Untitled - Electric Scotland

246 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. x.
everything that was done by anybody was wrong in the estima
tion of everybody else, yet no charge of which he could take
legal cognisance had been brought before him. He believed
that this was simply one of those miserable cases to be found in
all parts of society, in which, if men would stand on their legal
rights, there was no amount of disturbance they might not cause.
In the domestic relation, for instance, suppose two persons
determined to make themselves as disagreeable as they could,
each to the other, without infringing the law, what a state of
things would result in the family !
He
believed it was the same
thing with those most sacred relations between the pastor and
his flock ;
it was possible for ^ pastor to make himself very dis
agreeable to his flock without violating the law, and for the flock
to make themselves very disagreeable to the pastor ; and it was
very difficult for those who wished to set them right to find by
what means they could do so. ... He had said, and he believed,
that if the matter were placed in his hands it could be arranged,
but it must be an unconditional surrender to the Ordinary. He
must be called in to settle these disturbances, and he hoped he
was not thinking too much of himself or his office, when he said
he had full confidence that there was so much good feeling
among Englishmen, that whenever they had no doubt as to
where the authority lay, they would be quite ready to give way
to it. If the Rector of that parish would do what he ought to
have done months ago, and say I am unable to manage this
parish, I beg the Bishop of the Diocese to manage it for me, all
*
the mischief might be put an end to."
For a time the police were again introduced into the
church, but although they were able to stop actual violence,
they were powerless to prevent the noises and interrup
tions with which the service was accompanied,
these last
offences, as the Home Secretary explained, falling short,
in his opinion, of what could technically be called an
outrage. At length, on the intervention of Arthur
Stanley and Thomas Hughes, Mr. Bryan King was per
suaded to go abroad for a year, and the parish was in
trusted to the care of the Rev. Septimus Hansard, whom
1
Hansard, May 22, 1860, p. 1600.