valyant Englishmen ought to do, utterly leaving the play at the bouts, quoits, dice, kails, and other unthrifty games;' magistrates, mayors, and bailiffs being responsible for their obedience under penalty.8

Substituting the word rifle for long-bow, the above extract describes pretty nearly the position in the Swiss village of to-day. In our own country it has been impossible to maintain this continuity of practice. The change in the arm has been accompanied by changes in other conditions which have added enormously to the difficulties. The initial cost of the rifle and the constant charge for ammunition are serious expenses. As many know from experience, a thorough acquaintance with one's rifle means constant practice, and much expenditure of ammunition which, even at the favourable Swiss rates, represents, in the long run, no small sum. The most formidable obstacle, however, is the range difficulty. With a crowded population, high-priced land, a flat country, and a rifle carrying a bullet several thousand yards, the danger of accidents, the expense of providing against them, and of taking up land in front of and behind the butts, become serious questions.

The difference between the conditions in Switzerland and in the United Kingdom are obvious. Nature has provided an efficient stop-butt, in the shape of a mountain or a hill, within easy reach of nearly every Swiss village. The total population of the country is just over three millions, representing about the number that turned out in London to see the Jubilee Procession of 1897. The population is well distributed over the country districts, and does not collect in huge urban centres as with us. The land is in the hands of peasant proprietors or parishes, all interested in the maintenance of the rifle clubs and in providing ranges. Favoured by the conditions of the country and the times, interest in the national arm has fortunately been maintained in Switzerland during successive generations, and does not require to be suddenly rekindled. And lastly there is the important fact that the Swiss military system provides not only the rifles and the ammunition, but an organisation in every village which renders the management of the clubs a matter of easy arrangement.

As has been already noticed, the non-military side of the clubs, the interest taken in 'private' shooting, and the sums spent thereon are remarkable, even though partly accounted for by the absence of the rival attractions of the many outdoor games which play so prominent a part in our own country life. Still it must be recognised that the Swiss system of rifle clubs, admirable as it is, is really a part of the military system. Without the government rifle, which nearly every man has in his home, the ammunition supplied by the State, the facility with which ranges can be acquired, the military training of the members, the obligatory rifle course, and the military

Froude's History, vol. i. p. 62.

organisation of the management, the figures of the Swiss rifle clubs might be on a very different scale from that shown above. In our own country every one of these conditions is absent. Even if the ranges were available, the rifles, the ammunition, and the organisation for management would have to be supplied. This could not be done unless the population consented to arm, drill, and practise under efficient control-which would mean general military service.10 The subject is a very large one, and quite beyond the scope of the present paper. But although evidences of the advantages of the system are to be seen on all sides, the system is accompanied by difficulties which assert themselves even in Switzerland, where it is not only most popular, but worked with all consideration and care for the interests of the community.

Switzerland surrounded by great foreign states all armed to the teeth, and having no sea or fleet to safeguard its frontiers, has considered it necessary hitherto to arm and train its comparatively small male population in readiness against attack. But even the present measures, conceived with every possible consideration of the economy of money and of time, are found to bear heavily on the pockets and industrial power of the nation. As the population increases, the question has presented itself whether the existing military strength is not sufficient, and whether it is necessary that it should keep pace with the increase in the male population, and that all should be obliged to serve in the battalions. It is already proposed to raise both the physical and educational standard for recruits. This would reduce the military budget on one side, and increase it on the other by the tax on exempts, and would set free for industrial purposes many, a part of those whose time would otherwise have to be passed at the depôts.

With our natural insular advantages of protection and our large population, the proportion of those required for military service must be much less than on the Continent, even allowing for the troops required beyond the seas. And there must be a point of armament which when reached would be found, as in Switzerland, to entail unnecessary expense and a disturbance of the economic balance of the country. The full estimate of all the military requirements of the country being carefully ascertained, the necessary number of recruits for the Line and the Militia can be obtained by sufficient inducements being offered, whilst the required number of Volunteers could be secured by judicious encouragement and

"In connection with this point it may be noticed that a change made in 1894 by which a part of the Landsturm was brought into the military musketry course added at once 51,663 members to the rifle clubs.

10 In India where the conditions entirely differ from those at home, I have long advocated the arming of the entire European and Eurasian population against a possible day of trouble, and have been fortunate enough to be able to assist in some degree towards this desirable end.

arrangement. This would of course include convenient rifle ranges, and liberal supply of ammunition for practice. Without these the Volunteer is an unnecessary expense, and is almost as useless as if he were without arms. No man can become a satisfactory marksman if instruction and practice mean but an occasional journey to a distant range, and ammunition limited to the few rounds of the present annual course. Where conditions will admit of ranges being provided near at hand, there it would be desirable specially to encourage volunteering, and not to limit the corps to the ordinary strength; the numbers in inconvenient localities being reduced pro tanto. In many places short ranges, that is up to 300 yards, or even less, will answer most purposes. The fact that a short range means a long distance behind the butts is not overlooked. This is equally necessary, unless shooting at short ranges is proscribed, whether the range be long or short. A short range means less land taken up on the target size; and, with a high butt and ordinary careful shooting, most of the bullets will be accounted for. The prejudice against rifle clubs as likely to affect volunteering will, in practice, be found to be unfounded, and many of the members will probably by degrees be induced to join the force. Even if they do not do so in peace times, they will hardly fail in an emergency, and their experience at the butts will all be to the good. Rifle clubs, as generally understood, will be confined to the well-to-do who supply their own arms and ammunition. Discouraging rifle clubs will not induce these men to become volunteers. There will always be the attraction, to those who cannot afford to provide these themselves, of the Government arms and ammunition issued to Volunteers. And last, but not least, Lord Wemyss's excellent scheme of reserve Volunteers will bring back many trained men and good shots who have been, for a variety of reasons, absent from the corps for some years past.

