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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

From the
COLLECTION OF OXFORD BOOKS
made by
FALCONER MADAN
Bodley's Librarian

This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in
cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You
may not reproduce this digitized copy ofthe book for
any purpose other than for scholarship, research,
educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You
may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy
(or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes.

(No. 1.)
Eynsham Vicarage, July 9, 1857.
Mr Lord, — In accordance with the notification contained
in your Lordship's circular of the 1 3th ultimo, Mr. Joseph
Druce, one of the Churchwardens elect for this Parish, has,
this day, been admitted into office, having made before me, as
a Surrogate of the Consistorial Court, the usual Declaration.
During the interview which I had with Mr. Druce for this
purpose, I was much surprised at hearing that he had forwarded
to your Lordship a complaint touching an arrangement which
the late restorations in my Parish Church have enabled me to
make, — in the strictest conformity, not with the spirit only, but
with the letter of the Rubric and Canons of the Reformed
Church of England, — for the administration of the Sacrament
ofthe Lord's Supper with greater convenience, decency, and
edification. I was much more astonished, my Lord, when informed by
Mr. Druce that he had already received from your Lordship
in reply to his complaint a decision to the effect that I am
" wrong" in the course which I have adopted.
I have now to request that your Lordship will oblige me
with some definite information, both as to the subject matter of
the complaint itself, and the grounds upon which it is founded ;
and also as to the decision, at which — without any communica
tion whatever with me-^-your Lordship is reported to have
arrived. I feel it right, at the same time, to intimate, with all possi
ble respect, that, inasmuch as the complaint referred to, and
the alleged ex parte decision of your Lordship with regard to
it, — so far at least as I am yet informed, — involve questions of
the deepest interest to the Church in general, especially at the.
present day, — I cannot consent to regard as " private and
" confidential," any communications with which I may be fa
voured directly, or indirectly, by your Lordship in this matter ;
but that 1 reserve to myself the full right of making such use
of all or any of them as the importance and necessity of the
case may require. I am, my Lord,
Your Lordship's faithful Servant,
W. SIMCOX BRICKNELL.
The Right Rev. The Lord Bishop of Oxford.

(No. 2.) Oxford, July 27, 1857.
Rev. Sir, — I am desired by the Bishop of Oxford to
acknowledge the receipt of your Letter to his Lordship on the
subject of the removal from its accustomed place of the
Communion Table in Eynsham Church ; and I am to say that
if the fact of your having removed it without the requisite

consent be admitted, you can have no reason to complain if the
Bishop should have expressed an opinion as to the impropriety
of the proceeding.
And I am further to inform you that unless you imme
diately apprise me of your intention to restore the Table to its
former place, proceedings will be adopted to compel it.
I am, Rev. Sir,
Your very faithful
JOHN M. DAVENPORT.
To the Rev. W. S. Bricknell.

(No. 3.)
Eynsham Vicarage, July 29th, 1857.
My Lord, — From your Lordship's note of the 2Tth inst.,
which has reached me through your Secretary, I venture to
infer that, as I do not " admit the fact of having removed the
•' Communion' Table in Eynsham Church without the requisite
" consent," I have " restsori for complaining that your Lord-
" ship," upon an ex parte statement, and without any communi
cation with me, " should have expressed an opinion as to the
" impropriety of the proceeding :" and I must again be per
mitted to regret that you have not thought fit to furnish me,
either with the particulars of the complaint which has been
made to you, or with the grounds on which your Lordship's
decision respecting it has been formed ; more especially as I
have apprised you that the arrangement, which, so far as 1 can
discover, is the subject of the complaint in question, has been
adopted by me in conformity with the Rubric and Canons of
our Church, and for the administration of the Sacrament &f the
Lord's Supper with greater convenience, decency, and edifica
tion. I should have supposed, my Lord, that an effort to
accomplish such an object upon such principles, would, at all
events, have received at your Lordship's hands, a fair and
impartial consideration.
When I was instituted to the Vicarage of Eynsham in
1845, I found a large painted wooden box affixed, altarwise,
to the eastern end of the chancel, and serving the double purpose
of a Communion Table, and a receptacle for brushes, dustpans,
candlesticks, and a great variety of similar articles.
For this box there has been substituted, without expence
to the Parish, a handsome, moveable, oak Table, which, up to
the time of the re-opening of our Parish Church on the 14th
ultimo occupied the position previously filled by its uncanonical
and unsightly predecessor.
Standing at the Table in that position, the officiating
Minister was unheard and unseen by a very large majority of
his congregation. Ofthe 75 pews in the Church there are no fewer than 51,
containing 230 sittings, tlie occupants of which could not even
see the Table or the Minister at all. The case is the same

