PREFACE.

A GREAT battle on behalf of Protestantism and Evangelical religion must soon be fought in England if the Church and the nation are to be preserved, or rather delivered, from the blighting power of Priestcraft and the baleful influences of Romanism.

What is Romanism in its essence? It is a terribly corrupted and perverted embodiment of the religion of Jesus Christ-an embodiment which could never have been fashioned and developed by Popes and Councils, or tolerated by the peoples, if only a genuine loyalty to the sacred Scriptures had been steadfastly manifested and maintained. And if a return to the Word of God could now be everywhere effected in Christendom, the fearful errors and debasing superstitions of Rome would

Herself

speedily be put to flight, like the obscuring mists of morning before the rising of the sun. But Rome hates the Bible. In a very definite and awful way, she exemplifies the words of Jesus when He said: "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God." refusing to come into the light of Truth-the light of Divine Revelation-she naturally keeps the Bible away from her deluded votaries; and because she does so, Romanism is the curse of every nation in which it is permitted freely to exercise its power, as it does in down-trodden Italy and in dying Spain. It feeds the peoples under its influence with the empty husks of human tradition, and not with the Bread of Life provided by God in His Holy Word and Gospel. The words spoken by our Lord to the Pharisees might also be appropriately addressed to the representatives of the

Roman Church: "Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." But Romanism in Europe is everywhere in decline. Strangely enough, the only country in which it is lifting up its head with courage and hopefulness is England, and its most effective propagators are not the Romish priests, but the Ritualistic clergy. These men remain in the Reformed Church of England, and yet in an altogether dishonest and disloyal manner they teach the doctrines and inculcate the practices of Rome. This fact is now generally recognised, and it has created a large amount of uneasiness and painful apprehension throughout the whole country. In many quarters an anticipated struggle is being quietly prepared for, and yet when the struggle comes, it is not improbable that most of the people may content themselves with demanding from the Bishops or from Parliament only thisthat the clergy shall be loyal to the Book of Common Prayer. "Back to the Prayer-book," is now the general cry. Lord Salisbury has declared that "no man is fit for office in the Church who is not resolved to stand by the Prayer-book as it is."

Mr. Balfour, in his recent speech at Bristol, said: "It is obviously the plain right of every member of the Church of England to have a service in accordance with the Prayer-book of the Church; and that equally manifestly is it the duty of every clergyman of the Church of England to give the laity a service in accordance with the Prayer-book.' And in one of his admirable letters to the Times, Sir William Harcourt says: "As long as an establishment subsists, it is not for Bishops, or Priests, or Synods to change the law, or to recast the Prayer-book according to their own ideas. Their duty is a more simple one; it is that the clergy should obey the law as it stands, and the Bishops should enforce it, and that both should, in the words of Lord Salisbury, 'stand by the Prayerbook as it is.' The Prayer-book is the Parliamentary law of the Church, and to depart from that, as a large number of the Bishops and clergy have done, is lawlessness."

Now, it is chiefly for those who cherish the desire and hope that a loyal return to the PrayerBook may speedily be effected that the following pages have been written. We wish to show