THE AGITATION AGAINST DR. TEMPLE.
THE only excuse for the agitation against Dr. Temple is the old excuse, that on questions of orthodoxy and heresy men really seem not to understand the meaning of either acts
or words,—magnifying the most petty objects into the most terrible, and, like superstitious people on a dark night, mis- taking sign-posts for ghosts. There is no more pitiable occupation than perusing the cackle in the Standard and else- where on the subject of Dr. Temple's sins. One man insists on Dr. Temple not having printed the Spirit of God with a capital S for Spirit, and thinks it indicative of some awful scepticism. Another man, in another paper, asks how Dr. Temple can reconcile his hearty language in laying the founda- tion-stone of a Wesleyan Chapel when he "wished success to the cause with all his heart," with the Bishop's vow to "drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's word." A third man thinks that Dr. Temple's view, that the spirit of faith has in modern times "turned inwards," and that it would be very difficult for us now to have recognized Christ had he delayed His coming till now, is very shocking and heretical. In a word, all the small intellects in the Church that believe in their own orthodoxy are pecking hungrily away at Dr. Temple's very few public sayings and doings with an inquisitorial minuteness and a complete oblivion of what they have to prove and the sort of evidence needful to prove it, that reminds one strongly of the old witch-trials, when it was taken as conclusive of guilt that the witch had cast her eye on a cow the day before it fell sick and died. The facts about Dr. Temple are these,—and they are not facts which any sort of orthodox pruriency can shake. He has long administered a great public school not only with power, but with wonderful religious earnestness. His sermons there are so well known for their spiritual depth and devo- tion that, in one case, a High-Church clergyman, in search of a sermon calculated to excite meditative piety on a Good Friday given up to religious exercises, selected one of Dr. Temple's. Extracts from these sermons have been given in the religious newspapers. They breathe a passionate personal devotedness to Christ, such as Dr. Pusey himself, with all the stimulus of his hatred for those whom he supposes to be the enemies of Christ, could hardly rival. But with this earnest spiritual loyalty to our Lord, Dr. Temple combines a very large and energetic intellect, which can keep pace with the progress of knowledge outside the Church as well as in it. He knows that there is no want of faith like the want of faith shown by theologians in the spirit of impartial investigation, whether in science or in criticism. He believes that this is a great source of weak- ness instead of strength to our Church. He does not imagine that Christ can be effectually served in this day by hiding your eyes in the sand whenever new facts and new evidence are brought before you. And in this belief he joined with certain other writers "to illustrate the advantage derivable to the cause of religious and moral truth from a free handling, in a becoming spirit, of subjects peculiarly liable to suffer by the repetition of conventional language, and from traditional methods of treatment." The writers who con- tributed to the work that was the result of this combination wrote, as was expressly stated, "in entire independence of each other, and without concert or comparison." Of the essays which resulted, three at least, Dr. Temple's, Professor Jowett's, and Mr. Pattison's, are full of ideas and suggestions which admirably carry out the purpose of the volume,— full of intellectual width and comprehension, and full also of the truest religious spirit. Professor Jowett's especially, on the "Interpretation of the Scriptures," marked a real epoch in the history of our Church. There were two essays, however, in which there was much with which we not only do not agree, but which point, in our minds, to a very Machiavellian interpre- tation of the duties of profession,—we mean Mr. Wilson's on "The National Church," and Mr. Baden Powell's on "Christian Evidences." These and other essays—but these especially—were vehemently attacked, and the seven essayists and reviewers, who had never seen each others' compositions, were called, in the just and genial spirit of theological controversy, the Septem contra
Christum—a phrase which is now, we see, revived for Dr. Temple's benefit. And now,—cry the Congregation of our
English Index—now, at least, Dr. Temple should have pub- licly protested against the doctrines of his colleagues. Why ? Because they were were "in disgrace with fortune and
men's eyes" ? No, say the inquisitors ; but because his own name would lend a certain sanction to those opinions, unless he expressly repudiated them. Is it, then, the duty of any of our correspondents of to-day to repudiate formally any- thing they may read in our own columns with which they earnestly disagree ? Dr. Temple published his "Rugby Ser- mons," the spirit of which is utterly opposed to the sublimating rationalism of the essays of Mr. Baden Powell and Mr. Wilson. But why was it his duty to repudiate Mr. Wilson and Mr. Baden Powell, any more than it was Mr. Baden Powell's and Mr. Wilson's duty to repudiate him ? The principle of the volume was that differing views should be freely expressed, no man constituting himself the judge of his colleagues' re- sponsibility. The views did differ, and differed more than was expected. Had Dr. Temple any more right to complain of this than he would have had to complain if he had con- tributed a signed essay to the Fortnightly Review, and found in the same number a signed essay on "The Unknown and Un- knowable," by Professor Huxley ? Dr. Temple had solemnly