forbad all tutors and schoolmasters being present at any dissenting place of worship.

The last attempt upon this body was the memorable bill of Lord Sidmouth in 1810. The meditated encroachment upon their liberties was worthy of the sinister statesman from whom it emanated. The Dissenters, to their immortal honour, rushed forward at once to repel this aggression on their rights. Had they suffered their ministers to be placed at the mercy of the Quarter Sessions, the magistrates, no doubt, would not only have judged of their fitness for the ministry of the Gospel, but also of their fitness for the ministry of the Borough

mongers.

This disgraceful spirit of legislation is now only matter for history. The repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts and the Catholic Relief Act have scarcely left any trace of the formidable penal code which, for a long time, interdicted to a large portion of the community not only the enjoyment of their civil immunities, but the free disposal of their persons and property. Both Dissenters and Roman Catholics may still complain of not being eligible to fill the office of lord chancellor, or be a member of the privy council; they may complain of being excluded from the national universities, and may think it a hardship in case they fill any judicial, civil, or corporate office, that they cannot appear in their official costume, nor with the insignia of their office at their own places of worship; but these are trifling grievances, scarcely worth mentioning. They are subject to no test on account of religious belief; and it may be now truly said that, with the exception of JEWS and openly professing INFIDELS, the honours and advantages of the social state-so far, at least, as spiritual dogmas are concerned-are fairly opened to every candidate.

66

For this salutary triumph we have been indebted solely to secular wisdom, not to any generous concession or enlightenment proceeding from our established instructors. The Church has always shown itself more tenacious of its monopoly than even the Aristocracy. Of the lofty tone of intolerance maintained by some of our high dignitaries, to a recent period, we have a rather amusing instance in the conduct of DR. KIPLING, the late Dean of Peterborough, and which we shall shortly relate. The Rev. Mr. Lingard, the distinguished Roman Catholic historian, had, it seems, in his Strictures on Professor Marsh's Comparative View," &c. used the words "new Church of England" once, and oftener "the modern Church of England." To consider the Church of England "new" or "modern" appeared a mortal offence in the eyes of Dean Kipling. He wrote a furious letter to Mr. Lingard; quoted a passage from Hawkins; and threatened to prosecute him if he did not, within a limited time, prove what the Dean intimated it was impossible for him to prove. Whether the Dean afterwards relented, or whether Mr. Lingard proved that the Church of England, as being the offspring or daughter of the Church of Rome, which, in many respects, she so much resembles, was "new," we are ignorant.

N

Did

our limits permit, we would insert the Very Rev. Dean's loving epistle. It would show what a meek, gentle, Christian spirit may still rankle in the hearts of some of our church dignitaries. It would show to what expedients these worthies would resort to uphold their faith, or, more correctly, their temporalities, were they not restrained by the march of philosophy and the public mind. It is impossible to read Dean Kipling's letter without feeling persuaded that, had Mr. Lingard had no better barrier for his personal safety than the tolerant spirit of the writer, he might still be liable to be hung up by the middle, with an iron chain, and roasted before a slow fire, according to the orthodox piety of olden time.

Men ought always to set their faces against prosecution for opinions, whether instituted under pretence of heresy, sectarianism, Judaism, or even infidelity. Under any of these forms it is the same mischievous and dogmatical principle. What difference, for instance, is there in the principles of a prosecution instituted at this day for Judaism or infidelity, and a Popish prosecution instituted in the reign of Queen Mary on account of the real presence. In both cases difference of opinion is combated by corporeal infliction; the Papist punished by fire, the modern intolerant by fine, imprisonment, or civil disability. The difference in the punishment makes no difference in the motive; in both cases it is combating mind by physical force, and he who employs such a weapon is as deeply immersed in the night of Popery, as Bishop Bonner, who laboured to convert the miserable victims of his cruelty by a vigorous application of birch to the posteriors.

