with the Prayer immediately following it, the Lord's Prayer, and the whole or part of what follows the words "Profession he hath here made by you," or any one or more of these several portions of the Form prescribed. VII.-SOLEMNIZATION OF MATRIMONY. 19. In the Form of Solemnization of Matrimony there may be omitted, if the Minister think well, a part or parts of the introductory Address, beginning "Dearly beloved," the Form of Words beginning "With this ring," the Psalm, and the whole or part of what follows it, or any one or more of these several portions of the Form prescribed. VIII.-CHURChing of Women. 20. When the Office for the Churching of Women is said at Morning or Evening Service, the Lord's Prayer may be omitted, if the Minister think well. IX.-COMMINATION. 21. The use of the Office called a Commination shall be left to the discretion of the Minister. The original draft was accompanied by the following observations pointing out in brief the purport of the Bill: The object of this Bill is to amend the existing regulations for the Public Worship, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Church, in three respects; namely, as to 1. The Division, Order, and Details of the Services. 1. The Division, Order, and Details of the Services. The alterations proposed all come within what is termed structural revision; no one of them is designed to affect any point of doctrine. Their general tendency is towards abbreviation of the Services. There is nothing compulsory in the Bill. The Rubric, as it stands, being in effect confirmed by Act of Parliament, cannot be varied by less authority. A Bill, though completely permissive, is therefore necessary. The general intention is, as explained by the preamble, to extend to somewhat larger objects and to a greater number of particulars those discretionary powers which are already in many instances vested in the A HOMEOPATHIC DOSE OF REVISION. 319 Clergy by the Rubric, without in the least trenching on the principle of Uniformity. That principle is fully maintained by the limitation of the sphere of selection to the pages of one book, however extensive may be the discretion allowed within those limits. The Manuscript Book annexed to the Act of 1662 (or a Sealed Book which now represents it) is to be regarded as a Schedule to that Act. It seemed, therefore, proper that the amendments now proposed to be introduced into the Rubric should take the Form of a Schedule to the amending Bill; besides, it is obvious that this arrangement has many incidental advantages. The whole Schedule is to be considered part of the Book of Common Prayer, as if it had been comprised in the original manuscript volume; and it is to be printed in all copies, after the Preface and the explanations and directions which follow it. A general preliminary Rubric governing all the special ones throughout the Book will thus be provided, and the alterations will be introduced not only in the most convenient shape, but also with the least possible disturbance of the existing provisions. It is not within the scope of these observations to explain or comment on the Clauses in which the proposed alterations are embodied. And it only remains to observe, under this head, that the terms used in the Rubric have always been employed, as far as possible, and that an endeavour has been made not to depart further than was unavoidable from its style. 2. The Admission of Parents as Sponsors in Baptism. The object of Clause 2 is to remove the obstacle which the Rubric respecting the number of Godfathers and Godmothers has been considered to present to the Adoption of this Reform in the practice of the Church. Such an obstacle cannot be removed by any authority but that of an Act of Parliament. 3. Preaching without Full Service. The difficulty, which Clause 3 is designed to meet, arises not on the Rubric, but on the Act of Uniformity itself. It seems desirable that all ground for the doubt, which operates as restrictively as a positive Enactment, should now be removed. Such is Lord Ebury's Permissive Bill of 1862, my remarks upon which I must reserve to a future letter.* Yours, &c., I remain, Feb. 14, 1862. See Letter cxxv., p. 326. Meanwhile "INGOLDSBY." LETTER CXXIV. LORD EBURY AND THE SATURDAY REVIEW. "Summa petit livor: perflant altissima venti: OVID. "Boredom is at a high premium this year. There is absolutely nothing for the Imperial Legislature to do, nothing to legislate for, and bore calls to and encourages his brother bore.”—Saturday Review, Feb. 22, 1862. SIR,-Lord Ebury is a most fortunate man. He has been twice at least the object of virulent personal attack; first in the columns of the Morning Post, now in the pages of the Saturday Review.* We may be There must be something very formidable about the noble lord to have entitled him to this high distinction, which the poet tells us he shares in common with the loftiest pines, the tallest columns, and the most towering alps.