LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
NONCONFORMISTS AND THE HOLY COMMUNION
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Commenting on the action of the Bishop of St. Albans in refusing to permit a Communion service at Watford for members of a reunion conference, churchmen and Noncon- formists, you state that you sought " highest legal opinion " on the subject and that the only " legal cause for refusing the Holy Communion to an unconfirmed person is notorious evil living."
Perhaps then you will explain the direction at the end of the 'service of Confirmation in the Book of Common Prayer :— " And there shall none be admitted to the Holy Communion, until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed." Perhaps your " highest legal opinion " had never seen the Book of Common Prayer.—I am, Sir, &c., [The question which Mr. Campbell asks us has been answered many times in the Spectator. When we spoke of " the highest legal opinion " we referred to the late Sir Arthur Charles, who was Dean of Arches and subsequently became a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He contributed to the Spectator two articles dealing with the legal position of Nonconformists in regard to Holy Communion in the Church of England. The sense of his argument was as follows. When the compilers of the Prayer Book in " The Order of the Administration of the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion" defined the conditions of admission they made no mention whatever of confirmation. It is laid down there that the Holy Communion shall be administered to no one who is " an open and notorious evil liver," or who has " done any wrong to his neighbours by word or deed so that the congregation be thereby offended." On the other band the direction at the end of the Confirmation Service says that no one shall be admitted to Holy Communion who is not " confirmed or ready and desirous to be confirmed." The purpose of those who wrote this direction was mainly to prevent young children coming to Holy Communion as at the Mass. It may be noted that they speak of persons being admitted to the service, not of their receiving the Holy Communion. They wanted to insist on a proper age and state of mind more than on the absolute necessity of confirmation. It cannot be.denied that the writers of the direction used rather vague language. Still less can it be denied that they regarded confirmation as a thing which ought earnestly to be urged upon everybody. But a _rely if the absence of confirmation had been regarded as aL absolute bar to participation in the Holy Communion that would have been said explicitly in the rubric before the Holy Communion Service.
This, then, was Sir Arthur Charles's conclusion—that from the legal point of view the whole situation is governed by the rubric to the Holy Communion Service which mentions certain reasons for withholding the Holy Communion, but does not include the absence of confirmation among those reasons. —ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
