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TKACTAKIAN PRACfebES

IN

PROTESTANT CHURCHES:

THREE LETTERS,
REPRINTED FROM THE " CHRISTIAN GUARDIAN,"
AND NOW ADDRESSED
TO THE RIGHT HON. AND RIGHT REV.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON,
AND THE
PROTESTANT CHURCHMEN OF THE DIOCESE.

LONDON:
J. H. JACKSON, ISLINGTON GREEN;
SEELEYS, FLEET STREET AND HANOVER STREET..

1850,
Pi-ice Sixpence.

TO THE RIGHT HON. AND RIGHT REV.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON.

My Lord,
The facts narrated in the following letters deserve
and demand your Lordship's attention. We have within
pur Church a body of men, who, under the guise of being
restorers of Church principles and practices, are now ac
tively and boldly standing out from their brethren, both in
the matter and manner of their ministry. They teach, as
far as prudence will let them go, Romish doctrines ; while
their churches and their practices exhibit far more of an
approximation to Romish adornments and usages, than are
recognized by the scriptural simplicity of the Reformed
Church of England.
The doings of this ultra high church party are not con
fined to your Lordship's diocese ; unfortunately they are
now pretty widely spread among the towns and the villages
of our country, where they are turning our churches into
imitations of mass-houses, and where the Church, with its
commandments and observances, is preached, in place of
the simple Gospel of the grace of God.
We Churchmen are taunted by Dissenters with the
allowed efforts of these men to Romanize the Church ; they
see our bishops look calmly on, while candlesticks, crosses,
flowers, intonings, superstitious practices, and perversions
of the Protestant faith, find their way, and retain their
hold, unchecked, within our churches. And what wonder,
that Dissenters enquire in vain as to the real value of Pro
testant Episcopacy !

But, my Lord, the diocese of London is notorious for
these things ; and can it be true, either that your Lordship
alone is ignorant, or that you are satisfied that such prac
tices should exist in places under your Lordship's episcopal
authority ?
Can your Lordship, as a bishop of our Reformed Church,
worship with satisfaction in the churches of St. Paul,
Knightsbridge ; Christ Church, Albany Street; or Margaret
Street Chapel; while such scenes as the following letters
describe are being enacted? Or doesyour Lordship think that
they are calculated to promote that attachment to our Church
among wise and true-hearted churchmen which it should
be your Lordship's aim to encourage and strengthen.
My Lord, it is but too apparent whither this Tractarian
movement is leading its votaries. Your Lordship must call
to mind many who, beguiled for a while by the fascinations
of these Tractarians, have been nursed and trained for
open discipleship with Rome. Does not the thought ever
occur to your Lordship, that the most subtle agents of
Rome are busy in this work of undermining, harrassing,
and dividing a Church which ought to be a faithful and
living witness against that apostacy which it is their object
to re-establish, by means of weak, or perhaps false
brethren ?
But, my Lord, it is needless to write thus, when, from
your Lordship's position, you must know what is going on
in the churches under your charge; the question which
arises in my mind, and in the minds of many thousands
besides, is this, — Is your Lordship with this school, or
against it ? Do you approve of this mockery of Church of
England worship, or do you condemn its Romish character
as utterly inconsistent with the spirit of our Protestant Es
tablished Church ? The clergy of your diocese have a right
to expect that you should plainly declare yourself on the
one side or on the other. The sound Protestant laity,

who, God be thanked, far outnumber those who sympathize
with the Exeters, the Bennetts, and the Dodsworths of our
day, — these have a right to learn from your Lordship's
lips, and your plain unwavering line of conduct, whether
you are the friend of the pioneers and schoolmasters of
Rome, or whether you are content to be ranked amongst
the true successors of a Cranmer, a Ridley, and a
Latimer. Your Lordship has been invested with a fearful amount
of responsibility in this portion of Christ's Church on earth,
but you must one day stand before the throne of the Great
Shepherd and Bishop of the universal Church, with the
millions who have lived during your episcopate, and who
shall also stand to be judged with you at the bar of God ;
and has your- Lordship no fears, that of the number com
mitted to your oversight, none may be found to have been
fatally turned away from " the truth as it is in Jesus," by
the false doctrines and superstitious practices of those
whom your Lordship not merely fails in condemning, but
countenances and promotes to stations of responsibility in.
your diocese ?
Were the things of which the following letters, speak,
" done in a corner," or did they affect personal interests
only, this publication would not have been anonymous :
the churches in which these scenes occur, are, however^
open to your Lordship and to the churchmen of your-
diocese. It is for your Lordship to take cognizance of
these strange proceedings, while it is ours to say whether
we love to have things so ordered within our Protestant
Church. I am, my Lord,
Most respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
A CHURCHMAN OF THE REFORMATION.
April, 1850.

