with grim and menacing precision--forty-four paragraphs of
metaphysical minutiae, closing with the final doom: "This is the
Catholick faith: which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be
saved."

You see, the founders of this august institution were not content with
cultured complacency; what they believed they believed really, with
their whole hearts, and they were ready to act upon it, even if it
meant burning their own at the stake. Also, they knew the ceaseless
impulse of the mind to grow; the terrible temptation which confronts
each new generation to believe that which is reasonable. They met the
situation by setting out the true faith in words which no one could
mistake. They have provided, not merely the Creed of Athanasius, but
also the "Thirty-nine Articles"--which are thirty-nine separate and
binding guarantees that one who holds orders in the Episcopal Church
shall be either a man of inferior mentality, or else a sophist and
hypocrite. How desperate some of them have become in the face of this
cruel dilemma is illustrated by the tale which is told of Dr. Jowett,
of Balliol College, Oxford: that when he was required to recite the
"Apostle's Creed" in public, he would save himself by inserting the
words "used to" between the words "I believe", saying the inserted
words under his breath, thus, "I used to believe in the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost." Perhaps the eminent divine never did this;
but the fact that his students told it, and thought it funny, is
sufficient indication of their attitude toward their "Religion." The
son of William George Ward tells in his biography how this leader of
the "Tractarian Movement" met the problem with cynicism which seems
almost sublime: "Make yourself clear that you are justified in
deception; and then lie like a trooper!"