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THE

Comedy of Convocation

THE ENGLISH CHURCH,

IN TWO SCENES:

EDITED BT
AECHDEACON CHASUBLE, D.D.

S><

" \va t1 yeloiov h-u mil trepl yeXoiov wpay/utTOT.
" Give me laave to be merry on a merry subject."
S. Greg. Naz.

New-Yoek :
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY,
,136 3NTassau. Street.
1868.

THE

COMEDY OF CONVOCATION

THE ENGLISH CHUKCH,

IN TWO SCENES!

EDITED BY
ARCHDEACON CHASUBLE, D.D.

" Im ti yilowv hna Kai nepl yc?i6iov npayftaTO^.
" Give me leave to be merry on a merry subject."
S. Greg. Naz.

New- York :
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY,
136 Nassau Street.
1868.

TO

THE BISHOPS OF THE PAN-ANGLICAN SYNOD,

jjhm jjagus

ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

US

THE EDITOR.

DEAMATIS PEESON^E.

VERY REVEREND DEANS .

Bltjnt.
Pliable.
Primitive.
Pompous. Critical.

{Jolly. Theory.
Chasuble.

REVEREND DOCTORS

Easy.
Viewy.
Candour.

REVERENDS

' Athanasius Benedict.
Lavender Kidds.
The Prolocutor.
The Professor op History.
The Professor of Theology.

SCENE I.
THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER.

SCENE II.
DR. EASY'S DRAWING-ROOM.

SCENE I.

THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER.

DR. EASY rose to propose the question of which he had given
notice at the previous sitting of Convocation :—" "Would it be con
sidered heresy in the Church of England to deny the existence of
God ? " It had occurred to him that he should perhaps adopt a
form mure convenient for the present debate, if he put the question
thus: — "Would a clergyman, openly teaching that there was no
God, be liable to suspension ? "
ARCHDEACON JOLLY thought not. What the Church of
England especially prided herself upon was the breadth of her
views. No view could be broader than the one just stated, and
therefore none more likely to meet with the sanction bf the Privy
Council, which, he apprehended, was the real point to be kept in
view in the discussion of this interesting question. (Hear, hear;) -
DEAN BLUNT concurred in the opinion that Breadth and the
Privy Council were kindred ideas. Still, it might be asked,. could
even the doctrinal elasticity of that tribunal become sufficiently
expansive to embrace the enormous hypothesis of his learned
friend ? He ventured to think that it could. Let it be supposed
that some clergyman of the Church of England — say the Arch
bishop of Canterbury — should publicly teach that there, was no

10 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
God. The case being brought before the Privy Council, it might
be reasonably assumed that that supreme Arbiter of Anglican
doctrine would deliver some such judgment as the following : —
"We find that the Church of England is not opposed to
the existence of a God. At the same time, we cannot
overlook the fact that the nineteenth Article, in affirm
ing that all churches, even the Apostolic, have erred in
matters of faith, obviously implies that the Church of
England may err also in the same way. Therefore the
Church of England may err in teaching that there is
a God. We conclude, that whilst, on the one hand,
the Archbishop has taken an extreme or one-sided view
of the teaching of the Church; on the other, for the
reason assigned,' it is undoubtedly open to every cler
gyman either to believe in or to deny the existence of
a God."
ARCHDEACON THEORY would be disposed cordially to ap
prove the judgment which the learned Dean anticipated. He had
always maintained that it was the duty of every Anglican to doubt
the existence of God. (Uproar.) Let him not be misunderstood.
Speaking for himself,, he had a moral and intellectual conviction
that there was a God. He was not disputing the objective truth
of the existence of a God : about that he could not suppose that a
single member of Convocation could entertain the most transitory
doubt. He was speaking only of their duty as members of the
Church of England, and not at all of their obligation as Christians;
two things which might happen in a particular case to be as wide
apart as the poles, and to inyolve distinct and opposite responsi
bilities. Now, as members of the Church of England, he believed
it was their duty to doubt, not only the existence of God, but also.
every separate, article which the Church of England now taught,
or might teach hereafter ; and the more emphatically the Church of
England appeared to teach, the more imperative was their duty to
doubt. . For, referring to the ingenious argument which Dean Blunt
had put into the mouth of their national oracle, it was clear that
the Churckof England, in .denying her own infallibility, laid all her
members under the religious obligation of doubting everything she
taught. Fallibility, properly defined, was not simply liability to
err, it was the state of error. As infallibility is a state of certainty>

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 11
which does not admit of error; so fallibility is a state of doubt,
which does not admit of conviction. Now, the Church of Eng
land, in proclaiming her own fallibility, did so with a peremptori-
ness, which elevated this part of her teaching, and this alone, to
the dignity of dogma. For whereas in propounding other Angli
can tenets, she so adjusted her definitions of doctrine as to leave
the choice of possible and opposite interpretations to the discretion
of her members; when speaking of this, the fundamental axiom
of her whole theological system, she rose for the moment to the
authority of a Teacher, and consented to put on the robe of infalli
bility, in order to promulgate with greater force the dogma of her
own liability to error.
He would solicit attention to the logical results of this axiom
of the Anglican creed. Where there is no infallibility, there can
be nothing .certain, as the Church of England' wisely intimates, ex
cept, of course, the obligation of doubting. Consequently, it is one
and the same thing to say that we ought to deny the Church's'
infallibility, and that we ought to doubt what the Church teaches.
Now, the Church of England teaches that there is a God. There
fore it is the duty of every Anglican to doubt the existence of a
God. And what is true of this article of belief is true of every
other. Thus, if the Church of England appear to teach the neces
sity of Baptism, at the same time that she loudly declares her own
fallibility in judging of that necessity, it was their duty and priv
ilege, (as. the Privy Council had recently ruled,) to doubt the neces
sity of Baptism. And if the Church of England appear to teach
that she herself is a true Church, at the same time that she pro
claims her own fallibility in judging whether she be a true Church
or no, and even adds that the- truest Churches have at all times
grossly erred, it was their duty .to doubt that she was a true
Church. , They had no choice about the matter. It was their duty
to doubt; and no one. who did not doubt every doctrine of his
Church could be said to comprehend her nature or to be animated
by her spirit. This, then, was his answer to the question before
the House: "Would it.be heresy in an Anglican to deny the ex
istence of God ? " He replied that it might be heresy to deny the
fact, but that it was the. plainest of all duties to doubt it.
And here he would hazard one other observation on what he had
ventured to call the cardinal doctrine of the Church's fallibility.

12 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
It was not uncommon in these days for Anglicans to become Ro
man Catholics. Did he blame them? As a Protestant he must
answer, Yes ; as an Anglican, No. He was willing to believe that
they were guided in that act mainly by their unconscious respect
for the teaching of the English Church. For it was obvious that
all who are docile to the teaching of that Church must be supremely
devoted to her dogma of fallibility, since that dogma is evidently
the most fruitful in its consequences, as well as the most clearly
defined, in the whole range of her theology. But it was equally
clear that as long as an Anglican remained in the Church of Eng
land, he could give no adequate proof of his belief in this essential
dogma of her fallibility. He might believe it, or he might not.
But once let him leave the Church, and by that act he manifested
to the world his firm conviction that the Church of England was
fallible. Consequently, the highest tribute an Anglican, could pay
to his own Church was to go out of her, and the best proof he
could give of belief in her teaching was to connect himself with
out loss of time with some other communion.
DR. VIEWY here rose, and said that he had listened with deep
interest to the ingenious observations of his learned friend. They
were, perhaps, too rigidly scientific, and possibly distasteful to some
of their colleagues, but he accepted them as a valuable protest
against that narrow and Romanistic theology, which Archdeacon
Chasuble, and a few others among his reverend friends, were anxious
to introduce into the Church of England. For his own part, he
hailed the accession of every new view to religion as evidence both
of the legitimate fecundity of their National Church, and of the
peculiar privileges of her members. It was her glory to have
produced during three successive centuries teachers of every shade
and variety of Christian doctrine, and to have survived, by a miracle
of vitality, their ceaseless battles and disputes, which would have
destroyed a less vigorous community, but which she had always
serenely contemplated with maternal pride. No other religious
society which had hitherto: appeared in the world could make the
same proud boast. It was, therefore, with satisfaction that he was
about to communicate to the House a view of his own perfectly in
harmony with the whole history of the Anglican Church, though.
differing in some points from the one so ably advocated by Arch^

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 13
deacon Theory. It would be found, however, to provide a still more
effective clue out of the labyrinth of Anglican difficulties, a valuable
guide, if he might be allowed to say so, to his younger brethren,
and a complete answer to the question in debate : " Would it be
heresy in the Church of England to deny the existence of God ?"
(Marks of lively attention.)
As an Anglican clergyman, he had always felt bound to teach
whatever the Church of England might be supposed to teach.
(Applause.) But as that Church, whether interpreted by her clergy
or her formularies, was taunted by her enemies with teaching every
thing and denying everything at the same time, (or at least with per
mitting every imaginable creed from transcendental Popery down to
the baldest Calvinism,) it became necessary for a young clergyman,
who would shelter himself from the possibility of heresy, to centre
the whole of his obedience in that one bishop or rector, under
whom for. the time being he might find himself placed. In other
words, since to obey any two ecclesiastical authorities at the same
moment involved the risk of being pronounced a heretic by either
one or the other — because no two clergymen are exactly of the
same belief — the only effective, safeguard against the possibility of
heresy was personal obedience to one clergyman at a time. Let
the House observe how admirably the principle he was about to
develope conciliated rival claims, while it obviated every difficulty
arising from variety of doctrine. He argued, then, that personal
obedience, the prime duty of every clergyman, was also the remedy
for every evil; and he believed that he had carried out that
principle in his own career, in a manner which Convocation would
approve. When first ordained to the ofiice of the Diaconate, from which he
had been subsequently elevated to unmerited dignities, he found
himself in the diocese of a Low-Church bishop, — he might say a
very Low-Church bishop, — so low that any further descent into the
regions of a purely negative theology would have left no doctrinal
residuum whatever. He at once decided, in virtue of his principle
of obedience to authority, to teach his, flock the religion of his
bishop ; which, by careful analysis, he resolved into two articles of
belief — the denial of dogma, and the assertion of self. (Dean
Pompous audibly whispered " highly unbecoming.") But here he
had met with a difficulty at . starting ; for it happened that his

14 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
rector was a Puseyite; and that, consequently, in the main, what
ever the bishop taught to be true, the rector taught to be false, and
whatever the bishop taught to be false, the rector taught to be true.
The case, as Convocation knew, was so common in this country, as
to form perhaps the rule in a majority of parochial cures. His
principle, however, suggested an easy escape from the embarrassing
position. He applied it thus : Manifestly more obedience was due
to a bishop than to a rector ; yet a certain quantum of obedience
was due to a rector, if only because a bishop had appointed him.
It became, so to speak, a question of proportion, rather than of
theology, and was soluble, not by the Thirty-Nine Articles, but by
the rule of three; and after working it out with religious care, the
following commended itself to him as the solution of the problem.
He would preach Low-Church doctrines on the Sundays, denying
the sacramental view and all its consequences, as the homage of
clerical obedience due to the bishop; but he would teach High-
Church doctrines during the week, without abating a single tenet,
in discharge of the proportionate measure of obedience due to the
rector. This practice gave rise, he was bound to admit, to some
excitement in the parish, and led to the popular conviction that
however excellent his teaching might be in detail, there was a want
of unity about it when looked at as a whole. Yet when he
explained to his parishioners the purity of the motive which induced
the apparent contradictions, and proved to them that his duplex
system was designed only to reflect justly and proportionately
the. two aspects of Christianity exhibited by their bishop and
their rector, the whole parish at once applauded the delicacy
of his conscience, while it ceased not to question the value of
his teaching. And so things went on with tolerable harmony for
the space of a year; when, unhappily, both the bishop and the
rector died about the same time; the former being quickly replaced
by a High-Church bishop, appointed by a friend in the Cabinet,
and the latter by a Low-Church rector, nominated by Mr. Simeon's
trustees. It now became his duty, in consistency with his principle
of obedience to personal authority, to invert the order and propor
tion of his teaching. He would continue to give the Sundays to
the bishop, and the week-days to the rector ; but on Sundays he
must now be a Puseyite, and on week-days an Evangelical ; and
this simple inversion, so equitable in itself, and inspired solely by

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 15
the desire of submitting himself to his superiors, created such
discord in the parish, that finally he was entreated, as the only
means of restoring peace, to resign his cure of souls. At first he
ventured to suggest that either the bishop or the rector should
resign instead of himself, since their dissensions, not his disobedience,
were the source of all this confusion. But this proposal did not
meet with that cordial acquiescence which he. had a right to expect
from either of the parties concerned. Next, he proposed to submit
to the arbitration of competent divines, some such problem as the
following: — "Given the value of certain Puseyite doctrines, with
their' Evangelical contraries, to find a mean Christianity;" and he
bound himself to accept the resultant as his future standard of
orthodoxy. -. But the arbitrators, after sitting for several days,
(during which they were principally occupied in unavailing at
tempts to convert one another,) abandoned the task in despair;
alleging that there was nothing sufficiently definite in either value
to admit of their finding a mean.
Hard pressed in this emergency, but more than ever solicitous to
sustain the great principle of his ecclesiastical life, he had recourse
to a totally new idea. It so happened that the bishop who had
ordained him by Letters Dismissory from his own diocesan was
neither High-Church nor Low, but of the Moderate or Broad-
Church school, and chiefly remarkable for the zeal with which he
warned his candidates for orders against "extremes." None of
these amiable young Levites could call to mind that his lordship,
who was of noble birth, had ever addressed to them any injunction
more apostolic than this: "avoid extremes." He therefore begged
that he might be permitted to transfer his obedience to that bishop
from whom he had originally received what a modern writer had
playfully called the "divine commission not to teach." This would
enable him, while faithful to the obligation of clerical obedience,
to take up an independent position in his own parish; and so to
preach henceforth, in a quiet and gentlemanly way, against both
his bishop and his rector, thus avoiding all invidious distinctions.
Unhappily, each fresh attempt at conciliation was less successful
than the last; and he was just on the point of resigning his curacy
in despair, when a valued counsellor, their distinguished friend and
colleague, Dr. Easy, conveyed to him an opportune suggestion.
That popular divine, who had risen pari passu with himself to the

16 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
highest summits of their Zion, advised him to promise both bishop
and rector, as a final effort to preserve obedience unimpaired, that
he would in future abstain from preaching any particular kind of
Christianity, or from approaching any doctrine to which anybody
could object on any. ground whatever — a method, Dr. Easy assured
him, which was adopted by a large number of amiable and well-
bred clergymen in the Church of England. Not averse himself
to any arrangement which might meet with the approval of author
ities, he embodied this idea in a fourth proposal to both bishop and
rector, who were pleased to accept it with decent cordiality, though
without any show of enthusiasm. And from that day forward,
triumphing in his sovereign principle of obedience to personal
authority, he flattered himself, that not the faintest trace of any
positive doctrine could be found in any part of his teaching.
Now, applying this history of an incident in his own career to
the general question before the House: "Would it be heresy in
the' Church of England to deny the existence of God? " he thought
he had sufficiently proved that it need not necessarily be so. For
if heresy, as the etymology of the word implies, consist in the
choice of one's . own creed, as opposed to the submission of the
will to authority, it becomes evident that they who always obey
can never be guilty of heresy. Assuming that any particular
bishop or rector should deny the existence of God, and that the
Privy Council should justify him in so doing; granting, further,
that obedience to his own bishop or rector is the first duty of a
curate, — because in the Church of England there is not, as in the
Church of Rome, any supreme or universal authority to obey, —
it follows that a curate can only be guilty of heresy when he is
guilty of disobedience. Otherwise a curate might set himself up
as judge of heresy over his own bishop, — a spectacle they not
, unfrequently witnessed, — thus making it the bishop's duty to be
taught by the curate, instead of the curate's duty to obey the
"bishop. The mind recoiled from so disastrous a preversion.
Such, then, was his own view of the question before the House;
and he should, therefore, give his vote in favor of the opinion,
that, in the Church of England, it might be conditionally, but
could not be necessarily, heresy, to deny the existence of God.
DEAN PLIABLE concurred in the main with the principle

IN THE ENGLISH OHURCH. 17
of the learned divine who had just resumed his seat, that obe
dience to authority was the first duty of a clergyman; but he
utterly differed from him in his application of the principle,
which appeared to him to be equally servile and injudicious.
That principle he conceived to be most effectually carried out,
not by abject submission to this bishop or that, this rector or
that, — which might be both possible and convenient if in the
Church of England, as in the Church of Rome, every bishop and
every rector taught the same Christianity, — but in the larger and
nobler aim of faithfully representing at one and the same time all
the Christianities taught by all the bishops and all the rectors of
the Church of England. In other words, since every one confessed
that it was impossible to teach a uniform theology in the Church
of England, whose highest tribunal had ruled that her clergy might
teach either of two opposite doctrines — -and therefore both alter
nately — he was brought to the conviction that the only course
open to Anglicans solicitous about theoretical unity was . to
profess at the same moment every doctrine held within their
communion, and all their contradictories. (Great uproar : a well-
known preacher was heard to exclaim — "He would convert us
into ecclesiastical acrobats.") Dean Pliable, however, continued :
He was not to be diverted by unseemly interruptions, and should-
calmly pursue the tenor of his argument. There might, indeed,
be clergymen, timid lovers of compromise, who quailed before
what he was willing to call the painful necessity of their position,.
and shrank from that large and bold, but only practical view of
Anglican unity of which he was the advocate. His own mind
was of a less effeminate type. He would add, that, throughout
his long ministerial career, which had not been wholly unfruitful,
— (partial cheers) — he had not ceased to maintain this view, which
he would take leave to call the only honest, logical, and consistent
view in the present condition of their great national community.
When inducted to his first curacy, under circumstances identical
with those described by Dr. Viewy, he resolved to expound the
principle in question in all its integrity. Mounting the pulpit on
that interesting occasion of a first discourse, — a moment which he
doubted not was present to the memory of most of his colleagues,
— and taking for his text the sublime words of St. Paul, "One
Lord, One Faith, One Baptism," he delivered to an agricultural
2

18 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
but anxious and attentive congregation, the following summa of '
that ;Anglican theology which it would be henceforth his duty to
unfold to them. He had reason to know that his sermon had been
warmly approved by many of the more eminent clergy on both
sides of the Atlantic, and that at least one Anglican bishop was
accustomed to propose it to candidates for orders as a model which
they would do well to imitate.
"one lord, one faith, one baptism."
"These words, my brethren, on a first impression, may seem to
you to imply an undue restriction on the liberties of the Protestant
mind. Listen, however, while I explain to you the Anglican
Theology as taught by your' bishop, your rector, and myself ; and
you will confess that whatever St. Paul may have designed by
Christian unity, the Church of England has put an interpretation
on his words which relieves them of all suspicion of intolerance.
. I. In regard of baptism, which the great Apostle calls one of
the " foundations " of Christianity, you may believe- with your
rector, who, as you are aware, was appointed over you by your
bishop, that without baptism it is impossible to enter the kingdom
of heaven, and that it is always accompanied by the new birth.
(2.) At the' same time, you are evidently at liberty to consider
it with your bishop, to whom both your rector and myself have
promised a faithful obedience, to be a mere form or ceremony,
having no connexion whatever with the new birth, and therefore
wholly unnecessary to salvation.
(3.) Finally, you may agree with me, your approved and licensed
¦curate, as regards Christian doctrine, in general and baptism in
particular, that extremes are always to be avoided, and that on
the whole it is better to accept baptism as a customary and not
¦disedifying . ceremony, extremely well-adapted to little children,
but without entertaining any morbid prejudice as to its possible
•effects on the soul.
II. With respect to the Lord's Supper, you can hold with your
rector that the effect of consecration in the element is to produce

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 19
some kind of real presence, which, however, does not admit of any
attempt at definition, and which is commonly expounded with the
greatest vagueness by those who profess to hold it with' the greatest
precision. You may also believe with your rector — df you are
capable of the effort which such an opinion implies — that what
you perceive in the chancel is not a table but an altar, and that
when you come to church your real object is to assist at "the
celebration of the adorable mysteries."
(2.) Should these views commend themselves to your attention,
they will doubtless be rendered all the more attractive by the fact
that they are sternly prohibited by your own bishop ; who requires
you, as you would be saved, to maintain that in the Church of
England there is no such thing as an altar; that the above
doctrine is mere Popery ; . that the sacrifice of the Mass is a
blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit, plainly repugnant,
as the Articles affirm, to the Word of God; that consecration
produces no change whatever on the elements; that the object of
covering the elements with the hands, as the rubric commands,
is to* prevent ,any change being wrought upon them; that the
doctrine of the . real presence is a gross superstition, to protest
against which the Church of England was expressly created in
the sixteenth century: in short, that the High-Church doctrine,
as your bishop justly remarks, is " rank Popery," while the Low-
Church doctrine, as your rector judiciously observes, is "filthy
Calvinism." (3.) There yet remains, however, another view of the subject,
which approves itself to many of the clergy, and which may be
warmly recommended as being most in harmony with the formu
laries and the practice of our Church : that the change in the
elements,' if any, and whatever it be, is solely due to the recipient
himself, who, of his own free will and power, consecrates; or de
clines to consecrate, just as he pleases; the faith of the communi
cant, and not the act, of the minister, determining the character
of the elements ; or, to put this view more simply, say that . the
Lord's Supper is a monthly or quarterly devotion, in which serious
persons receive a little bread and wine, neither with nor without
any particular real presence.

20 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
III. As to the doctrine of the Visible Church, what it is, and
who belongs to it, you are again provided with three distinct and
perfectly opposite views upon the point; while in regard of this,
as every other doctrine, the Church of England carries delicate
forbearance so far as to refrain from intruding Upon you any assist
ance in making your choice between them. Have you Catholic
tendencies ? Then you may insist with your rector that without
the Apostolic succession there can be no true priesthood ; and that
outside the three branches of the Catholic Church, the Roman, the
Greek, and the Anglican, there can be no true sacraments, no
valid ministry, and only a perilously vague and cloudy chance of
salvation. (2.) But you may also enjoy the privilege of believing with your
bishop, that, in the pure reformed Christianity there is no such
thing as a priesthood, which is a Popish figment to be utterly
reprobated of all faithful people; and that to belong to the Church
means simply to reject dogma, abhor Popery, and have an inward
assurance that you are one of the elect.
(3.) But if neither of these views should happen to coincide ex
actly with your own impressions on the subject, you may consider —
and this perhaps is a more rational belief than either of the other
two — that the Church is what each person thinks it to be, and
that, therefore, everybody belongs to it who says he does; whilst
with regard to ordination, as retained in our reformed com
munion, it is probably more scriptural, and certainly more gentle
manly, than the not being ordained, giving to our admirable clergy
a certain caste and position in society, which, as everybody per
ceives, is totally wanting to dissenting ministers.
IV. And now I approach the painful question of the Roman
Church. With your rector you may tenderly breathe forth the
prayer, "Would to God we were one' with our sweet sister Rome,
through whom we derive our orders, our creeds, and all our Catho
licity." You may even assert with him, and a good many other
clergymen of his particular school, that they alone are faithful
members of the English Church, who claim to hold all Roman
doctrine, and openly advocate union both with Rome and; Moscow,

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 21
though, probably, with as much expectation of obtaining the one as
the Other.
(2.) If, however, you should find yourselves unable to take up this
position, which must certainly be rather a constrained and trying
attitude for Protestants, ' you may, with your bishop, fervently
exclaim: "Away with the Church of Rome from the face of the
earth; for she is the Beast of the Apocalypse, the great Babylon,
several Antichrists, the pit of damnable idolatry, and generally
the implacable foe of truth, progress, liberty, morality, virtue,
decency, and enlightenment."
(3.) But, my brethern, how far more edifying will be your
moderation and charity, if, in this particular, as in every other, you
observe the golden rule, which is, "to approve every form of belief
except a definite one; " remembering that it is open to you, as it is
to your clergy, to believe what you like about the Roman Church,
as about the Church of England ; and that it is therefore scarcely
prudent to censure the belief of Roman Catholics, which you may
one day use your undoubted right to exchange for your own.
V. Next, as to Confession and Absolution. Though probably
most of you have never heard of either, and cannot therefore be
expected to take a deep interest in the subject, still it is my duty
as your spiritual guide to "explain to you the relations in which you
stand toward them. First, then, you may hold with your rector
that confession to God's priest is a most blessed and tender pro
vision for afflicted and penitent souls, a divinely-appointed remedy
for spiritual wounds, which the Saviour of the world bequeathed to
sinners from His cross.
(2.) If, however, you should adopt this view, you will perhaps be
disposed to wonder that your Church allowed so wholesome a
practice to fall into abeyance for three hundred years, and you
may use the liberty your Church permits you, to, adopt the more
consistent opinion of your excellent bishop: that confession is a
disgusting and immoral practice, a vile and insidious cheat of priest
craft, by which people sin more easily, and priests, get souls into
their power, but which, happily, fell into merited disuse in our own
reformed land, because Englishmen are muck too pure, great, and
good to retain so detestable an usage.

22 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
(3.) But truer still, and far more worthy of your common sense,
will be the deep conviction, that Confession is not popular, in this
country, chiefly on two accounts; first, because even the highest
churchman have a lurking suspicion that their priests are wanting
in the requisite powers to absolve, having neither faculties to hear
confessions, nor training for so difficult and delicate an office; and,
secondly, because it may be that Englishmen detect a certain in
congruity in confessing their sins to a reverend gentleman who is
on nuptial terms with the wife of his bosom,, and has several
daughters to marry.".
He, Dean Pliable, had advanced thus far in his discourse, pur
posing to complete in the same manner the whole cycle of Anglican
theology, when the clerk coming up the pulpit stairs put a slip of
paper into his hand from the rector, on which were written the
two words, " Pray desist." In compliance with this request, he
hurriedly finished, his discourse; and, on the following Monday
morning, his rector, calling him into his library, counselled him in
t*he kindest manner to seek another curacy. It was in consequence
of this event, destined to have . results not contemplated by. the
rector, that he was shortly after named incumbent of a well-known
proprietary chapel in the western regions of the metropolis, to
which. he was followed by a deputation from his rector's flock,
bearing in their hands a costly testimonial, in the form of an ap-
proprite piece of plate.
And now,' it only remained for him tp explain, in conclusion, why
he. had entered into these details, and what was their bearing upon
the solemn question before the House: "Would it be considered
heresy in the Church of England to deny the existence of God ? "
What he, had already said would : enable Convocation to anticipate
his reply.. The meditations of a long; life, . directed especially
towards the character, the principles, arid the practice of the
English Church, obliged him to say candidly, that if an Anglican
,bishop, hacked by the Privy Council, should -reply to the question'
in the negative, and instruct his clergy that, at least as a matter
of discipline, it would woi.be heresy, such a decision could only
be regarded as the honest' and logical completion of a system of
-theology, which having already determined in manifold ways that
there is no such thing as positive Christian truth; must consistently

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 23
admit that there need not be necessarily a personal Christian
God. A few minutes bf painful silence here ensued, when —
DEAN CRITICAL inquired, with a touch of irony in his voice
and manner — " Could any of his reverend friends undertake to
inform him what was the authority of the Church of England?"
Hitherto the debate had gone only to show what it was not. Dr.
Theory had maintained that there was no such thing. Dr. Viewy
and Dean Pliable had each of them proved that it did not reside in
the bishops and clergy, unless indeed it might be supposed to exist
in. equal measure in every one of them; but as they were un
happily in direct opposition to one another on many fundamental
doctrines, this was equivalent to saying, that no authority to decide
Christian doctrine existed in the Church of England. If there
really were any such authority, Convocation could hardly be more
usefully employed than in defining its nature and fixing its limits.
ARCHDEACON JOLLY observed, without rising from his seat
— "What say you to the Archbishop of Canterbury?" (Some
laughter, which was immediately suppressed.)
DEAN CRITICAL reminded the venerable archdeacon that the
Archbishop of Canterbury was not alluded tp in their formularies
in any such character, and feared it must be said, without disre
spect, that he had no more power to determine a disputed point of
doctrine than his amiable lady, whose hospitality many of them
had enjoyed. It was a lamentable fact that his Grace, had no
more authority over the people of England, nor over a single indi
vidual out of his own household, than ... (a voice exclaimed,,
"the King of the Sandwich Islands," a suggestion which . was
greeted with mingled applause and disapprobation.)
ARCHDEACON JOLLY: Well, then,' Her Majesty the Queen,
whom the Church admits to be " supreme " in all causes, spiritual
as well as temporal ?
DEAN CRITICAL could not forget that Her Majesty, in whom
they recognized a model of every Christian, virtue, frequented in
differently Presbyterian% meeting-houses and the churches -of their

24 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
own communion. If, therefore, as the law appeared to admit, the
authority of the Anglican Church resided in her royal person, it
followed that the Westminster Confession and the Thirty-Nine
Articles were equally true, and that every Anglican was also a
Presbyterian. ARCHDEACON JOLLY: "How about the Privy Council ? If
it be the ultimate judge of doctrine, must it not be the authority
for which you are seeking ?"
DEAN CRITICAL thought not, because in fact the sum of its
decisions amounted to this — that the Church of England taught
nothing, and denied nothing, which was equivalent to saying that
she believed nothing. A tribunal which decided in every case of
disputed doctrine, as the Privy Council invariably did, that both the
plaintiff and defendant were right, was a judicial curiosity that could
hardly be said to afford the litigant parties much assistance in
bringing their cause to an issue. The Privy Council might be an
authority over the Church of England, whose decisions the latter
was obliged to receive ; but no one could seriously maintain that it
was an authority to which any Anglican, of whatever party in the
Church, professed to submit his conscience in matters of faith.
. ARCHDEACON JOLLY: "Will you accept Convocation as
your authority ?" (Loud laughter, with cries of " Shame " from
Dean Pompous.)
DEAN CRITICAL regretted that he could not accept Convoca
tion in the character of an Anglican Holy See; because, to say
nothing of the general feeling of the country, and the malicious
comments of the public press, which appeared to treat them with
derision, and talked of their "dancing round a May-pole," his own
observation of the proceedings of that Assembly dissuaded him
from any such view. Much experience had brought him to the
.sorrowful conviction that Convocation was only a clerical debating ,
¦club, of which every member took himself for the Pope, and the
-Church for his pupil.
ARCHDEACON JOLLY: "Might it be permitted to suggeBt
tthe formularies ?"
DEAN CRITICAL : So supple and elastic in their nature as to

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 25
•be sworn to with equal .facility both by those who claim to "hold
all Roman doctrine" and those who protest against it.
ARCHDEACON JOLLY: "Well, there are still the Thirty-
Nine Articles."
DEAN CRITICAL : Thirty-Nine opinions, one of which de
clares of all the others, that they are human and fallible.
ARCHDEACON JOLLY did not know that he could offer any
further suggestion, but, at least, one of the Articles declared, "the
Church hath authority in matters of faith."
DEAN CRITICAL was not unmindful of the fact, which had
always appeared to him to be a device of the framers to express
this idea: "We admit that the Church we are forming has no
authority, but we recognise that if it were a Church, it would
have authority." For it should be observed that while they said,
" the Church hath authority," they at the same time enjoined the
clergy not to believe a single word she taught them, unless they
found their own interpretation of the Scriptures to agree with
hers! Thus, they made the Church of England say to all her
members : " If you should accidentally be right in your interpre
tation of the Bible^ put that down to me, for I am the Church
which teaches you ; but if, which is far more probable, you should
be wrong, put that down to yourself, for I have warned you to
believe in nothing which you cannot prove for yourself out of
the Bible." (" Hear, hear," from the Rev. Lavender Kidds.)
DEAN CRITICAL-v-(after contemplating Mr. Kidds through
his eye-glass) — continued : He would gladly and thankfully find in
the Articles, if it were possible to do so, both an authority and a
summary of positive doctrine. But how stood the case ? The very
Articles which affirm that the Church hath authority were expressly
written to prove that it hath not . Even the preface to the Articles
was a manifest attempt at throwing dust in the eyes of the public,
and making them believe the exact contrary of what the writers
knew to be true. Thus it stated that the Articles were composed to
"avoid diversities of opinion," whereas it was notorious to the whole
world that they were so framed as to include diversities of opinion.
It said further, that "His Majesty would not endure any varying

