Here, then, is a need for an honesty not Pharisaical but transcendental. To attempt to steal a style from another is a crime of the most serious import, but its successful accomplishment is luckily a difficult matter-it is stealing in broad day. On the other hand, our duty and our pleasure alike bid us to study, and by healthy study to assimilate the splendid meal which, among other things, sixpenny editions, one of our latter-day advantages, afford us. Then if we practise, so to speak, and every one practises, for life in itself is an art, to be learned from the contemplation of noble lives, we shall get, by assimilation of our food, not a plagiarised imitation of our original, but a manner which, but for it, could never have been ours. The painter will legitimately, necessarily soak himself in masterpieces, the sculptor in Greek statues, not that he may give us a reminiscence of Pheidias, but something which, without Pheidias, could not have been produced. To cut adrift when salvation lies on the shore may be an original proceeding, but its end is a suicide's grave, which is not original, but merely idiotic.

But

To conclude, it is possible in these matters of plagiarism to deceive others, and that in two ways, for we may on the one hand escape detection, and on the other be honestly thought to have stolen when we did not steal. The latter is the more rare. ourselves we cannot really deceive, for we bear within us an inherent sense of right and wrong, which, though we transgress, registers the transgression. That register is, even to the wickedest of us, perfectly legible, and it, as far as we are concerned, is the final appeal. No amount of dissimulation will conceal from ourselves the fact that we have stolen unintelligently, that we have not digested properly. Doctors, critics, may fail to detect our unhealthy pallor; it is even possible that they may say we are pale when we are not. But the true diagnosis is from within.

E. F. BENSON.

THE CHURCHMAN'S POLITICS:

A DIALOGUE

URBANUS, a London curate.

SCENE.-Urbanus' Study.

RUSTICUS, a country vicar.
TIME.-11 P.M.

Rusticus. Ah, Urbanus, so you're back. Well, have you and your Parochial Church Council settled all our difficulties for us? You had a successful meeting, I hope?

Urbanus. Most successful in every way. It showed clearly enough that the intelligent laity is coming round to our view of the situation. The meeting carried my motion almost nem. con.

R. That must have been very gratifying. May I ask how your proposition was worded?

U. As simply as possible. That the only hope of securing spiritual liberty for the Church lies in some form of Disestablishment.'

R. Was that all?

U. All? Of course; what more would you have? R. Nothing, no doubt-for oratorical purposes. 'Some form of Disestablishment.' What could be more beautifully vague?

U. My dear Rusticus, we have first of all to get the principle adopted. The details we can arrange later.

R. Don't be too sure of that, Urbanus. However, I'll return to that point presently. In the meantime, I should be curious to hear a résumé of your arguments.

U. Oh, they are familiar enough to you-in fact, they are precisely those which you would have employed yourself had you been in my place. For, after all, although you don't go quite as far as we do at St. Elfrida's, you are a follower of the Tractarians, and a Catholic.

R. Those two terms, unfortunately, are not interchangeable nowadays. However, we are both what people call High Churchmen.' Now for your arguments.

U. Well, I pointed out how intolerable is the situation created by the Archbishops' opinion.' In deference, forsooth, to a musty

Act of Parliament we are to be deprived of an adjunct of worship which is part of our Catholic heritage.

R. Which is lacking primitive authority,' you must add in common fairness.

U. That depends on the meaning you attach to 'primitive.'

R. For goodness' sake, Urbanus, don't adopt the casuistry which tries to stretch the word 'primitive' so as to include-for this occasion only-a few extra centuries. You know, as well as I do, what was the primitive period as understood by the Tractarians. And every attempt to prove that the ceremonial use of incense was recognised within that period has failed ignominiously.

U. That is quite beside the point. The Archbishops didn't condemn the use of incense on the ground that it is un-primitive' but merely because it is 'illegal.' They based their decision, in fact, entirely upon their interpretation of an Act of Parliament. What we question is not their judgment-for their reading, one way or the other, of an Act of Parliament we don't care a rap-but the grounds on which the judgment was based.

R. So far I agree with you, Urbanus. I am not in the least sorry that they decided against the use of incense, because I can't persuade myself that there is any primitive authority for it. Still, I regret no less than yourself that their decision was guided, not by any such view as this, but by an Act of Parliament. We can never concede to Parliament the power to decree Rites or Ceremonies,' or to forbid them, which belongs to the Church alone.

U. That is exactly the point I made in my speech. In other words, we must shake off the fetters of Parliament, the Privy Council, and the whole Erastian system. That means, of course, that we must work for Disestablishment.

R. And the result?

U. The results will be the infusing of new vitality into the Church. There may be some temporary hardship to be faced

R. Yes, that, to say the least, is possible.

U. But the good will more than counterbalance the ill. We shall be delivered from the interference of the State, Convocation will cease to be a mere debating-society and will resume its rightful place as the governing body of the Church, and we shall at last enjoy that great heritage of which we have been so long and so unjustly deprived.

