And the reason why they did not at the same time procure the formal abolition of the Canon of 1603, which recognises the surplice for parish churches, is, we can hardly doubt, that they wished to leave the practical working out of the change to time, and to the voluntary action of the parochial clergy. There had existed ever since the year 1559 a diversity in practice; and, ever since Elizabeth's "Advertisements," an actual alternative in the Church's orders about vestments. That alternative they did not care to remove. It was by desuetude that the irregular habit had first come in, until it obtained recognition by the Canon of 1604: it was to desuetude that they trusted for the removal of it. Meanwhile, those who chose to plead usage and the canon on the one hand, and those who preferred to plead the statute law of the Rubric on the other, were both alike in a fairly defensible position. Two modes, in short, of vesting the clergy for the Holy Communion were practically recognised at the latest settlement of our Offices; and, until some new enactment should supersede the one or the other, must continue to be recognised still. Such, I say, appears to be the position of the law, and of clerical duty or obligation, at the present moment. Beyond all question, this "Church and Realm hath received" and recognised, _practically_, an alternative in this matter. She has not bound her sons absolutely, and without choice, either to the older or the later practice. Her position, as defined by the action of some of the wisest and best of her sons on the last occasion--two hundred years ago--of reconsidering her constitution, has been one of observation and of hope; of waiting to see which way, in a matter non-essential, though far from unimportant, the mind of her sons would carry her. And now a time has arrived when the question, after slumbering for two centuries, has awakened, and, in a practical form, demands an answer.