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A Journal of Religion, Politics, Literature

and Art.

No. 5.-VOL. I.]

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1876.

THE REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON VIVISECTION.

O deeply was the country moved by the sickening and horrible details concerning the secret practices of scientific doctors and enquiring philosophers, which were made public some months ago, that a Royal Commission was instituted, which has frequently sat, discussed the subject, heard evidence, and duly reported. The persons selected were not those who ought to have sat upon it-as several of them are, or have been, notorious Vivisectors themselves. As a Commission, it was exceedingly unfair and one-sided. The formal Blue Book, now before us, deserves some general notice. Those who desire to have details should procure it and study it for themselves. After all the doctoring that it has undergone a fact to which Mr. G. R. Jesse bears witness —it more than suffices to reveal a state of things, too horrible to describe, which ought at once to be promptly and totally suppressed (without any exception whatsoever) by Act of Parliament. When first the Report was issued, the most influential newspapers,-guided by the people who style themselves "leaders of science "-had cleverly endeavoured to blunt the force of the sickening details revealed in it. And, to a certain extent, they have been successful. Yet, thanks to various organizations, which have judiciously and efficiently circulated damning proofs of cultured barbarism and demoniacal cruelty, the feelings of the people of England have been deeply stirred.

We regret to say that the Society for Preventing Cruelty to Animals has adopted a most half-hearted and feeble policy. Such a Society, well-endowed and most influentially supported, ought to have stood forth at once to unravel the diabolical mysteries, and act boldly in opposition to the vile and wicked perpetrators of those revolting horrors. We cannot maintain that this has been done. There seems to us to have been an utter want of principle manifest in its policy-feebleness, half-heartedness, and most inadequate language were the order of the day.

Hence it came to pass that Mr. G. R. Jesse stood forward to found a "Society for the Total Abolition and Suppression of Vivisection ;" and, although we know nothing of him but as a public man, we are free to confess that he first took up his stand on a sound and solid principle, and has worked most nobly, with an energy, a devotion, and a consistency worthy of all honour and praise. He alone was the man whom the Vivisectors feared; for his literature was forcible, the evidence he produced was most conclusive, and his influence for good very considerable. As it was impossible to attack an outspoken and honest man like Mr. Jesse with success, face to face for he declined to turn tail and run away-his adroit enemies changed their tactics, and adopted quite another game. Mischief, no doubt, they have done; but we trust they are now foiled in their artful opposition.

The case against the Vivisectors has never been better, or more ably, put, than in the following letter from the pen of Mr. William Howitt, which we reproduce in this prominent place for the special instruction of our readers :

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In addressing to you my sentiments on the odious subject of Vivisection, I was intending to call attention to the mass of conclusive evidence adduced against the practice. I see, however, with pleasure that you have recently done that yourself in a printed paper addressed to the supporters and friends of the Society for the Abolition of Vivisection.' Little more would seem therefore requisite for me to do than to add my voice to those of so many both professional and unprofessional persons of far higher pretensions in condemnation of this horrible practice, and in bidding God-speed to a Society which aims at its utter extinction. Yet such evidence

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cannot be too much or too often brought under the eyes of the public. When we hear physicists or surgeons now-a-days asserting that discoveries useful to man have been, or may be, made by means of vivisecting animals, it must be of infinite service to oppose to their dicta the authority of such men as Sir Charles Bell, who declared, as to anatomy and physiology, that 'experiments (Vivisections) have never been the means of discovery; and a survey of what has been attempted of late years in physiology will prove that the opening of living animals has done more to perpetuate error than to confirm the just views taken from the study of anatomy and natural motions.'

"With a mass of evidence from the highest surgical authorities of the utter uselessness of these terrible sufferings, to inflict them under any circumstances, or any official sanction, is base, cowardly, and brutal. Such perpetrations are nothing less than devilish, and most disgraceful to any people which tolerates them. The numerous authorities of the highest grade, whose dicta, or whose conflicting experiments, confirm the verdict of their uselessness and their debasing influence on the moral character of those who practise them, call on us to put an absolute end to them. There can be no compromise on the subject in any sound or humane mind. Delenda est Carthago !

