Quo Vadis ?
A Century of Anglo-Catholicism. By Herbert Leslie Stewart. (Dent and Sons. 10s. 6d.) " You will come 'ome, wonn by worm l " said an Italian monk to the present reviewer, when discussing the situation of the
English Church. Professor Stewart, however, does not see the Anglo-Catholic movement and its members in this pre- destinarian light ; and since, as a Presbyterian scholar of liberal tendencies, he observes it from the standpoint of a benevolent neutrality, both his chronicle and his criticisms will be read with particular interest by those who are con- cerned to study the domestic evolution of Anglican Christian- ity. Whilst frankly unable to accept any of its most characteristic doctrines—which he considers " almost though not quite as absurd as the corresponding doctrines of a so- called Evangelicalism which they displaced "—the Professor values Anglo-Catholicism for the pragmatic reason that its " strange tenets " are associated with a real and living enthusiasm for Christianity. The historian of the future, he says with justice, looking past external follies and extrava- gances to essentials, will perceive that the Anglo-Catholic
" found time to realize a faith which too many others were absorbed either in analysing as a psychological curiosity or
exploiting as a social stimulant." He will show how this movement has provided a spiritual home for
" That sort of worshipper not to be classed as either Protestant or Catholic ; the sort for whom Romanism is impossible, the old Evangelicalism is absurd, and the now Modernism is no more than an intellectual exercise, but upon whom the historic Faith has none the less laid hold, and for whom the very heart of this is in the symbolism of the Altar."
Thus envisaged—and it takes a student in whom both the historic and religious sense are alert to do this—Anglo- Catholicism is seen to be a movement of great spiritual and cultural importance and its origin and development to be matters of genuine interest to the historian of religion. In tracing its adventurous course, and the influences that have fashioned it, Professor Stewart admirably performs a most useful task ; reminding us of many half-forgotten things, and giving us material on which our expectations for the future can be based. Though Keble's University sermon is often considered to mark the beginning of the movement, he hears the first authentic Anglo-Catholic note in the refined periods of " The Christian Year " ; and finds its chief provoking causes in the deadness of contemporary Protestantism, the bankruptcy of the Evangelical movement, and the romantic reaction against eighteenth century rationalism ; which inevitably had its reverberations in the religious sphere. All these, and with them the dangerous advance of that unhis- torical subjectivism which Schleiermacher had made popular among liberal theologians, doubtless contributed to the situation which produced " Tracts for the Times " ; yet perhaps we should look deeper for the origins of that sense of need, that backward glance of the starved religious sense towards a more richly concrete, objective Christianity, from which the movement did and does derive its real power. We already find this craving for devotional realism in the heroes of the Evangelical revival. The Wesleys, Brainerd, Simeon, even Henry Martyn, display a personal ardour and a sacramental sense far closer to Catholic feeling than to the ordinary chill Protestantism of their time. A Eucharistic fervour combined with a mystical devotion was characteristic of them all. It was the fading-out of their passion, leaving only a sentimental pietism behind, which really prepared the way for the next great wave of spiritual life in the Church.
Professor Stewart sees in the erudite character of the Tractarian movement a reaction from that disparagement of the intellect, which he considers characteristic of the old Evangelical school. Yet surely its leaders cannot-be charged with this fault. Wesley, at least as much bookworm as prophet, with a travelling library ranging from the principles of electricity to the history of the Popes, is hardly to be ranked among anti-intellectualists ; nor is that inveterate and accomplished scholar Henry Martyn. On the other hand, Tractarians of the second generation had little cause to plume themselves on openness of mind. When Bishop Colenso, speaking as a trained mathematician, " frankly acknowledged what he saw to be the fact—that the statistics given by Moses must be wrong, for the simple reason that they were inconsistent," and announced that though he could believe in a miracle he could not believe in a bad sum, " with great joy the Tractarians learned . . . that the African Bishops bad deposed the heretic."
A particularly instructive and entertaining aspect of Pro- fessor Stewart's historical method is his demonstration of this constant tendency of the religious mind thus to become rigid, take refuge in a timid conservatism, and identify inward truth with traditional form : and of the fact that institutional religion owes its very life to those forces which again and again threaten orthodoxy and compel it to self-criticism and restatement. Thus the Anglo-Catholic movement, which might easily have petrified into mere ritualism, or frittered its energy in defending mediaeval theology and devotion of the more doubtful sort, was saved and strengthened by those attacks upon the foundations of religion which called forth, in the 'eighties, Lux Mundi, and, in our post-War world, those Essays Catholic and Critical in which " we are at least as far beyond Lux Mundi as in Lux Mundi we were beyond Tracts." To each of these really epoch-making works a considerable section is devoted ; reminding those who too easily attribute the characters of a stuffed bird to " the faith once delivered to the saints," how steadily and how inexorably the law of development works in the religious field. A comparison of the views for which Colenso was condemned with those held by the approved authors of the Essays gives food for careful thought. Yet within this " nursery of change " and throughout these various intel- lectual adjustments the living Spirit of Faith maintains its mysterious identity, its awestruck yet intimate consciousness of a supernatural life. And in this hold upon the transcendent- personal Reality, harnessing to its sacramental worship the senses as well as the spirit of man, Anglo-Catholicism finds its real source of attraction and power.
EVELYN UNDERHILL.
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