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 v•^- 
 
 A 
 
 CIRCULAR LETTER 
 
 KKOM TIIK 
 
 BISHOP OF MONTREAL, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 V LEivGY OF HIS DIOCESE, 
 
 ON 
 
 CHURCH VESTMENTS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 FRANCIS & JOHN RIVINGTON, 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE ; 
 
 AND THOMPSON, BEDFORD. 
 1845. 
 
t 
 
 LONDON : 
 GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, 
 
 ST. John's square. 
 
 ** L 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Montreal having sent a Copy 
 of the following Letter to a friend in England, with 
 permission to make use of it as he might think fit, it 
 is deemed right to give it to the public. 
 
 A -2 
 
f 
 
 
 CIRCULAR LETTER, 
 
 Sfc. 
 
 TO THE CLERGY (W THE DIOCESE OF QUEBEC. 
 
 Quebec, March 27, 1845. 
 REVEREND AND DEAR BRETHREN, 
 
 I HAVE been on)y waiting for the close of those 
 additional duties which occur in the seasons of Lent, 
 Passion-week, and the festival days of Easter, to give 
 my attention to the subject of our meeting this year 
 in triennial Visitation at the See, and to notify you 
 of the arrangements to be made in that behalf. I 
 have been anxious that you should have esrly inti- 
 mation of my purpose, not only because I found, 
 three years ago, that in the case of the Clergy who 
 are stationed in the district of Gaspe, the space of 
 time remaining after their reception of my Circulars, 
 was insufficient to enable them to undertake the 
 voyage from that quarter, but also because I wish 
 
a 
 
 you to come prepared to th6 Visitation ; first, with a 
 full statement of what you may have been enabled to 
 effect, in your respective Cures, in the cause of the 
 Church Society, with which, I believe, that you 
 are all united, and which is vitally interwoven with 
 the present and future interests of the Church within 
 the Diocese; and, secondly, with detailed informa- 
 tion arranged under the proper heads in a tabular 
 form, respecting the state of your Parishes or Mis- 
 sions; the condition of your Churches or Chapels 
 and their appurtenances, within and without; the 
 number of your services during the year ; the num- 
 ber of places at which you officiate, and the distance 
 of each place from your residence; the number of 
 square miles over which your charge is considered to 
 extend ; the number of persons who compose your 
 Congregations ; the number of baptisms, marriages, 
 and burials in those Congregations in 1844; the 
 number of your communicants ; the number of per- 
 sons whom you presented for confirmation at my 
 last visit; the number and description of schools 
 which the children belonging to your Cures attend, 
 together with an account of the Sunday Schools 
 which are under your authority. In all the Missions 
 of the Diocese, this information must be prepared in 
 such a manner as to be fitted for transmission to the 
 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. 
 
 As the Anniversary Meeting of the Church Society 
 
 will- with flip DjvinP llPrmieeion h" liolrl fliio \ranv of 
 
 Quebec, on Wednesday, the 2nd of July, I have fixed 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 upon the forenoon of the same day for tbo delivery 
 of my charge ; — for which purpose Divine Service 
 will be heUl in tlio Cathedral Church, at ten o'clock, 
 A.M. You will appear, on both these occasions, 
 robed in your proper habits. It may, perhaps, be 
 necessary, both for myself and for some others of our 
 number to leave Quebec in the afternoon of the 
 following day, in order to attend the periodical 
 meeting of the Central Board of the Church Society, 
 on Friday, the 4th, at Montreal. You will take 
 care, therefore, if you please, to furnish me with the 
 information mentioned above, at the very latest, on 
 the morning of Thursday, the 3rd. 
 
 And here, but for a particular occurrence, I might 
 close this communication, reserving, (which had been 
 my intention,) for the solenm occasion of our meet- 
 ing, such recommendations upon certain points 
 agitated at this moment in the Church, as I may 
 venture, after all the special examination bestowed 
 upon them of which my scanty leisure and moderate 
 resources render me capable, to press upon your 
 attention : such also as I have led you (in my Circular 
 of the 26th April, 1844,) to expect from me. The 
 occurrence to which I advert, is the agitation of these 
 very questions, which have been under my delibera- 
 tion for your benefit, coupled with very free animad- 
 versions upon ray Circular just mentioned, by a 
 writer professing to be a Presbyter of the Diocese, 
 and assuming very summarily to dispose of points, in 
 which certainly his Bishop has had much more 
 
8 
 
 difficulty ill coming to a conclusion. It cannot bo 
 supposed that I shall enter irjto a newspaper discus- 
 sion with that writer, and as he aj)pear8 in dis«ruise, 
 I can address no expostulation |)ersonally to him. 
 But his proceeding being in itself of a nature tending 
 most needlessly to disturb the peace of the Diocese, 
 and his representations such as may, in some in- 
 stances, infuse unpleasant doubts, and, possibly, 
 creote distressing difficulties in the minds of his 
 brethren, I shall here address myself to the task, so 
 far as it may bo permitted to me, of obviating these 
 effects, — thus anticipating, to a certain extent, the 
 portion of my charge in whioh it will be my endea- 
 vour to assist your judgments in matters of the 
 nature here in question. And in order the more 
 fully and freely to discuss them, I shall not rigorously 
 observe the constraints of a formal and official style. 
 
 I must begin by pointing out, because it carries a 
 caution to the Clergy of some importance, in all 
 similar cases, the great impropriety and imprudence 
 of the course taken by this writer (although I attri- 
 bute to him no improper intentions), presuming him 
 to be, what he declares himself, a Presbyter of the 
 Diocese. 
 
 I must premise that my present observations will 
 be confined to the single point of the surplice ques- 
 tion ; and if I succeed in affording you any satisfac- 
 tion upon this point, I will entreat you to suspend 
 your opinion upon others which are brought into 
 question till we meet. 
 
 I 
 

 In the first place, tlion, It is at a time when the 
 Hisliop, within whose immediate jurisdiction lie ex- 
 ercises liis functions, has intimated to his Cler^'y 
 that he has these very points under his dcHberation, 
 with the purpose of communicating to them the 
 result of his researches, and before it couM possibly 
 be known whether the decisions to be rendered 
 miglit not be actually in accordance with the views of 
 the Presbyter himself, that, not content to wait for 
 the issue, and passing by the obvious expedient of at 
 least laying his doubts and objections in the first 
 instance privately before his Bishop, and submitting 
 to the consideration of the Bishop the reasons which 
 render it painful to him to com])ly with the recom- 
 mendations which had been issued, he must drag 
 the Bishop and the Church in this hitherto discreet 
 and quiet Diocese, into the arena of public and 
 popular disputation, before the eyes Oi" the " mixed 
 multitude" who surround us, and bring the cause to 
 the bar of the Prp:ss — acquiescing, apparently, in 
 that principle which is described, with a very differ- 
 ent estimate of its proi)riety. In a recent publication, 
 by the Bishop of Vermont: — 
 
 "Meanwhile, the irresponsible autocracy of the Press takes 
 hold of the opportunity. Error and novelty gain ground. The 
 clergy and the people choose their editorial leaders ; and when, 
 
 ' This result, with reference, in particular, to the practice of 
 preaching in the surplice, was, as I have been assured, antici- 
 patcd by some of the Clergy in Montreal, from the manner in 
 which they regarded the expressions of my circular. 
 
