many years a visitor, and Mr. Symes held the office of secretary for thirty-tour years. This society did much towards their support in their last days. At the present time, a sister, aged eighty-five years, who has been a member for fifty years, receives a weekly sum.

The society does not confine its efforts to the church, as needy persons outside are often helped. Our labours among them have not been in vain, for the visitors now and again report success in winning souls to Christ.

G. C. TROUT, Secretary.

BRADFORD TEMPERANCE FESTIVAL. THE Annual Temperance Festival of Bradford Band of Hope and Temperance Society, in the Shebbear Circuit, was held in our chapel there on January 6th, 1881; when the Band of Hope was addressed from "Wine is a mocker," &c., by J. Hender. A public tea was afterwards held in the school-room, of which nearly 300 persons partook, beside Band of Hope children. A crowded meeting was subsequently held in the spacious chapel, when a piece entitled, "The Chairman of a Teetotal Meeting in a fix," was most ably dealt with by seventeen youths and men. Select music was discoursed at intervals by the fine choir. Mr. J. Ward ably presided at the harmonium. Addresses were given by J. Hender and Mr. R. Oates, from the college. People delighted.

TAVISTOCK.

THE CHRISTMAS LOCAL PREACHERS' AND QUARTERLY MEETINGS were held at Brentor on December 25th, and were very harmonious and happy. Members, cight increase on the quarter. Receipts, several pounds in advance of the disbursements. It being the chapel anniversary day, there was a Christmas tree and public tea; service in the chapel to finish with. Proceeds £9 10s.

HORRABRIDGE.

On Monday, January 27th, the friends in this place made a special effort to lessen the debt on their chapel. Tea was provided in the chapel at 5 o'clock, and at the same time a Christmas tree was exhibited in the school-room. The day's proceedings closed with a Service of Song, entitled, "Uncle Tom," ably rendered by the united choirs of Whitchurch and Morwellham. Readings by W. Smith. Amount secured, £10.

SYDENHAM.

New Year's day was a very busy and blessed day in connection with the church in this place. At 2.30, a sermon was preached in the chapel by W. Smith. After the service, a stall and Christmas tree were opened in the school-room. A great number sat down to the publie tea. Another service was held in the chapel at 7, presided over by Mr. E. Rice, of Brentor (formerly of Boasley), and addressed by Mr. Rapson (Wesleyan), Mr. Kennard and W. Smith. At the close the friends again repaired to the school-room, when a refreshment-stall was well patronised, and the greater part of the articles left on the stall and Christmas tree disposed of. The proceeds of the day-which, I believe, exceeded the hopes of even the most sanguine-amounted to £50. W. SMITH.

MILL HILL.

Our friends had a very successful day on Wednesday, December 29th. They had a Christmas Tree decked with useful articles, and a well patronized tea in the afternoon. In the evening a Service of Song entitled, "John Tregenowethhis Mark," was ably rendered by the chapel choir, and well received. Reading by M. Bowden, Esq. The weather was very unpropitious, but local interest exceedingly good. Proceeds of the day, which will be devoted to building a new organ, II. Great praise is due to the many friends who so heartily contributed to the success of the day.

LEA, CHILLAton.

The friends here have been making improvements in their school-room. To meet the expenses and remove the standing debt on the premises, they made, under the leadership of Mr. James Horswell, a noble effort on New Year's Day. A stall and Christmas Tree were opened in the afternoon. In the school-room a large number partook of tea. In the evening a good audience listened to a highly appreciated Service of Song, given by the Morwellham and Whitchurch choirs. The receipts of the day amounted to the gratifying sum of £34, which will meet the cost of the improvements and reduce the debt on chapel and school to 10. An effort is soon to be made to free the premises. W. ELLIS.

