The Ritualists have got another martyr. The Rev. T. Pelham
Dale, who paid no attention to Lord Penzance's in- hibitions against wearing vestments sanctioned by the Ornaments Rubric of the Prayer-book of the second year of Edward VI., but declared illegal by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the very curious judgment delivered in relation to the Ridsdale case, has been put in prison for contempt of Court. Nothing can be better calculated to render the Ritualist agita- tion popular, and the legislation which compels Lord Penzance to "put down Ritualism " after this fashion absurd, than the repetition of imprisonments for such a cause. Mr. Dale's health was said at first to be suffering from the shock of going to prison at Holloway,—but probably the suffering and the shock were a little exaggerated. It is a mild sort of martyrdom, after all; and, for a short time, we doubt whether the glory of it does not more than compensate the pain. Mr. Dale is over sixty years of age, it is true, but still that is not an age at which the terrors of an honorary imprisonment need be very severe. He may, however, think that if he could only really fall ill, he would be of more use to his cause in illness than he had ever been in health. We should be extremely sorry to hear of such an event, for the prosecution of ritualism has become almost too
ridicu!ous already to need a living victim for its coup de grace. But if Mr. Dale thinks otherwise, he has only to fall ill in earnest, and forgive his enemies in good style upon his sick-bed, and his work will be done.
