this be observed] is by no means equivocal upon this subject. He observed in the course of his speech at Manchester:-'Is there any one who will say, after having administered reform to the church of Ireland, that reform is not needed in the church of England? The dissenters call aloud for relief from practical grievances-from the necessity of contributing to an establishment to which they do not belong ;-that appears a fair and just demand.'”

From all this, the conclusion seems clear enough, that the little activity shewn on the church side, (and it is little enough yet,) has nevertheless shewn, that every thing cannot be conceded to dissenters at once, and that they have, in consequence, been told this, and ordered to be quiet. Indeed, there are obvious reasons why it would not be wise to grant all at once; for, as they have clearly stated everywhere, that they have given their support in order to get something, what support are they likely to give when they have got all they want? Expectants are the best supporters. But it is no matter of rejoicing to the church that this quieting of the violent tone has taken place. It implies no alteration of spirit, and it will, in all probability, have the evil effect of making churchmen, who hate trouble, and cry peace when there is no peace, desist from even the small efforts they are making, and give the game up into the enemy's hand again. Let them be warned in time. If they have gained breathing time, let them feel that it is only because the feeble efforts now made have shewn what the immense strength of the church is, if it can be called forth; and that if. it is not called forth, it exists in vain. "De non apparentibus, &c." If our enemies can lull us to sleep again, they may ride over us whenever they will. That there is no change of spirit need hardly be said. But this is a topic on which a word or two may be advisable. It is the writer's heavy lot, to be compelled occasionally to read such books as the Monthly Repository, on the low Socinian side, and the Christian Advocate, and such periodicals, on the other. And the use to be made of this penance is, to warn others who do not undergo it, what spirit is in activity against them. As to the Monthly Repository, it would probably be difficult to match the exhibitions which it is constantly making. It is a fifth-rate Westminster Review in power, with the same odious principles, the same cold, heartless malignity in feeling. But there is little danger from the party which it represents. That, if they had, not the power only, but the courage, they would be savage and cruel, admits not of a doubt, from their own words; that they hate, with a rancour not to be surpassed, is true also. But when one finds men in every page, not only denouncing every man, woman, and child, connected with existing institutions, but indulging in a perpetual bravado about their own courage, and their own deeds (in anticipation), and physical force, and the use of bayonets, and guns, and cannons in brave men's hands, and in prognostications of the speedy advent of the happy time for using them all, one has every desirable security that the heroes who talk so well, will talk considerably better than they will act, and that if, (which God forbid,) the miserable sight of civil tumult should be exhibited among us, they will be the very first to run as far and as fast, as their legs will carry them.

Now, this is not the way to speak of the orthodox dissenters, or rather of that part of them which is represented by the Christian Advocate, &c.; [for, be it remembered, there is a class of Christian VOL. V.-Feb. 1834. 2 G

It may be observed, that this Christian Advocate states, with great wrath, that the clergy are on the alert. It states, as the reason for this assertion, that the John Bull (which it chooses to call the organ of the clergy, and which it knows not to be the organ of the clergy) is speaking on the subject. The Christian Advocate knows better than this. Its wrath is indeed excited by the church being alert, because it knows well that the address of the clergy has shewn that they are united and strong; and it hears, with still more bitter rage, of the lay declaration.*

But let us just consider the justice of at least one of the demands which, as we find, the dissenters on all sides are making for redress of grievances.

Among other singular specimens of logic and decency in their speeches and writings for the last few weeks, the reasonings and the claims as to churches and church-yards are, perhaps, the most striking. They are to be found in all the speeches, and all the resolutions of all the dissenters in all their meetings. The unity, as was before observed, is indeed beautiful. There is some head mechanistMr. John Wilks, for example-who twitches the strings, and all the puppets begin to jump at once.

Churches, say the puppets, are not national property, and therefore it is horrible tyranny to make us support them. They are the mere meeting-houses of the church sect. Each sect ought to support its own. And we do not belong to the church sect. But church-yards are national property, and therefore we have a right to enter them when we please.

That is to say, the site for a church having been given ages ago by the lord of the manor, and one small bit of it being taken for a church, and the rest left for a church-yard, the two having been given together, and consecrated together for the same purposes, and by the same superstitious rites of the same sect, and the law allowing this so clearly as to make the ground on which the church stands and the church-yard the freehold property of every rector or vicar (i. e. the ministers of this sect) during his life, nay, having actually given him a vote for the county in right of this his most particular freehold; yet, nevertheless, the moment that Mr. Wilks jerks the strings, and the puppets dance, the church and church-yard part company, and. the one belongs to the sect, the other belongs, half to the puppets. This may be magic; but it is very odd logic. The church and the church-yard must follow the same lot. If the church was given only for the meeting-house of one sect, it is beyond all question that the same grant, gift, consecration, and law, gave the yard as the burying place of the same sect. If the church-yard was given by the donors

much that some clergy were aware of the manner in which, after all their conciliations, and coalitions, and concessions, they are spoken of as soon as they leave the room, where they have prostrated themselves, by dissenters-by the very persons to whom the prostration is made.

