My uncle loved to talk of Arthur Hallam, and other friends of his youth, but he never descended to any trivial details concerning them, and he used to say:

"I cannot imagine why people should be so curious about all the petty incidents of my life. I never cared to know about the great men's lives, which never interested me in the least. Mrs. Langton showed me a glass from which she said drink lemonade, stirring it with fingers which were, I am too clean,' I thought she had much better have omitted such details."

daily minutiæ of I remember when Johnson used to sorry to say, not

There was one incident in his life that Tennyson knew had often. been misunderstood, and he most solemnly laid upon me the charge that I who, he said, could best undertake the task, should let all the world know "how great a sacrifice" (these were his very words, uttered in a tone of intense earnestness) he had practised in yielding to Mr. Gladstone's pressing entreaties that he should take the peerage.

Tennyson was by no means blind to the darker side of Nature. "She will never teach men morality," he would say, "and her ravening tooth is a cruel one. Indeed, it was the observed cruelty of Nature that gave rise to the cult of the Khonds, with their human sacrifices."

"You could not learn to know the higher attributes of God from Nature," he continued, 66 even with the aid of science. In fact, when I think how much more important the world must have seemed when men believed it the centre of the universe, I am sometimes half-disposed to regret the discoveries of astronomy, because they have in no wise exalted men's conception of God's power, since they had already conceived of Him as Almighty, and all is comprehended in that term. But how amazing astronomy is. I am overwhelmed with awe when I think that in a space of the heavens that looks smaller than the palm of my hand, there are 60,000 suns; yet, did you ever reflect on the not less wonderful fact that the whole starry heavens are retained on your retina?

He looked upon astronomy and geology as the greatest of the sciences, and was never weary of dwelling upon the marvels they unfold:

"When I think," he used to say, "of the immensity of the universe, I am filled with the sense of my own utter insignificance, and am ready to exclaim with David: 'What is man that Thou art mindful of him!' The freedom of the human will and the starry heavens are the two greatest marvels that come under our observation, and when I think of all the mighty worlds around us, to which ours is but a speck, I feel what poor little worms we are, and ask myself, What is greatness? I do not like such a word as design to be applied to the Creator of all these worlds, it makes Him seem a mere artificer. A certain amount of anthropomorphism must, however, necessarily enter into our conception of God, because, though there may be infinitely higher beings than ourselves in the worlds beyond ours, yet to our conception man is the highest form of being.

"Matter, time, and space are all illusions, but above and beyond them all

is God, who is no illusion. Time has no absolute existence, and we can as little conceive of space being finite as of its being infinite. We can really understand the existence of spirit much better than that of matter, which is to me far more incomprehensible than spirit. We see nothing as it really is, not even our fellow-creatures; and perhaps when we see each other as we really are, we shall no more know each other than dogs do their masters in the path or on the snow."

My uncle always seemed to like best to talk about spiritual matters, and no clergyman was ever a more earnest student of the Bible, or a more impressive reader thereof. It used to be a treat to me to hear him recite one of his new poems, in that grand, sonorous voice of his, but it was a still greater delight to listen to his reading of a chapter of Isaiah, for then, so thoroughly did he send his whole soul forth with his words, that one was reminded of Bunsen's remark on F. D. Maurice's reading of the Church Service, "Such reading is in itself a sermon." He could not find words strong enough to express his love of and reverence for the sacred volume, and when his picture of old age, in the "Ancient Sage," was said to be like that by Solomon in Ecclesiastes, "I only wish it were," he replied, "I never could equal that description."

Yet surely that sublime poem is well worthy to have been written by the author of Ecclesiastes, and it must be studied attentively by all who desire to enter into the mind of Tennyson, for, from what he used to tell me when thinking it into being, I can testify that the "Ancient Sage" sets forth his own views more fully than any of his other poems. How like a clarion his voice rang forth in these lines,

which are a very gospel of hopefulness:

"Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt

And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith!

She reels not in the storm of warring words,
She brightens at the clash of 'Yes' and 'No,'

She sees the Best that glimmers thro' the Worst,
She feels the Sun is hid but for a night,

She spies the summer thro' the winter bud,

She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls,

She hears the lark within the songless egg,

She finds the fountain where they wailed Mirage.'

I asked my uncle whether he agreed with Bacon's dictum that Pilate's question, "What is truth?" was put jestingly:

No," he unhesitatingly answered, "it was in no spirit of jesting he uttered those words. They may have been accompanied with a shrug of the shoulder, and spoken in a cynical tone, but I rather believe they were wrung from the depths of a heart that had learnt that there was no truth in the religious systems then in vogue, and knew not where to seek it. Alas! that we should hear this cry repeated in our own age, and that men should fail to find their soul's craving for truth satisfied by Christianity. The great spread of Agnosticism and unbelief of all kinds seems to me to show that there is an evil time close at hand. Sometimes I feel as if it would not surprise me to see all things perish. I firmly believe that if God

E

were to withdraw Himself from the world around us, and from within us, for but one instant, every atom of creation, both animate and inanimate, would come utterly to naught, for in Him alone do all beings and things exist. He can and does answer every earnest prayer, as I know from my own experience. says there is something higher than God. If there be, then it must be God. Whatever is the highest of all must be the Deity, call it by what name you will. Wherever life is, there God is, specially in the life of man. We are all sons of God, but One alone is worthy to be called the Son of Man, the representative of the whole of humanity. That to my mind is the diviner title of the two, for none dare apply to himself this title save Christ, who is the representative of the whole human race.

