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Ritualism THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 54 Rivius and omissions, as well as with the excesses and irregularities, it accepted the verdict given by the earlier commission on the con i i. The stitution of the present court of final New Com- appeal. It declared that " the present mission's structure of the ecclesiastical jurisdic Report. tion is, in our view, one chief cause of the growth of ritual irregularities." It pronounced the present court of final appeal to be a civil court of the crown, not exercising any au thority from the church. It desires this character to be made clear in a newly constituted court, which should be obviously secular, and should be required to refer any matter of doctrine or discipline to the spirituality, in the persons of the bishops. Until this new court of appeal has been secured, with its correspondent church courts, it considers it inex pedient to press for coercive measures, excepting in certain specified cases of special gravity, which are inconsistent with the teaching of the Church, and the illegality of which can not be held to de pend upon judgments of the privy council. These include reservation of the sacrament, with a view to its adoration; benediction with the sacrament; hymns, prayers, etc., involving invocation of the Blessed Virgin; the observance of the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin; the veneration of images and roods. These practises are to receive no toleration. But for the other matters it is pro nounced desirable " to postpone proceedings until the reforms recommended in connection with the final court of appeal and the diocesan and provin cial courts can be carried into effect." The com mission, therefore, admits the case against the courts, on which the ritualists have insisted. But it considers that certain specified acts can be dealt with as illegal because their illegality is separable from any judgment of the existing court of appeal. But the commission did more. It recognized frankly the impossibility and the inexpediency of the rigid uniformity of worship implied under the Elizabethan settlement. Such a uniformity has never been actually carried out in practise. It be longs as an ideal to a time when the ideas of relig ious liberty and toleration in Church ia. Results; and State were unknown. " In Church Present and State alike, these ideas have now Status. seen their way to undisputed preva lence. It is incongruous that the pre cise and uniform requirements which were in har mony with the Elizabethan ideas of administration should still stand as the rule for the public worship of the Church under altered conditions and amid altered ways of thought." " A large comprehen siveness in matters of doctrine has grown up, while it is sought to maintain a severe rigidity in rites and ceremonies." This is inconsistent and incon ceivable. " It has proved impracticable to obtain complete obedience to the acts of uniformity in one direction, because it is not now, and never has been, demanded in other directions." By these pronounce ments the commission has opened a new era. It has abandoned the ideal of Elizabethan uniformity, on which an appeal to coercion had rested. It asks for elasticity or variety within the limits of the church order, and under the direction of the ordi-
nary. It advises that letters of business be issued to the convocations to consider (a) a new rubric regulating the vesture of the ministers, and (b) to frame modifications in the existing law which will secure greater elasticity in the conduct of divine service. It would give the bishops power to authorize special services, etc. So the verdict stands. The letters of business have been issued, the convocations are engaged in the task of revision. No action has as yet been taken on the matter of the final court of appeal. Until this is done the ritual details under dispute (other than the specified illegalities singled out for independent condemnation) should, according to the report, be held over in suspended judgment. On these lines a conciliatory policy is made possible, and it is this which the bishops are now attempting to work. If they are hurried into immediate coercive measures by popular passion, at this juncture, they will be defying the serious and wise conclusion of this powerful commission. This consideration of the evidence leads to two conclusions: first, the law of public worship is too narrow for the religious life of the present generation. Secondly, the machinery for discipline has broken down.
BiBLioanAPHY: W. H. Frere, The Principles of Religious Ceremonial, London, 1908; History of Ritualism, by Vox Clamantis, London, 1907; P. Martin, Anglican-Ritualism as seen by a Catholic and a Foreigner, ib. 1881; J. G. Norton, A Plea for the Toleration of Ritualists, ib. 1881; S. D. White, Ritualism, ib. 1881; C. Wordsworth, On the Present Disquietude in the Church, ib. 1881; Oxoniensis, Romanism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, ib. 1882; Z. H. Turton, High Churchmen and their Church, ib. 1888; W. Nicholas, Ritualism, ib. 1890; J. C. Ryle, The Present Crisis, London, 1892; Romanism and the Ritualism in Great Britain and Ireland, Edinburgh, 1895; W. M. Sinelair, Words to the Laity on Contemporary Ecclesiastical Controversy, London, 1895; Pbre Ragey, La Crise religieuse en Angleterre, Paris, 1898; F. Peek, The English Church and the Altar, London, 1897 J. Brown, The Present Crisis in the Church of England, ib. 1899; H. W. Clarke, Romanism without the Pope in the Church of England, Beckenham, 1899; P. T. Forsyth, Rome, Reform and Reaction: four Lectures, London, 1899 K. Ireton, Ritualism Abandoned: or, a Priest redeemed, ib. 1899; A. W. Joliffe, What is Ritualism t and who are Ritualists f Shanklin, 1899; J. Meldrum, Lawbreaks in the Church, Singapore, 1899; H. H. Henson, Church Problems. A View of modern Anglicanism, London, 1900; F. Meyrick, Old Anglicanism and Modern Ritualism, ib. 1901; V. Staley, Studies in Ceremonial, Oxford, 1901; J. Wenn, The Priestly Letters: or, the Priest that is the Enemy, London, 1902; L. Heitland, Ritualism in Town and Country, ib. 1903; E. W. Leachman, The Church's Object Lessons. Lessons on the Seruoture, Symbolism, and outward Worship of the Church, Oxford, 1904; F. Meyriek, An Appeal from the Twentieth to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, London, 1905; W. P. Swain, History and Meaning of the Ornaments Rubric, Bath, 1905; H. Waee, An Appeal to the First Six Centuries, London, 1905; J. Warren, Ritualism, its Leading Tenets, ib. 1908; C. Walker, The Ritual Reason why, ed. T. I. Ball, London, 1908; W. Preston, Anti-Ritualism. A Catechism for Protestant Communicants, new ed., by C. Neil, ib. 1910.
RIVER BRETHREN: A denomination of Mennonite origin and peculiarities, dating from a revival in Pennsylvania in 1770. The name is supposed to be due to the fact that the original members were baptized in the Susquehanna River, or, because living near that stream, came to be known to others as the " Brethren by the River." Jacob Engle, the first minister among them, came with