PRAYER-BOOK REVISION.
[TO THE ED/TOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—My bad writing is to blame for making more than one part of my last letter to you obscure, and for inducing you to make a comment which is beside the question. I did not write. that "Ritualists could afford to unite," if Convocation were to alter the Rubrics in the Privy Council's sense, but that they could afford to wait. Because, having been practically con- fessed as right in every previous reform they have introduced,. no matter how violent may have been the opposition at first, they see no reason for supposing that this principle has ceased to apply, and are more inclined to believe that any retrograde action on the part of Convocation would be very short-lived and speedily reversed. 1552 and 1559 are unexhausted pre- cedents of the brief duration of a narrowing process, when attempted with the Church of England.
Allow me to add a word of explanation on another point. I have spoken of the Privy Council judgments as "fraudulent." I have friends who are as satisfied as I am of the untenability of these findings, but whose verdict is" overpowering prejudice."' I should at once accept that plea in extenuation, if the Judges had been Bishops, or unprofessional Privy Councillors. But I have had enough familiarity with legal studies and with the interpretation of documents, to be well assured that no such defence is feasible on behalf of the lawyers on the tribunal. The reason is of the simplest : No question whatever exists that if the Ornaments Rubric ran thus,—" And here it is to be noted, that such Ornaments of the Church, and of the Ministers thereof, at all times of their Ministration shall [not] be retained,. and [shall not] be in use, as were in this Church of England,. by the Authority of Parliament, in the Second Year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth," it would Make vestments, crosses,. censers, and the like, illegal. And consequently it is absolutely impossible that any lawyer, with professional experience and. distinction sufficient to lift him to the Final Court of Appeal,. could believe for a moment that the Rubric means the very same thing when affirmatively worded as when negatively. It would be just as reasonable to assert that the necessary legal force of the Act of Settlement of the Crown is to make Queen Victoria a usurper, and the ex-Duke of Modena (say) legitimate King of Great Britain.—I am, Sir, &c., RICHARD F. LITTLEDALE.
9 Red Lion Square, London, WO., November 15th.
[It appears to us that Dr. Littledale shows something more than "overpowering prejudice" by his assertion that our groat lawyers have been guilty of intentional fraud.—En. Spectator.],
Previous page
