27 JANUARY 1883, Page 14

BISHOP FRASER AND THE RITUALISTS.

I TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SrBi—The Bishop of Manchester has often been twitted with his inconsistency in denouncing Ritualists for breaking the law, whilst breaking it himself in not wearing a cope. This is how he has defended himself.

At first, he flatly refused to wear a cope, because "he did not wish to make a guy of himself." Then he said that he would wear one, if the Archbishop of York ordered him to do so. And now he says that he does wear one, and that his black chimese is a vestment as the law prescribes. I need hardly point out that this last plea, if true, proves too much, viz., that he wears the vestment when not celebrating the Holy 'Communion.

It is a sad thing that a man with so many good qualities should descend at last to quibbles like these. When I think of the good work he did when he first came here, and the enthusiasm he aroused, and contrast it with the contempt and disgust his actions are now provoking in this diocese, "0 the