Page:Church courts and church rates.djvu/12

8 as Churchwardens, and shall no longer be entitled to a seat in any Church, or to vote in Vestry upon any questions touching Church matters.

3. No clergyman shall be compelled or compellable to administer the rites and sacraments of the Church to or in favour of persons so exempted.

4. Provided they may at any time retract their statement and be re-admitted to Church privileges.

5. The above provisions shall be inapplicable to parishes where money has been borrowed upon the security of Church Rates, until that money is repaid.

6. All suits for Church Rates in the Ecclesiastical Courts shall henceforth be decided summarily, upon evidence taken vivâ voce or by affidavit, instead of by plea and proof and written depositions, as heretofore; and, from the decision of the Judge there shall be no appeal beyond the Metropolitan Court of the province, and that only upon questions of law certified by him.

7. No person refusing to pay any Church Rate due from him shall be entitled to vote or to be present at any vestry.

Many Churchmen have been led to a favourable consideration of this bill on account of the prospect which its third section appears to hold out to them of a definition of Church-membership. In their desire for discipline of some sort they appear to overlook the fact that the standard of membership which it would enact is totally different from