Untitled - Electric Scotland

i86o-68] REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 405
A strong Committee of the Lower House was ap
pointed, and its meetings were prolonged and anxious, for
it was obvious that weighty consequences might depend
on its report. The Dean of Ely was its chairman, and
Archdeacon Denison presided when he was absent. A
special interest belongs to its Report, as the first of many
documents of a similar kind. It is dated June 5, 1866,
and it treats in detail of the various Ritual points at issue
Vestments ; Altar Lights ; Incense ; Elevation of the
Elements ; the encouragement of non-communicating at
tendance, and the use of wafer bread. After full debate in
the Lower House, the Report was adopted in its entirety,
with scarcely a dissentient voice,
"
as a temperate state
ment on the subject of Ritual practice in the Church of
England," and its conclusions may
best be summarised
by quoting the resolution, adopted without a division, on
the motion of Archdeacon Denison himself :-
"
That with regard to the six points of ritual which have been
specially discussed in the Report, the judgment
of the House is
as follows : i. That the use in parish churches of the surplice is
a sufficient compliance with the directions of the Church.
2. That without pronouncing on the legality of the vestments
prescribed in the First Book of King Edward vi., or of altar
lights, the House considers that they should not be introduced into
any parish church without reference to the Bishop, and that a
similar reference should be made with regard to the introduction
of incense in the simpler manner described in the Report. 3. That
the House expresses its entire disapproval of the practice of censing
persons and things, and of all elevation of the elements after con
secration, and considers that the presence of non-communicants,
excepting in special cases, during the celebration of the Holy
Communion, and the use of wafer bread, are to be discouraged." 1
This important resolution, the deliberate outcome of
no small debate, was communicated to the Upper House
on June 2Qth, too late for any discussion by the Bishops
1
Chronicle of Convocation, June 28, 1866, p. 562.