It has been easy to write of our battles with the brewers and brothel-keepers, for their attacks were in the open; but of our battles with our Bishops it is much more difficult to write, there being a dread in my own mind whether I have been able to judge perfectly fairly concerning their attitude towards us. And therefore I think it right to print in full the whole of the last correspondence between the Bishop of Winchester and myself, as nothing would distress me more than to put a wrong interpretation upon his action. Before I came there had been in the public press, and even at meetings, very violent attacks made upon Dr. Linklater. Portsmouth is a very Protestant town, and I had not been in it a week before I discovered that one must expect many attacks. Almost every week there were several very angry letters in the local press, and from time to time a big indignation meeting. The Protestant Hall had just been built, and it was evidently felt that it was a pity not to use it. But the letters and the meetings were about on an equality of common sense and charity, and I am quite sure we pursued the right method in never answering such attacks upon us. Sometimes the attack would be about ritual, sometimes about doctrine. I tried as far as I could in instructions in church to explain everything we did, but I do not suppose our opponents cared to come to our church, and therefore they were not benefited. I have often since then thanked God for this opposition, because it was the reason why we took such pains with our own people.

I felt, however, that upon some subjects, like Confession, very plain words must be spoken. Of course, amongst the boys and men in a parish like ours, it was the most needed of all church discipline, and it was just the one upon which the most horrid and untruthful things were being said. So I took heart of grace, and advertised throughout the town that on Sunday afternoon I would preach on the subject of Confession to men alone. I think I felt a little nervous, when I got into church and found it crammed from end to end, men even standing in the aisles, but I found that the vast majority, at any rate, were prepared to give me fair play, and they soon silenced those who had come merely to create a disturbance. I think what astonished them most was to hear that Confessions were heard in public, and that anybody who pleased could be in church at the time. I showed them exactly where the priest sat and where the penitent knelt, and I remember quite well saying, “If any of you, while coming from your work on Friday afternoon, look in, you will very likely see me hear a Confession.” Accepting my advice, on the next Friday many people looked in at the door. I know that when they talked it all over in the Dockyard afterwards the verdict was arrived at, that, even if I was mistaken, I was straight and honest.

After a time, it was in 1887, we heard of a petition to the Bishop, signed at a large meeting, at which a gentleman from London had made a very violent attack on me, ending up with the magnificent peroration, “If we had a clergyman like Mr. Dolling in our neighbourhood, we would soon take him by the back of the neck, and kick him out of the parish.” Before the meeting had time to applaud this most Christian sentiment, some lad, who had got into the gallery, shouted out, “He weighs fifteen stone, and you might find it difficult.” The meeting collapsed in roars of laughter, but the petition was forwarded. I never thought for a moment that any reasonable person would have taken any notice of such proceedings, but, to my amazement, a few days afterwards I received a letter from Bishop Harold Browne, in which, beginning—“No doubt you are aware that there have been paragraphs and letters in various newspapers about your proceedings at S. Agatha’s, and that there was an indignation meeting at the ‘Protestant Hall,’ with resolutions, etc., all of which have been sent to me with strong appeals. I do not think the persons appealing to me have any locus standi”—he desired that I would restrain my services to “the confessedly legal ritual of the Church of England,” and also offered me the following considerations:

I wrote back that, if he ordered me, I was perfectly willing to obey the Prayer Book, and to have no other services, but that I felt my duty to my people made it incumbent upon me to impress the fact upon him that such change of services would mean a great diminution in the congregations, especially on the week-days, when the services complained of were used, and that I should like to know who had been his informant, as regards the wishes of my parish, and the opinion of my brethren in Portsmouth. His answer was, “I know that many of the clergy, by whom I certainly do not mean Mr. Young or Mr. Aldwell, regret your action, as calculated to throw suspicion upon all Church work. I do not wish to define legal ritual, but to suggest that you should be satisfied with what is purely Anglican, as sufficient for all purposes of devotion, and not liable to create suspicion, or to stir up strife. Stations of the cross, acolytes in crimson cassocks, incensing the Magnificat, and the like, certainly excite bitter animosity in an eminently Protestant town like Portsmouth. I have had no appeal from your own immediate district.”

