling of its revenues, autonomous. The syno- 
 dal and conciliar principle has justice done to it ; for, 
 instead of each little group of disciples living by itself 
 and for itself, as if no other group existed, we see the 
 representatives of the groups coming together once a 
 year, or as much oftener as may be found desirable, 
 to exchange ideas, and incite one another to better 
 things. The principle of leadership has justice done 
 to it ; for, convinced that what is everybody's business 
 is nobody's business, the Christian people of the 
 County have seated at the heart of things one whom 
 they hold in a special sense responsible for the effi- 
 cient conduct of their affairs. What is there inhe- 
 rently absurd or chimerical in such a picture as this ? 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 61 
 
 The very same three principles work together happily 
 enough in civil polity ; what is to prevent their doing 
 so in ecclesiastical polity ? 
 
 Take a step further. Imagine the overseers of the 
 various counties, together with representative pastors 
 and representative laymen from each county, meeting 
 together once in three years, or oftener if necessary, 
 in the capital city of the State. There are religious 
 interests that people have in common as citizens of 
 the same State other and larger than those which 
 they share as dwellers in the same county ; such in- 
 terests, for example, as those that pertain to marriage 
 and divorce, the education of the young, and the ten- 
 ure of Church property. The presidency of this larger 
 Council would naturally fall to one of the county over- 
 seers, either because of his seniority in office, or be- 
 cause of the relative importance of the town or city 
 which might happen to be the centre of his activities. 
 Again, what is there intrinsically absurd or chimerical 
 in this picture of a council representative of the reli- 
 gion of a whole State ? Is any violence done to the 
 principle of home-rule ? Are not the value of con- 
 ference and the importance of headship as fully recog- 
 nized in this instance as in the other ? 
 
 Take one more step. Imagine a bi-cameral assem- 
 bly convened, we will say, once in nine or ten years, 
 and representative of all the States of the Union, the 
 smaller of the two Houses made up of representative 
 chief -pastors, one, or at most two, for each State ; 
 and the larger composed of pastors and laymen in 
 
62 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 numbers proportionate to the populations of the States 
 from which they come. 
 
 As in the case of the State Council, the presidency 
 of this national body might be determined either by 
 seniority or by such other consideration as experience 
 should show to be the most urgent. Neither of the 
 two Houses composing the National Council would be 
 so large as to be cumbersome, for the number of our 
 States is not likely ever to exceed one hundred ; and 
 with the two branches of a bi-cameral legislature 
 standing to each other in the ratio of one hundred to 
 three hundred, no serious difficulties of procedure 
 would emerge. 
 
 There remains to be considered the question of 
 worship. As there are three leading types of polity, 
 so are there three marked varieties of divine ser- 
 vice ; to wit, the unliturgical, the elaborately liturgical, 
 and what may be called the intermediate variety. 
 What are we to do with these in the interest of Amer- 
 ican Catholicity ? Abolish two out of the three ? 
 That would be rather an arduous undertaking. Jum- 
 ble all three of them together, making a quartum 
 quid, the like of which never was seen before ? That 
 would seem to be an endeavor less promising still. 
 But what is there foolish in the suggestion that a 
 single building, by the simple device of a greater fre- 
 quency in the hours of service than is common among 
 Protestants, might be made to meet the devotional 
 needs alike of those who love a formal and of those 
 who prefer, I will not say an informal, but a less 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 63 
 
 formal method of publicly worshipping Almighty 
 God ? The Roman Church recognizes and acts upon 
 a similar principle in its classification of Masses into 
 Low Masses and High Masses. It is incumbent upon 
 every good Romanist that he go to Mass, and he neg- 
 lects the duty at the peril of his soul ; but it is not 
 exacted of him that he attend High Mass if he prefers 
 Low. The English Church scores a good point against 
 the Roman by insisting, as it does, upon having the 
 public services rendered in " a tongue understanded 
 of the people ; " but the Roman Church scores a good 
 point against the English in providing that within 
 the walls of one and the same consecrated building 
 widely different types of service shall at different 
 hours find recognition. 
 
 It is true that I am pleading for a larger applica- 
 tion of this principle than the Roman Church allows, 
 since there is undoubtedly a wider gulf between the 
 non-liturgical and the liturgical celebration of the 
 divine mysteries than between High Mass and Low 
 Mass; but even if the people of an American town 
 felt that they must needs " build three tabernacles," 
 so that each type of worship might have its own sep- 
 arate and distinctive home, there would still be fewer 
 competing altars in that town by some six or seven 
 than there are to-day. There may be, there probably 
 are, Anglicans and Roman Catholics among us san- 
 guine enough to suppose that the rising tide of litur- 
 gical interest, so noticeable in the religious life of 
 America just now, is destined to continue rising until 
 
64 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 it shall have swept everything before it. " Be pa- 
 tient," they say. " Much has been accomplished ; 
 more is coming. Wait a little, and presently you 
 shall hear all American Christians singing their 
 prayers on one note." I doubt it. We Americans 
 are not all of us musical, and the unmusical ones are 
 likely, in "this free country," to go on saying, in- 
 stead of singing, their prayers to the end of the chap- 
 ter. At the epoch of the Reformation, worship had 
 become a fine art. Let it be practised as a fine art 
 still for the benefit of those who are edified thereby ; 
 but let us bear in mind the fact that there are artisans 
 in the world as well as artists, and not stupidly attempt 
 to force a high assthetic standard upon souls not yet 
 cultivated to the point of being able to apprehend it. 
 The impact of Protestant thought upon the institute 
 of worship may not, it is true, have produced all the 
 effect that was anticipated ; but it is unlikely that 
 it will prove to have been wholly resultless. Some 
 things have been learned that will not be unlearned, 
 some franchises secured that will not be relinquished. 
 
 If liturgical worship really does possess that su- 
 preme excellence which many of us associate with 
 it, we may safely trust to the workings of the law of 
 natural selection to bring things out right in the end. 
 
 It may be objected to what I have been recom- 
 mending, that to carry it out would complicate mat- 
 ters, and rob us of that simplicity which is one of 
 religion's chiefest charms. But let us not suffer our- 
 selves to be beguiled by words. Doubtless simplicity 
 
PRACTICABILITY. C5 
 
 is of the very highest value, where it may be had. 
 We marvel at, and are often disposed to covet, the 
 simplicity of apostolic days. The Lady Ecclesia of 
 that era made out to live and thrive, yes, and show a 
 very fair and comely countenance, amid surroundings 
 of a most unelaborate sort. Just as the queen, born 
 a peasant girl, whom some King Cophetua had loved 
 and wedded, might look back half sorrowfully from 
 her throne-room in the palace with its weight of em- 
 broidered hangings, its wealth of gems and gold, to 
 the old days when she walked barefoot, pitcher in 
 hand, along the grassy path that led from the cottage 
 to the spring, so it is not unnatural for the modern 
 Church, with all its inherited treasures, its great bur- 
 den of memories, traditions, usages, its councils and 
 canons, its ecclesiastical jurisprudence and ecclesio- 
 logical wealth, to look back, now and then, with some- 
 thing like regret to those crisp morning hours when 
 it was enough that there should be an upper room to 
 meet in, a little bread and wine, a " hymn to Christ 
 as God," and a few prayers. But to a great extent 
 we must, in matters where evolution has had play, 
 take things as we find them. Growths that have 
 come to maturity cannot be spirited out of existence 
 at a word. It is folly to suppose that the so-called 
 simplicity of the seeding-time, a simplicity even at 
 that stage of affairs more apparent than real, can 
 be reinstated at will, or be depended upon to repro- 
 duce itself if only we can muster courage enough to 
 cut down the existing tree. The cloud-giant of the 
 
 5 
 
66 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 Arabian tale was with difficulty coaxed back into his 
 casket ; vastly more formidable would be the task of 
 compelling an oak to retire into an acorn. In a so- 
 ciety which undertakes to embrace within its limits 
 all sorts and conditions of men, and to meet the 
 spiritual needs of every one of them, we must expect 
 the administration of worship to prove itself a some- 
 what complex undertaking, and must not be dis- 
 couraged at finding it necessary to tolerate, within 
 the same ecclesiastical bounds, rites and usages strik- 
 ingly diverse. Why should it be for me any greater 
 hardship to dwell in the same Church with a man who 
 dotes upon candles and incense, than to dwell in the 
 same town with him ? It is I who have to be " toler- 
 ated " as well as he. 
 
 We have now come into possession of three watch- 
 words of unity. In the field of Dogma, theological 
 and ethical, the watchword is Condensation ; in the 
 field of Polity, the watchword is Co-ordination ; in the 
 field of Worship, the watchword is Classification, 
 
 It will be said, and with much show of reason, that 
 I have managed to get over the ground by jumping 
 the pitfalls. But really it has been no part of my 
 purpose to dodge the difficulties of the subject. I own 
 to having made as sanguine a showing as I could ; but 
 that has been because I believe in the practice of hope, 
 as a Christian virtue, and because I refuse to believe 
 that the clearly defined purpose of Jesus Christ is des- 
 tined to suffer defeat. 
 
 That in each one of the three fields we have been 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 67 
 
 traversing there stands a crux^ I have no desire to 
 deny. 
 
 In the region of dogma, the crux is the sacramental 
 theology.^ Unless the philosophy of grace can be 
 declared neutral ground, and honestly dealt with as 
 such, there is no hope for Christian unity, either in 
 the near future or in the far. 
 
