THE "HARD-SHELL" CHURCHMEN. L ORD ROBERT CECIL certainly does often put
old matters in a fresh light. He and his Oxford suppor- ters have invented quite a new order of thought for the dis- cussion of Church principles. They probably see the danger of going to the Church for her teaching and then adopting it heartily in life or politics. That, they feel, is not the process to make a " hard-shell " Conservative ; nay, it will too often make a very dangerous Liberal. Accordingly they propose the reverse method, which we may call the positivist mode of dealing with these questions. They begin with the shell, on preserving which they are chiefly intent, and reason down from the shell to the kernel. They reason thus :— True Conservatives take their stand upon our existing external institutions ;—the "Establishment" is an im- portant external institution. Therefore true Conserva- tives must first of all protect the Establishment against change, and therefore cling to Church-rates. But the Estab- lishment involves a certain creed established. You cannot protect the shell from change if you do not arrest the organic life which renews the shell. Your antiseptics therefore must not only embalm the outer tissues, but reach the inmost germ of the Establishment,—and in order to keep the Establishment established ,as it is you must forbid the seed within it either to grow or decay. Hence the Universities which educate Churchmen must insist on just the same ecclesiastical and intellectual routine which was observed centuries ago,—so that, granted Conservatism,—or the duty of keeping external institutions as they are,—as the positive and ultimate basis of thought, you arrive at the duty of extorting from young men and old men, lay and clerical, all the pledges you extort now or have extorted for centuries back ;—for, if not, there is a complete ad absurdum demonstration that you are not Conser- vative. If you permit a change in the creed or the subscrip- tion at the centre, it will quickly spread to the circumference. The University men who have escaped signing it will grow into clergymen who are reluctant to signit ; clergymen who are reluctant to sign it will attract within the fold laymen who more or lees differ from it, and so the " Establish- pline and objects differ from , those of many within the Church Church because they are true is still worse ; and this is the already, rather less than those of the extreme parties within sort of Conservatism that Professor Maned represents. it differ now. However, that is nothing to Lord Robert Cecil. On the whole, nothing seems to us more contemptible His primary assumption is that no external institution in than the method of the new Conservative resistance to England is to suffer change, and he objects to the inward the modest measures now asked for by the Liberals because it necessarily involves an outward change. "If you of Oxford. The Oxford Liberals ask in Parliament that desire to support the interests of the country," said Lord Robert the M.A. degree and a seat in Convocation shall no longer Cecil to his Oxford supporters and would-be constituents last be reserved exclusively for those who sign a long list of Saturday, " you will support those who wish to preserve our highly technical and complex theological propositions. The institutions, and amongst them the Church." In other words, if few consistent Tories reply with Archdeacon Denison,—" This you wish to embalm the whole country and keep it in a they shall sign, for these propositions are the only foundation stationary state, you must embalm the Church as part of the of Church and State, and without signing them. Church and country, and a vital part, too. Moreover, Lord Robert Cecil laid State will become the prey of godless men." But the Con- down at Oxford a doctrine which gave great offence to Mr. servatives do not think, and dare not say, this. They see that Neate the member for the borough, and which he attacked the change would not be great, they suspect that it would last Wednesday in the House on occasion of the University relax heavy restraints. But they have no confidence in any Tests debate. That doctrine was, " No Churchman exists principle of vital progress within the Church. They believe,. who is worthy of the-name who is not also a good Conserve- as Lord Robert Cecil half implied, a great deal more in the. tire." But though he put it that way in deference to Arch- Establishment than in the Church,—in the outside walls than deacon Denison, it is obvious that the whole drift and current of in the invisible inward organization. They will touch no- Lord It. Cecil's thoughts was just the other way. The greater thing inside because they regard the whole inside as a mystery.. and primary doctrine was, with him, the Conservative doctrine If the subscription went everything might go ; it is all a per- that you should leave external institutions as they are ; the less plexity together, and the only thing they genuinely believe and derivative doctrine was the inference from it that you must in, is the duty of keeping the shell of the Establishment and keep creeds and professions as they are. Lord Robert Cecil is our other institutions intact. They have been beaten for a too shrewd a politician to hold seriously that the Christian moment in the House of Commons, but they will probably sue- Gospel is an antiseptic like the Conservative creed,—that ceed either in Committee or in the House of Lords in keeping its main principle is, " Keep the world as it is and avoid the intellectual yoke still heavy on all young laymen. Lord reform." All antiseptics, as he knows, being intended to Robert Cecil says he and his friends are the only true Church- stop the natural waste and renovation of the living tissues, men. They are, to our minds, less true Churchmen than any are, like the most important of them, arsenic, deadly poisons. others,—for they do not believe in the power of the truth which It is the no-faith of Conservatism, not the active faith of the Church delivers to the world, unless it is bolstered up by Christianity, which arrests alike decay and life, an artificial system of extorting professions of it from incon- With this " hard-shell " Churchmanship of Lord Robert siderate young men. They are "hard-shell" Churchmen,. Cecil's naturally associates itself, we are happy to see, the who believe in the shell of the Establishment infinitely more hard-shell dogmatism of Hr. Hansel, who is Lord Robert Cecil's than in the seed of truth it contains.
