er

"In the days when we went gipsying, a long time ago." Or, if our vacation rambles have carried us so far South as to the noble Pont du Gard, we may have witnessed, crouched in the shadows of that beautiful fragment of the Roman aqueduct, precisely the same squalid encampment, and gaunt swarthy-limbed group we might any day alight upon on some roadside sward of Hertfordshire or Surrey, identity of dialect proving the affinity; and have so, perhaps, acquired a confused doubt whether Bohemia or Egypt were the original fatherland of these mysterious wanderers. The latter fallacy, derived from the name Gipsy, seems to have prevailed at the time of the Oxford Newdegate of 1837. But the author, an honoured Professor of that University, could now probably throw stronger and more authentic light upon the subject. In his youthful prize poem he conjectures, that-

66 in yonder chief of tattered vest
Glows the same blood that warmed a Pharaoh's breast,
And in the fiery eye, the haughty mien,
The tawny hue of yonder gipsy Queen,
Still dwells the light of Cleopatra's charms,

The winning grace that roused the world to arms.
Lo, Mizraim's kingcraft, of its glory reft,
Is shrunk to petty deeds of midnight theft!
Lo, Egypt's wisdom only lives to pry
Through the dark arts of paltry palmistry!"

We believe that this theory has long since been exploded. Ethnologists now trace the language, the physical lineaments, the traditional habits of the gipsies, to the regions of High Asia, where irregular castes of the aboriginal population are still nomades, encamping in low woollen tents, and practising the hereditary art of tinkers. Their deportation into Europe is attributed to an event no less distinguished in medieval history than the Indian crusades of Timour. At the beginning of the fifteenth century they "knocked at the gates of awe-struck Christendom," evidently as fugitives from the persecution and tyranny of the sword. Their appearance in these islands must have been as sudden and unaccounted for as those "famous waters" of which Camden, quoting Walter of Hemingburgh and William of Newborough, tells us that they "spring from the earth at several sources," and from unknown springs, and are commonly called Vipseys, or Gipseys, in the North country. Hence, it is a plausible conjecture, the identity of name.

Is it not a thing almost incredible that they have now for centuries been naturalized in England without (so far as we are acquainted) any extensive systematic attempt having ever once been made, on the part of the National Church, to convert them from their hereditary heathenism and ungodliness? Partial efforts, at intervals, of a private nature, and on a very limited scale, have resulted in a mere modicum of success. We are informed, on the authority of one who has made inquiry into their habits and traditions his study for many years, that their number in England at this time must be between 18,000 and 20,000, and of these about 2,000 perhaps, at most, make any profession of Christianity. The rest are said to be singuJarly destitute of even natural religion, and are certainly

without any definite formulary or creed. Now, at a time when our universities are clubbing together to send missions. to the heathen beyond British territory, and individuals are founding Bishops' sees, and expedients, good, bad, and indifferent, are being devised every day to supplement our parochial system in the several deficiencies indicated at the opening of this article, we do hope that philanthropy and enthusiasm will before long turn our zeal in the direction of these poor heathen gipsies. A soul is a soul anywhere, and not more valuable in Central Africa or Melanesia than when perishing close before the eyes of our National Church. These other works of charity most unquestionably ought to be done, but not so as to leave this immediate and pressing duty undone. Our conduct in regard to this and some other proximate responsibilities almost belies the sentiment of the elder Wilberforce, in his Practical Christianity, when pleading for foreign missions, that we are more affected by the prick of a pin and the consequent scream in the next room, than on hearing of whole villages on the continent carried off by earthquake, or by some that public interest was a good deal excited by the account barbarous massacre in China. It is not many weeks since Lee, which went the round of the newspapers. We wish of the death and burial of a young gipsy girl, Lepronia we had grounds for hoping that the opportunity was followed up, and did not evaporate in mere sentiment. It is time that the Lees, the Lovels, the Stanleys, and the other times, should cease to be the same sort of poetical and imfamilies of the tribe, whose names come across us somepersonal abstractions as Meg Merrilees, or Bamfylde Moore Carew. Perhaps no object of what is called a Home Mission has been so thoroughly overlooked by our Church authorities and societies as this; not even those who, in one sense, are our forefathers in the true faith, God's ancient people resident among us, and whom we seem almost content to leave in their spiritual alienation, impeded, rather than not, by the miserable machinery which alone has been invented to attempt their conversion.

