The English Clergy seem to us to be taking a
very false step in signing the memorial to Mr. Gladstone against the Affirma- tion Bill, and we wish they would read an admirable letter to this week's Guardian on that subject, by the Rev. Malcolm MacColl, who seems to us to prove to demonstration that what the Clergy are really contending for is not in any sense a genuine test of Theism, but rather for imposing a formal, and in the minds of true Christians almost blasphemously hollow, use of the name of God, on men who, because they do not in the least believe in any personal God, will feel little or no scruple in using the term in any sense they please. And the logic of such a test will, Mr. MacColl argues, necessarily lead rather to the substitution of pallid and unmeaning latitudinarianism in all the forms of the House of Commons,—the daily prayers, for instance,—than to anything approaching to genuine religious creeds. The argu- etentum ad clerum is ably put, and is well worth reading.
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