Lord Hugh Cecil wrote a long letter to Dr. Sidney Berry, secretary of the Congregational Union, in reply to a resolution of the council of that body in prayer book revision. He concluded thus:— "My complaint of the attitude and language of the Council of the Congregational Union does not really depend upon any theological question. I say that it is unkind and quite indefensible for one body of Christians to throw the spiritual life of another body of Christians into confusion, and that this is what the Congregational Union are doing. If they should succeed and procure the rejection of the measure, they will not benefit Protestantism, in whatever sense that word is understood. They will not even restrain the reservation of the sacrament, which seems to them so grievous an evil. On the contrary, they will give a loose rein to every eccentric innovator within the ministry of the Church of England to try an experiment for which he has a fancy in respect to Eucharistic devotions. For, if there is no standard of regularity, there can be no basis for order. Commonsense should teach any one that, if you have an episcopal church, you cannot restore regularity and order within it except by supporting the authority and leadership of the bishops. Episcopacy may be good or bad, but it is the government of the Church of England; and I cannot understand how it can consist with the principles of the free churches, with that principle of freedom for religion from the arm of the State on which they insist, or even with ordinary kindness and charity such as is due from one Christian to another, to use their great political influence to induce Parliament to refuse to the bishops what they, with the concurrence of the Church Assembly, in the exercise of their legitimate authority over the Church of England claim to be necessary for the regularity and order of its spiritual life. I can only say that I would rather cut off my hand than treat the churches of the Congregational Union as they are treating the Church of England."
Dr. Sidney Berry, in the course of a published reply, said: —"The right of Free Churchmen to interfere in a controversy of this kind is questioned. The sufficient answer to that is that the first invitation to express our judgment upon it came from no less a body than the Ecclesiastical Sub-committee of Parliament itself. That body, which is called upon to advise Parliament on ecclesiastical questions to be submitted to it, evidently thought that the Free Churches had a right to express their opinions. They invited them to do so. I would rather take their judgment as to the meaning of an Established Church than Lord Hugh Cecil's. Then Lord Hugh Cecil proceeds to tell us that the proposed changes in the Prayer Book do not affect the Protestant character of the Anglican Church. That may be his view, but the opinion is certainly not shared by multitudes of Protestants within the Church of England itself. They have from the first seen in some of the changes proposed the gravest threat to Protestantism. They have agitated without ceasing against it. It is the touch of the 'superior person' to suggest. that those who oppose the new Prayer Book are, because of that fact, guilty of unkindness to the Church of England. What about the members of the Church of England itself who have from the first opposed the new book? What about Lord Hugh Cecil's own brother, the present Bishop of Exeter, who has been a constant opponent of the book and even characterized it as dishonest? Is he, too, guilty of lack of kindness and charity? And, with the Bishop of Exeter, there are hosts of others who adopt the same standpoint. Would Lord Hugh Cecil rather cut off his hand, than vote as his brother has done? Free Churchmen have given their judgment, and they have given it out of the deepest concern for the spiritual well-being of the nation."