difficulties is the apparent blurring of the sharp lines of Church party warfare. A Church conservative reaction as much implies that the zeal of ardent Church ameliorators is modified, as that the indefatigability of Church pseudo-reformers is restrained. This condition of things has undoubtedly its disappointing and disappointed side. It involves an acquiescence in a medium level of general moderation which would have seemed intolerable to the ardent spirits of fifteen years ago. But it equally implies what those ardent, because more youthful Churchmen, did not sufficiently appreciate—the superior advantages of a wide area of modified success over a steep and desperately defended vantage ground of limited extent. The Church movement at one moment ran the risk of being an 'ism,' and being guided by 'ites.' It has escaped this danger, and it may now confidently, in spite of multiplying Peel districts, expect to pass on the English Church, to a coming generation, as—if not all, or by a great deal all, that the most moderate yet steadfast Churchman might wish it to be—at all events, a national institution, standing on a higher general level, doctrinal, practical, and national, than it did in our fathers' and grandfathers' days; appealing to nobler natures; more generally and more generously beloved and supported. It will be our children's and our children's children's office to use the opportunity which we bequeath to them to advance their inheritance to some still higher and more secured position.
In our former article, we dwelt at considerable length upon the rise, decay, and downfal, of that system of Church representation—excellently contrived, as we maintain, for a very useful object—the Church Unions; voluntary and elastic bodies, recruited exclusively and avowedly out of the High Church ranks, and intended to sustain not only the Church establishment, but the genuine doctrines of the Church. We may assume that these Unions died out because they had accomplished a successful work. This work was the preservation, through a very anxious period, of that spirit of genuine Churchmanship which has become the habitual nature of so many persons of various stations and differing accomplishments, to which, under Providence, we owe our preservation from calamities which might otherwise have overwhelmed the English Church. We are now, we repeat, living in quieter times. Points that we used to fight about, with a half-unconscious pride in their partizan character, are now the rule of action of persons then most strongly antagonistic to us. In those days, for example, the advocacy of free Churches rested upon a resolute minority; now the apologist for pews has to excuse his own perversity or daring. The use of occasional litanies at
