THE TABLET

A Weekly Newspaper and Review

D u m VOBIS GRATULAMUR, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMUS UT IN INCCEPTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEATIS.

From the Brief of His Holiness to T he T ablet, June 4, 1870.

Vol. 49. No. 1919. L o n d o n , J a n u a r y 20, 1877.

P rice sd. By P ost sJ^d.

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[R egistered a t th e General P ost O ffice as a N ewspaper

C hronicle o f th e W e e k :—

Page

The Hatcham Case.—Lord Penzance’s Judgment.—The Bishop of Lincoln’s Letter.— Resolutions of the English Church Union.—The Duty of a Neutral—Two Views.— The Conference— the “ Irreducible Minimum.”- Probable Intentions of Turkey.—The Attitude of Germany.—The Alleged Impalement in Bosnia.- Famine in India.— The State of Affairs in Louisiania. —The Italian Bishops and the Exequatur.—The Pope and the President of Paraguay.—The Pope and the Italian Pilgrims.— Economies in Religion in Austria.— Foreign Priests at Geneva .. 65

C O N T

Page

L eaders :

The Turks and the Conference .. 69 Certain Aspects of the Hatcham

Controversy .........................69 The Condition of Italy in the

Opening of the Year 1877 .. 70 Socialist Democracy and the Ger­

man Elections .. .. •• 7r The Waterford Election—The

Land Question .. .. .. 72 Circular Despatch of Prince Gort-

schakoff .. .... .. 73 The Protestant Tradition.—VII. 73 The Powers and Turkey.—II. .. 74 P ictures :

The Old Masters at Burlington

House ......................... .. 75

1 N T S .

R eviews :

Shakespeare from an American

Page

Point of View .. .. .. 75 Titian, his Life and Times .. 77 Contemporary Review .. .. 78 Short N otices :

Union with Our Lord Jesus Christ 78 The Code Poetical Reader .. 78 True Tales of my Grandmother’s

Monkeys .. .. .. .. 78 Salford Diocesan Almanac .. 78 C orrespondence:

Mission of the Sacred Heart of

Jesus, Fareham, Hants .. 79 Parkerism in 1877 .. .. .. 79 The Empress Eugene and Prince

Louis Napoleon .. .. ..79 Poverty for Conscience Sake .. 79

R ome :— Letter from our own Cor­

respondent .. ..

. Page

, , 81

D iocesan N ews :— Westminster.........................................83

Southwark .. . . .. ..83 Clifton .. .. .. .. 83 Hexham and Newcastle .. .. 83 Nottingham .. .. .. ..83 Scotland— Northern District .. 83 I reland

Letter from our Dublin Corre­

spondent .........................................83 Foreign N ews :—

Germany ......................... ..84 Poland .. .. .. .. 85 France .. .. .. ..85 M emoranda :—

R e l i g i o u s .................................86 General N ews .................................86

CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.

CASE. w

THE HATCHAM

rE have no sym pathy with the people who are bullying the R itu a listic A nglicans— far from it ; but we have never concealed our opinion o f the untenable nature o f the position which the latter have taken up. A n d this week they have received a double blow , from the Judge who presides in the Court o f the Archbishop o f Canterbury, and from a quarter which they would consider more authoritative and more friendly, the least unsympathetic, we should suppose, o f the B ishops o f their Church. A n d each o f these authorities cuts away h a lf the ground on which they claim to stand. Lord Penzance proves that bis Court is not a new one, and is as ecclesiastical as any court which they have ever had since the Reform ation, while the H igh Church B ishop o f L in coln admonishes them that, according to the constitution o f their Church, the right o f perform ing spiritual functions in this or that p la ce— in other words, the whole lo ca l jurisdiction o f the Anglican B ishops and c lergy— -proceeds entirely from the State, and that, therefore, whether the Court is spiritual or not, they are bound in conscience * io obey it.

LORD penzance’s JUDGMENT.