"Could there possibly be any compromise, it could only be in reference to human subjects. Longet says, 'No Vivisections can be beneficial to man except they are made on man!' But with all the zealous assertions of Vivisectors of their object in such awful atrocities being the good of humanity, where is the magnanimous Vivisector who would submit his sensitive frame to the knife, the forceps, the red-hot iron which he applies with such diabolical indifference, and often with long and oft-repeated savagery, to his bound and helpless victim? As, therefore, it is declared by high professional authority that nothing but human Vivisection can throw light on the human organism, and as we are sure not to have offered us any human martyr of science-away with the whole useless and detestable system of universal Vivisection under any regulations, sanctions, or circumstances whatever. Delenda est Vivisectio!

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"On these grounds I subscribe absolutely to the principle of the Society for the Abolition of Vivisection,' a system of tortures worse than those of the infamous Inquisition, and the details of which the stoutest stoic cannot read but as a stern and terrible duty. Yet the Society which issued the prize essay of Mr. Fleming, with strange inconsistency, in an article in the Animal World for December (1875) advocates the perpetuation of this most odious barbarity, which by its own publication is proved to be not only horrible, but useless, full of confusion, and degrading to the operator. would perpetuate the abomination under legal regulations, licensed performers, and anaesthetics. But who shall guarantee the observance of these conditions, seeing the rabid passion of Vivisectors for these cruelties, their anxiety for the secrecy of their horrible practices, and their habit of severing the vocal nerves of their victim to render their cries impossible? Professor Schiff, at Florence, when he had horrified the surrounding neighbourhood of his school of Vivisection by the shrieks and groans of his victims, stoutly asserted that he only operated under the effect of anaesthetics. But he now cuts the vocal nerves of his victims and they die in silence.

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all those who deplore the existence in England of this devilish cruelty-people like Mr. G. Hoggan, Miss F. Power Cobbe, Mr. Hutton of the Spectator, and their earnest and influential followers-had combined for the "total abolition" of the illegal borrors in question, the public would have responded, and Parliament would have been certainly forced to act. As it is, the friends of the dumb animals are unhappily divided in policy; Jermyn-street is silent; Mr. Hutton grows ambiguous; Miss Cobbe is for "restriction;" and so opposition is weakened, and the chances of doing good decrease.

A careful study of the Blue Book of 388 pages would convince any rational being that the absurd and obviously false conclusion at which the Royal Commissioners have arrived is wholly unwarranted by the evidence which was either tendered or obtained. How Lord Winmarleigh and Mr. Hutton could have signed it is puzzling. Many men amongst the witnesses could not speak out: others would not. Yet the actual revelations made by men of the highest repute, as well as the glimpses caught of other and darker atrocities perpetrated, are enough to fill the mind with deepening horror, and to haunt the consciences of all humane people like bad and sickening dreams. The Commissioners, however, in the teeth of evidence which they dared not suppress,though some of them quietly bullied Mr. Jesse, a witness, with some tact, much scorn, and considerable impatience,have the rank hardihood (notwithstanding Klein's evidence) to write thus:-"We have great satisfaction in assuring your Majesty that at the present time a general sentiment of humanity on this subject appears to pervade all classes of society."

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Those of our readers who are anxious that the vile practices of German scientific men should not spread here; that, as a nation, we should still be noted for our hatred of both refined and brutal cruelty-those who are prepared to speak or act for the poor suffering animals-put by God under man's dominion, to be used mercifully, and not cut up alive, should procure the Report and study it. And if they wish to aid in the crusade against scientific demonism, Mr. G. R. Jesse, of Henbury, near Macclesfield, will cheerfully and cordially co-operate with them in this benevolent and sacred object.

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A CONTENTIOUS CONFERENCE.

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N the Fourth of May, A.D. 1600, a Conference was inaugurated at Fontainebleau between Du Perron and others on the Catholic side, and Duplessis, Mornay, Casaubon, and de Fresne on the Huguenot side. The object was to investigate the accuracy of certain quotations and statements made in behalf of the Huguenot opinions by Duplessis. Commissioners," says Fervis, in his History of the Church of France. "were appointed to superintend the proceedings," and the king and a large number of notables were present as spectators. After the first day's proceedings the Protestant champion retired beaten and disgraced from the contest. It was conclusively shown that the Huguenot tenets rested on misquotations and misapprehensions, and many fallacies and heresies, which otherwise might have prevailed extensively, were finally disposed of; many Huguenots returned to the Catholic Faith, and the triumph of the latter was complete.

