MR. GREEN'S IMPRISONMENT. [To TEE EDITOR Or Tan "SPEcTaron."] Sin,—"
H. G-." says that the Spectator has, more than once, assumed that Mr. Green's benefice becomes void at the end of three years from the monition. If the Spectator has erred, it has erred in 'good (legal) company, for the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords, and the Attorney-General in the House of Commons, have likewise so "assumed." If the assumption is an incorrect one, surely the friends of Mr. Green may claim from those high legal authorities, if only to lessen by one the
number of wearying uncertainties to which Mr. Green has been now for so long a time subjected, an announcement of what is the fact.
But I read in this month's number of the Miles Platting Record :—
"The idea, which was started by a correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, that the deprivation takes place three years from the date of the last appeal to the House of Lords, is altogether a mistaken one. That appeal was made in order to prove the illegality of Mr. Green's imprisonment, whereas the Act only makes this proviso in case of an appeal from the monition or inhibition. Such being the case, we must take the Attorney-General's statement as the correct one, and assume that the people of St. John's, Miles Platting, are at the present time without a properly authorised pastor. In which case, why, in the name of justice, mercy, and righteousness, is Mr. Green still in Lancaster Castle?"
With regard to what "H. Pr." says as to a "judicial declara- tion of the avoidance," does not the following extract from a letter, written early this month by a well-known London clergy- man, seem to show that such a "declaration "is unnecessary ?—
" I cannot understand what the Court of Arches has to do with it. The operation of thel3th Section of the Public Worship Regulation let is that (in cases such as have occurred at Miles Platting) ' the bene- fice shall thereupon become void,' unless the Bishop does something which he has not done ; and upon such avoidance it shall be lawful for the patron, &a., to appoint, present, &c., as if such incumbent were dead.' Upon which Mr. Brooke, in his edition of the Act, says, on Dr. Burn's authority, 'It may be mentioned that the church becomes void without any declaratory sentence, for avoidance by Act of Par- liament needeth not any declaratory sentence.' " —I am, Sir, &c.,
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