The following letters are reprinted from " The Christian Guardian
and Churchman's Magazine," a periodical which aims at setting forth
the truth of God, and at exposing, and combating with fidelity, the
errors and practices of those who overlay that truth with superstition,
and "who teach for doctrines the commandments of men."

TRACTiltlAN PRACTICES.

LETTER L
SlB, There are many circumstances under which it is
unwise either to call for the exercise of the Episcopal
authority, or that Bishops should themselves exert that
exact amount of prerogative with which they are invested.
There are times, seasons, and circumstances for all things ;
and there has been so long recognized within our Church,
what an American prelate aptly terms " a law of tolera
tion," that ecclesiastical rulers would have much to answer
for, if — in things indifferent or left open to much question
and uncertainty — they were to interfere with the proper
exercise of Christian liberty in thought and action. Such
matters, in which interference is to be deprecated, need
from me no allusion. The object of my letter is to point
to an individual case — one no doubt amongst many — in
which the exercise of episcopal authority is, to my mind,
imperatively called for.
Allow me then at once to draw your attention, as editor
of a " Christian Guardian," to a performance of divine
worship, which, in company with a friend, I witnessed, for
I cannot say joined in, only last Sunday. Having been
present at that church some three years back, I was pre
pared for much that met our eyes upon entering the Rev.

8
W. Dodsworth's church, in Albany Street. It is, as you
are aware, called Christ Church, and is popularly under,
stood to be a District church, belonging to our National
Protestant Establishment ; but it should rather be desig
nated, a feeder, or preparatory school for places of real
and open Romish worship, Until the service appointed to
be read at the communion-table commenced, there was
nothing very extraordinary to remark, except the curious
arrangement of the incumbent and his officiating brethren,
with their adult and juvenile lay-assistants. The prevalent
idea in my mind, when coupling the Desk, and, what may
in this case be properly termed, " the Altar Service," is,
that the service at Christ Church, Albany Street, is in
tended to exhibit a happy admixture of our own cathedral
form and the real Popish plan of worship ; but the first
was a miserable imitation, while at the second a Romanist
must have smiled with derision, and have pitied a people,
who, with all their longing after more, are compelled to
stop short at a point which just serves to make their per
formance ludicrous. I shall just remark that at Christ
Church it takes four clergymen, ten singing-men, and ten
singing-boys, all clothed in white, to solemnize the simple
ritual of the Church of England. With regard to the
four first ordained ministers, it occurred to me that it was
no slight blessing to observe that the ministry of such
men is limited to a single spot, instead of being diffused
in four different spheres of action.
The moment the previous portion of the morning service
was concluded, and during the most rapid singing of a
hymn which I ever heard, the rev. incumbent, followed
by two of his brethren, left their stalls and approached
the altar, immediately before which the incumbent knelt,
one of his clergy doing the same a yard or so behind him,
and the other also kneeling upon the epistle side. The
Communion service then began by the former reading with

9
his back still turned to the people, and the others re
taining the same positions. But it is time for me to describe
the "Altar" with its reredos and credence-table. The
whole was covered with a richly embroidered cloth. Just
covering the top, and hanging down on each side, was " a
linen cloth," which however left the entire front exposed
and altar-like. Upon this were the chalices and patinse,
a regular missal- stand, bearing an illuminated service-
book ; while upon the reredos appeared the allowed un
lighted candles and the forbidden vases of flowers. One
small cross of evergreens was placed above this burlesque
of a real Popish altar; there was also a larger one imme
diately over a capacious picture of the Transfiguration of
our Lord. I should mention that vases of flowers were
also placed in recesses upon the chancel wall. Upon the
credence- table were placed the elements of bread and
wine, awaiting their removal by priestly hands to the more
holy place. The Communion service ended, a note or
two from the organ filled up the short space of time which
occupied the incumbent in his transit from the altar to
the pulpit, and his private devotions there. Then fol
lowed a sermon contrasting the Law and the Gospel; the
effects, the hopes, and the duties which belong to each.
And it is deeply painful to state the conviction which the
entire discourse left upon both our minds. The singular
contrast has often struck me, that where the building is
the most beautiful, the endowments of the material sanc
tuary most cared for, and the outward worship most
laboriously attended to, or that where symbolic devices
are adopted, such as the candles upon the "Altar," in
tended to convey the thought of Christ being the light of
the world, there but too frequently the building of the
spiritual temple, the true sanctuary, makes no progress,
but is rather hindered, or attempted to be marred; and
that the unlighted candles but too truly represent that in
b3