10 
 
 at last, the eentiments of the Bishops are declared, they are 
 merely Uaed as the complements of parties already formed, and 
 are praised or blamed, just as the prejudice of the party may 
 dictate. The Bishops, in theory, are, indeed, the governors of 
 the Church. In practical effect, however, on the minds of the 
 majority, the editorial chair stands far above them ; and as the 
 inconsi^itency, however gross, belongs to the spirit of the age, I 
 doubt much whether it admits of any effectual remedy ^" 
 
 In the second place, the opportunity seized upon 
 by the Presbyter for thus putting himself forward, 
 is precisely when the extraordinary disturbance of 
 public feeling created by the injunction laid by a 
 highly distinguished prelate at home upon his Clergy, 
 to preach in the surplice, had induced him to with- 
 draw his order— a manifest proof that, even in the 
 eyes of those who most decidedly maintain the pro- 
 priety of the practice, it is not a practice binding 
 upon the consciences of the Clergy, as constituting 
 part of the obligations contracted at their ordina- 
 tion, — for, if it were so, could the order to adopt it 
 be recalled ? 
 
 In the third place, this inopportune sally is made 
 at the very moment when we have been reached by 
 an earnest and affectionate address from our own 
 Metropolitan, the Venerable Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury^, in which he charges it upon us all to forbear 
 
 ' I V 
 
 See also, p. 48, et 
 
 ' The Novelties which disturb our Peace, 
 seqq. of the fourth letter in the same work. 
 
 ' It is possib:j that it might not have reached the Presbyter ; 
 but it was abroad in this Diocese before he appeared in print, and 
 is dated exactly two months earlier. 
 
11 
 
 
 \ 
 
 ' I ^ 
 
 from insisting vehemently on either side, upon the 
 points of this nature which divide the Church, and 
 to await a proper adjustment of them collectively, 
 by authority — pointing out at the same time, in a 
 general way, that there are justificatory reasons to 
 which both parties (when not running into extrava- 
 ,^ant deviations either way) may appeal in support of 
 their respective practice. My brethren of the Clergy 
 in this Diocese will not only feel the deep respect 
 with which, upon every possible ground, we ought 
 to receive this exhortation, but must be all aware 
 that it is an exhortation addressed directly to them- 
 selves — the See of Quebec being comprehended in 
 the province of Canterbury, and its Bishop (accord- 
 ing to the language of the Letters Patent of Erec- 
 tion) being made subject and subordinate to the 
 Archiepiscopal see and the Primate who may be in 
 occupation of it, in the same manner as any Bishop of 
 any see within the province of Canterbury, in the 
 kingdom of England. 
 
 Such is the conjuncture chosen by the Presbyter 
 for attacking the authority set over him, and thus it 
 is that he has risked the ignition of a raging contro- 
 versy upon points in which his own Metropolitan 
 and his own Bishop had moved in a manner which 
 might have been expected to stay his hand. Under 
 any circumstances, I venture to point out to you 
 that the course which he took would have been 
 clearly wrong. There is no plea more sacred than 
 the plea of cotiscience : but there is none in the use 
 
12 
 
 of vvliich, and especially in the case of repugnancy to 
 the directions of the living authority set over them, 
 men should more severely examine their own pro- 
 ceeding. None will either more readily offer or 
 more insinuatingly suggest itself to cover a lurking 
 spirit of opposition, an adherence to party, a precipi- 
 tate adoption of any reigning novelties, or a fond 
 maintenance of favourite prepossessions of the mind. 
 Let me beg you (and I include the Presbyter him- 
 self ) to examine the plea of conscience in the case 
 before us. Here is a question relating to an article 
 of dress, upon which much zeal has been expended 
 which might have been reserved for higher things — 
 but, let that pass, — it is a question which agitates a 
 portion of the Church, and which is not decided: — 
 (if the Presbyter considered that he was dealing with 
 a settled point, he should have remembered that 
 every man, and particularly in the attitude of resist- 
 ance to authoritative recommendations, should have 
 perfectly mastered his part, before adventuring him- 
 self as a Coryphaeus upon the stage — for adhuc sub 
 judice Us est) Now what is the course which in 
 such circumstances a clergyman is to take ? — He has 
 not far to go for his answer. Look at the prefatory 
 matter of the Prayer-book, and there you find it 
 distinctly rendered : — 
 
 " And, forasmuch as nothing can be so plainly set forth, but 
 doubts inay arise in the use and practice of the same : to appease 
 all such diversity (if any arise), and for resolution of all doubts, 
 concerning the manner how to understand, do, and execute the 
 
13 
 
 things contained in this book, the parties that so doubt, or 
 diversely take any thing, shall alway resort to the Bishop of the 
 Diocese, who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting 
 and appeasing of the same ; so that the same order be not con- 
 trary to any thing contained in this book. And if the Bishop of 
 the Diocese be in doubt, then he may send for the resolution to 
 the Archbishop." 
 
 What then, when rightly informed, does conscience 
 prompt in the case before us?— Conscience, you 
 observe, as guided (for that is insisted upon) by the 
 language of the Prayer-book and the vows of Ordi- 
 nation,— to which we must add the obh'gations con- 
 tracted upon receiving Licence or Institution to a 
 Cure. 
 
 The matter is taken diversely, and the intention of 
 the Rubric is subject of doubt. 
 
 The Prayer-book directs the Clergyman, in such 
 a case, to abide by the directions of the Bishop. 
 
 The decision of the Bishop has been given by 
 anticipation : for he has already recommended it to 
 the Clergy to forbear, at present, from introducing 
 any marked change in this doubtful point. 
 
 The inference does not require to be pointed out. 
 
 Again, the Clergyman, in his ordination vows, 
 promises that he will remrently obey his Ordinary. 
 
 And in his admission to any Cure of Souls, he 
 swears an oath that he will pay true and canonical 
 obedience to his Bishop, in all things lawful and honest. 
 
 Compliance with the formal and official significa- 
 tion of the episcopal wishes, with reference to the 
 practice here considered, — the question being pre- 
 
14 
 
 viously an open one, cannot be regarded otherwise 
 than as a thing lawful and honest. 
 