 In the region of polity, the crux is the value of 
 historicity in connection with Holy Orders. Unless 
 those who care nothing for the continuity of the 
 sacred ministry can persuade themselves that it is 
 worth while to conserve that continuity for the sake 
 of those who do care very much about it, there is no 
 hope for Christian unity either in the near future or 
 in the far. 
 
 In the region of worship, the crux is again the sacra- 
 mental element. Unless those who believe and those 
 who do not believe in such a mystical presence of 
 Christ in the Holy Eucharist as differences that ser- 
 vice intrinsically from all other exercises of worship, 
 can be persuaded to bear with each other's ways in 
 practice, there is no hope for Christian unity either 
 in the near future or in the far, and our vision of a 
 national Cliurch is but a will-o-the-wisp. 
 
 It all turns upon whether the Tory, mystical, ro- 
 manticist disposition which loves to take its light 
 through stained glass, and the Whig, non-mystical, 
 common-sense disposition which thinks to save the 
 world by founding Useful Knowledge Societies can 
 
 1 See Appendix A. 
 
68 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 live together peaceably in the same house. The thing 
 would seem to be impossible ; — and yet the Book of 
 Proverbs and the Book of Psalms rub shoulders in 
 the one Bible ; and the Christ of the Synoptists and 
 the Christ of the Fourth Gospel are one Christ. 
 
 At any rate, I beseech you to acquit me of the 
 slightest desire to minimize these difficulties. They 
 are not to be disposed of by an airy wave of the hand, 
 or conjured away by the magic of a few glib sen- 
 tences. They lie deep ; they are triple-walled ; they 
 frown. If I have shunned discussing them in detail, 
 it has not been from any lack of appreciation of their 
 magnitude, but simply because of a conviction that 
 my time might be better bestowed upon obstacles 
 which could be shown to be removable. In the 
 enchanted forest that surrounds the palace where 
 the sleeping princess lies, there is much wood-cut- 
 ting of a manageable sort to be done before we 
 reach the densest thicket of all. For the present, 
 those students of the subject do most to help for- 
 ward national churchmanship who concentrate their 
 strength on the task of finding where the line runs 
 between the difficulties which are imaginary and the 
 difficulties which are real. In the minds of most 
 persons the two sorts of barriers loom equally large. 
 To teach men to discriminate is to help them on 
 their way. Stuffed lions and live lions at a little 
 distance look alike, but they are not equally to be 
 feared. 
 
 I have spoken throughout from the view-point of a 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 69 
 
 member of the Episcopal Church. There are hope- 
 ful signs, not a few, that that body is beginning to 
 discern the pettiness of its old denominationalism, 
 and is awaking to a sense of what true catholicity 
 demands. It is no longer seriously contended that 
 the momentous issues of national churchmanship 
 are to be settled by ascertaining which discoverer 
 first sighted land on what is now the territory of 
 the United States, or by proving that the first baby 
 christened within the colonies was baptized into this 
 faith or that. It has come to be discerned that the 
 roots of the question strike much deeper and spread 
 much further. 
 
 Moreover, what is better still, kindliness and sym- 
 pathy are coming to the fore in unexampled pleni- 
 tude. We are discovering how many of our old 
 alienations were founded upon strifes of words rather 
 than on strifes of fact. A little of the oil of glad- 
 ness goes a long way as a lubricant. What we need 
 now is to get near each other. When the picket- 
 guards of bivouacking armies find themselves within 
 speaking distance, they are very apt to acknowledge 
 one another not such bad fellows after all. 
 
 Then, again, there is that advice of St. Paul's about 
 looking, not every man on his own things, but every 
 man also on the things of others. Slowly we are 
 learning to grow mutually appreciative. Even in 
 the case of that widest, deepest, and apparently most 
 hopeless of all the gulfs that yawn across Christen- 
 dom, I mean that which sunders Roman Catholics 
 
70 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 from Protestants, when we consider that northern 
 Europe is almost wholly of the one complexion and 
 southern Europe almost wholly of the other, there 
 is much to be said in favor of a partition of awards. 
 It does seem absurd, upon the face of it, does it not? 
 to suppose that all the goodness and all the truth are 
 with the northern nations, and all the badness and 
 all the error with the southern ones.^ 
 
 Moreover, it behooves all of us to be modest. The 
 more confident a man is of the soundness of his posi- 
 tion, the less need has he to bluster about it. The 
 Hebrew people in the times before Christ had the 
 strongest possible grounds for ecclesiastical self- 
 confidence. They knew themselves to be in a true 
 and a deep sense the people of God ; theirs were the 
 promises, theirs the tables of the Law, theirs the 
 Scriptures of truth. All the same, when some of 
 them took to boasting rather noisily about it, and ex- 
 claimed with vexatious iteration, as if once were not 
 enough, " The temple of the Lord, the temple of the 
 Lord, the temple of the Lord are we," God sent his 
 prophet to give them fair warning that if they went on 
 talking in that supercilious way He would quickly put 
 them on a level, in the matter of privilege, with the 
 " out-landers " whom they despised. ' The true policy 
 for every denomination that is among us is to begin 
 at the other end, and, frankly recognizing as lona 
 fide members of Christ's Holy Church Universal all 
 who have been baptized with water into the name of 
 
 1 See Appendix B. 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 71 
 
 the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, to 
 see whether it cannot modestly contribute something 
 that shall help this sacramental host to realize in 
 outward form and shape its already latent oneness. 
 
 The Episcopal Church in this new world stands, 
 at the present moment, at the parting of the way. 
 After a century of infancy, a century of childhood, 
 and a century of adolescence, she has come at last 
 to her majority, and reports for duty. "For duty," 
 and towards whom ? Towards all, no doubt, whom 
 her voice can reach or her hand help, but in a special 
 sense towards those twenty millions of believers who 
 among our sixty or seventy millions of population 
 have with their own mouth and consent openly ac- 
 knowledged Christ. Her errand to these is the 
 errand of the reconciler and the peacemaker. 
 
 Leadership is what is wanted. The land cries out 
 for it, — ^wise, sympathetic, modest, clear-eyed, fear- 
 less leadership. Gladly, in the present temper of 
 our American Christendom, gladly would this leader- 
 ship be conceded to the historic Church of the 
 English-speaking peoples, were she only to show a 
 willingness to meet half-way with friendly conces- 
 sions and just acknowledgments that could in no 
 wise harm her claims, those who read the same 
 Bible, honor the same Sacraments, and love the 
 same Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Surely an American Catholic Church worthy of the 
 name ought to have some goodlier words for those 
 whom it is her duty to gather and include, than the 
 
72 A NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 cold, hard, stolid Non possmnus of absolutism, or 
 the sharp apothegm, This people which knoweth not 
 the rubrics is accursed. 
 
 If we would enlist the strong minds, the warm 
 hearts, the strenuous souls of our day in the service 
 of the Church of Christ, the Church of Christ must 
 be attractively presented. Her grandeur must be 
 appreciated, the wide reach of her comprehensive- 
 ness displayed. The trouble is that we too often 
 identify the Church of God with all manner of trifling 
 details that are no part of its essence, and then lift 
 up hands of holy horror if one whom we are trying 
 to win retorts contemptuously, " Is that the society, 
 that the spiritual commonwealth, that the fellowship 
 of souls, in behalf of which you would have me work 
 myself up into a fine enthusiasm? No, I have better 
 things to do; loftier aims absorb me, and larger 
 hopes. Build your little city. I go my way." 
 
 But would you turn this haughty critic's slur into 
 a humble prayer for guidance? Show him the true 
 picture of the Church of God. Let him see the length 
 and breadth and height and depth of it. Open his 
 eyes to behold that innumerable company of faithful 
 men who even now, to-day, in all climates, under 
 all skies, are making the imitation of Christ their 
 persistent aim. When the Kingdom is thus con- 
 ceived of, when it is recognized as gathering up into 
 itself all that has been most precious in the past, 
 and all that makes for greater spiritual achievement 
 in days to come, we cease to wonder at a saying 
 
PRACTICABILITY. 73 
 
 attributed to one of the \Yortlnes of the primitive 
 days, "He that hath God for his Father hath the 
 Church for his Mother;" for this ministration to 
 the ideal side of our nature, of which I have been 
 speaking, is the very sort of mothering we want. 
 We are tempted to grow hard, we are tempted to 
 grow bitter, we are tempted to grow cynical; for 
 human life, as we see it, has much that is repellent 
 to show, much that is despicable, much that is sordid. 
 Is there, we ask, can there be any hope for such a 
 world as this? The vision of the city that is at 
 unity with itself is God's reply. For that, it is 
 worth one's while to live. For that, some, perad- 
 venture, might even dare to die. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
« Now I take my farewell of my most deare brethren of the 
 forrain Churches with the exhortation of most holy Augustine, 
 If you will live of the Holy Spirit, hold Charity, love Verity, desire 
 Unity, that you may come to Eternity. To the God of heaven 
 who is the God of Peace; to Jesus Christ our Lord who is 
 the Prince of Peace ; to the Holy Spirit, who is the Bond of 
 Peace, be Glory, Honor, and Thanksgiving for ever and 
 ever. Amen.'* 
 
 Closing Sentences of Bishop Davenanfs 
 Exhortation to Brotherly Communion, 1641' 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A. 
 
