Poor conscience! to what pitiful uses is that sacred name turned! The
stolid Essex peasant, one of the Peculiar People, lets his child die
because he will not allow it to take medicine, and believes himself
to be suffering for conscience’s sake because he is summoned before
a magistrate to answer for its life. And he has far more reason on
his side than the Ritualist martyrs. I desire neither to speak nor
think scornfully or bitterly of them, but this at least I must say,
that men who can make matters of conscience of such trivialities as
the shape and color of vestments, the burning of candles and incense,
the position of tables, and the like, and in defence of these things
are prepared to defy authority, and break what they know to be the
law of their country, are not fit to be trusted with the spiritual
guidance of any portion of our people. England has a great work still
to do in the world, for which she needs children with quite other kind
of consciences than these—consciences which shall be simple, manly,
obedient, qualities which must disappear under such examples and
teaching as these men are giving.