LI E> RAR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 U N 1 VLRSITY 
 or ILLl NOIS
 
 H CbatGC 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Dioceee of Mincbeeter 
 
 SEPTEMBER 28, 30, OCTOBER 2, 3, 4, 5 
 1899 
 
 RANDALL T. DAVIDSON, D.D. 
 
 BISHOP 
 
 iLontion 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1899 
 
 All rights r(ser-jed
 
 Richard Ci.ay and Sons, Limited, 
 london and bungay.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Meaning of a Visitation i 
 
 Its divine side 2 
 
 Its human side 3 
 
 Recent Bishops of Winchester 5 
 
 A Bishop's duty 8 
 
 (rt) To the Diocese 8 
 
 {b) To outside work 9 
 
 Sacred and Secular questions 9 
 
 Subject for this Visitation 10 
 
 Results of the Reformation in England 12 
 
 Its character 13 
 
 Partisan theories 14 
 
 The ultimate Prayerbook . -15 
 
 Our subscription to it 17 
 
 II 
 
 Private Confession 
 
 Delicacy and difficulty 19 
 
 Pre-Reformation rules 20 
 
 The Council of Trent • .21 
 
 Changes made in England 24 
 
 The First Prayerbook 24 
 
 The Second Prayerbook 26 
 
 Visitation of the Sick 28 
 
 Canons of 1603 29 
 
 Evidence from the Formularies 29 
 
 Other evidence .... • 30 
 
 Danger of isolated quotations 32 
 
 The Homilies 33 
 
 Richard Hooker 35 
 
 Conclusion as to general use 39
 
 VI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Doctrinal question 40 
 
 Church of England teaching 42 
 
 The use to be exceptional 44 
 
 Archbishop Benson 44 
 
 Archbishop Temple 45 
 
 No compulsion permissible 47 
 
 Children not included under rubrics 48 
 
 Young Priests 49 
 
 Need of Pastoral intercourse 49 
 
 A Bishop's duty 51 
 
 III 
 
 The Holy Communion ' 
 
 Changes made at the Reformation 53 
 
 The Principles of change 55 
 
 Restorated Communion of people 56 
 
 Pre-Reformation Masses 57 
 
 The Council of Trent 60 
 
 The English Reformers 61 
 
 Act of 1547 62 
 
 " Order of Communion " 1 548 . 64 
 
 First Prayerbook *..... 65 
 
 Second Prayerbook 65 
 
 Communion of the Sick 66 
 
 Presence of Non-Communicants 66 
 
 Bishop Jewel 69 
 
 Bishop Andre wes 70 
 
 Waterland 72 
 
 John Johnson 73 
 
 " Solitary Mass " 74 
 
 The Service simplified 75 
 
 " Openness " ']'] 
 
 Post-Reformation Roman use 78 
 
 Danger of Superstition 79 
 
 Mysteriousness of subject 80 
 
 Jeremy Taylor 81 
 
 Bishop Moberlv 83 
 
 Reverence to the Consecrated Elements 84 
 
 " Dangerous deceits " 85 
 
 Teaching of High Churchmen 86 
 
 Andrewes 87 
 
 Cosin 88 
 
 " The Black Rubric " 89 
 
 Bingham 90 
 
 Isolated quotations dangerous 91 
 
 uiuc' 
 
 \ 
 
 «Qrt*^
 
 Vll 
 
 Recapitulation 
 
 Modern Eucharistic teaching 
 
 Present-day difficulties . 
 Early Communion . 
 Fasting Reception . 
 Statement in Convocation 
 Mischievous Manuals . 
 St. Paul's teaching 
 The Ancient Rule . 
 John Johnson . 
 
 Conditions of Modern life . 
 
 " The Central Service " 
 
 Modern High Church Divines 
 Bishop Wilberforce 
 Bishop Wordsworth 
 Bishop Moberly 
 Prebendary Sadler 
 Rev. W. E. Scudamore 
 
 Children's Eucharists . 
 
 Manuals for Children . 
 
 Exceptional Cases . 
 'Objective" Doctrine . 
 
 Character of our Service 
 
 Need of more enthusiasm . 
 
 HAUE 
 92 
 
 93 
 94 
 96 
 96 
 
 97 
 
 98 
 
 100 
 
 lOI 
 
 103 
 104 
 105 
 106 
 107 
 108 
 109 
 
 1 10 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 1 12 
 113 
 115 
 117 
 118 
 119 
 
 IV 
 
 Present Difficulties 
 
 Partisan strife 121 
 
 Need of Unity 122 
 
 Differences sometimes trifling 124 
 
 History of the present strife 126 
 
 Ritual Controversies 129 
 
 Our Diocesan action 130 
 
 "Uniformity" 132 
 
 Variety is essential 134 
 
 But subject to authority 135 
 
 The Hearing at Lambeth 135 
 
 New Ecclesiastical Courts 136 
 
 " Spiritual Authority" 140 
 
 Work more important than controversy 141 
 
 Our trust for the children 142 
 
 Factors of Education problem 143 
 
 What Education means 144 
 
 Ideals precede action 145 
 
 Rural migration 146 
 
 Housing of the poor 147 
 
 The "Parson's" part • . 149
 
 Vlll 
 
 V 
 Diocesan Matters 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Diocesan Statistics 150 
 
 Contrasts with Bishop Sumner's days 152 
 
 Cottages in 1829 153 
 
 Education in 1833 153 
 
 Church Services in 1829 . . . • . . . .154 
 
 Non-residence . . .155 
 
 Church-building 156 
 
 Growth of Population' 157 
 
 Portsmouth 157 
 
 Southampton 157 
 
 Eastleigh 157 
 
 Diocesan Finance 159 
 
 Winchester Diocesan Society 160 
 
 Church Restoration 162 
 
 Progress and Administration 163 
 
 Clergy Sustentation Fund 164 
 
 Higher Religious Education 165 
 
 Study of Holy Scripture 166 
 
 Deaconesses 167 
 
 Temperance work i58 
 
 Rescue work • 169 
 
 Visitation questions 170 
 
 Sunday observance 171 
 
 Sunday bicyclists 172 
 
 Sunday Schools 174 
 
 Services in our Churches 175 
 
 Daily Service .... 176 
 
 Foreign Missions 179 
 
 Conclusion 179 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 A. Private Confession 181 
 
 B. Fasting Reception of Holy Communion 193 
 
 C. Episcopal Veto 197 
 
 D. Ritual Irregularity 198 
 
 E. Winchester Diocesan Society 206
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 My Reverend Brethren, — 
 
 I THINK I can count to-day, if ever, upon your 
 prayers. Try to picture what it must mean to speak 
 as Bishop to this Diocese — within this Choir — on such 
 an occasion as is ours to-day. 
 
 For a man to dwell over much or over often upon his Meaning 
 own deficiencies is, I well know, paralysing to himself tation. 
 rather than stimulating to others. But comparisons so 
 humiliating as to be nearly overwhelming must rush 
 in upon the soul at such an hour, in a place so 
 fraught with every memory, every association, that adds 
 lustre to the records of thirteen centuries of the 
 Church's storied life on this its holy ground. Circum- 
 spice. Respice. Yes, and tremble. But there is 
 another Voice. We heard it, we felt it just now. 
 Sursum corda. It is at His call that we are here, in 
 order that we may, if it be His will — and it is His 
 will — go back hence with loins regirded, with lights 
 rekindled, for our battles and our work. That, I 
 suppose, is in part what a Visitation means for all. 
 But it means more. In the words of one who stands
 
 pre-eminent among the teachers of our age, "It is a 
 foreshadowing and a forecast of the great and final 
 Visitation, when the Master Himself returning shall 
 demand an account of His talents, when the Chief 
 Shepherd shall reappear and require His flock at our 
 hands." ^ 
 The You will remember how the word translated " Visita- 
 
 Divine 
 
 side, tion " — the word eina-KO'jrr] — finds a place in the New 
 Testament, and in how solemn a connexion ; nothing 
 less than the Lord's own message when " He came 
 unto His own, and His own received Him not."^ 
 Again and again in the Old Testament, too, we come 
 upon the exact phrase. Sometimes it is used of God 
 Himself, sometimes of His ministers or representatives.^ 
 The thought is oversight, inspection, vigilant and 
 sympathetic governance, strict account asked and taken 
 as to the use of privilege and opportunity.'* To no 
 man here — I say it in all sincerity — can the thought be 
 so searching, can the words suggest so much, as to him 
 whose office as iirlcKO'iros under the " Shepherd and 
 Bishop of our souls," ^ is called into peculiar and 
 perilous exercise at such a time. His heart would be 
 " hard of fibre and chill of current " who did not him- 
 self strive to answer to that solemn call when he suggests 
 to others its significance. 
 
 1 Bishop Lightfoot, Primary Charge^ 1882, p, 3. 
 
 2 e.g.^ S. Luke xix. 44. Cf. i Tim. iii. I j I Peter ii. 12. 
 ^ Job X. 12 ; Isaiah x. 3 ; Jeremiah vi. 15, &c. 
 
 * See The Visitation of the Kingdom of God^ a Charge by the 
 Bishop of Chester, 1896, p. 17. 
 5 I Peter ii. 25.
 
 You will find it worth while to go back in thought 
 to some of the occasions on which the word " Visitation," 
 liTLaKoirr]^ is used in Holy Scripture. Job, for example, 
 the servant of God, tells how, in his life past, the 
 €7rt<r/co7r//, the Visitation of the Lord, had stirred and 
 quickened him for work or for endurance.^ Or Isaiah, 
 in one of the grandest of his trumpet-calls to a callous 
 careless people, bids them remember that the Lord does 
 see and care and know, and that His " Visitation," His 
 day of inquiry and of reckoning, will surely come. 
 The prophet's eye sees that day closing in the darkest 
 night of which a Jewish heart could think — the end of 
 their opportunity.^ 
 
 The phrase has, throughout, a solemn meaning. But 
 trace the word, or rather the thought embodied in the 
 word, and you will find it clear, as has been well said, 
 that the central motive of His Visitation is always love : 
 love fulfilling itself in many ways, taking shape accord- 
 ing to the conditions and characters, the work or lack of 
 work with which it has to deal. Be it ours, then, in 
 thought and prayer and resolve, to go far deeper, far 
 higher, than any mere notion of a Diocesan Visitation, 
 however solemn, can carry us. It is the great Pastor 
 pastorum^ the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, who is 
 Himself speaking face to face with every one of us. 
 
 But to come down now to its human side. Strange The 
 to say, there has been no Episcopal Visitation of this ^slde!" 
 Diocese for fifteen years. The failing health of one 
 ^ Job X. 12. 2 Isaiah x. 3.
 
 loved and venerable Bishop, and the too brief tenure of 
 the See by his successor, give the reason for this most 
 unusual interval. Time was, a generation or two since, 
 when such a pause would have mattered more than it 
 matters now. Until some thirty or forty years ago a 
 Visitation was practically the only occasion — a Visitation 
 Charge the only medium — of communication between a 
 Bishop and his Diocese as a whole, on matters affecting 
 either the diocese or the Church at large. Once every 
 three or four or seven years, as the case might be, the 
 Diocesan put forth his manifesto in the form of a 
 Charge, and, worthily or unworthily, it stood out 
 prominently from its isolation. Nowadays all is differ- 
 ent. Diocesan Conferences, and meetings public and 
 private of every kind, give such ample opportunity for 
 speech and counsel, for testing progress and repairing 
 deficiencies, that the intermission of a quadrennial 
 Visitation in the year when, according to precedent, it 
 ought to come, is perhaps scarcely noticed, and is, I am 
 certain, very readily condoned. 
 
 But the fourth year is drawing to a close since I 
 was here installed as Bishop ; and I have desired, for 
 my own sake and for yours, that we should furnish the 
 facts and figures a Visitation requires, and should meet 
 in our full numbers for a Solemn Service of Holy Com- 
 munion, and for such words of counsel as it is my part 
 to offer you. 
 
 The answers you have severally furnished to the full 
 enquiries I sent out give me food for thought, for 
 thankfulness, for anxiety, for hope. To some of the 
 facts and figures therein set forth I hope to return in
 
 my final Address a few days hence, when I shall try to 
 deal in some detail with what specially belongs to the 
 great Diocese in which our own work lies. 
 
 To many of you to whom I speak, the very com- 
 piling of those figures has served to suggest comparison 
 with other days, and to recall the faces, the words, and 
 the work of not a few whom we shall see no more 
 on earth. 
 
 Not one of us, probably, but had such guides and 
 friends in mind when in this morning s Eucharist we 
 joined our prayers and praises, not only " with angels 
 and archangels," but " with all the company of 
 heaven." 
 
 It would be a vain task for me to try to run over 
 now a bede-roU of such names. The day may come 
 when, in the larger workfield beyond, we shall 
 
 Know them by look and voice, and thank them all 
 For helping us in thrall, 
 
 For words of hope and bright examples given, 
 To show through moonless skies that there is light 
 in heaven. 
 
 But I dare not pass over quite in silence the names Bishops of 
 
 ^^inclics- 
 
 of the two great Fathers in God through whom, during ter in 
 these eventful years since last a Visitation was held, the limes. 
 sacred trust now laid upon my shoulders has been 
 handed down. 
 
 I remember on one occasion hearing Mr. Gladstone 
 dwell upon what he regarded as a peculiar characteristic 
 of the Church of England ; the fact that those who 
 occupy her foremost posts are able therein to use with-
 
 out restraint whatever special gifts and graces are their 
 own. He thought — I do not stay to discuss the 
 question — that in another Communion than ours there 
 is less scope for this individuality, less freedom from 
 the limitations of a monotonous rule. He was alluding 
 specially to the character, the interests and the work of 
 the four successive Archbishops of Canterbury whom 
 he had intimately known, and he dwelt with his wonted 
 energy upon what he thought was the gain secured to 
 the Church from such variety. The memory of that 
 talk has come back to me many a time when I have 
 looked, in search of information or stimulus or 
 counsel, at the Biographies of my four immediate pre- 
 decessors in this See. Of Bishop Sumner and Bishop 
 Wilberforce I had no personal knowledge. Their 
 works do follow them. The example set in Bishop 
 Bishop Sumner's forty years' episcopate has borne the fruit 
 umner. ^^^ giyes to Seed faithfully sown day by day with the 
 effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. To his 
 notable and untiring work, and to the records of it 
 contained in his successive Charges, I shall have occasion 
 to refer in connection with our special Diocesan needs 
 Bishop and deficiencies. The eloquent and versatile energy of 
 forced" his successor, who for four short years inspired and 
 stimulated this Diocese from end to end, is a heritage 
 whereof the whole Church knows and reaps the value. 
 Bishop Of Bishop Harold Browne, who in this See was for 
 Browne. Seventeen years the honoured guide and counsellor and 
 friend of clergy and laity alike, whose quiet scholarly 
 wisdom earned for him as striking a place in the central 
 life of the National Church as his beauty and charm
 
 Thorold. 
 
 of character secured in the hearts of all who knew him, 
 I need scarcely speak, because you could tell of it as well 
 as I can. But it is surely worth while for us to note 
 with thankful hearts how real and practical to a Diocese 
 like ours, or to any Diocese, is the boon of such 
 variety of service as was rendered by the three great 
 Bishops whom I have named. They differed from one 
 another in almost every outward characteristic : but in 
 devotion to the cause of our Masier they were abso- 
 lutely at one. And then, to add as it were another type 
 to this succession of men of God, there came, for the 
 last four years of his busy life, the Bishop whom I have Bishop 
 twice been privileged to follow. Ere he came to 
 Winchester the best work of his life was done. The 
 place he will always occupy in the history of the 
 Church of England is due to what he did in the 
 creation, for it was nothing less, of the manifold and 
 vigorous corporate life which is aglow in that hugest 
 area of poverty — London south of the Thames. We 
 in Winchester, to whose Diocese that area once be- 
 longed, we who look back to St. Saviour's, Southwark, 
 for so much that makes us famous, are thankful to 
 remember that the man of our own day to whom South 
 London owes so much, stands too upon the great roll 
 of the Bishops of Winchester. Here, also, his rule, 
 though brief, was memorable. I have many a time 
 had occasion to tell you what I feel about his work — a 
 work stamped always with the unique marks of his 
 quite peculiar personality : the quiet tenacity of pur- 
 pose, the buoyant hopefulness, the dauntless energy of 
 will, the epigrammatic force of every spoken and
 
 written word, and, above all, the tireless devotion of 
 soul to the daily service of the Lord. 
 
 I recall to your minds this remarkable quaternion of 
 workmen not for the sake of thus praising them, but to 
 suggest to you afresh how widely diirerent may be, nay 
 will be, the " make " of the several men to whom the 
 Lord commits in turn some weighty trust, and how 
 He uses each and all to contribute something to the 
 working of His one great purpose for the world He 
 came to save. 
 A Bishop's My brothers, it would be out of place for me to say 
 
 " ^ all I feel about the qualifications which are, or would 
 be, needed for filling aright this special office in the 
 Church of England. Our Diocese has features dis- 
 tinctively its own. Its great traditions, with their cor- 
 responding duties, are (for reasons secular and sacred) 
 in some degree unique. Its variety of topography 
 and circumstance has no parallel in England, 
 (a) To this Compare and contrast, for example, the needs of such 
 
 locese , p^j.-^g|^gg^ g^y^ ^g these : Portsea, Weybridge, St. 
 
 Peter's Bournemouth, Eastleigh, Highclere, Aldershot, 
 Sark, Whippingham, 
 
 The Bishop is rightly called upon to be in touch day 
 by day with the strangely varied needs and interests 
 which these names suggest, to find time for looking 
 personally into the circumstances of each such parish — 
 we have 566 parishes in all — and to have ready at call 
 the appropriate word of counsel or stimulus, of en- 
 couragement or warning, which may at any moment be 
 required. This is all as it should be. It is one main 
 purpose for which a Bishop exists. But he is, besides,
 
 and not less rightly, expected to be giving time and 
 thought to a whole multitude of central things in the 
 life of the Nation or the Church, things quite other ((^) To out- 
 than Diocesan. Look back into any period you will of ^' *^ ^ ^ * 
 English History, and see the part which the Bishops 
 whose tombs surround you in this Choir have always 
 taken, as in duty bound, in such central matters as 
 affected at the time the wellbeing, and especially the 
 moral and religious wellbeing, of the English people. 
 Unless I am strangely mistaken, it is not the wish of 
 contemporary Churchmen, whether lay or clerical, that 
 their Bishops should now for the first time in our history 
 be so exclusively local officers as to have neither time 
 nor opportunity for interests which are larger still. 
 
 To evolve a working plan for the combination of 
 these conflicting duties is no doubt a task to baffle any 
 man. As I try to do it month by month I gratefully 
 recognise that it is what you, whose claim upon your Sacredand 
 Bishop's time and energy stands indisputably first, desire 
 him to do. He is set in this peculiar office, which has 
 its duly assigned niche in our National history past 
 and present, to be in some sense your representative 
 and mouthpiece for dealing with moral as well as with 
 religious questions in the public life of England. 
 
 To give practical examples of what I mean. When 
 questions directly affecting the affairs of the Clergy, or 
 the system of our Church Schools, or the observance of 
 Sunday, and so forth are under discussion, it is expected, 
 as a matter of course that the Bishops should take an 
 active part. But in my judgment they are not less 
 truly called upon — especially while they have a place
 
 lO 
 
 in the National Legislature — to accept and use their 
 responsibility in other matters which concern the social 
 and moral health of our citizens and their children, say 
 the protection of infant life from cruelty and wrong — or 
 such amendment of our prison laws as shall make them 
 remedial as well as punitive, — or provision for the cases 
 of workmen who are injured in the discharge of duty — 
 or enactments for checking commercial immorality — or 
 arrangements for promoting the health of shop as- 
 sistants. 
 
 Bishops, in short, are entrusted, as I believe, with a 
 place in the Legislature not only for what are technically 
 called Ecclesiastical questions, but for whatever things 
 directly concern the moral life and the social well-being 
 of the English people. In Archbishop Benson's 
 striking words : 
 
 " All these social difficulties and solutions — what have they 
 to do with the Church's work ? Are these not secular and 
 economic questions ? Yes, and therefore Church questions 
 of deepest moment. These are the phenomena of the very 
 world in which Christ is now living. These form the Times 
 of Christ. We are asking what He says to them." ^ 
 
 Pardon my having dwelt upon this point. My 
 anxiety is simply this, that we should feel ourselves to 
 be working together when, at some sacrifice here and 
 there of the Diocesan Bishop's presence at gatherings or 
 Services in our parishes in which he would fain take 
 constant part, Bishop and Clergy become, for the 
 moment, joint labourers, " true yoke-fellows " in things 
 1 Christ and His Times ^ p. 66.
 
 II 
 
 which do so truly affect the cause of Christ in English 
 life. 
 
 Turn now more closely to our Visitation and the Choice of 
 thoughts it brings. I have asked myself persistently for our 
 what subject it would be well that we should speak '^'*^*^°"' 
 about, think about, pray about, in these anxious Visi- 
 tation days. 
 
 In face of what I have already referred to as to the 
 opportunities annually given in Diocesan Conferences 
 and the like, I doubt whether a quadrennial Visitation 
 Charge is now best occupied in recounting what are 
 called the Church events which have occurred in the 
 intervening years. Rather, as it seems to me, should 
 we do well to take some subject, or group of subjects, 
 which is " in the air," and to treat it with such ap- 
 proach to thoroughness as is possible in the time at our 
 disposal, with additional suggestions for deeper study 
 and more systematic thought. I am the more bound 
 to make such an endeavour now, for the following 
 reason. 
 
 Speaking in Winchester to our Diocesan Conference, 
 just twelve months ago, I called attention to certain 
 dangers, underlying, as I think, not a few of the modern 
 innovations or revivals whether in doctrine or in the 
 ritual by which doctrine is expressed. I promised to 
 return to the subject in my Visitation Charge. That 
 promise I fulfil, and I now begin by stating, quite 
 briefly, but with such clearness as I can attain, what my 
 contention is. 
 
 By the English Reformation we mean the whole 
 process of change, covering nearly a century and a half,
 
 12 
 
 Results from 1534 to 1662, which issued in results so mo- 
 
 Reforma- mentous to the nation and the Church. Apart from 
 
 England, what would commonly but inadequately be called its 
 
 civil and secular results, and they were great, it issued — 
 
 First, in the circulation of the English Bible. 
 
 Secondly, in the distinctive character of the Church 
 of England as it stands — with its own Prayer Book, 
 Ordinal, Articles, Ritual, and usages of every kind. 
 
 Thirdly, in what, for lack of a better general term, 
 we may call Puritanism — a form of English Christianity 
 outside the pale of the National Church, but a vigorous, 
 a recognised, and, with whatever drawbacks, on the 
 whole a valuable element in our National life and 
 history. 
 
 From about the middle of the Seventeenth Century 
 onward all these influences have been ceaselessly con- 
 tributing to make us what we are. 
 
 Upon the first and third I need not now dwell. 
 
 The English Bible, unlike the Vernacular Bible of 
 other peoples, is the work of a Church and not of 
 a man — or, rather, as the Bishop of Durham has said,^ 
 " It is a growth and not a work. Countless external 
 influences, independent of the actual translators, con- 
 tributed to mould it ; and when it was fashioned, the 
 Christian instinct of the nation, touched, as we believe, 
 by the Spirit of God, decided on its authority. ... As 
 it gathered into itself, during the hundred years that it 
 was forming, the treasures of manifold labours, so it 
 still has the same assimilative power of life." 
 
 Of a quite diff^erent sort is the debt which we owe to 
 1 History of the English Bible^ p. 295.
 
 13 
 
 Puritanism in its various forms and developments. 
 But upon that subject I cannot enter to-day. I 
 hope to return to it on some future occasion, if 
 God will. 
 
 In the meantime I would speak, simply and without 
 reserve, of our own peculiar heritage, the Church of 
 England — Scriptural, Primitive, Catholic, Reformed — 
 possessing, prizing, nourishing "things new and old;" 
 tracing back its lineage to the very beginning of our 
 island story, yet in many of its characteristics the 
 outcome of those successive generations of turmoil and 
 questioning, that century and a half of eager strife 
 among good men — of exaggeration and misunder- 
 standing, of swinging pendulums and hot reactions 
 — which we know as the age of the English Reform- 
 ation. 
 
 That Reformation has been described by Archbishop 
 Benson, no mean authority, as " a ripe and long-prepared 
 and matured movement in an era of illumination, the 
 greatest event in Church history since the Fourth 
 Century." ^ 
 
 It is hardly necessary to remind you, my reverend its cha-ac 
 brethren, that in England its character was unique. 
 The Reformation in Germany, Denmark, Holland, 
 Geneva, Scotland, differs from the Reformation in 
 England not in degree but in kind. To us, and 
 to us only, was it given to preserve unbroken our 
 continuity with our own past life, while we eagerly 
 assimilated the gains which sprung from the struggle 
 on behalf of liberty against centralisation, the setting 
 ^ Fishers of Men^ p. 125.
 
 14 
 
 forward of motives as against works, and the revolt 
 against unreality and externalism.^ 
 
 The time has gone by for regarding the Reformation, 
 whether on the Continent or in England, as an epoch 
 of the flawless triumph of right over wrong, or for 
 belauding its champions as the immaculate heroes of a 
 new creation. 
 
 " It would be easy," says Bishop Westcott in a noteworthy 
 passage in one of his earlier books,^ " It would be easy to point 
 out the weakness of the Reformation in itself as a power of 
 organisation. Its function was to quicken rather than to create, 
 to vivify old forms rather than to establish new. But, however 
 we may grieve over its failure when it arrogated the office not 
 of restoration but of reconstruction, it was a distinct advance in 
 Christian life. Where it failed, it failed from the neglect of the 
 infirmities of man and of the provisions vi^hich have been 
 divinely made to meet them. On the other hand, the lessons 
 which it taught are still fruitful throughout Christendom, and 
 destined, as we hope, to bring forth a still more glorious 
 harvest." 
 
 It is on some of these lessons that I desire to dwell 
 during this Visitation, applying them, if by God's 
 help we can do so, to some of the facts and strifes and 
 questionings with which we have ourselves to deal. 
 Partisan Nothing, of course, is easier in our modern disputa- 
 of the tions than to find support for our own theories in the 
 utterance of this man or that during the controversies 
 of the Sixteenth Century. I find it difficult to think 
 
 ^ See The English Reformation and its Consequences^ by Pro- 
 fessor Collins, p. 15. 
 
 2 Gospel of the Resurrection^ chapter i, §43, p. 103. 
 
 Reforma- 
 tion.
 
 15 
 
 of any theory gravely maintained by anybody during 
 our present-day agitations which could not be but- 
 tressed — valeat quantum — by the authority of some 
 disputant of that period. The process is this. You 
 point out to your opponent, at whose lapse of 
 memory you express surprise, that he has forgotten how 
 clearly the principle which you are maintaining was laid 
 down at the Reformation. He has obviously over- 
 looked a passage in, let us say, Cranmer, or Ridley, or 
 the Second Prayer Book, or the Book of Homilies, in 
 which the principle was set forth so distinctly that to 
 challenge it now is to repudiate the Reformation itself. 
 
 Or put it in another way. You are amazed that your 
 friend can have supposed such and such a principle to 
 be sound, nay, to be even tolerable, if the Catholic 
 basis of the Church of England be admitted. Let him 
 remember the Preamble to the Statute of Appeals ; let 
 him look at the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. ; let 
 him see what was said and what was left unsaid by 
 Queen Elizabeth herself if he would realise what the 
 Reformation settlement actually meant and how little 
 there was in it which deserved the name of Pro- 
 testantism. 
 
 With this method of controversy on either side, as 
 unconvincing to the well-informed as it is misleading to 
 the ignorant, the last eighteen months have made us 
 painfully familiar. 
 
 My friends, there is "a more excellent way." Our The Book 
 existing Prayer Book and formularies took final shape in common 
 1662. They embody the ultimate outcome of the long '^^^^'' 
 and earnest strife to which I have referred. Cranmer and
 
 i6 
 
 Ridley, Bucer and Calvin, Parker and Guest, Laud 
 and Andrewes, Overall and Sanderson and Cosin, and 
 many more, contributed each of them something of sub- 
 stance or adornment to the fabric skilfully and devoutly 
 constructed upon the ancient lines. Nobody, I suppose, 
 would allege that it is incapable of improvement, or 
 that if we were nowadays compiling either Prayer Book 
 or Articles we should do it in all details as it was done 
 under the Tudors and the Stuarts. But if we long 
 sometimes (and who but has occasionally longed .^) for 
 the power of freer adaptation to modern needs, we can 
 thankfully remember what that rigid stereotype has saved 
 us from, and what sort of Prayer Book we might have 
 inherited if the Church of, say, a century ago, had been 
 free to modify its forms at will. 
 
 There is, of course, no infallibility in the ipsissima 
 verba of our Prayer Book as such. We ask for no 
 Liturgiolatry. We do not claim that the words of 
 every rubric are sacrosanct. What we claim is that on 
 the whole our Prayer Book affords the surest test or 
 touchstone we can get as to what is the deliberate mind 
 of the Church of England on any point of doctrine or 
 usage, the mind of that Church which we believe to be 
 the best, the purest, the most Scriptural in Christendom, 
 that Church which comes nearest to the mind of Christ. 
 On Holy Scripture we, in the end, fall back. On Holy 
 Scripture our Prayer Book is builded from the first 
 page to the last. On " the impregnable rock of Holy 
 Scripture " we stand. 
 
 It is to that Prayer Book, to those Articles, that we 
 have every one of us subscribed. On the most solemn
 
 17 
 
 occasions in your life and in mine we have deliber- Oursub- 
 ately declared our assent to the Articles and the Book ^Tff" 
 of Common Prayer as containing the doctrine of the 
 Church of England. On the strength of that declara- 
 tion we were ordained, licensed, instituted. There- 
 fore, when questions of difficulty arise, we are bound 
 each one of us to ask, Am I honestly loyal to the Prayer 
 Book in its true meaning ? Have I taken the right 
 steps to learn what its formularies and rules, as ultim- 
 ately arrived at, actually mean ? If I take the book 
 as a whole, is the thing which I am invited to do, or 
 which I wish to do, whether in teaching or in worship, 
 — is it or is it not, according to the plain dictates of 
 straightforward interpretation, consistent with the solemn 
 promise I have made ? 
 
 To answer such questions is no mechanical process. 
 By the alteration of our Subscription Form in 1865 a 
 fresh responsibility was thrown upon every man in Holy 
 Orders — the responsibility of considering the spirit as 
 well as, nay rather than, the mere letter of our formu- 
 laries, whether for faith (and therefore teaching) or for 
 practice in outward act. 
 
 So far as outward act is concerned, we can fairly 
 fall back, when in doubt, upon living authority. Episco- 
 pal or Archiepiscopal or judicial, as the case may be. 
 But there is a whole range of teaching and tendency, 
 the aggregate outcome of little acts and words and 
 influences, which lies and must lie outside what can be 
 ordered or forbidden in specific terms by the authority 
 of either Book or Bishop. 
 
 C
 
 And it is just here that a great group of our present 
 difficulties is to be found. 
 
 With two such matters I propose in my present 
 Visitation to deal. First, the use and abuse of Private 
 Confession ; and, secondly, the instruction given and 
 the devotions taught or encouraged, or not discouraged, 
 in connection with the Holy Communion. Both of 
 these are matters of high importance as to which a 
 discretion and therefore a grave responsbility must rest 
 with every Parish Priest. But it is a discretion which 
 has definite limits, and these limits are, with care and 
 patience, ascertainable by us all. 
 
 With respect to each, the teaching of the Church of 
 England from 1662 onward has differed markedly and 
 emphatically from what had been the teaching of the 
 Church of England 150 years before. 
 
 In my next two Addresses I propose to examine 
 what the difference is, and how far it is a question 
 practically affecting the work and teaching of our 
 Church to-day.
 
 19 
 
 PRIVATE CONFESSION 
 " If ever there was a matter," it has been said, i^eiiwcy 
 
 and dim- 
 
 *' which required caution, sobriety of thought and cuityofthe 
 diction, delicacy and tenderness in handling, knowledge '^ private 
 of mankind, acquaintance with ecclesiastical and civil fession. 
 history, it is what is known as the penitentiary discipline 
 of the Church, and especially that portion of it which 
 relates to Confession. "^ Yet it unfortunately happens 
 that this question, which touches the very life blood 
 of the Church, and hardly less directly the welfare of 
 the State, has more, I think, than any other, been lightly, 
 baldly, almost shamelessly bandied about for rough and 
 ready discussion by controversialists who, if they do 
 not actually scout those qualifications, would seem, by 
 their example, to value them but little. 
 
 Imagine some student or enquirer from another 
 country, wholly ignorant of the history of our Church, 
 who should light upon a batch of the controversial 
 literature now daily circulated by many earnest Protes- 
 tants for the information of the unlearned. He would 
 inevitably conclude, as a matter of simple fact, that at 
 
 ^ Church ^arterly Review^ 1 878, vol. v., p. 194. 
 
 C 2
 
 20 
 
 the Reformation (whatever in such context that word 
 be taken to mean), the whole idea of Private or 
 Auricular Confession had been repudiated, and the 
 thing itself extirpated for ever from the Church of 
 England. But is it so ? 
 
 That the change deliberately and of set purpose 
 effected between 1534 and 1662 was radical and 
 far-reaching, is beyond dispute, and the principles 
 which actuated those who effected it are principles 
 which lie at the very root of the English Reformation. 
 But rubrics and history combine to show us how care- 
 fully the special wants of troubled souls were remem- 
 bered and provided for, in this particular matter, by 
 the compilers of our successive English Prayer Books. 
 
 At the risk of being tedious, it may be worth while 
 to recall the significant steps of change. 
 Pre-Re- For more than three centuries before the Reformation 
 °iSles?" there had been no question whatever as to what the 
 duty of Confession meant. The Fourth Lateran Council, 
 held under Innocent III. in 121 5, the last year of our 
 unhappy King John, was, in point of numbers, one of 
 the largest which ever met in Christendom. It decreed 
 Auricular Confession to be a universal obligatory indis- 
 pensable duty. 
 
 The Council's well-known Decree upon the subject 
 runs as follows : — 
 
 Every one of the faithful of either sex, on coming to years of 
 discretion, shall privately confess his or her sins faithfully at 
 least once a year to his or her own Priest 
 
 If, however, any one should wish, for sufficient reason, to
 
 21 
 
 confess his sins to a Priest other than his own, let him first ask 
 and obtain sanction from his own Priest : otherwise the former 
 cannot loose or bind him.^ 
 
 At the Council of Trent, in 1551, early in the The 
 Reformation period, the Lateran Rules were re- Trent, 
 affirmed, and the usages authoritatively detailed. Let 
 me quote a few sentences from the formal utterances of 
 that Council, with regard, first, to the obligation of 
 Confession before communicating: — 
 
 One who desires to communicate should call to mind the 
 Apostle's precept : Let a man examine himself. Now, eccle- 
 siastical custom declares this examination to be necessary, so 
 that no one conscious of mortal sin, however contrite he may 
 think himself to be, ought to come to the Holy Eucharist 
 without first making his Sacramental Confession. This rule, 
 by decree of this sacred Synod, is to be always observed by all 
 Christians, not excepting even those Priests whose duty it is to 
 celebrate, provided a Confessor is to be had : but if from 
 pressing necessity a Priest shall have celebrated without previous 
 confession, let him take the earliest opportunity to confess.^ 
 
 ^ Omnis utriusque sexus fidelis postquam ad annos discretionis 
 pervenerit, omnia sua solus peccata confiteatur fideliter saltem 
 
 semel in anno proprio sacerdoti Si quis autem alieno 
 
 sacerdoti voluerit justa de causa sua confiteri peccata, licentiam 
 
 prius postulet et obtineat a proprio Sacerdote, cum aliter ille 
 
 ipsum non possit solvere vel ligare. Concil. Gen. Lat. Cap. xxi. 
 
 ^ Sessio xiii., caput vii. 
 
 Communicare volenti revocandum est in memoriam ejus 
 praeceptum : Probet seipsum homo. Ecclesiastica autem con- 
 suetude declarat, eam probationem necessariam esse, ut nullus 
 sibi conscius mortalis peccati, quamvis sibi contritus videatur, 
 absque praemissa Sacramentali confessione ad sacram Euchar-
 
 22 
 
 And again, in a formal Canon, 
 
 If any one shall say that faith alone is a sufficient preparation 
 for taking the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist, let him be 
 anathema. And lest any should take so great a Sacrament un- 
 worthily, and so to his death and condemnation, the Sacred 
 Synod itself orders and declares that those who are burdened 
 with the consciousness of mortal sin, though they think them- 
 selves never so contrite, must of necessity, if a Confessor is to 
 be had, first make their Sacramental Confession.^ 
 
 On the general subject of Confession the Council 
 speaks as follows : — 
 
 From the institution, as explained above, of the Sacrament of 
 Penance, the whole Church has always understood that full 
 Confession of sins was also instituted by our Lord, and that it is 
 necessary by the law of God to all who have fallen after 
 Baptism, because our Lord Jesus Christ, when about to ascend 
 from earth to heaven, left behind priests as Vicars of Himself, 
 
 istiam acccdere debeat. Quod a Christianis omnibus etiam ab 
 iis sacerdotibus, quibus ex officio incubuerit celebrare, haec 
 sancta Synodus perpetuo servandum esse decrevit, modo non 
 desit illis copia Confessoris : quod si, necessitate urgente, 
 Sacerdos absque praevia confessione celebraverit, quam primum 
 confiteatur. 
 
 1 lb., canon xi. 
 Si quis dixerit solam fidem esse sufficientem praepara- 
 tionem ad sumendum Sanctissimae Eucharistiae Sacramentum : 
 anathema sit. Et ne tantum Sacramentum indigne, atque ideo 
 in mortem et condemnationem sumatur, statuit atque declarat 
 ipsa sancta Synodus, illis quos conscientia peccati mortalis 
 gravat, quantumcunque etiam se contritos existiment, habita 
 copia Confessoris, necessario prasmittendam esse Confessionem 
 Sacramentalem.
 
 23 
 
 to be rulers and judges, to whom all mortal sins into which 
 Christ's faithful have fallen are to be brought, to the end that, 
 by virtue of the power of the keys, they may pronounce sen- 
 tence of remission or retention of sins. From this it follows 
 that all mortal sins, of which penitents, after diligent self- 
 questioning, are conscious, ought to be enumerated in Con- 
 fession, though they be of the most secret kind.^ 
 
 And again, in a formal Canon, 
 
 If any one shall deny that Sacramental Confession was both 
 instituted and made necessary to salvation by the law of God, 
 ... let him be anathema.^ 
 
 In the " Catechism " issued by the Council the 
 subject is elaborated from every side, and always with 
 a reiteration of the obligation binding upon all by 
 Christ's own command. 
 
 Further let no man hold that our Lord did indeed insti- 
 
 1 Sessio xiv., caput v. 
 
 Ex institutione Sacramenti Poenitentiae jam explicata, 
 universa Ecclesia semper intellexit institutam etiam esse a 
 Domino integram peccatorum Confessionem, et omnibus post 
 Baptismum lapsis jure divino necessariam existere ; quiaDominus 
 noster Jesus Christus e terris ascensurus ad caelos sacerdotes 
 sui ipsius Vicarios reliquit, tanquam pra^sides et judices, ad 
 quos omnia mortalia crimina deferantur in quae Christi fideles 
 ceciderint, quo, pro potestate Clavium remissionis aut retentionis 
 
 peccatorum, sententiam pronuntient Ex his colligitur 
 
 oportere a poenitentibus omnia peccata mortalia quorum post 
 diligentem sui discussionem conscientiam habent, in Con- 
 fessione recenseri, etiam si occultissima ilia sint. 
 2 Sessio xiv., canon vi. 
 
 Si quis negaverit Confessionem Sacramentalem vel institutam 
 vel ad salutem necessariam esse jure divino .... anathema sit.
 
 24 
 
 tute Confession, yet did not declare its use binding upon 
 all.i 
 
 And so on, chapter after chapter. 
 
 No hesitation there, at all events, as to what was 
 meant. Confession, as thus taught, " laid open," as has 
 been said,^ " the whole heart of every one, from the 
 Emperor to the peasant, before the priesthood. The 
 entire moral being of man, undistinguishable from his 
 religious being, was under their supervision and control, 
 asserted on one side, acknowledged on the other." 
 Changes Xo people who had been brought up under that 
 
 made in ^ \ r -i- • i • i • i • 
 
 England, system and were familiar with its working and its 
 obligation, the change of rule implied, and indeed 
 announced, in the English " Order of Communion " of 
 
 The First 1^48, and incorporated in the First Prayer Book of 
 Book. Edward VI. which next year followed, must have been 
 great indeed. Together with the English language, 
 there was introduced a general Confession to be 
 repeated " in the name of all those that are minded 
 to receive the Holy Communion, either by one of 
 them or else by one of the Ministers, or by the 
 Priest himself." This general Confession in the 
 Church, though not substituted for the private act, 
 was formally allowed instead of it, as is shown by 
 the Exhortation itself.^ 
 
 ^ Catechismus, pars ii., cap. Ivi. 
 
