sations of God is misunderstood if it is not regarded as a great teacher on the subject of sin. It is true that among the Jews wrongdoing was regarded as 'crime,' as being 'an offence against the God who had instituted the state;' it is true some conditions were regarded as 'uncleanness,' as being offences 'against the ritual of the Temple;' it does not follow that 'there was too little of the spirit and the truth in' the 'Deity' of 'Judaism' 'to enable it to comprehend the awful idea of sin' (p. 454). The Jews were not faithful to the purposes of God, but, unless St. Paul wholly misunderstood the Old Testament Scriptures, to form an adequate idea of the awfulness of sin was one great work of the Jewish dispensation. The 'approximations in Old Testament writers to the Christian idea' which Dr. Fairbairn so grudgingly recognizes did not exist so much because 'the standpoint of the priest and the scribe' was 'transcended' as because Samuel and David 2 and Asaph and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Hosea and Amos were among those who knew what the ritual commands of God meant.

3

5

VI. We are thankful that Dr. Fairbairn is careful to deny the false idea that' whether men will or not they must be saved,' and goes on to say:

'Compulsory restoration is only another form of annihilation. Freedom is of the essence of man, and he must be freely saved to be saved at all' (p. 467).

But we regret his assertion of what he calls 'eternal possibilities of salvation.' It is in harmony with what we know of human nature and of life that there should be a period of probation which affords a true test of character, and that at the end of this period the eternal destiny of the soul is determined. And we think this to be very clearly taught in Holy Scripture. The saying of our Lord that a condition in this life may imply 'eternal sin,' the solemn warning that the ordinary opportunities of this life are sufficient for every purpose, the great picture of the decisions of the day of judgment coincide with much in the Epistles 10 and the declaration of finally determined states of good and of evil in the Revelation " in showing that the probation of man is not an endless process.

1 1 Sam. xv. 22, 23: 3 Ps. l.

+ E.g. Isaiah i.

• Hosea and Amos throughout their prophecies sense of the meaning of sin. 7 St. Mark iii. 29. 10 E.g. 2 Cor. v. 10; Heb. ix. 27. VOL. XXXVII.-NO. LXXIII.

5

E.g. Jeremiah v. vii. have the most intense

8 St. Luke xvi. 31.

9 St. Matt. xxv.

11 Rev. xxii. II.

F

VII. We have criticised freely a book which is evidently the outcome of study and thought in the conviction that the writer's opinions on several important theological doctrines are not in accordance with true beliefs. We are conscious that an answer might be made that our whole standpoint is different from his, and a claim set up that his standpoint is that which corresponds to the attitude of our Lord towards God. For he writes in the preface:

'What God signified to Jesus Christ He ought to signify to all Christian Churches; and here all can find a point from which to study themselves and their systems. Theology as well as astronomy may be Ptolemaic; it is so when the interpreter's Church, with its creeds and traditions, is made the fixed point from which he observes and conceives the truth and kingdom of God. But theology may also be Copernican; and it is so when the standpoint of the interpreter is, as it were, the consciousness of Jesus Christ, and this consciousness where it is clearest and most defined, in the belief as to God's Fatherhood and His own Sonship. Theology in the former case is geocentric, in the latter heliocentric; and only where the sun is the centre can our planetary beliefs and Churches fall into a system which is but made the more complete by varying degrees of distance and differences of orbit' (Preface, p. viii).

Dr. Fairbairn would, therefore, probably say that our theology is Ptolemaic.' We claim, on the other hand, that the Incarnate God, Who is the Revelation of the Father, and the Saviour and Teacher and Example of man, is the centre of our Faith. We welcome all scholarship and research and historical inquiry which may present to us more accurately and vividly what He did and said. We value the doctrines we believe because we are convinced they are taught by Him or implied in His Nature or teaching. The visible society of the Catholic Church is to us a holy home of truth and grace because when we have weighed His words and His actions we can see no other adequate explanation of many of them than that He intended to found such a Kingdom as we hold the Church to be. If we receive with unquestioning acceptance the Church's universal and permanent decisions, it is because we believe His utterances mean that the whole body cannot commit such apostasy as the clear assertion of untruth would be, and that she is the organ through which the Divine Spirit speaks. If the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are authorities to us it is because they are certified by His words or accepted by the Church which He declared to be the teacher of truth. Sacraments are of value because He commanded the use of them, and, taught by the Church

He appointed as our guide, we see in them the means of union with Him. In His Death and Resurrection, His perfect Sacrifice to the Father and His triumph over Satan and the grave, we place our hope. To His Life we look as our Example. To His teaching we submit. And if we should refuse to accept anything which we cannot but believe to be implied in His work and words, we should count the sin to be that we were failing to make Him the centre of thought and life.

If, indeed, we are mistaken, if the idea of a visible Church is a delusion, and there is no body known by outward signs to which the promise of never being overcome by the powers of evil has been given, if the Bible as a revelation is less unique than we think, if Sacraments are only tokens which do not convey objective grace, if the meaning of the Sacrifice is not so profound as we hold it to be, our fault is not that we have not tried to take Christ as the centre of our Faith, but that in listening to Him we have misunderstood His words.

