THE letter which Bishop Ullathorne has directed to the Roman Catholic clergy who are placed under his supervision, and which has for its end the discouragement of the Association for the Reunion of Christendom, seems to call for some reply from members of that body. As the Bishop has not confined himself to censuring members of his own Communion who have been enrolled in the A. P. U. C., but has animadverted in sufficiently forcible language on the untenability of its position even by Anglicans, it is not a piece of undue interference for one of these latter to ask a hearing for his side of the controversy. I may urge as another reason for my undertaking this office, that a passage from a contribution of mine to the “Sermons on the Reunion of Christendom" is one of those which Dr. Ullathorne has singled out for special condemnation. I have no objection to urge against the temper or even the tone of his letter, however regard for history and logic may compel me to dissent from his conclusions, yet the circumstance that he has condescended to break a lance against my crest intitles me to claim the usual courtesy of the lists for a rejoinder.

It is true that, in one sense, the matter does not fall within my province. As an Anglican Priest, I am not responsible to any member of the Latin hierarchy in this country, and even if I were, the prelate who sits at [3/4] Birmingham claims no jurisdiction over a denizen of London. But as a member of the A. P. U. C. I cannot but observe that the main object of that Society would be most seriously hampered by any forced withdrawal of its Roman Catholic constituents, or any formal intimation given to Anglicans that their efforts are regarded as insolent aggravations of schism rather than as an eager striving after unity. I venture therefore to adduce a few arguments which seem to me to shew that Roman Catholics in no wise compromise their loyalty to their Church by such membership, and that Anglicans are more than justified in admitting, and even soliciting, them to join a sodality of the kind.

To avoid prolixity, I will content myself with annotating those portions of Dr. Ullathorne's letter which embody some argument, and will pass over those more numerous passages which are no more than rhetorical amplification, not out of place, indeed, in a pastoral address, but by no means requiring a categorical reply.

The key of the whole position has been inadvertently yielded up by Dr. Ullathorne very early in his letter. Dealing with the statement made by friends of the A. P. U. C., that the Pope himself had given a blessing to the scheme while still inchoate, and had repeated that blessing to one of the English Secretaries of the Association at a later time, the Bishop observes that no such approval has any force or validity unless couched in a formal Rescript. He comments then as follows:—"Nor is this all, as you, my Rev. Brethren, know well; for when that document giving approval arrives in any diocese of the Catholic Church, it requires another process before it can have practical effect. It must have its authenticity verified by the signature of the local Bishop. And should he find that the allegations of the petition suppress or misstate the essential [4/5] facts; acting upon the Canons, the Bishop will declare the Receipt surreptitious and of no effect." Exactly what Bishop Ullathorne must do with Cardinal Patrizi's Rescript against the A. P. U. C., as I shall proceed to spew. That document was notoriously issued in consequence of a petition in which Dr. Manning was the chief mover. I might pause here, since the name of so accomplished a master of the art of suppression and misstatement is almost enough of itself to demolish any Rescript based upon his representations, but a more regular, if not more cogent, process is to compare the Prospectus of the A. P. U. C. with the terms in which Cardinal Patrizi speaks of it. He alleges that the insuperable obstacle to its acceptance by faithful Roman Catholics is that “the spirit which animates it and which it expressly professes is this,—that the three Christian Communions, namely, the Roman Catholic, the Greek Schismatic, and the Anglican, however separated and divided from each other, have an equal title to claim to themselves the name of Catholic." Now if this were so, unquestionably Roman Catholic members would to some extent pledge themselves to recognize the absolute equality of the other two Communions with their own, and would so far be setting themselves formally against the claims undoubtedly put forward by the heads of their religion. But what says the Prospectus itself? It speaks merely of the “three great bodies which claim for themselves the inheritance of the priesthood and the name of Catholic." It nowhere adjudicates on these claims, nor requires any of its members to do so. It does but state a notorious historical fact, that whereas the Protestant bodies of the West have formally rejected the name of Catholic and the Christian hierarchy, and the heretical sects of the East have demurred to the Creeds of the Church, yet [5/6] there are found three large Christian bodies, each of which says that it possesses these marks of orthodoxy, and that these three bodies are the Roman, Greek, and Anglican.

