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it daws its life, and promising the ultimate restoration of the Spirit's universal reign. How wise, therefore, was Clement of Alexandria when he wrote amidst the jarring conflicts of his day, 'Let all, both Greeks and barbarians, who have aspired ' after the truth-both those who possess not a little and those 'who have any portion-produce whatever they have of the ' word of truth; and could also add, 'So, then, the barbarian and Hellenic philosophy has torn off a fragment of eternal 'truth, not from the mythology of Dionysus, but from the theology of the ever-living Word. And he who brings again 'together the separate fragments and makes them one, will without peril, be assured, contemplate the perfect word, the truth.'1 The language of a true philosophy concerning the reign of law needs only to be translated into the language of devout theology in order to express the deepest belief of a Christian; and the phraseology which speaks of supreme will accomplishing purpose by power exercised in combining or contriving the forces of nature, we gladly exchange for the words of Hooker, who was both a good philosopher as well as a sound divine: With us there is one only Guide of all agents natural, and He both the Creator and Worker of all in all, alone to be blessed, adored, and 'honoured by all for ever.'

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POSTSCRIPT.-The writer of the foregoing article, like the writer of the book which it reviews had, when he wrote it, the first edition of Mr. Darwin's 'Origin of Species' to quote from. But the reader ought to consult p. 238 of the fourth edition of that work, in order fairly to judge of the author's opinions concerning beauty as a purpose in nature. That the conceptions of the beautiful vary according to the culture, progress, and conditions of nations and individuals, no one will venture to deny; but the same may be said of other things besides beauty, which things, nevertheless, most persons will allow to be fulfilments of purpose. Mr. Darwin is quite right in trying to save his theory from the disastrous consequences of admitting the purpose of beauty; but it hardly follows that beauty is not a purpose because the Chinese have queer notions (as they seem to us) about the beautiful. Collect all the examples you can of various and inconsistent ideas of beauty, and you are only storing up cumulative evidence to show that there is a purpose to be fulfilled in respect of beauty, and irrespective of utility.

1 Stromata, lib. i. cap. xiv.

2 Eccl. Pol. 1. iii. 4.

158

ART. VI.-England and Christendom. By HENRY EDWARD, Archbishop of Westminster. London: Longman, Green

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PROBABLY Most of our readers are more or less familiar with the three pamphlets which have during the last three years proceeded from the pen of the Archbishop of Westminster. The last and longest of the three was noticed in this review soon after its appearance in the spring of 1866. Dr. Manning has seen fit to reprint it, together with the two previous brochures, in a handsome volume, which contains a hundred additional pages by way of preface, but with no alteration, as far as we can discover, of the rest of the contents of the volume. In that review we took occasion to draw a contrast between the two representatives of the two schools of thought which divide the empire of the Roman Church between them-the Liberal school, as represented by Dr. Newman, and the Ultramontane, headed by Archbishop Manning. The prominent characteristic of Dr. Newman may be said to be love for those from whom he finds himself separated, whilst the Archbishop's line is an uncompromising and contemptuous denunciation of the errors from which he rejoices that he is freed. The latter is evidently quite unable to see how it is possible that persons whom he once acted with should not take the same step which fifteen years ago he was himself induced to take; whilst the other, with an equally firm persuasion that that step which he had some years before ventured on was right and imperative, knows and understands the difficulties which prevent different minds from seeing things all from the same point of view. We have looked through the Archbishop's volume again, and have considered the Introduction, which, as we have said, is the only part that claims to be new. But new as it is in form, it adds little or nothing to the argument of the volume which it ushers into public notice. It is neither more nor less than what each of the three separate publications was, viz. an attempt to make the most of the various disasters which have befallen the Church of England, to disparage it in comparison with Dissenting communities, whilst ignoring all that has been so often repeated on the other side of the question, and all that can be urged against the Roman communion in the way of scandal and offence. If we had no other means of judging, we should suppose, from Dr. Manning's style of writing, that within the pale of the Roman communion all was peace and serenity, whilst the Church of England presented an appearance of nothing but anarchy and

confusion. Now it would not at all serve our purpose to gloss over the evils of our position, nor would that position be one whit improved, if we were ever so successful in exposing the weakness of the Roman cause; yet the different views that are taken of our position by those who have seceded from it, are worth taking into consideration, if only with the view of understanding the true ground on which we stand. And assuredly Dr. Manning has brought forward no new reasons which would induce us to forsake the communion of the Church of England for that of Rome, though perhaps he has heaped together everything that can be said against the tenableness of the theory which is commonly called Anglicanism.

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The first three essays in the volume contain the argument against the Church of England, as founded on the judgment of the Judicial Committee of Privy Council, on Essays and Reviews-on the attempts of Convocation to give a judgment on the same subject and a provision against the defence that will be set up for the Church of England on the score of supposed workings in her communion of the Holy Spirit of God. Of the fourth we abstain from speaking, partly because it is an utterance addressed to the Roman clergy, with which we are not now specially concerned, and partly because we have already, in a previous article, said what we had to say on the subject. Now we are far from wishing to understate the case that may be made out against the Church of England. No doubt some very sharp and telling things might be alleged against the manner in which the Reformation was brought about, both in its beginnings in Henry VIII's reign, and still more in its continuation under Edward and Elizabeth. Damaging attacks have been made, and may yet be made, against the moral character of the Reformers. We may be told also that their learning has been vastly overrated by Protestant historians, to whom Englishmen always refer for the facts as regards the reformation of religion in this country; and for the sake of argument, we might rejoin

'Pudet hæc opprobria nobis

Et dici potuisse et non potuisse refelli.'

