LETTERS TO TIIE EDITOR.
HOW TO RELEASE MR. GREEN.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I do not like your generous endeavour to befriend an injured man, and to keep the Bishops out of a hole, to go without a word of thanks, from one who has for some time maintained that the only solution of the complicated puzzle aies in proclaiming a truce, pending the Report of the Royal Commission ; and that the only people who can move in the matter are the Bishops.
I cannot now discuss the details of your plan, which has reason and prudence on the face of it. But I earnestly hope our authorities will use the present lull and the coming holi-
days (they could hardly spend Easter more worthily) in trying to give effect to it.
There is an impression that they are content to await the expiration of the three years from the commencement of the suit against Mr. Green, in June next, and to let him then be ipso facto "deprived." There is, then, a prospect of two " depri- vations " before long, and conceivably of a third—Mr. Macke- nochie—if these wretched snits are allowed to run their course. I can only express the strongest and most anxious conviction that the Bishops will do well to try and "agree with" their (single) "adversary quickly, while they are in the way with him."
The effect of the simultaneous deprivation of two or three prominent and generally respected Ritualists is quite beyond any possible calculation. It is only certain that it cannot be light, or limited to the Clergy. To let it come about while the Ecclesiastical Courts, and, indirectly the law they administer, are under consideration—at the instance of the Bishops them- selves—is a policy for which it is very hard for a loyal Church- man to find an honest but courteous epithet.
I am glad of the chance of explaining my silence, in face of two direct and kindly references to me on this subject in your columns recently. I will own my reason to have been the fact that I came back from my first appearance in the York Convo- cation, under impressions (which I still retain) on the ominous estrangement between the Upper and Lower Houses far too serious to be lightly stated in a newspaper. With cordial thanks for your steady advocacy of a reasonable and just ecclesiastical policy, and for persisting in keeping people to the point,—I am, Sir, &c.,
Briyhton, Mardi 29th. Jolts OAKLEY, Dean of Carlisle.
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