The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-08-15 00:00:00

would be out of humour if he

(if he has a number) for the time tl
at " Daily Church Services !"

1 The Observat

I am, Sir, your obedient sera
ry, Aug. 10,1854

A. RossE

MATRIMONY A SACRAMENT,

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE REV. MEs
PUGHE AND POLLOCK.

CONCLUDED rnom OUR LAST.)

1 27, Bedford-street North, June 17, 1854.
REV. SlR,—Although I greatly doubt your right to address
to me the questions of your letter of last evening, still, for the
truth's sake, I am willing to reply
The report of my speech in 1.1

but is yet in the extra(
stantially correct. You are the cle
g to-day with r

On coinmunica

is by no means

'a you acrd me sub-
I to whom I alluded.
--I find

iv friend Mrs

0 patt yuur
conversation with her. Yon did not object, as I before under-
stood her, to the presence of more clergymen than one in the
celebration of marriage. You rather accounted for
practice on the ground that it might have refere,._
further celebration at the same time of the Holy Comm..
plated in the rubric. As to your furtner Elaterne..
n that which constitn-- - whale gravamen o

conteir

iy complaint, my friend is perfectly clear in her recollection,
he distinctly understood you to affirm that the Church in
ter Prayer-Book regarded matrimony as a sacrament. And
The at once replied accordingly, "Why, I thought this was
One of the worst errors of Popery : if such be the teaching of
the Prayer-Book, the sooner it is out of it the better !"
I have only to add, that the passage which I am described
in the Mercury as having read from the Prayer-Book was the
following from the 25th Article of the Church :—" These five,
commonly called sacraments—that is to say, confirmation,

--I am,

penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme unction—are not
to be counted for sacraments of the Gospel," &c. &c
Rev. Sir, faithfully yours, Wm. PoLnoc.
Rev. K. M. Pughe. --
11, Netherfield-road South, June 19,1854.
REV. San,—l have to thank you for your prompt reply to
my note of Friday, and will not dispute as to whether I had a
right to an answer to my questions or not, though I certainly
think that I had.
It appears you misunderstood Mrs. —'s account of the
former part of our conversation, and this may induce you the
more readily to believe me when I assert that she has mis-
understood what I said in the latter part of it. We were
talking of the marriage law of Scotland, which does not
require any religious ceremony, and I said that, "as an Eng-
lish Churchman, regarding marriage as a sacrament, I could
not but think the intervention of God's minister necessary,"
or words to that effect. Her reply was as you state—" Why, I
thought this was one of the worst errors of Popery"—(which,
surely, would be hardly correct under any view of the ques-
tion). I said that the Church of England did not deny mar-
- riage to be a sacrament, but only asserted that it is not to be
"counted for a sacrament of the Gospel," and that it is not
such a sacrament as baptism, &c. And I added, that in or
of her homilies (not the Prayer-Book) she expressly calls
sacrament.
That Mrs. -

_ake use of her friend's house as an
d afterwards repeat things said over the tea-table by a
,nnexion of that friend, I do not think manifests very
good taste; though I can readily believe that she never ex-
pected that what she repeated would be afterwards repro-
4--A -lion a public platform. And you, Sir, may perhaps
It as no name was mentioned by you, I have no right
grieved. But as I belong to a portion of the clergy
Ipon whom your tale was calculated and intended to bring
liscredit, I do feel aggrieved, and think that I have a full
Wight to require you by a letter to the Mercury to correct the
misstatement into which you have been (I doubt not unwit-
tingly) led. Even had I said to your knowledge precisely
what you repe:+ted, I should still think the course you pur-
sued wrong, because, mentioning no name, it might well
happen to be attributed by some of your auditory to a wrong
party. What Ido say I care not if all the world heard; but I
have no wish to be credited with the sayings or doings of
others, nor to have mine attributed to my brethren.
Begging the favour of an early reply to the part which I
have underlined, I am, Rev. Sir, yours, very faithfully,
Rev. W. Pollock. K. M. PUGHE.

argue t
to feel az

27, Bedford-street North, June 20, 1854.
REV. replying to your letter of yesterday, I am
anxious to notice, in the first instance. that part of it which
refers to Mrs. -.

You are perfectly right in supposing that, when she re-
peated, in my presence, your conversation with her, she had
not the most remote idea that the matter would ever be re-
produced in public by me. The fact is, that she was speaking
only among intimate friends, of whom I was one, and not the
one immediately addreiised. Hence it happened that I did
not correctly catch the earlier part of her statement, as other
conversation was proceeding at the same time. But my at-
tention being attracted to what she was saying, I heard, andminutely enquired into, what alone appeared to me to be of
importance—her assertion, namely, that you affirmed it to be
in accordance with the teaching of the Prayer Book that
marriage was a sacrament.

Now' however she might have been mistaken as to your
alleged distinction between the Prayer Book and a Homily
of the Church, which I admit to be perfectly possible, surely
you will not seriously say that Mrs. - was guilty of any
impropriety in the repetition generally of such a conversa-
tion, though occurring at the tea-table of a friend. Here no
confidence was violated; no private affairs exposed; no
matter affecting character divulged. The opinion merely of
a clergyman on a religious question was reported, and that,
as I have said, to friends only. I confess that if it were ruled
that in all this there was any breach of decorum or social
etiquette, it seems to me that the laws of society would have
become intolerable; and I fully trust to your good feeling to
adopt, on consideration, the same view of the part innocently
belonging to Mrs. - in this matter, and also to excuse her
to your mutual friend, if, through my conduct, she should
have at all suffered in her estimation. No one would shrink
more than Mrs. - from any transgression of courtesy or
charity.

