But a darker alternative is possible—may Providence guide and protect your Lordship, that so it may be averted!—A nation finally unchurched;—a Bible keenly “criticised,” and unauthorized;—a Clergy descending to “use” a Prayer-book which they will not affirm that they BELIEVE; a People mainly divided between illiterate fanaticism and cold infidelity. I am, my Lord, Your Lordship’s faithful servant, WILLIAM J. IRONS. FOOTNOTES. {3} See Mr. Oakeley’s Pamphlet with that title. {4a} In the original printing these sub-headings are side-notes. They have been turned to headings (and in a few cases paragraphs split) in order to make the text more readable.—DP. {4b} See his Lordship’s Speech in the House of Lords, May 19. {7} The term “High Churchmen” is, of course, quite ambiguous:—“At the _instance_ of High Churchmen,” p. 33.—Yet the learned Editor of Beveridge records that prelate’s “staunch opposition to Comprehension.” {18} Dr. Cardwell, with his great carefulness (_Synod_, i. 7), even says of the Forty-two Articles, “It was certainly enjoined that they should be _subscribed_ generally by the clergy throughout the kingdom, and this design, carried probably to some extent into execution, was only prevented from being fully accomplished by the death of King Edward, July 6, 1553.” {24} An intelligent Wesleyan was recently urged by a friend of mine to return to the Church, and solemnly replied, “_Never_, till you have Discipline.” But the attracting of non-conformists to the Church is not what Dr. STANLEY proposes to aim at by his plan to abolish Subscriptions. Certainly they have not been attracted to Oxford during the last nine years of non-subscription there. {28} In other places, it is not the “early” age at which (p. 52) we are “trapped into it” which is complained of, but the maturer time of “Holy Orders” and “Mastership” (pp. 29, 30)—which, then, is the grievance? {32} It is worse than his very exaggerated contradiction of the saying in the Twenty-ninth Article, that certain words were St Augustine’s. See the reference in _Beveridge_. {36} Since writing this, I have heard that a protest of this kind has actually been mooted at a meeting of clergy in this diocese. {37} It is not said _by whom_ now “disputed.” The Sixth Article says that _we_, without dispute, take the books of the New Testament as _commonly_ received. Dr. STANLEY does not seem aware of the distinction between the “Canonical” and “Sacred” Books. See the _Reformatio Legum_, chap. vii.