The Archbishop of Canterbury has expressed to the members of
Mr. Dale's congregation his great regret at Mr. Dale's imprison. ment, and his belief that by promising the Bishop of London to render him canonical obedience for the future, and drop the practices inhibited, he would find himself free to return to his duties. To this Mr. Browne, in the name of Mr. Dale's congre- gation, replies that another clergyman, who has submitted to his Bishop (Rev. R. W. Enraght), is at this moment threatened with imprisonment; and that Mr. Dale cannot get out of prison without submitting to Lord Penzance, and admitting "that he is bound to lay down his spiritual functions at the bidding of a secular Judge,"—evidently a very dreadful idea to Mr. Dale, as well as to Mr. Browne and the other laymen of Mr. Dale's church. However, this is not really what is asked of Mr. Dale. If he would but take a private chapel, and give up St. Vedast's, he might exercise his " spiritual functions " without regard to any .'secular Judge." All that Lord Penzance asks is that he shall obey the Ecclesiastical law of the State, so long as he ministers in one of the Ecclesiastical buildings of the State,—and no longer. Archdeacon Denison has expressed his desire to see the " Church Association put into the Thames, and Lord Pen- zance atop of it." If you can drown an Association, without drowning its members, we certainly should not object; but we do not see why, even solely in his capacity as Judge of the Arches Court, poor Lord Penzance is to be drowned with it.
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