Untitled - Electric Scotland

3o8 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. xn.
" MY
Canon A. P. Stanley to the Bishop of London.
"
6 GROSVENOR CRESCENT, July 6, 1861.
DEAR BISHOP, I do not like to leave London without
a few words on our late controversy.
" You told me in February that in three months I should recog
nise the wisdom and propriety of the Episcopal signatures to the
condemnation of the opinions of the Essayists. I need hardly
say that anything which has happened since has only confirmed
my original impression. The Episcopal censure instead of allay
ing has immensely aggravated it. Convocation has not only not
been prevented from debating,*but has disgraced the Church by
the most extravagant folly in the course which it has pursued ;
legal proceedings have not only not been prevented, but have
been promoted on the express ground of the Episcopal letter.
The only gainers have been the publishers and the extreme sec
tion of the Essayists, who have reaped the greatest advantage
from the indiscriminate character of the censure, and from the
moral impossibility which it has created of a dissolution of com
panionship between the different authors.
"
I only refer to these consequences of what has been done as
a reason for hoping better things in what remains to be done.
"
I am quite unable to see why those Bishops who see no
grave cause of complaint against the doctrines of the book (what
ever they may think of its prudence) should not say so. Those
with whom you have talked freely on these matters know per
fectly well what your opinions were at the beginning of this year.
Temple, Jowett, and Pattison you have, in private communica
tion with me, entirely acquitted (so far as their essays are
concerned) of any grave error; of the others (with the exception
of Powell, if interpreted according to the unfavourable construc
tion) there is none whose opinions V I am not now speaking of
their style and temper, which are irrelevant) you can think more
untenable within the Church than what you know of Arnold,
Julius Hare, or the Bishop of St. David s.
" And
yet up to this time no Bishop, except the Bishop of
Lincoln, has ventured to say publicly that the opinions of any
one of the essayists are compatible with the position of an
English clergyman.
"
I will not add anything more. You know that I, and those