"It is all very well to say 'it ought to be stopped,' and that 'it is all nonsense,' but, my dear sir, we cannot stop it, for the people will have it; and I beg leave to differ with you, for I think it is very far from being nonsense."
It was in a Seventh Avenue railway car, and as I sat next to the last speaker, a clerical-looking person, I could not help overhearing the conversation. The other appeared to be one of those old gentlemen who are positive about everything—who, even in the tie of their cravat, say as plain as can be, "This is the way I intend to have it, and I will have it."
"I perfectly agree with the Bishop of Oxford," said he. "See here"— and he opened a newspaper and read as follows: "'I have no great fear that as to the majority of the people there is any tendency toward Rome; and, on the contrary, I believe that in many cases this development of English ritualism tends to keep our people from Rome. It may, however, happen that the tendency of these things is to what I consider to be at this moment the worst corruption of the church of Rome—its terrible system of Mariolatry.' There, you see what it tends to, and it is plain enough, although the bishop did not like to say so, of course, that ritualism in our churches will educate our people to become Catholics; and so he adds, very properly: 'I regard it with deep distress. My own belief is that to stop these practices it will only be necessary for the bishop to issue an injunction to the clergymen to surcease from them—to surcease from incensing the holy table—to surcease from prostration after the consecration of the holy elements—to surcease from incensing at the magnificat.' My opinion precisely."
"Have you ever considered the true sense of these things?" inquired his clerical friend.
"Can't see any sense in it at all," tartly responded the old gentleman.
"No?" returned the other; "surely there must be some good reason for this wide-spread desire of both clergy and laity for a more elaborate ritual in divine service."
"Fashionable, fashionable—nothing else."
"It gives dignity and solemnity to public worship."
"Mere show."
"It adds to the apparent reality of the sacred functions of religion, in the administration of the sacraments particularly."