TTIE RITUALISTS AND THE BISHOPS.
OUR Ritualist friends have by this time pretty well repented of their flirtation with the Bishops. The truth is, a Bishop is not at all the kind of lover that it is safe to play with. As regards understandings and compromises of every sort, he is usually a burnt child, and as soon as it is made clear to him that he has been led into one, his first thought is how to get out of it. In this instance, the Lower House of the Southern Convocation seemed determined to give the Episcopate every chance. They forgot the useful principle embodied in the Statute of Frauds, and omitted to see that the understanding on which they meant to rely was reduced to writing. As it is, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr. Bright are at issue, not merely upon what was meant, but upon what was said. If the Lower House should again be tempted to trust to Episcopal speeches, they ought at least to secure .the attendance of a short-hand writer at the Confer- ence. The Archbishop of Canterbury declares that the report in the Guardian newspaper of the statement made by him in the name of his brethren is substantially correct, and un- doubtedly that report contained nothing approaching to the understanding attributed to the Bishops. On the other hand, Dr. Bright declares that the ipsissima verba of the Archbishop "were that the use of vestments with the good-will of the con- gregation could not, indeed, be called 'lawful' (while exist- ing judgments were in force), but as a general rule, ' would be allowed to go on.'" It is clear that, whether there was an understanding or not, there• was a very pretty misunderstand- ing. The really wonderful things about the whole business are the simplicity of the Bishops, in supposing that the Lower House of Convocation would have consented to eat its own words of the day before, if there had been nothing to be gained by it ; and the simplicity of the Ritualists, in supposing that the Bishops had the power to make the particular concession attributed to them. It is clear that the Bishops did believe that something in the nature of an eirenicon or modus vivendi had been arrived at. Otherwise, it is to be presumed that they would not have sung the Gloria in Excelsis, in thanksgiving for the happy end that had been put to the troubles of the Church. If they had simply been grateful for a victory over the Lower House, they would hardly have risked the results of it by thus openly triumphing over their adversaries. Yet, on the Archbishop's view of the
matter, whore was the modes vzvendi The Ritualists were to abstain from using vestments, if the Bishop issued his monition against them, but where was the re- striction /flaccid upon the Bishop's use of the monition ? That, apparently, was to remain wholly unchecked. The Ritualist contention is that vestments are legal. The conten- tion on the other side is that they are illegal. It was an intelligible compromise that, without reference to their legality or illegality, they should be used where the congregation wished them to be used, and forbidden where the congregation wished them to be forbidden. But where would have been the com- promise in a provision that they should not be used against the wish of the Bishop, supposing that the Bishops remained free to wish anything they liked ? Yet this is what seems to have been attributed to the Ritualists by the Bishops—at all events, by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Clearly, he took them for sillier folk than they have yet shown themselves. On the other hand, the attitude of the Lower House of Convocation is almost equally hard to understand. They evidently thought that the Bishops of the Southern Province, speaking by the mouth of the Archbishop of Canterbury, had committed themselves to something very like an open defiance of the law. If this imaginary understanding had ever been brought into operation, this remarkable result would have followed. Vestments, having been declared illegal by the highest Ecclesiastical Court, would still have been worn in certain churches, say, in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. Three•aggrievecl parishioners, under.the Public Worship Regu- lation Act, or one, under the Church Discipline Act, would have applied to Dr. Ellicott for leave to prosecute the incumbent. "I cannot give you leave," the Bishop would have answered, "because, by an understanding arrived at with the Lower House of Convocation, the Clergy have consented not to wear vest- ments contrary to my monition, and I am consequently pre- cluded from giving my consent to legal proceedings." "Very well," the Church Association would have answered ; " we have no preference for costly remedies, when cheap ones will answer the same purpose. These vestments are plainly con- trary to law. Will your Lordship at once issue your monition against them ? " "I know they are illegal," the Bishop must then have said ; "and I know that I can put them down by merely writing my name across a sheet of paper. But I am bound by this same understanding not to interfere in any case in which the congregation approve of the law being broken, and therefore in this case I can do nothing." Does any one believe that there are half-a- dozen Bishops on the Bench who, under any conceivable cir- cumstances, would expose themselves to the attacks which the assumption of such an attitude as this would inevitably have entailed on them ? Apparently the Lower House of the Con- vocation of Canterbury did believe it, and a very remarkable act of faith it was. Is an Anglican Bishop at all the sort of person to deliberately set himself above the civil law, and proclaim that, so long as a clergyman has his congre- gation on his side, he may snap his fingers at the Ecclesiastical Court, and trust to his diocesan to support him ? Did it ever occur to the Ritualists that if the Bishops were armed by law with a new power of proceeding by "monition," a mandamus might lie to compel them to issue a monition ? What would have become of the "understanding," then ? Did they expect a Bishop to face the utmost terrors of the Queen's Bench, rather than violate by ever so little this sacred compromise
The enlightenment that comes of reflection, aided in this instance by the unexpected independence shown by the Convo- cation of York, has sent this " understanding " to the limbo of unaccompliehed visions. The Ritualist word of command is, "As you were." Nothing is left of all these votes and confer- ences, except an uncomfortable sense of being either deceivers or deceived. Walleye not much hope, however, that either Ritualists or Bishopawill learn the lessons, obvious though they be, which this strange little history suggests. On the side of the Bishops, the lesson is that one-sided compromises never prosper. If they want to come to terms with the Ritualists, they must give as well as take. If Ritualism is to be put down with its own consent in some churches, it must be allowed in others. If congregations which dislike ceremonial are to be protected against its introduction, congregations which like it must equally be protected against its removal. It is perfectly open to the Bishops to say that they can be no parties to defiance of the law, and that what the Ecclesiastical Courts have de- termined to be illegal, that, until it is otherwise deter- mined, the Bishops must treat as illegal. But in that case, they had better not talk of compromise. They may hunt with the Church Association, if they are so minded, but then they must not hope to run with the English Church Union. For the Ritualists, the lesson is that no compromise can be of any real permanence or value which is not made by the authority which, so long as the Church of England re- mains established, alone has .power to make compromises. The Public Worship Regulation Act may become a mere paper threat, which answers to nothing outside the Statute-book ; but if it is to be replaced by a more ratiotal arraugement, that arrangement must be the work of Parliament. Before Parliament can be brought to the rational mood which is in- dispensable for the prosecution of this work, the Ritualists must give more evidence of being in earnest than they have yet had the opportunity of giving, except in the case of Mr. Tooth. The way to freedom of ritual lies through the county gaol, and if a clergyman is not prepared to go there, he had better guide himself by Lord Penzance's directions.
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