"Now, so far as I know, a Jew might be Lord Chancellor; most certainly he might be Master of the Rolls. The great and illustrious lawyer [Sir George Jessel] whose loss the whole profession is deploring, and in whom his friends know that they lost a warm friend and a loyal colleague; he, but for the accident of taking his office before the Judicature Act came into operation, might have had to go circuit, might have sat in a criminal court to try such a case as this, might have been called upon, if the law really be that 'Christianity is part of the law of the land' in the sense contended for, to lay it down as law to a jury, amongst whom might have been Jews,--that it was an offence against the law, as blasphemy, to deny that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, a thing which he himself did deny, which Parliament had allowed him to deny, and which it is just as much part of the law that anyone may deny, as it is your right and mine, if we believe it, to assert." Clearly then, according to the dictum of the Lord Chief Justice, it is not a crime to publish anything "to the scandal of the Christian Religion," although it was alleged against us as such in our Indictment. The only real point that can be discussed and tested is in the last clause. I do not refer to the Queen's "crown and dignity," which we were accused of endangering; for our offence could not possibly be construed as a political one, and it is hard to perceive how the Queen's dignity could be imperilled by the act of any person except herself. What I refer to is the statement that we had provoked a disturbance of the peace; a more hypocritical pretence than which was never advanced. I venture to quote here a passage from my address to the jury on my third trial before Lord Coleridge:--