I know many people think that ritual rows have generally been the result of a clergyman endeavouring to intrude his own methods upon an unwilling congregation, but I give these extracts from the Bishop’s letters to show that at S. Agatha’s that has never been the case. No complaint has ever come from one singleparishioner. The complaints that have come have been made either by ignorant Protestants, or by my brethren the clergy.

However, at the end of 1889, the Bishop again wrote to us on the subject of ritual, and the following letter from the Bishop of Guildford, which, though it was marked “private,” he has kindly allowed me to print, will show the five points to which the Bishop took exception.

In a succeeding chapter you will read the reasons why I introduced these services, and why I felt I could not possibly surrender them. The objections to Compline and extempore prayer seemed to me most extraordinary, but I am especially glad to insert the letter, because it is a proof of the great kindness with which Bishop Harold Browne and his Suffragan always treated us, and to show that even though we differed, there was never anything but the most cordial good-will between us.

I think I have said that I was in the habit of preaching to men alone on Sunday afternoons. Osborne, my fellow-priest, and I thought that the time had come now for striving to get the ear of at least some of the thousands of Dockyard-men who passed our church on week-days, and so we asked the Guild of S. Matthew to send us down a set of preachers for the six Sundays in the Lent of 1890. Mr. Stewart Headlam was the first of these preachers. Osborne and I listened to the sermon with very great attention, and we did not discover in it anything different from the lectures which he and I had been continually delivering in S. Agatha’s. To our utter astonishment we received almost immediately the letter from the Bishop which I print.

In my answer I tried to point out to the Bishop, first, that Mr. Headlam had never been inhibited, and, secondly, that while I would, in deference to him, have the lectures delivered in the gymnasium instead of in the church, I must protest against the way in which he had spoken of the lecturers. Several other letters passed between us, but in the meantime Canon Jacob had written to the Headmaster of Winchester (I insert a letter he wrote to me), had withdrawn his subscription from the Mission, and had written to the Bishop to say what he had done.

I also received from the Warden of Winchester College letters of the strongest condemnation, letters, the first of which is signed “Warden,” in which he says Mr. Headlam is a Socialist in the bad sense of the word; and of myself, that, with my ultra High Church proclivities on the one hand, and Socialist teaching on the other, no sober and loyal-minded citizens can be expected to support the Mission, and that his connection with it must be severed, so long as I remained the head of it.

I felt that Canon Jacob and the Warden must be taken in a large measure to represent Wykehamical feeling, not, perhaps, just those few who knew me and S. Agatha’s well, but that large number who supported the Mission, and that, therefore, there was no alternative left me but to resign. So on Sunday morning I preached a sermon defending the line I had taken, and at the same time telling the people that I thought for peace it was better for me to leave. Never can I forget the kindness of Dr. Fearon, other Winchester masters, and old Wykehamists during the next week. Letters from all kinds and sorts of people, whom we had never heard of, came to us, hoping that we would not resign, and presently I received a letter from the Warden, in which he told me that he had only written in his private capacity, and that he did not represent either the school or anybody else but himself. I felt very strongly, too, not only the kindness of people outside, but the devotion of our people at home; and it seemed to me a plain duty that, if Winchester wished me to remain, I should do so. This duty was rendered all the more imperative by the very great desire expressed by the Bishop himself that I should remain.

As we have no legal status, the Mission not being a parish, a change of Bishops is a matter of great importance, and I looked forward with some anxiety to Bishop Thorold’s coming. So it was with much thanksgiving that I received this answer from him, soon after his appointment, to a letter of mine about confirmation.

Dr. Harold Browne had always refused to come to S. Agatha’s, but he had allowed us to choose the Bishop who, from year to year, confirmed our people. But here was a Bishop who was not only coming himself, but who evidently was going to throw himself, heart and soul, into our work, and with the sufficient humour which just enables a man to slide over the difficulties of life. This goodness towards us, and endeavour to help us, never once ceased during the four years in which he ruled our diocese. My heart is often sorry for hard words I may have said about him.

