i863 301 of the very words of the Baptismal Service, and of the Nicene Creed. Thereupon Gorham brought an action against the Bishop in the Archbishop's Court of Arches. There the Dean, Sir Henry Jenner Fust, decided that his tenets were opposed to the doctrine of the Church. Gorham thereupon appealed from the judgment of the Ecclesiastical Court to the secular court of the Privy Council, which reversed the decision, and allowed that a man who after baptizing a child and saying, " Seeing now that this child is regenerate," might hold a living though disbelieving the words he was compelled to utter, was nevertheless qualified to obtain the benefits of a living. Now the Church of England being established, had guaranteed to her tithe and glebe, by the State. What the Privy Council adjudicated was, that Mr. Gorham was qualified to receive £215 per annum in tithe and glebe, and to occupy the Vicarage, whether he believed one of the Articles of the Christian Faith, or disbelieved in it. The Privy Council was quite competent to say to Mr. Gorham or anyone else : " You may receive the profits of the Vicarage of Bramford Speke whether you believe in Christ Jesus or in Mumbo Jumbo." But the Church herself was not compromised, unless she formally accepted this judgment. Actually half the livings in England have their rectorial tithes drawn by laymen of any religion ; but they are not qualified to minister in spiritual matters, although lay-rectors. 1 As the Bishop of Exeter refused still to institute Mr. Gorham, Archbishop Sumner of Canterbury himself did so, overriding the judgment of his own Court, and the jurisdiction of the diocesan. That the two Archbishops and the Bishop of London had acted as assessors to the Privy Council, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of all England should acquiesce in this monstrous judgment, in the eyes of many seemed to be an acceptance of the principle that the Crown was supreme over the Church, to order what was to be believed or disbelieved. John Bird Sumner, the Archbishop, was as servile as a flunkey ; he had acted officially, and that was taken to compromise the whole English Church. The Bishop of Exeter at once summoned a diocesan synod, which repudiated the Judgment. The Archdeacon of Chichester