This was "a contentious Conference:" a Conference, that is, in which the parties concerned met to argue fairly, albeit courteously and charitably, against each other in the presence of an audience sufficiently intelligent to appreciate the arguments adduced, and sufficiently numerous to make the result final. Such a Conference differs widely in character from some which have been recently held in which the main object has been the invention of ambiguities with a view, not to removing, but rather to concealing, difficulties. We have referred to the discussion at Fontainebleau because we think that it is a precedent which might be conveniently followed at the present time in England.

Our modern methods of controversy are eminently unreal and inconclusive. A book is written on one side, to be followed by another on the other side; each is conclusive until the other is read. Most people read only one, accept the author's facts, quotations, and inferences without hesitation or investigation, and mankind, or that portion of mankind which takes an interest in the subject-matter, becomes divided into two antagonistic and irreconcileable camps. The

same objection lies against the controversial lectures, correspondence, sermons, and articles of the present day they are more or less valueless, because they are ex parte, and there is no check upon misrepresentation or error, except the conscience and the intelligence of the controversialist. Thus it comes to pass that old worn-out fallacies, which have been exposed times out of number, are trotted out again and again, like ghosts which have been imperfectly laid, or like so many figures or springs which are no sooner shut down in a box, than they spring up with a here we are again." We have often speculated upon the use of making quotations in a book intended for general readers; how are they to verify the quotation? to get at the context? to know the circumstances? They can only take what the writer says upon trust; their faith remains unshaken until they hear from another author of equal, or nearly equal, authority, that the quotations really mean the exact opposite of that which the first writer deduced from them, that the facts are garbled, the logic defective; and then the puzzled reader can only take refuge in the sceptical reflection that where doctors differ he is not able to decide.

There is much evil in all this: it is its inconsequential character which has brought controversy into reproach; which has made busy men look upon truth as a thing out of their reach, and as a will-o'-the-wisp which it is but waste of time to attempt to overtake. It is a common saying that truth has nothing to fear from free discussion; and nothing can be more true, if by free discussion is meant the rigid and impartial comparison and examination of facts and opinions in open court,-in a "contentious conference "—in a conference, that is, where the representatives of opposite opinions are forced to look one another in the face, to acknowledge undoubted facts, and to repudiate detected errors. But free discussion in the false sense in which that term is generally used, as meaning the unbridled liberty of publishing, either intentionally or ignorantly, what are only ex parte statements of error,-such free discussion is no more a help to the ascertaining of the truth than are the wreckers' fires a guide to the ship making for port.

We believe it would be a great advantage to the cause of truth, and a great step towards the re-union of Christians in the only unity worth having,-unity based upon Truth,-if a "contentious conference," such as we have described, could be organized on a large scale in the present day. Suppose, for instance, that some of the main points in controversy between the Roman and the Anglican Communions were made the subject for a public discussion before a sufficiently select and influential audience by disputants chosen to represent the best points of both sides. The result must surely be a gain to the cause of truth, and to that cause only; nor could such a course be objected to as undignified, if only the proceedings were conducted with due decorum and courtesy, and if the occasion was invested by those in authority with sufficient solemnity and importance. The present day is, undoubtedly, a day of enquiry; it is also, undoubtedly, a day of much frivolity and of much indifference to truth; but these latter are due in no small measure to the difficulty which each individual feels in ascertaining for himself, or herself, what is truth. We want a national investigation of controverted topics, and it is not Catholic truth which, in our opinion, should fear the result of such an investigation.

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WHAT IS CONSERVATISM? NO. V.

HE Catholic Christian, we see, finds himself under the conscientious obligation of conforming to human laws, and to this he is led, not only by reflection upon the arrangements of Divine Providence, by which he learns that man as a social being has evidently the power and right of enacting laws for the common good which claim his obedience; but also in submission to a positive revealed command. This, we say, must be the foundation-truth of a Christian's view of politics. That we "must obey God rather than man," we well know, and in these times we may be specially called upon to do so. But then we must also obey man for God's sake. And one thing that God Himself commands us to do is to submit to the powers that be. This is the very essence of Conservatism.