May we furnish the reader with a résumé of the attempted repression of this Ecclesiastical Revival?* It will be within the remembrance of many that, within a fortnight after the Judicial Committee, as the representative of law, dealt a heavy blow to Rationalism in the person of Mr. Voysey, it administered one scarcely less severe to Ritualism in the person of the late Mr. Purchase, of Brighton. Four things were declared by the memorable decision to be contrary to the rules of the Church of England :-the wearing of chasuble, or other priestly robes, or of any robe except the surplice, at any religious ministration; standing in front of the communion table, with the back to the congregation, at the consecration of the eucharist; mingling water with the wine in the sacramental chalice: and the use of wafer-bread instead of plain wheaten bread. Well, immediately after that famous judgment was pronounced, the High Church Clergy, from one end of the land to the other, lifted up their voice in loud and angry protest. At a meeting of the English Church Union—an organisation now so notorious-a resolution was passed to set the judgment at nought. Canons Liddon and Gregory, men certainly bound to obey the law quite as much as the humblest subjects of the crown, declared publicly and positively their resolve to disregard the decision. The Church Times resolved "lo use no strong language on the subject," not apparently for want of will, but because "words would fail us if we sought to characterise, as it deserved, this outrage on English law, on the English language, on the rights of justice, and on simple common sense." Tolerably emphatic for a writer who resolved "not to use strong language." There was also a significant threat that if, in addition to the condemnation of ritual, there came the condemnation of doctrine, then this High Church party, possibly even with a real live Bishop at their head, would wipe the dust of the Establishment off the soles of their feet, and would go forth in their self-elected freedom.

Then came the Bennett judgment, which intensified the excitement already in existence. That we do not hesitate to speak of as a disgraceful piece of business. The judges were manifestly influenced by statesmanlike, rather than by pure legal, considerations. The painful impression was certainly wide-spread that they had not been guided simply by a desire to expound the law and to apply it, but by a still more earnest desire to explain that law in such a style that those gentlemen, who had raised loud threats and menaces of what they would do if the judgment went against them, might not

For the facts embodied in the following summary, the writer wishes to express his indebtedness to the admirable "Leaders" which are such a conspicuous feature in "The Christian World," and the not less admirable "Monthly Survey," which has so distinguished the "Sunday Magazine.”

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be tempted to carry their threats into execution. They did succeed in staving off the disruption they so much dreaded, but at what a cost to their own reputation, to the credit of the law, to the moral sense of the country, to the true interests of the Church, to the cause of truth and godliness! This singular judgment was based on a mere evasion. Mr. Bennett writes plain, bold Romanism, which Sir Robert Phillimore recognises as such; Dr. Pusey furnishes Mr. Bennett with a form of speech by which the meaning of the words may be disguised, but Mr. Bennett boldly avows that the meaning is unchanged; and Dr. Phillimore declares that the disguise will do and that, thus disguised, Romanism is to be preached to a congregation in the Church of England. What is this but the humiliation of English law?

The spirit of insubordination, which has marked the conduct of the Ritualistic clergy generally, affords one of its most illustrious examples in the irrepressible Mr. Mackonochie. This prominent clerical transgressor has again and again been proceeded against in the Ecclesiastical Courts for flagrant departures from Protestant usage. As far back as 1868, the Dean of Arches pronounced him guilty. In 1871, the Privy Council suspended him for three months. On June 1st, 1878, he was sentenced by Lord Penzance, as judge in the Court of Arches, to suspension for three years from the duties and emoluments of his office as Vicar of St. Alban's, Holborn, for persistent contempt of Court. The judge declared that the disobedience was so direct and resolute as to require stringent measures. Mr. Mackonochie appealed against this decision to the Court of Queen's Bench, and on August 8th, of the same year, the appeal was decided in his favour; the consequence being, of course, that he returned to his work at perfect liberty to perpetuate that career of Ritualistic practice and teaching by which he and his friends have made themselves conspicuous. In June, 1879, the familiar heading of "Martin v. Mackonochie," was once more before the public, and the upshot of this was an unseemly struggle between the Court of Appeal and the Court of Queen's Bench. At length, the two pugnacious Courts settled their differences; the authority of Lord Penzance was re-asserted, and the order of suspension, issued so long before, was again put forth with all due formalities. Despite these sentences, Mr. Mackonochie pursues his illegal prac

tices without let or hindrance.

Is there a member of any other class in the country, especially any other public official, who would dare to act in this fashion, or who, if he was thus bold in his contempt of law, would enjoy the same tolerance? The spectacle is a scandal both to the Church and State, and so it is beginning to be felt. The Standard,

whose expression of opinion is very significant, says, with great justice: Meanwhile, the effect of this apparent inability on the part of the law to restrain these ecclesiastical excesses is most injurious to the Established Church. It tends to weaken her position from two opposite points of view. It has been long known that some of the more extreme ceremonialists fancy that, by the separation of Church and State, they would obtain more liberty for themselves. But it is now beginning to be said, by the opponents of these men, that if the State cannot protect them, they must try what they can do without the State." The failure of law is, therefore, complete and acknowledged on both sides.

