A short time ago we referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury's now celebrated speech at Carlisle, and expressed some regret that so cautious and able a prelate, should have spoken so hastily on an important subject. Our readers have probably seen the letters of the Hindoo gentleman in the Times, and the leaders in the Saturday Review and the Pall Mall Gazette on the question, but the latest utterance may have escaped that attention which it really deserves. Dr. Harvey Goodwin, Bishop of Carlisle, who was on the platform at the missionary meeting when the Primate spoke, has delivered a sermon in his Cathedral on the two titles, Christian and Heathen, which contains some very sound common sense.
He begins by expressing his satisfaction that the speech of the Archbishop has excited attention. Here, of course, there is room for diversity of opinion, and it is quite possible that Dr. Tait may not be specially flattered with the form that public attention has lately taken. To have every conceivable fallacy in your argument exhibited in the most prominent and glaring light, and to be caricatured in Punch, certainly shows that you excite attention, but whether on the whole you would not have preferred being let alone, depends on your peculiar taste. It is not un. likely that the Archbishop would have preferred the silence even of his zealous defender. We let this pass, however, and proceed to the Carlisle Sermon, Given, that we do see more than we used to do of the unchristianized por. tion of the world, and that the un chris. tianized portion of the world sees more of us. Granted that the Hindoos and Mahommedans can come and see for themselves, and tocome and see forthe. selves, what is likely to be the effect Not a particularly healthy one apparently, as far as the Hindoo is con. cerned. "He finds," observes the Bishop, "that England is regarded as a land of excommunicated unbelievers by almost five-sixths of Christendom or more, and that instead of the unity of which the New Testament seems to speak, nothing could be more pronounced, and ap: parently hopeless, than the rents which divide the Christian Body. These divisions must seem very strange to an inquirer, and must form a great obstacle in the way of receiving the faith, Many of ourselves might be able to say our differences are not cardinal, but we could scarcely expect a Hindoo to take that view, and when he per. ceived the zeal with which some among us strive for the upsetting of that Church, which he in his simplicity had regarded as representing the religion of England, and the amount of trouble and labour which had to be spent on Church defence, the Hindoo might well be a trifle astonished; nor would his astonishment be much mitigated, when he looked into the condition of the English Church itself, and saw strife and dispute, and hard language and uncharitable judgments, and lawsuits and parties of men equally earnest, differing in their accounts of the doctrines of the Church, as widely as the poles."
The manifest slip about "seeing" hard language, is perhaps to bepardoned in an orator full of his subject, and putting this aside, there is much truth in the Bishop's remarks. He at least does not refuse to see difficulties, and frankly states the painful side of the question, He avows in fact that England is about as bad as any country can well be in many ways, and thalia heathen contemplating the character and institutions of the land, specially the ecclesiastical institutions, must cou clude to prefer his own creed and to feel rather glad when he is out of the country.
His allusion to the rancour of religious disputations is peculiarly forcible, and it suggests a very practical consideration, Might not w little familiarity with Heathenism do ministers good? The East is the cradle of our faith, and there are many things to be learned from a sojourn amongst Mahommedans, or Parsees, or Confucianists. Even from China we might lem lessons of toleration, for except when hounded on to a fury by the literary class, the Chinese are not disposed to take umbrage at peculiarities of belief
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.