ducing the Irish Church question. He was, however, supported by the Mr. Trelawny just mentioned, who of late years has been better known as Sir J. Trelawny.

The autumn of 1843 was marked by the first practical steps taken to inaugurate the British AntiState-Church Association. In this movement, no less than in the National Complete Suffrage movement, Mr. Miall and the Nonconformist took the initiative, as will be set forth at length in the next chapter. Nevertheless, it must not be supposed that Dissenting organisation had been wholly neglected previous to the founding of the Anti-StateChurch Association. On the contrary, the Deputies first appointed in 1732, and whose anti-state-church confession of 1832 we have already noticed, not only existed to welcome the advent of the British AntiState-Church Association, but are still a power among Dissenting organisations. The Ecclesiastical Knowledge Society was likewise busy between 1830 and 1844 in publishing many Anti-State-Church tracts. In 1831 or 1832, the Congregational Union was established. There was also a "Voluntary Association" in Scotland, which directed and fostered the agitation in Edinburgh against the Annuity Tax. Besides all which there sprung up in England, in 1836, "A Church-Rate Abolition Society,"

and what was called the Evangelical Voluntary Church Association, mentioned before, which had a monthly organ, the Voluntary. With the exception of the Deputies, however, and the Congregational Union, the whole were merged, I believe, in that more ambitious organisation established in 1844, by the title of the British Anti-State-Church Association.

This chapter I shall conclude with a brief recapitulation of the results arrived at between 1832 and 1844. Whatever might be the designs of Dissent previous to the Reform Act of 1832, and though in the early part of that year the separation of Church and State was on more than one occasion proclaimed to be its ultimate aim, nothing is more certain than that such an object and all opinions leading to it, were rigidly discouraged and suppressed by the recognised organs of orthodox Dissenters, the Eclectic Review, and the Patriot newspaper. With the Reform Bill, a Whig Ministry, and an overwhelming Liberal majority in 1833, Dissent conceived hopes to which it had before been a stranger. Mistaking its own strength and the policy of the Whigs, the work of Church destruction was planned on a wholesale scale. In 1834 Earl Grey resisted alike the unconditional abolition of Church Rates, and the secularization of the Irish

Church's revenues, and immediately forfeited the confidence of Dissenters. Meanwhile, another crusade was going on in another quarter. In opposition to the Whigs, who swore by the Reform Bill of 1832, as a final measure, a noisy, pertinacious faction rose up, with the various names of Reformers, Radicals, and Democrats, who viewed that measure simply as the first of an interminable series of Reform Bills, to cease and determine, nobody knew when or where. With a persistency that reached to blind obstinacy, the Radicals year after year, first under Mr. Grote and then under Mr. Ward, forced on the secret ballot, just as Mr. Berkeley now persists annually with his hum-drum show. It was not till after the accession of Sir R. Peel in 1834, that Dissent went over to unmixed Radicalism. That event proved equally disastrous to the principles of the Whigs. Momentarily, at least, it converted them into champions of the Appropriation principle. Their simulated apostasy regained the support of all the three Democratic factions, and the Whigs returned to power in 1835. But the Appropriation Clause was immediately discarded, to the great indignation of the Democrats, who never afterwards forgave Whiggism its profligate temporizing. For, from 1834 even, the Irish Church constituted the great bond of union and common

action between the Radicals, Dissenters, and Irish Repealers.

In the autumn of 1836, a temporary alliance was again patched up between the Whigs and Dissenters, the tie that held together the precarious union being none other than the unconditional abolition of Church Rates. The Ministerial measure of 1837, however, having miscarried, Dissent rushed headlong into the open arms of Democracy; and during the sessions of 1838, 1839, and 1840, all Democratic measures, whether appertaining to the Church or State, were supported by a combination of Radicals, Dissenters, and Irish Romanists, as they were opposed by the united votes of the Whigs and Conservatives. For, notwithstanding the falling off in 1837, up to 1859 the Whig party consistently opposed the unconditional abolition of Church Rates, as well as the Ballot, and all other schemes of Radical or organic Reform. The Appropriation Clause, as was before observed, had been dropped in 1836. Still it must be remarked, that the ultimate objects of Dissent were ecclesiastical rather than civil. On ecclesiastical grounds, Dissenters alternately supported and abandoned, first Earl Grey, and then Lord Melbourne; alternately denounced and caressed Mr. Hume and the Radicals; insisted sometimes upon Disfranchisement, sometimes upon

Enfranchisement; now opposed, and now advocated, the Ballot, new Reform Bills, and Democratic innovations generally. On what other grounds is the uniform ruthless hostility of Dissent to the Irish Church to be accounted for? Besides, the real designs of Dissenters appeared in their first efforts, directed plainly and immediately in 1833 against the union of Church and State; and in the three motions of 1834, 1836, and 1837, for expelling the Bishops from the House of Lords.

This, then, was the end of Dissent,-the destruction of the Established Church,-and the only end kept steadily and perpetually in view. Its civil and party relations were simply means to that end, and therefore variable. At the close of 1843, indeed, the principles and objects of Dissent were the principles and objects of the British Anti-State-Church Association combined with the principles and objects of the National Complete Suffrage Union. But it was the policy of Dissent to procure the objects of the latter before, though as subsidiary to, attaining the objects of the former organisation. The Reform Bill of 1832 having proved a delusion and a snare to Dissent in its coup d'église, another and a more Democratic measure was demanded, which, it was hoped, and with better reason, would ultimately bring about that consummation so devoutly desired.