Untitled - Electric Scotland

1 860-68] RITUALISM 399
advocating a union of High and Low Churchmen to resist
"
the common enemy unbelief."
" The recent miserable,
1
soul-destroying he judgment," said, "surely requires one
united action on the part of every clergyman and lay
member of the Church to repudiate it."
Notwithstanding this, the Ritual question carne again
before the House of Lords on several occasions during the
next few years, on the motion of Lord Ebury, Lord West-
meath, and others, and although
there was no serious
attempt at legislation, Bishop Tait had frequently to
answer questions, and even to debate the points at issue.
His position at that time was one of singular difficulty.
If ultra-Protestant opinion has of recent years taken a
more active and organised shape, it is only because, thirty
years ago, the Ritualistic movement was supposed by the
average British Protestant to be too puny to call for the
use of weapons so strong and stern. The public mind, as
represented in the daily press, treated the whole thing
with sovereign contempt, and the earnest advocates and
the hot opponents of the Ritual advance say, Mr. Bryan
ridiculed or
King and Lord Westmeath were impartially
impartially ignored. Bishop Tait had better reasons than
any other man to know that the force of the movement
was altogether underrated by these humorous or super
cilious critics. How much of the new departure was
doctrinal, and how much was aesthetic, might
with him or
others be an open question, but the reality of the change
that was taking place became more apparent every week.
It was in his diocese that the battalions were being armed
and organised both for the defence and the attack, and his
daily correspondence bore ample evidence to the widening
area of the contest. On May 2nd, 1860, was held the
first meeting of the English Church Union, with Mr. Colin
1
i.e. on Essays and Reviews.