OO'2 WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE FOR THE CHURCH ." 



while they have been besides busily granting catholic emancipation, abo- 

 lishing the test and corporation acts, creating bishoprics in our colonies 

 abroad, and displaying besides liberality and zeal for religion in a thou- 

 sand other ways. If the two houses of parliament had been composed 

 of Roman catholics and dissenters, we might have looked for such things 

 as the liberation of their own sects, and the continuance in bondage of 

 the church ; but when we consider that nearly all the peers, and a large 

 majority of the commons, are churchmen, such shortsightedness and 

 inattention to the true interests of their own religion, are unaccountable. 

 Nay, we venture to affirm that, had the legislative power been in the 

 hands of the church's enemies, she would have fared better than she has 

 done, for they could not, for shame, have conceded so much to other 

 sects, and have left herself in the state she is in. 



We have seen, in the instance just cited, how the church is prevented 

 by the licencing system from instituting her worship in places situated 

 at a distance from the parish steeple ; let us now mark how the same 

 regulation operates with regard to Dissent. And here we may take the 

 liberty of stating, that we do not speak without book for the facts can 

 be proved, if necessary ; when we say that the very persons who have 

 found it impossible to introduce the service of the establishment to their 

 poor ignorant neighbours, have felt it a duty in some cases, rather than 

 allow them to live and die without the ordinances of religion, to counte- 

 nance, and even to encourage, the Dissenters to come amongst them. 

 And is not this justifiable ? for though sectarianism may be objectionable 

 in itself, yet the evils resulting from the want of opportunities for 

 divine worship, are infinitely more to be deprecated. So thoroughly are 

 we convinced of this, that while our council is worship with the church 

 of England if you possibly can, yet, rather than live without public 

 worship, perform it, we say, any where and with any party. And such 

 feeling is becoming more and more diffused, and we tell those whose 

 province it is more especially to look after the interests of the church, 

 if they do not provide greater facilities than there are at present for 

 giving her access to all the people, and all the people access to her : they 

 will turn dissenters; and nothing can, or indeed ought to hinder them. 

 If the church continue to allow a great portion of the population of the 

 country to be placed in the dilemma of either listening to sectarian 

 teachers, or to none at all whatever may be said of them for so doing, 

 they will choose the former. One of the first things which ought to be 

 done for the benefit of the establishment, clearly, is to pass some suoh 

 bill as the one introduced by Mr. Hardy, for abolishing the necessity of 

 licensing places of worship. The church would then have the opportunity 

 of getting at the people in a way that she cannot have while the law 

 stands as it now is. 



It has been charged upon the clergy, as a class and we fear, with 

 too much truth, though there are some enlightened exceptions, that, 

 of all men, they are the slowest to observe, and the last to acquire wis- 

 dom from, what is transpiring around them. While they inculcate a 

 teachable spirit upon their audiences, and impress upon them the duty 

 of becoming wiser by every day's experience, they are themselves too 

 often inaccessible to the plainest lessons of instruction, furnished by 

 what they are seeing and hearing continually. Another peculiarity in too 



