A third champion entered the lists before these had been "conquered" enough to think themselves qualified "to argue still." This was a Rev. W. Riland Bedford. Indeed, he was so impatient of distinguishing himself by the honour of having once engaged with so respectable a foe, that he could not wait until Mr. Dalton was ousted. Besides, it is very likely he thought Mr. Dalton was missing fine opportunities of giving clever strokes, by spending too much time in quarrelling with the ungenerous hits of his adversary or, perhaps, he thought he did not take the proper instruments of warfare. However, he made a grand stroke, and aimed also at what he believed to be the most vulnerable, as well as the most defenceless, spot in the person of F. Spencer's system. Here we might be corrected by the _Maid of Lille_, who said, very pertly, to Mr. Spencer once: "Catholics have no systems." They have doctrines. At all events, Mr. Riland Bedford did attack F. Spencer, and lest he might lose by being single-handed, a brace of them--Revs. Messrs. M'Ghee and himself--made an onslaught on Revs. Messrs. M'Donnel and Spencer, thereby intending, of course, to make a grand breach in Popery. The subject of their letters was the treating of certain sins by our moral theologians. F. Spencer made use of the usual line of defence here, but {238} he added also an _argumentum ad hominem_. "St. Paul, in the chapter above referred to (Rom. i.), tells us that there were no sins more prevalent in his day, and none more destructive, than that grievous class of sins to which these questions relate. The afflicting experience of the pastors of the Church leads them to fear that no less awfully in these times and in this country, do habits of the like crimes make ruin of thousands of souls; and _your own recollection of the University, where, I suppose, you were educated for holy orders, must convince you that our fears are not unfounded. For what must be expected in the body of the people, when, among those who are preparing to be their pastors, at the most critical time of their life, there are so few who dare openly to withstand the prevailing fashion of iniquity, and so many who profess to despise morality and chastity as a thing to be ashamed of._" F. Spencer was tripped up in some allusions he made to a Protestant attempt at a prayer-book, of which there were two or three editions; but, since he happened not to be correct as to one edition, and to miss something about another, still, though his argument was not thereby weakened, but Rev. Mr. Riland Bedford thought it was, and so, or nearly so, the matter ended.