LIB RA RY 
 
 OF THE, 
 
 U N I VLRS ITY 
 
 or 1 LLl NOIS
 
 a 

 
 From the 
 
 Bishop. 
 
 ZM 
 
 VISITATION CHARGE 
 
 OF 
 
 GEORGE RIDDING, D.D., 
 BISHOP OF SOUTHWELL. 
 
 TO WHICH ARE ADDED 
 
 SOME CONSIDEEATIONS ON 
 
 THE HOLY COMMUNION, 
 
 BEING EEPLIES TO 
 
 QUESTIONS ASKED IN THE DIOCESE 
 
 IN THE LAST FOUE YEAES. 
 
 1893. 
 
 London : Simpkin, Maksitall, Hamilton, Kjent & Co., Limited. 
 
 Nottingiia:m : C. J. Sisson, S.P.C.K. Depot, Albert Street. 
 
 Derby : Miss E. Mee, S.P C.K. Depot, The Strand. 
 
 Southwell : .John Whittingham, Queen Street. 
 
 PRICE ONE SHILLING,
 
 Page 10, line 34, for ' make ' read ' makes ' 
 ,, 12, line 7, for ' reparation ' read ' separation ' 
 ,, 27, line 32, for * hearts,' read hearts' 
 ,, 49, for ^ Cacilius' read Caecilius ' 
 ,, 50, lines 12, 15, 18, for ^ lyrofesti^ read ^ nefadV
 
 My Bear Brethren, 
 
 My Visitations during 1892 have given me a series 
 of interesting meetings through the Deaneries. I have tried 
 several different forms of Conference, but I have concluded 
 that the best is the most established form, viz., that of a 
 Service and Address in Church and a Conference of Clergy 
 and Laity afterwards, with, if wished for special reasons, a 
 Chapter of Clergy as well. Shorter days seemed to fail in 
 substantial effectiveness. For the purposes of Conference 
 groups of several Deaneries together have been in most dis- 
 tricts preferred to single Deaneries ; but, efficient as some of 
 the grouped meetings have been, they scarcely reach or 
 express the local lay feeling so well as meetings nearer home. 
 However, Deaneries have their own characteristics, and in 
 all meetings success really means preparation. I cannot 
 attend every Deanery Conference in one year, but I hope, if 
 it please G-od, to distribute visits to them I hope the 
 Conferences will not be barren, and that not only ideas have 
 been suggested, but that their Resolutions will be carried 
 out This year the Deaneries of Chesterfield, Dronfield 
 and Staveley led the way in voting support to the Schools' 
 Sustentation Fund, and were followed by five Deaneries at 
 Southwell, three at Bake well, and by Repton. I hope the 
 support will come. Repton agreed also with the Chesterfield 
 Conference in desiring The Young Man's Friendly Society 
 to be started in their Deaneries ; and with Bakew^ell about 
 Schools' Benefit Clubs. A Deanery seems just the Unit for 
 these Organizations, as for some others, e.g. for Associations 
 of Lay Helpers, which Bakewell and Alfreton have voted to 
 start ; and Associations for instructing Pupil Teachers 
 were discussed by six Deaneries at Derby, but need wider 
 and more real consideration than they have received. For 
 Technical Classes, too, as Ashburne, Repton, South and 
 West Bingham voted, Ruridecanal districts seem to suggest 
 Units to the County Councils. I shall rejoice to hear of 
 these ofood ideas beinsr realized.
 
 As I have ' repeated,' these oecasious of co-operating supply 
 autidotes to llural Clergy Isolation. First years must not dis- 
 courage. I observe that in its third year the Southwell Ruri- 
 decanal Church Restoration Society reports eleven out of seven- 
 teen parishes as contributing Church Collections, and assisting 
 substantially three of the four Churches requiring it, with pre- 
 monitions of helping the fourth if it will be helped. I welcome 
 this example from the Cathedral Deanery, as I welcome also 
 the evidence in the returns to the attention paid in that 
 Deanery to the suggestions made at my last Visitation. 
 The changes reported generally are not many. 35 more 
 Chui'ches are insured, but over 100 are still not insured. 15 
 more Terriers are added, but over 150 parishes are still with- 
 out. 14 Schools have been given up, making more than one 
 fifth of the parishes without schools : though this fifth includes 
 a certain number of small linked parishes in the country, as 
 well as new districts in large towns. Meanwhile, the list of 
 Churches in ruins has almost disappeared. I do not mean 
 that no Churches have weak points noticed in the Yisitation 
 returns. About 30 in Derbyshire are returned as wanting 
 something done to tower or walls or roof, to satisfy complete 
 inspection. But now that Taddington is recovered, Eggin- 
 ton well restored, and S. Peter's, Derby, and Chapel-en-le- 
 Frith, are taken in hand, the li&t of discreditable blots named 
 in my last charge is cleared oif. The noble promise of the 
 new Church of S. Werburgh's Derby, and the unusually fine 
 restoration of Spondon, have elevated two of the poorest into 
 two of the finest Churches of the county. Ashburne has 
 been saved from disaster : Bradley is made quite passable, 
 and I hope that East Sterndale is in course of amendment. 
 I regret the delay in the proposed enlargement of Killamarsh. 
 Norbury and Pinxton alone " make no sign." In Notts, 
 though more has been done, there is also more still undone. 
 A beautiful new Memorial Church has taken the place of its 
 finest ruin at Colston Bassett. Close by, another Memorial 
 Church at Aslockton makes a model village example. Wil- 
 ford, Beckingham, Saundby, Carlton in Lindrick, have been 
 restituted with admirable effect. The most startling disfi- 
 gurement has been removed in the Chancel at Rampton. 
 The two worst ruins promised to be fully restored this year 
 
 u.uc;
 
 at Egmanton, and Woodborough, and are nearly completed. 
 The first instalment of Willougliby is done, and Edingley is 
 begun. Farndon was taken just in time, and will be a 
 striking work. The little Church at Sookholms is the latest 
 addition to this list of really needed revivals during this year. 
 
 During the four years since my last Visitation, Churclies 
 have been built, or so much enlarged as to need Consecration, 
 at Old Radford, Ruddington, Clumber, Selston Underwood, 
 Colston Bassett, and Aslockton, Brampton S. Thomas, Carl- 
 ton in Willows, Hyson (rreen, Wilford, and S. Greorge's 
 Nottingham. 
 
 Substantial Restorations of Churches have been made at 
 Sawley, Tibshelf, Normanton on Soar, Codnor, Bunny, S. 
 Collingham, Fledborough, Orston, Rolleston, Castleton, 
 Laneham, Trowell, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Egginton, Carlton-in- 
 Lindrick, Rampton, Beckingham, S. Alkmund's Derby, 
 Ashburne, Spondon, Taddington, Saundby, Willoughby, 
 and in the little churches of Cotham, Cottam, Stanton on the 
 "Wolds, and Sookholms, as well as effective renovations in 
 Foremark, Ossington, Donisthorpe, Ashford, Flawborough, 
 Hazlewood and Shottle, besides minor improvements in a 
 number of other parishes. 
 
 Eighteen substantial Mission churches have been opened : 
 at S. Dunstan's Derby, Bolsover, Marlpool, Borrowash, 
 Barnby Moor, Holbech, Rainworth, Belper Openwood Grate, 
 Belper Lane End, Boulton, N. Wingfield, Staveley, Speed- 
 well, Pleasley Hill, S. Margaret's Nottingham, Ambergate, 
 Cossall, S. Mark's Mansfield, Hucknall Torkard ; besides 
 useful additions, in some cases of special interest, at Bramp- 
 ton, Killamarsh, Ironville, Mugginton, Alfreton, Hacken- 
 thorpe. Tinstone, Etwall, and S. Mary's Ilkeston. 
 
 Seventy parishes, or one seventh of the Diocese, have 
 during these four years received improvements in their church 
 buildings. In my last charge I spoke of 60 others, and said 
 that, if the same rate was maintained till this time, the Dio- 
 cese would have nearly made good its defects. The rate has 
 been more than maintained : still, even when the good and 
 important works already named as in hand are completed, 
 and without mentioning the repairs desired in official inspec- 
 tions at a number of pla3e3, 1 cannot honestly exclude from
 
 a list of notables any of the following : I^otliamsall, Elton, 
 Gringley, Langford, S. Leveiton, Maplebeck, N. Muskbam ; 
 the small linked churches of Austerfield, Stokeham, Syerston, 
 and the remaining stages of Orstou, Rampton, Eolleston, 
 and Willoiighby. 
 
 The church accommodation holds generally a fair propor- 
 tion to the population. In many villages the whole popula- 
 tion could go to church together. In whole Deaneries such 
 as Ashburne, S. Bingham, E. Newark, Tuxford, there are 
 two seats to three persons : in Derby, one to six, Nottingham 
 one to seven, in Mansfield Deanery one to eight. But these 
 aggregates leave it possible for Old Eadford and Hyson 
 Green, and S. Peter's, Derby, to have only one to fourteen ; 
 S. Luke's, Derby, and Sutton in Ashfield one to twelve; Church 
 Gfresley, and nothwathstanding several efforts to increase, 
 Hucknall Torkard, and the Nottingham districts of S. Ann's 
 and the Meadow^s still one to ten. On the other side I can- 
 not forbear to set Staveley providing one to four-and-a-half by 
 six Mission chapels, Chapel-en-le-Frith and Tideswell by five 
 Mission chapels for one to two-and-a-half. In some of the 
 cases selected above, there have been past diflBculties to ac- 
 count for the backward position, which have passed away, 
 leaving brighter prospects possible : in some "xeater efforts 
 are being made. But I am obliged to admit that progress 
 at Nottingham, in the completion of ' prospected ' churches 
 and districts, has during these four years been very discoura- 
 ging to the Clergy in charge of forming the new districts, 
 ■who find it beyond their powders to collect money to build the 
 churches necessary for the formation of the districts, of w^hich 
 five have been for some years struggling in half-formed 
 existence. In the rest of the Diocese the problem is not to 
 provide for numbers so much as to reach the scattered items. 
 In some cases I had hoped ere this to see districts separated, 
 e.g., Fernilee, hi miles from its mother church, Bugsworth 
 9 miles off, Whaley Thorns five miles, Holloway as far : all 
 substantial places, but requiring to be separated before they 
 can obtain permanent settlement. Where distances are less, 
 there is so much to be said for keeping a large parish in the 
 country together round one Parish Chui'ch, with ministra- 
 tions in circuit through its hamlets, that I should not wish
 
 to break districts off hastily. But such a parish as e.g. 
 Tideswell is endowed as a whole above the standard for 
 receiving help from public funds, and yet certainly not 
 enough to keep a staff of several Curates ; nor have such 
 country parishes resources in themselves to maintain Curates. 
 On the other hand, if districts are made, public contributions 
 for Curates are withdrawn. So we are on the horns of a 
 dilemma. The question of provision for our hamlets has 
 been threshed out in so many conferences, that we know the 
 alternative possibilities (or impossibilities) ; 1 Lay ministra- 
 tions in single hamlets or in circuit ; 2 More parish Curates ; 
 3 Assistant Clergy to visit circuits of hamlets in several 
 neighbouring parishes ; 4 Fresh subdivision of parishes. 
 The conclusion generally reached is that tlie increase of parish 
 Curates, aided by brave use of Lay ministers, is a moie 
 reliable solution than mixing or multiplying parishes. 
 Money is of coiu'se required for that, but only money, and 
 that not in the lump sums needed for permanent endowment, 
 but only in the measure to supply needs while felt and ser- 
 vices while valued. Still, money is needed, and valuable as 
 is the help of A.C.S. in the populous districts of this Diocese, 
 neither it n('r the Ecclesiastical Commissioners touch the 
 widespreading but sparsely inhabited hill districts, where the 
 distances and number of hamlets baffle a clergyman's 
 powders even more than large populations in small areas. 
 What is wanted is more endowment given specially for 
 Curates or Lay Helpers and only paid for them. 
 
 In saying this, I must be understood not to be speaking of 
 the entirely distinct subject of the poverty of many livings. In 
 Derbyshire, putting aside 10 villages which are not joined 
 to other parishes, but are allow^ed to be held with others, 
 there are 10 parishes held alone which have not £100 a year, 
 Chaddesden, Elmton, Kniveton, Long Lane, Lullington, 
 Measham, Scropton, Stanley, Tissington, Turnditch, 
 Willino^ton, of which most are no doubt small, but 
 Elmton, Stanley, Measham, and Willington are substantial 
 places, and the first two require two places of worship. 
 Thirty parishes held alone have under £150, among which 
 Bolsover and Wirksworth are two specially heavy charges ;
 
 8 
 
 Barrow and Bradborne have two churches each ; Brassing- 
 ton, Dore, Pentrich, Pilsley, Repton, are too large for such 
 stipend ; Chellaston, Chelmorton, Hognaston, Holmesfield, 
 King Sterndale, South Darley, are only recently raised above 
 £100 ; besides which are Atlow, Barlow, Littleover, two 
 Osmastons, Elton, Mapperley, Wilford, Q,uariidon, Rosliston, 
 Thorpe, Trusley, Wessington — some have fallen below £150 
 from the reduction of values, but that is not the usual case. 
 There are also 26 parishes of between £150 and £200 — in 
 all, 77 parishes in Derbyshire out of 251 are of less income 
 than £200. 
 
 In Nottinghamshire 26 livings are between £150 and 
 £200 ; 10 are between £100 and £150, Egmanton, Elkesley, 
 Flintham, Gamston and Eaton, Hayton, Langford, Langar, 
 Scofton, Whatton, and Willoughby. The 10 are all cases 
 which ought to be augmented. There are 16 below £100, 
 Annesley, Bothamsall, Gotham, Edwalton, Elton, Kneeton, 
 Kilvington, Maplebeck, Ossington, Owthorpe, Ratcliffe, Sib- 
 thorpe, Stanton, Tithby, Wellow, Winkburn : of these, how- 
 ever, only Annesley, Bothamsall, Edwalton, Tithby, and 
 Wellow are held alone. In all, out of 236 livings in Notting- 
 hamshire, 52 are below £200. The practice of uniting two, 
 and often three, villages in one benefice has been followed to 
 a much greater extent in Notts than in Derbyshire. 
 Reductions from the fall of values have been also more 
 widespread and more severe in Notts. Langar, Kilvington, 
 and Gramston are examples of livings fallen within a few 
 years to one fourth, one fifth, and one seventh of their old 
 values. Of the 27 livings in the Diocese below £100 a year, 
 only one is in public patronage, Stanley, which is, from 
 growth and circumstances, the most pressing case for being 
 augmented. Of the 42 under £150, nine in Derbyshire and 
 three in Notts are in public patronage. Of the 42 under 
 £200, five in Derbyshire and eight in Notts, are in public 
 patronage. To raise these 26 livings in public patronage to 
 £200 a year would require £50,000. To raise all the 130 
 livings which are below £200 a year to that amount would 
 require not much less than £300,000. A certain number 
 have till lately been above £200 : in others the population 
 is so small that it cannot claim such provision, and the choice
 
 must be between uniting parishes together and finding men 
 who prefer the small charge and the small income. In others 
 the best supplement is made by the ancient custom of Easter 
 offerings in recognition of faithful service There are other 
 parishes, in which the patrons make the ideal solution by 
 themselves augmenting the benefices up to £200 : I wish I 
 had information complete enough to make a list of them ; 
 but these are returned as of that value and not reckoned 
 in the list above. Where livings have fallen, as in E. 
 and S. Notts more particularly, it has been due to de- 
 pression, felt equally by the landowners and farmers, who 
 are disabled from supplementing losses which they share. 
 Common suffering may promote sympathy, but cannot 
 exempt one class. It should be one advantage of the wider 
 area of a Diocese, in which prosperity may be attending one 
 part or one kind of property, while others are in adversity, 
 that some common stock or fund might be maintained by 
 which suffering places might be recovered. Our Poor 
 Benefice Funds exist for that purpose. But they are too 
 feeble to do much. In Derbyshire a generous gift of Mr. 
 Strutt's some years ago has practically been the society's 
 fund since I have been hero, and out of it a number of 
 benefices have been helped to acquire substantial improve- 
 ments : but that fund is exhausted. The Notts Fund has 
 been still less capable of effective augmentation. While 
 church restorations have been generously aided, mainly in 
 response to laborious exertions of the clergy, aid to augment 
 clergy incomes is not so urgently asked by the clergy, nor 
 does it attract generally a ready response. I am ashamed at 
 saying this. For my only appeal of the kind made for our Peak 
 District at Buxton met so generous a response from so many, 
 especially in the Duke of Rutland's exemplary bestowal of 
 the Rectorial Tithes on two parishes, that it might well have 
 made me a beggar. As indeed I gratefully acknowledge 
 that I have been always encouraged by kind response to the 
 occasional personal appeals that I have made. But I believe 
 that beggars are, like poets, born — not made. I almost 
 despair of being made one. Still I can try. I want 
 £100,000 to make our starvings into livings. Are there not 
 10 men worth £10,000 ? Who will begin ?
 
 10 
 
 Does this sound mockery or levity ? It is not so meant. But 
 there may be unreasonableness on one side as well as the other. 
 It is wild talk to claim, when tithes sink, that one generation 
 should redress the balance and raise all livings to an adequate 
 standard : still more to call on Bishops to induce this, on pain of 
 censure for heartlessness. The clergy have not generally 
 joined in such wild talk which they know to be untrue and 
 unworthy of their order. If here or there, extreme hardships 
 have driven one man or another to urge their necessities too 
 importunately, people who are vexed may more justly reflect 
 how such exceptions manifest the rule of uncomplaining silence, 
 such as has so markedl}^ met depressions in other classes also. This 
 depression is however what has wrung the present cry. Com- 
 fortable people may well be asked to think how little margin for 
 retrenchments is allowed by these falling stipends, when the 
 assigned house must still be kept up and when parish duties and 
 usefulness necessitate servants. Parish efficiency must needs suf- 
 fer. ' The tale of bricks cannot be made without straw.' There 
 is much occasion for considerate supplementings of these 
 depressed incomes, and where faithful ministry has been valued, 
 I trust it will meet recognition in such wise considerateness from 
 those more fortunate. The clergy would not wish me to say 
 more of this. It is quite a distinct subject from what seems to 
 be mixed up with it, the existence of extremely poor livings, of 
 which I was speaking. Of these, I cannot help repeating that 
 a number are not posts to claim a larger income, if compared 
 with other posts of like importance. If too large houses have 
 been built on them, we now begin to regret that it was lately 
 thought that large houses redeemed small inaomes. Our pres- 
 ent clergy do not feel it so. We may perhaps regret, too, that 
 some villages were separated, instead of being worked with 
 curates from the central mother parish. But curates are rarely 
 planted out to live in hamlets, and it is men's living there that 
 make their influence. Curates too, however they talk, when old 
 enough for sole charge, if not before, prefer ' a poor thing, but 
 mine own.' But having courted ' the poor thing' portionless, it 
 is more natural than reasonable to claim afterwards a pDrtion 
 which others might have courted. However curates are wise 
 who press for augm3ntation of livings. What they want is a 
 future. As curates for ten years they are batter off than curates 
 ever were, and than most professions' beginnings. Wliat clergy 
 in common with all large deparfcmants or services, should desire 
 as the finance arrangements to give strength, is work for the 
 young, good pay for mid lie age, and batter retirement for
 
 11 
 
 the old. The age has gone on a wrong tack in swamping pen- 
 sions to pay work. But as the means of augmentation, let them 
 desire, in the interest of all alike, that having secured endow- 
 ment enough to make men independent for teaching, they should, 
 like other teachers, for what is more, rest on the satisfaction of 
 their people. The true augmentation is the yearly offerings of 
 the people. Our Prayerbook still directs people at Easter to 
 reckon their duty to the minister, and in that rule provides the 
 wisest form of supplemental endowment. Patrons and wealthy 
 churchmen should revive this Easter duty, as some do generously, 
 and consider what faithful clergy are in any ministerial relation 
 to them, which may claim from them as due for faithful service 
 substantial gifts proportioned to their wealth, whereby they 
 should escape living on ancestral benefactions and bear their 
 natural living part in maintaining Christ's Church. There 
 is more wealth now then when benefactions endowed churches, 
 and its possessors are doubtless pressed for doles with endless 
 importunities. But, after all, these importunities abound because 
 that wealth does not, instead of doles, endow upon the scale of 
 the olden time. I pray that those who do this already, will not 
 think that I speak of them, but those who don't. But is there 
 nothing done ? do churchpeople give nothing ? is there no minis- 
 try maintained by voluntary gifts ? Scarcely a curate in this 
 Diocese is not so maintained, by people's offerings to meet Grants 
 from Ecclesiastical Commission, or A.C.S., or our own Church 
 Extension Societies, and by the wider subscriptions to those 
 Societies. If curates are better paid than when I was young, 
 most incumbents are relieved from paying them, as when I was 
 young. No Societies are greater help to the church and clergy : 
 it is easily forgotten, how new that help is. No doubt they 
 mean more ministers, not richer ones. Can they be richer too ? 
 That brings me back again. Are there not men who would scorn 
 the thought that they would be impoverished if some accident 
 lost them £3000 a year? Once gone, they would not feel it- 
 Men have given it for one building, and for lodging houses. So 
 one man might make Kvings out of all the star^dngs of the 
 Diocese. 
 
