There, Compton, bishop of London, preached; there, the lord-mayor and aldermen represented the commonalty of London. Great public occasions nave been since, when the vast spaces beyond that choir have been filled with multitudes. There is one annual solemnity when the voices of thousands of children unite here in hymns of adoration. But not till a hundred and sixty-one years' had gone by, since the magnificent fabric of Wren had been opened for divine service, was the experiment made of assembling a vast congregation beyond the comparatively narrow limits of the choir, to join in the chaunts of our noble liturgy,-to listen to the preacher who was now to speak to such an assemblage as were once spoken to by the preachers of the Reformation at Paul's Cross. To the mind of the great architect the notion could never have presented itself, that three thousand people would have been seated in attendance on the evening service of each Sunday night of a cold and wet winter-the greater number in the area where the choir, the nave, and the transepts join. Wren could not have imagined that, above those piers which carry the majestic concave to which no one ever looked up without a sense of its grandeur, the vast circle of the dome would be illuminated with many hundreds of jets of flame-brilliant as stars, shedding down a light as of noon-day-produced by an invention unknown to his age of scientific discovery. On those Sunday nights of December, 1858, whilst the simplest chaunts of the cathedral service, and the commonest hymns of a rural congregation, were sung by a choral band of unusual number and skill, the voices of the vast assembly swelled louder than the organ-peal, as if they felt that, for the first time, the colossal fane which rises sublimely over the smoke and mists of London had been applied to its proper uses; that the decent solemnities of the Anglican Church had now acquired a grandeur which, could the pure-minded philosopher who sleeps in the crypt below the dome have foreseen this change, he would have though that a far nobler destination for the great monument of his genius had been reached than all the pomp of Saint Peter's on its highest festivals. The Parliament was opened by William on the 3rd of December. The most important passage in the royal speech was this: “The circumstances of affairs abroad are such, that I think myself obliged to tell you my opinion, that, for the present, England cannot be safe without a land-force; and I hope we shall not give those who mean us ill the opportunity of effecting that, under the notion of a peace, which they could not bring to pass by a war.” He spoke the language of the sovereign of a free nation when he REDUCTION OF THE ARMY. 43 said, "That which I most delight in, and am best pleased to own, is, that I have all the proofs of my people's affection that a prince can desire; and I take this occasion to give them the most solemn assurance that, as I never had, so I never will nor can have, any interest separate from theirs." The House of Commons behaved with becoming gratitude to William, in fixing the royal revenue at a liberal amount for his life. They were somewhat precipitate, greatly to his annoyance, in their determination to reduce the army to ten thousand horse and foot. Before the opening of Parliament the question of maintaining an army during peace had been warmly canvassed. The king wrote to Heinsius: "The members who have come from the provinces seem to be strongly prejudiced against this measure, and infinite pains are taken to discredit it in the eyes of the public by speeches and by pamphlets." In January, the Commons limited the vote for the maintenance of troops for the current year to three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. William again wrote to Heinsius to say how greatly he was embarrassed: "You cannot form an idea of the indifference with which all foreign affairs are now considered. People here only busy themselves about a fanciful liberty, while they are forced to acknowledge that they were never so free, and have nothing to apprehend from me." In alluding to the clamour for what he calls "a fanciful liberty," William has reference to that popular jealousy of a standing army, which burst out the instant that the army abroad had done its work. The notion then set forth in very able tracts that "a standing army is inconsistent with a free government, and absolutely destructive to the constitution of the English monarchy," has long since passed away. But "the indifference with which foreign affairs are considered” has, again and again, been a cause of deep anxiety, not only to lavish ministers but to disinterested patriots. The arguments that were urged in 1697 against leaving the kingdom in a defenceless state may be applied, with little change, to our own times. "If," says the author of a letter once attributed to Somers, "we were in the same condition that we and our neighbours were an age ago, I should reject the proposition of a standing army with horror. But the case is altered. The whole world, more particularly our neighbours, have now got into the mistaken notion of keeping up a mighty force ; and the powerfullest of all these happens to be our next neighbour, who will very probably keep great armies. We may appear too inviting, if we are in such an open and unguarded condition that the success of an attempt may seem to be not only probable, but • Grimblet, vol. i. p. 139 ↑ Ibid., p. 148. certain. England is an open country, full of plenty, everywhere able to subsist an army; our towns and cities are all open; our rivers are all fordable; no passes nor strong places can stop an enemy that should land upon us." The writer then contrasts the secrecy and despatch with which an absolute government can carry forward its designs, whilst the measures of a free government must be contrived and executed without the same promptitude and the same concealment. This is good sense at any period; nor is the writer less sound when he points out the essential difference "between troops that have been long trained, who have learned the art and are accustomed to the discipline of war, and the best bodies of raw and undisciplined troops." * These