ENGLAND and THE HOLY SEE An Essay towards Reunion by Spencer Jones, M.A. Rector of Batsford with Moreton-in-Marsh. With an Introduction by The Right Hon. Viscount Halifax LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOster row, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1902 All rights reserved DD45 571077 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. If in the following pages I speak for the most part in the first person it is because I am speaking only for myself. I have to shelter myself, therefore, under the well known saying that in questions of this kind egotism is true modesty; and I have the highest sanction for doing so. Towards the close of his Second Eirenicon, which was given to the world in the shape of a letter addressed in the first instance to Cardinal Newman, Dr. Pusey is careful to explain his position thus: "I could not even conjecture what its effects would be (the allusion is to the First Eirenicon). I could only commit it to God, who, I hoped, had taught me to turn into an Eirenicon what, at the earnest desire of others, I had begun as a defence. "But God had, I trusted, put it into my heart to do it. I wish in this new 'Eirenicon' to be understood as speaking in the name of no one but my single self. I have consulted no one." And so in my own case, and in my own small measure, although the Association for Promoting the Unity of Christendom has been in existence now for some forty years I have never had the honour of belonging to it, nor have I had the privilege of an introduction to its present Master. I was invited on one occasion to preach for the Society; and the Secretary did me the kindness of allowing me to make some use of the late Master's pamphlet for the earlier pages of my last chapter; but otherwise he knows nothing of the line I am following in this Essay. While as regards the English Church Union, I did not belong |