The expression "powers that be" is notable; not "the

powers that should be," but the powers actually in operation are here indicated. A Catholic Christian in the United States of America would as naturally find a Conservative standpoint as an English Catholic. But, then, there are additional ties which bind him as an Englishman to the side of obedience and order, and impel him to resist innovation and confusion, even when disguised under the specious pretence of liberty. And now let us pause awhile to remark upon two fresh notions we have just lighted upon-we mean Change and Liberty.

Change, says Dr. Newman, is the very principle of life: true. Change must therefore be a good thing quite true, again, but here we must draw a distinction. Material change is necessary to life. Formal change is destructive of it. Life, we are beginning to discover afresh, (after the old schoolmen had for the most part discussed the thing fully) depends upon a constant motion and change of material atoms. But throughout this incessant revolution of atoms, the form of the body remains identically the same. Supposing it not to have arrived at maturity, it increases in bulk, but the members retain their relative collocations; the features, their well-known expression. After maturity has been reached, development ceases, (we are speaking of the body) but the same process of revolution goes on unchecked; and then not only does the relative position, but dimensions of parts remain fixed. Thus are we enabled to recognize a person whom we may not have seen for twenty years. And then what next? As soon any noticeable change occurs in the bodily form we know well what it portends. It is a sign of coming decay, which inevitably creeps on and on-until it passes into "second childishness and mere oblivion," and thence into decease and dissolution of this well-known body.

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All this equally applies to the body politic. States, as well as individuals, have their youth, maturity, and decline. Their material elements are constantly fluctuating. The formal elements are permanent, so long as a state of health is preserved. And experience, alas! shows us that, like individual men, there is a term beyond which their existence cannot be prolonged. But this term is an unknown one. In nearly all cases its limitation has been traceable to causes which are within our power to direct or avert. What, then, do we learn from the comparison we have just instituted? Surely this most important lesson, that our business is, if we want to prolong the period of prime vigour in the commonwealth, to preserve unchanged its characteristic form. Yea, and to do this so thoroughly, that even idiosyncrasies, which to some might appear to be blemishes, should be religiously guarded and upheld. This is what a sensible physician would aim at in the case of a person under his charge, and it is wht the enlightened politician will do, if he desires to prolong the vigour of the State.

Again: health consists in a certain balance of functions. The human body has an inherent power of resisting adverse external influences which tend to upset this balance. The first accession of disease amounts in most cases to a disturbance of the balance; in its earlier stages therefore it is not so much the introduction of a new mode of action or of a new product, as the exaggeration of some one function or structure already existing. We are now speaking more particularly of the British Constitution, which is well known to owe its excellences to a certain balance of power between different estates of the realm. The same thing is however true, and must needs be true, of every form of government, but it is conspicuously and admittedly true especially of ours. So that we may, in pursuance of the mode of illustration we are following out, argue with great confidence, that the first signs of decay which will probably appear in it will consist, not so much in any violent departure from ordinary conditions, as from a gradual and abnormal exaggeration of powers or

functions which should act in correlative subordination to other powers or functions. Never has there been a time in the history of our nation when such a mutual and correlative subordination has not been recognized and acted on. Of late years it has almost seemed as if there was a danger of its being forgotten; but we cannot doubt, from what we see passing around us, that, as a nation, we are awakening to a sense of this danger, and are determined to meet it, even if some mistakes be made in the selection of instruments to carry into effect the national will. That is but a minor matter: the intention exists; and it is abundantly manifest that the

preservation of the characteristic features of our polity is recognized as a necessity of the first importance, and that the maintenance of the balance of our constitution will scarcely be lost sight of in our generation.

Thus we see that change may be beneficial, nay necessary, or it may be the reverse, and this view is evidently in accordance with Conservative principles. In order to judge more particularly as to the tendency of any one change, and its conformity with the principles of Christian right and duty, it will be necessary to examine, from another point of view, the question of changes in human laws.

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ARCHBISHOP TAIT AT KEBLE COLLEGE.