 What is the result ? — It may be put into the form 
 of a syllogism. 
 
 The Clergyman has vowed and sworn to obey his 
 Bishop in all things lawful and honest. 
 
 Continuing to preach, at least ad interim, in the 
 gown, (there being no ascertained law of the Church 
 against it, no violation of decency and decorum in- 
 volved in it, and received custom being all in its 
 favour,) is a thing lawful and honest. 
 
 Therefore, the Clergyman is bound by his ordi- 
 nation vows and his oath to continue preaching, ad 
 interim, in the gown, if he has received the formal 
 and official signification of the episcopal wishes to 
 this effect. 
 
 Nothing can possibly be here further from my 
 intention (and I am anxious to be distinctly under- 
 stood upon this point), than to charge those with a 
 deliberate violation of vows and oaths who, notwith- 
 standing my sufficiently pointed recommendation, 
 may have since adopted the practice of preaching in 
 the surplice*. But as your consciences have been 
 
 * I cannot, however, avoid mentioning with commendation, 
 the proceeding of a Clergyman who, after the reception of my 
 circular, would not continue to preach in the surplice (although 
 his own leanings were probably in favour of the practice), even 
 at one of his stations where he was at a loss for any convenient 
 uivauo vi lan-tuj; uia guvvii, lUi uc iiaQ ursi procurcd my express 
 sanction for doing so. 
 
15 
 
 appealed to, from another quarter, I wish nouj to 
 assist you in judging how they should be guided to a 
 right conclusion. If there are any among you who, 
 with the whole case set before you as it is here 
 done, wish to take benefit of the distinction between 
 a very decided recommendation, with reasons for it 
 assigned ^ and a positive order, and so to say that 
 obedience is due to an order, but obedience is not 
 due to such a recommendation, this is an escape 
 which is certainly open. For my own part, without 
 declining, as you perceive, to afford help by my opi- 
 nion to any who are perplexed, I shall now leave the 
 matter wlthotd any sort of authoritative direction to 
 your consciences and your judgments : for my own 
 conscience, according to my ideas of conscientious 
 obligation, obliges me to do so. I have professed 
 upon oath, in the solemnity of my consecration, all 
 due reverence and obedience to my Metropolitan. And 
 he has issued the recommendation to which I have 
 already had occasion to advert. 
 
 I now proceed to the examination of the question 
 itself. And I must premise, that so far from affect- 
 ing to pronounce in a dogmatical and peremptory 
 manner upon a question in which a view differing 
 from my own has been taken by persons of much 
 
 * The Presbyter is mistaken in saying, with reference to any 
 point of my recommendations, that there was no adequate or 
 other reason assigned for them. Whether they were adequate or 
 not, there were very plain reasons assigned, applying to the 
 whole. 
 
1() 
 
 higher qualifications than I possess, and much more 
 extended opportunities than those which I enjoy, 
 I speak entirely/ under correction ; and entering upon 
 the subject as one confessedly encumbered with 
 dovht, shall be quite prepared to surrender my judg- 
 ment upon the case whenever my interpretation of 
 the precedents and authorities which I produce may 
 be shown to be wrong, or other authorities, to which 
 I have no access, may be brought forward to silence 
 them. If there should be a final decision in the 
 Church in favour of preaching in the surplice, in that 
 decision I shall most cheerfully acquiesce. The re- 
 commendation which I made to you some time ao-o 
 was prompted, not by any passion for the practice of 
 preaching in a gown, (although I do prefer it,) but 
 by a desire that in dovbtful matters we should not 
 be disturbed by any sudden changes or deviations 
 from long-established custom, breaking out here and 
 there, unconcerted among the Clergy, and unauthor- 
 ized by the governing authority of the Diocese. 
 
 In reasoning upon the subject a prim-i, and ac- 
 cording to the general analogy of usages indifferent 
 in themselves, which have been passed on to our 
 own and (although more sparingly) to other Pro- 
 testant communities from times preceding the Re- 
 formation, I should be led to infer that the act of 
 preaching was not originally intended to be per- 
 formed in our Church in the surplice. In cases of 
 
 
 nature uere under review, the absence of special 
 and ea^plicit direction would seem to carry the tacit 
 
17 
 
 autlmization of continuing the practice which before 
 subsisted. This would be understood and assumed 
 as a matter of course. Now I believe it will be 
 found that it is the practice of the Romish Clergy 
 (and I presume that they have received this practice 
 down from some former ages) to divest themselves of 
 the distinguishing robes in which they officiate at the 
 altar, when they pass to the act of preaching ; and 
 although they generally ^ I think, do preach in the 
 surplice, yet the principle which appears in their 
 change of attire is directly adverse to the arguments 
 which are mainly urged in favour of the surplice in 
 our pulpits. 
 
 In fact, the duty of preaching, where performed at 
 all, was at one period so very generally in other 
 hands than those of the officiating clergyman, that 
 this circumstance itself would tend to associate the 
 act with a feeling of something separate and distinct 
 in its nature; and I am under the impression (al- 
 though I do not speak confidently) that friars and 
 others who went about preaching, preached in their 
 ordinary monkish habit. The sermons also at Paul's 
 Cross and in other places in the open air, as for ex- 
 ample in the stone pulpit (if I remember right) at 
 Magdalen College, in Oxford, were evidently some- 
 
 * Not invariably, for I have reason to believe, that at least 
 upon some occasions, and in some parts of the world, they preach 
 in a black dress. See, inter alia, a letter which has appeared 
 lately in me of the papers from a clergyman in Plymouth, to 
 the churchwarden of a neighbouring parish. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 thing in a manner disunited from the usual liturgical 
 services of the sanctuary. 
 
 It is a practice, I believe, to be seen in cathedrals 
 at home, that although the cathedral Clergy them- 
 selves preach in the surplice, a stranger who preaches 
 for any of them, performs that duty in a gown^ And 
 this would seem to imply that the use of the surplice 
 in preaching was understood to be a peculiar distinc- 
 tion reserved to the members of cathedral establish- 
 ments or those of collegiate churches. It appears, 
 however, to involve a departure, in whatever way 
 and at whatever time commenced, from the Adver- 
 tisements of 1 564 (hereinafter quoted). In the uni- 
 versity church at Cambridge, in my own day, and in 
 the different college chapels, when sermons upon 
 particular occasions were preached within them, the 
 preacher (unless my memory, looking back between 
 thirty and forty years, has in this point quite misled 
 me) discharged his duty in a gown ^ 
 
 It is well known that till very lately the use of the 
 gown for preaching, in parish churches and chapels 
 of an ordinary kind, had been, at least for a vast 
 
 '^ I do not remember to have witnessed this ; but I have seen 
 it stated, I think, in the Church newspaper of the diocese of 
 Toronto, about three years ago. 
 
