But preaching in his whites-his vestments as a minister-the parson might be ...

But preaching in his whites-his vestments as a minister-the parson might be thought to claim for his utterances an authority more than his own, the authority of a priest, and so surplice riots became a popular diversion of the forties. In 1885 the ritual of St.

Barnabas, Pimlico, was holding up the Sunday traffic, and we have a glimpse of Thackeray testifying in the crowd: '0h my friends of the nineteenth century, has it come to this?' Ten years later blaspheming mobs stormed St.

Alan's in the East in defence of the Reformation Settlement. But gradually new standards of dignity, reverence, and solemnity assimilated the worship in the ancient meeting-place of the village, the portentous assembly room of a London parish, and the Gothic churches which were rising by hundreds in the populous suburbs and industrial towns.