My dear Reeve,--It is very good of you to write as you do concerning my promotion. I should indeed have been well content to remain in the peaceful harbour of Westminster for the remainder of my days, instead of putting out to sea in a rather weather-beaten bark in stormy weather. But such kind words as yours encourage me to hope that, if I am wrecked in the storm, I may be picked up by some friendly vessel and brought to land again. I have, my dear friend, your congratulations, and let me have also your prayers. I am, my dear Reeve, Yours sincerely, CHR. WORDSWORTH. [Footnote: He had not yet adopted the episcopal signature.] I send you three pamphlets. Do not think me troublesome, but you ought really to take up (pardon me for saying so) the question of the approaching great Roman Council, which will probably affirm the personal infallibility of the Pope, and be fraught with the most important results to Europe, political as well as ecclesiastical. _From Lord Cairns_ Windsor Castle, November 29th. My dear Reeve,--I send you in a separate cover my notes of a judgement in Rugg _v._ Bishop of W. for printing and circulation; and I enclose in this a letter which I have had from Lord Westbury, which is in accordance with the judgement as it stands, but which it would perhaps be best to put in print and circulate along with the judgement. I hope in a week or ten days to have Mackonochie ready--that is, if I am not smothered in the meantime by the books and pamphlets which the Ritualists daily shower upon me. Yours faithfully, CAIRNS. As the general election had left his party in a minority of about 130, Disraeli resigned on December 4th, and Mr. Gladstone, who had put the disestablishment of the Irish Church prominently before the electors, formed a ministry which was from the beginning pledged to the measure. It was known that this would meet with no support from Lord Westbury, so that he was necessarily 'left out in the cold,' not without some misgivings as to what a man so cunning in fence might say or write when his opinions were sharpened by a sense of personal injury. To Lord Westbury, however, the slight was lost in his wrath at the barefaced avowal of a plan of spoliation; and, without taking the trouble to date his letter, he wrote:-- _From Lord Westbury_ [_December_].--These written judgements are a great bore. I imagine (no doubt from vanity) that, at the end of the argument, I could have pronounced _viva voce_ a much more effective and convincing judgement than that which I have written. The _vis animi_ evaporates during the slow process of writing; the conception fades and the expression becomes feeble. What we shall do with the other case of Mackonochie I dread to think. I wish we had knocked it off while the iron was hot, as we used to do the running down cases. There is no chance of a decision this side of Christmas.