From the Swiss much may unquestionably be learnt in many details of their musketry arrangements; in the latest appliances for the safety of the markers and the convenience of the marksman; in the shield ranges for crowded localities as described and advocated by Mr. Baillie-Grohman; in the universal encouragement and support given to rifle shooting by all classes as a national institution and duty. And it can at least be learnt that this practical people have decided after years of experience and attention that long ranges are not essential for good shooting, but that convenient ranges, that is near the men's homes, and a liberal supply of ammunition are of primary importance.

Schloss Wildeck, Switzerland:

April 1900.

J. H. RIVETT-CARNAC.

THE PROSPECTS OF ANGLICANISM

THE decision of the Archbishops that reservation is not permitted in any form by the law of the Church of England is called by the Church Times the Archbishops' Rescript'—a term of which it seems not to know the precise meaning. The 'principum placita,' 'decreta' or 'edicta' of the Roman Law, like the similar pronouncements of the Pope, had all the obligatoriness of law, and it is somewhat amusing therefore to find the organ of the malcontents blessing when it set out to curse Lambeth and all its works. Nevertheless the term is a happy one, and it serves to bring out clearly the extreme gravity of the situation into which the Ritualists have plunged the Church of England. The 'Rescript' carries with it to the ordinary lay mind both legal and moral obligation. It is given under a provision in the Book of Common Prayer, which book is itself clothed with statutory force, and it comes from the highest spiritual authority in the Church of England. As the Duke of Wellington wrote to an officer who wished to avoid going to the Cape the laconic command 'Sell or sail,' so the Archbishops say to all intents and purposes to their recalcitrant clergy' Obey or retire.'

My purpose, however, is not to discuss this Rescript,' with which I have little direct concern, but to call attention to the effect it must inevitably have on the future of Anglicanism. By this I do not mean the Anglican Church, but that peculiar form of theology, and of order, and that special religious spirit which is not to be found, I believe, anywhere but under the Act of Uniformity of 1662. It is true that Anglicanism is a term of somewhat elusive character, which mocks at definitions and revels best in the poetry of description. And the reason for this is not far to seek. It lies in the history of the Church herself. For three centuries and a half this Church and realm have been making experiments in the hope of discovering a fit form of national religion. They began with uniformity, and fines and imprisonments; they proceeded to toleration, and they have settled at last into anarchy-Chaos umpire sits. An attempt was made up to the time of the Toleration Act to make the Church of England the organ of the nation's religion. From that date onwards we have all gone on calmly assuming, in the face

of plain facts, that she was that organ, and it is the one great merit of the Ritualists that they are determined we should not continue the pretence any longer.

In saying that Post-Reformation activity in ecclesiastical matters consists in a series of attempts to co-ordinate the Church with the nation, we have hit on the essential character of Anglicanism. It is not a compromise between Rome and Geneva, or such a via media as Dr. Newman evolved out of his fertile imagination, but the product of an earnest and honest endeavour to substitute a national form of Christianity for a Papal, to oust the Pope in favour of the Sovereign, to set up an ecclesiastical throne at Westminster instead of at Rome. I am quite aware that formal statements can be drawn from law and history in disproof of this position; but I am also aware that equally formal statements can be found which support it. The fact is that the reformers builded for time and not for eternity; their motives were of a practical rather than a speculative character, and as long as they got rid of the Pope and provided for the crying needs of the awakened religious consciousness they were not greatly disturbed by theoretical inconsistencies in their reconstituted ecclesiastical edifice. The mingled Renaissance and Gothic work on Stephen Gardiner's tomb in Winchester Cathedral is a not inexact symbol of the nature of Anglicanism.

But if Anglicanism be but a convenient name for a series of experiments which have for their object the discovery of a fitting form for a national Christianity, it follows as clearly as night follows day that we can attribute no fixity to the experiments of the sixteenth century and no finality to those of the nineteenth. Indeed, the work of the former contained such incongruous elements that it carried in itself a disturbing force which must inevitably carry it on to yet further developments. It took over much of the medieval theology, and most of its spirit, as well as its view of the supreme importance of a rationalised creed. But it introduced a solvent, which, however it might lie dormant at the time, was bound to eat away in time the whole framework of the borrowed and elder system. The right of reason to criticise, to reject, to approve and reconstruct is by common consent the root principle of that Protestantism which the reformers fondly endeavoured to combine with a fixed theology and a conservative metaphysic. In that right lies the force which threatens to pronounce the doom of Anglicanism.

For, be it remembered, Anglicanism has always claimed to be national, and has for the most part sought to live up to its claims, not always perhaps to its own credit. So long, therefore, as nationalism holds the field as an ideal, Anglicanism may feel tolerably safe, but directly a wider or a loftier ideal presents itself to earnest souls its supremacy is challenged, and may expect to be lost unless it makes friends with its adversary while it is in the way with him.