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a jury of five persons. In all these courts the evidence should be vivâ voce and the proceedings summary, and after the manner of the new County Courts. It is important in legislating upon questions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction to take care that this jurisdiction be maintained in a direction parallel to the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church. The Spiritual powers of the Church are derived from her Divine Head, and can neither be altered nor destroyed by any temporal ruler. According to her inherent constitution, the Bishops are the fountains of Spiritual Authority. By the arrangements which I propose, that ecclesiastical authority, which derives its force from the law of the state, but which gives temporal effect to the rules of the Church, would be placed in the hands of the same spiritual rulers—and thus the two powers would coincide.
3. It has been proposed to transfer all testamentary questions from the Prerogative Court and the ecclesiastical tribunals in Doctors' Commons, to the Court of Chancery, and to remove thither the whole staff of officials conversant with the business, and acquainted with the principles upon which it depends. Another suggestion has been to create a new court of mixed Common-law and Equity jurisdiction, which should act as a supreme Court in questions of probate, and should also have jurisdiction in causes of matrimony and divorce. Mr, R. P. Collier seems inclined to transfer the whole of the ecclesiastical causes to the County Court and Courts of Common law. In most of the States of