In a week or two he asked me to stay with him in London, and we talked for many hours. He drew out from me every detail of our work, approving or disapproving, but ever ready to hear reasons, telling me quite plainly that there was much he liked, much he disliked. Especially was he interested in our schools—he thought we had been very brave in gaining them—in our house, in which he hoped soon to stay; and, above all, in our temporary church, and the manner of our memorials, the lists of soldiers, sailors, emigrants, the confirmed, and the blessed dead; and this led to explaining to him how we used the Holy Communion as our best and most prevailing intercession. He had been delighted when I told him that at our prayer meetings these names were read out, but I am quite sure that at first, at any rate, he was shocked at people coming to the celebrations for intercession and not for communion. I explained to him how impossible it was for our people to communicate frequently, the stress of their business and their ignorance making preparation very difficult; and, I think, from words he let fall, that he considered we were in some sense lowering the dignity of the Blessed Sacrament by permitting it to be used for any other purpose but communion, though he told me himself how often his best intercessions were made when he was receiving communion. This did not apply to intercessions for the dead. He evidently disbelieved in any such being beneficial to them, or helpful to the persons making them; but we prayed long in his study, after family prayers were over, and I felt that I had gained one who, whatever our differences were, would act towards me as a real father. The next morning, walking round and round his beautiful garden—a wonderful oasis in the overcrowded desert of Kensington, alas! now pulled down and turned into flats; I could almost cry as I look at it, when I pass Campden Hill each Sunday morning this Lent—he talked over the matter again and again, specially desirous that I should discontinue the Mass for the Dead, and that I should never have a celebration without communicants. I told him—I hope with all dutifulness—that these two requests were impossible; the first because I considered I was exercising one of the greatest privileges of my priesthood, and because this special office for the dead had been a wonderful help to many of our poor people—an act of real reparation for stumbling-blocks they had put in the way of companions now beyond their reach by any other method, and also because the remembrance of the dead kindles and draws out, even in the most brutish, an understanding of the supernatural, which becomes a realisation of hope otherwise impossible; the second because it would be impossible for the clergy and workers to bear the burden of toil and responsibility that rested upon us every hour of the day, if it were not for the help of those daily morning celebrations, and that the only method by which that rubric as to communicants could be obeyed, would be by compelling my workers to take turns—three on Monday, three on Tuesday, &c.—however much indisposed they might feel at the moment to make their communions. He said at once that this would be a most hateful method, and I left him knowing that we were going to continue these two things of which he disapproved; but he did not forbid them, and his last words showed me that he was fully prepared to trust us. I think what pleased him most was what he called our straightforwardness and honesty; and I thank God that neither then nor since have I ever hid anything from him.

His stay with us, when he came to confirm, very considerably deepened our mutual affection. The confirmation was to be at eight p.m. The people began to come into church at seven, according to their custom. I always delighted in this hour before the confirmation as giving an opportunity by extempore prayers, by heads for intercession, and by singing hymns, of getting the friends of the candidates into a proper frame of mind. The candidates knew exactly their places, for they had sat in them at the three previous Sunday nights’ Mission services. They knew exactly, too, in what order they were to go up to the Bishop. Many a confirmation—indeed, many a first communion too—has lost all its grace from want of preparation, not of the heart, but of the mode of reception. The Bishop had been quite hurt when he found that only a curate had been sent to meet him; but I think when he opened the west door of S. Agatha’s, and saw the church quite full, people in the aisles as well as in the seats, kneeling in humble prayer between each verse of “When I survey the wondrous cross,” he forgave me for not meeting him. In the vestry I said to him, “The service, of course, is yours. You will make whatever arrangement you like about acolytes, &c.” He asked those in red cassocks to take them off, and when I told him that a crucifix was always carried in the procession, he asked that it might be put away; but when I told him that there was one on the high altar, he said, “Oh, I shall not see that one!” No words of mine can fittingly express his tenderness towards those he confirmed. More than half of them were grown men and women, many of them, whose former lives could hardly be told about, drawn from the lowest slums by the attractive power of the Cross, with a real and true belief in the grace which they were about to receive at his hands, with a humility and yet perfect trust which the soul, conscious of its own weakness and of Christ’s power to save, alone experiences.

