respect to differences among themselves they ought, of course, in
the first place to remember that their right to differ is limited
by the laws of the system to which they belong; but within that
limit should they not also, each of them, recollect that his
antagonist has something to say; that the Reformation and the
counter-Reformation tendencies were, in the order of Providence,
placed here in a closer juxtaposition than anywhere else in the
Christian world; that a course of destiny so peculiar appears to
indicate on the part of the Supreme Orderer a peculiar purpose,
that not only no religious but no considerate or prudent man
should run the risk of interfering with such a purpose; that the
great charity which is a bounden duty everywhere in these matters
should here be accompanied and upheld by two ever-striving
handmaidens, a great Reverence and a great Patience.

This is true, and of deep moment to those who guide and influence
thought and feeling in the Church. But further, those in whose hands
the "Supreme Orderer" has placed the springs and the restraints of
political movement and of change, if they recognise at all this view of
the English Church, ought to feel one duty paramount in regard to it.
Never was the Church, they tell us, more active and more hopeful; well
then, what politicians who care for her have to see to is that she
shall have _time_ to work out effectually the tendencies which are
visible in her now more than at any period of her history--that
combination which Mr. Gladstone wishes for, of the deepest individual
faith and energy, with forbearance and conciliation and the desire for
peace. She has a right to claim from English rulers that she should
have time to let these things work and bear fruit; if she has lost time
before, she never was so manifestly in earnest in trying to make up for
it as now. It is not talking, but working together, which brings
different minds and tempers to understand one another's divergences;
and it is this disposition to work together which shows itself and is
growing now. But it needs time. What the Church has a right to ask from
the arbiters of her temporal and political position in the country, if
that is ultimately and inevitably to be changed, is that nothing
precipitate, nothing impatient, should be done; that she should have
time adequately to develop and fulfil what she now alone among
Christian com