e bright and cheerful, that led him, as far back as the
days when he was preaching in Edinburgh, to urge the need for more material
beauty in public worship.--

"No reflecting man can ever wish to adulterate manly piety (the parent
of all that is good in the world) with mummery and parade. But we are
strange, very strange creatures, and it is better perhaps not to place
too much confidence in our reason alone. If anything, there is,
perhaps, too little pomp and ceremony in our worship, instead of too
much. We quarrelled with the Roman Catholic Church, in a great hurry
and a great passion; and, furious with spleen, clothed ourselves with
sackcloth, because she was habited in brocade; rushing, like children,
from one extreme to another, and blind to all medium between
complication and barrenness, formality and neglect. I am very glad to
find we are calling in, more and more, the aid of music to our
services. In London, where it can be commanded, good music has a
prodigious effect in filling a church; organs have been put up in
various churches in the country, and, as I have been informed, with
the best possible effect. Of what value, it may be asked, are auditors
who come there from such motives? But our first business seems to be,
to bring them there from any motive which is not undignified and
ridiculous, and then to keep them there from a good one: those who
come for pleasure may remain for prayer."

When Sydney speaks of our "quarrel with the Roman Catholic Church," he
speaks of a quarrel in which, at least as far as doctrine is concerned, he
had his full share. Never was a stouter Protestant. Even in the passages in
which he makes his strongest appeals for the civil rights of Romanists, he
goes out of the way to pour scorn on their religion. Some of his language
is unquotable: here are some milder specimens:--

"As for the enormous wax candles, and superstitious mummeries, and
painted jackets of the Catholic priests, I fear them not."

"Spencer Perceval is in horror lest twelve or fourteen old women may
be converted to holy water and Catholic nonsense."

"I am as disgusted with the nonsense of the Roman Catholic religion as
you can be; and no man who talks such nonsense shall ever tithe the
products of the earth."

"Catholic nonsense" is not a happy phrase on the lips of a man who was
officially bound to recit