10
such places Christ is not indeed held forth, but rather ex
tinguished, as the light of the world. So we found it in
Christ Church. The sermon, whether intended or not,
was, throughout, a confusion of the work of Christ, a
perversion of the Gospel, and an attack upon the faith of
those who rest upon the precious declaration, " that we are
justified freely by the grace of God, through the redemp
tion that is in Christ Jesus;" that "the righteousness of
God is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto and upon all them
that believe;" and that righteousness is fulfilled in us,
"who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit."
In Mr. Dodsworth's sermon, baptism was made the con
verting moment of a man's life ; — to that state in which
that sacrament left him, was misapphed the rich and com
forting text addressed to the true behever, " There is now
no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus," as
if all who were sprinkled with the baptismal water, had
thereby passed from death unto life, and been really made
" new creatures in Christ Jesus.'; Mr. Dodsworth dwelt
at much length upon the Christian-sinning after this union
by baptism with Christ. He remarked that a Christian
sinning was a thing hardly contemplated in Scripture.
He drew a dark and cheerless picture of his hopes and
condition should such be the case. The other sacrament
was brought in as one means of restoration ; and very
slightly was the all-prevailing advocacy and ceaseless inter
cession of Jesus alluded to. But Mr, D. was strangely
forgetful, or suffered his hearers to be so, of the many
passages in which the ever fallible state even of God's
own people is spoken of, not as an encouragement and
license for sin, but that we be neither high-minded, as if
we sinned not; or desponding, as if there were no virtue
in the ever-atoning blood of Jesus to wash away the daily,
yea, frequent, sins of the holiest saint. I more than ever
prize the beautiful petition in our Liturgy, "Mercifully

11
forgive the sins of thy people ;" and I rejoice in the full
assurance, that the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son,
cleanseth us from all sin.
. I have written only from the immediate recollection of
what we heard,, and without the assistance of any memo
randa ; and should therefore be truly grieved were I wrong
fully to accuse the rev. incumbent of Christ Church of
obscuring the work of the Redeemer ; but the impression
the whole sermon left upon* my mind„ brought to my me
mory the remark of a lady, who, after hearing a sermon
barren of the truth of the Gospel,, made the following
reply to a friend who spoke of the discourse : " They
have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they
have laid him." Any poor sinner wandering into Christ
Church last Sunday morning, seeking for rest, and asking,
"What he must do to be saved V must have departed with
out finding Him set forth who is " the way, the truth, and
the life ;" without a simple teaching of Christ, as the pro
pitiation, the advocate, and the intercessor ; without men
tion of the Spirit as the mighty worker in the heart of
fallen man, to draw the sinner from guilt to Christ, and
from sin to holiness ; but he must have returned disap
pointed with the ministration of empty forms and shadows;
instead of the satisfying realities and substantial blessings
bestowed by the Gospel of the grace of God.
But I must stop for the present. The sermon ended, some
notes from the organ again accompanied the incumbent
on his passage from the pulpit to the " Altar." He re
sumed his kneeling posture before it ; his brethren grouped
themselves in their appointed ways, and, with the retiring
portion of the congregation, we left the priests bent in
adoration before the altar, the candlesticks, the flowers,
and the cross, waiting our departure to commence the
celebration of a memorial of the Supper of the Lord* We
felt that in such a place, and from such hands, we could

12
not receive with spiritual benefit, the emblems of a
Saviour's dying love. Had we remained, we might per
haps have witnessed stranger things.
Yours, faithfully,
A CHURCHMAN OF THE REFORMATION.

LETTER II.