 Jam vero nemo existimet Confessionem a Domino quidem 
 institutam, sed ita tamen ut ejus usum necessarium esse non 
 edixerit .... 
 
 2 Milman. Latin Christianity^ Book xiv., chap. I. 
 
 ^ See Dixon's History of the Church of England, ii. 495.
 
 25 
 
 Put yourselves for the moment in the place of a 
 congregation of middle-aged people when they listened 
 for the first time to this new Exhortation, and 
 contrasted, not its actual directions only, but its 
 whole tone and spirit, with the tone and spirit belong- 
 ing to the pre-Reformation days, as illustrated by 
 the quotations I have already given : 
 
 Dear friends, and you especially upon whose souls I have 
 care and charge, on Sunday next I do intend, by God's grace, 
 to offer to all such as shall be godly disposed, the most com- 
 fortable Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, to be taken 
 by them in the remembrance of His most fruitful and glorious 
 Passion .... The which Sacrament being so divine and holy 
 a thing .... my duty is to exhort you in the mean season 
 .... to search and examine your own consciences, and that 
 not lightly nor after the manner of dissimulers with God, but 
 as they which should come to a most godly and heavenly 
 banquet .... The way and means thereto is. First that you 
 be truly repentant of your former evil life, and that you confess 
 with an unfeigned heart to Almighty God your sins and unkind- 
 ness towards His Majesty committed, either by will, word or 
 deed, infirmity or ignorance ; and that with inward sorrow and 
 tears you bewail your offences and require of Almighty God 
 mercy and pardon, promising to him, from the bottom of your 
 hearts, the amendment of your former life .... And if any 
 man have done any wrong to any other, let him make satisfac- 
 tion .... before he comes to God's board, or at the least be in 
 full mind and purpose so to do, as soon as he is able ; or else 
 let him not come to this Holy Table, thinking to deceive God, 
 who seeth all men's hearts. For neither the absolution of the 
 Priest can anything avail them, nor the receiving of this holy 
 Sacrament doth anything but increase their damnation, jind 
 if there be any of you whose conscience is troubled and grieved in 
 anything^ lacking comfort or counsel^ let him come to me, or to
 
 26 
 
 some other discreet and learned Priest, taught in the law of 
 God, and confess and open his sin and grief secretly, that he 
 may receive such ghostly counsel, advice, and comfort that his 
 conscience may be relieved, and that of us (as of the Ministers 
 of God and of the Church) he may receive comfort and absolu- 
 tion, to the satisfaction of his mind, and avoiding of all scruple 
 and doubtfulness j requiring such as shall be satisfied w^ith a 
 general confession not to be offended with them that do use, 
 to their further satisfying, the Auricular and secret Confession to 
 the Priest ; nor those also vi^hich think needful or convenient, 
 for the quietness of their ov^^n consciences, particularly to open 
 their sins to the Priest, to be offended w^ith them that are satis- 
 fied with their humble confession to God, and the general 
 confession to the Church. But in all things to follow and 
 keep the rule of charity ; and every man to be satisfied with 
 his own conscience, not judging other men's minds or con- 
 sciences, whereas he hath no warrant of God's Word to the 
 same. 
 
 Such was the wording of the Exhortation contained in 
 the Order of Communion of 1548 and in the Reformed 
 Prayer Book of 1549. 
 The Three years Jater, in 1552, even this kindly con- 
 
 Prayer sideration for " them that do use to their further 
 °° ■ satisfying the Auricular and secret Confession to the 
 Priest," disappeared. The very word confess was 
 struck out, and the expression " O'pen his grief' was 
 allowed alone to remain in the place of '''■confess and 
 open his grief secretly""'^ while in place of the words 
 '■''that of us as of the Ministers of God and of the Church 
 he may receive comfort and absolution," the following 
 words were substituted, " that by the ministry of God's 
 Word he may receive comfort and the benefit of 
 absolution." The whole passage runs as follows : —
 
 27 
 
 And because it is requisite that no man should come to the 
 Holy Communion but with a full trust in God's mercy and 
 with a quiet conscience : therefore, if there be any of you which 
 by the means aforesaid cannot quiet his own conscience, but requireth 
 further comfort or counsel, then let him come to me, or some 
 other discreet and learned Minister of God's word, and open his 
 grief that he may receive such ghostly counsel, advice, and 
 comfort as his conscience may be relieved : and that by the 
 Ministry of God's Word he may receive comfort and the benefit 
 of absolution, to the quieting of his conscience and avoiding of 
 all scruple and doubtfulness. 
 
 And it is of the highest importance, as a matter of 
 history, to notice that this same Prayer Book of 1552, 
 which contained these changes, added the opening 
 passages of Scripture and the public Confession and 
 Absolution^ at the beginning of Morning and Evening 
 Prayer. As to the significance of that introduction, 
 and of the wording adopted for the daily " Absolution," 
 I should like to quote an authority whose words will 
 carry weight. Archdeacon Freeman, in his Principles 
 of Divine Service^ says " The reason probably was 
 that the compilers desired to give to the public daily 
 Absolution that form which would most completely 
 adapt it for superseding, in all ordinary cases, private 
 Confession and Absolution." 
 
 The existing Exhortation in the Communion Office 
 of our Prayer Book does not substantially differ, so 
 
 1 For Bishop Andrewes' view as to the authoritative char- 
 acter of this Form, see Minor Works, Lib. A.C.L., p. 148. See 
 also an important historical note in Blunt's Annotated Book of 
 Common Prayer, p. 4. 
 
 ■" Vol. i., page 315.
 
 28 
 
 far as the paragraph in question is concerned, from 
 the Exhortation of 1552. 
 
 Turn from the Office for Holy Communion to the 
 TheVisi- Office for the Visitation of the Sick. In i caq the 
 
 tationof -^^^ 
 
 the Sick, words were as follows : — 
 
 Here shall the siclc person make a special Confession if he feel 
 his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which 
 Confession the Priest shall absolve him after this form ; and the 
 same form of Absolution shall be used in all Private Confessions. 
 
 In 1552 this reference to Private Confession, apart 
 from its use for the Sick, disappears, the other words 
 remaining as before.^ 
 
 From 1662 onwards the words, as we all know, have 
 stood thus : — 
 
 Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special Con- 
 fession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled v^^ith any 
 weighty matter. After which Confession the Priest shall ab- 
 solve him, if he humbly and heartily desire it, after this sort. 
 
 It ought, I think, to be noted, whatever deduction may 
 follow, that according to Canon Ixvii of 1603, the pre- 
 scribed Order is specially for the use of those Clergy 
 who are not licensed as Preachers — presumably the 
 less learned. " When any person is dangerously sick in 
 any parish, the Minister or Curate .... shall resort 
 unto him or her .... to instruct and comfort them 
 in their distress, according to the Order of the Com- 
 
 ^ Only that " after this form " becomes " after this sort," a 
 difference to which some have attached importance. See e.g^ 
 Scudamore's Not'itia Eucharistica. Second Ed., p, 468.
 
 29 
 
 munion Book if he be no Preacher, or, if he be a 
 Preacher, then as he shall think most needful and 
 convenient." 
 
 One other of the Canons of 1603 requires notice. Canon 
 Canons cix to cxii call upon the Churchwardens and 1603. 
 Sidesmen to present to the Ordinary notorious offenders 
 of different kinds. Canon cxiii bids the Clergy under- 
 take this unpleasant task if they find their lay colleagues 
 negligent to do it. It adds, however, for the protection 
 of the Clergy : — 
 
 Provided always, that if any man confess his secret and 
 hidden sins to the Minister, for the unburdening of his con- 
 science, and to receive spiritual consolation and ease of mind 
 from him, we do not any way bind the said Minister by this 
 our constitution, but do straitly charge and admonish him, that 
 he do not at any time reveal and make known to any person 
 whatsoever any crime or offence so committed to his trust 
 and secrecy (except they be such crimes as by the laws of this 
 realm his own life may be called into question for concealing 
 the same) under pain of irregularity. 
 
 The quotations which I have made, include, I This 
 
 believe, all the references to this difficult matter fronf"he 
 
 which are to be found in what can properly be called ^°^^^' 
 our official formularies.^ Suppose we had nothing else 
 
 1 As further evidence of the change of view, I ought perhaps 
 to quote the words of the semi-official Reformatio Legum 
 Eccleslasticarum^ published in 157 1. 
 
 " Itaque si quis ex illis qui se ad Domini mensam proeparant 
 in aliqua religionis parte vacillet, aut conscientia sauciatus fit, 
 liberum aditum ad ministrum habeat, et ab illo consolationem 
 et levationem cogritudinis capiat, et, si plene se ministro 
 probaverit, crimine, si opus fuerit solvatur." De Div. Ojf.^ 
 cap. vii.
 
 30 
 
 to guide us, it would, I think, • be difficult for any man, 
 reading them consecutively, thoughtfully, and without 
 bias, to deny or doubt that, while they decisively assert 
 and protect the special or occasional use — the medicinal 
 use, as it has been wisely called — of Auricular Confession, 
 they betoken a distrust and a growing discouragement 
 of its habitual or ordinary use in the pastoral ministry 
 of the Church. 
 
 It is wholly insufficient to say that what happened at 
 the Reformation was that the use of Private Con- 
 fession, hitherto compulsory, became voluntary. The 
 formularies, even if they stood by themselves, would 
 convey more than that. But they do not stand by them- 
 selves ; and, wearisomely familiar as, I fear, the subject is 
 to many of us, I ask you to let me put on record yet 
 again some of the evidence of what was said and thought 
 and taught about it in those eventful years, 
 is con- It is, to my mind, strange that we do not hear even 
 ^^^^her'" more than we do about the popular attitude in the 
 ways. Sixteenth Century towards this memorable change. I 
 doubt whether any other among the Reformation changes 
 can have affected the ordinary life of English men, 
 women, and children so much as this. It must have 
 been, it clearly was, a change effected by degrees. It 
 was not among the earlier changes in doctrine or prac- 
 tice either in England or on the Continent. But by 
 examining consecutively the " Articles " set out by the 
 Convocation, and published by the King's authority in 
 1 536 ; -^ " The Institution of a Christian Man," published 
 
 1 See Formularies of Faith during the Reign of Henry VIII. 
 (Oxford, 1825), p. 10.
 
 31 
 
 in the following year, and known as the " Bishops' 
 Book ;" ^ and " The Erudition of a Christian Man," or 
 "King's Book," published in 1543,"'^ we can trace the 
 different language which was coming into use on the 
 subject for some years before the publication of the 
 "Order of Communion" in 1548, a quotation from 
 which I have already given. 
 
 King Edward's Injunctions of 1547, the year pre- 
 ceding the publication of that " Order of Communion," 
 contain the following among the "Articles to be 
 inquired in the King's Majesty's Visitation " : 
 
 Item, whether Parsons, Vicars and Curates .... have every 
 Lent required their parishioners in their Confession to recite their 
 Pater-noster, the Articles of our Faith, and the Ten Command- 
 ments in English.^ 
 
 And Archbishop Cranmer, accordingly, in his Diocesan 
 Articles of Enquiry in the same year, asks his Clergy : 
 
 Item, whether every Lent they examine such persons as co7ne 
 to Confession to them whether they can recite the Pater-noster, 
 the Articles of our Faith, and the Ten Commandments in 
 English.* 
 
 But already it seems clear that all requirement of 
 Confession as a necessary preliminary to Communion 
 was practically at an end. No reference to Confession 
 will be found in the Articles on " the Sacrament of the 
 Altar," either in the " Bishops' Book " or in the 
 
 ^ See Forrnularies of Faith during the Reign of Henry Fill. 
 (Oxford, 1825), p. 98. 
 ■2 /(^., p. 261. 
 2 Cardwell. Documentary Annals^ p. !., 26. * Z/'., p- 5^-
 
 32 
 
 " King's Book," although the need and manner of due 
 preparation beforehand is set forth in both. 
 
 From this time onward there has existed within our 
 Church, sometimes in a more, sometimes in a less, 
 acute or outspoken form, a wide difference of opinion 
 as to the utility, and even the orthodoxy, of resort to 
 Auricular Confession. 
 Danger of It would be easy to multiply examples. I have 
 quota- collected abundant references for those who have access 
 to books and who will use their opportunities.^ One 
 thing I venture to urge upon all who study this subject. 
 Before you rely upon any quoted extract, read the 
 whole passage from which it is taken. It is not easy to 
 understand the blindness or the carelessness (I hope we 
 may so call it) with which some present day controver- 
 sialists have quoted, on one side or the other, short 
 paragraphs which appear to support their views, torn 
 from a context which gives, when taken as a whole, 
 the very opposite impression. 
 
 This difficulty, always real, has a special force with 
 respect to the particular subject we are discussing. 
 The arguments used and the statements made by our 
 great Anglican Divines about Auricular Confession 
 are usually part of a deliberate reply to the criticism 
 of Puritan or Romanist opponents, and it is therefore 
 essential that we should know to what misrepre- 
 sentation the reply is being directed before we can 
 adequately estimate its weight and meaning as a positive 
 and independent statement. 
 
 It is because I fear myself to give a false idea of 
 ^ See Appendix A.
 
 33 
 
 the drift of any passage that I refrain from presenting 
 what has so often been given on either side, a marshalled 
 array of such isolated little paragraphs. He who is 
 honestly striving to arrive at the true mind of the 
 Church of England will not grudge the pains required 
 for the study not of such quotations only, but of their 
 several contexts. 
 
 Two authorities, and two only, I will quote to-dav. '^^^ 
 
 ^ . Homilies. 
 
 First, from the " Second Book of Homilies." The 
 volume is, of course, of secondary, not primary, autho- 
 rity in the Church ; but it affords indisputable evidence 
 as to the general teaching inculcated by authority at the 
 time of its publication in 1563 "to be read in Churches 
 by the Ministers diligently and distinctly, that they may 
 be understanded by the people." ^ 
 
 We are all bound to the general statement in our 
 thirty-fifth Article that " the Second Book of Homilies 
 doth contain a godly and wholesome doctrine," but 
 it would be going much beyond this to say that 
 the Church of England has formally adopted every 
 statement or opinion to be found therein. ^ 
 
 In the Second Homily on Repentance, the author, 
 whether Bishop Jewel or another, after describing the 
 "first part of Repentance" as "the contrition of the 
 heart," and the "second part" as "an unfeigned con- 
 fession and acknowledgment of our sins unto God. . . . 
 
 1 Article xxxv. See also Parker Correspondence. Letter to 
 Cecil, No. cxxxi., p. 177. 
 
 2 For a reference to the authority attaching to the Homilies 
 see the Judgment of Sir H. Jenner in the Court of Arches, 
 12 Dec, 1838. [Breeks v. Woolfrey^ i Curt. 880, at p. 901.) 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 for without this confession sin is not forgiven," pro- 
 ceeds thus : — 
 
 This is then the chiefest and most principal confession that in 
 the Scriptures and the Word of God we are bidden to make, 
 and without the which we shall never obtain pardon and 
 forgiveness of our sins. Indeed, besides this there is another 
 kind of confession, which is needful and necessary. 
 
 And of the same doth St. James speak after this manner, 
 saying, " Acknowledge your faults one to another, and pray 
 one for another, that ye may be saved." As if we should say. 
 Open that which grieveth you that a remedy may be found. 
 And this is commanded both for him that complaineth, and for 
 him that heareth, that the one should show his grief to the 
 other. The true meaning of it is, that the faithful ought to 
 acknowledge their offences, whereby some hatred, rancour, 
 grudge, or malice, have risen or grown among them one to 
 another, that a brotherly reconciliation may be had, without the 
 which nothing that we can do can be acceptable unto God. 
 .... And whereas the adversaries go about to wrest this 
 place, for to maintain their Auricular Confession withal, they are 
 greatly deceived themselves, and do shamefully deceive others ; 
 for if this text ought to be understood of Auricular Confession, 
 then the Priests are as much bound to confess themselves unto 
 the lay-people, as the lay-people are bound to confess themselves 
 to them. And if to pray is to absolve, then the laity by this 
 place hath as great authority to absolve the Priests, as the Priests 
 have to absolve the laity .... And where that they do allege 
 this saying of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, unto the leper, to prove 
 Auricular Confession to stand on God's word, " Go thy way, 
 and show thyself unto the priest," do they not see that the 
 leper was cleansed from his leprosy afore he was by Christ sent 
 unto the priest, for to show himself unto him ? By the same 
 reason we must be cleansed from our spiritual leprosy, I mean 
 our sins must be forgiven us, afore that we come to confession.
 
 3S 
 
 What need we then to tell forth our sins unto the ear of the 
 Priest, sith that they be already taken away ? Therefore holy 
 Ambrose, in his second sermon upon the hundred and nineteenth 
 Psalm, doth say full well, " Go show thyself unto the priest." 
 Who is the true priest, but He which is the Priest for ever, after 
 the order of Melchisedech ? Whereby this holy father doth 
 understand that, both the priesthood and the law being changed, 
 we ought to acknowledge none other Priest for deliverance from 
 our sins, but our Saviour, Jesus Christ, Who, being our 
 sovereign Bishop, doth with the sacrifice of His body and blood, 
 offered once for ever upon the altar of the Cross, most effectu- 
 ally cleanse the spiritual leprosy and wash away the sins of all 
 those that with true confession of the same do flee unto Him. 
 It is most evident and plain that this Auricular Confession hath 
 
 not his warrant of God's word Let us with fear and 
 
 trembling, and with a true contrite heart, use that kind of con- 
 fession that God doth command in His word, and then, doubt- 
 less, as He is faithful and righteous. He will forgive us our sins 
 and make us clean from all wickedness. I do not say, but that, 
 if any do find themselves troubled in conscience, they may 
 repair to their learned Curate or Pastor, or to some other godly, 
 learned man, and show the trouble and doubt of their conscience 
 to them, that they may receive at their hands the comfortable 
 salve of God's word ; but it is against the true Christian liberty 
 that any man should be bound to the mentioning of his sins, 
 as it hath been used heretofore in the time of blindness and 
 ignorance. 
 
 The second full quotation to which I bespeak your Richard 
 attention is drawn from the Sixth Book (so-called i) of ^°°^"'- 
 
 1 The almost certain fact that the chapters from which I 
 quote formed no original part of the Ecclesiastical Polity^ but 
 were accidentally or mistakenly placed where they stand, is 
 immaterial to the present purpose, as there is no question of 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. Hooker's undisputed 
 position in English theological literature justifies his 
 being placed in a niche by himself. He is so placed by 
 the consent of all. Mr. Keble has eloquently pointed 
 out ^ how " the character and views of Hooker mark 
 him as one especially raised up to be the chief human 
 instrument in the salutary interference which Divine 
 Providence was then preparing." Dean Church writes 
 of him in similar terms-; and his latest editor, Dean 
 Paget, while not blind to what he regards as defects in 
 Hooker's argument, points out his fitness above other 
 men to be the guide and teacher of our Church to-day. 
 " The problems," he says,^ " of this last decade of 
 the Nineteenth Century are widely different from those 
 which agitated most men's thoughts in the corresponding 
 years of the Sixteenth ; but again and again it seems as 
 though men now might see things more justly and more 
 hopefully, in a clearer light, and with less disproportion, 
 if they could look at them in Hooker's way, from his 
 standpoint and with his temper." And again : * — " It 
 seems true to say that the Church of England need 
 not be ashamed to reckon Hooker not only with the 
 foremost of those who have upheld its cause and 
 delineated its position, but also as one of those who have 
 
 their authenticity as Hooker's handiwork. See Keble's 
 Introduction, Vol. i, p. xxx. 
 
 ^ Editor's Preface to Hooker's Works, p. Hi. 
 
 ^ Introduction to Book I of Ecclesiastical Polity^ p. xix. 
 
 ^ Introduction to Hooker, Book V, p. 5. 
 
 4 lb., p. 228.
 
 37 
 
 most justly shown among men its distinctive mind and 
 character." 
 
 I remind you of these testimonies in order to justify 
 myself in asking you to listen to the words of Hooker 
 above the words of other men. Here, then, are some 
 paragraphs from what Hooker says upon the special 
 points at issue. 
 
 To conclude, we everywhere find the use of Confession, 
 especially public, allowed of and commended by the Fathers ; 
 but that extreme and rigorous necessity of Auricular and Private 
 Confession, which is at this day so mightily upheld by the 
 Church of Rome, we find not. It was not then the faith and 
 doctrine of God's Church, as of the Papacy at this present, 
 I. That the only remedy for sin after baptism is Sacramental 
 Penitency : 2. That Confession in secret is an essential part 
 thereof: 3. That God himself cannot now forgive sins without 
 the Priest : 4. That because forgiveness at the hands of the 
 Priest must arise from Confession in the offender, therefore to 
 confess unto him is a matter of such necessity, as being not 
 either in deed, or at the least in desire performed, excludeth 
 utterly from all pardon, and must consequently in Scripture be 
 commanded, wheresoever any promise of forgiveness is made. 
 No, no ; these opinions have youth in their countenance ; 
 antiquity knoweth them not, it never thought nor dreamed of 
 them.^ 
 
 Again : 
 
 It standeth with us in the Church of England, as touching 
 Public Confession, thus ; 
 
 First, seeing day by day we, in our Church, begin our public 
 prayers to Almighty God with public acknowledgment of our 
 
 1 Ecclesiastical Polity, Book VI, Cap. IV, 13.
 
 38 
 
 sins, in which Confession every man prostrate as it were before 
 His Glorious Majesty crieth guilty against himself; and the 
 Minister with one sentence pronounceth universally all clear 
 whose acknowledgment so made hath proceeded from a true 
 penitent mind j what reason is there every man should not under 
 the general terms of Confession represent to himself his own 
 particulars whatsoever, and adjoining thereunto that affection 
 which a contrite spirit worketh, embrace to as full effect the 
 words of divine grace, as if the same were severally and par- 
 ticularly uttered with addition of prayers, imposition of hands, 
 or all the ceremonies and solemnities which might be used for 
 the strengthening of men's affiance in God's peculiar mercy 
 towards them ? Such complements are helps to support our 
 weakness, and not causes that serve to procure or produce his 
 gifts. If with us there be " truth in the inward parts," as 
 David speaketh, the difference of general and particular forces 
 in Confession and Absolution is not so material that any man's 
 safety or ghostly good should depend upon it. 
 
 And for Private Confession and Absolution it standeth thus 
 with us ; The Minister's power to absolve is publicly taught and 
 professed, the Church not denied to have authority either of 
 abridging or enlarging the use and exercise of that power ; 
 upon the people no such necessity imposed of opening their 
 transgressions unto men, as if remission of sins otherwise were 
 impossible neither any such opinion had of the thing itself, as 
 though It were either unlawful or unprofitable, saving only 
 for these inconveniences, which the world hath, by experience, 
 observed in it heretofore. And in regard thereof, the Church 
 of England hitherto hath thought it the safer way to refer men's 
 hidden crimes unto God and themselves only; howbeit, not 
 without special caution for the admonition of such as come to 
 the Holy Sacrament, and for the comfort of such as are ready 
 to depart the world.^ 
 
 1 IbU. Book VI, Cap. IV, 15.
 
 39 
 
 Again : 
 
 In sum, when the offence doth stand only between God 
 and man's conscience, the counsel is good which St. Chrysos- 
 tom giveth : " I wish thee not to bewray thyself, nor to accuse 
 thyself before others. I wish thee to obey the prophet who 
 saith, Disclose thy way unto the Lord, confess thy sin before 
 Him, tell thy sins to Him that He may blot them out " 
 
 If hereupon it follow, as it did with David, " I thought, I 
 will confess against myself my wickedness unto Thee, O Lord, 
 and Thou forgavest me the plague of my sin," we have then our 
 desire, and there remaineth only thankfulness, accompanied 
 with perpetuity of care to avoid that, which being not avoided, 
 we cannot remedy without new perplexity and grief Contrari- 
 wise if peace with God do not follow after the pains we have 
 taken in seeking after it ; if we continue disquieted, and not 
 delivered from anguish, mistrusting whether that we do be 
 sufficient j it argueth that our sore doth exceed the power of 
 our own skill, and that the wisdom of the Pastor must bind up 
 those parts, which being bruised, are not able to be cured of 
 themselves.^ 
 
 Now it is, of course, open to any man to draw his Conciu- 
 own conclusions rrom these quotations, and rrom the general 
 many other passages to which I merely direct atten- 
 attention ; ^ and probably our conclusions as to the 
 drift of the whole would not be unanimous. To my 
 mind, after giving to them all the study I can, this, at 
 the very least, seems clear. Prior to our own day, 
 no large section of English Churchmen, during the 
 last three hundred years, has claimed that the habitual 
 use of Auricular Confession ought to become general, 
 
 1 Ibid. Book VI, Cap. IV, 1 6. 
 
 2 See Appendix A. 
 
 use.
 
 40 
 
 or could become general without disloyalty to the 
 principles which the Reformation either established or 
 revived. 
 
 On the other hand, throughout that period — with the 
 exception, perhaps, of the latter part of the eighteenth 
 and the early part of the present centuries — there have 
 always been among the Church's trusted leaders men 
 who actively encouraged, both on doctrinal and practical 
 grounds, a more full use of the special provision made 
 by our Church for the relief of genuinely troubled 
 souls at critical moments in their life. 
 
 It is strangely difficult to judge accurately to what 
 extent Private Confession was in use in the period 
 which followed the Restoration, the first decades, that is, 
 of our existing Prayer Book. Some of the incidental 
 evidence we possess seems to point to a more frequent 
 recourse to it than is common nowadays, and certainly 
 at that period there is a marked absence, among Church 
 of England writers, of anything corresponding to the 
 vituperative denunciations indulged in by some of the 
 eager Sixteenth Century Protestants and very audible 
 again in our own day. 
 The Throughout the Reformation period the subject was 
 
 question, discussed on doctrinal at least as often as on practical 
 grounds. Richard Hooker, in penetrating words which 
 repay the closest study, draws out the differences which 
 separate our doctrine of Absolution from the doctrine of 
 the Church of Rome as enunciated, say, in the Council 
 of Trent. I beseech you to ponder, not only the 
 quotation I am about to give, but the whole chapter, 
 with diligence and prayer.
 
 41 
 
 Here are the words. They have of course no bind- 
 ing authority, but it is difficult to exaggerate the weight 
 which belongs to them as the deliberate judgment of 
 such a man : 
 
 It is not to be marvelled at that so great a difference 
 appeareth between the doctrine of Rome and ours, when we 
 teach Repentance. They imply in the name of Repentance 
 much more than we do. We stand chiefly upon the true 
 inward conversion of the heart ; they more upon works of 
 external show. We teach, above all things, that Repentance 
 which is one and the same from the beginning to the world's 
 end ; they a Sacramental Penance of their own devising and 
 shaping. We labour to instruct men in such sort, that every 
 soul which is wounded with sin may learn the way how to cure 
 itself; they, clean contrary, would make all sores seem in- 
 curable, unless the Priest have a hand in them.^ 
 
 Throughout these chapters, as elsewhere,^ Hooker has 
 set himself more intently to show why his opponents are 
 wrong than to prove that they are so. He is not afraid 
 of the challenge to build as well as to destroy, or of 
 the task of replacing what he refutes by a positive con- 
 struction which invites the test of a wide accumulation 
 of facts. 
 
 But Hooker does not stand alone. No English 
 Divine, whom I, at least, would ask you to follow, 
 makes little of the message effectually conveyed to the 
 soul of the sinner in the Absolution pronounced by the 
 Minister of Christ accredited to that solemn privilege by 
 the Church and by the Church's Lord. To enter now 
 
 1 Ecclesiastical Polity^ Book VI, Cap. VI, 2. 
 
 ^ See Dean Church's Introduction to Book I, p. xvi.
 
 42 
 
 upon the profound and difficult subject of what is 
 known as *' the power of the keys " would be im- 
 possible. I will for the present only say that to regard 
 the question of Private Confession as a question of 
 practical expediency and nothing more would be to miss 
 half its significance. 
 
 At the very root of the Reformation changes lay the 
 principle of the direct access of the individual soul to 
 God without human intervention of any kind, a prin- 
 ciple which destroys the whole theory upon which the 
 Roman Confessional had built its power. The man 
 who holds that the Priest's Absolution is required for 
 conveying God's pardon to the sin-stained soul will 
 have no doubt about his duty. But he who maintains 
 that theory has to reckon with the English Prayer 
 Book. That Book teaches otherwise, and with no 
 hesitating voice. 
 The What the Church of England says is surely positive and 
 
 Churchof , T-ui-1- ujv 
 
 England's clear. It might be thus paraphrased: You are conscious 
 eac ing. ^^ yQuj. sin_ Carry it to God for pardon. In the Church's 
 daily prayers you are guided how to do this ; and, that 
 Confession over, you receive there and then in the 
 Name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, Who died for 
 you upon the Cross, the assurance of His pardoning 
 grace. The pardon is yours already ; you have not to 
 wait for it or for something else. Thus pardoned and 
 cheered, you will use for common duties the strength 
 which He gives — gives in the daily answer to your daily 
 prayers and in the ordered Ministry of Word and 
 Sacrament. It may happen to you at times to have 
 some special difficulty in some crisis of your life, or
 
 43 
 
 possibly in the prospect of approaching death. At such 
 hours the guiding power of Conscience will depend 
 greatly upon how it has been strengthened by vigorous 
 daily use, and by your direct personal access to the 
 Throne of Grace, It may happen that at such a time 
 you need other helps, and among them, perhaps, 
 the help that can be given by the Minister of 
 Christ, accredited to assure you of God's pardon of 
 repented sin, and qualified by discretion and learning to 
 counsel you aright. If such need arise, if after all 
 your prayers and pains you cannot " quiet your own 
 conscience therein," you are at liberty to " open your 
 grief" in that special way, " that by the Ministry of 
 God's Holy Word you may receive the benefit of 
 Absolution together with ghostly counsel and advice," 
 Once more, if, in grave sickness, after like care and 
 prayer and pains, you still feel your " conscience 
 troubled with some weighty matter," our Church 
 directs that you should be even " moved " to tell it 
 out to God's Minister who visits you, that he may give 
 you authoritatively the message of God's forgiveness. 
 
 All this is clearly laid down, and the rules which pre- 
 scribe it are our answer to those who noisily tell us that 
 the Church of England knows no Private Confession and 
 Absolution. She does know and value this special form 
 of Ministry for grave and exceptional need. I am 
 certain that Confession so used. Absolution so given, has 
 been many a time of incalculable help to Christian men 
 and women. 
 
 But, my brothers, realise that special and exceptional 
 it must remain if we are to be loyal to our Church's
 
 44 
 
 Its use is 
 meant to 
 be excep- 
 tional. 
 
 Arch- 
 bishop 
 Benson. 
 
 teaching, nay, if we are not to run the risk of weaken- 
 ing the very characters which we long to strengthen 
 and upbuild. Realise, I beseech you, the peril attach- 
 ing to such teaching as may lead people back by degrees 
 into regarding habitual Auricular Confession as an 
 ordinary and almost a necessary part of their devotional 
 life. The subject is so grave that I seek for words 
 weightier than my own. On such a matter it is 
 natural to turn for leadership and counsel to the 
 Primate's Chair. Let me quote a sentence or two 
 first from Archbishop Benson and then from Arch- 
 bishop Temple. Each speaks in his own characteristic 
 way. Archbishop Benson, after a graphic description 
 of the origin in mediasval days of " the yoke, the 
 terror, the deceivableness of Technical Confession," 
 " the fruit of the despair which marked the Ninth 
 Century," goes on thus : — 
 
 Even from the first it was less difficult with women than 
 with men ; but it was strongly worked by strong wills and 
 great abilities, and it answered its purpose. But so soon as the 
 first age of modern civilisation succeeded to that of the Middle 
 Ages, its retention was only parallel to the retention of Latin 
 in the Church offices after the maturity of a great family of 
 languages. Then, as a system for society, it broke down. It 
 has broken the Church down with it. The masculine lay 
 intellect may be by various causes accidentally diverted for 
 a while from the generally necessary study of Christian Truth. 
 That will come right with discussion ; but as to the Con- 
 fessional — the Culture, the Philosophy, the Science, the Family 
 Union, the Civil Progress that Christendom has brought forth, 
 all alike exclaim — 
 
 In nostras fabricata est machina muros.
 
 45 
 
 If the office of the Christian Priest be really to help the " build- 
 ing of Society " upon lines laid down in human nature itself by 
 the hand of God, cleared and supplied with labour and with 
 materials by the life and works of Christ, the Confessional is no 
 building implement for the architect of to-day. ^ 
 
 Turn from the words of him " who, being dead, yet 
 speaketh," to the different but not less weighty utterance 
 of his successor in the Primacy. Speaking of the rigid 
 system of the Mediaeval Church (the system, as it seems 
 to me, to which, perhaps without meaning it, some 
 Parish Priests are tending to lead their people back), 
 Archbishop Temple says : — 
 
 The objection to such a system is not very difficult to trace. Arch- 
 The first, and perhaps the greatest, is the want of freedom. Temple. 
 Man is not made to be the better for being so much looked 
 after. To kill all spontaneous moral action by putting every 
 act, and word, and thought under rigid control from without 
 may produce a better accumulation of good deeds, but it lessens 
 the vital force of the good deeds themselves. The man is no 
 longer trained in seeking what is excellent, and in endeavouring 
 to practise it, but in obeying good rules made by some one else- 
 The life may in a certain sense be better, but the man himself 
 is not. The good deeds cease to be his good deeds. The fight 
 with evil that goes on within him is no longer really his fight. 
 The system carries the man back to Judaism. The Law 
 judges a man by what he does, but the Gospel by what he is. 
 " Do justice," says the Law ; "Be just," says the Gospel ; and 
 the system of the Confessional follows the rule of the Law, and 
 does not encourage the spirit of the Gospel.^ 
 
 ^ 7he Seven GiftSy p. 94. 
 ^ Primary Charge^ p. 20.
 
 46 
 
 No one in our Church, I imagine, would avow or 
 believe himself to be supporting the system as here 
 described. But it is my firm belief that the man who 
 encourages the habitual use of Confession by people 
 whose circumstances are in no reasonable sense ex- 
 ceptional is leading them inevitably to this abuse of the 
 system. What Archbishop Benson calls its "deceivable- 
 ness " is one of its most certain dangers. 
 
 I am of course well aware that, in theory at least, 
 formal " direction " is no essential part of the system of 
 Auricular Confession. But experience seems to have 
 shown — what indeed was to be expected — the practical 
 impossibility of keeping the two apart ; and it is this 
 which is largely responsible for the danger just alluded 
 to, the danger of the conscience losing something of its 
 proper robustness, something of its power of reticent and 
 independent action. I speak not from hearsay, still less 
 from a mere theory of what is likely, but from personal 
 knowledge and observation. 
 
 No doubt we must be prepared for exceptional cases. 
 As there are exceptional occasions in individual life, so 
 there are exceptional people in the Christian society ; 
 men or women whose peculiar temperament, or the 
 nature of whose temptations or surroundings or duties, 
 suggests, or even necessitates, for a time at least, excep- 
 tional modes of help. I am not attempting the impossible 
 task of defining where, in such cases, the line ought to 
 be drawn. I have tried, by study of the history of 
 the Confessional and its use both past and present 
 — and above all by close intercourse and discussion 
 with some of those whose personal experience as
 
 47 
 
 Confessors has been largest — to form a judgment 
 on the whole subject which shall be neither careless 
 nor prejudiced nor uninformed ; and after quiet and 
 anxious thought and prayer I feel it to be my duty 
 solemnly, as your Bishop, to exhort you to beware of 
 the insidious growth of a usage fraught, as I believe, 
 with much that is perilous to the healthy and robust 
 development of the Christian life. 
 
 At the same time, while speaking of these perils, I 
 desire to dissociate myself absolutely from the ignorant 
 or fanatical outcry about impurity and suggestions of 
 evil, which some people believe to be inseparable 
 from the Confessional even in England. That such 
 things are inconceivable, either in this or any other 
 system of private counsel and advice, none would dare 
 to say ; but the wholesale insinuations thus ignorantly 
 or fanatically brought against the Clergy who hear 
 habitual Confessions hardly merit a reply. 
 
 It remains to mention a few points on which there 
 can be no doubt or hesitation at all. 
 
 Anything that savours of compulsion is not merely to There 
 
 ,. J ..,-., -ir must be no 
 
 be discouraged ; it is denmtely and peremptorily for- compui- 
 bidden. And compulsion means not only the quasi- ^*°form^°^ 
 legal compulsion of the Church of Rome, but any such 
 pressure or teaching, especially among the young, as 
 shall lead them to regard Confession as one of the 
 religious duties essential to the higher Christian 
 life. Twice since I was a Bishop have cases been 
 brought to my notice of such virtual compulsion — 
 or of what to the tender and teachable spirit of a 
 young girl amounts to compulsion — in connexion with
 
 48 
 
 admission in one case to Confirmation, in the other 
 to Holy Communion. I acted in each instance within 
 forty-eight hours. If any such case is hereafter brought 
 before me, I shall deal with it summarily and, if 
 necessary, publicly. It is a gross violation of our 
 Church's rule, and merits, if substantiated, stern 
 reprobation and even punishment. 
 The In the next place, I fail to understand how the actual 
 
 Prayer . . 
 
 Book provisions of the Prayer Book can be made, even by 
 does not the widest stretch, to include the case of children in 
 *^caseo^^ good health who have not yet been confirmed. The 
 children, provision in the Communion Service is for the benefit 
 of a person qualified to receive the Holy Sacrament, 
 and kept back by inability, after full thought and 
 prayer, to quiet his own conscience. Beware then 
 lest any be led to strain these rules to breaking 
 point. The Council of Trent prescribes the duty of 
 Auricular Confession as binding from a very tender age, 
 as soon indeed as the child is old enough to have any 
 real consciousness of sin ^ ; and a certain anonymous and 
 most mischievous little Catechism, said to have obtained 
 some circulation in the Church of England, appears to 
 take that as its guide. But our formularies give no such 
 sanction, and, as the Bishop of Oxford has truly said,^ 
 " The Prayer Book cannot honestly be pressed into the 
 argument for making Confession a part of the discipline 
 of the unconfirmed, or of preparation for Confirmation." 
 One more point. It cannot be right that the anxious 
 and responsible duty of dealing with exceptional cases 
 
 1 Catech'ismus Cone. Trid.^ Pars. II, Cap. viii. 
 
 2 Fourth Visitation Charge^ 1899, p. 34.
 
 49 
 when thev arise should fall upon those who have Young 
 
 . . Priests 
 
 only recently received Priests' Orders. May I express should not 
 to ?very Rector or Vicar who hears me, or who fessions. 
 reads these words, my earnest hope that he will 
 not permit, still less encourage, his younger brethren 
 in the Ministry to undertake this difficult office, but will 
 require that those who seek for such treatment be referred 
 to him on whose shoulders has been solemnly laid 
 the cure of souls within the Parish. To most of those 
 who have been admitted by me to Priests' Orders I 
 have myself laid this clearly down, and my direction has, 
 I think, in every single case been welcomed. I wish to 
 extend the direction to others who, while stilj young and 
 inexperienced, have come into our Diocese from else- 
 where. The necessary qualifications will be theirs in 
 time.^ 
 
 You will not, I am sure, suppose that I am afraid of Need o{ 
 the fullest possible confidence between Pastor and people, pastoral 
 I sometimes think our present controversies are tending 
 to diminish that confidence, and that the more frequent 
 demand for " confessional " aid is an outcome of the 
 loss of what was customary a little while ago. The 
 unhappy diminution of systematic pastoral visitation 
 has much to answer for. 
 
 We have dwelt to-day upon Prayer Book rules and 
 rubrics, as well as upon the principles which underlie 
 them. Now let any man read carefully the rubrics 
 prefixed to the office of Holy Communion, and judge 
 whether they do not expect and even enjoin a very 
 
 ^ For fuller counsel on this point I may refer to the Pastoral 
 Letter of the Archbishop of York, Advent, 1898, p. 31. 
 
 E 
 
 inter- 
 course.
 
