[ -226 | {[ Marcu, 
THE DANCERS OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 
crite, and a traitor, proclaimed “ His Majesty’s most gracious declara- 
tion to all his loving subjects, for liberty of conscience,” England has 
seen no day of danger equal to the present. The mask was worn long ; 
but it.has now been daringly thrown off ; and, if we do not feel the tre- 
mendous hazard in which stands every thing dear to us asmen, as * 
freemen, and as Christians, we must be alike incapable and undeserving 
of freedom. : 
After a long course of ministerial disguises, carried on by arts which 
we do not hesitate to pronounce the basest that ever disgraced the cha- 
racter of British statesmen ; after speeches studiously couched to convey 
« the word of promise to our ear, and break it to our hope ;” after a long 
series of every miscreant contrivance to lull the honest suspicions, and .. 
disqualify the manly resistance of the country; the measure came out 
full-blown at last, with the high and the haughty triumphing before 
it, and the mean and the dastard creeping with wretched subserviency 
in its train, the whole succession of the cold-blooded sycophancy that 
had waited only to know which was the more lucrative side ; and, for the 
sake of honour, decency, and the name of the church, we grieve to. say 
it, among the most menial of those menials—the very vilest of that 
reptilism, which less excites indignation than disgust—was a Church- 
man! This miserable apostate had been for twenty years scribbling 
in all directions against Popery, calling heaven and earth to witness 
against its innate abomination, and declaring that its immutable princi- 
‘ples were alike ruin to Protestanism, and degradation to man. “ No 
compromise with this misbegotten atrocity, the invention of monks for 
the shame and subjugation of the human mind!” was his perpetual out- 
cry. On the strength of this ostentatious zeal, the contemptible hypo- 
crite laboured himself into some ephemeral repute with the public friends 
of the church. His powers were at best nothing beyond the ordinary 
calibre of a pert pamphleteer; his pamphlets lasted their week, and 
then went down to oblivion; but he gained his object—the notice of 
persons of rank : and he fondly imagined that every petty performance 
of this kind brought him a step nearer the object of his pitiful soul. But _ 
the steps were slow, and there began to be a probability that he might _ 
never accomplish another. Then came the conviction. In a quarter of 
an hour’s closeting, the film was taken from his eyes ; he discovered that 
all the principles of his previous years were smoke—that he had been 
scribbling on,the wrong side of the question—and that the best thing he 
could do was to shew the zeal of a convert, and swear on the other. 
«“ Heccine fieri flagite.” If But he is undone—sunk for ever ! 
‘He at this hour hides his head in the obscurity fit for him. Repentance 
he will never feel; remorse he feels already. Peter’s generous nature 
wept; but Iscariot went and hanged himself. 
Then comes the sanctified Minister—equally contemptible, equally a _ 
‘slave, and equally undone ; but with more effrontery than his colleague | 
in shame, for he still talks of principle. Well ; we believe him to have, at — 
this hour, as much as he ever had—to be as honest, sincere, and dignified. , 
But he can deceive no more; and he is, therefore, useless in his voca- 
tion. “ Othello’s occupation’s gone !” Never shall man again be tricked 
by his sallow smile; his gracious bow shall go for nothing ; and even 
his notorious mediocrity shall no longer saye him from being suspected 
From the memorable day when James the Second, a tyrant, a hypo- | 
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