 Since my last charge one Buxton meeting raised a Fund for the 
 poor hvings in the Peak district of Derbyshire, with which seven 
 livings were augmented substantially ; Taddington and Mony- 
 ash by the Duke of Rutland, Earl Sterndale by the Duke of 
 Devonshire, up to the standard usually named : Chelmorton, 
 Howsley, King Sterndale, by subscriptions and grants fairly 
 towards it : S. Darle}^ and Matlock Bank another stage onwards :
 
 12 
 
 and five othei's liave some useful benefaction ready wlien they 
 can avail themselves of it. The poverty of the whole district was 
 exceptionally general, and commanded an attention, for which 
 I am most grateful. But it was also excejitionally an examjile 
 how such poor districts come to exist. Subdivisions of vast 
 parishes, notably of Bakewell, they were formed with the legal 
 minimum pittance for reparation, and left to struggle by stages 
 to reach competence if they could. Sucli places require saintli- 
 ness, and try it sore. I rejoice with thankfulness that that 
 district has been so far improved. No other was quite like it in 
 uniform poverty, and I have not felt any other similar opening 
 for a local appeal. For the rest an appeal must be more general 
 for the Diocese. 
 
 It has been gratifj^ing in these four years to find the support 
 of the Derbyshire Church Extention Society renewed for the 
 second Quinquennium of the new Diocese with considerable 
 increase over the first. AVe have to thank the Duke of Devon- 
 shire for his able advocacy of it. The Society has been again 
 enabled to contribute towards improvements of some li\angs in 
 the houses and stipends, without reducing the Mission cm-ates. 
 But this coidd not practically be made the society's main work 
 without crippling its chief established use in providing those 
 curates. In Notts, no such Archidiaconal Society exists, and the 
 Spiritual Aid Society of Nottingham, gallantly as its officers 
 struggle for it, is scarcely enabled to maintain its large 
 engagements, and quite unable to take a fresh branch. The 
 natural organisation for the augmentation of poor livings 
 exists in each Archdeaconry in their Poor Benefice Funds, 
 and my best wish on this important subject is, that those who 
 are not personally in a position to make direct augmentation of 
 livings, ma}- make theii' contributions to those two Poor Benefice 
 Funds. 
 
 I have desired in my agricultural deaneries to 
 collect advice about the hours for Sunday services 
 most suitable for those engaged with cattle and 
 dairy work, and more particularly for the require- 
 ments of the latterly developed milk trade, dependent on 
 train service hours. It is clearly difficult to meet the 
 exigencies of the Sunday labor, unavoidable in the case of 
 cattle, and we must obey the cows. But I found a ve^y 
 general agreement that an early afternoon service would be 
 the best arrangement. It might even be well to inveit the 
 common plan by having children's service and catecliising iii
 
 13 
 
 the mornino^, and making the afternoon the principal village 
 service. With the help of the moon, monthly (or bi-monthly) 
 evening services might be added of, perhaps, a more 
 * mission ' character, which might suit some of the lads 
 best. I hope I shall be pardoned if I say that it has 
 occurred to me to wonder if at such services a course from 
 some interesting, good book might not alternate effectively 
 with sermons of affectionate and straight advice, based on 
 personal acquaintance. At such services, too, the most 
 inhuman theorist would subordinate music to hymns, which 
 should make the singing Congregational. Men of the Diocese 
 constantly appeal to me for such hymns in my travels. I 
 delight in the devoted choirs which I find through the 
 Diocese, and I enter into anthems being sung on occasions 
 with a big 0, but I sympathize also with the popular taste 
 for tunes (vhich are tunes. After all said and done, however, 
 I suspect that our cow and milk boys must be coaxed into 
 personal friendship like other young men, and that it will be 
 in the parsonage and by pleasant ways that they will be 
 di^awn to feel pastoral influence, when, and as, they can be 
 caught. Knowledge of other young male Britons prevents 
 my despairing of boys, who are imperfect church attendants 
 in hobbledehoyhood, growing into religious fathers of families: 
 but how happily, and in what Christian body, their manhood 
 develops its religion, will often depend on the degree of care 
 and friendliness which they remember to have received jDer- 
 sonally from their clergyman as boys, 
 
 I rejoice to repeat what I said four years ago, of the satis* 
 faction I find in the careful and well ordered services which 
 are general in our churches, in the reverent ministrations, in 
 the large and effective choirs, in the care taken generally of 
 the churches, and the full and attentive congregations. I 
 also lament still, as I did then, that I so rarely hear any of 
 the Clergy preach. I have little to say of changes in these 
 respects, and even when some changes of incumbents may 
 have been expected to revolutionize the existing use, I have 
 observed, not without satisfaction, a reasonable maintenance 
 of continuity, and that there has been concurrence, if not 
 initiation, on the part of the people in changes when made. 
 
 Thirty-five more churches have weekly communions since
 
 14 
 
 1 888 ; making up about two fifths of the parishes. The 
 numbers confirmed have not increased since 1888, which re- 
 corded the highest total reached in any year. I hoped that 
 the appointment of a Suffragan Bishop and a consequent mul- 
 tipKcation of centres would have enabled us to have had a 
 better proportion to our population. The last census made 
 our population close upon a million. But our confirmations 
 were not quite 6750. I have wished to hold confirmations in 
 every church, and this wish has been accepted in the 
 deaneries. But it has, perhaps, acted unhappily in two 
 ways. Not only have small places not attracted bigger 
 neighbours, but the idea has spread, and been, perhaps, 
 encouraged, that candidates should delay till another turn 
 should come for their own church. I repeat my strong 
 deprecation of this. Not only are many thereby left out 
 altogether, but for most it loses their best opportunity, and 
 it weakens the preparation, possible for small yearly classes, 
 by swamping them in masses at intervals. I am glad to 
 believe that it is due to higher estimation of the rite and its 
 obligations more than to neglect or opposition, that candi- 
 dates have not increased. I rejoice more and more at the 
 apparent reality of those who come. But you will have seen 
 that I have thought the time come to remind people that 
 confirmation is meant to be a help to the weak and 
 imperfect, and not a sign of perfection. I am unchanged in 
 my opinion that, for our ordinary young people individually, 
 the age of greatest reality and help in confirmation is not 
 younger than 15 or 16 ; but in some special cases where I 
 have felt that a clergyman has kept his school close to him 
 in fatherly touch as the natural confirmation class, this has 
 presented a particular and true corporate form of spiritual 
 preparation of the generation. The general advance of 
 school education at any rate makes a younger age reasonable 
 for acceptance in point of intelligence, and I quite sympatliize 
 with the fatherly anxiety ' to be in time ' for character. 
 
 The mention of the Bishop Suffi\agan has reminded me 
 that, what has become so integral a fact of the Diocese, has 
 only been established since my last charge. It has been a 
 source of unfailing joy to me to find how welcome hi,^ 
 presence has been in every place visited by him, and how
 
 15 
 
 deeply and truly his Christian wisdom, singlemindedness, 
 and sympathy have been appreciated, and nowhere more 
 than in liis own town and seat of ].)erby. 
 
 Once more I must repeat, as I cannot fail to do in this 
 charge, the expression of our common lament, both public 
 and private, for the loss of so special a leader in the Diocese as 
 Archdeacon Balston, and with that must join the expression 
 of happy relief that we have been spared the loss, which 
 seemed nearly imminent, of the Archdeacon of Nottingham, 
 now happily restored to his energetic duty, in which he has 
 a most able and willing yokefellow in the new Archdeacon 
 of Derby. In my last charge I had to speak of our Rural 
 Deaneries as scarcely completed. Of the 31 deans then just 
 commissioned, 12 have since ceased to hold office (three in 
 Notts, and nine in Derbyshire), four only from death, eight 
 from health or removal into other deaneries, Uno avulso^ 
 non deficit alter Aureus. But while thanking, with the 
 gratitude of anticipation, their successors, I look back with 
 special regret on the loss of some of my tirst selection. 
 Visitation returns emphasize nothing more clearly than the 
 ways in which Rural Deans may make their special mark in 
 their deaneries. The office becomes more and more the pivot 
 of diocesan work, and I feel more and more the dependence of 
 diocesan progress on the Rural Dean's centripetal influence 
 on his deanery towards Diocesan ideas and co-operation. 
 
 Since my last charge, many important organizations, 
 then foreshadowed, have been established, and made genuine 
 and satisfactory progress to a degree easily overlooked, and to 
 which I feel it therefore well to advert. 
 
 The Society of Mission Clergy was founded in Nov., 1888, 
 and has been actively at work during these four years, its 
 members having conducted 40 missions in the Diocese, and 
 SO outside of it, 60 Quiet Days, and 65 courses of sermons 
 and instructions. Some fear seems still to survive lest parish 
 missions mean sensationalism, and there are districts which 
 have not adojjted them. I am able to answer for the sobriety 
 of our missioners' methods, and though missions cannot be a 
 substitute for pastoral efficiency, I believe that pastoral 
 efficiency will find in them a valuable periodic instrument for 
 realising and deepening spiritual life. The clergy will desire
 
 16 
 
 me to take this opportunity of referring with special gratitude 
 and satisfaction to the Diocesan Clergy Retreat, conducted last 
 year so ably by Canon Arthur Alason, at Repton School, with 
 so much assistance from the unique fitness of the place as well 
 as the completeness of all arrangements made there for the 
 clergy by the head and assistant masters, to whom all 
 present, but none more tlian myself, have desired to record 
 our most grateful appreciation. Canon Keymer has been an 
 invaluable secretary to the society. 
 
 More recently, but with as full promise of developing its 
 help, the Church Reading Society has in the last three years 
 given lectures on the Bible, Prayer Book, and Church His- 
 tory, to classes of considerable size at Derby and Nottingliam 
 and seven other important centres, with between 600 and 
 700 members. In six centres permanent Libraries have been 
 established.^ More lectiu-ers are wanted : this work having 
 been done, with valued outside help from Canons Crowfoot 
 and Lonsdale, by nine men, Archdeacon Freer and Mr. Sing 
 bearing the main brunt. It is in contemplation that the 
 Diocese should join two or three of its neighbours to form a 
 district for an S.P.C.K. lecturer on Doctrine and Church 
 History, who will, it is hoped, co-operate with the Church 
 Reading Society. 
 
 My last charge forecast the formation of a "Woman's 
 League for Mothers and Women in positions of Responsi- 
 bility, to unite the different departments of women's religious 
 and philanthrophic work, and to assist each place to start 
 without isolation the organizations specially suited to it. 
 This Women's League has in these four years established 81 
 branches round eight other chief centres, with about -1000 
 members, and promises to be a most valuable instrument. 
 
 In 1889 the Diocese adopted the agency of a Fair Mission 
 Woman, and her special fitness, zeal and prudence, under 
 wise direction and with cordial co-operation from magistrates 
 and police, has been instrumental in promoting welcome im- 
 provement in the shows and conduct of the Fairs, and their 
 consequent better enjoyment. 
 
 Besides these moral agencies, the Diocesan Finance Asso- 
 ciation has been created since 1888, to be a Body capable of 
 holding Trusts, especially for buildings of mixed use, such
 
 17 
 
 as mission cliapels used also for school or parish purposes, for 
 which there has been hitherto no legitimate form of corpor- 
 ate Trustees. The Association has been at once found useful 
 for a number of that class of buildings, and will be avaihable 
 to hold houses or monies in temporary Trusts Our Diocesan 
 societies being managed by unpaid officers, there is no 
 reason to expect or desire their funds to be transferred to the 
 Association, as in some other Dioceses, but as a Diocesan 
 Trust agency it supplies a much felt need. 
 
 These are all fresh Diocesan agencies since my last charge. 
 With them the older agencies have generally shown active 
 development. The Ladies' Home Mission Association in aid 
 of the A.C.S , which in 18'^8 was scarcely known in Notts., 
 has branches now in all the Deaneries of the Diocese, and has- 
 more than trebled its contributions. The Girls' Friendl}^ 
 Society has enlarged its borders by 40 parishes and 1000 
 members, and its departments are full of life. There has 
 been considerable progress in the Diocesan Rescue and Pre- 
 ventive Work, which is not only active at its chief centres of 
 Derby and Nottingham, but has now also been sjoread to 
 several of the other chief towns. I could wish that there 
 was more recognition and support given in the Diocese to the 
 Diocesan Penitentiary Fund, on which such Rescue Work 
 ought to be able to rest. 
 
 My Yisitation returns shew a very general parochial 
 activity in promoting institutes, temperance societies and 
 bands of hope, penny banks, cricket and football clubs, bands 
 and music clubs, and in the large towns recreation rooms and 
 lads' brigades. Such things are of course not the pastors' 
 most completely spiritual opportunities, nor have small vil- 
 lages the same use for them, if the clergyman knows all his 
 people as a family. But they are in themselves social links 
 for the people, which may also form friendly links with the 
 clergyman, and I believe very much in the mutual advantages 
 of these societies. 
 
 The public church questions of the year 1892 have been 
 the Clergy Discipline Act, the agitation for Church Dis- 
 establishment in Wales, the working of the Free Education 
 Act, and the termination of the protracted law suit of Read 
 and Others r. Bishop of Lincoln.
 
 18 
 
 Of the Clergy Discipline Act I spoke so fully in my last 
 charge in 1888, that the small alterations made this year in 
 the former Draft Bill seem to need no special remarks. The 
 Act is one originated by Convocation, and fully deliberated 
 for several years. It had reached that position when it was 
 taken into Parliament, and passed according to Parlia- 
 mentary opportunities. Those cannot be regulated for 
 Convocation, and no sane man can complain of the procedure 
 followed, except so far as the Four Houses of Convocation 
 found it beyond them to act as one. The power of Depriva- 
 tion has been judged to be a proper ultimate resource : I 
 believe that its action will be preventive and not penal, and I 
 trust it will prove preventive enough. 
 
 What exaggerations of the need of such an Act may 
 become current was lately exemplified in the publication in 
 the Pall Mall of a letter purporting to give a list of 
 criminous clergy gathered by the writer from a year's 
 newspapers. Enquiry proved that the letter was fictitious. 
 I have been able to ascertain that it was due to the change of 
 editors and staff taking place on the very day, that no 
 explanation of the hoax has been made by the Pall ALalL 
 But meanwhile a number of other newspapers copied and 
 commented on the list, and currency was given to an 
 unwarrantable fabrication, which has not been withdrawn. 
 
 Of the agitation for Disestablishment of the Church in 
 "Wales, our Diocese has repeatedly affirmed in every possible 
 way its opinion that the Welsh Dioceses are no separate 
 Church from the English, and that all must stand together. 
 I shall not say more of it. But in regard to the general 
 question, I desire to present to churchmen, who are restive 
 about Church Legislation, and think churchmen would pro- 
 vide endowments, and, if they won't, are ready to fly to the 
 moon — my belief, in which, perhaps, I stand alone, that Dis- 
 establishment would alter the Church's power for good as much 
 as Disendowment. It means the destruction of the parochial 
 system, which has been the Church's real influence. The 
 clergy derive from their legal position the three things wliich 
 they value most : Their freehold tenure, their freedom from 
 clergy intrusion, their authority to pastor their whole parish. 
 Laymen may fret at times under the first two privileges, till
 
 19 
 
 they contrast tliem with Nonconformist ministers' dependence, 
 and their rival subdivisions after disputes. But for the clergy 
 the change would mean still more the loss of the authority 
 which justifies their visiting their parish not as volunteer 
 philanthropic intruders but as national officers appointed for 
 this very thing and regarded as such. The unrivalled 
 acquaintance with the poor and power to direct help for them, 
 which the clergy are recognized to possess in East London, is 
 in many cases independent of endowment, where men are 
 maintained from voluntary resources, and might continue the 
 same if the Church were disendowed ; but it rests on their 
 position as parsons of the parishes, which causes a claim and 
 forms an introduction which would be destroyed by Dis- 
 establishment, Nonconformist ministers cannot do the same, 
 if they would : but Disestablishment would neither make them 
 able nor willing. The parson's position would not be divided 
 but destroyed. What advantage to the people this would be, 
 what liberty or enlightenment or comfort or help any but 
 Secularists can see in this, is as puzzling as it is to say, what 
 benefit it is to children to debar them from the acquaintance 
 and interest of the clergyman, who is to most of them just the 
 influence not supplied by their own surroundings. Look at 
 a workhouse, where a chaplain is extruded, and ministers of 
 all denominations are invited to divide the office among them. 
 It may gratify the ministers at first, but what of the poor ? 
 Can all those ministers befriend any one poor person efi'ectively 
 by turns, or can any poor person know and value all the 
 ministers by turns ? If a man tells me that 20 20ths of a 
 m.an must make a man, I ask him to break himself into 20 pieces 
 and try. Such workhouse crises shew one side of the 
 question as East London shews the other. If chaplains are 
 extruded in spite of Acts and Local Grovernment Board, one 
 Christian undenominational layman attached for raoral and 
 religious supervision of inmates and staff alike could serve 
 the country's purpose better than the ministers of all the 
 sects bowinof each other in and out and takinsr a service 
 each once a quarter. Only such a lay officer would cost 
 more than guardians pay chaplains, and he must not 
 be dismissable by the guardians. What spiritual provision 
 would be made for the out-poor by parish boards likeguardians 
 
 c
 
 20 
 
 may be infened from wliat i^uardians make for the in-poor. 
 The rates might be saved, but would the souls ? It is all 
 askew to make C'hurch Establishment a question of equality 
 between competing bodies. It is a question of having ap- 
 pointed officers to do a particular great national work that 
 won^t be done without. However, I am addressing church- 
 men, and return to my first words, that if churchmen suppose 
 that the position of a National Church may be lightly surren- 
 dered, they have not in my judgment realized the difference 
 in religious influence belonging to congregational and paro- 
 chial systems. For the clergy it might be easier work (and 
 in our large towns we may see how readily clergy may drop 
 into such a system), if their attention became limited to their 
 congregation, over whom, too, some ecclesiastically minded 
 clergy may (vainly) expect to exercise discipline : but the 
 National social religious work of parochial clergy will have 
 no authority, and cease. 
 
