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with fond solicitude. But God has beyond measure exceeded our expectations: he has made a little one a thousand, and has inspired us with the most exalted hopes. Now we do not think ourselves in danger of being mistaken when we say, that we shall account it through eternity a distinguished favour, and the highest honour

conferred on us during our pilgrimage on earth, that we appeared here, and gave in our names among the Founders of the Missionary Society, and the time will be ever remembered by us, and may it be celebrated by future ages, as the

ERA OF CHRISTIAN BENEVO

LENCE."

(To be continued.)

ORIGINAL ESSAYS, COMMUNICATIONS, &c.

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GENTLEMEN-The following letter, on subject, certainly, in itself of great importance to the cause of Dissent, is at your service; and, should it meet your views, may probably constitute one of a series, for insertion in your valuable Magazine.

From your obedient Servant,
SPECTATOR.

MY DEAR FRIEND-I have not forgotten the conversation which occurred, at our recent interview, on some topics connected with modern Nonconformity; and though I almost despair of suggesting any thing new on a subject, with all the bearings of which you are already so familiar, I nevertheless comply with your request, by putting down a few of my lucubrations, as they arise, in the tangible form of a letter.

Your views, if I mistake not, as to the proper spirit and manner of defending and propagating our tenets, as Dissenters from the ecclesiastical constitution of the country, perfectly coincide with my own. Indeed, on this subject there can scarcely be but one deliberate opinion; namely, that we should endeavour to the utmost to unite a frank and manly avowal,

with the greatest liberality and candour compatible with sincerity and truth. It is not, however, to be denied that, in practice, we have fallen, as it regards this point, into two opposite errors.

Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdin.

If at any time, in our apologies for Dissent, we have assumed an attitude too violent and declamatory for those whose motto is argument and truth, we have certainly, at some periods, and in some instances, on the contrary, while endeavouring to avoid the rock, and the Cerberean clamour, of polemical debate, been in danger of deviating into the gulf of indifference. Truth may be sacrificed to a dread of the odium theologicum, and to a mean-spirited quiescence, assuming the name of peace. I am not sure whether this be not an evil to which we are prone in the present day. It seems to be regarded as somewhat rude and uncourtly, even by many of ourselves, to say much in reference to the subject of Dissent, however, dispassionately, in presence of

those who are known to adhere to the contrary opinion. From the pulpit we seldom, comparatively, hear the subject broached without apology, though it is so intimately and vitally connected with the spirituality of the kingdom of Jesus

Christ. Far, far be the profane spirit of bigotry both from our altars and our hearths! but let truth,-truth unconstrained and free, be the ministering angel at the one, and the tutelary genius of the other. That theory and those forms, which have lain embalmed, since the Reformation, under gothic crypts and dormitories, and the twilight of stained glass, which venerable relics even we Vandals can admire, are regarded, one might suppose, as too worshipful cheaply to be exposed to the full day-light of investigation, in this innovating and prying age; though, it must be allowed, the more Egyptian darkness from which those forms originally emerged, was consecrated by a much longer and more undisputed reign.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum.

But if Dissent be founded on argument and truth; or, in other words, if reason, the New Testament, and the history of all ages since the primitive times, concur in testifying that Christianity is corrupted, when incorporated with the kingdoms of this world; that the Church, instead of maintaining her purity as the spouse of Christ, is degraded and debased from this high and heavenly destination, when she becomes the tool of states, and is made to share the thrones of princes, why should we refrain from eagerly seizing on every eligible occasion of defending and promulgating tenets which we believe to be a constituent part of the Christian revelation; feeling, at the same time, that we can afford both to exercise all due candour, and to speak with all the freedom of conscious integrity and truth.

As a class of the community, who cannot but be sensible of the disparagement under which they labour in innumerable respects, bearing on the interests of the

present world, Dissenters may sometimes be thought to manifest a spirit bordering on sullen independence, or sturdy defiance, not to say violent recrimination; a sentiment this, perfectly natural to the sense of oppression and restraint; a feeling, morbid and sickly indeed, but to be regarded as an aspect exhibited by minds waning under the dark and deadly shade of a monopolizing establishment. No doubt, from the times of our forefathers, in whom we glory, till the present, many a conscientious Nonconformist, (notwithstanding our enjoyment, to so considerable an extent, of the inalienable right of religious liberty,) has been deeply sensible of the paralyzing effect of the haughty despotism, the stately repulsiveness, the genius of exclusion, which infallibly characterize, more or less, a religion established by law. Its absolute spirit throws a spell of hopeless inactivity over the whole territory that lies without its precincts, which nothing but the most determined energy can break. It casts a dead weight on all the mental power foreign to itself; closes up the avenues to honourable distinction; damps the flame of laudable emulation; crushes and treads out the spark of rising genius, with its massy and colossal limbs, as it

