The Bishop of Peterborough, at a Church meeting at Lough-
borough, on Tuesday, made a very amusing reply to Mr. Bright's recent Rochdale criticism on the Church of England. Mr. Bright, said the Bishop, was something like Lord Chancellor Eldon, who seldom came inside a church, but boasted that he supported it as a buttress from outside. Dr. Magee ventured to advise any clergyman coming to a new post of duty to fix his eyes steadily on Mr. Bright, and imitate all his many excellent and noble qualities ;—to imitate him in the deep and earnest sincerity of his convictions, and in the devotion of heart and mind which he gives to that which he believes to be right and true. But he if he wished to bring back dis- senters to the Church, not to imitate Mr. Bright's mode of speak- ing of those who differ from him. "Do not, for instanoe, too hastily assume,—or speak as if you assumed,—that all virtue, excellence, and wisdom, vest in yourself, and those who agree with you, and that those who differ from you do so differ, because they are extremely stupid or extremely dishonest Do not too hastily classify those who differ from you by the somewhat broad distinction of knaves and fools, excepting always that small residuum,—Bishops and the like,—who may be both knaves and fools." That is a fair enough counter to Mr. Bright's thrust, and gently as well as skilfully delivered. Judging from style alone, Mr. Bright should have been the bishop, and Dr. Magee the statesman. Mr. Bright can best pour out a stream of burning conviction, and Dr. Magee best a flood of intellectual criticism.
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