 The position of our Church Schools is our most perplexing 
 problem. The Free Education Act has not as yet disturbed 
 them. In Nottinghamshire no additional requirements have 
 been caused by it in 11 Deaneries ; in Southwell Deanery 3 
 buildings are ordered, in Mansfield 2, in Gedling 3. And a 
 great work is required at S. Mar3^'s Nottingham. There are 34 
 Board Schools, besides those at Nottingham. In the country the 
 Fee Grant has caused gain rather than loss, and previous recent 
 reductions of Fees in Nottingham itseK enabled almost every 
 school to be freed without loss. It is different in Derbyshire. 
 Fees have been higher, and in the large jDroportion of schools in 
 most Deaneries some additional school charge is continued. In 
 Derby alone the schools could not be fi'eed at less loss than 
 £1500 a year. In onl}'- two Deaneries are there no new 
 requirements of buildings caused. Possibly the change of 
 Inspector has raised the standard for Infant Schools. Twenty- 
 two schools have been built, or added now or enlarged, at an 
 estimated cost of £13,000. The ^^Uage districts seem supphed 
 and maintained. In the popidous places great efforts have had 
 to be made — Staveley and Heanor are the chief examples, the 
 latter having- no less than nine schools, three of them built quite 
 lately, and two more ordered. Besides Derby, there are 28 Board 
 Schools. A considerable number of schools are in continual 
 struggles. On the whole, however, the prospect of our Church 
 Schools' stable maintenance is generally quite satisfactory, and I
 
 21 
 
 only know of one instance where building requirements threaten 
 the creation of a Board, -vdz., the hamlets of Heath, where the 
 schools have hitherto held, under Canon Cottingham, a con- 
 spicuous place in oui- religious examinations. In several instances 
 the very able organising visitor, whom the Diocese had. for two 
 years, was able to improve schools from danger to safety. It was 
 to my very great regret that Mr. Cox could not be retained by 
 the Diocese, as his very complete mastery of school business and 
 methods was capable of assisting the most experienced managers 
 and masters. 
 
 For the special building requirements created by the Act, a 
 Sustentation or Emergenc}^ Fund has been raised, which, with a 
 valuable contribution from the S.P.C.K., amounted to about 
 £2000, being about one-tenth of the estimated cost of the 
 requirements. I have to thank the donors, among them the 
 Duke of Devonshire for his leading gift of £300 ; and I believe 
 the grants from the Fund will have given just the help and. 
 encouragement needed to bring a number of schools through the 
 pressiu-e. 
 
 The Schools question is, however, not one of this or that 
 special pressure, except in the sense that a last straw breaks the 
 camel's back. The two questions are (1) : Whether the coming- 
 masters will continue in the face of Board School management, 
 and (2) whether the coming generation of Churchmen will con- 
 tinue to pay school rates and also subscribe. The question is 
 onl}^ of great consequence in large School Board towns, which 
 are also the places where the question is acute. There is a 
 growing feeling, which I share, that in these large towns the 
 issue will have soon to be decided by those ratepaj'ers, who 
 desire religious education, standing out for having their rates 
 expended in accordance with their wishes, and changing ' the 
 present settlement of the religious question,' as it is called. I 
 think the ratepayers might claim with justice that the School 
 rate should be distributed to all schools in proportion. Whether 
 they will do so is another question. Parliamentary op j)ortunists are 
 not likely to lead the Crusade, and Churchmen are divided as to 
 what signifies. There will be no united action, if 'the full Church 
 teaching ' desired by Churchmen means a particular complexion 
 of teaching about the Sacraments, the Ministry, and the position 
 of the Church. 'No standard of religious school teaching will be 
 enforced, which will not leave the clerg}' to teach the special 
 Church teaching on these older subjects. That is their business, 
 in my judgment. But if a School Board election may place a 
 generation of children under regulations and teachers intended
 
 22 
 
 to exclude Christian knowledge from their school life, men who 
 do not approve, niay go to prison to maintain schools not so 
 controlled. I have spoken on these subjects too often to be 
 supposed to mean that Board Schools must be un-Christian. I 
 do not believe that Universal School Boards would destroy 
 Christianity, till it was destroyed without. But a centralized 
 system gives the hasty stroke of a central pen too much power, 
 and one man may under it destroy what generations could not 
 replace. I know the weaknesses of an independent system. 
 ' Every fool knows that.' But I know also the life and reality of 
 liberty, and even the present School Board system may not 
 inspire life learning or reality. It would ruin secondary educa- 
 tion. However, this is off my subject. My value for Church 
 Schools does not depend on their being teachers of Church 
 Doctrine. I do not, however, see why arithmetic and history 
 must be taught better, or deserve national or ratepayers' support 
 better, without Church Doctrine than with. An 1 I think that, if 
 religious parents desire them to be taught with^ the time has 
 come for Churchmen to say that they see no reason why they 
 should be the only people whose wishes receive no attention. 
 Only, of course, they may have to go to prison. 
 
 The other public event affecting the Church in 1 892 has been the 
 termination of the protracted law suit of Read and Others v. Bishop 
 of Lincoln. It is not my intention to criticize the judgment arrived 
 at during four years deliberations. I accept it completely as the 
 judgment not only of a Court determined by the chief authorities 
 in Church and State to be competent, but also of a Court, which, 
 if formed, as I think, on faulty principle, was nevertheless 
 formed of the best men that could have been found in any way 
 for the purpose. For the sake of the future I repeat now, what 
 I desired to urge at the time, that I regret first that the Bishop 
 of Lincoln did not feel the question ' What Court should try a 
 Bishop in such matters ? ' to be one on which the Judges had a 
 claim to hear both sides argued, and the Church and other Bishops 
 had a claim, that both sides should be argued : and secondly 
 I regret that when it was determined that the Court was the 
 Archbishop, the Archbishop felt bound to imitate the method 
 followed in the case produced as precedent, and did not feel that, 
 having no form of Court prescribed by English law, he was left 
 to follow the Church method and make the Court not of selected 
 assessors, but of the Bishops of the Province. I regard the prin- 
 ciple of ' selection ' for judicial purposes as vitally wrong, and 
 liable to extreme abuse in partisan hands, however perfectly it 
 may have been exercised on this occasion. The future is, how-
 
 23 
 
 ever, I suppose, not irretrievably precedented down to this course, 
 even by this precedent of following a bad 2)recedent, and it may 
 be hoped that, before another case arises, time may be given for 
 fresh light to guide the then Archbishop or others to truer prin- 
 ciples of Church jurydom. At the same time I do not question 
 the least the competency of the Court comj)osed. Still less do I 
 assert any obhgation that Church Courts, any more than Civil 
 Courts, must be formed on one and the same model in all ages 
 and churches. I think the ancient model for a bishop's trial 
 more equitable than the latest modern. 
 
 I cannot say in which party's favour judgment has been given 
 in the particular case. As in an ancient precedent, the Court 
 seems to me to have awarded the parties a shell apiece. It must 
 be hoped that, as in that precedent, the Court has obtained the 
 solid object of contention ; its object having apparently been to 
 effect a settlement. In regard to ourselves, the point on which 
 judgment was declined, is the point on which the judgment most 
 important to us is pronounced : in the declaration that even the 
 Bishop of the Diocese, when visiting a church to join in its 
 service, is not called upon to interfere then and there with the 
 Incumbent's arrangements of the service, nor is he responsible for 
 irregularities in them. That does not, of course, mean that it is 
 not his office to correct irregularities : but he will do so at 
 proper times, and not by distracting alterations on the spot. 
 There may be irregularities extreme enough to justify immediate 
 correction : the measure of such necessity would vary : but they 
 are not probable at a bishop's visit without his previous knowledge. 
 I feel that if a bishop were bound to take a model for uniformity 
 everywhere with him, the distractions caused by his visits would 
 make them more help than hindrance. 
 
 Very few of any party do not feel sorry that a man like the 
 Bishop of Lincoln has been made party in such a trial, or fail to 
 feel deep and sympathetic regret that his saintly work has been 
 subject to such distractions and annoyances. His selection seems 
 also to have been a blunder. Such trials will scarcely be 
 repeated. Still I cannot withdraw my opinion expressed 
 in my last charge that, at the time, though the disputed 
 points had made their way into acceptance wide enough to dis- 
 able prosecution, the prosecuting party were not to blame for 
 pressing the legality of doubtful ceremonial, which perplexed and 
 displeased many churchmen, to the fullest trial and judgment, 
 believing, as they did, that parts at least had actually been pro- 
 nounced illegal. I almost think that some judges of previous 
 cases ought to share their costs. But the arcanum imperii has
 
 24 
 
 been long revealed, that, in a civilized age, men have only to go 
 to prison long enough, to baffle law, to abolish church rates 
 (possibly, hereafter, school rates), and certainly to establish 
 ceremonial. Prosecutions are an advance on the S. George's in 
 the East riots : and if they produce the comfort that law is 
 responsible for the established changes, they will have set both 
 sides at ease. The Church will have been set by this judgment 
 before trades unions in the race of progress, and been led to pass 
 first through the barbarous stages of riots, imprisonments, and 
 legislations, to the final arbitrement of Christian consideration 
 and common sense. 
 
 Of the questions raised in that trial I will not speak at this 
 point, for circumstances have caused me to put together at some 
 length my thoughts upon some points in them which have come 
 before me, and I shall make that statement a separate second 
 part of this address. I will add a few words to conclude this. 
 
 I am not sorry to have been asked about the principles of 
 Diocesan promotion. The one principle is Fitness. Length of 
 service may mean length of meiit or the reverse. Incumbents' 
 choice of Curates depends very much on circimistances, and does 
 not always prove fitness for livings. Seniority is the worst of all 
 principles. Patrons are so often wanting men, that it is rare for 
 a Curate who makes any mark by his work, not to be offered a 
 post before he has served ten years. He will not expect to serve 
 less. Many of our best Curates have refused posts offered them. 
 Grood work in the Diocese is the best claim for promotion in 
 it, and yet work may be good without making a man fit for all 
 posts, nor is parish work the only Diocesan work, or the only 
 test of fitness. A Bishop's appointments should, more than 
 any Patrons', shew an example of selecting the best man he 
 can find for each particular place, and of regarding the place as 
 the chief interest to consider. I find that I have had in these 
 eight years to aj^point to just 40 livings, and in 35 cases I have 
 been glad to appoint clergy from the Diocese, three of the others 
 being Hognaston, Kilvington, and Holy Trinity Hkeston, which 
 I was glad to find so good men to take, when clergy of the 
 Diocese were not willing : the other two were the Metropolitan 
 Churches of Nottingham and Chesterfield, for which I shall 
 never feel my choice tied to the Diocese. A Bishop must 
 strengthen his chief posts to his utmost. I rejoice to know that 
 neither place has regretted my appointments to them. But my 
 livings are not many, and if any County Legislator wishes to 
 strengthen the Diocese, he should obtain a reversal of the ill- 
 timed transference of the li\dngs belonging to the Southwell
 
 25 
 
 Minster, wliich, only just before this See was devised, were 
 handed over to the new Bishoprics of Ripon and Manchester, 
 simply because no one knew what to do with them. Those 
 Bishojis have a larger projiortion of patronage to their clergy 
 without them than this See would have with. If the scheme of 
 that day was to equalize Bishops' Patronage, the new Sees give 
 occasion for equitable re\T.sion. This transference of Patronage 
 up to this time attached to our Cathedral seems pre-eminently to 
 call for such re^dsion. There are 15 of these livings in this 
 Diocese, besides the numerous livings retained by the old 
 Chapters of York, Lincoln, and Licliheld, though their con- 
 nection with our counties has ceased. I have been unable to 
 make a Chapter Act in wliich this revision could be embodied, 
 because our Chapter has no property on wliich to base it. I 
 hope the Laity will assist the Clergy to get this rectified. It 
 affects the clergy and parishes more than the Bishop. 
 
 I have conhi'med or j)reached in abnost all our parishes. Pet- 
 ford and Wirksworth Deanery systems have left more churches 
 near those towns than elsewhere as exceptions. Otherwise it has 
 been only due to accidents or special difficulties, that any excep- 
 tion remains, except some half-dozen parishes too minute to 
 find me an occasion — though I have welcomed small occasions 
 for small parishes. I have much occasion to express great 
 gratitude for the never-failing kindness with wliich I have been 
 received on my visits, and the extreme care and hospitality both 
 from Laity and Clerg}', which has everywhere given me such 
 pleasure and assistance. It would ill represent my feeling, to 
 speak of the assistance mainly, but, when ever}i:hing is done for 
 me, I often think how impossible it would be without that 
 friendliness, for a Bishop to do his office in a wide-lying 
 Diocese, in days when hotels do not generally exist in reach. 
 To mention them sounds out of place. And yet I cannot help 
 sometimes feeling that I need the excuse of necessity for the 
 inconveniences I must often cause my kind clergy, and for being 
 imable to entertain them instead of being entertained by them. 
 I pra}^ them to accept my grateful thanks. It has been a great 
 additional pleasure to meet so many parishioners with the clergy 
 on these ^dsits, and to find myseK no longer a stranger, but to be 
 able in most places to claim to recognize a number of old friends. 
 
 I am reminded in sending this address that my last Charge 
 was completed on the day when I was taken ill, four years ago. 
 This should have been issued earKer, but circumstances have 
 delayed my last Visitation over into this new year. 
 
 It is food for a Bishop's refiection that in eight years I have
 
 26 
 
 become older in 1113^ See than any of the Bishojis whose Dioceses 
 touch this — Lincoln, Peterboro', Lichfield, Chester, Manchester, 
 Wakefield, York. I have in nearty nine years ordained 217 clergy. 
 Exactly 300 of the present list of not quite 700 clergy have 
 entered the Diocese since I came at its formation. Seventy 
 Incumbents out of 490 have died since my last Charge. Among 
 them Archdeacon Balston, Canons Abney, Alderson, and Olivier, 
 two Hural Deans of Glossop (Mr. Knowles and Mr. Bruce 
 Ward), Mr. Chancellor, and Mr. Frith (Eural Deans of Derby 
 and of Duffield) : our oldest Clergyman and Incumbent, Mr. 
 Buckley, over 90 years, and 50 years Yicar of Hartshorne ; at 
 ages over 80 years, Mr. Humble (50 years at Sutton), Mr. 
 Footit (nearly 50 years at Gronalston), Mr. Findley, Mr. Cantrell, 
 Mr. Berry, Mr. Milnes, Mr. Waters, and just now Mr. S. Hey, 
 nearly 50 years Vicar of Sawley, haAang served in the Diocese 
 more than 63. Beside these 1 5 had been already disabled from 
 active work. Of the others, many over 60 and over 70 had 
 served long and were ser\dng vigorously. But whereas in my 
 last Charge, out of 52 I had but one quite young to record, and 
 one more not in ripe old age ; this time the roll of those below 
 middle age is no less than 16, including four devoted Curates 
 (Mr. Hope, Mr. Sheffield, Mr. Lee, Mr. Hanke}^). Thi-ee I must 
 name as suddenly taken from specially active work : Mr. Garbett, 
 Mr. Bussell, Mr. Brown of Shireoaks. 
 
 Hea^'y as these losses among the Clergy have been, the losses 
 among the chief Lay supporters of the Diocese has been even 
 more exceptionally heavy. It must be very rare for a Diocese 
 in foiu' years to lose such exceptionally generous helpers as the 
 Duke of Devonshire, Lord Carnarvon, Lady Ossington, Sir William 
 Evans, Mr. Mackie, Mr. Mason, Mrs. Sherwin Grregory, Mrs. 
 Kobertson, the Misses Mosley, to which list I have to add the 
 very special loss to myself, and also to the Diocese, by the death 
 of the man who did more than any other single person to make 
 the Diocese work together at first, the fu'st Begistrar, Mr. 
 Watson. 
 
 These milestone periods of a Diocese cannot fail to have the 
 sadnesses of all retrospects, but, as other retrospects, so must 
 these be rather fresh starting-points for the ever-renewing body 
 of the Diocese as for the indi^ddual successors to the vacant 
 j)laces. 
 
 The old Homan who built his house for everyone to see into, 
 knew public life. The Church and her individual clergy gain 
 by the full light upon them, if the light cast be not unfriendly 
 colored. Weaknesses grow out of sight. Each enquiry is not
 
 27 
 
 only an opportunity for remo\ang false impressions, but also an 
 occasion for efforts to rise to the expectations presented by it. 
 We have not all the same posts, no doubt. But the strength and 
 honor of the Church is chiefl.}^ hazarded on those whose faithful- 
 ness to duty has least aid from public guard and stimulus. 
 Parsonages should be, as very many are, the happiest as well as 
 the best homes of England. Where they are so, their use needs 
 no describing, an}'- more than a candle set in its candlestick. A 
 country lighted so would be madly set on darkness to throw 
 them down. ' Let your hght so shine before men,' is our call. 
 The country does not want darkness, but it does want light. 
 We have to walk as children of light — our people ask for Hght. 
 There is our opportunity for service and its welcome. If a 
 candle gives no light and needs removal, it is with sadness that 
 is seen, not with ill-will — at least, ill-will stands condemned, and 
 soon condemns itself. If thi'eatening sounds are heard, that is 
 the time for girding ourselves, as true men who, when the fight 
 comes, feel the whole war depends each on his own self. In this 
 war, if it does more than threaten enough to remind us that 
 threatened men live long, the issue will rest with the villages. 
 The Parochial system has been the Kfe of the English Church 
 by its penetrating through the villages, and it is to that 
 penetration that the Church is still apt to point as her strength. 
 That strength rests on j;hose Village Parsonages being the best 
 and happiest homes of the land, and on the light of teaching 
 guidance and help, which shines from them. The country parson 
 maj^ feel left in an outpost. His post is the post of danger and 
 of honor. May all be faithful to their hard post ! What help 
 and encouragement can be given them from Head Quarters it 
 would be folly as well as crime for their Chiefs not to give. But 
 it will not be on such encouragement that the duty of the most 
 faithful will be based, but on their own hearts, unmoved, loyal 
 trust, and allegiance to their own Master, to Whom alone they 
 stand or fall, and A^Hio has said to His servants whom He has 
 put in trust for Him, and who have kept their trust, ' Well 
 done ! Glood and faithful servant ; thou hast been faithful 
 over a few things, I will set thee over many things : Enter thou 
 into the joy of thy Lord,' 
 
 :e
 
 n. 
 
