of the subject of Dissent which actually recognizes the manhood, the scholarship, and the Christianity of Dissenters, and the sins and shortcomings of the Established Church; and which also seeks to make Dissenters and Churchmen better acquainted with each other, in order that, whether they can be brought into union or not, they may at least approximate in feeling, and that mutual respect and kindness may take the place of distrust and estrangement. A most praiseworthy purpose this, and one which we believe the lecturer has endeavoured to carry out with all sincerity. And if the pages of his volume did not supply ample evidence of the kind and serious spirit of the author, it has been abundantly furnished by a letter which he has lately addressed to a dissenting periodical, in which his work has been reviewed. This document manifests such a noble temper as to deserve a more permanent record, and we accordingly insert the greater part of it. Thus he writes under date of September 10th, 1872; and his aspirations and inquiries will, we are persuaded, find a response in the hearts of our readers generally, who are as sick of "worn-out squabbles," and as desirous of something better, as Mr. Curteis can be.

"I was not, of course, so sanguine as to expect that all the views I have advanced would meet with acceptance; or even trust, with all my endeavours to be fair and true, I should escape making some statements that are open to question. But what I think so reassuring is, that those endeavours have really been received with a kindly appreciation of the writer's intention, and that a long step has been made in advance towards that most desirable consummation,-a mutual understanding.

"For this, and not proselytism, has been (and shall be) the earnest object of my labours. That, and that alone, seems to me the worthy prize of all our controversies. And amid the nobler and purer atmosphere of Christian charity and a truthful intelligence, I feel certain that a great many of our present unworthy differences would of themselves vanish away. Why should not all sections of Christendom in this country try, with God's grace, to rise above all those trifling worn-out squabbles of the past; and seek re-union on some higher Christian level than we have any of us yet attained?

"Dissenters surely, on their side, are far too well content with a miserable spectacle of sectarianism which no man who reads his Bible with intelligence can for a moment suppose our Lord Jesus Christ or His Apostles would have sanctioned. And those members of the Church of England who come most before the public are far too easily content, on their side, with mere mechanism and ecclesiastical subordination. But is there anything, either in the Gospel or in the present state (at least) of England, which

forbids us to hope that a combination may some day be effected— on the high ground of mutual esteem and of duty to our Master's cause of ecclesiastical efficiency with spiritual valour and enthusiasm? Is there anything which should lead us to despair of casting out the devil of jealousy, calumny, and self-assertion in all its Protean forms? And then, is there any reason to doubt that victories would be achieved over the strongholds of ignorance and sin, such as the Church has not known for many a long and weary day?"

It is our duty also to state that the efforts of Mr. Curteis to accumulate" materials by which his fellow Churchmen may be aided in forming an intelligent and candid judgment, as to what precisely these dissenting denominations really are," (Preface, p. xviii.,) have been very painstaking; and that where he has failed to convey a true idea of those whom he writes about, it is certainly not for want of labour or research. Either the sources of his information have been defective, or he has failed to catch the import of the facts and arguments adduced. Thus, in quoting our "Large Minutes," he explains "helper" to mean "local preacher;" and, in speaking of the standards of Methodist doctrine, he does not perceive the distinction between those sermons which alone are referred to in Chapel Deeds, and Mr. Wesley's Sermons at large. (Pp. 308, 386.)*

While we have thus borne our testimony to the good intentions and good temper of our author, we are bound in honesty to say that we can go no further. It is no doubt pleasant to us to be treated with respect and kindness, rather than with contemptuous silence, or dignified rebuke; still more pleasant than to be held up to ridicule for doctrines which we not only do not believe, but have repeatedly disavowed, or for practices which have no place among us, nor ever had any. We are sensible of the change, and are glad for the sake of those who differ from us that they are no longer open to the charge of violating truth and justice. But the more sensible we are to their kindness, the more we are obliged to take care that they do not misunderstand our deep convictions. We may therefore proceed to consider without

Although where so many details are involved entire accuracy is perhaps scarcely to be expected from an outside observer, we are bound to supply a correction in passing. The total number of pages in Wesley's Sermons is given by Mr. Curteis, ubi sup., at 1469. The Sermons referred to in Chapel Deeds comprise no more than 680 pages of the edition of 1829, (Svo). The same mistake has been made by Mr. Isaac Taylor, who speaks contemptuously of "some dozen volumes of heterogeneous and polemical theology" to which the preachers are bound. ("Wesley and Methodism," p. 293.) There is no edition of Wesley's Notes published without the text, so that the total number of pages of his writing in them cannot easily be specified, but they can scarcely be more than four hundred and fifty, if so many.

further delay the more serious questions which Mr. Curteis has raised. Is there a higher Christian ground upon which union is possible? May the several religious bodies now in England hope to find a meeting-place where the several excellencies of each may be made available for the common advantage? These are matters of the first moment, and we wish we could find in the volume before us the materials of an affirmative answer, or that Mr. Curteis's judgment were as sound as his temper is unquestionably amiable. In his preface the lecturer briefly develops his leading ideas. The day of unimaginative religion he believes is over; the world has now to choose between superstition and infidelity; the Teutonic races will govern the world, and the Church of the future will be what they make it; the Roman and Greek Churches are both Episcopal, and there is no chance of union with them except the Teutonic Churches are also Episcopal; an united Christianity is indispensable to progress and ultimate triumph; and, therefore, Mr. Curteis appears to hold it is necessary that we should all embrace Episcopacy. There are but two methods upon which union can be secured; that which he calls the scheme of the Evangelical Alliance; and that which he calls the scheme of the Old Catholic Church, meaning thereby one which shall recognize the Bishops of Rome, Constantinople, and Canterbury, as being respectively the patriarchs of the Latin, Greek, and Teutonic Churches. From this standpoint he is of opinion that he can prove dissension within certain limits not to be unwholesome; and also that neither the Church of England is so objectionable as to some Dissenters she appears to be, nor Dissenters so strange and horrible as some Churchmen have supposed; so that, forgetting former struggles, and admitting present defects on both sides, they may combine in the cause of veracity, justice, charity, and peace.

