was the steady, able, and persistent work of the Liberation Society that had brought the question to the position in which it stood to-day. The society had kept the free-church principles to the front, and by its collection and diffusion of accurate information had supplied speakers with the means of educating public opinion. He thought the movement would gain by a sympathetic co-operation of the Liberation Society, with its long experience, and the new Nonconformist Political Council, with its youthful enthusiasm. A resolution was adopted affirming the belief that no effective remedy for the evils complained of would be found in either the action of the bishops of the Established Church, the renewal of ecclesiastical prosecutions, or new parliamentary enactments. The state, having proved itself unable to exercise adequate control over the Established clergy or successfully to regulate the Established Church's affairs, should withdraw from the Church national authority and endowments, and, concurrently therewith, permit its members to possess the same rights of self-government as are enjoyed by non-established religious communities. In the opinion of the Council the time had arrived when the question of disestablishment should be urgently pressed upon the leaders of the Liberal party, and also upon the constituencies, in view of the next general election. Another resolution called for new and vigorous efforts to remove the grievance caused by the absence of public unsectarian schools under popular control in thousands of English parishes, and urging especially the necessity of increased facilities for the training of teachers in undenominational colleges.

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The Church and Papal Claims.-In a letter addressed to Cardinal Vaughan, March 12, concerning a paper issued by him entitled "A Vindication of the Bull Apostolica Curæ," the archbishops entered a denial of the claims made in the paper of supremacy of power and authority in the Pope, affirming that such claims had been deliberately and consistently rejected not only by the Church of England, but also by the great churches of the Fast, and declining to allow that those bodies "have given any evidence of that chaos which you suppose to be inevitable where the papal claims are not accepted." The letter called attention to the fact that the author of the "Vindication" had introduced the doctrine of transubstantiation as practically constituting "the one sure test of the validity of holy orders," while the Pope had made no direct reference to that subject. Had his Holiness" they say, "followed the line of argument which you have now adopted, our answer must have taken a different form. But we could not answer what he did not say. . . . It is, for us, simply impossible to believe it to be the will of the Lord that admission to the ministry of the Church of Christ should depend upon the acceptance of a metaphysical definition, expressed in terms of medieval philosophy, of the mysterious gift bestowed in the holy eucharist; above all, when we remember that such a definition was unknown to the Church in the early ages of its history and only publicly affirmed by the Church of Rome in the thirteenth century." The archbishops concluded their letter with the expression of the belief that among the hindrances to the fulfillment of the unity of the Church "there are few more powerful than the claims of supremacy and infallibility alleged on behalf of the Pope of Rome and the novel dogmas which have been accepted from time to time by the Roman Church." Convocations.-At the meeting of the Convocation of Canterbury, Feb. 15, the reply of the Queen to the address presented by the Convocation to her Majesty on the occasion of her diamond jubilee

was read. The archbishop represented in the upper house that the working of the voluntary schools act of the last session had been very satisfactory, and the operation of the associations of schools had been exceedingly favorable all over the country. The creation of the federations of schools had had the effect intended. The archbishop and the Archbishop of York had agreed that the holding of joint sessions of the two convocations from time to time would be good for the Church. Resolutions appended to the report of the committee of the upper house on parochial councils and discussed in the lower house sought to impress upon the parochial clergy "the importance of securing the confidence and co-operation of lay Churchmen in the manner which in each parish may be best adapted to its wants," and suggest that one mode by which this may be accomplished would be by the formation of parochial Church councils, the initiative in forming these councils and the power of dissolving them to rest in the incumbent, subject to the approval of the bishop; the councils to consist of the incumbent, who should be chairman, the assistant clergy licensed by the bishop, the churchwardens, sidesmen duly appointed and admitted, and elected councilors, all to be communicants of the Church of England. The duties of the council should be to take the principal share in the raising of funds and administrative, finance, and to assist the incumbent in the initiation and development in the parish of all departments of parochial Church work, and to advise him on matters in which he thinks it expedient to consult them. The House of Laymen directed the appointment of a committee to consider and report how "the freedom for self-regulation" referred to in a resolution passed by the house on May 13, 1897, should be exercised, and what steps should be taken with a view to obtain such freedom. The resolution of May 13 referred to in this action contemplated the institution of a reformed convocation "with the assistance in matters other than the definition and interpretation of the faith and doctrine of the Church of a representative body or bodies of the faithful laity."

