Untitled - Electric Scotland

2i8 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. x.
with respect to the cross as an architectural ornament.
The Privy Council had distinctly refused to condemn
such a cross when on the chancel screen, and Mr. Liddell
now asked the Bishop whether he might interpret the
decision as applying also to the rcredos.
The Bishop replied as follows :
Tlie Bishop of London to the Hon. and Rev. Robert Liddell.
" LONDON
HOUSE, 6th April 1857.
Cl MY DEAR SIR, I should be truly glad if I could think it
consistent with my duty to yield to the request you have pre
ferred. I am sure you will believe me when I say that I am
most unwilling to do anything which may have an appearance
of want of sympathy with good and earnest persons such as
those whose charitable and pious labours you speak
having taken part in the deliberations on which the decision of
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was founded, I
of. But
feel that I should be departing widely from its spirit if I allowed
the wooden cross when removed from the Communion Table to
be replaced by another of stone in the architectural structure
of the reredos. Such a change could scarcely be regarded
otherwise than as an evasion of the decision, and I cannot but
think that the calmer judgment of your people will, on reflec
tion, see that I could not with any propriety
accede to this
request. 1
"Trusting and believing that the attachment of your flock to
the Church of England is far deeper than to be liable to be
shaken by such a cause as this plain discharge of my duty, I
would conclude with an earnest prayer that at this sacred season
the doctrine of the Cross and of our close union in Him who
suffered thereon, whether represented or not in our churches by
the presence of its outward symbol, may be present to all our
hearts. I am, my dear Sir, faithfully yours,
"A. C. LONDON."
1 The technical point with which this letter deals came again before the
Trivy Council a few years later (on June 22, 1860) in the second suit of
Liddell v. Beal, when it was decided that such a cross in such a position
had not been declared by the previous judgment to be illegal.