the two races and churches had been then placed on a footing of legal and social equality, I have a most firm conviction, from much study of the history and character of the Irish people, that the adherents of the Roman Catholic Church amongst them at this day would be a very small minority.

Church of Rome in England.

Where such a view is entertained of the position and prospects of the Roman Catholic Church, of course there can be no participation in the fears entertained of its progress in this country. Single conversions may continue to be made, but the science, literature, pursuits, and character of the English people are all insuperable obstacles to the spread of such principles. Such gains as the Church of Rome has made are attributable to that isolation of thought on certain subjects which exists in England, and which rendered the latest and most refined form of Catholicism almost unknown here before the beginning of the Oxford movement. Young men, brought up in the popular and traditional notions respecting Popery, found, when they did inquire, that those notions were in many respects erroneous; and then there followed, as a natural result, an over-valuation of everything that had been before unduly depreciated. The friends of Protestantism should above all things try to ascertain what is going on in the minds of young men, and not seek to avoid danger by thrusting their own heads into the bushes. It appears to me to be in one important sense true, as was said by Mr. Martineau in the most able Essay' which the papal question called forth, that English theologians are not generally aware of the variety and strength of the Catholic resources. But there could be no worse mode of curing such a defect than legislation. It might have been left to the learning of

The "Battle of the Churches," in the Westminster Review, since reprinted with other Essays, every one of which is full of original thought, and distinguished by a style in which extreme metaphysical refinement is combined with the vividness of poetry.

Oxford and Cambridge to forge the new weapons requisite for the defence of the Reformation. But our wisdom has thought it better to entrust that cause to the vigilance of the common informer.

If we turn from the theological weaknesses to the practical working of this church, we see that, whatever be its errors, and whatever practices it may contain inconsistent with the general spirit of Christianity, it is still, as a whole, a portion of the general Christian counterpoise to that mass of selfishness and licentious passions which constitutes the real social danger of the time. So far it is not an evil, but a good. A pure form of Protestantism in its place would be better; but if, as is very likely, the driving away of Catholicism would not make something better to come in its place, the cause of pure morals would lose and not gain by the process. For I utterly reject, as false and slanderous, those foul imputations which are so often flung out against the Roman Catholic clergy of England and Ireland. If it be true, as every one who knows anything of Roman Catholic society in these countries must know it to be, that Roman Catholic women are as pure, and as much above suspicion, as any others, what is it but calumny to draw the inferences which are habitually drawn from what is to be found in the text-books? Those reckless and envenomed polemics are indeed a scandal to Christianity, and a mournful feature of the times.

The Irish People and their Priests.

There is a large Irish population in Great Britain, who will receive no religious ministrations except from Catholic priests. They may neglect those ministrations, or be deprived of them, but the result is not that they become Protestant, but that they become demoralized. This is a matter of fact which may be at any time verified by inquiring into the conduct of the Irish labouring population. But if it be so, then the labours of those priests against whom so many well-meaning persons are ready

to embark in any kind of crusade, are labours beneficial to the whole mass of society. This is true in England, but is still more true in Ireland. Neither angry polemics nor hostile legislation will bring any better moral influences to bear upon the Irish peasant than those which he derives through the Church of Rome. Consider, then, what must be the effect in that country of a systematic warfare upon an institution which has such deep root in the soil, while almost every other has been either blighted or pulled up. There is no doubt much in the demeanour of the Irish clergy to repel the English people, but the aspect which the Irish priest presents to England is his worst. Combative, perhaps, he is, and full of angry violence in his language; but see him amongst his flock, and you see another For them, he is the friend in perplexity-the protector in danger the pastor and consoler in sickness and desolation. On all the joyful and sorrowful occasions of life the priest and the people are together. Sympathy, sweet to all, but longed for even to weakness by the Irish, is found by the people in the priesthood, and is sought elsewhere in vain. Such is the class whom English statesmen at this crisis of European affairs think it wise to exasperate by insult. Such is the class whom others, in the name of interests far higher than those of policy, think it consistent with Christian prudence and Christian charity, even at this great exigency in the history of society, to cover with the most odious imputations.

man.

