ECCLESIASTICAL OPTIMISM.
NO doubt much that is said on behalf of Church Congresses is both very true and important. Especially it cannot be denied for a moment that such assemblies are signs of life, and that it is not easy to conceive any widely-diffused life without them. In fact, no sect, nor even any body of like-thinking men who abjure sectarian organisation, exists without evincing from time to time this desire to discuss, in the same manner in which these various Church Congresses discuss, the teaching of the past, the signs of the times, and the policy of the future. And if any such passive sect or association did exist, we should say with some confidence that it was moribund. But freely admitting this as we do, we nstust add that we should think it a sign of truer life and of deeper life in Church gatherings of whatever sort or kind, if there wore not quite so much optimism in them as we usually find. The Archbishop of Canterbury, for instance, the other day,. at Croydon, was, as he himself admitted, thoroughly optimist in the tone of his remarks. The use of Church Con- gresses, he said, is fourfold. They prove the life in the Church. They suggest practical improvements in the working of the Church. They illustrate old truths, by casting on them new lights. And they are manifestations of that living voice of the Church; the expression of which so many long for in the present day. Further,—no enlightened member of the Church of England would willingly change Churches with any one, either past or present. "Look abroad. What other country would you change Churches with ? Look at home. Which of' the other denominations would you prefer to it ? Look back. What age. are you prepared to say it would have been more satisfactory to have lived in ?" Now really, all that does not come to anything. Ask any one at all if he would wish to cease to be himself, whatever that might moan—and of course, it has no real meaning—and become some one else, and, dissatisfied as he may be with his own condition, and however eager to improve it, he will surely shrink from the idea of giving up that which is at the root of all wishes, hie own self. And so it is very much with our separate religions. We may dislike excessively certain elements in our Church, and do all in our OW11 power to change them, but if we are really disposed to exchange it altogether for some other Church, it will follow that we are not really what we seem to be—that we are already converts, though Our convex., sion may not be known to the world. It does not therefore prove anything at all, to elicit from the members- of a particular ecclesiastical communion a unanimous assent to the suggestion that there is none other for which they would willingly changer it. If there were, they would be what used, to be called "on the go," which means that they would be the last persons to
attend a Congress of satisfied adherents. It doss not follow, of course, that a good Churchman might not in some respects prefer the condition of his own Church in some other age to its condition in this ; and probably a good many of the Puseyite clergy at Croydon would have hesitated before electing—had such electing been conceivable—not to live in what they probably think the purest age of the Church, the Church of the Apostolic Fathers. But as every- body knows that a preference of that hind is a mere freak. of the imagination, it is always pretty safe to suggest that people would not, if they could, go back to a former age of the Church, for common-sense men are at least never very anxious to contend that they would do, if they could, what they are well aware that they could not do, if they would. We do not think, then, that the Archbishop's optimism rests on any very solid foundation. It is a sort of optimism at least for which every member of every other denomination has pre- cisely the same foundation as members of the Church of Eng- land. And the same is true of the Archbishop's four reasons for approving Church Congresses. Every denomination in the world may well say in its anniversary meeting that that meet- ing is a sign of life ; that such meetings have often suggested practical improvements in the conduct of its ecclesiastical affairs ; that they help to shed new light on old truths ; and that they give some sort of vague expression to the living voices of the Church.
What we should like to see would be some clearer re-
cognition of the very strict limitations which must be assigned to the usefulness of Church Congresses, as of all other denominational meetings of the kind, because by the help of that clearer recognition, the aims of those Congresses would become at once humbler and more practical. It should be admitted, we think, that it is at least exceed- ingly difficult, though not quite impossible, to discuss in then' with any good effect either the gravest external or the gravest internal issues,—either the answer which the Church should give to destructive external doubt, or the adjust-, ment of the most vital differences existing between one section os t d eliea t could e also occupy
of the Church and another ; but it should be frankly admitted at thesame time that these, thouglif m the most useful issues with which Congresses
themselves. Now it seems to us that the optimist view of p gave expression, WO refer to, and therefore gravely these assemblies to which the Archbisho
directly conceals the difficulty
increases it. Look, for instence, at the difficulty of properly treating such a subject as occupied the first evening of the Congress,—" Christian Faith and Sceptical Culture, in their Relative Bearings on Practical Life." No one could have treated the subject -with more thoroughness and largeness of grasp than Professor Waco, but who does not feel that the thing demanded of him was a show-up of sceptical culture,' and that the atmosphere in which his paper had to be read was at least very unfavourable for the full exhibition of what culture alone, as distinguished from Christian faith, might be expected to do for practical life. Very few man would have escaped this danger as Professor Waco did. Of course a Christian, as such, must believe that culture without faith cannot do for practical life anything like as much as faith, even without culture, can do. But that being admitted, the temptation, in such a place as a Church Congress is very great indeed to go much beyond this, and positively run down culture; especially when it is marked, as it were, for condem- nation by the adjective 'sceptical' in the official title given to the discussion. Professor Waco was too wise and thoughtful to lot what was in some sense expected of him, as the name appropriated to the discussion showed, influence him in treating it, but we cannot help thinking that the audience would have been better prepared than they were for the paper, if the Archbishop, instead of insisting on all the good points of these Congresses, had in- sisted on their dangers, and especially on the great difficulty which such bodies must have in treating with proper respect and candour the completely unrepresented views of the foes whom they have to meet. If the Congress had been warned to beware of the great danger of misrepresenting the sceptical culture with which it had to deal, in the absence of any one to speak on its behalf, we do not say that Professor Wace's paper would have been better,—we are not sure that it could have been,—but we do believe that the Congress would have better appreciated the sincere and great effort he made to do full justice to a view the insufficiency of which he was anxious to demonstrate.
