VIII. There was old Lord Crewe, and he got fou, At doing THE Peer for the Whigs of Chester. IX. They said Whigs eased the nation's backs, Which 'neath the income-tax did fester; In point of fact, they doubled that self-same tax; Which shews what wags are the Whigs of Chester. X. Mr Williams made an oration rare, Shewing how all lawyer-men distress'd are With old Lord Eldon, who was not there To answer the charge, 'mang the Whigs of Chester. XI. So, after talking most famous stuff, About the length of the Book of Esther, XII. But I very much fear, that in next year, For dinners they will not raise a tester; And I wish Lord Belgrave little cheer, For snubbing so much the Whigs of Chester. XIII. A. You did very well, my jolly, jolly boy- In spending your time in such fine employ As getting blind drunk with the Whigs of Chester. SIR, LETTERS FROM THE VICARAGE. IN your Number for October last, you presented your readers with an interesting, and, on the whole, an ably written article, entitled, The Church of England and the Dissenters. Though I am not, perhaps, disposed to subscribe to every opinion hazarded by your correspondent Y. Y. Y., nor to adopt without reserve, all his plans for the improvement of our ecclesiastical establishment; nevertheless, I give him full credit for having disclosed many of those causes which have led, and are day after day leading, the great bulk of the people of England from the faith of their fathers; which are increasing dissent in every corner of of England, having been admitted in infancy within her pale, and steadily brought up in her communion, I feel for her a degree of reverence, such as I neither do nor can feel for anything besides; and I know not the sacrifice which I would not cheerfully make, to increase her prosperity, and to enlarge her bounds. But I am no bigot. I firmly believe that there are, in every sect of Christians, men sincere in their profession, and conscientiously attached to their creed. I give even the followers of Joanna Southcott perfect credit for their good intentions, and harbour not a doubt that they are regarded with a pitying eye, by Him, who alone can weigh our motives, and judge us by them, rather than by our actions. Neither am I disposed to quarrel with any sectary on account of his zeal for the propagation of the peculiar tenets of his sect. The liberty which I would at all times claim for myself, I am very willing to grant to others; nay, I even respect the man, who, believing himself to be more soundly educated than his neighbours, is ready and anxious to convey instruction to those around him. When, therefore, I speak of opposing dissent as a growing evil, I beg the Dissenter to bear in mind, that it is an evil only in my own estimation,-that I meddle not with the abstract questions of good and ill at all; but that, viewing the doctrines and constitution of our present establishment with a very partial eye-so partial, indeed, as to believe them incapable of improvement,-I am naturally desirous of opposing every innovation upon them, and of preserving them in purity and vigour, to the end of time. To the Churchman, again, I beg to remark, that the period has arrived when the plain truth must be spoken, however galling it may be both to the speaker and the hearer. In a preceding paragraph I have accordingly admitted, that the Church of England is at this present moment extremely unpopular. This is a melancholy confession; but it were the height of folly to keep it back, or pertinaciously to deny that which we all feel to be true. Is it not a fact, that in almost every company, the clergy are a stand-ing subject of derision? Is the topie of tithes ever introduced among the laity, without being followed by animadversions and insinuations against the clergy, not more cruel than they are unjust? What layman in any walk of life, is ready, in the present day, to sacrifice the smallest portion of his own interest for the benefit of the Church; or rather, who is not on the alert, to strip the parson of every farthing which can be wrung from him, to dispute his rights, and to deride his authority? Nay, who, except a very few octogenarians, so much as profess to be Churchmen upon principle? The politician, indeed, provided he be a Tory, speaks in favour of the Establishment, because it forms a component part of the British Constitution. The country gentleman frequents his parish-church, whenever he attends public worship at all, and after dinner, drinks Church and King, because he has, perhaps, a living or two in his gift, and a son or a brother possessed of the incumbency; but with the great mass of the people, the shop-keepers, the farmers, the mechanics, and the labourers, the Church, as she now stands, is in no repute. And why?-There is the question. Let us once discover whence a disease arises, and there is no knowing how soon we may effect its removal. Like your correspondent Y. Y. Y., I have no hesitation in declaring, that much, if not the entire blame of this want of respect on the part of the laycommunity of England, for the Established Religion of this country, rests with the clergy. Taken as a body, there is perhaps no class of men in any nation more respectable in their general conduct, or more unimpeachable in their morals, than the regular clergy of England;-that there are some worse characters amongst them cannot be denied,-but these bear, as indeed they ought to bear, a very trifling proportion to their opposites. In point of general learning, too, of classical and mathematical learning in particular, the clergy of England will stand a comparison with any other national clergy under heaven; whilst their zeal, especially that of the younger members of the profession, in visiting the sick, comforting the afflicted, and performing the various occasional duties required at their hands, is, to my knowledge, infinitely greater than even Y. Y. Y., with all his leaning in their favour, has thought fit to acknowledge. Intimately connected, as I am, with a considerable ruinber of clergymen, I can confidently aver, that out of the whole list of my acquaintances, I scarcely know three individuals, under the age of thirtyfive, who can, in these respects, be charged with negligence. Nevertheless, I again repeat, that the entire blame of that indifference-to call it by no other term,-which the community at large unhappily feel towards the Establishment, rests with the clergy. It is, I well know, a common cant among the infidel Radicals of the day, that no man who wears a black coat is, or can be, other