Sir William Harcourt contributes to Friday's Times another of his
astonishing letters on the Church question. This one headed "The Law v. the Priests," exhibits Erastianism rIO mad. Sir William Harcourt's great complaint is, of course that neither Bishops nor clergy will obey the law, but he ale( deals specially in this letter with the illegalitareaf the RelliterVa tion of the Sacrament. If Sir William Harcourt could make his protests against the extreme Ritualists with goo( te, and in the spirit and words of a man anxious not to flame or to wound but to heal, we, and we believe the jority of Englishmen, would lend him a good deal of upport. His plan of using language "which would probably oondemned as intemperate on a pirate ship" makes it possible for moderate men to help him even in what is ound and reasonable in his contentions. A propos of Sir raliam Harcourt's desire to enforce the law to the letter, Ito forge new and stronger chains if necessary, we would g him to remember what Milton said about those who esire to force all men to adopt one rigid practice in religion, a to "conform" at the point of a writ, if not of a pike. Ron pleads for "a little generous prudence, a little for- ranee of one another, and some grain of charity." Milton rotate, too, against "this Prelaticall tradition of crowding
roe consciences and Christian liberties into canons and pre.
epts of men." That is exactly what Sir William Harcourt, ,pying the worst defects of the Church before the Reforms- on and during the Landian age, is anxious to do.
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