only distinguished religious supporter at Oxford. That emi- nent divine has, as our readers are aware, distinguished him- PRISON DIETARIES.
self and his University by applying to divinity exactly the 1]100D is probably the subject which of all others occupies same inverted process of reasoning from outside inwards, from 11 the largest share of the attention of the human race, but the visible shell towards the invisible kernel, which Lord it has always hitherto been approached in a partial and one- Robert Cecil applies to ecclesiastical politics. Mr. Hansel sided spirit. The amount of thought and labour which men teaches that revelation reveals, not God, but a series of prac- have bestowed on the one subject of dinner from the growth tical rules for our demeanour and conduct, from which of the first thorns and thistles until now defies computation. we may construct for ourselves an imperfect repre- Bat, barren and uninventive race that we are ! all minds run sentative image more or less false and conjectural about in the same customary groove, and the one object of the the "unknown God," and accordingly he teaches that all countless meditators on food has been to discover how they Christian truth is merely "regulative," informing us what to might get the most of it in the most palatable form. The ac- do, and leaving us to think as we best may, concerning Him cidental establishment of convict prisons has, however, sug- who has thus manifested Himself only through a system of gested a novel way of looking at this question, and medical rules for human conduct. Holding this as he does, of course science has been invited to solve the problem of keeping men he prefers Lord Robert Cecil's mode of pleading for tests and in good health on the smallest quantity of food in its least subscriptions, because it is rested on the ground, not so much palatable form. To put a man in to gaol and keep him alive, that the propositions subscribed represent the speculative truth careless of any injury which may result to his health or as that they are " regulatively " trae,—that is, that they are strength,—the simple system which commended itself to the essential to the existence of the Church and Universities as wisdom of our ancestors,—is now "a punishment not contem- they now are,—that they are the conditions of their present plated by law, and which it is cruel and unjust to inflict." form of life, if not the spring and source of their life. But for all that prison diet may be made penal at least in this "The Conservatives of Oxford," says Hr. Hansel, "are sense—that the great majority of prisoners may be deprived of naturally a quiet race, and would be well contented to live articles of food and drink, unnecessary indeed from a sanitary and let live ; but when they are not allowed an interval of point of view, but with which they are nevertheless wont to- five or six years to work out a new constitution, when they soothe the annoyances and alleviate the wear and tear of a pre- were told as plainly as actions could tell them that the Uni- datory life. Positive results in an inquiry of such delicacy versity was regarded as a corpus vile for every political quack and novelty are not of course to be attained in a moment, but to try his nostrums upon" [apparently a delicate allusion to the report of the Medical Committee to whom Sir George Mr. Gladstone and his infinitesimal reform of giving an M.A. Grey referred the subject throws much light upon it, and degree without subscription] "when they were told that much of the information which the committee has collected is the new constitution was not to be worked out as it was given curious, even where they have been able to arrive at no to them, but was to be subjected every session to fresh tinker- definite conclusion. The inquiry, it is to be understood, ing,—combination and union became a necessity and a duty." referred only to prisoners in county and borough gaols, that is, Mr. Hansel, we see here, takes precisely the ground we should under sentences not exceeding three years in length. expect,—not the Tory ground of Archdeacon Denison, who The depressing influence of confinement on the human says the principles of the Church are the only nucleus of in- animal is well known. To remedy the injurious effect of this variable truth, and that Conservatives therefore who want mental depression prisoners are divided into two sections, to see no changes should take their stand on the only adaman- those who are and who are not sentenced to hard labour, and tine foundation ; but the Conservative ground of Lord Robert each of these again into four classes, according to the length of Cecil that we must resist change in the institutions, and their term of imprisonment, the diet rising both in quality therefore any