a hostile case. Doellinger, who would probably once have been cited as
the greatest historian the Catholic priesthood had produced in the
nineteenth century, died under the anathema of his Church; and how large
a proportion of the best writing in modern English Catholicism has come
from writers who have been brought up in Protestant universities and who
have learnt their skill in the Anglican Church!

It is at least one great test of a living Church that the best intellect
of the country can enter into its ministry, that it contains men who in
nearly all branches of literature are looked upon by lay scholars with
respect or admiration. It is said that the number of young men of
ability who take orders is diminishing, and that this is due, not merely
to the agricultural depression which has made the Church much less
desirable as a profession, and indeed in many cases almost impossible
for those who have not some private fortune; not merely to the
competitive examination system, which has opened out vast and attractive
fields of ambition to the ablest laymen,--but also to the wide
divergence of men of the best intellect from the doctrines of the
Church, and the conviction that they cannot honestly subscribe its
articles and recite its formularies. But although this is, I believe,
true, it is also true that there is no other Church which has shown
itself so capable of attracting and retaining the services of men of
general learning, criticism and ability. One of the most important
features of the English ecclesiastical system has been the education of
those who are intended for the Church, in common with other students in
the great national universities. Other systems of education may produce
a clergy of greater professional learning and more intense and exclusive
zeal, but no other system of education is so efficacious in maintaining
a general harmony of thought and tendency between the Church and the
average educated opinion of the nation.

Take another test. Compare the _Guardian_, which represents better than
any other paper the opinions of moderate Churchmen, with the papers
which are most read by the French priesthood and have most influence on
their opinions. Certainly few English journalists have equalled in
ability Louis Veuillot, and few papers have exercised so great an
influence over the clergy of the Church as the _Univers_ at the time
when he directed it; but no one who read those savagely scurrilous and
in