But supposing all admitted, what does it come to? We might, if we pleased, retort the accusation, and point at the scandalous characters of Roman ecclesiastics at and before the time of the Reformation; the unblushing venality of the Roman court; the horrid vices that prevailed amongst Popes and Cardinals and the inferior clergy; and the influence which Rome fails to exercise over intellectual minds, nay, we may say over society at large, except where its vagaries are kept under wholesome check by the presence or Protestantism. But all this would not serve

our purpose. The corruptions of Roman practice are points we do not like to dwell upon, and would not indeed allude to at all, if it were not that Archbishop Manning forces it from us. But when in the very first pages of his book he contrasts England of the present, with all its spiritual sins and social disorders, with the beauty and the sweetness of England of the past, while yet in the unity of the faith, we are tempted to wonder at the audacity of the man who ventures the comparison. Is it possible that the writer is ignorant of the frightful impurities of monastic life, or that he has never looked at the headings of the statutes enacted against the enormous crimes which were prevalent? We do not doubt at all that there were splendid exceptions to the almost universal corruption of morals, but we confess we hardly know where to look for them. Surely those who believe in the Council of Trent, and those who adopt the Thirty-nine Articles, and those who object to both, will agree in this, that the period which immediately preceded the Reformation was not a period which can justly be spoken of in connexion with the ideas of beauty and sweetness. The Archbishop has been drawing from his own imagination, in utter disregard of historical evidence. Neither is he at all more fortunate as to his language than as to his facts. He does not always write even with grammatical correctness, and he seldom ventures upon a metaphor without falling into some egregious blunder. When he speaks of the rapidly changing phases of religious thought in England, we do not care to express our dissent from what he means, but we do not think much of the intellectual power of a man who can commit himself to such solecisms of grammar and rhetoric as the following: The last three years since the first of the letters were published, are crowded with events. The religious changes in England are moving with an accumulating ratio of speed. And this, too, not only in their downward but also in its upward 'tendencies.' We suppose that in plain English this means that the three years that have passed since the publication of the first of these letters, have been very eventful, especially in religious change, which has been going on with a continually accelerated velocity; but we confess that the their and the its of the last sentence fairly beat us; we do not know what to make of them. And this from the pen of him who is at the head of the Roman Catholic religion in this country, and who, if report speaks truly, has had a narrow escape of a Cardinal's hat. The next paragraph tells us that the only system that is stationary is the Catholic Church. Now people may approve, or they may disapprove, of the principle of development, but we think that the decree of the Immaculate Conception can scarcely be spoken of as being connected with the stationary nature of the Catholic

Church. It has been objected to the Greek Church, and with great force of argument, we think, by Dr. Newman, that she has been stationary, and it is thought by many amongst us, that the entire inability of the Articles of the Church of England to develop-that is, to adapt themselves to the rapid changes of thought which are going on-is evidence somewhat conclusive against their present utility. And the principal objection which many entertain against the decree on the subject of the Immaculate Conception is this, that it does not seem so very like an obvious development of Catholic doctrine, whether we regard the terms of the decree itself, or the mode in which it was established. Even though it were admitted that it is tenable as a pious opinion, we are unable to see that it has arisen naturally, like other definitions of Ecumenical Councils, from the circumstances of the time. But be that as it may, we are unable to comprehend Rome as a system which is stationary.

We continue our quotation from Dr. Manning: The only 'system which is stationary is the Catholic Church. All around 'it seems to be in rapid and eccentric motion, like the meteors of 'last November.' Now, if the metaphor is worth anything, the rapidity and the excentricity of the orbits are just the indications of the beauty of the system of which they form a portion; but perhaps the Archbishop uses the term eccentric, (and his mode of spelling it leads to the suggestion), in the sense of funny. But then the metaphor must be given up. And then the comparison of the meteors of November seems to us a little unfortunate. The meteors may play an important part in discovering new light as to the regions of space through which this planet is moving, and are by no means the anomalous things that our author seems to imagine them. The plain truth of the matter is this. The Archbishop is ignorant of the veriest elements of mechanical and astronomical science, and had better abstain for the future from drawing his metaphors from these sources.

But now let us come to the real matter of the Preface, which, with all its faults of style, is readable and interesting. Dr. Manning lays it down as a kind of axiomatic truth that tradition, Scripture, and reason are nowhere in full application except in the Roman Communion, where they co-exist in full harmony as before the Reformation they co-existed in England. The harmony was not altogether unbroken, as the student of physical science may know by referring to the life of Galileo, and the absurd condemnation pronounced upon the doctrines which he was forced to abjure. We are not going to make the foolish mistake of supposing that Rome was for ever bound by the decision which emanated from the delegates of a single Pope. Still if we are to be accused because we cannot in all cases adjust the

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