HOPE (A. J. B, Beresford). Worship and Order. 8vo, cloth. London, 1883. $3.60 *»* Contents —Dioceses, Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches. I.— Dioceses by Local Exertions. II.— Or- ganization and Capular Institutions of Large Towns. III.— Collegiate Churches in Large Towns.- 1 v. —Cathe- drals in their Missionary Aspect. Phases -of Worship ; I —Religion and Architecture. II.— Churches and Con- gregations. III.— The Ideal Liturgical Warship in the Church of England— Oratorianism and Ecclesiology- Dean Howsons " Before the Table"— The Risdale Judgment- Lord Selborne and Mr. Parker— Peace in the Church: I.— The Public Worship Regulation >_U^Liberty not Lic^pse. III.7 H7? Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029446048 WOESHIP AND OEDEE. . g< BY THE RIGHT HON. A^ J. B. BERESFORD HOPE, M.P., AUTHOR CF 'THE ENGLISH CATHEDEAL OF THE NINETEENTH CENTmiY,' AND OF 'WOESHIP IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND." LONDON: JOHN MUEEAY, ALBEMAKLE STEEET. 1883. The right of Ircmslation is reserved. -^-^4S-:^-4L-U w/yS i /5^^' LONDON I PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. PEEPACE. I HAVE all my life been an interested student of ecclesiastical and ecclesiological questions, so I ventured to publish in the quiet days of 1861a book upon ' The English Cathedral of the Niaeteenth Century,' considered both as a buUding and as an institution, and in 1874, at a time of great excitement, to briag out ' Worship in the Church of England.' But I had been both before and after these dates, and down to the present day, a writer on the class of questions with which those books are concerned, as well in shorter articles and letters to newspapers, as in essays of the longer sort contri- buted to reviews, and in papers read at the annual Church Congresses. The belief had grown up in my mind that the course of events was calliag upon me to supplement my former books with further matter, brought together in the solid shape of a volume. So upon turning back to the various essays which I had published, some with and others without my name, I satisfied myself that by grouping a selection of Congress papers and longer review-articles with regard to their subjects more than to their chronology, I could construct in a somewhat consecutive form a collection which should connect and supplement my former publications. My 'Worship in the Church of England' appeared at iv PKBFACE. the crisis of a crisis in that Church, precipitated by the Purchas Judgment of 1871, and made still more acute by the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874. Since its publication the controversy has reached a new stage, growing out of the conclusions of the Judicial Committee in the Ridsdale Judgment of 1877. The incidents of this event are discussed in some of the present papers, in a form which I venture to hope will be accepted as continuing the argument of the book of 1874 and supplementing its contents. At the same time I must plainly declare that with much deference for its authors, nothing in that judgment has led me to alter or modify in any way the opinions which I had previously expressed. On the contrary, and speaking with all respect, I am com- pelled to declare that, as I read that decision from the standing ground not of authority but of argument, the character of its reasoning, considered both from the logical and from the historical side, has tended to confirm me still more decidedly in my original views. The following pages explain the ground of my confidence. My readers will, 1 am sure, show generous indulgence to a book composed of elements of which the original publication ranged from 1851 to 1882. I may refer to the earliest of these papers, ' Oratorianism and Ecclesiology,' which origi- nally appeared in the ' Christian Remembrancer ' for January 1851, as illustrating tendencies which are, I believe, still active, though the special phase in which they then pre- sented themselves may belong to a former generation. Those who have noticed the huge Church of the Oratory, now nearing its completion, next door to the South Kensington Museum, will appreciate my meaning. I must confess that I wrote this article with the feeling expressed by "facit indignatio versum." I was sore and sorry at seeing Mr. Bennett banished from the parish which PREFACE. V he was working so well, and other estimable clergymen rabbled, because they were surrounding the worship of God with revived accessories of reverence which the iiltra school of Roman Catholics were at that very time deriding and persecuting. For us of the Church of England the nemesis came in six short years, in the judgment of the Judicial Committee in the suit of Liddell v. Westerton, which legalized in the case of St. Barnabas, Pimlico, those very ornaments for reviving which Mr. Bennett had been banished from it. The papers which I have brought together upon Cathedrals as institutions in sequence to ' The English Cathedral of the Nineteenth Century ' include one which is neither a Congress paper nor a review-article, but an essay contributed to my friend Dean Howson's volume of Cathedral Essays, headed ' Cathedrals in their Missionary Aspect.' In this I threw out suggestions for the permissive endowment of more stalls by voluntary liberality. I had, during the session after I had published it, the satisfaction of giving practical effect to my proposal by carrying through both Houses of Parliament, without a division, the Canonries Act 1873 (36th & 37th of Victoria, chapter 39), containing provisions for that good object. St. Paul's is the only Cathedral in which as yet effect has been given to that Statute, but it exists as a handy machinery for Cathedral expansion, towards which attention appears to be gradually being directed. CONTENTS. Dioceses, Cathedeals, anb Collegiate Chukches I. — Dioceses by Local Exertions . II. — Organization of Cathedral and Capitular Institutions in Large Towns . III. — Collegiate Churches in Large Towns IV. — Cathedrals in their Missionary Aspect Phases of Woeship I. — Eeligion and Architecture . II. — Churches and Congregations III. — The Ideal of Liturgical Worship in the Church of England . Oeatoeianism and Eoolesiology Dean Howson ' Bepoee the Table ' . The Eidsdale Judgment .... LoED Selboene and Me. Paekee Peace in the Chuech .... I. — The Public Worship Eegulation Act II. — Liberty not Licence III. — EiTUAL Eeconciliation . 1 3 15 23 33 69 71 76 87 97 135 197 245 285 286 298 312 DIOCESES, CATHEDEALS, AND COLLEGIATE CHUECHES. [.—DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXBETIONS. II.— ORGANIZATION OP CATHEDRAL AND CAPITULAR INSTITUTIONS IN LARGE TOWNS. III.— COLLEGIATE CHURCHES IN LARGE TOWNS. IV.— CATHEDRALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. DIOCESES, OATHEDEALS, AND COLLEGIATE CHUEOHES. I. DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXEKTIONS. (Oambeidge Ohubch Congress, 1861.)* Only one feeling as to desirability of increase of Episcopate — Various solutions hitherto proposed all pointing to external authority — In England creation of Diocese ought to precede nomination of Bishop, and should be act of locality under enabling powers — Difficulties of contrary method of proceeding — Minimum of area and population must be prescribed — Bach county's equitable claim to be a Diocese — Informal " sufficient representation " followed by inquiry — New Diocese may be created under existing Bishop — See town must be found and rudi- mentary Chapter created — Acceptation by Convocation and Queen in Council — New Bishop should not enter on Parliamentary rota till sufficient income made up— System of Suffragans for inchoate Sees — Question of funds — Voluntary contributions. I VENTUKE to assume that there is only one feeling among all the members of this Congress as to the desirability of an increase of the Episcopate in England. Accordingly the ques- tion under discussion is narrowed to a consideration of the best method of compassing a result universally desired. * This paper was written many years before the creation, eiFected by Sir Eichard Cross, of six new Sees under new Acts of Parliament, and of the revival of Suffragan Bishops by the renewed life given to the Act of Henry VIII. While I thankfully accept these gifts to the Church, I venUire to think some value still attaches to views put out in 1863, when either boon seemed equally impossible. B 2 4 DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXEETIONS. [Essay I. Various solutions have from time to time been proposed in and out of Parliament, but, speaking generally, they all possess the common feature of contemplating as the first step the imposition of more Bishops, in greater or less numbers, by external authority. All these solutions have accordingly been successively shelved, with the single ex- ception of a Bishop having been superadded to the already Collegiate Church of Manchester, and the Episcopate of Bristol shifted to Eipon, also Collegiate. My object on the present occasion is with all dif&dence to suggest the possi- bility of attaining the desired end, more circuitously it may be, but I believe more securely, by not regarding the nomi- nation of the new Bishop as the first step in the organization of fresh Dioceses within England and Wales, to which ex- clusively I beg on the present occasion to call your attention. No doubt in the building up of the Colonial Church the appointment of the Bishop is the necessary first step, and the organization of the Diocese ordinarily flows from the creation of the chief pastorate. But in our Colonies when a new See was in contemplation, with but slight exceptions, the choice lay, in the first instance, between Episcopacy, pure and simple, and virtual anarchy ; between the possibility or the impossibility of Confirmation, Consecration, and Ordination within districts of a magnitude only to be measured by European Kingdoms, while the Bishops so sent, have, as at Calcutta, Fredericton, Montreal, and Colombo exerted them- selves to complete their diocesan organization. Just the con- trary is the case in England, where the whole ground is already allotted between ancient Sees, and in which the availabOity of the Episcopal officers is therefore a question of degree. In England I shall endeavour to show that the creation of the Diocese ought to be a step antecedent to, and inde- pendent of, the nomination of the additional Bishop, and that the ostensible promoter of each individual creation ouo'ht Essay I.] DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXERTIONS. 5 in the first instance, not to be any Commission or Committee, nor Parliament itself, but the special locality which is to be benefited, acting under general enabling powers, ultimately derived from Parliament. Let me, before I proceed to explain the method by which I propose to give effect to this policy, indicate the difficulties of the contrary method of proceeding, difficulties to which I believe is due the aU but total abeyance of practical results, through the more than twenty years during which the iucrease of the Episcopate has been recognized as a national gravamen, at first by various writers and then authoritatively. In the first place, it would be difficult to clear the process of creating an additional Bishopric, and then of leaving the organization of the Diocese to the already consecrated Bishop, from the appearance of its being an act of external authority. If it wears this aspect, that wUl of course involve a great contingent danger of engendering unpopularity and jealousy, rather than of being accepted as a boon and as a measure of salutary reform by the place or district specially to be benefited. In the second place, this method of proceeding brings into prominence, at the very outset, all the most difficult and most irritating questions which the measure is capable of raising, and interposes their immediate solution, re infectd, as a preliminary to any practical step being taken for the accomplishment of the end, on which those who may most differ about the means are yet agreed. The questions I mean are such as these : Shall the new Bishops be many or few ? shall they be allotted to the centres of busy population, or to the counties and ancient abbeys ? shall they be Diocesans or Suffragans ? shall they be reversionary peers of Parliament or not ? shall their income be apportioned at a rate approxi- mating to that of the older Sees or not, or shall the incomes of those very Sees be thrown in medio and redivided amon^ 6 DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXERTIONS. [Essay I. a larger number of recipients ? and finally, in consideration of a prospective increase of Sees, shall there be any check placed for the future on that system of appoiutment, which, while nomiaaUy that of the Crown, has all but completely passed rato the hands of the Prime Minister ? These, I say, are all of them thorny questions ; and all are presented ia their most spiny shape, when they lie as briars in the way of even the first step towards the increase of the Episcopate. But like aU other difficulties of a political nature, time and circumstances may avail towards the mitigation at least of these perplexities, if they are allowed to arise naturally as the sequel, and not as the antecedent of other remedial measures. The first of these measures, as I have already said, ought to be the creation of the Diocese, and the initiative ought to rest with the locality itself, under some general enabling enactment. This will of course prescribe what shall be the minimum of area, or of population, which shall entitle any district of England or of Wales to take steps towards erecting itseK iato a Diocese. This minimum will have to be regu- lated, with reference not only to the pop-ulation or area belonging to the future Diocese, but to that which may be left to the original one. The enactment will also have to contemplate the contingency of a new Diocese, having to be composed out of portions of two or more contiguous old Dioceses : Suffolk, for example, is divided between Ely and Norwich, while the former Diocese covers all Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, and Huntingdonshire, and Norwich all Norfolk. I shall not venture to forestall the provisions of the measure further than to say, that there can be no doubt that when any Diocese of England (putting "Wales out of the question' for the moment) ranges over two or more entire counties, each of those counties would have an equitable claim to constitute itself a Diocese. How much further the subdivision ought to go, I leave to others to decide. Essay I.] DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXEETIONS. 7 Supposing, then, that any district possessing the qualifica- tion desires to become a Diocese, what should be done ? We have to reconcile the old sound doctrine, " nothing without the Bishop," with the popular principle of constitutional representative action. I should accordingly advise the first step to be an informal one, and designate it as a " suiJicient representation" to be made to the Bishop of the original Diocese, or Bishops of the original Dioceses. This repre- sentation would, of course, take the shape either of a memorial or of a public ineeting, and would, I conclude, combine the prayer of Clergy and of laity. On its receipt, the Bishop, or Bishops, should be empowered to lay the question in the form of a ' scheme ' before the various ruridecanal Chapters of the district proposed to be severed, and some provision would be introduced to obtain at least a proximate repre- sentation of the feelings of the laity. Whether the wishes of the residuary ancient Diocese ought also to be consulted, and in what manner, is a question with which I shall not burden this preliminary investigation. I pause for a moment to point out what the scheme will, and what it will not necessarily contain. It will not contain, as I shall go on to shew, any provision which can, at starting, necessitate any but the slightest outlay, public or private. It will not contain any provision which need at first necessi- tate the separation of the new Diocese from the pastoral superintendence of the actual Bishop. It will be a scheme to erect the new Diocese of B. out of the original Diocese of A., leaving the original Bishop of A. for the time being Bishop of A. and B. If so, and if the establishment of the new Diocese need not for some indefinite time be a heavy drain on any exchequer, it might be apprehended that it will, after aU, be a merely nominal creation. In answer, I say that it will, of course, for the time being, be an incomplete creation j but, as far as it goes, it will be both a real and a 8 DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXERTIONS. IBssay I. practical thing in itself, and the most politic, in the language of the day, " possible," first step towards the realization of an increased Episcopate. To refer to and to dismiss one isolated consideration, the retention for the present of the personal union between the new Diocese and the old Bishop will remove that which I daresay is, or may often be, felt as an obstacle in the way of agitating for the creation of a fresh see, the invidiousness on one side of seeming to wish to rid itself of the actual chief pastor, and on his side, it may be, some unwillingness to sever the existing bond. Ifj however, what he is called on to assist in is the distribution of his own episcopal area, coupled with the augmentation of his own style, there can be no invidiousness in the matter. It will be a compliment on the part of Hertfordshire to wish to hail any Bishop of Eochester as Bishop of Eochester and St. Albans, and no affront to the actual holder to desire that on the avoidance of the See those attributes should be divorced. Till the divorce takes place, the incidents of the change and the advantages which- may reasonably result from it, will neither be so few nor so unimportant as at first sight might appear. I have only need to mention the creation of the corporate diocesan feeling pure and simple, as the result of the district becoming a Diocese on its own motion, and not as the possible sequel of a possibly popular new first Bishop being sent there, with the counter risk of an imlucky iirst choice strangling that feeling. Nor wUl I do more than point out the impetus to aU good works likely to be given vsdthin the Diocese by the creation of this feehng. The new Diocese wUl require some centre from which the See may take its title, and at which the diocesan work is to go on — ,a cathedral town, in short. The choice of this town wUl depend upon various circumstances— position, population, or the existence of some church peculiarly fitted to be erected into a cathedral. In the latter case, this church will of Essay I.] DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXERTIONS. 9 conrse be at once declared the cathedral of the new Diocese. In cases where there is no church fit to become the cathedral in the town which is selected as the proper seat for the See, I should suggest some church there being declared in the scheme to be the " temporary cathedral," with power reserved to the Bishop to remove his cathedra from it to a permanent cathedral when such should be erected. The Chapter — the ancient and canonical advisers of the Bishops — will also have to be at once created, and in its creation various circumstances would in each case modify the precise form in which it should be cast. At Windsor the Chapter already exists, but the Eoyal Chapel can hardly be swept in. At Southwell modern reforms have stamped out the Chapter. It is found at West- minster, supposing (a point as to which I have the gravest doubts) a Diocese of Westminster were thought desirable. In other cases, a wiUing patron — Crown, Chancellor, Prelate, or private person, might convert the incumbency of the cathedral into a Deanery, or a Canonry Eesidentiary, with cure of souls of course. Legalized exchanges of patronage, too, might often facilitate such an arrangement with no pro- prietary loss to the so indemnified patron. Even in the least promising of cases, a foundation could always be laid for the Chapter by a recurrence to the primitive English idea of a complete cathedral body (I do not mean of an abbey used as a cathedral, like Ely or Canterbury), in which, besides the Dean there were two classes of Canons jointly composing the Greater Chapter. First, those Eesidentiaries on whom jointly or by rotation devolved the responsibility of maintaining con- tinuous Divine Service. Secondly, those non-residentiary Pre- bendaries, who had no such continuous responsibility, but who held their of&ce in virtue of some special statutable act or acts of ministration within the cathedral. In the new Diocese there never could be any difficulty in finding a sufficient number of creditable clergymen willing to be nominated prebendaries 10 DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXERTIONS. [Essay L of the new cathedral, whether permanent or temporary, on the understanding that the dignity of the of&ce should be their prcebenda. Accordingly the original Chapter would sometimes be composed of a dean and prebendaries, some- times also of residentiary Canons or prebendaries, sometimes only of prebendaries. In the two former cases the head of the Chapter would stand designated, in the latter either the archdeacon or the senior prebendary would preside. Such a Chapter would not be able to maintain cathedral worship, but it would transact the constitutional duties of a Chapter. I am not blind to such possible complications as that of the archdeacon being endowed with a stall in the mother Cathe- dral, and other similar difficulties, and I have not time now to do more than indicate them. Probably in the inchoate state of the Diocese they might be winked at. In cathedrals where prebends exist with their old number and names, those whose location is in the new Diocese, might at once, or gradu- ally, be transferred to the new cathedral — at once, if the holder chooses, otherwise on the next avoidance. When the scheme has once been settled within the Diocese and been formally assented to by the Bishop, it would be proper that it should be accepted by the Convocation of the Province, after which the sanction of the Queen in Council, as in the case of the creation ■ of new parishes, would be needed to give it validity. As Parliament has enfiefed the Crown with a general power of completing the creation of new parishes, so a general Act would be needed conferring similar powers with respect to Dioceses. The new Diocese would then be an autonomy with a personal, but no longer with a constitutional, connexion with the mother Cathedral. Under what circumstances should that personal connexion cease? Of course under those of a sufficient endowment being provided for the new Diocesan, and of the consent, translation, or demise of the actual Bishop. Essay I.] DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXEETI0N8. 11 As I said at the outset, this question of sufficient endowment opens out all the hardest ecclesiastical and political diffi- culties attending the otherwise universally accepted need of more Bishops. May not the solution of those difficulties be found in the idea which this plan involves, of a Diocese in various degrees of progressive perfection? I mean that it might for the future be understood that the normal income of all the Bishoprics of England and Wales should be some such sufficient sum as would enable their holders in turn to succeed to a spiritual peerage under the principles of the Act of 1847. When, accordingly, the endowment of the new See should be made up, by what means it is not material now to ask, to this sum, then there should be a Bishop of that new See who should enter on the Parliamentary rota. But at some earlier stage of the undertaking, when the guaranteed income had reached a given sum, not sufficient to enable a Bishop to do his duty to his See and also to Parliament, but yet sufficient to enable him to perform creditably the duties of resident Diocesan, then it might be competent to have a Bishop of the new See wholly independent of the Bishop of the mother Cathedral, and of course a member of the Upper House of Convocation, but yet suspended from the Parlia- mentary rota until his income should be raised to the re- quisite miaimum, on which he should at once come upon that rota with the precedence of his consecration or translation to his actual See. I have a further suggestion to make, which I do with more diffidence, being conscious that it might raise questions of a more doubtful character than the two preceding propositions. In cases where there are not funds for the Chapter to elect even a non-Parliamentary Diocesan, is it absolutely necessary that the new Diocese should not par- ticipate in those more frequent Episcopal ministrations which are among the chiefest of the reasons for an addition to the Episcopate ? To the notion of Suffragans as a permanent and 12 DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXERTIONS. [Essay I. ordinary institution I entertain decided objections ; but there may be cases in which they (or perhaps I should rather say coadjutors) might fill a useful, though exceptional position, in the Church's polity. Well then, in such of the new Dioceses as were still destitute of the minimum endowment requisite for a Diocesan, might there not be powers reserved for the appointment of a Suffragan who should perform Episcopal offices within it in subordination to the Diocesan of the united Dioceses ? Whether such Suffragans or coad- jutors should hold their office cum jure successionis to the See when completely constituted, is a detail which I shall not attempt to exhaust. Probably it would be best to allow an option in this matter; canonical authority could be found for either arrangement. Such Suffragans might be appointed in cases where the endowment fund had reached a certain stipulated sum. In other cases a clergyman of opulence might be found within the Diocese willing to act at his own cost, or the Archdeacon might receive consecration. Again, the now not unfrequent practice of a Colonial Bishop return- ing home after a sufficient service in some climate which tries European constitutions, poiats to a source from which such ministrations might occasionally be provided. As it is, under the existing system, retired Colonial and furloughed and Scotch Bishops have been able to render essential service to the over-taxed Episcopate of England. I have left the question of funds to the last. There are three sources ; 1st, Those in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, or of the actual Bishops and Cathedrals; 2nd, Endowments of existing benefices ; 3rd, Voluntary sub- scriptions. I shrink from proposing any thing under the first head, merely expressing a strong belief that, if there were a wiU, a way might not be impossible to find. Under the second I need only say, that with a system of exchanges liberally conceived very much of the Capitular endowments. Essay I.] t)IOCBSES BY LOCAL EXERTIONS. 13 and perhaps a larger portion of the Episcopal than at first sight appears, might be provided. In proof of the availa- bility of the third source, I merely point to what members of the National Church of England have done within the last 30 years for the glory of God, to the Colonial Bishops' fund, to the countless churches built and restored, to the schools and colleges established throughout the land. Of course donations according to some fixed plan would be sought for all the various items needful for a complete Diocese, for the endowment of the Bishop and of the Chapter, for the build- ing, restoration, enlargement or sustentation of the Cathedral and of its services, and so on. I hope and trust that the law of mortmain might be relaxed so as to admit, under due guarantees, of money being bequeathed for these objects. There is one minor difficulty of a constitutional nature which does not come within my province to solve, but which I ought not to conclude without pointing out. I mean the question of diocesan proctors to Convocation. There are but two courses open, either to re-allot from time to time the seats in the Lower House to suit the new Dioceses, i.e. to pass a self-acting reform bill, or else in face of contingent difficulties to leave the election of Convocation as before, so that for the present the diocesan proctors would be chosen according to the old limits, until, at all events, a separate diocesan was consecrated for the new Diocese. Judicent peritiores on this point.* I equally reserve the all-important matter of nomination. That it must come to the surface at some time is self-evident. In conclusion let me enforce even more strongly than at the outset upon all who desire an augmentation of the Epis- copate, that the thing to be avoided is any semblance of * The first and best of these courses has in fact been adopted in the new Dioceses. [1882.] 14 DIOCESES BY LOCAL EXBETIONS. [Essay I. bureaucratic organization emanating from London, the thing to be sought is local and spontaneous action. Supposing, for example, that 20 new Dioceses would abstractedly be the best number to be created, but that only 15 or as many as 25 districts were ready and anxious to act ; I say let the new Dioceses be 15 or 25, rather than that five unwilling districts should be ilogged on to do an uncongenial act, or five zealous communities disheartened in their enterprise of Christian daring. Joint consultative action of clergy and laity within dioceses, archdeaconries, and rural deaneries is now happily the order of the day in the Church of England. Let me then commend the extension of Dioceses and of the Episcopate by local action to such gatherings as a most useful object for their energies, and one wMch they are peculiarly able to work with advantage. ( ^5 ) II. OEGANIZATION OF CATHEDRAL AND CAPITULAR INSTITUTIONS IN LARGE TOWNS. (Stoke Chuech Congeess, 1875.) Increase of Episcopate prominent subject of interest — Kindred question of its organization, particularly in large towns — A new Bishop without Cathedral and Capitular institutions is a general without his staff or a sovereign without constitutional forms — Difficulty not to find work for the men, but men for the work — What the work is — See town not whole Diocese — Residence not perpetual residence — Chapter, Synod, and Conference — Cathedral not matter of indifference or artistic taste- Dean not to be abolisbed — Precentor, Vicars Choral, and Choristers — Treasurer — Mission Preachers — Canons honoris causa. — Lay organiza- tions — Lay Clerks — Choir School — Representative character of ideal Chapter — Sympathy and co-operation — Supplementary Chapters or quasi-Chapters. The increase of the Episcopate has lately become a prominent subject of interest to Churchmen in Parliament and else- where. It is important that in following out the realization of this practical need, they should not neglect the kindred question of the organization, particularly in large towns, of the system under which the Episcopate can most healthily work. I merely point to the total absence of any provision for sucL organization in the St. Alban's Bishopric Act, and pass on. A Bishop, particularly one called to preside over a fresh See, and especially a See in a large town, without Capitular and Cathedral institutions,, is a general without his staff; or, if you please, a sovereign without constitutional 16 CATHEDEAL ORGANIZATION. [Essay II. forms. The difaculty most likely to beset the man who. undertakes to organise a Chapter is not that of finding work for dignitaries, but of making a good selection out of the various classes of work towards which the members of the Chapter may be made available. Assuming the Cathedral bmlt, the conduct of worship in its highest type comes first. Frequent and stirring preaching comes close after. The pastoral charge of individual souls is 'a heavy burden. Edu- cation, under many forms, from the direct training of the choir and the regulation of the Diocesan College to the general supervision of upper, middle, and elementary schools throughout the Diocese, asserts its supreme importance. Diocesan administration is emphatically a Capitular duty. In the Chapter, too, the Bishop will find his best friends and counsellors in the always delicate and often painful exercise of paternal discipline in its various phases of examination, consultation, and, if needful, admonition. I am not referring to cases in which Parliament may kindly have relieved the Bishop of spiritual attributes. Much must, after all, be left on which he will and ought to have to act upon his inherent powers, and in such circumstances he may need and gladly welcome the help of such a body as his Chapter. But besides aU these considerations, there is a risk which may easily be incurred in organizing the Chapter of a Diocese, where the See town is a large one. It is easy to forget, that important as that town may be, it is not the whole Diocese, and that the country portions, as well as other smaller though populous places in it, have their claims both to be represented and to be looked after. Hence it follows that the newly-constituted Chapter must be some- what numerous; that is, it must resemble the Greater Chapters of our existing Cathedrals of the old foundations. Another inference is, that while residence must be the principle of the lesser or directly working Chapter, perpetual ESsAT II.] CATHEDRAL OEGANIZATION. 17 residence should not Idc the rule of all the menibers of the entire body. Common sense and the responsibilities of corporate duties dictate that those members of the Chapter specially concerned with the work of the Cathedral should generally reside, such as the Dean, the Precentor, and tlje Chancellor who would preside over the Choir School, and the head of the Diocesan College. On the other hand, I see the advantage of making certain canonical of&ces, such as School Inspector, possibly tenable with a country cure of souls, while its holder should only be compelled to a limited residence. Similar advantages must accrue to the Diocese at large in the highly trained residentiaries taking occasional turns of rural preaching, and to the See-town in the other- wise beneficed Prebendaries being called up for their turns of Cathedral preaching. There are yet other arrangements which must be co-ordinatQd with a Chapter of the futiu'e. The Diocesan Synod of Clergy, and the mixed Conference of Clergy and Laity, are essential for the healthy circulation of the Church's life-blood. How, then, are we to ensure that these representations of the entire Diocese should be really working bodies, and yet not trench upon the functions of the Chapters ? Obviously . by providing that the Chapter shall be the Bishop's ordinary Committee for preparing the business to be brought before the Synod or Conference, as well as the executive for carrying out the deliberations of those bodies.* So much for. the general principles which should regulate the constitution of fresh Chapters. Let us now, in accord- ance with them, construct a Chapter for some new Diocese, whose Bishop has been planted in a populous See-town. If a church already exists important enough to be the Cathedral, * The new body, called a Diocesan Chapter, whicli is being recom- mended by the Cathedral Commissioners now sitting has as its raison d'etre the knitting together of Cathedral and Diocese. [1882.] C 18 CATHEDEAL OBGANIZATION. [Esbat II. SO much the better — provided that the patronage of the living can be acquired and absorbed into the new organiza- tion. If, however, no edifice can be found worthy of the distinction, I must urge very earnestly that the building of a ^Cathedral is not a matter of indifference, or merely the gratification of artistic taste. It is not a work that can be indefinitely put off on the plea of more pressing calls. It is simple idleness to allege, that in a community possessed of an Episcopal government and a Liturgical system of worship, the great church of the Bishop and of the Diocese is not an important element. I am exonerated from having to offer any suggestions upon the form and arrangement of this Cathedral, from having virtually travelled over the ground last year at the Brighton Congress in handling the building of a large town church. A Cathedral, no doubt, would require something more, but the general principles would be the same. Now for the Chapter. While securing to the Bishop a place and a voice in the Chapter very different from that which survives in mediaeval foundations, I would not abolish the dignity of Dean. There will be plenty for him to do ; and it is quite consistent with the highest respect for the Episcopate to say, that the presence in the Diocese of a presbyter of exceptional rank, next to the Bishop, is a good constitutional balance. There should be no question as to the Bishop's right to preside in the Chapter when present, otherwise the Dean will take the chair. His duties will be those of general supervision, and they do not therefore call for particular enumeration. The Precentor will be respon- sible for the constant choral worship. In a properly-ap- pointed Cathedral he would naturally be assisted by, and have the direction of, the Vicars Choral. I should, however, doubt whether these ought to be members of the Chapter ; at least that position might be reserved for the Precentor Essay II.] CATHEDBAL OEGAKIZATION. 19 and the Succentor, of whom the latter might be charged with the special supervision of the Lay Clerks, of whom more hereafter. The choir boys ought of course to be boarders at the Cathedral School, and what that ought to be will be at once understood if described as a good middle school. The other clerical masters in that school could hardly claim to a seat and voice in the Chapter, but they would be attached to the Cathedral by the assignment of stalls. The Treasurer would have modern duties in connection with the finances of Diocesan or Town Societies. Where a Diocesan Theological College existed, its head would be a Canon, and the other tutors also attached to the Cathedral. I now reach an insti- tution, the organization of which in our various Dioceses would be of great practical benefit, I mean the College of Mission Preachers, intended sometimes to fill the Cathedral pulpit ; sometimes to go where they were sent through the Diocese — men who, in connection with their preaching, should be able and ready to discharge the delicate duties of the individual pastorate. This college would have its head- quarters close to the Cathedral, which it would regard as its ordinary church for public worship ; but it would require an internal organization of its own, affiliated to the Chapter by its superior, and possibly also, the second in command, being .ex-offido Canons. The religious inspector of the public elementary schools of the Diocese must be a Canon, possibly also the secretary of Diocesan Societies. In a large town where wide but often misdirected intellectual activity and much poverty necessarily exist, personal benevolence might well be hallowed and regulated by adding to the Chapter a promoter of workmen's clubs, popular lectures, and so on, as well as material Charities. The development of the corporate life of devotion and charity among women might lead to the creation of a sort of chaplain-general of sisterhoods, who would naturally be one of the Capitular body. There still c 2 20 CATHEDEAL OEaANIZATION. [Essay II. would remain that class of Canons, to whom we have already referred, who without particular duties were selected honoris causa, as distinguished representatives of the Diocesan Clergy, alike from the towns and the rural districts. On' these, as I have said, I should impose short and easy conditions of residence. I have been, as will be seen, treating up till now of the clerical members of the Cathedral Body ; but I attach equal importance to the lay organizations which must cluster round the Mother Church. Foremost among these must come the College of Lay Clerks. It is, of course, impossible to carry on a Cathedral service without a back-bone of paid choir men, whose time belongs to their employers. But besides these, in the interests of general devotion, a Cathedral which shall really leave its mark on a town of the present age must be largely and cheerfully served by voluntary helpers ; while these and the paid clerks must agree to work together as one institution under some reasonable code of statutes. I have suggested that the Succentor, who would in that case be a Canon, might be charged with the care of the Lay Clerks. The Choir School maybe made the pivot of much important work besides the provision of the necessary complement of boys' voices for the services, or of the good education, during their service, of those particular boys. St. ■Paul's, London, has just shown what may be done with the Choir School. In a provincial town I believe that the school might often, and advantageously, take the shape of a middle school, at which aU the pupUs need not be choristers. If so, and if the place in choir were held up as an honour, and the choristers proper treated as a kind of foundation, a new element of popularity might be introduced into the relations of Church and town. I should also look forward to some provision for helping the most promising scholars on to the university. Some of its sons, of whom the Church of England Essay II.] CATHBDEAL OEGANIZATION. 21 may be most proud, have come from Cathedral schools, arid the race is one which may well be encouraged. There are many other lay societies which would naturally grow up under the fostering care of a working Chapter, but I have no time to expatiate upon them. It will be seen that the ideal Chapter which I have pro- posed for your consideration in a large town is one which is, to a considerable extent, founded upon a variety of institu- tions, many of them clerical and possessing a sort of Capitular character of their own, all existing round the Cathedral, and each represented in the Chapter by its leading members. Each would thus retain its freedom of internal action, while all would be brought under the regulating influence of the great central corporation. Still, however many and service- able these institutions may be, the Cathedral does not exist merely to be their rendezvous. It is the Church of the whole Diocese ; and I claim that within its choir every priest of that Diocese may find, whether of right or of graceful con- cession, a stall ready for his occupation. On great days, of course, when the whole Diocese gathers, this may not be possible; but I am talking of the habitual incidents of ordinary worship. Such a custom as, for instance, that the Dean might invite any Incumbent of the Diocese who pre- sented himself before a service to read a lesson, might seem a trifle; but it would be something which would, in a practical and kindly way, show to the Clergy at large that they and their Cathedral belonged to each other, of which fact at present the tangible evidence is incomplete. After all, sympathy and co-operation are at the bottom of the Capitular system, and they ought to thrill through it from the altar of the Cathedral to that of the homeliest parish church in the remotest angle of the Diocese. Let me conclude with a supplementary suggestion. In any Diocese, old or new, where sizeable places exist, in 22 CATHEDRAL OEGANIZATION. [Essay II addition to the See-town, it would be well worth while to create, by conventional arrangement or otherwise, a Chapter or quasi-Chapter as near as possible upon the lines of that which exists at the Cathedral itself. It would also be very- much to the advantage of the working of the Church in those places, if the Diocesan could so arrange his visits as to ensure his spending some continuous portion of time in each such town. Passing visits have their usefulness; but the Episcopate would become a reality as it has not hitherto been, if each considerable place could realise that it was, in fact, the Bishop's town for a given period, and that its principal church was from time to time used by him as his Cathedral. [The idea thrown out in this paragraph is further worked out in the following essay, written as that was eleven years previously.] ( 23 ) III. COLLEGIATE CHUECHES IN LAEGE TOWNS. (Bristol Church Conqrbss, 1864.) Large towns outrunning the Church alike special problem of early Church and of present times — Limited liability — Basilicas — Co-operative cen- tralized agency — Interest of large towns not met by continual sub- division — Larger parishes should be worked by collegiate bodies — Central Church surrounded by various institutions — ^Waste of power of District Incumbencies — Economy of resources under Collegiate system — Greater elasticity of worship — Accessory Chapels — Lay agency — Staff and designation of Head, the Eector or Provost, and of the Fellows — ^Defective supply of ciirates remedied. Large towns outrunning the Church was a special practical problem with which the early Church had to struggle. In our own times the same difficulty has reappeared, and cries are raised for the mind, the heart, and the arm that are to bring redress. I plead for a way of meeting the peril analogous to that which the early Church adopted, and equally analogous to the method which the energy of our own day has in its wide experience and abundant ability taken up to meet the difficulties of mundane concerns. What is the meaning of " Joint-stock," and " Limited liability," but the proclamation of the fact that heads and funds laid to- gether will effect that which heads and funds and workers employed separately are powerless to accomplish. I cannot linger to describe the Basilicas of the early ages. All know that each Basilica depended on the Bishop of the 24 OOLLBGIATK CHURCHES IN LAEGE TOWNS. [Essay III. city, although that Bishop, as at Eome, for example, might be head of several Basilicas, each of them a Cathedral in its relation to the Pontiff, while a Parish Church in reference to its parochial duties and to the " titular " Cardinal Priest who was in immediate charge of it. All know that it was built for a worship which required the presence of various minis- ters of different degrees, and that such degrees implied varie- ties of what we now should call parochial duties. Something of this sort Jlngland now demands, with the difference that the actual state of things forbids that direct connection of the Bishop with each CoUegiate body, which marked the early centuries, and that the ritual of the Church of England, and not the ritual of the primitive Italian or any other Church has to be exhibited in the appendant fane. I say appendant fane, for as I have had reason to point out, in regard to Cathedrals, that they are both buildings and also institutions, so now I must as emphatically point to the com- plete idea of a Collegiate Church. Having done so I add that the light in which we have now exclusively to look upon it is that of the institution, as a method of Evangelising our towns, and of exhibiting the Missionary element which is so inherent in our system, and as legitimate a portion of its work- ing order as the mere parochial organization. Undoubtedly a CoUegiate Church would in its structure generally and right- fully be larger than a parish one ; but this distinction is not radical, as I could show by instances were it worth while. Stated most concisely and most nakedly the problem is, — towns are in their Christian aspect collections of souls, to be saved or to be lost. The salvation of these souls, outwardly speaking, depends on the facilities of bringing them into communication with the means of grace. This communica- tion is to be made by God's ministers working either through appointed ordinances in a public way, or else privately and informally in private houses and in private conferences. To ESSAY' III.] COLXEGIATE CHURCHES IN LAEGE TOWNS. 25 ' men, God^s ministers are the first immediate want, and the second immediate want— not so indispensable, still very- necessary — is that of fixed places wherein to administer these ordinances of religion. But then there is a further want which entirely underlies the second immediate one, and which all but underlies the first also, that of means, or (if you prefer the simpler and clearer word) of money, to keep the men and to provide the places. The early Church, nurtured and developed in the bosom of that stupendous political machine the Res Bomana, thoroughly understood co-operative centralised agency, and worked the Basilica. Step by step, that complex mediaeval society which grew out of the Eoman Empire, Christianized all through in its out- ward aspect, went on adding and distinguishing until, here ' in England, to pass over other matters, it broke down through .' very ininuteness of organization. The portions of the system in which the co-operative character was strongest were also those unluckily on which the Papal stamp was strongest branded, and so the Eefor- ,mation left England with its parochial system intact, but with its organization of Collegiate bodies submerged, with • the rare exception of a few privileged institutions, by the same wave which swept down the Monasteries themselves, -capable, as in the Cathedrals of the new foundation, of being transformed into Collegiate institutions. Collegiate Churches framed for the Eeformed Church of England, in accordance with its reformation, can, I believe, and might beneficially be revived, as antidotes to the seething vice and infidelity of our great towns in the same generation which has created, and for the same reasons which has created, companies with limited liability, as a broader system on which to base speculative ventures than single-handed energy. Mind, I am talking mainly in the interest of large towns. For country districts the College must alv/ays he the 26 COLLEGIATE CHURCHES IN LAEGE TOWNS. [Essay III. exception — the rare exception unless in alliance with some specific enterprise of a charitable or educational nature ; in towns also the actual application of the principles must be incomplete. But the reason of this incompleteness is one of fact, and not of principle ; namely, the extent to which "district" carving has already forestalled the ground. So far I have been dealing in generalities. Let us now bring our ideas to the test of figures and details. The ideal town completely cut out for Evangelisation on the "district" principle, wiU have been divided into portions of not more than from 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants, and probably into those of the smallest dimensions, in each of which an Incumbent at an Incumbent's stipend wiU. have to provide the quota of at least Sunday services, irrespective of the capacities and proximity of the other districts and their Churches, each of these lying under the same obligation. K any of these Incumbents keep his curate, that cuxate too will be cribbed within his own portion of the town. On the other hand, the town worked upon the Collegiate system, might or might not be portioned off in different Collegiate districts. If divided, the smallest amount of population for each district might for the present be reckoned at 8,000 souls ; though in con- trariety to the other system the maximum of division would not imply the maximum of expended means. Let us then suppose that a slice of a neglected East-London or Birming- ham parish of from 16,000 to 8,000 inhabitants has to be dealt with. If we were taking it in hand upon the mere " district " parish — the Peel Act — system, we should have to set to work in one of these ways ; either we should mani- pulate it into a single Peel district, with vague hopes of further division; or we should manipulate it into two or more Peel districts, or we should postpone the Act of Parliament division altogether, and lay it out into conven- tional districts, in fuU legal dependence on the Mother EasAYlIL] COLLEaiATE CHURCHES IN LARGE TOWNS. 27 Church, with the expectation of hereafter completing the divorce at different periods for each district. But in every- way we should be doing something which we should confess was incomplete in its principle and its organization no less than in its first working. By the other method, one which might be roughly yet approximately set in practice even under the provisions of Peel's Act, backed by well-planned trust-deeds, permanence would be at once created within the area which was permanently to be constituted to remain under the Pastoral superintendence of the College. The elastic, and variable element would be the College itself with its appendant buildings, which would be liable to fluctuations in numbers according to the needs to be met and the means at hand to meet those needs. By College to-day, I do not mean the good plan which has already been tried of a body of supernumerary Clergy, working specially under the Bishop in aid of, and in addition to, the regular parochial bodies, without any permanent supervision of a particular District. I should be glad to take up the defence of this idea, but there is no time to do so. What I now recommend is, in simple language, a system of parishes, larger in area and population, than the actual standard of those which are mapped out to be served by an Incumbent, or an Incumbent and Curate. These larger parishes would be constituted for the express end of being served by bodies of Clergy organised on CoUegiate principles, and each potentially owning, both a central Church, besides various educational, charitable, and religious institutions, arranged for services, as many and as much subdivided, as our Prayer Book allows, or as many as circumstances admit of; and also in subordination to the Church, subsidiary Chapels, large or small, sumptuous or cheap, permanent or temporary, solemnly consecrated, or unostentatiously licensed as the case may be; some exclusively used for worship, others 28 COLLEGIATE 0HUECHE8 IN LAEGE TOWNS. [Essay III. employed likewise for schools, if not even for meetings and lectures. The special advantage of this system may be summed up as the concentration of power towards the end in view. First take the men. What can be a greater waste of power than the usual manufacture (I use the word in no invidious sense) of District Incumbencies ? A district with its small rich end and its large poor end is carved out and weakly manned by its Incumbent as heretofore on £150, or its Incumbent as he may be on £300 a year. The town grows and "Church Extension," as the phrase is, speeds, and this original Incumbent finds himseK, to his comfort, left with his rich end, and a large portion of his poor end turned over and formed into another district more weakly manned (from its greater want of garrisoning) at the same stipend as. the mother one, and so on till at length the area of some 15,000 souls, finds itself quartered iuto four incumbencies, with an aggregate stipend for the four Incumbents of £600 a year, to take what the Ecclesiastical Commissioners once thought enough, or of £1,200 at their present estimate, and with only the power, in consideration for the money received, of quad- rupling the single-handed Sunday tariff of worship, and with, perhaps, a small week-day margin of fagging through the single-handed round of alley visits, unhelped by any Curate. I will only hint at the lavishness of the quadrupled Church, with the quadrupled Parsonages, and the quadrupled Schools. No doubt the Ecclesiastical Commissioners mean well in proposing to raise the stipend of the Incumbents of crowded parishes to £300 a year, while leaving the actual system untouched, but the plan is only a palliative and a makeshift. Give me that £1,200 (the Commissioners' own estimate let me repeat, not miae) to find men for that area of 15,000 souls, and I will tell you how I will use it. First I will find you six men and not four, next I will Essay III.] COLLEGIATE CHUEOHES IN LARGE TOWNS. 29 find you men whose capacities, whose experience, and whose worlc, deserve different payments, and they shall be paid differently. The representative "person" of the district is the head of the college, and we may find him £500 or £450 a year, and a house as good as those which Commissioners have given to Peel Incumbents to be ruined in, not a very large income, but enough, with a few offerings, to keep a good and a clever man's head above water. The senior Fellow of the College will amply deserve £200 a year, or £250 if the head has only £450. Two more Fellows, young priests learning their duties, will be better off upon £150 a year than the analogous Curates of the actual system on £100 each. Still there remains £200 out of the £1,200. This may go to find the stipends of two junior Fellows — clerics both of them, but not priests— either those revived minor orders, as Chancellor Massingberd proposed at the Oxford Congress, or else Deacons under a new dis- cipline, according to the parallel suggestion, at the same time, of the now Bishop of Ely, Dr. Harold Browne. Who wiU not confess that this scheme does not show more power made available in return for the income which the Commissioners assign than can be found in the actual system ? To make the inquiry complete I ought now to pass from men to houses, and ask how the parsonage is to be moulded into the College. But I forbear from a topic which I could only handle incompletely, and therefore erroneously. I have no wish to use the Collegiate systein as a leverage to revive enforced Clerical celibacy. So I own that the more I face the architectural question of Collegiate residences for Clergy, who may be either married or single, the more diificult does it show itself. Happily it is not essential— the Fellows might all live in lodgings and yet work their cure as a College. 30 COLLEGIATE CHURCHES IN LABGE TOWNS. [Essay III. It will be its own fault if the College does not show an elasticity and multiplication of divine service, impossible to a series of district Churches. These perforce exist to main- tain a compulsory minimum of Sunday duty, to marry and baptize. Extra services are by necessity extras. But with us, the Church which is at once Parochial and Collegiate, can and ought to fuliil the obligations of the Prayer Book as authorized by custom, in their full extent of daily worship, and at least weekly Communion, while the accessory Chapels may or may not be used at any time according to their special needs. At one it may suit to give early Communion and Evensong — at another duplicated or triplicated Litanies with rousing preachings might be heard. One would be a complete Chapel, another a Chapel School. These Chapels might either be rooms, or else such noble Churches as that of St. Michael's, Star Street, built as a Chapel to a District Church in Paddington — which exists as an example, and a first-fruit in London, of the Collegiate system, never, I hope, to be carved into Peel uniformity.* Time pressing, I leave to yourselves to follow out the increased power which the Collegiate must by the force of mathematical necessity possess in working schools and charitable institutions, in starting and giving tone to meetings, and in organising and imparting vitality to that principle of lay agency, on the necessity of which, though with some inevitable distinctions of shading, both High Church and Low Church are now happily agreed. The substantive endowed College of Clerks must lead to the association of paid and voluntary singing men and choristers. The mutual benefit to the members of deliberative meetings which the very name College invites, above merely * It has since been severed and itself become virtually Collegiate. Since I wrote this paper, St. Andrew's, Wells Street, St. Peter's, Pimlico, &c., have assumed Collegiate attributes. [1882.] Essay III.] COLLEGIATE CHUECHES IN LARGE TOWNS. 31 voluntary gatherings of neighbourihg Clergy, deserves a passing notice. A further benefit lies behind. We are now feeling the advantage of bringing Clergy and laity together in country places, to discuss •within manageable areas, and in due proportions, mutual interests. Such meetings are still difficult in towns, from the proportions being so difficult to blend ; — but a College meeting with the best laity of the Parish added, would be a kind of Parochial institution, and help to reduce the obstacle. Any how, if the laity are not interested in, and made to feel confidence in this as on any other reform, it must, however, be a failure. A question must be asked, not without practical im- portance in this old land of social etiquette, as to the standing and designation of the members of these Colleges. Por the head I should propose the appellation of Eector, with no special precedence ;^ sometimes he might be Provost, with the precedence of a Canon of a Cathedral Chapter, and the members of the body should bear the familiar name of Fellow, which I have used throughout this paper. Of course a well-worked town Parish Church has always practically become Collegiate, as under Dr. Hook's guidance, St. Peter's, Leeds, did, and as St. John's, Paddington, has done till the severance of St. Michael's, Star Street. But a perverse new Incumbent or patron can always upset a conventional College, unless fixed by Endowment, Act of Incorporation, or Trust Deed. If I shall have called the attention of those who have made, or who desire to make such experiments, not to rely on present good intentions for their permanency, I shall not have spoken in vain. With reference to one of the instances to which I have referred, I cannot, with all the affectionate veneration with which all Churchmen must regard the Dean of Chichester, refrain from a passing regret that the Leeds Vicarages Act did not create for the Mother Church a Collegiate position, and place its Vicar in a kind of 32 COLLEGIATE CHURCHES IN LARGE TOWNS. [Essay III. Decanal attitude at the head of the collective Clergy of the town, who owned their status of independent Incumhents to his generosity, and sacrifice of self. Another point I must leave for further consideration, the possibility — if the Collegiate system takes root — of reuniting, by some legislative provision, two or more actual Districts into one Collegiate parish. Let me offer a few final words on two rather weighty corollary points. The Collegiate system might be in part a palliative to that growing difficulty of the Church which has lately filled so many columns of the Times, the drying up of the Curate supply. Our " Fellows " on the average may not be more highly paid than curates, but their responsibility will be systematised, therefore easier, and their position more dignified. So it may be hoped that young men would be more willing to enter Holy Orders with the prospect of such a Fellowship as a first post, than with that of a town curacy ; and as by the nature of things the successful Fellow is more likely to be noticed and to get on than the equally meri- torious Curate now may do. Again, a College weU arranged and well worked in a large town would be a great help to Diocesan extension. Sup- posing that the way were open to making that place a Bishopric, the Chapter would be ready in the germ, and the only absolute deficiency would be the Bishop himself. But let us pass by speculative advantages. For the immediate safety of the souls that are perishing up and down the alleys of our towns, let us try how far co-operation — so aU-powerful in all other concerns — has strength and virtue to build up Christ's Kingdom. ( :^3 .) IV. CATHEDRALS IN THEIE MISSIONARY ASPECT. Pkom ' Essays on Cathedrals ' Edited by the Very Rev. J. S. HowsoN, 1872. Erroneous opinion that Cathedrals are only the luxury of an Estahlish- ment — Both an institution and a building — English Church requires in- crease of Cathedrals — Extension of Christian Church where previously non-existent or weak, to take Cathedral shape — Cathedral idea embodi- ment of full machinery of Church founded on Episcopacy, both as a higher priesthood and as an administrative system — Definition of Cathe- dral idea — Cathedral link which binds together Bishop with clergy and laity — Description of Cathedral in its completeness — The Cathedral the Bishop's seat; but no Bishop able to work it single-handed — Cathedral idea necessary deduction from constitutional Episcopacy — Cathedrals in Colonies, United States, Scotland and Ireland — Missions upon Cathedral principles possess unique advantages — Missions where Christianity is unknown or imperfectly introduced, must be based on Cathedral system — Disadvantages of uuattached Episcopacy — Dis- advantage greater in civilized Diocese — Danger of procrastinating owing to delicate relations of other Churches to Cathedral — No archi- tectural difficulties in providing temporary Cathedral — Home Cathedrals in their missionary aspect practically treated in view of Church of England and freehold Incumbents — Cathedral not exalted by depressing the parish — Freehold tenure of Incumbencies safeguard of liberty — Monasticism fostered idea of independent corporations within the see — Various influences combining to produce parochial system, which cannot be tampered with except on condition of chimerical increase of Episcopate — Evils of isolation and suspicion, much remedied during last forty years, but only to be cured by development of Cathedrals — Eeform by mutilation worst and clumsiest expedient — Sweepinof alterations in sources of patronage not desirable considering advantai'e of variety — Deaneries to be maintained, but Bishop occasion- ally to preside over Greater Chapter — Future composition of Greater T) 34 CATHEDEALS IM THKIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. [Essay IV. Chapter — Incompleteness of lately published answers of Deans to Archbishops — Variety and Incongruity of duties proposed to be im- posed on members of Chapters — Chapters should be enlarged by private endowments, on precedent of private endowment of new parishes — Existing Chapters left, with facility for foundation of super- numerary stalls^ — Out of what classes to be selected— How to bring enlarged body into harmonious activity, and develop working power of Cathedral— Scheme does not necessarily require any expenditure of public funds — Practicability proved from success of the Church build- ing movement — Much smaller and easier task, and peculiarly attractive to special tastes — Objections answered — Picture of old Cathedrals so strengthened — Relations of revived Cathedral to other diocesan organi- zations^ — Possibility and desirability of more Cathedrals in England, and undesirability of more Bishops without Cathedrals — Diocese to be founded first, and left under original Bishop — Private munificence. Ecclesiastical Commission and ofScial patrons co-operating — Extent of new dioceses in the two Provinces — Cathedrals adapted or built, and Chapters created — Conclusion. The opinion has not uncommonly existed among tliat ex- cellent class of society which, may be concisely described as the candid friends of the Church, that Cathedrals are a very commendable and very ornamental appendix to that Church ; not essential to its constitution, but far less detrimental to its practical working, having their use in many directions of secondary importance ; but standing apart from the primary interests of the ecclesiastical common weal. A Cathedral is ia the eyes of such thinkers the luxury of an establishment, but not the complement of a Church. It is a decorative accident to be provided as the crowning of the edifice, the Corinthian capital upon the solid bearing shaft, not the corner-stone upon which the whole construction fitly joined together ought to rest. A Missionary Cathedral would from their poiut of view be not merely impossible but inconceivable. It would be like a town hall ia the tangles of an African jungle, or a sword of state in the hand of a village constable. The position which I shall endeavour to make good in the follow- ing pages is not only the direct reverse of these miscon- ceptions, but it proceeds from a fundamentally different Essay IV.] CATHBDEALS IN THEIE MISSIONARY ASPECT. 35 definition of the institution in question. The Cathedral of those theorists is nothing more than a gorgeous building, sacred to the cultivation of religious music, and rich in architectural and artistic adornment, in connection with which a select body of middle-aged or elderly clergy- men are permitted to draw an ample stipend for the im- mediate performance of easy but graceful duties, and as the indirect reward of merit, favour, or good fortune. Of a Cathe- dral as the mainspring of religious life to an entire Diocese they have never had a glimpse ; their difference, therefore, with those who have realized that higher conception of the value of Cathedrals is not so much a debate upon the utility of an institution in the definition of which both sides are agreed as a divergence upon the definition itself of that to which all apply the same appellation. In a work which I published in 1861, entitled 'The English Cathedral of the Nineteenth Century,' I contended that a Cathedral was both an institution and also a building, and that in either respect the English Church would be the better for an iacrease in the number of its Cathedrals, involving the multiplication of Dioceses. This end would be attained both by the elevation of existing Churches of con- spicuous dignity and in convenient situations to the desired jank, and by building fresh Cathedrals in large towns where a direct Episcopal regimen was needed. In confirmation of my argument, partly by way of architectural model, and partly to encourage home exertions by the sight of that which had been effected in the colonies under far greater difficulties than could be encountered in England, I illustrated my arguments by examples of Cathedrals, erected or projected, within recent years, in Scotland and in our colonies. I propose in the following pages to take up the subject at an earlier point than that which I occupied in my book. There, speaking generally, I pleaded in favour of the establishment of Cathf^- D 2 36 CATHEDRALS IN THEIE MISSIONAEY ASPECT. [Essay IV. drals in places where the Church was abeady at work. I now desire to offer reasons why in the extension of the Christian Church (under conditions involving communion with the Church of England), either in places where it is non-existent, or where it is so weak and unsettled that the work of construction has really to be undertaken from the beguming, the establishment of a fixed form of Christianity ought to take a shape in which the Cathedral is a prominent feature. That is, it ought to exist-as an institution from the very first, and as a building from the earliest moment in which any building at all can be provided; or, in other words, the first missionaries ought to be a rudi- mentary Cathedral body, and their first oratory a rudi- mentary Cathedral. In making this statement I desire to assert that the Cathe- dral idea is in truth the embodiment of the machiuery of the Christian Church in the fulness of its divine constitution. I do not mean that the Cathedral idea is of the essence either of the Christian Church as a divine society, or of Episcopacy as the appointed regimen of that society, but I do assert that wherever the first commission to the chosen Twelve has been earned out by the establishment of an Episcopate devoid of the Cathedral idea, there that establishment has been made in an unworkmanlike, a clumsy, and an unsatisfactory manner. The Cathedral idea is based upon the twofold aspect, in which the Episcopate presents itself to the acceptance of the world, first as a higher priesthood for the performance of the most exalted worship in concert with, and in behalf of, the faithful of the Diocese, clerical and lay, and for the fulfilment of the great duties of ordination and of confirmation ; and, in the next place, as an administrative system charged with the presiding regulation of the Church, both in its interior sphere and in relation to outward society, No truly healthy Episcopacy can exist which does not recognize and carry out this double Essay IV.] CATHEDRALS IN THEIB MISSIONARY ASPECT. 37 function. The Bishop who regards hiniseK merely as the high priest, is on the straight road to that assumption of spiritual tyranny which is in the long run far more meddle- some in temporal matters than the constitutionalism, which treats with them in their proper order ; while the Bishop whose exclusive idea is to administer well, deals, by his neglect or his coldness, a heavy blow to the spiritual life of that divine society, of which he ought to hold himself the nursing father. Both defects are equally prejudicial to the development of the Cathedral system. The ultra-sacerdotalist depreciates its administrative facilities, and the mere admi- nistrator is slow to recognize its spiritualizing influences. But to descend to particulars. What is the Cathedral idea ; and where do we find its germ ? I have no hesitation in reply- ing to the first through the second question, by saying that the Upper Chamber at Jerusalem, tenanted by the Sacred Twelve, was that germ. The records of the undivided Church are the unbroken history of an Episcopate, living on and acting through its assessor clergy. The first great churches — the basilicae, so called — whether pagan court-houses converted or churches built for these sacred objects — were Cathedrals ; for the solemn hemicycle behind the altar contained the thrones of the Bishop, stately in the centre, and of his atten- dant presbyters to the right hand and to the left. The altar in front, was the joint centre of devotion for the united flock — the singers in the midst, the faithful below them, the catechumens patiently waiting beyond, and the penitents cowering at the door summed up the great congregation in its completeness, as the Diocese drawn together for the one great Eucharistic worship of the Christian Church. I am speaking to those who accept the Episcopal form ol Church Government, and who, at the same time, recognize that it must be worked, not as a hard autocracy, but upon principles of the constitutional co-operation of clergy and 88 CATHEDBALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. [Essay IV. laity. All this increasing host of Chui'chmen are convinced of the necessity of some form of synodical action, involving lay assessorship, in the Dioceses ; and many persons at home, in the colonies, and in the United States, are actively engaged in introducing or in carrying on that action. But they must do one thing more, and agree to recognize the Cathedral as the connecting element necessary to bind together the Bishop on the one side as the head, and on the other the clergy and laity, as represented by the Synod with its assessors as the body. As each Diocese representing the Christian Church in its solidarity is one body, so the Cathedral is the pledge, the symbol, and the instrument of that unity, of which the Bishop is the personal centre. It should comprehend in the inner- most circle, round the central diocesan, men whose advice and personal labours are secured to sustain and counsel the Bishop in the regulation of the various concerns of the Diocese, spiritual, educational, and charitable, and to carry on the constant and ornate worship of the Temple. In the next circle will stand a large body of clergy with a direct though not so constant a connection with the Cathedral. Beyond these, again, will be ranged the collective clergy belonging to the See ; while the ultimate group will gather in the faithful laity of the entire Diocese combined as one great parish at their Mother Church. All Synods and all conferences would find their appropriate home at the Cathe- dral, which, as a building, would in its ideal completeness comprehend a church, as noble and vast as circumstances allow, for the Divine Sacraments and Offices, the ordinance of preaching, and the occasional rites of ordination and con- firmation; adjunct chambers, and chapter-house for private or public deliberation ; schools and libraries for teaching and study ; refuges, homes of charity, and infirmaries, for weak- ness, old age, or bodily ailment ; residences for those engaged in the various duties of the complex institution ; and halls Essay IV.] CATHEDBALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. 