HE presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury at the dedication of the chapel of Keble College was one of those incidents which indicate how loosely men hold to their principles, and how social and politic considerations altogether outweigh the claims of consistency. The Archbishop's presence necessitated the adoption at the celebration of "the North End," although the occasion was a kind of demonstration on the part of those who, if they are committed to anything at all, are obviously and notoriously committed to the Eastward Position. The Archbishop has

said uncomplimentary things of the Oxford Professors, and hinted that they were corrupting the ecclesiastical integrity and innocence of the youth of Oxford; while, on their part, the Oxford Professors have denounced the Archbishop's Church Reforms on public platforms, and otherwise indicated their belief-a belief which we honestly share with themthat he is ruining the Church of England. Yet these gentlemen all communicated together, prayed together, took luncheon together, and gave to the world, for the nonce, the spectacle of a happy family. Under these circumstances, the World may almost be pardoned if it comes to look upon the points of difference between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the High Church party as unimportant, and if it clings to the belief that, however loudly they may talk at times, neither side really means to push matters to extremities. No doubt Keble College received an accession of publicity and popularity; but the cause of Consistency, and therefore of Truth, was not benefited. Of course, however true, it would have been a very unpleasant duty for the authorities of Keble College to have intimated to the Archbishop that they, and the majority of their guests, would have preferred his room to his company. And, no doubt, also it would have been a great sacrifice on the part of the High Church notabilities had they stayed away from what is always a most tempting occasion, viz., a gala-day at Oxford. But the question is whether they ought not to have foregone the pleasure or discharged the duty. The Archbishop so far strove to make things pleasant as to say a few words of praise of the venerable Dr. Newman, all reference to whom would have been better omitted by one of the "Four Tutors" who con. ceived it to be their mission to purge Oxford of the great Tractarian leader and his teaching. We were going to quote this allusion on his Grace's part to Dr. Newman, as the most striking instance recently afforded, of the firm belief which public men of the present day entertain in the shortness of memory of the British public; but, as we write, we find that the Bishop of Exeter has been discoursing upon the absolute necessity of taking security as to the "loyalty" of the clergy to the fundamental character and teaching of the Church before they can be allowed any extension of "liberty;" and with the recollection of "Essays and Reviews," and all that grew out of them, not quite obliterated from our minds, we are forced to admit that the Archbishop's assurance is equalled, if not excelled, by that of his Suffragan.

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It all leads up to nothing. Moreover, we do not for one moment believe that it is either true or just in its historical aspect and teaching. Prejudiced throughout, there is an ad captandum vulgarity, quite unworthy of a refined poet, in much of the artificial clap-trap introduced and put into the mouths of some of the characters. National bounce and British brag are all very well in their proper place, in a hustings' speech or a popular leading-article; but quite out of position in a dramatic poem, with an elevated and lofty aim. Queen Mary and King Philip are painted too black to be natural or true. Tib and Joan are country politicians and Islip prophets. Mr. Tennyson, usually so calm, has here put on the cap of Bigotry and rattled the bells of an abortive Prejudice. By consequence he has not made a success. Queen Mary" as a poem is a failure. If Brown, Jones or Robinson had written it, we doubt whether it would have found a publisher.

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Miss Bateman's acting was forcible, judicious and very true to nature, as depicted by Mr. Tennyson. But she had a difficult part to play; was a little too loud in certain parts, and prolonged the death-scene too much. Miss Virginia Francis also played her part with ease, gracefulness and discretion; while Miss Isabel Bateman filled a very inferior part with unerring taste and ease.

Mr. Irving was stately, cold, cynical as King Philip,-as Tennyson obviously intended him to be. But the character as drawn is so hateful and revolting that it must have been difficult and distasteful to pourtray. The actor's ideal, however, was ably conceived, and consistently perfect and well worked out. Mr. Carton played Lord Devon with taste and ease, speaking plainly and acting with marked ability, and without any artificial fuss. After him Mr. Beaumont did well. As an elocutionist he is always admirable, and was, as usual, simple, polished and refined in his conception. Nor must we forget Mr. Brooke, who, as Simon Renard, occupied a leading position in the play and filled it efficiently. He owns considerable ability, and is quite at ease and unstagy. The practice of standing back to back when people are talking or altercating, known only on "the boards," is "more honoured in the breach than in the observance." The other chief characters were well filled by Messrs. Swinbourne, Walter Bentley, Mead, and Huntley-all of whom, in their various parts, did well.

