Abstract

England

The recent Church Congress was in one sense a great success. It was attended by a very large number of the clergy, and they made a great many animated speeches. But the impression made upon the minds of most spectators may be inferred from the advice which some of the bishops have recently taken occasion to administer. Their lord ships, and the late Speaker of the House of Commons has just followed their example, appear to have thought it specially necessary to exhort us to harmony and mutual toleration. A bishop who is a shrewd and a very orthodox person says that of the three great parties in the church, the Broad Church have no importance, as they are rapidly becoming Socinians, but he begs the High and the Low Church men to fall upon each other's necks and be reconciled. The fact of his giving it proves that the difficulty cannot be overlooked, even by the serene occupants of the bench, but it will not tend really to soften matters. The simple fact is, that High and Low Churchmen hate each other more every day, and the best specimens of insolent abuse in contemporary literature are to be found in the organs in the rival parties.