lesser order of worship, the celebration of the Eucharist (except in the accidental case of a sick communion) being out of the question, unless with the express licence of the Ordinary. Mr. Lyne's chapel system flies in the face of every one of these conditions, and so its practical effect, of course, will be to check the timely growth in England, on English principles, of an elastic system of succursal worship.
We do not predict a very long existence for the pseudo-Benedictine brotherhood itself, although we see that its promoters boast that its 'third order' of laity (a graft from Franciscanism, which would have sorely puzzled S. Benedict) boasts several hundred members. If it stood alone accordingly, we should not have spent much time in its dissection; but, unluckily, it is patronized by that section of the clergy who have otherwise made themselves conspicuous for excessive ritual; and in its train, no doubt, other movements, equally unwise, will follow. The ultra-Church press boasts of a clerical 'Society of Celibates' which has issued a proposed Rule with ultimate life vows, under an annual President, who has, in certain cases, the power of receiving vows posted to him by persons whom he need never have seen, and also of admitting minors. We leave this fact to tell its own tale. It is therefore due to our credit and consistency—it is due to the hope still existing that we may be able to do some good in our own generation, our own country, and our own Church, in spreading the knowledge of the Christian truth and its saving ordinances—to say, that the feverish extravagance of Norwich Benedictinism and of similar outbursts, is no genuine offshoot of the great Anglican Church Movement.
In contemplating those phenomena we are bound to ask where they are likely to end, and whither they will probably lead their promoters. This question cannot, however, be handled without taking into account yet another phenomenon which we have purposely kept out of consideration hitherto. It is one of higher aims, and worked by a wider circle of men than the pure and simple sensation movement. Still, unfortunately for its own ends, it has certain marked external affinities with that phase of Churchmanship. We mean the Association for the Promotion of Christian Unity (an object in itself never to be spoken of without sympathy and approbation). That blessing for which our Lord prayed must ever be the dearest object to the devout Christian. The weak point of the present Association is not that it prays for the peace of Jerusalem, but that it seems to have worked itself into a belief that all probabilities are running in favour of a visible and speedy accomplishment of its own idea of unity in the way which it has forecast for itself, and that it has accordingly shut its eyes
