iscittaittaus. RITUALISM IN THE DIOCESE OF LONDON, The following letter, addressed to the Bistlop of London, and published in The rimes, created a great stir, and is a clear er ror of the progress of the ritualistic ov ement in the Church of England : , 4 TO THE BISHOP OF LONDON. "My Lord—l know not whether you are aware of the precise extent to which t he ritualistic element of the Church of g u gland is being developed in the Church of St. Alban's, Brook street, Holborn. As, however, this ohurch is within your dio cese, and the doctrines preached and the ce remonies practised in it come of necessity within the compass of your jurisdiction, I h av e presumed on the liberty of detailing with as much succinctness as possible the things which I saw and heard last Sunday morning, October 7. A. very general ru iner is abroad that ritualism in its highest form and in its nearest approximation to that of the Church of Rome may be found at St. Alban's. Indeed, I had heard ac counts of doings there that seemed wanton s ad passionate exaggerations,_ and, in com pany with other friends, I went for the purpose of ascertaining the extent to which s uch accounts are worthy of trust. And th e result was a conviction that nothing short of a visit to the church, and an ocular gad auricular and olfactory witness of its sights, sounds, and odors, will- avail to con vey a competent notion of the all but abso lute identity that exists between the ser vice of St. Alban's and that of any Popish church in the land. It is true that the prayers were not read in Latin, but the greater portion of them were gabbled over with suck rapidity and indistinctness that a foreign or dead language could scarcely have rendered them more unintelligible. The sermon was preached, I was informed, by Mr. Maconochie, his subject being, 'Quench not the Spirit.' Many of his remarks were wise, pointed, earnest and searching, especially when he was urging the necessity of respecting the admonitions of conscience', and of not stifling them by misinterpretation, or neglect, or wilful sin. Occasionally he seemed embarrassed and bewildered, as if depending too largely on the casual suggestions of the moment, and left to flounder in consequence of inade quate preparation. His abundant repeti tions seemed traceable to the same source - , or else to a mind which has"Concerneditself too much with ecclesiastical millinery, and too little with mental ,discipline, and . the accumulation, of those stores .of 'knowledge which are inispensable to a, wise master builder. . His observation on holy things, holy places, and holy persons, were infan tile in the last degree, worthy, indeed, of a Jew under the ancient dispensation, but utterly unworthy of a Christian who has read and who believes the words of the Saviour, 4 The hour eometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father,' or who has read the Epistle to the Galatians, and learned that all things and all times are consecrated by a devout and faithful heart. In the course of his sermon he preached the doctrine of transubstantiation in terms the most un mistakeable. With an emphasis which showed the strength of his conviction,. and his determination not to be misunderstood, pointing to the altar in a manner not un common with the priests of the Romish Church, he exclaimed, In a few moments you will be brought into the presence of the Lord in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. You will see Him in His own flesh and blood ; 1 repeat it, you will see Him in His own flesh and blood' And that this was with him no mere tropical language, but a calm uncolored utterance, expressing his faith in the real local pres ence of the body of Christ, is put beyond question by the hymns which are. sung in the church, in which the doctrine of trap= Substantiation is. taught with as much of ?lailosophical precision as is compatible with rhythm and rhyme. Let your lord chip ponder the following verses, and see in what manner they can be reconciled with the reformed doctrine of' the Church or England : . " Taste, and touch, and vision in thee are de ceived, But the hearing only well may be believed • I believe whate'er the Son of God hath told; What the Truth hath spoken that for truth I hold. 4 ' His own act at supper seated Christ ordained to be repeated In His memory divine ; Wherefore now with adoration We the victim of salvation Consecrate from bread anti wine This the truth each Christian learneth, Bread into His flesh He turneth, Wine to His most holy blood; Doth it pass thy comprehending? Faith the law of sight transcending, Leaps to things not understood.' ' CC Anything more explicit and more un unbiguously declarative of the doctrine of 'transubstantiation will be sought for in vain in the whole hymnology of the Romish 'Clixrch, and yet the verses cited are but a sample of much more of the lame kind 'which may be seen in the Hymnal noted,' this being the book used in the Church of St. Alban's for whose service your lordship is responsible up to the extent of compell ing its celebrants to conform to the ritual of the Church whose bread they eat, and whose fair fame they are now smearing with their Popish dogmas and practices. 