WHAT IS THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND ?
[To TER EDITOR Or THP "SPZCIATOE.") SIli,—It is much to be wished that the Archbishop of York should answer your challenge or confess that it is unanswerable. Canon Beeching has declared that the congregation should have a voice as well as the Bishop in the ordering of the public services of the Church, but when called on to define the word " congregation " he makes no reply. The fact is, no authoritative answer is forthcoming. The best definition of the Church is that given in the Communion Service, "The blessed company of faithful people," but its very completeness rests on the absence of any clear-cut definition. Those who from Sunday to Sunday declare their belief in the Holy Catholic Church may be allowed the mental reservation that they mean by these words the body of the faithful wherever they may be, and not that visible Church which, if history belies it not, has proved itself neither holy nor catholic. St. Paul, as your pages so well describe him, was no definer of theological doctrine carefully reasoned and con- sistent, but one possessed by the Spirit, and pouring out the inmost thoughts of his heart in language so strong as to be often incoherent. He is fully alive to the danger of speaking with a tongue as compared with language of more sober import. Yet how often have the words of him who said "The letter killeth " been used as symbols of discord and
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