Untitled - Electric Scotland

.860-68] ATTITUDE OF OLD HIGH CHURCHMEN 401
The Ritual question, as has been said, was occasionally
mooted in the House of Lords, but so far as this book is
discussions were of little
concerned, the Parliamentary
moment until the year 1867, when Lord Shaftesbury, as
will be seen below, made a vigorous attempt to procure
coercive legislation in the direction he desired. And,
strange to say, Convocation had been silent on the sub
ject. During the eleven years that had elapsed since
its revival in 1854, not a single debate of any import
ance had taken place upon the Ritual question. But
the prominence which the movement had assumed in
1865, both in Parliament and outside,
rendered that
silence no longer possible. On February I, 1866,
weighty deputations were received by the Archbishop
of Canterbury and the Prime Minister, and Archbishop
excited wide attention. Archdeacon
Longley s replies
Wordsworth l headed the first and most important of
these deputations, and presented a memorial
"
in reference
to the recent introduction into the celebration of Divine
Service of practices which, by their diversity, and by their
deviation from law and from long-established usage, are
disturbing the peace and impairing the efficiency of the
Church." The spirit of the innovators, he said,
in his
speech, "seems to be sectarian in its character, and schismatical
in its practices, inasmuch as it divides the Church
into parties, wastes her energies, and casts stumblingblocks
in the way of souls for which Christ died."
To a subsequent deputation from members of the
English Church Union and others, who deprecated
"
any
alteration being made in the Book of Common Prayer,
respecting
the ornaments of the Church and of the
ministers thereof," the Archbishop said :
"
I have already declared my determination never to consent
1 Afterwards Bishop of Lincoln.
!
Guardian, Feb. 7, 1866, p. 138.
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