 CONCERNING NEUTRALIZATION OF TERRI^ 
 TORY IN THE REGION OF SACRAMENTAL 
 THEOLOGY.i 
 
 It is written of the Lord Jesus Christ that, as the 
 end drew near, He gathered his disciples about 
 Him in an upper room, and having broken bread 
 with the words "This is my body," and having 
 blessed wine with the words "This is my blood of 
 the new covenant," He gave them to eat and to drink, 
 adding the injunction, "This do in remembrance of 
 Me." It is further recorded that after the resurrec- 
 tion, on a mountain in Galilee, at a meeting specially 
 appointed, and so given an emphasized sanctity and 
 significance. He said to the Eleven, "Go ye there- 
 fore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptiz- 
 ing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
 and of the Holy Ghost." From the Book of Acts, 
 our first chapter of Church History, we learn that the 
 
 1 Extract from a Reiuecke Lecture read before the Faculty aud 
 Students of the Theological Seminary at Alexandria, Va. 
 
78 APPENDIX. 
 
 disciples understood this commandment to involve 
 the use of the element of water. 
 
 It thus appears that to his Gospel, which might 
 otherwise have been understood to be a simple 
 announcement of abstract truth with respect to " the 
 idea of God " and "the destiny of man," Jesus Christ 
 indissolubly linked two outward observances, each 
 of which necessitated a use of what physicists 
 and chemists know as matter. A spiritualist, as 
 Lucretius would have judged Him, a materialist, as 
 Plato would have declared Him, the Son of Man 
 stood up in full face of both philosophies, and said, 
 " I pronounce you wedded. Those whom God hath 
 joined together let no man put asunder." 
 
 The opening words of the General Confession in 
 the Communion Office of the Book of Common 
 Prayer, wherein we address the Almighty as the 
 "Maker of all things" and the "Judge of all men," 
 suggest that God sustains a close and real relation 
 to two worlds, — a world material and a world 
 spiritual, — and that in a deep sense (though not in 
 Spinoza's sense) both of these worlds are one in 
 Him. It is true that in the order of the phrases a 
 distinction of rank is recognized. We are not en- 
 couraged to infer that the two worlds are of equal 
 value or of equal dignity. It is by an ascending 
 climax that we pass from the Maker of " things " to 
 the Father and the Judge of " men. " But what is 
 distinctly asserted with respect to both body and 
 spirit, things and men, is this, — that between them 
 
APPENDIX. 79 
 
 there lies no such difference as necessarily involves 
 contrariety or schism ; they admit of harmonizing if 
 only one can get at the true formula of their har- 
 mony; they are not really enemies, they are friends. 
 Alone among theists, the Christian has the courage 
 cordially to welcome this belief. Partly because 
 Nature has always been the stronghold of idolatry, 
 and partly because so much of what goes on in Nature 
 appears to militate against our conceptions of the 
 holiness and the loving kindness of God, theists, as 
 such, find themselves strongly tempted to mark a 
 great gulf between the two realms, the spiritual and 
 the material, and to plant danger signals on the 
 hither side. 
 
 " Are God and Nature then at strife, 
 That Nature lends such evil dreams ? " 
 
 asks the doubting heart in In Memoriam, evidently 
 disposed to think that so it must be ; and even such 
 a clear-headed Christian thinker as Coleridge is said 
 to have defined Nature as "the devil in a strait- 
 jacket. " But in its censure of the Manichsean heresy, 
 the Church early set the stamp of its disapproval 
 upon sentiments of this sort, and reaffirmed, in the 
 face of objections that must have seemed even more 
 formidable to the mind of those days than they seem 
 to the mind of these, St. Paul's dicta that "the 
 earth is the Lord's," and that "every creature of 
 God is good." 
 
 These thoughts lead up to the following ques- 
 tions : — 
 
80 APPENDIX. 
 
 {a) How, as a matter of fact, has the mind of 
 Christendom stood affected towards the sacramental 
 element in the religion of the New Testament during 
 the centuries that have elapsed since the mandates 
 " Do this " and " Go, baptize " were issued ? 
 
 (5) How stand the two Sacraments of the Gospel 
 related to the general question of the unity of the 
 Church ? 
 
 {c) Is there anything about the third article of 
 the Lambeth Declaration ^ that conspicuously differ- 
 entiates it from other formal utterances upon the 
 same subject with which it is natural for us to 
 compare it? 
 
 First, then, how has it fared with the institutes 
 themselves ? How have men thought and felt and 
 spoken and written about sacraments during the sixty 
 generations, more or less, covered by Church history ? 
 
 "Very variously," is the only answer possible. 
 
 As was just intimated, the attitude of the indi- 
 vidual Christian towards the sacramental element 
 will, in every case, be largely determined by his 
 native cast of mind. If he be one who naturally 
 inclines to take things in the concrete, and who 
 abhors abstractions, esteeming them to be mere 
 unsubstantial nothings, he will incline to magnify 
 the sacraments, and to wonder why there should be 
 so few of them. If, on the other hand, his personal 
 
 1 " The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself, Baptism and the 
 Supper of the Lord, ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of 
 institution and of the elements ordained by Him." 
 
APPENDIX. 81 
 
 bias is distinctly towards idealism, disposing him to 
 brand as unspiritual and earthy whatsoever religious 
 product refuses to let itself be completely volatilized 
 in the alembic of criticism, he will almost inevitably 
 take the minimizing line, and instead of wondering 
 why Christ should have ordained no more than two 
 sacraments, as generically necessary to salvation, 
 will rather marvel that He should have ordained any 
 at all. For to a completely subjective system of 
 theology, a sacrament is ex vi termini an excrescence. 
 
 As with individuals, so with their followings ; for, 
 after all, a "school of thought," so called, is but 
 the aura that exhales from and orbs itself about 
 a strong personality : sects, parties, denominations, 
 are observed to be sacramental or non-sacramental 
 in their general tone, according to the character of 
 the invitation given out by the founder when the 
 sect, party, or denomination took its rise. 
 
 Moreover, it is inevitable that in this matter the 
 law of reaction should, from time to time, make 
 itself felt; religion of the ultra-sacramental type 
 becoming so plainly and hopelessly materialistic and 
 mechanical that earnest men are impelled, out of 
 very loyalty to Him who is a Spirit, to break with 
 it altogether. 
 
 The Protestant Reformation, on its theological as 
 distinguished from its political side, was a gigantic 
 movement of this sort. A complicated sacramental 
 system, hammered out on the anvils of the school- 
 men, had been fastened as by bolts and rivets about 
 
 6 
 
32 APPENDIX. 
 
 the body of Christ, until the Church had found itself 
 actually imprisoned in its own armor. What won- 
 der if, in the violence of the escape from this man- 
 made coat of mail, the inner and more delicate fabric 
 of the true sacramental vesture which Christ, out of 
 pity for man's nakedness, had woven with his own 
 hands should have suffered hurt? It could not be 
 otherwise. A live Christianity protests against a 
 materialized religion as instinctively as the eye 
 protests against the cinder that has found its way 
 beneath the lid; and when men have had dinned into 
 them for centuries the doctrine that only by sacer- 
 dotal manipulation can they be saved, it only needs 
 the translation of the New Testament into the vulgar 
 tongue and a consequent acquaintance with what 
 that document has to say about mint, anise, and cum- 
 min and the baptism of pots and pans, to precipitate 
 a revolution. 
 
 Thus swings the pendulum, thus ebbs and flows 
 the tide: first the image-maker; then the image- 
 breaker ; then, chisel in hand, the restorer of damaged 
 carvings, saying cheerily, "After all, the image was 
 not so bad ; let us supply the lost features, change 
 the expression a bit, and put it back in the old 
 niche." Eighteenth- century Boston turned the Gos- 
 pel of Christ into a metaphysic, but kept on observing 
 the " ordinances " by force of habit, all unconscious, 
 as it would seem, that Puritan premises necessitated 
 Quaker conclusions. By and by came Emerson, true 
 child of idealizing forbears, saying to his startled 
 
APPENDIX. 83 
 
 communicants, What have these material emblems 
 to do with a spiritual religion ? How long halt ye 
 between two opinions ? If the Pope be right, follow 
 him; but if George Fox, follow him. Either take 
 these things hence or dismiss me from my charge. 
 
 This sounded logical as well as ethical, and many 
 of New England's best flocked to the transcendental 
 standard. But after one generation of these keen- 
 witted folk had made trial of a Christianity stripped 
 of its raiment and left bare, devout hearts not a few 
 woke up to perceive and to confess that the outward 
 side of religion had its value also; the voice of 
 Oxford, nay, of Rome, was heard in the gates, and 
 it began to be whispered of Bostonians, Lo, they 
 attend Mass. 
 
 (b) What is the bearing of the sacramental ele- 
 ment in religion upon the general question of the 
 unity of the Church? 
 
