It was a happy circumstance that the Adiaphoristic controversy raged in Germany at so early a date, 1548-55, in connection with the Augsburg Interim and the Leipzig Interim, and that the Lutheran and Reformed divines reached an early solution of the difficulty in the sound position of the Formula of Concord that when

"Ceremonies or ecclesiastical rites such as in the Word of God are neither commanded nor forbidden but have only been instituted for the sake of order or seemliness" are made matters of conscience "by a sort of coercion obtruded upon the Church as necessary, and that contrary to the Christian liberty which the Church of Christ has in external matters of this sort," they should be resisted at all hazards. But they also condemn the other extreme: "When external ceremonies which are indifferent, are abrogated under the opinion that it is not free to the Church of God, as occasion demands, to use this or that ceremony by the privilege of its Christian liberty as it shall judge to be useful to edification." (Art. x.)

This sound position saved Germany and the entire Continent from those controversies about ceremonies which have distracted British Christianity. And so the Lutheran and Reformed Churches of the Continent have simple liturgies of a few chief types, with great variety in details, in the numerous national Churches. These variations continue in their daughter Churches of America. The German Reformed Church has long been in the enviable position of having a most excellent revised Calvinistic Liturgy which is entirely optional in its use, but greatly appreciated and widely used on that very account. The American Presbyterian Church has recently followed the example of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and adopted a highly appreciated, optional liturgy. The liturgical movement has nothing to lose but everything to gain by liberty of worship. That which is imposed by authority, however excellent it may be, provokes resistance. That which is freely offered is valued for itself. The most excellent liturgy and the most tasteful and expressive ceremonies of worship will eventually win general acceptance.

The Chicago Lambeth platform of Unity has made a valid distinction between the essentials and non-essentials of Christian Worship. Let the Mother Church and her daughters faithfully adhere to it and so promote liberty and unity of Christian Worship. Then all the difficulties of British Christianity will be solved, all the parties will be reconciled; and Catholic and Protestant, Lutheran and Calvinist, Arminian and Evangelical, will partake together of the one holy sacrifice; and, while each will have his freedom in his own parish to use such ceremonies and ornaments and liturgy as will best express his own doctrine, he will not be offended when he partakes with his brethren in the use of other ceremonies, ornaments and liturgies. It is very desirable that the unity and peace of the Church may be realised in some such comprehensive position.

The rigid interpretation of the Act of Uniformity by the Archbishops seems to raise an insuperable obstacle in the way of Church Unity. The proposals of the royal Commission only offer partial relief, and threaten the rupture of the Church, rather than promise its reunion with other Churches. But it really opens the eyes of the Church of England to see the perils of the situation, and therefore initiates movements which will be fruitful in unity and peace.

The Worship of Christian Churches all over the world is essentially the same. It is composed of prayers, whether sung or read or said, of essentially the same contents. They have come down from the earliest times and have come together from many lands and many devout souls, whether preserved in liturgical forms or in the traditional language of extempore devotion. The hymns of praise are a collection of hymns of all lands and nations and Churches and denominations. The same Bible is read throughout the Christian world, and is used as the basis of all Christian preaching and teaching. Notwithstanding all the differences of external form and ceremony, the worship in all Christian Churches, as it rises up to God from every kindred nation

and tongue and is stripped of all that is external and unimportant, is essentially the same. It is doubtful whether the saints of heaven would discern those differences which seem so important to us here on earth. The odour of Christ's name gives efficacy to all the worship, however defective it may be. It all ascends in his name to the Father and the Father will not reject the Greek, the Armenian or the Roman, any more than the Anglican, Presbyterian or Congregationalist, or any other who worships Him "in spirit and in truth" (John iv. 23.)

XIII

THE ENCYCLICAL AGAINST MODERNISM

POPE PIUS X is in the sixth year of his pontificate. He began as a liberal Pope, proposing to reform all things in Christ, and for about two years he seemed bent upon carrying out his ideal. But suddenly there came a change; the environment of the Roman Curia was too strong for him, and they persuaded him to follow in the footsteps of Pius IX, and oppose reform as the most dangerous of heresies. He began as a broad-minded, warm-hearted, tolerant, conciliatory, lovable Pope, the humble servant of Christ, popular with all classes of people, who were ready to rally about him with enthusiasm for the work of reform. He now appears in his attitude towards the French Episcopate and the Italian Catholic Nationalists, in the decisions of the Biblical Commission, and especially in the new Syllabus and Encyclical, as a medieval curial Cæsar possessed of the very opposite qualities.

How can such a transformation be explained? Some see in him a man to be pitied for his weakness in the hands of an ecclesiastical Camarilla, who make him a real prisoner of the Vatican, because they do not permit him to see the truth and reality of the outer world, but only matters and things as they represent them to him. But the mass of the voters of Italy and France cannot make this discrimination; they regard clericalism as the great enemy of the people and the Roman hierarchy as the deadly foe, which must be overthrown at all hazards and every cost.

It is difficult for an American to appreciate the situation in the Latin countries, where the people are Catholic, but the

masses of the men are anti-clerical. We are accustomed to free Churches in a free State. We cannot appreciate this state of war, and the injustices and hardships that result from it. In Italy the people are so bitterly anti-clerical that the highest dignitaries of the Papal court have been insulted in the streets of Rome, and it has been unsafe for them to appear in public without the protection of that very Italian Government which they ordinarily ignore and despise. Under such circumstances, one would naturally suppose that the Curia would pursue a prudent policy. But they have chosen the reverse, and are doing all in their power to stir up strife all over the Christian world with a madness that is the sure precursor of ruin. They have issued a new Syllabus of errors, and an Encyclical against Modernism; they propose a new Inquisition: they are hurrying on the canonisation of Pius IX; they are even proposing another infallible dogma, the Assumption of the Virgin, and a recalling of the Vatican Council to enhance still further the authority of the Pope, and protect it from the supposed encroachments of modern States. Pius IX, by his arbitrary measures, brought on the destruction of the temporal power of the Papacy; Pius X is on the way to still more serious results.

I. THE SYLLABUS

The Syllabus is a collection of sixty-five statements which are condemned as errors. These statements are not, so far

as

I have been able to trace them, the verbal statements of any one, save the authors of the Syllabus; but they are based upon statements made by Loisy, Tyrrell and other Catholic scholars whose writings have been put on the Index. I have traced a considerable number of these in their writings; in no single instance are the exact words of these writings given; but their supposed ideas, with some of the principal words, are put into entirely new sentences composed by the authors of the Syllabus. It is easy to see what grave injustice is thereby done to these scholars. They are deprived of the right of