R. Beautiful! Loud cheers; a vote of thanks to the chair; and so you returned home. Well, Urbanus, the faculty of being able to dream pleasantly is an enviable one. Allow me to congratulate you. U. A dream? Nothing of the sort, Rusticus; we mean to work for it tooth and nail.

R. You do? Then I fear that I must withdraw my congratulations, and substitute my very sincere condolences. To be quite frank,

my dear Urbanus, you and your friends are living in a fool's paradise. Worse still, you are bent on a policy of the most brutal selfishness.

U. Perhaps you will have the goodness to explain yourself?

R. Certainly. Let us take the two charges in order. First, then, I assert that you are living in a fool's paradise: in other words, that the actual results of the change you mean to bring about will be wholly unlike those you anticipate. You and your friends desire, so I understand, 'some form of Disestablishment.' Now what is that form to be? Give us, not vague talk, but a practicable scheme.

U. I have told you already that we don't bind ourselves at present to any particular scheme. The details can be arranged later.

R. Can they? Just consider your position in a practical way. The question of Disestablishment, we may suppose, will be in the forefront at the next general election. Then, if your words mean anything, you will support those Parliamentary candidates who will pledge themselves to vote in favour of a Disestablishment Bill.

U. Certainly on their promise to support only a measure drawn on equitable lines.

R. My dear Urbanus, your ignorance of Parliamentary human nature is really sublime! How many of those promises, do you imagine, will be recalled when-thanks to your exertions—a Radical Government, largely composed of Dissenters, has been placed in power? Then your scheme of some form of Disestablishment' will be shaped for you by those who are the avowed enemies of the Church-and pretty treatment we may expect at their hands!

U. I admitted, you will remember, that there would be some temporary hardships to be faced.

R. Yes; that comes under the head of 'brutal selfishness,' which I am coming to directly.

U. 'Brutal selfishness'-when we propose cheerfully to suffer for the welfare of the Church! Really, Rusticus!

R. Wait a minute. I haven't quite done with the 'fool's paradise' aspect of your policy. Next, you wish to see Convocation the governing body of the Church. Well and good. But do you really suppose that the majority of Convocation will be in sympathy with Catholic views? If so, I'm afraid that you are greatly mistaken. Then there is the question of patronage; how is that to be managed?

U. That again is a detail, and one of no great importance. Any change must be an improvement on the present system. Perhaps the patronage would be administered by a central Board, with the assistance of the Parochial Councils.

R. And, once more, are you blind to the fact that the vast majority of these Parochial Councils will be strongly Protestant? Living here, as you do, in town, I'm afraid that you have a totally false impression of the relative strength of the Church parties in the country at large. You take part in well-attended E.C.U.

meetings, you address your Parochial Church Council-which, by the way, is practically a packed body, and very different from the council which would be elected by a popular vote-and so you really come to believe that the majority of English people are of our way of thinking in regard to doctrine and ritual.

U. You surely won't deny that the Catholic party is steadily growing in numbers and influence?

R. No doubt; but it is still-and will be for many years to come-in a hopeless minority. It is simply by virtue of the Establishment, in spite of the obvious defects of the system, that we Catholics and the extreme Evangelicals can co-exist within the confines of the same Church.

U. That seems to me a very questionable advantage. I don't want to seem uncharitable, Rusticus, but I often wish that the extreme Evangelicals could be driven to declare themselves for what they really are-Dissenters. Why should they be allowed to masquerade as Churchmen while they hold views inconsistent with the very idea of a Church? If Disestablishment forces them to leave the Church of which they are only nominal members, so much the better.

R. Yes, my dear Urbanus, but doesn't it occur to you that these same Evangelicals hold precisely similar views about us? They believe firmly that the High Church party is really endeavouring to restore the power of Rome, and between Catholic and Roman Catholic they are quite unable to distinguish. That, no doubt, shows their extreme ignorance, yet it is the view which they sincerely hold. And they talk about us in just the language which you employed about them. These Ritualists,' they say in effect, are Papists in disguise. Let us make it impossible for them to remain in the Protestant Church of England, and force them to declare themselves in their true colours.' And now perhaps you see the drift of my argument. Under the Establishment both these parties can co-exist. In a Disestablished Church there will be at once a bitter fight for supremacy in Convocation and in each of your Diocesan Synods and Parochial Councils. The weaker will go to the wall. And the weaker-indubitably the weaker at present, whatever it may be fifty years hence-is the High Church party.

U. You are indeed a cheerful prophet! Pray complete your picture; what will happen to us then?

R. I don't know. A few may secede to Rome in despair. Probably most of us will be in a position rather like that of the Nonjurors, and the Catholic party will degenerate into a mere sect. But at least I have proved my point, I think, that when you talk of 'freedom,' 'spiritual liberty,' and so on, as the certain result of Disestablishment, you are living in a fool's paradise. As a matter of fact, you will have exchanged the occasional interference of the Privy Council for the continued tyranny of a Protestant Convocation and