Chapter V (26)

Resurrection indeed but from sleep,
Which the God of all nature prolonging had shed,
Like a life-saving balsam, to guard and to keep
Those whose memory had passed with the ancient and dead."

The city was emptied the emperor came,
The people, the magnates and all, in a throng,
Beat a broad hardened path to that cavern of fame,
Where the young men of Ephesus slumbered so long.
And when Iamblichus shouted, they came at his call;
And the seven stood together amidst of them all.
But nature asserted her sway,
Which a special design had for once set aside;
And they lived but to gaze on the light of the day,
And imparting their blessing, they painlessly died.

Through the wide Roman empire their fame travelled round;
The East and the West have adopted the story;
In Syriac, in Greek, and in Latin 'tis found;
The Romans and Russians agree in their glory
Where Mahomet conquered, they're known unto all,
And are reverenced as saints from Algiers to Bengal.
The cavilling sceptic may doubt;
But sooner shall earth to destruction be hurled,
Than Iamblichus' name be dethroned or die out,
Or the tale of the sleepers depart from the world.

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Family, Parish, And Sunday-school Libraries.

It would be trite to say that the press is an extraordinary power for good or for evil. Some have decried it, as if they looked upon it as not merely evil by accident, but bad in itself. We cannot agree with them. We regard the press, in the order of divine providence, as a rapid means of spreading the truth and the morality of the Gospel among mankind. There is an apostleship of the pen as well as of the mouth. The written word often does more than the spoken word; as a proof from Scripture may often tell more forcibly on the mind of an unbeliever, than an argument from tradition.

Printing is a blessing; the press is a boon and a power which the friends of God should know how to use better than his enemies. True, the latter employ it to great effect, What a torrent of bad literature is poured daily over the world! {547} The press is a huge monster, sending forth from its giant jaws poison, that circulates in the blood of society. Infidelity and false theology; immoral, obscene, and useless books are its offspring. Reviews, magazines, weekly and daily papers, issue from it; and are made the vehicles of falsehood and vice. Such is the fact. What are the friends of religion to do, when its enemies are so active? Will it do for us to sit down and express our longings for the good old times when there were no printed books? Hold up our eyes in holy horror, but let our hands hang unemployed by our side? Decry the wickedness of the press; the dishonesty of the authors, and deplore the vitiated taste of the populace, whose minds we see daily devouring the poisoned trash of novels and newspapers; and remain content with uttering an empty sigh? No; we must be up and doing. We must fight the foes of religion with their own weapons. We must use the press against those who abuse it. The old tar who was accustomed to see only wooden ships contend on the ocean; or the veteran of the battle-field who fought for liberty with an antiquated firelock, would be laughed at now for protesting against the use of ironclads or needle-guns in warfare. In vain would he say that what won battles half a century ago ought to win them still. So would it be unreasonable to cling solely to those weapons of spiritual combat which were good enough a century ago, but which to-day are blunt or rusty. We must copper the keels and plate the sides of our wooden vessels with iron; and remodel the ancient shooting-irons of the scholastics to meet the exigencies of modern circumstances. It can hardly be questioned that the amount of bad or useless books published daily is greater than the quantity of good ones. Now, whose fault is this? The fault of the writers? Yes, in part. But they tell us, when asked why they write improper works, that the people will not read any other kind; and that if they were to follow truth, and not to please the passions in their compositions, they would starve. The great cause of bad literature is, therefore, the corrupt taste of the masses. It is at the same time cause and effect; for literary men suit their books to it; and these again help to spread moral diseases farther, and make them sink more deeply into the brains of the community.

The chief means of counteracting the influence of bad books is by writing good ones; by spreading a taste for sound and wholesome reading. In this way can morality be preserved in the soul. To this end should we Catholics direct our energies. We number in this country many millions; and if we were all filled with an ardent zeal for souls, we should think no sacrifice too great, of time, labor, or purse, in order to destroy the pernicious effects of un-Catholic or anti-Catholic books and journals. Men will read. They need food for the mind as well as for the body. Let us give them wholesome food. It was in this sense that Pius IX., in speaking of France, said, "You Frenchmen have planted the tree of science almost everywhere. I do not object to this, provided you do not allow it to become the science of evil; and this will happen, _if you do not inundate France with good publications._" The words apply to our own country as well as to France.

Write and publish good books then! We do not mean by good books, merely technical, spiritual books. We mean interesting books, in which nothing against faith or morals is found; and in which everything tends to promote good morals. {548} A good novel, or any work of fiction, a pamphlet or brochure, a newspaper article--anything and everything, from a dear folio to a one cent tract, provided it be moral in aim and method, comes under the class of "good publications." We prefer small, cheap books to large and expensive ones. The people cannot understand learned works, but they can comprehend a tract, a magazine, or a small book, like those published in Paris, and scattered among the population by the zealous Abbé Mullois and his fervent associates of the French clergy and laity. Books for general and popular reading should be written and dressed in a popular style. Small works of fiction and anecdote, or an allegory containing a wholesome truth, will do more than a dry sermon. Horace tells us that the old schoolmasters used to give their pupils cakes, to incite them to learn:

"--ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi
Doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima."

