r false, it
is necessary for their very existence, so that, just as a drowning man
catches at a straw, though it cannot possibly support him, so do these
most unfortunate and hardly-pressed men clutch at and cling to the
hollow theory of continuity. Sometimes, when off their guard, and in a
less cautious mood, they will confess as much themselves. And what is
more, we can provide our readers with an instance of such a
confession. Many will well remember a well-known and distinguished
Anglican divine, named Canon Malcolm MacColl. He died a few years ago,
and we do not wish to say anything against him. Well, he wrote to _The
Spectator_ in 1900. His letter may be seen in the issue of 22nd
December for that year. In the course of this letter he makes the
following admission: he declares that "to concede that the Church of
England starts from the reign of Henry VIII. or Elizabeth is to
surrender the whole ground of controversy with Rome. A Church," he
continues, "which cannot trace its origin beyond the sixteenth century
is obviously not the Church which Christ founded."

The late Anglican Canon MacColl is, of course, perfectly right, and
his inference is strictly logical. A Church, however highly
respectable and however richly endowed, which came into existence only
1,500 years after Christ, came into existence just 1,500 years too
late, and cannot by any intellectual manoeuvring or stretching of the
imagination be identified with the one Church established by Christ
1,500 years earlier. Consequently every member of the Anglican
community finds himself, _nolens volens_, impaled on the horns of a
truly frightful dilemma. For either he must frankly confess that his
Church is not the Church of God, _i.e._, not the True Church, which
(human nature being what it is) he can hardly be expected to do; or
else he must assert that it goes back without any real break to the
time of the Apostles; which though absolutely untrue, is the only
other alternative. In a word, he finds himself in a very tight corner.
He knows, unless he is able to persuade himself of the truth of
continuity, the very ground of his faith must slip from under his
feet, and that he must give up pretending to be a member of Christ's
mystical body altogether.

No wonder there is consternation in the Anglican camp. No wonder that
sermons are preached, and history is re-edited and facts suppressed,
and pamphlets are circulated to prove that black is white and that