The Evangelicals have put forth their reply to the memorial
for greater latitude and tolerance in ritual, in the shape of an address to the Archbishop of Canterbury, signed by Bishop Perry, now Canon of Llaudaff ; Bishop Ryan, of St. Peter's, Bournemouth; and the Deans of Exeter, Carlisle, Ripon, Chester, Gloucester, Peterborough, and Canterbury, besides a good many other minor dignitaries. They protest against any toleration of Ritualism. They are " firmly convinced that neither in public prayer, nor in the administration of the Sacraments, ought there to Ife granted any toleration of the use of vestments and umbels avowedly reintroduced as exponents of doctrines which we believe to be un-Scriptural, and which have been declared to be not in accordance with the plain intention of the Articles and the Formularies of the Church of England." The last part of the sentence is hardly candid. No doubt, it expresses the truth, but not the whole truth. The "plain intention" of the Rubrics has been latterly declared, on the highest authority, to be as the memorialists say. But they perfectly well know that this was itself more or less a change of front from what had been previously declared, and they know the strong grounds on which the validity of that change of front is challenged. But, after all, the real weakness of the memorial is this ;—the memorialists do not face the fact that if they are to have their way, a large secession of clergymen and laity is inevitable, and that these are not days in which the Establishment can well sustain such a shock, without consequences of the most serious kind.
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