Then, as to ‘Choristers,’ and all the other accessories—of music, vestments, processions, &c.,—which have come, along with them, into fashion—while freely admitting that the ‘Ritual’ movement was sorely needed, and that it has effected a vast improvement in our Church-Services, which had become dead and dry to the last degree, I hold that, like many other desirable movements, it has gone too far in the opposite direction, and has introduced many new dangers. For the Congregation this new movement involves the danger of learning to think that the Services are done _for_ them; and that their bodily _presence_ is all they need contribute. And, for Clergy and Congregation alike, it involves the danger of regarding these elaborate Services as _ends in themselves_, and of forgetting that they are simply _means_, and the very hollowest of mockeries, unless they bear fruit in our _lives_. For the Choristers it seems to involve the danger of self-conceit, as described at p. 274, the danger of regarding those parts of the Service, where their help is not required, as not worth attending to, the danger of coming to regard the Service as a mere outward form—a series of postures to be assumed, and of words to be said or sung, while the _thoughts_ are elsewhere—and the danger of ‘familiarity’ breeding ‘contempt’ for sacred things. Let me illustrate these last two forms of danger, from my own experience. Not long ago, I attended a Cathedral-Service, and was placed immediately behind a row of men, members of the Choir; and I could not help noticing that they treated the _Lessons_ as a part of the Service to which they needed not to give _any_ attention, and as affording them a convenient opportunity for arranging music-books, &c., &c. Also I have frequently seen a row of little choristers, after marching in procession to their places, kneel down, as if about to pray, and rise from their knees after a minute spent in looking about them, it being but too evident that the attitude was a mere mockery. Surely it is very dangerous, for these children, to thus accustom them to _pretend_ to pray? As an instance of irreverent treatment of holy things, I will mention a custom, which no doubt many of my readers have noticed in Churches where the Clergy and Choir enter in procession, viz. that, at the end of the private devotions, which are carried on in the vestry, and which are of course inaudible to the Congregation, the final “Amen” is _shouted_, loud enough to be heard all through the Church. This serves as a signal, to the Congregation, to prepare to rise when the procession appears: and it admits of no dispute that it is for this purpose that it is thus shouted. When we remember to Whom that “Amen” is _really_ addressed, and consider that it is here _used_ for the same purpose as one of the Church-bells, we must surely admit that it is a piece of gross irreverence? To _me_ it is much as if I were to see a Bible used as a footstool.