We commend the whole subject to the Additional Curates' Society, within whose special province it seems to fall, and to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which might well devote some of its abundant funds in this direction. We commend it, also, to the Convocations of the two Provinces, which will find no part of their proper work at least more popular and acceptable than devising some sufficient locus penitentia for plain duties such as this, hitherto neglected by the Church of the country; and the remedy of which neglect, we will add, would be easy and inexpensive.

Innkeepers.

E have for a long time thought that innkeepers and publicans are a very much misunderstood and misjudged class of people. They are not uncommonly even shunned by serious persons, as if, from the very nature of their calling, almost necessarily irreligious and ungodly men. For the same reason too, we suppose it is that, compared with other parishioners, they are seldom visited by their own clergymen at home; and being too often kept away from a place of public worship by incessant occupations, they have less frequent opportunities than most others of learning their Christian duties, or, so far as regards a proper observance of the one great day in seven, which is an Englishman's summary of religion, of performing them; yet, notwithstanding the manifest temptations and disadvantages which undoubtedly beset their worldly calling, we would maintain against the common prejudice on the subject to which we have alluded, that very few positions in life afford so many or better opportunities of serving God faithfully, and exercising active charity towards our fellow-Christians, by preventing evil with good influence and advice, than theirs does. We own, indeed, that we share with the holy

worthy of imitation. There are black sheep of course which are the scandal of every profession; but not more in this, we believe, than in any other. On one occasion, when light conversation was going on after a meal, inn

He used to say, for example, that he knew of no state of life in which there were more ways of serving God in one's neighbour, and of doing works worthy of heaven, because it is a business which has for its object the practice of the several works of mercy, although those who do them are paid for their work, just the same as physicians also are. He pointed out that innkeepers give up their own rest to procure the rest of others, that they are only as servants in their own houses, that they have to endure the caprices, the insolence, the murmurs, and the passions of a multitude of persons of various tempers; that they are obliged to submit to contempt and insult, to watch while others sleep, often to give up their own bed to strangers, to be as closely fastened to their own houses as statues to their niches, to have no hour to themselves either by night or by day, to be continually on foot, in the midst of noise and bustle, and yet with the impossibility of pleasing everybody, let them wish it ever so much.

Certainly, there is thus set before them every day the fairest possible field for the exercise of the chiefest Christian graces, patience, humility, and love. And we can readily believe that if this saint, who had such sweet and gentle manners, had himself exercised such a business, he would have carried it out to great perfection. Indeed, he sometimes remarked that the very duties which are enjoined upon bishops are especially applicable to Christian innkeepers, viz. to be vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, not given to wine, no striker, not guilty of filthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; that the keepers of our inns and public houses ought to make a point of trying to practise conduct like this, and to regard their calling with due honour according to the dignity thereof, as a means of exercising Christian "hospitality towards Christian guests; that they should sanctify its duties by associating them with that Inn at Bethlehem in which there was ་ no room" once found for a blessed Babe and a poor Virgin Mother on a cold Christmas morning; or with that other, where a wounded half dead sufferer was lodged by a good Samaritan, with the promise that when he came again, he would amply repay all charitable charges; and therefore they should always open their heart wide in "entertaining strangers," lest there might be One, greater than an angel, coming unawares in some guise or other, and knocking at it, but through moroseness and inhospitality might once more find "no room."

Every profession, indeed, may be entered upon in a religious spirit, and made an opportunity of serving God and of doing good to our fellow-men; but some more than others, and perhaps none more than this. We have noticed, however, that those which are especially capable of a holy and religious use, such as a soldier's, for example, or a medical man's, are at the same time more than others also subject to certain temptations leading to the neglect of God and religion; and this is true of an innkeeper's and publican's especially, if followed only for its worldly and selfish ends. Still the office for its own sake is worthy of respect, and the frequent abuse of it may in many instances be in no small measure owing to the prejudice of serious and religious people to which we have adverted. An experienced parish priest once told us that he always made a point of paying particular attention to the inns and publichouses under his pastoral charge whether in town or country; that more often than not he found the landlords themselves good fellows at the bottom, capable of enlistment in the Church's service, that they made capital churchwardens, and that he partly "worked" at the worst of his parishioners through them. We commend the thought to the attention of our clerical readers; the example may be

pressed his opinion of them, one said that inns were veritable robbers' caves, and that most innkeepers were but tolerated thieves. This discourse displeased the good bishop, as might be seen by the change of his countenance, but as the place and time were not suitable for grave reproof, he contented himself with an indirect remonstrance by relating the following capital story :