As regards myself, it seems the time to state that, when I
heard of your conversation with Mrs. —, it never ozcurred
to me to make any public use of it, nor up to the moment, I
may say, in which I actually mentioned it at the meeting. To
that meeting I came without the slightest intention of taking
any part in the proceedings ; and it was only when I was re-
quested to move a vote of thanks to Dr. Baylee, and the pre-
vious occurrences of the meeting seemed to me to call for
some observations with regard to a late movement, that I
obeyed the impulse of the moment and spoke generally as
reported. Had I intended to moot your statement, I should
have taken care to be accurate throughout; but as it was, I
felt the previous part of the conversation to be comparatively
unimportant, and spoke, as you may have observed, of it
more or less uncertainly. My complaint was wholly against
that, which, as far as testimony could go, I felt to be certain
—your assertion that marriage was a sacrament.
And now, as to the explanation you offer. It seems to me,
I must frankly say, to affect your position very slightly in-
deed. I am, and have been, quite aware that, according to an
ancient and obsolete phraseology, the Homily of Swearing
incidentally names "the Sacrament of Matrimony." But I
know also, that another Homily "of Common Prayer and
Sacraments" explains expressly such use of the term, saying
that, " in a general acceptation, the name of a Sacrament
may be attributed to anything, whereby an holy thing is signi-
fied." If, then, you think fit to apply the word to matrimony
as the Book of Homilies does, it appears to me that you are
bound to explain away, as it has done. all is force and emphasis
as it is apprehended now-a-days by the popular mind. But if,
on the other_ hand, speaking, not to theologians but a mixed
company—not ad cleruus, but to a lady—you choose to affirm
that, "as an English Churchman, you regard marriage as a
sacrament," you must then pardon me for saying that I con-
sider you to have fairly exposed yourself to grave suspicion
as an unfaithful son of the Church, and as one who had for-
gotten the language of her 25th article, and of her Catechism.
I do not, therefore, feel, looking at the whole question be-
tween us, that either you, or the portion of the clergy to
whom you belong in you, have been misrepresented by rne,
in a practical view of the case. I think that that with which
I charged "another clergyman" stands admitted, for all
practical purposes, on the face of your letter. At the same
time, I am glad to learn that you used the word Sacrament
in a very restricted and, to yoursetc, harmless sense of it ;
and if you should think it worth while to send the accom-
panying note for me to the Mercury, which is all I can write,
you are perfectly at liberty to do so ; or you may, of course,
if you prefer it, publish our correspondence.
In all good feeling personally towards you, however strongly
I may differ from your views,
I am, Rev. Sir, very faithful)), yours,
Rev. K. M. Pughe. Was. POLLOCK.

11, IsTetherfield•road South, June 23, 1854.
REV. SIR,—I have to thank you for your letter of Tuesday
last, which I have just found awaiting me on my return home
after a few days' absence. lam perfectly satisfied with your
account of the manner in which Mrs. related our con-
versation. The impression on my mind was, that she had
formally repeated it to you as to a clergyman whom she knew
to differ generally from myself; though, even so, I never
supposed that she intended or expected it to be repeated in
public. Pardon me, however, if I still say that I think you
were wrong in reproducing it as you did. In point of fact,
your account was inaccurate, and calculated to leave upon
the minds of your audience an impression that the clergyman
referred to held doctrines which he does not hold, and which
he thought he had, in the conversation itself, sufficiently
guarded himself against being thought to hold. And, as a
proof that the system of repeating such anecdotes without
names is calculated to excite unjust suspicions, I would ad-
duce what you are reported to have said about " Some of our
clergymen in Liverpool" pinning up pictures, &c. This, I
believe, has been done in the case of one clergyman ; and
while I feel sure that you would indignantly condemn the
methods adopted by certain parties to obtain a knowledge of
the circumstances and a copy of the print, I do not feel sure
that even you would condemn the clergyman in question, if
you knew the circumstances as they really occurred. How-
ever, he this as it may, many, not improbably the whole, of
your audience supposed the clergy of S. Martin's to be in-
tended ; whereas not one of us has ever done anything of the
kind. So, again, Dr. 3,l`Neile's talk about " bowings and
scrapings," (what the latter word may refer to I know not,) is
all referred to the same church; whereas at that church no
bowing whatever is practised, except only that which the
Canon requires at the name of Jesus : nay more, when (as
has happened) an individual. connected with the choir has
shown an inclination to bow upon entering the church, the
incumbent has expressly discouraged it, and requested its
discontinuance. You say that the explanation which I offer
seems to you to affect my position very slightly indeed.
What I wrote was not an explanation, but a statement of
facts. Had I said what you asserted, I might fairly have
been supposed to hold doctrine opposed to that of the Angli.
can Church ; whereas what I did say was in exact accordance
with her language. So far was I from forgetting her 25th
Article, that I actually borrowed its language, and might
have strengthened my argument had I quoted more of it ; for
where the Article says, that matrimony has not " like nature
of Sacraments with Baptism, &c.," it surely implies that it
has some nature, &C. The teaching of the Catechism is be-
ride the point, for the question is not, "How many Sacra-
ments are there ?" but " How many Sacraments hath Christ
ordained in His Church 7" That the phraseology of the
Homily 14 obsolete, is too true, 1 feu, or w*s so lifer yap;