was over. The happy device of the via media proved, as is too often the case, abortive. Both sides claimed the victory, and acrimonious disputes, protests, and declarations were rife. Meantime the prolocutor, falling ill, appointed a deputy to act for him.

At Atterbury's suggestion Dean Aldrich was selected for this office. The moderate party hearing of this at once declared that reference must be made to the Archbishop. Some members were hastening off to do this. Others were trying to hinder them. A tumultuary scene arose in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. Aldrich proceeded to read prayers, which for a moment stilled the excitement. Immediately after prayers were ended, Kennett moved that a message should be sent to the President. Aldrich himself appears to have moved 'that the sub-prolocutor should take the chair.' This was carried by acclamation, and he took the chair. Then arose a shout of the out-voted party that he had no right to the chair till confirmed,' and a body of the Bishops' men rushed off to the Jerusalem Chamber, where the Bishops were met. The Archbishop hearing of the occurrence at once formally summoned the Lower House to Jerusalem Chamber. 'An incident of great moment has happened,' he said; 'we must take time to consider it; the Convocation is prorogued till Saturday, February 14.' This was a sudden and heavy blow, but Atterbury was not inclined to yield. He shouted to his brethren as they left the Jerusalem Chamber to come back to their own House. Some he even pushed bodily before him.' He succeeded in getting together forty-two, who were ready to defy the Archbishop's prorogation, and to act in absolute independence. But now these turmoils received a terrible and startling rebuke. The very next day the prolocutor died. He appears to have been a litigious man, and was involved in strife with his Bishop (Burnet). Probably he had been selected for his office on this very account. His death was a heavy blow to the High Church party. Without a head they could make no stand. On their own principles their House was incomplete and incompetent to act. And they had good reason to think that the Archbishop would not be above taking advantage of the opportunity. The way indeed in which he received the intelligence of Dr. Woodward's death was somewhat shocking. 'Brethren of the Clergy, I hear the prolocutor is dead, and we are very much surprised at the news of it. We must consider what is

Lathbury's Convocation, p. 370, note.

proper to be done on this occasion.' It certainly did not seem to require much consideration to decide that the House having unhappily lost its prolocutor should be directed to choose another. But this was not the view of Tenison, Burnet, and the Bishops. Their enemies were delivered into their hands and they would hold them captive. No prolocutor should be chosen, but the Convocation should be prorogued from time to time, so that in case of emergency it might be summoned. 'There was a consult of Bishops held upon this point this morning,' writes Atterbury, and their opinion was that we should not be allowed to choose any.' This was flat tyranny. Atterbury at once published a pamphlet reflecting on such an unjust method of treatment.3 The Archbishop seems to have sent the members of the Lower House away with the cynical recommendation that they should go to their cures and catechize their people in preparation for Easter. Some forty-five members, led by Atterbury, refused to submit to this. They met in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, and debated, choosing a chairman or moderator. Some were for choosing a prolocutor on their own responsibility; some for making a remonstrance to the Archbishop by a member deputed for that purpose; others, as Atterbury, for making a formal protest subscribed by all their names, and offering this to the Upper House for entering in their journals. If it should be refused it might be entered on the books of the Lower House and published. From this bold step the majority of the members, however, shrank," and the oral remonstrance was determined on. Archdeacon Drewe was appointed to make this, and on March 3, when the Archbishop's commissary (Gardiner, Bishop of Lincoln) came to the Jerusalem Chamber to further prorogue the Convocation, he attempted to do this. Difficulties immediately arose. The commissary said the protest must be made in writing, and then a dispute began between the members of the Lower House who were thronging the ante-chamber of the Jerusalem Chamber, on the point in whose name it was to be drawn-in the name of the House or in the name of certain members? Before this was settled the commissary had finished his business and disrobed. He consented, however, afterwards, to receive the message in his private capacity, and to convey it

1 Kennett's Complete Hist. iii. 847.

2 Atterbury to Trelawny, Corresp. iii. 75.

3 A faithful Account of some Transactions in the three last Sessions of Convocation.

4

+ Ib. p. 77.

5 Ib. p. 80.

to his Grace. Nothing, however, came of this, and the King's death occurring within three days afterwards, the lawyers held that Convocation was thereby dissolved.' The High Church clergy were no doubt well consoled for the harsh measures of Tenison by the reflection that in the Princess who now succeeded to the throne they were certain of a good friend. Thus Atterbury, discussing the situation to his clergy at Totnes, could say with calmness, that though the death of the prolocutor had been laid hold of in order to perplex affairs, and hinder the Convocation from proceeding to business, yet, God be thanked, we have a gracious Queen on the throne, who we are sure will be so far from doing any harm to the Church that she will not in her time suffer any to be done to it.'3 The strife, however, had many more years to run, and Atterbury many more battles to fight. High Church and Low Church continued to contend all through the reign of Queen Anne, though the former usually preserved the ascendency. The accumulated bitterness of the long contention was at length discharged in the fierce personalities of the Bangorian controversy. From that period the struggle absolutely ceases and continues in abeyance until quite modern times.