26 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
or departing from them," which did , not seem to imply much con
fidence in their power to keep their own ground, and made his
Majesty the.real but somewhat- inefficient guardian of their contra
dictory propositions. It said again that "no man should put his
own sense or. comment upon their meaning." Really the drollest
requirement ! For, as it had been proved from the beginning, and
more than ever in their own times, that they were capable of many
and opposite interpretations, whose sense should a man put upon
them unless he put his own ?
THE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY: Dean Critical was no
doubt aware, that, according to Dr. Pusey, the true light by
which to interpret the Articles was to be borrowed from the canons
of the Council of Trent. '
DEAN CRITICAL did not see why, if every man might choose
his own sense, Dr. Pusey might not choose his own interpreter,
though he could have wished he had made a better choice. But
he was surprised that Dr. Pusey did npt detect the inconsistency
of making Ihe Roman Church the interpreter of Articles which
were not only directed against herself, but which formed the very
charter of a rival community, whose creation they expressly
justified by setting forth the errors and even the blasphemies of
Roman theology. It was really too much tb make the Roman
Church at once the interpreter of charges brought against her,
and the judge of the parties who brought them.
THE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY: It was not the less true
that they must find a judge somewhere, otherwise the Articles
were so much waste paper. Could they not be made to interpret
themselves ?
DEAN CRITICAL thought that their friend Dr. Theory had
sufficiently demonstrated — first, that there was really nothing to
interpret ; and, secondly, that even if there were, there was nobody
authorised to interpret it. He had been painfully struck by the
observation of his learned friend, that a Church proclaiming; its
own fallibility could neither teach any definite doctrine, nor enforce
it on the conscience of its members. The Articles were his best
. witness to the truth of the assertion. Thus, one of them decreed that
the Church hath authority, whilst it not only enjoined all Anglicans

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 27
not to obey it, but even instructed' them how to evade obedience
by pleading their own interpretation of the* Bible. Another of
them announced that even General Councils were incurably
addicted to " erring," as though the erring propensities of Councils
were to be taken for proof that the Church hath authority, instead
of for proof that it could not possibly have any. Yet General
Councils were certainly regarded by the authors of the Prayer-Book
as the highest authority after the Bible. How, then, was it possible
to extract any plea for authority of any kind from the Articles ?
" I am sorry for you, General Councils, but you err," is the remark
able form of obedience to' authority suggested by the Anglican
Church to her clergy ! He must repeat, that there was something
at once trivial and impertinent in a Church declaring that it hath
authority, whilst in the same breath it commanded its disciples not
to obey that authority. The authors of the Articles seem them
selves to have felt the absurdity ; for in the nineteenth Article they
made the Church of England say virtually, " I cannot teach you,
nevertheless obey;" whilst in the twentieth Article, they made
her declare, " I can teach you, nevertheless do not obey." It repented
him (Dean Critical), and it was a relief both to his conscience and
to his intellect to make the avowal, that he had thrice sworn to the
Thirty-Nine; though perhaps, as an undergraduate, the act was
partly excused by the fact of his never having read them, and, as a
beneficed clergymen, by the circumstance that the law was too
strong for him. He appealed to all who respected truth and
integrity, and did not consider themselves mere ecclesiastical
machines to be wound up and set in motion by an Act of
Parliament, whether it was possible to imagine a more grotesque
form of impiety and dishonesty than the swearing to the divine
truth of what one swears at the same time to be human ? He
would remind the House of the caustic and ingenious rebuke of
the Count de Maistre, than which nothing, he conceived, was ever
more conspicuously merited : " In the very same moment, with the
very same pen, with the same ink, and upon the same paper, the
Church of England declares a dogma, and declares that she has no
right to declare it. I hope, added the Count, " that in the endless
catalogue of human inconsistencies; this will always hold one of .the
first places." And he (Dean Critical) must venture to add his own
hope to that of the Count, that the swearing, no ipatter how often,

28 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
to the divine truth of what one swears to be human, must be far
too puerile an act to be reckoned a sin.
DR. EASY here rose to express his regret that, up to the present
time, no progress whatever had been made towards that important
discovery which was the object of their present discussion.
(He was proceeding to confess his cordial agreement with Dean
Critical, as a clergyman and a gentleman, that subscription to
the Articles was something very like an insult to a liberal and
cultivated mind, when he was suddenly interrupted by the B,ev.
Lavender Kidds, who appeared not to notice that anv one was
occupying the House.)
The Rev. LAVENDER KIDDS, (who seemed much excited, and
rose amidst cries of " Order, order," and considerable laughter),
observed that he now assisted for the first time at the Assembly
of Convocation, and had been deeply shocked' by the unscriptural
tone of the discussion. (Suppressed merriment.) For his part, he
gloried in the Thirty -Nine Articles of their pure and reformed
Church, and especially in their noble testimony to the grand truth
that the religion of Protestants was the " Bible, the whole Bible,
and nothing but the Bible." This was the true "Authority" of
vital Christians, and he cared for no other. This was the simple
and grand lesson of those venerable formularies which had been
that day so grievously undervalued and calumniated. Really, it
seemed to him to be preposterous in any Protestant assembly to
talk so much of " Church-authority." Authority, indeed ! Who
wanted it ? And if they had it, who would obey it ? Certainly
no member of that House with whom he had the happiness of
being acquainted,— (laughter and ironical cheers,) — least of all the
High-Church party, who had recently been forming a society to
protect themselves against their bishops. (Renewed disapproba
tion.) _ He contended that their forefathers had done without
authority, and had wisely regarded it as a mark of the Beast.
He was for the Bible and the Bible only. Perish the Articles,
and the Church itself — no, his zeal was perhaps carrying him too
far. What he meant to say was — in fact, he wished to observe — as
long as they had the Word they wanted nothing else. He knew,
indeed, that Dean Primitive and Archdeacon Chasuble preferred

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 29
Authority to Scripture — as long, that wa3, as they could keep the
former entirely in their own hands; but he had invariably re
marked that they refused to their bishops and superiors the obe
dience they required from their curates and parishioners. But
Englishmen, he felt convinced, were not to be cajoled by a spu
rious Popery; and if they must renounce their liberty, it would
not be to those who used that liberty themselves to resist the very
Church they copied in everything but their obedience. (General
cries of "Enough, enough," amid which Mr. Kidds resumed his
seat, with the air of one who had delivered a solemn and suitable
protest.) DEAN BLUNT regretted that Mr. Kidds had so abruptly ter
minated his discourse. He respected every conscientious opinion,
but feared that Mr. Kidds had failed to grasp the real point under
discussion. The reverend gentleman need only reflect that the
interpretation of Scripture texts was even still more various and
incongruous than that of the Articles, in order to convince him
self that if authority were wanted to determine the one, it was at
least as essential to expound the other.
It was curious that Mr. Kidds did not perceive that everybody
had the Bible as well as himself, but that everybody drew a
different Christianity out of it. From the Socinian, who denies
the divinity of the Lord who bought him, up to the Puseyite, who
believes in everything Catholic except in the Catholic Church — all
were Bible Christians. But this was only another way of saying
that Bible Christianity is, of all fallacies, the most transparent; the
fallacy consisting in this, that no professedly Bible Christian ever
really takes the Bible for his authority; what he always takes is
his own interpretation of the Bible, that is, himself. So that, " the
Bible, and the Bible only," meant really "my interpretation of the
Bible, and not yours." Hence, the Bible and self were synonymous
terms in the mouth of the Bible Christian. For example (con
tinued Dean Blunt, with a candour which appeared to startle
Convocation), if Mr. Kidds take a text of the Bible as meaning
one thing, and I take the same text as meaning exactly the con
trary, it is obvious that neither Mr. Kidds nor myself take the
Bible for our authority : what we take is ourselves : but as nobody
has sufficient sincerity to say openly, " my only authority is myself,

30 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
therefore, Mr. Kidds calls his opinions " the Bible," and I call Mr.
Kidds' opinions "unscriptural."
He (Dean Blunt) would only detain the House to suggest to
Mr. Kidds the answer he must give to the question proposed by
Dr. Easy. Assuming Mr. Kidds' theory — that a man's conviction .
of the truth is the same with truth itself; in other words) that
heresy becomes the truth to every one who thinks he finds it in the
Bible — the real solution of Dr. Easy's question was as follows :
" Let a man be sure that the Bible teaches that there is a God,
and then he is a heretic if he deny it ; but let him have the smallest
doubt upon the point, and then he is a heretic if he assert it."
DEAN PRIMITIVE was unwilling that the observations' of
Mr. Kidds should pass without any other reply than Dean Blunt
had thought fit to give them. He had spent thirty years of his
life in combating the errors of that party in the Church to which
Mr. Kidds belonged, and he hoped to continue the same holy war
fare to the end. He was aware that the so-called Evangelicals
insisted upon the plainness of Scripture, and were accustomed to
assume, with strange disregard of notorious facts, that nobody
need find any difficulty in deciding the true meaning of any text
whatever. With the permission of the House, he would give a
few illustrations of the Evangelical method of dealing with the
inspired book; from which it would very clearly appear, that
when they boasted of appealing to the Bible, they only appealed
to their own version of it, that is, to themselves ; and that their
favourite shibboleth, " the Bible, and the Bible only," meant simply,
as Dean Blunt had well observed, "my interpretation of the Bible,
and not yours."
Thus, when our Lord said to His priests : " I give to you the
keys of the kingdom of heaven," it is plain, according to the Evan
gelicals, that He meant : "I give to no man the keys of the king
dom of heaven."
When He declared: "Whosesoever sins you remit, they are
remitted;" beyond doubt He wished them to understand: "I par
ticularly withhold from you the power to remit sin."
When He gave the promise to his Church: "I am with you
always, even to'the end of the world;" manifestly He designed to

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 31
say : " I am with you only to the end of the third or fourth century,
after which I shall desert you until the sixteenth."
When Hs announced: "I will send the Holy Ghost, and He
shall guide you into all truth;" it is clearer than the day that He
wished, to' tell them : " The Holy Ghost will teach you just so
much of truth as each individual can gather for himself from the
private study of the Scriptures."
When He made the wonderful statement: "The gates of hell
shall never prevail against the Church;" even children can see that
He meant : " Hell shall triumph over the Church for eight hundred
years and more."
Finally, when he exclaimed : " He that will not hear the Church,
let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican;" how obvious
the interpretation : " He that .will not hear the Church, let him be
to thee as a brother; provided only he read the Bible, and call
himself an Evangelical."
As the Evangelicals dealt in this manner with the words of the
Master, it was not surprising that they should treat His apostles
with the same derision. A few examples would suffice : — .
If St. Paul said : " A man that is a heretic reject;" everybody
perceives that he meant: "Particularly court the company of
heretics, and gladly join in prayer with them."
If he exhorted: "Let there be no divisions," what is more
evident than this truth : " Without divisions the human mind will
be enslaved by priestcraft."
If he taught that there should be " no schisms in the body,"
surely it was equivalent to saying: "Let the body be made up of
schisms." If he affirmed : " The works of the flesh are manifest, which
are sects," it was precisely as if he had said: "Now, sects are the
flrBt-fruits of the Spirit."
If, alluding to holy marriage, he observed : " It is good for a man
not to touch a woman," how manifest the meaning : " Everybody
•should marry, and particularly priests."
If, again, he said: "He that. is married is divided," how trans
parent the scriptural lesson: "All men ought ; to marry^ in order
that they may be divided."
If, once more, he admonished Christians: "He that is not

32 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
married careth for the Lord," how patent the Apostolic counsel :
" Make haste to marry, especially the bishops and clergy, that you
may cease to care for the Lord." *
He would now proceed to give illustrations of a different kind,
and from a different source. He was anxious to show, as a mere
matter of fairness to Mr. Kidds, that his method and that of his
party in the Church was not inconsistent with the language of the
Articles, which would supply remarkable specimens of the same
kind. For this reason he felt at liberty to remain in communion
with men whose views of Christianity were diametrically opposed
to his own. Both could plead the approval, silent or spoken, of
their common mother. The maxim, " Quieta non movere" — which in
their communion might be interpreted, " Peace at any price " — was
not to-be lightly esteemed; and, perhaps, in the event of any
future revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles, the sense of that salutary
maxim might be embodied in theological terms, so as to constitute
the fortieth of their number.
The examples he proposed • to add were as follows ; each was
unique of its kind : — There was the example dogmatic ; the ex
ample critical; and the example evasive. And, first, for the
example dogmatic.
The Twenty-eighth Article pronounced that the Catholic doctrine
of the Sacrament of the Altar is "repugnant to the plain words of
Scripture." Now the plain words were : " This is my body." Con
sequently, when our Lord said: "This is my body," the plain
meaning of His words was: "This is not my body." By parity of
reasoning, had our Lord said : " This is not my body," the plain
meaning, of his words would have been — Transubstantiation ! On
the same principle, when there came a voice from Heaven : " This
is my beloved Son," it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture
to suppose that the Eternal Father revealed the Hypostatic Union.
But had the Eternal Father affirmed : " This is not my beloved
Son," the plain meaning would have been, what, in short, every
good Christian erroneously believes to be true. He (Dean Primitive)*
had always regarded this statement of the Articles as an intentional
and ingenious irony, of which the Bible theory was the object ; and
it was with this reservation, that he swore to it at his ordination.
For if the statement were seriously made, it would be perhaps the

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 33
most eccentric defiance of common sense, and common honesty,
with which the literature of the world had hitherto furnished
them. Next for the example critical.
He (Dean Primitive) had found himself some years since attend
ing a parish meeting in the north of England, presided over by a
clergyman of great repute. The question under discussion was
the best mode of treating controversial subjects in their divided
Church. One clergyman strongly objected to all controversy, on
the ground that it quenched charity, and led to no practical result.
Immediately arose another, who declared in a loud voice, and with
great energy of manner, that he had the authority of "Paul him
self" for the condemnation of so wretched and unscriptural an
opinion. For did not Paul- say, that "without controversy, great
is the mystery of godliness," and could he more clearly imply that
with controversy all the mystery vanishes? (Great, laughter,
during which Mr. Kidds rose, as if to leave the room, but appeared
to change his mind.)
Thirdly, there was the example evasive.
At an Archidiaconal meeting in a small town in Wiltshire, the<
discussion at dinner turned upon fasting. It was a Friday, and
he must confess that the dinner provided by the landlord of the
inn, who was probably not a theologian, was both ample and succu
lent, including a haunch of venison, to which all had done justice..
Several of the younger clergy maintained, whether from a tardy
sentiment of remorse he could not say, the scriptural duty of fast
ing. . This was indignantly denied by an incumbent of the school
of Mr. Kidds. Hard pressed by various texts, and especially ,by
the express words of St. Paul, from which there was no escape, he
exclaimed, after a few moments of painful deliberation : " Paul was
a young man when he enjoined fasting, and probably became more
scriptural afterwards."
Before resuming his seat, he would beg to offer his humble con
tribution toward the solution of the question proposed by Dr.' Easy.
It would certainly be sin and madness to deny the existence of
God, but it would, he thought, be wrong to consider it heresy — at
least in an Evangelical, He very much feared that in that par^
3

34 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
ticular section of their Church heresy was impossible: because
heresy was only the "choice" of one's own religion, and the Low-
Church 'theory required every Protestant to make that choice de
liberately for himself. Given the right which modern. "liberty"
conferred on every Protestant of gathering his own religion from
the Bible, it would be unreasonable to call any man a sinner, and
absurd to call him a heretic. A Christian, on the Low-Church
theory, could' only be a heretic when he differed from himself, and
persisted in wilful disobedience to his own opinions. Heresy,
therefore, as far as they were concerned, was a word that had lost
all sense and meaning, A man might be a criminal in denying
the existence of God, but he could not by any possibility be a
heretic. The Low-Church party had conferred this boon on
Christian England, that it had rendered heresy, which used to be
the greatest of crimes, an absolute impossibility for anybody to
commit. But if he, must, speak for himself on the question proposed by
Dr. Easy, he had only to reply that the Fathers and the first four
General Councils, believed there was a God, and that they were the
safest guides on every point of Catholic belief;
DR. CANDOUR demanded : How should the poor know any
thing about the Fathers or the General Councils ?
DEAN PRIMITIVE: Their clergy would instruct them.
DR. CANDOUR: But if their clergy differed?
DEAN PRIMITIVE: The Councils did not differ, nor the
Fathers. DR. CANDOUR: That might be true: but certainly the clergy
-differed quite as much about the Councils and the Fathers as they
-did about- the Bible. So that, after all, it came to this, that the
Puseyites' private reading of the records of the early Church was
the same in principle with Mr. Kidds' private reading of the Bible ;
with this advantage to the latter, thai every one can read the Bible
who can read at all, but not one person in a million can read the
Councils or the Fathers. Now " salvation by scholarship alone "
was a theory that had its disadvantages on the score of its exclusive-

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 35
ness. Besides, it was a fact that many Anglicans, like Dr. Ive3, an
American Bishop, were converted to the Roman Church, chiefly by
the study of the Fathers and the Councils. These converts argued
that the ancient writers required a living interpreter equally with
Holy writ; whereas the Puseyites affirmed that every man was
born a Sovereign Pontiff to sit in judgment on the early Church !
Deans Blunt and Primitive had been severe on Mr. Kidds, he
thought unjustly, on the ground that Bible Christianity was a
cloak for private' fancies and conceits; but he would like to be
informed— since the Roman Church, the Greek Church, and every
other church, claimed to be the true and sole successors of the early
Church— where was the difference between the private reading of
the Bible and the private reading of antiquity ?
(Dean Primitive declining to continue the discussion, Convo
cation broke up into various groups, and the sitting was temporarily
suspended. Several reverend gentlemen produced sandwiches,
or other temperate food, the consumption of which tended to
allay excitement by impeding conversation. Dean Pompous
alone left the Hall, as if disdaining equally the food and the dis
course ; but as he was observed, on returning a few minutes later,
to replace a gold tooth-pick in his waistcoat pocket, it was inferred
that he had chosen to take his refreshment apart. When order
and silence had at length been restored, the debate was resumed,
without any signs of diminished interest.)
THE PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, responding to a general
call of the House, now manifested his intention to address the'
assembly. It was no doubt true, he observed, that the appreciation of the
Evangelical party, with which Dean Primitive had favoured them,
was substantially exact. Their somewhat exaggerated Protestantism
had been playfully rebuked ; and he was free to admit that it was
the product of ideas and sentiments which did not find their source
in common sense nor in rational religion. But he was no less con
vinced, and he thought the moment had arrived to make this obser
vation, if only aB a matter of justice to the High-Church party, and to
protect them from a purely invidious calumny, that, in point of
essential unmitigated Protestantism, the Puseyites surpassed their

36 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
Low-Church rivals as much as they did in ability and learning, It
had been observed by Dean Blunt that " self " was the alpha and
omega of the Low-Church party. But if self was the Bible at
Exeter Hall, it was also the supreme Pontiff at Oxford. " The Bible
interpreted by the Church," meant " both interpreted by myself;"
and "the Fathers interpreted by the Church," meant "my opinion
of the Fathers interpreted by my opinion of the Church." Add to
these the ultra-Protestant formula," the Bible, and the Bible only,"
— which meant simply " my own interpretation of that book, not
yours;" — and it was plain to common sense that all three formulas
were absolutely one in principle. The only real difference between
them would be found in their accidental developments. One illustra
tion of this fact was as good as a thousand. Some years ago, as his
reverend colleagues might remember, the late Rev. John Keble
preached' a remarkable sermon, of which the Rev. A. T. Russell,
though a clergyman of the same communion, publicly declared that
it was "inconsistent with the profession of Christianity"- — meaning,
of course, Mr. Russell's Christianity. ¦ In this case the private inter
pretation of the" Bible was arrayed against the private interpreta
tion of the Fathers ; and the result of the conflict' was that each
advocate indulged in a perfectly harmless damnation of the other,
both remaining authorised ministers of the same wisely liberal and
tolerant Church. ¦ ¦
The truth was, that Puseyism — to use once more a convenient
term which usage had consecrated— was simply ultra-Protestantism,
plus twice its pretensions, and minus half its cant. Self, he
repeated, was the sole pontiff on both sides, but self assumed far
more gigantic , dimensions in the High than in the Low-Church
school. To sit in judgment on the Fathers and the Councils as well
as on the Bible ; to instruct the doctors where they were.-right, and
admonish the saints where they were wrong ; to tell the' Church
what it was her duty to teach, and obey her only so long as she
consented to obey themselves ; — this was evidently a more courage
ous self-worship than to be content with the humbler privilege of
manipulating texts. For this reason, he had always said, and would
now repeat, that, in point of essential and uncompromising Protest
antism, High-Churchmen had no rivals, whether in the Church of
England or in any other community. They alone, who were some
times charged with unfaithfulness to the Reformation, used all thai

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 37
licence which it gave. To assert the principle of authority, whilst
daily repudiating it in practice; to claim to be "Catholic," while
cheerfully remaining out of communion with any church, school,
or party in the whole Christian world; this was the special glory of
gentlemen who had always far surpassed the modest and timid war
fare of their neighbours, and contrived to enjoy the luxury of pro
testing at the same moment against the Roman Church,' their own
church, and every other church. It was true, indeed, that in order
not to be quite alone in the world, they affected to transfer their
homage to a purely imaginary primitive Church, which existed only
in their own brain, and their pretended obedience to which relieved
them from the irksome duty of yielding the slightest obedience to
any other. This submission to a Church, which had ceased to exist
for many centuries, if it had ever existed at all, was, in his opinion,
the most ingenious of all Protestant contrivances for submitting to
¦nothing and nobody.
(Dean Primitive and Archdeacon Chasuble here rose together in
much excitement, but the latter being called upon by the House,
said) : He apologised for interrupting the learned Professor, but his
feelings overpowered him, and he could not remain silent. He had
always regarded Anglicanism, for he declined to repeat the oppro
brious nickname employed by the Professor, as the only combi
nation hitherto attempted of authority with private judgment.
THE PROFESSOR : That might have been, and probably was,
the original programme of the party, but private judgment had
soon strangled authority, as might have been safely predicted, and
no sect of Christians of that or any other age were so contemptuous
of all authority, whether enthroned at Lambeth or in the Vatican,
as those who were commonly called Puseyites. A papist said, and
was at least consistent with his profession; "My church is my
teacher; therefore I obey her." A Puseyite said, not in word, but
in act; "My church is my pupil, therefore I instruct her." The
difference was admirably stated by a Frenchman, when he ingeni
ously observed: "The Puseyite says, 'L'Eglise, c'est moi;' the
Catholic says, ' L' Eglise c'est nous.' "
There was not, he conceived, in the annals of human religions — of
which the number was now almost beyond arithmetical calculation

38 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
— so singular a paradox as that which was displayed in Puseyite
theology. The claims of a Leo the Great, or a Gregory the Seventh,
which at least, whatever Protestants might think of them, were
cordially admitted both in their own generation and in those which
followed it, were only the utterances of timid self-abasement, com
pared with the super-oecumenical dogmatism of their High-Church
friends. " Obey me," said these gentlemen to their disciples, "for
obedience is the prerogative of the laity ; but I obey nobody except
my own interpretation of the Fathers, or of such of them as I
approve, because my church is not yet sufficiently Catholic to
deserve my obedience. At present I am obliged to create a church
for you, because nothing worthy of the name is found just now on
earth. The day will come when she will have been sufficiently
taught by me, will cease to be Protestant without becoming Roman,
and then I shall be able to obey the Church, because, having
learned from me the exact form of primitive Christianity, which
exists nowhere at present but in my own ideal conception, the
Church will have come again into corporate existence, and will be
worthy of your dutiful regard. It will then no longer be necessary
for me, as it is unfortunately at present, to cumulate in my own
person the functions of the Pope, the Saints, the Fathers, the
General Councils, and Almighty God."
(Considerable agitation followed this speech, during which the
sitting was suspended for some minutes.)
The Rev. LAVENDER KIDDS observed, as soon as the com
posure of the Assembly was restored, that, however forcible the
remarks of the learned Professor might be as applied to Puseyism,
he had shown that he was unwilling to grapple with the grand
principle of Bible Christianity, of which he was the humble
advocate. THE PROFESSOR intended no disrespect to Mr. Kidds and
his party. Bible Christianity, since he must speak of it, (though
he thought that former speakers had sufficiently disposed of the
subject,) was only less preposterous than the rival theory which
he had just ventured to describe. It required personal infallibility
in all who professed it. It simply transferred to the individual

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 39
the supernatural prerogative which the Romanist attributed to his
Church. It was obvious to common sense that if Mr. Kidds could
interpret a particular translation of the Scriptures, so as to know
infallibly both how much was necessary to salvation, and exactly
what was necessary to be believed about it, he must himself be
personally infallible.
MR. KIDDS would confidently insist that the cases were not
identical, because the interpretation of the Bible did not require
the monstrous faculty, assumed by that apostate Church, the Holy
Book being plain oh all points which were "necessary to salva
tion." THE PROFESSOR, being anxious to satisfy Mr. Kidds, would
reply that the plainness of the Bible was not a point to be dis
cussed until it could first be proved that the Bible was their sole
authority in matters of faith. But was this assumption consistent
with historical facts? Before the invention of printing in the
fifteenth century, not one man in a million could possess a copy
of the Scriptures. He might add that not one man in ten thou
sand could have read the Bible, even if he had possessed it. Print
ing, therefore, on Mr. Kidds' theory, was that Second Dispensation,.
which was intended by Almighty God to supplant the authority of
a Living Church. And, moreover, whatever Mr. Kidds' private:
views on printing, at least he must confess that, but for the as
siduous care with which, through more than a thousand years, the-
Roman Church preserved and multiplied the manuscripts of Holy
Writ, neither he nor any other Protestant could have known that,
there had ever been a Bible at. all.
MR. KIDDS exclaimed with energy: The Roman Church for
bids the -Bible to the people !
THE PROFESSOR: The Roman Church does just the con
trary. She compels the people to hear the Gospels and Epistles;
read from the pulpit .every Sunday morning; reading, moreover,
the same Epistles and Gospels — selected with a wisdom, which.
seemed more than human, and revealed a truly marvellous com
prehension of their divine meaning — which the Church of England!
had appropriated from her. Missal. What the Church of Rome;

40 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
does not permit is, that every one should interpret for himself the
most difficult book that ever was written; that every ignorant
fanatic or conceited curate should mount a pulpit and expound a
private gospel of his own; and if the Roman Church required
justification in that prudent course, she had only to point to the
chaos of ideas engendered by English Protestantism to prove that
of all the wild delusions that had ever possessed the human mind,
the Printing theory was the most absurd.
MR. KIDDS was not to be shaken from his first position : that
upon all the points which are necessary to salvation the Bible is
plain. THE PROFESSOR, turning to Mr. Kidds with a smile, replied:
Every doctrine was plain to those who chose to believe it,' and
clothed in densest obscurity to those who did not. Baptism, the
Apostolic Succession, Sacramental Confession, the Real Presence,
were plainly necessary to salvation to all who liked them, and as
plainly unnecessary to all who disliked them. The Bible plain!
Why, the awful doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the Divinity of
Christ, and the Atonement, had all been vehemently denied on
the authority of the Bible ! Was Mr. Kidds ignorant that Roman.
Catholics confidently quoted the Bible, from Genesis to Revelations,
against Protestant doctrines ? Did he know that Cardinal Bellar
mine quoted more than fifty texts, in proof of Purgatory, and that
others quoted more than a hundred in defence of their confidence
in the Blessed Virgin ? (Mr. Kidds groaned aloud.) Was anything
more plain to the Papist than the declaration to Peter: "Upon
this rock I will build my church ? " Was anything less ambiguous
to him than the words: "This is my body?" Anything more
decisive than the announcement: "It is a wholesome and holy
thought to pray for the dead?" , [Archdeacon Jolly here ob
served to a neighbour, that the Church of England, as a quiet way
of getting rid of this "unscriptural " text, ordered it to be left out,
when it occurred in the Lesson for the day !] All Scripture doc
trines, he repeated, were plain to those who liked them, and forced
or perverted to those who did not. What was " pure gospel " to
Mr. Brown was " deadly error " to Mr. Green, and the " fundamental
verities" of Mr. Thompson were the "satanical delusions" of Mr,

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 41
Johnson. One half the clergy of the Church of England believed
that the religion of the other half was odious in the sight of
God, and yet they all read the Bible! The Bible plain! Why
there was less dispute among men as to the interpretation of
the Vedas, of Chinese chronology, or of Egyptian archaeology,
than of this plain and intelligible book, which, to the eternal dis
honor of Protestant commentators, had now almost ceased to
have any definite meaning whatever, because every imaginable
meaning had been defended by some, and denied by others. Plain !
when such a man as St. Augustine — who was a professor of rhetoric
before he became a Christian, and a man of gigantic intellect —
frankly avowed that "the Bible contained more things which he
could not, than which he could understand." Plain ! when the two
most cherished dogmas of Protestantism — the observance of the
Sunday, and the reading of the New Testament — are nowhere
commanded by our Lord, the Evangelists, or the Apostles. Plain !
when Bishop Colenso, in writing to the Time's, could quote eleven
texts of Scripture to prove that .prayer ought not to be offered to
our Blessed Lord. Plain ! when their own Church flatly denied it,
and admitted that she could not infallibly know the truth, by
honestly confessing that she could not infallibly teach it. Plain!
when every bishop and every clergyman, in every charge and every
sermon, proved that it was not. Every shuffling decision of the
Privy Council proved that it was not. Every gossiping conclave
at Exeter Hall proved that it was not. Every conflicting debate
of Convocation proved that it was not. The very heathen proved
that it was not; for they jeeringly replied to Protestant mission
aries, " since you all read the Book, why don't you all agree about
it?" Finally, a hundred sects outside the Church, and five hun
dred within her, proved that it was not, and that its boasted
plainness came at last to this,, that the only common truth- which
all men agreed to derive from it was the historical doctrine of an
historical Saviour.
MR. KIDDS would add, with devout gratitude, "and the cor
dial abhorrence of Popery."
THE PROFESSOR would ask permission to waive, at least for
the' moment, that profoundly philosophical dogma, observing only

42 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
that at least Roman Catholics did not gather that doctrine from
the Bible, and that they were the largest body of Christians in the
world. Meanwhile, he would request Mr. Kidds to observe that
Bible Christianity had this inconvenience, that it degraded all
Truth to Opinion ; and whilst it ridiculed infallibility as diffused
throughout the Roman Church, it made itself far more ridiculpus
by claiming for every individual what it denied to the largest and
most ancient of communions. The- truth was, that Protestantism,
on the Bible-theory, was, in principle, " Popery," multiplied by as
many individuals as there were Protestants in the world. Instead,
of one infallible Pope,; — who at leas't was never known to reverse
the dogmatical decisions of those who had gone before him, — they
had now got several millions of infallible individuals, who were
incessantly occupied in contradicting one another. He did not
know that they had gained much by the change. If the aggregate
infallibility of the Roman Church was hard to stomach, the personal
infallibility of every one of your neighbours was simply intolerable.
But what he desired most to recommend to the notice of Mr. Kidds
and his party was this, that none went so far as they to discredit
infallibility, by the manner in which they, claimed it for themselves;
and none went so far to prove it, by the manner in which they
denied it to the Catholic Church. To quote the words of a modern
Roman Catholic: "Protestants, 'by denying the Catholic theory,
have proved the impossibility of knowing what is necessary to
salvation; and by asserting the Protestant theory, they have pre
sented to the world the prodigious spectacle of every man differing
at every point of his own (hypothetical) infallibility."
DEAN PRIMITIVE would venture to ask the Professor, who
seemed to display equal contempt for both parties in his own
Church, while he manifested at least an intellectual sympathy with
Roman claims, how he could reconcile it to his conscience to
retain his Professorial Chair?
THE PROFESSOR replied: It made one smile to be asked in
those days, whether any particular opinion, or set of opinions, in
volved disloyalty to the Established Church. What opinion was not
held within its communion? Were not Dr. Wilberforce and Dr.
Colenso, Dr. Hamilton and Dr. Baring, equally bishops of the

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 43
Church of England ? Were not Dr, Pusey and Mr. Jowett at the
same moment her Professors ; Brother Ignatius and Mr. Bellew her
ministers ; Archdeacon Denison and Dr. M'Neile her distinguished
ornaments and preachers ? Yet their religions differed almost as
widely as Buddhism from Calvinism, or the philosophy of Aristotle
from that of Mr. Martin Tupper. A good many things were dead
amongst them besides the Test Act.. He doubted if even Hoadley
would be prosecuted now, and was quite sure he would not be pros
ecuted with success. Dr. Hampden had been called in an Anglican
paper, " as well-known a heretic as Arius was," and yet was as
truly an Anglican bishop as Ken or Jeremy Taylor, The "Essays
and Reviews" were, condemned only the other day by a majority
of Convocation ; yet one of their ablest contributors continued to
be chaplain to the Queen, who was the head of their Church, Dr.
Stanley had been excommunicated by Dr. Wordsworth, yet this
only confirmed his appointment as Dean of Westminster, and
might even materially assist him in becoming Archbishop of Can
terbury. Resign his office for conscience sake ! continued the. Pro
fessor : he was really incapable of an act at once so presumptuous
and so unnecessary. Who was he that he should teach a com
munion so reluctant to enforce them the forgotten claims of con
science? He would advise his friend Dean Primitive to be very
cautious in recommending "resignation" to those from whom he
differed. If 'an Anglican minister must resign because his opin
ions were at variance with those of some other Anglican minister,
every soul among them would have to retire — from the Arch
bishop of Canterbury down to the last licentiate from Durham
or St. Bees. (Great laughter.) Resignation would be a clumsy
remedy for the evils which they all confessed ; it would cure the
disease, but it would kill the patient. .Other members of his party
were more worldly-wise than Dean Primitive. Mr. Bennett had
lately addressed a letter to Dr. Pusey, in which, while declaring
that their controversy with the Low-Church clergy was a matter
of "life and death," he argued that the latter ought to be allowed
to "remain in their communion." If he approved th;'s plea, — as
consistent with the spirit and the history of the Anglican Church,
whose motto was, "Live and let live," and which had always been
more solicitous to keep men of different religions within her pale
than to force them to go out, — he would not conceal that, from

