pertinacity.  One proposed remedy is, the simple omission of the Ornaments’ Rubric as in the Irish Book of Common Prayer; or its definite and express repeal by some legislative measure.  This is a prompt remedy, but a dangerous one—dangerous in part from reasons already adduced, in part from the deep and rankling bitterness arising from the thus greatly increased conviction that the law is really in favour of the use of vestments, and being so is to be overridden by an unjust Act of Parliament.  Two courses are always dangerous in this country; one is to leave in the hearts of any party an enduring sense of injustice, a ready political illustration of which is perhaps at once rising in the thoughts of many of us; the other is, to come in direct conflict with that constitutional principle which is embodied in the familiar and traditional ‘Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari.’  We cannot, then, I think, wisely adopt the remedy just mentioned.”

I imagine few of us will be disposed to question the justice of these remarks, or to quarrel with the dismissal of this first proposed mode of remedy.  But next he mentions another course, in these terms:—“Still less wise should we be to adopt another but very dissimilar remedy that has been pressed upon us, and will probably be pressed upon us with continued earnestness.  This remedy may be considered as summed up in the following formula:—‘Arm your bishops with more power, and then leave it to their Fatherly wisdom to allow or disallow these innovations according to the peculiarities of the case.’  In plainer words, let the bishop become, instead of the administrator of the law, the manipulator of the law; and let a want of reasonable uniformity, now dangerously great, be multiplied tenfold.”

Observe here, before we proceed further, that this power of manipulation, over and above being open to the objection which the Bishop notices of multiplying diversities of practice, is in fact nothing else than setting the bishop above the law as it exists, and is, therefore, as we said all these remedies would be found to be, a repeal of the rubric which is the present law.  But at any rate, here again, the Bishop rejects the proposed mode of action, though, he says, we should “pause” upon it.

“On this remedy it is necessary to pause.  Every clear-headed man among us must see, in the first place, that it is giving to bishops a power which they have never even attempted to exercise, except in the unsettled times which immediately followed the Reformation; secondly, that our dioceses would exhibit varieties of usage dependent on the general views and convictions of the bishop for the time being, and liable to be altered when a successor came into his place; thirdly, that men of advanced opinions would make every effort to get into the diocese of that bishop who might be supposed, rightly or wrongly, most to favour them—and, when there, would exercise a combined pressure which would be very difficult to resist; fourthly, and lastly, that, after all, this is but an ingenious expedient to postpone that settlement of the question which common sense and common foresight now perceive to be inevitable.”

Without endorsing the concluding remark of the Bishop’s comment, we may say that with great justice he condemns the remedy, though not expressly upon the ground which I have mentioned as the strongest—viz., its setting the bishop above the law, and so altering the Prayer Book.  He adds, however, something more as to a modification of the plan of giving more power to the bishops.

“We may, then, I think, fairly dismiss this proposed remedy as even less hopeful than the first.  But there is a sort of phase and form of it, a kind of intermediate course, which deserves more consideration.  The proposed measure would be of this kind—to give the bishop not only power to restrain, but to require him to stop, all Ritualistic innovations, more especially in regard of vestments, whenever he might be appealed to by a certain number of trustworthy parishioners.  The effect of this, of course, would be to leave things alone where no complaint was preferred, the justifying grounds being the uncertainty of the law on the one side, and the deliberate preference shown by the parishioners for the mode of conducting public worship then prevailing.  No doubt this, in some degree, helps us over the plain difficulty we must expect to meet with in those cases where Ritualistic practices have prevailed for some time unopposed.  We must not disguise from ourselves that it will be extremely difficult to bring back to simpler forms of worship a minister and a congregation that have not only been accustomed to, but deliberately prefer, much more ornate forms; the putting off of these vestments will, in some cases, involve much more difficulty and trouble than their original introduction.  It is human nature to cling tenaciously to what is distinctive, and this deposition of the distinctive will be complicated by the assumed close connection between the vestment and the doctrine.  All these great and real difficulties we have before us, and we may feel at first inclined to favour that which seems to reduce their dimensions, but I do venture to think here again that the dangers likely to arise from thus practically leaving the matter unsettled, and still more from the local discords that would be sure to arise during the constant attempts that would be made to bring the prohibitory bishop in some way or other on the scene, and the sad divisions that would follow if the attempt succeeded—all these things, I fear, must lead us to decide against a remedy, which, while saving us from some immediate difficulties, would bequeath to us and to our children a heritage of future difficulties and dangers far exceeding both in number and degree the difficulties and dangers of the present.”

There is much truth in these objections, but the most potent objection of all is, that here, again, as in all other modes proposed by way of remedy, there is the real and tangible repeal of the Rubric; so an alteration of the Prayer Book, and a manifest change in the status of the Church and of Churchmen.

The Bishop next touches upon another plan, which indeed is not a mode of remedy (in the sense of making a change to meet the difficulty) at all, which therefore does not lie open to the same objection.  The Bishop, indeed, dismisses it at once as hopeless and useless, though it remains to be seen whether it really be so.  I mean the due interpretation of the law by the courts of law; which being done, to let the law alone, and the Prayer Book alone, and the Church alone.  However he continues;—“But, lastly, it may be said, is all hope entirely past of finally settling the question by an appeal to the law courts, and thence to that highest tribunal that has already had the impleaded rubric before it, though under a somewhat different point of view?  Yes, I fear we must now say that all hope is finally past.  The knot cannot now be laboriously untied; it must be removed by gentle drawing out on either side, or—it must be cut.  In the first place, the country at large would not now be content to wait for what experience has shewn might be a long-delayed issue.  It would be urged that such delay would only aid the progress of innovation, and that now when a Commission has been appointed and has not recommended a reference to law courts, it would be a practical retracing of steps that would seriously add to our present disquietude.  To which we may subjoin this comment—that even if a speedy reference to the ultimate tribunal (by some thought possible) could be secured, the decision now, after the startling evidence given before