 All societies are committed by the very nature of 
 their being to some measure of symbolism. Men 
 who find themselves, by the condition of their birth 
 or by a definite voluntary act of their own, knit 
 together, insist that by some outward action or 
 object this oneness shall be made apparent. The 
 essential fact itself is indeed invisible, but who is 
 to be the wiser for the fact, unless at some point in 
 the circuit the viewless unifying force flashes into 
 light? Scores of familiar phrases testify to this 
 truth; "a family crest," "the regimental colors," 
 "a civic seal," — these are witnesses, respectively, 
 
84 APPENDIX. 
 
 to tribal, military, and municipal unity. People 
 seldom, if ever, dispute about these emblems, and 
 for the simple reason that they are understood to 
 stand for facts with respect to which there is no 
 difference of opinion. The data of a man's origin 
 and kinship are settled and fixed; how, then, should 
 he dispute over the heraldic token of that which he 
 cannot change if he would ? Manifestly, his true 
 wisdom is to make the best and the most of what is 
 unalterable. Hence, as a rule, men take both pride 
 and satisfaction in any symbolism that reminds them 
 of a unity to which they stand, so to say, inevitably 
 committed. Only " the man without a country " 
 would dream of going in search of the most beauti- 
 ful of all flags in order that under it he might live. 
 He instinctively cheers the flag under which he was 
 born, because, having been born under it, he has 
 always thought of it as his own flag. It indicated na- 
 tional decadence and disunion that the Psalmist 
 should have felt moved to complain, " We see not our 
 tokens. " Rob the Church of her sacramental guar- 
 antees of unity, break down with axes and hammers 
 her font and altar, and you provoke the same cry. 
 How can we know that we are one if we see not the 
 tokens; and, contrariwise, if we see the tokens, are 
 we not reminded by the very sight that, however we 
 may differ on a thousand points, we still, in the 
 very truest and deepest sense of all, are one body in 
 Christ ? Sacraments, in a word, are sacraments of 
 pre-existent fact. 
 
APPENDIX. 85 
 
 But there is more to be said for the unifying power 
 of sacraments even than this. It is not enough to 
 show the emblematic value of Baptism and the Lord's 
 Supper. These forms of action are, indeed, wit- 
 nesses to the oneness of those who join in solemniz- 
 ing them, but how stand they connected with that 
 Spirit of life without whose energizing and vivify- 
 ing presence unity is, and must continue, a barren 
 name ? 
 
 The masters in Sociology tell us that the two prime 
 factors in the evolution of the human race are the 
 instinct of reproduction and the struggle for food. 
 Children perpetually coming to the birth, men for- 
 ever toiling and moiling that they may find bread for 
 themselves and for those whom they have begotten, — 
 this, even this, after history has mouthed its finest 
 phrases, and art spread its brightest colors, and 
 poetry sung its softest notes, — this, even this, is what 
 it all comes to, so far as the earthly side of things is 
 concerned, that we should be born, and having been 
 born should strive for the means of keeping alive. 
 Surely to Sociology we may say, if this be indeed 
 her last word to us, " Thank you for nothing. " 
 
 But what a different aspect the whole thing takes 
 on when looked at from the heavenly places ! Christ 
 comes into the world, not only that He may live the 
 life of man, but that He may, in the fine phrase of the 
 Te Deum, " lift us up for ever," so carrying the very 
 manhood itself into God. His mission is not merely 
 to prepare people to die, — what a melancholy blunder 
 
86 APPENDIX. 
 
 it was, ever to have put such an interpretation upon 
 his errand ! — not merely to prepare people to die, but 
 to prepare " a people " to live. He appears upon the 
 planet's surface that He may become the re-organizer 
 of the human race. " Make ready for the Kingdom," 
 is the cry of his announcer. " Make ready for the 
 Kingdom," is his own cry when He is come. 
 
 But the new Society, the coming Kingdom, is not 
 to be wholly different from the old. It is to be the 
 old glorified and ennobled. Whatever, therefore, is 
 most central to the Sociology of human life as it is 
 will be likely to discover its counterpart and analogue 
 in the Sociology of the Kingdom. Even so we find it. 
 His Church is given by Christ two sacraments, and 
 only two ; because these are adequate to meet the two 
 great demands of society as such — namely, the need 
 that members shall be born into it, and the need that 
 for the children thus begotten and brought forth there 
 shall be food ; otherwise the grand enterprise of mak- 
 ing a people must fail. The sacrament of Baptism is 
 the sacrament of birth. The subject of it is regenerate 
 or born anew into the family of God. The sacrament 
 of Holy Communion is the sacrament of nourishment. 
 " As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the 
 Father ; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by 
 me." Certainly it ought to startle those who are to- 
 day belittling the claims of Jesus Christ upon the 
 gratitude of mankind, to note how marvellously his 
 sacramental mandates have anticipated the ripest 
 modern thought. It would appear that it is Science 
 
APPENDIX. 87 
 
 that is catching up with Christ, rather than Christ 
 who is lagging behind Science. 
 
 This is one interpretation of the significance of the 
 sacraments ; others are possible and valuable, for it is 
 the glory of visible symbolism that it combines under 
 a single outward form more shades and phases of 
 truth than can possibly be put into any single verbal 
 proposition. This particular rationale of the matter 
 seems to be the one that underlies the sacramental 
 offices of the Book of Common Prayer. It may be 
 considered as a Greek in contrast with a Latin way 
 of looking at the thing. 
 
 (c) But what of the attitude taken up by the Bishops 
 at Lambeth with reference to this whole subject ? 
 The third of the four articles that compose the Decla- 
 ration reads as follows : " The two Sacraments or- 
 dained by Christ Himself, Baptism and the Supper of 
 the Lord, ministered with unfailing use of Christ's 
 words of institution and of the elements ordained by 
 Him." 
 
 This language would seem to admit of only one 
 construction, and that a very generous one. As 
 against those who hold that no sacraments are essen- 
 tial to the unity of the Church, it is indeed exclusive ; 
 as against those who hold that sacraments other than 
 those ordained by Christ Himself are essential to the 
 unity of the Church, it is also exclusive ; but it is 
 hospitable to all who, having accepted the Scriptures 
 and assented to the primitive Creeds, are content to 
 receive and to observe Baptism and the Lord's Supper 
 
g8 APPENDIX 
 
 under the form prescribed in the New Testament. 
 The large catholicity of this way of putting the thing 
 has scarcely had justice done it thus far in the discus- 
 sion. Neither in England nor in America does there 
 seem to have been any adequate appreciation of what 
 it meant for Anglican theologians to concede so much 
 as is here conceded. That this article should have 
 been allowed to pass, as it has passed, almost without 
 challenge and as if it were the merest commonplace, is, 
 of all the surprises of which this long debate has been 
 prolific, the most surprising. When we consider how 
 the whole Anglican Communion has been, for three 
 hundred years, racked and torn by disputes as to the 
 true philosophy of the sacraments ; when we recall 
 the scores, yes, the hundreds of volumes that have been 
 written during the last half-century, to go no further 
 back, for the purpose of unfolding and establishing 
 the true theory of baptismal regeneration and eucha- 
 ristic grace, — how astonishing it is that a proposition 
 to throw theories to the wind and to rest content with 
 simply observing the mandates, leaving the blessing to 
 come in such fashion as it shall please God to send it, 
 — how amazing that, with all the facts of the past in 
 full view, such a proposition as this should have pro- 
 voked no ripple of dissent, stirred no syllable of protest! 
 One might suppose that the Church of England and its 
 sister Church in this country would have been up in 
 arms. And yet well-intentioned people by the thou- 
 sand, who do not mean to misrepresent any person or 
 any thing, go on saying that the Lambeth Declaration 
 
APPENDIX. 89 
 
 exhibits no real concession on the part of those who 
 framed it, and that it is nothing in the world but a 
 plausible device for persuading non-Episcopal Chris- 
 tians to become Episcopalians in ignorance of what 
 they are about. No concession on the part of An- 
 glicans in declaring that henceforth there shall be 
 on their part no insistence upon any theory of the 
 sacraments provided the sacraments themselves are 
 honored and their use maintained ? No concession ? 
 "Why, the history of English religion, since Elizabeth's 
 reign, shows nothing to compare with it. Think of 
 the long succession of wrangles over this subject, be- 
 ginning from the day when men were burned to death 
 for having erroneously conceived the doctrine of the 
 real presence, and coming down to the latest instance 
 of imprisonment for ritual malpractice ; recall the 
 Gorham controversy, the Hampden controversy ; re- 
 member the silencing of Pusey,the hegira of Newman; 
 refresh your recollection of the Tractarian literature ; 
 read again the Apologia and the Eirenicon; look back 
 at the genesis of the Reformed Episcopal Church, and 
 then declare, is it nothing that the leaders of the Com- 
 munion which ]ias witnessed all this fratricidal strife 
 should come forward — voluntarily come forward — 
 and declare that a man's philosophy of the sacraments 
 shall no longer be made the test of his fitness to receive 
 the sacraments ? 
 
 And yet we are continually hearing it said, on tliis 
 side and that, as the discussion proceeds, " Oh, as to 
 the first three articles of the Declaration, we need not 
 
90 APPENDIX 
 
 waste time over them, — about them we are practically 
 agreed already ; the only point worth arguing is ' the 
 historic Episcopate.' " 
 
 Now, while it is true that the question of the 
 historic Episcopate, for the reason that it touches 
 particular individuals and imports a personal element 
 into the debate, is, in a way, more interesting than 
 the questions of the Bible, the Creed, and the Sacra- 
 ments, it is not true that it is intrinsically more 
 important than they. If those who have been criticis- 
 ing the Bishops for what they " demand " in the fourth 
 article would give a little time to considering what 
 these same Bishops concede in the third, we should 
 come, all of us, into calmer mood, besides attaining, 
 or, let me say, because of our having attained, a truer 
 perspective. 
 