'The administration of the communion was in keeping with the doctrine of, transub stantiation as propounded in the sermon. The priests who took the most prominent part in the mass wore green robes one of them having a black cross inwrought in the hack. The genuflections and movements to and fro, and the foldings of the hands, seem to have been most exactly copied From the Romish Church. The censer was lustily and incessantly swung. The altar was incensed, the priests were in censed, the book was incensed, the people were incensed, until the whole church was filled with the rolling clouds. Then came in due time the elevation of the host, at which many of the accustomed worshippe rs prostrated themselves. There was a con siderable number of communicants, and I nntinad Ant. ilia rift AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1866. cross before putting into the mouth of the receiver, and his example was followed by the priest who had charge of the chalice. As the service proceeded, and its Romish character became more and more apparent, many rose and left the church in indigna tion and disgust; some of whom told me afterward that it was a matter of sore la mentation to them that the Church in which they were baptized should be so rapidly drifting back to the, errors from which it had escaped. I have no concep tion•of the exact number of regular wor shippers at St. Alban's, but from the vol ume of sound which came forth during some portions of the service, in which the musical cadences were both unusual and difficult, it is but a moderate estimate to suppose that not less than three hundred form a permanent element in the congrega tion. " I have given to your lordship a faith ful and unvarnished account of what I saw and heard, and of what in substance may be seen and heard in your diocese from week to week. The ;priests who minister in St. Albans loathe the names of Protest antism and Reformation, and this because they hate the things which they represent, and alike by explicit teaching and symbol they are assiduously endeavoring to lead our country hack to Rome. I know not whether your, lordship will attach much value to the elaborate and complex ritual ism to which we have referred, and for which, if not in express violation of church law, no provision is made in the Rubric. You may regard it as external and second ary, if, not. important, But the point which is suggested by the ritualism of St. Alban's and of other churches in your lordship's diocese, is that it arises most unmistakeably out of the doctrine of transubstantiation, and is as clarly designed to lead back the mind to that so-called mystery of the Chris tian faith. This is the culminating point to which the whole service in these churches tnanifestly. progresses. It is the fact which gives every other thing its significance. The worshipper feels that he is being led On step, by step, to some sacred wonder, and he is conscious of hiving reached it when the priest has transmuted the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Christ. It would require a 'mind of very slow apprehension not to perceive that this is the object both contemplated and obtru sively pursued in the whole service at St. Alban's. -.."And this ritualism is on the increase. his spreading like a plague. It is appear ing in, different parts of our country, and seizing upon ,the young of both sexes. Under its influences, in a great degree, the evangelical element in the Church of Eng land-has, within the last few years, 'most sensibly' declined. ' It is declining still, and becoming in some places crushed be tween rationalism and ritualism as between the upper and nether millstones. It would be a matter for; unfeigned regret if your lordship were unconscious of ) these facts ; but it would be .a matter for still, deeper regret,. if, while conscious of them, you should feel yourself , unwilling or unable to meet the present exigency.' The suspicion is rapidly gaining ground that the episco pal bench is paralyzed by the aspect of affairs in the Church, and that they shrink from any step which might bring the various ecclesiastical parties into more overt collision. Many are asking whether the doctrine of transubstantiation be indeed the doctrine of the Church, and if it be not, whether there is no legal Machinery by which its maintainers can be excluded from positions which their heresy dishonors. " Many of the laity in London are express ing themselves with a not unnatural free dom and warmth upon your lordship's