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 L I E) RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N 1 VERS ITY 
 
 or ILLl NOIS
 
 A FEW WORDS 
 
 ON / 
 
 THE SPIRIT IN WHICH MEN ARE MEETING 
 
 THE 
 
 PRESENT CRISIS IN THE CHURCH. 
 A LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 ROUNDELL PALMER, Esq. Q.C, M.P. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. EDWARD MONRO, M.A. 
 
 INCUMBENT OF HARROW WEALD, MIDDLESEX. 
 
 OXFORD AND LONDON, 
 JOHN HENRY PARKER. 
 
 MDCCCL.
 
 PRINTED BY HOBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLTN, 
 
 Great New Street, Fetter Lane.
 
 A LETTER, &c. 
 
 MY DEAR MR. PALMER, 
 
 In a moment of agitation and difficulty like the 
 present, any one may be excused offering some 
 suggestions and advice, if at least, as in my own 
 case, he has been asked to do it. 
 
 Having taken no pubhc part in the questions 
 which have occupied the attention of men in re- 
 cent discussions, educational or ecclesiastical, and 
 having simply viewed them from a distance, I may 
 be perhaps able to form a more unprejudiced opi- 
 nion on some points connected with their agita- 
 tion than many of those who have been more per- 
 sonally engaged- And I address myself to you 
 from the conviction forced on me by your recent 
 acts, of your abihty and will to aid and advise in 
 the present juncture of the relations of Church 
 and State. 
 
 Two great questions are before us, and a large 
 body of the clergy are feeling strongly on both. 
 The first is the conduct of the Committee of Privy 
 Council on Education ; and the second, the late 
 decision of the Judicial Committee. I will here 
 say a few words in passing on the first, and that 
 only because I feel that its discussion has very
 
 4 
 
 much excited and soured men's minds, and left 
 them in possession of too small an amount of 
 patience and calmness to meet to advantage the 
 second and more real danger. 
 
 In a crisis like the present, the clergy have their 
 proper part to perform, very distinct from that of 
 either the legislator or the lawyer. It appears to 
 me that the clergy in deserting the former, and 
 intruding on the latter, would much hinder an 
 effective and successful struggle. The political 
 mode of attack on matters such as those before 
 us is very alien from that religious temper which 
 they especially are bound to cultivate ; I am, 
 of course, aware that there have been periods of 
 ecclesiastical history when men of eminently holy 
 calling did do battle with the State with political 
 weapons ; but leaving for the present the consi- 
 deration of such cases, I feel that in the impend- 
 ing crisis and under existing circumstances amongst 
 us, our weight must be a moral one, applied through 
 the mass of the people in our respective spheres, 
 and thus indirectly brought to bear on the opera- 
 tions of those who are immediately and more fitly 
 engaged in the proximate struggle with the civil 
 power. We see, on the contrary, a large body of 
 the clergy earnest in the education of the poor 
 and in the consideration of the machinery neces- 
 sary for the achievement of that education, engaged 
 in a close political struggle on the subject. To the 
 conditions imposed by Government to the accepta- 

 
 5 
 
 tion by the clergy of grants to further that end, 
 they have naturally and properly objected, and no 
 true Churchman can do otherwise than dissent 
 from the imposition of such terms on Church Edu- 
 cation. But do not many seem inclined to create 
 difficulties, and to aggravate, in some degree, exist- 
 ing troubles ? 
 
 We are not tied in the Education question by 
 any compulsory shackle, and we need not accept 
 a single term from Government, if we are willing 
 to devote that amount of self-denial and energy to 
 our work which our calling lays upon us. Per- 
 sonal exertion and a small amount of self-sacrifice 
 would far more than make up for the absence of 
 the pecuniary aid which we should reject. It 
 might surprise many, on a slight consideration, to 
 find at how small a sacrifice of income and time 
 the school of a village, or even town parish, might 
 be started and worked by a clergyman himself, with- 
 out accepting one farthing of Government grants : 
 and if it be pleaded that it is necessary to offer 
 the kind of opposition which has been made on 
 the ground of there being so large a majority of 
 the clergy whose means are small, powers mode- 
 rate, and energy slight, and who consequently do 
 and will fall back on Government grants ; I an- 
 swer, that the number will be very small indeed 
 who could not raise enough to keep a school 
 going, with a master of moderate abilities, if he 
 personally would consider himself tied to his parish
 
 in such a way as would be necessary for taking 
 an active part in the management of those schools ; 
 and with regard to lack of powers and energy, the 
 number must be indeed small who lack the power 
 to instruct a school of poor children ; while the 
 absence of energy will generally be a fault rather 
 than a misfortune. 
 
 To accept grants, therefore, which necessitate 
 agitation to guard them when accepted, seems 
 scarcely justifiable, when the consequences are 
 such as we have in many respects to regret. As 
 I said, -it appears very much like creating diffi- 
 culties or exaggerating evils already existing. Of 
 course, I am not blaming men for contending stren- 
 uously for freedom for the operations of the Church, 
 and release from civil thraldom ; but simply assert- 
 ing that the Church need not just now place her- 
 self in such a position with regard to the State as 
 to need to make such protests, and so bear a part 
 in weaving the chain of her own captivity. In too 
 many cases lack of energy has forged this fetter 
 for ourselves, and when we feel its pressure we 
 complain of it, forgetting that it is nearly self- 
 imposed. Parochial education is the work of the 
 parochial clergy with assistants, and the pecuniary 
 nerve it needs should be the work of the laity. It 
 is not the work of Government, and Government 
 may naturally expect the Church to do her own 
 work ; and as she does not do it, may throw back 
 on her clergy their complaints.
 
 The truth is, there is a taste abroad for po- 
 litical agitation, which too much compromises the 
 dignity and calmness of the clerical character. 
 The platform and even Church union pander too 
 much to the love of oratorical display, debate, 
 and disputation ; and secret love of pre-eminence 
 and distinction are too strong temptations in this 
 mode of operation : all this paralyses the moral 
 judgment, lowers the holy calling, and unfits 
 men to meet those distressing shocks which in 
 this day we shall be called upon to encounter. 
 It produces an irritable and petulant mood, in- 
 stead of the calm moderation which, while consist- 
 ent with our vocation, is far more likely to offer a 
 successful opposition to hostile efforts. 
 
 Much of this was apparent in the meeting 
 lately held at Willis's Rooms ; and some of those 
 very evils were brought under the notice of 
 those present. One could scarcely avoid being 
 struck with something too like irreverence in the 
 course of the free discussion of these topics by 
 the clergy. The frequent introduction of mat- 
 ter ill-suited to the platform, the mode in which 
 such statements were received by an excited audi- 
 ence, left behind an impression of great lack of 
 religious reverence. Men were driven to feel, in 
 the case of clerical speeches, that when the speech 
 was clerical it was out of keeping with the place ; 
 and when it was political, and consequently con- 
 sistent, it was out of keeping with the speaker.
 