Sometimes like gorgeous tragedy, In sceptred pall comes sweeping by ; and, in short, claiming the sole key to the chief seats of literature, and its principal rewards, together with a wide dominion over the honours and emoluments of the commonwealth; and, at the same time, aspiring to an exclusive kindred with the company of the apostles, it has presumed, so far as in it lies, as it were, to render the heavens above as brass, and the earth beneath as iron, to all who are separated from its pale.

The tone, however, which, as

Dissenters, we should endeavour that their spiritual and native beauty should be disguised under the artificial array of a secular institution.

to maintain, in advocating those sentiments which still render us a kind of rare aves in the community at large, is, without doubt, at an equal remove from bigotry and vulgar declamation, on the one hand, and a tame and supple obsequiousness, on the other. Whilst it is freely acknowledged that the question of Conformity does not affect the actual point of salvation itself, provided the conscience be pure of guilty motive, in the case of the Conformist; so, I conceive, on a subject, confessedly on both sides, of so great moment as the integrity and purity of the kingdom of Christ, it is incumbent on the Dissenter, with his views, distinctly to guard against conveying the impression that his separation from the Establishment is merely nominal or accidental, political or hereditary; and that, after all, the constitution and frame-work of the Christian Church is a matter of little significance to the glory of God, or the interests of mankind. The charity of the Gospel, indeed, bids us cherish a fraternal affection toward all credible Christians, of whatever name —a sentiment, it is hoped, we are not backward to indulge; and, on this principle, we can embrace as brethren the Roman Catholic on the one hand, and the Quaker on the other, provided, as individuals, they maintain the leading principles, and the practice of Christianity; though, at the same time, we are far from being indifferent to their respective errors of superstition or incredulity. Neither should the communion of spirit we desire to feel with members of the Established Church, in whom we so frequently recognize the most exemplary exhibition of the image of the Saviour, and so much in the practice of the Christian virtues that we would wish to imitate, induce us to refrain from expressing our regret

Whether all National Establishments, and, among the rest, that of our own country, be destined to dissolution, ere the millenial glory of the universal church shall have attained its zenith, is a secret known only to Omniscience, and is hidden in the womb of that futurity which nothing but the lapse of time can bring to light. Whatever be the designs of Eternal Providence, in this respect, certain it is, let ignorance or intolerance surmise what they may, there is too much reason and piety among Dissenters, to allow them ever to do otherwise than deprecate such a disruption of the church from her worldly alliances, as would endanger the public safety, or tend to involve the empire in anarchy and confusion. Rather do they desire and pray, that truth may walk forth, and achieve her conquests, not arrayed in the garment of vengeance, as an angel of destruction, but in the milder and more appropriate form of an angel of light. Such must be the earnest wish and aspiration of every devout and philanthropic mind. Nor are we inclined to entertain any other apprehensions. It seems not, indeed, improbable that the established religion may, at all events, be destined to undergo a process of reform in this country, where, including the sister island, the reformation from Popery was much less deep and radical than in any other.

The legitimate instrument by which truth obtains its triumphs, is argument and persuasion. As knowledge continues to advance, and descends progressively from the higher to the lower classes of society, every subject amenable to reason is brought more completely to the public bar, and is

tered by an increasing number of the established clergy, cannot admit a doubt, even on the retrospect of a very few years. This happy omen, whatever become of Dissent, every Christian mind must feel disposed most heartily to hail. "Christ is preached: I therein rejoice; yea, and will rejoice." It is, however, worthy of a question, how far, in the present condition and aims of the body of orthodox Dissenters, the purer exhibition of the Gospel, which is thus happily gaining ground in the Establishment, will tend to produce a reabsorption of those who are now viewed as separate from its communion.

submitted to the verdict of an increasing number of individuals, who are qualified to form a judgment on its merits. The voice of public opinion, properly so called, is irresistible. Nothing but time is wanting to render it triumphant. Though it may long seem to be unheard, or disregarded, amid the din of party interest, or the absorbing selfishness of private ambition, it must ultimately prevail. Though the Church of England should not be actually subverted, nor her many thrones crumbled into dust by national convulsions, (which God forbid!) it is not chimerical to suppose that, at some period, perhaps not very distant, she may feel herself, in the progress of knowledge and public opinion, compelled at least to reform some of her more gross and palpable abuses, and to hearken to that voice which, as it is the lawful monitor of the state, claims to be also that of the church itself, and which, though it never burst in a storm upon her head, may be perpetually heard, at intervals, in powerful and steady murmurs, like distant thunder, in her horizon. It is not too much, moreover, to suppose, that those doctrines which, fermenting, centuries ago, amid the dregs of Popery, effected her separation from that corrupt community, may ultimately conduce to her still further reform, and in culcate, at length, the painful lesson, that Christ's kingdom is not of this world.

