unritualistic legal functionary who was waiting there, 'Oh, these are the ribbons which the Bishop made the clergy take off.' Next day appeared the story of the Bishop's stern command'Take off these ribbons, gentlemen.'" On the same occasion, the Bishop required, before proceeding with the consecration service, certain other changes in the ornaments of the chancel to make it correspond with what it had been when the usual inspection prior to consecration took place. The story of what was called, in a Church newspaper at the time, "the Bishop's disgusting and irreverent conduct at St. Michael's, Shoreditch," grew to large dimensions, but seems to have been treated with deserved contempt by the clergy of St. Michael's. Indeed, Mr. Nihill, the incumbent, at a Dedication Festival of the Church in a subsequent year, in proposing the health of the Bishop of the Diocese, expressed his "firm conviction that the Bishop was placed over that Diocese by Providence for the special purpose of allowing Catholics to obtain, under his truly liberal government, a position which would be unassailable "--a testimony, by the way, which brought the Bishop no small trouble from the opposite quarter, where he used frequently to be denounced for his inactivity in the suppression of 'Popery and Popish ways.' "The Bishop of London," said the Record, “is, to a qualified extent, decidedly AntiRitualistic, but he is one of those who have planted new ritualistic churches in his diocese, and who would widen the platform of the Church of England, and does not fully go with the Evangelical school in following the old Reformers of the Church." We have now passed in review the Bishop's relation to most of the prominent Churches of the 'advanced' school in his diocese. His personal friendship with such men as Mr. Lowder and Mr. Mackonochie was knit yet 1860-68] LETTER ON RITUALISM 441 closer when he and they were toiling side by side in the cholera visitation of 1866, elsewhere described, the epidemic reaching its height a few weeks after the consecration of St. Peter's, London Docks.1 But it would be altogether a mistake to suppose that his growing appreciation of the character and work of these devoted men led the Bishop to change the opinion he had formed as to the errors of their ecclesiastical system, or as to the mischief arising from their disregard of duly constituted Courts of Law. Quotations have already been given in this chapter, perhaps too copiously, from his public speeches upon the subject, both in Parliament and in Convocation. These utterances were intended, of necessity, for the Church at large. But the warnings he addressed to his own Diocese were even more emphatic and detailed. In February 1866, the Archdeacon and Rural Deans of Middlesex presented a petition to the Bishop, praying him to discountenance the Ritualistic practices which were here and there coming into use, "and, so far as they are illegal, to suppress them." The Bishop in a few days published a long and careful answer for circulation among the clergy of the diocese, and he incorporated the greater part of it in his third Diocesan Charge, published in December 1866. A few paragraphs may be quoted : "The phrase 'excessive Ritualism,'" he said, "requires to be explained, for, as commonly employed, it bears two meanings. "(1) Sometimes the phrase is used for the introduction into Parish Churches of a form of worship always sanctioned and maintained in our Cathedrals, and in many of our College Chapels. . . . No doubt the spirit in which these efforts origi nated has done very much of late years to invest our houses of God with a more seemly dignity, and to give a liveliness to our outward worship which has been found very attractive, especially 1 See p. 470. . to the young. Such changes, in my judgment, are only to be deprecated if they be introduced without proper regard to the feelings and wishes of the Parishioners, and without due reference, if need be, to the controlling authority of the Ordinary. . . . (2) But there is an excessive ritualism of another kind, to which I suppose in your address you especially refer, and which, within the last year, has caused a very wide-spread alarm in the Church. Certain persons have taken upon themselves so to alter the whole external appearance of the celebration of the Lord's Supper as to make it scarcely distinguishable from the Roman Mass, and they endeavour on all occasions to introduce into the other services some change of vestment or ornament quite alien to the established English usage of 300 years. ". . . The number of those who are so committed is, I am confident, very small. The Church of England from the Reformation has allowed great liberty as to the doctrine of the Sacraments; and though I fear it cannot be denied that a few are engaged in a conspiracy to bring back our Church to the state in which it was before the Reformation, I fully believe that most of those who advocate what we deem an excessive ritual would indignantly deny that they had any such purpose. . . . "I trust that the good sense and good feeling of the Clergy and the kindly admonitions of authority will prevail, without making it necessary to defend the Church from the innovations of a few, either by painful legal prosecutions or by a declaratory enactment of Parliament and Convocation. If admonitions fail, then at last an enactment must explain how and under what safeguards that controlling influence, which the Church has ever contemplated as vested in its chief officers, shall be made to bear on the discretion of individual clergymen. "I feel strongly on this important question, but I would not have you, my Reverend Brethren, to suppose that I have any great anxiety as to the future of our beloved Church. As with evils of a totally different kind which alarmed us two or three years ago, so with these-in quietness and confidence is our strength. I believe our Church to be growing steadily in the affections of our people, through the self-denying lives of our Clergy, and every year to be more distinctly assuming its place, as at once expressing and guiding the religious sentiments of this great nation, and as the chief witness in the world for a zealous, loving, and intelligent Christianity. 1860-68] LETTER ON RITUALISM 443 Commending you and all your labours and our brethren in the ministry to the intercession of our common Lord and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I am, my dear Mr. Archdeacon and Reverend Brethren, your faithful friend and servant, "A. C. LONDON." CHAPTER XVI. THE LONDON EPISCOPATE. THE BISHOP OF LONDON'S FUND-THE LADIES' DIOCESAN ASSOCIATION-SISTERHOODS CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1866-st. PETE ORPHANAGE-BISHOP'S ILLNESS-THIRD DIOCESAN CHARGE. 1863-1867. NOTHING has yet been said about what is popularly regarded, and not without reason, as the greatest and most memorable act of Tait's London Episcopate-the inception and foundation of 'The Bishop of London's Fund.' In his Charge of 1862, delivered immediately on his return to London, after declining the Archbishopric of York, he described, with many careful statistics, the spiritual destitution of vast regions of the Metropolis. The population of London, as he pointed out, was annually increased y about 40,000 souls, and all the efforts which had been made were inadequate to overtake these steadily advancing needs. Between 1851 and 1861, sixty-six permanent and twenty-one temporary Churches had been opened, providing accommodation for about one-sixth of the increased population. "The appalling fact accordingly transpires," said Bishop Tait, "that, whatever were our spiritual wants in this respect in 1851, all our great exertions have not lessened them, but have at best prevented the evil from growing worse. He pointed out that there were three parishes in the |