 8 
 
 Overstatement and exaggeration have a pecu- 
 liar tendency to destroy true dignity : moral dig- 
 nity is essentially dependent on truth : and the 
 almost necessary consequence of such meetings is 
 overstatement ; and that peculiarly from the clergy, 
 who are unused to disciplined oratory from the 
 very irresponsible nature of parochial addresses, 
 and are naturally inclined to exaggerated statements 
 from the transcendental nature of the subjects they 
 teach ; while the lawyer's statements, arguments, 
 and oratory are alike restrained within the limits 
 imposed by law. The imputation to Government, 
 either stated or implied, of intentions with regard 
 to the education of the people, which no one in a 
 calm moment can imagine they are actuated by ; 
 as well as a large amount of attack on individuals 
 which reflected far too severely upon either their 
 motives or their acts, alike opened the meeting to 
 the charge of exaggeration and consequent absence 
 of sufficient dignity. The speeches which espe- 
 cially on that occasion seemed effective and in place 
 were those of laymen, and especially of lawyers. 
 Those present could not but feel that there was a 
 mistake somewhere in the majority of speeches, and 
 could hardly go away from scenes of the kind with- 
 out being in some degree unsettled and irritated. 
 
 It was impossible to avoid the conviction that 
 the object for which we had gathered, — the educa- 
 tion of the poor, — would have been far better at- 
 tained by each clergyman present having been em-
 
 9 
 
 ployed in educating his own school-children, and 
 thereby undermining Kneller Hall, and unrivet- 
 ing, link by hnk, the chain of Government grants. 
 I do not mean that the work of education would 
 have been so much advanced by the devotion of 
 that one day : but when we consider the unsettled 
 temper produced by it ; the outlay necessary on 
 the journey ; the habit it tended to form, of making 
 the metropolis a battle-field instead of the sphere 
 allotted to us in our parishes, it did seem that 
 the true work of education was being deterred 
 and injured rather than advanced. I do not say 
 that no such protest should have been made, or 
 no such meeting held ; but that it was more in 
 the province of other men than of clergymen. 
 I suppose that, in some cases, on that day alone, 
 the outlay on railroad journeys, and other attend- 
 ant expenses, would have gone far to defray the 
 necessary cost of a village-school for a quarter of 
 the year. The great points of attack were, the 
 establishment of Kneller Hall and the opening 
 out of the Government tactics. But if, in every 
 parish, the clergy were already forming the minds 
 of their children by daily and hourly instruc- 
 tion, and strongly impregnating them with the 
 teaching of the Church, the Government scheme 
 would become a skeleton, as far as Church edu- 
 cation is concerned, and Kneller Hall would fall 
 to pieces for lack of ground for its students to 
 occupy ; we shall snatch from the civil hand the
 
 10 
 
 sword with which the wound is threatened, the 
 moment we are resolutely occupying our own 
 ground, and we shall march forth, as Israel of old, 
 not only released from our captivity, but laden 
 with the spoils of our foe. 
 
 I feel that we are in danger of meeting the Ju- 
 dicial-Committee question in an equally disadvan- 
 tageous manner. The centralisation in London of 
 many of our influential parochial clergy through- 
 out a great part of the winter, seems unnecessary ; 
 and is it certain that the floors of Church unions 
 are the best battle-fields for our clergy to engage 
 on with Government? It must be a matter of 
 regret to see continually men called away from 
 home, and threading the streets of the metro- 
 polis, to discuss for hours questions of business 
 which would be far better discussed and arranged 
 by lawyers, who would be incalculably strengthened 
 in such struggle by the moral weight of a clergy 
 in their own spheres, leavening and forming the 
 mass of society all over England. We want to see 
 men at their posts, and each one doing his own 
 work, and there will be far better hope that each 
 work will be then done effectually. The interfer- 
 ence of the clergy in legal matters much distracts 
 effective operations, and wastes time; and we should 
 dread the charge brought against us : " You are 
 earnest in a battle to gain freedom of teaching for 
 the Church, when, by absence from your posts, it 
 is possible in your spheres the Church is scarcely
 
 11 
 
 teaching at all." What, in fact, must become of 
 many daily services and village-schools, when a 
 whole winter campaign has been spent by clergy in 
 the metropolis ? I should imagine that the con- 
 viction on the minds of those who have adopted 
 this line of warfare is, that an unsatisfactory 
 spirit of irritability has been excited, instead of 
 that calm and sobered tone which befits their 
 office. In brief, political agitation is not the wea- 
 pon of the clergy, and the question remains. To 
 whom does it belong? I imagine, and I ask 
 you is it not, rather to lawyers, by whose coun- 
 sel the Church will be directed generally in 
 some systematic movement, and through whom, 
 as her organ, she will deal with the powers 
 of the State. The present necessary agitation 
 must, as in matters of private life, take more or 
 less the form of a matter of business in the eyes of 
 the world ; and surely such men are far the most 
 competent to conduct and guide it with dignity 
 and prudence. They will digest such counsels as 
 they receive from ecclesiastical bodies throughout 
 the country, and communicate with them accord- 
 ingly. The State will thus come to know accu- 
 rately the condition of the mind of the Church, and 
 many fruitless labours will be avoided. I should 
 be glad to see a body of well-selected lawyers 
 retained as a counsel to the Church for the pre- 
 sent, but not hampered unnecessarily by the pre- 
 sence of the clergy at their meetings.
 
 12 
 
 In matters of private life, individuals trust life 
 and fortune in such hands with confidence; and 
 in coniiex'wii with ecclesiastical synods elsewhere 
 surely the Church may do the same to advantage. 
 In union with a deep and wise resistance, we 
 might then be exhibiting a calmness which poli- 
 ticians would not fail to be struck with. 
 
 There have been days when the clergy have 
 presented the picture I am contending for; and 
 when, in their own spheres, they awaited the burst- 
 ing of the gathering storm, and threw the whole 
 onus of attack on the civil power. And if we 
 imagine the details of such a position, we cannot 
 be long in seeing the beauty and advantage of it. 
 One feature would be that of the clergy meeting 
 synodically and religiously in their respective arch- 
 deaconries and deaneries, far more suitable to the 
 gravity of their character than the hurried journey 
 to London ; none of them being for more than an 
 hour or two beyond the call of their parishioners. 
 