 But whether the Bishops of the Anglican Com- 
 munion accomplish anything for unity or not, they 
 are to be congratulated as theologians upon having 
 taken in this matter of the sacraments a position 
 which is intrinsically unassailable* 
 
 Why should we expect to know more about the 
 body spiritual than we can possibly pretend to know 
 about the body natural ? Ecclesiology ought to be 
 esteemed at least as difficult a study as Physiology. 
 If Baptism be the sacrament of birth and Holy Com- 
 munion the sacrament of nourishment, we surely ought 
 not to complain if these phenomena of the spiritual 
 order show themselves as little amenable to analyti- 
 cal treatment as do the corresponding phenomena in 
 
APPENDIX. 91 
 
 the natural order. No man, in the present state of 
 our knowledge, so much as dreams of explaining the 
 inner secrets of embryology and nutrition ; why then 
 should we expect to understand, or why should we 
 wish to force others into saying that they understand, 
 how souls are born or how spirits are fed ? It is not 
 first the spiritual and then the natural ; it is " first 
 the natural and then the spiritual." We reverse the 
 true order of the mind's progress when we grapple 
 with the hardest problems first. If the day ever 
 comes for us to understand all mysteries and all 
 knowledge, we shall doubtless, along with other 
 things, possess a complete philosophy of sacraments ; 
 but perhaps by that time we shall have got beyond 
 the need of sacraments. Lambeth, Geneva, Rome 
 will all have been forgotten. 
 
92 APPENDIX. 
 
 B. 
 
 THE PLACE OF TEMPERAMENT IN 
 RELIGION.i 
 
 The variety which characterizes men's attitudes 
 in religion is probably in the main due to diverse 
 methods of training. We think thus or so about 
 creeds, sacraments, prayers, maxims of conduct, and 
 the like, because we are brought up to think thus or 
 so about them. But allowance must also be made for 
 that mysterious background of every man's life which 
 we know as his natural temperament. The ancient 
 physicians went very deeply into this matter, or 
 thought that they did, for they not only classified 
 men according to their temperaments, but they 
 insisted that the temperaments themselves were 
 occasioned by certain humours fluent throughout the 
 body, and by their presence there determining that 
 one man should be " sanguine," another " choleric," 
 or another " melancholy," as the case might be. 
 This theory has been long dead, though the nomen- 
 clature of it survives in the usages of common 
 speech; and yet the doctrine of the four humours 
 
 1 Extract from a Sermon preached before the Faculty and Students 
 of the Divinity School at Philadelphia. 
 
APPENDIX. 93 
 
 or temperaments may be said to have something 
 that answers to it in the permanent constitution 
 of human nature. As a matter of fact, there are 
 four predominant ways of looking at things, four 
 moods or tempers that always have prevailed and 
 doubtless always will prevail to color the intercourse 
 of man with man. There are born conservatives and 
 born liberals ; nay, more than this, there are born 
 liberal-conservatives and born conservative-liberals. 
 
 These are the four temperaments. Get together 
 any considerable number of people, and set them to 
 discussing any question that touches upon human 
 conduct, whether in the political or the social or the 
 religious sphere, and every one of these several ways 
 of looking at things will be found to be present and 
 self-assertive. Under the names of " Right " and 
 " Left," " Right-centre " and " Left-centre," these dis- 
 tinctive phases of thought and feeling figure continu- 
 ally in the political life of contemporary Europe. But 
 although the names are modern, the things for which 
 they stand are not. The fourfold classification is 
 something more than a convenience ; it points to dif- 
 ferences rooted in the nature of things. To a mind of 
 the conservative cast, only such measures approve 
 themselves as have been tried and tested. What is 
 venerable is, because venerable, authentic ; newness 
 is its own condemnation. " Thus saith the Lord, 
 Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old 
 paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and 
 ye shall find rest for your souls." In tones so elo- 
 
94 APPENDIX. 
 
 quent as these, and so persuasive, can Conservatism 
 speak. 
 
 But Liberalism is not less ready. " Faith " is its 
 watchword. Those, it reminds us, have been the he- 
 roes and leaders of mankind who have had eyes given 
 them to discern the undiscovered continents of truth ; 
 who have cut loose from precedent and prescription, 
 and have struck out courageously, forgetful of the 
 past, and deaf to all old-time traditions, in the confi- 
 dent belief that safety lay in motion, and that immo- 
 bility meant death. Moreover, Liberalism can quote 
 Scripture too. Are we not, it confidently asks, the 
 children of a God who declares that He makes " all 
 things new," and is not our best hand-book of religion 
 a New Testament ? 
 
 But over and above the minds distinctly conserva- 
 tive and the minds distinctly liberal there are other 
 minds so constituted that it is impossible for them not 
 to recognize truth on both sides. They feel the charm, 
 they admit the power, they know the value, of such 
 things as ripeness and maturity ; but, at the same time, 
 they recognize all about them evidence incontrovertible 
 that man can and does better himself in a thousand 
 ways by waiting upon the untried and thrusting out 
 valiantly into the deep. Of this intermediate multi- 
 tude one half, let us say, grafts its faith in the new 
 upon its confidence in the old, while the other half 
 grafts its respect for the old upon its enthusiasm for 
 the new. To the liberal conservative the old is his 
 stand-by, the new is his half-grudging concession. To 
 
APPENDIX. 95 
 
 the conservative-liberal the new is his heart's desire, 
 while the old is something which he has learned that 
 it is dangerous to leave out of the account. These are 
 the four temperaments of man, and of these is the 
 whole earth overspread. What I have been describing 
 is no accident of the passing century, no special char- 
 acteristic of one race or people rather than another ; 
 it is a law of variation inbred in humanity as such. 
 We are born so. 
 
 The religious and ecclesiastical results of tempera- 
 ment make an interesting study. The three great 
 territorial divisions of the Church are her doctrine, 
 her governance, and her worship. She is here on earth 
 to teach, to shepherd, and to pray. The soul of man 
 needs to be instructed, it needs to be sympathized with, 
 it needs to be uplifted. Upon the Church's shoulders 
 rests the duty of meeting this threefold need : she 
 must make disciples, she must gather these disciples 
 into a flock, she must lead the flock in the green 
 pastures of devotion. As visible symbols, concrete 
 emblems of this triple ministry, we have the pulpit, 
 the pastoral staff, the altar ; these concrete tokens 
 help us to understand and appreciate the abstract 
 terms, doctrine, discipline, and worship. 
 
 But the point to be especially emphasized is this — 
 that when the four temperaments of man are brought 
 into contact and connection with the three forms of 
 the Church's activity, there ensue combinations so 
 various and so intricate that the futility as well as the 
 injustice of our current partisan vocabulary is made 
 
gg APPENDIX. 
 
 manifest at once. Take doctrine, for instance, and 
 consider how delicately shaded off, one into another, 
 are the differences that divide men in the Church. 
 
 The conservative is all for the " faith once deliv- 
 ered," " the sacred deposit," " the Catholic Creed." 
 He insists, and insists rightly, that Christianity is 
 what it is in virtue of certain disclosures made to 
 man at definite epochs in history. He maintains, 
 and maintains justly, that unless Christ's religion 
 brings us a clearly articulated message with respect 
 to subjects about which we should otherwise have 
 remained ignorant to the end of time, we are no 
 better off than the heathen, who may, if they choose, 
 guess at truth as well as we. 
 
 On the other hand, the liberal makes much of a 
 certain prophetic succession which is, to his mind, 
 quite as important as any apostolic succession possibly 
 can be to other minds. Why should we believe, he 
 asks, that progress in the attainment of spiritual 
 knowledge stopped short at the close of the first cen- 
 tury, or, if not so soon as that, then on the day of the 
 adjournment of the last of " the undisputed general 
 councils " ? Did not Christ promise his disciples the 
 assistance of an ever-present spiritual Revealer who 
 should guide them, little by little, into all the truth ? 
 So, then, the fresher any man's theology, and the 
 more nearly up to date, the better. But " Stop ! 
 Stop ! " cries the conservative-liberal ; " this will 
 never do. I grant you that ships are given sails 
 in order that they may stand out to sea, trusting 
 
APPENDIX. 97 
 
 themselves to the winds of God ; but they are also 
 equipped with anchors ; and while I am willing and 
 glad to start off with you on your voyage of discovery, 
 I refuse to step on board until you show me some evi- 
 dence of your having made provision against gales." 
 While — last and wisest of them all — the liberal-con- 
 servative insists that neither is " fixity of interpreta- 
 tion " nor yet laxity of interpretation really " of the 
 essence of the Creed," but that what is of its essence 
 is a certain marvellous adaptability, whereby it comes 
 to pass that the articles of the faith are never nega- 
 tived, but only given a fuller, deeper, and more satis- 
 fying signification, the faster the great Father of 
 Lights lets more light be poured down into this dim 
 world of his. Copernicus did not annul the first 
 paragraph of the Creed by what he proved, Newton 
 laid no violent hand upon the second, Lavoisiercaused 
 no hiatus in the third ; but the words " Maker of 
 heaven and earth," the words "He ascended into 
 heaven," and the words " the Resurrection of the 
 body," have meant more to intelligent believers since 
 these three men made their discoveries than they 
 meant before. That is what the liberal-conservative 
 has to say about it, — the man who believes in the 
 past, but not so stupidly as to keep his eyes fast shut 
 to anything that God may be revealing in the present. 
 It is easy to see that in the field of governance the 
 conservative will naturally favor whatever makes for 
 continuity of control, for regularity in the transmis- 
 sion of authority, and in general for what we know 
 
 7 
 
98 APPENDIX. 
 
 as legitimacy; that the liberal, on the other hand, 
 will smile approvingly on new methods of adminis- 
 tration, and, so that men make full proof of their minis- 
 try by showing themselves successful in the conversion 
 of souls to God, will deprecate too close a scrutiny of 
 ecclesiastical pedigrees ; that the conservative-liberal 
 will say : " Oh yes, I like this spiritual freedom ; but 
 would n't it be prudent to draw the line somewhere ? " 
 and that the liberal-conservative will respond : " Yes, 
 certainly, the line must be drawn ; but let us make it 
 just as inclusive as ever we conscientiously can. The 
 one sin which God Almighty will never forgive to any 
 portion of his Church is the sin of want of sympathy." 
 And then, again, there is worship. We can have 
 little doubt as to how the men of the different tem- 
 peraments will stand affected towards that. With the 
 conservative it will be the rubric, the whole rubric, 
 and nothing but the rubric ; with the liberal it will be 
 what he laxly calls " the rubric of common-sense." 
 The conservative-liberal will declare that he loves a 
 simple, unaffected, and, as it were, spontaneous ren- 
 dering of divine service, while yet he does not see 
 why it should not be enriched a little and made digni- 
 fied by the old traditional methods ; while the liberal- 
 conservative will argue that, supposing those who are 
 attached to the old ways in all their oldness are not 
 only allowed to have them, but are given guarantees 
 that they shall never be molested in their enjoyment 
 of them, he cannot, for the life of him, understand 
 why Anglicans should refuse Church fellowship to 
 
APPENDIX. 99 
 
 congregations of Christian folk who are ready for 
 their polity, but not quite ready for all the details 
 of their liturgy. 
 
