Dean Stanley's invitation to preach in the Abbey because Maurice, “that spiritual splendor," was allowed there. Liddon forgot his due reverence for episcopal authority, and spoke of Archbishop Tait, not as a clergyman at all, but only as a shrewd Scotch lawyer. Arnold and Keble were severed in their friendship, and Newman forsook all men count dear; and with fortitude we reverence, however much we deplore the causes of his misunderstanding, he lifted up his destructive hand against the house of his birth and the home in which his divine life had been first received and nourished.

What, then, are the deterrents of which mention was made earlier? They evidently served to divide the Anglican house against itself. And, first, as to excessive ritual, that was the least of them, although empirical investigation has at times asserted it to be the chief offense. To the Tractarian leaders ritual was secondary. It borrowed its importance from the teachings it was intended to set forth. Its genesis is a curious story, in which pagan rites and legendary ceremonies and stately functions of the Renaissance are interwoven with the simplicity of the Christian sacraments and the dignified order of divine worship. The more sanguine temper of the Latin races eagerly seized upon these excrescences as an outlet for devotion. The colder, more intellectual life of the Northern races, awakening to renewed activity in the loftier ideals of the Reformation, viewed them with distaste, and even hate, in the extreme Puritan party. But it should be observed that the spirit of individualism in Protestantism has wrought havoc in the direction of excessive speculation, sometimes to the elimination of the authoritative and regulative element of all Christian doctrine and observances. The late Master of Balliol, Dr. Jowett, to whom the principles of the Oxford movement were repugnant, reactionary, and paltry, ended life practically a deist and little more. His faith had been too much "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;" and we submit that candles and incense and lustrations and habiliments-though they are in excess the beggarly elements of this world which defraud our praise and devotion of the deeper note, though they do beset and hinder the development of healthy religion--are not as grave a danger to the

faith as the denial of the godhead of our Lord. The crowd of smaller souls in Anglicanism has exaggerated the province of ritual. They have lost the sense of proportion; in them, as in their leaders, the Laudian temper-it is worthy of no better name has run riot. And this is so true that now, but for the bond of State patronage, there would probably be a schism in the English Episcopal Church.

A greater deterrent is the attempt to identify the falsely claimed "National Church" of England with the acceptance of things impossible of belief among the majority of Englishmen. Above the Tweed an Anglican is as much a nonconformist as a Baptist, for Presbyterianism is the State-established religion of Scotland. In England itself the Anglican Church does not represent, upon the most liberal estimate, more than one half the population. The claim of the Anglicans is a legal figment unsupported by the greater number of those to whom it is applied. Their Church is national in the meaning produced by former times, when Church and State were one confluent stream and the "divine right" of kings and bishops stood and fell together. Grotesque as it may appear, the Book of Common Prayer is also an act of Parliament, and the nomination of bishops is in the gift of the crown, which really means that they are nominated by the elected representatives of the people. As we have seen, one of the chief causes of the Oxford movement was an overweening anxiety to defend the monetary and political interests involved-so involved because of the grip of the dead past upon the present government of Britain. Every measure of reform which gave a glimpse of light to millions of the worthiest cons of England was viewed by some Oxfordians with fierce resentment, and liberal measures-even those intended to answer the original aims of "pious founders "—had their chief resistance from the "shepherds" of the people. It is sufficient to add that the relations of the State and Anglicanism are a most inglorious history, against which the followers of the Oxford movement sometimes spoke with the heat of displeasure, though their testimony has not led their children to break the bondage. It is contrary to the spirit of our race that hierarchical claims should be admitted, for, apart from

their unscriptural nature, they have in the past undermined the fabric of freedom; and we know from bitter experiences that what begins in theological statement ends in a political despotism and a very practical tyranny.

Only a word is necessary upon the greatest deterrent of all, namely, the method of the soul's appropriation of the life which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. Not the sacramentarian, nor the legal, but the faith method, is yet the great distinguishing belief of Protestant churchmen; and against this bulwark the tide of extreme ritual and sacramentarianism has broken in the beginnings of its defeat. When Professor Banks, of Wesleyan College, Leeds, stated that the highwater mark had been reached, and the tide was receding, his words were denied, but they were nevertheless true.