sanctioned the principle of applying a genuinely free and in- dependent investigation, in a reverent form, to the newest diffi- culties—intellectual, moral, critical,—affecting the religious problem. No one ever doubted the reverence of form. Was Dr. Temple to throw aside his principle and constitute himself the judge of rightmindedness, directly he found some of his colleagues diverging more widely than he liked from his own convictions ? The thing would have been absurd as well as base. He was responsible for the perfect freedom of the method. We have no doubt that if the same method were more universally applied,—if we had such essays as these on religious subjects, not in one experimental volume, but in volume after volume, with all sorts of theological con- tributors favourable to comprehension, the experiment would not only be a very successful one, but would be recognized as such by the shriekers themselves. If Dr. Temple had seen reason to be ashamed of its principle, he should have repu- diated it. But as he was not, and could not have been, as the principle was—intellectual liberty used under the re- straints of the individual conscience alone, he could not decently have protested against a legitimate result of his own principle. In fact, the futile and frantic public outcry has arisen wholly from the isolated nature of the experiment. Dr. Temple differed widely with the views of his co-essayists. Very likely he did not think that some of these views were compatible with a clergyman's position. But as he did not think that his own conscience should determine that point for any one but himself, and as the principle of liberty will not admit of first leaving the responsibility to each contributor's own mind, and then protesting against his particular use of it, we maintain that he did quite right to maintain his reserve when the shriek began, and simply to trace out his own position by publishing separately the record of his own indi- vidual faith.
There is not the slightest fear that this combined outcry of the two great parties, each of which desires to have a monopoly in the Church of England, but each of which hates the principle of comprehension even more than it hates con- cession to its most formidable opponent, will either terrify the Ministry, or drive the clergy of the great Southern Diocese into rebellion. It is true that Dr. Pusey and Lord Shaftesbury, though they have not as yet exactly kissed each other, have at least solemnly indicated their preference for
kissing each other to kissing the Broad Church, and conveyed the impression that to interchange a cold kiss of convenance might, under conceivable conditions, be far from impossible, at least, if it should seem decidedly expedient, as a great stroke of foreign policy—as a de- monstration for overawing the Government. But Mr. Glad- stone knows well that the laity of England will not allow this paltry and inquisitorial clerical jealousy to dictate to the Church. If Archdeacon Denison preaches disestablishment and sectarian organization, as the only remedy for a policy of rea- sonable and temperate comprehension, he has the remedy in his own hands—he can always disestablish and even disendow himself, and no doubt a sect of Denisonians, at least large enough to gather 'two or three together,' might collect round him. But to affix a stigma to Dr. Temple's name, in spite of his eager faith, his noble piety, his fresh' and courageous intellectual energy, which is above all things needed in the Church, simply because he has believed in the principle of liberty and individual responsibility for the cleri- cal conscience, and acted consistently on that belief, would, indeed, be beyond the power of a hundred Pusey-Shaftesbury combinations. It is evident from the speeches of the Earl of Portsmouth and Mr. Acland, M.P., in North Devonshire, on Wednesday, that the Liberal laity, even those of them who are the most earnest Churchmen,—as Mr. Acland is well known to be,—have no intention of submitting to the dicta- tion of this petty and contemptible combination, and we should have been extremely surprised and grieved had it been otherwise. In the Church of Rome the principle of government is an absolute spiritual monarchy. In the Church of England the principle of government is submission to the sober judgment of a Minister responsible to Parliament, i.e., of a layman responsible to laymen, though to laymen who will judge what he does by the end for which it is intended, that is, regard to the efficiency of the Church of England as a national institution. If Dr. Pusey and Lord Shaftesbury think to terrify Parliament out of its common-sense and com- mon courage they will not succeed, and without terrifying Parliament they cannot expect to overbear the deliberate and conscientious selection of Mr. Gladstone. Dr. Temple's whole career has eminently qualified him for this post, and no part of that career gives us more confidence in his character and power to rule well the great diocese for which he is designated than his courageous persistency in the refusal to apologize for falling into questionable company in the "Essays and Reviews." He might just as reasonably be asked to apolo- gize for what Mr. Newdegate said in the memorable North Warwickshire meeting a year ago,—or, at any rate, for any- thing said by his own party in the same campaign. We need bishops with as much courage as faith, with as much spirit as piety, who will not hear a voice of suspicious orthodoxy in every wind and turn pale because men whose intellect and conscience give a different report from their own are found standing beside them. The Church, if she understood her own needs, would be grateful enough to have found such a bishop in Dr. Temple.
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