AN IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO.

143

order, distribution, and arrangement of the services, are points, to deal with which the authority of the right reverend prelates would suffice, without any appeal to the House of Lords or the other House of Parliament;"-and his lordship expresses a hope that they may be able to make some recommendations, which (he adds), no doubt, would be received with the greatest respect."

Hope, we have heard said, and have ourselves too often experienced, will occasionally tell a flattering tale; and we have learned, consequently, to distrust its syren voice.

But supposing, in the present case, the hope to be no longer hope, but a certainty ;-supposing, that is to say, the right reverend prelates were to concur in recommending certain alterations in the Rubric, as far as regards "the order, distribution, and arrangement of the services," are we any nearer the mark than we were before? Will the recommendation of any number of right reverend prelates supersede the authority of an Act of Parliament ? This would be, as the Home Secretary observed the other day in reference to the issue of a special commission in the Road murder case, "highly unconstitutional, and a departure from the principles upon which this country has long been governed."*

""Twould be recorded for a precedent;

And many an error, by the same example,
Would rush into the State.-It cannot be."

Is the writer of England's political history from the peace of Utrecht to that of Aix-la-Chapelle prepared to maintain the doctrine of such an imperium in imperio as regards the State? And if not as regards the State, upon what principle would he advocate it as regards the Church? For ourselves,

* Sir G. Cornewall Lewis's letter to the Mayor of Bath, Sept. 3, 1860. The same may be said of the attempt to appoint bishops for heathen lands without previous nomination by the Crown. See a well-written tract on this subject, entitled "The Royal Supremacy," by Anglican (the Rev. D. Mountfield, Oxon, Salop). London: Hatchard. 1862.

we recognise no law of human authority except the law of the land. And we hold that law to be essentially dependent on the concurrent approval of the three estates.

"To this favour must we come at last."

And if at last, why not at first? Why not appoint at once a commission of bishops, with other clergy and laity, to consider the question in all its bearings, and then, upon their joint report, invite Parliament to give its sanction to the suggested alterations?

What is the noble Earl afraid of? We have read his historical pages with interest, and see in them nothing but sound argument and common sense. Why cannot his lordship bring the same principles to bear upon this matter that he does upon the Reformation of the Calendar, which he designates as "the chief and most successful measure of the Session of 1751 ?"*

Why should England in 1860 be branded in effect (though not in so many words) by his lordship, as Russia is in his book for its conduct respecting the Calendar a hundred years ago? Why should the statu-quoists of our generation be encouraged in "clinging to an exploded system," for no better reason than because there is a little difficulty in establishing the new?

Let Earl Stanhope himself be one of a dozen Commissioners, with Lords Lyttelton and Ebury as colleagues,† and we will undertake to assure him that there is more likelihood of the public being satisfied with their report than with any amount of "recommendations" proceeding from bishops and archbishops, aided by all the concentrated wisdom of "the rival Parliament over the way."

* Lord Mahon's History of England, vol. iv., chap. 31.

These three were included in the Commission on Clerical Subscription, which did at least something towards removing the ills complained of.

BISHOP WILBERFORCE AND LORD EBURY, MAY 8, 1860. 145

Nothing is so narrow as class legislation. The Church has suffered from time immemorial under this dire infliction. Dissent owes its strength, and even its very existence, to it. And we are convinced that there is no other mode of extrication from the difficulties surrounding the question, than a mixed commission of clergy and laity, with authority to take the whole subject into their consideration; and required to report in due time the result of their labours to that tribunal on which alone the nation at large reposes in perfect confidence.*

I remain, yours, &c.,

Sept. 13, 1860.

"INGOLDSBY."

LETTER XCVI.

THE BISHOP OF OXFORD (WILBERFORCE), IN REPLY TO LORD EBURY, MAY 8, 1860.

"Proinde tona eloquio, solitum tibi.”—VIRGIL.

"Nay, an thou'lt mouth,

I'll rant as well as thou."-HAMLET.

