The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-01 00:00:00

ALBION HOTEL, BRIGGATE, LEEDS.

ARAH WALKER', Widow the late Thomas
ki 'Walker, begs to return her sincere Thanks to her Friends and
the Public for the kind Patronage bestowed upon her late littsband,
and begs to announce, that it is her intention to continue the
Business as heretofore ; and it will be her constant endeavour to
deserve further patronage and support. No expense shall be spared
in the Hotel to afford every accommodation to Commercial Gentle
men and Private Families.

Superior lied Rooms, good Stabling, and choice Wines.
Albion Motel, Leeds, Dec. 29.

TAIT'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE
for JANUARY. No. MAX. Price One Shilling,
co:crArtio:

Ragged Churches.
Remedies for Highland Famine.

Letters from theChammal Islands. No. I.

Australia Felix.
nalph Waldo Emerson; or the " Coming _Man." By George
(liltiHan.
Furstenruhe. Continued.
Scottish Rivers. No. It. The Tweed and its Tributaries—Con-
tinued. By Sir Thomas Dick Lauder.
Schomburgk's History of Harbadoes.
The Sanitary Question.
Old Songs. By Elizabeth Yeuatt.
Literary Register.
Political Register.

Sutherland and Knox, Ildinhurgh; Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.,
London ; Cumming and Ferguson, Dublin ; James M'Lsod, Glasgow.

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.
PORTSMOUTH, FRIDAT.—The royal yacht Victoria
and Albert was paid off this day by her Captain, the
Right lion. Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence, G.C.H.,
extra naval A.D.C. to her Majesty. The yacht was
immediately afterwards re-commissioned by his Lord-
ship, who, together with Commander Crispin, are ap-
pointed to the yacht for a permanency, or during her
Majesty's pleasure; thus the changes in the command
of the royal yacht are at an end, perhaps a very ne-
cessary Admiralty measure. The subordinate officers
were also re-appointed for terms respectively of three
years, except the surgeon, Mr. Greenish, who is super-
seded by Mr. T. W. Macdonald, surgeon of the
Hibernia, flag-ship of Vice-Admiral Sir W. Parker,
in the Mediterranean. Lieutenant E. W. Vansittart,
1842, also of the Hibernia, is appointed to the royal
yacht.
The Acheron steam-sloop, Captain I. L. Stokes,
arrived from the eastward this morning, to receive
advance and take in mails for New South Wales and
New Zealand.

The Cygnet brigantine, Commander Kenyon, was
paid advance this morning. She sails to-morrow.
The Terrible steam- frigate, Captain Ramsay, is
waiting for her gun carriages and some appliances to
her furnaces, which are expected from Woolwich this
evening ; if they arrive, she will make a trial trip on
Monday, and proceed about Wednesday to Lisbon.
The Penelope steam-frigate, Captain Giffard, bear-
the broad pendant of Commodore Sir Charles
Hotham, K.C.8., Commander-in-Chief on the west
coast of Africa, was to leave St. Helena on or about
the 9th ult., after watering, for Ascension, having
made a tour of five months to the various stations
under his command. On her passage from Kabenda
to St. Helena, under steam, about 12 o'clock (noon)
on Sunday, the 13th of October, when about to take
her floats off and make sail, the man at the mast-head
reported " sail." At 12h. 30m. the Penelope
steamed head to wind, the chase being on a wind, the
steamer altered course, and made all plain sail until
2 P.M., when the strange sail could be seen from the
deck. She was a brig, close haul.-1, with royals set ;
she looked so well evv. ,ry one th‘r.e.ht she must be a
man-of- war. At 3 r.st. she was seen plainly ; a very
large boom mainsail, large gib, and enormous flying
gib set. She appeared trying to get away. This
looked very suspicious when it was discovered she
could not be a man-of-war, as she showed no colours.
Some thought she might be an American, as they
often serve men-of-war in that way. At 4 P.M. it
was quite certain she was a slaver. She tried to
cross the bows of the Penelope several times ; but
they would not let her, keeping her on
the weather bow. When within range the steamer
fired a shot a-head of her; but the slaver would not
heave to. After the lapse of some little time the
Penelope fired another shot over her ; she then short-
ened sail, and, without resistance, she became the prize
of the steamer at a quarter to five. She proved a
magnificent brig, like a Symondite, Portuguese mea-
surement, 320 tons. The captain said he had made
three successful trips in this vessel ; the first time he
carried 500 slaves, the second time 1,000, and the
third trip 500; the fourth was his present venture,
which, he said, would have been his last, had he not
been taken. On the third trip he said he had been
chased by the Helena as he was leaving Bahia for the
coast ; he did not think at first she was a man-of-war,
and let her get very close to him (within two miles)
before he saw his mistake ; he then set all sail and
threw everything overboard, even provisions, cut his
bulwarks down, and got away. This slave captain
said he had been eighteen years engaged in this hor-
rible traffic, and had made twenty-five trips and been
taken three times. He said if the captain of a slaver
takes a cargo of 1,000 slaves to the Brazils he gets
6,000 dollars as his share of the cargo only, but if
taken, he of course got nothing; and that the present
market price of a slave at Brazil is 300 dollars. The
Penelope, says our letter, does now very well, having
been considerably improved in every way under her
present commanders. She went during the above
chase nine knots an hour with two boilers only, and
during the last hour of the race made ten knots with
three boilers.