Again, we can hardly imagine a higher duty for such a Congress than a perfectly frank discussion between the two parties in the Church,—the Sacerdotal party and the Protest- ant party,—as to the really best way of acknowledging and confessing to the world their irreconcilable differences. But we can hardly imagine anything more difficult to achieve, or anything less like such a discussion, than the platitudes uttered on Wednesday in the discussion on "the best means of pro- moting united action and mutual toleration between different schools of thought in the Church." In this case there is none of the difficulty that there is in dealing with absent foes. There are plenty of clergymen, no doubt, to represent both views, and to show what support the Church compromise of the seven- teenth century gives to both views ; but the difficulty is for men differing so fundamentally at once to face boldly those really profound differences, and to treat the other side with perfect candour. Could this have been achieved, the Church Congress of Croydon might indeed have been a great event in eccle- siastical history. But it is perfectly clear that it was not done, that the real issue was glided over and evaded, and empty talk about mutual forbearance and toleration substi- tuted for the grave discussion needed. Indeed the optimistic tone of the Archbishop's opening address was meant rather to prevent so dangerous an experiment being attempted, than to prepare for its being achieved. Yet what might not result from a candid confession on the Protestant side—made with full personal respect for the zeal and energy and pure devotion of the Sacerdotalists—that in the Ordination Services and the Service for the Visitation of the Sick, the greatest countenance is deliberately lent to a view which to them seems both a false and dangerous view, from all responsibility for which they would gladly be relieved, if only they could see the best and the least contentious mode of gaining that relief ;—while on the Sacerdotal side it had been admitted with equal frankness that the Church, in her Articles of belief, had entirely omitted the foundation of the Sacerdotal view, and even in her Liturgy had obviously altered many things with the express intention of rendering the formularies of the Church acceptable to those who did not hold that view. With such admissions on both sides, it would have been possible to discuss gravely, and in the highest interests of morality and religion, whether it would be better for the Church to go on as at present, harassing to a consider- able extent the consciences of both parties, or to attempt a wider comprehension, providing a real alternative of liturgical forms, and so simplifying the articles of belief as not to commit either party to either branch of the alternative, or finally, to resolve on a peaceful dissolution of the now ill-assorted Union, as the best course in the interests of Christian truth, Christian truth- fulness, and Christian peace. Such a discussion, we say, would have been assuredly one of the most difficult to conduct pro- perly that can be conceived. But then, too, it would have been one of the highest conceivable utility, if it had been con- ducted properly. And certainly it never would have been conducted properly without the most open and deliberate recognition of the difficulty,—of the great interests at stake,—of the enormous importance of charity and candour on both sides,—and of the mischiefs which are growing up from the habit of ignoring these vital divergencies of tendency in a Church which has so long tried, for two centuries of growing divergence, to reconcile them. But the discussion of Wednesday was as empty of meaning as a dis- cussion could be,—was an attempt indeed to talk the difficulty away. The optimistic view of Church Congresses which it suited the prudent Archbishop to take, was clearly not the pre- lude to any such recognition of the chief dangers of Church Con- gresses as would have prepared men for a discussion of this I kind. And that is why we object to the Optimist tone. If Assemblies of this kind are to do any great good, it must be by grasping the nettle danger, not by evading it. And that is impossible, without getting a full recognition of all the temptations and risks of these Assemblies, and seeing how broad and easy is the path which leads only to comfortable self-satisfaction, how thorny and difficult that which leads to self-purification and the finding of an altogether higher road.
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