And shall we not believe that out of this chaos and strife there will ensue a great and permanent benefit to the whole body of Christ? The Oxford movement has promoted genuine saintliness and popularized religion. It has crowded empty churches and founded innumerable aids for the betterment of life and the relief of the poor. It exists, and its work gains way, not because of its deterrents, but despite them; and it finds its strength in the life flowing out from God in Christ to all believers. A just and lawful doctrine of the Church has been established and maintained. Hymnology has been enriched; and worship no longer regards coldness, and even outward irreverence, as the measure of its acceptance with God. The negative position of the Free Churches has been obliterated, and their claims to recognition and unity are best evidenced by the gradual elimination of those purely theological barriers which defeated the highest hopes of the Reformation. After centuries of intestine warfare a cate chism of these Free Churches is now issued in England, stating those fundamental truths the Evangelicals assuredly hold. And the forward movement of Methodism owes much of its aggressive and evangelizing temper to the Oxford movement.

S. Parkes badmaw.

ART. IV.-AN IDEALIST'S PRESCRIPTION FOR MODERN MATERIALISM.

AFTER sixteen years Professor Bowne, who has earned the right to be heard on all philosophical questions, presents us with a thoroughly revised edition of his Metaphysics. The new book is smaller than the old. There have been some omissions and extensive additions of great value; the compression has been chiefly accomplished, however, by the transfer of psychological and epistemological matter to the author's recently published Theory of Thought and Knowledge. The argument is rigidly metaphysical throughout, the idealism of the treatise being sustained by criticism of the object of knowledge and our necessary thought about it, and not by psychological analysis of the process of perception. A close comparison of the revised with the old edition justifies the claim of the author that the metaphysical position is more systematically set forth, with a greater wealth of detail, and unfolded into more minute and far-reaching inferences and applications. At the same time the general doctrine remains unchanged. Greater emphasis has been laid on the idealistic element, which is much more profoundly and consistently developed. If the critics were offended at his idealism before, they have a much more pronounced case to deal with now. In his basal positions, however, Professor Bowne remains essentially an independent disciple of Hermann Lotze, whose system is perhaps best described as that of objective idealism or idealistic realism-terms which we presume Professor Bowne would not reject as adequately characterizing his own general position. He has thoroughly rethought the fundamental principles, and has extended their critical application to Herbert Spencer's philosophy and other British forms of scientific thought and speculation ignored by Lotze. Professor Bowne is the last man in the world to appeal to authority, and his thinking everywhere stands in its own right.

With the principles of this philosophy and the methods of its presentation the writer of this paper is in thorough accord; he trusts that it will not be unpardonable if he devotes more

space to particullar criticism than to general exposition. Before entering upon the consideration of Professor Bowne's subject-matter, however, we desire to offer a few remarks concerning his style. For purely philosophical purposes it is wellnigh perfect. It is sun-clear exposition; that is, sun-clear for a professional philosopher. The argumentation is continuous. There are only four or five very brief quotations in this large volume, and not a single footnote or reference. Moreover, as intimated above, it is metaphysics from start to finish, the aid of even empirical psychology being refused—as, indeed, the author's plan required. There are occasional passages concerning which formal notice is given that they are a pedagogical condescension to the unpracticed reader. But even an expert metaphysician would not dare to omit these if he desired to hold the complete argument in mind. Indeed, Professor Bowne has deceived himself at this point, for the form of his argumentation is determined by the consistency of his uniform method of defining and solving his problems rather than by any rights of comprehension supposed to belong to the average reader, who may justly lodge a complaint on this As continuously sustained argumentation Professor Bowne's book is very remarkable. There is not a parallel among American philosophical writers-certainly not in Professor James, hardly in Professor Ladd.

score.

Another feature is the clean decapitation of an opponent with the keen blade of single-stroke sarcasm. It is generally both deserved and decisive; but the crushing, if not cruel, operation is repeated too frequently to be attractive to the disinterested spectator, much less to the victim and his friends. We do not offer this criticism with the hope of provoking amendment. Having been a diligent and profited reader of Professor Bowne from the date of the appearance of his first book, we know that this feature-trick, some might call itof thought and style is part of the man, and that, with the best intentions, he could not write otherwise. But we draw attention to it, as well as to the severe and exclusive metaphysics of the argument, for a purpose which will immediately appear.

In our day there is no work more needful to be skillfully