PRAYER-BOOK REVISION : BISHOP KNOX MEMORIAL.
[To the Editor of the SrEcTivron.] Six,—Canon Richardson disputes several of my statements, not always very exactly. I did not stigmatize the " Evan- gelicals in the Assembly as pliable," but I said that the mode of election of clergy favoured the election of the more pliable, a fact which is substantiated by the voting in the House of Clergy. He objects to my calling the majority of the clergy in their House " High Church." Yet every decision, so far, in that House has been on the High Church side—and it is to be presumed that the voters have voted conscientiously.
But let me join up with him mainly on the two important points that he raises. (1) The representative character of the Church Assembly ; (2) the protection of minorities.
As to the former, I will ask Canon Richardson to remember that the " broad franchise " of which he speaks, not quite accurately, is not the franchise of the electors of the Assembly.
Does he seriously think that the House of Commons would rest on a broad franchise if it were elected by County Councils, which were themselves elected in parish meetings by those who could attend the meetings, and with the proviso that each parish, small or large, had an equal voice in the election ?
Would not such representation be declared a farce ? Yet it is a rather favourable account of the election of the Church Assembly, which is often elected by Diocesan Conferences, themselves elected by Ruridecanal Conferences, in their turn elected by Parochial Church meetings.
As to protection of minorities. What the Church of England needs is protection of majorities. What provision is made in the Measure before the Church Assembly to protect a parish from introduction of vestments, ornaments of the Church hitherto unused, or mediaeval ceremonial ? What protection is provided for securing to parishioners use of the old Communion service, if the Vicar prefers a new one ? As to minorities—it has long been the badge of their tribe to suffer. But I have clear evidence that a very large proportion of the 241,000 signatories to my Memorial are communicants devout and pious (a very different thing from "ecclesiastically minded ") who have been repelled from the most precious to them of all services by its assimilation to the Mass, and that in parishes where no one but the Vicar desired such change to be made. The fault of the Church Assembly, and specially of the House of Clergy, is their concentration on liturgical refinements, without remembering that a very large pro- portion of the laity have no desire for these refinements, and are repelled by them.—/ am, Sir, &c.,
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