decision in the Ridsdale case, and praying the House to assert the constitutional rights of the Church to determine its own doctrine and ceremonial. The following form for a new rubric, to be inserted in the Prayer-Book, was adopted and sent to the Upper House for its concur

rence:

In saying any public prayers, or ministering the sacraments and other rites of the Church, the minister shall wear a surplice with a stole or scarf, and the hood of his degree; and in preaching he shall wear a surplice with a stole or scarf, and the hood of his degree; or, if he think fit, a gown with hood and scarf. Nevertheless, he that ministereth in the Holy Communion may use, with the surplice and stole, a cope: provided always, that such cope shall not be introduced into any church, other than a cathedral or collegiate church, without the consent of the bishop. The Ritualistic Controversy, under the influence of the judicial proceedings under the Public Worship Regulation Act, has assumed the character of a direct issue upon the question of the jurisdiction of Parliament, and the courts established by Parliament, over ecclesiastical

cases.

On the 3d of April, a communication was presented to the archbishops signed by about eighty clergymen, who were for the most part regarded as attached to the High Church party, reciting that, being anxious to retain the existing relations of Church and state, they felt great anxiety at the present position of affairs. "On the one side," they said, "we see coercive measures resorted to for enforcing uniformity such as have been happily unknown in this country for centuries; and on the other a determination to endure any suffering rather than submit to a jurisdiction which, rightly or wrongly, is regarded as purely secular." They were also impressed with the unsatisfactory character of the authority and arguments, to which appeal was made in the controversies distracting the Church; for, while the Church had the same authority it had always had in the matter of rites and ceremonies, appeal was made, not to the "living voice of the Church, but to events and documents which have themselves always been matters of controversy." The signers of the address were convinced that not the mere interpretation of existing law was required, "but the living voice of the Church clearly laying down what the law shall be in the future." They would, therefore, urge upon the consideration of the archbishops "that, in our opinion, no peace can be secured for the Church, nor can her existing relations with the state be long continued, unless laws for the regulation of Divine service and for other spiritual matters of primary importance are made by an authority which both clergy and laity would feel to be binding upon conscience; and we are equally satisfied that no authority will be considered thus binding which does not proceed from the synods of the Church as well as from Parliament." The view was further expressed in the address that the legislative action of the Church was now paralyzed by

the apprehension that, when its synodical acts were submitted to Parliament, they would be so altered as to be finally quite different from what was intended. The Archbishop of Canterbury replied to this address, April 7th, that its exact meaning was not quite clear to him, and particularly that it did not seem to distinguish between judicial and legislative ecclesiastical matters, the former of which were conducted in a regular gradation of ecclesiastical courts, culminating in the sovereign, advised by the Privy Council, which were "jealously kept distinct from the ordinary civil tribunals of the realm." He presumed they desired some alterations in these courts, but pointed out that character of the changes they sought. "But they did not specify with any accuracy the I gather," he continued "that the main object of the address is to urge that matters of legislation affecting the Church in its rites or ceremonies and controversies of faith should always be submitted to Convocation. It is not alleged that this principle has in any specific case been violated, and, perhaps, it has escaped your attention that, for the last five years, since Convocation adopted the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act, in 1872, it has been engaged in a task such as that which you rightly consider to be its peculiar function, having been called by the authority of the Crown to revise the Rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer, a work which it has not as yet accomplished." In conclusion, the archbishop promised that the subject of the address should receive the attention of the Episcopal bench.

The case of Clifton against Ridsdale, the. first case tried under the Public Worship Regulation Act, in which Lord Penzance, of the Court of Arches, in 1876, condemned the wearing of certain vestments, the use of unnecessary lighted candles, and certain practices at the sacrament, as illegal (see ANNUAL CYCLOPÆDIA for 1876), was carried by appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The hearing of the appeal was begun on the 23d of January, and a judgment was given on the 12th of May, sustaining the decision of the lower court, and adverse to the appellant. The decision covered four points: 1. That the vestments worn by the appellant in the eucharistic services, the alb and chasuble, as distinguished from the surplice, were illegal. 2. That it was the duty of the minister to stand at the side of the table in such a position that "he might in good faith enable the communicants present, or the bulk of them, being properly placed, to see if there be breaking of bread, and the performance of the other manual acts mentioned. He must not interpose his body so as intentionally to defeat the object of the rubric and prevent this result." In the present case the court were not satisfied "that the evidence proved an intention to prevent the people seeing him break the bread," and recommended an alteration to be made in the decree in this respect. 3. That the use of wafer bread was illegal, but the mere

