human
that Newdegate had no right to do so either. But he went on to decide in the appellant's favour on the merits of the case, giving a long and interesting judgment. Unless maintenance were to be struck out of the law-books, said the Lord Chief Justice, Newdegate's procedure must be called maintenance; and if maintenance were to be struck out of the books, he added,
gpt
It may be my ill fortune to have to support such an action in a case in which the defendant is a man whose character is entitled to every respect, and the plaintiff is a man with whose views, openly avowed, I have no sort of sympathy. But I will not call it my 'ill fortune,' for many of the most precious judgments given by the Courts in Westminster Hall were given in favour of men who, if English justice could ever be warped by personal feeling, would certainly have failed. It is indeed an ill fortune of the case that in the minds of many the cause of religion should seem to be connected with the success or failure of a particular person, whose defeat or success is really to the cause of religion a matter of supreme indifference, but as to whom (speaking only of what has been proved before me), a course has been taken and proceedings have been pressed which, in the case of any other, would be strongly and universally condemned, and by which certainly the cause of religion has not been advanced. But my duty is simply to decide the cause according to the best opinion I can form of the law--a duty which the rules of Christian teaching make quite clear.