to such an extent that only patience and perseverance in accurate and fair teaching can disentagle the facts from the fiction. The fostering of the misrepresentations is traceable in part to protestant rejection, without unprejudiced examination of anything in history that "unchurches" the separated bodies; in part to dislike of any strong presentment of the Church's position which interferes with individualism and goes down very deep into the issues involved in the Christian profession; and, sadly enough, in some measure, to the antagonism and presumption on the part of the Latin Church when any portion of Christendom challenges with strong evidence the claim of the Roman Communion to the monopoly of the possession and name of Catholicity.

Nevertheless, the understanding of the truth of the matter for our communion is becoming clearer, as a result primarily of having a strong case and next of presenting that case again and again, from different methods of approach and through the personal championship of a multitude of honest investigators. We venture to assert without qualification that a thorough and honest examination can reach but one verdict, viz., the possession of all that is essential to catholicity and necessary for the wellbeing of the Christian Church in the work of extending Christ's Kingdom throughout the world in developing to the very highest degree the individual spiritual life. Those who find this verdict may not care to purchase the treasure at the price demanded, or may cavil because the treasure is held" in earthen vessels." Their witness is valuable, though their attitude towards opportunity is saddening.

Sometimes we are put to quite unnecessary trouble by the unhistorical assertions of those who are guilty of trying to make out a good case for their own position, regardless of the full historical testimony,- an abuse of history which has been explained in an earlier lecture. Here an opening is presented of which hostile controversialists can make damaging use. "If that is all you have to offer in the way of evidence," they quite rightly argue," then your case is indeed a weak one." And so it is, if evidence must be distorted, perverted, manufactured. We propose to notice in this lecture some of the foundation

facts in the history of our Anglo-catholic Communion which form the solid basis on which its structure rests and which therefore are the objects of misrepresentation and attack. Some suggestions will be made as to the right way of removing misunderstanding and correcting misrepresentation. Church people should be ready with a pertinent reply and something definite in the way of guidance, when occasion arises.

I. The Origin and Continuity of the English Church

If the student has taken to heart some of the warnings uttered in the earlier lectures of the series he will not make the initial mistake so often encountered of neglecting to get the proper historical background and the true perspective for looking at this subject. He will remember that the spread of Christianity was from Jerusalem as a geographical centre and by the agency of Apostles and early members of the Christian body throughout the Roman Empire. He will remind himself that the paths of commerce and military enterprise were the paths by which Christianity found its way throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world and that for the most part the names of personal pioneers are entirely lacking. He will keep distinctly before him the fact that it is not necessary to find an apostolic founder for the Church in a great centre of population or in a nation. No one knows who first preached Christianity in Rome or in the important North African Church of Cyprian and Augustine. Likewise no one knows nor is it essential to discover who first introduced Christianity among the Celtic inhabitants of Britain. He will not waste any time over any theories associated with the names of St. Paul or Joseph of Arimathea. The student will produce the documentary evidence for three British Bishops having signed the canons of the Council of Arles in A. D. 314 to show that the Church was among the British inhabitants, with its usual organization under Bishops.

The student will keep before him the political situation, how the Celtic or British occupants of the Islands among whom the Church was planted and widespread were driven to the westward by the invasions and settlement of unchristianized tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes and were left deliberately by the

evicted settlers in the darkness of heathenism. These invaders are the peoples who became consolidated later into the English people and nation and the history of the Church in England or among English people begins with the Mission of Augustine from Gregory the Great, is profoundly indebted to another Mission from Ireland primarily and from the Celtic Church located at Iona directly for carrying the christianizing of the English several steps further, but for consolidation and unification looks to Theodore of Tarsus and his work as Archbishop of Canterbury. The Church of England, as a National Church, distinct and self-governing, dates from a council held at Hertford in A. D. 673. Into that the sole organized Christian body among English-speaking people was merged and it absorbed any British and Gallican elements that heretofore had existed and worked in the island.

