LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE ALLEGED NONCONFORMIST DECLINE.
[TO TUE EDITOR OF TICE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Will you allow me to make a comment on your article of March 18th, headed "Some Causes of Nonconformist De- cline "? And indeed, as you are good enough to say that I know how to look before and after, you will, perhaps, credit me with some ability to look at the present as well.
The article in question is an example of what logicians call the "Fallacy of Many Questions." Should you not first show that Nonconformity is declining, before you proced to descant on the causes ?
You tell us that we are "distinctly unhappy." Far from it. I make bold to assert that we were never more hopeful, and never had more ground for hope, since the year 1659. You say that our augurs "do not smile when they meet." Possibly not. Cicero, you remember, said the augurs smiled at one another because they were mutually conscious of imposture. Am I to infer that the augurs of the Church of England do smile when they meet?
You say that the confidential talk of our responsible leaders is full of grave foreboding. As it would seem we have ad- mitted you to share our confidential talk, is it not rather mean of you to betray our confidences ? But, indeed, you evidently move in different Nonconformist circles from those which I know. I suppose you are chiefly acquainted with the Nonconformist Unionists. I dare say their talk is full of grave foreboding.
The fact is, the causes which you enumerate are not acting upon us unfavourably, but are a vitalising tonic to us. The Collectivism of modern thought, for example, is precisely in harmony with our Free Church life and principles I do not wonder that you suppose we are weakened by the loss of money, or by the collapse of the Liberator. The Church which you defend always attached a high value to the tempo- ralities. We never did, and we do not now. We follow One who said, "Blessed are ye poor." But your idea that the new Biblical Criticism injures us, suggests to my mind that you can hardly know anything about our convictions or our aspirations. We do not depend On the Puritan view of the Bible any more than the Church of England does according to her Articles. We have always depended on the personal presence of Our Lord, and the quickening operations and
guidance of His Spirit. And the New Criticism does not, and cannot, affect this, as you would know if you had read the book of mine from which you quote.
I rejoice as much as you do in the advance and the efficiency of the English Church. I love her, if I may say so, more than you do ; so much so, that if I were within her borders, I should abstain from writing articles in the spirit of the one I am criticising, with the knowledge that they only embitter and exasperate Christian men, and therefore injure the Church of England so far as she is a Christian Church.
As an old reader of the Spectator, I sincerely regret that you should adopt the tone of the Rev. G. S. Reaney, and people of that kind, who think that a cause is lost because they desert it, as, no doubt, they would not have deserted it unless they had thought it lost,—I am, Sir, &c., [We are very willing to accept Mr. Horton's testimony on the other side. But we should not have inserted the article, had it not come from a source which we believed to be as well informed as Mr. Horton's own authority on Nonconformist feelings and anticipations. We have no sort of wish to pre- judge the question.—En. Spectator.]
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