It ought to be mentioned, to the high honour of the town of Northampton, that a meeting of the mayor, bailiffs, and other lay inhabitants of that place has been held, and a petition to support the church prepared for signature.

to the public for ever, to be used by them for ever, and to be kept in order as to its walls, gates, &c., by them for ever, the church was given by the same gifts, grants, consecrations, and laws to the same public, to be maintained in the same way. The dissenters may take which side of the argument they please, but they cannot take both.

The simple truth is, that, as a Cheltenham dissenter stated fairly enough of the church rates,*" they are no burthen, but we resist the principle," so the having a right to bury in the church-yard is no advantage worth speaking of; but the claim gives the dissenters an opportunity of annoying, and the gaining it would give them an opportunity of constantly insulting, others. In towns, it would be no advantage; for there the old burial places are full, and neither churchman nor dissenter can lie there. In the country, where they buy ground for a chapel, they have no difficulty, and have never pretended that they had any difficulty, in getting a burial ground too. They are playing a desperate game, as far as argument goes; for it is obvious that they mean to rest their whole case on the few instances where latterly fresh burial grounds have been bought and paid for out of the rates. They cannot stand for a moment on any other case, and the argument from this is so contemptible as hardly to be worth an answer. Even allowing all they say, it would only enable them to claim admittance to the bought grounds. If they wished even to appear decent and consistent, they should demand in future to be exempt from paying towards the purchase money of fresh burial grounds, as well as towards the repairs of churches. But this would only look like what Mr. Rice called one of the feather burthens of the dissenters.†

• Let churchmen mark that where proper spirit and activity are shewn, as at Coventry, Birmingham, and Lambeth, rates are carried in vestry; and that vestries must vote by Mr. Sturges Bourne's Act. It appears that in many places the loud talkers are those who pay nothing, or a few pence, to the Church Rates.

† In an excellent letter to the Leeds Intelligencer these arguments are thus noticed:-"They require that the cemeteries &c. should be opened to dissenters, their own ministers officiating, because they have paid their full proportion of rates,' &c. Now I should be glad to know what proportion they have paid, either the present or former generation, to the cemeteries of nineteen-twentieths of the parishes of the kingdom, either in the original purchase of the ground, or in the expense of keeping them in decent condition. Even in those places where dissenters are numerous, and new grounds have been purchased and kept up by parish rates, those rates were levied by law for a specified purpose; and with as much reason and justice may dissenters claim the use of the churches, their own ministers officiating, as of the church-yards, on the ground of having paid those rates which were legally' raised and expended upon both."

With respect to another of their demands, the same writer justly says:-" They demand also admission to the privileges and honours of the universities. They may already, without the necessity of taking any oath, have all the advantages of an university education (at Cambridge.) If by privileges and honours be meant not only degrees, but fellowships, the demand is neither modest nor just. The assertion that the universities owe their means of support in whole or in part to parliamentary grants,' is either wholly false or calculated only to mislead. The different colleges are maintained by the endowments of their respective founders and benefactors, and, in most instances, the fellows are required by statute, within a specified time, to take holy orders. Some small parliamentary grants are made to some professors, and their lectures are accessible to all. With as much justice, I conceive, they may demand a share of the church livings, as of the university fellowships."

STATE OF PARTIES AMONG THE DISSENTERS.*

THERE are few things more important in stirring times, than an accurate acquaintance with the state of parties. The tone and objects of men who fight under the same colours are often so different from those of their predecessors, that all, but the most attentive observers, are in danger of being engaged in designs of which they had no suspicion, and so hurried on, by the force of circumstances, to results which they would at first have abhorred. In the shuffling of the cards of life, men are forced into strange and unexpected positions. This is very much the case at this moment in ecclesiastical matters. There are members both in the House of Commons, and in the country at large, who are fatally changing their own position, while, from the change of those around them, they do not perceive the alteration. Let me call the attention of your readers strongly to this fact, for the frequent and clear statement of it may do incalculable good. Ever since the Restoration, there has been a party of religionists in the country "in opposition" (if the term may be so applied) to the church. Now, until very lately, the main object of this party was to preserve their own vitality. They had separated themselves from the established church of their country, through a dislike of her discipline; some from the scruples of a morbid conscience, some from the excitement of an ardent, but ill-disciplined piety, some from the influence of early education. They had no direct hostility to the church; they did not meditate any attack upon her; the injury they did her was, the secret withdrawal of her strength. Thus, except at those times when some particular cause of excitement happened to divide them, there was a friendly feeling towards each other in the minds of the more religious part of churchmen and dissenters. These were the times when Hurd corresponded with Doddridge, and Doddridge complimented Hurd; when an earnest desire to do good, and an unsuspicious confidence in each other's freedom from animosity, joined churchmen and dissenters oftentimes together, and so, for the most part, it remained even to the days when the Bible Society was constructed of motley, but, as its supporters believed, not of conflicting materials. This is not the place in which to justify or condemn this union; it is enough to shew here, how different were the principles which it bespoke in the various actors, from those which would now be involved in the like conduct. For, at this time, numbers (of laymen especially) who were heartily attached to our communion, who valued our established church as God's greatest blessing to the land, would yet be led to assist in detached attempts of the dissenters. These professed (and they were for the most part sincere) no sort of enmity against the church; they only sought for more liberty of worshipping themselves according to the dictates of their consciences. Thus, though some more provident or more timid minds would forecast evils even in these allowances, yet others, with equal attachment to the church, would endeavour to loosen what seemed to them the needless bonds laid upon dissenters; and though we may be tempted now, when looking calmly back, to blame many of these concessions, and to say

