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 The English Law Courts. which it is the Divine will that they should stand to receive from the Author of Chris tianity "the gifts which He purchased with His tears and His blood." "From none other," he adds, "can we presume to look for spiritual sustenance." This exalted con ception of the position of the Church, as it was subsequently the cause of Mr. Gladstone's adoption of the disestablishment cult, so now

was the motive-power of his resistance to the Public Worship Regulation Bill. He was unsuccessful. The bill passed into law. But his oppo sition to it leavened public opinion and prepared the way for the age of mutual tolerance in the Church which is now setting in. Lord Penzance was ap pointed judge under the new act. His ecclesiastical sym pathies were as "low" as its most ardent promoter could de sire; but his services have happily not REV. ALEX. H. been called into fre quent requisition. "Nine cases," says Sir Walter Phillimore (Eccles. Law, p. 1036), "including double proceedings against the late Mr. Dale and the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, have been brought under this act. Of these, three did not come to a hearing. It is believed that a few more than these nine so mentioned reached the stage of a representation, but were then stopped by the bishop. This is, as far as known, the sum total of the use, in twenty years, to which the act has been put." The latest anti-ritualistic prosecution was

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the case of Read v. the Bishop of Lincoln. It was conducted from beginning to end in the most imprudent manner from the antiritualistic point of view. There was, of course, a great attraction to that party in the idea of landing in their net — if the Petrine character of the metaphor may be for given — a real live bishop. But the Bishop of Lincoln was the last person against whom the operation ought to have been directed. In the first place he was only a moderate Ritualist. In the second place, while not possessing either the statesmanlike or the supreme intel lectual gifts of the great and wise ruler of the vast diocese of London — Dr. Tem ple — he was and is the most lofty spirit ual figure in the Church. To many men — some of whom are known to the present writer — the name of Edward King, Bishop of Lin coln, has been a lode MACKONOCHIE. star from agnosticism to faith and hope. However, the fiat went forth, and Dr. King was prosecuted. The charges against the reverend prelate were these : that he per mitted lighted candles to be used on the altar during the celebration of the Eucharist, although they were not required for the pur pose of giving light; that he allowed water to be mixed with the sacramental wine in and as part of the service, and administered the wine and water so mixed to the com municants; that he stood during the com munion service, down to the ordering of the bread and wine, on the west and not on the