The Sharpshooter, iron steam-vessel, sister to the
Rifleman, has been masted. It is reported that she
is to be rigged and sent to Woolwich to receive en-
gines more suitable than those she now has in. Both
the Sharpshooter and the Rifleman are new vessels
and have never been commissioned.

In Harbour—The Victory, 104, flag-ship, the
Victoria and Albert, Excellent, Terrible, Fairy,
Echo, Avon, and Undine.
In Dock—The Ajax steam guard-ship, Leander,
Sappho, Orestes, and Cuckoo.
In the Basin—The Prince Regent, 90, Captain W.
F. Martin ; the Blenheim, ordinary guard-ship, Capt.
Yates; the Retribution; Firefly, Lieutenant Pon-
sonby ; Kite, Master Commander Battiston ; Swallow,
and Rocket.

At Spithead—The Cygnet, Lieutenant Commander
Kenyon; the Aehe-A•on, steam-sloop, Captain Stokes,
and another ster.mer just arrived, but whose number
cannot be made out owing to a dense fog ' • she is be-
lieved to be the Colombia, from Plymouth.

It having been asserted by mire than one paper
that the Philomel, 8, Commander W. C. Wood, has
taken no prize since her arrival on the African coast,
we are enabled to state that, so far from this being
the case, on the 18th of October last the Philomel
took a fine Spanish schooner off the river Zebu; and
on the 25th of the same month she captured a Portu-
guese brigantine. The Philomel sailed from Ply-
mouth a month after the Mariner, viz., May 2d,
1847.

SIR CHARLES NAPIER'S SQUADRON,

We continue our details from the last arrival, of
the movements of the above squadron :
Dec. 9.—The packet sailed for England, and in the
afternoon the squadron bent sails per signal, which
was smartly done by all.
Dec. 10.—Exercised arming boats.
Dec. 13.—Steamed out for a trial of some days.
Dec. 14. Commander-in-Chief inspected the
Dragon.
Dec. 15.—The Blazer sailed for the coast of Africa.
Dec. 17.—Packet arrived frGm England. She
ought to have been here on the 12th. She had heavy
gales on the passage out. The squadron shifted ma in-
topmasts--the Howe and the Queen first; next the
Canopu., the St. Vincent, and the Albion.

The weather is very unsettled; occasional squalls
from the we,tward.

During the night of the 18th of December the
St. Vincent drove, but brought up again, and 'WM
employed on Sunday, the 19th, getting into her berth
again.

The squadron was to have sailed on the 20th of
December, but the weather was too bad to start.
Dec. 22.—The Alert has just anchored, having ex -
perienced severe gales on her passage.
Neither the packet from England nor that fro In
Gibraltar had come in yet (noon).
The squadron are just ordered to sea, leaving t' he
Howe and the Comet.

The squadron consists of the St. Vincent, the
Albion, the Canopus, the Queen, the Scourge, and the,
Dragon.

