time who made the most enthusiastic affirmations seemed to gain the day. It is always so. But the facts of history are like gems: they live on and, sooner or later, by some one are discovered. The one man of the last century who knew thoroughly every inch of English history was Professor Edward A. Freeman. On this matter, he says: "The facts of history compel us to assume the absolute identity of the Church of England after the Reformation with the Church of England before the Reformation. . . . There was no moment when the nation or its rulers made up their minds that it would be a good thing to set up an established Church any more than there was a moment when they made up their minds that it would be a good thing to set up a government by kings, lords, and commons. . . . They were neither pulling down nor setting up, but simply putting things to rights." That was the constant appeal and effort of the English Reformers: back to the Church of the Christ, the Apostles, and the Catholic period. Henry-let the truth be said-was a brute and a liar from the top of his head clear down to the ground. Once started to have his own way, he gave the English clergy and people the long-cherished opportunity to break forever with the Bishop on the Tiber. And they improved it to the very best of their ability.1

The two convocations of the kingdom-Canterbury and

1The Providence Journal (R. I.) occupies the very highest rank for accuracy and sobriety in American journalism. Its following comment on the matter under discussion is that the assumed spiritual dictation of Rome was never "borne patiently by the English people, whose church organization was established long before Rome took the trouble to interfere with it; and several English kings had quarreled before Henry's time with the Holy See. What the English Reformers wanted, and what they accomplished under Elizabeth, was reform within the Church. It was on the continent that Protestantism without the Church built up a new ecclesiastical organization." With the introduction of these continental nations into England, separation began, and has been going on ever since.

VOL. LIX. No. 236. 3

York-acted very soon. Canterbury took definite and decisive action March 31, 1534; York, June 1. The corporations of Cambridge and Oxford stood in line, and the ecclesiastical dictation of the Pope by legate was a thing of the past. Of course His Holiness was furious, but Henry was just the sort of man not to be afraid of any such fulminations. After matters were pretty well settled, Henry urged that he was to be the spiritual dictator of the realm, "next under God." To this, convocations refused to give any countenance, whatsoever. The Parliament acted accordingly. What he wanted was one thing: what the clergy and people of the realm were willing to grant was another and very different thing. Their united "No," Henry was wise enough, for once, to hear and heed in that he hesitated a good deal over the next step. Then with characteristic Tudor persistence, he said he would be such in so far as was "allowable by the law of Christ." The convocations, desiring to avoid trouble, consented under solemn protest. Under Elizabeth, this was finally righted. The judgment of Matthew Arnold on the matter under discussion certainly cannot be suspicioned of bias. He says the English Church purified herself, and "kept enough of the past to preserve, so far as this nation is concerned, her continuity, to be still the historic Church of England."

But Puritan and Romanist would not let go, and so the Nag's Head fable was invented by the latter, and used by the former, to discredit the consecration of Bishop Parker, December 17, 1559, in the strong hope of demolishing Apostolic continuity of orders. Professor Goldwin Smith, in his "Political History of the United Kingdom" (England), says: "The story of the consecration at the Nag's Head without the requisite forms (Bishops) is an exploded fiction." From the Mother Church in the old home, her daughter in America, shortly after the close of the Revolutionary war, received the principle of historical continuity.

Nothing has been said on the liturgy of the Church. The point in mind will be best presented by an imaginary incident. Suppose at morning prayer, on Sunday, before the reading of the sentences, St. John should be seen in the congregation, and should be invited to conduct the service. He could do it, because the fundamental lines of the office were marked out by him and St. Paul while he was over the Church at Ephesus. The facts of the Church's past in some matters have lain covered with dust in some cloisters of old cathedrals, when, lo, they tell unexpected things.

The position of American Churchmen on the matter of Organic Christian Unity is this:—

I. The Christ founded and organized his Church. 2. This divine organization has come to us, preserved and intact, through British and English channels.

3. It is adapted to all possible needs and emergencies. For the solution, for example, of the problem of "the federation of the churches," the Church furnishes the satisfactory and final answer in the authority of her local Bishop, as this is clearly defined in the Apostolic canons.

4. Because of these facts, the office and functions of the Christian ministry constitute a sacred trust from the Christ. This trust is not a matter of opinion, and in the very nature of things can be bestowed by those having received it.

A final word. The last time the Prayer-book was bound, the Thirty-nine Articles were put in the back part. The Creed retained its ancient place. The next time, the Articles will be put on the outside-left out-while the people, by repeating the Creed at morning and evening prayers, will keep the facts of Salvation ever fresh on their lips and alive in their hearts. In the few bits of direct personal biography of the twelve which have come to us, there are distinct traces of different interpretations of the Christ. Our Divine Lord never sought to change this. To have

done so would have involved giving to one and all the same intellectual perception, the same moral appreciation, and the same power of logical reasoning. What he did do was to vitalize in their souls the fact of his Incarnation, and all the present and future facts of human life it emphasized and anchored to itself. The Church to-day is concerned that her Bishops and teachers shall honestly and cordially accept the facts of Salvation as found in the Sacred Scriptures, and as epitomized in the Apostles' Creed. Of laymen, neither more nor less is expected. In her fold are found, at peace, many varieties of theological opinion. She gives to those who serve at her altars, as the Christ gave to the twelve, liberty to think and reason. As they thus increase in the knowledge of God, there need be no latent fear of being overtaken by some theological amazement. It is out of the facts of Salvation that spiritual strength and refreshment come. Organized theories are like transient clouds of shore-sand, swept seaward by some spiteful wind. They obscure one moment, and the next are at the bottom of the deep. The facts of the Christian faith, as they have organized themselves in human life for its spiritual betterment, abide: storms of criticism only remove from them the deposits of speculations. The formula of their manifested power is the ancient ground of assurance: "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen."

ARTICLE III.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION: THEIR RELATIONS AND RESULTS.

BY THE REVEREND JAMES LINDSAY, D.D.

THERE are few more hopeful signs in the thought of recent times than the drawing-together of philosophy and her elder sister, religion. Asperities have been softened, antagonisms removed. They have had their harmonies of aim and result, while retaining divergence of process and method. Philosophy has ennobled the spirit of religion; religion has reënforced the strength of philosophy. Each has been seen to be necessary to the other; each has at times tried to absorb the other. Philosophy has no deeper problems than that craving for absolute values in the sphere of truth, and that demand for ultimate spirituality, which religion carries with it. For the philosopher, no less than for the religionist, the fundamental reality of the universe can only be spirit: its highest energy can be no other than that of spirit. Philosophy finds God to be the prius of the universe-its Ultimate Ground and the Fundamental Reality. But it knows him, not only as he reveals himself in the universe, but also as he reveals himself to the religious consciousness. The Absolute Being

can be no less than personal spirit: the personal and selfconscious alone can love. For philosophy and religion alike, the acme of personality is in God; and, for both, personality is the highest blossoming of man's conscious spiritual life.

The presupposition of any religious grounding on the inner side of religion clearly lies in the spiritual nature,