 In any case of agitation such as the present 
 one, the vicinity of his parish would strikingly aid 
 a clergyman in the accomplishment of his aim ; he 
 would speak and counsel with ten times the wis- 
 dom and reality if he were just fresh from those 
 scenes which make his protest important. From 
 the parish school, where he had been that morning 
 at work among his baptised children, he would 
 plead with a force for their condition, which must 
 be to a great degree lost when he has committed
 
 13 
 
 them to the daily keeping of another, while he at 
 a distance speaks of education as a theory, and the 
 parochial school as a system separate from himself. 
 A life led among the children whose Catholic edu- 
 cation he asserts, would give his manner and pre- 
 sence a gravity and dignity which reality always 
 invests men with, much superior to the excitement 
 merely produced by meditating on an injury. And 
 in a still higher degree would the daily ministra- 
 tion of the church shed a dignity, a calm and holy 
 power over the minister of God, if he met his fel- 
 lows in a meeting convened by authority, with the 
 echoes of holy words still lingering in his ears : 
 daily prayer and communion are the high work of 
 the priest ; it is his life, and, apart from that, he 
 is bereft of part of his nature. The performance 
 of high ministrations in his own parish, and sur- 
 rounded with his people, invests him with a power 
 he cannot spare ; it not only gives weight to his 
 example and judgment, but it adds actual wisdom 
 to his deliberation and counsel. The meeting of 
 clergy under these circumstances, and in this close 
 connexion with their own spheres of action, would 
 bear a very different aspect to what we do see. 
 And the enemy with whom we have to contend 
 would far more respect us and fear our power, if 
 we were thus offering a firm opposition to their 
 aggression, by remaining calmly at our post, and 
 awaiting in faith and hope the outburst of the 
 storm.
 
 14 
 
 We have a sphere of our own, weapons of our 
 own, aims of our own ; and we are not acting 
 wisely while we throw them aside, and attempt to 
 struggle with weapons formed to fit the hands of 
 warriors of another kind. And in those periods of 
 the history of our own branch of the Church which 
 pecuHarly bring before the mind the picture of 
 calmness, dignity, retirement, and holiness among 
 her clergy, the men who wore that aspect were 
 men who were taking the line which is here sug- 
 gested. In the crises of the reigns of James II., 
 or William III., or in the biographies of holy men 
 who have been lights in their own dark days, we 
 find distinct traces of this kind of life and action. 
 It is this very feeling which is thrown like a mantle 
 round such names as Nicholas Ferrar, Bishop Ken, 
 and Bishop Wilson, names which suggest feelings 
 which are explicable by no words, because it was 
 one which was the result of deep, and true, and 
 unobtrusive reality. It was necessary perhaps for 
 a very few of those painfully called to it to mix 
 themselves with the more immediate and proxi- 
 mate contests ; but their arms were upheld amid 
 a life of fasting and prayer in the scenes of the 
 busy world, by the strenuous and unwearying work 
 of the mass of the clergy in their homes and pa- 
 rishes ; in fact, days of political crisis were days of 
 more than usual parochial effort — of renewed daily 
 prayer and communion. We want that again. 
 
 This line will compel the enemy to act on the
 
 15 
 
 aggressive, and throw on them the onus of strife. 
 We have a commission and a calHng ; we are bent 
 on fulfilling it, and we wait for the attempt to move 
 us one inch from the ground we are bound and 
 determined to occupy, to shew how firmly the bar- 
 rier can be opposed between lawful and unlawful 
 interference. There is a wide difference between 
 making an attack, which, from various accidents, 
 may be a despised one, and being found resolutely 
 at our post, determined to abide there despite the 
 most daring efforts which may be used to drive us 
 from it. The latter position gives an impression 
 of single intention, reality, and truth, which are 
 truly formidable to the view of any hostile body. 
 
 A crisis is plainly at hand for the Church, and 
 one in which she will require all the devotion and 
 heart of the people of England : these will be her 
 strength ; with these the struggle must be victori- 
 ous, and we may defy our enemies to do their 
 worst. But it is a painful truth that at this mo- 
 ment the Church has not got the hearts of the 
 gi'eat mass of our people. No religious energy has 
 thoroughly or unitedly gained possession of them. 
 If any, the Church has not. The mould in which 
 they are formed is rather that of the Puritan than 
 the Catholic, Dissent than the Church. The slum- 
 ber of the Church for two centuries ; the activity 
 and earnestness of schismatic bodies ; the slowness 
 of English character in realising religious energy 
 at all ; the peculiar tone of the English clergy, and
 
 16 
 
 the mistaken line they have generally taken of 
 merging the parish priest in the member of society ; 
 all help to account for this fact. But it is a fact. 
 We cannot look around and think for a moment 
 that the religious mind of our people is one which 
 leans consciously on the life of sacraments, daily 
 prayer, and absolution. The feature of their reli- 
 gious energy is the substitution of preaching and 
 informality, unreserved religious conversation, and 
 the like, in their place : in fact Puritan, and not 
 Catholic. In many places the Church, as a sepa- 
 rate body from the State, will not be recognised 
 and understood by the people; and the actual pos- 
 session of the Church fabric, and the post of office, 
 will go far, very far, to satisfy them, though half 
 the creed were expunged, and the virtue of sacra- 
 ments denied. The result of this would be, that 
 in many cases the introduction of a corrupt faith 
 and corrupt teachers, representing the Church, and 
 occupying the ground of an Establishment, would 
 gain the ears and interests of the multitude. But 
 in a crisis like the present, all depends on the 
 Church having the hearts of the people ; and we 
 may not, we dare not, rest satisfied with a general 
 natural religion amongst the population. It is 
 manifest that this evil can only be remedied by an 
 enormous self-devotion on the part of the clergy, 
 and a sacrifice of time they have never thought 
 of before ; a sacrifice which, if it involves that of 
 health and life too, is worthy of such a result ; for
 
 17 
 
 we are in a difficulty of no ordinary importance, 
 and our lives and death were pledged at the altar 
 of our ordination. Whatever call there is for self- 
 sacrifice at the time of a prevailing and infectious 
 plague, whatever risk of life and death is to be 
 run at such periods, the same must be entered 
 upon now, when the cause of the whole Church 
 is at stake. 
 
 We must not shrink from doing our duty, 
 whatever that may cost ; if we do, we are un- 
 worthy of our calling, and incur as much the 
 contempt and censure of an indignant people as 
 would the regiments which swerved before the 
 batteries of their country's enemies. And there is, 
 I fear, much of such shrinking around us ; and the 
 very mode in which some meet the present crisis 
 seems to shew it. Journeys to London ; anxious 
 discussions ; paper wars ; absence from parishes 
 in holy seasons, contention for comparative trifles, 
 are not, for the mass at any time, the mode of 
 meeting a crisis, and do partake of the character 
 of cowardice and indolence. 
 
 The way to meet the imminent peril is, by 
 winning the people to the Church by a strenu- 
 ous and vigorous move, such as we never made 
 before ; by each being at his post, and teaching 
 the people to love and lean on daily prayer and 
 weekly communion ; by mixing daily with the 
 mass in the concerns of daily life ; sympathising 
 with their sorrows and troubles, and by first lead- 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 ing them to love us, to lead them on to love the 
 Church. By inducing them to confide their diffi- 
 culties to us, and by earnestly, affectionately, and 
 simply preaching to them ; by so arranging all our 
 time and our church service, as to make them feel 
 that our time is theirs, so that by seeing that we 
 are honestly concerned for their welfare, they will 
 realise the fact of the Church being so too. 
 
