Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), February 22, 1845, vol. 1, no. 8, p. ??

[page 125, column 2, continued:]

LITERARY NOTICES.

A REPLY TO PART OF THE BISHOP’S STATEMENT. By John Jay, one of the counsel originally employed by the presenting Bishop. Stanford & Swords, 139 Broadway.

We have no expectation that Mr. Jay's pamphlet will be the last which the unhappy trial of Bishop Onderdonk will call forth, but it is the last one that we shall notice in our Journal. The Bishop and his friends appear to hate acted with little wisdom in giving notoriety to the particulars of his singular case. It is greatly to be lamented that the public mind should have bet n so disturbed by the controversies growing out of this trial; it was a matter which concerned the Episcopal Church alone, and the seemingly deep interest which the public have evinced in regard to it, arises from a pure love of gossip, heightened by the supposed immoralities which were to be revealed. The harm done to the community by filling the minds of the young with filthy details of scandalous transactions, and exciting their passions by the bitter personalities of men who are looked upon as heralds of peace, is greater, we fear, than the good which many Bishops will be likely to effect in many years.

Mr. Jay's pamphlet was called out by a rather direct insinuation against him, in one of the Bishop's communications to the public, which he could not well let go unnoticed. His reply is temperate, respectful and dignified. He has certainly succeeded in freeing himself from any charge of improper conduct or motives in the part he took towards procuring the presentment of the Bishop; or in procuring witnesses after the presentment had been made. It seems to be a difficult matter, according to Mr. Jay's Statement, to please the Bishop and his friends. They complain as loudly against those who neglected to make charges against him as against those who did. Considering the vantage ground which Mr. Jay occupies, we cannot [page 126:] but commend the forbearance and christianlike spirit which induced the excedingly [[exceedingly]] moderate and forgiving tone of his reply. It would have been better for all parties, if all who have felt themselves bound to come before the public with their views and facts had manifested the same spirit.