SPEKE-GRANT-BAKER-PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS. on African discovery. By him they were hospitably entertained, and soon returned to England, where they were enthusiastically received by the corporation of Portsmouth, who in an address expressed the pleasure they felt in welcoming travellers "whose recent discoveries have solved the perplexing problem of all ages by ascertaining the true source of one of the most wonderful rivers on the face of the earth." By the Geographical Society they were also received with many friendly expressions. The true source of the Nile was still under discussion, however. Mr. Samuel Baker and Captain Burton, both experienced African travellers, were not inclined to accept all the conclusions supposed to have been arrived at without further investigation. To Speke undoubtedly belonged the honour of the great discovery of the lake, and on the 17th of September, 1864, the British Association, then holding its meetings at Bath, anticipated an interesting discussion between him and Burton on the subject of the sources of the river. Alas! on the 16th, only the day before, Speke met his death while out shooting at Neston Park, Wiltshire. He should have been well acquainted with the use and the method of carrying firearms, if any man was, but perhaps he was so accustomed as to have grown careless. It appeared that he was getting over a low stone wall when the gun went off, while the muzzle was pointed to his chest. That was all that could be surmised. When one of the party came to the spot Speke was only just sensible, and murmured, "Don't move me." In a few minutes he was dead. On the 28th of June, 1865, letters were received by Earl Russell and communicated to the Geographical Society, saying that Mr. Baker (who with his wife had been living at Khartoum and Gondokoro) had discovered another lake, which was as important as the former one, and was equally regarded as the "main" source of the Nile. It was in north latitude 2° 17', and had been named Lake Albert N'Yanza. It will be remembered that Dr. Livingstone had then gone out on another African expedition, and his subsequent discoveries kept the question of the actual source 199 in abeyance, if they did not finally determine it. The The march of improvement was chiefly manifested during the years now under review in increased facilities for travelling and intercommunication. We have already in former pages noted the advance of electric telegraphy and the laying of the Atlantic cable. system of electric communication was now supplementing correspondence by letter throughout the United Kingdom, and was soon taken over by the government and made a part of the organization of the post-office. The railway system, too, had to a great extent superseded the ordinary omnibus and coach traffic, not only in the provinces, but in the suburbs of London. The Metropolitan Underground Railway, opened on the 9th of January, 1863, provided for many thousands of daily travellers from one part of London to another. Railway bridges across the Thames, intended to unite the southern lines with the northern, and ultimately to make a complete chain of intercommunication, were already a part of the growing scheme; and though demolitions for the purpose of constructing railways were serious, and in some cases were permitted unnecessarily to sacrifice and destroy much that was picturesque, historical, and beautiful, some very considerable improvements were made in the streets of our large towns, and especially in London. Various movements were made for the provision of dwellings for the poorer classes, who were necessarily deprived of their homes when neighbourhoods in which they lived were destroyed for public works. The construction of the Holborn Viaduct and the progress of the embankment of the Thames from Westminster to Blackfriars were among the most striking improvements in relation to street traffic; but the formation of broad well-paved thoroughfares, new bridges and docks, the erection of large blocks of warehouses and palatial piles of offices in some of the main streets of the city, and the adoption of a more ornamental style of architecture for banks and shops in the chief avenues of commercial and fashionable life, marked an amount of progress which found expression when some of the principal public works were afterwards completed. Not the least significant of those which were already finished, was the new bridge across the Thames at Westminster, which was opened on the 24th of May, 1862. The reference to improved modes of transit may remind us that communication between tidal trains and steam packets afforded greater facilities for reaching the continent of Europe, and as since January, 1861, no passports were demanded from any of the people of Great Britain, subjects of the queen, on entering France, and the same relief for British visitors to Italy had been declared by the Italian government in June, 1862, the number of English travellers abroad was considerably increased. An enormous advance had been made in technical and art education since the first institution of government schools of design in 1842. Among the numerous additions to our public buildings must be mentioned the range of galleries for fine art, industrial and other exhibitions