has indeed made great advances of late years, has intrinsically improved, and is in real effectiveness far more powerful than she was ten years since. About this advance there is no kind of doubt; but grievous is the miscalculation which many vehement partisans ground upon it. They evidently imagine, that because the danger of 1833 has passed over, and the church is at ease, and in comparative safety, therefore she does in fact possess the country, and can do with dissidents and irregulars as she thinks fit. Such dreamers should endeavour to get a closer view of facts. For instance, let them institute an accurate inquiry into the actual proportion of the population which is really attached to the church. Let them go to such immense parishes as Shoreditch and Bethnal Green, and see whether, out of masses of population extending to 70,000 or 80,000 in each parish, they can find so many as 700 or 800 men, or in the proportion of one-hundredth of the whole community, attending the worship of the church on any one Sunday. Or, if it be said, that these are neglected and heathenish districts, we will turn to the other extremity of London, and take such parishes as St. John's, St. Margaret's, or St. Clement's, in Westminster. In which of these can there be found, so large a proportion as one-twentieth of the male inhabitants, regularly attending the services of the church? The moral view of this state of things is deplorable, but it is not that which we are now contemplating. We are looking, at this moment at the political state of the people. And we simply wish to warn those who revert with delight to the doings of Thomas á Becket and Archbishop Laud, that any imitators of those "Highchurchmen" of past days, are very likely to involve themselves in some such calamities as befel these two zealous but wrongheaded men. The Church is no longer threatened; but let her not mistake her real position, and begin to threaten others. What is the actual change which has taken place, since 1832? In that year, three rectors met, in a parsonage in the west of England; and, after having conversed on the apparent perils of the times, the senior of the three exclaimed, on breaking up the conference, "Well, you may take my word for it, that neither of us three will be in occupation of his parsonage on this day three years!" There is a floating mass of vague and indefinite opinion, which at that moment was felt to be in opposition to the Church. The Reform-Bill mania had brought "reforms" of all description into fashion;-the bishops, and the clergy generally, were charged with opposing themselves to the public will; and it was felt that if any question could at that moment be brought to issue, in which the existence of the establishment was involved, the strongest probability existed, that the vote would go against the Church. In two or three years afterwards the feelings of men had greatly altered. The furor of the Reform frenzy was over; men began to be somewhat tired of the endless repetition of the phrase; and now the Church had fallen into the humble position of a trembling sufferer, while dissent, in all its varied forms of hostility, was clamouring against her. The multitude, too, were not dissenters, any more than they were churchmen. In 1832 they had been wroth with the bishops, regarding them as opposed to the Reform Bill. That quarrel was nearly forgotten, and now men began to regard the Church as the best form of religion that they knew of, and the dissenters as malicious and unfair assailants. From the autumn of 1834 to the present moment the stream has continued to move in this direction. But there are symptoms, already, of an ebb; and when it begins to flow back, it will run with great power and rapidity. The Tractarian writers, of whom we have already quoted one, seem to pant for an encounter with the whole public; and really to dream of a victory. Let them well consider the vast difference that often is experienced, between acting on the offensive, and on the defensive. Both are It is true that Mr. Newman occupies, in one respect, a similar position to that of Daniel O'Connell, in Ireland. agitating for a change: both have promised their followers a change: both will be felt to be virtually defeated, if the Union in Ireland, on the one hand, and the Church of England, on the other, should remain unchanged. Hence it happens true that the Tractarians, having occupied the post of "ecclesiastical agitators" for several years, and having trained up a body of young disciples, with ardent hopes of some practical results, do now very naturally begin to feel a necessity of doing something; and this explains their ardent desire, now often visible, to be summoned to the attack. But greatly would they be amazed at the result, if their desire could be at once indulged, and they could, without further delay, be brought into immediate collision with the whole British public. The last two occasions, on which any appeal was made to the public on Church matters occurred, in 1837, on the Church-rate question, and in 1839, on the Education scheme. In these two struggles, the opposing parties might be estimated to be composed of the following materials" the masses" taking little part in questions in which they felt scarcely any interest :— In her favour. Against the Church. The Dissenters. The Whigs,- The whole body of Churchmen, of all classes. The leaders and chief part of the Wesleyans. The bulk of the middle classes, regarding the Church as unfairly attacked. But imagine, for a moment, the totally different force which would be drawn up, if either in Parliament, or by any new process in any of our courts, the slightest change were now attempted to be made in the Church of England "as by law established." The estimate might be nearly as follows: For the Tractarian movement. A few hundreds of the Clergy, chiefly juniors. A score or two of lawyers, and four or five young Members of Parliament. Against it. A large proportion of the clergy, say Ninety-nine-hundredths of the con- The bulk of the middle classes, dread- It is quite evident, therefore, that in anything resembling a contest, the "ecclesiastical agitators" must receive a defeat. The only thing to be dreaded would be, their inveigling some diocesan or other ecclesiastical authority, into taking a prominent part in the affair; and so involving higher interests than their own, and hazarding more serious results than their own discomfiture. At present, however, we can pursue this subject no further. We have given our readers a hasty sketch of a very interesting piece of interior history. And to the Tractarians we only offer, in the most friendly feeling, this one piece of advice,-to ponder well the last ten months of Laud's life, before they aim at copying the last ten years. A LETTER to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford. By the Rev. J. GARBETT, M.A. Professor of Poetry, &c. London: Hatchards. 