The Family, the Church, and the Parish,

&c., &c., &c.

"MY VERY DEAR FRIENDS,"

When I read the letter addressed to us from Rome, on the "Vigil of the Nativity, 1850," by "the late Vicar of St. Margaret, Leicester," greatly did I marvel as I read. Strive as I would to forget the older and abler Rhetoricians, in order, if possible, to confine myself to a consideration of the principles of Logic propounded by this newer and more subtle Master of Dialectics, the effort was all in vain: for Reason is not to be blinded by mere assertion; nor is thought to be encompassed by any such silken net of sophistry and seduction, as the writer of that "Letter" has interwoven. Notwithstanding that I did, in patience, discover the Author's predicament--that the Church of England is a faithless Church, or rather no Church at all, and that Protestantism is simply a delusion,-yet did I most entirely fail to discover whether this conviction had stolen gently and imperceptibly over the bewildered senses of the "late Vicar," or whether he had not all along entertained the undivided papist opinions afterwards propounded, whilst yet performing the duties, having taken upon himself the sacred oaths, of a Protestant clergyman. That I felt no slight degree of censure and indignation rising up in my mind at the palpable cheat which was being attempted, I seek not to conceal; because, through the thin veil of an affected candour, I discerned much of very questionable mental chicanery. Whilst it was sought to be made to appear that almost without premeditation the perversion of this model-priest had come about, I found it impossible to obliterate from my memory what I had seen, heard of, or listened to of Romish practices, formulce, and opinions, pertinaciously persisted in, not alone within the venerable walls of "St. Margaret, Leicester," during the few months of his ministration. Not easily nor soon forgotten, will be the facts which speak trumpettongued of the little accordance that there was between the outward deportment and the inward principles, the Protestant professions and the Romish persuasions Mr. Anderdon displayed in relation to more than one respectable family amongst whom he had either visited or taught. It is too much

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matter of notoriety to be gainsaid that in the case of one such family, after the exercise of his functions as a Protestant pastor it was discovered that there had been administered not medicine, but poison to "a mind diseased;" and that after the supposed Protestant spiritual teaching to the sick had taken place, a "grief heavy to be borne"-the Upas tree of Romanism-had been planted; that a sorrow of no ordinary character, had been, as it were, sown broadcast, and the individual member so administered to, had in the youth of virginity, and the very blossom of age, become through what insidious beguiling who shall say? every sense of the word, in precept if not in practice, a most determined Romanist. It is something more than remarkable, too, that two of the youths entrusted to Mr. Anderdon's care for tuition in holy things, as well as in sacred matters, should have become perverts, and preceded him into the bosom of the Romish Church-be waiting for a fitting time to follow after them. Nor is it unworthy of observation that notwithstanding its incongruity, the Protestant temple in which this Protestant parish priest daily stood up, was decked out in humble imitation of a popish mass house; that the number of the priests, acolytes, and choristers; (one, at least, of such priests having succeeded to his "superior" in joining the Church of Rome) the mode of performing the Church services; and the doctrines taught in that sacred place dedicated to Protestantism, partook more of the character of the Romish worship than of the Reformed; whilst in the matter of the "late Vicar's" apparel and conduct of his household there were to be traced all the ascetism of the monk and the aping of the most barren monastick institution of the "middle age." With all these recollections pressing upon me, it can scarcely excite surprise, that my WILL should have refused to become a dupe to the cajolery attempted to be practised on it; or that my Faith, should have been unable to stand up under the burthen of Belief she was called upon to bear, whilst perusing this his Messenger "sent before him" by "late Vicar," to announce his "second coming" amongst us, in order to declare, as he tells us, "the whole counsel" of which he has at present taught only detached portions.

