THE CORONATION SERVICE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THIS "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Amongst the many passages cited in the newspapers and magazines at this time about the Coronation, I hove not found any quotation from Mr. Gladstone's "Church and State." He refers, however, with extraordinary emphasis, twice to the Coronation. When enumerating the signs by which the national religion is attested, be says:— " 1st, by the Coronation Service both in the sense of its terms, and in the performance of its distinctive act by the Archbishop of Canterbury. 2nd, by the necessity that the Sovereign should be a member of the Church, and that his membership should be ascertained in the true authentic manner, namely, through the act of com- munion." And again of the Coronation he writes :—" Thus [in the Coronation] is the double character, the composite idea of the Church as Catholic and as National, fulfilled in this most majestic office, of which it may with truth be said that the gorgeous trappings, and even the magnificent pile within which it is performed, are far less imposing than the grandeur of its language and the profound and affecting truth of its idea." These sentences embody a truth which, perhaps, we are in danger of forgetting.—I am, Sir, &a.,
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