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DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, MAY, 1860. consciousness of its extreme delicacy, and a vague though erroneous idea that it is a clerical rather than a lay question. Of this great mistake the laity are being gradually disabused; and the advocates for doing nothing will speedily find that this their last stronghold of resistance has slipped from beneath their feet;-well if it be not replaced by the usual reactionary tendency to do too much.*

We must now transfer our readers to the Great Council of the nation, assembled at Westminster, where a large number of clergy and others were in attendance a full hour before the commencement of the debate, anxious to secure a place in the strangers' gallery of the House of Lords. Amongst these the new Dean of Ripon (Goode), and the Bishop of London's chaplain (Gell),† were conspicuous. The doors open, there was a rush to the front, and, under the cry of "Show your orders," many persons, I suspect, got through without an order at all.

Unfortunately, Lord Ebury's motion was not the first on the list, but was kept in abeyance for nearly an hour by an extremely uninviting discussion upon some matter affecting the Duchy of Cornwall, about which nobody knew or cared anything, the Pawnbrokers' Act Amendment Bill, and Bankrupt Law for Scotland, about all which, I imagine, the public knew or cared still less. Possibly the gentlemen representing the High Church press mistook this hour of "dull and dreary debate" for the great business of the day; and hence the very venial error of the Guardian and English Churchman in applying to the discussion of Lord Ebury's motion what certainly was no truthful description of either his lordship's speech or of those which followed it. If it were otherwise, the House of Lords must be

* Witness Lord Ebury's Motion of 1862, compared with that of 1860. + Now Bishop of Madras, and generally supposed to be favourable to Revision (1878).

endowed, beyond any assembly with which I am acquainted, with the most excellent gift of patience; for during the whole four hours of the debate which followed, and during the entire speech of Lord Ebury, there was the most profound silence and deep attention observable in all parts of the house. Such are not the usual accompaniments of a "dull and dreary debate" in Parliament.

The benches were well filled, especially on the side of the Opposition. The Bishops' corner was crowded; there being not less than twenty spiritual peers in attendance, ranged in a solid phalanx of five by four, as if to defy any attempt to break their ranks. The absence, however, of two or three eminent members of the corps gave rise to the impression that the unity of the body was not so exactly preserved outside the House as it was within. The veteran Lord Lyndhurst occupied a prominent place on the cross benches, and exhibited marked attention throughout the debate. Some disappointment was felt that the venerable and learned lord did not speak, being well known to be not unfavourably disposed to at least one portion of the subject.*

About half-past five Lord Ebury entered the House, and took his place at the table, having many documents to refer to, and being better heard from that spot than any other. As the person of the noble lord is probably unknown to most of our clerical readers, and as the part he has taken in this matter (utcunque ferent ea facta minores) will unquestionably transmit his name not without honour to the latest records of the Church, I may be excused for depicting the hero of the day as he appeared on this memorable occasion.

From a personal interview the Author had with the noble lord a few days previously, he is able to state that Lord Lyndhurst was vehemently opposed to the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed, and the form of absolution in the Visitation of the Sick. On other matters he prudently declined to express any opinion.

PORTRAIT OF LORD EBURY, MAY, 1860.

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Imagine, then, a rather tall, delicate, well-formed type of a perfect English gentleman, about sixty years of age, with a handsome and pleasing expression of countenance, slightly marked with "the furrows of long thought," an eye full of intelligence and mildness, and a phrenological development in which benevolence, veneration, conscientiousness, and firmness, compose the principal features.*

Imagine such a one addressing himself not only to the Bishops' House of Parliament,-confronted by almost the entire hierarchy of the United Kingdom, but in fact to the whole of Christendom, upon a theological question of great delicacy, involving the highest interests of mankind; himself not gifted by nature with first-rate powers of oratory -not a divine by profession-not a minister of state, executing a necessary, though possibly a distasteful functionbut a private individual, with no selfish purpose to serve, and the certainty of much obloquy attending him in case of either failure or success. Imagine, I say, such an one, under such circumstances, standing up alone, unfriended, unsupported, to harangue a cold or hostile audience-including, notably, the well-known features of the Bishop of Oxford, before whom even Prime Ministers had been known to quail-for an hour and a half, without one cheer to encourage, one smile to lighten his path;-and I leave my readers to give due credit to Lord Ebury's position on the night of May 8, 1860.+

I will reserve the description of the debate for my next; only remarking in passing, that the question of entertaining

The best portrait of his lordship is that published in the gallery of the Illustrated News of the World, accompanied with a short biographical notice.