The Houses of Convocation met again May 11. A petition was presented in both houses from Mr. John Kensit, publisher, 18 Paternoster Row, London, drawing the attention of the houses to the facts "that in a large number of the dioceses of the province, and especially in the metropolitan area services other than those in the Book of Common Prayer are in constant use, in most cases without lawful authority; that these services are largely those in use in the Church of Rome, and taken from the Roman Missal and other books belonging to that Church. I have been blamed for making public protest against these practices, and I desire to state that these protests are most painful to myself, and will most gladly be discontinued if those having authority will exercise the same and cause these illegal services to be discontinued." archbishop, while criticising Mr. Kensit's proceedings in making the public protests, called attention to the importance of the subject and advised action upon it, saying that he had himself been intending to bring the matter before Convocation.

The

The lower house requested the archbishop to direct the appointment of a joint committee of both houses to consider and report on the position of the laity in the early Church and under the constitution of the Church of England, with reference to legislation on matters ecclesiastical, with power to confer with a committee of the Convocation of York appointed for the same purpose. It also suggested the appointment of a committee to confer with the Church Committee of the House of Com

mons respecting bills before the house affecting Church interests.

At the third meeting of the Convocation, July 5, the upper house adopted a report concerning the remarriage of divorced persons, explaining that in consequence of recent legislation the Church had had to consider the matter from the point of view of principle. In so doing it could not shut its eyes to a conflict of opinion on the subject of the Lord's words, and to the course adopted by the Eastern Church in allowing dissolution of marriage for adultery. The resolutions of the Lambeth Conference of 1888 were quoted, declaring divorces for adultery the only valid ones, with absolute prohibition of marriage of the guilty party during the life of the other, and recognizing difference of opinion within the Church as to the right of the innocent party to marry, in view of which the clergy should not be instructed to refuse the sacraments or other privileges of the Church to such parties remarried; and continued: "It ought, in our judgment, to be clearly and strongly impressed upon the faithful and upon the clergy as their advisers in matters of discipline and conduct that the Christian ideal is that of indissoluble marriage, and that the most dutiful and loyal course, even in the case of the innocent party, is to put aside any thought of marriage after divorce. But if any Christian, conscientiously believing himself or herself to be permitted by the Lord's words to remarry, determine to do so, then endeavor should be made to dissuade such people from seeking marriage with the rites of the Church, legal provision having been made for marriage by civil process. The language of the marriage service is unsuitable for repetition, except in case where the marriage tie has been dissolved by death or the marriage is proved to have been invalid from the beginning." Further, the report cites the declaration on the subject in the evangelical letter of the Lambeth Conference of 1897, uttering "earnest words of warning against the lightness with which the lifelong view of marriage is often taken, against the looseness with which those who enter this holy estate often regard its obligations, and against the frequency and facility of recourse to the courts of law for the dissolution of this most solemn bond."

The Convocation of York met Feb. 16. A resolution was passed expressing the opinion that the present method of procedure at the confirmation of bishops needs to be amended, and requesting the archbishop to counsel with the Archbishop of Canterbury on the subject. The archbishop was also requested, in view of the possible legal representation of the laity, to appoint a joint committee to determine what shall be the qualification of persons elected to serve as legal lay representatives. The lower house requested the archbishop to confer with the Archbishop of Canterbury with refer ence to the appointment of a committee duly representative of the Houses of Laymen of both provinces to consider and report upon the position which the laity should occupy in any scheme for the self-government of the Church; but advised that "it is not advisable to delay legislation on ecclesiastical matters until a reform of the Houses of Convocation and the legal representation of lay members have been effected."