 ' Since 1 wrote this letter, I have partially examined the 
 Article in vol, 72, of the Quarterly Review, on the Rubrics and 
 Ritual of the Church of England, and I find it there stated that 
 in the college chapels, the preachers (as even the under- graduates 
 who are on the foundation) wear the surplice on what are called 
 surplice-days, but on other occasions, simply the gown. 
 
 i) 
 
 
 ' I ^ 
 
19 
 
 I 
 
 * I ^ 
 
 length of time, universal, and tliat so the practice 
 passed to the Colonics, and was received in the Epis- 
 copal Church of the United States. And it would 
 have been happy, I can have no hesitation in saying, 
 if it had been left undisturbed ; for even assuming 
 the preaching in the surplice to be preferable, the 
 difference is not worth the noise and ferment and 
 party feeling which has been engendered by the 
 question ; nor would I have bestowed the pains upon 
 it which I have done, were I not called upon to show 
 that the authority upon whose guidance you must 
 wish to rely, has not been so erroneously and un- 
 advisedly exercised as you have been told. And I 
 cannot pass without notice the unfair mistake often 
 made of imputing to puritanical leanings a prefer- 
 ence for the use of the gown in preaching, and con- 
 founding the abstinence from using the surplice in 
 the pulpit with an absurd and fanatical objection to 
 the surplice itself. How many thousands of Clergy- 
 men and Laymen who prefer the gown in the pulpit, 
 are as perfectly free as their opponents in this point, 
 from any scruple against the surplice or any dislike 
 to it ; and would, on the contrary, be most decidedly 
 offended by any attack upon it, or desire to dispense 
 with it. And the Clergy would seem to be farther 
 r^ .oved from '\ose precisians, as they were wont 
 to be called, who accuse our worship of form and 
 parade, where they appear in a different garb for 
 different portions of the service, than where they 
 restrict themselves to one. 
 
 b2 
 
20 
 
 Let us now examine some authorities. 
 
 The writers on Ecclesiastical Law, whom I have 
 had the means of ijonsulting, such as Gibson, Burns, 
 and Grey, although they all treat, of course, of cle- 
 rical habits, and Burns sometimes descends to details, 
 speaking, for example, of bands, as an irregularity in 
 his judgment, to be referred for its origin to the 
 times of puritanical sway °,--afford no light, that I 
 can find, upon the present question. Their mention 
 of the surplice does not touch the point of preaching 
 or not preaching in it. 
 
 The historians, annalists, and biographers who treat 
 of the affairs of the Church of England, such as 
 Fuller, Collier, and Strype, all of whom furnish a 
 mass of information and many minute particulars 
 respecting the puritanical objections to the pre- 
 scribed habits, and the proceedings of authority in 
 relation to the difficulties thence created, supply 
 nothing, so far as I believe from having searched 
 those portions of their works which seemed most to 
 my purpose, which can help to determine the ques- 
 tion, unless it be found in the Advertisements drawn 
 up by Archbishop Parker, given by the last of these 
 three writers, and issued in 1564, from which an 
 extract is here subjoined : — 
 
 " Item. — In the mynystracion of the Comraunyon in Cathedral 
 and Collegiate Churches, the Executor, with Pistoler and Gos- 
 peller, mynyster the same in coopes ; and at all other praiers to 
 
 ' This was pointed out to me hy a friend. 
 
 ( 
 
21 
 
 V 
 
 * .1 ^ 
 
 be said at the communyon-table, to have no coopes, but sur- 
 plesses. 
 
 " Item. — That the Dean and Prebendaries weare a surples with 
 a silke hoode in the quier, and when theye preache in the Cathedral 
 Church, to weare their e hoode. 
 
 " Item. — That everie Mynyster, saying any puhlique prayers, or 
 mynystrynge the sacramentes, or other rites of the Churche, shall 
 weare a comelye surples with sieves, to be provided at the chargis 
 of the parishe. And that theye provide a decent table, standinge 
 on a fraime, for the communyon-table '." 
 
 I think it is the plain and natural inference from 
 the direction that the cathedral dignitaries are to 
 wear a surples with a hoody in the qiiier^ and whe7i 
 they preache to wear their hood; that the hood in this 
 latter case, is understood to be worn without the sur- 
 plice. And I farther think that when a direction 
 immediately follows that every minister sayinp any 
 public prayers, or ministering the sacraments, or other 
 rites of the Church, shall wear a surplice, this ministering 
 of rites cannot be understood to include preaching; 
 
 ' These Advertisements are given as below, in modern spelling, 
 in Neale's History of the Puritans : — 
 
 In the ministration of the Communion in cathedrals and col- 
 legiate churches, the principal ministers shall wear a cope, with 
 Gospeller and Epistoler agreeably ; but at all other prayers to be 
 said at the communion-table, they shall wear no copes, but sur- 
 plices only : deans and prebendaries shall wear a surplice with a 
 silk hood in the choir; and when they preach a hood. Every 
 minister saying the public prayers, or administering the sacra- 
 ments, &c., shall wear a surplice with sleeves; and the parish 
 shall provide a decent table standing on a frame for the com- 
 munion-table. 
 
'22 
 
 wliicli act, if it liad boen in contemplution hne, 
 would have been mentioned noininatim^ as in the 
 article immediately preceding. Preaching, a" i^ well 
 known, was far from being any standing concomitant 
 in those days of the public services, nor was it an 
 act which the Clergy at large were qualified to per- 
 form. The Advertisements and the 58th Canon 
 seem to me to throw light upon each other. 
 
 I am much confirmed in these impressions by a 
 document in a detached form which is in my own 
 possession ^, to which I am unable to aflRx a precise 
 date, but which appears evidently to belong to the 
 time of the Stuarts, and which I regard as curious 
 and valuable, because, while it will be seen to con- 
 tain a POSITIVE INJUNCTION from the Royal authority, 
 to be carried into effect through the Bishops, to 
 PREACH IN THE GOWN, it afVoi '^ n^ost CO iv'nciug 
 evidence, at the same time, now little (as I have 
 above pointed out) the maintenance of this practice 
 ought to be confounded with puritanical leanings, — 
 thB whole of the Instructions (for so they are called), to 
 which I here refer, which are of a stringent character, 
 being manifestly levelled against those very tendencies; 
 and whereas we now hear the gown in the pulpit 
 stigmatized by the prefix of Geneva^ it is here the 
 gown for preaching, not the surplice, which is set in 
 opposition to the Geneva cloak. I have been unable, 
 thus far, to find these instructions in any book. 
 
 I have given away the original ; but I have a fac-siraile. 
 
