But if our opponents choose to make the facts on which we have insisted an argument for further appeals to parliament, let them at all events be consistent. We have endeavored to show the past inefficiency of the system; that it is virtually dying or dead. The fact may be denied, or it may be admitted; if the former, our adversaries may endeavor to show that taxation has done more than we have stated for the propagation of religion; if the latter, they may if they will employ it for the purposes aforesaid, and appeal to government to exercise a greater liberality; but they cannot consistently admit and deny the fact at the same time: contend that the compulsory system, which has hitherto done so little, is superior to the voluntary system, and yet extract from its very inefficiency an argument for unlimited reliance upon it. Even if it had been wholly untried, the best that could be said of it would be, that we waited the result of an experiment. But the fact is, that it has not been untried; it has been tried, but found want'ing.' Its efficiency has been in an inverse ratio to the demands made upon it. It has been doing less just when it was required to do more.

We shall now devote a few pages to the examination of the late debate.

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The speech of the honorable member for Oxford is full of amusing sophistries, on some of which, as we are in merry mood, we cannot resist the temptation to offer a few remarks. In introducing the subject, the honorable member took occasion to eulogize the motives of the petitioners for Church extension. They were so disinterested! they prayed, not as petitioners usually do, for a remission of taxes, but for an increase of them; they prayed that parliament would be graciously pleased to take the money out of their pockets! Whether this eulogy be deserved or not we shall take the liberty to examine as soon as we have cited the words of Sir Robert himself. What,' said the honorable member, was the general character of these petition'ers? They did not pray for relief from any particular burden, nor to be continued in the enjoyment of any exclusive privilege -they did not even pray for an abstract good, nor for the 'cession of that the obtaining of which would cost them nothing. In all these respects these petitions differed from the great mass of petitions ordinarily presented to the house. These 'petitioners prayed for that which they knew could not be obtained without some sacrifice to themselves. This was a distinction shared only by the petitions which were presented some years ago for the continuation of church-rates-petitions asking for the continuance of that which they knew to be a burden, but at the same time felt to be a privilege. What did the 'petitioners ask for? Increased accommodation for religious worship---increased means of religious instruction, according to

the principles of the Established Church.' Now either the worthy men here eulogized are willing to do of their own accord as much as they ask parliament to compel them to do, or they are not. If they are, the only difference which their petitioning makes is, that they would fain have those who are not willing to give, compelled to pay; and how their petitioning that the Dissenters may be placed in this predicament is proof of their disinterestedness is hard to say. If, on the other hand, strange supposition! they are not willing to do as much without compulsion as with it, or would fain make up for the deficiences of their own benevolence by a tax on the nation at large, we are still at a greater loss to discover wherein the disinterestedness of these petitioners is manifested. Certainly it appears to us that selfishness would be a far more proper name for it; that sort of disinterestedness which consists in putting one's hand into other people's pockets we cannot say we have any manner of respect for. If, indeed, the petitioners had requested that they alone might bear their own burdens, and that those might not be compelled to pay for the Church who did not belong to it, we could have understood the encomium of the honorable member; but it will be a long time before Churchmen offer any such petition as this.

As to the disinterestedness and such stuff, who does not see that the real object of the petitioners is to secure contributions from the reluctant; to obtain that from the whole community which the whole community could not be otherwise got to give? Who does not see the absurdity of supposing they have any other object; of supposing men to petition parliament to be graciously pleased to compel them to do that which they are perfectly willing to do of their own accord? Unless, indeed, we are to suppose that the benevolence of these petitioners is of so peculiar a character that they cannot trust it without an act of parliament; that though quite willing to pay they cannot do it unless forced; that their benevolent feelings will all ooze away from them, if the law does not come to the aid of their good resolutions; and that they fear after all that they shall not have the heart to give unless the necessity of paying a tax should put it beyond their choice. Their sole object, no doubt, is to be placed beyond the reach of temptation.

The next fallacy worthy of notice is that by which the honorable member endeavors to prove that as the Dissenters ale a mere minority, they are to be disregarded by the legislature, however large may be the grants necessary to carry out the theory of the Established Church. We shall again cite his words, and then comment upon them. The Lancashire returns,' says he, moved for by Mr. O'Connell, would show how little 'right the Dissenters had to attempt the overthrow of the Esta

blished Church. Out of a population of 1,560,000, the total 'number not belonging to the Church was 281,899. In Lanca'shire, then, there were three-fourths of the population who 'belonged to the Established Church. But he had a higher ' authority still. Mr. M'Culloch states the number of Dissenters in England at 2,700,000, or at most 3,000,000; but, deducting 'therefrom the number of Roman Catholics' [are they not Dissenters then?], there would not remain more than 2,500,000 'Protestant Dissenters in England. Would it then be said that 'government could not discharge its duties to the people, to religion, and to God, because a certain minority were ever ready to thwart their operations? Could any government exist if it 'continued to act on such principles? Had they not innumerable instances in which the will of the minority was compelled to yield to that of the majority? Had they not many instances ' of men in a civilized state of society being compelled to pay for what they might conscientiously object to?'