We too, laughing, may tell the truth, and sugar-coat the pill so as to make its bitterness less sensible. It is astonishing to learn how much good has been done among the lower classes in France by the good priests and laymen just mentioned. The Abbé Mullois gives us instances of conversions effected, of wicked men reclaimed, of virtues instilled into minds almost brutal, by the casual perusal of some little book or tract. These small publications are put in a valise or trunk, and read in the cars, in the work-shop, at home, or in the house of a friend, and they leave a lasting impression behind them. Thus we quote the good Abbé's words:

"There was a poor widow with many children. The eldest, who
alone could help her, was a very hard case. Instead of
bringing anything home, he often stole the money necessary for
the support of the family. His poor mother suffered, prayed,
and wept in vain. But one day this young man being at home,
had no money with which to go on a spree. He began to amuse
himself with looking over a collection of old books on the
chimney. He takes up one, reads it, becomes interested and is
moved by it. He even weeps; he leaves the book reluctantly,
but returns to its perusal next day. His mother observed a
great change in his person; even his figure was transformed;
but she was more surprised when her son, awaiting an
opportunity to find her alone, addressed her as follows: 'My
dear mother, I have made you suffer much; I am a wretch; I
have seen it in a book. I shall never be able by work to aid
you enough or pay all that I owe you. I have found a means of
assisting you till my brothers and sisters grow up. I am going
to enlist; you will receive a large bounty. This is the only
way in which I can atone for my neglect of you.' And he
immediately after joined the army."

This is but one of many instances recorded by Abbé Mullois in _L'Ami du Jeune Clergé_, a monthly magazine devoted to the interests of religion.

Go into many houses, and you will find the _Ledger_; the _Sunday Mercury_, the daily newspapers, the _Atlantic Monthly_, and often, even in Christian families, you may find publications far worse than these; occasionally, even lay hold of an obscene or grossly immoral book lying around loose, within reach of the children. Let our Catholic publications drive out all others--at least, such as are positively injurious--from Catholic families. Let the children, the young men and women, have Catholic books to read, and let the Catholic doctrines percolate through their minds even from early life.

How can we effect this? By children's, family, and parish libraries. We must write good books for the young, and give them opportunities of reading; parents should see to this; and should always have in their families a supply of good Catholic reading matter; a collection of tracts, or of tales, like those of Canon Schmidt, or a Catholic newspaper, magazine, or review. {549} A family library is a treasure in a house, and goes down from father to child as a most precious heirloom. Its benefits are spiritual; and it is often better than a fortune.

But the principal means of promoting a taste for Catholic literature, and encouraging those who have devoted their lives to its cause, is by the formation of parish libraries. Let us hear the Abbé Mullois pleading in this cause. "In order to combat bad books and bad doctrines, we must have and spread good books as the only efficacious method. It is useless to spend the time in complaining or in railing against evil publications. There is a new want in our days not known to the middle ages. The people know how to read, and they will read. The popular intellect is hungry, and we must feed it. You cannot argue with hunger; it is stronger than you; it will break and sweep away all your arguments and reasons. You have no right to say to some one who is dying of hunger, 'You are wrong to eat such food; it is unhealthy,' unless you can give him something good and wholesome. In hunger, people _eat what they have_, not _what they would like to have_.

"We say, then, that actions, not words, are necessary, and that every one should help, for there is plenty to do for all, both priests and laity.

"What must we do? Let us go straight to the point. In the first place, every parish should have a little library of select books, both instructive and amusing. Books of history, of science, of agriculture, on morals or religion, at the disposal of every one to read, and to bring back safely. You must have one, my reverend brother, else your parish will be considered the worst managed in France; for these libraries are almost everywhere in it."--Is this true of the United States?--" If it already exists, increase it annually, embellish and complete it. It brings in a revenue. Can it be possible that you have no parish library? Oh! how difficult it is to propagate good ideas! We spend money for schools, and invite the world to the banquet of science; we create appetites, but when they are willing to eat, we tell them there is little or nothing for them. We have schools for boys, and for girls, day, night, and Sunday-schools; but where is the use of all these if there is nothing to read, or nothing but what is pernicious? If we teach children to read, we must provide intellectual food for them, or show ourselves devoid of logic, reason, good sense, and heart."

To whom are we to look for the realization of the good Abbé's plan in our country? In the first place, to the clergy. They are our guides, our fathers, our leaders in every good enterprise. Their influence is unlimited. Probably in no country has a priest so much power, or so many opportunities of doing good, as in the United States. The politician may control several thousand votes; a brave general may so infuse his own courage into the hearts of his soldiers as to make them carry the fiercest battery with the cold steel. But no one can do as the priest. On a Sunday, from his pulpit or altar, he can, in a short discourse of fifteen or twenty minutes, influence the actions, open the purses, and create the spirit of enthusiastic sacrifice in a whole community. He can build a church; he can found a benevolent society; surely he can found a parish or Sunday-school library. He knows the ravages of souls committed by non-Catholic periodical or other literature. {550} He has only to say the word, and he, in a great measure, stops them. A sermon on the dangers of bad books will have its completion in the founding or enlarging of a parish library, filled with good publications. What an easy means of preventing so much evil!

