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ything turned. The Modernist defendants everywhere had practically resolved on the same line of defence; on the same appeal from the mind of the sixteenth century to the mind of the twentieth; from creeds and formularies to history; from a dying to a living Church.
The chief counsel for the promoters, Sir Wilfrid Marsh, made a calm, almost a conciliatory opening. He was a man of middle height, with a large, clean-shaven face, a domed head and smooth straight hair, still jetty black. He wore a look of quiet assurance and was clearly a man of all the virtues; possessing a portly wife and a tribe of daughters.
His speech was marked in all its earlier sections by a studied liberality and moderation. "I am not going to appeal, sir, for that judgment in the promoters' favour which I confidently claim, on any bigoted or obscurantist lines. The Church of England is a learned Church; she is also a Church of wide liberties."
No slavish submission to the letter of the Articles on the Liturgy was now demanded of any man. Subscription had been relaxed; the final judgment in the Essays and Reviews case had given a latitude in the interpretation of Scripture, of which, as many recent books showed, the clergy--"I refer now to men of unquestioned orthodoxy"--had taken reasonable advantage; prayer-book revision "within the limits of the faith," if constantly retarded by the divisions of the faithful, was still probable; both High Churchmen and Broad Churchmen--here an aside dropped out, "so far as Broad Churchmen still exist!"--are necessary to the Church.
But there are limits. "Critical inquiry, sir, if you will--reasonable liberty, within the limits of our formularies and a man's ordination vow--by all means!
"But certain things are vital! With certain fundamental beliefs let no one suppose that either the bishops, or convocation, or these Church courts, or Parliament, or what the defendants are pleased to call the nation" [one must imagine the fine gesture of a sweeping