hold that the development of the Roman Church during the last four centuries has added strength to the Reformers' case. In face of a popedom, claiming to be infallible, and over-riding roughly both the private conscience and the traditional liberties of local churches, we renew the protest of our forefathers. As inheritors of their tradition we endorse and re-assert their claim that the Church of England is free to adopt into its practical system things new and old "; that it is free to learn new truth, and to reject old errors; that as a Reformed Church it possesses an inalienable right to reform itself again and again, as need shall require. In such large sense we adhere to the "platform" of the Church of England as set forth historically in the formularies of the sixteenth century.

When, with these general considerations in mind, the candid student examines the bishops' proposals presented in the Composite Book, he will recognise in them an honest attempt to satisfy the requirements of revision as indicated by the Royal Commissioners in 1906. Both Anglo-Catholicks and Modernists will find much to approve, while extremists of both these descriptions will be disappointed. The parish clergy who, for the most part, are neither Anglo-Catholicks nor Modernists in any partisan sense, will find much that they have long desired, and in some cases illegitimately enjoyed-shortened services, suitable prayers for many special occasions, a liberty to use extemporaneous prayer within certain limits, a clearing-up of a good many ambiguities in the rubricks. The laity will learn that arbitrary innovation on accustomed procedure, against which they have so often and so unavailingly protested, is now explicitly condemned, and that provision is made for giving the parochial Church Councils an effective voice in determining (within the large limits of the law) the type of service in the parish churches.

Even those who are loudest in their denunciation of the Composite Book admit that most of its provisions are excellent, but they fasten upon four points which they allege to be so important that they declare their determination to wreck the whole revision rather than accept them. These are (1) the legalisation of the "Eucharistic Vestments," (2) the provision of an alternative Order for the Holy Communion, (3) Reservation, and (4) the admission of Prayers for the Departed. A brief examination of these four points will show sufficiently how unreasonable is the opposition which they have provoked.

(1). Legalisation of the "Eucharistic Vestments."-The new rubrick runs thus :

For the avoidance of all controversy and doubtfulness, it is hereby prescribed, that, notwithstanding anything that is elsewhere enjoined in any Rubrick or Canon, the Priest, in celebrating the Holy Communion, shall wear either a surplice with stole or with scarf and hood, or a white alb plain with a vestment or cope.

For many years it has been maintained by loyal and learned Anglicans that the "Eucharistic Vestments" are required by the famous "Ornaments Rubrick" of 1662; that the 23rd Canon of 1604 (which orders the Cope at Holy Communion in Cathedrals) is properly over-ridden by the Act of Uniformity; that no amount of non-observance can cancel a Statute; finally, that only ignorance or prejudice can explain the judicial verdicts by which the Eucharistic Vestments" have been declared illegal. Five very learned bishops, charged to investigate the matter, affirmed their agreement with this view, which has so generally commended itself to the parochial clergy that the vestments are now worn illegally in some 4000 churches. In these circumstances, either the legality of the vestments must be frankly recognised, or the attempt to restore order in the Church must be abandoned. No sane man supposes that the legal prohibition of the vestments can now be enforced. If, therefore, their legalization is to be refused, the attempt to restore the reign of law within the Church of England must be abandoned. Is there really any fatal objection to legalizing an interpretation of the Ornaments Rubrick which commands the assent of so many loyal and learned Anglicans ? Why should we not bring all these conscientious law-breakers into the category of law-abiding citizens by clearing up, once for all, this calamitously ambiguous rubrick? If it be urged that the vestments are worn at the Roman Mass, that they are doctrinally significant, and commonly associated with Roman error, it may suffice to answer that they are also worn by the Swedish Lutherans, who are beyond any reasonable suspicion of Roman affinities, that their doctrinal significance is energetically denied by many who wear them, and, finally, that their legalization would go far to rectify whatever popular misapprehension might exist with respect to them.

(2). An alternative Order for Holy Communion.-The bishops propose to legalise in the Church of England a method of cele

brating the Holy Communion, which not only accords more closely with the model of the primitive liturgies, but also has been long authorised in three important branches of the Anglican Communion, viz., the Episcopal Church of Scotland, the Protestant Episcopal Church of America, and the Church of South Africa. No one can seriously pretend that such legalisation will imply any change in the eucharistic doctrine of the Church of England. None can deny that it is justified by the traditional Anglican deference to the primitive models of worship. None can doubt that it is earnestly desired by great multitudes of the English clergy and laity, among whom are many scholarly persons who prefer the liturgical model of the Eastern Church to that of the Roman, with which our present Communion Order appears more closely to agree. In a revision undertaken avowedly with the object, not of narrowing the limits of Anglican liberty, but of widening them to the farthest extent compatible with Anglican principles, in order definitely to restrain the lawless procedures which insult those principles, how could the bishops refuse to legalise a liturgy so primitive, so strongly entrenched in Anglican usage, and so widely desired?