"But," you say, "the clergy have no time." Undoubtedly their time is greatly taken up with parochial duties. In our country, bricks and mortar are by necessity as familiar to the eye of the priest, as books of theology. He has no time to write; very little time to read. This is true of the venerable senior clergy. But they need not do more than give their sanction to the work, and entrust it to the hands of the assistant, or of some responsible layman. A "few words from the pastor, recommending the library, and an occasional inspection of its management, will be sufficient. The curate, whose duties are not of so engrossing a nature as those of the pastor; or some good lay members of the parish; the young men of a literary or debating society; or members of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society; or the school-teacher, or, if need be, the schoolmistress, will do all that is necessary. In many parishes there are libraries, well conducted, well managed, and productive of immense moral and intellectual benefits among the young and old of both sexes. Our readers must know that there are such from their own experience. It will, therefore, require very little time from the pastor to have and to keep a parish library in perfect working order, according to rules laid down or sanctioned by himself. No zealous priest, who has once known the beneficial results of good family and parish libraries among his flock, would allow them to be neglected; or would not become a champion of our good cause. We ask, then, in the name of religion, of charity and morality; by the love of our holy faith, and by the zeal of the apostles, that all the clergy, young and old, should put their shoulders to the wheel with us, and roll on the car of Catholic progress, which carries in it our Catholic books and publications.

So many hundred priests, talented and learned, speaking from so many hundred pulpits and altars, guiding the consciences of so many millions of men, are a power able to defeat all the productions of a licentious press; and if, united by a common zeal, they but lock hands and pull together, they cannot fail to realize the already quoted expression of our holy Father, Pius IX., speaking of France, _to inundate the country with good publications_. We priests often fail to realize our power and influence.

Nor should the laity be idle. "In the day of a nation's peril," says Tertullian, "every citizen becomes a soldier; in the great struggles of the faith, every Christian becomes an apostle." Let the sacred fire of zeal pass from the bosom of the priest to burn in the breasts of the laity. There is a certain priesthood of the laity, which they do not sufficiently understand. They are too apt to be passive, to let the priest do all the labor, and only help him when called and urged; they forget that piety and good works are as essential to them as to their spiritual directors, and that so far from, their zeal being an intrusion on that of the priesthood, it is an acceptable assistance. How many a poor, tired priest longs that some good layman would relieve him of a portion of his burden, and enable him to bear the load and responsibility of his parish! We call on the laity, then, to come to the rescue: help in the cause of God! {551} Found libraries; or at any rate, stock a few shelves in your own homes with good books for yourselves and your friends or children. Become propagandists! You propagate the faith; you aid the pope, the bishops, and the priests; you are doing a work acceptable to God, when you help to spread good books or periodicals. Encourage others by your example. Are you a young man? Engage others with you in the cause of Catholic literature. Can you write? Have you a ready pen? Why not write a tract, or a good article for a Catholic paper? or buy it and give to your infidel or Protestant neighbors? You may save a soul by giving that little tract. You may save a soul for one cent! Do not be afraid because you are said to be too young; or, if some one patronizingly informs you of the fact, be sure you are right, and that God is on your side; then go ahead.

Hear how the zealous Montalembert answered the charge of being a young man, slurringly made against him by M. Villemain, in the house of peers, in the time of Louis Philippe. Montalembert had been defending the liberty of the church. "I shall argue, perhaps, too ardently, too warmly, with that youthful vivacity of which the minister of public instruction and others accuse me. Youth is a fault of which I am daily correcting myself. I thought myself already cured of it, until the honorable M. Villemain told me the contrary, and that I shall always remain a young man in his eyes. (Laughter.) But besides the youth of age which passes away, there is another youthfulness for which I shall never make an apology or defence; it is the youthfulness of heart and courage inspired by a faith whose doctrines never grow old, because they are immortal! This youthfulness of faith is my happiness and glory; and I hope never to excuse myself for it before you." Inexperience is not always the companion of youth. Young priest or young layman then, let your youth of years be like that of Montalembert, and not prevent you from aiding the holy cause of the Catholic press.

Little leisure is therefore required; and we have undoubtedly plenty of talent to write and give good books to the million; to establish family, children's, Sunday-school, or parish libraries.

The rules for the special management of libraries are easily found. Either obtain those already in use, or obtain a set of new regulations from the pastor. The regulations of many of our public libraries are used in many Protestant Sunday-school libraries. For false religions know to use the press; and Protestants know well the influence which their religious journals, periodicals, tracts, and other publications exercise on the minds of both young and old. We certainly ought not to be behind the propagandists of error in our propagandism of truth. We need not, therefore, specify any system of rules for the maintenance of good order in the case of libraries. Any librarian will easily find regulations that have been found to work successfully.

A more grave difficulty than that of finding rules to manage a library is that of obtaining the money to create it. Money is the main-stay and the backbone of Catholic publications. If it be the sinews of war, it is certainly the life of the press. Unless the public pays the author, he will not write; and you cannot collect books without money to purchase them. A hard-worked priest will say, "I have enough to do to raise money to build my church, or school, or parochial house, without spending it on books." {552} The layman will say, "You are always begging. We cannot give for everything; and I have no cash to spare for your magazine, for your tracts, or your books, for I have to give it for the new church, or the new school, or the new priest's house."

