num_pages: 1176
description: This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ... in the spirit of the place, is directed more on producing an English gentleman, than a saint or a psychologist. It ripens a bishop, and extrudes a philosopher. I do not know that there is more cabalism in the Anglican than in other churches, but the Anglican clergy are identified with the aristocracy. They say here, that if you talk with a clergyman, you are sure to find him well-bred, informed and candid: he entertains your thought or your project with sympathy and praise. But if a second clergyman come in, the sympathy is at an end: two together are inaccessible to your thought, and whenever it comes to action, the clergyman invariably sides with his church. The Anglican Church is marked by the grace and good sense of its forms, by the manly grace of its clergy. The gospel it preaches is ' By taste are ye saved.' It keeps the old structures in repair, spends a world of money in music and building, and in buying Pugin ' and architectural literature. It has a general good name for amenity and mildness. It is not in ordinary a persecuting church; it is not inquisitorial, not even inquisitive; is perfectly well-bred, and can shut its eyes on all proper occasions. If you let it alone, it will let you alone. But its instinct is hostile to all change in politics, literature, or social arts. The church has not been the founder of the London University, of the Mechanics' Institutes, of the Free School, of whatever aims at diffusion of knowledge. The Platonists of Oxford are as bitter against this heresy, as Thomas Taylor.' The doctrine of the Old Testament is the religion of England.1 The first leaf of the New Testament it does not open. It believes in a Providence which does not treat with levity a pound sterling. They are neither transcenden-talists...
language: English
title: The Complete Works: Red Leather Edition
titlecomplete: The Complete Works: Red Leather Edition (Oxford Standard Authors)
characters: Juliet, Romeo, Hamlet, Miranda
genres: Literature, Classics, Drama, Reference, Classic Literature, Plays, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Poetry, Theatre
ratings_count: 55169
publisher: Oxford University Press