The following analysis of the Church Missionary Land Question was published about eighteen months ago, as a series of letters to the Southern Cross; and may be fitly prefaced, in its present form, by what were originally the concluding paragraphs.

The reason for its having been given piecemeal, in the columns of a newspaper, is that ample opportunity of detecting accidental error should be afforded to those who are conversant with the subject. I am indeed most anxious that it should be subjected to the severest scrutiny, in order that if injustice should unwarily have been done, the means of repairing that injustice might be afforded me. Viewed in this light, whatever may be the result of such scrutiny—whether in favour of the statement or against it, I shall consider myself the gainer.

But there is reason to fear that this satisfaction will not be obtained. Those who have supported the Bishop against the Grantees decline to examine the statement; some of them even to read it. They may have taken the more prudent, but surely not the more high-minded part. They seem to consider themselves as having fulfilled their whole duty in keeping guard over their own assertions, careless of error obtaining currency in the world, if they be not personally responsible for its origin. Is it left for me to remind them that there are two distinct classes of truth tellers?—those who search out for the sake of truth; and those who restrict themselves to truth, merely because it is wrong to tell untruth.

There is yet time for election between these two classes to be made.

Election has indeed been made, but not as could have been wished. Those had been mainly instrumental to the oppression of their own brethren, and others who did not scruple to condemn unheard, have persisted in declining to accept, or to impugn my proofs, taking pattern from those who refused to look at the satellites of Jupiter through the telescope of Galileo. Yet it might have been expected that so long as the shadow of an argument could be adduced against themselves, or in favour of the accused, they would have felt bound in conscience to examine it with the most anxious care, lest they should have been unwittingly promoters of a wrong.

Many additions are made, but no material alterations, for none have been required. And if some of the arguments be drawn out to a greater length than is necessary for simple proof—by which a certain inelegance of demonstration is involved—the excuse is in those to whom they are addressed. For the Church page II Missionary Society has manifested such obtuseness of perception, such an incapacity to appreciate the absolutely conclusive reasoning with which Archdeacon William Williams supported his appeal from the Resolutions of 1849, that the leading points of the question have been presented in various forms, to increase the chances of their being understood.

It is also proper to state, that this task was undertaken upon public grounds alone—for the abatement of a great mischief—mero motu, without even consulting the wishes of any party concerned. All questions have been freely answered by the Grantees, all documents unreservedly supplied; but I alone am responsible for the execution of the work. On the same grounds,—as a duty to the colony,—I shall never cease to press the question, until that thorough investigation which the accused have sought so long in vain shall have been conceded by the Society. And this concession must of necessity be made at last. For the Grantees are steadily gaining strength : the ranks of their allies are being recruited, day by day; and the case being without a flaw, every convert gained is a convert secured.