299 the favourers of the plot: these were to compromise the character of the English Church by union with an undogmatic Protestantism, and also to carry on a system of proselytism against the Oriental Church. Vigorous protests were made by large numbers of the clergy, that were unnoticed, and Dr. Arnold and the Latitudinarians united with the Evangelicals were, to use a vulgarism, " cock-a-hoop." Michael Alexander, a Jew, was consecrated English Bishop of Jerusalem in 1841. This scandal shook the faith of many Churchmen, and a run of secessions to Rome began, and in 1845 Newman, Oakeley, Ward, Faber and many others, lay and clerical, despairing of the Church of England, seceded to Rome. Happily Alexander, as a thorough Jew, pocketed the money provided as his stipend, and did nothing. He was succeeded in 1846 by an equally worthless, but more mischievous Jew from Switzerland, Samuel Gobat. The exultation of the Broad and Low Churchmen was at its height. By this stroke of the Jerusalem Bishopric, they had dealt such a blow to the credit of the Church that it had led to the thinning out of the party they alike hated. The Evangelicals who had been feeding Dissent with Church folk, whom they dismissed into schism, were rubbing their hands and chuckling at the number of secessions from the party of the High Churchmen. As to the Jerusalem Bishopric, it served, as did the drunken helot exposed before the young of Lacedaemon, to dissuade from intoxication. So did this reeling and spluttering exhibition of the Anglican Church serve to shock the Eastern Church, and make it recoil from having any dealings with a Communion reeking with the fumes of Geneva, or savouring of the stale beer of Wittenberg. The scandalous story of the Jerusalem Bishopric under Gobat is now forgotten, but this is hardly the place in which to record it. The bishopric was supported by a grant of £600 per annum from the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, and a like sum was contributed by the King of Prussia, in addition to what was furnished by the English Government. During the four years of Alexander's residence in Jerusalem, he
