ffectiveness there had been a real movement towards "Life and
Liberty." The Conference taught the Established Bishops of England
and Ireland that the Bishops of Free Churches--Scottish, American,
Colonial--were at least as keen about religious work and as jealous
for the spiritual independence of the Christian society as the highly
placed and handsomely paid occupants of Lambeth and Bishopthorpe.
Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury (whom the Catholic-minded section of
the English Church regarded as their special champion) "thought
that we had much to learn from contact with the faith and vigour
of the American Episcopate"; and Bishop Wilberforce thus recorded
his judgment: "The Lambeth gathering was a very great success. Its
strongly anti-Erastian tone, rebuking the Bishop of London (Tait),
was quite remarkable. We are now sitting in Committee trying to
complete our work--agree to a voluntary Court of English Doctrinal
Appeal for the free Colonies of America. If we can carry this out,
we shall have erected a barrier of immense moral strength against
Privy Council latitudinarianism. My view is that God gives us the
opportunity, as at home latitudinarianism must spread, of encircling
the Home Church with a band of far more dogmatic truth-holding
communions who will act most strongly in favour of truth here.
I was in great measure the framer of the "Pan-Anglican" for this
purpose, and the result has abundantly satisfied me. The American
Bishops won golden opinions."
And so this modest effort in the direction of "Life and Liberty,"
which had begun amid obloquy and ridicule, gained strength with
each succeeding year. The Conference was repeated, with vastly
increased numbers and general recognition, in 1878, 1888, 1898, and
1908. The war makes the date of the next assemblage, as it makes
all things, doubtful; but already Churchmen, including some who have
hitherto shrunk in horror from the prospect of Disestablishment,
are beginning to look forward to the next Conference of Bishops
as to something which may be a decisive step in the march of the
English Church towards freedom and self-government. Men who have
been reared in a system of ecclesiastical endowments are apt to
cherish the very unapostolic belief that money is a sacred thing;
but even they are coming, though by slow degrees, to realize that the
Faith may be still more sacred. For the rest of us, the issue was
formulated by Gladstone sixty years ago: "You have our decis
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