the Apostles, where St. Peter laid down the law, and yet the rest examined the facts and made the decree. And it seems absurd to say that this account of the matter makes General Councils useless-rather, it seems to me to explain at once the use and the possibility of such Assemblies. In the first place, the deliberations and the personal and collective authority of the Bishops serve to silence the cavilling of heretics, and to set forth the truth with greater majesty to the world. Nothing can be a greater confirmation, in a popular sense, even of a Pontifical definition, than the fact that it has been considered and confirmed in an assembly of all the Bishops of the Church. Even humanly speaking, the question is seen to have been set at rest for ever. Then the examination and discussion itself is full of advantage, and the Acts in which it is recorded are most valuable storehouses of authoritative statements against heresy. And besides, we ought not to forget that, though a Council is more than a mere meeting of Bishops, such as that, for instance, which took place a few years ago at Rome for the canonisations, still, if it were no more, it would be of immense usefulness to the Church, both on account of the visible evidence it affords of her supernatural unity and charity, and on account of the increase of fervour and zeal for the glory of God and of knowledge of the means of promoting it, which must be caused by it both in the Bishops themselves and in the Faithful whom they feed."

We had now turned homewards, and were following a path which led to the little village of Lydney, which we had almost walked round, following nearly the crest of the downs which encompass it on three sides. As we drew near the house, we overtook Gertrude and her companion, who seemed to be engaged in a little controversy of their own.

"I had rather walk barefoot a hundred miles in the other direction than go to see such things!" said Mrs. Kingshill. "What are you talking about?" said her husband.

"Why, here's Clara telling me about what goes on at these seances they talk about so much in London now.'

"What, Clara, have you been to them?"

"Not exactly, uncle Charles," said Miss Lancaster, "but I have a friend who has told me what she has seen. I only want to know what to think about it all."

"Well, we shall have to hand you, as well as Lloyd here, over to Don Venanzio, I suppose. However, you shall tell us some time or other exactly what you have heard, and when we have settled the question of the Council we will go on to that of the spirits."

Tractarianism and its Successors.

' (SCHOOL,

LIBRARY,

RESTON

*

IT is almost a truism to assert that religion cannot be stationary, but it is especially interesting to trace the law of movement working outside the Church. When once an interest is kindled either for or against the truth of God, there is sure to be a rapid progress in some direction or other. Either one truth leads on to another, until the anxious inquirer attains at last to the haven of rest, or one error suggests another, until the whole edifice of religion gradually crumbles away, and the result is either a belief in natural religion only or else an entire scepticism.

This law of progress, in both its aspects, may be distinctly traced in that remarkable movement which has of late years been changing so completely the Established Church of England. Each phase of it is merely the natural development of that which preceded it. Tractarianism was the legitimate offspring of the Evangelical movement, and has in its turn found its own proper successor or rather we should say its successors, since it is our object to show in the present article how the various elements which it contained have each produced an offspring of their own.

We suppose that we may take it for granted that the old Tractarianism is now practically dead, or, if it still lives, its main surviving representatives are the Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford and a few country clergymen who passed under Dr. Newman's magic influence during their early youth. But even though they remain, Tractarianism, as a body of doctrine, as a living system, has passed away, slain by the powerful hand of its own author. At the moment that Dr. Newman gave in his submission to the Catholic Church, its death-warrant was signed; each elaborate argument to prove the Catholic character of Anglicanism was practically refuted, each appeal to anti

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quity, to the Fathers, to tradition, was shown by that act to be utterly futile. Henceforward some new development must be found, some new stronghold must be occupied by the Church of England, driven as it was from the tower of defence in which it had trusted.

What, then, is the theory which has during the last twenty years been taking the place of Tractarianism? What body of men represent at the present time the leaders of the Oxford movement? Is there any definite. school which has carried Tractarianism on to its legitimate development?

Probably most of our readers would answer this question by at once naming the Ritualists, and to a certain extent they would be right in so doing. In some sense Ritualism has taken the place of the old Tractarianism, and developed some of its most obvious characteristics. There is the same gradual and continual approach to certain of the observances and doctrines of the Catholic Church; there is the same desire to kindle a new life in the people of England by more frequent services and a more reverent ceremonial; there is the same appeal to an imaginary although a less remote antiquity. But yet the points of difference are so numerous, and so thoroughly affect the essence of modern Ritualism, that a more careful examination will discover to us a great gulf fixed between the two-a gulf which increases every day, and develops continually among the Ritualists peculiarities which would have been most eagerly disclaimed by the old Tractarians.