with a large number of the free sittings, and partially so with A*
other pews, leaving only ^ft from every sitting in which the
Table was in sight ; and of these, 13 were at a distance from it
of more than 100 feet.
Under such circumstances the services performed at the
Table in its. former position — so far as a very large part of the
congregation was concerned — could not even be regarded as a
dumb show.
The recent repairs and alterations in our Church, — effected
in accordance with plans examined and approved by your Lord
ship, and subsequently confirmed by a Faculty issued by your
Chancellor, — have left, at the eastern end of the Nsve, a -large
open space, in the centre of which the Communion Table has
been placed in exact agreement, as I have already stated, with
the spirit and letter of the Rubrics and Canons of the Reformed
Church of England.
Being immediately between the Reading Desk and the .
Pulpit, the Table stands as the Rubric directs, "inhere Morning
" and Evening Prayers are appointed to be said," and where .
" the Priest may break the Bread before the people," which he
never could do in its previous position ; while in conformity with
the requirements of the 82nd Canon, it is placed " in so good
" sort as thereby the Minister may be more conveniently heard
" of the communicants in his Prayer and Ministration, and the
" communicants also more conveniently, and in greater number,
" may communicate with the said Minister." The crowding of
the communicants in the chancel is thus diminished ; twelve
instead of nine persons are now accommodated at the rail ; the
Minister is distinctly heard by every person in the Church ; and
there are very few sittings indeed from which he and the Table
are not visible.
These, my Lord, are facts with which I respectfully submit
that you should, in all fairness, have made yourself acquainted,
before you expressed to the complainant an opinion as to the
propriety or otherwise of my conduct in this matter. They
are now fully before you, and capable of proof at any moment
by ocular demonstration. I once more, therefore, appeal to
your Lordship to inform me in what particular I have been
guilty of impropriety in acting as I have done.
Had I made the arrangement in question unnecessarily,
or from a mere love of change, there might have been — after
an impartial hearing of the case — some cause for the disapproval
which your Lordship has expressed. But I have done nothing
of the kind : a simple and legitimate remedy for an evil long
felt and acknowledged, presented itself to me, without any
seeking on my part, as the result of plans carried out under the
written approval of your Lordship. Of the remedy thus
afforded 1 have thankfully availed myself, and I venture to say
that no unprejudiced individual could have witnessed its appli
cation on Sunday last, — when eighty persons communicated at
the Lord's Table in its Rubrical and Canonical position —
without testifying to its complete success, as well as to the
wisdom displayed by our Church in the regulations by which,

as I confidently believe, the arrangement which I have adopted
is not permitted merely, but enjoined. I am, my Lord,
Your Lordship's faithful Servant,
W. SIMCOX BRICKNELL.
The Right Rev. The Lord Bishop of Oxford.

(No. 4.)
Eynsham Vicarage, July 31, 1857.
Mi Lord, — By an instrument under the seal of your
Chancellor, Dr. Phillimore, and dated the 30th instant, 1 am
peremptorily cited personally to appear in your Lordship's
Consisforial Court, at Oxford, on Thursday next, to answer a
charge of having, " without lawful, authority, removed from its
" accustomed place, in the Parish Church of Eynsham, the
" Communion Table belonging thereto, placing the same in a
" new position, and thereby altering, without authority, certain
" pews or sittings :" and I am further required " then and
" there to show cause, if I have any, why a Monition should not
" be issued to the Churchwardens ofthe said Parish of Eynsham,
" monishing and directing them, or one of them, to remove back
" the said Communion Table to its accustomed place, and at
" the same time to reinstate any pews or sittings which have
" been altered by my said act, and also to show cause why I
" should not pay the costs of the said proceedings."
I am thus, my Lord, for the first time, put in possession
of the particulars of a complaint which I have sought repeatedly,
but in vain, at your Lordship's hand.
It is useless for me to make further comment upon the
course which your Lordship has pursued in this matter, or upon
the injustice of receiving complaints on ex parte statements,
keeping back from the accused the particulars of such com
plaints, and thereby precluding all opportunity for explanation.
The issue ofthe proceedings now commenced will, if I mistake
not, speak quite sufficiently upon these points.
Meanwhile your Lordship cannot, I conceive, withhold
from me the name ofthe promoter of these proceedings, or re
fuse to inform me by whom the complaint of my having
" altered, without authority, certain pews or sittings in the
" Parish Church of Eynsham," has been made to your Lord
ship. As the hearing of the case has been fixed to take place in
less than a week from the service ofthe citation, your Lordship
will not think me unreasonable in pressing for an immediate
reply. I am, my Lord,
Your Lordship's faithful Servant,
W. SIMCOX BRICKNELL.
The Right Rev. The Lord Bishop of Oxford.

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