than an hypocrite. Believing nothing themselves, these idiots affect to hold in derision every profession of faith in the Gospel, to doubt the sincerity of him who utters it, and, in a particular manner, to suspect, or to pretend to suspect, the honesty of those whose business it is to inculcate the duties of religion upon others. With these, the off-scourings of society, we have no desire to interfere; because we are perfectly certain that their fool's laugh neither has nor ever can have the smallest weight upon the mind of any rational man. But there is another party in society whose influence has become tremendous; we mean the Liberals-the men of no fixed principles-the general Christians, as it were, who esteem all communions as equally correct-who will come to church to-day, and go to the meeting to-morrow; and these boast that they are not bigotted to one persuasion, though they certainly prefer that Church in which they have been brought up. Now I am sorry to say, that the clergy of England, so far from opposing this spirit, give to it, in very many instances, too much encouragement. The Evangelical party, as it is called, openly approve of the practice. With them, to hear the Gospel is everything; and I have even heard a clergyman of the Church of England advise the laity to frequent a Methodist meeting-house, rather than wait upon the ministry of their own regular pastor. The Orthodox party, on the other hand, though they speak loudly against the wanderings of their flocks, take no pains whatever to instruct them in the real principles of their own communion. Their discourses from the pulpit are, indeed, in too many instances, full of invective against enthusiasm and folly; but we do not recollect ever to have heard one of them inform his people why they ought to be Churchmen rather than Dissenters. They will struggle manfully for certain modes of interpreting abstruse doctrines, and contend with all their might for a fixed phraseology in laying them before the world; but, as to combating for that which is, after all, the very foundation-stone of their national faith, they either do not dream, or are afraid, of attempting it. The truth, indeed, is, that from the reign of Queen Anne down to the present time, the Church of England has gradually been undermining herself, by yielding to the varying taste of the times, when she ought not to have yielded, and by struggling against that taste, when she ought quietly to have given way to it. Previous to the era above alluded to, she felt herself to be surrounded by enemies; her very existence was in hourly danger; and hence all the energies of her sons were continually on the alert. Then every clergyman was a polemic, in the best sense of the term; that is to say, he was a minister of the Church of Englaud, because he believed her constitution to be apostolic, and he endeavoured to impress, with all his might, the same belief upon his hearers. In those days, as well as at present, men differed in opinion respecting numerous points of their common faith,some, for example, being Calvinists, and some Arminians; but their differences on these heads never induced them to desert the common cause, or to betray the trust which they had solemnly assumed. It was not then considered as a test of orthodoxy that a minister should believe human nature to be utterly depraved, and yet the will of each individual man to be free; but the questions were, Are you in your heart attached to the Episcopal constitution of your Church? Are you determined, in your own person, to submit to its discipline? and will you do your utmost to keep the people committed to your charge in like submission ?” Hence the clergy of England scrupled not in former days to claim divine authority for the outward constitution of their Church; and they neglected no decent opportunity of inculcating a belief of the correctness of that assumption upon the minds of their flocks. It is well known that, previous to the era of the Reformation, the divine right of kings, and the divine right of bishops, were equally upheld. To the latter of these the Reformation gave a considerable shock. In England, however, it held its sway in the minds of the great majority-shaken, indeed, but not destroyed, by the grand rebellion; nor can it be said to have generally died away till the Revolution, or rather, the subsequent accession of the House of Hanover, destroyed for ever all belief in the divine right of a particular family to the throne of a particular nation. Then, indeed, it too became out of fashion, even the clergy themselves hardly venturing to breathe it in public, with the exception of those conscientious, and, as they are usually styled now-a-days, bigotted old fellows, who chose to resign their preferments rather than transfer their alle giance to the new dynasty. From the accession, then, of George the First to the throne of these realms, we may date the gradual decline of the Church of England. As soon as the Clergy in general ceased to contend for the necessity of Episcopal ordination to the due administration of the sacraments, so soon did the laity begin to regard all religious communities as equally sound; and, though most of them adhered, and still adhere, to the use of the prayer-book, very few indeed are at all aware why they ought to have their children baptized by their parish minister, rather than by a Dissenter. Nay, I confess it with regret, but truth compels the confession, that, in the whole list of my clerical acquaintance, I know but few, especially among the younger members of the profession, who are themselves acquainted with the real bar which keeps the Church of England distinct from the Established Church of Scotland. Having declared at the outset, that I am a staunch member of the Church of England, I entreat the Presbyterian readers to bear with me, and to recollect, that, whilst I contend for the apostolical institution of Episcopacy, I will never object to their contending for the apostolical institution of Presbytery. Were I, indeed, a son of the Kirk, I should fight as warmly for the purity of her constitution, as I now fight for the purity of the constitution of her rival; and, if the established clergy of Scotland do not regard their church as divinely constituted, even in its external arrange ments, I must pronounce them to be as false to themselves, as I acknowledge, with deep sorrow, that too many of our own clergy are to the Church of England. The divine right of Episcopacy being thus, as it were, tacitly resigned, a new claim to