The Folkstone Ritual case is too significant to be entirely overlooked. Mr. Ridsdale, the incumbent of St. Peter's Church, was proceeded against under the Public Worship Regulation Act; the case was heard in the Court of Arches, before Lord Penzance, and judgment was pronounced on February 3rd, 1876. Against this judgment, which condemned his proceedings, Mr. Ridsdale appealed to the higher Conrt; whose decision was given on May 12th, 1877. Before a crowded congregation, on the following Sunday, he conducted his service in every particular as before. There was the figure of the Saviour, still an object of idolatrous worship; there the stations of the Cross; there the candles; while he, robed in the condemned vestments, defied, before a vast throng of people, the laws of the State whose servant he is, and whose bread he eats.

Next comes the case of Mr. Arthur Tooth, of Hatcham, a name which monopolised a space in the public prints which was surely disproportionate to his real achievements. After having defied his Bishop, he treated the Court of Arches with contempt. That Court had inhibited him from performing any service in the diocese of Rochester (in which his parish was situated) for three months. He persisted, however, in proceeding with his services as usual, and every one has heard of the disgraceful rioting and uproar which, for two Sabbaths in particular, prevailed in the neighbourhood of the Church. By-and-bye the despised law was put in force; Mr. Tooth was taken into custody and lodged in Horsemonger Lane Gaol-a name familiar to all Bible Christians, as having been honoured 58 years ago as the temporary residence of one of our heroic pioneers whose incarceration was in behalf of a far nobler cause than Mr. Tooth's. The imprisonment of Mr. Tooth was an event, the necessity for which all right-minded persons deplored. But it is easily distinguished from those instances of imprisonment "for conscience sake" once so common in England, but which we now feel form a blot on our history, and

of which we can only think with shame, and with thankfulness that our lot has fallen in happier and more enlightened times.

The imprisonment of that unhappy trio, Messrs. Dale, Green, and Enraght, is of such recent date, and so fresh in memory, as to demand only a passing word. The Ritualistic party certainly know how to cry out when they are hurt, if not before; and whenever they do secure the honour of a mild nineteenth century martyrdom, they take care to let the world know how excruciatingly they feel it. We regret that the offences of these clerical gentlemen brought them into the position of prisoners. We have no great faith in the efficacy of legal proceedings to correct ecclesiastical and theological abuses. An attempt to check heresy by pains and penalties is something closely resembling the endeavour to cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. But we have no sympathy whatever with the morbid nonsense we heard and read about the awfulness of putting clergymen into prison, or about their conscientious inability to obey the secular voice. Their claim to a conscience so sensitive that it feels it a bounden duty to adopt ceremonies, of which they knew nothing when they entered the Church, is rather too ridiculous. No doubt they are conscientious, but, as the Bishop of Manchester has said, "They are posing as martyrs, when they are only playing the part of anarchists and bad citizens." And the Guardian says, "We can only hope against hope, that they may, on consideration, see reason to submit with dignity to the necessary consequences of the position they have chosen, instead of either breaking into violence, or consoling themselves by an empty complaint of persecution; a word which, in relation to the present case, has no meaning whatever."

Now, what do we learn from this hasty glance at the transactions of the last few years? Why, that the Ritualistic Clergy are guilty of a contemptuous disloyalty to every adverse civil or ecclesiastical law. This attitude is premeditated and representative. The whole body of Ritualists mean to take the same position. They are determined to assert their superiority to the law of England, sometimes descending to petty quibbles in order to evade the law, at others, assuming a bold and insolent tone and defying it; at all times showing a spirit of lawlessness unworthy of the character they sustain, and disastrous in its influence upon the nation. They are ready enough to inculcate the duty of submission to authority upon others; but of what avail can they expect their exhortations to be, when they themselves set so flagrant an example of insubordination? At any time, such disloyalty to law would be unfortunate. It is peculiarly so at this time, when there is a spirit of recklessness abroad which is ready enough to take advantage of the strange lessons thus