A Roman Catholic member of the A. P. U. C. does no more in the matter of this acknowledgment than the most strenuous Ultramontane is forced to do. For what is the especial grievance of hyper-Italians, especially of hyper-Italian Englishmen, in respect of the Church of England? Is it not precisely that in no document or formulary can it ever be seduced into calling itself Protestant, that it persists in asserting its Catholicity, that its hierarchy, ritual, doctrines, and body of tradition are infinitely more allied to Rome than to Geneva or even to Constantinople, and therefore that it is in much so like Catholicity as to deceive multitudes of men about whose learning, acuteness, and piety no one has ever ventured to doubt? And is not the sore point in the Oriental controversy the incessant appeal made by the Eastern Church to her own absolute unchangingness, as compared with what her divines regard as the instability and changefulness of Western dogma and discipline? Does any one, even M. Pitzipios himself, allege that Greece or Russia have expunged the word "Catholic" from their definition of the Church, or that they are guided by pastors of the Presbyterian or Congregationalist model? And if they have not fallen away in either of these particulars, there is no question about the fact of their claims, whatever dispute may arise as to the soundness of them.

The Rescript therefore misstates the first condition of the Association which it impugns. "Nay," replies some objector, “the selection of these three bodies, and these alone, pledges a Roman Catholic to admit that they have something in common which other religious [6/7] Communities do not possess." Let it be so. But then follow two questions. First, is it not the fact that they are more like one another than they are to anything else? that an Anglican or a Greek passing over to Rome has less to change, less to unlearn than a Presbyterian passing to Anglicanism, or a Prussian "Evangelical" to the Church of Russia? Second, is there any document or decree, formal or informal, prohibiting Roman Catholics from noticing, admitting, or commenting on this likeness, or does it not rather form a staple topic in all Roman controversial literature? The corollary from these premises is not that a Roman Catholic member of the A. P. U. C. admits the claims of his Greek or Anglican colleagues, but that, wishing for unity, he takes a common-sense view of the question, and begins to work where there is a chance of effecting something. The exclusion of Lutherans and Calvinists from the scope of the Association does not amount, even virtually, to an assertion that the Greek or Anglican position is ecclesiastically more defensible, but simply implies that Lutherans and Calvinists are less accessible, less averse to schism, less eager for visible unity than members of certain other bodies. If Christendom is to be re-united, a beginning must be made somewhere, and the most obvious thing is to begin with those who have already some points of agreement with one another, rather than with those who are at variance on first principles. If Lutherans and Calvinists exhibited any desire for re-union, or recognized plainly that schism is in itself an unhealthy spiritual condition, there is no reason why they should not join such an Association, but as they have not yet made these preliminary steps, they must of necessity be excluded.

It is clear, then, that the Association nowhere asserts that the Church is made up of three bodies equal in [7/8] rank, privileges and graces, but only that there are three Christian bodies which oppose fewer mutual barriers to reconciliation than any others, and that, if Christendom is to be re-united at all, each of these bodies ought to share in the work. A more harmless proposition, or one less calling for denunciation, can hardly be imagined. But again, it is said that the very phrase "Corporate Re-union” implies a right on the part of Greeks and Anglicans to treat, or,—to use a phrase unhappily too current just now—to be recognized as legitimate belligerents instead of mere rebels and guerillas, and that such an idea cannot for a moment be entertained, because they would thus have a right to propose conditions and to exact concessions, instead of capitulating unreservedly, which, in Ultramontane eyes, is essential to their rehabilitation. There is no need of making terms with a single convert, there would be no avoiding doing so with an entire Communion, and therefore the notion is dismissed as chimerical, if not heterodox. Unfortunately for the upholders of this mode of argument they are confuted by the existence of the Greek and Armenian Unias. When they were established, the Roman See gave, by its own deliberate act, a formal recognition to the principle of Corporate Re-union, even though necessarily attended with considerable concessions, and found its account in so doing. There is not a word in the Prospectus of the A. P. U. C. to prevent any member of the body from desiring a re-union of this kind, which is purely corporate. It is surely optional for a Roman Catholic to hold that the policy which added several millions in the East to the Latin obedience within a few years was sounder than what I have in another place called "petty trafficking in single converts." If Cardinal Patrizi thinks otherwise, he passes an indirect censure on Gregory XIV. and Innocent XI., [8/9] which is hardly worth while doing for the sake of complimenting Dr. Manning.