 50 
 
 intimate knowledge by the Parish Priest of the lives of 
 those to whom he is set to minister. All Christian 
 communities, and certainly not least the most Protestant 
 sects in England, have regarded some form or other of 
 outspoken intercourse on spiritual matters to be whole- 
 some and even necessary to real progress. If our 
 ministry, even in the pulpit, is to be adequately fulfilled, 
 we must know the facts and needs around us. And, 
 further, let us never forget that to teach our people 
 to rely exclusively or mainly upon the personal 
 confession made by the individual soul to God carries 
 with it the obligation to teach them to see to it that 
 that confession to God is both painstaking and regular, 
 and that it pierces deep. Thus only can the sinner come 
 to know his sin. Thus only can the soul's life be 
 nourished. Thus only can we "go from strength to 
 strength." 
 The My Reverend Brethren, I have said what I had to say 
 
 concerns upon this important subject. I am well aware that the 
 questions at issue affect only a small minority of those 
 whom I address, and that the larger number find no 
 difficulty whatever in complying with the provisions of 
 the Prayer Book as I have tried to interpret them to-day. 
 But " Private Confession " is " in the air," and thus con- 
 cerns us all, both from its intrinsic importance and from 
 its bearing upon the position, the teaching, and the usages 
 of the Church of England. I have, of course, only re- 
 peated what has been often said before, within the last 
 half century, by those responsible in their degree for 
 the government of our Church. Twenty-six years 
 have passed since the Bishops of this Province put forth
 
 51 
 
 unanimously a statement upon the subject, the handi- 
 work mainly of Bishop Wilberforce, Bishop Moberly 
 and Bishop Christopher Wordsworth. That document, 
 in somewhat shorter form, was adopted five years 
 later with almost absolute unanimity^ by the Second 
 Lambeth Conference, attended by a hundred Bishops 
 from every part of our Communion. I reprint the 
 paragraphs for your careful consideration.^ It is exactly 
 upon the lines there laid down that I have tried to speak 
 to you to-day. 
 
 Believe me, I appreciate to the full the indisputable a Bishop's 
 fact that many of the difficulties which beset us in this wamVnd 
 matter are difficulties which arise from that whole- ^^**^^- 
 hearted eagerness to help sick or perishing souls which 
 makes enthusiastic workers adopt or devise every 
 method old and new so that they may " by all means 
 save some." If I have seemed for a moment to misread 
 that motive or to underrate that zeal, know now that 
 nothing could be further from my thoughts. But those 
 on whom is laid the burden of high office are bound, 
 beyond other men, to scan and estimate by the help of 
 God the consequences, direct and indirect, distant as 
 well as near, to which our policy and our acts may lead. 
 It is the part of a Bishop to give warning of the 
 unsuspected strength of dangerous currents or the 
 proximity of hidden rocks. On each Bishop's Conse- 
 
 1 Three Bishops, and three only, took exception to the word 
 " encourage " in a single clause. On every other clause the 
 Conference was unanimous. 
 
 2 See Appendix A. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 
 
 cration day you have asked for him God's enabling 
 Grace that he may speak boldly as he ought to speak. 
 It is his duty, God helping him, to give such guidance 
 as shall make our message to men what Christ would 
 have it be. The one desire of us all is to follow the 
 actual example of Our Blessed Lord Himself in His 
 dealing with the distressed and the anxious and the sad. 
 He taught us the wisdom and the gain, not always of 
 removing difficulties even if we can, but of suggesting 
 principles of action, sowing seeds which are to sprout 
 and grow, supplanting helplessness by self-discipline and 
 self-reliance ; replacing timidity and shame by the 
 quietness and confidence which come from God.^ The 
 wisest human counsellor is he who leads the sinner to 
 need human counsel less. 
 
 1 See e.g.^ S. Matt. xix. i6-22 ; S. Luke v. 17-26. vii. 
 36-50 ; S. John iv. 15-30 ; v. 14 ; viii. i-ii, &c.
 
 S3 
 
 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 
 
 Of the changes made at the Reformation in the Changes 
 
 , r T-' J • made in 
 
 doctrme and usages of the Church of England, mcom- the Com- 
 parably the most important were those which concerned office at 
 the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or Holy Com- fQ^j-j^^^tio^^ 
 munion. It is possible that other changes, such as the 
 free circulation of the English Bible, or the substitution 
 of English for Latin in the public Services, or the com- 
 parative disuse of Private Confession, may at first in 
 the eyes of the unlearned people have seemed even 
 more notable. But the principles which underlay 
 those changes, important as they are, were less vital 
 than those which to the vulgar eye, and in the signifi- 
 cant vernacular phraseology, "turned the Mass into a 
 Communion." 
 
 It would be impossible to deal with this great subject 
 exhaustively, or even quite accurately, without a much 
 more profound discussion of the whole Eucharistic doc- 
 
 ^ It will not be supposed that I am adopting this phrase, or 
 regarding it as adequately expressing what took place. But in 
 a rough way it gave utterance to a truth. For the origin or 
 early use of the phrase, see Strypis Cranmer^ vol. i., p. 311. 
 Ed.' 1 848.
 
 54 
 
 trine than is within our reach to-day. My aim is less 
 ambitious. I ask you merely to trace with me, in bare 
 but, I hope, true outline, what happened at the English 
 Reformation with regard to a few marked characteristics 
 of our own rite. Observe closely the particular changes 
 then introduced. Were they accidental or deliberate ? 
 Were they merely the outcome and expression of some 
 passing phase of controversy, or were they part of a 
 well-reasoned and thoughtful course of action, approved 
 as years went on by such fathers and leaders of our 
 Church as we all delight to honour ? We shall thus 
 be in a position to judge whether at the present hour 
 we are any of us liable inadvertently, forgetfully, or 
 mistakenly to be disloyal, even in small matters, to 
 what is deliberately distinctive of our Church of 
 England. 
 
 What, then, speaking generally and omitting unim- 
 portant details, were the principal differences between 
 a Celebration of Holy Communion in the reign of 
 Charles II. and the corresponding Service in the reign 
 of Henry VIII ? Or if you will pardon me for put- 
 ting it in such a form, what contrasts would have been 
 apparent to Sir Thomas More if he could have returned 
 from the unseen world to be present at a Celebration 
 of Holy Communion, say, by Bishop Morley, in 
 Winchester Cathedral ^ 
 
 Primarily, and most obviously, four : the Service 
 was said in English, not in Latin : it was simplified in 
 many of the accompaniments which strike the eye : it 
 was a general Communion of the people : and lastly, 
 the Office itself was altered and re-arranged.
 
 55 
 
 This last point requires more careful statement. Not 
 to speak of minor matters, the large and manifest 
 changes were mainly these : the ministration of the 
 Cup to the laity ; the omission of all mention by 
 name of Angels, Saints, and departed persons ; and 
 the introduction of many new provisions, notably, the 
 Commandments and their responses, the offering of 
 the Alms upon the Holy Table, the Comfortable 
 Words, the post-Communion thanksgiving Collect, and 
 the Benediction. Besides these self-evident changes, 
 there was of course throughout the Service such a 
 modification of language and ritual with regard to the 
 Consecrated Elements as to give a somewhat different 
 colour and tone to the whole. 
 
 It is most difficult to summarise in a few sentences 
 the changes then made. But no one who will take the 
 trouble to transcribe in full the two Services, side by 
 side, and to mark their points of difference, can be left 
 in doubt as to the principles upon which the compilers 
 of our Prayer Book acted. These principles may be 
 reduced, I think, to three. The Reformers set them- 
 selves : 
 
 I. To restore the original idea of Communion as an Three 
 
 . , r ^ n i • principles 
 
 essential part or the bacramental rite. on which 
 
 II. To provide that everything done or said should changes 
 be visible and easy to be understood by all. rested. 
 
 III. To remove sternly whatever had been found by 
 experience to lead to superstition or to a materialistic 
 view of the Sacrament. 
 
 In all these respects the changes made were a return
 
 56 
 
 to the Scriptural and primitive idea of the Eucharistic 
 Service as contrasted with its mediaeval developments. 
 Examine this with me a little more closely. 
 
 I. 
 
 Restora- First, With regard to the dignity and duty of 
 People's Communion as such. It is, I suppose, difficult for us 
 nion. to realise the extent to which this had passed out of 
 view in the days preceding the Reformation. " Up to 
 1548," says the Bishop of Salisbury in his valuable 
 volume on The Holy Co;niniinion^ ' " the custom 
 had been for the Priest to celebrate and communicate 
 daily, but for the people to communicate only once a 
 year, at Easter ; and usually, it would seem, after or 
 apart from the Mass in which the Priest had communi- 
 cated." A reader of some of the books and primers 
 on the Mass, issued in the reign of Henry VIII., finds 
 nothing to suggest that any act of Communion on the 
 part of the people was even contemplated. So 
 thoroughly had this theory and custom of " Solitary 
 Masses " been popularised that, as you will remember, 
 the " Devon Rebels," in their petition against the 
 Prayer Book of 1549, allege the change made in this 
 matter as one of their special grievances : " We will 
 have the Mass in Latin, as was before, and celebrated 
 by the Priest, without any man or woman communi- 
 
 ^ Page 222, Second Ed., 1893 (Longmans). I commend this 
 book very cordially to those who desire to possess in a compendious 
 and convenient form a thoughtful and scholarly treatise on 
 the subject, together with useful advice upon practical details.
 
 formation 
 use. 
 
 57 
 
 eating with him," and, " We will have the Sacrament 
 of the Altar but at Easter delivered to the lay people, 
 and then but in one kind." ^ 
 
 It would be foreign to our purpose to investigate Pre-Re- 
 historically to-day the growth during mediaeval times of 
 this strange perversion of the original idea. The 
 question is discussed with abundant wealth of learning 
 in the second chapter of Scudamore's interesting and 
 conclusive Essay on the Communion of the haity^ to 
 which it is a pleasure to refer you. Mr. Scudamore 
 shows ^ that so early as the Sixth Century people began 
 to be taught " that a special benefit attended the 
 hearing of Mass by those who did not communicate; and 
 that a less careful preparation (if any), was needed for 
 that than for the actual reception of the Sacrament." 
 
 In 8 1 3 the Third Council of Tours ordained that the 
 laity should " communicate if not more frequently, at 
 least thrice in the year."* 
 
 In England at the beginning of the Eleventh Century 
 the Council, lay and clerical, held at Eanham decreed 
 thus : — '* Let every one who will understand his own 
 need also prepare himself to go to housel at least thrice 
 in the year so as it is requisite for him." ^ 
 
 The Fourth Lateran Council, held under Innocent III. 
 in 1 215, in the same Canon which enforces the obliga- 
 
 ^ See Cranmer's Works, vol. !., pp. 169-173 ; Park. Soc. 
 
 2 Rivingtons, 1855. ^ Page 81. 
 
 ^ Ut, si non frequentius, vel ter laici homines in anno com- 
 municent, nisi forte quis majoribus quibuslibet criminibus 
 impediatur. Canon 50. Labbe. T. xiv., col. 91. 
 
 •''Johnson's English Canons (Ang.-Cath. Lib.), p. 487.
 
 58 
 
 tion of Confession, enjoins but one reception of the 
 Holy Communion in the year, at Easter. The words 
 are these : — 
 
 Every one of the faithful of either sex .... shall be care- 
 ful to discharge, to the utmost of his power, the penance en- 
 joined upon him, receiving reverently at Easter, at the least, 
 the Sacrament of the Eucharist, .... on pain of being de- 
 barred entry of the Church during life and Christian burial 
 after death. ^ 
 
 The general practice seems thenceforward to have 
 been thus determined. The prescribed minimum was 
 adopted as the rule, and Communion on the part of 
 laymen at any other time than Easter became most 
 infrequent.^ Ecclesiastical ingenuity set to work to de- 
 fend or explain by artificial means this strange depar- 
 ture from scriptural and primitive rule, 
 
 " All Christendom," says St. Vincent Ferrer,^ " is one body, 
 united by faith and charity, having many members. The 
 
 ^ Omnis utriusque sexus fidelis .... injunctam sibi poeni- 
 tentiam studeat pro viribus adimplere, suscipiens reverenter ad 
 minus in Pascha Eucharistiae Sacramentum, .... alioquin et 
 vivens ab ingressu Ecclesiae arceatur, et moriens Christiana 
 careat sepultura. Ex lib. v. Decretalium^ Tit. xxxviii. De Pcenit. 
 et Remiss, cap. xii. 
 
 2 But not unknown. See references in Bishop Wordsworth's 
 The Holy Communion^ p. 224. 
 
 ^ Tota Christianitas est unum corpus fide et charitate con- 
 junctum habens multa membra. Sacerdos est os hujus corporis. 
 Cumque Sacerdos communicat, omnia membra reficiuntur. 
 Sermones ii. In Epiph. Domini. Niirnberg, 1492.
 
 59 
 
 Priest is the mouth of the body. When therefore the Priest 
 communicates, all the members are refreshed." 
 
 " The Priest who communicates daily," says another, " is a 
 member of the Church. Therefore all members of the Church 
 eat that bread daily." ^ 
 
 Erasmus throws upon the laity the blame for this 
 gross abuse. 
 
 " There be some," he says, " who ask for a Communion in 
 
 the Mass. So, I admit, was it ordained of Christ, and so was 
 
 it wont of old to be ordained. But it is not the Priests who 
 
 stand in the way of a return to this practice, but the laity, in 
 
 whom love, alas ! hath grown too cold." - 
 
 ^ Sacerdos communicans quotidie membrum Ecclesias est ; 
 ideo panem ilium quotidie manducant omnia membra ecclesise. 
 Sacri canonis Missae expos. Led. Ixxii. 
 
 •^ Sunt qui requirant in Missa Communionem. Sic, fateor, 
 fuit a Christo institutum, et olim ita consuevit observari. Verum 
 i d quo minus fiat baud stat per sacerdotes, sed per laicos, in 
 quibus heu nimium refrixit caritas. 0pp. T. i;., col. 503, Lug. 
 Bat.^ 17C4. 
 
 A striking parallel to this position of Erasmus is furnished 
 in our own time by Mohler, rightly described as "one 
 of Germany's most distinguished Roman Catholic theologians," 
 whose "Symbolik" was characterised by D'Aubigne as "one 
 of the most important writings produced by Rome since the 
 time of Bossuet." I quote from the original translation by 
 Robertson : 
 
 " For the unseemliness of the congregation no longer com- 
 municating every Sunday (as was the case in the primitive 
 Church), and of the Priests in the Mass usually receiving alone 
 the Body of the Lord, is not to be laid to the blame of the 
 Church (for all the prayers in the Holy Sacrifice presuppose
 
 6o 
 
 Quotations could easily be multiplied. But there is 
 no need. The facts are clear. The Council of Trent 
 recognised the gravity of the evil, but did practically 
 nothing. Its disapproval is expressed in the mildest 
 terms. I quote the words.^ 
 
 The The most holy Synod could indeed have wished that, at every 
 
 Cwancil celebration of the Mass, the faithful who are present should 
 communicate not only spiritually but also by Sacramental 
 reception of the Eucharist, that so they might have a richer 
 fruit of this most holy sacrifice. Notwithstanding, if this be 
 not always done, the Synod does not therefore condemn as 
 private and unauthorised those Masses in which the Priest 
 alone communicates sacramentally, but it approves, nay, com- 
 mends them. 
 
 For such Masses also ought to be held to be truly Com- 
 munions ; partly, because in them the people communicate 
 spiritually ; partly, because they are celebrated by the public 
 minister of the Church, not for himself alone, but for all the 
 faithful who belong to the body of Christ. 
 
 the Sacramental Communion of the entire congregation), but 
 is to be ascribed solely to the tepidity of the greater part of the 
 faithful. Yet are the latter earnestly exhorted to participate, at 
 least spiritually, in the communion of the Priest, and in this 
 way to enter into the fellowship of Christ." Mohler, " Sym- 
 bolism^^'' trans, by Robertson^ ed. 1843, ^'^^' '5 P* 343* 
 ^ Sessio XXII, caput vi. 
 Optaret quidem sacrosancta Synodus ut in singulis Missis 
 fideles adstantes non solum spiritual! afFectu sed Sacramentali 
 etiam Eucharistiae perceptione communicarent, quo ad eos 
 sanctissimi hujus sacriflcii fructus uberior proveniret : nee 
 tamen, si id non semper fiat, propterea Missas illas, in quibus
 
 6i 
 
 Very different from this halting counsel was the line j-^^J^gh 
 taken by the English Reformers. From the outset they Reform- 
 set themselves to restore the idea of Communion as of 
 the very essence of the Service. This involved a sweep- 
 ing change in the ordinary invitation and admission of 
 the laity to Communion. We might have expected 
 it to have been brought about gradually. But it 
 was not so. On November 30th, 1547, Convocation 
 agreed that the Communion should be admistered in both 
 kinds, and an Act of Parliament was immediately passed ^ 
 to give effect to this proposal, and to make the admission 
 of the laity to the Holy Communion general, occasion 
 being at the same time taken to denounce and forbid, 
 under severe penalty, the profane talk and, as it was 
 called, the ' reviling ' of the Mass, which had been 
 spreading under the influence of heated sectaries from 
 abroad. 
 
 The whole Act is important for our purpose to-day, ^^ of 
 as showing in unmistakable terms the purpose and gist iS47- 
 of the English Reformation in this its first stage of 
 doctrinal and liturgical endeavour. It insists upon 
 Reform, and explains its meaning, but sternly checks 
 the extravagance of Puritan or Continental Reformers. 
 
 solus Sacerdos sacramentaliter communicat, ut privatas et illicitas 
 damnat, sed probat atque adeo commendat. 
 
 Siquidem illas quoque Missas vere communes censeri debent ; 
 partim, quod in els populus spiritualiter communicet ; partim 
 vero, quod a publico Ecclesiae ministro non pro se tantum, 
 sed pro omnibus fidelibus qui ad corpus Christi pertinent, 
 celebrentur, 
 
 •1 December 20, 1547.
 
 62 
 
 The phraseology is strangely unlike what we are now 
 accustomed to in Acts of Parliament : 
 
 The King's most excellent majesty, minding the governance 
 and order of his most loving subjects to be in most perfect 
 unity and concord in all things, and in especial in the true 
 faith and religion of God, .... yet considers and perceives 
 that in a multitude all be not on that sort, that reason and the 
 knowledge of their duties can move them from offence, but 
 many which had need have some bridle of fear, and that the 
 same be men most contentious and arrogant for the most 
 part, or else most blind and ignorant ; by the means of which 
 sort of men, many things well and godly instituted, and to 
 the edification of many, be perverted and abused, and turned 
 to their own and others' great loss and hindrance, and some- 
 time to extreme destruction, the which does appear in nothing 
 more or sooner than in matters of religion, and in the great 
 and high mysteries thereof, as in the most comfortable Sacra- 
 ment of the Body and Blood of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, 
 commonly called the Sacrament of the Altar, and in Scripture 
 the Supper and Table of the Lord, the communion and par- 
 taking of the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 Which Sacrament was instituted of no less author than ot 
 our Saviour, both God and man, when, at His last Supper 
 amongst His Apostles, He did take the bread into His holy 
 hands, and did say : " Take you and eat, this is My Body, 
 which is given and broken for you." And taking up the chalice 
 or cup, did give thanks and say : " This is my Blood of the 
 New Testament, which is shed for you and for many, for the 
 remission of sins," that whensoever we should do the same, 
 we should do it in the remembrance of Him, and to declare 
 and set forth His death and most glorious passion until His 
 coming 
 
 Yet the said Sacrament (all this notwithstanding) has been 
 of late marvellously abused by such manner of men before
 
 63 
 
 rehearsed, who of wickedness, or else of ignorance and want of 
 learning, for certain abuses heretofore committed of some, in 
 misusing thereof, having condemned in their hearts and speech 
 the whole thing, and contemptuously depraved, despised, or 
 reviled the same most holy and blessed Sacrament .... name 
 or call it by such vile and unseemly words as Christian ears do 
 abhor to hear rehearsed. 
 
 For reformation whereof be it enacted, .... that whatso- 
 ever person or persons .... shall deprave, despise, or contemn • 
 the said most blessed Sacrament, in contempt thereof, by any 
 contemptuous words, .... that then he or they shall suffer 
 imprisonment of his or their bodies, and make fine and ransom 
 at the King's will and pleasure 
 
 And forasmuch as it is more agreeable, both to the first 
 institution of the said Sacrament of the most precious Body and 
 Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ and also more conformable to 
 the common use and practice both of the Apostles and of the 
 Primitive Church, by the space of five hundred years and more 
 after Christ's Ascension, that the said blessed Sacrament should 
 be ministered to all Christian people, under both the kinds of 
 bread and wine, than under the form of bread only, and also it 
 is more agreeable to the first institution of Christ, and to the 
 usage of the Apostles and the Primitive Church, that the people 
 being present should receive the same with the Priest, than that 
 the Priest should receive it alone ; therefore be it enacted by 
 our said sovereign lord the King, with the consent of the Lords 
 spiritual and temporal and the Commons in this present Parlia- 
 ment assembled, and by the authority of the same, that the said 
 most blessed Sacrament be hereafter commonly delivered and 
 ministered unto the people within the Church of England and 
 Ireland, and other the King's dominions, under both the kinds, 
 that is to say of bread and wine, except necessit}'- otherwise 
 require. 
 
 And also that the Priest which shall minister the same, shall, 
 at the least one day before, exhort all persons which shall be
 
 64 
 
 present likewise to resort and prepare themselves to receive the 
 same. 
 
 And when the day prefixed comes, after a godly exhortation 
 by the Minister made (wherein shall be further expressed the 
 benefit and comfort promised to them which worthily receive 
 the said holy Sacrament, and [the] danger and indignation or 
 God threatened to them which shall presume to receive the 
 same unworthily, to the end that every man may try and 
 examine his own conscience before he shall receive the same), 
 the said Minister shall not, without lawful cause, deny the same 
 to any person that will devoutly and humbly desire it ; any 
 law, statute, ordinance or custom contrary thereunto in anywise 
 notwithstanding ; not condemning hereby the usage of any 
 Church out of the King's majesty's dominions. 
 
 " Order of A fcw wecks after the passing of this Act came the 
 nion^" Royal Proclamation ordering the use of the newly pre- 
 ^^'^^' pared " Order of the Communion " in English. This 
 Order for the people's Communion was strangely enough 
 to be interpolated in the Latin Mass, its English Ex- 
 hortation following " immediately after that the Priest 
 himself hath received the Sacrament without the varying 
 of any other rite or ceremony in the Mass." Nothing, 
 surely, could have been better devised to fix the minds of 
 an unlearned congregation upon the significance of the 
 change than the sudden sound of a plain English 
 Exhortation in the midst of the old Latin Office. 
 After the first Exhortation is the following rubric : — 
 
 Here the Priest shall pause a while to see if any man will 
 withdraw himself, and if he perceive any so to do, then let 
 him commune with him privily at convenient leisure, and see 
 whether he can with good exhortation bring him to grace.
 
 65 
 
 It may be well here to point out the steps taken 
 in the successive Prayer Books to instruct the people 
 in their new duty of habitual Communion. 
 
 The Rubrics are as explicit as it was possible to make ^^^^^ 
 
 ^ '^ Prayer 
 
 them. In the First Prayer Book of Edward, one year Book. 
 after the " Order of Communion," and while the new 
 custom was still unfamiliar, the direction ran as follows: 
 
 That the receiving of the Sacrament of the blessed Body and 
 Blood of Christ may be most agreeable to the institution 
 thereof and to the usage of the primitive Church, in all 
 Cathedral and Collegiate Churches there shall always some 
 communicate with the Priest that ministereth. And that the 
 same may be also observed everywhere abroad in the country, 
 some one at least of that house in every Parish to whom by 
 course, after the ordinance herein made, it appertaineth to offer 
 for the charges of the Communion, or some other whom they 
 shall provide to offer for them, shall receive the Holy Com- 
 munion with the Priest ; the which may be the better done for 
 that they know before when their course cometh, and may 
 therefore dispose themselves to the worthy receiving of the 
 Sacrament. And with him or them who doth so offer the 
 charges of the Communion, all other who be then godly 
 disposed thereunto shall likewise receive the Communion. And 
 by this means the Minister, having always some to communi- 
 cate with him, may accordingly solemnise so high and holy 
 mysteries with all the suffrages and due order appointed for the 
 same. And the Priest on the w^eek-day shall forbear to cele- 
 brate the Communion except he have some that will com- 
 municate with him. 
 
 In the Second Prayer Book, three years later, the Second 
 Rubric was changed into a form almost identical with Book!^ 
 that which stands in our present Book.
 
 66 
 
 And there shall be no celebration of the Lord's Supper 
 except there be a good ^ number to communicate with the 
 Priest, according to his discretion. 
 
 And if there be not above twenty persons in the Parish ot 
 discretion to receive the Communion, yet there shall be no 
 Communion except four, or three at the least, communicate with 
 the Priest. And in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches where 
 be many Priests and Deacons they shall all receive the Com- 
 munion with the Minister every Sunday at the least, except 
 they have a reasonable cause to the contrary. 
 
 Commu- I do not Stay to dwell upon the successive Rubrics 
 Sick, respecting the Communion of the Sick. The imperative 
 requirement from 1552 onwards^ that, except in time of 
 plague or contagious sickness, there shall always be others 
 to communicate in the sick room, and that default of 
 such fellow-communicants justifies the Curate in not 
 celebrating the Sacrament, is deeply significant of the 
 strength of the Reformers' feeling as to the principle 
 which underlay the change they were effecting. 
 With- And this brings us naturally to a further question. 
 Non-Com- Ought all those present at the Communion Service to 
 munican s. ^,Qj^j^m-^^Qa^l-e ? Ought non-communicants to with- 
 draw ? There is no such injunction in our Prayer 
 Book as it stands, though in King Edward's First Book 
 it was laid down that those *'that mind not to receive 
 the Holy Communion shall depart out of the Choir," 
 and in the Second Book the wording of the Exhortation 
 
 1 The Rubric of 1661 substitutes "convenient" for "good." 
 
 2 In the Prayer Book of 1549 fellow-communicants with the 
 sick man are not absolutely required, but he is bidden to invite 
 their presence, " for that shall be to him a singular great 
 comfort, and of their parts a great token of charity."
 
 67 
 
 is such as to make the presence of non-communicants 
 throughout the Service almost impossible. This word- 
 ing was retained in Queen Elizabeth's Book, and, 
 although the change was not very speedily effected,^ 
 it seems to be clear that, before the final Revision in 
 1662, non-communicating attendance had practically 
 ceased.^ 
 
 Bishop Cosin, in a Tract written for the express pur- 
 pose of giving foreigners a correct view of the doctrine 
 and discipline of our Church, says explicitly that, after 
 the Prayer for the Church Militant, "those who do 
 not intend to communicate are dismissed," ^ and in his 
 " Particulars to be considered," he urges that the 
 Exhortations to Communion " are more fit to be read 
 some days before the Communion than at the very 
 same time when the people are come to receive it. For 
 first, they that tarry for that purpose are not negligent, 
 and they that be negligent be gone and hear it not." ^ 
 
 Similarly, Bishop Wren, in advocating the entire 
 omission of the old Exhortation, writes : — ^ 
 
 " To stand as gazers and lookers on is now wholly out oi 
 
 ^ See, e.g.^ a curious letter from Grindal to Parker in 1564 
 [Parser Correspondence^ Letter cliv., p. 201). 
 
 2 See Scudamore, Not. Euch., p. 439. 
 
 ^ Postea qui nobiscum non communicaturi sunt, emittuntur 
 foras. De Eccl. Ang. Religione Dtsciplina Sacrisque Ritibus. 
 Cap. XVI. Works, A.C.L., Vol. IV., p. 359. 
 
 * Works, A.C.L. Vol. v., p. 515. His suggestion as to 
 date was adopted, and the wording was modified. 
 
 ^ Fragmentary Illustrations, p. 78. See Scudamore, Not. 
 Euch., p. 440. 
 
 F 2
 
 Communi 
 cants 
 
 68 
 
 use in all parishes. And the not-communicants generally do 
 use to depart without bidding." 
 
 Our Office Apart from such evidence as to what actually happened, 
 
 adapted ,^,, ric- . ^^ . 
 
 only for the whole Structure or the bervice, as it grew into 
 the form with which we are familiar, has evidence 
 stamped upon it that it was meant and fashioned for 
 those who then and there were themselves the Com- 
 municants. There is very little in the form and phrase- 
 ology of the pre-Reformation Mass (say, according to 
 the use of Sarum), in which one who was not then com- 
 municating would find it unsuitable to join ; but I am 
 surely not exaggerating when I say that the change 
 from that Office to our own was a change from a Service 
 which could quite naturally and suitably be so used to 
 a Service which could not ; and that frequent mental 
 adaptation of the words to circumstances other than 
 those for which they were framed is necessary on the 
 part of those who join in our existing " Order of the 
 administration of the Lord's Supper or Holy Com- 
 munion " when not themselves communicating. 
 
 Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that 
 such adaptation is necessarily strained or unreal, still 
 less that it is impossible. But I do say that I can 
 find no trace whatever in the writings of the Divines 
 of the Sixteenth or Seventeenth Centuries of their 
 regarding the Form of Service for which they were 
 largely responsible as being either intended for such 
 use or suited to it.^ That no sanction on their part 
 
 1 The one possible exception is the little-known writer 
 Scandret, probably a member of the Irish Church. See 
 Scudamore, Not. Euch., p. 441, 2nd ed.
 
 «9 
 
 for such a practice can be found, I am not prepared 
 to assert. I can onlv say that I have sought in vain. 
 
 On the opposite side there is, of course, no lack of 
 evidence ; 
 
 " Good brethren," says Bishop Jewel, at St. Paul's Cross, in Bishop 
 1560, "I will make it plain unto you, through God's grace, by J^^^- 
 the most ancient writers that were in and after the Apostles' 
 time, and by the order of the first primitive Church, that then 
 there could be no Private Mass, and that whoso would not 
 communicate with the Priest was then commanded out of 
 the congregation." 
 
 He then quotes the so-called Apostolical Canons with 
 S. Chrysostom, S. Gregory, and others, and goes on 
 thus : — 
 
 " Yet there are some that whisper in corners .... that the 
 Holy Communion which now God of His great mercy hath 
 restored to us is wicked and schismatical 
 
 " O merciful God, who would think there could be so much 
 wilfulness in the heart of man ? O Gregory ! O Augustine ! 
 O Hierome ! O Chrysostom ! O Leo ! O Dionyse ! 
 O Anacletus ! O Sixtus ! O Paul ! O Christ ! If we be 
 deceived herein, ye are they that have deceived us. You have 
 taught us these schisms and divisions, ye have taught us these 
 heresies. Thus ye ordered the Holy Communion in your 
 time : the same we received at your hand, and have faithfully 
 delivered it unto the people." ^ 
 
 Nothing would be easier than to reproduce from the 
 writings of the more vehement Protestants denuncia- 
 tions of the presence of non- communicants, couched 
 sometimes in terms of downright violence. It is in every 
 way more useful to enquire what was the view taken 
 
 1 Works^ Vol. I, pp. 19, 20, Park Soc.j compare pp. 177 — 8.
 
 70 
 
 Bishop by such men as Bishop Andrewes and those who followed 
 ' him, men who will not be suspected of disparaging 
 Catholic order or custom. I can find little that bears 
 directly upon the particular point, but what little there 
 is will not support the theory that they either expected 
 or desired any habitual presence of non-communicants 
 at the Service. In the account of the Consecration of 
 Jesus Chapel, Southampton, by Bishop Andrewes (the 
 occasion on which he drew up the Consecration Service 
 which we still use) it is recorded that, before the cele- 
 bration of Holy Communion began, " Finitis precation- 
 ibus istis . . . populus uni versus non communicaturus 
 dimittitur, et porta clauditur." ^ It would be wrong to 
 attach too much importance to a single example such as 
 this, but the evidence of Bishop Cosin, a little later, 
 has already been given. 
 
 Hear, however, what Bishop Andrewes explicitly 
 says as to the necessity of actual partaking of the 
 Elements, if the Eucharist is to have its true meaning. 
 Cardinal Bellarmine, whom he is answering, had argued 
 that the Church of England denies any sacrificial 
 element in the Eucharist, and regards it merely as a 
 communion for spiritual nourishment.^ 
 
 ^ These prayers ended .... all the people not about to 
 communicate are dismissed and the door is shut. See the copy 
 of this Service appended to Spa.rrow\ Rationale (Parker, 1840), 
 p. 415. See also TVinchester Diocesan Chronicle^ Sept. 1898, 
 
 P- 137- 
 
 2 Non credunt Eucharistiam institutam fuisse a Domino, ut 
 ofFerretur Deo in sacrificium, sed solum ut Sacramentum com- 
 miunionis esset, et populo offerretur in alimoniam spiritualem.
 
 71 
 
 Andrewes replies that the Church of England finds 
 in the Eucharist both these characteristics, and adds : — 
 
 " Although they [English Churchmen] admit this, yet they 
 deny that either of these uses (instituted by the Lord at the 
 same time and conjointly) can by man be put asunder, or, 
 either on account of the negligence of the people or the 
 avarice of the Priests be broken the one from the other. The 
 sacrifice which is there is a thank-offering, of which sacrifice 
 the law is that he who off^ers it should partake of it. " Partake " 
 — how ? By receiving and eating, as the Saviour commanded. 
 For as to " partaking by praying," it is a modern and new- 
 fangled kind of partaking, newer even than your Private 
 Mass." 1 
 
 Again, preaching before the King on Easter Day 
 1612, Andrewes, who has taken as his text i Cor. v. 8 : 
 " therefore let us keep the feast," says in the 
 course of his sermon : — ^ 
 
 ' Eoprd^cofjiev. The word is one, but two ways it is turned. 
 Some read, celebremus. Some others, epulemur. But well : for 
 first, it is kindly when we keep a feast, we make a feast. But 
 
 ■^ Responsio ad Bellarm.^ p. 250. A. C. L. 
 
 Hoc quidem etsi admittant, negant tamen utrumque usum 
 hunc (sic a Domino simul et conjunctim institutum) divelH 
 posse ab homine, aut propter vel populi negligentiam vel 
 Sacerdotum avaritiam alterum ab altero abrumpi. Sacrificium, 
 quod ibi est, Eucharisticum esse : cujus sacrificii ea lex, ut qui 
 illud offerat, de eo participet : paj-ticipet autem accipiendo et 
 comedendo ( uti jussit Salvator). Nam participare impetrands, 
 nuperum id quidem et novitium participandi genus ; ac multo 
 etiam magis quam Missa ipsa privata. 
 
 2 Sermons^ II, p. 298. Lib. A, C. L.
 
 Water- 
 Und. 
 
 72 
 
 this, this feast, is not celebrated sine hoc epulo. If Christ be a 
 propitiatory sacrifice, a peace-offering, I see not how we can 
 avoid but the flesh of our peace-offering must be eaten in this 
 feast by us, or else we evacuate the offering utterly, and lose 
 the fruit of it. And was there a Passover heard of, and the 
 lamb not eaten ? Time was when he was thought no good 
 Christian that thought he might do one without the other. 
 No celebremus without epulemur in it. 
 
 Early in the last century Daniel Waterland, in his 
 Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist^ comments 
 upon an important passage in Bingham's Ecclesiastical 
 Antiquities^ in which Bingham had stated that "the 
 most ancient and primitive custom was for all, that were 
 allowed to stay and communicate in prayers, to com- 
 municate in the participation of the Eucharist also, 
 except only the last class of penitents," and that such 
 custom had subsequently, in the Sixth Century, been 
 relaxed. 
 
 Upon this Waterland observes that, although in the 
 Sixth Century 
 
 " the dismission of the non-communicants might perhaps be 
 deferred somewhat later, .... yet dismissed they were before 
 the Communion properly came on, and the absurdity which 
 Chrysostom complained of, that of staying out the whole 
 solemnity without communicating, never was admitted in those 
 days." 1 
 
 The learning both of Bingham and Waterland makes 
 the whole passage in each author well worth studying, 
 
 1 See Bingham^ XV, chaps, i.-iii, ; and Waterland, Review^ 
 chap. xiv.
 
 Johnson. 
 
 73 
 
 but I only refer to them now as evidence of what was 
 the view of non-communicating attendance held by such 
 men in England two hundred years ago. 
 
 If there is any Anglican writer of the Seventeenth or John 
 Eighteenth Centuries in whose books we might expect to 
 find encouragement given to the habitual attendance of 
 non-communicants ' at the Holy Eucharist, it is John 
 Johnson, author of The Unbloody Sacrifice. No one will 
 regard his sacramental doctrine as halting or timorous. 
 He pushes his expressions into a form which would 
 have startled Laud or Andrewes. But on the point we 
 are considering he writes thus : — 
 
 In some cases it seems pretty clear that the ancients were or 
 opinion that the application of the merits of Christ's death 
 might be made by virtue of the Oblation only, without eating 
 and drinking the Eucharistical Body and Blood, as, for instance, 
 to those who by banishment, imprisonment for Christ's sake, 
 or other violent means, were debarred from the privilege of 
 actual Communion. 
 
 After expanding this, he continues : — 
 
 In the Ninth Century, when the primitive ardour and purity 
 of the Church was very much eclipsed, the people grew more 
 backward and cold in the duty of communicating : these same 
 Priests presumed to make the Oblation without any distribution 
 or Communion ; and yet even then it was not allowed or 
 approved ; nay, they who did it were censured in divers 
 Councils held in France and Germany. I only speak of the 
 efficacy of the Oblation in behalf of such as were detained from 
 the Communion by some involuntary and invincible obstacle ; 
 and am so far from having any good opinion of the solitary
 
 74 
 
 Masses among the Papists that I am fully persuaded that in the 
 primitive Church the Oblation and Communion were in- 
 separable.^ 
 
 I am intentionally confining myself to the testimony 
 of those who are usually referred to as the founders and 
 leaders of Anglican High Churchmanship in the Seven- 
 teenth Century and in the reign of Queen Anne. I 
 shall have occasion immediately to say something about 
 the authorities of our own day. What I have tried to 
 show is that the principle of making the Communion of 
 the people an essential part of the Eucharistic Service 
 was no mere cry of the earlier and more zealous 
 Reformers in eager reaction against Roman abuses, but 
 was deliberately adopted, and continuously supported 
 by High Churchmen no less than by Low Churchmen, 
 as a return to Scriptural and primitive teaching about 
 the Holy Sacrament. 
 "Solitary When I havc suggested to thoughtful men the bear- 
 ing of such passages as these upon what is now known 
 as non-communicating attendance, I have sometimes been 
 met by the reply that what Andrewes and his followers 
 condemned was simply the Roman custom of " Solitary 
 Mass," where the Priest says the Office alone in the 
 Church without the presence of any congregation. Let 
 any one who thus restricts the meaning of "Solitary Mass" 
 turn to the Fourteenth Book of Bingham's Antiquities, 
 chap, iv., section 5, where, in dealing with " The Cor- 
 ruption of Private and Solitary Mass," the author states 
 
 1 The Unbloody Sacrifice. Chap. II, Section II, Ang. Cath. 
 Lib., p. 401. 
 
 Mass.
 
 75 
 
 explicitly what is in his view covered by the term. 
 His words are as follows : 
 
 That we call " Solitary Mass," where the Priest receives alone 
 without any other communicants, and sometimes says the Office 
 alone without any assistants : such are all those Private and 
 Solitary Masses in the Roman Church which are said at their 
 private altars in the corners ot their Churches without the 
 presence of any but the Priest alone, and all those Public Masses 
 where none but the Priest receives^ though there be many spectators 
 of the action. As there is no agreement of either of these with 
 the institution of Christ, but a direct opposition to it (for that 
 was designed' to be a Communion among many : "We, being 
 many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of 
 that one bread," which is impossible where there are no com- 
 municants) : so there is not the least footstep of any such 
 practice in the Primitive Church. 
 
 II. 
 
 Look now with me more briefly at the second ot The 
 
 Service 
 
 the principles upon which the English Reformers based simplified, 
 their action — the endeavour, namely, to simplify the 
 Service and to make its meaning more obvious to all. 
 
 The replacing of Latin by English, though the most 
 important means employed, was yet only one means 
 out of many. The need of some such effort had been 
 recognised for years within the fold of the Roman 
 Church, and even by the Pope himself. The Spanish 
 Cardinal Quignon, a leader in the movement for such 
 reform, was the friend and confidant both of Clement 
 VIII. and of Paul III. His Reformed Breviary, pub- 
 lished in 1535, furnished Archbishop Cranmer with the
 
 76 
 
 materials for the vigorous Preface with which he intro- 
 duced the Prayer Book of 1 549 to the EngUsh people.^ 
 But Cranmer and those who worked with him were 
 resolved that the endeavour which proved futile within 
 the Roman Church should be brought to a successful 
 issue in England. Listen again to a few sentences of 
 the Preface *' concerning the Service of the Church." 
 
 Yet, because there is no remedy, but that of necessity there 
 must be some Rules ; therefore certain Rules are here set 
 forth, which, as they are few in number, so they are plain and 
 easy to be understood. So that here you have an Order for 
 Prayer, and for the reading of the holy Scripture, much agree- 
 able to the mind and purpose of the old Fathers, and a great 
 deal more profitable and commodious than that which of late 
 was used. It is more profitable, because here are left out many 
 things, whereof some are untrue, some uncertain, some vain and 
 superstitious ; and nothing is ordained to be read, but the very 
 pure Word of God, the holy Scriptures, or that which is agree- 
 able to the same ; and that in such a language and order as is 
 most easy and plain for the understanding both of the readers 
 and hearers. It is also more commodious both for the short- 
 ness thereof, and for the plainness of the order, and for that the 
 rules be few and easy. 
 
