doctrines maintained by the majority of
evangelical Christians. The moderate members of this party, especially,
do not hold them as "the basis of their system, but only as secondary
and ornamental details. Even against Dissenters they are not rigidly
enforced. The hereditary non-conformist is not excluded from salvation.
Foreign Protestants are even owned as brethren, though a mild regret is
expressed that they lack the blessing of an authorized church
government. Apostolical succession is not practically made essential to
the being of a church, but rather cherished as a dignified and ancient
pedigree, connecting our English episcopate with primitive antiquity,
and binding the present to the past by a chain of filial piety. In the
same hands, church authority is reduced to little more than a claim to
that deference which is due from the ignorant to the learned, from the
taught to the teacher."[205]

Of the general service rendered by the High Churchmen, the same writer
says, "Their system gives freer scope to the feelings of reverence, awe,
and beauty than that of their opponents. They endeavor, and often
successfully, to enlist these feelings in the service of piety. Music,
painting, and architecture, they consecrate as the handmaids of
religion. Thus they attract an order of men chiefly found among the most
cultivated classes, whose hearts must be reached through their
imagination rather than their understanding.... In the same spirit the
writers of this party have contributed to the religious literature of
the day many admirable works which under the guise of fiction teach the
purest Christianity, and exemplify its bearing in every detail of common
life. To the training of childhood especially they have rendered most
valuable aid, by thus embodying the precepts of the Gospel. But we need
not do more than allude to works so universally known and valued as
those of Miss Sewell, Mr. Adams, and Bishop Wilberforce. Again the
revival of the High Church party has effected an important improvement
among the clergy. Many of these were prejudiced by hereditary dislike
against the doctrines and the persons of the Evangelicals, and by this
prejudice, were repelled from religion. But under the name of orthodoxy
and the banner of High Church, they have willingly received truth
against which, had it come to them in another shape, they would have
closed their ears and hearts. A better spirit has thus been breathed
into hundreds who