At and from that critical date the National Church has professed the Catholic Creeds, formed its Liturgy on the basis of Catholic worship, accepted the Canon Law of the Church, Eastern and Western, been governed and administered under the three-fold polity of Bishops, Priests and Deacons, and asserted historical and constitutional independence of the State and of any outside court or personal authority. At the same time, in its foundation, early development and establishment the Church in England transcended its insular position. Its first Primate was an Italian monk, Augustine, but consecrated in Gaul by Gallican prelates. Its consolidator, a Greek monk, Theodore, consecrated by an Italian Bishop at Rome, was the strong individuality that determined the allegiance of the island Church to be neither to West or East, but beyond the jurisdiction of Canterbury owning no ultimate authority in the Church except the voice of Christ heard by the power of the Holy Ghost speaking through the collective episcopate of the Apostolic Succession.

Unfortunately several popular fallacies present themselves from time to time to obscure actual history. Sometimes unintelligent zeal is responsible, again superficial understanding of the doctrine and history of the Church, while yet again, sadly

enough mere partisan controversy and personal prejudice are to blame.

In the first place, there is an unhistorical and fallacious kind of "Romophobia," or disinclination to admit any connection whatever at any time between our historical Christianity and the Roman See. That feeling is exhibited by those who endeavor to trace our present English Christianity back to the British or Celtic Church which was organized among the British or Celtic settlers in the territory known as the British Islands between A. D. 200 and 314 when the signatures of British Bishops appear among the signatories of the Council of Arles. This is supposed to give a continuity back to the Gallican Church and so to Asia Minor and St. John and thus to avoid any succession and continuity through the Church in Italy. The case breaks down when we discover that we do not know how or by whom Christianity got among the British and that we are left to pure conjecture until the beginning of the fourth century. This fallacy ignores the facts, that the British Church deliberately would not evangelize the Anglo-Saxon leaders who in the sixth century drove them back to the west side of the island, and that the British Church was gradually absorbed and disappeared in the Church of the consolidated Anglo-Saxon tribes. In the seventh century, to be sure, the Mission from Iona directly, and so indirectly from the British Church in Ireland, did enter and evangelize the Northumbrian Kingdom but the people of the latter were Anglo-Saxons and there was at that time no intermingling with the distinctly different Celtic tribes.

Then the fallacy seeks to work out a Gallican source for all Episcopal Orders because Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury was consecrated Bishop by two Bishops of Southern Gaul. This is true and significant, yet it is not to the point. The line of succession of Bishops from Augustine comes absolutely to an end with Damian and Deusdedit in 664. The British line of Bishops came to an end with Jaruman, so both the lines of transmission from Bishops of Gaul, so to speak, ran out, the technical phrase being sine prole, that is, without spiritual children,

With the coming of Theodore to the See of Canterbury we have the transmission of Episcopal Orders through the Bishop of Rome, and with the consecration of Theodore's successor, Brightwald or Bretwald, by Gallican Bishops, we have the double descent from Gaul and Asia Minor on the one hand and through the Roman episcopate on the other. It made no difference through what sources the succession came so long as it was a valid succession leading back to the Apostles' times. The papal theory had not been formulated and was not set forth as a definite claim until the eleventh century. Hence any assertion that the Mission of Augustine or the Consecration of Theodore by Vitalian, Bishop of Rome, involves coercive jurisdiction is transparently unhistorical. The study of Wilfred's appeals show this.

Yet we find recurring from time to time in our Church papers or even in books purporting to be historical the amazing statement that our American Bishops trace back through Augustine to Asia Minor and St. John. It is impossible to show any such thing. Succession in the episcopate comes not from holding the same office, e. g., Archbishop of Canterbury, but by the laying on of hands. Except for extraordinary cases, or the arrangement such as obtains in the American Church to-day whereby a diocesan Bishop may consecrate his Coadjutor who is to succeed him, no Bishop ordinarily consecrates his successor, because he is dead before the latter is chosen and set apart.

That the transmission of episcopal powers and authority through a Bishop of the Roman diocese carries with it thereby jurisdiction or the right to act in a defined territory is an an assumption abundantly discredited by precedents that can be adduced, for example, the case of Stephen Langton which repays full examination. That the conferring of the insignium called a Pallium or Pall carried with it jurisdiction is a theory that lands its advocate in a series of historical difficulties quite impossible of solution.

We need not pursue this question further, except to sum up that the Church of the English from its origin onwards developed