23 
 
 f 
 
 , 
 
 I 
 
 Thoy are in black letter, and contain what ht*f© 
 follows : — 
 
 " 2. That every Bishop ordaine in his Dioci ^se, thi pvery 
 Lecturer doe read Divine Service according to the Licurgie, 
 printed by Authority, in his J-^urplis and Hood before the 1 c- 
 tares. 
 
 "3. That where a Lecture ^s set up in a Market Tow t 
 may be read by a company of p ave and orthodox Divines m ^re 
 adjoining, and in the same Di* esse, and that they preach n 
 Gownes, and not in Clokes, as too many doe vse." 
 
 Among the authors who have explaihed ai; 
 defended the whole system, (ceremonies, and usage^^ 
 of the Church of England, t lie great Hooker treats 
 in his fifth book of Attire belonging to the Ser- 
 vice of God, and Nichols las a chapter on the 
 surplice and other ecclesiastical habits ; but I can 
 trace nothing which indicatts the garb used in 
 preaching. 
 
 The same remark may be made upon the works 
 on the English Ritual which I have consulted, 
 namely, those of Sparrow, ^Vheatley, Comber ', 
 Mant, Shepherd, Palmer, and J bb, with the excep- 
 tion of the last. This writer, by whose beautiful 
 work on the Choral Service of the Church of En- 
 gland, published in 1843, I hope that this Diocese, 
 as well as others, may derive profit, and whose 
 recommendations I have already in some instances 
 
 ' The work of Dean Comber is hardly of a nature to afford 
 information upon a point like this. 
 
24 
 
 I 
 
 of a slighter kind adopted in my own practice, — 
 stands opposed to the use of the gown in preaching. 
 I am little desirous of breaking a lance with so 
 accomplished a champion, but after exhibiting his 
 sentiments upon the question, I shall show also some 
 reasons in addition to those which have been already 
 adduced, for inclining strongly to the opinion that 
 he is mistaken. 
 
 Respecting the vestment and cope * which the 
 officiating minister is directed to put on when he 
 
 « 
 
 * Wheatley treats the vestment and cope as the same thing 
 under different names. The difference between them, however, 
 is shown in Palmer's Origines Liturgicse. The Canons of 1603 
 mention only the cope, and, differing in this from the regula- 
 tions prescribed by 2 Edw. VI., (which also give the option 
 between them,) limit the use of the cope to cathedral and colle- 
 giate churches. I should, for my own part, feel no sort of 
 objection to see them again generally in use, if ever the subsi- 
 dence of prejudices should make it expedient. 
 
 The mistake of the Presbyter in supposing that the practice in 
 cathedrals must be a pattern for parish churches, will appear 
 from a comparison of the 24th and 25th Canons, with the 58th. 
 It is important to this whole argument to observe the distinction 
 made between the two cases. The cathedral practice would 
 naturally enough obtain in the Chapel Royal at Edinburgh, 
 where it is stated by Mr. Jebb that the Dean was ordered by 
 Charles I. to preach in the surplice. I would hazard a conjec- 
 ture, that the practice of preaching in the surplice in cathedrals, 
 which does not appear to agree with the Advertisements of 1564, 
 may possibly be traced to the 25th of these Canons of 1603, 
 although the direction thore given by no means necessarily 
 includes the preacher himself. 
 
 
 \ 
 
) 
 
 25 
 
 (I 
 
 ' 
 
 passes to the administration of the Communion, he 
 speaks thus : — 
 
 " I must honestly confess that I can find no argument to 
 justify the disuse of these ancient vestments, so expressly enjoined 
 by authorities to iwhich all Clergymen profess obedience, except 
 that rule of charity which, as Bishop Beveridge expkcssed it, ia 
 above rubrics; that loving regard for the edification of the 
 people, to which every rite and ceremony should tend.'" 
 
 The use of the gown in the pulpit, he iiotices 
 thus : — 
 
 " A few words must be added, upon the use of the gown, which 
 most improperly has come to be considered as an official vesture 
 of Divine service, instead of what it really is, nothing more than 
 the private dress of the Clergy, which they used formerly, and at 
 no very distant time, to wear on all common occasions, just as 
 the resident members do at the universities, but the use of which 
 has been gradually more and more curtailed. At least, it is 
 now only the full dress of the Clergy. It is, however, now 
 commonly regarded as the preaching robe : and thus, while the 
 change of dress, prescribed by the Church, when passing from the 
 Matins or Liturgy to the Communion, is altogether neglected, this 
 absurd practice is consideied as regular and legitimate. It has 
 been alleged, indeed, that while preaching, the minister is teach- 
 ing in his private capacity, and therefore, that he ought to wear 
 a less official dress. But it ought to be remembered, that though 
 permitted a discretion in the sermon not allowed in the prayers, 
 of using his own words, this is a public official act, just as much 
 prescribed as any part of the office, and that (except in colleges, 
 where there is a special exemption by the Act of Uniformity) it 
 is as great an irregularity to omit the Sermon on the morniugs 
 of Sundays and Holidays, as any part of the Liturgy. Now, in 
 cathedrals and colleges the surplice is always worn when 
 preaching. Why should it be different in parish churches ? 
 
 i 
 
26 
 
 ii 
 
 Archdeacon Sharpe, in one of his well-known Charges, vindicates 
 the custom of preacl ing in the surplice, then common within his 
 jurisdiction, on the ground that it is the privilege of the Clergy ; 
 the surplice being, of course, a garment of superior dignity to 
 the gown. * * ♦ # * 
 
 The use of the gown, however, it is most likely, had its origin in 
 a puritanical dislike to the surplice." 
 
 Now the first observation which it here occurs to 
 make in the application of these extracts to the 
 remarks of the Presbyter, is that if the Clergy are 
 bound in conscience to wear the surplice in preaching 
 upon the principle of obedience to rubrical authority, 
 the same principle will mm^e distinctly bind them to 
 the adoption of the alb and cope in administering the 
 Holy Communion, the intention of the rubric being 
 much less questionable in this instance than in the 
 other K And if the salvo of Bishop Beveridge can 
 supply an exemption from the use of those obsolete 
 vestments, the recent occurrences in England, in 
 relation to the use of the surplice in the pulpit, show 
 that it would bo equally available in this case as a 
 dispensation, even if the arguments were much 
 stronger than I consider them to be in favour of the 
 rubrical authority for the practice. 
 
