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action, for the report had decisively confirmed the protest of churchmen against the jurisdiction of the privy council. The existing judgments, which constituted the actual law, now, therefore, lost all moral authority. No one could expect them to be obeyed, when the case against the authority which promulgated them had been formally justified. This is the heart of all the difficulties that followed. The appeal to the bishops to make the law obeyed and the appeal to the clerical conscience to repudiate breaches of law lost all force when once it was allowed that the law itself was the chief matter in question.

It was obvious that the bishops must secure obedience by other methods than prosecution in court. They must discover some basis of agreement other than that provided by privy council

g. The judgment. At the crisis, providence Archbishop's gave them the opportunity of finding

Decision. such a basis-an opportunity bravely seized by the chief authority con cerned. In 1888, the Church Association instituted legal proceedings against Dr. King, Bishop of Lin coln, in order to test the legality of certain usages. The archbishop, after prolonged discussion as to the legitimacy of his action, decided to hear the case himself with the episcopal assessors. He gave his judgment Nov. 29, 1890, sanctioning under de fined conditions the use of the mixed chalice, of altar lights, the adoption of the eastward position, and the singing of the Agnus Dei; and he forbade the signing of the cross in giving the absolution and the benediction. An appeal was made to the privy council, but that judicial body was far too wise to traverse a judgment of such intrinsic weight backed by knowledge superior to their own. They con firmed it, even where it was against their former decision.

Here, then, was a basis provided, on which a general conciliation could take effect. The judgment stood on its own merits as an ecclesiastical pronouncement delivered by the highest authority in the church. The clergy could afford to accept it, if the bishops would limit their claims

ro. Defini- within its lines. Under the broad as- tive sumption of these terms, ten years fol Settlement lowed of steady peace. Bishop Temple not yet had resolutely used his power of veto Reached. to prohibit legal measures being taken against the reredos of St. Paul's cathe dral, and had been supported in his right by the highest court of appeal. It was understood that he had set his face against any appeal to force. He honored good pastoral work in whatever form he found it; and he trusted to his own personal influ ence to do the rest. It was a noble hope, and in deed it ought to have been met by a spontaneous determination not to take advantage of his confi dence. But a great diocese like London can not, ultimately, be expected to work on delicate under standings of this kind. New men come in who have had no part in the understanding. The extreme pressure of local work compels even the beat men to concentrate upon its immediate needs, as they feel them, without regard to the wider political sit uation. The situation develops of itself without

anyone exactly intending it. So it was that while Bishop Temple absorbed himself in the labors of the diocese and left his clergy to themselves over ritual, trusting to their honor to keep the terms, a very wide license was gradually taken, and the individual divergences of use became perilous and alarming. The leaders of the movement themselves became aware that things were getting out of hand; and, at a sudden crisis over some practises in a city church, they refused to defend them, drew up a statement which recognized the necessity for a stricter supervision of special services, and expressed their desire for a greater measure of submission to authority as the first principle of catholicism. The bishops were prepared to take action, and they met with signs of loyal response. Unluckily a storm broke out, and swept away the opportunity for conciliatory action. A Protestant speaker of the name of Kensit aroused the passion of the crowd against illicit practises, and Sir William Harcourt kindled the flame in parliament by letters to The Times in the summer of 1898. From this moment reasonable treatment of a delicate and complicated situation became impossible. In 1899 Archbishop Temple made one notable attempt to rescue the cause of reason and peace from the welter of passion. He requested the bishop of London to bring before him as supreme ordinary certain vexed questions about the use of the incense, of portable lights, of the practise of reservation, that he might give them a " hearing "; not as before a court, but as a matter for " an opinion." He and the archbishop of York delivered a joint " opinion " on the first two points and concurred in forbidding any form of reservation of the consecrated elements. This " opinion " failed to secure complete compliance. The archbishop, who had been driven back on the law, which he had done his utmost to avoid, took a singularly limited and unelastic view of what the law was; and in the mean time Mr. Kensit, in town and country, and Sir William Harcourt, in parliament, had made a peaceable solution impossible. A series of church discipline bills introduced by Mr. McArthur in the house of commons, even though they never got beyond second readings, and not always so far as that, nevertheless, raised the ultimate issues between Church and State; and these issues had to be met. The result was a new royal commission on ecclesiastical discipline, very strongly manned, which was authorized to " inquire into the alleged prevalence of breaches or neglect of the law, relating to the conduct of divine service, and to the ornaments and fittings of the churches; and to consider the existing power and procedure applicable to such irregularities." It was appointed in Apr., 1904, and reported in 1908. It will be noticed that it was to consider " neglect " as well as disorder, and also to report on the problem of the jurisdiction of the courts. By including the last point it confessed that the key to the ritual disorder lay in the doubtful condition of the authoritative law. Obedience to the law is possible only when moral confidence in the law had first been secured.

The commission was faithful to its conception of the task committed to it, and after taking an enormous amount of evidence dealing with neglect