By a curious oversight, we forgot to mention last week
the remarkable result of the conflict in the Irish Church Synod on the subject of the Athanasian Creed. After much dividing and a failure in the House of Clergy to obtain a sufficient majority for the abolition of the damnatory clauses, which were voted down by the laity by immense majorities, both Houses concurred in the following solution,—to leave the Creed un- altered in the latter part of the Prayer-Book, but to print it in the Morning Service, with the damnatory clauses cut out, for recitation in place of the Apostles' Creed on the festivals when its substitution for that creed is directed. And as we understand, it will be left at the option of the indi- vidual clergyman whether he will read it in its unmutilated or in its mutilated form. It is remarkable that the Primate, who encouraged his episcopal colleagues to veto this compromise, declaring himself " Athanasian against the world," was beaten by the more prudent members of his own order. One of the most remarkable of the incidents was that Chief 3nstice Whiteside, who always ranked as an Evangelical of Lord Shaftesbury's school, and is a Tory of the Tories, abandoned the creed, "in a speech," says a correspondent, "that would have delighted Dean Stanley," since it proved that the Creed was certainly not due to Athanasius, and that it was unreasonable and bigoted to insist on its use. Mr. Miall will take note of this, and panegyrise disestablishment as the great liberaliser of Churches. And certainly a liberalised Whiteside is a sort of prodigy, if not a miracle. But after all, our own Bishops, who are not disestablished, would have acquiesced far more cheerfully in a like fate, than did Archbishop Beresford and the Bishop of Derry.
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