But whatever be the ultimate bearing which a return to the practical exhibition of those doctrines, which sealed her independence of the triple crown, and confirmed her dissent from the Papal hierarchy, may have upon her own destiny, it is not irrelevant to suggest the inquiry, what effect this is likely to produce on the interests of Nonconformity? That the great leading doctrines of the Reformation are adminis

This result, which, to some may appear a mere imagination, has been regarded, by persons whose judgment is entitled to respect, as far from improbable. The episcopal church possesses all the weight and recommendation of secular power and dignity; her clergy, taken in the mass, are the most learned body of men in the world, and their exertions in the cause of biblical literature are monuments of her fame, more imperishable than brass; and, stimulated as they have been, by the splendid rewards she has pended over the heads of her sons, are such as no other Christian community can boast. The administration of the system, as it appears to the public view, is entirely in its favour; disencumbered of the obvious puerilities of Popery, and adapted to blend the emotions of piety with those of sentiment and taste, and to appeal to the eye, the ear, and the heart of man, as a sensitive being. Even our own immortal Milton, all antiprelatical as he was, it is evident, by no means felt insensible to

"The high embowed roof,
With antique pillar, massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.—
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced quire below,

sus

In service high, and anthem clear,

As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into extasies,

And bring all heaven before mine eyes."

These subsidiaries to devotional sentiment, if such they be, are not peculiar to any establishment, Papal or Protestant, Episcopal or Presbyterian, and would equally harmonize even with the congregational discipline, though they are not all at our disposal. It is obvious, however, that we are far enough removed, in general, from duly appreciating those accessories to our system, which are easily within our power. Let any person, possessing the slightest ear for cadences and music, enter many of our congregations, even in the metropolis, which, it were reasonable to expect, would not be deficient in the example of decency and order in public worship, and he can scarcely fail to be sensible of a disturbance, if not a shock, to his devotional feelings. The leader of the psalmody, instead of being, as he ought, if possible, a man of some pretence to common education, not unfrequently cannot read a line, without doing violence to the sense of the author by his improper emphasis, and to the taste of the audience by the viciousness of his pronunciation; and we should, moreover, be sometimes ready to imagine that the ne plus ultra of psalmody consisted in affected grimace and vociferation. That will be a more prosperous period of the church, when those who boast of a purer form, and a more rational worship, shall be more alive to the importance of things which are too often, in the present day, neglected as secondaries, but which, there is no doubt, as they frequently exist, have the effect of repelling many from coming in contact with Dissent, and, which is of far higher consequence, have a direct tendency in many minds to injure NEW SERIES, No. 13.

devotion, and to mar the beauty of holiness.

But, to return from this digression, there are circumstances which, viewed in connection with the increasing energies and piety of the national clergy, look with a more ominous aspect on the interests of Nonconformity, and are to be regarded as at once the symptoms and the cause of internal weakness, not to say the precursors of decline. Have not parents too much neglected to imbue the minds of their children with the history of the great founders of Dissent, to endeavour to inspire them with reverence for their piety, their disinterestedness, their endurance of persecutions, necessities, imprisonments, for Christ's sake, and for the truth? Many who attend the now half-deserted places where these master-spirits laboured, have barely heard of their very names. The neglect of inculcating the motives from which they acted, at an age when the conscience is tender, and the mind still ingenuous and unsophisticated, has left the junior branches of dissenting families open, at a more mature period, to the full impression of the brilliant visions, the emoluments, and advantages which are always, more or less, connected with an established religion; and, in consequence, many have forsaken the discipline of their forefathers. The inertness or poverty of mind which has been manifested by some of the descendants of these great men ; their repugnance against fairly meeting the objections of youthful inquirers after truth, at a period of life when error was not rivetted, has contributed its share, in many instances, to prejudice young persons of some taste and cultivation against evangelical Christianity; and as such minds are not apt to be imposed on, with the multitude, by mere dogmatisni and assertion,

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