15 JANUARY 1881, Page 3

' The Rev. H. R. Haweis delivered an address on-

Tuesday night, in Sion College Hall, on " Freedom of Thought in the Church of England, and the General Position of the Liberal Clergy," in which he argued for the abolition of Subscription, for optional omissions in the Liturgy of the Church of England, for the relegation of creeds to manuals of instruction, for the repeal of the Act of Uniformity, and for liberating rubrics ou the subject of ritual. We are quite sure that Mr. Haweis is right that an Established Church must aim at comprehension, both in doctrine and ritual. But we are also quite sure that any one is wrong who uses the liturgy of any Church in a non-natural sense, and becomes the teacher to the people of doctrines the very essence of which he rejects. Subscription is a failure ; but the conscience of the Church may always, we trust, prevent her clergy from using historical Christianity as a mere symbol of ideal fancies, and so making themselves the represen- tatives of unreal life and thought. We do not, of course, mean to suggest in any way that this is Mr, Haweis' own line ; but some of his language reads as if ho would excuse it in others.