But if so many strange things are done in our own country, they are nothing to the innovations which are rapidly gaining ground in the Church of England. The ritualistic movement in Great Britain is not so much the struggle of an enthusiastic party for change or reform as it is the spontaneous working of a logical doctrinal development which is gradually spreading throughout the community. There is a struggle attending it; but it is the struggle of the let-alone party for its repression, not of the apostles of ritualism for its extension. And in spite, perhaps partly in consequence, of the bitterness of the opposition, the number of churches in which the good old Catholic ceremonies are revived in their ancient splendor is, daily augmenting, and the zeal of the congregations is increasing. Ritualism in England is not what Punch is so fond of representing it—a mere system of ecclesiastical millinery, born of the sick brains of foolish and fanciful young curates; but it is a genuine expression of the sentiment of a respectable minority of the Protestant laity. The numerous prayer-books and similar works, prepared for the use of laymen under ritualistic inspiration, are sold by millions of copies. One entitled "The Churchman's Guide to Faith and Piety," contains formulas for morning and evening prayer, with an examination of conscience; devotions for saints' days; instructions for systematic sacramental confession, and for devoutly receiving the holy Eucharist and assisting at the sacred mysteries; and prayers for the faithful departed. The real presence and the sacrificial character of the holy Eucharist are expressed in the clearest possible manner. There are several hand-books of devotion toward the blessed sacrament, and manuals of religious exercises in honor of certain particular manifestations of the divine goodness, such, for instance, as the passion of our Saviour. A collection of "Hymns, Ancient and Modern," of which it was stated some time ago that over one and a half millions of copies had been sold, contains simply the principal hymns of the Breviary, and in a work entitled "An Appendix to the Hymnal Noted," the advanced Puseyite will find complete directions for using those hymns in public worship, according to the rubrics of the Breviary. An English publisher has just announced a new manual containing "the offices of prime and compline and the vigils for the dead; the forms of blessing and sprinkling holy water; the Missa in nocte Nativitatis Domini; the Lenten litanies; the blessing of the ashes and the palm branches; the washing of the altars and the Maundy; the benediction of the fonts on Holy Saturday, and the like: translated from the Latin, with an introduction and explanatory notes, and illustrated with extracts from the consuetudinary of the church of Sarnm and the plain-song of the Mechlin office-books."
"Matins" and "vespers" are chanted in many of the English churches by choristers robed in surplices and ranged on each side of the chancel. The Gregorian tones are used to a great extent. The officiating clergyman wears a cope on festival days, and it has been the custom until lately to incense the altar during the chanting of the Magnificat. The most complete return, however, to the practice of the ancient church is seen in the celebration of the Eucharist. All the Catholic vestments—the amice, alb, cincture, maniple, stole, and chasuble—have been restored. The regulations of the rubrics respecting different colors for different days and seasons are followed. Sometimes the celebrant is attended by a deacon and a subdeacon, acolytes, and censer bearers; and the use of candles on the altar is very common. Even in churches where candles, incense, and colored vestments are unknown, the Introit, taken from the Roman missal or the missal of Salisbury, is frequently chanted at the beginning of the service, and it is a very common practice to add to the regular liturgy contained in the Book of Common Prayer various prayers taken from the ordinary and the canon of the mass. For example, the minister often prefixes to the service the psalm Judica me, Deus with the antiphon, the Confiteor, etc., which we hear every day at mass. So, too, when the celebrant is placing the bread and wine on the altar, he borrows our offertory and the prayers which follow it, his own liturgy not having furnished him with anything appropriate to the occasion. The Anglican office sets down no prayers for the priest's own communion; he, therefore, supplies the omission by reciting in a low voice the unde et memores of the missal.
The use of crucifixes and images, and especially the image of the blessed virgin, holding her divine Son in her arms, is by no means uncommon among the more advanced ritualists; and some clergymen are in the habit of blessing objects of devotion, such as medals and crosses, and even of blessing holy water. A correspondent of a London newspaper writes a letter of indignant complaint about the Christmas celebrations this season, at some of the "advanced" churches, in one of which he declares that "numberless tapers shed their halo of glory upon a veritable Bambino," or figure of the infant Saviour lying in the manger. An Anglican Missal has been published at Oxford, containing the order of the Communion service, without any other part of the Liturgy. This service is commonly spoken of as the "mass," and we even hear of "high mass," and "low mass," to say nothing of matins and vespers. A few weeks ago we read an account in an English paper of a nuptial mass in one of the ritualistic churches. The faithful address their ministers as Father John, Father Peter, or whatever the Christian name may be, and talk of their "confessors" and "spiritual directors" with all the composure of genuine Catholics.