"A Spanish pilgrim, whose purse was not very heavy, arrived at an inn where, after having been treated ill enough, they charged him so dearly for the little he had had, that he called heaven and earth to witness the wrong that was done him. Nevertheless, he was compelled to pay all that was asked from him, because he was the weaker party. He went out of the inn in great anger, and having remarked that there was another inn opposite, and that a crucifix stood in the midst of the space between the two, he cried out, Verily, this place is a Calvary where our Lord is crucified between two thieves! The master of the inn in which he had not lodged happened to be then standing at his door. He came forward and asked the pilgrim what wrong he had done him to deserve so injurious The pilgrim replied, without being disconcerted, 'Hold your peace, hold your peace, you shall be the good

a title.

thief.""

After having told this story, the saintly bishop went on to apply it by saying that this pilgrim had made him an ingenious repartee, which satisfied the man to whom he spoke; but, however, that we ought carefully to avoid blaming indiscriminately and generally any nation or any profession whatsoever, because, though no particular person may be named, yet the members of that country and profession feel themselves involved in the censure and are naturally aggrieved. We will here leave our readers to apply the moral to themselves.

Dilapidations.

WO Bills have been of late introduced into the House of Lords on the subject of Ecclesiastical Dilapidations. The one, in 1861, by the Bishop of London. A second, in this session, by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Of the lay peers, Lord Dungannon seems to have taken the strongest interest in these attempts at legislation, by continuously urging the prelates to attend to so important a matter. We may dismiss the first Bill without further remark than that it was so much encumbered with machinery, and general taxation of the clergy, as to be inadmissible; and appeared not to deal with episcopal and prebendal houses in the same manner as with the parsonages of the clergy. In respect of episcopal houses this is a capital fault of Bill No. 2 also. cond Bill alone requires present attention.

The se

The law as it has hitherto stood is, beyond doubt, most uncertain and burthensome. On the decease of an incumbent his successor claims a sum adequate to put the glebe premises, &c. in full repair. There is no generally received interpretation of the meaning of full repair. Two valuers are usually appointed, one on each side. These often differ most widely, having no common rule of action. Then, perhaps, there is an umpire. Hence a multiplication of expense, even if there shall be no question at law. In the meantime the heir or assign of the deceased is often in a very unprovided state as to money. Most frequently it is a widow, and she frequently with a dependent family, little able to pay any heavy demand, and generally unequal to contest one. Again, it happens not very rarely that the deceased incumbent leaves really no assets at all, in which case the whole costs of repair must fall on the successor. And should that successor be suddenly cut off by death,

his assigns are subject to the demand, although such deficiencies of repair were not incurred by his neglect. There is another difficulty where an appointment does not take place pretty close on a vacancy. A few months of nonhabitation often subject a building to many injuries and accidents; and the nominal custody by churchwardens, often residing far from a parsonage, is seldom of much service. There is no lapse by time to the presentations by the Crown, and these intermediate dilapidations may fall most unfairly on the assigns of the deceased. The late Lord Eldon often left his patronage, especially of small benefices, unexercised for nearly two years. This was not from dilatory habits, but the desire, as he is known to have expressed it, that certain back-revenues, which would be collected by the wardens, should accrue to his presentee, to assist him in commencing residence. It was a mistake, inefficacious often as to the intent, and injurious in many ways, while it sadly augmented dilapidation difficulties. It is not likely to occur again to any extent, but may act unfavourably at times in degree, and be held as one cause why improved law is required.

Again, it is really almost inconceivable how great the differences are in these post-mortem valuations. A widow can ofttimes form no possible conjecture whether a claim against her may amount to forty or four hundred pounds. Surveyors employed are often country-town builders, who never were called to such special duty before. One of these will declare a new roof to be necessary, while another will deem that the present one will keep out the weather a good quarter of a century at the cost of some new oak laths and a few hundred tiles. Some will adjudge that there is a general dry-rot throughout a house, while his opponent decides that the dripping from some illguttered roof has alone rotted the ends of some sleepers of a floor, which may be easily replaced. In proof of this there is an instance where dilapidations were assessed at 250l. The money was paid to the in-coming rector, but he held the benefice for a very short time and did not lay it out. His successor demanded a new valuation, and the new surveyor, who was ignorant of the previous valuation, placed the sum of 721. only as necessary for repairs. So much had these premises improved by neglect. Indeed, there is no real compulsion at present upon any incumbent to expend the money he has received in any given number of years.