44 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
another point of view, the language of Mr. Bennett filled him with
disgust and contempt. It was a fresh proof how little men of his
school really cared for the mysterious doctrines about which they
talked so glibly, since they were quite willing to " remain in com
munion " with men who flatly denied them, and even publicly in
sisted that the latter had as good a right as themselves to be
teachers in the Anglican Church ! What could such men care
about what they impudently called " the Truth ? " (Sensation.)
But he would ask Dean Primitive, who was probably more sin
cere than others of his party, why any, man should " resign,"
whatever his opinions might be, when the Privy Council had de
cided that it was lawful to hold either of two opposite doctrines?
If there was only one dogma in the Church of England, why. did
she tolerate within her pale two discordant dogmas upon almost
every fact and tenet of Christianity? Why did she treat every
article of the faith as the false mother was willing to treat the
child not' her own, and consent to kill by cutting it in two ? Why
did Privy Council permit no definite doctrine; and Convocation
agree upon none? Why was Archdeacon Denison tried for
preaching the Real Presence, and let off because it was proved
that he did so ; while Dr. Forbes was convicted of holding Tran
substantiation, and excused because he- engaged not to teach it?
Why did Dr. Sumner appoint Mr. Gorham to a benefice because
he denied Regeneration in Baptism, and the Sovereign make Dr.
Philpotts a bishop because he believed it ? Why did the Bishop
of Salisbury deliver a charge in which he informed his diocese
that more than half the English clergy were heretics, while the
Bishop of Durham deposed a Rural Dean for teaching the very
doctrines which the Bishop of Salisbury declared to be divine?
Why did the Queen make Dr. Colenso her bishop at Natal, though
her own Courts declared that she had no power to do so, yet suffer
her Bishop at Cape Town to try to remove him by an authority as
visionary as her own ? Why did Dr. Pusey advocate the union of
the English Church with those of Rome and Moscow, excluding the
Scandinavian and other Protestant bodies ; while Dr. Tait, rejoicing
in the ministry of Mr. Spurgeon, proposed to exclude both Rome and
Moscow, and to unite the Anglican See of London with the Taber
nacle of a Baptist preacher? But it was idle to ask the "why"
of all the monstrous phenomena which were constantly passing

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 45
before their eyes, and which were now too much a matter of
course to excite even the passing curiosity of the public. They
proved — and this was his answer to Dean Primitive — that the only
real disqualification for.remaining in the Church of England was,
not the holding opinions contradicted oy those around you, but the
holding any definite opinion whatever. That alone, he was pre
pared to maintain, was the sole unpardonable inconsistency with
the principles of the Anglican Church.
DR. THEORY hoped that the Professor would not resume his
seat, without 'favoring the House with his opinion on Dr. Easy's
hypothesis. THE PROFESSOR must decline to give his own opinion,
though of course he had one, on the question proposed by Dr.
Easy; but he had no objection to state how he conceived it
ought to be answered by the so-called Bible-Christian. That
answer might be as follows :
• The existence of a Church assumes the existence of a God;
therefore, the denial of a God would be the same with a denial
of a Church, But the Church of England is a fact. Her teaching
may be doubtful or contradictory, but her existence as a politico-
ecclesiastical institution, professing belief in a God, is beyond
dispute. It would, therefore, be heresy in the Bible-Christian to
deny the existence of a God, but it was quite open to him to
believe in any kind of divinity he might prefer, and to clothe Him
with whatever attributes the Privy Council had permitted Him to
retain. For example : the Justice of God was evidently an open
question, because the Privy Council had decided that punishment
was not necessarily eternal. The Truthfulness of God was very
doubtful, because the Privy Council had decreed that God's
revelation to man was, perhaps, not plenarily inspired. The
Faithfulness of God was more than obscure, because the Privy
Council had ruled that Baptism was not necessarily the Sacrament
of Regeneration. Finally, the Unity of God was impossible, because
the Privy. Council had repeatedly affirmed that truth was not one
but manifold. The Bible-Christian might, therefore, argue that it
would be heresy to deny the existence of a God, because, as he had

46 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
said, the existence of the Church implied the existence of some
kind of divinity; but that it would not be heresy to deny any
one of His attributes, because, if the supreme Anglican tribunal
spoke truly, it was hardly possible that God should have any.
DR. EASY was grateful to the learned Professor for the light
which he had thrown upon the question which he had ventured to
submit to their examination. The debate had elicited precisely
the conclusion at which he desired to arrive. It was, however,
tb be regretted that the Privy Council, whose chief aim was to
decide nothing, had really decided, by implication, that the exist
ence of God was an open question. Such a decision might be
fruitful of evil. Every one was privately aware that, in the Church
of England, nothing was necessarily anything. Still, it was a
pity to burden the consciences of good men by obliging them to
think that they must necessarily- take the unnecessary view of
Christianity. It had really come to this, thanks to the bungling
caution of the Privy Council, that the only dogma now left to them,
besides the fallibility of their Church, might be thus expressed :
"The necessity of taking the non-necessary view of everything;"
or perhaps, as a substitute for Creed, Catechism, and Articles, they -
might enunciate the whole scope of Anglican theology in this one
proposition : " Unbelief, considered as generally necessary to
salvation." On the other hand, he would be the last to deny their obligations
to the Privy Council, which was the mildest and best-bred of '
human tribunals. What could surpass the considerateness with
which it said to every defendant summoned to its bar: "Pray, do
not let me hamper your Christian freedom, nor interfere with your
disbelieving half or the whole of Christianity. You object to
Baptism ? Well, well, the Church will not be severe upon you for
that. You doubt Plenary Inspiration ? Then pray, my dear sir,
don't believe it. You detest the notion of a Sacrifice ? We have
already decided that there is no such thing as an altar in the
Church of England. You are shocked at' the idea of the eternity
of punishment ? We will meet your views, and invent a new kind
of Anglican Purgatory for you instead." Considering that every
possible variety of belief and. unbelief existed in their Church, and
had existed from the beginning, was it a light advantage to possess

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 47
an authority so mild a,nd gentle, whose decisions were so admirably
adapted to the circumstances of the times? "Come to me," it
seemed to say, "whenever you feel the burden of any doctrine or
tenet, and I will do my best to arrange it comfortably for you.
Place the fullest confidence in me. I know the history and the
character of the Church whose voice I am; and, as I have never
yet obliged you to believe anything to which you. object, you may
repose in the tranquil assurance that I never will."
ARCHDEACON JOLLY was so much impressed by the obser
vations of the preceding speaker, that he thought they should not
separate without expressing, in a more formal way, their gratitude
to the Privy Council. He was inclined to propose something more
practical than a barren vote of thanks. Let the now unmeaning
words of their Prayer-Book be altered so as to be in harmony with
facts and with the new decisions. It would be something to make
a beginning, which their critics scoffi ngly affirmed Convocation was
quite unable to do. He would move the following vote : " That
that portion of the Catechism be recast which teaches that thefe
are ' two sacraments, as generally necessary to salvation ;' and that,
in answer to the question, ' How many sacraments are there ? ' the
clause should stand thus : ' Two only, as formerly necessary to
salvation, but one of them not so necessary now as it used to be.' "
DEAN BLUNT feared the new formula would hardly satisfy
the requirements of the age! He thought that if they took the
sense of the country, it would be more truthful to render the
clause thus : " Two only, as equally imnecessary to salvation, but
baptism to be viewed as rather an impediment to salvation than
otherwise." ARCHDEACON JOLLY would consider the amendment during
the recess.
THE REV. LAVENDER KIDDS here rose in much excite
ment. He would boldly declare his opinion that the debate of
that day was a disgrace to a Protestant House of Convocation.
He trusted that Convocation would deem it a solemn duty not
to separate without, at least, renewing its protest against the

48 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
iniquitous Church of Rome. He would presume to add lhat, by
that step alone, it could repair much that was unscriptural and
unsound in the discussion of that day. He was prepared, if
necessary, to make a formal motion to the effect that " Convo
cation continues to regard with horror the corruption and super
stitions of Popery." This was the first and holiest duty of every
vital Christian.
ARCHDEACON JOLLY doubted whether the universal Nego
of Mr. Kidds and his friends could combat successfully the eternal
Credo of two hundred millions of Catholics. However, he was
quite willing to consider Mr. Kidds' proposition ; but he must be
excused if he did so from his own point of view.
There was a large class of persons in this country, continued the
Archdeacon, who, having no definite religion of their own, and
being slenderly endowed with common sense, were indebted to the
Roman Catholic Church. both for employment and maintenance.
Let Mr. Kidds restrain his excitement; he would explain his
meaning. He did not, of course, include Mr. Kidds among the
class in question, though' he believed that gentleman would wil
lingly accept the statement of Sterne, who candidly confessed, that
"when he had little to say, or little to give his people, he had
recourse to the abuse of Popery. Hence he called it his ' Cheshire
Cheese.' It had a twofold advantage ; it cost him very little, and
he found by experience that nothing satisfied so well the, hungry
appetite of his congregation. They always devoured it greedily."
Perhaps Mr. Kidds was not aware that in his zeal to hasten the
downfall of Popery, — which, even according to modern prophets,
had still a few years to last, and which, judging by a recent tour
he had made on the Continent, presented anything but a moribund
aspect, — he was in violent opposition with many active and devoted
Protestants. The persons to whom he alluded were, at this moment,
full of anxiety, lest Popery should perish too soon ! They could
not afford to say farewell to their old friend at present, and desired
only to keep him on his legs a little longer. Mr. Kidds was pro
bably ignorant that a society had recently been formed in London
in connection, he believed, with the Protestant Reformation Society,
to which it was designed to act as a timely and important auxiliary;
The title of this new association was: " Bopiety for considering the.

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 49
best means of keeping alive the corruptions of Popery in the interests
of 'Gospel truth." It was, of course, a strictly secret organization,
but he had been favoured, he knew not why, with a copy of the
prospectus, and as he had no intention of becoming a member, he
would communicate it to the House. It appeared from this docu
ment, and could be confirmed from other sources, that a deputation
was sent last year to Rome, to obtain a private interview with the
Pope, in order to entreat His Holiness not to reform a single. Popish
corruption. He was assured that they had reason to believe, he did
not know on what grounds, that the Pope was about to introduce
extensive reforms, beginning with the substitution of the Thirty-
Nine Articles for the creed of Pope Pius, and a permanent Anglican
Convocation in lieu of an occasional oecumenical Council. A hand
some present was entrusted to the deputation, and a liberal contri
bution to the Peter's Pence Fund. The motives set forth in the
preamble of the address presented to His Holiness were, in substance,
of the following nature : — They urged that a very large body of
most respectable clergymen, who had no personal ill-will towards
the present occupant of the Holy See, had maintained themselves
and their families in comfort for many years exclusively by the
abuse of Popery; and if Popery were taken away, they could not
but contemplate the probable results with uneasiness and alarm.
Moreover, many eminent members of the profession had gained a
reputation for Evangelical wit, learning, and piety, as well as high,
dignities in the Church of England, by setting forth in their sermons
and at publicmeetings,- with all their harrowing details, the astound
ing abominations of the Church of Rome. The petitioners implored.
His Holiness not to be indifferent to the position of these gentlemen*.
Many of their number had privately requested the deputation to plead
their cause with the amiable and benevolent Pius IX. Thus the great
and good Dr. M'Nickel represented respectfully that he had filled
his church, and let all his pews, during three-and-twenty years, by
elegantly slandering priests and nuns, and powerfully illustrating
Romish superstitions. A clergyman of noble birth had attained to
the honors of the episcopate by handling alternately the same
subjects, and a particularly pleasing doctrine of the Millenium,
and had thus been enabled to ¦ confer a valuable living on his
daughter's husband, who otherwise could not have hoped to obtain
one. An eminent canon of an old Roman Catholic abbey owed his
4

50 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
distinguished position, which he hoped to be allowed to retain, to
the fact of his having proved so clearly that the Pope was Anti
christ; and earnestly entreated His Holiness to do nothing to forfeit
that character. A well-known doctor of Anglican divinity was on
the point of quitting the country in despair of gaining a livelihood,
when the idea of preaching against Popery was suggested to him,
and he had now reason to rejoice that he had abandoned the foolish
scheme of emigration. Even a High-Church bishop had been so
hampered by suspicions of 'Rbmanistic tendencies, which were per
fectly unfounded, that he had only saved himself from general dis
credit by incessant abuse of Popery, though he was able to say, in
self-defence, that he did not believe a word of his own invectives.
Finally, a young clergyman, who had not hitherto much dis
tinguished himself, having often but vainly solicited a member of
his congregation to favor his evangelical attachment, at length hit
upon a new expedient, and preached so ravishing a discourse on the
matrimonial prohibitions of the Romish Church, and drew So avail
ing a picture of the domestic infelicities of the Romish priesthood,
that on the following Monday morning the young lady made, him
an offer of her hand and fortune. It was hopedthat His Holiness
would give due consideration to interests so grave and manifold,
and not peril them by hasty reforms, which nobody desired, and
which nobody would receive with satisfaction.
Another class of clergymen appealed still more urgently to the
(forbearance of the Pope. They represented that they were in the
iabit of realising large sums by the publication .of prophetical
works, of which the whole interest turned upon the approximate
destruction of "the Beast," and "that, while they indicated, by the
help of the Apocalypse, the precise hour of his fall, they yet
managed to put off the final catastrophe from year to year, and
¦could hardly supply the successive editions which the curiosity of
the public demanded. They hoped that His Holiness would do
•nothing rash and imprudent which might compromise their par
ticular industry. One of these gentlemen ingenuously confessed
that without Antichrist, who was his best friend, and the invaluable
•book of Revelations, which was his chief source of income, he saw
nothing before him but the workhouse. He begged to forward to
the Pope a copy of each of his works, including the following: —
<¦' Horns of the Beast," neatly bound, with gilt edges ; "Antichrist,"

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 51
handsomely got up, " positively his last appearance in 1864, in con
sequence of other engagements," with new editions in 1865, 1866,
and 1867; also, "Answer to an insolent pamphlet, entitled 'Thts
Niomber and Street of the Beast proved to be that of the Rev. Dr.
Comeagain.' "
Lastly, even members of Parliament to whom nature had not
been prodigal in intellectual endowments, urged with great force
that they wefe able to get on their legs, and to stay there, detail
ing the prodigious incidents of conventual turpitude ; making the
blood to curdle, and the hair to stand- on end, by thrilling narra
tives of nuns immured, and clanking chains, and bereaved mothers,
invoking in agonised chorus, " Liberty and Mr. Newdegate." They
hoped the Pope would see in this fact the necessity of caution, lest
he should unwittingly put to silence more than one independent
member of Parliament, deprive an illustrious assembly of its chief
amusement, and rashly change the composition of the British House
of Commons.
DEAN POMPOUS inquired (with a somewhat thick utterance
but with great dignity of manner) whether he understood the
Archdeacon to say that he had actually seen this document ?
ARCHDEACON JOLLY: He had certainly said so; it had
been shown to him in Rome by Cardinal Antonelli.
DEAN POMPOUS might perhaps hazard a suspicion as to its
authenticity ?
ARCHDEACON JOLLY: Had such a document been found
in London or Edinburgh, the suspicion might be reasonable, but,
having been seen in Rome, the evidence for its authenticity must
be accepted in the inverse ratio of its credibility. This principle
would be easily admitted by Protestants of the school of Mr. Kidds.
They had only to turn for proof to the treatise on Moral Evidence
lately put forth by the "Anglo-Metropolitan and General Super
stition Repelling Association." At page 127 of that work they
would find the following postulate :
" Let it be granted that, in all which relates to Rome,
the Babylon, of the Apocalypse, a thing is more or

52 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
less true in proportion to its improbability ; and that
those things alone are absolutely certain of which it
can be demonstrated that they never could by any
possibility have happened."
(At this point, as nobody rose to continue the discussion, it
seemed likely to close abruptly. Several reverend divines took
their hats, and appeared about to retire, when it was whispered,
that Archdeacon Chasuble had intimated his desire to address the
House on the twofold question of Authority in the English, and
Infallibility in the Catholic Church. Lively attention appeared to
be excited by this announcement, and the retiring members eagerly
resumed their seats.)
ARCHDEACON CHASUBLE would begin by assuring his
colleagues that they would be disappointed if they thought he, was
going to claim infallibility for the Church of England. (Some
laughter, which was immediately suppressed by loud cries of
"Order.") He had deep convictions, but he trusted, that he was
neither a dreamer nor an enthusiast. He would not claim for his
Church a gift which she had always repudiated. He began there-.
fore by admitting that infallibility could not reside in a Church
which, in the ' first hour of her existence, had proclaimed to the
world that the whole of Christendom, including all the Apostolic
Churches, had fallen into error. The original message of the
Church of England to all Christian nations was in substance as
follows : " The fact that I am required in .the sixteenth century to
teach the Catholic Church proves that the Catholic Church has
become incompetent to teach. But, in recording this universal
defection, I am obliged to admit that I also am liable to error. I
cannot deny what is clearly involved in the fundamental axiom
with which I commence my career."
But though the Anglican Church was thus confessedly fallible
or human, did it follow that she was no true Church, and that her
members were all out of the pale of Catholicity? God forbid.
No one maintained that the Church of England was the Catholic
Church. Her most attached members freely admitted that she was
but one of several branches of that Church. Now, it was of the
Catholie Church, of which he claimed to be a member, and not of

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 53
the Church of England, that he ventured to assert, She cannot err.
He would ask permission to prove that proposition.
If the Catholic Church were not infallible at one period of her
existence, — for example, when she decreed the Canon of Holy
Scripture, — what assurance had they, or could they have, that they
possessed the true Bible ? Saints had differed widely about it, so
widely as to reject books now admitted to be canonical, while they
admitted others now rejected as spurious. In the fourth century it
was still an open question, till, at length, it was finally decided by
the authority of the Church. If the Church were not infallible,
what was the decision worth?
Again. If the Catholic Church were not infallible while she was
building up her creeds and constructing her liturgies,both were a mere
bundle of human opinions, whieh might be partly true and partly false,
but could never be imposed on the conscience of mankind. What had
been framed by one human authority might evidently be modified
by another. It was therefore conceivable, on the hypothesis of
the fallibility of the Church, that Christians had always had a false
Bible, false -creeds, and false liturgies. Nay, it was not only con
ceivable, but eminently probable; for how could the human beget
the divine, or the certain be born of the fallible ?
He had not completed his argument, but would pause to anti
cipate an objection. He might be fairly asked, "it the Church
were infallible when she defined the Canon of Scripture, by what
special act, or at what particular period, did she lose this gift of
infallibility?" He replied without hesitation, she had never lost it.
The gift was suspended for a time, by reason of the loss of unity
with which it was indissolubly associated, but it might be recovered
at any moment. Let the Russian, the Roman, the Greek, the
Anglican, and the Oriental branches, once more unite, and on the
morrow of their reconciliation the dormant gift of infallibility would
again revive.
THE PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY would venture to ask the
Archdeacon how half-a-dozen hostile churches, without infallibility
to guide them,. could possibly arrive at a common conception of the
doctrines on which they had differed for ages ? If the Church had
not escaped falling into error, according to the Anglican hypothesis,
while she still, according to the Archdeacon, possessed both unity

54 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
and infallibility, how could she ever recover her position now that,
as he confessed, she possessed neither the one nor the other ?
ARCHDEACON CHASUBLE admitted, with deep sorrow, the
force of the objection. If infallibility waited on the re-union of the
warring churches, — well, it was a sad truth that there Ivas no early
prospect of its recovery. He confessed that he did not see his way
to answer the objection. Still, whatever the difficulty might be, he
would not the less earnestly protest against the monstrous notion,
that the Uatholic Church could ever abdicate the functions which
she derived from her Founder, or lose the power to " teach all
nations," the very object for which He expressly created her. It
was an intolerable assumption that the Catholic Church, when she
infallibly defined the Canon of Scripture, decreed that from that
moment she was herself no longer infallible, or that she transferred
the infallibility by which she decreed the Canon to the Canon whose
infallibility she decreed.
No doubt they were surrounded by difficulties, and he had too
much respect for truth and honesty to deny their existence. If,
therefore, he were asked, why a Church which could teach with
divine authority in the third or fourth centuries could no longer do
so in the tenth or fourteenth, he admitted that he did not know what
answer to give ; because if the schisms and heresies which existed
even in the apostolic age did not impair her prerogative of infalli
bility then, it was reasonable to argue that they could not produce
such a consequence now. ' Evidently the Church did not become
human and fallible simply because her enemies were called Luther
or Cranmer instead of Cerinthus or Marcion, or because the names
of Calvin or Burnet were substituted ¦ for those of Eutyches or
Nestorius. If the earlier heretics could not rob the Church of the
gift which God had imparted to her, certainly it was hard to see
why later adversaries should be able to do so. If the Councils of
Nice or Ephesus, as even the Reformers allowed, were the voice of
the Holy Ghost, it was not clear why those of Florence or Trent
had less claim to their obedience. But it was their sorrowful lot
as Anglicans to be born to difficulties. This was their portion.
Alas ! they could but dimly perceive the principles of truth ; their
^effectual application was to them impossible.
Still there were certain verities which even they could firmly grasp,

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 55
and it was their duty to proclaim them aloud, whatever fatal con
tradictions they-.might seem to involve. He would declare, there
fore, his own conviction that the doctrine of the fallibility of the
Catholic Church was simply blasphemy, because it made God un
faithful to his promises ; and palpable nonsense, because it implied
that he had founded a Teaching Church without giving it the power
to teach ! When the Anglican homily gravely asserted that the
whole Church of God, — the home of the saints and martyrs — had
been " sunk in the pit of damnable idolatry by the space of nine
hundred years and odd," it made the heart sick to think that they
were themselves the heirs of the Very men who had uttered such
stupid profanity. But the founders of Anglicanism had to account
for and excuse their own position in the world, and this was their
way of doing it. They declared, without hesitation, that God had
abandoned his own Church to what .had been truly called a Diabol
ical Millenium. It almost seemed as if- they were willing to pass for
madmen, provided only they might be allowed to say of the Church
which they had just quitted, that she was as mad as themselves.
DEAN CRITICAL had listened, thus far, with deep attention
to his venerable friend, and would continue to do so to. the end of
his discourse ; but would he permit him to interrupt him fof a mo
ment, in order to ask a question which was neither captious nor
insidious. The Archdeacon evidently did not believe that the Cath
olic Church was infallible now, whatever she might have been for
merly, or of course he would instantly submit to her authority ; yet
he distinctly affirmed that, by the first law of her nature, she must
be so ! Might they then claim him, in spite of his transcendental
theories, as an advocate, after all, of the simple Protestant doctrine,
that there was really no- such thing as a Teaching Church in the
world ? He should be glad to think so. Would he also tell them,
since the real subject of the discussion in which they were engaged
was the presence or absence of .authority in the English Church,
whether he frankly admitted that that Church, having no infalli
bility, and therefore no divine authority, could teach no certain truth,
exact no religious obedience, and anathematize no doctrinal error?
ARCHDEACON CHASUBLE was far from professing to .be
able to answer all. the. questions which might be addressed to him.

56 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
He would content himself with saying, that if there were no other
ecclesiastical authority in the world than such as resided in the
Church of England, it was too evident that men could possess no
certainty in their religious convictions, — that they could obey no
authority but what they chose for themselves, — and that heresy
could not be condemned, not only because there was no authority
to condemn it, but because in such a state of the Christian world
it could not even exist. But to say that there could be no such
thing as heresy, was evidently the same thing with saying that
there could be no such thing as truth, of which heresy was simply
the denial. Yet . heresy was not only a crime, as they learned
from St. Paul, but the greatest of all crimes, and might be called
the high treason of Christians. Every other sin which man could
commit was only against the laws of God, but this was against His
Person and Essence. God is truth, and heresy is the worship of
a lie, which is God's greatest contrary. Satan, they were told by
our Lord, was " the father of lies." Heretics were therefore the
dear children of Satan, who fed them with lies.
For this reason, it would seem, — because heresy was nothing
but a part of Satan's warfare against God, and the greatest sin
which men or devils could commit,^-the Bible spoke of it only in
tones of appalling menace and anathema. The Son of God had.
words of compassion for the adulteress, and the stern St. Paul
commanded that the man guilty of incest should be admitted to
pardon.. Not so with heresy. There was apparently no mercy
for that. St. Paul had forbidden a Christian so much as to "eat
with" a heretic. And yet, at least in one of its aspects, heresy
was -nothing else than disobedience to the divine authority of the
Church! Perhaps it was on this account that St. Augustine had
intimated his opinion that wilful disobedience to the Church might
(probably be the sin against the Holy Ghost.
What, then, must they think of a Church in which heresy had
:always been impossible ? Every argument in the discussion of that
•day had combined to prove that the Church of England not only
ipermitted her membef s to be heretics, but .actually made it their
duty and privilege! to be so. The obligation of "choosing" their
religion for themselves, that is, of being heretics, — and whether
they happened to choose Roman or Lutheran tenets made no kind
of difference in the sin, so long as they chose for themselves, — was

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 57
notoriously one of the least ambiguous injunctions of the Thirty-
Nine Articles ! The Church of England did not warn her members
against heresy, because she did not admit its existence, and because
she was conscious that she had no power to tell them with certainty
what was truth.
DEAN BLUNT v/as unwilling to interrupt the speaker, but he
felt constrained to observe that the Archdeacon seemed to revel in
pointing out difficulties, of which he admitted the solution to be
impossible, and which were enough to drive every member of his
communion into frantic unbelief. Would he tell them plainly,
Was there any living authority, old or young, in this nineteenth
century, in any part of the world, which was charged by God to
teach His creatures — what is truth f
ARCHDEACON CHASUBLE shook his head, but made no
reply. DEAN BLUNT continued : It had come then to this, that the
only teacher the High-Church party would permit them, was one
which had been dead and buried for about fourteen hundred years.
Happy Christians ! whose only chance of learning the truth, unless
they took it from an authority which confessed it could not teach
it, was to sift the Fathers, analyse the ecclesiastical historians, and
laboriously collate the records of antiquity, written in languages
which few could comprehend, all referring to a higher witness
external to themselves, and equally claimed by Roman, Greek, and
Anglican theologians, in confirmation of their discordant religious
tenets ! Certainly the Archdeacon had not afforded, them much
assistance in their search after Anglican " Authority." Perhaps,
however, he would at least be good enough to inform them, since
heresy in the Church of England was impossible, would it be heresy
in an Anglican to deny the existence of God ?
ARCHDEACON CHASUBLE, who rose with, an air of weari
ness and languor, would certainly venture to say that if the Church
had never been infallible, there was no difficulty in replying to the
question proposed by Dr. Easy. If there were no infallible judge
to appeal to, there could be no infallible truth ; and if there were no

58 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
infallible truth, it was hard to see how there could be a God, or at
least such a God as the Christian religion supposed, who was
solicitous about the children of men, and graciously yearned to
reveal Himself to them. How, he would ask, could there be a God,
— or, to put it more reverently, how could there be a revelation from
God to man, — unless there existed a living authority upon earth to
teach man infallibly what that revelation was ? If men might believe,
or were so unfavourably constituted that they must believe, many
different things about God, or about His truth; either such. errors
were of no importance, and a matter of perfect indifference to the
Most High, or else they were forced to admit that there might be
many truths, that is, many Gods. For this reason, he had always
maintained that Protestantism could only be true on one of three
hypotheses: either that there was noOod, and therefore no truth;
or secondly, many Gods, and therefore many truths ; or, lastly, one
God, who either cared nothing about His creatures, or was incapable
of securing the execution of His own promises to them, or was of
such inconstant variety of purpose that He was continually changing
His own views about truth, and never remained in the same mind
for twenty years together.
He concluded, therefore, that to deny the existence of an infallible
Church, and to deny the existence of the God of Christians, were
virtually equivalent propositions. The notion of a fallible church,
founded by an infallible God, was an absurdity and a contradiction ;
such a notion reduced Christianity below the level of the Indian
or Chinese systems of religious philosophy, and made it a dispensa
tion of anarchy and chaos. Truth could not rebuke error, because,
as had been abundantly proved, there was no such thing as truth
or error, and no possibility of distinguishing between them even if
they existed. The • Protestant theory ingeniously suppressed all
heresy, by suppressing the authority, the rejection of which consti
tuted heresy. Treason could have no existence where there was
no magistrate to rebel against. In the same way, the fallible
Church invented by the Reformers was simply a Club for specula
tive religionists, who were determined to enjoy every privilege of
heresy, without incurring the odium of it. If, thef efore, the
Christian Church were not infallible, he could not resist the
logical conclusion that there was no God ; for that God was no
true Gpd who could send a Teacher to the nations, and an inter-

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 59
preter of His own revelation, as human, as earthly, and as fallible
as that House of Convocation itself. (Sensation.)
DR. CANDOUR ventured to solicit the attention of his col
leagues while he attempted to reply to the discourse which they
had just heard. It was known to most of them that he belonged
neither to the High nor the Low-Church party ; and on this account
he could speak impartially of both. In addressing himself to his
task, he would endeavor, by every effort of which he was capable,
to clear his mind of the feelings of amazement and stupefaction
which the speech of the Archdeacon had created. It was not an
easy thing to do, but he would honestly make the attempt.
He respected every sincere conviction, and therefore he respected
a conscientious Roman Catholic ; but it really seemed to him that
for a Protestant to talk about infallibility was an event as wonder
ful and unexpected as if a Catholic should appeal to the Court of
Arches, or an Algerian marabout should submit his conscience to
the guidance of an English quaker. However, since they must needs
talk of infallibility, let them see what they could make of it.
Now, he must confess, at the outset, that the doctrine "once in
fallible, always infallible," appeared to him one of the most certain
conclusions of common sense. If it was difficult to believe that a
Church should begin to be infallible which had not been so before,
it was impossible to' admit that a Church should cease to be infallible
which had ever been so, even for a moment. Such a gift could only
come from God, and, therefore, man could not assume it ; it could
only be imparted because necessary to the Church, and, therefore,
God could not withdraw it. But it was demonstrable, according to
the Archdeacon, that the Primitive Church was infallible ; therefore
she was infallible at the time of the Reformation, and therefore the
Reformers were children of Satan, and rebels against the Most
High. His venerable friend, if he interpreted his looks rightly,
appeared to concur in that statement.
But the Archdeacon had assured them that this magnificent gift of
infallibility, though lost to the world for the present, might some day
be recovered. Before they permitted themselves to contemplate its
recovery, let them unite in deploring its loss. It was a hard lot to
live in an age when the infallible had become the fallible.' He did
not know what the existing generation had done to deserve it. He

60 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
could not help thinking it was a defective arrangement that infalli
bility should have existed in the purest ages, when Christians were of
" one heart and one mind," and, consequently, had less need of it ; and
that it should be withdrawn at a period of general strife and con
fusion, when its presence would-be so very useful. But, as the
Archdeacon had observed, it was their lot to be surrounded by
difficulties. One consolation, however, he was willing to allow them, — the
hope that this gift might be recovered. When the Roman, Greek,
and Anglican communities should all become one, the Church
would be once more infallible. Three spurious and defective
Christianities fused together, if anybody could persuade them to
coalesce, would make one true and perfect Christianity. The
giving up what each believed specially true, and the uniting in
what each believed specially false, was that travail in the
womb of Christendom which would. give birth to the new infalli
bility. He would only say, as the Pf ofessor of Theology had dis
posed of that point, that this was an obstetrical phenomenon which
he did not think any one present would live long enough to
witness. But, he would now, approach another aspect of the question, to
which the Archdeacon had attracted their attention. The Low-
Church theory, he had told them, and the language of their Articles
and Homilies, which assumed the defection of the Catholic Church,
" made void the promises of God." Was the Archdeacon quite sure
that Low-Churchmen were the real or sole offenders ? He thought
not. Let him ask his friend whether even the "Diabolical Mil
lenium " of the English Reformers, that dismal interval between the
sixth and sixteenth centuries, was a conception more insolently sub
versive of the promises of God, more fatal to the Catholic idea of a
divine, indefectible, and "Teaching Church," than the well-known
Anglican conceit, that the Early Church was wholly pure, the
Mediaaval much less pure, and the Modern quite unworthy of their
obedience ? Was it really so very respectful to the Catholic idea,
of which the Archdeacon claimed to be the advocate, to assert, as
he and his party did in every act of their lives, that, in spite of the
"promises of God," the only really perfect Church at this hour,
protesting at once against Protestant heresies and Popish corrup-

