r faith to secede from the manners and usages, as well as the rites
of the world, to form self-governed republics, as it were, within the
social system; this noble liberty had died away as Christianity became an
hereditary, an established, a universal religion." The poet asked, and
he might well do so--

"What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year."

To have an opinion of his own, and to express it, was utterly impossible
to any man whose heart was set upon church preferment. One illustration
will suffice: Many--many years ago there was in the old city of Norwich a
Bishop known by the name of Bathurst. His connexions were good, and when
George III. was king there was an Earl Bathurst and a Lord Chancellor
Bathurst, and a Sir Benjamin Bathurst. This clerical scion had thus on
his entry into public life every chance in his favour. He lived to a
great age: he was born in 1744, and died in 1837; but to the last he was
only Bishop of Norwich. Why was this? Well, on the 27th of May, 1808,
Lord Granville moved for the House of Lords to resolve itself into a
committee "to consider the petition of the Irish Catholics." The
petition was not a prayer for political equality, simply for employment
in military and civil situations. The Bishop of Norwich had the audacity
to lift up his single voice from the episcopal bench on behalf of Lord
Granville's very moderate motion. The heavens did not fall--nor did the
earth open its mouth and swallow him up--but the light of the royal
countenance was lost to him for ever. His daughter writes: "A friend of
my father's happened to mention in the presence of Queen Charlotte that
the Bishop of Norwich ought to be removed to the see of St. Asaph, as the
emoluments were better and the duties less numerous. 'No,' said her
Majesty, quickly; 'he voted against the king.'" Some years afterwards it
was said by those about the Court that the Bishop "might have commanded
anything in the Church if he had taken the right line."

It has thus come to pass that heresy in London and the country has been
confined within narrow bounds. Whatever Churchmen may have thought, the
creed and the public utterances of the Church have been orthodox.
Popular dissent has followed suit--heresy has been avoided by some as a
temptation of the devil, by others as an obstacle to worldly success, but
no religious life can exist without it. In the religious world, as a
rule,