Alas for the discipline of our Reformed Church, and the
authority of her Prelates ! A Rector in the diocese of Peter- borough has been making great scandal : after mixing freely in the " gayeties " which render London and Paris so dangerous to young bachelors, the reverend Don Giovanni bruits his own guilt, by appearing as the prosecutor of a courtezan who frightened him out of his money by threatening him with exposure. The Bishop of Peter- borough being blamed for suffering the trespasser to remain a pastor of the Church, explains, that he cannot dispossess the delinquent ; the law restricting the Bishop's power to interfere, by imposing limits of time and topography to his jurisdiction : the offence occurred a few years ago, and not within the diocese. So be can only punish the offender by preventing him from doing duty ; thus converting him into a sinecurist for his sins !
There is another case not less derogatory to the cloth, though no Bishop has as yet been called to account. A clergyman has been vindictively hamstringing some sheep that had trespassed on his land, and he has been let off by what the Judge called " the grace and mercy " of the Jury : he pleaded that he thought he bad " a right " to do it ; and the Jury construed that gross igno- rance of law into a disproof of the malice charged in the indict- ment ! Such at least is the tenour of the report of the trial. This reverend gentleman should have been punished under the Act for Preventing Cruelty to Animals,-though, to be sure, he might still have pleaded ignorance even there : for clergymen, it seems, are no more bound than spotting legislators to know the law or set examples of decent obedience.
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