 Thougli ritual questions are rare in the Midlands, circumstances 
 Have given me occasion to draw up, what I must not call a 
 judgment but, an opinion, in reply to difficulties which have 
 exercised the minds of some of my friends, not touching the 
 legaUt}', but rather the broader bearings of the disputed ritual, 
 its tendency and motive, its meaning and value, and its popular 
 impression. Of these broader bearings I would not speak in my 
 last charge. The law case to which I have referred arose, and I 
 defeiTcd publication of my opinion till that should be decided. 
 But now that it will not anticipate the Law and as I do not wish 
 to criticize or discuss the Law, I prefer to say what I have been 
 called upon to say, in the general and independent form in which I 
 have for some time prepared my opinion. I may refer to later 
 history at points, but I am not sorry to have worked rather on 
 more ancient. It is after all only my reply to difficulties, wliich 
 may well have become themselves ancient history. I believe 
 that to be the case with the root-question. What is at issue in 
 the disputes about ritual ? Instead of asking merely. Is it Eom- 
 ish ? people ask what is the meaning or use of it ? To condemn 
 things because they are done by Romans, is felt to be as foolish 
 as to do things because they are done by Romans. There may 
 be some affectation of being what it is the fashion to call 
 ' Catholic-minded ' ; but outside that special ring, I believe that 
 British insularity has given way at least enough to the disposi- 
 tion to consider without prejudice the merits of innovations in 
 themselves. I say ' at least enough,' because I am sensible of 
 a fallacy underl}dng the claim to judge each novelty by itself, as 
 if there were no truth at all in small things being parts of great 
 systems. The change of attitude is not unsuited to my opinion, 
 which is indeed drawn from the same point of view. I am con- 
 vinced that the mediaeval developments fi-om the Fourth Lateran, 
 were rightly retraced by the Church of England when they were 
 made Articles of Faith by the Council of Trent : that the rules of 
 Clergy Celibacy and Refusal of the Cup to the Lait}" '^^J have been 
 at the time ' present necessities,' but are untrue and uncatholic as 
 rules : that the systems of the Confessional and of Indulgences 
 are fatally demoralizing : that worship of relics and Saints, and 
 the Roman Sacramental Doctrines are gi-ave errors. Practices, how- 
 ever small, which aimed at insinuating any of these points of the
 
 29 
 
 lioman System would be in my judgment abandoning primitive 
 truth for mediaeval error. But I do not therefore assume that 
 every revived usage involves such a retrogression, but consider 
 the special subjects in dispute on their merits. Komanizing 
 must be part of the question about each, but it enters in very 
 different ways and degrees into the subjects of words, rules, and 
 ceremonial, which form the heads of our discussion. Of these 
 the words may be supposed to be least important, but they are 
 even therefore the most important, as indicating a desire to inno- 
 vate, not for the sake of some advantage such as may attach to 
 rules or accessories in themselves, but simply to approximate to 
 Bomans. 
 
 I propose to discuss one word only, and to discuss it in regard 
 to the principle underlying it in a more marked degree than the 
 others which go with it. I mean the word Mass. 
 
 ' Mass.' The revival of this name is said, ' if it has no other 
 use, to mark the identity of the English and Roman Sacrament.* 
 In itself it has no connotation. It appears to mean the Service 
 which begins at the Missa or dismissal of the sets of people not 
 admitted to Communicate. The Dismissal so began it and so 
 named it. If the word connotes anything, it is the dismis- 
 sal of all but the Faithful, who were all to communicate: and 
 would not suit non-communicating attendance, or at least not 
 that of children. I have heard it advocated as a short name of 
 no special sacredness, and so more fit for common reference than 
 the two Prayerbook names. Though this reason would not 
 attach to devotional, official, or documentary references, it fits the 
 English reserve, which shrinks from talking commonly of sacred 
 names, as the Jews did not utter the Tetragrammaton. For 
 commoner reference, however, our people have been satisfied 
 with 'The Communion,' or more commonly, ' The Sacrament,' 
 while a cultivated class has revived Eucharist, with a 
 sense of something mystical about the untranslated name, which 
 if it had passed through the same stages as Communion has, 
 would have been ' Grrace.' Sacrament and Eucharist are the 
 oldest names recorded by primitive writers after the. New 
 Testament. But the name Mass is revived (by an individual or 
 perhaps Society use) avowedly as a mediaeval name once com- 
 mon to both English and Roman churches. Our own last docu- 
 mentary use of it was the description of the Holy Communion 
 as 'commonly called the Mass,' a phrase implying that such 
 po23ular use was not legal or official. 
 
 Words differ from ceremonial ; ceremonial may have merit 
 apart from any ideas, while words can only be introduced
 
 30 
 
 for tlie sake of their idea. A church that has refonned 
 may reform again, not only about customs and ceremonies, 
 but about doctrine too, if it so determine. But if a name 
 implies a doctrine, individual clergy are not free to introduce, 
 stiU less to revive, such a name without their Church's 
 authority. The revival implies two premisses. 1. That we 
 ought to remove all needless marks of difference between the 
 two Churches. 2. That the doctrine expressed by the word Mass 
 is taught by the English as well as the Roman Churches, and, 
 therefore, it is a needless mark of difference to use different names 
 for the Sacrament. These premisses contain the controverted part 
 of the ritual question, which is better discussed on words which 
 have no other object, than on ceremonies which have independent 
 value. Putting aside (as I propose to do throughout) all ques- 
 tions about legality, and with them the British motive to claim a 
 right (even to ruin one's self) if thought to be improperly for- 
 bidden ; and asking what is supposed to be the gain in the use 
 of the word Mass, I am met with ambig'uity. It is never stated 
 whether the object is Ee-union with Eome, a return to Mediaeval 
 instead of Primitive Doctrine, or, while retaining our indejjend- 
 ence and doctrine distinct from Pome, to make a semblance of 
 unity by using names in two different senses. The Pe-union of 
 Christendom is yearned for by Christendom : Pe-union with 
 Pome is, for ourselves, one of the nearest and main steps to that. 
 But this is never professed to be the motive for mediaeval 
 re'V'ivals, but is indignantly denied to have any connection with 
 them, and distinctions against Poman theories are drawn with 
 no less skill than vehemence by the revivalists, leaving no doubt 
 except about the sentiment and tendency which clothe and 
 interpret their proceedings. I do not believe that any party in 
 our Church desires to be absorbed into outer fringes of Pome, or 
 regards an Italian Curia as England's true spiritual Directorate. 
 Many would desire the communion which once existed : xery few 
 could accept the obedience which never existed. Speaking at 
 this moment, not of doctrine, but only of the obedience, I do not 
 wonder that sometimes when Church Government and Legisla- 
 tion are stifled, distance lends enchantment to the view of a 
 spiritual power, independent of ci^41 shackles : and if our 
 Church ever lost its unique primitive basis of National Church, 
 more men might come to think that rather than be one more local 
 body, the second best would be to join, even in the lowest place, 
 such an European Chui'ch combination for religion against 
 Secularism ; but unless and until our Church is denationalized, 
 few leading men will prefer to sacrifice our unrivalled opportunity
 
 31 
 
 to either phantasy or false histor^^ Times recur in cycles, when 
 good men, in despair of holiness, crave for spiritual despotism, 
 which, however unfaithfully others have used it, they would 
 exercise righteously ; in despair of overcoming Atheism, crave 
 for inquisitorial extinguishers, which, however faultily others 
 have used them, they would put with unerring exactness on 
 eiTatic liberty of thought ; in despair of Church position, crave 
 for an idealized world-wide Clerg}^ Trades Union, in which, 
 however others have been betrayed by power, they would be 
 officers who would combine fi'eedom and truth. But then, again, 
 other times recur, when liberty and knowledge are trusted to be 
 the instruments of truth and life ; when it is seen that men 
 desire truth even while floundering away from it in ignorance, 
 and that truth is grown in Hberty : when it is remembered that 
 Church discipline has not maintained morality, nor Church 
 repression unity. Oppressed churchmen turn ecclesiastic. But 
 I don't believe them to desire to be directed from Eome, but to 
 direct England so far as ' Catholic-minded ' lajTaen require it of 
 them. At any rate, as I began by saying, Union with Rome is 
 repudiated by those thought to hoist its signals. Who could 
 ch'eam that words like Mass could make Union ? The great 
 questions with Rome are still. Is error to be stereotj^Ded by a 
 dogma of Church infallibility ? And is liberty of thought to 
 be suppressed by central Roman despotism ? 
 
 I have supposed that my third alternative was the real account, 
 ^'iz., that men have wished to obliterate external differences of 
 names and forms, and yet not meant to alter English teaching 
 by doing so : or to put it another way, they have argued. These 
 words and forms were used by England three centuries ago, and, 
 therefore, may be used now. There may be Eij) van Winkles so 
 imbued with mediaeval thought as to ignore modern meanings of 
 such words and the imj^ressions conveyed by them now, and to 
 suppose that because mediaevalists can naturally use them for 
 what they meant in the TweKth Centur}^, therefore common 
 people must be able to do so, though they have never known 
 them mean any but the modern Roman sense. It is indeed not 
 uncommon to hear it gravely argued that such re\'ival of words 
 in their old meanings would be an excellent Church history 
 lesson — which it might be, if really so given. But to suppose 
 ordinary people to be ready at once to take uj) an old meaning of 
 Mass suited to English teaching, is as reasonable as to hold an 
 argument with Sabbatarians on the basis of your treating 
 Sabbath as meaning Saturday, because it once did so, and 
 expecting them to understand you. If men mean to teach
 
 32 
 
 Roman doctrine, that is another thing. But if they do not, as I 
 have supposed, it seems a perversity, which may be almost called 
 childish, to discredit themselves by misunderstandings wilfully 
 created in their people's minds, and to disable their opportunities 
 of influencing Enghshmen with English teaching, merely for the 
 sensational freak of startling unlearned helplessness by talking of 
 Mass, seven Sacraments, and other disparagements of our 
 Prayer-book and Articles. In times when our Church requires 
 ' a strong pull altogether ' to carry her work through against 
 real opposition, it is a great loss if any fine spirits, fit to be 
 leaders, stop her progress and endanger her safety for the 
 pleasure of ' kicking over the traces.' 
 
 Is it then, thirdly, to teach Roman Doctrine that men revive 
 terms which have in common regard been specialized to Roman 
 aspects ? Remember that I have said throughout that the 
 revivers strongly repudiate this. The argument which I quoted at 
 first may serve as a handle for the discussion. ' The word Mass 
 will shew the identity of the English and Roman Sacrament.' 
 In what sense is this true, and in what sense untrue ? It is one 
 chief blessing of the very simple Sacramental acts and elements 
 that they can be, and have been, repeated and spread the same 
 through ages and languages in every way different, and the 
 benefits of that memorial rest on the same Divine mercy, and 
 tend to the same salvation of souls in all churches, however 
 different their mode of appropriation or their measure of know- 
 ledge. This identity spreads beyond England and Rome, and is 
 befitted by names of more complete primitive Catholicity than 
 Mass. Is Mass used to exclude the identity of English and Eastern 
 Sacrament, though English Church origins were Eastern ? Mass 
 is but a poor, non-Catholic, name of little meaning, compared 
 with the grand old Sacramentum of Christian allegiance. 
 Sacrament is not insular, but Catholic ; Mass is not Catholic, but 
 Roman. It dwarfs the Catholic identity of the Sacrament. 
 Mass does not identify the English with the Roman Sacrament, 
 but only an English with the Roman special aspect of the 
 Sacrament. Is it, then, true to do this ? Is it true that * The 
 Sacrifice of the Mass,' in the sense in which it is taught and 
 understood by the Roman Church, is an aspect of the Sacrament 
 identical with that of the English Church ? The essential part 
 of this question is, of course, ' in the sense taught and under- 
 stood in the Roman Church.' Definition of ambiguous words 
 and distinction of confused meanings are, as I keep repeating, 
 the remedies against fallacies. Sacrifice is most truly an 
 English aspect of the Sacrament ^ but not in the sense of
 
 33 
 
 sacrifice taught of tlie Homan Mass. Christ's Eeal Presence in 
 the Sacrament is most truly an English aspect of the Sacrament ; 
 but not in the sense taught by Rome in Transubstantiation. 
 That communicants receive the Body and Blood of Christ is 
 most truly the English teaching of our Catechism : but not 
 materially in the Bread, as Eome teaches, but spiritually in the 
 Sacrament. To revive the name Mass is to identify these 
 opposite aspects of three chief points in the Sacrament. It is 
 true that popular interpretations are often perversions of scientific 
 teaching, and scientific Uoman theology may not have meant 
 what it has been understood to mean, that each ' Sacrifice of the 
 Mass ' was a fresh actual repetition of Christ's immolation ; but 
 that is the popular acceptance of its meaning, and that our 
 Church rejects in every part of her service. Those among us 
 who dwell most on the Atonement must be the first to feel that, 
 as all Christian worship, so specially its most special act, will 
 always plead in its remembrance of Christ His one full, perfect, 
 and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of 
 the whole world : they will reverence the sacred Feast as the 
 ever repeated Eeast attendant on that one Saciifice in memorial 
 of Him. They will be emphatic in acknowledging the wor- 
 shipper's part in the Sacrament, in oblations, in the praise and 
 thanksgiving, and the offering of himself, his soul, and body, 
 which the service calls sacrifices. If there is no concealment (and 
 why should any be supposed ?), no school in our Church teaches 
 any Sacrifice in the Sacrament beyond these several intentions. 
 But then they are not the Roman teaching of the Sacrifice of the 
 Mass, nor can that name be used of them with projmety and 
 without confusion. Again, it is true that the old scholastic 
 terms, ' Transubstantiation ' and ' Real Presence,' have (like 
 the later word ' Objective ') come by changes in thought and 
 words to mean the very opposite to what they meant when 
 invented for the Sacrament. No more ingenious application of 
 the philosophy of the day to explain the inexplicable was ever 
 made than in the term Transubstantiation. But it did not teach 
 the, at least, joopularly supposed present Roman meaning of the 
 term, that Christ's human flesh and blood are materially 
 eaten in the Sacrament. To us, in our modem use 
 of language about ordinar;\" men, a person's being really 
 present means that he is there in his material body 
 of solid parts, skin and bones and so on, which we call 
 substantial. But in the exj^loded philosophy of the schoolmen, 
 man's reality or substance meant just the reverse : it meant the 
 special characteristic which constituted a being a man, which
 
 34 
 
 was supposed to form an imj^alpable substratum of his existence, 
 of which the senses could have no cognizance. Flesh and blood 
 and all that we call substances were not man's reality or sub- 
 stance, but mere appendages, which would not have been called 
 substantial. If Transubstantiation has been caused b}'" modern 
 change of language to mean the opposite of its original intention, 
 so that its modern meaning that Christ's material Body, His 
 natural Flesh and Blood, are materially eaten in the elements, 
 is really a popular caricature of a great Church's scientific 
 teaching, there may be nothing in Transubstantiation but an 
 exploded philosophic explanation of transcendental metaphysics, 
 about which it would not be worth while to dispute. But it 
 would be a strange thing then for us to talk popularly of Mass, 
 which is so popularly misunderstood, and which, rightly under- 
 stood, means only something exploded. In that case, if Rome 
 could repent even enough not to be a slave to words' changed 
 meanings, she would probably abandon terms belonging to an 
 exploded philosophy. But she cannot. As it is, the word Mass 
 conveys to popular understanding the two ideas, that Christ is 
 slain afresh each time the Sacrament is ministered, and that the 
 nature of the Bread and Wine is metamorphosed into Christ's 
 natural Flesh and Blood. This cannot by any means be called 
 identical with our Church's teaching, which contradicts both 
 ideas most explicitly in her service and articles. No less 
 clearly is the adoration of the elements, ordered both for priest 
 and peoj^le in the Roman Rubrics, condemned in ours. How can 
 ' Mass ' be said to show the identity of the English and Roman 
 Sacrament ? 
 
 I have said that it is most truly English teaching 
 that Christ is truly present in the Sacrament, and the 
 term Real Presence is usable by us in our modern 
 understanding of the word real to mean true and actual, 
 as well as in the scholastic meaning of real as essential. But 
 whereas the Council of Trent anathematizes all who say that 
 Christ is only partaken in a spiritual manner, our Church 
 teaches that His true and Essential Presence is Spiritual, and 
 that Communicants receive Him in a Spiritual manner and 
 Sacramentally in the Sacrament. Our Church's language in 
 Articles and Catechism may be thought to admit two possible 
 Theories of Sacramental instrumentality : but if so, neither of 
 them is that of the Roman Mass. 
 
 I do not doubt our Church's teaching to be that Sacramental 
 instrumentality is Spiritual, as I read that of the primitive 
 Church to have been : teaching that the Bread and Wine are
 
 35 
 
 ' antitypes signs and s;yTiibols ' of Spiritual Food not identical 
 with them but represented by them, so that our spirits receive 
 the operation of the Spiritual Food as our bodies of the material. 
 The act of Sacramental worship faithfully offered in the symbolic 
 representation ordained by Christ for His memorial, strengthens 
 and refreshes the soul with 'the Spirit that quicken eth,' and 
 which is the real substance and real Presence of Christ. The 
 Spirit and thoughts of Christ, the Word or ]Mind of God, is our 
 Spirit and Life, as they are Himself. Making memorial of 
 Christ in thankful remembrance and in full assurance of Faith, 
 we feed in our hearts hj faith with thanksgi\dng. Present Ho 
 has promised to be trul}- in our united worship, to make His 
 disciples' hearts burn within them, as the ordained means of 
 fitting s^Tubols, prayers, thanksgivings, memorials, beliefs, 
 thoughts, agencies, which combine for Sacramental worshij), 
 bring their spirits into communion with His Spirit and feed them 
 with the living Bread of the Spirit of Christ, making 
 His Spirit ours. His thoughts our thoughts. His life our 
 life. Himself one with us. I believe this to be the 
 Sacramental teaching of our own Church and of the primitive 
 Church. It is difficult to draw an intelligible line between 
 Transubstantiation and other theories identifying the sign 
 and the thing signified, which might bring the latter outside of 
 the criticism of our Article that Transubstantiation overthrows 
 the nature of a Sacrament. I am properly at this moment only 
 concerned with the fact that all such other theories are not the Ro- 
 man theory and cannot properly be called by the name Mass. Still I 
 will not leave out of this discussion the second Sacramental 
 theory thought to be admissible by the words of our Church's 
 somewhat uncertain documents. I am prepared to say that I 
 only see two extreme views entirely excluded by all our Church's 
 language — that of a social meal, and that of adoration of the 
 material elements. In such transcendental mysteries, which can 
 be brought to no test, I would not wish to exclude any interj)re- 
 tation which has meaning, if it can be brought within our 
 Church's language. It is very difficult to analyse theories on so 
 sacred a subject, and still more to express that analysis, without 
 being thought irreverent. How and when Grrace is given in the 
 Sacrament might well have been left unasked. But it is too late 
 to wish that, and a comparison of theories cannot avoid close and 
 distinct analysis and statement. The second theory, thought 
 admissible by our Church's language, is, that consecration 
 attaches Christ's Spiritual Body to the material elements of 
 Bread and Wine, so that, while they still remain Grod's creatures 
 
 T
 
 36 
 
 of Bread and ^^ine, Christ's nature is united to them. This is 
 what is really meant by the Lutheran theory of Consubstantiation, 
 and as such it may claim the large Lutheran body as accepting" 
 it. About this theory I will not ask c^uestions of transcendental 
 metaphysics, which might seem to be answered in mystical 
 language. But an attempt to grasp the precise theory makes 
 it seem to contain two parts, which challenge reasonable con- 
 sideration, but about which I only propose to ask for their 
 authority. They are : 1. That the act of consecration, by 
 virtue of power confeiTcd on a Priest in Ordination, has 
 miraculous power, independent of the spirit of minister or 
 recipient, whereby Christ's very Body is, without fail, brought 
 down from heaven and attached to the material Bread and 
 Wine ; and 2. That Sacramental Grace oj^erates on the soul 
 through effects on the body, produced by the elements so 
 changed by consecration. Mysteries cannot be brought to test, 
 and I refrain, as I said, from questioning the meaning of the 
 miracle taught. But what authority is there for this miracidous 
 power, claimed for every priest alike, and for the words and acts 
 of consecration ? It is not in^elevant to observe that different 
 chui'ches attach consecration to different parts of the Liturgy, 
 the Eastern to the invocation of the Sj)irit, the Western to the 
 recitation of the narrative of the Institution, which was at fii'st 
 only recitative. There is no formula of universal use as in 
 Baptism. But apart fi-om this, the extreme power claimed for 
 the priestly act requires yery clear authority for its acceptance. 
 That priests are solemnly adjured to bear in mind the tremendous 
 solemnity of ministering the Sacrament, and that the rhetoric 
 of such Greek patristic adjurations is carried to an ecstatic 
 extreme, is very true, but Greek rhetoric is as figui'ative as 
 literal, and what is no exaggeration about the ideal ministration 
 of so great a Sacrament, and the dignity of the true priest's 
 instrumentality in such a work of Divine Grace, is not a 
 theological definition of Sacramental operation, nor a statement 
 that the mere words and acts of any priest, simply as priest, have 
 the stupendous power claimed for them. Can we think that the 
 New Testament would leave such a power unnoticed ? After 
 paying the fullest regard to the nature of the New Testament 
 books, and to the fact that things may be too well known to be 
 noticed in such books, it is nevertheless difficult to suj^pose that 
 such a principle of really vital character could fail to have had 
 some notice in them if it had been known to the Apostles. 
 Finding, too, as we do, in them discussions on reverence for the 
 Sacraments and on reverence for the ministry, a principle vital to
 
 37 
 
 tKe character of Sacraments and ministry would liave formed too 
 important an element in such, discussions to be wholly absent 
 from them. The miraculous Sacramental power claimed by the 
 theory under our discussion is presented in that theory as so 
 vitally essential that the Apostolic age must have known it. But 
 yet no sign of this gift appears in the New Testament, neither in 
 <liscussions even of questions of which it would have been the 
 key, nor among the specimen gifts of Grace, nor among the 
 specimen offices, nor among the specimen charges and powers 
 devolved by S. Paul on Timothy and Titus. It is difficult to 
 think this a doctrine that would have been left to mediaeval 
 development. It is needless to say that I am not now treating of 
 the priestly dignity and office of Offering the Sacrifice of the 
 Liturgy. That belongs to a separate discussion. 
 
