mult. Even the presence of Mr. Gladstone last Sunday evening did not restrain the rioters from perpetrating the outrages which followed upon the close of the service.

It appears the vestry forwarded to the Bishop a list of made-up grievances, and the Bishop is obliged to become their apologist in order to give some show of reason to their frivolous pretexts. He says "I presume it is with the view of expressing some difficulty which the vestry has felt in responding to Mr. Hansard's natural expectation of the active assistance of all his respectable parishioners that the resolution has been adopted which you have forwarded to me." This, if it means anything, is expressive of sympathy towards the rioters. As to the respectable parishioners, the Bishop must know that his sympathy with Mr. King's enemies has long since driven them away. It is quite impossible for respectable people to go with their families to witness the scenes of disorder that take place at S. George's-in-the-East every Sunday.

If the Bishop cannot ignore these disturbances, he at any rate speaks of them in the mildest terms. A spade is a spade; but it may be a silver one, with nothing degrading in its touch. And so, riots and revolutions, though deprecated as a matter of course, find

The Bishop all along said that he could settle the disturbance, if they would allow him. In the same nonchalant kind of way, he had previously declared his own competency to manage a larger diocese than that of London, when the question of dividing the diocese was mooted.

many advocates among men whose standard of morality is low; who, while they deprecate, think it an honour to array themselves against law and order. We do not mean to say that the Bishop of London would like to take any active part at S. George's: he is too much the gentleman so to demean himself, and his position forbids it; but he does the next best thing in addressing the rioters in words beautifully mild, speaking, "with bated breath and whispering humbleness," of attempts to interrupt the services-annoyances the revival of which is attempted-or annoyances attempted to be renewed. His lordship affects to be ignorant of the horrid blasphemy and profanity which has been going on all along: he would like to think of them as petty attempts at interruption, wicked indeed, but still only attempts barely worth notice.

What an unenviable state of mind a man must have arrived at when he can calmly gloze over such enormities and become their apologist! Where is that just indigntion--that jealousy for the honour of GOD which, one would suppose, would fill the heart of a Bishop of God's holy Church on hearing these things? Is it a mere question of purchasing peace and a lofty position now, at the expense of the future-tampering with all that is holy to gain the approbation of the world? We need hardly say that men who have such ends as these usually are disappointed in them, and deservedly so. How different is the conduct of this timid prelate to that of S. Cyprian, when he addressed those

who were "impiously wrathful against the priests," because they wished for communion on easier terms! There is nothing timid or time-serving in his address: -"O thou far-frantic madman, thou art wrathful at him who is trying to turn away God's wrath from you; threatening him who is entreating the LORD'S mercy in your behalf; who feels your wound, which you do not feel yourself; and pours these tears for you which you, perhaps, are never pouring. You yet further load and heighten your offence; and think you, while in strife with the rulers and priests of GOD, that the LORD can be at peace with you ?"

THE S. GEORGE'S RIOTS.

AFTER THE SHAM MONITIONS.

[Union January 4, 1861.]

HE publication of the Rev. Bryan King's "Second Letter of Remonstrance to the Bishop of London"-and its importance justifies a second allusion to it-will have set at ease the minds of those who, innocently believing that a Bishop must necessarily speak the truth, gave Mr. King credit for want of firmness at the last, if not for inconsistancy. And it might very naturally have been presumed, even in the absence of assertion, that the Bishop had the rector's authority for issuing those outrageous monitions,inasmuch as, without that authority, they were not worth the paper on which they were written-an authority which the Bishop himself acknowledged in his place in the House of Lords, when he stated that "the Church of England allowed to every clergyman the undivided responsibility of settling his services....... With regard to whether there should be musical services or read services,

he believed the responsibility rested with the clergyman of the parish."

The world will now see what such fair words and fine speeches are worth. Equivocation and prevarication are, it seems, the stock-in-trade of an ecclesiastical diplomatist; and those who are so unprincipled as to use them have effrontery enough to carry them through with a bold face. Contrary to law, contrary to decency, contrary to his own publicly expressed opinion, Bishop Tait has made certain violent changes at S. George's, letting it be understood that Mr. King had consented to them.* This consent, as we anticipated, was never given; so duplicty and illegality go hand in hand. Knowing what we do of the man, no one expects that the Bishop will either make any apology to Mr. King for his strange behaviour, or condescend to offer any explanation to the Church: the infallibility of Puritanism is not to be shaken by plain, unvarnished truth; for what is truth when put in opposition to equivocation and episcopacy?

What course did the Bishop of London take, when he was told-by one who, in the Bishop's own words, "would never allow himself, if he could possibly avoid it, to transgress the rules of propriety in speaking of a

*Mr. King, upon the invitation of the Bishop, left the parish for a year, in the care of the Rev. Septimus Hansard, upon the understanding that no changes were to be made in the services during his absence, without his consent. But, while he was abroad, the Bishop had some of the furniture of the Church removed, abolished the choir, and sent his chaplains to preach in a black gown.