sup posed timidity, connivance, or supineness in.regard .to the ritualistic practices which are. .so ,notoriously rife in London and its neighborhood. They, are beginning to sus pect that Nonconformity may be something, better than an evil, and may become with them a painful necessity. They are talking. about a free Episcopal Church in which they can use the. Liturgy, and from which they .can exclude Romish dogmas and cere monies,, and the heresies that spring from a licentious rationalism. They can accord with your lordship in your often expressed ' opinion that a National Church should be marked by its comprehensiveness,, and should include superficial varieties of faith and practice, with an underlying unity : but they are strongly convinced that as contradictories cannot both be true, tran substantiaticm and its' opposite, baptismal regeneration and its opposite, and the doc trines 'of rationalism and 'their Opposites, cannot have place in such a generously inclusive plan without first proclaiming the absolute indifference of the true and. the• false, the right and the wrong, and without teaching the people, under the sanction of religion, that it matters ,not what is the religion they hold and profess. "At present, my lord, he would be a reck less man' who should venture to assert that the Church of England is, in'.any intelligi ble sense of the term, the bulwark of Pro testantism. It is, the nursery of Roman ism, and it has supplied that apostate sys tem with some of its noblest sons, both' clerical and lay. Of no other Church in Britain can this be said. I have written this letter in sorrow, not in anger, knowing well that I am but . giving utterance to the convictions of thousands who have loved the services of the Church of England, who received its baptism and confirmation, who were married within its pale,' and had hoped to die its steadfast and loving adherents. And I claim your forbearance if, in closing this letter,. I venture humbly to warn your lordship that you cannot fail in your duty in this perilous crisis of the history of our National Church, and of the Christianity which it professes to represent, without incurring the responsibility involved in yOtir high positiori, of having suffered the spread' of Popish "dogmas and ceremonies, when, by a vigorous and'prompt action, you' might'have driven them from your diocese. " I reinaini .your lordship's faithful ser vant,i,.E. M. "October 11th, 1866." HAPPY indeed does he esteem himself who, in ease of need, advances something to a royal prince who is expecting a crown. Pious poor people are nothing but needy princes; ,the kingdom of heaven is theirs, maim rimr fortune if we THE ISLAND OF SARK. Few, even in England itself, have any knowledge of the existence of this island, scarcely any knowledge of the Channel Islands of which Sark is, territorially, an insignificant member. And yet the British crown has no possessions of more historical interest, they being, in fact, as a part of the original duchy of Normandy, the dominion of the present race of sovereigns, before they had any rule in . the British Isles. Their geographical position is clearly French lying, as they do, directly on the coast of France, and most encircled by one of its great bays. Weir language is also French. In fact, their political relation is almost their only English characteristic. Their loyalty, which has remained unbroken since the conquest of England by their Duke, is a feeling of allegiance to the sovereign as Duchess of Normandy, which she is, rather than as the Queen of Great Britain. The principal islands of the group are Guern sey, Jersey and Alderney. The latter name has become familiar from the popular breed of cattle which there took its start. The small'er members of the group are mere specks on the map. From an interesting article upon the Channel Islands, in the London Quarterly Review, we extract what relates particularly to SARK. He...wholes not seen Sark has not seen the Channel Islands. The geography books that we used to learn when we were young, told us that this was a barren and rocky island, and that was all they told us. We were left to infer that it was uninhabited and desolate, a place little favored by God, and forsaken by man. Rocky it is, but not barren. It is so rocky that the Lords of the Admiralty once steamed round and round the island, and finding no landing place, gave up their intended visit in de spair. But the interior is fertile enough. The island is a bowl, and the concavity, of it abounds with tree and flower and fern, and there are nooks of luxuriant greenery and leafy lanes such as . Devonshire would not be ashamed to own. So far is it from being uninhabited, that the only fear of the islanders is that they will be over-populated. The navigation thither is intricate and not a little perilous, so that the Sark