VIII.] MUTUAL EXPLANATION REQUIRED. 429 Thus has lately cried aloud,-with far more terrible impatience and dramatic emphasis than we need ever fear perhaps in this country,-smoking and ruined Paris; with its noble' past' disconnected and estranged from its restless 'present,' through the incurable breach of 1789; with its failure to interest the industrial masses in the political continuity of the State; and with its ancient Church, now petrified under foreign influence, slavishly re-echoing the eternal' non possumus' of the papacy, and prevented thereby from adapting itself to modern needs, and from reconciling itself heartily to modern civilization. A truly sad and miserable spectacle! A strange conjunction of extreme political mobility, and extreme ecclesiastical immobility, within the area of a single nation, such as the world has rarely seen, and such as the intervention of an angel from heaven could hardly save from certain disaster and chaos! Happily, our own people have not yet come to disbelieve in their past history, or to distrust the loyalty of their National Church in adapting herself to the nation's needs, as times and circumstances vary 36. They are still proud of their country, and of its ancient institutions. And the number of those sad and earnest men of one idea, without humour, without imagination, who still-with France before their eyes-dream of making all things new by one fiat of the popular will, is a very small minority of the nation. For we may not understand the past, we may forget it, and lavish 26 A nos yeux, l'organisation de l'église Anglicane est abusive. . Mais n'oublions point que l'Angleterre tout entière,—l'Angleterre, non pas en comptant les voix, mais en pésant et en estimant les volontés, a voulu ce qui est aujourd'hui. En l'établissant, en le maintenant, elle a fait preuve de liberté. Qu'on s'en fie à la nation Anglaise, et à sa longue expérience!' (Sismondi, Etudes sur les Constit. i. 373.) no love or thought upon it: but we can no more disconnect the present from it, or pretend to be unaffected by it, than we can pretend to be unaffected by the now forgotten and unimaginable Glacial Epoch,-which furrowed out for us our smiling valleys, and chiselled in rough outline the loved features of our native land. If therefore we could only make some first step, towards recovering for our Church a truly National extension; if we could only succeed in so small a thing, as in bringing our countrymen together 37 once more, if not for preaching, at least for COMMON WORSHIP; if we could only persuade them of the beauty and the happiness of sinking our mere opinions, while uniting in a common Ritual 38 and lifting up our hearts in common Psalmody;-who can say, from such small beginnings, what great results might grow? Who can say, what visions of love and peace might not unfold themselves, as men became accustomed to the harmonies of combined musical effort, and resigned themselves to the educating spell of that, which (in Hooker's words) 'delighteth all ages, and beseemeth all states 39?' For, 37 Aristotle (Polit. i. 2) long ago remarked, that withdrawal from association with his fellow-men marked a man as either Onpíov ǹ Oeús. And late observation shows, in a lunatic asylum, the morbid and abnormal character of ultrà - individualism. . Each man talked to himself, laughed to himself, and although surrounded by companions took no heed whatever of one of them. Every man appeared thoroughly alone.' (Blanchard Jerrold, Children of Lutetia, i. 184.) 38The Christian philosopher cannot fail to discern, through all the.. bitter contention and conflicting anathemas which assail him, on his way of peace, one sublime and original thought.. This thought is nothing less than that great fundamental idea of the reunion of the mind of mortal man with God, by thankful sacrifice of self, in life-and therefore also in worship.' (Bunsen, Analecta Antenic., iii. 4.) 'One sacrifice, I know, in Heaven above more dear (Bishop Tegner, Frithiofsage, Eng trans. p. 176.) 39 Hooker, Eccles. Pol, v. 38. I. VIII.] · UNITY FOUND IN COMMON WORSHIP. 431 as St. Basil beautifully reminds us, 'Psalmody makes fair-weather for the soul: psalmody is the arbiter of peace: psalmody is the fast welder of friendship. For who can bring himself to regard any longer as an enemy, one with whom he has lifted up his voice in harmony, in the praise and worship of God 40 ?? But if even this be too much to hope, if we must still-on God's own day of peace and reunion and brotherly love-go apart from one another and 'forsake the assembling of ourselves together, if the divisions of Christendom touch us with no compunction, and the threatening array of vice and unbelief touch us with no fear, then there is nought else to do, but to hope for, and pray for, and labour for, a return of that great tide of Christian love 41, which may lift us all once more to higher levels, and flood our oozy creeks and separate harbours with the desire and with the means of intercommunion once more. And then we may smile to see, how long and how strangely we misunderstood each other. We may weep to perceive how wicked and unchristian were many things, in which we thought 'Ah, how skilful grows the hand (Longfellow, Building of the Ship, Works, p. 343.) And a German, with still more ardent enthusiasm: 'Die Liebe kennt nicht Vaterland; Sie macht uns alle gleich. Ein jedes Herz ist ihr verwandt, (Tieck, Gedichte, p. 449.) we were doing God service.' And we may determine that no future dissensions shall ever attain the fatal growth which past disputes have attained; or ever hereafter blot from view those golden words of old prophetic inspiration, 'Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren! to dwell together in UNITY.' APPENDIX M. The Organization of the Church of England. All Christians agree that our Saviour left a 'Church,' of some sort, on earth. What then is that Church? To this question only two answers are possible: (1) The answer of the Puritan: that He left a spiritual, godly, and therefore (for the most part) invisible brotherhood. For who can really judge the hearts of men, but God alone? Naturally then, such a theory would go on its way independent of—nay, even suspicious of—outward organization; and it would be content to gather into nuclei, or societies, those who (so far as could be seen) had been converted' by God's direct agency. (2) The answer of the Catholic is quite different. He believes that Christ left on earth an actual, visible, and efficient polity; that its members are all those whom His providence brings to the doorway of baptism, and whose guarantees of being in earnest seem sufficient; and its government such as was sketched out, and set in motion, by the Lord Himself and His apostles. And on this theory, it is obvious that organization' will form a very important question indeed. Now there is no doubt that this last is the answer of the Church of England. In no other way is her doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration intelligible; or her discipline pardonable, in demanding that all who wish for the higher sacrament of full membership, in Holy Communion, should first seek the Bishop's confirmation; or her still stricter discipline reasonable, in refusing to hear of self-ordained teachers, or to recognise as presbyters men for whose soundness, ability, and sufficient knowledge, her own officers have never made themselves responsible. What then, more precisely, is the Organization of the Church of England? I. THE SUPREME HEAD and centre of unity for the Church of England,— as for all other Churches,-is Jesus Christ, seen by the eye of faith, and present with us always 'even to the end of the world.' This is plain, not only from the whole tenor of her teaching, but also from the express confession of Henry the Eighth,-the very person who is popularly accused of usurping Christ's Headship. He writes thus to the Clergy of the Province of York, in 1533: Christ is indeed unicus dominus et supremus; as we confess Him in the Church daily... It were nimis absurdum for us to be called Caput Ecclesiæ, representans Corpus Christi mysticum:.. and therefore is added [in the Act of Submission'] et Cleri Anglicani, which words conjoined restrain, Ff |