bitterness-with their inevitable consequences, decay and ruin-must hinder the Church's usefulness and mar the peace of her children. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Hence the advice of the Bishops not to quarrel is quite futile and impracticable. Take away first the occasions of strife and something may be done to reconcile quarrelsome neighbours; but while there are boundaries so little explicit and fixed as to be the subject of perpetual dispute, how can we wonder that accusations of trespass are many and violent? I must leave for another discourse some causes of the alienation between laity and clergy not duly noticed by the Bishops. It is just possible that after such a noble effort towards self-reformation as we greet with so much pleasure they may be in a frame of mind suited to further enquiry on the very important subject they have laid to heart. Some expressions of theirs about "fundamental truths" are rather suggestive, and we should be very thankful if we could raise but one efficient voice to induce them to go to the very centre of the whole question. They have, as clergy, generously attacked their own body first. I think if the laity are generous, or even only just, they will not forget that it was the lay people of this country in Parliament that passed that wicked, mischievous Act of Uniformity and ratified the 39 Articles to which we owe all our divisions, and which the Bench of Bishops have alone to thank for every insult and sneer cast at themselves and at the Church over which they preside. CARTER & WILLIAMS, General Steam Printers, 14, Bishopsgate Avenue, Camomile-street E.C Alienation between the Laity and the Clergy. A SERMON, PREACHED AT ST. GEORGE'S HALL, LANGHAM REV. CHARLES VOYSEY. ISAIAH XXX., 10. "This is a rebellious people, which say to the Seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits." HAVE to address you this morning on the alienation between the Laity and Clergy so bitterly lamented by the Bishops in their recent Pastoral. If you will remember we were noticing last Sunday the special kind of alienation spoken of by the Bishops, and laid by them at the door of the Ritualistic party. I wish to say as little as possible on this part of subject, in order to avoid repetition ; but we must on no account lose sight of it, or forget that what are called Romanizing tendencies have played a considerable part in the estrangement of the Nation from the National Church. The alienation of which I would speak to-day is far deeper and more wide-spread than that arising from the action of a Rev. C. Voysey's sermons are to be obtained at St. George's Hall, every Sunday morning,orfrom the Author (by post), Camden House, Dulwich, S.E. Price one penny, postage a halfpenny. particular party, and although the Bishops seem to have just hinted at it here and there in the address, they have not given to it the prominence which they would have given had they been fully alive to its existence and force. It is admitted on all sides that many, if not most, of the intelligent and cultured persons in the land have lost all belief in the doctrines commonly preached in our churches. It is admitted further that this unbelief is not limited to Ritualistic doctrines or to the doctrines of any other school in particular, but includes them all. It is unbelief in Christianity, unbelief in the dogmas which form the very bones and sinews of the orthodox creed. The ancient cosmogony, the story of the Fall, the primeval curse, the threatened hell, the scheme of redemption, the plurality of persons in the Godhead, the Incarnation of the Son, all his miracles on earth, and especially his resurrection and ascension-doctrines which we find more or less explicitly taught by the Clergy of whatever school-all are now gravely doubted or denied by a vast number of persons who are the real leaders of thought in every other department of knowledge and inquiry. The list of famous men who have been, and are still, illustrious, and who have either openly avowed their disbelief in orthodoxy, or who have expressed a lofty scorn for it by a significant silence, is far too long to recite here. Their names are too familiar, not only to ourselves but to the Bishops, to need enumeration. Tens of thousands of their readers and disciples share their scepticism and gently distil it into the minds of their families and friends. On the other hand, the artizans and the intelligent among our clerks and shopmen are infected with the same taint of heresy. The conviction is forced upon us, beyond all further doubt or question, that it is intelligence or common sense which is at war with orthodox beliefs, and not only a culture which might be accused of having been corrupted. Independent, serious, and even devout thought seems to be invariably hostile to Christian dogmas, with or without the appliances for a critical examination of the evidences. This estrangement, moreover, is none the less intense and dangerous