who can hardly be considered a partial witness; yet whose simple narrative over the grave of the departed drew tears from the eyes of many, who we fear would have been hardly moved to equal expressions of grief at the bier of a prelate who stood tenaciously upon his power to retain sins, or gloated with holy fervour on the "certainty of everlasting damnation" to all those who keep not "whole and undefiled the Catholic faith."

Sure we are that if every bishop were formed after the model of the late Bishop Stanley, the Church at large would fare never the worse. And if Lord Ebury is but treading in the steps of such a man in propounding his contemplated reforms in the Prayer-book, he cannot greatly err.

For the rest, we commend the article in the Christian Remembrancer to the attention of all who are interested in the rise and progress of "the Church Cause" in this country. We are as great advocates for that cause as is the writer of the paper in question. But while he sees, in the apathy with which Lord Ebury's motion is received by "the Church party," symptoms of a decline in the "Cause;" we, on the other hand, see, or fancy we see, in the earnestness with which it is supported by others, symptoms of a REVIVAL and new energy in the Church. To our judgment the Church of England has not a better friend than the noble lord; and though, doubtless, the ex-member for Maidstone will exclaim, and be echoed by sweet voices from Frome, Taunton, Cuddesdon, and Salisbury, "Save us from such friends,"* we venture to predict that the day will come (possibly not till after the removal of the prophet from amongst us) that the zeal of the noble lord in his holy cause will meet with its due acknowledgment at the hands of a grateful nation.

of the Right Rev. Edw. Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, by Dean Pellew, Sept. 23, 1849.

* The English Churchman of Nov., 1861, observes :-"The Ingoldsby gilding leaves the Ebury pill as objectionable as ever."

Then-when some future chronicler shall pronounce the praises of the " impulsive" Church Reformer, speaking of him as he is, neither more nor less than the simple truth-then shall even the uncompromising author of "The Church Cause and the Church Party" be constrained to admit, wiping the tear of affection from his eye

"Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me,
With thy religious truth and modesty,

Now in his ashes honour; PEACE BE WITH HIM."

March 20, 1860.

I remain, yours, &c.,

"INGOLDSBY."

LETTER LXXIX.

AQUILA DE RUPE, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO LORD EBURY.

"Though he inherit

Nor the pride nor ample pinion

That the Theban eagle bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion

Through the azure deep of air,

Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way,
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate."

GRAY.

SIR,-The writer of the above letters, under the title of "Aquila," has a keen eye to spy out the defects in our Liturgy, and has used a quill from his own wing to set them before the public in a pamphlet of sixty odd pages.* We regret that he has seen fit to conceal his name. Whatever his modesty may suggest, sure we are that neither Lord Ebury, to whom the letters are addressed, nor any one who may chance to read them, will see anything in them whereof the writer needed to be ashamed.+

'Liturgia Recusa; or, Suggestions for Revising and Reconstructing the Daily and Occasional Services of the Church." London: 1860.

+ The author is now known to have been the late Rev. Richard Bingham, of

e

But, alas! there is such a thing as writing on certain subjects with "a rope about your neck;"* and if, as we more than suspect, the author of these pages is a poor clergyman, whose virtue and talents have been for thirty or forty years "their own" and their only "reward," we can well understand how he fears to state under his proper signature that "the Prayer-book needs, might have, and must have, considerable amendments"-when the bishops are said to have declared "unanimously" that the said Prayer-book shall not be touched in their day.†

Well, time will show at last whether the Revisionists or the Prelates are to prevail. Meanwhile, let us congratulate ourselves that we have other champions with eagle eyes, eagle wings, and eagle spirits, who are not chained to the rock, like our friend, but able to utter notes of freedom unrestrained by those fetters, "which poverty's unconquerable bar" still forges for the dependent in this world, however deserving of a better fate.

These letters are nine in number, and treat of the following questions with regard to the Liturgy :

"What it might be well to do."

"What has been done before."

Why the same should not be done again, and at once." "What ought to be done."

"What may be done."

"What must be done," "might be done," and "something more besides."

Ending with the appropriate motto, "Well begun, half

Queenborough, Kent, Secretary to the Association for Promoting a Revision of the Book of Common Prayer; 17, Buckingham Street, Strand. He died at Sutton, Surrey, Jan. 22, 1872, æt. 74: a remarkable instance of neglected worth under three successive archbishops.

* See Vol. I., Letter LII., p. 334.
+ See Vol. I., Letter XXXII., p. 213.

WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE.

51

done;"-a motto which had our legislators, lay and clerical, acted upon when first Lord Ebury broached this subject in the House of Lords, how much mischief would have been avoided-how much frivolous and vexatious obstruction spared! We might by this time have handled our "Liturgia Recusa" in peace, and the Church been at work in earnest, instead of still shivering on the brink of that river into which it is its inevitable destiny to have to plunge at the last.

To enter in detail into Aquila's nine letters is, of course, out of the question; so we shall rush at once in medias res, and present our readers with the pith of the pamphlet, as condensed in the fourth, fifth, and sixth letters.

What, then, ought to be done?" Destroy it not," says Aquila, and so say we, "for a blessing is in it." But may it not be repaired and improved?—This is an old story; but it is clothed in such elegant language by our author, that we shall give his words in their entirety :—

"That the Liturgy of our Church has proved a great boon to thousands, there can be no reasonable question, and it would be folly and cruelty, I had almost said great wickedness, to annul it. But to amend, to modify, to reconstruct, and to strengthen, is not to destroy. Who are the real destructives-the men who repair, restore, and beautify the old buildings, or those who let them utterly alone, and suffer them to be consumed by the fangs of Time?

"It is remarkable that the greatest opponents of Liturgical Revision are amongst the most energetic in church restoration. Oh that they had power pro hac vice in the parish where I write! How soon would they level to the ground the high, ugly, awkward square pews, and refit the interior with new seats, without doors, or with very short ones! What a change the chancel and the communion rails would undergo, even if they eschewed sedilia, a stone altar,

and a credence table! The font too,-very old indeed, and, alas! so abundantly churchwardened with coats of whiteybrown paint-how neatly it would be scraped and cleaned by the patient hand of some skilful reviser yclept a mason, bringing out to the light of day the beautiful Purbeck, and exchanging the daubery of Goths and Vandals for Nature's workmanship!

"Now, why is it reasonable and proper to restore our cathedrals and churches after the lapse of years, rendering them more comely for the service of Almighty God, and more comfortable for worshippers, and at the same time unreasonable to correct and amend the form of words in which as hearers, inquirers, or believers, we approach the throne of grace? Why should not that which holds good with regard to the places in which we worship, hold good also in respect of the formularies we employ ?"

Is it possible—yes, it is possible, strange, passing strange -that men, like the ex-member for Maidstone, can be so blind as not to see the gross inconsistency of their conduct in this respect! Yet, so it is. The material building shall have hundreds and thousands of pounds* continually spent upon it, in order to make it a fit habitation for the Being whose temple is all space; while the accumulated dust of two or three centuries shall still be allowed to deform the spiritual edifice-the work not made with hands-the manual of devotion for the faithful, co-extensive with the four quarters of the globe.

This, says Aquila (and so say we), is "what ought to be done:" clear the rubbish, brush away the dust, clean the floor, renew the varnish, polish the Purbeck, scrape off the plaster, pick out the thick coatings of churchwarden paint;—

*No one could be more liberal in this respect, to his honour be it spoken, than Mr. Alexander Beresford Hope.