586 TO THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER. 



a child aged six years for stealing a few apples, or some such matter ; 

 the magistrate is clerical. If a rash distinction is given for military exe- 

 cution, ten to one the magistrate is clerical. If a scandalous clamour is 

 raised against an individual concerned for the improvement of his fellow- 

 creatures, the foremost of the baying pack are clerical. If a trade in 

 calumny is driven, the readers of the slanderous print, the patrons of evil 

 speaking and slandering, are clerical." 



Your constant readers are well aware, sir, that throughout your pages 

 in general, the further wickedness you in this number charge the 

 bishops with in parliament, is not unfrequently, directly or indirectly 

 attributed to the clergy as a body, viz. that they are generally the patrons 

 of sentiments outraging humanity, and disgracing a civilized people ; and 

 that they are hostile to the comforts and pleasures of the poor. And is the 

 utterer of such calumnies against a very large body of men, who have 

 wives and children to love them, and friends to feel for their reputation; 

 is the utterer of such, to my certain knowledge gross calumnies, the 

 man whose soul was all on fire because a provoked brother journalist 

 alluded to his paper, as a low radical journal ! Fie upon you, sir ! 

 these remarks are wrung from me by the impassioned consciousness of 

 outraged truth and humanity. The very few individual sinners, in the 

 sort you have alleged, I surrender to your savage vengeance. But I will, in 

 spite of your demand to be let do what you like with your fancied prey, 

 defend from your atrocious inhumanity, the great body of my worthy, 

 though I think, unwise and mistaken brethren. 



Ere one body of the clergy can be convicted of practice widely at 

 variance with professions, they must, in common justice, be heard in 

 statement of their professions. It suits your purpose to fix upon them the 

 prof essed imitation of the apostles, and thus preclude all chance of their 

 escape from ycfur charges. But you shall not have your own way with 

 them, I promise you, while I am suffered to speak in court, as well as 

 yourself. We'll have no bullying, if you please, brother advocate. 

 I have a right to defend as well as you to accuse. My clients shall 

 have justice done them as well as yours. 



In your paper of November the 4th, in reply to me, you write thus. 

 " We beg to explain, that the very old book, to whose precepts concern- 

 ing them we would fix the clergy, is the Bible. We say to them, if you 

 believe in these rules of the founder of Christianity, what are we to 

 think of your practice widely at variance with them? If you do not 

 believe in these rules, what are we to think of your professions of faith ? 

 Have we not a right to require men to abide by their own laws, and 

 laws, which they still promulgate and expound for the government of 

 others ?" What ! does the enlightened Examiner himself apply the 

 language of the New Testament, to any set of men, who have lived 

 since apostolic and sensibly inspired ages ? The words, concerning 

 them, would seem to imply, that you yourself, consider the High Church 

 tenet of apostolic ordination in perpetual descent, essential to the con- 

 stitution of a Christian society. It would certainly answer your purpose 

 admirably, could you establish what is here insinuated ; that if a class 

 of uninspired and ordinary men cannot now a days maintain the austerity 

 and sanctity of the apostolic model, Christianity must itself be sur- 

 rendered as an untenable system. It would not, I admit, be a complete 

 defence for my clients, to prove, by reference to the scope and spirit of 

 the Bible, that the apostolic office and character never were, never could 



