to maintain myself in my church.  I did so maintain myself against an attack made upon me by the bishop, who sent over to Hogglestock one Mr Thumble, a gentleman doubtless in holy orders, though I know nothing and can learn nothing of the place of his cure, to dispossess me of my pulpit and to remove me from my ministrations among my people.  To Mr Thumble I turned a deaf ear, and would not let him so much as open his mouth inside the porch of my church.  Up to this time I myself have read the services, and have preached to the people, and have continued, as best I could, my visits to the poor and my labours in the school, though I know—­no one knows as well—­how unfitted I am for such work by the grief which has fallen upon me.

’Then the bishop sent for me, and I thought it becoming on my part to go to him.  I presented myself to his lordship at his palace, and was minded to be much governed in my conduct by what he might say to me, remembering that I am bound to respect the office, even though I may not approve of the man; and I humbled myself before his lordship, waiting patiently for any directions which he in his discretion might think it proper to bestow on me.  But there arose up between us that very pestilent woman, his wife—­to his dismay, seemingly, as much as to mine—­and she would let there place for no speech but her own.  If there be aught clear to me in ecclesiastical matters, it is this—­that no authority can be delegated to a female.  The special laws of this and of some other countries do allow that women shall sit upon the temporal thrones of the earth, but on the lowest step of the throne of the Church no woman has been allowed to sit as bearing authority, the romantic tale of the woman Pope notwithstanding.  Thereupon, I left the palace in wrath, feeling myself aggrieved that a woman should have attempted to dictate to me, and finding it hopeless to get a clear instruction from his lordship—­the woman taking up the word whenever I put a question to my lord the bishop.  Nothing, therefore, came of that interview but fruitless labour to myself, and anger, of which I have since been ashamed.

’Since that time I have continued in my parish—­working, not without zeal, though, in truth, almost without hope—­and learning even from day to day that the opinion of men around me have declared me to be guilty of the crime imputed to me.  And now the bishop has issued a commission as preparatory to proceedings against me under the Act for the punishment for clerical offences.  In doing this, I cannot say that the bishop has been ill-advised, even though the advice may have come from that evil-tongued lady, his wife.  And I hold that a woman may be called upon for advice, with most salutary effect, in affairs as to which any show of female authority should be equally false and pernicious.  With me it has ever been so, and I have had a counsellor by me as wise as she has been devoted.’  It must be noticed that in the draft copy of his letter which Mr Crawley