pilots, who have learned to thread the watery maze, and to encounter the dangers of rock and shoal, have a reputation for skill and hardi hood. A steamer goes from Guernsey to Sark about once a week in summer, and luggers go every day. But in winter, when the wind is tempestuous, still more Ah there is a calm accompanied by a fog, it is often impossible to hold communication for more than ,:a; week. Twelve days have. been known to elapse before the Sarkites could learn anything of what was going on in the great world of Guernsey. If the weather be`fine, the most pleasant way of crossing is to einbark in one 'of the luggers. With a breeze sufficient to freshen the sea and swell the, sails, one goes bounding along past bold groups of rocks and islets tenant ed by sea fowl, until the southern extremi ty of Sark is reached. Then the tack is altered, and the little vessel glides along more slowly in smooth' water, sheltered by the high cliffs that rise up precipitously from the shore, and are here and there pierced with caverns, until it reaches the pier which their naval lordships thought too insignificant to notice. Landing here is not an easy matter, for, one has to walk the plank under the most favorable circum stances, and if the sea be at all fresh, one must be prepared for a wade. Even when this has been done, it is hy no means easy to discover where the portal is which is to give us an outlet from this rock-bound bay and entrance 'into the island. Advantage has been taken-of a soft cliff which the sea had partly excavated, , to pierce a tunnel, and this is the gateway into the domain of the Lord of , Sark. That passed, the ad venturer toils .up a steep road, at first be tween turfy hills, but presently through a tree-shaded lane, past cottages that tell of human habitants, past a church, a post office, and an inn, which reveal 'a certain degree of civilization, and then downward through meadows and "happy orchard lawns," to a charming rustic hotel lying at the head of a luxuriant, glen that slopes down to the lower sands and, the blue sea. It,happened to the writer to spend a Sun day here not long since, and anything more truly Sabbatical than that - day he never experienced. It was absolute rest, most welcome to one wearied by eleven months' toil in the greatest of cities. The ripple ran softly up- the sand, and then glided back with scarce a sound. Far out at sea there was the soft haze of summer, hiding the glare of the French coast that would otherwise have been visible, to tell of the great world of Europe. Close at hand there was no sound save the humming of the bee and the crisp rustle of the cattle as they cropped the short grass. Then, as the morning wore on, the people gathered from the scattered' cottages and wended their way to the unadorned church, wherein no sign of cope or chasuble, crucifix or thurible is likely to intrude for centuries to come. There, the old familiar prayers sounded strangely in another tongue, and the psalter was sung in grand chorales worthy to be included in Sebastian Bach's Gesanglyuch,. Then, to wander slowly over the downs, with the sea visible to almost all around the island; to sit upon the far thest point of some giddy height and gaze at the heaving water, almost steel blue, as seen far below, and between the peaks and altars of rock that storms had severed from the island and left standing apart—to think, by, way of deepening the deep repose, of hot churches crowded with worshippers in gorgeous attire, not to read, but simply to "muse and brood and live again in memo- ry," old and cherished words or scenes well nigh forgotten—that was delight keen enough to render that summer Sabbath for ever a red-letter day in the writer's calendar. There is one peculiarity which cannot but heighten the strange, dreatay.thoughts, that the visitor must feel at finding himself on such a spot as this., The Sarkites walk about in sable garments. In Guernsey there seemed to be an unusually large num ber of mourners going about the streets, in the gloomy costume of death. One is tempted to suppose that some great pesti lence has swept over the people, and left one-half of them lamenting for the other half laid in their graves. You cannot learn that any such calamity has befallen them. Their weeds appear to be due to other causes. The island is small, and the in habitants intermarry so much that they are like one large family, of which, if our member suffers, all the other members grieve. This is one reason ; but there is another. The Sarkites are an economical race, and having bought a good black cloth coat, they will wear it until it is worn out. They don't adopt the modern London fashion of wearing mourning three weeks. Tenderness and thriftiness alike forbid. They are not only tender and thrifty, they are independent. They pass their own laws, and no one has the right of