The not very edifying correspondence about Cardinal Manning's precedence has
been rendered still more acrid by a memorial to the late Prince Imperial at Chislehurst, in which Monsignor Goddard, a Roman Catholic priest, is called Rector of the parish. It is certainly a misleading name, which suggests an Anglican and not a Roman Catholic ecclesiastic; but it is not exactly a gunpowder-plot or a menace to Pro- testantism, or any of the many omens of evil which Protestant " nerves " in a twitter are disposed to imagine it. Monsignor Goddard himself, in a letter to Tuesday's Times, does not make much fight for the rather misleading title given to him. He says :—" My ecclesiastical superior conferred this title upon me. If, therefore, I have a right to it, there is an end to the matter; if, notwithstanding the official act of the Bishop of the diocese, I have no such right, then I have been guilty of a harmless piece of folly, which will not destroy the English Establishment, and which should excite not anger but benign pity in the large heart of this easily aggrieved cleric" (namely the clergyman who wrote to the Timee to complain). That is about the wisest tone for Monsignor Goddard to take. Doubtless it would be inconvenient and likely to cause much confusion, if we were to have Roman Catholics rectors and vicars of English parishes, as well as Anglican rectors and vicars, especially as there would be then nothing to prevent our having Wesleyan or Congregationalist or Baptist rectors and vicars too. But, so far as we can see, there is nothing illegal in the assumption of such titles, and if they were to become general outside the Established Church, we should have to bear it, or rather, perhaps, to drop these titles altogether as descrip- tions, and stick to proper names. Even so it would not be necessary to get in a panic and cry aloud that Rome was recovering, or the Wesleyans were gaining, spiritual supremacy because we were forced to distinguish between the rector who has the tithe, and the rectors who have none.
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