and he is the man. It is not in his negative and critical
aspect that he is to be judged. In the position in that respect he has
assumed there is no novelty. Unfortunately, the Church of England, like
all established churches, more or less lays itself open to the most
irreverent criticism. The new wine cannot be put in the old bottles. We
can quite agree with him that "the majority of the clergy have no just
conception of what, according to the nature of things, they are called
upon to do;" that St. Paul would find himself sadly out of place were he
called upon to preach to the congregation of a fashionable suburban
church; and that there would indeed be a flutter and commotion raised
were "the Archbishop of Canterbury, cutting himself adrift from the level
of Belgravia, to stand out before men denouncing woe upon the butterflies
of fashion and the Dundrearies of Parliament as Jesus denounced the
Scribes and Pharisees of old." But the saying these things does not
constitute a man the founder of a new and better sect. Mr. Froude tells
us "the clergyman of the nineteenth century subscribes the Thirty-nine
Articles with a smile as might have been worn by Samson when his
Philistine mistress bound his arms with the cords and withs." It is
scarcely possible to write a bitterer thing of the clergy, yet Mr. Froude
is not, so far as we are aware, an Independent Religious Reformer. Even
of the Church of which such hard things may be said, and justly said, we
may argue that its theory of the identity of Church and State is a noble
one, and that the dream of such men as "the judicious Hooker," of
Coleridge, of Dr. Arnold, is that of all who, in stately cathedral or
humble conventicle, pray Sunday after Sunday to the common Father, "Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done upon earth as it is in heaven." Man is a
religious animal; the heart is true to its old instincts. There is no
peace for his soul, no rest for the sole of the foot, no shelter for him
in the storm, no brightness in the cloud, no glory in the sun, no hope in
life, no life in death, unless he can believe, adore, and love. But we
have forgotten Dr. Perfitt. Well, we need be in no hurry. If you go to
Newman Street you will find very few people there by eleven. The
exclusively religious service, as one of the hearers informed us it was,
generally commences at a quarter past, where in the large hall about a
hundred may be collected together, the majority, of cour