Church Restoration. By the Author of Ecclesia Dei. (Longmans.)— The
writer sees the evils in the present condition of the Church of England very plainly, and expresses himself with perfect candour about them. A clergyman, as he tells us, of five-and-twenty years' experience, he is convinced that the Church is not doing anything like the work which it ought to do. There is a value in each statements ; they are painful to make, and whether or no they are correct, they are certainly honest. But we cannot attach much value to the " constructive " part of the writer's book. He writes with fluency, sometimes with eloquence, but he is perplexingly vague. We must confess to have been baffled by his theory of the origin and nature of the Christian Society ; out of his "counsels of amendment" we do gather something, chiefly that what we may call "Broad Church" doctrine should be preached, instead of narrower theories of the Divine purpose. With that, of coarse, we heartily agree ; if they were preached everywhere, and if people would listen to them, which they are little inclined to do, something, nay, much, might be done towards Church restoration. Let the author, we should say, do all he can in the work ; we should judge from this book that he can do it not without power. We cannot help thinking that he will be serving his generation more than he does by the rhetoric, earnest, we doubt not, but somewhat vague, which he gives us in this book.
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