DR. HAMPDEN'S APPOINTMENT.

The following is Lord John Russell's reply to the
address of the clergy of Bedford. 'We subjoin the
address to-day, with the names of the clergy who
have signed it :

Woburn Abbey, Dec. 30, 1847.
Rev. Sirs,—l have received with great satisfaction
the expession of your opinion on the elevation of Dr.
Hampden to the episcopal bench.
I rejoice to learn that you " have no share in those
feelings of alarm attributed to the clergy through the
activity of a portion of them," on the subject of that
appointment.
Two grounds have been taken to justify the alarm,
and account for the activity of which you speak.
The one is the vote of want of confidence, passed
by the Convocation of the University of Oxford in
183 G: the other, the suspicion of unsoundness in the
faith.

With respect to the first ground, the Bishops of
Durham and Norwich, and many other eminent per-
sons, have pointed out the fallacy of placing re-
liance on a hasty vote of Convocation, passed in a
period of party excitement, without due examination,
and void of ecclesiastical authority.
Mr. Woodgate has gone further : he has said,
speaking of a similar vote, " The proper appeal is
not to the passions of a mixed multitude, like con-
vocations, where, besides having no lawful jurisdic-
tion in the case, there is no exposition of the law,
no reference to precedent, no hearing of evidence,
and where the same persons are at once prosecutors,
judges, and jurymen. '*
But let us grant that the Convocation was justified
in its distrust. Let us concede that the University
properly decreed that Flr. Hampden should be de-
prived of certain functiims and privileges belonging
to his office. " because in his writings he had so
treated theological subjects that in this respect the
University had no confidence in him." Have we
had no experience since 1836 ? Is it not possible
that Dr. Hampden may have used expressions, ob-
scure or careless, which might induce the University
to distrust his teaching of theology, but that the
evidence of eleven years of sound and blameless con-
duct as Professor of Divinity may have removed the
just cause of suspicion ?
Such I should imagine to be the opinion of the
Heads of the University itself. For in 1842 they
placed Dr. Hampden in the chair of a board of theo-
logical examiners.
Such I should imagine to be the conclusion of the
great majority of our bishops. For they have required
from the Oxford candidates for orders certificates that
they had received instruction in theology from Dr.
Hampden. They were clearly under no obligation to
do so. The Bishop of Exeter and a few other pre-
lates have declined to receive Dr. Hampden's certifi-
cates, and have proceeded to ordain upon other testi-
mony more satisfactory to them. So that, with the
exception of five or six, our bishops must have freely,
voluntarily, and deliberately required the proof of
attendance on Dr. Hampden's instructions in divinity
as a necessary preliminary to ordination.
Can there be stronger proofs of the confidence re-
posed in Dr. Hampden, first by the resident Heads of
the University of Oxford, and secondly, by the great
majority of the bishops ? How few men have been
elevated to the episcopal bench with a greater weight
of authority in their favour? The head of a theo-
logical board of examiners, the teacher of candidates
for the priesthood—can those who recognized and
confided in him in these characters have believed
that he held himself unsound opiniens in theology ?
He who was to examine others ? He whose training
of young men was to qualify them to receive the
solemn rite of ordination ? Surely this were to ma-
lign the University of Oxford and the great body of
our prelates.
But further. I have elsewhere alluded to the
fact, that sometime before I recommended Dr.
Hampden to the Queen, I communicated my inten-
tion to our venerable Primate, and received from
him no discouragement. It is true that the Arch-
bishop did not appear to think Dr. Hampden well
qualified for the diocese of Manchester, neither on
reflection did I think proper to recommend him to the
Crown for that see, in the peculiar circumstances of
its population. and Dr. Hampden's studious career.
But no one who has that veneration which I enter-
tain for the candour, piety, attachment to Church and
State, and friendly kindness of our Primate, will be-
lieve the calumny that he thought the appointment
might not happen during his natural or my official
amid theretoro couvealed his :Ipir.ion that it would
be an act of reckless insult and injury to the Church!
I feel no doubt that the Archbishop, whatever
objections he might have felt to Dr. Hampden in
1836, had become reconciled to his promotion by the
orthodox and Christian character of his subsequent
writings.

