Untitled - Electric Scotland

428 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. xv.
you, on full consideration, make in the service, go so far as to
remove what is a serious stumbling-block to so many attached
members of our Church. I shall at all times be ready to give
you my best advice in this or any other matter. With regard to
the printed paper, I should not be dealing candidly with you if
I did not say that I fear its statements are very difficult to
reconcile with the 2Qth Article, and certainly go beyond anything
which I believe to be warranted by the general teaching of our
formularies. I cannot but think that you make a great mistake
in supposing that these (which I must hold to be) exaggerated
statements are at all conducive to real devotion. The acknow
ledged Spiritual Presence of Our Blessed Lord with faithful
worshippers, in the Sacrament of His death, must call forth all
healthy reverential feelings ; and I think your statements of
doctrine, like certain parts of the ceremonial which you have
been in the habit of using to symbolise your doctrine, are rather
impediments in the way of the Spiritual worship which the Lord
loves, and have a tendency to substitute for it a morbid excite
ment of the feelings. My belief is that the acknowledged
earnestness and devotion of your congregation spring, not from
the peculiarities of the ceremonial you have used or the doctrines
you have preached, but, in spite of these, from God s blessing
on the deep sense of the real Christian verities, and the anxious
love to save souls, which are daily shown in the preaching and
lives of yourself and others who co-operate with you. It is my
earnest prayer that God may more and more enable you to dwell
on these verities, and cause your zealous conviction of them to
shine forth more and more, to the complete emancipation of
yourself and your people from the errors with which I so much
regret to think they are at present mixed. Believe me to be,
my dear Mr. Mackonochie, yours very truly,
"
A. C. LONDON."
A few months later the long controversy entered upon
a new phase. A prosecution of Mr. Mackonochie was set
on foot by the Church Association, with the view, as the
promoters stated, of obtaining a definite decision upon
the disputed points of law. The promoter was Mr.
John Martin, who, as treasurer and manager of the
schools in Baldwin s Gardens, had for more than thirty