Dear Sir, In pursuance of a design to see and hear for
myself if things be true which are reported of the Trac-
tarian party, last Sunday morning, accompanied by a
friend, I again visited another of their churches. This
time, we penetrated farther west ; and some twenty
minutes before eleven we reached the church of St. Paul,
Knightsbridge. Though thus early, we found nearly all
the free seats — and they are neither few or incom
modiously placed — occupied ; but not by exactly the class
for whom such accommodation is intended. The majority
appeared to consist of persons in the middle class of life,
while by far the larger number of those who were after
wards ushered to their seats by vergers, with their wands
of office, were evidently of quite the upper ranks in
society . Our eyes were naturally attracted to the beauties
and peculiarities of the building in which we were seated,
and, with the exception of that part appropriated to the
performances of the clergy, we could only wish that every
parish and district had such a church as St. Paul's, Knights
bridge. It is substantial and capacious, and, excluding
certain particulars hereafter to be noticed, not more orna-

13
mental than God's House should be where the means are
abundant. I, for one, am heartily sick of churches raised
with mean and penurious attention to every fraction ex
pended in their cost ; built by contributions, not of noble
and self-denying sums, but by subscriptions of paltry and
insufficient amount, which would not bear comparison
when placed by the side of many of the donors' expenses
and pleasures of life.
Many such churches seem built too only for the use of
the present generation, if indeed they last their time
without a painful exemplification of the folly of being
penny- wise and pound-foolish. I would not, however, be
mistaken ; where churches are wanted, and but scanty
resources can be had recourse tp, let them be built as
good and as substantially as the means will allow ; and let
decoration always give place to the indispensable require
ments of strength and space ; but there is a comeliness
and even beauty which I always love to see in the House
of God.
Pardon this digression, and let me return to my im
mediate subject. The congregation soon streamed in, and
had we not known it before, we should soon have discovered
where we were by the number of clasped and cross-bearing
service-books, which soon opened to our view their party-
coloured pages of red and black. The chancel and the
space before its sacred precincts, are far superior to the
same arrangements in Mr. Dodsworth's church, the stalls
for the clergy, and the singing -men and singing -boys,
are more elevated, and are much richer in their appearance
than at Christ Church. These were soon occupied by (as
far as we could see) five or six clergymen, and ten lay
assistants. The communion-table much resembled Mr.
Dodsworth's as to its altar-like appearance, its reredos, its
candlesticks, and the accompanying credence-table, but
the vases of flowers were wanting.

u
The missal-stand was there, but the book it bore was
not an illuminated copy like that at Christ Church. The
whole had altogether a sufficient resemblance to a high
altar to make us rejoiced at the genuine simplicity of our
own communion-tables. We soon discovered by the
quaint recitative tone in which the service was com
menced by one of the ministers, that we were to have the
cathedral form of worship ; and the whole was intoned in the
most approved fashion, interpersed with chant and anthem,
which we must do Mr. Bennett's choir but the justice to
say, was far more efficiently performed than by the bre
thren of Christ Church. As the service proceeded; the
same thought occurred both to my friend and myself, that
to many of the fashionable congregation we had for once
mingled with, this musical and scenic performance of
Divine worship served in lieu of the attractions of a
morning concert. Pond as we both are of music, we
doubted its capability as the chief medium of devotion ;
while we are absolute unbelievers as to the almost ludi
crous mode of intoning sentences of prayer, and the
curious attempts of clergymen to give a musical turn to
such solemn petitions as, " 0 God, the Father of heaven ;
have mercy upon us miserable sinners ;" " From all the
deceit of the world, the flesh, and the devil," &c, &c. We
deny not that there may be some whose hearts can be
bowed in supplication while they utter and join in such
strange out-pourings of prayer, but we have always come
away from cathedral and semi-cathedral worship, to unite
with greater spiritual zest than ever in the common-sense
mode of praying prayer; and we have joined with far
higher enjoyment in the rude, often inharmonious, but
congregational and hearty singing of the psalm or hymn
of praise. The morning service ended, the entire strength
of the priestly party took up their positions at the altar,
and then, for the first time, we saw the incumbent, the