At the second meeting of the Convocation, June 8, the Bishop of Liverpool moved, in the upper house, "that, in the opinion of this house, the increase of lawlessness on the part of many of the clergy in the conduct of divine worship in their churches, and especially the introduction of unauthorized services in the practice and celebration of the holy communion, and the growing dissatisfaction of the laity in consequence of such lawlessness demand the special attention of the bishops, and

therefore this house considers it necessary at the present juncture that the clergy of our respective dioceses should be called upon to remember the solemn declarations, subscriptions, and oaths made and taken by them at their ordination, licensing, or institution, and in particular their legal and moral obligation to use the form prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer and none other, except so far as shall be ordered by lawful authority." The bishop observed that he regarded the Church of England as at the present moment in a very perilous position, above all, from the dangerous fact that the people were complaining continually in every part of the land that the bishops would not speak out, and would not do anything to show whether they approved or disapproved of the movement that was going on in the Church of England. The result of that must certainly be that sooner or later, drifting as they appeared to be, the end of all would be disruption and disestablishment. Churchmen all over the land were angry, and many refused to go to church because they said the clergy were going behind the Reformation. The evil was increasing more and more, and was a cancer eating into the very vitals of the Church of England. The motion was supported by the Bishops of Manchester, Durham, and Sodor and Man, who recognized equally with the archbishop the gravity of the crisis and advanced arguments in substantial harmony with those which he had presented. The Bishop of Wakefield moved an amendment, declaring that, in the opinion of this house, there is a serious danger at the present time of wide divergencies in liturgical practices, owing to the introduction on the part of some of the clergy of services and ceremonies unauthorized by lawful authority and alien to the principles of the Church of England, and especially owing to the alterations by way of omission or addition to the order for the administration of holy communion, and that these practices need some restraint and guidance, due regard being had under the authority of the ordinary to modern needs and the reasonable liberty which has always obtained in the Church of England." Supporting his motion, he claimed that the bishops had acted, and were acting, and held that it was futile to undertake to govern the Church of England as a system of machinery which was two centuries old, and which could not be applied in its entirety and strictness to the ends of the present day. A great growing and lively Church like this must have constant developments tried in order to provide an outlet for the religious needs of the present day. The Bishop of Chester did not regard the crisis as acute, and thought it would be better for them to content themselves with the utterance of opinions. The archbishop, closing the debate, thought that to regard the state of things as found in some quarters as characteristic of the Church as a whole would be a very grave exaggeration. His own impression was that there was, no doubt, in every diocese a certain number of instances in which the things described in the complaints were done, but these were a mere handful among the clergy of the Church of England; and he believed that the present evil, so far as it existed, was a temporary ailment which would sooner or later run its course and pass away. The amendment offered by the Bishop of Wakefield was adopted.

The Ritualistic Crisis.-The attention of the people of England has been forcibly directed to the development and extension of ritualism by a course of proceedings of novel and rather sensational character. The feelings of the antiritualists among the laymen were emphatically expressed in the House of Laymen of the Convocation of Canterbury by Sir Henry Embree, M. P., who said they

had heard a great deal about the susceptibilities of the clergy; he would venture to put in a plea for the susceptibilities of the laity. It would be unwise, he said, to shut their eyes to dissensions which existed in the Church. Interpolations of faith and doctrine were set before them by individual clergy, and they had “uses introduced at their services which were alien to the Church of England. Had the laity no right to speak on such questions? They had every right, and they would exercise it. If they did not, to whom could they look for guidance? Not to the bishops. Why not? "Because we have bishops who do not govern, and clergy who will not obey." The Church of England, he contended, was passing through an extremely grave crisis, and to argue that the laity must have nothing to say to strange interpretations of faith and doctrine was absurd.

