the delicate investigation which his congregation instituted into his character and conduct. It is a perfect pattern of such proceedings; and may be recommended to dissenting societies of all denominations for their guidance, when they are in similarly pleasing circumstances of deep painfulness. It should be as welcome to them as a precedent would have been to the House of Lords in the trial of Queen Caroline. The author has handled this grave subject somewhat lightly. Dissenting ministers, and men too as pure in life as they were eminent in talent, have been worried to death for defalcations of not much deeper dye than those which he describes. But in future let it be done secundum artem. Here is the model: 'Not long after the subsidence of the discord above named, and when I was congratulating myself that now all things were proceeding smoothly, I was assailed by the means of anonymous letters, an instrument of annoyance to which dissenting ministers are particularly subject; and perhaps also other persons may be so too, only we are always apt to magnify what concerns ourselves. It is only necessary here to premise, that I had now been married seven years, and that my family consisted of three children; the eldest a girl about six years of age; the second a boy about four, and the youngest not more than twelve months. My wife also was living, and a very excellent wife she was, and I may add, is still. I shall give these anonymous letters at full length, not altering the spelling, nor correcting the language; for there is a raciness and pungency in the original style which correction would only destroy. The first concerns the management of my family. "Reverend Sir:-It is with the most sincerest pane that I now take up my penn at this Time to address you on a matter of INFINIT momunt. I know sir that your a man of grate learnin and much skollarship, and therfor p'raps my feeble penn ought not to presuem to approche you without the UTMOST REFERENCE. You may believe me when I tell you that there is no man whos preachin givs me more instruction nor yours, nevertheless, most reverend sir, I must tak the LIBBERTY to say with all due DIFFERENCE to your superier JUGEMENT to say, I say, that your children is not mannaged with all that proprietey which ought to be the undoudted distinction of evvery minister who profasses to teach his people in the way of truth, has reveiled in the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins. Miss Angelina was FARST ASLEPE last Sunday afternoon almost all sermon time, and SNORED So as to be heered all over the meetin, and Master Tommy plays at marvels in the streets. if so be then as how you values the immortle soles of your children why dont you bring them up in the nurtur and ammunition of the Lord. So no more at present from your loving frend who shall be" "Annonimus." Scarcely had I recovered from the shock which the above letter gave me, when another was put in my hand coming from nobody knows where, and bringing against me another heavy charge. It was as follows: "Reverend Sir :-I have set under your ministry some yeres listening with greate delite to the tidings of the everlasting gosple, but am sorrey to say that of late I have not profitted as I yoused to do. I have ben a little afrade that the fault might be in myself, but on the closest examination I have come to the conclusion that you do not preach the gosple as you did once when you furst come among us. Our souls are parch up for want of the truth, the due of the word does not dissend upon us to fertilize our harts, and make them fruteful. A report is got abroad from some quarter or other, that you are half a sossinion at bottom, only you don't speak out. Your preching does not awaken the conscins as it out to do, unles these things is greatly altered you cant expect your people to profet by the word preched." “Your faitfl freind—Alliquis.” My faithful friend "Alliquis" was just as acceptable a correspondent as my loving friend "Annonimus." I was at first annoyed, and then indignant, and had fully determined to make a serious address from the pulpit to these anonymous libellers; but upon second thoughts I relinquished that intention, and resolved to keep the secret to myself, and put up with the affront; for I had heard of dissenting ministers putting themselves into a great passion on the receipt of anonymous letters, and declaiming from the pulpit in good set terms against the writers, so that they have thereby raised up against themselves a nest of hornets, that have not been easily suppressed again. But my resolution availed me not, for whispers began to be circulated concerning me, and kind friends came to me with very long faces, and very long stories; all expressing their particular concern at these rumours, and all saying that it was a duty that I owed to myself to repel these insinuations, and boldly to meet these charges, and that I ought to challenge inquiry and provoke investigation. These people cared nothing about me or my reputation, but all they wanted was to get up a scene, and make a bustle all about a straw. There is nothing that a little dissenting congregation likes so dearly as a bit of moonshine, a secret committee to investigate certain indistinct charges brought against their dearly beloved pastor. I told my dear friends, over and over again, that I heeded not the matter a single rush; that I did not care for a whole cart-load of anonymous letters; but they would not let me off so easily; they said that if I did not publicly meet, and decidedly refute the charges, I certainly pleaded guilty to them. To which I replied that I must plead guilty to the charge of Miss Angelina going to sleep, and of Master Tommy playing at marbles; though I must be permitted very strongly to doubt the fact of Miss Angelina's snoring, a thing which I never recollected her to have been guilty of; and as for Tommy's gambling, I was pretty sure that it could not have been to any serious amount, for he never had any ready money in his possession, and I did not suppose that any one would take his acceptance. It was in vain that I attempted to laugh the matter off in that manner, for I only made the thing worse, I found, by this ill-timed levity. So I was forced to