 I would also observe, that whereas a change of 
 dress made during the service is much insisted upon 
 in certain quarters, as an objection to preaching in 
 the gown, — it will be seen here that upon the yery 
 
 ' It is, however, questioned, i think rather feebly, by Grey on 
 Ecclesiastical Law, and by Sharpe on the Rubric. 
 
i 
 
 27 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 principle of following, at all hazards, the letter of 
 the rubric, another change of dress is found to be 
 imposed ^ and the omission of it is mentioned in the 
 foregoing extracts as a neglect. Now if the change 
 be proper in passing from one portion of what may 
 more properly be called the sacerdotal acts of the 
 Clergy to another (although one indeed of a higher 
 order), it would seem, a fortiori, to be admissible in 
 the transition to a performance which is the minister's 
 own, interposed between different parts of the pre ribed 
 forms. I conceive, in opposition to the vie x taken 
 by the Presbyter, that preaching in itself iS very 
 obviously distinguishable from a rite, properly so 
 called ^ A rite is described, indeed, in one of the 
 definitions of Johnson, of which the correctness, as 
 far as it goes, cannot be disputed, as a solemn act of 
 Religion. But although every rite is a solemn act of 
 Religion, every solemn act of Religion is not a rite. 
 The Latin ritus and the French rit, from whence the 
 word rite comes to us, would not, I think, be accu- 
 rately used in an application simply to the act of 
 preaching, although they might be applied to its 
 prescribed circumstantials. 
 
 In the consecration of Bishops, both according to 
 
 ® I. e. Since the services have been blended in one, which were 
 originally distinct. 
 
 ' The Presbyter appears to doubt whether it be not a part of 
 the Sacrament of the Holy Communion. If it can be proved to be 
 that, i shall certainly concede that it is a rite. 
 
 T 
 
r 
 
 28 
 
 the rubric and received practice, a change of dress is 
 made during the services. 
 
 I have only two works at my command written 
 exclusively upon the RuMc. One of these is the 
 collection of Charges by Archdeacon Sharpe \ to 
 which the reference is made by the Rev. Prebendary 
 Jebb; the other is a work published in 1841, under 
 the title of An Appeal to the Rvbric, by the Rev. S. 
 Rowe, vicar of Crediton, and is designed practically 
 to enforce a greater rubrical exactness. 
 
 Mr. Jebb, I apprehend, must have spoken only 
 from recollection, and that slight and imperfect, when 
 he represented Archdeacon S' -rpe as vindicating 
 the custom of preaching in the surplice. The Arch- 
 deacon, it will be seen, so far vindicates it, as to use 
 his endeavours for reconciling the Clergy to the prac- 
 tice, within his particular jurisdiction, where it had, 
 at that time, prevailed from having been formerly 
 introduced by a higher authority ; but his own judgl 
 ment is very decidedly and strongly on the other 
 side. He speaks as follows : — 
 
 "I cannot dismiss this article, without giving you another 
 remarkable instance of the prevalence of custom in these sort of 
 usages, under the approbation of the Ordinary; and the rather 
 because it is an instance that falls within the subject of the' 
 present Canon [the 58th]. and is also of peculiar consideration 
 to us of this diocese ; in which alone it is to be met with-ii is the 
 
 * This work comprehends notice also of the Canons as they 
 affect the Parochial Clergy. 
 
29 
 
 of the surplice by all preach 
 
 their pulpits 
 
 constant \ 
 
 and it is said to have talten rise from an opinion of Bishop Cosins, 
 that as surplices were to be worn at all times of the ministration, 
 and preaching was properly the ministration of the word of God, 
 therefore surplices were to be worn in the pulpit as well as in 
 the desk, or on other occasions of the ministry. 
 
 " One cannot speak otherwise than with reverence and due 
 respect to the authority of so great a ritualist as Bishop Cosins 
 ^as — yet it is manifest there is nothing in our Rubrics that doth 
 directly authorize this usage, or in the Canons that doth coun- 
 tenance it ; nay, there is something in both which would discourage, 
 if not forbid, such a practice. The Canons limit the use of the 
 surplice to the public prayers, and ministering the sacraments, 
 and other rites of the Church ; so doth our Rubric concerning 
 habits, if it be strictly interpreted of King Edward's order in the 
 second year of his reign; for there the surplice ie only used 
 at mattens, evensong, in baptizing and burying in parish churches. 
 And then there immediately follows this permission, that in all 
 other places every minister shall be at liberty to use any surplice 
 or no; and also a recommendation to such as are Graduates, 
 that, when they preach, they should use such hoods as pertained 
 to their several degrees. Here then is sufficient warrant for 
 using a hood without a surplice, as is done to this day at the 
 universities, but no appearance of authority for the use of surplices 
 in the pulpit. If it be said that a custom has prevailed over the 
 kingdom for Bishops to wear their habits of ministration when- 
 soever they preach, whether they officiate in other respects or 
 not, and that the inferior Clergy cannot follow a better example ; 
 it may be answered, that what the Bishops do in this respect is 
 founded on ancient Constitutions. By the Canon law they were 
 obliged to wear rochets, as their distinguishing habit, whenever 
 they appeared in public ; though since the Reformation they have 
 not used to wear them any where in public but in the Church and 
 in the House of Lords. And it is more proper they should 
 continue the use of their public habit, wheusoever they preach, 
 for the better distinction of their characters on that occasion 
 
I 
 
 30 
 
 from those of the inferior pastors : seeing there is no sufficient 
 distinction preserved in their ordinary habits. 
 
 " All, then, that I would observe upon this custom of preaching 
 in surplices, is, that none of us are obliged to it ; though at the 
 same time I intend no censure of the practice — for it is certainly 
 decent, and with us without exception, though it be no where 
 authorized, otherwise than by a prescription within this diocese." 
 
 In the work of Mr. Rowe, the following remark 
 appears, in the form of a note : — 
 
 "There appears great propriety in the custom followed by 
 some Clergymen of wearing the surplice on the three great festivals 
 of Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas, in the pulpit as well as in 
 the reading-pew and at the Communion." 
 
 I am by no means prepared to subscribe to the 
 opinion here expressed ; but that is not the question: 
 what I wish you to observe is, that this writer on the 
 Rubric manifestly regards tlie occasions to wliich he 
 refers as ea^ceptions, and therefore approves u])on all 
 other occasions of the use of the gown in the pulpit. 
 
 And here I close my authorities, which have been 
 pressed forward more hurriedly, and therefore with 
 less advantage than I could have desired : but they 
 may be sufficient to satisfy you, that in recommend- 
 ing to you a year ago, that you should not hastily, 
 and upon your individual responsibility, introduce in 
 the matter here under consideration, what was a 
 marked novelty in this diocese, I was not recom- 
 mending what was calculated to do violence to your 
 consciences, or painfully to place you between con- 
 claims upon your obedience. I was not 
 
 -i.;„ 
 
31 
 
 acting in a manner to warrant tlie venting up and 
 down through the province for discussion in taverns 
 and steam-boats, tlie statement of a Clergyman, that 
 if he and his brethren take the authorized directions of 
 the Church for their guide, they will be acting contrary 
 to the recommendation (farther on called the unhappy 
 recommendation) of the Bishop, although he too is 
 bound by the same directions, and therefore they must 
 obey the orders of the Church, however much it may 
 pain them to neglect a recommendation from so high 
 a quarter : and, again, that it is most unfortunate that 
 our venerated Diocesan should have committed himself 
 so fully in opposition to the plainest directions that could 
 be penned, &c. : and once more, that deeply, and even 
 with tears must it be lamented, that our beloved Chief 
 Shepherd should have issued any recommendation like 
 this, &c. 
 