 Sacraments, creeds, ministrations, must not be 
 left as cold theories before their eyes, but must be 
 associated in their ideas with earnestness, affection, 
 and adaptation to their individual wants ; then 
 they will believe what the Church is, and will 
 not only know, but love and pray for her. With- 
 out this our people will so little realise what the 
 Church is, that many will for a time accept and 
 follow any sect which (should a disruption ever 
 occur) may happen to be the Establishment. This 
 will not do. Many who have been talking of 
 Church principles for fifteen years, have gained the 
 reputation of high-churchmen, have done battle 
 for the cause in the circle of society, have espoused 
 the side of some persecuted individual of the 
 school in their neighbourhood, have appeared in 
 the Convocation House at Oxford or the Church 
 Union somewhere else ; while no bell has called 
 their poor to daily prayer, no more frequent com- 
 munion calls them to gather round their altar, 
 no more energetic teaching in the village schools 
 marks the belief in baptismal regeneration ; and
 
 19 
 
 the only distinction the mass of the parishioners 
 can see between their own high-church clergyman 
 and the low-church minister of an adjoining parish 
 is, that the former wears a more clerical dress, uses 
 ecclesiastical terms oftener in his sermon, and makes 
 attempts at a more elaborate church ceremonial. 
 
 This is not doing work ; and this will never 
 win the people. It is a mockery of reality ; and 
 I fear the impending crisis may test how unreal 
 it has been. But time yet remains. Let us use it. 
 It is an anomaly to make principles simply rest in 
 words, and tends more than any thing to make the 
 holding Church principles party-spirited and fac- 
 tious. The spirit with which we want men to 
 meet the present crisis is for those who have 
 hitherto never had daily prayer to begin it, and 
 those who simply have lived in society at once to 
 give it up ; for those who have hitherto lived for 
 their few rich, now to live for their numberless poor; 
 for those who have hitherto kept a reserved dis- 
 tance between themselves and their flock, to break 
 it down, and merge the mere gentleman in the 
 minister of God ; for those who have hitherto left 
 their parish school simply to a schoolmaster, now 
 to be there daily themselves, and be themselves 
 the offerers of the morning and evening prayers ; 
 for those who have hitherto held no personal inter- 
 course with their people, to induce them to open 
 burdened hearts to one who is ready to " rejoice 
 with those who rejoice, and weep with those who
 
 20 
 
 weep." And then when, if ever, the clergy are 
 driven forth from their homes and churches, they 
 will be followed by a unanimous and sympathising 
 people. This seems the spirit in which to meet 
 the crisis; and if men shrink on the score of health, 
 sacrifice of time, and dread of so great a tie, let 
 them be as ashamed of putting forward such a plea 
 as an officer of a regiment would be to plead dread 
 of death as a reason against leading on his troop 
 against an enemy. Shall the clergyman dare to 
 plead, and shall society accept a plea, which would 
 heap infamy on the head of the meanest soldier in 
 the English army ? Clergymen have not shrunk 
 from the risk of infection ; then why shrink now ? 
 for the crisis we are in is as momentous, and far 
 more than the visitations of cholera, typhus, or 
 plague. Is not the present painful crisis less pain- 
 ful than we have deserved ? 
 
 Let the clergy realise that they are all but 
 living in the days of old, whose tales they have 
 so often told, and whose glories they have dwelt 
 on ; let them feel that the circumstances they are 
 called into are all but those which once formed 
 the martyr and confessor, who have wellnigh be- 
 come phantoms of a fiction ; and none can tell 
 whether he may not find that he himself is incur- 
 ring, by self-indulgence, the guilt of the lapsed 
 whom he condemns, or, by self-devotion, may gain, 
 in the nineteenth century, the crown of the martyr 
 or the palm of the confessor.
 
 21 
 
 Let us be found at work when the enemy 
 attacks us, and so surrounded by a living system, 
 by a devoted people and a holy cause, that we 
 shall terrify assault by the armour of a practical 
 and living reality ; let us not incur contempt for 
 interference in spheres where we do not excel, and 
 for manifesting such an amount of excitement as 
 to destroy the conviction that we have a worthy 
 cause. Imagine the dignity, the moral weight, the 
 greatness of a clergy thus calmly employed over 
 the length and breadth of the kingdom I planting 
 a tree in the hearts of the people which might ere 
 long overshadow the land. Imagine the calmness, 
 the holy beauty, and the awe inspired by a large 
 mass of men, on whose heads rests the impress of 
 holy hands, hnked by the closest of all conceivable 
 ties into one great brotherhood, having resolved 
 on the stake of life and property, and in faith 
 waiting, as Israel of old, on the Red Sea strand, 
 till the Lord should make a way through the path- 
 less and fathomless deep. In this lies our hope 
 of seeing our enemies discomfited. 
 
 It will be said to this, the political hne must 
 be taken by some one, and agitation must be made 
 or the Church will be crushed beneath the weight 
 of the civil power. Protests were made by the 
 Church of old, and holy men have been political. 
 St- Athanasius and St. Ambrose, St. Anselm and 
 St. Thomas, fought with carnal weapons. True ! 
 I grant some even of our teachers must be engaged
 
 personally in the conflict ; but let them be as few 
 as possible, and those peculiarly qualified for it, — 
 such as some of those whose names we have, in 
 the past three weeks, hailed with joy as rallying 
 points and centres ; and if it can be, let these do 
 the work from their own spheres by directing those 
 who are more immediately engaged in the strife. 
 Let it be done as far as can be through synods and 
 deaneries at a distance. 
 
 Beyond this, the men who should do the actual 
 work, as it appears to me, should be, as I said, 
 lawyers and statesmen, — men every way qualified 
 to struggle with the State, — who being in their 
 legitimate sphere will not be despised. Let them, 
 when they feel there is need, consult any of those 
 few clergy whose position, name, and knowledge 
 on the subject of ecclesiastical law or doctrine 
 makes their advice important, but generally let 
 them rather digest the sentiments of clerical meet- 
 ings at large through the country, which must be 
 encouraged constantly to communicate. Thus, in 
 the main, the clergy would be engaged in then- 
 respective spheres in prayer and spiritual work, 
 creating strength for those engaged in the conflict. 
 The State is not prepared for a really religious 
 opposition. And I make this appeal to you as to 
 one who has lately shewn himself so truly and ably 
 the champion of the Church's truth in Parliament 
 and elsewhere. 
 