The following description of a service at St. Alban's in London in holy week, is taken from an English newspaper:
The altar on Maundy Thursday was vested in white and the holy Eucharist was solemnly celebrated at 7 A.M. when many of the members of a confraternity attached to the church communicated. After the morning service the altar was entirely stripped of all its vestings and ornaments except the candlesticks, and so remained until Easter eve. On Good Friday, there was a meditation at 8 A.M., which was well attended. The church was full at 10.30, when matins and the ante-communion office were said. The sermon was followed by the chanting of the Reproaches, and the hymn Pange Lingua. At 2 P.M., after the singing of the litany, the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie preached the three hours' agony, the order of which was as follows: (1.) One of the words of our Lord on the cross, was chanted by the choir; (2.) A short sermon on the word was next pronounced; (3.) All knelt in silent meditation, the organ playing softly; (4.) A hymn was sung. This order was observed for each of the words on the cross, the whole service lasting three hours and a half. At 3 o'clock, the hour of our Lord's death, the bell was tolled for five minutes, while all knelt in silence. Even-song, or vespers, took place at 7 P.M. The sermon was followed by the chanting of the Stabat Mater and Miserere. A meditation on the taking down from the cross closed the evening. All through the day the bell was tolled solemnly, and most of the congregation appeared in mourning. On Easter eve there was service at 9 P.M. The church was elaborately decorated for the coming festival with white and scarlet hangings, hot-house flowers, and candles. The service opened with a procession, the chanters singing the old Easter hymn O filii et filiae, and three of the attendants carrying banners. Then vespers were chanted, and after the reading of the second lesson the sacrament of baptism was administered to twenty-eight persons. On Easter Sunday the Eucharist was celebrated at 7, 8, and 9 A.M.; at 10.30, matins were sung; and at 11.15 there was a grand Easter service which we suppose the high and dry "Anglo-Catholics" would call high mass. The ministers and attendants, with lights and banners, entered in procession, while the choristers chanted the hymn Ad Caenam Agni. As soon as they reached the altar, the Introit was sung, and the "mass" or communion service, was then celebrated in the usual manner, another breviary hymn, the victimae Paschali, being chanted at the offertory.
In an account of the holy week services at St. Philip's, Clerkenwell, we read that on Palm Sunday the altar was vested in black, the cross veiled with crape, and the retable strewn with palm branches. The choir, bearing palms, entered the church, singing the hymn "Ride on, etc.," preceded by the processional cross which was also veiled with crape. At a church in the diocese of Manchester recently, the services for Good Friday began at midnight, with a litany and sermon. At 6 A. M. there was a litany again, with a second sermon. At 9 A. M. followed matins and a sermon; at noon a special service and sermon; at 3 P. M. litany and sermon; at 6, evensong, and sermon, at 9, litany, sermon and benediction. The Church Times, a ritualist periodical, remarked that it was "cheering to find the Catholic view of the observance of the great fast so admirably developed in a diocese so terribly over-ridden by Puritanism."
Some of our readers may remember the circumstances attending the funeral of the Rev. John Mason Neale at East Grinstead, England, in August 1866. Dr. Neale was well known as the author of some admirable translations of Breviary hymns, as one of the most earnest apostles of ritualism, and as the founder of a convent of women. The burial ceremonies, in the chapel of Sackville College, included what might be called a high mass of requiem, with priest, deacon, and sub-deacon, habited in magnificent vestments of black silk trimmed with silver; an assistant priest; and a master of ceremonies, or ceremoniarius. The service commenced with the introit "Grant them eternal rest, O Lord." After the epistle the Dies Irae was chanted in Grergorian melody, as the gradual. When choir and congregation assembled after communion in the college quadrangle, there to form themselves into a procession, one of the clergy repeated the prayer, Deus, qui nobis sub sacramento mirabili, which is always chanted in the Catholic church at the benediction of the blessed Sacrament. In the procession, besides clerks, chanters, acolytes, and cross-bearer, appeared the "sisters of the third order;" novices; "sisters of the second order" in white veils edged with blue; "professed sisters;" the mother superior, assistant mother, and mistress of novices of Dr. Neale's convent; superiors of other orders; "brothers associate;" etc. The corpse "was vested in cassock, surplice, and black stole; a crucifix was in his crossed hands, the same one which he was in the habit of having before him when hearing confessions." In an appendix to a virulent little treatise against ritualism by the Rev. Robert Vaughan, D.D., [Footnote 8] there are descriptions of services in several of the advanced churches; and the author says: "This is the course of things in a large number of our city and suburban churches over the kingdom; and not a few churches in our smaller towns, and even in our villages, do their best, as before intimated, toward imitating the example set them by their more fashionable and wealthy neighbors. The editor of The Church Times filled some thirty columns of that journal with such reports as we have cited, relating to the celebrations of last Easter, and stated that the accounts he had published were 'only a small selection from the overwhelming mass' which had reached him," Proof enough that the movement, as we said before, is very widely extended and essentially popular.
[Footnote 8: Ritualism in the English Church in its Relation to Scripture, Piety, and Law. By Robert Vaughan, D.D. 12mo. London: 1866.]
Everybody remembers the commotion raised a year or two ago by an enthusiastic gentleman named Lyne who called himself "Brother Ignatius," and made a very foolish and unfortunate attempt to establish a Protestant order of Benedictines in England. But other efforts to introduce religious communities into the Church of England have been more prosperous, and there are now at least 400 or 500 members of various sisterhoods, who take vows, some for life, some for three years. [Footnote 9]