were determined
not to give up a single word or form; to whom it seemed that the prayers
were no prayers without the surplice, the babe no Christian if not
marked with the cross, the bread and wine no memorials of redemption
or vehicles of grace if not received on bended knee. Why, these persons
asked, was the docile and affectionate son of the Church to be disgusted
by seeing the irreverent practices of a conventicle introduced into her
majestic choirs? Why should his feelings, his prejudices, if prejudices
they were, be less considered than the whims of schismatics? If, as
Burnet and men like Burnet were never weary of repeating, indulgence
was due to a weak brother, was it less due to the brother whose
weakness consisted in the excess of his love for an ancient, a decent, a
beautiful ritual, associated in his imagination from childhood with
all that is most sublime and endearing, than to him whose morose and
litigious mind was always devising frivolous objections to innocent and
salutary usages? But, in truth, the scrupulosity of the Puritan was not
that sort of scrupulosity which the Apostle had commanded believers to
respect. It sprang, not from morbid tenderness of conscience, but from
censoriousness and spiritual pride; and none who had studied the New
Testament could have failed to observe that, while we are charged
carefully to avoid whatever may give scandal to the feeble, we are
taught by divine precept and example to make no concession to the
supercilious and uncharitable Pharisee. Was every thing which was not of
the essence of religion to be given up as soon as it became unpleasing
to a knot of zealots whose heads had been turned by conceit and the love
of novelty? Painted glass, music, holidays, fast days, were not of the
essence of religion. Were the windows of King's College Chapel to be
broken at the demand of one set of fanatics? Was the organ of Exeter
to be silenced to please another? Were all the village bells to be mute
because Tribulation Wholesome and Deacon Ananias thought them profane?
Was Christmas no longer to be a day of rejoicing? Was Passion week no
longer to be a season of humiliation? These changes, it is true, were
not yet proposed. Put if,--so the High Churchmen reasoned,--we once
admit that what is harmless and edifying is to be given up because it
offends some narrow understandings and some gloomy tempers, where are
we to stop? And is it not probable that, by thus attempting to heal o