3 DECEMBER 1881, Page 14

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

THE RIDSDALE JUDGMENT: NEW EVIDENCE.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

Sin,—You ask me for explanation on two points :—

1. I wrote, "The arguments were duly catalogued in Mr MacColl's inventory, but, nevertheless, they were not used." You ask, "What inventory is referred to ?" I answer, that which I had already mentioned. Your arguments (2), (3), (4), and (5), are to be found at pp. 25, 54, 69, 71, of Mr. MacColl's work, "My Reviewers Reviewed," 1875.

2. You say, "He sedulously refuses to deal with one principal item of evidence which was not before the Court in the Ridsdale judgment, and on which we ourselves lay great stress,-Lthe abolition by the Puritan Parliament of 1644 of the 'superstitious vestments,' as well as of the surplice and cope, although, ac- c)rding to Mr. Davies's contention, those vestments needed no abolition." I will deal with it at once. The ordinance says, "No copes, surplices, superstitious vestments shall be, or be any more, used in any church or chapel within this realm." It is true that, in the mouth of a Roman Catholic, "the vestment" meant a chasuble. But Puritans would never have included the Mass vestment in an et-ccetera, after surplices. The "superstitious vestments" of the ordinance were tippets, square caps, and every article of clerical attire whatsoever.—

[The question between Mr. Davies and ourselves is, as to what arguments and considerations are new in relation to the Ride-

dale judgment. We maintain that all are so which, whether published before or since that judgment, were not considered by the Judges, and are, nevertheless, weighty and deserving of consideration. The cavalier manner in which Mr. Davies ignores this position seems to us hardly worthy of his usual impartiality and fairness. We have still no sort of conception what Mr. Davies refers to as Mr. MacColl's inventory of argu- ments.—ED. Spectator.]