is a stirring not of life but of thought. The questions which are most persistently and most eagerly asked are outside the common controversial theology, and imperil the fundamental assumptions of the Church. Not what is the meaning, but what is the authority, of Scripture? no longer the method of the Divine government, but is there any Divine government of men and the world at all? not the exact place of miracles in Christian evidence, but can the possibility of a miracle be maintained in face of the uniformity of nature?— these are the matters which thoughtful men earnestly debate, while churches stand by, making-believe not to hear the unwelcome sounds, or vociferous with hysteric terror. Which is the stranger spectacle it were hard to tell-the theologian who, when such a seething sea of doubt and difficulty is breaking in upon the Church, reserves all his thought and passion for the hardship imposed upon the clergy by a Burial Service which will not be silent of Christian hope at the brink of any grave; or he who confidently declares that all modern scriptural difficulties were anticipated by Porphyry and Celsus, and refers Colenso to Archbishop Usher for a refutation of theories which the good Primate never heard of!

But in what palpable guise of fact does this movement of thought make its way to the light? We may pass by for the present the existence of a school of theological speculation beyond the limits of all orthodox churches; for there has perhaps never been a period in the history of Christianity at which the consensus of belief which calls itself orthodoxy, has not reacted to produce the individuality of conviction rightly denominated heresy. Our present concern is with a quite different phenomenon-the existence of heresy in the midst of orthodoxy, the half-conscious unfaithfulness of orthodoxy to itself. And first, there exists in the Church of England a small but able party, which claims the right of freely interpreting Scripture within the limits of the Formularies, and which denies, not without some show of legality, that the Articles of the Church can be used to bind down Churchmen to any but the most liberal theory of inspiration. This party, of which Mr. Jowett is perhaps the most distinguished, and the Bishop of Natal the most consistent member, includes also the other writers of "Essays and Reviews," and engages at least the open sympathy of

the Dean of Westminster, the secret good wishes of many more cautious clergymen. To what goal they tend, it would be difficult to say; the fact that the Articles were not framed in a spirit of prophecy, and did not anticipate in the 16th the difficulties of the 19th century, has hitherto given them a certain delusive liberty of action; and until freedom of interpretation, which has never yet proved to be a barren right, produces its natural harvest of independent conviction, they are safe within the Church from any heavier penalty than distrust and contumely. There is another party, often included with the first under the general name of the Broad Church, yet only partly concordant in its motives and its aims, the party which owns the leadership of Mr. Maurice. To what commendation is implied in the word "Broad," this party is entitled, when we compare its pure religious spirituality with the sacerdotal narrowness of the High, the doctrinal straitness of the Low Church; although it persists, with strange unconsciousness, in preaching as the one sufficient gospel, a form of Christian doctrine so subtle as to evade the ordinary comprehension, and so strange as to fall into the category of no historical faith or heresy. Its special theological offences are a merciful interpretation of the texts which relate to eternal punishment, the substitution of a more moral theory of atonement for that which involves the vicarious sacrifice of Christ,-offences which, whenever committed in plain and straightforward speech, will draw down a surer ecclesiastical censure than any which waits for defective theories of inspiration. But there are already signs that this party, when once emancipated from a personal allegiance, the charm of which it is easy to understand, will gradually fade into the former, which has already reached in great measure the same theological results, and contains in its freer and more scientific handling of Scripture the possibility of further progress.

But it would be a great mistake to limit the signs of a movement of theological opinion in the Church of England to the heresy which issues in open speech, or even to the secret sympathy and confessed alarm which it evokes. Another ominous feature is the attention excited by proposed changes in the relation of the Church to the individual believer, proposals which are met, in the policy of a large party, with a dogged aversion to all change, itself not the

least significant token of the gathering storm. There is an association for the revision of the Liturgy: High-Churchmen who claim to know how souls stand with God at the last moment of life, would willingly have some "relief" in the use of the Burial Service; Low-Churchmen attack the very citadel of sacerdotalism in the order of Baptism and the form for the Visitation of the Sick: it would be a fatal error to make the Prayer-book as Calvinistic as the Articles; and though the din of battle is loud, neither host yields an inch. There are that would lay profane hands upon the very ark itself, the Articles, and the subscription to them imposed by the Act of Uniformity. Each of the two great parties in the Church bewails that the mesh should be so wide as to let in the other; scrupulous consciences on either side groan beneath the subterfuges of non-natural interpretation; but neither will abandon a delusive safeguard, which admits the subtle, the adroit, the careless, the dishonourable, and keeps out only the thoughtful and the honest. These things bear their natural fruit in the growing distaste of educated young men for the clerical profession. Its prizes are as numerous as heretofore; its social consideration not less; while the larger practical faithfulness to his work which public opinion now exacts of a clergyman would naturally operate as an additional inducement to young and ardent minds. But the number of graduates of the two Universities who present themselves for ordination lessens every year; those who do so present themselves are no longer the heroes of the class list, but the men who have contented themselves with a common degree; while the place of the senior wrangler and the double-first is filled up by the literates, whose deficiency of early education has been hastily repaired by the special training of the theological college. Of men who actually enter the Church, the great majority no doubt find in parochial work the satisfaction of their religious instincts, and, so far as they think at all, think within safe limits of orthodoxy. But how many more secretly chafe beneath the fetters they have put on, yet, all hopeless of release, chafe silently and with a composed face, how many more throw up their work and office in quiet despair, trusting, in spite of legal disabilities, to mix unobserved in the crowd of common men, and to earn their bread without the hard necessity of evasion and double-dealing,-who can tell?

