The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1870-12-20 00:00:00

DORSET CHURCH ARSOCIATION.

TI., annuli meeting of this •-watdari ~,, wee Led en
Tto loy evening, Drouuth-r It, at tb..
[''rob, 'be?. Tb 11.. v. 11. Veal, presded, end there
'ere also Present the Rev. E. W. P...rs (inter ',rt.),
the Rev. 11A' mtnald Smith, the Rev. T. W. Knipe.
the Rev. C. .Y, Bird, and • smell number of thu lcity,
thellading.howeser, several from the couotry, also Mr.
H. Reseuutho, Mt. Scott, Mr. C. Good. Miss Good, Mr.
W. Dixon, Mr. H. S. Me.Donalid, Mr. G. Stanton.
Mi. and Mrs. Taylor, Miss Pears kc. Coeur',
Esq., would have taken the dish, bet he had been
caLcd away (nun home; tha, Rev. W. C. Templer
was prevented unending by business eouneeted with
the education question; and the Rev. llandley
was engaged all Poplin/len night school. Thu meeting
-as opened with prayer by the Viosz of Fordington,
aftrr which the Rev. B. W. Peen reed the report, as
[Arms t
In • leading article In the London Stand4rd upon Mr.
blackunchle% euspestaiian, the writer c enclitics with those
words : " deprecate them antjritusi prosecutions al a nil.,
hut it wee nocewstry that the supremacy of the law should be
asserted, and we regard it as a mdter of congratulaUon that
the dialectician who challis:slml the lace has I,,cn brutish!. to
he'd ;" but Is tau wars: of the mom article we read : •Wo
doormatu entirely the •iiirit whit hee prompted this aml
ithstilar peumoet.th.na They ern *et on fisA by a party which,
under a pretence of a seal for the rigid iibmirvance of tho
rubrics, hes no other object than to obtain an implied modem-
natio of the doctrines held by a rival school in the church,"
Again, "It Is a significant tact that those of the clergy who
are mod open to censure epee the more of neglect, are the
most earnest end Jude atigable in calling down the pains and
penalties of the law upon thorn of their brethren wsie fault,
at any rate, It not attributable either to apathy or liminess."
We have in this mixture of inoonaidency, false assertion, and
eill-spoaking, a moat accurate sketch of the obJectiono raised
im.iinet the Church AsamiaUou, the mod hated pertaipe of all
organisations, became the moot pews/Lai Is truth and fearless-
ness. "rho significant fact" above stated that Use most
earned supporters of Ilse Association are careless or irreverent
clergymen *able Indy In the imagination of the writer. Inas-
much ies the Association later the most part, a lay einociatloe ;
whilst it IL Indeed, a dipillicant fact Ulm Use Idler hostility
of the Ritualiam hue never made them to venture on a moss-
ninon of. one of these slovenly clergyman " wholis In defect of
ritual. of whom we have board so much in tha charges of
bishops and the of high church literaturt. That tho
prosecutions tamed or aided by the Association bays not
been prompted by any wrong motive is clear from their
success dam the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
have by their Judgments endorsed every one of those
prosecutions that bee come before them, and they
who dare not Impugn Use Judgment *ow their
hatred of Protestant truth by railing at the promontory.
During the past year tbc Association ha. steadily kept
before pt the .great object of Its formation, and if it had
dune nothieg els°, it ham deserved the thanks of all Christian
churchmen by altming the absolute wearily of a Bdorm of
the Ecelesdastical Courts, ouch Is that proposed by Lord
Shaftesbury. But It has done more • It has followed Mx.
klackonoehio through all his liotOrimel aUempLis at evasion; it
has showed, meet lendable determination that the judgment
It obtained at so great a cost of labour and money ehel
be trilled with, and at length the law of the Muds is vin-
dicated before the whole country, which had begun to thlak
that that law was a deed letter • and before the whole Beard
of Bishops, who have been waiting with exemplary potions*
until the law was plain Wore they could take dew to put a
stop to the., Innovations; and now )Ir. llsekoneoble is ollent.
In the Immo( We. Porches, twenty nine Ititualidle practims
were condenined In the ArcbesCourt, and there Is little doubt
that Ina few days the other hinavatione sanctioned by that
Court will he condemned by the Judelal Connuimoc. Tici
camel Nr.Voyeey will also soon Le completed, and wo have
little feas• as to the tone.

