ndeed,--alas, the endless talk and
struggle we have had of High-Church, Low-Church, Church-
Extension, Church-in-Danger: we invite the Christian reader to
think whether it has not been a too miserable screech-owl
phantasm of talk and struggle, as for a 'Church,'--which one had
rather not define at present!

But now in these godless two centuries, looking at England and
her efforts and doings, if we ask, What of England's doings the
Law of Nature had accepted, Nature's King had actually furthered
and pronounced to have truth in them,--where is our answer?
Neither the 'Church' of Hurd and Warburton, nor the Anti-church
of Hume and Paine; not in any shape the Spiritualism of England:
all this is already seen, or beginning to be seen, for what it
is; a thing that Nature does _not_ own. On the one side is
dreary Cant, with a _reminiscence_ of things noble and divine;
on the other is but acrid Candour, with a _prophecy_ of things
brutal, infernal. Hurd and Warburton are sunk into the sere and
yellow leaf; no considerable body of true-seeing men looks
thitherward for healing: the Paine-and-Hume Atheistic theory, of
'things well let alone,' with Liberty, Equality and the like, is
also in these days declaring itself naught, unable to keep the
world from taking fire.

The theories and speculations of both these parties, and, we may
say, of all intermediate parties and persons, prove to be things
which the Eternal Veracity did not accept; things superficial,
ephemeral, which already a near Posterity, finding them already
dead and brown-leafed, is about to suppress and forget. The
Spiritualism of England, for those godless years, is, as it were,
all forgettable. Much has been written: but the perennial
Scriptures of Mankind have had small accession: from all English
Books, in rhyme or prose, in leather binding or in paper
wrappage, how many verses have been added to these? Our most
melodious Singers have sung as from the throat outwards: from
the inner Heart of Man, from the great Heart of Nature, through
no Pope or Philips, has there come any tone. The Oracles have
been dumb. In brief, the Spoken Word of England has not been
true. The Spoken Word of England turns out to have been trivial;
of short endurance; not valuable, not available as a Word,
except for the passing day. It has been accordant with
transitory Semblance; discordant with eternal Fact. It has been
unfortunately not a Word, but a Cant; a h