THE Dean of St Paul's [Dr Inge] appears to be of one mind with
"A Liberal Churchman", on whose deliverance we have commented in
two recent issues. "The modern 'good Churchman'," he remarks in the
Church Family Newspaper, "is seldom learned; he knows even
less of the Fathers than of his Bible; his chief reading is a
partisan weekly newspaper and some Socialist periodical." The "good
Churchman" must get what comfort he can from the Dean's implied
concession that he is sometimes learned, even though it may be only
seldom. But what sense are we to make of the following sentence:
"He is a 'little Church of Englander'; he no longer believes in a
National Church, and is more than willing that those who do not
agree with him should join what he calls 'some Protestant body'"?
The "good Churchman" cannot justly be blamed on either of these
counts, for those who do not agree with him have, on their own
motion and in no way at his instance, joined certain Protestant
bodies in opposition to the National Church to which the good
Churchman loyally adheres. But the last thing that he can justly be
called is "a little Church of Englander", for to him the Church of
England is a couple of Catholic provinces within a great communion
that embraces this and other National Churches. To the
self-excluded and "pious variers from Church" the Dean's "good
Churchman" may seem to be, as he says, "a little Church of
Englander", but "things are not always what they seem." His outlook
is a very wide one indeed, and, as a matter of fact, the Dean finds
fault with him for this very width, inasmuch as he inclines more
than the Dean approves in the direction of "Latin" sympathy.
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