The December number of Fraser'a Magazine has an interesting letter
by the Reverend Frederick Maurice, on a subject "which concerns laymen as well as clergymen"—the Denison case. I he effect that Mr. Maurice most dreads from the decision of the Court at Bath is "not the schism it may possibly occasion in the Church." He would regret the loss both of High Churchmen and of their opponents, who might have deserted the Church had the decision in Mr. Gorham's case been different. What he fears is the effect of the decision on private judgment. The lawyers at Bath acted only as they could: in refusing to test the opinions of Mr. Denison by Scripture : a Scriptural argument under such circumstances could have only led to much profane trifling. But he, nevertheless, thinks the Articles and the Scriptures should be taken together; that the Scriptures explain the Articles better than the Articles explain the Scriptures ; and that although Mr. Denison, with whom he disagrees, should not be allowed to impose his doctrinal propositions as tests, yet that "we all should strive that he may not be hindered from expressing them as opinions." But the laity are more interested than the clergy. Their interest was satisfied by the decision of the Privy Council in the Gorham case ; and he trusts that the Privy Council in this case also "will act on the principle which they followed in the ether," omitting "unnecessary prelections on divinity." If the Privy Council tell the Evangelical clergy that "it is not a safe or righteous course to make a brother an offender for a word—that the Articles are too strong to need the help of persecutions and deprivations "—and that "it is not pos- sible to adjudicate on the whole question, according to the sense of the Artiellek, without that appeal to Scripture which the Court at Bath, with Found judgment, refused to entertain,"—if they do this, they will be real benefactors to their country.
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