By Candlelight
dealing with the recent Southall case, Mr. G. W. R. Thomson maintains that the Bishop qf London's approval of the candlesticks should have settled the matter. This argument ignores both the nature of the Bishop's sanction and the wide scope of faculty jurisdiction. It is true that the Bishop of London dedicated the six candlesticks when he visited St. George's, Southall, to bless the reconstruction scheme of which they formed an important part. But it is also quite clear from the Chancellor's judgement that he did so under the impression that a faculty had been already granted.
Again, Mr. Thomson is mistaken in thinking that the necessity for a faculty is confined to those cases where permanent fixtures arc involved. The Bishop's legal authority extends over all the contents of a church, whether pernItnent or ephemeral, and Dr. Percy Dearmer was not exaggerating when he wrote in The Parson's Handbook : "No alteration whatever should be made in the structure or furniture of a church until a faculty is obtained from the Chancellor."
With regard to the judgement itself, I have only this to say. Now that the Dean of the Arches has ruled that the decision whether or not to allow more than two candlesticks is one for the discretion of individual Chancellors, it is of supreme importance that that discretion should be based, not upon the ecclesiastical affiliations of particular Chancellors, but upon the traditional canons of English liturgiology.—
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