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 61
tions, was the little group of Puseyites and Ritualists within the
National Establishment? (Great laughter.)
The Archdeacon had reproached the Low-Church school, and
the founders of Anglicanism, with making void the promises of
God. Let the House consider how the High-Church party inter
preted those promises for themselves. According to their theory,
the promise 'to be " always " with the Church" applied only to the
beginning and the end of her career, but not to the long interval
between the two, during which the whole of Christendom was hope
lessly sunk in error and corruption. It was curious to see that
.the High-Church party cordially agreed, with ultra- Protestants,
that the Catholic Church during long ages had been teaching false
hoods ! This was their reverence for " the promises of God ! "
Again. The promise to guide the Church into " all truth " had
reference only to the integrity of truth, before the mission of St.
Augustine to England, and after the publication of the "Tracts
for the Times." The twelve hundred years between them, rather
a long period in the life of the Church, during which all Christians
obstinately believed the supremacy of the Pope, the office of the
Mother of God, and the Mystery of Transubstantiation, — doctrines
highly offensive to Puseyites, — were merely an unfortunate paren
thesis in the faithfulness of God, during which the Catholic idea
was lamentably obscured, and God forgot His "promises."
Once more. The promise that the " gates of hell " should " never "
prevail against the Church meant only, according to the same
school, that the principalities of evil, doing active work under the
father of lies, should certainly- prevail for a good many centuries.,
but that finally a little sect should rise up in the Church of Eng
land,, able to discriminate with precision the errors of the Angli
can, the Greek, and the Roman Churches, and peacefully to conduct
them all to the perfect truth which they had lost, to the unity
which they had forfeited, and to a very remarkable and final triumph
over the "gates of hell."
Perhaps the House would now be disposed to admit that, in
point of vigorous and unflinching Protestantism, there was not
much difference between High and Low-Churchmen. (General
marks of approval.) Indeed, he was inclined to agree with the
learned Professor, that 'in deliberate and self-conscious hostility to
Catholic principles, and especially to the doctrine of a Teaching

62 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
Church, High-Churchmen outstripped their rivals of every other
Protestant community, and left both English Puritans and Scotch
Covenanters far in the rear. There was a certain steadfast malice '
in their warfare against the Catholic Church, which they seemed to
treat as a personal enemy, and a certain cold and reflecting abhor
rence of her claims, of which the ordinary Protestant was perfectly
incapable ; and while the Puseyites used language about the glories
of "the Bride of Christ," and the "Communion of Saints," which
no other Protestants could use, they always ended by making cruel
havoc of both, and declining to have any communion whatever, with
any one but themselves. The Christian Church was certainly in
fallible, Archdeacon Chasuble assured them, for this was her most
essential quality; but somehow it had come tp pass, in the lapse
of ages, that they, the Puseyites, found it necessary to judge the
Church, deny her claims, reprove her errors, and offer to recon
struct her on a new basis. God had failed, but they had come to
His assistance. .The infallibility of the Universal Church, which
was at least an imposing idea, had dwindled by degrees to the in
fallibility of a few dozen English clergymen, which, he would take
leave to say, was simply comical.
But his venerable friend had. also informed them that he was a
"Catholic." Now, let them compare the definition of this term by
the High and Low-Church schools respectively, and say which was
the most worthy- of their applause. In the Low-Church philosophy,
to be a Catholic was to be in communion with all with whom you
^professed to differ; in the High-Church philosophy, it was to be
out of communion with all with whom you claimed to agree. In
the one it was the harmony of universal differences ; in the other,
it was the unity of three opposing Churches, two of which despised
the third, while each anathematised the other. In the Roman
sense, which, at least, was rational and intelligible, it meant the
absolute oneness in doctrine and discipline of all the Churches which
composed the Catholic communion ; in the Puseyite sense, which
was irrational and absurd, it was simply the arbitrary classification
of a hundred different objects under one name. The Catholicity of
Rome might be compared to a Tree, which had its roots in every
land, and displayed in all the same fruits and the same foliage;
the Catholicity of Puseyism was at best an artificial bouquet of

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 63
incongruous vegetable forms, composed of a rose, a cabbage, a tulip,
and an onion, tied together by a shoe-string. (Much laughter.)
Resuming the three points to which he had referred, — the
promises of God, the infallibility of. the Church, and the title of
Catholic, — he would say, without hesitation, that if he must accept
all three together, it was only in the Roman Church that he should
look for such a combination. For if Infallibility were the essential
prerogative of a Teaching Church, it could only exist in that Insti
tution which alone had always claimed it, both as her gift by
promise,, and the sole explanation of her triumphs and her per
petuity ? It would be the. idlest of dreams to search for it in a
fractional part of a modern community, which had always disowned
and scoffed at it, and which could only account for its own existence
on the very rational plea, that the Promises of God had signally
failed, and that it alone was able to correct the failure.
It only remained for him, in order to exhaust the topics of the
Archdeacon's address, to examine, if the House would permit him,
that .very remarkable doctrine which was generally known as "the
Branch-theory." He thought it would not be difficult to show, that
if the Archdeacon was a Catholic without Catholicity, he was ajso
a Branch without a Trunk.
His venerable friend, if he might construct a speech for one who
was so well able to speak for himself, might be supposed to address
the Roman Church as follows : — " I admit that my Church is not,
and cannot be, the Church Catholic. I admit, further, that she is
not a Church at all, except in a political or national sense. But
I contend that, in spite of her defects, she is a branch of the
Universal Communion, however earnestly you may repudiate the
connection ; and I insist that I am not excluded from your pale,
because I do not recognise yoitr right to exclude me. I claim to
determine that point for myself. I choose to belong to you,
whether you consent or not. I will not resign my communion
with Rome, though I know that you rank me with the aliens
outside ; and I must positively refuse to enter her communion,
though you- affectionately entreat me to do so. In a word, I will
belong to you, in spite of your rejection ; and I will not obey you
in spite of your invitation."
This was the way in which the branch spoke to the trunk.

64 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
Well, was it really a branch, and if so,- on what part of the trunk
was it grafted ? At what point did the vivifying sap flow from
the one to the other ? It was easy, of course, to understand the
metaphor in the case of a French, a Spanish, or an Austrian
clergyman, who believed every doctrine of the Catholic Church,
arid was in filial subjection to her Head, from whom alone he
professed to derive his mission and jurisdiction. Such men were,
doubtless, in a very real sense, "branches" of the Roman trunk.
But an Anglican, by whatever fancy names he might seek to
disguise himself, was simply a child of the Reformation, without
which his Church would never have come into existence; and,
moreover, that Church began its career by informing the world,
through the mouth of all its master-builders, that the Catholic
Church was the Babylon of the Apocalypse. How then, once
more, could he be a branch of the Roman trunk ?
He had heard, indeed, of a well-known clergyman, lately deceased,
who said to a friend, in answer to the inquiry how they were to
establish their connection with the Catholic Church, " May there not
be underground suckers?" This was all which the author of the
" Christian Year " could suggest to dissuade a brother minister from
going over to Rome ! But, surely, such idle words could hardly
satisfy a man who believed he had a soul. Branches were . not
connected with a tree by invisible and imaginary suckers, but
grew bodily out of its substance. And, moreover, they were always
of the same material. He would ask his venerable friend if ever
he saw a tree with one branch of oak, another of cypress, and a
third of ebony ? Did he ever see thistles growing on a vine, or
olives on a fig tree ? Yet even such a vegetable combination would,
in his judgment, be a far -less curious lusus natures than a theo
logical reproduction of the Siamese twins, in the shape of a dis
ciple of the Thirty-Nine Articles locked in the embrace of a pupil
of Cardinal Bellarmine.
The only true test of a theory was the result to which it led in
practice. The branch-theory did not look well on paper, but
perhaps it redeemed itself in its practical evolution ? He Would
suppose, then, that the Archdeacon, resolving to try his theory,
set out on a foreign tour. Did he leave Dover an Anglican, and
disembark at Calais a Roman Catholic ? If so, at what particular
spot in the Channel did he drop the Anglican Articles and take up-

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 65
the Roman Missal ? Was it marked by a buoy ? or was the trans
formation a gradual process, like the changes of temperature ? On
leaving Dover he carried with him only two sacraments, which had
grown into seven by the time he landed at Calais. Supposing the
distance to be twenty-five miles, did he take up a new sacrament,
— he was going to say at every fifth milestone, but the sea knew
not such measures of distance. Were there fixed points at
which he began to believe that Transubstantiation was a holy
mystery, and not a "blasphemous fable;" that Confirmation and
Extreme Unction were divine sacraments, .and not, as he had
believed while breakfasting at Dover, a mere "corrupt following
of the Apostles ?" Did he, in spite of the injunction with which
they were all familiar, " not to speak to the man at the wheel,"
anxiously interrogate that individual as to the precise longitude in
which it behoved him to cast away some Anglican delusion, and
take up some Catholic truth? At what point of the voyage did
the Pope's supremacy begin to dawn upon him ? And, finally, did
the process of transformation, to which all Branch-Christians were
inevitably subject when they went to foreign lands, depend in any
degree upon the weather? Was it quicker or slower in a heavy
sea? or did sea-sickness in any way affect its development?
But he would now suppose that, instead' of visiting France or
Belgium, or any other Catholic land, his friend should allow him
self the recreation of a voyage to the Baltic, and disembark on the
banks of the Neva. They were all aware that the " Holy Eastern
Church" was just now spoken of with a comically exaggerated reve
rence by a certain section of the English clergy, whose raptures did
not seem to be checked by the discouraging fact that the " Holy
Anglican Church" was an institution totally ignored by Greek and
Muscovite alike. Mr. Curzon had been asked, a few years ago, by
the Patriarch of Constantinople, " who the Archbishop of Canter
bury was f" The head of the Greek Church had never even heard
of him ! Now, their friend, the Archdeacon, would carry with him
to Russia his principle of branch-churches, which, by hypothesis,
would make him everywhere at home ; and he would be as much
imbued with Russian theology on arriving at -St. Petersburg, as he
was with Roman on arriving at Calais. He would now consider
the " Orthodox" religion at least as good as the " Catholic," if not
a great deal better. The Papal supremacy, equally odious to him
5-

66 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
and to the Russian, would become once more a "usurpation," and
the Czar would henceforth be his Pontiff, not the Pope. Imperial
maxims would penetrate his mind ; and the violent destruction of
Catholic interests in Poland and in Lithuania would claim his warm
approval, as in Calais it excited his horror and disgust. The
transformation of this Branch-Christian would be once more radical
and complete ! , He changed his religion with as much facility, as
he changed his coat. The fact that English, Roman, and Russian
creeds were so distinct as to involve perpetual and deadly schism,
only rendered his conversion to all three by turns a greater stretch
of Christian charity. If they did not know how to agree with one
another, he knew how to agree with all of them; so that the
Archdeacon appeared to have adopted this new theological formula,
that "the impartial distribution of mutual anathemas was the
truest condition of mutual communion."
One difficulty, however, would await him at St. Petersburg, from
which he was exempt at Calais. It was true that neither at Calais
nor at St. Petersburg would he meet a single priest wno would
regard him as anything but a heretic and a schismatic. In Russia,
as in France, none would consent to join him in the simple act of
worship, in spite of his provisional assumption of the Russian
Creed. But, then, it was a fact well-known in Russia, that the
Greek Church had been often reconciled to Rome, and always upon
terms imposed upon her by the latter ; and had often admitted, as
at the Council of Florence, that the Pope was the Vicar of God. So
that the Archdeacon would have changed his doctrine, and changed
again, only to find at last that the truth which he had abhorred at
Dover, and confessed at Calais, and abhorred once more in Russia,
in order to enjoy everywhere the privilege of being a " Branch-
Christian," was just as well appreciated in Russia as in Rome, was
actually enshrined in her liturgies, and only denied by the former,
at the present day, on political grounds, because it presented the
most formidable obstacle to Slavonic national unity. Was it worth
while, then, to maintain a theory which would not secure for him
the faintest recognition by any Church throughout . the world ;
which required its advocate to show even less respect for positive
truth than the Mormon or the Kaffir ; and which far from attract
ing the sympathy of the Greek or Roman Churches, which it was

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 67
foolishly designed to conciliate, only united them both in common
and undisguised contempt?
And here he would briefly narrate an incident which occurred
not many years ago, in illustration of the folly of the branch-
religion. An Anglican clergyman desired to receive the sacrament
at St. Petersburg. He was told, among other things, that he must
first anathematise the Thirty-Nine Articles.' He replied, as Arch
deacon Chasuble might do, that he was quite prepared to do so.
On this his Russian friends, who thought Branch-Christians simply
a nuisance, and pnly wanted to get rid of him, observed that more ¦
was necessary, and that he must bring a solemn declaration from
all the Anglican bishops, that they also anathematised the Articles,
It would certainly be a remarkable day on which the collective
Anglican Episcopate should declare their own Church accursed,
as these Russians politely proposed; and as the clergyman in
question was not sanguine that he could persuade them to do so,
he gave it up, and went to Constantinople to be admitted into the
Greek Church. But there they rudely informed him that he must.
be re-baptized, to which he strongly objected. Once more he
travelled to St. Petersburg, where they told him the ecclesiastics at.
Constantinople were ignorant boobies, at which he opened his eyes
very wide indeed, and finished by. becoming a Roman Catholic; in
which condition he wished him all possible felicity.
But he would detain the House no longer ; and' as the Arch
deacon had concluded his discourse by showing how, on his
principles, Dr. Easy's principles should be answered, he would beg
permission to follow his example. It was his opinion, then, that if
the Branch-idea be true, there must be three Gods, and not one;
and each of them on such deplorable terms with the other two, that
it was a marvel how Olympus could contain them without a general
celestial catastrophe.
DEAN- PRIMITIVE must really protest against such unbecom
ing levity.
DR. CANDOUR could assure the Dean that he never was more
serious in his life. If there was any touch, of levity or comedy
in the discussion, it was in the subject and not in his treatment of

68 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
it. He would go farther, and say that either indignation or con
tempt must be provoked in every honest mind by the modefn
theory which he had attempted to refute. He insisted that that
theory required the existence of three distinct and hostile gods, — an
Anglican, a Greek, and a Roman; and that on any disputed point
of doctrine an English clergyman would only have to say which of
the three he proposed to serve, in order effectually to puzzle the
Privy Council, and keep himself safe from the imputation of heresy.
He was brought, therefore, to the same conclusion as his venerable
friend. If to deny the infallibility of the Church, as he maintained,
was the same with denying the existence of a God,— -because God
could not possibly establish a fallible Church, — it was equally
certain that to suppose three warring and wrangling Churches, all
teaching different doctrines, yet all protected and commissioned by
one common Founder, and regarded by him with equal com
placency, was to admit that there were three Gpds; and this was
the same with saying that there was no God at all. And thus, by
different roads, he and his friend the Archdeacon arrived at pre
cisely the same conclusion.
THE PROLOCUTOR of the House here rose, with an air of
•dignity becoming his official character, and expressed his conviction
that the general feeling ofthe House was that the debate should now
-close. (Hear, hear.) That debate had proved a variety of things,
which were more or less destructive to the National Church, but
nothing perhaps more clearly than this, that the public was right
in regarding their discussions as very unprofitable to the interests
of religion, either in their own land or in any other. He did not
see what was gained by showing the world that no two of them
were of the same mind, and that Convocation had no more autho
rity to lead men to the truth than the Church which it was sup
posed to represent. He thought, indeed, the time had come when
¦Convocation should cease to meet as a representative body, affect
ing to deal with interests which it had no power to promote, and
to serve a cause which it was only able to compromise. Its deli
berations, — which might have a certain value if they pretended to
no official character, — were now regarded by everbody as a sham,
and probably their own convictions were in harmony with that
view. He proposed, therefore, that this should be the last official

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 69
meeting of Convocation, — (Loud cheers,) — and that henceforth
they should assemble in the house of one of their colleagues, where
they could converse together freely, like any other private com
pany, without the risk of exciting public animadversion. He really
thought that a few more meetings of Convocation would destroy
the Church of England altogether, since the only dogma which that
body could be said to have defined was this, that " Christianity,
from first to last, was entirely a matter of opinion ;" whereas, in
their private capacity, they could discuss every point of Christian
doctrine, without suggesting the idea to thoughtful minds that the
primary object of the Christian revelation was to make it impossible
for any man to know the truth. If the House shared his opinion,
it only remained to determine what should be the place of their
future meeting. (Applause.)
DR. EASY was delighted to be able to offer hospitality to his
reverend friends. He lived, as they knew, in the immediate neigh
bourhood of their fine old historical abbey, and his apartments were
sufficiently spacious to afford a convenient place of meeting. He
proposed, therefore, on the understanding that Convocation was
now happily extinct, that they should meet at his residence on
that day week, when they could, either resume the debate that had
hitherto occupied them, or turn their attention to any other topic
which might promise greater profit or amusement. (Loud cries
of "Agreed.") {Exeunt omnes.

SCENE II.

DR. EASY'S DRAWING-ROOM.

Dr., Easy's drawing-room presented an animated appearance.
Friendly greetings were exchanged, and decent hilarity pervaded
the assembly. The gravest countenances relaxed from conventional
severity. Archdeacons smiled as if in anticipation of coming
enjoyment, and even Deans responded to the salutations of the
inferior clergy with unwonted urbanity. The bright mirrors, well-
selected pictures, and far-reaching sofas which adorned Dr. Easy's
saloon, and bore witness at once to the amplitude of his revenues
and the refinement of his taste, were evidently felt to be an
improvement on the decorous gloom of the Jerusalem Chamber.
Tables of marble and rosewood were covered with choice engravings
and other works of art. Portraits of the Misses Easy attracted the
attention bf the younger clergy. The absence of reporters imparted
to their elder brethren a welcome sense of liberty. Free, but not
undignified, postures precluded the familiar dialogue in which each
could take cheerful part, without the unpleasant fear of newspaper
criticism. Convocation had become a social or family reunion, and
was evidently satisfied with the change. Informal discussion pre
ceded the coming debate, and themes which never fail tp interest
the clerical mind occupied the company. Dean Pompous disputed
with a neighbour the exact pecuniary value of a benefice likely to

72 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
be shortly vacant, and suggested a probable successor to the dying
incumbent. Dean Primitive conversed with Archdeacon Chasuble
on the recent letter of the Primate, inviting the Bishops "in visible
communion with the Church of England " to a Council in Septem
ber. Had his friend noticed, he asked, that remarkable announce
ment that " such Council would not be competent to make declara
tions, or lay down definitions on points of doctrine ? " His friend
had certainly noticed it. He had heard of Councils, both general
and local, which had assembled to decide on points of doctrine, but
it was the first time he had ever heard of a Council summoned with
the avowed object of avoiding all such 'questions. In such cheer
ful talk the reverend guests continued to indulge, till their number
being at length complete, there arose suddenly, amid the hum of
general conversation, a loud cry of " Chair, chair ! " Then the
host, leaning against a chimney-piece, bowed to his friends, and
prayed them to be seated. Silence being restored, the debate com
menced as follows : —
DR. EASY rejoiced that his reverend friends had attended in
such imposing numbers. In compliance with their invitation, he
had selected a subject to be submitted to their notice. Their last
debate, as they seemed generally to feel, had proved to themselves
and to the public that Authority neither did nor could reside in
the English Church. It was certain that no individual clergyman,
nor all the clergy put together, could decide any point of doctrine
whatever; so that the day seemed close at hand, — if it had not
actually arrived, — when an Anglican would be at liberty either to
accept or reject every truth contained in the Christian revelation.
The learned Prolocutor had well epitomised all the points of, their
last debate, and gracefully justified the characteristic decisions of
Privy Council, when he said, or at least implied, that the practical
result of all Anglican teaching, as of all Anglican history, might
be expressed in such, a formula as this: "Christianity, from first
to last, is simply a matter of opinion;" or, "The primary object
of the Christian Revelation is to render it impossible for any man
to know the truth with certainty."
In confirmation of this view of their position as members of the
Established Church, he was happy to be able to call their attention
to the recent declaration of one of her highest dignitaries. He

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 73
regretted that he was not present with them, that he might have
enforced in person the very striking statements which he was about
to quote from a published volume of his sermons, with which he
(Dr. Easy) had only become acquainted since their last meeting.
The very Rev. Dr. Elliot, the present Dean of Bristol, had publicly
asserted, without incurring the slightest shadow of reproach, these
two momentous truths ; (1) that the Church of England is, in all
respects, a purely human institution; and (2) that her members
are not bound in conscience to believe a single doctrine taught by
her. But he would quote his exact words :
" The Church of England," said the Dean of Bristol, " is created
by the law, upheld by the law, paid by the law, and may, be
changed by the law, just ai any other institution in the land."
That was his first proposition, and here was the second :
" I cannot desire you to accept either what I affirm, or what the
Church affirms, as undoubtedly true, or the only true interpretation
of the mysteries of God."
It was pleasant to see the conclusions at which they had arrived
in a former debate embraced with so much energy of conviction by
one of the highest functionaries of their National Church. And
now, accepting these conclusions as indisputable, and harmonising
perfectly with the life and history of that Church, he was led to
ask ; " If the Authority of the English Church be purely human, can
her Orders be divine ? " This was the question he should propose
for their consideration, arid without another word of preface, he
would submit the following motion to their vote : — " That this meet
ing, being unanimous on the point that Authority can have no exist
ence in the Church of England, desires to pass to the discussion of
the cognate question, 'Are English Orders human or divine?' "
(The motion being carried by show of hands, Dr. Easy invited
the Professor of History to open the debate, on the grourid that no ,
ane was more qualified to handle the subject, and to discriminate
with accuracy the delicate considerations connected with it.)
THE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY rose from an ottoman, and
then, in compliance with a general request, stood upon it, for the
convenience of his hearers. He had naturally, he. said, given, some

74 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
attenticn to a subject on which it had been his duty to lecture to
the students of one of the Universities. In earlier years, before
he accepted the responsibility of teaching others, he had been
accustomed to maintain the validity of English Orders to his own
satisfaction by some such process as the following : " There can be
no orders without Apostolic Succession, therefore it follows that
we must possess it." He need hardly observe that his maturer
reason rejected this crude argumentation, — (laughter) — but it
pained him to be obliged to add, that too many of the clergy at
the present day employed logical methods quite as feeble and in
conclusive as that which he had renounced. Their reasoning on
this important subject, involving intricate points of history as well
as moral difficulties of a very serious kind, was often trivial and
childish, quite unworthy of _the gravity of the subject, and only
tending to throw discredit upon it. He should be glad if he could
induce them to adopt a more manly tone, and perhaps he could
not better illustrate his meaning than by suggesting the following
cautions, by way of example.
Thus, with respect to the Ordinal of Edward VI., which had been
recently discussed in certain public journals, he could not seriously
advise his reverend friends to argue that, because that form was
new, it was therefore necessarily Catholic. Nor, because it did
not contain one word of Episcopal consecration, must it therefore
have been efficient to the making of a bishop. Nor, because it
was annulled in the reign of Queen Mary, must it therefore have
been legal in that of Elizabeth. Nor, because Queen Elizabeth,
labouring under the temporary impression that she was Almighty
God, "dispensed with all causes and doubts of any imperfection
of the same," should he therefore conclude that that dispensation
was straightway ratified in Heaven. Nor, once more, because
Charles II., one hundred and twelve years after the new form be
gan to be used, pronounced it invalid by substituting another in
its place, should he therefore attribute to that royal but light-
minded pontiff, the oirinipotence which he claimed in his tur.n, nor
admit his power to unite the links of a succession which his own
act declared to have been hopelessly broken.
In the same way, if he were discussing that vexata qucsstio, the
consecration of Archbishop Parker, he would not press the argument
too closely, that, because the register of his consecration was not

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 75
discovered for half a century, the fact was clearly providential,
and involved a primd facie probability that Parker was a true
bishop. Nor, again, because the register of Barlow's consecration,
who was said to have consecrated Parker, was never discovered at
all, should he therefore insist that his consecration attained to a
point of demonstration which was akin to absolute certainty.
In like manner, when he considered the historical fact, that most
of the Reformers, especially those who had the principal influence in
determining the tone of their formularies, openly despised the rite
of Ordination, he could not counsel his brethren to attribute to
them a delicate fastidiousness in their mode of administering it,
which they would certainly have disowned with scorn. Thus, be
cause Barlow was known to have regarded Ordination as a trifling
and impertinent thing, declaring that "any layman whom the
king might choose to be a bishop, would be as good a bishop as
himself, or the best in England;" he should not from that fact
infer that Barlow was likely to be painfully scrupulous in his own
mode of consecrating a bishop, or that his estimate of the imposition
of hands was quite identical with that of Archdeacon Chasuble.
Nor, again, because Coverdale and Scorey, the co-ordainers of
Parker, were lively and recreative monks, who, along with Barlow,
had broken into shivers their voluntary vows of chastity, in order to
embrace delights from which they had bound their souls to abstain,
was he therefore driven imperiously to the conviction, that they
_must have been inflexible on the point of their Orders, to com
pensate for the deficiency on the score of their morality. Nor, once
more, because Scorey and Barlow had been Catholics and Protest
ants under Henry, Catholics again under Mary, and Protestants
once more under Elizabeth; should he therefore attribute to either
of those versatile prelates a fanatical attachment to religion in
general, or to the exact administration of holy Orders in particular.
All which was known of the other Reformers furnished a motive
for exercising similar caution with respect to their opinions of the
Apostolic Succession. Because Cranmer contended before all Eng
land that " the King's election alone, without ordination, sufficed to
make a priest or a bishop;" or because thirteen other bishops sub
scribed the formal declaration that " bishops and priests are not two
things, but one office in the beginning of Christ's religion;" or be
cause Whittaker bluntly requested his Roman Catholic assailants

76 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
to "keep tlieir Orders to themselves;" or because Fulke, with even
greater emphasis, described those Orders, as "stinking, greasy, and
anti-Christian;" or because Jewel declined three times to answer
Harding's taunting question, "Who made you a bishop?" or,
finally, because Parker, Jewel, and Home combined together in
their version of the Bible to translate yeipovowa "ordination by
election" which translation remained till the time of James I. : he
could not, from all such facts, conclude that integrity of Holy
Order was the grand passion of the first fathers of the English
Church, or, indeed, that they regarded it with any less aversion
than purgatory or the confession of their sins.
It had been argued, by their High-Church brethren, in order
to take the sting out of such facts, that the early Anglican bishops
were in mortal fear of the brutal Tudor sovereigns, and would
have been in their own views, and have made the Anglican formu
laries, much more Catholic, if they had been free to follow their
private aspirations. But such a trifling allegation was equally at
variance with reason and with history. If the English bishops
sacrificed their own convictions of truth from cowardice, — as this
theory wantonly assumed, — they were pitiful traitors; and the
Church, which such men founded, had very little claim to their
respect. But, in fact, it was the strong will of the Tudor sover
eigns which alone prevented the bishops from being still mort
Protestant than they actually were. But for that fierce temper
which brooked no opppsition, it was impossible to doubt that the
Church of England would have been framed in closer accordance
with a Genevan model; and if this had not come to pass, it was
certainly not to the bishops that their thanks were due. The Stu
arts also so far resembled the Tudors that, owing to their notions
of kingly prerogative, they were willing to retain certain Catholic
traditions which the English clergy and people valued much less
than their rulers. They owed to kings, and not to bishops, what
ever superficial distinctions separated them from the non-Episco
pal Protestant communities.
It would be noticed that in the observations which he had made
thus far, he had expressed no personal opinion as to the validity of
English Orders, He had merely suggested prudence and caution
in dealing with arguments which, however indecisive they might
appear, when taken one by one, possessed a certain cumulative

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 77
force which was not to be despised. - They might have weight, but
they were not conclusive, either one way or the other. In like
manner, the fact that Roman Catholics treated their Orders as
purely human, however serious it might be in conjunction with
other facts which he would notice presently, could hardly by itself
be deemed decisive on the point. Roman Catholics were their
natural enemies, and might be mistaken as to matters of fact, or
unduly biassed in their appreciation of them.
DEAN PRIMITIVE, who appeared to listen to the Professor
with extreme dissatisfaction, wished to inquire, if he might be
allowed to interrupt the speaker, whether the hostile animus of the
Roman Church towards the Church of England was not distinctly
proved by the fact that she made no difficulty in recognising the
Orders of the modern Russia, nor even of the Jacobite, Coptic,
and other oriental communities?
THE PROFESSOR interpreted that fact in exactly the opposite
sense. The Orders of the communities referred to by the Dean had
never been disputed, while their own had never been admitted, by
any religious body on the face of the earth. But he preferred to
examine the question in connection with general principles, rather
than with reference to particular and isolated facts.
Now, he found it laid down by certain writers, with an emphasis
which showed the importance they attributed to it, that wherever
the mystical doctrines of the Sacrifice pf the Altar and the Real
Presence, of which hardly anything had ever been heard in their
own Church until the last few years, had been retained in any
Christian community, there, whatever might have been their destiny
in other respects, no question as to the integrity of their Orders had
ever arisen. It was only, they urged, in communions like the
English, where those doctrines had been rejected as " fables" and
" deceits," and where, in practice, they had been quite put out of
sight for centuries, that the proofs of what was called the Apostolic
Succession were not found. His friends would admit that, at least
from a Catholic point of view, which some of their colleagues were
ibnd of adopting, this was a fact, of tremendous gravity. He was
not surprised that to many minds it seemed absolutely decisive of
the whole question. They argued, with great force on their own

78 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
principles, that such a Church as the English, which had pro
nounced by the mouth of its founders, by the testimony of its for
mularies, and by the practice-of three centuries, that the doctrines
in question were false, could not possibly share the Succession
with communions which had always revered them as true. They
insisted, and he thought with reason, that the Christian priest
hood and the mysteries of the altar were correlatives, and that they
must stand or fall together. This was no special doctrine of the
Roman Church. It was held by East and West alike, that the
peculiar doctrinal statements, arid still more the uniform practice
of the English Church, were absolutely inconsistent with the pos
sibility of sacerdotal powers; and the same objectors observed that,
as a matter of fact, notably confirming this view, the English was
the solitary Episcopal communion in which the proofs of the
succession were not to be had, or had always been rejected as
insufficient. But they said a great deal more than this. Their High-Church
friends, — having acquired by study an intellectual conviction of the
truth of certain Catholic doctrines, utterly repudiated in practice
by their co-religionists, — were anxious to prove that such doc
trines were admitted, or at least not rejected, by the National
Church. They claimed to be priests, with all the powers which
had ever been supposed to accompany the sacerdotal office.
To this claim their adversaries replied, that supposing for the
sake of argument, they had these powers, then was the history
of their community one long unbroken calendar of crime and
sacrilege, as well as of lying teaching against the doctrines of the
Catholic Church. The very first act, they observed, of the Re
formed Church of England was to suspend, if not to abolish, the
daily sacrifice, and to substitute in its place the occasional celebra-
. tion of a rite which had nothing in common with it but the use of
bread and wine. It was noticed with regret by some of the early
Anglican bishops, that in many Churches communion was hardly
given " once in three months," so utterly had all notion of the Chris
tian Sacrifice disappeared ! What they then lamented had since
become, until the last few years, the almost universal rule in every
part of England. If, therefore, as the Ritualists maintained, the
daily sacrifice was the essential rite of the Christian religion, it was
undeniable that their own Church was an apostate community, since

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 79
she had suffered that rite to lapse, without an effort to restore it,
during three centuries. And in this course she did but follow the
teaching of her founders. The .greatest English prelates, including
Ridley, ordered every Catholic altar to be pulled down and utterly
defaced; some of them commanding that the very altar-stones
should be placed at the entrance to the churches, so that all who
entered should be forced to tread upon them. * The altar was treated
*Here a Reverend Divine handed to his neighbour the following extracts, which
he appeared to carry about his person as charms or relics, with this emphatic observa
tion : " See how the Court of Arches and the Privy Council have caught the spirit of
our admirable Reformers, the sainted founders of the Anglican Church 1 "
CRANMER. " The Papists teach that Christ is in the bread and wine ; but we say
(according to the truth) that He is in them that worthily eat and drink the bread and
wine." — Answer to Gardner, 3rd Book, p. 52. Again ; " Presence by faith only meaneth
no real, material, and corporal presence. For by faith is Christ present in baptism, —
and the holy fathers did eat His flesh and drink His blood before he was born." —
Against Transubstantiation, 2nd Book, p. 296.
RIDLEY, in giving a reason for taking down and removing the Catholic altars,
said : " The use of an altar is to make sacrifice upon it ; the use of a table," which he
ordered to be everywhere substituted, " is to serve for men to eat upon." — Injunction,
p. 322. " It is not read that any of the Apostles or the Primitive Church did ever
use any altar in ministration of the holy communion." p. 323.
LATIMER : " Minister is a more fit name than priest, for the name of a priest im-
porteth a sacrifice." — Disputation at Oxford, p. 264. Again, " Christ gave not His
body to be received with the mouth ; . . . He gave the sacrament to the mouth, His
body to the mind," p. 267. "I could never find," he adds, with bitter mockery of the
Real Presence, " in the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, (which the Papists
call the sacrament of the altar,) neither flesh, blood, nor bones."
BECON, Cranmer's favourite chaplain, knowing the whole mind of the Anglican
Reformers, said : "The Papists have brought in their bloody and butcherly altars." —
The Supplication, p. 229. He reproaches God for suffering them to say "their idola
trous and devilish masses." He, reviles " Antichrist's (the Pope's) blasphemous
masses, his idolatrous altars, his earish confession," <fcc. " The sacraments of the new
law," he adds, " do not confer and give grace." — Articles of Christian Religion, 16th
Article, p. 466.
JEWEL : " The body of Christ is to be eaten by faith only, and none otherwise." —
Answer to Harding, p. 449.
HOOPER : " Baptism sanctifieth no man." — A Declaration of Christ and Sis Office,
p. 74. "The Jews had sacraments as well as we, and yet never brawled about them
as we do." p. 211. " There should, among Christians, be no altars."
GRINDAL ordered all altars to be utterly removed, and, in place of the rood, to
put up " some convenient crest." — Articles for the Province of Canterbury, p. 158.
Such was the theology of the founders of the Anglican Church, faithfully interpreted
by the decisions of the Privy Council.