Perhaps the most striking of these is their animosity towards the Catholic Church. The nearer they approach it the more they seem to hate it. They seem honestly and sincerely to believe that any Anglican who joins the Church is necessarily a rascal; they quote the stories which are supposed to tell against Catholicism with an untiring bitterness of zeal; they are violent in denouncing the encroachments of the Papacy; they have that unreasoning hatred of Rome which implies a secret consciousness that they are fighting with an antagonist who must in the end prevail.

Thus they are gradually developing one of the marks of a distinct heresy. We are anxious to point this out, because there are many Ritualists who think that they, like the old Tractarians, are gradually struggling upwards into the Church of God. If this were so we should not find in them this bitter hatred of Catholicism. The Tractarians in their early days regarded Rome as an "erring sister," but not quite as an enemy. Tractarianism was a kind of halting-ground midway between the old Anglicanism and the Catholic Church-it was a hypothesis which had to be verified by careful tests. It failed when those tests were applied to it, and then its authors confessed that it was no abiding city. Whereas Ritualism has nothing that is tentative about it; its adherents are loud in their expression of their complete confidence in their position. The best of them, perhaps, have some misgivings, but the rank and file are troubled by no doubts. Indeed, one of their leaders has recently asserted that every day he lives increases his faith in the Church of England, and they do not scruple to say, though not in public, that to leave her is to commit the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost.

Side by side with this hatred of Catholicity is an amusing anxiety to imitate Catholic practices. The great ambition of the Ritualist is to repeat the Anglican Communion service in such a way, to surround it with such ceremonies and observances, as may render it undistinguishable from the Catholic Mass. Nothing gives him so much pleasure as to hear that some unfortunate. Catholic has wandered by chance into St. Alban's, Holborn, and has thought that he was in a Catholic Church. When the Ritualist clergyman travels on the continent, he habitually frequents the services of the Catholic Church, not only because he considers himself a Catholic, but in order that he may perfect himself in a more careful imitation of Catholic practices. It is amusing to see the Ritualist at Notre Dame or the Cathedral of Milan. He never succeeds in an absolute conformity to the usages of Catholics; he is never quite at home in the meaning of the various bells, or in the proper manner of crossing himself at the Gospel; and he never can quite

get rid of the custom enjoined by Queen Elizabeth of saying a little preliminary prayer on first entering the church, but at the same time he might easily be mistaken for a Catholic by a superficial observer. And when he returns to England he carries with him some implement or other of Catholic ceremonial, wherewith to adorn his services at home - a processional cross, or some new candlesticks, or a banner of his patron Saint. But while the Ritualists imitate with such elaborate care the externals of Catholicism, they depart, at least in many cases, more and more from its spirit. Take, for instance, their conduct towards those in authority-towards the Bishops who, to use their language, "teach un-Catholic doctrine.” What could be more disloyal than the tone adopted towards Dr. Tait or Dr. Sumner, not only by individual clergymen, but by newspapers which represented the party? What more utterly at variance with the language of the old Tractarians? On the one hand there was dutiful respect when disrespect would have been excusable; touching humility and forgetfulness of self, when a little self-consciousness seemed almost unavoidable; loyal obedience when it must have been very hard to obey. On the other hand there is a self-satisfied dogmatism which sets at nought the advice of those in power; a wilful disobedience which seems to glory in opposing those who have at least some right to command; a determined adherence to their own private judgment which is of itself quite enough to stamp them as Protestants. What could be more opposed to the spirit of the Apologia than the articles in which the weekly organs of the Ritualists denounce all those who venture to differ from them?

Turning to another point of view, we cannot help remarking in the Ritualistic party the almost entire absence of any men of intellectual force. With one or two exceptions, their leaders are rather "notorious" than "distinguished;" their names are known to the public for their eccentricities, or their ingenuity in imitating Catholic services, rather than for any mental vigour or power of influencing mankind. This is especially noticeable at Oxford. There, if anywhere, we should expect to find