The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-04-05

RIrUALIsM IN THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.
The ritualistic movement in the Established
Church of England, and her daughter, the
American Episcopal Church, is on the in
crease. and includes among its advocates
the most cultivated, learned, jealous, and
iberal-minded clergymen and laity Of those
ecclesiastical organizations, Ritualism may
be considered as IN upheaval Of the truly
religious instincts among dissenters from
the Catholic Church a growing sympathy
with the usages of ancient Christianity, as
exhibited in the Catholic Church, and rs IN
earnest protest against the low latitudina-
rianism of ultra Pr .testantism.
The London Times, in q notice of the
latest development in the Episcopal Church,
remarks that:
\Ritualism is only an engine of warfare
It is employed as the proper defense, and
most singing retaliation, not only against
what is called anti-ritualism, and mere
slOvenliness, but against Evangelicalism,
rationalism, and modern freedom OfthOught.
A clergyman is allowed to publish peculiar
views on inspiration, eternity of punish
ment, and to explain away mysteries. So,
instead of refusing him, Or moving the
bishop with a view to legal proceedings, the
neighboring clergy light candles, wear stoles
of quaint device, make professions, and
practice movements and gestures supposed
to have the sanction of an unknown an
tiquity. When people complain, the answer
is, "Why don't you complain of Mr.. So and
So, who explains away our faith altogether?
Which is worse, Il gilt cross, OF no cross at
all-emblems OF reality"
So great is the tendency toward the revi-
val of the usages of the ancient Church in
Anglicanism, and so rapid is the solid in
crease of the Catholic Church in Great
Britain, that many of the most absurd and
childish prejudices against our holy religion
have melted away before the light of truth
and candid investigation for, according to
the London Tablet:
To popular Professionalism forty years ago
Catholicism was odiOus, absurd, and wicked
by reason of those very observances which
are now adopted by large section of the
clergy of the Church of England, and which
now, in many parishes and country districts,
are enthusiastically welcomed and followed
by the Protestant laity. 1t was not the
canons of Trent, nor the catechism of the
Council which revOlted the Protestant pre-
JUDGE. 1t was our candles and vestments,
our incense and our genuf1ectiOns. 1t was
prayers for the dead, purgatory, monastic
vows, fasting and abstinence, the<invoca-
LlOn OF the SAINTS, anu auFlculareOnIeSSl
Well, so great is the change that not only
all these things themselves, but everything
in their direction, everything which sug-
gests them, exercises a>powerful attraction, |
is relished and sought after with avidty in
England. These things no longer afford
Protestants useful topics for invective
against us, forthey are in vogue among Pro-
testants themselves. Protestant bishops
tell us that the attempts made to check |
them have increased them. The Bishop of
says that if the Legislature inter
yenes against them, it will break up the
Protestant Church. And DR.. Cumming,
who finds signs everywhere where he isnot,
and in all countries of which he knows
nothing, that the Papacy is tottering to its
fall, is obliged to make n solitary exception
of England, where lie lives himself, and has
an opportunity of judging, and where.
Popery is making such advances that he
believes that the great battle will
be fought in England.
BLACKwooD's MAGAZINE.-The eminent
position of this magazine in literature
causes it's sentiments to have weighty con-