erected at South Kensington, the expenses of which were partly defrayed from the funds remaining from the International Exhibition of 1862. On the 10th of June, 1863, the Albert Memorial was inaugurated by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The memorial was originally intended to commemorate the International Exhibition of 1851, but now dedicated also to the memory of the "author of that undertaking, the good prince, to whose far-seeing and comprehensive philanthropy its first conception was due, and to whose clear judgment and untiring exertions in directing its execution the world is indebted for its unprecedented success." This explanation, and the announcement that the memorial was erected by public subscription, is contained in one of the tablets, each of which bears an inscription. Among the numerous efforts which were made for the amelioration of the condition of the poor, several were organized by the clergy of various parishes, and the charitable work of the church was to be recognized in many directions, as occupying new lines of operation. In April, 1863, during the time of the Lancashire distress, many of the clergy were indefatigable in their exertions to obtain subscriptions, while at the same time the interest of benevolent persons in many congregations was directed to the relief of the poverty of the inhabitants of some of the worst districts in London. On the day that Sir John Trelawny's bill for the abolition of churchrates was thrown out by a majority of 10 in a house of 560 members, a meeting had been summoned by the Bishop of London, consisting of clergymen, gentlemen, owners of property, and employers of labour for the purpose of consulting on the best means of providing for the spiritual needs of the poorer districts of the metropolis. After some discussion a resolution was adopted to raise £100,000 each year for the ensuing ten years to carry out the four objects of the Diocesan Society, namely, the building of churches, the endowment of parsonages, the employment of curates, and the promotion of church extension in the metropolis. At the first annual meeting of the Bishop of London's church extension fund in January, 1865, it was reported that the receipts to the 31st of December, 1864, had been £100,456, 13s. 6d., and a further sum of above £72,000 had been promised. An active and decided movement was being made to support the claims of the Episcopal Church as the established religious authority, and that movement was made with judgment, inasmuch as it was in the direction of beneficent endeavours, and appealed to those who professed to belong to the communion of the Church of England without the display of intolerance or uncharitable exclusion. There were several reasons for this demonstration, not the least being those disputes and dissensions which seemed likely to divide the church itself into separate bodies, or rather to separate still further the sections into which the body calling itself the Church of England had already been divided. It was in reference to these difficulties within, and to other supposed difficulties without the church, that Mr. Disraeli made a remarkable speech at a meeting of the Oxford Diocesan Society for the endowment of small MR. DISRAELI ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS. benefices. It would not be easy to decide "Instead of believing," said Mr. Disraeli, "that the age of faith has passed, when I observe what is passing around me, what is taking place in this country, and not only in this country but on the Continent, in other countries and in other hemispheres, instead of believing that the age of faith has passed I hold that the characteristic of the present age is a craving credulity. Why, my lord, man is a being born to believe; and if you do not come forward-if no church comes forward with its title-deeds of truth, sustained by the tradition of sacred ages and by the conviction of countless generations to guide him, he will found altars and idols in his own heart and in his own imagination. But observe what must be the relations of a powerful church without distinctive creeds with a being of that nature. Rest assured that the great principle of politieal economy will be observed. Where there is a great demand there will be a proportionate supply; and commencing, as the new school may, by rejecting the principle of inspiration, it will end by every priest being a prophet; and beginning as they do by repudiating the practice of miracles, before long we shall be living in a flitting scene of spiritual phantasmagoria. There are no tenets however extravagant, no practices however objectionable which will not in time develop under such a state of affairs; opinions the most absurd, and ceremonies the most revolting are perhaps to be followed by the incantations of Canidia and the Corybantian howl. But consider the country in which all this may take place. Look 201 at the Europe of the present day and the Europe of a hundred years ago. It is not the same Europe; its very form is changed. Whole nations and great nations which then flourished are no longer found. There is not a political constitution in Europe existing at the present time which then existed. The leading community of the continent of Europe has changed all its