I had on one occasion dropt something disrespectful against bishops or a bishop,--something which, if it had been said about a clergyman, would have passed unnoticed: but my brother checked and reproved me,--as I thought, very uninstructively--for "wanting reverence towards Bishops." I knew not then, and I know not now, why Bishops, _as such_, should be more reverenced than common clergymen; or Clergymen, _as such_, more than common men.

In the World I expected pomp and vain show and formality and counterfeits: but of the Church, as Christ's own kingdom, I demanded reality and could not digest legal fictions.

I saw round me what sort of young men were preparing to be clergymen: I knew the attractions of family "livings" and fellowships, and of a respectable position and undefinable hopes of preferment.

I farther knew, that when youths had become clergymen through a great variety of mixed motives, bishops were selected out of these clergy on avowedly political grounds; it therefore amazed me how a man of good sense should be able to set up a duty of religious veneration towards bishops.

I was willing to honour a Lord Bishop as a peer of Parliament; but his office was to me no guarantee of spiritual eminence .-- To find my brother thus stop my mouth, was a puzzle; and impeded all free speech towards him.