Arrows of Freethought by George W. Foote

Author:George W. Foote
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-20T16:00:00+00:00

The Primate On Modern Infidelity

(September, 1880.)

A bishop once twitted a curate with preaching indifferent orthodoxy. "Well," answered the latter, "I don't see how you can expect me to be as orthodox as yourself. I believe at the rate of a hundred a year, and you at the rate of ten thousand." In the spirit of this anecdote we should expect an archbishop to be as orthodox as the frailty of human nature will allow. A man who faithfully believes at the rate of fifteen thousand a year should be able to swallow most things and stick at very little. And there can be no doubt that the canny Scotchman who has climbed or wriggled up to the Archbishopric of Canterbury is prepared to go any lengths his salary may require. We suspect that he regards the doctrines of the Church very much as did that irreverent youth mentioned by Sidney Smith, who, on being asked to sign the Thirty-nine Articles, replied "Oh yes, forty if you like." The clean linen of his theology is immaculately pure. Never has he fallen under a suspicion of entertaining dangerous or questionable opinions, and he has in a remarkable degree that faculty praised by Saint Paul of being all things to all men, or at least as many men as make a lumping majority. What else could be expected from a Scotchman who has mounted to the spiritual Primacy of England?

His Grace has recently been visiting the clergy and churchwardens of his diocese and delivering what are called Charges to them. The third of these was on the momentous subject of Modern Infidelity, which seems to have greatly exercised his mind. This horrid influence is found to be very prevalent, much to the disconcertion of his Grace, who felt constrained to begin his Charge with expressions of despondency, and only recovered his spirits towards the end, where he confidently relies on the gracious promise of Christ never to forsake his darling church. Some of the admissions he makes are worth recording--

"I can," he says, "have no doubt that the aspect of Christian society in the present day is somewhat troubled, that the Church of Christ and the faith of Christ are passing through a great trial in all regions of the civilised world, and not least among ourselves. There are dark clouds on the horizon already breaking, which may speedily burst into a violent storm.... It is well to note in history how these two evils--superstition and infidelity--act and react in strengthening each other. Still, I cannot doubt that the most [? more] formidable of the two for us at present is infidelity.... It is indeed a frightful thought that numbers of our intelligent mechanics seem to be alienated from all religious ordinances, that our Secularist halls are well filled, that there is an active propagandism at work for shaking belief in all creeds."

These facts are of course patent, but it is something to get an Archbishop to acknowledge them, His Grace also finds

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