Note 21 — SIX SUNNY MONTHS. BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC. CHAPTER XI. A MORNING WITH ST. PETER. (continued 5)

The following from the London Weekly Register may tend to show whether this doubt is reasonable or otherwise: “The vicar of St. Barnabas, Leeds, is fatigued with parochial work and wishes to take a little rest. He asks his Lordship of Ripon to let him name a clergyman who shall take his duties for a few weeks or months. His lordship replies that he cannot do so, because—but the language is too episcopal to be misquoted: 'If there is truth in the reports which, from time to time, appear in the public papers, you are in the habit of breaking what you must know to be the law.’ His Lordship of Ripon reads the papers, and, finding it inconvenient to leave his palace at Ripon and make a call upon a clergyman in Leeds, he refuses leave of absence to that clergyman, on account of newspaper reports.” The church-wardens take up their vicar’s cause, and, in a very proper “memorial,” represent the needs of his case to his paternal diocesan. But all is useless. “The law, the law,” says the bishop, and remains comfortably in his palace, while he forbids his hard-working vicar to take a holiday, though he does not even condescend to specify his offence. And yet the Anglican bishops do not apparently object to a due amount of repose for themselves, if we may judge from the fact that at the very time we write there are no fewer than fifteen of the “missionary bishops” of the Establishment who, after a few years of absence, and even these years agreeably diversified with visits to their friends in England, have returned thither “for good,” and are now settled with their wives and families in comfortable rectories at home—an arrangement more convenient for croquet-parties than “conversions.”