F irst, we will take Lord Penzance’s exposition o f the character o f the Court to which obedience is refused. On Saturday last he held a sitting o f the Court o f Arches in the public library o f the A rchbishop’s Palace at Lambeth, and the contum acy o f Mr. T oo th was brought before him by the counsel o f the opposite side. N o one appearing for the respondent, the D ean o f A rches delivered judgment, and said, first, that the p lea commonly urged respecting the doubtful character o f the Purchase judgm ent and the fact that the th ings therein condemned were now subjects of the pending appeal in the Folkestone case, was quite inadm issible, because the acts for which Mr. T ooth was condemned were distinct from these, and their illegality had been a lready settled, and was certain. Secondly, to the point that the Court in which he presided was a secular and not a spiritual Court, and that “ the Public Worship A c t was an “ innovation and invasion o f the rights o f the Church, in “ that it referred questions o f ritual to a secular tribunal,” Lord Penzance replied to this effect. I t would be well, he said, i f those who took up this position would read the statutes establishing the Prayer Books o f Edward V I . and E lizabeth, which regulated the ritual o f the Reform ed Church for the first century o f its existence. T h e y would there find that a clergym an departing from the authorised ritual was liab le to be tried at the assizes by a ju d ge and ju ry— the B ishop, if he pleased, assisting the ju d ge— and

N ewJ;Series, V o i . XVII. No. 428.

after three convictions to im prisonm ent for life. So that the trial o f ritual cases before a secular Court was at least no novelty. But admitting that it were, whatis the present Court ? I t is the Court by which such cases have for a long series o f years always been tried. T h e contention o f the R itualists was, he supposed, that the proper Court in which to try such cases was the Court o f the B ishop, but an appeal always lay from that to the Court o f the Archbishop, the Court o f Arches. Nay, the practice has long been that as soon as a suit was begun in the B ishop’s Court it was at once transferred by the B ishop’s “ Letters o f R equest ” to the A rches Court, so as to save the expense o f two trials. So that at any time since Mr. T ooth and his friends have professed their a llegiance to the Establishm ent a suit against them might, and probably would, have com e to the Court of A rches to be tried. T h e only change which the new A c t has in troduced is one o f procedure, namely, that while a suit may be still commenced in the B ishop’s Court, and transferred to the A rchbishop’s Court, it may also be commenced in the A rchbishop’s Court at once. A n d as to the judge being a laym an, the judges in the A rchbishop’s Court have for the last two centuries— “ and it is needless to inquire how much farther back ”— always been laym en and lawyers, and, with few exceptions, the officials who preside in the B ishop’s Court are lawyers also. Moreover, unlike a temporal Court, the Court o f A rches has no power to enforce its own decrees. I t can only do what it did before the Public Worship A c t . Originally it excommunicated, and the K in g issued a writ “ de excommunicato capiendo but excommunication was abolished by 53 Geo. I I I . , cap. 127, and under that A c t the Ecclesiastical Courts signify to “ the K in g in C h an ce ry ” that a person is contumacious, and a writ is issued for his imprisonment. I t is under this A c t , and not under any powers conferred by the Public Worship Act, that Lord P en zance has now issued what is called the writ o f “ significavit,” with a v iew to Mr. T o o th ’s arrest. T h a t the proceedings are ju s t as ecclesiastical as they ever have been at any tim e since the Reform ation appears to us to be abundantly made out.

T h e B ishop o f L in coln ’s declaration respect-

the bishop tjje source o f Anglican jurisdiction was letter, e licited by a R esolution to be proposed at a meeting o f the Newark and Southwell branch o f the English Church Union. This Resolution was as follows : “ In consequence o f recent action taken by the Court “ created under the Public Worship A c t this meeting de“ dares that in its judgm ent any sentence o f suspension or “ inhibition pronounced by any Court sitting under the “ aforesaid A c t is spiritually null and void, and that should “ any priest feel it to be his duty to continue to discharge “ his spiritual functions, notwithstanding such sentence, he