Mr. Stevens.—"This, certainly, is a too glaring usurpation of the Divine prerogative of mercy on the part of the priesthood, to be tolerated, especially by us Protestants. Away with it from our Prayer-book, and send it back to Papal Rome, from whence it came. It is both a sin and a disgrace to a Protestant community to tolerate amongst them such a close conformity to the blasphemous usurpations of the Papal Church."
Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—"I thought but little about it when I was ordained, but I have thought much since, and I must admit that it is most objectionable, so much so that I have made up my mind never to attend another ordination service. The bishop assumes and professes to convey a power which does not belong to man, and with which man ought never to be intrusted."
Mr. Roscoe.—"To invest a man with such power has a most dangerous and servile tendency. If a priest really believes, as many of them do, both Papal and Protestant, that he is actually endowed with the authority which the bishop professes to delegate to him at his ordination, must he not look upon himself as a great being, entitled to great homage, having a disposing power over the final destiny of the human spirit? will he not move about amongst his parishioners as a demi-god in the human form?—whom he wills, he pardons and saves, and whom he wills, he allows to perish. And if he makes the people believe this, as the clergy are now attempting to do, will they not stand more in awe of him, whom they see and hear, than they do of God, who is invisible?"
THE BURIAL SERVICE.
Mr. Stevens.—"I think some parts of this service require revision, though, as a whole, I rather like it."
Mr. Roscoe.—"As a service to be read at the interment of a devout man, a believer in Jesus Christ, it is very appropriate; but it must be a very painful infliction on a truly pious and conscientious clergyman, to read the service at the interment of a very wicked person."
Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—"Yes, Sir, it is indeed; and I make it a rule to vary the forms of expression when I have such an office to perform on such an occasion."
Mr. Roscoe.—"Yes, Sir, I am aware you do; and though it is, I believe, a trespass on the sanctity of canon law, yet I think no conscientious person will blame you."
Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—"On one occasion, some years since, when I made this variation, a complaint was lodged against me by the relatives of the deceased for so doing. The bishop sent for me; and when I told him that the deceased was a very impure man, an avowed sceptic, and one who died in the act of sinning against God, his lordship said, 'I do not wonder at your scruples. I cannot blame you.' The service is often most painfully trying to a conscientious clergyman, not only on his own account, but on account of the wrong impressions it often makes on those who attend at the funeral. We know that last impressions, like first impressions, are often very powerful; they linger long on the heart and on the imagination; and hence, when the survivors of a wicked man hear a clergyman thanking God for taking the soul of the departed one to himself, they very naturally withdraw from the scene of death, under a firm belief that, however profligate he may have been in his life, and however agonizing his dying mental pangs, he is just as well off in the eternal world as he would be if he had lived a religious or virtuous life."