TH EDITION 15 - -^ 1 IW' vJ/t ./ ><«pa<%T" i^y^-^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES m ^^-^^» — / ^ ^ y THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS, (1858-18T8) IN REPLY TO THE BISHOPS IN CONVOCATION, THE HOUSE OF LORDS, AND ELSEWHERE, gtbisbn of tl^t §o0h ai (ILtimmon ipraijcr EEV. JAMES HILDYAED, B.D., RECTOR OF IXGOLDSBV, LINCOLNSHIRE. VOL. I. "Nonumque prematur in annum, r\Iembranis intus positis." — HoR., Ars Poet., 388. ' ' Let them not come forth Till twenty i-olling years have proved their worth. Francis. Jourtl) edition, KEVISEI) AND KNLAHQED; BRINGING THE REVISION MOVEMENT DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME. CASSELL FETTER & GAL PIN LONDON, PARIS ^ NEW YORK. 1879. [all eights RESERVEr.] ' ' Non deerunt f ortaase vitilitigatores, qui calumnientur, partim leviores osse nugas, quam ut theologum deceant, partim mordaciores, qu.nm ut Christianae conveniant modestiiu." — Erasm., Morim Encom., Pracfat. *' Ridicule is not exactly the weapon to bo used in matters of religion, l)ut may be excused when there is no other which can make the adversary tivmble." — Sydney Smith's Works, vol. i., p. 163. " The fair way of conducting a dispute is, to exhibit one by one the arguments of your opponent, and with each argument the precise and specific answer you are able to give it." — P.\ley. v.j Co WILLIAM PARKER, Esq., OP HANTHORPE HOUSE, NEAR BOnRN, LINCOLNSHIRE, THE UNFLINCHING ADVOCATE, BOTH BY PRECEPT AND EXAMPLE, OF SOUND PROTESTANT AND RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES THROUGH A LONG AND USEFUL LIFE, THIS FOURTH EDITION of THE INOOLDSBY LETTERS, ITKLISHED AT HIS Sl'ECIAL HEQVEST AND CHIEF COST, IS DEDICATED BY HIS ATTACHED AND GRATEFUL FRIEND, THE AUTHOR. lR(ir^7rM TIk' followinjj notice of the Third Editiox of the Letters api)eareJ in the Church S fund a r d, Aw^iist 15, 18GS : — It is not often tliat anonymous letters written to newspajjors attract more than a passing notice. These, however, by "Inj^ohlsby" have not only l>oen collected in two handsome volumes, Imt have reached a third edition. This unusual success is to bo explained, in the first place, by the nature of the subjects treated; and in the next by the fact that their author is reaUy so well known that he can, and does, repudiate the idea of writing from behind a mask. The tojiic is a Revision of the Liturgy; and the writer, the Rev. James Hild- yard, Rector of Ingoldsby, Lincolnshire, is one of the most eminent scliolars of the day, liaving obtained the highest classical honours at Cambridge; and who would, it is said, have been Master of Christ's College certainly, and probably a Bishop, if he had not shown, even in early life, that free spirit which breathes throughout his pages and makes them so refreshing. ^\'hat lie wants is a Royal Commission charged to inquire whether ^ reforms are needed in the Book of Common Prayer : and it is evident that he looks for a settlement more truly comprehensive than that which, while it retained those who have expanded into Mackonochies and Littledales, nevertheless excluded those 2.000 Puritans whoso wrongs and sufferings have been so eloquently recorded by Mr. Mountfield, of Newport. We have only to add that Mr. Hildyard has thrown his whole heart into the work ; that he has brought to bear on his oppo- nents innumoral)le and most apposite classical allusions and quotations, close arguments, keen irony, sharp wit, and caustic ridicule, showing himself more than a match for the Bishop of Oxford, and capable of breaking a lance with the mighty Bishop of St. David's. We had marked many passages deserving to be extracted, but, good as they are liy themselves, they read so much better when joined with the context, that we resolved not to injure them by citation. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. "Veluti pueris absinthia tetra medentes Quom dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum Contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore, TJt pucrorum a^tas improvida ludificetur Labrorum tenus, — interea perpotet amarum Absintbi laticem, deceptaque non capiatur, Sed potius tali tactu recreata valescat : — Sic ego nunc." Lucret., Lib. i. 937 — 44. Twenty years have gone over the head o£ the Author of these Letters since the bulk of them were written, and published in various London and Provincial Newspapers of the day. His hair has grown grey in the interval, and he has witnessed much of the changes and chances of this mortal life; — but nothing that he has seen or heard in all those years (and they have been not uneventful ones, whether in Church or State) has tended in the slightest degree to shake any one of the oj)inions expressed in the course of the follow- ing pages ; — nay, rather, he is abundantly confirmed in all he has written by everything he has in the meanwhile noticed passing around him. The position, under the good Providence of God, which he has been permitted to hold during that long period in the life of man, in the very prime of manhood and presumed maturity of judgment, has enabled him to look around and witness calmly what was (jccurring elsewhere, without being himself in any w;ty mlxi'd up willi (he strife of tongues. VI PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION, This was a rare opportunity ; — aiul he has availed himself of it to review at leisure, from time to time, the sentiments put on recoi-d when the question of a Revision of the Book of Common Prayer was more before the public than it is at the present moment. He has seen an active and earnest section in the Church striving continually for the mastery, — setting the Law and the Bishops at defiance, — while they shelter themselves behind certain words in the unreformed Prayer-book, which they defy their opponents to remove, or, if not removed, to interpret against them. He has witnessed, on the other hand, an Imperhim in Imperio established under the title of '' The Reformed Episcopal Church in England," which threatens in time to develop into a serious schism, analogous to that which lately shook the Church of Scotland to the centre. He has seen, and partly himself experienced, a growing disinclination on the part of the more talented youth of the country to enter the Church as a profession ; while a daily increasing demand is felt for their services. He has seen the Church in Ireland robbed and dis- established; at the same time that Popery in that Country has been encouraged and endowed with a portion of the spoil. He has seen in England, through the length and breadth of the land, the Education of the rising generation handed over to Board Schools, from which the Church Catechism and the distinctive teaching of the Clergy of the Establishment is excluded. He has seen Church Rates abolished ; and an internecine struggle carried on in Parliament for the surrender of the churchyards to those who never set foot within the church. All this, and more, he is inclined to attribute to the fact that the intelligence of mankind in the latter part of the nineteenth century refuses to be governed b}' a Law pa*;sed PREFACE TO THE FOUllTII EDITION. VIl in the middle of the seventeenth; and which Law it has been, and is, a main part of the object of The Ingoldsby Letters to get either repealed or revised. He therefore hesitates not, at the earnest desire of an old and valued friend, to commit them again to the Press, with such annotations and observations as the experience of twenty years enables him to bring to bear upon them. A new generation of Clergy, and an almost entirely different Bench of Bishops, have come upon the scene since the Letters were originally written. No offence, therefore, can reasonably be taken (as none is intended) at any of the seemingly severe remarks made upon a few individuals in the course of the following pages. Finally, as to the vein of banter, or humour, which more or less pervades the whole, — the Author begs here once for all (as he has done elsewhere) to state, that he adopted that course designedly from the beginning, after the example — though at a humble distance — of the learned Erasmus, and the genial Canon of St. PauFs, in order the better to attract public attention to a subject from which the natural man is too much disposed to turn aside, — but in which all, from the highest to the lowest, have in reality the deepest concern. He has, in shorty imitated, as closely as he was able, the cunning practice of the old physician in his motto. He has sweetened the rim of his cup with as much sugar and honey as he could command, in order to induce to the swallowing of a potion, intended to effect a radical cure in the ad- mittedly disorganised condition of the Body Corporate of the Church. Ingoldshij Rector)/, Dec. 2l6'/, 1S7S. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.^ Only a few woi-ds are needed in explanation of the different form the Letters now assume to that in whieh they have previously appeared. The subject having become one of far more extended interest than was the case when the Letters were originally commenced, they have insensibly increased in number, and become greatly enlarged in their scope. The question now embraces, not only the Abridgment, and re- arrangement to a certain extent, of the Church Services, with consequent alteration of the Rubric and Calendar, but also the much wider department of an examination into the doctrine of the Prayer-book. On this last point there is naturally much difference of opinion ; but it is clear that it cannot be any longer ignored by those to whom the task of Revision shall be committed. The Author has all along maintained that a Royal Commission * The Author may be excused introducing this Edition in the words of an unknown Reviewer of a former one : — " Ingoldshy's task is not without difficulties : he has to contend against the powerful influence of the most wealthy hierarchy in the world, and to arrest the attention of an age decidedly averse to theological controversy. He succeeds, by means of a light and pleasant stylo, in interesting us in a subject, not attractive, however imporUint it may be. Wc think that Ingoldsby is fully justified in using this vivacious style ; had he not done so, wc are quite sure that he would not have had a tithe of his present readers. The grave sober treatises, which our forefathers read and digested, find no favour with people of the present day. This is Ingoldsby's own experience. He did his utmost in the way of solid arguments ujjon tho subject for upwards of two whole years, consuming all his living in printing, adver- tising, letter-writing, reviewing ; and had the satisfaction for his pains of finding that he convinced none but those who were convinced already. He lias, therefore, resorted to another method of warfare, the success of which is shown by the circulation of thesi' letters." — London Mornimj Vupcy. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. IX is the only safe, as well as constitutional, method of under- taking the preliminary steps of Inquiry and Suggestion. To that view he still adheres. Nor can he conceive a fitter time for the purpose of issuing such Commission, than when parties are so nicely balanced both in Church and State, that it is reasonable to conclude all sentiments would be fairly represented, and all representations fairly entertained. This, it is well known, was far from being the case on the last Review of the Prayer-book. Whereas the recent debate in the House of Lords on the Act of Uniformity Amendment Bill shows a present disposition not only on the part of the Government, but also on that of a portion of the hierarchy, to enter on the question without heat and without partiality. The fact, too, of the year 186-2 being the Bicentenary of the last Review, appears remarkably to coincide with other signs in fixing upon the present time as the most appropriate one for grappling with this great work. In conclusion, the Author would exj)ress his earnest hope that the matter may be temperately handled by all whom it concerns ; and that neither jealousy of those who are without the pale of the Church, nor differences of opinion amongst those who are within, may prevent the harmonious working of the Commission, should Her Majesty be advised to issue one. Their task, under the most favourable auspices, will be an arduous one ; but no difficulty is insuperable where there is a willingness to co-operate cheerfully in the single desire to promote the glory of God, and the well-being of his people. Ingoldsby Rectory, July \st, 1862. P.S. — A Commission was, indeed, issued ; but so limited in its scope, and so unsatisfactory in its original constitution, that it proved a fiasco, — as was anticipated from the begin- ning by those who had been most anxious for its appointment. Bee. 21*7, 1878. TABLE OF CONTENTS TO VOL. I. LETTEU PAGE I. Convocation of February, 1858 1 II. The Upper House of Convocation 6 III. Petition of the Lincolnshire Clergy 12 IV. Bishop of Lincoln (Jackson) and the Prayer-book 19 Y. The Length of the Morning Service 25 VI. Abridgment of the Morning Service 32 VIL The Length of the Church Services 37 VIII. Charity thinketh no evil 44 IX. The Occasional Services of the Church 50 X. This is not the Time 57 XL The Bishop of Oxford (Wdberforce), No. 1 65 XIL The Commission of 1689 74 XIIL Lord Ebury's Motion, May 6, 1858 82 XIV. The Bishop of Oxford again. No. 2 90 XV. The Bishop of St. David's (Thirlwall), No. 1 99 XVI. The Deanery of York and Church Patronage 106 XVII. Anonymous Letter- wi-iting 117 XVIIL The Bishop of St. David's, No. 2 124 XIX. Ridicule will frequently prevail 130 XX. Strike while the iron is hot 137 XXI. Debate on the State Services 146 XXII. Suggestions for a Royal Commission 153 XXIII. The Many -headed Monster, Litui-gical Reform ... 160 XXIV. Insufficiency of Supplemental Rubrics 167 XXV. The People's Call for Revision 168 XXVL Tliere is a Lion in the Path '..... 176 XXVII. The Bishop of St. David's again 183 XXVIIL George III. on the Length of the Church Service. 189 XXIX. The Bishop of St. David's once more 194 XXX. Rev. C. Girdlestone and Church Patronage 200 XXXI. The Bishop of Winche.ster (Sumner) 204 XXXIL The Rev. C. Giidlestone and the Bishops 209 XXXIIL The Bishop of Oxford, No. 3 215 XXXIV. The State Services Expunged 221 XII TABLK OF CONTEXTS. l.trrTKR PAflK XX X V. Tl»e Bisliop of London (Tait) 226 XXXVI. The Bishop of Loiulon'.s Priniarv Charge 233 XXXVir. The Bi.shop of Lincohi's Charge, Oct., 1858 238 XXXVIII. The Archdeacon of Lindisfame 246 XXXIX. The Bi.shoj) of Lincoln's Cliarge, continued 250 XL. The Bishop of Lincoln's Charge, conchuU'd 264 XLI. Reassembling of Convocation, Feb., 1859 270 XLII. The Burial Service of the Church 276 XLIIL Adjournment of Convocation, Feb., 1859 282 XLIV. Bishops of St. David's, LlandafF, and St. Asaph. 286 XLV. Bisliop of St. David's and Occasional Services ... 291 XLVL Di-ssolution of Parliament, April, 1859 296 XLVIL The Liturgical Refonners and the Elections ... 302 XLVIII. Election of Proctors for Lincoln Diocese 309 XLIX. Bishop of Llandaff on the Morning Service 313 L. Archdeacon Mu.sgrave's Charge, May, 1859 319 LI. The Bishop of St. Asaph on the Prayer-book ... 324 LIL Rev. Vowler Short, Student of Clirist Church ... 328 LIII. Hereford, Bath and Wells, and Chichester 334 LI V. The Convocation of Canterbury 339 LV. Po.stponement of Lord Ebury's Motion, 1859 ... 343 LVI. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Sumner) 347 LVII. The Dean of Norwich (Pellew) on Revision 351 LVIIL The Rector of St. George'.s-in-the-East, 1859 ... 354 LIX. Lord Lyttelton and Lord Ebury 358 LX. Lord Ebury and the J/o/'/' so, I have little doubt of your receivin<2^ the support of all tiiat influential portion of the cler<^y who are unwilling to be trammelled by more restrictions than the already sullk'iently straitened nature of their profession has imposed upon them. I confess myself to be of this number ; and while no one would acquiesce more readily than I should in any decision of the National Legislature, consisting of Queen, Lords, and Commons, I cannot help ])rotesting against the attempted revival, at this period of the world^s history, of a Church Legislature, an imperium hi imperio, an exclusive jurisdiction of equals over equals ; or, at the best, a class legislation, where the absence of the voice of the laity* renders all opinion one-sided, to say the least of it, if not narrow and intolerant, f With these short preliminary remarks, I will, with your permission, proceed to make a few observations upon the session of Convocation, which took place at AVestminster, on Wednesday, the lOth of February, 185S; and having no other information on the subject, I presume I shall be in order if I accept as authentic the report of their proceedings as given in the Times newspaper of the following morning. * See the opinion of tho lato Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol (Baring) on the authority of Convocation. — Guardian, March 20, 1861. t See Dr. Arnold on " the n of that amity of spirit which alone can impart vitality in the connection between our Church and its Blessed Head, with Him, who will in vain have broken down the wall of partition between His followers if our own discussions and divisions were to rear it up again." — Lord Eburt/'s Speech before the House of Lords, May, 1858. THE BISHOP OF LINX'OLX. 11 St. Asaph (Short), for the laudable purpose of a sub-division of the enormous diocese of Calcutta, rendered vacant bj the death of the justly-lamented bishop, Daniel Wilson — The Bishop of Lincoln (Jackson) said : " He had a Petition signed by 20(J of the clergy of his diocese relative to the proposed Revision of the Liturg-ical Services of the Church ; and it was one of no ordinary importance, for he believed it represented the opinions of a great majority of members of the Church of England. Although much had been said of the length of the Sunday Services in the Church, the general opinion of members of the Church was strong in opposition to any material alteration. He was quite sure that there was no sympathy on the part of the great body of the clergy and laity of the Church of England with those crude attempts to shorten her services which had been witnessed of late by entire omissions, and by bringing together different parts of different services, in total forget- fulness of the true and deep meaning which ran through each service, and of the immemorial traditions of the Church of Christ in each of those separate services. The Sunday Morning Service, exclusive of the sermon — which was a subject resting entirely with the minister — did not last more than an hour, or an hour and ten minutes, and the Afternoon Service from half an hour to forty minutes : making two hours out of that day set apart for special worship, to be spent in social service ; less than two hours out of the 168 hours of each week spent by most members in the church, some from necessity, some from habit. The main reason why the services appeared long, unhappily, to large numbers of their congregations was that they had not formed habits of devotion. But he apprehended that it was the intention and the duty of the Church not to lower the tone of her devotions to the low pitch of her weakest members, but to keep them to the higher pitch, so as to provide for the wants 12 THE IXGOLDSBY LE1TI:R.S. of her more faithful members, and also to raise others to the same staiulard. With regard to occasional services, the case was entirely different." The above is copied, verbatim, from the Times news- paper ; as to whose report, if it does not convey the exact words spoken by the rig'ht reverend prelate, we at least know on the authority of the Bishop of Oxford (Wilberforce) that " somehow or other it had contrived to be marvellously correct/' So in my future observations upon this speech, I shall, unless otherwise advised, take it for <^ranted that it more or less accurately represents the sentiments then and there delivered by the Bishop of Lincoln on the subject of the proposed Revision of the Book of Common Prayer. But as my remarks, thoug-h I study brevity, must neces- sarily extend to a much greater length than the speech itself which forms my thesis, you will allow me to reserve a portion of them for future communication ; in the mean- while, I have the honour to remain. Yours faithfully, February 25, 1858. " Ingoldsby." LETTER III. THE PETITION OF TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN LINCOLNSHIRE CLERGY. " ilen who have grown old under a system learn to look at all parts of it aa equally essential to its existence : they cannot distinguish with any accuracy the sound from the unsound, the substance from the accident ; and they regard the moss upon the branches of the tree of life as no less sacred than the fruit." — Anon. Sir, — Before pursuing our observations on the late meet- ing of Convocation, 1 must here state, that a copy of the Guardian newspaper has been put into my hands since the two former letters were written ; and as that paper is generally understood to give the most authentic version of PETITION OF LINCOLNSHIRE CLERGY. 13 what takes place in Convocation, it will henceforth form my text-book in place of the report given in the Times. The only material correction I have so far to make is that it appears the Bishop of Exeter (Philpotts) was present, in addition to the prelates named in the Times, making-, accordingly, twelve prelates out of the twenty-one forming the Upper House (or " House of Bishops,''^ as it is styled in the Guardian), and. leaving, therefore, nine prelates of the province of Canterbury, and the whole seven of the province of York — in other words, sixteen in all of the English bishops — hitherto uncommitted on the question at issue ; even assuming, which by no means appears, that the whole of the above-named dozen were unanimous on the point."^ The speech of the Bishop of Lincoln is in substance much the same in both reports; but in quoting it in detail I shall make use of the Guardian version, for the reason given above, being most anxious to avoid the smallest appear- ance of misrepresentation or misconception in so grave a matter. Perhaps I am presumptuous enough in expressing an opinion at all, seeing that I do not possess the magic "two or three thousand a year^^ — (much less the Episcopal £5,000) which Sydney Smith has wittily designated as the English- man's " Knight's Census,'' the qualification giving the franchise to write, speak, or think for oneself .t But at any rate I will be as careful as I can to keep within the strict bounds of truth ; to take nothing for granted which I cannot prove; and to deal that measure of justice to others which I should expect to be extended to myself in a like case. * It will be borne in mind, throughout, that the "Letters" themselves wore writton twenty years ago ; the notes have been added since at various intervals of time. t I hold, however, the inestimable privilege " et sentire quae velim, et quae sentiam dicere," with my living of gross £700 per annum. 14 THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. The Guardian rcjwrt, then, is as follows : — " Li:(;isi,ATivE Intebpeeence with the Book of Common Prayeii : — The Bifhap of Lincoln : — ' I have another petition to jiresent — to which I would request particular attention — proceedintj^ from a number of clergymen throug-hout the diocese of Lincoln. To this petition are ai)pended the sig-natures of 215 clero-ymen of great respectability and standing in that diocese, and representing no one particular part or section of the Church. The petition is on the subject of the alteration of the Liturgy, and runs thus : — " ' To the Most Rev. the Archbishop, the Right Rev. the Bishops, and the Rev. the Clergy of the Province of Canter- bury, in Convocation assembled : — The humble petition of the undersigned clergy of the diocese of Lincoln, Showeth, — That your petitioners have reason to know that efforts are being made in divers quarters for the Revision of the Book of Common Prayer, with the professed view of abbreviating the ordinary services of the Church; that they believe that the announcement made by many of your lordships, of your willingness to allow the use of the Litany in certain cases as a separate service, is calculated to lead to such abbreviation as may sometimes be desirable ; that they feel the value of the suggestions offered in the report of the Committee of Convo- cation on Church Services in the Session of 1854, and various occasional offices, such as thanksgiving offices, penitential offices, offices for children, and others, to be used with the permission of the bishop of the diocese ; that while they deprecate most strongly any fusion of the three offices of our usual Morning Services into one, by the omission of portions of each or any of them, they would rejoice that every facility should be afforded for the use of all these offices separately when desirable. But, considering the many difficulties and hazards which beset the question, your petitioners earnestly pray that your venerable body will ALTERA.TION OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 15 strenuously oppose any attempt at legislative interference with, or alteration of, the Book of Common Prayer itself.' " The Rig-ht Rev. Prelate then observed : — ' I have much pleasure in presenting this petition, because I believe that in the main it represents the sentiments of a ver}^ large number of (I may say, the great majority of) the members of the Church of England.' " Why, this is out-Heroding the three tailors of Tooley Street ! — "We, the People of England ! '' — " We, 215 Lin- colnshire clergymen, being, or representing the sentiments of, 18,000 clergy — of whom we form a ninetieth part — do hereby enter our solemn protest against any and every attempt to interfere with, alter, revise, or otherwise amend, directly or indirectly, either by omission, addition, subtrac- tion, variation, purification, or in any other way whatsoever, a certain book, commonly called the Book of Common Prayer, as appointed to be read in all churches and chapels of England, Wales, and Irelaiad, in obedience to an Act passed in the second year of the reign of his late Majesty King Charles II., of blessed memory, known by the name of an ^Act for the Uniformity of Public Prayers, and Administration of Sacra- ments, and other Rites and Ceremonies ; and for establishing the form of making, ordaining, and consecrating bishops, priests, and deacons in the Church of England : ' and your petitioners will ever pray,'' &c. Now, observe, the diocese of Lincoln is, next to that of Norwich, the largest in the kingdom in respect of the number of its clergy. By a return I have before me, and which I presume to be official, being published under the sanction of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the number of benefices in the diocese of Lincoln is 797, the number of curates 309 : agerreijate number of benefices and curates, 1,100. And though some few of these benefices are still, no doubt, held in plurality, yet, making allowance for the 16 THE INGOLDSDY LETTERS. iniafliiclicd cler>;'y, who are to be met with in every diocese, schoolmasters in orders, and the like, I think it not unreason- able to infer that there are at least 1,000 clerg-y in the diocese of Lincoln, oue-jifth })art of whom, or one-nineiicih part of the clerg-y of the kin<;(lom at large,* appear to have si<;fned the above petition ; and this infinitesimal portion of the clerical community is to be pronounced as " representing" the senti- ments of the great majority of the members of the Church of England!'' How large a body this last may be I have no means of ascertaining; but the same statistical paper to which I have already referred gives upwards of seventeen millions as the united population of i\\e English dioceses alone, without reckoning the Welsh or Irish, or such " members of the English Church '^ as may happen to dwell in our vast Colonial Empire, and other parts of the world. By what process of calculation, therefore, the bishop has arrived at his conclusion, I am at a loss to conceive. Possibly his lordship may be possessed \vith so exalted a notion of the relative importance of " wy diocese " t as compared with all other dioceses, as to lead him somewhat hastily to multiply these five loaves and two small fishes in the fens of Lincolnshire into the personification of a majority/ of the whole Church of England. I speak with reverence, for this is no matter for trifling;;}: but I assert that something more than the mere ipse dixit of any man is rec^uired before the people of this nation are * There is reason to believe that the clergy of the United Kingdom amount in round numbers to no less than 23,000. f Sydney .Smith on " Persecuting Bishops," Ed. Review, 1822. Works, vol. ii., p. 20. J 1 have the greatest possible respect for Bishop Jackson (now of London), who perliaps after twenty additional years' experience as a bishop is not as averse to Revision us he was in 186b. THE CHURCH OF EXGLAND. 17 to be j^ulled into the belief that the " large majority of the Church''^ are wholly opposed to all inquiry even into the present working of the Prayer-book^ as laid down by an Act of Uniformity "always of questionable expediency, and passed two centuries ago/^ * I quote the words of one of the most talented of our English prelates, and one, too, who was present at, and took part in, the discussion of which I am now treating, and who is yet, by some extraordinary manipulation, assumed to have joined in the alleged unanimity of his brethren on that occasion. But to return " to the loaves and fishes."" Had these nothing to do with the getting up of this petition ? How many of the 309 curates had the boldness to refuse to sign such a document when hawked about, as I am well advised it was, for many weeks, in all parts of a diocese, the bishop of which has upwards of seventy livings in his f/ift, and was known to have expressed himself not unfavourable to the prayer of the memorialists ? How many of the seventy incumbents of those said livings declined to sign ? — how many of the rural deans, all under the nomination and direction (I trust not the dictation) of the bishop ? — how many of the clergy of Lincoln, cum adjacentihus ? — how many of the dignitaries (alas ! the honorary dignitaries, all of whom are nominated by the bishop, and are in honour bound — as Lord Pahnerstou said of the bishops — to reverence their Maker, and generally, as a mlc, are known to do so) of that noble cathedral ? I find, by the Clergy List for 1858 that, besides some seventy-eight other pieces of preferment, the patronage of the Bishop of Lincoln includes also "the canonries, the 2^recentorship of the cathedral, with the pre- bend of Kilsby or Kildesby aunexcn;! ; the chancellorship of • Charge by Bishop Thirlwall to the Clergy of St. David's, 1857. Sec more of this hereafter, Letters xv., xxv., cvi C is TlIK IXnOT.PSBY LKTTKUS. the cathedrul, with tho invbiMid of Stoke annexed; the subdeanery of the cathedral; the three archdeaconries; all the prebends, except those of Corriii«rhani, Buckden (annexed to the bishojjric), and Sanctjc Crucis." Are there no bene- ficctl dcrji^y in and abont Lincohi, or otherwise distributed throug-hout that vast diocese, whose mouths water at reading this list (which is in the hands of almost every clerg}Tnan) ; and is it probable that they sliould all be so stoical and self-den^nug as to refuse their sip;iiatures to a simple Petition that '' can do no harm," the object of which is only to " let well alone," at the request of some proctor of the " Lower House," known to be in the confidence of the bishop — or some '^ rural dean," known as his nominee and confidant, the recipient from time to time of his lordship^s " strictly private and confidential " communications ? But enough of this. I know not what conclusions other people may draw from these premises ; but, for my own part, so far from being surjirised or cast down because I heard that 215 of the Lincolnshire clergy had thus petitioned, and that their petition had been accepted and endorsed by their diocesan, I must confess I was only astonished that the whole 1,000 clergy, or at least nine-tenths of them, had not rushed forward instantly, with their " j^ens up to the feather in ink," to attach their names : — " Curramus pracipites, et Dum jacet in ripa ciikcmus Cajsaris hostem [i.e., " Ingoldsby ") : Sed videant sert'i, »e i/itit iicffct." But I must conclude fur the present, hoping that I have said enough to caution your readers, at any rate (whatever conclusion the readers of the Guardian and Clerical Journal may arrive at), against being too hastily led away by the notion, so industriously and gratuitously circulated, that " the ffreat majority of the members of the Church of England " have hitherto expressed any opinion whatever DIOCESE OF LINCOLX. 19 on the expediency of Her Majesty's issuing' a Royal Com- mission for the purpose of inquiring into (and possibly revising) the Book of Common Prayer. I am, Sir, yours very obediently, March 5, 1858. " Ingoldsby.'-' LETTER IV. THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN (jACKSOX), AXD REVISIOX OF THE PEAYEll-BOOK. " WTiat would I give to see our Liturgy amended ! But our Bishops cry, 'Touch not I meddle not! ' till indeed it will be too late to do either." — Arnold's Letters, No. Ixxxiv., 1834. Sir, — In my last I took the precaution of warning your readers that the petition of the 215 Lincolnshire clergy was so far from being a reflex of the sentiments of the "great majority of the members of the Church of England,''^ that there was, on the contrary, a prima facie probability, amounting almost to demonstration, that it represented little else than the views of the individual bishop by whom the petition was presented. Now, I am not prepared to say, nor even to insinuate, that his lordship of Lincoln (of whom, both for his zeal and courtesy, I would wish to speak with the utmost respect) had the smallest hand in promoting or getting up that petition ; or that he was even necessarily aware that such a document was being promoted by others. I simply assume that the bishop's sentiments on the subject were not unknown to the 215 clergy who signed the jjaper, out of the 1,00U who go to make up that extensive diocese. A city placed on a hill is not so easily hid ; especially a city like Lincoln, with its commanding cathedral, proudly 20 THE IXGOLDSBY LETTERS. overlookinn; tlio fenny district, from wliich it rises like the pyramids in the jtlains of Efj\']it, and wlieuce it issues its mandates with an air, as who shonld say, " I am Sir Oracle, And when I opo my lips, let no dog bark." And when the bisho}) expresses himself so decisively in the Upper House of Convocation against all attempts at touching the Book of Common Prayer, as he proceeds to do in the speech accompanying' the presentation of the above petition, I ask, is it probable that his sentiments on the subject had been suppressed up to that moment — "Molemque et montes insupcr altos Imposuit?" — Is it reasonable to suppose that his lordship had reserved his long-digested and carefully-hoarded opinions for the special benefit of the " House of Bishops/' and had con- cealed them previously from his chaplains, his candidates for orders, archdeacons, and rural deans ? Be that as it may, certain it is that but one-fifth part of the clergy of the diocese are found to echo the voice of their diocesan in this momentous matter, notwithstanding all the inducements, direct and indirect, to recommend themselves to "the powers that be,'' which I endeavoured to set forth in my former letter.''^ Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the question of Liturgical Revision, if it did not originate in the diocese of Lincoln, had at least been more vigorously agitated there for the previous three years than in any other part of the kingdom. The clergy of that district, therefore, were not taken by surprise ; it was not " a new thing " upon which * It is hut fitir to add here that many more of the Lincolnshire clergy afterwards signed the manifesto of the " Ten Thousand; " hut the above was written two years before the appearance of t hat curious State paper, of which more hereafter. THE BISHOP OF LINCOLX. 21 they were now asked to express their opinion. Many of them were fully aware that a petition, sig-ned by 320 members of the Established Church, had been got up in less than three weeks, last summer, by a solitary clerg'^^nian of that diocese,* acting without the assistance of any one, with the single aid and appliance of the penny-post, and by the issue of but 500 circulars. As, however, that petition will not have been seen by the bulk of your readers, it may be as well to furnish you with a copy, that they may have an opportunity of comparing it with that of the 215 Lincoln- shire clergy. The petition in question was presented to the House of Commons by Lord Robert Grosvenor (now Lord Ebury), on the 28th of July, 1857, and was to the following effect : — " To tJie Honourable the House of Commons in Parliament Assembled. " The humble Petition of the undersigned Members of the Established Church of England and Ireland, showeth — " That your petitioners are of opinion that the Book of Com- mon Prayer, as at present used in the Churches of England and Ireland, is capable of such modification in its arrangement and Services as to x'cnder it fixr more profitaljle than it now is for the religious instruction and edification of the people. " That your petitioners believe that a Royal Commission is the safest and least objectionable mode of dealing with the con- sideration of that book with a view to its revision. " Your petitioners therefore humbly pray your Honourable House to move that Her Most Gracious Majesty may be pleased to grant such Commission, with sufficient time and powers for the full and mature weighing of the matters wliich shall be sub- mitted to them in this behalf. " And your petitioners will ever pray," &c. * The Rector of Ingoldsby, to wit. 22 TllK IXGOLDSBY LETTERS. The late j)cn()d of the session, and the engrossing topic of the Indian Mutiny, ihon lirst announced, j)revented his kutlship from proceeding' at that time with the motion of which he had given notice, the object of Avliich was to promote the prayer of the petitioners ; but it is well kno^vn that, in his capacity of a Peer of the Upper House of Par- liament, Lord Eburv has already signified his intention of again bringing the subject Itefore the public after the Easter recess. The terms of his lordship's motion are as follows : — " That Her Majesty will be pleased to grant a Commission to revise the Liturgy of the Church of England, with a view to such re-arrangement of the Services as shall obviate needless repetitions, and curtail the length of a portion of them ; and also with a view to such other alterations as may suggest themselves in the course of the inquiry, and which may tend to render the services more efficient for the religious edification of the j^eople at large/' It is worthy, therefore, of consideration by whom the above petition was signed; and as the signatures have since been printed through the favour of one of the London journals, it can be no secret who the petitioners were, nor is there any reason why they should wish their names concealed. I find accordingly amongst them — not indeed " the authorities of the Church " (bishops, deans, and arch- deacons) — but doctors and bachelors of divinity, learncHi pro- fessors in both univei-sities, fellows and tutors of colleges, lawyers, schoolmasters, physicians, prebendaries, magistrates, country gentlemen, rectors, curates — in short, men of every class competent to form an opinion upon this important matter, in which all (especially, perhaps, the laity) are alike interested. And though I am far from presuming to affirm that these 320 independent gentlemen, acting without concert, or dictation from any one, without fear of cold looks or hope of smiles from those in power, represent the senti- LORD EBL'RY^S MOTION. 23 ments of the " great majority of the members of the Church of England," yet, I am bold to say, that, all circumstances considered, they have at least as much pretension to do so as the 215 Lincolnshire clergy, who have (I susj^ect much against their will) had that honour so unexpectedly thrust upon them. I have dw^elt longer than I intended on the subject of this latter petition; not that I attach the slightest im- portance to such a document, manufactured through such machinery, but because I think it most material that others, w'ho are liable to be caught by first appearances, and who may not have leisure to go to the bottom of the matter, should see it in its true light, as an undoubted attempt to throw dust in the eyes of the unwary, and to stifle inquiry before the public is fully alive to the real merits of the question. I suspect, too, that the Lincolnshire petition'^ is only the forerunner of a host of similar ones, — " Nati natorum, et qui generantur ab illis," * That I was justified in anticipating a swarm of similar Petitions, got up under Episcopal suggestion (not to say dictation), will appear from the following communication made last summer to the Rural Deans of the diocese of Lincoln ; and which, as we know in one instance at least, from the Rev. F. Massingberd, was responded to (as one would expect under the circumstances) bj' 12 out of 14 of the clergy of his own Deanerj' in the affirmative .' (Copy.) " Riseholme, June 20, 1859. " Rev. and dear Sir, — I beg to suggest a few subjects which, I think, may usefully be submitted to the consideration of the clergy of your deanery when you call them together in Chapter. 1. Night Schools. 2. Farm Servants. 3. Revision of the Liturgy. "On this last subject there may possibly be some difference of opinion; but should the clergj' of your deanery consider that such a re%'ision of the Prayer-book is undesirable as could be eflfected only by the interven- tion of Parliament, as would trench on the doctrinal expressions of the Liturg}-, and as would therefore provoke controversy, and probably result 24< THE IXGOLDSBY LETTERS. destined in due time to be showered upon tlie devoted head of Lord Ebury, when he brings for\vard his threatened and justly dreaded motion in tlie Lords. Cuddosdon, I am told, is up in arms ; — the word of command has gone forth : Petition, Petition, Petition ! and we all know how readily the orders of the dictator are obeyed in that quarter. It has been said that, "Regis ad exemplar totus componitur orbis:'* which, however true it may be of kings or queens, is certainly found practically true of most bishops and their dioceses. Let the steersman, therefore, between the banks of the Isis but cry out lustily " Back water," and it needs no prophet to tell us with what rapidity, precision, and unity of purpose, the whole of that well-trained crew, from the heavy stroke to the light No. 1, will obey the signal, and what a total stagnation will instantaneously ensue to the onward progress of the ecclesiastical vessel. A6 uno disce omnes. Wherever there is a High-Church bishop, there will be plenty of followers with the same cut coat and collar, and the same type of petition, clad in the uniform of Lincoln green ; and though a few Low or Broad-Church divines may be caught unawares in the comprehensive net,'^ and so give colour for the assertion of the bishop that the petition " represents no one par- ticidar part or section of the Church," I need only refer in schism, it u-ould be uell to Tetition both Houses of the Legislature, if any attempt should be made to procure such revision. — Yours faithfully, "J. Lincoln." We have reason to know that a similar document issued from head- quarters in many other dioceses, probably with a kindred response. * For example, Canon Stowell, and Sir Henry Thompson, as signing the Westminster Manifesto of December, 1859; the consequence being that the resistance to revision was represented as proceeding from all parties in the Church. LENGTH OF MORNING SERVICE. 25 to the list of Petitions presented to the House of Commons last session by Mr. A. J. B. Hope, in oj)position to Lord Robert Grosvenor's motion, to prove to the satisfaction of all who are " not ignorant of their devices/'' the class of persons from whom obstinate resistance to all inquiry into the present working of the Act of Uniformity is most likely to emanate. Having now done with the Petition, and all Petitions of which it may prove the prolific parent, I shall, in my next, proceed to discuss the further remarks made by the Bishop of Lincoln, upon presenting the said document to the '^ House of Bishops" on the 10th of last month, and remain, meanwhile. Yours very obediently, Marck 12, 1858. "Ingoldsby." LETTER V. THE LENGTH OF THE MORNING SERVICE. " By long expense of time the King and the Queen shall peradventure wax 80 weary at the beginning, that they shall have small delight to continue throughout to the end." — I'odd's Life of Cranmer, i. 140. Sir, — The Bishop of Lincoln is reported to have next stated, that, "notwithstanding much that has been said with respect to the length of our Services, the general opinion of the members of our Church is so stronghj against any material alteration in our Sunday services, that they will be very unwilling that any legislative interference should take place, or any interference that should make any material alteration in those services.''^ When, I would ask with all deference, and by what process, did his lordship arrive at this comprehensive view of the "general opinion of the members of our Church?" It is a strong statement ; and,' as coming from one of the 26 THK IXGOI.DSDY LETTERS. j)rt.'latcs of that Cluuvh, will uu tl^ 19, 1858. ^aNGOLDSBY." * The well-known phrase of " doing the duty " is very expressive of the manner in which the duty is too frequently danc uuder the circuiu- stances enumci-ated in the text. 32 THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. LETTER YI. ABRIDGMENT OF THE MORNING SERVICE. " Piety stretched beyond due limits is the parent of impiety." Sydney Smith. Sir, — The Bishop of Lincoln proceeds : — " In point of fact, it can hardly be said that our Sunday Services are long" Assertion number three. And now for the proof : — " I am not, of course, now speaking of the sermons, but of the morning service, with the usual amount of chanting or metrical psalmody. The morning service may be said to occupy an hour, or an hour and ten minutes, and the afternoon service from half an hour to forty minutes; that is to say, that out of that day which God has set apart for His special service not more than two hours are spent by His people in the work of social worship.'^ Now, I had always hitherto been taught to believe that the golden rule for all things was NON QUAM MULTUM, SED QUAM BENE : and I had been led to think that half an hour, or even less, say a quarter of an hour or ten minutes, of deep, and earnest, and heartfelt prayer, were of more real value to the soul's health than the opun operatum of an hour and a half spent in the church; to what profit I leave those to explain who deliberately give it as a reason for repeating the Lord's Prayer "five, six, or seven times in the same service," that if their thoughts wander at one part of the service they may be able to collect them by the next time the prayer is read.* * See the Dean of Norwich's reply to this argument in his speech before Convocation, March, 1861. Hatchard, Piccadilly. This reason was actually given to myself, in justification of the frequent repetition of the Lord's Prayer, by the Hon. and Hcv. Richard Cust, at that time Rector of Belton, Lincolnshire, and Rural Dean I THE SERMON. 33 Why, I ask, do their thoughts wander? — why, but Leeause they are wearied out with the same unvaried routine of our unelastic Liturgy ? No doubt there is a " deep and hidden meaning which runs through all these several parts of the service." But quotus quisque — How many, I ask, of the millions who ought to attend the public worship of God in the church are cajDable of penetrating below the surface, and entering fully into this '' deej) and hidden meaning ? " Is the preacher to be continually dwelling upon the hidden mystery of the various parts of our Liturgy, in order that his hearers may be alive to its esoteric beauties and excellencies, and duly appreciate them as they severally arise ? I apprehend this is hardly fulfilling our Saviour^s precept, " The poor have the Gos2:)el preached to them ;" and without such reiteration, most undoubtedly all this " deep and hidden meaning, which runs through each service," is utterly lost, and will for ever be so, to the great bulk of those who should be worshippers in the House of God. When our Saviour entered the synagogue on the Sabbath- day, we do not hear of His reading a service of an hour and ten minutes' length, but of His '^opening the Scrip- tures and finding a place " — not reading the one unvarpng chapter " appointed for the day." And what was the passage He found ? Why, that in which His divine mission is distinctly set forth in prophecy ; the prominent feature thereof being 'Ho preach the Gospel to the poor." And yet the Bishop of Lincoln, in his reverence for the stereo- typed hour and ten minutes of set service in the church, takes no notice of this corner-stone of religion ; at least he would appear to treat it as of quite secondary con- sideration. " I am not now, of course (says his lordship) , speaking of the isermons." — What if the sermon be on such a text as that I have just referred to ? What preacher, of the smallest ability in rightly dividing the D 34 Tin-', INdOLDSRY I.KTTKRS. A\ ord of Truth, could i)ossibly compress his discourse on such a subject, so as to do it full justice in less than half an hour or forty minutes? Some preachers would hardly exhaust it in an hour. What then becomes of an ar}i;ument based on the assertion that "not more than two hours are spent in social worship out of that day which God has set apart for His special service ? " Where is the afternoon service which is to follow this morning one, already two hours long? Where the evening service, so universally pojmlar among the middle and lower orders, no doubt partly because the sermon is then made a more prominent feature than at any other hour? Why are Westminster Abbey and St. PauPs crowded almost to over- flowing at that hour, when a preacher of ordinary capacity for his work occupies the pulpit ? Try throAving the Abbey open to the public for morning prayer, including psalms, chanting, lessons, litany, anthem, Communion Service, sermon, offertory sentences, prayer for the church militant, possibly followed by the administration of the Holy Communion, and see how many of the poorer classes will attend. No doubt, as experience tells us, many of the more educated among the i)eoi)lc will be always attracted by the gorgeous and histrionic character of the Cathedral service, with its accompaniments : — " AVhere through tho lonp-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise : and by help of these adjuncts to devotion, and excite- ments to the imagination, the devout or even the careless worshipper may not feel the two hours or more of service so very wearisome ; especially if (as is often the case with our Cathedrals) the congregation docs not consist regularly of the same individuals, the hu/jiiues of the place, but is formed chiefly of strangers, paying an occasional visit to this attractive shrine. "WHAT IS WANTING. 35 But what is there to sup})ly the place of all this pomp and ceremony to the thousands of village churches, with their congregations of some one or two hundred worshippers, or less ; or the district churches of our populous towns, with their scanty endowment of £150 or £200 per annum ? And are we to ignore this vast proportion of the churches in the land, because the Cathedral, or quasi Cathedral, can maintain a sufficient interest throughout the whole length of a two hours' service ? But I deny that they do so. I was myself present at one of the Westminster Abbey services of January last; and it was impossible not to notice the evident listlessness and inattention that pervaded the bulk of that enormous assembly, Avhile the preliminary form of prayers, psalms, lessons, &c., was gone through."^ It was impossible, on the other hand, not to be struck by the comparative zest with which the same congregation joined, as with one accord, in singing, immediately before the sermon, the magnificent 100th Psalm; and the earnestness with which they addressed themselves to hear the words pro- ceeding from the mouth of the preacher of the day — a preacher, observe, coming fresh to his task, not jaded and half worn-out by an hour's rehearsal of the previous service ! This I venture, ^vith all respect, to tell the Bishop of Lincoln, is the thing " wanting •" to give life and unction to our Church system. Not the " deep and hidden meaning which runs through each service,'' — but a reasonable and wholesome variety to secure attention ; a judicious brevity to prevent weariness; the liberty occasionally to expound the Lessons as read ; and, above all, a preacher who under- stands his mission, and whose powers have been husbanded * The Pm-itans, not without reason, called our stereotyped form of Prayer "the Lethargy of Public Worship." (Southcy, "Book of the Church," vol. ii., p. 441.) ■U) TIIK IN'GOLDSBY LKTTERS. for the great busiuess ut" the day ; nut exhausted, and con- sumed upon a long routine of ceremonious worship, which, however excellent in detail, is oppressive by its weight, and defeats its own ends by the attempt to do too much at once. There is an old Greek proverb which tells us that " /lalf i-i better than the whole ; " and never did it find a truer illustration than in the overloaded services of our Church. " J'oluptaleis commendat rarior usns," says another proverb : — " When they seldom come they wished for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accident," says our own great dramatist. Of course I shall be told (as, indeed, I have been) that Hesiod, Juvenal, and Shakesix'are were no divines ; but a man may be a good judge in these matters, though he be not a D.D. And, for my own part, I would rather have one ounce of common sense, even when applied to the solemn matter of public worship,* than I would all the musty folios of patristic divinity, carefully hoarded in the precincts of Lincoln Minster, or all the precedents of "immemorial tradition,'^ if io\\\\& praclicalli/ to fail in the object they should have in view, the bringing millions within the reach of the sound of the Gospel, and so promoting the salvation of souls. But is it true, again, that " immemorial tradition " does sanction these lengthy services ? I opine not. Surely a bishop does not need to be told that our Prayer-book services have swelled by repeated and considerable accretions, from the first book of Edward VI. down to the last revision under Charles II. The first Liturgy of Edward VI., the bishop must surely be aware, commenced with the Lord's Prayer, and ended * See an excellent pamphlet entitled " Common Sense about the Church," by a High Churchman. Ilatchard and Co., 1860. LENGTH OF THE SERVICE. 37 with the third collect for grace. To this "reasonable service '' have been added by various revisions^ and at sundry times, " the opening sentences, the exhortation, the con- fession, and the absolution, the Litany ordered to be used in the Stinday Service; the Decalogue introduced into the Communion Service ; the prayers for the Queen and clergy j and, finally, the prayer for all sorts and conditions of men, and the general thanksgiving ! " * " Piety,"'' says our motto, '' stretched beyond due limits, is the parent of impiety ; " and an argument founded on a false hypothesis is apt to be the parent of something akin to irreverence, if nothing worse. " Immemorial tradition,"" if an argument for anything, is an argument for changing and amending the Liturgy of the Church ; not for obstinately retaining everything as it is, merely because it is so.f But as I shall have occasion to enter more at large on this portion of our subject, when I come to examine the Bishop of Oxford's remarks in support of the Bishop of Lincoln, I will for the present conclude ; and remain yours, A^ery faithfully, March 26, 1858. " Ingoldsby."" LETTER VIL THE LENGTH OF THE CHURCH SERVICES. " Let all things be done unto edifying." — 1 Coit. xiv. 26. Sir, — It is consolatory to find the bishop, in the next paragraph of his speech, so far making concession to the • See "Abridgment of the Sunday Services," by the Rev. Ashton Oxenden. Wertheim and Macintosh (1865), p. 6. Also the Dean of Norwich's Speech before Convocation, March 14, 1861, p. 13 Hatchard, Piccadilly. t " Morosa morum retentio res turbulenta est ieque ac novitas." — Bacon 38 THE IXGOLDSBY LETTERS. cry for a revision of the Litur<^y, as to admit that, in some cases, the present services of our Church may be found too long". That his lordship is not sing-ular in tliis opinion will readily ho allowed l)y most of your readers. It is not many weeks ag'o since you favoured us with a letter from a correspondent, who is a]))iarently driven to adopt the feigned signature of " U. G. O.," in order to escape the abuse so freely lavished on Ixnown Liturgical reformers, by certain of the High Church organs. In that letter it was shown to what class of persons the present Church Service is irksome or tedious, while even in the case of the most spiritaally-mindedy there is reason to believe that it not unfrequently tends to exhaust their powers of devout and earnest attention.^ I will not attempt to go over ground that has been so well occupied, but will content myself with referring your readers to the letter itself, and will confine myself to the matter we have more immediately in hand. The Guardian report of the Bishop of Liucoln^s speech proceeds as follows : — " Of course I am not prepared to say that our services, even in the present state, are not felt to be too long by many members of our congregations. But * Nearly one hundred years ago this defect in onr much vaunted Liturgy was noticed by the celebrated Aj-chdeacon Paley. See " Moral Philosophy," B. v., Chap. V. : — " The too great length of Church services is moro unfavourable to piety than almost any fault of composition can be. It begets in many an early and unconquerable dislike to the public worship of their country or communion. They come to church seldom, and enter the d<:ior3 when they do come under the apprehension of a tedious attendance, which they prepare for at first, or soon after relieve, by composing themselves to a drowsy forgetfulness of the place and duty, or by sending abroad their thoughts in search of more amusing occupation. Although there may be some few of a disposition not to be wearied with religious exercises, yet when a ritual is prolix, and the celebration of Di\'ine service long, no effect in general is to be looked for, but that indolence \^'ill find in it an excuse, and piety be discon- certed by impatience." CARELESS READING. 39 this, I apprehend, arises not from any fault in the services themselves, but from causes principallij in the worsliippers, which are themselves removable/' This, if not assertion number /'o?ssibly have }»eeii heard l)y the present Bishoj) of Jjineolii at Dr. IJlonilield's table, and have accordinj^ly sugj^ested the above idea. For my own part, I ])lead ^-uilty to thinkinj^ the Litur comfort of the inhabitants? " And is it conceiv- * Alas, that this hope should have been expressed in vain ! So true is Paley's remark on the aversion of "Ministers of State" to touch "Litur- gical Reform " with one of their fingers. — Sec Paley's Life, by Mcadley, Appendix, p. 45. 56 Tin; INT.OLDSBY LETTERS. able tliat 200 years of the most rapidly moving phase of the world's existence shall have <^(mo hy, and have left the Church Service the only uninii)rovcd, unim})rovahle> feature on the scene ? To aihrin this is a libel ou the profession to which we belong. It is tantamount to saying that law, ])hysics, politics, arts, arms, maehiner}', roads, buildings, anything, everything, can be improved, and have been so within the last fifty years ; but that there is something about the Church so impracticable, so excep- tional, so unmanageable, that nmposition that, " Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures." " Close be your language ; lot your sense be clear ; Xor with a weight of words fatigue the ear." wSuch is not the style of Lord Derby's nervous harangues, nor such of Disraeli's addresses to the House. Verbosity may confound, but it does not convince. The Bishop of Oxford's speeches remind one too painfully of our nursery * It was said by some one in praise of Epaminondas, that " he had never met with a man who knew more and spoke less." Cowper has al.so well defined such wordy eloquence in the following couplet, — " Like quicksilver, the rhetoric they dispLiy ; Shines as it runs, but grasp'd it slips away." PETER PIPER AND HIS PICKLED PEPPER. 09 days, when we were trained to rehearse at a breath the astonishing adventures of Peter Piper and his peck of pickled pepper."^ There is something in them (to adapt our simile more to the dignity of the subject) that conjures up the mighty spirit of Demosthenes on the shores of the Piraeus, fulmining out his exercises to the roaring ^gean ore rotuadu, with pebbles in his mouth. It was not without reason that, apropos of this last- mentioned orator, the satirist bitterly observed, — " Torrens dicendi copia multis Et sua mortifera est facundia." But, alas ! the curse does not light only on the speaker. He entails the like misfortune on his unhaj)py audience : — " Occidit miseros crambe repetita." Vain repetitions are as painful to listen to in a speech as they are in a set form of prayer. They also throw no small difficulties in the way of the hapless reviewer who undertakes to analyse such an harangue. He never seems to get any nearer the close of the story. It is like a recurring decimal : Lahitur et lahetiir ; never ending, still beginning. Would that I had at hand some convenient Grimalkin, whose paws to make use of instead of my own for this disagreeable, not to say dangerous operation ! It is currently reported that everybody, from the humblest curate in his diocese to the Prime Minister for the time being, is afraid of the Bishop of Oxford ; and that the real secret of the alleged unanimity of the " House of Bishops'' on the 10th of February last, was, that none of their lordships dared to contravene the dictum of their * ^\^lat was afterwards well said of another by Lord Bcaconsficld might be applied equally in this ease, "a sophistieated rhetorician inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity." (1878.) 70 THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. Superior.* I soc accordingly stnall prospect of any Dens ex )ii(ic/inid cle*(viulin<^ to my aid <»n this occasion. Contra audentiok ito must, therefore, I sup])ose, be ag-ain my motto, as it has been bi'Torc now. 1 must buckle on my armcjur, though it consist but of a sling and a stone. And as fortune is known to favour the bold, 1 may chance to escape with the empty threat of having my flesh given to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field. To have done at length with these praltidia pug)tfP, and to enter upon the task lying before us — who shall define the meaning of that expression " the present temjper of men's n/i/id.sr'f * The present Bishop of Durham (Dr. Baring) is a conspicuous ex- ception to this rule. See Report of Convocation, March 14, 18G1 ; with the Guardian's comment on the occasion. But even he at last appears to have succumbed to the difficulties thrown in the way of all Liturgical Reformers, high or low. f A certain writer, comparing tlic attempt at Revision in 1762 with that now made, observes: — "The answers of Anglican Church Governors to all demands for a Revision of the Liturgy have at all times a remarkable identity, and might be formulated for Episcopal use. The grounds of the petition may be denied, and the Ijiturgy regarded as perfect ; or, granting imperfections, it may be alleged tliat every human composition must have imperfections ; or, granting that the imperfections complained of ought to be removed — men's minds are so excited— thtru would be such strifes about it — no mode- ration in effecting it; or, men's minds are tiot excited about it — it would be a .sad pity to set them by the cars. "The formula, 'this is not the time — too excited,' is the commonest, because a bishop will not usually answer at all unless there is a general interest on the subject, and this general interest is 'excitement.' " I hapjiened to stumble on the sermon which an Archbishop of Canterbury (Seeker) wrote to preach before Convocation in 1761. It would do exactly for 1858 — at least on the point of Revision. The excitement argument is thus put: — " ' Omatior quidem, aceiiratior, plenior, Irevior, et potest ea [Liturgia scil.] fieri et debet : sed modesta trattatione, sed tranquillis hominum animis PRESENT TEMPER OF MEN^S MIXDS. 71 Languag"e, says Talleyrand, was given to disg-uise thoughts ; and as the present Bishoj) of Oxford has evidently no lack of words, it is possible he may occa- sionally make use of them to conceal liis esoteric views. To say simply, as so many do, '^ this is not the time,^' is to concede the principle, which we suppose the Bishop of Oxford is not exactly prepared to do. To name any other time, we imagine, is equally foreign to his intention. Can it then he that the present temper of men^s minds is inclining towards Romanism? And that, therefore, it is, at this present time, highly inexpedient to meddle with that " jewel, the Prayer-Book,^^ lest we should loosen from their settings some of those additions which we owe to " the revision of our own Reformers,^' and thus incur the danger of " losing many important views of truth ? " Or can it be, that the notion uj^permost in the Bishop's mind is, that " the present temj^er of men's minds " is, for some cause or other, a good deal set a(jai)ist Popery in all its branches, open or concealed ? — that the high day of Tractariauism is on the wane — the Star of Protestantism in the ascendant; that many fearless Reformers have of late years sounded the trumpet loudly, and with no uncertain blast, against the secret practices of those who would draw us on blindfold to the edge of a j^recipice, whence to retreat in safety is hardly possible ? Does the Bishop of Oxfoixi flatter himself that, if we wait a little longer — if Lord Ebury and his petitioners can but be silenced for a few years — these Rylands and Tyndales, these Girdlestones and Gells, these Powyses, Hulls, Fishers, Davises, Mountfields, Binghams, Neviles, ]\Iilnes, non temerariis, qualia vidimus ct videmus, ausis ; non inter media dlssidia i)uituas(jue suspieioncs.' — Seckku's Wouks, Vol. v., p. 517. " How often have we heard this in English in our dav r " See Letter x. 7£ THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. Trails, Nihills, Taylors, ct id grmis omne,* will have dropped into their g^raves (like the Gorhams and other importunate protesters in their day), unj)itied, unreg-retted, tuipromotcd ; while their places may he supplied by hopeful disciples of the Bennett, Deuison, Liddell, Poole, Mackonochie, West, Randall, Bryan King, Lee, Lowder, Purchas, Tooth, Lavington, Cuddesdon, Boyne Hill, and East Grinstead school ; men duly alive to the importance of forms and ceremonies — tenacious of rubrics 300 years old — not dis- posed to concede one inch to popular outcry — deaf, as rocks to the drowning mariner, at the call of " common sense ''t or expediency — prepared to die at the stake sooner than surrender a single gem from that compound *' jewel," the Prayer-book, or run the remotest risk (in any efforts to improve it) of sacrificing a tittle of that " precious inheritance which they have derived from Catholic times — from the earliest Catholic times ?'^ J My question, I am aAvare, is somewhat lengthy. But prolixity is catching; verbosity, like silence, is infectious. Nevertheless, an explanation is needed, and I })ause for a reply. Davus sxim non (Edipns. I am no expounder of riddles. The words mean something, or they mean nothing. And until a more satisfactory answer is given by the only com- petent authority, the petitioners, of course, are at liberty to put their own construction upon the possible meaning of an expression calculated to throw dust in the eyes of the unwary, * A list of some five hundred of these may be seen as Members of the Association for Promoting a Revision of the Prayer Book, No. 17, Buckingham Street, Adelphi, W.C. + See a Tract with this title, by a " High Chxirchman." Hatchard : 1860. + In illustration of the remark in the text, read the speeches of Arch- deacon Denison and the Rev. John Jehb, in Convocation, upon the Dean of Norwich's (Pellew) Motion for certain alterations in the Prayer-book, March 14th, 1861. THE MORE CONVENIENT SEASON. 73 and make the innocent public believe that some awful catas- trophe is impending; that "men's minds'^ are on fire; "the Church in danger ; " and that their only hope of safety is to rally as one man round the Bishop of Oxford. Such, I must candidly confess, is the impression produced on my own mind by these enigmatical words ; and I imagine others are not unlikely to draw from them a similar inference. For, as for supposing the Bishop of Oxford really expects, or that any man in his senses expects, the time will ever come when "the temper of men's minds,'"' especially of High Churchmen, shall be sufficiently calm and composed to enter- tain with equanimity a proposition for revising the Liturgy, we should as soon look to see an elephant at the top of St. Paul's, or a certain nameless prelate safely installed in the archiepiscopal throne at Canterbury. The fact is, as I said in my last, " the present time " is objected to simply because it is the present time. It is the old stoiy over again ; there is a lion in the path ; it is the " Rusticus expectat " — the more convenient season ! — the season that always was looked for, and always loill be, by men who meant to do nothing, and mean to do nothing. But we trust there is a spirit abroad that will no longer submit to be put off by this stale artifice, but w^ll demand a hearing with a louder and yet a louder cry — a cry which no torrent of words in the House of Bishops can drown, no " decided vote in another place " silence or put down. But it is time, Mr. Editor, that I brought this letter to a conclusion. The theme is a tempting one, but I must rein in. And should it seem to you, or to any of your readers, that I have dwelt longer than needful on the preamble to my present subject, let them remember how large a portion of the public is ever liable to be led away by the voice of authority speaking in high places; how few have leisure or inclination appro- fondlr une matiere ; how essential, therefore, it is to the 74 THK lN"(iOLDSBY LKTTERS. establishment ( and to labour for their removal." — T. N. Bennett, Plymouth, 1854. See also " The Liturgy and the Dissenters," by the Rev. Isaac Taylor. Hatchard: I860. 