THE LINCOLN JUDGMENT.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
lately addressed to you a letter on points connected with the recent Lambeth Judgment, which letter appeared in the Spectator of August 8th. In the same paper was an article replying to my letter, and making remarks on Mr. Tomlinson's pamphlet which you bad reviewed. The article contradicted me in two points which are matters of fact and not of opinion,— in both which points I am absolutely right, and the article is absolutely wrong. I addressed a second letter to you which you have not printed. You have, however, observations on letters by Mr. Tomlinson which you did print, which letters expose (among other things) exactly the same errors that you made in contradicting me ; but your observations do not contain any withdrawal of the erroneous statements.
One of the points wherein I put you right was : the review of Mr. Tomlinson's pamphlet said that he described the posi- tion of the celebrant in a church in Perth in the year 1851 as "northward ; " whereas Mr. Tomlinson's words are "eastward at the north side" of the table. Your contradiction of me in. article of August 8th, is :—" We were perfectly accurate, and our correspondent is perfectly inaccurate, in our respective versions of what Mr. Tomlinson said as to the use in St. Ninian's, Perth." The other point on which I put you right was concerning the rubrics foisted into the printed Prayer-Book of Elizabeth, contrary to the Act of Uniformity. Your review has said that Mr. Tomlinson had not proved his point. My letter put you right in this. But your article contradicted me, with the misstatement added that the first rubric in Elizabeth's printed Prayer-Book is the same as the rubric of 1552.
Here, then, I have two errors in your review, wherein I set you right, reiterated and insisted upon. Being not errors of anything but plain matter of fact, persistence in them, and denial to me of opportunity to state the truth, is unjustifiable, and is not what I or any one could have expected from the Spectator !—I am, Sir, &c., [Mr. Lawrence seems aggrieved, and so we publish his letter; but it is nothing more than a reassertion that he was right, which nine controversialists in ten always make.—ED. Spectator.]
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