Sir, if this view be correct, is it not clear, that the Established Church burial-grounds do not receive one-third of the mortality of the Metropolis? There is something striking in this fact, as compared with the evidence of the Rev. W. W. Champneys. That gentleman says (2863): "The deaths in my parish I calculate to be about 1,200 in a year." He next states, (2864,) that "the average number of interments" in his churchyard, is "360,"-less than one-third. Can correspondence be more exact? It is clear that the case of Mr. Champneys presents very nearly the average condition of the parochial grounds. Were you prepared for such a result? Perhaps you knew the fact. If you did not, your masters did. This was the cardinal point in the daily meditations of Bishop Blomfield; the grand point of his prelatic policy. If you did not know it, you and your Committee were culpably negligent. It was the first thing you ought to have inquired into, when you, with Messrs. Cowper and Beckett, sat down to draw your Bill. If you did know it, you are chargeable with the grossest outrage, not only on the rights of Englishmen, but on political propriety, that has been attempted for a century. Your plan, however, merits this praise; it perfects the theory of an Ecclesiastical Establishment. Sir Robert Inglis cries, "A Church for all!"-Mr. Mackinnon, with a shout, responds," AND A GRAVE FOR ALL!" Amen," says the Bishop, "Amen! That is good!" Amen, and a good let it be; but, amid all your zeal for consecrated bricks and mortar, spades and pickaxes, we hope you will have some regard to Religious Freedom, to Political Right, and Moral Justice. 66 If, to descend a little, some gratitude at least be due to old benefactors, the Dissenters ought not to be so treated. They have, in times past, done Mother Church good service in supplying her defects, with regard both to the dead and to the living. It was demonstrated, some two years ago, that, in London, even with the aid of the Dissenters, she did not supply Church-accommodation to nearly one-third of the living population. But in regard to the supply of that one-third, what was her position? Considering her revenues, most discreditable! It was stated thus:— Sir, think of these facts, and be instructed! Are not the moral, unspeakably more urgent than the mortal, necessities of the Metropolis? Behold, then, its obligations to Dissent! A searching and comprehensive inquiry into the moral and spiritual condition of this great capital, even now, would yield a volume of evidence such as never yet saw the light. And, if the condition of the City is still unutterably deplorable, what would it have been without the aid of the Dissenters? But the assistance they have yielded in reference to religious instruction, notwithstanding its magnitude, is much less than that which they have yielded in the matter of interment. Yet the advocates of the Church are less uncivil to Dissenters than you. Sir Robert and the clergy, hitherto at least, have only called for more churches; they have not yet proposed to shut up all Meetinghouses. Now, to more churches, if those who wish for them will only build them with their own money, Dissenters have no objection, so long as they touch not Dissenting chapels and Nonconformist privileges. But if a Bill were proposed for closing all the Dissenting chapels of the Metropolis, and building a sufficient number of Established churches to accommodate the entire population at the expense of the public, it would alter the case. Indignant millions would rise up to repel such an invasion of the rights of conscience, and to repress such an enormity of legislative injustice and persecution. But would not the principle of your Bill authorise such a measure? As we have already argued, is it not just as unlawful to close our grave-yards as it would be to close our chapels ? Sir, these Returns of the Parish-clerks and of the RegistrarGeneral, by the aid of ten figures, enable us to construct an irrefragable argument, and to condense that argument "Into one word, And that one word is-Lightning !" * See "Jethro," p. 22. Only reflect a moment: by one and the same act, you shut up all the existing burial-grounds in the Metropolis, and construct Cemeteries at the distance of two miles around. This done, what follows? This; you drive the entire mortality of the City either into the Joint-stock Cemeteries, every one of which, with the single exception of Abney Park, is already burdened with an enormous Bishop-tax for the benefit of the clergy; or else you drive it to the New Parochial Cemeteries, which you place wholly in the clergy's own hands! Either way, you monopolize the dead, and mulct the living! By this means, you recover at once to the clergy their lost dominion in the empire of Death, and place within their grasp upwards of thirty thousand dead bodies a-year, more than two-thirds of the entire mortality of this mighty city! Sir, have you considered what would be the value of this achievement to the clergy? At the very outset, in their hands, it would be equal, at the least, to an annual grant of Two HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS! Nor is this all; this vast revenue will go on doubling itself every thirty years! At a day not very distant, the annual income of the London clergy from these abodes of death, would be ONE MILLION STERLING! What a benefactor! What glory in the Clerical world awaits the" Head of the Clan Mackinnon !" "Glory, like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself!" Only, in your case, it will not "By broad spreading disperse to nought." No! your illustrious name will survive as long as the Church by law established. Your canonization is sure and certain! You will, beyond doubt, by a grateful Clerical posterity, be placed first on the Calendar; and most justly too, for you would confer upon the spiritual Corporation of London, more substantial good than all the "saints" that ever adorned or disgraced the annals of Popery! You, Sir, will be fully entitled to preside amid Milton's peerless host, that "Swell with pride, and must be titled gods, But, Sir, it is to be hoped you will yet wake from your dream. Take warning, we beseech you, and flee from the snare into which you have already fallen! Unless you make a timely retreat, you will become an instrument of deeds from which your honest nature would recoil with horror! A man of your simplicity is not safe in Clerical society. This great project, to which their Heads and Chiefs are secretly, or otherwise, urging you, is but a part of a mighty whole-a stupendous scheme of conquest over the spiritual liberties of Englishmen, and of destruction to all denominations of Protestant Dissenters! With regard to this last class, through the dead they are aiming a mortal blow at the living. The dangers to religious liberty are thickening every hour. Oxford, with brazen brow, is leading the way, and, with hasty steps, Cambridge is following her courtly sister. As the conductors of the Patriot stated last Monday, it is an established fact, that Professor Scholefield and the clergy of Cambridge have resolved to demand their full fees for all interments, without distinction, in that town, whether in Established or Dissenting burying-grounds. Sir, this is not an empty threat. But lately, on the occasion of the burial of a Dissenter, at her own chapel, by her own pastor, this same Professor Scholefield immediately transmitted to the mourning survivors "a bill for every item usually found in his funeral accounts;" and "the bill was actually paid." Sir, these are facts. Do you not blush to read them? Sir, if such is the beginning, what will be the end? We shudder at the anticipation! Let your Bill pass, closing all our grave-yards, and soon, very soon, will another be forthcoming to close our chapels! Yes; if your unjust, cruel, and despotic Bill shall become law, the days of our freedom are numbered! It is now being published, in all possible ways, that "the Clergy of the Church of England are ALONE duly commissioned to administer the sacraments of the Gospel in this country." This is indubitably the doctrine of a vast majority of the clergy; the inference and the application are as obvious as they are terrible. At what time soever the counsels of the clergy shall prevail at Court and in Parliament, at that time the doom of Nonconformity will be sealed! If matters proceed for twenty years longer as they have proceeded for a few years past, a crisis will arise, the consequences of which no man can foresee. The Dissenters of England are, and they have ever been, the firmest friends of the House of Hanover, while that house has, in turn, been the gracious and faithful protector of their rights. To that Royal Line they are devoted with a loyalty the most intense, disinterested, and pure. But, in return for continued loyalty, they look for continued protection. They know their rights; and, under the blessing of that Providence to which they ascribe all their mercies, and in which is all their confidence, their numbers, intelligence, wealth, and character abundantly enable them to assert those rights. National collision and convulsion, if unhappily they must come, while they will but purify Dissent, will infallibly consume the Ecclesiastical Establishment. The spirit and the power which overthrew Popery, will not submit to the rule of Puseyism! "What! shall reviving thraldom again be Sir,—It is right, before parting, to correct an error into which we were led respecting the Norwood Cemetery. We gave that Company credit, we find, for more than they deserved. We have since received information indubitably certain; and the Act of Parliament establishing the Cemetery has also been transmitted to us. We have now ascertained, that our previous informant, although himself a very intelligent proprietor of the Cemetery, was slightly in error. The Company, when a family bring their own minister, merely remit the fee which otherwise they would pay to the Dissenting chaplain. But our main object is, to state, that we have with much regret discovered that the condition of this Cemetery is the most deeply degrading of all. We have read the tax clauses of the Bill with utter astonishment. They are monstrous beyond credibility. It is enacted by Clause XVIII., that upon every corpse removed for interment in this Cemetery from any parish in the County of Surrey, or from Lambeth, or Battersea, or Wandsworth, or London, or Westminster, or Southwark, a tax of twenty shillings shall be paid, if buried in a vault, or catacomb, or brick-grave, and of |