78 THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. an hour. Hahnemann's disciples will prefer infinitesimal j^lobules of su«^ar of milk to black doses, b(^luses, and blisters. And, in sjtite of the Bishop of Oxford, sensible laymen will recalcitrate at being- compelled to listen to the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed thirteen times a year ; and little children will tumble off their benches in the gallery, if compelled to sit out the length of our present Morning Service. But is it a fact that "men's minds" are at present in such a violent state of perturbation? I am disposed to question it; and I do not speak without some know- ledge of the matter. My own opinion, as opposed with all due deference to so high an authority as that of the Bishop of Oxford, is that " men's minds " never contem- plated the subject of Liturgical Revision with more calm- ness and self-possession than they do at present.* I am far from saying that there is no excitement abroad (that day I never expect to see), but I think that the bulk of the people, while taking a decided interest in the present struggle, look on nevertheless rather with the quiet in- difference of spectators, than with the ardour and jjassions of partisans. Here and there, indeed, one hears of a * It may not be amiss to record here the reply of the Rev. Charles Girdlestone to the Dean of Westminster (Trench), Jan. 25, 1860. "Dear Sir, — In reply to a circular signed by yourself and others, inviting me to join in deprecating the revision of the Prayer-book ^ at the present titne,* I take thi' liberty of asking at what time, past or future, you and they would judge it more expedient than now ? For my own part, I think the present the best time that ever was or ever will be. My reasons for so thinking arc as follows : — First, it never was so obvious as now that our Litu^g^•, in its present state, admits of being/ interpreted in harmony with that spurious ChrisVianittj called Popery, against which the Church of thise realms is pledged to protest. Secondly, the danger never was so imminent as now, that if temperate re^•ision be frustrated we shall have in its stead a sweeping revolution. For such a calamity I dare not in anywise make myself responsible by signing the proposed declaration." TOUCH THE PKAYER-BOOK, AND WE GO. 79 " Rupture in the Church/^ as the certain result of any attoiipt to tamper with the Liturgy. " Touch the Prayer- book, and we go/^ says another. " Expect from me the most unmitigated opposition," says the eccentric member for Maidstone."^ But a fair examination of the relative strength of parties at this moment would, I think, show a very small minority on the side of these uncompro- mising gentlemen, whose zeal one cannot help respecting, though we may not admit that it is always exercised according to knowledge or discretion — knowledge, at least, of human nature and the general feelings of mankind; discretion as to the probability of their cause being re- commended by this stem refusal to redress even admitted evils. Omnia dat Qui justa negat : and probably no surer way could be devised for the ultimate concession of everything, than the course pursued by these worthies, including the Right Reverend Prelates, of resisting inquiry into anything. The real fact I believe to be, that there never was a period when so much sober reasoning and temperate dis- cussion was put forth by the advocates for Revision ; while it is undeniable that their object has been pursued of late with an unprecedented degree of perseverance and deter- mination. The only way of accounting for this is, the supposition that the petitioners feel they have truth and public opinion on their side^ — two mighty and irresistible allies — which, thoy are well assured, must and vUl prevail * A. J. B. Hope, afterwards M.P. for the University of C imbridge, who, nevertheless, in spite of these pronounced opinions, by the irony of fate, was made, along -with the Bishop of Oxford (WilLerforce), a member of the "Rubrical Commission of Inquiry" of 1867. 80 THE IXGOLDSBY LETTERS. in tlie l(int> THE IXGOLDSUY LETTERS. oilier vii'W of the truth, eacli fiiul their own view fully and fairly stated in that Inxik;" and when I had got to the end of it, thought 1 to myself, What, are there two views of truth — a true view of truth and a false view of truth; and are they both "fully and fairly stated'' in the Prayer-book ? Well, I suppose it is so, for the Bishop of Oxford says it is, and no doubt he knows much better than I do. So, methought I would leave that long sentence to IVIr. Fisher and Mr. Davis* (who don't mind long stories) to settle between them; and I passed on rapidly to the next i)aragrai)h, with a view to enter my protest against the necessary comsequence it assumes as the result of Lord Ebury's motion being acceded to. " If either party were called upon to modify the statements in that book, they would, as a matter ok COURSE, endeavour to introduce such alterations as would make their own trulh appear more plainly and distinc- tively ; and in making ibat truth so appear, they would do it in such a way that the opposite side would, probably, not be able to acquiesce in the com man statement of truth." It is just possible it might be so; but as I hope and Ix^lieve that neither Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, nor any other Prime Minister would be so ill-advised as to put upon the Commission any one known to hold such extreme " views of truth " on one side or the other, I have myself none of these apprehensions, and can affoixl to dismiss them, at least for the present, without being " over-exquisite to cast the fashion of uncertain evils.'' I meant next — if your readers' patience were not ex- hausted, and you did not interdict the appearance of any more of these " Ingoldsby Legends/' lest they should * Sir. C. H. Davis is well known as a frequent contributor to the Eecord and Rock, and a voluminous writer upon Liturgical Kefomi. DISSATISFACTION WITH THE PllAYEll-BOOK AS IT IS. S7 ruin the sale of your independent and valuable journal'^ — I meant next to have disputed with his lordship the position that " thousands of minds '^ did " now rent satisfied with the English Prayer-book;" or rather I proi:)Osed to show, and indeed to prove, that as many thousands, if not more, were dissatisfied with it, to at least the extent of believing it capable of very considerable amendment. t It appeared therefore to me, that supposing the result of the projected Commission were to be, as assumed by the bishop, to " unsettle men^s minds " — (a supposition which I am disposed to question) — it would but be actum agere, or, in other words, to leave things in statu quo ; as it would be next to an impossibility, or " little short of a miracle,^^ to bring " men^s minds " into a condition of more " hopeless and injurious strivings one with another" than they are at present. J Lastly — after observing en passant that "at this moment " was synonymous with " at this present time," and that both of them apparently meant in the bishop's mind the same thing (videlicet, neither now, noe. ever), — I should have proceeded to analyse the next paragraph, which is as follows : — " Upon this ground, if there were * It is an xindeniable fact that many clergj-men withdrew their sub- scriptions, in consequence of the publication of these Letters in the journal in which they first appeared. t A petition to this effect from 10,000 inhabitants of Liverpool and the neighbourhood was presented to Parliament in 1859. X " There never was a period," says Bishop Stanley, " of our Church historj- with so little harmony within the pale, and so fearful a prospect of fiercer and wider dissensions." — Life, by A. P. Stanley, p. 83. These remarks were made just forty years ago ; and who shall say that the prospect of dissension within the Church is less apparent now ? AVill the time ever come when the rulers of the Church shall see that the way to calm these dissensions is not to shut the eye to the cause of tlicm, but to probe it to the bottom, and remove for ever the root of the evil ? bS THE IXGOLDSBY LETTERS. no other, it is of the utmost importance at this mouicnt, when there is a tendeney am()n<^.st good men on the one aide — who think that this great inheritance received from our fathers may be perfected by striking out this, and putting in that, and modifying the other — it is of the utmost importance that we should take this ground, and say, tliat wliile the Book of Common Prayer is no wore perfect than any other work of man, yet that to have it as a common ground, with all its iff/perfections (!J, is a boon so great, that we do not think it desirable to strive to remove any possible errors, at the great cost of losing it as the bond of unity between ourselves and our brethren."* This sentence I was proceeding to dissect, and indeed had got so far as ''the good men on the one side" — and I looked naturally, though in vain, for the good men (or at least men good or bad) on the other side. Having been educated in my early days under a most excellent school- master (who made afterwards, by-the-bye, but a very indifferent bishop), the late Dv. Butler of Shrewsbury, one of my first lessons in Latin composition was some- thing about ix, protasis and an apodosis ; a lesson, no doubt, veiy valuable, as everything proceeding from the mouth of that eminent scholar was, as far as related to the laws which regulate the dead languages, and not less valuable to all living writers or speakers; and though I am afraid 1 have almost forgotten the rule, as I have too many of the instructions of that worthy man, yet the impression remains vivid upon my mind that every proposition which • To the Bishop of Oxford's wordy rhetoric might he applied, bj' a slight parody, the lines of Horace (Od. IV. ii.) — " Jlontc decurrens velut amnis, imhrcs Quem super notas aluere ripas, Fer\-ct, immensusque ruit profundo Samuel ore. ' LORD EBURY IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 89 has a first dej)endent clause, should, in due course, have a second to correspond to it ; or, in other words, if " good men " were brought forward " on the one side " of an argument, something like " good men " would, by the laws of grammar, be required on the other, to balance the equation. So I Avent back to the sentence, and read it carefully over and over again, as I should have done some thirty years ago a crabbed passage in Aristotle or Thucydides ; but I again and again stuck at the " good men on the one side;" and, still floundering on in the dark, I "Found no end in -wandering mazes lost.'' Well, thought I to myself, I must be very stupid to-day, so I Avill shut up the speech, and try my hand at it another time. Just at this moment the letter-bag of the moruing was put into my hands, containing a copy of the Times of Friday, May 1th ; wherein, to my joy, I discovered that Lord Ebury^s long-threatened motion had come off in the House of Lords the previous evening; thus effec- tually setting the matter of Liturgical Revision before the bar of Public Opinion. That Lord Ebury's speech on the occasion was un- answerable I do not presume to say ; but that it was unanswered, will, I venture to assert, be the judgment of ninety-nine out of every hundred sensible men who read what was said on both sides of the question in the House that night. "^ There the subject may, therefore, be safely allowed to rest for the present; and as I have already trespassed more than usual on the space you so • The Speech was subsequently published, and rapidly passed through three editions. 90 THE INCiOLDSBY LETTERS. liberally allow mc, I will conclude with thankiiif]^ you for the part you have taken in assisting to dissipate the vast amount of misapprehension and misstatement which has ioY years overlaid this important matter. Yours obediently, Ma^ 10, 1858. "Ingoldsby." LETTER XIV. THE BISHOP OF OXFORD AGAIN. NO. III. " Ecce iterum Crispinus: — ct est miM stupe vocandus In partes." Juvenal. What, not done with the Bishop of Oxford yet ? I thought you told us in your last, that Prime Ministers and other lay lords having come upon the stage, you meant to change your ground and sing a loftier strain. "Well, so I did, and so I intended, and so I still intend. But it would be hardly fair upon you, Mr. Editor, who have for the last three months so courteously allotted me a very considerable portion of your independent journal — it would be hardly fair upon you (to say nothing of your readers, many of whom, you assure me, are pleased to take an interest in this controversy) were I to suddenly with- draw from the undertaking in which we have embarked, and which is, as yet, very far from being brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Though, therefore. Lord Ebury has made an admirable speech upon the expediency of revising the Liturgy " at this present time;^' and though he has been more or less supported by the Lords Grey, Granville, and Abinger; and though an English archbishop, and a Welsh and Irish bishop have replied to (not answered) his lordship ; and though the Premier (Lord Derby) has thought lit to cast in his lot with THE BISHOP OF OXFORD AGAIN^ XO. III. 91 the non-movement party,* I see no reason why I should make such an invidious distinction between the eleven prelates who expressed their opinions in " the House of Bishops " in February last, as to select only two of them for the purpose of review, leaving it to be inferred, as it possibly might be, that the remainder were considered either above or beneath criticism. The latter of these conclusions I should be sorry to give the remotest handle to, seeing the eminence of the individuals in question. The former assump- tion I should be still more unwilling to sanction, as tending to disparage the cause we have in hand, and which I trust is able to stand in its own strength against any amount of artillery that can be brought to bear upon it by the united brigade of the Bench of Bishops. Concluding then, to-day, as I hope to do, with the Bishop of Oxford, I shall, in my next, proceed to make a few com- ments upon the speech of the third prelate who addressed their lordships on the 10th of February last — the right rev. and right learned the Bishop of St. David^s (Thirlwall). Recurring to the concluding paragraph of my last letter, I found myself, after all, obliged to give up that hard sentence in despair; and so, to waste no more time, we come next to " the great inheritance received from our fathers,^'' which is the same thing as we have had hcice before in this short speech, under the title of '' a precious inheritance of truth,^^ and "that inheritance great as it is." Now, as I am not fond of tautology, I will not dwell upon this further than to make two passing observations. Can it be that this idea is so deeply impressed on the bishop^s mind, t by studying Mr. Fisher^s "Liturgical * See Letter ix., p. 55. t Curious that the same expression should be adopted by the Bishop of Salisbury in his Charge of August, 185S. 92 THE IXnOLDSBY LETTERS. Purity, our llij^htful InlK'ritam-e ?" If so, is it not suv- prisin<]|^ that all that autiior's other ar<^uments and con- clusions are passed over so lig^htly in his lordship's speech as to leave no trace of his ever havinji^ read or seen the book ? Secondly, have we received no other " i)recious inlieri- tance from our fathers/' besides "the Prayer-book as it is ?" If then our laws, our constitution, our liberties, our press, and other temporal institutions, are all equally " inherited," and have all been indefinitely improved durin*^ the last 200 years, is it so very unreasonable that we should seek further to embellish " the precious inheri- tance " of a book which professes to be our <^uide in things eternal ? But the bishoi^ says we should not improve it, by " striking out this, and putting in that, and modifying the other;" and yet such I apprehend is the process, by which, at various periods, improvement of that book has been made or attempted before, "from Catholic times — from the earliest Catholic times." I can see, therefore, no reason why the same thing should not be done or attempted again, Avith an equal probability of improvement being the result ; or at least an ecjual absence of any serious danger — especially as his lordship admits that " the Book of Common Prayer is no more perfect than any other work of man." But then it appears to be "of the utmost importance" that we should consider this book, '^ with all its imperfec- tions" as " a boon so great " that we are not to " think it desirable to strive to remove any possible errors at the great cost of losing it as the bond of unity between our- selves and our brethren." Oh, for a memory to carry one Ijack just eight-and- twenty years ! How it would recall the image of a Prime WHY THE BISHOPS LEFT OFF THEIR WIGS. 93 Minister, the hero of Waterloo, in all his glory hurled suddenly from the very pinnacle of power, because he could not conceive it possible to improve the British Parliament by enfranchising Birmingham and Manchester " at the great cost of losing " the venerable Gatton and Old Sarum ! Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum.* Methought that lesson would hardly so soon have lost its influence upon educated men, who had then reached, as I had, the mature age of one-and-twenty years ; and the Bishop of Oxford is, I believe, but six years older than myself. Did not the support which " the united Bench of Bishops " then gave to the noble duke cost the right reverend prelates their wigs, and therewith no small portion of their prestige and dignity ? f Were they not afraid to appear in public for some months, or to vote at all upon the second reading of the Bill ? I am far from saying that the British public take up, or are likely to take up, the present question with the same determination that they did "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill ;" but I do say, and main- tain, that it is at all times (especially in quiet ones) a perilous course to enter on, to refuse all inquiry into an admitted evil, lest some imaginary mischief should ensue from the process. And I warn the right reverend prelates, in all the honesty of as sincere a well-wisher to the Church as any of their number, that so far from doing it a kindness by their over-solicitude for its welfare in this matter, they * " Be warned in time by others' harm, And you shall do full well." lugoldsby Legends. t " On this day (Feb. 22, 1832), following the example of almost all the bishops, left off my ^sig." — Bishop Copkstone's Diary. (Life, (Jr., p. lol.) 94 THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. are takinp^ the surest course towards imiierillino^ its very existeuee and their owu.''^ But the Bishop of Oxford, in his ^-reater knowledge of the feeUn«^s of the people, is persuaded that " the vast mass of the less educated poor in England receive the English Prayer-book, next to the Biljle, as God's special gift and blessing to them; and anything that might induce them to think you could alter this or that, or that one thing in it may be left out, and another thing may be put in, would shock their simple feelings of devotion, and do a mischief the extent of which no man can conceive." What a ])icture of rural or episcopal simplicity is here ! How many, I would ask, of " the less educated poor " in England — ay, or in Wales or Ireland, since a Welsh and Irish i)relate have denounced the idea of touching the Prayer-book — how many of those, I would ask, can read that book at all ; or, as they say in the calendar of Quarter Sessions, read it "perfectly or imperfectly?" Plow many are there to whom these simple lines of our sweetest bard d(j still, and may they ever, apply — "Their name, their years, upelt by the unlettered Muse, The place of fame and clcfi^' supply ; And manj' a holy text around sho strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die 'i " * Hear Bishop Stanley in his speech on Subscription, May, 1840: — "I am confident that the time will come when this alteration — this privilege — will be allowed and acquiesced in. It is for us, the heads of the clergy, to meet the difficulties of the case ; for I am persuaded that if we do not, the time may come when, under other powers, under another pressure, we may be forced to do that which wc may now do quietly, which it is now in our power to do voluntarily ; and we may be compelled to adopt measures opposed to our feelings, and to which we should all object." " Scilicet et tcmpus veniet" — He being dead, yet spcaketh ; — shall he still speak to the deaf adder ? THE EARLIEST CATHOLIC TIMES. 95 How many to whom the text of the sermon is the principal, if not the only thing, they carry away with them from the church ? And well if they always do that. How many of the Lincolnshire, ay, or of the Oxfordshire bumpkins, in spite of the leavening influence of its renowned University, and not less renowned Theological College, are able to follow " the officiating minister,'' or to " find the places," as he leads them backwards and forwards through the intricate mazes of our present lengthy Morning Service ? I am fully aware that there is much in the argument of omne ignotum pro magnifico. And it is quite possible that, as in " Catholic times — the earliest Catholic times," the sacrificing priest found no difficulty in persuading the ignorant and gaping multitude, as he turned his back %pon them,* that he " verily and indeed " transmuted the material elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ their Saviour ; so now a well-tutored priest of the Cuddesdon school may possibly succeed, in some remote parts of the country, though not in the suburbs of our great metropolis, in making "the less educated poor" believe that there is something holy and mysterious in every syllable of their unintelligible Prayer-book ; and that to attempt to meddle with the hallowed volume is an act of profanation paralleled only by touching the ark, and certain to bring down plague or destruction on the presumptuous head of him that attempts it. But " I apprehend," says the Bishop of Lincoln, " that it is the intention, and it ought to be the duty of our Church, not to lower the tone of her devotion to the low pitch of her weakest members, but to keep them at a * See proceedings at St. George' s-in-the-East, Xovcmber, 18o9. — Letters iviii., lxiv. 96 THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. higher ].I((]i, l)()th in (irdi-r to ]iri)vitlo for her more faithful members j»rovisiou for their souls' needs, and also, by God's help, to raise up others to the same standard. '^ AVho shall decide when bishops disagree? The Bishop of Oxford is all for "the less ediicafed poor/' the liishop of Lincoln is for raising the pitch of Church member- ship to some imaginary standard of excellence, which I fear there is small prospect of " the less educated poor " in our day arriving at, by all the aids and appliances to be obtained from the most rigid adherence to the llubric and the Canons of the Church. For my o^vn part, I must confess that I am so far from anticipating all the terrible consequences which are prefigured to the large organ of ideality of the Bishop of Oxford, from our " putting in this, and taking out that, and modifying t'other,^' that I should look for about as great a convulsion of nature to ensue in such a case as is usually witnessed when some rural clerk, bolder than common, ventures timidly on substituting the 33rd for the 34th cliapter of Genesis on the Second Sunday in Lent, or forgets (accidentally, no doubt) to rehearse the Athanasian Creed instead of the Apostles^ should the festival of St, Matthias fall on a Sunday. The bishop^s peroration is as follows : — " Before we are called upon in another place to give a decided vote one way or another, we ought to consider whether we will endeavour to perfect the blessing which God has given us, at the risk of destroying these great advantages which it possesses, in virtue at once of its amoimt of trutli and oi our peaceful acceptance of it as a common inheritance ; and it would be well that the Church should know that the desire of the lishops of the Church at this time, quite uninfluenced by their own PECULIAR VIEWS OF TRUTH, 97 peculiar views of truth, is to keep, as one of God^s special gifts to us, UNTOUCHED and unaltered, our Book of Common Prayer/^ * " Such were the sounds that through the vaulted roof Of ' Anne's large chamber ' scattered wild dismay : Stout Bangor stood aghast in speechless trance ; ' To arms,' cried Exeter, and couched his quivering lance." The Bishop of Oxford speaks as if in the name, and we presume with the sanction, of his right reverend brethren. His lordship also appears to be well acquainted with ''their peculiar views of truth." Happily, the desired opportunity of giving " a decided vote in another place " was withheld from their lordships by Lord Ebury^s withdrawing his motion until his unanswered and un- answerable speech should have had time to work upon the public mind. It is surprising, however, that, not- withstanding the serried phalanx of lawn sleeves which was arrayed over against his lordship on the 6th of May,t the great body of the bishops should have allowed it to be inferred by their silence that they acquiesced in the sentiments expressed by but three of their number. The inevitable conclusion to be drawn from the speeches of those three is, that the Book of Common Prayer is to remain por ever, as the Bishop of Oxford declares it shall, " im touched and unaltered;''^ a statute, not of 200 or 300 years old,| but as if enacted under Cyrus the * From this moment may be dated the organised and united movement of all classes of Revisionists. + " It was a most refreshing event to my heart, that when Lord Ebuiy moved for a Commission, the bishops were present in great numbers, and were unanimous in opposition to his motion." — Charge by Walter Kerr Hamilton, Bishop of Sali'^hurg, August, 1858 ; p. 53. X The laws of Solon were enacted to continue in force for one hundred years only ; and quite enough too. H 98 THE IXGOLDSBY I.KTTKUS. Mede, or Darius the Persian ; a book to be handed down to the latest posterity, " Tliroui^h every unborn ape ami undiscovered clime," by millions and millions of copies, " with all its imper- fections," to be defended, criticised, tolerated, excused, explained, evaded, accepted, or rejected, as the case may be, till time itself shall be no more. If, as the Tif//e.s* expresses it, " Supcris ita viaiim ; " if bishops and High-Church peers are determined, at all hazards, to have " peace in their time ; " if they are resolved, at any rate, to avoid a troublesome controversy, to which they do not feel themselves ecjual ; if they have fully made up their minds to let thing's, bad enough already, get worse and worse, rather than run the risk of an imaginary religious revolution; then let the responsibility rest with themselves : we know their power, and cannot doubt of their mil. Meanwhile, shall age after age increasingly proclaim that something is wanting to the full efficiency of the Established Church. Then shall it appear more and more conspicuously that we have got ten thousand fairly endowed churches with but half congregations ; bishops, priests, and deacons in j)lenty, but with a very inadecjuate following, compared to the cost at which they are maintained ; generals, in short, in abundance, without an army ; while we retain inviolate and inviolable " the precious inheritance " of a Book of Common Prayer, which, though iJOO years old, no one dares to amend, no one pretends implicitly to obey, and which the Bishop of Oxford proclaims shall remain " untouched and unaltered " in his day. If such a consummation is to be desired, so be it. That * In a leader upon Lord Ebury's Speech, May 7th, 1858. THE BISHOP OF ST. DAVID^S, NO. I. U'J we are drawing' towards it, no one, I think, can deny ; and I much misread the signs of the times, and the warning voice of all history, if the resistance now offered by those in authority to the most temperate demand of Lord Ebury does not i^recipitate a " religious revolution " ^ more certainly, and render it tenfold more radical when it comes, than any present concession of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Book of Common Prayer could possibly have done. I remain, yours obediently. May 21, 1858. " Ixgoldsby.'-' LETTER XV. THE bishop of ST. DAVID S, THE RIGHT REV. CONNOP THIRLWALL. NO. I. "As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage. Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious; Even so " Shakespeaue, Rich. II., Act v., Sc. 2. Sir, — I have often wondered how any human being could have the boldness to rise and address an assembly, whether of bishops or of ordinary individuals, after the Bishop of Oxford had just resumed his seat. How weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable must the arguments of the most accomphshed orator of modern times fall on the ear, saturated to overflowing with the torrent of eloquence, a sample of which has been so recently furnished for our admiration. Yet, so it is; mortals, as I have said before, are still * See Letter of Rev. Charles Girdlestone to the Dean of Westminster (Trench), quoted at Letter xii., p. 78. 100 THE TNGOLDSBY LETTERS. found to rush in where angels fear to tread ; and as the Bishop of St. David's shrinks not from occupying this unenviable ])osition, my fate, unhappily, is to be dragged along with him into the same predicament. Should, there- fore, the ensuing criticisms read to any one somewhat dry and vapid after the effervescence of the previous pages, I trust he will make due allowance for the remarkable difference in the style of the present, compared with that of the last speaker. A skilful reviewer, according to the poet — " Rcddere personae scit convenientia cuique ; " and though I am far from arrogating to myself the above honourable title, yet I should be deficient in the very first qualification for my present undertaking, did I not recognise the wide dissimilarity between the ground I am now about to tread, and that on which my small artillery has been hitherto engaged. Few men, perhaps none on the bench, have a higher claim to our attention than the present Bishop of St. David's.''^ His antecedents, as they are popularly called, are of the first class. He is, therefore, entitled to speak on any subject to which he may direct his mind, with a degree of authority to which not every one of his right reverend brethren can offer an equal pretension. He is known, both at home and abroad, as " a scholar, and a ripe and good one.'' He is versed in most of the modem, as well as the dead, languages ; and has the rare praise of having made it his business to acquire, late in life, even the Welsh tongue, in order to qualify himself for * Dr. Connop Thirlwall, some time Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge; appointed Bishop of St. David's in 1840, resigned 1874. Died July 27, 1875. R. I. F. THE EPISCOPAL PROTEUS. 101 fulfilling the duties of his position in the Principality. He is generally allowed to be a sound and deep divine."^ His Charges bear the impress of a Hberal and thoughtful mind; and would lead the reader to conclude that he is not attached to either of the extreme parties which divide and harass the Church. With these recommendations as an arbiter in a case of acknowledged difficulty, had the Bishop of St. David^s pronounced firmly and decisively on one side or the other in this controversy, we should have felt almost constrained to follow his lead, and say at once, Cadit quastio : the oracle has spoken — the die is cast — conclaruattini est : such will be the verdict which public opinion, to which we have all along professed to bow, will ultimately pass upon this matter. But, unfortunately, for some inexplicable cause or other, we have here the Bishop of St. David^s at issue with himself. We have a Court of Appeal giving what sound to us conflicting decisions : a Janus iifrons, uttering war and peace from each of his mouths at once; smiling and frowning with his ambi- visage on friend and foe alike ; a moral phenomenon, to which all the learned prelate^s classic lore can find no jjarallel. He outdoes, in this instance, even Proteus himself, who, with all his skill, never offered, as far as we have read, to be fire and water, lion and lamb. Liturgical Reformer and Anti- reformer, at one and the same time. As, however, I cannot pretend to keep pace with his lordship here, I shall, to-day, exhibit him simply in the former caj^acity : begging my readers to bear in mind that the second and third acts of our drama are not (as usual) supposed to follow consecutively , * This position, however, was disputed by the Rev. Pr. ^^'illiaIns, lato Vice-Principal of Lampeter, perhaps not without reason. 10- THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. but must be understood as proecedinj^ simultaneously, or as nearly so as may be, with the first. I do not, ot" course, presume to charge his lordship with designed inconsistency. I am sure also that the public will acquit him, as I do, of any intentional duplicity. But it is impossible to deny that we have, in what follows, a trumpet giving a most xincertain sound in the war of Liturgical Revision. And one can hardly help feeling that the bishop himself betrays a kind of uneasiness in attempting to occupy the via media on this occasion. One detects throughout his speech a sort of consciousness that it re({uires a steady hand and clear head to reconcile what he has said in his address before Convocation, and in the House of Lords upon Lord Ebury's motion, with what he may have spoken, written, or pu])lished elsewhere. Other- wise what need for proclaiming, as his lordship does more than once, that he " does not recede in the slightest degree from any opinion he may have ever expressed upon this subject?^' Qui .1' excuse, s' accuse, says the proverb. No one had accused his lordship of contradicting himself. But it has a tendency to cast a primA facie suspicion upon the sincerity of a speaker, when he finds it needful to preface thus : — " Observe, gentlemen, this is what I have always said ; I am not in the habit of blowing hot and cold. I have all along maintained that the Liturgical Revisors are right — and that they are wrong. ^' " There are no tricks in plain and simple faith :" an Aye or a No is easily said ; and there is no mistake about them. But when once men come to splitting hairs; to "letting I dare not wait upon I would/' to sailing N. by N.E. or S. by S.W., one hardly knows where to have them ; they are here to-day, and gone to-morrow. And such, I fear, is the judgment which the public, clear- ELAPSA EST ANGUILLA. lO-'i sighted in the main, will be disposed to pass upon the evidence we shall shortly have to produce. Each party will for the moment think to claim the right reverend prelate as his own, and will prepare to rejoice and make merry accordingly. When, hey presto ! the bird is flown ; the aqueous god has dissolved into his native element; he has vanished into thin air; the chameleon has changed its colour ; elapsa est ancjidlla ; the animal has quietly slid away while the council of cooks are in warm debate as to whether they should serve him up fried or stewed."