It is undeniable that such a state of things demands. some adjustment. It is also plain that a very small part of such anomalies can be done away with, unless repairs are either done or provided for durante vitâ of an existing incumbent.

The Archbishop's Bill is founded on this principle. There are to be regularly surveyors elected by certain clerical officials for each diocese, perhaps for each archdeaconry would be better. They are to sign declarations as to certain rules of conduct. They can have no interest whatever in any works to be executed. But the act itself is not to affect any existing incumbents, unless at their own request; a provision introduced, probably, because from want of habit many persons object to that which they conceive an intrusion-a compulsory inspection of their premises. To this exception we should greatly demur, were it not that we believe a very large majority will embrace the opportunities afforded by such inspection to place their pecuniary affairs in a more assured and arranged state for their families. They have the permissive use of all the purposes of the Bill. The surveyor will report on ordinary and extraordinary repairs required. The ordinary to be executed by the incumbent : the extraordinary (those not arising from neglect) by charge on the benefice, and money borrowed from the bounty fund, much as under Gilbert's Act for building glebe-houses.

The surveyor will state the necessary repairs, and specify a time for the execution, but there is admission of a referee if there is any dispute. The cost of inspection as to ordinary repairs to be borne by the incumbent; as to extraordinary ones, by charge on the benefice. A certificate of due execution by the surveyor clears all liability

for repairs for five years (seven or ten years would be preferable, as frequent inspections are inconvenient), but the incumbent must insure from fire and flood, &c. Such are the more general provisions of the Archbishop's Bill, which certainly meets most of the difficulties of the existing law. There should be some option between repairing and depositing the valuation-money of such repairs, in one or more sums. And there are certain occasions when the incumbent must have the choice of postponing surveyor's visit, or execution of works, such as age, household sickness, impossibility of residence during repair, &c. But all this may, by the present Bill, be obtained from the bishop on cause shown.

If a rule for tenantable repair cannot be placed exactly before a surveyor, it would seem reasonable that that which would be held as such by him for any other house for a term of seven, or perhaps fourteen, years might be a fair guide for his valuation. The question between fixed salaries for surveyors, or, as in the Bill, payment by those who require their services, might be settled at their election. The last seems preferable, as regular yearly demands savour of a regular taxation.

reason.

This leads to another remark on the matter of expense. The clergy generally are somewhat sore on the subject or registration and some other fees; nor are they so without good Diocesan registrars in most cases act by deputy. They enjoy certain sinecure incomes, as they may fairly be termed, and employ, at a salary, some official about a cathedral to perform their duties for them. Hence it is that the largest proportion of them have been near relatives or dependants of existing or deceased prelates, as, indeed, their names so often testify. It is obvious that the returns which would be sufficient to remunerate the deputy would provide for the real expenses of the office. But the charges of that office produce indeed a heavy multiple of any such sum. The clergy feel this, and often express it. It has been pressed upon them also very much by registration and other unnecessary charges at consecrations. These have been remedied, but partially only, and in some dioceses : in others not at all. The defence of the officials has been weak. It has been urged that diminished charges are virtually an income-tax on their office. Whereas within

a quarter of a century there were scarcely any church-consecrations at all, so that the very numerous ones celebrated of late years have, at any fee, been a sure augmentation to their revenue. The common expression used is"why so much machinery?" Some registration will no doubt be necessary as documentary evidence as to facts, but after restraining that as much as possible, let there be a certain definite small fee established for each act of registration, and generally circulated, as well as the notice by whom it is payable, whether by incumbent or surveyor, or whatever other person. In this there should be no reference whatever to the accustomed charges for other acts in the same registry. That which will pay a clerk for the trouble should be the measure of the expense.

