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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 Excerpt:...those who thus cast off at least one-third of the doctrines which the Articles were supposed to enforce. They claim a latitude for themselves which they constantly refuse to others. Let them have it. What, however, offends common sense, and must probably be trying even to themselves, is the painful striving after a system which they have not, and which they endeavour to grasp by seizing the shadow when they know that they cannot enjoy the substance. To Roman Catholics the attempt appears ludicrous. The walls of the Vatican resound with laughter at the reports which penetrate thither of the mimicry of rites which are natural to them, but which they feel must be artificial to others. There is no doubt a strain on every reasonable mind in bearing the immense weight of the traditional hereditary system of the Roman Catholic Church; but the strain is far greater when this weight is self-imposed--when some of the most startling forms of its worship are not merely accepted as parts of an ancient whole, but are dragged out into disproportionate prominence by the fancy of individual minds. It is one of the maxims of the Ritualist school that 'no 'public worship is really deserving of the name unless it be 'histrionic.'4 No doubt in every religious ceremonial there is a dramatic element, which in early5 times character!081 avowedly occupied a censpicuous place. But surely the most eager Ritualists would acknowledge that in worship, as in other parts of the religious life, some deference is due to the contrary maxim,'Beware of hypocrisy' (vTrcKpuris), that is, if we take the word in its literal sense, 'Beware of 'acting a part as on a stage.' And this 'histrionic' element becomes doubly questionable in proportion as the part enacted is remote from ourselves. We do not...