In answer to this difficulty, we observe, firstly, that a library, or collection of books, is almost of equal importance, in some respects more important, than a school or a house; secondly, a parish library costs but a trifle, which will not be missed either by priest or people.

Let us hear, before developing our answer, how the good Abbé Mullois, whose spirit inspires the whole of is article, resolves the objection in _L'Ami du Jeune Clergé_, for May and June, 1867:

"We know a man," says he, "who has given away in four years
_forty-two thousand volumes!_"--Would any one in America
do this?--"A zealous woman in Paris gives six of eight thousand
francs yearly to help Catholic publications; and after sending
every package of good books for distribution, she is sure to
receive letters of this kind: 'Madam, I have heard of your
great charity; you have sent books to such a place; they were
liked, and so interesting that everybody wanted one to read.
They did much good. Would you be kind enough to send me some?'

"The Society of St. Francis de Sales gives
twenty-five or thirty thousand francs annually
for this purpose; the society for the
amelioration and propagation of good books
spends fifty thousand francs a year in the
work. It is not books, therefore, that are
wanting. Let them be sought, and they will
be found. Why are there so many corrupt
publications? because they find readers. Let
us make readers of good publications by doing
our duty.

"In order to begin a library, thirty, forty, or fifty francs
will do. A good pastor of the diocese of Soissons tells us the
way in which he raised the funds to found a library, in the
following terms: 'I wanted to establish this good work in my
parish, but money was the difficulty. I soon conquered it. On
Sun I preached on the necessity of education in general; and I
told my parishioners that, if they wanted to be educated, I
could furnish them about fifty volumes for thirty francs, to
make a beginning. But how was I to get the thirty francs? Let
thirty persons give me a franc apiece. This will enable me to
found a library, and you will be able _to read all your life
for one franc!_ Next day, forty-five persons subscribed,
and thirty-five paid the cash down. The others will pay during
the year.'"

When we remember that a franc is about equal to a quarter-dollar of our currency; we, who are accustomed to give dollars by the tens and twenties for every collection, will smile at the _naïveté_ of the _bon curé_ and the modesty of his request.

He helps us, however, to answer our own difficulty. From all that we have written concerning the pernicious influence of bad publications, and the necessity of counteracting it by good ones, it follows that a good library in a parish, with reading parishioners, is almost as important as a good school. In fact, what good is the school, if, after leaving it, our children have no reading-room, no good books, to keep up the remembrance of what was learned in childhood? It is after his school days, that the young man meets all the great perils of his faith and morality. It is then young women want good books to read, instead of the yellow-covered trash, or pictorial, sensational serials, over which you may find the young of both sexes gloating of a Sunday afternoon, or of a rainy night, wasting their health of body and mind in this midnight perusal. The cause, then, of Catholic publications, of Catholic tracts, of the Catholic press, is the cause of religion itself. We are not exaggerating; we are only giving it that place among the means of preserving and propagating faith and good morals which the Catholic Church, speaking through the mouth of the supreme pontiff and bishops, give it.

{553}

A good book in the house is a guardian angel. It has the voice of a priest, and the tongue of inspiration. It speaks and enlightens the intellect; it warms the heart, and fills the mind with good thoughts, and the imagination with holy images. It speaks in the silence of the night, as well as in the effulgence of the day, and its impressions pass from the written pages to be engraved for ever on the soul of the reader.

What a trifle to found a library! Who objects to give it? We do not say merely thirty francs, like the parish priest of the diocese of Soissons. We suit the sum to the generous and wealthy character of the people. For our poor people are wealthy compared with the poor of Europe. Fifty persons giving a dollar apiece could lay the foundation of a library that might grow in the course of time into great magnitude and celebrity. By clubbing together, expenses are always diminished. It is the custom, as we know, of Catholic publishers, as well of all booksellers, to make a reduction in price when a large quantity of books is bought. A small tax of one or two cents a week on books lent from the library brings gradually a large revenue, which enables the librarian to increase his store. What parish would miss fifty dollars? What priest or people begrudge it for so good a purpose? Then let the work be undertaken, where it has not yet been begun; and progress with renewed zeal, where there has already been made a beginning.

Let the pulpits ring; give at least one sermon in favor of this good cause! Brothers of the clergy, veterans whose hair has grown gray in the church militant; you know that we do not exaggerate the importance of Catholic publications in the battle of our holy faith against the devil, the flesh and the world; we appeal to you! Young Levites, fresh from your school glories, do not forget your projects for God's honor and for the spread of his holy faith; we ask your succor also. And you, over-tasked yet generous laity, ever ready to respond joyfully to a call made on your faith or your charity, we ask you, too, to interest yourselves in the cause of Catholic publications. We ask all to unite with God, with the church, with the supreme pontiff and the episcopate, in furthering the work of the Catholic press, Catholic books, Catholic literature of every description; from the tract or little tale, the Sunday-school paper, to the ponderous theological or philosophical folio. God will crown our work. He asks but our cordial cooperation. Success must therefore follow our efforts; for if God is for us, who can withstand us? _Si Deus pro nob is, quis contra nos?_

"The necessity of a Sunday-school library no one disputes. But how am I to get one?" says the pastor.

