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THE STANDARD OF REVOLT. Sir,--The articles by Fr. Carey and the report of the sermon on Moses' relative by the Vicar of All Saints', Margaret-street, ought to make us all think. THey are calculated to drive home the lesson that such servants of God as Stanton and Dolling gave us continually--i.e., that we have, as a Church, lost the people of England as a whole and certainly the multitude, and that it is only on lines at once Gospel and Catholic that we can ever hope to rekindle the well-nigh vanished sense of worship and spiritual religion, as distinct from the sense of duty, which latter, thank God, has never been lost. I hear on all hands of the interest roused by Fr. Carey's call. It is a trumpet call and we ought to respond to it. We, i.e., our staff here, are among those home-staying clergy who have had much experience of soldiers stationed in this country since the war began. Our experience coincides with that of a great many other parochial clergy, and in all cases it is the same, i.e., that these new soldiers are the most charming of men, full of a sense of duty, intelligent, healthy-minded, friendly; but that as far as the vast majority of those calling themselves "Church of England" are concerned, the designation implies littler or nothing of conscious Christianity. In most cases "Church of England" with them is a phrase for a something that is not realized as anything that vitally matters, something that has no claim to be taken very seriously, that is neither loved nor hated, something that has never soaked into intelligence, conscience or will. Of natural virtues they have plenty, but these they might have, it pagans. It is not merely that they are inconsistent in their lives as followers of Christ, for that the vast majority of Christians always are and always have been, but that they have littler or no conscious touch of the Christian religion at all, and no idea of the joy and strength of the faith of the Incarnation. Some dull prohibitions about Sunday, a feeling that if you are religious you must not bet and ought to be a teetotaller, and a thoroughly superstitious conception of the Bible as a fetish-this is often all that British Protestantism has left to them as the essentials of Christianity. The Church of England has done little to remedy this as far as the people at large are concerned, and outside certain oases, her ladylike and cultivated way of hinting at "aspects" has not driven the nail home. Why, then, is our Church in her practical attitude towards the people so great a failure, and that in spite of so many genuine excellences? With the multitude she scarcely counts at all as a spiritual power. With the Public School element she is little better, when we get beneath the surface of a vague "manly Christianity." She does not grasp the nettle. She has little of the sting that bids not sit nor stand, but go. What is wrong with us? It is no use pointing to the "superstition" of other Churches. THe contented conventionality, till quite recently, of our Church, her self satisfaction while the poor are alienated, are far more antagonistic to Christ than superstition, which often, though not desirable, is yet comparatively innocent. In former years, when Father Dolling would pour out his heart to me or others to whom he could speak freely as to his immense disappointments, and his sense that the Church of England in her present state was an unworkable system, it might be thought at times that there was a quite pardonable and explicable exaggeration on his part. The experience of subsequent years, and the searchlight of this crisis, lead to a contrary conclusion, i.e., to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" of his criticisms. But is the truth of Fr. Dolling's criticisms realized, or are they still considered by Church dignitaries but as the wild and whirling words of an excellent but excitable Celt whose heart was better than his head? Unfortunately, Church dignitaries in all ages have a habit, often a quite subjectively honest one, of blaming as disturbers of Israel those who cannot help seeing things as they are. At any rate, let us say "Laus Deo" for Fr. Carey's raising the standard of revolt. The time has come for plain speaking and courageous action, and Fr. Carey will find that he will not have made in vain his appeal for truth and reality in the Church's life and methods. The fierce words of R. Hurrell Froude to Newman, "Let us have done with this non-sense about a national Church and let us have a real Church," represented something deeper than merely impatience and eltwill???. A desire for stern reality, even if the recognition of things as they actually are brings with it penitence and fear, must by the first requisite for the Church, as also for the nation, at this hour of trial. C. E. OSBORNE. The Rectory, Wallsend-onTyne. Feb. 8. --- Sir,-I write as one who cannot claim to belong to the "dignified clergy," but whose experience, perhaps, has been rather of the
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