Page:Hints towards peace in ceremonial matters.djvu/19

Rh, are contained in the Lectionary and Shortened Services Acts, which seem capable of a wider application than they have hitherto received, and might, if judiciously applied, meet many recently developed religious wants.

I have in this memorandum intentionally considered the question from the High Church side, and I have refrained from hinting too precisely at the limits within which vestments and lights might be allowed. The first stage in the negotiation is to agree that there shall be an allowance, and that there shall be limits. After that, the details will have to be settled. It may be urged that negotiations are premature while the Liverpool and Prestbury cases are still unsettled. I contend, on the contrary, that the interval affords a rare opportunity for an impartial consideration of the broad question in view of the whole Church of England as it stands, with its co-existent ceremonial and anti-ceremonial parties, with their various shades, and its large number of neutral members. Whatever may be the judgment in those two cases, the two parties will still remain, of which one or the other, if not both, will certainly be disappointed at the results. Can the interval, then, be better employed than in reaching some modus vivendi which should be honourable and possible under any formal adjudication of the disputed points All the points in question have reference to the celebration of the Holy Communion, and are therefore properly the