and search has been made for solid grievances. One of these was the unfortunate attitude of the Dominions towards the Indians. This grievance has been partially removed; but it was a real grievance. It rankles still.

The Indians stood by our side in the worst and most fateful crisis of our long history, and they deserve all that our nation can do to honour and help them, to help them to take their place among the self-respecting nations of the world. But this great and noble duty cannot be performed by legislative act, by generous proclamation, nor by sympathetic resolutions. The world has to be convinced, not by the recent managers of India, but by the Indians themselves. The world must be convinced that the Indians can manage their own affairs safely and securely. The world will want to see national leaders of India, and it is here suggested that these leaders are to be found in India: men who are to the manner born, who have ruled and maintained order and discipline with perhaps a lighter hand and an easier touch than their colleagues in Empire in British territory. It is suggested that the Rájas of India are in the first instance the most obvious and suitable of Indians to blaze the way for all India into the comity of the nations.

And, lastly, it may be suggested that if it is decided that democratic institutions will not succeed in a land which has always been aristocratic in temperament and outlook, and also that the present bureaucratic administration is out of date, then the experiment might be tried of establishing a limited monarchy in one of the provinces of British India. There is ample room in vast India for many such experiments, and one of the causes of the present discontent is the drab monotony which runs through every province, blurring the bright colours of a land which longs for many hues.

WALTER R. LAWRENCE

THE

A CHURCH TOLERANT

HE conviction that the Church of England has a national significance and a national mission is sufficiently indicated by the marked general interest taken in the questions arising round the revision of the Book of Common Prayer. It is not only the thoughtful folk, clerical and lay, of many denominations, but a general public more concerned with the broad political than the religious issues, who are looking with some anxiety to the solution of the problem which so sharply divides the Church of England that it may even mark an epoch in the relation of Church and State.

It is necessary to remind ourselves what the expression "Church of England "really means. When a collocation of words becomes familiar, there is always a danger that its full significance will be lost in the smooth and easy phrasing of habitual use; there is also the danger of unconscious mental emphasis on one part of the phrase rather than another. In the expression "Church of England" it is possible to think primarily, and most people do think too readily, of the word" Church," and the full significance of " England" is lost. But, though the dominating idea in the phrase may be the first word, there are times when all the emphasis should be thrown on the word "England."

For the Church of England must be treated as the product of its history. It is the assertion in religious matters of the genius of the English people. The immediate apparent cause of the Reformation-the incident which produced a final breach with Rome was doubtless personal to Henry VIII (and not so discreditable to him as some historians have averred); but such an event could have had no permanent effect without the moral support of the bulk of the English people; indeed, the king might not have moved at all if he had not imbibed the spirit of his people. The Reformation was a genuine revolt against two ideas which are repugnant to the whole spirit of the English people-the claim of the Church of Rome to rule the destinies of the nation, and the adoption by that church of a mystic dogma which led inevitably to superstition. Incidentally also the excessive domination by its clergy is abhorrent to the spirit of freedom.

In fact the Reformation was the first step in that moral emancipation of the English people which was completed a century later by the Civil War and the Revolution. Any comparatively petty personal motives, which may seem to have been in a measure causal, were in fact eddies on a stream, which drew the strength of its current far below them. Historically the Church of England was the outcome of a determination on the part of an earnestminded and freedom-loving people to re-establish their view of the Christian faith on the simple lines of the Master's teaching, free alike from the narrow and dogmatic trammels which He attacked in the Pharisees, and from any tendency to the materialistic worship which the whole trend of His teaching condemned. The general result was not immediate, nor was it final. In their struggle to consolidate the new position the authorities of the church were brought sharply into conflict with the divergent views of thoughtful people. The peculiar danger which besets such authorities is the tendency to a self-sufficient and intolerant priestcraft. On the other hand the Protestants, who had freed themselves from one dogma, were not to be bound down too readily to the dicta of a new administration. Thus arose the dissenter." With the narrowness to which officialdom is so prone, the central powers of the church required each body of dissenters in turn either to renounce their views or to stand outside the national church for ever. If half the earnest sympathy which to-day strives for re-union had been available for John Wesley and his followers, it is probable that what is now the powerful body of the Wesleyan Methodists would never have established a separate church. For the most part, all dissent has been due to an honest difference of opinion on matters which are scarcely vital to the deep truths of religion. Jealousy and personal ambition have had their share in expanding fissures already made but this is mentioned here only to guard against any suggestion of inadequate analysis.

