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and of the present situation of our own Church in relation to the country at large, which I must state as briefly as I can.
Comprehension.1. The example of the working of the clause which I have cited of course suggests the point of secondary principle that I am really most anxious to bring out. Such is the kind of effect that in town parishes, as well as in country parishes, I look for from the operation of the clause. It symbolises in a word that historic cry so often raised in the Church of England—hitherto raised to so little purpose—the cry of Comprehension. I have already said how far I am from aspiring after proselytism, how fully I am convinced that it is the last thing to which the Conscience Clause will lend itself. But does it not suggest a policy of superiority to proselytism? Does it not indicate a Christian basis of education which shall leave the mutual conflicts of the Churches outside of its inclosure, which shall even act as a discouragement to those scandalous conflicts themselves? Is it not possible, it seems to ask, to make an effort to include some of the many Christian children, if not also Christian parents, who are now outside the Established pale? Is there any reason in the nature of things why the English Church and nation should continue to be what it is—a microcosm of all the religious differences and disorders of Christendom? The trial of such an experiment as this, the story of such a success as I have just related,[1] lends some strength to the hopes of those who are ready to declare that, cost what minor concessions it may, the present attitude of strife, and mutual jealousy, the refusal to co-operate for the most obvious common good, may nut and shall not long continue between the various bodies of English Christians.
Of course we can never look for the total extinction of Dissent. I do not cherish a Utopian dream of unity, or rather of uniformity. But Is It not a Christian object to reduce non-conformity to a minimum? No doubt, just as in the political
- ↑ V. supra, p. 33.
