THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1746, 10 May 1913, Page 9

THE ORNAMENTS RUBRIC.

LETTER BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. The following letter from (lie Bishop of Manchester appears in the Loudon "Morning- Post":— Sir,—l venture to ask (lie hospitality of your columns for a copy of the reply which his Grate the Archbishon of Canterbury has sent to my "Open Letter" to him respecting the report of the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury upon the Ornaments Rubric. It will surely interest the compilers of that report to know that their labour was spent 011 a matter of "archaeological rather than of cogent practical importance," and that, so far as concerns the "removal of an element; of mystery" from the problem which it presents to his Grace, their labours were ineffectual.—Yours, etc., E. A. MANCHESTER. Lambeth Palace, March G, 1913-. ' My dear Bishop of .Manchester,—l was only able, on lirst receiving it, to send a mere acknowledgment of your letter enclosing tho printed pamphlet in the form of an Open Letter to myself on fho interpretation of tho Ornaments Rubric, tt is in my judgment most desirable that those who have time and capacity to give adequate consideration to the extraordinarily complex problem of the historical interpretation of that Rubric should mako their conclusions public. I have read your pamphlet with great care. It adds another to the con--jeetwal explanations of tho wording in its successive shapes of what is now tho Ornaments Rubric. I think that, you have made some new points and tliat your Pcnuuhlt't .is eei'laiuljr entitled io resppct- -

ful attention. If I add that 1 still fool an adeqnato historical explanation; to bo lacking, it is only to say Unit Din problem which lias baffled so many aunic investigators retains, even alter your labours upon it, an clement of mystery, If 1 have to speak further on the question 1 shall certainly lake care to call attention to what you lutva said. After all, the question is, in my judgment, nf archaeological rather than cogent prae-. tical importance. We ought surely' to bo able to say in tho Twentieth Century what wo do want, and not merely to find some explanation of what other people said or wanted 250 or 351) yeara ago.—l am, yours very truly, RANDALL CANTUAR.