39 for the exercise of that hospitality which it is a first duty of a Christian minister to show. Can even the Churchman who is sceptical as to the ne- cessity of Cathedrals, find any flaw in this recapitulation of the elements composing the ideal Cathedral ? I assume that he accepts Episcopacy, and recognizes the importance of deliberate co-operation; and I assert that the onus lies on him to prove that these are not best provided at a Cathedral such as I have described. A Bishop is a clergy- man, and something more than a common clergyman ; it is therefore plainly congruous that he should have the use of a church raised above the usual level for the performance both of those sacred duties which he can perform in common with (but as the example of) his brethren, and also of those at which he only is entitled to officiate. This Church wUl be the seat of the Bishop, or, in other words, Eccleda Cathedralis. But as the Bishop cannot be always at his Cathedral, it would be a contradiction to common sense that he should be ex- pected to work it single-handed. He cannot be the instructor of sacred music to his own Church, still less to his Diocese, so that unless, in opposition to both Testaments, music is not a divinely-appointed element of worship, some musical leader is indispensable for the model church. His strength would fail, and the attention of the congregation flag, if his voice only were heard from the central pulpit of the Diocese, hence he demands the succour of eloquent preachers. He cannot himself conduct the various educational establishments for clergy, for teachers, for the whole flock, which it is the duty and the interest of the Christian Church to maintain. He cannot himseK undertake the direct responsibility of every .detail of the various charities which he may feel bound to foster. Apart from these considerations he needs the advice of experienced counsellors in the ordinary work of administra- tion. It is accordingly a matter of plain convenience that the 40 CATHEDRALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. [Essay IV, officiating clergy, the administrators, the counsellors, should form a compact body in close proximity to the Bishop and to the Cathedral. These simple facts, almost truisms, prove the raison d'etre of that Chapter of Canons or Eesidentiaries which help to compose the Cathedral viewed as an institution. It is equally desirable that a large body of chosen clergymen should have a distinct, though less close, connexion with the Mother Church, and in them we find the Greater Chapter of non-Eesidentiaries. The propriety of every clergyman tliroughout the Diocese, feeling that the Mother Church is — in reality as well as in name — his home, his property, his focus of religious life, is a proposition so theoretically undeniable, that wherever it only exists in theory there the reason for the discrepancy between theory and practice must be the result of some probably long-seated remissness. In a less direct manner but as truly ought the layman, in proportion as he feels the power of Christian brotherhood, to be drawn to the Cathedral as the rallying point of the fellowship" for which he yearns. As truly also ought that Cathedral, by the establish- ment of volimtary choirs, to absorb selected members of the laity into the body more actively engaged in the transaction of worship. Finally thai, and most imdoubtedly, all delibe- rative gatherings of clergy, or of clergy combined with laity, and all especial unions for festive or penitential worship, had best take place in the natural capital of the sacred commonwealth, as a portion of the living organization of that Cathedral. We have thus by an exhaustive process taken each element of the picture of the complete Cathedral, and after testing it by the simple idea of constitutional Episcopacy, have arrived at the conclusion that separately, and stUl more, collectively, the various elements of the Cathedral idea are in fact the necessary deductions from that idea in their most complete form, and their most na;tural order. The acceptance of this Essay IV.] OATHBDKALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. 41 proposition is no reproach to those Episcopal Churches in which, by unfortunate circumstances, the Cathedral element is wanting. Episcopacy does exist in too many of, our colonies, in the majority of the Scotch Dioceses, and in nearly all those of the United States, without being complemented by the Cathedral system. But this fact, which might a few years ago, when the absence of the Cathedral system in those Dioceses was absolute and not merely relative, have been used against me, has now, since many of these unestablished or half-established Churches have been making disconnected but vigorous efforts to repair the deficiency — efforts undertaken and worked by Bishops who feel in their own persons the want of Cathedral institutions — become a convincing argu- ment in my favour. Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta, a repre- sentative man in that party of the Church which is supposed to be least inclined to ecclesiastical pomp and complexity of system, spared no exertions tiU he had raised a costly Cathedral Church of stately dimensions in the Indian capital, while he defended the proceeding by a powerful vindication of the Cathedral system. At Bombay, also, the Cathedral is now being developed. At Sydney, the late Metropolitan Bishop Broughton commenced a Cathedral on a large scale, and his successor the present Bishop has constituted it with a Chapter. In other Australian Dioceses the formation of Cathedrals is in various stages of progress, while at Cape Town a Capitular organization has been established in the church which serves as a Cathedral. Not far from a quarter of a century since. Bishop Medley, of Erederioton, carried out his Cathedral, while the late Metropolitan Bishop Fulford, of Montreal, constructed another of considerable material importance, although defectively organized. In the United States, owing to the Dioceses having by ill-fortune been to a great extent endowed with a synodical constitution excluding Cathedrals, in the early days of republican fervour for equality, 42 OATHBDEALS IN THEIR MISSIONAEY ASPECT. [Essay IV. and of deficient knowledge in Christian antiquities, dnring which the Church of those States was built up, the material progress of the Cathedral cause has been slower. But the idea has steadily grown in men's minds, and has already taken shape in the Cathedrals erected in Chicago (and happily not burnt), by Bishop Whitehouse of Illinois, and in Portland, by Bishop Neely of Maine, of which and of its accompanying institutions an interesting report has lately appeared in the ^ Guardian.' At New York, too, Trinity Church with its great endowment is in all but name a Cathedral. In Scotland, not from republican equality but from poverty and cruel oppression by ruling powers, the Episcopal Church grew up with a constitution which ignored Cathedrals. The spell was first broken some twenty years ago by the movement which erected a Cathedral at Perth for the Dioceses of St. Andrew's, Dunkeld, and Dunblane, while the Cathedral more recently constructed at Inverness for the Diocese of Moray and Eoss seems fruitful in spiritual and material advantage. More lately the bequest of a generous Churchwoman has afi'orded means for the creation of a Cathedral in Edinburgh. In the disestablished Church of Ireland, the Cathedral system always existed in name. The shock of the disestablishment seems to have led men to think of the reality, and to seek in ecclesiastical co-operation for the strength which State support had once afforded. The sumptuous restoration of St. Patrick's, Dublin, and the construction of the grand and beautiful Cathedral of Cork, just preceded the catastrophe. Its immediate result is the restoration under most satis- factory conditions of the older Cathedral of Christchurch in Dublin and the renewal of the ruined Cathedral of Kildare. I trust that I have presented with sufficient clearness the conception of what a Cathedral in its completeness ought to be. It was necessary to reach an agreement upon this Essay IV.] OATHEDEALS IN THEIE MISSIONARY ASPECT. 43 question before we could consider tliat the ground was pre- pared for the inquiry, with which we are more immediately concerned. We have to investigate Cathedrals in their Missionary aspect, which implies that a missionary enterprise carried out among the heathen, in the colonies, or at home, upon.the Cathedral principles, possesses elements of practical coUgruity, impossible upon any other basis. A mission working from a Cathedral centre is plastic in its constitution, popular in its appointments, and vigorous in its action, beyond the possibilities of one in which the unassisted Bishop stands face to face with the ilock, among whom he must expect to succeed or fail, according to the wisdom with which he plans his work, and the temper and patience with which he carries it out. The mission may be destined either to break abso- lutely virgin soil in a country where the sound of the Gospel has never penetrated, or it may have to consolidate and develope the feeble efforts of other Christian teaching, already essayed by missionaries, who have either been working out- side the Episcopal system, or who, while accepting Episcopacy m theory, have been unable to employ it as a living power. Perhaps the mission may take the shape of a new Diocese formed within a colony, or a back-settlement, in which the pulse of religion has liitherto beaten very languidly. AU these examples of diocesan extension lay legitimate claim to the title of Missionary, and 1 shall endeavour to dissect the probable working of each, as started upon a Cathedral, or non- Cathedral, basis. But our existing Dioceses at home may also awaken, as so many have done and are doing, to new life and more earnest longings after unity, and then their religious action will be Missionary. Some part of the country, too, might desire to do the Lord's work, with the additional strength derived from the immediate presence of another Bishop, and here, too, the organization would be a mission. I propose accordingly, before I conclude, to say something 44 CATHEDRALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. [Essay IV. of the development of the Cathedral in all these cases, in order to present its missionary aspect under every condition. The proof that the work of evangelization in missions where Christianity is altogether or nearly imknown, ought to be conducted on the Cathedral basis, need not be lengthy, at least to those who have so far agreed with the argument. It is indeed hardly more than the assertion that such a mission ought to be based on the principles of order and not of confu- sion, by a well-balanced distribution of functions between the various missionaries, all in common yearning for an united centre of worship, all with one heart and mind breaking bread together in that first Church, round which many daughters may in coming years rise, and call it blessed. If the original missionaries, living among the perils of heathendom, its evil sights and raging passions, away from the comforts and help of Christian civilization, do not at the outset co-operate in one spirit, each with his appointed division of labour allotted to him, and all looking up to their chief, not as their tyrant, but their elder brother and co-coimsellor, confusion and failure must ensue. The various offices which they fiU are truly canonries ; the one church or chapel which they may raise or adopt, be it but a hut or a tent, is the rudimentary Cathedral. When other churches or chapels have gathered round this nucleus, the strain will begin in the adjustment of their claims to independence, and of the Mother Church to be their con- trolling power ; but I shall best treat this further on. As to the rival opinion that, essential as the Episcopal regime may be in the abstract, the earlier missionaries ought not to be men of the highest clerical order, but, as it were, pickets sent forward to prepare the way for the fuller manifestation here- after of a complete organization,- all I can say is, that a theory which is really based on the assumption that isolation is stronger than co-operation, and that a constitution is more practical as its head is weaker, does not seem to approve Essay IV.] CATHEDEALS IN THEIR MISSIONAKY ASPECT. 45 itself to that which is in all but ecclesiastical matters the conclusion of experience and common sense. If, however, there is co-operation, even though the framework be incom- plete and provisional, that co-operation must be regulated by subordination, and so we shall find ourselves committed to principles of which Episcopacy is the complete presentment. In any case, supposing the mission planned on a system of isolation, it wUl be but the intentional instead of the acci- dental trial of that state of things, which leads us to our second head, to which we may at once proceed, — that of the introduction of Episcopacy into a Christian field in which either on purpose or by stress of events it had been wanting. Is the Bishop to come among those whom, indeed, he desires to treat as fellow-labourers, but fellow-labourers of whom he is to be the foreman, as one without " a local habitation and a name," as a supervisor, rather than a father, with no church he can call his own, no altar at which he holds himself especially privileged and bound to minister, no body of chosen helpers with whom to share the chief burdens of his office, no central spot to which as the host he can call together to the feast of religious conference the faithful of his flock ? Such Bishops we have often beheld ; and when the prelate, who finds himself by events not of his making placed in that position, battles against its disadvantages, and perhaps suc- ceeds in building up for himself those institutions of which at the beginning he felt the want, he merits indeed our warmest sympathies. But it is simply inconceivable that any one could deliberately prefer unattached Episcopacy to the system under which the Bishop not only derives his appellation from the place of his residence, but at that residence presides over the one Church which is the centre of religious unity to the fold, the chosen seat of his teaching and the home of the altar at which he offers up his prayers and supplications for the souls for whom he is responsible. 46 CATHEDRALS IN THEIB MISSIONARY ASPECT. [Essay IV. Not only does an Episcopacy without a definite see contradict the uniform tradition of the whole Christian Church, but it is contrary to the plainest warnings of practical experience. The Bishop of the district, moving about from one church or mission station to another, is neither master at any given place nor merely guest anywhere. His position is that of an inspector, and he must either lord it over or succumb to each successive clergyman. Again, when such a Bishop requires co-operation, he cannot constitute his administration, in the persons of those particular clergymen on whom he devolves specific spiritual duties, and with whom he desires to take joint counsel, — or, in other words, his Chapter. He will probably possess some house which he calls his own, and he may believe that he is fulfilling his duty, and providing for the due government of his See, if he convokes periodical meetings within his parlour of those clergymen or laymen whom he has entrusted with distinct of&ces. He may also have a synod, and there may be some hut, or if the Diocese be tolerably civilized, some public hall in which he can bring it together. To a certain extent he wiU, in so doing, have made up for the want of a Cathedral ; but it will be by the sacrifice of spiritual associations to practical exigencies. A Bishop who is known to the selected few in his parlour and to the Diocese in the public hall, may be respected of&cially, and liked privately, but he will not be the Father in God, as that chief pastor will be whose place is at the altar of his own church, whose meetings are within its walls, whose business is always accompanied by prayer and sacrament. The spiritual life of the officials themselves will be stunted if their duties do not involve a sacred fellowship such as appertains to partnership in the religious rites of the Mother Church; while the gatherings of the united Diocese will present an aspect of worldly business, which participation in common service would have tended to mitigate. Of the loss Essay IV.] CATHEDEALS IN THEIR MISSIONAEY ASPECT. 47 of power in confirmations, in ordinations with their pre- liminary exercises, and in special occasions of united worship which the absence of the Cathedral, with its spiritualizing influences and its many practical advantages, would occasion, I need not speak. Upon the tangible invitation to insub- ordination among the various congregations, which such a state of things would offer, I need not dilate. I have, in treating of the introduction of direct Episcopacy iato mis- sions, where it had not previously existed, been wandering into considerations which more properly belong to my next head, namely, the comparison of Cathedral or non-Cathedral Episcopacy in Dioceses formed in settlements where the majority of the population are living under conditions of European and therefore Christian civilization, however formal and dead that Christianity may be. But in truth, as I went on, I found that a too rigid division of my subject would only lead to repetition, as the general principles on which alone I could insist, in so short an essay, were iu the two cases so nearly identical. The chief difference would be, that m the new Diocese formed out of a civilized settlement the evils of the unat- tached Episcopacy will be more apparent and active than in a mission. In the latter the feeling of common helplessness will drive men together, and the brotherhood which ought to have been secured by positive regulation will shape itself by general consent. It will not be so in a community in which the conditions of life, however rough, disagreeable, or dete- riorated, are in theory derived from the old civilization of Christian Europe. There the Bishop must be a tyrant, a puppet, or a constitutional ruler, and he can only be assuredly and completely the last if he governs from his Cathedral among his Chapter with the consent of his synod. I do not apprehend any wide disagreement from these views in the abstract. I fear the timidity which would accept them in 48 CATHEDBALS IN THEIB MISSIONAEY ASPECT. [Essay IV. theory, and yet put off the organization of the Cathedral till a more convenient season. The answer to such counsels of fear must be that every day during which the rule of disorder and incompleteness is allowed to prevail will find the future constitution of the Diocese on its perfect basis more difficult. The point on which the difficulty will be most acutely felt will depend upon a consideration to which I have already referred. The building of the Cathedral itself will probably be popular ; the higher worship carried on within it will attract an influential portion of the community ; the labours of the Chapter will be appreciated, and yet there may remain a root of bitterness from which will spring a growth of dis- content which may frustrate all other good effects. This will be found in the relation of the other churches with their clergy and their parochial constitutions to the central Cathedral. The Cathedral standing by itself, however beautiful in its form, however godly in its labours, will not have accomplished its work if it does not occupy a position of leadership cheer- fully accorded to it by the inferior churches. But every delay in erecting the Cathedral .will give those churches a stronger prescriptive independence. I should be sorry to be supposed to be arguing that those churches should be reduced into a condition of serfdom. Just as I plead for the leadership of the Cathedral, so I desire to vindicate constitutional rights for the separate parishes and their ministering clergy. These rights are not immutable ; they need not and they should not be the same everywhere. In England, as I shall proceed to show, they ought to be greater than it would be wholesome to recognize in a newly organized Church. But it is because they cannot be alike that their due adjustment must in every instance be a delicate task, and one which it would be hopeless to attempt without mutual goodwill. The essential requisite is that no clergyman, no parochial organization, no con- gregation, and no member of that congregation should feel Essay IV.] CATHEDRALS IN THEIE MISSIONARY ASPECT. 49 himself or itself a stranger to the Cathedral ; that no one should look upon that Cathedral either as an isolated and unsympathizing institution or an intrusive interloper. For worship and for deliberation all should be encouraged and should be expected to meet together in the Mother Church, and from the Mother Church should continually flow to them words of encouragement, of admonition, and of advice. All this is beautiful in theory, but if it is to be realized much tact, much good-temper, and much firmness will be required, and in proportion as the occasion for exercising these qualities is delayed and the Diocese allowed to crystallize itself in the old acephalous condition, so will the difficulty ascend in a geometrical ratio. I forbear from entering upon the architectural question in missionary and colonial Cathedrals. Of course the Cathedral ought to be as sumptuous and as large as means will admit of ; but the lack of means, or the impossibility of providing grandeur or space, is no excuse for postponing the Cathedral. After all, the essentials of a Cathedral are an altar whereat to plead the Christian propitiation, a chair whereon to sit, a font wherein to baptize, and a Bishop to occupy that chair, to plead that propitation before the altar, and to receive Christ's servants at that font. At all events, let the altar be comely. No Mission can well be so poor that it cannot provide a comely altar, and then if it must house altar, chair, and font in a tent or a hut of wattles, still there wiU be provided for that branch of Christ's Church a Cathedral sufficient for its present wants. The course of the discussion has led us to the consideration of Home Cathedrals in their Missionary aspect. The question is a wide one and admits of being treated either theoretically or practically. I propose to deal with it in its practical character. I am conscious that my picture of the ideal Cathedral life with the entire Diocese gathered up as one E 50 CATHEDRALS IN THEIB MISSIONARY ASPECT. [Essay IV. congregation within the one Mother Church might be per- verted into a bill of indictnaent against the actual system of the English Church, with its sharply defined parochial system, its incumbents claiming freehold tenure, and its capitular bodies endowed with rights in the Cathedral Church independent of those which the diocesan possesses. There can be no question that the Cathedral and the parochial organization of the Christian Church are not actually parallel ideas, and there ought to be no doubt that where a new Diocese has to be created out of nothing the edifice should be built upon the foundation of the Cathedral. But in an old country where the parochial has grown up alongside of the Cathedral system, it would be an act of perilous audacity to subvert the existing framework in the romantic hope of being, able to reconstruct the pile from the ground in more classical proportions. Unquestionably wherever the Cathedral should be the moving power not merely in the See-town as the centre of religious life, but at the circumference of the surrounding Diocese, the different rectors and vicars would find their personal influence much abridged. But we should not exalt the English Cathedral by depressing the parish church, for, above aU other considerations, it would be very unjust to deny that in the lapse of many generations the rights of the parochial clergy have been a mainstay of freedom against the autocracy alike of ruling despots and of ruling mobs. The ideal Cathedral implies many Dioceses, and those small, while the Bishop in each of them, though acting as a constitutional head, would hold his own upon a tenure as completely im- plying ownership as that which any rector can now claim. In fact the question would not be whether a few governing Bishops — few whether their reckoning in England were thirty or sixty — should have a large body of dependent presbyters, or a large body of independent incumbents to confront them : but whether we should have an Episcopate Essay IV.] CATHBDEALS IN THEIR MISSIONAEY ASPECT. 51 in which the deficient ubiquity of the Bishop has to be supplemented by resident and freehold incumbents, or one in wliich, from the moderate size of his Diocese, the Bishop can really make himself felt as resident and as a freeholder all over the area. I have already, in the book to which I referred, traced the growth of the mediaeval type of Cathedrals in their material aspect, and shown that, in the main, they had grown up under two influences, the development of monasticism and the accession of temporal dignity attaching to the feudal prelate. Paradoxical as the assertion may seem, I believe that the independent status of the English parish priest grew as much out of the first as the second of these reasons. The monas- tery was generally, and on principle, a landowner, and it enjoyed privileges which made it independent of the diocesan. This condition of things fostered the idea of freehold eccle- siastical corporations within the See, and yet holding their own against the autocratic claims of that See. The Bishops were great lords, with wide spiritual jurisdictions ; and as the respective landowners went on building and endowing churches upon their estates, they shocked no existing pre- judice either civil or religious by erecting in the " persons " of the parishes a series of corporations sole. So, to compress into a few words a very long and complicated narrative, out of such elements, moulded and changed through successive ages by mediseval corruption, papal aggression, national asser- tion, reformational enterprise, and parliamentary equaliza- tion, has grown up the actual system of the English Chiirch, under which the unity of the See, as symbolized in the Cathedral, seems almost a feeble and ineffective pageant beside the reality of personal powers possessed by the mighty phalanx of self-sufficing incumbents. Yet these powers are in the actual condition of the world, the guarantees for the constitutional liberties of the general Church, against the B 2 52 OATHEDEALS IN THEIR MISSIONAKY ASPECT. [Essay IV- world at large or any section, clerical or lay, of the Church itself. If the parochial clergy did not enjoy a position of their own, fenced round by rights which the law recognized as based upon the theory of personal ownership, they would sink into being the hired servants of the Bishop or of the congregation. To the HI results of servitude to an Episcopate, the growth in France and elsewhere abroad of Ultramontane tyranny points a warning finger, while for instances of the degradation which servitude to a congregation involves, we must search the annals of dissenting controversy. Under an ideal system of Episcopacy, with many and small Dioceses, the conservative and resisting element of the ecclesiastical polity might be concentrated in the members of the numerous coUege of Bishops, and the ministers of the subsidiary Churches might hold their positions, not indeed by caprice, but as delegates. But since it would be simply chimerical to expect, or even, as things exist, to desire such a revolution in the Church system of England, and since the abandonment of the con- stitutional safeguards which environ the tenure of incum- bencies would at any other price be mischievous, I proceed to see how far the principles which should govern the organization of new Churches on virgin soils may be adapted so as to allow of the extension of the Cathedral and diocesan framework within a Church with such a constitution as that of the Church of England, in aid of those missionary duties which are so much a debt due from an establishment in an old Christian land as they can be from any knot of pioneer preachers on a heathen shore. We have both to consider the missionary development of our existing Cathedrals, and the creation of new Bishoprics upon the Cathedral type in places where the pulse of religious fervour needs to be more strongly throbbing, At present the maladies which disorder and weaken the system are isolation and suspicion; the Bishop, the Dean, Essay IV.] CATHEDRALS m THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. 63 the Eesidentiaries, the non-Residentiaries, the Minor Canons, the Eural Deans, the Incumbents, promoted as they are respectively to their several offices by different processes and for different causes, and to a great degree by different nominators, have never been reminded by the Church's authoritative voice that once they are in office the fullest mutual service is equally due from ev^ry one to all his compeers, and through them to the great diocesan corporation, the ecclesiastical unitas of which the Cathedral is the visible, as the Bishop is the personal centre. I fully and emphatically grant, or to speak more appropriately, assert that the great growth of Church life within the last forty years has gone far to supply the missing links and to create that fuller feeling of mutual interdependence which had but little place in the materialistic conception of an average ecclesiastic of the cold days of George II. But much more is still wanted, and to supply that want the Cathedral agency, as the centripetal one, must be strengthened. I need hardly waste words to say that whatever may be the best project of Cathedral reform, there is one which is certainly the worst and clumsiest expedient — reform by mutilation, the wild attempt to make institutions more effec- tive by cutting down the number of men upon whose per- sonal exertions the efficiency of the whole body must depend. On the other hand I do not attach excessive value to any sweeping alterations in the sources of patronage. Our exist- ing system, as I never tire of urging, possesses the vast advantage of variety. After all, patronage is the end and not the means, and the kind of men which it places in responsible stations ought to be the dominant consideration. The good Canon is good, and the bad one bad, whether he owes his stall to Minister, Chancellor, Bishop, or to some newly- devised process of co-optation. A healthy public opinion is the one thing needful, a public opinion which is sufficiently 54 CATHBDEALS IN THEIE MISSIONARY ASPECT. [Essat IV. well informed to consider Cathedrals, not as the endurable superfluities of a complicated Church system, but as valuable co-ef&cients in its working ; and which is sufficiently coura- geous to declare that their efficiency must be secured by their co-operative power. I would most certainly retain the office of Dean, not as the possible vehicle for the creation of cheap Suffragans, but as the especial domestic head of the Chapter, the clergyman responsible for the services of the Cathedral, the organiser of missionary work within that Cathedral and by its Chapter, and above all as the theological student, the teacher of the flock, with accomplishments, time, and opportunities for those labours of learned study with which a Church as distinct from a conventicle ought to be illustrated, but for which the Bishop with his perpetual work of practical administrative engagements may not possess sufficient leisure. On the other hand, I would develope occasions upon which the Bishop should have the right to convoke, to consult, and to preside over the Chapter. This Chapter over which the Bishop would preside would be not the small cluster of Eesidentiaries, neither would it be a body composed of two sharply divided classes, the Eesidentiary, and the non-Eesi- dentiary. Canons or Prebendaries ; but a council with a more mixed and elastic constitution, as I shall shortly proceed to describe. The business on which it would meet would be to advise the Bishop upon matters of a disciplinary or doctrinal character which had come under his immediate cognizance, and on which he required the counsels of skilled assessors ; and to prepare, in concert with the diocesan, matter to be brought before the diocesan synod or conference, either at his own instance or of that of the Provincial Convocation, and to consider such questions as those synods or conferences might refer back to the Chapter. The future composition of this Greater Chapter is so im- Essay IV.] CATHEDRALS IN THEIB MISSIONARY ASPECT. 55 portant a question for the development of the missionary aspect of our existing Cathedrals that I must be allowed to dilate upon this head, while I claim forgiveness for pointing out the weak point in recent schemes of Cathedral reform, including those recently elicited from various dignitaries by a letter of inquiry emanating from the two Metropolitans of England. These have been printed by the House of Com- mons on the motion of Mr. Kennaway at the close of the Session of 1871, and form the 333rd paper of that session. These various replies manifest considerable ability, the most remarkable being from the hands of Dean Close of Carlisle, Dean Goodwin of Ely, now Bishop of Carlisle, Dean Goul- burn of Norwich, the late Dean Mansel of St. Paul's, and (although it is one with the conclusions of which I am far from agreeing) the late Dean Alford of Canterbury. But throughout their recommendations the different writers re- strict themselves within the conceptions of a Cathedral body as crystallized by the legislation of the present and preceding reigns. The Chapters which they reconstruct appear after the process in the familiar shape of a certain small number of EesidentiarieS; with a considerable weight of Cathedral work resting on their shoulders, and of a larger number of non-Eesidentiaries with a much smaller weight. Every scheme accordingly, well-intentioned as it may be, is an ingenious experiment in packing. The glory of God in a magnificent presentment of worship, alike distinguished by scientific precision and general heartiness, is to be encouraged in the Cathedral. The continuous residence and systematic pastoral work of religious men at the Cathedral city in the persons of the various members of the Chapter is to be encouraged. The leavening of the Diocese by a rotary tsucces- sion of clergymen whose principal work lies in their parishes, but to whom Cathedral residence comes as an elevating influence, is to be encouraged. Provision should be made by 56 CATHEDRALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. [Essay IV. way of stalls for the higher teaching of colleges, theological or practical, and of normal schools. Provision should be made by way of stalls for the studies resulting in books of learned theologians, emancipated from the duty of ordinary parochial or administrative work. Provision should be made by way of stalls for the retirement of gallant veterans, long tried in the battles of the Faith. Provision should be made by way of stalls for the discharge of the diocesan administra- tion, the archidiaconal functions, the inspection of schools, the conduct of charities, and religious societies, the training of choirs, and so forth. Provision should be made by way of stalls for constant and stirring preaching. With all these different wants — each one of them good in itself, but difficult to be harmonized with the others, — to be met within the narrow compass of the existing framework of Chapters, it is not surprising that the various schemes as a whole fail to exhibit a comprehensive character. The Chapter cut down to two members beside the Dean, in order to concentrate residence, is evidently undermanned. The rotary Chapter of four or sis members, is weak on the side of co-operation. The Chapter of learned theologians, or distinguished veterans, does not help the diocesan work, while the Chapter of active officials may be destitute of the erudition, stability, and devotion which such a body ought to foster. How then are we to construct, within the old lines, a Chapter which shall suffice for ends so many and so distinct ? I venture to think by applying to Cathedral development the same common-sense principles of liberal relaxation, which have in about fifty years reconstituted our parochial system. Before the era of the Church Building Acts, which began in the last years of George III., every new Church and parish, or new group of them, required a separate Act of Parliament, and they were of course very few. The simple machinery which has of late years been instituted of an Essay IV.] CATHBDEALS IN THEIR MISSION AEY ASPECT. 57 Order in Council has made them legion. I should in a similar spirit break down the difficulties, or rather im- possibilities which environ the extension of membership in capitular bodies ; and I would no longer look upon a seat in them as the sacred monopoly of Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor, and Bishop. It is not difficult to provide for the extension of the classes of Eesidentiaries and non-Eesi- dentiaries, without any radical alteration in the principles of nomination to the existing stalls. According to the differing circumstances of each Cathedral, the work of the Eesiden- tiaries might variably be devotional, literary, educational, administrative, or predicatory ; while the non-Eesidentiary Prebendaries of the " old " and the recently created Honorary Canons of the "new" foundations would still continue to exist. After this would come in the change which I should much desire to see effected, namely, a facility given for the addition of supernumerary Canons or Prebendaries, appointed by various nominators, for various qualifications, on various conditions of residence, and with various stipends, or in certain cases with no specific stipends, who should complete the imiversitas of the Cathedral body, and supply the functions in which the original Eesidentiaries might be deficient. AH Archdeacons ought at once to be declared ex officio members of the Chapter. Then the further creation of the additional canonries might be legalised by the simple process of a recommendation from the Bishop (who would naturally take counsel with the existing Chapter) confirmed by an Order in Council, which would of course be optional within certain conditions on the part of the Government. These additional canonries would be of two classes, the one perma- nent and attaching to certain offices or fimctions, and the other personal, while they should in no case be limited to any fixed number. The permanent canonries would of course 58 CATHBDEALS IN THEIE MISSIONAEY ASPECT. [Essay IV. be attached to offices, ■which possessed guarantees of perma- nence and of stipend. To take an example from an institu- tion very dear to myself, the wardenship of St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, possesses the qualifications which would well entitle it to an ex officio stall in Canterbury Cathedral. The headship of a theological college in some other Diocese might have been endowed by private munificence, and the college itself constituted either by charter or trust deed, and then that headship would have claims to be raised into a permanent canonry. Again, the theological college might be neither endowed nor constituted, but simply go on working and paying its way by private arrangement. In that case each successive head might be nominated to a personal canonry, which would be changed into an official one when the institution was endowed. The same principles would apply to the masters of the training colleges, the new office of diocesan school inspectors for religious teaching, the secretary of the diocesan charities and societies, and so on. Again, in the Diocese of Canterbury, and perhaps in others, there is a new office existing upon a tenure of mutual good- will, the diocesan precentor, whose work is the inspection and training of parochial choirs. The diocesan precentor might belong to the Chapter. An extra clergyman of musical ■capacities might be required for the extra popular services, and he too might be incorporated into the body. The masters of public or large grammar schools are in many cases men whom it would be desirable to connect with the Cathedral, and so whenever by the constitution of the school the master must be a clergyman, the appointment might or might not be permanent, while in schools where there was no such regulation, it would of necessity be personal in cases of eligible clerical masters. There is yet another class of clergymen who seem to have strong claims for canonries, namely, the iacumbents of the principal churches of con- EssAT IV.] CATHEDRALS IN THEIE MISSIONARY ASPECT. 59 spicuous towns, the rector of Liverpool, for instance, the vicars of Leeds, Brighton, Cheltenham, Nottingham, or Kid- derminster. These clergymen possess a well recognised though not formal pre-eminence. Their Churches in many cases may be looked upon as Cathedrals in embryo, and as in all cases it is desirable that ia their organization and services they should be, so to speak, the pro-Cathedrals of their respective towns, the incumbents, were they to feel themselves members of the Cathedral body, would at once be stimulated to reproduce, as far as in them lay. Cathedral work within the range of their own influence. The Cathedral libraries ought to and might develope into diocesan libraries, and the diocesan librarian might well be attached to the Chapter. The idea has been steadily making itself felt that the Parochial system both in our crowded towns, and in scattered and remote rural districts rec[uires to be supple- mented by some organized machinery of itinerant missionaries. These itinerant missionaries ought clearly to- depend upon, and work from, the Mother Church, and to them I would assign the official or the personal status of supernumerary members of the Cathedral Chapter. Finally the creation and endowment by private munificence of fresh residentiaryships, either with specific functions of an administrative character attached to their holders, or with the general but stringent obligation of clerical duty within the Cathedral, ought to be as easy as the creation of fresh Parochial incumbents has been made by the long series of Church Building Acts from the SVth and 58th of George III. down to that which bears Lord Blandford's name. In the case of the " Old " Founda- tions, where the non-residentiary stalls have distinctive names, and where nominal stipends stUl exist, the new offices might either be grafted upon ancient prebends, or created de novo, according to the circumstances of each case. A direct precedent for such an arrangement as that which I 60 CATHEDRALS IN THBIE MISSIONAEY ASPECT. [Essay IV. have sketched out is to be found in Chichester Cathedral, where two of the Prebendal Stalls (Highley and Wittering by name) have had their endowments respected by the 22nd section of the Cathedral BOl (3rd and 4th Victoria c. 113), on the ground that the holders of them actually perform duties in respect of their offices. The former stall is attached to the Prebendal School of Chichester, so that when the Master gives up the school he vacates the stall ; the second is attached to the divinity lectureship of the Cathedral, and the lecturer always delivers lectures as by the deed of foun- dation. The two Prebendaries are not members of the lesser Chapter. I am conscious of one practical difficulty in the accomplishment of my plan — namely, the rather anomalous position in which the Minor Canons would then stand. But as a reconsideration of the position and privileges of Minor Canons would be a comparatively easy work, their present relation to the Chapter is no real objection to my proposal.* Clergymen .of zeal who are fortunate enough to be masters of private means form another class whom it would be desirable to bring into direct relation with the Cathedrals ; but probably the existing organization of non-Eesidentiaries or Honorary Canons, with a modification which I shall forth- with suggest, would meet their case. Supposing, then, a Chapter constituted, as I have sketched out, of the old Eesidentiaries, and of the non-Eesidentiaries in the Old foundations, and of Honorary Canons in the New, and of the fresh class which for want of a better name I have termed supernumeraries, the first consideration woidd be how to * I had tlie good fortune in the year following the publication of this essay (1873) to obtain the consent of Parliament to an Act embodying my central idea, the permissive foundation by private munificence of additional residentiary Canonries. The measure (36th and 37th Victoria, u. 39) is shortly known as " the Canonries Act, 1873." As yet St. Paul's is the ouly Cathedral which has availed itself of it. Essay IV.] CATHEDEALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. 61 bring this body iato harmonious action. Here, above all things, I would consider the development of the vp^orking powers of the Cathedral, and while retaining the obligation of residence as due from the original smaller Chapter, I would invite and facilitate residence on the part both of the actual non-Eesidentiaries and- Honorary Canons, and of their novel brethren, as the ideal condition of the institution. All members, accordingly, of the Chapter should be allowed and encouraged to put themselves into residence at their wO, — except when otherwise detained by superior duties, such as the charge of their parishes, the work of inspection, and so forth, — to take part in the services, and in due order to fill the Cathedral pulpit. All, too, would be members of the Greater Chapter, to whom the diocesan shoiild look as his assessors and his advisers. Their relations to the ordinary work of the Lesser Chapter is a detail on which I am not required to decide, and is, moreover, one which might vary according to circumstances. It will be remarked that in this scheme I do not necessarily propose the expenditure of a single farthing which has been vested in public hands. To speak my personal opinion, I think that the Cathedral moneys which have been absorbed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have not been and would not be most wisely spent in the almost exclusive subvention of incumbents or curates. But I take things as they are, and I desire to propose a scheme of Cathedral development which may be practical, and not involve any direct departure from the legislation of recent years. At any period of the past century before the fifty-seventh year of George the Third, a large project of Church extension, based upon the probability of private persons contributing for churches and for clergymen money to the amount of many millions in the course of less than two generations, would have been laughed out of hearing as quixotic. Yet we have lived to see this improbability 62 CATHEDRALS IN THEIB MISSIONARY ASPECT. [Essay IV. become not merely an actuality, but one of the most familiar, widely canvassed, and important incidents of the age — an incident of which the sudden disappearance would change the face of the times in which we are living. Then, I say — that if the recognized need of the Church for a stronger parochial machinery resulted in that magnificent effort of private men and women to meet it, so soon as legal impedi- ments were swept away — equally will the deiiciency of more Cathedral clergy, so soon as it is recognized to be a need, and so soon as the impediments of law which now bar the way are wisely relaxed, become an object on which generous Church people will be glad to spend their means. After all, the number of Canons who can be endowed in English Cathedrals, even for aU the special objects which I have enumerated, wUl be so very much fewer than the number of incumbents who have already been created, that the work which I propose would be, in comparison Avith the one already effected, a very easy affair. It would also be peculiarly attractive for special tastes. Let us suppose the very common case of a man well-inclined to bestow his money on some religious object, a London resident, for instance, who feels no especial drawing to any particular spot. His inclination to build or to endow some church may be dissipated from the difficulty of fixing upon any neigh- bourhood which he would rather benefit than any other. On the other hand, he may have sufficient tadividuality not to relish merging the stream of his munificence in the ocean of some general fund. What is he to do ? He may not have, as we have said, any local attachment, but he may have individual tastes. Such as he would be, have been the men who have founded professorships and scholarships in our universities and college^. Such, for instance, was Mr. Slade, who very recently bestowed Professorships of the Fine Arts on Cambridge and Oxford, and on University College in Essay IV.] CATHEDRALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. 63 London. Such, too, is Canon Lightfoot, who has recently established theological prizes on a magnificent scale in the University of Cambridge. The would-be benefactor may have his soul profoundly moved upon the necessity of missions and stirring preaching. Why should he not establish a preaching canonry attached to St. Paul's or Manchester, or to Llandaff or Eipon Cathedral ? He may be anxious to improve the condition of parochial psalmody. Why is he to be debarred from enriching some Chapter with a diocesan precentor ? He may have learned how needful it is to keep up the standard of religious teaching in our village schools. Who shall say him nay if he endows an inspector of religious teaching, and bids him have his home in the Cathedral choir ? The " Chapters Extension Act," as I suppose it would be called, would interfere with no existing patronage and disturb no existing arrangements. It would be easy to frame and simple to work, while the increment of elasticity which it would contribute to the generous institicts of Church people would, I am convinced, be of a strength and quality of which, tUl it has been tried, the public can only have an inadequate idea. It is no answer to say that persons with such individual tastes can already gratify them by trust deeds, and so forth. The difficulty, the expense, the needless complication of such machinery has, by the nature of things, a deterrent influence. The man who can only endow — if he can even do that — a home missionary by creating and perpetuating, at much trouble and an inordinate cost, some new and isolated insti- tution, is likely enough to be disgusted and turned from his project. Let him have the advantage of the simple expedient of being able to attach it to an existing institution such as a Cathedral, and he will go on. But why have I drawn my illustration even so far off as from the foundation of the Slade professorships ? In Edinburgh, at this moment, where 64 CATHEDRALS IN THEIE MISSIONARY ASPECT. [Essay IV. the Episcopal Church works by its own volition, steps are being taken to create from the foundations — building and endowment — a new Cathedral by the single munificence of a not long deceased Churchwoman ; while Mr. Eoe's liberality at Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin, though only directly a structural restoration, will, in the intentions of all who support it, raise an institution which has hitherto been hampered in the discharge of Cathedral duties, into more vigorous reality. With such examples before us of work actually going on, I am most fully justified in asserting that my proposal, whatever else may be its merits, is certainly a practical one, even if we suppose that it were exclusively worked by way of whole endowments. But when the machinery of subscriptions is also brought in, as it necessarily would be, the facility as well as the popularity of the opera- tion would be multiplied manifold. I need not expatiate at much greater length upon the future of our old Cathedrals, with their working power strengthened and their staff recruited by the means which I have indicated. How many, how glorious, and how varied might not be the services heard withia their walls ! How heart-stirring the sermons not merely preached beneath the minster's vaults, but in all the dark corners of the Diocese by Canon missionaries issuing from its portals ! What a wealth of concentrated administrative capacity and ripened learning might not gather at the table in the Chapter House ! The relations of the Cathedral so revived to other diocesan organizations is a subject on which I could say much, but it hardly lies within the immediate scope of this Essay. I have purposely abstained from offering any suggestion on the con- nection which ought to exist between the Chapters and the Eural Deans. Much may be said in favour of making it close, and much in favour of a marked distinction of offices, and I am not willing to clog my argument with debatable Essay IV.] CATHBDBALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. 65 matter. The diocesan Synod of the clergy ought to and will be held within the Cathedral with all the solemnity which the site and the occasion demand. I should also propose to bring those mised conferences of clergy and laity — which are growing into shape all over the country — as much in direct connection with the Cathedral as possible. The risk of a brisk debate seems to me a less evil than the elevating and harmonizing efforts of the genius loci, were such gatherings convened within or close by the minster, would be an undoubted good. Confirmations, ordinations, choir festivals, harvest thanksgiving and deprecatory services would all come off in the Cathedral with more of unrestraint on both sides, less appearance of patronage on the part of the Chapters, and less shyness on that of the congregations, than can be possible with the best mutual intentions under the actual close constitution. Large voluntary choirs, which are now most happily on every year a more frequent exception, might become a standing element in the system of every Cathedral. Thus in very deed, without any disturbance of their existing organization, might our old Cathedrals become the centres of that home missionary work towards which, whether they help, or whether they hold back, the Church is gathering up her strength. But I should have very imperfectly fulfilled my task were I not to say something upon the possibility and desirability of enlarging the Episcopate of England upon the Cathedral and truly missionary idea. I use these expressions advisedly, for while I am as anxious as any one to aid in relieving our actual staff of Bishops from those physical labours which coadjutors or Suffragans can share with them, I have but limited sympathy with the persons who can contemplate, with imruffled satisfaction, the importation into England of diocesans moulded on the original pattern of colonial and American Bishops, without Cathedrals or Chapters, without a 66- CATHEDEALS IN THEIR MISSION AEY ASPECT, [EsSay IV. local habitation, itinerant supervisors of the ch-urchmanship of their respective circumscriptions. My sjrmpathy is still more limited for those who would sit down and be contented with the public recognition of a numerous staff of coadjutors. The Episcopate of I^gland is undoubtedly too few in number for the work ; but this evil must be cured by an increase in the number of Sees, of Cathedrals, of co-operating Chapters, and not alone of prelates. For this object, as I have never lost the opportunity of urging, diocesan organization ought to be the first step previous to, or the concurrent step with, the appoiatment of the Bishop. Let the new Diocese be formed, then the pastoral superintendence could easily be left to the Bishop who had previously governed the undivided one, until opportunities presented themselves to crown the edifice with a separate head. Ireland has, since 1834, afforded many instances of independent dioceses under the same head, while recent changes in England have given us the precedent of a Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol administering two Dioceses, two Cathedrals, two Chapters. If there is no anomaly in this spectacle, neither would there be one in a Bishop of Rochester and St. Albans, of Chester and Liver- pool, of Salisbury and Sherborne, of Exeter and Truro, of Worcester and Coventry, of Eipon and Leeds, while the Archbishop of York Bishop of Beverley would not be a more abnormal personage than the Archbishop of Armagh Bishop of Clogher, and the Archbishop of Dublin Bishop of Kildare. In the constitution of the new Dioceses, I should look, as in the enlargement of the old Chapters, to the action of un- fettered private liberality; but in so great an undertaking, something might also be expected from the Commission which holds in pledge so much ecclesiastical property', and from the ecclesiastical and ministerial dispensers of public patronage who could, if they pleased, by allocation or exchange, and without detriment to the parochial service, Essay IV.] . OATHEDEALS IN THElB MISSIOJJAEY ASPECT. 67 contribute powerful help to the undertaking. I mean, for instance, that where the patronage of a church suitable to become a Cathedral was vested in Bishop, Chapter, Prime Minister or Chancellor, there could be no reason why the nominee should not be raised to the status of Dean or Canon ; or why, whenever the nomination was in private hands, the authorities should not strive to obtain it by means of an exchange. In the Southern province there is no doubt that the. number and boundaries of the Dioceses ought at least to be in general correspondence with the counties. In the Pro- vince of York I should be inclined to go even farther, and ultimately to hope for a number of Sees in Lancashire and Yorkshire bearing a very different relation to their population than the present allocation of the two counties to the un- divided superintendence of three Bishops, and the partial one of a fourth. ■ In such Dioceses, the Cathedral where a church fitted for the dignity already exists must be declared ; and where there is none, the building of one ought to be an early necessity ; but in the meanwhile some church ought to be assigned to fill the place. In places such as Liverpool, proud of the dignity and influence which its size and wealth have won in the commonwealth, I believe that the buHding of a Cathedral would be popular even upon secular grounds, just as that of a magnificent Town Hall, Exchange, or Assize Court has proved to be in our larger towns. When I ventured, at the meeting of the Church Congress in Liverpool, a little more than two years ago, to press, in rather strong language, the propriety of such a town possessing a Cathedral or central church worthy of its importance, I was met by the immediate and warm applause of a full room, and by the later and more deliberate approbation of local opinion. In any case the constitution of a Chapter must not be delayed, even if for the present it be composed of unpaid members. No difficulties F 2 68 CATHEDRALS IN THEIR MISSIONARY ASPECT. [Essay IV. arising out of antecedent legislation would there occur, while the difficulties of endowment would exist iu full force. But I shall have written in vain if I have not won the assent of my readers to the conviction that such difficulties ought not to be insurmountable. Private munificence wiU. not, I trust, be found deceitful, but, as elsewhere good people willingly undertake unpaid church work from a high sense of duty, so, in this instance, I do not suppose that the dignity of Canon would prove a deterrent. On the contrary, this increment of rank, and the natural excitement of bearing a leading part in a new experiment, would naturally help in enlisting the recruits who might, at the outset, be pressed into the service.* I am certain that the feeling of religious unity and dis- tinctiveness which the Church population of any county, or of any division of a county, appertaining to such a town as Liverpool, Preston, or Leeds, would feel in being portioned off as a recognized Diocese, would very effectively stimulate the liberality of persons already much inclined to give, and only needing a little instigation to give more liberally. Here I close. My object has been to establish that Cathe- drals are in theory the best, and ought to be made in practice, the most common of missionary organizations. I have, in support of my plea, given reasons for the conviction which is strong upon my own mind, that, as the diocesan system is the divine constitution of the Christian Church, so that diocesan system, in order to be complete and satisfactory, must be oast in a Cathedral mould. I have endeavoured to show how this priaciple would work in missions to the heathen, in Dioceses among newly-settled popiilations, in the old Dioceses at home, and in those new Dioceses which are long gverdue to the spiritual wants of England. * In proof of the truth of this anticipation I need only now point to Truro. [1882.] PHASES OF WOKSHIP. I.— BBLIGION AND AECHITEOTDBE. II.— CHUECHES AND CONGREGATIONS. III.— THE IDEAL OP LITURGICAL WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND. PHASES OF WORSHIP, RELIGION AND AECHITECTUEE. (Newcastle Chuech Congress, 1881.) Eeciprocal influence of religion and arcLiteoture — Civilized man above all things a building creature — With progressive civilization beautiful build- ings ensue — Then most emphatically the Givitas Dei must build — The true Spouse all glorious within — Every conspicuous steeple a perpetual Litany — Exceeding wisdom of the Church in its transformation of the Basilica to sacred purposes — Apocalyptic types — Later on the ship be- ■ came also the cross — The material is the type of the spiritual Church — The clergy and congregation partners in one common work — Practical application to Newcastle Church so soon to become a Cathedral. The question that is proposed to us is the mode in which religious thought and life are influenced by architecture. It would be an equally valuable and equally interesting inquiry to investigate the mode in which architecture may be influ- enced by religious life and thought. Let us combine the two investigations together in one great inquiry into the theory of architecture as an offshoot and exponent of religious life and thought. The propensity and passion for, aye, the necessity for, building, is one of the most salient marks of civilization. Civilized man is above all things a building creature. Civilization means emphatically building for decency, for comfort, for convenience, and for beauty. Egypt and Nineveh are my witness ; Greece and Rome, niediaeval. 72 RELIGION AND ARCHITECTURE. [Essay I. and modern Europe, all testify to the fact that wherever pro- gressive civilization has freshened the nations there we have- beautiful buildings. Every noble nation and every patriotic commonwealth by the very rule of its existence must build. Then I declare emphatically that the most elect of nations, the most august and most universal of commonwealths, the Christian Church, must above all other build, nobly, reve- rently, lavishly, piously. It must build, or it will not be the Christian Church — Civitas Dei, the civilizer and consoler of souls. The little fragments broken off, infinitesimal chips of religiosity — may despise beauty and scoff at order; but the King's Daughter, the true Spouse, has been from the first, and shall be to the end, all glorious within, in her clothing of wrought gold. Every spire, climbing up to heaven, like those of Grantham and Newark, and your own beautiful needle here at Newcastle, every church tower massive and four-square, watching over the miseries, the crimes, and weaknesses of human existence, like the triple group at Durham — every one is a perpetual Litany rising with the incense of perpetual prayer to the throne of grace. I pass over the teachings of the elder Church. I say nothing of that most lovely temporary cathedral reared by Moses in the wilderness. I say nothing of that metropolitical Temple planted by Solomon on Mount Moriah, like Durham domi- neering from its rock. I go to the Christian Church, and I call upon you to admire and to wonder at the exceeding \visdom with which, in the emergency of its first emancipa- tion, having to provide for a settled and a prosperous exist- ence, it took hold of the heathen tribunal, and out of that heathen tribunal, by a few changes, a few master-strokes of genius, converted it into the congruous temple of the Most High. The semi-circular apse at the end, once the praetor's seat, now held the Bishop's chair, his attendant presbyters ranged right and left. Over their heads in the curved vault. Essay I.] EELIGION AND AECHITECTUEE. 73 wrought in imperishable mosaic, the colossal figure of Christ prefigured the Apocalyptic vision — " The throne, which was set in heaven," and Him Who sat upon that throne, arid " round the throne " the " four and twenty seats ;" while upon the polished pavement beneath, recalling " the sea of glass like unto crystal," was the earthly presentment of "the golden altar which was before the throne." Lower down in their enclosure were congregated the white-robed singers, from whom, like the " voice of many angels round about the throne," uprose the ever-recurring psalmody. Still further from the throne were thronged the great body of worshippers, representatives of "every creature which is in the heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and such as are in the sea," all ascribing, as in the great Eucharistic rite, " blessing and honour and glory and power unto Him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." Last of all, hovering round the door, stood the mournful group of penitents. Such was the material church of earlier days. As time went on more beautiful creations of architectural art deve- loped themselves. The oblong pile, recalling in its form the ship — the ship that carried Christ — expanded right and left, and still continuing to be the ship became also the cross. Then, too, the Bishop left his central seat for a more modest one at the side of the choir. In capital and in string course, and on wall space, everywhere, the living stone blossomed into forms of exquisite symbolical beauty. The wood-carver vied with the worker in metal, and every window glowed with rainbow brilliancy. I am, you see, calling upon you to make your ideal church peculiarly magnificent and spacious, for in all things it is well to hold up the highest model. The material church is the type of the spiritual Church. The congregation, too, of the church is not a "fortuitous collection of atoms." It is a Christian people 74 RELIGION AND ARCHITECTUEE. [Essay I. duly assembled. In God's service everyone, from the clergy- man to the smallest school-child scrambling up to the seat with its poor little legs hanging down — from the clergyman to the youngest child of the congregation — all are partners together in one common work, swelling the great chord of praise, carrying out our Lord's teaching that when two or three are gathered together — and if two or three, then still more when two or three thousand are gathered together — their prayers, if uttered with a devout heart and in a believ- ing spirit, will surely be heard at the throne which is set in heaven. I will not pass from my subject without a word of practical application. I am at this time standing in the ancient and famous borough of Newcastle, and I trust I shall be one of the last strangers to stand in that borough, and that those who come after me will be the guests of and the visitors to the city of Newcastle. You have heard this day how very near at hand is the accomplishment of the prayers and hopes of the good people of this place and of the Church of England and of your noble-hearted Bishop. But when you have endowed the bishopric will you have completed your work ? No ; your next duty will be to give to the Bishop of Newcastle competent helpers, faithful counsellors, and wise executants in his cathedral chapter, and even when you have done this you cannot sit down and stroke your chins in a fit of complacent idleness. It is true that in the parish church of St. Nicholas you have a stately and noble bmlding, of dimensions which entitle it, as the Statute has enacted, to be accepted as your cathedral. You have with much muni- ficence and taste restored it, so as to make it in its arrange- ments a worthy parish church. But it wants several things to fit it for its higher destination and to entitle it to take rank as a worthy cathedral. A reredos, delicate and aspiring as that of Durham, will be required ; the throne of the Bishop must not be forgotten ; the choir screen and parcloses must Essay I.] RELIGION AND AEOHITECTURE. 75 be provided ; a stately pulpit must be forthcoming. Above all, you must observe how wide are the spaces of plain wall inside, now happily relieved from the pollution of whitewash. These plain wall spaces are given to you to become the field for examples of the highest religious art. I do not recom- mend you to cover them with frescoes, for frescoes will soon perish under the air of Newcastle, so charged with chemical elements. But they offer themselves for that most enduring, most effective process of religious art, the glass mosaic, with its brilliant, well-contrasted colours standing out from the golden background ; mosaics such as you find in the churches of Ravenna of Rome, and of the Eternal Wisdom at Con- stantinople. If all which I suggest be done, the church of St. Nicholas, in spite of its size so moderate for its new des- tination, may become a beautiful, glorious, and remarkable cathedral, and one of which the citizens of Newcastle may well be proud. ( 76 ) II. CHUECHES AND CONGREGATIONS. (Beiohton Church Conghess, 1874.) The general resemblance of modern to ancient Churches must not be pushed too far — There is a broad difference in the complexity of plan of the ancient and the simplicity of plan of the modern Churches — Ideal town Church, its congregational character — The architect who knows his busi- ness, and is a true artist, will take care to forecast his plan and to con- centrate effect on a conspicuous and dignified altar — The nave must be broad — It may have narrow aisles, or it may be planned like the Temple Church, with one-storied spaces divided by light shafts — No objec- tion occasionally to circular or polygonal naves — There must be an open space before the chancel — The chancel proper must not be raised much above the nave, but be parted from it by a high and open screen — There should be sufficient rows of stalls to hold a large volunteer choir — The slight elevation of the chancel floor will enable these to be well raised above each other — On the other hand, the sanctuary and altar must rise on a stately elevation above the chancel— Outside the chancel and on the open space will stand the pulpit and lettern, and there may be Litany desk of richer material and design and larger size than has been common — The adornment of this feature a compensation for art opportunities of which the Church of England cannot avail itself — A Congregational triforium. A CHURCH is a building in which to do work, and the work to be done there is to carry out the distinctive worship of the body to which it belongs. Hence, the church of every communion, if true to its nature, must vary as the worship of that communion varies. This may seem a truism, but it is worth recollecting in a day when ecclesiastical, like all other art, has to steer its course between the rocks of unreal Essay II.] CHURCHES AND CONGREGATIONS. 