The Dorsetshire clergy and laity who met at Blandford onWednes-
,day to discuss a letter of the Bishop of Salisbury on the Ornaments Rubric, came to a resolution to adhere to the surplice only (whether with or without the black stole, we are not sure), as the only and sufficient vestment for all services of the Church. The Bishop in his letter had expressed his grave fear that ultimate action in harmony with such a rule would lead to "a wide and lamentable rent in the Church of England," and hence the resolution -was the more remarkable, especially as a meeting of clergy and laity at Midport on Tuesday had resolved that it was desirable to leave things as they are. No doubt the Blandford meeting was not a very large or representative one. But its decision looks like rubrical common-sense, which is a kind of common-sense of which we have heard very little. The notion of any Church gravely splitting up on a question of dress,—nay, in earnest defence of elaborateness of dress,—does look to us like a reductio ad absurdum of ecclesiastical convictions. Could even clergywomen be so -childish as to believe seriously that they could not save souls without chasubles, or vanquish iniquity without copes?
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