The Express.
London, England, 1866-06-16 00:00:00

THE
_E**Ss SATUR:

tures. Mr. HUNT, a country clergyman in the
west of England, for instance, defended the ante`
Reformation form of ritualism in a prolehgei puNio
debate at Clifton five weeks ago, and recently
delivered a lecture on the same subject at Bath,
in which he strenuously maintained that ritualism I
is essential io the reputation and support of the
Christian religion. In the first lecture he offered
onbehalf of a wealthysupPorter of Ritualism " that
"if any congregation in the diocese wished to
" adopt the vestments, he would purchase as
" handsome a set as they could desire entirely at
" his own expense and give it to them." It would
no doubt be unwise to attach any very great im-
portance to such outbursts of zeal and enthu-
siasm if they were merely of an isolated or local
character. But taken in connexion with other
facts familiar to those who take an interest in
ecclesiastical questions, it is impossible not to re-
gard them as signs of a powerful current that has
already swept away many ancient landmarks,
and threatens to submerge all that is distinctly
Protestant in the service of the Episcopal Church.
This is, indeed, the avowed object of the move-
ment, its leaders habitually denouncing every-
thing Protestant id the strongest terms. Mr. HUNT
is reported to have stigmatised the change of the
term " altar "in the Prayer-book as disgraceful to
Protestantism, and to have remarked " that he
" could not for the life of him see why any Pro-
" testant should go to church, the whole of the
" Protestant religion being purely subjective."
The Marquis of WESTMEATH, in presenting a num-
ber of petitions against these Romish practices of
the Ritualists, stated that they prevailed in no leas
than ten dioceses throughout the country, and
that in many they were carried out by the clergy
in direct defiance of the expressed wish and judg-
ment of their episcopal head. It is certainly not
surprising that such a movement should at length
have attracted the serious notice of the Episcopal
Bench, of Convocation, and of Parliament itself.
The only wonder, perhaps, is that it should have
been allowed to attain its present proportions
without any authoritative attempt having been
made to control its extravagances or arrest its pro-

gam.
Looked at on this practical side, however, the
subject is undoubtedly surrounded with serious
difficulties. In a time like the present of active
research and inquiry in relation to theological
and ecclesiastical questions, there is a growing
disinclination towards attempting to secure unifor-
mity of forms and practice within the Church by
appeals to a legal tribunal. This unwillingness
arises partly, perhaps, from a growing conviction
of the comparative inutility of such appeals, and
partly, perhaps, from an obscure sense of the ra-
dical unfitness of mere legal machinery to secure
the end in view. Most generous and discerning
minds instinctively recoil from any attempt to
arrest the progress of eminent individual thought,
or suppress the further development of ecclesi-
astical life, by more force. Where the departure
from established usage has arisen mainly
from mistaken views or misguided zeal,
most liberal and enlightened friends of the Church
would be disposed with the Bishop of RIPON to
trust, in the first instance at least, to the good
sense and good feeling of the innovators, and look
for the correction of error from the gradual diffu-
sion of clearer light and fuller knowledge on the
question in dispute. But after all, there is no
doubt in many cases a point beyond which this
policy of inaction cannot safely be carried.
And it is certainly not only a fair but a very im-
portant question for the Church whether the
Ritualist movement is not a case of this kind, and
whether it has not already reached a point at which
it is useless to expect any voluntary return to
ordinary usage from the mere action of
opinion, whether legal or otherwise. In many
respects the movement is peculiar if not unpre-
cedented, and may, therefore, receive excep-
tional treatment. We take, for example, the
novel and menacing form of an organized
revolt against episcopal authority. In re-
lation to disputed administrative details, of
which their ecclesiastical superiors are judges and
directors, the Romanising clergy not only oppose,
but ridicule, vituperate, and defy their bishops.
This amounts, as the Earl of HARROWBY pointed
out the other evening, to a virtual abandonment
of the episcopal system. " The Church," he said,
" was in danger of becoming anything but epic-
" copal. It was fast degenerating into a church
" of independents ; save that, instead of each con-
" gregation having a right to determine what its
" customs should be, every clergyman claimed the
" right of determining on his own course without
" reference either to his bishop or his congrega-
" tion. He hoped that the time would never
" come when young men, full of the insolence of
" youth and of imperfect knowledge, would be
" allowed, in defiance of the feeling of their neigh-
" bourhoods and the authority of their bishops,
" to set up a church which was neither Anglican
" nor Protestant." Butapart from the revolutionary
character of the movement in an ecclesiastical
point of view, the practical evils it produces are
of the gravest kind. It is fast introducing, espe-
cially in country districts, an element of bitter
discord into congregations that have hitherto wor-
shipped harmoniously together. In many parishes
the most intelligent, wealthy, and influential mem-
bers of the congregation have been driven
away in disgust by the ceremonies of florid
Ritualism. No previous movement in the Church
ever produced, or was to anything like the same
extent fitted to produce, such disastrous practical
results. During the last quarter of a century it
has frequently happened, no doubt, that an evan-
gelical incumbent was succeeded by a broad
churchman or a high churchman, and many mem-
bers of the congregation would naturally, under
such circumstances, regret the change. But the
service remaining substantially as of old, they
have quietly acquiesced in the substitution. But
the new movement destroys what has hitherto been
found a strong bond of union amongst all parties,
high or low, lord or commoner, within the Estab-
lishment—the simple and decent Protestant service
of the Anglican Church. In this practical aspect
the ritualistic movement has a very serious bearing
on the prosperity, and eventhe continued existence,
of the national Church, and it may fairly be ques-
tioned, therefore, whether it may not ultimately
become necessary to adopt the remedy suggested
by the Bishop of LONDON.

THE AUSTRIAN ARMY.—In consequence of nume-
rous applications to the Austrian embassy, we have been
authorised to state that the notice issued by the Austrian
War-office respecting the employment of medical men in
the imperial army and navy does not apply to foreisnera.
Only in case the number of medical men who studied in
Austrian or German universities should prove insufficient
will the Austrian War-ofike be authorised to accept the
sevices of foreign surgeons. It will then issue a notice to
that effect.—Times. - -

The Berlin Town Council is in the market for a
loan of three millions, to be issued at • discount of fully 10
per cent. The rate of interest, which minor be reduced
during the first five years, is fixed at 5 per cent. The pro-
duce of this operation, the like of which has not been
heard of in the last 50 years of Prussian history, is to be
employed in public works to be constructed by the starving
operatives.