77 antiquarianism and an unfettered originality which unkind critics might even call eccentricity. We have in England inherited a priceless treasure of old religious buildings from our Church in its unreformed condition, and as happily the English Eeformation involved no breach of continuity — as it purified but did not reconstruct — these churches in the main have served right well for our present use. Still there are those differences between the older and the newer Church of England which ought to make a church provided for this generation something different from one which had been built for the Middle Ages. In the short time at my disposal I shaU endeavour not so much to work these differences out, as (having them in view) to offer some hints towards the ideal large town-church of our present age. The large Mediaeval church, if true to its own nature, and therefore artistic and successful, was a complex structure, for the ritual, for the uses of which it had to serve, was itseK com- plex. There were services for the clergy at which the laity were never expected to attend ; there were high masses, and sung masses, and low masses, and there were many occasional rites requiring room and special provisions. The aim of the English Eeformation was to reduce those services into an order at once simple and congregational, and the modern English church ought therefore to be simple in its plan, and congregational in its working arrangements. When I say congregational, I emphatically do not mean that it is to be all congregation and very little minister — one vast auditorium and a single stand for a single minister, like Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle. I mean just the reverse. I want to absorb as many of the people as I can into a share of the more active work of worship. I want my large choir, and my many volunteer choristers not only at mattins and evensong, but at the Ter Sanctus and the Gloria in Excelsis. Attendance at one is no excuse for the neglect of the other. Choral com- 78 CHURCHES AND CONGEEGATIONS. [Essay II. iminionsi even in Cathedrals, used to be unknown, for I do not call that a choral .communion when the singing men walk out after the Mcene Creed. Now happily the principle is recognized that the highest art should accompany the highest worship ; but from one extreme let us not run into another. In making our mattins and evensongs congrega- tional, the Church of England has conducted her children into a world of orthodox and scriptural worship such as the laity of no other Church possess. In our zeal for the sacra- ments, let us not lose this treasure ; gabbled daily offices are a disgrace to priest and people ; and a relaxation of the order, already so liberal in its indulgences, for daily morning and evening prayer, would be a calamity for the whole Church. Therefore with a great town congregation I must have all done in a building broad and high as well as long, solid, and dignified in every part. The architect who tries to buQd up his whole with fragments, who weds himself to some special ancient model, or who has collected together what he thinks a dainty assortment of choice bits, and then endeavours to weave them together, may turn out a museum, but he will never create a temple. I tell the man who wants to build a church which shall at once be useful and beautiful, to forecast that church in his mind's eye, to forecast it at work — full of worshippers joining in the Te Deum, of worshippers upon their knees at the Holy Communion — of worshippers listening to the evening sermon. Thus let him see how his notions of art, his favourite proportions, fit into those practical wants ; let him guess, as he only can by such ,a glance, how every one can hear, and every one can see. Let him notice where his light falls and where it is darkness, and in particular, let him make sure that the altar and its adjuncts stand well forward, and, are not lost in the obscurity of some unlucky shadow. His mind's eye, as well as his natural eye, must.be to him a flexible instrument. He must Essay II.] CHUECHES AND CONGEEGATIONS. 79 be able to create each situation of worship, to look at it from every point, and to work it out in its sequence, before he binds himself to the irrevocable construction. The church intended to supply the claims of the English use must be broad in proportion to the number for which it is intended ; for if the nave be narrow, it must also be by so much too long that many will be thrust out of ear-shot and eye-shot of psalm or altar service. There is no reason, Jbeyond the prejudice which such a novelty might excite, why at times one should not construct a circular or a polygonal nave. The nave of the Temple Church is precedent enough, and the glorious decagon of St. Gereon, Cologne, would hold a goodly multitude. There are no more congregational naves anywhere than the octagon of Ely and the dome of St. Paul's. Breadth in an oblong church may be reached in more than one way. The simplest is a very wide area and no aisles. I quite accept this plan in its own place. But no one, I hope, would desire to see aisles altogether disused. Where we have them they may either be made proportionately jiarrow, and rather serve as passages to the wide central area, than as substantial worship space ; or else the broad nave may be constructed of one storey, and divided into a centre and aisles by very thin pillars, from which vaulting might spring as in the choir of the Temple Church ; or again (as in the fourteenth-century church of the Austin Eriars in London, now belonging to the Dutch), these pillars would bear arches, and the space be covered by parallel cradle roofs; for with either roofing arrangement the obstruction might be so slight that the whole nave would be, for sight and sound, as a single apartment I have no time to discuss the question of chairs or benches — both are good in their respective ways. Nor can I do more than indicate that in such a church the Bap- tistery should be somewhat emphasised, and that people 80 CHUECHES AND CONGEEGATIONS. [Essay U. should not be content with planting down the font in a corner. Generally speaking, the choir, or chancel proper, ought not to be much elevated above the nave. Practically, the raising of it will be found inconvenient for those hearty congregational services to which I am looking. Artistically, a steep bank of steps at the chancel-arch can seldom be successfully managed, and a more graduated rise wiU lose space, and thrust the choir too far back. Theoretically, while clerks and chancel should be distinguished from con- gregation and nave, it is a mistake in principle to make that distinction too pronounced, especially when the stalls will be so largely filled by persons not in orders. For all sound reasons, however, of practice, art, and principle, the great rise ought to be between the chancel and the sanctuary, leading up to thej altar. Practically this is right, for this elevation compensates for the necessary distance, and places the altar as it ought to be, in full sight of the whole church. Artisti- cally it is right, from the increment of dignity thus bestowed upon the most sacred and important constituent of the buildiag and the worship ; and on principle it is right, for it symbolises how far the Holy Communion transcends all other acts of worship. If, however, the chancel ought to be but very little raised above the nave, still it ought to be clearly distinguished from it, and this distinction the Church of England offers in her ceremonial orders, and carries out in her practice. The grandest congregational worship at which I ever remember to have assisted was at the bissex-centenary of St. Ethel- reda in Ely Cathedral, in 1873, with the vast and well-filled choir and its octagon and nave absolutely teeming with worshippers. Nave and choir there are on an absolute level, but they are parted by a lofty arch and a sufficiently open choir screen. I plead for this choir or chancel screen wherever Essay II.] CHURCHES AND CONGREGATIONS. 81 possible. It is ancient, and it also is distinctly and emphati- cally Anglican. Hooker upholds it, and Cosin explains the words of the Prayer Book, " and the chancels shall remain as they have done in times past," as by being " distinguished from the body of the church by a frame of open work, and furnished with a row of chairs or stools on either side." In our own day, too, it has stood a lawsuit, and been sig- nally vindicated. The low screen frequently introduced by our architects into our churches testifies to the principle of order which the screen embodies, but it is neither so effective nor so consonant with usage. The complaint that a screen is obstructive to sight or sound can only come of one of two causes — the complainant's sense of proportion being deficient, or his having been troubled by some screen designed by a man who labours under the same deficiency. If the upper or traceried portion of the screen is brought so low that it blocks the altar from any portion of the congrega- tion, then the work becomes an offence. But this can only arise from blundering. The higher the screen is, the more open it must be practically, for its obstructive elements will be raised above the line of sight. Breadth is as essential for the chancel as for the nave, for the long, low, narrow chancel of the Middle Ages is anti- pathetic to that most real and most noble congregational service, "Dum lecti juvenes, Argivse robora pubis,'' throwing off false shame and vesting themselves in the surplice of the customary choirman, compel their fellow- townsmen to hearty psalmody. I must here suggest a con- structural innovation. In our old parochial chancels the side stalls were usually only one deep, and at most composed of two tiers. For the services, such as I wish to see them in towns like this, that allowance will not be enough ; there must be provision for three or even four tiers of stalls. Why not ? G 82 CHXJRCHES AND CONGREGATIONS. [Essay II. The church, if broad, must also be high. The chancel, as I have contended, must be very little lifted up, so the highest stall will not be so very high ; nor, as the sanctuary must be conspicuously raised, need this highest stall overtop the altar. "With stalls such as these the architect and the carver may revel in bench ends and canopies ; without them the church will be overweighted in its race with the concert-hall. If the stalls are thus arranged in so many tiers on either side, an additional reason is provided why the chancel should be broad, for otherwise they would so much encroach upon its area as to leave but a narrow gangway in the middle. Nothing more inconvenient or irreverent can well be con- ceived than a gangway which gets choked up during a crowded communion. Nor is this the only provision which ought to be made for thronging communicants. There should, if possible, always be means for the descending line of those who have communicated to retire without getting mixed with the advancing line. Where there are no chancel aisles, passages behind the stalls might be built for the purpose. Again I repeat, raise well your sanctuary. This is a point on which all Church parties ought to be agreed. Those who attach most honour to the Holy Sacrament should most desire to see the place of its celebration dignified. Those who are most averse to what they think undue mystery should be most urgent that the Lord's Table be visible to the entire congregation. This visibility will, of course, be a principal consideration with the architect in calculating the height of the open portion of the screen. This county of Sussex possesses a signal example of a sanctuary well thrown up in the chapel of St. John's College, Hurstpierpoint. I have no time to offer specific suggestions for the treatment of thei altar and its fittings, only I may observe that in a large and popular church the ordinary number of three sedilia is far i J Essay 11.] CHURCHES AND CONGREGATIONS; 83 too few. In All Saints', Margaret-street, this fitting appears in the shape of a stone bench on either side of the sanctuary. If you are called upon to elect between an apse and a square east end, be simply guided by the circumstances of each case, for any attempt to strike an abstract balance must be futile. Generally, however, I will say the architect who does not realize that the altar is the crown of the church, and who does not believe that — as the holy mysteries celebrated there exceed all other acts of worship, so the altar should exceed all other parts of the church, so the richest resources of art should congregate there, the line of sight from every part of the church converge there — that man has mistaken his craft, and never will succeed in building up a worthy House of God. Among the practical developments which our own times have seen made in our ordinary system of worship, not the least praiseworthy has been the elasticity which has been given to the use of the Litany. For generations this service had scarcely done more than lengthen the morning devotions by a few minutes. Gradually the separate use of it, first with the direct leave of the Ordinary, and then by a general resolution of the Bishops without it, had grown up, and now by the recent Act of Uniformity Amendment Act the per- mission is made universal, and is being well acted up to. Once a few minutes' episode, or, perhaps, on rare occasions, and in churches which kept up a shadow of week-day worship, a hurried fragment of devotion, it has — with its hymn before it and its hymn after it, and its careful render- ing by skilled voices, and perhaps the occasional lecture by which it is followed — attained the proportions, as it excites the interest, of a substantial service. We might wisely recognize the change of order by an analogous modification in our churches. In cathedrals the Litany desk has of old G 2 84 CHURCHES AND CONGBEGATIONS. [Essay II. been treated as a fixture of good and stately proportions, but there it usually stands within the choir. In parish churches it is most frequently no more than a moveable appendage, which disappears whenever the Litany is not appointed. It might be differently treated in a large church where the building does not gasp for accommodation. The easternmost bay of the nave, or the central crossing where there are transepts, should be left open and unoccupied by sittings. This area would correspond with the soleas of an Eastern church. Then the Litany desk might be permanently placed in this space. The Litany which two or three clerks sing is far grander than when it falls to one voice only. Let the desk then be made so as to have sufficient room for two or three clerks. It is usually of wood — wood artistically treated is an excellent material, but marble is still more noble. There is no reason whatever why the Litany desk should not be a permanent ornament of the church, spacious and rich ; if of wood, then of wood richly carved, but if of marble then adorned it may be with sculpture, or inlaid of various colours, or bright with the golden sheen of mosaic work. The English rite cannot evoke those aids from art for which the multiplied altars of a foreign church find scope. It ought to discover its own appropriate forms, and among them the large permanent and ornate Litany desk might be made con- spicuous. This would be no merely aesthetic advantage, for if the Litany has moving powers to attune the soul to peni- tence and trust in God, then the more solemn its recitation is made, the more will its usefulness be advanced. The Litany desk is not the only ornament of the church which might conveniently stand in this area. Where the church is small, the lettern may well be placed in the chancel, but where it is intended for a large congregation, and the choir requires ample stall-room, then the lessons had best be said at the extreme portion of the nave. The Litany Essay II.] CHURCHES AND CONGEEGATIONS. 85 desk being in the middle, and the pulpit standing on one side; the lettern would naturally stand on the other, care being taken that sufficient space is reserved between to pre- vent crowding. Particularly the Litany desk must not be placed so near the screen gates as to present an obstacle to entering or retiring processions. I have one more development to throw out. Where ground is scarce and dear, and churchgoers ought to abound ; when, in short, the cry uprises for galleries, why does the architect never give us the galleries of old times ? Our galleries are hideous scaffoldings or clumsy parapetted land- ing-places. The men who reared our cathedrals devised that mid-height gallery, corresponding with the architecture of the church itself, called the triforium. If you construct tri- foriums merely to show your cleverness, when you might have put all your people on one level, you waste money on a fancy ; but where a gallery is really needed, in which you may dispose your people in decent order, I never yet have understood, and never shall, until I am convinced by the failure of the experiment, why the nave of the new church should not be invested with the beauty and the proportions of an ancient minster by the addition of a practical congre- gational triforium. The experiment has been tried in a new Eoman Catholic Church at Amsterdam by that most able architect Cuypers, and the effect is telling. Where you have a triforium your altar must be well raised, and your screen just so high that those below may be under, and those aloft above its tracery. Since writing this I have been informed that a triforium has also been adopted in the Memorial Church at Cawnpore. I lay no claims to musical knowledge, and I have therefore on purpose abstained from speculating on the best place for the organ. But I must very earnestly plead that it should form a subject of the architect's mature study, and not be left 86 CHURCHES AND CONGEEGATIONS. [Essay II. to the last, or handed over to the organ-builder to settle. With a large choir and a lofty chancel it might, I should think, with advantage both to sound and to appearance of the church, project out over the stalls on one or both sides. Time warns me to conclude. I shall only add, that if our architects will in each case work for its circumstances ; if they will throw themselves upon the resources of that common sense which they so abundantly possess, as well as their artistic perception of beauty; if they wUl realize exactly the uses for which they are building their churches, and then only think out the material forms in which those well understood uses may be embodied, and having settled the general outline, afterwards clothe it upon with graceful proportions and details of beauty, they may become the authors of buildings which will be an honour to those who produced them, and a delight to those who come after. ( 87 ) III. THE IDEAL OE LITURGICAL WOESHIP IN THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND. (Derby Chukch Conoeess, 1882.) Worship has unhappily been a contentious question in the Church of England — Object of the paper to lift it from this condition and present it so that it may be taken or rejected as a whole — What worship is — Perpetual worship in heaven and in the middle world — Impossible for Church on earth to be silent — Primitive Church, to which Church of England appeals, had three sources of idea of worship : the institution of the Eucharist, the Judaic worship, and the Apocalyptic vision— The double worship of prayer and praise and of the Eucharist and the triple arrangement of building- — Impossible to dwell on identity of English and ancient ofiSces — This inquiry confined to Liturgical worship in its literal sense of Eucharistic worship — Simple and statuesque character of English ritual — -Value and antiquity of its elements — Baselessness of idea that starving ritual was any safeguard against Eoman corruptions of the primitive faith, for our love and awe for the Eucharist is equal to that of men who are involved in the metaphysical meshes of Transubstantiation, and we should show by presenting our worship in glorious array — Celebrant, Gospeller, and Epistoler — Service should be musical — The throne in heaven and He who sat upon it the counterpart of the Altar and our Lord's invisible presence — Arrangements in Lambeth Chapel — Liddell v. Westerton Judgment — Credence Table — Eastward position of the Celebrant — Archbishop Longley on " exasperation " of the clergy if it were for- bidden — There can now be but one opinion in Church of England on principle of distinctive Eucharistic dress since it has been declared imperative in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches. In this age of earnestness, disturbed by unrest, the Ideal of Liturgical "Worship in the Church of England has been, in its various particulars, provocative of protracted debate 88 THE IDEAL OF LITURGICAL WOESHIP. [Essay III. in synod and conference, at meetings and in newspapers; and I grieve to say in the law courts. It will be my present object to lift the question out of details, and to present it to you in a shape which you may accept or reject as a whole. I do not ask you to figure to yourselves a ministering clergy on one side, and on the other a praying congrega- tion, but the whole Church corporate performing together that common action of worship which is continuous in its ceaseless recurrence, and which is as essential for the life of the body spiritual as breathing is for the life of the body natural. Worship is prayer, worship is praise, worship is communion, worship is the golden chain which lifts us to God; and, therefore, while one in its scope and inward essence, is manifold in its external manifestations. All creation, visible and invisible, is one vast temple of eternal worship. In heaven, the elders are ever casting down their golden crowns in lowliest adoration ; while angels, and arch- angels, and all the company of heaven evermore praise God, and say, " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts." In the middle world, the souls of the martyrs under the altar send up the longing prayer, " Lord, how long ? " and white robes are given to them that they may with the more seemliness perform their constant task of watchful worship, while that numberless multitude, the spirits and souls of. the righteous, bless the Lord, praise Him, and magnify Him for ever. Then shall the Catholic Church on earth alone maintain a sullen silence ? This never has been, never will be, short of a general falling away. The Primitive Church to which, of course, we of the English Church — as upon the Elizabethan settlement. Con- vocation with no doubtful voice proclaimed — submit, as the most authentic interpreter of Holy Scripture, had three main sources from which it derived its ideal of Liturgical worship. First was the crowning action of our dear Lord's Essay III.] THE IDEAL OF LITUEGIOAL WOESHIP. 89 ministerial life when He instituted the life-giving sacrament of His blessed Body and Blood to be done, till He came, in remembrance of Him, with its ritual of sacred words, of the fraction of bread, and of the cup. Next, the worship of the elder Church which He came not to destroy but to fulfil with its foreshadowing of sacraments in the various sacrifices, and that worship of psalmody which the Christian Church has taken up and evermore continued; and thirdly, that glimpse of the Liturgical or Eucharistic worship, beyond the grave and in the heavens revealed from Patmos. These three agree, and mutually illustrate each other, and they vindicate the worship of the Church of England, which, .blessed be God, reverently follows these prescriptions. I might here, with profit and pleasure, dwell upon the double character of worship in the Christian Church from the beginning, represented in the triple distribution of the building. The higher one is Sacramental, or in the true grammatical sense of the term. Liturgical, the inferior one but most venerable in itself, and bearing health and comfort on its wings is that of prayer, and praise, and Scripture reading, directly descending from the Temple service. I might dwell on the conditions, literary, musical, a.nd archi- tectural, of this common prayer; but I have only time for my literal task — so let us pass on from the stalls to the sanctuary, from the Psalter to the Eucharist, and there, in reverence, consider what is the Church of England's belief as to the ideal Celebration of the Holy Communion. Neither have I time to dwell on this service, and show its substan- tive identity with the venerable Liturgies still existing both of East and West. The central point in all, of course, is the Canon or Prayer of Consecration, embodying the Words of Institution, and involving the Invocation of the Holy Spirit. The Epistle and Gospel are of universal usage, the recitation of the Nicene Creed goes back to the days of its composition. 90 THE IDEAL OF LITUKGICAL WOBSHIP. [Essay III. The Ter Sanctus is rooted in Scripture and comes from heaven. The Gloria in Excelsis is of venerable antiquity. It is a strange superstition — and one quite destitute of warrant from the Church — which has led so many good, simple-hearted Christians, to fancy that they have set up bulwarks against the fancy of Transubstantiation or Saint- worship, or of any other Eoman corruption of the primitive faith, by stripping and degrading the ceremonies of the Holy Communion. Have we not as much awe and gratitude for the Sacrament of the Lord's precious Body and Blood, as the man who is entangled in the metaphysical meshes of Tran- substantiation ? Then proclaim your faith and love to the world by setting forth that Sacrament in glorious array. As for Saint-worship and other innovations, they have left their mark in the numberless petty observances which intrude at so many points of the Missal, breaking the even flow and marring the dignity of the Sacramental rites. In contrast, the Eucharistic ofEice of the Church of England is simple and connected in its composition, grave and statuesque in its aspect ; and while it keeps these characteristics, it claims the liberty, if means suffice, and the opportunities are there, to stand before us in clothing of wrought gold, with music as of St. Cecilia hymning the Giver of all good things. We know that " a throne was set in heaven, and One sat on the throne ; and He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone ; and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." This is the centre of Liturgical worship in heaven, and on earth the centre of Liturgical worship is its counterpart. Of course, on earth, our Lord sits not visibly upon His throne. His invisible presence is in the Eucharist. His throne we have got in that most essential of all the features of every Church, that which indifferently, and with perfect identity of meaning we call the Altar, the Lord's Table, and the Essay IU.] THE IDEAL OF LITURGICAL WORSHIP. 91 Holy Table. What then should be the aspect of this Holy Table, and how should the beauty expended on it embody GUI reverent estimation of its dignity ? Eather than provoke controversy by attempting any list of the features which I should claim as incontestibly be- longing to the Altar in the mind of the Church of England, let me, by way of illustration describe one to you, at which, on an official occasion I communicated last summer. It stood up high, and graced with an environment of rich religious painting on wall and roof, of painted glass of sparkling excellence, and bright flowers ; its vesting was sumptuous and correct, the massive candlesticks and candles were there, and on the superaltar a cross stood up of fresh green leaves. The occasion of this Communion was a Diocesan Conference, the scene Lambeth Palace chapel, the celebrant and the author of this restoration that Primate over whose sick bed we have so long been hanging in prayerful longing solicitude. There is no question here of maximum or minimum. These ornaments of the Altar which I have mentioned, were made specifically safe from being impugned before any tribunal a quarter of a century back. The ^Courts in the Liddell v. Westerton suit not only recognized the Altar hangings varying with the seasons, and the cross in close proximity to the Holy Table, and the candlesticks, but vindicated the Credence or Table of Prothesis, whereon to place the elements before they were offered, that speaking proclamation of the Eucharistic, oblation as the rightful possession of the Church of England. The removal of the Credence from the area of controversy was a most important practical step in fixing our Liturgical ideal. This took place, I say, a quarter of a century back. Time travels fast, and intervening events have crowded in tumultuously. It is well, then, when the gains and the claims have alike 92 THE IDEAL OF LITURGICAL WORSHIP. [Essay III. advanced, to recollect out of what ritual depths we rose, and what we have secured. Here, then, at the commencement of the service, we have the Altar with its attendant table of Prothesis, while the ministers of the holy rite. Celebrant, Gospeller, and Epistoler, are standing round it to carry out their sacred duties. It would be impossible in the limits of a paper to define their attitudes and action, more than by saying that the Church of England, profiting by the warnings of the unreformed Churches of East and West, insists upon a grave moderation, while, of course, she marks with ceremonial emphasis, such special features as the Gospel and the Creed. The aid of music will be invited to make the service more beautiful, and so the choir will retain their places in the stalls of the chancel. Though, no doubt, the practice here and there lingers with other bad remainders from an age of neglect, yet I trust the preposterous custom so familiar at one time to our Cathedrals is dying away, of the florid performance of the Mattins, the Commandments, and the Nicene Creed, leading up to a cold reading of the latter and most sacred portion of the Communion Service. There is one point, however, on which I must speak plainly. Congruity, the tradition of the Universal Church, the Kubric before the prayer of consecration, taken so as least to involve any strain or imputation of non-natural interpretation — not to mention that which before the Eubric had been framed was the practice of the very divines who were its authors, Wren and Cosin — combine to ordain that the celebrant, chief shepherd of his flock, and their mouth- piece at the Table of the Lord, should stand "before the table" and before his flock, and should, as the Eastern shepherd is wont to do, lead them in the holiest action which he is performing and to which they are responding. I remember, one day at the Eitual Commission, that Archbishop Longley said that any attempt to prohibit the Essay III.] THE IDEAL OF LITUEGICAL WORSHIP. 93 Eastward position would cause " exasperation " among the clergy. This was said some fifteen years ago. The Purchas judgment ensued, and the Archbishop, then at rest, proved not to have been a false prophet. Now by a late decision the Eastward position is by the civil authorities practically accepted, and so I say no more upon it. As to the vesture of the clergy engaged about the Eucharistic services, I should a few years since have spoken with trembling. But now, not indeed upon the details, but upon the principle of a distinctive dress, there can be, and there is but one permissible opinion in the Church of England, since by the action of those very men who like the dress least, who wish the least of it, and who have worked hardest to make it illegal, it has been declared im- perative in those churches which are set up as the models of perfection to the whole body spiritual, I mean, of course, in our Cathedral and Collegiate Churches. So the renewed, and therefore, more emphatic mandate, now rests upon those who are the stakeholders and ministers of that perfection — upon our Bishops and the clergy of those Cathedral and Collegiate Churches — to wear that dress. What may be now doing in Lichfield Cathedral I have not asked ; but I cannot believe that it wUl be long lagging by the way, or that we shall not, at the right time, find in it the ideal of Liturgical worship, as in other particulars, so in the use of the appointed dresses rivalling in their splendour those " holy garments for Aaron " which " Bezaleel and Aholiah, and every wisehearted man, into whom the Lord put wisdom and understanding," made — the "ephod of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen," with its gold beaten into thin plates — for " as the Lord had commanded, even so had they done it." So the upshot and conclusion of all our inquiry is, that everything rare, and everything beautiful — stately structures 94 THE IDEAL OF LITURGICAL WOESHIP. [Essay IIL and shapely ornaments, poetry and unction in language, sweet and solemn melody, dignified vesture, reverent atti- tudes — are all portions of man's great debt of devotion to Almighty God, and so they all help to make up the Ideal of Liturgical Worship in the Church of England as in the whole Catholic Church of Christ. OEATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. OEATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY* (From the ' Christian Remembrancer,' Jan. 1851.) These two very modern words define different ideas of worship — The dis- cussion of the subject stimulated by recent stirring events — Ritual shortcomings correlatives of others of a more spiritual kind — Christiaa worship derived from that of the old faith — Jewish worship of two kinds: sacrifice, and the offering of prayer and praise with reading of Scripture — Double nature of worship — Treble nature of the congrega- tion and of the arrangements of the building — Contrast between primitive and later arrangements of Bema, or Sanctuary and Altar — Variation in priest's position, but always at broadside of altar facing eastward — True position of altar restored by Laud — Torcello Cathedral — Contempt of old arrangements at St. Peter's — Glazed side choir — Roman Church from sixteenth century faltered too long in recognizing expansion of popular mind — Vespers the only remaining service which has retained its congregational character — Mixture of right and wrong in ritualism of divided Church — Benedictine worship and its influence • — Multiplied altars — Double choirs — The " people's high altar " in the nave — Frequent and persistent Italian custom of placing the choir behind the altar — Choir to the West in Spanish churches — Roman Church at Reformation missed flood of the tide — Jesuits at close of first half of sixteenth century — A. W. Pugin — French and German move- ments — Conversion of Mr. Newman — The congregation of the Oratory — Mr. Frederick Faber — St. Philip Neri— Mr. Faber's and Mr. New- man's action and reaction — Theory of Development in its ritual bearings — Growth of Oratorianism^Contrast with Ecclesiology- — Real Presence irrespective of the Sacrifice which made it — Prerogative * 1. ' The Ecclesiologist.' Loudon : Masters. 1842-1850. 2. ' Re- vival of Ecclesiastical Architecture.' By A. W. Pugin, Esq. London : Dolman. 1843. 3. ' Prayer-Book of the Oratory of S. Philip Neri in London.' London : Burns & Lambert. 1850. 4. ' Hymn-Book of the Oratory of S. Philip Neri in London. London : Burns & Lambert. 1850. 5. 'The School of S. Philip Neri.' From the Italian. Edited by the Rev. F. W. Faber. London : Burns & Lambert. 1850, H 98 OEATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. of St. Mary Irrespective of our Lord — "Jesus, Joseph, and Mary" — Benediction — Materialism of Oratorian disrespect for the Altar — Eastern Church rejects the idea of irreverence indicating love — The ' Rambler ' — Attack on screens — Literary controversy and model churches — Laymen as "dummy" clerics — Temporary Oratory in London — Conclusion. The confession of inability to handle adequately a subject has become a conventionalism about as threadbare for the exordium of an article' as the invocation of Clio to lead off a schoolboy's copy of Hexameters. Still, we so sincerely feel our present inability, that we are desirous of incurring all the ridicule inseparable from commencing with it. The questions which we have designated in our heading by two words of very modern mintage, touch upon subjects the most mysterious and exalted which can concern incarnate man — the visible worship of his God in the Catholic Church. To treat it with any completeness, we must first define with something of a technical generalization, the theory of worship in the Universal Church, which we venture to term Ecclesiology — a word which has been brought into circulation in other quarters, and is generally understood in a restricted sense. Having done this, we shall find ourselves in a position to deal with that more local, but interesting question which has led us to enter upon the subject at all, — the consideration, that is, of certain corruptions of this theory, which have had their rise in Churches in communion with the Eoman See. These have impregnated more and more the ritual system of that communion till at length they had become its virtual, but not recognized rule. So having, within a very few years, found themselves un- expectedly confronted by a systematic revival of the older and truer view, both in the Anglican and the Eoman communions, they have striven to maintain their ground by an antagonistic system. The head-quarters of this are chiefly amongst the congregation, recently imported into ORATOBIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOQY. 99 England, of Oratorians, whose identification with their superior, Dr. Newman, has led to the noticeable residt of his theory of development being directed to explain and justify corruptions in ritual as well as in doctrinal matters. Hence, having no better name for the movement, we have designated it Oratorianism, a word under which it has already got current in conversation and even in print. We have long been anxious to discuss this subject, but those stirring events which have, since our last number appeared, been passing about us [Lord Eussell's Durham letter, and the riots at St. Barnabas Church, Pimlico] have rendered us if possible more so, feeling as we do how very desirable it is, in times of feverish and unhealthy strife, to turn if one can, from these unhappy results of dis- union and seek some indications, however vague, of any one of the reasons which have conduced to the rending of the vest of Christ. It is only such study which can help to that adjustment of differences, free, generous, and forgiving, which will and must take place, if ever the eyes of the pilgrims of the earth are to be blessed with the realization of that fair vision which cheers them in their weary wanderings through the valley of the shadow of death — the vision of the true Church of the Future, when Ephraim shall not envy Judah — the Catholic Church at one again, purified, and undivided. Such a train of thought may seem beyond our scope, and rather suited to commence a formal treatise on doctrine. This, however, we cari in no way admit; ceremonial has such a connexion with doctrine that one almost neces- sarily follows the other, just as the body and the mind affect each other; and so in the ritual shortcomings of all branches of the Universal Church, We can easily trace the correlatives of other shortcomings of a more spiritual kind, inseparable, we might almost say, from, the condition of disunion. H 2 100 ORATOEIANISM AKD ECCLESIOLOGT. Christian worship is derived from that of the old faith. The Jewish worship was, as all sects allow, of two kinds — the more solemn rite of sacrifice, and the auxiliary offering of prayer and praise, and reading of Holy Scripture. The former confined at first to the Tabernacle, and then to the Temple ; the latter, common to the Temple and to the Synagogue : the former a thing which perished at the destruction of the Temple ; the latter a thing which continues to our own day : the former, the act alone of high-priest, priests, and levites ; the latter, a pious work in which the reader and the choir, composed of children of every tribe, are called on to take the lead. That Christian worship strictly follows this analogy is not a matter of such concurrent acceptation, and yet that it does so, is only another way of expressing the great truth that it is a sacramental system ; " Opus Dei quod singulis diebus, horis propriis ac distinctis, in Ecclesiis et Oratoriis nostris celebratur, duplex est ; Missa et Officium divinum," is the simple and truthful commencement of the Eituale Cisterciense. As the Jewish Church had its bloody offerings, so the Christian Church has the unbloody sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist ; as the songs of Miriam, and David, and Habakkuk were sung in the assemblies of Israel after the flesh, so do they resound with deeper import in the united worship of the true people of God. But our object is not now to establish the general truth of Catholic worship against the Puritan counterfeit, but to«point out the various distortions to which it- has been subjected in the Church itself, which have so recently culminated in England, though not in the Church of England, through the Oratorian system. Few of our readers, we trust, need be told how, both in the primitive and medifeval Church, the double nature of the worship, and the triple nature of the congregation — those in Holy Orders, namely — those either not in Holy Orders, OEATORIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. 101 or performing the essential work of such at the time, but ministering about sacred things — and those who were simply laity, simply the bulk of the congregation— were clearly symbolized by the construction of the building, double at the same time, and also triple in its arrangement ; providing for the third class the nave, for the first and second that bipartite unity, which was sometimes (in later times that is) considered as one member of the whole edifice under the name of chancel or choir, and sometimes more properly considered as forming two divisions ; the holiest, or Eucharistic division, being termed the Bema, or Exedra, or Apsis, or Altare, in earlier days, in later times the Presbytery or Sanctuary ; or in a few churches (as now at "Westminster Abbey), the Sacrarium : the less sacred passing under the appellation, in primitive times, of the Chorus Cantorum, afterwards of the Chancel (properly speaking) in parish churches, chorus, or choir being retained in collegiate or monastic ones. Such, broadly speaking, is the universal type of all traditionally arranged churches ; of San Clemente at Eome, and, before the infidel trod it under foot, of the Church of The Eternal Wisdom at Constantinople, and of the model cathedral of Sarum in England. Two differences existed between primitive and later times, and we wiU honestly say, we think that in these matters the changes proved to be developments towards a more perfect realization of the principle of Ecclesiology, both in the Eastern and the Western Church. In earlier Churches, those in Holy Orders sat in the Bema, behind the high altar, both during the "Missa" and the "Officium Divinum," the " Cantores " during the one, as during the other, occupying the "Chorus.'' Subsequently, all being equally Cantores during the " Officium Divinum," the custom obtained of aU the clerics occupying during the lower worship the lower place, and of those only advancing to the Holiest of Holies, at the Missa or Liturgy (to give both the Western and 102 ORATOEIANISM AND EOCLESIOLOGY. the Eastern ternj), who should be themselves actively engaged in the particular celebration ; their brethren of the same rank as before remaining below in the cantoral place, the stalls of the chancel. The other change arising from the first one was this. In the older Churches, when the nature of the rite permitted it, the Bema was placed at the west end, and the celebrating priest looked eastward, leading the clergy, as the more important part of his congregation, and consequently facing the lay people, who were ranged on the side of the altar furthest from them (the altar, we need not say, being detached from the wall), and immediately beneath the Bema. But in the later Churches, the Church being turned eastwards, and the altar pushed back, the priest stood at its west side, facing eastward, and with his back to aU the people. It will be seen that under both these conditions, in east and west, the priest stood at the broad side of the altar and facing east- ward, that is in the position restored to the English Church by the Martyr Laud, when he replaced the ' Lord's Table ' altar-wise, icTrj/ia e? ael we trust to our communion. As a sequel of this change, we may observe that the usual position of the Bishop's throne was shifted from the central point of the Apse or Bema, to a side place in the choir. Some Cathedral Churches, however, retained tUl the last century (Canterbury for instance), or still retain this old tradition, and conspi- cuously amongst them St. Peter's, Eome. Modern bad taste has, however, stuck a subsidiary- altar immediately beneath the throne, (which throne is employed, of course, in the enthronization of the Pope.) In consequence of this Protestants, and not merely Protestants, but Anglo-Catholics, ignorant of ritual lore, have had the unfortunate temerity to apply to this the awful prophecy in the 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians, that Antichrist shaU sit in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God, with a very strange for- getfuluess that those who seek Antichrist .among their own OEATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOQY. 103 Opponents, might find his type elsewhere in that prophecy of Daniel, which announces that he (as foreshadowed by Antiochus Epiphanes) shall take away the daily sacrifice. But to return from this digression — an illustration is worth all description. Southern Europe still possesses a Cathedral, small and neglected, but perhaps the most interestiag in the world ritually (apart from historical association), in the desolate Island of Torcello, near Venice, once a bustling commercial seaport town. This moiddering church contains both the Bema of the primitive, and the choir of the mediseval church, the former of venerable antiquity, the latter not later than, it is supposed, the eleventh century. Of this church we present the ground plan. Those concentric seats imitated from the Eoman theatre (for the primitive Church was not afraid of being called histrionic) are the Exedrse, the old seats of the clergy. The stalls below, precisely like those to be found in our old parish churches, are their later place — a is the ancient bishop's throne, e the more modern one : 6 the present altar, although Mr. Webb in his Continental Ecclesiology conjectures that the ancient high altar stood nearer the Apse. With this plan before their eyes, our' readers will at one glance realize the two general types of the Ecclesia of the Western Church. From the earliest days some division existed between the people and the altar, called in Greek /cty/cXtSe?, and in Latin Cancelli. This was apparently at first a partition running round the Chorus Cantorum, which in the earlier churches projected lite a peninsula into the body of the nave. But in most later churches it was more skilfully defined by the main architectural features of the building; the chief semi- exceptions being, strange to say, the noblest buildings, Cathedrals and Monastic Churches, where the choir often ran west of the transepts, though always bounded by the side arcades. Latterly in the Western Church, when the 104 OKATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. lateral boundaries of the chancel became entirely or in great part constructional, either in the shape of side walls, or, if it had aisles, of the arcade, the western barrier became PLAN OF CATHEDRAL AT TOKCELLO. of more importance, and was permanently established between the nave and chancel, or choir, under the appellation of rood- screen as bearing the crucifix. In contrast to this, the OEATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. 105 Eastern Church as pertinaciously allotted to the so-termed iconostasis (named from the pictures with which it was covered) the function of separating the sanctuary from the choir, leaving the separation between the latter and the nave very slight, perhaps only a step or two. A western rood- screen of a very early date is indicated in the plan of Torcello Cathedral. Such, generally speaking with some variations which we shall mention hereafter, was the type of a Christian Church throughout the visible fold, till about the yeair of our Lord 1500, when the sins of pontiffs like Alexander VI. and Julius II. had reduced Christian Eome to a condition as odious as that of the Pagan city, in the times of its deepest corruption. At this unhappy epoch the venerable Basilica of St. Peter's was rebuilt ; and in the new fabric we behold the high altar standing naked and unguarded in the midst of a vast hall, without any of the traditionary fittings of a church — ■ without sanctuary or choir, without throne near it, or rood- screen. The choir in the meanwhile was banished to a glazed chapel to the left of the nave, possessing a subsidiary high altar of its own, as to which Montalembert remarked that he did not like to be put under glass like a beetle. Starting from this date, we perceive a growing forgetfulness of the same old rules of the Universal Church in the reformed English communion, and we also see the precedent of St. Peter's followed with more or less of completeness through- out the Eoman communion, both in the building of new churches, and the mutilating of old ones, down to our own time. Just so in England, we behold the churches of the three last centuries displaying, with the happy exceptions of Laud's and Cosin's restorations, every conceivable and increasing deviation from the traditions bequeathed to us, by the yet undivided Church, and by our own Church of the middle ages, in spite of the manifest conservatism stamped upon the 106 GBATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. Prayer Book. In our own times we have beheld a return to ancient tradition, both amongst ourselves, and amongst the Eoman Catholics, and still more lately we have seen amongst the latter that aggressive attempt to systematize and uphold the aberrations of modern days, which we are endeavouring to handle in the present article. Such is the spectacle presented by the Western Church. The aspect of the East continues changeless and serene in its old rules and ancestral observances. One principal cause of the troubles which beset the Western Church, at and since the commencement of the sixteenth century, is very simple, and not to say homely in its statement, although the results into which it has ramified are most complex. They greatly centre in one fact, that the mediseval Church faltered and delayed too long in its recog- nition of the expansion of the popular mind, and that, consequently when it did begin to remodel itself, it did not know where to begin or what to do, and in its attempts to do something, only shifted instead of remedying confusion. These considerations are, we know, principally architectural, but churches are but halls after all, if not regarded in connexion with the service celebrated in them. In the primitive Church the " Opus Dei " was as in later times twofold, and it was collective and congregational, as well as vernacular. In the mediseval Church it continued to be twofold, but it ceased to be vernacular, and, except in churches which were collegiate (to use the most general term), the Officium Divinum ceased to be necessarily col- lective, and nowhere, we feel we may speak generally, was it congregational. Then came the days of the Eefor- mation, and the Eoman Church, with a most deplorable deficiency of courage, would neither make the Opus Dei in either branch vernacular, nor the Ofl&cium Divinum at all congregational; the congregational attendance at (not par- OEATOBIANISM AND EOCLBSIOLOGY. 107 ticipation in the office of) the Missa, the chief remnant of collective ; worship, being encouraged by the building of Churches consisting of altar alone, and nave, and therefore unsuited to the Divine Office. The English Keformers went to work root and branch, too much so, some may say, in many particulars, but in principle, in a clearsighted and decisive manner, by reproducing (while retaining strongly the distinction between them — more strongly, we might say, in their popular features, from the simplicity to which they reduced .it) both the "Missa," called "Mass" in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., and the Divine Office in forms at once vernacular, collective, and congregational. In the Eoman Communion things could not stop as they were — popular devotion craved for vernacular food. The result has been a singular system of compromise. On the one hand, the Mass and, the observances growing from it, " Benediction " in particular, which we shall more fully treat hereafter, have principally occupied the parish churches. Vespers alone as a service formally accepted for congregational use out of the various divisions of the authoritative Divine Office have had the good fortune to fight for and retain a substantive recognition, which, as we shall presently see, is at this moment a subject of attack. On the other hand, an irregular bundle of verna- cular forms of worship, litanies, methodistical hymns, modern prayers, and so on, have accumulated, and are encouraged by authority as the playthings, so to speak, of the laity, who, it is assumed, cannot compass anything better. Mean- while the old and venerable Officium Divinum, the breviary services, are remanded to the mere private use of the clergy, to be recited apart or together, as the thing may be most convenient, and with a licence of anticipation which will have made to-day's mattins the early afternoon work of yesterday, and this evening's vespers the early work of the commencing day. To the laity, we repeat, the Breviary (with the sole 108 OEATOEIANISM AND ECOLESIOLOGY. exception of vespers), irrespective of its not being in the vernacular language, is not perhaps an actually sealed book, but a book which is about as currently in practical use among them as the Homilies are amongst ourselves. This state of things Oratorianism dares not only to vindicate but to formalize, accompanying the audacious feat with a bold confession of the most anti-primitive tenets of modern Eomanism, set forth according to the "theory of development," which they conceive, and truly so, to be symbolized by their actual ritualism. This latter considera- tion it is which gives the Oratorian movement its great and fearful importance ; without it, it would be merely an untenable and grotesque caprice, or a desperate attempt to justify abuses, similar to that which the " high and dry " put out against the ecclesiological revival ; but as it stands, it is a well pondered system, pregnant of future and increasing peril to the Universal Church. Though, as we have shown, the complete and ostentatious manifestation of the new theory of worship was reserved for rebuilt St. Peter's, that is to say, for the era of the second rending of the Unity of the Church, yet the seeds of it had been sown much earlier in the days when the primitive glided into the mediaeval epoch, or, in other words, about the time of the first schism between East and West. We have above stated two or three points in which we think that mediseval ritualism exceeded in truthfulness and beauty that of the early Church, and we conceive that it did so also in other particulars. But while we do not fear to make this acknow- ledgment, we must at the same time say, that we think it all along carried with it the seeds of self-dissolution, a body of corruption bound to its body of life and beauty, which ultimately stifled it. Such seems in other things, higher and more important than ritualism, to be the destined condition of the divided Church ; glorious and most holy in many ORATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. 109 things, because she is the Spouse of Christ ; weak, fallible, and corrupt in others, because she has not kept her first estate, standing upon feet where iron and clay commingle. With respect particularly to Catholic ritualism, the forms into which it has practically shaped itself in the three branches respectively of the Christian Church, strike us as singularly emblematic of their character in all other things. The ritualism of the Eoman Church is an awful struggle of gigantic right and gigantic wrong, in appalling proportions, and inexplicable intermingling. That of the Eastern Church, a stern tradition of an old good thing, not impaired, but not improved; while that of the Church of England is a wonderful instance of a keen, iatellectual exhibition of pure and true first principles, hitherto little understood and little coerced into practice by those whose property they were. As we have indicated, the worship of the Christian Church, until the fall of the Eoman Empire, was twofold, and also congregational. The universal confusion which followed that dissolution of the empire was profitable to the spread of the faith, in so far as it brought Eomans and* barbarians face to face, and so enabled the missionaries of the former nation to penetrate into hitherto inaccessible regions. The foundation, about the same epoch, of the Benedictine Order, gave centrality and shape to missionary exertions. Evangelizers went forth, Benedictine monks in little knots, and brought thousands upon thousands to the laver of regeneration, and fed them with the Bread of Life. St. Benedict when he founded this Order had not thought much of missionary work for his brethren ; he established a society of men who were to toil in the fear of God, and to worship in the fear of God, and the latter duty he divided into assisting at the Holy Eucharist, and singing, according to the way he drew out, the divine office. His first monks were Italians, and Latin was 110 OEATOEIANISM AND EOCLESIOLOGY. stUl the language of Italy. Accordingly, they used their vernacular language in this twofold worship. This custom was plainly necessary as long as the Order was confined to Italy. Then came the missionary era of Benedicti- nism ; the simple monks who perilled their lives to win souls, were men who valued obedience much, and vene- rated the memory of their Father Benedict, and had to deal in their converts with men rough and little educated — children in intellect, though men in years and passions, and sprung from races very susceptible of feelings of awe. The almost inevitable concurrence of these circumstances, the counsel alike of simplicity and of diplomacy, was to use in Saxon England, and Teutonic Germany, that same Latin language in the worship of God to which the missionaries had been accustomed in their southern home, to train their spiritual children, children doubly, in a worship where the eye and the ear, and the moral part of man had more to do than the intelligence. It is useless now to spectdate how the whole current of the world's history would have been changed, had there been vouchsafed to the Church some second Benedict, some new Gregory*the Great, to grapple with the changed condition of the universal fold now spreading northward ; but it is useless to run into speculations which can only make the head throb and the eyes fill with tears. A similar process, though in a less complete form, went on in the East ; while in southern Europe, in Italy and France and Spain, successive corruptions and admixtures of barlaarous words estranged the vernacular further and further from the Latin tongue. The revolution in not many ages was complete. Monks, canons, and nuns in their choirs sang, day by day, that Latin divine of&ce, which, save on great days, the Laity, with the exception of some few learned and pious folk, never dreamed of attending, and on Sundays and festivals the parish priest gathered round him to Mass, and Mass OEATOKIANISM AND ECOLESIOLOGY. Ill alone, his obedient flock. The architectural result of this immutability of language was (as far as it went) the compen- sating advantage, for it produced that constructive distinc- tion between the nave and the chancel to which our mediaeval churches owe so much of their beauty, and which has so ex- tensively ramified into all the accessories (such as screens, &c.) of their internal arrangement, and which finally ap- proves itself in its parochial type to be so well adapted to the ritual of this our Church of England in the nineteenth century. As in the bulk our old parochial churches reproduce them- selves in England, so on the other hand, the cathedrals of that epoch refuse to be literally imitated, from the exclusively claustral nature of their arrangements, with close screens, and enormously elongated choirs, unsuited to modern wants, except by the practice common alike to Eome and England, of crowd- ing the laity into them for vernacular and united worship. But this great size of these churches was not exclusively the result of the disuse of vernacular worship, but also of the growth of another practice, which we have purposely reserved till now to consider in the whole, as being more than anything else the germ of Oratorianism, that of multiplying altars in the same church, a usage peculiar to the Western Church, and not universal there ; as according to the Ambrosian or Milanese rite, till St. Charles Borromeo, in the days when ritualism declined, altered his cathedral, there could be but one altar in one church. When precisely the practice sprang up in the Western Church we wiU not inquire. It is sufficient to say that its growth had an obvious connexion with that relic worship which was a note of corruption in the divided Church. The extent to which in comparatively early times this custom prevailed, may be comprehended by the fact that in the curious plan of St. Gall's Abbey Church, as existing or 112 OBATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. proposed to be built in the ninth century, fifteen altars are marked. We may, by the way, observe that this plan likewise contains the peculiarity, especially characteristic of German churches, of having two choirs, of course involving two high altars, one at the east and the other at the west end, which Professor Willis shows to have existed in the Saxon Cathedral of Canterbury, and is still found in the Dom of Mentz, tiU the first French Eevolution the Primatial Church of all Germany. This system had a direct tendency to foster Oratorianism, to use the word by anticipation. The Eastern Church, as we have said, only allowed one altar in one church, preferring to build their churches small ; and agglomerated them, so as in some instances in Eussia, (as in the Cathedral of Moscow,) to make a house of churches piled up next to and above each other. Consequently nothing like Oratorianism has prevailed in the East. The typal idea of a church, as accepted both by the Eastern and by the Anglican Communion, is simple and grand — the one altar of God standing in the sanctuary, the choir, and the nave. Subsidiary altars may (we do not wish to pass a sweeping condemnation on them) be so arranged as not to interfere with the pre-eminence of the principal one ; and where there is a large number of communicants even utilitarian reasons might vindicate them.* But it is a more difficult problem to combine this subordination with paying to each of these subsidiary altars — each, be it remembered, as much an altar as the principal one — the honour due to so holy a thing. It was almost impossible to fence each altar off by a sufficient screen, and give it a suf- ficient sanctuary; as for giving it a choir of its own, this * There are now (1882) in St. Paul's three altars ; the High Altar, the Morning Chapel Altar, and the Crypt Altar. OBATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. 113 was generally out of the question, except in the case of the altar of the Lady Chapel, which, however, must be considered in the light not of a subsidiary altar of the same church, but of the principal altar of a subsidiary church. Here then, in the very palmiest days of mediaeval conventual ritualism, we find Oratorianism in the bud very early indeed. The altars at St. Gall are scattered about in a way to delight Mr. Faber, but there was one altar there above the others which may be taken as the type of the high altar of a modern Eoman Catholic Church. We have seen that the laity could not and would not take part in the divine office of the conventual churches, but it did not follow that they were not very anxious to worship in them, nor that the monks did not piously endeavour to meet their wishes. The only worship at which the laity much cared to attend was the Mass, and accordingly their devotions were met by setting up, just out- side the rood-screen and at the east end of the nave, a species of ^subsidiary high altar, devoted especially to popular use. Such existed at Canterbury Cathedral for instance, and at St. Alban's Abbey, there dedicated in honour of St. Cuthbert, as well as in Durham Cathedral called the Jesus Altar. This altar was in all cases the people's Ultima Thule, the one great sacred centre and completion of their prospect ; the nave was for them to gather in — this altar bounding it, the point towards which to worship. The mysterious choir beyond, and the high altar which they had heard crowned the sacred enclosure were to them as much a thing they cared not for as though they existed not at all — as the countries beyond the Channel are to the rude Dorsetshire peasant. This nave, then, and " this people's high altar," were in point of fact the neo-Eoman Church — the Cathedral of St. Peter's, with its unprotected high altar ; the Jesuit's typal Church all over the world; the ideal of the young English Oratorians. So ap- propriate is the term "people's high altar" — a designation I 114 OBATOEIANISM AND ECOLESIOLOGY. throw;a off currente calamo, (as we happen to know,) in an editorial footnote in the Ecclesiologist, with reference to St: Cuthbert's altar, as it was named, at St. Alban's — that Mon- signore Eyre, in his Life of St. Cuthbert, uses this appellation, with a reference to that journal, in a way which shows that he (a modern Eoman Catholic ecclesiastic) took it to be an ancient and recognised term. We have shown how, even in mediseval northern Europe, where the Ecclesiological theory reached its highest (too high) development, the coming Oratorianism gave warning of its certain access. But the highest development of the new ideas first manifested itself in Italy. Here the mediseval system of Church arrangement never took so determinate a form as in the JSTorth. Varieties such as the very frequent and persistent one' of the choir behind the high altar, and the latter immediately fronting the people, of course at once bridged over the great difference between the two systems. The altar, which the people could well nigh touch, was the high altar of all, and not merely a secondary one provided for their behalf; while in churches like St. Miniato, at Florence, an arrangement nearly identical with that at Durham and St. Alban's was carried out. There can of course be no triple arrangement with this plan. The High Altar remains the High Altar, but there is no environment of sanctuary. Sometimes they were absolutely in separate rooms. In Spain, again, the fifteenth century saw the estab- lishment of that strange arrangement, which put the choir in the nave, and the sanctuary in the eastern part of the church, leaving the middle for the people, who were thus placed east of the choir, and in immediate contact with the altar.* * Still even in Spain the old tradition survives in a meagre and atten- uated form in the churches where the choir and its occupants are brought into a faint ritual connection with the high altar by a curious isthmus of separation from the people. For, while the eastern limb is screened off OBATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. 115 So the Middle Ages ran their course, and then the revival of Paganism, as well as of literature, came ; printing was invented, and men got at once critical and sceptical. The ritualism of those Middle Ages was clearly foredoomed to a crisis. Had the Eoman Church boldly taken reform into her own hands, and not waited tiU Luther and his followers compelled her to a half-reformation, as in other things so in ritualism the Christian world might now have been in a far different condition ; but in ritualism, as in other things, she, with a pertinacity often of prejudice more than of principle, missed the flood of the tide. She met the popular craving for united and popular worship by building churches in the shape of halls, with an obtrusive altar in the middle, and by docking, under Quignonius' hands, the poetry and the significance of the Breviary, while retaining the Latin, and offered that to an imaginative populace, who would have sympathised with the poetry and were righteously demanding the vernacular. England made short work of all, and on her own account produced her vernacular services, founded on her old "Of&cium Divinum,'' and her own vernacular Communion Office ; but for tlie sanctuary, and the most easternly bays of the nave are screened, or rather walled, off for the ritual choir north, south, west, and east, a narrow passage, traversing the cross from east to west, separated by low northern and southern screens, connects the sanctuary with the choir and isolates the people alike from both. We mention this because the recent arrangements of Westminster Abbey have been defended by misunder- stood or misrepresented Spanish authority. In the more elaborate Spanish arrangement, as in Seville Cathedral, it will be found impossible to do what is done in Westminster, to walk straight across the church from transept to transept. [This is however not universal. At Burgos there is no such obstacle ; the Coro and the Altar are only parted by the open lantern with no eastern block to the former. On a crowded day (December 8, 1876, the Immaculate Conception) I saw the Irish-looking peasants crowding so close to the High Altar that they could almost have touched it. In smaller Spanish churches the choir even takes the form of a W^estern gallery. 1882.] I 2 116 OBATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. unfortunately in so doing she did not fence her own work with safeguards sufficient to ensure its being handed down as it came from its authors. The establishment of the order of the Jesuits completed the downfall in the Eoman communion of the older ritual tradi- tion, while the ridiculous preference for pseudo-classical archi- tecture over that which was the natural growth of Christian times and Christian requirements, led very naturally to a contempt for those arrangements which had been for so long inseparably connected with the discredited architectural forms. Such, generally speaking, was the state of things till late in the first half of the nineteenth century. Gothic archi- tecture had from various causes regained its popularity in England, before the revival of Church principles was de- veloped. The combination of the two produced amongst us that ceremonial movement, which invented and appropriated the name Ecclesiology, and has made itself extensively felt even in otherwise uncongenial quarters. Contemporaneously there was coming into notice, in the Eoman communion, a young man, so early converted from a merely nominal Anglicanism to the Eoman faith, which his father held, as really to be all but an indigenous Eomanist. Mr. Welby Pugin, brought up to the professional study of Gothic archi- tecture, full of talent, original and independent almost to a fault, rapidly realised for himself the system of mediaeval ritualism, and forced it upon his co-religionists whether they liked it or not. In the meanwhile a similar move- ment was going on in France under the patronage of writers like Montalembert ; a school of mediaeval ritual architects sprang up, among whom stand out pre-eminent the names of MM. VioUet le Due, and Lassus; and some of the many freaks of Louis I., King of Bavaria, and the vanity of Frederick William I. of Prussia, helped to give 0BAT0BIANI8M AND ECCLESIOLOGY. 117 the movement a life in Germany, though more artificial and sicldy than the life in England or France.* It would have been an allowable daydream to imagine, that although Eome itself stood coldly and sullenly im- movable, yet that within the Eoman as the English Com- munion, an ecclesiological development was in progress, which might in the expectations of sanguine students grow into a reform of something beyond externals. All at once a new antagonist came ready armed into the iield from the quarter least expected. Of all the individuals whose faith in the Church of England has unhappily proved less strong than the sight of her fallen condition^ — by common consent the most famous and the greatest — the only great one, we might say, as contrasted with merely clever or merely learned — is John Henry Newman, once the chief of those who, by a singular destiny, led on the Catholic revival in the English Church, and now the keenest foe of that revival. His character we will not endeavour to paint ; no one of his contemporaries can safely * I have left this paragraph mainly as I wrote it. But it cannot pass unsiipplemented. In the next year to the publication of the article (September 1852) Pugin was prematurely dead, but not till he had made his protest in his book on chaacel screens. Lassus in very few years followed, and though VioUet le Duo survived till these late years, his later acts and opinions had made a breach between him and Ecclesiology in its religious aspect. Soon too Montalembert lost power from his resistence to Napoleon III. To Grermany, again, I have been unjust, for I have failed to give due honour to the really religious ecclesio- logical movement in that country, in which M. August Reichen sparger of Cologne is still the most prominent literary figure. The criticism, " more artifioial and sickly," is as inapplicable to this movement as it may be correct in reference to the works of the two Kings whom I have named. On the other hand the dead cold weight of the Second Empire pressed upon the movement in Prance, while the ultramontanism which became pre- dominant in the French church, was saturated with ideas of Italian art. So, although Gothic churches are still built in France, Ecclesiology there may now be reckoned among lost causes. [1882.] 118 OEATOEIANISM AKD BCCLBSIOLOGY. do so. On some future day, we doubt not, it will be drawn, when aU his life shall have been unfolded, and that career which, for multiplicity of events, seems already to have reached a Nestor's term, and in number of years is not more than half a century, shall have attained its yet undecypher- able conclusion. But still some strong points show them- selves attaching, in all its mutations, to that wonderful man's character, which may be summed up in the formulary of a keen intellect and a struggling mind, which if not naturally sceptical itself, yet boldly delights coming to close quarters with scepticism, while during the struggle, an intense desire of self-control more often prevails, but is sometimes worsted.* Soon after his change of religion he went to Eome, when of course there was at once a question of turning his great talents to the practical service of the Eoman ommunion in England. This, it was decided, should be accompKshed by entrusting to him the mission of establishing in our island a branch of the Congregation of the Oratory. This congregation was of the many fruits of the enterprising sixteenth century — the very modernisation of a religious order, which it strictly is not, its members only living together so long as it pleased them to do so — and its work being practical — ^preaching, and so on — an institution, in fact, eminently fitted for the nineteenth century and for Mr. Newman, and affording in all those features of its system, which are not exclusively Eoman Catholic, a most valuable model for those Colleges of English Priests which are absolutely needful if we ever mean to refute in practice Cardinal Wiseman's bitter taunt about Tiis portion of Westminster, and to show that " Her Majesty's * Tliis article was published more than thirteen years before the publication of the ' Apologia pro Vita Sua,' and at a time when strono- hostility to the Church of England was a strong characteristic of Mr. Newman's writings nearest in date to his change. [1882.] OEATOillANISM AND BCCLBSIOLOGY. 