The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-27 00:00:00

THE Mill LEGAL APPOINTMENTS.

There seems to be much uncertainty about the
Irish legal appointments. It has been stated that
Mr. Barry, the Irish solicitor-General, has accepted the
appointment of Judge to the Landed Estates Court.
For this, however, there appears to have been very
little foundation. The Advertiser now announces
that he has declined the offer. Probably enough he
intends to fly at higher game. The Advertiser adds,
that in all possibility the office will be conferred on
Mr. Stephen Woulfe Flanagan, formerly one of the
l‘ksters in the Encumbered Estates Court, and
brother of the defeated candidate at the last Sligo
election; or on Mr. lha•id Sherlock, M.P., for
Queen's County. Mr. 11. Law, the draughtsman
of the Irish Church Bill, is also named among the
candidates.

TIIE COLENSO DIFFICULTY.

Some one, it does not appear who, has asked the
opinion of three eminent counsel—Sir J. D. Cole-
ridge, Sir H. Palmer, and Pr.lleane with respect to the
Nat,llditliculty. The question they askedwas," Assum-
ing that the present Bishop of Natal has been guilty
of an ecclesiastical offence, what steps can be taken
to bring him to trial, and before what tribunal ?,"
The Times, which publishes the counsels' opinion,
and also a leader on it, assumes that it
is the friends of the Bishop of Capetown who
have consulted the above-men tioned eminent lawyers.
This assumption scarcely seems to be borne out by
the fact that Dr. Coleus() is spoken of as the Bishop
of Natal, whereas Bishop Gray and his partisans
declare that Bishop Colenso has been deposed. How-
ever, the most important matter is the opinion itself.
From this we learn that the Bishop of Capetown has
no jurisdiction over Dr. Colenso ; that even if the
letters patent granted to Dr. Colenso were valid,
there is no tribunal, civil, criminal, or ecclesiastical,
in Natal whichcan determine if Dr. Colenso's opinions
are erroneous, or can enforce a decision ; that the
Archbishop of Canterbury has no authority over the
Bishop of Natal; that the Crown has no authority
to try the question; and that the only ground on
which the letters patent could be revoked would be
• that they were ab iniiio void, and the result of the
case " Bishop of Natal v. Green " renders it qu
possible that they might prove legally valid. "We
are therefore of opinion," add the counsel, " that no
means at present e2(ist for trying before any tribunal
competent to decide the question whether or no vr.
Colenso, the present Bishop of Natal, has advocated
doctrinal opinions not in accordance with the doc-
trines held by the Churchof England; and, a*suming
the present Bishop of Natal to have been guilty
of an ecclesiastical offence, no steps can be taken to
bring him, as such bishop, before any tribunal. We
do not, however, think that, upon the present mate-
rials, it would be satisfactory or proper for us to enter
into the question whether, if Er. Colenso were pre-
sent within the jurisdiction of an English ecclesias-
tical court, and were in this country to commit any
offence against the laws ecclesiastical, he could or
not be proceeded against, under the Church Disci-
pline Act, as a clerk in holy orders of the
Church of England." According to this opinion
the Crown, even if it has legally appointed bishops
in the colonies (which is doubtful), has appointed
irremovable, irresponsible bishops, who cannot be
tried for any proceedings, however outrageous; and
thus the energy of those Churchmen who founded
the Colonial Episcopate about a quarter of a centuryago, and the liberality of persons who, like Miss
Burdett Coutts, have largely endowed colonial
bishoprics, have been grievously misdirected. There
seems, however, no doubt that Bishop Colenso can
be brought to trial under the same conditions as the
vicar of Frome. The Bishop's work on the Penta-
teuch was published in the diocese of London no less
than Mr. Bennett's essay on " The Church and the
World." The Bishop himself would probably throw
no obstacle in the way of a fair judicial inves-
tigation.