“Prelates are fond of talking about my see, my clergy, my diocese, as if these things belonged to them as their pigs and dogs belonged to them.  They forget that the clergy, the diocese, and the bishops themselves, all exist only for the public good; that the public are a third and principal party in the whole concern.  It is not simply the tormenting bishop against the tormented curate; but the public against the system of tormenting, as tending to bring scandal upon religion and religious men.  By the late alteration in the laws,[80] the Labourers in the vineyard are given up to the power of the Inspector of the vineyard.  If he has the meanness and malice to do so, an Inspector may worry and plague to death any Labourer against whom he may have conceived an antipathy....  Men of very small incomes have often very acute feelings, and a curate trod on feels a pang as great as a bishop refuted.”

Another of the Bishop’s ways of defending himself was to boast that, in spite of all his interrogations, he has actually excluded only two curates from his diocese:  and this boast supplies the reviewer with one of his best apologues.  “So the Emperor of Hayti boasted that he had only cut off two persons’ heads for disagreeable behaviour at his table.  In spite of the paucity of the visitors executed, the example operated as a considerable impediment to conversation; and the intensity of the punishment was found to be a full compensation for its rarity.”

In conclusion, the reviewer says:—­“Now we have done with the Bishop....  Our only object in meddling with the question is to restrain the arm of Power within the limits of moderation and justice—­one of the great objects which first led to the establishment of this journal, and which, we hope, will always continue to characterize its efforts.”

To this period also belong two splendid discourses on the principles of Christian Justice, which Sydney Smith, as Chaplain to the High Sheriff, preached in York Minster at the Spring and Summer Assizes of 1824.  The first is styled “The Judge that smites contrary to the Law."[81]

At the outset, the preacher thus defines his ground:—­

“I take these words of St. Paul as a condemnation of that man who smites contrary to the law; as a praise of that man who judges according to the law; as a religious theme upon the importance of human Justice to the happiness of mankind:  and, if it be that theme, it is appropriate to this place, and to the solemn public duties of the past and the ensuing week, over which some here present will preside, at which many here present will assist, and which almost all here present will witness.”

A Christian Judge in a free land must sedulously guard himself against the entanglements of Party.  He must be careful to maintain his independence by seeking no promotion and asking no favours from those who govern.  It may often be his duty to stand between the governors