119 Clergy " are the Clergy of the lambs of Christ. The founder, we forgot to say, of this congregation, was the famous St. Philip Neri, who lived and died in Eome during the six- teenth century. Accordingly Mr. Newman returned to England, as Father Superior of an English branch of the Congregation of the Oratory. When he came home he found his troop recruited from an independent quarter, and by another person, who has sought and secured attention, though a much less important and a differently-minded man — Mr. Frederick Faber. As Mr. Newman was all logic, so Mr. Faber was all imagination; brilliant, versatile, unstable, yet able to lead others along with him in his changes through a peculiar attractiveness of manner. Hero-worship was always a chief characteristic of his disposition. While avowedly firm in his allegiance to the Church of England, his hero was Archbishop Laud. His Anglicanism began to totter, and Archbishop Laud at once and for ever gave way, first to " the man of the middle ages," {i.e. Gregory VII.) of his book of travels, and then to a Saxon saint, to whom, true to his north country extraction, Mr. Faber devoted himself wholly and solely, and with a kind of jovial recklessness of consequences, St. Wilfrid. While in the height of the WHfridian delirium, soon after the publication of his life of that saint in the Littlemore series, Mr. Faber changed his communion, and in so doing carried with him certain of his old parishioners whom he had organised into a sort of confraternity for collective devotion. Once a Eoman Catholic, he developed this con- fraternity into a species of congregation, and lodged them with himself in a house at Birmingham. This body, which was placed under the protection of St. Wilfrid (to which, instead of William, their founder changed his second name at his second confirmation), was soon recruited by men of Mr. Faber's class of life. Lord Shrewsbury allotted to it a 120 OBATOBIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. country-house in a beautiful valley of Staffordshire, and one of Mr. Faber's companions, at his own cost, built for it a very pretty church from Mr. Pugin's designs.. The formation of Mr. Faber's congregation at Coton Hall, and Mr. Newman's establishing " the Oratory " in England, were proximately contemporaneous, and in no long time a junction between the two bodies was effected. As one con- sequence of the change, Mr. Faber's idol, who had retro- graded from the seventeenth through the eleventh to the seventh century, bounded off again to the sixteenth. The Saxon monk became the Italian gentleman in the form of St. Philip Neri, whose merits as the " representative _Saint of modern times," Mr. Faber has recently descanted upon in three lectures, with such an entetement, that even the journals which are disposed to go with him have been compelled to remind him that there were such people in modern times as St. Ignatius, St. Charles Borromeo, and St. Theresa. Our readers wiU probably here inquire of us, what possible connection with the corruption of Ecclesiology can attach to the fact that Mr. Newman and Mr. Faber recently joined the congregation of the Oratory. They wiU remark that, of course, the churches built under the system of St. Philip Neri, erected at a time when all churches were reared in defiance of precedent, partook of the general corruption. They wiU observe that even the Jesuits, heretofore specially identified with Italian ritualism, have iu their new church in Farm Street Mews iu London gone far back towards the medieeval tradition, and that Fathers Martin and Cahier of that order, are two of the most distinguished Ecclesiologists living. Our only reply to these interpellations would be to own that they were perfectly and self-evidently true. But Mr. Faber never has thought, and never will be able to think, like other men. Mr. Newman, likewise, loves a paradox. True, his paradoxes, when he acts upon his OBATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. 121. own inspirationa, are of a more royal dimension than those of his sparkling colleague ; but the two men when brought together act and re,-act upon each other. In the present instance Mr. Newman and Mr. Faber had a common bond of sympathy in a lingering love for Italian architecture, which seemed to be singular among two men of their school and time. This bias came out in a passage in Mr. Paber's ' Foreign Churches and Foreign People,' published in 1841, where he refuses to decide the superior merits of Pointed or Italian architecture, tUl he has beheld St. Peter's. Mr. Newman's share in building Littlemore Church, prevented his being suspected of a similar prepossession ; but we have heard it upon very good authority, that he acknowledged to a friend, that although carried away by the mediaeval current to build that church in Pointed architecture, since he entered Trinity College, Oxford, as an undergraduate, and worshipped in its ItaKan chapel, his feelings were with that style. This was a curious illustration of the dominant principle which he afterwards enounced. The building of Littlemore, after the old Anglican type, was but another expression of the weU- known avowal, that he recognised and defended the Church of England, not so much on his own iudividual convictions, as rather ministerially exhibiting its received principles. He made a somewhat open confession of his real personal sentiments, in that strange book, 'Loss and Gain,' where, after instituting a comparison between the two styles, he characteristically turns the scale in favour of Italian, by comparing the cupola, its type, to the vault of Heaven.* But with Mr. Newman there was a deeper and a stronger motive at work, to lead him to embrace dogmatically at once the corruptions of worship and ritual during the last three centuries, and with them the popular craving for vernacular. * Mr. T. Mozley, in his ' Keminiscenoes,' gives some interesting facts ia this connection. [1882.] 122 ORATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. worship as something to be gratified in a subjective way. He had committed himself to the Theory of DcTelopment, as the rule of the Church's doctrine and* practice, and as the view which had led him to close with the truth of Eomanism. This theory as laid down, and still more as acted upon, by its expositor, was one of a restless activity, and necessarily embraced all things. There could hardly be a development of doctrine without its being accompanied by a development of ritual and of worship. As, moreover, the doctrine of development embalmed and justified all the deviations from Catholic antiquity, which the Eoman portion of the divided Church had attracted and assimilated, so also the external development was called upon to fulfil a similar function. From these concurrences arose the system which we have termed Oratorianism. The liking which Mr. Newman and Mr. Faber both felt for Italian architecture and Italian ritualism above any thing which was English, partly born in them, and partly a violent and artificial recoil from a con- dition of artificial Anglicanism, in feelings as well as theology, through which both had passed, led them to idealise the Churches of the last three centuries buUt in Eome, and to denounce Mr. Pugin's revivals as simple pedantries, while their favourite style is, wonderful to say, propped up on the plea of Eoman infallibility, because it happens to be the fasMonable style in the Papal City. This would have been a comparatively unimportant thing if it had stopped at externals. They would probably have found few to agree with this limited position. But upon it they hinged their doctrine of development, and drew the inference that the Ecclesiological view symbolized an imperfect, and theirs an advanced, state of Christian doctrine. The old churches and the new ideas would not work together: it was felt that one must give way. The Ecclesiological system pre- scribed screens, and chancels, and reverence for the altar; OBATOEIANISM AND EOOLESIOLOGY. 123 theirs rejected all these traditions of the old Fathers and customs of the Universal Chureh, as barbarous and cumber- some expedients of undeveloped doctrine, when faith was too rife, love too cold. The enlightened nineteenth century- had need of other things. Those other things were the symbolizing in the worship of the Church of two doctrines, both advanced by the Church of Eome, to the verge of materialising ; both ostentatiously paraded by the Oratorians in a more advanced, and more material form than ever ; both of them, as dealt with by that body, destructive of reverence; both of them assumed by the teachers of the new schools as the points which — irrespective of tradition and the whole corpus of Catholic doctrine — the worship of God was intended to exhibit. These two doctrines were, 1. That of the Eeal Presence, irrespective of the sacrifice which makes it, which is a development of the Eoman idea of Tran- substantiation as distinct from the Catholic verity of the divine presence. Out of this doctrine has grown already the exorbitant importance given to the rite of " the Bene- diction of " (or rather by) " the Blessed Sacrament ; " a rite the essence of which is calling down a blessing on the flock by bringing forward the Hostia in an increased material proxi- mity to them, 2. The doctrine of the prerogatives of St. Mary, irrespective of Him owing to whom she holds them which is in the course of being formalized in the form of the Imma- culate Conception. This doctrine again has had, even in the hands of Mr. Newman, the fearful result of the " deification " (we must use this word) of him who was supposed to he her husland, and who along with her and with her Divine Son, his charge, has in a recent sermon (Discourses addressed to Mixed Congregations 1849) been put forward as the second member of an all-powerful Triad (we were near using another noun). " It will be blessed indeed if Jesus, Joseph, and Mary are there [at the deathbed] waiting to 124 OEATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. sTiield you from his assaults, and to receive your soul. If they are there, all are there ; Angels are there, saints are there, heaven is there, heaven is begun in you, and the devil has no part in you." When we contemplate the reaUy materialistic, really lowering tendency of these two views, we stand aghast. That the second of them, which gives St. Joseph priority over her whom all generations shall call Blessed, might very easily be corrupted into the Socinian idea of the Holy Family (so true it is that extremes meet), is a thing so obvious and so alarming that we will merely indicate it. We have as little hesitation in saying that the equality to Mass which (we speak from a close survey of the tone of the new school's productions) we find given to " Benediction " — a rite, it must, be observed, which custom has connected with the evening — of which the astutely concocted attacks on Vespers, contained in an article on Popular Services in the Eambler for October last, was a part, must inevitably tend, first, to a merely material view of the most mysterious of all mysteries, then to very irreverent dealing with it, and finally to a " philosophy of the Eeal Presence " — pardon us, a development of the doctrine — which with a little more manipulation will result in absolute Pantheism. We can now iill up the blank we have hitherto left, and show how it is that modern Italian Church architecture is the legitimate instrument for Oratorian ritualism. The explanation, incredible as it may seem, is this: — the Eeal Presence being regarded, as we have said, in a most material- ising manner, and apart from the Eucharistic Sacrifice, it is assumed that everything which prevents proximity of presence and of sight to it on the part of the congregation is wrong. Chancels keep them at a distance from the altar, therefore they are to be cut off. Screens hide the tabernacle, therefore they are to be cast down. The system, to be consistent, should forbid consecrating at the west side, and ORATOEIANISM AND BCCLE8I0L0GY. 125 denounce tabernacles. Perliaps it may do so yet. We feel confident that this simple statement is enough to show how unfortunate is the outcry brought against many of the most active and earnest of the English Clergy, even by so-called High Churchmen — an outcry which has sufficed to leave one of the most zealous of them in fearful doubt as to the tenure of his cure — that they Eomanize, when they restore mediaeval ritual.* Mediaeval ritual is anti-Roman, as Eome now is, and this Eome knows full well. Were there less jealousy, less passion, and larger-hearted views abroad, men would feel that in the simultaneous revival, in the Anglican and Anglo- Eoman bodies (not to mention France) of old traditionary rites, long forgotten on both sides, is to be found an earnest, it may at least be permitted to hope, of restored communion' upon primitive and universal priuciples, lost among the errors and contentions of modern times. True ancient. Christian, Ecclesiology, and modern Eomanism, are not compatibilities. Encourage the former, and you aid the reformation of the Western Church. Put it down, and in your shortsightedness you throw open wide the doors to Oratorianism.f We feel that we are speaking somewhat at a disadvantage, having had to compose for ourselves a summa of what has never been so completely systematized by its professors, and being therefore liable to a charge of misrepresentation or invention. We speak, however, from a study of their writiugs, while we were lucky enough to clear our views by a conversation with a neophyte of the Oratory, whom we accidentally feU in with while visiting for curiosity's sake (not for any services) their church of St. Wilfrid, Coton Hall. * This article was written in the height of the anxiety caused by Mr. Bennett's expulsion from the Pimlico Churches. [1882.] 1 1 must refer back to a previous foot-note for the frustration, at least in our times, of the brighter hopes on which I ventured to rest thirty years since at a moment of great distress. [] 882.] 126 PBATOEIANISM AND BCCLESIOLOGY. This young convert, who no doubt represented the more mature conclusions of older men, actually pooh-poohed the reverence "which might induce the laity (acting there as such should have done in a church of our own communion) to shrink from going near the altar. While telling us that there were at communion-time rails, he took care to explain that this was solely for utUitarian objects, and not from reverential feelings. As a practical proof too of how their system worked, an altar had been set against the south wall of the south a,isle (the Church by Mr. Pugin being in its design mainly correct), without the slightest barrier between it and the congregation, who from the smallness of the structure are thereby brought into a most disagreeable nearness to it. Orientation, we should add, is exploded by the Oratorians. We were, we own, startled by what we heard, prepared- as we were, should we ever fall in with a disciple of the Oratorians, for much that would shock those ideas which we had been taught were the necessary development of Catholic worship. The theory of Oratorian popiilar and vernacular services we shall not at present handle. Its drift is very manifest, on the one hand, to propagate a species of devotion, and on the other, to reserve it for the laity, and to emphasize the broad distinction between it and old " Of&cium Divinum." It is, we unhesitatingly own, the consideration of the fearful tendencies revealed in the acts and words of its leaders, and not any aesthetic or antiquarian hankering after mediaeval churches and their fittings, which makes us look upon the Oratorian system with such apprehen- sion. Whatever faults may be found with the Eastern Church it certainly does not Oratorianize. Sacrifice is the prominent idea of the Oriental worship, and we have never heard of St. Joseph being placed before the Panagia. As in its doctrine so in its worship, it rejects the new QRATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. 127 jlotipn of irreverence indicating love. Witness its Iconostasis, ■witness its veil. It seems to us, by fact and inference, almost irrefragable tbat the Ecclesiological system is in fact far more cognate with modern Constantinople than with modern Jlome ; — with the system which does not, than with the one which does, level screens and curtail chancels,* And yet how little do these thoughts — thoughts founded on fact and not on theory — seem to have occurred to those who rejoice at the Church being deprived of Mr. Bennett's activity and successful zeal because he had, in his new church, carried out the things which the converts repudiate, and because he had defended them by an appeal to the Undivided Chiyrch. How many the downfall, if consummated, of St. Barnabas may not entice to the Oratory, it is not for us to conjecture.t In drawing this picture of Gratorianism, we have, for the sake of completeness, forestalled chronology. The first intimation of the new light which had broken upon the , converts was not in any publication especially put out by a member of that congregation, but in a journal — then weekly, now monthly — the ' Eambler ; ' confessedly edited by Mr. Capes, who, while an Anglican Priest, had generously built a Church upon Ecclesiological principles, which, we must do him the credit to say, he very handsomely abandoned to the Church of England on his secession, when some chicanery might have enabled him to keep it. This attack followed upon what had seemed the triumph of the Ecclesio- logical principle in the Anglo-Eoman body, namely, the opening of St. George's, Lambeth, and was delivered in an * Mouravieff, in his history of the Eussian Church, mentions the restoration of screens as a result of the restoration of the uniates to Eastern communion. 1 1 have, in my Preface, pointed to the nemesis of 1857, when the Judicial Committee itself, guided hy the assessorship of Archbishops Sumner and Tait confirmed the legality of the chancel screen in the case of this very church of St. Barnabas. [1882.] 128 OBATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. article on that Church, in the ' Eambler ' for July 8, 1848. The battle was at first directed against screens alone, of which the writer pronounced, " our aversion to screens, both theologically and architecturally, being very strong;" the theological aversion being the view which we have drawn out above. The. challenge so daringly thrown down was quickly taken up ; and, for some time, the ' Eambler ' became the channel of a very fierce controversy, which continued till its change to a monthly issue put a stop to it. On the other side, two of the chief defenders of screens, Mr. T. W. Marshall and Mr. Pugin, chose the ' Tablet ' as their organ. The latter, in a letter, written with all his characteristic dash, and printed in the 'Tablet' for September 2, 1848, pointed out, in a sentence italicised by himself, the true meaning of an attack which was ostensibly against screens alone; the writer in the 'Eambler' professing to be an admirer of Pointed architecture. " The screens once gone, the chancels luill follow, aisles, chapels, apse, all, and the cathedral sinks, into an assembly-room." The 'Eambler,' in its arguments, appealed to the considerations of the days we live in, as con- clusive against appeals to tradition, and made much of the impossibility of the rite of Benediction being celebrated where there was a screen ; an argument answered by the home-thrust contained in the fact that in the church, where the Feast of Corpus Christi — that annual solemnity of which Benediction is the constant repetition — had been first estab- lished, in the middle ages was the Cathedral of Vienne in France, notorious for a beautiful screen and loft, which was made use of in the ceremonial. The ' Eambler ' also dropped some strange theories as to the undesirableness of the sign of our salvation being found in the Church con- temporaneously with the reserved Hostia, an idea which we fully expect to see developed in the Oratorian system. In 1849, the conflict had extended over the whole field of OEATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. 129 architecture, ritualism, and Church music (with a singular exception in favour of medifeval vestments, for practical reasons), in cleverly written, but utterly misty papers, in the ' Eambler,' of which the result was, a confession of Orator- ianism, with a prudent reserve of loopholes, and the promise that that journal would put out a series of plans and designs for development in churches suited to the towns of the nineteenth century. The first was to appear at the com- mencement of 1850. Accordingly, we opened that ' Eambler ' with curiosity, and laid it down with astonishment. This church of the future was a horribly ugly Eomanesque one by Mr. Hadfield, without a single merit of a Pointed one, and everything (a high screen alone excepted), aisles, chancel, stalls, &c., which Oratorians found to object to in mediaeval structures. Mr. Pugin did not fail to be down upon the abortion in a stingiug pamphlet, further remarkable for candid and well-expressed admissions of failure on his own part, in various early churches, which had the effect of putting right some previous misapprehensions. The second model church was hardly less curious, being a Middle Pointed one, by Mr. Wardell, Ecclesiological in all but screen and stalls, both of which, in the accompanying letter-press, the archi- tect advocated as necessary to complete the structure. But of the third we must say, " none but itself can be its parallel." Its parent is Mr. C. Parker, who proclaimed Ms bantling Eomanesque and gave us an affair combining more features of bad Italian and bad Lotiis XV. than we could have well thought possible in one little building ; while the professed object being to produce an utilitarian series, he afi&xed a large open loggia to the structure. With this the series abruptly concluded, a step in the wisdom of which we should think all classes and all denominations would agree.* I feel that I am galvanizing forgotten literature and art. But ten- E 130 OKATOKIANISM AND ECGLESIOLOGY, Before recurring to the Oratory itself, we must, by way of parenthesis, record, that the screen controversy gave rise to rather an amusing episode, in a discussion which arose on the propriety of a custom prevalent among some of the Ecclesio- logical side, of filling their chancels with laymen dressed up as dummy " clerics." Here we need not say we think the movement party got a very fair advantage of their opponents, one of whom had the courage to defend it, in a letter in which he pleaded for it on the score of the consolation it afforded to (married) converts who had given up their own chancels in " Protestant " Churches. Mr. Pugin promised, in consequence of this controversy, to publish a work on screens, which he lived to bring out. In the meanwhile, the Oratorians themselves were not idle, but, literally fulfilled Mr. Pugin's saying, of the cathedral being turned into an assembly-room, by opening (under Mr. Faber's especial charge, Dr. Newman presiding over the parent house at Birmingham) the late Lowther Eooms, in King William Street, Strand, as their church, or " Oratory," at the end of 1848. This change of appropriation galled Mr. Pugin very much, but we think not very fairly. Granted that the association of a church with a late dancing-room is not pleasant, yet nobody can deny that it is a change very much for the better, and that in these times any room which is large enough is a treasure, when a temporary church is on foot. We know, in London, of a similar appropriation having been made for the temporary worship of a very earnest Anglican congregation. The Oratory was at first meanly furnished, and meanness in Divine worship was for some time a point insisted upon by that party : latterly, as in the ' Eambler's ' pattern churches, denoios live after their early expression has passed away, and I do not think that the Christian fold has so completely exorcised the spirit of Oratorianism. [1882.] OEATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. 131 it seems to have slipped out of notice. At the same time, since its openiag, the Oratory was decorated in a more seemly way, at the cost of a noble lord. When the Oratorians, if the report which we have heard be true, build their church, which is to -cost £35,000, in London, we shall, we fancy, be told that one of their prime tenets is the duty of carrying out their system of ritual, with a magnificence which will pu^ to shame that of St. George's. Indeed, we think we see in Mr. Faber's Lectures on St. Philip Neri, the germ of this change, in the passage where he dilates on the way in which the arts have always gathered round the congregation of the Oratory.* We have now brought down our sketch, fragmentary and imperfect as we feel it to be, of Ecclesiological progress from the primitive basilica to the mediaeval cathedral, thence to the paganizing structures of modern Italy, and down to that revival of ancient forms, in which both the Anglican and Anglo-Eoman communions, each acting upon independent principles, have of late been so active. We have pointed out the men and the causes which led to the dogmatic resuniption of the traditions of the sisteenth century, in opposition to this revival, which seemed to promise to be something more than an architectural one. We have sketched the fearful doctrinal perversion, which seemed to underlie this dogmatic opposition, and we have found it making to itself a habitation in London, as it has also done in Birmingham. We have a very wide field before us still, if we were to attempt to give specimens of the worsliip which it has developed, to try them by the touchstone of the Universal Church, to test at the same time the theory and the practice of Anglican * After so many years my prediction is being now fulfilled. Here let me remind my readers that the Church of Rome, of which I so often speak in this article, was that Church before the Immaculate Conception or Papal Infallibility had been declared defide. [1882.] K 2 132 OEATOEIANISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY. yrorship, and finally,, to adventure some rules of ritualism, which might likewise be assumed as primary principles for the worship of universal undivided Christendom — when the teaching of the Oratory and the Proprietary Chapel shall both be things which exist, if at all, out of the pale of the One Catholic Church. But these matters are so extensive, and we have already run on to so great a length, that we must hold our hand, A deeper investigation of the question is due from those who believe in the Catholic Church, as a living, energizing thing, set up for the salvation of souls, and not merely as an antiquarian record, or a convenient theme upon which to build sermons, speeches, pamphlets, and, on emer- gencies real or supposed, addresses to the Crown. As we write this we do not forget that Advent-tide has come on, that solemn time, which shows that we have advanced a, stage further towards that " One supreme divine event To which creation moves." A new Church year has commenced, and if the signs aU around us are not mocking delusions, it will be a year pregnant with momentous consequences, and full of menace to the distracted Church. The time is coming when the foundations of all things must be examined. In the mean- while in these days of preparation, the Church will soon commence her invocations, full of sorrow, full of hope, invocations in which the calendar of the English Church permits us to join, — Clavis David, et sceptrum domiis Israel, qui aperis et nemo claudit, claudis et nemo aperit, veni et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris et umbra mortis. DEAN HOWSON BEFOEE THE TABLE.' (DEM.HOWSON 'BEFOEE THE TABLE.'* (from the 'CHUEOH quarterly KBVIEW,' JAN. 1876.) This book to a great extent an answer to a chapter in ' Worship in the Church of England ' — That chapter defended the Eastward Position by , showing that the point of the compass was named in Prayer Book of 1552, in reference to minister's position towards the table and not towards the building — Lengthways position set up in 1552— Slowness of process by which altar- wise position of table was again made univer- sal — The position urged in ' Worship in the Church of England ' was established by reference to Rubrics of successive Prayer Books — Bishop of Winchester — Anglican worship at its lowest official level in 1552 — Gradually rose from 1559 to 1662 — Archdeacon Harrison — Canterbury practice in 1565 — Visitation articles from Elizabeth to George II. — Lengthways position lingered after 1662 — Force of Position Eubric of 1662 — Triple dilemma of minister — Divergent if not inconsistent action of High Churchmen with only Rubrics of 1552 as their justifi- cation — ^Evidence of Scotch Book of 1637 — Wren and Cosin — Dean's appeal to " edification " not to the point — His easy canter through con- troversy from 1559 to 1662 — Rubrics as they are, not as either party might wish them — ^Better keep them as they are on an honourable and peaceful agreement — The Dean's charge met that the argument of ' Woi-ship in the Church of England ' involves imputation of dishonesty at'ainst Wren and Laud — Wren's defence against the charge of celebra- ting eastward in Tower Church, Ipswich, is an answer to a penal article of impeachment where he was bound to admit as little as possible — But he compromised nothing in the answer he made — The structure of and ceremonial at Abbey Dore Church consecrated on Wren's behalf in 1634, conclusive as to Eastward Position there — Scotch Prayer Book— The plan * Before the Table : an Inquiry, Historical and Theological, into the true Meaning of the Consecration Rubric in the Communion Service of the Church of England. By J. S. Howson, D.D., Dean of Chester. (London, 1875.) 136 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' of Chapel brought up against Laud by Prynne, not of his chapel but of Bishop Andrewes' — Examination of the plan conclusive upon Eastward Position — Laud's work — General meaning of " decency '' — Cosin at Durham — The Dean's unfounded assertion that the Higb party was defeated in 1662 — Theological position of the Dean's book — Loose statements on the Eucharist contrasted with Bishop Phillpotts' language — The Dean first argues that High views are inconsistent with doctrine of English Church, and then pleads for their toleration — " Fatal liberty of choice " — The Dean would less object to Eastward Position if made compulsory on all — Not sufBcient recognition of High Church tolera- tion in seventeenth century — The Dean's illusory offer of compromise — He attacks High Churchmen per invidiam for Eomanizing tendencies — Results of a policy of Low Church intolerance. The plea for the North-end position of the Celebrant at the Consecration Prayer of our Communion Service, which my friend the Dean of Chester has just published, is to a great extent intended as an answer to the chapter of my . Worship in the Church of England in which I urge the lawfulness of the Eastward Position. Strong, therefore, as my conviction is of the general advantage of unsigned reviewiag as the surest guarantee for the healthy influence of independent writing, I feel that in the present case I may well claim from the Church Quarterly Beview the exceptional permission which it some- times grants of signature. My defence of the present lawfulness of the Eastward Position was founded, not upon the denial, but upon the recognition, of that prescription of what must then have been a southward position on the celebrant's part, which was im- ported into the Prayer Book of 1552, and which has not, with all our subsequent changes, been removed from the existing authoritative body of Eubrics. I looked at my difficulty full face, and I showed that as the point of the compass at which the minister had to stand was named in reference to the table before him and not to the building in which it stood, so the altered circumstances, developed during more than three hundred years, have created a body of infer- J J DEAN HOWSON 'BJilFOEE THE TABLE.' 137 ence which accords to the man who now faces eastward his justification on the very principles of the Eubric of 1552, which enjoined his predecessor of Edward VI.'s day to turn his back to the north. My friend meets this argument with curious levity. From first to last I contended that the clue to the Church of England's intentions as to the priest's position was to be found in what the Prayer Book did, rather than in what it did not, lay down upon the matter ; and I showed that this authority neither thought of making him face an abstract east, west, north, or south, nor of taking any position directly referring to the body of worshippers, while it was careful in placing the Lord's Table itself, and, in that connexion, in regulating how the minister was to stand towards it. In fact it made the man the appendage of the table, not the table of the man. This may haye been. a mere chimera of mine, still it was my argument, and the writer who undertook to reply to me was bound to meet me on those grounds, and, if he coiild, convict me of blundering over them. What does the Dean do, however ? He demonstrates, and re-demon- strates, and then demonstrates over again, the notorious pre- valence of the lengthways position of the table down to 1662, and its survival afterwards, even under the new Eubric, which defines the duties and posture of the celebrant at the Prayer of Consecration itself. The Dean dwells particularly upon the slowness of the process by which the altar-wise standing of the table was made universal. With all this minuteness, however, of de- monstration upon points as to which he is merely fighting ^he air (for there is no one to contradict him). Dr. Howson sedulously omits to. notice that the attitude of the priest towards church or towards congregation has no place in the Eubric, except as it may be involved in his attitude towards the material table. The table may be changed from length- 138 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFOEE THE TABLB> ways to crossways, the side that once faced the north may now face the west, and the former east end lie parallel to the northern wall, still the Eubric merely deals with the side of that table at which the priest is to stand. It would' surely be absurd to argue that this inversion of relative position made no difference to the man whose standing was regulated by the table itself, for the same order to place himself before it, which would in one state of things compel him to turn to the south, would in another guide his eyes eastward. It is, however, all the same to the Dean of Chester — the table may be turned to that wind or the other ; sides, ends, " carpet," candlesticks, " ornaments," and aU, may be shifted about, and stUl the one eternal and changeless existence, the ministering priest, stands, and shall for ever stand, amid the crash of rituals, a solitary monument of consistency, with back to Boreas and face to Auster. The Dean's system of disputation compels me, though with the utmost brevity, to quote portions of the Eubrics between 1549 and 1662, which treat of the mutual standing of the man and the table relatively . to each other, so as to put beyond contradiction the fact that the authors of the Eubrics in the successive editions of the reformed Prayer Book, re- ferring to the minister's position in commencing the Com- munion Service, and at the Prayer of Consecration, foUow the universal custom of the Western Church by defining the position of the celebrant in reference, not to the worshippers, but to the table itself. In 1549 the priest is to "stand" " humbly afore, the, midst of the altar " — a direction in which there is no ambiguity, for it is a matter of historical certainty that the altar was an oblong table, and stood north and south, with its usable " midst " facing westward. So it was in 1549, and so it had been from time immemorial. There is as little doubt about what is meant when, at the Prayer of Consecra- tion we read, " Then the priest, turning him to the altar, DEAN HOWSON* BEFORE THE TABLE.' 139 shall say or sing." Then came the Prayer Book of 1552, and in the meanwhile the " altars " had been pulled down. Ac- cordingly, in this book we find a Communion Service of which the important portions, which in 1549 took place at the "altar," are to be transacted at a "Lord's Table," or " God's Board." It will not be denied, even by the Dean of Chester, that the " altar " of 1549 was a fixed article of furniture. The Lord's Table of 1552 is, as will be equally acknowledged, a moveable one ; whUe, for the purpose of the present incLuiry, no other difference between the two need be predicated. In size and shape they resembled each other, being oblong tables, large enough for the action of the Holy Communion. Well then, the rule in 1549 having been that the celebrant should stand " afore the midst " of this oblong altar, and therefore eastward only because the " midst " looked westward, in 1552 we find — " The table having, at the Communion time, a faire white linnen Cloth iipon it, shall stand in the body of the Church, or in the Chancel, where Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer be appointed to be said. And the Priest, standing at the Twrth side of the Table, shall say the Lord's Prayer with this Collect following." The priest's position here is defined as " at the north side of the table," and according as that table is intended to be placed, with its ends north and south, or east and west, so wiU its position be an intentional continuation of, or an in- tentional deviation from, the position of the " altar " appointed in 1549. If the former were the case, the priest would have been transferred to what would be more correctly described as the " north-end ; " if the latter, he would still be " afore the midst " of that side which had been west in 1549, and was north in 1552. Historical evidence must decide the point, and I contend that it abundantly establishes the second hypothesis. It will be recollected that towards the solution of this ambiguity the Eubric before the Prayer of 140 DEAN HOWSOK 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' Consecration, as it stood between 1552 and 1662, affords no help, for it merely specifies that " then the priest standing up shall say as followeth." Then came the actual Eubric at this place, which is to the north-end party the dif&culty which they find very hard to overcome. I had hoped that for the purpose of this short recapitula- tion I could assume general assent to the historical statement that the intention of the authors of the initial Eubric of 1552 was to place the table east and west at Communion time, and that the innovators had so far succeeded that the practice did not finally die out till at some uncertain date posterior to 1662. I discover, however, that in his very recently published Pastoral Letter (as to the general tone of which I cannot speak too highly), the Bishop of Winchester founds his argument in favour of the north end on the denial of that assumption. He agrees with the Dean of Chester in pre- ferring the north end, but he differs from him in desiring to allow the west side as an alternative ; and I am sure that the Bishop will give a candid hearing to the remarks which I presume to offer against his theory, which he thus sums up : — " But, I think, there can be no reasonable doubt that in the year 1552, when first the Second Service Book of Edward VI. came into use, all the holy tables were standing north and south ; that when they were first removed they were simply moved forward, retaining the same position, relatively to the points of the compass ; and that if the priest stood ' afore ' the table, he could not stand at the north of it, and if he stood at the north of it he could not stand ' afore ' it.* By degrees, no doubt, and while Puritan opinions were rapidly gaining ground through the reigns of * " Of course, we are all aware of the difficulty of calling the end of a table a ' side.' I confess I see no solution of it but by admitting that the revisers used ' side ' equally of what we now call ' ends,' A mathematician would now speak of the four ' sides ' of a rectangle or other parallelogram, whether the sides were equal or unequal ; and the Scotch Prayer Book did undoubtedly identify north side with north end. The holy tables in those days, too, were more nearly square than they are now." DEAN HOWSON ' BEFOEE THE TABLE."^ 141 Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I., the holy table being removed into the nave, and the nave becoming crowded with large pews, the custom grew up of turning the table east and west, both to accommodate it to its place in the church, and to make it look less and less like an altar. By degrees, probably, this altered position relatively to the points of the compass came to be called the ' table-wise ' in distinction to the ' altar-wise ' position ; and at length we find the most Puritan-minded bishop of the seventeenth century, Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1627, instructing one of his clergy that the table was to stand ' table-wise,' by which he meant east and west, and the clergyman at the north side of it — not ' altar-wise ' and the clergyman at the north end of it.'* Further on the Bishop recurs to this view as " vsdth no manner of doubt" the meaning of the Eubric of 1552. It will be observed that the Bishop of Winchester's theory is that of there having been two ages of the 1552 usage ; (1) the Edwardian one, in which the table was simply thrust forward with its altar-wise points of the compass unaltered ; and (2) the usage that grew up between the restoration of the Prayer Book under Elizabeth, and the time of Bishop Williams, of not only thrusting it forward, but of turning it half round. The a priori objection to this suggestion is that it runs counter to the phenomena which in all other matters characterized the progress of ceremonialism in England within, as contrasted with its fortunes outside of the Prayer Book, between 1552 and 1640. Speaking generally, the Sacramental and the Puritan elements were most completely in solution in 1552, and so the official aspect of Anglican worship was at its lowest Puritan level. It must not be forgotten that between 1549 and 1552, i.e. whUe "altars" were still the statutable and rubrical furniture of churches, the most notable demolition of altars had been going on under Epis- copal sanction. Subsequently, and in spite of the advantage that anti-ceremonialism undoubtedly gained from the horrors of the Marian episode — while on the one side Puritanism * " ' North side or end.' 142 DEAN HOWSON ' BEFOEE THE TABLE.' continued more and more to fall off from the Established Church, and to consolidate into the antagonistic form of Dissent, and on the other, the Establishment showed more and more tendency to resume ceremonial in the spirit rather of 1549 than of 1552. I believe that the innovators of 1552 concentrated their exclusive attention upon the Communion Service itself, and provided accordingly that during it the table should stand "table-wise," which in their eyes meant its not standing as it did when it was known as an altar. As to its standing at other times, they neither knew nor cared. When the reaction began, the more staunch Anglicans, with the smoke of the Marian burnings still hanging about, did not see their way to touching the new Eubric, so they commenced re- constructing the " altar " idea by providing that the " Holy Table " (sic in'Elizabeth's injunction, in the very year of her accession, 1559, though this reverent description is not to be found in the Prayer^Book tUl 1662) should stand altar-wise at non-Communion time. This injunction and the Ornaments Eubric were certainly, as far as they went, a substantive recoil from the downward rush which substituted the book of 1552 for that of 1549. The history of the insertion of the Ornaments Eubric in the same year, 1559, is familiar; can we then readily suppose that the initial Eubric of the Communion Service was held to sanction a fuller instalment of Puritanism after the Church of England had passed under the influence of Parker, Whitgift, Bancroft, Overall, and Andrewes, and while Laud was, and Wren was about to be, among its living bishops, than in the days when Bucer and Peter Martyr fiUed the Divinity chairs at Cambridge and Oxford ? Or, again, can it be supposed that the fact of the tables being so turned, com- pelling the celebrant to 3tand " afore the midst " after he had for so many years rested at the north end, would so completely have escaped the sharp suspicious wits of the Puritans ? It may be rather puzzling that the documentary evidence J J DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 143 for the fuller meaning of this Eubric should be so slight, but it would be infinitely more puzzling if, as the Bishop of Win- chester concludes, a perfectly sHent development of its more Puritan signification had concurred with the series of years during which the ceremonial of the Church was rising from the level of 1552 to that of the Caroline age. But I have conclusive evidence — a ruling case in fact — ^which negatives the Bishop's supposition that the motive for turning the table was to " accommodate it to its place in the church," while it shows that the desire to " make it less and less like an altar " originated earlier and more forcibly than he is ready to admit. The witness I shall adduce is marshalled to my hand by a writer, who agrees with the Bishop of Winchester and the Dean of Chester in preferring the north end, while he ranges himself with the former in urging toleration for eastward cele- bration. I had, while dealing in my book with this very ques- tion, quoted a passage from Strype, in which he transcribes an account of the state of things at Canterbury Cathedral in 1565, i.e. only thirteen years after the first publication of the Eubric in dispute, and only six after its revival under Elizabeth, and which I term " a combination, nothing less than ludicrous, of the Higher and the Puritan ceremonials." As to the practice of this, the mother and typal Church in England, at this early date, Strype finds that on days when there was no Communion, the Common Prayer was daily sung " at the Com- munion table, standing north and south, where the high altar did stand," the minister wearing a surplice only, and standing on the east side of the table (i.e. at one of its broad sides), facing the people. His authority continues : " The Holy Com- munion is ministered ordinarily at the first Sunday of every month throughout the year. At which time the table is part east and west; the priest which ministereth, the Pystoler and Gospeller, at that time wear copes." The combination which struck me as virtually ludicrous was that of a moveable 144 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFOEE THE TABLE.' table placed east and west, and of distinctive Eucharistic dresses, regardless of whether those arrangements were or were not at the time respectively legal. But my friend Archdeacon Harrison, in the very learned notes to his late Charge, failing to see this point, takes me to task for so lightly treating what were no doubt at that period acts of conformity. He pleads that " The ' description ' which we find in Strype is, in truth, nothing less than the ' certificate, official and formal, made to the Archbishop's commissary ' in answer to a letter from the Archbishop." The Archdeacon observes further on — " At the time of Communion, at the monthly celebration, there was, as it would appear, no bringing of the table down, in conformity with Puritan practice ; the table was only turned east and west, the priest, be it observed, standing in the accustomed place in regard to the table, and on the north side, in conformity with the Rubric." Before passing to further matters, I must for one moment again pause on the fact of the church which we ha;ve been con- sidering being not only a cathedral, but Canterbury Cathedral — the cathedral of which Parker himself was then diocesan. Strange, uncouth, and repulsive as the Lord's Table standing at Communion time east and west must appear to us, the fact that Parker had (to say the least of it) to tolerate it in his own cathedral, seems to be indeed a very strong a fortiori argument for the prevalence of the custom in other churches less dignified, and presided over by prelates of less determined opinions than Parker ; and at the same time, as we see, this very Holy Table was being served by clergy in copes, while, as the Archdeacon further quotes, it was set out wafer-bread. I believe that the Bishop of Winchester, with such positive evidence at this early date from the Metropolitical Church of all England, wiU be inclined to revise his opinion that the turning of the table east and west only came in at a com- paratively late period, and that it was always accompanied DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TAHLB.' 145 Ipj its being carried down from the east end. With reference to the distinction which the Bishop draws between Williams and other bishops, I have looked into the series of Visitation articles from the reign of Elizabeth to George II., published in the Second Eeport of the Eitual Commission, to find whether any orders are given as to the Orientation of the Holy Table, and I observe that Kent, Archdeacon of Sudbury, about 1631, Wren, Bishop of Norwich, in 1636, Duppa, Bishop of Chichester, in 1638, and Lacy, Bishop of St. David's, in 1671, especially order the " ends " to be " north and south," thereby implying, as I conceive, that there was a custom which they wished to overrule, of placing those " ends " east and west. Each one of these dignitaries used the same term " ends " with the obvious intention of describing the shorter flanks of a table which was then, as now, habitu- ally oblong. I particularly commend this philological fact in the first instance to the Dean of Chester, who has a favourite point about the existence of square tables, and, in the second place, to all and every writer who is in the habit of contend- ing that " north side " means north end. I am. quite willing, too, that my friend should make all the use he can of the presumptive evidence derivable from Bishop Lacy's in- quiry as to the prevalence of the east and west jDosition in 1671. He argues with a vigour which shows that he imagines the proof important for his case, that this position was far from uncommon for a considerable time after 1662. I gladly make him a present of all which he can demonstrate on this point. I am, indeed, rather glad that he should demonstrate a good deal, for the more completely he can show that the now universal standing of the Holy Table altar-wise did not become an universal usage as the im- mediate consequence of the revision of 1662, the more firmly will he establish the far-reaching prescience of our latest Eeformers, who so wisely provided for this salutary change in L 146 DEAN HOWSON 'BEPOEE THE TABLE.' the face of much material difficulty, and left its accomplish- ment to the providential course of events. The Dean no doubt win have noted how Archdeacon Harrison distinguishes between the " accustomed place in regard to the table " (i.e. towards its hroad side) and " the north side, in conformity with the Eubric." But I must retrace my steps from a long digression. I think I have sufficiently shown that as in the unreformed Church of England before 1549, so in the reformed Church, both in 1549 and 1552, the priest stood at the broad side of an oblong table, though the position of that table in itself at Communion time was altered at the last date. If I were answering the Dean in a book, and not an article, I should have had at this point to have plunged into a very wide discussion, for ia 1552, and between that date and 1662, the positive guidance of authoritative Eubrics deserts us, and we have to trace our way through the devious by-paths of injunctions, advertisements, canons, rubrics of a sister Church, State trials, and the sayings and doings generally of princes, prelates, and Puritans, tUl we reach a Eubric for the first time inserted in the Prayer Book of 1662, before the Prayer -of Consecration, in lieu of the meaningless one of 1552, which prescribes that — " When the Priest, standing before the table, hath so ordered the Bread and Wine, that he may with the more readiness and decency break the bread before the people, and take the cup into his hands, he shall say the Prayer of Consecration, as folio weth." By the side of this Eubric still stands as introduction to the Communion Service the one of 1552, with only two verbal alterations of no importance, and the additional words " the people kneeling." Supposing that the last-referred-to Eubric were still to be operative as its full and literal sense was taken to be on its promulgation, there would be no ambiguity or inconsistency in the celebrant's position in the Church of DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 147 England through all the important parts of the Communion office. He would be " before the table " both at the commence- ment and at the consecration, and he would be on its " north side " on both these occasions, because it would be a table having its broad " sides " north and south, " before " the former of which he would be commanded to stand. But, as a fact, the first part of this initial Eubric has long been obsolete, and the table is placed, not in the body of the church or chancel, but where the altar used to stand in 1549, at the east end and crossways. Consequently the minister is reduced to one of three dilemmas. He must either follow the north side of the table, which he serves, to its new posi- tion, and find himself, as in 1549, "afore the midst" of it, and thus, at all events, literally comply with the Eubric before the Prayer of Consecration, by standing " before the table," and relatively also with the one which came earlier in the service, by adhering to the north side in the spirit of the words ; or, secondly, he must cling to whatever portion of the table is to the north, heedless of whether it is properly front, side, or end, or whether it does or does not put him " before the table," or whether, finally, it is the same portion of that table which would have presented itself to him under such relations in 1552 ; or, finally, he must strike the balance of difficulties by looking southward at first and eastward at the consecration — ;the compromise for which Wren worked and which is embodied in the Scotch Prayer Book of 1637. The Dean's book is devoted to showing not that the second of these courses is the more excellent way, but that he who tries to walk along any other one has not a leg to stand upon, ritual, historical, or theological, and that, in a word, his own interpretation should be penally declared to be universally compulsory. " The fatal gift of choice," so he tells us, is that which beyond all things he deprecates, and would render im- possible. In the chapter of my book which he traverses, I L 2 148 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFOEE THE TABLE.' plead in favour of present toleration for all the alternatives, but I give my reasons for the personal conviction that the first-named can claim the largest balance of evidence and argument. I am unable to do so without speculating upon the motives as well as the words of distinguished men, and my remarks, as I shall show, have brought me into trouble with the Dean, as well as with Archdeacon Harrison. Assuming that, as all men know, the Prayer Book of 1549 is a typical exhibition of the Higher, and that of 1552 a typical one of the Lower Church of England, I have shown that our ecclesiastical history from 1559 onwards has, with various ups and downs, been that of the gradual recovery of many incidents lost between 1549 and 1552. And I have credited the High Church party between 1559 and 1662, i.e. the party of Parker, Andrewes, Overall, Laud, Wren, and Cosin, with intentions honestly held and openly advanced as occasion offered, of working towards such recovery. Viewing things in this light, I gave due value to such patent facts as the long struggle carried on by the higher side through the Eeformation century for the restoration of the Lord's Table to its altar-wise position, confined until at least after 1604, except in such exceptional cases as Elizabeth's chapel, to non-Communion time, but afterwards, and more consistently, as in the leading early instance of the private chapel of Bishop Andrewes, to that of Communion also. Nor did I flinch from pointing out as an element of this movement what I considered the " divergent, if not inconsistent " action of High Churchmen, who were most prominent, ivith only the Rubrics of 1552 as their justification, in the struggle for placing the Holy Table altar-wise, some of whom showed a predilection for celebrating eastward, when they had the opportunity, while others advocated the new north end as representing the old north side. On this I argued that they, being only men and not angels DEAN HOWSON 'BEFOKE THE TABLE.' 149 or infallible Popes, might either take words differently, or not dare from motives of policy to try for all which they might yet have preferred to realise. Then I took notice that some of the leading and most conspicuous of these men had an ex- ceptional opportunity, in launching the Scotch Prayer Book of 1637, of composing Eubrics which in the eyes of their enemies meant to imply a preference for eastward celebration, an imputation which they never denied, although they de- fended their action with reasons, which have, I venture to think, led Dean Howson considerably astray. Finally, I observed that this same school of theologians, being in the ascendant in 1662, and acting under the lead of prelates, one of whom was a prime agent in the affair of the Scotch book twenty-five years before, and another, Cosin, greatly mixed up in the ceremonial fights of Charles I.'s reign, while it left the restoration of the altar-wise position to the operation of time without recasting the Eubrics — a policy in which time has triumphantly vindicated their judgment — drew up, upon the lines of the Scotch book, that Eubric before the Prayer of Consecration, which, taken in conjunction with the altar-wise restoration, is a declaration of eastward celebration, while apart from that restoration it only regulates the action of the minister who is still standing at the broad side of a table placed lengthways. The masterly policy of this Eubric of Cosin's drafting solved the difficulties which had been coming to a head at the earlier moment, when, if the Dean will allow me to say so, " nonconformity " showed that it " existed as a great external fact," by making short work of Church and King. It did so by throwing in another formal difficulty to the perpetual yoke of 1552 restric- tiveness, which virtually endowed the Church of England with that blessed " gift of choice," which has had the effect ever since, and never more than at this moment, of providing the safety-valve for otherwise explosive elements. .150 DEAN HOWSON ' BEFOEE THE TABLE.' My general conclusions from the facts' thus briefly summed up were of course various. I offered a plea for the present toleration of either position. I ventured to represent that the Eubrics, taken by themselves without collateral illustration, broke down as practical guides for regulating our actual wor- ship, and I presented an historical vindication of the characters and policy of the High Church leaders of the Eeformation century. How, then, does my friend, condescending for a few moments to turn from his idol-worship of the southward " stance," as the be-all and the end-all of Eucharistic cere_ monial, handle these conclusions ? I place, so I find, the question of " end " or " side " in a " light so extraordinary," that the Dean_must be allowed to " devote a few moments " to my "[argument." My positions, taken from my book, are that the usage of the Universal Church points to the cele- brant standing at the hroad side of the Lord's Table (accord- ing to the BasUican usage, no less than the later one), that, when the table was placed lengthways, the north side was one of its broad sides, and that this identical north side became the west one when it was turned crossways. Eela- tively, too, to the " Board " — whether altar or table — I averred that the position of the minister himself remained unaffected, and that since the now universal change in the position of the altar, the actual west side is the north side of 1552 turned round. At this point my friend's feelings are too much for him, and he breaks into this exclamation of pious horror : — " Thus the essential point of the matter is represented as one having reference, not to the edification and convenience of the congregation, but to the dimensions and shape of the table. Questions of worship are dis- regarded, if only the priests stand correctly in reference to an ornament of the church. ' The Lord's Board ' is everything, the Lord's people, ' the Royal Priesthood,' is nothing. This great subject, after all, is not a matter of religious principle, but merely of geometry ; everything in it turns upon the question of breadth. I have looked at this argument again and again DEAN H0WSON 'BBFOEE THE TABLE.' 151 (and others bssidos Mr. Beresford Hope have used it), and each time I look at it I am lost in wonder." My difficulty in dealing with this marvellous outburst, is that when I was at school I was taught the lesson which I have never forgotten, that of all argumentative expedients, giving the tii quoque is the most inexcusable, so I keep to myself all reciprocal feelings of surprise. The controversy between the Dean and myself is upon a moot point in a science dealing with material substances and overt action — ■ the science of ceremonial. We are concerned with that science in its retrospective and not its prospective aspect; we are neither of us thinking of working out the most edify- ing or solemn ceremonial for the future ; but we are investi- gating the existing ritual law of a particular Church during a given period, in order to reach conclusions on the disputed lawfulness of a specific act. Towards this object documents have to be interpreted in connection with the material actions and Eucharistic " ornaments " with which these deal. A question of breadth and of length happens to be material towards the right understanding of very important ceremonial regulations. These very questions — this very length and breadth — ^are, in Dr. Howson's own handling of the contro- versy, made as important for his side as by me for mine, and rightly so on his part. His sentence immediately preceding the paragraph from which I quote deals with the topic in an argument upon the occurrence of square tables, yet with in- conceivable inconsistency the Dean does not scruple to bring contempt upon considerations, which he shrinks from answer- ing, by a sentimental cry that I am, while industriously working out a dry but necessary investigation, showing myself neglectful of the " edification and convenience " of " the Lord's people." After so cavalierly disposing of the supporters of the eastward position as the enemies of edificatior, the in con- ].52 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFOEE THE TABLE.' veniencers of the Lord's people, and the deniers of the royal priesthood, the Dean of Chester finds it easy work to traverse the century-long controversy in a jaunty canter through a few sentences. " Assuming then — all questions of ' end ' or ' side ' being discarded — that the position of the officiating priest, as regulated by the initial Kubric, is to be on the north of the Lord's Table, with his face directed to the south, I ask the reader to pause for a moment, and to consider the extreme significance of this regulation, introduced first into the Prayer Book in 1552, and maintained there ever since. It seems to me that we have in this sentence a very important landmark of ecclesiastical history, and a most emphatic expression of the mind of the Reformed Church of England. " The two bare facts, that the southward position at the beginning of the Communion Service was adopted and prescribed — and that this rule has stood since in full force and is still unaltered — are very remarkable. Whatever may be said in depreciation of the Prayer Book of 1552 (and in some quarters it is now the fashion to depreciate it), at all events the fourth of the initial Eubrics has held its ground. It remained untouched in 1559 and 1662, and no proposal was made to alter it in 1689. Why was the position of the officiating minister at the Lord's Table changed at all in 1552 ? and why was the change, once made, so tenaciously kept ? Ho precedent can be quoted from ancient times. There is not a word in the New Testament which touches this subject ; nothing can be more con- trary to the spirit of the JTew Testament, than the connecting of devotional and ministerial acts with the points of , the compass. Nor was the new position suggested by any earlier liturgy. And yet it was maintained at each subsequent revision, notwithstanding the preference felt, at various times, by learned and excellent men, for a difierent position. " There must ip. this deliberate and continued choice be an expression of the mind of the Church of England, and if we ask for the meaning of the selection of the north side for the oifioiating minister, the answer, as it appears to me, must evidently be this, that it was intended to select for him a place, which, while convenient for congregational worship, should also be neutral in regard to theobgy, so that no expression should be given by a ceremony to any doctrine not contained in the words of the Prayer Book." To this of course the all-sufficient answer is that the statesmanlike convictions of the theologians who were not willing that the ritual of the Church of England should for DEAN HOWSON ' BBFOEB THE TABLE.' 153 ever stick at the level of 1552, led them, under the circum- stances of their own time, to adventure the restoration of the " Holy Table," name and thing {a name which every reader of Greek liturgies knows to he identical with " altar "), to its stationary place of honour at the east end of the church, as in their judgment the first and most needful reform. That they have thoroughly and irreversibly succeeded in this was just the reason that they did not so thoroughly succeed in restoring the celebrant's position, for in an age, when the game had to be played against prison, scaffold, and axe, the wisest schemes could not always command absolute success. No man now desires the obligatory and universal compulsion of the eastward position, and if (of which there is no evidence) any persons woidd have been glad to have compassed this in the seventeenth century, they would have been watched with those who were, without a doubt, burning to tear up the surplice, to forbid kneeling, and to reduce baptism to the ex- ceptional privUege of their own sect. Different parties wUl differently read the motives of men in that hot time, and differently rejoice or lament over the ultimate successes and falls of either side ; but no one who dares face history as it is, will accept the smooth, contracted, featureless presentment of the struggles of the Eeformation century propounded by the Dean of Chester. I do not think that I need say much more upon the general conclusions which an examination of the Eubrics of the Communion Service, as they are, and not as either party might wish them to be, has led me to accept. I have endea- voured to look at them simply as rules to be construed upon the principles applicable to the bylaws of a secular society. If it is objected to me that I have only succeeded in showing that the Eubrics literally interpreted point to arrangements of the building and its furniture which are in contradiction 154- DEAN HOWSON 'BEPOEE THE TABLE.' to those which, after a fierce fight, have, in the lapse of more than two centuries, become, without the aid of Eubric or recognized Canon, universal, I reply that this does not affect me, for my duty is not to make laws but to establish facts. If I am asked whether, in face of this discrepancy, I am prepared actively to press for some reform of the written law of the Church which should bring custom and documentary prescription into harmony, I answer, that I decline the pledge. England has discovered, and in her wisest moments acts upon, a secret which nations that plume themselves on their logical faculty are apt to overlook, and this is that what in theory seems to be discrepancy and inequality is in practice often found to be masterly elasticity. Let it be fuily and honestly owned on both sides that neither the priest, who stands from one end to the other of the service at the west side, nor he who as consistently takes the north end, can quite find the reason for what he does in the letter of the Eubrics, while neither can justify the place of his Holy Table at Communion time from the same body of statutory prescriptions. Then both sides, without loss of consistency, can shake hands upon an honourable and peace- ful agreement. The arbitrary prohibition of either the north end or the west side would inflict infinite wanton annoyance on numbers both of clergy and of laity ; the. general reversal of the unwritten custom of placing the table altar-wise would be an impossibility verging on the ludicrous : a universal condescension on the compromise of beginning southwards and consecrating eastwards would give no complete satisfac- tion to any section. What remains is simply to live and let live, and recognize that, in the impossibility of literal obedience to positive enactment, either position honestly represents a loyal desire of compliance with the spirit of the Reformed Church of England in its doctrine and its ritual. DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 155 I cannot, however, yet leave hold of the Dean's book, for in the course of his argument he has contrived to bring me in as the accuser of men, for whom I have a profound rever- ence, namely. Laud, Wren, and Cosin. I had, in examining the question, to deal with the actions and the sayings of these prelates in prosperity as well as in adversity, and to show, to the best of my power, that the opinion which had been in various directions hastily taken up, that these divines, when put to the proof, had either repudiated or backed out of any- thing which could be adduced as implying support on their part of the eastward position, was destitute of foundation- Dean Howson twists these statements of mine into what he takes as something like a charge of duplicity against the bishops, and even Archdeacon Harrison seems inclined to misread me in a not dissimilar sense. Tt is therefore essential that I should fully explain myself in a matter which successive writers have involved in a fog of mystery. I should have preferred, had it been possible, that my argu- ment had been kept clear of such personal inquiries, for these importations of a somewhat alien complexion into the dis- cussion complicate its satisfactory treatment, as we have not only to consider whether acts and words of Laud and Wren may or may not be reasonably appealed to as inferential evidence of the meaning of the Eubrics of 1662, but whether those acts and words were those of honest or dishonest men. These are really distinct questions, although it is impossible to meet them separately without wearisome repetition. I believe I can show both that the defences adopted by Laud and Wren gave no comfort to the controversialists who have put them into the witness-box on the side of north-end cele- bration, and that, in what they did and what they said, they were honest men. The Dean of Chester — I suppose for fear of falling into proUxity — while he recites the answers of these two Bishops, 156 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' omits to quote the charges to which they replied. I venture to think that the nature of the accusation has a great deal to do with the line of defence adopted, and that unless we are told what the offences are of which these prelates were ac- cused, we shall be but indifferently able to weigh the mean- ing of arguments put out by them at a time when clearing themselves was no matter of scholastic or synodical victory, but one literally of life and death, at a trial of which they could not recognize the equity, before judges in whose fair- ness they had little confidence. I begin with Wren, for although Laud's impeachment came first. Wren's affair was more simple, and ended sooner. The articles of impeach- ment against him were exhibited in the House of Commons by Sir Thomas Widdrington (afterwards Speaker, and then Chief Baron under Cromwell) on July 20, 1641, and the eighteenth of them (Wren's Far ent alia, p. 14) runs as follows : — " XVIII. — He in the same year, 1636, in a clmrch of Ipswicli, used idoktrous actions in administering the Lord's Supper, consecrating the bread and wine with his face towards the east, and his back towards the people, elevating them so high that they might be seen above his shoulders, and bowing low either to or before them when set down on the table." It will be observed that the gravamen of this charge is not that Wren violated the Eubric, or misunderstood the law of the Church of England, but that he " used idolatrous actions," an accusation of treason, not only against his loyalty to the Church of which he was a bishop, but against his faith as a Christian man. The charge of idolatrous actions divides itself into three heads — the position Wren assumed while consecrating, the elevation alleged against him, and the bowing imputed to him. He disposes of the two last by a full denial ; to the first he confesses, while he gives reasons in disproof of its being an idolatrous action, which I fear I DEAN HOWSON 'BEFOEE THE TABLE.' 