 It was the conviction of very many in a late
 
 23 
 
 meeting, that the speeches and arguments which 
 were most characterised hy knowledge of the sub- 
 ject, accuracy of logic, moderation of statement, 
 and judgment, were those made by Mr. Talbot 
 and yourself, and that the confidence of most men 
 present was gained far more by those addresses 
 than by any others. Some speeches were admir- 
 able in themselves, and full of truth, but lost their 
 weight because unsuited to an excited general 
 meeting in London, although well enough fitted 
 for an ecclesiastical and clerical convention in the 
 country. We must gain the confidence of the 
 mass of the Church and people in the effort we 
 are making, otherwise it will be fruitless ; and that 
 confidence will not be gained unless there be a 
 business-like air in all our proceedings, and an ap- 
 pearance of reality and earnestness in the lives and 
 conduct of the clergy. When men are out of their 
 place they are despised ; when in it, and pursuing 
 their calling, they are respected. And surely we 
 might expect that, if, at the beginning of this Lent, 
 a redoubled and threefold effort had been made 
 to a deeper life for ourselves and our people, we 
 should have already gained more of the only 
 strength on which we can rely, — the favour and 
 love of God. The present line of conduct gives 
 an impression that the clergy are an excitable 
 and undisciplined body of men, who are looking 
 out in public agitation and political meetings to 
 make up for the lack of other modes of satisfying
 
 24 
 
 the love for such things in the world, from which 
 their holy office precludes them. This is a mo- 
 ment for wiping off reproach ; and it can only 
 be done by appearing zealously employed in our 
 own sphere. The very thing which gave weight 
 to the judgment and resistances of the saints of 
 old in similar strifes, was the conviction that they 
 were earnestly employed in their own vocation at 
 the same time, and entered the conflict daily steeped 
 in the influence of prayer and fasting, the prayers 
 of their spiritual children hovering like unseen 
 angels round them, and the air of a holy life per- 
 vading their frame. Monarchs and statesmen felt 
 they were not fighting with mere men, and quailed 
 before a battle with saints. Now we inspire no ter- 
 ror, create no alarm, for the light of saintliness is 
 not reflected in face, or tone, or manner, and in its 
 place have simply crept the shallow expressions of 
 men of the world. We have mistaken our weapons ; 
 we have buckled on the armour of Saul, forgetting 
 that our conflict is with faith, — a sling and a stone ; 
 unarmed we come down to encourage th^se who 
 war with carnal weapons, to meet and subdue a foe 
 invincible to them without us, for we defy him in 
 the name of the hving God. Well will it be if, 
 having found out our mistake, we go back, saying, 
 " We cannot go with these, we tried them without 
 proving them, and we will put them offl" Let the 
 world use her own weapons. We lose vantage 
 ground by attempting to meet them in this way.
 
 25 
 
 and with weapons which have been tempered in 
 an earthly forge. " Thou comest to us with a 
 sword, and with a spear, and with a shield, but 
 I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, 
 the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast 
 defied." 
 
 Our war is with " principalities and powers, 
 with spiritual wickedness in high places ;" and for 
 that war we know our weapons, " the shield of 
 faith, and the sword of the Spirit." No earthly- 
 weapon can pierce the one or blunt the other. 
 The moral weight of the army of clergy inhabit- 
 ing England, arrayed in their true weapons, would 
 present a spectacle so imposing as to daunt the 
 boldest, and resist the scoff of the most con- 
 temptuous ; it would support, with an invincible 
 arm, the advanced guard of our army, who were 
 striving for us with other weapons ; it would in- 
 spire with confidence the humblest peasant and 
 the highest peer ; it would enhearten those who 
 stand up to plead our cause on the floor of Par- 
 liament ; it would fix a conviction that our cause 
 was of God ; and those who strove on the plains of 
 the world would fight with sure success, with their 
 eyes fixed on the uplifted hands on the hill: "When 
 Moses held up his hands, Israel prevailed; and when 
 he let down his hands, Amalek prevailed." 
 
 One mode, which I much deplore, in which 
 men are proposing to meet the present crisis, is 
 the voluntary desertion, in some form or other, of
 
 26 
 
 the English Church, or full communion within her 
 Hmits. 
 
 Now, I am by no means about to enter into the 
 discussion of the vexata qucestio with regard to our 
 own communion, and its position in respect of the 
 Roman Church ; I wish simply, consistently with 
 my object, to take a general moral view of the 
 position of those who are meditating a change. 
 It is not my intention at this moment to enter on 
 the intellectual view of the matter, but to take 
 the general impression which such lines of action 
 would excite. It is very possible that men have 
 thrown too much weight into the purely intel- 
 lectual argument. It lacks expansiveness and elas- 
 ticity. Nor can it suit all the changes, eccentri- 
 cities, and informalities of our moral and social 
 existence. 
 
 There seem three lines open for men to adopt 
 who refuse to work any longer: communion with the 
 Church of Rome, a voluntary Free Church move- 
 ment, and one into lay communion, in some respects 
 resembling the movement of the non-jurors. To the 
 first of these intentions I will apply myself, taking 
 a prima facie view of the subject. A restless and 
 uneasy spirit is in itself to be deprecated ; and un- 
 less founded on some deep and authorised con- 
 viction of the fact that we do not occupy a trust- 
 worthy position, it is unjustifiable. Mere restless- 
 ness implies an unloving and rebellious spirit, not 
 that formed on obedience, and disciplined by autho-
 
 27 
 
 rity ; and it is to be feared that many are actu- 
 ated by it for no other motive than a want of in- 
 terest and point in the life they are leading. The 
 amount of self-reliance must be large in any person 
 who, simply as an individual, deserts the faith and 
 Church of his baptism and his childhood, to throw 
 himself into the arms of one he has hitherto con- 
 demned. He must have gone far on the road to 
 individuality of action : and however right his line 
 may be, and conscientious his motive, it must ever 
 be a hazardous one to self, and one of great pain 
 to an obedient spirit ; needing wellnigh the three 
 years' sojourn in Arabia, conferring not with flesh 
 and blood. To change the position of baptism and 
 childhood, should ever be painful even as death ; 
 and to the earnest mind must ever be so : change of 
 position is in religious matters primd facie wrong, 
 and we must deprecate the all but joke which is 
 made of it in the conversation of many. It often 
 appears, that want of success in work, indolence of 
 character, and a desire to try something new, lies 
 at the bottom of their desires, which cannot be too 
 severely censured, and too strongly deprecated. 
 With some, I know that uneasiness is excited in 
 them only by deep convictions ; and many are 
 meditating a junction with the Church of Rome 
 on one of two hypotheses, either that she alone 
 possesses claims to Catholicity, or that she has pri- 
 vileges so superior to what we enjoy, that it is law- 
 ful to join her communion.
 
 28 
 
 These doubts of our own Catholicity have been 
 excited in some persons at the present juncture by 
 the position of the theory of supremacy, and the 
 illustration given to it by the recent decision of the 
 Judicial Committee. It remains to be proved how 
 far that decision is lawful, and how far the supre- 
 macy is tied up with the Church so as to form 
 part of her essential existence, as now constituted 
 in England. But even if it be determined that the 
 worst view of the supremacy is the true one, that 
 fact surely does not affect the essential nature of 
 the Church in England : it seems to be but an 
 incumbent weight upon her, forming no more part 
 and parcel of the Church herself, than the stone 
 does of the plant on which it rests. And unless 
 those who would move on that score were persons 
 already prepared to accept the whole of the teach- 
 ing of the Church ot Rome, they must see some 
 considerable obstacles of something of the same 
 kind in the present working of the theory of infal- 
 libility. Tested by the rule of faith, which we are 
 bound to suppose men are governed by amongst 
 us. Scripture, and the undivided Church, surely the 
 present working of the doctrine of infallibility will 
 present difficulties of a very considerable nature. If, 
 however, the theory of infallibility presents no diffi- 
 culty to individuals, it implies that by such Roman 
 doctrine has been already accepted, and the case 
 is one beyond the province of my present remarks. 
 I might add, that supposing the theory of the su-
 
 29 
 
 premacy of the Crown to have been at all times a 
 matter of doubt to certain minds, but only illustrated 
 fully by the recent decision, and thereby supposed 
 to be defined within the worst conceivable limits, 
 surely we are not authorised to consider that de- 
 cision as conclusively illustrative of the theory, 
 until its legality has been tested, or the possibility 
 of its reversion attempted. 
 