 A hundred years pass, and again the writing of a 
 Preface to the Prayer Book is entrusted to one of the 
 foremost Bishops of the Church. Bishop Sanderson's 
 Preface is worthy of the place accorded to it in our 
 present Prayer Book, and it reiterates the very prin- 
 
 1 For an account of Cardinal Quignon and his work see 
 Father Gasquet's Edward VI. and the Book of Common Prayer^ 
 pages 20-23, 356-370.
 
 ness. 
 
 77 
 
 ciples laid down a century before. 1 need not trouble 
 you with its familiar words. 
 
 These Prefaces, of course, were applicable to the "Open- 
 successive Prayer Books as a whole, and not merely to 
 the Service of Holy Communion. But it was there 
 especially that greater simplicity and openness were felt 
 to be necessary. The Reformers set themselves to clear 
 away, so far as possible, the cloud of mystery in which 
 the Ritual of the Mass had been shrouded from popular 
 understanding. " The ceremonies retained," says 
 Cranmer,! " be neither dark nor dumb ceremonies, but 
 are so set forth that every man may understand what 
 they do mean and to what use they do serve." 
 
 To quote the striking words of Archbishop Benson 
 in the Lincoln Judgment : — 
 
 The tenor of the Common Prayer is openness. The work of 
 its framers was to bring out and recover the worship of the 
 Christian congregation, and especially to replace the Eucharist 
 in its character as the Communion of the whole Body of Christ. 
 By the use of the mother tongue ; by the audibleness of every 
 prayer ; by the Priest's prayers being made identical with the 
 prayers of the congregation ; by the part of the clerks 
 being taken by the people ; by the removal of the invisible and 
 inaudible ceremonial, the English Church, as one of her special 
 works in the history of the Catholic Church, restored the 
 ancient share and right of the people in Divine Service.- 
 
 No clearer summary could be given of the character 
 
 ^ Preface Of Ceremonies^ why iome\ be Abolished and some 
 Retained. 
 
 2 Judgment in Read v. The Bishop of Lincoln^ Nov. 2i, 1890, 
 p. 50.
 
 use. 
 
 78 
 
 and significance of the changes made, and it is needless 
 that I should remind you of them further. 
 Post-Re- It is not, however, without interest and significance 
 
 formation . • 1 t-» /^i i 
 
 Roman to notice the later development m the Roman Church 
 of the theory of an esoteric mystery belonging to the 
 actual Celebration of the Mass, a mystery into which, 
 so to speak, the Priest is initiated, the people being left 
 outside. The practice of reciting the Canon of the 
 Mass secreto is said to have become common so far 
 back as the ninth or tenth century, " the earlier 
 disciplina arcani having been extended from the heathen 
 to the layman," and it was of course usual, with certain 
 specified exceptions, at the time of the Reformation. ^ 
 Hence the significance of the rubric in the First Prayer 
 Book, directmg the Priest to say the Prayer of Conse- 
 cration " plainly and distinctly." This was altogether 
 new. Among the fanciful reasons given by Lyndwood 
 for the silence are these : " That the people may not 
 be hindered praying ; " and again : " Because these 
 words belong to the Priest alone." ^ Follow this up 
 in its natural outcome in the post- Reformation Roman 
 Church. In 1661 a Bull was issued by Pope Alexander 
 VII., in which he sets forth that he had heard with 
 great sorrow that certain sons of perdition, to the ruin 
 of souls and in despite of the practice of the Church, 
 had reached such a height of madness {ad earn nuper 
 vesaniam pervenerint) as to turn the Latin Missal into 
 
 1 The Canon was known popularly as '■'■ seer eta." It was 
 called ^^ sw'imesse" in early English, from swigan or swigian, 
 to be silent. See Simmons' Lay Folds'' Mass Book^ p. 274. 
 
 2 See Scudamore, Not. Euch.^ p. 569.
 
 79 
 
 French, and had dared to print and retail it without 
 regard to state or sex, *' and had thus endeavoured to 
 cast down and trample the majesty of the most sacred 
 Rite, embodied in the Latin words, and by their rash 
 attempt expose to the vulgar the dignity of the holy 
 mysteries." The Bull proceeds to denounce, under 
 penalty of excommunication, the printing, reading, or 
 possession of any Missal in French, by whomsoever 
 written, and orders all existing copies to be burnt, ^ 
 
 What are the present regulations upon the subject I 
 do not know ; but so lately as i860 the provisions of 
 the Bull of 1 66 1 seem still to have been so far en- 
 forced in France that the Congregation of Rites forbade 
 any translation whatever of the Canon of the Mass.^ 
 
 I have called attention to this point in order to 
 show that when the Reformers laid stress upon this 
 particular change, it was not without ample reason, not 
 perhaps without a wise prescience whereunto the thing 
 might grow. 
 
 III. 
 
 In considering the third principle we have spoken of Danger 
 as underlying the liturgical changes in the English stition. 
 Communion Service, the desire, namely, to remove 
 everything that could lead to a superstitious or 
 materialistic view of the Holy Sacrament, we at 
 once find ourselves dealing with a " question of 
 degree," on which a wide difference of opinion has 
 
 ^ See Simmons' Lay Folks' Mass Book^ pp. 387 — 388, where 
 the text of the Bull is given in extenso. 
 
 - z^-, p- 389.
 
 8o 
 
 from the first existed among Churchmen. It was 
 — it now is — comparatively easy to say, Everything 
 must show that Communion is essential to the rite ; 
 or, again, to say. Everything must be, so far as 
 possible, visible to and understood by the worshippers. 
 But the moment it is said. Remove what is superstitious 
 or may tend to materialism, the question arises : What 
 is superstitious } What will so tend .'' And here neither 
 authorities nor common sense can settle the matter. 
 
 In offering instruction upon so mysterious a subject, 
 much must always depend upon a teacher's turn of 
 expression, and upon the educational level and the 
 personal temperament of those whom he undertakes to 
 instruct. In Divine worship it lay — it still lies — with 
 the Priest, in numberless little undefinable details of 
 manner rather than of act, to give, or to avoid 
 giving to what he does some particular character or 
 tone. 
 Myste- Again, in any consideration of the principle 
 
 riousness . ° . ^ ^ r r 
 
 ofthe m question, we are brought race to race at once 
 with some of the deepest mysteries of Sacramental 
 doctrine — the manner in which the Lord uses the 
 Consecrated Elements of bread and wine so as to make 
 us verily and indeed partakers of His Body and His 
 Blood. We are here in the presence of so profound a 
 mystery, that we may even do harm, I think, by trying 
 to define it accurately. Upon scarcely any theological 
 subject have more books been written, either in former 
 centuries or in our own. Almost every English Divine 
 has dealt with it copiously. Cranmer, Ridley, Jewel, 
 Hooker, Andrewes, Bramhall, Jeremy Taylor, Johnson,
 
 Waterland, Wilson, and many more have dealt with it 
 not incidentally, but at full length and from different 
 points of view. In our own day, to name but a few, 
 Pusey, and Robert Wilberforce, and Goode, and Scuda- 
 more, have recalled the writings of other days, patristic, 
 mediaeval and modern, and have added much that is 
 their own. 
 
 I know not how it is with you, my Reverend Brethren, 
 but to my own mind, after honest and painstaking study, 
 the conviction has many a time come home that much 
 of this honest reverent labour is in vain ; that men are 
 trying to put into words things which lie utterly beyond 
 our ken, and that the trustiest guides fail to carry us 
 much further than we were carried long ago in the 
 Church Catechism. I quote a characteristic passage 
 from Bishop Jeremy Taylor himself: 
 
 The Holy Communion or Supper of the Lord is the most jcremy 
 sacred, mysterious, and usefiil conjugation of secret and holy Taylor, 
 things and duties in the religion. It is not easy to be under- 
 stood, it is not lightly to be received : it is not much opened in 
 the writings of the New Testament, but still left in its myste- 
 rious nature ; it is too much untwisted and nicely handled by 
 the writings of the doctors, and by them made more mysteri- 
 ous, and like a doctrine of philosophy made intricate by explica- 
 tions and difficult by the aperture and dissolution of distinctions. 
 So we sometimes espy a bright cloud formed into an irregular 
 figure ; when it is observed by unskilful and fantastic travel- 
 lers, looks like a centaur to some, and as a castle to others . . . 
 _ So it is in this great mystery of our religion ; in which some 
 ft espy strange things which God intended not, and others see not 
 M what God hath plainly told. . . . Some say it is a sacrifice, 
 K and others call it a sacrament ; some schools of learning make 
 
 I
 
 82 
 
 it the instrument of grace in the hand of God ; others say that 
 it is God himself in that instrument of grace. . . . Some come 
 to it with their sins on their heads, and others with their sins in 
 their mouth : some come to be cured, some to be quickened ; 
 some to be nourished, and others to be made alive ; some out 
 of fear and reverence take it but seldom, others out of devotion 
 take it frequently . . . Some affirm the Elements are to be 
 blessed by prayers of the Bishop or other Minister ; others say 
 it is only by the mystical words, the words of institution ; and 
 when it is blessed, some believe it to be the natural Body of 
 Christ ; others to be nothing of that, but the blessings of Christ, 
 His word and His spirit, His passion in representment, and His 
 grace in real exhibition : and all these men have something of 
 reason for what they pretend ; and yet the words of Scripture 
 from whence they pretend are not so many as are the several 
 pretensions.^ 
 
 In juxtaposition to these words of perhaps the best 
 loved and most widely known of all our Anglican 
 Fathers, the man whose " Holy Living " and *' Holy 
 Dying " have for more than two centuries been an 
 inspiration to thousands, I would place a sentence from 
 the writings of a Bishop of our own day who deservedly 
 possessed in a quite remarkable degree the confidence 
 Bishop of English High Churchmen — Bishop Moberly, of 
 " ^^^* Salisbury. His lecture on the Holy Communion in 
 the " Bampton Lectures" of 1868 is as penetrating as 
 it is devout and eloquent. But he, too, shrinks from 
 defining, in a manner apt to be either presumptuous or 
 meaningless, the terms which have been used for so 
 great a mystery. 
 
 ^ The Worthy Communicant^ Introduction. Works^ Vol. VHI, 
 p. 8.
 
 83 
 
 " Shall I ask," he says, " whether the feast which they there 
 celebrate is or is not a sacrifice? Brethren, bear with me, 
 while I venture to say that I am not very careful, so far as I can 
 judge, to answer the question. Indeed, it appears to me to 
 be little more than a question of words, which bears upon no 
 important issue. The feast is what it is, and whether that is 
 or is not what constitutes a sacrifice must depend altogether 
 upon the precise meaning attached to the word 'sacrifice,' and 
 the definition given to it. There surely are good and innocent 
 senses in which it may well and rightly be so called. There 
 surely is a sense, the highest — that in which the actual offering 
 of the Lord's Body and Blood upon the altar of the Cross was 
 once offered, the only full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, 
 oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world — in 
 which we may not dare so to call it. It is perhaps conceivable 
 that, in the eyes of Him Who from His seat in Eternity looks 
 upon the things of time, as ' the Lamb was once slain from the 
 foundation of the world,' so the great sacrifice and all its sacred 
 commemorations, its types faithfully celebrated before, its com- 
 memorations faithfully separated after, may be wholly and abso- 
 lutely one, the one work of Christ in Himself and His people. 
 I know not ; but we, whose standpoint is in the things of time, 
 cannot speak so. We could not, without the express word of 
 Holy Writ, have spoken of the Lamb slain from the foundation 
 of the world. To us there is before and after. To us our 
 blessed Lord came, and died, and rose and ascended at definite 
 dates in this series of things. We must not confound time and 
 Eternity, nor our own doings with the Lord's doings. It may 
 sound humble, but I believe it is really presumptuous to do so." ^ 
 
 ^ Bampton Lectures, on The Administration of the Holy Spirit 
 in the Body of Christ. Lecture VI, p. 163-4. (3rd ed.) 
 
 With the two passages quoted it may be interesting to compare 
 Hooker's well-known and eloquent passage to the like effect. 
 {Ecclesiastical Polity^ Book V, chap. Ixvii, section 3.) 
 
 G 2
 
 84 
 
 I abstain then deliberately from entering now upon 
 those deep controversies about Eucharistic doctrine. 
 They have had — they still have — their necessary place 
 in safeguarding the deposit of our holy Faith ; and to 
 some of those whom I have named we owe, as English 
 Churchmen, a debt which we cannot over-estimate. 
 All, however, that is within our present purpose is to 
 ask simply what were some of the dangers of super- 
 stition or materialism which the English Reformers saw, 
 and what steps were taken to guard against them. 
 Avoidance Nothing is morc startling, nothing occasionally more 
 stition painful, in Edwardian or Elizabethan controversy, than 
 regard to the vehement or even coarse invective which the writers 
 ^^crated^ allowed themsclvcs to use in denouncing the super- 
 elements, stitions of the Mass, as they had themselves seen and 
 known them in practice. Happily for our Church, such 
 controversial phraseology found no ultimate place in 
 the body of our Prayer Book, though upon some of 
 our Thirty-nine Articles the conflict has left abiding 
 scars. 
 
 The peril or difficulty centred, as was to be ex- 
 pected, in the attitude both of Priest and people to- 
 wards the Consecrated Elements themselves. It was 
 not for nothing that the sweeping change was made by 
 which all such rubrics as the following were clean 
 removed from the Office of Holy Communion. I 
 quote from the Sarum Missal : 
 
 These words \^Hoc est enim Corpus Meum] ought to be said 
 in one and the same breath without pause. After these words let 
 the Priest incline to the Host, and afterwards elevate It above
 
 8j 
 
 his forehead, that It may be seen by the people ; and reverently 
 replace It before the chalice, making a cross with the same.^ 
 
 It would be as easy as it is needless to multiply such 
 quotations. 
 
 It is difficult to picture a greater contrast than that 
 which the whole series of these elaborate rubrics presents 
 to the simple directions in our successive Prayer Books. 
 Nor, I am persuaded, can any man who looks calmly 
 into the facts have any doubt that the absence of the 
 old directions from the new Book was an absence due to 
 determined and deliberate rejection. People may ap- 
 prove or disapprove of what Cranmer and his colleagues 
 did, but that their action in this particular respect was 
 intentional and significant is placed beyond question by 
 the existing letters and sermons of the men themselves.^ 
 They set themselves, by deliberate changes both in the 
 Rubrics and in the text of the Prayers, to lop off 
 unsparingly what they deemed the " dangerous deceits " 
 which had grown out of the doctrine of Transubstan- 
 tiation. We have seen that the new Service was made 
 pre-eminently a Communion, and a Communion in both 
 
 ^ Debent ista verba proferri cum uno spiritu et sub una pro- 
 lationey nulla pausatione interposita. Post heec verba inclinet se 
 Sacerdos ad hostiamy \_et capite incUnato illarn adoret'\ et postea 
 elevet earn supra front em ut possit a populo videri ; et r ever enter 
 illam reponat ante calicem in modum crucis per eandem fades. 
 
 The clause within brackets was added to the Sarum Missal 
 in 1554, after the reconciliation with Rome. 
 
 - See, e.g.^ Cranmer, Answer to the Devon Rebels^ Art. iv ; 
 fVorksy Park. Soc, i, p. 1 73 ; and Answer to Gardiner^ iv, 9, Park. 
 Soc, p. 229, &c., &c.
 
 86 
 
 kinds. We have seen that it was popularised and trans- 
 lated and simplified. But these things might have been 
 effected without any marked change of actual doctrine. 
 Not so the changes of which we are now speaking. 
 They were distinctly intended, and thoughtfully and 
 soberly framed, to render impossible the sort of 
 * element-worship ' (I use the words of Archbishop 
 Benson)^, which had in the popular mind replaced the 
 true doctrine of the Holy Sacrament. 
 ^^^ This protest against a materialistic doctrine of 
 
 teaching ^ " _ 
 
 of High the Presence of Christ in the Consecrated Elements, 
 Anglicans, and against the adoration superstitiously paid to them 
 in consequence, was reiterated, as we know, by nearly 
 every leading English Reformer throughout the Six- 
 teenth Century.2 It is sometimes said that their protest, 
 couched often in terms which seem to us irreverent, was 
 no more than the inevitable reaction against the super- 
 stitions in which an ignorant people had been encouraged 
 by a corrupt priesthood, and that with the spread of 
 enlightenment the danger passed speedily away. 
 
 It is well, then, to turn as before to the High Church 
 Divines of the next Century, and to see whether they 
 realised the permanent danger of false and superstitious 
 
 ^ The Seven Gifts^ p. 167. 
 
 2 See, e.g.^ Cranmer, On the Lord^s Supper^ Park. Soc, 
 pp. 228-9, ^34~5 J Jewel, Sermon on 1 Cor. xi, 23 ; Works^ 
 Park. Soc, i, 15, 16 j and Controversy with Harding., Art. VII, 
 /^,, p. 512-13; Art. VIII, p. 514-552; and Sermon on 
 Haggai., i, 2, ib. p. 990 ; Becon, Catechism., Part V, Park. Soc, 
 p. 251, 265-7, ^^3> ^c. Ridley and Latimer, Conference., 
 Park. Soc, pp. 106-107. Examples might easily be multiplied.
 
 87 
 
 and even materialistic teaching about the Consecrated 
 Elements. Not only was the system of our Prayer Book 
 Rubrics maintained in its simplicity, in contrast with the 
 elaborate provisions of the pre-Reformation Order, but 
 the Eucharistic teaching of Bishop Andrewes and his 
 followers is brimful of vigorous protest against any such 
 mistaken view about the nature of Christ's Presence in 
 the Consecrated Elements as had given to those elaborate 
 rules their dangerous significance. 
 
 Bishop Andrewes deals to some extent with what he Andrewes. 
 calls "the external adoration of the Sacrament" in his 
 "Answer to Cardinal Perron."^ But more perhaps to 
 the point is a passage in his Defence of King James's reply 
 to Cardinal Bellarmine. The King had objected to the 
 Cardinal's advocacy of the elevation of the Consecrated 
 Elements, adorandi causa. Andrewes, in support of the 
 King, declares that Christ Himself is always and every- 
 where to be adored, " but not the Sacrament, the earthly 
 part as Irenaeus calls it, the visible as Augustine." ^ 
 And again, referring specially to Processions with 
 adoration. 
 
 The institution was, of a Sacrifice that it should be con- 
 sumed ; of a Sacrament that it should be received and eaten, 
 
 1 Minor IVorks^ A.C.L., pp. 15-17. 
 
 - Imo Christus ipse Sacramenti res, in et cum Sacramento : 
 extra, et sine Sacramento, ubi ubi est adorandus est. Rex autem 
 Christum in Eucharistia vere praesentem, vere et adorandum 
 statuit, rem scilicet Sacramenti ; at non Sacramentum, terrenam 
 scilicet partem ut Irenaeus, visibilem ut Augustinus. {Respons.j 
 A.C.L., p. 266.)
 
 not that it should be reserved and carried about. Beyond 
 the design {finem) of the Sacrament, beyond the force of the 
 command, no use of it exists. Let that be done which Christ 
 willed to be done when He said, " Do this ; " and nothing will 
 remain which the Priest might exhibit out of the pyx and the 
 people might adore.^ 
 
 Cosin. Bishop Cosin, in defending the kneeling posture for 
 communicants, writes thus : — 
 
 True it is that the Body and Blood of Christ are sacrament- 
 ally and really (not feignedly) present when the blessed Bread 
 and Wine are taken by the faithful communicants ; and as true 
 is it also that they are not present but only when the Hallowed 
 Elements are so taken .... Therefore whosoever so receiveth 
 them, at that time when he receiveth them, rightly doth he 
 [/.f., by kneeling] adore and reverence his Saviour there together 
 with the sacramental Bread and Cup exhibiting His own Body 
 and Blood unto them. Yet because that Body and Blood is 
 neither sensibly present (nor otherwise at all present but only to 
 them that are duly prepared to receive them, and in the very 
 act of receiving them and the Consecrated Elements together, to 
 which they are sacramentally in that act united) the adoration 
 is then and there given to Christ Himself, neither is nor ought 
 to be directed to any external sensible objects, such as are the 
 Blessed Elements." 
 
 1 Institutum enim tum sacrificii, ut absumi j tum Sacramenti 
 ut accipi, manducari, non recondi et circumferri. Extra 
 Sacramenti finem, extra praecepti vim, usus haud uUus. Fiat 
 quod fieri voluit Christus cum dixit, ' Hoc facite ' : nihil reliqui 
 fiet quod monstret Sacerdos, quod adoret populus, de pyxide. 
 Ibid.^ p. 267. 
 
 - Notes on the Book of Cotnmon Praver^ second series. IVorksy 
 Vol V (A.C.L.), p. 345.
 
 89 
 
 Considerable interest attaches to the discussion, which "The 
 
 Black 
 
 took place in the Savoy Conference of 1661, with Rubric' 
 respect to the " Declaration on Kneeling," or, as it is 
 sometimes called, " the Black Rubric," appended to the 
 Order of Holy Communion in our present Prayer 
 Book. The Declaration in a slightly different form had 
 a place in Edward VI. 's Second Prayer Book, but it 
 was omitted from the Elizabethan Book. Liturgical 
 authorities differ widely in opinion as to the intention 
 and the significance of the change of wording in 1661 
 from " real and essential presence " to " corporal 
 presence," but the importance of the incident for our 
 present purpose consists less in the precise words adopted 
 than in the evidence it affords of the existence of a 
 danger which required to be guarded against. The 
 Bishops, it is true, in reply to the Puritan request for 
 such a Rubric, replied : — 
 
 This Rubric is not in the Liturgy of Queen Elizabeth, nor 
 confirmed by law ; nor is there any great need of restoring it, 
 the world being now in more danger of profanation than of 
 idolatry. Besides, the sense of it is declared sufficiently in the 
 28th Article of the Church of England.^ 
 
 They did, however, restore the Rubric, on the advice, 
 according to Baxter, of Bishop Morley and others ; and 
 so decided a High Churchman as L'Estrange, in his 
 notes upon the Holy Communion, published first in 
 1659 and re-edited in 1690, remarks : — 
 
 How, by whom, or upon what account and inducement this 
 ^ Card well, Conferences^ p. 354.
 
 90 
 
 excellent rubric .... came to be omitted in Queen Eliza- 
 beth's Liturgy, I cannot determine and would gladly learn.^ 
 
 Bingham. A few years later our own Joseph Bingham draws upon 
 the stores of his massive learning to prove that what he 
 calls host-worship ^ was a thing unknown in the first 
 eleven centuries of Christianity, but for our purpose the 
 special interest of his chapters lies again in the evidence 
 they afford as to the opinions held by sober Anglican 
 Churchmen of Bingham's type. 
 
 For example, in his section entitled, " No yldoration 
 of the Host before the Twelfth or Thirteenth Century^'' 
 he says ; — 
 
 A great many proofs are alleged out of the Ancients to prove 
 this adoration. But they prove no more, but either that a 
 veneration was paid to the Sacrament, as to the books of the 
 Gospel, and the water of Baptism, and the Lord's table, and 
 many other sacred things, which no one denies ; or else, that 
 the adoration was given to Christ as divinely present every- 
 where, or as sitting at the right hand of God in heaven ; 
 whither they were directed, by the admonition of Sursum corda, 
 to " lift up their hearts," and to elevate their own souls to adore 
 Him there.^ 
 
 ^ L'Estrange's Alliance of Divine Offices^ A.C.L., p. 329. 
 The whole subject of " the Black Rubric " and its history has 
 been exhaustively examined by the Rev. T. W. Perry {^^De- 
 claration on Kneeling^'' 1863), by Scudamore in his Notitia^ 
 pp. 946-950, and, from a different point of view, by the Rev. 
 N. Dimock {Vox Liturgice AngUcana^ pp. 63-80). See also 
 the interesting comments of Keble {Eucharistical Adoration^ 
 pp. 142-154. 6th Ed.). 
 
 2 Book XV, Chap. V, Sec. V, p. 251. ^ /^/^.^ p, 246.
 
 91 
 
 It would be easy to go on, but I need not, I think, 
 weary you with more quotations upon this branch of the 
 subject. 
 
 It is no doubt possible to find in the writings of iso'^^5^ 
 
 f^ D quotations 
 
 Andrewes or Laud or Johnson, or even of Bishop dangerous. 
 Wilson, phrases which would convey a very different 
 idea of the Eucharistic doctrine held by each writer from 
 that which is conveyed by a larger study of his works. 
 This is specially true with regard to Andrewes him- 
 self. To quote the words of one of our foremost 
 students of Anglican Divinity : — 
 
 If the inquirer will understand [Andrewes' Eucharistic teach- 
 ing], he must not confine his attention to passages bearing 
 directly on the Eucharist, such as he may find in the index to 
 the author's Works. He must enlarge his scope, so as to acquaint 
 himself with Andrewes' style and manner. Thus, what strange 
 inferences the literalist might arrive at with respect to the 
 Element in Baptism, from such a passage as the following, 
 taken from a sermon on the Resurrection : 
 
 [The Blood of Christ] "ran not waste, but divided into two 
 streams : one into the laver of the new birth, our baptism 
 applied to us outwardly to take away the spots of our sin j the 
 other into * the Cup of the New Testament in His Blood.' " ^ 
 
 A similar warning has, of course, been often and 
 wisely given as regards quotations from some of the 
 early Fathers of the Church. But let any man read 
 carefully some of Andrewes' less rhetorical but more 
 accurately written controversial books, and he will 
 be in no doubt as to the harmony of his Eucharistic 
 doctrine with what we may call, in its true and guarded 
 
 1 Serjnons, Vol. Ill (A.C.L.), p. lOi.
 
 92 
 
 sense, the " Protestant " teaching of the Book of 
 Common Prayer.^ 
 
 Let me now recapitulate very briefly what I have tried 
 to say. 
 Recapiti- The Church of England at the Reformation made 
 
 lation. . . ° 
 
 important changes in the Office for the Celebration of 
 the Holy Eucharist. These changes may be grouped 
 under three heads : The restoration of Communion to 
 its proper place ; Provision that all should be visible 
 and easy to understand ; The removal of what had 
 proved likely to tend to superstition. The action taken 
 to this end was sober, deliberate, and continuous. 
 Abuses were unsparingly corrected where necessary, but 
 the old lines of the Catholic Church were reverently 
 preserved and followed with a care unknown in some 
 other countries, and at the same time appeal was cease- 
 lessly and fearlessly made to the teaching of Holy 
 Scripture and of the Primitive Church. The changes 
 proposed or effected were continuously under considera- 
 tion for more than a hundred years. And the Prayer 
 Book, in its ultimate form, was the product of the 
 influence and teaching of the High Churchmen of the 
 Seventeenth Century as truly as of the Reformers of 
 the Sixteenth. Those High Churchmen (and this is the 
 
 ^ In justification of the use of this term, I would refer to 
 the recent Charge of the Bishop of Oxford, who brings the 
 weight of his unrivalled historical authority to prove that 
 " there ought to be no hesitation in admitting that the Church 
 of England, since the Reformation, has a right to call herself, 
 and cannot reasonably object to be called, Protestant." Fourth 
 Visitation Charge^ 1899, pp. 47-49.
 
 93 
 
 point I wish specially to emphasize) weighed and 
 approved the characteristics distinctive of our present 
 Prayer Book as a compendium of doctrine and worship, 
 Scriptural, Catholic, and Reformed.^ 
 
 This important fact is most inadequately grasped by 
 present-day controversialists. I assert, without fear of 
 contradiction by any competent student, that some 
 Churchmen who now claim to belong to the school of 
 Andrewes are slipping, often inadvertently, into words 
 and ways which Andrewes would have been foremost 
 to condemn. 
 
 Let us come to particulars. 
 
 Among the manifold activities of the Church of Revival of 
 England during the last half century, no. single thing, isticDevo- 
 in the department of doctrine and worship, calls for '^°"" 
 such profound thankfulness to our Lord and Master as 
 the re-awakened care for the Sacrament of the Holy 
 Communion, the centre of our devotion, the richest 
 nourishment of our souls, the highest, deepest, clearest 
 evidence and expression of our fellowship with Him 
 Who died for us and rose again, and in Him with 
 one another. There can be no Parish Priest of ripe 
 experience here to-day who has not himself seen and 
 marked and thanked God for the growth among 
 Christian people generally of a truer sense of that im- 
 measurable blessing, the Lord's legacy to us " till He 
 come," the source of the strength and courage which we 
 so sorely need for all that He has given us to do. 
 
 ^ Keble has called attention to the marks of the High 
 Churchmen's handiwork in the Liturgy as finally revised 
 {Eucharistical Adoration^ pp. i6i — 163, 6th Ed.).
 
 94 
 
 We have much still to learn about its use, much to 
 confess and amend as to its widespread neglect. But 
 when we compare the facts of to-day, as shown, say, in 
 the Visitation Returns you have sent me, with what 
 similar Returns would have shown — did show — fifty 
 years since, we thank God and take courage. 
 
 Is it wonderful, is it altogether blameworthy, that 
 Parish Priests who have watched and cherished the 
 spread of that ampler obedience to the Lord's command, 
 who have seen its fruitful ness in life and at the hour of 
 death, and who lament and chafe against the apathy 
 and prejudice and ignorance which still keep so many 
 thousands back from a privilege which might be theirs 
 — is it wonderful that among such men there are here 
 and there some who have let their eagerness to leave no 
 means untried mislead them into methods which they 
 think they can justify by the precedents of other days, 
 although the methods may prove, when tested, to be 
 neither loyal nor sound ? Such men, from their very 
 eagerness upon the subject, ought to be the first to wel- 
 come whatever the study of Holy Scripture and of the 
 history of the Church can teach us as to what is true 
 and false, wise or foolish, safe or dangerous, in the 
 methods we employ. Such men, may I add, ought to 
 be among the first to listen to the counsel of those on 
 whom the Church has laid, as regards guidance and rule, 
 a responsibility which grows weightier and more anxious 
 every year. 
 Presem Recall, then, with these thoughts in mind, the 
 cuUies. three principles we have referred to as being part of our 
 heritage in the Church of England: Communion essen-
 
 95 
 
 tial to the Rite ; simplicity and openness throughout ; 
 avoidance of anything that may tend to superstition. 
 Is any one of these principles jeopardised by present 
 tendencies or drift ? Not, I feel assured, in most of our 
 Churches. But in some, surely, a warning is impera- 
 tively required ; and it is my wish, nay I am bound, to 
 give it plainly. The desire to put the Holy Communion 
 in its proper place as the paramount Service of all — 
 the one Service expressly ordained by the Lord 
 Himself — has striven most naturally to find expres- 
 sion and fulfilment. The question is how to realise 
 this ideal in the present condition of ordinary English 
 life without imperilling the principle that it is by actual 
 Communion that the Eucharistic Celebration becomes 
 to any of us the " highest act of worship." We desire 
 faithfully and trustfully to " show the Lord's death 
 till He come." But according to Holy Scripture 
 the specific act required for doing this is Communion. 
 St. Paul's words are : " As often as ye eat this bread and 
 drink this cup ye do show, or proclaim, {Karar^'yeWere) 
 the Lord's death till He come."^ For the faithful 
 communicant the " highest act of worship " is that 
 in which he himself, in this appointed manner, partici- 
 pates in the showing of Christ's death. I recall again 
 to you the almost scornful words of Bishop Andre wes 
 which I have already quoted.^ 
 
 You partake by receiving and eating, as the Saviour com- 
 manded ; for as to " partaking by praying," it is a modern and 
 new-fangled kind of partaking. 
 
 ^ I Cor. xi, 26. - See above, p- 71.
 
 96 
 
 Early But we are met by the practical difficulty that (quite 
 nion. apart from the question of Fasting, to which I will 
 refer immediately), very many of our communicants find 
 that Communion at an early hour in the morning is in 
 every sense more suitable and profitable to their soul's 
 health than Communion at a mid-day service. This 
 feeling, or rather this realisation of fact, shared probably 
 by most of us, calls imperatively for the consideration 
 of every man who is set to minister in Christ's Name to 
 Christ's flock, and to provide, to the very utmost of his 
 power, for meeting their needs in the most helpful way. 
 Two things he must try to do. He must provide 
 the Service of Holy Communion at the hour when 
 the communicants in his parish can best and most 
 profitably take advantage of it. And further, he must 
 teach them to realise that, great as is the blessing of 
 other Services in the House of God, there is none like 
 that Service, either in its claims upon the Christian 
 conscience, or in its sustenance to the Christian soul, 
 and that to it are appropriate whatever accessories 
 can profitably and wholesomely add to it dignity, 
 solemnity, and beauty. Truly, as experience shows, 
 the problem of how to meet these coincident re- 
 quirements is not, in modern English life, an easy one 
 to solve. 
 Rece^don ^^^ difficulty is of course gravely increased by 
 the revival in our own day of a widespread and 
 often profitable observance of the rule or custom of 
 receiving the Holy Communion fasting. It would 
 be impossible here, and incidentally, to deal ade- 
 quately with that question ; but it concerns the
 
 97 
 
 matter in hand, and some reference to it I must 
 make. 
 
 We have all, I suppose, seen in ourselves or others 
 the genuine gain of such self-discipline in preparation 
 for the Christian's highest act of worship. We value 
 the godly use of a reverent and ancient custom, the 
 observance of which was, in the Fifth Century and 
 afterwards, more than once solemnly enjoined in 
 Canons of local and provincial Councils. We know 
 that many of the best and most honoured teachers 
 of the English Church have followed and com- 
 mended it. But the rule or custom is one which 
 in the Church of England for the last three cen- 
 turies has been binding upon no man's conscience, 
 except in so far as its observance is found profitable to 
 his soul as fitting him better for the solemn act of 
 Communion. The subject has been recently handled 
 with admirable clearness and force by the Bishops of 
 the Northern Province in Convocation assembled. I 
 reprint for your careful consideration the weighty 
 utterance which they have unanimously put forth upon 
 lines similar to those of the statement published a few 
 years ago by the Upper House of the Convocation 
 of Canterbury. 1 
 
 Solemn utterances of this kind are, as it seems to me, statements 
 too little read. If the Service for the Consecration of Bishops^ in 
 Bishops means what it says, they are, to say the least, ^°°Jn"' 
 worth some attention. I will quote a single paragraph, 
 and I will ask you to remember with what authority 
 it comes. 
 
 1 See Appendix B. 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 Fasting is a means to an end, and not an end in itself. It is 
 valuable or not according as it fulfils the proposed object. It 
 may be employed to obtain for the Communicant the fullest 
 command over his powers of attention and devotion. But it is 
 evident that the fitness of fasting for obtaining this result 
 depends in a large degree upon climate, domestic habits, age 
 and the like ; and exhaustion, as v^^e all know, is itself in most 
 cases fatal to spiritual self-command. And more than this : 
 while the spontaneous combination of Prayer and Fasting corre- 
 sponds with a spiritual instinct, it is contrary to the tenor of 
 apostolic teaching, and indeed of the teaching of the Lord 
 Himself, to make the observance of a period of material abstin- 
 ence a necessary condition of participating in the highest 
 spiritual Service of the Church, The inherent discordance 
 between the custom of Fasting Reception and its object 
 becomes still more obvious if fasting is made obligatory from a 
 fixed hour, when it is remembered that the duration of the fast 
 and its physical effects will necessarily vary in individual cases, 
 and are practically indeterminate. Nor can it be overlooked 
 that the different conditions of town and country parishes 
 introduce serious difficulties in the uniform application of any 
 such rule. It may be added that, so far as Fasting Reception 
 is advocated on the ground of reverence for the Sacrament, the 
 arguments have a wider range. They may be used with equal, 
 and some will think with greater, force in favour of fasting after 
 reception. 
 
 Mis- Absolutely different this from the teaching we often 
 
 Manuals, hear upon the subject. On this, my Reverend Brethren, 
 I must speak plainly. Our Prayer Book and Formu- 
 laries significantly abstain from any such direction as 
 can be even strained into an injunction that Fasting Re- 
 ception should be the rule for all. Yet among Church 
 people, and especially among our younger Communicants,
 
 99 
 
 there are booklets and Devotional Manuals now in 
 circulation which not merely enjoin it as an absolute 
 duty, but enjoin it sometimes in such terms and with 
 such particulars as ought to be repellent to any one who 
 understands the spirit and teaching of the Church of 
 England, nay, the spirit and teaching of the New 
 Testament. 
 
 I have before me a Manual for First Communion 
 which warns the child under instruction to wash its 
 mouth well overnight, lest, if this were done in the 
 morning, a drop of water might accidentally be 
 swallowed — and so on. I have another, intended 
 for Confirmation candidates, who are taught in these 
 words : 
 
 If you swallow even a drop of water, that is breaking your 
 
 fast To make your Communion after breaking your 
 
 fast dishonours Jesus : it is a sin against God and the Church ; 
 it is a sin against the Holy Ghost ; and if done wilfliUy and 
 against light, it is a mortal sin. 
 
 Now I do not doubt that every man here denounces 
 such teaching just as I do, whencesoever it be imported 
 into our Church, and of course I know it is not new. 
 But I quote the words, and I am sorry to say I could 
 easily quote more, that you, as "Watchmen and 
 Stewards of the Lord " in your parishes, may be 
 awake to the fact that such books, professing to give 
 our Church's teaching, may fall into the hands of some of 
 your young and ill-educated Communicants. The basis 
 on which such books rest must be a gross and material- 
 istic doctrine, a return to the most mischievous sort of 
 
 H 2
 
 lOO 
 
 Contrast mediaeval superstition.^ What would St. Paul have said 
 teaching.^ to it ? Hear him speak to the Church of Colossae : 
 
 Take heed lest there be any one that maketh spoil of you 
 through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of 
 men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.^ 
 
 As Bishop Lightfoot paraphrases it : 
 
 In Christ you have been exalted unto the sphere of the Spirit ; 
 do not plunge yourself again into the atmosphere of material and 
 sensuous things.^ 
 
 St. Paul further speaks to the same Church : 
 
 If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, 
 as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to 
 ordinances, handle not, nor taste, nor touch (all which things 
 are to perish with the using) after the precepts and doctrines of 
 men ? Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will- 
 worship, and humility, and severity to the body, but are not of 
 any value against the indulgence of the flesh.* 
 
 To take again Bishop Lightfoot's paraphrase : 
 
 Why do you — you who are citizens of heaven — bow your 
 necks again to the tyranny of material ordinances ? .... It is 
 the same old story again — the same round of hard, meaningless, 
 vexatious prohibitions. " Handle not." " Taste not." " Touch 
 not." What folly ! When all these things — these meats and 
 
 1 For examples of such teaching in former days see the 
 references given in Bishop Kingdon's Fasting Communion^ 
 pp. 364-5, and Puller, Concerning the Fast before Communion, 
 
 PP- 32, 33- 
 
 2 Col. ii. 8. 
 
 ^ Commentary on Epistle to Colossians p. 247. 
 * Col. ii. 20-23.
 
 lOI 
 
 drinks and the like — are earthly, perishable, wholly trivial and 
 unimportant ! . . . . What is this but to abandon God's Word 
 for precepts which are issued by human authority and inculcated 
 by human teachers ? All such things have a show of wisdom, 
 I grant. There is an officious parade of religious devotion, 
 an eager affectation of humility ; there is a stern ascetic rigour, 
 which ill-treats the body : but there is nothing of any real 
 value to check indulgence of the flesh. ^ 
 
 I find absolutely nothing in common between such Fasting 
 superstitious materialistic teaching as I have referred to ^^"Pjjg'* 
 and the deliberate reasonable self-discipline which finds, profitable. 
 as so many thousands have found, a temporary absten- 
 tion from food to be helpful to that reverent intentness 
 with which our Lord's gift of Himself in the Holy 
 Communion ought to be received. In such a Fast there 
 need be, there is, nothing materialistic, nothing carnal. 
 It is the body brought under subjection to the spirit, 
 not because some rigid man-made rule has laid a burden 
 on you ; not for some supposed physical reason, which 
 can scarce be expressed in words without irreverence ; 
 but because you have learnt how the body too can take 
 its part in preparation for the sacred rite,^ and how 
 you may most surely be " at your best " when you 
 come to the Table of the Lord. 
 
 If the mere fact that rules prescribing the Fast before -phe 
 Communion were long ago laid down in certain local ^"^ig°*^ 
 and provincial Councils, or that writers in the Fourth 
 or Fifth Centuries describe the custom as universal, seem 
 
 ^ Commentary on Epistle to Colo s si an s^ p. 267." 
 2 See Bishop Wordsworth of Salisbury's The Holy Com- 
 tnunion^ p. 235.
 