157 must, although they are given in Dr. Ho^yson's book, again quote (Parentalia, p. 103) : — " To the eighteenth article the defendant answereth and denieth that in anno 163G he did, in his own person, many superstitious or idolatrous actions and gestures in the administration of the Lord's Supper. " But he saith that he doth recognize and observe the form of preparing and consecrating the bread and wine for the Holy Sacrament which the Church of England hath appointed, and no other, viz. he doth it standing at the Lord's Table with the bread and wine placed openly before him ! and that as well by holy prayer and supplication according to the manner of the Eastern Church, as also by rehearsing of our Saviour Christ's insti- tution, according to the manner of the Western Church, both which the Church of England, to avoid all question, hath with great wisdom con- joined in the collect next before the delivery of the sacrament. " And he acknowledgeth that for the better taking of the bread and for the better reaching of the flaggon and the cup for the wine, because they stood upon the table further from the end thereof, then he, being but low of stature, would reach over his Book unto them, and yet still proceed on in reading of the words without stop or interruption, and without danger of spilling the bread and wine. He did in Tower Church in Ipswich, anno 1636, turn unto the west side of the table, but it was only while he rehearsed the aforementioned collect, in which he was to take the bread and wine, and at no other time. " And he humbly conceiveth that, although the Kubrick says that the minister shall stand at the north side of the table, yet it is not so to be meant as that upon no occasion during all the Communion time he shall step from it. For it is usual to go before the table to read the Epistle and Gospel, and necessary to go from the table to the pulpit to preach, and with the bason to receive the offerings if any be, and with the bread and wine to distribute to the communicants. Inasmuch, tberefore, as he did stand at the north side, all the while before he came to that collect wherein he was to take the bread and wine into his hands, and as soon as that was done thither he returned again, he humbly conceiveth it is a plain demon- stration that he came to the west side only for more conveniency of execu- ting his office, and no way at all in any superstition, much less in any imitation of the Romish priests, for they place themselves there, at all the service before, and at all after, with no less strictness than at the time of their consecrating the bread and wine." On this I must, at the risk of iteration, again point out that it is a charge brought against Wren of having taken the eastward position when celebrating, on a date twenty-one 158 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' years before the Eubric, which, as I contend, directly sanctions that position, had come into existence, through the exertions of, amongst others, that same Wren. It was brought when all the existing Eubrics seemed to point to a contrary con- clusion, and when they would only be used in justification of what he did by a process of explanation which would have merely secured his reaching the bloak, for it would have been connected with the other charge against him, of placing the table altar-wise, which, as we well know, was and is the rationale of eastward standing. I must further point out that the article of impeachment only refers to a single specified case of celebrating eastward. He may never have done it on any other occasion, or he may have been constantly in the practice of so acting, but for the purpose of this trial he had done it once, and once only, at Ipswich. Of course he did not criminate himself more deeply by owning to any antici- pations or repetitions of what the accusation pleased to treat as high treason, but simply offered such an explanation of his one action at Ipswich as should be most likely to tend to his acquittal, and at the same time be substantially true. The charge was that the unpopular attitude was an " idola- trous action." His reply — including the merely parenthetical reference to his lowness of stature, of which so much rhetorical use has been made by Dean Howson and others — is that, on that day "in Tower Church in Ipswich" he found that by so standing he could " better " reach over his book, and " yet still proceed on in reading the words " of the Prayer of Con- secration. His justification for this deviation from the letter of the " north-side " of the table Eubric is founded on the fact of there being other portions of that service in which the clergyman is not ordered to " step from it," but at which, by common sense, he must step from it ; and he concludes " that it is a plain demonstration that he came to the west side only for more conveniency of executing his office, and no way DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 159 ■at all in any superstition," superstition of course being the co-relative to the " idolatrous actions " predicated in the ac- cusation. The term " conveniency " is eagerly laid hold of by controversialists of the Dean's school, in the hope of im- paling their opponents on the horns of a dilemma. Either, say they, eastward celebration was or was not a principle ■witli Wren. If it was, he shuffled when he talked of " con- veniency " only ; if it was not, your appeal to him falls through. My rejoinder to the writers who so pertly press .this consideration is that they have never been at the trouble to ascertain what that appeal is. No man has ever been such a slave to " superstition " and " idolatrous actions " as to allege that the validity of the Sacrament has any con- nexion with the " orientation " of the celebrant. In that sense it is no question of principle. But according to the Scriptural rule that all things are to be done " decently and in order," it is a general principle that the ceremonial of divine worship should be regulated by the highest " con- veniency " — " conveniency " being understood as the seven- teenth century understood words of that complexion, namely, according to its full Latin signification. " Conveniency " in the seventeenth century meant quod convenit, " that which is fitting." "It was fitting," argues Wren, "that in Tower Church in Ipswich, on that day, he should stand before the table," although (it being when he wrote 1641, and not 1662) there was no Eubric to tell him to do so, and he confessed accordingly to that action, while both protesting and arguing that it was in no respect an idolatrous action. After offering the general plea. Wren continues to enforce it by contrasting his action of standing before the table only at the Prayer of Consecration with that of "the Eomish priests" — the em- bodiments to his censors of " idolatrous actions " — who took up that position throughout the service. In employing this argument the Bishop is consistent with what, as we shall see, 160 DKAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' was his policy all through, namely, the reconciliation of the initial Eubric with eastward consecration and the altar-wise position of the table, by only assuming the eastward position at the consecration itself Such are the grounds on which the Dean of Chester claims Wren as a witness for the north end, and by more than implication asserts that in rebutting . that allegation those who take the contrary view accuse that eminent divine of dishonesty and prevarication. Further on in the chapter I observe that my friend endeavours to pile up the emphasis of this insinuation by imputing to my line of argument that it leads to the conclusion that Laud, Wren, and Cosin were as far as possible from possessing the spirit of martyrdom ; and he continues, " Wren, in fact, as we have seen, wrote under no such pressure," i.e. no well-founded apprehension of capital punishment, such as pressed upon Laud. Wliat, was it no such pressure that the document which he was answering was a series of articles of impeach- ment, which, if carried to their legitimate conclusion in his case, as they were in those previously presented against the Archbishop, would have led to the scaffold ? As it was, they did lead to a close imprisonment without antecedent trial, which only a revolution saved from being one for the term of his life, and which did endure, with a short interval, for eighteen years. I must with shame confess that I am unable to follow my friend to those heights of contentment which enable him to contemplate perpetual imprisonment, following on a threat of a trial with a block in the background, in so cheerful an aspect. But we are not reduced to " Tower Church in Ipswich " for evidence of Wren's views as to the right place for saying the Prayer of Consecration. There is the famous Abbey Dore Consecration Service — of which the history is briefly that it is a form which existed only in manuscript till it was recently published by Mr. Fuller EusseU — drawn up in 1634 by Wren DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.* 161 (just raised to the Episcopate), for the consecration, in his then diocese of Hereford, of the old abbey church at Dore, a ruin which had been restored by Lord Scudamore, a promi- nent High Churchman of the time. The consecration, as it happened, owing to Wren's detention in London as Clerk of the Closet, was actually performed by Bishop Field, of St. David's, so that the service was endorsed by two bishops. Place and persons concurring, the ceremonial, elaborately set out in the document, reveals beyond a doubt Wren's personal preferences in the matter of ritual. The north end, as at Ipswich two years later, is in his eyes the position for the celebrant to take, except at the Prayer of Consecra- tion, and " Then the bishop standeth up and setteth ready in his hand the bread and wine with the paten and chalice, but first washeth his fingers with the end of the napkin besprinkled with water. Then layeth he the bread in the paten, and poureth of the wine into the chalice, and a little water into it, and standing with his face to the table, about the midst of it, he saith the Collect of Consecration." This table, which is still to be found at Abbey Dore, was the old altar-slab, set up again altar-wise at the east end of the church by Lord Scudamore : so there can be no doubt that the bishop did actually look eastward on the occasion. I must give Dr. Howson due praise for the courageous way in which he faces the Abbey Dore difficulty. He has dis- covered that Wren, while Bishop of Hereford, issued visita- tion articles, inquiring, among other things, as was the then custom of the Episcopate, whether the churches possessed copies of Jewel's Apology. Now, not in the Apology — but in another work of Jewel's, a sermon — this passage occurs : "What Father or Doctor taught us that the priest should hold the bread over his head and turn his back to the people ? " The inference from this incident which the Dean draws is : " This fact helps us to appreciate at its , true worth the argument drawn from the consecration of a church in M 162 DEAN HQWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' Herefordshire, on which great stress has recently been laid." So the positive evidence of what Wren himself took pains to ordain on an occasion so important as his first consecration of a church, closely following upon his own consecration, is to be set aside, because there is a book of which, according to the then practice of his predecessors in the English episco- pate, Wren recommended the acquisition, which book happens to be by the author of another work {not recommended for acquisition), wherein is found a single very short passage, in which the turning of the back of the Eoman priest is inci- dentally referred to in connexion with his elevation of the Host. This wonderful reason is paraded by the very writer who has just been trjdng to make capital out of Wren's own defence, in which that bishop himself took pains (as the Dean actually quotes) to contrast his own limited practice of turning to the east only during the Prayer of Consecration with the attitude of the Eoman priesthood during the eleva- tion, and to couple with his repudiation a denunciation of that elevation in itself — the elevation rather than the external incidents accompanying it being most manifestly the grava- men of the accusation contained in Jewel's sermon. I can only very seriously ask, is my friend jesting ? If he happens to be serious, he must allow me to help his argu- ment by offering a parallel one, which is only not in pari materia, because it wants the abatements which (as I have shown) count in the case of Wren and Jewel. The Dean of Chester is very commonly supposed to be an advocate for north-end celebration, and those who make this assertion allege the positive evidence of a book, entitled Before the Table, by the Dean, in which that practice is supported. Against this, however, may be urged " a circumstance, which seems to have been somewhat overlooked." Some years pre- viously, Dr. Howson published a volume of Cathedral Essays, including, among others, one by Mr. Beresford Hope. Now DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 163 it happens that another writing of Mr. Beresford Hope's^- Worship in the Church of England — is partly devoted to the refutation of the views afterwards supported in Before the Table, which is in fact intended as an answer to that among other books. " This fact helps us to appreciate at its true worth the argument drawn from" the opinions which Dr. Howson puts out in his own book, " on which great stress has recently been laid " (Howson, p. 76). " It is to be observed that we are concerned here not simply with Mr. Beresford Hope's " opinion, " but with " Dr. Howson's " acceptance and approval of his writings " (Howson, p. 77).* [Since writing this Essay, I had the advantage of visiting Abbey Dore itself, and I was astounded at the visible evidence apparent for the truth of my inferences. Lord Seudamore's arrangements still exist, and they are conclusive as to the intended compulsion of the eastward position. The massive stone altar stands on a footpace, and while this foot- pace is broad in front, it absolutely stops short at the ends with the length of the altar itself. North-end celebration there must always be difi&cult and awkward, and except to a taU man, impossible. We have seen how the fact of his being * I purposely abstained from reading the answer to the Dean of Chester, contained, as I understood, in Mr. MaoOoll's My Seviewers Reviewed, till I had sent this article to the press. I have now read it, and I must refer to the important corroborative evidence of the scope of the Abbey Dore consecration afforded by the Consecration of Churches Service, compiled for Bishop Lloyd of "Worcester, by his Chaplain, Mr. Tisdale, disinterred by Mr. MacCoU, who informs us that "the service is substantially the same as that used at the re-openiug of the Abbey Dore Church ; but the eastward position is asserted more emphatically, if that be possible, than at the Abbey Dore Festival." This is forty-one years after, as Abbey Dore was twenty-eight years before, the Eubric of 1661. Mr. MacColl has been at the pains to count appellations, and finds that Bishop Lloyd speaks once of " Sacred Altar," twelve times of " Altar," nine times of " Holy Table or Altar," once of " Holy Table," and once of " Table." M 2 164 DEAN HOWSON ' BEFOKB THE TABLE.' " low of stature " appears in Wren's defence for the Ipswich celebration. Yet for this man so " low of stature " Lord Scudamore made those arrangements.] The Abbey Dore incident preceded the Ipswich celebration by two years — during which interval Wren had been trans- lated to Norwich. In the following year, 1637, he was deputed with another bishop, as well as with Laud — ^who had, however, no time to act, to revise the Scotch Prayer Book on the restoration in that country of an episcopal establishment.' This volume categorically sanctions his favourite compromise of the " presbyter " standing at " the north side or end " of the " Holy Table," except that during the time of consecration " he shall stand at such a part of the Holy Table, where he may with the more ease and decency use both his hands." The latter direction points to the east- ward position, as is more than abundantly clear, as by other evidence, so in particular by one to which it might have been expected that the Dean of Chester would have made at least a passing reference. If any evidence of the animus attributable to the bishops responsible for the Scotch book might be counted as conclusive, it would be that in conse- quence of this their work, a leader on the other side in Scotland should have published a pamphlet of which the main object was to sound the alarm as to their intention about the celebrant's position, and that when in 1661 the same party, including the stiU surviving Wren, were known to be busy upon the English Prayer Book, this same book should have been reprinted as equally applicable mutatis mutandis to the then crisis. Such for our present discussion is the value of the scurrilous A Parallel or Brief Comparison of the Liturgy with the Mass Book, by BaiUie (or " Bayly," as he is called in the edition of 1661), of which the Dean so unac- countably suppresses the slightest mention. Surely even the Dean must admit the consistency of these Scotch Eubrics •DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 165 with the Abbey Dore Eubric and with the defence which Wren tenders for the Ipswich celebration. Once again Wren appears in the same connection near the close of his life in his amendments of the actual Rubrics proposed for the revision of 1661, so seasonably published in 1874 by the Bishop of Chester, and here he proves himself qualis ah in- cepto, after his long imprisonment. The initial Eubric as altered by him would have been, " and the priest standing at the north of the table, the people all kneeling, shall begin to say the Lord's Prayer." This Eubric, it will be noted, while it puts the priest to the north of the table itself, would allow him to kneel eastward. The new Eubric before the Prayer of Consecration as proposed by Wren would have run : " Then the priest, Standing before the table, shall so order and set the bread and the wine that, while he is pronouncing the following Collect, he may readily take the bread and break it, and also take the cup to pour into it (if he pour it not' before), and then he shall say — " I am unable to read these Eubrics in any but one way. In 1662, as in 1634, 1636, 1637, the practice which Wren upheld was the maintenance of the north end until the Prayer of Consecration, though inferentially with leave to kneel east- ward, and at that point the recommendation of the absolute eastward position, in the " before the table " — the table being always assumed to be placed altar-wise, as, in fact, it is ordered in the Scotch book. So much for Wren. I have now to see how far Laud can be fairly reckoned by the Dean of Chester among the witnesses who help his case. The Dean attaches peculiar importance to an undoubtedly very interesting document which is, in his opinion, conclusive as to Laud's practice in his private Chapel, and therefore as to his personal preference for the north end. In order that I may be perfectly fair to my opponent, I shall quote his own statement of the case before I venture to offer any remarks upon its value : 166 DEAN HOWSON 'BBFOEB THE TABLE.' " From Wren let us now turn to Laud ; and, first, I will put in evidence the engraving of the Chapel, which was arranged by him when he was Bishop of St. David's. I cannot help thinking that some persons have mentioned this engraving in debate without having seen the thing itself. It will be found opposite page 123 of the book called Canterburie's Doome, published in 1646 ; * and nothing, as it seems to me, could tell its story more plainly than " the cushion for the service-book " at the north end of the Lord's Table (which is placed altar-wise), with " the knealing stoole covered and stuffed " in the same place below. And it must be remem- bered that Prynne, who published this, was Laud's most bitter enemy, that he vnshed to make him as Popish as he could, and that, if the chapel had afforded evidence of the habit or intention of consecrating in the east- ward position, the evidence would certainly have been produced. " And now we must connect this pictorial testimony with the words ■which Laud used at a later period, when he was Archbishop of Canterbury, in reference to the Rubric of the Scotch Liturgy before the Prayer of Consecration." Then follows the Scotch Eubric preceding the Prayer of Consecration, which I have already had to quote in relation to Wren. Upon this the Dean observes : " To this grave exception was taken. It was viewed, very naturally, as meaning somewhat more than it literally expressed. But what was Laud's answer? ' They say this very remove of the presbyter, during the time of Consecration, upon trial imports much. The Rubric professes that nothing is meant by it, but that he may use both his hands with more ease and decency about that work ; and I protest in the presence of Almighty God, I know no other intention herein than this.' If Laud thought it necessary to use an oath when he made this statement, it does not seem very re- spectful to his memory to quote him in defence of the theory that conse- crating at the Eucharist in the eastward position is a matter of principle. We have seen that he did not himself, when at St. David's, consecrate in that position. It is almost an insult to him to bring forward his name and practice, as giving sanction for the ceremonial act for which every possible shelter is now so eagerly sought." I shall deal in the first place with the " pictorial testimony." It will be observed that Dean Howson alleges, (1) that Prynne publishes the " engraving of the Chapel which was arranged * " This Chapel is said to have been arranged after the mode of that of Bishop Andrewes ; thus it affords testimony to the practice of that prelate as well as of Laud himself." DEAN HOWSON 'BBFOKE THE TABLE.' 167 by" Laud "when he was Bishop of St. David's;" (2) that the Chapel is " said in the foot-note to have been arranged after the model of that of Bishop Andrewes ; " (3) that the "cushion for the service book," "at the north end of the Lord's Table," " teUs the story " (of Laud's north-end celebra- tion) " more plainly " than anything else would do ;: and (4), as the climax, that " we have seen that he " (Laud) " did not himself, while at St. David's, consecrate in that" (the east- ward) " position." The Dean intimates his own estimate of the value of these postulates, when he observes not only that it is " almost an insult " to Laud to quote him as giving sanction to eastward celebration, but that he cannot help thinking that " some persons have mentioned this engraving in debate without having seen the thing itself." This of course cannot be predicated of my friend the Dean of Chester, nor of myself, writing as I am with my copy of Canterburie's Boome before me. Still, I hardly hope that I shall be believed, until I have made good the allegation, when I say that every one of these assertions thus coniidently put forward by my antagonist is either an inaccurate statement of facts or an unproven assumption. Let my readers judge between the disputants by the evidence of the plan itself, pp. 168, 169. What Prynne publishes was not at all the engraving of the Chapel arranged by Laud when he was Bishop .of St. David's, which was said to have been arranged after the model of that of Bishop Andrewes, but a totally different thing, namely (these are Laud's own words given in Canterburie's Boome, page 121), " 1623, Chapell and furniture as it was in use by the Eight Eeverend Father in God, Lancelot Andrews, Lord Bishop then of Winton " — " from whom," adds Prynne, " the Archbishop confessed at the Bar, he took his pattern of con- secrating and furnishing churches, chapels, altars." The story which the cushion at the north end may tell of the practice of the prelate whose Chapel is delineated (be it Andrewes or 168 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFOEE THE TABLE.' Laud) is, as I shall show, not so " plain " as Dean Howson would fain make out ; and even if it were plain in regard to Andrewes, it proves nothing as to Laud's own use or as to the furniture of his Chapel, for his reply to this allegation {Canterhurie's Doome, p. 499) is as follows, the italics being my own : " For my chappell at Aberguelle, 1 consecrated, and put a name upon it (as Saint Augustine saith, wee dedicate churches to Saint Peter) for dis- EAST DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 169 tinction sake ; and though I had a relation to the beheading of Saint John Baptist in my Dedication of it, I- hope there is no hurt therein. For the, pattern, and furniture of the chappell produced, as if it were mine at Aberguelle, it is a mistake ; for it is the patterne of Bishop Andrews chappell and furniture (whioh4 caused to be written out) as the indorse- ment of it proves, viz. 1623, Chappell and furniture as it was in use iy the Bight Reverend Father in God, Lancelot Andrews, Lord Bishop then of Winton. " I had no such furniture in my chappell there. For the wafer basket ^d the rest, they concern not me, yet wafers have bin alwayes used, and are at this day in the Greeke Church, and in Westminster Abbey too.'' These then are the grounds — with this assertion, that the The explanation of the references on the accompanying plan, which are in the original engraved at the bottom of the plate, are as follows : 1. The Alter, 1 y^ i high, 1 y\ i long, 1 y". broad. oe A Cushion. . . . . . . \ /3 13 Twoo Candlestickes with tapers > the dayly furniture for the Alter. C. The bason for Oblations . . . J B A Cushion for the service-booke. A. The silver & guilt Canister for y" wafers like a wicker basket & lined with Cambrick laced. B. y" Tonne vpon a cradle. C. the Chalice haueing on the outside of the boll Christ with the lost sheepe on his shoulders on the top of the couer the wise mens starr both engrauen it is couered with a linnen napkin (called the Aire) embrodered with colored silkes. D.D. Twoo patens >I" the Trioanale being a round ball with a skrew couer whereout yssue 3 pipes, and is for the water of mixture. ,2. A sier (sic side?) table on which before the Communion stand A & B vpon two napkins. B. a bason and Ewer to wash before consecration. P. y° towell apptaining. 3.3. the Kneeling-stooles couered and stuffed. 4. the footpace w* three ascents covered w* a Turkey carpett of firr boords. Gr.Ot.Q. Three Chaires vsed at Ordinations or prelates comuni- cant. 5. the Septum w* two ascents. 6. the pulpitt. 7. the musique table w* (A A A) three formes. E. a Triquertrall Censor wherein y° Clarke putteth frankincense at y° reading of the first lesson. H. The Navicula like y' keele of a boat w* a halfe cover and a foot out of which the frankincense is poured. 8. a footpace with three ascents on which the lectern standeth couered & thereon y" great Bible. 9. The Pald- storie whereat they kneele to read y° litanie. 10. is the Ohaplins seate where he readeth service. 1 1. a seate w* a Canopie ouer it for y° B.p. but at the Comunion time he sitts on Gr. 3. 12. 12. two long formes for y' familie. 170 DEAN HOWSON ' BBFOEB THE TABLE.' Arclibishop had no such furniture in his Chapel, plainly in print if he cared to search for it — upon which Dean Howson so confidently " sees " by means of his magical cushion, in what position Laud did or did not • consecrate " when at St. David's," and terms any other suggestion " almost an insult " to that prelate's memory. By the way, has Bishop Thirlwall been so long dead that the name of Abergwilli as the residence of the Bishop of St. David's should already have been blotted out of our recollection ? The Dean of Chester's supposition, in which he has been preceded by the Bishop of Lincoln, is that this cushion at the north end proves that Laud (for which I take leave to sub- stitute Andrewes, denying as I do on Laud's own evidence that the plan is any authority for the furniture of the Arch- bishop's Chapel) consecrated at that end. To me the incident proves the direct reverse, as I very precisely explained in my book, although the Dean takes no notice of an argument which I must suppose that he has read. The " altar " in Andrewes's Chapel (measuring 1^ yard high, 1| yard long, and 1 yard broad) carries certain ornaments, viz. a cushion placed centricaUy at the back), an article to which I shall have further on to call particular attention), two candlesticks with tapers, the bason for oblations (named, but not indicated on the plan), the silver and gilt canister for the wafers, the " tonne upon a cradle," which did service for the flagon ; the chalice (c) and two patens (d and d) making a triangle in the centre of the table, in this fashion : C D -I- D Between these patens will be noticed a cross, described in the key as indicating " the Tricanale, being a round ball with a skrew cover whereout issue three pipes, and is for the water of mixture ; " and lastly, to the left of the triangle, occupying DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 171 the north end of the altar, and stretching across it length- ways from east to west, " S a cushion for the service-book ; " a kneeling stool is also shown at this north end convenient for the minister who uses that cushion, and a corresponding stool at the south end, where, however, no corresponding cushion is provided on the altar itself. This is the " pictorial testimony " which leads the Dean dogmatically to assert that Laud (i.e. Andrewes) "did not himself, when [not] at St. David's, consecrate in that [the eastward] position," therein following the Bishop of Lincoln, who says in his Plea for Toleration (1874) : "The engraving whicli Laud's bitter enemy, William Prynne (who would gladly have convicted him of any practice regarded by Puritans as Papistical), published of the arrangement of the Archbishop's private chapel (London, 1644, p. 123), where the cushion for the celebrant (for a cushion there was) is placed at the north end of the table, leads to the same conclusion." My reply is, that the fact of the cushion being placed there is to my mind all but conclusive evidence that Andrewes could not have consecrated at the north end, because it is very difficult to suppose that a man of eminent good sense, as he was known to be, would have needlessly hampered his altar at that point with a bulky article most inconveniently placed, if he were in the habit of using that part of its area for the most solemn of all ministerial and manual actions. It is plain that, if he had been in the habit of consecrating at the north end, he could only have done so by the ungraceful and diificult action of reaching across this cushion. Is this credible? It certainly would have been an action directly contradictory to the suggestion of motives which his own episcopal pupils not so very long after his death put out as that which ought to guide the conduct of the priest in this very act of consecrating as embodied in the Scotch Eubric, which is copied in the leading words in our still living Eubric 172 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE,' of 1662, "where he may with the more ease and decency use both hia hands,"— a suggestion of motives, be it remembered, identical in sense with the " conveniency " on which Wren relied for his own defence. But it will be asked. What then is the cushion for, and where did Andrewes consecrate ? I do not think there is much difficulty about either question on a fair examination of the engraving. The cushion indicates, I believe, the place of dignity at which the Bishop kneeled, and where, very likely, when he celebrated, he said the first part of the service ; for I do not venture to claim Andrewes' authority for doing more than what I have proved that Wren did. When he reached the Prayer of Consecration he came, I believe, iu front of the altar, where there was, as we see, that triangle of patens and chalice, with the " Tricanale," or vessel of mixture, in the midst, and also the other and central cushion behind, with no particular description of its use on the key, on to which he would transfer his book, so that it might be before his eyes when he stood " afore the midst." Unless this undescribed cushion were used for this piirpose, this article would be a purposeless and cumbersome appendage of an already very crowded altar. When I first threw out my ex- planation in my Worship in the Church of England, I had not appreciated what I now hold to have been the meaniag of this central cushion. Having now done so I present it as a very strong corroborative argument, if not as conclusive of the soundness of my general inference. As I pointed out, while all the other ornaments are explained in the key under capital Eoman or small Greek letters, the site of the " Tri- canale," which is the very centre of the west side, is alone referred to by a distiuctive and peculiar mark, viz. a cross. On this I suggest : " I cannot help surmisiag that this ex- ceptional use of the cross as a mark of reference to the key was intended as a sort of private note that that central point of the table was to be used as the place of consecra- DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 173 tion." Archdeacon Harrison calls this suggestion " recondite," but it is at aU events independent of the general argument derived from the other unquestionable indications given on the plan which point to Andrewes' adoption of the eastward position, namely, the inconvenience of the north end cushion and the convenience of the central rearward one. I may in correction of my book explain that I was in error in stating that the chalice referred to in the key did not appear on the plan. There are in fact two c's in the key, respectively indicating the bason and the chalice. I then thought the latter was the one overlooked. I now consider it was the bason, unless one did for both. In vindicating for Andrewes the credit of arrangements which, from their record occurring in Canterhurie's Doome, writers have been more apt to associate with Laud, I do not care for any apparent sacrifice of authorities when weighed against historical accuracy. Of course it is perfectly possible, if not probable, that as Andrewes celebrated so did Laud ; only I refuse to rest my case on possibilities, Indeed, I am in one respect a gainer by the investigation, as I am thereby enabled to antedate the documentary evidence for eastward celebration at a Holy Table, standing north and south, from the era of Laud and Wren to that of Andrewes, as well as to enlist his great authority. But it is time for us to turn from what Laud did not to what he did do. This wiU not take us very long, for in fact there is a scarcity of evidence as to his personal activity upon the celebrant's position. The restoration of the table to its altar-wise position, its being railed in, its comely decking, the encouragement of his distinctive Eucharistic dress the cope, and the general adornment of churches, were the points on which he conspicuously exerted himself to raise the ritual standard of the Church of England. His feelings as to the celebrant's position may best be gathered from his share in the Scotch 174 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFOEE THE TABLE.' Prayer Book, and this Dean Howson endeavours to explain away by the quotation from his speech contained in the extract which I have lately made from my friend's work. Before we analyse this statement it is well to remind ourselves what was the charge brought against the Archbishop's ritual practices in the articles of impeachment against him, exhibited by Pym on February 26, 1640 (Canterhurie's Doome, p. 26). " 7. That he hath traiterously endeavoured to alter and subvert God's true Eeligion by Law established in this Bealme, and instead thereof to set up Popish Superstition and Idolatrie. And to that end, hath declared and maintained, in Speeches and printed books, diverse popish doctrines, and opinions contrary to the Articles of Eeligion, established by Law. Hee hath urged and injoyned diverse popish, and superstitious ceremonies without any warrant of Law, and hath cruelly persecuted those who have opposed the same, by corporall punishments, and imprisonments ; and most unjustly vexed others, who refused to conform thereunto, by Eccle- siasticall censures of Excommunication, Suspension, Deprivation, and Degradation, contrary to the Lawes of this Kingdom." We see here that Laud stood charged, not with misreading Eubrics, but with the traitorous endeavour to subvert true religion and with setting up Popish superstition and idolatry, as shown by bis urging and enjoining divers Popish and superstitious ceremonies. This is in similar words nearly the same charge as that which was laid against Wren the year after. It would have been worse than childish for men against whom setting the tables altar-wise was imputed as treasonable to have defended the eastward use of the Prayer of Consecration, by considerations having reference to that very change of position in those tables. Laud, who was no Papist, but was a decided Anglican — a " Protestant," as he termed himself on the scaffold, using that word in the sense then familiar in England, and which has not yet died out in Ireland, of a member of the Church of England in contrast to a Presbyterian or the follower of any other sect — was con- scious in the presence of Almighty God that in what he did i)EAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 175 for eastward celebration in the Scotch book, he intended to urge nothing which was Popish, superstitious, or idolatrous. He purposed, with the choice of two alternative methods of celebration (both of which he treated as equally consonant with Anglican or Protestant principles), to give the preference to the one which enabled the celebrant to perform the manual act of consecration " with more ease and decency," the phrase in that book. " Use his hands," in reference to the Eucharist, would mean much more to the man who believed in, than to him who disbelieved in, priestly consecration. In Laud's eyes the north-end celebrant did well, but the west-side one did better ; and he said so, accordingly, in very solemn words. It must not be forgotten that in the seventeenth century, when the nuance of language was ruled by folios and not by penny papers, wo.rds had a fuller and graver value than at present. " Decent " was then the synonym for " decens," and not the mere opposite of " indecent." What poet of our own times would find his vocabulary reduced so low that he was compelled to borrow " decent " as the adjective to describe the perfection of stately womanly beauty ? Yet Milton, with all the language before him to choose from, prefers this epithet in the one line which specifies any bodily attribute of " divinest Melancholy " — "All in a robe of darkest grain, Plowing with majestic train. And sable stole of Cyprus lawn, Over thy decent shoulders drawn." I suppose the Dean of Chester will hardly contend that Milton only means to praise Melancholy for not committing the indecency of being decoUetee. If he does not, he will as certainly admit that " decent," in the language of the first half of the seventeenth century, was an adjective implying positive and not negative merit. Taking then " decency " in the true meaning which it bore at that time, what is there 176 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORK THE TABLE.' which any advocate of consecrating towards the east has ever urged, whieh cannot be summed up in the one statement that it is the more " decent " position for the priest to occupy when using both his hands about the work of Consecration ? This is absolutely the sum total of that theory of Laud's (not to mention Wren's) sayings and doings, which the Dean of Chester hisses off the stage with an invidious comparison between Laud, Wren, and Cosin and Cranmer, Eidley and Latimer, and the bitter-sweet marginal note, " From the time when I first became acquainted with Archbishop Laud's Private Devotions, as published by F. Faber in 1839, 1 have been very reluctant to think that he could have been a bad man." In the meanwhile I had nearly forgotten Cosin. The charge agaiust me is that I had quoted Smart's original accu- sation against him in 1630, of celebrating eastward, and had omitted his answer made twelve years later on his second prosecution, in which, while denying that he ever had stood at the west side except at the consecration itself, he adds " he might haply do so as others did there " (at Durham) "before him (though he remembereth not to have done so these twelve years) and step to the former part thereof, to consecrate and bless those elements, which otherwise he could not conveniently reach" (the table being, as he explains, seven feet long). I should have made my statement more accurate and complete if I had added this quotation. It contains Cosin's confession that he had at the time done what Smart accused him of. I never thought of quoting Smart in 1630 as evidence of anything which had taken place after 1630. It also states that Cosin was not the man who origi- nated eastward celebration at Durham ; and I may very well claim this fact, which the Dean overlooks, as against the one which has struck him, that Cosin at that time dropped the practice. As I have had to urge usque ad_ nauseam,, in 1630 (as being before 1662) Cosin could only defend the action on DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 177 inferential considerations. I need Hardly note the identity of meaning between his " conveniently " and Laud's " with more ease and decency." The day was yet to come, when, as the chosen representative of the whole English Church, he, John Cosin, was to draft the ruling Eubric which was hereafter to give direct and positive sanction to eastward celebration. Talking of this period, Dean Howson draws too deeply on our credulity when he calls upon us to accept the statement that "the settlement of 1662 does not represent the victory of this " (the high) " party, but rather its defeat." It is un- doubted that the Eubric as to the place of the Holy Table was not altered, but the impulse was given which made that alteration only a matter of time. True, the Convocation might have restored the first Book of Edward VI. or imported the Scotch one. If it had done so the victory might have been more brilliant, but possibly not so stable. It instead preserved the general framework of service as it existed before the Commonwealth, but in so doing it gave fresh life to the Ornaments Eubric, by re-enacting it with a difference of phrase which, as the Privy Council sitting on the Wester- ton case affirmed, left its meaning quite unchanged ; it pro- vided the solemn oblation of the bread and wine ; it called upon the congregation to bless God's holy name for aU His servants departed this Ufe in His faith and fear ; it named the name of " absolution ; " it penned the Eubric of position before the Consecration Prayer ; it recited the manual acts ; it enacted a ceremonious fraction of the bread "before the people ; " when it restored " the declaration of kneeling," it purged it of the imputation of Zwinglianism by adopting the phrase " corporal presence ; " and, finally, it brought back the venerable and symbolical term " Holy Table," which in the Oriental Liturgies is the equivalent of Altar. I call particular attention to the latter fact, for the Dean is very jubilant over N 178 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' ■what he calls (p. 113) the "final eS;clusioii of the -word ' Altar ' from the Prayer Book." ■ While indulging in this wild burst of exultation he very carefully excludes the fact that these " defeated " divines did finally reinstate in our Communion office that word which was the absolute synonym of altar in documents which in their eyes— anti-Eoman High Churchmen as they were — deserved the highest respect, the Liturgies of the Eastern Church. I conclude that the Dean has picked up this monstrous figment of a fight and a defeat from Mr. Milton, and other writers of lively imaginations, who have discovered a whole Iliad of Parliamentary Conflicts in the laborious series of teui tative alterations and re-alterations entered by their trusty secretary, Bancroft, ia the margin of the Prayer Book, upon which the revising Bishops worked, and which, upon the a;d- vice of the Ritual Commission, was published in a facsimile photozincograph. I am glad that we did not do our work in the Eitual Commission in the same way, or the discovery of some much over- written book in the autograph of our honoured secretary might woefully mislead the Mr. MUtons and Dean Howsons of a coining century. But upon this point I prefer to commend the Dean of Chester to the observations of one who agrees with his reading of the disputed Eubrics. Arch- deacon Harrison says (p. 91) — " It is certainly ' an exceedingly curious and interesting ' history tliat is thus made out. But, unfortunately, it is nothing but imagination throughout. There was no such conflict in Convocation, no such opposi- tion, no such Puritan party there. All was settled, in committee, at Kly House, among the Bishops. They had Bishop Cosin there, and ■ Sancroft as their secretary, with all his carefully prepared notes, assisting Cosin and Wren, and other chief Bishops. Bishop Cosin's suggestions were, for the most part, adopted, save where they would have introduced considerable change ; and there ' my Lords the Bishops at Elie House ordered all in the old method.' Cosin had not forgotten his former troubles, nor the old controversy between Williams and Heylyn, and would shut the door on DEAN HOWSON 'BEFOEE THE TABLE.' 179 any such like arguments and objections ; he wmild, probably enougb, pro- pose to change ' side ' into ' end,' or to use ' side or end,' as in the Scottish book, as terms indifferent; and finally might think, or find his brotlier Bishops thought, that the best course was to leave the old word un- altered." With characteristic inconsistency, the Dean, while he pre- sents the settlements of 1662 as a defeat of High Churchmen, cannot resist exhibiting it in the same breath as a cruel rout of the other side. When 1 first read the statement (p. 5) that the Prayer Book of 1662 came into its present form "before indeed Nonconformity existed as a great external fact," and when I recollected that it had come into its present form after Presbyterianism had beheaded the Archbishop and upset the Established Church, and Independency had be- headed the King, upset the monarchy, and harassed Presby- terianism, and after both these sects had for a long term of years divided the benefices of the dispossessed clergy, I thought the statement could only be paralleled by the assertion that Noah stepped out of the ark before inundations existed as a great external fact. But as I read on I came to another passage which seemed to give the clue to the meaning of this very mysterious sentence. Dr. Howson (p. 86) tells us that " now we remember that those whom we term ' Puritans ' (though many ' of them would now be regarded as loyal Church of England men) were within the Church tUl the act of Uniformity was put in execution." The meaning of course of this statement is that the Pres- byterians who had stepped into the livings of the expelled clergy, and who were at the Savoy treating with those same clergy, who had now come back, as one independent body with another, in the hope of arranging terms on which both might- hereafter Kve together as members of a newly organized establishment, were really all along true members of the Church of England. Dr. Howson is clearly sorry that they did not succeed, and on this. I venture to ask him, as I do N 2 180 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE* Mr. J. E. Green, who utters a similar complaint in his History of the English People, if they^have ever actually taken pains to realize what sort of English Church and State they would have inherited, if the Presbyterians had had their own way in 1661 ? How far, for instance, would they have relished baptism being refused to all children whose parents had not made, what in Puritan estimation M'as "due profession of their repentance " ? Yet there was no point on which Baxter and his friends more stoutly insisted than this one. The inquiry of which the Dean's book is composed is, as the title-page informs us, both historical and theological. The second division of the subject is treated in the latter portion of this volume of 196 pages, the doctrines of the New Testa- ment being disposed of in less than nine pages, which afford ample margin for the learned writer to demonstrate to his own satisfaction that there is no trace in the New Testament of a sacrificial Christian priesthood, and to ask, " Is there not some confusion of thought in speaking of the Holy Com- munion as in itself an act of worship ? " Eight pages more sufi&ce to treat of the " Communion Service," and seven for disposing of the other formularies, the conclusions which are reached being, of course, parallel with those deduced from the New Testament. A characteristic instance of the cceur leger, with which the writer plays fast and loose with words which in other hands have a definite meaning, may be found in a foot note (pp. 156, 157), in which in the space of a few lines he patronizes Mr. Arthur Wolfe's monstrous expression, " the Eeal Absence," and then goes on to predicate that " our Lord promised something more than His presence to the believing recipient : He promised Himself." I may here notice in connection with this subject, although rather out of course, that the peroration of the entire volume, after a rather grace- ful reference to the period of its composition, which began with Christmas and closed at Wliitsuntide, arrives at an DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 181 abrupt and unexpected conclusion in an application of the teachings of the last-named holy season, to this effect : " And in harmony with this teaching is the teaching of the whole body of the Epistles. That which is supreme in the system of doctrine there exhibited is not any sacramental presence, but the indwelling of the Holy Spirit Himself, in the Christian Church smd the Christian soul." I must gravely -ask my accomplished friend, if he can now look back with much satisfaction on these sentences, penned as they are by a learned theologian in a work devoted to a branch of the Eucharistic controversy, and referring as they do to one of the deepest mysteries of the faith. If they have any logical value towards establishing the particular conclu- sions to which the Dean's book is devoted, they must involve the position that the Eucharistic Presence, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, are antagonistic doctrines and that they cannot be co-ordinate elements of the divine dispensation. Is the Dean of Chester prepared to accept this interpretation of his statement ? If he is not, he must confess that his argu- ment culminates in very vague words upon a subject where the utmost precision is most essential. I must decline to follow my learned friend into the theo- logical sections of his work. I wrote my book as a layman, and from an historical point of view, and I stand to the posi- tion which I then took up. At the same time I refuse to leave the Dean unquestioned master of the field upon which he has chosen to encamp. If no protest were to be made against his views, he might assume that, stated as they had been by him, there was not suf&cient answer to be made to them. If, on the other hand, I tendered the answer in my own language, he might contest the authenticity of my statements as only representing my own conclusions. Neither will I quote the language of . any recent controversialist, whom the Dean might put on one side as a mere Tractarian or EituaUst, and no representative of any legitimate section of 182 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' the Church. My reply shall be in the words of one who has gone to his rest, and whose active life of author began in the eighteenth century, a teacher whose abrLity, learning, and station, entitle him to the respect of later generations ; a con- spicuous antagonist of Eome and a representative of a school of theology which flourished in times when Tractarian was as unknown as Eitualist, and who himself was in those earlier days Dean of Chester. Bishop Phillpotts, in Ms Pastoral to the Diocese of Exeter, issued in 1851, thus defines the Eucharistic doctrine of Holy Scripture and of the Church of England : — " For, in the Eucharist, as a Sacrament, ' we eat our ransom^ as St. Augustine says, — we receive spiritually ' the boHy of our Lord .lesus Christ which was given for us,' ' His blood which was shed for us,' — in the same Eucharist, as a Sacrifice. We, in representation, plead the one gieat Sacrifice, which our great High Priest continually presenteth for us in Heaven. In Heaven He presenteth ever before the Father, in person. Himself — mediating with the Father, as our intercessor ; on earth, He, invisibly, sanctifies what is offered, and makes the earthly elements, which we offer, to be sacramentally and ineffably, — but not in a carnal way — His body and His blood. " For although once for all offered, that sacrifice, be it remembered, is ever living and continuous — made to be continuous by the resurrection pf our Lord. Accordingly St. John tells us in Eev. v. 6, 12, that ' h^ .beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne stood a lamb as it had been slain, and to him is continually addressed the triumphant S"ng of the heavenly hosts. Worthy is -the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.' To Him, His Church on earth in the Eucharistic service, in like manner, continually cries, ' Lord God, Lamb of Ood, Son of the Father, that takest away the sins of the world.' Not that tooiest away, but still takest ; — 'Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata Mundi.' \^ "As, then, the sacrifice is continuous, its propitiatory virtue is conti- nuous, and the fulness of the propitiation is pleaded for the whole Church whensoever the commemoration of it is exhibited in the Eucharist. So it was declared in all the ancient Liturgies ; so likewise it is expressed in that of the first book of Edward-VL, in the fullest and plainest terms. And although in the second book of Edward this particular was somewhat reduced and obscured, and was not restored to its former prominence even DEAN HOWSON ' BEFOEE THIS TABLE.' 183 in 1662, yet enough happily still remains to connect us in this, as in most other Articles, with the primitive and Catholic Church. For, in one of the Collects, our Church teaches us to say, — ' Lord and heavenly Father, we, Thy humhle servants, entirely desire Thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humhly beseeching Thee to grant, that by the merits and death of Thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in His blood, ive and all Thy holy Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of His passion.' " After all I might almost Jiave spared myself this protest as far as it affects the external, claims of the eastward position to be tolerated, for the Dean with good-natured inconsistency begins the chapter next after thei three theological dis- quisitions with knocking down his own argument, in the istatement — ■ / " But it will be urged that English Divines have held, with full tolera- tion and allowance, the sacrificial view of this ordinance, that there has always been such a school of thought in the Church of England, that the Eeformers would not have repudiated those who maintained this opinion, and that it was strongly njaititained by theologians, who were in this country the pride of the soventeenth century. It was contended, further, that this aspect of the Eucharist was prominent in the early ages of Christianity, and reflected in the primitive Liturgies " — . , ^ i which he follows up by the admission that " I very willingly concede nearly all that the opponents of my argument will require under this head." If so, how thoroughly inconsistent is it not to concede a ceremonial, which is straightforwardly intended to carry out the conclusions of that school of thought, but not to carry anything further. But the Dean of Chester contrives to be inconsistent even in his inconsistency. We see that in his opinion he has demonstrated that a certain school of thought has no place in Scripture or in the Church of England, and yet he will not dislodge it from the latter. On this shifting basis he constructs the conclusion that " there is the greatest difference between the ceremonial expression of a theological opinion and its expression by means of words," under cciVer of which statement he desires to compel south- 184 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' ward and to prohibit eastward celebration. Is it possible that the Dean does not perceive that in writing his theological sections as premisses to this conclusion, he has been acting the part of the man in Hogarth's picture, who devotes himself to sawing off a sign, but who has unluckily seated himself on the portion of the beam which must, when the operation is finished, tumble down ? As long as he confined himself to the historical argument he could in all consistency say, " West side or north end may or may not each have its theological signification ; I am only investigating which of them rests on the basis of ascertained history." Not content, however, with this inore safe stand- point, he first applies himself to show that the north-end position is the only attitude consistent with the principles of the Church of England, and then correspondingly to show that only a certain schedule of theological opinion is con- sistent with the principles of the same Church. By this feat he himself converts north-end celebration into the " ceremonial expression of a theological opinion," i.e. on his own premisses he proclaims the inadmissibility of that his own favourite position. Abstract consistency would at this point compel the Dean to give up the idea of any Communion at all in the Church of England as an impossibility, after he had shown that upon his own principles any position which the minister could take would be equally impossible as equally involving ceremonial expression. Abstract consistency is, however, not the strongest feature of the book, and the Dean and I can at least agree upon this practical conclusion, that there must be Com- munions in the Church of England; and as Communions are concrete, not ideal actions, they involve the mutual obligation of men to do something, and the necessity of something to be in some way manipulated by those men. They involve, in short, ceremonies. Can those ceremonies DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 185 be absolutely divorced from the expression of theological opinion ? To my understanding the affirmative answer to this question seems absolutely childish. I am not asking what the opinions are to be, how definite, or how vague, how " orthodox," or how " heterodox," according to the historical classification of theological opiaions ; I am only asking whether opinions of some sort do or do not necessarily force themselves into the question. The particular matter of the whole discussion is a certain ceremony, which all Christians treat as of peculiar importance — the "sacrament" of the ■Communion of the Lord's Supper — and which they carry out accordingly with peculiar carefulness. Different sections of Christendom differ in their doctrine of this ceremony, and according to that difference differ in the outward forms in which they invest it. The Church of England in particular has its doctrine and its form, about a detail of which form the present disputation has arisen. Can the Dean of Chester or any controversialist pretend that the "ceremonial" established by the Church of England is not the " expression of its theological opinion " as to the Lord's Supper ? If it is not it must be the expression of the theological opinion of some other body, not of the Church of England ; for to divorce that act and theological opinion, is to divorce the sun from light, or water from the quality of wetness. Enough, however, of this profitless logomachy. Habemus confitentem reum. The Dean by his own words stands con- victed of the necessary coincidence of ceremonial and theo- logical opinion ; only he wishes to confine the ceremonial of the Church of England to the exhibition of his own opinion as to its doctrine. But then comes the case of the existence of another class of those opinions which by the Dean's own showing cannot and ought not to be turned out of our Church. If these are so pernicious that indulgence in them within the Church 186 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' ought not to be permitted, then the ceremonial expression would necessarily he by parity of reason external and un- known to that body. But once give to them, as the Dean has done, though under protest, their foothold inside the body, then they enter it carrying with them the same natural right to ceremonial expression as any other tolerated school of theological opinions. After all, then, the Dean of Chester is driven out of his theological strongholds and has to fall back upon the enforcement of the north end as a matter not of theological opinion, but of simple preventive police. More suo he emphasizes his own change of front when he talks of the " fatal gift of choice " and asserts that he " would feel far less repugnance " to eastward celebration, " if it were to be made compulsory on all." In this connection he presses upon those who, like myself, have pleaded for the permission of this observance, that the Divines of the seventeenth century, and particularly the men of 1662, had no idea of such per- mission, and that with them to recognize this or that ceremony as the law, was, as far as in them lay, to make it compulsory. Now, in the first place, I am not willing to admit without protest that this doctrine is absolutely and without exception true as to that much misrepresented succession of men, the High Churchmen of the Keformation century from Parker to Cosin. Intolerance was no doubt the general mark of the age. It was bred in men's minds, and it stamped the social and legal system. Allegiance then was an act of personal worship, and not of reasonable contract, and conformity was the political duty of the citizen, no less than the moral one of the religionist. All parties shared ia this common character- istic ; the Presbyterian and the Independent ideals of England were an England in which nothing but Presbyterianism or nothing but Independency could be found. Nevertheless I contend that if the germ of the modern ideas of tolerated variation could be found anywhere, it would certainly not be DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 187 among BrownistS or the disciples of Knox, but among those High Churchmen. The whole history of their policy, both as regards the position of the table and the dress of the minister (the maximum of the Ornaments Eubric and the minimum of the Canons being fairly compared together), points to this conclusion. So does the Prayer-Book maximum -of daily service, and the twice-a-week Litany and Saints-day service of the Canons. In making this assertion I do not forget that the external aspect of the Presbyterian claim in 1661 was toleration as to surplice and kneeling, for it is obvious that the real and main signification of those requisi- tions was a re-cast of the whole establishment, under which the body of distinctive Church doctrines would fall through. The Presbyterians well knew, that if they succeeded, both surplice and kneeling would soon become obsolete. In any case there was no permission about their demands for the conversion of baptism into the exceptional privilege of their exclusive sect. This is, however, a disquisition somewhat beside the general discussion. I readily grant that permission in con- trast to compulsion is a feature of the nineteenth as it was not of the seventeenth century. But it has nothing to do with the abstract truth or falsehood of positive conclusions in the domains of religion or morals. It affects the right of one man to force his positive conclusions upon another, but it does not blur the image of those conclusions on his own mind and conscience. So it would be an equal misuse of the teachings of history to conclude that concurrence in the posi- tive conclusions of the Divines of the seventeenth century justified me in the attempt to force those conclusions upon others, or to argue that because I was not justified in so forcing them I was therefore justified in playing the coward to my own convictions of their truth. The Dean of Chester, on his own principles, ought to contend that the introduction 186 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFOKE THE TABLE.' of the conscience clause into our educational policy had made it improper for the members of any communion to teach their own positive faith to the children of their denomination, and that since the passing of the Universities Tests Act no college tutor had the right to look to attendance at Chapel on the part of any undergraduate, even if he had declined to claim the indulgence provided in that statute for con- scientious objectors. I shall not spend many words on the Dean's suggested compromise, which is simply to formulate that which we already effectively possess — the altar-wise position of the table — High Churchmen in return giving up that which they contend they have a right to under actual Eubrics, namely, the right of consecrating before it — " Ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum." My friend recommends his suggestion by a prophecy, which reads very like a threat, that if his terms are not agreed to, clergymen will be found to place their tables lengthways. Speaking for myself, I am not alarmed at the anticipation. A few persons may be found to commit a grotesque anachron- ism. They will seriously annoy many peaceable people, but they will be within their rights, and they will at all events be witnesses to the grammatical truth that " before " does not mean " at the end of," nor " end " " side." At the same time I must remind the Dean that every such literal compliance with the Eubric before the Communion Service will be a challenge to show equal respect for the Ornaments Eubric. If the final upshot of the policy of Dr. Howson and his friends should be that every priest in England were to find himself indiscriminately compelled at Communion time to assume an attitude towards his table which, as between the two — man and table — and irrespective of congregation, was the traditional mutual attitude of celebrant and altar, and if DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 189 at the same time all ministers were as indiscriminately compelled to use the ornaments which were in this Church by authority of Parliament in the second year of Edward VI., I do not think that the clergy of England, as an undivided whole, would bless the tender mercies of the Dean of Chester. I regret to observe that the Dean perorates against High Churchmen with the stale invidious cry of " Ware Eome." " One most serious fact is, that this movement, whether it be called 'Tractarian' in its earlier phase, or 'Eitualist'in its later, or by whatever other designation it may be known, has led to many and deplorable seces- sions to the Church of Eome. There is a close resemblance, in some respects, in the position of Church questions now with the state of things of which we read in the middle of the seventeenth century. Then, too, defections to Rome from the ranks of the Laudian divines became the cause of much uneasiness and suspicion ; and these feelings were not altogether allayed because Laud and others of his school wrote strongly against the Church of Eome." * These sentences may be thought somewhat misplaced in a book, the object of which is to extirpate a practice, which is dear to many more of those who will not, than of those who will accept the appellation Ritualist. But to come from words to things, the scope of the passage out of which we have culled some specimen words, is to show that all through the High Church revival, from its commencement till the present time, there has been one and the same risk of seces- sion to Eome. There are writers, from whose ignorance and confusion of thought, we should have patiently accepted such statement, with a simple contradiction. But I must credit my friend the Dean of Chester with knowing too much to make it possible so briefly to pass over that imputation when it falls from his pen. He at least should confess that if now there are errors and mischiefs in the High Church system, * "Many of lis must remember how strongly both Cardinal Manning and Dr. Newman used to write and preach against the Church of Rome." 190 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' they attach to it in its own character, and not as a half-wajr house to Eomej for the Eome which loomed so dimly through the mists of long isolation to the earlier Tractarians, has now both changed its aspect and stood out from the haze. The earlier seceders had been fighting an uphill battle with men, to whom very much which all parties in the Church now cheerfully admit, was, as it came from their lips, treated as repulsive and dangerous novelty. Eome, on the other side, was not yet the Eome in wliich the Immaculate Conception and Papal Infallibility were de, fide. So a few hearts bruised in the fight, and too hastily sickened at present troubles, turned to this Eome, as it seemed to their distempered sight. It is too true that among the men who took the fatal step were those who have since been foremost in pushing Eome along its desperate course. But at the time it was still possible for the convert to flatter himself that he was shifting his alle- giance to become a witness to primitive truth, and a reformer among his new allies, and to sue for the livery of the Vatican, under the force of convictions, which the Vatican now bans as the heresy of the Old Catholics. After all how small a band were thus misguided, even at the bidding of a Newman. There may be secessions now to Eome, but they are not of the persons, nor for the motives which were conspicuous in the " Tractarian " days. Impulsive women, and souls which hug tyranny rather than face responsibility, find a congenial home in the haven of personal infallibility. With a society so vast and various as that of educated England, and a tempter with allurements such as infallible Eome can offer, it would have been absolutely impossible for such defections not to occur. But to score them against the party which has succeeded to the Tractarian inheritance, and to confound them with the losses in spite of which the Tractarian movement asserted itself, is to ignore facts of which a writer claiming to be a theologian is bound to be cognizant. DEAN HOWSON 'BEFOEE THE TABLE.' 191 The. man who has eyes to see and ears to hear, must have noticed the stirring in the tree-tops. While Eome, elated with the well-managed triumph achieved at the Yatican Council, proclaims in haughty isolation the breach with historical Christianity, souls longing for one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of Christ our Lord, and built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, are being mysteriously drawn together from England and America, from Germany, and from the once motionless East. To ac- complish this good work, and circumvent the Vatican in the name of the one Church Catholic, English Churchmen need a little breathing time to collect their resources, and they find those on whom they relied, if not for help, at least for friendly neutrality, troubling them with ill-omened and baseless in- sinuations of Eomanizing. But the counsels which the Dean of Chester's fears have prompted are not exhausted. He surveys the serried ranks of Dissent, and calls upon us to be wary how far we develop our Church's ideal of worship, for " on ■the whole, if thoughts of ultimate reunion are in our minds (and surely such thoughts ought to be familiar and dear), the adopting of Sacramental Orientation is more likely to be a hindrance than a help." To this I answer, as one to whom thoughts of ultimate reunion are most dear, that I see no honest policy and no possible path towards that reunion except the stedfast determination, in the fear of God but not of man, to build up the walls of our Sion, according to the type, not of fleeting expediency, but of eternal order and decency. The Dean speaks, with an earnestness which shows his sincerity, of what he calls " the silent preparation which is going on within the Church of England for the adoption and naturalization of views" which, in the Dean of Chester's opinion, are "distinctively Eoman." I have already given reasons for my conviction that the days of dangerous, as con- 192 DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE." trasted with vexatious, secessions to Eome are passed. But there is a charge of a deliberate attempt on the part of certain persong to convert the Church of England as such into an imitation of Eome. I will certainly not deny that much which is extravagant, untenable, and fraught with mischief has from time to time been said and done along the wide line of the High Church revival, just as parallel excesses charac- terized the Low Church revival of a former generation. In a movement which is so extensive, and which is engaged with subjects in which all are most deeply interested, but which all are not able to compass, such occasional errors and excesses are inevitable. But I assert that all who are most justly regarded as leaders of opinion in the Church movement have, so fer as they have not been hampered, exerted themselves to the utmost to counteract, denounce, and refute such aberrations. They would have been able to have done inuch more, had it not been for the activity and the power of obstructive influ- ences which have never flagged in the thankless task of com- forting heady excess by suspecting and thwarting loyal mpderation. The "great High Church party" has had its ears deafened by appeals to separate themselves from the men who are said to be working confusion. They answer, that if confusion is being wrought they are both willing and ready to bear their part in setting it right, but that as for separating from any man who may be doing the Lord's work in aU earnestness and self-denial, though not always ac- cording to knowledge, it will be an evil day to the Church of England when its parties begin to set up an internal ostracism, and that at all events they claim the privilege of waiting and watching the result of the experiment, if their censors wiU be good enough to try the same with their own extreme wing. In the meanwhile it is, as they contend, a sorry artifice to. DEAN HOWSON 'BEFORE THE TABLE.' 