 The great depression which the union of the 
 English Church with the State is causing in her 
 discipline is made another argument against her ; 
 but no amount of State subjugation can affect the 
 Catholicity of the Church : they at e and must con- 
 tinue to be separate bodies, even though, for a 
 while, such Church should appear, by silence, to 
 acquiesce in the imposed condition. If it is not 
 so, what can be said of many positions of the 
 Church Catholic before the great schism, and 
 of periods of the Roman branch since the sever- 
 ance of the East and West? What subjugation 
 and thraldom can be conceived more oppressive 
 than some of which we read before the fifth cen- 
 tury, or of later acts in the annals of Rome under 
 the Emperors of Germany, when men of profligate 
 character, and even boys, were thrust into or sup- 
 ported in the Pontificate ; or when the French 
 monarchs held the freedom of the Bishop of Rome 
 in their own hands in the memorable struggles of 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ? The 
 spirit which will quietly overlook and ignore all
 
 so 
 
 this, and simply give weight to the fact of State in- 
 fluence over the Enghsh Church, cannot be acting 
 in a free and candid manner. It must be remem- 
 bered that the Jewish Church was not essentially 
 impaired by the control of the civil governments 
 of Assyria and Egypt, any more than men con- 
 ceived that the Church of the fourth century, or 
 the Church of the tenth, were by the mere fact 
 of State oppression. It seems that the tyranny 
 of the civil power, variously applied, has always 
 been the probation and trial of the Church, and 
 that in every age it has been her lot to have to 
 contend with the extravagant demands of the 
 State. No one ever imagined that the life and 
 character of the English Church were impaired by 
 the constitutions of Clarendon or the statutes of 
 Edward the First. The tyranny of the Plantagenet 
 sovereigns was as great at times as that of the 
 Tudors, and the integrity of the Church was never 
 questioned then. It is true that she has committed 
 herself more to the recognition of Royal supremacy, 
 but I do not see that that fact tends to weaken the 
 arguments for her still existing Catholicity. Now 
 that she sees fairly what that supremacy means, 
 she must strive to reduce its action within proper 
 and legal limits. Our age has seen other re- 
 forms greater than this successfully achieved. We 
 judge her unfairly and hardly when we act as 
 if she had accepted this authority with a full 
 knowledge of its present apparent consequences.
 
 31 
 
 What has been done may be undone, or at least 
 we may risk all in the attempt. No one ventures 
 to imagine that Rome left her Catholicity a spoil 
 in the imperial diadem of the mediaeval sovereigns 
 of Germany ; then why conceive that England has 
 lost the jewel of her Catholicity by the usurpations 
 of the Governments of modern days ? 
 
 In addition, men urge the lack of free Catho- 
 lic teaching and the practical suppression of many 
 a doctrine of earlier days. It is objected also 
 that many essentially Catholic characteristics are 
 obsolete amongst us, and excite suspicion at their 
 bare mention ; that our discipline is effete in 
 many cases, and our whole penitential system 
 meagrely below antiquity. If such objectors take 
 their stand on the test I suggested above, surely 
 they must grant that, on the side of development, 
 Rome has as much exceeded as we have fallen 
 short of our rule of faith ; and though excess in 
 such matters is generally the safer extreme of 
 the two, involving, with addition, the whole truth, 
 it does not seem in this instance to be true ; for 
 while we have preserved the seed of all Catholic 
 teaching, Rome has so superadded, as to give a 
 new complexion to the Catholic faith. As if to 
 give an appearance of strength and life in days of 
 very real weakness, she has proceeded to define 
 distinctly and dogmatically points which have not 
 hitherto been necessary articles of faith. This is 
 but, I believe, an imitation of health and life,
 
 32 
 
 and, to a close observer, denotes disorder and 
 disease. 
 
 If another class of objectors bring forward 
 the absence of religious life as a sign of the dead- 
 ness of the English branch, it seems to me easy 
 to meet it in two ways. I first deny the fact. 
 Men are too much expecting the very same form 
 of religious life which they meet with abroad. But 
 England and the continent are distinct atmo- 
 spheres, and I should be sorry to see forced and 
 mechanical imitations of foreign character. Can 
 that Church be dead which has formed eminently 
 saintly men, and has at times put forth vigorously 
 the energy of holiness ? Can we look on the con- 
 dition of the Church now or in past days, witness 
 the revival going on in every diocese, archdea- 
 conry, and parish, and satisfy ourselves that she is 
 dead and withered ? If so, we must be prepared 
 to assert that a dead branch can produce living 
 fruit, or that the holiness of many whose piety 
 we have most revered was a mockery, and the 
 energy of the last twenty years a fiction. It would 
 require some courage to occupy this position. 
 The English Church may have produced few 
 saints ; I imagine, however, she has produced 
 many, but very much hidden in the retirement of 
 family life. The names of Wilson, Ken, Andrewes, 
 and many more, are household names among our 
 very poor. There has been certainly a salt 
 somewhere in our English society. Our present
 
 movement has already drawn many (especially 
 women) from private retired station to work 
 publicly for the Church. The intervals be- 
 tween the throbbings of her more religious pulse 
 may have been long and many ; she may have 
 lacked many important features of a vigorous 
 Church ; but there are reasons to account for such 
 facts : it may be a chastisement, and so a prepara- 
 tion for great and active work yet to come. I 
 feel no hesitation in thus instituting equal com- 
 parison between the Churches of England and 
 Rome, for facts are against my considering Rome 
 in the light that some would have us do, as the 
 Church of the whole world. If the English sys- 
 tem has had life enough to form many eminent 
 Christians, and to propagate herself in the colonies, 
 Scotland, and America, however little else she has 
 done, she is not dead ; and there are reasons 
 countless why she has, as yet, done no more. 
 
 And, once more, has not Rome herself at times 
 been equally apparently lifeless ? Were not the 
 days immediately preceding those of Gregory 
 VII., equally low in spiritual life and energy ? A 
 slight examination into the history of those times 
 would shew that the profligacy of men occupying 
 the holiest offices was even more appalling than 
 apparent lifelessness in any period of the English 
 Church : with whatever force the argument can 
 lie against our Communion, it lies with equal force 
 against the other.
 