consent to have a committee formed to investigate the charges that had been brought against My two anonymous letters were given up for investigation and inquiry, and I was questioned and re-questioned, and sifted, and examined as to all my thoughts and my conversations; and there was as much fuss made about the matter as though it had been the sitting of a courtmartial on the most momentous affair imaginable. The result, however, was, that I was honourably acquitted; but the good people had had their humour, so they were happy. For a long time afterwards, however, my sermons were very diligently attended to, in order to detect, if me. possible, the leaven of heresy; and I cautioned Angelina against snoring, and gave Tommy to understand that the eyes of the world were upon him.' -p. 200-206. By a subsequent allusion to real occurrences, the author hast given occasion for the assumption of a daily paper that his work arose out of those events. This is a mistake. The statement he has introduced is correct as far as it goes; but in justice to the society he has named, it ought to be added, that the mass of its members had imbibed a spirit which would not allow the establishment of domestic inquisition, or the imposition of a test on moral speculations. The great defect of this work, whether considered as a portraiture of character, or as an argumentative narrative, is that it relates much too exclusively to what religionists call mere worldly considerations. There is not even a solitary symptom of that devotion to a sacred cause which is commonly felt, or at least believed by themselves to be felt, in the bosoms of aspirants to the ministry of the gospel amongst Dissenters. The cases are as rare amongst them as they are common in the Church, in which the sacred office is regarded merely as a profession. Whether the word be used in praise or in censure, enthusiasm is their usual characteristic. Hence many of them would not feel sundry petty miseries which figure in his pages. Their hearts would be in their work, not in their pay. Having food and raiment, they would be therewith content.' This high moral principle, even if it be a mistaken one, should not have been disregarded in any delineation of dissenting ministers as a class personified in an individual. Its introduction was demanded by justice, and it would have imparted a stronger and deeper interest to the narrative. And it would have led to the notice also of evils of a yet more serious description than those on which the author has enlarged. For although theological enthusiasm is disinterested, it is not candid or beneficent. The party spirit of sectarianism generates an unscrupulousness, which ranks amongst the worst corruptions of society. The love of money may be kept down in soils which yet yield a plentiful harvest of bigotry, hypocrisy, calumny, and pious fraud. The stern exposure of these would have been a nobler task for the author's powers; we wish he had attempted it; we should have liked a history of the mind as well as of the pocket. Perhaps, however, he has better judged of what would be read and relished, and framed his story accordingly. As an argument against the voluntary system, and in favour of Church establishments, this book can tell for little with any who think. It is altogether partial and one-sided. Nothing is more easy than to retort the proof. There is James Cranston, in Miss Martineau's tale of The Park and the Paddock.' Suppose we had his au cbiography at full length. The thoughtless, dissipated, fishing, hunting, flirting, time-serving, worthless parson, is a genuine product of the involuntary principle: so is the purer minded hero of the Tenth Haycock.' There we have the conscientious Episcopalian, morally as well as physically, the martyr of the system. Both sorts of characters, with the consequent mischiefs to themselves and others, always have been in the Church, and always will be, so long as it is an Established Church. The proof is as good on one side as on the other. It shows that there are evils in both systems; and it shows nothing more. It does not strike the balance: it casts no light upon the objects and mode of ecclesiastical reformation. The evils of both systems are enormous, and, it is to be feared, irremediable, without much greater changes than either party is likely to be persuaded to adopt. Those of the Church press heaviest, politically; but those of Dissent are very formidable, in a moral and intellectual point of view. Both parties egregiously overrate the advantages to be conferred on society by priests and preaching. We do not mean that they exaggerate the importance to the nation of spiritual culture; but that they are incurably addicted to the inefficient machinery, for that end, to which they have been accustomed. In our number for December last, an attempt was made (vide art. on Church Reform, considered as a National and not a Sectarian Question') to show that there are adequate and available resources for the promotion of this essential object, were they but honestly and wisely applied. On some such plan as is there suggested, the evils of both schemes would be mitigated or destroyed; universal and equal religious liberty would be guaranteed; the real and solid instruction of the community provided for; and, that done, pulpiteering, whether Episcopal or Independent, might be left to find its own level, according to the common principles of demand and supply. But the craft is far too strong; one portion of it in vested interests, and the other in popular prejudices; for the practical adoption of schemes tending simply and solely towards the spiritual wellbeing of humanity. No. 96. THE AGE OF STEAM, A HUDIBRASTIC POEM. By the Author of Spirit of Peers and People,' &c. Он, Science! iron-footed giant! Whose tread shows hugely, making pliant He'd poise and weigh her like an ounce; Oh, Steam! twin-sister of the black art! The bang-up clubs must soon desist The horse shall lounge thro' fields and meadows, Or stare upon us o'er a hedge, His mouth half fill'd with flowers and sedge; While we go boiling, roaring by, Just like a bomb-shell thro' the sky, And only stop to pay the 'pike,' Heaven send us opposition soon! Nought thrives without-earth, sun, or moon: 3 R |