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That it is possible to be constitutionally vain without being absolutely wicked is not to be denied, any more than that it is possible to have a suasive tongue of softest tone, the demeanour of sanctity, and the cloak of charity, and yet to be devoid of true religion in the heart, or real benevolence in the disposition, these being employed merely as a means to an end-the seduction of weak but trusting minds. It may readily be admitted too, that it is possible for a man to be really sincere and earnest in his occupation, and yet to be miserably

mistaken in his motives-as before their conversion were Martin Luther, and St. Paul; to be misled of his own false notions; to misjudge the current of his own feelings: to misconstrue the workings of his own heart; to pride himself too much upon the purity of his own intentions; altogether to misinterpret the right rule of faith; and so all the time to be wandering far from the regions of happiness, and wide of the paths which lead to "perfect peace"-to God: the common lot, this, of the Enthusiast. That is, that a man may be weak of intellect, without being vicious of intent, and therefore may allow himself not only to be misled by outward circumstances and conditions of things, but to actually impose upon his own faculties and perceptions, and to prostitute those higher functions with which he has been endowed, until he shall have become utterly incapacitated either to form a judgment, or to test a proof; yet may he, nevertheless, be urged possibly by quite another and worse class of motives just as grievously and grossly to mislead. But who would thence deduce the argument that he ought to be permitted unreproved to flaunt the vanity, to parade the weakness, to exercise the glozing speech, to wear the hood of benevolence, to ply the stealthy step, to "pull long faces," or disseminate the poison of his guile; towork his will with the infatuation of the fanatic, or the steadiness of purpose, and the depth of design of the Jesuit ?

But, moreover, if in the manifesto of such an one, published not simply to palliate and excuse a "falling away from the Faith," but avowedly with a further and ulterior view-to proselytize, there should be evidenced something in keeping with all the precedent conduct and character-the plausible, the meek, the subtle, and the disingenuous; something more than mere vanity, something more than mere weakness, something more than mere self-deceit; an outrage of decency in the threatened return to the Cure, but recently abandoned; a hardihood which neither a Newman nor any other Neophyte has adventured upon; then what is the judgment we ought to pass both upon the Scripture and the scribe ?

In one or other of these categories I much fear must he be placed whom so lately we received amongst us as the "faithful Protestant Pastor and Teacher," and to whom we bade welcome in the name of the Most High God, as a "Shepherd and Bishop of our souls." I mistake greatly if by the whole tenor of his past teachings and doings, he has not rendered himself obnoxious to the hypothesis that one or other of such must be the state of his intellect, and one or other of such the

condition of his feeling. I read it in the fact that whilst he coolly and deliberately announces that he has resigned his protestant charge, and flown from the field he had sworn to defend against all foes spiritual or temporal ; in the self-same hour that he makes known his perversion, he also tells us of his intended re-appearing upon the religious arena on which he had already practised either his mistakes or his machinations. I read it in the acknowledgment that he has looked at until he has become dazzled by the garish glare of the Romish Church. I read it in the sighs by which he reveals his longing for that unity, which he fancies, and only fancies, to dwell in the Romish Church, when he affects to turn pitifully away from the distractions which in his night-mare dream he has thought to rend the Protestant; but which distractions, so far as they exist, he and others like him have done so much to promote. I read it in the admission that he has walked about until he has become lost amongst the mazes of that Romish mummery, which it may be presumed he has accepted to his own heart and conscience, as proof of the spirituality that he believes to have evaporated from Protestantism, and which he appears to receive as incontestible evidence of that Romish infallibility wherein now he has merged all his perplexities, and which forms for him a bed of roses, whereupon, as a Romish priest, his harrassed soul and fearful faith may repose without liability to those doubting interruptions and to those disturbing apprehensions which shook his Belief as a Protestant Vicar. I read it in the championing of his courage and consistency, when he allows that he has mingled with, and moralized upon Papal masses and missals whilst yet a Church of England Clergyman, instead of devoting himself assiduously and unreservedly to the discharge of his Protestant priestly duties. I read it in his confessed mediation upon Romish sacraments and Romish sacrifices--the moth fluttering round the candle-until he has left himself no option in his bewilderment, but at once to adopt all he had ever before doubted or disbelieved. But I confess that I am unable to reconcile that violent straining at the small gnat of objection (as objection there always will be to all religious systems from the natural diversity of mind and feeling) to the religious system established through the mighty energies of our Reformers, and this easy swallowing of the huge camel of Romish heresies, idolatries, and worse than pagan prescription; or to find, either in the past pledges of our late pastor, or in his future promises the assurance of faithfulness and truth. It is painful to have thus to plead with you. I do so, not