The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-26
RITUALLSM.
Views I'd tue Archbishop OF Cauterbury-He
Regards lt as an xvii.

Regards it as an Evil.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has ad-
dressed letter to the chairman of the Ports
mouth branch of the Church Association, in
answer to a memorial forwarded to him,
signed by upwards of 20O0 lay and clerical
members Of the United Church of England
and IEeland The memorialists complain of
the adoption, by party within the Church,
of doctrines and practices alien to the purity
of the Reformed faith, and express their sim
dignant sorrow and surprise at the supineness
and apathy that have prevailed for SO long
period on the part of their ecclesiastical
rulers The Primate writes under date of
August %
the Church of England should feel indignant
at practices and doctrines which have in some
places sprung up during the last twenty years,
having manifest tendency to assimilate the
worship and teaching of our pure, Scriptural,
and Reformed Church to the system of the
Church OF Rome. But cannot in any way
agree with you in the belief that this evil is
owing to supineness and apathy on the part
of the bishops. You must be we'll aware
that the beneiced clergy of the Church of
England are not, like the priests of
some portions of the Church of Rome,
dependent for their position on the
arbitrary will of their bishops, nor, like some
Dissenting ministers, liable to be removed
by vote of their congregations, or of the
heads of their community. |, for my part,
whatever disadvantages may follow from this
freedom of the clergy, rejoice that it is
secured TO them, and that no clergyman of
the Church of England can be removed until
he has had fair and open trial before COM
petent tribunal, in which his violation of the
law of the Church has been legally proved.
/ agree with what presume is your wish,
that the points at issue might, as the Ritual
Commission has suggested, be decided in some
less expensive and more expeditions manner,
and have always expressed my readiness to
assist in improving our legislation in this
direction. But cannot attribute blame to
those who while the Legislature has shown
no disposition to intrust the bishops with
great authority, have thought it their duty,
however much their patience has been tried,
always to act according to law, and not to
seek some arbitrary mode of crushing those
whose opinions they disapprove, when such
power is not conferred upon them either by
the Church or the law of the land. In the
midst of the anxiety of disquieted age
!. and the rancor of parties, 1 look, in
y common with my brethren of the Episcopate
to the Great Head of the Church to aid us, in
His own good time, in our faithful endeavors
to maintain His honor; and feel sure that
by His blessing the truly Scriptural character
OF our Reformed Church, as set forth in our
formularies, will at last be vindicated, and
our Church, retaining its hold on the affec-
tions of this great people, will preserve its
acknowledged position as the exponent of an
enlightened Christianity, laboring to promote
education, boldly rebuking vice, aud standing
forth as the bulwark at once against supersti-
tion and infdelity.