Make a beginning. Buy Catholic tales, biographies, and the smaller class of books which are popular among children. More costly books can be added afterward.

At first give books to the more advanced classes as a reward for good lessons, good conduct, etc. As the library increases, the privilege can be extended till it embraces every class capable of profiting by it.

But how is the library to be supported and enlarged? Take up a collection every Sunday at the children's Mass, as is done in many churches in this city and elsewhere, where good libraries are already in existence. This will not only create a fund sufficient to sustain and enlarge the library, but will also give the children the habit of contributing to the support of religion, which will be of the greatest benefit to them in after life. {554} This plan has been successfully tried; the children have been able to support and steadily enlarge the library, and have also given liberally to other charitable objects.

Again, When and how shall the books be distributed? A very successful method is the following:

Number the classes in the Sunday-school. Divide the library into as many sections or alcoves as you have classes. There must be at least as many books in each alcove as there are scholars in any class. A separate catalogue of each alcove should be made and designated as section A, B, C, etc.

Erasive tablets may be easily procured. On one side may be written the names and numbers of the books in each section, and the other side used to record the numbers of the books selected. This being done, after the Sunday-school is opened, let the librarian or assistant give a catalogue of a section to each class; section A to class 1, section B to class 2, etc.

The teachers will then select books for the class, and mark the numbers on the tablet. The librarian collects the tablets and carries to each class the books selected. The teacher notes the number of the book against the name of the child who receives it in his class-book. The next Sunday, let the books be first collected and returned to their places. The catalogues are then given out. Those who chose from selection A before, should now have section B, and so on in rotation. Thus all will in turn select from each section of the library, and the books are distributed in a short time, without noise or confusion.

How shall the books be selected? This is not an easy task. Many have been deterred from starting a library on account of the difficulty in making this selection. In view of this, we have prepared a catalogue suitable for a parochial and Sunday-school library, which the reader can find in our advertising pages. These are put down at the lowest terms, and are selected with care, as the most suitable to make a beginning with. As funds increase, others can be added from time to time.

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The Comedy Of Convocation. [Footnote 54]

[Footnote 54: _The Comedy of Convocation in the English
Church, in Two Scenes_. Edited by Archdeacon Chasuble,
D.D. 8vo, pp. 135. London: William Freeman.]

Satire without bitterness or rancor is a phenomenon in literature of which the world has seen few examples, and genuine, religious satire has been so rare, that we can hardly recall a single unexceptionable specimen. There was a day, to be sure, when every poet held it a part of his profession to lacerate with the weapon of his wit, or with the rhymed invective which too often passed for wit, whatever creed happened at the time to be most unpopular. Some few even of the great masters of verse, like Dryden and Butler, trenched upon the domain of religious controversy; but Dryden's _Hind and Panther_ and _Religio Laici_ are rather dogmatical poems than satires, and Butler's _Hudibras_, which is pure satire, is aimed less at a religious sect than at a political party. {555} Here we have, however, a prose satire in the Church of England, which is one of the most admirable specimens of that class of literature in our own or any other language. It is sharp without unkindness; it contains not a syllable of invective; it is honest; it is logical; the wit is radiant; the fun is overpowering; and the application is irresistible. Volumes could not expose the preposterous errors of Anglicanism with half the effect produced by this little pamphlet. The troubles and perplexities of the English divines, the absurdities of the privy council, the purposeless debates of convocations, the conflict of beliefs, the uncertainty of dogmas, the vain theories of deans and doctors, the darkness, the wavering, the inconsistency, the worldliness of the Anglican Church, are pictured in this little comedy to the very life. Its appearance has created in London a profound sensation. Anglicans are smarting under the exposure, and everybody else is laughing at the ludicrous exhibition. The authorship is unknown, but we are inclined to believe that the current rumor which ascribes it to Dr. J. H. Newman is well founded. We doubt whether there is another man in England capable of writing it.

The _Dramatis Personae_ embrace a number of deans, archdeacons, and lesser ecclesiastical dignitaries, and the first scene takes place in "the Jerusalem Chamber," where Convocation is in session.

"Doctor Easy rose to propose the question of which he had given
notice at the previous sitting of Con 'Would it be considered
heresy in the Church of England to deny the existence of God?'
It had occurred to him that he should, perhaps, adopt a form
more convenient for the present debate, if he put the question
thus: 'Would a clergyman, openly teaching that there was no
God, be liable to suspension?'

"Archdeacon Jolly thought not. What the Church of England
especially prided herself upon was the breadth of her views. No
view could be broader than the one just stated, and therefore,
none more likely to meet with the sanction of the privy
council, which, he apprehended, was the real point to be kept
in view in the discussion of this interesting question. (Hear,
hear.)