 I02 
 
 to any English Churchman to lay on him a binding 
 obligation, I would ask him to contrast the then life — 
 the life say of North Africa or Southern Gaul in the 
 Fifth Century — with English life to-day, and to judge 
 whether the conditions which make all the difference to 
 such rules do really correspond at all.^ 
 
 I do not make little of the fact that such a rule did 
 once exist : nay, that in the Middle Ages it was 
 
 ^ Bishop Kingdon's volume on Fasting Communion {LongimnSj 
 1875) contains a store of valuable information on the subject ; 
 and his main contention seems to me to be successfully proved, 
 though some of his facts and inferences may be open to chal- 
 lenge. I have also read carefully what is urged by the Rev. F. 
 W. Puller (Concerning the Fast before Communion^ Masters) 
 and others in favour of the binding character of the rule. 
 This publication and others like it are entitled to all respect as 
 serious contributions to the study of the subject 5 but I find 
 them entirely unconvincing as to any present obligation upon 
 English Churchmen. The argument in favour of the supposed 
 Apostolic authority for the custom seems to me to break down 
 completely. It is impossible to discuss it here ; I am only 
 anxious not to be supposed to have overlooked it. Again, a 
 physical rule of abstinence which can be wholesomely observed 
 with comparative ease by Orientals or Africans may have a 
 totally different nature and effect among ourselves (see Puller, 
 p. 42). The extreme rarity of actual Communion by the laity 
 during many centuries of the Church's life must also be borne 
 carefully in mind. It may partly have been an actual conse- 
 quence of the rules ; it partly explains how they were workable. 
 
 The subject is carefully treated in a series of addresses by 
 Dr. T. R. Harris, Rector of S. Paul's Church, New 
 York. (Non-communicating Attendance in the light of History. 
 Whittaker, New York, 1888.)
 
 Johnson. 
 
 103 
 
 regarded as of general obligation even in our own 
 Church of England, It has thus a strong prima facie 
 claim upon our attention, to say the least. But it is 
 of the utmost importance to remember that during 
 most of the centuries during which the obligatory rule 
 prevailed, the communion of the laity was an exceed- 
 ingly rare and exceptional thing. A rule which would 
 be burdensome and unhelpful if observed every week 
 may obviously have a totally different character when 
 its observance is confined to one day, or even three 
 days, in the year. 
 
 I have already referred more than once to John john 
 Johnson, the well-known author of T'he Unbloody Sacri- 
 fice^ published in 17 18. He has a long and interesting 
 paragraph on the subject of the fast before Communion. 
 From his general attitude in controversial matters, we 
 should expect him to take a rigid view upon such a 
 question, but he is emphatic in asserting that no such 
 fast is obligatory, and he goes on to say that " we ot 
 this Northern Climate are vain if we pretend to imitate 
 the old Eastern African or Italian Christians in their 
 fastings." I bespeak your consideration for the passage 
 in connection with the better known remarks of Bishop 
 Jeremy Taylor on the subject. ^ 
 
 I have said enough, I think, about the matter. I Reasona 
 am most anxious not to seem to decry or deprecate 
 the wise observance by all who find it helpful of a rule 
 of fasting reception of the Holy Communion. Only 
 
 1 The Unbloody Sacrifice^ Part II. Chap V., iv. § 2. Compare 
 Jeremy Taylor, Discourse xiii. Of the Manner of Fasting. 
 The Worthy Communicant^ chap. v. § I. Ductor Dubitantium^ 
 Book III. chap, iv., Rule xii. 
 
 ble 
 service.
 
 I04 
 
 let those who rigidly observe it beware lest " the thing 
 which should have been for their wealth become to them 
 an occasion of falling," an occasion of falling to a lower 
 level than that of " the liberty wherewith Christ has 
 made us free." ^ It need not be anything of the 
 kind. It may be helpful to body, soul, and spirit, if its 
 observance be what S. Paul calls a " reasonable service," ^ 
 if it be not taught as a Divine command, or laid as a 
 burden upon the weak shoulders of the young, the aged, 
 or the sick. Terrible would be the responsibility of any 
 one who by so using it himself or insisting upon it for 
 others, should keep back some waiting soul from the 
 Communion of the Saviour's Body and Blood. Instances 
 of sick Communicants so kept back, to their infinite 
 distress, have been brought to my notice by one of our 
 leading physicians. With whatever weight attaches to 
 my office, I declare such action to be in my judgment 
 gravely culpable. 
 
 If, however, the fast be safeguarded from abuses 
 
 such as these, I have of course no word to say against 
 
 it, be it as rigid as you will. Rather I heartily, gladly, 
 
 hopefully encourage whatever may enable any of us to 
 
 offer and present ourselves, our souls and bodies, more 
 
 worthily in the great Sacrament of the Saviour's love. 
 
 Difficulties To return from this digression to the point at which 
 
 conditions it Started. The Parish Priest of to-day has to provide 
 
 ° 'life. '" foi* the needs of parishioners who desire (let us thank 
 
 God for it) to communicate more frequently than has 
 
 ever, I suppose, been customary since the early ages 
 
 of the Church. He finds that some of them prefer to 
 
 communicate fasting ; and, if their reasons be sound, he 
 
 ^ Gal. V. I. 2 Rom. xii. i.
 
 I05 
 
 is rightly desirous that the hour of Communion shall be 
 such as to meet their wish. At the same time, he is 
 anxious that his people shall realise the unique great- 
 ness of the Eucharistic Service, and that it shall not be 
 relegated, so to speak, to an unobserved corner in the 
 devotions of the Lord's Day. 
 
 If it be indeed the case that the conditions of modern , The 
 
 Central 
 
 English life render impossible any plan which shall meet Service" 
 
 , . , , • r 1 • -J 1 1 of the day. 
 
 these various needs, somethmg or this ideal must be 
 modified or sacrificed, until new conditions come. Let 
 him call his Communicants together, and consult them 
 frankly and in detail as to what will best contribute to 
 the good of all. If some modification must be made, 
 some arrangement adopted which falls short of his ideal, 
 let it be such as to interfere least with the funda- 
 mental principles of our Holy Rite. 
 
 What we all desire to see is that the Holy Com- 
 munion may indeed become for all the great Service of 
 the Lord's Day, and that every Christian man, by 
 taking his full part therein, may show the Lord's death 
 till He come. But we are very far as yet from realising 
 in England that Scriptural and primitive ideal. 
 
 As a matter of fact, what has happened in a good 
 many oi our town parishes, and in a few country 
 parishes, has unhappily been this. To magnify the 
 honour of the Sacramental Service — to " place it in 
 its proper central position " — all have been urged 
 to attend it, though the Communicants are few : 
 nay, sometimes actual Communion thereat has been 
 even discouraged. This, surely, however excellent 
 the intention, is a fundamental and grievous error.
 
 io6 
 
 To teach people better to value and to use the Holy 
 Sacrament, it is being celebrated in a way against which 
 our Church of England has emphatically set its face. 
 The act of the people's Communion, one of the main 
 essentials of the Rite, is slighted, and the seeds of a 
 false doctrine of the Eucharist are week by week sown 
 in the minds of the ignorant and the young. 
 Modem It may be thought that in what I have said I am 
 Church running counter to the accepted view of modern High 
 ivmes. Churchmen upon this very important subject. I ask 
 your attention, therefore, to a few quotations from 
 leading authorities of our own day, whose sympathy 
 with that school of thought will not, I think, be 
 doubted. My difficulty lies, not in finding such utter- 
 ances, but in making suitable selection among them. 
 
 I choose, then, five distinguished men, no two of 
 whom perhaps on ecclesiastical matters generally would 
 be in exact accord, but every one of whom was regarded 
 by his followers as a loyal and consistent High Church- 
 man — Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop Christopher 
 Wordsworth, Bishop Moberly, Prebendary Sadler, the 
 Rev. W. E. Scudamore. Their words shall speak for 
 themselves. 
 Bishop In his farewell Charge to the Diocese of Oxford in 
 Wiiber- 1 869, Bishop Wilbcrforcc spoke as follows : — 
 
 force. 
 
 Suffer me to name to you one practice, the growth of which 
 among us I view with great apprehension. I mean a tendency 
 unquestionably manifested in certain quarters to change the 
 idea of the Holy Eucharist from a Communion of the faithful 
 into a function of the celebrating Priest. Such a change is, in 
 my most mature judgment, no lawful progress in increased 
 
 I
 
 107 
 
 reverence for that great Sacrament upon the lines of our own 
 Church .... In strict agreement, as we believe, with the 
 words of Holy Writ, and with the teaching of the Primitive 
 Church, we do not regard the Communion of the faithful as 
 an accident of the Holy Eucharist, which may be added to it, 
 or separated from it, at will, leaving the great function of inter- 
 cession untouched by the omission, but as of the very essence 
 of the Sacrament. So it was at the institution : " Take, eat, 
 this is My Body." The mysterious Presence and actual Com- 
 munion are bound indissolubly together .... It is certain 
 that this practice is most intimately connected, both as to cause 
 and consequence, with the greatest practical corruptions of the 
 Papal Communion. Whatever, then, tends to its introduction 
 amongst ourselves appears to me to threaten the existence of 
 our whole religious system .... The very purpose for which 
 these practices are recommended seems to me at variance with 
 the true idea of the Eucharist ; for effectual with God, as we 
 doubt not, through Christ our Lord, this great appointed act of 
 the Church's intercession is, I know no ground for supposing that 
 prayer offered up by those who are present at the celebration, 
 but do not partake in it, is one whit more prevailing than 
 prayer at any other time or in any other place. Nor does it 
 seem to me that a surrounding crowd of non-communicants 
 adds any honour to the Sacrament. On the contrary, t'o 
 remain and not communicate seems to me to dishonour Christ's 
 
 institution and to injure the soul of the worshipper 
 
 Against these changes, and such as these, I venture, with a 
 parting voice, to warn you.^ 
 
 From the unique personality of Bishop Wilberforce 
 turn to the erudite and profound theologian, Bishop 
 Christopher Wordsworth. In a treatise on ' the Holy 
 Sacraments,' which he re-edited in 1879 from Visitation 
 
 Bishop 
 Christo- 
 pher 
 Words- 
 worth. 
 
 ^ Charge to the Diocese of Oxford ^ 1869, pp. 30-32.
 
 io8 
 
 Addresses delivered some years before, he writes 
 thus : — 
 
 *' It is remarkable that some who would impose upon us 
 what is called ' Fasting Communion ' as a matter of necessity, 
 on a plea of reverential obedience to the ancient Church, are 
 also found to recommend, and even to require, 'non-com- 
 municating attendance,' in opposition to the law and practice of 
 the ancient Church, and to the command of Christ Himself. 
 And this is done even on a pretext of reverence for the Holy 
 Sacrament, and for Christ Himself, Who instituted it, not in order 
 to be looked at, but to be received, according to His express 
 command. . . . That the Church of England desires and 
 intends that all her members who have been baptized and 
 confirmed should come to the Holy Communion, and that all 
 who are present at the administration of the Communion 
 should communicate, appears to be certain. . . . The whole 
 of her Service after the Prayer for the Church Militant is so 
 framed as to be applicable only to communicants. It can- 
 not reasonably be used by others. And in her rubrics in the 
 Office she contemplates that all present will communicate. . . . 
 But anything that is a breach of Christ's law cannot be other- 
 wise than offensive to Him. And this growing practice of 
 ' non-communicating attendance ' calls also for solemn warning, 
 as tending to laxity of life. It is liable to become a com- 
 promise between God and the World, and seeks to reconcile 
 the two. Actual reception of the Holy Communion has this 
 practical benefit among others, that it demands previous strict 
 self-examination, and godly repentance, and the forsaking of sin, 
 and holy resolutions of amendment, as indispensable pre-requisites 
 for that reception. But 'spiritual communion ' and ' adoration ' 
 require no such previous preparation. They exact no turning 
 away from the world, the flesh and the devil with remorse and 
 shame, and turning to God with the whole heart ; and yet he 
 who spiritually communicates and adores is flattered by others
 
 I09 
 
 and perhaps by himself with the fond imagination that he is 
 performing a religious exercise of the highest and holiest 
 devotion. Verily, as the wise man says, * There is a way which 
 seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of 
 death.' "1 
 
 Pass next to Bishop Moberly, the very pattern of a Bishop 
 staunch and scholarly High Churchman. I quote from ° ^'"y- 
 his "Bampton Lectures" of 1868. Through twelve elo- 
 quent pages he dwells upon the fact that it is of the 
 very essence of the Rite that it be a Koivoivla^ a Com- 
 munion. He goes further than I should myself venture 
 to go in speaking against the presence of non-Communi- 
 cants.^ I do not give those words, but I quote a 
 paragraph which I think fairly sums up the teaching 
 given on this point in a Lecture which ought to be 
 studied in its entirety. He has been speaking of the 
 consecration of the Elements by the Priest, and he goes 
 on thus : — 
 
 And the other part of the sacred act is not less essential. 
 The Church in its people must be there to receive, in repent- 
 ance, in faith, and in charity, what by her Priest she consecrates 
 and offers. Their part is as necessary to constitute and com- 
 plete the Sacrament as his The sacrificial portion, if I 
 
 may so call it, of the Sacrament has no being nor existence 
 without the other portion, the Communion. The Communion 
 is null and void of all its special spiritual blessing without the 
 sacrifice. They are not two things. They are one thing 
 
 only The people, rendering the sacrifice of praise and 
 
 thanksgiving ; offering, as priests themselves, their spirits, souls, 
 
 ^ Miscellanies^ Vol. ii, pp. 157 — 162. 
 2 Page 178, 3rd ed., 1883.
 
 no 
 
 and bodies, as a rational, holy, and lively sacrifice to God ; 
 partaking in the grace ; made more and more to be helpful as 
 channels of the diffused Spirit ; responding to the words of the 
 consecrating Priest ; supporting and confirming them by their 
 audibly expressed assent ; in their hands and in their mouths 
 receiving the sacred Elements ; in faith discerning the Lord's 
 broken and life-giving Body, — all these are necessary to the 
 completeness of the great joint act which the Church of God, 
 not the Priest alone, performeth.^ 
 
 Preben- Tum ncxt to Prebendary Sadler. He has, I suppose, 
 
 Sadler, done more to popularise the doctrines of the Prayer 
 
 Book, regarded from the High Churchman's standpoint, 
 
 than any teacher of our day. He writes as follows : — 
 
 The Anglican Service is at one with Scripture and with all 
 ancient Liturgies in not containing any recognition of Holy 
 Communion as a means of bringing Christ amongst us as an 
 object of Divine worship. Holy Communion was ordained by 
 Christ as the means whereby we are to partake of His Body 
 and Blood, and as a perpetual commemoration before God of 
 the Sacrifice on the Cross ; but there is no further purpose of 
 the institution so much as hinted at by Christ or by His 
 Apostles. The Fathers are equally ignorant of any such 
 
 function of Holy Communion The reader has only to 
 
 put the Canon of the Mass side by side with our own Service, 
 and he will see at once that, notwithstanding the retention of 
 some ancient forms, such as the " Sursum Corda," " Angelic 
 Hymn," &c., the leading ideas of the two Services materially 
 differ. Whereas the old Service is mainly a sacrificial rite, the 
 new is mainly a Communion or partaking. Whereas in the old 
 Services the commemoration or sacrificial action (or rather 
 actions) is altogether severed from the partaking on the part of 
 
 1 Bampton Lectures^ 1868, pp. 167, 168, 3rd ed.
 
 1 1 1 
 
 the people, in the new it is inseparably bound up with it. 
 Whereas in the old Service the celebrant is everything, so that 
 he can perform the whole action by himself, in the new, on the 
 contrary, he is never contemplated apart from the united action 
 of that mystical body of which he is the Minister.^ 
 
 I reserve to the last the evidence of Mr. Scudamore. Rev.w.E. 
 His remarkable book, Notitia EucharisHca^ is known, I more' 
 suppose, to every student of our Liturgy. ^ His Sacra- 
 mental teaching on such a matter as the doctrine of the 
 Real Presence goes, I think, beyond that of Andrewes 
 or Laud, and his learning is both deep and varied. To 
 the question of non-communicating attendance he de- 
 votes great attention in his Notitia^ and it is the main 
 subject of his separate essay or volume on " lUie Com- 
 munion of the Laity ^'^ to which I have already referred. 
 He examines the whole question in the light of Holy 
 Scripture, of the Primitive Church, of Patristic au- 
 thority, of early and mediaeval Canons and usages, of 
 Reformation history, and of Post-Reformation teaching, 
 both in our own Church and in the Church of Rome. 
 What then are the conclusions to which he is led ^. I 
 will quote his words : — 
 
 The evils that have resulted from the practice of " hearing 
 Mass," both in the Middle Ages and since the reformation of 
 our branch of the Church Catholic, have been so serious that 
 it is a plain duty in those who know anything of them to 
 
 ^ The Church and the Age^ first series, pp. 298-305. 
 ^ It should be noted that the Second Edition, 1876, contains 
 much valuable matter not found in the First Edition. 
 3 Pages 433-447, 2nd ed.
 
 112 
 
 protest against the attempt to revive that unprimitive and 
 unscriptural custom among ourselves.^ 
 
 And again : — 
 
 We have thus briefly stated some of the grounds on which 
 we conclude that those who do not communicate derive no 
 special benefit from their presence at the Celebration. The 
 Sacrifice is not imputed to them, because it is only through 
 partaking that any one can appropriate it to himself. The 
 Altar must be to us the Table of the Lord also, or it ceases to 
 be an Altar. Rather may we not fear a further secret loss of 
 grace and blessing, if we attempt to use the most holy ordin- 
 ance of Christ in a manner, or for a purpose, which has no 
 sanction from Holy Scripture or from the uninspired records of 
 the Primitive Church ; ^ 
 
 Now I ask you to consider these passages ; to read, 
 if you have opportunity, the context of the quotations, 
 or the devout and scholarly arguments on which the 
 conclusions rest ; and then to judge whether this matter 
 ^e'^'h^"^ does not call for serious and prayerful thought on the 
 ists. part of a good many of us. Already, for example, 
 in some of our churches the school children are in- 
 vited ^ to be periodically present at the Eucharistic 
 Service, and do, as a fact, attend it. There is nothing 
 positively illegal in such attendance, nothing on which 
 a Bishop could formally proceed. The Church is open 
 
 ^ Notitia Eucharistica^ p. 440, 2nd ed. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 447. 
 
 ^ There is nowhere in this Diocese, as I confidently believe, 
 an endeavour to make such attendance in any sense compulsory, 
 or a condition of Sunday School membership. Such a rule 
 would merit the gravest censure.
 
 113 
 
 to all. But to me it seems simply impossible to recon- 
 cile the encouragement of such a custom with the 
 teaching of our own Church, from the Reformation 
 onwards, as to the character and significance of the 
 Service of Holy Communion ; while to find a parallel 
 to it in the Primitive Church would obviously be out 
 of the question.^ 
 
 I have examined many of the Manuals published for Manuals 
 the use of children at Celebrations of Holy Commu- Children, 
 nion. Some of them, so far as I can judge, must in- 
 evitably convey to a child's mind teaching to which the 
 Church of England gives no sanction. How is a little 
 child likely to interpret the announcement printed in 
 large capitals between the Prayer of Humble Access 
 and the Prayer of Consecration, " Jesus is coming," 
 *' Prepare to meet thy God " ; or the statement printed 
 at the close of the Prayer of Consecration, " You are 
 now in the presence of Jesus : keep very still." I have 
 reason to believe that the mischievous and misleading 
 little book which contains these words is not in use any- 
 where in our Diocese. If there be such use, I emphati- 
 cally desire its discontinuance. In some of the books and 
 tracts advocating the attendance of non-Communicants, 
 and professing to instruct uneducated people as to the 
 history of the custom, I find statements made which and for 
 
 , . f. . . - ,, adult non- 
 
 it IS not easy to characterise faithfully and yet with Communi- 
 
 courtesy. Simple folk are told plainly and repeatedly 
 
 that in the early Church such was the universal custom 
 
 ^ Of course the prevalence of the custom of Infant Commu- 
 nion carried with it the attendance of little children as 
 Communicants. But the difference is fundamental.
 
 114 
 
 or rule, and that in modern times the ' wretched com- 
 mandments of men ' persuaded our Church to drop 
 * these good old catholic and primitive ' observances. The 
 rubrics are interpreted as forbidding the clergy to cele- 
 brate " unless there be some persons present to join 
 with them [i.e., as the context shows, as non-com- 
 municants] in this great Public Act of Worship of the 
 Church." The practice is further advocated on the 
 strength of the rubric about ' Spiritual Communion ' 
 appended to the office for the Communion of the Sick, 
 the main sentence of that rubric being quoted as if it 
 referred to " those who remain for the entire service " 
 without communicating. How, I say, are we to 
 characterise such publications as these ? Yet they 
 appear to have some circulation, and they can be bought 
 for a few pence. I solemnly call upon you to guard 
 your people to the utmost of your power from being 
 misled by these noxious little books should they fall 
 into their hands. Neither you nor I have power, in a 
 free country, to prevent their sale ; but we can warn 
 our Sunday School teachers and others to be on the 
 watch. We can — and it is probably the best remedy — 
 supply instead what is sound and true. The danger is, 
 unhappily, no new one. Twenty-four years ago, the 
 Bishops of our Church issued a joint Pastoral Letter 
 upon what they described as " serious evils disturbing 
 the peace of the Church," and in the course of the 
 Letter they used these words : 
 
 "More especially we call serious attention to the multiplication, 
 and the assiduous circulation among the young and susceptible, 
 of manuals of doctrine and private devotion, of which it is not
 
 115 
 
 too much to say that many of the doctrines and practices they 
 inculcate are wholly incompatible with the teaching and 
 principles of our reformed Church."^ 
 
 With all my heart do I echo these words to-day. 
 
 I have said nearly all that I had to say upon Let funda- 
 this point. Some may think that I have spoken principles 
 unfairly or inconsiderately. I can assure you that my lo^wed 
 words are not unconsidered ; I trust that they are not 
 unfair. I recognise our difficulties to the full. I know 
 that we all have before us the single purpose of so 
 ministering the Sacraments of our Lord and Saviour as 
 He would have us minister them to His children. The 
 conditions of other days in England were different from 
 the conditions of our own, and I do not want to press 
 too rigidly that we must tread in the very footsteps of 
 those who went before. But there are fundamental 
 prmciples which underlie our Service. We have tried to 
 trace them. They must be maintained inviolate. Let 
 the principle be made secure, and kept constantly in 
 our people's sight and thoughts, and then some excep- 
 tions can be introduced without harm. I have been 
 dealing with principles, tendencies, general teaching, 
 rather than with hide-bound rules. Occasions present 
 themselves easily to our mind on which the presence 
 of non-Communicants at the Eucharistic Service may 
 be not harmless only but in every way appropriate. and excep- 
 
 For example, the multiplication of Celebrations of readiiy'be 
 Holy Communion to suit the needs of parishioners tioned. 
 
 1 Pastoral Letter, ist March, 1875. It is reprinted in ex- 
 tenso in Jrchbishop Tali's Life^ Vol. ii. pp. 271 — 275. 
 
 I 2 
 
 I
 
 ii6 
 
 necessitates in most parishes the habitual presence of 
 clergy who, though taking part in the Service for the 
 good of alJ, do not themselves communicate at that 
 hour. 
 
 Or again, a Choral Celebration of Holy Com- 
 munion, when those who are reverently giving thought 
 and pains to leading the music of prayer and praise 
 and thanksgiving have themselves communicated at 
 another hour ; or, if too young to be themselves Com- 
 municants, are learning the privilege of giving help to 
 those engaged in the highest act of worship. 
 
 Or a congregation present in a Cathedral at some 
 special Service, say, the Consecration of a Bishop, or the 
 Ordination of Priests and Deacons, when the great 
 company of those immediately concerned, relatives 
 and friends perhaps of those ordained, are helped in 
 their solemn Communion by the presence and the 
 prayers of others. You may see such services in 
 London many times every year, when to dismiss all 
 those who do not then communicate would be a 
 mistake indeed. 
 
 Or in individual life. It may happen to us again 
 and again to wish, for some reason, to be present at a 
 mid-day Eucharist when we have communicated at an 
 earlier hour. To forbid or discourage such occasional 
 presence would be to insist pedantically upon the 
 letter, not the spirit, of what our Church has taught 
 us. I am always glad, for example, that children, 
 before their first Communion, should have been present 
 once or twice at least with parents or friends, so as to 
 understand the Service, and thus be better able, when
 
 117 
 
 themselves communicating for the first time, to give 
 undistracted thought to the solemn privilege they are 
 allowed to share. 
 
 It would he easy to multiply examples of the sort of 
 case in which the presence of non-Communicants is 
 permissible or more than permissible. There is nothing 
 in the Prayer Book to bid every non-Communicant 
 withdraw. What we lay stress upon is a principle, not 
 a minute and inexorable rule. The principle rests on 
 the teaching of Holy Scripture and the experience long 
 and varied of the Church of Christ. 
 
 You will remember, mv brethren, what I stated to be '.' Objec- 
 
 ^ _ tive cna- 
 
 my purpose in this Address. I am deliberately not racter of 
 dealing with the Church of England's Eucharistic teach- vice not 
 ing as a whole. Indeed, I have tried, so far as possible, both °^^° 
 in my own words and in the ample quotations I have 
 laid before you, to avoid entering at all upon the deeper 
 doctrines of the Holy Eucharist, upon the nature of the 
 Lord's Presence in His Sacrament, or upon what is some- 
 times known as the " objective " character of the great 
 Service which He ordained. It is not that I think such 
 discussions to be either needless or unprofitable. What 
 I have tried to say has of necessity touched upon the 
 borderland of those deep disputations. But it intention- 
 ally goes no further. You will not suppose it to follow 
 that I am forgetful of that other side of our Sacramental 
 Service, or that I ignore or slight the reality and the pro- 
 found significance of our joint presentation and pleading 
 of His full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for us upon 
 the Cross whensoever the Eucharist is celebrated. The 
 act of Communion can no more be severed from that
 
 ii8 
 
 sacrificial portion, if we so call it,i of the Sacrament, 
 
 than can the sacrificial portion stand apart, as some 
 
 would have it stand, from the Communion, But it is 
 
 with the latter only, and its inherent place in the whole, 
 
 that we have dealt to-day. 
 
 Church of Much time has been spent, but not, I hope, ill-spent 
 
 prmcipies in looking with care into these particulars about what 
 
 are sound. ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ people's part in the Office of Holy 
 
 Communion. We have asked, and tried to answer, the 
 question whether there is any danger nowadays of our 
 reverting to errors which, by the help of God, the 
 Church of England successfully vanquished within her 
 own borders more than two hundred years ago. It is 
 where the principle of the people's Communion, as an 
 essential part of the Eucharistic Service, has been 
 slighted and ignored, that the other principles of the 
 English Reformation, the principles of simplicity and 
 openness and freedom from superstition, are apt to 
 be imperilled too. The history of the Church in 
 other lands rings out for us a warning note. The 
 sturdy common-sense of most English Churchmen 
 will, I think, respond to that warning. We have a 
 wholesome dislike of needless obscurity or of a recon- 
 dite esoteric symbolism in our Eucharistic Rite. Super- 
 stition does not fit in well with the national character- 
 istics God has given us. Such attempts as are sometimes 
 made to adapt to our own Liturgy the minute Fifteenth 
 Century Rubrics of Sarum or Hereford may be ascribed 
 to a wish to mark the outward continuity of the Church 
 
 ^ For the use of this term see the quotation from Bishop 
 Moberly above given (p. 83).
 
 119 
 
 rather than to any genuine love on the part of Priest 
 or people for an elaborate or fussy ceremonial. In my 
 next address I shall have occasion to say something 
 about these details. For the present I content myself 
 with counselling you to remember that dignity and 
 reverence may easily be sacrificed rather than helped. 
 We have inherited in our Liturgy a Service strong in 
 its Scriptural phraseology and tone, strong in its 
 genuine and reverent simplicity, strong in its tacit 
 appeal to the reason and intelligence of the worshipper. 
 Do not, I beseech you, do anything to mar these char- 
 acteristics. Does any one allege that, by omitting the 
 elaboration of gesture and act prescribed in Rubrics 
 other than our own, we diminish the reverence paid to 
 our Blessed Lord present with us in His Sacrament ^ 
 Rather we multiply that reverence tenfold, if we are 
 worshipping Him aright. Simplicity can help, not 
 hinder, the deepest possible devotion of body, soul, and 
 spirit. It consists with the most eager care for seem- 
 liness and decorum in every particular. Such character- 
 istics are distinctive, in all Christendom, of our English 
 Liturgy. Spartam nactus es : hanc exorna. 
 
 My brothers, go below the surface ; pierce to the The one 
 reality. After all, the one thing needful is that we should needful. 
 all care more than we do for the Blessed Sacrament of 
 the Saviour's love. If we venerate aright that great gift 
 to our souls of His Body and His Blood, we cannot 
 venerate it too much. We may remember thankfully 
 that the very mistakes into which men fall have their 
 source in the desire to make something more than we 
 are apt to make of that incomparable blessing. For
 
 120 
 
 one of us who transgresses our Church's rule in the 
 manner of celebrating or worshipping, there are ten, 
 there are fifty, who fall short of the enthusiasm which 
 ought to set our hearts aflame as we " show the Lord's 
 death till He come." May the consideration we are 
 trying to give to some of these details serve, by His 
 blessing, to inspire and arouse each of us to a more 
 eager, trustful, expectant use of those Divine means of 
 Grace whereof we are privileged to be the ministrants 
 to men. Our Communion with Him is the secret, 
 not only of pardon and peace, but of hopefulness and 
 strength. We have duties, often anxious and per- 
 plexing, to discharge for Him. We grow weak and 
 weary in the task. As experience ripens and the shadows 
 lengthen, let us pray Him to teach us — all together 
 in His Society on earth, and one by one in our secret 
 hearts — to know that which passeth knowledge, the 
 exceeding greatness of His ever ready gift for the 
 strengthening and refreshing of our souls.
 
 121 
 
 PRESENT DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 What I have hitherto said has mainly concerned 
 two subjects at present prominently before the Church 
 — the use and abuse of Private Confession, and the 
 danger of the spread of certain erroneous views and 
 practices in connection with the Holy Communion. I 
 can imagine some men looking with wonder or scorn 
 or amusement on the fact that in face of all the other 
 matters pressing clamorously for attention in connection 
 with the morals, the education, and the social life of 
 the English people, a Bishop should devote so large a 
 proportion of his Visitation Addresses to two such 
 matters only. I have done it deliberately : partly 
 because I think it is difficult to exaggerate their in- 
 trinsic importance, partly because of the confusion 
 and misunderstanding existing in many minds upon 
 both these subjects ; but mainly because it seems to me 
 that a clear recognition and acceptance of sound princi- 
 ples upon such questions will be helpful in a great 
 range of kindred subjects affecting the religion, and 
 therefore the morals of our people. 
 
 It is impossible for us, the ministers of Christ, the 
 officers of the National Church, to do aright the work 
 
 I
 
 122 
 
 Evil of to which God calls us, if we are distraught by contro- 
 
 partisan . , . ... , 
 
 strife, versies, always anxious, sometimes noisy, ignorant, and 
 fanatical on either side, about the way in which the 
 truths of our Faith should be brought to bear upon the 
 daily life of the people. Religious controversies and 
 discussions, when reasonably conducted by qualified 
 men, have no doubt as useful and even necessary a 
 place in the contemporary life of our Church as they 
 had in its early or mediaeval history. But to this end 
 the condition must be satisfied that they be reasonably 
 conducted by qualified men. If not, they may do in- 
 calculable harm. We have seen it in the last eighteen 
 months. Passions have been needlessly inflamed, and 
 the relation to one another of Christian workers has 
 been embittered without adequate cause. The result is 
 a widespread feeling of unrest, of feverishness, of dis- 
 satisfaction, of mutual suspicion, hurtful almost beyond 
 words to the work we all have at heart — the advance in 
 England of the kingdom of our Blessed Lord, the 
 bettering, by our ministry, of the every-day life of the 
 English people. 
 Need of It is sometimes well, at a time of controversy like 
 face of the present, that we should try calmly to estimate the 
 genuine, intrinsic importance of the points about which 
 English Churchmen are at variance, asking what pro- 
 portion they bear to the points or principles on which 
 we are all agreed. If you have followed what in my 
 addresses I have hitherto tried to say, you will not 
 think I make little of the issues at stake in some few 
 of our present-day disputations. The matters we have 
 discussed are scarcely less than vital. But, on the 
 
 foes.
 
 123 
 
 other hand, I seldom sit down to think over, or kneel 
 down to pray over, a single day's episcopal work and 
 correspondence without the thought occurring : In how 
 large a proportion of these arguments and quarrels and 
 complaints the disputants are really in closer agreement 
 than they suppose. The differences are so often merely 
 skin deep, or, to use another figure, the waves raised 
 by angry gusts are tossing fretfully on the surface of 
 a great river ; but down a few feet below the surface the 
 water is flowing steadily on, undisturbed by the bois- 
 terous splashings on the top. It is difficult to realise 
 this, either for ourselves or others. Cast your thoughts 
 forward half a century ; try to imagine how some of 
 our present difficulties about Ritual and Courts will 
 look when those who are now schoolboys fill our places 
 as bald or grey-headed men. By that time quite other 
 lines of cleavage will, I venture to think, be severing 
 groups of thinking men from one another : questions 
 vitally affecting the great realities of life : Is there a 
 God Who can hear and speak to me ? Will my life 
 end when I am put into the grave ? Was Jesus Christ 
 merely the best of men ? Has there been in a true 
 sense any Revelation given to man ? Is what we call 
 morality really a binding duty, and if so, why ? 
 
 Such voices grow louder. The conflict thickens 
 round us as the years pass, and though happily the 
 issue is not doubtful, the sharpness of the strife, be it 
 against wickedness or against unbelief, calls imperatively 
 on the whole Church to stand shoulder to shoulder. 
 You will remember perhaps the account Josephus gives 
 of what was happening in Jerusalem while the Roman
 
 124 
 
 eagles were mustering not far off. " There was a bitter 
 
 contest," he says, "within the city Every one 
 
 associated with those of his own opinion, and they began 
 already to stand in opposition one to another, so that 
 seditions arose everywhere, while those that were for in- 
 novations and were desirous of war by their youth and 
 boldness were too hard for the aged and prudent 
 men. ^ 
 Points at Already, as you know, some of the most thoughtful 
 sometimes of our English contemporaries ask in honest bewilder- 
 
 trifling, ,...,, 
 
 ment how it is possible that we whose special task it 
 ought to be to guide men's thoughts aright, can expend 
 all this energy over the particular disputes which have 
 been filling our newspapers, when enemies so formidable 
 are on the march or at the gate. This wonder may be 
 misplaced. Such a critic may be failing to estimate at 
 its actual value the connection between some ritual act 
 and the doctrine which lies behind it. But at the least 
 his surprise should " give us pause." It should force 
 us to ask ourselves and one another whether there be 
 indeed a danger that the strife which turns at first upon 
 a few large questions, may degenerate at times into 
 petty altercations about mint, anise and cummin, and 
 that we may thus come to forget the proportions 
 of the whole. A stranger to the subject, reading 
 some of the controversial literature of this last year, 
 would find it hard to believe that on the great mass of 
 Christian verities the opponents are absolutely at one. 
 Nay, sometimes they themselves surely forget that* the 
 
 ^ ^ars of the Jews^ Book IV. chap. iii. § 2. Whiston's 
 Translation, Vol. ii. p. 343.
 
 125 
 
 whole area of strife, magnify it as you will, is but a 
 comparatively insignificant corner in the religious field 
 we occupy in common. 
 
 And another thought treads close upon the heels of 
 this. The outside critic who hears the thud of every 
 doughty blow, and half contemptuously watches the 
 combatants splintering their lances in hot strife, 
 imagines these frays to be the main thing for which the 
 fighters care. We know better. We know how often 
 it is true to say that in the man's own life and ministry 
 these things, greatly as he cares about them, are com- 
 parative trifles after all, that the real fight on which his 
 heart is set is the fight against sin and devilry and 
 ignorance and unbelief. Only he is waging that battle 
 so continuously that it has ceased to give matter for a 
 newspaper paragraph, and is forgotten by the onlooker 
 just because it is taken as matter of course. And yet 
 somehow these things would not be said, these mis- 
 representations would not take place, unless there were 
 something to give rise to the blunder. Unfair criticism 
 — my brothers, I find it so myself every week — is a 
 useful and helpful thing, or, at least, it may be made 
 so. It should set us thinking what it can be that we 
 have said or done which could thus be distorted, what 
 grounds, reasonable or unreasonable, we can have given 
 to the critic. It should remind us how easy it is to 
 discredit our Master's cause in unfriendly eyes by that 
 false proportion between great things and small, against 
 which St. Paul raised his voice so often. 
 
 None the less however is it our duty, in face of all 
 that needs doing in the world, to mend these mischiefs,
 
 126 
 
 be they great or small, and to allay these hampering 
 fretful strifes, if by God's grace we may. 
 
 At present they cluster mainly round the forms of 
 our Services of prayer and praise. It is noteworthy, 
 and not altogether discouraging, to see how keen and 
 widespread an interest such questions can arouse. One 
 wonders whether it would be equally possible in any 
 other land. 
 History of Contemporary historv is proverbially difficult to re- 
 
 thepresent , , • i r i ,, • 
 
 strife, member, and it may not be out or place to recall m a 
 short, dry form what has been happening before our 
 eyes. Let me put it in the consecutive shape the story 
 might take under the hands of an historian, say half a 
 century hence. 
 
 In the year 1897, as the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 in a subsequent speech explained, it had become clear to 
 the Bishops that some check was necessary if the unique 
 liberty enjoyed by English parish priests as to the variety 
 and arrangement of Church Services was not to degen- 
 erate in a few places into mischievous irregularity. 
 While this whole matter was under consideration, a 
 spark was set to the tinder by unseemly disturbances 
 which arose in one or two London churches about the 
 use of certain "Special Services" not in character with 
 the tone of the Book of Common Prayer. Controversy 
 grew hot and general, and the difficulties of a quiet and 
 reasonable exercise of authority were proportionally in- 
 creased. It became clear, indeed, before many months 
 had passed, that as regards the " Special Services " 
 themselves no serious obstacle to an orderly settlement 
 would anywhere be found ; but in the meantime the
 
 127 
 
 flames spread rapidly to other and deeper matters, the 
 very matters which had been under consideration when 
 the first disturbances arose. Inflammatory meetings 
 were held ; inflammatory literature was circulated 
 broadcast. Discussions took place in both Houses of 
 Parliament, and the accusers virtually extended their 
 attack against the whole line of the High Church 
 party, or against those at least who professed themselves 
 disciples of the Oxford movement of fifty years before. 
 The Bishops were loudly accused of having neglected 
 to restrain excesses, and especially of having shielded 
 wrongdoers from legitimate punishment by an un- 
 sparing use of their legal power of veto in cases of 
 prosecution. They were clamorously called upon to 
 insist immediately upon such changes as should satisfy 
 the promoters of the agitation against what was some- 
 what vaguely called Ritualism, and, in the event of 
 non-compliance on the part of those impugned, to put 
 the machinery of the law in motion. On the part of 
 the Bishops the reply was given, that though grave 
 irregularities in the conduct of Divine Service un- 
 doubtedly existed in some parishes, this was not due to 
 any concerted resolve on the Bishops' part to abstain 
 from interference, but simply to a general dislike on 
 the part of the whole Church — Bishops, Clergy and 
 laity — of the legal coercion which had been attempted 
 twenty years before, and to a desire to fall back upon 
 gentler methods. The endeavours thus to restrain 
 excesses by quiet influence rather than by compulsion 
 had been only in part successful, and further action by 
 the Bishops had been under consideration at the very 
 
 k
 
 128 
 
 time when the disturbances arose. As regards the 
 Bishops' legal veto, it was a simple mistake of fact to 
 suppose that it had been used to prohibit reasonable 
 access on the part of the laity to the Courts of the 
 Church. This was made clear by a Parliamentary 
 Return, which was called for by the House of Com- 
 mons, and which showed, when published, that of the 
 thirty-five living Diocesan Bishops, three only had ever 
 in any circumstances exercised the statutory power of 
 veto.^ 
 
 Such was, in general terms, the Bishops' contention in 
 reply to those who challenged their administration of 
 the Church's affairs. Among them, as among other 
 Churchmen, lay and clerical, there was naturally some 
 difference of opinion as to the dimensions of the 
 existing mischief, and as to the manner in which 
 to set right what was amiss. No one, however, dis- 
 puted the fact that action of some sort was required. 
 
 The whole position was complicated by the long- 
 standing difficulty as to the constitution of the Eccle- 
 siastical Courts. Very few people regarded them as 
 quite satisfactory, and not a few of the Clergy thought 
 themselves justified in declining to recognise their full 
 authority. In these circumstances the Archbishops and 
 Bishops took two steps. They brought before Convo- 
 cation for discussion a scheme for a remodelled system 
 of Courts, on the lines recommended by the Royal Com- 
 mission in 1883 ; and, further, the two Archbishops 
 undertook to give formal and public hearing to any argu- 
 ments which might be urged by Clergy whose cases of 
 ^ See Appendix C.
 
 129 
 
 alleged disobedience to the Prayer Book should be re- 
 ferred to the Archbishops by Diocesan Bishops under 
 the provision in the Preface to the Book of Common 
 Prayer. 
 