 34 
 
 A fourth class of men are unduly dazzled by 
 the appearance of unity, centrality, and continued 
 dogmatic teaching in the Church of Rome, with 
 her determined and bold assertion of being the 
 entire Church, and with her bold excommunication 
 of the English and Greek branches. Bold asser- 
 tion is striking, and has a strong effect, but it 
 may not bear investigation. Are each of these 
 powers and qualities necessary to a true Church ? 
 There may be considerable beauty and conveni- 
 ence about them, they may singularly coincide 
 with the preconceived view of a Church, they may 
 be traits which will exist in the perfect condition 
 of the Church of God ; but I can hardly consider 
 unity in the sense that this argument implies 
 essential, when the only analogy we have, in the 
 case of the Jewish Church, recognised a division 
 of something of the same kind as that existing 
 between ourselves and Rome, — a division created 
 by the state policy of a wicked king. 
 
 Unity in certain points is doubtless needful ; 
 but I do not know from what source we can draw 
 the argument that unity in all respects may not be, 
 for providential reasons, disturbed without injury 
 to Catholicity. It is not so easy for human eyes 
 to decide at what stacre we cease to be one in Him 
 who is the Church's only head. It is not a ma- 
 thematical or philosophical question. Men have 
 made it too much so ; and I feel that Mr. Maskell, 
 in his recent letter, has erred on that side. No
 
 35 
 
 questions of morals will bear tliis mode of dealing. 
 They are too large for it ; too intricate and too 
 complex, and occupy too wide a basis. 
 
 The arguments founded on the centralisation 
 of the Roman See, and her continued voice of dog- 
 matic teaching, seem equally difficult to be proved. 
 We know that Rome herself is uncertain in her 
 view on the subject ; and zc>e acknowledge the dog- 
 matic teaching of the first four centuries, and main- 
 tain the creeds. The mere fact of assuming the 
 power and right to excommunicate is, of course, no 
 sign that the power exists. But I cannot do more, 
 for many reasons, than cast the most cursory 
 glance over the kind of arguments used by men as 
 an excuse for change. I am simply speaking to 
 the points of the general spirit with which men 
 are meeting the present crisis ; each argument 
 would, of course, bear a much closer examination. 
 Rome is not more right, because England is placed 
 in a false position. A false position does not de- 
 stroy the possibility of position at all. We may 
 assert a true one ; and even if we cannot, I do 
 not see how that fact supersedes the difficulty we 
 have seen for years to lie against the Roman Com- 
 munion. 
 
 I supposed above the case of some men not 
 dissatisfied with her Catholicity, but discontent 
 with the meagreness of its development and appli- 
 cation, and therefore changing her communion for 
 another more Catholic ; in fact, individually, and by
 
 36 
 
 their own authority, altering providential position. 
 The reasons against such a hue as this seem even 
 more unanswerable than those against the last line. 
 To make a change from ecclesiastical position is 
 ever a grave and serious matter. If any position 
 is directly from God, birth, baptism, education, and 
 first communion in a Church are so. To renounce 
 them is like a renunciation of Divine Providence, 
 seeking a path for ourselves, and thrusting aside 
 the hand of God, which nothing short of the fullest 
 conviction, on reasonable grounds, that we are not 
 members of the Church could justify. Individual 
 movement is ever hazardous, and even when it is 
 towards what we know has the sanction of God, it 
 is dangerous to make one at our own suggestion. 
 Jeroboam and David were both promised a new 
 sphere of action, and the possession of a crown ; 
 the former seized his promised possession, and 
 was condemned; the latter, patiently waited, and 
 was blest. Besides which, we have no right to 
 seek ease, quietness, and privileges ; it may be 
 as much part of our probation to endure their 
 absence, as to undergo severer chastisements in 
 life of a more palpable kind. It is perilous to 
 thrust ourselves out of a line which needed the 
 exercise of faith and patience, and to place our- 
 selves in one which will release us from cares, 
 watching, and anxiety ; it looks like seeking au- 
 thoritative guiding, while it may be a culpable 
 yearning after irresponsibility. It by no means
 
 37 
 
 follows that because a branch of the Church lacks 
 many Catholic elements, that she is therefore uot 
 the best for us. Our condition may be one which 
 would be far rather benefited by their loss than 
 their possession. There is an untold claim in the 
 authoritative voice of the Church of our baptism, 
 confirmation, and ordination, and those who lightly 
 place her aside are probably taking a step which 
 will considerably deter their own spiritual growth. 
 Besides this, have men fully counted on what they 
 are about to accept to gain those privileges ? Have 
 they carefully looked in the face the present teach- 
 ing and practice of the Roman communion with 
 regard to the Blessed Virgin and purgatory ? unless 
 they have already fully accepted them, there is a 
 fearful gulf to leap over. There is a wide differ- 
 ence between gazing at a doctrine from a distance, 
 the minute authoritative recognition of which we 
 may lack, and being in a communion which exces- 
 sively asserts the doctrine ; there is a difference be- 
 tween aiming at a higher reverence for the Blessed 
 Virgin, and being expected to accept the modern 
 extreme view with regard to her as a matter of 
 course. 
 
 We cannot tell what is coming. We have 
 every reason to believe that the Church will have 
 been broken up before the end of all things, and 
 that the act of Union will be a final and providen- 
 tial work. We calmly wait that end, probably so 
 near at hand, each on our own portion of the Church
 
 38 
 
 of Christ, marked perhaps with peculiar errors as 
 well as privileges. We know not what vocation 
 the English Church may have, but she doubtless 
 has one, and that not an easy one ; and to leave her 
 communion in a crisis might be a deadly sin. De- 
 sertion is cowardly. Why not stay and remedy 
 evils ? Why not do our best by the devotion of 
 life and death ? To desert her for a softer path is 
 beneath the man and the Christian. We may do 
 much by remaining true and firm in the day of her 
 adversity ; while, by deserting her, we may have to 
 give an account of the neglect of our stewardship. 
 Besides which, let men so tempted consider care- 
 fully whether there may not be a lurking love of 
 singularity, and of following a prevalent effeminate 
 fashion in their restless desire, which they imagine 
 proceeds from sincerity of conscience ? May we 
 not think that if devotion to the work of self-dis- 
 cipline and the guidance of others to Christ had 
 been the entire aim of life in some cases, the un- 
 easiness of which we complain would not have 
 existed ? 
 
 But some have in contemplation what is called 
 a Free Church. Surely there are grave objections 
 to such a line, if adopted voluntarily and without 
 compulsion. In limine, it would create a schism 
 and rival communions in many parishes, which, 
 over and above the fact of schism in the present 
 condition of our people, would be of serious con- 
 sequence. They are not sufficiently attached to, or
 
 39 
 
 acquainted with, the Church's constitution to bear 
 the conflicting appearance of two communions ; and 
 the danger would be considerable of very many ac- 
 cepting the teaching and communion of him who 
 has possession of the Church fabric, parsonage, 
 and the income. Above this, there will be much 
 danger of such a movement dying out, and leaving 
 the un-Catholic establishment in possession of the 
 minds of many of the people, who might have been 
 Christianised if a different course had been taken. 
 
