One hundred years ago
ARCHDEACON Farrar writes an en- thusiastic letter to the Christian World which he says is not meant to be 'polemical;' but unless it is meant to prepossess public opinion against the Bishop of Lincoln, we cannot compli- ment the Archdeacon on his tact in choosing opportunities. His subject is the worthlessness of ritual and sac- ramentalism to feed our moral and spiritual life, and the tone of it may be gathered from the peroration:- 'No! nations are saved by righteousness and by manliness, and by self-denial, and by the preaching of simple Christ to simple men, not by mitres and candles and chasubles, and such gewgaws, filched from Aaron's wardrobe or the Flamens' vestry.' Moreover, there is a very strong invective against those who attach im- portance to the Eucharist itself. We observe, nevertheless, that the Arch- deacon does not seem to apply fairly his own test of true religion, namely, the purity of life to which it leads. We suppose that few would deny that the Bishop of Lincoln and the late Mr Mackonochie, and a very great majority of the Ritualist clergy at the present time, have been remarkable for right- eousness of life, and have believed that sacramentalism has greatly helped them in the effort to lead a noble and self-denying life. Why, then, does the Archdeacon level this bitter attack on a party who, tried by his own test, are among the salt of the earth? Perhaps he only means to say that, good as they are, they would be a vast deal better if they held the theology of Archdeacon Farrar, a pious opinion, doubtless, in the Archdeacon, but one which it may be permitted even to those who cower before the diffuse rhetoric of the Archdeacon, to doubt.
The Spectator. 20 April 1889
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