REV. C. H. DAVIS ON REVISION.

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compass." There are, however, certain subjects which do not admit of this compression (generally so desirable), without leading to the fatal consequence of which we are forewarned by the poet in our motto of to-day. Of this nature that of Liturgical Revision eminently partakes ;— witness the eight previous treatises of our indefatigable author on the same topic !-witness the almost innumerable publications that have issued upon the same subject from other pens within the last few years-witness Mr. Fisher's "Liturgical Purity," extending to 667 pages !-witness (if we may be permitted to say so) the "Ingoldsby Letters," now running beyond their three-score and ten, and yet finding the work growing daily, like the Hydra of Hercules, upon the author's hands.

The result of Mr. Davis's attempt at compression is, to our judgment, anything but satisfactory; while we by no means withhold from him the praise, which is justly his due, of exhibiting thus in small compass a vast weight of authority for the various amendments in the Prayer-book suggested in his volume. No small amount of credit is also due to Messrs. Seeley and Jackson for the manner in which their portion of the task has been executed. Whatever clearness of type, varied headings, divisions and sub-divisions of chapters and sections, could accomplish, has been done; while still one is obliged to confess that the attempt at a continuous perusal produces a feeling of lassitude somewhat akin to one's sensations upon awaking at midnight after an undigested supper upon lobster salad. The matter oppresses one, and is not greatly relieved by the manner in which it is served up.

Chapter I. treats of "The Case as it is," and to that one topic we mean to confine ourselves to-day.

The author specifies four causes as having tended, of late, to direct public attention to the importance of Revision. We

think he might have enlarged here with advantage, instead of compressing.

Many causes besides those mentioned (which are rather, indeed, secondary than primary-rather consequents, in fact, than antecedents) have combined, within the last two or three years, to revive the almost extinct question of Liturgical Revision. Mr. Davis, for example, omits altogether the presentation of the original petition by Lord Robert Grosvenor in the House of Commons in 1857-a far more important step, in our judgment, than the presentation of that of the 460 clerical petitioners in 1859; in just so much as the House of Commons is superior to the House of Lords as an index of public opinion; and in just so much as the petition of 1857 was the first breaking of the ice, the premier pas, the value of which we all know; the identifying, in short, a wellknown public character with a single question. That first petition, moreover, was comprehensive in its character, * and, by consequence, not exposed to the but too just criticism which Lord Lyttelton has passed upon that of the 460 petitioners, of being "one-sided." We take upon ourselves to express our firm conviction, that had the type of that first petition been followed in all subsequent stages of this business, we should never have heard of the Westminster manifesto of December, 1859, and the stress therein laid on the danger of disturbing the "peace and unity" of the Church.

Secondly, Mr. Davis takes no notice of the enormous impulse given to the question of Revision by the conduct of the Romanising party within the Church, " the alarming state of the diocese of Oxford," the affair of West Lavington,† Mr. Poole, the battle of the Boyne, the riots at St. George's, and other similar matters, which are all more or less traceable

See the Petition at length, Vol. I., Letter Iv., p. 21.

+ See "A Statement submitted to the Clergy of the Diocese of Chichester, by an English Churchman." Second Edition. Hatchard and Co. 1858.

NOLUMUS LEGES ANGLIE MUTARI.

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to the fact of the Prayer-book itself being not sufficient to meet the difficulties that have arisen from the late attempts to carry out its directions to the letter.

Thirdly, our author, in his striving after brevity, has omitted what to our belief has, above everything else, contributed to bring about that state of things which he defines as "The Case as it is." We mean the suicidal effort of the united hierarchy in the Convocation of 1858 to stifle the voice of public opinion by an ipse dixit, only paralleled in our experience by the obstinacy of the Duke of Wellington and his Cabinet in 1830, when they attempted to stem the popular cry for Parliamentary Reform by an unanimous vote of Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari.

