high office, or that I am deficient in that respectful obedience to the bishop set over me, which is due to the authority of the Crown as the head of the church in these realms; but in this, as in all questions of obedience, he who is required to obey must examine the extent of the authority exercised by him who demands obedience.  Your lordship might possibly call upon me, using your voice as bishop of the diocese, to abandon altogether the freehold rights which are now mine in this perpetual curacy.  The judge of assize, before whom I shall soon stand for my trial, might command me to retire to prison without a verdict given by a jury.  The magistrates who committed me so lately as yesterday, upon whose decision in that respect your lordship has taken action against me so quickly, might have equally strained their authority.  But in no case, in this land, is he that is subject bound to obey, further than where the law gives authority and exacts obedience.  It is not in the power of the Crown itself to inhibit me from the performance of my ordinary duties in this parish by any such missive as that sent to me by your lordship.  If your lordship think right to stop my mouth as a clergyman in your diocese, you must proceed to do so in an ecclesiastical court in accordance with the laws, and will succeed in your object, or fail, in accordance with the evidences as to the ministerial fitness or unfitness, which may be produced respecting me before the proper tribunal.

’I will allow that much attention is due from a clergyman to pastoral advice given to him by his bishop.  On that head I must first express to your lordship my full understanding that your letter has not been intended to convey advice, but an order;—­an inhibition, as your messenger, the Reverend Mr Thumble, has expressed it.  There might be a case certainly in which I should submit myself to counsel, though I should resist command.  No counsel, however, has been given—­except indeed that I should receive your messenger in a proper spirit, which I hope I have done.  No other advice has been given me, and therefore there is now no such case as that I have imagined.  But in this matter, my lord, I could not have accepted advice from a living man, no, not though the hands of the apostles themselves had made him bishop who tendered it to me, and had set him over me for my guidance.  I am in a terrible strait.  Trouble, and sorrow, and danger are upon me and mine.  It may well be, as your lordship says, that the bitter waters of the present hour may pass over my head and destroy me.  I thank your lordship for telling me whither I am to look for assistance.  Truly I know not whether there is any to be found for me on earth.  But the deeper my troubles, the greater my sorrow, the more pressing any danger, the stronger is my need that I should carry myself in these days with that outward respect of self which will teach those around me to know that, let who will condemn me, I have not condemned myself.  Were I to abandon my pulpit, unless forced to do so by legal means, I should in doing so be putting a plea of guilty against myself upon the record.  This, my lord, I will not do.