fortunately for Mr. Bennett's self-complacency there was an awkward majority against him on this head in the House of Commons on the 8th of June. Mr. Horsman's motion was "that an humble address be presented to her Majesty, praying that she will be graciously pleased to direct enquiry to be made whether due respect was paid to the decrees of the constitution and canons ecclesiastical of the Church of England, in the recent institution of the Rev. Mr. Bennett to the Vicarage of Frome;" and as we well know a majority of 156 against 111 decided there were good and sufficient grounds for such enquiry.

I will not therefore dwell on this point, I am satisfied to leave your Lordship and the public to determine between the private judgment-a disinterested one of course, of Mr. Bennett, and the public decision of the House of Commons.

STATEMENT RESPECTING THE PROTEST.

We come now to the statement regarding our Protest. On abstract questions ingenuous minds may and will differ, but when the question is of matter of fact, which has been established by sufficient proof and is notorious, with full cognizance of the whole subject, to assert the contrary is unbecoming both to the Christian and to the Gentleman. As to the application of this principle, I shall content myself with stating facts, leaving it to your Lordship to draw such conclusion from them as you may deem warrantable.

Though I presume you to hold Mr. Bennett's letter in one hand and mine in the other, I will here quote a part of his comments on our protest. (P. 29.) "In the first place, my Lord, Mr. Horsman led you to think-led the whole House of Commons to think-that there was one simultaneous movement of aggression against me as their intended Vicar; one common voice of hatred and fear. He led you to think that the whole town was in an uproar. He dressed up his tale with such large sounding expressions as these- The parishioners of Frome;' the people of Frome!" "a large number of the laity of Frome."" And how many does your

Lordship think a fair representation in point of number to represent twelve thousand inhabitants? How many to justify the designation "THE PARISHIONERS OF FROME. FIFTY-SIX: of whom no less than five were clergy. So that there were only fifty-one lay parishioners; and out of these fifty-one, no less than nine have expressed their regret at having signed the document, and have frequented the parish Church as heretofore which reduces the number to forty-two. Now this number of forty-two is paraded before the House as 'the Parishioners of Frome.' Well-what were

the deplorable results? Did any expression of feeling arise from this agony of apprehension ? Did the 'panic of terror' cause the parishioners to make any outbreak of violence, or even to abandon their parish Church? Did they forsake the communion of the Church of England and fly away to dissent and schism, which stood around to receive them? My Lord, this was the deplorable result—that the parish Church has been ever since (I say this upon the testimony of the Churchwardens) crowded with worshippers, more in number than had been previously the case, and the Communicants being compared in the same months of the year 1851 and the year 1852, i. e. from February to May, show the following proportion: in 1851, 620; in 1852, 710."

My Lord, I do assert that on the announcement of the appointment of Mr. Bennett to the Vicarage, the deepest feeling was excited in the town among nearly all the most influential and considerate portion of Churchmen. I assert that the fifty-six names attached to the protest to the Patroness do, as heads of families, represent the great proportion of the wealth and intelligence of the Churchmen of this town. I do assert, moreover, that this original feeling of distrust, instead of having diminished, has settled into conviction, and that there was never greater unanimity among a body of persons on one point than among the protestors at the present day. Mr. Bennett is pleased to state that nine out of the fifty-six have expressed their regret at having signed the document. This assertion has been spoken of by many here in a spirit of enquiry. 1 have heard no one state that he

knew of more than two or three of the protestors who had changed their opinion; but the brief time,—a single clear day, which we allowed ourselves for obtaining the signatures before we presented the document to the Patroness, prevented it occurring to the mind of any to preserve an exact copy of the names. This is certain, that Mr. Bennett's popularity is not on the increase, as is evidenced by the secessions from his Church which his extreme doctrines and novel practices are continually causing.

