Untitled - Electric Scotland

520 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. xvm.
Societies of the Church, National Education, the Westminster
Spiritual Aid Fund, besides the continual opportunities of preach
ing shall we add Convocation ? these give the mitred Abbot of
Westminster an influence almost as directly episcopal as that
of any Bishop."
The line taken by the Bishop in the Essays and
Reviews controversy, and in his utterances generally, had
the result of bringing upon him quite a flood of corre
spondence with clergy and others whose faith had been un
settled, and who wished to consult
"
the only Bishop," as
one writer expressed it,
" who seems to feel the slightest
respect or sympathy for men in our position." Most of
these letters, entering as they do into detailed theological
inquiry, are unsuited for publication in this book, and the
Bishop s usual course was to invite his correspondent to
talk the matter over with him. A single specimen instance
may perhaps be given.
The Bishop had in this case no
previous knowledge of his correspondent, who lived in a
distant part of England, and had been ordained some
twelve years before.
[After a long biographical apologia, the writer states his posi
tion thus :
]
"
I thus found at last that my faith in the propitiatory
view of the Atonement had left me, as a natural consequence of
my having ceased to believe in anything miraculous. Upon this
I resigned my living, on the alleged ground that I could no longer
yield an unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything con
tained in the Book of Common Prayer. It seemed to me un
necessary, and in every way undesirable, to publish the extent of
that scepticism which had assuredly brought me no peace or
happiness. .
. .
[After long vacillation] the urgent and only too
flattering invitations of some of my kind friends among the
Unitarians induced me to re-examine the question of our Saviour s
alleged mere humanity, and this led me to the conclusion that
either Jesus was properly Divine, or the New Testament was an
unworthy text-book for a truthful preacher. Still, though the
moral beauties of Christianity prevented my assenting to the latter