We all know how that arbitrary announcement was resented by the free spirit of Englishmen. And though it may be that the minds of clergymen are, by the nature of their position, so "iron-clasped and iron-bound," that they find it difficult to give as open an expression to their feelings as was done by the people in 1830-31; and though, in consequence, the Bishop of Oxford's chaplain may succeed in drawing after him a considerable tail of servile followers, who are willing to leave things as they are "for this present time," i.e., for the remainder of their lives (on the principle of Lord Ebury's memorable application to the Bishops of that expressive sentence, "Give peace in our time, O Lord "*); yet, still, we are persuaded, that the so-called unanimous voice of the Bishops against any change in the Prayer-book has done, and will do, more to bring about the much-dreaded result than all Mr. Davis's four secondary causes put together; and the hoodwinked clergy will find at last, to their cost, that the refusal to listen to a few reasonable and practical reforms will gradually and surely, notwithstanding all

See Vol. I., Letter xxII., p. 159.

resistance from within, bring about a much more fundamental revolution in the Church than was ever dreamt of at the beginning by the primary movers in this matter.*

This is our opinion of "The Case as it is ;" and time will show whether we are right or not in our prognostications. We are at the commencement of a new era in the history of Liturgical Revision. There must be, in short, either a compromise of conflicting opinions, by mutual concession, with a view to peace; or war-war to the knife-will become the watchward of the two parties in the struggle. And grievously have we misread all history, and to small purpose have we applied the lessons of experience which should hallow grey hairs, if we do not prophesy aright in saying, that the continued resistance to Lord Ebury's most temperate request, for a Royal Commission to inquire into and report upon these matters, will be followed sooner or later by an amount of organic change in the constitution of the Church for which few are probably now prepared.†

Not easily again will the sore places of the Prayer-book fall into the hands of so gentle a physician; long, and in vain, shall we look hereafter for one so careful to cover, while he seeks earnestly to remove, its admitted defects.

Jan. 31, 1860.

"INGOLDSBY."

The question, from having been originally a proposal for a Royal Commission to inquire into the Prayer-book, assumed afterwards the more serious form of a cry for an alteration in the terms of subscription, and a repeal of the Act of Uniformity of 1662. The Right Hon. Sir Joseph Napier, ex-Chancellor of Ireland, and afterwards one of the Royal Commissioners on the Rubrics, wrote to the author, March 7, 1874, "If men were wise, they would agree to a Moderate Revision; but if not, it will be postponed, and a sweeping Revision come in the end." There is now every probability of this being the ultimate issue.

The Revised Prayer-book now in use in the disestablished Irish Church is a strong confirmation of the remark made in the text. (1878.)

"By it he, being dead, yet speaketh."—Heb. xi. 4.

SIR,—The readers of the Times, if they care to burden their memories for three weeks together with the dicta of the oracle, may remember that some time during last month there appeared a leading article against the Revision of the Prayer-book, founded on a letter of Mr. Nihill's to the Dean of Westminster, and sent to that paper by Lord Ebury.

The writer of that article took upon himself to say, that "although 463 clergymen of the Church of England might sign a memorial to the effect that their consciences were oppressed by certain passages in the Book of Common Prayer, from which they prayed to be relieved, they would nevertheless remain very comfortably upon their livings.'

Now, as we were not of the number of the said 463, who have been the butt for incessant attack in the columns of the Guardian, English Churchman, and Clerical Journal, we are the more at liberty to say a few words in their defence; and though we do not participate in all their objections to the Prayer-book as it is, yet, recognising the reasonableness of a great portion of those objections, we hesitate not to say that these gentlemen are deserving rather of honour than abuse, for thus boldly coming forward and declaring their grievance, instead of suppressing opinions, the enunciation of which might seem to be at issue with their temporal interests.

What, then, are we to say of the Times, whose cold

See also the Times of July 24, 1861, upon Lord Ebury's notice of a motion to relieve the clergy from the present stringent form of subscription.

See for example a letter from the Rev. T. Julius Henderson, of Kennington, Berks, in the Guardian of February 22, 1860.

C