It was therefore on due consideration of the pro-
ceedings of 1836, and of subsequent years ; of Dr.
Hampden's labours at Oxford; of the many instances
in which his predecessors had been raised to the
bench ; of the policy- of giving rewards to learning ;
and, lastly, of the zeal for our Protestant Reformation
displayed by Dr. Hampden, that I named him to the
Queen as successor to the Bishop of Hereford.
I come now to the second ground of objection.
After I had taken the Queen's pleasure and her
Majesty had graciously approved of the appointment,
I received privately from the Archbishop, publicly
from thirteen of the bishops, a warning that the ele-
vation of Dr. Hampden would be disapproved by the
majority of the clergy.
Had this objection been founded on any just accu-
sation against the life and morals of Dr. Hampden, it
was not too late to confess my error and withdraw
my recommendation.

But founded as it was upon a charge of teaching
unsound doctrine, it behoved me not to desert a cler-
gyman whom the Queen had been pleased to nominate
for a bishopric, without some authority or substantial
proof.
No such authority appeared. The conduct of the
Archbishop and bishops gave a strong presumption
the other way. No such proof was given, you say
very " none such have we found ; no proof or
evidence of any strange doctrine contrary to God's
word, as held or favoured by Dr. Hampden."
On the other hand, a strong testimony of the base-
less nature of the charges against Dr. Hampden is to
be found in the extracts made by his enemies from his
writings : " such extracts," as you truly say, "by
their garbled form in some instances, by false con-
nexions in others, quite reversing the true meaning of
the passages." The gross dishonesty of these quota-
tions has been fully shown in an admirable letter by
Archdeacon Hare. He observes, very justly, that by
leaving out the first words of one passage and the
last words of another, we might extract from Scrip-
ture the dogma, " There is no God," and the precept
,; Go and sin."

The learned and pious author of this letter did not
originally, indeed does not now, approve of the
appointment. But I think, having proved so
clearly the unfair means taken to ruin the repu-
tation of Dr. Hampden, he must in candour allow
that if such means are to deprive a clergyman
of those distinctions which our Church boasts of
maintaining as the rewards of learning and piety,
a fatal blow is struck at all profound inquiry, at all
enlightened pursuit of truth, at all clerical inde-
pendence.
Let us not mistake our position. The Church is
not in that easy security of the last century which
gave birth to so much negligence, to so much abuse
of her wealth, to such a perilous apathy. The Church
of Rome on the one side, with abundant knowledge,
with imposing authority, seduces many to her com-
munion. The right of private judgment is by many
avoided as a dangerous snare ; the duty of private
judgment is thrown off by many more as too heavy a
burthen. On the other side, the Protestant Dissenter
assails the Church Establishment as an engine for
fettering the conscience, and taxing the property of
the subject. Novelties have their charm ; the High
Churchman and the Independent speak alike with
complacency of separating Church and State.
I know no better security against such a danger
than an able and learned episcopal bench : a zealous
and God•fearing parochial clergy. Thus may the
Reformation be defended ; thus may the Establish-
ment be maintained : otherwise neither Parliament
nor pnemunire can beat off the assailants of our
Church constitution.
But it is said I have disturbed the peace of the I
Church. There is no use in crying " peace, when
there is no peace." The appointment of Dr:Tillot-
son to the primacy provoked a party whose unre-
lenting fury pursued him to the day of his death.
They denounced him as a Socinian and an Atheist,
yet our Great Deliverer never made a wiser or more
judicious appointment. In our own day we have
seen the learned Dr. Lloyd, once Regius Professor of
Divinity at Oxford, pursued with bitter invective,
when on the Roman Catholic Rclief Bill he gave ex-
pression to the loftiest feelings of Christian charity.
You have spiken with praise of the sermons of
Dr. Hampden, and your testimony is in this respect
peculiarly valuable. You consider his appointment
as " a circumstance favourable to the health of the
Church." It is iu that view that, unconnected with
and personally unknown to Dr. Hampden, I have
I recommended him to the favour of my Sovereign. I
earnestly and devoutly hope that your anticipations

• Earnest Appeal to the Members of Convocation, by
H. A. Woodgate, 8.A., &c., 1645.

and mine may, by the blessing of God, be amply
fulfilled.—l have the honour to be, with great respect,
your most obedient servant, J. RUSSELL.
Rev. A. J. Crispin, Vicar of Renhold, &c. &c.