Nor is the charge of compelling Roman members to acknowledge the claims of Greece and England the only untenable one made in the Rescript. It further alleges that the A. P. U. C. urges that, “Ecclesiastics should pray for Christian unity under the direction of heretics, and what is worse, according to an intention thoroughly defiled and infected with heresy." Now to make such an assertion true, it is needful to shew (a) that those members of the A. P. U. C. who suggested the form of prayer to be used are heretics, (b) that they can be said in any way to direct the intention of those who use the prayer, (e) that the form of prayer itself is heretical in character, (d) that the intention is formally heretical. But on the first head there is simply no evidence to shew that it was either a Greek or an Anglican and not a loyal Roman Catholic who devised the form. On the second, there is absolutely no direction exercised. A Roman Catholic is quite at liberty to in terpret the form as he will, even to use it with the object of making Greeks and Anglicans submit unreservedly to Rome. All he is pledged to is the admission that a vast army of allies is better than a few stray and perhaps rickety recruits. Thirdly, the prayers are the “Our FATHER" and a Collect from the Roman Missal, to neither of which any Roman Catholic can make objection. Fourthly, the Intention expresses no more, under any interpretation, than the desirability of the three great Christian bodies coalescing, without specifying, as it would obviously be impossible for a private Society to do, the terms of reconciliation. If that be heresy, then the charge lies against the present Pope himself by reason of his Encyclical to the Eastern Bishops, bearing date January 6, 1848.

[10] Here then the Rescript both misstates and suppresses the truth about the A. P. U. C., and therefore, on his own shewing, Bishop Ullathorne is bound to suppress it as "surreptitious and of no effect."

He denies emphatically the statement that the Rescript was obtained by the intrigues of three or four well-known converts, and we are bound to accept that denial as conclusive so soon as he proves that he is fully acquainted with the facts. Till then one is justified in supposing that the astuteness which was sufficient to mislead Cardinal Patrizi was also effectual in concealing its own workings from Bishop Ullathorne. But he can hardly be acquitted himself of understating facts. He rejects the idea that there can be a thousand Roman Catholic members of the A.P.U.C. and urges that courteous expressions of vague goodwill have been unduly construed into entire acceptance.

As one of the Secretaries of the Association, I must offer the correction that no one is reputed as a member till he has formally signified his adhesion by setting his name to a regular document, and that no verbal phrases of sympathy are accounted as more than they are meant to express. Again, Dr. Ullathorne says, and truly, that “it is one of the conservative features of the Church's unity and integrity, that her members do not communicate in prayer with those beyond her pale," thereby implying that the rule is violated by R. C. members of the A. P. U. C. But he knows, or might know if he pleased, that no such communion in prayer as the Church disavows is thrust on people by the Association. It has no prayer-meetings, no syncretist Liturgy, no bond of external Church fellowship. There is absolutely no reason why any two members of different obediences should ever be so much as in one room together. Thus the risk of joining in heretical worship is completely [10/11] avoided, and all that remains is prayer for a common object, separately offered, just as in Latin and Greek chapels in England prayer is made for the Queen, against pestilence, or for good harvests, at the same time that similar petitions are being offered up in Anglican Churches. Unless Dr. Ullathorne is prepared to discontinue these, because persons whom he regards as heretics practically join in them, he is inconsistent in his denunciations.

He accepts that assertion of the Rescript of which mention has already been made, that the Priest's intention is absolutely surrendered to heterodox persons, but he is, to say the least, unfortunate in his selection of a proof of their heresy, which is the Thirty-first Article, that against Sacrifices (pl.) of Masses. Surely Dr. Ullathorne is not unaware that a heresy on the Eucharist, rejected by the Roman Church, prevailed amongst Roman Catholics in the sixteenth century, teaching that every Mass was a new and independent Sacrifice and immolation, instead of being, as S. Charles Borromeo says in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, One and the Same Sacrifice with that offered on the Cross? [Catech. ad Paroch. p. 11, cap. iv. q. 74.] The English Church has never denied the Sacrifice of the Mass, though in common with all Catholic Christendom, she does deny more than one Sacrifice.