The objection to having two Orders of Holy Communion within a single Church is more specious than weighty. It exaggerates the difference between the Orders, magnifies the inconvenience involved in their co-existence, and ignores the actual situation within the Church of England. Let any one be at the pains of comparing the two Orders in the Composite Book, regarding them, not with the jaundiced eye of a critic seeking excuses for a condemnation which he has already resolved to pass, but with the candid regard of a religious man, who would find the instrument of personal religion in the authorised liturgies of his Church, and he will wonder at the alarm professed in some quarters. In Scotland, he may have experience of a Church with two authorised liturgies, and he will not suffer any grave inconvenience. Moreover, in practice, the change will be almost imperceptible, for in the Church of England at the present time it would be an abuse of language to say that there is a single liturgy. Much that is reasonable is illegal, and much that is illegal is extravagant. If the Composite Book were legalised and enforced we should see an end of illegality and extravagance. But a Church of England, in which the reign of law has been re-established, will be a Church

in which the law is as truly representative of the general will and conscience of Churchmen as it appears to have been in that muchabused age before the Oxford movement bisected English religion. Then there was a unanimity of Protestant sentiment: now the unanimity will have to be a willingness to acquiesce in divergences of belief and practice, and an intelligent acquiescence in the paradoxes implicit in genuine religious toleration.

(3). Reservation.-The bishops propose that, under certain strictly defined conditions set out plainly in the rubricks, the clergy shall be permitted to reserve the consecrated elements for the single purpose of communicating the sick and dying. The rubricks run thus :—

When the Holy Communion cannot reverently or without grave difficulty be celebrated in private, and also when there are several sick persons desirous to receive the Communion on the same day, it shall be lawful for the Priest (with the consent of the sick person or persons), on any day when there is a celebration of the Holy Communion in the church, to set apart at the open Communion so much of the consecrated Bread and Wine as shall serve the sick person (or persons), and so many as shall communicate with him (if there be any). And, the open Communion ended, he shall on the same day and with as little delay as may be, go and minister the same.

If further provision be needed in order to secure that any sick person in his last hour may not lack the benefit of the most comfortable Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, the Priest, if the Bishop shall so permit, may to that end when the Holy Communion is celebrated in the church, reserve so much of the consecrated Bread and Wine as is needed for the purpose.

The consecrated Bread and Wine set apart under either of the two preceding rubricks shall be reserved only for the Communion of the Sick, shall be administered in both kinds, and shall be used for no other purpose whatever. The Sacrament so reserved shall not be brought into connexion with any service or ceremony, nor shall it be exposed or removed except in order to be received in Communion, or otherwise reverently consumed. All other questions that may arise concerning such Reservation shall be determined by rules, framed by the Archbishop and Bishops of the Province, or by Canons lawfully made by the Convocation of the Province, and subject to any such rules and Canons, by the directions of the Bishops.

Can it be said that such Reservation, so conditioned, involves any departure from established Anglican principles, although confessedly it involves a change in the authorised Anglican practice

with regard to the Lord's Supper? It is certainly the case that the Church of England emphatically prohibits the cultus of the consecrated wafer which obtains in the Roman Church, which has its doctrinal basis in the medieval dogma of transubstantiation, and which finds popular expression in the modern service known as "Benediction." The 38th Article states clearly that "the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped." The phrases appear to be connected. The reservation contemplated is part of the connected series of actions which culminates in " shipping" the wafer. The case of the sick does not come within the reference of the Article. Is there any sufficient reason for thinking that the rule of clinical celebration, which has since the Elizabethan Settlement been the recognised Anglican method of communicating the sick, needs now to be altered?

Since the Reformation, two considerable new factors have entered into the discussion of the practical question: the one social, a change of national circumstances; the other ecclesiastical, a change of clerical feeling. It is urged that the growth of great towns, which is a conspicuous feature of industrialism, has created an increased and rapidly increasing demand for the communion of the sick and dying, and that this demand has to be met by a clergy which is coming to regard with extreme disfavour any departure from the ancient rule of " fasting communion." It is pointed out that the clergy are dwindling in number, so that if the present practice of clinical celebration is to be insisted upon as solely legitimate, the clergy will be required to celebrate often on the same day, and frequently to break their fast before doing so.

The bishops could hardly ignore pleas so plainly reasonable, nor could they sweep aside, as merely superstitious, scruples which were so strongly grounded in that primitive practice to which the Church of England has ever yielded great respect. Yet they could not shut their eyes to the wide extension of sacramental devotions of the Roman type in the Anglo-Catholick churches, nor deny the formidable risk that Reservation, however carefully guarded, would be abused. They decided, however, to run the risk in order the better to rebuke the Romanising error. The rubrick includes a clear and emphatic condemnation of every kind of public service or ceremony " in connexion with " the reserved Sacrament, and thus makes quite clear the position adopted by