The Public Worship Regulation Bill was read a third time
in the House of Lords on Thursday, when it was pressed upon the acceptance of the House of Commons chiefly on the ground that it was such " a very little one." Lord Salisbury said it ought to be entitled ' A Bill to give £3,000 a year to the Dean of Arches and to reprint certain minor portions of the Clergy Discipline Act.' But it is more than that. It is a Bill which first gives the Bishop power to decide absolutely whether a particular complaint shall be heard or not, so that a High-Church Bishop, mero arbitrio, may at once veto any redress to a complaint of Ritualism ; a Broad-Church to a com- plaint against the omission of the Athanasian Creed ; and a Low. Church against a mutilation of the Baptismal Service. That is bad enough to begin with. Next, it greatly diminishes the ex. pense and increases the facilities of enforcing the Rubrical law of the Church as it is, without revision or reform. And that is a greater mischief still. The existing law is at least so cum- brous and expensive, that it is not a good instrument in the hands of those who would enforce obsolete rubrics. The pro- posed Bill would be such an instrument. Hence, in spite of all the apologies for the Bill as a " very little one," we believe and hope that it will meet with scant favour in the House of Commons.