80 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
in England, under her Reformers, as the Cross was in Japan. And
why ? Evidently, because the eminent and sagacious men to whom
they owed their present religious status knew perfectly well that,
if they could get rid of the altar, they should have no difficulty in
abolishing the sacrifice. The event proved that they were right.
They did abolish it, and every idea connected with it. And, on
this account, he thought that Puseyites should earnestly hope that
their Orders could not be the same with those of Rome. They
should prefer to think themselves deluded, rather than attribute
hideous crimes to the great majority of those who ministered in
their communion. For, considering the manner in which the
Lord's Supper had notoriously been administered for centuries,
even in their cathedrals, and much more in parish churches,
almost every celebration in the Church of England, from the time
of Queen Elizabeth to their own, had been simply, supposing the
Catholic doctrine to be true, an appalling outrage on the Person of
the Son of God. Let them call to mind the details, often abso
lutely grotesque, of such celebrations in their English communion,
and they would recoil with horror from the results of their own
theory, which implied a long series of sacrileges so utterly
monstrous and incredible, that the mind refused to contemplate
them. His friend, Dean Primitive, suggested that the Church of Rome
had some sinister motive in repudiating Anglican orders. Yet
here was a motive, quite independent of all historical difficulties,
which was surely sufficient to the Catholic mind ! The Church of
Rome had never been in the habit of denying true Orders where
they really existed. There were many Christian bodies in their
own day, as in past ages, vehemently hostile to the Roman Church,
but whose Orders she never dreamed of disputing. The Arians had
true Orders, so had the Donatists, the Nestorians, and a multitude
of other sects ; but it was worthy to be carefully noted by their
High-Church friends, that in all their combats with the Latin
Church, they never once pleaded them ! There was literally no
example in ecclesiastical history, previous to the formation of the
English Church, of any. controversy on the subject of Orders.
Questions of doctrine only, up to the sixteenth century, had ever
been debated ' between the rival Churches. It was reserved for
English Protestant theologians to give a singular and suspicious

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 81
prominence to this topic of Orders. Their adversaries would pro
bably say, that the explanation of this curious fact was easy to
find. They would see in it only a fresh proof that the Reformation,
having destroyed all positive truth, by proclaiming the right of
every individual to determine truth for himself, had made all
controversies about doctrine utterly illogical and unmeaning, and
had left nothing to dispute about, to those who cared to dispute
at aU, but the question of Protestant Orders.
He had already observed, and would again affirm, in a spirit of
fairness to the Roman Church, which would deem herself convicted
of sacrilege, if she repeated knowingly the ordination of a true
priest, that she was not alone in rejecting English Orders, nor in
regarding them as a purely civil privilege, conferred under the
sanction of English" law. They were equally rejected, when pre
tending to any higher character than this, by every other Christian
community in the world. Even the obscure little Syrian body in
Western India, when solicited by the Bishop of Calcutta to frater
nise with Anglicans, scornfully derided .them. How was it possible,.
he would ask, to resent or marvel at such judgments, when a
majority of their own clergy, at all epochs had agreed with the pre
sent Dean of Bristol, that the question was too unreal and fantastic
to be treated with a grave deliberation ? " The 25th Article," as
the. Dean truly observed, " denies that Orders are a Sacrament ....
In contradiction to Rome, it clearly repudiated it as a fiction alto
gether, that God had annexed peculiar grace and authority to im<-
position of hands successively from the apostles, or to any other-
arbitrary . form of ordination whatever."
It was evident, then, as every intelligent person would admit, that
the validity of English Orders was not, as Ritualists were pleased.
to maintain, a solemn controversy between the English and the
Roman Churches, It was, to speak with truth and candour, a dis
pute in which a small section of their own community was on one
side, and the whole of Christendom on the other. Let his younger
friends remember, that when they innocently supposed they were-
bravely pleading their Orders against the cruel Church of Rome,
(which would anathematise them quite as heartily if their Orders
were perfectly , indisputable,) they were, in fact, engaged in the
much more difficult task of defending them against the orbis ter
rarum, with no sympathy from any Christian alive or dead, not .
6

82 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
even from the few Protestant communities which were in precisely
the same dilemma as themselves.
DEAN PRIMITIVE, who rose with an air of radiant triumph,
exclaimed, that the Professor was evidently going a great deal too
far, since several distinguished Romanists had candidly admitted
,the validity of Anglican Orders. ("Hear, hear," from some of the
younger clergy.)
THE PROFESSOR had earefully tested the value of all .the
witnesses referred to, and was afraid they would not afford much
consolation to the Dean. There was Courayer, who wanted to vex
the community from which he was already falling away, and who
at last died an infidel. His friend was welcome to his testimony.
There was Bossuet, who certainly said of the validity of English
Orders, "'cela depend •desfaits" as the Pope himself wpuld.be the
first to admit ; but when the Abbe Le Grand asked him whether
he might without offence, style Burnet " Bishop of Salisbury," tersely
replied, " Nous ne connaissons pas cet .epissopat Id." This was very
. flattering to English Orders. Dr. Lingard also had been cited
as admitting, with more or less hesitation, the purely historical
. side of the question of iParker's consecration. But such half-
. admissions, on the part • of a .few individuals, proved nothing
• whatever, and could not .possibly outweigh the consensus of
. all the Christian churches, and their actual conduct towards
. all orders of the English clergy. He knew that some of his
: friends professed to see the hand of Providence in the fact, that
: the Council of Trent had not expressly condemned their Orders.
".They were perhaps not aware that the Council was within an
iinch of doing so, and was only restrained by a most urgent appeal
from the Spanish ambassador, who represented that the condition
of English Catholics was already' nearly intolerable, and that the
: superfluous declaration would only irritate their, oppressors, and
i bring fresh misery upon them. This argument wisely .prevailed. But'
r there was to be a new Council next year, and, from information which
^had reached him-, he had not a shadow of doubt that it would not
-only, decide that point, but a good many others which his High- ¦
•Church friends were extremely anxious to keep open. There was
evidently sorrow and trouble in store for them, and their position
vsroaild soon be more untenable than ever.

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 83
He had detained the company too long, but would ask permission,
in conclusion, to express his own belief that the historical aspect of
the question of their Orders, whatever difficulties might belong to
it, and though it was absolutely certain that it could never be
decided now in their favour, was of comparatively little importance.
Even if Parker's ordination could be proved, and Edward's Ordinal
cleared of every doubt, and a multitude of other questions con
nected with the subject lose their gravity, no progress would have
been riiade towards establishing the claims of the present generation
' of bishops and clergy. Their case was still, worse than that of
Elizabeth's much afflicted spiritual pastors. The extreme uncer
tainty of Baptism during the whole of the Puritan period, to speak
only of that epoch; nay, the positive contempt in which that
sacrament was held by whole generations of English Protestant
divines, and the utter indifference with which it was administered;
the want of intention in hundreds of consecrating bishops to confer
sacerdotal powers, and in thousands of the clergy to accept them ;
the alleged fact that at least one Archbishop of Canterbury was
known to have died unbaptized, and the extreme probability that
many others had been in the same case ; lastly, the outrageous in
congruity of pretending to make a Catholic bishop, as the Ritualists
spoke, out of a man who rejected all Catholic doctrine, and spent
his whole life in reviling it; these were graver subjects of reflec
tion to those who affected, to derive English Orders from the
Roman fount, than any merely historical difficulties. And when
the two were combined, they certainly sufficed to justify both
the Latin and Greek communities in sternly rejecting, as a fable
and a pretence, the claim of a few Anglican ministers to be true
priests. It was a wholesome maxim in all controversy to be as fair to
your adversary as the infirmities of human nature would permit.
It would not contribute to a mutual understanding quietly to
ignore all his strong points. In this case -of English Orders they
were both numerous arid formidable. They had first to prove that
Parker was really consecrated ; then to consider whether Barlow
had either the will or the power tb consecrate him. Next, to ,
account for the fact that all England believed the whole thing
was a sham, which Elizabeth's characteristic decree frankly con
fessed, by trying to repair it; and that the bishops were of the "

84 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
same opinion, since they evidently felt that, if the- Queen could' do
nothing for them, their case was hopeless. Then they must deal
with the fact, that all the Reformers, and their immediate successors,
were not only ill-affected towards the Apostolic Succession, but did
every thing they could to discredit it; clearly proving that they
neither attached any importance to it, nor imagined that they
themselves possessed it. They must reconcile their deep hatred
of the doctrine of sacrifice with their ordination of a priesthood,
whose chief function it was to offer sacrifice. They must explain
also why, if Edward's Ordinal were valid, Anglicans need have been
so anxious to change it, a hundred years after it had become too
late to do so with any possible result. They must refute, when
they had accomplished these preliminary difficulties, the really
irresistible reasons for believing that a vast number of English
bishops and clergy must have lived and died unbaptized, and were
therefore perfectly incapable either of receiving or giving ordination,
of any other Christian rite. , And when they had arranged all
these points to their own satisfaction, they would have to consider,
finally, what object Providence could have in view in creating
whole generations of "priests," who neither wished to be so, nor
believed that they were, nor ever consciously performed one single
act belonging to the sacerdotal office!
On the whole, they were perhaps now disposed to admit, that
the Church of Rome was neither capricious nor unjust, when she
admitted a Protestant bishop into her communion, just as if he had
been all his : life a layman, First conditionally baptized, then
unconditionally confirmed, his diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate
all went for nothing. The Anglican bishop, . Gordon, and the
American bishop, Ives, who were reconciled to the Church of
Rome, were dealt with in this way, and no more respect was paid
to their former ecclesiastical character than if they had both been
women. If the- Archbishop of . Canterbury were to become a
Catholic to-morrow, an , event which they had . no reason to
anticipate, he would be welcomed by the Roman Church as an
English married gentleman, who was tired of playing a farce, and
had come to save his soul in the Christian Church. Such was
, the fact. It was truly, then, a marvel that any Anglicans should
gravely talk of "union" with Rome, or conceive that it was
possible, except on the condition of absolute submission to all

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 85
ner claims. Let his High-Church friends look to this. It waa
a mere voluntary delusion to blind themselves to the fact, which
every day made clearer, that the Roman Church cared no more
what were their private opinions as to what is " Catholic," and
what is not, and allowed them to exert no more influence upon
her acts/ than their views on the polarization of light, or the
character of Napoleon, or the possibility of making a tunnel under
the English Channel.
DR. EASY thought he might venture to say, on behalf of the
company, that they were grateful to the Professor for the very
interesting observations he had made. If he were allowed to
resume them in a single sentence, this was the conclusion he
should draw from them; that the clergy of their national com
munity deserved the esteem which they enjoyed, and rendered
services which the country was not disposed to undervalue ; but
that their Orders were simply human, and had no shadow of
pretence to any supernatural character. They would only forfeit
their own reputation, as serious and practical men, by claiming it.
Neither the past history of their Church, nor the instincts of her
members at the present day, would afford any countenance to such
unwise assumptions. The language of the Dean of Bristol inter
preted fairly the mind both of her clergy and people, and har
monised with all the facts of her career. One of the most eminent
of her living prelates had well observed, and he thought most of
their colleagues, would concur with his grace, that, as regards
religion in general, and the sacred ministry in particular, " the
Church of England was meant to be a compromise," which was
surely only another way of stating the proposition of Dr. Elliot,
that she was in all respects purely human.
ARCHDEACON JOLLY exclaimed abruptly: Not a " compro
mise," but a " comprehension." The latter was an emendation of
the Bishop of Oxford. The difference, he apprehended, between
sthe two was this; that whereas the Archbishop regarded the
English Church as a suppression of the distinctions between truth
and error, the Bishop Of Oxford defended her as a combination of
both, ¦ which showed that his lordship exactly agreed with the
Dean of Bristol.

86 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
ARCHDEACON THEORY thought they were losing sight of
the Apostolic Succession, and wished to revert to it. Without-
desiring to import into the debate an improper levity, he would
ask: "Was it possible that the Apostolic Succession might be
derived to the English Church through the female line ? " (Great
laughter.) At all events, their Church had accepted female pontiffs,
and adopted, with perfect docility, their spiritual edicts. Did not
Elizabeth "dispense" all her clergy from what she herself called
the " imperfections " of their Orders, and did not the clergy humbly
accept the "dispensation?" If the first Fathers of the English
Church publicly taught that the sovereign could make a bishop or
priest "without ordination," Elizabeth might fairly take them at
their word; and, as her authority alone made their "defective"
Orders valid, was he not justified in saying that the succession had
been preserved in the Church of England through the female line?
DR. EASY, with deference to the Archdeacon, would deprecate
any discussion of that point. It was, indeed, certain that many of
the most illustrious Reformers openly taught, with the evident
approval of their contemporaries, that the election of their civil
magistrate sufficed to constitute the ministerial office. But the
Church of England, moulded into a peculiar form by the Tudors,
accepted from them a semblance of the ancient sacerdotal hierarchy,
keeping the names, but rejecting the realities which they repre
sented. This was a part of the " compromise " to which1 the Arch
bishop had alluded. The acts of the great daughter of Henry VIII,
alluded to by the Archdeacon, could only be understood by bearing
in mind that, politically a Protestant, she was always in her secret
heart a Roman Catholic. There was probably nothing on earth
which she despised with such fierce contempt as her own- bishops
and clergy. " I made you a bishop, and by  1 will unfrock you,"
was the sort of language in which she addressed the unfortunate
prelates who trembled before her. How she addressed their wives,
and especially Mrs. Parker, he need not remind them. It had been
suggested that two Roman augufs could not possibly have looked
each other in the face without laughing ; but he should like to
know with what feelings two Elizabethan bishops, meeting in a
safe place, where there were no witnesses to betray them, revealed
their appreciation of one another.

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 87
It was useless to attempt to disguise the truth, in reviewing this
humiliating pa.rt of their ecclesiastical history. Elizabeth was in ?
false position, and her keen sense of this fact only increased her
exasperation. She used her new clefgy as tools, giving them for
political purposes titles and dignities which her conscience contempt
uously refused them. If the Pope would have condoned the scandal
of her birth, she would have lived and died a Catholic. But she
was resolved to wear a crown ; and as she could not reign with the
Pope's consent, she determined to reign without it. Here was the
clue to her whole history. It was a bitter humiliation to this proud
woman, in whom all the arrogance of. the Tudors was concentrated,
to be obliged to ask the Catholic bishops of her realm, — whom- she
confessed to be true ones, — to have the goodness to consecrate her
own, whom she despised in her inmost heart as time-serving
impostors. But it was a still greater humiliation to be refused !
She was too sagacious to tolerate .the silly delusion, which had
become popular in their own day, .of "Anglo-Catholic" branch-
Christianity. She knew what Catholic meant, and what Protestant
meant, but had formed no conception of a hybrid monster begotten
of the two. And, therefore, as she was not a woman to be content
with, half measures, she took up the axe of the executioner, and
watered the new plant of her own supremacy with the blood of all
who dared to question it. Her father had murdered Fisher, because
that honest prelate refused to worship the idol which he had' set
up; and now the unfortunate Catholic clergy were carried in
troops to Tyburn, because they declined to accept her as their Pope.
-But though her policy drove her to these deeds of blood, she
seemed to soothe her conscience by manifesting her contempt for
the new order of clergy, who humbly accepted all her decrees, and
only asked what they were expected to believe and obey, in order
to believe and obey with obsequious silence. Like the Russian
Peter, who told his equally subservient bishops : " Since you will
not have the Pope for your patriarch, you shall obey me only,"
Elizabeth treated the clergy of her own creation with a kind pf
ferocious disdain. The Catholics baffled her by dying. For their
Protestant successors she reserved a worse fate, by allowing them ¦
to live. Over them she ruled. as Pontiff with a cynical and remorse
less tyranny at which their own age could afford to smile, but
which was no laughing matter to their ancestors. It was difficult.

88 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
for an English . clergyman of the nineteenth century, living under
the mild sway of Queen Victoria, to comprehend how Elizabeth's
bishops could tolerate their lot. It was, in truth, a gloomy hour.
But good often came out of evil, and it was surely creditable to
one of the most excellent of human institutions, — and he cared to
claim no higher title for the Church of England, — that her respected
clergy, though still dutifully subject to the civil magistrate, were
no longer the slaves of his caprice ; and that, in their own day, the
successor of Parker was received as a. gentleman and a guest by
the successor of Elizabeth, without the fear of insult and mockery
either for himself or his wife. (Loud applause.)
DEAN PRIMITIVE must utterly decline, for his own part, to
see anything consoling in the fact which appeared to give so much
pleasure to his reverend colleagues. The improved social condition
of the English clergy, — which he would take leave to say was due
mainly to their own merits, — -might, indeed, be a subject for thank
fulness ; but he protested against the Erastian notion that it was a
full compensation for the loss, which so. many of his reverend
friends seemed to accept with complete indifference, of every claim
to anything higher than a purely earthly character.
DEAN BLUNT desired to recall the assembly from these col
lateral topics to the question of Anglican Orders, upon which, he
presumed to think, there was still a good deal to be said. If they
had any validity, in the sense of that term employed by the High-
Church party, it could only be by reason of their derivation from
Rome. ; Now here, as the learned Professor had justly intimated,
they had to deal with two distinct lines of thought, one purely
historical, the other belonging to the sphere of morals and theology.
As to the 'first, which was the least important, he thought that
no adequate proof had ever been given, or could be given, of the
integrity of their Succession. The evidence which centuries had
failed to complete would never be completed at all. It was surely
a fatal note against their High-Church friends, that they had
always been occupied: in vindicating their Orders! The attitude
of the rest of Christendom towards them sufficiently exposed their
want of success.
A valued friend of his own, and a great ornament of the Puseyite

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 89
party, had assured him, with a sorrowful gravity which he was
incapable of treating with ridicule, that "for years he had been in
the habit of asking God to forgive him, every time he stood before
the altar, if he were not really a Catholic priest." He had reason
to believe that, at least among the more earnest and conscientious
members of that party, this was a common case.
But if the purely historical aspect of the question was, to put it
at the lowest, a maze of doubt and peradventure, the moral diffi
culties were still more formidable, and darkened the whole ground
with their portentous shadow. He would ask Archdeacon Chasuble,
if he were not absorbed in conversation with his neighbour, to
favour him with his attention, while he endeavoured to examine
one only of these difficulties, of which the number was legion.
Had the Archdeacon, and the clergy who shared his opinions," while
consoling themselves with the belief that they derived their orders
from Rome, ever seriously considered how such a claim could be
reconciled with the language of the Reformers, including the
principal founders and doctors of their own Church ? The latter
thought, and said, with an energy of expression which made all
doubt about their meaning impossible, that for nearly a thousand
years the whole Roman priesthood lay wallowing in idolatry and
corruption. They proclaimed, as the all-sufficient defense of their
own separation, that it was necessary to the salvation of every
Christian soul to flee from that apostate Church, and to form a new
religion, with Thirty- Nine new Articles of Christian belief, new
forms of Christian worship, and new and frightful penalties for non-
confirmity. For more than two hundred years,, the English bishops,
whom they were now bid to regard as Catholics, gave their hearty
assent tp laws which made it death to be reconciled to the Church
of Rome, death to say or hear Mass, death to be, or to harbour, a
priest ; and, as if this were not a sufficient proof of their hatred to
Rome, life-long imprisonment and confiscation of goods was the
penalty either for sending a child to a Catholic country for educa
tion, or having him brought up a Catholic at home.
But this was not all. During that whole period, and from the
first hour of her existence, all the pulpits of the National Church
had resounded with imprecations against the Roman sorceress, and
successive generations of Englishmen were carefully nurtured by
the bishops and clergy, in that passionate abhorrence of the very

90 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
name of Catholic which distinguished them to this day. Their
very literature had been formed in the same spirit, which breathed
in every page, not only of episcopal charges and parochial sermons,
but even of biographies and works of fiction, the same unflagging
hatred of the religion which England had abolished.
And now, in spite of these well-known facts, they were seriously
told, that during all this time they had been Catholics without
knowing it ; their bishops heirs of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, and
St. Thomas of Canterbury ; and their ministers sacrificing priests/
full of reverence for the mysteries of the altar, and the august
sacrament of penance ! He wished to speak calmly, but he would .
venture to ask : Was ever God so mocked ? (Sensation.)
He was persuaded that no one in that assembly would venture to
deny, that all the English reformers, the very men who founded their
Church and gave them their formularies, had branded the Catholic
Church with more prodigious curses than the Saviour of men had
ever predicted for her blessings and triumphs. And yet they were
now to be told that all this was a mistake, — a mere display of harm
less rhetoric; and that, as a matter of fact, the English clergy were
identical, in office and in gifts, with their Roman brethren! He
could understand that any one who objected to the language of the
Reformers, and had learned to abhor their doctrines, should humbly
sue for pardon and reconciliation with the Holy See ; but that a
community which had such an origin, and such a history, as their
own, should pretend to be anxious about its unbroken connection
with Rome, and claim to be in all essentials one with her, and to have
common orders and common sacraments, and to form part of the
great Christian commonwealth, precisely because it could boast filial
generation from her; there was in this notion such an audacious
denial of truth and common sense, — considering what the Church
of England had ever been, and still was, — that it was .difficult to
treat it seriously. That an Anglican minister, a disciple of the
Articles and the Homilies, a successor of Cranmer and Jewel, of
Abbot and Whitgift, — holding perhaps a benefice once held by
a Catholic priest, and ministering at a table which had been
substituted for a Catholic altar, — should venture to say all
this ; besides being the most intolerable insult to his own Church,
was as if a man should contend proudly for a pedigree derived
through countless generations of felons. What! call the whole

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 91
Catholic priesthood " the spawn of Antichrist," as your own fathers
did, and then attempt to prove that your Orders are manifestly
divine, because you can trace them to that source; revile the whole
Catholic Church as "the harlot of Babylon," as twenty generations
of your own bishops and clergy did, and then claim her as your
Mother ! Surely this was either the last and wildest eccentricity
of the human mind, or else the most impudent trifling with serious
things of which any age or country could furnish an example.
ARCHDEACON CHASUBLE was content to reply to the Dean
that the whole scaffolding of his discourse tumbled to pieces before
the simple fact, that many English clergymen, of whom he was
proud to be one, utterly denied that the Roman Church had ever
been anti-Christian, or her clergy apostate.
DEAN BLUNT would, in that case, suggest to the Archdeacon
to transfer his reproaches and anathemas from the Church which,
in his opinion, had never deserved them, to the impious community
which had dared to utter them. (Loud cheers.) It was, of course,
open to Archdeacon Chasuble and his friends to repudiate the
language of the men who composed the Articles and Homilies; but
let them repudiate at the same time the work which they did and
the Church which they founded. No man, they were told, could
serve two masters. Let the Archdeacon beware lest he fall between
two stools. No proposition, he conceived, could be more indisput
able than this, — that if the Church of Rome did not deserve the
curses which the Church of England had heaped upon her, they
must recoil upon the latter. If the Church of Rome was their
mother, their sister, or in any other degree related to them ; if she
was the source of their Order, and therefore of their sacraments,
and therefore of their highest spiritual blessings, according to the
doctrine of High-Churchmen; then were the founders of the
Church of England, and nearly all her members up to the present
hour, monsters of ingratitude, calumny,- and falsehood. It was as
impossible to profess esteem for both Churches at once, as it would
be to serve God and Satan at the same moment, and by the same
act. Men must choose between the two, and except the conse
quences of their choice. One thing alone they could not do, they
could not, with the Reformers, separate from the Catholic Church

92 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
on the ground that she was " Anti-Christian," and yet assert, with
the Puseyites, that they were themselves the legitimate descendants
of Antichrist. (General marks of approval.)
ARCHDEACON CHASUBLE had never' denied, and would not
begin by denying now, the painful and distressing difficulties
which beset clergymen of his own views in dealing with these
momentous subjects. But where doubt and uncertainty seemed
to be their providential lot, he must consider it the mark of a
Christian temper to accept such crosses in a humble and patient
spirit. He was not disposed to cut the Gordian knot of their
difficulties, but would rather continue to bear than seek escape
from them by so rude a process. If, however, he could not, as he
freely admitted, refuse a certain measure of assent to the arguments
of the Dean, nor dispute that a vast majority of English Church
men had always accepted the principles and maxims upon which
they were founded, he would at least venture to reply to them by
a reductio ad absurdum, and ask their advocates if they were pre
pared to accept all the conclusions which logically flowed from
them. It was, every one would admit, a necessary result of the Dean's
reasoning that Dr. Arnold was quite right when he said, that his
butler had as much divine authority to administer the sacraments
as himself. Where all were laymen, and the possession of merely
human Orders left them all in that condition, all were equally
qualified, as respected supernatural powers, to handle the mysteries
of religion. The Tower of Babel, on this hypothesis, was the only
true type of the Christian Church and ministry. For his part, he
must object to an ecclesiastical economy which would admit of his
butler or his tailor proposing to ordain him priest or bishop, on the
ground that their succession from the Apostles and that of the
Bishop of London were equally susceptible, or equally destitute, of
proof. He respected Authority. (Cries of " Oh ! oh ! ") He was
speaking for himself, and repeated that he respected Authority,
and venerated Order. He could not believe that of all the works
of God the Church must be the least symmetrical and harmonious,
, the most confused and disorderly ; and therefore he demanded some
higher credential of divine commission than a man's own apprecia
tion of his personal fitness. He could not detect the signs of an

IN THE ENGLISH, CHURCH. 93
Apostle in one who elected himself, or was elected by his congre
gation, on the ground that his ideas of Christianity and their own
were sufficiently alike. Il everybody was equally qualified to
teach religion, it was manifest that nobody required to be taught.
He should like to accompany the Professor to certain churches
which he would not name, but of which the incumbents shared the
opinions of the Dean of Bristol and Dr. Arnold. He would suppose
the clergyman to choose for his text, "Rebuke with all authority"
and would ask if he might not be reasonably expected to deliver
some such discourse as the following : " My brethren, as I have no
more right to rebuke you than you have to rebuke me, and only
•just so much authority to teach as you are willing to confer upon
me, permit me to observe to you, Now to God the Father," &c.
(Great laughter.) The Dean would not deny that such a sermon
would aptly express the preacher's conviction, that Anglican
Orders were purely human. Again, he would suppose such a
clergyman to preach from the words, " Watch over the flock of which
the Holy Ghost has made you overseer, in order to govern the Church
of God." Evidently, if he would do justice to his own belief, he
ought to address his flock in such terms as the following: "As it
is you who are watching over me, and not I over you, and as my
sole function is to tickle your itching ears, you will kindly pardon
'me if I make the unpleasant ceremony as brief as possible, and
quit the pulpit at once. This will save me from occupying a ridic
ulous position, and spare you the trouble of criticising a sermon
which it is not my intention to deliver. " Clerk, give out a hymn,
and make your own choice." Once more, he would ask if it did
not result from the Professor's view of the character of the English
Church, which Dr. Elliot called " the creature of the law," and
which a living archbishop declared was "meant to be a compro
mise," that when pur Lord said, "Go, and teach all nations," He
signified the command, "Go, and let all nations teach you." So,
also, when St. Paul affirmed, " No man taketh to himself this honour
but he that is called of God, as was Aaron," he doubtless wished the
Corinthians to understand, "Every man ought to take this honour
to himself if he aspire to it, for the age of Aaron is excessively
remote, and his example perfectly obsolete." In like manner,
when the same Apostle said, "Sow shall they preach, except
they be sent?" many of the clergy would aptly reply, "As to

94 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
preaching, I find no difficulty in it; and as to being sent, I send
myself." He thought he had sufficiently indicated what must be the inevi
table result of the Dean's principles in the spiritual, and he would
now beg him to consider what kind of fruits they would produce
in the social order. Young gentlemen would evidently present
themselves to commissions in the army. Policemen would display
their robust forms, without the sanction of Sir Richard Mayne,
wherever they deemed it advantageous to the interests of the public,
or their own. Students of various degrees of maturity would call
themselves to the bar, or take their seats in Parliament, or even in
the Cabinet, amply commissioned by the rational conviction that
Cicero and Demosthenes were but their imperfect types, and only
designed by nature to prepare the way for their incomparable suc
cessors. Finally, persons addicted to an immoral preference for
the goods of others, or disposed to indulge in a premature repe
tition of the marriage rites, would enjoy the privilege of taking
themselves up as their own policemen, trying themselves as their
own jury, and acquitting themselves as their own judge. And the
eccentricities of these various classes, he would venture to add,
would be both less grotesque and less hurtful to society than the
pranks of a national clergy, distinguished only by the colour of a
cravat from the laymen around them, and presuming to handle
divine things with only a human vocation.
He would earnestly entreat that due consideration be given to the
fact that, on the principle laid down by the Dean, all the English
clergy, excepting only those who, candidly repudiated all pretence
to a supernatural calling, were simply criminal and dangerous im
postors. He would go further, and say, without fear of contradic- •
tion, that if English Orders were human, he could conceive nothing
in creation so degraded, nothing so worthy of a nation's mockery
and scorn, as an Anglican bishop. On that supposition,, their pre
lates were an offence against truth, and a scandal in the land. For
his part, he would rather be a strolling pieman, or an acrobat at a
fair. Such men as these might possibly deserve esteem, because they
followed a calling for which they had the necessary gifts; but an
unconsecrated bishop should be scourged from the face of the earth.
He was a thing to make the angels weep. His whole life was a lie..
He was to be utterly abhorred and execrated, and should bo

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 95
received everywhere, as Dr. Alexander was on his entrance into
Jerusalem, with a shower of mud and stories.
Ah I he had never expected to hear it gravely discussed in such
an assembly, whether English Orders were human or divine. His
heart was oppressed with anguish in listening to such a debate.
The Orders of the English Church he believed to be identical with
those of the Roman, and, like them, divine in origin, in succession,
and in power. If he could doubt it, he would flee from the
National Church as from a pestilence ; for it would be shame and
death to minister at an altar which was only a table, and where
every pseudo-priestly act was a grimace and a sham, a mockery
of God, of one's neighbour, and of one's own soul.
(Some moments elapsed after the Archdeaoon had ceased to speak
before any one rose to claim the attention of the meeting. The clergy
seemed to be occupied in whispering to one another their impres
sions of what they had just heard. Some observed that he had not
attempted to answer Dean Blunt's arguments, and others that his
retort was sophistical, because no one maintained that the clergy
could take cures without the sanction of the civil magistrate. At
length Dean Critical rose from an arm-chair by the side of the Pro
fessor of History, with whom he had been engaged in animated
conversation, and advancing to the opposite corner of the chimney-
piece, which Archdeacon Chasuble had just vacated, addressed
himself to the assembly with a calm voice and subdued manner.)
It had never, he said, been his fortune on any previous occasion
to hear a grave person deliver a solemn harangue from the top of a
house of cards. Prudent builders secured their foundation before
they put on the roof, but the ArchdeaCon began with his spire, and
worked placidly downwards to the crypt. Long before he arrived
at that lower region, his pack of cards had disappeared, and of his
fancy edifice not a trace remained. He wanted the robust courage
of the Archdeacon, and would crave permission to explain why he
declined to inhabit the shadowy structure of so sentimental an
architect. He had asked himself several times during the speech of the
Archdeacon, (he said it without any unkind or disrespectful
feeling,) whether human reason and conscience, weak as the one
might be and deceitful as was the other, could really accept,