 To men engaged in guiding their people, such 
 a prospect is full of anguish ; and the leaving those 
 we have been teaching for years to pass an old 
 age, and perhaps die, in an heretical commu- 
 nion, is a pang keener than death. Let us boldly 
 and firmly protest individually in our respective 
 spheres, and assert as essentially and necessarily 
 true, that view of doctrine which an unfit authority 
 has declared to be an open question. Let us 
 stand by our people resolutely, occupying a sphere 
 which a higher than any civil authority has com- 
 mitted to us ; and if in the assertion of Catholic 
 truth we are assailed by a hostile power, we shall 
 be in a position intelligible to our people : we shall 
 appear as teachers of God's truth, and persecuted 
 for it ; and if in persisting we are forcibly ejected 
 from whatever we can be ejected, we shall appear 
 plainly to our people as persecuted for Christ's 
 sake. Our position, then, as teacher in the parish 
 is clear and easy ; we should have no choice, and
 
 40 
 
 the efforts of a rival would fall with impotence 
 to the ground. Few things would so tend to 
 create a religious confidence in our people as pa- 
 tient endurance of persecution. But a voluntary 
 Free Church move without authority would be 
 cowardice and desertion, and perfectly unintelli- 
 gible to the mass of the people. I am not at- 
 tempting to go deeply into the arguments of any 
 of these subjects ; I am simply speaking to the 
 generally excited and restless mind which recent 
 questions have aroused ; I have not time to do 
 more. Surely men should gravely consider the 
 possible consequence of any move at all, until it 
 be positively forced upon them, and until they 
 have exercised patience to the full, and should 
 deeply examine the motives that impel them, lest 
 they should at all partake of love of eccentricity, 
 personal pique, or desire of change. We should 
 consider deeply the position of our people ; to what 
 does not a movement on our part open them ? and 
 how hazardous for us if, at the last day, they shall 
 be found injured by any step of ours, which after 
 all may prove to be a false one. For their sakes, 
 for the sake of the millions of England over whom 
 schism, latitudinarianism, socialism, and infidehty 
 are brooding, let us cling to our post till expelled by 
 force ; let us throw off the possible imputation of 
 second motive in doing this — by casting aside all 
 consideration of life and property, and by risking 
 every thing at one great hazard, and quietly, un-
 
 41 
 
 ostentatiously, within our own spheres, let us for- 
 sake all for Christ's sake and for the sheep of His 
 fold. Why should we desert them ? How can 
 we coldly talk and argue about breaking loose the 
 tie, and leaving them to possible ruin ? What 
 right have we to consult some intellectual fancy 
 or moral craving of our own at the expense of 
 souls committed to our care ? By sudden moves 
 we tend to paralyse the Bishops, and to make their 
 efforts powerless. By a steady and firm obedience, 
 and a manifest will to gather round those who are 
 our ecclesiastical leaders, we shall hold together and 
 present a firm and united front, which will terrify 
 the adversary. Men complain of the line adopted 
 by those in authority, and then, at the first appear- 
 ance of danger, the first trumpet that gives the 
 signal of a real conflict, they ruin their efforts 
 by the rumours of desertions on all sides, and 
 that before a blow has been struck. How can 
 rulers from above, or the people from below, have 
 trust and confidence in us, if they see that the 
 first thought of many is to find out difficulties 
 as an excuse for restlessness ? The position that 
 a hard-working and devoted clergy might occupy 
 in a crisis like this transcends words ; with them 
 it to a great degree lies, whether the present 
 movement shall be one marked by a weak and un- 
 contested flight, to be handed down to the censure 
 of posterity on the page of our ecclesiastical his- 
 tory, or whether the impending crisis shall be one 
 
 c
 
 <b^ 
 
 which will rouse the obedience, energy, and devo- 
 tion of the clergy in such degree as to wipe out 
 the charge of slumber that has lain upon us for a 
 century and a half. 
 
 A simply non-juror movement, and a move- 
 ment of the clergy into lay communion, seems 
 equally full of difficulty, and appears very like de- 
 sertion of our post. We have received a commis- 
 sion to work as well as to occupy a position, and 1 
 do not see how men are to fulfil that commission 
 by a line of this kind. 
 
 There surely are reasons enough for men to 
 rouse themselves: — disunion is ruin, unity is 
 strength. We are not without trumpet-calls 
 which give no uncertain sound. Clear and un- 
 mistakeable has been the line pursued by the 
 Bishop of Exeter in his unanswerable letter : the 
 Bishop of London has spoken with a firmness 
 and decision which should indeed rouse every 
 clergyman in his diocese to rally round him ; dur- 
 ing a long and painful episcopate he has been 
 called to see questions raised for difficulty and 
 intricacy scarcely equalled in any period of that 
 episcopate since the Reformation ; he has often 
 shewn his devotion and zeal, and in the present 
 crisis he has indeed stood firmly and foremost in 
 the episcopal body. The clergy of his diocese are 
 bound to gather round him manfully, and so give 
 strength and vigour to his action by a united and 
 zealous energy in their vocation. We must give
 
 43 
 
 him confidence in us, as he has given us con- 
 fidence in him. Every day brings out a new note 
 of hope, and even dissenting journals teem with 
 condemnation of the position in which we have 
 been placed. The attacks made on the cause we 
 are enlisted in and the individuals who have led 
 it have been weak, impotent, and frivolous, while 
 strength and truth mark the blows which have 
 been hitherto struck in our defence. 
 
 If only those who doubt would pause a while, 
 join their strength to ours, and abide the issue ; if 
 only those who are true to us would throw them- 
 selves devotedly into their work ; if only individu- 
 ality of action would succumb to the good of a 
 united cause ; above all, far above all, if only all 
 would pray, — " kings of the earth and all people, 
 princes and all judges of the world, young men and 
 maidens, old men and children," " rich and poor, 
 one with another," — if only all who love God would 
 join in one united prayer for the success of truth, 
 we must succeed. His ear has not been deaf since 
 the assembled myriads of Israel calmly waited on 
 the Egyptian shore, with an armed host behind 
 them and a rolling sea before them. His arm is 
 not shortened since, from the dungeons of Babylon, 
 the released captives of seventy years beheld once 
 more the rocky defiles of Jericho and the blue hills 
 of their own Judea. He will do for us what He 
 did for them. Only let us pray and act in faith ; 
 and what will not the prayers of a united Church
 
 44 
 
 effect, still bearing in them the echoes of the Holy 
 Week, and bursting from hearts which have been 
 dwelling on the Passion of Him who purchased 
 with His own blood the Church for which we 
 plead ? 
 
 I remain. 
 
 My dear Mr. Palmer, 
 
 Yours, very sincerely, 
 
 EDWARD MONRO. 
 
 Harrowweald, 
 Tuesday in Hohj Week. 
 
 I'RINTED BV ROnSUN, LEVEY, AND PRANKtVN, 
 Great New Street, Fetter Lano-
 
 
 
 
 
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