detailed censure of the proceedings at St. Ninian's. The special subject then was the Collegiate School; now it was the Perth Nunnery,' an institution not definitely connected with the Cathedral, but supported by the same interests. There was also the question of ritual, on which Mr. Burton had accepted a pledge that it was to be 'in conformity with' or 'not in excess of' that usual in English cathedrals. The Bishop took pains to inquire what English usage was, and found that it was exceeded by that of St. Ninian's in some more or less important respects. In particular, he found fault with the Eastward Position throughout the Communion service, and the use of the chasuble. It was not as if the Cathedral had laid hold on the public mind through its services. On the contrary, the Bishop had good reason to think that it had not been a success during the time of his withdrawal from it. Mr. Burton informed him that when he came into office the average congregation on Sunday morning was under twenty. The Bishop, knowing his own powers as a preacher and a teacher, could not doubt that if he were practically Incumbent, and the Provost and Precentor his curates, he could have made the Cathedral a power in the city. But the statutes, while defining the Provost's position to be under the Bishop,' were so drawn as to make the Provost and the Precentor acting together almost as independent of him as the Dean and Canons of an English Cathedral. The Bishop's disappointment found vent in his Charge, delivered at the Ordinary Synod 26 September, 1872, in which he reviewed the various painful circumstances of his relation to the Cathedral, sometimes mentioning names, but more often not doing so, and in general terms displaying his suspicion of the loyalty of the Cathedral party. It was on this Charge that Bishop Williams, of Connecticut, wrote (5 December, 1872):

It is a real comfort, in these days, to read such words as it contains. We have all had, I suppose, our share of trouble from these men, who have, as I told one of them the other day,' taken up everything in Romanism except its principle of obedience, and abandoned everything in Protestantism except its self-will.' I am particularly gratified to find that you have taken up the same ground on which I have all along placed myself, i.e. that you will not move judicially till a formal and proper presentation is made. It is very easy for Presbyters and Laity to say that the Bishop ought to move, and so to shift off upon his shoulders responsibilities which fairly belong to them. I have held, and shall continue to hold, just that very position, and I rejoice to find it endorsed by an opinion which I rate as highly as I do yours. The great trouble with these people is their awful insincerity. . .

Men were hard hitters in those days!

All those passages in the Charge that touched persons named or unnamed were swept together by Mr. Humble, and represented as an indictment of himself; and the Bishop was thereupon presented to the Episcopal Synod as having publicly censured a clergyman subject to his Episcopal jurisdiction without previous trial or consultation with the members of the Synod in terms of Canon No. 44, and without his having any opportunity of being heard in his own defence,' and accused of perversion of justice and of oppression of the said Rev. Henry Humble, and also of violating the provisions of the said 44th Canon above mentioned, and also of behaviour unbecoming the character and office of a Bishop.' This presentment was signed by Mr. Humble, Lord Charles Lennox Kerr, and Rev. Hardwicke Shute, 'late of Callander, now of 28 Notting Hill Square, London,' and the articles were served upon the Bishop 30 January, 1873.

The presentment was heard by the Episcopal Synod, and the charge unanimously dismissed on 27 March. At

a special meeting of the Chapter on 17 April it was attempted to give effect to the words 'under the Bishop' as meaning that all the ministrations of Divine service shall be subject to the Bishop's approval and control,' but the motion was lost by three to five. A Special Synod was then held on 8 May, in which the history of the Cathedral was recounted at some length by the Bishop, and special stress was laid (inter alia) on the custom which had grown up of celebrating with only one Communicant, and the consequent exaltation of the sacrificial element in the Lord's Supper so as to obscure the Communion element. There was some controversy as to whether the Bishop had at one time sanctioned this practice, which was apparently permissible in Scotland in cases of necessity, such as had frequently occurred in the past history of the Church. He felt convinced that he had not sanctioned it; but, if he had, he fell back upon the result of his bitter experience, which had taught him to distrust where he had formerly placed confidence,' and 'slowly and even reluctantly to mislike some practices which formerly he had deemed innocent.' This Charge contains near the end a forcible. passage on the work which the Cathedral ought to do and might do, and it is remarkable as containing no reference to the presentment out of which he had come victorious. The Bishop subsequently offered to endeavour to treat St. Ninian's as the Cathedral if he were allowed a veto on the arrangements of the Church and the future order of the ritual, but this was declined. The Synod wound up by a resolution for the appointment of a committee to confer with the Chapter as to the nature of the necessary amendments in its constitution. But, after some hesitation, the Bishop declined (on 12 May, 1873) to have anything to do with the appointment of such a committee, and there was apparently no other constitutional way in which the Synod

could give effect to its resolution. He was bitterly disappointed, and for the time abandoned St. Ninian's (as he wrote in 1885) 'in despair,' determining to treat it as any other ritualistic church' to which he might have duties as Diocesan, but which he could not be expected to do more than tolerate. He felt that he must decline responsibility for its management and the conduct of its services.

The majority, however, of the clergy were not willing that the Cathedral should sink to such a position, and about the beginning of the next year the Dean of the Diocese and about eighteen others addressed him on the subject, asking him either to resume his place at St. Ninian's or to sanction the action of the Cathedral Chapter, apart from its Bishop, ad interim till the holding of the next General Synod. To this he replied, in a circular dated 12 January, 1874, declining either course, and at the same time speaking of himself as being pained and injured... by breaches of faith in more than one quarter.' Provost Burton replied to this, in a circular sent to the Dean and all the clergy, showing considerable irritation, dated 28 January. The Bishop replied, in another circular to Mr. Burton' (he did not call him Provost'), dated 29 January, also sent to all the clergy, in which he justifies in detail the charge of breach of faith. Mr. Johnston, of Kirkcaldy, and Mr. Tuttiett, of St. Andrews, also printed circulars in defence of the Bishop. Mr. Burton naturally replied in two other circulars, one addressed to the Dean and one to the Bishop, and so the matter in dispute became unhappily only too notorious.

The address is undated, but the Bishop docketed it as received 12 January. It had been drawn up some weeks previously, and neither by the Dean (Torry) nor by the Provost and resident Canons. I do not, in fact, know by whom it was composed.

It is not surprising that the Bishop should have thought this an opportunity for seeking to discharge himself of a troublesome post, and in the month of April he wrote to my father enclosing the draft of a letter announcing his resignation to take place at Whitsuntide. My father accepted the resolution as having been well weighed, adding, You have a right to a discharge.' Others, however, like Bishop Claughton and Archdeacon Grant, feared that it might be precipitate. The former ends his letter:

L. sends you her best love, and is in amazement what is to become of Mrs. Wordsworth, and at the loss of the Feu. So am I. It was the most delightful house in Scotland. I hope you have not been too precipitate.

The letter was, however, issued, dated 15 April, and addressed to the Dean. It refers to his wish to live and work in England, where he had a locus standi as Fellow of Winchester College. He mentions the eclipse of his hopes in regard to closer relations with the Established Church,' the most material cause of which was the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland. With regard to the Diocese, though progress had been made, there was at the heart ... a cause of anxiety, of difficulty, and trouble, which no other Diocese of our Church has experienced in the same degree.' He refers to the sympathy which had been shown him in his stand against ultra-ritualism and Romanising practices, which sympathy, however, had been recently much neutralised (of course by the Address of the Dean and eighteen clergy and what had followed it). He touches on other influences with which he had to contend. Leighton's retirement is naturally cited as a precedent, and the letter ends by thanks to his brethren in the Episcopate and to the great body of clergy and laity of the Diocese. It was clearly intended to be a farewell.