96 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
without misgiving, the lot with which he avowed himself content.
What ! doubt as to the heritage of Orders, with the sure possession
of which you deemed all spiritual treasures indissolubly bound up ! —
doubt as to the validity of consecrations, which could never be
proved, and were morally and materially impossible, but upon the
efficacy of which your whole religious life hung ! — doubt as to the
possession of Powers, your claim to which was as vehemef tly
derided by nine-tenths of your own community as by the whole
world without it, but the want of which reduced you to spiritual
atrophy and death! — doubt as to your generation from a Church,
in which you professed to find the cradle of your own, but against
which the latter was a living protest, and which in turn-, far from
admitting the parentage, refused to regard you in any other light
than as heathens of heretics in need of conversion ! — doubt both as
to her doctrines and your own, the first being rejected by, you in
spite of the Roman Church bidding you to> embrace them, and the
second maintained by you in spite of the English Church forbidding
you to hold them! — doubt as to your origin, doubt as to your
history, and doubt as to your future ! — doubt as to doctrine, priest
hood, and sacraments ! — doubt as to whence you came, what you
are, and whither you are going ! Ah ! truly it was a marvel that
men like the Archdeacon could move under, the burden of such a
creed, which could neither soothe the soul nor satisfy the intellect,
and which was as earnestly condemned by all outside their own
Church, as it was ridiculed by almost all within her.
How different was his own position, and that of the bishops and
clergy whose principles he shared ! Disavowing all foolish claims
to supernatural powers, which were rebuked by their past history
as well as by their present habits of life and character, they accepted
the Reformation as a just attempt to reduce the Christian religion
to its true limits as a perfect system of morals, of which the sole
dogmatic basis was the doctrine of the Atonement. With this
profession of faith, they had a sufficient key to heaven, and needed
not the unreal arts of an obsolete priesthood, which warred against
the true genius of Christianity. To instruct, the, ignorant, to console
the afflicted, and to hold up to all the perfect work of the Saviour;
this was their religion, as he believed , it was that of the apostles.
The claims of the Roman Church were nothing to them, for they
simply put them aside. They, approved, on the whole, the censures

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 97
pronounced by the founders of Anglicanism, though they regretted
the intemperance of the language which their peculiar position
explained and partly excused. They had no difficulties and no
doubts ; and their creed, which reduced the mysteries of religion
to those concerning the Person and office of the Son of God, and
made but little account of sacraments, was as much in harmony
with the wants of a healthy soul as with the conceptions of a
sound mind. They were Protestant ministers, not Catholic priests ;
and if their religion separated them from the rest of the Christian
world, it was surely better honestly to acknowledge a fact which
they could not change, and which reflected no discredit upon them,
than to affect to disguise it by transparent sophistry and paltry
subterfuge. (General cheering.)
DEAN PRIMITIVE would venture to ask how his learned
friend, who would not hear of mysteries nor of their priestly
stewards and dispensers, disposed of the commission given by our
Lord to His Apostles to bind and loose sins? or how he dealt witL
the awful texts setting forth the Real Presence-?
DEAN CRITICAL was quite content to accept the rational
interpretation which had always been put upon such passages by
his own Church ; and if there was any doubt or dispute about her
teaching on such points, all who heard him would admit that at
least there could be none whatever about her practice. But he
would beg leave to continue his observations. Let them consider
some of the practical consequences which ensued upon the claim
of certain Protestant ministers to possess and use the powers of
Catholic priests. It seemed to him that if he held the opinions
of his High-Church brethren, his first thought would be to conceal
them from all mankind in the secret of his own heart. He should!
not dare to avow, because he should not dare to act upon them.
How, for example, could he venture, without the slightest prepara
tion from childhood upwards, born of the world and belonging toi
it in all his interests, feelings, and habits, to make pretence of
hearing confessions without the sanction of his superiors, or to
offer a semblance of Mass in disloyal opposition to it? How
could he teach with a grave face that sacramental absolution was
the ordinary instrument for the remission of sin, when he knew
1

98 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
that his own Church had utterly neglected to employ this mighty
instrument during three centuries, (which she could hardly have
done if she had been conscious of possessing it,) and that he
himself was quite ready to. give communion to people who never
had received, and never intended to ask for, such absolution ?
How could he mock himself and his hearers by teaching that
the Protestant Reformation, of which the main object was to
uproot the Catholic religion with all its distinctive tenets and
practices, was really designed to preserve it intact in this realm ?
How could he remain voluntarily, year after year, in close ecclesi
astical communion with bishops and clergy who execrated doctrines
which he held to be divine, and spent their lives in teaching their
contraries ? How could he say to the world without a blush, " I
attach so little importance to the mysterious doctrines which I
profess with my lips, that, as you see, I continue to give my allegi
ance to a bishop who condemns them, and remain in fraternal bonds
with a clergy which blasphemes them ? " God keep them all from
such dishonour as this, the worst and most grievous reproach which
could rest on the conscience of a Christian man. Better far to be
ignorant of the most precious doctrines of the Christian covenant,
than .to trample under foot, by such revolting insincerity, the very
truths. which they professed to honour. (Loud, applause.)
And now let him refer, in conclusion, to that peculiar mystery
which surpassed all others in the effects which it had produced in
modifying the form and character of Christian worship in all save
Protestant communities. He alluded to the mystery which might
be said to constitute the main spring of religious life in all the
Eastern and Western Churches alike, except only their own. In the
Catholic and Oriental Churches, its seat was the altar, and its home
was the tabernacle. A lamp burned night and day before it; and
from early morn to the hour which called all to rest, silent wor
shippers adored the -majesty of that mystical Presence in which
they had been taught from childhood to believe, and which was not
more securely guarded from what they would deem profanation by
a minute and elaborate ritual, than by the tender instinct and
jealous devotion of the faithful themselves.
Now, Archdeacon Chasuble and his friends professed to have the
power to consecrate the Host, He would ask leave to address to
them a serious question. Would they maintain, in the face of

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 99
*
history and of the unanimous testimony of the whole people of
these islands, that any provision whatever was made for such
a guest in the Church of England? Where was the tabernacle?
broken into fragments like the altar upon which it once stood!
Where was the ritual, defining with more than legal precision how
such a mystery should be handled? It was utterly silent on the
whole subject, declaring only that Christ's body could not be "in
two places at once," leaving the poor, shadow to the caprice of
minister and people, and sternly forbidding that the reality should
be " lifted up or worshipped." Did this look like a design on the
part of the English Church to furnish a lodging for what the
Catholics called " the sacramental king?" It would be a sentence
of death upon her to suppose it. Either she believed the mystery,
and did not care to make any preparation for it, which would be
charging her with irreverence, such as fiends could not surpass, or
she utterly rejected it, and then her ritual and her practice enforced
and illustrated the denial.
If his High-Church friends, — who really seemed to him to believe
nothing so little as the very dogmas which they professed to regard
with solemn awe, but of which they tranquilly contemplated the
utter desecration day by day in their own communion, — would
consider what had been the attendant circumstances, already glanced
at by previous speakers, in every celebration of the Lord's Supper
during three hundred years, he conceived that they would not dare
to impute to the Church of England any belief in the Real Presence.
It would be a gratuitous outrage upon her. Using always common
leavened bread, — -as if on purpose to multiply the chances of acci
dent, against which she literally made no provision whatever, so
utterly indifferent was she to the whole matter, — crumbs must
inevitably be scattered about the communion rails, and be aban
doned to whatever fate might befall them, including that of
being removed by an old woman with her shovel on the Monday
morning. Moreover, whole masses of "consecrated" bread and
wine, riot consumed by the communicants, were afterwards, in a
multitude of parishes, and even in some of their cathedrals, left to
the discretion of the clerk, who took them home, or cast them into
a graveyard, or otherwise disposed of these despised fragments of a
divine banquet, at his own caprice. And their Prayer-Book con
tained nothing to prevent such acts, to which bishops and other

100 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
dignitaries were constantly consenting parties. Now he had taken
pains to inquire of a Roman Catholic friend what was the
.practice of his Church? Her rubrics, which he had examined,
seemed to make provision for every conceivable accident which
could possibly occur, and minutely directed in what manner they
should severally be dealt with. If, in spite of every precaution, a
particle should fall to the ground, — an event, he was assured, which
was almost unknown, — it was immediately raised with all reverence
and replaced in the Paten or Ciborium, and at the close of the
service the clergy went in procession, and, kneeling on their knees,
cut out the piece of the carpet on which the particle had fallen, and
carefully consumed it by , fire. Well these men were at least
consistent, God forbid that he should sneer at them. They prac
tised what they professed to believe, and what, doubtless, they did
believe. But how was it, how had it ever been, in the English
Church ? Suppose there were in England ten thousand churches,
and that the Lord's Supper had been celebrated in each of them
four times a year for three hundred years. It would follow, on the
theory of High-Churchmen, that a stupendous sacrilege had been
enacted in England, since the Reformation, at least twelve million
times ; and that the worst horrors and ignominies of the Passion had
been renewed in the Church of England, without fear and without
remorse, every time communion was given to her members. For
his part, he would abandon that Church on the instant in horror
and trembling, if he held the opinions of Archdeacon . Chasuble.
But he hastened to add, that there was nothing in what he had
said to disturb the most timid conscience. The appalling scenes
which he had imagined had never really occurred. The Church of
England believed nothing of these dread mysteries, and therefore
made no provision against their profanation. He would take the
liberty to add, that it was very evident his High-Church friends
did not believe them either ; for if they did, they could not remain
another hour in the English Church.
(At this moment the door was thrown open, and a solemn butler,
who might easily have been mistaken for a bishop in plain clothes,
announced, as if he were giving out a refreshing text, that " tea was
served. " The company descended to the dining-room, where they
found ac entertainment worthy of their host and of themselves.

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 101
Mr. Kidds volunteered to say grace, but, becoming tedious, was
pulled back into his chair by his nearest neighbour. Dean Blunt
and Archdeacon Chasuble found themselves side by side, and
entered into cheerful conversation, neither seeming to remember
their recent conflict, nor to have the least intention to " abandon
the Church," a phrase which apparently had no particular meaning,
but was kept ready for use whenever the occasion required it.
Archdeacon Jolly inquired across the table of Mr. Kidds, who was
eating a muffin, whether he had seen a pamphlet, published by
 & Co., and entitled, " Hints on the Easier Methods of Leading
Captive Silly Women : By one who has had Experience in the
Ministry." Mr. Kidds replied, with some asperity, that he knew
nothing whatever, and desired to know nothing, of such a book;
but he had seen an advertisement of one called, " Suggestions for
a New Religion," and had imagined that it might perhaps be a
production of Archdeacon Jolly. Dr. Critical asked Dean Primitive
if he had seen Dr. Pusey's recent observations in the Guardian
about the probable advent of "a Free Church," and as the Dean
only shook his head, proceeded to observe, that it was an equivocal
commentary on his supposed belief in the perpetuity of the Estab
lishment, and showed what a very clear idea he entertained of the
nature of a Teaching Church. Evidently Dr. Pusey thought that
it was lawful to create a new one any day of the week. Dean Pliable
said that he had in his pocket a tract which was likely to assist
Dr. Pusey's "free church," and could only be the production of
some very indiscreet disciple of that eminent divine.- Its title was
this: "Is Baptism Necessary for a Christian Bishop?" It seemed
intended to prove that, owing to the "careless administration of
the rite " in past times, a large proportion of Anglican Bishops had
probably been unbaptized. It was a very reckless and imprudent
pamphlet, and yet he could not deny that it contained some serious
and even startling suggestions. He would read a passage or two
-from it while his friends drank their tea.
"Recall for a moment the spectacle of a public baptism in many
of our large parish churches, so late as even twenty years ago. A
crowd of infants, shrouded in caps and enveloped in flannels, were
held in the arms of their nurses round a font which had nothing in
it but a small basin of water. The clergyman, standing on the
other side of the font, spirted a few drops of the fluid from the tip

102 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
of one finger at each baby in turn, or rather at the heap of clothes
under which it was hidden. It was a hundred to one that the rite
was not administered in a single case, and a thousand to one that
it was not administered in all. Moreover, it was almost certain
that there was no sufficient connection between the sacramental
words and the pouring of the water, even supposing that the water
had really flowed on the head of a single child. Whole generations
of clergymen in the English ' Church,— Puritans, Evangelicals, or
worldlings, — all nearly equally indifferent about the administration
of a sacrament to which they attached very little importance, had
unconsciously conspired together to breed an unbaptized population
in these islands. The fact is simply appalling in its effect upon
our ecclesiastical status. ¦ An unbaptized man could neither receive
nor confer ordination."
Dean Pompous entreated that they might hear no more of a tract
so pestilent and revolutionary ; but Dean Primitive observed that,
only thirteen years ago, it had happened to himself to witness an
utterly invalid baptism in one of the churches in Hampshire, and
that he had great difficulty in obtaining the repetition of the in
effectual ceremony. Dr. Easy also remarked that his predecessor
in the living which he held in the country always baptized the
children with what he himself called "a damp finger;" and he had
heard of a large church in a manufacturing town where, during a
whole winter, water was never used at all, because, as the Vicar
observed in explanation, "it was too cold for the babies." Here
the clergy began to leave their chairs, as if they found the subject
distasteful, and ascended to the drawing-room. Dean Primitive
and Archdeacon Chasuble alone remained, apparently with design.
"Chasuble," said his friend, "I am sick at heart. What answer
can be made to Blurit and the Professor? If our Orders are a
delusion, what are we ? " " Alas ! my friend," replied the Arch
deacon,' " I begin to suspect that the validity of our Orders is a
much less important question than we had supposed. There are
other doubts which affect me more painfully." Silence ensued for
several minutes, when . the Archdeacon, rising with a deep sigh
from his chair, said : " Primitive, let us go up stairs."
The clergy had resumed their seats, awaiting the renewal of the
debate, when the Rev. Athanasius Benedict, a young man of pleasant

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 103
aspect, but wearing the robe of a monk, advanced into the room
with quick step and eager manner. Apologising to Dr. Easy for the
lateness of his arrival, he explained that he had only that evening
reached London from Rome, whither he had been to consult the
most famous theologians on several points of great interest. (Some
of the clergy laughed, and Mr. Kidds exclaimed, " truly disgusting.")
He had seen the Pope for a few moments, and received his blessing ;
but his Holiness declined to admit him to a second interview, which
he very much regretted, as he was anxious to convince him of the
catholicity of the English Church. However, he had seen Cardinal
Barnabo at his official residence, who received him courteously, and
seemed disposed to listen to his questions ; but unfortunately an
oriental bishop happened to come in on business, and his Eminence
requested him to call another day. He had intended to ask him
whether there was any Catholic precedent by which an individual
might appoint himself superior of a religious order of his own creation,
without having made any previous noviciate ; whether, if his bishop
was an ignorant heretic, he might treat his foolish opposition with
contempt ; whether, in case of necessity, he might teach his Church,
supposing his Church to be incapable of teaching him; whether, if
he should be excommunicated by all his monks, and excommunicate
them all in return, it was his duty or theirs to pay the debts of the
monastery; whether — (Dr. Easy here observed somewhat stiffly,
that the subject under consideration at that meeting, was the
character of English Orders, and though it had perhaps been
sufficiently discussed, if the reverend gentleman desired to make
any remarks, he presumed the assembly Would hear him. He
trusted, however, that he would endeavour to be brief. Without
a moment's hesitation, and looking straight before him with a
piercing glance, the Rev. Athanasius Benedict spoke as follows :)
He had sometimes been tempted to doubt the integrity of English
Orders, but he had put away the sinful thought as a snare of the
enemy. It was his rule not to listen to any suggestions tending to
disparage the Anglo-Catholic Church. He would admit, however,
that if Christendom refused to recognise the English clergy as
priests, there was some excuse for the error. The clergy themselves
were responsible for it. As long as they were incessantly " marry
ing and giving in marriage," so as to be known to the world chiefly

104 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
as types of uxorious effeminacy, their priesthood would be rejected
as a fable. The world had not been converted by married priests,
and never would be. Their example would always do more to en
courage worldliness than their teaching to restrain vice. But if it
shocked the purest instincts of the soul to see a priest entangled in
wedlock, what language could do justice to the revolting spectacle
of a .wedded bishop ? The primitive Christians, he was persuaded,
would have recoiled with horror from such an object. (Dean Pompous,.
crimson with indignation, protested that he would leave the room
if the young man repeated such disgraceful language.) Oh ! he
was aware that such views were out of harmony with the actual
spirit of the English Church, but it was necessary to reform that
spirit, and by God's help they would do it. A Gregory VII. would
be raised up in their communion, to purify the defiled courts of the
temple. St. Paul, who was a greater authority than the Church of
England, had delivered his testimony against a married clergy.
" It is good for man," he said, speaking even of the laity, "not to
touch a woman." And the Master whom St. Paul served, had
taught that there was a special choir in heaven, clothed with its
own peculiar glory, and composed of those only "who had not
defiled themselves with women." What deadness of heart or blunt-
ness of intellect could resist the arguments of the Apostle : " He that
is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may
please his wife ! " Why should they receive this divine admoni
tion as if it were addressed to others, but had no application to
themselves ? What had they gained by despising it ? What
better illustration could the world give of its truth, or of the
.shameful incongruity of a riaarried priesthood, than that latest in
vention of connubial repose, an English parsonage-house, or that
triumphant device of luxurious ease, an English Episcopal palace ?
.(Here Dean Pompous abruptly left the room. Some of the clergy
inquired in whispers whether Mr. Benedict should be allowed to
¦continue. It seemed to be agreed that he should, and he did.)
It was only, he said, (watching with a smile the retreating figure
¦of Dean Pompous,) by taking to pieces the idea of a married priest
hood, and viewing it in its detached phenomena, that one could
hope to realise its grotesque character. He would say nothing of it
as a confession of feeble and maudlin worldliness, nor of its glaring
inconsistency with all that was great, and noble, and fruitful, in

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 105
Christian annals. It did not deserve to be treated so seriously.
But he would come to familiar details. For example ; a sacerdotal
wedding-tour was a thing which struck the fancy as unique. To
appreciate such an expedition fully, they must consider it as the
last of a long series of preliminary incidents/ all belonging to what
was sometimes playfully called the "spoony" type. During this
period, the enamoured pastor might be contemplated as alternating
between thrilling sermons on "taking up the cross," and rapturous
interviews with the lady of his love. One moment he might, be
seen at the altar,- and the next in the boudoir; now discriminating the
claims of two equally fascinating doctrines, and a little later adjust
ing the merits of two equally adorable bonnets. But he would not
pursue the subject in its various details. He would only observe,
that pefhapS the most ardent admirer of hymeneal rites would
cheerfully admit, that he could not conceive St. Paul or St. John
starting on a nuptial tour, accompanied by the "latest fashions"
from Athens or Ephesus, and the graceful brides whom they were
destined to adorn. They would feel that Christianity itself could
not survive such a vision as that. Nor could the imagination
picture, in its wildest mood, the majestic adversary of the Arian
emperor attended on his flight up the Nile by Mistress Athanasius;
nor St. John Chrysostom escorted in his wanderings through
Phrygia by the wife of his bosom, arrayed in a wreath of orange
blossoms. Would Ethelbert have become a Christian, if St.
Augustine had introduced to him his lady and her bridesmaids?
No, the instincts of man could not tolerate the Apostolical Succession
taking its. recreation in a honeymoon.
For his own part, moved by the thought of what the great
preachers of the gospel had ever been, in every age, he' was accus
tomed to say to himself, whenever he met a clergyman with a woman
under his arm : " There is a gentleman who would certainly not
have consented to be ordained, if he had thought there was the
faintest risk of his loosing by the transaction." He knew it was
sometimes said, — for men were ingenious in apologising for their
infirmities, and especially for those to which they were most inclined
— that such priests might be models- to their flocks of domestic
virtue. Would that they were always even that ! But the world
expected priests to be models of something higher. There were
plenty of people to serve as models of domestic virtue. He gladly

106 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
admitted that there were in the English Church worthy husbands
and fathers of families ; but where were the successors of the Baptist,
of St. Stephen, or St. James? Alas ! not in their own communion,
though they abounded elsewhere. Only the other day, as he came
through France, he read in a French journal the martyrdom of nine
French bishops and priests at once in Corea. Did any one suppose
that if they had been married, they would have coveted the crown of
martyrdom? "He that is married," said the apostle, "is solicitous
for the things of the world;'' and for that reason there were no
Anglican missionaries in Corea. There never would be any, unless
it happened to become quite safe to go there. Eleven Colonial
bishops, they leafned from the Times, were in England about a
year ago, having left their distant sees to take care of themselves;
a new proof of th'e soft and luxurious temper which marriage
fostered in the clergy.
It would be impossible to enumerate all the evils which flowed
from this source. It was hardly too much to say that in their own
' day, as in past times, the imposition of hands by an English bishop
was simply an indication of his opinion that the candidate
before him had an undoubted vocation for matrimony. It was sad
to be obliged to confess that it had been so in their Church from
the beginning. As Erasmus said, marriage was the only paradise
left to a " reformed " Christian. In the theology of the founders of
Anglicanism, Nuptials and Orders were equivalent terms ; but the
last was only valued as an introduction to the first. He remembered
a fact in the life of Bishop Barlow, a name of evil omen for them,
which fitly inaugurated the religious revolution of the sixteenth
century. Five of that prelate's daughters married five Anglican
bishops, — no doubt with the pious intention of keeping alive the
Apostolical Succession in the Church of England.
And it was to be observed that when a clergyman once married,
it seemed, impossible to revive in him any respect for continence.
He would marry every year, if his wives would only die fast enough
to allow him to do so. St. Paul had said, speaking of a society
which had just been formed out of the ranks of the heathen : " a
bishop should be the husband of one wife." He could not possibly
mean that- all bishops must be married men, since he earnestly
dissuaded even the devout laity from excepting the yoke of mar
riage. He evidently implied by these words, that any one who had

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 107
been married twice, even as a heathen layman, was utterly unworthy
to become a Christian bishop. Yet some of their own most credit
able bishops, men who had left a name behind them, had actually
married twice after they had been raised to the episcopate. The
late Bishop of Salisbury did so, and defended the shameful deed in
a charge to his clergy ! He took this to be the most stupendous
fact in ecclesiastical story;
They were perhaps aware that even in Russia, a semi-barbarous
country, where a married priesthood was permitted, and where the
law had hitherto compelled every son of a priest to become a priest
himself, because nobody else would accept the office, he was abso
lutely prohibited from marrying after he was ordained. That was
too much even for Russian insensibility. But he perceived that
some of the company were becoming impatient, and would detain
them no longer. He had come there to deliver his testimony, and
it was a relief to his conscience to have done so. He had not heard
the previous debate on their Orders, but perhaps there was no
more formidable argument against them than one which had often
been addressed to himself during his travels. " If your clergy
were true priests," he had been told, " they would display the super
natural virtues which accompany a divine vocation. But they are
simply fathers of families, like any other laymen. The grace of
Orders does not appear in them, therefore they are not validly or
dained." He believed he was not deficient in courage, but he never
heard this argument without trying to change the conversation.
It was not, however, in his nature weakly to despair. The day
would come, and he fondly believed that it was at hand, when the
reproach of a married clergy would be taken away from them.
The first Anglican Council, to which all hearts were now looking
forward, would prohibit sacerdotal nuptials. When that auspicious
day arrived, he should no longer blush to meet his Roman and
Russian friends, for he should be able to tell them that he had
judged the Holy Anglican Church more' wisely than they, and had
not erred in predicting the glorious resurrection reserved for her,
and the triumphant demonstration of the validity of her Orders.
- (For some moments no one seemed inclined to reply to Mr.
Benedict, who was evidently regarded by the company as a very
obnoxious person. At length Mr. Kidds arose, and shaking himself

108 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
free from the grasp of two neighbours, who tried forcibly to hold
him down, spoke thus :)
He presumed that Mr. Benedict was a Roman priest in disguise.
(Mr. Benedict, smiled.) But he would meet him face to face, and
confound him with the sword of the Spirit. He wished to deprive
the clergy of the evangelical solaces of domestic life, and quoted
Paul in defence of his unholy project. For his part, he doubted
not that Paul, who was a spiritual man, corrected his error on the
subject of matrimony, which might be attributed to his Jewish
education, or, perhaps, to the fact that he was by natural dis
position averse to the female sex. In his judgment, there was not
to be seen on this planet an object so melancholy and repugnant
as a Roman priest. He never met one without feeling — well, he
could hardly express what he felt 
MR. BENEDICT would ask permission to express it for him.
He felt probably how deplorable must be the corruptions of that
Church which .preferred mortification to sensuality, the shadow of
the Cross to the glare of the world, the example of St. Paul to that
of Cranmer, and a life of devotion to sacerdotal duties to the sweet
attractions of the drawing-room or the lofty delights of the nursery.
MR. KIDDS (who did not seem quite sure that that was exactly
what he meant) replied) with a scornful wave of the hand, that he
had been in Rome! He repeated (here he raised his voice to a
very high pitch) that he had been in Rome, and there he had
witnessed the pernicious effects of this unscriptural avoidance of
matrimony. He had watched in the Corso and On the Pincio those
odious Franciscans, degraded beings with naked feet and a rope
round their waists, dirty and repulsive victims of a grovelling and
humiliating superstition.. That shocking spectacle had filled him
with devout thankfulness for the blessed institutions of his own
beloved Church and country, and had satisfied him that an
unmarried clergy must necessarily be examples of crime and
sources of corruption. He knew nothing more worthy of praise in
the bishops of their Protestant community than the example which
they gave in this matter. He rejoiced to believe that the unnatural
Bpectacle of an unwedded bishop had never been seen, or very

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 109
rarely, in their scriptural Church. Long might they continue to
use their " Christian liberty," as the late Bishop Denison powerfully
observed, and to adorn the land with a comely and godly offspring.
This was the prayer of a truly Evangelical clergy, and he presumed
that here at least the Puseyites were of one mind with them, since
he knew that Dr. Primitive and Archdeacon Chasuble had both of
them large families, and he believed that they both had daughters
married to clergymen.
MR. BENEDICT, (whose face was illuminated with smiles,)
trusted Mr. Kidds would bear with him while he said a word on
behalf of those Roman monks whose dress and doctrines were
equally distasteful to gentlemen of his views. He was not the
advocate of Rome, and believed that it was the sublime destiny of
the Anglican Church, in spite of present shortcomings, to restore both
the Latin and Greek communion to the perfection which they had
lost, and to admit both, after due instruction and correction, to the
privilege of fellowship with herself. His poor prayers would never
cease to be offered, that both the Eastern and Western Churches
might be remodelled after the pattern of the English. But he
could not admit that, because these less favoured churches had at
present the misfortune to be separated from their own, therefore
they contained nothing worthy to be esteemed or imitated. The
Roman monks, with many of whom he was well acquainted, led a
life of prayer, mortification, and good works. It was true they
laboured under what an Englishman would consider disadvantages.
They had not read Colenso on the "Pentateuch," nor the Oxford
" Essays and Reviews," nor the discussions of Convocation of the two
Provinces of York and Canterbury, nor even the sermons of Dr.
Elliot, Dean of Bristol. They did not take in the Times or the
Saturday Review. They had never heard of Dr. Lushington, nor of
the Court of Arches; nor had they sat under Dr. Cumming, nor
listened to the balmy eloquence of Samuel, Bishop of Oxford, and
Lord High Almoner to the Queen. With all these disadvantages,
it were unjust to expect that the Roman monks should know much
of " modern enlightenment." Moreover, the branch of the great
Franciscan family which was found in southern Italy and Sicily,
was mainly recruited from the humbler orders. Like the fishermen
of the Lake of Galilee, they were poor men ministering to the poor.

110 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
Tlieir dress was sometimes ragged, but he supposed the wardrobe
of the Apostles was also imperfectly furnished : and that if St.
Paul should walk into the great court of Christ Church, or dare
to invade the precincts of Balliol, in such guise as he proba,bly pre
sented after one of his weary journeys, he would be cast out as'an
obtrusive mendicant, and Committed to the custody of a policeman.
It was true that he would , probably find something to say which
would startle his delicate reprovers ; and it was shocking to think
that he might even be tempted to call the Master of Balliol a
"whited wall." He sometimes used language of that sort, in spite
of his defective toilette, and got into trouble in consequence.
Again, St. John the Baptist was not a "well-dressed man." Yet
of all that were born of woman " none was greater than he." What
did Mr. Kidds suppose wpuld be the fate of that great Preacher of
the Desert, if he presented himself at the door of any Episcopal
palace in England? Hardly would he be suffered to approach
the majestic presence of " My Lord," much less of the ladies of -his
household ; and if, through the compliance of an awe-struck menial,
he crossed the solemn threshold, it would only be to hear the
justly-offended bishop cry aloud to him from the top of his palatial
staircase-: "Go away, sir, and never presume to present yourself
here again in that disgusting attire."
Well, there had been Baptists in every age, though of a less
lofty stature, and the Franciscans were among the present heirs of
the great Preacher of the Desert. Had he any representatives in
the Anglican Church? He would consent to receive the answer
from Mr; Kidds.
DR. VIEWY must express his deep regret that Mr. Benedict
and Mr. Kidds had introduced a new and painful element in their
debate, by attempting to establish a contrast between the English
and the foreign clergy. He thought such personalities imprudent ;
because, no doubt, if Protestant clergymen could know what the
Roman clergy thought of them, they would not feel exhilarated by
the information. As an illustration of this truth he would repeat,
for the benefit of Mr. Benedict and Mr. Kidds, a description of the
High-Ohuf ch clergy it had been his fate to ovefhear, some months
ago, while travelling in a railway carriage on the continent. Two
Roman Catholic priests, of cultivated mind and manners, were

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. Ill
comparing their experiences acquired during a holiday tour, from
which they were returning to their work. One of them had been
in England, and spoke with warmth of the kindness and the hospi
tality which he had enjoyed at Oxford and elsewhere. He regretted
that he had found but liUle else that he could praise. What struck
him most, he said, about the Anglican clergy, was a singular want
of definiteness of character. Their very appearance, modes of
¦speech, and perpetual uncertainty and self-correction, was suggest
ive of an attempt to play a part for which they had not the neces
sary gifts. He should not like to judge unkindly, but they had, as
a class, a dreadfully unsupernatural look. You were always tempted
to think: "These are men who have never received the Sacra
ments, and in whose face there is no reflection of the Sacramental
Presence." (He' had made a note of this expression, which, he con
fessed, he did not exactly comprehend.) In spite of studied gravity,
there was literally nothing in them of the Christian priest. They
might be moral gentlemen, but no one would take them for priests.
He saw a few who wore a kind of Roman collar, and whose mise-
en-scene deceived you for a moment ; but when you came to look
more closely, there was a singular consciousness in their expres
sion, a furtive glancing out of the corners of the eyes, which
revealed too plainly their anxiety about the success of the dis
guise. He got so used to this expression in a week or so, that he
could detect it in a moment. It had a very droll effect. As to
their inner life and sentiments, they seemed divided into two dis
tinctly opposite classes. Both, he believed, were of exemplary
morals, but one was as humble as their unfortunate position allowed
them to be, and excused their reluctant isolation with a meek
sorrow and hesitation which were really touching. The other class
displayed a self-complacent conceit, and, he was obliged to add, a
spirit of malice, which, in his own experience, was quite without a
parallel. Their hatred of the Catholic Church was positively
frightful. They appeared to have no fear, no tenderness, and no
modesty. ' He had observed that they would often go out of their
way to express their reverence, generally in extravagant and
ludicrous terms, for the "Eastern Church," or any of the Oriental
sects, and, even sometimes for the Nestorians, while the evil spirit
within them seemed to torment them violently whenever the Holy
See was named, and forced them to display the pravitas hcereticorum.

112 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
These were men who, if the Church of England perished to-morrow,
would invent some new sect of their own, rather than enter the
Catholic Church. They could reign as little kings in a sect, and
follow their own conceits ; whereas,, in the Church, they must be
content to serve and obey. But this they would never do, for the
spirit of obedience was not in them. Though affecting the lan
guage of Catholics, they were more inveterately Protestant in feel
ing and temper than any of their co-religionists. He was inclined
to think, however, that the other class was more numerous, and of
their conversion good hopes might be entertained, though it was
inexpressibly sad to see them wasting their lives in various de
lusions, pursuing shadows as if they were realities, and running
the risk of being surprised by death before they had effected their
reconciliation with Holy Church.
The conversation, continued Dr. Viewy, lasted nearly an hour ;
but perhaps he had quoted enough of it to justify his remark that
personalities were imprudent, and might provoke an unpleasant
retort. He thought, too, that neither Mr. Benedict nor Mr. Kidds
could entertain any doubt as to the answer which Roman priests
would give to the question proposed by Dr. Easy: "are English
Orders human or divine?"
(The company now began tp break up. Mr. Benedict, still
smiling, excused himself for retiring to his lodgings on the
ground that "he had the office of Vespers to recite," by which he
was understood to mean that he was going to read the lively
Service which begins with "Dearly beloved," and ends with
" Lighten our darkness." Dean Primitive and Archdeacon Chasuble '
walked away in total silence, arm in arm. Several times their lips
parted, as if they were going to speak, but they separated at the
door of the former, with a warm grasp, but without having ex
changed a word. Mr. Kidds stood at the door for several minutes,
looking eagerly down the street, apparently desirous to give Mr,
Benedict ample time to get well out of sight. Others would have
followed, but Dr. Easy proposed to move again to the dining-room,
and refresh themselves with something more generous than tea.
This put a stop to further defections. The company drew round
the fire, and some lighted cigars. The conversation was resumed
with fresh animation.)

