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New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 1229, 13 May 1857, Page 4

The Cross and Candlestick Question.— a The great cross and candlestick question, which Q has ccnrulsed Pimlico and enriched Doctors’- n commons for the last two years, is drawing to a p conclusion, causing thereby, no doubt, great an- j Z’.ety to the fashionable devotees of that eristo a cratic locality and sincere regrets >o the learned c denizens of the other no less exclusive domain. ( The judgment delivered by Dr. Lushingion in ] July, 1855, at great length, after three days’ ar- c gument pro and contra by the most profound, j tedious, and impracticable of lawyers, has been c dely appealed against to a court one step higher j in the scale of tedium and ; has j been attacked, defended, and the whole question c entered into over again at still greater length ; after which it is gravely confirmed by another decision still longer and more minute, which is, in its turn, handed on to be appealed against to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, to be re-heard, re-argued, and re-decided all over again, when the learned doctors and proctors engaged will write the final endorsement upon their voluminous briefs, pocket their last fees, and turn ’ their valuable attention to other questions as vain, . as useless, as repugnant to common sense—if, . indeed, such can arise—as that upon which so much time, money, envy, hatred, and malice have just been expended. Some questions, when they are tried, are said to be “ ventilated.” If we are called upon to invent a word to signify the proceedings in this dispute, we should sav that it has been “ dusted”—meaning thereby, not the process by which dust is removed, but that under which it is deposited. Not a feather from the wing of Time has been employed to clean away the deposit of yens of uncertainty, persecution, and fanaticism ; not a gleam of light from present times has been allowed to sweeten it; not a breath of living sentiment has been pressed into the service to dissipate a doubt or a difficulty, as to what is best for the day that is and ibe morrow that may be ; but, on the contrary, the records of past ages, the flickering rays of forgotten controversy, the sayings and writings of dead men, all implicable to the time in which we live : and the circumstances under which they are exhumed from their quiet graves, are alone produc- : ed to teach and to guide us. The proceedings, 1 however, are, as we have said, in Doctors’-com- ! mons ; and therefore we must not expect to find 5 any reasonable issue under trial, or any practical 1 utility in the decision upon it. They are very long, and, we are bound to suppose, very learned; and that is all we can say about them. It would be useless for us to enter into the circumstances , of this case; the principle is all that we care to P deal with. One fact, however, appears, which j in justice we should mention. It was stated that r when the late Bishop of London consecrated St. f Paul’s (Knights-bridge) the cross upon the altar, now objected to and ordered to be removed, was hidden by a large offertory dish. Mr. Bennett, the incumbent, has sworn that the bishop knew J of its existence, and gave bis consent to its reg tention. “The bishop,” he says, “objected to , the cross if it was to be moveable, and considered g it illegal, but stated that he had no objection to . it if it was fixed.” This is upon a par with the famous candle decision, A fixed cross and an , unlighted candle are, it seems, right and proper, | but move the one and light the other, and then o heresy and schism stalk triumphant. Upon such s absurdities as these is the church of England e divided and convulsed in the latter half of the 19ih century !• -Manchester Guardian.