modifications of those subscriptions which keep and quantity with the length of the term. Under the existing the institutions what they are. His is not indignation, like system the prisoner is placed on the dietary belonging to his Archdeacon Denison's, for the apparent slight to the Articles class immediately he enters the prison, but it has been very ment" itself will at last cover a wider area than it did, and or Prayer-book, but zeal like Lord Robert Cecil's for Church include within its shelter, as Lord Robert Cecil says, " men principles which are a safeguard against change. Here Con- whose belief, whose discipline, and whose objects are wholly servatism is bad enough in politics, but mere Conservatism in different from those of the Church of England as she now theology, which looks at articles of faith as regnlatively tree exists,"—by which he really means men whose belief, disci- because they are useful to the Church, instead of useful to the those of many within the Church Church because they are true is still worse ; and this is the already, rather less than those of the extreme parties within sort of Conservatism that Professor Maned represents. it differ now. However, that is nothing to Lord Robert Cecil. On the whole, nothing seems to us more contemptible His primary assumption is that no external institution in than the method of the new Conservative resistance to England is to suffer change, and he objects to the inward the modest measures now asked for by the Liberals because it necessarily involves an outward change. "If you of Oxford. The Oxford Liberals ask in Parliament that desire to support the interests of the country," said Lord Robert the M.A. degree and a seat in Convocation shall no longer Cecil to his Oxford supporters and would-be constituents last be reserved exclusively for those who sign a long list of Saturday, " you will support those who wish to preserve our highly technical and complex theological propositions. The institutions, and amongst them the Church." In other words, if few consistent Tories reply with Archdeacon Denison,—" This you wish to embalm the whole country and keep it in a they shall sign, for these propositions are the only foundation stationary state, you must embalm the Church as part of the of Church and State, and without signing them. Church and country, and a vital part, too. Moreover, Lord Robert Cecil laid State will become the prey of godless men." But the Con- down at Oxford a doctrine which gave great offence to Mr. servatives do not think, and dare not say, this. They see that Neate the member for the borough, and which he attacked the change would not be great, they suspect that it would last Wednesday in the House on occasion of the University relax heavy restraints. But they have no confidence in any Tests debate. That doctrine was, " No Churchman exists principle of vital progress within the Church. They believe,. who is worthy of the-name who is not also a good Conserve- as Lord Robert Cecil half implied, a great deal more in the. tire." But though he put it that way in deference to Arch- Establishment than in the Church,—in the outside walls than deacon Denison, it is obvious that the whole drift and current of in the invisible inward organization. They will touch no- Lord It. Cecil's thoughts was just the other way. The greater thing inside because they regard the whole inside as a mystery.. and primary doctrine was, with him, the Conservative doctrine If the subscription went everything might go ; it is all a per- that you should leave external institutions as they are ; the less plexity together, and the only thing they genuinely believe and derivative doctrine was the inference from it that you must in, is the duty of keeping the shell of the Establishment and keep creeds and professions as they are. Lord Robert Cecil is our other institutions intact. They have been beaten for a too shrewd a politician to hold seriously that the Christian moment in the House of Commons, but they will probably sue- Gospel is an antiseptic like the Conservative creed,—that ceed either in Committee or in the House of Lords in keeping its main principle is, " Keep the world as it is and avoid the intellectual yoke still heavy on all young laymen. Lord reform." All antiseptics, as he knows, being intended to Robert Cecil says he and his friends are the only true Church- stop the natural waste and renovation of the living tissues, men. They are, to our minds, less true Churchmen than any are, like the most important of them, arsenic, deadly poisons. others,—for they do not believe in the power of the truth which It is the no-faith of Conservatism, not the active faith of the Church delivers to the world, unless it is bolstered up by
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