MR. MACCOLL.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."
am sure you will allow me to explain more explicitly what I meant by charging the Court, in the Purchas case, with " twisting " its evidence. I do not mean—and I have expressly disclaimed any such intention—to accuse the Court of having consciously and deliberately tampered with the facts of the case. But I do accuse it of having been under the influence of a domi- neering bias so powerful as to blind it to the relative value of the facts which were plainly before it, twisting weak or irrelevant evidence into the service of a foregone conclusion, and ignoring sometimes the existence and sometimes the cogency of arguments
which militated against that conclusion. Undoubtedly this implies a dishonesty of the intellect, but it need not imply any more of a moral stigma than colour-blindness. I know some persons, for example, whom no possible array of evidence would convince that Mr. Gladstone, in disestablishing the Irish Church, had any higher motive than the most sordid political ambition. Evidence which, to an ordinary mortal, appears conclusive against them is either ignored or misrepresented, while facts and words which are quite irrelevant are quoted as triumphant proofs. But to say this is not to accuse these fanatics of "dishonesty." They are perfectly sincere in their fanaticism.
In the same way, I believe that the judges in the Purchas case were perfectly sincere, and intended to be quite honest, in their strange manipulation of the evidence before them. There are men in England at this moment, upright, honourable, intelligent, and highly educated, whom no amount of evidence, though at- tested by miracle, would suffice to convince that chasubles and incense are lawful in the worship of the Church of England. A Ritualist has a far smaller chance of fair-play in our Courts of justice than a murderer. It is because I feel the evil and the peril of this, that I have done my best to expose the injustice of the Purchas judgment. You are in error in supposing that I have been influenced by any "bitterness of controversy." Per- sonally, I am not at all enamoured of much of the ceremonial that goes under the name of "Ritualism," and certainly I have every reason to feel grateful to the Quarterly Review. It has done me a signal service by enabling me to win an easy victory over the ablest champion they could send against me. It is fair to assume that the Quarterly has said all that could be said against my attack on the Purchas judgment.—I am, Sir, &c.,
MALCOLM MACCOLI.
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