 It is more difficult to speak ^^-ithout reserve of th.e second 
 point named above, viz., the theory which I have identified with 
 what was intended by the Lutherans in the obsolete term Con- 
 substantiation. The authority for this consists of a number of 
 of Patristic passages of three kinds, 1 . Statements identifv-ing 
 the sign and thing signified. These form the ambiguity, about 
 which interpreters will continue to differ, whether they imply 
 material, or are satisfied by spiritual reality. But as they all 
 rest on the words of the institution, those words had better be 
 treated as their representative. 2. Inferences, in answer to the 
 question. Where is the grace of the Sacrament contained ? 
 3. Statements that after consecration the Bread does not remain 
 mere or common Bread, I will speak shortly of these three 
 arguments. 
 
 1, The words of th.e institution are said to compel a literal 
 understanding of them, and it is called an evasion to take them 
 in any but a materialistic sense. Much has been said of their 
 grammar, and yet tlie most natural question about their grammar 
 is ignored, «.e., whether in the sentence called the Words of Insti- 
 tution the ordinary rule of Greek grammar does not make ' This ' the 
 predicate, and make the sentence mean. My Body is this, i.e.. 
 My Body is Bread, i.e., no Paschal lamb shall be slain in remem- 
 brance of Me, but, as in Abel's sacrifice, and as in the unbloody 
 offerings, the first fruits of the groimd shall be offered, I shall not 
 insist on this grammar, but it will be remembered that Ireneeus 
 speaks in the sense so given, ' Counselling His disciples to offer 
 to God first fruits from His creatures, that they might not be 
 unfruitful or ungrateful, took that which of His creation is bread, 
 and gave thanks, saying, This is M}^ Body.' ' How shall they 
 know that that Bread, over which thanks are given, is the Body of
 
 38 
 
 their Lord, if the}' do not acknowledge Him as the Son of the 
 Creator of the World ? i.e., His Word, through which wood 
 yields fruit and the earth peldeth first the blade, then the ear, 
 then the corn in the ear.' (Ir. iv., 17.5.) The catena of passages 
 down to S. Augustine quoted by Pusey on the Real Presence on the 
 point ' He called Bread His Body,' may be spoken in the same sense. 
 Without dwelling however on this, it must needs be recognised that 
 the sentence of Institution does not stand in the air, as if it were a 
 definition from controversial theology, but is circumstanced by the 
 Paschal scene and the Passion, yet unknown but now to follow, and 
 the contrast of the two memorials. Those who call it an evasion to 
 interpret the sentence in any but a material sense, must at least 
 remember that all the epigrams pointed at the so-called evasion 
 said to be made by spiritual interpretation, apply with equal force 
 to any even the most extreme Poman interpretation, which stops 
 short of asserting that communicants eat materially Christ's 
 human flesh. This admits direct ajipeal to sense. But pre- 
 tended Poman miracles of making blood flow fi'om a consecrated 
 wafer shew to what the literal interjoretation comes. The j)assage 
 most rested upon is the Chapter of S. John, which says, ' Excej)t 
 ye eat My Flesh.'' I can only read that chapter to declare 
 explicitly that these words are to be taken spiritually, and seeing 
 how much is made to rest on the interpretation of that chapter as re- 
 ferring to the Sacrament, I suppose that the words of the Institution 
 will be admitted to bear the same interpretation. The ambiguous 
 patristic identifications dej^end on this first and chief example. 
 
 2. ' The Grace inust he in the Elements, for wliere else can it he ? ' 
 This represents the second argument, which does not profess to 
 follow authority, but to rest on its own inference, stated as if 
 exhaustive, and as nothing else but a logician's exhaustive 
 inference, open to criticism of its exhaustiveness. It would be 
 enough to answer, A\Tiy not in the Sacramental action, which 
 was really the Memorial instituted by Christ ? But the Sacramental 
 theory of a Peal Spiritual Divine Presence promised to such 
 Christian assemblies in His Memorial is our Church's loftier 
 interj)retation. 
 
 3. There remain the passages which speak of the consecrated 
 Bread as not mere or bare or common bread. But will this carry 
 such a stupendous theor}^ as that of which we are speaking '? 
 No school in our Church would speak as if consecration left it 
 9nere or common bread, with no special character attached to it. 
 A consecrated building remains a building, but not the mere 
 building, but a Church with instrumental power to raise souls in 
 worship. A silken banner remains silk, but not mere silk, but a
 
 39 
 
 nation's representative of honor to be guarded witli her soldiers' 
 lives. The wedding ring is still the gold, but not mere gold, but 
 the wife's most precious emblem, never to be parted with. 
 Ordained men are still men, but are, like Churches, made by 
 their office to uplift souls and represent the Church in worship. 
 If in these instances the power of consecration be subjective, it 
 is not therefore unreal or imaginary. 
 
 I know that the Sj^iritual theory of the Sacrament has been 
 called Subjective, and in that word has been meant to be called 
 unreal. It has been called a low view, and the materialist theory 
 a high Sacramental theoiy. Men have argued in would-be epi- 
 grams, that virtual Presence is real absence. But these criti- 
 cisms rest on ideas strangely out of accord with the teaching that 
 ' God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him 
 in Spirit to worship Him in reality.' MateriaKsm may call 
 spiritual impressions subjective illusions, but spiritual religion 
 would be in strange confusion, if it called spiritual Communion 
 'subjective,' in the sense of ' imaginary,' because it is ' subjec- 
 tive,' in the sense of 'felt by the persons.' When the question 
 is asked. Are subjective impressions adequate to the expectation 
 of a Eeal Presence ? in all reverent considerateness for mystical 
 imagination striving to conjure up some palpable presentation, 
 must we not ask, Is it indeed an elevating imagination to esteem 
 a material impression upon substances as higher than a spiritual 
 visitation to souls ? A\^at is the meaning of the desire for more 
 than (to use the disparaging term) subjective impressions which 
 are the only possible manifestations to our souls of that Spiritual 
 Impressor's visitation and presence ? If feeling craves some 
 easier mode of apprehension, is it higher (I do not say, ' Is it 
 more matter for Faith, by which Christ is to dwell in our 
 hearts ? ') but is it higher to seek satisfaction in an imagination 
 that God can be localized at will b}" man in a material substance ? 
 Is it not higher to strain our imperfect spiritual apprehension to 
 believe what is spiritual to be real ? A belief in a spiritual in- 
 dwelling of Chi'ist could not turn for satisfaction to the idea of a 
 material presence. Ultimately our interpretation of ' Peal 
 Presence ' will depend on our belief in Spiritual Peality, Person- 
 alit}^, Presence and Communion. This must be matter for Belief. 
 Test, Proof, Analysis, Knowledge of Christ's method of Commun- 
 ion are impossible. Disputations about such mysteries might 
 well have been counted the last things to justify" divisions. But 
 that is no longer possible. To return at last to the point which 
 has led to this more serious discussion. To adopt the name 
 Mass is not now to decline disputation, but to change sides upon
 
 40 
 
 it. It would not mean 'Don't dispute, but communicate.' It 
 means, ' Accept the Roman \dew.' 
 
 I pass, without touching at this moment other Words, to 
 speak of some Customs or Rules which have caused questions. 
 
 Here the principles assumed require chief notice. It is an 
 often assumed opinion that Catholicity requires universal 
 uniformity in observance of customs (and those not Apostolic 
 only, but Ecclesiastical), which usage at some early period is 
 said to present as Catholic, even although (or still more, if) no 
 Canon or Decree ever made the practice a rule. This is stated 
 as a truism, but it contradicts our Article which declares that 
 Churches have right to ordain their own rites and ceremonies. 
 And men who magnify^ S. Augustine's place in making the 
 Church in England and S. Gregoiy's in sending him, ought to 
 respect the instruction of S. Gregory to S. Augustine, that he should 
 introduce what customs would suit the Enghsh. It has, how- 
 ever, become a root question, Are Chui-ch practices to be enforced 
 because they are rules, or because they are good ? Foi children, 
 for the weak and ignorant, for beginners, rules as rules are good 
 in religion as in ever3i:hing, for aids and scaffolding. But that 
 is not the question, but whether for Churchmen who are what 
 S. Paul calls Perfect, good churchmanship means, in its per- 
 fection, keeping rules, or doing what is best. It is not a 
 question either of doing in regulated order, what has to be done 
 by many in common. It is the question, what gives character to 
 Church practices ? Is it their spiritual helpfulness, or their 
 having formed somewhere at some time a custom ? It is S. Paul's 
 old question about Law, or rather the older question which the 
 Pharisees answered one way and Christ the other. Our Church 
 says that customs may rightly differ in different countries. We 
 think that religion is not only richer and more living for such 
 variations, but is also more effective in each country from such 
 adaptation. Japanese are not European by wearing French hats, 
 nor are Englishmen Catholics by using Eastern hours. In 
 things not affected by country, men may be uniform ; in things 
 affected by country, they ought to be different. To make 
 Easter uniform with Pome was a wise English concession for 
 unity of action : to insist on Southern Fasting in England is as 
 unwise as it would be to insist upon Immersion in Baptism. To 
 have Seasons for Common Fasting is again wise : but to make 
 individuals' Fasting identical is as unwise as to make their 
 frequency of Communicating. Age for Confii-mation and Com- 
 munion, and hours for services, are examples of things 
 independent of other churches, which each shoiQd regulate for
 
 41 
 
 itself. Clergy Celibacy and Refusal of the Cup to the Laity are 
 examples of Roman non-Catholic rules, justified doubtless by 
 circumstances at the time ^yhen the rules were made, but camels 
 to gnats in comparison with an unmixed Cup or non-Fasting 
 Commim^ion. English clergy liberty about marriage and beards 
 is better law than Greek or Roman contradictory regulations. 
 And yet there are symptoms of the Roman rule being adopted as 
 more truly clerical. To call an useful practice a rule, may help 
 observance of a good thing. But the time may come when it 
 \vill be supposed to be done not for its usefulness, but as a 
 prescription even if worse than useless. Then ' whoso looketh 
 into the perfect law of Kberty ' will denounce such rule as false 
 in spirit, and degrading spiritual religion into formal. 
 
 ' Fasting Communion.' Consider now first the prescription 
 to Communicate fasting. The materiaHstic and Manichfean 
 ideas on which this has been sometime since urged, are 
 withdrawn at jiresent, and I hear it urged now only as a rule. 
 It is publicly alleged that there are teachers who still call non -fast- 
 ing Communion ' mortal sin.' But generally representative advo- 
 cates of the rule admit that it is not suited for all English Com- 
 municants. * But make it,' they say, * a rule, subject to Bishops' 
 dispensations.' This puts the obligation on an entirely different 
 level, from which we may discuss it. Now I don't think dis- 
 pensations all untrue or valueless. Yows may be taken subject 
 to adequate independent judgment that changes oblige their 
 termination, and, if taken on that express condition, are fi^eed by 
 it from vows' two opposite weaknesses. But unless dispensations 
 belong to individual cases and particular reasons, they are not 
 dispensations, but abrogations of the rule. In England it is 
 whole classes who are excommunicated by a rule of Fasting 
 Communion. Dispensations for whole classes are admitted to be 
 necessary from age, health, or circimistances. If the only object 
 would be, after all, to make a rule, what is the sense of 
 making it to abrogate it ? If the rule supposed were a rule 
 recognizing limitations of age, health, and circumstances, that 
 would be difi[erent. Though the truer principle for hour and 
 preparation would be ' worship when and as you can worship 
 best.' Strong young people may worship best early and fasting : 
 aged and weak cannot. Besides, the Communion is not an 
 indi\'iduars service, but one essentially united, and it may often 
 be a higher law for children to join parents in it than to suit 
 their own separate interest. Again, frequent Communion is 
 better than Fasting Communion, which tends to reduce frequency. 
 Busy hard- worked people can't fast with advantage : nor can
 
 42 
 
 distances admit of it. Even the clergy are frequently exhausted 
 by it to a degree that hinders their office. Fasting is a different 
 thing in this country from, what it is in Soutliern lands, where men 
 live on nothing and do but little. Putting aside, however, all 
 reasons against the particular rule of Fasting being pressed in 
 England now, however general a custom it was in Africa in 
 S.Augustine's time, the root idea of enforcing Ecclesiastical rules as 
 rules, without regard to their suitableness, is itself more contrary 
 to Christian wisdom than any branch example. Ecclesiasticism 
 is not an advance upon the spiritual liberty of doing the best, 
 but retrogression from it. Such rules touch the wrong persons. 
 Many people are better for fasting, many more would be ; but 
 rale binds just those who are worse for it. The sj)irit of 
 reverence will begin the day with the Sacrament, if tliat is felt its 
 best reverence : but yet it is also another not untrue or unacknow- 
 ledged principle of reverence, that vrhat should be most honored 
 should belong to the most frequented hour of public worship. 
 For the Clergy whose lives are framed by and for their ministra- 
 tion, for the strong, young, free members of society, hours are 
 easy which are fixed by and for them : but those hours may be 
 very arbitrary. They may not be working men or women's 
 hours, nor hours for England. Indeed, to make hours Catholic, 
 the course of the Sun must change. Much has been done in 
 our lifetime to increase reverence for the Sacraments and all 
 worship. But this was done by example, not by rule. We 
 thank the earnest generation which re\dved the reverence and 
 living worship which we have enjoyed. But even therefore we 
 object to rule being made supreme, and to the spirit of that 
 generation being lowered to externalism. Of course materialistic 
 ideas of the Sacrament introduce special reasoning about fasting 
 before it : but in themselves those ideas might as well prohibit 
 eating after as before, and if the rules in question are made for 
 the sake of those ideas, that makes them after all mere rules, settled 
 arbitrarily, as rules are, and only as a particular waj^ of satisfying 
 the idea. Those materialistic reasonings I do not discuss here. 
 They are not now professed to be the motivos insisted upon. 
 People believe them still to be the motives, because the Poman 
 system seems to make them so. But the old idolization of Rule 
 is deeper still, and a change from Pomanising to Judaizing 
 principles is very easy, and I b 4ieve the present phase is to 
 magnify Compidsory Catholicity of rule above Christian liberty of 
 principle. If the Church has no power to adaj)t practices and 
 ceremonies to times and countries, it is not a living body but a 
 dead machine. Pule pressed by casuistry b:^comes Pabbinism,
 
 43 
 
 An example of this is shewn in a Mesopotamian Bishop's 
 casuistical Canon of the Sixth Century produced in advocacy 
 of the rule's obligation. ' If a man is troubled with sore throat, 
 let him put his trust in God, who will cure him without his 
 gargling, if he abstain from gargling out of reverence for the 
 consecrated Gifts.' ' Comment ' (says the writer from whom I 
 quote) ' is needless.' S. Chrysostom, in his well-known passage, 
 apj)ealed to by both sides, is surely healthier ; who, while 
 asseverating, that he had never himself celebrated except fasting, 
 repudiated the teaching that fasting was essential. S. Paul's 
 casuistry meets the case best : ' He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, 
 for he giveth God thanks ; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he 
 eateth not, and giveth God thanks. Let every man be persuaded 
 in his own mind.' Apply this principle to our question, and it 
 says : ' If fasting helps youi' sj)iritual worship, fast. If it hinders 
 it, don't. Worship with your body as well as your spirit : but 
 all bodies are not the same body. Fasting gives life to j)ampered 
 bodies, but from exhausted bodies it takes away even the life 
 that they have.' I do not speak against ' fasting Communion,' 
 but against a rule of fasting Communion. Were that rule based 
 on materialistic ideas of profanity attaching to Non-fasting Com- 
 munion, that would be, as I have said, a deeper question, but as 
 it is not so based now, I only say that such materialistic ideas 
 are not the teaching of our Church. 
 
