THE HIGH-CHURCH PARTY.
[TO THE EDITOR Or THZ SPECTATOR...)
SIR,—On February 27, you wrote :—" The belief in the trans- -mission of grace in a physical channel by laying-on of hands from the time of the Apostles certainly still lingers vaguely throughout .our Church, and is persistently defended by the extreme or Ritualist section."
Now, it seems to me, that if not an exclusive possession of a peculiar grace, an exclusive right to minister based on apostolical -succession, which practically comes to much the same, is distinc- tively maintained by a much larger body than you seem to think among the clergy. It is held, for instance, by the Guardian, by nearly all its correspondents, by the little paper called Church Bells, which represents the opinions of the "Anglican" clergy. I fear it is the whole High-Church party without exception which holds to this figment.
I would not trouble you with this, were it a mere correction, but perception of it seems to me to throw such a damper on your sanguine hopes for a reformed and comprehensive Church—I fully share your hopes, but not your sanguineness—that I cannot help drawing your attention to it. To me it seems that the Church 'cannot be saved, unless we get rid of the greater part of the
[We admit that a great section of the High-Church party believe in an "exclusive right to minister," grounded on the further belief in an appointed external order, like the order of the British Consti- tution, but without believing in the doctrine of an exclusive grace As underlying it. The difference is great as regards the depth of the prejudice, though not as regards the immediate external re- -suit. Lay pressure could overcome the one sort of opinion, but not the other.—En. Spectator.]
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