The next objection, both of the Cardinal and the Bishop, is that the A. P. U. C. directly fosters indifferentism in religion. A curious result, to say no more, of daily prayers and frequent masses. A most inexplicable symptom of lukewarmness and indevotion. I confess that, to my mind, the habit of making no account whatever of the divisions of Christendom, of treating them as either matter of no moment, or as evils against which no exertions can be of any use, is far [11/12] more likely to generate such carelessness than any amount of prayer, even if misdirected. I would observe also, that two of the charges made are contradictory and mutually destructive. The A.P.U.C. cannot at once be the encourager of active heresy and of passive latitudinarianism. Heresy, by the very force of' the term, means the adoption of some definite opinion, and is usually fervid and aggressive. Latitudinarianism is purely negative. It may pull down, but it never succeeds in building up. The same person may indeed unite the two characteristics, but their source is never identical, and therefore Dr. Ullathorne must content himself with one count of his indictment. The way he endeavours to prove the charge of indifferentism is ingenious. It is that he supposes the aim of the Association would be complete if every Roman Catholic, Greek, and Anglican joined it on the present neutral ground which it offers. He does not in the least appear to, see that, much as such a consummation might be desired, it would be nothing more than a first step. The terms of intercommunion would still have to be settled. He might as well have said that the Schelswig-Holstein war ended the moment the Powers interested in it agreed to hold a conference in London, or that a general election does away with all need of subsequent Parliamentary enactments.

But after all, these are but details which have hitherto been discussed. The real question at issue crops out a little further on in the letter. It is the bold ground, now taken up by the Ultramontanes, that the Church is not divided, never was divided, and never can be divided, in any sense which would make any sodality like the A. P. U. C. desirable, much less needful. It is hardly necessary to observe that this is a perfectly new line, and one which was never ventured on in [12/13] days when men read solid volumes instead of sketchy pamphlets. Before proceeding to examine it, it may be as well to remark that, even if true, it does not affect the Association, since that body professes as its object not the Reunion of the Catholic Church, but the Reunion of Christendom. Christendom is a wider term than the Church, since it includes all who profess some form of Christianity, and no one will be hardy enough to say that Christendom is not divided, nor will any Roman Catholic assert that the division is a good thing in itself, or that its termination is not desirable. Thus no one is pledged to that theory of the divisibility of the Church out of which Dr. Ullathorne endeavours to make a little polemical capital. But I certainly admit that I hold that theory myself, nor do I see how I can do otherwise if I pay any regard to ecclesiastical history.

I will pass over a few bold assertions of Dr. Ullathorne's, such as that S. Peter created the Patriarchates, which would leave Constantinople and Jerusalem unaccounted for, that the Corinthians applied to S. Clement of Rome as superior to S. John the Divine when he ruled at Ephesus (did not Galatians and Colossians apply to S. Paul while S. Peter was at Antioch?), and that the custom of sending palls from Rome to metropolitans is of apostolic origin. It would be most interesting, even as mere matters of archeology, if he could prove any one of them, but they are not very material to the issue one way or other.

The palmary objection to the Ultramontane idea that the visible unity of the Church never can be broken lies in the Catholic doctrine of Holy Baptism. Three propositions combine for this end. 1. We are admitted into fellowship with the Church and into corporate union with the Church's Divine Head by Baptism. 2. Heretic Baptism, with the proper form and matter, is [13/14] valid. 3. Baptism may not be iterated without sacrilege. Now there are some millions of children baptized every year in Communions outside the Roman pale, and are, by such Baptism, made members of the Church Catholic. A very large proportion, nay, the incalculable majority, of these live and die without having so much as heard of the Roman claims, and therefore, without having ever committed formal schism, however they may have been unconsciously involved in material schism. On Roman principles what is their position? They have never for a moment been in external communion with the Holy See, and yet they have undoubtedly become members of the Church Universal. Is not the Church's Unity broken so long as all baptized persons do not evidently belong to the same visible fold? Must there not be an invisible unity underlying the patent separation, unless the Church herself has gone astray in her doctrine of Baptism? It is of no avail to reply that all the baptized belong to the Roman obedience until such time as they consciously attach themselves to some other body, that they are, in fact, in the position of kidnapped children, who lose in time all knowledge of their true parents, find their original station. This only puts in another, and a deceptive light, the fact that no external bond joins them to the centre of visible unity, and that so far the centre fails to establish its claim over them. But the visible unity of a family is just as much broken by the loss of a child who has been stolen as by the wilful rebellion of an adult. Granting that the latter, by the act of separation, forfeits all rights of kindred, and becomes at once an alien, yet the gap in the household left by the abduction of innocent members remains to be accounted for.

It is a sufficiently difficult matter to plead that a family is one and unbroken while any former member [14/15] of it still lives, disowned and disinherited. It is absolutely impossible to plead so while insuperable obstacles are opposed to that intercourse, and that enjoyment of privileges which are the unquestionable right of unoffending members.

