The Rev. J. W. King, who went under the pseudonym
of "Mr. Launde," when he entered his horses for a race, has resigned his Lincolnshire livings, in a letter in which be tells Bishop Words- worth that had his earlier letters to him been couched in the same
-spirit of kind remonstrance as the later one which was published, instead of consisting of merely legal threats, he should never have replied by referring his Bishop to his solicitor. As, however, it is now evident that legal proceedings would be utterly futile, and as at his great age he wishes to live the rest of his days in peace, he resigns the livings, but without admitting that in continuing the breed of a very fine race of horses, inherited for gene- rations back from his family, and in occasionally entering them for the turf, he has done anything to incur the Bishop's censure. Perhaps not, and if he has, the Bishop of Lincoln has clearly been in the wrong in his mode of dealing with the case, especially con- sidering his summons to his Dibeesan Synod of a great lay col- league of Mr. King's on the turf. But certainly, men who possess large estates, and feel so much interest in the secular interests they involve as to be diligent breeders and racers of horses, can hardly have the sort of devotion to spiritual aims which is the best qualifi- cation for the work of a clergyman. Would it not be as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, as for a great personage -on the turf to devote any steady and hearty attention to the spiritual and moral condition of (say) his chief pauper parishioners? The Bishop expresses extreme gratitude to Mr. King for his resignation, as though he had conferred a personal service.
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