15
Rev. W. Bennett. Like his brother of Christ Church, he
knelt before " the altar ;" his brethren were arranged on
either side, and the ante-communion service was read ;
the prayers by Mr. Bennett, with his back to us
poor worshippers, and two of his assistants read the
epistle and the gospel. After the service the rev. incum
bent read to us a long account of the services he had
arranged for the coming Lent. Communions, prayers,
and sermons, are not to be wanting to the faithful ; and if
they were not to be administered, offered, and preached
by men whose faces, doctrines, and practices, are Rome-
wards, who would breathe a word against the most pro
fuse provision of spiritual food for the people ? We did
not like the term Mr. Bennett used for designating the
morning service, — matins grated somewhat upon Pro
testant ears, accustomed to the Common Prayer-book
phrases of morning and evening prayer.
Mr. Bennett, immediately after the conclusion of the
altar service, and without an intervening hymn, ascended
the pulpit, and, after the brief interval occupied by his
own private devotions, commenced the sermon without
collect or prayer of any kind soever. The text was from
2 Cor. x. 4., " The weapons of our warfare are not carnal."
If we had not heard it before, we soon gathered from the
rev. gentleman's own lips, that upon the previous Sunday
morning his language might have been misconstrued, with
reference to his ideas of the wrongs of the Church, and their
remedies. This sermon was, however, intended to smooth
matters down, and to convey an impression of the Church's
meekness, long-suffering, patience, and her upward look
for Divine help and guidance under persecution and
perplexity. This Lenten round of fastings, prayers, communions,
and sermons, was to be especially directed to the pre
servation of peace and union in the bosom of the Church ;

16
but all through the sermon there was that thinly con
cealed hatred of State connexion and interference; that
high assumption of ecclesiastical power and separate con-
troul; which brought to our minds the words of the
Psalmist, " His words were softer than oil, yet were they
drawn swords." Remembering where we were, what we
saw before us, and what we had heard ; and above all, what
we know of the party altogether, we were tolerably cer
tain that the peace to be attained, was that liberty which
should allow Romanizers to proceed, without let or hin
drance, in their plan of unsettling and leading astray
unwary souls, while the curb should be applied to those
whose thoroughly Protestant doctrine is most strongly
opposed to their success. The union sighed for was not
that all might be one in Christ, and live in love as mem
bers of His universal Church, differing, as men will, in
forms and outward character, yet built upon the one
foundation, and forming part of the same spiritual edifice ;
but rather a longing after a union in a human Church,
human doctrines, human forms, and ceremonies, and
formed after the secret model of Tractarian builders, the
so-called Catholic Church of Rome.
This would be uncharitable judgment, did not Mr.
Bennett and his party, by their style of church decoration
and practices, as well as by the character and tendencies
of their teaching and writings, completely separate them
selves even from their own brethren in the Establishment,
and exhibit to the most unobservant eyes their approxi
mation to a Church with which Protestants can have no
communion. We fancied we recognised Lord John Russell among the
members of Mr. Bennett's congregation ; and although
we could have wished that his lordship had the benefit of
attendance upon purer worship and religious teaching, yet
it is perhaps well that this enlightened prime minister

17
should see and hear what such high churchmanship is in
itself, and what it aims to be in relation to the State with
which it is in union.
It may be that I shall have occasion to witness another
representation of the Tractarian mode of celebrating the
worship and teaching the doctrines of our Reformed
Church. Should another letter be thought advisable from
the sight of a still more palpable departure from the sim
plicity and purity of our Protestant service and faith, I
will again address you, but with considerate brevity.
Meantime I am, dear Sir,
Yours, faithfully,
A CHURCHMAN OF THE REFORMATION.

LETTER III.

Dear Sir, In my last letter I hinted that under certain cir
cumstances it might be necessary for me to trouble you
with another communication. The necessity you will at
once admit, when you have perused the following account
of two more, and, I hope final, visits to Tractarian mock
eries of the worship of the Church of England. I am not
sure that I ought not rather to address my present letter at
once to the Bishop of London, and to ask his Lordship to
direct his steps to Margaret Street Episcopal Chapel, — a
chapel nominally in connexion with the Church of Eng
land, and therefore under the supervision of the Bishop of
the diocese.

