But the practice is usually resorted to by others, as it seems to have been by yourself, under an impression that the publication is in some way or other “important to their own defence.” {3c} You would however, and naturally enough, persuade yourself that yours is “a very different case,” a case “relating strictly to a _public question_, one affecting the whole Church, and indeed all Christians in the nation.” {3d} I will not stay to enquire whether viewing it in this light, the voice of the Church ought not to have been heard above your own. But I must think that something more than you have advanced is requisite to constitute a public question, and enable us to see the difference between your own case and that of others, “who publish correspondence on matters _relating merely to themselves_.” It is true that your case has been publicly discussed in parliament, and so has the case of many another individual; but I must think a distinction is to be drawn between a person dragging his own affairs before the public and a public affair; and any weight that you would attach to the discussion you allude to, as giving to your case the character and importance of a public question, may perhaps be lessened by a consideration of the manner in which that discussion was brought about. The Bishop of Lincoln rose, not to the question, but “at the particular desire of the Rev. Mr. Wodehouse,” wishing to have his case brought into notice; the Bishop of Norwich said that he “should not have risen, had not the name of the Rev. Mr. Wodehouse been introduced;” and the Bishop of London “would not have entered into the discussion, had it not been for some observations which had escaped from the Bishop of Norwich.” _No temporal Peer rose_. Strictly relating then as you would consider your case to be a public question, there appeared but little indication of its being so considered by the House of Lords, and as to the opinion of the clergy, the Bishop of Lincoln observed, “I am not aware that any general desire for such alterations exists, on the contrary, I believe, that never did the great body of the clergy deprecate more strongly any change in the Articles and Liturgy than at the present moment.” The discussion however seems not a little to have disquieted you—but having raised the whirlwind, though you have failed to guide it—ought you not to have been less impatient of the storm? Leniter ex merito quicquid patiare ferendum est.