128 



REV. CHANCELLOR LIAS, M.A., ON 



from her, and be ye separate " would be, one would think, the 

 natural verdict of conscience in such a case. What is the use 

 of telling us that Christianity is a Life, when that Life is not 

 lived by those who alone can, by precept and example, transmit 

 it to us ? " How, then," as St. Paul would say, " shall God 

 judge the world ? " Has not Dr. Tyrrell told us (p. 93) that the 

 most difficult note " of the true Church with which to " deal " 

 is that of' " sanctity," and that no intelligent member of the 

 Roman Church can be " unfamiliar with the shock experienced 

 by the cultivated lay mind at first encounter with certain pages 

 in ascetic and moral theology " ?* Dr. Tyrrell goes on to say 

 that he " need not specify " these " pages." Had he done so, 

 he would have given certain apologists of Home among us a 

 " shock " which would be of considerable use to them. Unfortu- 

 nately in this age we are so " tolerant " that we often shut our 

 eyes to facts, if this indeed be tolerance. ' Had Dr. Tyrrell been 

 able to " specify " and quote these pages, they would have been 

 a surprise to most of us. Many of them would be found such 

 as, to use Gibbon's expression, were best "veiled in the decent 

 obscurity of a learned language." I have not, however, space to 

 enter into Dr. Tyrrell's ingenious defence of his present position 

 in the Eoman Church. His refinements of logic, I must confess, 

 appear to me to savour too much of the methods of the Society 

 to which he has ceased to belong. 



It is impossible to touch on all the interesting points raised 

 in the " Letter," and in the volumes which have succeeded it. I 

 can but pick out one or two more and then pass on to 

 modernism of another type. I have no space to discuss the 

 attempt to minimize the errors and dangers of the Eoman system 

 l)y which remaining in her is defended. I can only say that I 

 ])refer the attitude of Dollinger when he said of the Vatican 

 dogmas that neither " as a Christian, a theologian, an historian, 

 or a citizen " could he subscribe them, and the honest determina- 

 tion with which he remained till death outside the pale of the 

 Ttoman Church. N"or can I stop to point out the singular 

 identification of Eomanism with Catholicism in Mr. Tyrrell's 

 pages.f Bat what, I confess, surprises me not a little, is the way 

 in which he seems to ignore the facts of history when he 

 consistently endeavours to represent " Catholicism," by which 

 he means Eomanism, to be a free development of Christian 



See Novellen, by Maiie Muilaiid. 

 t M. Loisy adopts the same assumption in his d'ospel and the Church. 

 p. 175. 



