tion to its own composition, and to the possibility of practical remedy for the future in the way of its reform. The same phenomenon took place after the Gorham judgment, but there the aggrieved party was not so numerous as in the present instance. As we have shown, the weakness of the moral obligation of the Church to believe in the Judicial Committee is the Church's gain. The reformers of the Court of Appeal will do well to see that their most praiseworthy efforts do not end in the formation of a Court of Appeal which, while it may be strong enough to demand compliance, is yet not so strong as to secure conviction for its dicta, nor so learned as to ensure the orthodoxy of those dicta. It must never be lost sight of, that infallibility is nowhere promised to any national Church in its collective form, and still less to its selected delegates. The weak side of the present demand of course is, that it comes from the party which has, however unrighteously, been beaten. However much the plea may be ostensibly and honestly one for a Letter form of Appellate Court, the subaudito, will always be felt, 'and one which may one of these days undo Lord Westbury's mischief.' If a new Court accordingly could be formed, and if it should happen some day to have to reconsider the same questions, and that the improved tribunal were to discover that Lord Westbury had so cunningly fenced round his dicta as to leave them formally unassailable in law, the Church indeed might, as a formal corporation, be the better for its new Court, but the authority of Lord Westbury's aberrations would be strengthened. We hope from the bottom of our heart that the intimations so plentifully cast about, of making this new Court a hustings' cry, and of strengthening that cry by general discussions of the deep doctrines involved in the Chancellor's report, were merely the strong ejaculations of wounded feeling. To those who appreciate how awfully solemn these questions are, and who have any acquaintance with the moral quality of electioneering, even at the best, the notion was indescribably painful. Even if such a cry were to succeed, its success would have been secured by throwing treasures, which ought for ever to have been reverently guarded, into the mire of the crowded street; it would have been an attempt to bolster up authority by an appeal to the most ignorant and most democratic form of mere opinion. Whispers, also, have occasionally been heard of a 'Free Church,' in default of a new Court. We are convinced that the idea has no more vitality about it than the similar one in 1850. In the mean while, its ventilation is an unmixed misfortune, especially when supported by gentlemen so sanguine as those who expect to be allowed to carry their Churches over with them.
