Robert Brett (of Stoke Newington) : his Life and Work.
By T. W. Belcher, D.D., D.M. (Griffith and Farran.)—Mr. Brett, a medical man by profession, is chiefly known as the unflinching advocate of High Church ritual at a time when Ritualism was far less common than it is in our day. His energy, his enthusiasm, his profound devotion, his great disinterestedness, will strike many readers as more conspicuous than his judgment, His fearlessness before Bishops and Archbishops may be a noble quality, but one is inclined to doubt whether it was not too bold sometimes for the occasion that called it forth. Assuredly Mr. Brett's trumpet has no uncertain sound, whether he is denouncing the Church of Rome, or demanding a return to the ritual which the Evangelical party in the Church of England repudiate as tending Rome-ward.. Brett asserted the authority of the Ornaments Rubric, in spite of his Vicar and Bishop; he cursed (in a pious way, of course) Erastian Bishops ; he uttered a layman's protest against the Purchas judgment ; he was " an uncompromising advocate of the Bishop of Capetown " in the Colenso case ; he objected to the nomination of the present Bishop of London to the See of Exeter ; he objected to Mr. Forster's Education and delivered at the Freemasons' Tavern " a trenchant and exhaustive vivisection " of Lord Sandon's Parochial Councils Bill. The Burials Bill, too, excited his utmost indignation,. and so also did the Union of Benefices Bill, which he regarded, as "flying in the face of the Almighty." A stronger advocate for ornate worship it would be difficult to find ; but Brett, being also a deeply spiritual man, could say that every means that can win men to Christ " it is the bounden duty of the Church of God to use, and not be strait-laced and bound. down by ritualistic recommendations and all the rubbish that would impede us in the salvation of souls." Mr. Brett was called "the lay Pope of Stoke Newington," and perhaps in his hearty assertion of High Church principles there is a touch of Papal infallibility ; but his life was one of self-devotion and unstained by a thought of self. Dr. Belcher has not written a very attractive biography, but by ample quotations from Mr. Brett's speeches and writings, he has done honour to a man of great vigour and worth.
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