29 MARCH 1884, Page 2

The division list is almost as impressive as the bareness

of the majority itself. In the minority voted men like Mr. Carington (M.P. for Bucks), Mr. Leveson-Gower, Sir Charles Forster, Mr. Howard (M.P. for East Cumberland), Colonel Kingscote (M.P. for West Gloucestershire), Lord Arthur Russell, the last men, we should suppose, with any bias against the Established Church, many of them, we believe, most anxious to support it. The truth is, no doubt, that the Bishops as legis- lators have not distinguished themselves as the spiritual friends of the people, even in that sense in which Lord Shaftesbury,— no party man,—has always distinguished himself as a friend of the people. Their rile as legislators has been a failure, while it has undoubtedly interfered with their rOle as administrators of their dioceses. Hence the languid support which even such a paper as the Guardian gives to their legislative functions, and the frank distrust with which many hearty friends of the Establishment look upon those legislative functions.