landmarks, altered its boundaries, erased its local names; the whole jurisprudence of Europe has been subverted; even the tenure of land, which of all institutions most affects the character of man, has been altered the feudal system has been abolished; not merely laws have been changed, but customs have been changed. And what happened? When the turbulence was over; when the shout of triumph and the wail of agony were alike stilled; when, as it were, the waters had disappeared, the sacred heights of Sinai and Calvary were again revealed; and, amid the wreck of thrones and tribunals of extinct nations and abolished laws, mankind bowed again before the divine truths that had been by Omnipotent power in His ineffable wisdom intrusted to the custody and the promulgation of a chosen people. . . . I hold that the highest function of science is the interpretation of nature, and the interpretation of the highest nature is the highest science. What is the highest nature? Man is the highest nature. But I must say that when I compare the interpretations of the highest nature with the most advanced, the most fashionable and modern school of modern science; when I compare that with older teachings with which we are familiar, I am not prepared to say that the lecture-room is more scientific than the church. What is the question which is now placed before society with the glib assurance which to me is most astounding? That question is this, Is man an ape or an angel? My lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence those new-fangled theories. I believe they are foreign to the conscience of humanity; and I say more that, even in the strictest intellectual point of view, I believe the severest metaphysical analysis is opposed to such conclusions. But, on the other hand, what does the church teach us? What is the interpretation | mentioned, and some references have appeared of this highest nature? It teaches us that man is made in the image of his Creator-a source of inspiration, of solace-a source from which can flow only every right principle of morals and every divine truth. I say, therefore, that when we are told that the teachings of the church are not consistent with the discoveries of science, and that in that sense the inferiority of the church is shown, I totally deny the proposition. I say that the scientific teaching of the church upon the most important of all subjects is, in fact, infinitely superior to anything that has been brought forward by these discoveries. In fact, it is between these two principles that society will have to decide. Upon our acceptance of that divine truth, of which the church is the guardian, all sound and coherent and sensible legislation depends: it is the only security for civilization, it is the only guarantee of real progress." Brilliant and effective enough this was, no doubt, but without much actual substance on which the hearers might lay hold; for at this very time some of the men who had, it was thought, gone beyond what were regarded as orthodox limits were already occupying positions of distinction not only as clergy of the Church of England but as professors in the universities. So far had the assertion of independent or even heterodox opinions reached, that some of those whose conclusions had a few years before been regarded with apprehension were now not only tolerated but accepted. Not long afterwards Maurice, who, as we have seen, was once the leader of an "advanced" school of theology, was appointed professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge, while Kingsley had become professor of history, and at Oxford the opinions of Professor Jowett were causing much perturbation. On all sides there was to be discerned an impression of the truth of the declaration that the church as well as the world would have to accept the results of a development of modern religious belief. Allusions have already been made in these pages to the changes and developments which during thirty years had taken place within the church. The name of Dr. Pusey has been to "Tracts for the Times" and the opinions of those who formed what was known as the Tractarian party, which differed from the old orthodox or High-church party, and still more from the Evangelicals, who, holding with Chillingworth that the Bible and the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants, strenuously opposed the contention of the Tractarians. The latter urged that the New Testament itself was derived from, and its authority was subject to the endorsement of the church, since the faith and doctrines therein contained must have existed in the primitive church during the interval which elapsed between the teaching of Christ and the appearance of the written gospels or epistles. They also argued that when the canon of the New Testament Scriptures was formed, each book of which it was composed was endorsed or accepted in conformity with the existing body of doctrine in the church. The question, therefore, seemed to be between the supremacy of the doctrines of the church to be found in the Scriptures of the New Testament, and the supremacy of those Scriptures as determining the doctrine of the church. The relations between Evangelicalism and Tractarianism involve considerations of the conditions which affect the course of