of Peter the Great and of some of the patriarchs to forward the project; but the ecclesiastical synod of Russia was evidently not quite clear from whom the overtures proceeded.  Their answers were directed ’To the Most Reverend the Bishops of the Catholic Church in Great Britain, our dearest brothers,’ and, somewhat to the dismay of the Nonjurors, copies of the letters were even sent by the Patriarch of Jerusalem to Archbishop Wake.  Above all, the proposals were essentially one-sided.  The nonjuring bishops, while remaining perfectly faithful to their principles, were willing to make large concessions in points which involved no departure from what they considered to be essential truths.  The Patriarchs would have been glad of intercommunion on their own terms, but in the true spirit of the Eastern Church, would concede nothing.  It was ’not lawful either to add any thing or take away any thing’ from ’what has been defined and determined by ancient Fathers and the Holy Oecumenical Synods from the time of the apostles and their holy successors, the Fathers of our Church, to this time.  We say that those who are disposed to agree with us must submit to them, with sincerity and obedience, and without any scruple or dispute.  And this is a sufficient answer to what you have written.’  Perhaps the result might not have been very different, even if the overtures in question had been backed by the authority of the whole Anglican Church—­a communion which at this period was universally acknowledged as the leader of Protestant Christendom.  And even if there were less immutability in Eastern counsels, Bishop Campbell and his coadjutors could scarcely have been sanguine in hoping for any other issue.  Truth and right, as they remarked in a letter to the Czar, do not depend on numbers; but if the Oriental synod were thoroughly aware how exceedingly scanty was ’the remnant’ with which they were treating, and how thoroughly apart from the main current of English national life, it was highly improbable that they would purchase so minute an advance towards a wider unity by authorising what would certainly seem to them innovations dangerously opposed to all ancient precedent.  It must be some far greater and deeper movement that will first tempt the unchanging Eastern Church to approve of any deviation from the trodden path of immemorial tradition.

There was great variety of individual character in the group of Churchmen who have formed the subject of this chapter.  They did not all come into contact with one another, and some were widely separated by the circumstances of their lives.  The one fact of some being Jurors and some Nonjurors was quite enough in itself to make a vast difference of thoughts and sympathies among those who had taken different sides.  But they were closely united in what they held to be the divinely appointed constitution of the Church.  All looked back to primitive times as the unalterable model of doctrine, order, and government;