The Archdeacon of London, Bishop Piers Claughton, has -written to
the Times to dissuade any of the High-Church party from resigning their cures in consequence of the operation of the Public Worship Act, which is now at work. Bishop Claughton thinks it will be comparatively seldom appealed to ; that when it is so appealed to, the Bishop will often be able to prevent its pro- visions from being actually or, at any rate, stringently enforced ; and he says that he himself, though he could imagine a possible duty in some cases of appealing to it, "cannot readily conceive himself as under an obligation to become a prosecutor of the clergy." Further, Bishop Claughton does not think a lay Judge, not of doctrines, but of facts, to be an anomaly to whose jurisdiction High Churchmen ought to take exception. Every man among them who honestly believes that his practice could be reconciled with the laws he has undertaken to observe, should be willing to suffer, if he so regards it, this "appeal unto Cw.sar."- We hope Bishop Claughton's anticipations of the very small amount of litigation to which the Act is likely to lead may be realised. But only in case there be a class of clergymen anxious to catch .at any excuse for not acting quite as vigorously as they have threatened to act, can Bishop Claughton's extended straw help them to a deliverance from their own unwise resolve.
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