I agree with you heartily that something should be done,
but it must not be done in a way which experience has shown leads to
nothing but fanaticism and dissent. Do you approve of these Wesleyans?
Do you hold your ordination vows so cheaply as to think that it does
not matter whether the services of the Church are performed in her
churches and with all due ceremony or not? If you do- then, frankly,
you had no business to be ordained; if you do not, then remember
that one of the first duties of a young deacon is obedience to
authority. Neither the Catholic Church, nor yet the Church of
England allows her clergy to preach in the streets of cities where
there is no lack of churches."
Ernest felt the force of this, and Pryer saw that he wavered.
"We are living," he continued more genially, "in an age of
transition, and in a country which, though it has gained much by the
Reformation, does not perceive how much it has also lost. You cannot
and must not hawk Christ about in the streets as though you were in
a heathen country whose inhabitants had never heard of him. The people
here in London have had ample warning. Every church they pass is a
protest to them against their lives, and a call to them to repent.
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