Untitled - Electric Scotland

j86 3 -6 7 ] CORRESPONDENCE ON SUBSCRIPTION 491
and he believed the longer we lived the more we should become
sensible that the Church of England owed a great debt of
gratitude to the moderation and piety with which these men pre
sided over her counsels. ... He would add his own deep and
solemn conviction that if the Church of England was to live in
the affections of this great country, and hold the place which it
ought to hold in Christendom, it must ever be distinguished by
that spirit of comprehensive love which enabled it to be really the
National Church, and to secure the esteem even of those who
l
were separated from its
pale."
Most of the Bishops, however, and a large majority of
the lay Peers, took an opposite line, and the bill was rejected
by 90 votes against 50. 2 Then a pamphlet war began, and
the question was fiercely debated in Convocation. Arthur
Stanley published a copious
and brilliant
"
Letter to the
Bishop of London upon one side, and Professor Ogilvie
replied upon the other. Many of the London clergy were
indignant at their Diocesan s readiness, as was said, to
"
tamper with the time-hallowed safeguards of the
Church," and an address was forwarded to Bishop Tait
by his two Archdeacons, in which 446 of the clergy of
the diocese recorded their solemn "judgment that the
attempts now made to abolish subscription are fraught
with present danger and future evil to the Church, and
as such are to be deprecated and opposed."
A curious, it may be almost said an amusing, corre
spondence followed. The Bishop, on receipt of this some
what warlike document, asked his Archdeacons,
"
in order
that he might better understand their address," to send
him a copy of the printed circular letter, not enclosed to
him in the first instance, in which the signatures of the
clergy had been invited. This letter had been rendered
necessary by the reluctance of some of the clergy to sign
J
Hansard, May 19, 1863, pp. 1935-38.
The two Archbishops and eleven Bishops voted in the majority ; foui
Bishops (London, St. David s, Llandaff, and Derry) in the minority.