The ingenuous mind revolts from the idea of maintaining opinions by force to say that any class of opinions shall not be impugned, that their truth shall not be called in question, is at once to declare that these opinions are infallible, and that their authors cannot err. What can be more egregiously absurd and presumptuous? It is fixing bounds to human knowledge, and saying that men cannot learn by experience; that they can never be wiser in future than they are to day. The vanity and folly of this is sufficiently evinced by the history of religion and philosophy. Great changes have taken place in both; and what our ancestors considered indisputable truths their posterity discovered to be gross errors. To continue the work of improvement, no dogmas, however plausible, ought to be protected from investigation; and the only security of the present generation against the errors of their progenitors, is modestly to admit that, in some things, they may possibly yet be mistaken.

The Papists are not the only class of religionists obnoxious to the reproach of uncharitable tenets. HUME justly remarks that toleration is not the virtue of priests of any denomination; and this is amply confirmed by the history of the Scottish, Romish, and English churches. They have all shed bloods tortured, and punished, when circumstances gave them an ascerti The reason is obvious. Religion is more understanding s 1 it mi We expected

the result of feel

that its most intense professors should be more prompt to use the vulgar weapons suggested by passion and violence, then listen to the dictates of reason and humanity.

Crisis of the Irish Church at the close of 1831.

In Ireland ecclesiastical oppression appears to have reached its term of duration. When a people become unanimous, their fiat is omnipotent and without appeal. It is this which will abase the usurpations of the Boroughmongers, and the same power has decided the fate of the Irish Protestant clergy. At the time we are writing there is all but a national insurrection against the tithe system. In Queen's County, in Kilkenny, Clare, and Tipperary, the resistance to clerical oppression is nearly unanimous-and the spirit is rapidly spreading to other counties. The incomes of many of the clergy have become merely nominal; instead of seizing and selling the produce of others, they are compelled, as a means of temporary subsistence, to bring their own domestic chattels under the hammer of the auctioneer. Yet the law is in their favour; the courts have power to decree and the sheriffs to seize the goods of the refractory. But who will buy-who dare bid at a tithe auction? There is the rub. Laws and acts of parliament are empty sounds-they are mere "ink and parchment unless guaranteed by public opinion." The police, the magistracy, and an army of 30,000 men are powerless against six millions united.

Ministers, finding the battle is lost, have brought the subject before parliament. But it may be doubted whether their views are yet commensurate with the vastness of the undertaking. The Protestant church may be considered virtually dissolved; in fact and opinion it is gone. It has fallen, not so much from its secular oppression as its monstrous incongruities, and from its failing to answer one objectmoral, social, or political-for which a church was ever established and supported. A composition for tithe, for the benefit of the priesthood, is out of the question; nothing remains but a general commutation with the landed interest for the benefit of the public-we say the public, because the fee simple of church property is not in the clergy, but in the community at large. The example of Scotland must be followed and improved upon. An equal provision or NONE for the pastors of all sects, a provision for the poor and for popular education, are the fragments to be seized out of the wreck of the establishment. At all events, in the approaching transition, the tithes must not be suffered to slip into the rents of an absentee proprietary. No! Ireland must have the benefit of the TWO MILLIONS* now spent in other climes. It

the

• Mr. Leader estimated the sum annually drawn out of Ireland in tithes and ts of glebe and bishops' lands at £1,785,000. (House of Commons, 1th, 1831.) Our previous statements from official returns will have readers that this is not an exaggerated estimate.

would clothe her nakedness, reclaim her wastes, appease her hunger, and civilize her generous but yet barbarous population.

A system like that described in preceding pages could not, by possibility, be lasting. It contained within itself the seeds of destruction. Yet it has been long and obstinately persevered in through midnight outrage, assassination, and massacre. To enforce this abominable oppression 26,000 persons have been butchered in twentys and tens within the last thirty years. Surely this hecatomb of victims is large enough to appease the Moloch of ecclesiastical cupidity. Horrible as the system has been, the mere proposition for reform has been delayed to the twelfth hour. So long as the people only suffered, their cries were unheeded. But the clergy themselves are now the victims; they have lost their incomes; they did very well without churches and congregations, but they cannot do without tithes; so the legislature flies to their relief. The millions pleaded in vain, but their handful of oppressors is listened to. Is this justice? No! it is only fear and selfishness. Nevertherless, like good Christians, we must pardon injuries-forget the past—and provide for a better futurity.