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 113
DR. EASY, who did not smoke, commenced by observing how
very droll it was to see two such men as Benedict and Kidds recog
nised ministers of the same Church. It would be hard to say what
they believed in common. As to Benedict, who really seemed a
good fellow at the bottom, in spite of his exorbitant vanity and
self-confidence, he would venture a wager that before six months
were over he would either be married, or a Catholic, — or relapse
into the ordinary routine of English clerical life. The atmosphere
of their National Church would soon prove fatal to monkery. Pro
testant sisterhoods might live and thrive in it, just as they did in
Lutheran Prussia, because women would always worship the
spiritual guides whom they chose for themselves, and consent to be
ruled by them. The very generosity of their nature exposed them,
as St. Paul seemed to intimate, to be "led captive" in this way.
He had heard without surprise, that the Catholic bishops, who dis
played in many things marveUous good sense, never suffered
religious communities to choose their own chaplains, and always
changed the latter every two or three years. He had no doubt this
was a wise precaution. But whether Benedict consoled himself
with matrimony pr not, poor Kidds, unfortunately for his own
peace, was already married, and his wife was such a shrew, that he
could not comprehend his enthusiasm about nuptial joys, unless it
was a pious fiction designed to soothe his irritable spouse. Primi
tive and Chasuble, he was afraid, had passed an unpleasant evening,
but they would probably get up in the morning none the worse for
it. The oddest thing about them, and others of their class, was
that they seemed to exult in their regrets and to revel in their
miseries. Yet if they believed what they professed, and he was
sure they thought they did, they ought to be crushed under the
weight of their own convictions ; but there was a placidity about
their perennial lamentations which made one suspect that their trials-
were a luxury which they would be sorry to part with. What
puzzled him most about them was this, that while they abhorred
what the Reformers taught, none of the clergy accepted -more
cordially what they did. Even Kidds, poor foolish ranter as he
was, could give them a lesson in consistency. So could their pre
decessors, in the comparatively moderate High-Church schools,,
which had existed, on a much smaller scale, at former periods-
The learned Bramhall warmly protested that he did not " unchurch "
8

114 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
the Swiss and German communities, so little sympathy had he with
the modern Puseyite doctrine. There was probably not a single
writer in the first hundred years of Anglican history who had not,
in equally decisive terms, identified himself with the work of the
continental Protestants, in spite of occasional protests of a very mild
character, which had no meaning, and were not intended to have
any. Long after, Reginald Heber, one of their most respected pre
lates, used officially the same language, and even made a sort of
public boast that he had received communion from the Lutheran
clergy, and was ready to do so again whenever the opportunity
offered: The most conspicuous High-Churchmen whom their, com
munity had produced, — even such men as Laud, Leslie, Thorndike,
and others, — never, he believed, said anything against the work or
hostile to the persons of the Reformers. Their principles did not
require it. It was reserved for men of their own day, pressed by
the exigencies of their theory, either openly to reyile the founders
of their Church, or quietly to ignore them. Yet it was hard to see
how theologians whose own teaching, as the Puseyites were obliged
to maintain, was a tissue of heresies, could found a new branch of
the Catholic Church, or claim to be the heirs of the Catholic priest
hood. Either the Reformers were doctors and evangelists, and
derived their orders and their mission directly from heaven ; or they
were impostors and heresiarchs, who merited the pillory rather than
a " Martyrs' Memorial."
.LEAN PLIABLE did not think, with deference to his friend,
that they were either one or the other. They were simply men
of great vigour and energy, ridding, themselves slowly, from the
nature of the case, of previous errors, and adopting finally certain
opinions according to the influences brought to bear upon them, and
even. the accident of local circumstance. Bucer had probably
more to do with the ultimate shape of Anglican doctrine than all
the English Reformers together ; and as to the question of Orders,
their own language proved how little importance they attached to
it. It was a mere chance that they finally adopted, on any point,
one set of views rather than another. They would probably have
been Presbyterians, if they could have followed their own convic
tions ; but no Tudor would have tolerated such a form of discipline,
and the monarehial feeling of the country was opposed to it. There

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 115
was a time when they would have retained Mass, and then a time
when they would have regarded the Eucharist just as the Calvinists
did. Cranmer changed his creed half-a-dozen times, and he doubted
whether any of the Reformers, after the death of Henry, knew cer
tainly what his own opinions were, or in what direction he was
drifting. They were men, and made the mistakes of men; but
their mistakes had made England what she was, arid freed her from
the trammels of ecclesiastical Christianity. It was childish to- see
in the Reformation anything but a purely human event, but it was
one of vast magnitude in its effects upon the destinies of man
kind; and he, for one, was. willing to accept its benefits, without
scanning too critically the character or the motive of the agents to
whom they owed them. No one asked, or cared to know, what was
the private life, much less the private opinions, of a statesman who
introduced a good bill into Parliament. The. Reformers did not
prbbably augment the sum of virtue in the world, and might even
have too rudely crushed the ecclesiastical and sacramental machinery
by which it had for ages been fostered ; but they were apostles of
freedom rather than of virtue, and having done well what they
aimed at, were not to be blamed if they failed to do what was
hardly their immediate object. Erasmus and others complained
that there was a sensible decay of morals after the introduction of
Protestantism ; but, it must be remembered in fairness, that men
had just cut themselves loose from a vast number of artificial, but
potent restraints, and emptied their minds of ideas and principles
which had been lodged there from infancy. They might well feel
a little light-headed at first. They had flung out their ballast, and
were navigating an unknown sea without compass or rudder. The
whole process was as purely human as that by which Magna
Charta was won, or trial by jury, or the right of self-taxation, or the
suppression, of the Corn Laws, or a sanitary bill, or a new system of
sewerage ; but this did. not diminish the value of its results. It
was absurd to see anything " divine" in it, from first to last, and
that which was not divine in its origin could not be so in its effects.
He differed as widely from Kidds as from Chasuble; he neither
respected the Reformers as prophets, nor defamed them as heretics.
They were men, neither much better nor much worse than other
men, who began a great work without quite knowing what they
were going to do, and who were led, not by angels, but sometimes

116 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
by princes who would not be disobeyed, sometimes by accident, and
most often by one another. It was hard to say what some of them
really believed ; probably they did not know themselves ; but of
one thing he was quite certain, that in the whole number there was
not one who would not frankly have admitted, what had been
abundantly proved in the discussion of that evening, that English
Orders were purely human.
THE PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, throwing the end of his
cigar into the fire, said that it would be a great convenience to all
who held office in the English Church, if the candour and good
sense of their friend Pliable were a little more common. He knew
something personally of the excessive awkwardness of trying to
import, for the sake of appearance, a quasi-divine element into a
human subject. Whenever he found himself in presence of his
class, composed invariably of the same materials, — the majority
being profoundly indifferent to theology in general, while a few
cherished faintly certain Catholic ideas, which they had picked up
in books, and of which he was obliged to take account, — lie wished
that the University, in appointing a Professor of Anglican Theology,
had not thought it unnecessary to say what Anglican Theology was.
Let them suppose a body of students, such as was to be found in
any Anglican lecture-room whatever, whose theological conceptions
ranged, to use a mathematical figure, from a point to a parabolic
curve, and whose notions of Christianity, — moral, doctrinal, and
historical, — were as various and many-coloured as the patterns of
their waistcoats. In front of this motley group stood a gentleman
who was assumed to have made up his mind, more or less definitely
as to his own views of religion, and who received a liberal salary
to impart them to others. He could npt conceive an object more
worthy of sympathy than the Professor in question. All these
young men, the future ministers of their National Church, — some
because it was likely to prove a lucrative profession, a few from a
certain softness of characterwhich was akin to piety, many because
their parents wished it, and more because they were too stupid to
be trusted in any other career, — had already received, without
knowing it, a sort of theological training. They took with them
to college the views of their parents, or of the clique in which
they had lived, or of the clergyman who was looked up to by their

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 117
mothers and sisters. These various ideas, — which they held more
firmly ia proportion to their ignorance, — they naturally brought
with them to the lecture -room; and it was on such tablets as these
that the Professor was to write, if he could, a compendium of
Anglican Theology. He was to be precise where precision was
impossible, dogmatical where every dogma was a subject of dispute,
clear where his own Church had purposely left everything in
doubt, and, peremptory where even the raw youths before him
knew that his immediate predecessor had been equally resolute in
the opposite sense.
It had happened to him to be present on one occasion at a theo
logical lecture in a great Roman Catholic college. The professor
of the day had become his friend, in consequence of a common taste
for geology. What struck him about the lecture was its marvel
lous definiteness. The man seemed to feel that he had tlie great
living Church at his side, and the whole company of heaven at
his back. And the attitude of the students was quite as remark
able. There was no more hesitation on their part than on his.
One conviction ruled all those free but various intellects. It was
a memorable illustration of that state of society which Christianity
was destined to form — and seemed to have permanently formed in
one communion — in which men of many gifts. and diverse races
were to be " of one heart and one 'mind." He found himself envy
ing that fortunate professor, and thought of his own pupils with
anything but cheerful feelings.
During the term which followed shortly after the incident
referred to, it was recalled to his memory in an unpleasant way.
He had been lecturing some freshmen on the subject of Anglican
Orders. At the close of the lecture he proposed this question to
be answered in writing : " Point out the relations' which exist
between Holy Order and the rites of Baptisni and Confirmation."
A young Irishman of great ability, who, a few months later, be
came a Roman Catholic, and had since distinguished himself at the
bar, gave in the following paper, which he had kept as a curiosity
to the present day : —
"Privy Council has decided that Baptism may either be, or not
be, the sacrament of regeneration. The Bishop of Gloucester has
officially declared that this decision ha3 been accepted by the
English Church. SuPPose> ^en, that one of our bishops should

118 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
happen to have missed being regenerated in Baptism, has the
Church of England made any provision by which the want might
be supplied in after life ? Could the future bishop contrive to be
regenerated in any other way? Would Confirmation supply the
defect? Confirmation, the Church of England replies, is not a
sacrament, but only ' a corrupt following of the apostles.' "
ARCHDEACON JOLLY : Just as the present Anglican doctrine
of Baptism is "a corrupt following of the Privy Council."
THE PROFESSOR continued to read :
"One chance remained for the future Bishop, but still, by
hypothesis, unregenerate pagan. He had got no touch' of Sacra
mental grace from Baptism or Confirmation, but perhaps Ordi
nation would take the place of both, and imposition of episcopal
hands fill his heathen soul with celestial life ? This seemed un
likely.' The ordaining bishop might happen to be quite as unre
generate as himself; and even if he were not, the English Church
declares of Holy Order, as of Confirmation, 'it is not a sacrament,'
and therefore cannot confer sacramental grace, but is a purely
human ceremony, conveying nothing whatever but a license to
preach, and the honorary title of Reverend. So that, by the joint
testimony of the Articles and the Privy Council, of the Prayer-
Book and its authorised expounder, a man might come at length
to be a bishop, and indeed was pretty sure to do so, who had never
received a Christian sacrament, and would remain to the end of
his life ' a child of wrath ' in lawn sleeves, with a palace, a peerage,
and five thousand a year."
This caustic but humorous freshman added other equally ingen
ious observations,, with which he would not trouble them, and his
composition terminated as follows : " What kind of fact, then, does
the Times or the Morning Post design to communicate to the
public ; when it contains such an announcement as this : ' On
Sunday last the following gentlemen were ordained priests by the
Lord Bishop of Southampton ? ' Evidently the meaning was :
'The gentlemen enumerated below, who were probably not re
generate in baptism, certainly not regenerate in confirriiation, and
therefore most likely never regenerate at all, have received ordina-

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 119
tion, which itself is only a corrupt following of the apostles, from
a bishop who is in precisely the same condition as themselves.' "
His friends would not expect him, continued the Professor, to
refute the theological conclusions of this lively undergraduate, nor
perhaps consider that it would be very easy to do so. The young
man called upon him just before he was received into the Roman
Church, and the subject of Orders happened to turn up again in
their farewell conversation. He was always remarkable for putting
things in- a pointed way, and as he (the Professor) admitted that
English Orders could not possibly be divine unless they were
absolutely indentical with Roman, the acute Irishman instantly
drew the inevitable conclusion in the following words : " Anglican
Orders, whatever else they may be, cannot possibly be the same
with Roman, as the Anglican Church , must always be eager to
maintain; for how can a Church which formally denies that
ordination is a sacrament either pretend or desire to possess Roman
Orders, which the Roman Church affirms to be a sacrament ? "
ARCHDEACON JOLLY, who appeared, to be greatly diverted
by the Professor's anecdote, thought the latter inight have replied
to his Irish friend, rem acu tetigisti. They were certainly indebted
to him for his contribution to the subject of English Orders. As to
his argument about an " unregenerate clergy," it was only formid
able to those who believed that grace was imparted. mainly through
sacraments. If that opinion were tenable, then, indeed, there might
be good reason for thinking that the National Church was to a large
extent a heathen, or at least an unregenerate community. Perhaps
it really was so, though the time had not yet arrived when they could
all venture to use the plainness of speech which they could employ
in their private discussions. But it was evidently coming fast. Two
great movements were in progress within the English Church,
both introduced and directed by leading members of the clergy, and
each carrying away in its swift current the flower of the educated
laity. One tended towards Humanism, the other towards Mysti
cism. One subjected religion to the test of reason, the, other forr
bade reason tp dogmatise within the domain of faith. One was in
the direction of Rationalism, the other of Popery. These two
currents were now running with such a full tide, that philosophical
observers need only sit down on the bank and wait for the end.

120 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
At such a moment it might be interesting to take a retrospective
view of their Church, and of its different schools and paf ties, some
of which were already tending to extinction, others in various stages
of decay, and a few preparing to assume new forms which would be
developed during the present generation. They might consider
them in their representative types, and this he now proposed to do.
Many years ago, while he was a curate in a great city, he had
enjoyed rare opportunities of studying the amazing variety of cler
ical types to be found in their community. Even in his youth their
constant dissensions had begun to excite remark, and to prepare the
way for the general confusion of thought which had since prevailed,
and the singular religious revolution now in progress, of which it
was impossible to foresee the end; but of which the clergy were
themselves the sole cause. He had amused his leisure hours by an
attempt to depict these various types, with each of which he was
personally familiar. The night was advancing, and their conver
sation had been unusually protracted, but nobody seemed to be
weary, and he should still have time to give at least the substance
of a few of thesketches referred to. His friends would say whether
they had the merit of being faithful portraits, and whether they
threw any light on the subject of that evening's discussion. They
had asked themselves whether English Orders were human or
divine, and whoever was desirous to maintain the latter hypothesis,
— -an ambition which he must entirely disclaim, — would admit that
uniformity of religious belief and identity of ecclesiastical character
were inseparable parts of that idea. A common divine vocation,
accompanied by special gifts for a special object, must necessarily
create, as it had actually done in the vast Roman communion, an
order of men moulded exactly according to the same type, teaching
everywhere the same truths, and ruling their thoughts and lives by
the same standard. A divine vocation implied all this, and
evidently did not, and could not exist, where these sure tokens of
its presence were utterly wanting. Let them consider then whether
the infinite variety of clerical types in their own community, of
which he was about to give a few specimens, could possibly co-exist
with the hypothesis of a divine vocation.
(The clergy here disposed themselves in attitudes of easy atten
tion, and appeared to feel assured that if the Archdeacon was about

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. , 121
to prolong the sitting, they would have no reason for regretting that
the moment of departure was delayed. Having referred to some
notes which he held in his hand, he proceeded as follows.)
THE HIGH AND DRY CLERGYMAN. His own Rector was the
subject of his first sketch. He was the cousin of a cabinet minister,
and was a conspicuous member of what had since been called the
"High and Dry " school. As far as it was possible to attribute to
him any fixed religion at all, "salvation by scholarship alone " might
be said to be his sole dogmatical conviction. He taught hi3 flock
religion as if it were one of the dead languages, but a necessary part
of a gentleman's education. He published, on, the average, one
book every year, of suffocating aridity, and with such titles as the
following : " The Church of Rome Convicted of Schism since the
reign of Queen Elizabeth ; "A new Defence of the Thirty-Nine
Articles," which he seemed to think were always in need of fresh
defence ; " Union with the State, the Duty of the Church ;" " Reasons
for not joining the Society for the Suppression of Rich Benefices;"
and many more equally profitable to mankind, if it had only been
possible to read them. His church was frequented by the educated
and well-dressed ; the few poor, who were all pensioners on the
parish bounties, being stowed away under the gallery, whence
they could usefully contemplate, with humble respect, the religion
of their superiors. In his sermons, which he was constantly print
ing, on the purely imaginary pretext that somebody had asked him
to do so, he treated religion as an anatomical lecturer treats the
human body, dissecting it with scientific precision, but always on
the assumption that the soul had fled. Indeed, he seemed to him,
sitting below in the reading-desk, as if he were trying to persuade
himself that he had a religion, but could not succeed in doing so.
His object appeared to be to strip religion of all charm, and deprive
it of all interest, in which he was uniformly successful. The cruelty
of this method towards the women and children of the congregation
filled his own mind with a vehement indignation towards his rector,
which he. was not always able to conceal. One felt in his church —
which as little reflected either God or Nature as the fossil resembles
the green leaf or the gay insect that waved or fluttered before the flood,
— as in a huge mourning coach, in which Truth Hope and Peace were
being carted to a common grave. The only visible purpose of his
ministrations was to keep the soul at its greatest possible distance

122 , THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
from God ; and the only conviction with which he impressed his
hearers was, that the Creator had gone to sleep, and that the
primary duty of the creature was not, to wake Him up.
THE GOOD AND EASY CLERGYMAN was a more agree
able type, and one which he had frequent opportunities of studying.
One of this school was incumbent of a large and fashionable chapel,
not half a mile from his own parish church. His voice and manner
were so tender that he seemed to be always on the point of making
everybody an offer of marriage. His life appeared to glide away in
a mild and amiable conflict between the claims of piety and good
breeding. Sometimes his eye would kindle, and you would have
said he was going to launch a rebuke against some popular sin, but
good taste came promptly to the rescue, and the sinner's sensibility
was gently spared. His sermons were generally a tender panegyric
of the natural virtues. He considered them in every aspect, and
drew such ravishing pictures of the "devoted mother," or "the
Christian at home," or "the good parent's reward," that people said
his sermons were as good as a novel, and so they were. He was
quite sure he never once alluded to hell during his whole career, —
the poor man was dead now, — and people came from all parts of the
town to hear him. He had never heard hini but once, and was
bound to say that it was riot unpleasant while it lasted, which was
about an hour and a quarter. He was said to make £1500 a year
by his pew rents. He satisfied the living members of his flock that
they had " found the Lord," or might do so whenever they pleased;
and as to the dead ones, he canonized them as soon as the breath
was out of them with a facility which would have scandalised the
Sacred College at Rome ; while it. had this advantage over their
more cautious methods of procedure, that where everybody, went
straight to Heaven as a matter of course, there could be no need to
hear witnesses, and no necessity to make invidious distinctions.
He had also his own system of "Indulgences/' which did not
resemble the Roman one, and of which his treasury was so full, that
it almost seemed improvident and ungrateful not to sin, in order to
have the pleasure of enjoyirig them. He discouraged every allusion
to doctrine, as not tending to edification, but rather productive of
unprofitable controversy, hurtful to that placid composure of spirit
which he considered the summum bonum of the Christian dispensa
tion. What could it matter whether Baptism was necessary toi

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 123
regeneration, or the Apostolical Succession a poetical myth, so that,
as he often observed, you preserved " a calm mind," and were chari
table and tolerant of the views of others ? His idea of the Almighty
seemed to be that He was the author of pure taste and refined
breeding, and sin and suffering were the bad manners which marred'
the harmony of good society. For this reason chiefly it would be
very desirable, if possible, to get rid of sin. The Fall, of which he
rarely spoke, — for how could such a congregation as his, most of
whom came to church in their carriages, be supposed to have fallen ?
— he appeared to think had been followed by no results to speak
of, unless it were the emancipation of the human family from the
restraints of a life too exclusively spiritual, bequeathing to Adam's
;osterity no graver hardship than that of paying more attention to
artificial clothing than the simple state of society in Paradise
required. As to the final judgment, he seemed to possess some
secret which deprived it of all its terrors ; and as to the Judge, he
evidently regarded Him as the benevolent proprietor of a celestial
hotel, "replete with every comfort," into which all well-dressed
travellers would be admitted as a matter of course, and where they
might expect to enjoy the best society for endless ages.
THE AMATORY PARSON, whose vocation, if he had one, was
very human indeed, had a great many representatives. One of his
fellow curates, whose father was a half-pay naval officer, belonged
to this class. The Rector never allowed him to preach except in
the afternoon, because that was the least frequented of the three
Sunday services. He was always engaged, or said to be engaged,
to some pink or blue bonnet in the flock, though he ultimately left
without having justified the rumour. The bonnet in question was
conspicuous within easy view of the pulpit every Sunday afternoon.
He was a good-looking fellow, but inconceivably shallow and
ignorant. If English Orders were ever "divine," they must have
ceased to be so before poor Horatio White was ordained. It was
really curious to see the air with which the handsome booby
mounted the pulpit, drew off his gloves, arranged his pocket hand
kerchief upon the velvet cushion, satisfied himself by a rapid glance
as to the position of the bonnet, and then covered his face to pray.
What he prayed for, it would be indiscreet to inquire. His sermons
might be described as a botanical effort, so full were they of floral
imagery, suggesting the idea that the surest way to Heaven was to

124 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
cultivate a garden in a wood, by the side of a rippling stream, and
to sing in it by moonlight. His favourite subject was Heaven,
which he represented as a superior sort of Chiswick or Chatsworth.
He appeared to have been there. He evidently knew all about it,
but it was rather singular that, he never once made the slightest
allusion to God. There was a great deal about the Angels, but
much more about men and women whom they had known, and the
extreme gratification of meeting them again under such agreeable
circumstances. His notion of Heaven seemed to be that it was a
sort of eternal pic-nic. The poor fellow afterwards married an old
woman with money, who led him a dreadful life. He had known
several " Amatory Parsons " who came to the same end.
THE CALVINISTIC CLERGYMAN was a very common
type when he was a young man, and might be met with even now
in almost every large town, and not unfrequently in country
villages. He should never forget the Reverend Peter Green, — he
might mention his name, for he had gone long since to the Anti
podes, where he had become a dignitary, — who was a curate in a
church where he sometimes preached at the request of the Rector.
The characteristics of Mr. Green's religion were gloom and ferocity.
He used the holiest names and truths as if they were stones with
which to pelt his congregation. He looked as if he was always on
the point of destroying mankind at a single blow, and rather
admired his own clemency for not doing it. The habitual tone of
his mind towards the Deity, had he expressed it in a prayer, would
have required the use of some such language as this : " You and I
take precisely the same view of these unregenerate sinners, but we
will strive to have patience with them, and if they finally refuse to
hear us, we will condemn them to eternal tortures." If he could
possibly have admitted the wild suspicion that " Jehovah," the title
by which he always called Almighty God, differed from himself on
any point of doctrine, he would have regretted it— on Jehovah's
account. He seemed to be possessed by a notion that he had per
sonally assisted at the creation Pf the world, as well as at the
founding of Christianity. His sermons were almost invariably
about " Paul," and it was very remarkable that though he talked,
often in a coarse rude way, about the work of the Saviour, he very
rarely alluded to his Person. He seemed to exist in his mind
only as the representative of a particular group of doctrines. The

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 125
man evidently thought much more of his own wretched opinions
than of the Teacher from whom he professed to derive them. He
was particularly given to expatiate on the woes of Korazin and
Bethsaida, and almost became cheerful in anticipating the fate of
their inhabitants. He spoke of the Day of Judgment as if he had
been privately consulted about the, arrangements to be adopted at
that ceremony, and appeared to feel that his own chief enjoyment
would consist in hearing the sentence of reprobation pronounced
upon the vast majority of mankind. As he did not seem to believe
many of the doctrines which are supposed to be taught by the
English Church, and openly scoffed at Episcopal Ordination, he was
sometimes tempted to wonder why he did riot become a dissenter ;
but he probably felt, like a good many other Anglican clergymen,
that it- was more convenient to be a dissenter in the Church of
England than out of it. He had once the misfortune to hear him
preach on a Communion Sunday, and was much struck by the
address which he delivered to the intending communicants. His
whole anxiety appeared to be to warn them against expecting any
possible benefit from it. He said nothing of any kind of benedic
tion which they might reasonably hope to derive from it, but was
vehement against the purely imaginary blessings which he warned
them not to expect. In this, however, he resembled many other
classes of the clergy, who habitually preach against the use of this
rite, even while supposing that they are preaching in favor of it.
Iri short, there was such a well of bitterness in this man's dark
and cruel theology, that all the honey of the religion of Christ
turned to gall upon his tongue. The young disliked and feared
him, and learried by degrees, to shrink from all piety, as if it were
something loathsome ; but there were certain women of middle age,
chiefly disappointed spinsters or soured widows, who adopted his
ferocious creed, and became as repulsive and unchristian as him
self. If there was anything divine in English Orders, they could
hardly generate such a teachef as this ; and there was perhaps no
more decisive argument against that foolish theory, than that their
Church had produced, during many successive generations, a mul
titude of such ministers, and even formed whole classes of Anglican
society on the same revolting type.
THE EVANGELICAL CLERGYMAN,— of whieh class there
were two distinct varieties, which took respectively Luther and

126 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
Melancthon for their model, — had been very useful in their Church,
at a time when the rest of the clergy were of no sort of use whatever.
It was almost to be regretted that they were being gradually super
seded, — at least as respected their influence on the nation, — by
newer and more energetic schools. For many years they, and they
alone, had kept alive whatever religious feeling existed in the
Church of England. This was a service which should never be
forgotten. Before Puseyism was, and while the nation was still
slumbering after the horrible stagnation of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the men of this school revived the grand but
almost obliterated ideas of a Personal God, of intimate relations
between each soul of man and the Divine Redeemer, of a religion
of love and willing obedience. All honour to them ! They had
preached great truths to a people lying in darkness, and no one
could say that they had preached wholly in vain. Why, then, had
they lost their power and pre-eminence, so that teachers of quite
other views were everywhere contending with them, and almost
everywhere with success ? It seemed to him that this declension
was to be attributed to the intellectual feebleness of their system,
and its total neglect both of logic and history. Much which they
taught was true, but it was only part of the truth ; and as they
appealed more to feeling and emotion than to either faith or rea
son, — the first of which they confounded with mere religious
sensibility, and the second they scandalized by their private and
arbitrary interpretations of Scripture, — they began to fail the
moment they ceased, to be the only earnest men in the nation.
They were, moreover, so delightfully unconscious that there were
any other inhabitants of Christendom but themselves, and refused
with so much simplicity to take any account of Latin, Greek, or
Oriental versions of Christianity, that when the so-called " Catholic
movement " began a few years ago, and a sudden flood of light was
poured into the caves and corners in which they hoped to dwell alone
forever, they were amazed to find that while other men could discern
perfectly well the objects around them, they were Only blinded by
this unexpected influx of luminous fluid. In this state of imperfect
vision, they naturally made many mistakes, stumbled rather than
walked, sometimes fell all their length on the ground, and finished
by becoming extremely ridiculous. When they were asked what
were their relations to the rest of the great Christian family, they
claimed kindred with all sorts of discreditable ancestors, — obscene

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 127
Lollards, and noisy Wickliffites, and unbelieving Waldenses, — and
so fell into shame, and gave their adversaries an easy victory. He
was sorry to say it, but they were dreadfully narrow-minded, and
had sd little grasp of the great doctrine of Christian fraternity, that
they wished to have a Gospel, a Church, and a Heaven all to
themselves. The Puseyites, — the best of whom had a rich fund of
playfulness and humour, — only laughed at them, and very soon
robbed them of such of their disciples as had any mental cultiva
tion. The combat between these two schools was always an impar
congressus, and the Evengelicals went to the wall. They still existed
in great numbers ; and Mr. Bennet had lately insisted, with perfect
truth, though in contempt of his own principles, that, they had as '
good a right to teach in the English Church as their successful
rivals; but they had fallen on evil days, and their brief season of
triumph and authority had faded away never to return.
THE RITUALISTIC CLERGYMAN was a plant of recent
growth in their Church, but had quickly arrived at maturity.
Whether it would display a hardy nature, or be shrivelled, like
other tender shoots, by the first frost, or beaten to the earth by the
first thunder-shower, a little time 'would probably show. Mean
while, it was not difficult to account for its appearance. The
unadorned Anglican service, as they might venture to confess
among themselves, since their congregations had long ago made the
same discovery, was a little dreary. No one would think of describ
ing it as a lively way of spending a couple of hours. People in
church always looked as if they had come with an honest English
resolve to get through an unpleasant duty. They had made up their
minds to face it, and the determination did them credit. But they gene
rally went home again with a deep sense of relief. They had done
their duty, but were heartily glad it was over. He had heard that in
New York, many of the best seats in the numerous Catholic churches
were invariably rented by wealthy Protestants, not because they had
any active preference1 for Catholic doctrine, but solely because they
found the service less dismal than their own. In England, there was
still too much dislike to Popery to allow of such a diversion. Yet it
had become urgent to do something to diminish the patient suffering
of their flocks. The humbler classes, it was true, could sleep, and they
used the privilege; but a sense of personal dignity denied this solace
to the upper ranks. At length the Ritualists came to their relief.

