The Express.
London, England, 1867-05-20 00:00:00

THE BISHOP OP SALISBUP.Y.

The following letter has been addressed to the Nisbet
by the Rev. Lord Sydney Gudolphia Gshorne :
" Durweston, May 70, 1407.
"My dear Lord,—l have before me a report in the
Wiltshire Mirror of portions of your charge, now in the
course of delivery in the diocese. It is not asserted that
the reporter has given with perfect awuracy the +aids
used. I feel, however, I have a right to assume that in
the more important features of what is given, the opinious
set forth are those you publicly and solemnly expressed.
I have lead them with the greatest sorrow, but with no
surprise, as they are in perfect consistency with what
your lordship stated in your letter to thyself. You
state, ' That the time is come, at any rate in this
dime*, when men should be outspoken.' I agree with
you, and therefore feel compelled to plainly state
the feeling I entertain of the potation in which your
'huge has placed me, an old incumbent of the diocese,
by tins deliberate expression of your deliberate opinion
on certain points essential to the faith of a protestanh
clergyman. The charge of a bishop, I aware, in no
way binds the eassoienees of his clergy, it boa no legal mil
thority to do so ; it Is nothing more than the expreanien
of the personal opinion of one high in office; it is, how►
ever, nothing lessthan the voice of one placed in a certainlnd authority over those addressed. In ordinary times,
under ordinary circumstances, I should then limey bee.
content to have read with sorrow what I should have yet
felt I personally had no special call to notice; to my
grief I might have added indignation, but I should have
been silent. Having taken the part I have lately done is
public controversy, and been for so doing visited by your
lordship with a newspaper rebuke, couched in language I
still think most unjustifiable, but for many reasons did sot
care to reflect upon, I feel I am bound at once
to state, that just as I questioned the correctness of the
opinions you expressed in that letter, so do I now utterly
repudiate, as the doctrines of the church to which I wag
ordained, those you have now declared to be the doctrines
of that church. I deny—that the clergy through their
ordination receive any supernatural powers, are invested
with any prerogative purely Givine,eitlier in regard to any
action on the elements of the Lord's Supper, or in giving
or withholding absolution from sin. I admit WV lin*
authority by our ordination to declare to the congregatioe
that, when penitent, their sins ere remitted, just as we
have the same authority to make any one declaration which
concerns the statement to them of any one simple truth of
the Gospel. I most solemnly assert my disbelief :hat any
rational interpretation of any one portion of the New
Testament would justify me in teaching my people
shut by any operation at my Lauds the hruud :tad
wine can become the channel of an Meltable myetery, in
the sense—that inwardly it becomes, ' that which my :fts.
viour took from the blessed virgin, which he °tiered on the
cross as a sacrifice,' to assert, that because the iiodbead
for a special purpose, then and there to be once and for all
accomplished, took the /natantl form, in the person
of Jesus of Nazareth, when he was on earth,
there is no wittiness in believing—that the bread
and wine, the material elements of 'the Supper' re-
ceive his spirit, in a way analogous if not identical,
appears to soy poor judgment to itropowel •
doctrine as degrading to the Deity as it is alleecther
unfounded on His revealed word. Nu casuistry, no inystie
cloud of words and mere human speculation; con make
nee see in such an assertion anything but that doctrine of
the Roman catholic church which our church has co clearly
repudiated. lan allow to others the freedoru of opinion
I Liaise for myself, with the fullest conviction, you, my
lord, have only uttered that of which you are convinced,
yet feel, that were I by silence to seem to accept seek
teaching, as say own guide in the instruction of my people.
I should betray every principle of that faith in whistle
alone I could preach at all : in deference to en anthority
set over me by man, I should be as one who surftuderej
his loyal to Him who is the only relit over all bore*
Your lordship upholds as a remedy against the pn teesions
and zeal of Route the changing our defensive pulley for
constructive one. if I accepted your lordship's teaching
with regard to priestly prerogative and supers-turd sower.
I should indeed feell had entered on a cot.tt uctive
it would, however, appear to me to be one utterly web-
versive of all protest against grave error—the comas of
all a protestant holds dear, the quitting a shelter from un-
truth and slavish submission, to erect a now faith's home,
Wilton &Hanish foundation,oemented with Roman dogma,
nothing less than a prison to restrain :,II who would follow
their Lord under the perfect law of Christian liberty.
There is no human being, my dear lord, who has a greeter
athuiration and respect for your private, character then
myself. Few, in that character, love you mare ; nett! I say,
then, how painful it is for me to declare Out here I meat
stop. lam one of those who think that, allowing a great
margin for private opinion, there is a limit at which none
are justified in holding office in an establieloneut recog-
nised as protestant—if passing that limit they avow a
creed repugnant to every idea connected with the history
of our church, her preaching and practice for centuries, I
esteem them not pixtified fur their own sake, or the
sake of those who are true to her, to remain within her
pale. In all truth I can al, could I be brought to be.
lieve the doctrines on which I have now commerited to be
those of our church, I would not remain in connexion with
her.—l am, my dear lord,youre very truly, S. 0. 0,3•01 UM
" To the 'tight Rev. the Bishop of Salisbury."

- - -
MORTI'ARIES IN LONDON.—A meeting of this
associatioo was held on Saturday night, at the Scottish
Corporation-hall, Crane-court, Fleet-street, to discuss a
paper by Dr. Lankester (coroner) on the erection of public)
mortuaries in London. Mr. Liddell presioil. Dr. Lan-
keeter stated that in England there was a geoeral want of
suitable places to deposit the dead pret Mum to
Such places were necessary—first, fur the deposit of dead
ladies in came where no friends or relations were found
and there was no law in England to provide for them
secondly, for receiving the dead whose friends were too
poor to pay the expenses attending a funeral ; thinly, for
the receiving of dead bodies which lay in rooms inh.aited
by families, or in houses crowded with inhalitants
fourthly, for the purpose of receiving bodies for post
mortem examination. None but those who had wit-
nessed it could understand the inconvenience and nuisance
of making these examinations in the crowdi il alleys
and kitchens inhabited by the poor. In London only
a few dead houses were provided independent of work-
houses, and these were more like the vaults of a tons
than anything else, and were badly managed and imper-
fectly attended. Hs (Dr. Lankester) row . mended that
public mortuaries be erected on the closed ~r..teyai as of
London, in good taste, and in accordant* with
of respect for the memory of the dead, and that each mor-
tuary should hare three rooms—one lined up with all con-
veniences for scientific post-mortem examinations; one
for the deposit of the dead in oasis ; and thirdly. a room
to bold 50 or 60 persona as a jury-room. Dr. Lmkester
having bees thanked for his paper, • lengthened dim:notion
took place, In which Dr. NI hitmore, Dr. Ablis, Dr. Dol-
lard, Dr. Vilma, Dr. Hillier, Dr Remit., Dr. Buchanan,
and the chairman took part. Amongst other subject* sub-
sequently introduced was that of the " boil:0101W sick-
ness," in regard to which the following re...lotion was
:—" That in the opinion of ilia meeting it is de:
sirs6opted
statistics of sickness among the par hould be
collected from the medical officers acting under the Metro-
politan Poor-law Act, and publisbid weekly hy tire Peer:
law Camunisioners, and that a deputation wait apes ski
Earl of Devon to impress this matter upon him."