A controversialist who maintains, in the face of this objection, that visible unity is perfect, is bound to shew at what time and under what circumstances the corporate advantages of baptism are forfeited by non-Roman Catholics, at what point they cease to be members of that Church Universal into which they were admitted at the font. How can that condition which was not essential to entrance unto the Church be essential to continuance in it? To urge this question is by no means to imply that baptism is all in all, and that every member of every sect which retains that Sacrament is on a level of spiritual advantage with Catholics. On the contrary, it is quite consistent with holding that they are in a very grievous plight from the want of certain means of grace, but it does certainly suggest a doubt whether, as one Sacrament is not tied to the Latin obedience, so as to be annulled by schism, the other Sacraments, of the Altar, of Penance, of Confirmation, and of Orders are of necessity so tied.

Still, it must be conceded that the vast extent and diffusion, the solid organization and apparent harmony within itself of the great Latin Church is a very noteworthy phenomenon, and if it could be shewn to have been permanent and continuous, it would be a most forcible argument in favour of the theory that the Church never has been divided. But unfortunately no Church in the world has ever been so signally split into opposing factions as the Roman has at various times of its medieval history. I do not refer to the cases of mere temporary Antipopes, authors of schisms [15/16] insignificant alike in extent and duration, but to that long period during which no man can even now say with certainty which of two persons was the true and which the false Pope. Men did not make their choice as individuals, but as members of National Churches. Spain and France, for example, attached themselves to one Pontiff, Italy and South Germany to another. One of the two must have been a pretender, and his followers involved in material schism, yet the Kalendar of the Roman Breviary and Missal contains the names of two Saints who took opposite sides in these disputes, S. Vincent Ferrer clinging to the line of Avignon, while S. Katharine of Siena adhered to Urban VI.

Thus even the honours of canonization are allowed to persons dying outside the Roman pale, for it will hardly be contended that both S. Vincent and S. Katharine were in visible communion with the true Bishop of Rome, since each joined in anathematizing the head acknowledged by the other. Again, no act of schism is so bold as absolute rebellion, no mere withdrawal of obedience is so strong a measure as the deposition of a Sovereign. Yet the Church at large has more than acquiesced in the deprivation of more than one Supreme Pontiff. John XII., Gregory XII., John XXIII. are all familiar examples, examples, it may be added, of a state of things which, on Ultramontane principles, never could have existed. Did the whole Church fall away at Pisa or at Constance, when the universal voice of the Councils gave sentence against the successors of S. Peter? I would fain ask, where was the centre of unity then? There would, of course, be no weight in this objection if the Church had protested against the act of her delegates, if the legality of the sentence had ever been disputed, if in shorts a formal disavowal, such as that made by the English State of the proceedings [16/17] against Charles I., had ever been recorded. But there is no trace of any such demurrer, and Alexander V. and Martin V. are placed on the roll as legitimate Pontiffs. It will not do to reply that they became so by the voluntary cession of their predecessors, for nothing is plainer than that these were forcibly deprived, and that in fact the only voluntary abdication of a Pope was that made by S. Celestine V., predecessor of Boniface VIII. To all this it has answered over and over again that Unity is a Divinely appointed note of the Church and that these facts do not militate against that unity. Be it so, but then the unity cannot have been a visible one, and there can be no great gulf between rejecting the jurisdiction of any Pope and rejecting that of the true Pope, between resisting Pontifical authority in certain definite particulars and resisting it even to deposition. If it be a sin to resist the authority of the Holy See, the lists of authentic Councils and of legitimate Popes must at once be revised and altered in several material items.

Dr. Ullathorne's main argument against the Greek and Anglican position is, that the Creeds put Unity, as a note of the Church, on a level with Catholicity and Apostolicity, and therefore that even true hierarchical succession and unimpeachable doctrine are not enough to constitute any Communion a part of the Church, unless it be visibly in union with the See of S. Peter. But another difficulty now arises. Sanctity, even more than unity, is a note of the true Church, and one has to look back to that most horrible tenth century, when Theodora and Marozia made and unmade Popes at their pleasure, and when the objects of their choice were, as all historians acknowledge, scandals to the Christian name and profession. When the centre of unity was a sink of the most frightful depravity, where was the note of Sanctity to be looked for? And what series of [17/18] appointments or translations made by the Crown in respect of Anglican Sees can compare for a moment with the sudden changes of that unhappy time, when the forcible intrusion of a Pope by the Western Emperor was actually welcomed as preferable to the mode of regular nomination by two harlots? Nor was Erastian bondage confined to that one era. For seventy years—the Captivity, as it was called—the Popes were the nominees or dependents of the French King, nay, up to a very late period, the right of intervention exercised by the ambassadors of France, Austria, and Spain during the course of an election to the triple Crown, prevented anything like a free choice being made by the Cardinals, and established a grievance identical in kind, if not in degree, with the congé d'elire. And I have yet to learn that the famous Concordat of 1801, which abolished the ancient Church of France and established a new one on its ruins, was a voluntary act of Pius VII. and not wrung from him by the iron grasp of Napoleon. There does not seem any great moral difference between the State simply making no reference to the Holy See and compelling it to do what it notoriously dislikes. To me, the former course seems less objectionable, less Erastian, and less tyrannical.

