25 APRIL 1908, Page 30

MODERNISM.

Um Wm EDITOR OF THE "Bpsernos.1 Sra,—Mr. Ambroseden and I are not, I hope, in substantial disagreement. It was not my intention to put the dilemma, Submission or secession P It is only in the last resort that this hard-and-fast choice presents itself. If it can be avoided— and it is possible, perhaps, that it may be avoided—no one will be more rejoiced than I. But we live in a very evil moment ; and Worse than what we have experienced may be to aottre. The strain on the faith of many is great and increasing ; and

in view of possible contingencies, what I meant to say was that to lose faith in Rome or in Roman Catholicism is not to lose faith in Christ. With many the alternative is Rome or sce?ticism. Religious motives, which are (or should be) decisive, apart, I believe that the result of the critical move- ment has been to show that this dilemma is fallacious. If in the storms which threaten us a man can stay where he is, let him do so. But if not, if he is convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the form under which religion has come to him is dis- credited, let him not confuse the fact—the Gospel—with an interpretation of it. This,, to quote the German proverb, would be to throw out the child with the bath.—I am,