 Such, my Reverend Brethren, is, I hope and think, a 
 fair summary of the plain history of the facts up to the 
 point at which we stand to-day. The attempt to re- 
 construct our Ecclesiastical Courts is still before Con- 
 vocation, and it is clear that further discussion is 
 required before we can reach such a position as would 
 enable us to introduce a Bill in Parliament with reason- 
 able prospect of success. The rubrical questions 
 referred to the Archbishops have been duly argued at 
 Lambeth, and on two points, the Liturgical use of 
 Incense and the carrying of Lights in procession, the 
 Archbishops have already made public the conclusion 
 to which they came. 
 
 I am not going to discuss these Ritual matters in Ritual con- 
 detail. To do so, except with regard to such funda- 
 mental questions as those which occupied my last 
 address, would be contrary to the principle I have 
 endeavoured consistently to follow : the principle that 
 all minor questions as to the conduct of Divine Service 
 ought, at least in the first instance, to be separately and 
 locally considered, and that the communications be- 
 tween the Bishop and each parish should be of a private 
 and personal kind. It suits the purpose of controversial 
 writers, and perhaps of newspaper editors, to drag into 
 the arena of public strife and criticism any such question 
 arising in a parish. I could from my personal know- 
 ledge give instances in more than one diocese in which 
 
 K
 
 130 
 
 petty irregularities or difficulties, which might have 
 been, and doubtless would have been, quietly settled by 
 the Bishop's private intervention, have, by the mis- 
 chievous agency of partisan controversy, grown to large 
 dimensions, with consequences infinitely hurtful to the 
 Church. In this diocese we have specially tried to 
 Our avoid that peril. You will all remember what occurred 
 action, last Spring. On February 22nd, I addressed a circular 
 letter to each of our 566 incumbents, calling attention 
 to what was described in the letter as " a wider variety 
 of usage and ceremonial in the Church than can legiti- 
 mately be brought within the limits defined by our 
 existing rubrics." I specified twelve liturgical points 
 which had given rise to controversy, and stated in each 
 case what is, to the best of my judgment, the rule of 
 the Church of England. From those whose usage was 
 already in harmony with my view I asked for no reply, 
 but I went on to say : 
 
 If you feel a difficulty on any one of the points I have men- 
 tioned, in bringing your usage into harmony with this interpre- 
 tation of the Rubrics, I would ask you kindly to write to me 
 at once upon the matter, specifying the difficulty. I will then 
 gladly consider with you the facts and circumstances, and give 
 you such counsel, guidance, or formal direction as may be 
 required. Exceptional arrangements may be called for in ex- 
 ceptional circumstances, and to any such I will give my 
 deliberate consideration. 
 
 The letter was marked " private " to prevent publi- 
 cation, but it was rightly shown without restraint 
 to Churchwardens and others. It may interest you 
 to know the issue. I received 176 replies. They
 
 131 
 
 came from men of every school of thought. Some 
 of the points submitted to me, whether of excess or 
 defect, were the merest trifles ; others were of solid 
 importance. I have reason to think that no case of 
 grave irregularity was withheld from my notice. To 
 each of these 176 correspondents I replied, sending a 
 memorandum of advice upon the particular point or 
 points he had referred to. If my direction or explana- 
 tion satisfied or convinced him, I asked for no further 
 reply. If not, I expressed my readiness to see him or 
 to write to him more fully. Of the 176 who had 
 written to me, this reply proved sufficient to all but 
 fifteen. With each of these fifteen I was subsequently 
 in communication ; and there are, at this moment, only 
 a very few parishes in which Ritual matters still remain 
 seriously unsettled. 
 
 It is, I think, worth while thus to summarise what 
 has been passing in our own Diocese. Comments have 
 all the while been rife and loud to the eff^ect that at a 
 time of widespread disquiet and dissatisfaction, the 
 Bishops have been taking no steps. Now, what has 
 happened in this Diocese has, in some form, no doubt 
 been happening in others. But it has purposely been 
 done " not with observation." I have received many 
 letters, some of them from wise and trusted friends, 
 to the efi^ect that what was wanted was public disci- 
 plinary action to repress irregularity. I have never 
 denied that circumstances may arise which call ulti- 
 mately in particular cases for such action. But I am 
 absolutely convinced that we have in this Diocese been 
 right in proceeding first in the way we did. There 
 
 K 2
 
 132 
 
 is now no reason why my circular letters on which so 
 much has turned should not be made public, and I 
 append them to this Charge, together with some of the 
 memoranda which have proved helpful as to particular 
 usages or Ritual points.^ 
 The diffi- You wiU not suppose me to imply that either in this 
 ^ over."° Diocese or any other our Ritual difficulties are over, or 
 that at this moment the Prayer Book Rubrics are being 
 simply, and without challenge, obeyed. Such a state- 
 ment would utterly misrepresent the facts. The whole 
 , situation is complicated and difficult in a high degree. 
 In the first place, apart from any question either of 
 doctrine on the one hand or of expediency on the 
 other, it would, as a plain matter of fact, be worse 
 than futile to attempt such enforcement of absolute 
 uniformity. That there must be elasticity here and 
 there is evident to every competent student of our 
 present difficulties. Literal rigid compliance with every 
 Rubric of 1662 would — even if it were possible — be 
 intolerable, and to none more intolerable than to some 
 of those whose complaints of " lawlessness " are now 
 most loudly and conscientiously expressed. 
 «Uni- We may say, with reasonable certainty, that there 
 °^^^ ^' never was a single year in the history of the Church of 
 England when, in the conduct of Divine Service, the 
 " use " was absolutely and rigidly uniform in every 
 parish throughout the land. The sentence in Cranmer's 
 Preface that " now from henceforth all the whole Realm 
 shall have but one use," or the phrase " and none other 
 or otherwise," in Queen Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity 
 ^ See Appendix D.
 
 ^33 
 
 — important, deliberate, and definite as they were — 
 must always have been so interpreted as to cover the 
 trifling deviations which custom sanctioned, or which 
 temporary conditions made necessary, and it has often 
 been pointed out how considerable a variety is possible, 
 under the letter of our Rubrics, with respect to the 
 details of several of our prescribed services. No doubt, 
 as years pass, and the social conditions of life change, 
 and populations increase, these deviations have, ipso facto y 
 even apart from religious questions, a tendency to grow 
 wider. Local customs, unquestioned perhaps for gener- 
 ations, stiffen into rules, and an attempt to revive the 
 unmistakable provisions of some long-disregarded 
 rubric has many a time been resented as a lawless 
 innovation. The experience of the older among us 
 will supply abundant examples, and the lesson should 
 at present be serviceable on more sides than one. 
 
 The controversial literature of the reigns of Queen 
 Anne and George I. gives abundant evidence, if any 
 were required, as to the gulf which separated the High 
 Church and Low Church Services of those contentious 
 days,^ and I suppose it would not be an exaggeration to 
 say that, from the date of our existing Prayer Book 
 onwards, it has always been possible to find in use 
 within the Church two really distinct types of Divine 
 Service, neither of them violating the Rubrics as they 
 
 ^ For references and examples see Perry's History of the Church 
 of England, vol. iii., p. 165, &c. Also Overton, Life in the 
 English Church from 1 660 — 1 7 14, Chap, iv., and Abbey and 
 Overton's English Church in the iSth Century, vol. ii., 460 — 
 482 and passim.
 
 134 
 
 stand, but each of them, if we may use such an 
 expression, " presenting " the Book of Common Prayer 
 in its own way. So it is to-day. It is perfectly con- 
 ceivable that a persevering complainant from either 
 camp in the present controversy might successfully 
 insist upon and secure the compliance of his parish 
 priest with every rubric in the Prayer Book, without 
 thereby producing at all the sort of service he himself 
 desires to see. Looking back across the last two 
 centuries, it is hard to exaggerate the good we have 
 secured from our rule of Uniformity in Public Wor- 
 ship. But it is a rule which has to be interpreted by 
 reasonable men who know the varying needs with which 
 they have to deal. 
 Variety is He who remembers the differences of temperament, 
 esse » > ^£ taste, of religious sympathy and tone, which separate 
 the devotional life of one Christian man from the 
 devotional life of another ; he who knows how music 
 may be the profoundest help to the prayers of one 
 man and be a positive hindrance to the prayers of 
 another ; he who has friends who are uplifted and 
 strengthened by the aesthetic beauty of architecture 
 or colour, and other friends to whom such things at a 
 time of Divine Service are uninteresting or distracting ; 
 will surely recognise that, in a Church like ours, and 
 especially in our large towns, such variety of usage, 
 within reasonable limits, is not only tolerable but even 
 necessary, 
 but subject The question is how best to decide for the good of 
 guidance all, whether, in any particular case, the limits of legiti- 
 authority. mate freedom have been overstepped ; whether any
 
 135 
 
 principle has been violated, any well-established decision 
 upon a doubtful matter contravened, any reasonable 
 ground given for complaint. A general discretion, 
 based on such considerations, must rest with some- 
 body. The framers of our existing laws saw this 
 when they deliberately provided for what is known 
 as the Bishops' veto. Whether the discretion en- 
 trusted to the Bishops has or has not been wisely 
 used either in ordinary administration or with respect 
 to the legal veto, is a fair matter for discussion. 
 But how anybody can suppose it to be possible that, 
 while our Rubrics remain what they are, we could 
 take such a discretion away from the Bishops without 
 transferring it to some other authority, I find it 
 difficult to imagine. It is with such principles in mind 
 that I, for one, have tried to deal with each question 
 that has come before me in these matters during my 
 Episcopate. 
 
 Of course it may sometimes be better that a The Arch- 
 doubtful point of interpretation should be definitely "'near- 
 and authoritatively decided, and the Prayer Book '"^' 
 Preface " Concerning the Services of the Church " 
 provided for a formal reference, if need be, to the 
 Archbishop of the Province. This right of reference, 
 if we may call it so, has rarely been used, and if I 
 correctly understand the object of our present Arch- 
 bishops in giving fresh vitality to such appeal (I use 
 the word in no technical sense), it was intended to 
 satisfy those who, for whatever reason, were neither 
 prepared to regard the dictum of their Diocesan as 
 final, nor inclined to refer the matter to the arbitrament
 
 136 
 
 of our present Ecclesiastical Courts. In what is de- 
 scribed as the " Hearing " at Lambeth, a public oppor- 
 tunity was given for the amplest arguments to be 
 brought forward on behalf of those to whose Ritual 
 usages their own Diocesan had taken exception, and 
 the opportunity was heartily welcomed and admirably 
 used. The conclusion arrived at by the Archbishops 
 after hearing such arguments must presumably be re- 
 garded as binding by those . who argued their case 
 before these highest representatives of purely spiritual 
 authority. But there has been no withdrawal from the 
 Diocesan Bishops of their separate and direct responsi- 
 bility for Diocesan administration; and in the formal 
 directions or injunctions I have myself had occasion 
 to issue since the Archbishops' conclusion or decision 
 was published, I have taken care to speak with the full 
 responsibility attaching to my own office as Diocesan, 
 and not as one who had blindly to endorse an Archi- 
 Episcopal decree, great as must be the influence 
 exercised on the mind of every loyal Churchman 
 by an interpretation emanating from so august a 
 quarter. 
 Recon- And this leads me to say something — it shall be very 
 o/eccIc" brief — about the reconstruction of our Ecclesiastical 
 siasticai Courts. 1 have never been one of those who thousrht 
 
 Courts. _ ° 
 
 that that matter could, with common fairness to lay 
 Churchmen, be allowed to slumber. For sixteen years, 
 — ever since, that is, the publication of the Report of the 
 Royal Commission, — I have ventured to press, both in 
 Convocation and elsewhere, for vigorous forward action 
 upon the lines of that Report. It is discreditable to
 
 137 
 
 our Church that we should acquiesce in a condition, so 
 far as our Final Court is concerned, of virtual anarchy. 
 
 It is not that I am eager to secure some one 
 particular solution of the difficulties. I hope I shall 
 not seem to derogate from the importance of the 
 principles involved if I say that in my view there 
 are at least four or five rival schemes, any one of which 
 we might reasonably accept, and any one of which 
 would, I think, be found to work smoothly in practice. 
 
 I have consistently supported the plan which was 
 drafted in the Report signed by a large majority 
 of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission, and which 
 was, with some modifications, embodied five years 
 later in the Bill prepared by Archbishop Benson, after 
 prolonged discussion with a Committee of leading 
 laymen. It provides, as you will remember, for the 
 strengthening of our Diocesan and Provincial Courts, 
 and for an appeal from the Provincial Court to the 
 Crown, who shall refer the question to a Committee 
 of highly-qualified lay Churchmen, such Committee 
 being bound, before advising the Crown upon the 
 matter, to obtain, upon any particular point of doctrine 
 or Ritual which is in controversy, the opinion of the 
 whole English Episcopate specially summoned for the 
 purpose. 
 
 This plan appears to me to be a fair one from every 
 point of view; and sound constitutional principles would, 
 I think, be best maintained if the Crown, on receiving 
 the Report of the Committee, were to remit the matter 
 to the Provincial Court, who should pronounce 
 the ultimate sentence. Such a scheme admits of the
 
 138 
 
 possibility that the Crown might be advised by its 
 Committee to decide the question in a manner opposed 
 to the opinion of the Bishops ; and in the judgment of 
 many good men this possibiUty condemns the scheme 
 as unsound. To me, I confess, such a possibility 
 appears to be no worse than many other possibilities 
 inherent in the system of an Established Church. It 
 is always conceivable, however improbable, that the 
 supreme Civil authority, be it legislative or judicial, 
 may come to some decision so clearly opposed to the 
 opinion of the Church as such, that mutual co-opera- 
 tion is no longer possible. The conditions upon 
 which the Civil Power maintains the privilege, or 
 in some matters the monopoly, granted to the Church 
 may be found by the Church in its corporate capacity 
 to be intolerable, and the system of mutual co-opera- 
 tion which we call Establishment may thereupon have 
 to come to an end. It has become the fashion lately 
 to speak of the system of the Established Church of 
 Scotland as providing security against this sort of 
 conflict. But, curiously enough, it was in Scotland 
 under the existing system that the only modern in- 
 stance of such a difficulty did actually occur. Had 
 the whole General Assembly in 1843, instead of only a 
 large minority of the Assembly, repudiated the decision 
 arrived at by the Civil Power, one of two alternatives 
 must presumably have ensued, — Legislation in the 
 direction the Church desired, or Disestablishment. 
 Where an Established Church exists, such a contin- 
 gency must always be within the range of possibility, 
 and I cannot myself see that the recognition of that
 
 139 
 
 fact involves any disloyalty to even the sternest princi 
 pies of Churchmanship. The Church, through her con- 
 stituted authorities, must always have the power or the 
 right of declining to give effect to some deliberate 
 decision of the State; and thereupon, unless the State 
 consents to a legislative readjustment of the position, 
 what is called Establishment must come to an end. 
 I do not believe that any scheme of Ecclesiastical 
 Courts can be devised which, while preserving, in how- 
 ever shadowy a form, what we call the Royal Suprem- 
 acy, would make impossible the contingency I have 
 referred to. But of course, we who believe in the 
 maintenance, under proper conditions, of an Established 
 Church, desire to reduce to a minimum the probability, 
 or even possibility, of such a conflict. If, therefore, 
 by modifying the proposals contained in Archbishop 
 Benson's Bill, we can make this remote contingency yet 
 more remote, without thereby forfeiting the possibility 
 of passing the Bill into law, I, for one, should gladly 
 fall in with such proposals. 
 
 As a matter of fact, I think the probability is exceed- 
 ingly small, that, with our Diocesan and Provincial 
 Courts strengthened in the manner proposed, any appeal 
 to the Crown would ever occur. If it did occur, the 
 probability that a point of doctrine or Ritual would 
 be decided by the Committee of Council in one way 
 and by the united Episcopate in another way is, I think, 
 almost inconceivably remote. If so strange a conflict 
 ever does arise I have no fear whatever as to our being 
 able adequately to meet it. 
 
 In the meantime what we have to do is to provide a 
 working plan which shall enable the Bishops to use
 
 140 
 
 their constitutional authority with the knowledge that 
 there lies in the background a duly graded series of 
 Ecclesiastical Courts of such a kind as to secure that, if 
 perforce the tribunal has to be appealed to, the deci- 
 sions given will secure the loyal obedience and respect 
 both of the Clergy and the laity. I decline to believe 
 — it would be humiliating to believe — that this is 
 unattainable, 
 tuai"" A fallacy seems to me to underlie the oft-repeated 
 authority. Jictum that spiritual matters must be decided by a 
 spiritual authority. I cordially assent to the proposition 
 if it means that in the last resort a decision affecting 
 Christian Doctrine or the Ritual which expresses Doctrine 
 must, if it is to bind Christian men in foro conscientia^ 
 be a decision consistent with the Church's own view 
 of what is true in Doctrine or appropriate in Ritual, 
 and must not be a decision forced upon an unwilling 
 Church by any body or power external to or in- 
 dependent of the Church. But if it means, as it 
 sometimes seems to mean, that the Christian laity, 
 even when acting through duly accredited repre- 
 sentatives, have no voice in the decision of such 
 controversies, I believe it to be as false in theory 
 as it would be mischievous in practice. The more 
 determinedly that we force the matter back to " first 
 principles," the more likely shall we be to arrive at a 
 true and reasonable solution of present problems in 
 the Church of England. 
 
 My brothers : I would fain hope I have said enough, 
 for this Visitation at least, about such matters, and that
 
 more 
 nportai 
 than con- 
 troversy. 
 
 141 
 
 I may be allowed to pass thankfully on, for the time 
 left to me to-day, to things of more real importance. 
 
 These endless, puzzling, irritating controversies about Work 
 Courts and vetos, about Canonical obedience, and important 
 Lambeth " hearings," and a score of kindred things, 
 loom large, no doubt, in our Church newspapers, our 
 Conferences, our gatherings, lay and clerical, nay, even 
 in our chance conversations with one another. 
 
 And yet, and yet — for most of us — how remote and 
 insignificant comparatively is their bearing upon the 
 actual daily work for our Master which we are set to do, 
 and are indeed, in our measure doing with all our hearts, 
 as the weeks and months and years roll on, and we draw 
 nearer to the time when we must give account to Him 
 for it all ! How utterly " the man in the street" 
 misunderstands us if he supposes (as I fear he often 
 does) that these controversies are the matters about 
 which, in our inmost hearts, we Clergy are caring most, 
 or which we bring to our Lord in our daily prayers ! 
 
 Here we find ourselves put, for a few short years, at Our 
 a momentous epoch in English history, and therefore in 
 the History of Christendom, with the task, the inspiring 
 task, entrusted to us of bringing the Gospel of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ into living touch with dusty human lives, 
 and showing people, if we can, how that Revelation of 
 the immeasurable love God has for them can make their 
 homes, nay can make themselves, quite different from 
 what they could have been if He had never come. 
 Nothing lower, nothing less than that is the magnificent 
 trust He has Himself given to us His Ministers. For 
 that trust it is that we do care : to the discharge of 
 
 trust —
 
 142 
 
 that trust it is that our lives are devoted. Most in- 
 adequately have we fulfilled it. Most inadequately 
 was it fulfilled, nay, sometimes it was hardly 
 attempted, by those who filled our places here a little 
 time ago. The apathy, the indifference, the good- 
 humoured tolerance with which our message is com- 
 monly received, where they are not (as they often are) 
 the result of our own faults and feeblenesses, may be 
 the heritage left us by lazy or incompetent or faithless 
 predecessors, 
 especially If such be our excuse — and it is sometimes a true 
 children cxcuse — as regards the elderly or middle-aged folk, 
 we cannot fairly plead it as regards the young. In 
 the very forefront of the charge committed to us 
 is the care for the children in our schools. When 
 they reach the meridian of their lives what will they 
 have to tell as to the ideals set before them at the 
 dawn ? Was it brought home to them from the 
 outset that life is worth living because of the 
 strength and brightness and beauty of which it is, 
 by God's grace, capable here and now ; because it 
 is part of something larger than we see ; and 
 because Jesus Christ has redeemed it and ennobled it, 
 and enriched it in every working home by His ex- 
 ample, His presence, and His trust .'' To put it thus 
 may sound perhaps exaggerated and out of place when 
 we pass in thought from the ideal to the actual ; 
 when we recall to mind the very ordinary commonplace 
 children with whom we have daily to do in school and 
 home and village street. But it is surely what Christ 
 does see, and mean, and plan for those young lives, and
 
 143 
 
 what He commits now to our keeping and our 
 development. 
 
 Taking the Diocese of Winchester as a whole, and >" our 
 
 . , . schools. 
 
 omittmg, as requirmg separate consideration, our two 
 great towns of Portsmouth and Southampton, it is true 
 to say that the mass of our children are educated in 
 Church Schools, and start in life with such stamp — such 
 " character " in the true and original sense of the word 
 — as we in those schools have been able to impress upon 
 them. Face that fact on a great scale, and consider the 
 answerableness it leaves upon our shoulders for what 
 the people in this part of England will be like when 
 the first quarter of the next century has struck. I 
 have been looking patiently, eagerly, through the 
 Visitation Returns from all our parishes for signs of 
 fresh plans, new experiments, to meet the changed 
 conditions which encompass us. I will not say that I 
 have found none, but, to say the least, there is abundant 
 room for more. 
 
 Let me recall to you in briefest words some of the Present 
 factors in the problem as it stands to-day. They will in th^ 
 not, I think, be challenged, whatever conclusion may be P™^'^"^- 
 drawn from them. 
 
 First, according to the ordinary criterion of educa- 
 tion, the children, say at ten years of age, are better 
 educated than they were a few years ago. The average 
 age at which a child reaches, say, the fifth standard is 
 now much lower than it used to be. That means that 
 the ordinary child on leaving school has a much better 
 basis of capacity for learning more than was usual a little 
 while ago.
 
 144 
 
 Secondly. Our teachers, speaking generally, are more 
 capable, are themselves better educated, are more keen 
 and thoughtful on the whole subject. 
 
 Thirdly. Our school managers are, in larger num- 
 bers, interested in the matter. There are more of them 
 who are awake to their responsibilities and prepared to 
 take pains. 
 
 Fourthly. The rules of the Education Department 
 are more elastic. The Inspector has himself more 
 liberty as to what he may permit or do, and he allows 
 to the managers and teachers a freedom of range and 
 practice which quite recently was unknown. 
 
 With these conditions, then, to deal with, we find 
 the schools entrusted to us afresh, the financial diffi- 
 culties lightened, the denominational basis no longer 
 seriously threatened, and, so to speak, a free hand given 
 us for doing our best. 
 What We realise, as soon as we try to view the matter 
 means, fairly, that the very most we can hope to accomplish, 
 in a school life which ends at the age of twelve or 
 thirteen, is to prepare the child in those few years to 
 carry on — we might almost say to begin — afterwards, 
 what can in a truer sense be called Education. We 
 have furnished, or ought to have furnished by that 
 time, the mental tools, and shown the child how to use 
 them. The appalling thing is that, as matters stand, 
 the child is apt to stop there. Its parents and it are 
 agreed in ignorantly, stupidly supposing that it has, as 
 we falsely put it, " got a good education," instead of 
 having merely got the means of using properly the 
 opportunities of real education which will now begin.
 
 H5 
 
 If by " Education " we meant merely " book learn- 
 ing," it would be obvious to reply that with the daily 
 hours of manual labour which lie before it, the child 
 will have no opportunity to speak of for carrying on 
 the education of those school years. But if we could 
 properly enlarge for ourselves and for others the idea 
 of what Education means ; could get people to believe 
 that powers of body and mind, aye and of soul, are to 
 go on being steadily evoked, e-ducated^ by the daily 
 use, in field or shop or household, of the intelligence 
 which the drudgery of school standards has polished 
 and sharpened ; and if we could further provide, within 
 the reach of all, some kind of intellectual opportunity, 
 however slender, which should prevent the once sharp 
 edge from getting blunted and useless, — if we could 
 do that, why, in a few years the homes and lives of 
 England's manual workers would be transformed, trans- 
 figured into shapes and capacities as yet unknown. 
 
 You will understand that I am not speaking of ideals 
 something that can be effected to-day or to-morrow, or acUon! 
 next year, or perhaps for the next ten years. But a 
 Visitation is an occasion for estimating after a term of 
 years, and before another term of years, where it is we 
 stand. I am trying rather to express what we all feel 
 about what might be, than to suggest in any ready 
 form how the ideal can be prosaically putin to practice. 
 But the ideal must come first, must be assimilated and 
 become ours, before we shall have the inspiration for 
 translating it into any actual work. 
 
 What seems to me certain is, that among the country Rural 
 Clergy of England, if anywhere, the men for accom- 
 
 L 
 
 migration.
 
 146 
 
 plishing such a task ought to be found. In a Diocese 
 like this we have forced upon us, in rural parish after 
 rural parish, the painful fact that the best of our young 
 people find country life intolerably dull and escape from 
 it whenever they can. Need this mischievous migration 
 go on ? Why is the country life more dull to them 
 than it was to their parents ? We have half a score of 
 answers offered ; but the truest seems to be this — that 
 they have, so to speak, been furnished with tools which 
 they have no means of using where they are, and they 
 fancy, perhaps mistakenly, that life in a town will give 
 them a better opportunity. It is our business to face 
 that difficulty and to find the remedy, for remedy there 
 must surely be. Have our efforts been adequate ? 
 What place do the Continuation Schools take in our 
 rural districts, or even in our towns ^ On what scale 
 are they in use ? Is it that they have had a full and 
 honest trial and have failed ? They are capable, of 
 course, of almost endless variety to suit local or per- 
 sonal needs and powers and acquirements and demands. 
 How far is it true to say, as sometimes it is unkindly 
 said, that a great many of us simply take for granted 
 that they are unworkable in our rural districts, and let 
 matters alone ? 
 Confer- Xhe Subject is one which tempts me to run on. But 
 
 ence is , , •* 
 
 srequired. this is not the occasion. What I venture to hope may 
 be possible is that we should have some Conferences in 
 different neighbourhoods upon the matter, that such 
 Conferences may result in experiments of a varied sort, 
 and that such experiments may, by the help of God, 
 bear fruit. It is no mere desire upon our part to stay a
 
 147 
 
 migration which may or may not have its wholesome 
 side. We think of deeper, higher things. We want to 
 see the growth of those young lives — body, mind and 
 soul — go healthily on, go on in such a way as must 
 vivify and brighten and uplift home life, whether in 
 town or country. It is simply inconceivable that it can 
 be the will of God that the sunny lad who leaves a village 
 school at twelve years old, knowing what he does know, 
 should sink by the time he is sixteen or seventeen into 
 the dullard he has far too usually become ; and, if it be 
 not the will of God, it is for us to devise, by His grace, 
 the means and manner of preventing it. It concerns 
 our whole country. It is not a vain thing for us ; it 
 is our life. 
 
 I have dwelt upon that subject because it stands in 
 the very front of our perplexities, and because it is to 
 us especially that people have a right to turn — I will 
 not say for a solution — but at least for suggestions 
 born of daily experience, daily disappointment, daily 
 thought and endeavour, daily prayer. 
 
 But we cannot separate it, after all, from other The 
 questions, some of which seem even less capable of of the 
 satisfactory settlement ; questions, too, which involve °°^' 
 economic considerations which squires and farmers 
 understand better than we do, and on which their 
 lament is continuous and loud. In the country, for 
 example, one parish priest after another deplores to 
 me the frequent wretchedness and squalor of our farm 
 cottages, with all the attendant and consequent mischiefs 
 to body and soul. Yet, even while he deplores it, he 
 tells how hopeless of solution the problem seems to be. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 
 
 To build a decent cottage costs double or treble what 
 it used to cost, and the funds once available for such 
 building have meantime simply disappeared. Even 
 there, it is humiliating, it is faithless, it is unworthy of 
 our traditions and heritage, to say or believe that no 
 conceivable solution can be found. In our towns the 
 problem is more perplexing still. I cannot of course 
 enter now into its intricacies, but I would fain lay it 
 on you, as you go in and out among the poor, to keep 
 your eyes open to notice evils which need correction, to 
 bring them to the attention of those whose duty it is to 
 right such wrongs, and to try by every means in your 
 power to raise the standard of public opinion on the 
 whole matter. These sanitary and social things are 
 affecting the moral, the religious life of the English 
 people. If we shut our eyes to them we are neglect- 
 ing a plain duty. Enlist to the utmost of your oppor- 
 tunity the co-operation of all who hold official position 
 in our towns — magistrates, councillors, vestrymen, 
 guardians, sanitary inspectors, police — on the side of the 
 highest and purest moral standard. This special duty 
 is surely ours and not another's. There is no body of 
 men whom such perplexities concern more closely than 
 they concern the Clergy, set to minister to the needs, 
 moral and religious, of our parishes. It would not be 
 for the first time in our history were practical sug- 
 gestions of remedy to have their birth in the minds of 
 those who, as messengers of God to His children, feel 
 the burden of such evils to be heavier than they can 
 bear. 
 
 Remember at least, that in all such things it is our
 
 149 
 
 sacred privilege to bear our part. The English Parish The 
 Priest is appointed to serve, not a congregation, but a sonV' 
 parish ; he is set with a quite peculiar, nay unique, ^^^^' 
 commission as the " parson," the persona^ the repre- 
 sentative man in that definite bit of English territory, 
 in order that, according to the Elizabethan words, he 
 may " therein occupy every opportunity of doing good." 
 Never was that opportunity larger or more sure than 
 now. As our thought ranges back along the story of 
 English life, it rests upon no period in which it mat- 
 tered more than it matters now what manner of men 
 they were to whom the trust of that ministry was given. 
 Among the most noteworthy of our encouragements, 
 of our helps, stands this : that men expect of us so 
 much. Their standard of what the Parish Priest should 
 be was never, I suppose, in all our history so high as it 
 is to-day. Those who come nearest to satisfying that 
 demand will ever be the first to feel and know how 
 many are the misspent opportunities and the squandered 
 hours ; how often the cowardice or negligence of which 
 we all can tell, has marred what might have been a 
 victory for God against the powers of wrong. It is at 
 hours like this, when, with all our varied needs and per- 
 plexities and sins and failures heavy upon our hearts, 
 we have knelt together at the Table of our Lord, and 
 asked at His hands for pardon and for strength, that 
 we realise at once the greatness of our calling and the 
 power He gives us of answering to that call.
 
 ISO 
 
 DIOCESAN MATTERS 
 
 The matters with which I have hitherto tried ta 
 deal during this Visitation have been for the most part 
 matters relating to the life of the Church as a whole. 
 The difficulties, the encouragements, the hopes we have 
 spoken of, are not peculiar to the Diocese of Winchester. 
 But before I close my Visitation addresses I desire to 
 say something which more closely concerns ourselves. 
 Diocesan J alluded in Winchester Cathedral a week ago to 
 
 statistics. . . ^ ^ ° 
 
 the special characteristics of our Diocese, and notably 
 to the strange variety of its parishes, and therefore of 
 our work therein. I have already examined with close 
 attention the answers furnished to my Visitation Ques- 
 tions, but the value of the information thus placed in my 
 hands consists even more in the utility of such papers 
 for constant reference in the correspondence of every 
 day, than in the means it affords of compiling statistics 
 of a Diocesan kind. To tell the truth, I attach no 
 supreme value to statistical tables of that sort. Parish 
 returns, made carefully from year to year, are of im- 
 mense importance when the circumstances of that 
 parish or the work done within its borders are under
 
 consideration. Statistics of a general Diocesan sort, on 
 the other hand, while no doubt they have their use, 
 may often be of little more than academic interest. 
 There is a real peril in our resting upon them over- 
 much, when the figures, from the nature of the case, 
 are necessarily figures and nothing more. Take, for 
 example, a return as to the number of communicants in 
 a whole Diocese. In the case of the Parish Priest, such 
 figures represent men and women whom he knows, and 
 he can usually explain, more or less satisfactorily, such 
 iiuctuations as take place from year to year. To 
 Diocesan tables of figures no such personal element 
 belongs, and theories based on occasional fluctuations 
 in the list would probably be either fanciful or mis- 
 leading, perhaps both. 
 
 It is often useful, however, to contrast the facts and Contrast 
 figures of to-day with the facts and figures belonging former 
 to the same area half a century or a quarter of a century 
 ago. In the case of the Diocese of Winchester, as a 
 whole, this cannot easily be done. The change which 
 took place when, in 1877, South London was trans- 
 ferred from our Diocese to the reconstructed Diocese of 
 Rochester, throws all our totals out of gear. 
 
 I have been studying with some care the Diocesan 
 Conspectus (as he called it) which Bishop Sumner drew 
 up in 1854, and the further Conspectus which he drew 
 up in 1864. They give a mass of valuable and inter- 
 esting information, and they afford evidence, if any 
 were required, of the extraordinary pains Bishop Sumner 
 took during his long Episcopate to master, and then to 
 record, the detailed facts about every part of the vast
 
 152 
 
 Diocese under his rule. Besides his Conspectus, the 
 Bishop Bishop, in a series of no less than ten Charges, as 
 Charges, remarkable for their finished literary style as they are 
 for their hortatory earnestness and power, describes, at 
 intervals of about four years, from 1829 to 1867, the 
 condition of the area in which we are all at work. The 
 picture thus presented — in his earlier years at least — 
 differs so strangely from any with which we are our- 
 selves familiar, that it is worth while to dwell for a few 
 minutes upon some of the contrasts. 
 
 The problems are nominally the same as ours. We 
 read of an increasing population in the town centres, 
 and no adequate provision for their spiritual needs — of 
 a sparse rural population, ignorant and unambitious, 
 their cottages often insanitary, their lives monotonous, 
 their care for religious observances very small. Or 
 again, we read of the laxity with which Sunday 
 is observed, and of the spread of irreligious literature, 
 and of strange misrepresentations of the Christian 
 Faith. The Clergy are reminded of their responsibility 
 for rural schools, and of the need of some system of 
 Continuation Schools for the older lads and girls. 
 Advice is given as to increased evangelistic work both 
 in Church and out of doors — and so on. 
 
 Expressed in these general terms, it would seem as if 
 the condition of matters corresponded closely with what 
 we see before our eyes, and we might readily be de- 
 pressed by the thought that after the lapse of more than 
 fifty years it should still be necessary for a Bishop to 
 say the same things. But turn from the general to the 
 particular. See what the actual circumstances thus
 
 ^53 
 
 described were like, and we find ourselves immediately 
 in surroundings startlingly different from any that we 
 know. 
 
 For example, I spoke in my last Address of the obvious 
 and harmful insufficiency of cottage accommodation 
 in some of our parishes. But contrast the pre- 
 sent state of matters even at its worst with what my 
 predecessor describes in 1829. I quote his words.^ 
 
 "One parish thus situated consists of twenty-nine cottages, "Cot- 
 the inmates of which amount to two hundred and ten persons. ' f 829.'" 
 By an actual admeasurement of the dimensions of each cottage, 
 it appears that their aggregate contents include an area of 
 three hundred and forty-seven feet in length, by two hundred 
 and eighty-two in breadth, giving an average space of about 
 twelve feet by ten for each cottage. In many of these tene- 
 ments no fewer than eight, and in some instances, as many as 
 ten persons, occasionally of different families, are crowded 
 together day and night, the children literally sleeping under the 
 beds of their parents, without distinction of age or sex." 
 
 Again, what should we now say to the arrangements Education 
 whereby the sole education of the children under the 
 Poor Laws in one large workhouse was that for one hour 
 every day, " the girl who cooked taught the children to 
 read " ? The Inspector who describes this state of 
 things naively adds, " This has also contributed to 
 make them turn out badly." As a remedy it was 
 decided to appoint a woman " to give instruction in 
 reading and religious duties, and to teach and super- 
 intend needlework." " The advantages," we are 
 told, " were most striking," but the writer goes on to 
 ^ Charge of 1829, p. 48.
 
 154 
 
 say that after two years " the Vestry discontinued the 
 schoolmistress, although her salary was only ^lo per 
 annum and her dinner." ^ 
 
 Turning to other matters, the Bishop deprecates the 
 system of paying the poorer people their parish wage, 
 or dole in Church on Sundays ; ^ while as regards 
 Sunday observance generally, the account shows that 
 our present perplexities, to some of which I shall pre- 
 sently allude, are, to say the least, no worse than those 
 which led Bishop Sumner to speak of them in 1829 ^ as 
 so grave " as almost to preclude hope of material 
 improvement." 
 Church Then as regards services in Church: In 1829 there 
 
 Services -i/^i -tt 
 
 in 1829. were 319 parish Churches m Hampshire, in 158 (or 
 rather less than half) of these, Divine Service took place 
 twice on Sunday ; in most of the remaining Churches, 
 once. In only eleven Churches in the whole county 
 were there three Services on Sunday. I can find no 
 exact statistics as to the frequency — or rather the infre- 
 quency — of Celebrations of Holy Communion, but the 
 Bishop earnestly urges that each parish should look 
 forward to arrangements, if possible, for having at least 
 one Celebration of Holy Communion every month.^ 
 
 It is evident that in stimulating the Clergy to more 
 evangelistic zeal he encountered keen opposition on 
 the ground that extra, or " external " services, when- 
 ever held, were contrary to law. In 1833 he finds it 
 necessary to adduce a grave and technical argument of 
 
 1 Charge of 1833, p. 62. 
 
 2 1829, p. 46. 3 p. 44. 
 
 * For the present facts, see below, p. 176.
 
 155 
 
 several pages to prove that Cottage Readings or Cottage 
 Lectures were not actually illegal if held by the Parish 
 Priest within his own parish ; and so late as 1854 he 
 shows in a not less careful manner that an outdoor 
 address or sermon involves no positive breach of the 
 laws of Church or Realm. 
 
 As regards the Clergy themselves, in the earlier of the Non-resi- 
 
 dcnc6. 
 
 years covered by these Charges, a considerable proportion 
 of the Rural " livings " both in Hampshire and Surrey 
 were held by non-resident incumbents, often Ecclesi- 
 astical dignitaries who, under the system of pluralities, 
 left their parish work to be discharged by curates, these 
 curates in some instances serving two or even three 
 parishes. Thanks in part to legislative interference and 
 in part to such Diocesan administration as his, that par- 
 ticular evil came practically to an end some years before 
 his tenure of the See expired. 
 
 The very brief summary I have given of some of the 
 facts disclosed in these interesting Charges may serve 
 as a cordial for drooping courage when we are tempted 
 to despondency about the slow progress we have made 
 in the efficiency or vigour of the Church's pastoral 
 work. Let the advance be as steady in the next half 
 century as it has been in the last, and our grandchildren 
 will have cause to thank God. 
 
 But there are other fields in which the comparison Church 
 tells — as it seems to me — less favourably for us ^" ' '^ 
 than it does in the matters I have mentioned. 
 In every one of his earlier Charges, Bishop Sumner 
 calls attention to the need of new^Churches and Mission 
 Chapels to meet the rapid increase of population. It is
 
 .56 
 
 mainly to South London and its suburbs that he refers, 
 and for that reason the figures he produces for the 
 Diocese as a whole cannot easily be tabulated in any 
 form admitting of comparison with our present facts. 
 Speaking generally, it seems to me that the Church 
 Building efforts made in the first half of the century ^ 
 exceed in generosity anything we have ourselves seen. 
 The number of small subscribers was far less than it is 
 nowadays, but rich men, on the other hand, gave much 
 more largely. It was then, apparently, no very unusual 
 thing for one or two rich men to combine to build and 
 endow a new Church without asking for outside aid. 
 Such things, though not absolutely unknown within 
 more recent experience, are surprisingly, to my mind 
 almost unaccountably, rare. I can understand (though 
 I deplore) the attitude of a rich man who says, 
 ** I disapprove of what you are doing, and I can 
 give you no help whatever." What I find hard to 
 understand is the position of the very rich man who 
 ardently wishes God-speed to our efforts, expresses his 
 satisfaction in being able substantially to co-operate in 
 what he feels to be of paramount necessity, and con- 
 tributes, say ^lo or ^20 or even ^50 towards the sum, 
 say of _^ 5,000, we are straining every nerve to raise in 
 order to help the very region or parish from which 
 he draws his wealth. That, however, is by the way. 
 Thank God we have extended the interest, the privilege, 
 of such gifts, over a much wider circle, though the 
 individual donors of large sums are fewer than of old. 
 
 ^ I do not, of course, include the aid given by the Parlia- 
 mentary Grant, which stands quite by itself.
 
 157 
 
 tion. 
 
 Ports- 
 mouth. 
 
 This is not the occasion, I think, for elaborate sta- Growth of 
 tistics, but let me set down a few very general facts "^"^" 
 about the growth of population in one great centre, 
 Portsmouth. In 1801 the population of what we know 
 as the borough of Portsmouth was in round numbers 
 33,000. In half a century it had more than doubled, 
 the population in 1851 being more than 72,000. In 
 1 861 it had reached 94,000. In the last 38 years it 
 has again doubled, being at this moment about 190,000. 
 The present rate of increase in that one borough is 
 about 4,000 people every year. Now 4,000 people 
 form a very adequate population for a town parish. 
 If, therefore, we were really to keep pace with the 
 growth of population in Portsmouth alone, we ought 
 to be building a new Church and endowing the parish 
 attached to it with all the necessary material of men 
 and things, not now and then, but every single year. 
 This would mean an outlay of say ^15,000 every 
 year on this matter alone. Even so we should not be 
 doing anything to overtake past arrears, but merely 
 keeping abreast, in one great town, of the needs which 
 each year brings. 
 
