RELIGION.
ANGLICAN ESSAYS. Edited by W. L. Paige Cox, Archdeacon of Chester. (Macmillan. 12s. 6d.)
The object of these important essays is to call attention to the deeper stream in English religion which underlies the various movements—Puritan, Tractarian, and the rest—and to show that the superficial stir has little effect on this central current : the one is an episode, and passes ; the latter is permanent, and prevails. Among the contributors are the Archbishop of Armagh, Mr. R. H. Murray, Mr. G. G. Coulton, and the editor • the appendix contains a series of pertinent extracts from the Pastorals of the late Bishop Jayne. The work has a close bearing on the question of Prayer-book Revision now before the National Assembly. The present generation of Englishmen is, unfortunately, more ignorant than any that has preceded it on the great religious issues involved in the proposed changes. It was a saying of Cardinal Manning's that the English people had been " robbed" of their faith at the Reformation ; by which he meant that they did not know till too late the real drift of the Tudor Settlement of religion. It is certain that to-day they are in imminent danger of being " robbed " of their Prayer-book. For they do not know the character of the Revision with which it is threatened ; and they may " loosely, through silence, permit things to pass away as in a dream."
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