REVISION OF THE LITURGY.

["Durham County Advertiser," June, 1855.]

I HOPE the appearance of the letter signed AMICUS in your columns does not indicate that they are to be opened to a controversy touching a revision of the Book of Common Prayerthat favourite device of the Puritan party; or that you invite churchmen to entertain and discuss the question of revising the Liturgy of the Church of England.

Inasmuch, however, as you have published a letter on this subject, in which we are told of people being "driven from the establishment," and, in particular, of "two clergymen in the diocese of Exeter" who have "set the example of opening free Episcopal Churches" (!) and inasmuch also as the alleged increase of nonconformity is attributed by your correspondent to the retention of what he calls "objectionable portions" of the Book of Common Prayer, I must ask you to allow another correspondent to protest against the making of any concessions for the conciliation of nonconformists, and to point out some things -not in the Book of Common Prayer-which are real causes of offence to Churchmen, which are often taken advantage of to excuse Dissent, and which have in many ways a deadly influence on our Communion. The letter of AMICUS affords some information as to the objects which the would-be improvers of our Liturgy have in view. This it does upon the authority of some one signing himself "A Provincial Physician," who has published somewhere his prescription "for an improvement of the Book of Common Prayer," and it appears that the theological M.D. objects in the name of the public

1st. To the absolution, "being ignorant where in the Scrip

tures any special authority is given to ministers to pronounce penitent sinners pardoned."

2nd. To the Apostles' Creed, "being sure that it never was a creed of any apostle; and, in particular, that the descent of Christ into hell is highly improper" [meaning, I presume, that this is an improper form of expressing our belief].

Now, of course, no man who honestly accepts the teaching of the Church of England, or who has any idea of Church authority in matters of faith, could possibly allege these tenets, or any tenets held by the Universal Church at all times, to be "objectionable." He must, therefore, be a Protestant Dissenter of some kind, or a false member of the Church of England; and, alas! there are even clergymen who, having solemnly professed their assent and consent to everything contained in the Prayer Book, can nevertheless now discover Popery in it, and join some miserable committee that acts independently of episcopal control and acknowledges the supremacy of Exeter Hall, to the scandal of the Church and the grief of every candid and honest man.

Protesting against any "revision" of the Book of Common Prayer, I ask then, shall we mutilate our Liturgy to accommodate it to the views of Dissenters, whether they are separatists already out of the Church, or traitors still within it? Shall we remodel our Book of Common Prayer to meet "objections" which, according to the Provincial Physician, "are justly entertained by the public at large"?

The public at large!—as if the faith of ages and "The forms bequeathed from elder days" were things to be adapted to the shifting temper of THE PUBLIC. Alas! that the public no longer means the community of faithful people! Split up as it is into multitudinous divisions, all at variance from the Church and from each other, and forming a number of incoherent sects built on the foundation of themselves, and each one setting up some favourite heresy in opposition to the truths of the Gospel, how worthless and abortive, as well as fatal to the Church of England, would be any attempt at compromise or reconciliation? AMICUS and his friend, the "Provincial Physician," must be very unobservant if they do not know that objections are made to many other passages in the Book of Common Prayer besides those which the

Medical Divine has pointed out, and to many other assertions of Catholic faith and doctrine to be found in the Liturgy of the Church of England. A Dr. McNeil, for example, absolutely put forth his bracketed Prayer Book, and a Mr. John Taylor, who is advertised as of Apocalyptic notoriety, has improved on this by suggesting, in his edition of the revised Liturgy prepared for Convocation in the reign of William and Mary, that people should use the revised page in Church while the minister is reading the "objectionable" portions! If our ritual inheritanceour charter of title to the name of Catholic-is to be frittered away in order to be accommodated to the views of non-conformists and pseudo-Churchmen, the would-be improvers of the Liturgy must remove from it every tenet distinctive of the faith and doctrine of the Universal Church of Christ.

But it would be mere waste of time to discuss the questionWhat alterations shall be made in our Liturgy? for it is inconceivable that we can really have to apprehend any authorised revision of the Prayer Book to meet the views of Puritan objectors. No churchman could recognise any revised Book of Common Prayer that the Crown, at the instance of the Sacred Synod of the House of Commons, might attempt to impose on the Church of England. Even the most thorough-going "Lion and Unicorn men" would surely shrink from accepting such a gift from the State; and even the House of Commons-the only constitutional assembly which seems capable of daring to adapt our liturgical offices to the wishes of what is called the Protestant Public, or, in other words, to the Puritanism of the age-would probably shrink from the consequences that would be incurred. Her free deliberative assembly must be restored to the Church of England if her sanction is to be asked to "improvements" in her Liturgy; and if a Book of Common Prayer, ignoring any tenets of the Catholic faith, should be attempted to be imposed on the Church of England, whether with or without ecclesiastical authority, the acceptance of it by her ministers would be ipso facto destructive of her character as a branch of the Catholic Church of Christ.

