'that support may be found for considerations of this nature by observing in certain countries in Europe, and to some extent in India, the inevitable effect of establishing a uniform system of education which either deliberately attempts to crush, or else fails to allow for, such differences as these, especially in the religious sphere-effects of which the outcome is visible first in a general unsettledness of convictions among the people, and subsequently in active disintegrating tendencies in the moral, social, and political spheres of a magnitude that is probably not yet realised by the outside observer.' '

The end of our religious divisions can only come by voluntary union, and the first step towards this is knowledge. It is necessary for each man to know clearly the doctrines of the body to which he belongs. He will then be able to explain them to others, and so instructed men will gradually gravitate to union in that body which is able in the clear light of knowledge to prove itself to be in possession of the truth.

IV.

How can this be practically carried out? Let the present Government-or the next if this one refusesbring in a Bill which shall instruct the local authorities to provide schools of all classes with teaching in accordance with the wishes of the parents. There are practically four religious positions in England. The Church stands by herself. The Nonconformists have for all practical purposes united on a common base of undenominationalism which more and more is coming to represent the theology of the Free Church Council. The Roman Catholics are a communion apart, with clear ideas of what they want. In certain quarters there is a distinct Jewish population. In most urban districts, however, the authorities would only have to provide or support schools of two kinds, Church schools and undenominational or Nonconformist. Where Nonconformists of any particular denomination were numerous enough and desired a special school for their

1

Special Reports. Vol. III. The National Organization of Education of all Grades as practised in Switzerland, p. 13 note.

children with special facilities they should of course have the right to have it. The local authorities would so arrange that a school of either class should be within reach of each child. The same provision would be made for Roman Catholics and Jews, where they exist, or for any Nonconforming body sufficiently numerous to demand a separate school. All would then be treated equally, and favour shewn to none.

In single school areas the school would be of the character of the majority, with provision for the teaching of the minority. In districts where the majority were Churchpeople the head-master would be a Churchman, and the assistant would be a Nonconformist who would give religious instruction to the minority. In places where Nonconformists were predominant the school would be 'undenominational,' with provision for the teaching of the Church minority. This would not be an ideal state of things, but that which really mars the ideal is the fact that divisions exist.

Let each teacher say in which class of school he would prefer to serve. This would get rid of the difficulty about tests. No conscientious Nonconformist would wish to be the head of, or to serve in, a definitely Church school; as all schools would be supported alike no Churchman would be tempted by a higher salary to go to a school where he could not freely teach his Creed. In the same way managers could ask to serve on the committee of a school of the class in which they were specially interested, and so the connexion of the school with the local religious life, on which so much depends, would be preserved.

The provision of schools would roughly correspond to the proportion of rates paid by the different bodies, with a slight advantage to the Nonconformists as being the poorer body. To protect the consciences of the few who would not be able to realize this fact, any one might be allowed to earmark his rates to his own class of school. A few zealous Nonconformists would do so, and thereby provoke a corresponding number of Churchmen to do the

same.

But practically no one would trouble about the

matter, as the vast majority would see the fairness of such a plan.

It is by some such method that the question has been settled in countries abroad, in Canada, and, we may add, in Ireland, and surely it is not beyond the power of English statesmanship to effect a similar solution.

CLEMENT F. ROGERS.

ART. II. THE PROPHET OF CALABRIA: JOACHIM OF FLORIS AND THE ETERNAL GOSPEL'

1. JOACHIM Abbas. Liber Concordiae Novi ac Veteris Testamenti. (Venetiis, in aedd. F. Bindoni et M. Pasini, 1519.)

2. JOACHIM ABBAS. Expositio in Apocalypsim, cui adjecta sunt ejusdem Psalterium Decem Cordarum, &c. (Venetiis, per Simonem de Luere, 1527.)

3. Eresia nel Medio Evo. By FELICE Tocco. (Firenze, 1884.)

4. H. DENIFLE in Archiv für Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte. Vol. I. 1885.

5. Nouvelles Études d'Histoire Religieuse. Par E. RENAN. (Paris: Bourloton, 1884.)

6. Weissagungsglaube in der Christlichen Zeit. Von J. J. I. DÖLLINGER. (Raumer's Historisches Taschenbuch, 1871.) 7. Acta Sanctorum for May 29.

