pers, For people to use the church as a means to social pleasure or social elevation, for a cloak to character, or as a business card, for intellectual enjoyment, or as a formal concession to accepted usage, is simply and utterly a mockery. From all this we take solemn appeal. We repeat and emphasize the idea that it is impossible to worship Him who is a spirit and who must be wor shipped in spirit and in truth, upon any other basis and by any other method than that of principle. The great issue before the Church, affecting most importantly the spiritual life of its members, is FAITH-WORSHIP OR WILL-WORSHIP, worship by princi ple or worship by caprice, worship that is according to the divine ideal, or worship that is according to human volition.

The present prevalence of the latter sentiment, is, we claim, continentalizing our Sunday, disintegrating the Church, distracting the family; it is demoralizing to the religious life of the individ ual and utterly disheartening to the Christian Pastor.

NOAH HUNT SCHENCK.

THE NEW CANON ON RITUAL.

Whenever legislation is effected under a state of factitious excitement, the result is very sure to be either a mere nothing-at-all, or else a something which will prove in practice to be very different from what was intended. In England, the Ecclesiastical Titles Act was passed in the midst of a tempest of Protestant agitation and rage, and it was carried almost unanimously. But it amounted to nothing-at-all. No attempt was ever made to enforce it, although many of the Romish Bishops ostentatiously defied it from the first; and, after lying idle on the statute book for nearly twenty years, it was with even greater unanimity repealed,--the quietness and ease of that wise course being a remarkable and perfect contrast to the roar and fury of the popu lar foolishness by which it was enacted.

In the case of the Ritual Canon of 1874, there was a similar preliminary agitation,-in a small way. On utterly idle, empty, and transparently worthless grounds, a factitious excitement had been pertinaciously whipped up by the newspapers, and by certain Bishops, whose addresses or charges were laden with as much of sound theology as was necessary to show which way the newspaper breeze was blowing. One Diocesan Convention after another had passed "Resolutions" or "Memorials," adding fuel to the growing fire, and momentum to the spiritual agitation. Deputies were chosen on the express ground that they should "do something" to put down the monster that was spreading such general terror.. And when they all came together in October, and began to communicate their trepidations and their heroic courage to one another, there was a nearly unanimous conclusion that "something must be done"-though nobody could easily tell what.

The first blow, and the hardest, fell upon the Rev. Dr. Seymour. And the blindness of the senseless panic may be seen most clearly in the simple fact, that it defeated the consecration, as Bishop, of one who has never, for five minutes in his life, faltered in his fidelity to the Anglican Communion and the Principles of the Reformation; who has given the highest proofs of noble self-devotion and highly successful labor in every post which he has filled in a ministry of nearly twenty years; who has for nine years occupied the most important Professorship in our chief Theological Seminary, pointing out to all his classes, with special clearness and force, the proofs of Romish usurpation and corruption that are to be found through so many centuries of the history of the Church; whose rare success and fidelity as an instructor have been recognized in warın terms by every Committee that has ever reported upon his examinations; and who is still left free to instill his principles into the inside of the heads of candidates for Holy Orders, though (apparently) pronounced unfit to lay his hands upon the outside of the same. During all these years, his loudest accusers, though having seats in the Board of Trustees, have never once, in that arena, impugned the orthodoxy of his instructions; and they are not likely to begin now. So palpable was the case, that at the end of the long debate, positive misstatements were freely used, to accomplish the result. Even so, a majority of the members of the Lower House voted to confirm Dr. Seymour, though by the technical peculiarities of the vote by Dioceses and Orders, the motion failed to pass. The misstatement which caused the defeat has since been abundantly exposed, by the sworn evidence of more than a dozen men of high character and standing; and all fair men now understand the instrumentality by which the question was actually decided, much better than they could easily do then.

That the blow meant for a "traitor" or a "Jesuit" or some such enemy of the Church," should have fallen upon the head of one of her ablest, most faithful, and most devoted sons, was wild work to begin with. As a demonstration against any real enemy, it amounted to just nothing at all. One good man had been temporarily "sacrificed to clamor❞—as the daily papers expressed it; and to misstatement, as we all now know. That is a sort of gun

which does worse execution at the breech than at the muzzle; and we leave it to its sure reaction. But it made no mark upon the statute book and "something must be done" there.

