necessitated the passing of the Uniformity Act, which sanctioned their release, before the end of the second year. It is therefore very relevant to show, as I have done, that the General Pardon, which was practically a schedule of the Act of Uniformity, was not passed till the end of the Session, namely, the middle of the third month of Edward's third year.

I continue my quotation from Mr. Pollard's article:

The main piece of evidence adduced for the second year is the fact that under that year the young King notices the passing of the Act of Uniformity in his journal; but if Canon MacColl had examined this passage a little more closely he would have been able to materially strengthen his case. He argues that Edward's failure to mention any Commission proves that there was no Commission. 'The passage,' he says, 'must have been written within four days of the close of the second year. He could find time to note... the granting of a subsidy, and the condemnation and execution of Lord Sudeley and of Sir Thomas Sharington . . . all in the last week of his second year.' The passage assuredly was not written within four days of the close of the second year,' and probably not for months after the commencement of the third; the attainder of Sir William (not Sir Thomas) Sharington, who, by the by, was not executed, did not pass until 7 March, 1548-9; Lord Seymour of Sudeley was not executed until 20 March, and the granting of a subsidy was the last business of the session. Edward's mention of the Act of Uniformity under the second year no more proves that it was passed in that year than his mention of Seymour's execution under the same year proves that the

Lord High Admiral was beheaded seven weeks before his death. (See p. 610 of this volume.).

That is well put, and I wonder how I missed so telling and obvious a point in favour of my argument. I followed Burnet in the mistake of Sir Thomas for Sir William Sharington. It is quite clear from Sir Thomas Smith, as Mr. Pollard says, that, unless there is direct evidence to the contrary, Acts of Parliament in the reign of Edward VI. did not receive the royal assent till the end of the Session. As the book is out of print it may be convenient to give the reference to my Latin edition, viz. 1641, p. 179. The reference to the English edition of 1640 is p. 89.

It may therefore be taken as past all reasonable doubt that Edward VI.'s first Act of Uniformity did not receive the royal assent till the third month of the King's third regnal year. That means, of course, that the Ornaments Rubric cannot possibly refer to the first Prayer Book or the first Act of Uniformity, and the inevitable inference is that the Rubric can only refer to the ritual and ceremonial sanctioned by Parliamentary authority during the use of The Order of the Communion.' If the question should come again before the Courts, it is hardly possibly that even the Judicial Committee could resist the mass of fresh evidence which supports that conclusion. This is a contingency which the 'Laymen's League' would do well to ponder.

Mr. Pollard is in error-probably through my own fault-in supposing that I attach much authority or historical value to the famous document' on which Professor Maitland delivered so vigorous and contemptuous an assault. I have discussed it from the point of view of literary curiosity rather than from any other, and merely argued that the facts hardly justify its dismissal as 'rubbish'; since there are so many obvious lacunæ in the Parliamentary history of Elizabeth's Prayer Book that it is possible that an informal meeting of some members of Edward's Convocation may have been, in the chaos that prevailed, consulted in the matter; while a careless writer in the following reign might have designated this informal meeting, in the loose language of the time, as a 'Convocation."

I am moved to make some observations here on a doctrine of eschatology which has lately found its way among us from America, and which has been accepted as part of the faith of Christendom' by a number of our clergy and laity who have evidently never studied the subject independently and at first hand. The doctrine is that all souls who pass through life free from sin after baptism, or purged before death from all post-baptismal sin, go straight into the highest heaven, where they enjoy the Beatific Vision of the Blessed Trinity in the un

created essence of the triple Personality. Those, on the other hand, who die in grace, but unfit for the Beatific Vision, go into Purgatory, where they suffer more or less according to their sins and flaws of character, and are relieved and finally released through the suffrages of the Church on earth and the efficacy of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Those who die out of grace go straight to hell, the abode of the devil and his angels. And we are assured that this is the Catholic view' and is de fide,' which means, of course, that all who reject it are heretics. Our new teachers, moreover, assert that this has always been the doctrine of the Church, East and West, including the Anglican Church, the only exception being 'a small body of men'in the present day''who may be said to constitute a school in the Anglican Communion.' As one of those who thus find themselves summarily condemned as heretics, I venture to traverse the entire position of our selfconstituted judges. And I begin by affirming that this doctrine of the Beatific Vision is de fide in the Church of Rome alone, and in that Church, moreover, only since the fourteenth century. I call to witness a writer whom our new teachers will respect. Perrone, the modern standard authority of the Church of Rome, thus defends the following proposition:

Animæ justorum, quibus nihil luendum superest, non expectata corporum resurrectione neque extremo judicii die, simul ac corpore discedunt, beatifica visione donantur.

De fide est definita enim fuit hæc veritas primum a Benedicto XII, Romano Pontifice in Const. Benedictus Deus, ac rursùm à Conc. Florent. quod in decreto Unionis recitatis priùs Concilii Lugdunensis verbis: Credimus . . illorum animas, qui post baptisma susceptum nullam omninò maculam incurrunt, eas etiam animas, quæ post contractam peccati maculam, vel in suis corporibus, vel iisdem corporibus sunt purgatæ, in cælum mox recipi '; alia hæc verba adjecit: et intueri clarè ipsum Deum trinum et unum sicuti est.'1

Here then we have the great Professor of the Collegio Romano saying that the doctrine of the Beatific Vision, which we are told has always been de fide in the Church, East and West, was made de fide by a Roman Pontiff about the middle of the fourteenth century. Perrone goes on to criticise the 'divers heretics' who 'impugn this dogma of faith,' and among these heretics he classes 'most of the Greeks since the Photian Schism'-that is, all the Greeks who reject the Papal claims.

The truth is that until the Church of Rome, with her passion for dogmatising and reducing all beliefs and all ceremonial to one uniform pattern sanctioned by the Roman Curia, closed the door of discussion by declaring one view to be de fide, much latitude on the subject of eschatology was tolerated in the Church from the beginning. Prayers for the faithful departed, which were universal, were explained on various grounds. In all the early liturgies prayers were offered for all the saints, martyrs, Præl. vol. i. p. 818.