THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT A REPLY TO THE BISHOP OF ELY'S THE FAITH OF A MODERN CHURCHMAN BY M. G. GLAZEBROOK, D.D. CANON OF ELY LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. PREFACE IN March 1918 I published a little book entitled The Faith of a Modern Churchman. Being the first of a series of manuals planned by the Churchmen's Union, it was intended to serve as an introduction to the other volumes, giving an outline of the whole subject of which they were to treat the parts in detail. "The author's first aim," I wrote in the preface," has been to present something like a connected view of Church doctrine, as seen from the modern standpoint." To do this in just over a hundred pages, and without employing the technical terms which are the shorthand of theology, was a very difficult task. It demanded rigid compression, and many omissions. Especially it required the omission of those hesitations and qualifications which are so dear to the professional scholar and so puzzling to the ordinary reader: for, as every good teacher knows, outlines must be drawn firmly and boldly, or they make no impression. Quite deliberately, therefore, I adopted the method of stating in each case only the opinion which I believed to be best supported by weight of scholarship and inherent probability, and of stating it broadly: knowing that only thus could I meet the needs of the unlearned, and hoping that the learned would have charity and understanding enough to make allowances. Though not all the learned have justi |