to be effectually silenced. Rome had
tried her strength against her and had failed--failed in argument and
failed in policy. Protestant Dissent was declining in numbers, in
influence, and in ability. Both Romanists and Nonconformists would have
been only too thankful to have been allowed to enjoy their own opinions
in peace, without attempting any aggressive work against the dominant
Church.

Sad indeed is the contrast between the promise and the performance. Look
at the Church of the eighteenth century in prospect, and a bright scene
of uninterrupted triumph might be anticipated. Look at it in retrospect,
as it is pictured by many writers of every school of thought, and a dark
scene of melancholy failure presents itself. Not that this latter view
is altogether a correct one. Many as were the shortcomings of the
English Church of this period, her condition was not so bad as it has
been represented.

In the early part of the century the Nonjurors not unnaturally regarded
with a somewhat jealous eye those who stepped into the places from which
they for conscience' sake had been excluded, and the accounts which they
have left us of the abuses existing in the Church which had turned them
adrift must not be accepted without some allowance for the circumstances
under which they were written. The Deists, again, taking their stand on
the absolute perfection and sufficiency of natural religion, and the
consequent needlessness of any further revelation, would obviously
strengthen their position if they could show that the ministers of
Christianity were, as a matter of fact, faithless and useless. Hence the
Church and her ministers were favourite topics for their invectives. The
reputation of the Church suffered, perhaps, still more from the attacks
of the free-livers than from those of the free-thinkers. The strictures
of the latter formed part of the great Deistical controversy, and were
therefore replied to by the champions of orthodoxy; but the reckless
aspersions of the former, not being bound up with any controversy, were
for the most part suffered to pass unchallenged. Then, again, the
leaders of the Evangelical revival, who were misunderstood, and in many
cases cruelly treated, by the clergy of their day, could scarcely help
taking the gloomiest possible view of the state of the Church at large,
and were hardly in a position to appreciate the really good points of
men who were violently prejudiced against themselves; whil