The High-Church party have failed in their application to the
Consistory Court of the Diocese of London for a faculty authorising the erection of a baldacchino, or canopy, over the Communion- table of St. Barnabas's, Pimlico. The ground on which Dr. Tristram, the Chancellor of the Diocese of Lendon, refused the faculty was very simple,—namely, that the ornaments of the Church are limited by the Rubrics to those sanctioned by the first Prayer-book of Edward VI., except where they may be shown to be in any way necessary or subsidiary to the performance of the services of the Church ; and that the canopy, or baldacchino, is not enumerated amongst the permitted ornaments of the Church in the first Prayer-book of Edward VI., and cannot be shown to be in any way necessary or subsidiary to the performance of the Church services. On these grounds, Dr. Tristram declined to grant the faculty, pointing out that in 1556 several fillell canopies were found, and were removed by the churchwardens as monu- ments of superstition, indicating that at that time they were not deemed lawful Church ornaments. The grounds of the decision are so distinct, and so little likely to raise questions of principle, that we may well hope that Dr. Tristram's judgment will be taken as final. The High Church must wait for baldacchinos, and a good many other things, till they are a mere Dissenting sect, when they may decorate their churches as they please.
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