human thought and the causes which modify it; and as Mr. Gladstone has pointed out, the evangelical movement, partly founded on reverence for the reformers of the church, was itself a revival of a living influence and example which gave intensity to religious belief and teaching. "The nature of the evangelical movement was not probably well calculated to fit its agents for exercising social influence at large. It had a code with respect to amusements which was at once rigid and superficial. This code inflexibly proscribed certain of the forms in which the worldly spirit loves to work; while it left ample room for others not less charged with poison, and perhaps more insidious. In lay life generally it did not ally itself with literature, art, and general cultivation; but it harmonized very well with the money-getting pursuits. While the evangelical clergyman was almost of necessity a spiritual and de GLADSTONE ON EVANGELICALISM AND TRACTARIANISM. 203 voted man, the evangelical layman might be, and sometimes was the same; but there was in his case far more room for a composition between the two worlds, which left on him the work of exclusiveness, and tended to a severance from society, without securing an interior standard of corresponding elevation. But it seems probable, if not almost certain, that the interfusion of a class of men like the evangelical clergy with the clerical body at large must have powerfully rebuked the gross inconsistencies of professional character, and have operated with the force of a widely-diffused example in raising what was the prevailing, and threatened to become the traditional standard." This is Mr. Gladstone's conclusion when speaking of evangelicalism in its early days; and he mentions in evidence of the improvement among the clergy a remark made to him by Sydney Smith, whom he met at Mr. Hallam's house about the year 1835. "He spoke, not of any general changes in the prevailing tone of doctrine, but of the improvement which had then begun to be remarkable in the conduct and character of the clergy. He went back upon what they had been, and said in his vivid and pointed way of illustration, 'Whenever you meet a clergyman of my age you may be quite sure he is a bad clergyman!' He must then have been over sixty but under sixty-five. describing the character of his era he could afford this good-humoured condemnation; for, in truth, as the pastor of a parish, he appears to have shown a manly earnestness for practical purposes, which, if it did not rise alarmingly high, yet was greatly in advance of the time." In Mr. Gladstone regards it as an unquestionable fact that it was after the appearance of "Tracts for the Times," and not before, that the juice and sap, that is to say, the positive part of the evangelical teaching, coursed through "the actual gates and alleys of the body" of the English Church. The evangelical teaching with respect to the church and the sacraments, fell below the standard of the Prayerbook, or the Articles, or both. This was a negative part of the evangelical scheme, and it could not pass into the general strain of practical instruction in the Anglican Church. But the evangelical preachers of the English Church, ascending from the theme of the doctrine of "justification," set forth the person, life, and work of the Justifier as the source and substance, not less than the model of our life. This was the perpetual office of the church, and in this they were not innovators but restorers. The founders of the "Oxford School,” a few men, among whom at the outset was only one professor, and who partook of no authority or advantage belonging to an ancient university, followed, and with the aim of completing the restoring work which the Evangelicals had begun, though they did not announce, and perhaps did not know, that they had derived so much from their predecessors. Their distinctive speech was of church and priesthood, of sacraments and services. Through the sacraments and observances of the church the saving truths and doctrines were to be taught in a way capable of, and suitable for, transmission by a collective body from generation to generation. There was strong antagonism between the two parties, but yet the Tractarian party was powerfully reinforced from the ranks of the Evangelicals. Of the three great authors of the tracts Mr. Keble was the only one belonging to the school of traditional Anglican theology. Mr. (afterwards Cardinal) Newman had been closely allied to evangelical doctrine and feeling in his early religious life. His brother English cardinal had belonged in the strictest sense to the ranks of the party. But between 1840 and 1860 a very large number-a pamphlet entitled Rome's Recruits enumerates about 3000 -of recruits went over to the Church of Rome. Of these, Mr. Gladstone tells us, several hundreds were clergymen; and persons of title also were numerous. Some of the seceders were persons brought for the first time under religious influences. Some cases may have been simply due to personal idiosyncrasies, some to a strong reaction from pure unbelief; some came from Presbyterianism, a mere handful from Nonconformity, or, on the other side, from the old-fashioned Anglican precinct, represented by men like Archbishop Howley, Bishop Blomfield, and Dr. Hook. Very |