Never was there a truer illustration of the proverb, Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte. All the noble lord's subsequent appearances on this question bear no comparison to the delicacy and difficulty of

the first.

the idea of a Revision of the Book of Common Prayer has now in a manner reached its climax-the culminating point of its history. Never till now has it occupied its rightful place before the public mind; and from this moment it will either advance towards ultimate success, or fall back to rise again no more in our time.

That the former will be the result, in spite of the discouraging reception of the motion on the night of the 8th inst., I have a strong presentiment.* Lord Ebury now appeals, through the press, from the decision of the Bishops in the House of Lords, to the verdict of a British public; and he will not appeal in vain. The only point left for the latter to determine is the extent to which the Revision shall be carried.†

For, as for supposing that the multifarious

There can be no doubt that up to the autumn of 1862 the question made decided progress. It received, however, a severe check subsequently sub rege Gladstone, who unscrupulously bestowed the whole of his Church Patronage (which was exceptionally great) on the Anti-Revision party.

The form of Lord Ebury's resolution of May, 1860, was as follows:"That it is the opinion of this House, that whereas the particular forms of Divine Worship, and the rites and ceremonies appointed to be used therein, being things in their own nature indifferent and alterable, and so acknowledged, it is but reasonable that upon weighty and important considerations, according to the various exigency of times and occasions, such changes and alterations should be made therein as to those that are in place and authority should from time to time seem necessary or expedient:

"And whereas the Book of Canons is fit to be reviewed and made more suitable to the state of the Church:

"And whereas it is desirable, as far as may be, to remove all unnecessary barriers to a union of the people in the matter of Public Worship:

"That a humble address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty to be pleased to appoint a Commission to prepare such alterations and amendments in the Canons and Book of Common Prayer as to them may appear desirable, and to consider of such other matters as in their judgment may most conduce to the ends above-mentioned."

It is not his Lordship's fault if the principle of the Sibylline books is applicable, and will become more and more so, to his future motions on the subject.

LORD EBURY IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

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contents of the Prayer-book will be suffered much longer to remain in the exact form and condition in which we now have them, it would be as reasonable to anticipate a return to the use of the Roman Breviary, or to a re-adoption in our churches of the Westminster Directory of 1644.

I remain, yours, &c.,

May 21, 1860.

"INGOLDSBY."

LETTER LXXXV.

LORD EBURY IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, MAY 8, 1860.

"Oh, mark ye here a brave and loyal knight,
In virtue arm'd, for fame's high temple bound:
A per❜lous toil; for fiends of fell despight,
And every loathsome form in hell that's found,
Start on his path, and hiss his head around.

But vain 'gainst his emprise their threats and guile :

Albeit with sword him listeth not to wound

Th' infernal rout; but aye with constant smile

He mars their graceless spell, and moves right on the while."

SIR,-Resuming from where we left off in our last, I proceed to give a further description of the scene in the House of Lords on the night of May 8th. I shall confine myself to those outward accidents of the debate which do not appear in the public reports, but which, in a case like the present, are not without their interest.

The House of Lords, I need hardly observe, is a very peculiar assembly. Exactly the reverse of the one of which it has been rudely said, in the language of old Latimer, "that there were never so many gentlemen, and so little gentleness," the House of Lords may be described as all gentleness and all gentlemen-with one remarkable exception, of which more hereafter.

Of these gentlemen and this gentleness the noble lord, whom we left standing on the floor of the House, is the very