one admitted the present Anglican Church to be the child of the Reformation.  It was, to quote the Protestant historian, Child, “as completely the creation of Henry VIII., Edward’s Council, and Elizabeth as Saxon Protestantism was of Luther.”  But now?  Oh! now, “nous avons change tout cela,” and history has received a totally different setting.  A certain section of Anglicans, in these modern times, are labouring hard to persuade themselves and others that they can trace their Church back to the time of St. Augustine.  They will by no means allow that they started into being only in the sixteenth century.  In fact, it is quite pathetic to watch the strenuous efforts they make, and the extravagant means to which they have recourse, in order to lull themselves into the peaceful enjoyment of so sweet and consoling a delusion.

A delusion which a candid study of past history must sooner or later ruthlessly dispel, and which has not a shred of foundation in fact to support it.  But we promised to point out WHY, in spite of its absolute absurdity, these good men, like the Bishop of London, persist in repeating and restating with ever-increasing vehemence that there has been no break in the continuity, and that the present Church of England is one with the Church of St. Bede, of St. Dunstan, of St. Anselm, of St. Thomas, and of other pre-Reformation heroes; though they must surely know that there is not one amongst these glorious old Catholic saints who would not a thousand times sooner have gone to the stake and been burnt alive, than have accepted the Thirty-nine Articles, or than have joined the present Bishop of London in any of his religious services.  Why do Anglicans make such heroic efforts to connect their Church with the past?  Why do they advance an impossible theory?  Why will they stubbornly affirm what history utterly denies?  Why do they assert, and with such emphasis, what no one but they themselves have the hardihood to believe?  Why?  For precisely the same reason that will induce a drowning man to grasp at a straw.  In short, because even if they did not realise it before, they are now beginning to see that their very position depends upon their being able to make out some sort of case for continuity.  They realise that to admit that the Church of England began in the sixteenth century is simply to cut the ground from underneath their feet.  Therefore, purely in self-defence, they feel themselves constrained to cling to the continuity theory.  It may be absurd, it may be unhistorical, it may be impossible and utterly repudiated by every impartial and honest man.  That cannot be helped.  Impossible or not impossible; true or false, it is necessary for their very existence, so that, just as a drowning man catches at a straw, though it cannot possibly support him, so do these most unfortunate and hardly-pressed men clutch at and cling to the hollow theory of continuity.  Sometimes, when off their guard, and in a less cautious