[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."' Sta,—Surely your correspondent
in your issue of November 15th has done the Church of England very little service by his arguments against the declaration clause in the Enabling Bill. To enforce a declaration of membership of the Church as a necessary qualification for voting on a Parish Council would, he declares, drive people out of the Church altogether. The village churchwarden is so little an enthusiast that rather than openly declare himself a member of his Church he would leave it for the more accommodating Nonconformist bodies. Can a more terrible indictment of the utter and complete failure of a Church be imagined? Can one wonder any longer why so many are leaving the Church of England daily for the Catholic Church? In the Catholic Church we do at least know to what we belong; we can at least make a declaration that we are members of the Catholic Church, and such a declaration could be demanded of every member of it to-morrow without the slightest fear that one would refuse or one quit the Church —a Church that can at least point to her members and say definitely : " These are mine now and always." You express a fear that insistence on this declaration will narrow the English Church and make it no longer national. Could any fate more desirable befall the English Church? Surely a Church is the better if it counts but a hundred members who openly and enthusiastically profess their allegiance than one which has a hundred million followers who are followers in name only and care not one straw for its real ideals or doc- trines. The English Church has suffered too long from the weakness of indecision : the malady has gone beyond cure. The Catholic Church still retains all the vitality of discipline. The declaration in the Enabling Bill would be at least one step towards the cure of the English Church, and yet its supporters dare not face the risk of applying a little discipline for fear of losing the nominal membership of a few lukewarm indi- viduals whose very profession of membership brings nothing but scorn on the Church they call their national institution. Can it be wondered at if the Catholic Church is once more counting its members in England in ever-increasing numbers?
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