4tK> Noies of the Month on [APRIL, 



gipsies in the House of Lords (of what age or sex we shall pot say) who 

 will barbarously seize upon the unhappy child of liberty, dye its ruddy 

 and glowing features with deadly orange-juice clip off its flowing 

 locks, or curl them up into the semblance of a clerical wig draw out 

 some of its teeth possibly strip off the splendid drapery in which popu- 

 lar expectation has clothed it, and so distort its limbs and deface its 

 visage, as to make it pass for their own. Let its parents and guardians 

 look to it. Let them watch its wanderings step by step let them ex- 

 plore every inch of the way that it is to walk in. We do not expect it 

 to come back to us with every hair of its head untouched and entire ; 

 but we expect it to have a head. Let no noble necromancer persuade 

 them that the child is a Hydra, or a Briareus ; it has not a limb to 

 spare; it must return to us unmanned, or Reason disdains it as her 

 offspring. 



FACTS AND DOCUMENTS. Facts are as stubborn as anti-reformers ; 

 and documents St. Jerome avers to be the " imperishable verity of his- 

 torical record." A new contemporary (the " British Magazine") has 

 given them a still higher and holier property ; namely, that truth is only 

 to be distinguished by them. In advocating the interests of the church 

 (principles we hatl almost written, forgetting for a moment that this 

 term is now obsolete in its relation to church affairs,) he also alludes to 

 the education of the poor, their moral and religious condition, and their 

 temporal wants, being of paramount interest. Now the interest that the 

 clergy, as a body, have taken in the affairs of the poor of late, is truly 

 wonderful; from the publication of the Bishop of London's letter 

 against the purchase of vegetables on a Sunday morning, down to their 

 efforts in the invention of cholera, to prevent them from dying of starva- 

 tion. The Editor speaks, as we before said, of documents, and the pious 

 use that may be made of them. With respect to the use of documents, 

 we have a case most admirably in point ; a few months ago, some 

 statements, tolerably correct, respecting the enormous revenues of the 

 clergy, and the value of church livings, were answered in a Tory jour- 

 nal, by a paper setting forth the value of church property, as stated in 

 the King's books ; so much for the use of documents. Now, as we are 

 in perfect and Christian charity with our brother, the editor of the 

 British, we will present him, gratis, with a few abstracts of some curious 

 documents which have fallen in our way, relative to church govern- 

 ment. 



Imprimis, we would refer him to a document drawn up at the Council 

 of Elvira, A.D. 305, article 28, which prohibits bishops receiving any 

 emoluments or free-will offerings from those who are not members of the 

 church. Art. 48 prohibits those who are baptized from putting money 

 into the basin, lest it should be supposed that the priests had received 

 pay for that which ought to have been done gratuitously again, there 

 is another document, left by the Council of Aries, A.D. 314, which en- 

 joins all ministers to reside in the vicinity of that church where they 

 were ordained : we refer him also to a document left by the grand 

 Council of Nice, held by order of Constantine, which totally prohibits 

 the translation of bishops and priests from one church to another ; and 

 to another document subscribed, at the Council of Sardis, by one hun- 

 dred bishops from the west, and seventy-one from the east, " that no 

 bishops should go to court unless sent for by the emperor." We also 



