On the second reading of Mr. Morgan Lloyd's " Contuma-
cious Clerks Bill,"—the Bill prepared, we believe, by the Church Association,—which was moved on Tuesday night, there arose a discussion,—ending in the adjournment of the debate, to give time for the Ecclesiastical Courts Commis- sion to report,—from which it is easy enough to see how the sympathies of various parties go in relation to comprehension in the Church. The chief subject, of course, was Mr. Green's un- merited imprisonment for contempt of Court, and all parties alike professed their wish to see that at an end. But whilst Sir R. Cross (who joined Mr. Disraeli in carrying the Public Worship Regulation Act, eight years ago) remarked that Mr. Green had nothing to do but to promise to obey the order of the Court, in order to be set at liberty,—which is just what his conscience does not allow him to do,—and remarked that, " suspension or deprivation, but not imprisonment, was the appropriate penalty for contumacy," Mr. Bright expressed generously his hearty sympathy for Mr. Green, and remarking that Mr. Green is said to be confined in the very cell occupied two centuries ago by George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, declared that at the present day all Christians agreed in thinking Mr. Green's imprisonment "a grave scandal to the Church," which ought to be put an end to as soon as pos- sible. Th'e Quaker can enter into the Ritualist's scruples, and calls his persecution a scandal; while the conventional Church- man will only consent so to alleviate the penalty, that it shall no longer gain for him who suffers it the credit of martyrdom.
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