 It is very obvious that all these strictures, whether 
 just or otherwise, will apply to the Letter of our 
 Metropolitan, as well as to my own Circular. To 
 him, however, I doubt not that the Presbyter would 
 apply, with all the heightened meaning which is due, 
 the terms of affection and respect serving to qualify 
 the censure which he has undertaken to pass upon 
 his Bishop. For these I am obliged to him. But 
 coupled as they are with that censure, conveyed in 
 such expressions as are quoted above, I hope that I 
 shall not be making an ungracious return, if I say 
 that he may find some cause for weeping nearer 
 home than in the proceedings of the authority set 
 
I 
 
 32 
 
 over Iiim; some reason, but not Idnc, tl.at illte 
 lacrymcp, should flow. I speak this in no unfriendly 
 spirit towards my unknown assailant. His best 
 friends, I believe, would wish such a conviction to 
 be wrought within his mind. 
 
 If the lot of the Presbyter had been cast in a 
 diocese where the fences of order and unitv had 
 been thrown open, observances depreciated, or so- 
 lemnity of effect in the ministrations of Religion 
 disregarded by its governing authority,— there might 
 have been more colourable plea for his proceeding. 
 But I may appeal, I think, with some confidence to 
 my brethren, to show that no such plea as this can 
 be advanced. No example has ever been set by the 
 Bishops of this diocese, of laxity in Church principle, 
 or accommodation in religious proceedings to latitu- 
 dinarian and pseudo-liberal views. And long before 
 any movement was made in the Church to carry us 
 along with it in the correction of neglect and irregu- 
 larity in the points just above stated, your present 
 Bishop, being then your Archdeacon, addressed you 
 thus : 
 
 " Lastly-I now come to a subject which falls within my 
 particular province-we must be faithful in the correct and 
 reverent performance of the ordinary and prescnbed duties of 
 our office. An obligation which is indeed closely connected 
 with the tenor of the last preceding observations : for the beau- 
 tiful forms and offices of the Church, purged as they are from the 
 gorgeous pageantry of superstition, yet clothed with a reverential 
 solemmty of exterior, and strictly edifying and evangelical in 
 a.i.., .,„. „tten be louna to recommend themselves and 
 
33 
 
 
 procure respect, even in (juarters where there is a predisposition 
 
 to condemn thctn, if her ministers in their manner of officiating, 
 
 and the regard which they have to accessory circumstances, 
 
 preserve the wise spirit in which they were framed. I do not 
 
 speak only of our performance of public worship. I maintain 
 
 that in admitting infants by baptism into the covenant of Christ, 
 
 — uniting man and woman as one flesh in the Lord with the 
 
 form of prayer and benediction — consigning the dead back again 
 
 to the dust from which they sprang — or administering, in cases 
 
 where it is right to do so, the comfort of the Lord's Supper to 
 
 the sick and dying — our feelings of serio'..iess and devotion, 
 
 instead of prompting us to treat exte ^s with contempt, should 
 
 teach us to prevent all offensive contrast between the sacredness 
 
 of the occasion, and the circumstantials of the performance. 
 
 Let us avoid, therefore, every appearance of haste, of irreverence, 
 
 of slovenliness, — every tendency towards the disuse of grave and 
 
 decent formalities and distinctions in dress or otherwise, which 
 
 were prescribed by the Master-builders of our Zion ; and not b(> 
 
 too ready to construe any incommodious circumstances of a local 
 
 character as furnishing a dispensation to depart from rule ; nor 
 
 suffer precedents to creep in which may produce undesirable 
 
 alteration in the received usages of the Church. 
 
 " I will take one example only, to come mure closely to the 
 point and distinctly to illustrate what I mean : I will suppose a 
 baptism to be performed — one of the infants whom our Redeemer 
 would have folded in his arms, — to be presented to his minister 
 that it may be marked for his own : — some trifling inconvenience 
 is alleged, (I would yield the point if it were severe,) as an 
 objection to bringing it to the Church : this sacrament is there- 
 fore administered perhaps in a tavern — some vessel is produced 
 which is in daily use for household purposes — the Clergyman is in 
 u hurry, and he appears without any distinction to mark his 
 office : — -I ask whether the associations which attach to the ordi- 
 nance are likely to be as serious, as if the rite were administered 
 within the consecrated walls of the House of God, the water 
 received in a decent font, the Clergyman marked to the eye of the 
 
 C 
 
34 
 
 Al 
 
 beholder, as one who Ib appointed to minister in holy things ?" 
 
 Vmtalion Sermon preached oefore the lute Bishop, 1 832. 
 
 Again, quite independently of any action of a 
 party, or echo of a strain raised in other quarters, 
 but simply and purely as the result of reflections of 
 very long standing in my own mind, and of my own 
 sense of duty, I spoke thus to you in my primary 
 Episcopal Charge : — 
 
 " In seeking to recommend the Church, according to our 
 bounden duty, in the eyes of our ^.wn people or of others, and to 
 give the fullest effect to the beautiful offices of her Liturgy, there 
 is a principle to be observed of which I have taken notice upon 
 former occasions in addressing my brethren in a different capacity, 
 but which I am prompted briefly to touch upon, because it is in 
 danger from local circumstances of partially falling into disregard 
 —I mean the principle of rendering the services of the Church 
 more impressive by the manner of performing them, and by the 
 exterior reverence and decorum with which they are clothed. 
 The preface to the Common Prayer-book, the Canons and the 
 Rubrics, more particularly in the Communion-office, afford suffi- 
 cient evidence of the care which was wisely taken by our holy 
 Reformers, while they purged away from our worship the cum- 
 brous pageantry of superstition, to preserve the utmost gravity, 
 solemnity, and order in the public ministrations of the Church ;' 
 and to shed over them a venerable air fitted to remind men of 
 the awe with which they should approach the things of God. 
 The forms and ceremonies of the Church, the prescribed postures 
 of worship, the habits of those who officiate, the vessels of the 
 sanctuary, the several appendages and distinctions of our National 
 Churc^-^s. are all designed to aid in this effect; and, as servants 
 of the Church, we ought to act in the spirit, and, whenever we 
 can, according to the letter of her regulations. The disuse upon 
 the ordinary occasions of life of a distinguishing ecclesiastical 
 dress, is a departure from wise and venerable rules, from which 
 
 f 
 
35 
 
 our Clergy ought never to take license to depart farther than 
 acconl.ng to the now received usage, thev are obliged to do 
 They should never betray a disposition to secularize the character 
 and office which they hold. And in the actual performance of 
 any ecclesiastical function, no deviation can be justified for which 
 the plea of necessity cannot be advanced. No needless irre- 
 gularity should be suffered to creep into our performance of 
 official duty, which may settle by degrees into a precedent "— 
 Charge, 1838. 
 
