THERE seems to be some apprehension among the extreme Evangelicals that Dr. Barnes will be numbered among an inconsiderable minority of the bishops, and that the House will act in conformity with the wishes of the clergy and the laity, and include a rubric permitting Reservation in the Revised Prayer Book. With this eventuality in his mind, the Rev. H. W. Hinde said in his presidential address to the Islington Clerical Conference: “The possibilities are too terrible for words. It may be that, a year hence, when we celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Conference, we shall find ourselves in a position unknown since the time of the Reformation.” And the secretary of the Church Association has stated to a representative of the Westminster Gazette that certain Evangelical clergy are seriously considering “the advisability of leaving the Church of England altogether”. These woeful forecasts are, of course, accompanied by the familiar denunciation of “lawlessness”, no mention being made of the fact, which cannot be repeated too often, that the Birmingham clergy are merely refusing to discontinue a practice specifically permitted by Dr. Barnes’s predecessor, and which is now common, with episcopal sanction, throughout the Church. It is necessary to point out again that Anglo-Catholics are in no way responsible for the embittered controversy which must be making the task of the bishops much more difficult. They were only too willing to respect a truce of God. The responsibility for the fanning of partisan bitterness rests with Dr. Barnes, and with him alone.
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