the immense power for development which a national body possesses." Though when, challenging comparisons, he insists that "In no other great Church is there so little false pretence of assumed knowledge and certainty on points where there can be none," it is hard to resist the suspicion that he is putting in an indirect plea for the acceptance of his own modifications of theological dogma.

It is just the reasonableness of the Church's attitude on questions of doctrine which causes it to minister so effectively to culture, and it was Arnold's conviction that the Church might count on a future of incalculable influence if only it preserved a tolerant temper.

"Its true strength," he says, "is in relying, not on its powers of force, but on its powers of attractiveness. And by opening itself to the glow of the old and true ideal of the Christian Gospel, by fidelity to reason, by placing the stress of its religion on goodness, by cultivating grace and peace, it will inspire attachment, to which the attachment which it inspires now, deep though that is, will be as nothing: it will last, be sure, as long as this nation."

And yet on religious grounds alone he claims that a universal Church is preferable to a multiplicity of rival communities, however active, since a large part of the activity of these must of necessity be occupied in counteracting the evils of divided effort, and he endorses Bishop Wilson's dictum: "It will be found at

last that unity and the peace of the Church will conduce more to the saving of souls than the most specious sects, varnished with the most pious, specious pretences.''

That the Church has a social side and a definite social mission is one of those ideas of Arnold's which those who know him only as the impassive apostle of culture and heterodoxy overlook to his disadvantage. He has also a suspicion that the Church has not at all periods of its history, and especially in modern times, been faithful to this part of its obligation. "If there is a stronghold of stolid deference to the illusions of the aristocratic and propertied classes the Church of England, many people will maintain, is that stronghold. It is the most formidable complaint against the Church, the complaint which creates its most serious danger," " He points out, however, that if the Church shows special devotion "above all to the landed gentry, but also to the propertied and satisfied classes generally," an attitude which "cannot possibly nowadays attach the working classes, or be viewed with anything

"Does not," he writes in the essay on Joubert (Essays in Criticism, 1st Series), "the following maxim exactly fit the Church of England, of which Joubert certainly never thought when he was writing it?-'The austere sects excite the most enthusiasm at first; but the temperate sects have always been the most durable.'"

2 More explicitly he wrote to a working-man correspondent May 30, 1872: "I entirely agree with you that its squirearchical connexion has been of the greatest disservice to the Church of England."

but disfavour by them," it has not got it from the Bible, nor does this spirit of social preference inhere historically in the Christian religion. "The Bible enjoins endless self-sacrifice all round; and to any one who has grasped this idea the superstitious worship of property, the reverent devotedness to the propertied and satisfied classes, is impossible. And the Christian Church has, I boldly say, been the fruitful parent of men who, having grasped this idea, have been exempt from this superstition." By such men, the men of authoritative utterance, the Church must be judged; and in illustration he quotes rather inaptly a sermon against private property preached by Barrow so long ago as 1671! The curious thing, however, is that Arnold never recognised that the unnatural alliance which he deprecates was one outcome of the Act of Uniformity which established Nonconformity on its modern basis -an Act which, in the words of J. R. Green, marked "the definite expulsion of a great party which from the time of the Reformation had played the most active and popular part in the life of the Church." More convincing certainly than an isolated argument from seventeenth century theology is Arnold's own uncanonical assertion: "A fascinated awe of class privileges, station, and property, a belief in the Divine appointment, perfectness, and perpetuity of existing social arrangements, is not the authentic tradition of the Church of England! It is important to insist upon this, important for the Church to feel and avow it,

because no institution with these prejudices could possibly carry the working classes with it. And it is necessary for the Church, if it is to live, that it should carry the working classes with it."

S°

CHAPTER XIV

HIS PLEA FOR COMPREHENSION

far the historical justification of Establishments in general and the doctrinal basis of the Church of England in particular. Arnold is less convincing when he attempts to lay down the ethic of ecclesiastical dissent. Separation, he affirms, may in principle be defensible, but it must not arise on matters either of doctrine, discipline, or polity. Separation is only reasonable and right on "plain points of morals. For these involve the very essence of the Christian Gospel and the very ground on which the Christian Church is built." Hence-"The sale of indulgences, if deliberately instituted and persisted in by the main body of the Church, afforded a valid reason for breaking unity; the doctrine of purgatory, or of the real presence, did not." And again: "The moral corruptions of Rome were a real ground for separation. On their account, and solely on their account, if they could not be got rid of, was separation not only lawful but necessary." For this same reason, however, the secession of the Nonconformists was neither necessary nor lawful.

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