A LONG DEADLOCK.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 901, 22 August 1910, Page 7

A LONG DEADLOCK.

APPOINTMENT OF A-RECTOR. ] By Tolegraph—Press Association—CoDyrient Sydney, August 20. The Rectorship of St. James's Anglican Church, I which has been vacant for over a, year, and regarding which there had been a prolonged controversy between the parish authorities and the Archbishop on the question of vestments, has been accepted- by Archdeacon Wentworth Shields, of Victoria. THE VESTMENT CONTROVERSY. The Yen. F. Weiitwoith-Shields, M.A., received his B.A. degree at the London University in 1893. He was ordained deacon-in .1898, and priest in 1899 by the Bishop of Rochester. He was appointed Archdeacon of Wagga Wagga i m 1905, and Warden of Bishopthorpe College, Goulburn, in 1906. In 11)1)9 he was made examining chaplain to the Bishop of Goulburn. During 190-i and 19U5 he was .precentor at 'Goulburn Cathedral. Early in the present year Archdeacon Went-worth-Shiclds became' locum tenens at All Saints' Church, St. Kilda, Victoria, for Archdeacon Crossley, during the hitter's visit to England. The new rector's English' appointments were curate of St. John's, Plumstead, in 1898 to 1800, and rector of St. C-icbrge's, Bloomsbuvy, from 1900 to 1903. There has been -a long-standing deadlock between 1 the enngregutiou on tlio one sido and the' diocesan authorities on the other regarding tko appointment of a-successor'to the Rev. W. I. CarrSmith, as.- rector of St. James's. Some time ago' it was announced that. Dean Kite, of Hobart, had been .selected for the position, but: he subsequently withdrew his name, owing to the Archbishop of Sydney proposing to him certain questions and conditions—the discontinuance of the.use, of■ vestments—which he was not prepared to, consider. Dean Kite questioned the Archbishop's right to make those conditions, or to put those questions, or, indeed, after he had. been duly selected, to require anything of him beyond the fact that lie was an ordained member of the Church of England,, duly qualified, and of good character, and content to accept the usual conditions on coming under his jurisdiction. . The acting-rector (the Rev. S. Marston) challenged the Archbishop to state "why, in the face of Canons 36 and 40.0f A.I). 1603, which direct what are the only promises which you can lawfully ask to any. clergyman before institution to < u benefice in the Church of England, you endeavoured to extract a promise from Dean Kite that he would not use the Euclmristic vestments if appointed to St. James's. Your action seems to many to be unauthorised, unconstitutional, and uncanonical." . . The Archbishop's contentions shortly is that "the revival of the vestments is a deliberate reintroduction of mediaeval usage, which was deliberately discarded by our Church at the Reformation, simultaneously with, and significant of, her renunciation of mediaeval theology in the cause of primitive truth." The other side of the question was put by Canon Sharp, in the course of a recent sermon in St. James's as follows:— "One man. savs that the vestments are ordered by the Prayer-book, and by the authority that stands behind the.Prayerbook. Another man says that they are not. Yet another man says that, whether thoy are ordered by the Prayer-book or not, at anv rate they are forbidden by the Judicial Committee .of the Privy Council. To which it is rejoined that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is a civil court, and has no moral ri"ht to impose its opinion on the' Church-least of all on the free branches of the Church in self-governing dependencies overseas. It seems to me that the principles would lead one to upset the accustomed use of vestments.in a church which has shown such striking signs of life and power as have been shown in recent vears in this Church of St. James's are leading one to a fairly high order of practical absurdity. Wiser and saner sounds tho declaration of the Lower House of Convocation iu the province of Canterbury that 'in the recent circumstances of the Church of England neither of the two existing usages as regards-tile vesture of the minister at Holy Communion ought to be prohibited. "