^ In what follows we shall deal with the Bishop of St. David^s in his three -fold capacity: as bishop in "the House of Bishops ;" bishop on the Bench of Bishops ; and lastly (though not there least well placed), bishop in the bishop^s chair of his diocese in Wales. The unravelling this three-fold cord will necessarily involve a little difficulty, and require some patience on the part of my readers.f But I will endeavour to thread my way through the labyrinth as carefully as I can ; and will, at least, undertake to set nothing doAvn to his lordship's credit but what I find attributed to him as written or spoken at one time or another in connexion with our present subject. It is not necessary to carry our inquiry further back than the year 1845, when the Bishop of St. David's delivered the second of his many able charges — the one referred to by Lord Ebury in the House of Lords; a Charge which, his lordship justly remarked, derives additional importance from the confirmation it receives from the bishop's Sei^epat (ppovrlBe'i in the autumn of last year. * The Bishop subsequently designated the above remarks as ' * coarse insinuation and misplaced ridicule ;" but he has failed to show that the imputation was not justified by the premises. See Charge by Bishop of St. David's, October, 1860 ; p. 46. t See Letters xxvii., xlv., cvi. 104 THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. The paragraph quoted by Lord Ebury occurs at page 24 of this Charge ; but, as many of your readers will uot have seen that doeument, or even the report of the debate of May 6th, I will give the passage at length. " We are not bound," says the bishop in the bishop's chair, " to shut our eyes to the need that exists for a revision of the Liturgy, because it is our duty, for the present, patiently to submit to the want of it." This was in 1845; so the bishop's patience, and the patience of the Liturgical Reformers, which I fear is not quite so exemplary, has been exercised thirteen years,* and the cry is still "for the present we must patiently submit." Such at least is the inevitable inference, should the voice of the bishops prevail on the present occasion. The Bishop of St. David's proceeds : — " We must suspect that the persons who have resisted all attempts at change, on the plea that our Liturgy is absolutely perfect, are, if sincere, very unenlightened and INJUDICIOUS FRIENDS OF THE ChURCH." I might here rest my case. The force of language can no further go. The " Ingoldsby Letters " have said nothing more severe and cutting than this. But it is due to his lordship to continue the extract a little further : — " Nor is it true, as has been ignorantly or insidiously alleged, that the clergy have set up any such extravagant pretensions in its behalf. On the contrary, that large body of them, including a great majority of the whole, who, about eleven years ago, thought proper to make a solemn joint declaration of their devoted adherence to the doctrine * Now upwards of thirty years, and the word is still " not at the present time." See Letter x. Precisely the same argument was made use of by Bishop Blomfield, in a Letter to ^Vrchdeacon Lyall, November, 1833. See his Life by his Son, vol. i., chap, vii., p. 190. WHY WAS IT NOT DONE? 105 and polity of the Churcli, and their deep-rooted attachment to her Liturgy, earnestly deprecating rash innovation in spiritual matters, nevertheless in the same document dis- closed their consciousness that, from the lapse of years or altered circumstances, some things pertaining to such matters might require renewal or correction." Why, here is the whole question at issue. It is a plain concessio principii. What more have Lord Ebury's petitioners required or demanded ? What a pity the Bishop of Lincoln had not heard of this document signed by the " great majority of the clergy " a quarter of a century ago ! But humanum est errare. Other people besides the House of Commons will occasionally act " hastily,"* and be not '^well informed ■*' upon every subject. These clergy — and this, observe, was about the year 1832 or ^83, under the pressure of "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill," when the Bishop of Lincoln and I were reading hard for our degrees — this large body of the clergy, it appears, "expressed their ^villingness to co-operate with the rulers of the Church in carrying into effect any measures to supply that want, should it appear to exist." Why, then, was not the thing done? Why, at least, was not an inquiry instituted ? Were the rulers or the ruled at fault on that occasion ? or were the latter lulled to sleep by the potent sop thrown out to them by the former, that it was not expedient to make the attempt " at the then present time ? " Into this question the Bishop of St. David's declines to enter.f But his lordship proceeds to make a few just observations on the conduct of that numerous body of petitioners, or remonstrants, or whatever they were called. These remarks I must, how- * See Letter x. , p. 62. f So also the Bishop's Charge of 1860. Ri\'ington3, London. H)(; THK INOOLDSBY LETTERS. over, reserve for my next, having" already trespassed greatly on your eolumns, which I rejoice to see want not my aid to till the space you usually allot to the interesting question of Liturgical Reform. I am, Sir, ydurs obediently, May'il, 1858. " IxooT.nsBY." LETTER XVL* CniKCH PATRONAGE ; THE DEANERY OF YORK. " A canon I that's a place too mean : No, Doctor ; you shall be a Dean. Two dozen canons round your stall, And you the tjTant of them all." — Swift. Sir, — It will not be ina])pro])riate to our present subject if you allow me for once to interrupt the even * In allowing this Letter to rc-appcar in the present edition, the author begs most emphatically to declare that he does so on public grounds alone. He has not the smallest personal knowledge, directly or indirectly, of the individual referred to, whose appointment gave rise to much newspaper correspondence at the time. Tlie temporary feeling is, of course, long since allayed ; but the principle remains, and is deserving of grave consideration, as involving no less than the whole question of scholastic and academical emulation, so far as the clerical profession is concerned. If amiability of character, personal respectability, and ample pecuniary means, are legitimate grounds for promotion to the few remaining prizes in the Church, away with all motive for exertion, little enough already, but on this principle utterly annihilated I 'ITie days of I^ngland's greatness as a nation would have long since passed away had such a rule prevailed in the high aj)pointments in the Law, the Army, or the Navy. Under the shelter of examples like that denounced by Mr. Ewart in the House of Commons in 1858, every private patron and everj' Bishop on the Bench might with equal jdausibility defend nt potism of the most glaring magnitude, in defiance of all higher claims for advancement in the Church. THE DEANERY OF YORK, 1858. 107 tenor of these Letters, in order to comment iipon the folloNvang extract from the Times of Friday, May 28th : — " Deanery of York. " To the Editor of the Times. "Sir, — I join with 'A Yorkshire Curate^ in holding up to public indignation the appointment of the Hon. and Rev. Augustus Duncombe to the Deanery of York. " This gentleman has held no clerical office of any de- scription for upwards of fifteen years. He had previously held the family rectory of Kirby-Misperton, of the yearh' value of £1,000. In 1841 he succeeded to a fortune of which the annual income is believed to be upwards of £8,000, and for the last ten or twelve years he has resided on his own estate in Derbyshire. " Now, if this piece of preferment had fallen to the gift of Lord Palmerston, and if he had conferred it on a Howard or a Dundas, the appointment would have been scouted as a Whig job of Lord Carlisle or Lord Zetland. " As it is, the appointment of Mr. Duncombe can only be considered a Tory job''^ of Lord Feversham. — Your obedient servant, "A Yorkshire Layman. " Maij 26, 1858." Whether the Premier acted in this case, as in his recent opposition to Lord Ebury^s motion, under the advice of the most reverend and right reverend prelates, I will not stop to inquire. But certainly, if the act originated with himself, it would be difficult to conceive how any Commission of Incjuiry into the Prayer-book * Exactly a similar offence was perpetrated by the same Minister, Lord Derby, April 1, 1867, in the appointment of the Hon. and Rev. George Herbert to the Deanery of Hereford. 108 THE IXGOLDSDY LETTERS. could have done the Establishment more harm — "for the VJelfare of which " Lord Derby was fain to admit " the noble mover's desire was earnest and undoubted" — than the principle involved in such an appointment as the one here referred to. Let it be borne in mind that the so-called Tory party have, with slight intermission, been out of office for many years, and that it is fair to presume there must be, in the ranks of the noble earl's adherents during the period of his atlversity, some hundreds of clerical aspirants to high office, of talent and distinction and long service in their profession, who might reasonably have expected to see this first conspicuous vacancy filled by one of their number, and who would have looked upon the favoured individual without envy and %vithout regret — nay, rather with (perhaps qualified) joy that the Church had received such an accession to her strength. ^Moreover, it must not be forgotten, that by the opera- tion of the Ecclesiastical Commission — in which, if I am not mistaken, as well as in the confiscation of half the Irish bishopries, the present Premier had some hand — the '' prizes " of the Church have been enormously reduced botli ill value and number. I am old enough, too, to remember how it was urged, with great plausibility, by the Church Reformers of that day (about 1835-7), that by diminisliing the number of Church dignitaries there would no longer be room left for jobbing, either through family or political connexions; that j9ro/(?*«?o^m/ eminence and merit would thenceforth become the sole passports to high ecclesiastical preferment, and that, in, proportion as the dignitaries were feio in numtjer, their qualifications would be more closely and narrowly scanned. All this sounded very well ; and many an honest Church Reformer was caught in the trap, and lent his O VANAS HOMINUM MENTES. 109 hand to carrying out the very questionable machinery of the '^Ecclesiastical Commission;""^ rejoicing that at any rate they had seen the last of bishops^ sons and sons- in-law made canons and archdeacons, for no other reason than because they were bishops' sons and sons-in-law, and that the Percevals, Liverpools, and Eldons were about for ever to make way for conscientious Prime Ministers and self-denying Lord Chancellors, who would no longer barter the high and sacred appointments in the Church for the base meed of political support, but bestow them as the rewards of merit on the most deserving. "0 vanas hominum mentes. pectora coeca!" What a golden age in prospect for the Church militant here on earth had this vision been realised ! f Now turn we to the Clerical Directory for 1858 — that Army and Navy List of our profession, which shows, or pro- fesses to show, the pretensions of its several members to advancement in their order ; supposing merit, or length and laboriousness of previous service, or, in fact, desert of any kind, to have anything to do now or in future with promotion in the Church. Under the head of the D's, we find — • Mr. Henry Seymour, M.P. for Poole, succeeded in obtaining a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into the misdoings of this body ; 1862. See "Notes" by Ecclesiasticus ; Kidgway, 1863. f Hear the sentiments of a Layman on this subject. " It must be evident to the most superficial observer of passing events that a time is rapidly approaching when all appointments, whether in Church or State, are likely to be made upon a principle of selection altogether different from that which has hitherto prevailed, and that, in the department of ecclesiastical labour more especially, none will be suffered to attain the first rank of whom it cannot be said that in all the higher branches of secular acquirement — in literature, science, knowledge of the world, and, above all, in practical acquaintance with the business affaii-s of life — they are in every respect upon a par with the more advanced intelligence of the age." — Fisher's Liturgical Furity, p. 662. 110 THE IXnOLDSBY LETTERS. DuNCOMDE, HonOle. Augustus, Wore. Coll., Oxon. B.A. 183G; M.A. 1S50; Deac. lS;i7 ; Pr. 1838; Prcl). of Bole in York Cathl. 1841/' Comment is .superfluous. Yorkshiremen will henceforth duly a})preeiate the antecedents of their dean."*^ Behold, ye anti-revisionists, — behold the new-born zeal for the Church evinced by your ally, the Prime Minister of England ! Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, ye Church dignitaries that have trembled for the last three months under the dread of Lord Ebury's Commission of Inquiry ! Rely ujion it no Commission of Inquiry will receive the sanction of one who can recognise as a suflicient qualification for one of the highest offices in the Church the having already an income of £8,000 per annum, and the having " retired from business " fifteen years ago. * The following is from the Tiines^ report of the proceedings in the House of Commons on Friday, June 4th, 1858 : — " THE WEAN OF YOHK. " Mr. W. Ewart, in asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer for what special reasons the recent appointment had been made to the Deanery of York, declared that he was not influenced by any other motive than the interests of the Church, and, through that, of the country. The Church Commisioners, in their report of 1836, said — " ' The advantages resulting to the interests of religion from the existence of this species of preferment, when conferred on clerg}Tnen distinguished for professional merit, are too obvious to require illustration.' " And in 1852 that— " ' In considering the employment of deans and canons wo are of opinion that it is one distinct purpose of cathedral institutions to make jjrovision for the cultivation and encourai/ement of theological learning.' He thought it rested with the Government to show that they had made the appointment in question in conformity with those recommendations." The reply of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir. Di.sraeli) was a complete justification of all that the late Sydney Smith has written of the Ecclesiastical Commission of 1836, but a very insufficient one of the appoint- ment in question ; and even this reply, insufficient as it was, has been wholly stultified by the subswinent doublin-j of the salary to the present dean by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. TO HIM THAT HATH SHALL BE GIVEN. Ill Happy, thrice happy, York Minster ! destined, for another generation, to drag along your weary chain of the lengthened Morning Service ; to witness your desolate stalls occupied by some half-dozen gazers for six days in the week ;^ your officials dozing, and your choristers playing tricks, f during the Wednesday and Friday intonation of the Litany ; and all this because the Premier finds himself supported in rejecting Lord Ebury's proposition by " almost the whole of the episcopal bench, which is not an imim- portant consideration in a question of this sort •/* while the Bishop of Oxford declares, with oracular authority, that the Prayer-book shall remain untouched and unaltered in his day. Turn we from this melancholy picture — this nineteenth- century illustration of quiet a non movers — turn we with shame from this " to-him-that-hath-shall-be-given " system of bestowing the honours and prizes of the Church, to another not unimportant sign of the times, suggested by a double advertisement which met my eye in the papers the same day on which the above pungent letter appeared in the Times. I find the two following tracts advertised side by side : — SPEECH OF LORD EBURY in the House of Lords, May 6th, on Revision of the Liturgy. PROGRESSIONIST CHURCH TRACTS. No. I. — On Liturgical Revision. * That this ia still the case with too many of our highly endowed Cathedrals cannot be denied by the stoutest admirer of those stately, but, I fear, somewhat useless edifices. t The writer was eye-witness to this in the summer of 1857. It is but justice to the present occupant of the Dean's seat to add that such scenes no longer occur, and that other imjiortant reforms have been effected. Still the principle remains unaffected ; the same reforms in the Cathedral would, in these days, have been forced upon any man by public opinion, vhile previous claims might at the same time have been duly recognised. 112 THE INOOI.DSBY LETTERS. I (li)ii't say that the li-tter on the Deanery of York and the above advertisements have any neeessary con- nexion with one another; they bear, on the contrary, sufficient internal evidence that they have not the smallest relationship to each other; and yet, methinks, the con- junction on this occasion has a not insio^nilicant bearing on the present position of the Church for weal or woe. Mark the consequences of the bishops' and the Premier's opposition to the " People's call for a Revision of the Prayer-book." Behold the first-fruits of this piece of Con- servatism, in the appearance of No. I. (followed densely by Nos. II., III., and IV.) of a series of " Progressionist Church Tracts,"^ which would never, probably, have been heard of, but for the resistance offered to Lord Ebury's motion in the House of Lords, and which cannot but have their influence upon the well or ill being of the Church. Do I hear some one say, True, these tracts may in- fluence the Church indeed ; but will it be for good or for evil ? my answer is, I know not ; I pretend not to know ; I am wholly innocent of their origin, and was only made aware of their -existence by receiving No. I. through the post, from an unknown hand, and by subse- quently noticing the above advertisement in the paper. But if for evil, I charge with the sin, not the author of these tracts, but the determined Oppositionists to any revision of the Prayer-book, who have thus called them into existence. It was not my Lords Grey and Russell who accomplished • These were followed bj' twelve more under the auspices of the Liberation Socif:ty. London: H. J. Tresidder, Ave Maria Lane; 1862. Probably nothing has contributed so much to forward the views of this last-named body as the determined resistance of the bishops to admit of any alteration in the " twin curses of the Church of England, BuiiUic and KOITIXE." OMNIA DAT, QUI JUSTA NEGAT. 113 the Reform Bill of 1831-32. The real fathers of that measure, for weal or for woe, were Peel and Welling^ton and their episcopal and Conservative supporters. And so it is now with the " Progressionist Church Tracts " and whatever they may lead to. The real authors of any ill consequences which may ensue therefrom are my Lords Derby and ''almost the whole of the episcopal bench. ^^ I have before said, but I will say it again, at the risk of being charged with " vain rej^etitions,^^ to which I have a deep-rooted aversion — differing in this respect, as I fear in most others, from the BishoiD of Oxford — Omnia dat, qui justa negat."^ And the rejection, the summary rejection, of Lord Ebury^s motion by the Powers that be, bids fair, ere long, to add a remarkable illustration to this well-known and pregnant saying. His lordship^s speech is now published, in a corrected form, under his own hand ; and will take its place, probably after passing through several editions (the third, I understand, is already announced), among the permanent literature of the Revisionists, to form a powerful basis for future operations — a lever by which, most assuredly, sooner or later, in spite of all opposition from prelates or premiers, Liturgical Reform will be carried, and become part and parcel of the law of the land. It is to be regretted that the speeches of the most reverend and right reverend prelates in reply, and that of the Premier, feebly, and, as it were, in a voice not his own, echoing their lordships^ fears, are not })rinted side by side with Lord Ebury^s pithy and closely- argued oration. The reformers might then say, with pride, Look on this picture and on that. On the one hand — facts, arguments, proofs; * Letter xii., p. 79. Ill THE IXnOLDSBY LETTERS. on the other — fears, misp^ivin<^s, possible contin<:^encies. Tlie most ardent advocate for Litur«ifieal Reform could not desire a better method for securing his lon<^-deferred hopes. Then look at the Tracts. Read the title alone. Bictnm sapienti, I have heard said. And here are three words speaking volumes to the wise, or even the "unwise among the people." Progressionist Church Tracts. What a tale does it unfold ! What a vision of unborn ages crowd upon one's soul as one listens to the words ! Progress of any kind is abomination to some people. But Church progression ! — who ever heard of progress in the Church ? — Why, it is a conti-adiction in terms. Perish the idea, and the author together. Refuse him salt and fire, earth and water. Let him be anathema, maranatha, to every true-born Conservative Churchman. But who is at the bottom of all this ? — "Nay, never shake thy gory locks at mo I * Thou canst not say I did it." You cannot charge Lord Ebury's supporters, in or out of Parhament, with this sin. We charge, and we do it deliberately, Lord Ebury's opponents with being the direct or indirect promoters of this impending revolution in the Church. What says his lordship in his memorable Speech of May Gth ? — " I have just finished thirty-six years of Parliamentary life, in which I have not been an inattentive observer ; and I can most sincerely declare that I have never known a single instance where the granting of inquiry * The author of the Ingoldshy Letters was called by the English Churchman " the Arch -Agitator of Liturgical Kcform," and by the John Bull "The notorious Praycr-ljook Revisionist." The Bishop of Oxford also was understood as hinting as much at the close of his Reply to Lord Ebury in the House of Lords, May 8, 1860. See end of Letter xcvi. PROGRESSIONIST CHURCH TRACTS^ NO. I. 115 hy a fait' tribimal has done otherwise than mitigate the mutual asperity of those whose difference of opinion caused the investigation to be set on iooi." Cede repugnanti, cedendo victor abibis. It needed no ghost^ my lord, to tell us that. But there are some minds which will never learn a lesson of wisdom till it comes too late to be of any use. When, on the other hand, people meet with obstinate resistance to a reasonable demand ; when their cause apjDears utterly hopeless so long as they meekly contend under the olive- branch and the myrtle ; is it to be wondered at that they unsheath the sword, and fling the scabbard away ? It was not till the Gimrdiaii, proclaimed that " Lord Ebury's motion had vanished in smoke,''^ and the Clerical Journal advertised its too credulous readers that " they had heard the last of Liturgical Revision for some time to come,^' that No. 1. of the Progressionist Tracts made its appearance ; to be followed, I have little doubt, by others in rapid suc- cession,* till they have at length, by the force of public opinion alone, stormed the feather-bed breastwork of red- tapism in the Church, and opened the way for that freedom under which alone it can permanently and extensively iiourish.f ' ' Sic ego torrentem, qua nil obstabat eunti, Lenius et modico strepitu decurrere vidi : At quacunque trabes, objectaque saxa tcnobant, Spumeus et fervons, et ab objicc saivior ibat." * The number of Tracts bearing on Eevision that were published within the next five years amounted to near a hundred, and have been continually accumulating ever since, indicating surely a deep sense of something needed, though bishops and prime ministers choose to turn a deaf ear to the call. t In a debate on the subject in the House of Lords the Bishop of London (Tait) said that "his only idea of a National Church was, that it should be rooted in the affections of the people." Feb., 1860. iin THF INGOLDSBY LETTERS. The pent-up waters, which should have gently irrigated the meadow, have forced their way through the feeble barrier that would stay them. The compressed steam that might have been advantageously directed to some useful end, has burst its iron bonds, and scattered the fragments of its prison-house far and %\'ide into the air; and who shall offer So confine it again ? I see, however, in all this no real cause for alarm. I^ay, rather, it may be, cause for thankfulness and con- gratulation to the Church. " There is a providence that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will ; " and methinks I discern here the agency of a higher power than man^s.* No one can deny that there is — that there has long been — something wanting to the full efficiency of the Cliurch system in this country. The efforts of the Tractarians, who first saw and deplored the want, have miserably failed (as the result has shown) to supply the deficiency. And if the refusal to grant Lord Ebury's modest peti- tion for a Commission of Inquiry into the Prayer-book should lead eventually to the demanding and obtaining something more radical — and possibly, therefore, more advantageous to the Church — no one will more sincerely rejoice at the tem- porary (for temporary it is and will be) rejection of his lordship^s motion than your obliged correspondent, June 4, 1858. " Ingoldsby.'' * "Heaven hath a hand in these events, To whose high will we bound our calm contents." Shaksp. , Jiich. II. ANONYMOUS LETTER- WRITING. 117 LETTER XVII. ^ ANONYMOUS LETTER- WRITING. "Ardet atrox Volscens, nee teli conspicit usquam Auctorem. " Virgil. Sir, — I am afraid, if I am to run after every ball that is flung at my head, I shall never get to the end of the race on which I have set out. Nevertheless, there are one or two points in the assault made upon me by your correspondent " C. W. T.,'' whose edge it is expedient I should put aside, or some of my friends may be under serious apprehension for my bodily welfare or peace of mind. The consequence will be, that in addition to my voluminous correspondence on the subject of Liturgical Revision, I shall be deluged with letters of sympathy, condolence, inquiry, indignation, advice, and so forth, which will be quite annoying. I seldom take advice ; and I hate to be pitied. I cannot endure it ; I never could. It implies a sj^ecies of mental imbecility that my proud spirit revolts from. I had rather die a hundred deaths, than be pitied for having to die once. So, in the hope of arresting this flood of good nature, which will be utterly thrown away, I wish my friends to regard this epistle as a circular reply to all their kind intentions, and to give themselves no further trouble on this score, either on the present or any future occasion which may arise connected with my perilous adventure. The only real grievance I feel is, that my antagonist is anonymous. I am afraid of no man, not even of a real * This Letter and the xixth were provoked by torrents of abuse levelled at the Author by anonymous writers in two or three Clerical Newspapers of the time. lis THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. bishop — a bishop-suffragan or an ex-colonial would alarm few people — with his staff, of chaplains, secretaries, arch- deacons, and rural deans. But wlio can fight with a shadow ? The coat of darkness proved too much for the lusty giant Blunderbore ; and it was in vain he flung about him with his tremendous club, while blaster Jack was sneak- ing all the while in a corner under the bed."*^ " Why, you are anonymous yourself,'' retorts my invisible foe. — Ah ! have I you there, my friend ? I hear you, though I see you not; but, with all courtesy, I deny the fact. I am not anonjTnous; and I detest the whole system. f All the world knows who " Ingoldsby " is ; that is to say, all Liturgical Reformers and Anti-Reformers, which is the same thing. Concealment neither did, nor does, form any part of my plan. I adopted this name advisedly instead of my own, as being more in unison with the light and somewhat satirical % tone of these letters, which unfortimately give such offence to " C. W. T.,'' but in which others, I am told, find con- siderable entertainment, if not instruction. But who ever heard of " C. W. T. 'V He may be a Puseyite priest, or a ^Methodist parson. C. T. alone might have stood for Connop Thirlwall, my remarks upon whom seem to have elicited this cutting rebuke, which was withheld so long as I was engaged with the Bishops of Lincoln and Oxford. But then the W. throws one out, unless it be put in as a blind. Or the initials may stand for the next bishop on the list; who. * The above remarks are equally applicable to a sharp newspaper war, carried on against mc in 1867, when I stood, on independent grounds, a contest for the Proctorship of the diocese of Lincoln. t See the remarks of Bishop Stanley on anonj-mous letter-writing in his primary Charge to his clergy, July, 1838. It is not to the credit of the Anti-revisionists that almost the whole of their correspondence in the papers has been conducted under the shelter of assumed signatures. X Such is the well-known character of the " Ingoldsby Legends," by the Rev. Charles Barham. IIARIILESSXESS OP THE IXGOLDSBY LETTERS. 119 standing- by, and seeing the manner in which his three right reverend brethren have been handled before him, begins to wince before he is hurt. "Nam tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet. Et sibi quisque timet, quanquam est intactus, et odit." This shows the extreme unfairness of all anonymous writing, when the letters descend to personalities. As long as they deal in generals, there is no more to be said against them than against a leading article or a review, which are allowed the freedom of criticism on the responsibility of the editor. But, my dear unkno^\^l friend, you have no occasion to be alarmed. I have no intention whatever of hurting you or your master, sujjposing you to be only the chaplain. I am as gentle and pla}^ul as a lamb, as all my friends will tell you. And I am convinced that nothing that I have written, shall write, or can write, will injure the right reverend prelates in the slightest degree, if you will but leave them to fight their own battles, or rather to receive my shafts as they have hitherto done in their impenetrable woolsack of dignified reserve.* I have no wish to be severe. My object is, and has been throughout, "the truth,^^ which the Bishop of Oxford lays such stress upon — the whole ti-uth, and nothing but the truth. And if you are a scholar, which I have no means of ascertaining, except from the internal evidence supplied by your letter, which shows that " paulo majora " is not Greek to you : if, I say, you are a scholar, I ask you ' ' Eidcntem dicerc verum Quid vetat I'" Why may not my argument be carried on as well with a * A remarkable exception to this general rule was furnished by the Bishop of St. David's in his Charge of November, I860, p. 46. Kivingtons. 120 TIIK INT.OLDSBY LETTEILS. smilinsi;' as a fniwiiiiiii' face? It is true a man mail "smile, aud smile, and smile, aud be a villain/' a.s said Lord Derby on a memorable occasion to, or of, a certain right reverend prelate.* Hul 1 linpe every man who smiles is not to be so set down. I would live, if I could, under the sunbeam of a jxjrpetual smile. I once knew at Caml)ridge a con- spicuous doctor of lawsf who was never seen without a smile on his countenance, and it was quite refreshing- to look upon him : he was like Bacchus, ever fair and young, though in his sixtieth year. Lord Palmerston too, they tell me, and Loi-d Lyttelton, have always a smile on their face : who ever thinks the worse of them for that ? How very cruel of " C. W. T." to seek to rob me of so innocent a gratification ! It is the unkindest cut of all I have received. " But,^' says my opponent, '^ to make a joke of things serious is not so innocent as I imagine." The " effervescence of those previous critiques " was calculated to do an infinity of mischief, both to the bishops and to the cause I profess to advocate. My friends in general, I believe, are of a different opinion, and are content to leave me to judge what is most likely to serve our common cause. J But as for the bishops, if " C. W. T.^' thinks they can be injured by attacks like these, he must have a much lower o])iiiion of their lordships' position than I have. The notion reminds one of H. B.'s caricature of the redoubtable Lord John firing off his sixpenny cannon at the Duke of Wellington. The idea of the whole bench of bishops being held up to ridicule by a single country * The Hishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilbcrforco. f Professor Geldart of Trinity Hall. X " Take my word for it," says Salmagundi, " a little well-placed ridicule, like Hannibal's application of vinegar to rocks, will do more with certain hard heads and obdurate hearts than all the logic and demonstration of Longinus or Euclid." Certain it is, that till the argumcntuni a ridiciilo was brought to bear on the question it was in a state of utter stagnation. SOLID ARGUMENTS. HI parson is too absurd. Why, I should have been a bishop myself long ere this, or Dean of York at any rate, had I possessed a tithe of that sledge-hammer power which " C. W. T." assigns to me. "Sed tamen amoto quasramus seria ludo." Let us endeavour to be grave, and treat this matter as " C. W. T." would have us to do, " in a style more in tune with the subject.'" He is evidently one of those saturnine individuals who cannot bear a joke ; so I will try him with *' solid arguments/^ which I hope will convince him as easily as he thinks they would '''the bishops, the clergy, and the people.