While we fervently hope to see the condition of Ireland improved by the cultivation of her vast resources, by the improvement of her laws and magistracy, by the annihilation of factious interests, and by a provision for her destitute poor, still we cannot help entering our protest against the repeal of the UNION. Had not the decree against the Boroughmongers gone forth, we might have embraced such an alternative; but as the days of the Oligarchy are numbered, we can see no good reason for separating the destinies of Ireland from those of England. It is useless to disguise-the ultimate object sought by the Repealers is the erection of Ireland into an independent state under the presidentship, kingship, or something else of the "Liberator:" but men, we trust, are too enlightened to be ridden over rough-shod, either by the wiles of priests, of mendicant patriots, or military adventurers. We do not inquire what individuals-but what the people would gain by this revolution? From Britain it would sever the right arm of her power; and what advantages would Ireland reap by a separate existence? She does not possess, within herself, the elements to constitute an united, prosperous, and enlightened community. Supposing, for a moment, she escaped a century of civil war, and forthwith passed under the yoke of the ex-king of Kerry," with a deplorably ignorant population for his lieges-a fanatical, but richly endowed priesthood, as they would be with the lands and tithes of the Protestant establishment-for the servile

instruments of his sovereignty--what a spectacle would she present! Under such a regime, it is easy to discern insuperable obstacles to every social improvement. For ages she would be no better under her new autocrat, than Portugal under Don Miguel, or Naples under the sway of a Bourbon. Every sincere well-wisher to the greatness and happi

⚫ Statement made at the Aggregate Meeting, Dublin, August 2nd, 1831.

ness of England and Ireland must deplore the idea of dismemberment: united, they may be a source of mutual light and power; dissevered, they would be the luminary of day and lamp of night struck from their orbits. Such an event holds out no remedy for any specific evil; whatever measures for the good of Ireland could be effected by the senate of College-green, may be effected by the reformed parliament of the united kingdom; and this without the delay, clash, and conflict inseparable from rival legislatures. A dissolution, therefore, of the empire cannot be sought as the mean of public good, but as a mere stalking-horse to selfish aggrandisement.

Under an enlightened general government, England and Ireland may pull together for the mutual advantage of both, and, we trust, by speedy and effective reforms, so unfortunate a catastrophe as a legislative separation will be averted. It cannot be forgotten how Ireland was governed by her own parliament- the most corrupt, selfish, and ignorant set of legislators that ever assembled between four walls. For what then should it be revived? The true policy for tranquillizing the country and disarming faction is obvious; remove grievances and confer benefits. Instead of burthening the yet struggling manufactures and agriculture of the Irish with additional taxes, as was sought to be done by the Wellington ministry, a resource ought to be sought in the crown-lands of Ireland, and in the wasted estates of the Church, in the million of neglected acres possessed by absentee bishops, and in the million and more worth of land and tithe possessed by the collegiate bodies and nonresident incumbents. Here is the panacea for cementing the UNION, producing contentment, and supplying the wants of an impoverished Exchequer.

The besotted tyranny which has impeded the prosperity of Ireland will hardly be credited by posterity. Her population is only halfcivilized; in religion, manners, and domestic habits, no better than the rabble of the Peninsula; while her lands in whole districts are as little cultivated as the wilds of Tartary. We do not allude to the bog and mountain wastes; and these, in great part, continue such from an obstinate legislation which tolerates, year after year, the remains of baronial tenures;-but would it be believed that there is, or was, so recently as 1821, a tract of country in the south of Ireland, occupying 800 square miles of territory, in which there is not a single resident gentleman, nor clergyman, nor a single road fit for a wheel-carriage to pass? This is the testimony of Mr. Baron FOSTER; and hear it, Boroughmongers! you, who have expended millions to fortify Canada, as you did the Netherlands, for a rival power, and to provide colonial sinecures and offices in sugar islands, converted into hells for the infliction of torture on your fellow-creatures,-hear, and look at home, how you have governed and elicited the resources of our great dependency, placed at the threshhold, in the very bosom of the empire!

Who can revert to the history of the Oligarchy without indignation? Rotten boroughs and tithes, as much as sinecures, pensions, and exorbitant salaries, have been the great obstacles to sound national policy. The holders and expectants of these have been ever bandied together, no