m devotional use; but no Church
or party in a Church which has life and promise in it will consent, in
order to please others, to give up old words and accustomed usages which
give distinctiveness to worship and add a charm to the expression of
familiar doctrines.

One, therefore, of two things must be done as a duty both to the old and
to the incoming members. Either much must be left optional to the
clergy, or to the clergy acting in concert with their congregations, or
else, as was before said, the National Church must find scope and room
for its new members, not as a mere throng of individuals, but as
corporate bodies, whose organisations may have to be modified to suit
the new circumstances, but not broken up. When it is considered how
highly strict uniformity was valued by the ruling powers at the end of
the seventeenth century, the ample discretionary powers that were
proposed to be left are a strong proof how genuine in many quarters must
have been the wish to effect a comprehension. The difficulties,
however, which beset such liberty of option were obvious, and the
opponents of the bill did not fail to make the most of them. It was a
subject which specially suited the satirical pen and declamatory powers
of Dr. South. He was a great stickler for uniformity; unity, he urged,
was strength; and therefore he insisted upon 'a resolution to keep all
the constitutions of the Church, the parts of the service, and the
conditions of its communion entire, without lopping off any part of
them.' 'If any be indulged in the omission of the least thing there
enjoined, they cannot be said to "speak all the same thing."' And then,
in more forcible language, he descanted upon what he called 'the
deformity and undecency' of difference of practice. He drew a vivid
picture how some in the same diocese would use the surplice, and some
not, and how there would be parties accordingly. 'Some will kneel at the
Sacrament, some stand, some perhaps sit; some will read this part of the
Common Prayer, some that--some, perhaps, none at all.' Some in the
pulpits of our churches and cathedrals 'shall conceive a long crude
extemporary prayer, in reproach of all the prayers which the Church with
such admirable prudence and devotion hath been making before. Nay, in
the same cathedral you shall see one prebendary in a surplice, another
in a long coat, another in a short coat or jacket; and in the
performance of the public services some standing up a