Untitled - Electric Scotland

48o LIFE OK ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. xvn.
flocks ; nor the vast power of University life, moulding the
thoughts of our rising youth. But still, London is the centre :
to London flows yearly, in a steady tide, a large body of persons
of all classes from every country ; from London the stream of
influence, however unobserved, sets in irresistibly, through news
papers, books, letters, the converse of friends, to hall, parsonage,
farmhouse, and cottage in the remotest country districts. If we
in London are faithless, all England suffers. If London could
but become the really Christian centre of the nation, how would
our national Christianity grow !
" l
With the sense of this responsibility upon his shoulders
he set himself in his three London Charges to make a
solid contribution to the discussion of whatever questions
were stirring the National Church. An account has
already been given of the purport
and effect of his
primary Charge in 1858. It was a trumpet call to larger
efforts of an aggressive sort against the sin and misery
of London. The Charges of 1862 and 1866 had reference
rather to the ecclesiastical questions of the hour : the
scare of Ritualism on the one side, and Rationalism on
the other ; the desire for corporate union with those out
side the Church of England ; the history and character
of the Church s Courts ; and the promotion of clerical
efficiency and preaching power.
It would be impossible
to quote largely from these Charges, but a few typical
extracts may perhaps be given, with special
reference to
the strength and definiteness of his contention for the
Faith. In the Charge of 1862, he refers at length to
"the difficulties that spring from that unrestrained spirit of
free inquiry, which claims the right to sift and test all theories,
and bows to no authority, however venerable, which cannot make
good by argument its claim on our allegiance."
" As to free inquiry," he says,
"
what shall we do with it ?
Shall we frown upon it, denounce it, try to stifle it? This will
do no good even if it be right. But after all we are Protestants.
1
Charge of 1866, pp. 2, 3.