Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

64 Present Prospects of Re-union.
might under Almighty blessing given to fer
vent prayer, be the happy means of leading to
the renunciation of error, and of bringing
about a Christian Union, which might restrain
the alarming progress of that
unscriptural
variety of opinion which prevails to the great
As late as
injury of our common religion."
the year 1824 even, we find a Bishop of Kil-
dare and Leighlin writing to the Earl of
Ripon, then Chancellor of the Exchequer
to the effect that
"
the union
(happy omen !)
of the Churches which you have had the
singular merit of suggesting to the Commons
of the United Kingdom would together and at
once effect a total change in the minds of
men."
Instead of the question resolving itself into
anything like a Concordat, however, towards
Re-union, we know that affairs then took a
different turn, and after forty years of contest
the Roman Catholic claims in this country
were conceded at length by the Emancipation
Bill of 1829 ; and by the tacit acknowledge
ment in our day of its ecclesiastical comple
ment Tract 90 ; for though No. 90 was burked
at its first birth in 1841 it has risen a train o from
its ashes under the tender manipulation of Dr.
Pusey in his world-wide and loving Eirenicon.
Its second birth has found the feeling of the
Church of England more prepared for its