There have been a number of legal cases arising out
of the teaching and practices of the Ritualists, The Church of Barnabas, Pimlico, was opened in 1850 for the purpose of carrying out completely and honestly the principles of Ritualism. Tliis led to litigation, which ultimately brought both advocates and opponents before the Privy Council in 1857. The council consid- ered some portions of the furniture of the church to be unsanctioned by the existing law, but the principle then contended for by the Ritualists was affirmed by their interpretation of the Ornaments Rubric, respect- ing the various forms of which they decided that " they all obviously mean the same thing, that the same dresses and the same utensils or articles which were used under the First Prayer-book of Edward YI may still be used." This decision left the Ritualists in possession of the field. Suits were also instituted against Mr. Mackonochie, vicar of St. Alban's, and Mr. Purchas, incumbent of St. .James's Chapel, Brighton, which were carried up to the Privy Council, and all the six above-mentioned usages, aiul some others, were condemned. Of more importance than these cases was that of the Rev. AV. J. E. Bennett, vicar of Frome, who published a sermon in which he taught " the real and actual presence of our Lord, under the form of bread and wine, upon the altars of our churches." The Court of Arches, through Sir Robert Phillimore, decided in Mr. Bennett's favor, and the ap- peal to the judicial committee of the Privy Council was dismissed by them (1872). In 1867 a royal commission was appointed "to incpiire into and report upon differ- ent practices which had arisen, and varj-ing interpreta- tions which were put upon the rubrics, orders,"' etc.; also to reconstruct the tables of lessons used at morning and evening praj'er. Its reconstructed lectionary was authorized for use by Parliament and Convocation (1871). The Ritualists have paid great attention to the study of the liturgies and rituals of all ages, and to that of hymnology. They have encouraged the revival of religious orders, and have communities of women de- voted to labor in hospitals and like institutions. The ritualistic movement of England has received more or less sympathy in the United States, but with much less development of detail. In 1874 a general canon was passed, which was regarded as a nearly unanimous ex- pression of opinion unfavorable to ritualistic extremes, but no occasion has arisen for putting it in force. See Appleiotis' Cyckq}. ; Blunt, Uict. of Sects, s. v. Comp. Oxford Tracts.
Ritualist. See Ritualism.
Ritzema, Johannes, one of the leading ministers of the Reformed (Dutch) Church during the last cen- tury. He was born in Holland, 1710, and thoroughly educated in that country. He was pastor of the Col- legiate Reformed (Dutch) Church in New York from 1744 to 1784. His sermons were "of a high order." He is represented as a man of great prudence, and of most estimable character in the Church and in the comminiity. Although at first he was regarded as "a conservative cwtus man" in the great controversy which rent the Church, he soon, with his colleague Rev. Lambertus De Ronde, went over to the Conferen- tie and became an active partisan with those who op- posed the ordination of ministers in this country. His consistory remained neutral. He wrote several pam- phlets in opposition to Rev. John Leydt, who favored independence. During the Revolutionan,' war, he and De Ronde were compelled to leave the city, and re- j maincd in their old age in their places of exile. His last four years (1784-88) were spent at Kindcrhook, N. Y. He was a trustee of Kings, now Columbia Col- lege, N. Y, ; and at one time, when it was projiosed to establish a divinity professorship in that institution, he was prominently named for that otHce by his friends. Sec De Witt, IJistorical Discourse; Gunn, Life of ,/. //. fJi-iiif/xton ; Corwin, Manual of (he Riformed Church. (Sy. J. R.T.)
River. In the sense in which we employ the word,
RIVER
39
RIVER
viz. for a perennial stream of considerable size, a river is a much rarer object in the East than in the West. See Watek. The majority of the inhabitants of Pal- estine at the present day have probably never seen one. AVith the exception of the Jordan and the Litany, the streams of the Holy Land are either entirely dried up in the summer months, and converted into hot lanes of glaring stones, or else reduced to very small streamlets deeply sunk in a narrow bed, and concealed from vie\v by a dense growth of shrubs. The cause of this is two- fold : on the one hand, the hilly nature of the country — a central mass of highland descending on each side to a lower level — and on the other the extreme heat of the climate during the summer. There is little doubt that in ancient times the country was more wooded than it now is, and that, in conse(iuence, the evapora- tion was less, and the streams more frequent ; yet this cannot have made any very material difference in the permanence of the water in the thousands of valleys which divide the hills of Palestine.
" Kiver" is the rendering in the A. Y. of seven distinct Hebrew words. These are not synonymous. Most of them have definite significations, and were used by the sacred writers to set forth certain physical peculiarities. When these are overlooked, the full force and meaning of the Scriptures cannot be understood; and important points of physical geography and topography fall to be apprehended.