Comprehensiveness not Latitudinarian.

It does not involve, as to many it may appear to do, a lax or latitudinarian principle, to admit that the spirit of Christianity may work powerfully in connection with theological error. It does not lead to the conclusion that one iota of what is regarded as truth is to be surrendered or slighted, but merely that the energy of each Christian body should be turned against that mass of practical heathenism, the christianization of which, in the comprehensive view of Chalmers, seemed to

be the greatest and most urgent of all works required by humanity. The two things cannot, or at all events will not, be effectively done together. If the energy goes into angry polemics, it will not go into works of Christian love.

Here, then, is the great want of the present time. The rise of a new spirit in all the churches-a spirit which would lead them to see their chief antagonists no longer in each other, and to direct their united energies against that large, menacing, and aggressive mass of moral evil, with which Christian organization alone can effectually cope. Not one of those churches can be spared. The sympathies of the great majority of the English people are, in my opinion, with that form of the Christian faith which is commonly known as Evangelical Protestantism, and, viewed upon a large scale, there is none of which the morality is purer, or the humane and benevolent energy more conspicuous. But it is in vain to imagine that it is, or can be, the exclusive type of English religion, or even the exclusive religion of the Establishment.

Anglo-Catho

licism, however inconsistent it may be in not becoming Roman Catholicism, does still abound in the most beautiful traits of Christian excellence. The claims of some of the Tractarian clergy to an exclusive control over popular schools cannot, indeed, be admitted; but, on the other hand, no policy could be more unwise than that of an attempt, by narrowing the present terms of ecclesiastical communion, to drive that party into the Church of Rome. Even in the estimation of the mere political moralist, the zeal shown by the Tractarian section of the Church for the furtherance of popular education ought to seem too precious a thing to be thrown away, if such waste can possibly be avoided. That great work, which must be the foundation of all social improvement, cannot be accomplished except by the force of religious impulses, and this fact is too apt to be overlooked or denied by those friends of education who find their plans and wishes obstructed by religious differences. Very moderate concessions, however, would now be sufficient to warrant a great legislative measure, and in the

working of such a measure all the religious zeal and energy that exists in England might find an ample sphere of activity.

Of the Tractarian theology it may further be said, that although to me it appears both logically and historically less consistent than that of Rome, it is morally much superior. It is free from some of the worst practical errors of the Roman Church. If, therefore, Tractarians can remain in their present position without dishonesty, as only extreme intolerance or want of charity can deny, it is infinitely better that they should continue insensible to their own happy inconsistency, than that legislation, less merciful than logic, should strip them of the chief part of their social utility, and condemn them to the melancholy disenchantment, and the bitter and hopeless repinings, which must often, though they may not always, follow conversions from the Church of England to the Church of Rome. Whilst hoping for the ultimate removal of all error, we should, for the present, rather be glad that Tractarianism, such as it is, is found practically to satisfy the spiritual wants of some minds, which are repelled by the popular manifestations of the simpler and purer evangelical theology; and if the inward religious life which accompanies that form of faith may be judged of by poetical manifestation, it must be acknowledged that the "Christian Year," and the "Lyra Apostolica" are in no respect inferior to the best utterances of Herbert or Heber. Again, at the opposite extremity of the theological pole are also to be found minds of the highest spirituality. Let those who doubt it read the " Endeavours after the Christian Life" of James Martineau, or the "Religious Life of England," by John James Tayler. The creed of such writers may err by defect, as that of the Church of Rome does by excess; but in spirit they are as Christian as Fenelon and Pascal; and all those varied classes of minds, devout, sincere, and disciplined by the Gospel, and strengthened by those aids which are practically found to be imparted to men wherever there is faith in the person of the Redeemer, form collectively the great force by which the social evils which menace England are to be checked and overcome.