because to a great degree concealed. Unbelievers still throng the churches, notwithstanding the much greater number who never enter them at all; and those who go are pressed into attendance by a variety of causes, among which is never to be found a hearty interest in the service or a desire to have the established creed maintained. The chief of those causes may be included under the term "social pressure;" and the Bishops may well ask themselves if they, as true believers in orthodoxy, can be contented with such outward conformity, or look upon it indeed with any other feelings but those of shame and dismay. In some cases, I admit, conformity is a positive duty; but in others it is wicked and demoralizing. At all events, we may be sure that continuing to countenance by our presence the dogmas which our heart abhors only deepens our repugnance, and makes a return to them more impossible than ever. Let not the Bishops then build any false hopes upon the fact of this extensive insincerity and hypocritical conformity. Now I think that the Clergy have been most unfairly blamed for this alienation of the Laity, It may be quite true of some individuals that they have done their utmost to hinder the light of knowledge from reaching the people, and to close more tightly than ever the curtains and shutters of a blind superstition. Let these bear the condemnation they richly deserve. But as a body the Clergy are to be far more pitied than blamed. They, like the Laity, have come within reach of the influences which have revolutionized modern thought; they too have read, probably were the first to read in their studies, the works of German critics and commentators by which Biblical infallibility has been undermined; they, most of them scholars and students, have welcomed in secret and eagerly devoured every scrap of scientific knowledge which our leaders in science have bestowed. Gladly and thankfully would many of them have allowed free play to their own thoughts and have given free expression to their enlightened views if only the Laity would have cheered them on and encouraged them in their struggle for mental and spiritual freedom. As it is, a few have burst their bonds and gone to greater or less distances from the old landmarks; but what has been their fate? Have not their religious newspapers (and not always the religious ones) been the first to turn against them and raise the cry of "infidel' and 'heretic,"" hunting them down to disgrace and ruin? And I mention the newspapers because they are written to sell, to sell to the Laity, mark you; for a clerical circulation alone could not support one of them. It is the Laity who have been foremost to heap new burdens on the fettered Clergy, and to hamstring every one that would make a noble leap into light and liberty. Nothing can exceed the obtuseness, ignorance and bigotry of many of our lower middle class, and it is from this quarter that most of the retrograde agitation springs. We know how hard it is to force on such people any new invention, any most needful sanitary precaution, or scheme for mental and moral elevation. How much harder it is to get them to embrace a new thought in religion, or even to look at an old one in a new light! "They put faith in their numbers, and are pleased to insult the lone passenger," as the author of the New Koran says; and having for the most part feeble capacities with a minimum of culture, they naturally regard themselves as supreme authorities in all matters pertaining to religion; for have they not their family Bible, and did not they learn their Catechism when children, and are they not perfectly well versed in all the wisdom of God? I say, with such a mass of dead opposition, none can justly blame the Clergy as a body for their failure to emancipate themselves and to make more use of the light and knowledge which this age enjoys. But the Laity have oppressed the Clergy with a weight of tyranny still more galling than that of their own senseless opposition. They have it in their hands to mock at any honest preacher of truth, if he dares to speak contrary to the dogmas laid down for his guidance. They can twit him with treason, unfaithfulness, with betraying his trust, and undermining the Church while he is eating its bread. All these vulgar accusations are hurled against the would-be reformer; and he must be a very high-souled man indeed if he can withstand the storm of opprobrium to which he is exposed. The sting of these reproaches lies in the invincible fact that there is a law, or bundle of laws, practically forbidding a clergyman to speak his honest mind. For while he solemnly vows at his ordination that he will preach nothing but what he himself is persuaded may be drawn from Holy Scripture as necessary to man's salvation; the law comes behind him and says "if you arrive at a persuasion that Holy Scripture teaches doctrine contrary to our thirty-nine Articles and three Creeds you shall be surely punished." With one hand |