In January, Mr. John Kensit, of London, a publisher, began a course of visiting churches where ritualistic uses were practiced, and on their introduction, rising, and, as a communicant and ratepayer of the Church of England, protesting against them. So he did at the Church of St. Ethelburga, Bishopsgate, where he demanded to be given the communion "in the Protestant way," secured the removal of illegal objects, and caused the curate in charge to resign his position rather than give the communion to him as he demanded; and at St. Michael's Church, Curtain Road, where a protest was made against the ceremony of aspergation, or sprinkling with holy water, and one of his associates was arrested for "brawling," while a summons was asked for against the curate for assault by throwing water (the aspergation) upon the Protestants. For some of his protests Mr. Kensit was himself taken to court and fined. He prepared a petition to the Convocation of Canterbury, calling the attention of the houses to the alleged illegal practices and asking them to take steps to have them cease. He had difficulty in finding any member of Convocation willing to introduce the petition, when he received an unexpected letter from the Bishop of London offering to present it the next day. The bishop added to the offer the words: "It would greatly strengthen my hands in dealing with this very important matter if you would assure us that you would discontinue your protests at divine service and would submit to me a memorial stating objectionable practices and your reasons for objecting to them." Mr. Kensit replied with an assurance that he would make no public protest in any Church for two calendar months, and that he would cause arrangements that had been made for public protests in thirteen other dioceses to be similarly suspended. The following statements were made in Mr. Kensit's petition to the bishops:

"The petition of the undersigned, John Kensit, a baptized communicant of the Church of England, humbly showeth

"I. That grave scandal and distress have been occasioned to the minds of many, including the petitioner, by the restoration within many churches, both of the metropolis and throughout the land, of the practices and teachings which were discarded by the national Church at the time of the blessed Reformation, all of them borrowed from the Church of Rome, and designed to teach the false doctrine, among others (a) that the consecrated wafer is not merely an emblem of the Lamb of God,' but, in

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the words of the Bishop of Southwell, is actually and really the Lamb of God,' to be worshiped by the congregation as being 'God blessed forevermore'; (b) that this 'Lamb of God' so reproduced in the hands of a priest under the form of bread and wine' is offered upon an 'altar' by the priest, as a sacrifice, for the remission of pain or guilt, and for the absent or dead.

"II. That grave injustice is done to the laity when idolatrous rites are enacted publicly by the officiant in public worship, because his acts are those of the congregation which he represents, and in whose person he addresses the Almighty. Every person present, therefore, who does not protest is an accomplice and participant in these illegalities. As a result, thousands of parishioners are debarred from attending public worship, and repelled from the Lord's Table by the conduct of clergymen who, though members of the Protestant Reformed Church of England as by law established, yet repudiate the very name of Protestant, and in defiance of their ordination vows preach, teach, and inculcate the doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome.

"III. That these abuses, though growing rapidly, owing to the protection afforded to the wrongdoers by the bishops, have gone on uninterruptedly for many years, and that the inaction of the bishops can be in no way due to the recent proceedings taken by your petitioner.

"IV. That great social and domestic evils are being felt in many families owing to the inculcation of the practice of sacramental confession upon candidates for confirmation and others for which no warrant exists in the Reformed Church of England; and nothing would do so much to check this evil as its outspoken condemnation by the House of Bishops. "V. That your petitioner recognizes the right of the legislature to alter, vary, and add to the ritual now in lawful use, and also the binding nature of the decisions of the Queen in Council, but he respectfully submits that no other standard can possibly be acceptable to the whole Church as established by law. The only hope of peace in an established church is the common agreement to be bound by the same formularies until they have been amended by the same authority which originally enacted them.