All these facts, and countless others, point to the theory of the purely Constitutional position of the Chief Patriarch of Christendom as the true one. The now popular tenet of his absolute authority not only cannot be reconciled with them, but is inconsistent with Bishop Ullathorne's own claim to disregard any Papal Rescript which in his opinion is surreptitious. If he is at liberty to use his private judgment in such a matter, why should Anglicans be expected to recognize the genuineness of the Bull In Coena Domini, or the validity of the excommunication launched by S. Pius V. and repeated by his successors, and why should Roman Catholics not [18/19] in the Birmingham district pay any attention to Cardinal Patrizi's letter?

The carping criticism directed against the Dedication of the Reunion Sermons will hardly carry much weight with it, since the terms in which that dedication is couched are the usual ones employed in addressing the several personages named there. If the Pope does not call himself, and is not called by others, (Ecumenical Patriarch, it is as obviously incorrect to address him so, as it would be to call the Queen Empress of India, although she is so in fact. And as the Patriarch of Constantinople has certainly so called himself for a thousand years, it would not be very courteous for his inferiors to withhold the title from him. It may be as well to notice in this place that the account given by Dr. Ullathorne of the absolute submission of the Greeks to the Roman See in the Council of Florence is irreconcilable with the account given by Syropulus, and with the known attitudes of the Patriarch Joseph, of Mark of Ephesus, and of Gemistes Pletho. He omits to say that a clause saving the rights of the four other Patriarchates was inserted, and that the phrase "plenary power to rule and govern the Church" is a later interpolation. But the records of the Council are most valuable on another account, in that they shew that the See of Rome has definitely recognized the right of a body not in communion with it to sit in a Council on an equal footing with Latin Bishops, and to claim a right to question the decisions of the Papal Court, a position against which Dr. Ullathorne exclaims as utterly absurd and untenable, but which nevertheless was ceded by Eugenius IV.. Viewed as abstract propositions, his assertions as to the nature of unity, the character of obedience, the impossibility of corporate reconciliations, and the universality of Pontifical [19/20] authority are all plausible enough, tested in the crucible of history, they are sublimated into vapour. It is the besetting fault of modern Roman controversy that it deals almost exclusively with a priori arguments. In never says now "Such and such are acknowledged facts and the deductions from them are so-and-so." What it does say is "Such a thing ought to be the case, and therefore it is." That the Church ought to be one, and therefore she is and always has been united, is one, and the most plausible of these allegations, but it is not easy to prove. On the other hand, the proposition that the Church ought to be one, and will yet be what she ought, is more fairly tenable and more consistent with the correlative belief that it is not here that the Church can be truly and perfectly holy, since spots and wrinkles will continue to deface her mere earthly garments. With one more appeal to facts I will close my reply. "Break a branch from the tree," says Dr. Ullathorne, “but once broken it will not germinate. Cut off a stream from the fountain, and its channel will dry up." I will not dwell on the well known particulars of the great Anglican Revival, but will merely ask what would be thought of similar manifestations if they were suddenly to appear in some part of the Roman obedience where love and faith have waxed cold. If Portugal, for instance, or Piedmont, were suddenly to build numerous and gorgeous churches, to pour forth hymns, devotions, and dogmatic treatises in copious profusion, to establish new and zealous Religious Orders, to multiply missionary Sees, to decuple the seasons of public prayer, to strive after a deeper spiritual life, to resist popular unbelief and State interference, to force unwilling statesmen to acknowledge the wonderful power of the Church, would these acts be accounted as marks of life? And if so, can it be said that the Church of England is a sapless bough, an arid channel?

Project Canterbury