THE RIVAL CHURCHES.
Sot--How long will the cry of indignation be kept up ? Like a fretful child smarting. under real or fancied injury, the nation seems roused by the Pope's aggression to nothing more purposelike or manly than a lusty cry : but the stoutest lungs fail in time, and soon a few intermittent sobs will alone remain to remind us of the recent tempest. Then, perhaps, when the voice of reason can again be heard, we may derive warning from some con- siderations which in cooler times every Protestant among us is ready to admit.
Who, for instance, will deny that the spread of one religion can be re- sisted only by presenting the people with a better ; that a perfectly resistless faith, against which aggression is powerless, is simply the best and highest of which we can conceive ; and that by no well-served artillery of enactment and denunciation can you either protect any citadel of faith, or disturb a hair of any adversary. Were Englishmen generally disposed to renounce their ujudment, and accept a priesthood as the indispensable support of their re- us life, no attacks upon the forms and framework of the Roman Catholic Church could check its progress in this land. But if as we surely believe, the spirit of our countrymen is too intelligent, devout, and free to admit of their docile subjection to any human reader of the secrets of the heart, then the most perfect hierarchy, and the most splendid ceremonial, will fail to win their allegiance.
Moreover, this same aggression of the Pope appears unworthy of special wrath, if we calmly investigate the claims of the belligerents, and give each party credit for sincerity in their professions.
In spite of bitter invectiv the Church of England does acknowledge her Roman Catholic rival to be Christian,and her priests and bishops to be verit- able though degenerate ministers of that " Catholic and Apostolic Church " designated in the Creed, common to both. To an English Churchman, then, the effect of the recent appointments is to plant a second bishop on ground already occupied by a bishop. The aggression looks palpable enough, not to say "insolent and insidious," until we hear the evidence for the accused, and discover that the Pope has never regarded the Church of England as a branch of the "Catholic and Apostolic Church," and that accordingly, look- ing upon England as entirely destitute of bishops, he thought it time to in- troduce them. In the view of the one Church, two bishops contest the ground ; in the view of the other Church, sees exist where sees were unknown before. Now it is vain to expect any change of doctrine as to the right of ordaining bishops on the part of that Church which professes to be clothed in the eternal garment of infallibility. Nor were the ear of the Pope open to remonstrance' could the Church of England consistently exceed the bounds of tranquil reasoning, since though the "Quicunque visit" is in her pocket, she yet professes toleration and the right of private judgment. Indignation, except against those who are unfaithful to themselves, is un- worthy of any religious body. The Church of England, I believe, has al- ready lost ground by her recent behaviour, and she has no strength to spare. She ought to take care, lest with the faintest breath of approval she en- courages the civil power to resort again to those weapons which, twenty years ago, were happily laid aside, and pronounced by all the leaders of the day to be worse than powerless in such a cause. How different the aids on which she ought to rely ! By removing all those inconsistencies and antiquated formulas which deprive her of the support of so many of our foremost men, by preaching the gospel to the poor, and by spreading intelligence every- where, can the Church of England alone maintain such an ascendancy as she
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