No one is more sensible than myself (my dear Burfle), I say no one is more sensible than I am, of the gravity of this schism--for schism it threatens to be. And no one appreciates more than I do how much there is to be said on both sides. The one party will urge (with perfect justice), that the buttoned boot is a development. They maintain (and there is much to be said in their favour), that the common practice of wearing buttoned boots, their ornate appearance, and the indication of well-being which they afford, fit them most especially for the Service of the Temple. They are seen upon the feet of Parisians, of Romans, of Viennese; they are associated with our modern occasions of Full Dress, and when we wear them we feel that we are one with all that is of ours in Christendom. In a word, they are Catholic, in the best and truest sense of the word. Now, my dear Burfle, consider the other side of the argument. The laced boot, modern though it be in form and black and solid, is yet most undoubtedly the Primitive Boot in its essential. That the early Christians wore sandals is now beyond the reach of doubt or the power of the wicked. There is indeed the famous forgery of Gelasius, which may have imposed upon the superstition of the dark ages,[75] there is the doubtful evidence also of the mosaic at Ravenna. But the only solid ground ever brought forward was the passage in the Pseudo-Johannes, which no modern scholar will admit to refer to buttons. ξύγον means among other things a lace, an absolute lace, and I defy our enemies (who are many and unscrupulous), to deny. The Sandal has been finally given its place as a Primitive Christian ornament; and we can crush the machinations of foreign missions, I think, with the plain sentence of that great scholar, Dr. Junker, “The sandal,” he says, “is the parent of the laced boot.” So far then, so good. You see (my dear Burfle), how honestly the two sides may differ, and how, with such a backing upon either side, the battle might rage indefinitely, to the final extinction, perhaps, of our beloved country and its most cherished institutions. Is there no way by which such a catastrophe may be avoided?