"VI. Your petitioner submits the following list of some ornaments and ceremonies which have already been declared by the Queen's courts to be illegal': Unlawful ornaments of the minister: (1) the alb; (2) the berretta; (3) the chasuble; (4) the cope; (5) the dalmatica; (6) the tunic or tunicle; (7) the maniple. Unlawful ornaments of the church: (8) a baldachino; (9) lighted candles when not required for giving light; (10) a stone altar; (11) a cross on, or over, or in apparent connection with the communion table; (12) a crucifix; (13) stations of the cross. Unlawful ceremonies: (14) bowing down before or addressing worship to the consecrated elements: (15) the attendance of acolytes; (16) tolling of bell at consecration; (17) making the sign of the cross over the people; (18) hiding the manual acts; (19) elevation of the elements: (20) the use of incense; (21) the ceremonial mixing of water with the wine during divine service; (22) the use of wafers in lieu of bread usual to be eaten.'

"The growth of these illegal practices is indicated by the following table:

Incense

Altar lights.

Mixed chalice

2.111

Hiding manual acts

5.964

"Under these circumstances, the Church has a right to expect that the bishops should suppress all unlawful practices at once, and direct the removal of stone altars' or other illegal furniture introduced without a faculty, and the restoration of the Ten Commandments to their accustomed place; should refuse to consecrate any church until illegal ornaments have been removed; and should at once suppress all variations in the communion service from the language and rubrical directions of the Book of Common Prayer, and that no office book be employed in any service which has not the authority of the entire Church of England. For these purposes the bishops have already ample powers. The bishops have already power to refuse to license any lawbreaking clergyman to a curacy, to test the Romanizing spirit of candidates for the ministry, and to refuse institution to lawbreakers who will not conform in future to the requirements of the law. The paternal authority of the bishops would enable them in the vast majority of cases to put an end to the irregularities complained of, but where that may not suffice they can direct a monition to be served, disobedience to which would lead in due course to the suspension, or it may be deprivation, of the contumacious wrongdoer. Your petitioner respectfully submits that the long neglect of the ordinaries themselves has been the cause of the confusion and discrder which now exist. "Your petitioner humbly desires that your honorable house will take immediate steps for the repression of these evils and abuses."

An appeal issued by the Church Association to the people of England in the beginning of July called attention to the influence of secret societies as the source of the existing troubles and of dangers from the teaching of the doctrines of the mass, and of sacerdotalism, which were described in forcible language.

The subject formed the principal topic discussed at the annual meeting of the Church Association, May 2, when the presiding officer, Capt. A. W. Cobham, in his opening address spoke of the situation in its relation to the movement represented by the association as indicating an approaching crisis. The apathy of Protestants had been rudely shaken by the archbishop's reply to the Pope, by the attempt to upset the educational settlement of 1870, by the proposal of an Irish Roman Catholic university," and by practices called idolations against which Mr. Kensit had been moved to utter open protests during service. The report of the council mentioned as the only effective remedy against the advance of sacerdotalism the organization of a Protestant party in the House of Commons, and they were now endeavoring to enroll 100 Protestant electors in every constituency, who would pledge their votes to the side which it might be decided to support. They had undertaken the cost of Mr. Kensit's appeal against his recent conviction (based on his protest), and the cost of his application for removing a tabernacle-an "ornament"-from the Lord's table in St. Ethelburga's Church. A memorial relating to St. Ethelburga's signed by 15,000 Protestant Churchmen had that morning been presented to the Bishop of London. The decision of the council to support Mr. Kensit was approved by the association, and it was decided to raise £2,000 for the purpose. Mr. Kensit attended the meeting and was received with cheers. He declared that he was going all over the country in his crusade against idolatry in the Church of England, and that he believed a glorious reaction in favor of Protestantism was setting in; but it was a time for deeds, not words.

