drugs, we didn't mind, but didn't get involved either”. There was no way of reconciling those two answers; one or other had to be false. And the jury, as they usually do when faced with falsehood, convicted. Cromwell' s tactics at Dunbar, with his flank attack which decided the battle, may have inspired the plan; but it all depended on the correctness of a judgment of character. In this situation the great truths of the Church: the virgin birth, the crucifixion, the resurrection, or if you like, the incarnation, the atonement, and the redemption, have no influence or ability to inspire. Nor would one expect them to be relevant in the world of conflict. Nor can the clergy offer any advice or comment on the way I conducted this, or any other case; the most they could say is, “Do not do anything to your enemy, which would prevent you being reconciled with him eventually”. They are not in a position to comment on what happens in court, nor on the administrative arrangements for listing cases, nor on the substantive law because this depends so much on practice, beyond the comments which a man in the street might make. Sometimes the man in the street has a most pertinent comment to make; but these occasions are rare.
We are all in the same position. Nobody can sensibly comment on any discipline outside his own, unless he has made a special study of it. There are obvious dangers in talking in public of things one knows nothing about. So although I am not against the Church being involved in politics; clearly she should be; yet some of the pronouncements of her representatives make it difficult to know whether to laugh, or cry. Having said this, there are many parish parsons who are saints; I know some of them. But if the Church, as a body, is once more to be influential in society, she must be able to bring about changes in society for the better. If she is to do more than tinker or paper over the cracks, the attempt must be to change relationships between people, not to try to change people's outward conduct, by offering advice which she is ill-…