is of material benefit to the community, by promoting the attainment of those ends which were contemplated by the wisdom of our ancestors, when they confided the interests of religion to the care of a National Church.'

But alas! these are evil times. During the greater part ' of the last century, there had been little perceptible change in the aspect of public affairs, as connected with the interests of the 'Church. Till those arch-schismatics, Wesley and Whitfield, arose to disturb the ease of the Episcopal Zion, and to unsettle the minds of the good people of England, the Church' in question, enjoyed a very remarkable quiescence, which extended even to the Sectaries without the pale of her communion. No irr gu larities of zeal, no Quixotic plans for evangelizing the world, no Bible-society spirit, broke upon the dead calm of that happy period, calling for the precautions and justifying the alarms of the spiritual rulers to whom were then confided the interests of religion within this realm. The current,' says his Lordship, with slight fluctuations, had continued to flow in the same channel and on a level nearly the same. The controversies which 'occasionally arose, were settled by the learned in their closets.' The growth of new opinions, the progress of rising sects, were ' regarded with jealousy, as pregnant with future mischiefs, yet without exciting apprehension for the stability of our ecclesias⚫tical establishments.'

But now all is changed: it is our lot to have fallen on days of innovation and trouble: the political character of the age has produced an alteration in the circumstances of the country, and an agitation in the public mind, affecting the Church as well as the State, which, under the guidance of wisdom and probity, may tend to the increase of true religion and virtue, but, if left to the direction of chance or folly, will terminate in ruin and confusion.'

Theagents of evil,' the dark and turbulent spirits,' who, in league with the Prince of Darkness, overthrew the ancient ⚫ establishments of Europe, religious, civil, and political,'—that is to say, Popery and Legitimacy, and whose further projects were defeated by the Duke of Wellington at the battle of Waterloo, could not be expected tamely to acquiesce in arrangements which consigned them to inaction, or to cease to desire new scenes of confusion for the promotion of their selfish ends.' Accordingly, the legion crossed the channel, and entered into one William Hone, the organ of those to whom his Lordship, we suppose, alludes, as having presumed to address the abomi'nations of blasphemy in audible accents to the multitude.'

Dismayed by the indignation of the public, the serpent has shrunk into his den, where in darkness he ruminates his plans, and improves his capacities of mischief."

This, however, cannot be fairly or appropriately said of Mr. Hone, who has opened a handsome shop on Ludgate Hill, where we understand he ruminates no other plans than those which may repair his fortunes and improve his business, for the maintenance of his numerous family. And to these he will do well in future to confine himself. He has learned that political pasquinades of an irreligious and profane description, will not now be tolerated, as they were when Canning wrote in the Anti-jacobin, and Gilray designed for the Ministerial print-shops. The sentiment of the public, though it partook of disgust at the hypocrisy of the attempt to give a religious character to a political prosecution, was unequivocally that of deprecation in reference to all productions of the kind whether it be treason and blasphemy, or anti-jacobinism and blasphemy, the thing will not now be endured; and with all due deference to his Lordship, we think the improved moral tone of the public feeling in this respect, rather goes against his argument as to the peculiar dangers of the times, of the existence of which he persuades himself that the most incredulous muust, in spite of every prejudice, be convinced. Dangers, however, and formidable dangers, we are assured, do exist, and, of course, the Church is in danger. 'Publications of the most pernicious tendency are still in circulation, adapted to the taste and capacities of all descriptions of men,' the obvious purpose of which is the extinction of mo'rality and the extirpation of religion in the country.'

But since it has always been found that plans of enormous iniquity, when distinctly avowed, are regarded with horror, and defeated by the zeal of their advocates, the agents of evil, while they carry on the main work of corruption in secret, direct their efforts with somewhat less reserve to another point, through which they must necessarily pass to their ulterior object-the demolition of the National Church. In this enterprize, they are actively aided or feebly resisted by men with whom they have little in common, in principles, te.nper, or design; by some among the Dissenters, whom the preudices of education, or their own speculations have taught that Establishments are subversive of Christian liberty, and hostile to the advancement of truth; and by a few perhaps even among the mem. Ders of our own Church, dissatisfied with our ecclesiastical system, Decause in its present administration it is unfavourable to their parLicular notions and favourite views. If these observations are just, our dangers will appear to originate in impiety, rancorous and inveterate, in hostility to the religion of the State, and in a morbid iregularity of pious affection, which is distinguished from genuine piety, by tendency to faction, contempt of authority, or devi tion Trom sobriety and reason.'

'If these observations are just,' the plain state of the case, must be this, that Mr. Hone and others, the authors and abet

tors of the recent parodies upon the Liturgy, have embarked (as my Lord Castlereagh would say) in an enterprize,' the specific object of which is the overthrow of the Established Church, in which highly feasible undertaking they are actively aided by a party among the Dissenters, a party pretty large, indeed, if it comprises all those who have been taught that establish'ments are subversive of Christian liberty, and hostile to the 'advancement of truth.' This class of persons, although it is said they have little in common with the men they are actively aiding,' in respect of their design, are yet clearly to be viewed as conspirators; their hostility to the religion of the State' is in direct alliance with the impiety, rancorous and inveterate,' of the other supposed party, who are for extirpating religion and morality altogether, and to whose efforts the few' who make up the third company of the enemy's forces, oppose a 'feeble re'sistance.'

