THE CHURCH ASSOCIATION'S LAST MOVE.
WHATEVER we may think of the policy of the Church Association, its last onslaught is, in one respect, a commendable improvement on its previous tactics. Hitherto it has employed its funds in waging war against poor incumbents, some of whom it succeeded in imprisoning and harrying out of their livings. It has now attacked higher game in the persons of two Bishops and a Cathedral Chapter. This has at least the one merit of courage. If it succeed in destroying the reredos at St. Paul's and in suppressing the Bishop of Lincoln, it will certainly precipitate a crisis more startling in its immediate effects, and more momentous in its ulterior consequences, than the Gorham judgment. To face this with a light heart implies no small amount of courage, or foolhardiness ; but it is just to the Church Association to say that courage rather than foolhardiness seems to have prompted the selection of the field of battle. St. Paul's Cathedral is the most popular church in the Kingdom, using the word " popularity " in its best and widest sense. Under the rule of its present Chapter it has attracted a volume of sympathy and diffused throughout the nation an amount of influence, which would make the success of the Church Association's attack a national calamity, and rouse aosinst that militant organisa- tion such resentment as would be tolerably certain to paralyse its action for the future. In the Bishop of Lincoln, 'too, the Church Association has chosen a very formidable opponent : formidable, not because of his controversial adroitness, or exceptional ability, or influence in high places, but because of his singular goodness,—his unworldliness, his simplicity and gentleness, his exemplary devotion to the work of his high office, and his rare gift of winning the love and confidence of those who differ from him. To stake its character, and perhaps its future, on its success in a trial of strength against the most popular Cathedral and the most popular Bishop in England, is certainly a proof that the Church Association, however deficient in charity and discretion, is not lacking in courage. But it is probable that the Church Association has rushed into the fray without surveying the forces which are arrayed against it, even apart from the strong position which its immediate opponents hold in public estimation. The motive which inspires its policy, however unconsciously, is the belief that art cannot be used legitimately as the handmaid of religion. The Council of the Church Association would doubtless deny the justice of this accusation. But men are often moved by impulses of which they do not apprehend the genesis or tendency. The generation which decorates the tombs of the prophets may sincerely resent the accusation of logical descent from the generation which slew them ; but that does not disprove the justice of the accusation. The Church Association may now welcome architecture and music into the service of religion ; but it is theologically the descendant of that old Puritanism which waged a relentless war against the employment of the beautiful in divine worship, and even, to some extent, in civil life. And every step which has been made in the emancipation of religion from this despotism of a spurious spirituality has been resisted by the spirit which animates the Church Association. The attack upon the reredos of St. Paul's is the expiring effort of the party, well-meaning and sincere, however short-sighted and narrow-minded, which, in its day of power, placed Shake- speare under ban, forbade tailors to sit cross-legged, for fear of superstition, and sent mothers to prison for kissing their children on Sunday. The spirit of the age and the common-sense of the public are against the Church Association in this matter. Those who have made war on the St. Paul's reredos, because it contains the figure of the Saviour on the Cross, do not propose to destroy all the painted windows on which the Crucifixion is depicted. How do they justify this inconsistency p Their spiritual progenitors were more logical. They saw no difference between painted windows and sculptured marble, and they destroyed both with indiscriminate ruthlessness. The mind which is stupid enough to pay divine worship to an image in sculpture is not likely to recoil from worshipping the same image in painted glass or on canvas.
But this is not the only obstacle to the success of the Church Association in this litigation. The Chief Justice granted their demand for a rule nisi, but with a significant warning. In point of fact, the law of the case, as it seems to us, has been settled already. In giving his reasons for vetoing the proceedings, the Bishop of London declared that " the main question of principle here at issue has been already decided in the Exeter case." That assertion is indisputable ; but the Exeter case does not stand alone. It was followed by two other cases dealing with this question,—the Ridsdale case and the Denbigh case. The facts of these cases are before the public, and we may recapitulate the main points without in any way prejudging the question which is now sub judice. The proceedings against the Bishop of Lincoln stand on a different footing, and therefore we refrain from touching on the legal aspect of that case.
The matter in dispute in the Exeter case was the legality of a sculptured figure of our Lord's Ascension in the centre panel of a reredos over the altar. Both the Court of Arches and the Judicial Committee affirmed its legality, and the question is whether the ratio dicendi of that decision does not cover the St. Paul's reredos. The Judicial Committee reviewed the bearings of the Injunctions of Edward and Elizabeth; of the Homilies, and of the Twenty-Second Article of Religion, and gave its decision on the following distinct grounds. With regard to the Edwardian Injunction :—" This order or letter, then, of the King's Council, explained as it is in its objects and intentions on the face of the document itself, appears to their Lordships to amount to no more than an administrative act or step taken at the time, and dictated by the necessities peculiar to the time. It did. not contain, nor profess to contain, the enunciation of any general law of a permanent character with respect to images." The Court came to the same conclusion with respect to all subsequent dealing with the subject under Edward and Elizabeth. As to the Twenty-Second Article, " it condemns only the abuse of images ;" and the Homilies go no further than " a qualified " recommendation of doctrines " specially necessary for the times when the Articles were framed and published." Such is the ratio dicendi of the judgment of the Judicial Committee in the Exeter case. The condemnation of images in the sixteenth century, it says, was of a specific and temporary character, and does not apply to the use of like images in our churches now, unless it can be proved that they are used for super- stitious purposes. The Court made no distinction between a crucifix and any other images ; and it is quite plain that its decision would have been the same if the reredos had contained a sculptured figure of our Lord on the Cross, instead of a representation of his Ascension. And this was evidently the view of the same Court in the Ridsdale case. The matter in dispute then was a crucifix, standing by itself on the rood-screen. Evidence was produced to show that processions of clergy and laity were in the habit of Imeeli g down, " and remaining kneeling for some time," before this crucifix. The Court therefore decided that as this crucifix formed no part of an historical subject for decorative purposes, and as evidence had been given that it was used for superstitious purposes, it was illegal. Some weeks later, Lord Penzance, as Dean of the Arches Court, had to adjudicate on the legality of a reredos in a church at Denbigh,—" a reredos," we quote the Judge's description—" of which the central compartment consists of a sculptured panel representing the Crucifixion, having the figure of our Saviour on the Cross, and the figure of St. John and the three Marys on either side, all such figures being in high relief." The Judge decided, both on the merits of the case and also as being covered by the decision in the Exeter case, that the Denbigh reredos was legal. It was urged that abuse was possible, to which Lord Penzance replied : "I think it is clear that such a thing might be ; but that is not enough ; it must appear to the Court that it is probable," " Is it reasonable to say that the figure of our Saviour in the Crucifixion is likely to be superstitiously regarded, but that the same figure in the Ascension is open to no such danger ? think not." " Things innocent in themselves soon take another complexion if viewed in a spirit of distrust, and the possible soon passes into the probable under the eye of an over-jealous vigilance." Discarding this ova-jealous vigilance, Lord Penzance affirmed the legality of the Denbigh reredos, and from his decision there was no appeal. • So much, then, for the law of the case as at present declared. It covers the St. Paul's reredos on all disputed points; and the Chief Justice had good reason for the gentle warning which he gave to the Church Association in granting them a rule nisi against the Bishop of London.
Previous page