It is impossible to keep the dilapidation question altogether distinct from that of the pecuniary difficulties of too many of the clergy, arising from insufficient revenues on their benefices. They must often act upon each other. This leads to the question whether inadvertently, and no doubt with the best intentions, both legislators and bishops have not pushed the erection of parsonage-houses, and, indeed, the celebration of Divine service twice on the Sunday, somewhat too far in many instances. There is no question but that wherever the endowments in any parish, however small the population, are sufficient for the support of an educated man in a respectable although humble style, the parishioners have a just claim to a resident incumbent in a

glebe-house, and the full double services of the Church regularly performed. But where such endowments are obviously insufficient for such an end, and where the population is also very limited, (let us suppose under two or three hundred persons,) where is the justice or wisdom of such a requirement? No possible amount of Church revenue can supply an income for an educated man for every three hundred persons.

Besides, a small population in the country and a small area are usually coincident; and if there should be no parsonage and no resident pastor, while the duties are performed by one who has partial duties elsewhere, the parishioner will be often far nearer to his pastor in the neighbouring parish, than many an inhabitant of an extensive parish, residing in one of its out-hamlets, is to his own parochial and resident minister. These remarks are caused by personal observation of many small incomes combined with very small populations. Houses have been built in them the sustentation of which is very onerous, and the future dilapidations on which may be very grievous, and hence a necessary extension has taken place in the numbers of the poor clergy, for whom not much external aid can be expected, when the populous districts of towns have such heavier claims on our attention. We cannot easily recall what has been done in these cases, as far as houses are concerned, but we may be cautious how we extend the evil both as bearing on all dilapidation enactments, and the poverty of too many of the clergy. How many, too, of the more liberally endowed incumbents with numerous parishioners would be able to afford themselves the aid of an assistant-curate for part of their duties, if the expense incident on such appointment was lightened by certain limited duties to be performed by their curate within a short distance in other small peopled parishes, where a single Sunday service, performed alternately on mornings and afternoons or evenings, would suffice.

As an appurtenance to dilapidations a certain rule must be established as to fixtures of freehold, that is, those which cannot be charged to a successor, and those saleable to him or others. The Bill does not notice this, any more than a definition of repairs, but in this there would be no difficulty in naming certain articles, and mode of fixture, making them more or less removable. There have been unpleasant disagreements, and, indeed, law-suits, from this cause, which may now be easily extinguished.

The Bicentenary.

HE Liberation Society made a great blunder when it let slip that it looked upon the Abolition of Church-rate only as a step towards the separation of Church and State. Your average Englishman was just getting so tired of the worry, that he was willing to give up Church-rate for the sake of peace and quietness. But as soon as he was told that it was a question, not of crotchetty consciences, nor even of unwilling pockets, but of the maintenance of "the Establishment," Mr. Miall's chance was gone.

We believe the Society has made a blunder equally great in directing public attention to the Nonconformist secession of 1662. Your average Englishman is really very little acquainted with the political, and still less with the ecclesiastical, history of his own nation; and the difficulty is how to insense him. He will not read anything of the sort which is longer than a magazine article, or a pamphlet; and even that must be light and piquant, or he cannot pull through it. The very thing we wanted, in the present condition of political and ecclesiastical questions, was to induce people to study the history of the Great Rebellion; but though it would not have been easy to persuade a dozen men in the kingdom to sit down and study history, what we could not do the Liberation Society has unintentionally done for us. By proposing a commemoration of the closing scene of that instructive portion of our national and ecclesiastical annals, it has attracted public curiosity to the whole subject. The public curiosity is being gradually satisfied, after its own fashion, by newspaper articles, pamphlets, lectures, &c. The present generation of Englishmen are becoming pretty familiar with the great political and religious experiments which our forefathers made two hundred years ago; and we need nothing more to ensure their attach

ment to our existing constitution in Church and State. It is a little curious, by the way, that just when the Church had ceased to commemorate Charles, King and Martyr, and to celebrate the 29th of May as a Church festival, the Liberation Society should have come forward to confer the doubtful honour of sectarian canonization upon the 2000 Confessors, and should proclaim a festival for the celebration of Nonconformity. But thus it is, when we cease to keep truth in mind, falsehood steps at once into its place. We do not mean to say that the Liberation Society had an eye to the coincidence. We believe that they had not very carefully considered either the antecedents or the consequences of their Bicentenary Commemoration. We are more inclined to believe the honest truth to be, that the whole thing was done a little hurriedly, and without much thought. The politico-religious party, of whom Mr. Miall is the hero, had been losing ground lately. They were very much in want of some pretext for rallying their adherents, and stirring up the people. It occurred to somebody that the Act of Uniformity was passed in 1662, and this was 1862; and the happy thought flashed across his mind of a Bicentenary Commemoration. What a capital text for a renewed agitation! and then what telling "cries" to go to the country with "Black Bartholomew !" with all its associations of Protestant massacre clinging vaguely about it. Two Thousand Confessors of Nonconformity! Martyrs of the persecuting spirit of the Church! Heroes of civil and religious liberty! We have no doubt it seemed a brilliant idea when it was suggested at a "Liberation " conclave, and was eagerly snatched at. See how many