18
Many of your readers will remember that this chapel
was formerly occupied by the Rev. F. Oakley, whose doc
trines and practices were so notorious as to command the
attention of his diocesan. This gentleman is now a priest
of the Church of Rome, — a Missionary to the benighted
inhabitants of Islington, and pastor of the church of St.
John the Evangehst, where he is indulging his flock, and
astonishing, or amusing, the uninitiated, with " Spiritual
Retreats," " Sermons on the Rosary," "Expositions,"
and " Benedictions of the Holy Sacrament," with other
strange and fond deceits of his newly adopted Church. Of
Mr. Oakley, and his present occupations, more anon; at
present, I have to speak of his less honest successor at
Margaret Street. Last Sunday morning found me an early
attendant at this chapel, which looks as if some time or
other it had been the plain and unpretending meeting
house of some small Baptist or Independent community,*
yet a single glance at the western extremity soon assured
me that I was in precincts more Romish than Genevan.
Rude and ugly simplicity characterizes the interior of this
small chapel ; all attempts at ornament are reserved for
the parts where the clergy minister, and where the "altar,"
and its usual Tractarian accompaniments, meet and vex
the Protestant eye.
Being Lent, the table, or rather the " altar," was bare
of flowers ; but it almost made me rub my eyes, to see if
my vision was not deceptive, when I beheld a genuine
cross, of some inlaid metal, standing upon the altar, be
tween the candlesticks. Some beautiful stained glass
windows contrasted curiously with the poor appearance of
the chapel.
* Since writing the above, I have learned that Margaret Street
Chapel was formerly in the occupation of W. Huntingdon, S. S. ; it
then became a species of Freethinking meeting-house, since which
time it has been turned into a place for a Romanized representation of
the service of the Church of England.

19
But I took my seat, and awaited the commencement of
divine service. Soon, the door, leading to the enclosed
space before the altar, opened, and the minister, Mr. Rich
ards, entered in his cassock, and bore some of the sacred
vessels to the credence table, and again retired. The con
gregation assembled ; the little tinkling bell ceased, and
the notes of the organ ushered in the choir of men and
boys, followed by four officiating clergymen. Here I was
again amazed at seeing one of the clergy bearing an
article which I could not recognize as having the smallest
pretension to be present in a Protestant church or chapel.
If you have seen a procession of Romish acolytes and
priests emerge from the sacristy, you will have seen one of
the latter bearing the Host under a square-topped species
of canopy, which in due time he placed upon the altar.
Now this priest of the Church of England bore something
which perfectly resembled this piece of Popish furniture,
and placed it upon the credence table. I will not weary
either you or your readers with what would only be a re
petition of the facts narrated in my previous letters ; the
usual intoning and chanting was but very poorly per
formed ; but at every Gloria Patri, &c, the most lowly
reverence was made to the altar by priests, choir, and
people. I should just mention thut I saw one gentleman,
upon his entrance into the chapel, bend his knee to the
altar and make precisely similar signs of the cross to those
made by bona fide Romanist worshippers. Before the
commencement of the ante-communion service, and during
the absence of the officiating clergy, a chorister left his
seat, and bringing from the vestry a wand with a lighted
taper at the end, heightened the resemblance of the place
to a Romish chapel, by lighting both the candles upon the
altar. The priests returning completed the picture, by
one of their number bringing the mysterious canopy from
the credence table and placing it before the cross. The

20
priests knelt before the altar, and the service proceeded
according to the use of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge ; and
Christ Church, Albany Street. Mr. Richards preached
upon the spiritual trials and temptations of God's people.
I shall only observe, that amid much that was good, and
much that was poor and trifling, the cloven foot of Romish
teaching was apparent in the expression that sometimes
God's people could find no spiritual benefit even from the
contemplation of "the five sacred wounds of Jesus." But
I am unwilling to lengthen my letter by any further allu
sion to Mr. Richards' sermon. Where the practices are
so perfectly Popish, it matters but little if the minister is
occasionally transformed into an angel of light, and,
sometimes preaches more of truth than of positive error-
I left the chapel immediately after the alms had been
collected by the choristers in small velvet bags, after the
most approved Romish fashion. Before I left, however, I
saw that the canopy had been removed from the nonde
script article upon the communion-table, and then it was
manifest that it concealed the silver vessel containing the
bread, and the chalice for the wine, in the Communion
about to be administered.
My second visit to this chapel was occasioned by the
remark of a friend to whom I narrated the foregoing par
ticulars. He remarked, " but to make your case complete,
you should have staid out the administration of the Com
munion, — there you would have seen much more popery."
Not to my own spiritual edification, but that what I should
witness might be faithfully made known to my fellow
churchmen, I again requested a friend to accompany me
to Margaret Street ; and on our way thither, we looked
in for an instant at a genuine Romish mass-house. We
identified upon the altar there, immediately before the
cross, a violet silk canopy exactly similar to the one to
which I have alluded.

