The Irish standard., 1906-10-06
Article from Pen of the Son of Late Arch.
bishop of Canterbury that is Creating
Wide Attention.
The Next Few Years Will See the Influx Of
Disappointed Ritualists Into the One
Divine City of Peace.

The following interesting article on
the report Of the recent commission
on Anglican Disorders appears in the
Examiner" from the pen Of Father
Benson. son of the late Archbishop Of
Canterbury:
ut seems as il the Church of Eng
land were really approaching that
crisis, among it's series of crises which
all those who are really acquainted
with the prayer book and articles have
long foreseen. According to the most
modern historians. these formularies
were drawn up with the deliberate in
tention of including as many shades OF
belief as possible with the certain
|exception Of "Poppery" upon the one
hand and the uncertain exceptions of
Lutheranism and Calvinism upon the
other. Il say uncertain because the
late Archbishop Temple asserted that
consubstantiation might be taught.
while transubstantiation might not)
The resuit OF the policy Of ~Cranner
and the Elizabethans was, as was
natural. that practically every kind of
processing Christian has been found In
the communion of the Church of Eng
land-except Catholics; and that every
school Of thought has claimed, and
truly, hat its tenets can be discovered
in the formularies in question. BY the
logic of circumstances, however, public
opinion has been forced to recognize
that these schools of thought are
mutually exclusive. 1t cannot, for ex-
ample, be the teaching of the Church
Of England at one and the same time
that our Lord is really present in the
sacrament and that He is really absent:
that child is regensrated in baptism
and that he is not. Canon Liddon, the
famous preacher, made this observa-
tion some years ago. 1t is pleasant, no
doubt, to exclaim at the splendid COM
prehensiveness Of a church that in
SluucS tCdIllcIS VI lucbc COHIIdulClOIy
doctrines. but the price Of this COM
prehensiveness is that a church which
possesses it forfeits ipso facto all right
Of presenting herself as a divine or
even, indeed, a human teacher of her
children.
Nov, public opinion does not object
to this comprehensiveness at all, but
what, above all things. it does object to
is anything that tends to narrow 1t.
Public opinion, holding that a national
Church should be truly national, re-
sents any attempt to make it other
wise; and 1t is for this reason that.
firstly, the education bill has been in
troduced, and, secondly. the commits
sioners have issued their report on
Disorders in the Church. England
does not, l believe, really hate .he
Catholic Church; in fact, she respects
her. 1t is true that she hates certain
elments in Catholic teaching. but they
are exactly those elements which ap-
pear to initiate against her own ambi-
tions. She hates, therefore. Catholic
ism properly so called. She does not
at all agree with st. Paul that in Christ
there must be neither Jew nor Greek,
Barbarian or Scythian, bond or free.
On the contrary, she thinks that there
must be always English and French,
European and Asiatic, white and
black; and that English, European and
white are, respectively, always, under
all circumstances and on all considera-
tions. superior to French, Asiatic and
colored.
But far more she hates ritualists,
and for this reason: that she sees in
them an attempt to introduce a kind of
Catholicism by means Of her own pos
session-the National Church. The
ritualist, she thinks, is aiming at ex-
actly the wrong kind of exclusiveness
and inclusiveness; he desires to exclude
Nonconformists and include French,
Asiatic and black Catholics in the king