the poor equally find a friend who sympathises with them in their troubles and is ready to help them in their distress; where their children receive instruction and are taught to lead a Christian and a godly life; where Churchmen and Dissenters are alike welcomed. What can the Liberationists substitute for such a principle? On whom could they rely under a voluntary system? What certainty would there be that the poor were looked after as they now are, the fabric of the Church maintained, its services devoutly conducted, and the Bible preached to rich and poor alike without fee and without expense?

Trinity Sunday, 1886, marked the Jubilee of Queen Victoria's reign-the period of forty-nine (seven times seven) years—which, originally enjoined by the Divine Lawgiver, was under the Christian dispensation taken over by the Church. The object of a Jubilee is to thank God for mercies vouchsafed to a nation during the preceding period of seven times seven years. Only three such royal Jubilees have occurred in this country; these were in the reign of Henry III., who reigned 56 years, Edward III. 50 years, and George III. 60 years. A comparison between the state of the nation in 1837 and 1886the vast strides which the country has made in wealth, and power, and general prosperity-might well occupy the pen of the secular historian. It is ours to be thankful for the progress which the Church has made in a reign, the commencement of which

was almost coeval with the Oxford movement, and fifty years of which have witnessed such a marvellous advance of the Church-the revival of Catholic worship, and ritual, and art—to its present efficiency. In 1837 the Church was sunk in the depths in which the Georgian era had left it, and statesmen regarded it as a Parliamentary institution to be used by them for State purposes. Far different is the aspect which the Church of 1886 presents. "It may be said with truth," says Dr. Döllinger P, "that no Church is so national, so deeply rooted in popular affection, so bound up with the institutions of the country, or so powerful in its influence on national character.... What I should estimate most highly is the fact that the cold, dull indifferentism which on the Continent has spread like a deadly mildew over all degrees of society, has no place in the British Isles." Ever since England was a nation Englishmen have insisted upon a national profession of religion by the State, and England has prospered. Surely it is the duty of those who oppose it to give some ground for believing that the nation will become nobler and better by renouncing that profession.

Lectures on the Reunion of the Churches.

APPENDIX A.

(See vol. ii. p. 332.)

EXTRACT FROM LETTER WRITTEN IN 1571 BY ARCHBISHOP GRINDAL TO HIEROM ZANCHIUS.

IT

T appears that Zanchius, who was Public Reader of Divinity at Strasbourg, whose acquaintance Grindal had made while he lived there, wished to send a letter to Queen Elizabeth on behalf of certain English recusants, entreating her not to enforce the use of rites to which they objected. This letter he first sent to Grindal, requesting his advice respecting it. Grindal, having first consulted the Bishops, some Privy Councillors, and other people of position in the Church, wrote the letter, from which the following is an extract, to Zanchius, dissuading him from sending his letter to the Queen, and giving his reasons:— "When first her Highness Elizabeth, under most happy auspices, began her reign, the Popish doctrine and worship being cast off, she restored all things to that standard of the administration of the Word of God and the Sacraments and the whole of religion which had been drawn up and established during the reign of Edward VI. of happy but also of most lamented memory. To this all the states of the kingdom, with full consent, gave their voices in the Great Council of the Nation, which in our vernacular lan

• Remains of Grindal, edited for the Parker Society, p. 338.

guage we call the Parliament. The authority of the Council is so great that the laws made therein cannot by any means be dissolved except by the sanction of the same. Whereas then in this form of religion of which I have spoken, drawn up by King Edward, there were many commands respecting the habits properly adapted to ministers of the Church, and also concerning other things which some good men wished to be abolished or amended, it was forbidden by the authority of the law that any one should meddle with this matter. Yet the law itself allowed the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of some of the Bishops, to alter some things. Nothing, however, of the law is either altered or diminished; nor, as far as I know, is there a Bishop who does not himself obey the prescribed rules, and also lead or persuade the rest to do so. . . . Almost all the other Ministers of the Church also, learned and unlearned, seem not unwillingly to give in to the same opinion with the Bishops."

There is another important letter extant, dated August 27, 1566 (soon after the publication of the Advertisements), from Grindal, at that time Bishop of London (Bishop of London, 1559, Archbishop of York, 1570, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1576), to Bullinger, showing that the Bishops. had learnt to submit to the newly-appointed ceremonial:-"We who are now Bishops, on our first return, and before we entered on our ministry, contended long and earnestly for the removal of those things which have occasioned the present dispute; but as we were unable to prevail either with the Queen or the Parliament, we judged

See vol. ii. p. 329. A return had been made to the Vestments prescribed under the First Prayer-Book of Edward VI