I tremble to speak of your Ritual; for it appears to me as bearing on its front an excellence which might be found incompatible with religious truth and sincerity. BULLER. I confess that I hardly understand you, sir. NORTH. The Liturgy looks to be that which the old Churches are, the Work of a Fine Art. BULLER. You do not urge that as an objection to it, I trust, sir? NORTH. A Poetical sensibility, a wakeful, just, delicate, simple Taste, seems to have ruled over the composition of each Prayer, and the ordering of the whole Service. BULLER. You do not urge that as an objection to it, I trust, sir? NORTH. I am not urging objections, sir. I seldom--never, indeed--urge objections to anything. I desire only to place all things in their true light. BULLER. Don't frown, sir--smile. Enough. NORTH. The whole composition of the Service is copious and various. Human Supplication, the lifting up of the hands of the creature knowing his own weakness, dependence, lapses, and liability to slip--man's own part, dictated by his own experience of himself, is the basis. Readings from the Old and New Volume of the Written Word are ingrafted, as if God audibly spoke in his own House; the Authoritative added to the Supplicatory. BULLER. Finely true. We Church of England men love you, Mr North--we do indeed. NORTH. The hymns of the sweet Singer of Israel, in literal translation, adopted as a holier inspired language of the heart. BULLER. These, sir, are surely three powerful elements of a Ritual Service. NORTH. Throughout, the People divide, the service with the Minister. They have in it their own personal function. BULLER. Then the Homily, sir. NORTH. Ay, the Homily, which, one might say, interprets between Sunday and the Week--fixes the holiness of the Day in precepts, doctrines, reflections, which may be carried home to guide and nourish. BULLER. Altogether, sir, it seems a meet work of worshippers met in their Christian Land, upon the day of rest and aspiration. The Scottish worship might seem to remember the flame and the sword. The persecuted Iconoclasts of two centuries ago, live in their descendants. NORTH.