And other works.

THROUGHOUT the Middle Ages in Italy there existed side by side with official Catholicism a religion which was not that of Rome. Unsystematic and unproselytizing, it never deserved the name of heresy. It accepted and respected the Church's formulas as fast as they were rounded off and made matters of faith; and that it ever found itself, as a spiritual religion needs must do, in sharp opposition to the temporal claims of the Church and her glaring abuses caused its adherents bitter pangs; for to organized spiritual rebellion the Italian mind has never been predisposed. VOL. LXV.NO. CXXIX.

Rather than heresy, perhaps the title of mysticism would be an appropriate one; but though the chief mark of the habit of mind which goes by that name-the demand for immediateness between God and man-is found among the Italian thinkers, they had little in common with the mystics of Germany working out their own salvation in country parsonages, or those of Spain analyzing love and justifying massacre in the gloom of Dominican convents. Every man of light in Italy in those days was compelled by the restless ferment of the times to be also a man of leading, whether in politics or in art; and it is among the foremost of their time in those capacities that we find the chiefs of this religion. Arnold of Brescia, Francis of Assisi, Contarini among administrators; Dante, Giotto, Vittoria Colonna, Michel Angelo among artists-these are names to which it is difficult to attach the distinctive title of Romanist; yet the Christianity and the Catholicity of such folk are beyond dispute.

Heretical or not, Italian mysticism found its doom in the system devised by the Fathers of Trent. Compact and perfect, with every breach made by the reforming councils of the fifteenth century closed and repaired, the great edifice of Roman Catholicism which they reared had never a loophole or a postern gate for the entrance of a personal religion demanding direct intercourse between God and man. Remorseless rule took the place of unregulated fervour, and the words of Christ, 'One flock, one shepherd,' were at last supposed to be realized. The flock was indeed well guarded. Policed by the Jesuits- the Prætorian guard of the new empire '-and protected by the prevailing political system of Europe, it seemed as if unity had at length been secured within it. But the price of uniformity was a high one. The private judgement was either crushed or infuriated; men of coarser mould betook themselves to secret Paganism; those of more delicate nature accepted the prescribed forms of belief as desirable for good Christians and good citizens, and lived their own life, careful to avoid the semblance of singularity in externals.

But the Council of Trent destroyed for ever one happy

delusion-one hope of better things which had long held a foremost place in the imagination of the Italian pietists. That Christianity as Christ left it, and even as the Apostles were supposed to have systematized it, was not a definite but a progressive religion, continually to be improved until under the guidance of the Holy Ghost it should culminate in the evangelization of all mankind and the establishment of a kingdom of heaven on earth, they believed they could prove from Holy Scripture. The single text, St. John xvi. 12, 13, 'I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now: howbeit when He the Spirit of Truth is come He will guide you into all the truth,' had been quoted centuries before to support a like belief; and it was not difficult to add others. 'It is the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing,' might be supposed to refer respectively to the Person of the Holy Ghost and to the visible hierarchy. This once assumed, the writings of St. Paul (notably in Romans viii.) furnish a full commentary upon and amplification of such a judgement. An unhappy stress was also laid upon the words 'where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty' (2 Cor. iii. 17) as promising the ultimate abolition of the hierarchical yoke; for the disorders to which misuse of the text might and did lead were not foreseen. There was less danger in the assumption that by our Lord's promise that the rule of the Comforter should bring about the judgement of the 'Prince of this world,' He had recognized the imperfect character of His mission, and by His words 'Receive the Holy Ghost,' had even after His Resurrection bidden His disciples prepare for the more perfect dispensation which was to come. On this and on similar texts was founded a complete theory of the progressive improvement of humanity under the successive sway of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which was to culminate in the establishment of the kingdom of the Spirit, and the terrestrial anticipation of the state of the blessed hereafter.

This was in reality Montanism. The cardinal principle of the strange movement so called was completely overlooked by generations of theologians. Attracted by the out