Meanwhile in our own house small difficulties had arisen. The Bishop, whose digestion even at that time was greatly impaired, had kindly sent us on a little sheet of paper his menu, headed, “What I desire to eat,” a morsel of fish, a mutton chop, a rice pudding. But he had not told us that he was going to bring a servant, and would use some particular kind of sheets. When I got in I heard that Mary was disturbed, and the disturbance of Mary was no small matter in our household, because, finding the servant putting on these sheets, her honour was grievously wounded, she deeming the Bishop thought that the beds in our house were dirty. However, things righted themselves. Our rule of common food had to be broken through, as the servant objected to meal with the Bishop, and fed somewhere by himself. One could see how utterly overtired Bishop Thorold was, but he put that altogether on one side, and evinced the kindest interest in all our inmates, until at last, when he could speak not another word, he went off to bed; and yet I never shall forget how fatigue was conquered in the long, earnest, loving intercession he offered to Almighty God for me and mine.

The next morning he examined the old church very attentively, remarked upon what he considered the ugliness of our little altar, on which there were painted in panels a priest in black vestments saying Mass for the Dead; and a soul being carried by angels into paradise; again told us he disapproved altogether of prayers for the dead, and yet more of Masses, but never said one word to forbid them, and then drove off to the garrison church, where he was going to confirm. I had looked forward with considerable dread to his coming. I knew he wanted to like us, but I was terribly afraid of the ordeal. But after the visit I believed that through his episcopate there would be nothing but peace between us. However, the enemy was not going to give us peace, and in November, 1892, we noticed a gentleman attending the children’s Mass armed with a pair of opera-glasses. I urged him to go into the front pew, where he would not have to use them, thereby disturbing the congregation. Very shortly afterwards I received from the Bishop a long document sent to him by the Protestant Alliance, and asking me particulars about the service, and to send him the children’s Mass book. On December 16th I received the following letter from him.

I answered back at once, that I was quite ready to withdraw the book, and to substitute another in its place, but that for my own sake I should like to prove to him that there was no expression in it which might not be discovered in the writings of the great Anglican divines, and he wrote that he would be very glad to receive such a catena. Dear Osborne at once set to work on a library of the Anglo-Catholic Fathers, which we bought for the purpose, and submitted a defence to the Bishop. Indeed the Bishop was kind enough to ask both of us to go to Farnham. I think he was rather astonished when we arrived with a large trunk full of books, but he was very patient while Osborne, who is a theologian, which I am not, expounded out of Bramhall, Andrewes, and others, that there has been a continual witness, oftentimes on the part of the most learned prelates and authorities in the Church of England, to the right to believe and to teach within its fold the doctrine of pleading the Blessed Sacrament for the living and the dead, as was taught in the little book.

This very characteristic letter left only one course possible to us, the writing of a new book, which we did at once.

But in the meanwhile, to his astonishment as well as ours, a letter not intended for publication, which he had written to the Secretary of the Protestant Alliance, appeared in the papers:

At first it seemed that, in justice to ourselves, it would be necessary to print the whole of our correspondence with the Bishop, and our defence of the little book. But, after thinking the matter over, it seemed best to leave things as they were. After all, it was no business of the public, and the question would only have opened up a controversy which would have done more harm than good. But the Bishop, with extraordinary generosity, sent me a letter, which he allowed me, if I thought it would serve a good purpose, to print:

Nothing could exceed his kindness to us ever afterwards, and as his eye ever had a twinkle in it, so his kindness had ever a delightful playfulness. This letter of November 30th, 1893, will show how ready he was to meet our wishes at personal inconvenience to himself.

This of March 28, 1894, was in answer to a request of mine for a general licence in his diocese, as I had none, and, as I had been elected to the Conference, it was supposed I might be objected to on those grounds.

And this, of May 11, 1894, in explanation of a mistake he had made about Mr. Dowglass, whom I had asked him to license as our curate.

I might just add one proof of his real liberality. On the death of my friend and neighbour, Mr. Shute, who had created, with wonderful energy and untiring zeal, S. Michael’s, the church next to ours, the Bishop offered the incumbency to my fellow-priest Osborne, who had so ably defended the little book which the Bishop had condemned.

