CASE[5]

[5]
_Remarks on Some Parts of the Report of the Judicial Committee in
the Case of "Elphinstone against Purchas."_ A Letter to Canon Liddon,
from the Right Hon. Sir J.T. Coleridge. _Guardian_, 5th April 1871.

No one has more right to speak with authority, or more deserves to be
listened to at a difficult and critical moment for the Church, than Sir
J.T. Coleridge. An eminent lawyer, and a most earnest and well-informed
Churchman, he combines in an unusual way claims on the attention of all
who care for the interests of religion, and for those, too, which are
so deeply connected with them, the interests of England. The troubles
created by the recent judgment have induced him to come forward from
his retirement with words of counsel and warning.

The gist of his Letter may be shortly stated. He is inclined to think
the decision arrived at by the Judicial Committee a mistaken one. But
he thinks that it would be a greater and a worse mistake to make this
decision, wrong as it may be, a reason for looking favourably on
disestablishment as a remedy for what is complained of. We are glad to
note the judgment of so fair an observer and so distinguished a lawyer,
himself a member of the Privy Council, both on the intrinsic
suitableness and appropriateness of the position[6] which has been
ruled to be illegal, and on the unsatisfactoriness of the
interpretation itself, as a matter of judicial reading and
construction. A great deal has been said, and it is plain that the
topic is inexhaustible, on the unimportance of a position. We agree
entirely--on condition that people remember the conditions and
consequences of their assertion. Every single outward accompaniment of
worship may, if you carry your assertion to its due level, be said to
be in itself utterly unimportant; place and time and form and attitude
are all things not belonging to the essence of the act itself, and are
indefinitely changeable, as, in fact, the changes in them have been
countless. Kneeling is not of the essence of prayer, but imagine, first
prohibiting the posture of kneeling, and then remonstrating with those
who complained of the prohibition, on the ground of postures being
unimportant. It is obvious that when you have admitted to the full that
a position is in itself unimportant, all kinds of reasons may come in
on the further question whether it is right, fitting, natural. There
are reasons why the position which has been so large