lawyers are men, partisans and politicians, statesmen, if you like; and this is a court where they are not precluded, in the same degree as they are in the regular courts by the habits and prescriptions of the place, from thinking of what comes before them in its relation to public affairs.  It is no mere invention of disappointed partisans, it is no idle charge of wilful unfairness, to say that considerations of high policy come into their deliberations; it has been the usual language, ever since the Gorham case, of men who cared little for the subject-matter of the questions debated; it is the language of those who urge the advantages of the Court.  “It is a court,” as the Bishop of Manchester said the other day, speaking in its praise, “composed of men who look at things not merely with the eyes of lawyers, but also with the eyes of statesmen.”  Precisely so; and for that reason they must be considered to have the responsibilities, not only of lawyers, but of statesmen, and their acts are proportionably open to discussion.  Sir John Coleridge urges the impossibility of any other court; and certainly till we could be induced to trust an ecclesiastical court, composed of bishops or clergymen, in a higher degree than we could do at present, we see no alternative.  But to say that a clerical court would be no improvement is not to prove that the present court is a satisfactory one.  It may be difficult under our present circumstances to reform it.  But though we may have reasons for making the best of it, we may be allowed to say that it is a singularly ill-imagined and ill-constructed court, and one in which the great features of English law and justice are not so conspicuous as they are elsewhere.  Suitors do not complain in other courts either of the ruling, or sometimes of the language of judges, as they complain in this.  But when this is made a ground for joining with the enemies of all that the English Church holds dear, to bring about a great break-up of the existing state of things, we agree with Sir John Coleridge in thinking that a great mistake is made; and if care is not taken, it may be an irreparable one.  He writes:—­

I hasten to my conclusion too long delayed, but a word must still be added on a subject of not less consequence than any I have yet touched on.  You say, “Churchmen will to a very great extent indeed find relief from the dilemma in a third course, viz. co-operation with the political forces, which, year by year, more and more steadily are working towards disestablishment.  This is not a menace; it is the statement of a simple fact.”  I am bound to believe, and I do believe, you do not intend this as a menace; but such a statement of a future course to depend on a contingency cannot but read very much like one—­and against your intention it may well be understood as such.  You do not say that you are one who will co-operate with the political party which now seeks to disestablish