Untitled - Electric Scotland

1849-53] OPPOSITION TO THE COMMISSION 161
Lord, make me more to realise that in this too I have Thy work
to do. Give me more of a spiritual mind, for Jesus Christ s sake."
In his letters to Mrs. Tait he recounts step by step
the progress of their work :
"
$ist October 1850.- ... To-day we received several im
portant letters. A thundering one from the Bishop of Exeter, 1
declaring that he would oppose us to the death, was far outweighed
by the Archbishop of Canterbury s letter promising to help us to
the utmost. The Duke of Wellington merely acknowledged our
letter."
During the following spring and summer they
had to
face incessant opposition. A fresh attempt was made to
test the legality of the Commission, and four eminent
lawyers 2 on a case laid before them by the University
formally pronounced their opinion
"
that the Commission
1 This letter, which may be taken as a specimen of the kind of opposition
which the Commissioners had to face, is as follows :
"
BISHOPSTOWE, October 30, 1850.
"Mv LORD, I yesterday had the honour of receiving a letter from you
on the part of Her Majesty s Commissioners. ... I had hoped to be spared
the necessity of saying anything on the subject of this Commission ; but thus
called upon officially to become a party in the execution of it, I should be
guilty of a culpable dereliction of my duty if I were to forbear expressing my
sentiments. ... I cannot see without the deepest concern and astonishment
the name of our present gracious Sovereign used by her advisers to *
authorise
and empower your Lordship and your colleagues to institute an inquisition
which no precedent could justify, and which, ... as relates to the venerable
bodies which are now concerned, has had absolutely no parallel since the fatal
attempt of King James II. to subject them to his unhallowed control. It is
under the solemn conviction that your Lordship, and the other eminent persons
who have consented to act on the Commission, have no right whatever to call
before you any members of the College of which I am Visitor, . . . that I shall
require the Rector, Fellows, and other members to weigh well all the injunc
tions of their Statutes before they can feel themselves at liberty to testify any
deference to your authority. Especially I shall enjoin them, under the sacred
obligation of their oaths, to beware how they permit themselves to answer
any inquiries, or to accept any directions or interference whatsoever which
may trench upon that visitatorial authority which their Statutes, under the
known law of the land, have intrusted solely to the Bishop of this See. . . .
Your Lordship s most obedient servant, H. EXETER."
(Vide Report > Appendix B, p. 7.)
-(. J. Turner, Richard Bethell, Henry S. Keating, J. R. Kenyon. On
VOL. I. L