been drawn off to swell the ranks of dissenters, that it is considered questionable, whether it dare risk such a collision or whether even a majority of the church desire it. I have not thus dwelt upon the church as a separate institution, nor have I assailed it as a sectarian, I have had another object in exhibiting its principles and character. The church is interwoven with the fate of England, hence it is necessary to know its strength or weakness, to come ultimately to a correct conclusion concerning the final result. In reviewing the preceding pages, we find the church had its origin in an amorous passion of Henry VIII-that it has lived by extortion and oppression, which are always united with corruption and that its clergy are a part of the aristocracy of the realm, and hence bound with them in the same interests and probably destined to the same fate. That a church of Christ should oppress the poor, is sufficient disgrace-but that it should by its ecclesiastical courts lock up men and women in prison because they will not violate their consciences, is a fearful crime. These things cannot continue. This is too barefaced a lie, amid the multitude that see it, there will yet be found a Luther, or a Knox to speak. All reformers have risen from the ranks of the people. They are things which cannot enter into the calculations of legislators in providing for the future, nor come within the scope of their jurisdiction when they appear. Heaven sent, they are heaven-guarded. With a message from God, they are protected till its delivery. The barriers of power melt to their touch. The ponderous gates of the prison house of humanity, swing open at their approach, for an angel is beside the Paul and the Silas. There is something about them that calls forth and concentrates all the slumbering energies of the timorous and the doubting They constitute a central force, around which swing all the descendant elements, and separate parties that have been working for the same thing in not the same way. Their words are charmed words, combining and harmonizing multitudes in a moment. Their action and their language, authenticate their commission. The people feel it and in them behold the pillar of fire that is to guide them to liberty. They create a panic when they appear, which cannot be controlled a courage which cannot be resisted. Let England beware of such men. If her agitation and trouble do not yet throw them up, she will be an exception to the general law of nations. It will happen. The few who are carefully watching the motion of the tide as it rolls on are waiting for the crisis. One of them has said, in speaking of the incarceration of Baines---"Be sure however of this, if there be really a soul in man, or a God in heaven, it cannot be, if church courts are to continue, to commit men to prison, but that some one or other shall rise up, who after admitting all that can be urged against a mistaken and erring man, shall yet speak such words of thunder on the mere fact of his ecclesiastical incarceration, and strike such flashes of fire from his chains, as shall startle the indifferent, and cure the dumb." BOOK THE FOURTH. (The same subject continued.) ~ A SHORT REPLY TO "THE FAME AND GLORY OF ENGLAND VINDICATED." The coarse inventions of Englishmen who have either visited us for the express purpose of manufacturing libels, or betaken themselves to this expedient on their return home as a profitable speculation-by such men it is thought harsh and uncharitable to touch the sores and blotches of the British nation. Robert Walsh. The English boast of liberty! But there is no liberty in England for the poor.-Southey. The country blooms, a garden and a grave!-Goldsmith. God knows that much evil, much tyranny, much individual suffering must exist under our present political arrangements.-London Quarterly Review, Dec. 1839. * * * For many years, very scandalous attempts were made to disturb this good understanding between Great Britain and the United States, by miserable and wretched attacks upon the domestic habits and manners of the citizens of the United States But the days of Anti-American pamphleteers, reviewers, and novelists have been numbered. The dynasty of the Trollopes has been overthrown. Abuse of America is now confined almost exclusively to the violent Tory papers; thus marking the quarters from which such abuse is likely to proceed, and the personages to whom it is presumed to be acceptable. -Edinburgh Review, July, 1840. |