Some experience of these things offers itself to every man who has won freedom for himself and openly rejoices in it; such an one receives many applications for the secret of his own life from those who, when they have it, are not strong enough to use it for themselves. Let it be enough to say, that such difficulties and such despair as these grow commoner year by year.

The general force of this stream may already to some extent be directly measured by the effects which it has produced. We can discern a certain withdrawal from the advanced posts of orthodox dogma; some beliefs, which men who would willingly be thought educated, no longer think it necessary to hold; some questions, which formerly it was treason to touch, now considered open to discussion. Such a book as Dr. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible is, with all its errors and timidities and shortcomings-nay, in consequence of them-a valuable proof of this; the method of orthodoxy is to slip quietly away from untenable outworks, and by and by to deny that it ever looked upon them as part of its line of defence. Another instance of the same kind, in the field of Christian doctrine, is to be found in the modified theories of atonement which in the minds of nearly all thoughtful theologians have taken the place of the old scheme of substitution. Still, the opposite method of estimating the force of this new current of thought and feeling-by the strength of the dam which it is thought necessary to oppose to its volume-is, at present at least, more directly applicable. A bibliolatry which every day grows harder and narrower, is the best proof of the growing prevalence of a scientific biblical criticism. And all theologians are agreed that so strange a phenomenon as the theory of plenary inspiration now current in England among men who are, in their own fashion, not without learning, is not to be found in any age or region of the Church. It seems to have grown up in Protestant England and Scotland (there is nothing like it in other Protestant countries) as a kind of substitute for the ultimate authority of the Church maintained by Roman Catholicism. Although it can find no warrant for itself in the writings of Fathers or Reformers, it bates no jot of its high pretensions. It will learn nothing and admit nothing. In face of geology, it clings to the seven days' work. In face of astronomy, it believes that the sun

stood still at Joshua's word. It listens to Balaam's ass speaking Hebrew. It sees no improbability in Moses' telling the tale of his own death and burial. It conceives itself to represent the orthodox belief of former ages of the Church, and so cannot credit its own ears when the great names which it chiefly delights to honour are quoted against it. Although again and again convicted of discreditable ignorance, it still erects an unabashed front, and lifts up a brazen voice. Perhaps it has rarely shewed its true nature more clearly than when, not long since, it raised against Bishop Colenso an unanimous shout of heresy, for his assertion of the partial ignorance of the Son of Man; and the incriminated opinion was proved to be that not only of such Fathers as Athanasius and Chrysostom, but of such Doctors of the English Church as Hammond and Lightfoot and Waterland!

If we turn for a moment from the Established Church to the various sects of orthodox Dissenters, we see, mutatis mutandis, a repetition of the same facts. There is, indeed, little to note among Methodist churches; in no other churches is so little play allowed to the speculative intellect; in none other is the spiritual sword wielded with so swift and strong an arm. Perhaps the most remarkable fact in the history of Baptists during the last ten years, will prove to be the number and the eccentricity of their sensation preachers: their late activity is summed up and symbolized in Mr. Spurgeon and his great Tabernacle. But even here, and still more when we come to the Independent churches, we hear, not remotely, the general stir and turmoil of the times. Accusations of neology, scepticism, rationalism, every modern alias under which old heresy disguises itself, are rife in the air. There are schools of the prophets freer and less free; there are men who have slowly and sorrowfully left the early home of their faith; there are others who wonder how long it will continue to be a home for them. And as we take this rapid survey of religious opinion, one fact, which we will carefully lay aside for future consideration, forces itself upon our notice. The strength of the theological movement seems to stand in some fixed relation to the amount and thoroughness of general education. It manifests itself most decidedly in the Church of England, which maintains the closest connection with the literary and scientific life of our time, and whose represen