24 FEBRUARY 1872, Page 2

The Bishop of Peterborough made a most brilliant speech in

the House of Lords on Monday against Lord Shaftesbury's Bill empowering "three members of the Church," being also inhabi- tant householders of the same diocese, to bring suits against any clergyman for offences against the law ecclesiastical (except charges of unsound doctrine) without the assent of the Bishop,. and defeated it by a majority of 10 (24 to 14), though the Bill had the support of Archbishop Tait. Bishop Magee strongly objected to give this power to any three men who might choose- " to club their little money and large spite to set the parish in a. flame." His position was that the laws of a profession, like the- Articles of War, should be put in force only by the superior officers. in that profession, and not by any one who fancied he could use- the strict professional rules to gratify his spite. If this Bill passed,. the squire of the parish, whose wife might not have received a returm. visit from the clergyman's wife, with his bailiff and gardener, might be the prosecuting trio. Lord Shaftesbury had apparently wished( to conciliate Dissenters,—for every baptized Dissenter is legally a.. member of the National Church,—by giving them a share in the privilege of cheap prosecutions, "just as he would give a poor rela- tion a day or two's shooting in his preserves." Prosecution in these days was reduced to a science, and the Church Association is now holding out the terrors of law proceedings, for which it has. raised a guarantee fund of £30,000, to its opponents. Under this Bill the officers of the Association might get up proceedings- against any poor curate who proved unwilling to submit to the,. Association's decrees, and in summoning him to obedience, might. remind him in a postscript of the cheapness of litigation and the- guarantee fund of £30,000. When Dr. Magee sat down the Bill was irrecoverably lost.