[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Neither Dr. Littledale nor
Mr. MacColl is a moderate High Churchman, and in your article of this week you do not fairly re- present the position held by at least a large number of the mode- rate High-Church clergy. We are not concerned with the argu- ments of Mr. Tooth and his friends. We do not dispute the authority of Lord Penzance's Court. We do not deny that the interpretation of Church law must rest with the secular Courts. Secular interests being involved, this is a necessity. But we find the Public Worship Regulation Act, as now working, enforces obedience to a decision of the Privy Council, which decision is discredited by the highest legal authorities, and you yourself say is based upon entirely fictitious historical assumptions. Now it is one thing to say the law is bad, but obey it until it be amended—that we are pre- pared to do—but quite another thing to say the law is mistakenly interpreted, obey the mistaken interpretation. If we did so, we should have small chance of redress. What we want is that the disputed points of ritual should be fully and fairly argued out, before the best legal tribunal which England can supply,—legal, not ecclesiastical. If, after full discussion before a Court in which the country has confidence, a decision is given, that decision may be unpalatable to many or all of us, but it will be obeyed, and the present disastrous strife will die down. Until such a decision is given, it seems to us monstrously unjust to suspend or deprive men for doing that which in a few months or years may be pro-
nounced strictly legal.—I am, Sir, &c., J. S.
Previous page