Our readers will perceive with what strict propriety this production of his Lordship's is styled a charge! It consists, in fact, of little more than charge upon charge against different descrip. tions of the community. Were it not for these wicked sectaries, we really fear that his Lordship would have been at a loss for a topic on which to discourse to his clergy. As to the facts on which the charges are founded, we have not access to the green-bag evi- ¡ dence by which alone they could be substantiated. His Lordship. as a privy-counsellor, has, it should seem, secret information as to the projected achievement, which has not yet transpired. We have indeed seen Jeremy Bentham's book; and if the Bishop was just warm from the perusal of some of his under-graduate's max'ims,' when he sat down to pen his Charge, that might of itsel account for the temper in which it is written; but still, that formidable, and we frankly add, highly exceptionable volume, can scarcely be admitted as proof sufficient of an extensive conspiracy; nor would it be fair, on the ground of the eccentric production of a recluse, to indict the whole body of Dissenters as demolitionists.

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But we must take the liberty of commenting upon his Lordship's phraseology, as in itself somewhat injurious. Hostility to the religion of the State, is not chargeable upon those who are hostile (if so warlike a term must be employed) only to State-establishment of religion. An establishment,' as Dr. Paley remarks, is no part of Christianity,' no part, therefore of religion; it is only the means of inculcating it.' To the re ligion of the State, as imbodied in the Articles and Homilies & the Church, the greater part of those who disapprove of this; means of inculcating it, are decidedly attached; and their hos tility to the means, as both illegitimate and injurious, proceed from their attachment to the end. But till this hostility man

fest itself in some other way than a peaceable assertion of the rights so fully conceded to them by the constitutional government under which they live, the Bishop of London, in accusing them of compassing, in alliance with men of rancorous and inveterate impiety, the demolition of the Church, has to answer for that species of detraction which worst of all things accords with the Episcopal character.

Did it not for a single moment occur to his Lordship, while he was thus ranking Dissenters at large with men whose object is the extinction of morality and the extirpation of religion in the country, that the strongest counteraction to any such dark purposes, is supplied by the exertions of the Dissenters themselves? Yes, it is the activity of these Dissenters, in educating the children of the poor, in disseminating the Scriptures, and in preaching the Gospel, which furnishes the Bishop with his most cogent arguments for the exertions of the clergy. But unless he will dare say that these efforts have a tendency to demoralize the people, he must own that the agents of evil are the most powerfully and diligently opposed by those whom he represents as their auxiliaries; and unless he will also affirm that it was by efforts such as these that the French Revolution was brought about, and that these are the works of the demon of misrule,' he must own that his reference to that event is wholly unmeaning, and that in the imbecility of fear, he has confounded together things as opposite as evil and good.

But if the Church is in danger, what matters it whether religious enthusiasm,' or the more terrible form of impiety,' be the primary mover and instrument of the convulsion? The possibility of such danger, as the result of either cause, imparts to them a character of evil in common, which obliterates in his Lordship's mind all idea of their moral distinction. After alluding in terms of congratulation to the recent parliamentary grant for the erection of new churches, the Bishop proceeds:

'We must not, however, indulge the sanguine persuasion that the most ample provision of church room, would entirely extirpate irreligion, or conciliate dissent. The root of these evils lies deep in the corruption or infirmity of our nature. In the present instance, they have grown up at leisure, and in some places may almost be said to have obtained possession of the soil. In the field of morals, no less than of nature, both labour and time are required to clear away the briars and thorns produced by disuse of cultivation.'

In this passage, his Lordship distinctly speaks of irreligion and dissent as kindred evils, springing from one common origin—' the corruption or infirmity of our nature;' and we are sure that a man of his Lordship's character, would not have so spoken of them, had they not by some means or other, become linked together in his ideas. Associations of this description, when they

have once taken place, it is impossible to dissolve. The combinations of des which are formed by the reasoning faculty, obey the laws of reason, and admit with ease of perpetual interchanges; but those which the imagination puts together from some chance impression of their likeness, disdain all logical control. A solitary error may be reasoned down, but hopeless is the task of removing mistakes which involve erroneous habits of thinking.

Still, making every allowance for those differences of opinion which are the almost inevitable result of the prejudices of educa'tion,' or the teaching of mere speculation, we regret that we must still speak of the Bishop's Charge in the language of complaint. Had his Lordship been addressing an indiscriminate multitude, he might have felt himself conscientiously impelled, with his present views, to warn them against the evil of dissent ;-although even then we might question the wisdom and the scriptural of representing it as an evil of the same kind as irreligion propriety and immorality. But this Charge was delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of London, a body so truly respectable for learning and piety, that it were the grossest reflection upon them to imagine that they stood in need of being cautioned against favouring Sectarianism. We think it was really unnecessary for them to be taught to shun more carefully, or to regard with increasing antipathy, the persons of the Dissenters. We think, therefore, with all due deference, that his Lordship might better have employed the time of his reverend audience, than by representations adapted to strengthen the most anti social and unchristian prejudices, and to excite, in reference to their secular interests, those idle alarms, and that baneful esprit de corps, which are the very elements of danger and commotion.

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His Lordship's tacit condemnation of the British and Foreign Bible Society, is quite in unison with the spirit of his Charge. He expresses his conviction, that had members of the Establishment uniformly confined their suppport to the Bartlett's Buildings' Societies, all legitimate purposes of Christian zeal would in the result have been promoted with equal effect, without 'bitterness, wrath, or contention, without disturbance of brotherly concord, or danger to the unity of the Church; all which are of course to be considered as chargeable upon those who have adopted a different line of conduct. They are the men who, instigated by the morbid irregularity of pious affection,' are adding to the dangers of the Church. By religion,' says his Lordship, we mean Christianity pure and undefiled, as it is taught in the primitive creeds, and in the catechism of our Established Church.' Is then what his Lordship means by religion, something different from Christianity as it is taught in the sacred Scriptures? or are not the Scriptures sufficient to make