"

1861, at the price of sixpence, but which now appears at the more modest figure of a penny. The object of the paper, as originally announced, was not to supply news, but "to provide those who have neither the time nor the means for a search into original sources with a repertory of arguments, ready for use, in defence of the Catholic Faith as the English Church has received it from the beginning." Party spirit was earnestly and even eagerly disavowed, and a sort of undertaking was given that information and opinion would be obtained from all sources, whether "Roman, Greek, or Lutheran." Above all things, the reader was assured that "this is no commercial speculation. . . . The gain which is set forth as the one aim and end of the undertaking is the vindication of the Faith as it was once delivered to the saints."" At the outset the paper was in many respects an imitation of the Saturday Review," while it had a sort of quasi-official character as the organ of the English Church Union. Whilst the original form was maintained the character of the paper stood deservedly very high amongst those which represent the Anglican body. Its articles were scholarly and well written, and the reviews of new books were done with very considerable ability. Since it has been converted into a penny weekly paper it has, however, fallen off somewhat seriously. Its politics remain what they were Conservative, but not violently so-and in religious matters its tone is distinctly less truculent than the excitable "Church Times." There is also a most commendable absence from its pages of those rancorous diatribes with which the readers of the latter organ are but too familiar. Even here, however, illustrations may occasionally be found of the hatred and distrust with which the Ritualistic party regard their Bishops. For instance, it would seem that the Bishop of Rochester has thought fit to make some alterations in the arrangements for the services in a church in his diocese. Even on the most pronounced of Anglican theories, it might be thought that in so doing Dr. Thorold was strictly within his right, but according to the "Church Review," his nominee is engaged in the "work of destruction of the souls of the late congregation and the fabric of the Church." Better things than this might have been expected from a paper which is not, like the "Church Times," the organ of that most anomalous political party, the "High Church Radicals."

The "English Churchman" is a is a highly respectable paper, published at the comparatively high price of threepence, and representing the Anglican party commonly known as the "high and dry." Its leading articles can hardly be described as brilliant,

*Church Review," March 4, 1881.

but there is a fine old-fashioned "port-winey" flavour about them -if such an expression may be allowed-which is by no means disagreeable. The writers are perfectly satisfied with their position as representatives of the via media school. They have no great sympathy with the Ritualists-in fact they distrust them and their works-but at the same they have an almost equal distaste for the Low Church clergy, and a hatred for Protestant dissenters of every type. Thus, in the number for the 3rd of February last, we find an article on "The Situation," suggested by a letter from Dr. Pusey which had just appeared in the "Times." The concluding sentences define the position of the paper with so much clearness that it is impossible to do better than quote them. After pointing out the difficulties arising from the deficiencies of the Low Church party, and the excesses of the Ritualists, the article calls upon the Anglican bishops "to express elear (sic) and without circumlocution, the plain requirements of the Prayer Book . . . . which at any rate would secure the support of the great mass of the faithful clergy and laity." The article ends with the following sentences:

At present a church closed from Sunday to Sunday, or opened for one half-hearted and dismal service, is not only an anachronism, but a breach of Church order and an insult to common sense; while it is equally manifest that a function such as that at St. Alban's, Holborn, is only possible by a non-natural interpretation of the Prayer Book, and by reading back into the Communion office a great deal which, whether wisely or not, was, on well-authenticated occasions, deliberately omitted from it-to say nothing of the insertion of other matters which never found a place in it. Here, we believe, lies the hope of a pacific settlement; not in giving way to either school of extremists, but in levelling up and levelling down until we reach a little nearer to the golden mean which is the Church's praise and glory.

If so eminently respectable an organ of a religious party can have an object of hatred, it must be found in the Protestant dissenter, for whom it would seem that the "English Churchman" entertains feelings very much akin to those with which the typical fine lady of half a century ago regarded a spider or a toad. Unfortunately, the paper, for some reason best known to itself, entertains a similar distaste for the Catholic Church, which it expresses in a manner sometimes gratuitously offensive. In the number already quoted is a paragraph on the Hospital Sunday Fund, which is about as unfair and unjust as anything can be. The opening sentence refers to "the interested and successful efforts of the English Nonconformists, secretly supported. . . . by our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, to prevent the introduction of any questions as to religious belief in the approaching census," and the paragraph then goes on to make sneering reference to the fact

that of the £28,000 received at the Mansion House, "only £500 (came) from the Roman Catholics, £2,000 from the Independents, and £1,100 from the Baptists." The reference to the Protestant sects may be left out of the question. At the same time the writer must have known that such a coalition as that which he suggests is impossible; that Catholics have infinitely more to gain than to lose from the diffusion of the truth on these subjects; and, finally, that the collections on Hospital Sunday in London afford no test whatever of the amount of charity bestowed by Catholics on the poor and the suffering.

Unhappily the "English Churchman" appears to delight in ostentatious displays of its Protestant character, which are by no means invariably in the best taste. What can educated and intelligent Englishmen think of such passages as those which we are about to quote, save that, in spite of all the talk of the last few years about the "Catholic" character of the English Establishment, it is still as Protestant as ever, and that the spirit which prevailed in the days of Henry VIII. is, in religious matters, the spirit which prevails to-day? Speaking of the reply of the Catholic archbishops and bishops to Mr. Parnell, the "English Churchman" says:*

the Irish Roman Catholic Hierarchy, as regards the land agitation, have made up their minds, and they and their flocks will support Mr. Parnell. They may not altogether like him as their leader, but he is in position-therefore the man for the time; and, though nominally a Protestant, he has some special advantages and claims to support. O'Connell was educated by the Jesuits, and altogether a supporter of the Roman Catholic Church far more agreeable to the priests than Mr. Parnell; but O'Connell is not in the field, and they must take what they can get. They are on the whole very well served. The priests and Mr. Parnell are agreed, and it will not be by their consent should order and industry be restored to Ireland.