"Dean Blunt concurred in the opinion that breadth and the privy
council were kindred ideas. Still, it might be asked, could
even the doctrinal elasticity of that tribunal become
sufficiently expansive to embrace the enormous hypothesis of
his learned friend? He ventured to think that it could. Let it
be supposed that some clergymen of the Church of England--say
the Archbishop of Canterbury--should publicly teach that there
was no God. The case being brought before the privy council, it
might be reasonably assumed that that supreme arbiter of
Anglican doctrine would deliver some such judgment as the
following:

'We find that the Church of England is not opposed to the
existence of a God. At the same time, we cannot overlook the
fact that the nineteenth article, in affirming that all
churches, even the apostolic, have erred in matters of faith,
obviously implies that the Church of England may err also in
the same way. Therefore the Church of England may err in
teaching that there is a God. We conclude, that whilst, on
the one hand, the archbishop has taken an extreme or
one-sided view of the teaching of the church; on the other,
for the reason assigned, it is undoubtedly open to every
clergyman either to believe in or to deny the existence of a
God.'

"Archdeacon Theory would be disposed cordially to approve the
judgment which the learned dean anticipated. He had always
maintained that it was the _duty_ of every Anglican to
doubt the existence of God. (Uproar.)
{556}
Let him not be misunderstood. Speaking for himself, he had a
moral and intellectual conviction that there was a God. He was
not disputing the objective truth of the existence of a God:
about that he could not suppose that a single member of
Convocation could entertain the most transitory doubt. He was
speaking only of their duty as members of the Church of
England, and not at all of their obligation as Christians; two
things which might happen in a particular case to be as wide
apart as the poles, and to involve distinct and opposite
responsibilities. Now, as members of the Church of England, he
believed it was their duty to doubt, not only the existence of
God, but also every separate article which the Church of
England now taught, or might teach hereafter; and the more
emphatically the Church of England appeared to teach, the more
imperative was their duty to doubt. For, referring to the
ingenious argument which Dean Blunt had put into the mouth of
their national oracle, it was clear that the Church of England
in denying her own infallibility, laid all her members under
the religious obligation of doubting everything she taught.
Fallibility, properly defined, was not simply liability to err,
it was _the state of error_. As infallibility is a state
of certainty, which does not admit of error; so fallibility is
a state of doubt which does not admit of conviction. Now, the
Church of England, in proclaiming her own fallibility, did so
with a peremptoriness which elevated this part of her teaching,
and this alone, to the dignity of dogma. For, whereas, in
propounding other Anglican tenets, she so adjusted her
definitions of doctrine as to leave the choice of possible and
opposite interpretations to the discretion of her members; when
speaking of this, the fundamental axiom of her whole
theological system, she rose for the moment to the authority of
a _teacher_, and consented to put on the robe of
infallibility, in order to promulgate with greater force the
dogma of her own liability to error."

Here is the key to the first scene. The discussion is maintained at considerable length, and carries us over the whole ground of the authority of the English church to teach divine truth; and in the course of it, some representative of each of the most prominent schools of theological opinion in the establishment takes occasion to express his mind. Dr. Viewy holds that since heresy is the choice of one's creed, as opposed to the submission of the will to authority, no Anglican can be guilty of heresy who obeys the teachings of his ecclesiastical superiors; and hence, in the Church of England, it might be _conditionally_, but could not be _necessarily_, heresy to deny the existence of God. As that church is taunted by her enemies with holding and rejecting every imaginable creed, the only safe course for a clergyman is to centre the whole of his obedience in that one bishop or rector, under whom, for the time being, he may find himself placed.

"In other words, since to obey any _two_ ecclesiastical
authorities at the same moment involved the risk of being
pronounced a heretic by either one or the other--because no two
clergymen are exactly of the same belief--the only effective
safeguard against the possibility of heresy was personal
obedience to one clergyman at a time. When first ordained to
the office of the diaconate, from which he had been
subsequently elevated to unmerited dignities, he found himself
in the diocese of a low-church bishop--he might say a very
low-church bishop--so low that any further descent into the
regions of a purely negative theology would have left no
doctrinal residuum whatever.
{557}
He at once decided, in virtue of his principle of obedience to
authority, to teach his flock the religion of his bishop,
which, by careful analysis, he resolved into two articles of
belief--the denial of dogma, and the assertion of self. (Dean
Pompous audibly whispered, 'Highly unbecoming.') But here he
had met with a difficulty in starting; for it happened that his
rector was a Puseyite; and that, consequently, in the main,
whatever the bishop taught to be true, the rector taught to be
false, and whatever the bishop taught to be false, the rector
taught to be true. The case, as convocation knew, was so common
in this country, as to form, perhaps, the rule in a majority of
parochial cures. His principle, however, suggested an easy
escape from the embarrassing position. He applied it thus:
manifestly more obedience was due to a bishop than to a rector;
yet a certain _quantum_ of obedience was due to a rector,
if only because a bishop had appointed him. It became, so to
speak, a question of proportion rather than of theology, and
was soluble, not by the thirty-nine articles, but by the rule
of three; and, after working it out with religious care, the
following commended itself to him as the solution of the
problem. He would preach low-church doctrines on the Sundays,
denying the sacramental view and all its consequences, as the
homage of clerical obedience due to the bishop; but he would
teach high-church doctrines during the week, without abating a
single tenet, in discharge of the proportionate measure of
obedience due to the rector. This practice gave rise, he was
bound to admit, to some excitement in the parish, and led to
the popular conviction that, however excellent his teaching
might be in detail, there was a want of unity about it when
looked at as a whole. Yet when he explained to his parishioners
the purity of the motive which induced the apparent
contradictions, and proved to them that his duplex system was
designed only to reflect justly and proportionately the two
aspects of Christianity exhibited by their bishop and their
rector, the whole parish at once applauded the delicacy of his
conscience, while it ceased not to question the value of his
teaching. And so things went on with tolerable harmony for the
space of a year; when, unhappily, both the bishop and the
rector died about the same time; the former being quickly
replaced by a high-church bishop, appointed by a friend in the
cabinet, and the latter by a low-church rector, nominated by
Mr. Simeon's trustees. It now became his duty, in consistency
with his principle of obedience to personal authority, to
invert the order and portion of his teaching. He would continue
to give the Sundays to the bishop, and the week-days to the
rector; but on Sundays he must now be a Puseyite, and on
week-days an Evangelical; and this simple inversion, so
equitable in itself, and inspired solely by the desire of
submitting himself to his superiors, created such discord in
the parish, that finally he was entreated, as the only means of
restoring peace, to resign his cure of souls.

