THE NEW COURT[9]

[9] Guardian¹, 15th May 1889.

The claim maintained by the Archbishop in his Judgment³, by virtue⁴ of his metropolitical⁵ authority and by that alone, to cite, try, and sentence one of his suffragans, is undoubtedly⁶ what is called in slang language "a large order." Even by those who may have thought it inevitable⁷, after the Watson case had been so distinctly accepted by the books as a precedent⁸, it is yet felt as a surprise, in the sense in which a thing is often a surprise when, after being only talked about it becomes a reality. We can imagine some people getting up in the morning on last Saturday with one set of feelings, and going to bed with another. Bishops⁹, then, who in spite of the alleged¹⁰ anarchy¹¹, are still looked upon with great reverence¹², as almost irresponsible in what they say and do officially, are, it seems, as much at the mercy of the law as the presbyters and deacons whom they have occasionally sent before the Courts. They, too, at the will of chance accusers who are accountable to no one, are liable to the humiliation¹³, worry, and crushing law-bills of an ecclesiastical suit. Whatever may be thought of this now, it would have seemed

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