RITUALISM DEFENDED.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2191, 27 March 1880, Page 3

RITUALISM DEFENDED.

A writer in the “ Spectator ” says : —We are justly hard upon the Ritualists, hut let us be fair too. It has been said that few think less of Ritualism that Ritualists themselve —that is, that it is so instinctive and habitual to them that they don’t notice it. If, as it has been said, it takes three generations to make a gentleman, to purge out the old leaven of plebianism, to cure a man of putting his dinner knife where he ought to put his h’s and to post him up in all the manners and maxims of good society, how long will it take to undo and disintegrate a Ritualist, and reduce him to a clumsy commonplace individual? But, seriously, I think, wc may let the Ritualists-score a point here, and that in some respects they have the better reason. Are their faults more glaring than the follies of these Low Church larrikins, as reported in the “ Manchester Courier” ? The handbills were headed “The Salvation army ; and the Salvation Temple Grosvenor street! ” “ Captain Booth, with his Hallelujah Fiddle ! ” “ Happy Bill and Glory Tom from Sheffield ! ” “ Shaker Bill from Blackburn, and a Converted Collier! ” “A Band of Hallelujah Lasses!” “The Champion Pigeon Flyer, and Champion Wrestler, of over Darwin ! ” and “ Mrs Wilson, the Pilgrim Singer, who will Play and Speak for God ; ” and then the paragraph goes on to state how the sweet concords of this happy family were drowned in the uproar oE the rowdies, who, by a cross-fire of banter and shouting, turned the scene into a farce, although the police were present, and “ many who had to be turned out.” ’Tis hardly wise to come down to the level of the masses and presume on their forbearance at the same time, and he is clever who can be both colloquial and reverential at once.