the declaration which has been proposed. On the contrary, I feel that it would be extremely wrong in me not to admit it into the Bill, as a very essential means of pacifying the country on this most important subject."

In 1829 the same ministers brought forward and carried the Emancipation Bill. Thus the expunging of the last vestiges of civil disabilities from Dissenters and Romanists was the work, not only of Churchmen, but of High Churchmen and ToriesCanning, Wellington, and Peel. Some restriction indeed was reserved in the case of officials appointed by the Crown and municipal functionaries. In the place of the sacramental test the declaration just given was substituted, by which they pledged themselves not to use their official influence to injure or disturb the Established Church. How Dissenters and Romanists have used the privileges conceded in 1828 and 1829; how, not content with the personal enjoyment of those civil liberties, they have abused them in planning and executing aggressive enterprises against both the outworks and the citadel of the Established Church, will appear hereafter.

It is quite certain, I allow, that some notorious individuals, like the demagogue Wilkes and Dr. Priestley, had proclaimed, long before 1832, that the principles and objects of Dissent went far beyond the removal

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of civil disabilities, aspiring even to the disruption of the union between Church and State. But why the Liberation Society should boast of such a design being conceived and harboured by Dissenters, as a body, previous to the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, is something inscrutable. To conceive such an idea and conceal it, and meanwhile to get what they could under a false pretence that it was all that was required, does not set Dissent in any advantageous light.

That Dissenters confined their exertions, prior to 1830, to the abolition of civil disabilities, but at the same time meditated ulterior views, which, however, they carefully withheld from the public gaze,-such a policy were surely ignoble and base.

Yet it is the fashion in our day for Dissenters to represent the abolition of the Test and Corporation Acts as the first movement in separating the Church from the State, and the passing of the Emancipation Bill as the next. We are now told, in "A Historical Review of the Progress of Religious Liberty, prepared at the request of the Executive Committee of the Liberation Society, and read at its sixth triennial Conference, on May 6th, 1862," that "the movement for the repeal of the two Acts, which only succeeded in 1828, was no stealthy and disguised movement, pretended to be final, but meant

to be only initial. It was simply the politic and strategic wisdom of the movers which concentrated the dissenting force upon this first wall of defence. Everybody knew well enough that they would ask for more." Here it is implied, I suppose, that all this was known at, or before, or about the time of the events of 1828 and 1829. But how do such assertions square either with facts or probabilities? Had such confessions been circulated by the Deputies or other representatives of Dissent? Are any such to be found in the columns of the Eclectic Review, the recognised organ of orthodox Dissenters? No such intimation was ever vouchsafed on the authority either of dissenting organisations or dissenting organs prior to 1832. The very contrary, in fact, is nearer the truth.

In the year 1829 we find the Eclectic, after enumerating as grounds of remonstrance with the Church, -which list of charges, however, was considered extreme-(1.) The ordination of unsuitable candidates; (2.) The non-performance of divine service and pastoral duty in many parish churches; (3.) The nonresidence of a great part of the clergy and the practice of holding pluralities; (4.) The neglect and abuse of episcopal superintendence; we find the reviewer, I say, repeating the profession of his conviction that "a wise, undivided, persevering protest on

the part of the Christian people of England, against the perversions of ecclesiastical power which none dare to defend, would issue, and issue ere very long, in a restoration of our Church Establishment to the intention of its founders. And we dare to affirm, moreover, that such a restoration, even though not a phrase of the Book of Common Prayer were amended, would be followed by a reform of the national manners incalculably great. *

*

We say, if the Dissenters, generally, as Englishmen, as payers of tithes, as holders of a stake in the country, and as Christians, not sectarians, were thus minded and would thus act: If their steady moderation and active zeal were such as to convince statesmen that they were not to be suspected, and must not be trifled with, we do not hesitate to affirm our belief that they might accomplish the magnificent work of bringing back the Church from which they dissent, to the purity of its written constitutions.

* *It is true that we have our objections, strong objections, against certain forms of the Church, and each of us has his list of phrases he much mislikes in her services, and of constitutions he thinks redundant. But we must all allow, as matter of fact, that the Church as by law established, with all her imperfections, is such that the most eminent piety may exist and flourish under her

wing. We say, as matter of fact, the 'dew of the heavenly grace' is not withheld from the Church as by law established; nay, is in fair proportion diffused within its precincts. The Church, it cannot be denied, professes the life-giving doctrines of the Gospel, favours every great principle rescued from Rome by the Reformers, and puts into the lips of the people a largeness of devotion unrivalled in majesty, beauty, propriety, comprehension. If the Church has its faults, faults which some may deem fatal to its perpetuity, why may not the Dissenters say of her, as David of Saul, The Lord shall smite her; or her day shall come to die; or she shall send into battle and perish; but a hand shall not be upon her? We venture then to say to the Dissenter-Forget your old and fruitless controversy with the Church; forget it till better times. give you a better hope of being kindly listened to. Meanwhile use your great influence, without guile, without ulterior designs, for effecting a restoration of the Established Church, such as it is, to purity and efficiency. If you can do no more, desire this restoration; pray for it; speak of it to your children at home, and abroad to your neighbours, as a thing necessary and infinitely important; and whenever occasion may serve, whenever public improvements may invite you to step forward, then, with a heart