 It might at first sight appear, from what has been 
 said, as if Churchmen might all be classified — if 
 classified they must be — under four heads ; but no, 
 the thing is far from being so simple as all this, seeing 
 that various cross-combinations are possible, conser- 
 vatism itself seeming to one conservative to demand 
 that he differ from his brother conservative in mat- 
 ters of worship while agreeing with him in questions 
 of polity, and that he agree with another on points of 
 polity while differing with him widely in his view of 
 dogma. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of only four varieties of Church- 
 manship, there may conceivably be it is difficult to 
 say how many. And what is the just inference from 
 such a conclusion ? Is it not this, — that since all 
 these manifold types of character do, as a matter 
 of fact, already co-exist amicably enough within the 
 limits of a single historic Church, there is no reason, 
 in the nature of things, why that Church should not 
 become far more truly an American Church than it 
 can truthfully boast of being now ? 
 
 Already Anglican religion is in theory hospitable 
 and inclusive; it remains for us of this new world, 
 acting under the guidance and blessing of Him who, 
 doubtless for cause, led our fathers hither, to see 
 whether we cannot translate theory into fact. 
 
100 APPENDIX. 
 
 c. 
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF IRENIC LITERATURE, 
 AMERICAN AND ENGLISH.^ 
 
 Abercrombie, R. M., D.D. Diversities of Gifts and 
 Operations Consistent with Unity of the Church. G. 
 T. S. A. A. Publications, New York, 1867. 
 
 Adams, C. Essay on Christian Union. New York, 
 1850. 
 
 Alford, Henry, D.D. Union of Christendom Con- 
 sidered in its Home Aspect. (Essays and Addresses.) 
 London, Strahan & Co., 1869. 
 
 Anon. Christian Union. (Theological Essays from the 
 Princeton Review, Series 2.) 
 
 Claims of the Church of Rome considered with 
 
 a View to Unity. London, 1850. 
 
 An Essay toward a Proposal for Catholic Union. 
 
 Dublin (reprint), 1781. 
 
 Essays concerning the Church and the Unifica- 
 
 tion of Christendom. New York, 1895. 
 — Liber Redivivus: or, the Booke of the Universal 
 Kirke Reopened. Glasgow, 1839. 
 
 Principles of Protestantism with a View to Unity. 
 
 London, 1849. 
 Schism as Opposed to Unity. London, 1839. 
 
 ^ This Bibliography has been mainly compiled by the Rev. Melville 
 K. Bailey, of Grace Chapel Settlement, New York. 
 
APPENDIX. 101 
 
 Axon. Science and the Gospel; or, The Church and the 
 Nations. London, 1870. 
 
 Scriptural Unity of Protestant Churches. Dub- 
 lin, Eobertson, 1835. 
 
 A Sure Hope of Keconciliation. London, Darling, 
 
 1849. 
 
 Unity : The Methodists and the Episcopal Church, 
 
 n. d. 
 
 Aydelott, B. p. Incidental Benefits of Denominational 
 Division : An Argument for Christian Union. Cin- 
 cinnati, Jones, 1846. 
 
 Bacon, Leonard W., D.D., History of American Chris- 
 tianity. Ch. Lit. Co., 1897. 
 
 Irenics and Polemics, with Sundry Essays in 
 
 Church History. New York, Christian Literature Co., 
 1895. 
 
 Banxerman, H. Essays on Christian Unity. London, 
 
 Hodder & Stoughton, 1871. 
 Barbour, Prof. J. H. Christian Union : Ideal, Actual, 
 
 Possible: A Sermon. Middletown, Conn., 1892. 
 Barrow, Isaac. Discourse on the Unity of the Church. 
 
 (In his Theological Works, vol. viii.) Cambridge, 
 
 1859. 
 Baxter, R. Catholic Unity. (Practical Works, vol. 
 
 xvi.) London, Duncan (reprint), 1830. 
 
 The Cure of Church Divisions. London, 1670. 
 
 A Defence of the Principles of Love. London, 1671. 
 
 True and Only Way of Concord of all Christian 
 
 Churches. London, 1680. 
 
 Beaver, James, D.D. That They All may be One : A 
 
 Sermon. Toronto, 1859. 
 Bennett, W. J. E. The Church's Broken Unity. Eive 
 
 vols. London, Hayes, n. d. 
 
102 APPENDIX. 
 
 Benscough, Kobert. a Discourse on the Unity of the 
 
 Church. Exeter, 1704. 
 BiBER, G. E., and Michelis, Eriedrich, D.D. On the 
 
 Unity of the Church and the Assembling of a Free 
 
 (Ecumenical Council. London, 1871. 
 Blenkixsopp, E. L. Reunion of the Church. (Church 
 
 and the World, p. 178.) London, Longmans, 1866. 
 Bossuet, Leibnitz, and Molanus. Their Correspon- 
 dence. See Biography of Bossuet by H. Sidney Lear, 
 
 pp. 537 ff. London, Rivingtons, 1877. 
 Bradford, Amory H., D.D. Christ and the Church. 
 
 New York, Revells, n. d. 
 Briggs, C. a., D.D. Whither? (Christian Unity, 
 
 pp. 226 ff.) New York, Scribners, 1889. 
 Brown, Erancis, D.D. Church Unity : Address. Phila- 
 delphia, 1893. 
 Bruce, J. A. The Seamless Bobe: A Sermon. London, 
 
 1865. 
 BuEL, Clarence. Christian Unity in its Relation to 
 
 Christendom and the Church, n. d. 
 The Temple and the Church. ... A Plea for 
 
 Unity. New York, 1887. 
 Burgess, Alexander, D.D., Bp. The Gathering into 
 
 the Church of the Scattered Children of God. Chicago, 
 
 1887. 
 Butler, C. M. Protestant Episcopal Doctrine and 
 
 Church Unity. New York, 1887. 
 Butler, Wm. Archer. Primitive Church Principles 
 
 not Inconsistent with Universal Christian Sympathy. 
 
 Sermon XXIV., First Series. London, Macmillan & 
 
 Co., 1866. 
 Carpenter, J. K. Healing Beams for Dim and Dis- 
 jointed Times. New York, 1868. 
 
APPENDIX. 103 
 
 Carroll, H. K., LL.D. The Keligious Forces of the 
 
 United States. New York, 1893. 
 Cazenove, J. G. Possibilities of Union : A Sermon. 
 
 London, 1865. 
 Chalmers, Thos., D.D., et al. Essays on Christian 
 
 Union. London, Hamilton, 1845. 
 Chamberlaix, L. T., D.D. Christian Unity and the 
 
 Evangelization of Philadelphia: An Address, Nov. 29, 
 
 1891. Philadelphia, n, d. 
 Chauncey, p. S. The Unity of the Church. G. T. S. 
 
 A. A. Publications. New York, 1840. 
 Church Club Lectures, 1895. Christian Unity and 
 
 the Bishops' Declaration. New York, E. & J. B. 
 
 Young, 1895. 
 Church, P. Religious Dissensions : Their Cause and 
 
 Cure. New York, Gould & Newman, 1838. 
 Church Unity. Eive Lectures delivered in the Union 
 
 Theological Seminary, New York, 1896, by the Rev. 
 
 Charles W. Shields, D.D., E. Benjamin Andrews, 
 
 D.C.L., John F. Hurst, D.D., Bp. Henry C. Potter, and 
 
 Amory H. Bradford, D.D. New York, Scribners, 1896. 
 Clark, Dorus, D.D. The Oneness of the Christian 
 
 Church. Boston, 1870. 
 Clarke, W. N., D.D. Christian Union: The Denomina- 
 tion and the Church Universal. New York, 1895. 
 Congress of Churches, The American. Meetings, 
 
 1885, 1886. Reports printed by Case, Lockwood and 
 
 Brainard, Hartford. 
 CosiN, John, D.D., Bp. Works, vol. iv. p. 466 £f.; vol. v. 
 
 p. 527 ff. Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, Ox- 
 ford, 1843. 
 CoxE, A. C, D.D., Bp. The Gradual Restoration of 
 Unity. G. T. S. A. A. Publications, New York, 1864. 
 
