His Views and Principles
no repulsion. Richard, it is true, takes "Orders," but he enters the church with the quiet piety and sense with which a good Free Churchman would open a shop; whatever Miss Yonge's personal opinions may have been we do not gather from her page that she conceived of this character as called "to the awful and tremendous hierurgy of the Unbloody Sacrifice"—to use the phrase of a dreadful book which I once opened. Again, it is true that there is a "Bishop" who "consecrates" the church at Cocksmoor; but I do not think the most bigoted anti-Episcopalian need be alarmed by his appearance. Here is no mitred, mystic figure, armed with powers from worlds beyond our ken, no claimant to an imaginary apostolic succession, no maker of "sacrificing priests"; but a quiet, kindly old gentleman, who says a few pleasant words to the children; as simple and as Christian a soul as any Sunday School Superintendent. Thank heaven for it, there is no sense of mystery in Miss Yonge's work, no dark oppression of the
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