The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (Illustrated Edition). Robert Thomas Wilson

new ideas.

      The founders of the modern High Church were not long in using the press as the most effectual method of propagating their opinions. They issued a series of papers called “Tracts for the Times,” of which ninety numbers were published between the years 1833 and 1841; and articles to the same effect were also published in the British Critic. These manifestoes produced an extraordinary effect on a large portion of the clergy, and a certain number of the laity; but at the same time they aroused the bitterest opposition amongst numerous classes of churchmen and churchgoers. It was alleged that some of the most distinctive doctrines of the Romish Church were ostentatiously paraded by the reformers as irrefragable and indispensable doctrines of the English Church; though, in some instances at least, these doctrines might be fairly inferred from the Articles and the Prayer Book. What perhaps gave more offence than anything else was the scorn and hatred with which the Tractarians, as they were soon called, repudiated the word “Protestant,” as if it necessarily involved the most detestable of heresies. They called themselves “Anglicans,” and would admit no other description. The most bigoted of Romish divines could hardly have regarded Luther with greater dislike than was manifested by the more extreme members of the school. The days of the Reformation were stigmatised by High Church enthusiasts as days of degradation and wickedness, and every form of Dissent was an invention of the devil. All these vagaries induced many persons, who argued rather through the medium of their alarm and anger than by means of their reason, to believe that the Tractarians were consciously and designedly preparing the way for a return to Roman Catholicism. With some, indeed—notably with Mr. J. H. Newman—this was the actual result of their speculations. But, as a body, the High Churchmen had no such intention. They had not the slightest wish to subject their Church to the orders of an Italian priest holding his court at Rome. What they really desired was to subject the whole of England—the State as well as the individual—to their conceptions of ecclesiastical predominance.

      Most of the younger clergymen fell in with the Tractarian movement, as young men are generally disposed to fall in with anything new. A spirit of revivalism spread over the land. The writings of the Fathers, the ancient liturgies of the early Christian Church, the history and traditions of the Church in all ages, the lives of saints, the mediæval books of devotion and morals—all

      JOHN KEBLE.

      these were diligently disinterred from dusty shelves where they had long slumbered, and studied in the belief that they would shed a new and divine light on modern troubles and perplexities. Gothic architecture and art, of a purer type than had been known for nearly five hundred years, were cultivated as a means of influencing the public mind in favour of the strictest ecclesiasticism. Symbolical forms were interpreted in a deeply mystical sense, and gradually the conceptions of the reformers began to find their way, not merely into the churches, but into general literature, especially into poetry of a tender and emotional order. Then arose the battle of surplices, intonings, candles, and altars, which at first shocked, and afterwards exasperated, the average Englishman. It must be admitted, however, that the arguments of the Tractarians had sometimes an apparent cogency, which produced a great effect on such as were already half-disposed to be convinced. They urged with no little plausibility that the subjection of Church doctrine to the decision of a Lord Chancellor who might be a free-thinker, or a man of questionable life, was an absurdity and a scandal. But this was simply an argument against the existence of a State Church, and in that sense it was not put forth. If the Church is united with the State, it must be either as master or servant. To adopt the homely phrase of Dogberry, “An

      JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.

      two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind;” and it is in the highest degree improbable that Englishmen will ever again consent to “ride behind” any ecclesiastical corporation in the world. Still, we may grant this truth without denying the earnestness, devotion, and moral purity of the Tractarians—qualities which have borne good fruit, and which will be remembered to their credit when Time has obliterated their follies.

      ST. MARY’S, FROM THE HIGH STREET, OXFORD.

      In the early part of 1841, Mr. Newman published the celebrated “Tract No. 90,” the object of which was to show that subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles need not deter a man from holding various doctrines which are commonly regarded as Romish. This was going a little too far for the patience of the authorities, and, on the 15th of March, the Vice-Chancellor and heads of houses at Oxford censured the offending Tract, in a resolution which set forth—“That modes of interpretation such as are suggested in the said Tract, evading rather than explaining the sense of the Thirty-nine Articles, and reconciling subscription to them with the adoption of errors which they were designed to counteract, defeat the object, and are inconsistent with the due observance, of the statutes of the University.” Next day, Mr. Newman addressed a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, acknowledging himself as the author of the Tract. Some time after, he resigned the Vicarage of St. Mary’s, Oxford, and in 1845 he seceded to the Church of Rome. There cannot be a doubt that in his earlier years he had no intention of quitting the Church of England. Throughout the whole of his career, he has been thoroughly honest, conscientious, and self-devoted; but he has a mind of the acutest logical perceptions, and ultimately, though with great distress to himself, he came to the conclusion that the legitimate development of his opinions conducted him to Rome, and nowhere else. This conclusion being reached, he was not the man to tamper with his innermost convictions. His retirement from the Tractarian field concentrated additional power in the hands of the Rev. Mr. Pusey, who had long been the chief leader of the movement. Indeed, the very word “Puseyism” attests the depth and breadth of his influence.

      It is no secret that neither the Queen nor Prince Albert liked the extreme views of the Tractarians, but would have preferred a broader and more liberal interpretation of Church doctrines. But the movement was of course entirely independent of Royal influences, and the time was one of awakened enthusiasm in all matters appertaining to religion. In Scotland, as in England, men’s minds were being agitated by conflicting views as to the proper character of a Church; and the dispute at the North terminated in a disruption of an important nature. A party had arisen in the Kirk of Scotland which desired, like the Tractarians in the Church of England, to emancipate the religious body from the control of the State in all matters of doctrine and discipline; but this was no easy task. An Act of Parliament had been passed in 1712, which subjected the power of the Presbytery to the control of the law-courts. Until then, the appointment of pastors had been with the Church-courts of Scotland; but now the minister was in many instances nominated by a lay patron, and the Presbytery thereupon admitted him as a matter of course, unless there was some flagrant objection which could not be evaded or overcome. The popular element in the Scottish Kirk was thus subordinated to aristocratic influence, and in time many sincere members of that body were so much disgusted as to secede from the Established Church, and form separate communions of their own. Matters had reached such a pass by 1834, when the “Evangelical,” as opposed to the “Moderate,” party had obtained the upper hand, that the General Assembly of the Kirk affirmed the right of each congregation to exercise a veto on any presentee, in accordance with a fundamental law of the Church, “that no pastor should be intruded on any congregation contrary to the will of the people.” This was the celebrated Veto Law, which soon became the subject of much controversy. The lay patrons, finding themselves deprived of what they considered their rights, resisted the ruling of the General Assembly, and appealed to the law-courts. Sometimes the decision was in favour of the one party, sometimes of the other; and at length the Strathbogie case brought the law-courts and the General Assembly into open conflict. The Presbytery of Strathbogie supported a certain minister who, in 1837, had been nominated for the parish of Marnoch. The General Assembly issued its edict that the minister was to be rejected. The majority of the local Presbytery still continuing defiant, seven of their number were, by the General Assembly, finally expelled from their places in the ministry on the 7th of May, 1841; and, from that time forward, Dr. Chalmers, who had moved their expulsion, became the great leader