hut by la'r-th. moat Important cuc I. that of Mr. Bennett,
of Items. The appeal from the most unsatisfactory judgment
of the Arches Court Ma yet to be heard, and If wo have any
, anxiety am to the tome, it arises not from the merits of the
case, but from the nowt tuttcrupu:oll. iofluence which has been
brought to bear upon the cave There can be little doubt but
that torten persum an usitig evcry atoms to prevent • plain
and decisive judgment from tie,ng given, in hopes that the
doctrine of "an objective and Corporal Presence" (for that Is
what is concealed under the ambiguous term "the Real
Presence") may Le left an ..pen queetion In tine chureimerhis,
we fuel, would he • must fatal .lamity. In ludia may he seen
the ruins of splendid buildings, thrown in heaps tipon the
ground; aol them not hurled down by (ha tamped, but
ionsply by • shrub or true, which basin., planted Itself on the
wale drives Its Innis through /be building, and, an they In-
gram, the edifice is rant from the top to tin bottom. For •
wh"u tbe tree Maud supporta the shattered wall.; but at last
it fa Is over by Its own weight, and drags down tha whole fabric
with it. 9,, If once this uniscriptural sad •1111-el.c.4tart lie of
the Real Objective Presence la taloa/el In our Church, be.'
ruin Is certain ; it may be delayed for a time, but not for long.
Party spirit map hold it together, after It. real strength Is
gine ; hut sapontition is • pour substitute for intelligent faith,
at I at length the Chunk rent and nattered by this horsey,
must fall to the ground; bettor- far better, so than that she
should enjoy her primal. pri v I IcTuß. and bold forth • film light
to the pee* at lance.
. . .

Thew; proceedlng;, successful as they have been. are, h0w-
...0r, attended with enurnione oxpunau, and the prudence of
r....eg a guarantee fund begonias more apparent every day.
We trust lust the subscribers to that fund will not be sur-
prised at the yearly calls mule upon them This men. to be
the turoing.pOna In the Illstory of this conAlct within our
Church; Ued gives us every emoUragornent to persevere, and
Then) Id every prove., that Inn few mouthi the hardeet work
will be over; the law will be clear, end the ilielsops will have
no didiculty in doing their duty.
Our own Associal.on continues to hold it. own. A few more
name. .11 be missed from our I,st of subscribers, but thole
places Cr. for the must pa, t filled up. Whilst, therefore, we
have much reia•On for thanlfulnet. to 0.1 for post iniacewe,
we have no excuse for e01.1,1o.• ~r indifrot Jaen. if our Church
i.to stand, it can only be supported by the hearty union of
Lainseu sod Clergy, such a. is exhibited in the Church
Autociat ion. _

