The Industrial Review, Social and Political. — 1878-07-13 (London, England)

RITUALISTIC PRACTICES.  MR. EDWARD JENKINS made an excellent speech, and called forth a useful discussion, on moving a series of resolutions, beginning with the proposal of an address to the Crown for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Ritualistic practices of many of the clergy as contrary to law and usage, and bordering upon the doctrines and ceremonies of the Church of Rome. The Church of England, as he argued, is a State Establishment, liable to (alteration and revision, with a view of being brought from time to time more strictly into conformity with the sentiments of the majority of the people of this country. When the State established the Church, it dpfined its doctrines, ceremonies, and dogmas. It excluded other doctrines, dogmas, and ceremonies, well known, well defined, and protested against by a vast majority of the people. That House bore no unimportant part in the Great Reformation, to which are owing the political, spiritual, and intellectual emancipation which the country now enjoyed; and the people would continue to look to that House as the truest and most vigorous guardian of their Protestant liberties. If, as he alleged, a conspiracy existed, organised, indefatigable, and increasing, for the purpose of altering the doctrines and practices of the Church, and bringing it back to the Middle Ages, surely it was time to institute inquiry as to the truth of these allegations. In this argument, Mr. Jenkins sustained himself by extracts from well-known publications by Dr. Pusey and other clergymen of the same school. In particular, he cited a manual of confession, edited by Dr. Pusey, to show that the authority of the clergyman was interposed between that of the parent and the child, and that clergymen were en joined that even if a confession of murder were made to them they must not disclose it. The motion found a hearty seconder in Mr. Greene, who, as an avowed member of the Church of England, charged with breach of trust those of the clergy who, in ritual or in teaching, deviated from the spirit of the Reformation and opposed, instead of upholding, Protestant principles. Mr. Beresford Hope opposed the motion, but in a style, abating its grotesqueness, which rather tended to its support, and, in fact, amounted to letting judgment go by default. "If," he said, "the member for Dundee did succeed, he would put all parties, Ritualistic and Evangelical, High Church and Low Church, Dissenting and Establishment, so thoroughly at sixes and sevens that if he succeeded in anything, he would succeed in the disestablishment of the Church." The other representative of the University of Cambridge, Mr. \Valpole, took grounds of technical objection to the inquiry proposed. The matter was now taken to a Court of Appeal; and, should the law prove equal to the occasion, it were best to leave the law to take its course; but, should the law be found insufficient, then, indeed, there would be strong ground for inquiry, and not that alone, but new legislation. In the meantime, he believed the evil to be confined to a few persons,  The Chancellor of the Exchequer met the question with a considerable amount of fairness. He deplored and repudiated those  [