The following is the address, to which his Lordship
has thus replied:—

TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

We, the undersigned, clergy exercising duties
within the county of Bedford, beg leave to submit
our opinion to your Lordship in the following parti-
culars :

1. That we hare no share in those feelings of alarm
attributed to the clergy, through the activity of a
portion of them, upon the subject of Dr. Hampden's
elevation to the episcopal bench.
2. That we have throughout this agitation of so
grave a question, looked for the affirmation and proof
of some sufficient reason ; some unquestionable state •
ment of erroneous doctrine supported by Dr. Hamp-
den, some palpable evidence of unsoundness in the
faith. But none such have we found ; no proof or
evidence of any " strange doctrine contrary to God's
word," as held or favoured by Dr. Hampden.
3. On the contrary, we have seen charges ad-
vanced upon the faith either of extracts from his
works, or of general statements of their constructive
meaning, which an examination of the original writ-
ings show to be entirely unfounded—such extracts,
by their garbled form in some instances, by false
connexions in others, quite reversing the true mean-
ing of the passages. And we have reason to think
that many of the clergy have received their impression
of Dr. Hainpien's doctrinal views from these un-
trustworthy sources.
4. That having seen these modes of impugning Dr.
Hampden's orthodoxy so largely adopted, and having
seen no one proof of unsound faith extracted from
any of his writings, we hold ourselves at liberty to
conclude (even those among us who have not made a
thorough search through all his works), that none
such are to be found.
5. That we have indeed read sermons by Dr.
Hampden upon the most vital and influential doctrines
of the Christian religion, which we regard not only as
admirable expositions of the truth upon those points,
but sufficient also to satisfy our minds that the faith
of their author and his view of Christian doctrine is
worthy of all approbation.
6. That consequently the only objection to the ele-
vation of Dr. Hampden stands upon the authority of
the vote of censure passed upon him by the University
of Oxford in convocation, in the year 1836. And that
we do not, in the present day, regard that vote as of
so much weight as properly to stand in the way of Dr.
Hampden's elevation, for reasons which we think it
unnecessary to mention.
7. That Dr. Hampden has since the time of his
condemnation received a direct expression of confi-
dence, in the very article of previous censure, from
the legitimate heads and governors of the University,
whose age, and station, and responsibility, and
maturer judgment, entitles their act, in our opinion,
to more weight of consideration, as representing the
sense of the University, than the act of a body com-
posed in great part of younger and less responsible
persons.
8. That under such circumstances, and reviewing
the theological history of Oxford during the period
that has intervened since the occurrence above alluded
to, we consider the appointment to an episcopal
station of one holding, and stating the great doc•
trines of Christianity in that vital integrity, strength,
and simplicity exhibited in Dr. Hampden's sermons,
a circumstance favourable to the health of the Church.
A. J. Crispin, Vicar of Renhold.
William S. Chalk, Rector of Wilden.
Edward Swann, Chaplain of the Infirmary.
Monkhouse, Vicar of Goldington.
William Henry Greene, Rector of Steppingley.
John Wing, Vicar of Stevington, and Incumbent
of Elston.
George Maclear, Chaplain of the Prisons, Bedford.
Henry Fuller, Vicar of Willington.
Henry Barge Rector of St. John's, Bedford.
Thomas Shuttleworth Grimshawe, M.A., Vicar
of Biddenham.
J. W. Hawksley, Rector of Knotting, and
Souldrop and Turvey, Bedfordshire.
John Gaskin, Curate of St. Paul's, Bedford.
Benjamin Trapp, Vicar of Thurleigh.
John Theophilus Wilkin, Curate of Stagsden.
Thomas Pierson Richardson, Vicar of Great
Barford with Roxton.
George Thornton, Vicar of Sharnbrook.
H. F. Lodington, Curate of Ybiden, to all except
the fifth.
John Mendham, Rector of Clophill.
Alfred Browne, Vicar of Flitton.
Thomas Pearce, Vicar of Westoning.
Antony Pulley, Rector of Whipsnade.
Maurice Farrell, M.A., Curate of Cardington.
Benjamin Maturin, 8.A., Curate of Biddenham,
Beds.
William Mudge, Rector of Purtenhall.
H. Seymour Yates, Vicar of Henlow.
Alfred James Lowth, Assistant-Curate of Arsley
and Astwick.
John P. Moore, Rector of Apsley.
R. Pain, M.A., Apsley.
C. Hedges, M.A., Apsley.
H. Mathew, Rector of Eversholt.
H. Hutton' Incumbent of Woburn.
Henry be Mesurier, Second Master of Bedford
School.