birds this trap will catch! First, there are the religious Dissenters. They had been looking very coldly lately at the political clique which needed them as tools; but they would be sure to rally round the old Nonconformist Divines. The Low Church and the High Church had been laying aside prejudices, drawing closer together, and working energetically for the common cause. This revival of the old Puritan secession would sow fresh discord between them. There is a party seeking an alteration of the Liturgy; and another, a relaxation of clerical subscriptions; and many, of all parties, are craving for union. The Bicentenary Commemoration would hold out points of affinity to them all. The prospect really did look very hopeful; but everything has turned out just the opposite of their hopes. The religious Dissenters look very coldly on the new agitation. A glance at the history of the Great Rebellion may perhaps have reminded them how, in those days, the politico-religious party, which is very accurately represented now by the Liberation Society, made tools of the parliamentary Puritan party, of which the religious dissenters may be considered the modern representatives. They decline to accept Mr. Miall's lead. Some of their leading teachers have publicly declared against it. Even Mr. Spurgeon repudiates it. And the Morning Advertiser gives a long article against it in which are a few gems worth culling:-"The Dissenters of the Liberation Society would be the greatest tyrants in Christendom over men's consciences, if they possessed the necessary civil power. . . There is no denying the fact that Dissent is rapidly declining in England. And we verily believe that this Bicentenary movement was all that was wanting to precipitate its dissolution."

The Society took for granted that the "Evangelical" clergy would join them in doing this honour to the "Nonconformist Divines." It seems to have had a sort of expectation that, if properly worked, they might even be led to imitate their illustrious example. At least, they would be got to loggerheads with their High Church brethren; and that would be no small advantage to the assailants of the "Establishment." But it has not answered. Evangelical clergy are simply indignant at the way in which their dissenting brethren are treating them. And just as the Romish aggression drove back a number of people whose sympathies were leading them out of the sober limits of the Church of England in that direction, so this Bicentenary seems very likely to repel a number of

The

people whose sympathies have strayed out of bounds in the other direction; and the Church will be helped thereby to union for the great work of completing and extending her organization, recovering the people to her fold, and carrying forth the standard of her Lord among the heathen nations of the world, which are being so wonderfully opened up to her evangelical enterprise.

It would seem, then, that this move of the Liberation Society politicians tends only to scatter discord among earnest dissenters, and to draw the clergy into compacter union. What success have the clap-trap "cries" of the new agitation met with among the multitude? Well, even here it has been signally unsuccessful. The Society's agents have not been permitted to confine attention to the concluding act of the great drama of the Rebellion, and to put their own interpretation upon it. Church people have come forward to say, we were willing to let by-gones be by-gones; but if those old troubles are to be brought to light, let us have the whole story, and let it be fairly told. This appeal to the English sense of fairness is proving eminently successful. The people's curiosity is excited, and they are willing to hear both sides. It is our own fault now if we do not make the people of England so thoroughly acquainted with the leading points of the history as will fortify them against the democratic agitators and religious demagogues, and attach them more firmly than ever to our existing constitution in Church

and State.

Already a good deal has been done by newspaper articles, by pamphlets, and by Mr. Bardsley's capital popular lectures. As the 24th of August approaches, no doubt the discussion will become more general, and will wax warmer; and we will take leave to suggest a few of the salient points which it seems to us should be specially kept in view by those who take a part in the discussion on the side of the Church.

Let the whole history be fairly sketched. In its simple facts lies the most complete and overwhelming reply to the moral which the Liberation Society desires to draw from its Bicentenary of "Black Bartholomew." But there are certain points to be made emphatic in order to produce a strong and permanent impression upon an or dinary popular audience.

