‘I wish you did not set your face so pertinaciously against any alteration in the mode of appointing Bishops; that is the real seat of the disorder of the Church: the more I think of it, the more sure I am that unless something is done about it, there must be a separation in the Church before long, and that I shall be one of the separatists. It will not do to say that you see great evils in any proposed new plan: that is a very good argument when the present state of things is good; but when a man is dying, it is poor wisdom in him to object that the plans the surgeons propose for his relief are painful and dangerous. There is another reform, which I have been thinking of lately more than I did before, though I have long thought something should be done about it; and it is one which every clergyman can make for himself without difficulty. I believe it to be the most indispensable of all the duties of external religion, that every one should receive the Communion as often as he has opportunity; and that if he has such opportunity every day of the week, it is his duty to take advantage of it every day of the week. And further, as an immediate corollary from this, I think it the duty of every clergyman to give the serious members of his congregation this opportunity as often as he can without neglecting other parts of his duty. Now at [Dartington] if you had the Communion every Sunday you might make sure of a sufficient number of communicants: and I don’t know of any other duty that you would have to neglect in consequence. Or, at any rate, you might have it every month without the slightest difficulty, and need assign no reason for the change; indeed, people would not find out at first that there was any change. I wish you would turn this over in your mind. I dare say you will think my view overstrained, and very likely it may be a little. Yet the more I think of it, the less doubtful it seems to me. I know that neither N[ewman][186] nor K[eble], when I left England, saw the thing in the light in which it now strikes me; they thought that it was desirable to have the Communion as often as possible, but still that the customs of particular places ought not to be changed without particular reason. But it really does seem to me that the Church of England has gone so very wrong in this matter, that it is not right to keep things smooth any longer. The administration of the Communion is one of the very few religious duties now performed by the clergy for which Ordination has ever been considered necessary. Preaching, and reading the Scriptures, is what a layman can do as well as a clergyman. And it is no wonder the people should forget the difference between ordained and unordained persons, when those who are ordained do nothing for them but what they could have done just as well without Ordination! If you are determined to have a pulpit in your Church, which I would much rather be without, do put it at the west end of the Church, or leave it where it is: every one can hear you perfectly; and what can they want more? But whatever you do, pray don’t let it stand in the light of the Altar, which, if there is any truth in my notions of Ordination, is more sacred than the Holy of Holies was in the Jewish Temple.