1843. A LETTER to Lord Ashley, respecting a certain proposed measure for stifling the expression of opinion in the University of Oxford. By F. D. MAURICE, A.M. Chaplain of Guy's Hospital. London: Parker. 1843. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE CHURCH CATECHISM. For the use of Young Persons. Oxford: W. Graham. London: J. Toovey. 1843. To keep pace with the various minor movements which are going on all around, we must join, on some occasions, two or three pamphlets, not very obviously connected, in one notice. We have here an Anti-Tractarian, a Via Media, and a Tractarian publication. The first is the Letter of the Professor of Poetry, elicited by the late proceedings of Dr. Pusey and his friends. As we have already given as much space as the matter deserves to this affair, we shall merely extract one or two passages, in which Mr. Garbet very forcibly demolishes some of the fictions which have been invented for the purpose of exciting the public sympathy. On the pretext, so constantly advanced,-that Dr. Pusey had been "condemned without a hearing," Mr. Garbett observes, "I believe the existing law upon the subject, in its received interpretation, to have been religiously obeyed. The charge being brought, the Vice-Chancellor has no choice, and is compelled to act. No reasonable exception could be taken to those divines and scholars who were associated with the Vice-Chancellor, and severally called to deliver their opinions on the accused discourse. Even on a point, where a captious mind might take an objection, as not observing the letter of the civil law, it was not a severity, but a delicacy and indulgence to the rank and position of the accused. Any summons into the presence of the Vice-Chancellor is not for the purpose of a disputatious and wrangling defence, but that the party so summoned may receive the admonition which he may be prepared to give, and as a preliminary to that compulsory retractation which the law confers the full power to extort. Nothing can be more unfair than the ad captandum complaints, addressed dextrously and powerfully to that principle of even-handed justice, which our free institutions have bound up in the hearts of Englishmen, “that Dr. Pusey was not heard." Why should he? He is accused of preaching a discourse, containing doctrine at variance with the formularies of the Church of England. How is this to be discovered? Surely through the careful examination by competent judges of the document itself. Within its leaves, and there alone, the whole question was contained-it was not a one-sided statement, but the deliberate and matured system, as it now appears, of the accused party,-it contains both sides of the question, all the evidence which could be or ought to be adduced. Every one in Oxford is perfectly well aware that Dr. Pusey was early informed of the charges; that he was treated with the utmost consideration; that it was competent for him, had he been so disposed, to retract or to explain. Party misrepresentations may succeed at a distance, but not upon the spot. "No one can question that a personal trial, or a call to a vivâ voce defence, could have availed for nothing else than to involve the question in impertinent inquiries and endless collateral issues, to have heaped controversy upon controversy, and left all parties with exasperated feelings, and the question exactly where it was. However, it is no purpose of mine to vindicate those whose character and position are their own best vindication. How far the law in question might be so far modified as to extend the examination, in such cases, beyond the written document, and require that the Ordinary,for such is the Vice-Chancellor upon this question,-should give the accused the opportunity of defending himself, viva voce, as he pleases;-how far, without entangling the judge in a detailed and elaborate argument, it might be desirable, under certain circumstances, that the charge and the sentence should be officially announced and published, I will not undertake to say. They are distinct questions, wholly independent of the point, whether the law as it exists has been adequately observed, and ought respectfully to be obeyed. It might form a legitimate subject for the consideration of the Convocation; but before such provisions have been made, it can give no reasonable ground for popular agitation, and the charge of official oppression."—(pp. 16, 17.) Another observation is quite worth reprinting. It shows a man of great acuteness; while at the same time the facts it notices are so obvious, that every reader wonders he had not made the same remark before : "And this brings me to another remarkable feature in the history of the present controversy. Violently moved as were men's minds, and intense, beyond all example, as was the public eagerness to peruse each for himself this celebrated discourse; unexampled as was the number of copies disposed of it in all parts of the kingdom, yet the controversy derived no new materials or fresh exasperation from it. The confusion and alarm seemed suddenly hushed, we knew not how; and a profound silence, almost without example, when the circumstances are considered, succeeded, as by common consent. Whence did it arise? was it the result of indifference, and did men's minds pass in a moment from what in many cases was a curiosity the most intense, and, in more, the deepest concern for the decision of a vital question, to an unnatural calm? Was it the universal conviction that the published document, however skilfully fortified and palisaded against rash controversial attack, or broad unqualified statements, needed no note or commentary, and vindicated more completely than the most elaborate party defence, the sentence of the University? Or was it, on the other hand, that it no less decisively established the injustice of the sentence, and gave to the accused a triumphant absolution which admitted of no contradiction, and could be strengthened by no extraneous defence? It arose, I believe, from several causes, some of them, honourable in the highest degree to the holy caution and Christian moderation of the parties whom they influenced; and some of them giving no equivocal indications of the calm which might possibly be restored to a distracted Church and a bewildered people, by a temperate and yet firm exercise of authority, from time to time, on the part of those whom God has set over us in this troublous crisis, to check innovations in doctrine and discipline to which that authority, as yet, seems to present no barrier, and to which the minds of most men can see no termination short of the blank abyss of undisguised Romanism. |