^' Does he wish to see Liturgical Reform carried, or not ? One would suppose he does, from more than one passage in his letter; and for this I respect him. But when he says, ''The advocates of a reform of the Prayer-book have no need of any but solid arguments to convince bishops, clergy, and people that they are right in the object they have at heart,''^ I must take leave to differ from him tofo corIo. Dear man ! I wonder how long ago he took his degree, or whether he is yet in statH' pupillari ? Was he born in Wales, or in Ireland ? Where has he lived all his life ? Has he ears and eyes ? He would be worth something for a show ; like a real Protectionist, or a bond fide Tory, before they were " educated '' by Mr. Disraeli. Do you know, Mr. Editor, I begin to suspect that this letter is a hoax after all ; a trick of some Liturgical Reformer in disguise, devised on purpose to draw me out. What, I should like to know, is Lord Ebury's speech of May 6th, but a tissue of '' solid arguments " from beginning to end ? — and what the result ? Why, that his modest proposition was resisted by the Premier, backed by a dense phalanx of Conservative Peers, and, as Lord 122 TIIK INOOLUSBY LKITERS. Derby liimsclf tells us, by " aliiKUft the whole of the episcopal bench,"* " whieh," he sareastieally added, "is not an unimportant consideration on a question of this sort." So much for " solid arguments," as far as the bishops are concerned. And now for the " clcv^-y and the i)e<)i)le." Have not they been assailed with solid arguments for the last quarter of a century, till their stomach rises at the sight of such indigestible food ? It is like the boiled beef in the Knights- bridge barracks ;t they sigh for the garlic of Egypt, a little allspice, something piquant and pungent, curry-powder, cayenne, and the like. Have not all the writers on Liturgical Reform from 1834 to 1858 plied them with " solid arguments," thick and hard, and cold as hailstones ? Riland with an i, and Ryland with a y ; Powys, Hon. and Rev. ; and Powys, Rev. but not Hon. ; Archdeacon Berens, now in his eighty-third year, and " holding the same sentiments with failing eye- sight," which he published to the world above thirty years ago;| Tyndale the same, in his eightieth year; Hull, Gell, and Nihill, in their seventieth ;§ Girdlestone, Wodehouse, Oxenden, Pellew, Davis, Milne, Bingham, Mountfield, Trail, Venables, Ta}lor, Dayman, Carr Glyn, Lester, Nevile,|| and last, not least, the learned barrister in the North, Mr. J. C. Fisher ; — have not all of these, in their several ways, and * See Charge to the diocese of Salisbury, by Walter Kerr Hamilton, D.D., August, 1858, p. 53, quoted above, Lottir xiv., p. 97. t A question was then before the public respecting the diet of the soldier)- in barracks. J This venerable Church Reformer died at Shrivenham, April, 1859. § And now the venerable author of the " Ingoldsby Letters" has attained that patriarchal age, holding still the same sentiments he published to the world bX fifty. II A list of some 500 or more of these is now published by the Associa- tion for rromoting a Revision of the Prayer-book; 17, Buckingham Street, Adelphi, W.C. THE PRAYER-BOOK UNTOUCHED AND UNALTERED. 123 according to their "peculiar views of truth/'' tried the force of " solid arguments '' in every diversity of expression, till they have exhausted the vocabulary, and rung the changes upon Liturgical Revision to the last conceivable variation? — and cui bono ? to what effect ? — Why, that when their eyes are waxed dim with writing, and their natural strength abated from waiting so long upon the bishops, they have the satisfaction of hearing that their lordships have declared through their mouthi^ieces in their own proper House, that the Prayer-book shall remain untouched and unaltered in their day. But I have a stronger reason still for pursuing the course I am now doing, and which I regret does not meet with the approval of " C. W, T.-*^ Is he aware that ^' Ingoldsby " himself, whose talents in the way of composition he is pleased to admire, did his utmost in the way of '^ solid arguments ^^ upon this subject for upwards of two whole years without once drawing breath, consuming all his living in printing, publishing, advertising, letter-writing, review- ing; and had the satisfaction for his pains of finding that he convinced none but those who were convinced already ; while by the rest he was dubbed fool, ass, madman, idiot, and bid to hold his tongue, and sit at the feet of his betters? So, surely, " C. W. T.'' has no right to blame him if he retired from that unequal campaign, and resorted to another method of warfare ; with what prospect of success it is as yet premature to decide. But at any rate it can hardly have a worse issue than the former. To have per- sisted any longer in that line of argument, though he was urged to it by several, would indeed have proved him to be the description of person which those courteous but anony- mous gentlemen who write in the Guardian, Clerical Journal, and English Churchman represent him. He might then truly have had a fair title to wear the cap and bells for the rest of 12 i THE IN'OOLDSBY LETTERS. his life ; and no one, not even " C. W. T." himself, would have pitied him.* To whom, Mr. Editor, I be^i^, through the favour of your columns, to })resent these "solid arguments" with my best compliments ; and if they do not convince him, I am quite sure that nothing which I, or any other Liturgical Reformer, can say will j and I remain, Yours obliged, June WtJi, 1858. *' Ingoldsby." LETTER XVIII. THE BISHOP OF ST. DAVID's. XO. II. " Illuc unde abii redeo." — Hor. " But to return from whence we have digressed." — Fkancis. Sir, — It is time we returned to the matter we have in hand, and from which I hope not to be soon again diverted. When the Court rose it was engaged in hearing the evidence of the Bishop of St. David's on behalf of the Revisionists. The counsel for the defence had just been * It is but fair to give the titles of *' Ingoldsby's " graver pamphlets on the subject of Revision, as he was invited by " C. W. T." to address himself to " solid arguments " in support of his position. 1. " The Morning Se^^'ice of the Church, Abridgment of, urged in a Letter to the Lord Bishop of Ely; second edition: with an Appendix, exhibiting the proposed changes in detail." London: 1856. 2. " A Revision of the Rubric and Liturgy, urged with a view chiefly to the Abridgment of the Morning Service; third edition of a Letter, &c., with Answers to Objectors." 3. " Further Arguments in favour of the Abridgment of the Morning Service; fourth edition of a Letter, &c., with a reply to the question. How is it to be done ''" 4. " The People's Call for a Revision of the Liturgj', in a Letter to Lord Palmerston, with copious Extracts from Private Correspondence on the subject." 1857 THE BISHOP OF ST. DAVID^S, NO. TI. 125 quoting" from his lor(lship''s Charge of 1845, in which he referred to a certain statement, made by the " great majority of the clergy " some thirteen years before, that, "from the lapse of years or altered circumstances, some things pertaining to spiritual matters in the Church might require renewal or correction;^ and that they were willing to co-operate with the rulers of the Church in carrying into effect any measures tending to supply that want, should it appear to exist; while, at the same time, they declared their devoted adherence to the doctrine and policy of the Church, and their deep-rooted attachment to her Liturgy.'' Such I believe to be the sentiments of the '^ great majority of the clergy'' in 1858; such their willingness to co-operate with the rulers of the Church in carrying into effect any needful reforms ; and such their prospects, humanly speaking, of getting anything done, unless they adopt a tone some- what more defiant, and pursue a course of somewhat sterner determination, than they appear to have done six-and-twenty years ago, when many of the priests and deacons of this generation were yet unborn, and, probably, four-fifths of them had not as yet entered into holy orders. The bishop proceeds to show that the conduct of those clergy was straightforward and consistent enough. " No reasonable man could contend that there was the slightest inconsistency between such an admission, even if extended (beyond a bare possibility) to the actual need of amendment with the previous professions " — alluding to the declaration made by these clergymen of attachment to the Liturgy, notwithstanding an admission of its faults or imperfections. Surely the same credit may now be claimed by Lord Ebury's petitioners, and all that class of Liturgical reformers who seek to make the formularies of our Church more profitable ♦ See Letter xv., p. 103. 126 THE IXOOLDSBY LETTERS. thau tlu'v now ;uv for the reliyious instruction and edifica- tion ot" the i)eoitle, while they luive no wish to disturb the general tenor and order ot" the Prayer-book. "Rather," proceeds the Bishop in the bishop's chair, ** would there have been reason for doubting the sincerity of those professions if they had not been accompanied by such an admission. We may well maintain that our Liturgy is excellent in its parts, and good even as a whole; that is, better suited thau any other we know of to the purposes of public devotion, and affording no ground of fair excuse for separation ; and yet believe it capable of some impohtant IMPROVEMENTS, and EARNESTLY DESIRE THAT IT SHOULD RECEIVE THEM." Such, one is constrained to believe, were the Bishop of St. David's own sentiments at that time ; at least, his lordship^s Charge of 1845 gives us no reason to think that he differed in opinion from these memorialists ; and it is fair to conclude that, had those gentlemen been represented in the House of Peers by any Lord Ebury of the day,* their case would have been supijorted (or, at least, not opposed) by the voice and vote of the Bishop of St. David's. I am the more inclined to this inierence from a significant note attached to this portion of the Bishop's Charge of 1845 (pp. 24, 25). Notes to bishops' charges are like postscripts to ladies' lettei-s ; sometimes they tell a great deal in few words ; often they tell very little in many words. Of the former class, as might be expected, is the note to which we are now referring, and which runs as follow's : — *' If I were to be asked what is my own opinion as to the expediency of attempting any alteration in the Liturgy, I should be deficient in candour if I did not * They were supported by Lord Henley, but to no purpose. BISHOP BLOMFIELD ON REVISTOX. 127 acknowledge that I think the Liturgy capable of improve- vient. It would be little short of a miracle were it otherwise ; and I Ivnow not why I should be ashamed or reluctant to avow an opinion which was entertained by Sancroft, Stilling- fleetj Tenisonj Wake, Seeker, and Porteus. I heartily pray a season may come when the question may be looked at toilh calmness and candour. — Bishop) of London's Charge, 1834, pp. 40, 41/' "Alas! poor Blomfield ! — I knew him once ; he was a goodly bishop. He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again." I was in his diocese when a young divine,"^ and met with a fair amount of hospitality and courtesy at his hands. But, as a warning to all future revisionists not to put their trust too confidently in bishops, let it be noted here that Bishop Blomfield, from 1834 to 1854, never took any active steps for accomplishing those "alterations in the Liturgy ,'' or those " improvements," which he was " not ashamed to confess " it was capable of ; and which sentiments he appears to have prided himself in holding in common with such authorities as Sancroft, Stillingfleet, Tenison, Wake, Seeker, and Porteus, This last was Bishop Blomfield's immediate jDredecessor but two. We shall come presently, in the course of these Letters, to his immediate successor. Dr. Tait ; and shall then see what are his sentiments upon the subject of Liturgical Reforai. But if there be one name in the above list more than another which it would appear the present Bishop of London is desirous of emulating, it is that of the active and liberal-minded Porteus ; a name held to this day As preacher at the Chapel Royal, ^^'^^itehall, 1843-4. 128 THE INGOLDSnY LETTERS. in high honour by tlie College to which he belonged •* and to whose memory the present writer, as a gainer of one of the Port ens medals in his undergraduate days, takes this opportunity of recording his gratitude and respect. " Manibus date lilia plenis : Purpurcos spargam florcs, animamque sepulti His saltern accumulem donis, ct fungar inani MuniTo." t To return from this digression (which my fellow-col- legians will, I am sure, excuse), I would here add a few more names of weight to the cloud of witnesses by which Bishop Blomfield (and apparently the Bishop of St. David's in 1845) rejoiced to find himself encompassed. They are all of them, I believe, of episcopal or archiepiscojjal rank, except fivo, whom, honoris causa, I take the liberty of in- serting in the list, which they will not disgrace by their presence; the one having been prevented from elevation to the episcopal bench by his own bodily infirmities, the other by the mental infirmiti/ of the monarchX or minister of the day. Among the glorious ranks, then, of dei)arted Liturgical Reformers, let us ever reckon with pride, in addition to the above, Patrick, Burnet, Tillotson, Beveridge, Lloyd, Compton, Tomline, Prideaux, Yorke, Paley, Watson, Shirley, Cople- stone ; names held famous in their day, and not likely t(^ be forgotten, when many an anti-revisionist, now equally ♦Christ's College, Cambridge; where the Pori,eu8 medals still com- memorate this ornament of the Church of the nineteenth century. t Virg., JEn. vi., 884. From which passage, by the way, it may be noted that the pnictice (now so common) of scattering flowers over the grave of the departed is, like that of sprinkling dust thi-ee times on the body, of heathen, not of Christian origin. J It is commonly said that Puley's memorable remark about the "pigeons' {Moral Philosophij, B. iii.. Chap, i.) effectually barred his promotion under George III. of pious memorj-. LITTERA SCRIPTA MANET. 129 high in rank, shall have noiselessly returned to his kindred dust, and sleep undisturbed with his fathers."^ And if in future agres Lituro-ical Revision — like the Catholic Relief Bill, the Test and Corporation Act, the Jew Bill, and other questions of religious bitterness in their time — after long beating about in oj^en sea, with wind and tide against it, shall at length be seen entering the haven with swelling sails, and the flag of peace waving at its mast-head ; — if, in the womb of time, those still retreating, still evanescent Greek kalends shall haply dawn, when bishops on the chair of bishops, bishops in the house of bishops, and bishops on the bench of bishops, shall agree to fulfil the late Bishop of London^s truly Christian prayer, and discuss the question of Revision "with calmness and candour:''^ then is it not impossible that the classic name of Thirlwall will be num- bered in the above galaxy of talent and liberality, as arrayed on the side of religious progress and Liturgical Reform. Be that as it may, certain it is that his lordship's Charge of 1845 must irrevocably stand out among the records of the advocates for revision. LiTTERA SCRIPTA MANET. And whatever cause the Bishop may have since had to alter his opinion — supposing him to have done so — certain it is that he then stood by that much-calumniated class, the Revisionists; that he admitted, what many are indis- posed to do, that they have reason and common sense c)n their side; and was, at any rate, very far from regarding them as those firebrands and disturbers of the Church's peace which they have been considered and designated by others. I remain. Sir, yours obediently, June IS, IS6S. " Ingoldsby.'' * To this list may now be added the name of the late Bishop of Dnrhain, the Hon. and Eight liev. Henry Montagu Villiers. J 130 THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. LETTER XIX. RIDICULE WILL I'llKQUENTLY PREVAIL. " It is ono of our indisputable facts, that it is easier to laugh ten follies out of countenance, than it is to coax, reason, or flog a man out of one." — Salmaoixdi. ' ' liidiculuin acri Fortius et melius magnas plcrumque secat res." — IIou. Sat. i. x. 14. Sir, — One, two, three more api)les at my devoted head ; and iu this hot weather too ! Whether they be of gold, silver, or lead, I leave to the discrimination of your readers. But to show that I do not despise them (as your Bideford correspondent* would have me to do), and that I still Hatter myself to win the race, I will e'en stop and pick them up, and so pocket the affront. This I can do the more cheerfully, as not one of them has hit me, though aimed not without skill, and with an evident design to divert me from my purpose. And so far indeed they have succeeded (which is about as far as most anti-reformers succeed), as to cause a momentary halting to the object of their aversion, which, nevertheless, comes limping after them, ])ede claudo, in spite of all their devices, and will inevitably one day overtake them. So " T. G.'' has serious thoughts of giving up your paper,t if it continues to insert any more of these " Ingoldsby Letters ;" which, notwithstanding, he is so civil as to say, " all will agree are exceedingly well-written, and full of spirited remarks ? '^ I wonder whether he would have • This writer, I afterwards learned, was brother to the Earl of Essex. f Letters to the same efl'ect were received by the Editors of most other papers in which the Letters originally appeared ; the course adopted by the opponents of Re^'ision being to spite all who advocate it in every way in their power. — " Tantajne animis ccelestibus iraj 'r " RIDICULE "WILL FREQUENTLY PREVAIL. 131 been better satisfied had they been exceedingly ill -written, and full of stupid remarks?'^ It is difficult to please all men, I am aware ; but I never expected to be blamed for what in any other case one would have thought a strong title to commendation. t Like the poet of old, — "Indignor quicquam reprehend!, non quia erasse Compositum, illepideve, putetur, sed quia," — my error appears to be that I am too severe, too sarcastic ; these Ingoldsby Letters '^ plus aloes qiiam mellis habent." But it is the unlucky editor who is chiefly in fault; and so, as we can^'t get at " Ingoldsl)y," we must vent our spleen on him. " Quicquid dclirant rcges plectuntur Achivi." Who would be the editor of a paper? especially one that circulates amongst that "genus irritahile" the clergy? I know a score of them, at least, who have withdrawn their names from that old-established and orthodox paper, the Clerical Journal, because it writes against a revision of the Prayer-book. And here we have " T. G.,'' "and I venture to say many more of your readers," threatening to cease subscribing to the Church Chronicle, because " for eighteen weeks ' Ingoldsby ' has had unlimited access to your columns, besides honourable mention in your leaders." Well — pazicnza 2)oi — this Dame Partingtcm method of arrest- ing the tide of public opinion has been tried before, but I never heard of its succeeding. It is the deaf adder practice, which I am afraid possesses our order more than any other, * Bishop Wilberforce said on a certain occasion that " the most un- pardonable offence a clergyman could be guilty of was to be dull.'^ Alas, I fear, it is an offence of no uncommon occurrence in the Church ! t On the other hand, it has been admitted by many that "Ingoldsby " has done execution in a masterly manner ; — reminding them of the hangman's wife, who said, " any one could manage an ordinary hanging, but to make a fellow die comfortably was thu peculiar prerogative of her husband."' 132 THE INOOLDSBY LETTERS. and iniiy partly account for that harsh judgment passed upon us liy Lord Clarendon — that " clergymen understand the least, and take the worst measure of human affairs, of all mankind tliat can read and write." Possibly this may be owing to the declaration we make at the outset of our career of implicit obedience to our spiritual leaders, who certainly in this respect set us but a very indifferent example. But we are not altogether without encouragement in other quarters ; at least I well remember, some twelve years ago, hearing a certain Dorsetshire squire declare he would give up taking the Times if it went on any longer giving prominence to the letters and speeches of " that fellow Cobden." The letters and speeches, nevertheless, went on appearing week by week, and found admirers in others, if not in the Dorsetshire squire; who kept his word, however, and, to my knowledge, took the Morning Herald for three weeks at least. Whether he takes it still or not I am unable to say ; but it is pretty generally known that the com laws were repealed, and that the Prime Minister said the repeal was chiefly owing to " the un- adorned eloquence " of " that fellow " Richard Cobden. It is equally certain that the Times has in a measure espoused the cause of the Liturgical Reformers,* and that too in a tone little calculated to recommend its articles to " T. G.," " C. Vs. T.," "and, I venture to say, many of its clerical readers," who have doubtless in consequence followed the squire's example, and transferred their subscriptions to the Morning Post, because it lately insinuated that " Lord Ebury was a fidgety man." Then there is another heavy complaint against " In- goldsby " — that he introduces " all sorts of extraneous * This was in 1858. See its article of May 8th in that year. That it did not long continue in that mood is only in accordance with the well- known character of that vereatile organ of public opinion. CLAW ME, CLAW YOU. 133 matter (for example, the Deanery of York) under the head of a reply to the Bishops/' But is it so clear that the Deanery of York is altogether extraneous to the business in hand, and that the bishojjs"'^ had nothing dii'ectly or indirectly to do with that matter ? May there not be such a thing as " peti)tmsque damuHque vicissim ; " one good turn deserves another ; — a kind of give-and-take, claw-me-claw-you system in the Church, as in other professions ? Which of the bishops was heard to raise his voice in denunciation of that appointment, which drew down upon the Minister of the day the all but unani- mous condemnation of the press, " which is not an un- important consideration in a question of this sort ?" Was it not left to the independent member for a Scotch district to call for an explanation of this mode of filling the high jilaces of the Church in the middle of the nineteenth cen- tury ? — and did not the lame defence set up by the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer f rest mainly upon the recommen- dation of an archbishop ? So " Ingoldsby " was not so very far wrong in connecting the Deanery of York with the Premier's support of the bishops in their ojjposition to Lord Ebury, though he did but hint at the possibility of such a connexion, and was far from assuming what sub- sequent explanations have since elicited at the bar of public opinion. But then I am told that all this bantering, quizzing, " carping and cavilling,'' does not help forward the cause of Liturgical Reform, and that " words of soberness " would * In subsequently doubling the Dean's salary the bishops bore certainly a principal part. See Parliamentary Keports for August, 1800. t Mr. Disraeli. See Letter xvi., p. 110, note. The author is happy to be able to refer to the subsequent appointments to the Dtaneries of Ely, Chichester, Ripon, Exeter, Lincoln, Lichfield, and several others, as resting on far more satisfactory grounds, as far as the public are concerned. 134 THE INf:OI,I)SBY LDTTERS. do more to ])romote our object. This depends upon how people look at the matter. There always were, and always will be, two schools of phil<)so])hers in the world — disciples respectively of Democritus and Ih-raclitus ; to the former of which 1 must ]>lead guilty to f^iving the preference, if it were but for this reason, that it is easier, as well as more ajjreeable, to launch than to cry, to smile than to frown, perpetually. Now, I api)rclK'iid the bulk of mankind are of the same opinion ; and if you can succeed in enlisting- the laughing school on your side, you have a better chance of winning the day, than if your cause were in the hands of the frowning philosophers. This is just what I am trying to do, and have been trying for about eighteen weeks. The frowners have had it all their own way ever since 1GS9, and it cannot be denied that they have made but very small progress. Democritus only entered the lists last February, and has at least accomplished the negative result of stirring up the bile of the ^//Yi^'-revisionists, which is one step gained, and certainly so much more than Heraclitus had achieved in nearly two hundred years.''^ And as it is said that " Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue, But, like a shadow, proves the suhstanco true ; " so I think it may be assumed tliat there is some trutii in what " Ingoldsby " has thus jestingly written, or he would hardly have drawn forth the inveterate hostility with which he has been assailed. I am, as your readers will have probably observed, a great believer in proverbs, especially in classical ones. They speak the wisdom of the ancients, and like the iirea irrfpodira of the poet, wing their way surely and rajiidly to the • Even the Clerical Journal, one of our most virulent opponents, was constrained to admit that "The Ingoldshy Letters have done mueh to caU public attention to the question of Liturgical llevision." — Clerical Journal, October, 1859; March, ISGO ; January, 1862. THE GORDIAN KXOT. 135 desired end, and there stick fast in tlie praecordia with their barbed points. Now it has not been for nothing that such universal currency has obtained for the joroverb I have adoj^ted as my motto for to-day. It is the old story of the Gordian knot, which admits of but one solution. It is beauty's door of glass, impregnable to all but the diamond key. " The 'imderstanding," says Locke, " is the very last thing people in general have recourse to in regulating their conduct. '^ Engage their feelings, their humour, their in- terest, and the day is yours. The eye and the ear are more easily captivated than the heart. Amuse, and you will secure attention ; which is all that the cause of (rath, the cause in short of the Liturgical Revisors, requires. "Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci ; Lectorem DELECTANDO PARITERQUE MONENDO.'''' One word, in conclusion, on the last paragraph of one of my 02)ponent's letters. He says he " should read my reviews with great pleasure were they on a different subject ; but on the Prayer-book or on our bishops he feels they are out of place.'" For the compliment in the former part of this paragraph I thank him ; and Avhen I write for pay, and not from a strong sense of duty, I will let him know, if he will send me his address, and I shall hope for his subscription to the Review in which my articles appear. For the latter part, I wholly deny (to the best of my re- collection, and certainly of my intention) having w-ritteu one syllable that could be directly or indirectly construed into irreverence towards the Prayer-book, as far as it is the legitimate ex2)onent of the Word of God. "Where it is the mere compilation or the invention of Man,"^ I see not * For example, Lord Stanhope shortly after this gave notice in the House of Lords for a motion to expunge from the Prayer-book the services 13(] THE INOOLDSBY LETTERS. why it should be less open to criticism than any other human production. Finally, as regards the bishops. Whatever may be your correspondent's views upon the subject, I, not having the pleasure of bein<^ a Bishop's Chaplain, an Honorary Canon, or a rural Dean, have yet to learn that their lordships have any title, any jiis, sive divinum sive /iin, to exempt them from fair remark upon their sayings and doings any more than tlio humblest Priest or Deacon in the Church. " Ut mircmur te, non tua, primum aliquid da Quod possim titulis inscribere preeter honor es." The mere designation of " My Lord " was never in- tended, in this free country of England, to act as a coat of mail to its lay or clerical possessor, in order to screen him from the swift-^vinged arrows of wit, or the fisticufE of the ruder literary pugilist. Prime Ministers, Lord Chancellors, Judges, M.P.'s, Magistrates, and other lay dignitaries, have long ago quietly resigned themselves to pay this penalty for their ill-rewarded services ; and it would be strange indeed, if the mere possession of £5,000 or £8,000 a year, whether by Bishop or Dean, were to purchase for them immunity from this universal law of humanity. The bishop who exceeds the bounds of his province, and, not satisfied with ruling his own diocese with a rod of iron,^ must needs lay down the law for the Church at for the 30th of January, the 29th of May, and the 5th of November. "Who .shall say that there was not in those three serA-ices much that was open to just criticism ; much calculated to excite feelings of irreverence rather than of devotion, as they were then appointed to be read in church ? The quiot way in which that reform was carried out mipht serve to dispel the fears of those who shrink from all change as a thing too horrible to con- tomplate. * One bishop of the day, for example CWigram of Rochester), was severe upon beards, whiskers, cricket, and archerj- ; while another (Wilberforce of SAVE ME FROir MY FRIENDS. 137 large^ can hardly exi^ect to escape the critic's pen if he make a false steiJ. The prelate, on the other hand, who bears himself meekly and considerately towards his weaker brethren, as remembering that he also is compassed with infirmity, will seldom require the aid of self-elected champions, like your well-meaning, but somewhat indiscreet, corre- spondent ;^ whose exertions, I fear, in their behalf, will give occasion to some of their lordships to exclaim (as others have done before them) , " Leave me if you please to protect myself from my enemies ; but save me — oh ! save me from my friends/' I remain, Sir, yours obediently, June 25, 1858. " Ingoldsby." LETTER XX. STRIKE WHILE THE IRON IS HOT. " Perrupit Acheronta Ilerculcus labor." — Hor., Od. i., iii. 3G. " Persia atque obdura ; seu rubra Canicula findet Infantes statuas, seu" Ib., Sat. ii., v. 40. " Proceed, and persevere Should the red dog-star infant statues split, Or" ... . Fkaxcis. Sir, — It will be easily believed I can have no motive but one for continuing these Letters at this torrid season, Oxford), with equal severity, ^QnotyxncQa post-prandial e«c^«rwuld be sorry that " C. W. T.," or any of your correspondents, should think that I reckon them under the designation of the " pompous gentlemen," or the individuals satirised in the concluding epigram."^ On the contrary, I am sincerely iu- * " On me when dunces are satiric, I take it for a pancgj-ric. Hated by fools, and fools to hate. Be such my motto, and my fate." — Swikt. The -writer of the letter, as I afterwards learned, was the luv. W. D. Kyland, of Brackley, near Banbury. K 1 10 THE INGOLU.SBY LETTERS. (lebti'd to thorn for tlieir desire to elieck any apparent, though not intentional, levity in these Letters when treatin*^ of thing's serious. And so far from bearing them the slightest ill-will in eimsequence, allow me to say, through your means, Mr. Editor, that I shall at any time be happy to make their personal accpiaintanee, as also that of my well-meaning, but somewhat over- zealous friend, '' A Cantab." LETTER XXL THE DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF LOllDS ON THE STATE SERVICES. "Festixa Lente." "Slow but Sure." Sir, — It is not my fault that I cannot get on faster with my " Reply to the Bishops." I have done my best ; and you will hear me witness that I have lost no time since we embarked together on this undertaking. But there is always something or other crossing one's path which must be first attended to ; and so our vessel makes little ajiparent way, though I am fain to hope it is not altogether becalmed, much less driven by contrary winds away from the haven where we would be. We tack and tack, but we keep the port still in sight; or at least are steering by a compass which tells us we are moving forwards surely, though according to our motto it may be slowly, and in the right direction. It is inconceivable in how great a variety of aspects this well-known adage is regarded by different individuals accord- ing to their respective idiosyncracies. The amljitious Wiltshire farmer, for example, considers he has made no small progress in bucolic science, if he has adopted the six-coulter drill in lieu of broad-cast for his THE THREE STATE SERVICES. 117 turnip sowing. The Somersetshire agriculturalist boasts that he has overcome the terrors entertained by his Dorset- shire cousin of firing his ricks by the introduction of a portable steam-engine into his stack-yard. The good old- fashioned Church -and- King Worcestershire divine congratu- lates himself that he has not lived in vain if he has established a Sunday-school in his parish, a cow club and clothing club, and has had " regular double duty ever since he came to the living. ^^ The Archbishop of Canterbury and " the great majority of the bishops, which is not an unimportant con- sideration in a question of this sort," think they have made a considerable innovation upon routine, and have largely relieved their brethren the working clergy, by giving them permisision to drop the Lord's Prayer before the sermon, and to use the Litany apart from the Morning Service, " provided the whole of the Morning and Evening Service be used at some portion of the day."^ And now, behold — such is the rashness of man, such the tendency of all things to hurry down hill when once they ai'c set in motion — " Sic omnia fatis In pejus ruere, et retro sublapsa roferri ; " — we have the Bishops of London and Cashel confessing that they '' see no harm " in Earl Stanhope's motion for expunging the three State Services of November 5, January 80, and May 29, from the Prayer-book : while the Bishop of Oxford himself — Et tu, Brute — consents to the proposal, without any fear of such a measure "shocking the simple feelings of the vast mass of the less-educated poor in England, and doing a mischief, the extent of which no man can conceive.''' As, however, the debate upon the above motion bears so * This absurd condition simply renders the relief (to those who stand upon it) wholly inoperative in the rural parishes. 148 THK TNOOT,n=;RY LETTERS. closely upon llic sul)j('ct we have in liand, I hojie, Mr. Kditor, neither you nor any of your readers will thiidc I am wan- dering- far from my text, if I devote this Letter to a few remarks upon it.* In Ihc lirst place, we must all, I think, a<::ree with Lord Ehury in ac(r|)tin/'?«^ound in scarlet, showered do^vll from Paternoster Row, tliick as leaves in Vallombrosa, advocatino^ a Revision of the Prayer-hook in a variety of ways ; anil, what is more to the purpose, met with a rapid and steady sale ; were lent and borrowed, read, marked, learned and inwardly digested — everything, in short, but answered ; were quoted, criticised, canvassed ; reviewed in newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. High Church organs were on the alert, and loud in their call to Union. The cry of "the Church in danger " resounded, as of yore, from the watch-towers of the Guardian,, the Enfjiish Churchman, the Clerical Journal, and the Morning Post. The veteran prelates of Bangor"^ and Exeter (Philpotts) led the vanguard of the opposing force ; warning their respective clergy, and through them the kingdom at large, to beware of the leaven of a certain subtle and dangerous book — "not the less dangerous for being ably and powerfully written " — entitled " Litur- gical Purity our Rightful Inheritance." And, finally, towards the autumn of that eventful year, our present right reverend subject, the Bishop of St. David's, thus addressed his assembled clergy from the bishop's chair of his diocese in Wales : — "My Reverend Brethren, — I cannot address you on this occasion without,'' &c. &c. &c. After a passing allusion to the Russian war just con- cluded, his hardship then proceeds to dilate at some length upon the Papal Bull of December, 1854, on the Immaculate Conception ; the Denison controversy ; and finally, the • The Right Rev. Christopher Bcthell, who died the following year. fisher's liturgical purity. 