Voluntary Schools Association had been admitted and the bedrock principle of equality had been reached. Even the clause in the Act of 1902 about" unnecessary schools" the Cardinal thought satisfactory-not knowing how it would be interpreted. But the flow of reminiscence that evening stopped a little abruptly, and the Cardinal, as if suddenly remembering something, said with a smile, "But don't let us forget the story of the fly on the wheel of the coach."

CHAPTER V

THE REUNION OF CHURCHES

URING the years 1894-1897 Cardinal Vaughan's

DURI

time and thoughts were much taken up with the controversies which arose out of the movement in favour of Corporate Reunion, which, originating with a party in the Established Church, came to an end with the final condemnation of Anglican Orders by the Bull Apostolicae Curae. The controversy was not of Herbert Vaughan's seeking. He had full sympathy with the idea of Reunion, but he saw from the beginning that in its corporate form it was quite impracticable. He was not insensible to the splendour of the hope that the Church of England might one day become reconciled to the Holy See, and all his sympathies were with the High Church party. He had followed the developments of the Tractarian Movement with eager interest, and noted with something akin to exultation the Romeward trend of the most active, the most earnest, and the most spiritually gifted party in the Established Church. He was familiar with every detail of the wonderful revolution which has so changed the spirit of the Anglican Church, and he hailed it as everywhere breaking down barriers of prejudice, as familiarising the minds of the English people with Catholic doctrine and Catholic practice, and as gradually preparing the way

for the return of the English people to their lost allegiance and the unity of the One Fold.

When he knew that men still calling themselves Anglicans, and professing to be members of the Protestant Church as by law established, accepted every article of the Catholic creed except the supremacy of the Pope, he could but hope and pray that their influence might grow and spread throughout the country, and that they themselves might have the grace to see the whole truth and embrace it. And when, too, he learned that a group of learned and distinguished men, with the President of the English Church Union at their head, were trying to reconcile England with the Holy See by means of a scheme for Corporate Reunion, he could but rejoice at such a visible breaking away from the traditional attitude of British Protestantism towards the Scarlet Woman. The mere desire for Reunion, for reconciliation on any terms, was an unspeakable gain. None the less, Cardinal Vaughan regarded the movement itself at first with impatience, and later with unconcealed dislike.

The reasons for this attitude are easily stated. Impulsive as he was, and enthusiastic, and readily fired by large ideas, Herbert Vaughan yet saw with clear-eyed certainty, and from the first, that Corporate Reunion was a phrase, and nothing more.

He knew the Church of

Rome, he knew the Anglican Church, and above all he knew the temper of the English people. To bring England back to the Catholic Faith was the sustaining hope and purpose of his life. But could that be done by any process of Corporate Reunion? He knew that Corporate Reunion could come only by the conversion of the Anglican Church and by a public disavowal of its

past-that if it meant anything it must mean corporate submission, and that the only way in which it could be effected was by corporate absorption. In fact, the very idea of Corporate Reunion seemed to him a hopeless anachronism, and better suited to Orientals than to Englishmen. No doubt, in more than one instance in the past whole societies of men have been reconciled to Catholicism by a common act of Corporate Reunion. It was so in the case of the Maronites, the Ruthenians, and the Chaldeans. But however suited to peoples of the East, with whom the shepherd leading the flock is the type of so many things, can we easily associate the idea of Corporate Reunion with the conditions of modern England?

There was, of course, the great and historic precedent of the public reconciliation of England to the Catholic Church in the days of Mary Tudor. On St. Andrew's Day, 1554, both Houses of Parliament, having confessed their error on their knees and publicly professed their repentance, begged absolution for the whole nation from the Papal Legate, Cardinal Pole. But when these members of Parliament declared themselves "very sorry and repentant for the schism committed in this realm, and dominions of the same, against the Apostolic See," they may perhaps be fairly taken as having acted in a representative capacity. The people at large were accustomed to the idea of religious authority, and, generally, were still more familiar with the doctrines of the Catholic Church than with the religious innovations of the late reign. The theory of representative institutions has travelled a long road since the time of the Tudors, and it is hard to imagine by what title a modern member of Parliament

could presume to represent his constituents in a matter of religious opinion. And even if the Bishops of the Established Church could bring themselves to accept the distinctive doctrines of Rome, could they pretend to speak in the names of the people, or to answer for the consciences of the laity? Cardinal Vaughan knew that a condition precedent to Corporate Reunion is the acceptance as of faith of the whole cycle of Catholic doctrines—Transubstantiation, the Intercession of the Saints, Purgatory, the Immaculate Conception, Auricular Confession, and Papal Infallibility. In other words, to the Catholic Church the Decrees of Trent and the Vatican are as sacred and as irrevocable as those of Nicæa and Chalcedon. Was the Established Church, or any group within it, ready to accept these doctrines as of faith?

Before Reunion could be considered by the Holy See, the question would come, "What is the Rule of Faith of the Anglican Church?" It is not enough to point to her formularies, or her Prayer Book, and to contend that there is nothing in them which is inconsistent with Catholic doctrine. If mere signatures to formularies could suffice, neither Nestorius nor Eutyches need ever have left the Church. Both were willing to sign the Nicene Creed, but the living guardians of the Truth were there to forbid their novel interpretation. Cardinal Vaughan could not but ask himself who would venture to speak for the Anglican Church to-day-is there any living authority able to declare what is the right interpretation of her formularies? The comprehensiveness of the Established Church has its advantages, as we are often reminded, but it is a fatal bar to Reunion with Rome. Cardinal Vaughan could not recognise in the Anglican Church as it exists to-day any