"DIVERSITIES OF MINISTRATIONS." [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "] Sra,—Your
appeal for fresh legislation in the matter of the Public Worship Regulation Act will, I trust, prove to have been met by the Act to Amend the Public Worship Regulation Act, which was read last night for the first time, This Act has been brought in by Mr. Reid and Mr. Albert Grey, at the instance of the National Church Reform Union. It provides that no proceedings against an incumbent shall go forward until sanctioned by the majority of the parishioners assembled in a specially convened vestry meeting, in accordance with the principle which this Society devotes itself to maintain, and which it formulates at length in the Church Boards Bill, that the parishioners have the first interest in the parochical worship. The incumbent, therefore, whose ministrations meet the spiritual needs of his flock will henceforth be secured from litigation. Relying upon the security and the weight of this authentic record of the religious feelings of the people, the
promoters of the Bill propose to leave to the Bishop—himself a State-appointed and responsible officer—full power to decide upon the representation, and full authority to enforce his sen- tence by monition, inhibition, and at the end of three months of contumacy, by deprivation.
At this last stage, however, before depriving the incumbent who has ignored alike the expressed wishes of his parishioners and the mandates of his Canonical superior of such material advantages as stipend and freehold, we offer to him an appeal to Lord Penzance's Court. If he decline the jurisdiction of his Bishop, and himself demands the verdict of that tribunal, he at least cannot thereafter assert that he has been judged by an authority which he cannot recognise. We, however, by no means anticipate this extremity. We believe there are but few incumbents who would proceed to resistance, when they once possessed that authoritative expression of the desires of their flock and of their Bishop which this Bill would ensure.—I am,
Sir, Ste , PHILIP LYTTELTON GELL, National Church Reform Union,1 Adam Street, Adelphi.
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