The Moral of St. Hilary What emerges from the miserable
St. Hilary Church episode is the urgent need for some legal enactment whereby Consistory Courts may be empowered to give effect to their decisions. To leave it open to any casual stranger, or even to any parishioner, to execute at will, and in any way thought most effective, a Court's order for the removal of illegal ornaments is simply to encourage anarchy, or the kind of disgraceful scenes enacted at St. Hilary by a handful of parishioners reinforced by Mr. Kensit and his followers. It has indeed been claimed with some force by the latter that they only took action themselves after the Vicar had proved obdurate and the Bishop of the diocese had declined to move. It would seem reasonable that in the case of an established church some provision should be made for the execution of decisions of the ecclesiastical courts by the civil power in case of need, perhaps through the County Court of the district. If there are objections to that course the answer is that the difficulty is inherent in the nature of establishment. But the immediate point is that the affair of St. Hilary should force the Church Assembly to consider- earnestly and without delay how such a scandal can be avoided in the future.
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