Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

170 Defects and their Remedy in Re-union.
All attempts to make Communion compulsory
in England, practically have led to such un
happy abuses, that we have been thankful to
repeal them, or let them fall into abeyance.
To enforce an act where you cannot also secure
the spirit which alone hinders it from being an
injury to the soul, can only be permissible
under exceptional circumstances, and it be
comes a still more dangerous practice if worldly
advantages are attached to the act. Time was
among ourselves when Communion was re
quired of those who were elected to certain
offices of the State, and we would thankfully
leave in oblivion the sacrilegious acts to which
the requirement gave rise. Continental history
is full of equally terrible instances of the sin
caused by treating Sacraments as court cere
monies.
thought
It might O
that men
at one
would
time
have
have been
conscience
enough to decline secular offices if they could
not fulfil the
religious obligations imposed by
them, but the history of the wr orld is a suffi
cient refutation of the idea, if refutation were
required. To recommend and yet leave the
conscience to itself in regarding and di<=re-
garding the recommendation, is a surer way of
attaining the end than by any stringency of
rule.
Prayers in the vernacular have always been
considered by ourselves as an unmitigated