That ignorance is not shared by the House of Commons or by the country. What the House and the country understand by Ritualism is--practices of a portion of the clergy, avowedly symbolic of doctrines, which the same clergy are bound in the most solemn manner to refute and repudiate. Therefore, I think there can be no mistake among practical men as to what is meant when we say that it is our desire to discourage Ritualism.... Believing as I do that those principles [those of the Reformation] were never so completely and so powerfully represented as by the Church of England; believing that without the authority, the learning, the wealth, and the independence of the Church of England, the various sects of the Reformation would by this time have dwindled into nothing, I called the attention of the country, so far as I could, to the importance of rallying around the institution of the Church of England, based upon those principles of the Reformation which that Church was called into being to represent.... I wish most sincerely that all should understand that, if I make the slightest allusion to the dogmas and ceremonies which are promulgated by the English Ritualists, I am anxious not to make a single observation which could offend the convictions of any hon. gentleman in this House. Whether those doctrines which were quoted from authoritative writings apply to the worship of the Virgin, to the Confessional, or to the various subjects which were quoted by the hon. Member, so long as those doctrines are held by Roman Catholics, I am prepared to treat them with reverence; but what I object to is that they should be held by Ministers of our Church, who, when they enter the Church, enter it at the same time with a solemn contract with the nation that they will oppose those doctrines and utterly resist them. What I do object to is Mass in masquerade. To the solemn ceremonies of our Roman Catholic friends I am prepared to extend that reverence which my mind and conscience always give to religious ceremonies sincerely believed in; but the false position in which we have been placed by, I believe, a small but a powerful and well-organised body of those who call themselves English clergymen in copying these ceremonies, is one which the country thinks intolerable, and of which we ought to rid ourselves. THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION (1875). =Source.=--_Annual Register, 1875_; _Public Documents_, pp. 214, 215. LETTERS FROM THE CAPTAINS. _No. 1._ H.M.S. “DISCOVERY,” AT SEA (Lat. 64° 43´ N.; long. 52° 52´ W.), _July 2, 1875._ SIR,-- I have the honour to inform you since parting company with H.M.S. _Alert_ on the night of June 13, during a heavy westerly gale, I made the best of my way to rendezvous 4, 5, and 6, in accordance with your instructions to Captain Jones of H.M.S. _Valorous_, a copy of which you forwarded for my guidance.