Untitled - Electric Scotland

1 860-68] ALL SAINTS, MARGARET STREET 417
Tractarians in London. 1 Mr. Oakeley was received in
1845 into the Church of Rome, and in 1849, Mr. Upton
Richards, who had been Mr. Oakeley s curate, was
appointed incumbent of the Chapel, to which a district
was now for the first time assigned. In the opening years
of Bishop Tait s Episcopate, the Chapel of All Saints was,
so to speak, the propugnacnlum of the extreme High
Churchmen in London, and complaints (often vague and
foolish) against its ritual and doctrine were incessantly
arriving. To most of these the Bishop paid no heed, but
in November 1858, a correspondence passed between him
and Mr. Richards, to which it is necessary to allude. One
of Mr. Richards curates, the son of an incumbent in the
diocese, joined the Church of Rome. The father com
plained bitterly to the Bishop, who wrote at once to Mr.
Richards, and took occasion at the same time to remon
strate against the continued use of Altar Lights at All
Saints, notwithstanding the judgment delivered by Dr.
Lushington
Mr. Richards was dissatisfied with Dr. Lushington s
in the Consistorial Court of the Diocese. 2
dictum, and thought the question ought, by fresh liti
gation, to be carried to the Privy
Council for decision.
Bishop Tait, on the other hand, retained his opinion that
litigation on such points was eminently undesirable. The
importance attaching, from an historical point of view,
to this difference of opinion will perhaps justify the re
production of the following letters :-
The Rev. W. Upton Richards to the BisJwp of London.
" MY
"ALBANY ST., 18 Nov. 1858.
LORD,- ... I beg to renew my assurance to your
Lordship of my desire to yield to you not only a canonical, but
1 Historical Notes on the Tractarian Movement, Part iii. pp. 58-82.
J
See p. 219.
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