TO THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER. 583 



letter again, and you will not find a word to justify your saddling me 

 with the defence of high-priestliness. 



The propensity to sneer at every body and every thing, in any way 

 connected with the clergy, has led you astray in limine. The title 

 " The Parochial Clergy and ourselves" though a correct and candid de- 

 signation of the argument, would riot embody a sneer at the radical 

 parson ; therefore it suited not the sarcastic journalist. Now, sir, do me 

 the obvious justice of attributing the indiscretion of shooting that sneer 

 at you, which you say flew past, but which I see grazed you at least to 

 the practice I have indulged in for several years, of devoting close 

 attention to your writing. If you do not indulge in sneers and sar- 

 casms ; if you do not give side cuffs, and kicks o' the shins, as well as 

 hard straight forward punches in the face and pit o' the stomach: if it 

 be not your practice to trip up as well as knock down ; to take every 

 possible advantage over your antagonist, short of kicking him in the 

 face when he is sprawling, and has cried peccavi : if this be not your 

 mode of contending, then I confess myself to labour under the disability 

 of an understanding too imbecile, or too perverted to catch the spirit of 

 your political writings. But I know I am not thus mistaken. In fre- 

 quent conversation with a knot of radical friends on the subject, I find 

 we are agreed to a man, that along with all other qualifications for gla- 

 diatorial display in the political arena, the habit and the dextrous use of 

 the galling and effective sneer, are eminently characteristic of the 

 formidable Examiner. If I, therefore, try my hand at this weapon, it 

 is my earnest and sincere purpose not to take any unhandsome advan- 

 tage of my great master in the art ! I had rather run him right through 

 at once, if he would agree to throw aside cloak and dagger, and fight it 

 out with the straight forward rapier. But this is not my master's 

 practice. Were I to expose myself, he would be sure to make me smart 

 for it. Therefore, my cloak and dagger I must retain, though it is far 

 from my intention to make a cruel and wanton use of them. 



As you have thus chosen, sir, to misrepresent the purport of my 

 argument, I deem it essential to explain myself so much more fully, 

 than fully enough on this point, that it shall not be in your power here- 

 after to twit me with having taken up the cudgels for the high-priestly 

 and pretending party- 



Be it known therefore to all who choose to concern themselves in the 

 contest between the Examiner and the Radical Parson, that the latter has 

 bound, hand and foot, all courtly, and lordly, and pluralist priests ; all 

 who are addicted to soft clothing and over nice feeding; who delight in 

 king's houses, and the rustlings of lawn sleeves, and silken gowns and 

 cassocks and conspicuous greetings from men and women of high 

 degree, in the anti-chambers of royal drawing-rooms that all such 

 priests the Radical Parson has bound hand and foot, and delivered them 

 over to their sworn foe, the Examiner, to be dealt with as severely as he 

 may think becoming. Item, all those priests who delight in being 

 denominated evangelical ; who proclaim that the world is in no sort 

 improved by an acquaintance of 1800 years with the principles of 

 Christianity; who quote the obviously figurative expressions of Scripture, 

 as you do by the bye ! to the utter perversion of the plain, practical, and 

 philosophical sense of its obviously literal expressions ; who profess to 

 despise the present scene as utterly unworthy even the passing regards 

 of man, as he journeys to another ; who, because they cannot derive 



