The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1868-05-05 00:00:00

PUDDLEHINTON.

Toe Rireoe's PAMPHLET. —We hoped that the
foolish attempt to introduce novelties into the church
I at Puddlehinton, having been met by a courteous but
firm opposition, would have been permitted to sink
into oblivion, but the reverend introducer of those
novelties is determined that the wound shall sot be
healed, if be can keep it open. We can conceive
DO Other motive which could have induced him to print
an address, which is now before us, and circulate it
privately throughout his parish, omitting, of course
accidentally, to send a copy to that " dissatisfied
minority" to whose remonstrances, on some future
occasion. he will not think it necessary to pay attention.
And as he alludes to "a newspaper called the Dorset
Express," we should fail in courtesy if we did not
allude to the paper printed for "private circulation."
In reference to the two paragraphs in our paper, he
states that one "sin. against truth," and that in a
statement of the other "there is not a word of truth,"
and that both of them shew "the utter want of
religious feeling in the opposition shown to his flower
decorations.' The paragraphs were published openly;
would it not have been better to show wherein they
were untrue, and that publicly? If we ever unin-
tentionally mistake a circumstance, our oolums are
ever ori
se to a correction. Or is it more consistent with
the "re 'ous feeling" which so evidently want, to cir-
culate p irately, among comparatively ignorant people,
such serious charges, sarefull y avoiding petting them
in the hands of those parishioners who are really
the persons attacked? that winking "minority", that
presumes to have an *pinion of its own, and includes
within it all the most intelNent and influential in-
habitants, including both churchwardens, as well as all
the other pariah offline& "But" says the address, "if a
clergyman shows plainly for some years his honest desire
to be a faithful minister of the Church, the least that
his people can do is to trust him, and to feel assured
that, even if for • moment, he seems to then to he going
astray from his principles, he has no such intention or
thought." The rev, gentleman plainly does not vet
know that "these little out of the way villages, in thisfar away part of the lend," have "grown in spiritual
knowledge" beyond the power of the transparent
mohistries at the sentence, quoted above, to mislead
them. If properly analysed that sentence oontains in
Itself, wrapped up in very mild language, the essence of
that Popery with which be shrinks frem being °bergs&
Flowers in churches stay be harmless; the doctrine of
that sentence is pernicious. It is the laying down, as
a matter of course sod beyond dispute, that in a
matter of such infinite importance as the salvation of
ourselves, and our children, we are not to judge for our.▪ ; and even if our Priest seems to be going astray,
we are "to trust him," and not to believe what we hear
or see. But how does a clergyman plainly sheer
his honest desire to be a faithful minister of the
Gospel? Not surely by letting men of all opinions
occupy his pulpit I Not by asking his people
to-day to listen to a man who publicly unites with
those who advocate the celebration of the Lord's
Supper at funerals, as the last Aloe of the Church in
behalf of her deceased members; and then next week
to another who preaches the simple gospel of salvation
by grace. This proceeding may be a mark of eisclesi.
esti& charity, but can hardly be described as " plainly
showing" anything at all, except it be the fearful de-
termination to bring all preaching into contempt, and
to lead the people to 'suppose that it does not matter
what a man says, so long as he is a clergyman, ordained by a Bishop, and preaches in a regularly consecrated
building. Now the Bible, to which we find no reference in
the address in support of these novelties, gives us direc-
tions to go " to the law end to the testimony," and if
men do not speak (and act) according to them, there is
no light in them. It does not tell us to take anything
upon greet: if our Lord himself directed the Jews " to
search the Scriptures," why does not the reciter of
Puddlehinton? The only garlands we reed of in the
Bible are those which "the priest of Jupiter" brought
to do swill°. to Paul and &vitalise. And their in-
dignation is as nothing to His wrath at such follies,
who has said that "11. is a 'pith. and requires those
that worship Him to worship Him in spirit and in
truth." Is it not
se strliZlha
express t any clergyman should
quin and • tMn at not lseing trusted,
when introducing these novelties? Is his parish such
an "out of the way village" that he has never heard
of the heresy that is shaking our Church to the foun•
dation ? he ever hoer of the Tracts; for the Times?

Flee the name of Puseyilea and Ritualistanever reschei
Ms eve? Surely he would say with 'he Queen of
°art hage : -
Nee IdUZI arenas puce Pushl44 Sol Nagai al, thaton.
Which hi. parishioners would translate -

We are an wide awake ajar neakhbatua.
If he hie riot, goat Rimy of his paristionsra hsve,
and they know' that in almost everi ere the grN stela
abominations fiefs bleen intioducM by deco -a ion*
the chip eh ; and intrmliked by men, who redeemed as
great a hatred for popery's the Hector of Puddle'. inten
They therefore may wi•ely invent agt that, which
at best is senseleu, but which they know to he produc-
tive of evil. Their protest has hese, we brow
studiously courteous, but open and firm. But if any-
thing could increase their distrust, and make it re,
feet's' reaconsble, it is the way in which these novel
detentions were put up. It is all very well
" B*ll be to him who evil thinks," but whatever is done
stealthily it sure to excite suspicion. If the rev. gen-
tleman was only acting "in the true spirit of a bel ever
in bestowing all puns and we on such a loving work'
(which ie just ths faehionsb'e twaddle, with which
every abuse is being intraduced into the church), why
did be mil let his parishioners know of it, that they
might help in this" loving weak r. Why, if his
parishioners' well known feelings were to be tried, end
trilled with, go about it in suck a secret meaner•
thereby making suspicion doubly envisions? We bad
no desire no intention to return to this subject, but
has been forced upon us by the unwise adduce of the
rev. gentleman. We recommend him to study a little
more the pas-ages he quotes from the Bible. He will
find that Christian charity is something very different
from that which be represents it to be. That "thinking
no evil" does not imply indifferenoe to the truth, or a
stuptd shutting of the eyes to every danger—that
though not "easily provoked,' it may wish these that
"preach another gospel to be aostweed," and "those
cut off that trouble the church." Awl if he knows
anything of the feeling of the laity of Dorset, be will
know that they will aot be imported upon by any
affectation of guileless simplicity, nor submit to the
assumption of sacerdotalism even in its mildest and
most diluted form. In the meanwhile "the newspaper
called the Dorset /repress" will not wade to expose
every attempt that is made to introduce any kind of
Ritualism into the perish charebee of this county, and
to warn people against the first baidione advances of
this pest a our church.