As regards scenery, dresses and accessories, they were artistically and archæologically perfect. It is a thorough "treat to know of a theatre where good taste in every particular always reigns. We strongly advise those of our readers who are coming to town this season to witness this, or one or two of the elaborate Shakesperian Revivals, which have rendered the Lyceum so deservedly distinguished for the excellence and high character of the artistic performances to be seen there. They will thank us for the recommendation.

Reviews and Notices of New Books. REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS AT THE REUNION CONFERENCE AT BONN, 1875. Translated from the German, with a Preface, by H. P. Liddon, D.D. B. M. Pickering. 1876.

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E are not going to enter here on any criticism of the Old Catholic movement, but shall confine ourselves to what was the chief subject of discussion at the Bonn Conference last August, as it is also of Dr. Liddon's Preface to the English Translation of the Official Report of the Proceedings-the controversy between East and West, on the Double Procession. No one who yearns and prays for the Reunion of Christendom can doubt that a great point would be gained if a satisfactory understanding on this vital doctrine could be arrived at between the separated Churches, or would be otherwise than thankful for it. The question before us at this moment is, whether the agreement, if such it can be called, effected last year at Bonn, is a satisfactory one, even putting aside the further inquiry-on which space forbids us to enlarge here as to what amount of representative weight attaches to the deputies from different countries who arranged it. It should be premised that the subject was brought forward, and hotly discussed, during three sessions of the first Conference in 1874, when the Eastern divines, one and all, fiercely repudiated the Filioque in any and every sense-except that of Temporal Mission, which of course is not

its meaning in the Creed,-as a falsehood and a heresy. They would at first hear of nothing short of an absolute surrender of the obnoxious passage in the Creed; and to this a section of the Anglicans, led by Dean Howson, and all the American Episcopalians present, led by Bishop Kerfoot and Dr. Nevins, (whose heretical animus was evidenced throughout) avowed themselves more than willing to agree, except for considerations of a purely accidental and temporary kind. The orthodox party among the Anglicans, headed by Dr. Liddon, would not, of course, listen to this audacious proposal, but they fought under a terrible disadvantage; and hence the more than ambiguous resolution, finally, though not unanimously passed, ran in these words: "We agree that the way in which the word Filioque was inserted into the Nicene Creed was illegal, and that, with a view to future peace and unity, it is much to be desired that the whole Church should set itself seriously to consider whether the Creed could possibly be restored to its primitive form, without the sacrifice of an true doctrine expressed in the present Western form." The Easterns insisted on the interpolation of the word "true," which we have italicised, into the last clause, with the distinctly avowed object of implying that there is no truth in the Western formula; and the Anglicans weakly submitted to their dictation. For a fuller account of the details we may refer our readers to an article, evidently written by one who was present at the meeting, in the Union Review for November, 1874. So matters were left till last year, when the question again came under discussion, and when Dr. Liddon, as well as some other supporters of the orthodox cause, whose wishes appear to us to have largely contributed to shape their thoughts, flatter themselves that "the Eastern theologians tacitly abandoned the position" they had taken up the year before, it may be questioned, perhaps, whether tacitly abandoning an heretical position is enough. But we do not see much proof of the Easterns having really abandoned it at all, though their language was more guarded and courteous than on the former occasion. And, while we have no desire to disparage the importance of the ecclesiastical and political consequences of the controversy, there is one remark in Dr. Liddon's preface which it is most essential for all who take any part in it to bear constantly in mind :

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Christians, indeed, who believe that God has really spoken will deem it exceedingly practical to ascertain as precisely as may be what He has said, simply because He has said it; and, even if nothing in the conduct, whether of Churches or of individuals, can be shown to be affected by the result. To a serious Christian, what God is in Himself, must be of much greater importance than any effect of a particular belief about Him upon the political or social fortunes of His creatures.

