Nothing seems to us more helpless and absurd than the
way in which British Churchmen write to the Times (for example, last Monday's Times) to complain of "the way in which auricular confession is being forced upon the people by the Romanieing section of the Anglican clergy," the only evidence for which is that some of the Romanising clergy distribute silly little tracts on the subject, in which the catechumens are asked : "Do we make our confessions humbly, kneeling at the feet of the priest in the attitude and in the frame of mind of a culprit before his judge ?" Well, what is to prevent any reasonable being who reads the tract putting it into the fire, and saying, No, we don't'? If a High Churchman were given a Calvinistic tract by his clergyman, in which he was asked leading questions intended to be answered in a Calvin- istic sense, that is what he would do with it ; and why cannot the Low Churchman who gets a ritualistic tract pressed upon him do the same ? It is impossible to " force " doctrine on any English Churchman or Churchwoman. A peculiar view may be expressed at any extreme of Church opinion, Latitudi- narian, Calvinistic, or Ritualist; but there is no more force put upon a Churchman to accept any such view than there is on a politician to be Tory, Whig, or Radical. Why does not some one write to the Times to complain that a tract has been thrust into his hand asking whether he regards the House of Lords, and the Bench of Bishops, and the Lord of the Manor, with sufficient humility, and declaring that Tory politics are " forced " upon him by his superiors P
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