Pursuing this thought he labours to show that each principal English denomination embodies some leading idea; the Independents he supposes to contend for the purity of the Church in its external relations especially; the Baptists for the same purity in internal relations; the Quakers for the spirituality of the Church; the Romanists for its organic unity; the Unitarians for intellectual freedom; and the Methodists for the development of feeling in religion. Admitting the value and importance of these several objects, Mr. Curteis is of opinion that they might all be secured within the Church of England; that her system recognizes them in substance and effect; and might be so modified as to bring out what is most valuable in the respective religious bodies. He attempts to trace the history of each, grouping them in pairs in a certain historical

order.

First, the Independents, dating from 1568, next the Romanists from 1570; then the Baptists, dating from 1633, and the Quakers from 1646; then the Unitarians from 1689, and the Methodists from 1795.

It is remarkable that Mr. Curteis, amidst all his research into Denominational history, and with an evident desire to understand what he writes about, should appear to think it possible to unite all Englishmen in the Church of England upon some basis of mutual concession. Their doctrinal differences seem to him quite secondary in comparison with their ecclesiastical differences; nor does he appear to have considered that the latter arise out of the former. No imaginable scheme of comprehension could bring Quakers and Baptists, or Unitarians and Romanists, into one communion. The Quaker who believed in the obligation of using water, (in whatever mode,) would be no longer a Quaker, and the Baptist who allowed sprinkling of infants would have abandoned his fundamental principle. The Independent could not consent to part with his right to choose his fellow-communicants, or to be considered part of a Church where that right was ignored or denied. Methodists, while cherishing sincere respect and Christian love for many Calvinists, could not be ecclesiastically identified with the advocates of limited redemption and Christianized fatalism; and honest Unitarians, in contending for the personal unity of God and the mere humanity of Jesus Christ, must feel that they are practically incapacitated for any ecclesiastical association but their own.

It is the vainest of all vanities to attempt to gather us all into one organization while retaining our respective persuasions and beliefs; and such an agglomeration could exercise no moral influence, because most of those who had been wrought into it would have had their consciences wounded or seared in the process. To "bear witness to the truth" was the leading object of our great Master's life, and woe betides the Church which is not like-minded with Him. "To try and combine in one broad polity" seems to Mr. Curteis a noble object of ambition, and the only effectual means of such a union as shall influence mankind at large. This "broad polity," in his belief, is to be found in the Episcopal system, as understood and practised in England. With this he begins and ends. In his Preface (pp. xvi. and xvii.) he identifies the old Catholic system of the Church with that which would make the Archbishop of Canterbury the patriarch of (at least) the Englishspeaking Churches. And in his last Lecture he declares, "It were sheer folly to expect the Church of England to abandon the very principle of visible and organic unity on which her own existence is founded." (P. 426.) His "broad polity" thus practically resolves itself into one of the narrowest of narrow sects. A Congregationalist

or a Methodist Minister could fraternize in worship with members of the Episcopal, or Presbyterian, or Baptist communions in England, Ireland, Scotland, or America, while a strict Episcopalian would feel himself wholly precluded; or, as a recent correspondence relative to Glengarry plainly showed, could only undertake services in Presbyterian Scotland on terms insulting to the Established Church of that country.

Thus, notwithstanding the lecturer's kind intentions and expressions, we are compelled to conclude that he has a very inadequate comprehension of the subject he has undertaken to discuss, and in reality trifles with matters of the gravest import. His aspirations at last dwindle into bringing our countrymen together once more, if not for preaching, at least for "common worship, uniting in a common ritual, and lifting up our hearts in common psalmody." (P. 480.) But he appears unconscious of the fact that this has been successfully attempted by the Evangelical Alliance, from whose methods he strongly dissents; and also that no common ritual could be devised in which Quakers and Romanists, or Unitarians and Trinitarians, could honestly join. If Mr. Curteis thinks otherwise, let him try the experiment, and he will find that his benevolent imaginations have carried him far away from the regions of reality. He is eloquent on the subject of music and psalmody, but forgets that the authors whom he quotes assume that those who sing together have one faith and one hope, without which their song, however musical, must be an empty sound.

Is there, then, it may be asked, no hope? Must the existing state of things be perpetuated until Christianity becomes feebler and less influential than even at present? We cannot think so; for, in the first place, we demur to the picture drawn of our present condition. We are persuaded there is more of real unity among the professed disciples of Christ in England than at first sight appears. The fundamentals of Christianity were never more firmly held, or held by larger numbers of persons; and what is really wanted is that this real unity should be visibly manifested. Holding this opinion we further believe that the secret of obtaining such a manifestation does not lie in denouncing sectarian development, or insisting on uniformity of worship or government, but in a just appreciation of our actual agreements as compared with the points of difference. So long as forms of government and questions of discipline are held to be of the essence of a Church, Christians will be repelled from one another. So long as even secondary points of doctrine are ranked with fundamentals, the manifestation of the existing unity will be obstructed and delayed. But a truer estimate of the value of our agreements and differences is sure to result in kinder feeling,