A London dealer offered five hundred guineas for it, and
doubtless by this time it has passed into private hands and left the
country. This is only one instance out of many of the depletion of the
Church of its treasures. It must not be forgotten that although the
vicar and churchwardens are for the time being trustees of the church
plate and furniture, yet the property really is vested in the
parishioners. It ought not to be sold without a faculty, and the
chancellors of dioceses ought to be extremely careful ere they allow
such sales to take place. The learned Chancellor of Exeter very wisely
recently refused to allow the rector of Churchstanton to sell a
chalice of the date 1660 A.D., stating that it was painfully repugnant
to the feelings of many Churchmen that it should be possible that a
vessel dedicated to the most sacred service of the Church should
figure upon the dinner-table of a collector. He quoted a case of a
chalice which had disappeared from a church and been found afterwards
with an inscription showing that it had been awarded as a prize at
athletic sports. Such desecration is too deplorable for words suitable
to describe it. If other chancellors took the same firm stand as Mr.
Chadwyck-Healey, of Exeter, we should hear less of such alienation of
ecclesiastical treasure.
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