THE MILES PLATTING CASE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."1
Sin,—With no wish uselessly to prolong this correspondence, • or quibble about trifles, may I say a few further words ? I must, I think, be expressing the feelings of many of the laity of the Church of England, when I say that her present position is painfully humiliating. Comparing her noble po- tentiality with—in spite of all the unseen leaven of her earnest, widespread work—her present almost comparative impotence, am I wrong, when I say that many have been quietly, but not unconcernedly, looking on at her intestine struggles the last few years, and caring very little intrinsically for the comparative trivialities which have caused so much disturbance, have yet seen in them the germs of a via viva, which, once set free, would renew her strength, and send the pulsations of a nobler life through her veins ?
Thus, with no feelings of intolerance, but great sympathy with both sides, and without desire to deepen any soreness of feeling, or alienation of spirit, from our common Church, I, and 'perhaps many fellow. Churchmen, see in the course Bishop Jack- son has followed, and Bishop Fraser has been blamed for not taking, a disappointment of our hopes that no patched peace would result—no hypodermic injection of Episcopal morphia be given, as it were—but that in greater earnestness, born of her greater need, the present difficulties and weakness of the Church would be bravely met, and resolutely overcome.
In this, I believe—not consciously with any bigotry or blind- ness of heart, but with devotion to the Church's ideal of the position she claims to occupy, but does not—may be found some of the approval which has been accorded to the Bishop of Man- chester's conduct, and some of the regret which has followed that of the Bishop of London.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Hanley, Staffordshire, January 14th. FREDERICK HAIGH.
IMr. Haigh appears to be very mach in earnest, but not a little mysterious or obscure.—En. Spectator.]
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