At a large meeting of ministers of the Established Church, held in London in May, a memorandum

was adopted setting forth certain principles adherence to which was regarded as essential to enable the Church to maintain its position and secure healthy conditions for effective progress. It recognized that a chief difficulty hitherto to be contended with had been in securing those Catholic privileges which, while they obviously and certainly belonged to Churchmen, had been overlaid and forgotten in past years of apathy and neglect. Individuals endeavoring to vindicate their rights in this respect had been moved by a desire to be united with other parts of the Church in witness to Catholic doctrine, but their action was limited to securing what seemed fairly within the limits of the authoritative sanctions and traditions of the English Church. On the other hand difficulties had arisen out of a return to certain practices which were explicitly or by implication abolished at the Reformation, or out of a resort to certain foreign developments which never had any footing in the English Church. The signers of the memorandum wished to express their view that developments of this kind could not be introduced except by or under the sanction of authority, submission to which was a first principle of Catholicism. The immediate authority with which English Churchmen had to do was that of the English Church, not that of the Roman or the Gallican or any other Church. It followed that nothing could have valid ecclesiastical authority for English Churchmen which the English Church had never received or authorized, or which the English Church had definitely repudiated, whether explicitly or by implication, though it might at one time have had the authority of that Church. Authority expressed itself through the bishops jointly and severally. The Declaration of Assent in the use of the Book of Common Prayer was interpreted in this memorandum as a pledge to use the ceremonials therein prescribed "as the positive and sufficient rule and order of the ministrations of the Church for which they are provided as opposed to modifications of them, whether by change, addition, or division, except in so far as such modifications may be enjoined or allowed by lawful authority."

Action of the Church Union.-The annual meeting of the English Church Union was held June 16, Viscount Halifax presiding. The president, in his address, asserted the right of the Church to say or sing mass with the old ritual, except in such particulars as had been forbidden, denounced those who would interfere with it or disturb the exercise of it, and said he was quite certain that lights, vestments, and the mixed chalice would not be given up; but services not directly prescribed by the Prayer Book, such as the Three Hours, the Story of the Cross, and the Veneration of the Cross, must be given up if the bishop of the diocese desired. Obedience to authority was of more importance than any particular form of devotion or liturgical enrichment. No one, however, who respected the authority of the Church could object to those services as superstitious or sensuous. It was no more superstitious to bow to an altar than to the throne, to say "with my body I thee worship" to a wafer than to the emblem of our salvation. It was impossible to obey episcopal admonitions founded on a denial of the truth, such as a condemnation of bowing to the altar because it witnessed a belief in the real presence of the body and blood of Christ under the forms of bread and wine, or a proposal to renounce the Athanasian Creed because it insisted on the necessity of holding to the Catholic faith for salvation. It was necessary that present wants should be met by the sanction of additional services and collects. If individual priests had stretched the limits of their

responsibility, was it not partly due to the fact that the authorities of the Church had done so little? The need of authorized prayers for the faithful departed and the reservation of the blessed sacrament for the communion of the sick, the duty of restoring the last unction, the obligation of maintaining the duty of Christian marriage at all risks when had these been put forward by authorities of the English Church for the last thirty years except by Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury? It was not necessary that every detail of the service should be referred to the bishop, or that authority should make itself felt to the same extent as in the Roman Catholic communion. Canon Gore advised circumspection and care to remove every cause of blame from among themselves. They could not forever acquiesce in the present situation; but history emphatically taught that there was no way to lose liberty like that of allowing themselves illegitimate license. The Rev. A. J. Suckling, of St. Alban's, Holborn, held that by altering anything while brutal and barbarous interference was going on they would play into the hands of those who were doing their utmost to drive them out of the Church. It would be an admission that they regarded ritual as a kind of play, while it was most serious as an exponent of doctrine. They could not help the bishops by giving in. A resolution, moved by the Dean of Rochester, was carried without dissent: "That this union is prepared to give all possible support to the lawful authority of the bishops as ordinaries in the settlement of liturgical difficulties, humbly confiding that, as members of the Catholic episcopate, they will impose nothing on the consciences of the clergy and laity which is contrary to the teaching and practices of the whole Catholic Church of Christ. That the Union will give legal and all other assistance in its power to incumbents and congregations in all necessary efforts to protect the celebration of the holy eucharist and the services of the Church from profanity and sacrilege. That it must not be supposed that members of the Union and other loyal Churchmen, because they have not resorted to prosecutions, disturbances, or brawling in church, do not feel most keenly the omissions and deviations from the Book of Common Prayer and the novel practices which have been allowed to grow up in a Protestant or Latitudinarian direction during the present century, as well as the denial of the services to which they have a right, or that they are not often aggrieved and driven away from their parish churches thereby." Declarations of Bishops.-The controversy concerning ritual was referred to by most of the bishops in official addresses or charges, or in special communications to the clergy of their several dioceses. Many of them uttered specific instructions concerning proper ritual or admonitions against ex

cess.