104 APPENDIX. 
 
 CoxE, A. C, T>.T>., Bp. The Criterion : a Means of Dis- 
 tinguishing Truth from Error in Questions of the Times ; 
 with four letters on the Eirenicon of Dr. Pusey. New- 
 York, 1866. 
 
 History and Teachings of the Early Church as a 
 
 Basis for the Eeunion of Christendom. Church Club 
 Lectures, 1888. 
 
 Crapset, Algernon Sydney. A Voice in the Wilder- 
 ness. New York, James Pott & Co., 1897. 
 
 Croft, Herbert. The Naked Truth; or, The True 
 State of the Primitive Church. London, 1675. 
 
 Crothers, Samuel McChord. " Members of One Body.'^ 
 Six Sermons preached at Unity Church, St. Paul, 
 Minn. Boston, 1892. 
 
 CuRTEis, George H., M.A. Dissent in its Eelation to 
 the Church of England. Bampton Lectures, London, 
 1872. 
 
 Dale, K. W., D.D. Christ and the Controversies of 
 Christendom. New York, Whittaker, n. d. 
 
 Davenant, John, D.D., Bp. An Exhortation to 
 Brotherly Love betwixt the Protestant Churches. 
 1641. 
 
 Davenport, J. S. Christian ^Unity and its Eecovery. 
 New York, Appleton, 1866. 
 
 Dawson, W. J. The Church of To-morrow. (Addresses.) 
 New York, 1892. 
 
 Dix, Morgan, S.T.D. Thoughts on the Lost Unity of 
 the Christian World, and Steps to Eecovery. New 
 York, 1864. 
 
 Dollinger, J. H., D.D. Lectures on the Eeunion of 
 the Churches. Translated by Eev. H. N. Oxenham. 
 London, Eivingtons, 1872. 
 
 DuGGAN, Father. Steps toward Eeunion. London, 1898. 
 
APPENDIX. 105 
 
 Earbury, Matthias. Principles of Church Unity Con- 
 sidered, in which it is proved that Catholic Bishops 
 are the Centre of Unity. London, 1716. 
 
 Earle, W. The Keunion of Christendom in Apostolic 
 Succession for the Evangelization of the World. Lon- 
 don, Elliot Stock, 1895. 
 
 Edson, Theodore, D.D. Principles of Christian Union: 
 A Sermon. Erederickton, 1853. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, D.D. Attempt to Promote Ex- 
 plicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People. 
 Elizabethtown, 1794. 
 
 Essays ox Christian Union by Thos. Chalmers, D.D., 
 Eobt. Palmer, D.D., Eobt. S. Candlish, D.D., Rev. 
 John Angell James, David King, LL.D., Ralph Ward- 
 law, D.D., Gavin Struthers, D.D., and Andrew Syming- 
 ton, D.D. London, 1845. 
 
 Evangelical Alliance. 
 
 Proceedings, London, 1846. London, 1847. 
 Proceedings, Geneva, 1861. Edinburgh, 1862. 
 Proceedings, Amsterdam, 1867. London, 1868. 
 Proceedings, New York, 1873. New York, 1874. 
 Proceedings, Copenhagen, 1884. London, 1885. 
 History, Essays, Orations, 1873. New York, 1874. 
 Religious Condition of Christendom. London, 1852. 
 Religious Condition of Christendom. London, 1859. 
 Religious Condition of Christendom. London, 1880. 
 Christendom from the Standpoint of Italy. London, 
 1891. 
 
 Federation of Churches of New York. Annual Re- 
 ports, 1895, 1896, 1897. 
 
 Forrester, II. Cliristian Unity and the Historic Epis- 
 copate. New York, 1889. 
 
106 APPENDIX. 
 
 FrouLKES, E. S., B.D. Christendom's Divisions ; being a 
 Philosophical Sketch of the Divisions of the Christian 
 Family in East and West. London, 1865-7. 
 
 EuLTON, John, D.D., LL.D. Letters on Christian Unity. 
 -New York, 1869. 
 
 The Chalcedonian Decree, or Historical Christianity 
 
 confirmed by Modern Science and untouched by Modern 
 Criticism. New York, Whittaker, 1892. 
 
 Gallagher, Mason. To keep the Unity of the Spirit 
 demands an Endeavor : A Sermon. Kingston, 1864. 
 
 The Unity of the Spirit, not Unbroken Episcopal 
 
 Succession, the Eevealed Bond of Peace to the Church. 
 Kew York, 1865. 
 
 The Primitive Eirenicon. New York, 1868. 
 
 Gladden, Washington, D.D. The Christian League of 
 
 Connecticut. New York, Century Co., 1883. 
 Gleig, R. G. The Great Problem — Can it be Solved ? 
 
 Edinburgh, Blackwood, 1876. 
 Gorton, B. Primitive Christianity Eevived: Visible 
 
 Ordinances, Sects, and Denominations Done away. 
 
 Troy, Moffitt & Lyon, 1804. 
 Granger, Erancis. Plea and Plan for Christian Unity. 
 
 Buffalo, 1885. 
 Grindelwald Conference. Reports, passim. 
 Hall, A. G. Unity in the Truth Binding upon the 
 
 People of God : A Sermon. Rochester, 1854. 
 Hall, P. The Harmony of Protestant Confessions. 
 
 London, Shaw, 1842. 
 Hall, Robert. On Terms of Communion. (In his 
 
 Works.) London, 1831. 
 Hamlin, T. S., D.D. Denominationalism versus Chris- 
 tian Union. New York, Revell, 1891. 
 
APPENDIX. 107 
 
 Hammond, Joseph. Church or Chapel: An Eirenicon. 
 
 London, Gardner, Darton, & Co., 1890. 
 Hankey, W. B. Wrong Done by Disunion to God. 
 
 London, 1887. 
 Hare, J. C. The Means of Unity: A Charge to the 
 
 Clergy. London, Parker, 1847. 
 Hakper, T. Unity of the Church. (In his "Peace 
 
 through the Truth.'') London, Burns & Gates, n. d. 
 Harris, J. Union; or, The Divided Church made 
 
 Whole. London, 1850. 
 Hook, W. F. A Call to Union on the Principles of the 
 
 English Eeformation. New York, Rufus Dawes, 
 
 1843. 
 Hort, F. J. A., D.D. The Christian Ecclesia. London, 
 
 Macmillan, 1897. 
 HuNTiNGTOx, W. E., D.D. The Church Idea: An Essay 
 
 towards Unity. New York, Scribners, 1899. 
 Peace of the Church. (Bohlen Lectures, 1891.) 
 
 New York, Scribners, 1891. 
 
 The Talisman of Unity: A Sermon. New York, 
 
 Whittaker, 1899. 
 
 Kenrick, F. p., R. C, Bp. of Arath. (Coadjut. Phila.) 
 Letters on Christian Union to B. B. Smith, Bp. of Ken- 
 tucky. Philadelphia, 1836. 
 
 Kettlewell, S. Inquiry into the Basis of True Chris- 
 tian Unity. 2 vols., London, Wells, Gardner, & Co. 
 
 Kidder, P. P. Unity of the Church : Our Work in its 
 Restoration : A Sermon. Dunkirk, N. Y, 1872. 
 
 Kidney, J. S. The Unification of the Church and the 
 Unification of Unbelief. Albany, 1870. 
 
 Knox, Alexander. Letter: On the Impossibility of 
 Union between the Churches of England and Rome. 
 (In his Works, vol. iii.) London, Duncan, 1837. 
 
108 APPENDIX. 
 
 Lambeth Confeeence. FroGeedings, 1878, 1888, 1897. 
 
 Leaf, Edmund. Christian Oneness : A Sermon. Phila- 
 delphia, 1857. 
 
 Lee, r. G. (Editor). Essays on the Keunion of Chris- 
 tendom, by Members of the Roman Catholic, Oriental, 
 and Anglican Commanions. With an Introductory 
 Essay by E. B. Pusey, D.D. London, Masters, 1867. 
 
 Lewis, W. H., D.D. Christian Union and the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church in its Eelation to Church Unity. 
 New York, Harriman, 1858. 
 
 Lindsay, Alexander, Lord. (Ecumenicity in relation 
 to the Church of England. London, John Murray, 
 1870. 
 
 McCrie, Thomas. The Unity of the Church, her Divi- 
 sions, and their Removal. Edinburgh, Blackwood, 
 1821. 
 
 McElhinney, J. J., D.D. The Doctrine of the Church : A 
 Historical Monograph. Philadelphia, Claxton, Rem- 
 sen, & Haeffelfinger, 1871. 
 
 McIlvaine, C. p., D.D., Bp. The Holy Catholic Church ; 
 or. The Communion of Saints in the Mystical Body of 
 Christ. Philadelphia, 1844. 
 
 McKime, R. H., D.D. Leo XIII. at the Bar of History. 
 A Discussion of the Papal Plan for Christian Unity. 
 
 McNeile, H. The Church and the Churches. London, 
 1847. 
 
 Manning, Henry Edward, Cardinal. England and 
 Christendom. London, 1867. 
 
 Reunion of Christendom. London, Longmans, 
 
 1866. 
 
 Unity of the Church. London, 1842. 
 
 Mason, Arthur James, D.D. The Principles of Eccle- 
 siastical Unity. London, Longmans, 1896. 
 
Ari^KNDIX. 109 
 
 Mason, Johx M. A Plea for Sacramental Communion 
 on Catholic Principles. New York, 1816. 
 
