We have given so much space elsewhere to the general
drift of the Voysey judgment and its probable results, that we need only here speak of it in relation to Mr. Voysey himself,—an able, earnest, and thoughtful Rationalist, whose great eccentricity it is to believe that if he does not formally and verbally contradict the Articles of the Church, he has a full right to traverse their plain meaning in almost every direction without blame. We do not believe the judgment could by any possibility have gone in Mr. Voysey's favour, even if Lord Westbury had drawn it up ; but, on the other hand, we do not think the judgment is really just to Mr. Voysey's defence, which was not only very able, but very much more germane to the point at issue in relation to many of the charges than Lord Hatherley appears to have been quite competent to under- stand. We do not wonder that Mr. Voysey is a little bitter and piqued. He was given a week in which to retract by that absurd legal fiction which assumes that the English Church has a real spiritual authority, and that a clergyman once condemned for heresy by the Supreme Court will be not unlikely to recant his errors as soon as they are legally established. Of course Mr. Voysey repudiates this privilege, and not unnaturally he does it somewhat bitterly :—" If I feel grateful for anything, it is that I have been able for eighteen years to sow the seeds of love, of truth, and liberty in the fields of the Church of England, and that now, before I am finally deprived of my office, another opportunity has been afforded me of expressly and unreservedly' reaffirming all those opinions which their Lordships declare to be contrary to the Thirty-Nine Articles, and of rejecting the offer of repurchasing my once cherished position in the Established Church by proclaim- ing myself a hypocrite." It is an absurd legal form,—that oppor- tunity afforded you of compensating for heresy by falsehood,—but Mr. Voysey need hardly take it quite so personally. In common precedent, the Judical Committee could not help themselves.
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