I am conscious that I have spoken with too little sympathy in one or two of these essays about the Ritualist party.  I was more afraid of it a few years ago than I am now.  The Oxford movement began as a late wave of the Romantic movement, with wistful eyes bent upon the past.  But Romanticism, which dotes on ruins, shrinks from real restoration.  Medievalism is attractive only when seen from a short distance.  So the movement is ceasing to be either medieval or Catholic or Anglican; it is becoming definitely Latin.  But a Latin Church in England which disowns the Pope is an absurdity.  Many of the shrewder High Churchmen are, as I have said in this volume, throwing themselves into political agitation and intrigue, for which Catholics always have a great aptitude; but this involves them in another inconsistency.  For Catholicism is essentially hierarchical and undemocratic, though it keeps a ’career open to the talents.’  The spirit of Catholicism breathes in the Third Canto of the ‘Paradiso,’ where Dante asks the soul of a friend whom he finds in the lowest circle of Paradise, whether he does not desire to go higher.  The friend replies:  ’Brother, the force of charity quiets our will, making us wish only for what we have and thirst for nothing more.  If we desired to be in a sublimer sphere, our desires would be discordant with the will of Him who here allots us our diverse stations....  The manner in which we are ranged from step to step in this kingdom pleases the whole kingdom, as it does the King who gives us the power to will as He wills.’  Accordingly, these ecclesiastical votaries of democracy cut a strange figure when they seek to legislate for the Church.  The High Church scheme (defeated the other day by a small majority) for drawing up a constitution for the Church, consisted in disfranchising the large majority of the electorate and reserving the initiative and veto for the House of Lords (the Bishops).  In fact, the constitution which our Catholic democrats would like best for the Church closely resembles that of Great Britain before the first Reform Bill.  In the same way the ritualistic clergy, while professing a superstitious reverence for the episcopal office, make a point of flouting the authority of their own bishop.  The movement, in my opinion, is beginning to break up, and Rome will be the chief gainer.  But many of its leaders have been among the glories of the Church of England, and I could never speak of them with disrespect.

Catholicism, whether Roman or Anglican, stands to lose heavily by the decay of institutionalism as an article of faith.  It is becoming impossible for those who mix at all with their fellow-men to believe that the grace of God is distributed denominationally.  The Christian virtues, so far as we can see, flower impartially in the souls of Catholic and Protestant, of Churchman and Schismatic, of Orthodox and Heretic.  And the test, ‘by their fruits ye shall know them,’ cannot be openly rejected by any Christian.  But fanatical institutionalism has been the driving force of Catholicism as a power in the world, from the very first.  The Church has lived by its monopolies and conquered by its intolerance.  The war has given a further impetus to the fall of this belief, which, with its dogma, Extra ecclesiam nulla salus, was tottering before the crisis came.