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where does "greed of gold" come in? The British taxpayer, if he votes war, has to pay out, not to receive. The Boers are as little recognisable in the character of the American colonists of 1776 as "the pathetic figure of Franklin " pleading for right is recognisable in Dr. Leyds touring Europe on behalf of the régime of perquisites. If the parallel is just, then George III. or Lord North wrote the Declaration of Independence, for certainly it is the Boers who are taxing without representation. When you have said that war in South Africa would be a crime you have advanced the controversy little. It remains, in the given case, to fix the responsibility

and decide the criminal.

F. EDMUND GARRETT.

Member of the Legislative Assembly, Cape Colony.

1

NOTE.-Dutch and English Populations.

Mr. Bryden's figures (Fortnightly Review, August) were taken from the census of 1891, which gave the white population of South Africa as 634,775. It is now at least 820,000, an increase of 77,440 by immigration going to the English side. What Olive Schreiner's estimate is based upon (that the Dutch outnumber the English by "about two to one ") is a mystery. Even in Cape Colony they are but eleven to eight. Various statistical authorities whom I have asked put the Dutch throughout South Africa at ten to nine, as about equal, and even at eleven to twelve. The following figures are those of the President of the United Chambers of Commerce, my friend Mr. J. W. Jagger. They were not intended to prove any theory either way, are based on official and commercial data, and "err, if at all, in overstating the Dutch proportion":

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"English" means, of course, non-Dutch Europeans. Were adult males only taken into account, as potential federal electors, there would be a large English majority.

THE RITUALISTS AND THE

ELECTORATE.

IT

T has been suggested to me that I should give my views upon the Archbishop's decision, the manifesto of Lord Halifax, and the general feeling in the country. This is a somewhat difficult task. It is a truism that the man least competent to express an opinion upon the varying phases of a battle is the soldier who is engaged in it. Bystanders see most of the game, always provided that they have keen eyes and judge with impartial judgment. The first requirement is shared by both Roman Catholics and Nonconformists alike, who for different reasons regard with equal intensity of vision the struggle within the Church. But impartial judgment is a different matter. The Roman Catholic attitude towards the Ritualists is in the main that of tolerant chiding. Some, indeed, profess to regard "the Catholic revival" in the Church as heading away from Rome, and accordingly find its ethical standpoint quite indefensible. But the chief supporters of the Vatican adopt a more humane interpretation. The Ritualists are to them, indeed, but gropers after truth, without Orders, without Sacraments, without life from the true Vine; a shrewd conviction but that this same groping may result one fine day in a substantial addition to the adherents of the Church of Rome in this country tempers the severity of judgment. I do not know that the Roman Catholics have much concerned themselves about the Lambeth decision. The various mile-posts on the road, and the speed at which they are passed, do not interest those who are confident of what the final result will be. But an editorial in the British Weekly of September 7 and an article by Dr. Guinness Rogers in the September number of this REVIEW bring out in pretty sharp relief the views of leading Nonconformists upon the situation created in the Anglican Church by the archiepiscopal decision. Both

are, of course, written from the Protestant standpoint, but considerable divergence of opinion is manifested upon one important pointnamely, the effect of that decision upon the Ritualists themselves. According to the British Weekly the game is up. "The recent judgment of the Archbishops has driven the Ritualists to the wall." "Defeat has come upon them, a defeat to which apparently they can only bow. There is small prospect, indeed, for a generation at least of their cause being retrieved." "Now at last a halt has been called and aspiring priests have to yield obedience or leave the communion of the Church of England." These and similar phrases convey the idea of a kind of Ritualistic Sedan, strewn with the debris of abandoned censers and extinguished tapers.

But when we turn to Dr. Guinness Rogers we are confronted with a somewhat different picture. He is of opinion that there are no indications that the Ritualists will abandon their positions. He speaks of the Archbishop's attempt to solve existing difficulties as a failure which has produced a very able statement on some burning questions, but there is little hope that those who are most affected by it will acquiesce in its conclusions." Towards the end of Dr. Guinness Rogers's paper a slight haze diffuses itself, through which results appear blurred. He indicates that the Primate has employed a revolutionary measure in the hope of ending the crisis and that he has failed. Yet ten lines lower down we are again within measurable distance of the end of the crisis, which is still a Ritualistic triumph. "The experience of the half-century," says Dr. Rogers, "justifies the anticipation that the much-talked-of crisis will pass away, leaving the Ritualists victory."