We have little time or disposition to devote to the history of the formation of the Ritual Canon. We shall have enough to do to take it as it stands, and examine it on its merits as a finished production. And first let us insert it in its entirety, and correctly, for there are inaccuracies in many of the publications which purport to give it :—

Addition to Canon 20, Title I, "Of the Use of the Book of Common Prayer."

Sii. [1] If any Bishop have reason to believe, or if complaint be made to him in writing by two or more of his Presbyters, that within his jurisdiction ceremonies or practices not ordained or authorized in the Book of Common Prayer, and setting forth or symbolizing erroneous or doubtful doctrines, have been introduced by any Minister during the celebration of the Holy Communion, (such as

a. The Elevation of the Elements in the Holy Communion in such manner as to expose them to the view of the people as objects towards which adoration is to be made;

b. Any act of adoration of or towards the Elements in the Holy Communion, such as bowings, prostrations, or genuflections; and

c. All other like acts not authorized or allowed by the Rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer :)

It shall be the duty of such Bishop to summon the Standing Committee as his Council of Advice, and with them to investigate the matter.

[2.] If, after investigation, it shall appear to the Bishop and Standing Committee that ceremonies or practices, not ordained or authorized as aforesaid; and setting forth or symbolizing erroneous or doubtful doctrines, have in fact been introduced as aforesaid, it shall be the duty of the Bishop, by instrument of writing under his hand, to admonish the Minister so offending to discontinue such practices or ceremonies and if the Minister shall disregard such admonition, it shall be the duty of the Standing Committee to cause him to be tried for a breach of his Ordination vow, Provided, That nothing herein contained shall prevent the presentment, trial, and punishment of any Minister under the provisions of Section i. of Canon 2, of Title II. of the Digest.

[3.] In all investigations under the provisions of this Canon, the Minister whose acts or practices are the subject-matter of the investigation shall be notified, and have opportunity to be heard in his defence. The charges preferred and the findings of the Bishop and Standing Committee shall be in writing; and a record shall be kept of the proceedings in the case. ·

Now when we reflect that the avowed object of this legislation was "to put down Ritualism;" that this is the third successive General Convention at which the attempt has been made; that

during all these years nearly thirty separate acts or usages have been specified for prohibitory legislation, according to lists that have been running the rounds of even the secular papers; and that, of all the actual things that have made trouble in parishes. not a single one is directly prohibited in this canon; it would at first seem as if it were absolutely another specimen of nothing at all.

And as to the condemnation or prohibition of specific things, there is, as we have said, absolutely no such thing in the canon, its own advocates being the judges. All the specifications are censurable, not in themselves, but only when "setting forth or symbolizing erroneous or doubtful doctrines." If a minister does not thereby set forth or symbolize such doctrines, it would seem that he may elevate, bow, prostrate, and genuflect, or anything else he pleases, and nobody can touch him. This is not a mere refinement of ingenuity. It is the express ground taken in the debate on the adoption of the canon, by its responsible authors. The Rev. Dr. Fulton, introducing the canon on the part of the Committee on Canons, declared that the specifications contained therein were "introduced, not as the enactment of the Convention, but as examples of things which are already considered to be unlawful under the rubrics and canons of the Church." This is a mere opinion that they are already unlawful. It is not a law which makes them unlawful. Still more clearly, the Rev. Dr. Paret stated, that a member of the Committee on Canons had informed him that they "had purposely so planned their Canon, that it did not deny the doctrines here mentioned, as being forbidden, or as being erroneous and doubtful doctrines;" that they "meant to leave that as an open point." And in response to his inquiry whether this were so, Mr. Burgwin, on behalf of the Committee, made his closing explanation, in which he said :

*

"There is no definition of an offence; there is no forbidding of the doing or the not doing of any particular act * It does not forbid, in terms, certain practices to be introduced, because there were members on that committee who would not have consented to introduce into this house any canon which ventured to interfere with the Ritual of this Church, either by commanding or prohibiting, believing that that was a matter which was sacred to the Rubrics, and that we by Canon had no right to interfere with those Rubrics, either by positive or by negative legislation."