The Bishop of London sent letters to the clergy of his diocese informing them that any additional service used should conform entirely to the spirit and intention of the Prayer Book, and in all cases should be submitted to his sanction; that such services, when used, should be separated by a distinct interval from the services appointed in the Prayer Book, and should be announced as additional; they should consist of psalms, lessons, and prayers taken from the Prayer Book adapted for special classes, such as services for children, or for men and women, or members of parochial guilds or organizations, or they should be intercessions for special purposes, such as missions, or temperance, or the like.

The Bishop of Liverpool issued a circular specifically mentioning a number of ritualistic practices not authorized by the Prayer Book, and requesting ministers to abstain from them. The practices speci

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fied are: The use of incense; the use of lighted candles in or near the communion table when not required for the purpose of giving light; the use of sacrificial vestments at the holy communion; the use of catechisms for children directly teaching Mariolatry"; the use of prayers for the dead at holy communion, not enjoined in the Book of Common Prayer and expressly excluded from the second book of Edward VI; the requirement of habitual auricular confession from communicants, as a condition precedent to communion, or as tending to promote the highest spiritual life, which was expressly condemned by the Lambeth Conference in 1878; the use of the "reserved sacrament" for invalids, which was condemned by the twentyeighth article of the communion rubric; the public celebration of the Lord's Supper with less than three persons to communicate with the priest; and the use of the word "mass" in giving notice of the holy communion.

The Bishop of Hereford made a distinction between the ritual of reverent devotion and that which was symbolical of unsound doctrine. That which spread sacerdotal and sacramental theories had no basis in the New Testament. He deprecated the disposition to introduce new ceremonies into the service, which were almost always imitations of some Roman Catholic practice, and strongly deprecated habitual confession as involving the risk of an unnatural sentiment, dangerous to the moral and spiritual nature. As to the method of dealing with these excesses, he thought no wise bishop would resort to prosecutions till every other effort had failed.

The Bishop of Lichfield in September instructed the clergy of his diocese that:

"1. The prescribed offices in the Book of Common Prayer should be said as ordered without omissions or additions, except such as are allowed under the act of uniformity amendment act, or as might be lawfully authorized from time to time by the bishop of the diocese.

"2. Audible interpolations in the communion service are illegal.

"3. The reservation of the blessed sacrament for the purpose of adoration is neither legal nor primitive. Its reservation for administration to the sick is primitive, but is not legal.

4. The ceremonial use of incense in the prescribed services of the Church is illegal.

"5. The holy communion should not be celebrated unless the number of persons to communicate with the priest required by their Church is assured.

"6. Prayers for the dead should be after the primitive model, and in entire accordance with the spirit of the Book of Common Prayer.

7. The observance of saints' days and holy days besides those for which a collect, epistle, and gospel were provided in the Book of Common Prayer should be limited to those in the Prayer-Book calendar.

"8. No additional services should be held in the church without the permission of the bishop. "9. The invocation of saints is illegal.

10. It is not lawful to impose any conditions on the baptized antecedent to their presentation for confirmation, nor on the confirmed antecedent to their reception of holy communion, which are not imposed by any order contained in the Book of Common Prayer."

The bishop declared that the only right and reasonable course for the sake of order and in justice to the laity was to keep to the Prayer Book; that the test of reality of worship is righteousness of life in this world; and the test of the efficiency of the ministrations of the clergy was the moral standard of their parishioners.