 It is most strange to find the rigorous rule of Fasting before 
 the Communion rested upon the letter of S. Augustine to 
 Januarius (Ep. 54), which has been hitherto regarded, and it 
 seems rightly, as the earliest authority for the existence of the 
 custom. The whole spirit of the letter, written to a young 
 secretary who was troubled about rules, is to state the libert3^ of 
 churches to vary points not ruled by the Apostles or ' plenary 
 councils,' such as keeping anniversaries of Christ's Passion, 
 Pesurrection, and Ascension, and the Descent of the Holy 
 Spirit : and the Christian wisdom of conforming to the customs 
 of Churches where you visit. ' First I would have you hold, 
 what is the key of this discussion, that our Lord says that His 
 yoke is easy and His burden light.' Days of Fasting, Frequency 
 of Communions, are His own examples of customs open to 
 variety, of which he says that ' it is the best rule for a sober 
 Christian to act as the Church acts where you are.' ' I am often 
 grieved at weak brethren being troubled by some brother's 
 contentious obstinacy or superstitious fear, stirring such litigious 
 questions as to think only their own way right.' How can tliis 
 letter be made a text for rigorous Catholic rule ? The question 
 
 Qt
 
 44 
 
 about tlie Eucharist arose from Januarius asking if vre are not 
 bound to receive after food, because the Institution was after 
 Supper. S. Augustine replies, ' It is true that the Disciples did 
 not receive fasting at the Institution. But does that justif}^ your 
 censuring the whole Church, if people receive fasting now ? If 
 Christ had ordered it to be always received after food, I don't 
 suppose any one woidd have varied the custom.' So far he 
 presents his argument as his own. His incidental reference to 
 the custom as existing is what the letter contributes to the 
 history of the practice. He then adds two points which are often 
 accepted as no less established by his words, and on which the 
 main stress is laid. 1. That S. Paul may be understood to have 
 altered the hour. 2. ' That it seemed good to the Holy Ghost ' 
 (using the words of the Council at Jerusalem) ' that in honor of 
 so great a Sacrament the Lord's Body should enter the Christian's 
 mouth before his other food.' But both these statements are his 
 own inferences based simply on the custom being general, and 
 solemn as the words sound, we must not magnify them to be 
 more than S. Augustine's own. Solemn as the words sound, we 
 must remember that the letter is not a solemn letter to the 
 Church, but to a young man who wished to set the Church 
 right : and the spirit of the letter is not to insist on the obligation 
 of the custom, but to tell the young man that it was silly to find 
 fault with settled custom. Further, the reason given by 
 S. Augustine for the custom does not allege the Ascetic idea of 
 f astingbeing a necessary purificatory preparation for the Eucharist. 
 He gives no hint of pollution in eating, or holiness in fasting, 
 which would make it profanity to receive non-fasting. This 
 Ascetic idea, which has been revived among us, is not present in 
 S. Augustine's, any more than in S. Cyprian's, argument 
 for Early Communions. It was not our Lord's teaching, nor 
 His Apostles'. T^Tien we remember the superstitious views about 
 fasting bequeathed by the Jews, and that Aii-ica of all Churches 
 was most Ascetic in its teaching, it seems impossible that if the 
 Ascetic reason was in S. Augustine's mind, he should not have 
 uttered it here. Fasting was required before Baptism of a con- 
 vert, but no early rules ordered it before the Eucharist, nor does 
 S. Augustine order such preparation here. His feeling appears, 
 in the earlier part of the letter, in his discussion of daily Com- 
 munion. On one side it was argued, Men should choose days on 
 which they live with special self control. On the other. If men's 
 sins do not deserve excommunication, they ought not to withdraw 
 from ' the daily medicine ' of the Lord's Body. S. Augustine 
 says, Above all, abide in the peace of Christ ; let each do what
 
 45 
 
 lie is persuaded in Ms own mind to be best. Contemptum solum 
 non vult cibus iste. So S. Augustine's reason to justify the change 
 from ' after Suj)iier ' (which Januarius would have revived) to 
 ' before other food,' was ' in honor of so great a Sacrament.' An 
 honor of precedence, which still remains a valid argument, and 
 which was satisfied by the Christian Liturgy beginning the ferial 
 part of each day. But this is quite apart from the Ascetic idea 
 of fasting. And the whole letter contradicts the idea of rule as 
 rule. 
 
 In speaking against rigorous rule, I seem to differ in word rather 
 than in meaning from the advocates of Hule mitigated by Dispen- 
 sation. I do not now question early usage, but universal obhga- 
 tiou. Supposed obligation is made practically a ground for excom- 
 municating great numbers of oui' people. AVhen the supjiosition 
 of a rule deters priests (in consideration of their own case) from 
 Celebrating after breakfast. Dispensation must be regulated on 
 some new princij)le to meet the case. It is this obligation of 
 an alleged rule which is our concern. Rule as it has been called, 
 for the Church generally it was only an indefinite custom at 
 the most, so far as any evidence has been given. But suppose it 
 all that its advocates call it, yet if they say that the obligation 
 admits of Dispensation, can they call the rule one of such sacred 
 character that its violation would be profanity } If I believed the 
 materiahst reasons alleged for the rule, I could not give Dispensa- 
 tion from what would then be not a matter of individual fitness, or 
 ecclesiastical regulation, but of princijile and of the nature of 
 the Sacrament, which no Dispensation could affect. But if the 
 rule can admit such an amount of DisjDensation as is needed in 
 England to avoid an intolerable system of Excommunication, it 
 befits our Church better, in my judgment, not to ordain a rule 
 which involves such alternative consequences. 
 
 ' Non- Communicating attendance. ' This practice might 
 naturally seem one to be advocated by peoj)le in proportion 
 as the}^ attach least Sacramental effectiveness to the elements, 
 and regard the service most as a purely spiritual one of prayer 
 and praise and thanksgiving. It is not in accord with the 
 institution, nor with the principles of S. Paul's arguments. It 
 seems to weaken the indi\ddual's participation, responsibility, 
 and corporate unity. The prayers are not adaj^ted for use by 
 Non- Communicants. The dismissal of all but the Faithful in old 
 Liturgies gives no encoui-agement to it. The reasonableness of 
 such half Communion in assemblies of ill-regulated masses is 
 intelligible ; as that of refusing the Cup was, and would still 
 often be, in elementary churches. But in that resjDect both
 
 46 
 
 practices seem more fitly temporar}' than perpetual regulations. 
 Full, separate, individual administration to great numbers is 
 ver}' wearing, not to priest so much, as to people. The diminu- 
 tion of fi-equency in communicating, from daily breaking of bread 
 to once at Easter or three times in the year, has these practical 
 causes, which seem ready to influence advice and system 
 again in our own time. It is not only imitating foreign ways or 
 adopting foreign ideas. Eules of fasting and confession 
 necessarily restrict Communions. If the whole Church com- 
 municated regularly under those rules, successive armies of 
 celebrants and confessors would be required by the mere con- 
 ditions of time : aiTaies of Bishops to grant or refuse Dispensa- 
 tions. But I do not doubt that the practice is part of a wish to 
 follow the Roman practice of making Mass the one chief ser^dce. 
 That is a practical question, worthy of fuller consideration 
 than it often receives. No service is so complete as the 
 full Communion Service in its surroundings of its chief 
 central Memorial. Now that hymns have ousted the Psalms 
 fi'om their place as interludes, it is true that the Old Testament 
 has in it only its standing Lesson, the Commandments. But the 
 selected double course of New Testament passages for the year, 
 pointed by their Collects, the fidler Creed, the Sermon, and the 
 very full and sj)ecial Exhortations, form our fullest instruction : 
 the preparation prayers and special Confession, Absolution, 
 Comfoi-table Words, and Himible Access, with the comprehensive 
 Intercession of the Prayer for the Church Militant, are oui- Church's 
 best Prayers. No form of Praise and Thanksgiving surpasses 
 the Sanctus, the Grloria, and Post Communion Collects. The 
 whole service presents, in oui' Church's highest embodiments, all 
 that Mattins contains, besides its special chief office of Offertory 
 and Memorial and Commimion. Set ^vith some great master's 
 music, that ser^dce, full and complete, is by far our noblest 
 service, and might well be the one Morning Service for 
 the Faithful. Only this is generally simply an impossi- 
 bility for our people as a service of fasting Communion. 
 Without Communion^ it is only instruction, and no service of 
 prayer or confession, praise or thanksgiving. That must be added 
 by Mattins. That the congregation should never hear the Com- 
 mandments as their standing Sundaj^ Lesson, I believe to be a 
 greater loss than our clergy recognize. That they shoidd not 
 hear the Collect, Epistle, and Gosj^el, is cutting off their Christian 
 year's lessons, in which they ought to hear the whole Gospel. I 
 regret these results of Early Communions, where they follow. 
 But clearly the Ante-Communion Service without Mattins is a very
 
 47 
 
 jioor modicum of prayer and praise. And Matins were made for 
 that very pui-pose as a people's service. The imion of the Ser- 
 %'ices represents what is presumed to have been the earliest prac- 
 tice by those who assert that Christians never met in their 
 assemblies without the Coramimion. For the Synagogue wor- 
 ship, which Mattins j^resent, was clearly part of their assemblies' 
 worship. Our practice of holding one immediately after the 
 other was ordered for the convenience of the people : as in hill 
 coimtries Morning and Evening Services have been taken without 
 break, to have them finished and get home. But it was nothing 
 unprincipled or unprimitive. And for ordinary people it seems 
 now most acceptable, and is not any more unprincipled. Still, 
 though this is all true, I think it also true that for Communicants 
 no Sunday Service can better occupy the chief place than the 
 Commimion Seiwice alone, if fidl and complete, and that none 
 admits more properly of the fullest accessories as a joyous Service 
 of praise and thanksgiving. I say ' for Communicants.' It is 
 not, like fasting, a simply personal question. Non-Communi- 
 cants mar the Service's perfectness for the Communicants, as well 
 as destroy the corporate meaning of the Chmx-h Institution. 
 However a body of Commimicants can and will allow one another. 
 But it is a different thing to make the Communion a Priest's 
 performance before a miscellaneous congregation, which is some- 
 times desired. Our Service, containing no dismissal of Catechu- 
 mens, penitents or others, but only exhortations against careless 
 Commimions, does not rubrically exclude Non-Co mm unicants ; 
 Cranmer, in fact, was afi-aid to go so far in the way of sudden 
 reform, as to require all to receive, or depart. But later, the 
 removal of what notices of departure existed, is ascribed to the 
 j^ractice of non-communicating attendance having ceased, so 
 that they were needless. Instead of which, omission to direct 
 people to go is taken to mean prohibition of their going. If 
 history is brought to interpret some Eubrical questions, why is 
 it nothing here ? 
 
 As regards primitive practice, the rule seems clearer in this 
 matter than about Fasting Communion, and certainly to go back 
 beyond any date assigned to that, even to the New Testament. 
 Those who make Fasting Commimion essential as a rule, have to 
 explain why the rule is not essential that all present shoidd 
 receive. Dangers have attached to both Non-fasting Communion 
 and Non-communicating attendance. If the latter is not forbid- 
 den by our Church, neither is the former. If the former is 
 against early practice, so is the latter : and whereas the foi-mer 
 can only be traced to an uncertain date, the latter is
 
 48 
 
 against a principle as well as practice of the New Testa- 
 ment. If the latter is revived with the view of imitating 
 the Roman practice of ' assisting at the Communion ' or 
 ' hearing Mass,' and so identifying the Roman and English 
 Sacramental theories, I have spoken enough on that sub- 
 ject. If the practice is introduced because pious souls find 
 spiritual benefit in such half- communion at times, let no rule 
 hinder them as a rule. Lf't the Communicants bear with their 
 imperfect sj-nipathies and im.ion, and if some justifying principle 
 or precedent for their presence is wanted, regard them as peni- 
 tents half restored. The Rubrical order to arrange the Com- 
 municants in convenient position before the Communion, should 
 prevent the hindrances commonly caused by having them mixed 
 in crowds of Non-Communicants. But I believe people to be 
 quite wrong who suppose Rome to think ' hearing Mass ' to be 
 the better custom, or that it is more than a survival from j^ast 
 necessities, or that Rome would now begin Non-communicating 
 attendance, or be otherwise than amused if we should take this, 
 amongst other necessities or exaggerations or abuses, for her 
 deliberate example. Whether adults are brought by the practice 
 nearer to becoming Communicants I have no means of judging. 
 That is its best argument. It needs e^^dence. But of uncon- 
 firmed children I feel strongly, that their presence contradicts 
 Church principle, and by confusing them about their Church 
 position, endangers instead of promoting their readiness to be 
 confirmed and so become Communicants, when they seem to 
 themselves to have been so already as much as older people 
 round them. If the piu'pose be to transform the idea of the 
 ser\ice into that of a propitiatory Sacrifice in which the priest 
 alone is to take part, and the people to be only passive spectators, 
 no idea is more opposed than this to the practice and principles 
 of the primitive chui'ches. 
 
 ' Evening Communions.' I cannot speak from any personal 
 experience about these. I have never been present at one. 
 Personally I feel repugnance to them. This may be fi-om habit, 
 but I do not think my instinct is mere prejudice. AVhen, how- 
 ever, they are spoken of as ' Shocking,' I have never been able 
 to feel such language compatible with the circumstances of the 
 original Institution. I might for myself adopt in regard to them 
 the attitude of S. Chrysostom, who guarded his judgment about 
 Non-Fasting Communion, by asseverations that he had never him- 
 self joined in it, " but if anyone called it ' sin,' let him then degrade 
 Christ Himself." The change of hour for the Eucharist from the 
 Evening hour of the original Institution to the houi's of main
 
 4d 
 
 ChiiTcli custom is well known to be obscure and uncertain both 
 as to its facts and its reasons. It is not clear or necessary that 
 the hour was at first the same evers'where. Christians followed 
 their country's method of counting days : the Jews' and Greeks' 
 Day began at sunset, the Roman at midnight. If the Eucharist 
 began the Day, its hour may have been different at first in 
 different countries, and only made uniform, as Easter was, later 
 and for unifonnity's sake. The letter of Pliny about BithjTiia 
 may be irrelevant to Corinth and other places. There is no exi- 
 dence whatever for the assumj^tion that S. Paid altered the hour 
 at Corinth at the time at all. We are familiar with the imagined 
 reasons for the change sometimes spoken of as established by 
 PKny's letter to be general at his time. Some say, the secrecy 
 necessitated by persecution : others, the necessary hour for poor, 
 especially slaves : others, the disorders exemplified at Corinth. 
 But all these are pure conjectures, and besides they are reasons 
 for what is not even professed to be proved to have been a fact. 
 
 The question of the change, and of reasons for it, appears long 
 before the well-known letter of S. Augustine, on which the chief 
 feeling on the subject rests. S. C^^man, 150 years earlier, and 
 himself the representative Ecclesiastical Eather, accounts for the 
 change by his well-known reply to Cacilius, ' Christ offered in 
 the Evening, that the hour might set forth the decline and 
 evening of the world ; but we celebrate the Pesurrection of the 
 Lord in the morning.' (Ep. 63 . 16.) If Fasting had been 
 the reason and was an essential principle, S. CS'prian was 
 not the man to omit it. 
 
 In regard to Eucharistic hours, apart from fasting, I must here 
 notice an argument which was not before me when I wrote the 
 main part of this discussion. A paper has been presented to me 
 by advocates of Easting Communion as the most satisfactory 
 statement to represent their reasons. Its chief contribution to 
 the discussion consists of an interesting set of three historical 
 notices, by which the writer traces backward from the Middle 
 Ages an alleged Church rule regulating the Eucharistic houi- to 
 be on Feasts at Early Morning, on Fasts in the Evening, on Half 
 Fasts in the Afternoon. The writer's object is to shew that the 
 hour of day was not a matter of concern to the Church, but only 
 the rule of previous Fasting. I must say fi-ankly that the paper 
 appears to me to answer itself. It raises two questions: 1. To 
 what date is the rule referred ? 2. Does it depend on Fasting ? 
 Now if the rule is supposed to refer to Fasting, it can scarcely 
 belong to the first ages. Half Fasts do not appear to have been 
 primitive, but only late relaxations. The first fasts were, so far
 
 50 
 
 as we know, only the Jewish. ' twice a week,' even Lent being a 
 custom of very gradual growth. The first feasts were only 
 Sunday, the Day of the E-esurrection, and especially Easter 
 Day, the chief Resurrection Feast : even Chnstmas being of 
 later arrangement. Christians kept the Almanac of the Roman 
 Civil year, like other people, only marking on it their Sundays, 
 and other days as they grew : but the Dictionary of Christian 
 Antiquities (Calendar) says that near the end of the Fifth 
 Century a full Almanac only contained four feasts of Christ 
 and six of martyrs. But the Almanac gave, of course, the 
 Roman civil days as di\'ided for regular national use into Dies 
 Fasti, Profesti, and Intercisi, i.e., days of business, of no 
 business, of half business. The Civil Law prescribed that 
 Sacrifices and Recreations might begin on Dies Fasti in the 
 evening, on Profesti as early as wished, on Intercisi when 
 business was over. At first Christian worship would have had 
 to follow the regular rule for all worship, and so could begin, as 
 Pagans did, in earl}^ morning on Dies Profesti, in the afternoon 
 on half -holidays, not till Evening on Fasti. But this was not by 
 Church rule, nor in reference to fasting, but by civil law. In 
 that sense variety of hours of worship must have been 
 primitive, and it would have corresjionded to the variety of 
 Eucharistic hours, traced back in the paper before me as a 
 Church rule, but which has no meaning as a Church rule at first. 
 Tn later days the Church formed its own Almanac on the Civil 
 one, and as She transformed Pagan buildings and festivals into 
 Christian, She made Fasts, Feasts, and Half-holidays on the old 
 division of Civil days. But rules for beginning worship on 
 diifferent kinds of days would have been already established, onl}^ 
 not in reference to fasting, but as beginning each day at the 
 earliest hour admissible by law on the particular day. Pliny's 
 letter probably illustrates this. The Christian irregularity was 
 that they held an antelucan Sacrament ' stato die,'' which is usually 
 taken to mean on Sundays, and probably does so, but which 
 means at any rate ' on a fixed day of their own,' which was 
 illegal. Sundays would cause their only irregularity, as the 
 two weekly fasts, if the Eucharist was celebrated at all on them, 
 would throw it into the evening, when it would be always legal. 
 The Jews' Sabbath had been a preparation in the Roman world for 
 Sunday. But apart from all this account of the probable origin of 
 variety in Eucharistic hours, what does the Church rule, traced in 
 the paper before me, itself say ? It says. That the horn- varied 
 on Feasts, Fasts, and Half Fasts. ^^Hiat is this but sapng, 
 that the Feasts, Fasts, and Half Fasts, were existing
 
 51 
 
 independently of the Eucharist, which had its rules made for it 
 by those divisions of da3^s ? So then the Fasts were not con- 
 structed for the sake of the Eucharist to be preparation for it, 
 but the Fasts dominated the Eucharist by not allowing- that to be 
 celebrated during their time of continuance. The rule alleged 
 might illustrate the importance attached to Fasts, as enough to 
 dominate the Eucharist, but it is so far from illustrating, that it 
 contradicts, any idea of the Eucharist requiring the Fast to pre- 
 cede as its preparation. The principle of the regulation is that 
 the Eucharist should begin the day. The result (though not the 
 origin) of it was that in all its varying hours (after the establish- 
 ment of Church Days, in the place of Civil Days) it followed 
 fasting. And this result seems to be interpreted to have been 
 its intention, which (from the facts of the case) it could not have 
 been. Such a connection does not appear before the fourth 
 Century, 
 
 Yery little therefore comes out of the interesting historical 
 argument. S. Augustine's letter remains the chief proof of the 
 supposed rule of fasting, and while the statement given above seems 
 to do away with the generally supposed Church custom against 
 Evening Communions, it really leaves the question just where 
 it was in respect of the main subject of interest, Sunday Evening 
 Communions. For Sunday the evidence remains unaltered. That 
 in the New Testament the instances are all in the evening, and 
 after the New Testament no instances of Evening Communion 
 have been known till these last fifty j^ears, besides the well 
 known ' Exception that proves the rule ' on Maundy Thursday, 
 If the hours which the Church has established, are the best and 
 truest, we are not bound to go back to the Evening, because 
 Christ's last hours were in the Evening, So says S. Augustine, 
 I think wisely. On the other hand, as S, Chrj^sostoni says. Though 
 we may protest that we have not taken on ourselves to break 
 established custom in this, jet we shall shrink from calling 
 * sin,' still less ' mortal sin,' that, to call which sin, would be to 
 condemn Christ HimseK, 
 
 I have dwelt so long on this side of the question, because it is 
 on these points that strong feeling has been created in the dis- 
 cussion of Evening Coiumimions, I cannot myself think that 
 Evening Communions stand or fall with Fasting Communion, 
 nor even with proof of rule or custom, of which I have spoken. 
 They depend chiefly on the practical question of their spiritual 
 expediency ; of which one side is the balance of danger to devotion, 
 the other side requiring evidence being their necessity, or conve- 
 nience approaching necessity. I do not think it true, putting the 
 