SIR,-Earl Stanhope having resumed his seat, Earl Granville next addressed a few words to the House, to the effect that, as Lord Ebury's motion did not appear to meet with

A repeal or modification of the Act of Uniformity is advocated by many in preference to a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Book of Common Prayer. The two are, however, perfectly distinct in their objects, and should not be confounded. The repeal of the Act of Uniformity would, no doubt, give great relief to our Dissenting brethren, but nothing but a Royal Commission can deal effectually with a Revision of the Prayer-book. Supposing the Act of Uniformity repealed at this moment, every imperfection in the Prayer-book would still remain. The Bishop of Worcester (Philpott) well observes in his late Charge, p. 51, “There is no way, as far as I can see, of getting rid of the difficulty, other than by revising and altering the rules upon which the difficulty arises." London: Bell and Daldy. 1862.

k

acceptance from the Right Reverend Bench, it would be advisable to withdraw it; and there the debate seemed likely to terminate, as it had done under somewhat similar circumstances in 1858.

At this point, however, the Bishop of Oxford-—who had made himself conspicuous throughout the evening, "flitting here and there with all the restlessness of quicksilver about that part of the House where the Bishops sit, nudging the elbows of one of his coadjutors, whispering a word in the ear of another, and in passing by plucking his brother of Lincoln by the sleeve,"* stepped briskly forward to the table of the House, and taking his stand directly fronting Lord Ebury, thus began one of his well-known harangues, which on the present occasion lasted, without a pause, for about half an hour:

"My lords: Had I not felt convinced that the noble lord, in submitting his motion to the notice of the House, had no other object in view than the benefit of the Church of which he is a member, I should hardly have felt myself called upon to trouble your lordships with any remarks with respect to it."

"Quid dignum tanto," thought I to myself, when I had a little recovered my faculties from the suspense in which they had been held during the delivery of this pompous exordium

"Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu ?"

Is he going to tell us that, however true a friend to the Church the noble lord may be, the Bishop of Oxford is a truer?-However ardent Lord Ebury's desire to prove the sincerity of his love by removing her blemishes and defects, the Bishop would outdo him by his fixed determination to retain them?-Will he presently appeal to the mighty works he has

See leading article in Bell's Weekly Messenger of May 12th, 1860.

THE RIVALS IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, MAY 8, 1860. 147

done at Cuddesdon, Lavington,* Boyne-hill, and the like, as against any credentials his rival can produce in token of his affection; exclaiming lustily in Ercles' vein :

"I love, I too, the Church. Forty thousand Eburys
Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum.-What woul't thou do for her?
Zounds, show me what thoul't do!

Woul't weep? woul't fight? woul't fast? woul't tear thyself?
Woul't drink up Esil? eat a crocodile ?—
I'll do't.-Dost thou come here to whine,
To outface me by talking of REVISION ?—
Be buried quick with her, and so will I!
And if thou prate of mountains-

Hold there; if we mistake not, the noble lord said not a word
of "mountains,”-it was the bishop, and the bishop alone,
whose towering imagination carried him so near the skies.†
The noble lord, in a quiet, inoffensive, and, we thought,
almost too submissive tone, had simply begged the Right
Reverend Bench to lend him an attentive ear, while he set
forth to the best of his poor ability what he believed to
be defects in the Prayer-book, and the means whereby he
thought they might be remedied.
ceived more humble than this?

Can anything be conWhat foundation did it

afford upon which to erect the following grandiloquent super

structure ?

"I cannot for a moment admit that the Prayer-book of the Church was a compromise, but I believe, though not a compromise, it was intended to be a comprehension-—

(Curious comprehension, which expelled at one fell stroke two thousand ministers of religion from their homes, and sent

The Bishop had lately been presiding at a harvest home at this place, where we are told he recommended the company to go out and enjoy the games in spite of the rain, which would never hurt "us Sussex folk, who are neither sugar nor salt!" Lavington, it is now almost forgotten, was the scene of some of the earliest demonstrations of that Ritualism which has since been the cause of so much disquietude in the Church. (1878.)

+ See before, Letter LXXI., p. 11.