† Men do not use to put a conductor on a cottage or a barn. sure that wherever the Jupiter of the press directs his thunderbolt, there is a foe to be dreaded, or a rival to be humbled. The ancients wisely held the devoted spot as sacred. Wherever the lightning fell, there they erected an altar or a temple. And thus, when he is gone (if not during his lifetime), will the noble lord's memory be enshrined in the hearts of a too late grateful posterity, for having laboured so long at the thankless task of endeavouring to reform the Church.‡ It is all very well for an anonymous writer in the Saturday Vol. xiii., No. 330, p. 208, Article, "Lord Ebury's Ritual Reforms." "Sævius ventis agitatur ingens Pinus et celsæ graviore casu Decidunt turres: feriuntque summos Fulgura montes.' See Letter LXXVIII., p. 49. HOR., Od. ii. x. * TRUE DEFINITION OF A BORE. 321 Review to talk of Parliamentum terebratum, or Parliamentum terebrantium, the bored Parliament or the Parliament of bores; but it may justly be questioned which is the greater bore, a man returned to Parliament to eat the bread of idleness through a whole Session, "Still going blind as Premiers lead him, And saying aye or no 's they bid him,” or a man (whether Commoner or Peer makes small difference) who has the spirit to take up a matter of this importance and make it his own by dint of patient industry and indomitable perseverance. To attempt to set down such men as persons of "but one idea," is to expose one's own ignorance of the history of all great achievements.† What cause was ever brought to a successful issue but by a man of one idea? -What was Luther, but a man of one idea? What Oliver Cromwell? What Richard Cobden? Does the Saturday Reviewer think the Corn Laws would ever have been repealed, had the question been identified with more than one name? What is every one's business is proverbially no one's business. Lord Ebury has made it his business to bring about a reform of the Prayer-book,-yes, to reform the reformed Prayer-book,‡-and he will reform it, in spite of all the thunders of the Morning Post and Saturday Review. But does the Prayer-book want reforming? Is not everybody satisfied with the Book of 1662? or, as the * The article was generally attributed to Mr. Alexander Beresford Hope, reputed author of "The Church Cause and the Church Party." Letter LXXVIII., p. 46. + It was one of Disraeli's pithy sayings that "All great triumphs owe their origin to a minority." We have now (1878) got a "Reformed Prayer-book" in use by a "Reformed Episcopal Church." This is what it is to resist timely Reforms, till the Reformers learn to help themselves. Reviewer charitably puts it, has the Book which has sufficed for exactly two centuries, been only awaiting its Ebury all this time ?* We are not going to argue this point in a single Letter; and to give our reasons at length why to our mind the Prayer-book does require amendment; and why we think the public are not satisfied with the Book as it is. Suffice it to point to the fact that upwards of a hundred pamphlets have been published within the last five years calling for its Revision, to which we would refer any one who may be sceptical as to the existence of such a demand. But one argument is irresistible;—that, notwithstanding the princely endowments of the Establishment, the power and advantages it confers on those who belong to it, the injury and discredit attaching in many cases to those who are estranged from it, while no gain whatever that we know of belongs exclusively to the side of Dissent, yet it can hardly be denied by the Saturday Reviewer that the Nonconformists, in some shape or other, outweigh in numbers, or nicely balance, the members of the Church.† Surely such a state of things points to something wrong, and calls for some remedy; and we are at a loss to know what better object could at this moment *We would answer the Reviewer in the words of a critic who used his powerful pen to promote, not to resist, rational reforms. "What human plan, device, or invention (says the admirable Sydney Smith), 200 years old, does not require reconsideration? If a man dressed now as his forefathers dressed 200 years ago, the pug-dogs in the streets would tear him to pieces. If he lived in the houses of 200 years ago, unrevised and uncorrected, he would die of rheumatism in a week. If he listened to the sermons of 200 years ago, he would perish with sadness and fatigue; and when a man cannot make a coat or a cheese for years together without making them better, can it be said that laws made in those days of ignorance, and framed in the fury of religious hatred, need no revision, and are capable of no amendment?"-Edinburgh Review, 1827. On this disputed point see Remarks at Letter LXXXI., pp. 62-3; with reference to the Census, and Statistics of Religious Sects. |