The following address from fifteen Heads of
Houses in the University of Oxford has been pre-
sented to the Bishop Elect 'of Hereford :

"TO THE REV. DR. HAIIPDBN, REGIUS PROFESSOR

OF DIVINITY, &C.

" We, the undersigned, Heads of Houses in the
University of Oxford, have seen with great con-
cern the reports of proceedings in various parts of
the country upon your proposed appointment to the
see of Hereford, tending to injure your reputation,
impede your future usefulness, and even create a ge-
neral distrust of the soundness of your faith in our
blessed Lord. Under such circumstances, although
-we only declare the sentiments which many of us
have expressed before, and particularly upon the i
enactment in 1842 of the new statute concerning
theological instruction, we desire to assure you, that
having for several years enjoyed ample opportunities
of learning the tenor of your public teaching and
hearing your discourses from the pulpit of the Uni-
versity, we are not only satisfied that your religious
belief is sound, but we look forward with confidence
to your endeavours to preach the gospel of Christ in
its integrity.
"B. P. Symons, Warden of Wadham, and
Vice-Chancellor.
" Edward Hawkins, Provost of Oriel.
" James Ingram, President of Trinity.
" Philip Wynter, President of St. John's.
" John Radford, Rector of Lincoln.
" Henry Foulkes, Principal of Jesus College.;
" John Gaisford, Dean of Christ Church.
" Thomas David Macbride, Principal of Magda-
len Hall.
" David Williams, Warden of New College.
" Frederick Charles Plumptre, Master of Uni-
versity College.
" Henry Wellesley, Principal of New Inn Hall.
" R. Bullock Marsham, Warden of Merton.
" William Thompson, Principal of St. Edmund
Hall.
" James Norris, President of C.C.C.
" Francis Jeune, Master of Pembroke."

THE BISHOP OF OXFORD AND DR.

HAMPDEN.

Bishop Wilberforce has addressed the following
letter to Dr. Hampden :
" Cuddesdon Palace, Dee. 28.
" Reverend and dear Sir,—What has passed re-
cently between us obliges me to mark in some detail
the steps by which I have reached the conclusion
which I desire to lay before you. And since, under
the advice of your legal directors, you are led to de-
cline all direct communication on the subject, I am
further compelled to address you thus publicly.
" You are aware that when your nomination to the
see of Hereford was first announced by common ru-
mour, I thought it my painful duty to represent to
the head of her Majesty's Government the inconve-
nience which in my judgment would arise from the
completion of the rumoured appointment. This re-
presentation was grounded on the censure of the
University of Oxford, and on the wide prevalence of
a strong opinion of the unsoundness of some of your
published writings. It did not assume the justice of
this opinion. My desire—and that I believe of
others—was that an opportunity should be afforded
you of publicly refuting these charges before
your nomination to the office of a bishop.
The representation, however, produced no such
effect, and the apprehensions and alarm which had
been foreseen by those who signed it were speedily
displayed. As one of their consequences, addresses
numerously signed were presented by the clergy and
laity to the Archbishop and Bishops, praying that all
legal steps might be taken to prevent your consecra-
tion until the matters alleged against you had been
brought to solemn decision. But in my own case
more was done. As rector of the rectory of Ewelme,
in this diocese, you were placed under my jurisdic-
tion. This, it was thought, afforded an opportunity
for obtaining an adjudiciation on the question under
the provisions of the Clergy Discipline Bill. I was

accordingly addressed by several of my clergy, with
the request that I would employ this machinery to
obtain such a trial, by sending a charge against the
soundness your teaching to the Court of Arches.
lat once declined to promote such a suit. I was then
requested—by performing the needful ministerial act
of granting the letters of request to them—to allow
other parties to promote such a suit. Such an inquiry
1 did not think it right to prevent by the interposition
of a mere official veto. I signed accordingly the
neces,ary document, informing you in a letter, dated
December 16, that I had done so.

