HISTORY OF THE FREE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. ITo raz EDITOR
OF THE " EPECTATOR."1
Sin,—In your recent and very brief notice of the above work —which, allow me to say, is a book of more than seven hun- dred pages—you characterise the claim made by Mr. Skeats, who wrote the earlier portions of it, that Dissent exercised a paramount influence on the mental as well as the religious life of England, as arrogant." I do not contest your right to your own opinion on the subject; but as by implication you cite Matthew Arnold as corroborating that view, will you allow me, in a spirit of fairness, to quote the following passage from his "Discourses in America "?—" As a stage and a dis- cipline, and a means for enabling that poor, inattentive, and immoral creature, man, to love and appropriate, and make part of his being, divine ideas, on which he could not other- wise have laid or kept hold, the discipline of Puritanism has been invaluable ; and tbe more I read history, the more I see of mankind, the more I recognise its value." Surely such weighty testimony from your own authority goes far to justify the opinion expressed by Mr. Skeats, and, I may add, shared by Lord Macaulay.—I am, Sir, &e., CHAS. S. MIALL, Joint-Editor. [Mr. Miall treats Puritanism and Nonconformity as if they were the same thing.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
