But I protest against the possible suggestion
that anything I have said should be taken as
reflectiiig on Christ's Holy Catholic Church,
more especially that Reformed branch of it
established in this kingdom, which repre-
sents to me in many reelects the highest
teaching of Christian morals to be found in
the world.
It is the fashion for the ignorant to sneer at
the National Church and to attribute to her
neglect any lack of faith and any decay of
morals. The National Church is a human
institution, and has all the defects of a Catholic
Church which holds the mean between the
two extremes. Her faults and failings are
ours, and at her best she stands for all that is
best in us which we have learnt from her.
We cannot judge the mediaeval Church by
the standards of our own time, but we owe
it nearly all the advance in civilisation which
we have made. In a time when unceasing
war was the normal condition of Europe, the
Chiutjh always directed its efforts to widai
the short intervals of peace ; it enforced the
sanctity of oaths and contracts, using all the
penalties of the Church to safeguard them.
It is to the unceasing efforts of the Church



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CONCLUSION 257

that we owe any progress that we have made
in this direction, and it would be the grossest
ingratitude not to acknowledge her overpower-
ing influence in awakening our moral sense, as
well as our debt to her for progress in the arts
and sciences.