To the disputes of 1701 we owe the text book of the procedure in our Convocations, Gibson's Synodus Anglicana, and the practical settling by it of the questions then raised. Atterbury's view as to the Parliamentary character of the Lower House was finally demolished by Wake in his learned folio, published in 1703, and has never since reappeared. But though Atterbury may have been mistaken in his historical views, he did good service for the Church in his day. He showed to the State authorities who ignored it, and to the Whig Bishops who oppressed it, that the Church of England had its rights and privileges and was not content to forego them. He evoked a strong and vigorous Church spirit, which, though deeply tinged with secular influences, and not built altogether on true Church principles, nevertheless by its vigour, and the considerable amount of truth which it held, served to repress and shame the fawning of an Erastian subserviency. He put

1 Atterbury, Corresp. iii. 86. Kennett, iii. 840.

2 This opinion was a good deal questioned. Atterbury and his party held that, the clergy being summoned to attend Parliament under the Præmunientes clause, their assembly continued as long as the Parliament, which by a special Act was continued after the King's death. But the lawyers were agreed that this act did not include Convocation, which was called by a different writ and had a different constitution.

3 Charge to Archdeaconry of Totnes, Corresp. ii. 217.

in motion a power which, continually gathering strength and momentum, presently, in the time of Sacheverell, scattered a Whig Ministry like a pack of cards, and proved to statesmen for ever that the Church of England, once thoroughly roused and united, is an overwhelming influence in the State, and that it cannot be safely oppressed beyond a certain limit. So powerful indeed was the championship of this talented man, who was first called to the front in this Convocation controversy, that it was found in the era of the first George that the King's government could not be carried on unless he were either bought or ruined. The first expedient was tried and failed. The second was then resorted to, and succeeded but too well.

ART. V. THE RISE OF BUDDHISM.

By

1. The History of Antiquity. From the German of Professor MAX DUNCKER. BY EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A., LL.D., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford. Vol. IV. (London, 1880.)

2. Buddhism: being a Sketch of the Life and Teachings of Gautama the Buddha. By T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law, and late of the Ceylon Civil Service. With Map. (London, 1880.)

3. The Hibbert Lectures, 1881.-Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as illustrated by some points in the History of Indian Buddhism. By T. W. RHYS DAVIDS. (London, 1881.)

4. Buddhist Birth Stories; or, Fâtaka Tales. Being the Fatakatthavannana. For the first time edited in the original Pâli, by V. FAUSBÖLL, and translated by T. W. RHYS DAVIDS. Translation, Vol. I. (London, 1880.)

5. The Sacred Books of the East. Translated by various Oriental scholars and edited by F. MAX MÜLLER. Vol. X. Part I. The Dhammapada. A Collection of Verses, being one of the Canonical Books of the Buddhists. Translated from the Pâli by F. MAX MÜLLER. Part II. The Sutta Nipâta. Translated by V. FAUSBÖLL. Vol. XI. Buddhist Suttas from the Pâli. Translated by T. W. RHYS DAVIDS. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1881.)

6. The Vinaya Pitakam, one of the Principal Buddhist Holy Scriptures in the Pâli Language. Edited by HERMANN OLDENBERG. Vol. I. The Mahavagga. (London, 1879.)

AMONGST the various forms of religion to which attention has been called in recent years, there is not one that can show a stronger claim to be made a subject of inquiry and reflection than Buddhism, nor is there one more fruitful in revelations, whether to the student of the history of philosophy, or to the student of humanity, or to the believer in the Christian religion, or to that very modern phenomenon the soi-disant impartial student of religion in general. The inquirer whose aim it is to trace the development of human thought will be rewarded by finding beneath the rubbish-heaps of later accretions a marvellous insight into moral truth. He will be startled to find in one of the aspects of Buddhism a theory of the universe, formulated five centuries before the Christian era, which presents a singular parallel to one of the latest products of German philosophy. Side by side with that theory he will be no less surprised to find ideas which are not merely reflected in the Agnosticism and the Positivism of to-day, but are amongst their very watchwords or the mottoes inscribed upon the banners and the shields of their champions.

To the thoughtful Christian who anticipates with prayerful hope the subjugation of the world to the obedience of Christ, Buddhism should be a subject of uncommon interest. When he learns its past conquests and appreciates the extent of its present sway, nearly five hundred millions of human beings, or about one-third of the human race being, with whatever inconsistencies, its adherents, he will seek to know the secret of its power. A twofold inquiry will seem forced upon him. He will ask, in the first place, what causes can be assigned for its rise and early progress. It will be our aim in this paper to make it clear that modern scholarship supplies a fairly satisfactory answer to this question. In the second place, he will ask why it is that this product of Indian civilization has been able to hold its ground against Christianity, whereas Brahmanism, the parent and the rival of Buddhism, though after an internecine struggle it remained master of the Indian territory, is now, as Professor Max Müller tells us, only the lingering shell of a religion, a mere body of superstitions clung to by the uneducated, and whereas the religions associated with the higher civilizations of Greece and Rome, and reflected in the masterpieces of the world's literature, have utterly perished before the banner of the Cross.