pression that the teacher is standing on quite firm intellectual ground, and that he is conscious of not teaching some merely personal opinion that he has acquired but is proclaiming truth which he feels to be quite definitely settled. This dogmatic teaching is presented not only from the pulpit and in catechisms and instructions, but it is applied to the souls of individuals through a round of sacramental action. Those who are earnest about their spiritual lives and seeking cleansing and strength through the application of our Lord's humanity to their souls through appointed means are carrying the teaching into action. And further, this teaching and the sacramental action, are constantly illustrated and emphasized by an elaborate round of ceremonial which suffuses into them a mystic warmth. Now a very common assumption is that all this round of teaching, of sacramental life, of ceremonial, is quite foreign to the normal practice of the Christian religion as this Church has received the same. That, essentially, is not an Anglican thing at all, but is a quite conscious borrowing from a foreign system that the Anglican Church has repudiated, and that as borrowed it is a thing of shreds and patches, and that the system from which it is borrowed is the whole thing. Why, then, not "take the whole thing?" We may be sure that this view is immensely stressed by the Roman propagandists.

This view of things receives some support from the existence in our communion of a certain number of persons, Priests and Laity, who are quite conscious borrowers. They take things Roman because they are Roman, so far as one can see. They are at small pains to know the history of the Church-one of the distinguishing marks of the type is a dislike of history-they have no notion as to what is Anglican and what is not; or of how our heritage was largely

lost to us for a couple of centuries. They have little sense of the real differences betwen the Anglican Church and Rome. They treat Rome as justified in proportion as it approximates to the standard. They are largely sentimental persons, devoted to a type of service which has sentimental rather than devotional appeal. They constantly quote Rome as authority for their beliefs and practices. They are constantly telling you that the American Church has "no authority;" and when you point out to them that while it may not have very much "authority" in their sense, it has far more than they have ever dreamed of obeying, they say, "O, well, how can you?" What they really mean is that the American Church lacks discipline-which for them is fortunate, for if it had adequate discipline they would be the first to suffer from its application.

Sitting on a bench in the park, with a group of small children joyously feeding squirrels in the foreground, the question finally presented itself to me in this way. What one has to make up one's mind about as an Anglican, is not whether our religion is a patch-work of indiscriminate borrowings no sane student would maintain that though some slight color is given to the assertion by the action of sporadic clergy, but whether the religion of the American Church as we have learned it is an adequate expression of the Gospel of Christ, as adequate an expression of it as that found in the Oriental and Latin Churches. And when I say the religion of the American Church I mean not what this or that man teaches, but I mean that religion as it is expressed in the formal documents of the Church interpreted in the light of its history. If the religion of the American Church is an adequate expression of the life and action of the Gospel then it is a whole thing and we are

quite right to stand by it even though the standing by means that we find not peace but war.

We might put it in this way: Is the Anglican Church capable of producing a complete religious experience?

If I understand the Christian religion at all the purpose of our Lord's life and work was to unite us, through His incarnate nature, with God the Blessed Trinity. When by the extension of His incarnate life He created the Church to be His mystical Body, He endowed it with all the means that were necessary to produce and to support the life of union with Him which we live here on earth, and to fit us for the fuller realization of that gift of life in the world to come. How this life is imparted, how the soul is led to Christ and re-created in Him, how its sins are forgiven and the possibility of pure living given to it,-how, in short, the Holy Spirit, the Vicar of Christ, builds up the spiritual life and brings us into the heritage of God's children,-all this is written in the Gospel and was practiced by the Church before any line of the Gospel was written and has continued to be practiced in it. As we read the Gospel, as we study the life of the Church, is it true that we find commands of our Lord which are disregarded, that we find principles of the spiritual life which are arbitrarily set aside, that we find aids to the spiritual growth of the Christian which are discarded, in that expression of faith and life which is embodied in the Book of Common Prayer and in the other formularies of the Anglican Communion? If it be so, I do not know what they are.

It is no doubt true that there are details in the manner of expression and of application of the Prayer Book system which one could criticise. The failure to provide for the administration of the Sacrament of Unction is probably the most serious omission. But criticism of that sort may

lost to us for a couple of centuries. They have little sense of the real differences betwen the Anglican Church and Rome. They treat Rome as justified in proportion as it approximates to the standard. They are largely sentimental persons, devoted to a type of service which has sentimental rather than devotional appeal. They constantly quote Rome as authority for their beliefs and practices. They are constantly telling you that the American Church has "no authority;" and when you point out to them that while it may not have very much "authority" in their sense, it has far more than they have ever dreamed of obeying, they say, "O, well, how can you?" What they really mean is that the American Church lacks discipline-which for them is fortunate, for if it had adequate discipline they would be the first to suffer from its application.

Sitting on a bench in the park, with a group of small children joyously feeding squirrels in the foreground, the question finally presented itself to me in this way. What one has to make up one's mind about as an Anglican, is not whether our religion is a patch-work of indiscriminate borrowings-no sane student would maintain that though some slight color is given to the assertion by the action of sporadic clergy, but whether the religion of the American Church as we have learned it is an adequate expression of the Gospel of Christ, as adequate an expression of it as that found in the Oriental and Latin Churches. And when I say the religion of the American Church I mean not what this or that man teaches, but I mean that religion as it is expressed in the formal documents of the Church interpreted in the light of its history. If the religion of the American Church is an adequate expression of the life and action of the Gospel then it is a whole thing and we are

quite right to stand by it even though the standing by means that we find not peace but war.

We might put it in this way: Is the Anglican Church capable of producing a complete religious experience?

If I understand the Christian religion at all the purpose of our Lord's life and work was to unite us, through His incarnate nature, with God the Blessed Trinity. When by the extension of His incarnate life He created the Church to be His mystical Body, He endowed it with all the means that were necessary to produce and to support the life of union with Him which we live here on earth, and to fit us for the fuller realization of that gift of life in the world to come. How this life is imparted, how the soul is led to Christ and re-created in Him, how its sins are forgiven and the possibility of pure living given to it,-how, in short, the Holy Spirit, the Vicar of Christ, builds up the spiritual life and brings us into the heritage of God's children,-all this is written in the Gospel and was practiced by the Church before any line of the Gospel was written and has continued to be practiced in it. As we read the Gospel, as we study the life of the Church, is it true that we find commands of our Lord which are disregarded, that we find principles of the spiritual life which are arbitrarily set aside, that we find aids to the spiritual growth of the Christian which are discarded, in that expression of faith and life which is embodied in the Book of Common Prayer and in the other formularies of the Anglican Communion? If it be so, I do not know what they are.

It is no doubt true that there are details in the manner of expression and of application of the Prayer Book system which one could criticise. The failure to provide for the administration of the Sacrament of Unction is probably the most serious omission. But criticism of that sort may