nor is it practical towards the conversion or the growth in grace of the millions whom, first of all, we have to look to in our own generation.
We say this, well aware that it may be retorted on us, that all which is now being carried out in the most pronounced churches, is but the filling up of the picture foreshadowed in such works as the 'Hierurgia Anglicana,' nay, that the pages of the 'Hierurgia Anglicana' contain startling evidence that ritual of what would now be considered the most impossible description, had been in occasional use in the early days of the Reformed Church of England. We should not shrink from the challenge, while, as to its personal side, we should observe that growth in the perception of the possible among writers who did not wait to be old to take up the pen, is not tergiversation. As to its historical truth it is a fact that such ritual did once prevail—how extensively is not the question. But it prevailed, with several other things likewise, the end of all being that an Archbishop went to the scaffold on Tower Hill, and a King at Whitehall, and that when King and Bishop were brought in triumph back, the Churchmen of the second Caroline era—even the grand relics of the older time, such as John Cosin—seemed with one consent to drop ritual like a hot coal, content, in their wisdom or their apprehensions, to preserve the Prayerbook. The ritual with which we close may be bald compared with that of Elizabeth's, or Andrewes', or Laud's chapel, but it is sumptuous alongside of that which contented Jeremy Taylor, Sancroft, or Ken. It is, moreover, we venture to say, incommensurably better than either as a whole, when the standing accompaniments of the structure, as churches may now be built, in their art and in their arrangements, are taken into account. We believe that the thing which in some people's eyes most hopelessly stamps the parish priest as 'not going far enough,' is his not lighting the candles at Holy Communion. We have no intention of saying one word on the abstract beauty, significance, or desirableness of the rite; what we have to urge absolves us from handling that topic. The fact is, that those who held the procuration of ritual-loving Churchmen, as managers of the famous Liddell and Westerton suit, early in the case, and with the consent of those they represented, gave up this lighting to save the candlesticks. Dr. Lushington's Judgment, in the lowest Court, went all against them in every particular, except the grudging non-prohibition of the chancel screen, and the allowance of candles on the Lord's Table, provided they were not lighted, except when actually wanted for light. The managers, after grave consideration, felt bound to accept this latter measure of success, rather than, by asking for more, risk losing the whole in an appeal the
