LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE MILES PLATTING JUDGMENT.
[To THE EDITOR Or THIC " SMTATOR.") SIR,—There is not much fear, as you cynically hint in your article this week, of the Evangelicals or Broad Churchmen being treated to the same measure which the Bishop of Man- chester and the Judicial Committee delight in meting to the Ritualists. The cries of "Freedom of conscience" and " Religions liberty" are, as we see in France, unhappily quite consistent with persecution of a hated religion.
The Bishop of Manchester is, no doubt, perfectly conscientious in his persecution of the Miles Platting clergy and congregation. So, no doubt, were Queen Mary and the Holy Office in their persecutions. The Bishop sees nothing intolerable in claiming liberty to violate the undoubted ritual law of the Church him- self, to encourage the omission of the Athanasian Creed and the celebration of evening communions—the one in direct opposition to the Rubric, the other to the unvarying tradition of the Church —while he persecutes those who worship as the Ornaments Rubric certainly seems to allow, and as the late Sir John Coleridge, among countless other distinguished lawyers, with all the argu- ments before them, declared that it does allow. Be it so. But I would respectfully remind the Bishop and his sympathisers that the persecuted in this case are neither schoolboys, nor even pupil-teachers, and that in the face of the very high legal opinion in their favour, to say nothing of the report of the Royal Com- mission, the Ritualists are not in the least likely to give up their religious liberty, nor are the historical High-Church party any more likely to desert them in their battle for the ancient re- formed worship of the Church of England. Moreover, Providence has been pleased to make them masters of the situation, and they will deserve all those evils which the craft and subtilty of their persecutors may work against them, if they fail to seize their opportunity. The Nonconformists and a great number of other electors are claiming their share as citizens in the property locked up in mortmain for centuries past for religions purposes, and which was so devoted when all Englishmen were Churchmen. The moment we get an extended county suffrage, disendowment will become a very practical question indeed. Let the Ritualists at once decline to have anything whatever to do with maintaining the Establishment, which alone makes their per- secution possible. They will be wise to keep aloof from all "Church defence " movements,—to support living agencies and mission-rooms in the hands of trustees, but to have nothing to do with fabrics to be handed over to the control of Parliament, and ultimately to be made " pariah" property. They will get very good terms under the new regime, or failing that, they are quite strong enough to make a start for themselves. The ex- perience of St. Alban's, Holborn, and St..Peter's, London Docks, is a happy augury for them, even in "Outcast London."—I am, Sir, &c., AN HISTORICAL HIGH CHURCHMAN.
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