arguments were of little avail. William, with his accustomed imperturbability, wrote to Heinsius,-"I shall get on as well as I can. It is fortunate, however, that they have resolved to give half-pay to all the officers who shall be disbanded. I estimate their number at fifteen hundred, or nearly so; so that, if we could afford it, we should have the means of forming again a considerable army "† The most important proceeding of this Session of Parliament was the Bill for settling the long-disputed question of continuing the monopoly of the old East India Company or for establishing a new Company. Fierce were the disputes between these rival traders; and these disputes took that form of party advocacy which is most violent when pecuniary interests are involved. The government, then composed almost exclusively of Whigs, favoured the pretensions of the adventurers who desired to be formed into a new Company, for they had promised to set on foot subscriptions for raising two millions sterling, to be lent for the public service upon interest at eight per cent. The old East India Company had offered to advance seven hundred thousand pounds, at four per cent. The necessities of the time made the offer of the highest sum most acceptable. The Whigs carried the New Company against the Tories, who supported the Old Company. The favoured adventurers were to be called "the English Company." The body which had been chartered by queen Elizabeth, and called "the London Company," was to cease trading in three years. But the Old Company had obtained territorial possessions of small extent, and had now made an important acquisition by the purchase of Calcutta, where they had built a stronghold, known as Fort William. The New Company had provided in this Bill for "A Letter balancing the necessity of keeping a lard-force, with the dangers that may follow on it." Grimblot, vol. i. p. 150. STATUTE AGAINST SOCINIANS. 45 the charge of sending ambassadors from the Crown to the poten- In his speech on the opening of Parliament the king said, "I esteem it one of the greatest advantages of the peace that I shall now have leisure to rectify such corruptions or abuses as may have crept into any part of the administration during the war; and effectually to discourage profaneness and immorality." Two months after, the Commons went up with an Address to the king, praying that he would issue his proclamation commanding all magistrates to put in execution the laws against such profaneness and immorality; and they added a request that he would take measures "for suppressing all pernicious books and pamphlets, which contain in them impious doctrines against the Holy Trinity, and other funda mental articles of our faith." As the king intimated in his answer, that it was necessary to make some more effectual provision for suppressing the pernicious books and pamphlets to which the Address alluded, an Act was passed, by which it was provided that if any person who had been educated in the Christian religion, or had made profession of the same, should by writing, printing, or teaching, deny the Holy Trinity, or deny the Christian religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures to be of divine authority, he should, for the first offence be disqualified for any office; for the second, be rendered incapable of bringing any action, of purchasing lands, or of being guardian, executor, or legatee. He was moreover to * See ante, vol. iii. p. 280. be subject to three years' imprisonment.* That portion of the Statute which related to persons denying the doctrine of the Trinity was repealed by the Act of 53 George III. The law of 1698, with this exception, still remains unrepealed or unmodified. But it is perfectly clear that any attempt to enforce it would be wholly opposed to the spirit of this age, not that we are less earnest in religious feeling than the generation that passed this Statute, but that we have learnt that opinions are not to be put down by indictments, as long as they are not disgustingly obtruded upon society as an insult to its decencies. In the attack made by the Act of William upon "blasphemous and impious opinions" regarding the doctrine of the Trinity, the difficulty, if not the impossibility, was involved of so accurately measuring the difference between orthodoxy and heterodoxy as to enable plain men to decide upon points upon which divines themselves were disputing. Thomas Firmin, a London citizen, was one of the leading advocates of the popular schemes of that day, "for setting the poor to work,”—that is, by providing the labour out of a common public stock which could not be provided by commercial enterprise, and thus increasing production without reference to the demand of the consumers, or making more poor by underselling the producers who were previously in the market. Firmin was, however, a man of real benevo lence, and though his schemes on any large scale would be impracticable, his exertions rescued many poor children from idleness and starvation. "He was in great esteem," says Burnet, "for promoting many charitable designs; for looking after the poor of the city and setting them to work; for raising great sums for schools and hospitals, and indeed for charities of all sorts, public and private." This practical Christian was the friend of Tillotson; "he was called a Socinian, but was really an Arian." He was as diligent in propagating his theological tenets as in his less questionable labours. According to Burnet, those who were at work to undermine the government " raised a great outcry against Socinianism, and gave it out that it was likely to overrun all; for archbishop Tillotson and some of the bishops had lived in great friendship with Mr. Firmin, whose charitable temper they thought it. became them to encourage." The clergy themselves came to dis pute amongst themselves, and thus to be divided by their adversaries into "real and nominal Trinitarians." The spirit of controversy that was again called forth "made the bishops move the king to set out injunctions, requiring them to see to the repressing of error and heresy, with all possible zeal, more particularly in the *9 Gul. III. c. 35 (c. 32 in the common printed editions.) |