circumstance of bread, "such as is usually to be eaten," being round and thin did not constitute it wafer bread. It was not proved that the appellant had used the wafer, properly so called, and a change in the decree was advised on this point. 4. That the erection of a crucifix without a faculty was illegal; that the condemnation of the crucifix by the court below on the ground of its liability to be used in a superstitious manner was correct; and, therefore, the direction to remove this erection was affirmed. Still the court desired to say that they "thought it important to maintain, in respect to the representation of sacred persons and objects in the church, the liberty established in Philpotts vs. Boyd,' subject to the power and duty of the ordinary, so to exercise his judicial discretion in granting or refusing faculties as to guard against their being likely to be abused for purposes of superstition." The decision was received with satisfaction by the evangelical party of the Church, although it was not as completely in their favor as they had hoped it would be, but was strongly opposed by the ritualistic party. Mr. Ridsdale refused to obey it, and announced his intention of continuing the condemned ways in defiance of it, stating that he was resisting the monition because it was contrary to a plain order of the Church. He was convinced that the law of the Church commanded the use of vestments, and the two lights on the altar were likewise sanctioned by the rubric. On some points on which there was no rubrical direction he would yield. His reason for pleading in the court was, that he sought, if possible, to secure peace for the Church, in the hope that the law of the Church would be legalized by the civil law, but, having failed, he was bound to obey the Church. He suggested, however, that if his diocesans should think fit to exert a dispensing power as bishops, which he admitted to exist, he would conform to the form of service as defined by the court. Shortly afterward the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote to him that, understanding that he was willing to be guided by him as his bishop, his grace would gladly take upon himself the whole responsibility of directing Mr. Ridsdale as to the manner in which he should administer the communion, and would grant him a complete dispensation from the obligation under which he believed himself to lie, to act upon what he conceived to be the literal meaning of the Ornaments Rubric. Mr. Ridsdale consented to obey the archbishop's order as a temporary measure until convocation should have a fitting opportunity to deliberate on the question, after which, if no decision were given, he should not feel justified in using the dispensation any longer. On the 2d of July, in the Convocation of Canterbury, a petition was presented from Mr. Ridsdale asking the convocation to decide whether the bishops had such power of dispensation as had been exercised by the archbishop in his case, and whether they have

power to require the clergy to accept such dispensations in view of serious complications with the state; to set forth a law of ritual observance which will leave no room for doubts or controversies; and to constitute or indicate the courts by which it would have the clergy tried for ecclesiastical offenses.

A declaration on the subject of the Ridsdale judgment has been made by a large number of ritualists to the following effect:

1. Having considered the judgment delivered by the judicial committee in the case of Ridsdale vs. Clifton, although we are unable to concur in the whole of the reasoning which it contains, yet we find in it some grounds of satisfaction, in so far as it (a) allows the eastward position of the celebrant, (b) confirms the principle of a distinctive eucharistic dress, (c) recognizes the full right of the Church of England to the legitimate use of religious art in her churches.

2. Seeing that successive judgments have left members of the Church of England free to hold and teach her entire doctrine, we advisedly recommend submission to the discretion of the ordinary in regard to the points of ritual touched by the late judgment, and we regard such submission as best calcu lated to promote the entire constitutional freedom of

the Church.

The second case, which was tried by the ecclesiastical courts under the Public Worship Regulation Act, was that of the prosecution of the Rev. Arthur Tooth, rector of St. James's, Hatcham, for violation of the rubrics in the celebration of the Holy Communion, which, as was charged in the indictment, and appeared in the evidence, the defendant had caused to be accompanied with elaborateness of vestments, ceremonial, and ornaments. A decision was given by Lord Penzance, Dean of Arches, on the 19th of July, 1876, condemning the practices of Mr. Tooth which were complained of, except as to those points on which an appeal had been taken in the case of Clifton against Ridsdale to the Privy Council, as contrary to the usages and discipline of the Church, and admonishing him to refrain from them. The defendant paid no attention to the decree of the court, whose jurisdiction he denied, but continued his ritualistic practices. He was cited to appear and answer for contumacy in December. Refusing to obey the summons, he was inhibited for three months, with an intimation that the suspension would be continued if he did not abstain from the objectionable practices. The Rev. Canon Gee was appointed to take charge of the parish during the inhibition, but Mr. Tooth refused to admit him to the church, and he retired from the attempt to serve. The services on the succeeding Sundays, which were the last in December, 1876, were characterized by greater display than ever. On the 31st of December, a disturbance occurred at the church, and a force of police had to be organized to restore

