Meanwhile, the movement which might by turns be labeled Latitudinarian or Rationalist,' ...

Meanwhile, the movement which might by turns be labeled Latitudinarian or Rationalist,' or more simply and vaguely Broad Church, had been gaining steadily in force and authority. In the widest terms, it could be defined as the response to the challenge of science, as the effort to reformulate the Christian faith in language adapted to the outlook of the age, an age profoundly impressed with the uniformity of nature, and increasingly critical in its acceptance of evidence.

The question which the Zulu convert put to Bishop Colenso: Do you believe all that? Could not be evaded forever, and it would be difficult indeed to say with what inner acceptance the Gospels were read and the Creed recited by Thirlwall or Jowett or Stanley. The laity, not restrained even by the vague and liberal terms of subscription which the Act of 186 imposed on the clergy, might speak more openly, and for a while, and to a certain number of serious souls, Seeley and Philip Arnold seemed to offer a possible standing ground in arising flood of doubt.

But even the clergy, recruited, as they still for the most part were, from the families of clergymen and gentlemen, could not in the long run be bound to beliefs inconsistent with the views of the educated laity: and the intimate association of the professions, sacred and profane, from the Universities onwards; the social activity of the clergy from the bishops downwards; had together brought about the paradox which Mr Gladstone once set before the Queen -the tenacious vitality of a Church whose ministers, many of them, rejected both her authority and her creeds.