AN ECCLESIASTICAL A.B.C.
The Churchman's A.B.C. : a Guide to Church Doctrine and Ritual. Drawn mainly from Authorised Sources. (James Nisbet and Co. 2s. 6d.)—This is a handy little book, of distinct tusefuhiess within certain limits. It gives, in alphabetical order, short and lucid explanations of the principal terms used in the Roman and Anglican Communions, from the point of view of the Anglican Settlement of 1552. The position of the compilers is that which Sir William Harcourt champions. The Catholic Church was full of abuses in the sixteenth century, and reformation, being needed, came in the way of return to the simpler usages of earlier times. But no allowance is to be made for the cropping up since the sixteenth century of good reasons for new developments, modifi- cations, and returns. The book takes no account of the wide- spread desire for some new catholic agreement as to the forms of worship which shall include in one Sacramental Church the Roman, the Anglican, and the Greek Communions, and make it easier for the convert from agnosticism to return to the fold. It is, of course, impossible to make a book of this sort without some definite denominational bias. But it is a pity not to have avoided such a beg-the-question definition of Ritualism as this : "A. system which so exaggerates the externals of religion, that instead of being helpful to true devotion they become a substitute for it." That is a very good account of Ritualism as it appears to the Protestant critic, but it is not a fair account of what it means—and is—to a great many devout and reasonable High Churchmen.
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