[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR, —As a lifelong and
unabashed member of " the Stupid party " I have been interested in the fortunes of the Church of England for more years than I care to count. As long as I can remember it has suffered from chronic crisis : and periodic outbreaks of letters in the public Press have given expression to the contempt, anger or alarm excited by its proceedings.
A certain family likeness runs through these letters. They are couched in the language of lamentation and mourning and • woe : they take the gloomiest view of the actual situation, and denounce doom upon the Church, if it does not reform itself in a Liberal sense : they assume, and frequently assert, the intellectual superiority of the writers and those who agree with them : and they one and all reveal a curiously rigid and unimaginative Toryism, which seems unable to realize that the religious attitude of the sixteenth century was not something unchangeable and " eternal in the heavens."
How many times have we been warned of imminent dis- establishment, disruption, or secession, unless we took heed to our ways ! They appear to be still impending. Moreover, having regard to the plight in which Liberalism has landed those who put their faith in it, Church people can hardly be expected to trust themselves implicitly to its guidance.
I have always understood that in the extension of the franchise was to be found the solution of every difficulty and the relief of every grievance. The Church franchise has been extended : but your correspondent still complains. He says that people do not avail themselves of it. Whose fault is that ? It is quite futile for those who have the power of making themselves felt and refrain from using it to be aggrieved if things are done which they do not like.
One possible inference from the attitude of the nation in the matter is that it is reasonably satisfied with the general direction things are taking—as well satisfied, that is, as Englishmen ever are with anything. Were it not so there would be protests enough, if English history tells us anything. It is true that the demand for revision does not come from the Laity. But the Laity are not good at technical details, and it is more to the purpose that no real objection has come from them. The opposition that has found voice is obviously artificial and the result of agitation.
I do not write, Sir, as an Anglo-Catholic, probably I should not even be recognized among the faithful as a High Church- man : the simple label " C. of E." is enough for my modest Claims. But credit to whom credit is due. The old days of dirty and unused churches and slipshod services are gone ; gone, too, are the sneers at the Church and the indifference to its affairs that were once conspicuous in the leading news- PaPers• . .
A' quite permissible opinion is that the Church has at, present a stronger hold on the nation at large than it has had since the Reformation. In this agricultural diocese, at any rate, the atmosphere is very different from that of twenty-five years ago. The change unquestionably began with the Oxford Movement, and has been developed by the devotion and self-sacrificing work of those who continued its tradition. Most Englishmen admire these qualities, and are ready, perhaps illogically, to allow a good deal of latitude to people who exhibit them.—I am, Sir, &e., NoaToN G. Lewso.N.
Haddiscoe Rectory, Norwich. ..
Previous page
