The Bishops of the Irish Church have at length consented
to take part in a complete revision of the formularies of the Church, to be conducted in a cautions and reverent spirit, and therefore all further discussion of the proposals of Master Brooke's Committee, which had suggested certain safeguards against Ritualism, dis- cussed by us a fortnight ago, was adjourned to the session of the Irish Synod of 1872, by a majority of 369 to 12. The Bishops, in conjunction with certain representative members to be appointed by the Synod, are to report on this revision in 1872. We strongly recommend the Bishops and their colleagues to consider the wisdom of greatly relaxing in all directions the intellectual conditions,—the dogmatic testa,—of the Church, and of imposing restrictions, if at all, only on those acts of public ceremonial which are felt by the people to involve more or less their own participation in the tendencies which those acts express. Tests have no effect at all beyond hampering the consciences of the clergy, subjecting their conclusions to suspicion among the laity, and sometimes shutting the stable-door after the steed is stolen,—i.e., making a clergyman who has ceased to be what the formula defines as orthodox, feel that he has privately pilfered a troth to which, he has no right, instead of openly discovered and frankly pro- claimed it.
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