and preserve order. Mr. Tooth posted on the door of the church a declaration asserting that he was the lawfully and canonically instituted priest of the parish, "not inhibited therein, nor deprived thereof, by any lawful and canonical authority," declaring all ministrations therein other than his own to be schismatical, and "an invasion and robbery of the rights of the Church of England," and exhorting the congregation to permit no public ministration or discharge of pastoral duties among them other than his own. On the 13th of January, 1877, an order was issued by Lord Penzance, declaring the defendant contumacious, and committing him to jail. On the following Sunday, however, Mr. Tooth held three early services, after which an order was posted by the bishop of the diocese (Rochester), prohibiting the opening of the church or the ringing of the bells. The bishop appointed another clergyman to serve at the church, but Mr. Tooth refused to permit him to be admitted. He was imprisoned in Horsemonger Lane jail on the 31st of January, where he continued in confinement until February 17th, when, the clergyman deputed by the bishop having gained possession of the church, he was released, on the ground that the object sought by his imprisonment had been gained. Mr. Tooth then went abroad, but returned in May, and issued a declaration that all the services which had been conducted in the church since his removal from the parish were schismatical, null, and void, and held a service in the church on the 13th of May. Mr. Tooth's position on the points of law in his case, upon which his conduct was based, was sustained by the voluntary society called the "Church Union." This society, at a meeting held in February, adopted resolutions reciting that, while it acknowledged the authority of all courts legally constituted in regard to matters temporal, it denied that the secular power had authority in matters purely spiritual; declared that any court which is bound to frame its decisions in accordance with the judgments of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, or any other secular court, does not possess any spiritual authority with respect to such decisions. That suspension a sacris being a purely spiritual act, the English Church Union is pared to support any priest not guilty of a

pre

moral or canonical offense who refuses to recognize a suspension issued by such a court:" professed a willingness to submit itself to the duly constituted synods of the Church; and, in regard to the matters under dispute, appealed to the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer, and the interpretation which had been put upon them by the Convocation of Canterbury in 1875. Bishop Claughton, of Rochester, having been transferred to the See of St. Albans, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in June, became pro tempore administrator of the diocese. He invited Mr. Tooth to take Episcopal advice concerning his course, and communi

cated to him as the action of a purely spiritual body, whose jurisdiction he should acknowledge on the questions at issue, a resolution which had been passed by the Convocation of Canterbury, to the effect that no alteration from the long-sanctioned and usual ritual ought to be made without the sanction of the bishop of the diocese being first had. Mr. Tooth replied that he had searched the records, but had not been able to find "any such canon, constitution, or ordinance, provincial, or other synodical act, promulgated by convocation, or by his grace himself," as the archbishop had mentioned. The archbishop referred him to the record of the proceedings of the two Houses of Convocation on the 13th and 15th of February, 1867, as containing the resolution which he had mentioned, and inquired if he objected to its validity because it had not become law by receiving the sanction of the civil power, adding that, by the law of the realm, except in cases where the civil power steps in, no decision or judgment of convocation could answer such conditions as might be supposed from Mr. Tooth's expression of his views to be deemed by him indispensable. Mr. Tooth replied that the proceedings quoted did not constitute a synodical act of the province, because they had not been passed or promulgated as such; but, had such a synodical act been passed by convocation, or promulgated by the archbishop, or put in use, the fact of the state's having refused to recognize it as a canon would have made no difference in the respect with which he should have treated it. The archbishop summed up as the reasons for which he considered Mr. Tooth bound to abstain from the ritual observances which were complained of against him:

1. Because of the obedience which you owe to the law of the Church of England, as interpreted by the Archbishop's Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal.

2. Because you are formally called upon by me as your bishop, in virtue of your oath of canonical obedience, to conform to the order which, as acting Bishop of Rochester, I hereby lay upon you.

3. Because, if through some scruple of conscience, to me inexplicable, you feel a difficulty in paying due obedience either to the law of the Church and realm, as interpreted by the courts, or to the bishop set over you in the Lord, the decision of convocation to which I have referred you seems to afford on your principles a solution of the difficulty in which you have involved yourself.

I should be sorry to believe that you desire to act in contravention alike of the law, the bishop's order, and the express decision of the two Houses of Convocation.

Mr. Tooth reiterated his determination to disregard the judgment of the court, insisting that there was no law or valid declaration of the Church to sustain it.

