The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1867-07-30 00:00:00

THE PROTESTANT MEETING AT
SALISBURY.

There is a natural tendency in the minds of al
guilty persons, when they are convicted, and in
danger of meeting with their deserts, to throw as
moth blame as possible upon the persons they have
injured, and thereby to ettennate their own guilt,
and lighten their punishment. The rascally pick-
pocket Is always most virtuous in his indignation at
the unneoewary violence to which he has Wen es-
posed at the hands of the brutal policeman, while
the unfortunate Milner meets with little sympathy,
although be be kicked black and blue in targeting
the prisoner.
So they who oonvehed the meeting at Salisbury
last Tueatay, and they who attended It, hays been
charged, and will be charged, with disturbing the
peace of the dtocess I but we anewer ih the language
of Deborah, "they chose new gods then was war
in the gates." The guilt, if guilt there be, in the
present state of the diocese, mart rest, and shall rest
on the head of the guilty, and they will find them•
selves woefully mistaken, if they think to divert
the blame to those who have stood forth in defence
of the Church of England against her worst, because
her most plausible, enemies.
In tinth that meeting was, in the language of the
day, a great fact unequalled since Salisbury's spire
was reared upon its foundation. Whether we non-
eider the people who were there assembled, or the
'cession, or the place, it is an event that will be long
remembered, an 3 if its influence is not quickly felt
in lessening the evil, against which it protested,
its reaction will be most damaging to the Church
, herself.

Nine hundred men of territorial, political, and '
parochial inartistic's, were met together in that room— ;
two hundred churchwardens, in addition to those I
present, were there by proxy —while several
members of Parliament expressed by letter what the
many who were there expressed in words, their
entire sympathy with the object of the gathering.
The earnest attention that daring nearly four hours I
was given to each speaker, and the ontborit of
sympathy with every strongest expression of
abhorrence of these new doe:annul shewed plainly
enough that the yeomen of Dorset and Was are I
no longer, if ever they were, a set of uneducated
boors, but men who are keenly alive to the
privileges of Protestantism, and the pernicious effects
of Popery • they know what the clergy are bound
to teach them, and they will not submit to have the
High Pieties of their Protestant Church made use of
to betray her principles, and cast oontempt on her
time honoured services.

The occasion of the meeting was as remarkable as
its composition. It was not, as some lave falsely
endeavoured to represent it, a meeting to protest
agaiost Ritualism; that was a very subordinate
subject of oonsideration ; there were no • vague
charges of innovations in vestments, and outward
forms; bet that meeting assembled to protest, end
It did protest in plain, and unmistakeable terms,
against the unprotestant, and unicriptural doctrines
which are contained in the lately published Charge
of the Bishop of the Diocese; and it took • step,
quite unprecedented in modern times (would that it
were not neoesuary) ; it adopted • memorial to the
House of Ltrde, setting forth the Sacerdotal claims
amerted in the Charge and praying that some
tribunal of easy and 614 looms might be instituted,
at which Bishops, Priests, and Deations, might alike
be brought to account; in fact, it virtually arraigned
the Bishop of this Diocese before his Peers, as an
introducer of new doctrines, and • favourer of new
forma of worship, and thereby • disturber of the
peace of the Church.
And where was it held I In Salisbury, just out-
side the gates of his lordship'. palace. In that
town, where by his hospitally and munificence the
Bishop has made himself so popular, that twelve.
months ago such • meeting could not have been
held, and would not have been attempted but now
not a baud was held up against the dignified but
uncompromising condemnation of the Charge, which
is contained in the memorial to the House of Lords.
And not only were the laity there, but SOON forty
clergymen of the diocese showed by their presence
that there are men who know when to be talent and
when to speak. and place their duty to the Church
and their Chureh's God, above mere official courtesy,
or private interest. But we must bear in mind, that
in this diocese there are above ex hundred clergy•
men, to whom that Charge was publicly addressed •
of that number, not fifty could be found, we be:
bees, who redly approve of it. About fifty have
in some way or other declared their dissent from it;
but where are the five hundred? What are they
doing? Cannot they see that they are on their
trial? Do they suppose that men who could form •
meeting like that at Salisbury, will condone their
same* and indifference on such a momentous we
'ion I It is in vain for them to invent excuses for
inaction; to say that one memorial is too strong;
another addressed to the wrong person; that the
meeting was held at the wrong place, or the wrong
time. We tell them that if they are not in earnest,
the laymen are ; and if they wish to retain the
little influence they may have left, they need lose no
time in endeavouring to make up for the opportunity
they have lost.
But with regard to the meeting itself, it is in-
teresting to observe the different pointe from which
different speakers look at these Sacerdotal changes,
while they are all agreed on one subject, namely,
the necessity of resisting these encroachments. And
the palpable dishonesty of the party, and the ground-
lessness of their pretensions, evidently have medial
deep impression on the minds of practical men. One
speaker described the 1100110 at a. Albans Church in
London, and, alluding to the great work asserted to
have been done among the poor of the district by the '
priest of that church, declared that be had
been any poor people in the church, but only young
ladies and gentlemen evidently there for amusement.
Another gave from his own experience, as •
parishioner of S. Peel's, Knightsbridge, an account
of the influence brought to bear, and the means un-
ecreputouely need, to bring the people to church
from the district round Belgravia, and alluded with
deep feeling, which was responded to by the
sympathy of the meeting, to the fact of the division it,
his own family caused by this aporitaoy in the church;
and there were men there, ready to show, if time
had served, what havoc these false doctrines were
making in their own districts and parishes, driving
men away from the church of their forefathers, and
oompellieg them either to rebuilt to • deprivation
of the means of araoe, or to follow the example of
the people of Caine, and leave • church, which has
practically betrayed and deserted them.
We trust that this is but the beginning of • course
of action —that the men that met at Salisbury, feeling
that they are supported by public opinion, will
carry out the principle of open protest against these
things, wherever and whenever they have the
opportunity. They now know "pm whea prusdpie,
the diocese is ruled end governed: let them Liao
observe that is order to carry out those principles,
and to strengthen their influence, the principle of
centralisation is continually employed. Choir. and
Ficieday 'school teachers are invited to meet at Salis-
bury, under my lord's especial patronage, to attend
the Cathedral to be imlootrisated with th"
dangerous teaching of the Charge. Men who are
in earnest in their abhorentis of thous doctriose,
will at coos inform their clergyman that they will
net henoeforth give one shilling to support _ any
choir whose members take part in the Salisbury
oeremonials, nor any school whose teachers go there
to be made familiar with Popish ceremonies. While
the diorama is in its present state, Protestants most
withdraw all aid from &sometime and objects which
are called diocesan. it is no use protesting with 1
words, if we doa't sot accordingly. The practices'
and doctrines which we detest at home, we are not
justified in supporting in distant parts of England,
or in if onolulii, by assisting the Additional Coratcs•
fund or any kindred society. Men must see that
there be no taint of Samordotalians in the works that
they help, and thus the inflows°e of the Salisbury
meeting will be felt by those whoae oonceit is too
vast to permit them to be ashamed, and their stolid
prejudice too thick to be penetrated by argummite
however clear. The union of the higher and middle
chums of the laity and the independent cl
cemented at Salisbury, is an earnest that one more
victory is soon to be added to the hat of those
•hich the great Head of the Church has already in
achieved for his people over Anglicise
days gone by
and Popish enetaim, and the Lauds and Etanerofts of .
the present "Y will, we treat, have to look out for •
new stage whereon to perform their Ritualistic
antics, and strut in the glory of their new fledged
Saosrdolaism,