“I believe that beside our material body we possess an immaterial body, something like what the ancient Egyptians called the Ka. I do not care to make distinctions between the soul and the spirit, as men did in days of old, though perhaps the spirit is the best word to use of our higher nature, that nature which I believe in Christ to have been truly divine, the very presence of the Father, the one only God, dwelling in the perfect man. Though nothing is such a distress of soul to me as to have this divinity of Christ assailed, yet I feel we must never lose sight of the unity of the Godhead, the three persons of the Trinity being like three candles giving together one light. I love that hymn, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,' and should like to write such a one.

"We shall have much to learn in a future world, and I think we shall all be children to begin with when we get to heaven, whatever our age when we die, and shall grow on there from childhood to the prime of life, at which we shall remain for ever. My idea of heaven is to be engaged in perpetual ministry to souls in this and other worlds."

AGNES GRACE WELD.

THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Πιστεύω μίαν καθολικὴν καὶ ἀποστολικὴν ἐκκλησίαν.
Credo unam Catholicam et Apostolicam ecclesiam.
I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church.

T

HESE are the noble, the inspiring words in which, at the celebration of the holy mysteries, Christian congregations, both of the East and of the West, Greek, Roman, and Anglican, profess their belief in the Church of the living God. It is a cheering thought that, notwithstanding all our divisions and all our controversies, the ancient creeds still form a basis of unity, and that in our most solemn acts of worship we can make the profession of our faith in identical words. Nor need we altogether exclude Protestant Nonconformists from this outward bond of union. For although, with the important exception of the Wesleyans, they profess to be bound by no creed, yet the authoritative standards of the older congregations for the most part recognise and adopt the doctrinal articles of the Church of England, which include the creeds.

And so long as we are speaking of the Godhead, there is no doubt that the majority of orthodox Christians make their confession in the same sense. There may be something in the phraseology that is archaic; but on the whole the Creed of Constantinople expresses what most Christians believe, in words which they would heartily accept. But when we come to the belief of one Catholic and Apostolic Church, the case is different. For the question at once confronts us, What is this Church which you profess to believe? What are its limitations, and what its essential characteristics? And to this question the different Churches will give widely different answers. The great Roman Church meets us at once with the answer: That, and that only, is the Catholic and Apostolic Church which is in communion with the Roman See, and which acknowledges the Roman Pontiff as its supreme ruler and as the Vicar of Christ. The Eastern Church, while denying the Papal supremacy, would limit the Church

Catholic to the Greek and Roman communions; for the Oriental recognition of Anglicanism, of which much has been made of late years, is at the utmost of a reserved and distant character. But what concerns us practically is the question, What precise meaning do we of the Anglican communion attach to the words of the Creed: I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church? The Roman definition is clear and distinct; the Greek, though differing from the Roman on the one point of the Papal supremacy, yet assigns to the term Catholic and Apostolic Church a perfectly consistent meaning. Can we say as much of the Anglican ?

There is, it is true, a definition of the Church which would be accepted by a large and perhaps an increasing section of the English clergy as adequate and theologically accurate, and which certainly has the merit of being simple and intelligible: "I believe that Jesus Christ, before He ascended into Heaven, when He spoke to His disciples the things concerning the kingdom of Heaven, revealed to them His will to found a society, consisting of those who in all ages should believe and be baptised, which should be united in the possession of the threefold ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons, and in the two sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, and in the belief in all that God should reveal by the Holy Spirit that should be given after His ascension." This seems to express fairly and adequately the belief which is probably held by a majority of the clergy and a minority of the laity of the Church of England in the present day. Put in the form of a definition, it would assume somewhat of the following form: The Catholic Church is a society of persons, baptised on condition of repentance, faith, and obedience, and governed by bishops, priests, and deacons, deriving their orders by legitimate succession from the Apostles. I propose in the first place to discuss the question-Is this definition adequate and tenable?

It may be observed at starting that, until the publication of the "Tracts for the Times," the theory of Apostolic Succession (to express it by a convenient formula) was by no means generally accepted, or even generally known, by the clergy of the Church of England. Cardinal Newman's humorous story of an Anglican bishop, who, on reading an exposition of this theory in the "Tracts for the Times," could not make up his mind whether he held it or not, expresses very fairly the position of most of the clergy at that time. Of one thing they were clear-the Church of England was in the right and the Dissenters were in the wrong; but if they had been pressed for a reason for this belief they would probably have betrayed the fact that they had never thought much about the matter. The position of the Royal Arms over the chancel arch in most of our churches sixty years ago was in fact an outward and visible sign of the position of the Church of England in the minds of most of its adherents. It was