 H
 
 52 
 
 question of fasting aside, that Evening Communions are like 
 Mid-day Communions in their circumstances. Evening services 
 all differ from morning ones. The hour, the lights, the crowd, 
 the meals just finished, the evening companionship, and the 
 night outside darkness and assembling, all make the character of 
 evening services excitement rather than solemnity. I do not 
 doubt that it has become the chief hour of church-going. 
 Then busy mothers, housewives, servants, and Sunday laborers, 
 are able naturally to be fi-ee, and rest from laboui-s, which do not 
 cease on Sunday, and can go to Church Mith notliing on their 
 mind. I see no reason to question what I am assured by men 
 who joined in introducing the practice, though they have 
 abandoned it, that their experience was, that their Evening 
 Conmiunions never failed in reverence, quiet, or devotion. Still 
 they have given them up, and their judgment, therefore, is 
 against them. They think the morning better, and the evening 
 not necessary. My instincts make me think the former, my 
 ignorance perplexes me about the latter. I cannot believe the 
 miscellaneous evening circumstances into which I cannot go more 
 particularly, to be the best for the strain of spiritual mysteries, 
 Wesleyan revivals in an excitable people have formed a warning 
 ere now against evening spiritual excitement. Even for the 
 quiet and devout there are disturbing elements all round. The 
 evening temper of the Corinthians is near us all in some form or 
 other, and in spiritual as well as other feelings ' extremes are 
 ready to meet,' and reaction is constantly at hand. "Without 
 supposing the slightest iii*everence or disorder in what I do not 
 question being devout Communions, I do not feel them the 
 safest or the best. ^Tiether they are necessary to avoid whole- 
 sale excommunication of classes who cannot make themselves 
 heard, and who may be only too ready to acquiesce in impossi- 
 bilities, is the point of my doubt. I have often wondered how 
 the classes who (practically) cannot attend morning services, have 
 opportunities for Communion. Is it a real answer to say, 
 * Sunday hours in houses must be reorganized ? ' Is it a 
 real answer to say, ' People can come if they choose, however 
 dependent and however distant they are ? ' Is it a real answer 
 to say, ' No additional Communicants are drawn, who don't come 
 in the morning,' im.less special efforts are addressed to the par- 
 ticidar classes who cause the question to exist, to bring them and 
 not discoiu^age them ? Fairness of trial and judgment is hard to 
 get, and reluctance (which I think wise) to bring people generally 
 to Evening Communions, may sacrifice some helpless classes. 
 This is my sole question. I imderstand the alternative to be
 
 53 
 
 very early celebrations, at 5 or 6 a.m. I love to hear of clergy 
 going out to their work at the hours when their people do, and I 
 believe it gains them s^^mpathy with their reality. But when 
 numbers of Communicants at very early hours on Christmas and 
 Easter Day are presented as an answer, I wish to know if they 
 do not represent special efforts for such single days. Do they 
 not absorb all the 8unday vitality and make the rest of the day 
 a protracted time of listlessness, if not idleness ? Can they be 
 fi'equent ? or are two early Communions a year to be preferred 
 to more frequent Communions at other hours ? Can one man multi- 
 ply early celebrations and do his other work all day ? Experience 
 as well as the reason of the thing shows that (except for the par- 
 ticular peo2)le suited by 8 a.m., i.e., the clergy and well-to-do 
 young people) the change of hours, fi-om the sei'vice most generally 
 attended to a separate early celebration, reduces ordinary people 
 to the minimum frequency of communicating. I am quite aware 
 that people will judge differently which is best, fasting or fre- 
 quency. I learnt early to value the rule of regular Communions, 
 and I think frequency. There is at least some reason to consider 
 whether the old arrangements of the services were not the most 
 suitable and also the most primitive. Our Church intended Mattins 
 to precede the Holy Communion, and that Hoh" Communion should 
 follow Mattins as a separate service. The practice of Winchester 
 Cathedral till lately seems to have followed the intention in 
 latter days best, when Mattins were at 8 and Holy Communion 
 at 10. I read that this was the use of Southwell Minster. 
 Celebrations before Mattins were an innovation at about the 
 same date as celebrations after Evensong. AVhen I was an 
 Undergraduate, I was made aware that attendance at them verged 
 on being penal. AVe who have enjoj^ed early celebrations ought 
 to remember that others have objected to them as much as we 
 to evening ones. At the time they were introduced neither formed 
 a part of j^arty controversy, nor do I think it. a worthy view to 
 make them a party question. I adhere to my instinctive opinion 
 that our Sunday evening services are not the best times for the 
 Holy Communion. And I am certainly moved b}' the results of 
 the very careful examinations which have led those Bishops who 
 began them to abandon them, not lightly, but on conviction 
 of their not being the best. But all the people cannot 
 have the best, I am afraid. And in parishes where earnest clergy 
 have judged, simply from knowledge of their people, that there 
 are classes of people excommunicated by rules of early and 
 fasting Communion, I have made up my mind, from the time 
 that I had to form a practical judgment on the question as
 
 54 
 
 Bishop for this Diocese, that clergy must be trusted to "balance 
 the necessit}' and danger, and to employ the new method, if 
 there is justif^-ing occasion, with the same venture as we are 
 ready to shew in what some peojile feel sensational mission 
 revivals. 
 
 ' Sacramental Confession.' If hy this is meant, as I have 
 gathered, that before communicating a person is bound always 
 to make a private confession to a priest and receive private 
 absolution, I cannot express too strongly my utter dissent from 
 such a rule of compulsory private confession. I may be very 
 ignorant, but I cannot understand how it can be compatible with 
 any frequency of Communion. I own that I do not know 
 practical details of working the system, but supposing the 
 numbers returned as conimunicating on Easter Day were to be 
 weekly, not to say daily, communicants at the early hours which 
 would be necessary, I cannot imagine the feat of their ' being 
 privately confessed.' If the object is to bring their absolution 
 up to the moment of Communion, nothing else coidd even 
 profess to satisfy this. Man}" things may happen in a night. 
 An}i:hing less complete seem to fail as much as an essential rule 
 does if dispensation is admitted. Anything less ceases to claim 
 discussion as Sacramental Confession, and to fall under the 
 distinct and more general question of Compidsory Confession, or 
 what is called the system of the Confessional. 
 
 The high motive with which such a system is advocated again; 
 the amount of laxity requiring to be braced, which it is hoped to 
 discipline by confession ; the blessing which pious people so 
 disposed have found in its j)ractice ; and the natural fitness of 
 offering to all who need help and advice and comfort, oppor- 
 tunities for ' opening their grief ' : all these claim and have my 
 full recognition. But they do not prevent my feeling and sa^dng 
 most strongly, that there is no one of the mediaeval developments 
 which I believe to be so deadly, both to priest and people, as the 
 system included in the Confessional. I shall, however, only 
 speak of its enfeebling character. A priest stands as spiritual 
 doctor ; and a doctor's assurance to a patient that he is out of 
 danger when his malady has reached that point, is not a more 
 real or natural help to recovery, than the discreet spiritual 
 doctor's assurance to a spiritual patient, that his repentance and 
 amendment have reached forgiveness, and need be no more a 
 burden. An awakened sinner may well seek such assurance 
 before beginning to communicate. But to make it oven * a 
 counsel of perfection, ' that pious Christians should not draw near 
 in faith without having a priest's permission, is an enfeebling
 
 55 
 
 valetudinarian system, only to be comjiared to healthy people 
 being required to ask their doctor's leave to eat their breakfast. 
 To make it a routine for all sorts and conditions of men, is a 
 system about which I happily feol no call to speak. It is to me 
 simply incredible. We must however remember that the aim of 
 Sacramental confession professes to be Spiritual restoration, and 
 so it represents a belief that Sacramental efficacy is not mechani- 
 cal or material, but depends on the Spiritual condition of the 
 recipient. In this respect it j)resents the same happy inconsis- 
 tency with materialism as is presented by so many of the 
 extt^nials supposed to be associated wdth the Eoman materialist 
 theory. 
 
 ' Ceremonial. ' I pass, thirdly, to the separate points of ceremonial 
 which have caused dispute. The three questions affecting them are, 
 1 . Xre they legally admissible either as old uses never abrogated, or 
 as good additions not prohibited by omission of directions for them? 
 On this CjUfstion of legality I have said throughout that I am 
 not intending now to speak at all. 2. Ai'e they symbolic, i.e. 
 used to teach particular doctrines or ideas, or are they aesthetic, 
 i.e. used to stir worshippers through their senses ? 3. If they 
 are sjTaboIic of doctrine, is the doctrine English or Koman ? It 
 will be simplest to take the last question first. Because none of 
 the disputed points. The Eastward Position, Altar Lights, Vest- 
 ments, II}Tiins, Incense, or even Ceremonial Ablutions, befit a 
 Eoman better than an English Sacramental doctrine. Neither 
 s^Tiibolically nor aesthetically do they imply material more 
 natiu^ally than Spiritual Presence of Christ. I admit that revivers 
 of the Ceremonial, when pressed not to disc|uiet people for trifles, 
 have spoken darkly of their importance for 'the Doctrine,' but 
 as they never said what doctrine, and repudiate any disloyal 
 teaching, I suppose this to have been only a mystification to 
 maintain the Ceremonial. That sense of mystification has dis- 
 credited the Ceremonial : but that is not my point. My point is 
 that the Ceremonial is more reasonably fitted to imj^ly the English 
 doctrine of Spiritual Presence than the Poman of material, and 
 therefore, unless Poman doctrine be avowed, it need not be pre- 
 sumed, and if avowed, it should be dealt wdth in itself. Without 
 ignoring the dark utterances to which I have referred, I am 
 nevertheless convinced, that the lovers of Ceremonial have 
 generally no idea of any but Spiritual worship in the Sacrament. 
 That Sjjiritual worship is aided for them by these accessories. 
 To them the Ceremonial is not Pomish nor superstitious, but an 
 uplifting help to true Spiritual worship, and it is clearer-sighted as 
 well as larger-hearted to connect these aids with full and careful
 
 56 
 
 teaching of Sijiritual Sacramental doctrine, tlian to condemn 
 tliem as conveying erroneous doctrine, which does not naturally 
 belong to them. In this resj^ect it is that I regard words differently 
 from Ceremonial. Ceremonial may be brought in as part of Romish 
 system, but it need not be brought in for anything but its own 
 use, and requires teaching to make it Romish : words must be 
 brought in for their meaning. Ceremonial not only need 
 not suit error better than truth, but it need not mean any 
 teaching at all beside dignity in worship. Before Ceremonies 
 can be called symbolic, the doctrine must first be established. A 
 doctrine once established, it will be legitimate to illustrate it by 
 parables from Ceremonial, or to create Ceremonial to illustrate it 
 by parables. But ornaments may be turned by individual fancy 
 to all manner of parables, and it cannot be supj)osed that 
 individual fancy would therefore be entitled to interpret the 
 Church to teach all that fancy's parables, because She uses the 
 ornaments. The Church must interpret her emblems herself. 
 Individuals have no right to state their own parables as Church 
 doctrines. Flights of rhetorical fancy have been only too 
 readily taken in all ages of the Church as matter-of-fact definite 
 teaching about religious emblems. Symbolism may be a 
 poetical language of Ceremonial, and poetry may be the 
 vehicle of inexpressible truths, but it is mere arguing in a 
 circle to imagine a particular meaning for an existing 
 Ceremonial, and then say that the use of the Ceremonial 
 proves that meaning to be recognized by the Church as true. 
 Of course the difference presented above between words and 
 Ceremonies is one only of degree. Ceremonies may be brought 
 in because they are Romish, and with an ulterior object of 
 arguing in a circle about them that their acceptance means the 
 acceptance of Romish doctrine. I am aware that much of the 
 objection to advances in ritual has risen from suspicion of such 
 motives, and I do not say thai there has been nothing to create that 
 suspicion. But even so they have been introduced and accepted 
 on the professed ground of their being beautiful and helpful in 
 themselves. And I believe most people are prepared to consider 
 them in themselves now, as aesthetic accessories simply, which 
 maj^ be judged as simply matters of feeling or ta^te. The form 
 of worship has itself, of course, formed a marked difference 
 between the two Churches, apart from doctrine. But English 
 feeling may have changed about our form of worship without 
 its thought changing in regard to our doctrine. That it has 
 universally so changed is clearly not true. Dislike to much 
 Ceremonial in itself exists in full strength, in some, maybe,
 
 57 
 
 simj^ly fi'om habit or ' Puritan prejudice,' but in very many 
 from preference for simplicity over the distractions created by 
 acts and accessories which seem trivial, or theatrical, or tedious. 
 Older men feel that the quiet reverent company ' where hearts 
 are of each other sure,' which has been their ideal of Christian 
 Communion, is more precious to them than the music, the 
 glitter, the paraphernalia, the crowd, the half-hearted non- 
 coimuunicants and children, substituted for that peaceful 
 solemnity as the highest act of worship. But this is an age 
 when parents must obey their children, and old people ought, no 
 doubt, to be more independent of surroundings than young, and 
 in matters of taste and feehng, if 3'ounger Churchmanship needs 
 to be wakened more than soothed, by all means waken it. At 
 any rate, accessories are matters of taste or feehng, not of 
 doctrine or principle. Their degree ought to be regulated by 
 fitness for each congregation. But before men condemn the 
 development of accessories as superstitious, each should consider 
 whether their own devotion never needs to be wakened, so that 
 they can call it superstitious for others to wish for helps to 
 waken theirs. I may myself like services as short and simple as 
 may be, I may fijid Ceremonial distracting, and fear its 
 becoming artificial and engrossing, and deprecate, therefore, its 
 elaboration. Many are of this mind. They claim consideration 
 fi'om the clergy. But can we say that others who love richness 
 of music, art, and ceremony must be less real or more super- 
 stitious than ourselves ? TVTien I think how devotion flags, even 
 at the most solemn ser^dces, I cannot call it superstition to con- 
 centrate devotion up to its fullest tension, at least for one central 
 moment, by any aids which may stir people's senses as well as 
 thought to waken them out of themselves to worship. That is 
 the aim of Sacramental Ceremonial, and in that aim it is not 
 S}Tnbolic, but aesthetic ; it is not doctrinal, but emotional ; it is 
 not Romish, but human. The Spiritual Presence supposed by 
 every act of worship is surely enough to make a real believer in 
 it bow down even to the ground, without suspicion of disloyalty, 
 superstition, idolatry. The more we insist on the Spiritual 
 operation of the Sacrament on the soul, the more natural we 
 make it to add to the act of worship every appeal available to 
 stir the worshippers' spirit to its fullest activity and most 
 impressionable self-surrender. Were it a material power in the 
 Elements to which we looked to transmute the soul through the 
 body, such material operation might disj^ense with Art and 
 Ceremonial. Ceremonial is no doubt in one aspect the pubKc 
 expression of the joint homage of the whole body of worshippers
 
 58 
 
 to Grod ; but even therein it seems to carry each separate wor- 
 shipper away to join that homage of Praise to the Spiritual 
 Presence which is the centre of all worship, and in that self- 
 surrender to Communion with Him. Spirit seeks the operation 
 of Spirit in the Sacrament. Surely, and even therefore, the 
 human Spirit — compounded as it is of divers parts, not only of 
 reason, memory-, and thought, hut of sensations also, which so 
 enwrap our attention — finds help in stirring accessories of 
 Ceremonial. 
 
 I will now touch the several points disputed. 
 
 ' Eastward Position.' Wlien I supposed that the natural 
 meaning of a Rubric's words was the only point to detennine, Icame 
 to the opinion (that the Table being shaped and placed as it is, 
 and end not being side) the only question answered exactly by 
 the Rubric's direction was. Is the Priest to begin by standing 
 at the centre, or the north side ? And though very ready to 
 stand at the north end, when so ordered, I judged mj^self the 
 literal phrase to be more exactly satisfied by standing at the north 
 front corner. But I am lapsing into legal questions, and will 
 pass on. The change from north end to west side is the most 
 observable of the changes, and it may be used most perversely 
 to contradict the spirit of our ser^dce, if the Priest is led to 
 imitate Romish practice in making acts or prayers secret. But 
 in itself, it is Congregational rather than Sacerdotal, according 
 to the reply of the Bishops to the Puritans, that ' For what is 
 addressed to the people, it is fit to turn towards them, but for 
 i (fining with them in prayer, to turn with them.' In this respect 
 it is like the adoption of surpliced choirs, processional entrances 
 met by Congregational rising, a choir-seat instead of reading- 
 desk for the Minister, and other unifications of Minister with 
 people, instead of the Parson's separate di-ess entrance and 
 position. It has sometimes been wondered that people anxious 
 to emphasize the Consecration did not welcome the judgment 
 that the Consecration should be marked by the Priest moving 
 then to the front from the north end. Mechanical retort wonders 
 that people who were not anxious for that, did not welcome the 
 permanent eastward position which diminished that emphasis. 
 For the Consecration I cannot question that the natural position 
 is at the front centre, and that the process of carrying the vessels 
 round to the north end is needless clumsiness. For the earlier 
 part of the service, the north end may reasonably have been 
 adopted that the minister might see the peojile and be heard 
 by them. It would represent the j^rinciple of our Church 
 that the Services ought to be ' understanded of the people.'
 
 59 
 
 The fitness of the eastward position does not extend to ' what is 
 addressed to the peojile,' whether Scripture, Exhortations, 
 Sermon, or Notices. But as a fact it does not usually impede 
 the people's hearing, but only the Minister's seeing. Nor does it 
 make any difficulty about ' the manual acts ' being seen. If 
 men brood over the elements on their elbows as for some secret 
 performance, that is a wilful violation of the Rubric, but it is 
 difficult to see how such an undignified attitude can be called 
 Sacrificial or Sacerdotal. In the middle ages it was called 
 Necromantic. 
 
 'Altar and altarwise position.' A\Tien or why western churches 
 adopted the table-shape and east wall place, is an unsolved 
 problem. They were not primitive, nor are they Eastern 
 Christian, any more than they were Jewish, Greek, Homan, 
 or Egyptian. An altar is an altar from its use, not its position. 
 Our usual present position suits churches built to it, and forms a 
 chief centre to unite worship. But in many of oiu' deep chancels, 
 t;he primitive place at the arc of the presbj^tery would serve as 
 well : and still better the place, used in some foreign churches, at 
 the east of the nave. Disengagement from the east wall does 
 not make a table, nor east wall place an altar. A tablewise 
 position might be made by setting seats round and making Com- 
 municants sit round ; but all the rubrics of our service con- 
 tradict that usage. As contrast to that, any arrangement which 
 supposes worship and kneeling may be called altarwise. But 
 whether Altar, as the place for sacrifice, is English or Romish, is 
 simply the question what sacrifice is meant. This we have dis- 
 cussed before. As a place for slaying a victim, it is not primitive 
 or English, whether it be Romish or not. As a place for pre- 
 senting offerings, it is primitive and may well be English, though 
 our Liturgy does not employ it. Wherever and in the same 
 sense as sacrifice is retained in our Liturgy, altar is its corre- 
 lative. But ' The Lord's Table ' scarcely differs from Altar. It 
 does not imply a social meal of men, but the Lord's Feast offered 
 to God in His Memorial, from which His sacred food is ministered 
 to His servants, kneeling in sacred obeisance at reverent dis- 
 tance. So regarded. Table and Altar are the same. Still it is 
 true that altar is more entirely a word of religion, and supposing 
 of course its meaning to be rightly defined by true teaching 
 about our sacrifice, the satisfaction of its greater solemnity 
 involves no superstition, Oiu* Church uses the word in one of 
 her services. Our Lord directs His disciples to bring their gifts 
 to the Altar. Though ' Table ' is a name in use in the early 
 writers, Altar is the name of most natural and common use. Its 
 
 I
 
 60 
 
 revival among us is too general to bear any sjiecial controTersial 
 meaning, and marks only a sense of sacred dignity. 
 