He took, too, a continual interest in the building of our new church. He saw all the plans, and himself suggested that it would not need a new licence, so that all formality and red tape might be prevented. Above all he urged us to move in all our memorials, and to make the church as homely as we possibly could for our poor. A passion for the poor consumed his heart, and he seemed to have kept them and the outcast always in his mind, often asking me about someone whose story I had told him perhaps a year before, and not only treating me in his own house with the greatest tenderness and affection, but on public occasions like the Diocesan Conference, when I felt it my duty to say things about the Establishment and Social Questions, which few of my brethren agreed with, he always gained for me a patient hearing, and often said kindly things afterwards. Alas! if he had lived a little longer, I should have been still at S. Agatha’s; and yet who could wish him to live, when every hour was but an agony, and only an intense sense of duty enabled him bravely to bear the burden of his flesh, which he was so willing to surrender at any moment into his loving Master’s hands.

I am only sorry that my own angry passions and bitter way of looking at questions have, from time to time, moved me to say and write unkind and unworthy things about him. But from the first day I ever saw him I was conscious of a real love and affection, which deepened, until God took him, and which will ever remain in my mind as a special grace and gift of God, granted to me through four of the most difficult years of my life.

I had often talked with Bishop Thorold of a fitting time for me to leave Portsmouth, and he had agreed with me that, as soon as the people were accustomed to the new church, I might resign. We had hoped that the church might be opened on the first Sunday in October. It was the anniversary of my taking full charge of the Mission, and the progress of the parish had been marked each year by the dedication to the glory of God and the use of our people, of some special piece of parish machinery. I was greatly in need of rest, for my work, with its threefold responsibility at Landport, Winchester, and begging, was beginning to tell upon me, and for the last four years I had not had one single day’s holiday. If the church were opened on the first Sunday in October, I thought it would be quite permissible for me to leave the following Easter, and I had told Dr. Fearon of this intention. When I announced this to our own people, they at once began to make every effort to induce me to alter my determination.

But in the meantime two circumstances had happened which disarranged all our plans. First, Bishop Thorold died; and secondly, we discovered the church could not be opened till quite the end of October. It had been my boast that the whole fabric of the church was completed by Portsmouth men, and I can never speak too highly of the punctuality and excellence of their work. The builders, Messrs. Light and Son—Portsmouth is mourning now the head of the firm, one of the most useful, honoured, and respected of its citizens—Townsend, the foreman, indeed all down to the men who mixed the mortar, and the boys who ran the messages, had striven to make the church the enormous success that it is. But we had employed a London firm to do the wood flooring and the marble work. Their workmen were Italians; and Light’s men, all Trade Unionists, almost refused to work with them, because they said that they did not work for a proper rate of wages. However, the arrangement had been made, and so, though the foreman told me he was sure I would suffer for employing them, the work had to go on. They had a row amongst themselves their first Saturday, and one got stabbed in the hand, but, be the cause what it was, we found that the opening of the church must be delayed a month. On September 28th I wrote to Bishop Davidson, telling him that the church would be opened on October 27th, and saying that Dr. Thorold had thought that no new licence would be needed, as the old and the new church were practically joined together by the vestry. I heard from him on October 4th, saying that though he himself thought that it would be better that a new licence should be given to the new building, yet Bishop Thorold’s opinion would justify us going forward with our arrangements, and that he would let us know later on. On October 17th we heard from him that he had considered the question of the new licence, and it seemed clear to him that it ought to be granted, and that the Rural Dean would visit us for the purpose of inspecting the building.

In the meantime a dear friend had told us that the Bishop was hurt at not being asked to take part in the opening services. The friend, I afterwards discovered, was perfectly mistaken in his judgment; but acting on that information, I wrote to the Bishop to explain why I had not asked him to be present at the opening, and I thought the best way to show him that no disrespect was intended was by telling him that I had not intended asking Bishop Thorold, because I knew that our manner of service would pain him very deeply.

On October 24th, I received a long letter from the Bishop, the purport of which was that he could not grant the licence, until a question so important as the third altar had been submitted to the proper authorities, or the altar itself had been removed, but saying that he would be glad to see me the next morning. And so on October 25th, I spent the morning at Farnham.

