Was Gladstone's attitude intelligible? The contrast of two principles in
life and religion, the principles of authority and of the spirit, is
being brought home to men's consciousness as it has never been before.
One reads _Il Santo_ and learns concerning the death of Fogazzaro, one
looks into the literature relating to Tyrrell, one sees the fate of
Loisy, comparing the really majestic achievement in his works and the
spirit of his _Simple Reflections_ with the _Encyclical Pascendi_, 1907.
One understands why these men have done what they could to remain within
the Roman Church. One recalls the attitude of Doellinger to the
inauguration of the Old Catholic Movement, reflects upon the relative
futility of the Old Catholic Church, and upon the position of Hyacinthe
Loyson. One appreciates the feeling of these men that it is impossible,
from without, to influence as they would the Church which they have
loved. The present difficulty of influencing it from within seems almost
insuperable. The history of Modernism as an effective contention in the
world of Christian thought seems scarcely begun. The opposition to
Modernism is not yet a part of the history of thought.

ROBERTSON

In no life are reflected more perfectly the spiritual conflicts of the
fifth decade of the nineteenth century than in that of Frederick W.
Robertson. No mind worked itself more triumphantly out of these
difficulties. Descended from a family of Scottish soldiers, evangelical
in piety, a student in Oxford in 1837, repelled by the Oxford Movement,
he undertook his ministry under a morbid sense of responsibility. He
reacted violently against his evangelicalism. He travelled abroad, read
enormously, was plunged into an agony which threatened mentally to undo
him. He took his charge at Brighton in 1847, still only thirty-one years
old, and at once shone forth in the splendour of his genius. A martyr to
disease and petty persecution, dying at thirty-seven, he yet left the
impress of one of the greatest preachers whom the Church of England has
produced. He left no formal literary work such as he had designed. Of
his sermons we have almost none from his own manuscripts. Yet his
influence is to-day almost as intense as when the sermons were
delivered. It is, before all, the wealth and depth of his thought, the
reality of the content of the sermons, which commands admiration. They
are a classic refutation of the remark that one cannot preach theology.
Ou