y say the same of him, and there is no one to
decide as to who is right. King James II. said, Hooker's Apology made
him a Papist, but Hooker was not responsible for this, and is still
rightly looked on as one of the brightest ornaments of the Church of
England as by law established. Men make strange leaps. Many a convert
to Rome has been won from the ranks of Methodism. Many an infidel has
been born and bred in the very bosom of the Roman Church. A Puseyite may
become a Papist, but he also may not, and so may other men. Some people
say there is Popery everywhere. I listen to a Wesleyan Reformer, for
instance, and he tells me that the Conference is Popish, and that the
President is the Pope. If so, it is hard to blame the Puseyites for
exhibiting the priestly tendency, more or less apparent, as some affirm,
in all priests.

I imagine the crime of Puseyism, in the eyes of most churchmen, is the
crime of a pretty woman in an assembly of haggard crones. The Puseyite
place of worship is always neat and clean, and worth looking at, and it
attracts when others fail to do so. The causes of it must be various.
Why does one graceful woman robe herself in simple muslin, and another
dazzle you with her gorgeous attire? You may be a philosopher. If that
woman can be your companion, can feel as you feel, and love as you love,
you care not for her attire. But she knows that the world has a
different opinion. The Puseyite becomes an object of interest. On a
small, very small scale, he is a hero. True, to fight about little
ceremonials argues the possession of a brain of but limited power, but
his opponents are in a similar position. If you deny worship to be the
simple genuine feeling of the heart--if you make no provision for
that--if you turn it into a form, why then, possibly, the more of a form
it is the better. I confess the way in which they intone the service at
St. Paul's is pleasant to listen to. It is not worship, I grant.
Neither is mumbling the thousandth time over a printed form of words
worship. What a dull thing an opera would be, read, and not sung. It is
true people do not make love, or do business, or address each other in
music, in real life, but in an opera they do, and the effect is great.
So it is with the Church of England service. Intoned it may be
unintelligible or theatrical, but it is attractive nevertheless. It is
not natural, but what of that? The soul bowed down with a sense of sin,