" At this stage of the business it was suggested

,o me by the promoters that, the matter being now

in legal train;it was possible you might be walling
to render to my private suggestion, as bishop of the
diocese, the satisfaction which would otherwise be
sought by a more painful process through the Court
of Arches. I gladly adopted the suggestion, and
desiring the promoters to suspend all further legal
action till I had communicated with you, I wrote
to you a second letter, in which I first stated, in
detail, the points of doctrine which it was alleged in
the Articles' laid before me your writings had im-
pugned, and asked you whether you would affirm
your full belief in them. And, secondly, I asked
whether you would be willing to withdraw the
Observations on Dissent' and the ‘Bampton Lec-
tures,' not as admitting their language to be unsound,
but for the peace of the Church, and because, in my
judgment, as your bishop, and in that of others, they
did contain unsound language. Had you felt at
liberty to reply fully to my questions, and to consent
to my suggestion, you would have given full satis-
faction as well to the promoters of the suit as to me.
"In your letter dated Decemher 18, giving full
credit to the motives which led me to address you,
you Anay..er my first question thus—' In perfect re-
' spect to you as bishop of the diocese, anti for your
personal satisfaction, I unhesitatingly reply in the
affirmative. I say Yes to all your queries on my
belief in that sense in which they are the plain natural
sense of the statements of our Articles and formu-
laries.' So far your answer was of course entirely
satisfactory. To my request you gave no answer ;
and this silence I understood as tantamount to a re-
fusal to withdraw the works in question ; and satis-
factory as I thought that your declaration of personal
faith ought to be to all, I deemed it to be impossible
for me to require the promoters of the suit to relinquish
it while there remained unwithdrawn and unex-
plained language which appeared to me so dangerous
as that which was contained, more especially, in your
Observations 4in Dissent' (first edition), which was
then on sale in Oxford. I therefore wrote to you
to say, that, as the language which seemed to
me unsound was not to be withdrawn, I could not
require the promoters to abandon their suit.
" But immediataly after writing thus I learned
from a letter of yours to a common friend, that it was
with no sanction of yours, and indeed against your
wish, that any copies of the first edition of " Obser-
vations on Religious Dissent" were now sold ; and
that even of the second edition you had put forth no
copies since its publication.'
" This entirely altered my view of the case, and I
at once wrote to you, requesting you to allow me to
withdraw my last letter, because it closed a cor-
respondence from which, if kept open, I now hoped
much.