Nothing could exceed the Bishop’s kindness and straightforwardness during that interview. He is a man of most delightful manners. A theologian at Oxford said of him, soon after his appointment to the Deanery of Windsor: “He is a Nuncio already,” though he slily added, “but not from Peter.” But I felt a good deal more than the mere charm of his manner. He was evidently conscious that we were both in a very difficult position. He seemed most desirous to do his duty towards me and my people, and deeply felt the responsibility that was resting on him. At the very outset of our conversation he said, “This is no red-tape question of three altars, but of the services said at those altars.” When I proposed to him that we should continue in the old church until his judgment was pronounced, he seemed to feel that it would be a mistake to upset the existing arrangements, and that it would be better to screen off the third altar for the present and proceed with the opening. I gave in to his desire at once, though I had brought with me fifty-two telegrams ready for despatch should the opening be delayed. When I got home, those who worked with me were very distressed that I had not put off the opening, and I feel now that they were certainly right, and that much pain and a certain amount of scandal to the Church might have been saved if I had pursued this course.

So we opened the new church on October 27th. Dr. Fearon had arranged for the masters and men at Winchester to come down on the Monday after the opening, and I had asked the Bishop of Southwell, the founder of the Mission, to come and preach to them. He not only consented to do this, but offered to preach the first sermon in the new church on the Sunday morning at 11 o’clock. When he came down on the night before, he kindly sent word to say that he would celebrate at 8 o’clock the next morning. There were more than four hundred communicants at the four early services, and at 11 we started to take possession of the new church. I, who remembered the hooting and stoning of ten years ago, could hardly believe it was the same place. Mr. Dyer-Edwardes, a great benefactor to the Mission, had lent us a magnificent silver crucifix to be carried in front of the procession, but everything else in the procession belonged to the Mission. Dear Barratt, the truest friend a priest has ever had, with the incense, and then our little choir lads, and our choirmen, such loyal and earnest supporters of the Mission; then the acolytes in red, most of whom had been with me ever since they were little children, directed by Pennell, our ceremoniarius, then the Bishop in his convocation robes, who, not desiring to pontificate, walked before the unworthy priest who was to sing the first Mass in the new S. Agatha’s. Directly behind me, leading the congregation, Mr. White and Mr. Claxon, who have acted as churchwardens during the ten years, and then an innumerable number of parishioners and old friends, who had come home for the day. There was, I think, through the whole of that crowd, blocking up all the streets and making it difficult for us to pass through them, but one attitude of respect, I might even say of affection, and a realising, too, that a great act of worship was being offered to that God, Who is our common Father. If, when the procession entered the building, there was a little unseemly rush, that was not to be wondered at. Even at S. Peter’s, in the presence of the Pope, English people do not always behave reverently and well. But long before I had gained the altar there was a hush of reverent devotion, and the wonderful beauty of the church made itself, for the first time, manifest, its dignity and simplicity, its fittingness for magnificent worship, and, above all, its excellent acoustic properties—a proud moment, indeed, for Mr. Ball, the architect, and if it had not been for the shadow which the covering of the third altar threw over my troubled heart, a proud moment for me.

Many letters, which will be found in an appendix, passed between the Bishop and myself. On November 15th, at his kind invitation, I spent a long morning at Farnham. I was suffering from a bad attack of influenza at the time. The Bishop’s position and mine were naturally very difficult, for he had to discover matter for judgment out of the mouth of the accused. I am quite conscious of not being a theologian, and I answered as plainly and as simply as I could all his questions, and I am since aware that I used an expression, which he afterwards quoted in his judgment, which may be very liable to misconstruction. My intercourse with Dr. Thorold had been so very different. There had been perfect freedom in all conversations between us, nay more, I had often volunteered information which he had not asked for. A hundred times the memory of him flashed across my mind, and his many words of prayer came back again and again to my remembrance. I was sitting in the same study, but now I was accused, and I was conscious that my own and my people’s happiness, nay, perhaps the safety of weak, timid souls, was hanging in the balance. I pray that none of my readers may ever have such an hour and a half as I passed at Farnham.

