ch I should be prepared to say to a
young man entering life, If you wish to serve the church do it in the
sanctuary, and not in parliament (unless he were otherwise determined by
his station, and not always then; it must depend upon his inward
vocation), and should not think it at all absurd to say the same thing
to some who have already placed themselves in this latter sphere. For
when the end is attained of letting "the church help herself," and when
it is recognised that active help can no longer be given, the function
of serving the church in the state, such as it was according to the old
idea, dies of itself, and what remains of duty is of a character
essentially different.' Then a pregnant passage:--'It is the essential
change now in progress from the catholic to the infidel idea of the
state which is the determining element in my estimate of this matter,
and which has, I think, no place in yours. For I hold and believe that
when that transition has once been effected, the state never can come
back to the catholic idea by means of any agency from within itself:
that, if at all, it must be by a sort of re-conversion from without. I
am not of those (excellent as I think them) who say, Remain and bear
witness for the truth. There is a place where witness is ever to be
borne for truth, that is to say for full and absolute truth, but it is
not there.'[197]

He reproaches himself with being 'actively engaged in carrying on a
process of, lowering the religious tone of the state, letting it down,
demoralising it, and assisting in its transition into one which is
mechanical.' The objects that warrant public life in one in whose case
executive government must be an element, must be very special. True that
in all probability the church will hold her nationality in substance
beyond our day. 'I think she will hold it as long as the monarchy
subsists.' So long the church will need parliamentary defence, but in
what form? The dissenters had no members for universities, and yet their
real representation was far better organised in proportion to its weight
than the church, though formally not organised at all. 'Strength with
the people will for our day at least be the only effectual defence of
the church in the House of Commons, as the want of it is now our
weakness there. It is not everything that calls itself a defence that is
really such.'[198]

HOPES FOR THE CHURCH

Manning expressed a strong fear, a