support was made out by the Church of England, depending upon order and decency in the example of the ancients. This for a while served its purpose; backed up, as it ever and anon was, by something very like an assumption of the old title: but it, in its turn, soon gave way; and now the continuance of the Episcopal Establishment is said to be necessary, only be cause the Church, as at present constituted, forms a component part of the political constitution of the country. Young men are accordingly educated for the sacred profession, exactly as if they were intended for the bar or the dissecting room. Their ideas are all secular, their pursuits and occupations are the same with the occupations and pursuits of those around them: they are never taught to acquire that esprit de corps, without which no corporation will long continue to flourish; and, perhaps, nine-tenths of them would have no scruple in taking orders among any other communion of Christians, were that communion substituted in the room of the present establishment. Ask very many of these young divines, "Why are you a churchman in England ?" and he will answer, " Because it is the established religion of the country." One great cause of the present indifference of the laity towards the Established Church is, therefore, in my estimation, to be sought for in that total absence of proper zeal, which characterizes, and has for some generations characterized, the English clergy. As I have already stated, the clergy are, as a body, most exemplary in their moral conduct; by far the greater proportion of them are active in the discharge of their parochial duties; but they are no churchmen themselves, and, therefore, cannot be supposed to make churchmen of their hearers. To this general rule there are, no doubt, numerous exceptions. I know myself many clergymen, both in town and country, perfectly acquainted with the constitution of their Church, and strenuous defenders of that constitution in their writings; but I main tain, that an overwhelming majority are perfectly ignorant on the subject; whilst all studiously avoid discussing it with the laity, either from the pulpit or in common conversation. The fear of being esteemed bigots ties up their tongues, and hence an opinion long cherished, and, I think, essential to the welfare of the Church of England, has been permitted to die away. Here, then, I contend, that the Church of England has yielded to the varying taste of the times, at least in one point, where she ought not to have yielded nor is it wonderful that she should have done so.-In the public seminaries of our country there is absolutely no provision, at least no adequate provision, made for rendering those who are destined to fill the office of pastors amongst us even moderately sound divines. As I have already hinted, the education of a young man designed for the service of the Church, differs in hardly any one point from the education of him who is designed for the bar-or, it may be, for no profession at all. This assertion may appear extraordinary to those, who, whereever they hear the Church of England spoken of, call up the names of Bull, and Hooker, and Barrow, and Cudworth, and Warburton, and Horsley, to their recollection; but that it is perfectly correct, a short sketch of a divinity education in England will at once prove. For the benefit of your northern readers, I subjoin that sketch, and I pledge myself for its correctness in every particular. A lad designed for the Church, is removed from one of our great schools at the age of eighteen or nineteen, having spent ten or twelve of these years in acquiring a knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages. If Oxford be the place of his destination, he enters at one of the Colleges-to do what?why, to acquire a still more intimate acquaintance with the Greek and Latin writers; to read Herodotus, Thucydides, Eschylus, and Sophocles, to fit himself for a minute examination in Livy and Tacitus, in Virgil and Horace. During these entire years he accordingly toils on, charging his memory with the names of historical characters of characters in profane history too-labouring to place at the very tip of his tongue geographical observations, long ago obsolete, if not ut terly at variance with truth; and if he aspire for honours, adding to all this an intimate acquaintance with ethics, gathered from the pages of Aristotle, of Plato, or of Cicero. Once a-week, indeed, and only once a-week, a chapter or two of the Greek Testament is in most Colleges read, whilst exercises are occasionally written, derived from that very profound and abstruse work, the Church Catechism; but, with these exceptions, not the slightest endeavour is made by those in power to guide the under graduate in religious principles, or to prepare him for the very important office which he is in future life to discharge. So pass three years, till the eventful day arrives which is destined to release him from academical labours. As the examination of candidates for the degree of B. A. may take place so early as during the twelfth term after matriculation, a great proportion of the men contrive to get through the fiery ordeal previous to that term, on which their degree can at the earliest be obtained-in other words, during their twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth term of attending. It is indeed true, that at this examination divinity is treated as a science that is to say, the youth is required to construe some half-dozen verses of the Greek Testament, and to answer such questions as the examining masters may choose to put to him. But these, every Oxford man knows, are either such as the veriest blockhead may answer, relating, in nine cases out of ten, to some historical facts recorded in the pages of the Old or New Testament, or they are derived from the Bishop of Winchester's Explanation of the Thirty-nine Articles— a work which every candidate takes care to have at his fingers' ends. Such is the system of education in which the members of the University of Oxford must, one and all of them, participate. It matters not a farthing for what profession the student is ultimately designed, whether for the church, the bar, or the army-all must follow the same beaten track; and hence the newly-created graduate of our polished University may perhaps be a thorough classical scholar, but he neither is, nor can be, a divine, a lawyer, nor a philosopher. In Cambridge, a system perfectly similar, only putting mathematics in the place of classical lore, is, with equal |