of men for its defence, it would have given birth to another."

"No, no," said Sheffield, "I assure you the old school of doctrine was
all but run out when they began; and I declare I wish they had let
things alone. There was the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession; a
few good old men were its sole remaining professors in the Church; and a
great ecclesiastical personage, on one occasion, quite scoffed at their
persisting to hold it. He maintained the doctrine went out with the
non-jurors. 'You are so few,' he said, 'that we can count you.'"

Charles was not pleased with the subject, on various accounts. He did
not like what seemed to him an attack of Sheffield's upon the Church of
England; and, besides, he began to feel uncomfortable misgivings and
doubts whether that attack was not well founded, to which he did not
like to be exposed. Accordingly he kept silence, and, after a short
interval, attempted to change the subject; but Sheffield's hand was in,
and he would not be balked; so he presently began again. "I have been
speaking," he said, "of the liberal section of our Church. There are
four parties in the Church. Of these the old Tory, or country party,
which is out-and-out the largest, has no opinion at all, but merely
takes up the theology or no-theology of the day, and cannot properly be
said to 'hold' what the Creed calls 'the Catholic faith.' It does not
deny it; it may not knowingly disbelieve it; but it gives no signs of
actually holding it, beyond the fact that it treats it with respect. I
will venture to say, that not a country parson of them all, from year's
end to year's end, makes once a year what Catholics call 'an act of
faith' in that special and very distinctive mystery contained in the
clauses of the Athanasian Creed."

Then, seeing Charles looked rather hurt, he added, "I am not speaking of
any particular clergyman here or there, but of the great majority of
them. After the Tory party comes the Liberal; which also dislikes the
Athanasian Creed, as I have said. Thirdly, as to the Evangelical; I know
you have one of the Nos. of the 'Tracts for the Times' about objective
faith. Now that tract seems to prove that the Evangelical party is
implicitly Sabellian, and is tending to avow that belief. This too has
been already the actual course of Evangelical doctrine both on the
Continent and in America. The Protestants of Geneva, Holland, Ulster,
and Boston have all, I believe, become Unitarians, or th