21
My friend had seen Mr. Dodsworth's, but was hardly
prepared for the steps farther Romeward, which Margaret
Street Chapel exhibits.
Another clergyman preached on this occasion; and
from the text, " Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to
have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have
prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not ;" he drew a par-
rallel between the temptation of the Apostle, and that of
the Church, to deny their common Master; the latter
being at once warned by the fall of the former, and yet
encouraged to persevere in the right path, by having the
same Divine Intercessor to plead for its being kept stead
fast in the faith. All this was but»a text wherefrom to
lecture with no small degree of assurance and vehemence
against the recent judgment ; and to protest against the
enormity of allowing clergymen in the Church of England
to hold opinions " fatal to the whole sacramental scheme."
Our separation from the rest of the Catholic Church, was
often, and most pathetically, alluded to. It was accounted
as a singular coincidence that the judgment should have
been delivered during the solemn season of Lent, so that
there should be time for deliberation before active mea
sures were decided upon. We both felt that a Romish
priest might have delivered, and perhaps did preach, this
sermon. But I hasten to the crowning act of this Margaret
Street effrontery. With hardly sufficient time for the
dispersion of the non-communicants, the Communion
service began, the singing-men and boys remaining, as we
afterwards found, to give full choral effect to some pas
sages. The violet canopy was removed, and during the
service remained spread over a part of the altar; one
clergyman brought from the credence -table, gold em
broidered napkins, a glass decanter of wine and a small
antique flagon ; these were arranged before the cross, and

22
covered with the napkins. One of these napkins had a
small cross embroidered upon it, and hung down in front
of the altar. I should mention that the celebrant, and
two assistant priests, were arranged before the altar
exactly like those we had previously glanced at for a
moment in the real and i undisguised chapel of Rome, —
one kneeling before the altar, and the two others a step or
two below him. And now let me bring your readers to
"the prayer of consecration." The celebrant had been
previously assisted by the priest who performed the part
of deacon or sub-deacon, to pour the wine from the de
canter, and something else from the flagon, which we
supposed to be wate», into the chalice, the whole was co
vered up until the time for the act of consecration, and
after the words were spoken, the celebrant and his assis
tants performed what we both considered an act amounting
to adoration of the elements. Their bend of body almost
amounted to prostration ; and were it not for the difference
of dress and the absence of the tinkling bell, and a few
other Romish adjuncts, we could have imagined ourselves
present at the consecration of the wafer-god. He then
partook himself of the elements, but his assistants did not,
and we noticed that many of the congregation remained
as spectators only. This, again, is very like the practice
of " our erring sister " of Rome. The service terminated,
but not so the imitation of Rome's ritual. The celebrant
was occupied for full a minute in most carefully gathering
together any crumbs of the transubtantiated bread that
might be left in the paten, and then put them into the
chalice, from which he drained the contents to the very
dregs, turning the cup bottom upwards, and almost losing
his equilibrium in his ridiculous efforts to mimic the
genuine absurdities of Rome. Need I say that we turned
away from this heart-sickening spectacle with the feeling
of indignation at the dishonesty of the actors, and a deep

23
conviction that if the Bishop of London knowingly suffers
such a miserable profanation of our simply scriptural and
beautiful Communion service we may cease to wonder at
any of his other acts.
Now, sir, I shall not in all probability, trouble you
again upon the subject of these Tractarian practices,
enough has been brought forward by those who have seen
with their own eyes the attempts of men wearing the
dress of English Protestant clergymen, to approach as
nearly as possible to the customs and doctrines of Rome,
and to familiarize the minds of our people with the childish
ceremonies which Protestants reject.
I find, from the judgment in MrtKrorham's case, that
the Bishop of London does not concur in the sentence of
the Privy Council ; what his Lordship's reasons for such
dissent are, or what may be his views of the baptismal
controversy, I know not ; probably he may shortly think
proper to gratify the clergy and laity of a diocese like
London with his reasons for standing out in bold relief as
a dissenter from the opinions of two Archbishops and the
judgment of five lay Privy Councillors. For these reasons
I shall wait patiently ; but it does astonish and try the
patience of multitudes, to find a Protestant bishop of
London calmly acquiescing and, in the eyes of the world,
concurring in these doings within churches which make
them but nurseries and training schools for the perverts to
Rome. Can you, sir, or any of your lay or clerical readers,
point out the the proper course to bring the whole subject
of this semi-popish worship under the direct cognizance of
our diocesan ? I am, Sir, yours, faithfully,
A CHURCHMAN OF THE REFORMATION.

agSorfcs 3fust ^unHsfieK
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