The Church Congress opened on Tuesday at Great Yarmouth. Preaching
at the parish church, the Archbishop of Canterbury dealt with the temptations which came from the modern spirit. The old persecuting days were past, and the danger was rather lest tolerance should set up a standard of its own and establish what had been called "an orthodoxy of latitudinarianism which may not be spoken against." On the other hand, we must not be less sternly on our guard against too readily appropriating the banner of Christ and invoking its sanctions on behalf of every honest opinion which we might any of us form in matters of Christian faith or Christian usage. This danger was greatest when we reached or crossed the border of the realm of conscience. " Occasions must arise in the life of every country and every faith when the individual citizen must judge and act for himself at the sole bidding of his conscience, inspired and directed by his God. But it was just because of the grandeur of our privilege. —the privilege of claiming His leadership for life and word—. that we were in perilous plight if we invoked that divine sanction and claimed the banner of that holy name for some- thing less, something lower, something which was, even at its best, more narrowly partisan than what He had ever promised to bless or guide." The sermon was impressive, but the Archbishop's abstinence from giving specific instances of this partisanship rendered his warnings somewhat vague.
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