 ' Altar Lights.' The Symbolism attributed to these could 
 not be called Eomish at any rate, but really it seems disabled by 
 diversity of interpretati(m, e.g., the Divine and human nature of 
 Christ, the Word and the Spirit, the Old and New Testament, &c. 
 Two lights may symbolize any pair of illuminating powers : but 
 without authoritative interpretation they s^-mltolizo none in par- 
 ticular. They give a feeling of life. Flame has been felt in all 
 religions the most immaterial symbol of living unearthy power 
 and purity. One central unextinguished light, like that of 
 Vesta, might be more fitting than the pair of candles which 
 have to be unnaturally gigantic not to look like furniture. So 
 in Eoman Churches a constant lamp makes them feel alive. 
 Only then its symbolism of a li\dng presence is contradicted by 
 the other more special Eomish symbol to which it is attached. 
 So oui' ' Altar Lights ' woiJd be contradictory sjTnbols of 
 Christ's presence at the time when Sacramental s}Tnbols are 
 presenting Him otherwise. But no meaning can be attached to 
 them which would make them imply Eomish more than English 
 doctrine. At first ihey were lighted at the Gospel, to signifj^ The 
 Light of the World. Feeble as they are in broad daj^light, they 
 suggest disparaging questions. If they were adduced as evidential 
 survivals of very Early Celebrations, they might consistently be 
 disused at hours when forced meanings have to be invented to 
 account for lights. ' Altar Candlesticks ' stood not only in 
 cathedrals and colleges when I was a boy, but in very un- 
 Eomish churches, before early celebrations were re^dved or 
 evening Communions invented. The candles were not lighted. 
 So little did the churchwardens value their lighting power, that 
 when evening ser\dces were begun in our parish church, a ver}' 
 un-Eomish old lady had to pro\dde wax candles that it might 
 not be the only dark place. Eossibly churchwardens would not 
 now keep lights burning through the week, at least in churches 
 where people do not resort. But to many people an everburning 
 light would be a simple and meaning symbol, fitted for all times 
 when more specially Christian spnbols are not presenting more 
 special teaching. Candles lighted ceremonially during the 
 service belong, of course, to a distinct siibject, already discussed, 
 as sensational dramatic accessories. 
 
 ' Vestments.' The ritual of speciitl vestments for the Sacrament 
 and the ritual of a black gown for preaching need not now be discussed. 
 Special dress for marriages, funerals, sacraments, and seasons has 
 much to say for itself. So has the unchanging ministry presenting
 
 61 
 
 itself the same in all its offices. I was glad when the black gown 
 was simplified away even from sermons which were not so clearly 
 parts of the service as those in the Communion service. I am well 
 pleased that my official scarf does not change colour. But when I 
 wear my Cathedral cope, as the Canons hid me, I feel no change of 
 doctrine induced in me by it. Even a richer one would not make me 
 contradict the Prayerbook. Chasubles are still Sub Judice, but as 
 regards Symbolism, if Chasubles are called ' S:icrificial ' (which I 
 think a very unhistoric account of their origin), that only brings up 
 again the twice discussed question, about the meanings of Sacrifice. 
 But when vestments are said to be essential for * doctrine,' I wonder 
 what the doctrine can be, which was not able to be held (say) by 
 Keble or Pusey, who were certainly not Vestiarians. Rich dresses 
 are things in themselves. As I said in my last Charge, travellers 
 liked their unaccustomed gorgeousness and wanted to have at home 
 what they admired abroad. It was not as symbolising doctrine, 
 but as more beautiful, that those who liked these liked them, and 
 the objections about them have rested on preference for simplicity 
 over magnificence. No doubt taste for the former has been called 
 Puritan, taste for the latter Popish, but people are now generally 
 prepared to judge them on their merits apart from either prejudice. 
 For it is prejudice alike to say, Vestments shew false teaching, or 
 Teaching depends on Vestments. Vestments are of all things matter 
 for each Church to regulate, and in each Church its regulations need 
 not prescribe uniformity. In cathedrals, parish churches, private 
 chapels, such accessories may fitly diff'er in proportion. Rules for 
 parish churches must respect the old maxim, * Sectetiir partem 
 co/iclusio doteriorem,^ and not prescribe impossibilities for the poor. 
 But that would not be a sensible limitation on private chapels, 
 where taste and cost are no public concern. 
 
 * Music' Xo Symbolism is attached to music simply. The 
 general question of its use as an accessory has been enough dis- 
 cussed. It is the accessory which by common consent may most 
 reasonably be used sometimes and omitted at others. Our special 
 sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving is as such a service for music. 
 Our special Communion Service is more peaceful without, for people 
 who wish to pray : though hymns during times of waiting may 
 help those who have no thoughts of their own. To protract early 
 celebrations with tedious music at unmusical hours keeps people 
 away, Music, beautiful at S. Paul's, is distressing in a midland 
 village. But these are all questions of feeling or expediency. 
 Music belongs to praise if to anything. In regard to music at The 
 Sacrament, the objections have been to particular hymns, and on 
 the ground that they imply Romish doctrine. I have been unable
 
 62 
 
 to see that the Agnus Dei is more Komish at one time in the service 
 than at another, and if any hymn is fitting for the moment when 
 worshippers are dwelling specially on Christ's atonement, it is that, 
 A Spiritual Presence is more fitted to he saluted with the hymns, 
 * Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,' and ' Lamb 
 of God, that taketh awa} the sins of the world,' than any imagi- 
 nation of a material presence of which such words could only be 
 imperfectly true in a lower sense. The Benedictus has indeed dis- 
 appeared from our Communion service, but all the other music, com- 
 posed by the great masters for the Roman Mass, are settings for words 
 forming parts of our service, and th'^ir music has no Romishness about 
 it, nor are lovers of their music more Romish for being so. The music 
 is the music. 
 
 * Incense.' This is probably to most English people the most 
 foreign accessory, and it has probably been most advocated for 
 Symbolism. But I think that really it is of all the one most a 
 matter of taste. It will scarcely represent to many the presence of 
 the Holy Spirit, which is its interpretation, except when it is said 
 to present the upfloating of prayers, because in the Revelation the 
 incense of heaven is said to be the prayers of saints. Either meaning 
 is, however, at any rate apart from Roman controversy. Nothing 
 could fall more completely under the general question of more or 
 less accessories. It maybe to some an uplifting sensuous accessory, 
 to others an unmeaning distraction or even a distasteful annoyance. 
 I have no taste for it, but if it is to be used, I must say that I have 
 no sympathy with the special limitation imposed on its use. !New 
 light may perhaps rank it with other accessories in this. Its foreign- 
 ness is its objection, and though our chilly, dark climate might seem 
 to make it just the accessory for our churches, it feels to me to befit 
 better the finer southern atmospheres where it does not hang heavy 
 like a fog. A graver, aesthetic doubt about its fitness for us lies in 
 its performance. The more subtle the accessory the finer must be 
 its exhibition. Soundless southern movements and sentimental 
 southern faces in natural accord with Ceremonial seem to belong to 
 the dreamy influence of incense. Rough, honest Englishmen and shy 
 awkward English boys swing censers with less fascinating artlessness 
 than supple southern acolytes with southern quickness formed by 
 heredity and drill to perfect artistic simplicity. I have been censed 
 by even a trained English curate, but the force and enjoyment of 
 his thoroughness were not ethereal, nor its unexpected influence 
 uplifting. However, if the drill is worth the time, incense is only 
 one more sensuous accessory of movement, cloud, and fragiance, 
 occupying people's senses with effects which grow to be associated 
 with church and worship. It is neither sacred nor heretical, but a 
 matter of taste.
 
 63 
 
 In the remaining small point of minor gestures, such as crossings, 
 genuflections, elevations, prostrations, the question is not so clear. 
 For crossings, bowings, turnings, genuflections, the reguluting 
 principle seems to be their reality and adequate dignity, and that 
 will set limits to frequency and demonstrativeness, so as to avoid as 
 far as possible the impression or the feeling of rule, routine for- 
 mality, and attitudinising. For example, To bow in obeisance to 
 the Divine Presence on entering and leaving Church, is only what 
 belief in that Presence suggests naturally to all who would shew 
 such respect to human dignity or friend. But perpetual repetitions 
 are as much out of place in one case as the other. To turn to the 
 East at the recital of Creeds is one of the oldest Church forms of 
 special profession, which is liable to be weakened by frequent 
 repetitions at other points of the service. But the personal reality of 
 reverence in leader and teacher will be the conditioning element of 
 reality to all enlisted in a system of such minor acts. That they help 
 devotion as constant reminders is clearly very often true ; that they 
 may be formal fidgets hard to maintain with meaning is no less often 
 true. Their fitness is marred by multiplication, which tends 
 to lower them to triviality from solemnity. But it is rare now to 
 see excess in such demonstrativeness, and the reduction of trivial 
 manneiisms in the present decade encourages the assurance that 
 nothing sickly or theatrical survives long. When made parts 
 of ministerial ceremonial, I cannot speak of them so simply. 
 Sometimes they seem to contradict the solemn unity of greater 
 acts, by being made petty and distracting adjuncts to them ; 
 as in Benediction, the sign of the Cross brings in a second 
 contrary idea, which, if of constant truth, has no fitness for acts of 
 special character. Still this scarcely needs observation. I cannot 
 say this of some elevations and prostrations. No impulsive 
 uplifting can be too high for offerings to God, no obeisance 
 too low for the great mercies of God, of which the Sacra- 
 ment is memorial. Prostration is more reasonable for a 
 believer, than to sit unmoved from mere fear of soiling dress or 
 trouser. But it is not in transport of impulsive worship that the paten 
 is lifted, not in the manner of offering, but in the manner of 
 exhibition, with ingenious devices to present a wafer over the 
 Priest's head to the people behind ; and if a Priest takes on him- 
 self at the moment of such artificial elevation to interpolate into 
 a service, to every minute point in which importance is attached, 
 Behold the Lamb of God ; and if after such special act and words 
 he prostrates himself ; he cannot expect ordinary comprehension to 
 discriminate that particular combination of acts and words from the 
 ' Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians,' which is so
 
 64 
 
 clearly, in the last Rubric of our Communion Service, declared not 
 to be taught or countenanced in that service. Ceremonial accessories 
 and even hymns stand in varying degrees outside of the oflBice : but 
 if a Priest presumes to omit sentences, because he does not like them, 
 or introduce sentences to emphasize his particular views, his fault 
 is the more serious from the importance attached by him to the 
 alterations and the importance which he knows to be attached to 
 the service. 
 
 ' The mixed Chalice.' This seems made a question of archaeology, 
 not of doctrine : to be revived, not for Symbolism, but for unity 
 with primitive and general practice. Few could think of mixing 
 wine and water as a symbol of the union of Priest and people. I 
 do not know that any one disputes that the Cup must have been 
 mixed at the Paschal Institution. In the ]\Iediterranean regions of 
 primitive Christianity wine was not drunk at meals without water : 
 Unmixed wine was called ' Sheer,' and to drink it was what drinking 
 raw spirits is with us. That the Sacramental Chalice under special 
 circumstances was diluted to an extreme degree, sufficing to meet 
 total abstainers' difficulties, we learn from S. Cyprian. But the 
 argument from this to ourselves rests on the disputable premiss, that 
 we are bound to have the same Cup as that of the Institution, which 
 mioht as well require the wine to come from Palestine. A Ceremonial 
 drop of water in the wine is not the original Cup, of half wine half 
 water. And if that Cup was diluted, not for any Ceremonial Sym- 
 bolism, but (which is the only basis of assuming that it was diluted at 
 all) only because it was the way of drinking customary in the country at 
 the time, it would seem that it gave us the example of using the Cup 
 customary in each country. In England it has been often, and even 
 judicially, thought a cheat to water the wine, and the best and richest 
 wine has been the rule for provision. Such an idea seems as honorable 
 as that of uniformity with countries of different habits. It is an abuse 
 of language to speak of an unmixed Cup separating us from Catholic 
 Christendom ; as it would be to say that, because at the feast of 
 unleavened bread the bread at the Institution was unleavened, there- 
 fore the Sacramental bread must always be unleavened, or because the 
 Institution was in an Upper Chamber, the Sacrament must always be 
 in an Upper Chamber, or because there were twelve Apostles there 
 must always be. All which things have been said by different people. 
 I only observe further : 1. That the disuse of water is an alteration 
 distinctly made in our service ; 2. That if the Cup is mixed, it 
 seems more worthy to do it openly : 3. That if customs have 
 varied as to the time and place of mixing, even custom leaves that 
 open ; 4. That the unmixed Cup is what the Kubric directs. 
 
 ' Ceremonial Ablutions.' On the last of the ritual points I shall
 
 65 
 
 be thought, perhaps, unreasonable myself in having personal feeling 
 about a point which has now been judged to be outside of all con- 
 sideration. The name had seemed to me to imply that they were 
 regarded as Ceremonial, and the elaborateness of gradation prescribed 
 for their execution has baffled my attainment, ^'hy unconsecrated 
 wine should be subject for so much more precise order than conse- 
 crated, I have not been instructed, nor how, after the most scrupulous 
 execution, the object can be secured that no infinitesimal solution of 
 the consecrated wine should remain to be absorbed by the final 
 abstertion. But these questions have not exercised me, so much as 
 what seems to me (strangely, perhaps, but very decidedly) to be the 
 inconsistent irreverence of cleansing the vessels upon the place 
 which those who advocate the practice exalt to the highest sacred- 
 ness. Be it Table, or be it Altar, how is the place of Sacred Feast, 
 still more if it is the place of Sacrifice, the place for cleansing 
 vessels ? I desire that all things be done decently and in order : I 
 would not call scjupulosity superstitious : I see the matter left for 
 reverent discretion : but Eabbinical minuteness has no dignity, and. 
 the method of Ceremonial ablutions seems to me to frustrate its 
 purpose of reverence. I do not myself undertake them. Where 
 they are wished, I leave them to the clergy responsible. They 
 offend my sense of fitness, however unreasonably. 
 
 If I am expected to say what I should myself direct for this 
 necessary work, which is judged to be no part of the service, and 
 for which no directions have been thought necessary by our Church, 
 1 am content, so far as reverence is concerned, that the vessels be 
 cleansed at the Credence Table. But I prefer that, the service 
 ended, no state of slovenly disorder be thought fit in Church, but 
 that the vessels be left * covered with a fair linen cloth ' either in 
 their place or on the Credence Table, while the people go avvay, and 
 afterwards one of the clergy should return for the vessels and cleanse 
 them at the Piscina, if there be one, or in the Yestry or Sacristy. I 
 do not mean that cleansing the vessels is a priestly office, or that 
 laymen are not holy enough for that. But I gladly welcome the 
 clergy's reverent care. 
 
 These are the thoughts which I have for some time prepared to 
 lay before the Diocese on these disputed points of ritual. I hope 
 that they may come as ghosts flitting over deserted battle-fields, 
 shadows of judgments which might have interested when they were 
 suppressed. I have spoken untechnically, and left law and the 
 courts alone, j^ot that I think that no one regards them, for I 
 believe that much of the past distress has been only caused by 
 doubts if things might legally be done; and now that new light 
 has shewn old mistakes, such people will feel happily relieved of a
 
 66 
 
 responsibility But that has not been my particular object, but 
 rather to use this opportunity of my Visitation to publish my 
 opinions on questions, which I have been asked during these 
 years, when circumstances imposed reserve at the time, but which 
 I feel it due to the Diocese and also to myself to take the first 
 proper opportunity of answering publicly. 
 
 May I say, that what has struck me most repeatedly in these dis- 
 cussions is, that the objections raised on the points insisted on by 
 what I must venture to call different schools in the Church, have 
 been just the opposite to what I should myself have expected their 
 principles, as generally understood, to suggest ? This has often 
 encouraged me to hope that fresh consideration of such points may 
 so shift their aspects as to extend greatly the range of agreement, 
 and also to reduce diflferences from the level of principles to the 
 level of personal preferences. 
 
 Some of the questions have come into the public arena since I 
 was engaged on this publication, but I have scarcely had occasion to 
 add anything in consequence 
 
 Some considerations on particular points in the Communion 
 Service I have omitted, because a very able and complete treat- 
 ment of the Communion Service has been published by the Bishop 
 of Salisbury as his Visitation Charge for 1891, which I commend to 
 my brethren, and which I feel it superfluous to repeat. 
 
 As I began, so I will end, by saying, that in the Midlands it is 
 rare for questions about Eucharistic doctrine and methods to be 
 raised. It does not follow that when they rise they are not acute, or 
 that I have not had occasion to reflect on them. But I do not think 
 that cases are more than singular, where the people have cause to 
 complain of want of considerateness on the part of their clergy. Nor 
 do I fi.nd that if a clergyman is a man of zeal and sympathy with 
 his people, and is respected for his character and sense of duty, there 
 is much disposition on the part of the people to quarrel with his 
 methods even if they are not what would be chosen by them. 
 Varieties of method affect town parishes comparatively little, now 
 that our town churches intt rchange parishioners so freely. In vil- 
 lai?es adherence to the methods of the Prayerbook is of the gravest 
 consequence, both as the via media in which all may unite, and as 
 what villagers can feel comes to them with full authority. What they 
 expect and have a right to expect is loyalty to the Church of England 
 as represented to them by the Prayerbook. Loyalty to the Church 
 of England as her ministers and human sympathy with English 
 people as brothers, are the two things needful in clergy for trust 
 and regard. To believe iu the Church of England and in the English 
 people is an English clergyman's earthly wisdom and strength, ^o
 
 67 
 
 other church combines the excellencies of the Church of England fo r 
 the free sober thoughtful independent Godfearing people of England, 
 whose religious reverence has been formed on the Bible and by the 
 Sunday. Other nations may have formed theirs on other bases. 
 That does not so much concern us. Spartam nactus es, hanc orna. 
 English people are our people, it is for them English clergy have to 
 live and think and work and pray. The primitive way of being 
 Catholic was to be National, and that is, and let us hope will long 
 continue, our English way. The Bidding Prayer calls on us to Pray 
 for Christ's Holy Catholic Church, especially that pure and Apostolic 
 Branch of it established in this realm. But we need not care to 
 assert that by adding an epithet to its name of Church of England, 
 any more than we need state its history as being, not a Church which 
 joined simply, like German princes, in protest against Roman errors, 
 but a Church which reformed them. It need not call itself Catholic 
 or call itself Reformed, but simply the Church of England. Its 
 standard is the Prayerbook. Laxity of custom seems to condone 
 neglect which falls short of our Prayerbook' s directions, but such 
 neglect is as lawless as excess beyond them, and it furnishes a 
 natural justification ad hominem against complaints of excess. The 
 Prayerbook is the rule which the clergy have promised to follow, 
 and whatever can be shewn to be ordered in it will be accepted by 
 the people. It is a noble inheritance with which the clergy and the 
 people will be wise to be content, and to unite in developing the 
 robust Churchmanship contained in its principles. The young and 
 earnest require some subject of contention, in which they shall be 
 better than their fathers. May they seek it where it is to be found, 
 in the spiritual war with sin and misery and ignorance and discord, 
 which fills the social life of our crowded and struggling population I 
 M"ay they as true sons of the Church of England see and keep the 
 true law of proportion, in which specially our Church seeks to follow 
 the Gospel ! May they contend for the weightier matters of the Law 
 Justice Mercy and Truth, and their Ceremonial will be real and 
 reverent. PrcBcipue in Christi pace permaneant. 
 
 PRINTED BY J. WHITTINGHAM, SorTHWELL,