All who are interested in the Church controversies of the
day should read the two remarkable articles published in the Fortnightly for June, by Professor A. V. Dicey and the Rev.
Malcolm MacColl, The Legal Aspects of Disestablishment " and "The Clergy and the Law." Professor Dicey's paper is one of the ablest analyses of the bearing of the law on Dis- established Churches that we have ever read, though we exceed- ingly regret the rather unworthy sneer, on page 829, concerning a minister of the Independent Church at Huddersfield, against whose claim to retain his position under the trust deeds Vice- Chancellor Sir Charles Hall had given his decision. " It is worth remark," says Mr. Dicey, "that if Mr. Stannard had thought fit, with the aid of his congregation, to disobey the injunction of the Court, he might have found himself as tightly and permanently lodged in prison as Mr. Green. Unfortunately, a minister in gaol' has not the alliterative impressiveness of a 'priest in prison.' The disobedience of a Dissenter does not excite the sympathies of good society." So far as we can judge, the sympathy with Mr. Stannard, if he had resisted the law, would have been much greater than the sympathy with Mr. Green. The feeling that Mr. Green was a salaried official of the Established Church diverted the sympathy of ordinary Liberals from his cam., in- stead of attracting it to his case. Mr. Stannard's martyrdom would have caused a critical Parliamentary issue.
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