DIVIDED REVISIONISTS. * IT is much to be wished that the

debates of the National Assembly on Revision should be opened by the reading of the Preface to the Prayer-book. This Preface is directed against the Puritans of the Restoration period ; but the distinction which it draws between is restless and self-assertive minority, " men of factious, peevish and perverse spirits," and the contented bulk of the nation, " sober, peaceable and truly conscientious sons of the Church of England," is as much to the point now as it was in 1661. The Bishop of Gloucester, a judicious observer, tells us that " the vast majority of Churchmen would much prefer that there should be no Revision and no change at all." This, one would have thought, would have been decisive. So far, however, from this being the case, two of the three Houses of the National Assembly have pronounced in favour of the proposed reforms

in their most objectionable shape—i.e., as affecting the

Communion Service, by majorities respectively of 189 to 48, and 180 to 94. The House of Bishops remains ; but, as a distinguished man, now himself a Bishop, reminds us, Bishops can be " squeezed " ; and this is equally true of the Par- liamentary Committee, to which the measure, if passed by

the Assembly, will. be referred. The result is that we find ourselves within measurable distance of revolutionary changes in the National Church to which nine-tenths of the nation are opposed.

The central issue is that of the Communion Service ; and attention should be drawn to Mr. Ecles's book on account of the light thrown by it on the acute dissensions with regard to its proposed revision which prevail in the revisionist camp.

We are faced by at least five Alternative Uses, and the divisions. between their several supporters arc wide and deep. Mr. Ecles himself seems to be what may be called a " Sarum " Catholic—i.e., he desires a revision of the Liturgy on the lines of the Pre-Reformation " Salisbury use." His invective, however, is directed against neither. Evangelicals nor Broad Churchmen, but against " the increasing section of Anglo- Catholics, fast becoming dominant, who have substituted an appeal to Rome for the appeal to the Church Universal."

His insistence on minutiae of ecclesiastical tailoring and brie-à-brae is irritating and indeed ridiculous. But it would be a mistake to see only the follies of the movement criticized.

His judgment of' its tendencies is substantially correct, and it is difficult to dissent from his conclusion that :-

"Those Anglicans who feel the attraction of the Roman theory so strongly ought to submit to Roman authority on essentials, even at the cost of certain difficulties. If they did so, it would probably be better fsir themselves, better for the Anglican Church and better for the Church of Rome."

" We do not rate too seriously the kind of young person, whether in orders or not, who refers to a married priest as one who ' keeps a woman,' or who speaks of the Eastern (7hurch as the Oriental schismatics,' or who teaches the doctrine of indulgences, or tells people not to reedy:: communion from the chalice. But . . . the extremists would not exist were there not (Ahern who are wiser, but whose theological outlook is Wrenn at t 1, in. We believe this attitude, coupled as it often in by a peculiar flippancy about serious things, is largely due to the unconscious fear of having to face intellectually what may prove to be an untenable position. . . . The old ideal of sound learning and theological scholarship is indeed giving place to mere professional efficiency ' along certain very narrow lines. This comes out in the literature read, produced and recommended. The old Anglo-Catholic priest generally knew acme theology first-hand, and could mid sonic Greek and Latin, even if he read rather narrowly. his modern successor seems to rely on endless little books such as are sold for a few pence to the laity at 'the doors of churches."

, • Preigg Rook, Revision and Christian Regnion. Sr Francis C. Kele& Camuriaze : at the Univenitty l'ress. I3s. 644

Is it possible to revise the Prayer-book on lines which will commend themselves to such persons ? Is it desirable to attempt to do so, with the certainty of still further emptying our churches, and forfeiting the confidence of the nation as a whole ? The translators of the Bible dealt faithfully with the " self-conceited brethren, who run their own ways, and give liking unto nothing but what is framed by themselves and hammered on their anvil." Would they have been more tolerant of our present malcontents, or of their rival uses— the Green Book, the Grey, the Yellow, that of 1549 and N. A. 84 ? The latter, Mr. Eeles damns with faint praise ; it is " on the whole good, especially when we consider its origin ; but it does not go far enough " ; the Book of 1549 " could not be adopted without revision " ; and this " would be, on the one hand, largely the work of Romanizers, and on the other the refuge of the ecclesiastical politician " ; and the Green Book, proposed by the English Church Union, excites his unqualified disapproval, as being " nauseating," " really outrageous," and—this is the most unkindest cut of all- " evidently for the consumption of ruri-decanal chapters." Should it come into use :-

" The net result will probably be to provide a service which can, and will be, carried out with Roman ceremonial so as to look exactly like the Roman rite. A few years, and the recitation will become all but inaudible, and then no one will know what rite is being used. The result some years later still can be foreseen—the Roman Missal."

It will probably be so : things look that way. The Papacy Is a fact ; the Use of Sarum, the Alcuin Society and Mr. Eeles

are theories. What chance has an obsolete liturgiology, an extinct Gallicanism,a doubtful and remote Eastern Orthodoxy —things which the world of to-day, rightly or wrongly, dis- misses as pedantries of antiquarianism—against " that august and fascinating superstition," the present and potent actuality of Rome ? Psychological causes account for this : to the intellectually unregenerate seeming certainty means more than truth.

It seems to some that, by a process of levelling up and down,

a concordat can be arrived at. The difference of principle, they believe, can be ignored, and the desired result obtained by legalizing certain liturgical and ceremonial practices now

illegal, and by modifying or abolishing the control of the Church by Parliament, Crown Patronage and the lay Court of Appeal. Let those who think this undeceive themselves. It was on these lines that the Irish policy of a series of British ministries from 1906 to 1920 was framed, with the results that we see. The Green Book, we are assured, though it represents

the minimum of the Anglo-Catholic demand, will be accepted by the party. How much are such assurances worth ? How

many of the Anglo-Catholics will accept it ? And, for how long ? Uniformity may become an obsession, and it is an

obsession to which officials are peculiarly prone. To tolerate irregularities may be the lesser of two evils : amnia nick:, mula, dissimulal, pauca =tip, is the wise superior's rule. If we hesitate to accept it, let us ask ourselves whether it is not forced upon us by our present circumstances, and whether any conceivable revision would free us from the necessity of the submission to them which we resent ? But to tolerate

is one thing ; to legalize is another. This is to go back upon the Reformation settlement ; and it is for the nation, not for what is called, in the narrower sense of the word, the Church, to decide whether this shall be done. ALFRED FAWKES.