165 difference respecting- the Real Presence, still distractino^ the Scottish Ej^iscopal Church, and aiming to extend its baneful influence to our own."^ All these subjects the bishop treats with that clearness of judgment which characterises his lordship's Charges in general, and which makes his hesita- tion, and apparent vacillation, on the matter of Liturgical Reform the more conspicuous and the more to be deplored. He then passes from the Eucharistic to the Baptismal Controversy of the day ; and, as connected therewith, takes occasion to attack Mr. Fisher's treatise on Liturgical Purity to which his right reverend brethren of Exeter and Bangor had already referred. This book the Bishop of St. David's characterises as " an elaborate work, written with considerable ability, but not so remarkable on this account as because there is reason to believe that it represents the views of an active party, which is bent on accomplishing a radical change in the character of the Church." " I am not aware," his lordship proceeds, " that thef-e views have been ever in our day so clearly expressed, or so openly avowed. It is, as far as I know, the first time in our memory that a Revision of the Liturgy has been proposed, or rather demanded, for the express purpose of adapting it to a peculiar system of doctrine, for which its partisans had hitherto been satisfied with the shelter which it found in the language of our present formularies. And in this point of view the attemjit may be regarded as perhaps the most glaring example that has occurred in our Churcli of that dogmatical intolerance to which I have been directing your attention. The pretext for this attempt has been furnished by a polemical artifice which is very conamon, though not • See the Guardian, Euglish Churchman, and Clerical Journal for ilarch, 1860. This question, like the rest, has now passed away; while that of Litiugicul lievision remains, and vires acquirit eundo. ll''' TIIK IXGOLUSIiY LKTTERS. on Ihtit acpount the more (•ivtlita1)le, by wliieh the ilisputant (irst aflixes his own delinitiun to an anil)iji^uon.s term, and then diarizes his opponents with tlie worst consequences he can ih'duee from the meaning which he imputes to them." 1 leave it to Mr. Fisher, wlio is abundantly able to defend himself, to reply to this jjarag-raph as he best may.* Meanwhile I have thonght il due to the Bishop of St. David's to quote the above i)assage at length, as being i)art of the evidence we are bound to produce in order to prove his lordship no Liturgical Reformer, in Mr. Fishei'^s accepta- tion of the word. The bishop concludes as follows : — " The author's historical review of the various phases through which our Liturgy, and other formularies, have passed before they were brought to their present shape, \vill, ])erhaps, so far as it is correct, lead others to a very different conclusion, and will inspire a feeling of gratitude for the result which has been worked out through this long conflict of jarring opinions, prejudices, and passions, together with a resolution not to throw away that which has been thus i:)rovidentially preserved. Of the consequences that would probably en^ue, from the success of this attempt, to the peace and welfare of the Cluireh, I need not speak, as I believe the danger of such an event to be very rem^ht be looked upon as a Liturj^ical Reformer, and therefore to Avhat extent it may be ])resunied he was not unwillinj:^ his eleri:,y should follow his lead. I am the more inclined to draw this conclusion, from an incident, trifling indeed, but, like straws thrown up before the wind, not wholly insignificant as indicating from what quarter it blows. It is a personal aifair, it is true, but I may be excused introducing it here, as really by no means irrelevant to the matter in hand. Ten lustrums have well-nigh passed over my head, and grey hairs and sundry other tokens proclaim that I am no longer young. I have, in fact, seen my fair share of life in all its various phases, and was prepared to go to my grave subscribing to the record of the \vise man, that there is nothing new under the sun : — when, behold, a new thing did befall me, and that from a quarter whence I least expected it. In the autumn of 1857 I received by post a Bishop's Charge, with the words ''Front, ihe Author" written on the title-page. That charge was the Bisho}) of St. David's, upon which we have been for .some time engaged. Now, I have received " from the Author " — as which of us has not — by post, by private hand, by bookseller's parcel, ]>}' all the various methods of transmission suggested by this literary and cx])ansive age, books, tracts, essays. A PRESENTATION COPY. 171 pamphlets of every conceivable cpiality, and well-nigh in- numerable in qnautity ; but never, until jSTovember, 1857, was it my fortune to be honoured by a j) resent at ion copy of a Bishop' a Charge. And though I have presumed frequently — too frequently I fear — to intrude upon their lordships ^vith trifling effusions of my own, I had come to the con- clusion that I must look for no return, not even a line by way of acknowledgment, from that quarter ; in short, that their lordships' motto was surely, like that over the lion's den, "Omnia mo advorsum spcctantia, nulla retrorsum"— which, being interpreted, means, " Cast thy bread upon our waters, if you please, but look not to receive it back again, even after many days." Judge, therefore, of my delight at finding an exception to this universal rule in the instance of so distinguished a prelate as the Bishop of St. David's ; and who shall say, the charm once broken, I may not be similarly favoured again ?^ To turn over the well-printed pages, and to swallow eagerly the contents, was, of course, my instant and agreeable occupation, till my eye rested at length, at p. 5."3, upon the following note : — "See 'The People's Call for a Revision of the Liturgy, in a Letter to Lord Palmerston,' by the Rev. James Hildyard of Ingoldsby, 1857." Now, if your readers have borne with my egotism thus far, and have not forgotten my remark on notes to Bishops' Charges in a previous letter,t they will enter into my feelings at meeting the above note in this place. Now is my fortune made, thought I to myself : now is * It is duo to their lordships to say that I have since been frcquentlj- so favoured; but alas! I find them, in the main, siloit on the subject of Revision. t Letter xviii., p. 12C. 172 THE IXGOLDSBY LETTERS. luy (.hance of bciiiy; ai)p()iutod a JJislioj)'^ ClKi])lain or a Rural Dean at least, in my old a^e. Now is there some hope of exchaug'iu*;^ the "fens and foplied to the wear and tear, the roui^h and ready business of life. With such a one tliere is an everlasting rock a-liead, a diffieulty in the way, a lion ithout. He wants that alloy of baser metal which renders far inferior minds so much more useful when you come to hack and hew your way through the thorny entanglements which beset the course of all legislation, whether for Chunli or State. With his knowledge of langiiages, and his skill in seeing, but not solving, a difficulty, the Bishop of St. David^s would have made an excellent plenipotentiary to the court of Rome, St. Petersburgh, or Madrid, but is ill adapted t(» win upon the confidence of plain, blunt, straightforwai-d John Bull, whose aye is aye, and whose no is no, and who likes to have people of a similar cast of mind to deal with.''^ His lordshi}) had evidently no wish to be screwed do\vn to the literal api)lication of the passages quoted in our last, which led us, along with many of our too credulous friends, to cry out, rather prematurely, EUllEKAMEN, EUllEKAMEN, SUNCHAIROMEN. Behold, a i)relate bold enough to declare himself a Liturgical Reformer in spite of the Bishop of Oxford ! one not afraid to set the Guardian and Clerical Journal at defiance; wrap- ping himself, like another Chatham, in the folds of his conscious rectitude, and proclaiming aloud, • It was woll observed by some ono. of Lord Palmcrston, that "he had the happy knack of always sayiupr exactly wliat ho meant ;" hence his popu- larity with the IIouso of Commons and with the nation at large. OIIj THESE BUTS ! 1 79 ' ' There is no terror, Burgess, in your threats, For I am armed so strong in honesty. That they pass by me as the iiUe wiud. Which I respect not ! " So off ho goes ; not violently indeed ; nor at a tangent — as we Cambridge men are apt pedantically to express our- selves ; for people in general, especially ladies (unless of the Somerville class, which is scarce), have not the remotest idea of what a tangent is — but at that sidelong, sinuous, meandering gait, which is best illustrated by the wrigglings of a certain amphibious animal, whose name, to avoid vain repetition, I will ^not again mention, but whose peculiarity of action renders it extremely difficult to apprehend, being altogether exceptional, s/ii generis, at variance with all the laws of motion, as laid doAvn by Newton and others in the books. I shall not, of course, attempt to follow my subject through this labyrinth, or " maze," as the antiquarians call it : I am not furnished with the needful clue, and my argu- ment will brook no further delay. Suffice it to say, that the conclusion the bishop arrives at is no conclusion at all. He sees all the impediments in the path of legislation, but finds no way of escape. Con- vocation might do what is needed, but cannot. It has been praised indeed, I think a little more than it deserves,^ by Mr. Fisher, " for the readiness which it has sho^vn to address itself to this subject, and the desire it has manifested for a revision of the Prayer-book ; but " — oh, these buls ! If there is one word in the English language more detestable than another, it is the combination of letters which goes * Witness, for example, its reception of the Dean of Norwich's motion for a Revision of the Prayer-book, March, 1861. IVIr. Fisher's commendation reminds us of the proverb, " Praise undeserved is satire in disguise." 180 THE IXnOLDSRY LETTERS. to make up the monosyllable but.* Give us a do^vnright No, / won't, or Yes, I will, and we understand you. But who can make anythino^ of your buts ? Their manufacture into anything;' })raetical is more dillicult thiiii tlml of a certain curious material inin a silken purse — a feat which no amount of artistic skill luus yet succeeded in accom- plishing'. So it appears that, as in tlie storming of Cronstadt by a Napier, so in the carrying out of Liturgical Reform by a Tliirlwall, there are half a hundred very excellent reasons why the thing should be done, hut, unfortunately, twice as many why it should not. " It is evident that Convo- cation, as at present constituted, is utterly inadequate to such a purpose ; and it is more than doubtful, it is alto- gether imjirobable, that its constitution will ever be so inodijied as to render it a lit instrument for so great a \V( irk . ' ' — ( Charge, ^'c.J "Off with his head — so much for Buckingham!" How the advocates for the further session of the two Houses of " the Church Legislature " may like this sweeping condemnation from one of their most talented and con- spicuous members, I know not ; but most cordially, I believe, do the Liturgical Reformers reciprocate the senti- ment ; while at the same time it does not lead them to sit still, like the Turk, acquiescing in their destiny, with arms folded, crossed legs, and i)ipe in mouth ; but they open their jaws wide like Englishmen, and call for a Royal • See more of this obnoxious monosyllable at Letter xxxvii. We may indeed Kiy of it with our great dramatist, " I do not like but yet ; it does alloy The good precedent; fic upon But yet ; But yet is a jailer to bring forth Some monstrous malefactor." Ant. and Cleop., Act ii., Sc. 6. A CHIMERICAL CHURCH COUNCIL. 181 Commission to displace on the present occasion this in- capable remnant of antiquity so g-raphically depicted jby the bishop. His lordship^ however, objects to a Royal Commission, as we shall see when we approach his sj^eech in reply to Lord Ebury, on May 6th; and he sketches out an ideal Convocation, or Church Parliament, which exists, and is likely to exist, nowhere but in the prelate^s OAvn brain, whence there is small hope of its emerging as a second Minerva, armed cap-a-pie, to carry all before it by argument or force. The bishop thinks that " a mode might be devised, in perfect harmony with the Churches ancient institutions, for gathering the sense both of the clergy and the laity on questions affecting their common interests and objects as faithful members of her communion/^ — " But" — here again, of course, — ^' many difficulties will, no doubt, have to be overcome before any such plan can be matured and carried into effect. It will probably be only fashioned by degrees, with the aid of experience, and arrive at whatever success it may attain through many failures and disappointments,^^ I fear this golden era will prove analogous to those Attic Kalends with which the historian of Greece is doubtless familiar. A sort of ever-flowing river, pleasant to contem- plate, especially at this season of the year, but which is sooner swum across by a bold adventurer than forded dry- shod by the unlettered rustic. This chimerical Church Council would not have to con- tend, it aj)pears, " with difficulties depending on the will of any who are foreign or hostile to the Church, but only with such as may arise from a divergency of views and opinions on secondary points, among those who are perfectly unanimous on the main object. ^^ Where, I wonder, are these happy spirits to be met with ? — Supposing them. 1S2 THE TNOOLBSBY LETTERS. however, to have an existence anywhere besides in the prelate's fertile imajiination, mark what follows as the fruit of this " perfect unaiiiniily : " — "It is true that such a representation of the Church, hotcever complete, would be even less capable than Convoca- tion vow is of any action that would possess legal force, or exert any other than a purely moral injluence !" So, with this conclusion, in wliich we must admit very little is concluded, the bishoj) winds up his remarks on the subject of Liturgical Reform, and we shall for the present follow his example. Only let us observe, in passing, that if this homcoopatliic specimen of legislation, which, on his lor(lshij)'s own shoAnng, is less than infinitesimal, a degree of frigidity somewhere below zero, an amount of capability inferior only to " utter incapacity," is all that he is pre- pared to offer in the place of Convocation as it now is, and as the only machinery for accomplishing the " desired, de- sirable, and expedient Church Reform," it might have been as well to retire at once from the field, and allow Lord Ebury's Commission to have at least a trial. It is a sound maxim, in all cases, to make use of such tools as you have, if you cannot get at such as you would like ; and I never heard the position of the poet controverted by any wise man> " Si quid novisti rectiut istis, Candidas imperii ;— si non, his utere mecvm." " Farewell ; and if a better system's thine, Impart it freely, — or make vsb op mine." I remain, yours, &c., Avfjnst 27, I85S. " Ingoldsby." P.S. — I regret to see that one of your corresiiondents hints that you "have said enough about Liturgical Revision." You, of course, are the best judge how far the ventilation of this })articular subject injures the circulation of your jfturaal. J5ut all well-wishers to the cause you have so steadily advocated THE BISHOP OF ST. DAVID's^ NO. V. 183 must know that nothiiii^ but untiring perseverance presents the smallest hoi)e of our succeeding in the object we have in view. And it is as well, therefore, that all cowards should at once leave the ranks, and understand that we have no inten- tion whatever of relaxing in our exertions, and mean to give no quarter to our opponents until the concession of our main point relieves us of all further anxiety. The Fabian policy of the bishops must be met by similar tactics on the part of the reformers; and time alone will show on which side truth, the great arbiter of Victory, has all along been ranged. If this fresh instance of "the ConfessionaF' in the diocese of Oxford,'^ countenanced, as it would seem, by the bishop, does not open the eyes of the public to the necessity for some inquire/ into the worldng of the Book of Common Prayer, nothing I fear will. LETTER XXVII. the BISHOP OF ST. UAVID's AN ANTI-IIEFORMER. NO. V. "En hjEC promissa fides est?" — Virgil. "Pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow-fall in the river, A moment white — then melts for ever; Or like the Borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place; Or hke the rainhow's lovely form, Evanishing amid the storm." — Burns. Sir, — Tarn O^Shanter did not more effectually realise the truth of this uiirivalk'd simile, "When he frae Ayr ae night did canter," • The notorious " battle of the Boyne," followed shortly after by the West Lavington affair, so mysteriously hushed up ; the exposure at St. Alban's, Holbom, in February, 1867; with other instances, alas! too numerous to mention; shew what a cancer was eating into the very vitals of the Church for want of a timely remedy being applied. 1S4- THE INGOLDSnY LEITl'.RS. than did the Litur«^i<-al Reformers the vanity of puttinp^ their trust in lHsh()])s, upon readings the Report of the Bishop of St. David's Speech in Convocation on February 10th, 1858. In vain did tliey look for a repetition of tliose memorable expressions of 1815, " the need that exists for a Revision of the Liturgy ;" . . " the \evy unenlightened a,VL^ injudicious friends of the Church;" . . "the lapse of years, and altered circumstances; '' . . "the carryin^^ into effect any measures to supply that want ;" — and the like. In vain did their eyes peer about to discover any trace of those more memorable words of 1857, "proposals for Liturgical changes, thoun;'h conceived in a widely different spirit;" . . "I trust it will not deter the MORE liberal and enlightened friends OF the Church from persevering in their endeavours to bring about such modifications of her Liturgical usages as may adapt them to the altered circumstances and growing needs of our times;'' . . "It would indeed be surprising if no inconvenience should now arise from an Act of Uniformity, always of questionable expediency, and passed two tentnries ago!" . . "There would still remain some deficiencies to he supplied, and there might be yet room for a farther revision;" . . "it would then he time to consider whether the language of the Prayer-hook required or admitted of improvement;" . . " for in the abstract none would deny the expediency of removing all needless occasions of offence." "^^ Alas ! how grievous the disappointment, when instead ♦ See Letter xxv., pp. 172 — 176, &c. How truly to this Prelate do those well-known lines apply : " Be these juggling fiends no more believ'd, That jialtor with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope." — Macbeth, Act v., Sc. 7. APPLES FKOM THE DEAD SEA. 185 of this golden fruit which the Reformers looked to gather from their boasted tree, they crunched between their teeth dry ashes like the following : — " I heartily concur with my right reverend brother, the Bishop of Oxford, in deprecating every attempt that has lately been made so to alter the Book of Common Prayer as,^^ &c. " I also entirely concur with what has fallen from my right reverend brother, the Bishop of Lincoln, with regard to the supposed length of the ordinary services/^ — " I do not think that under proper management the whole time occupied by the service is ever found by any attentive member of the congregation to be wearisome or excessive." Doubtless, had we begun our review of the right reverend Prelate^s opinions on the subject of Liturgical Revision at the epoch of Feb. ■'58, instead of ^45 and ■'57, we might have extracted some drops of consolation, sucking patiently "Apis Mcatinas more modoquc, Grata carpentis ihrymsi per labor cm flurimion j " and, like enough, those youthful Reformers who are not acquainted with the contents of his lordship^s Charges of M'5 and ■'57 might have thought there was a good deal to be gleaned from sentences like the following : — " I must say, that if either on this or on any occasion it should apj^ear desirable to institute an inquiry whether any improvements may be effected in the present order of the services, or any of them, such an inquiry ought to be insti- tuted solely by those who are acquainted with the history ,^^ &:c. " Whilst I say this, I do not mean to dissent by my opinion that improvements of considerable value might be effected in our services, simply by a substitution of one variable element for another, and little changes which would ISG THE INGOLUSBY LETTEILS. remove a number, not o£ very important, but still well- fuunded object ioua ; and I do most heartily desihe that no far tl)e (jiu-stioii .s/miild be kept open, and should receive our attentive consideration.'^ — (Bishop of St. David's in House of Lords.) But cui bono, may I ask, the keei)ing this matter from century to century as an open question ? — What the profit of this " attentive consideration,'' if it is all to evaporate, as it infallibly would do, in words /^ — more especially when supported in the House of Lords, within less than three months, by a point-l)laiik speech against the onl^ feasible mode of accomplishing the i)reliminary steps to the desired result. Here, again, behold the wisdom of Archbishop Whately's remark, referred to in our last, and which will bear more than one repetition: "Those are surely deserving of blame who are always complaining of some supjiosed faults ivliile they strenuously oppose every measure by which it is possible that a remedy can be applied."" — " Possible," observe — not " desirable ■" or " expedient ; " but possible. That is the question. And that is what every wise man will ask himself, if he is desirous that a thing be done at all. It is of little use building imaginary edifices of conceivable methods for carrying out conceivable ])lans, which it is well known beforehand will never be executed, and the machinery of which is of far too delicate a character to stand the test of every-day life. Such castles are, indeed, erected in nubibus ; such ploughing is verily ])erf(jrmcd on the sea-shore. Whereas, lot a Commission of earnest men be once set fairly to work, with a bond Jide desire to meet the known sentiments of the majority of I'Jiglish Churchmen ; and a * The late Dean of Eipon (McNeile) well designated Convocation aa " Vox et pra^terea nihil." THE COMMISSION OF 1689. 187 willing^ness^ as far as possible, to comprehend the views of moderate Dissenters ; it would be strange indeed if they did not produce some beneficial result from their labours. They would have the Report of the Commission of 16S9 before them, both as a guide and a warning; and would have little difficulty, if they addressed themselves to the task, in separating the chaff from the wheat in that somewhat miscellaneous heap. They would, it is to be hoped, have more time given them to digest their materials than was afforded on that occasion ; while the present postal system of the country would furnish them \\4th incomparably superior means of ascertaining the sentiments of all classes interested in rendering the Prayer-book as nearly faultless as man can make it. Above all, it is to be trusted, such Commission would be so constructed from the outset, as not (like that of 16S9) to contain within itself the elements of spontaneous combustion ; but be animated by one simple desire to do all with a single view to the glory of God, and the benefit of His people. That the construction of such a Commission is possible there cannot be a shadow of doubt. Whether it will please God to open the eyes of our rulers to avail themselves of a quiet time like the present for setting this matter at rest ; or whether it is destined to remain still " open" as the Bishop of St. David's would have it, until some violent excitement again forces it upon the consideration of the public, and causes that to be done in haste which might now be done with caution and judgment, time alone will show. Meanwhile, Mr. Editor, let it be the consolation of your contributors that the issue does not rest with them ; while I trust their ai)parent feebleness ^vill not lead them to relax in their endeavours ; remembering always that this battle is essentially the Lord's, and trusting that in it, as in other 188 THE IXGOLDSBY LKTTEUS. eno^ac^omonts, lie will increase strength to them that have no might. I remain, yours, &e., Sept. 3, 1858. " Ingoldsby.'' Note. — The following letter to the Editor of the Church Chronicle apjjeareJ in that paper the same day with the above : — " Sir, — Allow me to call the attention of your untiring correspondent 'Ingoldsby^ to the f(jllowiug extract from Dr. Beattie's interview with King George III., at Kew, August 24th, 1773: from which it will appear that even that high Tory monarch was a Liturgical Reformer : — " ' When I told him that the Scotch clergy sometimes prayed a quarter, or even half an hour at a time, he asked whether it did not lead them into repetitions ? I said ' it often did."" ' Thai,' said he, '/ don't like in prayers j and, excellent as our Liturgy is, / think it someichat faulty in that respect.' ' Your Majesty knows,' said I, ' that three services are joined in one, in the ordinary Church Service, which is one cause of those repetitions.' * True,' he replied, ' and that circumstance also makes the service too long.' From this he took occasion to speak of the composition of the Church Liturgy ; on which he very justly bestowed the highest commendation. ' Observe,' his Majesty said, ' how flat those occasional prayers are that are now composed, in comparison with the old ones.' " Hoping that the above passage may in any measure tend to strengthen the hands of those who are indefatigable in their endeavours to work out this most desirable reform in our Church, " I remain, yours truly, " A Barrister. "Lincoln's Inn, Sept. 2, 1858." HALF BETTER THAX THE WHOLE. 189 LETTER XXVIII. KING GEORGE III. ON THE LENGTH OF THE CHURCH SERVICE. ""SfiTTtoi, ovSe Iffaaiv oaq) irXeov rifiKTv Travros.'' — Hesiod. " Fools blind to truth : nor knows their erring soul How much the half is better than the whole." — Bulwer. Sir, — There are two valuable contributions to the cause of Liturgical Reform in your last, which call for a passing- notice. One, an article from the Rev. C. H. Davis, extend- ing to not less than seven columns of closely-printed matter ; the other from A Barrister, which, though short, is very much to the point, and calculated to aid materially in promoting the success of one branch of our complicated subject. By the bye, it is remarkable how much closer the gentle- men of the legal profession (when they are not paid by the line or folio) address themselves to a question than those of my cloth, if I may say so without offence. Is it because the lawyer^s business is simply to prove Ms case, and he finds that brevity is more efficacious for that purpose than pro- lixity ; while the clergy are habituated to the notion that their sermon ?>iMst last for half an hour or twenty-five minutes, and consequently (being obliged by the prevailing fashion to preach two of these every Sunday for fifty- two weeks in succession) acquire a lax habit of exj^ression which adheres to them in other matters ? Certain it is that in the voluminous correspondence I possess on the subject of Liturgical Reform, amounting to near 3,000 letters, the contrast between the two is most obvious. To give a couple of specimens of the legal style : — IDO THE INGOLDSBY LETTEUS. " Sir, I ap])r()Vo of sh<)rtoniii«j^ the Service, because T think that more pe(»})le will go to church.* " Lincoln's Inn, Jan. 5, 1856." " A L awvku, "Dear Sir, — I will send at once for the i)ani])hlet to which you call my attention. / quite concur in its object. " Lincoln's Inn, June '11 , 185(5." " A Lawyer. Can one of the Bishop of Oxfoixl's verbosce et grandes orationes produce more conviction on the mind of the reader than letters like these ? I have had my misjj^ivings lest " Ingoldsby" should be tedious ; and have studied to limit the length of my communications to such a compass as I thought the patience of your readers would tolerate. But, alas ! even I — schooled as I am in wading through long treatises and loosely- writ ten MSS. on the subject of Revision — even I shrink from encountering a letter, or, more properly, an essay, like this of ]\lr. Davis's, extending to a page and a half of your journal, terminated, moreover, by the formidable announcement [To he continued f) — How few, therefore, will profit by your laborious corresi)ondent's lucul)rations I dread to think : and I regret it the more, as the letter in question, had it been divided into sections of one or two columns at a time, might have been of considerable service to the cause. Hoping that this hint will be as kindly received as it is intended, 1 will now proceed to notice the Barrister's ex- tract from the writings of Dr. Beattie. So, it ai)pears, the exem])lary Protestant monarch, George III., found the Liturgy of our Church " somewhat fault i/ in respect of its repetitions;" and had reason to complain that o^ving to the junction of three services in one, the present Morning Service of the Church was too long. * See Letter xxjyv. GEORGE III. AND SHORT SERVICES. 191 And yet the Bishop of St. David's " entirely agrees " with his right reverend brother of Lincoln in thinking, that " under proper management the whole time occui^ied by the Service is never found by any attentive member of the con- ffreffation to be wearisome or excessive."* What " proper management " may mean, I know not. But I know that few individuals ever more deservedly earned the reputation for unaffected piety, and a reverence for religion, than the honoured grandfather of the illustrious person who now adorns the throne of these realms j and I would add that, in such a matter, ' ' Errare meherculc malim cum Platone, quam cum istis vera sentire ;" I had rather err with George III. in seeking to abridge the Morning Service, within the bounds where reason and devotion can have fair play, than retain its present dimensions though all the bishops on the Bench should concur in affirm- ing that it is not too long, and never found "wearisome or oppressive " by any sincere worshipper. The remark of George III., it must be remembered, was made so far back as 1773; when railroads and steam- packets had not reticulated our lands and ploughed our seas ; when the electric telegraph was a fact as little dreamed of as the possibility of ascending to the regions of the sun ; when the penny postage and the book-post had not added wings to the interchange of thought ; when, in short, time was measured by hours and not by seconds, and sj^ace by yards instead of by thousands of miles. What the same monarch would have thought of a Service lasting on an average from one and a half to two hours, at this age of the world's history, it is impossible to say ; but sure I am that his practical common sense would not * See Letter v., p. 29, and vi., pp. 32 — 37. 192 THE ixGOLnsnY letters. have been wanting- to the occasion ; wliilc his well-knoAvn moral courag-e would not have prevented him from giving utterance to his opinions. And now a Wdrd with Mr. Davis, whose exertions in the cause of Revision liave heen uniiitorinitting. He divides the various sections of Liturgical Reformers into six primary classes, with all the subdivisions which may result from the union of any of them taken two and two, or three and three tog-ether, as the case may be. I shall not attempt to follow him through all the per- mutations and combinations which might ai-ise from the above classification. But as he has been pleased to hazard a conjecture as to the rank " Ingoldsby " holds in his republic of Reformers, I will set his mind at ease as to my own views, leaving others to do the same or not as they please. Mr. Davis, then, sums up Ingoldsby's creed, under a combination of the three folloAving heads : — 1st. That of the Rubrical Revisionists ; in which class I lind myself enlisted in company vnth Archdeacon Sinclair of Middlesex, Archdeacon Allen of Salop, and the Dean of NorAvich (Pellew) ; to which honourable trio mig-ht be atlded Archdeacon Musg-rave of York, Archdeacon Stonehouse of Lin- coln, the Dean of Manchester (Bowers), the Dean of Bristol (Elliott), the Dean of Tuam (Plunket), and some others. 2nd. That of the non-doctrinal Revisionists ; among whom are numbered Bishop Short of St. Asaph, and the Rev. Ashton Oxenden, Proctor in Convocation for the Diocese of Canterbury, who has of late retired from the battle-field, "And back recoil'd, he knows not why, E'en at the sound himself had made."* * ^Ir. Oxcndcn, now Bishop of Montreal, came forward again in ilarch, 18G1, as seconder to the Dean of Norwich's proposition before Convocation for a Revision of the Prayer-book. COMPREHENSIVE REVISIONISTS. 