"Dean Pliable concurred, in the main, with the principle of the
learned divine who had just resumed his seat, that obedience to
authority was the first duty of a clergyman; but he utterly
differed from him in his application of the principle, which
appeared to him to be equally servile and injudicious.
{558}
That principle he conceived to be most effectually carried out,
not by abject submission to this bishop or that, this rector or
that--which might be both possible and convenient, if, in the
Church of England, as in the Church of Rome, every bishop and
every rector taught the same Christianity--but in the larger
and nobler aim of faithfully representing at one and the same
time _all_ the Christianities taught by all the bishops
and all the rectors of the Church of England. In other words,
since every one confessed that it was impossible to teach a
uniform theology in the Church of England, whose highest
tribunal had ruled that her clergy might teach _either_ of
two opposite doctrines--and therefore both alternately--he was
brought to the conviction that the only course open to
Anglicans solicitous about theoretical unity was to profess at
the same moment every doctrine held within their communion, and
all their contradictories. (Great uproar: a well-known preacher
was heard to exclaim--"He would convert us into ecclesiastical
acrobats.")

"Dean Critical inquired, with a touch of irony in his voice and
manner--'Could any of his reverend friends undertake to inform
him what was the authority of the Church of England?' Hitherto
the debate had gone only to show what it was not. Dr. Theory
had maintained that there was no such thing. Dr. Viewy and Dean
Pliable had each of them proved that it did not reside in the
bishops and clergy, unless, indeed, it might be supposed to
exist in equal measure in every one of them; but, as they were
unhappily in direct opposition to one another on many
fundamental doctrines, this was equivalent to saying that
_no_ authority to decide Christian doctrine existed in the
Church of England. If there really were any such authority,
convocation could hardly be more usefully employed than in
defining its nature and fixing its limits.

"Archdeacon Jolly observed, without rising from his seat--'What
say you to the Archbishop of Canterbury?' (Some laughter, which
was immediately suppressed.)

"Dean Critical reminded the venerable archdeacon that the
Archbishop of Canterbury was not alluded to in their
formularies in any such character, and feared, it must be said
without disrespect, that he had no more power to determine a
disputed point of doctrine than his amiable lady, whose
hospitality many of them had enjoyed. It was a lamentable fact
that his Grace had no more authority over the people of
England, nor over a single individual out of his own household,
than ... (a voice exclaimed, 'the King of the Sandwich
Islands,' a suggestion which was greeted with mingled applause
and disapprobation.)

"Archdeacon Jolly: Well, then, her Majesty the Queen, whom the
church admits to be 'supreme' in all causes, spiritual as well
as temporal?

"Dean Critical could not forget that her Majesty, in whom they
recognized a model of every Christian virtue, frequented,
indifferently, Presbyterian meeting-houses and the churches of
their own communion. If, therefore, as the law appeared to
admit, the authority of the Anglican Church resided in her
royal person, it followed that the Westminster Confession and
the Thirty-nine Articles were equally true, and that every
Anglican was also a Presbyterian.

"Archdeacon Jolly: 'How about the Privy Council? If it be the
ultimate judge of doctrine, must it not be the authority for
which you are seeking?'

{559}

"Dean Critical thought not, because in fact, the sum of its
decisions amounted to this--that the Church of England taught
nothing and denied nothing, which was equivalent to saying that
she believed nothing. A tribunal which decided in every case of
disputed doctrine, as the privy council invariably did, that
both the plaintiff and defendant were right, was a judicial
curiosity that could hardly be said to afford the litigant
parties much assistance in bringing their cause to an issue.
The privy council might be an authority _over_ the Church
of England, whose decisions the latter was obliged to receive;
but no one could seriously maintain that it was an authority to
which any Anglican, of whatever party in the church, professed
to submit his conscience in matters of faith.

"Archdeacon Jolly: 'Will you accept convocation as your
authority?' (Loud laughter, with cries of 'shame' from Dean
Pompous.)