Meanwhile, until the Bishop’s judgment was pronounced, only one duty lay before me—to go on as if nothing had occurred. My mind, however, since the opening of the church, had altered upon one point. If the Bishop permitted it, I should be forced to remain much longer than Easter. I was told of a petition of over 5000 people, signed by all classes, and by people of all shades of opinion, wanting me to stay in Portsmouth. I discovered that the debt upon the church would be much greater than I had anticipated, so many things having to be added at the end. But, above all, I felt that it would take a considerable time to make new S. Agatha’s really the home of the people. I knew, of course, that other priests could work much more consistently and successfully than I had done. That I never doubted for a moment. But I knew, too, that I was the only one who had ten years of experience teaching me how to deal with these particular people. On December 7th the Bishop’s judgment came, and it left me, I conceived, no alternative but to resign, which I did the next day. I believed directly I read it that the judgment forbade us to say our Mass for the Dead, or to have Celebrations without Communicants. The surrender of these two points I felt it impossible to make. An error has largely arisen that I left because I could not have a third altar in my church, but this is quite incorrect. The Bishop, at the very commencement, said it was not a red-tape question of a third altar, but a question of the services said at that altar, and I myself, and my communicants, and a magistrate in the town, who thought that I had not been explicit in making it, made the offer that the altar should be moved, but the services maintained. I am condemned also, by many, for having been disobedient to the Bishop. Indeed, I think this was the reason why the Bishop of Durham prevented me preaching a Mission in his diocese. But I am sure that the Bishop of Winchester would be the first to say that this was not the case. In one sense, if I had wished to stay, it would have been very difficult to put me out. For I have created almost everything that exists at S. Agatha’s, and I am either joint or sole trustee for all the property; and I am, even now, responsible for £3000 incurred either on the church or on property which has been recently acquired for the Mission purposes. I say this in no spirit of boasting, but only to set myself right with the public. If I were to express my private opinion, I should say it would have been much wiser for a Bishop just entering on his diocese to have let S. Agatha’s, at any rate for a year or two, be ruled by the decision of his predecessor; but Bishop Davidson had every right to take a different view of the case, and, doubtless, he only put into action what is the mature judgment of many English Churchmen. One of the most learned and devoted of the High Church school has said that it is for the good of the body that excrescences should be cut off. I am an excrescence, ergo, when an opportunity arises, it is wise to lop me off. But, if mine is intended as an object-lesson, I fear it will hardly be so accepted by the other excrescences. They are all well sheltered by their freeholds, and few bishops to-day would like to undertake the odium of a ritual prosecution, far less the expense it entails. After all, too, the excrescence is not so unlike the healthy limb. It differs more in expression than in fact. By my resignation the Bishop gains two points. First, though my successor will, every Friday, say Mass for the Dead, he will only use outwardly the words of the Book of Common Prayer. Secondly, he has asked the communicants to arrange amongst themselves that there shall be three communicants at both the 10 and 11 o’clock Masses on Sundays. And this being so, he will say the part of the service relating to communicants. But he requests that they will come fasting, and give him notice beforehand. His desire to obey the Prayer Book has, I think, landed him rather on the horns of a dilemma. If no one gives him notice, will he have the Celebration, using the Exhortation, Confession, and Absolution, knowing that no communicants will be present? Or, will he give up the 10 and 11 o’clock Celebrations? The same difficulty will apply to the week-day Masses. We condemn as a fundamental error the idea that men were created for the sake of the Sacraments. We believe that the Sacraments were created for the sake of men. But it seems that, by this new theory, men were created for the sake of the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer. I make no complaint whatsoever. I have no right to make a complaint. And if, on the one hand, my conscience would have allowed me to say, for instance, this week the service for the second Sunday after Lent, in black vestments, or to have used a collect from the Visitation of the Sick, or from the Burial of the Dead, either saying them in a sense not intended by the Book of Common Prayer, or interpolating words of my own, and secretly to say the rest of the Office for the Dead; and, on the other, to invite people to make the most solemn of all our public confessions, and to pronounce Absolution over them, when I knew that not one of them was going to receive that Communion, which necessitated such a confession and warranted such an absolution, I should be still at S. Agatha’s. There is one solemn question which I should like to ask those who lop us off. Do they wish that we should go into lay-communion, and our work, as priests, be lost to the Church of England? Or do they want us to exercise our priesthood in another Communion? Before the old diocesans gaily commence their course of lopping, or a new diocesan, refusing to walk in the safer paths of his predecessors, proceeds to lop, I pray them pause and consider.