 I have spoken of Portsmouth onlv, because what I 
 desired to adduce was some single object-lesson. But, 
 as you know well, the difficulties and necessities of 
 Southampton are almost as great, although the total 
 population is of course much smaller. In 1829 the 
 population of this borough was about 14,000. It is 
 now more than five times as large, the population of the 
 old borough being more than 78,000. An area con- 
 taining 24,000 people has been added to it, making ia 
 
 South- 
 ampton,
 
 158 
 
 all a present population of 103,168. The increase 
 during the last seven years has been at the rate of 
 about 3,000 people every year.^ 
 
 Statements of this kind are apt to make the heart 
 sink when we consider how comparatively trifling, after 
 all, are the means at our disposal for grappling with a 
 necessity which increases in gravity even while we 
 speak. When I say the means " at our disposal," 1 
 allude, of course, to the funds definitely entrusted to the 
 officers of the Church, local or central, for use in this 
 particular way. One keeps asking. Why should the 
 task become so increasingly difficult ? All this increase 
 of houses must be enriching somebody. Why is so 
 small a driblet of the increment allowed to trickle into 
 the custody of those who wish to spend it for the 
 religious and moral help of these teeming populations ? 
 No doubt the difficulty is largely increased by the 
 transfer of property from individuals to joint stock 
 companies, whose directors are said to be unable, as 
 directors, to do what they would gladly have done 
 had they been private individuals. This is very 
 Eastleigh. obvious, for example, at Eastleigh, where a quiet 
 country village has been suddenly transformed by the 
 South- Western Railway Company into a stirring centre 
 of artisan life. Its population, already nearly 9,000, 
 will soon be immensely increased, and, somehow or 
 
 1 Bournemouth, which has increased, within the memory of 
 many persons now alive, from a hamlet of two or three houses 
 with some 20 inhabitants, to a County Borough of more than 
 50,000 people, stands in a different category and has characteristic 
 difficulties of its own.
 
 159 
 
 other, provision for those souls must be made. I 
 am not, of course, blaming the directors. In the case 
 of Eastleigh they have, I suppose, done all they legally 
 can do, and the consideration of the matter in its ethical 
 and economic bearing would lead us astray from to-day's 
 purpose. 
 
 Now there are three different ways in which en- Diffcient 
 
 j'/Y« 1 • r 1 systems of 
 
 deavours may be made to meet difficulties of the sort Diocesan 
 I have described. The first is by starting in each 
 neighbourhood a fund for its particular needs ; enlist- 
 ing local interest and local generosity, and trusting 
 to that. The obvious drawback is that the very places 
 and neighbourhoods which need help most are those 
 in which no money is forthcoming. 
 
 A second mode, which was common a few years ago, 
 and is still in use in some Dioceses, is to start a series of 
 central funds. One is for Church building, another for 
 the support of the Clergy who are to serve in the 
 Churches and to be responsible for the pastoral care of 
 the new parishes, another for the lay agents (men and 
 women) essential to such work in our towns, and yet 
 another for the schools, — and so on ; each of these 
 having its separate machinery and officers and com- 
 mittee, and making its separate appeal to the Diocese, or 
 to the Church as a whole. This mode of procedure 
 has the practical advantage that in the long run it 
 seems, as a matter of fact, to elicit the largest aggregate 
 sum of money. But it does it at the cost of heavy 
 working expenses and of constant irritation, owing to 
 the multiplicity of the appeals, which are of its very 
 essence.
 
 i6o 
 
 Win- In this Diocese, as in some others, an attempt has 
 Diocesan been made which depends for its success upon a more 
 Society, intelligent and thoughtful co-operation on the part of 
 all. One society is formed for promoting Church work 
 within the Diocese ; the building of Churches and mission 
 rooms ; the support of living agents, both clerical and 
 lay, both male and female ; the Church day-schools ; 
 the Sunday-schools ; the missions to itinerant folk, 
 gipsies, hop-pickers, and the like ; the more normal 
 work of Diocesan missioners as such ; the special 
 arrangements for the deaf and dumb ; and (with the 
 single exception of Temperance work, which stands by 
 itself) almost any other effort which can fairly be brought 
 within the range of our Church's direct activities for the 
 moral and religious help of our people. 
 
 Those who undertake the collection, the manage- 
 ment, and the administration of this central fund in its 
 multiplied branches are at present, one and all, unpaid, 
 except that our honorary Organising Secretary is allowed 
 the service of a clerk. The working expenses are thus 
 reduced to an absolute minimum. 
 
 Such is our system as it stands. I repeat that for its 
 successful working the intelligent co-operation of the 
 whole Diocese is required ; and it is because I think 
 this has not been adequately given that I desire, as 
 Bishop, to call attention to it on this great occasion. 
 There are regions in our Diocese — I could easily par- 
 ticularise, but it is undesirable at this moment — in which 
 the responsibility we lie under has never been realised 
 by those who have money to give, and who if once they 
 had taken in the gravity of our needs, and the manner
 
 i6i 
 
 in which we try to meet them, would, I am absolutely 
 sure, not leave us to struggle as we are struggling now. 
 I have very little doubt that if, instead of one Diocesan 
 Fund, we were now to start seven or eight, and — with 
 separate machinery and paid secretaries — were to make 
 vigorous appeals for each, we should obtain more 
 money, accompanied by constant complaints of over- 
 lapping and constant suggestions that we ought to have 
 an amalgamated Central Fund — just such a fund, in 
 short, as we now administer. 
 
 We should obtain, however grudgingly, more money, 
 but we should mar or even lose the opportunity which 
 now is ours for laying emphasis in word and act upon 
 our corporate life — our Diocesan unity — and our an- 
 swerableness to God for the discharge of the duty which 
 in that respect is ours. I ask the Clergy who hear me, 
 and who read this Charge, to spare no effort towards 
 bringing home to their people that solemn and anxious 
 responsibility. Remind them that in some Dioceses 
 these objects are promoted by separate and independent 
 agencies, for each of which subscriptions are invited. 
 Our theory of concentration carries this corollary, that 
 donors who are spared a wearisome and puzzling series 
 of separate appeals for these essential objects, should 
 respond more substantially to the call of the one 
 representative and trusted agency which includes them 
 all. I gravely doubt whether this fact has been quite 
 realised in our Diocese. There are, I know, a great 
 many people who feel bound, as a matter of plain duty, 
 to consider attentively any request of a Diocesan sort 
 which comes to them with the full weight of Diocesan 
 
 M
 
 l62 
 
 authority. But often and often when I am anxiously- 
 noting the amount given, either in a Church offertory, 
 or as an individual's subscription to our Winchester 
 Diocesan Society, the thought recurs : Do these Church- 
 men and Churchwomen really remember that we have 
 deliberately decided, for the convenience of the donor, 
 to include in this one weighty appeal a whole series of 
 objects which might well have been the subjects of five 
 or six ? Remind people that their one subscription is 
 for half a score of different objects. But remind them 
 yet more of the solemn significance attaching to the 
 common life of such a Diocese as ours, wherein, if one 
 member suffer all the members suffer with it ; wherein 
 it is so terrible a thing for the rich man or the rich 
 parish to see his brother have need and to shut up his 
 compassion from him. 
 Church Some years ago nearly every country parish in 
 tfon'^^ our Diocese raised funds for what was called the 
 " Restoration " of the Parish Church. For the 
 moment the local need seemed paramount. In the 
 last decade of Bishop Sumner's forty years' Episco- 
 pate, say from 1859 to 1869, the records startle 
 us by the evidence they afford as to the amount of 
 such work that was everywhere in progress, and the 
 immense sums of money that were thereon expended. 
 So great was the devotion which prompted the gifts, 
 that it is unkindly to give expression to the wish, 
 which many of us entertain, that the donors had in 
 some places been less eager or less generous, and that 
 the " Restoration " of the Churches had been postponed 
 until architects and builders had come to understand
 
 a little more about the fabrics they so ruthlessly " im- 
 proved." While, however, as archaeologists, we deplore 
 the irreparable mischief that was sometimes done, we 
 can afford, as Churchmen, to thank God for the 
 encouragement and help thus given to the re-kindled 
 spirit of devotion among the people of our parishes. 
 
 Those times have passed away, and our needs are 
 now of a different sort. Our Church fabrics are almost 
 universally in such condition as to stimulate the rever- 
 ence of those who gather within their walls. It is time 
 that the residents in each country parish, and especially 
 in our richer country parishes, should look further 
 afield, and meet the new needs which the changing 
 times have brought. There is this difference between 
 the needs of that day and the needs which are now 
 before our eyes. Then, if the funds were not forth- 
 coming to " restore " a Church, the Church could 
 remain unrestored, and the services could still go on. 
 There was often no urgency in the matter. Nowadays, 
 in face of the clamorous needs I have been trying to 
 describe, the people in some of our parishes must 
 simply, if our richer folk withhold their hand, go with- 
 out the ministry of Word and Sacrament. 
 
 I am anxious not to exaggerate. Thank God, we Pi'ogress 
 
 o& ^ ' and Ad- 
 
 are going forward. Our Diocesan Fund this year ministra- 
 
 shows promise of being larger than before. I see no 
 sign that we are suffering on account of present con- 
 troversies within the Church. It is open to any donor 
 so to ear-mark his gift as to ensure its going to 
 the object, if need be to the very parish, the donor 
 chooses, though, of course, convenience of administra- 
 
 M 2
 
 164 
 
 tion is promoted if the Council is left unhampered in 
 its action. A few persons — a very few — have written 
 to me to suggest that the Council, before making a 
 grant to any parish, should enquire minutely into the 
 character of the Services, of the Ritual, and presumably 
 of the doctrine taught ; but I think the overwhelming 
 majority of our subscribers see the utter impossibility 
 of our constituting a Council of more than a hundred 
 members into a court of enquiry, doctrinal and liturgical, 
 and are persuaded that disciplinary action belongs to 
 another province from that of the administrators of 
 funds. I am not speaking, of course, of parishes, 
 should there ever be such, in which an incumbent 
 should choose to place himself outside the region of 
 Episcopal direction or control. Such a case, if it ever 
 arose, would require to be considered on its merits. 
 Clergy Before passing; from the subject of Diocesan finance, 
 
 Sustenta- 11 >-i o • r- / 
 
 tion Fund. I must Say One word about our Clergy bustentation Fund. 
 It is quietly growing. Our income is largely derived, 
 as you know, from the investment of the great donation 
 of one prominent Churchman. It would be disastrous 
 were we to rest content with what has already been 
 done, and I cannot believe that the laymen of our 
 parishes, and especially our Churchwardens, will allow 
 the fact that the Clergy find it naturally more difficult 
 to plead for this Fund than for others to stand in the 
 way of collections being made for the Fund in our 
 Parish Churches. A biennial offertory from every parish 
 would give opportunity to laymen who desire quietly 
 to mark their appreciation of the reticent courage and 
 the chivalrous self-denial of scores of our rural Clergy in
 
 i65 
 
 face of difficulties which would have daunted many men. 
 If once those difficulties were adequately realised by our 
 richer laymen, they would be startled to find what had 
 so long been tolerated in a community like our own. 
 
 In all these matters I am purposely avoiding here 
 the statistics of our Funds. You will find a few such 
 statistics appended to the Charge when it is published.-^ 
 But I am anxious from this Chair to speak, rather of 
 principles than of figures, 
 
 I hope there is no department of possible work in 
 town or county in which some vigorous effort is not 
 now being made. I am certain that in regard to every 
 such endeavour there is room, and more than room, 
 for a wholesome discontent with what we have attained. 
 
 To take an example. No Diocese has, I believe. Higher 
 
 . . . _, , Religious 
 
 secured in the matter of Higher Religious Education Education, 
 either so long a list of first-rate lectures and lecturers, 
 or so good an average attendance at so many centres. 
 And yet in my belief we are only at the dawn of our 
 work in that matter. There are literally and without 
 exaggeration many thousands of people in this Diocese 
 who ought to be taking advantage, and might be taking 
 advantage if they would, of the opportunities now 
 within their reach. Is the thing being everywhere 
 pressed as it might be ? May I again urge every 
 Parish Priest to satisfy himself for certain whether 
 what we offer is really unavailable or useless for his 
 own parishioners, or any of them ; and, if he does so 
 satisfy himself, to tell us why, in order that we may 
 if possible introduce some more excellent way. The 
 ^ See Appendix E,
 
 i66 
 
 difficulties are, I am persuaded, conquerable, I trust, 
 before another Visitation comes, we may be able to look 
 back in wonder at the comparative smallness of what 
 has hitherto been accomplished. 
 Study of It is closely linked in with the whole subject of our 
 Scripture, adult Study of the Bible. Evidence is lamentably 
 abundant that, with all our modern Church activities, 
 the Bible itself, among the more educated classes of 
 the English people, is less read and studied than it used 
 to be. Time forbids that I should to-day discuss the 
 reasons for this. But the fact is, I fear, certain, and 
 the fault, my brethren of the Clergy, must, in part at 
 least, be ours. I confess to being disappointed and 
 depressed to notice from the Visitation Returns how 
 few and far between are the Bible-Classes in our 
 parishes, whether for educated or uneducated people. 
 Without them I do not see how we can expect to 
 maintain, in an age of higher general education, the 
 Bible reading, the Bible knowledge and the Bible 
 reverence, which were more common among our elders 
 when we were boys than our boys and girls find them 
 to be among their elders now. Never was there a time 
 surely when means were so available as they are to-day 
 for our making such classes interesting and attractive, 
 provided only we give to the task the necessary pains. 
 I speak on the strength of full personal experience 
 when I remind you how ready and encouraging is the 
 response such endeavours can evoke, both among highly 
 educated people and among our working men, and how 
 fruitful of good they may in either region be. If, as 
 is often the case, such classes, say for working lads and
 
 1 67 
 
 girls, must be held on Sunday, it is of course difficult 
 — it may even be impossible — for the Clergy themselves 
 to be the teachers. But it is our part in every case to 
 equip teachers, men or women, for this duty, or to 
 set them on the right road for self-equipment, so far 
 as human help can go. No single need, so far as I 
 can judge, is greater than the need of such classes. 
 No single part of our work can, with more confidence 
 and hope, be committed in our prayers to God. 
 
 There are other Diocesan matters upon which I ^es^gg""" 
 should like to dwell did time permit. Winchester is 
 one of the Dioceses which in the future story of the 
 Church of England will be notable as having been in 
 our own day a centre of the revival of Deaconess life 
 within the Church, The subject is too great for me to 
 enter upon it now. I have a profound conviction that 
 the development of that Order will stand out among 
 the distinctive efforts of the Church in the century that 
 lies before us. I would to-day only ask you to study 
 the subject.^ It is thought about and prayed about far 
 too little. I long to see it occupy a larger place than it 
 does in our Diocesan organisation, and it may readily 
 be developed upon more lines than one. I am convinced 
 that it is only because most thoughtful Churchwomen 
 are in ignorance of what it means and of what it may 
 do for the Church, that we find so few offering them- 
 selves as candidates for an Order which had its essential 
 place in the Church of the first days, and which is 
 not less needed in our own. 
 
 ^ I may specially and confidently recommend The Ministry 
 of Deaconesses^ by Deaconess Cecilia Robinson. (Methuen.)
 
 i68 
 
 Temper- Ouf Temperance work is in good hands. Its hold 
 
 Work, upon Diocesan sympathy and support is strong, and 
 
 the Visitation replies bear constant testimony to the 
 
 fact that we are nearly everywhere gaining upon the 
 
 foe. God speed the battle ! 
 
 One course of action those of us who dwell in towns 
 can unanimously take : We can make definite and 
 sustained effort to secure that the men elected to any 
 office which gives them control in questions either of 
 licensing Public Houses or of restraint of vice are, in 
 the highest sense, men of the right kind. I do not 
 mean men committed to some particular view on contro- 
 verted questions, but men who, above all considerations 
 of a lower sort, will deliberate upon and decide these 
 matters from a public-spirited and a Christian point of 
 view. Efforts to that effect cannot possibly be in 
 vain. 
 Rescue A word let me say about another branch of special 
 effort on behalf of those who have made shipwreck of 
 their lives. Together with the many things in past 
 history and present work for which we are able in this 
 Diocese to thank God, we have to confess with shame 
 the moral stain which is ours, not alone in military and 
 naval centres like Aldershot and Portsmouth, but in 
 Southampton and Bournemouth, and elsewhere. We 
 are striving to make our Rescue work vigorous and 
 continuous and effective, and we need more money for 
 that saddest and most humiliating of all our tasks. 
 Help us then in all your parishes, so that at the least 
 we may maintain in full and active vigour both our 
 central Home at Basingstoke and the local Refuges 
 
 Work.
 
 169 
 
 upon which so much depends. But, after all, such 
 work, necessary, nay, Christ-like as it is, is but the 
 ambulance work, so to speak, and not the war itself. 
 God calls us to gird our loins for the fight itself, against 
 the vile sin which makes the Rescue work inevitable. 
 Are we waging it as we ought among our men — and 
 specially our young men — in town and country .? I 
 know, none knows better, the difficulties of the cam- 
 paign and the danger of harming where we mean to 
 help. But here, as elsewhere, we have a right to look 
 for the right judgment which will come in answer to 
 our prayers, and it is certain that until we have done 
 something to raise the tone and standard of our young 
 men's lives, our Rescue work will be the beginning at 
 the wrong end. It would be utterly unfair were we 
 to attribute all our difficulties to the military and naval 
 element in our midst. The collection, far from family 
 and home life, of great numbers of young men, at 
 Aldershot, at Portsmouth, at Newport, in the Channel 
 Islands, and now on Salisbury Plain, brings difficulties 
 of its own ; but the evil is rampant too in places 
 where there are neither soldiers nor sailors, and we dare • 
 not thus push into one corner a responsibility which 
 rests upon us all. Make it, I beseech you, the subject 
 of thought and plan and prayer. 
 
 It may seem to you, my brothers, that I have not Answers 
 said very much about the results to be gathered from tation 
 your answers — for the most part careful answers — to ^^^ *°°^" 
 the Visitation enquiries. They have been in my mind 
 all through ; but, as I said to-day at the outset, I look 
 forward to using them mainly in personal intercourse
 
 with individual Parish Priests. Such intercourse should 
 grow closer every year. The bewildering size and 
 variety of such a Diocese as ours makes the Bishop's task 
 a harder one at the outset than it becomes as time goes 
 on and facts are grouped and correlated and gradually 
 understood. I have already compiled columns of notes 
 for separate and individual enquiries, arising out of what 
 you have told me ; but the variety is so great that to 
 attempt to speak about them generally and comprehen- 
 sively is, I fear, beyond my power to-day. 
 Rose- Just one or two points I will notice. I should like 
 spectacles? to feel sure that the satisfaction generally expressed as 
 to the moral and religious condition of our country 
 parishes is fully justified ; that there have been no rose- 
 hued spectacles anywhere in use. Sometimes I am 
 puzzled to reconcile the happy and bright generalisa- 
 tions with which the confidential paper ends, with the 
 statistical basis on which these generalisations rest. I 
 shall understand this better a few months hence, when I 
 have had more conversations on the spot. 
 Sunday There is one point, however, upon which the con- 
 sensus of desponding testimony is extraordinary, and 
 the subject calls imperatively for some words from me 
 to-day. I asked for information as to the observance of 
 Sunday. While the returns exhibit a variety of opinion 
 upon almost every other subject, there is a practically 
 unanimous expression of fear with regard to what is 
 described as " a steady diminution in the quiet observ- 
 ance of the Lord's Day." The matter is clearly one 
 which calls for anxious and prayerful thought. You 
 will remember that our Diocesan Conference, after dis- 
 
 Obseiv 
 ance
 
 cussing the subject two years ago, appointed a strong 
 Committee which reported to last year's Conference. 
 That Report is contained in the present year's Diocesan 
 Kalendaj',^ and its suggestions are entitled to our mature 
 consideration. I shall be anxious, as the months pass, 
 to ascertain from some of those who have written 
 strongly upon the subject, the character of the desecra- 
 tion to which in general terms they refer. That we 
 are losing something of that reverent observance of the 
 Lord's Day which has been a characteristic of English 
 life, and one of the sources of England's strength, is, I am 
 afraid, unquestionable. 
 
 I have already pointed out that more than fifty years 
 ago Bishop Sumner deplored the same thing. But the 
 evil has now taken a new form. I doubt whether any 
 part of England suffers more than do some parts of our 
 own Diocese from the curse (I can use no milder word) of 
 the organised Sunday excursions on a large scale through- 
 out the summer. Now I have never myself been able 
 to share the apprehensions with which some of my best 
 and most honoured friends regard all forms of Sunday 
 recreation. I have, for example, always advocated the 
 opening in London of our Free Libraries and National 
 Museums and Galleries. The result of what has been 
 done in that matter is, in my judgment, wholly satis- 
 factory so far as it goes ; and I believe it to be in 
 entire accord, if we may reverently say so, with the will 
 and example of our Blessed Lord. But this is a different 
 matter altogether, and I am certain that many of those 
 who advocate it in theory would take a different view 
 1 pp. 244—5.
 
 172 
 
 if they were to watch its operation in practice. It seems, 
 so far as I can judge, to have no redeeming features. 
 The theory of the jaded townsman and his family being 
 able cheaply to enjoy a Sunday in country air has too 
 often, as you in Southampton know well, degenerated 
 into the incursion of a noisy mob, not into the country 
 at all, but into the streets and public-houses of a large 
 town, spending their hours, as all may see, in a way which 
 can for themselves lead to no sort of good to body, mind, 
 or soul, while their advent is an unqualified evil to the 
 place whereto they come. I repeat, that if some of 
 those who give their names to the promotion of what 
 may sound a beneficent plan would watch its actual 
 outcome, they would doubt the wisdom of their 
 course 
 
 For us as Christians, whatever our differences as to 
 the precise manner of Sunday observance, this at least 
 we all have in common : the conviction that the Lord's 
 Day must be in some true manner consecrated. We 
 must be in a position to ask His blessing upon the use 
 of it which we are making, or encouraging, for the re- 
 creation, in the truest sense, of soul, of mind, of body. 
 Once secure that principle inviolate, and we can afford 
 to consider with an open mind the various ways in which 
 different sorts of people may profitably, or at least 
 harmlessly, use the day. 
 Sunday We must be on our guard against the mistake of 
 
 Bicycles. . , . 
 
 supposing that all changes in this matter are definitely 
 evil. Not a few of the compilers of our Visitation 
 Returns speak of the Sunday desecration as consisting 
 mainly in the greatly increased use of bicycles on that
 
 173 
 
 day. Such a statement requires, in my judgment, 
 some qualification, or, at the least, some amplification. 
 Mischievous as it certainly would be that those who 
 have hitherto been accustomed to spend Sunday as a 
 day of rest and worship should transform it into a day 
 of mere amusement, there are, I think, not a few cases 
 in which those who now spend a summer Sunday on 
 a bicycle have hitherto spent it in a way far less whole- 
 some either to soul or mind or body. If we contrast 
 the present use of the day with a use which consisted 
 in idle loafing or lying in bed, we have to chronicle a 
 gain rather than a loss. 
 
 A wise Parish Priest will, I think, press upon Sunday 
 bicyclists who belong to his parish the responsibility 
 which is theirs to see that, in following the growing 
 custom, they neither lose for themselves the privilege 
 and help of Divine worship, nor impose extra labour on 
 other people. Bicycling is less mischievous in this latter 
 way than, for example, boating, or even railway travel- 
 ling. Melancholy accounts are indeed given to me as 
 to the disturbance and labour caused in some small 
 country parishes by the arrival of bicyclists in large 
 numbers. This is especially true where there is some 
 regular excursion of a club or other body of bicyclists ; 
 and a duty rests upon those who organise such excur- 
 sions, if indeed they must take place, to avoid the 
 mischief I have named. 
 
 Next, he will do his utmost to facilitate the attend- 
 ance in his own Church of strangers who may thus be 
 visiting or passing through the parish, making pro- 
 vision, if necessary, for the custody of bicycles, and in
 
 174 
 
 other ways letting his readiness to be helpful become 
 known. Most of us, I suppose, know of cases in 
 which such arrangements have met with an appreciative 
 response, and have been productive of definite good. 
 
 Thirdly, he will warn his parishioners, and especially 
 his young men, against letting this recreation draw 
 them away from such active help as they might other- 
 wise give to Sunday agencies within the parish itself 
 for the promotion of a manly Christian life. 
 
 To me it seems that we shall defeat our own object 
 if we simply denounce as sinful a habit which our 
 denunciations will certainly not bring to an end in 
 England, while our action may in some cases almost 
 have the effect of what is called manufacturing sins. 
 I am not unaware of the extreme difficulty which 
 surrounds the subject. The recurring reference to it 
 throughout the Visitation Returns shows that it is 
 important enough to justify me in having called atten- 
 tion to it to-day, and I leave it with confidence and 
 hope to your attentive consideration. 
 Sunday To the answers given about Sunday Schools I have 
 devoted special attention. The whole system of our 
 Sunday School work is at present, as you know, being 
 investigated and weighed by a large committee of skilled 
 men, clerical and lay, who, under the guidance of an 
 indefatigable chairman, are trying to make arrangements 
 for increasing the efficiency of Sunday Schools both in 
 town and country. I am profoundly convinced that 
 there is no department of our work which more 
 urgently requires overhauling than does the manage- 
 ment of our Sunday Schools. I confess to some dis- 
 
 Schools.
 
 175 
 
 appointment at finding how large is the number of 
 parishes in which no systematic instruction and detailed 
 guidance is given to Sunday School Teachers. My 
 question, you will remember, was, "What special 
 instruction is given to Sunday School Teachers, and 
 by whom ? " The answers are very various. In some 
 cases classes have been attempted and have been dis- 
 continued. In others it is thought unlikely that they 
 would be useful. In many cases even large bodies of 
 teachers are left, at the most, to draw what instruction 
 they can from the syllabus or handbooks furnished to 
 them. I doubt whether the need for more systematic 
 help, or the good result which has ensued from it both 
 in town and country parishes, is adequately realised. 
 One Parish Priest, for example, replies, " They have 
 the advantage of my sermons in Church." But what 
 we- want is something altogether different from most 
 sermons in Church. Upon this matter I hope I may 
 have the opportunity before long of taking counsel 
 with the Chapters of those Rural Deaneries which I 
 have not yet been able to meet in conference. 
 
 The number of Services held on Sundays and on Services 
 week-days in our Parish Churches is a matter for churches, 
 separate conference and counsel rather than for a 
 general summary. But a very few statistics may be 
 interesting. It is curious to contrast them with the 
 figures I have to-day quoted as to the use made of 
 these same Churches sixty years ago. There are only, 
 I think, five Parish Churches in the Diocese which are 
 invariably closed from Sunday to Sunday, and the 
 circumstances are in every case exceptional ; but there
 
 176 
 
 are not a few instances in which the week-day use is 
 so infrequent as to be hardly worth the name. Daily 
 prayer is said all the year round in 182 Churches ; and 
 during part of the year in 276, Services on Ascension 
 Day may be said to be now universal, Services on 
 Saints' Days to be general.^ 320 Parish Churches are 
 open daily for private prayer. The Holy Communion 
 is celebrated monthly (or oftener) in 557 Churches ; 
 fortnightly (or oftener) in 523 Churches ; weekly (or 
 oftener) in 404; and daily in 12. It is impossible 
 for me as yet ^ to state accurately in what number of 
 the cases here tabulated there are two Churches in the 
 parish ; and this question is material to the accuracy 
 of the totals, though it does not largely affect the 
 general result. 
 
 I have evidence before me of a steady increase in the 
 number of Churches in which daily prayer is publicly said. 
 Few practical questions are to my mind more difficult 
 than the question of what absolute rule, if any, we 
 should lay down for ourselves in that matter. 
 
 That such Daily Service was contemplated by the 
 Service, compilers of our Prayer Book can hardly be disputed. 
 But, as I have elsewhere had occasion to say, it is 
 another question how far the Prayer Book Rules and 
 Rubrics were intended to be rigidly and uniformly 
 enforced whatever the local or personal circum- 
 stances might be. You will remember that in the 
 
 ^ The variety of the form in which this enquiry is answered 
 makes precise statistics difficult. 
 
 ^ Some of the returns have only reached me within the last 
 few days. Owing to vacancies and other causes, a very few 
 are still lacking. 
 
 Daily
 
 177 
 
 Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. the Preface run 
 thus : — 
 
 " All Priests and Deacons shall be bound to say daily the 
 Morning and Evening Prayer, either privately or openly, except 
 they be letted by preaching, studying of divinity, or by some 
 other urgent cause." 
 
 These last words were altered in 1662 into — 
 " not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause." 
 
 It is obviously open to argument whether the 
 "preaching" and "studying" which in 1552 were 
 included in the term " urgent cause " were or were 
 not intended to be covered by the modified Rubric 
 of 1662. To me it seems probable that Bishop Cosin 
 and his colleagues took deliberately a sterner view than 
 their predecessors. In Bishop Cosin's " Notes on the 
 Book of Common Prayer," he writes : ^ 
 
 " Here is a command that binds us every day to say the 
 Morning and Evening Prayer ; how many are the men that 
 are noted to do it .? It is well they have a back door for an 
 excuse to come out at here ; for, good men ! they are so be- 
 laboured with studying of divinity, and preaching the Word, 
 that they have no leisure to read these same Common Prayers ; 
 as if this were not the chief part of their office and charge 
 committed unto them. Certainly the people whose souls they 
 have care of reap as great benefit, and more too, by these 
 prayers, which their pastors are daily to make unto God for 
 them, either privately or publicly, as they can do by their 
 preaching : for God is more respective to the prayers which 
 they make for the people than ever the people are to the sermons 
 which they make to them." 
 
 1 Works, L.A.-C.T., vol. v, p. 10. 
 
 N
 
 178 
 
 Where the parish is a large one, and the Church is 
 within reasonable reach, the duty of saying the prayers 
 in Church rather than at home appears to me scarcely 
 to admit of doubt. The difficulties arise in small and 
 scattered parishes, and in cases where the Church is so far 
 from the people, and so far, perhaps, from the Vicarage, 
 as to make it hopeless to expect the attendance of other 
 worshippers than the Parish Priest ; while to him, if he 
 be infirm, the tax, especially in winter, may be so severe 
 as to impair his efficiency for other work. In ordinary 
 cases, however, I am increasingly convinced of the 
 good that may ensue to Priest and people alike from an 
 ordinary observance of our Church's rule. Although 
 ordinarily observed, the obedience need not be of a 
 slavish kind. I have been told by Parish Priests that 
 they could not leave home for a single day on account 
 of the duty of saying Daily Prayer in Church, although 
 practically there was no congregation. This straining 
 of the rule seems to me quite unnecessary, and I see 
 nothing whatever to prevent a Parish Priest in a 
 country parish from announcing by a notice in the 
 Church porch on any particular day that he is pre- 
 vented by other duties from conducting the customary 
 Service. It is indisputably bad both for pastor and 
 people that the rule should be followed in so burden- 
 some and even servile a manner as to prevent the 
 incumbent from ever absenting himself from his parish 
 — for however excellent a purpose — for a single day ; 
 and the Prayer Book rule, even when rigidly interpreted, 
 provides deliberately for such occasions. 
 
 My brothers, it would be easy to run on into many
 
 179 
 other matters affecting our life and work and the message Foreign 
 
 J 11* T 1 • 1 1 • Missions. 
 
 we are commissioned to dehver. 1 nave said nothing, 
 for example, about the subject of Foreign Missions, 
 which has, thank God, had for many years so living 
 and strong an interest for us all throughout the Diocese. 
 You will not, for that reason, imagine that I fail to set 
 it where it must always stand for Christian people, in 
 the very forefront of our thoughts and prayers. 
 
 I will not detain you longer. The Addresses I have 
 delivered will I hope be in your hands in a few days. 
 May God grant His blessing upon our thoughts and 
 words. We have touched upon many things that are 
 difficult and perplexing ; we have of necessity left un- 
 touched many things that we might profitably have 
 looked at together. May our ministry to Him, our 
 ministry to His children, grow by His grace from 
 strength to strength. " 'To Him that is able to do 
 exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or thinks 
 according to the power that worketh in us^'' to Him, in 
 quietness and confidence, we come with all the burden 
 of our failures, of our faithlessness, " unto Him be glory 
 in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ageSy 
 ■world without end. Amen.'" 
 
 N 2
 
 I«I 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 (See page 32.) 
 PRIVATE CONFESSION. 
 
 I. 
 
 Besides the examples given in the text the following 
 references to Private Confession may perhaps be regarded as 
 possessing a quasi official character. 
 
 (a) — Visitation Articles. 
 
 The allusions to Confession in the Prayer Book Rubrics, 
 quoted in the body of the Charge (p. 29) form the basis of 
 a series of questions asked by various Bishops in their Visi- 
 tation Articles from 16 19— 1679 — such as "whether the 
 Minister exhorteth those troubled or disquieted to open their 
 grief, that they may by the Minister receive the benefit of abso- 
 lution." These words, or others not dissimilar, will be found in 
 the Visitation Articles of Bishop Andrewes, 1629 ; Bishop Overall 
 of Norwich, 1619 ; Bishop Montague of Norwich, 1638 ; Bishops 
 Lindsell (1633) and Dee (1636) of Peterborough; Bishop Duppa 
 of Chichester, 1638; Bishop Juxon of London, 1640; Bishop 
 Wren of Norwich, 1662 ; Bishop Fuller of Lincoln, 1668 ; Bishop 
 Gunning of Ely, 1679. 
 
 (See 2nd Report of the Royal Commissioners on Rubrics, 
 1868, pp. 540, 577, 591, 560, 634, 648, 525, 627.) 
 
 {h) — Irish Church Canons. 
 Canon xix. of the Irish Canons of 1634 (subsequently re- 
 enacted in 1 701) runs as follows : — 
 
 The Minister of every parish, and in Cathedral and Collegiate 
 Churches some principal Minister of the Church, shall, the after-
 
 I82 
 
 noon before the said administration [of the Holy Communion] 
 give warning by the toUing of the bell, or otherwise, to the intent 
 that if any have any scruple of conscience, or desire the special 
 Ministry of Reconciliation, he may afford it to those that need it. 
 And to this end the people are often to be exhorted to enter into 
 a special examination of the state of their own souls ; and that 
 finding themselves either extreme dull, or much troubled in mind, 
 they do resort unto God's Ministers to receive from them as well 
 advice and counsel for the quickening of their dead hearts and 
 the subduing of those corruptions whereunto they have been 
 subject, as the benefit of absolution likewise for the quieting of 
 their consciences, by the Power of the Keys which Christ hath 
 committed to His Ministers for that purpose. 
 
 [c) — Convocation of Canterbury and Lambeth Conference ' 
 
 On May 9th, 1873, it was resolved in the Upper House of 
 Convocation of Canterbury, "that a Committee of the whole 
 House should consider and report upon the teaching of the 
 Church of England on the subject of Confession." The Report 
 was presented on July 23rd, 1873. 
 
 On July 3rd, 1877, the following Resolution was passed in the 
 Upper House of Convocation : " That in consequence of certain 
 recent disclosures on the subject of Confession, this House 
 requests his Grace the President to call the attention of the 
 Lower House to the accompanying Declaration on the subject, 
 agreed to by a Committee of the whole House in July, 1873, and 
 to invite their immediate consideration of the same." 
 
 On the following day (July 4th, 1877) the Lower House of 
 Convocation of Canterbury resolved, by 62 votes against 6 — 
 " That this House concurs in the Declaration on the subject of 
 Confession sent down to it from the Upper House for considera- 
 tion." 
 
 The words of the Declaration are as follows : — 
 
 In the matter of Confession the Church of England holds 
 fast to those principles which are set forth in Holy Scripture, 
 which were professed by the primitive Church, and which were 
 reaffirmed at the English Reformation. 
 
 The Church of England, in the Twenty-fifth Article, affirms 
 that Penance is not to be counted for a Sacrament of the Gospel,
 
 i83 
 
 and, as judged by her formularies, knows no such words as 
 "Sacramental Confession." 
 
 Grounding her doctrine on Holy Scripture, she distinctly 
 declares the full and entire forgiveness of sins, through the blood 
 of Jesus Christ, to all who bewail their own sinfulness, confess 
 themselves to Almighty God with full purpose of amendment of 
 life, and turn with true faith unto Him. 
 
 It is the desire of ^the Church that by this way and means 
 all her children should find peace. In this spirit the forms of 
 Confession and absolution are set forth in her public services, 
 yet, for the relief of troubled consciences, she has made special 
 provision in two exceptional cases. 
 
 1. In the case of those who cannot quiet their own con- 
 sciences previously to receiving the Holy Communion, but require 
 further comfort or counsel, the Minister is directed to say, "Let 
 him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned minister 
 of God's Word, and open his grief, that by the ministry of God's 
 Holy Word, he may receive the benefit of absolution, together 
 with ghostly counsel and advice." 
 
 Nevertheless it is to be noted that for such a case no form 
 of absolution has been prescribed in the Book of Common 
 Prayer, and further that the Rubric in the first Prayer Book of 
 1549, which sanctioned a particular form of absolution, has been 
 withdrawn from all subsequent editions of the said book. 
 
 2. In the Order for the Visitation of the Sick it is directed 
 that the sick man be moved to make a special Confession of his 
 sins, if he feels his conscience troubled with any weighty matter, 
 but in such case absolution is only to be given when the sick man 
 shall humbly and heartily desire it. 
 
 This special provision, however, does not authorise the 
 Ministers of the Church to require from any who may resort to 
 them to open their grief a particular or detailed enumeration of 
 all their sins, or to require private Confession previous to receiving 
 the Holy Communion, or to enjoin or even encourage any practice 
 of habitual Confession to a Priest, or to teach that such practice 
 of habitual Confession, or the being subject to what has been 
 termed the direction of a Priest, is a condition of attaining to 
 the highest spiritual life. 
 
 The Declaration thus adopted by both Houses of the Can- 
 terbury Convocation formed the basis of the Declaration made 
 by the Lambeth Conference of 1878, which runs as follows : — 
 
 Having in view certain novel practices and teachings on the 
 subject of Confession, your Committee desire to affirm that in
 
 the matter of Confession the Churches of the Anglican Com- 
 munion hold fast those principles which are set forth in the Holy 
 Scriptures, which were professed by the Primitive Church, and 
 which were reaffirmed at the English Reformation ; and it is their 
 deliberate opinion that no Minister of the Church is authorised 
 to require from those who may resort to him to open their grief 
 a particular or detailed enumeration of all their sins, or to require 
 IDrivate Confession previous to receiving the Holy Communion, 
 or to enjoin or even encourage the practice of habitual Con- 
 fession to a Priest, or to teach that such practice of habitual 
 Confession, or the being subject to what has been termed the 
 direction of a Priest, is a condition of attaining to the highest 
 spiritual life. At the same time, your Committee are not to be 
 understood as desiring to limit in any way the provision made 
 in the Book of Common Prayer for the relief of troubled con- 
 sciences. 
 
 II. 
 
 The following references will be serviceable to those who 
 desire to study the question of the use of Private Confession as 
 encouraged, or sanctioned, or limited, or denounced by Church of 
 England writers in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centu- 
 ries. In no investigation is it more necessary to regard the context of 
 any sentence quoted. As I have already pointed out in the Charge, 
 most of the writers to whom reference is here given were answer- 
 ing disputants, either Roman Catholic or Puritan, who maintained 
 that the Church of England, as reformed, had repudiated the idea 
 of Private Confession in any shape. In reply, one writer after 
 another points out how clear and unswerving is the sanction our 
 Church gives to one specific sort of such Confession. But unless 
 the whole context is examined, some particular sentence in de- 
 fence of our Anglican position may easily seem to carry us further 
 than the writer intended, and the question remains : — What was 
 it, in teaching or in visible custom, which led the opponents to 
 suppose that Private Confession had been so entirely extirpated ? 
 
 In compiling this list, which might easily be extended, I have 
 availed myself of the references given by Dr. Pusey in his preface 
 to his edition of Abbe Gaume's Manual, but every reference has 
 been carefully and independently examined, and while I have 
 omitted some of Dr. Pusey's references, which seemed to me
 
 unimportant or barely relevant, I have added a considerable 
 number which he does not give. I have arranged the references, 
 roughly speaking, in chronological order, without regard to the 
 character of what is said, or to the side upon which the writer 
 stands in the controversy. 
 
 1. William Tyndale (1477 — 1536). 
 
 Doctrinal Treatises (VdirkQx^oc), Of Antichrist,'^]). 245 — 6, 
 Of Confession, 263 — 4, 266, 281, Of Anoiling, 336 — 7, 
 
 341- 
 Expositions, on i S. John i. 9, pp. 150, 296; the Practice 
 
 of Prelates, p. 305. 
 Answer to More, ■^■p. 22, 105, 172. 
 
