large Living, embracing, at the time when he was instituted to it, about 7,000 souls, and he is to be instituted to a smaller Living containing about 400 parishioners only:-when he is to come from the extremity of the Diocese, where it may be supposed that the care and the eye of the Bishop could not be so minutely extended; and is to be placed in his immediate vicinity, to be directly under his eye, and in a position where every act done must be forthwith brought to the Bishop's attention; then we find that an examination is deemed to be necessary-an examination of unheard-of severity and length; and of which I must say that I really cannot see why it should have gone to the length it did, or why it should have ceased at the point where it terminated: for nothing appears to have been arrived at during the last nine days that had not been elicited in the first five, when, as the Court will see, all the statements which the Bishop has extracted from the examination as being objectionable had occurred. Not a single objection, I repeat, has been taken to any subsequent part of the examination; and, therefore, I say, with regard to the remaining nine days (for fourteen in all were occupied), they were altogether useless, they might very well have been spared; and Mr. Gorham did right in again and again suggesting to the Bishop that he had ample materials for knowing what were his views, and for taking any steps which he might think necessary in respect of them. Thus the matter presents itself at the

outset..

I must now call the attention of the Court to a point which seems to have been one too tender for the Bishop's Counsel to notice, and that is, the circumstances which led to the Examination. In Mr. Gorham's book we have an account given us of how this came to pass, although it is a matter which really might have been dispensed with altogether, had not the Bishop of Exeter chosen to bring

Mr. Gorham's book into court. He has, however, put that book forward as evidence-the introduction to it has been commented upon-charge after charge has been brought against Mr. Gorham simply from that introduction, which has no more to do with the cause now pending than any other writings of Mr. Gorham, published at any other period of his life:-but we must now go a little further into the contents of that book, and examine that part of it which has not yet been brought under the attention of the Court.

The first offence which Mr. Gorham gave to his Bishop is adverted to in the Bishop's Letter, No. II., page 4, addressed to Mr. Gorham, and dated August 18, 1846:

"Dear Sir, I have received your Circular," (which it seems was an invitation for subscription towards the erection of a Church in the District of Pendeen, and for a population of about 3000 in the north part of Mr. Gorham's parish.)

"I have received your Circular, and will frankly say that I am sorry to see you call the Church the National Establishment.'

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That is the first offence; not a very grave one, I think, nor one that can be very well brought forward against a Clergyman in a Court of Law; so that it is no matter of surprise that we have as yet heard nothing about it: for to make this a rational cause of difference between a Bishop and a Clergyman in his Diocese would be one of the most extraordinary things ever known. How comes it to pass that the Lord Bishop of Exeter has a seat in the House of Lords? How comes it that he could not enter upon the Examination of Mr. Gorham in consequence of having to perform those duties which, as a spiritual Peer, he found it necessary to discharge in the House of Lords? Why, simply because the Church, of which he is a Bishop, is a National Establishment; that is the reason, and the only reason; and, I say, that for a Bishop to come forward and

take up this phrase as a ground of accusation against a Clergyman, is one of the most extraordinary things that could be met with, even in this extraordinary case.

Having received the Bishop's Letter, Mr. Gorham writes an answer; and I wish to read that part of it which refers to the subject, because I think it is a very proper one. It is dated August 26th, No. VIII. He says,

"I shall be careful not to connect your Lordship's name with the phraseology to which you have objected. I can sincerely say that, in using the term 'National Establishment,' it never occurred to me that any reader could imagine that I considered the Church' as the mere creature of the nation, or that I took a low view of its sacred character."

Mr. Gorham says,-I never intended-it never occurred to me as possible, that my language could be so

construed.

"I am very far from entertaining such an opinion."

Surely, so far as the answer of a Clergyman could go, there is an entire disclaimer of any improper intention on the part of Mr. Gorham in that matter.

"I adopted a conventional term of very general usage (in former times, at least), and which I consider as simply expressive of the fact, that the Church, of which I am a Minister, is established and endowed by national consent."

I think that this so-called offence might have been here dismissed altogether, and that we need not again have heard anything about the National Church.—But we shall see how that was in the sequel.-I proceed with the narrative of events which, as I say, led up to the Examination. Unfortunately for Mr. Gorham, it was necessary for him to have a Curate to assist in the performance of his duties in this large parish of St. Just, and he did that which a Clergyman would do under the circumstances; he endeavoured to obtain an Assistant

whose views should correspond with his own, with whom he might labour harmoniously, so that there should be no jarring between them on any point. To effect this, he inserted an advertisement in the "Ecclesiastical Gazette" to the following effect:

"A Curate is wanted by the resident Incumbent of St. Just, Cornwall. He must be an active, pious man, free from all tendency to what is well understood by the term 'Tractarian error.

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This is his second offence; and the Bishop writes to him a letter, in consequence of which Mr. Gorham inserts another advertisement, varying the phraseology a little, but still leaving it in substance the same. We then come to the Bishop's Letter, No. VI.; and I wish particularly to call the Court's attention to it, because I think this is really the foundation of the present proceedings. It is dated "Bishopstowe, Sept. 14, 1846:"—

"Dear Sir, I saw in the last Ecclesiastical Gazette' an advertisement from you, inviting Candidates who are opposed to Tractarian error, or heresy, or something of that kind.

"Now, although I should be sorry to admit any person who holds unsound opinions in the direction to which I conclude, that your advertisement looks,"

I say, then, that from the admission of the Bishop of Exeter himself, there are unsound opinions held in the direction to which the advertisement looks. It is impossible to deny that it is so, because it is quite certain that of the party supposed, and indeed many of them known, to be infected with Tractarian error; and to which party allusion is here made several have gone over to, and taken their position in, the Church of Rome-it would be impossible, therefore, for the Bishop of Exeter to deny for one moment, standing before us as he does, as the Bishop of a Protestant Church, that there were errors existing in that direction. Let us see, then, what Mr.

Gorham's offence was.

Can it consist in saying, I want a person who is free from the errors that do exist there? Both are agreed that there are errors in that direction. There must be something more. The Bishop goes on to

say:

"Yet I cannot but highly disapprove of a Clergyman giving his name, in a public advertisement, to a vague, and, therefore, mischievous description, which may be, and often is, applied by the ignorant and thoughtless to some of the best and soundest ministers of the Church."

So that, because Mr. Gorham writes an advertisement which, in the opinion of the Bishop, may be applied "by ignorant and thoughtless persons to some of the best and soundest ministers of the Church," because, by such a class of people, they may be applied to persons other than those actually described-for both parties agree that persons are to be found, of whom this is the right description-therefore Mr. Gorham is to come under the censure of the Bishop.

"Such an advertisement, besides encouraging (however unintentionally) party spirit, (which is little better than schismatical,) has a manifest tendency to bring offers from those who hold extreme opinions on the opposite sidea most unsound and dangerous set of men.-I wish you had been content to invite those only who avoid connecting themselves with any party."

I do not at all object to that suggestion, if it would have answered the purpose; but I think we shall find it necessary to bestow a little further attention on the wording of this Letter, when we come to consider other Letters which the Bishop of Exeter has written.

At page 8 of the volume brought into court by the Bishop, there is a memorandum which shows the difficulty which Mr. Gorham must have had in finding a Curate possessing all the qualifications which the Bishop of Exeter required. One was to be rejected on this ground,