The first point is the ejection and persecution of the Bishops, Dignitaries, and Clergy of the Church, the Heads, Fellows, and Scholars of the Universities, and the Masters of Schools, to the number of 8000 or thereabouts, during the early part of the Rebellion. The Dissenters call the secession of the Nonconformists an act of cruel persecution; let it be shown what a religious persecution in those days really was. Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy will afford an abundance of interesting cases; and we are glad to see that an abstract of that rather rare old book is just published. We are quite sure that all this will be perfectly new to many, who will be very much astonished to find that the Church of England has this second volume of the book of martyrs, in which Presbyterians and Independents play the part of Nero and Bishop Bonner; and perhaps they will be more astonished that, having it, she ever allowed it to become forgotten.

Another point to be especially wrought out is the question who these " 2000 Divines were. This will involve a little inquiry into the way in which the vacancies caused by the sudden ejection of the 8000 orthodox clergy were filled up, and how subsequent vacancies were supplied.

It will be easily shown that a good many very unclerical persons were put in to stop the numerous gaps-troopers and tradesmen, enthusiasts and fanatics. Now these "2000 Divines" have always been exhibited in shadow : we are assured that they are 2000 in number; but the roll-call has never been produced; and some great men have been put in front as samples of the rest. But, in truth, there are grave doubts of their number; though it would be foolish to insist upon the fact that they were not all Baxters, it is forced upon us to look more narrowly than we should have cared to do into their genuine claims to sympathy and respect.

Again, it will be desirable also to take special care to guard the popular mind from a misconception of the nature of the secession itself. In truth, instead of being an instance of the persecuting spirit of the Church, it is a singular example of her forbearing, and conciliatory, and comprehensive temper. If the Church, when restored, had turned out the whole body of the men who had been thrust into her benefices, just as they had turned out the whole body of the orthodox clergy, there would have been something to be said in defence of such a measure. The majority of those men were not, and never had been, clergymen; and the few who had once been so had long since forsworn her doctrines, and vowed to root out her organization. But, on the contrary, the Church made every endeavour to conciliate them, and win them into the Church. They were at once promised that they should be undisturbed until there had been ample time to discuss differences, and to come to some re-settlement of religion; and that all who should ultimately agree to that re-settlement, and should desire to enter into the ministry of the restored Church, should be permitted to do so, and to retain the benefices they held; and Bishoprics, Dignities, and Preferments were at once offered to the most eminent men among them. Two years were spent in the endeavour to conciliate all: but it was found useless to prolong the discussion; because the vast majority were long ago agreed, and the few dissentients showed no disposition to yield even their most trifling scruples. Then, at length, the Church was re-settled on that liberal and comprehensive basis on which it now exists; and three months more of grace were given, during which the door was still open to all who could make up their minds to accept the doctrines of the Church, and to receive her Orders. Would any reasonable man have had the Church allow men to occupy her livings who were not of her clergy, or to teach from her pulpits what was contrary to her doctrine? In one word, was the secession the fault of the Church, or was it the legacy of evil which the Rebellion left behind?

There is still another point which seems to us ought to underlie all these historical disquisitions. It may be explained that the points on which the "Nonconformist Divines" seceded were not those which the modern political Dissenters allege as the chief points of difference between them and the Church. There is abundant proof that the Nonconformists were strongly in favour of the connection between Church and State; they held endowments, and would fain have continued to hold them; they upheld Church-rate, passed an Act of Parliament to enforce them, and had no scruple about seizing the goods of those who would not pay. They were content to accept a liturgy, and a moderate episcopacy. They spoke very strongly against toleration, and one of their first demands was for more regular confirmations. So that the commemoration of these men would not be a celebration of voluntaryism or liberty of conscience, or any such great principles; it would be a celebration of the mere fact of the secession. It is true that many ministers did secede from the National Church on Bartholomew's Day, 1662, and that their secession was the first great schism among the reformed Christians of England. And we think it may be asked boldly of any ordinary assembly of Englishmen, whether they think the origin of our religious divisions to be a subject for national rejoicing? We feel sure that a great deal of good may be done by pressing home the questions of the failure of Dissent to educate or evangelize the masses, and its lamentable result in dividing the household of Christ against itself, and weakening its hands for every good work. There is a strong yearning after re-union in the minds of great numbers of all denominations of Christians; and we think that this opportunity should be embraced to urge upon our "brethren of the separation" whether the only hope of that blessed event does not lie in their re-union with the Church, in which there is so much with which they sympathize, and which, as they themselves very well know, is the only effectual barrier against the Church of Rome.