Let us turn to the Charge, and mark both its general tone and specific recommendations as to high Ritual. Having adverted to the “deteriorating developement of the Ritual movement,” he says: {19}—“Reluctant as I am to enter upon a subject of such difficulty and controversy, yet I feel it my clear duty to place succinctly before you the present state of the question, to endeavour dispassionately to estimate the real amount and extent of the _evil_” (Bishop Ellicott has no doubts as to this term); “and, lastly, to consider the remedies that have been proposed, and the general counsel that may seem at this serious crisis most calculated to bring back peace to our now disquieted Church.” Then, after an historical sketch, with remarks, shewing his lordship’s feelings upon the subject, and a brief—almost, as it seems to me, a needless—apology for the bishops for not having put down with a quick and strong hand certain presumably _legal_ ornaments or usages, he proceeds to consider what may be done in the way of remedy for the _evil_, as he deems it, of Ritual representing doctrine, in the following terms:— “Let us now,” he says, “leave the past, and with the past all antagonisms and recriminations, and rather as calm, earnest, and loyal sons of the Reformed Church of England, confer together as to what now remains to be done. Let us soberly and dispassionately consider what measures seem wisest, what remedies most hopeful, at the present momentous crisis. Let us clear the ground by considering briefly some courses and remedies that have already been proposed, and that probably will be reiterated with pertinacity. One proposed remedy is, the simple omission of the Ornaments’ Rubric as in the Irish Book of Common Prayer; or its definite and express repeal by some legislative measure. This is a prompt remedy, but a dangerous one—dangerous in part from reasons already adduced, in part from the deep and rankling bitterness arising from the thus greatly increased conviction that the law is really in favour of the use of vestments, and being so is to be overridden by an unjust Act of Parliament. Two courses are always dangerous in this country; one is to leave in the hearts of any party an enduring sense of injustice, a ready political illustration of which is perhaps at once rising in the thoughts of many of us; the other is, to come in direct conflict with that constitutional principle which is embodied in the familiar and traditional ‘_Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari_.’ We cannot, then, I think, wisely adopt the remedy just mentioned.”