The CHAIRMAN, In formally metier( the &fruition of
the report, said the conviction daily deepened in his
mind that while their 111100CSA as an Association
increased, the danger conniet.24 with the subject of
lit:Winn scented to him to increase in almost equal
penortion, and on the grounds: men of the world,
Who may have had WINO strong feelings &phut
ritualism, and who saw its fellies, perhaps, in some
initanon, far more clearly than canny religions pro-
lemon—men and women of the world, who cinstitated
the great proportion of their orrigrogetions, became
tired of these subjects, and that he believed was as
much as any other the reason why their meetings wore
often so small. Another danger was, that the
frequent repetition of falsehood often leads to belief:
men who were eoctinaelly repeating what was untrue,
at length regarded it as true, and with numbers of
persons that was the osse in regard to ritudiMis
doctrines, only in a rather reflex way. In coarse of
time people become reconciled in a manure to them,
and would rather suffer the oilstones of such error. and
evil practices—for he did consider ritualistic proceed-
thoroughly evil— than have the trouble at opposing
them and the pain of 'tieing • Urge number of
brethren leave the Church. 13et that snob a
eem.esion would weaken the °harsh he bad
no fear, he believed it would call forth
caned prayers for the teaching of the Spirit,
Led that God would raise up men full of Leith and of
the Holy Ghost. There was another danger—he had
seen it operettas In several Instances, vie the tendency
of the ritualist. to speak soft words to the Evengelical
churchmen. Within tholes* few days one had said to
him, "We can sympathise with you more readily than
you can with us—we highly value the preaching of
evangelical truth in our churches,and the darkenss and
repel you preach are to us the very breath of our
noMails." This he was told even of such men as New-
man. They are said to esteem the teaching of their
youth, which they profess to have been EvenpUsal,
dower than life itself, What wen. they to think
such elatements ? Whatever might be the one as to
Individuals. as to the party he believed II was a device
of the roomy; and the only reply he could give was,
that when he weld bo convinced that black was white
then would he believe that Newman could esteem
dearer than life the doctrine of justification by faith
only through gran, against which doctrine he bad
written • treatise, and that any of that peril
holding the decrees of the Omni' of
Trent calla esteem that doctrine as the breath of their
nostril.. He mentioned those things to show the
dangers that existed, and to warn them spinet being
misled by feelings of obatity to tolerate ritualistic
doctrine, and practices. HeNtrged them not to turn
aside In the least degree from the simple truths of the
gospel, as put forth in the most striking and simple
manner, as he believed, In our liturgy.
Dr. HARRISON, of Warrington, the deputation, re-
marked that the Church Association is the only organ-
isation connected with the Church of England.
endevouring to find out what really is the law, and,
having dome that, to eafone it Ile had hard a story
of • bear entering a bowie ai a man with hls wife and
family were at dinner. The children ran up onus, and
John, the husband, hurriedly followed, trembling with
fear. But the wife, more courageous, seized the poker,
end began belabouriog the intruder. Her husband, in his
safe position, contented himself with feeble shouts of
"Give it him ;" but, at length, when the wife had
caused the bar to retreat, John came down aud com-
plaisantly remarked, "How well we turned him out,
Betty !"—(laughter). Now, he (the lecturer) was afraid
that many in the Church of England were acting very
mush as John did. They professed to be Evangelical
churchmen, and to desire that ritualism should be
expelled from our churches, but they remained at the
top of the stairs while others set themselves to turn
out the boar, and when, at last, should it please God to
erown the aliens of the workers with suceses, the
lookers-on would no doubt be found ready to my "How
well we have don it"—(bear, hear). He felt that it
was the bounden duty of every Protestant Churchman
to connect himself with this association, because it was
the only agency which was seeking to peege the church
of meal whose doctrine and premien were ineonsistect
with our reformed religion. The first shot fired
against the Protestantism it this weary was in
1833, when aponolied 1111000SIA011 wee pat forward,
Sines then a great deal of progress had been made, so
that now we have proomeions with barmen &admen&
°meddles, surplieed &Mrs, Communion tables tarried
into alien, the Book of Common Prayer slighted and
onneted ; and, in foot, airtime unknown in the
mereh of England for 300 years, were DOIR handle's&
The Reformers and the Reformation were spoken of
most dispengindty, and the whole oysters was seoh as
was ambulated to lead the mind of any earnest 1/01,
shipper to Popery. A 1121.14162 confession was taught,
with priestly absolution, and treasubdantiation—
Poplin doserines sod Popish practices. fleeing that
Uwe things were permitted, they could Dot but se-
quin. is the Chung' of Ragland really Protestant? He
had an hesitation in saying she was thoroughly Protes-
tant, and that the ritualists were her enemies. The
pretreat position of ritualism in the church had been
arrived at by gradual steps. Some sime ago in a church
UAW where he lived, a surplicied choir was introduced:
—now, be was act gong to give his opinion as to a
mirpliried suitahaly wag poi Popery; bid MU I