As a matter of fact, all the concessions of last year, as of 1874, were on the Western side, which again formally admitted that "the addition of the Filioque was not made in a canonical manner," and offered sundry explanations of it, on which we shall have a word to say presently, while the Easterns on their part never admitted, and—so far as we can gather from the Report and the Preface -were never asked to admit, that with those explanations the " Filioque" is true. The agreement was, therefore, a onesided one throughout, and, as far as the retention and doctrinal truth of the disputed article in the Creed is concerned, all that can be said is that the Westerns "had their own consent." We shall not enter upon the canonical question here, about which such high Anglican authorities as Dr. Pusey have expressed a different opinion from that sanctioned at the Conference, and defended with his usual vehemence-not to say insolence of Protestant declamation by Mr. Frederick Meyrick. But we must just observe in passing that Dr. Liddon's statement of the case is conspicuously defective, when he argues that the disputed clause has no ecclesiastical sanction which can be recognized as binding except on strictly Roman Catholic principles, because it rests either on Papal Infallibility or on the Council of Trent. He must surely have forgotten the Councils of Lyons and Florence, where the Easterns agreed to it, and where, we may add, the Western Church did not press on them the insertion of the clause in their own form of the Creed, but merely required their acknowledgment of its doctrinal truth. That is precisely what was not asked of them at Bonn; yet it is difficult to see what less can be insisted upon if the incriminated article teaches-as Dr. Liddon, whose own belief is of course perfectly orthodox, expressly maintains that it doesa revealed Truth of high importance." And the inconsis

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tency of their refusing to allow this-or rather the true explanation of their refusal, which springs from polemical temper, not from fidelity to tradition-is made still clearer by his further statement that "the Filioque was already an integral part of the Athanasian Creed before the age of Photius," without causing any offence in the East, when that Creed was also in use.

But the real importance of the admission extorted from the Westerns as to the "illegal" or "uncanonical" (nicht in kirkliceh rechtmässiger Weise) nature of the addition to the Creed, without any corresponding admission of its doctrinal truth by the Easterns, has yet to be specified. Dr. Liddon, indeed, assures us that "it was made, not with an eye to any subsequent concessions, but in deference to what was believed to be historical truth." He can speak, of course, for himself, and for those who immediately followed his lead, but we see no evidence in the proceedings of either the first or second Conferences that his disclaimer would be accepted by the Americans, or the Old Catholics, or the left of the Anglican contingent-still less that it expresses the mind and intentions of the Easterns in accepting the concession-and much evidence the other way. He himself allows that the Easterns thought "the Filioque might be ejected from the Creed without much ceremony," and "advocated" its removal, and that "some American divines hinted that their Church might effect this change for itself." All the American divines who spoke in 1874 did not hint, but openly avowed, their desire to get rid of it; and why not, when they have already made such a clean sweep of so much of the dogmatic and sacramental contents of the English Prayer Book as fully to justify the grave suspicion expressed by Dr. Pusey (in his Preface to Essays on the Reunion of Christendom) both of their orthodoxy and their orders ? Dr. Liddon states his own conviction, in which all orthodox members of the English Church will heartily agree with him, that " to eject the Filioque from the Western Creed would entail on her certain and serious disaster;" and we have no doubt at all that he would use the whole weight of his deservedly great influence to avert so suicidal an act of treachery. But the question before us is, not what he thinks, but what the Conference said and did. Now we find Dr. Döllinger himself (Report, p. 40) saying that "the Germans do not attach much value to the words, and would be willing to substitute for them the Sià Toû Yioû, which gives less offence to the Greeks." If this is the language of the President of the Conference, we cannot wonder that the small fry follow in his wake. Dean Howson "did not believe that the removal of the Filioque would be at all dangerous to the faith," and laughed at the notion of waiting for an Ecumenical Council, "the possibility of which is not of course to be dreamed of;" and he significantly added that "56 American dioceses (how many dioceses are there in America?) have commissioned their representatives to vote for" this fresh mutilation of their already mutilated Liturgy. The American Dr. Nevins, after an elaborate sneer at the very idea of an Ecumenical Council, equally creditable to his orthodoxy and his good taste, observed that "the General Convention of the American Church "-a mixed assembly of Bishops, Clergy and laity was perfectly competent to perform for itself the happy dispatch on one of the fundamental doctrines of Revelation. He might have added that the use of the Creed has always been optional in the Protestant Episcopal Church of America. Bishop Reinkens observed that, the "illegality" of the Filioque being acknowledged, it was "removed from its place as a dogma, and the controversy ought to be at an end," whereupon the Eastern divine, Janyschew, delivered himself of a theological summary to the effect that "in regard to His working or manifestation" (viz., His Mission) the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, as well as from the Father, but "by Procession" from the Father alone; and another Eastern, Damalas, urged, consistently enough, that, after the concessions the Westerns had made, as to the "illegitimate" character of the obnoxious clause, "the necessary preliminaries for further examination and discussion are wanting, if you do not remove the Filioque from the Creed in accordance with your admission," and he therefore "prayed our Lord God" to enlighten them further. All this-and more might be quoted to the same effect-does not quite bear out Dr. Liddon's somewhat sanguine view that "the admission of irregularity was not. made with an eye to any future concessions." We should