And of the interpretation of the Gospels which in its main features may be traced through the centuries of the Church's history till we find it in the earliest writers as something which they have received, and that which individuals have puzzled out for themselves, which is the more likely to be the true teaching of Christ?

ART. IV.-W. G. WARD IN THE CHURCH OF

ROME.

William George Ward and the Catholic Revival. By WILFRID WARD, author of William George Ward and the Oxford Movement. (London, 1893.)

IT often happens that when a man 'goes over to Rome' he seems to pass altogether into another world. His old friends look askance at him, for a great gulf has been fixed between himself and them. His attitude towards all things changes, and he acquires a new set of interests, in which most Englishmen have no share. He is apt to become denationalized and to look at things from a foreign standpoint-a standpoint which belongs to his newly-adopted foreign allegiance. It is not merely that he professes certain beliefs which a large number of his countrymen reject: the centre of gravity of his existence has shifted, and his highest life draws sustenance

from Rome. A suspicion—often an unreasonable suspicion— of disloyalty attaches to him; and it is regarded with some surprise if he distinguishes himself in his new environment.

It is surely a testimony to the very high level of ability existing among the Tractarians and their immediate followers that of the body of Englishmen who seceded in that connexion two should have become cardinals and another should have attained so significant and powerful a position in the Roman Church as William George Ward. For, whatever may be said of the wisdom of the policy which Mr. Ward defended, there can be no question that his influence was powerful and effective, and that the existing state of things in the Church of Rome owes much to his activity. He did not, of course, wholly escape the sarcasms which are applied to those whose views suffer a serious change. The school of Roman Catholicism to which he was opposed ascribed his fervour to a convert's zeal; but his influence was felt in spite of this. Moreover, Mr. Ward was not only a power in the Church of his adoption, but he was also effective in the open field of philosophical speculation. He succeeded in causing a split in the ranks of those who professed to base their philosophy on mere experience, and this by the unhopeful means of articles in a Review.

The bulk of the present volume is occupied with the history of these two achievements on the part of Mr. Ward. The previous work, describing Mr. Ward's relation to the Oxford Movement, has given us fuller details as to his life and character. The biographical portions of the present volume seem rather to complete the sketch of Mr. Ward's life, and to illustrate the permanence of characteristics already described. There is one important exception to this-the account of Mr. Ward's career as Professor at St. Edmund's. The whole of this section throws an interesting light on the history of Romanism in England. The College of St. Edmund's was the St. Sulpice of the Catholic body in this country, in which the clergy of all the southern dioceses went through their theological studies.' The description given of it by Mr. W. Ward, as it was when his father went there, is curiously uninviting. It was remarkable for the universal prevalence of the old style of Catholicism, with its unostentatious faith and piety' (p. 7). 'There was not much intellectual culture, and the religion itself was of the silent kind' (ib.). Men deficient in intellectual attainments and breadth of view, however exemplary in piety, were in many cases in power, and they feared the revolutionary influence of those

who had so recently passed over from traditions and customs which were strange and suspect' (ib.). 'Catholicism in a Protestant country had gradually become . . . dry and undemonstrative, and had lost the warmth and abandon of earlier days and of Catholic Christendom' (p. 52). It was into an atmosphere like this that Mr. Ward found himself introduced when he left Oxford and came to live in the neighbourhood of Old Hall; and it was not only a severe disappointment to him, but it seemed beyond all hope. Mr. Ward, who was in the eyes of the authorities a mere layman, who had entered into the condition of matrimony, was the very last person in the world who could reasonably hope to effect a change. The change, however, did come when Ward, under the influence of Cardinal Wiseman, was made Assistant Lecturer in Dogmatic Theology. This appointment led Ward to study minutely the whole field of Catholic theology, and inspired him with the hope of presenting a wholly new ideal of Roman priesthood. Although Mr. Ward declined to call himself Professor of Dogmatic Theology, and would only accept the title of Assistant Lecturer, he did not scruple to revolutionize, so far as in him lay, the methods and aims of the College. This he did with his customary vehemence. If a practice or a rule seemed out of harmony with his view he said so, and did his best to get it changed. . . . If a professor appeared to be opposing the system he was attempting to promote he did his best to get him dismissed' (p. 53). Although, therefore, he always lectured with a priest in the room to act as censor of his doctrine, he did not play by any means a secondary part in the administration of the place.

We cannot but feel in sympathy with Mr. Ward in his work at St. Edmund's College. He had very great and unusual gifts as a teacher; he was a man of extraordinary intellectual power and profound devotion; and even though the character of Old Hall was 'peculiarly English '-though the practices and methods of Ward were startling 'to English reticence on the deeper life of the soul, and on the practices connected therewith' (p. 52)-and though, again, the work carried on by the Vice-President (Vaughan) and Ward was 'a reflection from one point of view of Continental Ultramontanism' (ib.), it cannot be denied that a new strain of vigour and reality was imparted to the Roman priesthood in England. A decisive proof of this may be found in the enthusiasm of so many of Mr. Ward's pupils, of which there are several touching testimonies in this book. Though him