128 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
It was a new fact in their history, that for some time past people
had actually found pleasure in going to Church ! And they went
there, willingly, no longer tempted by the languid excitement of
criticising the preacher, in whom they now felt very little interest.
They had found something more attractive. Cheerful music,
borrowed for the most part from Catholic sources, had supplanted
the dreary psalm tunes which nourished their gloomy youth.
Choral singing, bright and animated, banished all desire to sleep.
Gay flowers adorned the renovated temple, which of old had op
pressed and chilled the senses like a huge family vault. Surplices
had become of snowy whiteness and unfamiliar shapes, and stoles of
strange dimensions and unwonted hues, lent a new grace to the
ministrants. The communion table had "become an " altar," and
even long extinguished candles had burst into light. Instead of a
solitary clerio, of unimpressive aspect, who looked as if he had just
left a more agreeable scene and would be glad to get back to it,
a decorous procession of comely youths preceded the ministers, who
contrived to be as numerous as possible, and carefully avoiding the
lax gestures and unmortified looks of the cathedral clergy, moved
with studied gravity to their appointed Seats, amid the loud peal
ing of the organ'. It was evident that care and forethought had
presided at these arrangements, and while a certain expression in
the faces of the clergy appeared to say to the congregation, — " We
flatter ourselves, this will meet with your approval;" a cheerful
look of contentment seemed to respond for the people, — " You de
serve it, for you have relieved our Sunday of half its gloom."
If the Ritualists had been content with this peaceful success, they
would have been hailed, at least by the educated classes, as' bene
factors, and they would have deserved the title. It was surely no
mean triumph to have made the English Sunday almost tolerable.
But it soon became apparent that they had other objects in view.
It was no longer enough that the surplice should be of unspotted
purity, unless it were also covered with a decorated vestment, familiar
in Catholic churches but utterly unknown in their own, of which the
fashion and colour varied with the feast, and symbolised, to
discerning eyes, the Saint, the Virgin, or the Martyr of the day.
The " altar," too, must now be approached with bended knee, because
it was no longer the seat of the simple and homely rite which had
contented their uninstructed fathers, but of "Tremendous Mys-
terys" and an "August Sacrifice." Censers of gold or silver

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 129
must lend their aid, and waft clouds of incense through choir and
nave, which for three centuries had been perfumed with meaner
odours. And doctrine kept pace with ritual, or rather outstripped
it. The people were now told that, the Real Presence was the
central object of Christian devotion, the Daily Sacrifice the highest
expression of Christian worship. Sacramental confession was the
surest remedy for sin in this world, and the safest pledge of forgive
ness in the next.. Protestantism was an abomination, and the
English nation was assured that it had always been Catholic with
out knowing it. The Reformation was a trifling historical incident,
of hardly any real importance, and the best thing they could do
was to forget it. The Church, by her own nature, was incapable
of error; but as she had unfortunately been under a cloud for a
good many centuries, a few English clergymen had undertaken to
perform her functions until further notice. Such were the principal
chapters of the new Ritualistic catechism.
A certain number of hearers approved these ideas as true in
themselves, without pausing to consider in what place they heard
them, or by what lips they were uttered. But a far larger number
vehemently declined to embrace them. The latter might be divided
into three classes. The first only laughed, and thought the whole
affair an indifferent comedy, played by actors who had not learned
their parts. The second were indignant, threw dust into the air, and
talked about " treason against the Church of England." The third,
more thoughtful and judicious, took a deeper view of the whole sub
ject, and replied to the Ritualists in such terms as the following :
"The doctrines which you teach are either true or false. On the
latter hypothesis they need not be discussed ; but if .you can prove
them to be true, you will have proved, at the same time, that the
Church of England is the most guilty of all Christian communities.
You affirm that they are divine, and therefore necessary to salva
tion; yet many successive generations of men, taught by the English
Church or her appointed ministers, lived and died in utter igno
rance of them, knowing only that by her formularies, and by the
mouths of her bishops and clergy, she had mocked and derided
them, and taught the whole nation to do the same. They may be
true in themselves, as you insist; but if they are, the Church of
England, as you cannot refuse to admit, is a synagogue of Satan,
and most of her members are now, and ever have been, in foul
heresy and in the shadow of death.
9

130 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
" So much for the effect of y%ur new teaching on the Church to
which you profess to belong ; let us next consider it in relatiPn to
yourselves. If your doctrines are true, as you assert, why do we
find you patiently continuing in a Church which has permitted
them to be- blasphemed in the past, and in daily communion with
a clergy who revile them in the present? Do you, or do you not,
in the full exercise of your liberty, communicate in saeris with
men who call that devilish which you call divine ? and, if so, in
what do you differ from them, except in this, that they have the
excuse of holding errors which they believe to be true, while you
have the infamy of countenancing doctrines which you proclaim to
be false? By your own confession, their position- is at all events
better than yours. They are simply heretics without suspecting it,
while you refuse to separate from the heresy which you affect to
regard*with horror. If the Reformation was a disaster, why do
you consent to minister in a Church which has always approved it;
and if the Catholic theology be true, why do you refuse obedience
to the Church which has always taught it ? Why are yon Cath
olics in condemning the Church of England, and. Protestants in
resisting the Church of Rome ? Be one thing at a time, and tell
tis, whether you belong to any Church at all, or whether you be
lieve yourselves to be the Church, and that all mankind should
learn wisdom from you ? "
The Ritualist, who had a right to speak on his own behalf, replied
after this manner: "I call myself a Catholic priest, because I am
either that or a ridiculous impostor, and I object to be considered
in that light, ' I claim the power of the Keys, because they belong
to the priestly office, and I will not allow that the clergy of any
other Church have more power than I have. I can consecrate the
Host, though I am not quite sure what that means, because I should
be only a Protestant minister if I could not, and a Protestant
minister is the object of my contempt. I can absolve from sin,
though the English clergy never knew they could do it, because the
commission was given to somebody, and therefore it must have been
given to me. I teach the Church of England what she ought to
hold, and instruct the Church of Rome what she ought to retract,
because I clearly perceive the deficiencies of the one, and detect
the excesses of the other. I assert that my doctrines are part of
God's truth, but I communicate with those who flatly deny them,
because, when I am taunted with this, I can always reply that it is

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 131
the mark of a self-willed man to seek another communion in order
to quiet his conscience. I countenance, by remaining in the Church
of England, all the mortal heresies which have ever existed in her,
but I tell my accusers that I only remain in her in order to remove
them. I am in communion with no Church in the world, but I
invite them all to come into communion with me, and indicate the
terms on which I will permit them to do so. I am not in schism,
though I dwell 'in solitude, because the other Christian bodies
obstinately refuse to associate with me; and I am not in heresy,
though I every day communicate with heretics, because I do it
only for their good. I do not obey my bishop, but I propose to
him to obey me; which he foolishly declines to do. All Churches
have erred, but I am ready to teach them all, if they will only
listen to me; and though the perfect idea of Christianity has
perished from the earth, I am able to restore it at any moment,
whenever I shall be requested to do so. I remain in the Church
of England, though she allows. most of her clergy to teach lies, be
cause I do not choose "to quit her; and I refuse to enter the Church
of Rome, though she forces all her priests to teach truth, because
I do not choose to obey her. I prefer to obey myself, because I
find no other authority worthy to be obeyed ; and though I admit
that this position has its disadvantages, I must positively decline
to exchange it for any other."
THE SENSATIONAL CLERGYMAN, the last on his list, was
much more common at the present day than when he was a young
man. He was simply a product of the law of supply and demand.
He was wanted, and^therefofe he came into being. All lafge'towns
possessed at least one specimen of him, but it was in fashionable
watering places that he found his most congenial home. Brighton
was his paradise, and he reigned as a king at Leamington and Bath.
His sermons were published every Monday morning, and sOld for a
penny. It was apparently on their titles that the largest amount of
thought was expended. They were sometimes as full of delight
ful and provoking mystery as those of the fashionable novels.
Perhaps this was their chief merit, as they generally promised a
good deal more than they gave; but you did not find that out till
you had paid your penny. He was in the habit' even now of cheer
fully sacrificing that sum, when he happened to be at the sea-side,
not because he cared to read such' sermons, but Simply for. the sake

132 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
of seeing what some people would accept as spiritual instruction.
In that point of view they were curious and instructive.
He remembered on one occasion actually hearing a serrnon of
this kind at .Brighton. He had persuaded a French friend, well
known in the literary circles of Paris, to accompany him, though he
had some difficulty in doing so. The preacher was always famous
for his oratorical successes, and the rapt attention of the audience
proved that, at least in their opinion, he fully deserved his reputa
tion. " Qu' en pensez vous ? " he said to his friend, as they walked
away together from church. " Vous m' avez jou£ un mauvaistour,"
was the prompt reply; "c'itait d'un imbicile incroyable."
The sole design of the "sensational" clergy' was evidently to
present religious truths, or what they considered to be such, in a
startling and unexpected form. They seemed to have no higher
purpose than to make the public talk, first about their sermons, and
then about themselves. And it was not to be denied that they " had
their reward." If people once came to like such sermons, it seemed
to him in the nature of things that they should like them more and '
more. The only difficulty, as in so many other cases, must lie in
the first step. No one knew this better than the preacher himself.
If the congregation once took his bait, he was too skilful an angler
to let the fish escape. The very air with which he launched his
net showed his confidence in his own art. The moment he mounted
his pulpit, and east -a glance over the shallow sea below him, the
incubus of his huge conceit fell upon you like a weight. Ho knew,
indeed, how to assume an expression of elaborate humility, but the
mask was transparent to all save those who were under the spell,
and came only, to admire. To others he was inexpressibly divert
ing, though a few, minutes sufficed to exhaust. the entertainment.
If he had ever taught the Catechism, — which he would have
disdained to do, — he would have comprehended it all in one
question and answer, " How many sacraments are there ? " — " One
only as indispensably requisite to salvation, and that is to listen to
Me." And for this reason, because he claimed the whole undivided
homage of his congregation, he nourished an almost savage hatred
against Ritualists of every school. They were his only formidable
rivals. Sacraments, Ritual, and choral singing, were but odious
accessories of religion, which presumed to intrude their offensive
attractions between him and his admirers. A sensational preacher
at Liverpool began a sermon, a few years ago, in a church which

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 133
was not his own, by a vigorous extempore assault upon the choral
service just concluded. He evidently thought it indecent, though
he gave other reasons for his displeasure, that "singing men and
women" should divide with him the interest of the congregation.
He (Archdeacori Jolly) had frequently observed, in the course of
a career which ran through half a century, that no vanity was so
exorbitant and insatiable as clerical vanity. There were, as every
body knew, sincere and modest ministers, who thought much more
about their message than about themselves, but he was speaking
now of types to whom this praise did not belong. He had been at
various times amused or pained by the fatuity of artists, of musi
cians, of literary men, and of other sensitive and irritable tribes ;
but he knew no fatuity which could be compared with that of,
preachers. Perhaps the dangerous peculiarities of their position
accounted for the exceptional development of this vice. Other
orators spoke, as a rule, to men, and were constrained, as far as
their gifts allowed, to speak with sobriety and good sense. But
with an audience chiefly female, every one of whom was gazing upon
you with two eyes far more eloquent than your own, and disposed
to give you credit for all the gifts with which their lively imagina
tion ¦ could invest you, a weak and foolish man became inevitably
weaker and more foolish. Indeed, he not unfrequently became a
mere conceited driveller, and learned to think, and to persuade ad
miring ladies to agree with him, that the success of Christianity
was mainly due to the fact that he consented to preach it. Texts
of Scripture which a rational being would read on his knees were
only used by him to round a sentence, and mysteries of which
saints would speak in a whisper, were profaned to adorn a climax.
The Saturday Review had well expressed this fact, though he could
only quote the passage from memory. Comparing the English with
the continental clergy, it observed that "the latter were too much
absorbed in what they preached to have any recollection of them
selves, while the former were too much absorbed in themselves to
contemplate any higher subject."-
It was a natural result of their mode of handling sacred themes^
and of constantly talking about their own convictions, that preachers
of this class fell far below even the popular standard of -religious
reverence. Anxious above all things to identify their paltry per
sonality with everything they preached about; and always putting
themselves between the truth and the hearers whose view they

134 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
totally obstructed, these men grew always incurably profane, from
the habit of talking lightly and' impertinently about things they
neither felt nor understood. And yet such persons as these, and
numbers of them, who would have ignominiously failed in any other
calling than that of preaching to women, were really a power in this
country ! They might be tracked all round her coasts; for though
they contrived to flourish in the denser atmosphere of the capital
and of other great cities, they were especially a sea-side plant, and
required the culture of feminine hands for their full developirient,
and reached their highest stature in the midst of those languid and
otiose populations which seek their recreation by the shores of the
great sea. Their names were heralded in the weekly columns of
the local papers, along with the fashionable arrivals, the projected
entertainments, and other topics of inferior interest. -Their hours
of preaching were announced as carefully as those of the railway
departures. They professed all sorts of creeds, which was a great
convenience to the inhabitants, who were thus enabled to cultivate
whatever form of religion suited their tastes, while all continued
equally attached members of the same National Church: Some
times it would happen to one of them to be outstripped by his
rivals in the race for popularity, and it was curious that, in these
cases, they, all adopted the' same plan for recovering the favour
which seemed about to desert them. To announce a new course of
sermons against Popery; with large placards' displayed in the shop
windows, or carried about in the places of public resort, was always
a sure resource against impending disgrace. They all had to try it
in turns, and it succeeded with all. - He once heard the opening
sermon of such a series. . It was preached by a man who had con
trived to obtain a Master's degree at Cambridge, and it lasted
exactly one hour and sixteen minutes. It was, of course exclusively
on the subject of the Roman Catholic religion, of which the preacher
knew simply nothing, but gave an account which. would have been
absurd and calumnious if he had been describing Buddhism or
Mormonism. And yet the man spoke with; an affected tenderness
and regret, and so melodiously' withal, that, although his odious
slanders merited only the scourge or the pillory, his . hearers
evidently thought it an exercise of sweetest charity; to prove that
the Christians of all past ages, and three-fourths of those now liv
ing, were criminalsj idiots, and idolaters. Stupid and guilty as the
preacher was, his congregation, who gave him their silent applause,

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 135
were wprthy of such a pastor. For his own part, the sermon.
brought to his recollection some of his Roman Catholic friends,
whose opinions he was not able to adopt, but who were as superior ~
to this frothy babbler, in intellect and attainments as they were in
rational piety and profound conviction.
He would only add, without further details, that he regarded
the sensational, clergyman as one of the. prime religious nuisances
of the day, requiring prompt and vigorous suppression, especially
on account of the irreparable evil which he wrought on the female
mind and character. But the clock had just caught his eye, and
warned him to conclude. Many additional types and sub-types of
the English clergy would be found among the sketches in his port
folio, but he should weary his friends if, at so late an hour, he
attempted to go through the entire series. He would ask their
permission to make a single reflection, and so bring his remarks to
an end.
They had considered in the debate of that evening, whether
English Orders were human or divine; and the; discussion had
naturally branched into the collateral inquiry, whether the English
clergy were Catholic pripsts or Protestant ministers. The sketches
which he had presented were his own contribution, to the solution
of both these questions. Their Church now numbered, he believed,
about sixteen thousand teachers of all classes; and though it would
be an exaggeration to affirm- that they professed sixteen thousand
different religions, it would certainly be difficult, if not. impossible,
to find any two of them- in the same parish who held exactly the
same views on even the highest truths of the Christian revelation,
while their differences. ranged through the whole vast field between
Arianism on the one side, and Romanism on the other. If, then,
a national clergy, of whom no two could be forced, in any town or
village of England, either by free enquiry, or ecclesiastical per
suasion, or, state authority, to unite in a common belief, and who
often differed from one another as widely as the limits of human
opinion permitted, were nevertheless recipients of the same mys
terious and constraining grace, flowing directly from the august rite
of ordination," and infused into the soul by a special divine operation,
expressly to produce a uniform habit of mind and hear,t, and a
uniform conception of religious truth; he, would simply ask, what
must they think of Christianity or of its. Author? Could, any
supposition be niore fatally injurious to either? If the Almighty,

136 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION
in instituting the supernatural rite in question, chiefly that the
world might be convinced by the apostolic life and indissoluble
unity of its teachers, had only succeeded in creating, as in their
own land, a clergy notorious for living just as the world around
them lived, and whose perpetual dissensions about the most sacred
dogmas of religion were a scandal to themselves, and a stupefaction >
even to their enemies; he did not see how they could resist the
inevitable conclusion, that Christianity was as purely human in its
nature and results, as its English teachers had ever been' in every
feature of their lives, and in every characteristic of their ministry.
(The company now left their seats, and gathered in a confused
group round Dr. Easy, who had been standing during the previous
speech with his back to the fire. Some had already extended their
hands to bid him farewell, when he indicated by a sign that he
desired to speak.)
DR. EASY said he could not permit his friends to depart, as
they now manifested their intention to do, without thanking them
both for their attendance on that occasion, and for the part which
they had taken in a discussion of great interest and importance.
He would not abuse his privilege as their host by adding to the
discourse of the Archdeacon more than a few brief words. They
had arrived, he supposed, at a common conviction on the two great
questions of Authority in the Anglican Church, and the real char
acter of her Orders. It was at once their wisdom and their safety
to insist that both were purely human. Any other theory, as the
Archdeacon had clearly proved, would expose not only themselves
but their common Christianity to contempt and ruin. Either ordi
nation, as it existed in the English Church, was not a rite intended
to produce a supernatural effect, except in a sense which might
with equal justice be applied to the orders of Mr. Spurgeon or Mr.
Newman Hall; or, if it was, the reformed and Protestant ministry
¦established by Elizabeth and inaugurated by Parker, which had
never displayed the faintest trace of any such effect, was a failure
so portentous^ that they must remain forever silent in the presence
of any spoffing infidel who should use it as an argument against
the truth of Christianity.
He trusted, therefore, that they were about to separate that
night with this practical conclusion, that the idea of a Catholic

IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 137
Priesthood, one in doctrine and divine in endowments, existing in
the English Church, was not only a contradiction of her whole
history, but absolutely inconsistent with the belief that Christianity
was true. Either that foolish notion must be abandoned, or they
must honestly admit that, at least, the English Church was a delu
sion. For if any man could deliberately maintain, as a small party
among them desired to do, that the entire body of the English
clergy had been, from the beginning, a supernatural caste, though
it' was undeniable that they had always exactly resembled the
laity in all their habits, principles, and actions; that they had
received a special vocation from heaven to teach the same unvary
ing doctrine, though no two of them could ever agree together what
that doctrine was ; that they possessed the faculty of retaining or
remitting sin, though, for three centuries, they had never once
attempted to use it, and had bitterly derided the assumption of it
by the clergy of another community; that they were clothed, by
the transforming grace of Orders, with angelic purity and virginity,
though they and their bishops had ever been even more impatient
of a life of continence than any other class of human society ;. that they
were able to call down God upon a human altar, though their own
founders began their career by pulling down altars, and their own
tribunals ruled that the English Church denied their existence;
that the chief function of their ecclesiastial life was to offer the
daily sacrifice, though the Church of England had carefully ob
literated every trace of that mystery ff om the national mind ; and
finally, that the highest spiritual privilege of their flocks was to
adore the consecrated Host, though their own Prayer-book ex
pressly declared that such worship was "idolatry to be abhorred
of all faithful Christians : " if, he said, any man could seriously
affirm the series of propositions here enumerated, and many more like
them, he should be ready to admit, what it would no longer be
possible to deny, that neither religion nor history had any real
meaning, and that modern Christianity had been more fertile in
childish conceits and preposterous delusions than any system of
heathen mythology with which he was acquainted.
If, on the other hand, they were content to believe with the
whole nation, that the English clergy were simply the representa
tives of the English Reformation ; that they were Protestant min
isters, not Catholic priests; that they were distinguished in nothing
from other men, except as having undertaken to remind them from

.138 THE COMEDY OF CONVOCATION IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH.
time to time of truths which all were too apt to forget; they
would then assume the only character which really belonged to
them, or in which either their own communion or any other would
ever consent to recognise them. In that case, they would no
longer expose either themselves or their religion to the world's
contempt, nor unwittingly furnish the unbeliever with a fatal argu
ment against the truth and the . reasonableness of Christianity.
The Church of England had never been the home of the Super
natural, as all mankind knew from her own history ; and to try to
introduce so strange an element into such a receptacle would be a
far more dangerous experiment than to " pour new wine, into old
bottles." They might as well attempt to inclose the lightning
which could shiver rocks, in the hands of an infant, as to make the
English Church the shrine of mysteries which she had existed only
to deny. (General cheering, which brought the remarks of Dr.
Easy to an end; and the company, shortly after,
separated.)

A LIST OF BOOKS
PUBLISHED BT THE
CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY
126 NASSAU STREET,
NEW-YOEK.

THE LIFE AND SERMONS OF THE REV. FRANCIS A.
BAKER, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul, edited by Row
A. F. Hewit. One volume, crown octavo, pp. 504. $2 50
EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
"Father Baker was a lovely boy, a wise and thoughtful youth, and a devout ser
vant of Christ. The son of a Methodist, the graduate of a Presbyterian college, he
became first an Episcopal clergyman, and then a Catholic priest. In all these
changes, he everywhere won love ; and whatever were the peculiarities of his cha
racter, he was a sincerely good and thoroughly pure man, and deserved the tribute
which this remarkably appreciative and tender biography pays him." — New- York
Watchman. " After Newman's ' Apologia' and Robertson's ' Life,' the memoir contained in
this volume is perhaps the most respectable clerical biography that we have met
for a long time. We recommend such persons as have already attained to settled
principles, and who may have an opportunity, to give the ' Memoir' itself a thorough
perusal. Itis rich in personal reminiscences. It is, at the same time, like tho
'Apologia,' both an argument and a biography." — Christian Times.
" Father Hewit's biography of his deceased friend is a most noticeable piece of
writing. It is as impartial as could be expected, and has a marked local interest
from its allusions to local affairs in religious circles. A great part of it is occupied
with an elaborate view of the Oxford, or, as it is familiarly called here, the ' Pusey
ite ' movement, and of its effect on this country. The conversion of Bishop Ives,
the remarkable scenes at the ordination of Kev. Arthur Carey, the movement toward
a Protestant Oriental bishopric at Constantinople, in which Bishop Southgate was
engaged, and various other features in recent church history, all are described, ren
dering the biography of marked interest to Episcopalians as well as to Catholics ;
while the history of Father Baker is a curious study of the operations of religious
belief on a young, vigorous, and active mind." — New- York Evening Post.
" The portrait which forms the frontispiece to this volume appears to represent
one of the contemplative, saintly, seraphic spirits of the earlier ages of Christianity,
rather than a man whose life was cast amid the bustle and activity and worldly-
mindedness of the nineteenth century. The impression is confirmed by the perusal
of the memoir. It introduces us to a type of character which is rare in these days,
and reminds us of a strain of mediaeval music. . . . The sermons are remarka-
ole for the earnestness of their spirit, the simple and vigorous eloquence of their
style, and their frequent beauty of conception and illustration. The biography, by
his bosom friend and companion, is an athletic piece of composition, controversial
and aggressive in its tone, abounding in personal episodes, and presenting a spirited
and impressive sketch of the movement in which both the author and the subject

2
have been prominent actors. The volume, of course, possesses a paramount inter
est for Catholic readers, but it forms too remarkable an illustration of some impor
tant features in the religious tendencies of the day not to chaUenge a wide attention
from intelligent observers." — New- York Tribune.
" This is the very best edition, as regards typographical skill, that has as yet been
issued of any Catholic work in this country." — Boston Pilot. <
" His sermons are brief, addressed to the common heart and reason of his hearers,
and remarkably free from clerical assumptions of authority. The sermon on ' The
Duty of Growing in Christian Knowledge' is liberal and philosophical to a degree
not usual in the pulpits of any denomination." — New- York Nation.
II.
THE WORKS OF THE MOST REV. JOHN HUGHES, D.D.,
First Archbishop of New- York, containing Biography, Ser
mons, Letters, Lectures, Speeches, etc. Carefully compiled
from the best sources, and edited by Lawrence Kehoe.
This important work makes two large volumes of nearly 1500
pages. The editor has spared neither labor nor expense to have
it as correct and as complete as it is possible to make a work of
the kind. The prominent position occupied for so many years hy
Archbishop Hughes makes this a highly important work; his
Views on all the general questions ofthe day — so eagerly read. at
the time — are here collected and presented to the Catholic public
in two elegant volumes, which are indispensable to every library
of American Catholic Literature.
PRICE, CHEAP EDITION:
Two volumes, 8vo, cloth, . . . . . . $6 00
FINE EDITION', ON EXTRA PAPER.
Two volumes, cloth, bevelled,  $8 00
Two volumes, half morocco, bevelled, - . . . 10 00
Two volumes, half calf, extra, . . . . . 12 00
in.
SERMONS OF THE PAULIST FATHERS, for 1865 and
1866. One volume, 12mo,  $1 50
EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
" They are good examples of practical, earnest, pungent preaching. . . .
Others besides Catholics may.be stimulated by these discourses, and some Protes
tant preachers we have heard might learn how to talk plainly to the heart and con
science of men." — Round Table.
" These sermons are dictated with a conviction of mind and earnestness of heart
that the hearer and reader are carried away while reading or listening to them,
which, after all, is the triumph of eloquence." — Boston Pilot,
"These sermons, like those which preceded them, are sound, practical, and able
productions." — Catholic Mirror.
" They are adapted to the wants of our age and country, and, consequently, must
elevate the standard of morality wheret»jr they can secure the attention of a reader." •
— Pittsburg Catholic.

" Here are twenty-one CathoUc sermons, in various degrees of excellence, nearly
all of which are so thoroughly and truly catholic in the widest sense of the term,
that they will be read with pleasure by Protestants, as well as by members of the
communion to which they are carefully addressed." — New- York Citizen.
IV.
MAY CAROLS AND HYMNS AND POEMS. By Aubrey
de Vere. Blue and gold,  $1 25

CHRISTINE, AND OTHER POEMS. By George H. Miles.
Price  $2 00
VI.
DR. NEWMAN'S ANSWER TO DR. PUSEY'S EIRENICON.
Paper,  $0 75
VII.
THREE PHASES OF CHRISTIAN LOVE: The Mother, the
Maiden, and the Religious. By Lady Herbert. One volume,
12mo,  $1 50
EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
" The author writes in a spirit and style worthy of the sacred subjects of her
pen. It is a book that should be in the hands of every Catholic, and one which
Protestants might read with benefit to themselves, and without having their preju
dices rudely assailed. Mr. Kehoe has issued the volume in admirable taste. Its
mechanical execution is without a flaw." — Citizen.
" We hail this work as a great acquisition to our Catholic literature, and recom
mend it to the attention of all. It is just the book that ought to be placed iu the
hands of Catholic ladies. The publisher deserves great credit for the beautiful
type, paper, and binding, which make this book equal in taste and elegance to any
published in this country." — Pittsburg Catholic.
"No one can sit down to the perusal of this exquisite volume without being
charmed with its contents, which include the lives of St. Monica, Mile. Victoriue de
Gallard Terraube, and the Venerable Mere Devos, Mother Superior of the Sisters of
Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. We have seen the original English edition, and
can say that the American issue is in no respect inferior to it, and is an honor to
the publisher." — St. Louis Guardian. VIII.
ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE By Rev. I. T. Hecker. Fourth
edition, revised, cloth, extra,  $1 50
IX.
THE CLERGY AND THE PULPIT, in their Relations to the
People. By M. L'Abbe Isidore Mullois, Chaplain to Napo
leon III. One volume, 12mo, extra cloth, . . $1 50
EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES OF THE. PRESS.
" The Abb6 Mullois knows what a sermon ought to be, and, if it is really a true
sermon, he does not care if its length be thirty or five minutes. In this eloquently

written volume he'disousses the proper nature of the sermon — what it ia intended
to effect, and how it should be constructed in order to best attain the desired end.
Whatever may be the theological creed of him who reads this book, he cannot
deny that its practical teachings are equally valuable to Catholic or Protestant." —
New- York Citizen.
" The key-note of this book is found in a sentence of the opening paragraph :
To address men well they must be loved much.' In some form that thought runs
through the volume ; though there are many valuable and fresh suggestions, and
the discussions are alike. marked by strength and vivacity. There. is not a dull
page in the book, for the animation which marks the Frenchman appears every
where. Now and then one stumbles on a pithy sentence at once mellow with
genial humor and pregnant with suggestiveness, such as these : ' Our age is a great
prodigal son; let us help it to return to the paternal home.' 'When Providence
designs to spread an idea throughout tho world, it implants it in a Frenchman's
breast. ' 'These people can hide nothing ; when an idea- tickles them, they must
scratch it till it finds utterance.' No Protestant pastor could candidly study it
without being rebuked, quickened, encouraged, and put on the path of higher use
fulness." — Dover (_N. H.) Star.
"This is a work which we strongly recommend to our clerical friends ; indeed, it
may be profitably read even by the laity." — Piitsbur.g Catholic.
"A glance at the heading of successive chapters shows the very. practical char
acter of the work : ' The Order of a Sermon,' ' The Sermon should be Popular,'
' Plain,' ' Short.' ' Tact and Kindliness ' are treated of in a chapter, and ' Interest,'
' Emotion,' ' Animation,' ' Action,' ' Study,' ' Zeal.' " — New- York Mail.
" This is a Eoman Catholic book, well translated and handsomely got up ; and
we hope it will fall into the hands of many of our Protestant ministers. It is a
bright and clever treatise, handling trite themes in a fresh and living style. The
author tells the clergy just how they must go among the people so as to get and
keep their attention and do them good. The chapter on sermons of ten, seven, and
even five minutes' length is decidedly piquant. He tells the priests just how to
make such discourses. We wish the experiment might be tried by some Protestant
ministers ; it would have an excellent effect." — Bound Table.
X.
THE INNER LIFE OF VERY REV. PERE LACORDAIRE,
of the Order of Preachers. Translated from the French of
the Rev. Pere Chocarne, 0. P. By a Father of the same
Order, with a Preface by Father Aylward, Prior Provincial of
England. One volume, 12mo, toned paper, . . $3 00
EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
" This deeply interesting work is a full and thoughtful study of the life and cha
racter of the great Dominican of the nineteenth century. Those who wish to ap
preciate fully the strange phenomenon of the existence in modern France of a monk
whose whole genius was purely and essentially that of the middle ages, can find
ample' scope for doing so in the charmingly written pages of Pere Chocarne." —
New- York Times.
" This is undoubtedly one of the very best books that has been given to the
Catholic public for many years. But it is not only a good book, it is a charming
book, as interesting as a book could possibly be. It is admirably well translated.
To judge by the title one would suppose it to be an ascetic book, more fit for the
reading of religious than of people of the world. Nothing could be more erro
neous than such an idea. The title is, after all, somewhat of a misnomer. The
book portrays not only the inner life of the glorious Dominican, but his outer life—
his active, useful, busy life, his relations with his fellow-men. A lovely and love-
able nature was that of Father Henri Lacordaire — a fresh, rich, gushing, ardent,
tender nature, keenly alive to all life's sympathies, breathing in every act and in
every word the very soul ,of poetry, yet wrapped in the contemplation of divine
things, walking like an angel amongst men. The tenderest of friends, the most

agreeable of correspondents, the most fitted to shine in society, the most brilliant
of preachers, yet inwardly leading an austere and mortified life, living for God
alone. This is, indeed, a beautiful, a captivating life ; the exquisite pleasure of
reading it being enhanced by glimpses of the lives of his friends, such as Madame
Swetchine, Archbishop de Quelen, Montalembert, and some of the most eminent
Dominicans of this age." — New-York Tablet. XI.
REASON AND REVELATION. Lectures delivered in St.
Ann's Church, New-York, during Advent, 1867, by Rev. T. S.
Preston. One volume, 12mo, . '. ... $1 50

THE CATHOLIC CRUSOE ; or, Adventures op Owen Evans,
Cast on a Desolate Island in the Caribbean Sea. By Rev. Dr.
Anderdon. One volume, 12mo, illustrated. . %\ 00
XIII.
LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. Trans
lated from the French of the Count Falloux. One volume,
12mo,  $2 00
EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES OF. THE PRESS.
" The letters of Madame Swetchine are, for the most part, of such a character
as to give us some useful hints of the times in which she lived, and of events then
transpiring. They make it occasionally necessary for the author to interweave
them with a short history of facts therein alluded to. In this he is always happy.
Iu this way we have interesting sketches ; among others, the Jesuits in Kussia
during the time of the suppression of their Order, and after its restoration, and of
that unfortunate religious imbroglio brought about by M. de Lammenais, and his
paper called the Avenir." — Catholic Mirror.
" No library, public or private, can be considered complete without a copy ; and
no Catholic lady, who would exert an influence for good in refined and accomplished
circles, can dispense with the charming letters of Madame Swetchine." — Charleston
Gazette. "This is not only one of the most valuable but also one of the most entertain
ing books that has been given to the public for many a year. In it we find the
inner and outer life of one of the greatest women of modern times — a Russian
convert to the Catholic faith, who, from lier peculiar position in Russia.^ as well as
in France, was brought into immediate proximity with the greatest minds of the
age. A devout Catholic, yet large and liberal in her views — an ardent student, yet
living in the bustle of courts and amid the tumultuous scenes of the great world,
Madame Swetchine found time to cultivate her great talents, to entertain the first
men and women of the day hi Europe, to keep up a correspondence with emperors
and kings, and literary men, and also with learned and holy priests. Such books
as this are the best possible antidote against the ruinous passion, now too preva
lent, for the reading of senseless and useless works of fiction." — New- York Tablet.
XIV.
THE LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN S. CATHARINE
OF SIENNA. One volume, 12mo, . . . *1 75
Drawn out of all them that had written it from the beginning, and written in
Italian by the Reverend Father Doctor Caterinus Senensis. And now translated
into English out of the same Doctor by John Fen, Priest, and Confessor to the

6
English Nuns at Louvain, Anno 1009; OBeedited, with Preface written by Very
Rev. James Dominick Aylward, Provincial of the Order of Friar Preachers in
England. XV.
AN EPISTLE OF JESUS CHRIST TO THE FAITHFUL
SOUL, that is devoutly affected toward Him : Wherein are
contained certain divine, inspirations teaching a man to know
himself, and instructing him in the perfection of true piety.
One volume, 16mo,  $1 00
Written in Latin by the devout servant of Christ, Joannes Lanspergius, a Char
ter-House Monk; and translated into English by Louis Philip, Nineteenth Earl of
Arundel. (Reprinted from the Edition of 1610.) Dedicated, by permission, to
his Grace, the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England, etc., etc.
XVI.
THE PEOPLE'S PICTORIAL LIVES OF THE SAINTS,
SCRIPTURAL AND HISTORICAL. Abridged, for the
most part, from those of the late Rev. Alban Butler.
In Packets of 12 each. One Packet now ready, containing the lives of twelve
different saints, Per packet, 25 cents.
These are gotten up expressly for Sunday-school presents. Also,
PACKETS OF SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIONS.
Containing Fifty Engravings of Subjects from the Old and New Testament, after
original designs by Elster. Price, loose packages of fifty, 75 cents.
All the American Catholic Books kept in stock. A large and general assortment of English
Catholic books always on hand. All the new English books received immediately after publica
tion.
CATHOLIC TRACTS.
The Catholic Publication Society has issued the following Tracts :
1. ReHgious Indifferentism and its Remedy. 2. The Plea of Sincerity, 8. The Night before the
Forlorn Hope ; or, Prayer a Resource in all Danger. 4. The Prisoner of Cayenne : a True Narra
tive. 5. What Shall I do to Be Saved? 6. The Plea of Uncertainty. 7. What my Uncle Said
about the Pope. 8. How Shall We Find True Christianity? 9. On CathoHc Tradition. 10. What
is to be Done in Such a Case ? 11. The Senators of Sherburne : or, A Lawyer's Rule of Faith.
12. The Catholic Doctrine of the Real Presence Shown from Holy Scripture. 13. Union among
Christians. 14. The Gospel Door of Mercy. 15. What Shall I Do to Become a Christian ? 16. The
Church and Children. 17. A Voice in the Night ; or, Lessons of the Sick-Room. 18. The Gospel
Church. 19. Who was Jesus Christ? 20. The Trinity. 21. Control Your Passions. 22. Hero
ism in the Sick-Room. 28. Is the Sacrifice of the Mass of Human or of Divine Institution ? 24.
Why Did God Become Man ? 25. The Catholic Church. 26. Who Founded the Catholic Church ?
27. The Exclusiveness of the Catholic Church. 28,. Children and Protestantism.
AH the above " Tracts" can be had at the Publication House, 126 Nassau Street, in packages of
100 each, or in packages of 100 assorted. Price, 50 cents per 100. To be had at all CathoUc
book-stores. JUST PUBLISHED.
THE CATHOLIC SUNDAY-SCHOOL CLASS-BOOK. JSTe*
and improved edition. $1 per dozen.
Several new books in press, and will be published early in the Spring.
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY,
LAWRENCE KlEHOE, General Agent.
126 Nassau Street, New-York,

YALE UNIVERSITY I

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