We turn the page and find a letter copied from that influential organ of public opinion, the "Maidstone and Kentish Journal," on "The Old Catholic Cause in Germany," with which it is needless to say the "English Churchman" is in full sympathy. The style, taste and character of this production may be estimated from a single sentence. "Can any patriotic Englishman, German, or Switzer, consent to accept the re-union of Christendom on the terms of taking his orders from and kissing the toe of an Italian" The succeeding number of the same journal contains an article on the "Church and Popular Culture," àpropos of a speech of Bishop Magee of Peterborough, which

affords a fair example of the knowledge which the writers in this paper bring to the discussion of matters in which Catholics are concerned. After speaking of the appearance of Monsignor Capel on the platform, the writer goes on to say that "the ordinary Roman priest in this country, trained, it may be, in a foreign seminary, seldom exercises any influence over his flock apart from that of which he is the centre in his purely spiritual capacity."* Of the taste of the conductors of the paper an opinion may be formed from the fact that the number in which the above sapient sentence appears contains an article quoted from the "Record," devoted to violent abuse of the members of the Society of Jesus, on the occasion of their establishing themselves in the Channel Islands after their expulsion from France by the Republican

Government.

Of the remaining journals published in the interest of the Anglican Church but little need be said. They are not, perhaps, remarkable for brilliancy or for special ability, but they are not absolutely offensive, and as a rule are marked by a more reverent and charitable spirit than the polemical organs to which reference has just been made. The "Literary Churchman," which appears every alternate Friday, contains articles on the religious questions of the day, which are treated from a stand-point of moderate High Churchmanship, but its main reliance is upon its reviews, which as a rule are full, scholarly and accurate. The subjects treated, it is perhaps hardly necessary to say, are usually those connected with religion and education. The "National Church" is the organ of the Church Defence Association, and is published monthly. Its raison d'étre is the defence of the Establishment qua Establishment against the attacks of those Protestant dissenters who so continually clamour against its pretensions to speak in the name of the nation and to enjoy the endowments which have been placed at its disposal. "Church Bells" is a harmless and well-intentioned little weekly paper of no very marked character, but in many respects more resembling a carefully written tract than anything else a remark which may be fairly applied to the one paper remaining on the list, the little weekly miscellany called "Hand and Heart," with which the list of Anglican papers, properly so called, closes.

The organs of Protestant dissent-or rather perhaps of political dissent-which come next upon the list, belong to a very different category from those which have just been under consideration. In some of them, at all events, there is very little even of the pretence of religion, and most of them are distinguished by a bitter and intolerant spirit. Of these organs the typical repre

sentative is unquestionably the "Nonconformist," a paper started in 1841 as the organ of those dissenters who "conscientiously " refused to pay Church Rates. Its founder and first editor was the late Mr. Edward Miall, a gentleman who started in life as a dissenting preacher of the Independent-or, as they now prefer to call themselves, "Congregationalist"sect at the thriving town of Ware in Hertfordshire. In 1841, Mr. Miall, being then in his thirty-second year, abandoned the Congregational ministry, though he continued occasionally to preach in various dissenting chapels until about the year 1852, when he was returned to the House of Commons as member for Rochdale. At the general election of 1857 he was unseated, but when Mr. Gladstone appealed to the country in 1868, he again succeeded in obtaining a seat-this time for Bradford-which he retained until the dissolution in 1874. During the whole of this period he edited the "Nonconformist," and his labours in connection with that journal were so cordially appreciated, that that when it was evident that the fall of Mr. Gladstone's first administration was merely a question of weeks, his admirers raised a sum of no less than 10,000 guineas, which was presented to him at a luncheon at the Crystal Palace on the 18th of July, 1873. It will thus be evident that the paper with which Mr. Miall's name is associated is a representative one in no common degree, and that it may fairly be taken to speak the mind of that middle class, which according to some fervid orators is the backbone of the nation, and from which the great body of English Dissenters are drawn.

It is hardly necessary to say that the "Nonconformist" is something more than liberal in politics. Mr. Miall was described as "in favour of Manhood Suffrage," and as "utterly opposed to the principle of religious endowments"-though we believe neither he nor his admirers have at any time shown the slightest disposition to surrender the small properties with which the piety of their ancestors has endowed themselves. His opening address laid down the principles of dissent with sufficient clearness. Up to the period when the "Nonconformist" started on its career, dissenters had, he told them, "fought for themselves, rather than for the truth." The time had therefore come when they must "abandon the ground of expediency, and resolutely take up that of principle" -when they must "aim not so much to right themselves, as to right Christianity." When one considers ex quonam ligno the average British dissenter is cut, it must be owned that there is something exquisitely ludicrous in the notion of the Christian faith needing to be "righted" by the exertions of the ministers, deacons, and congregations of Salem, and Zion, and Little Bethel. The next line, however, lets the world into the secret. "The union of Church and State is the real evil