LTO TED EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR] SIR,—Is it not a.
fact that the Book of Common Prayer is a part of the Act of Uniformity ? If so. "the law of the land" states clearly enough at the end of the Order of Confirmation that "there shall none be admitted to the Holy Communion until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed." There is nothing vague or indeterminate about that. When was the Church of England by law established ? Can you give the date P—I am, Sir, Ste., HERBERT F. HUNT,
Vicar of Cookham Dean.
[We bold the rubrics to refer to age, and therefore capacity to receive, rather than to the erection of Confirmation into an absolute and essential rite which must precede Communion. If Confirmation was to be considered obligatory, why make so immense an exception ? " Ready " we take to imply ripeness of age. Not to be too young, and to be of a willing mind, were the conditions apparently intended by the framers of the rubric. The laws by which the Church is established are the whole series of unrepealed statutes defining the status, rights, and duties of the Church which begin in the reign of Henry VIII. and continue to the Public Worship Regulation Act of Victoria. We cannot continue this correspondence.— En. Spectator.]
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