and of those 9,000 only 3,000 had as yet been laid out. It was hoped that by the use of the narrow gauge the expenditure would be about 4,000l. a mile, and if that anticipation should prove correct, it was calculated that sixteen millions out of a total proposed expenditure of thirty-six millions would be spent within the next four or five years. Some ten years ago there was a happy superstition prevailing that one might make a railway or an irrigation work anywhere in India, and it was certain to be remunerative. That notion had been entirely dispelled by the stern logic of facts. The railways-even the best of them-barely paid the interest of the money expended on them; and in regard to those that were to be constructed in the future, we must look for remuneration to the increased commerce and revivified industry which they will cause. He doubted if in any one case-certainly if in many cases-they would repay the interest of the money which had to be raised in order to make them. It, therefore, became of extreme importance that the utmost skill and vigilance should be exercised in the construction of them in order that the burden on the revenues of India might be made as light as possible. The irrigation works were much in the same condition. He might illustrate his argument by a reference to the Jumna Canal, an old Mahomedan work in the North-Western Provinces, and the Punjab Eastern Jumna Canal, in which cases it would be found that the returns were distinctly less than the interest of the money which had been raised to con struct the works. He mentioned these details in order to show that irrigation works in India, like the railways, were not the easy and certain matters they were some ten years ago thought to be, and that it required the utmost vigilance and the most careful organisation to secure that those works should not be a permanent burden on the already heavily-weighted revenues of India. It might be asked whether it was the Public Works Department which had not done its business well, and he was willing to admit that that department had shown great energy and public spirit. Finance, however, was not its strong point. He had laid upon the table of the House certain returns showing the relations between the original estimates of the department and the actual expenditure for the last three years, and it would be seen that there were no less than 300 cases in which the expenditure had very largely exceeded the estimate; the sum total of the whole matter being that, whereas the original estimate was 4,100,000l., the actual expenditure was 6,700,000l. In stating that fact he was not seeking to throw blame on any individual. The weakness must rather be taken to lie in the system, and it was to remedy the state of things of which he spoke that he proposed to make an alteration in the constitution of the Council of the Governor-General of India by appointing to it a member for Public Works, who would be appointed by the Crown, and who would give his assistance in these matters. The Viceroy himself, he was bound to say, was

very much averse to having the number of his Council increased, and, although he did not agree with him on the point, he thought it well that power should be given which would enable the number to be kept down to its present level. Of course, the exact mode in which the proposed alteration should be carried into effect could not be decided until after further consideration, and the Bill was therefore in a permissive form; but he was satisfied it would have the effect of promoting that efficiency in a great Public Department which here the stimulus of an active public opinion tended to produce."

The Indian Councils Bill passed the House of Lords, in spite of the powerful opposition of Lord Lawrence, Lord Halifax, and Lord Napier of Ettrick, and in spite of the believed repugnance of Lord Northbrook to the contemplated increase of his Council; but in the Commons its progress was nearly stopped by Mr. Fawcett, who objected to the expense it would entail, and proposed its postponement until the Viceroy's opinion could be distinctly applied for and given. After a debate unusually lively for one on Indian topics, the Second Reading was carried on July 29. Mr. Grant Duff took occasion to say that Lord Northbrook's opinion was not really adverse, and that he did not desire to stop the

measure.

One or two matters relating to the Royal Family are noticeable as connected with Parliament during this Session.

Prince Arthur, introduced by his brothers, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh, took his seat as Duke of Connaught among the Peers of the Realm. The Queen, in bestowing this title on her third son, evidently selected it with a special desire to gratify her Irish subjects. The Prince himself was popular. Living among the people, serving assiduously in the various grades of his profession, he had preserved an untarnished reputation, and won the esteem of all with whom he had come in contact. He was said to be every inch a soldier, and had industriously studied the science of war in each branch in which he had served. Taking but slow and regular promotion, he now ranked as a Captain in the Hussars, and it was felt to be quite time that he should play a more conspicuous part in the world, and exercise the high influence which by birth was his privilege.

The proposal from the Queen of an allowance for the fourth and youngest of the Queen's sons, Prince Leopold, was made by the Duke of Richmond, and carried in the House of Lords on July 23, and in the Commons the same day, unanimously; the sum voted being 15,000l. annually. Mr. Disraeli, in introducing the motion, remarked:

"The delicate state of health of Prince Leopold has prevented him from adopting a profession which in the instance of his Royal brothers has been followed, I may say, by them with energy and success. Partly from that state of health, and in a greater degree probably from difference of temperament, his pursuits are

F

of a different character from those of Princes who are called upon to deal with armies and fleets. Prince Leopold is a student, and of no common order. He is predisposed to pursuits of science and learning, and to the cultivation of those fine arts which adorn life and lend lustre to a nation. It would, however, be a great error to suppose that for a young Prince of his character there may not be an eminent career, and one most useful to his country. The influence of an exalted personage of fine culture is incalculable upon a community. No more complete and rare example of that truth can be shown than in the instance of his illustrious father the Prince Consort. We can now contemplate the public labours of the Prince Consort with something of the candour of posterity. He refined the tastes, he multiplied the enjoyments, and he elevated the moral sense of the great body of the people. Nor has this influence ceased since he departed from us. Public opinion has maintained the impulse it gave to our civilisation, because it sympathised with it. It has maintained in the highest degree that great improvement which he introduced in the manners and the sentiments of the great body of the people. The example of such a father will guide and animate Prince Leopold; and, therefore, I hope I may make this motion which I have read to the House in answer to the gracious and confident appeal the Queen has made to the attachment of her faithful Commons."

