The Archbishop of Canterbury appears to have been telling his
clergy on Wednesday, at Maidstone, not to expect any very important ecclesiastical legislation this Session, and espe- cially not to expect any decision from Convocation this year as to the revision of the Rubrics. Dr. Tait expressed his strong disbelief in the existence of any appreciable number of really " lawless " priests, and made a very strong appeal to all parties to "resist all extravagances." That is a very good exhortation, but the Ritualists are not men to be subject to their Bishops. They hold that, as Dr. Newman once described them, the Bishops habitually " handsell their apostolical weapons against the Apostolical party,"—which is what the Archbishop of Canterbury is even now doing,—and that is a crime Ritualists cannot forgive. So we fear that when the Public Worship Regulation Act comes into operation, there will be a good deal of grief from it still, in the way both of assaults on excessive ceremonial and of sallies against deficient rites.
Previous page
