The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-12-08

Westcott. Dean Stanley was a great favor
lite of Queen Victoria. For years after his
death there was not a day when his tomb
in the Abbey was without some memorial
wreath with the card of royalty upon it.
and oftener than not the card would bear
her late Majesty's own autograph. Very
thoughtful and effective as a preacher, he
was still extremely quiet, decidedly absent
minded and so utterly lacking in movement
that they say he went through a whole
service on one occasion with a glove on the
top of his head. He usually, it is said. car
ried his gloves in his hat, and this time
when he removed his hat one of the gloves
remained. 1t was agony for his wife who
had to sit through a long service with her
venerable husband so strangely adorned on
the crown of his white head, but Dean
Stanley himself neither knew the glove was
there nor became animated enough to
shake it off. Canon Westcott was another
preacher of the unimpassioned kind. Late
in life he was made Bishop of Durham. He.
too, is now, like Dean Stanley, with the ST.
lent majority. but Canon Farrar. by far
the best preacher of the three-a man of
splendid diction and fine oratorical gifts-is
still living. In a rather feeble old age he
abides his time and does his work as Dean
of Canterbury.
The pulpits Of London are manned now
by a new generation, and the new men, be-
ing young, are bringing forth out of the
treasury of their knowledge, not the old
thread-worn notions of the fathers, but
those new ideas which are born in the need
of new times. 1t is refreshing to find as
Bishop of London a man not yet in middle
life whose ideas and manners are about as
unconventional, as virile, and as well suited
to the times as were those of the early cir
cult rider on the American prairies. The
exaltation to high place Of men like this
not only shows that the Church of England
has undergone great changes, but it pre-
sages increasing change, if not a complete
revolution, in the time 10 come. If, how
ever. the character of the new metropolitan
bishop be a sign of altered times and a
guarantee of progress, what shall be said
of the new Canon of Westminster Abbey?
After hearing him that memorable Sunday
one can only answer this question by say
ing that Canon Hensley Henson is not
merely a sign of progress, but he is the en-
bodiment Of progress, for ideas more revo-
lutionary than those he vehementIy advo-
Gated in Westminster Abbey have, perhaps,
never been hurled against the practices of
any church since Luther Numbered against
Rome at Wittenburg.
a RADICAL UTTERANCE.
What made me intensely eager to hear
this up-to-date apostle of light and leading
was a report of his revolutionary utter
ances OF the Sunday before. Has not the
time fully come he inquired, when we
should ask in all earnestness whether the
spiritual isolation OF the Church of Eng
land can be sustained by valid and suffi-
cient reasons? For my part" he went on,
Il declare TO you solemnly that the frank
recognition of the ordered and orthodox
Protestant churches is demanded of US by
irresistible considerations Of reason. of
prudence. of religion" To realize what an
utterance of this kind means when it comes
from a canon Of the Established Church
and is Illuminated by him from so exalted
a pedestal as the pulpit of Westminster
Abbey, II must be borne in mind that the
religious people of England are about even
~ divided between the State Church and
what are now called Free Churches. But
the State Church. though it attracts no