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is given at length in the little book from which I have taken this account. They declared that 'the King alone had no right to change the laws of the land; nor, by declaration under the sign-manual, to repeal penal laws which had been made by Act of Parliament; and that they would never become accomplices to such an illegal act.'*

On this the Jesuit writer remarks that Father Peters had given the King bad counsel; because that nothing should ever be risked; nothing in any great enterprise should ever be hazarded or left to chance. The King ought first to have sounded the bishops. He should not have proceeded so rashly. Everything depends upon mind, or rather upon method (says he), not upon this thing or on that thing disjunct from the method. In this instance the bishops were left out of the method. It had not been part of the method to make them safe. The scheme, therefore, in travelling out of the method to the bishops, of course miscarried.

Hereupon everybody was in consternation. They felt, in a vague way, that some great indescribable plot was on foot. The babblers now babbled the other way. Public opinion turned like a tide, and ran hard in the other direction. All was lost. The most enlightened of the Sectaries now openly protested (says the Jesuit writer) that this Indulgence' and Liberty of Conscience' was a mere snare; and that they were far safer with the Church of England than they would ever be with Ultramontanism.

Moyen unique pour abolir, &c.

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A CONFLICT OF CHURCHES.

The whole contest was, of course, apparently fought upon a different ground, viz. whether the King had a dispensing power or not. The leading men on both sides, however, were aware that this was not the real issue. It was merely the issue which was placed before the public. BEHIND THE SCENES, It WAS A CONFLICT OF CHURCHES.

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It would be a serious omission if I were to close this account without explaining the Jesuit writer's own scheme, which he then proposed for attaining the same end. He recommended that, now that the King had failed, they should begin patiently and cautiously to persuade the English that Roman Catholics are not bound in conscience to enforce their doctrines; that they do not regard all who repudiate the Catholic doctrine as heretics, who must be repressed by the strong arm of power. We must (says he) remove from the minds of these English, the notion that we would persecute if we had the power. We must also put into their minds the notion that the enlightened among us do not really look to a visible and infallible judge in the Church. We must speak light of our doctrine of Transubstantiation, &c. We must also not maintain that the Roman Church is a universal church (i. e. ultramontane), and that all other churches are heretical We must inveigh against the Inquisition. In short, we must do everything to remove the prejudices of the English against the Roman Catholics. He concludes by adjuring his comrades to learn for the future, from the errors of the past. We also may remember that the experi

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ence of the past is the best guide for the future. Let us bear in mind that the National Church has ever been a bulwark against invasion from either side. The Roman form and the way of the Sectaries have both sprung from the same root, and have got the Church of England in the middle between them. She has enemies on each side. The Sectaries revile her, and the Romanists cast the same things in her teeth; while she, like her Lord, hangs in agony between two malefactors. Non pendebit semper inter latrones Christus; resurgat veritas. That Church, which has ever been the great bulwark of the Reformation; the great obstacle to the universal dominion of Rome; il capo della schisma,' as the Romanists call her,* will not always be vilified by the Sectaries. They will one day find in her a stronghold to defend them from the common enemy, a secure retreat to shelter them from the blast. I will therefore with boldness conclude this chapter with those words of exhortation by St. Augustine.+ Errando in diversa îstis; in medio est via quam reliquistis. Inter vos ipsos longiore intervallo separati estis, quàm ab istâ viâ cujus desertores estis. Vos hinc, vos autem illinc, huc venite. Alteri ad alteros transire nollite; sed hinc atque illinc, ad nos veniendo, invicem vos invenite.'

Gladstone's Church Principles, chap. vii. † Exp. in Ev. S. Joannis.

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CHAPTER VIII.

CONCLUSION.

HERE are some objections to the national form, which may still lurk in the mind. To these it is well to advert succinctly, before proceeding to the chapter on the Conflicts of Churches in Europe.

I. It has been urged that a national Establishment of religion is the result of an unfair prejudice; that it amounts to showing an unjust favour to one sect above the others. And that, as every sect cannot be established, it were better that none should be established.

The real gravamen of those who offer such an objection is that they have been thwarted in their desire to impose their own theory of government' on the nation. They avowedly oppose the National Church, solely because it is the form in which the nation has chosen to administer education. The opposition of such objectors is political. It is not merely schism, but sedition. They simply oppose the will of the nation.

Moreover, the National Church is not a sect. It has nothing to do with dogmas and speculations. It is national; and therefore is opposed to everything

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sectarian. Its sole aim and business is the moral development of all the members of the nation. It is a society for putting down evil. The nation does not choose out a sect to ally itself with. The nation determines merely to raise its moral character, and employs certain officers to perform that work for it. Its object is to educate men to love that which they naturally hate, and would continue to hate, if it were not for some powerfully counteracting agent. The nation has established the National Gallery in order to create in its members a taste for high art; to develope an eye for form, for shade, and for colour; to direct men to admire those great works which they otherwise could not learn to appreciate. So, also, men naturally have a 'depraved taste in music and the drama; they prefer a low comedy, to Hamlet' or 'Lear;' they enjoy the music of Verdi or Balfe, above that of Mozart or Bach. The same rule holds good with regard to the Church (putting it for the moment on no higher ground). If it were not for a National Church, ignorance and prejudice would have full play in religious matters. What is popular is always false, bad, and depraved. There must be a National Church to cultivate a pure religious taste, to say the least of it.

II. We grant that (say the objectors), yet let the clergy manage this by private enterprise.

I will not again repeat what I have said about a clergy-church, but will meet this objection on its own low ground. The National Gallery is not managed by private enterprise. It is the committee which judges what pictures shall be bought. The people do not