REV. JOHN COLE MCKIM, M.A., B.D.

Do not know to what circumstance or circumstances I am indebted for the receipt of a small pamphlet entitled "Portrait of a Diocese" which a leisurely postal service has just conveyed to me. It may have been sent to the clergy generally; it may have been sent to me in particular because some recent comments of my own upon the Oxford Movement have caught the critical eye of the pamphleteer; or it may be because it is as much a pleasure to him as it is a happiness to me to remember that we were undergraduates together at the same well known college.

However that may be, the pamphlet is here and I have read it through with some sympathy and a great deal of amazement. The pamphlet was written while the author was apparently smarting from a sense of genuine grievance. In the Diocesan Synod of May, 1919, he had voted in the negative to a proposal to increase the Bishop's salary to $5000.00 per annum. He was one of three persons to vote against the increase, both viva voce and on a rising vote. In spite of this fact, the minutes of the Synod were worded in such a manner as to suggest that the motion had been passed unanimously. This, if I have understood the facts correctly, constitutes a gross injustice. I do not know the dissenters' reasons for opposing the increase of so modest an episcopal salary. The writer of the pamphlet tells us no more than that he "gave his voice and vote against it conscientiously." But it belongs to the very essence of justice that a synod or convention shall be in fact what it is ostensibly, a place where those who enjoy the suffrage may cast their votes and (if entitled to the floor) raise their voices,

with unquestioned freedom. And the records of such gatherings should record the vote as given. It would have been pleasant, doubtless, could this increase in the salary of the chief pastor (I note that he is the married successor of a celibate) have been unanimously voted, but for the minutes not to record three votes persistently cast in the negative would be a gross falsification of records without any sort of palliation or excuse. Sentimental considerations cannot be allowed any weight here. Recent tendencies in America are threatening the due rights of minorities and church gatherings should move against, not with this particular stream. It is the more deplorable that an offence such as is common enough elsewhere, should be laid at the door of the synod of a diocese conspicuous for its fidelity to the true faith "as this Church hath received the same." It is the more noticeable for being a smudge on a fair record.

The writer of the pamphlet, then, has a real grievance of which to complain. He had a right and even, I dare say, a duty to protest against that grievance. So far, he has my sincere sympathy. It accompanies him no further, for it seems to me that he has no proper idea of what allegiance to the Catholic Church involves nor of the conditions which tend to conserve liberty in society. About a quarter of the pamphlet is devoted to recording the experience to which I have referred. Then come two amazing sentences which I quote in full. (p. 5 of the pamphlet.)

"This experience forced me to face an ugly fact, and that was, that despite our high pretension of authority, that authority is used to stifle, thwart and distort democratic expression."

"Thus I came to consider with you the social significance of the Oxford Movement."

Much has been alleged of the Oxford Movement, but the ingenuity which can connect it (the word "Thus" plainly implies the connection) with that injustice to small minorities, which constitutes a deplorable characteristic of so many parliamentary and other gatherings in this country, is truly amazing:-but not more so than the mind that can be satisfied with the matter which, in the subsequent pages of the pamphlet, is adduced as evidence of the truth of the proposition that the Oxford Movement is "essentially undemocratic in its social point of view, and this, largely because of the divine right theory inherent in the fiction of Apostolical Succession." (p. 5)

To the ordinary mind it would seem that the above contention depends for much of its validity on the writer's ability to show that apostolical succession is a "fiction." Perhaps he possesses that ability but, so far as this pamphlet is concerned, he apparently expects his readers to concede the point without argument. Nor does he show how "the fiction of Apostolical Succession" involves a theory of divine right. For this reason it is not clear whether our writer objects to some particular form of that theory or whether it is his bold (if unsupported) contention that divine right (and, I suppose, divinity as well) is as much a fiction as apostolical succession. Would he hold the Oxford Movement responsible for all three "fictions?"

It is, in one sense, futile to attempt any answer to such contentions. It is futile to argue with an opponent who suggests that we do not ourselves truly believe in the contentions we make; that we will, if we are honest, concede without argument that apostolical succession is a fiction. But it is interesting to note that, even granting these too generous premises, the writer's principal indictment of the Catholic system is that it is undemocratic.

And even in this we are disappointed. The term "democratic" is not defined for us. And what could be less satisfactory than the employment without definition of a word which has become the cant expression of those who appear to be trying to make the world safe for hypocrisy? We must look to the context for material suggestive of our writer's use of the word.

And here new surprises await us. We are referred to two writers for our evidence that the Oxford Movement was "essentially undemocratic." These writers are Charles Kingsley and Cardinal Newman. In the case of the latter we are referred to a particular work,-"Apologia Pro Vita Sua." Concerning this work we observe that (1) it was written long after Newman had ceased to be connected with the Oxford Movement and (2) that it was evoked by Charles Kingsley's aspersion of Newman's character and itself necessarily begins by questioning Kingsley's good faith. Our pamphleteer, then, refers us to two authorities standing outside the Oxford Movement, one of them its bitter (and if Newman be right) unscrupulous opponent, each of them suspicious of the other's good faith. Surely, with the wealth of material, easily accessible, coming from those connected with the Movement, our pamphleteer has made a curious selection of references.

Perhaps our writer relies upon a quotation from the "Apologia" in which Newman admits that he thought the French revolution unchristian in casting off sovereigns who had a divine right of inheritance. (P. 14 of the pamphlet). This youthful opinion of Newman's was held by a vast majority of the young men of his class, was the current political doctrine of a great party in parliament, and was associated with the Oxford Movement in no way whatever. It has some

points of contact with that Erastianism with which the disciples of the Oxford Movement often came into conflict, but it is a matter of history that, as the Catholic movement has gathered impetus, many of its adherents have been noted for the liberal character of their political ideas, though, as a religious movement, it is not directly concerned with secular politics. On its religious side, it has been conspicuously successful in evangelizing the poor. On the other hand, the early opponents of the movement were often Erastians and aristocrats of a peculiarly unlovable type.

Our pamphleteer is chary of historical references in support of his so emphatic assertions. Considering the nature of these assertions, this was the way of wisdom and he has been singularly unfortunate in his principal if not, indeed, his single departure from it. For the particular incident to which he refers us is the Jerusalem Bishopric.

Since opposition to the Jerusalem Bishopric project is cited in evidence to prove the anti-democratic character of the Oxford Movement, it necessarily follows that our author regards that project as democratic. That a proposal to subject the spirituality to an even greater degradation than the eighteenth century had witnessed, and to compel it to serve the political ends of the Prussian and British governments, should be described as democratic, gives, I think, the final coup to that term as an intelligible expression.

So much for our pamphleteer. His little work is as typical of the Protestantizing Churchman as the Menace and The American Issue have been of American Protestantism. There are people who would deny this. Only lately an acquaintance claiming to belong to "the intellectual wing of the prohibitionist party" denounced The American Issue, and I know that there are Protestants who would gladly disown