The fact of the matter is that Dr. Guinness Rogers and the British Weekly are forecasting events and from different standpoints. Early in the campaign the latter decided that the Anglican Protestant, in his internecine struggles with an insidious enemy, deserved hearty support. The quarrel against the Establishment could remain "on the bye" until the common foe was scotched, if not killed. Even gold can be bought too dear. And the British Weekly saw clearly enough that to disestablish a Roman Catholic Anglican Church in 1920 might prove both more difficult and less satisfactory in the long run than helping to maintain the Established Church on a Protestant basis in the year 1899. But Dr. Guinness Rogers, from the beginning to the end of his article, is concerned with one thing and one thing only-Disestablishment. He regards with moody eye the Protestant forces within the Church struggling, like Samson, to liberate themselves from the seven green withes with which fifty years of a sacerdotal aggression has bound them hand and foot. At times, it is true, he appears to feel a trumpet-call to action which stirs the blood and well-nigh makes indifference a physical impossibility. “I

yield to no one," he says, "in the intensity of my Protestantism; possibly I should startle some of its most zealous champions by the extent to which I should push its principles and the enthusiasm I should throw into their advocacy." But the exercise of this fiery zeal is hampered by one indispensable condition. Church and State must go asunder before Dr. Rogers will enter the lists. The Articles and Formularies of the Church sanctioned by the State may be deliberately set aside, or evacuated of their meaning, in the interests of a medieval revival; Bishops appointed by the State may wink at the process, or even head the forces of reaction; a Prime Minister, maintained in power for many years by the forces of Nonconformity may have thrown the whole weight of an unrivalled personality into the same scale; but until the walls of the Establishment are levelled this de-Protestantising process must, according to Dr. Rogers, proceed unchecked. It is, therefore, no matter for surprise that where the British Weekly sees a defeat for the Ritualists with a possible breathing-space to the Establishment, Dr. Guinness Rogers, determined to give the Establishment no breathing-space, declines to see aught but Ritualistic defiance and victory.

As a matter of fact the issue at the moment of writing is altogether in suspense. According to the Record of September 8, out of 288 churches which use incense, twenty-two only have given in their obedience. One or two appear to have adopted the advice unblushingly tendered by Lord Halifax to use incense in processions before the Holy Eucharist begins, while laying it aside before the opening "Our Father" is said. This "paltering in a double sense, keeping the word of promise to the ear to break it to the hope," is well-nigh incredible. If true, it is surely another indication of that disloyalty, conscious or unconscious, to the whole spirit of the Reformed Church of which Manning suffered the last agonies before he finally went over to Rome. All will remember Mr. Gladstone's pain when the shock of his friend's apparent want of candour in this respect was first brought home to him. "I will not say Manning was insincere, God forbid." Alas! where men are determined, in the words of Newman, "to make fair trial of how much the English Church will bear-like proving cannon," it can hardly be expected that their own moral metal will always remain proof.

Whether obedience, partial or complete, will be given has yet to be seen, and even in a matter of secondary importance, hasty conclusions are to be deprecated. For, after all, the Lambeth decision and its possible results are secondary. What is of importance is the events which have led up to them and the Protestant feeling which has brought those events about. This feeling, first evoked by the action of Mr. Kensit (Lord Halifax's "profane and blasphemous agitator"), has asserted itself even in the counsels of ministers of State,

and has certainly dictated the nature of the Archbishop's judgment. That Lord Halifax should bitterly resent this is not surprising. He has probably never asked himself how it has come about that a bookseller in Paternoster Row has been able to set the tune to which the Episcopal Bench are dancing? The age of miracles is past. How, then, have such mighty results been set agoing by so apparently inadequate a cause?

The real explanation is that the Ritualists have got themselves into an entirely false position. In trying how much the cannon would bear before bursting, they have been blown away from the touch-hole. The original leaders of the Oxford Movement foresaw this clearly enough. The most extreme of their successors have placed themselves leagues outside the most liberal construction of the PrayerBook, and in direct antagonism to its prevailing spirit. For years past they have traded upon the notorious inertia of the average Anglican layman. Headed by capable leaders and backed first by Mr. Gladstone and then by the Cecils, they have quietly captured the high places of the Church and are infusing Catholic doctrines into the veins of the country through as many Anglican schools as they can control. But a large portion of the Anglican laity, especially in the North of England, still retain a sturdy Protestant instinct. This is usually spoken of by opponents as obstinate bigotry and ignorance, but as it is the last remaining barrier against the complete "reCatholicising" of the Church, it is quite natural that the Ritualistic leaders should view it with abhorrence. People have suddenly realised that a considerable number of Anglican churches have become to all intents and purposes Roman Catholic, priest and congregation alike. The simple dignity of the Communion Office has been transformed into the ceremony of Mass. Without haggling as to details of ceremonial, the result is there-plain, unmistakable-an unimpeachable witness to the victory of the "Catholic revival," and its accompanying defiance of "all rule and all authority and power."

Confronted by this startling apparition, the Protestant feeling of the Anglican layman has made itself felt. Bigoted and ignorant he may be, but he has sufficient knowledge of the Articles and PrayerBook of his Church to know that this phenomenon is outside the limits. In his protest he has undoubtedly received strong support from Protestant Nonconformists. But papers like the Church Times, with their solemnly assumed belief that the Protestant agitation is a Nonconformist movement, may be dismissed with a good-humoured smile. All the Nonconformists in England could not by their unaided efforts have extorted from Mr. Balfour a single Protestant speech, nor from the Archbishop of Canterbury a word of Erastian import. Resolute determination to put a stop to sacerdotal aggression in the

"I cannot disguise from myself that my preaching is not calculated to defend that system of religion which has been received for 300 years."-NEWMAN.

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