Mr. Tooth obtained from the Court of Queen's Bench, in July, a rule calling on Lord Penzance to show cause why a writ of prohibition should not issue against him. The application for this rule was based upon the allegation that the judgment prohibiting the applicant from

officiating at St. James's, Hatcham, was heard by Lord Penzance at Lambeth instead of in London or Westminster, or within the diocese of Rochester. The rule was made absolute in November, and Mr. Tooth afterward resigned the incumbency of the parish at Hatcham.

In the House of Lords, July 14th, Lord Redesdale called attention to a book entitled "The Priest in Absolution," which had been privately printed and placed at the disposal of an association of clergymen called "The Society of the Holy Cross," for private and limited circulation among the clergy. It was described as containing directions for the examination of both adults and children on the most private and delicate matters, including special questions to be put to children of seven, six, and even five years of age, and also to married persons, the priests being advised in all cases to be careful to frame their questions in discreet language. The book was pronounced directly opposed to the doctrines of the Church, as justifying confession, absolution, and the judicial character of the priest. The Archbishop of Canterbury said that it was a disgrace to the community that such a book should be circulated under the approval of the clergy of the Established Church. The subject of the book and the Society of the Holy Cross received a full discussion in the Convocation of Canterbury at its session in July, of whose action a statement is given in another place. From a communication which was presented to the convocation by the authority of the society itself, it appears that it "is a society of clergy, founded in 1855, for the primary purpose of deepening the spiritual life in its brethren. Besides this main object, it is also engaged in aiding or carrying on mission work, at home and abroad; it promotes spiritual and temporal charity among the brethren, and unites them in common consultation on matters affecting their duties and the interests of the Church. The connection of the society with the book called 'The Priest in Absolution' arose from accidental circumstances. Some members of the society, feeling the need of a manual to help them in the difficult and important duty of hearing confessions and giving absolution, to which priests are obliged by their commission at ordination and the requirements of the Prayer-Book, informally asked one of their number to compile such a treatise. The society, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, was never called upon to revise, read, or pass judgment upon the book." The communication further stated that the book was designed for use only in extraordinary circumstances and under peculiar safeguards, and claimed that it was wrong to judge it as if it were a book for common use; also, that the number of persons of all classes who resorted to confession had multiplied year by year, and that many of them were "persons of the highest education and refinement." It was asserted by the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie, one of the most prominent of the Ritualists,

that, before the book was prepared, the bishops had been asked to provide for the education, selecting, and licensing of duly qualified confessors; and that for this request the makers of it "were rewarded by the bishops and the public with scorn and obloquy." The society, after the matter was brought to the notice of the public, resolved that no more copies of the book should be supplied; and added, in their action, the expression of the opinion that their commission at ordination and the express terms of the Prayer-Book required them to hear the confessions of those who wished to make them; and that, while the Church taught that confession was not a matter of compulsory obligation, all Christian people had the right to observe it. The society was said to have on its rolls the names of two hundred and seventy members.

An address signed by ninety-six peers was forwarded to the Archbishop of Canterbury in August, directing the attention of his grace to the disclosures concerning "The Priest in Absolution," expressing alarm at the introduction into the Church of the practice of auricular confession, and urging him to express condemnation of the system. In acknowledging the address the archbishop assured their lordships that nothing should be wanting on his part to maintain the scriptural character of the Church, and reminded them of the recent formal statement of the bishops of the Province of Canterbury, and the pastoral letter issued by both provinces in March, 1875, with reference to the doctrine of the Church of England on the subject of confession.

The pastoral address of a new society called the Order of Corporate Reunion, having for its professed object the restoration of the spiritual authority of the Church, was issued on the 8th of September. The address is headed with the words Pro Deo, pro ecclesia, pro patria, and begins with the formula: "In the sacred name of the most holy, undivided, and adorable Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. -Amen. Thomas, by the favor of God, Rector of the Order of Corporate Reunion, and Pro-Provincial of Canterbury; Joseph, by the favor of God, Provincial of York, in the kingdom of England; and Laurence, by the favor of God, Provincial of Caerleon, in the Principality of Wales, with the provosts and members of the synod of the order, to the faithful in Christ Jesus, whom these presents may concern, health and benediction in the Lord God everlasting." A sketch follows of the history of the Church of England from St. Augustin to the present time, which is made to indicate indirectly the aims and policy of the order by pointing to the mistakes and failures of the past, the repetition of which should be avoided. In it the submission of the bishops and clergy in 1586 is declared to have been the turning-point of their own and their successors' degradation. The paragraphs following this declaration state that, notwithstanding the