have added that Lord Plunket-speaking for that highly respectable Communion, which is using the freedom of disestablishment to disestablish as many surviving elements of Christian Doctrine as can be annually got rid of by what calls itself a national Synod-urged "the simple removal of the Filioque" from the Creed, on the express ground that it is desirable not to multiply dogmas, but to diminish them; and accordingly Dr. Howson and Mr. Meyrick distinctly rejected the formula, proposed by Dr. Liddon, asserting the Double Procession but explaining that it does not mean that there are Two Principles or Causes in the Godhead-an explanation which Mr. Meyrick considered "insufficient"-while Master Brooke, another lay theologian of the Irish Disestablishment, roundly denied the Procession from the Son as unscriptural.

And now we have a word to say on the six Articles accepted by the Conference. Not one of them asserts the doctrine of the Double Procession, while the second in words denies it. It runs thus: "The Holy Ghost does not issue out of the Son, because in the Godhead there is but One Beginning, One Cause, through Which all that is in the Godhead is produced.' This is a very different thing from saying that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son tamquam ab uno Principio, which is the true statement, and seems to deny it. The third article, which approaches nearest to the Western formula, and which Dr. Liddon treats as a virtual concession of the point at issue by the Greeks, carefully avoids any statement of the critical point:-"3. The Holy Ghost issues out of the Father through the Son; " true, no doubt, but an inadequate statement of the truth, especially when taken in connection with the second article, which must necessarily govern its interpretation. Dr. Liddon argues, indeed, that "the Eternity of the Son of itself implies that a relation between Him and the Eternal Spirit is itself Eternal. The Mission of the Spirit from the Son is only a temporal manifestation of an antecedent or rather eternal relationship in the inner Being of God." That is to say, the orthodox doctrine of the Double Procession is a necessary theological inference from the second article. It is, unquestionably; but so is the oμooúσios a necessary inference from principles which the Arians, and still more the semi-Arians professed to accept, but that was not thought sufficient reason for allowing them to dispense with the formula, because it was well known that they did not admit the inference. And so with the Greeks. It is notorious that they have always maintained the Temporal Mission of the Holy Spirit from the Son, while denying the Eternal Procession, and a passage from an official document signed by all the Eastern Patriarcha of a former day, was read out at the Conference, expressly distinguishing the "one Procession of the Holy Spirit, natural, eternal, prior to time, according to which He proceeds from the Father alone:" and the other, "in time and deputative, according to which He is externally sent forth, derived, proceeds and flows from both the Father and the Son." No words could show more clearly that the Easterns repudiate what Dr. Liddon justly states to be in itself a legitimate inference, and their admission of orthodox premisses offers therefore no guarantee whatever for their acceptance of the orthodox conclusion. To which it must be added that they refused even to agree to this very ambiguous statement of the Procession of the Holy Spirit through (not from) the Son, without adding an extract from St. John of Damascus, which rigidly confines it to His Temporal Mission. repeat, therefore, that while the Westerns conceded much, the Easterns really conceded nothing at all. The third article may "give the real meaning of the Filioque," when rightly understood; but there is not merely no proof whatever that the Easterns did so understand it, but pretty clear proof that they did not. They kindly allowed the Westerns to sail as near the wind as they dared in explaining their own formula, and then, without even hinting that the formula so explained was true, intimated that after so much explanation they had much better drop it altogether.

We

We have probably said enough to show how little there is in the results of the Bonn Conference on the Filioque to justify the jubilant satisfaction expressed in some quarters at the reconciliation supposed to have been achieved. We may add, however, in further illustration of the hopeless divergence of view between the Easterns and the Old Catholics even, who were the least disposed to lay any stress on the disputed article, that Janyschew, the leading Eastern theologian present, maintained the startling thesis that "the

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