Saturday Review Volume . 3; Politics, Literature, Science and Art (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 Excerpt: ...' CHURCHES CASE. WE can at length speak, without the fear of being misunderstood, on this ecclesiastical cause celebre. So much of small personal matter necessarily attends such a case, that a. bystander who speaks with moderation risks the imputation either of partisanship or of apathy. We disclaim each charge, and now we may possibly not be misunderstood. It was the fashion, and a weak one, to represent the dispute as one about contemptible trifles. Such a view of the matter argues unpbilosophical feebleness, or unhistorical ignorance. It is of course deplorable, and it may easily be represented as ludicrous, that so many dignitaries of Church and State, the Pamxrn and the Cunncannoa, should have been engaged so many days in solemn discussions on the propriety of lace hangings, or the fitting material of an altar-table. But it was not for nothing that these punctilios were raised. N 0 one would speak of the Chinese war as a wrangle about a bit of bunting; and it is only a vicious desire to mislead which describes the Arian controversy as a dispute about an unimportant vowel. We believe that, on the one hand, the advocates of ritual splendour have a principle at heart, of which they regard forms and symbols as the natural and legitimate expression; while, on the other, we are not disposed to deny that the opponents of these things object to them as expressing more than their outward form seems to convey. At any rate, if they are essentially so contemptible, the responsibility of rending the Church rests rather with those who polemically resist what, on their own confession, is utterly indifferent. The decision of the Court, however, shows that there is a substantial importance in these externals; and the gravity with which the evidence has been w...