 Massie, J. W. The Evangelical Alliance: Its Origin 
 and Development, London, 1847. 
 
 IMaurice, F. D. The Kingdom of Christ. London, 
 1838. 
 
 On the Unity of the Church. (Theol. Essays, pp. 
 
 375-403.) London, Macmillan, 1853. 
 
 MoEHLER, John Adam, D.D. Symbolism. London, 
 
 1843. (Translated from the German.) 
 Moore, F. L. Christian Unity : A Sermon. New York, 
 
 1792. 
 Newman, F. W. Catholic Union. London, Chapman & 
 
 Hall, n. d. 
 Newman, J. H., Cardinal. Tract XC. 
 
 A Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey on his recent 
 
 "^^ Eirenicon.^^ London, 1866. 
 
 O'Neil, Simeon Wilberforce. Christian Unity. 
 London, Hayes, 1879. 
 
 OvERBECK, J. J. Catholic Orthodoxy and Anglo- 
 Catholicism. London, Trlibner, 1860. 
 
 Pamphleteer, The. Irenicum, or the Peacemaker. 
 Richmond, 1819-20. 
 
 Parkhurst, Charles H., D.D. First Steps toward 
 Christian Unity. Two Studies: I. The Body of 
 Christ. II. Members One of Another. New York, 
 n. d. 
 
 Perry, W. S., D.D., Bp. Office for the Unity of the 
 Whole Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, n. d. 
 
 Plumptre, E. H., D.D. Christ and the Kingdom. 
 (Boyle Lectures, 1866.) London, Strahan, 1867. 
 
 Potter, E. N., D.D. Christian Union. Baccalaureate 
 Sermon. Bethlehem, Pa., 1890. 
 
110 APPENDIX. 
 
 Potter, Henry C, D.V., Bp. In Church Club Lec- 
 tures, 1895. 
 
 Presbyterian Church (General Assembly). Corre- 
 spondence between the Committee on Christian Unity 
 of the . . . and the Commission on Christian Unity of 
 the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church in the United States. Philadelphia, 1896. 
 
 Eeport on Correspondence with the Protestant Epis- 
 copal Commission. Philadelphia, 1896. 
 
 Preston, T. S. Christian Unity. (Lectures.) New 
 York, Sadliers, 1867. 
 
 Prime, S. I., D.D. The Ten Days' Conference of the 
 Evangelical Alliance at Amsterdam, 1867. 
 
 Pusey, E. B., D.D. The Church of England a Portion of 
 Christ's one Holy Catholic Church, and a Means of 
 Restoring Visible Unity : An Eirenicon. In a Letter 
 to the Author of the Christian Year. London, Kiving- 
 tons, 1865. 
 
 = Eirenicon, Part II. First Letter to the Very Eev. J. 
 
 H. Newman. Written 1866, published 1869. Kiving- 
 tons. 
 
 Eirenicon, Part III. Is Healthful Eeunion Impos- 
 sible ? A Second Letter to the Very Rev. J. H. New- 
 man. London, Rivingtons, 1870. 
 
 Essays on Reunion. The Introductory Essay. (In 
 
 his Minor Works.) London, 1867. 
 
 Ranney, D. H. The Evangelical Church. True Grounds 
 for Union of the Saints. Woodstock, Vt., 1840. 
 
 Reed, Edward. Christian Unity ; A Sermon. Charles- 
 ton, 1847. 
 
 Reid, Gilbert. The Reunion of Christendom as it 
 appears to a Foreign Missionary. New York, Re veil, 
 1897. 
 
APPENDIX. Ill 
 
 PvEuscH, Fr. Heim, D.D. Eeport of the Union Confer- 
 ences lield at Bonn, August 10-lG, 1865, under the 
 Presidency of Dr. Von Dollinger. Tr. by Samuel Buell. 
 New York, Whittaker, 1875. 
 
 X Saxcta Clara, Franciscus (Christopher Daven- 
 port). Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles. Lyons, 
 1G34. 
 
 DE Sayres, J. Christian Reunion. (Hulsean Lecture, 
 1880.) St. John^s, N. B., 1888. 
 
 Saywell, William. Means of Union. London, 1681. 
 
 Evangelical Unity. London, 1682. 
 
 ScARTH, H. M. Church Unity : A Sermon. Bath, Eng., 
 187L 
 
 ScHAFF, Philip, D.D., LL.D. Report of his Mission 
 to Europe in belialf of the Alliance. New York, 
 1870. 
 
 Creeds of Christendom. New York, Harpers, 1877. 
 
 Harmony of the Reformed Confessions. (Separately 
 
 printed.) New York, 1877. 
 
 The Reunion of Christendom. New York, 1893. 
 
 ScHMUCKER, S. S., D.D. The True Unity of Christ's 
 
 Church, with a Plan for Christian Union. New York, 
 Randolph, 1870. 
 
 Sermons, on the Reunion of Christendom, by Members of 
 the Roman Catholic, Oriental, and Anglican Commu- 
 nions. London, 1864. 
 
 Seward, Thomas F. A Brotherhood of Christian Unity. 
 South Orange, N. J., 1891. 
 
 Seymour, George F., S.T.D., Bp. The Historic Epis- 
 copate: a Contribution towards Church Unity, New 
 York, Church Unity Quarterly, I. 1, October, 1892. 
 
 Sheraton, J. P., Prin. The Lambeth Conference and 
 Christian Unity, 1888. Toronto, n. d. 
 
112 APPENDIX. 
 
 Sherlock, William, D.D. A Discourse about Church 
 
 Unity. London, 1681. 
 Shields, Charles W., D.D. The Historic Episcopate: 
 
 An Essay on the Four Articles of Church Unity. New 
 
 York, 1894. 
 
 The United Church of the United States. New 
 
 York, Scribners, 1895. 
 
 Smith, H. B. The State of Eeligion in the U. S. A. 
 Eeport to the Evangelical Alliance. New York, 
 1868. 
 
 Christian Union and Ecclesiastical Eeunion: A 
 
 Discourse. New York, 1869. 
 
 Smith, J. C, D.D. The Church's Mission of Eeconcilia- 
 tion: A Sermon. New York, 1880. 
 
 Spry, J. H. Christian Union Doctrinally and Histori- 
 cally Considered. (Bampton Lectures, 1816.) Ox- 
 ford, Parker, 1817. 
 
 DE Starck, Baron. The Eeunion of the Different 
 Christian Communions. Baltimore, Kelley & Piet, 
 1868. 
 
 Stevens, Wm. Bacox, D.D., LL.D., Bp. The Lambeth 
 Conference of 1878. Philadelphia, 1879. 
 
 Stillingfleet, Edward, D.D., Bp. Irenicum: A 
 Weapon Salve for the Church's Wounds. London, 
 1659. 
 
 Stone, J. S. The Church Universal. New York, 1846. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, D.D., Bp. Liberty of Prophesying. 
 London, 1647. 
 
 Tenison, Thos., D.D., Abp. An Argument of Union. 
 (Dissent.) London, 1718. 
 
 Thompson, Edward H. Eemarks on Certain Anglican 
 Theories of Unity. London, 1847. 
 
 The Unity of the Episcopate. London, 1847. 
 
APPENDIX. 113 
 
 UssHER, James, Abp. The Reduction of Episcopacy into 
 the Form of Synodical Government Received in the 
 Ancient Church. London, 1656. 
 
 Vail, T. D., D.D., Bp. The Comprehensive Church, 
 or Christian Unity and Ecclesiastical Union. Hartford, 
 Huntington, 1841. 
 
 Van Dyck, A. An Argument for the Abolition of Sects. 
 New York, 1835. 
 
 Wainwright, J. M., D.D., Bp. Plea for Unity: A Ser- 
 mon, n. d. 
 
 Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dupin. Their 
 Correspondence. Appendix of Maclaine's Edition of 
 Mosheim's Church History. 
 
 Ward, W. G. The Ideal of a Christian Church con- 
 sidered in Comparison with Existing Practice. London, 
 Toovey, 1844. 
 
 Ward, W. G., and Littledale, R. F., D.D. Corporate 
 Union, not Individual Secession : Two Sermons. Lon- 
 don, 1868. 
 
 Warrex, D. F., D.D. Christian Union: A Sermon. 
 Philadelphia, 1881. 
 
 Whately, Richard, D.D., Abp. Thoughts on the Pro- 
 posed Evangelical Alliance. London, 1846. 
 
 The Kingdom of Christ Delineated. New York, 
 
 Wiley & Putnam, 1848. 
 
 Whipple, H. B., D.D.,Bp. Christian Union: A Lecture. 
 New York, 1875. 
 
 Wilson, H. B. The Communion of Saints : An Attempt 
 to Illustrate the True Principles of Christian Union. 
 (Bampton Lecture, 1851.) Oxford, 1851. 
 
 Schemes of Christian Comprehension. London, 
 
 Parker &Co., 1857. 
 
 8 
 
114 APPENDIX. 
 
 Wordsworth, Charles, D.C.L., Bp. The Principles 
 
 of " Episcopalianism " as a Basis of Christian Eeunion. 
 London, Eivingtons, 1867. 
 Wordsworth, Christopher, D.D., Bp. Public Appeals 
 on Behalf of Christian Unity. Edinburgh, Macmillan, 
 
 1887. 
 Worrell, J. B. Christian Union: A Sermon. Kingston, 
 
 1864. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 ■J"'' 
 
 
 iiiH 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A. 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
 0039194280 
 
 (\ BRiniE DO NOT 
 ^ PHOTOCOPY