"Dean Critical regretted that he could not accept convocation
in the character of an Anglican Holy See: because, to say
nothing of the general feeling of the country, and the
malicious comments of the public press, which appeared to treat
them with derision, and talked of their 'dancing round a
may-pole,' his own observation of the proceedings of that
assembly dissuaded him from any such view. Much experience had
brought him to the sorrowful conviction that convocation was
only a clerical debating-club, of which every member took
himself for the pope, and the church for his pupil.

"Archdeacon Jolly: 'Might it be permitted to suggest the
formularies?'

"Dean Critical: So supple and elastic in their nature as to be
sworn to with equal facility both by those who claim to 'hold
all Roman doctrine' and those who protest against it.

"Archdeacon Jolly: 'Well, there are still the thirty-nine
articles.'

"Dean Critical: Thirty-nine _opinions_, one of which
declares of all others, that they are human and fallible.

"Archdeacon Jolly did not know that he could offer any further
suggestion, but, at least, one of the articles declared, 'the
church _hath_ authority in matters of faith.'

"Dean Critical was not unmindful of the fact, which had always
appeared to him to be a device of the framers to express this
idea: 'We admit that the church we are forming _has_ no
authority, but we recognize that if it were a church, it
_would_ have authority.' For it should be observed that
while they said, 'the church _hath_ authority,' they at
the same time enjoined the clergy not to believe a single word
she taught them, unless they found their own interpretation of
the Scriptures to agree with hers! Thus they made the Church of
England say to all her members: 'If you should accidentally be
_right_ in your interpretation of the Bible, put that down
to _me_, for I am the church that teaches you; but if,
which is far more probable, you should be wrong, put that down
to yourself, for I have warned you to believe in nothing which
you cannot prove for yourself out of the Bible.' ('Hear, hear,'
from the Rev. Lavender Kidds.)"

This Rev. Lavender Kidds is the comic man of the drama. His one principle is "Bible Christianity," his one passion a dread of the pope.

"The Rev. Lavender Kidds (who seemed much excited, and rose
amidst cries of 'order, order,' and considerable laughter)
observed that he now assisted for the first time at the
assembly of convocation, and had been deeply shocked by the
unscriptural tone of the discussion.
{560}
(Suppressed merriment.) For his part, he gloried in the
thirty-nine articles of their pure and reformed church, and
especially in their noble testimony to the grand truth that the
religion of Protestants was 'the Bible, the whole Bible, and
nothing but the Bible.' This was the true 'authority' of vital
Christians, and he cared for no other. This was the simple and
grand lesson of those venerable formularies which had been that
day so grievously under-valued and calumniated. Really, it
seemed to him to be preposterous in any Protestant assembly to
talk so much of 'church-authority.' Authority, indeed! Who
wanted it? And if they had it, who would obey it? Certainly no
member of that house with whom he had the happiness of being
acquainted--(laughter and ironical cheers)--least of all the
high-church party, who had recently been forming a society to
protect themselves _against_ their bishops. (Renewed
disapprobation.) He contended that their forefathers had done
without authority, and had wisely regarded it as a mark of the
beast. He was for the Bible and the Bible only. Perish the
articles, and the church itself--no, his zeal was perhaps
carrying him too far. What he meant to say was--in fact, he
wished to observe--as long as they had the Word they wanted
nothing else. He knew, indeed, that Dean Primitive and
Archdeacon Chasuble preferred authority to Scripture--as long,
that was, as they could keep the former entirely in their own
hands; but he had invariably remarked that they refused to
their bishops and superiors the obedience they required from
their curates and parishioners. But Englishmen, he felt
convinced, were not to be cajoled by a spurious popery; and if
they must renounce their liberty, it would not be to those who
used that liberty themselves to resist the very church they
copied, in everything but their obedience. (General cries of
'Enough, enough,' amid which Mr. Kidds resumed his seat, with
the air of one who had delivered a solemn and suitable
protest.')

"Dean Primitive was unwilling that the observations of Mr.
Kidds should pass without any other reply than Dean Blunt had
thought fit to give them. He had spent thirty years of his life
in combating the errors of that party in the church to which
Mr. Kidds belonged, and he hoped to continue the same holy
warfare to to the end. He was aware that the so-called
evangelicals insisted upon the _plainness_ of Scripture,
and were accustomed to assume, with strange disregard of
notorious facts, that nobody need find any difficulty in
deciding the true meaning of any text whatever. With the
permission of the house, he would give a few illustrations of
the evangelical method of dealing with the inspired book; from
which it would very clearly appear, that when they boasted of
appealing to the Bible, they only appealed to their own version
of it, that is, to themselves; and their favorite shibboleth,
'the Bible, and the Bible only,' meant simply, as Dean Blunt
had well observed, '_my_ interpretation of the Bible, and
not yours.'

"Thus, when our Lord said to his priests, 'I give to _you_
the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' it is plain, according to
the evangelicals, that he meant, 'I give to _no man_ the
keys of the kingdom of heaven.'

"When He declared, 'Whosesoever sins _you_ remit, they are
remitted,' beyond doubt he wished them to understand, 'I
particularly withhold from _you_ the power to remit sin.'

{561}