ANGLICANISM AND NONCONFORMITY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 39, 22 January 1897, Page 19

ANGLICANISM AND NONCONFORMITY.

(By Professor St. George Mivart.)

Now that the Holy Father's Bull — so clear, so simple, so full of common sense, and so admirable in all ways — has been published, the silence of respectful anticipation, which so many of us felt to be alone fitting, may, I venture to think, be broken. That any continuity, other than legal, exists between the English Church of good Queen Mary and the Calvinistic political edifice of her miserable sister must appear a monstrous and absurd falsehood to any one who recalls what the Establishment was before the " forties." The Archbishop of York has, I am told, declared that the Anglican Church has ever taught the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Why, then, was I never taught such a doctrine by any single one of the many Anglican ministers whom 1 knew in my boyhood — at Clapham Grammar School, Harrow, or King's College or elsewhere t But if what tha very " High Church " contends for were true, a consequence would follow to which attention has not, so far as I know, yet been directed. The Established Church as a Protestant institution, witnessing against the Mass, transubstantiation, the cultus of the saints, etc., etc. (as being so many '"blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits"), we may regard with a cerLain respect as being honest, though mistaken. But what could we think of a Church which for three hundred years continuously held the Catholic belief as to these doctrines and practices (deeming them necessary for the spiritual health of her children), and yet should for the same three centuries not only have failed to teach them, but should have led almost the whole of her members to detest them as hateful in the sight of God I Surely no words can suffice to express what must be the blasphemy and wickedness of a body which thus continually outraged what it regarded as a most sacred trust imposed on it by Christ and His Apoatles. It must have been the most infamous and immoral institution that ever existed ! Fortunately, however, we know that such wickedness has never been committed. We have had in England various Protestant bodies, one of such forms of dissent being legally established, while, beside them all the Catholic Church has persisted — many of its members sacrificing their fortunes and their lives to maintain those truths which some Anglicans have now the amazing impudence to declare the Establishment has ever taught. In referring to the various Protestant communities existing in this country, I desire to add a few words with respect to " Nonconformity." It was with great delight I read that, at the late meeting of the Catholic Truth Society (whereat I note with gratification how Cardinal Vaughan ratified my recent argument about " Authority and Evolution ") the claims of the various non-establishci Protestant bodies on our sympathy and attention were variously and forcibly advocated. And I not only rejoice at the duty which has been thus laid upon us by the head of the English Church, but feel strongly persuaded that now is the very moment for action in the matter. The non-established Protestant bodies are. like the established one, each undergoing two contrary proce^e*. There is a strong current setting towards infidelity, and it seems certain that the religious decay which has now gone so tar in Protestant Germany (see an interesting article in the lirrur (lest Beu.r Mondesi entitled '• Allemagne Religieuse") will work great havoc here. But there is in each such English body a contrary current also. The Times of October 1 records how, at •• the Congregational Union of England and Wales," the Rev Dr. Barrett (Norwich), read a paper on ■• Congregational Worship." Therein he advocated certain upward changes, declaring that •' many people could not worship so spiritually in a rude and stern form as they could in a building and with surroundings which seemed to remind them more of the realities of the unseen world.'' The Rev. Dr. Berry (Wolverhampton) also urged that outward reverence was "an aid to spirituality in worship." These declarations were received with cheers, and yet they unconsciously enunciated a whole Catholic principle ! The present, then, is a time when, by addressing ourselves sympathetically to members of these bodies, we may arrest the decay of belief of some, and encourage the upward tendencies of others. But it is for this absolutely necessary for us to be thoroughly acquainted with the special views of the men we address. All of them hold some Catholic doctrines earnestly, and their mistake consists in thinking that other Catholic doctrines are contradictory, instead of complementary, to those they do hold. As a model for thus acting we may take that admirable Cardinal Archbishop of Bordeaux, Cheverus, who. at an earlier period of his life, was the first Bishop of Boston, in the United State*. Not only did he always try to approach these various Protestants sympathetically, but he succeeded so well in his endeavour that he was again and again invited by congregations belonging to different sects to preach for them in their own chapels. And he again and again did so, and in his discourses was careful to present to them that aspect of Catholicity which accorded best with their own special tenets. Whether such a proceeding is permissible here and now I know not, but if permissible, and had we a Cheverus amongst us, I doubt not that before long Catholic doctrine might be proclaimed even from the rostrum'of Spurgeon's Tabernacle.