. H. S. Holland, D.D.

[60] F. W. H. Myers.

[61] F. Henderson, _By the Sea, and other poems_.

XV

ECCLESIASTICA

The English Church, as established by the law of England, offers
the Supernatural to all who choose to come. It is like the Divine
Being Himself, Whose sun shines alike on the evil and on the good.
J. H. SHORTHOUSE, _John Inglesant_.

Mr. Shorthouse, like most people who have come over to the Church from
Dissent, set an inordinate value on the principle of Establishment. He
seemed (and in that particular he resembled Archbishop Tait) incapable
of conceiving the idea of a Church as separate from, and independent of,
the State. The words "as established by the law of England" in the
passage which stands at the head of this chapter appear to suggest a
doubt whether the English Church, if she ceased to be "established,"
could still discharge her function as the divinely-appointed dispenser
of sacramental grace to the English people. Those who, like Mr.
Gladstone, believe that no change in her worldly circumstances could
"compromise or impair her character as the Catholic and Apostolic Church
of this country," would omit Mr. Shorthouse's qualifying words, and
would say, simply, that the English Church, whether established or not,
offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come, and that she is, has
been, and always will be, "historically the same institution through
which the Gospel was originally preached to the English Nation." But
this is not the place for theorization; so, for the moment, I am content
to take Mr. Shorthouse's statement as it stands, and to say that a
loving pride in the English Church has been the permanent passion of my
life. I hold with Dean Church, a man not given to hyperbole, that "in
spite of inconsistencies and menacing troubles, she is still the most
glorious Church in Christendom."

I was baptized in the Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Woburn,
formerly a chapel dependent on the Cistercian Abbey hard by, which the
first Earl of Bedford received as a gift from Henry VIII.[62] This truly
interesting church was destroyed, to please an innovating incumbent, in
1864; but my earliest impressions of public worship are connected with
it, and in my mind's eye I can see it as clearly as if it were still
standing. It had never been "restored "; but had been decorated by my
grandfather, who inherited the ecclesiastical right