A curious objection was made at the Chester Consistory Court
on Thursday by some parishioners of Woodchurch, near Birkenhead, to the practice of putting up texts of Scripture in the church and chancel, a practice which the parishioners seem to have thought " high " Church. We had always thought that adorning your church or room with " texts " was the ritualism of the Low Church, not of the High. The difference appears to be that picture and sculpture and carving address themselves to the mind through the pleasure which they give to the eye, while quotations only address themselves to the mind through a visual impression which conveys no pleasure to the eye,—and as Evangelicals usually think the lust of the eye' irreligious, they prefer the latter. Apparently, however, the parishioners of Wood- church regard texts as intrinsically ornamental, so no wonder they oppose them. But that is a mistake of theirs. A detached, hortatory sentence, wrung from its context, even if executed in blue and gold, always has the effect of a sermon, and hardly ever gives pleasure. The Woodchurch parishioners need not fear the seductive influences of such ornaments as these.
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