THE ST. PAUL'S REREDOS JUDGMENT. T HE judgment in the St.
Paul's reredos case is at least very satisfactory as affirming in the most positive and unanimous manner the discretion of the Bishop in a case brought before him under the Public Worship Act to stop proceedings if, on a consideration of the whole circum- stances of the case, he shall deem litigation to be undesirable in the interests of the Church. As Lord Bramwell very carefully pointed out, he is not empowered to stop the case only because he is not sure that it ought to proceed. Unless he is of opinion that it ought not to proceed, he cannot stop it, but must send it for argument and judgment in the usual way. But he has, according to the whole Court of Appeal, an absolute discretion to stop the litigation if he shall be of opinion that, looking to all the circumstances of the case, the proposed litiga- tion is likely to be productive of more mischief than it can possibly be productive of good. The result is, therefore, that any Bishop who is either clear that the litigation ought to go on, or not clear that it ought not to go on, must send on the case for judgment. And we suppose that there are one or two Bishops who find them- selves in this position when their authority is invoked to stop proceedings under the Public Worship Act. Dr. Kyle, we suppose, has, to say the least, great doubts in his own mind whether the case against Mr. Bell Cox ought to be stopped, even if he is not quite so unwise as to believe it to be clearly for the good of the Church that it should go on. And that being so, Lord Bramwell's decision cer- tainly supports Bishop Kyle in permitting the disastrous suit which has been recommenced against Mr. Bell Cox, to proceed. Whenever a Bishop is not convinced that the litigation should be discouraged, he has no legal right to atop it, even though his own judgment should incline doubtfully against the litigation. But whenever a Bishop is convinced, as almost all the sensible Bishops certainly are convinced, that such litigations as we commonly hear of can decide no really important new point, and will do nothing but stir up bad blood in the Church, he has, under the statute, the absolute right and duty of putting his veto on any such litigation. And, moreover, the Bishop is not in the least bound to make up his mind one way or the other on the question whether the ritual pro- cedure impugned, and on which a legal decision is desired, is right or wrong. Even if he thought it clearly incon- sistent with the law of the Church, and would expect the Court to which it might be submitted, if the case were argued out at all, to condemn and forbid it, even then, if in his opinion the litigation itself would be much more mischievous than the breach of the law under the circum- stances of the case could be supposed to be, he would lie justified, and indeed required, to put his veto on the further prosecution of the case. The Judges were quite elear, in short, that the Bishop is given a real power to stop the prosecution of a suit prejudicial in his opinion to the interests of the Church, even though the ritual pro- eedure which was the subject of the suit, was in his opinion really irregular and illegal. The Act intended that the Bishop's discretion should suspend the action of the law in all cases where he really thinks that the enforce- ment of the law would be undesirable, and hurtful to the peace of the Church.
Now, we heartily rejoice in this decision, if only because it recognises the broad fact that there are issues in eccle- siastical affairs in which wise moderation is far more im- portant than mere legality. We do not want to see law enforced in very small matters, where the letter of the law is of no great consequence, and not half so important as the spirit in which action is taken or withheld. There are deviations from the legal ritual on both sides, the side of deficiency as well as the side of excess, which ought not to be punished, which ought to be clearly permissible where there is no evidence to show that any great offence has been given, while the great majority of worshippers approve the deviation. We do not want a cast-iron system in matters that are of very secondary importance. And in our opinion, ritual may often be, perhaps generally is, of very secondary importance. Christ himself justified the eating of the shewbread by the hungry companions of David, though that was not ecclesiastically lawful. There are plenty of ritual actions which it may not be desirable to forbid, although they cannot be shown to be legal, and plenty which it may not be desirable to enforce, even though they can be shown to be legal. We want an elastic system, with some responsible person who shall decide where the elasticity should end. The final Court 'of Appeal has decided that our ritual system is in- tended by the Public Worship Act to be such an elastic system, and that the person who should be respon- sible for relaxing its minor requirements, is the Bishop, who shall take into account all the circumstances of the case, and look at the matter in the light of a large arid mild expediency. That is just what we have always contended that our ecclesiastical system should be. And if the Bishops are wise, they will use the discretion accorded to them in a fashion of which the hot partisans on either side will certainly not approve.
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