193 3rd. That of the "Comprehension Scheme Revisionists. '' For the Advocates of this " scheme " we are referred to the List of the Liturgical Revision Society of 1854, and the catalogue of subscribers to the '' Clerical Petition/'' printed in the Record of the present year, consisting of 463 names; among whom, however, the name of Ingoldsby ^vill not be found. Not that I object to the idea of Compi-ehension. I hold, on the contrary, with Archbishop Tillotson and Bishop Burnet, that every effort should be made to embrace the greatest possible number in the pale of the Church. But I would not have this accomplished at the price of driving as many Churchmen out, as we brought Dissenters in. In all my publications upon this subject (amounting to not less than five, exclusive of these Letters), I believe there is no trace of my Avillingness to sacrifice any essential Church princij^le, either for the sake of peace, expedience, or comprehension. But, notwithstanding this, there is vast room for improve- ment in various portions of the Book of Common Prayer, especially its Calendar, Offices, and Rubric. Much also might be done to meet the views of the more moderate Dissenters, the Wesleyans for example, without affecting the value of the Prayer-book as a manual for the Orthodox Churchman. Hoping that this exposition of my creed, thus in a manner extorted from me, may be satisfactory to Mr. Davis, and give offence to none, I remain. Sir, yours, &c,, Sept. 10, 1858. "Lngoldsby." P.S. — There is a letter in your last publication which I am sorry to be obliged to pass over, but which I read with great interest; I mean the one from the Rev. Charles N J;'l Tin: ixcjoi.usby lktteii-s. (linllostono of Kin^r'swiiifnnl, wliosc eharactei' gives weight to whatt'ViT lu' says; iiiul 1 iiiusi say I cordially agree with him in ihc dcsin' he cxprt'sses that your other corre- spondents would follow the example of Mr. Davis and Mr. Tyndale, in attaching their names to their contributions. We should then know, not only who Excubitor, Iluniilis, A Subscriber, A Barrister, M.A., Cantab.; M.A., Oxon., Observer, V . (I. ()., (rlaucus, Gulliver, Rusticus, Crito, Piclor, and other powerful advoeaies of our cause are, but (which is more to the point,) who are C. W. T., T. G., and two or three other feeble opponents of it. By the bye, what a severe satire is that of Mr. Girdlestone's upon the occupants of the Episcopal Bench, that "no advocate of truth ought to shrink from incurring some risk of obloquy, or some loss of the prospects of PREFKll^[EXT, by the ho)u'-'it avoiral of independent opinions temperately expressed. " * LETTER XXIX. THE niSlIOP OF ST. DAVID's IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, NO. VL MAY G, 1858. " Utcunquc in alto vcntu 'st, cxin velum vortitur." Plaut. Epid. •' As when a ship hy skilful steersman wrought, Nigh river's mouth or foreland, where the wind Veers oft, as oft so veers, and shifts her sail, So varied he." SIilto.v. Sir, — It is said in Lardner's Life of Sir William Jones, that it was a fixed principle with him, from which he • See Letter xxx., p. 200. I am happy to say, that the case is now different to what it was in 1858; the "advocates of truth" have since come boldly forward, and attached their names to their wTitiiigs. Let us hope that the time will also come when such advocacy shall no longer be considered a bar to aU prospects of preferment. THE BISHOP OF ST. DAYID^S, NO. VI. 195 never voluntarily deviated, not to be deterred by any diffi- culties that were surmountable from prosecuting to a successful termination what he had once deliberately under- taken. I have also heard it stated by a descendant of the celebrated Lord Teignmouth, that the latter was wont to say that he owed all his success in life to a golden rule early inculcated upon him, and which he repeatedly had occasion to apply, Never make a difficidijj. With all his good qualities — his learning, his industry^ his eloquence — I fear the above rules have formed no part of the training of the Bishop of St. David^s, of whom I purpose taking my leave to-day, more in sorrow than in auger. Whatever disappointment the Reformers might have felt (and to my knowledge it was not small) at perusing the Bishop^s speech, as delivered in Convocation on Feb. 10th of the present year,^ it was trifling in comparison of what they sustained on finding the same prelate addressing the House of Lords on the evening of May 6th, and again recording his sentiments as hostile to Revision ; at any rate speaking point blank against Lord Ebury^s motion for a Commission of Inqijiiiy into the Book of Common Prayer, The Bishop^s speech on that occasion being reported in the papers of the following morning, it is unnecessary for me to go into it in detail, more particularly as we have already devoted an unusual amount of space to an en- deavour to arrive at his lordship^s views in the matter of Liturgical Reform. Sufllce it to say that the impression produced on my own mind, on reading the report of the above speech, was much the same as in days gone by, when I was studying the harangues of one Gorgias ol * See Letter xxvii., p. 184. Jl)() TIIF, INGOLDSBY LETTERS. Jjeoiiliuiii, wlmm Plate) introduces in tlic character of a Siijiliist — (tnc, tliat is to say, whose trade it was to ar<5"ue a^^ainst his own and everybody's convictions; a special ])leader, ent^aj^ing to prove to the satisfaction of all comers that llic worse is the better cause; in other words, to make out that black is white. "^^ It j^-ricves me to make the comparison ; but the honesty of ;i jxiblic critic compels me to say that such is the only conclusion I have been able to arrive at after re- ])eated perusals of the learned Prelate's speech on May 6th. One tries over and over again, but to no purpose, to fix his lordship to some definite expression of opinion. One linds half-a-dozen BUTS, supported here and there by an //", or a whereas, or an however ; while one looks in vain for an aye or a no, a "To be" or a "Not to be;'' and an'ain and ng-ain one retires foiled l)y the unavailing search. The ball flies off from the glazed coat of our pachydermatous opponent, and again and again one cries out in despair, "(iuo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo?" " Say, while he changes thus, what chains can hind These various forms, this Proteus of the mind!'" I am aware that the Bishop may say there is nothing in this speech to preclude him from being considered an advocate for a Revision of the Liturgy,t provided he had the doing it, or the nomination of those to whom the task should be entrusted. But as I apprehend that responsibility is not likely to devolve upon his lordship, or to fall to the lot of any other individual, it seems puerile to blow hot and cold in this manner : — * A lengthy correspondence on the Bishop of St. David's inconsistency was published in the Standard, hy the Rev. J. W. Burgon of Oriel (afterwards Dean of Chichester), Dec. 20, 1869. t Sec his lordship's elaborate defence of himself in his Charge of 18G0. NEVER CHANGES BUT FOR THE WORSE. 197 "To hang between, in doubt to act, or rest;' "And live a coward in one's own esteem, Letting I dare not, wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i' the adage." I had rather be a dog and bay the moon, than such a Reformer. For most assuredly, if the revision of the Prayer- book is to wait till the doing of it shall be attended with no risk — till the Bishops of Exeter and Oxford on the one hand, and Mr. Fisher and Mr. Gell on the other, shall be equally satisfied with the result — we may make up our minds to abide the dawn of doomsday, and acquiesce with the best grace we can in all the acknowledged " imperfections '' of the book as we now have it. Who ever heard of change unattended with some degree of danger ? But what wise man was ever deterred in con- sequence from attempting the improvement of that which is notoriously faulty ? I have read, indeed, of an old woman who went out in the rain because her almanack told her that the weather was to change on the morrow ; and " a.«! it never changes (as she sourly observed) except for the wuss,'^ she thought she had better make sure of to-day. We all know the story of the veteran Reformer, Dr. Paley, respecting another old woman, cousin-german to her of the umbrella, who " left off thinking at all for fear of thinking wroug.'^ But I never heard of men — Bishoj^s, at least, and other Legislators — arguing thus, if we except a certain con- spicuous individual of the former rank, who quoted not long ago, with consummate gravity, and I am told not without effect upon the House of Lords, that truism of St. Augustine's, " Ipsa mutatio consuetudinis, etiam QUyK adjuvat utilitate, novitato perturbat ; "* a sentiment worthy, indeed, of being engraven on the jxn-tals * See Letter xxi., p. 152. See also Bishop of Oxford's Charge, 18G0. 1'.^^ THK INGOLDSBY LETTERS. of the Vatican, but ill ;ul:i|it('d t«> ihv liritish House of Le^islatiuv in the niiiklle of the nineteenth century. Who expects a Roebuck and a Newdeji^ate to be equally content with the forthcoming^ Reform Bill? Hut will that consideration deter the noble Earl (Derby) from embarking ujjon that sea of troubles ? I trow not ; or if, by any accident it should, I apprehend the people of England will not be so easily reconciled to the jtlea that " it is impossible to l»lease all parties, and therefore it is better to please none." For my own part, I am content that it should be so in that particular instance ; but it must not be forgotten that the Reform Bill dates from 1832, not 1662, like the Act of Uniformity. It is not merelij " a precious inheritance of our fathers," but that, and something else engi-afted upon it by their venturous progeny. It will be time enough to acquiesce in our Reformed Prayer-book, as having attained all the perfection of which it is capable, when it can date its reconstruction just thirty years back ; but not till then. And sure I am that nothing but THE WILL and a very small amount of moral courage on the part of our sjji ritual rulers is wanting to put us in possession of such a book as shall stand the test of another century before it again calls for amendment. The conclusion of the Bishop of St. David's speech on May 6th is too remarkable not to be afforded a niche in this attempt to put on record his lordship's sentiments on this matter : — " He did not recede in the slightest degree from unij opinion which he had ever expressed upon this subject." What those opinions arc, your readers have had an opportunity of ascertaining from the extracts already fur- nished in these Letters. "'^ And it is but in accordance with them that he proceeds to say that — * See Letters xv., xxiii., xxv., xxvi., xxvii. See also Charge of the Bishop of St. DaWd's, Oct., 1860: Rivingtons, London. LORD THURLOW AND LORD ELDOX. 199 "So far as inquiry was concerned, he should he quite FAVOURABLE to ANY measure which held out a prospect of reallij ascertaining the feeliitfjs and wishes of the great tjod ij Ijoth of the clergy and laitij. He doubted very much, however, whether such would he the effect of a Royal Commission." Whether it was Lord Thurlow or Lord Eldt, Adelphi. + Now in his seventieth, still the Kev. James Ilildyard, B.D., Rector of Ingoldsby, Lincolnshire ; having sat impatiently under the Charges of three successive Bishops for 33 years. 201- TlIK IXCOLDSBY LETTERS. P.S. — I see that Mr. Girdlestone, in his bevripai cj)poi'Tib€s, imputes "uxwoutiiy timidiiv" to the i)re.sent occupants of the episcopal bench ! — whicli charj^e, however, having been made by others in a liijj^her position (who have said in public tliat their hji-dshijis' opjwsition to Reform mij^ht be resolved into the one principle of " Give peace in our time, O Lord !"),* I imagine he considers himself at liberty to repeat, without fear of being quoted as the originator of the imputation. LETTER XXXI. THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, THE RIGHT REVEREND CHARLES IIICHAR.D SUMNER. " All viewed with awe the venerable man, "Who thus with mild benevolence began." — Pope. Sir, — The persons and characters of the two Sumners are well kno\vn. Their presence, courtesy, and moderation, command very general respect. It is rare indeed, if not unprecedented, that two brothers should for so long a period f have occupied such distinguished positions in the Church. Still more rare is it that individuals so situated should have given so little offence to any one, so much satisfaction to many. Whatever may be their other merits, we have a clear proof in this that the qualifications of an English gentleman, as well as of an English Churchman (not always found united), are an important recommendation in one about to be elevated above his brethren into the highest offices of * See before, Letter xxii, p. 159. + It was at that time thirty-six years since the Bishop of Winchester, and thirty-four since his brother, as Bishop of Chester (afterwards Arch- bishop of Canterbury), had been consecrated. DANGER OF TOO MUCH AMIABILITY. 205 the Church. Whatever depends upon a gracious mamier, gentle forbearance, courtesy, aud consideration towards equals or inferiors, is safe in such keei:)ing. The oil that prevents the jarring of the ecclesiastical machine flows in an unbidden stream from such lips, and we hear of none of those un- pleasant collisions which array the clergy against their Bishop in some dioceses, to the injury and distraction of the whole Church. But, unfortunately, every virtue has a tendency to de- generate into its proximate vice. Thus, bravery will some- times verge upon rashness, caution upon timidity, serious- ness upon Puritanism, cheerfulness upon levity, gravity upon formality, eloquence upon verbosity, and so forth. And as the zeal of a Philpotts or a Wilberforce will occasionally break forth into the fire of unseemly controversy, so the mildness of a Sumner will be aj)t to betray the cause of truth, from an unwillingness to grate upon the feelings of individuals, or the apprehension of provoking a strife " of which no man can foresee the end.'' It is to this amiable weakness that we must attribute the fact that our venerable Primate is found wanting to himself and to the Church at the present crisis."^ Pseudo- Romanism stalks unabashed through the land, fostered secretly by those who are solemnly pledged to resist it to the utmost ;f while earnest Protestants look in vain to the dignitary, highest in place of power, for the bold hand that should check its pride. Meanwhile, the Bishoji of Winchester, whose private sentiments are pretty generally understood, and are not obscurely exhibited in his speech * Read tlie Speech of His Grace the Archbishop, on the renewal of Lord Ehury's motion, May 8, 1860. t Some of the Eight Rev. Prelates discovered their mistake when it was almost too late to stay the mischief. " Principiis obsta" is a wise maxim, and cannot be too carefully borne in mind. See Letter xxxix. 206 THE ixooLnsBY letters. before Ctinvocutioii in Fcltruaiy lust, coinnK'nces the said speech liy :in cnloiii-iuin uixtii the oiiiiiions (if Ins right reverend brethren of Lineohi, Oxford, and St. David's : — " I rise for the ])uri)ose of ex])ressin{if the extreme satis- faction with wliich I have listened to, I think I may say, even/ word and ever if Hcnthnenl , which my rig'ht reverend brethren have addressed to your Grace. Indeed, so enfirelt/ do I concur with them, that I should have thought it quite unnecessary to make a sing-le remark, if I did not feel the importance at the present moment of making it known else- where that there is a very strong and universal concurrence amongst the Bishops of our Church in the sentiments which have been so ably expressed. As such a concurrence does exist, I feel the importance of making its existence known at this particular moment." EccE QUAM JUCUNDUM ! — What a pity it is that their lordshijis cannot inspire the inferior clergy, the priests and deacons of the Church, Avith this delightful attribute, so ])eeuliar to themselves, of dwelling together in unity. There is something marvellously cohesive in the texture of the episcopal toga. It is extremely difficult to tear, and has the almost miraculous property of rendering the wearers as coherent one with another as the material of which their robes are constructed. However opposite their sentiments may notoriously have been before donning the magic lawn, the right reverend conclave becomes thenceforth, like the heads of colleges in the university,* all of one • The following lines are worth jiresorving, as showing the tendency of persons in an exalted position to hang together: — "The Master of Jesus does nothing but tease us; The Master of Sidney 's of the very same kidney ; The Master of Christ's fits in to a trice ; The Master of Emmanuel follows him like a spaniel ; The Master of Pembroke Lis likeness from them took ; The Master of Peter's has the very same features ; HEADS OF HOUSES AT CAMBRIDGE. 207 mind, one colour, one purpose^ one creed; and woe betide the hapless individual who ventures to interpose his opinions betwixt the wind and their unanimity. One who felt keenly in his day the force of this remark (as any one who has a mind may do now if he likes), has comj^ared their lordships somewhat irreverently to a herd of the larger cattle, when offended by the attack or even the bare appearance of a yelping- cur. " They butt/^ says the admirable Sydney Smith, '' with an extended front ;" — and if the leaders fail in tossing the delinquent clerk with their horns, the rank and file in the rear, the chaplains, secretaries, archdeacons, and rural deans, will instinctively trample him to death with their feet. Or should he haply escape this fiery ordeal, he will carry ^vith him to his kennel inglorious bruises, and a plentiful bespattering of mud, to make him rue for ever the day that he ventured to intrude on such hallowed ground. The Master of Bene't (C.C.C.) holds just the same tenet; The IMaster of Cath'rine 's of the very same pattern; The President of Queen's is as like as two beans ; The Master of Caius (Keys) is as like as two peas ; The Provost of Kings says the very same things; The Master of Clare fits in to a hair; The Master of Trinity with them has affinity; He of Trinity Hall difEers nothing at all ; The Master of John's 's like the rest of the dons ; The Master of Magdalene (Maudlin) comes after them twaddling; The Master of Downing (Dr. Frcrc) comes last of all frowning." A select number from this body, consisting of five with the Vice-chan- cellor, under the name of the Caput formerly governed the University, and no new statute could be even submitted for the consideration of the Senate at large, \mtil it had received the toinximous consent of this petty conclave, — a single veto being sufficient to stop all further proceedings. The consequence was, as may be easily imagined, that no real reform was introduced into the University till the Caput itself was knocked on the Head, as it now is. Mutatis mutandis — such is exactly the present position of The Church. Let us hope that here (as elsewhere) it may shortly be said (1879), " Tempera mutantur — nos ct mutamur in illis." 208 THE IXGOLDSBY LETTERS. Who would have anticipated, a priori, a Sumner agreeing in." ever 1/ word and everj/ sentiment" uttered by a Wilber- foree? — Yet so it is; at least so his lordship says; and " he is an honourable man. So are they all; all honourable men.'' And they all agree in this one point, that the Prayer-book SHALL NOT BE TOUCHED in their day. Why is this ? What can be the reason — except that they have all imbibed a strong tincture of that " unworthy timidity " which Mr. Girdlestone attributes to their lordships ?■**■ " Ono touch of nature makes the whole world kin." And so this alloy of unworthy timidity acts as an amalgam of surpassing force upon Oxford and Winchester, St. Asaph and St. David's, Lincoln and London, Chichester and Hereford, Bath and Wells and Llandafe.f The Bishop of W^inchester says in his late Charge (which I quote in preference to his speech before Convocation, as being of more recent date) that we may " depend upon it that no alteration of ani/ kind would be suggested in a revision of the Prayer-book which would not meet with violent oppo- sition, and which would not lead to many heart-burnings." It may be so ; and I am sorry for it. But does his lord- ship think that the Church will thus escape these heart- burnings ? Have the Confessional in Belgravia and the Battle of the Boyne (resting, as they profess to do, upon the unaltered letter of the Prayer-book) been attended with no " heart-buniings ?" Have Messrs. West, Poole, Bennett, Denison, Gresley, Randall, and Liddell, met with no " violent opposition ? " J * Letter xxx., p. 204. Postscript. f The names of these were respectively, Wilberforce and Sumner, Vowler Short and Connop Thirlwall, Jackson and Tait, Gilbert and Uampden, Lord Auckland and Ollivant ; of whom only three now surv-ive (1878). X The disturbances at St. George' s-in-the-East and many other churches had not then broken out ; but they owe their origin to the same cause, "the unaltered letter of the Prayer-book." More of this hereafter. REV. C, GIEDLESTONE AND THE BISHOPS. 209 Metaphor apart, far-seeing men anticipate a coming struggle between the advocates for the letter and the advocates for the spirit of the Prayer-book ; and, taking counsel from all history, they think it more prudent to meet the danger half-way, than to shut their eyes to its approach, and allow the enemy to gain strength by delay."^ But as I observe your space, Mr. Editor, is more than usually occupied at this time with " the Boyne Commission," I will not longer detain you, but remain always, Yours, &c., October Uh, 1858. '' Ingoldsby." LETTER XXXII. THE REV. CHARLES GIRDLESTONE AND THE BISHOPS. " Of all my writings, all my midnight pains, A life of labours, — lo ! what fruit remains ? " Pope {Travcstie). Sir, — "Praise undeserved is satire in disguise." At least so sings the poet. And so I cannot but think must Mr. Girdlestono have felt, when he penned that short letter in your last. Let me, however, before proceeding further, return my acknowledgments to this gentleman, for his kind considera- tion in not wishing, by throwing any additional burden in my way, to divert me from prosecuting to a successful issue the object we both of us have at heart : — " For here forlarn and lost I tre;id, With fainting steps and slow ; Where wilds immoasurahly spread Seem lengthening as I go." • The subsequent legal proceedings, culminating in the Public Worship Act, fully justify the vaticinations in the text; 1878. 210 THE INGOLDSBY LETTEllS. Three whole years* of aj^itatlon on this subject, above 3,000 letters from my own pen, the same or a larger number received and iiled, with newspaper articles, reviews, and pamphlets beyond calculation, still leave me buildings upon but a little more solid foundation than Hope, the " fooFs ])aradise," as it has been called by some ; the " indestructible instinct of the soul," as it has been more courteously styled by others. Any one, therefore, who, like Mr. Girdlestone, so far shows sympathy with a fellow-workman as to spare him, thouo^h it be but the feather-weif^ht of a letter (if irrelevant to the caiise we have in hand), so far proves himself a friend, and so far has, as he deserves, our sincere thanks. Nevertheless, I cannot allow the j^ood feeling evinced by this gentleman towards myself to lead any of your other readers to suppose that I acquiesce in the acquittal which ]\[r. Girdlestone would pass upon their lordships, the bishops, with reg'ard to the non-promotion of Liturgical Reformers. I lay great stress upon this matter ; for in my judgment herein lies no small portion of the want of success which has hitherto attended every attempt to reform the Liturgy, even to the extent, as the Bishop of Winchester says, of introducing " an alteration of an// kind into the Prayer-book." The grand obstacle has ever been the wet blanket that has been invariably cast by the bishops upon the head of the solitary Reformer, whenever or wherever he happened to show his face. No wonder others have been deterred ; no wonder the cause gains few proselytes. It is not every one that has a fancy to be sent to Coventry, even though it be the ancient capital of Mr. Girdlestone^s diocese. * The above is a very insuflBcient representation of the toil bestowed by myself and others on this matter. I gave in at last in 1863 from sheer despair, and disgust at the thankless nature of the task I had undertaken ; but my views on the subject remain unshaken to this day, for the best of reasons, that not one of my arguments has been answered, or can be. SAVE ME FROM MY FRIENDS. 211 But we must hear this reverend gentleman plead in his own words. ''Our bishops/^ says he, '' miglit have done viiich for Liturgical Revision. They have done all they could to hinder it. I am sorry for them; for on their heads lies the chief responsibility of that violent revolution which is sure to follow on the protracted denial of temperate reform. But I do not believe that our bishops, as a body, are more actuated in the disposal of their patronage by abhorrence of church- reforming clergy than most lay patrons, or than those who act for the Crown. My o\\ti ' slice of the ecclesiastical cake,' t-o which your correspondent so amusingly refers, is a case in point. — My third letter on Church Reform was published in 1834. In 1837, I was presented to the Rectory of Alderly by the CrowTi ; and in 1847 to my present benefice by a lay patron ; and in the same year I was appointed Rural Bean by my diocesan, by whom also I was offered, \\dthin this twelvemonth, an honorary Stall at Lichfield,'^ although I did not accept it." If this be, as I conclude it is, the case for the defence, again I say, " Save me from my friends ! " You, perhaps, iiave not access to that most useful publication, the Clerical Direclori/. In this manual we have an account of the Rev. Charles Girdlestone's university and other performances, which, as I am an entire stranger to that gentleman, and cannot, therefore, be supposed to be influenced by personal considerations in enumerating, I will here extract : — He was, it appears, originally of Wadham College, Oxford, where he took his B.A. degree forty years ago, and is consequently now not less than sixty years of age. He was a first-class man in classics ; second-class in mathematics * The Ecclesiastical Commission, if it has effected nothing else, has at least succeeded in bringing the honorary Canonries into contempt. ~li THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. and j)liysios ; elected Fellow of Balliol by exaj/iinaiion (no small honour to any man) ; university examiner ; select preacher in two several years, 1825 and 1829; appointed to a Crown living in 18'34 ; and to the Rectory of Kingswinford by a lay pairo7i, Lord AVard (to his credit be it spoken), iu 1847. And now, in his si.rfj/-Jin/ or second year, comes the Episcopal patronage showered f>n tlie head of this dis- tinguished member of the University of Oxford. He is appointed Rural Dean by his diocesan, and offered an HONORARY STALL in Lichfield Cathedral ; which post, seeing that the acceptance costs more than the preferment is worth, ^fr. Girdlestone very prudently "declined ! " And this is the case set up in defence of the bishops as not r/?"*countenancing, nay rather as occasionally promoting Liturgical Reformers ! — the Bishop of Lichfield (Lonsdale) is, I believe (nay, I know, for I was proctor when he took his doctor^s degree at Cambridge upon his elevation to the Bench) , an honourable and worthy man ; a gentleman ; a scholar ; a man of letters ; and moderate in his theological views ; and I can well understand the pleasure with which his lordship would see a clergyman of Mr. Girdlestone^s attainments installed in his cathedral. But an honorary stall — a rural deanery ! — Our too sensitive flesh and blood revolts from the idea. IVIany a curate would turn away in disgust at the offer of either. " Far, far aloof the expecting Chaplain hides, Thu famished Vicar scowls, and passes by." The aforesaid Directory gives a long list of Mr. Girdle- stone''s literary productions up to the present year. But, alas ! among these thirty or more publications, there is one bearing the ill-omened title of " Three Letters on Church Reform,^^ 1832-4. A little leaven leavens the whole lumj). Here is the character of the man proclaimed at once, llinc A POOR MISERABLE AGITATION. 213 ilia lacrymm. Hence the questionable compliment of a rural deanery and honorary canonry offered in his sijciieih year to one of the most talented clergymen in the diocese to which he belongs. Compare these antecedents with those of Bishop Wilber- force, in the aforesaid Directory (as referred to by your caustic correspondent " Glaucus/^ not long ago), and then say, " Look on this picture and on that.'''' Why, the rector is a Hercules compared to the bishop, when tested by this standard. Yet notice the comparative fortunes of one who sails still glibly with the tide,* and one who breasts it manfully, "With lusty sinews tlirowing it aside, And stemming it with heart of controversy;" — of one who points out with no sparing hand the defects in our Liturgy, and one who lays down the law, as born to command and to be obeyed, that the Prayer-book shall not BE ALTERED, AND NOT BE TOUCHED IN HIS DAY. And is there nothing iu all this to depress the cause of the Reformers ? — Remove this obstacle, and many a pen and many a tongue that is now silent will tell a tale very different to that which has hitherto reached ears polite. The public will not then be any longer abused by the oft-repeated but never established assertion that " the majority of the clergy are against revision;"! that it is "a poor, weak, miserable agitation ; •'^ J that it is only "here and there a * "As Sherlock at Temple was taking a boat, The waterman asked him which way he would float ? ' Which way ! ' quoth the doctor, ' why, fool, ulth the stream!' To St. Paul's, or to Lambeth, was all one to him." " Mutato nomine, de, (kc." t After enormous pains taken to collect signatures from the clergj' of every class to this effect, not tmarhj half of the body responded to the call. See Lord Ebury's Speech, May 8th, 1860; p. 9; Hatchard. X Archdeacon Denison in Convocation, March 14th, 1861. •Z\\- TIIK INT.OLDSBY LETTERS. solitary disaffected individual who asks for it;" that the rest are quite satisfied with " the precious inheritance of their fathers as it has coino down to them," and only wish to transmit it " unaltered and untouched" to their children. I could instance many other cases besides the one selected ftbove in proof of my position ; — " Pudct hsec opprobria nobis Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli :'' — hut time and space compel me to conclude. Before dninsj so, however, I would beg your insertion of the following, from the Times of October 9th, 1858, which may serve as a con- trast of patronage episcopal with that of the once-despised town-council of a provincial borough : — " A Laudable Exercise of Patronage. — The town- council of Newx-astle-on-Tyne have appointed the Rev. R. Anchor Thompson, author of ' Christian Theism,' to the vacant Mastership of the Virgin Mary Hospital in that town — a situation worth from £500 to £G00 per annum. Mr. Thompson's Essay carried off the first of the Burnett prizes (value £1,800) at the adjudication in 1855 ; but while the Scottish Kirk, wdiieh has but few good things at its disposal, lost no time in seeing to the adequate promotion of the second prize-taker, Mr. Tulloch, who is now Principal of St. Mary's, the English Church, with a Burnett prizeman at its head, left Mr. Anchor Thompson to foil away in the humble curacy of Binhrookey* Market Rasen, just as the palm of honour * Wo fear this is no solitary case, and that to the clerical profession, above all others, may be applied the lines, " Full miiny a pern of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomerl caves of ocean bear ; Full nioiiy a flnwer is bom to blush unseen. And waste its sweetness on the desert air." The Town Council of Xewcastle-on-Tj-no may boast of having removed this blot from the Church, as far as rested with them. THE BISHOP OF OXFORD AGAIN; NO. III. 215 found him some three years ago, allowing the recognition of his merits to come from the corporation of a town with which he had no connexions" Surely these examples are a sufficient refutation of the malignant remark of the (Quarterly Review for January, 183-1, which we have frequently heard repeated in a variety of ways for the last five years, without being able within our own experience to produce a single illustration in proof of its truth : — " We ourselves cannot imagine a better recipe for chang- ing a curate into a rector, an archdeacon into a dean, a prebendary into a bishop, than a smart pamphlet in favour of Church Reform. If, in addition, it should deny the authority of the Ten Commandments , it might make its author an arch- bishop." The last paragraph speaks volumes for the taste and wit of the author of the article. I remain. Sir, yours, &c., October 15, 1858. " Ingoldsby.'' LETTER XXXIII. THE BISHOP OF OXFORD ONCE MORE. (THIRD BUT NOT LAST TIME OF APPEARING.) "A man full of words shall not prosper upon the earth." Psalm cxl. 11. Sir, — Having with much patience and diligence arrived at the second page of the Guardian newspaper of Feb. 17th, 1858, which has furnished us thus far with our text in the matter of the Bishops versus the Liturgical Reformers ; and having disposed of four out of tlie ten prelates who delivered themselves of their sentiments in " Anne's larjre lMCi the inooldsby letters. t'hambor," at tlio meotinf^ of Couvouation, I was in h<)])os of being permitted to commence upon the fifth, whoever he nii Tin: ingoldsby letters. in certain hands. '*'■ There are plenty of things in the Prayer- ]KH)k uhicli atlinit (»!', nay, wliich imperatively call for, anieiul- meut. But let the Liturj;-ical Reformers bide their time, and look before they leap ; or they may chance to awake some line morning- in July, aiul discover, to their astonishment, that they have ,i>'(jt for their pains a very different article to that l)ure and reformed Prayer-bfxjk which, under an honest Com- mission, they will, we trust, one day secure. I remain, Sir, yours, &c., November 11, 1858. "Ingoldsby." LETTER XXXV. THE BISHOP OF LONDON, THE RIGHT HON. AND RIGHT REV. ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL TAIT.f "Haec cedo ut admoveam templis, et farre litabo." — Persius. " When with such offerings to the gods I come, A cake thus given is worth a hecatomb." — Dkyden. Sir, — The antecedents, as they are called, of the Bishop of London are rather remarkable ; and, as they in some degree probably affect his lordship's sentiments on the matter of sioners, of the very large sums paid by thcra to solicitors, surveyors, and other officers, and to the manner in which the affairs of the Ecclesiastical Conunission were carried on. The hon. member complained that an enormous sum of the money received by the Commissioners, and intended for the uugmentatiun of poor livings, was swallowed \i^ by the extravagant expenditure on their establishment, and by the charges of lawyers, surveyors, and architects. For the year ending August 31, 1860, no less than £47,000 was spent in distributing £96,500. He hoped that the Government would either, during the recess, issue a commission, or early next session appoint a committee, to inquire into the affairs of the Ecclesiastical Commission." — rarliamentary Proceedings, August .'), 1861. — Mr. Henry Seymour in the session of 1802 obtained a Committee >»f Inquiry into the doings of the said Commission. * As proved pretty decidedly when afterwards made use of by Mr. Glad.stone to abolish the Irish Church altogether ! t The present Archbishop of Canterbury (1878). THE BISHOP OF LONDON (tAIt). 227 Liturgical Revision, it may not be amiss to pass them in review before our readers. His lordship, as is well known, is a native of North Britain, being born in Edinburgh in 1811; and having received his early education in the High School of that capital, so justly celebrated for the distinguished men it has produced. In 1827 he went to the University of Glasgow; and thence, in 183U, to Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated with distinction in 1833, and was elected Fellow the following year. Here he remained, filling the office of College Tutor and University Examiner, until 18-12, when, upon the death of Dr. Arnold, he was selected as the future Head Master of Rugby School from amongst about thirty candidates, several of them of the very highest academical distinction.* We next find Dr. Tait appointed to the Deanery of Carlisle, and acting as one of the Oxford University Commissioners, in which capacity he is said to have exhibited very liberal views; and, finally, in 1856 — being then in his 46th year— he was elevated by Lord Palmerston to his present conspicuous post. Now, although this rapid career of advancement is highly creditable to the individual, and although his lordship's conduct in all the stages through which he has passed redounds greatly to his credit, and reflects no small degree of praise upon those by whom he has been promoted — yet, it is but just to add that there appears little in it to make his lordship practically acquainted with the details of Liturgical Reform. * The competition for this post has always been severe. On the occasion of Dr. Arnold's election, a humorous poetical effusion recorded the " nanus and colours " of the competitors, ending with the following description of the late head-master of Shi'cwsbury School, afterwards Greek Professor at Cambridge, and Canon Residentiary of Ely : — " Spangled all with medals o'er — I think ho won some ten a day — Proudly charges on the foe the thrice illustrious Kennedy." 