veto save the Seigneur. Their parliament of forty meets in the school-house, and there the island budget, about £BO a year, is voted. They have a prison, and tradition tells that there was once a prisoner, and that when she was about to be locked up for the night, she begged that the door might be left open as she was nervous if left alone. The request was complied with, and the prisoner made no attempt to escape, think ing, probably, that concealment would-be impossible in a country with such narrow limits as Sark. Once upon a time there was nearly a rebellion in the island. It was the introduction of the penny post which caused it. Before that event, the islanders used to go down to the little bay we have spoken of, and meet the boat which brought their mail and seize their letters without asking leave. The necessity of seeing them carried away to the post office, and waiting until the eagerly-expect ed missives were delivered, irritated them in the highest degree, and their anger was not quickly appeased. The chief authority in the island is a clergyman, who is not only Seigneur, but High Sheriff, President of the Legislative Assembly, and Comman der of the Forces, which number about a dozen men, of whon;i about ten would be officers. His is a very mild despotism. The land tenure is regulated by the strict est primogeniture The Sarkites are so careful that their island shall not be over populated, that the younger sons 'are not permitted to inherit their father's estate, but are expected to leave the island and push their fortunes in Guernsey,. or in the great world beyond. Notwithstanding these precautions, land attains the very high price of 0300 an acre. French is the lan guage almost universally spoken; by no means Parisian French, but a patois to which the people cling so tenaciously, that although taught English at the schools they speedily forget it. The Seignory is the chief sight of the island, ' and very charming is it. A quaint castellated build ing, with terraces on which peacocks dis play their fans, with velvet lawns in front and hollyhocks of many collors growing ten feet high, and a brilliant blaze of flowers such as are not often seen north of Italy, and luscious fruits that crowd the walls and bosky glens through which one descends to a precipitous rock, that looks across a narrow gulf of sea upon an island which, to those who know Cornwall, will at once suggest Tintagel—such is the Seignory. We must not forget Little Sark. It is joined to Sark by the narrowest neck of land that ever saved peninsula from becom ing island. A pathway, eight feet broad, with cliffs sheer down 200 feet on either aide, and with no protection for the dizzy traveller, such is the highway from Great to Little Sark. It may be perhaps on account of the tenuity of this coupe. so sug gestive of the bridge that leads to the Mahometan's Paradise, that the inhabitants of one part of the island will pass months without visiting the other part. Tradition tells that one Little Sarkite who used, on his visit to the Sarkite metropolis, to take more liquor than was good for him, would pause on his way homeward before passing the coupe, and would balance himself on an old cannon, to see if he were in a condi tion to traverse that perilous path. If he could maintain his balance, he would go on;if he fell off, he would remain for the niht on the northern side, and sleep him self sober. Formerly there were mines worked in Little Sark, but though produc tive, they did not pay their expenses, and they are, now abandoned, together with many of the cottages. The population of the, entire island is almost entirely given up to agriculture arid fishing—to the harvest of the fields and the harvest of the sea. The first are so little venturesome that many of them have never set foot out of their island, and seem to think it so wide a world that they tie up all their fowls by one leg lest they should,stray. The second must be bold, for thei coast is dangerous, and the storms are sometimes terrible. I• SERIOUS QUESTIONS. Has the Son, in any sense, set us free ? Has Christ broken for us the yoke of sin— of evil habit., wrong desire, sinful living— and enabled us to go forth, as his freemen, to do and to suffer, day by day, in patient consistency, all the will of God ? 0, we may deceive ourselves in some things, but we can scarcely deceive ourselves in this. We may fall into errors, into follies, even, alas ! into sins, and yet not be utterly care less, not wholly destitute of faith and grace; but we must know—we do*now—whether Christ is anything to us, or nothing, as to the great question of living in sin or living to God; whether, in any degree, by faith in him, by prayer through him, we are conquering, or even Struggling with, our besetting temptations ; whether the words have any meaning at all for us, " The Spirit of Gad,•