Page:Letters on Church Matters Vol 1.djvu/9

 LETTERS ON CHURCH MATTERS. - I. LORD JOHN RUSSELL AXD SCOTCH EPISCOPACY. Nov. 25, 1850. IN Lord John Russell's sufficiently notorious letter to the Bishop of Durhan1 upon the new Papal hierarchy occurs the following passage: -" It is impossible to confound the recent measures of the Pope with the division of Scotland into dioceses by the Episcopal Church, or the arrangement of districts in England by the 'Wesleyan Conference." The first question which most readers of the letter have proba- bly asked themselves is, Why should Lord John have broken the flow of his argument by an abrupt ejaculation about matters which, so far from confounding them with the Pope's measures, we had not so much as thought about? The answer to this is not quite so obvious, but it is very undeni- able. Qui s'excuse s'accuse. The "recent measures of the Pope" are so easily, viewed political1y, to be confounded with at least the division of Scotland, as to be absolutely and entirely parallel with it, and accordingly Lord John's his- torical knowledge made him uneasy, and led him to blurt out what is, in point of fact, a refutation of his whole letter. In proving this, I shall, it seems to me, be doing good ser- vice to the Church and hierarchy of England. The first requisite A 2

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