228 THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. It is truo tliat, as Dean of Carlisle, Dr. Tait was in every sense of the wurd a working- elerg-yman ; and there are many who remember with gratitude the earnestness with which, durinij^ the short period of his residence amonj]pt them, he applied himself to the supervision of the local charities, educational establishments, &c. But still there is nothing in all this to have brought his lordship into practical contact with the machinery of the Book of Common Prayer, as it works in the vast projwrtion of churches throughout the country, A cathedral, with, its dean, archdeacon, canons, precentor, organist and choristers, is no measure of the ordinary run of parochial churches ; and a prelate who has acquired his experience of these last through the medium of the head-mastership of a school, a deanery, or the rectorship of one of the lai^e London parishes, with the assistance of three or four curates, is in no condition to sympathise with the feelings of the t^n or twelve thousand parochial clergy who have the whole management of their \'illage or district devolved upon their hands for the fifty-two weeks in the year. Hence the remarks attributed to one of the right reverend prelates* — "the clergy should do their oiim work ; " — " what can ^ou want with a curate ? " — " there would be nothing for him to do." And hence, probably, the sympathy of the Bishop of London with his " right reverend brother " in this matter, rather than with " the inferior clei^y," the priests and deacons of his extensive diocese. Not that I mean to say the bishop does noi sympathise with these last. He is, on the contrary, reported to be ex- tremely considerate towards them, and desirous in every reasonable way to meet their wishes. f But I see in the » Bishop Jackson, of Lincoln, in 1856. The remarks quoted in the text were made to the rector of a small country parish seeking a curate. t In a speech in the House of Lords, Julj-, 1861, his lordship observed that " the less bishops interfered with the independent and well-disposed clergy in TOWN AND COUNTRY PAEISHES. 229 above remarks an explanation of his otherwise unintelUgible statement before Convocation, that " the clergy are more inclined to shorten the services than the laity/' Let the laity speak for themselves. I have heard them do so in somewhat decisive terms.* But, as one of the clergy, I am of opinion that had his lordship had the benefit of some twelve years' experience as a country parson, working single-handed in a parish of 2,000 souls (and the case is not very different, if we limit the number to 1,000, or even 500, or less, as far as the Sunday duties are concerned), he would have seen a satisfactory reason for the complaints of so many of his humbler brethren of the cloth. ''In toiom," the bishop admits, ''the case is differ ent.'' Now it is precisely in towns, where there are usually one or two curates to assist the rector or vicar, and a supply of unattached clergy at command, that it seldom happens that one individual is called upon to perform the tchole "double duty,'' including two sermons. It is precisely in towns, therefore, that the objection of the lengthy morning service should weigh least heavily upon the clergyman, what- ever it may do on his congregation. Yet here it is that the bishop admits the existence of the evil ; whence it is fair to conclude that had his lordship had similar experience of country parishes, he would not have refused relief to the incumbents of the ten or twelve thousand villages scattered throughout the land. As for the " country people not liking to be dismissed with a service of a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes of the Litany," who ever asked for that ? What the advo- cates for abridgment ask fur is, that the ucerage length of their dioceses the better:" a sentiment in which the author of the " Ingoldsby Letters," after upwards of thirty years' experience, cordially concurs. * See, for example, the letters of two gentlemen of the Law, quoted in Letter xxviii., p. 190. ~'M) THK TXGOLDSBY LETTERS. the morning service be as nearly as possible assiniilateil to those of the afternoon or evening, (cxicupying about an hour, or an hour and a ijuarter,) and which, according to all my experience, extending to nearly every county in England and Wales, are for the most part (except in the dairy districts) attended by the common peoj^ie with much greater frequency than that of the morning. What harm would ensue to the spirit of jiiety, about which so much has been said, if the morning congregation were dismissed at a quarter or half-past twelve oY-lock, instead of at one, or even at two, as is often the case when there is a large number of communicants ? Is there no other way of honouring God on the Sabbath mom than by a two hours^ attendance at church ? May we not also be permitted to honour Him "whose Temjile is all space,'' by the quiet study of His Word at home, or the peaceful contemplation of His glorious works abroad, the opportunity for appreciating which at other times is denied to the hardy sons of toil ? Is it so inconsistent with the genius of Christianity to wander occasionally into the fields on that sacred day, with mind and body attuned to holy thoughts, and in such mood to — " Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and God in everj'thing "r " I care not who judges my words, as I have no doubt they will be judged by the *' rigid righteous " and the Puritan, — " 'WTio hold the notion Th;it sullen gloom is sterling true devotion;" — but, as a plain country parson of a quarter of a century's experience,''^ and having ofliciatcHl in a great number of parishes during the whole of that time, I do not hesitate U) express my conviction that we are in the habit of much over- • Now rapidly approaching half a centurj', and with views in this respect only confirmed by everything I have since seen and heard. DOING THE DOUBLE DUTY. 231 rating the importance of the raere time spent in the offices of rehgion within the walls of a church, "Where men display to congregations wide Devotion's everj"- grace, except the heart." Did not our Saviour harangue the multitudes from the mountain and upon the sea-shore, as well as in the s}Tia- gogue ? Did not John the Baptist preach repentance in the wilderness ? Did not Philip the Deacon expound the Scrip- ture while driving in a chariot ? Did not St. Paul proclaim the Gospel to the polished Athenians from Mars' Hill ? It is as possible to overdo as to underdo the formality of public worship. And it is not unreasonable to attribute much of the present craving for the innocent relaxation of body and mind on the Sabbath-day,"^ to the fact that an overstrained attempt has been made to represent a twice-a-day attendance at church as "the one thing needful." This, indeed, ought we to have done, and not to leave the other undone. The mere formal act of going through the two or three Sunday Services, though enforced by epis- copal authority, is not likely to be more acceptable to the Almighty now than it was in the days of the Pharisees, who, " sitting in Moses' seat, bound heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and laid them on men's shoulders, while they themselves touched them not with one of their fingers; who did all their works to be seen of men, made broad their phy- lacteries, and enlarged the borders of their garments, and for a pretence made long prajjers''' Let us beware lest, while we exact this discipline with such strictness as some would do, we lose the inward grace and retiring piety, the life of faith exhibited in works of love — the open hand, the pure heart — the man, in short, of God. * Great efforts Jwere being made at that time to throw open to the public on the Sunday, the Crj-stal Palace at Sydenham, the British Museum, and other places adapted to intellectual improvement. -•'32 THE IXGOLDSBY LETTERS. " (^uin damus id Supcria do mngn'X qiiod dare Lince Non possit maj^ii Messila* lippa propago, Compositiim jus fasquo animo, 8anctx)squo reccssus Mentis, ct incoctuin gencroso pectus honesto ; Htec cedo ut adinoveara tomplis, et farrc litabo." It is not the lent^tli, or number of services that constitutes true devotion; any more than it is the costliness of the gift cast into the treasury which marks the sincerity of the donor. The widow's mite may outweigh the merchant's thousands in the all-seeing- eye ; and the icilling worship of half an hour overbalance the studied genuflexions and lip-service of half a day. I have confined myself on the present occasion to this branch of my subject, because it is that to which the Bishop of London's attention seems to have been particularly directed ; and his remarks upon it before Convocation and in the House of Lords would imply a willingness to give his mind to its further consideration. The more his lordship talks over the subject with the experienced clergy and enlightened laity of his diocese, the more he will probably feel inclined to carry out his owni observation on Lord Ebury's motion of May 6th — that " if he could have been convinced that the noble lord's proposition was required by the wants of the age, he should not have hesitated to give his assent to it."^ Feeling persuaded that Bishop Tait will, sooner or later, arrive at this conviction, I remain. Sir, yours, &e., Nov. IG, 1858. "Ingoldsby." * I would hero strongly recommend to my reverend brethren the porusal of a Tract recently published by W. J. Johnson, 121, Fleet Street, entitled, " Hints on Common Sense for Clcrgj-men, by One of Themselves ;" the author being generally understood to be the Hon. and Rev. E. V. Bligh. BISHOP OP LONDON^S CHAEGE, 1858. 233 LETTER XXXVI. THE BISHOP OF LONDON^S PRIMARY CHARGE. "Ac veluti magno in populo quum saepe coorta est Seditio, ssevitque animis ignobile vulgus ; Jamque faces et saxa volant, furor arma ministrat : Turn, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quern Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant; Iste regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet." Virgil. SiR^ — In liis Primary Charge to the clei^ of his im- portant diocese the Bishop of Loudon (Tait) makes allusion to his comparative youth, while speaking with the authority which his high position warrants, in the presence of many who are his seniors in age, and consequently more experienced than himself. The Charge, however, speaks all the -svisdom of grey hairs, blended with the energy of one not yet passed the meridian of his days. It displays a due appreciation of the responsi- bilities, as well as difficulties, of the post occupied by its author. At the same time it evinces a decision of purpose upon matters of present controversy, calculated to act \vith much power in steadying the vessel of the Church as she moves along over the waves of the unquiet sea on which she is now tossing. No one can rise from a perusal of this document with any doubt as to the direction to which the compass points, in that which the bishop justly calls " the greatest diocese in England.''^ That the trumpet should in this case utter no uncertain sound is of great value at the present moment ; and thousands of faithful men will rally at the blast, and gather round a standard thus boldly unfurled, and hoisted aloft in the midst of a city more conspicuous than that of the Seven 234 THE INOOLDSBY LETTFORS. Hills in the italniic-st days uf her glory ; how mueh more so now that the latter has fallen from her high estate, and is sunk into the depths of superstition and spiritual debasement ! It would be presumption in me to attempt to add a lustre to that which has received its ample meed of praise in a responsive echo from the heart of every true-bom son of the Church. But I may be allowed, as bearing on the object of these Letters, to notice two features in the Charge which particularly arrested my attention. The presence of many distinguished ministers of our Church, whom it were long to mention, not unnaturally suggested to the bishop the remark, that " it would be an ill day indeed for the Church of England if all her ministers were tied down, as some would have them, to the onerous duties of a cure of 2,000 or 3,000 souls.'' The effects of the Ecclesiastical Commission of 1836 are already but too apparent in lowering the general stamp of our clergy in point of literary attainment. As we have before had occasion to observe, to reform is one thing, to destroy another.^ The sponge that wiped away summarily three-fourths of the prizes of the Church imquestionably did much to divert into other channels the highest class of intellect and energy among the rising generation of students. f And it is to be feared these results will become more and ♦ See Letter xxxiv., p. 225. f Dr. Vauj^han and Professor Stanley, as cited by Lord E>)un-, bear testimony to this fact, let it be explained as it may. See Lord Ebury's second Speech, p. 2C. Ilatchard & Co.; 1860. See also Charge by the Bishop of Oxford, Nov., 18G0. This result of the Ecclesiastical Commission was anticipated by Archdeacon (afterwards Bishop) Butler, in a pamphlet, entitled "Thoughts on Church Dignitaries;" and the experience of the last forty years bears conclusive evidence that the highest class of academical graduates shrink from holy orders as a profession, while the vacuum is supplied by shoals of Literates whom bishops dare not reject. EFFECTS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION OP 183C. 2^35 more evident as the operation of the Commission is more and more extended. The root of the e\dl lay in the disposal, not the existence, of such patronage as was then connected with our cathedrals. The blame is altogether due to those of bygone generations whose selfish nepotism or political favouritism provoked the application of the hatchet, and caused that noble tree to be hewn down and cast into the fire which merely required a dexterous use of the pruning- knife to enable it to have borne much fruit for future service in the Church; fruit which posterity will in vain look for from this quarter. How, for instance, can a bishop, with his overwhelming weight of correspondence, his personal interviews with those of his clergy who seek his aid, the never ending, still beginning, routine of official calls on his time, his expected hospitality, his occasional preaching, and the like ; — how can the dean, with the constant interruption to which his position exjioses him, with the possible responsibility of a cure of souls; — how can the four canons residentiary, with their coming and going, their annexed archidiaconal, parochial, or professorial charge ; — how can this handful of men, whose time is already disposed of, find that '' learned leisure " which is essential to the production of works of genius? And yet who can deny that, without the occasional produc- tion of such works, the whole clerical profession must languish, and incur by insensible degrees the contempt of the literati in our own and other lands,''^ however efficiently one branch of it may be meanwhile discharging its duties in the sight of God and man. He was no bad judge of human nature who said. * In the debate on Mr. Bouverie's motion, for the Relief of the Clergj' from the perpetual obligation of the Clerical Oath, it was stated that " there was at this time a great dearth of men of talent in the profession;" April, 1862 ; and no man can deny that such is the case in 1878. 23G THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. •'MagniE mentis opus, nee do lodice pamndA Attonitte, ciurus ot equos, faciesque Dcorum Aspicere, et qualis Rutulum confundat Erinnys : " — a sentiment as applicable to want of leisure as to want of cash ; nay, more ajjplicahle in fact to the former than to the latter. And he would be but a sorry friend to the Church, as liishoj) Tait observes, who would reduce all her ministers to one dead level of mediocrity, by compelling them to tread throughout their lives the same monotonous routine of parochial work. I pass with pleasure to his lordship's remarks on the Diocesan Home Mission ; especially that passage where he commends the efforts now made to bring the masses within reach of the Gospel through the teaching of the Church, disentrammelled from that stiffness and formality which has been one cause of its comparative want of success. " The days,'' says his lordship, " when there was great fear of the Church of England dying of her dignity are, thank God, past." That such days are on the wane there can be no doubt, especially in towns, to which the bishop more immediately refers. But we can hardly admit such days are pasty when we find Bishop Wilberforce contending in Convocation for the rigid maintenance of the Act of Uniformity;* and dej^recating "going to Parliament for any alteration in the existing state of things," though there is not one clergyman in a thousand who now-a-days observes that Act to the letter. He must be blind indeed, or wilfully perverted in his " views of truth," who has not discovered that there are millions of our fellow- Christians, even in this country — (how much more, then, in our Colonies?) — who are utterly incapable, and ever will be, of entering into the lengthy • See Letter xxxiii., p. 220. EED-TAPISII OF THE CHURCH. 237 and hij^lily spiritual services of our usual public worship^ even i£ they could be induced to frequent our churches, and room could be found for them at our customary gatherings within the sacred walls. "^ ^ hy, then, not grapple with the difficulty ; and fling aside the " coils of red tape/^ which compress the cajiabilities of our Church; and which, but for the hindrance of those in authority, would long ago have been relaxed, if not cut through by the sharp sabre of public opinion ? It may seem strange to some that in a Charge occupying between four and five hours in the reading, no mention should have been made of a Revision of the Book of Common Prayer; especially in a diocese where that subject had been brought under the notice of the Legislature during the year in which the Charge was delivered. I see, however, in this an additional proof of the dis- cretion, or rather caution, which characterises this document throughout. The bishop cannot but have observed in how different a light that matter is now viewed to what it was when he made his remarks before Convocation, and delivered his opinion in the House of Lords on the motion for doing away with the State Services of the Church. Dr. Tait, therefore, may be considered as at present un- committed in his judgment as to the expediency of issuing a Commission of Inquiry into the Liturgy; and as his lordship has shown himself in this Cliarge to be no halter between two opinions, we hope that we shall one day hear that he has given in his adhesion to the cause — nay, possibly, that the name of the Right Reverend Prelate stands at the head of a list of Commissioners, appointed for the purpose of receiving • The very questionable proceeding of preaching in theatres and in the open air was adopted to meet this diflBculty, the Bishop of London setting the example by preaching in Covcnt Garden Market, on Sunday, June 30, 1861. I am not aware, however, of a rciictition of this (1878). 23S THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. evidence, and reporting upon the possibility of improvini]^ the Hook ok Common Puaykr.^ I remain, Sir, yours, &c., November 25, 1858. " Ingoldsby.'' LETTER XXXVII. THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN'S CHARGE, OCTOBER, 1858. "Talk of disruption! — why, my Lords, was ever disruption more com- plete?" — LoKD Ebuky, May, 1858. " Barbaras jedes aditure mecum, Quas Ens semper fovct inquieta, Lis ubi late sonat, et togatum JEstuat agmcn." The Same (from Gray), May, 1860. Sir, — While on the subject of Charges, it may be as well to take this opportunity of noticing two that have been recently published, wherein the subject of Liturgical Revision is handled — the one by the Bishop of Lincoln (Jackson), the other by an author hitherto unknown to fame — as far as this matter is concerned — the Venerable Richard Charles Coxe, Archdeacon of Lindisfarne. One would have thought the Bishop of Lincoln had sufficiently delivered himself of his sentiments upon Revision, on presenting the memorable petition of one-fifth part of his Clergy to Convocation in February, 1858. t But it seems his lordship is determined to show that his opinions have * On the r.ishop of London's silence respecting the subject of Revision, see the remarks of the Kev. K. Bingham ("Aquila de Kupe"), p. G3 — whose concluding words we most heartily echo, that " while we wait for the fulfilment of our hopes, our watchword must still bo Patience, Perse- verance, and Pniycr ; thanking God for the past, and taking courage for the future." London: 17, Buckingham Street, Adelphi, W.C. t Letter ii., p. 11. BISHOP OF Lincoln's charge, 1858. 239 undergone no change from anything he may have subse- quently heard or read. So, in his Charge to the assembled Clergy in October last, his lordship thus expresses himself : — " No doubt the Prayer-book is susceptible of improvement. Rubrics might be advantageously altered, the Table of Lessons might be amended and supplemented, shorter services supplied for the week-day and for children, and additional prayers and thanksgivings provided for different occasions. But such alterations would not satisfy those who desired revision. The controversies of the last three centuries would have to be fought over again, and questions would be raised which it would be equally perilous to decide either way, or to leave without decision. The result would be to cause universal disappointment, or to overthrow that wise toleration which the Church has always allowed within certain limits to different interpretations of Scripture and of her oAvn formularies. It is, moreover, doubtful whether the revised Prayer-book would be accepted by all the thirty-three colonial dioceses, many of which have their own Synods ; and thus an important link would be destroyed between the Church of England and her daughter Churches. "As for the length of the services, he did not think the complaints that had been made were well founded, so far as adults were concerned, i)rovided that they diligently and devoutly joined in the responses. When the Lord's Supper was administered, the service was, ^^erhaps, over-long for the communicants, and he should suggest that in country parishes the singing should be diminished and the sermon shortened — which would be much better than omitting it altogether. In towns where there were three services he should willingly give his consent to omit the Litany, if it were said with either of the latter services. lie should also recommend early ci'lehralions, as ivcll as those at noon. This mode of meetino" the difficulty would be far better than agreeing to any scheme 240 THE TNGOLDSBY LETTERS. which would dislocate the deep meanin* of our services, dissolve the connexion between the Prayer-book and its ancestral Liturjj^ies, and shdck the feelings of the most earnest and devoted sons of the Cliurdi — far better than submittin<^ the Prayer-book to the indifferent and even hostile criticism of a Parliament, of whom many were not of our communion, or even of our reli^-ion/^ The above is fnjm the Clerical Journal of November 7th, 1858, while the Chaise was in course of delivery; and thourdeal of llevisinjr the Prayer-book or no? Do not the columns of the daily and weekly press,* reviews, mai^azines, Bishops' and Arch- deacons' Chaises, teem with a " revival of the controversies of the last three centuries ? " And are not questions raised every day on liaptismal Reij^eneration, Priestly A])solution,t Auricular Confession, the Real Presence, and the like, as between the Articles and the Prayer-book, which call for some authoritative decision, or some such modification of the expressions used as shall allow of individuals taking their own view without impui'-uini^ the honesty of their brethren ? J I would here refer my readers to a pamphlet entitled " Clerical Oaths a Hindrance to Unity."§ The original title, the author tells us, was, " The English Clergy, High Low, and Dry, Weighed in the Balance and Fcmnd Wanting?" Why found wanting? Why, but for lack of this very revision, the withholding , not the granting y of which " causes universal disappointment, and tends to overthrow that wise toleration which the Church " by her Articles, if not by her Prayer-book, clearly intended to '' allow within certain limits to different interpretations of Scripture and of her own formularies." We must now proceed to But No. 2 — a novel and certainly most curious specimen of the genus. It appears " doubtful whether the revised Prayer-book would be accepted by all * Sec the Guardian, Record, English Churchman, Clerical Journal, &c. f See a singularly inconclusive argument on these questions in " Five Discourses on the Revision of the Liturgy," by the Rev. Charles John Vaughan, late Head blaster of Harrow. Macmillan, Cambridge ; 1860. + On thi.s point Mr. Fisher is very severe upon the Evangelical Clergy. \ By the Rev. Robert Matthew Milne, of Hildenborough, near Tunbridge. London : Partridge k Co., 34, I'ateruobler Row ; 1868. COLONIAL DIOCESES. 243 the thirty-three Colonial dioceses, many of which have their own Synods; and thus an important link would be destroyed between the Church of England and her daughter Churches/' As if that which is decent and in order here, were sure to be alike suitable at the poles or the equator. As if, for instance, that which best served to edify a congregation in England some three centuries ago, must be surely best not only for England now, but also for Hottentots and Zulus, Chinese and New Zealanders, Patagonians and Esquimaux, and that to the very end of time."^ The Colonial dioceses, according to the bishop's statement- in October last, amounted at that time to thirty-three. Some five or six have been created since, making the total in round numbers about forty; and, judging by the rate at which these new dioceses have been created of late, there is every reason to believe that there may be fifty of them in the course of a few years, possibly a hundred before the end of this century, f So, by the bishop's argument, we are to go on perpetuating what he admits to be defects in the Prayer-book, and what others maintain are errors, and what the Bishop of Oxford calls " all its imperfections," % lest by possibility our " revised " (and we would hope improved) Prayer-book should not commend itself to the various " Synods " of these blooming daughters whom we have dotted about over the face of the earth ! § What W(mld the Bishop of Lincoln say if some of these scions * See " Questions of the Day," by the Rev. Charles Girdlestone, p. 36 ; also, Robert Hull, on " Terms of Communion." Works, vol. ii., p. 9. f Is it not high time to question the expediency of creating so many " my lords," who have no civil status, and never will have, to justify the title, and whose rapid return to the home country, there to absorb the scanty remains of prizes in the Church, gives just offence to many? X Letter xiv., p. 92. § Thirty bishoprics have been founded in our colonies since 1841. This was in 1862. How many have been added since I am unable to say. 'M4 THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. were to rc-eiiaet the i)art (if (nmeril and Keg-an in tlie play, (as the American Church has done,) and carve out a Prayer- book of their own, in the " Synod/' say, of Tinnevelly or Ilouf^ Kong? — an event by no means improbable, espGeially as far as relates to the Abridgment portion of our subject ? * \Vho knows but that some of them may be at this very moment plottin<2r emancipation from the leading-string's in which the too tender care of their Anglican mamma would retain them ? I can fancy hearing across the wide Pacific Muunuirs borne along the breeze, not loud but deep, in aecents similar to these : — " 'Tis the infirmity of age : she hath ever but slenderly known herself." '' The best and soundest of her time hath been but rash ; then must we look to receive from her age not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and cholerick years bring with them/' " Pray you, let us hit together ; we must do something, and i' the heat." I wish I may be mistaken ; but it is my misfortune to take a different view of human nature from that entertained by the Bishop of Lincoln ; and I cannot persuade myself that the growing Church of our vast Colonial Empire will long submit to be bound by the effete Canons and worn-out Rubrics of the Anglican Church, without an attempt being made to improve upon them where they are defective, or manifestly ill-adapted to the circumstances in which the * The author has seen letters from Australia and New Zealand, written in admiration of Lord Ebury's speech in the House of Lords, May, 1860. More than one American Prelate has also expressed his sympathy with the movement, and, I believe, has acted on it. POPE GREGORY AND ST. AUGUSTINE. 245 several dioceses find themselves jjlaeed."^ And then what becomes of the bishop's argument? What will such logic be worth, except so far as it goes to prove, (in addition to other illustrations which might be adduced,) that the child has shown itself "wiser than the parent, the scholar out- stripi^ed his teacher in the march of education ? The celebrated Pope Gregory showed more wisdom twelve hundred years ago, when apj^ealed to by St. Augustine as to how he should treat his new diocese, our progenitors of the sixth century. Being consulted on the question of the diversities of Customs and Liturgies of different churches, the answer of Gregory was such as might have been antici- pated from a prelate of his enlightened mind, ere yet the j)ia et religiosa calliditas of Popery had conceived the idea of embracing the whole universe in one Procrustean frame- work of its own construction. It was — that "the English Bishop was not bound to follow the precedent of Rojie, but that he might select whatever ndes or parts appeared the most eligible, and best adapted to promote the piety of the infant Church of England, and dispose them into a system for its use."-f " Go thou and do likewise,^' would have been the advice of that jDrofound statesman to the Bishops of Tasmania and Sierra Leone, were he living in the middle of the nine- teenth century instead of at the end of the sixth ; — at any rate, it may be taken for granted that he would not have been found recommending the Church to retain "all her im- ^jerfections,'' in order that she might the more effectually propagate them throughout all parts of the world. * See some sensible remarks by General Alexander, at the " Conference on Missions." Nisbet and Co., Bcmcrs Street; 1860; p. 16. t Such there is every reason to believe, from internal evidence, and the omission of particular direction in things comparatively indifferent, was the expansive scheme for Church government and membersliii) originally intended by the Great Founder of our Faith. ~ 1() THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. I must roscrvc tlu' ri'niainin<^ two Brxs of the Bishop of Lincoln^s Charge for my next ; and am^ meanwhile, youi-s, &€., Janiiarj/ 2>y 1859. " Ingoldsby." LETTER XXXVIII. CHARGE BY THE ARCHDEACON OF LINDISFARNE, MAY, 1858. " Nunquam nnimam talem dextra hac, absistc moveri, Amittt'S ; habitet tecum, et sit pectore in isto." — Virgil. Sir, — In days of old we read that Bos est locutua ; but what the ox said, history does not inform us. In these days Archdeacons are sometimes requested to print their Charges; and we owe it to this fact that the world is put in possession of the thoughts of the Ven. Richard Charles Coxe, Archdeacon of Lindisfarne, on the "vital question of a Revision of the Liturgy, ''^'^ We know nothing whatever of the Venerable R. C. Coxe, and should have been innocent of the offence of reading the twenty pages to which his Charge extends, but for the circumstance of its having been noticed, soon after its delivery, by a Mr. Prideaux Selby, in a Newcastle paper which was sent us. Mr. Selby's letter having demolished the outworks of the Archdeacon, there is nothing for us to do but to storm the citadel, which the builder has thought lit, injudiciously as it appears to us, to erect on a sandbank instead of on a rock. The Archdeacon says that " Loixl Ebury's declaration in • Precisely similar sentiments to those expressed in the above Charge were shortlj' aftorward-s published, "at the request of the clergy," by the Venerable Charles Dodgson, Archdeacon of Richmond. Rivingtons: 1860. THE ARCHDEACON- OF LIXDISFARNE. 247 the House of Lords on the Revision of the Liturgy has made it clear that repose on that vital question will not be allowed ns ;"* — in other words, Lord Ebury's persisting' in brinfT'ing' forward his motion compels the Archdeacon to speak out, how- ever reluctantly, lest his silence should be construed into ;issent. " Tacent, satis laudant, our foes will say/^ This is a valuable admission, and shows the penetration and judgment of the writer. We hope Lord Ebury will make due use of it when he next appears before the public. "Septimus, octavo propior, jam fugerit " — mensis, — that is to say, it is now seven, or nearer eight months since Lord Ebury's speech of last May was delivered in the House of Lords, published next morning in the Times and the other daily papers, repeated in every journal. Lay and Clerical, London and Provincial ; — since revised and edited by his lord- ship himself, and now circulating in its third edition ; — and yet the only attempt at a reply to it are the three addresses to the House, on the occasion of its delivery, from oyie English Archbishop, one Irish, and one Welsh Bishop ! So that, according to the Venerable Richard Charles Coxe^s theory, we must " entail the discredit of acquiescence or approval upon all the others. ^^ Shame on the Right Reverend Prelates ! Shame on the chaplains and rural deans ! Shame on the remainder of the Archdeacons ! f What, not one found to support the hero of Lindisfarne in his solitary protest, and to echo the quotation from his Bishop's Charge, that our Liturgy is " a precious inheritance bequeathed to us by our forefathers, which * Preface to the Charge of the Archdeacon of Lindisfarne, 1858. See also Charge by the Bishop of Ilipon (Bickersteth), October, 1861. t Seven other Archdeacons have since expressed themselves on the sub- ject of Revision ; of whom Archdeacon Stonehouse of Lincoln, Archdeacon Musgrave of Halifax, Archdeacon Law of Wells, and Archdeacon Allen of Salop, have more or less signified their approval; while Archdeacon Denison (of course), Archdeacon Churton of Cleveland, and Archdeacon Dodgson of Richmond, have pronounced against it. 218 THE INGOLDSBY LETTERS. WO \\isli — may I not add, and are resolved — to transmit unmutilated and unimpaired to those who come after us!" We thought this sentence had been a rescript of the Bishop of Oxford's peroration in Anne's large chamber last February ; * but on l