We shall not stop to inquire whether the statistical statements of the honorable member are worthy of implicit credence. We shall merely remark on this point, that even admitting the Protestant Dissenters of England to be numerically less than the members of the Established Church, nothing can be more absurd than to attempt to exaggerate the value of the majority by claiming for the Establishment all that are not avowed Dissenters. The honorable member makes no sort of deduction for the vast numbers, who in this country, cannot be said to have any religion at all, or even for those whom we should have thought any church would be very glad not to count amongst its members. But the Church of England is not so nice; criminals in our jails, the pickpockets and the harlots in our streets, tipplers of the alebench, the fellows who, like the soldier in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, are at any time ready to confirm their attachment to the Establishment, and to show their zeal for religion by a profane oath, must all be put down to swell the aggregate of Churchmen! Sir Robert is very welcome to all the additions he may be pleased to make to his sum total from such sources. We are quite sure that Dissenters will not strive to magnify their numbers by any such unscrupulous arithmetic. Admitting, however, for argument's sake, that the statistics of the honorable member are perfectly correct, the absurdity of his argument lies in this; that the speaker chooses, for his own purposes, to regard the Protestant Dissenters in England, and the Established Church of England, as if they were the whole empire; as though the parliament represented them alone, and were convened to legislate for their sole benefit. We always thought that the empire consisted of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, that the parliament was supposed to represent the whole of these, and to legislate for

the benefit of the whole; and we are quite sure that if the honorable baronet were to obtain any grant at all, he would expect that it would come out of the pockets of the whole; from the Presbyterians of Scotland and the Catholics of Ireland, as well as from the members of the Established Church and the Protestant Dissenters of England. The question of a majority or minority, therefore, is to be determined by reference to the whole commuLity represented, not to a part. What would be thought of a member of the House of Commons, absurd enough to contend that a measure ought to pass because there was a greater number of Englishmen for it than against it, while there was an undeniable majority of the whole empire, and of the representatives of the whole empire against it. Now according to this, the only rational way of considering the subject, the Dissenters from the Established Church are not a minority. According to Sir Robert himself, the Protestant Dissenters of England are about three millions; there are three millions of Presbyterians in Scotland, and more than seven millions of Catholics in Ireland and England, constituting a clear majority of the whole population. They are as clearly all dissenters from the English Establishment, and yet they are all to be taxed, forsooth, for the exclusive support of that Establishment!

The shuffling method of argument now adverted to, our high Churchmen are very fond of practising, and by means of it can make out majorities and minorities just as they please. Instead of regarding the empire as one, and the several religious communities of which it consists as forming one whole in relation to the legislature, they separate or combine them just as the occasion requires, without the slightest regard to consistency or common sense. If we complain that the Protestants of Ireland form a very small minority of the whole population of that country, and are not entitled to any exclusive privileges, then our opponents are glad enough to bring in the members of the Established Church in this country, and contend that the members of the Establishment in both countries together, outnumber the Catholics. They then choose to consider the English and Irish as one, simply because it answers a present purpose. If the Dissenters petition to be relieved from any grievance, then they dissolve the combination again, and limit their survey to one out of the four parts of the empire. The argument in the present case is more shuffling and disingenuous because it is not even pretended that the proposed tax would fall only on one portion of the empire; it would equally affect the whole of it; the Catholic Dissenters of Ireland, and the Presbyterian Dissenters of Scotland, are directly implicated in the measure, and can be left out of the calculation only because it is convenient to leave them out.

But even if England were alone to be taxed for such an object,

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there has certainly been no demonstration such as could for a moment justify a parliamentary grant. Though Churchmen, according to Sir Robert Inglis, outnumber the Dissenters by so many millions, and though they have been so early in the field, (long indeed before their adversaries), the number of signatures attached to the petitions in favor of Church extension amount to little more than two hundred thousand, while those from the Dissenters against it amount to very nearly the same number. Nor is it unworthy of remark that according to Sir Robert Inglis's own admission, his petitions do not come for the most part from the large and influential towns, but principally from remote villages and hamlets; in other words, not from the places which would have told most, but from which they could most easily be got; nor from the places which have most to do with the question, but from those which have least. Sir Robert, indeed, is pleased ingenuously to turn this latter circumstance into an argument in favor of his proposal. He says 'from the large towns the number of petitions, as compared with what had come from re'mote villages, was small. What was the inference that he drew from this? That the people most in want of spiritual instruction 'were themselves the least sensible of it.' We take leave to doubt whether there be not in all our large towns, quite a sufficient number of persons sensible of the importance of spiritual instruction to get up a petition in favor of Church extension if they thought this the best method of providing it, and though it is very kind, no doubt, of our villages and hamlets to be so solicitous about our cities and large towns, we very much question whether a great part of the petitioners knew precisely what they were about when they signed the petitions. The greater part, as Sir Robert admits, came from hamlets in remote and thinly peopled districts; the simple fact is that from such quarters petitions could be reckoned upon with certainty, and if those who manufactured them were to take it into their heads to get some up against Church extension to morrow, we have no doubt that the signatures of the same enlightened subscribers would obsequiously follow. Every body knows the state of dependence-little better than that of vassalage-in which a large portion of our rural districts are held, and that a wealthy rector or landlord can get the poor creatures who are dependent upon him to subscribe or vote for anything. The gross ignorance which too often pervades those districts ensures a still blinder submission, nor could the honorable baronet by any possibility have referred us to a set of petitions to which we should be disposed to attach less importance. We trust, however, that it will be some time before the legislature proceeds to impose a tax upon our cities and large towns till those who are principally concerned manifest some solicitude about the matter. Even if we restrict our view to England, instead of