the crisis of a crisis in that Church, precipitated by the Purchas Judgment of 1871, and made still more acute by the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874. Since its publication the controversy has reached a new stage, growing out of the conclusions of the Judicial Committee in the Ridsdale Judgment of 1877.
The incidents of this event are discussed in some of the present papers, in a form which I venture to hope will be accepted as continuing the argument of the book of 1874 and supplementing its contents. At the same time I must plainly declare that with much deference for its authors, nothing in that judgment has led me to alter or modify in any way the opinions which I had previously expressed. On the contrary, and speaking with all respect, I am compelled to declare that, as I read that decision from the standing ground not of authority but of argument, the character of its reasoning, considered both from the logical and from the historical side, has tended to confirm me still more decidedly in my original views. The following pages explain the ground of my confidence.
My readers will, I am sure, show generous indulgence to a book composed of elements of which the original publication ranged from 1851 to 1882. I may refer to the earliest of these papers, 'Oratorianism and Ecclesiology,' which originally appeared in the 'Christian Remembrancer' for January 1851, as illustrating tendencies which are, I believe, still active, though the special phase in which they then presented themselves may belong to a former generation. Those who have noticed the huge Church of the Oratory, now nearing its completion, next door to the South Kensington Museum, will appreciate my meaning.
I must confess that I wrote this article with the feeling expressed by "facit indignatio versum." I was sore and sorry at seeing Mr. Bennett banished from the parish which
