THE MORAL OF TIIE STANNARD CASE.
WE have said little about Vice-Chancellor Hall's judg- ment in the Huddersfield Chapel case, because we were un- able to see that it possessed any peculiar interest. The law on the subject was perfectly plain. The Ramsden-Street Congregational Chapel is held by trustees, under a trust-deed providing for the preaching of strict Calvinist doctrine. Mr. Stannard, the late minister, had preached a doctrine which may have been very much truer, or very much more rational, or very much more charitable, but which had undoubtedly the disadvantage of not being strict Calvinism. Thereupon, certain of the trustees became troubled in their minds as to their duty towards the pious founder. Was the excellence of Mr. S tannard's character, or the enlightened liberality of his preaching, to be taken as standing in the place of a strict adherence to the letter of the doctrines enumerated in the schedule to the trust-deed I In their uncertainty they applied to the Court of Chancery, and obtained from Vice-Chancellor Hall the decision that when a man founds a chapel in which certain specified doctrines are to be preached, it is not enough for the minister to preach other and quite different doctrines, on the plea that they are better than those which he has been appointed to preach. A good many morals were drawn from this case for the benefit of Ritualists and others who are supposed to be yearning after the unchartered freedom of Disestablishment. The freedom enjoyed in a Voluntary body is not, it was said, at all unchartered. In point of fact, the member or minister of a Voluntary Church is no freer than the member or minister of the Established Church. The =difference between the two is only a difference of procedure. The minister of the Established Church is brought before the . Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ; the minister of a Voluntary Church is brought before the Court of Chancery. As, however, both are temporal tribunals, there is really no superiority in the position of the Voluntary minister over the position of the Established minister. Both have in the end to do what the temporal law bids them. A curious com- mentary upon this reasoning has just been supplied by the
• action of Mr. Stannarcl's congregation. They have resolved- • at least, 226 of them have resolved—that loyalty to truth • and liberty compels them to leave the chapel which luta been their spiritual home, and to seek elsewhere the freedom • of worship which is for the future denied them within
its walls, So far, therefore, as they are concerned, the • inconvenience inflicted on them by Vice-Chancellor Hall's ,judgment is exclusively a money inconvenience. Instead of profiting by the liberality of a deceased Calvinist founder, they must come forward with the money necessary to buy, hire, or build a chapel for themselves, Undoubtedly, it is annoying to have to do this. Old associations have to be sacrificed, and. the tradition perhaps of a lifetime broken through. But they still secure, what is to them the most essential part of this tradition, the continuity of teaching and worship. They will cease to be the congregation of Ramsden-Street Chapel, but they will continue to be Mr. Stannard's congre- gation. If we compare their case with the case of Mackonochie's cagregation, we shall see how very tnuch worse the latter is. The Judicial Committee de- clares that the incumbent of St. Alban' e has disobeyed the Ornaments Rubric, and must, therefore, be deprived of his benefice. So far, the case is on all-fours with that of Mr. Stannarel. The Prayer-book takes the place of the trust-deed, but there is no other difference. But the congregation of St. Alban's could not at once set up another church for the benefit of Mr. Mackonochie. Before he could make any use of such a church, if provided, he must hold a licence from the
Bishop; and it is highly improbable that the Bishop would give him one—that being an act altogether within the epis- copal discretion—except on his undertaking to obey the law for the future. Even if Mr. Meekonochie obtained such a licence, it would not save him from the consequences of another suit. Thus the congregation in the one case is really master of the situation, while, in the other case, it is quite unable to get what it wants. The loss of the Ramsden-Street Chapel means the loss of the money necessary to replace Ramsden- Street Chapel. The loss of St. Alban's would mean the loss of a particular kind of service which the congregation has learned to like and appreciate.
It may be objeeted that this freedom of Mr. Stannarcrs con- gregation is really due to the fact that they are Congrega- tionalists, and consequently not dependent on any central authority. If the Church of England were disestablished, this central authority would be vested in a governing body of some sort, and the decrees of this governing body would be as binding on the clergy as those of the Judicial Committee are on the congregation of St. Alban's. That is true, but it does not greatly affect the case. The grievance of the Ritualists is not that the decrees of a free ecclesiastical legislature of their own Church are against them on the subject of Ritual. They would probably regard the issue of such decrees as proof that the Church had ceased to hold the essential truths syrabolised by a certain ritual, and by so doing hail forfeited its claim on their allegiance. That claim would, in their estimation, have passed to the minority which upheld these essential truths. While the Church remains established, it is impossible for them to take this line consistently with their own theory. That theory is that the Church, the spiritual body which they are bound to obey, is forcibly silenced by the State. Her mind is set out clearly enough in the Ornaments Rubric, but a tyrannical Court refuses to give effect to that mind. They are not free, therefore, to set up a church of their own, because the church to which they belong is only tyrannised over and persecuted. She is not in league with her oppressors, as she would be if, being free to speak her mind, she still kept silence. She is simply power- less in their hands, and the duty of her faithful children is to stay by her and soothe her sufferings. From this point of view, therefore, the Ritualists are doubly helpless. They can- not act as separate congregations, because the law forbids it. They cannot act as a Free Church, because the Bishops and Convocation and the Spiritual Courts are all under infidel. oppression. All that they can do is to bear present evils as bravely as they can, in the hope that a way of escape will be opened to them. Such a position as this may be in the highest degree illogical, but the Ritualists are not likely to be dis- lodged from it by unmeaning assurances that they would have no more freedom of action after Disestablishment than they have now.
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