The lesson to be learned is of extreme importance to-day, for the Church of England once more is faced with an organised dissent from the long-accepted view of a particular service as formulated in the Thirty-nine Articles. Only, on this occasion it is not the ruling authority which finds difficulty in meeting the revolutionary view, but the strong and almost passionate conviction of a large body of fellow churchmen. It is to the charity

and forbearance of these that appeal must now be made. For there can be little question that they reflect the general instinctive feeling of the nation.

Those most competent to judge believe that the House of Commons, in rejecting the "Deposited Book," has voiced the national sentiment. An " amazingly popular " result was a phrase used immediately after the vote of the 15th of December last and though the general feeling now is less articulate, there is no question that the decision taken on the 14th of June was a well-considered and deliberate confirmation of the previous judgment of the House. It is not necessarily to the point that a majority of the purely English members of the House was in favour of accepting the new book. The question submitted to Parliament went beyond the immediate interests of members owning allegiance to the Church of England: it raised the whole original position of that church before the days when it was weakened by dissent: it appealed, and rightly appealed, to the general sense of a Protestant nation. Members of the House of different religious persuasions, with much conscientious thought, voted for or against the measure according to their best judgment. What the members, being also of the Church of England, who voted for the measure, wished to signify, seems to have been that on the whole question they preferred to follow the guidance of the bishops.

Now the bishops, though with a certain natural disappointment at what might seem a rebuff, recognised six months ago that the House supported the view of the evangelical body. Their amendments of the Deposited Book were designed to remove the scruples of that section; though unfortunately their attempt to find a middle course pleased neither the evangelical leaders, such as Sir William Joynson-Hicks and Sir Thomas Inskip, nor the so-called " Anglo-Catholics," who were scarcely represented in debate. In the result the inherent Protestantism of the English nation has again asserted itself.

For the moment there is a pause and a call for patience and self-restraint; and if, as would appear, the bishops recognise their national responsibility, and in so doing face serious sectional difficulties, they deserve the support of all "men of goodwill." With this object an appeal can fairly be made to all churchmen on grounds which may at first blush be startling, but at least accord with the highest conceptions of Christianity.

In order to understand the real difficulty which divides the church it is necessary to face bravely and with all reverence the difference of opinion which prevails as to the exact significance of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion. If the accounts of the institution of this sacrament in the first three gospels (it is not mentioned by St. John) be carefully read, if due allowance be made for the allegorical language which Christ so often used, the impression left is that, whatever mystic meaning lay behind that language, the ceremony itself was of a wonderfully simple character: its essence was a solemn act of memorial-" This do in remembrance of me." Into the interesting question of the precise Passover cup blessed, and into the traditions which accumulated around the occasion, it is out of place to inquire here; but even St. Paul in re-affirming the record of the act of institution does not necessarily go beyond the view that the service was a solemn and reverent memorial with no further or deeper significance attached to it. His reproof of the Corinthians seems to imply that the material side of the service had become too prominent, and that it needed to be brought back to a simple and more spiritual form. This much, however, is certain: it would be entirely out of accord with Christ's own general teaching that the memorial service which he ordained should be hampered with a mystic materialism and become a stumbling block to his earnest followers. "God is a Spirit," he said," and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." To the highest form of worship there must be no material form as an accessory.

To most of us Englishmen there can be no question that the Lord's Supper was primarily a solemn and intimate memorial service, to be approached with the greatest reverence and complete spiritual abstraction as the highest act of worship of which man is capable. The mind of the average Englishman is averse from mysticism; the majority of the race demand the simplest conception of a truth. To such the idea that any mystic alteration can take place in the elements is a negation of the spiritual attributes of God. Not only is no ground found for it in scripture, but it seems opposed to the teaching of the Master and an outrage on that physical sense with which we have been endowed. The idea of treating the consecrated elements as anything more than a solemn symbol seems to many to approximate closely to idolatry.