It will be conjectured, from what has now been said, that the writer is not among the number of those who perceive, in the present condition of the English Church, or in her rate of improvement of late years, any grounds for satisfaction, much less for complacency or congratulation. On the contrary, he very humbly conceives--and his reasons for that opinion shall be given presently--that to the spiritual eye, used to rest either on what the Church of God was _intended to be_, or on what once, for a few centuries, she _was_, there is, in the practical condition of the English Church one defect of so radical a character, and which has eaten so extensively into her entire system, that until this is, at least in a very great measure, remedied, all else is little better than a palliative, and little else than an illusion. There is surely something deeply saddening in the spectacle (if it indeed be so) of a Church busying herself with "many things"--making much show of practical activity, of self-reparation, of improvement in services and ministries, of extension abroad,--when all the while the "one thing," namely, _soundness and perfectness in Apostolic faith and practice_, is in any serious degree wanting to her. If, while she is manifesting a feverish anxiety about the more or less of RITUAL, there is in her RITES (of which Ritual is but the outward clothing) that which demands repair and readjustment on an extensive scale; then it is surely needful to press upon her, in the first instance, the redress of such essentials, before proceeding to speak of the accessories. And this is what the present writer, with all humility, undertakes to make good. He is indeed far from denying that, "by the good Hand of our God upon us," great things, of a certain kind, have been accomplished in our day. "Stately thy walls, and holy are the prayers That day and night before thine altar rise."