193 appeal to them to make unconditional surrender, in the names of the great men from whose traditionary teaching they derive their interpretation of what the Church of England enjoins or allows. Those who are most urgent in pressing their demands have never yet condescended to come to de- tails and consent to accept as the limit of authorized belief and authorized practice, both disciplinary and ritual, the system in doctrine, pastoral relations, and ceremonial of Andrewes, Laud, Wren, Cosin, Bramhall, Sanderson, Sancroft, Ken, and "Wilson. The High Churchmen of this age no longer claim, as in former times all parties did, with an equal pertinacity, the monopoly of their convictions, but they do insist that, unless these shall be impartially and ungrudgingly recognized and tolerated, a very dangerous and most dis- astrous tension must ensue. Let those who agree with the Dean of Chester combine in stamping out " the fatal gift of choice," and then the party which finds itself crushed into a mob by this tyrannical policy will, under the intolerable burden of active injustice, refuse subordination, and break, as each man lists, into every extravagant manifestation of distempered feeling in teaching and in action. Let them, however, recognize the equitable plea to do as well as to say that which our masters have done and said before us, and the Dean, no less than the Bench of Bishops, will soon find how manageable a problem Eitualism will become in that recognition of all which Eitualism, as a manifestation of the English Church, has the right to claim. Such a just and generous policy would soon reduce the uncertain margin beyond that right to the class of things too unreasonable for any fixed body of men of sense to insist upon for any length of time, or of things so immaterial that, after the present irritation had subsided, men of sense on either side would equally forget to urge them or to cavil at them, THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. THE KIDSDALE JUDGMENT.* (Fbom the 'Chuech Qtjabteklt Eeview/ July 1877.) Churcli Association and Dr. MoNeile jubilant over Eidsdale Judgment — ^Why ? for it permits Eastward position, is respectful to Ornaments Eubric, lets in principle of Euoharistic dress, reasserts lawfulness of religious imagery — Eecognition of Eastward position, and its conse- qiiences — Section of the judgment which professes to settle the question of vesture — Eastward position more important — Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol's article in the ' Nineteenth Century ' — His " distributive " theory — Advertisements of Elizabeth and 25th and 26th sections of her Act of Uniformity — Ornaments Eubric of 1559 — Judgment con- tends that Advertisements fulfil the conditions of " other order taken " ■ — Contention that they had Elizabeth's sanction answered by " Epsilon " — Men of 1662 inconceivably eccentric if they acted on the motives imputed to them — The Bishops' answer at Savoy Conference to the Puritans, the key to their policy — -What -would be said of people acting now as the judgment assumes them to have then acted ? — Judgment very fond of inferences — Poor condition of Parish Churches at the time explains Bishops' conduct touching vesture — Fallacy of Bishop of Carlisle's parallel — Proved use of Cope compliance with Ornaments Eubric — Its retention in Cathedrals — Omission of reference to Bishop's dress in judgment — Meaning of Advertisements themselves still to be ascertained — Discrepancy between Purchas and Eidsdale Judgments — The meaning of 24th Canon — Advertisements modus Vivendi — Surplice " provided at the charge of the parish " — Per- missibility of cope res integra — Distinctive Euoharistic dress a principle, its form a detail — Enforcement of Cope in Cathedrals — Churches with plurality of clergy such as we now have virtually collegiate — Judicial Committee itself proves that a Euoharistic dress is lawful and laudable * Judgment of the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on the Appeal of the Eeverend Charles Joseph Eidsdale, Clerk, ■». Clifton, from an Order of the Judges, as Official Principal of the Arches Court of Canterbury; delivered 12th May, 1877. P 2 198 THE EIDSDALB JUDGMENT. — Its permissiveness under Advertisements in Parish Churches to be established —Though specific crucifix at Folkestone forbidden Bidsdale Judgment allows religious imagery in Churches — It adopts Exeter Eeredos Judgment — Compliance under protest as to vestments recom- mended — Eastward position on different footing — By Public Worship Act, decisions under it of Bishops make no precedents — Concurrently Eastward Position must be pressed and cope enforced in Cathedrals — Picture of worship as it may be in Cathedrals under recent Judgments. " The long looked-for judgment in this important appeal has at length beeu delivered, and the Council cannot but rejoice with devout thankfulness to find that the soundness of the principles for which they have contended is amply sustained, and that the practices of the Evangelical clergy upon the matters before the Court have been declared to be alike in conformity with the law, and consonant with the established usages of the Church of England since the Beformation." Such is the language with which the Council of the Church Association receives the Eidsdale Judgment, while the veteran leader of the Low Church party, Dr. McNeile, late Dean of Eipon, avers, in a letter to the Becord, that, by the judgment, " our friends generally will feel that their position in the Church is confirmed and strengthened " — a statement which might lead to the criticism, that, in administering this comfort, he revealed a latent even if unconscious doubt as to the original legitimacy of that position, which could hardly have required to be " confii-med and strengthened " if it were already strong in itself These cries of exultation have an exclusive reference to the supposed ritual triumph which the Low Church party are thus instructed to proclaim, and they involve the inference that High Churchmen ought to feel themselves proportion- ately beaten, whether their sense of defeat takes the shape of despondency or irritation. We however who are in no way bound to submit our deportment to the dictation of the Church Association, claim the privilege of examiniao- the ritual results of the judgment for ourselves, and of comparino- THE KIDSDALB JUDGMENT. 199 our own conclusions with those of the mouthpieces of the other side. Passing over, as we may well afford to do, the question of wafer-bread, we find that the judgment proposes to establish three main points, which we shall take in our own order. (1) It permits the Eastward position at the Prayer of Con- secration. (2) It declares that the Ornaments Eubric — a statutory enactment drawn in consecutive and grammatical terms — is to be read in the light of an anterior and contradic- tory document of only inferential legality, which is not only not referred to directly or indirectly (as it might have so easily been) in the rubric itself, but is absolutely ignored, while another document which this one contradicts is by that very same rubric made the standard of " use " under the imposing title of "Authority of Parliament." In urging this contestation it is driven to recognize even on its own view that principle of a Eucharistic dress which those Adver- tisements involve. (3) It reasserts the recognition of the law- fulness of religious imagery in churches given by the Judicial Committee in Boyd v. PhHlpotts (Exeter Eeredos), while it conditions this reassertion by condemning a particular image . in dispute on special considerations. The judgment hurries over the controversy on the priest's position at the Prajfer of Consecration in brief, dry words, and we shall endeavour to imitate its brevity. What we have to say is very quickly expressed. We regard the removal of the obstacle which has since 1870 hampered the celebrant, in " standing before the table,'' as a gain which far counterbalances any dissatisfaction we may feel with the remaining conclusions. It is all very well for Dr. McNeile to gloss over the discomfiture of his party by asking "How should the judgment of the Privy Council be received by Evan- gelical Churchmen ? " I venture to answer in one word — with thankfulness. . . . Had thn 200 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. Eastward position been allowed, and also the sacrificial vestments, the conabination would have amounted to an objective teaching of fatal error; but now the vestments are positively forbidden, and the Eastward position teaches nothing but the private judgment, or personal convenience, or both, 6f the individual celebrant. ... To stand |]with their back to the com- municants as they have always done while reading the Prayer of Conse- cration will prove a satisfaction to be enjoyed without controversy by the large body of old-fashioned High Churchmen." We have too much respect for the discernment of the venerable Dean to suppose that he is satisfied with his own brief. He knows as well as we do that neither his party nor ours nor any party with any claim to self-respect makes much of an outward action such as a " position," except as the visible sign of something inward. He must also be well aware that, if such position means. anything in itself, it does not need — though it may be explained by— vestment, postures, or audible words. Some ambiguous words of Mr. Gladstone, in his pamphlet on Eitualisin, may for a time have led to a contrary conclusion ; but the matter has been cleared up, and High Churchmen acknowledge that they do desire the East- ward position because it has a meaning. The only cLuestion which those to whom they owe obedience have a right to ask is, whether that meaning is such as the Church of England allows and approves. If it is so, we have been right to claim it, and are entitled to utter our satisfactjpn in winning it. If not, merely forbidding the Eastward position would be taking a miserably weak way of repressing error. We value that position, first, because it expresses, as no other attitude can do, and in conformity with the tradition of the Universal Church, the action of the priest, the leader and representa- tive of the people, at the most solemn instant of the highest worship of which Christian men are capable, " in that most sacred and sublime mystery of our religion, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the commemorative sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, in which the action and suffering of our great High Priest are represented, and offered to God on earth, as they are continually by the THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 201 ■same High' Priesl himself in heaven ; the Church on 'earth doing, after its measmre, the same thing as its Head in heaven ; Christ in heaven presenting the sacrifice, and applying it to its purposed end, properly and gloriously; the Church on earth commemoratively and humhly, yet really and effec- .tually, hy praying to God (with thanksgiving) in the virtue and merit of that sacrifiee which it thus exhibits." — Bishop Phillpotti Charge, 1836. It wotild te grovelling superstition lo say that the East- ward position was necessary to signify this. It would be as d)lind ignorance of facts to deny that it was exceptionally .convenient, desirable, and instructive, and therefore of the ■utmost practical value. ; Secondly, we value the recognition of the Eastward posi- tion in the terms of the rubric before the Prayer of Con- 'secration as a tribute to historical truth and a vindication of 'the motives of. Wren, Cosih, and others who suffered much cfor their adoption of it, before they had that rubric to justify them, and who used their late period of power to leave it pos- 'sible to their successors to follow them without blame. We iad identified ourselves with this their struggle and put our* ■selves upon our trial with those revisers of 1662. So how we claim " not guHty " for them and for us, never forgetting that .Dr. Dykes's adoption of the Eastward position was presented to the House of Lords as a reason for bringiag in the Public Worship Bill. Thirdly, taking this ' concession along with all our other laboriously conquered gaius — !screenSj surpliced choirs, music, variously vested altars, ■credences, crosses, imagery, candlesticks, flowers, and now 'that recognition in- some form of an Eucharistic dress 'of which this Eidsdale Judgment is evidence — we have :no hesitation ia proclaiming that we have practically won the day, and that 'the ' Church Association knows that we have .'done so, while it conceals its alarm and vexation like children -singing in the dark to keep up their spirits. , Accordingly, it is just now a first practical duty on our part not 'so to act as to '.over-persuade oiir opponents against the evideiice' of their own 202 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. senses, that their bragging is not mere sound and fury, or that the substantial advantage does not rest with ourselves. The more daring and logical thinkers of the Puritan party have aU along not been without hopes, to which indeed Dr. Stephens in his argument gave rather indiscreet utterance, of ^ really great stroke in annulling the memorable work with which Laud is chiefly identified, of permanently fixing the Holy Table altar-wise. They must have been edified at the way in which Lord Cairns brushed aside this suggestion. The concession of the position, we are told, has been so ungra- ciously made that we owe no gratitude for it. We are not concerned to accept or to reject this view, for it never crossed our mind to treat the Judicial Committee as a French prisoner does the Court which tries him ; but we must leave on record our deep feeliug of shame that it can have become possible so to think or speak of the decisions of an august Court of Ecclesiastical Appeal. When its judgments have come to be considered matters of feeling and not of reason, and when parties are thought capable of being grateful or ungrateful, then indeed the time has arrived for a searching examination of the basis on which the jurisdiction rests. We have now to deal with that section of the judgment which professes to settle the question of vesture in the Church of England, and what we have to state wiU not be coloured by any feeling as to the other rulings. Still we must premise by saying that we regard the loss or gain of the Eucharistic dress as of far less importance than victory or defeat over the Eastward position. The latter underlies and shapes the whole Eucharistic function, while the former is only an honorary adjunct, more or less. The distinctive Eucharistic dress means the dress distinctive of the Eucharistic as above other offices, and so if the dress used at other ofi&ces be seemly and dignified the absence of any distinctiveness in that employed at the Eucharist might show, not the neglect of THE RIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 203 the Holy Sacrament, but the overstrained exaltation of the "common" worship of prayer and praise. In the Eastern Church, as those who have attended the worship at London Wall must have observed, the services which correspond with our mattins are said by gentlemen in their ordinary clothes. We ventured to express the distaste of a Western Churchman for this peculiarity to Archbishop Lycurgus, who defended the practice on the ground of the small comparative importance of those offices. Supposing that the Puritans had so far prevailed as to stamp out the surplices in the ordinary services of the Church of England, but that Churchmen had yet been able to save the surplice for celebrations, then on the one hand we should have been made Easterns as to the garb seemly for daily worship, and on the other, the surplice would have become a distinctive Eucharistic dress ; the dis- tinctive one in fact for the Church of England, in which case we have no doubt that the symbolical lessons to be drawn from its colour, its material and its form would have been drawn out by pious divines and poets. As to the present crisis, we believe that it might have been wiser in progressive Churchmen to have gone on perfecting all other improve- ments, and to have abstained, for this generation, from actively reviving vestments, or, at least, any but linen ones. Had they been thus prudent, we believe that the victory of the other rites, position, and ornaments, would have been so incontestable that vestments would have been revived in peace, and as if spontaneously, in a few years' time. Less than this we cannot conscientiously say, but to dilate on the theme would be to indulge in fruitless retrospects over the irreversible. The heads of the Church neglected the timely opportunity of conceding the Eastward position, and now there wiH not be peace so long as they artificially ignore the Eucharistic dress. We are saved the difficult and possibly presumptuous task 204 THE EIDSDALB JUDGMENT. of summing up this part of the judgment as a whole hy the Bishop of "Gloucester and Bristol, who performs this duty in an' article in the Nineteenth Century for July. The Bishop, after referring to a prophecy of his own that it would be -" wise, convincing, and conciliatory," and claiming that it proved to be the first and the third, goes on :— " is it however convincing ? Here we hesitate. The judgment is transparently clear, {lawlessly reasoned, and eminently fair ; bnt it does ■not carry with it complete conviction. It seems to fail just where the real difficulty presents itself ... In reading the judgment we feel ourselves out-reasoned and out-argued, but at the same time not fully convinced. Our reason seems forced one way, but our instincts take the other. . . . .'Yet the plain fiict seems to remain that, to use the words of a venerable and well-known leader of High Church opinion,' the judgment does interpret in a non-natural sense the rubric on which this judgment turns ; ' or, to take the language of a recent resolution affirmed by some three hundred clergymen; that the judgment 'is clearly contrary to the plain meaning of the rubric' ... At present we are only noticing the judgment in its broad and general aspects, and in the light in which it -appears to have been generally received by the majority of friends and foes. And this, we fear, must be conceded. It has placed before the Church several important and incontrovertible facts, but in its conclusions it does- not .seem "to have made quite the -best of them." ■Having thus given the judgment what we cannot call its ■hene demisit, the Bishop, with great ingenuity, comes to the .succour of its authors by proposing what professes to be an expansion of the argument, but which is really a counter .theory, which may never have crossed the minds of the judges. ■The Bishop _ co-ordinates the Advertisements and the rubric of 1662 by reading the latter " distributively,"'so that the two together should cover the whole area of the Church of Eng- land. " Edwardian vestments (under one of the two alterna- tive forms in which the ruling rubric of the first Edwardian book specifies them) were to be in use distributively. The Eucharistic vesture was to reign in cathedrals and collegiate churches, the surplice in other places." "We are at, present engaged with the judgment itself, but we intend to revert to THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 205 this theory of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. It is enongli to say of it for the present that its naked abstraction is one thing, and its practical application another. The latter must turn upon the meaning of the Advertisements themselves in the sense in which they were published by their authors. If, as we think we can show, the Bishop has perfunctorily closed with a trivial and erroneous interpretation of their scope, the practical conclusions which he draws from his theory fall to the ground, and with them the theory itself as he proposes to use it, so as to guide us out of our actual difficulties. The task which the judges set themselves to accomplish was to show that when the Ornaments Eubric of 1662 — a portion of an Act of Parliament — says : — " And here it is to be noted that such ornamentg of the Church and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained, and be in use, as were in the Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth." jt means to say : — " "And here it is to be noted that such ornaments of the Church and of the juinisters thereof, at all times of their ministrations, shall not be re- tained, and mo^bein use, as were in this Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the feign of King Edward tbe Sixth, hut only such as were named in the advertiseinents in the seventh year of Queen Elizabeth." This is a startling proposition considering that from' one end to the other of that Prayer Book which contains the Thirty- nine Articles, although they have no importance in the con- duct of worship, there is not a scrap of extract from — no, nor even a reference to — those Advertisements, which would be of the highest specific importance if in fact they still ruled the dress of the minister. This iaterpretatipn of- the rubric is de- fended by a very lengthy argument ; but it can be much more briefly met ; for the reasoning, which is consecutive, hangs at two distinct points upon a single thread, and if either of them snaps the whole mass falls to the ground. We propose 206 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. to show the weakness of one of them, which depends upon historical investigation, while we indicate the rashness of trusting to the other, which can only be finally determined by public judicial decisions. The judges cannot deny that a Statutory enactment in 1662 must on the face of it mean what its words in the English language of 1662 themselves mean, and they strive to do away with this presumption by constructing what they consider to have been the state of the law up to 1662, and then setting up inferences from the extra-legislational sayings of the prelates who were forward in, but were not the exclusive enactors of, that settlement of 1662 which was the act of Convocation and Parliament combined. On such informal considerations does the Juxiicial Committee contend that when the Legislature in 1662 revived as a rubric, in an improved form, words which taken by themselves profoundly vary the condition of things which would have existed had the Advertisements, as that Committee understands the document, continued at that date in force. Parliament reaUy meant to validate that condition. If this assumption is proved to be a flight of imagiaation, as we shall endeavour to show, then the judgment falls to the ground. It would do so equally if it could be shown that the assumed state of the law before 1662 was not really what they iafer it to have been. We need not go further back than the accession of Elizabeth, and the Act of Uniformity of her first year, 1559, of which we quote the 25th and 26th sections, the judgment only citing the 25th, while the 26th section is indicative of the upward rather than downward tendency of the authors of that statute : — 25. " Provided always, and be it Enacted, That such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof shall be retained, and be in use, as was in this Church of England by the Authority of Parliament in the Second year of the Eeign of King Edward the Sixth, until other order shall be therein taken by Authority of the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of her Commissioners appointed and Authorised under the Great Seal of England THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 207 for causes Ecclesiastical, or of the Metropolitan of this realm : 26. And also. That if there shall happen any contempt, or irreverence to he used in the Ceremonies, or Kites of the Church, by the misusing of the Orders appointed in this hook ; the Queen's Majesty may by the like advice of the said Commissioners, or Metropolitan, ordain and publish such further Ceremonies, or Eites, as may be most for the advancement of God's Glory, the edifying of his Church, and the due reverence of Christ's holy Mysteries and Sacraments." The judgment comments upon the 25th section in these terms : — " In this manner, and not by any textual alteration of the Bubrics in the Second Book of King Edward, the directions as to ornaments of the First Book were kept in force until other order should he therein taken, in the way provided by the Act. " The authorities whose duty it was to issue to the people, in 1559, a printed Book of Common Prayer, made conformable to the Statute, pre- fixed to the Book so issued by them a copy, in extenso, of the Statute of Elizabeth itself; and they also of their own authority, not by way of enactment or order, hut by way of a memorandum or reference to the Statute, substituted a new admonitory note or Rubric for the note im- mediately preceding the order of Morning Prayer in the Second Book of King Edward. " That note or Rubric, as is pointed out by Bishop Gibson, was not inserted by any authority of Parliament. It was meant to be a compendious and convenient summary of the enactment on this subject. If it was an ac- curate summary, it was merely a repetition of the Act. If it was inaccurate or imperfect, the Act, and not the note, would be the governing rule." This so called " admonitory note or rubric " is as follows : — " And here it is to be noted that the minister, at the time of the Com- munion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use such ornaments in the church, as were in use by the authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth, according to the Act of Parliament set in the beginning of this book." It differs, as it will be seen, both from the present Orna- ments Rubric and from the 25th section of Elizabeth's Act, in being a direction to the minister what he is to do, and not a direction to the Church as to what is to be done by the minister. Mr. McCoU in a letter to Tlie Times argues that this is the difference between universal legal obligation and universal legal permission, and the Bishop of Gloucester 208 THE BIDSDALE JUDGMENT. takes similar grouiid. To us, their view of the difference seems much overstrained. We also are unable to follow the Judicial Committee in its depreciatory estimate, on Bishop Gibson's authority, of the value of Elizabeth's rubric, con- sidering that the heavy penal provisions of the Act are against, not the transgressors of the Act itself, but of the " Common Prayer " and of the " Sacraments," " in such order and form as they he mentioned and set forth in the said book," against the persons who shall " use any other rite, ceremony, order, form, or manner of celebrating of the LorcSs Swpiper or Mattins, Evensong, Administration of the Sacraments, or other open Prayers than is mentioned and set forth in W^esaid book." The penalties for disobeying the " ceremony," " form "■ of and " manner " of " celebrating the Lord's Supper " as " set forth in the said book," are first forfeiture of a year's stipend and six months' imprisonment ; secondly, a year's imprisonment and deprivation ; and thirdly, imprisonment for life ; and yet the Judicial Committee calls the regulation which sets forth these treinendously important " rites " a " memorandum " or " reference " only. The judges then go on to contend that the Advertisements of 1566 issued by Archbishop Parker and the other Commis- sioners — although there is no direct evidence that they were ever formally sanctioned by Elizabeth— fulfil the conditions of "other order being taken, &c.," and therefore define the vestiary law of the Church thenceforward with the authority of a statute. The Advertisement, which is important to the present question, and which we are now asked to accept as the living law of the Church of England, as to clerical attire, runs as follows ; — " In the ministration of the Holy Communion in cathedral and collegiate churches, the principal minister shall wear a cope, with Gospeller and Epistoller agreeably; and at all other prayers to be said at that commu- nion table, to use no copes, but surplices. THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT^ 209 " That the Dean and Prebendaries wear a surplice- with a silk hood in the choir; and when they preach to use their hoods. " Item, that every minister saying any public prayers, or ministering the Sacraments, or other rites of tha Church, shall wear a comely surplice with sleeves,; to be provided at the charge of the parish." The other single thread of which we spoke is the claim on the part of the Judicial Committee for these. Advertisements that they obtained Elizabeth's sanction, wliich is enforced in a lengthy argument. The judges were compelled to multiply authorities in order to reach a constructive conclusion, but one that was, after, all,, only their own inference, and one which might collapse under fresh documentary evidence. Yet they set up this individual inference of theirs about the intrigues and vacillations of Queen, ministers and prelates three hundred arid eleven years ago as the rule which is to govern the cere- monial of the Church of England in the thirty-ninth year of Victoria, and under which clergymen may be suspended, de- prived, and imprisoned. If they , are right, the condition, of riiatters", so disclosed is far from satisfactory ; and if they are Wrong, it is calamitous. We are, however, , so convinced of the weakness of the latter thread, that we shall by preference deal with the question as it presented itself in 1662. We not only prefer "to dwell upon this branch of the subject, because the question of the value of the Advertiseirients may.sooner or later have to. come specifically before the Courts, but because we consider that, for the purpose of immediate controversy, the immateriality of the legal value of the Advertisements has been demonstrated in a letter iinder ' the signature " Epsilon," which appeared in The Times of June, 9. We are unable to conceive the answer which can be offered to the considera- tions which the writer presses with so much force : — " Now, I do not pretend to express an opinion on the question whether or not the Advertisements of Elizabeth had the effect of satisfying the requirements of her statute as a ' taking of other order ;' but I do say that, if they had, it is absolutely incredible that that statute should have 210 THE RIDSDALE JUDGMENT. been prefixed in its original form to the Prayer Book of 1662, and without the alteration in it which the Advertisements had made essential. Bear in mind that the Courts rely strongly on the fact that the Act of Elizabeth is reprinted at the beginning of the book of 1662 as a law still in force Most lawyers, I think, will agree with me in saying that its being so printed, without any alterations, is strongly in- favour of the contention that, down to 1662, no ' order had been taken ' in the sense contemplated by the Act. But, if so, what becomes of the theory of the result of the Advertisements ?" The writer might have continued, as in effect we propose to do, that on the same supposition the Ornaments Eubric must have been recast. But we provisionally accept the legality of the Advertisements previously to 1662 for the purpose of vindicating the rubric of that year as a document in which affirmatives mean af&rmatives, and vitally important qualifications are not to be assumed as beiag " read in " on the ground that they are wholly ignored by legislators and draftsmen to whom their existence was perfectly familiar, and to whom every material interest would have dictated that these qualifications should have been unequivocally recited if the intention of the legislators had been to consti- tute them for the future such statute law as might be penally enforced against recalcitrant Puritans and disappointed High Churchmen. Legislation is apt to become sleepy and lax in days of general acquiescence, but not at a crisis of aroused passions, of hopes running high, and disappointments bitterly eating into men's hearts. The assumption which is made to justify the imputation of such inconceivably eccentric conduct against statesmen and divines of unquestionable abUity, learning, and logical power, is that, as the revisers of 1662 had the power not only to enact but to force the acceptance of their enactments upon the general public, so an assumed failure in material success must be taken as conclusive upon the meaning of enacting words, even when that presumed meaning is directly THE BIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 211 contrary to the derivation and graramatical construction of those yery words. We are rather surprised that a " Court whose distinguished president has been member of a minority as well as of a majority Cabinet, and of which the next most distinguished member belonged to the government which repealed the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, should have assumed this conclusion as one which did not even require to be argued. The answer to it is found in the plain incontestable facts of history. In 1662 the High Church party found itself in a present majority ; but it also found itself confronted with a minority which was powerful enough to have almost suc- ceeded twenty-seven years later in carrying a reform of the Prayer Book which would have left that volume in a far more ultra-Protestant condition than that to which 1552 had reduced it, and from which, except in the matter of vesture, it had, down to 1662, very partially and at long intervals emerged. Nay, this minority, though foiled in that particular movement by the firmness of the section of higher Church- men who accepted the Eevolution of 1688, reasserted its ruling influence within the Church wilii a completeness of which our present agitations are the visible survival. The revisers accordingly did, in 1662, just what might have been expected of statesmenlike men who could comprehend and value con- victions, without being blind to the proportionate force of opposing powers. They contented themselves with importing into the Prayer Book warrants and permissions for the changes which they thought right, and they trusted to cir- cumstances for ripening them into practical life. As we have heard acutely remarked, there was no Public Worship Act in those days, and so the remorseless working of the law was in the Bishops' own hands. The imputation of double dealing heaped on them because they dispensed with strict law in favour not only of the difficult times in which they lived, but of the short purses both of parson and parish, is not a Q 212 THE RIDSDALE JUDGMENT. little liard. So far, and so far only, may we concede that there is any force in the contention very . eagerly urged by the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, that the change in the form of the rubric from the " minister shall use " to " shall be ill use in the Church of England " implied some backing outi If it had much meaning," that meaning was, we believe, not that the Edwardian vesture was not to be legal as before; here, there, and everywhere, but that, in transferring the direct responsibility from the individual wearers to the Church at large, that Church " in equity " might hold in check the stringency of Church common-law. It was just what men at once statesmenlike and moderate would do after standing to their principles in their answer to the Puritans, that they thought it " fit that the rubric should continue as it is," while they still were unwilling to apply those principles harshly. As it happened, the circumstances on which the Bishops xelied for a gradual heightening of ritual, broke down, from causes which they could not foresee, at the very point which ■was the key of the Church's position. The material symbol and safeguard of distinct Chilrchmanship as contrasted with Puritanism then was the chiefshipL in the State of an anointed King and not a covenanted Protector. Both sides had been alike in making the headship of the British Commonwealth the test of national religion. But kingship,^ with which' was tied up the higher type of Churchmanship, broke down in the Arices and follies of its representatives. The godlessness •of Charles, the superstition of James, the tyranny and lubricity of both, and the religion of "the deliverer " were all equally disastrous to a High Church reform synchroiiising with a royal restoration. In this condition of matters, which, is not one of inference after grubbing among musty papers, but the plain teachings of the commonest histories, the test of personal and informal intention to which the judges .after all reduce the meaning THE KIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 213 Of the Ornaments Eubric of 1662 will be satisfied by a far more contracted body of evidence than that which they demand. It ought to be sufficient to show proof of any Vestiary usage in any cathedral or other church which can be most naturally explained on the belief that the Convoca-; tion and Parliament of 1662 intended the words which they enacted to mean what they said, at a moment when saying one thing and meaning another must, as they well knew, be that which politicians tell us is worse than a crime. But here we may be allowed for a short time to interrupt our historical examination, and, without any disrespect to Lord Cairns, to put his interpretation of the Ornaments Rubric to ,an even more direct test. We will suppose that it was in 1877 and not in 1662 that Parliament, in concert with Convocation, was engaged in passing an Act of Uni- formity embracing a Prayer Book, of which one of the pro- visions was intended to enact tliat, in contrast to bishops and cathedral dignitaries, the parish clergy generally should wear surplices and surplices only " at all times of their ministra? tions "^nothing more and nothing less. "Would it be easily credible that the Convocations under Archbishops Tait and Thomson, acting with the Parliament of 1877, though intend- ing to give statutory force to this arrangement, and having the whole dictionary from which to choose their words, should not have been able to find any more clear or precise expres- sion than " such ornaments of the minister as were in use in the Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth ? " — the fact being that that authority of the second year of Edward VI. enacted not only surplices, but also vestments, copes, albes, and tunacles. Again, supposing any abnormal eccentricity ^f intellect had suggested this form of words to the draftsman whom the Convocations in which our Archbishops are leaders 'employed, (the draftsman, for instance, of the Public Worship ' q'2 214 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. Act), is it conceivable that Lord Cairns would have let the Bill pass through the House of Lords without calling its attention to the extraordinary inaptness of the provision to make its own intentions intelligible ? If it is past belief that Lord Cairns's acuteness should have been found so wanting, why are we asked to suppose that Lord Clarendon connived at so purposeless a violence being done to the English language ? When Parliament wanted to say surplice, surplice was both easy and short to say ; " the authority of Parliament in the second year of Edward the Sixth," is neither easy nor short — and less so when it does not even happen to be accurate — as a synonym for surplice and sur- plice only. It is no reflection upon Lord Cairns, and Drs. Tait and Thomson, to say that Lord Clarendon, Sheldon and Cosin knew the English language as well as they can claim to do ; while if there is any difference between the drafting of the seventeenth and the nineteenth century, it consists in the nineteenth century often accepting phraseology which the earlier one would have deemed dangerously loose and allusive. Against this plain consideration drawn from the literal meaning of well-known words, the Judicial Committee offers to us only inferences — it is very fond of inferences — from the supposed inconsistency which it finds in the conduct of the revisers of 1662 commanding as legislators the vesture of 1549 and as administrators the surplice only. See, it exclaims, fifteen Bishops and an Archbishop between 1662 and 1689 go on enquu'ing from their parish clergy about the use of the sur- plice, and not a word to be found about any other vesture. This line of argument only shows the curious inability of the judges to grasp the Church of England as an organic whole ; it is in their eyes a large bundle of parish cures, and in some other pigeon-hole a small separate bundle of cathedral and collegiate churches. Parish services loom before their eyes in such disproportionate, if not exclusive, bigness, that they do THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 215 not easily conceive of rubrics as intended to do much more than regulate these rites. Accordingly in epitomising the Advertisements, they unconsciously marshal the parish dress first, and do not, like the Advertisements, range it as the secondary provision. A fuller, more ripe knowledge would have made them appreciate cathedrals as mother and model churches of the respective dioceses, with collegiate churches ranging as their honorary equivalents. They would also have comprehended that, if these were such in theory now, •they were — in contrast with present days — even more so in 1662, before cathedral establishments had been cut down, and parish churches had by private munificence caught them up. The parish churches of Charles IT.'s time w-ere few, poorly appointed, and scantily manned compared with those of 1877, while the cathedrals had not been reduced to their regulation four or six residentiaries. The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol is ecclesiologist enough to see this weak point, and he very ingeniously tries to get round it by that sugges- tion which, in professing to be the expansion of the judgment, is really apart from, if not contradictory to it ; that the Orna- ments Eubric is to be used distributively — copes for dignitaries, surplices for parsons. We shall show further on that this suggestion, the cleverness of which we admit, rests upon a superficial reading of the Advertisements, and that the Bishop, to make it good, must show that, while they order the cope to the dignitary, they forbid it to the parson. In their legi- timate relation to the whole ecclesiastical organization, all rubrics (unless the contrary can be directly or inferentially shown) impartially and simultaneously regulate the conduct of worship everywhere, with the presumption that it will be best observed in those mother and model churches. If we realise these facts, it becomes a matter, not of inference (like so much of the judgment), but of documentary demon- stration, that the revisers of 1662, when they re-enacted ^16 tHE RIDSDALE JUDGMENT". the mliiiisters' ornaments of the second of Edward VI., nob* Only intentionally re-enacted them in the literal sense, but were to a certain extent practically successful in reviving them and "retaining" them "in use." For proof of their personal intentions we need go no further than the anecdote which the judges quote with the contrary intention. Baxter, so they remind us, reports that the Puritans at the Savoy Conference " excepted against that part of the rubric which; speaking of the Sacraments to be used in the Church, left room to bring back the cope, albe, and other vestments."" This exception, it will be observed, only names the never disused cope, and the albe, which others besides Puritans may be forgiven for not clearly distinguishing from the sur^ plice. It was, we believe, not a theoretical fear. They knew that before the Commonwealth copes, and the dresses which might be called either albes or surplices, had been employed, and they dreaded their return. If the Bishops had intended what the Judicial Committee suppose them to have done, their easiest, shortest, most straightforward, and at the same time most politic, answer would have been, " You are mistaken • we are only thinking of legalising the surplice except in those exceptional cases which the Advertisements particularise." Instead of this they reply, " We think it fit that the Eubrick continue as it is." This answer was honest and intelligible in the mouth of men who desired at aU events to retain the possibility of resuming the Edwardian vesture, but in that of negotiators who had secretly abandoned such an intention it would have been not only evasive and hardly honest, but to the highest extent impolitic and irritating. This anecdote disposes of the Bishop of Carlisle's funny parallel from the old undergraduate joke of the man who defended his beU- pulling by a reference to the direction, " Please to ring this beU." For the parallel to be perfect, the house must have been in disrepair for some time and the notice defaced, and THE EIDSDALE ' JUDGMENT. 217 ^h&n'the owners %ere about, fo' Jtainttt up 'iEigain, the heigh- bdurs most likdy to be aiiildyed b'y; literal 'compliance with it must 'have pointed out the pfobable result, and been Diet with the answer, ^'We think it' fit that the notice continue as it is." In the s^me connection we cannot help thinking that thie appearance in the actual Ornaments Hubric of. the words "at all times of thejr ministrations,"" after what the judgment terms " the Puritan objections " had been broughr home to the revisers, not only leaves those words, as the jndginent itself owns, "not incapable of being read distribu- tively," but really impresses the distributive meaning upon theni. It is only fair to the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol to point out that this " distributiveness," which the judges onlyji'anie to repudiate^ is not quite the " distributiveness " which he imagines to underlie their theory. The foi-mer refers to tlie various functions of the same man — one dress for one service, another for another— the latter to the various classes of churches in which the. same functions may be performed. As to the measure of practical success which we claim for the intentions of the revisers, we do not say. that they accom- plished reviving the whole list of dresses. The judgment is no doubt right in pointing out that the chasuble and tunacle were in abeyance, while we are unable to grasp the vanishing point between albe and surplice. But the surplice, which might be an albe, they, succeeded, after" a century's bitter fighting with the Puritans, in retaining everywhere, though not without a parting scream of anger from Prynne, and they kept hold of the cope also where they could. Jurists who have " Advertise- ments " on the brain may have a difficulty in conceiving of a cope used in a cathedral, except in virtue of the ambiguous authority of that document. But they may at least allow us to believe that this vesture could have been in use in virtup of the unambiguous authority of the first of Elizabeth and of the Act of 1662. The use of the cope between 1666 and 218 THE BIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 1662 in places of worsUp whicli were not legally " cathedral and collegiate churches " would be conclusive against the reasoning which wiU not look beyond the Advertisements. Accordingly as copes are found not only in the Eoyal Chapels of Tudor and Stuart sovereigns, who may be supposed to be above vulgar law, and in whose honour they were also used at such ceremonies as weddings, christenings, &c., but also in the chapels of bishops' palaces (as of Andrewes and Land)!, and of colleges (as of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and of Lincoln College, Oxford, given in that case by the Puritan Archbishop Williams), we claim to have established our position. 'No man who understands legal distinctions would assert that a college chapel was a collegiate church except by a very wide stretch of language. College chapels, have, indeed, besides a superficial resemblance of name, that external resemblance to collegiate churches which consists iu both beiag served by a body of clerks, and of being able to sustain services of more than usual dignity and frequency. So incidentally the use of copes in college chapels may be a key to the policy of the Advertisements as intended to be a practical compromise providing for the compulsory retention of copes where men to wear and money to buy made them possible, while in parish churches, where the dress was at the charge of the parish, the compulsion was relaxed. But to return from a digression. The fact that the Bishops after the Eestoration only pressed the surplice upon the parishes just recovering from Puritan havoc, proved not that they were then unable at aU to enforce the rubric of 1549 on them, but that they were unable to enforce more than a part of it ; for the surplice, equally with the " vestment " or the " tunacle," now exists as a vesture of our Reformed Church iu virtue of that very rubric ; and the sur- plice, as the most commonly seen of all the 1549 dresses, was the one against which the artillery of Puritan animosity was most pertinaciously directed from the days of Edward VI. to THE BIDSDALB JUDGMENT. 219 those of Charles I. Familiar and acceptable as the surplice is to the nineteenth century, we forget that it was the badge of strife in the sixteenth and seventeenth. If the revisers had shown a similar abstinence and a seeming similar preference for the surplice only in the cathedral and collegiate churches, there might have been plausible ground for the inference in which the Judicial Committee indulges. But, unfortunately for that theory, we find that Cosin, the leading spirit of those revisers, so effectually "retained" the copes "in use" in Durham Cathedral, that nearly half the eighteenth century had elapsed before they were disused. We read, too, of a cope given to Norwich at the date of the Eestoration. What of Westminster and St. Paul's ? At Westminster the Eestora- tion was signalised by the acquisition of some very rich copes, which are still " retained " there, and which we our- selves saw " in use " at the Queen's Coronation. St. Paul's, on the other hand, fell out of the running by being burnt down, and not restored to worship till the reign of Queen Anne. Had Charles II. cared for religion ; had St. Paul's not been burned down; had James II. not turned Papist; had William not been a Presbyterian ; had the obstinate loyalty of the Scottish Bishops not disestablished Prelacy in that part of the island, and thus altered the religious centre of balance throughout the island ; had Queen Anne's son lived, who can prophesy what might have been the more immediate history of the rubric of 1662 ? We wish the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol had touched upon an omission in the judgment in its review of the Orna- ments Eubric, which is remarkable from being intentional : "they do not propose to express any opinion upon the vestures proper to be worn by bishops, as to which separate considerations may arise." We venture, with all respect and very briefly, to consider what that opinion must be, if it is to be consistent with the expressed conclusions of the^: 220 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT; Judicial Committe'e; The directioids of the AdTeriisBmentsj so far as they affect general ministerial vesture, are contained in this passage, which we will again recite : — ' " Item, that every minister saying any public prayers, or ministering the Sacraments vt other rites of tbe'Ghurch, shall wear a comely suYpIiciB with sleeves, to be provided at the charge of the parish," The Advertisements, we see, are- silent -as to any definite reference to the episcopal dress, while the penal provisions of the Act of Elizabeth dealing- with imprisonment, fine, and deprivation, apply to all the clergy alike. They instruct every " minister " to wear a surplice, and, if this order stopped there, it might be reasonably argued that they intended to limit the bishop out of his cathedral to this neat and simple attire.; but they unluckily add " to be provided at the charge of the parish," and as no bishop has a parish to provide him, he would be reduced, when he confirmed and so on, either- to strip the parson of his only official dress, or to stand stripped himself Unless^ therefore, we accept the conclusion that priests and deacpns have a distinctive dress, but bishops none at all, we are in the last resort referred by the conclusions of the judgment itself to the provisions of the rubrics of 1549, which are as follows : — "And whensoever the bishop shall celebrate the Holy Communion in the church, or execute any other public ministration, he shall have upon him, besides his rochette, a surplice or albe, and a cope or vestment, and ^Iso his pastoral staff in his hand, or else borne or holden by his chaplain;" But it is a matter of notoriety that now and for a long time past the bishops have uniformly discarded this vesture in favour of a totally linrubrical one, composed of the rochet and of an upper and secular dress called a "chimere." The conclusion is therefore irresistible that the Judicial Committee intends by a sUence which, as we know by its construction of the Ornaments Eubric itself, is in its eyes of more force than any^ the most precise, statement, to aver that the entire Episcopate, including its own archiepiscopal and episcopal THE EIDSDALB JUDGMENT. 2SI §,ssessors", is liable to'the penalties of Elizabeth from its per- tinacious and universal disregard of tbe " authority of Parlia-' ment" in the matter of its vesture. The partial resumption, of late, years by the Bishops of the pastoral staff shows that their own 'conclusions are gravitating in the same direction. The ohly other alterriatiye wliich is piossible is to reduce the bishops outside their cathedrals to a simple sui-plice. , But we have not yet finished with this chapter of th6 judgment. Let us now provisionally assume the conclusions of the Eidsdale Judgment, and presume that the Advertise- ments govern both the Canons and the Ornaments Eubrie, in contradiction (as we shall show) to the Purchas Judgment, which makes the Canons govern the Advertisements. We shall then find that the critics on the one side or on the other who have jumped to the conclusion that the late judgment in compelling the use of a distinctive Eucharistic dress in cathedral and collegiate churches, forbids it in parish churches, have yet to make good their assumption, on which alike rest the supposed antagonism of rubric and Advertisements and the Bishop's " distributive " theory. The meaning of the Advertisements themselves has yet to he ascertained. That the Judicial Committee should have gone perfunctorily over this ground is not to be wondered at, but we might have expected more precision from the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. The one merit we claim beforehand for what we shall urge is that it is an eirenicon in reducing the variation between the literally taken Ornaments Rubric and the Adver- tisements to a comparatively narrow span. In different words, the Advertisements may after all be not any " other order," but the business-like way of working the " old order ;" while the revisers of 1662, moderate Ritualists, and Lords of the Council in 1877 really reach the same practical point by varying lines of theory. So far is the Judicial Committee from having analysed the- Advertisements, that it does not 22 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. eem to have noticed the difference between their literal leaning and the meaning forced upon them by the Purchas adges, by that exclusive regarding of the Canons indulged in y the latter and of the Canons as read by themselves. The wo judgments are, in fact, so wide apart in their interpreta- ions of the vestiary clauses of the Advertisements, that a athedral dignitary — who was striving with his whole heart carry out the Purchas conclusions — must find that he was continuous law-breaker alternately in the opinion of the lidsdale and of the Purchas judges, for 360 out of the 365 lays of the year, and that even on the five days on which le can simultaneously obey both judgments he does so for lerfectly different reasons. By the Purchas Judgment the Dean of Canterbury, if he celebrated at his cathedral on he first Sunday after Trinity in his cope, broke the law epresented by the Canons ; while, if he confined himself to ds surplice, he kept it. By the Eidsdale Judgment, in con- ining himself on that day to his surplice, he broke the law epresented by the Advertisements; but if he assumed the lope, he kept it ; while in either case, as the Eidsdale judges ruly observe, " it might be a penal charge against " him to )erform the precise action which the other judgment warned lim he must do if he meant to keep clear of fine and imr )risonment — those gentle persuasives which the Act of Elizabeth keeps in store for law-breakers like himself. The )assages from the two judgments which combine to produce his unpleasant dilemma are these. The Judicial Committee n Hebbert v. Purchas " Are of opinion that, as the Canons of 1603-4, which in one part eemed to revive the vestments, and in another to order the surplice for all ninistrations, ought to he construed together, so the Act of Uniformity is o he construed with the two Canons on this suhject, which it did not epeal, and that the result is that the cope is to he worn in ministerinc the loly Communion on high/east days in cathedrals and collegiate churches, md tlie surplice in all other ministrations. THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 223 • " Their lordships attach great weight to the abundant evidence which now exists that, from the days of Elizabeth to about 1840, the practice is uniformly in accordance with this view ; and is irreconoileable with either of the other views." " A high feast day " — the word in the Canon really being " jprindjpal feast day " — there can be no doubt means one of the days for which there is a special preface in the Communion Service. It is well known that in this limitation the Purchas Judicial Committee misread the twenty-fourth Canon from their exclusive study of the English edition of that document, and that the most casual reference to the co-ordinate Latin origiual would have shown them that the mention, in the English form, of " principal feast days " (for this, as we have said, and not " high feast days,'' is the phrase really used), had relation not to the dress worn, but to the person who was to wear it when celebratiug at such times, as well as that " solennis " is a larger word than " principal," so that, even taking their view of the context, Latin Canons and English Advertisements might be made to correspond. The portion of the Canon important for the present question runs : — • " XXIV. Coen£B in Festis solennihus administratio in Ecclesiis Cathe- dralibus indicta, et Coenam administrantibus Caparum nsus injunctus. " Per Cathedrales omnes et CoUegiataa Ecclesias sacram Coenam in Eestis soUennibus administrari volumus nonnunquam per Episcopum (siquidem prsesens extiterit), nonnunquam verb per Decanum, quandoque etiam per Canonioum vel PrEebendarium (Ministrum ibidem maxime eminentem) eundemque decente Capa amictum, ac adjutum ah Evangelii et Epistolse Leotoribus (jnxta Admonitiones in septimo Elizabethse promul- gatas), idque iis horis, et cum ilia prorsus limitatione, quse in Libro publicas Liturgiffi prsefiniuntur." Put briefly what the Latin Canon enacts is that on "solemn" feasts, the principal ecclesiastic present in ia cathedral shall be the celebrant, and that when he is the celebrant, he shall wear the acknowledged dress of dignity. It is in short aimed at lazy dignitaries and not at harmless 224 THE EIDSDALE judgment: copes, while' the reference to the Advertisements implies" a limited application of a wider existing rule. But we have to do neither with what canons or rubrics say, but with what Judicial Committees make them say. The Turchas Judgment equally subordinates sintecedent xtibrics and Advertisements, and the subsequent rubrics of the last settlement, to the Canons, while the Eidsdale judges set up, not the Canons, but the Advertisements, of which they mak6 the Canons only the reflex ; and enact in flagrant contrast td the restricted permission of the Purchas judgment that "iif the ministration of the Holy Communion in cathedral and collegiate churches, without distinction of "principal feast- days," Sunday, or week-da^, ^' the principal minister shall wear a cope, with Gospeller and EpistoUer. agreeably." It is clear that, in face of these discordant conclusions, ■council-made law has not yet given its definite place to the cope. The conclusions as to the dress of Mr. Purchas and of Mr. Eidsdale, so difierently reached, are negative and acci- dentally identical, and both pass by the cope. They are that, as to the dress of Mr. Eidsdale, and therefore presumably of other parish priests, under the Ornaments Eubric of 1662, the " decision of the learned judge of the Arches Court as to the vestments worn by the appellant, following that of the Coin- mittee in Hebbert v. Purchas, is correct, and ought to be affirmed; " the decision so reaffirmed being that " Mr. Purcha^ has offended against the laws ecclesiastical in wearing the "chaSuble, alb, and tunicle," without one word about the cope being adventured. The upshot is that Mr. Eidsdale under the Ornaments :Eubric may not wear vestment, albe, or tunacle. He must 4iow*ver wear something, and that something he is told to 'find in the Advertisements. He finds there a surplice — all •are agreed so far. But does he also find a cope ? He can, -as we have seen, get na help from the Judicial Committee THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 225 towards answering this question, so long as that Committee is not even agreed whether .the dean Of his own cathedral ought to go to. prison under the first of Elizabeth for wearing or for not wearing his cope on any of the 365 days of thd year which happens nOt to be Christmas Day, Easter Day; Ascension Day, Whitsun Day, or Trinity Sunday. The Advertisements must speak for themselves. They ar6 for the present purpose the compleineht of the 25th section of Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity, which itself refers back to the directions of the Prayer Book of 1549. "We have already recited the one important Advertisement, and on it we have only now to observe that so far as it affects .the dress of the celebrant in cathedral and collegiate churches, it speaks plainly enough.. It suspends inferentially the exceptional direction of 1549 as to the vesture on Litany jiays, and it limits in terms the choice of vestment or cope as the upper and Of albe or surplice as the lower vesture to the second-named dresses. It becomes less clear when it directs the Epistolef and Gospeller to be attired "agreeably." The most obvious meaning of this word would be that they were to continue the rubrical use of tunacles. There is, however, no evidence which has come under our eye of the use of tunacles between 1566 and 1662, while instances abound of the Epistoler and Gospeller wearing copes in correspondence with the celebrant similarly attired. Either, therefore, the cope was accepted as the rough and ready substitute for the tnnacle, or ."agreeably" was taken to mean what we now :caU " similarly." ' Parenthetically we incline to the former solution, as not involving direct opposition. But when we come to churches not cathedral or collegiate we observe a remark- able limitation imported into the direction : — " Every minister saying any public prayers, or ministering the Sacraments or other rites of the Church, shall wear a comely surplice with sleeves, to &e provided at the charge of the parish." . . 226 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. The words " to be provided at the charge of the parish '* (which the Bishop of Gloucester does not even seem to have observed) are, we believe, much more than a parenthesis. The Advertisements were no proclamation of principles, but rules of practical conduct — a modus vivendi, we contend, and not a new vestiary law — and in the question of vesture they had both to play off two most hostile parties. High Church- men and Puritans (to the latter of whom they were, as history tells us, exceedingly distasteful, alike from their recognition of cope and of surplice, and so we believe as specially aimed at them), and also to deal with two very differently situated classes of churches. One of these was, comparatively speak- ing, wealthy, and it existed on the incomes of its own estates. The other was absolutely ruined and bankrupt, and had to depend on the precarious resources of rates, with difficulty collected from parishioners who were partly pauperised and partly disaffected. Accordingly the Advertisement, with a worldly wisdom to which any preference for a Eucharistic dress ought not to blind us, regulated the two classes differ- ently. The rich class was ordered to use the rich dress, and left to pay for it as it might ; the poor class was, so far as compulsion went, let off with the cheap dress, while the condition " to be provided at the charge of the parish," though in form mandatory, was in effect a measure of indulgence, as it exonerated the parish from having to buy any more costly vesture than the surplice which the Puritan was expected to endure in consideration of the relief accorded. The dean must wear the cope and pay for it somehow. The parson must wear the surplice, and the parish in finding that simple attire was relieved from having to provide vestment, cope, or tunacle. But supposing the parson himself or his friends found a cope, was he to be precluded from using it ? No trace of an answer to the question can be found in the judg- ments which for distinctive reasons forbid Mr. Purchas and THE EIDSbALE JUDGMENT. 227 'Mr. Hidsdale assuming chasuble, albe, or tunacle ; so we are driven back upon the Advertisements themselves. Here we find, not that the minister is only to wear a surplice, but that he is to wear a surplice, and that the parish is to pay for it. A surplice may be held to exclude an albe (though there is but a slight difference of make between them), and by implication this might also rule out the chasuble ; but as a surplice must be worn under a cope, there is here no direct exclusion of this species of attire. The minister in 1566 wore or forbore to wear his compulsory dress iu ever-present danger of " a penal charge." The Advertisement in being indulgent to the rate- payers' pockets reduced the use of any further dress by the incumbent to a permission. But in the silenc'e of any further Tules, and within these limits, and of the indirect exclusion of the " vestment," we cannot see that there is anything to forbid the parish minister from wearing a dress which was in the Church, "by the authority of Parliament,, in the second year of Edward VI.," provided the parish were hot made chargeable for it. It would certainly be strange if that which was penally compulsory on the collegiate church were penally forbidden in the parish church. At all events, neither the Judicial Committee nor the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol has helped to clear up the ambiguity, and the question of the permissibility for parish churches within the lines of the Advertisements, of that distinctive Eucharistic dress which is penally compulsory for cathedral and collegiate churches is still res Integra. We are prepared to hear in some quarters the exclamation, " The cope is not worth getting ! " and we are prepared to answer the allegation. There is no doubt a sentiment of traditionary connexion with the old English Church, and of present unifiT cation in things indifferent with other Churches, about the chasuble, which rightly elicits a strong predilectioh for it. We do not fpar ourselves owning to this feeling. But this is K 228 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. an occasion when feelings are not safe gtiides. A distinctive Eucharistic dress involves a principle ; the form of that dress only involves detail. The chasuble has not been at all times of the same make, material, or colours. Its pedigree — ^hov far classical and secular, and how far Judaic and sacerdota: — is keenly controverted. The <}>mv6Xi,ov of the Greek Churcl is not identically a chasuble, but possesses cope-like affinities and the Armenian Church wears a vestment which far mors resembles the cope than it does any other Western vestment To come nearer home, the fact that in the latest days of th( pre-Eeformational Church the Eucharistic use of the cop had taken root in England has never, that we are aware ol been contradicted. While it is accordingly intelligible am reasonable to prefer the chasuble, on the other hand to scon the cope as if its distinctive use at the Holy Communion wer- something to be ashamed of, it is to authenticate the Chiirc] Associationists' most savage sneers at our superstitious lov for the " sacrificial " garments — a phrase which we beg t remind the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol has been fa oftener and more pertinaciously brought up by him thai recognised by those whom he criticises — as if there wa something sacrificial in a dress which fell down before ani behiad, and something non-" sacrificial " in one which wa open in front. Besides, it was in and by the cope ths Andrewes and Cosia showed forth the dignity of the TJe bloody Sacrifice, and we may well afford to be sufficient! "Old .Catholic," while not violently wrenching the Enghs Church from any line of innocent Western usage, to accej and to develop the differences which circumstances, not om selves, have produced. It is an incidental recommendatio of this policy that the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol cor structs it as what might have once been the course of event though he now pronounces it "hopeless." This dictum i of course, the Bishop's own opinion; but in saying this I THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT, 229 in effect commits himself to the propriety of the course in itself, and leaves to us the right of claiming his help in future if events should make it hopeful. We can, on our side, say that we should have no objection to his " distributive " theory, when the area over which it worked was limited to " surplice necessary everywhere, cope necessary in cathedral and coUe-- giate, permissive in parish churches." Assuming, then, that the principle of the distinctive Eucharistic dress may now be vindicated by way of the cope, the course of procedure will have to be settled. There are two things desirable: to enforce that compliance with the Eidsdale Judgment, which is also a compliance fro tanto with the Ornaments Eubric, upon the cathedral and collegiate clergy (not to enter into the vexed matter of episcopal attire), and to establish the permission of the cope for the parochial clergy. We have no doubt that it will be wise for the present to coniine our exertions to making good the first desideratum. When every cathedral and collegiate priest, from the Dean of Westminster or Canterbury to the Brother of St. Katherine's and the Prebendary of Endellion, wears his cope, as the Lord Chancellor wears his gown and wig, the day will not be far off when the absurdity of restraining the Vicar of Doncaster, of Leeds and of St. Peter's, Eaton Square — virtually collegiate churches — to a comely surplice with sleeves, if the congregations desire something more stately will be apparent to national common sense. Had there been such parish churches in 1566 or in 1662, we feel sure that their claim to the permissive use of the cope would not have been forgotten. The demand would have been there, and so the supply would have followed ; as it was, Cosin and his friends only found the demand in minsters like Durham and St. Peter's in the West. Surpliced choirs in parish churches, for which there is nothing like the same authority, have made their position good by a similar process of events; and we can E 2 230 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. hardly suppose that those dignitaries who have called so loudly for, and have so warmly welcomed, the late judgment will be backward in obeying its plain mandates. Should there be among them any loiterers by the way, there is more than one method of bringing them to reason. The gentlest process is that of the Public Worship Regulation Act, which has been recommended on the allegation that, contrary to the older system, " violations of the law are not under this Act of a penal character." The complainants must be any three inhabitants of the diocese, and all that the Dean or Canon need in the first instance fear is that suspension for three months which we are told is no penalty. But it might happen that zeal for the Advertisements refused to be content with such merciful proceedings, and elected rather to proceed under Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity; and in this case the offender would, for a first offence, on conviction, not by Lord Penzance but by a judge and jury, forfeit a year's profit of his benefice, and be imprisoned for six months. We are loth to believe that Her Majesty's advisers would be so stern as not to advise our gracious Sovereign to exercise her prerogative of mercy, when the Dean of Canterbury, or of Westminster, or of Chester, was languishing in a dungeon because he had neglected to put on a cope.* But judge and jury would be bound to act as if the full penalty of the law would be sure to be enforced, and, if so, we very much doubt whether they would be so eager, as the Judicial Com- mittee has shown itself, to prove that the Advertisements had received Elizabeth's authorization. If they had not re- ceived it, the Ornaments Eubric would revive propria vigore, and as proceedings against the Dean would have been taken, not under that rubric, but under the Advertisements, he would find himself a free man, and the Ornaments Eubric would •* [Written five years ago. 1882.] THE RIDSDALE JUDaMENT. 