" I had now before me, as bishop of the diocese—
" 1. Your unqualified declaration of faith on the
very points selected by the promoters of the suit as
those supposed to be unsoundly treated.
"2. The virtual withdrawal of what I deemed
especially unsound.
" There remained only the withdrawal of the
Bampton Lectures' to fulfil every condition at first
desired for my own or the promoters' satisfaction.
" At this time I received your published letter to
Lord J. Russell, in which, to other explanations, you
add the important admission, I should be much
concerned if, from any unskilfulness in the use of
words, I should have given rise to misapprehensions.
I would not assert, however, that I have always suc-
ceeded in conveying my thoughts exactly.'
" This admission appeared to me the more im-
portant, because at the same time I learned from the
common friend to whom I have already referred, that
you had expressed to him a readiness to remove, in
any reprint of your Batnpton Lectures,' any in-
cautious or obscure language which might have given
rise to the impression that they contained unsound
doctrines, which you had not intended to put forth.
Had I been able to obtain from you a direct statement
that such alterations should be made in passages
which I was ready to point out to you, full satisfaction
would have been afforded to those who objected to
your consecration ; but to my great regret I learned
that you were now acting under legal direction, and
did not'think youself at liberty to answer, or even to
receive, any such proposals. This I deeply regretted,
because I am well persuaded that by such explana-
tions and assurances as you could most honestly
and easily give, the anxious fears of numbers now
disturbed within the Church might be at once
allayed, and without such direct assurances some, I
fear, will still remain unsatisfied. Thus, in fact, the
promoters of the suit now expressed to me their wish
for its continuance. With this wish I could not
comply for two reasons—first, because I believed that
I substantially possessed already the explanations and
assurances de.sired, and I felt that what the Church
needed was, not the assertion of a point of honour,
but a real security for the soundness of your doctrine;
and, secondly, because I believed that to allow now
the suit to proceed would imply a far more direct
judicial assent upon my part to its fitness than I had
given in first signing the letters of request, for since
I had performed that act my position had undergone
an entire alteration. I thought at first that the Church
had a right to some assurance of the soundness of
your doctrines before your consecration as a bishop ;
and when no other way of obtaining that satisfaction
appeared to be open, I did not even shrink, at the re-
quest of my clergy, from relegating the question to
the decision of the Court of Arches. Since, at the
suggestion of the promoters, and by your consenting
to reply to my quasi-judicial questions, I had been led
myself; as bishop of the diocese, to assume the office
of a judge in the cause, I could, therefore, no longer
act merely ministerially in issuing letters of request.
Both parties, to a great extent, committed the matter
to my judgment; and now, unless I was satisfied that
there was matter for a criminal suit, I could not think
myself justified in sending an accusation against you
to be tried in the Arches Court. Whether there was
such matter, could be determined by me only after a
careful study of the works in question, with all your
explanations in my mind. Regarding, then, the
Observations on Dissent' as virtually withdrawn, I
accordingly applied myself to a thorough and impartial
examination of the Bampton Lectures.' I have now
carefully studied them throughout, with the aid of
those explanations of their meaning which you
have
furnished, both publicly since their first publicationr
and now in your private communications. The
result of this examination, I am bound plainly
to declare, is my own conviction that they do
not justly warrant those suspicions of unsound-
ness to which they have given rise, and which,
so long as I trusted to selected extracts, I myself
shared. For these suspicions of your meaning, and
for the consequent distrust of the University, I must
with equal frankness say that I discern the cause
(whilst your works remained thus unexplained, and
the minds of men unassured by your full profession
of the faith) in what appears to me a not unfrequent
overstatement of favourite views, and much obscurity
of diction, resulting often from thearbitrary use of such
words as facts," doctrines," proved," deduced,' &c.; and
hence I believed it happened that men of such various
parties in the Church concurred, not unnaturally, in
the expression of a painful distrust of your meaning.
But allowing for these as the blemishes of what
was I believe a necessarily hasty composition, and
taking into account, as I now can, your various
explanations and assurances, I find in the
Lectures' little which will not admit of a favour-
able construction. And if at times I long for the
manifestation of a more evidently reverential spirit
in the discussion of the highest mysteries of our
faith, I yet read in them a thoughtful and able his-
tory of the formation of dogmatic terminology, not a
studied depreciation of authorised dogmatic language,
still less any conscious denial of admitted dogmatic
truth—l see in them, in fact, so far, little more than

what has been already expressed in the words (never,
I believe, considered liable to censure) of one of the
ablest of your opponents in 1834, who says, If I
avow my belief that freedom from symbols and arti-
cles is abstractedly the highest state of church com-
munion and the peculiar knowledge of the primitive
Church, it is...first, because technicality and formality
are, in their degree, inevitable results of public con-
fessions of faith.' And again ' Her rulers were loth
to confess that the Church had grown too old
Ito enjoy the free, unsuspicious teaching with which
her childhood was blest; and that her dis-
ciples must for the future calculate and reason
before they acted.'—/Veunnan's Arians, pp. 41, 42.
" Having reached, then, this conclusion through
that close study ()flour work and explanations which
the due discharge of the office of a judge required from
me, I deem it my duty not only to be satisfied with
the assurance I possess of your future revision of the
work, and to withdraw therefore the letters of re-
quest, but also, with whatever force my previous
desire of explanation, and my position as Bishop of