 I might refer to passages in an Ordination-sermon 
 preached last year, and published by desire, in the 
 Cliurch Newspaper of the 13th of September (vol 
 viii. No. 10). But I have already brought forward 
 more than enough, perhaps, to appease any uneasy 
 suspicions of episcopal remissness in this diocese, in 
 matters of exterior or distinctive principles and 
 usages of the Church. And the Presbyter, if he is 
 one who held a charge in the diocese in 1843, can 
 hardly have forgotten the Questions, in a numbered 
 series, proposed to the Clergy individually in my last 
 Visitation, part of which related to their conformity 
 to rule in certain forms and observances belonging 
 to their ministrations. 
 
 Whether, however, it is either possible, or, if pos- 
 sible, matter of expediency or of duty, at all haza^^ds, 
 and m all cases to adhere to the letter of the Rubrics ; 
 or, whether in an ill-considered and imperfectly 
 examined endeavour to do so, we may not be liable 
 to be betrayed into some signal mistakes respecting 
 
 ~r'--- " ^-'^"^oj 1L3C11 as a whole, and the 
 
 plain intentions of its compilers,— are questions upon 
 
 c 2 
 
36 
 
 whicli T shnll not liero enter. And willingly, iiKk-oil, 
 do I \vnvv I ho chiof subject of this letter, mid }r\m\\y, 
 after the letter of his Gmco of Canterbury, would [ 
 have passed it untouched, but for the reasons which 
 have been already stated, and of which I think the 
 force must bo apparent to you, and must be regarded 
 as sufficient to justify my taking, perhaps, mther an 
 unusual course in bestowing all this notice upon an 
 anonymous publication in a religious newspaper. 
 I have felt that we are here upon so small a scale, 
 compared with the proceedings at home, that every 
 man is reached by every thing said or done by his 
 neighbour, and that a corrective must bo adminis- 
 tered from which, for many reasons, I would much 
 mther have forborne. I am ashamed that we should 
 make the exhibition before the world, of a Church 
 distracted by questions about the ministering habits 
 of her Clergy, and wanting (for so it would seem) a 
 governing authority sufficient to procure the acquies- 
 cence of her ministers in its direction upon disputed 
 points of such a nature. I would to God that all 
 who hear of our affairs could know nothing but that 
 we stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving 
 
 TOGETHER FOR THE FAITH OF THE GoSPEL, and 
 
 against each other, striving in nothing,— much less 
 
 about matters which, although they may have their 
 
 own importance, are indeed immeasurably inferior to 
 this. 
 
 I am thankful, however, that to a very great ex- 
 tent, this may, I trust, be said of us ; and as upon 
 
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37 
 
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 + 
 
 tlio iK.int which I huve Npocially coiiHiduml in this 
 letter, or tho other points noticed in my Cireuhir of 
 April 26, 1844, [ have never had ono coni|.liiiiit or 
 remonstrance adtiressed to me from any of the »nore 
 than seventy Cler^rymen who now officiate in the 
 diocese, I may conclnde that tmiformUij of practice 
 upon those points does very <renerally j.revail, and 
 therefore that this confessedly desirable object of 
 im'ijwmity' will manifestly be dvMnnied instead of 
 l»'omotcd by endeavonrs (so far as they may take 
 effect) to impngn my recommend] ations. In fax^t, I 
 do not believe that there is a diocese, eitiier at 
 home or in the colonies, where, upon the whole, a 
 ^'reatcr approach to unanimity has been seen, than 
 iu this hninblo diocese of Quebec. I have been 
 pernn'tted to be the instrument of raising the num- 
 ber of our Clergy to its present level from something 
 above thirty names, since I assumed the charge of 
 the diocese iu the end of 1836 ; and with the bless- 
 iug of God and the help of my brethren, points of 
 some imj)ortance have been gained among us for the 
 Church since that time, and things put in train, 
 which I trust will hereafter bring forth no meagre' 
 
 " It will be remembered that one of the reasons pointed out for 
 the ad interim recommendations contained ny Circular was, 
 that the opposite proceeding would have tho jtfect of breaking the 
 uniformty of oUervance in the Church, and ,ewildcring the minds of 
 the people respecting her rules. It is precisely b)- a departure from 
 those recommcjidaiiuns that the Prcbbv ler aims to gain the object 
 of uniformity. 
 
38 
 
 fi'uit. In all my anxieties and difficulties, with the 
 care of the Churches lying upon me, and many pecu- 
 liar circumstances of discouragement attaching to 
 the Colonial branch of the Establishment,— next to 
 the help of Him whose strength is made perfect in our 
 weakness, my hands have been strengthened, and my 
 spirit has been solaced by the kindness and cordial 
 co-operation of my Clergy, who, I trust, have never 
 had, and never will have occasion to suspect me of 
 putting forth any exorbitant claims of authority, or 
 arrogating any thing to my offiee from personal 
 motives. I rely still upon the same comforting aids, 
 not excepting any of my brethren merely because 
 they may have been led to embrace what I think a 
 wrong view, in some subordinate points, of my duty 
 and of their own— and, in the deepest sense of per- 
 sonal insufficiency, I look still to their prayers for 
 me to God through his Son Jesus Christ, to whose 
 blessing, and the guidance of whose Holy Spirit, I 
 commend them now and always, in mine. 
 
 I am, Rev. and dear brethren, 
 
 Your affectionate friend and brother, 
 G. J. Montreal. 
 
 ; 
 
 
 T 
 
 p. S. — I wish it to be particularly kept in view, 
 that although I have felt it necessary to justify my 
 own proceeding to you, which has been called in 
 question professedly by one of your body ; and to 
 satisfy you, generally, that things are not loosely. 
 
i 
 
 39 
 
 hastily, and unwarily done m this diocese,! abide 
 strictly by the recommendations of the Archbishop; 
 and one of them is this:— 
 
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 "In Churches where alterations have been introduced with 
 general acquiescence, let things remain as tl.ev are." 
 
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 THE END. 
 
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 Gilbert & RtviNOTON, Printers, St. John's" Square, London.