I proceed, then, to point out some of the evils which grieve and perplex churchmen anxious to remain in the church of their baptism; which deprive her daily of the affections and allegiance

of the wavering members of her communion; and which feed the bitterness and point the hostility of her non-conformist foes.

1. First and foremost is that abominable system of pew-renting -a giant evil and perpetual occasion of non-conformity. If the public mind had been half as sensitive about the pew nuisance as it occasionally becomes about harmless candlesticks, thousands would have been gathered to the fold of Christ who (in the language of a "Provincial Physician ") have been driven from the Establishment. But what are we to expect, at least in this our generation, when in the recent restoration of a parochial church under the auspices of the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, we find cushioned pews for the rich, but hidden, obscure, thrust-away free-seats for the poor? I am speaking of what was done under the auspices of that perverse primate, Dr. Sumner, at St. Mary's, Lambeth-an edifice which was truly said to have been long a Lazarus at the palace-gate of Dives.

2. Then, it is impossible to over-rate the repulsive influence of the pulpit in too many of our churches. You have tedious, frigid preaching, instead of terse and fervid exhortation; and well-worn platitudes, critical discourses, and-what is worse-diluted Calvinism, instead of Christian teaching and exhortations to Christian conduct. It was once justly remarked that the preachers of Truth too often take no more pains to enforce their public instructions than if they delivered fictions,-while on the stage the speakers bestow their pains to make fictions seem truth. But it is not the manner of preaching, only, for which so many of the clergy are censurable: they neglect the clear duty of saying the office of prayer in their churches daily, while they exalt the importance of the weekly sermon.

3. The mutilation, by too many clergymen, of the Liturgical offices is in itself an act of non-conformity, and an encouragement to it; and we are, unhappily, but too familiar with a mode of performing divine service which is neither real nor dignified.

4. Then, there is that wearisome modern innovation-the practice of uniting services which are intended to be distinct, and thereby overtasking the attention of one congregation every Sunday forenoon, instead of edifying the several congregations who would gladly fill the church at the separated offices.

5. I hardly dare trust myself to speak of the neglect of church

music,-of the wretched and repulsive psalmody common in many churches where better things might easily be done, and of the neglect of those accessories to devotion which speak to the mind through the senses. I need say nothing of the necessity for addressing the mind of the uneducated through their eyes. The poorest orders (it has been truly said) love a majestic and even an elaborate service. The ornaments of their church, the storied glass, the enriched walls, the altar exalted and decked with sober yet costly furniture, the pealing organ and the chanted psalm, in which every one may join,-these are ritual solemnities which gladden while they elevate the minds of even the least educated worshippers; they rejoice to find themselves equal participants with their richer neighbours in paying their all-unworthy homage to the Lord of Heaven. But instead of these devotions and devotional accessories, we have exclusive pews and cold walls, and blank staring windows, and the devotion-confounding voices of parish clerks and parish children. What wonder is it that we have coldness and silence among the congregation, and an unconcerned, not to say irreverent, demeanour?

6. Nor is it less painful to review the ecclesiastical history of our time, to see the unhealthy influence of the "popular" preacher the perverse force of party feeling-the want of consentient action and of church discipline-the toleration, by bishops, of clergymen who will not practise their duty—and the self-willed conduct of the people (chiefly of the trading classes), who are left so ignorant of church matters, and have become so puritanical, that they will not bear to see that duty done, but rush to the kindred arena of the Conventicle to find the excitement which the parochial pulpit does not supply, or to escape the edifying restraints of church ceremonial; and they forsake the calm and stedfast sunshine of Church doctrine for the rockets and blue-lights of the Dissenting pulpit. Can anything be more suicidal in the clergy than the fraternisation of low-churchmen with the various shades of sectarian Bible-mongers? Is it possible to think, without trembling, of the extent to which pastoral care falls short of spiritual wants-of the traditionary apathy of chapters, and the unfruitful wealth of many cathedral bodies? What (it has been truly asked) will our children think of this generation, when they see the splendid endowments we held in