231 again "take its place among documents which do not mean tw when they say 2/es. Plainly, then, and here we part with the vestiary para- graphs of the judgment, it has been spoken by the mouth of the Judicial Committee that a distinctive Eiicharistic dress is not only both lawful and laudable in, but prescribed by, the Church of England. No less positive a conclusion is involved in the afiEirmation that it is compulsory in all cathedral and collegiate churches. The detail which stands over for consideration is, whether it is not also permissive in other churches. The establishment of this proposition will require no concurrence of legislative authorities, no revision of existing formularies, while either side will be able to derive comfort from an affirmative conclusion. Those who desire to uphold the judgment may regard every cope as worn in virtue of the Advertisements, while those who believe in the full and living force of the Ornaments Eubric, cannot be prevented from accepting the cope as the legacy of its enduring vitality. We press these considerations owing to the urgency claimed by the advocates of what we may call the external strategy of calling on both Convocation and Parliament to frame some new vestiary directions containing a regulated permission of some Eucharistic dress. Such action need not clash with that which we suggest. We should be agreeably surprised if the two Convocations, in all their Houses, agreed on any such recommendations. But an afl&rmative decision, even if it were only on the part of the Lower House of Canterbury would be of great moral value, while no Convocational con- clusion would necessitate a premature appeal to Parliament for its concession. The events of 1874 showed that a Church majority does not imply a House of Commons which would look with favour on' legislation in what it might consider a Eitualistic direction, [and those of 1880 have reduced the casual success of Churchmen in 1874 to its real dimensions.] 232 THE RIDSDALE JUDGMENT. Another portionof the judgment has been §o pertinaciously misrepresented that, with the utmost desire to be charitable^ we are quite unable to thiak that the misstatement can be absolutely uniutentional. Those who only know its contents by second-hand strictures and partisan jubilation believe that it forbids in our churches the sculptured efhgy of our Blessed Lord upon the Cross. In truth, it patently does the contrary. It sanctions, with one limitation, this special representa- tion, as it also does all other sacred representations, on the footing upon which the reformed Church of England has ever thought of upholding them, viz., as representations of sacred things not likely to be perverted to idolatry. It is true that it removes Mr. Eidsdale's crucifix ; but it does so in language which in effect permits other " imagines Crucifixi " existing not under identical conditions. "We are not now consider- ing the value of the reasons for the removal of this particular crucifix. We are content to show that, read by the light of Lord Penzance's subsequent judgment upon the Denbigh reredos, the loss of this crucifix at Folkestone saves the sculptured presentments of the Crucifixion throughout England. "We are the more glad to do this because we find that the Church Association, before the Denbigh decision, in speaking through its Address, avers that " the judgment as to the wafer-bread and the crucifix requires no comment, and will be received by our friends with unqualified satisfaction." The "allegations," partly in the words of the judgment itself, and partly in a quotation from Lord Penzance, are : — " There remains to be considered the charge as to the crucifix. As to this the allegation is, that the appellant unlawfully set up and placed upon the top of the screen separating the chancel from the body or nave of the church a crucifix and twenty-four metal candlesticks, with Candles which were lighted on either side of the crucifix. . . . The screen of course from its position, directly faces the congregation, and the sculptured oi moulded figure of our Lord is turned towards them. There is further a row of candles at distances of nearly a foot apart all along the top of th« THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 233 soroen, whicH is continued up the central and rising portion of it, the last candles coming up close to the crucifix on either side, so that when the candles are lighted for the evening service I. should presume that the crucifix would stand in a full light." In addition, Mr. Eidsdale at one time had a procession dtiring public service, involving a general kneeling ; and till the other representations were taken down, this crucifix existed in connection with the so-called " stations of the Cross and Passion." The crucifix was formerly illegal, as it had not been put up by faculty. This defect, however, but for other objections, might have been cured by a faculty : — "Their Lordships, however, are of opinion that, under the circum- stances of this case, the Ordinary ought iiot to grant a faculty for the crucifix." The judges give their reasons ^or this exceptional prohibi- tion, partly in Lord Penzance's language, and partly in their own. Lord Penzance's method of reasoning is described to be:— " As to this case, the learned Judge states this Tribunal, in justifying the creation of the Exeter reredos, adhered entirely and very distinctly to the position taken up in the previous case, and pronounced that erection lawful, though it included many sculptured images, on the express ground ' that it had been set up for the purpose of decoration only,' declaring that it was ' not in danger of being abused,' and that ' it was not suggested that any superstitious reverence has been, or is likely to be, paid to any of the figures upon it.' " He deals accordingly with the history of the " Eood " in churches before the Reformation, and of Elizabeth's supposed desire to retain it, and he goes on to say : — " But when the Court is dealing with a well-known sacred object — ^an object enjoined and put up by authority in all the churches of England before the Reformation, in a particular part of the church and for the particular purpose of ' adoration ' — ^when the Court finds that the same object, both in the church and out of it, is still worshipped by those who adhere to the uureformed Eomish faith, and when it is told that, now, after a lapse of three hundred years, it is suddenly proposed to set up again this same object in the same part of the church as an architectural orna- ment only, it is hard not to distrust the uses to which it may come to be 234 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. put, or escape the apprehension that what begins in ' decoration ' may end in ' idolatry.' " The Judicial Committee " concur " in these " observations " and accept them on these " grounds " of decision : — " They are prepared under the circumstances of this case, to affirm the decision directing the removal of the crucifix, while at the same time they desire to say that they think it important to maintain, as to representations of sacred persons and objects in a church, the liberty established in Phillpotts V. Boyd, subject to the power and duty of the Ordinary' so to exercise his judicial discretion in granting or refusing faculties, as to guard against things liliely to be abused for purposes of superstition." It is evident tlmt the judges condemn Mr. Eidsdale's cru- cifix because, taken with all its accidents, it does not appear to come within the permission of Phillpotts v. Boyd, as they read that decision ; but that in saying this they go out of their way directly to legalise such sculptures as fulfil the con- ditions of the former judgment. More precisely, it appears that, besides its connection with candles, processions, and stations, which raised so great a prejudice against it, this par- ticular " illuminated crucifix " was mainly condemned by Lord Penzance, and then by the Judicial Committee, because it stood " in a particular part of the church," which identified it with the well-known " rood " of pre-Eeformational days. In short, they decided, from motives of policy and fear of abuse, that a crucifix ought not to be placed on the top of a chancel screen, particularly if " illuminated " by a row of candles on each side. The one thing ruled is that the chancel screen must not carry a crucifix, whUe it has been incontestably established that, by the judgment in LiddeU v. Westerton, it is lawful to place a cross in that particular position, As for " representa- tions of sacred persons and objects in a church," the judges refer us to the Exeter Eeredos Judgment ; and so we have gone there, and we find : — " This recommendation, however, of the homilies cannot be pressed further than as containing an approbation of ' doctrines,' therein contained. TUB EIDSDALB JUDGMENT. 235 and even that of a qualified character, as heing specially necessary for the times when the articles were framed and published. Now the homily against the Peril of Idolatry (contained in several parts) sets forth in glowiog colours the vanity and folly of paying adoration or worship to images or paintings, but it recognises the original intention of such images or paintings to have been the better instructing of the ignorant, as set forth in the letter of Gregoiy to Serenus (cited by the learned Judge in the Court below). The homily observes, 'You may withal note that, seeing there is no ground for worshipping of images in Gregory's writing, but a plain condemnation thereof, that such as do worship images do unjustly allege Gregory for them.' The homily, however, proceeds to aiBrm that the worshipping of images is a necessary consequence of their being allowed to exist, and therefore concludes strongly fur their entire abolition, irrespective of actual abuse. Now, it is plain that the ' doctrine ' maio- tained by the homily is that of the Twenty-second Article, and condemns paying ' honour and reverence to images as being an act of Idolatry, and contrary to the Second Commandment.' In the judgment of its author -the existence of any image, whether originally intended for instmction or not, is dangerous, as tending to idolatry. This cannot be called doctrine. It is an opinion as to the consequences which might at that time follow the use of representations of sacred objects, and probably the opinion might then be well founded ; whilst it is, on the contrary, notorious that numerous sculptures and pictures representing the Saviour and Apostles and other holy men exist, and have existed for more than two centuries in and outside of our churches, to which no worship has been paid. The old associations were broiien off, and the old ' monuments of superstition ' had either been removed or become innocuous, before the reign of Elizabeth was closed. . . . What, then, is the character of the sculpture on the reredos in the case before their Lordships? For what purpose has it been .setup? To what end is it used ? And is it in danger of being abused? It is a sculptured viovk in high relief, in which are three compartments. That in the centre represents the Ascension of our Lord, in which the figure' of our ascending Lord is separated "by a sort of border from the figures of the Apostles, who are gazing upward. The right compartment represents the Transfiguration, and the, left the descent of. the Holy Gtiost on the Day of Pentecost. The representations appear to be similar to those with which every one is familiar in regard to the sacred subjects in question. All the figures are delineated as forming part of the connected representation of the historical subject. . It is not suggested that any superstitious reverence has been or is liliely to be paid to any figures •forming part of the reredos, and their Lordships are unable to discover anything which distinguishes this representation from the numerous sculptured and painted representations of portions of the sacred history to 236 THE EIDSDALB JUDGMENT. be found in many of our cathedrals and parish churches ; and which hav( been proved by long experience to he capable of remaining there withou giving occasion to any idolatrous or superstitious practices. Their Lord' ships are of opinion that such a decorative work would be lawful in an; other part of the church ; and, if so, they are not aware of any contraven tion of the laws ecclesiastical, by reason of its erection in the particula place which it now occupies." We are very glad indeed that the Church Association— of course after due study of these passages — iuvites its friendi to show their " unqualified satisfaction " at this renewed pro nouncement of the mind of our ecclesiastical appellate juris diction on the question of sacred imagery. Their satisfactioi must now be of that absolute character which even " unquali fied" can hardly express, siace Lord Penzance has furthe illustrated the law by his decision upon the Denbigh Eeredos Here, however, we have reached the most painful questioi which we shall have to face during this inquiry. We believ( that, if only they act with prudence and with courage, Higl Churchmen may in the Eidsdale Judgment find their way ii the future for a peaceful recognition of solemn ritual far beyonc the results, great and wonderful as they have been, of the las forty years' revival. But what of the wounded and prisonen by the way ? What advice shall we give to those. clergymei who have adopted the vestments in the honest and loyal con viction that so only could they comply with the plain law o the Church, and who now find themselves exposed to shar] penalties if they persist in the use ? If, under the convictioi that the rubric both as the direction of the Church, and as thi statute law of the land, is (although for the present unde an eclipse) not only still in foro conscientice imperative, bu that it can stOl only mean what it says, and not what it doe not say, they feel constrained to persist, and brave the con sequences, the highest respect is due to such self-sacrifice Nevertheless, in face not only of the personal suffering, bu of the loss of -opportunities of doing God's pastoral work, a THE KIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 237 well as of strengthening adverse precedent, and of the risk of aggravating the national prejudice (so laudable in itself as a popular characteristic) against presumed law-breakers, which this course would entail, we are constrained to exhibit the reasons for and the advantages of another policy. If the re- nunciation under actual circumstances of the present use of the vestments could be twisted into a personal recognition of the assertion that the Ornaments Eubric of 1662 used words to conceal thoughts, we should most strongly deprecate any such procedure. But no Court can pretend to rule mental convictions, though it may restraiii overt actions. To disuse the vestments would be to abstain from doing something which we may think right, but it would not be to agree to do something else which we may think wrong. This is the point which has all along made a substantial difference between compliance as to vestments and as to the position. No priest who believes that he ought' to take the west side, can take the north end without a great wrench of conscience ; for he Would not merely forbear from doing what he thinks right, but woiild go on to do what he thinks wrong; while the priest who celebrates in his choir dress limits himself to for- bearing from doing a portion of what he believes to be right. The former man, so far as his action is symbolical, does a -positive act symbolising something different from what he believes to be the perfect teaching ; the latter one fails in pre- 'sentiag that whole body of instruction which is conveyed by the distinctive attire. With this difference in mind, we may contrast the result of either policy.. Every successive act of suspension or of deprivation involves a fresh judgment of the Provincial Court, and with it a tightening of the chain of precedent. On the other hand, every time a priest finds himself conscientiously able to accept under protest or by " dispensation " a non-user of his vestments, under conditions which keep him clear of Lord Penzance, without committing 238 THE EIDSDALB JUDGMENT. him to the Eidsdale Judgment, he baffles and bewilders the tactics of the Puritan persecutors. He need never inakehis submission to the personality of Lord Penzance. If he seeks and obtains froin his ordinary a dispensation such as that which the Archbishop of Canterbury has just accorded to Mr. Eidsdale, he saves his own ecclesiastical position, he practically exhibits the Church as a living body, and he aids in helping the Episcopate in extricating itself from that' false position into which it unhappily drifted in 1874, that of acting rather as taskmasters than as fathers of the flock. .We have never shrunk from criticising the policy of the Archbishop of Canterbury when we have thought it mistaken, and we are, therefore, also glad in the present instance to be able to give him the credit so justly due for the witness of his action in the case of Mr. Eidsdale. But, supposing the clergyman unable to make so desirable an arrangement, even under the system in which Lord Penzance is an important agent, he is in the first instance brought face to face with his diocesan, and he has then the opportunity, without being called up to express any opinion upon the Eidsdale Judgment, or upon the legitimacy of Lord Penzance's Court, and without putting it into any man's power to extort any such confession from his lips, to rule himself in single and exclusive.reference to the personal admonitions of his ghostly father, putting away from hiniseK and attaching to his ordinary the absolute responsibility, in face of God, of the Church and of the State, of a voluntary compliance on his part which carries with itself no imputation of intellectual agreement. Providentially, the Public Worship Eegulation Act itself does, by a provision which may have been framed with different intentions, let in this proceeding, at the very point at which a conscientious man would otherwise feel the gravest scruples ; for it actually goes out of its way to provide that any such decision of the bishop shall be no precedent THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. 239 at all ; so that no incumbent, in submitting to his diocesan in the matter of vesture, or of any other matter, has there- by created any precedent whatsoever against himself or against the Church. The words, than which none can be Stronger or more explicit, occur in tlie middle of the 9 th section : — '" Provided that no judgment so pronounced by the bishop shall be considered as .finally deciding any question of law, so that it may not be again raised by other parties." In short, episcopal judgments, however many or strong, in the sense of the Eidsdale Judgment, would, by the Worship Act itself, be only as so many zeros placed on the left hand of the integer, while every judgment of Lord Penzance would swell the sum total of adverse authority. Concurrently with this defensive movement, two other movements of pacific aggression must be pushed tofis viribus. They are both of them essential elements of our policy ; they have been present to our mind while we have been urging those counsels of caution, which we should never have thought of advancing except as balanced by these processes of prac- tical action. The first is, that the advancement by precept and practice of the Eastward position must be vigorously maintained; and the second is, that the re-creation within the Church of England, from the summit downwards, of the principle and practice of the Eucharistic dress, must be systematically undertaken by help of the machinery which the Eidsdale Judgment itself has placed in our hands. How this is to be done we have already indicated. As we co-ordinate the Church's documents, agreement at a cathedral in foro externa with the Advertisements is also agreement in foro mnseientim with the Ornaments Eubric. The celebrant is there with his cope upon him, and while the President of the -Church Association ought to applaud him for such toward condescension to the Eidsdale Judgment, men of another 240 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. school may think of the attire of 1549. We make sure that the bishops, in obedience to the obvious dictates of fair play; will co-operate with this movement by also submitting the law of their own vesture to that impartial, examination which the Eidsdale judges in effect challenge when they call rather marked attention to the episcopal dress before passing on to take sharp measures in regard to the vesture of those whom we used to hear University pjeaehers term "the inferior clergy, the priests and deacons." No Puritan scruples can affect the conduct in this respect of the Archbishop of Can- terbury, and of the dozen or so bishops who took part with him, all of them gorgeous in scarlet chimeres, in the stately consecration in St. Paul's of the Bishop of Truro. We have reached the close of our examination of the Eidsdale Judgment in its ritual aspect, and will sum up in a tableau the worship, partly compulsory and partly permissive; which the judgments in Liddell v. Westerton, Beal v. Liddell, Hebbert v. Purchas, Boyd v. Phillpotts, Eidsdale v. Clifton, and Hughes and WiQiams v. Edwards, have allowed to or imposed upon our cathedrals, and which we are, therefore, bound to assume must be after the Church Association's own heart. Undoubtedly the parish priests to whom their conscientious inability to read the Ornaments Eubric as if " not " came be- tween " shall " and " be retained " is an ever-present anxiety may very naturally look upon any reference to legal use in cathedrals in the light of the old proverb about two men, a hedge, and a horse. But, bound as we are to review the situa^ tion in cool blood, and with a single eye to the defensive strength of the High Church party, we cannot in duty to our cause abstain from putting forward these considerations in their fullest strength. We shall present a picture of worship, not as it may be offered by some vicar on the responsibility of his own liturgical studies, and in dread of aggrieved parishioners, but in a cathedral led by the " principal minister " THE KIDSDAUB JUDGMENT. 241 r — bishop,' or dean, it may be — in designed conformity to the rulings during the last twenty years of the Judicial Committee. The scene shall be the moment of the Consecration Prayer at the altar at the end of the deep choir, separated from the nave by its high screen crowned with a cross (Liddell v. Westerton), as at Ely, Lichfield, Worcester, Hereford, and Durham. The stalls are full of clerks in surpKces, while the graduates wear hoods, as the Advertisements command. The Lord's Table is vested with some richly embroidered frontal of the colour of the season (Liddell v. Westerton), and at its side the credence testifies to the Catholic doctrine of the oblation (Liddell v. Westerton). Above the Holy Table itself, so as not to be attached to it, is a shining cross (Liddell V. Westerton and Beal v. Liddell). On each side are candle- sticks of precious metal with candles, and if the day shine rather gloomy through the pictured windows, these will certainly be lighted (Dr. Lushington's unappealed judgment in Westerton ■;;. Liddell). If there are also vases of flowers (Sir E. Phillimore unappealed in Hebbert v. Purchas), a recent speech of the Archbishop of Canterbury stDl further justifies them. Behind is a magnificently sculptured reredos with the Crucifixion, or the Eesuirection, or the Ascension, in high relief (Boyd v. Phillpotts, Eidsdale v. Clifton, and Hughes and Williams v. Edwards). The celebrant stands, as he is permitted, in front of the Holy Table (Eidsdale v. Clifton), and he wears — not because he is permitted, but because he is compelled — a surplice and cope (Eidsdale v. Clifton), unless he happens to be the bishop, in which case he has, no doubt, in addition his pastoral staff, while his choice may lie between a cope and a chasuble. The priests who have acted as Epistoler and Gospeller stand ready to assist at the distribution of the sacred elements, and as they are ordered to be vested " agreeably " to the celebrant, they believe in consulting history that they best fulfil the order by 242 THE EIDSDALE JUDGMENT. themselves wearing copes of ' a less rich character than those of the principal minister (Eidsdale v. Clifton). All this picture may be cold comfort to the men who anticipate passing under Lord Penzance's axes and harrows; but as a demonstration that the ritual of the Church of Eng- land can, as interpreted by the modern decisions of the actual Court of Appeal, represent an ecclesiastical system artistic, historical, traditionary, sacramental. Catholic, it is invaluable. When it contemplates this result as we present it in its entirety, the Church Association " cannot but rejoice with devout thankfulness," for there — manifestly revealed to its perception — stands the ceremonial of the mother churches of the English dioceses, moulded, welded, annealed by its ov/n assiduous handiwork; while abstraction being made of the compulsion of copes, the same things by the same authority are legal use in every parish church ; and — as we believe must be the irresistible inference from the Eidsdale Jiidgment — ^ when the bishop officiates in any one of them at mattias or evensong, at confirmation, or consecration, no less than at the Eucharist, then in such church, for that function, the cope revives with the pastoral staff, unless, indeed,, the Spiritual Eather chooses rather to assume his chasuble. LORD SELBOME AND MR. PARKER. LORD SELBORNE MD MR. PAEKER.*, (Fhom the ' Church QtrAKTEBLr Review,' July 1878.) Collapse of the Purchas before tlie Ridsdale Judgment — Lord Selborne,^ co-author of the latter, by vindicating it against Mr. Parker's anticipa^ tory criticisms, brought it within controversy^-This gave Mr. Parker his opportunity — Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity and Ornaments Rubric — " Other order" — Omission of Ridsdale Judgment to refer to 26th section of Elizabeth's Act — Mr. Parker points to that which he contends is a literal fulfilment of that section in 1560-1 — Authority of Advertise- ments of 1566 — Lord Selbome's distinction between this and " interpre- tation and legal effect "—Were the Advertisements on Elizabeth's or Archbishop Parker's authority ? — Elizabeth's letter to him of Jan. 25, 1564^5 — Clearly aimed at too little, not too much ceremonial, and expressly excluding Province of York — Discrepancies between the letter and Advertisements which were clearly a modus mvendi — Parker's letter to Grrindal Jan. 30, 1564-5 — No trace of "other order" — Parker's and Cecil's correspondence^- Advertisements clearly. Parker's, not Elizabeth's, way of doing the business — Cecil notes them as " Ordinances not authorised or published " — Each ruler wanted the other ' to bear the brunt — At last in a year Parker altered title to " Advertise- ments," modified them somewhat, and published them on his own authority with a colorable reference to the Queen — His and Grindal's. coup d'etat with Puritan clergy of London — Exclusion of Province of York — ^Belief of later writers that Advertisements had royal authority^ proves success of Parker's policy — Elizabeth no doubt connived — ^Mr Parker calls attention to a much-overlooked paper of Archbishop Parker of 1561, which suggests a general vestiary compromise recognising cope * 1. Notes on some Passages in the Liturgical History of the Church of England. By Loud Sblbobne. (London, 1878.) 2. Did Queen Elizabeth take ^' other order" in the "Advertisements" of 1566 ? A Letter to Lord Selborne. By James Pabkeb. (Oxford and London, 1878.) S 2 246 LORD SELBORNE AND MR. PARKER. only as the Eucharistic dress — Curious contemporary account of the introduction of the Service of 1549 at St. Paul's by the herald Wrio- thesley proving that the cope was the vesture used — So too Grey Friars' Chrordcle — Ridley's and Cranmer's handling of book of 1549 not real or honest — Contrasted ceremonial in 1552 — Real beginning of continuous worship of reformed Church of England under Parker — As in 1549 so in 1566 the cope appears as the practical Eucharistic vesture — The Eidsdale Judgment merely sends the enquirer to the Advertisements without really explaining them — What they really did was to make the parochial use of the vesture permissive, not obligatory. The world, the Record, and the Church Association were greatly comforted seven years ago at finding the ritual law of the Church definitely settled by the Purchas judgment. No more Eastward Position, and no more vestments, except in the limited use of the cope in cathedral and collegiate churches upon principal feast-days. Eventful years passed, and these conclusions shrivelled into an ancient muniment before the Eidsdale judgment which,' with an Bven higher claim to deference, decreed the final Church law upon a very different basisl No doubt the shouters of 1871 were discomfited to find the guarded but perfectly workable permission of the Eastward Position and the extension of the compulsion of copes in the higher churches to the entire year. But they might have come worse off, and so their contentment was jubilant. We should be glad to be assured now that they are still as con- vinced as they were a year ago that the Eidsdale judgment is, after all, constructed of more durable material than that which condemned Mr. Purchas. Of the different blows which have fallen upon it, a recent one stands out conspicuously, not only from its intrinsic weight, but because it is the recoil from, and indeed solicited, if not necessitated by, a volunteered defence of that judgment by one of its principal authors. The surprise was general when Lord Selborne, mero. motu, stepped out of -the august cloud to vindicate the judgment of which he was co-author against an argument which had only LOKD SBLBOKNB AND MR. PARKER. 247 impugned it by anticipation, and when he directly challenged his self-made opponent to a rejoinder. That rejoinder has come, and it is found virtually and necessarily to deal with the judgment itself, which Lord Selborne has stripped of in- vulnerability, by, so to speak, scheduling it among the illus- trations indispensable for making good his allegations. A few words will explain the causes which have led up- to this risky proceeding. Mr. Parker, as all ritual students ought to know, published in 1877, the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. compared with the successive Revisions of the Booh of Common Prayer, which was shortly followed under the same date by an introductory volume, entitled Introduc- tion to the Revisions of the Booh of Common Prayer, which appeared, we believe, very shortly before the delivery of the Eidsdale judgment, while of course it was composed in ignorance of that production. The judgment took one view of the vestiary question and Mr. Parker another, but the reasonable assumption would be that, at all events, the authors of the decision would consider that their reasoning had refuted all disputants. Lord Selborne, however, who, as ex-Chancellor, came next in importance to Lord Cairns, and who has for time out of mind enjoyed an authority on ecclesiastical ques- tions to which the actual Chancellor has never urged a claim, must have thought there was a weak place to be strengthened. Mr. Parker's books attracted his attention, and, dealing with them as the case on the side to which he was opposed, he issued, in his own name. Notes on Some Passages in the ■Liturgical History of the Reformed English Church, stating in his first sentence, "the following notes were suggested to the writer by the perusal of Mr. Jamfes Parker's recent liturgical publications." This was gallant in one standing where Lord Selborne does ; for in thus coming forward to do battle in his own name for an as yet not-appealed-against judgment, on which Lord Cairns had so peremptorily closed 348 LOED SBLBOKNB AND MK. PAEKEE. his colleagues' mouths, the late Chancellor very appreciably; for literary, though not for judicial purposes, placed that pro- duction on the lower level, not of an authoritative decision, but of a private argument. Fair play is the life-breath of a controversy, so that, if Lord Selborne was justified, on an equal footing, in defending the Eidsdale judgment against Mr. Parker's anticipatory criticisms, Mr. Parker was entitled, with the same privileges of equality, to impugn the Eidsdale judgment when imported by one of its authors into a reply to his own argument, Mr. Parker, it must be owned, laid himself open to the original attack by a tactical oversight, which he found means, as an accomplished strategist, to turn to a brilliant victory. His Introduction shares the fate of many other books in having grown in the author's hands after it had partially gone to press, ■ and when it was too late to bring up the earlier to the level of the later portion. Consequently, what he said about the Advertise- ments was inferior in quantity and quality to the latter chapters, and naturally invited a rejoinder. Once he was put upon his mettle, he more than made up for any omissions in his Did Queen Elizabeth take " other order " in the " Adver- tisements '^ 0/ 1566 ? A Letter to Lord Selborne: We propose to compare these two publications, which are not, however, confined to the debate over the authority of the Advertise- ments. A large portion of Lord Selborne's book is taken up with a discussion upon the relations between Convocation and Parliament in 1662, and upon Cosin's share in the revision of that year, as to which Mr. Parker offers his reply. Full of interest as this question is, it does not possess the immediate practical importance which attaches to the earlier pages. History, law, and present practice combine to exalt the Advertisements, since the Eidsdale judges have not merely made them tlie interpreters of the Ornaments Eubric of 1662; and, as it were, written them over its sentences, as a scribe LORD SELBOENE AND ME. PAEKEE. 249' inight have treated a palimpsest, but have endeavoured to^ justify this exaltation of a seemingly obsolete document by demanding for it royal aiithority and iso-Parliamentary power.- To the cohtiroversy over the Advertisements we therefore confine ourselves, and leave the vindication of Cosin's influence to calmer days. Our starting-point, to which we need only refer in the briefest terms, is the restoration, on Elizabeth's accession, of the reformed worship in the form of the Prayer Book of 1559, which follows, with some improvements, that of 1552. This was legalised and protected by an Act of Uniformity, from which we quote the two very important consecutive sections which deal with ceremonial : — " XXV. — Provided always,. and be it enacted, that such ornaments of the Ghurch and of the Ministers thereof shall be retained, and be -used, as was in the Church of England, by authority of Parlianjent, in the second year of the reign of "King Edward VI., until other order shall be therein taken by the authority of the Queen's Majesty,, with the advice of her Commis- sioners appointed and authorised under the great Seal of England for causes ecclesiastical, or of the Metropolitan of this Eealm. " XXVI. — And also, that if there shall happen any Contempt or Irre-' verence to be used in the Ceremonies or Rites of the Church, by the Misusing of the orders appointed in this book, the Queen's Majesty may, by the like advice of the said Commissioners or Metropolitan, ordain and publish such further Cerenionies or Eites, as may be most for the advance- ment of Grod's Glory, the edifying of His Church, and the due Eeverence of Christ's Holy Mysteries and Sacraments." The prior one of these sections reappears in a slightly modified form in the Prayer Book itself, as a so-called ," Ornaments Rubric." " And here is to be noted that the Minister at the time of the Commu- nion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use such ornaments in the Church, as were in use by authority of Parliainent in the second year of the reign of King Edward the VI., accorcling to the Act of Parlia- ment set in the beginning of this book." We may, without weakening any important argument, pass 250 LOED SELBOENE AKD ME. PAEKBB. over the controTersy respecting the origin' and legal value of this Ornaments Eubric, which seems so important in the eyes of the Eidsdale judges. All wiU acknowledge that it was compiled out of the statutory provisions of the Act of Uniformity, and intended to represent its working meaning. So longs then, as no " other order " of a different nature can be shown to have been taken ; while the Act of Parliament itself is printed with the Player Book, the presence or aib- sence of that rubric cannot affect the continuous legality of the ornaments of the second year of Edward VI., secured as they are by the statute, while they remain unaffected by some " other order." Lord Selborne does not perceive how he himself stamps the value of these sections in the passage of his ' Notes ' in which he presents his view of the relations of the shortened Service Act, as quasi-rubrical matter, to the living Prayer Book. A good deal of what seems to us very like special pleadiTig has been expended upon the difference between the " shall use " of the rubric of 1559, and the " be in use " of the Act of 1559 and of the rubric of 1662, which was pro- fessedly recast in order to conform, as the previous one did not, to the very words of Elizabeth's Act. '|^he more then the rubric is effaced in favour of the Act, the more are 1559 and 1662 brought, not only into harmony, but into identity. Our respect for authority makes freedom of speech difficult as to the procedure of the Eidsdale judgment, in separating the 25th from the 26th section of the Act of 1559, and dwelling upon it as if it stood alone as an enacting clause. This gi'atuitous divorce imparts absolutely different colouring to the enactments and transforms a forecast of more into one of less ceremonial. We will only term the oversight un- accountably heedless. The 25th section, if cut off from .its counterpart, enacts the use of the ornaments of the Church, and of the minister existyig"by authority of Pa.rliament in LORD SELBOENE AND ME. PAEKEB. 251 the" second' jeax of the reign of King Edward VI." This means the ornaments to be found in the Prayer Book of 1549, which was made law in the only Parliament holden in that year, although the session was continued into the third one. But this " use " was only to endure " until " the Queen, with the advice of a certain Commission, or of the " Metro- politan of this realm," shall " take other order." ISTow what is the interpretation which the inferential process, familiar in the Eidsdale judgment, would fix upon this provision ? It was thati considering the drift of public opinion at that crisis, it pointed to further cutting down, and not to the restoration or addition of "further ceremonies and rites." This is the interpretation which the Eidsdale judges have stamped upon that provision. But we have only to go on to the next section, which is nothing more, taken with the preceding one, than a second clause of the same sentence, and which might as well with its " and also " follow a semicolon as a full stop, and we there read that, in the cases of " contempt " and *■ irreverence," and of " misusing the orders appointed in this book," that tlie Queen may, by the " like advice " of the said '' Commissioners or Metropolitan," " ordain " and " publish " such " further ceremonies or rites " as may " be most for the advancement of .God's glory, the edifying of His Church, and the due reverence of Christ's Holy Mysteries and Sacraments." These are solemn and weighty words, and the upshot of these two sections, which must' run together, is that any abridgment of ceremonial involved in the 25th one is merely hypothetical and left to inference, while the correlative addition of " further ceremonies and rites " is contemplated in the 26th, without stint, limit or restraint, except the healthy and at the same time significant precautions of their not being against " God's glory," the " edifying of His Church," and the "due reverence of Christ's Holy Mysteries and Sacra- ments." Every one of these precautions is the condition 252 LOED SELBOENE AND MR. PAEKEE. which would natutally be suggested by the inspirihg mind of persons who appreciated, arid not of those who disliked ceremonial as a condition of worship. Emphatically also this magisterial recognition of "further ceremonies or rites " planted in a statute of the " first of Elizabeth " had a meaning to priest and layman of that day which can only be realised by Englishmen of 1878 through a process of imagination. Those priests, with a singularly small percentage of men who gave practical proof of strong convictions in either direction, were priests who had been content to say mass for six years, and who might have reconciled their minds to saying it for six of sixty years more if Parliament had not put another ritual into their hands ; and those laymen were the congrega- tions of those priests. So when they read the Act for themr selves, the " further ceremonies or rites " therein hinted at by a premonition which was a threat to some, a gleam of hope to others, and possibly a simple intimation to a large residuum, did not carry the meaning of fancy devices, and stni less of the archeeological result of a groping search by lawyer and antiquary among the musty records of long- forgotten provisions, but of the sharp and matter-of-fact re- vival of usages very clearly understood by all who had to read the penal provisions of a Tudor statute. Dealing with the Eidsdale judgment only as an essay, we think that it is incumbent upon its authors to show that it does not involve a grave miscarriage of argument, consequent upon such an omission. The provisions of the 26th section make the narrow scrutiny within its own limits of the 25th section wholly valueless as an inferential argument, in favour of a Puritan intention on the part of the governing minds in 1559. If inferences are to be set up at all, they reign pre^ ponderatingly in the other direction. It proceeds, probably, from the exclusive attention which has been bestowed upon the 25th section, that a document issued by Queen Elizabeth LOED SELBOBNE AND MK. FARKEE. 253 in 1561 has not been recognised as carrying out the procedure contemplated in the Act. Presented as this is by Mr. Parker, and pleaded, as we believe it was, by Mr. Eidsdale's counsel, it is impossible not to recognise an almost literal and laboured fulfilment of the requirements of section 26. In her letter under the ""Signet," issued on January 22, 1560-1, to ■ the Commissioners, in which, after a recital of the powers conferred by the Act, with the trivial substitution of " further " for " other order," Elizabeth orders her Commissioners to make some alterations in the Table of Lessons, which they accordingly carried out ; and, in remarking upon the " negligence and lack of convenient reverence used towards *the comely keeping and order of the said churches, and especially of the upper part, called the chan- cels," requires the Commissioners, "amongst other things," to " order " that the " Tables of the Commandments may be comely set or hung up in the east end of the chancel, to be not only read for edification, but also to give some comely ornament and demonstration that the same is a place of religion." Of course, as there is no provision in the Act that one single taking of order should exhaust its provision, the existence of such an exercise as this is of the statutory power is not an argument against the possibility of future repetition of the same process. But it stands good as an argument founded upon facts, against the assumption of the judgnient, that because the existence in the Act of the power must pre- suppose its exercise, and because no other approximate exercise of that power can be discovered, therefore, that the Advertisements of 1566 must be invested with the desired attributes. To be sure the order of 1560-1 is under the " Signet," not the Great Seal, but the Advertisements, after the utmost labour of their partisans to set them up, are under no Seal at all. It^ay be said that this " further" or "other order " settled 254 LORD SELBOENE AND MR. PAEKEE; very little. But all that it did settle was in the sense of the 26th, and not of the 25th section. ■ The recognition of the "power of " taking other order " under the first of the two sections was no action of levelling down, but a variation upon the same level in the substitution of one lesson for another. When, however, we come to the orders referable to the 26th section, our attention is at once arrested by a claim to greater reverence for the chancel, and in this demand is wrapped up the great difference between the Catholic and the Puritan elements then at war within the Church of England. It was but little that was proposed to be done for chancels, but that little was a first step. It was also a procedure within two years after the passing of the Act, and not, as in the case of the publication of the Advertisements, after seven had been allowed to slip away. It is remarkable how closely Lord Selborne reaches to the tight comprehension of the two sections of the Act, and yet appears to pass away from them without adequately realising their bearing upon each other, and upon the whole history of the period. Upon the "other order" of 1561 all he has to say is incidentally to note " some changes in the Table of Lessons (not completed till two years afterwards)." In his account of the steps which led to the publication of the Prayer Book of 1559, in its actual form, he states : — " No doubt a larger scheme was at first contemplated. The ' Device for alteration of Religion,' &c., Cecil's instructions and queries to Guest, and Guest's replies to those queries, show distinctly that the restoration of some of the ceremonies which had been disused in 1552, and of some parts of the book of 1549 which had been then altered, would have been at that time acceptable to the Queen and her Ministers. But this could not be done without a greater amount of concurrence from the Reforming party than it was found possible to obtain." Yet upon the following page we find this paragraph : — " But, although these were the only changes in the text of the book of LORD SELPORNE AND MR. PARKER. 255 1552, its restoration was subject totwo provisos contained in the 25th and. 26th sections of tlie Act of 1559 : that the ' Ornaments ' of the first boolc were to ' be retained,' and ' be in use,' until other order should be therein taken ' by the Queen's authority, with the advice of the Metropolitan or Eccle- siastical Commissioners ; ' and that the Queen, with like advice, might ordain and publish ' further ceremonies or rites.' " Unless the writer's language belies his thoughts, he cannot adequately have comprehended the 26th section as in fact, and intentionally, keeping the door open for that restoration of ceremonies — the desire for which he correctly attributes to Elizabeth and Cecil — by a machinery which would enable the party of ceremonial to act at the right time without any further reference to Parliament. We now reach the central question of the whole con- troversy, the authority, both at the time of their promulgation and in the present day, of the Advertisements of 1566. The Judicial Committee has invested them with both in a high degree ; for, in its opinion, they are the " other order " of Elizabeth, and they ?ire also the informing spirit of the Orna- ments Eubric of 1662, which professes in words to uphold the ornaments by authority of Parliament, of the second year of Edward VI., but implies in the spirit the ornaments by authority of the Advertisements of 15B6. Our belief is, as we shall further on suggest, that the meaning of the Adver- tisements themselves is by no means that which the party which makes them its stalking-horse struggles to force upon them. But we will not anticipate, as our immediate concern is not with the contents, but with the broad fact of the Adver- tisements as a legal instrument. The key to Lord Selborne's treatment of this question is found in this sentence : — " The interpretation and legal effect of the ' Advertisements,' and the recognition which they received from the official acts of public authorities, belong to the province of law, into which it is not proposed to enter ; but the controversy as to their authority belongs to history. No writer of 256 LOBD gELBOENE AND MB. PARKEE'- reputation, in any work publfched before the eighteehtb century, seems to have suggested a doubt that they were, as a matter of fact, authorised by Queen Elizabeth.'" We understand the earlier sentence of our quotation as meaning that Lord Selborne would not now enter into the practical working of the Advertisements, which had already been handled in the judgment, but that he would come to the succour of that judgment by strengthening the historical argument on which it relied for proving the authority of the Advertisements. Authority, we see, means with him something; like authorizer. There could not be a more legitimate task for any supporter of the decision to undertake, whatever may be said of the policy of one of its authors reappearing at the level of a supporter. The one great stroke which history could make on their behalf would be to disiater some evidence tending to prove that they were Elizabeth's own royal orders, under her Great Seal, which has hitherto been a fact, not of history, but of conjecture. Let us see how Lord Selborne' accomplishes the enterprise. The key to his system is given; in the second sentence of the quotation, and it must, 'pace, tanti viri, be described as begging the question^ What does he mean by the ambiguous phrase "matter of fact"? The, meaning may either be that as a fact they were formally authenticated, or else that they were practically taken as if authentic — "in fact" accepted as by Elizabeth's authority, as we should colloquially say — all through the discussion. Lord Selborne seems unable to extricate himself from this am- biguity of idea, and yet the whole controversy turns upon it.. Establishing the first statement would be conclusive in his favour; but evidence for it is whoUy absent. The second would be an incident of ecclesiastical history, interesting to the ritual student, but of little value to the lawyer, and one on which we have not much difference with Lord Selborne.; We assert as. freely as he can da that the Advertisements- tOED SELBOKNB AND MR. PARKER. 257 were geaeraUy accepted, but we further assert that they were so as a practical rule and not as a binding law. The quota- tions from Parker's correspondence with Cecil, Grindal, &Cf referring to the composition and publication of the Adver- tisements which Lord Selborne gives, are all of them more fully recited by Mr. Parker, and we may, therefore, conveni- ently consider them in connection with his argument. The conclusion which Lord Selborne ultimately reaches, not without coming into collision with the order of 1560-1, is that : — " The authority of tlie Crown may be given to acta of State, the forms of which are not prescribed by custom or statute, without Seal, or Procla- mation, or Order in Council. The doctrine laid down in the ' Purchas Judgment,' that, ' if the Queen's mandative letter preceded * the compila- tion of the "Advertisements," and if they were afterwards enforced as by her authority, her assent must be presumed,' is not, to the knowledge of the present writer, inconsistent with any previous decision, ever pronounced." As Mr. Parker's contention is centred on making good the proof that the Advertisements were published and pressed upon the Church, not by Elizabeth's, but by Parker's autho- rity, we may pass on to his pamphlet, armed as we are by Lord Selborne's constructive admission that, if this can be demonstrated, down must topple the legal value of the Advertisements, and with them that of the Eidsdale judgment itself. There is no disagreement amongst controversialists as to the public origin of the movement which resulted in the Advertisements. This is found in a letter from Elizabeth to- Archbishop Parker, of the date January 25, 1564-5, a com- position magisterial in its tone, and verbose, if not turgid in * " The Queen's letter of January 22, 1560-1 (under her ' Signet') for the alteration of the Table of Lessons, also preceded the changes made under its authority ; and it does not appear to have been followed by any other formal instrument, approving those changes. (See Cardw. Doc. Ann. vol. h, p. 260)." 258 LORD SELBORNE AND MR. PARKER. its phraseology, and so worded as to leave but little Uberty of choice to its recipient. Mr. Parker presents it in full^ and then offers an epitome in modern language. We shall^ however, rather endeavour to give an idea of its contents by a catena of extracts. Parker in it found himself required " to confer with the bishops of his province and others haviiag ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; for the redressing disorders in "the Church occasioned by different doctrines and rites ; and for taking order to admit' none into preferment but those 'that are conformable." So far the missive reads more like a sharp fulmination against " old order ceasing " than an invitation to' " other order " to come in, But we must not anticipate. The first paragraph right royally bans " diversity, Variety, conten- tion, vain love of singularity, either in our ministers or in the people," and so leads up in the second one to the " no small grief and discomfort " with which Elizabeth hears " That where, of the two maner of governments, without which no maner of people is wel ruled, the ecclesiastical should be the more perfect, and should give example, and be as it were a light and guide, to allure, direct^ and lead all oiticers in civil policy ; yet in sundry places of our realm of late, for lack of regard given thereto, in due time, by such superior and principal officers as you are, being the Primat, and other the Bishops df your province, with suffrance of sundry varieties Snd novelties, not only iir opinions, biit in external ceremonies and irites, there is crept and' brougbt into the Church by some few persons abounding more in their own senses than wisdome would, and delighting in singularities and changes, aii opeh ' and manifest disorder, and offience to the godly, wise, and obedient persons, by diversitie of opinions, and specially in the external, decent and leefijl^ rites and ceremonies to bee used in the churches." The third paragraph dwells on the " inconuenience " which would ensue, " except the same should bee spedily withstoud; stayd, and reformed." ■ - The fourth paragraph begins by indirectly taking to task the " Primate and Metropolitan " for not having " with th^ assistance of the Bishops" ''stayed and appealed" /'these LORD SELBOENE AND ME. PARKEB. 259 errors tending to breed some schisms or deformity in the Church." ' So " yprohably well suited for a crisis of general effervescence, was X 2 294 PEACE IN THE CHUKCH. [Section I. far from being a stroke of far-seeing' strategy. The lot fell upon Mr. EusseU Gumey, Recorder of London. But univef-, sally respected and beloved as was tbat emiaent judge, his sympathies, always manfuUy confessed, for that section of the Church which stands nearest to Dissent, unavoidably provoked criticism upon his being named leader in a move- ment against the advanced phases of High Churchmanship. The assertions that the BOl meant nothing but fair play to the School of Andrewes, Wilson, and Hook were received with the respect due to grave utterances from high-placed authorities, but the thought could not be repressed — ^why, then, pick out the Eecorder ? It is incumbent on me to add that Mr. Gurney discharged his difficult task with eminent courtesy and moderation. Upon the incidents of that distempered night, when the debate on the second reading commenced, and upon those of that still more unhappy Wednesday, when a new House of Commons iu a spasm of turbulent unreason read the Bill a second time, I decline to dilate, for the recollections of these days would hardly make for peace. The tide of popular impulse was on that second day at its very highest. I had been long enough actively mixed up in Church controversy to recollect the excitement, culminating in sacrilegious riots, fomented by Lord John Eussell's Durham letter, and so jpejora passus I was not so much terrified as some of my friends of a later generation. A few days showed that the tide was turning in the adoption by the Committee of the House of Commons of Mr. Hubbard's equitable amendment, which put defect on the same footing as excess. Happily, the moderation of High Churchmen has left this provision a dead letter, but it was none the less needful to place it on the statute book. Another action of the Committee was not so equitable, which refused to make bishops amenable to that same discipline which they were so prone to forge Section L] THE PUBLIC WORSHIP REGULATION ACT. 295 against priests. The division list showed conspicuous Liberals side by side with Sir Stafford ISTorthcote, Mr. Hardy, and Lord John Manners in supporting the amendment of which, as I shall ever remember with satisfaction, I was the mover. So the Bill went back to the House of Lords, and while there the regrettable spectacle was afforded of a divided episcopate. The question was whether the bishop's discre- tion to refuse his permission for a frivolous or vexatious suit should be hampered by an appeal to the metropolitan. Happily the majority of lords spiritual was in harmony with the majority of the House in refusing to admit the limitation. After what has passed within the last month in Convocation we may inoffensively conjecture that no regret any longer exists at the decision. I hurry over much which has passed since the Bill became law. A choice of judge, not among jurisdictions where some knowledge of ecclesiastical law still lingered, but in tribunals more conversant with putting asunder what God had joined together, than with bringing together and binding up ; dis- putes about salary where salary seemed already to exist; perplexity as to where to sit and what to rule when a sitting place had been borrowed ; scandals about customary confir- mation and canonical declaration are not incidents which have tended to create among Churchmen that confidence in, and respect for, the Public Worship Eegulation Act which had yet to be built up, in spite of the loud shouting of its promoters. One incident may be noted, as specially to be regretted, manifesting as it did the underlying, though doubt- less unconscious, influence of that blood-poisoning prejudice which I have already noted. I refer to a collective pastoral of nearly the entire Episcopate, of which, out of respect for those whose names are affixed, I will say no more. The Pas- toral of 1851, child of the Wiseman-Eussell panic, is forgotten, 296 PEACE IN THE CHUEOH. [SBcxion I. signed though' it had been by Blomfield and Wilberforce, but denounced by Phillpotts, except so far as it survives in the incisive words addressed to his clergy by the Bishop of Exeter. I am glad to believe that no more enduring vitality i can be predicted for the Pastoral of 1875, The apologists for the Publici Worship Act are fond ,of urging that some of the prosecutions vyhich have hampered the Church within these recent years have taken place, not^ under that statute, but under the Church Discipline Act.; The argument is legitimate in their mouths, but it is based upon a misconception of the grievance of those who regret the legislatioQ of 1874. Their complaint is that the intolerance which that measure encouraged, and the litigious persecuting/ spirit which it invoked, were so abundant and virulent as ta overflow the margin of the Act itself, and spread abroad theirj pernicious influence.' All the ceremonial prosecutions since 1874 may not have been" prosecutions under the clauses of .the Public Worship Eegulation Act, but they were all prosecu-r tions under the policy of the Public Worship Eegulationr Act. The conclusion which I should desire to submit to those- who have thus far followed me is, in the hopes of Some no; very distant remedy, not too nicely to dogmatise upon the status, in the eyes of canonists, of the Public Worship Act jurisdiction. The complications which have, since the Ee- formation, marked the relations of the English Church and: State, would make the investigation of their legitimacy? in the eyes of the Church law a very entangled inquiry.. But I do claim to have established that there are grave causes to justify the wide dissatisfaction which "that statute has; created, and to call in the ripeness of time for a liberal- reform, reviving the diocesan courts, and restoring to the? Metropolitical sees their unadulterated appellate jurisdiction as the consideration for a generous amnesty. I feel most Section I.] THE PUBLIC WOESHIP KSaULATION ACT. 297 deeply the risk of any present appeal to Parliament, and so I abstain from the responsibility of dictatiag times and seasons, and, indeed, the question has passed into the hands of the Eoyal Conimission* * This is a fitting place to note thp,t in the last conversation which I had upon Church questions with Archbishop Tait, for whom I cherish a very deep respect and aifectlon, about the end of July 1882, he acknowledged himself a convert t6 separate judgments in contrast to the collective judg- ment which marks the decisions of the Judicial Committee, and expressed the hope that the ifesult'of this Commission might be the constitution of Some reformed tribunal upon which the Eitual questions might be tried again without respect for the existing judgments. [1882.] ( 298 )" II- LIBERTY NOT LICENCE. As much liberty as any community can stand exists within authentic docu- ments of the Church of England— Comparing the Articles and the three Prayer Books of 1549, 1552, and 1662, High, Low, and Broad can coexist by accepting simultaneously these three books — Writer repudiates rein- troduction of ceremonial repudiated by the Church— Test is whetherit is to be foimd in the three Prayer Books — These did not supersede each other, for the Acts of Uniformity respectively setting up later ones accepted and endorsed predecessors, so their value as dooumentB rests imaffected — Comparison of the books — Specially of that of 1549 — Its Communion service — Form of consecration prayer closely approximating to that of 1549 preserved in special Communion service of Scottish Episcopal Church and in Prayer Book of Protestant Episcopal Church of United States, accepted there alike by highest and lowest Churchmen — ^Any argument against authority of vestiary rubrics of 1549 drawn from re- trenchments of 1552, met by historical fact of the Elizabethan restora- tions in this matter coupled with general retention of Book of 1552 — Language relating to Eucharist in Book of 1552 justifies the distinctive dress — Purchas and Eidsdale judgments order cope in cathedral and collegiate churches — In present Church of England chasuble and cope indicate same thing — In conclusion, while conditional use of the Book of 1549 would be desirable, the practical conclusion is the recognition of the three Prayer Books as the Oliurch's charter of Liberty not Licence. I AM not coming forward in this Eitual trouble as a leader of thought, but as an industrious and, I hope, a trustworthy- labourer, whose ambition is to gather up, and present the thoughts of those who have gone before, and who claims a hearing for the conclusions of other men which he essays to re- produce Jiot only because he respects the minds from which they proceed, but because he believes that, in owning to this Section II;] LIBERTY NOT LICENCE. 299 respect, he is the mouthpiece of a large number themselves worthy of consideration. I have nothing to pull down, and if I propose to build up anything, it wiU be with seasoned materials prepared and laid down ready for the artisan. My theme is " liberty not licence," in reference to existing diffi- culties in the Church of England ; and I believe that as much liberty, not only as can be good for any Christian community, but as much as any Christian community can stand and withal cohere, is found within the authentic historical docu- ments of the Church of England, comprehending not only the Articles, which all parties claim for their views, but also its. series of successive Prayer Books, which are so often appealed to in proof of divergent doctrine, but which I prefer to look oh a,s one majestic symphony. It is to these Prayer Books taken as a whole, and reciprocally explaining each other, that I appeal as giving us a common historical ground upon which, in this national Church, under the actual con- ditions of clerical subscription, all recognised parties, High, Low, and Bsoad, within the Church of England can live together, study together, and labour together, with advantage alike to the body politic and to their own distinct schools of thought and work. The advantages from this comprehensive treatment of documents which I claim for myself as a High Churchman I equally claim for the other parties, for I am thoroughly convinced that it would be an evil day alike for the Church of England and for religion in general if any one of these three parties were to be cast out of, to be estranged from, or to retire from, the one mother Church of the coimtry. The High Churchman may have his preference for the Book of 1549, and the Low Churchman for that of 1552, while the Broad Churchman, if he is sensible, will probably come to the conclusion in which High and Low will also practically agree, that, all in aU, it is safer to adhere to the forms of the Prayer Book in the shape in which it has come to us with 300. PEACE IN THE .CHUEOH. [Section n. a moie than two hundred years' prestimptiori and th6 testi- mony of the eighteenth no less than of the seventeenth and of the nineteenth centuries, than to xisk the ..disturbance iiieyitable to legislative change. 'Thus, each section may formulate its conditions of contented' acquiescence ; each will have its particular reason, tbut the i;esult will.be identical and common. Let our present task be to daVelop this somewhat neutral' attitude of reciprocal toleration into the more active one of real liberty, by showing how it conduces to insuring common respect for the differing convictions of every section. If the three. Prayer Books represented hostile or antagonistic systems, there might be acquiescence but there could not be harmony ; there might ' be a forced truce, but there coiild not be peace, and therefore, things being m a state of siege, there could not be' liberty. .My appeal is to the documents' themselves, and the ques- tion to which I demand an answer from them is this : " Is it peace or war between yourselves ? " a'li) This appeal is the loyal one of a devoted member of the ;Eeformed Church of England, accepting fully its Reformation in spirit no less than ia form. "Whatever controversy may exist about the commencement or the closeof the Eeformation period, it must be acknowledged that with the promulgation -of the English Prayer Book the English Church had entered upon its reformed phase of existence. -di I repudiate as strongly as any one who has signed Bishop Perry's couiiter memorial, "the reintroduction of long dis- .carded ceremonial which symbolises doctrines repudiated by our Church at the time of the Eeformation, and which is ■therefore .identified with the superstitious doctrines and i^practices of the Churph of Eome." ^uch reintroduction would be licence,' not liberty.. But I equally repudiate as the .abridgment of liberty imputing ip ceremonial- because .it^mayfee uniamilia.r,.6r.to. doctrine because it may. be liable Section 11.] . LIBEETY NOT LICENCE. 301' to be misunderstood by the ignorant or the prejudiced classesj the blame of symbolising Koman superstition, when, in fact, such' ceremonial and doctrine only represent one phase of Aflglican verity. But where, I shaU be asked, shall I find, my touchstone which is to discriminate between what I praise as verity, and what' I ban as superstiti6h ? I seek it very hear at hand, in documents which exist, thank Heaven, for the guid-> afice of every one. I inean our three Prayer Books of 1549, 1552, and 1662 — documents which I refuse to consider, apart from each other. This test of ecclesiastical liberty is, as every man must own, a practical one. ; The liberty, then, which I claim for the three parties in the Church of England as sufficient for the present' condition of society, and resting on an hiSforicsil and documentary basis, is that of the conclusions which 'may be deduced from the fair and graminatical, but not narrow or technical, comparison of the three Prayer Books, respectively Ulustratiag and quali- fying each other, and aU of them read in the light of the actual form of subscription. I know that this form of sub- scription was not long since made light of because it was so moderate and elastic* I leave such eccentric arguments to the enjoyment of their authors. I am bound in commencing to vindicate my comparative way of treating the successive editions of the Prayer Book^ and show cause why each of them should not be regarded as having superseded, and in superseding, passed something lik^ a censure upon the one which ' it was replacing." Had each revision been launched upon the world -<\^ithout any expla;- nation proffered by 'an" authority equal to and, so to 'speakj incorporated" with' its own, or rather being identical with that authority, there m^ht have been some plausibility * In a paper by Mr. Haweis. [1882.J 302 PEACE IN THE CHUECH. [Section II. in such an objection. But it is notorious that the facts of the case are in direct contradiction to this convenient sup- position, seeing that each Prayer Book became law in virtue of an introductory Act of Uniformity, similar to that which had set up the first one and which gave the reason for the successive modifications. If either later Act of TJniformity had condemned the pre- ceding Prayer Book, that book would have become useless as an element of a cumulative series of documents reciprocaUy explanatory. But if, on the contrary, the language of the statute is that of commendation, then, of course, the super- - session can be only operative for practical purposes, while it leaves the documentary value of the earlier composition as a record of opinions untouched. So I betake myseK to Edward the Sixth's second Act of Uniformity, that of 1552 (5th and 6th Edward VI., chapter i.), which was passed to supersede the first Prayer Book and to establish the second one, and in it I find that very Book of 1549 described in these words : '^09 "Where there has been a very godly order set forth, by the authority of Parliament for common prayer and adminis-- tration of the Sacraments to be used in the mother tongue within the Church of England, agreeable to the word of God and the primitive Church, very comfortable to all good people desiring to live in Christian conversation, and most profitable to the estate of this realm." -^^^ Was ever eulogy more complete or more enthusiastic? The reason given in the Act for the change of Book is not a little curious, being ifi efiect a confession that the prior form was too good for the people for whose behalf it was intended, and for the age on which it had fallen. The writers and speakers who have from time to time commented upon the first Book as a halting and imperfect attempt at Eeformation, a half-hearted desertion of Eomanism which had been deservedly supplanted by the complete work SWTION II.J LIBEETY NOT LICENCE. 303 of 1552, can never have read, or must have entirely forgotten, the Act of Uniformity which gave its legality to the Book of 1552. I cannot think so poorly of the controversial honesty of any man as to suppose that with that Act stamped on his recollection he could have indulged in such accusations. I desire to press the importance of the declarations of the Act of 1552, as fixing the permanent value of the formularies of 1549, with all the urgency which I can command, for I believe that its absolute statutable value as an authentic declaration of the principles which govern the legal condition of the Church of England has never been sufficiently brought out. The words are not found in a statute setting up the Book of 1549 with all its details, for any such declaration would necessarily lie under some suspicion of partiality, and it would have been incumbent on me to show that its force had not ceased with the use of the Book itself. There are expressions in Edward the Sixth's first Act of Uniformity commending the book which it legalises ; but these I pass over, for the evidence may be objected to as interested. But when that very statute which was passed for the purpose of varying an existing document is absolute and effusive in an unlimited encomium on that very document in its original unvaried form, the proof is perfect that the variation is due neither to difference of opinion nor intended depreciation, but to the conclusion that under the circumstances of the then times it had become expedient to say the same thing in other words, while — because with varying words the document re- mained the same in substance — itw^s felt due to offer the explanation put forth with all the authority of an Act of Par- liament — that the new words and the old words stiU. meant, and were intended to mean, the same thing. We must accept this statement of facts as historical truth, and then unquestion- ably the testimony of the Act of 1552 is established as being of the highest legal and moral value in regulating the opinions 304 PEACE IN'TBE OHtrfiOH. [SECTias 11. of the whole Church of England, and in contributing to fix the formal interpretation of its various documents as a con- sistent progressive whole. No ingenuity can get rid of the fact that the Churchmen and statesmen who superseded; in various particulars the Book of 1549, declared in their own statute of supersession that it was " a godly order, agreeahle to the word of God and the primitive Church, very comfortable for all good people desiring to live in Christian conversation, and most profitable to the estate of this realm." I can ask no more, nor can any one else who looks with respect upon the specialities of the Book of 1549 advance stronger evid.ence, to prove that that respect has by the mouth of the authorities of 1552 been solemnly declared consistent with the most absolute loyalty to the Church of England, a& affected by the proceedings of 1552 itself. In return, those who cling to the specialities of 1552 have the right to claim the same reciprocal acknowledgments from the other school, while both ought to, and can, unite upon the Book of 1662. For recalling to the reason and conscience of living Churchmen, the fact which has fallen into much oblivion, that the Prayer Book of 1549 still lives in the enjoyment of the highest testimonials of its Anglican orthodoxy by the mouth of that unrepealed statute which the unlearned have schooled them- selves to believe was its condemnation, I may have opened myself to the imputation of having a bias in favour of that formula. Accordingly, I desire at the. earliest moment to explain that there are poults on which I believe that the Book of 1552 is an improvement upon the preceding one, and that it possesses special features of worship which I ^hould be very sorry to see the Church of England abandon. I shall marshal .the direct contributions which the Prayer Books of 1552 and 1662 respectively yield to the liturgical trea,sure-house of the Eeformed Church of England, by naiAing the features in which each. of. them respectively gEcmoN It] LIBERTY TifOT LICENCE. 