Τοιαῦτ ̓ ἀπηύρω τοῦ φιλανθρώπου τρόπου,—(Prom. Vinct., 2 p.).

yet we must not accuse those who thus fought their battles of any want of allegiance to our church. But the case is widely different now. Few amongst the dissenters affect to cloak their deep hatred to the church; none of their leaders attempt to conceal their desires. If, at any time, the appearance of ancient kindliness is assumed, it is evidently put on to answer some immediate purpose of deception. A few bland faces yet linger upon the platforms of the Bible Society, a few honeyed lips have not yet ceased to utter their

* This excellent paper, from a correspondent, is placed here rather than among other letters, in order to call public attention to the matter.

syren notes of amity, it may be from deep craft, it may be from old habit, the oily sinuosity of the serpent, or the fawning heartlessness of the spaniel; but these self-same speakers, when upon other boards, break forth in a far different strain, and seem disposed, by the unusual discharge of their gathered venom, to be rewarding themselves for their past restraint. Compare, e. g., Dr. Bennett's Speech at the Meeting of the Bible Society, London, May, 1831, with one made by him within a few hours afterwards at the Ecclesiastical Knowledge Society.

"He would have spoke,

But hiss for hiss returned with forked tongues
To forked tongue, for now were all transformed,
Alike, to serpents all, as accessories

To his bold riot; dreadful was the din

Of hissing through the hall, thick swarming now

With complicated monsters, head and tail."-PARADISE LOST.

Cries of "the Old Hag!" "pull her down!" &c., were everywhere heard.— Report of the Meeting of the Ecclesiastical Society.

And this is the language, not of some few more ardent spirits, but of the wise and cautious calculators of expediency. In the Congregational Magazine, for January, 1834, is an article "On the Present Policy of the Dissenters."

The Editor wishes to call attention to the following extract from a letter from one who was once a dissenter:

"I do not speak of the 'dear dissenting brethren' way, which has been not unfrequently adopted by men who meant very well, and professed to consider it, and, I believe, in many cases really did feel it, a duty to extend the right hand of fellowship' to all the household of faith. Some did it from perverseness, some from puppyism and the desire of popularity; and some also (and I have always respected them) from untaught benevolence; and some with a mistaken idea of promoting the peace and unity of the church of Christ. Speciosum quidem nomen est et pulcra est opinio unitatis,' &c., and I reverence the man who can go on to say, 'Hanc nos et amissam quærere et turbatam componere et repertam tenere curavimus;' but yet these men, if not the worst, were the most mischievous of the whole, and the peace which could have been gained by such means, was not that peace.

"I was on the other side, and had some opportunity of judging, and I would almost venture to say, that no clergyman was ever respected by dissenting ministers for that sort of liberality; not, in fact, so much respected as if they had thought him a prejudiced churchman. No doubt he found them very civil, if he met them, for instance, at a Bible Society Committee. One would be sure to be prepared with-I beg leave to move that the Rev. Mr. Rector of, do take the chair.' I beg leave to second it,' says another, 'for indeed I was on the point of proposing it.' The Rector hesitates-is bashful-quite unacquainted with business. 'Oh, dear! they could not think of taking it in his presence; whatever difference there may be on minor points, this is holy ground, when all have one object; but not to forget decorumalways happy, whenever conscience allows, to go with their brethren of the establish、 ment, and know their place, to follow them.' And no doubt he will find much civility. I really do not mean to represent it as hypocrisy. They think he is right in what he is doing, and wish to be civil to him. They feel, in all probability, that he is a person of more education, and altogether more of a gentleman, and fitter to preside, and that the voluntary humility which leads them to get him into association will not lower them with their friends, and will advance the interests of the society; but he would often be surprised if he were to hear the conversation which might take place after he was gone, that, with some really good feeling towards him, they were lamenting over him, as a man whom prejudice, or interest, or a superstitious notion, respecting the great oath which he had sworn, to do whatever his bishop should order, deterred from following the dictates of his conscience-as a man who envied them their Christian liberty, but had not moral courage, or disinterestedness, or faith enough fairly to join them. I repeat (for I have seen that no part of the clergy are sufficiently aware of it)—that, in my belief, such a course has never procured any one man the sincere respect of the dissenter, &c. &c."