Page:Preaching the Gospel to the working classes impossible under the pew system.djvu/16



In "Fuller v. Lane," 2 Add. Ecel. Rep. 425, Sir John Micholl observed:—" All the pews in a parish church are the common property of the parish; they are for the use, in common, of the parishioners, who are all entitled to be seated orderly and conveniently, so as best to provide for the accommodation of all."

"It is well known that pews are a modern innovation, and one of the growths of Puritanism. The result has certainly been different from what the Puritans intended; for pews have been one of the main causes of setting up distinctions, offensive to all good taste and Christian simplicity, even in the house of God. In a remarkable old case, (Year Books, 8 Henry VII. fo. 12) though the seats then found in churches were, as is now the case in Continental churches, but a few loose and moveable ones, it is declared that even such a seat is ' a nuisance, ' as interfering with the right of 'ease and standing' that belongs to the people: 'for the Church,' it says, 'is in common to everyone; and there is no reason why one should have a seat, and that two should stand: for no place in the Church belongs more to one than to another;' while the parishioners 'are not able to have their standing room on account of these seats.' How much more, then, is this true with the modern pew system. It is of great importance to remember that the sale or letting of pews in a Parish Church, whether by Churchwardens or by any holder of a seat by prescription, is altogether illegal. Nothing can legalize this;—unless, indeed, it be an Act of Parliament; and any such Act of Parliament would be an absolutely revolutionary measure. Neither can a parishioner, to whom a seat has been assigned by the churchwardens, let it. The latter are bound, indeed, to take care that no such practice grows up. It is one of the marks of the disregard of principle which, in so many respects, characterizes the modern Church Building Acts, that they admit of the letting of seats in the churches built under them. Thereby they do but further prove, that the 'ecclesiastical districts' and 'new parishes' which they establish, are merely sectarian arrangements. Propositions have been made for legalizing the letting of seats in Parish Churches. The