305 differs from the one which came next before' it. Behind tin's Catalogue of difference stands the great phalanx of agreeinents which iinites the three main editions of the Eeformed English Prayer Book into a true triangle of forces, .' The modiiibations which I deem to be the distinctive gains of the Book of 1552 upon that of 1549 are found in its order of morning and evening prayer, and "are compendiously the enrichment of the Church by the daily confession and abso- lution,'- the use of the Creed at both services, and the enlarged list of days'on which the Qiiicunque Vult is said. In 1662, in contrast with 1552, we must look for gains in the Com- munion OfSice, and in the occasional offices which I now pjass over, as l;hey are not required for iny niain argument. Earliest' comes the first order for kneeling among the initiatory rubrics. "Oblations" are introduced into the Prayer for the Church Militant, and its final petition appears " blessing God's holy name for all Thy servants departed this life in Thy faith and feat ; beseeching Thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of Thy heavenly' kingdom," as this does, in a modified form from 1549. The rubric restored as this petition is prescribing "the communicants being conveniently placed for the receiv- ing of the Holy Sacrament " contributes to good order ; the term " Offertory " is introduced in reference to' the alms of the congregation, which are only treated in the Book of 1552 as a remembrance of the poor without any definite God-ward reference. The absolution is called the Absolution, and is allotted to the bishop, when present. The rubric is introduced before the prayer of consecration beginning, "When the priest, Standing before the table, hath sO ordered the Bread and "Wine, that he may with the mOre readiness and decency break the bread before the people, and take the cup into his hands." Whatever may be the particular meaning of 306 PEACE IN THE CHUEOH. [Section II. the rubric, it undoubtedly makes for reverence. The manual directions also — inclusive of that of the fraction of the bread — are embodied in rubrics to the Consecration Prayer instead of being left to the celebrant's common sense. The directions for further consecration appear for the first time. In the final declaration of kneeling, the protest against adoration, of any " real or essential presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood" is changed into "spiritual presence," I have left to the last two differences between the- Books of 1662 and 1552, because they are variations upon the Book of 1552, made in Queen Elizabeth's republication of 1559, and retained from that edition — the first is, the restoration in the form of administration of the declaratory words of the Book of 1549 : " The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee" (and "the blood of our Lord Jesus. Christ which was shed for thee"), "preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." The other one is, with a grammatical modification, that ornaments rubric of which all that I dare to say after the Purchas and Eidsdale judgments is, that while those documents, taken in combination with the Adver- tisements and Canons, order a distinctive Eucharistic dress in cathedral and collegiate churches, respectable authorities, such as Bishop Cosin, Sir William Palmer, Bishop Phillpotts, the judges in Liddell v. Westerton, the late Sir John Coleridge — and (previously to these judgments) Lord Coleridge, Chief Justice Bovill, Chief Baron Kelly, Lord Justice James — took it as allowing that dress in all churches. I do not cavil with those who may think that the Prayer Book of 1552, with all the burden on its back of its recog^ nition of 1549, had better not have been touched in 1662. The liberty of such an opinion in 1881 is incontestable. But I claim as the liberty of other Churchmen, whom I know to be a very large party, to appreciate the modifications of 1662 as clearly embodying a more distinct expression of the idea Sectioh II.] LIBERTY NOT LICENCE. 307 of an offering in the Eucharist and of a, presence of Our Lord in the Sacrament, which is not the " corporal " presence that Home vainly pretends, but which at the same time, because it is "spiritual," does not forfeit the designations of "real and essential." Nowhere,.- however, does the Book of 1662 pass any stricture upon that of 1552, and the proof is accordingly quite wanting which could establish any breach of continuity between ~ 1549 and 1662, bridged over as the gap is by 1552 and 1559. There was one salient ceremonial distinction between 1549 and 1552 which we have been now forbidden (for now more than three centuries, namely, since the statute of 1559) to assume as having a doctrinal sig- nificatioh — we mean, the reduction of the schedule of ministerial dresses given in the Kubrics of 1549 to a single one of its items, namely, the surplice. But this reduction only lingered as a note of our Eeformed Church for less than two years, that is, till Edward the Sixth's death, when, in 1553, Mary's reaction became responsible for five more years, and in ,1559 began our present era, in which certainly the reception of the Eucharistic dress finds a place, were it only under the limitations of the Eidsdale judgment. The speciality of the Book of 1549 resides in its Com- munion service, and upon this I need not dwell with the minuteness which the established status of the Book of 1662 demanded. The cardinal features of this of&ce, in contrast with the others, are its recapitulation of the Eucharistic dress, and the formation of its prayer of consecration embodying as it does what are now the separate prayer for the Church MDitant and the first thanksgiving after Communion, aU emphatically combining in a declaration of that same phase of doctrine which the changes of 1662 intentionally brought into renewed prominence. A form of consecration prayer closely approximating to that of 1549 has been preserved not only in the special Y 308 PEACE IN THE CHURCH. TSeotion It- Communion of&ce . of the Scottisli Episcopal Church, but in the only form recognised and in' force throughout all the extent of the Protesta;nt Episcopal Church of the United States, and cordially accepted alike by the lowest and "the highest Churchmen of that community. One word must be dropped in passing in further reference to the incontestable disuse of any distinction of dress between the morning and evening, and the Communion service, even in cathedrals, by the prescriptions of the second Book. I am not the panegyrist of this retrenchment, but I am willing to recognise that it was a genuine recoil from :that which was at the time certainly a grievance — the burdeiisomeness and fulsomeness of pre-Eefofmational ceremonial. National re- coils are seldom guarded by excessive moderation. It is quite possible very logically .to acquiesce in this theoiy of the Book of 1552,. and yet to believe that its reasonablepess has become antiquated by changed circumstances, now that Jbhe world in so many directions is spending its energies in levelling all forms and traditionary usages. At the same time I think it is only respectful to the Churchmen to whom this train of thought may be unfamiliar, to address a few words to the argument, that it may be .very well to appeal to the Act of 1552 in behalf of the body of the Services of the Book of 1549, but that no defence of its garniture of vestiary rules of 1549 can be drawn from the commendations of 1552i I accept the challenge, and I put the question in this form : We have on one side the Book of 1549, which orders certain dresses, and that of 1552, which only orders a S'ingle one. But, at the same time, these vestiary orders stand so apart from the body of the Eucharistic ofSce in either case that the , office of 1549 could be as perfectly celebrated in a surplice as that of 1552 in a cope, as actually in its so far modified form of 1559 it was celebrated in cathedrals, such as Canterbury under Archbishop Parker, and Durham down to Section II.] LIBEETY NOT LICENCE.. 309 the middle of the eighteenth century, and in college chapels such as that of Lincoln College, under Archbishop "Williams's visitorship. Let us, then, test the ground on which Archbishop Parker could have justified the venture at Canterbury, or Archbishop WUliams in his Oxford chapel, namely, from the language of the office of 1552 — emphatically, that is, on Anglican grounds, and not upon that imitation of Eome which Bishop Perry's paper assumes, and still Ifess upon the exaggerated and perverted views of Eucharistic doctrine taught in the Eoman Church — in a word, upon the view of the Holy Communion, to which the Eeformed English Church clings as a sacrament instituted by Christ Himself, and gene- rally necessary to salvation. Can we or can we not find in the Communion office of 1552 expressions such as woidd justify some such increment of beauty and solemnity in its celebration as would be naturally symbolised by the specific dress which history tells us was used in cathedrals, and in royal and collegiate chapels, during the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries ? If we succeed in the search, then the claim for some present recognition of such dress may be wise, or riiay be the contrary, but it cannot be disloyal to the Church of' England, a straining of its doctrines, or a contradiction of its history.* The first exhortation teUs us of " this holy communion." It is also a " holy sacrament," here and elsewhere in the service. To' the faithful communicants it is said, "When we' spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink His blood, then we dwell in Christ and Christ in us, we be one with Christ and Christ with us." Again, in the same exhortation, - we come across "holy jnysteries," that phrase also recurring in a later part of the office. In the prayer of consecration again, the reception of- "these Thy creatures of bread and * The Bishop of Durham has dwelt on this consideration in his recent Charge. [1882^] Y 2 310 PEACE IN THE CHURCH. [Section II. wine " is declared to be " according to Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution." I could multiply quotations, but these phrases are enough for me to assert that at all events the claim for the vesture cannot be put out of court by the phraseology which marks the Communion service of 1552. In face of the evidence of its use in churches, such as Canterbury and Durham after 1559, I may be met with the question : If, then, as you show, you possess the reality of which the dress is only a symbol, why care for the sjonboll This is cruelly abstract logic, but it would sweep away the Queen's crown, and the maces of the Speaker, of the Lord Mayor, and of the Vice-Chancellors at the universities. Let the claim stand upon the same footing as the reasons which exist for maintaining those secular symbols. It can be further justified by the laudable feeling which refuses to repudiate pious similarities with other churches, and older days, in things innocent and laudable, and which cannot find Popery in a usage which is authoritative in the national worship of all the three Scandinavian kingdoms. Finally, it must be owned, for it cannot be denied, that aU, who, in compliance with the Purchas and Eidsdale judgments, admit the distiactive dress in cathedral and collegiate churches, the mother and model churches of the whole Church, let in the whole principle in its most salient form. As to the attempt to make out that chasuble indicates one thing and cope another, in a church which at a critical date of its existence ordered either to le used indiscriminately . as the English Eucharistic dress, I can only characterise the pretension as puerile, whether urged by ultra-Eitualist or ultra-Puritan In a church which has ruled one series of conditions for the chasuble and another for the cope, neither of them depending on natural, but both on positive, law, the question of course is wholly different. But the Church of England took parti- cular pains in 1549 to break down the distinction between Section U.] LIBBETY NOT LICENCE. 311 the two patterns of richer dress, and for my own part, as ail English Churchman of the Eeformation, I do not see the quarter from which I can claim or take the vesture except imder the arrangements of 1549, which are "the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth," the year, that is, which gives its name to the Parliament which enacted the first Prayer Book. I shall probably be asked after what practical end I am driving; am I working for a conditional restoration of the Use of 1549 as well as for an unconditional recognition of the unquestionable truth, loyalty, and edification of its con- tents ? I desire to answer with a frankness equal to that with which I presume the question to have been put. I should be glad if means could be found for that conditional use of the Book of 1549 which would give to the faithful Christian of the English Communion that type of conse- cration prayer which he has now to seek in the Scottish Episcopal Church or in the United States, and that Eucha- ristic dress which recent judgments tell him he must only look for in cathedral and collegiate churches. But any regu- lation dealing with the words of the Prayer Book demands the intervention of Parliament, and to the provocation of Parliament, as Parliament is now constituted, to deal with the Prayer Book I have an insuperable objection. So my practical conclusion is to invite High Churchmen, Low Churchmen, and Broad Churchmen to unite in a recognition of the three Prayer Books as reciprocally illustrating each other as the Church of England's charter of Liberty not Licence. ( 312 ,) III. EITUAL EECONCILIATION. Way out of vestiary dilemma which might leave in abeyance the sound- ness of the Purchas and Eidsdale judgments and the co-oidinate value of Ornaments Rubric and of Advertisements and Canons — A traditionary interpretation of Advertisements unfortunately taken for granted — Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity points to more, not less, ceremonial — Advertisements not really prohibitory of vestments, only exonerate parish from cost of buying more than the surplice — Dress left obligatory in cathedral and collegiate churches, where private means, not rates, found it — Evidence of this the use between 1567 and 1662 of copes in college and Bishops' chapels which do not fall under Advertise- ments — If this is accepted, irrespectively of legal value of Advertise- ments, the quarrel over Eidsdale judgment really vanishes without need of any fresh trial — The objection that it is against spirit of sixteenth.and seventeenth centuries to acknowledge a permissive sliding scale .an- swered by the sliding prescription of daily double service in Rubric and of Saints' day sel-vices and Litany on Wednesdays and Fridays in the Canons — Bishop in cope at his cathedral proxy for all which cope may or may not signify — Advertisements not aimed at those who wanted more ceremonial, but at the Puritans who objected even to the surplice — Evidence found in recently-published journal of Stow — Peaceful and moderate modus vivendi attainable. Having probed with, I hope, a gentle hand, the sore of the Public Worship Kegulation Act, and having endeavoured to set forth that liberty not licence which is the rightful claim of the High Ghurch party, I have something stiU to say upon a matter which, although in itself a detail, has by the SBCTiostlllJ SITUAL RECONCILIATION. 313 drift of events been forced into a prominence which impera- tively claims for it the commensurate attention of those who have, the power and the will to insure peace in the Church. I mean the permission to use a distinctive Eueharistic dress in parish churches corresponding to the obligation to use such dress iu cathedral and coUegiate churches which has been declared to rest upon their clergy, irrespective of rubrical prescriptions, in virtue of the Advertisements of 1566 and of the Canons of 1604, by the Purchas and Eidsdale judg- ments; The conclusions which I shall present are not trumped up for the occasion, but have long been formed in my own mind, for I have already published them so far back as 1874 in my ' "Worship in the Church of England,' when the materials for the discussion were not so full as they now are, and I have more than once recalled attention to them. The griev- ance is of a moral even more than a ceremonial nature, for it presses on so many law-loving clergy and laity, who are unable to reconcile the prohibitions of recent decisions with what they conscientiously believe to be the facts of history and the words of the rubric. I venture to think that there is a way out of this dilemma which would leave it unnecessary to investigate the legal value of the Advertisements and Canons or the soundness of the conclusions reached by the Judicial Committee in the two suits, for it is one which may be equally accepted by those who take the most and the least favourable view of those decisions. The legality or the reverse in parish churches (in contrast to cathedral and collegiate churches) of a distinctive Eueha- ristic dress is commonly held to turn upon whether, as the Judicial Committee lays down in Clifton v. Eidsdale, the Advertisements of 1566 are or are not to be read into the Ornaments Eubric of 1662, so that if they are to be, then 314 .PEACE IN THE CHURCH. LSECTiawIH, such distinctive dress must be illegal, but that if they are not, then it is legal. I must very respectfully demur to this representation ; and submit that the opinion is tenable, that even if the Adrer^ tisements must be read iato the Eubric (as to which I claim the most complete liberty to reserve my historical and literary independence), still the adoption of such dress in parish churches would not thereby be forbidden, but only the obligation of its use relaxed. This may seem a bold position to take up, but I believe that, in spite of the research which has been bestowed, par- ticularly in recent days, upon the legal value of the Adver- tisements as a whole, there has all along been a natural but unfortunate tendency to take for granted a certaia traditionary interpretation of their details, which has come down from days when their meaning was supposed to lead to no prac- tical result. I cannot therefore too earnestly insist upon the necessity of considering these details, like those of any other document, by the double aid of history as now studied^ and of their own grammatical signification. Those who place the legal value of the Advertisements at the highest, accept them as the statutable fulfilment of a certain provision of Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity of 1559 ; but in readiag that provision they ought to quote it as a whole. In its entirety it comprises two consecutive para- graphs of the Act, and runs as follows : — "XXV. — Provided always, and be it enacted, that such ornaments of the Church, and of the ministers thereof, shall be retained, and be in use, as was in this Church of England, by authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth, until other order shall be therein taken by the authority of the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of her Commissioners appointed and authorised under the Great Seal of England for causes ecclesiastical, or of the Metropolitan of this Realm. . " XXVI. — And also, that if there .shall happen any contempt or irrevereDce to be used in the ceremonies or rites of the Church, by the Section III.] EITUAL BECONOILIATION. 315 misusing of the Orders appointed in this book, the Queen's Majesty may, by the like advice of the said Commissioners or Metropolitan, ordain and publish such further ceremonies or rites as may be most for the advance- liient of God's glory, the edifying of His Church, and the due reverence of Christ's holy mysteries and sacraments." The first of these two paragraphs is commonly quoted as if it comprised the entire provision : and so taken by itself it may reasonably be read as pointing to some intention of further reducing the ritual. But when both paragraphs are censidered together such an interpretation becomes impos- sible, inasmuch as the immediate conclusion drawn in the second paragraph from the initial premiss is to contemplate the necessity for and to give the reasons which should lead to " ordaining " "further ceremonies or rites," all necessity for and aU reasons possibly leading to the retrenchment of existing ceremonies being markedly, and no doubt intentionally, omitted. We may at once pass on to the Advertisements, which I shall, like the Judicial Committee, treat for the purpose of this argument as being the "other order," the taking of which is contemplated in those words from the Act of 1559 which I have just quoted. The Advertisements important to our inquiry are these : — " Item. — In the ministration of the holy Communion in cathedrall and collegiate churches, the principall minister shall use a cope with gospeller and epistoler agreeably ; and at all other prayers to be sayde at that communion table, to use no copes but surplesses. "Item. — That the deane and prebendaries weare a surplesse with a silk hoode in the quyer ; and when they preache in the cathedrall or collegiate churche, to weare their hoode. " Item.- — That every minister sayinge any publique prayers, or minis- tringe the sacramentes or other rites of the churche, shall wear a comely surples with sleeves, to be provided at the charges of the parishe ; and that the parishe provide a decente table standing on a frame for the communion table." Prom first to last I am unable to find any prohibition in these Advertisements of the ornaments which were in this 316 . PEIACE liir THE OHUROH. [Section III. Church of England by authority of Parliament in. the second year of the reign of King ^Edward the Sixth, and which are stUl to be sought (as far as the ministerial dress goes) in the Kubrics of 1549. If their authors intended the declaratioji to be prohibitory, they might have said that the principal minister in cathedral and collegiate churches were to wear " copes," but not to wear " albes " or " vestments," but they do not say so. They might have laid down that while the .parish was bound to provide the parson's " surplice," and he to wear it, the parish should be forbidden to provide " vest- ment," " cope," or " albe," and the parson also be forbidden to provide them at his own cost, or in any case to wear thems whoever might have been at charges for them. The Advertisements might, I repeat, have said all this, and they naturally would have done so, if intended to be prohibitory. But they say nothing at all of the kind, and do not even refer to the older provisions which they are supposed to repeal. All which they say is direct and obliga- tory in the direction of putting on, but not of taking off. The principal minister, when there is a Communion in $, cathedral or collegiate church, shall wear a cope. The Epistoler and Gospeller shall be. dressed "agreeably." On other occasions of worship the dignitaries shall wear surplices and hoods. In parish churches the parish shall provide a surplice, and the parson shall use it. Upon the other vestures, presumably legal up to the date of the Advertisements, they say nothing ; only these are in a very delicate and dexterous way taken out of the schedule of obligatory ornaments by the constructive repeal of the obligation to procure them. Cathedral and coUegiate churches were rich corporations, so they had to buy their own copes and surplices. The surplice of the less opulent parish church was to be provided at the charges, of the parish— ^.e. by the Church-rate, - the only parochial exchequer which, .the law Section HI.] BITUAL EECONOILIATIOBf. 317 recognised — which was thereby virti;ally exonerated from the c6st of any more expensive vesture, and at the same time kept tight to the sometimes unpopular surplice. But for this re- siduary limitation, the policy of the Advertisements would be -the same as that which has in our time settled the Church-rate question itself. The compulsion of Church-rates has gone; Church-rates remain. 1566 said that no parson was to be punished for not wearing the Eucharistic dress, nor yet for wearing it. Without pressing the argument too far I may observe that between the accession of Elizabeth and the Commonwealth there is direct evidence that the use of copes was in ex,cess of the compulsion of the Advertisements in cases ,ear-marked by no Church-rate coming in to condition the acquisition of the dress, namely, in Chapels Eoyal and the Chapels of Colleges and Bishops' palaces, namely, in sacelld, which the most loose use of language could not include under " Collegiate Churches." In one case — :Lincoln College, Oxford — the copes were given by that well-known Low Churchman Archbishop Williams, as visitor of the college when Bishop of Lincoln. Does not the reading of. the Advertisements which I offer, straightforward and grammatical as it is, simplify a tangled episode in our Church history, an episode more than 300 years old, and stiU going on ? If it can be accepted, there will be no need to settle the comparative force of Eubric and of Advertisement and Canon, because there will be no longer any fundamental contrariety between .them. The regal sanction to the Advertisements may be received or may be- rejected; and "reading into" wiU be a very harmless phrase when the thing read in is in fact identical with that into which it is read. One class of pro- visions will express the hard absolute law as it is written, and the other the popular explanation of that law as it may be worked. The objection that in Tudor or Stuart days such a thinw as ritual permission or elasticity was unknown is at 318 PEACE IN THE CHURCH. LSection HI. once refuted by facts over wliic]! there is no dispute, and which, like the vestiary question, are connected with the Prayer Book and Canoxis; Every successive Prayer Book enjoins daily prayers on every minister, and yet the use of them in the vast majority of parish churches has been con- tinuously disregarded. But there is a, still stronger evidence. The Canons of 1604 (Canons 14 and 15) actually order service "upon such days as are appointed to be kept holy by the Book of Common Prayer and upon their eves," besides prescribing the Wednesday and Friday Litany, and are silent on daily prayers ; while the Prayer Book has gone on repeat'- ing in every edition the order for the daily prayers. In fact the daily prayers of the Eubric verms the holy days', services and twice a week Litany of the Canon is an absolute parallel to the maximum vesture as provided in the Eubrics verstis the minimuin vesture as provided in the Advertisements and Canons. In each case a named part does not exclude the partly-named whole. The principle of the daily prayers or of the holy days' services and bi-weekly Litany is the same, that of sanctifying week days no less than Sundays by public worship. Only the more strict provision lays down ideal perfection, and the less strict one respects practical material difficulties. The same distinction rules the two classes of vestiary prescription. The Rubric which orders a distinctive Eucharistic dress in augmentation of the normal garb of ministration in every church is the ideal perfection. The Advertisements and Canons which limit this obligation to cathedral and collegiate churches are the concession to prac- tical material difficulties. But this concession makes the import of the obligation within the retained area more emphatic. If the Eucharistic dress of the Eubric of 1549 symbolises, as we are so often told, unsound doctrine, still more stringently and , offensively must the Eucharistic dress which the Advertisements and Canons incontestably force Section III.] EITUAL RECONCILIATION. 319 upon bishops and dignitaries symbolise that same unsound doctrine, which these prcelati are in virtue of their prwlatura commanded to set forth ; for the higher placed a man is, the greater must be his responsibility. Unquestionably, then, the moral influence of a Bishop's or Dean's dress in the "mother church" of the diocese is far more powerful than that of a Vicar or Curate in a mere parish church. The Bishop celebrating the Holy Communion in his cope at that mother church is the proxy for the whole diocese for what- ever the cope used in that conjunction may or may not symbolise. With the reciprocal concession at this stage of the inquiry that upon the face of the Advertisements either interpretation is equally plausible, we may profitably turn to history for collateral light. So I must ask who were the foes at whom the Advertisements, whether legal or only archiepiscopal in their authority, were aimed ? These- foes must be sought within the Church of England, for in the eye of the law, at that date, the Church and the State of England were conterminous and identical. Were they persons, whoever they might be, who hankered after the older forms, and cherished hopes of retroceding even behind 1549 1 There is not the slightest hint in. history of any action in any form from such agitators within the pale of the Church of England. Whatever any one may have felt, the men of reactionary activity fell off to Eome. Was it the party which sought its standpoint at 1549 ? No hint of any Siuch party bestirring itself can be found except as repre- sented by one, or at most two persons. These were Queen Elizabeth and perhaps Archbishop Parker; so by the sup- position they would have launched the Advertisements against themselves. Elizabeth, moreover, was angered at the oppo- sition directed so soon after her accession against the cere- monial of her own chapel. The party which was troublesome. 320 PEACE IN THE CHURCH. ESfioriON III.' discontented, and turbulent, and in the eyes of Queen and Bishops disloyal and dangerous, was that which later on was- known as the Puritan — men ready to wreck Ghurch and' State rather than wear a -surplice — so the Advertisements in ordering that dress were aimed at and came down upon them as a measure of coercion, by no means sweetened by the active part which the Low Church Bishop Grindal took in working them. At the same time they were designed to conciliate the laity by limiting the compulsion. We know' that the- publication of that manifesto was to these clergymen ' no act of grace, but an incitement towards further disturbances. The abundant historical evidence of the turbulent action of many of the London clergy at this crisis has within these few months been -vividly supplemented by the publication,' by the Camden Society, of a most interesting and graphic contemporary journal by no less an authority than John Stow, the antiquary. . Yet, as we see, the ire of these bold and conscientious, but unruly men, was incited by the demand made upon them to adopt the surplice. To them the order to wear the surplice did not come as a compromise, but as the unwelcome instal- ment of a repulsive system which they were striving to uproot. They were strong enough to cause apprehension even to so masterful a sovereign as Elizabeth, while she and Parker had to rely upon the support of the more conservative party in the- Church — ^the party whose allegiance to the Eeformed Church of England was proof against their appre- ciation of traditionary ceremonialism leading them on to secession, but who appreciated ceremonial all the same. Is it conceivable that the authorities would have taken such an opportunity of disgusting their friends by a curt prohibi- tion of that ceremonial, so contemptuously expressed as not even to name that which it was forbiddiug ? Clearly the tacit appeal to them was to rest content with the enforce- Section III.] RITUAL KECONCILIATION. 321 ment of the surplice, while other things, except in cathedrals, were to rest in virtual abeyance. It would be a happy event for the Church of England if a more critical reading of the Advertisements could be esta- blished so as to open the way to a peaceful and moderate modus Vivendi upon the ceremonial difficulty being generally reached l)y the peaceable way of opinion, and without recur- ring to the perilous and inflammable agency of law courts or of Parliament. I am not writing as a lawyer, and if I content myself with noting, without discussing the difficulties which may arise from the special application made by the judges in Clifton v. Eidsdale, it is not because I undervalue them or desire to slur them over. But it does not require to be a lawyer to distin- guish between the general principle of a judgment and the special application. Agreement on a general principle is a most important step befote adjustiiig special details, which are most probably different in each different case, and are, therefore, within the compass of a distinction. THE END. 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" The warmth with which he insists on the early and rapid spread of Christianity as a proof of its divine origin, the minute and ingenious learning with which he main- tains it, the deep importance he attaches to it, recall forcibly to our minds a phase of discussion which had almost passed away in the ever shifting polemics of religion and infidelity." — Quarterly Review. HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. By the late DEAN STANLEY.. Second Edition. 8vo. Is. 6^; MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. From the Apostolic Times to the Reformation, 1517. By J. CRAIGIE ROBERTSON, M.A., Canon of Canterbury. 8 Vols, Post 8vo. 6s. each. " I cannot conceive, on a smaller scale, any work which would more guide students into a calm, impartial, candid view of the course of disturbed history and ecclesiastical politics, in former or in present times, than Canon Robertson's." — Dean of West- yninster. " Canon Robertson's work will always be.esteemed as a text-book for the student, while the host of references with which he has studded his pages will be invaluable as a guide to the more advanced inquirer." — Saturday Review. HISTORY OF THE JEWS, from the Earliest Period to Modern Times. By H. H. MILMAN, D.D., late Dean of St. Paul's. 3 Vols. Post 8vo. i%s. CONTENTS. The Patriarchal Age — Israel in Egypt — The Desert — The Invasion — The Conquest — The Judges — The Monarchy — Judah aad Israel — The High Priests. The Asmonseans — Herod — The Herodian Family — The Koman Governors — Prepara- tions for the War — The War — Siege of Jerusalem — Termination of the War— Barochab — ^The Patriarch of the West, and the Prince of the Captivity. Judaism and Christianity — ^Judaism and Mahommedanism — Golden Age and Iron Age of Judaism — ^Jews in England — Jews expelled from Spain — Jews of Italy — Modern Judaism. HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, from the Birth of Christ to the Extinction of Paganism in the Roman Empire, By DEAN MILMAN. 3 Vols. Post Svo. i8j. CONTENTS. The Life of Christ — Christianity and Judaisjn — Christianity and Paganism — Consti- tution of Christian Churches— Marcus Aurelius the Philosopher — Persecution under Diocletian — Constantine and his Sons — Trinitarian Controversy — Julian — Abolition of Paganism — The Great Prelates of the East and West — Jerome and the Monastic System— Public Spectacles— Christian Literature— Christianity and the Fine Arts. HISTORY OF LATIN CHRISTIANITY, including that of the Popes to the Pontificate of Nicholas V. By DEAN MIL- MAN. 9 Vols. Post Svo. 54r. *' This work in fact, from beginning to end, will be Co-extensive with, the Great History of Gibbon. It was natural that a Christian and a clergyman should wish to accompany that wonderful performance through its whole course, and place the religion, which it so constantly misconceives, in a more favourable light ; and it is creditable to the author that, with the sincerest attachment to Christianity, he should have accomplished his purpose in so fair and candid a spirit, and with such an exemp- tion from professional bias." — Westviuister Review. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS PUBLICATIONS. 9 LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH CHURCH. By the late A. P. STANLEY, D.D., Dean of Westminster. Flrsi and Second Series, Abraham to the Captivity. With Maps. 2 Vols. 8vo. 2/^. Third Series, from the Captivity to the Christian Era. With Maps. 8vo. i^s. LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE EASTERN CHURCH, with an Introduction on the Study of Ecclesiastical History. By the late A. P. STANLEY, D.D., Dean of West- minster. Fifth Edition. With Maps. 8vo, 12s, CONTENTS. The Province, Study, and Advantages of Ecclesiastical History — The Eastern Church— Council of Nicsca, a.d. 325— The Emperor Constantine — Athanasius— Mahometanism and the Eastern Church — The Russian Church — The Patriarch Nicon — Peter the Great and the Modern Church of Russia. THE STUDENT'S MANUAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. A History of the Christian Church from THE Earliest Times to the Reformation. By PHILIP SMITH, B.A. With Woodcuts. 2 vols. Post 8vo. 7^. 6flr. each. Book I. — From the Times of the Apostles to the full Establishment of the Holy Roman Empire and the Papal Power a.d. 30—1380. Book II. — The Middle Ages and the Reformation. A.D. 1381— 1598. THE STUDENT'S MANUAL OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. From the Planting of the Church in Britain, to the Silencing of Convocation in the Eighteenth Cen- tury. By G. G. PERRY, M.A., Canon of Lincoln. 2 vols. Post 8vo. "js. 6d. each. First Period.— From the Planting of the Church in Britain to the Accession of Henry VIII. Seoond Period. — From the Accession of Henry VIII. to the Silencing of Convocation in the Eighteenth Century. 10 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF A CHURCH DICTIONARY: a Manual of Reference for CLERGYMEN and STUDENTS. By W. F. HOOK, D.D., late Dean of Chichester, Tenth Edition. 8vo. l6j. "A book which ought to be found on the shelves of every clergyman, being an invaluable manual of information on every subject pertaining to Ecclesiology, whether in its historical, theological, or practical and legal departments." — Mornin^Chrofticle. THE TALMUD AND OTHER LITERARY Re- mains OF THE LATE EMANUEL DEUTSCH. With a Brief Memoir. Second Edition. 8vo. 12s. Contents : Roman Passion Drama. ShmiticPal^ography,Cultuhe,and Languages. Samaritan Pentateuch. The Targums. Book of Jasher. Arabic Poetry. The Talmud. Islam. Egypt, Ancient and Modern. Hermes Trismegistus. Judeo-Arabic Metaphysics. Kenan's "Les ApStres." The CEcumenical Council. Apostolic.^ Sedis, THE TALMUD : selected Extracts, chiefly illustrative of the Teaching of the Bible. With an Introduction. By the late JOSEPH BARCLAY, D.D., Bishop of Jerusalem. Illustrations. 8vo, 14^. THE NICENE AND APOSTLES' CREEDS. Their Literary History, together with some Account of the Growth and Reception of the Sermon on the Faith, commonly called "The Creed of St. Athanasius." By C. A. SWAINSON, D.D., Canon of Chichester. With Facsimile. 8vo. 16s. " The work of Canon Swainson must take a high place in the department of litera- ture to which it belongs. Indeed, its value can scarcely be overrated. Hence- forward it will be considered the book on the Athanasian Creed, — a standard treatise of permanent worth. Full of learning, breathing a fair and Catholic spirit, evidencing patient and long continued study, as well as a mastery of all details, it commends Itself to the churchman and the dissenter, to the ecclesiastical historian and theologian, as a compendium of facts and documents, a well-written text-book with which they cannot dispense." — Athencewn. CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS; Essays on Eccle- siastical Subjects. By the late A. P. STANLEY, D.D., Dean of Westminster, 3rd Edition. 8vo. 12s. Contents : Baptism. The Eucharist. Eucharist in the Early Church. EucHARiSTic Sacrifice. Real Presence Body and Blood of Christ. Absolution. Ecclesiastical Vestments. The Basilica. The Clergy. The Pope. The Litany. Creed of the Early Christians. Roman Catacombs. Lord's Prayer. Council and Creed of Constanti- NOI'LE. Ten Commandments. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS PUBLICATIONS, n HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF FRANCE, FROM THE Concordat of Bologna, 1516, to the Revolu- tion. With an Introduction. By W. HENLEY JERVIS, M.A., Prebendary of Heytesbury, and Author of the " Student's History of France.'* With Portraits. 2 vols. 8vo. 2Sj. " We do not say that Mr. Jervis is another Grote, but we do say that he has for the first time presented the history of the later French Church as a connected whole in an English dress, and with a mastery of detail and power of grouping and of graphic narration which completely carry the reader along with him throughout, -and cannot fail to be most serviceable to the student. Mr. Jervis has supplied a r^t and im- portant desideratum in English literature, and supplied it in a way which deserves grateful acknowledgment."— ^d/wri/oy Review. THE JESUITS : Their constitution and TEACH- ING: an Historical Sketch. By W. C. CARTWRIGHT, M.P. 8vo. 9^. " A more remarkable book than this on the subject of the Jesuits has never hitherto appeared. It is written with unimpassioned impartiality, and may be confidently submitted to the study of every sincere member of the Church of Rome, who at least does not approve of seeing their venerable pontiff the mere tool of a body of men who seek ends, here described, by means which Mr. Cartwright renders clear and in- telligible." — Notes find Queries. GLEANINGS OF PAST YEARS, 1843-78. By the Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 7 Vols. Small 8va. 2s. 6d. each. THE THRONE AND THE PRINCE CONSORT, THE CABINET AND CONSTITUTION. PERSONAL AND LITERARY. HISTORICAL AND SPECULATIVE. FOREIGN. ECCLESIASTICAL. MISCELLANEOUS. ROME AND THE NEWEST FASHIONS IN RELIGION. Three Tracts. By the Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. Containing The Vatican Decrees- Vaticanism— The Pope's Speeches. With Preface. 8vo. •js. 6d. EIGHT MONTHS AT ROME, DURING THE VATICAN COUNCIL. By POMPONIO LETO. Translated from the Italian. With Appendix containing Original Documents. 8vo. I2J-. " It is well known that the author is Marchese Francesco Nobili-Vitelleschi, brother to the late Cardinal Vitelleschi. The position of the writer accounted, in part, both for his accuracy and his moderation. The latter feature of his work strongljr contrasts with the prevalent tone of the Italian press at the time of the Vatican Council. Vitel- leschi is free both from indifference to all religion, and from hostility to Christiajiity." —Rtcord. MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF BIOGRAPHY. A DICTIONARY OF CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHY, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines. From the Time of THE Apostles, to the Age of Charlemagne. By Various Writers. Edited by WM. SMITH, D.C.L., and Rev. PROFESSOR WAGE, M.A. To be completed in 4 vols. Vols. I., II., and III. Medium 8vo. 3 1 J. 6/i. each. *„* This work will be issued in monthly parts, 5^. each. LIFE & WRITINGS OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. By the LORD BISHOP OF DERRY AND RAPHOE. 2 vols. 8vo. [In f reparation. LIFE & TIMES OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM. A Sketch gf the Church and the Empire in the IVth Century. By W. R. W. STEPHENS, M. A., Prebendary of Chichester and Rector of Woolbeding, Author of the **Life of Dean Hook." Second and Revised Edition, with portrait, 8vo. I2J. " Good books on the Christian Fathers are rare in English theology. With sur- prise therefore, as well as with pleasure, we have read this learned and able work on St. Chrysostom by an English scholar. Mr. Stephens writes clearly as well as learnedly, and his candour and good sense in the treatment of historical, no less than of theological, questions cannot be too highly praised, A far better idea of Chrysos- tom and his times may be gathered from his pages than from the more philosophical work of Neander." — JSxaminer. ' LIFE OF SAMUEL WILBERFORCE, D.D., late LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD and afterwards of WIN- CHESTER, with Extracts from his Diaries and Corre. SPONDENCE. With Portraits, &c. 3 vols. 8vo. 15^. each. Vol. I., iSoS— 1848, Edited by the late CANON ASHWELL. Vol. II., 1848— 1860, Edited by his son, R. G. WILBER- FORCE. Vol. III., i860— 1873 (completing the work). Edited by R. G. WILBERFORCE. [In the Press. " It has become a commonplace to speak of the_ wonderful versatility of the late Bishop of Winchester, to count up the movements in which he shared, tne causes he had advocated, the varied scenes and societies in which he had been the most striking and familiar figure. An unrivalled diocesan administrator, a prominent Parliamen- tary debater, the life of Convocation, the adviser on all Church questions whether home or colonial, a preacher ever listened to with pleasure, a consummate platform speaker, an active member of all sorts of associations, scientific, literary, or merely social." — Quarterly Review, April. 1874. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS PUBLICATIONS. 13 LIFE OF ST. HUGH OF AVALON, BISHOP OF LINCOLN : with some account of his Predecessors in THE See of Lincoln. By Rev. G. G. PERRY, Canon of Lin- coln, and author of the "History of the English Church." With Portrait, Crown 8vo, los. 6d. *' In writing this life of St. Hugh of Avalon he has coHtributed an interesting chapter to the history of the EngHsh Church during this period, and has done his best, and he has done it well, to preserve the memory of a worthy whom we would not willingly have forgotten. It is a volume which has greatly interested us, and which we are sure will interest all readers who delight in Ecclesiastical story." — ^a/m Bull. LIFE OF JOHN WILSON, D.D., F.R.S., OF BOM- BAY. Fifty years Philanthropist and Scholar in the East. By GEORGE SMITH, LL.D. New Edition, with Portrait and lUustratioris. Crown 8vo. gs. "Dr. Smith's life of the late Dr. John Wilson, of Bombay, is, without^ exception, one of the most valuable records of missionary work in India ever submitted to the English public, and equally worthy of its subject and its author. Dr. Smith has given us not simply a biography of Dr. Wilson, but a complete history of missionary, philanthropic, and educational enterprise in Western India, from the Governorship of Mountstewart Elphinstone, 1819-27, to that of Sir Bartle Frere, 1862-67," — The Thnes. MEMOIR OF ROBERT MILMAN, D.D. BISHOP OF CALCUTTA, and METROPOLITAN of INDIA. With a Selection from his Correspondence and Journals. By his Sister, FRANCES MARIA MILMAN. With Map, 8vo, 1 2 J. " Tf Miss Milman's very modest and interesting memoir do not produce the im- pression of a man with a note of grandeur in him, it can only b'e that the History of British India has caused great men to be taken for granted." — Titnes. LIFE OF CHARLES RICHARD SUMNER, D.D., BISHOP OF WINCHESTER and PRELATE op the MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, during an EPISCOPATE OF Forty Years. By GEORGE HENRY SUMNER, M.A., Honorary Canon of Winchester, and Rector of Old Alresford. With Portrait, 8vo. l+r. LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF DR. ARNOLD. By the late DEAN STANLEY. I2th Edition. Containing the Author's latest Corrections, and an Unpublished Poem by Rev. JOHN KEBLE. Portrait. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. I2j. MEMOIR OF EDWARD, CATHERINE, AND MARY STANLEY. By the late DEAN OF WESTMINSTER. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. gj. " Not only has it all the charm of style for which the Dean of Westminster is so conspicuous, and this, moreover, glorified by tilial respect and affection, but it pre- sents to us a specimen of a school — the school of Copleston, Whately, and in some sense Arnold, which is but little remembered now, and which yet deserves memory.'' " It is a graceful tribute of filial piety to private friends ; full of delight to the' general reader." — Guardian, H MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF SERMONS AND DEVOTIONAL WORKS. COMPANIONS FOR THE DEVOUT LIFE; A Series of Lectures on well-known Devotional Works DELIVERED IN St. JaMES'S ChURCH, PICCADILLY, IN 1875-6. With a Preface by J. E. KEMPE, M. A., Rector. Post 8vo. 6j. CONTENTS. Dh Imitatione Christi. Canon Farrar. Pensees of Pascal, Dean of St. Paul's, St. Francis of Sales' Devout Life. Dean of Norwich. Baxter's Saints' Rest. Archbishop of Dublin. St. Augustine's Confessions. Bishop of Derry. Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. Rev. W, G. Humphry. Theologia Germanica. Caaon Ash- well. Fenelon's CEuvres Spirituelles. Rev. T. T. Carter. Andrewes' Devotions. Bishop of Ely, Christian Year. Canon Barry. Paradise Lost. Rev. E. H. Bicker- steth. Pilgrim's Progress. Dean of Chester. The Prayer Book. Dean of Chichester. "This is a volume of more than ordinary interest. The books selected are well known, and favourites with large numbers of readers. The lecturers have all treated their respective subjects simply and practically, their aim having been to make these * Companions for the Devout Life ' more companionable and useful than they have hitherto betn."—C/mrc/i Revieiu. THE CIASSIC PREACHERS OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. Lectures delivered in St. James's Church, Piccadilly, in 1877-78. With an Introduction, by Rev. J. E. KEMPE, M.A., Rector. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. *js. 6d. each. CONTENTS, ist Series. — Donne (the Poet Preacher). Bishop Lightfoot. Barrow (the Exhaustive Preacher). Professor H. Wace. South (the Rhetorician). Dean of Durham, Beveridge (the Scriptural Preacher). Rev. W. R. Clark. Wilson (the Saintly Preacher). Canon Farrar. Butler (the Ethical Preacher). Dean of Norwich. 2nd Series. — Bull (the Primitive Preacher). Rev. W. Warburton, M.A. Horsley {the Scholarly Preacher). Bishop of Ely. Taylor (the English Chrysostom). Canon Barry. Sanderson (the Judicious Preacher). Bishop of Derry. Tillotson (the Practical Preacher). Rev. W. G. Humphry, B.D. Andrewes (the Catholic Preacher). Rev. H. J. North, M.A. UPESIGNED SCRIPTURAL COINCIDENCES IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. An Argument for their Veracity. With an Appendix containing Undesigned Coin- cidences between the Gospels and Acts, and Josephus. By the Rev. J. J. BLUNT, B.D. Eleventh Edition. Post 8vo. 6s. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS PUBLICATIONS. 15 THE OUTLOOK: a Charge Delivered at his Primary Visitation in November, 1881. By A. W. THOROLD, Lord Bishop of Rochester. With a Map. 8vo. 2s. AN ARGUMENT FOR THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. Translated from "Le Christianisme et les Temps Presents " of the ABBfi EM. BOUGAUD. By C. L. CURRIE. Post 8vo. THE PARISH PRIEST: His Acquirements, Prin- ciPAL Obligations, and Duties. By Rev. J. J. BLUNT, late Margaret Professor of Divinity of Cambridge. B.D., Edition. Sixth Post 8vo. 6s. CONTENTS. Ministerial Character of St. Paul. Reading of the Parish Priest. Composition of Sermons, Schools. Parochial Ministrations, Pastoral Conversations. Scriptural Argument for a Ritual. Rubrics and Canons. True position of the Parish Priest as a Churchman. " A valuable handbook for the young clergymen, and indeed for all 'parish priests' who do not consider themselves masters ol their duty. The lectures exhibit the results of experience and much thought, those on the course of reading, or more properly of study, adapted to the clergymen display solid learning critically digested. The style is close and weighty." — Spectator. NOTES ON SOME PASSAGES IN THE LITUR- GICAL HISTORY OF THE REFORMED ENGLISH CHURCH. By LORD SELBORNE. 8vo. 6j. THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS TO CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. The Bampton Lectures for 1876. By W. ALEXANDER, D.D., Lord Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. Second Edition revised and enlarged. 8vo. I4r. "The Bishop of Derry's long-expected Bampton Lectures have been published at last ; and no worthier contribution to theological literature has been made of recent years. The fine appreciation of the poet, the research of the scholar, and the fervour of the Christian theologian are conspicuous in its glowing pages. ^ Bishop Alexander knows how to charm and delight while he instructs. His style is rich, and yet not overloaded ; it is eloquence, not rhetoric. The subtle sense of a poet's imagmation pervades every page." — Scottish Guardian. SERMONS PREACHED IN ABBEY ON PUBLIC OCCASIONS. D. D. , late Dean of Westminister. Svo. WESTMINSTER By A. P. STANLEY, 1 6 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF THE BEATITUDES : AND SERMONS ADDRESSED TO CHILDREN IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. By A. P. STANLEY, D.D., late Dean of Westminster. Fcap. 8vo. MASTERS IN ENGLISH THEOLOGY, a Series OF Lectures on Leading Divines of the Church of England. Delivered at King's College, London, 1877. With a, Historical Introduction by Canon Barry, D.D. 8vo. ■js. 6d. HOOKER Canon Bakry, D.D. ANDREWS Dean OF St. Paul's. CHILLINGWOR TH Dean Plumptee, D.D. WHICHCOTE and SMITH .... Peofessoe Westcott, D.D. JEREMY TAYLOR Canon Faerae, D.D. PEARSON Archdeacon Cheetham. BENEDICITE; OR THE SONG OF THE THREE CHILDREN. Being Illustrations of the Power, Bene- ficence, and Design manifested by the Creator in His Works. By G. CHAPLIN CHILD, M.D. Post 8vo. 6j. "Taking the hymn, ' O all ye works of the Lord ' as the motive of his book, the author has culled from the whole range of Science and natural history such facts as illustrate the power and wisdom and goodness of the Creator. It is a happy idea, very well carried owX." —Church Builder, "A book marked by ^reat beauty and simplicity of style, as well as scientific accuracy. Such books raise and ennoble the mind of the reader by familiarising it with the wonders of the earth and heavens, and imbuing his whole spirit with the glory of the Architect, by whose Almighty word they were called into existence." — Quarterly Review. THE CONTINUITY OF SCRIPTURE, as declared by the Testimony of our Lord and of the Evangelists and Apostles. By LORD HATHERLEY. New Edition. Crpwn 8vo. 6s. Or i6mo. 2s. 6d. "Under a very moderate guise, this volume contains a condensed and fofcible argument in support of theDivine authority of the Holy Scriptures and of the truth of the Christian mterpretation of them. Such a work deserves, for several reasons, an especial welcome. Lord Hatherley, at an anxious conjuncture in religious thought, has thrown his whole intellectual and moral authority on the side of the received faith. He has thus rendered the Church an immense service, and has earned from her a debt of deep gratitude." — Times. "We welcome this simple but most forcible testimony to the inspiration and authority of the Bible. We trust it may be widely circulated." — Record. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS PUBLICATIONS. 17 UNIVERSITY SERMONS PREACHED AT Cam- bridge, 184S-1851. By Rev. J. J. BLUNT. Post 8vo. 6s. "These sermons are em-phatlaxWy jgood serf >tons ; full of sustained strength and quiet power, of a moderation which is evidently the offspring of a mature judgment, and of a scholarship which is invariably profound, yet never obseure." — Scottish Guardian^ THE MANIFOLD WITNESS FOR CHRIST. Being an attempt to Exhibit the Combined Force of Various Evidences of Christianity, Direct and Indirect. The Boyle Lectures for 1877-78. By ALFRED BARRY, D.D., Canon of Westminster and Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. Svo. 1 2 J. Part I. — Christianity and Natural Theology. Part II. — The Positive Evidence of Christianity. FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION IN THE MIND AND HEART OF MAN. By Sir JOHN BYLES, late one of the Judges of H.M. Court of Common Pleas at Westminster. Post Svo. 6j. " Sir John Byles enables the reader to judge of the facts and arguments that have ' satisfied the author's mmd as to the fundamental truths of the Christian religion ; he has added nothing to what has been said before, but he has produced a trustworthy epitome of facts and reasoning that must be useful to others, and in a ripe and vigorous old age recorded his testimony for the fundamental truths of Christianity." — English Churchman. WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. By A. J. B. BERESFORD-HOPE, M.P. Svo. ^s. Or, Popular Selections from. Svo. 2.S.- 6d. '* Mr. Hope has rightly judged that a layman's view of the present ritual difficulties might be useful, and we hasten to say that his book is as valuable as it is opportune." — Church Revieiu. THE SHADOWS OF A SICK ROOM. With a Preface by CANON LIDDON. i6mo. is. 6d. " A little book, evidently the production of a man of deep and thorough piety, yet so cultivated that his thoughts when lying sick unto death have thrown themselves into definite form, and shaped themselves into that older kind of statelier, or as some now-a-days say, of stiffer eloquence, to which we 3re accustomed in South, and in a few of those half-forgotten master-pieces of the English Church. The eloquence, however, is not artificial, but pours itself out, as it were, like poetry to a poet, the rational mode of expression of the mind when heated with a sense of the nearness of the Divine. There is in this volume much of the charm derived by so many minds from ' II V^iistroso.' "Spectator, MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF A DICTIONARY OF HYMNOLOGY. Intended as a Companion to Existing Hymn Books. Setting forth the Origin and History of the Hymns in Common Use, a Description of the most Popular Hymnals, and Bio- GRAPHicA]^ Notices of their Authors and Translators. By Rev. JOHN JULIAN, F.R.S.L., Vicar of Wincobank, Sheffield. 8vo. [lu preparation^ N>B. — This Work is designed to embrace the following subjects : — . The History of every Hymn in general use in England, Ireland, and Scotland, emubacing Orioinals and Translations. z. Biographical Notices of Authors, Translators, and Compilers of Hymns. 3. An investigation into Anonymous Authors of Hymns. 4. Historical Articles on Greek, Latin, and German Hymnody — on Service Books, Missals, Breviaries, Early Hymn Books, &c. ; and Notes on French, Danish, and other Hymns, from which Translations have BEEN made into ENGLISH. 5. Details of the sources of English Hymnological information. As the field of research is exceedingly wide, the assistance of eminent hymnologists has been secured to ensure the fullest and most accurate information possible. WORD, WORK AND WILL. Collected Papers. By WILLIAM THOMSON, D.D., Lord Archbishop of York. Crown 8vo. gs. Contents : Synoptic Gospels. Death of Christ. God Exists. Worth of Life. Design in Nature. 1 Sports and Pastimes. [ Emotions in Preaching. Defects in Missionary Work. Limits of Philosophical Enquiry. "They are full of wise advice and sober caution, but that which will specially recommend this volume to many is the republication in a more accessible form of the Archbishop's remarkable Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels, which appeared originally in the 'Speaker's Commentary.' .... this most attractive work. -~T/te National Church. CHURCH AND THE AGE : a Series of Essays on the Principles and Present Position of the Anglican Church. By Various Writers. Edited by W. D. MACLAGAN, D.D. (Bishop of Lichfield) and the late Rev. Dr. "WEIR. 2 vols. 8vo. 26^. TREATISE ON THE AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION. By CANON MOZLEV. A New and Revised Edition. Post 8vo. ^s. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS PUBLICATIONS. 19 SERMONS PREACHED DURING THE TOUR OF THE PRINCE OF WALES IN THE EAST. By the late DEAN STANLEY. With Notices of some of the Localities visited. 8vo. gs. SERMONS PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN. By ARCHBISHOP THOMSON. 8vo. loj. 6if. LIFE IN THE LIGHT OF GOD'S WORD, By ARCHBISHOP THOMSON. Post 8vo. 5^. THE LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT Exa- mined. By the late H. L. MANSEL, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's. Fifth Edition. Post 8vo. Ss. (>d. POETICAL WORKS OF BISHOP HEBER. For- trait. Fcap. 8vo. 3^. 6(/. HYMNS ADAPTED TO THE CHURCH SERVICE. By BISHOP HEBER. i6mo. is. 6d. MOTTOES FOR MONUMENTS ; or, Epitaphs selected for General Study and Application. By MRS, PALLISER. Illustrations, Crown 8vo. 'js. 6d. *' With such a help as this, judiciously circulated in a country parish, much that so often shocks by its incongruity in 'God's Acre,' might be gently got rid of. Over and above, however, its mora immediate object, the book has a value of its own. It is a choice collection of holy thoughts which the living may lay to heart with profit in anticipation of the grave." — Ckristiaii Observer, PROVERBS ; or, words of human wisdom. Collected and Arranged. With Preface by CANON LIDDON. i6mo. 3^. (>d, " The collection shows great judgment and wide reading. The book will take its stand among the most attractive of the season. It is a book for both the grave and the gay/' — Church Herald. MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS. HANDBOOKS TO THE CATHEDRALS OF ENG- LAND AND WALES ; giving a History of each See, WITH Biographical Notices op the Bishops. Vols. I. and II.— SOUTHERN DIVISION.— Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Wells, Rochester, Canter- bury, Chichester, and St. Albans. With i6o Illus- trations. 2 vols. Post 8vo. 36J. VoL in. — EASTERN DIVISION. — Oxford, Peter- borough, Lincoln, Norwich, and Ely. With 90 Illustrations. 21s. Vol. IV.— WESTERN DIVISION.— Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, and Lichfield. With 50 Illustrations. Post 8vo. 16^. Vols. V. and VI.— NORTHERN CATHEDRALS.— York, RiPON, Durham, Carlisle, Chester, and Manches- ter. With 60 Illustrations. 2 vols. Post 8vo. 2IJ. Vol. VII.— WELSH CATHEDRALS. — Llandaff, St. David's, St. Asaph's, and Bangor. With 40 Illustra- tions. Post 8vo. is.f. Vol. VIII. — ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. With 20 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. los. 6d. " This very attractive and valuable work may, inrleed, be said to be by far tbe best guide-book to our Cathedrals. It is, in fact, a national work, as well as a Church work, and it is worthy of our Church and nation." — English Churchtttatt. " Handbooks that should provide a concise but correct history of the several Cathe- drals in this country have long been looked for, not only by antiquaries and archi- tects, but by all men of art or of letters. The illustrations are the best of their kind." — Literary Chitrchman, "These volumes will prove a great boon to the architectural student ; but they are SO free from mere technical phraseology, and are so pleasantly written, that the general reader will be tempted to increase his knowledge of both the history and architecture of our great cathedrals." — yohti Bull. ^ THE CATHEDRAL ; Its necessary Place in the Life and Work of the Church. By EDWARD WHITE BENSON, D.D., Lord Bishop of Truro. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6j-. " Many a reader, clergyman and layman, will learn from this book a more definite conception of the meaning and use of Cathedrals than can be obtained elsewhere, and we believe this is due to the close knitting of theory with practice which underlies all Dr. Benson's work.'' — English Churchutan. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS PUBLICATIONS. 21 WORKS ON THE HOLY LAND AND SURROUNDING COUNTRIES. THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS: Their Manners, Customs, Private Life, Government, Laws, Arts, Manu- factures, Religion, Agriculture, Early History, etc.. Derived from a Comparison of the Paintings, Sculptures, AND Monuments still existing, with the Accounts of Ancient authors. By Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, F.R.S. A New Edition revised by SAMUEL BIRCH, LL.D. With 500 Illustrations, Coloured Plates, &c. 3 vols. Medium 8vo. 84s-. HISTORY OF EGYPT UNDER THE PHARAOHS. Derived Entirely from the Monuments. With a Memoir ON the Exodus of the Israelites and the Egyptian Monuments. By DR. HENRY BRUGSCH. Second Edition revised. Witji New Preface and Notes by the Author. Maps. 2 vols. 8vo. 32J. NILE GLEANINGS : Concerning the Ethnology, History, and Art of Ancient Egypt, as Revealed by Egyptian Paintings and Bas-Reliefs. With Descriptions of Nubia and its great Rock Temples to the Second Cataract. By VILLIERS STUART, of Dromana, M.P. With 58 Coloured Outline Plates, from Sketches and Impressions taken from the Monuments. Royal 8vo. 3IJ. 6fl'. THE FIVE GREAT MONARCHIES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD ; or, the History, Geography, and Antiquities of Assyria, Babylonia, Chald^a, Media, and Persia. By GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., Canon of Canterbury, and Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford. Third Edition, with Maps and 600 illustrations. 3 vols. 8vo 42J. . NINEVEH AND ITS REMAINS; a Popular Account OF Researches and Discoveries at Nineveh, . during an Expedition to Assyria in 1845-7. By Sir A. H. LA YARD. With numerous Illustrations, Post 8vo. ys. 6d, "The various attempts that have been made to give popular descriptions of Mr. Layard's disco verie.';, have taught him, the necessity of placing them in a- popular form before the public." — Economist. MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON: a Popular Narrative OF A Second Expedition to Assyria, 1849-51. By Sir A. H. LA YARD. With numerous Illustrations. Post 8vo. p. 6d. " It is with much pleasure that we introduce to our readers the most interesting contributions of the modern press. Such men as Mr, Layard deserve the gratitude of posterity." — Evangelical Magazine. THE LAND OF MOAB. Travels and Discoveries on the East Side of the Bead Sea and the Jordan. By the Rev. H. B. TRISTRAM, LL.D., F.R.S., Canon of Durham, Author of "The Land of Israel," "Natural History of the Bible," &c. With Map and Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 15^. ** Canon Tristram's party was ready for every emergency : however wild are the savages he meets, he has a missionary to spring on them who is familiar with their tongue and manners ; he has a botanist for every slirub ; and a photographer for every ruin. And besides all this, he is a host in himself — naturalist, philologer, anti- quary, geologist, Nimrod ; he is equally ready with his gun and his fossil- hammer, his Bible or his Arabic ; equally adept in solving the difficulties of Bedouin etiquette or stuffing a vulture, or determining a site. And besides all this, he carries a pen, and a very deft and ready pen, and when there is anything to tell he knows how to tell it ; and so Moab has been reft from the domain of the unknown and unknowable, and lies all mapped out and photographed and described. Altogether the book is a very inte- resting one, and we can only hope future explorers will imitate Mr. Tristram's part in the zeal and thoroughness of its research." — Saturday Revie^v. JOURNAL OF RESEARCHES IN THE HOLY LAND IN 1838 AND 1852. With Historical Illustrations. By EDWARD ROBINSON, D.D. Maps. 3 vols. 8vo. 42J. " Robinson's ' Biblical Researches,' has been our leading text-book on the geography of Palestine for twenty years. Until Eli Smith and Edward Robinson began their travels in 1838, little had been done towards a survey of the Holy Land which could pretend to be at onre scientific and historical. Together they rode through the country, noting its aspects, fixing its sites, laying down its wadies and watercourses, its deserts and mountains." — Atheitaum. THE BIBLE IN THE HOLY LAND. Extracts from the above Work for Village Schools. By a Lady. Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. SINAI AND PALESTINE; IN CONNECTION WITH THEIR HISTORY. By the late DEAN STANLEY. 14th Edition. Plans. 8vo. 14J. CONTENTS. Connection of Sacred History and Sacred Geography — Egypt in relation to Israel — Peninsula of Sinai — Palestine — The heights and passes of. Benjamin — ' Ephraim — The Maritime Plain — Jordan and the Dead Sea — Peraea — Plain of Esdraelon — Galilee — Sources of Jordan — Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon— The Gospel History — The Holy Places. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS PUBLICATIONS. 23 TRAVELS AMONG THE BEDOUIN TRIBES OF THE EUPHRATES. With some Account of the Arabs and THEIR Horses. By LADY ANNE BLUNT. With Map and Illustrations. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 245-. " Lady Anne Blunt fitly completes a triad of desert travellers of tlie gentler sex, with Lady Hester Stanhope and Lady Duff Gordon, uniting the vigour of the one with the femininity of the other. Lady Anne's work is quite sili generis, no famt praise in these days of many books. " — Field. A PILGRIMAGE TO NEJD, the Cradle of the Arab Race, and a Visit to the Court of the Arab Emik, and our Persian Campaign. By LADY ANNE BLUNT. Second Edition, with Map and Illustrations. 2 vols. Post 8vo. 24?. " This work adds very considerably to our knowledge of a strange and little-known region, and consists in graphic pictures of life among the interesting primitivcpeople among whom the author sojourned and received the greatest hospitaluy. The story reads like a tale from the ' Arabian Nights.' "—Times. DAMASCUS, PALMYRA, .LEBANON; WITH TRAVELS AMONG THE GIANT CITIES OF BASHAN AND THE HAURAN. By Rev. J. L. PORTER, D.D. Woodcuts. Post 8vo. Is. 6d. THE CRUISE OF THE "ROB ROY" ON THE JORDAN, NILE,' RED SEA, GENNESARETH, &c. A Canoe Cruise in Palestine and Egypt and the Waters of Damascus. By JOHN MACGREGOR, M.A. New Edition. With Maps and Illustrations. Post 8vo. "Js. dd. THE MODERN CQSTOMS AND MANNERS OF BIBLE LANDS, ILLUSTRATIVE OF SCRIPTURE. By HENRY VAN-LENNEP, D.D. With Coloured Maps and 300 Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo. 2\s. "Dr. Van-Lennep's work contains a mass of information on the manners and customs of Bible lands not readily accessible elsewhere." — Atliejiceiatu TRAVELS IN ASIA MINOR. With Observations on the State of Society, and a Description of Antiquarian Researches and Discoveries, together with an Account of Missionary Labours, Illustrations of Biblical Literature and Archteology. By HENRY VAN-LENNEP, D.D., Thirty Years Resident in Turkey. With Map and Illustrations. 2 vols. Post Svo. 24J-. " Dr. Van-Lennep has written an interesting book respecting regions which, in the present day of geographical inquiry, do not receive the attention they des=rve at the hands of either travellers or antiquaries. He confines his descriptions of scenery and remarks upon the people entirely to what he himself saw ; and having a great deal of matter to narrate, he has not been under the necessity, like several modern travellers, of eking out the substance of his information by referring to observations of other explorers, or by manufactured digressions of a scientific character." — Record, THE TEMPLES OF THE JEWS. And the other B01LDINGS IN THE Haram Area, at Jerusalem. By JAMES FERGUSSON, D.C.L., F.R.S. With Plates and Woodcuts. 4to. 42J. 24 MR. MURRAY'S LIST. AN ATLAS OF ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY. Intended to Illustrate the "Dictionary of the Bible," and the "Dictionaries of Classical Antiquity." COMPILED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF WM. SMITH, D.C.L., and GEORGE GROVE, LL.D. Folio. Half-bound. £6 6s. Geographical Systems of the Ancients. The World as known to the Ancients. Empires of the BAnvLONiANS, Lydians, Medes, and Per- sians. Empire of Alexander the Great. 6. Kingdoms of the Successors OF Alexander the Great. The Roman Empire in its great- est Extent. The Roman Empire after its Division into the Eastern and Western Empires. Greek and Phcenician Colonies. Environs of Rome. Greece after the Doric Migra- tion. Greece during the Persian Wars. Greece during the Peloponne- sian War. Greece during the Achaean League. Northern Greece. Central Greece — Athenp. Peloponnesus.— With Plan of Sparta. Shores and Islands of the jEgean Sea. Historical Maps of Asia Minor. Asia Minor. Arabia. India. Northern Part of Africa, j^gypt and Ethiopia. Historical Maps of the Holy Land. 43. Plans of Babylon, Nineveh, Troy, Alexandria, and Byzan- tium, *' The students of Dr. Smith's admirable Dictionaries must have felt themselves in want of an Atlas constructed on the same scale of precise and minute informatioa with the article they were reading. This want has at length been supplied by the superb work before us. The indices are full, the engraving is exquisite, and the delineation of the natural features very minute and beautiful. It may safely be pro- nounced — and higher praise can scarcely be bestowed — to be a worthy companion to the volumes which it is intended to illustrate." — Gttardiaii. " This Atlas is intended to be a companion to the Dictionary of the Bible and the Classical Dictionaries. The maps are all new ; they have been constructed according to the highest and most recent authorities, and executed by the most eminent engravers. The artistic execution of this important and superb work is peerless. Each map is a picture. Their accuracy is of course beyond suspicion, although only continuous use can really teat it," — British Qtiarterly Review. Whether large or small, we have certainly no such a, thoroughly satisfactory set of Maps elsewhere : and this Atlas may almost claim an international value, for it has profited by both English and foreign help, and the Maps have been executed by the most eminent engravers both in London and Paris. JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. l^