I believe your Lordship too well appreciates the value of good order and strict obedience to the laws, to arrive at the conclusion that Mr. Bennett's appointment was not considered at Frome "a deplorable result," because the protestors did not proceed to "any outbreak of violence," or that they were to blame because they did not in that respect imitate the more decided, but less decorous demonstration of the Belgravians ; and had our Diocesan been better acquainted with the character of his Clergy at Frome, he would have known that the caution which he proffered them " to offer no unseemly opposition" to Mr. Bennett, was unnecessary; though we cannot allow that the absence of such "unseemly opposition" is a test either in reference to themselves or to their fellow protestors among the laity," that any fears which they entertained are allayed."* But on this point I may naturally be required to adduce something more than my own contradiction of Mr. Bennett's statements. I must allow as much weight with the public to his "ipse dixit" as to my own; and though no one unacquainted with the actual status of the protestors and non-protestors of the town, can form an accurate estimate on the point, still I have it in my power to furnish certain data by which your Lordship and the public may arrive at a tolerably fair conclusion as to where the truth lies. But we may premise these data by saying, as was well stated by our own member in the House of Commons, in the debate of the 8th of June, that the real question of the legality or the illegality, the propriety or the impropriety of the appointment, is not in the least degree affected by any amount of popu* See Bishop's letter in Appendix.

larity which Mr. Bennett may have acquired in his new parish; on the contrary, if it is believed that his doctrines and practices are not in accordance with those of the Church of England, any powers of attraction which he may possess only prove him to be a more dangerous, and consequently, a more unfit person to be placed in any parochial cure, and especially in a populous parish. I am not therefore altogether without some personal feeling when I enter on this argument, for being a native of this town, in which my family have resided for above a century and a half, and having myself officiated in it as one of the parochial clergy for upwards of twenty years, I feel that both the credit of my fellow townsmen, and my own as a Minister, are involved in the question; for that they should so easily abandon the principles which they have professed and followed for the last thirty years, would not only be discreditable to them, but also a reflection on the power of the ministry of myself and brother Clergy, who have so long upheld and taught different and opposite doctrines to those professed by Mr. Bennett.

To proceed then with the data which I have promised. We have, my Lord, in this parish various charities, some endowments of very ancient date, others of recent times, which are vested in the hands of certain trustees: and some families have been successively represented in the trust from a period prior to that at which the house of Hanover succeeded to the crown. This body, on the decease of each trustee, fill up the vacancy by the election of a new member, selected from among the most fit and influential churchmen of the town,—a highly esteemed nobleman, intimately connected by property and near residence, being the only trustee who was a non-resident at the time of his election. Such a body, then, must necessarily represent pretty fairly the church feeling of the town.

1. After Mr. Bennett's appointment the attention of the trustees was directed to the anomaly of the children brought up in an asylum connected with these charities, going out of the district in which they lived to attend Divine service in the parish Church; and a meeting of the trustees was called

to consider whether Christ Church, in the ecclesiastical district of which the asylum was situated, or the Parish Church, where the girls had hitherto attended, was their proper place of worship under the founder's will. Mr. Bennett's friends were not pleased with the suggestion, as the children had attended the parish church since the foundation of the charity, and from the turn these gentlemen gave to the discussion, the decision on the question before the trustees involved a vote of confidence or want of confidence in the new Vicar. Twelve trustees were present, nine voted in favor of the propriety of removing the children, and three against it; and of this small minority two have since been removed by death, and in their room the son and representative here of the remaining dissentient trustee, and a magistrate of the county resident in the parish, have been elected, both of whom are opposed to the new Vicar. A legal opinion subsequently obtained coincided with the wishes of the majority of the trustees, and the children have consequently been removed from the parish church. This is one clue to your Lordship's arriving at a right conclusion as to Mr. Bennett's popularity here.

$2. The history of our elections for members of parliament affords another ground for forming an opinion on this point, as it is well known that the principles of a town are strictly tested on such occasions. Frome was enfranchised under the Reform Bill of 1832, and four out of the six elections since that bill, have been severely contested. The candidates were on the first occasion, in 1832