 2. Hugh Latimer (1472 — 1555), Bishop of Worcester. 
 
 Sermons (Ed. J. Watkins, 1824), vol. ii., p. 398 ; 3rd S. 
 after Epiph. 
 
 3. John Bradford (15 10 — 1555)- 
 
 Letters and Treatises, pp. 237 — 8 (P. S.). 
 
 4. Nicholas Ridley (1500 — 1555), Bishop of London. 
 
 Letter to Master West (P. S.), p. 338. 
 
 5. Thomas Cranmer (1489— 1556), Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 Annotations, Art. xxxix. (P. S.) vol. i., p. 95, Questions and 
 Anszvers concerning the Sacrament, vol. i., p. 116, &c. 
 
 6. Miles Coverdale (1485 — 1565), Bishop of Exeter. 
 
 Re77iains (P. S.), Defence of a poor Christian Man. 
 S. James v., pp. 481 — 2. 
 
 7. William Turner, Dean of Wells (1520 — 1568). 
 
 The Old and New Learning, see Tracts of Anglican 
 Fathers (Hatchard, 1809), vol. iv., pp. 607 — 8. 
 
 8. Thomas Becon ( 1 5 1 1 — 1570). 
 
 Potation for Lent (^ . S.), Early Writings, pp. 100 — i. 
 
 9. John Jewel (1522 — 1571), Bishop of Salisbury. 
 
 Defence of Apology (P. S.). 
 Part IL, vi., i, p. 351. 
 
 „ vii., 2, pp. 365 — 382 on S. Matt. xvi. 19,
 
 i86 
 
 10. Edmond Grindal (1519— 1583), Archbishop of Canterbury 
 
 Remains, Injutictions at York, p, 140 (P. S.). 
 
 11. Richard Hooker (1553 — 1600). 
 
 Ecclesiastical Polity, VI., iv., i (Ed. Keble, 1874), vol. iii. 
 VI., iv., Disciplitie of Repentance, esp. § § i, 15, 16 
 
 (pp. 12, 13, 49). 
 VI., vi,. Absolution of Penitents, esp. § § 2, 3, 4 
 
 (pp. 73 foil.). 
 
 12. Archdeacon Francis Mason (1566 — 1621). 
 
 Vindicice. Ecclesice. Anglicancz, London, 1625 (Lib. v., 
 cap. 10), pp. 632 — 640. 
 
 13. Richard Crakanthorp, D.D. (1567 — 1624). 
 
 Defensio Eccl. Angl. contra Archiep. Spalat., cap. Ixxx., 
 § 6 (Lib. A. C. T., p. 565). 
 
 14. John Boys, Dean of Canterbury (1571 — 1625). 
 
 Exposition of Festival Epistles and Gospels, see 19th S. 
 after Trin. (Edit. 1615, pp. 201 foil.). 
 
 15. Lancelot Andrewes (1556 — 1626), Bishop of Winchester. 
 
 Sermon Ofi Absolutioti (Lib. A. C, T.), vol. v, 
 
 pp. 82 lOI. 
 
 Minor Works, (Lib. A. C. T.), Notes on Book of Co?nmon 
 
 Prayer, p. 155. 
 Devotions (Parker and Co., ed. 1887), p. 67. 
 
 16. Lewis Bayley (1565 — 1681), Bishop of Bangor. 
 
 The Practice of Piety, pp. 432 — 439 (Fifty-third Ed., 
 London.) 
 
 17. John Donne, D.D. (1573 — 1631). 
 
 Sermons, vol. ii., p. 207 (Edit. 1649), 
 
 18. George Herbert (1593 — 1633). 
 
 The Country Parson, Cap. xv. ("The Parson comforting.") 
 
 19. Francis White (1577 — 1638), Bishop of Ely. 
 
 Answer to Fisher, pp. 263, foil., (Ed. 1824). 
 
 20. Richard Montague (1577 — 1641), Bishop of Norwich, 
 
 A Gagge for the New Gospel, London, 1624, pp. 8,^ — 89.
 
 i87 
 
 21. William Chillingworth (1602 — 1644). 
 
 Works, Sermon VII. on S. Luke xvi. 9, vol. iii., {7p. 185 
 foil. (Ed. 1838). 
 
 22. William Laud (1573 — 1645), Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 Works, History of Troubles and Trial, iii., p. 331 (Lib. 
 
 A. C. T.) 
 Private Devotions, pp. 187 — 8 (Ed. 1858). 
 
 23. Dr. John White (1574 — 1648). 
 
 The Way to the true Church, London, 1610, pp. 226 — 231. 
 
 24. Dr. George Hakewil (1579 — 1649). 
 
 Ansivere to a treatise written by Dr. Carier, London, 161 6, 
 pp. 266 — 272. 
 
 25. Joseph Hall (1574 — 1656), Bishop of Norwich. 
 
 Resolutio7is and Decisions of Cases of Conscience, case ix., 
 
 vol. vii., pp. 451 foil. (Ed. 1837). 
 Balm of Gilead, Comforts for the Sick Soul, Cap. ii, i, 2, 
 
 vol. vii., p. 122. 
 
 26. James Usher (1580 — 1656), Archbishop of Armagh. 
 
 Answer to a Jesuit, i, civ., pp. 74 — 149 (Cambridge, 1835). 
 
 27. John Hales (1584 — 1656). 
 
 Tract concerning the Power of the Keys and Auricular Con- 
 fession, 1677. 
 
 28. Thomas Morton (1564 — 1659), Bishop of Durham. 
 
 A Catholike Appeale for Protestants, pp. 253, 270 (Ed. 
 1609) ; London, 1610. pp. 253 — 260. 
 
 29. Henry Hammond (1605 — 1660). 
 
 Commentary on S. James v. 16. 
 
 30. Brian Duppa (1589 — 1662), Bishop of Winchester. 
 
 A Guide for the Penitent, pp. 4 — 7 ; London, 1660. 
 
 31. Peter Heylyn (1600 — 1662). 
 
 T/ieologia Veterum ; or the summe of Christian Theologie, 
 pp. 454 — 460; London, 1654. 
 
 32. John Bramhall (1593 — 1663), Archbishop of Armagh. 
 
 Works, v., p. 190, Protestants' Ordination defended, pp. 213^ 
 122 (Lib. A. C. T.).
 
 33- Jeremy Taylor (1613 — 1667), Bishop of Down and Connor, 
 (Ed. Eden). 
 Holy Livi?ig, vol. iii., p. 208. Of Repentance. 
 Holy Dying, vol. iii., pp. 403 foil. Rules for manner of 
 
 Visitation of Sick. 
 Works, vol. iv., p. 503. Ser?nofi on Grozuth in Grace. 
 „ vol. vi., pp. 503 — 4. Dissuasive from Popery. 
 „ vol. vii., Doctrine of Practice of Repentance, chap. x. 
 esp. § 4, p. 438 foil., § 8, p. 473 foil. 
 
 34. John Cosin (1594 — 1672), Bishop of Durham. 
 
 Works, vol. v., On Book of Convnon Prayer, pp. 99, 100 
 
 (Lib. A. C. T.). 
 Private Devotions, vol. ii., p. 121 (Lib. A. C. T.). 
 
 35. Isaac Barrow (1630 — 1677). 
 
 Exposition of the Creed, vol. vi., pp. 50, 56 (Edit. 1830). 
 
 36. Anthony Sparrow (1620 — 1685), Bishop of Exeter. 
 
 Rationale of the Common Prayer, pp. 11 ff. 212 (Ed. 1722). 
 Sermon printed after the Rationale, '^^. 312 foil. (Ed. 1722). 
 
 37. John Pearson (1613 — 1686), Bishop of Chester. 
 
 A Letter against Promiscuous Ordinations. Minor Works, 
 ii., p. 237 (Ed. Churton). 
 
 38. Thomas Comber (1644 — 1699), Dean of Durham. 
 
 Companion to the Altar, pp. 132 — 134 (Fourth Edition, 
 London, 1685). 
 
 The Occasiofial Offices Explai?ied, pp. 308 — 313, 320 (Lon- 
 don, 1679). 
 
 39. Sir Roger L'EsTRANGE (1616 — 1704). 
 
 The Alliance of Divine Offices, pp. 448 foil. (Lib. A. C. T.). 
 
 40. George Bull (1634 — 1710), Bishop of St. David's. 
 
 Life of {by R. Nelson, 1713), pp. 461, 462. 
 
 41. Thomas Ken (1637 — 1711), Bishop of Bath and Wells. 
 
 Manual of Prayers, pp. 54 fol. 
 
 42. Gilbert Burnet (1643 — 17 15), Bishop of Salisbury. 
 
 Exposition of the XXXIX Articles, Art. 25. Of Penance, 
 p. 362 foil. (Ed. 1831.)
 
 i89 
 
 43. Robert South, D.D. (1633 — 1716). 
 
 Sermofis, No. LXL, vol. iv., pp. 211, 212 (Ed. 1823). 
 
 44. Joseph Bingham (1668 — 1723). 
 
 Origines EccL, London, 1840, Book xviii., A particular 
 acount of Confession, chap, iii., vol. vi., pp. 464 — 493. 
 
 Two Sermofis on Absolution, and Two Letters to the Bishop 
 of Winchester thereupon, viii., pp. 365 — 415. 
 
 45. WiLLL\M Wake (1657 — 1737), Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 Exposition of the Doctritie of the Church of England, Article 
 XIII. Printed in A Preservative against Popery, vol. iii., 
 pp. 30, 31. London, 1738. 
 
 46. John Stearne (1660 — 1745), Bishop of Clogher. 
 
 The Clergyman'' s Instruction, pp. 418, 419. Oxford, 1807. 
 
 47. Edmond Gibson (1669 — 1748), Bishop of London. 
 
 Preservative against Popery, vol. ii., tit. viii., chap, i and 2. 
 
 48. George Berkeley (1684 — -1753), Bishop of Cloyne. 
 
 Works, iv., p. 278 (Edit. 187 1). 
 
 49. Thomas Wilson (1663 — 1755), Bishop of Sodor and Man. 
 
 Parochialia, Works (Lib. A. C. T.), vii., pp. 65, 68 — 70. 
 Sermon XXXVI., On the Creed, ii., p. 409. 
 Maxims, v., pp. 532, 540. 
 
 50. John Hey, D.D. (1734 — 1815), Norrisian Professor of 
 
 Divinity, Cambridge. 
 Norrisian Lectures (Camb. 1798), on Article XXV, pp 
 222, 224. 
 
 51. Herbert Marsh (1758 — 1839), Bishop of Peterborough. 
 
 Comparative View (Ed. 1816), pp. 195 — 7. 
 
 in. 
 
 In addition to these references to writers of former days I 
 venture to call attention to the following among contemporary 
 books and pamphlets on the subject. It would, of course, be 
 easy to increase the list to an indefinite extent. The books.
 
 190 
 
 pamphlets, and speeches I have selected are such as seem to me 
 to bring out special points in the controversy or to afford historical 
 information of a valuable kind. 
 
 52. Samuel Wilberforce (1805 — 1873), Bishop of Oxford and 
 
 of Winchester. 
 Addresses to Candidates for Ordination (Parker, 1878), 
 
 7th ed., pp. 109 — 115. 
 Addresses to Rural Beans (July 15, 1873). Printed after 
 
 his death. 
 
 53. Walter Farquhar Hook (1798 — 1875), Dean ot 
 
 Chichester, 
 Life by Stephens, vol. ii., p. 477 (Bentley). 
 
 54. Archibald Campbell Tait (181 i — 1882), Bishop of London 
 
 and Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 Primary Charge to the Diocese of London (1858), pp. 41 — 
 65 (Rivingtons). 
 
 55. Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800 — 1882), Canon of Christ 
 
 Church. 
 
 Preface to Abbe Gaiune's Ma?iual for Coffessors (Parker, 
 1878). 
 
 Habitual Confession not discouraged by the Lambeth Confer- 
 ence. A letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Parker, 
 1878). 
 
 56. George Moberly (1803 — 1885), Bishop of SaHsbury. 
 
 Bampton Lectures for 1868, pp. 226 — 228 (Parker). 
 
 57. Christopher Wordsworth (1807 — 1885), Bishop of 
 
 Lincoln. 
 Confessio7i and Absolution, Miscellanies, vol. ii., pp. 189 — 
 210 (Rivingtons). 
 
 58. WiLLL^M Connor Magee (1821 — 1891), Bishop of Peter- 
 
 borough and Archbishop of York. 
 Auricular Confession in tlie Church of England. A speech 
 
 (Dublin, 1852). 
 A Charge to the Diocese of Peterborough (1878), pp. 54 — 56 
 
 (Isbister).
 
 191 
 
 59- Charles Parsons Reichel, Bishop of Meath. 
 
 The History and Claims of the Confessional (1884) 
 (Hodges, Dublin). 
 
 60. Rev. R. C. Jenkins, Hon. Canon of Canterbury. 
 
 The History of the Confessional (Riley, Folkestone, 1877). 
 
 61. Rev. J. R. Lumby, D.D. Norrisian Professor of Divinity 
 
 Cambridge. 
 St. Ambrose and St. Chrysostom on Penitence (Deighton 
 and Bell, 1877). 
 
 62. Rev. a. D. Wagner, Vicar of St. Paul's, Brighton, and Chan- 
 
 cellor of Chichester Cathedral. 
 Christ on Cczsar. A letter to the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury (Brighton, 1887). 
 
 63. Frederick Temple, Bishop of Exeter and of London, and 
 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 Primary Charge to the Diocese of Canterbury, pp. 19-24 
 (Macmillan, 1898). 
 
 64. Rev. T. T. Carter, Rector of Clewer, Hon. Canon of Christ 
 
 Church. 
 Confession. A sermon preached at Clewer, June, 1877 
 
 (Masters). 
 The Freedom of Confession in the Church of England. A 
 
 letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Rivingtons, 
 
 1877). 
 The Present Movemetit a True Phase of Anglo- Catholic 
 
 Church Principles. A letter to the Archbishop of 
 
 Canterbury (Rivingtons, 1878). 
 
 65. Rev. Charles John Elliott, Vicar of Winkfield. 
 
 An Enquiry into the Doctrine of the Church of England on 
 Private Confession atid Absolution (Rivingtons, 1859). 
 
 66. J. J. Stewart Perowne, Bishop of Worcester. 
 
 Confession in the Church of England. A sermon, with 
 Appendix and Excursus on John xx. 23 (Macmillan, 
 1877).
 
 192 
 
 67. -Rev. Nathaniel Dimock. 
 
 Confession and Absolutiofi m the Church of Englajid. A 
 letter to his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury 
 (Hardwicke and Bogue, 1877). 
 
 68. John Wordsworth, Bishop of SaHsbury. 
 
 Considerations on Public Worship and on the Ministry oj 
 Penitence. A letter to the Clergy of the Diocese of 
 Salisbury, pp. 48-67 (Longmans, 1898). 
 
 69. Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln. 
 
 A Charge delivered at his Fifth Triennial Visitation, 1898, 
 pp. 53 — 58 (Williamson)
 
 193 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 (See p. 97.) 
 
 FASTING RECEPTION OF THE HOLY COMMUNION. 
 
 The following Report was unanimously adopted by the Upper 
 House of the Convocation of the Province of York, May 4th, 
 1899 :— 
 
 Our attention has been called to the teaching of various Manuals 
 of Instruction and Devotion which are widely circulated among 
 members of our Church, and to special pastoral directions, in 
 which Fasting Reception is made one of the things " required of 
 them who come to the Lord's Supper," though it is not included 
 in the requirements set out in the Catechism, and nowhere en- 
 joined in the Prayer Book or in any authoritative document of our 
 Church. 
 
 We are very far from desiring to lessen in any degree the 
 devout reverence with which the Sacrament of Holy Communion 
 ought to be approached ; or to discourage Fasting Reception 
 where it is found to provide a salutary self-discipline. We readily 
 acknowledge that a custom which has prevailed from early times 
 throughout the Church generally till the sixteenth century, and 
 which has been advocated as helpful to the spiritual life by many 
 teachers of our own Church, is always likely to find wide accept- 
 ance among us. At the same time to describe reception without 
 fasting as a sin ^ is wholly unwarranted by the teaching of Holy 
 Scripture, and is therefore inconsistent with the Ordination Vow. 
 We further hold that there are grave reasons both from the history 
 of the custom and from its essential character against making the 
 practice of Fasting Reception one of obligation. 
 
 I. The circumstances of the Institution of the Holy Eucharist 
 exclude the thought that taking food shortly before disqualifies 
 
 1 See the Report on Fasting Communion adopted by the Upper House of 
 the Convocation of Canterbury, May 5th, 1893, which is given in extenso 
 below. Clause 8.
 
 194 
 
 for Reception. The same conclusion follows from St. Paul's 
 treatment of this Sacrament in i Cor. xi. Nor is the obligation 
 of Fasting Reception supported by any authority of Scripture 
 or by any apostolic ordinance. The conjecture of Augustine that 
 it was one of the points which St. Paul "set in order" (i Cor. 
 xi. 24) rests on no historical foundation. 
 
 The custom of Fasting Reception would naturally arise when 
 the service was transferred from a late hour in the evening 
 (according to our reckoning) to an early hour in the morning. 
 The cause of this change is not recorded. It may have been 
 made in the Gentile Churches, in which the Jewish reckoning 
 of time was superseded by the Roman, in order to place the 
 service at the beginning of the Roman day, as the institution 
 had been at the beginning of the Jewish day. But not to insist 
 on any special explanation of the origin of the change, it is 
 enough to observe that there is no reason for supposing that 
 it was made in order to secure a fast from the beginning of the 
 day to the time of Communion. 
 
 When the custom of Fasting Reception was once established 
 even in a limited range, it was likely to spread, owing to the 
 general tendency of the Oriental mind towards ascetic practices.^ 
 But the adoption of the custom was ultimately accompanied by 
 serious evils. Infrequent reception and non-communicating at- 
 tendance, which cannot be wholly dissociated from Fasting Com- 
 munion, came to be general ; and these customs find no support 
 in the teaching and practice of the Primitive Church. 
 
 Fasting, again, is a means to an end and not an end in itself 
 It is valuable or not according as it fulfils the proposed object. It 
 may be employed to obtain for the Communicant the fullest com- 
 mand over his powers of attention and devotion. But it is evident 
 that the fitness of fasting for obtaining this result depends in a 
 large degree upon climate, domestic habits, age and the like ; and 
 exhaustion, as we all know, is itself in most cases fatal to spiritual 
 self-command. And more than this : while the spontaneous com- 
 bination of prayer and fasting corresponds with a spiritual instinct, 
 it is contrary to the tenor of apostolic teaching, and indeed of the 
 teaching of the Lord Himself,^ to make the observance of a period 
 
 ^ Consider, ^'.^.j the interpolation of the word "fasting" in later editions of 
 the New Testament. In i Cor. vii. 5, "fasting" is certainly not a part of 
 the original text. In Mark ix. 29, it is probably an interpolation. While the 
 whole verse Matt. xvii. 21, is probably an interpolation based upon the later 
 reading of Mark ix. 29. 
 
 ^ See, e.^., St. Mark vii. 15 : "There is nothing from without a man, that, 
 entering into him, can defile him : but the things which come out of him, 
 those are they that defile the man."
 
 195 
 
 of material abstinence a necessary condition of participating in the 
 highest spiritual service of the Church. The inherent discordance 
 between the custom of Fasting Reception and its object, becomes 
 still more obvious, if fasting is made obligatory from a fixed hour, 
 when it is remembered that the duration of the fast and its physical 
 effects will necessarily vary in individual cases, and are practically 
 indeterminate. Nor can it be overlooked that the different con- 
 ditions of town and country parishes introduce serious difficulties 
 in the uniform application of any such rule. It may be added 
 that so far as Fasting Reception is advocated on the ground of 
 reverence for the Sacrament, the arguments have a wider range. 
 They may be used with equal, and some will think with greater 
 force in favour of fasting after reception. 
 
 Such considerations show that Fasting Reception is one of those 
 matters of Ecclesiastical Discipline which every " particular or 
 national church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish " 
 with a view to the spiritual health of its members. And that the 
 English Church since the Reformation has ceased to require 
 fasting before Holy Communion, leaving the matter to individual 
 liberty, appears to be clear from the fact that there is no direction 
 upon the subject in those passages of the Prayer Book in which 
 the requisites of individual preparation are plainly specified, nor 
 in any of our authoritative documents. If it be urged that there 
 was no need to prescribe the observance in 1549, the same 
 cannot be said of 1662.^ In other words our Church has 
 virtually applied to this matter the principle of St. Paul's teaching 
 on a similar question : Let not him that eateth set at ?iought hitn 
 that eateth not ; and let not hwi that eateth not Judge him that 
 eateth ; for God hath received hitti... Let each ma?i be fully assured 
 in his own mitid (Rom. xiv. 3, 5). 
 
 The following is the Report adopted, nemine contradicejite, 
 by the Upper House of the Convocation of the Province of Can 
 terbury, May 5th, 1893 : — 
 
 1. That in the Apostolic age the Holy Communion was admin- 
 istered in connection with the gathering together of Christians to 
 share in an appointed evening meal. 
 
 2. That the practice of communicating in the early morning 
 appears to have arisen about the close of the first century, pro- 
 bably in order to secure a safer as well as a more reverent 
 celebration, and, by the time of St. Cyprian, to have become so 
 
 ^ Compare the first Rubric of the Service for Baptism of those of Riper 
 Years, in which Fasting is recommended (1662). 
 
 O 2
 
 196 
 
 fully established that it was regarded not only as preferable but 
 as the proper practice, and as commemorative of the Lord's 
 Resurrection. 
 
 3. That the practice of communicating in the early morning, 
 together with the common association of fasting with prayer, led 
 to the practice of communicating only when fasting, and that 
 fasting reception of the Communion became the regular and re- 
 cognised usage of the Church before the end of the fourth 
 century. 
 
 4. That from the close of the fourth century this regular and 
 recognised usage was formulated in rules for the clergy in canons 
 of local and provincial councils. 
 
 5. That fasting reception of the Communion was the prescribed 
 rule of the Church of England during the Anglo-Saxon period, 
 and continued to be so to the time of the Reformation. 
 
 6. That these strict rules were nevertheless subject to relaxa- 
 tion in cases of sickness or other necessity. 
 
 7. That at the Reformation the Church of England, in accord- 
 ance with the principle of liberty laid down in Article XXXIV., 
 ceased to require the Communion to be received fasting, though 
 the practice was observed by many as a reverent and ancient 
 custom, and as such is commended by several of her eminent 
 writers and divines down to the present time. 
 
 8. That, regard being had to the practice of the Apostolic 
 Church in this matter, to teach that it is a sin to communicate 
 otherwise than fasting is contrary to the teaching and spirit of the 
 Church of England.
 
 197 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 (See p. 128.) 
 EPISCOPAL VETO. 
 
 The Parliamentary Return (No. 212, printed by order of the 
 House of Commons, 7th June, 1899) gives the cases under the 
 PubUc Worship Regulation Act, 1874. The total number of 
 "cases in which the Bishop was of opinion that proceedings 
 should not be taken " is tabulated* as 17; but, as more than 
 one representation was sometimes made in a single parish, the 
 total number of separate cases is really 13 only. Nine different 
 Bishops were concerned. Six of these are dead. The three 
 cases in which Bishops now alive are concerned belong to the 
 years 1876 (All Saints, Clifton), 1886 (Tedburn), and 1S88— 90 
 (St. Paul's Cathedral). Some of the reasons assigned for the 
 exercise of veto should be noted. For example. Archbishop 
 Tait, in November, 1877, and in January, 1878, exercised the 
 veto on the ground that in each case the incumbent undertook 
 to submit to the decision and order of his Diocesan. In 
 November, 1878, Archbishop Tait exercised his veto on the 
 ground that the points of law raised were at that moment 
 sub judice in the Courts, and that pending their decision no 
 proceedings should be taken. 
 
 No legal return is obtainable as to the cases in which the 
 Episcopal Veto has been exercised under the terms of the 
 Church Discipline Act of 1840, as the Bishop is not in such 
 cases called upon to register his decision. But, as was shown 
 in the Parliamentary debate of last Session, the fact remains 
 true, after including the very few such cases, that only three 
 living Bishops have ever exercised the veto in any form.
 
 198 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 (See page 132.) 
 
 RITUAL IRREGULARITY. 
 
 The following letter was sent to every Incumbent in the 
 Diocese : — 
 
 Private^ Farnham Castle, Surrey, 
 
 February zind, 1899. 
 
 Reverend and Dear Brother, 
 
 It is, as you are aware, my intention, God willing, to hold a 
 formal Visitation of the Diocese in the Autumn of this year, 
 and I hope to issue before long a paper of enquiries, addressed 
 to each Incumbent, the replies to which will furnish me with the 
 statistical information I ought to possess about all our parishes 
 and the services and work therein. 
 
 In the meantime there are certain matters relating to the 
 conduct of Divine Service upon which I am anxious to be better 
 informed. 
 
 My examination of the forms of Special or Additional Ser- 
 vices, recently submitted to me, has clearly shown how few and 
 far between are the irregularities or faults in that respect which 
 call for my authoritative interference. I have purposely taken 
 time to give quiet consideration to the subject, and I have no 
 reason to anticipate that any difficulties will be found in our 
 bringing all these " Special Services " into harmony with the 
 Book of Common Prayer. Should there be any "Special Ser- 
 vices " now in use, copies of which have not yet been submitted 
 to me, I shall be glad to receive them without delay. 
 
 This letter, however, relates not to those Special or Additional 
 Services, but to the manner of conducting the ordinary Services 
 prescribed in the Prayer Book, Recent discussions and contro- 
 versies have called attention to a wider variety of usage and 
 ceremonial in the Church than can legitimately be brought within 
 the limits defined by our existing rubrics. I have, of course,
 
 199 
 
 during the last twelve months, given constant attention to the 
 matter. I have, I think, been in communication with most of the 
 clergy in whose parishes such questions have arisen, and it is with 
 genuine thankfulness that I am able to say that, so far as I am aware, 
 every formal direction which I have hitherto felt it necessary to 
 give, has been complied with by the clergy concerned. Our work 
 however, is by no means done yet. There are in several parishes 
 questions of great importance still unsettled, and it is in order 
 that I may be better able, in a matter of no small difficulty, to 
 act fairly and consistently towards all that I think it well to send 
 this letter to every Incumbent in the Diocese. 
 
 In a Church like ours it is of paramount importance that where 
 difficulties or irregularities exist they should be dealt with, in the 
 first instance, individually and privately by personal intercourse 
 between the Bishop and the parish priest. This principle of 
 procedure, which I look upon as fundamental, does not, of course, 
 preclude the possibility of subsequent action of a different kind. 
 But it reduces to a minimum the risk of mischievous public 
 controversy, and preserves the proper relation of a Diocesan 
 Bishop to his clergy. On any reasonable theory of Episcopal 
 Government the Bishop must have a regulative power in questions 
 of rubrical interpretation and obedience. I accept that responsi- 
 bility, and I invite every parish priest who is in doubt as to 
 the right interpretation of any rubric, or whose action in liturgical 
 matters is impugned, to seek my counsel and direction in his 
 difficulty. 
 
 Upon certain liturgical points which have given rise to contro- 
 versy, I desire to state explicitly what is, to the best of my 
 judgment, the rule of the Church of England. I am ready, if 
 desired, to explain to any Incumbent who is perplexed by my 
 directions, the grounds on which in each case I base my opinion. 
 But I think it more suitable in this letter simply to state without 
 argument or comment what, after full consideration, I believe 
 to be right. 
 
 1. No Celebration of Holy Communion ought to take place 
 without, at least, the minimum number of Communicants pre- 
 scribed in the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 2. No Reservation of the consecrated Elements is permissible. 
 
 3. In celebrating the Holy Communion it is not permissible, in 
 ordinary circumstances, to omit the recitation of the Command- 
 ments, or to administer the consecrated Elements otherwise than 
 with individual recitation of the full prescribed words. If special 
 arrangements are desired, as for example when, on a great festival, 
 the number of communicants is likely to be very large, my 
 sanction ought to be asked beforehand for what is proposed.
 
 200 
 
 4- In order that there may be no question of using, in the 
 office of Holy Communion, any other form than that prescribed, 
 no books or cards containing other prayers or forms ought to be 
 upon the Holy Table, even if the additional prayers be intended 
 solely for the private devotions of the officiant. 
 
 5. If it be desired to use wine mingled with water, the mixing 
 ought to be effected elsewhere than at the Holy Table, and not 
 as a ceremony, 
 
 6. The " Manual Acts " ought not to be intentionally hidden 
 from the view of an ordinary communicant. 
 
 7. The habitual attendance of children at Celebrations of the 
 Holy Communion is undesirable. If children are occasionally 
 permitted to be present, with a view to their better understanding 
 of the Service, the Order of Service ought not to be modified in 
 any way, nor ought the children to take any part not ordinarily 
 taken by non-communicants who may be present. 
 
 8. The ceremonial use of Incense is not permissible. 
 
 9. In any official notice of the Holy Communion no other 
 designation of the Holy Sacrament ought to be used than one of 
 the terms to be found in the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 ID. No phrase ought to be used in public notices or Services 
 which carries the idea of prayer or intercession for the departed 
 further than it is carried in the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 11. The Athanasian Creed ought to be said or sung upon the 
 days appointed. 
 
 12. The directions of the Book of Common Prayer ought to 
 be followed with regard to the days for which Special Services 
 are appointed. 
 
 I have mentioned a few only among many points of recent con- 
 troversy. Those which I have mentioned concern the conduct of 
 Divine Service as prescribed in the Prayer Book. I am taking 
 other opportunities of dealing with such important matters as the 
 use and abuse of private Confession, and with other questions 
 unconnected with our public Services in Church. 
 
 I am thankful to know that most of those to whom I write are 
 in full accord with the view to which I have here given expression, 
 and that their usage in the conduct of Divine Service corresponds, 
 or will readily correspond, to what I have said. If this be your 
 own case I ask for no reply to this letter. 
 
 If, however, you feel a difficulty, on any one of the points I 
 have mentioned, in bringing your usage into harmony with this 
 interpretation of the rubrics, I would ask you kindly to write to me 
 at once upon the matter, specifying the difficulty. I will then 
 gladly consider with you the facts and circumstances, and give 
 you such counsel, guidance, or formal direction as may be
 
 20I 
 
 required. Exceptional arrangements may be called for in fcx- 
 ceptional circumstances, and to any such I will give my deliberate 
 consideration. 
 
 Our single desire in the conduct of Divine Service is to 
 strengthen and deepen the devotional life of those whose prayers we 
 are privileged to guide, in loyal adherence to the distinctive doctrine 
 and discipline of the Church of England, in which the Lord has 
 appointed us to serve. I ask you, in all affection, to join with me 
 in earnest and expectant prayer to God the Father, Son and Holy 
 Spirit that, as fellow-workers with our Blessed Lord, we may 
 have grace and wisdom for so noble, so anxious, so responsible a 
 task. 
 
 I am, 
 Your faithful Brother and Servant 
 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 
 Randall Winton. 
 
 To each of the Clergy (176 in number) who, in reply to the 
 foregoing enquiry, brought to the Bishop's notice any point of 
 difficulty, the following letter, or some letter in similar terms, 
 was sent : — 
 
 Private^ Farnham Castle, Surrey, 
 
 March 2oih, 1899. 
 Reverend and Dear Brother, 
 
 I thank you for bringing before me the difficulty you feel with 
 regard to what I said in my printed letter of February 22nd upon 
 Ritual matters. I have received many letters upon the subject, 
 and I am thankful to find how few are the cases in which there is 
 any serious divergence between the view I have endeavoured to 
 express and the opinions or usages of the Clergy of the Diocese. 
 I further acknowledge with gratitude the almost universal ex- 
 pression of a readiness to abide by any decision I may ultimately 
 give. 
 
 I have prepared some memoranda upon the various points 
 raised. You will understand that neither in my former letter nor 
 in this do I attempt to give a formal and authoritative direction. 
 I am most anxious that what we do should be the outcome of 
 quiet consideration on the part of Bishop and Clergy, and that 
 the necessity of issuing formal injunctions should, wherever pos- 
 sible, be obviated. 
 
 What I enclose herewith relates only to the point or points you 
 have referred to. If, after weighing what I have now said, you 
 continue to feel difficulty in the matter, please write to me again 
 about it. If I do not hear from you I shall take it to mean either
 
 202 
 
 that the difficulty has been met, or that you are prepared to 
 accept what I have said, leaving with me, as Bishop of the 
 Diocese, the responsibility for any inconvenience, if such should 
 arise, in consequence of the advice I have given. In carrying out 
 our present endeavour it is inevitable that there should be occa- 
 sional inconvenience, and possibly even sacrifice or hardship. 
 But it is not without advantage that individuals and congregations 
 should be prepared to exercise some self-denial, some sacrifice of 
 personal predilections, for the common good. 
 
 Very earnestly and hopefully do I trust that the outcome of 
 these discussions, disturbing as they often are, may be to the 
 strengthening of the Church's life and the furtherance of our 
 common work for Christ. 
 
 I am, 
 Your faithful Brother and Servant 
 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 
 Randall Winton. 
 
 The following 'are specimens of the separate memoranda 
 enclosed in the foregoing letter. The wording of the memo- 
 randum was of course modified to suit different requirements, 
 and these are only a few examples out of many : — 
 
 No, I . — Ntimber of Communicants. 
 
 I do not desire to insist in a rigid way upon the necessity, in all 
 conceivable circumstances, of there being " three at the least " to 
 "communicate with the priest." Many letters have been written 
 to me as to occasions on which two communicants only have 
 arrived, say, on a wet morning for an early celebration in a 
 country parish. It is, in my opinion, hard on such persons to 
 debar them from Communion because no one else has been so 
 keen as they. 
 
 It may, however, be noted that the occasional necessity of 
 withholding the Holy Communion from would-be recipients, for 
 lack of fellow-communicants, may itself serve to stimulate among 
 parishioners a common endeavour in a matter in which common 
 action is specially significant. And I cannot feel that we should 
 be loyal to the Prayer Book if we were to allow a celebra- 
 tion when only two communicants are present to become an 
 ordinary custom instead of an occasional relaxation of the rule. 
 
 It is different in the case of mid-day celebrations of Holy Com- 
 munion when a good congregation is in Church but communicants 
 do not present themselves. It may be impossible or gravely 
 inconvenient for the parish priest to satisfy himself in every case
 
 203 
 
 beforehand that the prescribed number of persons desire to com- 
 municate ; but there ought to be in every case a bond fide expec- 
 tation of communicants and a bona fide invitation to Communion. 
 It is the clear teaching of the Church of England that the recep- 
 tion by communicants is an integral and necessary part of our 
 Communion Service. And if there are large congregations of 
 worshippers, but no one to communicate with the priest, the plain 
 rule of the Prayer Book is set at naught. If, in deference to the 
 rubric, it be arranged that three persons only shall communicate 
 with the priest, while the rest of the congregation is there solely 
 to worship, the spirit of the Prayer Book is, in my opinion, 
 violated, even though the letter be observed. If, therefore, either 
 early or at mid-day, experience shows that the requisite number 
 of communicants is not forthcoming in ordinary circumstances, 
 something is wrong. Either the celebrations of Holy Communion 
 are being multiplied to a degree incompatible with the due obser- 
 vance of what our Church intended, or teaching is being given 
 and usages adopted which run counter to that intention. 
 
 Similarly, with regard to the Communion of the Sick, the 
 Prayer Book rule is explicit, and it ought not in my judgment to 
 be impossible by careful arrangement to secure its ordinary obser- 
 vance. Should it happen that this is practically impossible, or 
 that it is, in the case of some sick person, inexpedient on medi- 
 cal grounds, I think the parish priest is justified in using a 
 reasonable discretion. If he find this necessity to be frequent, I 
 should wish to be informed and to take counsel with him on the 
 subject. 
 
 No. 2. — Reservation of the Consecrated Eletnents. 
 
 So very few letters have reached me with reference to the 
 above that I print no memorandum. 
 
 The subject is an anxious one. The harm that has arisen 
 from abuse of what might in other circumstances have been 
 reasonably sanctioned is real though rare, and adherence to 
 Prayer Book rule becomes therefore the more necessary, even if 
 it may occasionally seem hard. After fullest thought and care, 
 I feel bound to say that Reser\-ation, in any true sense of the 
 word, must not take place. Emergencies may arise when a rule 
 ought to give way to a pressing necessity. Necessitas non habet 
 legem. In such cases an Incumbent will rightly use his discretion 
 and report to me at once what he has done. I am asked in a 
 very few instances to authorise what cannot be called, in any 
 ordinary sense of the term, Reservation : May the '^priest carry 
 the consecrated elements straight from the Service to a sick bed ? 
 I do not wish to prohibit this absolutely in all circumstances.
 
 204 
 
 If the sick person be close at hand, sharing in spirit in the Divine 
 Service while it goes on, to communicate him or her at the close 
 of the Service is little different, it has been argued, from com- 
 municating, say in the Church porch, one who is physically unable 
 to come forward. But such cases must be rare, and this kind of 
 use of an Incumbent's discretion ought to be justified by some 
 exceptional circumstances. It is impossible to prescribe for each 
 detail. I can but rely on wise and loyal adherence to the princi- 
 ples laid down with such emphatic care in the Prayer Book. 
 Among them is the principle that the sick communicant is entitled 
 to the Service specially provided for his use. 
 
 No. 3. — Omission of Commandme7its, &=€. 
 
 Our office of Holy Communion forms a coherent whole with 
 which we must not lightly tamper. The reasonable arguments — 
 which meet, I think, with general approval — in favour of restrict- 
 ing to occasional use the longer Exhortation (" Dearly beloved in 
 the Lord, ye that mind," <S:c.) are not, as it seems to me, fairly 
 applicable to the reading of the Commandments — a prominent 
 and distinctive feature of our English rite. Where, on a great 
 festival, the number of communicants is so large as to necessitate 
 the immediate sequence of one Celebration of Holy Communion 
 after another, I should not wish to insist upon the repetition of 
 the Commandments at every Celebration if it is gravely incon- 
 venient or if the stress is very great. But such occasions are 
 exceptional, and in ordinary circumstances the Commandments 
 ought, in my opinion, to be always read. The time occupied is 
 about four minutes. 
 
 Similarly with regard to the Words of Administration, some 
 discretion may, I think, be reasonably exercised, for the good of 
 all, at such times of pressure, especially where the officiant is 
 single-handed ; provided always that it be made clear by some 
 means why the ordinary use is thus varied. 
 
 No. 4. — Books in -I'se at the Holy Table. 
 
 I have, of course, no kind of desire to interfere with, or to 
 direct what should be, the private devotions of the officiant ; and 
 the statement of my view was intended to apply only to books or 
 cards provided for the officiant's obvious use at the Holy Table. 
 
 No. 5 and No. 6. — The Mixed Chalice — The Ma?iual Acts. 
 
 I venture to refer those who are perplexed by the statement of 
 my opinion to the careful argument and decision contained in the
 
 205 
 
 Judgment delivered by Archbishop Benson in the Lincoln Case 
 (pp. 4-13 and 46-52). 
 
 [The Judgment is published in pamphlet form by Messrs. 
 Macmillan.] 
 
 No. 9. — Designations of the Sacrament of Holy Communion. 
 
 The advice I have given, if strictly followed, results in our 
 losing from official noixco.^ the beautiful and expressive term, "The 
 Holy Eucharist." But I find it difificult to see how, otherwise 
 than by adherence to Prayer Book phraseology, we can at once 
 follow a consistent rule and avoid the risk of the use of terms 
 frequently misunderstood or open to legitimate criticism. It will 
 have been observed that I have referred only to official notices ; 
 but I very earnestly trust that even in sermons or other teaching 
 the use of the word "Mass" may be avoided. It gives rise, 
 not I think unreasonably, both to misunderstanding and to 
 irritation.
 
 2o6 
 
 APPENDIX E. 
 
 (See p. 165.) 
 
 WINCHESTER DIOCESAN SOCIETY. 
 
 In 1898 the income of the W.D.S. was as follows : — Subscrip- 
 tions, ;^2,59o Ss. 4d. ; donations, j£,S9^ 5^- '> offertories, 
 ;^2,207 135. lod. ; sundry receipts, ;!^i96 os. iid. ; total, 
 ;!^5,590 8s. id. The expenditure during the same year was 
 ;^6,428 115. 3^. The expenditure thus exceeded the receipts 
 by about ;^838. A special appeal was made to meet this 
 deficiency ; but as the expenditure must for the future be at 
 least ;^7,ooo per annum, and as special appeals cannot often be 
 made, sustained effort is essential to the due carrying on of our 
 Diocesan work. If it is to be done adequately, we ought, in my 
 opinion, to have an assured income of at least ;;^io,ooo per 
 annum. 
 
 The Organising Secretary and Treasurer, who will gladly receive 
 contributions, is the Rev. the Hon. H. N. Waldegrave, Bookham 
 Lodge, Cobham, Surrey. 
 
 RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY.