by a juster figure, it was the medium of transfusing such a dew of heaven into the depths of the mental soil, as to make it fruitful in every gentle and lovely virtue, and uncongenial to every thing ferocious or austere. A true Church-of-England man, therefore, could not have been the ally of those factious demagogues: it was an impossibility in nature. And accordingly when, after Cromwell's settlement in the Protectorship, all other forms were tolerated, the episcopal Church received no indulgence.

In all this, therefore, I conceive we of the Church of England have a fund of valuable and momentous instruction. We are taught what is, or ought to be, our distinctive character as individuals; and we are warned not to admit any neutralising principles, however fashionable or popular they may once become.

The exact parallel of those unhappy times can hardly again recur; but principles too near akin to those out of which those commotions originated are undoubtedly once more in operation; and from their wide diffusion and obvious influence on public counsels may, in the issue, lead to consequences very different from what such men as Lord Liverpool and Mr. Goulburn would wish to facilitate. There was, in the commencement and progress of those former troubles, a concurrence of sectarians and infidels in making war on the Church. I wish there were nothing of the same kind at this day. The Roman Catholics in Ireland had their great share in embroiling the fray then: the part they are now permitted, and by their parliamentary abettors encouraged, to act, allowing for circumstantial difference, is, in spirit, strangely similar. In listening to Clarendon, I wondered at the sameness of disposition and temper, while there can be no doubt that their present power of doing mischief bears no shadow of

comparison with that of their predecessors; and, I think, would at this day be nothing, if Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh had not been thwarted in their plan of political amalgamation. Providence ordered things otherwise; for what ulterior purpose time will shew. As things are, they would of

themselves be able to do little other mischief than what we have experienced already within the last years; but that, in their present factious form and spirit, they should have access to parliament, and be permitted to vent their malice and obloquy through the medium of a petition, and, above all, have in that assembly advocates of their extravagant claims, -implies such a portentous state of things as to add sensibly to my satisfaction in being now in my sixtyseventh year, and in having no peculiar objects of anxiety to leave behind me in this world.

I am sure that all things will eventually serve the sublime purposes of Divine philanthropy; but it is awful to think of the providential measures, which, arguing from the past to the future, we may imagine likely to intervene. I therefore almost tremble to mark the complying spirit of our statesmen; as I fear, however sincerely they may wish to fix a ne-plus-ultra, they will, at every conciliatory, or rather compromising step, find it less practicable, and even less rationally maintainable. In short, I am not without fear that the Church of Ireland will eventually be sacrificed to the preservation of what will be considered central integrity. But sure I am, that if the one Church goes, the other will soon follow; and what the political constitution will then become, I only wish they might have now the prudence to make a matter of grave consideration.

82. Bishop Ken to Mr. Nelson (a Churchman's view of duties).

SIR,—I received the sermons of Mr. Kettlewell, which I imagine came from you, and for which I return you many thanks; and since that your obliging letter came to my hand. You have done an honour to the memory of our dead friend, which we all ought to acknowledge; and I am very glad that his life is writing by another hand, as you tell me. He was certainly as saint-like a man as ever I knew, and his books are demonstrations of it; which are full of as solid and searching a piety as ever I read. God was pleased to take him from the evil to come, to his own infinite advantage, but to our great loss. His blessed will be done. Since the date of your letter, a new scene has opened; and if the act passes which is now on the anvil, I presume the prisons will be filled with malcontents; and your friend, though innocent and inoffensive, yet apprehends that he may share in the calamity; and foreseeing it, it will be no surprise to him. In respect of that sort of men I have been always of the mind of the prophet, that their strength was to sit still; and so it will be found at the long-run. And it is the wisest and most dutiful way to follow, rather than to anticipate, Providence, &c. I commend you all to God's most gracious protection.

Good sir, your very affectionate servant.

March 2, 1695-6.

83. Mr. Wilberforce to Mr. Pitt-Patriotism.

August 1801.

MY DEAR PITT,-Amongst other things, I wished to have some conversation with you concerning the

state of the country as it bears on the question of peace. You, I am sure (indeed, you have proved it by your conduct), recognise the extreme importance of government retaining the good will and confidence of the bulk of the people. I am deeply hurt by the apprehension, which is so strongly pressed upon me that I know not how to deny its solidity, that a rooted disaffection to the constitution and government has made some progress among the lower orders, and even a little higher; and when it is not quite so bad as this, there is often, especially among irreligious men, an abominable spirit of indifference as to our civil and ecclesiastical institutions, instead of that instinctive love and rooted attachment to all that is British which one used to witness (and this sort of regard, the same as a child has for a father, is injured when it is called, as it is by Burke, a prejudice). I myself have observed a calculating, computing principle, considering what would be gained and what would be lost, if there was to be a new order of things; confessing that our government was an old one, and had the vices and defects of age, &c. I assure you I have heard this from warm friends of government too, in private; and though, whilst things go well, several of those who use it would fight manfully for our constitution and laws, yet when there is any pressure, the mischiefs of such hollow attachment will abundantly shew

themselves.

84. From a Letter from J. Bowdler, Esq. F.R.S.

East Bourne, Oct. 25. 1814.

RETURNING from France to England, and once more setting my foot in my native country, I feel

a debt of gratitude to HIM who ordained my existence in this island, which rises still higher than preservation from accident or sickness. I compare my situation as an Englishman with that of the inhabitants of other countries of the globe in general, and of France in particular. If I had been born in that land, which I yesterday quitted, I might have received such an education as would have rendered me insensible to the truths of Christianity, and to duties which its doctrines inculcate. Not enjoying the advantages which we derive from our well-constituted government, I might, like the greater part of the neighbouring nation, have fluctuated in opinion from despotism to anarchy. I might then have been taught, as the youth of the French republic were taught, that death was an eternal sleep; and deriving from that doctrine the natural conclusion, that, if I could conceal my crimes from a worldly magistrate, I should never be called to account by an all-seeing Judge, I might have been tempted to partake in that vicious system which has been, I will not say universal, but more general in France than can possibly be conceived by those who have not visited that unhappy country. I contemplate with pleasure the reverse of the picture. I was born in a country in whose churches the doctrines of Christianity are taught, as I verily believe, in a manner more conformable to the Gospel than in any other land. Without enthusiasm or superstition,equally removed from the papistry of Rome, and the Calvinism of Geneva,―the mild spirit of Christianity, as it is taught by our Church, is calculated not only to render us better, but to render us happier even in this world, and certainly to give us the hope of eternal happiness hereafter. I sum up the whole with saying, that, in my opinion, the great advantage to be derived by Englishmen from a view of foreign