LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
RITUAL LICENSE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIE,—It would be unfair to assume that you and your core- spondents, whilst agreeing with the Archdeacons of London and Middlesex in their opposition to prosecutions, intend to associate yourselves with all their arguments. The Arch- deacons have laid down a principle which I cannot think you would accept. "Prosecution," they say, "is necessarily and inherently a vicious way of dealing with ritual offence." This seems to mean that a clergyman, ministering in one of the public churches of the land, should be at liberty to do what he likes in the way of ritual. If that is not the intention of the Archdeacons, I wish they would explain how their words can be understood otherwise. But it is all but incredible that officers of the Anglican Hierarchy should approve of a license which would be laughed out of every religious society in the world. How would they regard such a case as the following ? It might occur to one of the "Protestant" clergy that it would be a telling protest against sacerdotalism if he were to minister without a surplice in ordinary lay dress. Would it be an absolutely "vicious" step to stop him from doing this ? I con- fess that I am old-fashioned enough to wish that he should be summarily ordered to wear the surplice, whatever he might plead about his conscience and his good works, and in the event of his refusing be suspended as promptly as possible.—
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