Dr. Pusey has been asked for his opinion as to
the duty of Ritualist clergymen in relation to the Ridsdale Judgment, and his reply so far shows embarrassment, that he is evidently in- clined, but rather ashamed, to say that though he never wished to wear the eucharistic vestments before, and did not think those symbols the best way of teaching the doctrines for which they are supposed to stand, he would rather like to wear them now, as a mode of showing his disapprobation of the judgment. Mr. Oakley expresses in another column a very similar feeling, and we ventured to declare our conviction last week that many of the clergy who had never yet practised Ritualism would be in- clined by what they would think the unfairness of the Rids- dale Judgment, to take to it. We venture, however, to add that such a course would be childish, splenetic, and even wholly indefensible,—except, perhaps, on the part of those who, like Dr. Pusey, believe profoundly in the peculiar ideas which the eucharistic vestments are supposed to express. Be the Ridsdale Judgment wrong or right, gaudy " vestments " are none the better, as Mr. Oakley almost seems to think, because the law has declared against them. A reasonable man would hardly violate even a bad sumptuary law, only for the sake of violating it, if his reason condemned the extravagance which the law forbade.
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