MODE RNISM.*
Tins volume, which is mainly a collection of articles con- tributed during the years 1902-7 to the Guardian and the Commonwealth, will do the English student of theology the great service of opening to his view a region mostly unfamiliar. He will doubtless know something about M. Loisy. Influential Anglicans have expressed their general sympathy with him, though they probably stop a good way short of his conclusions. But the Question Biblique of the Abb6 Houtin, with its calm, dispassionate statement of the critical position, the appre- ciation of M. Loisy which is contained in M. Desjardin's Catholique et Criticisms, the Basais Is Philosophic Beligieuse of Pere Laberthoniere, and the Dogme et Critique of M. Le Roy will probably be new to most English readers. They represent liberal opinion, lay as well as clerical, and in reckoning up the forces which are ranging themselves for the great conflict they must by no means be disregarded. Mr. Lilley gives us the results of a careful and sympathetic study. But the reader before he approaches those chapters which constitute Part I. of the volume (11, "11 Santo," and 12, "The Papal Commission and the Pentateuch," being excepted) should
Modernism: a Record
itman astd a Review. By A. Leslie Lffley. London: Biz IMMO P and Boas. Ess. net.] read chap. 8 of Part II., "The Church of England and the Church of France." Without this, the position is very likely to be unintelligible. It is hard for the average Englishman, trained to habits of independence, to understand the tenacity with which men like M. Loisy cling to their Communion. But it is a spectacle from which we have much to learn. We do not agree with all that Mr. Lilley says. We are inclined, for instance, to regard Disestablishment as a curse, while he regards it as a blessing. Its first effect, we are sure, would be to banish all his class from our ecclesiastical precincts ; it is only our Erastian system that makes it possible. But with most of what he says we are in hearty sympathy. A highly interesting sequence of speculations and reflections will be found in chaps. 5, 6, 9, and 10 of Part II. "The Unknown Pope" is the title of the first; the subjects of those that follow are "The First Encyclical of Pius X.," "The Syllabus of Theological Errors," and "The Encyclical Pascendi." Was there ever a stranger irony of fate than the actual issue of the hopes which were raised by the result of the Conclave of July, 1903?
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