11 



sin mid be carried out of the church, cleansed 

 tin- vessels of all ivniiiaiits in a reverent, way with- 

 out ceremony or prayers before finally leaving the 

 ,blc, would have subjected himself to penal 



consequences iy so doing. In this cast- it would 

 ha\c been illegal to varv the service by mak- 

 ing tin- --ceremony "f ablution " charged in the 

 article-, or the like. appear to he part of it. but 

 idence did not show that this was done. 

 Tin- charge of standing in the eastward posi- 

 tion in the first part of the communion service 

 was di-mi-sed, on grounds developed in review- 

 ing the legislation on the subject. Respecting 

 the charge of standing with his back to the peo- 

 ple while breaking the bread for the commun- 

 ion, the court decided that "in the mind of a 

 minister there ought to be a wish and intention 

 to do what has to be done, not merely no wish 

 or intention not to do it; that in this case he 

 must not hide the acts by doing what must hide 

 them: that he must not be so indifferent as to 

 what the result of what ho does may be as to do 

 that which is certain id make them invisible." 

 The court ruled, therefore, that the bishop had 

 mistaken the true interpretation of the order of 

 the holy communion in this particular, and that 

 the manual acts must be performed in such 

 wi-e as to l>e visible to the communicants prop- 

 erly placed. The singing of the anthem " O 

 Lamb of God " was held to be on a par with the 

 singing of any other hymn that might be selected 

 and allowed at that part of the service, and 

 therefore not to be an illegal addition to it. As 

 t" the use of lighted candles, the court did not 

 find sufficient warrant for declaring that the law 

 is broken when they are standing on the holy 

 table continuously through the service, " noth- 

 ing having been performed or done which comes 

 under the definition of a ceremony by the pres- 

 ence of two still lights alight before it begins 

 and after it ends." Finally, the court found 

 that there was no justification either in direction 

 or usage for making the sign of the cross in giv- 

 ing the final benediction} that the action was a 

 distinct ceremony, not " retained," since it had 

 not previously existed ; and that therefore it was 

 a ceremony additional to the ceremonies of the 

 Church " according to the usage of the Church 

 of England." "This ceremony," the court de- 

 clared, "is also an innovation which must be 

 discontinued." In some observations on the case 

 after the conclusion of the judgment, the court 

 said that it had not only felt deeply the incon- 

 gruity of minute questionings and disputations 

 on great and sacred subjects, but desired to ex- 

 press its sense that time and attention were di- 

 verted thereby from the Church's real contest 

 with evil and building up of good both by those 

 who gave and by those who took offense unad- 

 visedly in such matters. 



The archbishop afterward. Dec. (5, addressed a 

 letter to the archdeacons and rural deans of the 

 province, explaining, according to the wishes of 

 certain of the clergy, the bearing of the decision 

 upon their own services. He asked them, first, to 

 <( uisidcr t he disproportion bet ween t h< >se points of 

 ritual which had Ix-en contested and the grand 

 characteristics in which all agree of the Knglish 

 ciu-haristic service; to consider the vital impor- 

 tance of peace, charity, and unity, and to consider 

 the ruling principle of St. Paul's life and counsel, 



that not all that N lawful is cx|wdjcnt. that tin- 

 feeling of t he flock of Christ is the sub-timce and 

 evidence of expediency, and. according to St. 

 Paul's example, to limit choice by expediency, 

 and to abstain not only from the parade of their 

 convictions, but " from the very u-eof them when 

 surrounded by eves that would lie pained and 

 spirits that would suffer at sight of what seemed 

 their dangerous ndvance." He had no fear that 

 men were in danger of Ix-ing led to the Church 

 of Rome. Kadi of the conclusions of the court, 

 the archbishop added, relies on the whole chain 

 of the history of each observance, and the dogma 

 that the English Church is a true, faithful branch 

 of the Church Catholic. The conclusions reached 

 were "simply the decision that such or such an 

 act is or is not, expressly or by implication, for- 

 bidden by the law of our Church, or is or is not, 

 in immediate or ultimate consequence, actually 

 penal by the law as it now stands. It is evident 

 that decisions of this character are far from throw- 

 ing the weight of the court's authority upon the 

 side of any act which it does not find to be illegal." 



The case was carried by the promoters of the 

 suit on appeal to the judicial committee of the 

 Privy Council, and came up in that court June 

 10. The appellants sought the reversal of such 

 parts of the judgment of the archbishop's court 

 as were in favor of the bishop, and the pronounc- 

 ing of such sentence of monition against the 

 bishop as the ecclesiastical law provided, and 

 they also applied for an order as to costs. They 

 contended that the offenses alleged against the 

 bishop were contrary to the acts of uniformity 

 and the laws ecclesiastical, and infringed the 

 statutes of Edward VI, etc., still unrepealed, be- 

 sides having been held to be illegal by the judi- 

 cial committees in the cases of " Westerton vs. 

 Liddell," " Martin vs. Mackonochie," " Hibbert 

 vs. Purchas," " Clifton vs. Ridsdale," and others ; 

 and they asserted, on the authority of those 

 judgments, that the mixing of water with the 

 sacramental wine and the administration of the 

 mixed chalice, the ceremony of ablution, the east- 

 ward position, the singing of the "Agnus Dei," 

 and the burning of candles on the communion 

 table when not required for light were illegal, and 

 had, as such, been condemned, and that in these 

 respects the archbishop's judgment was erro- 

 neous. 



The St. Paul's Reredos. In the case of the 

 Queen vs. the Bishop of London, in the Queen's 

 Bench Division, a mandamus was applied for to 

 command the Bishop of London to allow a sec- 

 ond representation to be prosecuted, under the 

 Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874, against 

 the reredos in St. Paul's, while an application 

 was already pending on appeal before the House 

 of Lords. The two complaints or representations 

 were differe.it. in that in the first one it was al- 

 leged that the "sculptured images" in the rere- 

 dos tended to encourage superstitious reverence, 

 and in the second one it was alleged that they 

 had in fact encouraged and led to such super- 

 stitious reverence, and that acts of superstitions 

 reverence had. in many instances, been actually 

 committed. The judgment of the court, which 

 was given Nov. 14. I860, turned upon the ques- 

 tion whether the two representations were or 

 were not substantially identical. On this the 

 judges were divided, and the application for a 



