SACERDOTALISM AND SCIENCE.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR,']
is with real diffidence that I venture to accuse Sir E. Strachey of being led into an unreasonable confusion of mind by his dislike of the Ritualists. In his earlier letters, he ignored the fact that it is at least conceivable that though external ritual is not necessary to spiritual worship, it is yet not inconsistent with it, To-day he brings forward the subject of Bibliolatry, in order to discredit a party which is leas Bibliolatrous than any in the Church, with the exception of that small section among whom should wish to be classed with SirE. Strachey and the Spectat,c Far from regarding the High-Church movement as intensifying the division between science and theology, I conceive that the aubstitution of the "Authority of the Church" (a somewhat elastic phrase among non-Romanists) for the worship of an In- fallible Book is a real assistance in bridging over the gulf which unfortunately exists. A person who believes in the Infallibility of the Creeds may yet approach such questions as the doctrine of evolution, the antiquity of the world, the authorship of the Scripture books with a sole desire to discover "is this true." But I am at a loss to see how a believer in verbal infallibility can possibly do so.
Let us, then, be fair. We are at present a small minority in the Church. We are saddened with a choking sadness at the per- sistency of the "religious world," but let us not attribute to Ritualists alone a theology which characterises even more em- phatically their Protestant opponents.—I am, Sir, Sze,
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