"To speak evil of dignities," we learn from that book which to a Christian mind is the receptacle of all truth, is to incur a weight of condemnation that Morality shrinks to meet and Virtue commands to avoid; the law of the land, also, visits with severe penalties those wilful mischargers against public officers which are calculated to excite sedition, to desecrate the course of justice, or bring into contempt the ministry of religion. When it is borne in mind, too, that a statute-law guards with peculiar jealousy the sacred office of a Bishop, construing any blow against the man to be necessarily launched at the dignity, it must be granted that we have a task of difficulty as well as delicacy before us in following up the late announcement given in this journal, and bringing before that ultimate tribunal to which right opinion has granted its powers the conduct of the Protestant Bishop of Australia, relative to the affairs of his church in Melbourne.

The inquiry which we proceed thus publicly to make originates in the assumed position of the Rev. Adam Compton Thomson as incumbent of St. James's Church, and involves the interest of two of his clerical brethren, the Rev. John Couch Grylls and the Rev. James Yelverton Wilson, who have successively preceded him in the same ministerial charge. The present incumbent we have designated, and shall prove, an interpolator. It is to him, in fact, that the acts of injustice to which we now draw attention are attributable, although partial irresponsibility as a chaplain and his personal inferiority relieve him from direct implication in the consequences of his measures.

In October, 1838, the Rev. Mr. Grylls took charge, under a license from Bishop William Grant Broughton, of the Church of England in Port Phillip, and in 1840, obtaining leave to visit England, left the colony, and his church in the temporary charge of the Rev. Mr. Wilson, who had been also appointed by the same authority to the responsible post.

During his short sojourn, Mr. Grylls had laid the foundation stone of St. James's, and had called a congregation together sincerely attached to him on account of his amiable and talented character. Finding that the principal duties which devolved upon him in forming his church were in a satisfactory train, this minister requested a leave of absence that would enable him to bring his family from England to settle for life with him, where now his worldly prospects, as well as those attached to his sacred mission, were finally centred. This request was granted, and from the manner in which the license was given to Mr. Wilson, during the incumbent's absence, we are prepared to assert that his leave of absence was unlimited. Mr. Grylls on his departure stated that the Bishop had merely wished him to limit the time to two years, and Mr. Wilson understood on receiving the vacancy that unless such absence would be unreasonably lengthened his cure would be only temporary. At the end of 1840, Mr. Wilson having fallen ill, was relieved by his own desire for three months, by the Rev. Mr. Thomson, who, when his conduct was subsequently called into question, voluntarily as well as distinctly stated that he had no expectation of remaining, and no wish to be permanently appointed; that, in fact, his license had previously been granted, for Van Diemen's Land, on his way to which cure he was directed to halt at Melbourne, and relieve the Rev. Mr. Wilson for the period appointed. But how his subsequent acts harmonised with these attestations, we shall presently have an opportunity of judging.

On the expiration of his leave, the Rev. Mr. Wilson was proceeding to resume charge of the living, when he was coolly stopped by the sub-deputy incumbent, on the plea that it required an official letter from the Bishop to authorise him to restore the cure to the former minister. In the mean time it is said that a bosom friend used such influence with certain parties, that the Right Rev. Dr. was ear whigged into keeping the Rev. Mr. Thomson in the chaplaincy until the arrival of Mr. Grylls, the first and only lawful incumbent.

Bishop Broughton, at the same time finding that the Rev. Mr. Wilson must be provided for, instructed him to proceed to Portland, in order to take charge of a district two hundred miles in length by seventy in breadth: in his new situation the minister was to perform the longest and most tedious journeys on horseback, and to preach in four different points during the month, viz., Geelong, the Pyrenees, the Grange, and Portland! a task, the accomplishment of which, taking the changes of weather, the anxiety of constant absence from home to a family man, the total want of convenience in equipage and person, would have beaten the hardiest and most famous bushranger the diocese ever produced.

We dwell upon this point to show how inconsistently the Bishop could act in depriving a man of one mission on account of his delicate health - for such was his excuse for superceding the Rev. Mr. Wilson in the ministry of St. James's - and despatching to another, where the policy on his life would have been worthless to the most speculative insurance company in the world.

At length, and only it appears as a matter of tardy justice, the Bishop yielded to the remonstrances of Mr. Wilson, consented to the Ecclesiastical division of Melbourne, and the endowment of a new church to be called St. Peter's; while the congregation of St. James's, finding the Reverend gentleman had been more fairly disposed of than it was evident he could have been by his appointment to a distant and scantily peopled district, looked forward with unmingled pleasure to the arrival of their absent pastor. Whether the party who was "keeping his place warm" for him had similar views, may be inferred probably from the handsome dwelling-house he commenced immediately to build, and the permanent manner in which he laid out the land attached to the church, together with all those little temporal matters which it may be presumed were intimately connected with his domicile and personal habits.

Two or three months passed - the Rev. Mr. Thomson was created Bishop's Commissary, an office, which is somewhat analogous to that of a Rural Dean, it was natural to infer would be attached to the chaplaincy of St. James's. We mean of course the permanent chaplaincy. Such an instance of the Bishop's favor certainly startled the friends of the Rev. Mr. Grylls's, and occasioned some misgiving as to his future intentions. The pressure, however, which was resting on men's affairs shortly detracted their minds from the event, nor were they awakened again until the Bishop's letter, which from its date appears to have been prepared for indecorous despatch, in the very hour that Mr. Grylls's nominal leave had expired, arrived in Melbourne with the startling intelligence, that the Rev. Mr. Thomson was permanently appointed to the cure of St. James's, while the Rev. Mr. Grylls was to take his departure for the discarded living of Portland Bay.

The philosophic calmness with which the former received the gift at the hands of his superior, will afford an interesting contrast to the distress and disappointment of the latter. The position of Mr. Grylls, with a lady and family (chiefly daughters) who, brought up in the lap of luxury and tenderness, have only been translated from England to follow the impaired fortune and ruder life of their parent in Australia, on the unqualified promise of his restoration to what was then considered the only centre of civilization the province could produce, has called forth at once the loud remonstrance of his flock, and this written advocacy of an admiring friend.

But such a transit from expected comfort to unlooked for hardship, will doubtless be viewed by his successor with the same patient and holy resignation that marked his conduct when suddenly transferred from a meagre stipend in Van Diemen's Land, to a fine fat living in Melbourne, with an Archdeaconry in prospectu; and if mental tranquillity afford any hopes of lengthened days, we doubt not the Rev. Gentleman will be long preserved to preach his tedious homilies to a sleepy congregation. Not the least remarkable circumstance connected with this change, will be found in the feelings of the churchgoers, when unwillingly assured that the preaching of the Rev. Mr. Grylls, remarkable alike for the taste of its composition and the purity of its evangelical doctrines, is permanently exchanged for the unimpressive truths, the graceless language of his reverend successor.

We have little to add, except that as Bishop Broughton has once done injustice on account of his favorite, and yet to some degree added the remedy, he may, for his own good name and holy office, as well as according to the fervent desire of all the members of the church in Melbourne, be induced also to do complete justice in this instance. Even then we shall neither envy the feelings of him who could see two far more worthy brethren deprived of their livings for his emolument, nor pity his remorse when returned to the humble and obscure situation for which he was alone intended.