Appertaining to the Queen's domestic interests during the Parliamentary season of the year was the visit of the Czar of Russia to greet the new home and the new connections of his recently-married daughter. We refer our readers to the Chronicle for details of this occurrence.

We reserve for another chapter an account of what proved to be the one considerable measure of the Session, over the discussion of which the forces of the Legislature showed a degree of animation hardly anticipated from the languid tenour of the ordinary debates, though the interest taken in the Endowed Schools Bill and the Scotch Patronage Bill indicated that Ecclesiastical partisanship was for the moment the most powerful lever for putting in motion the sympathies of the new House of Commons.

CHAPTER III.

Advance of Ritualism in the Church of England--Archbishops' Bill for Regulation of Public Worship-" Altar Cards"--Convocation--Change in Framework of the Bill-Second Reading-Speeches by Lord Shaftesbury, the Bishop of Peterborough, and Lord Salisbury-Amendments of Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Selborne, and the Bishop of Peterborough-Bill Re-moulded ―Third Reading-House of Commons' Debate on Second Reading of the Bill-Speeches by Mr. Russell Gurney, Mr. Gladstone, Sir W. Harcourt, &c.-The "Six Resolutions"-Mr. Disraeli's Remarks upon them-Resumed Debate-Speech of Mr. Disraeli-Mr. Gladstone's Surrender -Second Reading passed-Mr. Holt's Amendment-Collision with the LordsSpeeches of Lord Salisbury, Sir W. Harcourt, and Mr. Disraeli-Amendment given up-Bill passed Third Reading.

THE advance of so-called "Ritualistic" opinions and practices in the Church of England has been very marked for several years past. Emboldened by the technical ambiguities of the Rubrics and Liturgy, and by the want of actual power on the part of the Bishops to check practices at variance with Ecclesiastical precedent, that religious party which desires to assimilate the "Anglican" worship as much as possible with the worship of Rome has bent its efforts towards the elaboration of a highly ornamental ritual, including vestments of various colours, processions, postures, lighted candles, and even images, the ultimate purpose of this ritual being to symbolise that materialistic doctrine of the Eucharist which had been abjured by the Fathers of the Protestant Reformation. As a writer in the Quarterly Review puts it, "For twenty years and more the most active efforts have been made to bring our worship into harmony with that of the Romish Church, and especially to assimilate Holy Communion with the Mass by histrionic' means." Two cases tried of late years before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, that of Mr. Purchas and that of Mr. Mackonochie, are instructive as furnishing details of practices which had been introduced into a National Church once glorying in its repudiation of Romish doctrine-practices which, though to their full extent confined to a few places of worship only, yet more or less were admired and imitated by a considerable number of the English clergy; while even of the High Church party not owning fellowship with the Ritualists, a large proportion was decidedly adverse to any interference with their extravagances.

In the large towns there were many congregations where fashion, or the female element, predominated, to whom these ornate symbolical services were acceptable; and those to whom. they were repugnant could in such towns always resort to some other place of worship in connection with the Established Church; but in country places, where tastes were as a rule simpler, Pro

testantism more affectionately cherished, and innovations more disliked, and where no alternative remained for the worshipper outraged by Romish imitations than the Dissenting Chapel, the grievance was a very great one. The popular religious feeling of the country, as a whole, was greatly stirred and vexed at the advance of Ritualistic practices one of the most striking features of the movement being the lawless defiance of the higher authorities with which the curates and incumbents connected with it, proceeded, and the utter contempt they expressed of the Episcopal bench. Of the famous "Oxford movement" of forty years ago, the watchword was obedience to hierarchical rule, as its special boast also had been the adhesion of many men of the highest abilities and learning. Of the new "Ritualistic" movement, the practice was unlimited self-assertion, and that by men not marked by superiority of intellectual distinction. The absence of any eminence of this kind among its leaders was notorious. But they found a substitute for it in the hold which they gained over the fanciful or docile by the enforcement of auricular confession as a practice necessarily connected with the doctrine of priestly absolution. The institution of the "Confessional" was of frequent occurrence in the fashionable churches of Belgravia, and was by no means confined to them. In short, to the eyes of many, the Established Church stood in great danger of being handed over by disloyal sons to the priestly superstition from which it had set itself free in the sixteenth century; and it was felt that if the official guardians of that Church, the Bishops, could or would do nothing to stay the process, a wide disruption of its members must be the consequence. Certainly there were many now within its pale who would far rather take up with Free Church independence than acquiesce in the inculcation of dogmas which Ridley and Latimer had been burnt for abjuring. In 1867 a Ritual Commission had been issued to inquire into the extent of the evil complained of, and had drawn up a Report with some mild suggestions for settling difficulties; but, as usual, the matter had been allowed to drop.

On May 5, 1873, an address, signed by 60,000 persons of weight and influence, was laid before the two Archbishops at Lambeth, drawing attention to the pressing importance of the matter, and suggesting remedies. In their reply the Archbishops admitted the existence of the evil, but there for a time again the affair rested, and it was supposed that the old maxims of caution and of the necessity of balancing the Church between rival parties would prevail in the Episcopal mind over any desire for Legislative action; while as the tediousness and great expense of litigation in the existing state of things must needs prove an obstacle to repeated prosecutions, the advance of the Ritualists was likely to be out of all proportion to their checks.

But early in the present year it was well known that the Episcopal body had it in contemplation to lay before the Houses