easier thrown open. The thin side of the wedge is only introduced; a few strokes may drive it to its head. Let us learn caution; 'Let our eyes look right on, and let our eyelids look straight before us.'

It only remains of the general argument to remind us, that all benefactions of the state suppose an injustice. There are those who must refuse; they are equally assessed for the bounty. Nor is the injustice healed by making a general law. For this being one which affects a question of so many moral and religious bearings, it intrudes on conscience. Some will disapprove. But is not the state competent to make all laws? It surely cannot be gravely asked. Are not all subjects bound to obey the laws? Certainly, if they be civil arrangements, 'things of Cæsar.' To quarrel with war-taxes seems to us vicious, for the first duty of a government is that of defence. Individual objection cannot weigh against the political administration of any government. If we have demanded of the state. the suppression of slavery, we must leave to that state what it considers the proper means. We will not pre-judge what we ought to do, in case that a national system of education should be carried by the estates of the realm. In the mean time, let us do all we can that it may never be. If, among the caprices and marvels of mortal revolution, it should, then, let our utmost dint be to defeat the evil which it must bring, and to preserve all that now is good from its noxious inroads.

We owe an apology to Dr. Hook for the little notice we have taken of his pamphlet. It is written forcibly rather than elegantly. Terseness is no quality of his style. It is often rough beyond idiomatic strength. They who were struck breathless with the phrase, in his sermon on the Second Advent, as if scripture were a nose of wax,' may have nearly recovered themselves to hear in this letter the heteroclite compound, dog-in-the-manger system.'

We are most cordially agreed with him, that some of the best friends of education are to be found among the clergy of his own church. We think, however, that he is not warranted in giving to the body of the clergy the merit of having encouraged education. Did they move until Lancaster provoked them to emulation? The parochial clergy are to this hour timid, in many instances, of its extent and quality, rather teaching for the plough and for nothing more, than for that boy who, while he learns to follow it, is the future man and parent, the responsible agent, the immortal candidate. Even our author has certain qualms, lest religion,' without previous moral training,' (a phrase which exceeds us), 'should become a mere dogmaan illegitimate mode of expressing political sentiments.'

It comes with no good grace when a churchman declares, that, 'compared with the educational wants of the country, we have done nothing.' If the establishment has not trained its children, on whom rests the blame? It has for ages possessed the power and the wealth to do it. Where is the dissenting community against which a similar charge can lie? Let it not be forgotten, the church always claims those who have not wandered to our folds. It has been strengthened for this purpose by nearly £400,000 of government grant, in thirteen years. Scanty resources' which it complains of, are, in our idea, splendid stores.

The voluntary principle is worked up in the establishment by a system of bonus. The Council of Education offers a proportion of its fund to any that may be independently raised. £75,000 were at its disposal in the last year. The church obtained about £73,000 of it, and the dissenters disgraced themselves by cringing for the rest. Now this figure would seem not merely to denote that the church had raised a sum equal to what it received, but that the dissenters only contributed the minus. The truth is, that as an aggregate, they spurned 'the consideration.' It is believed, that they were not much behind in what they offered to the cause of teaching the people. But their venality, like that of others, does not reflect their effort. As to those who will succumb, we have but the apology of ancient Israel, though not to the numerical comparison,-that 'the mixt multitude fell a lusting.'

Ludicrous is the painting which our author gives of the voluntary operation among the clergy of the church. It does not take well with them, nor sit easily upon their nature. The noble donation of the Queen Dowager is, we have long heard, considered church-property. She seems to be put to more than a fair share of the nursing mother.' She is the ecclesiastical charity, and thousands of orphan babes seek her sustenance. Then the bazaar! Autographs, lines for the occasion, bands so called because divided, the confectionary stall, the squire's lady, and cousin-Miss from town,-all swell the scene or diversify the recreation. Private subscriptions get on ill. The shuffling parasites of Timon of Athens are exhibited as the prototypes of the saucy rudeness of those to whom the begging-box is presented, almost preparing us to find a man-hater growing up under such (we will try a compound with this Grand Compounder,) shut-thedoor-in-the-face outrage. He seems heartily tired out,-few have done so famously with a principle he dislikes, but one which no man more generously practises.

Immediately men talk of compulsory education they get foolish. They must except as to the liberty of the subject.

But, after a constitutional flourish, each has his plans. A kidnapping project seems to please our kind-hearted author. He would catch every mendicant child, send him to the workhouse school, and give him diet there. This catch-pole system has its difficulties. Those little urchins' can run and dive and thread and dodge. It is no easy chase. And about going home! When and how is that to be managed? What is the return which they may expect? We reason, supposing that nothing so illegal, so unnatural, is intended as their permanent separation from their parents, and lodgment in these wards.

He is no statistician. He has found that the fashionable computation of those who should be found in statu pupillari, is one in six. This is known to be extravagant. When the whole is compared, these children must be seven years and half under education. Scarcely is there a class of society to which such a privileged term belongs. And here seems the real design, to override all the schools of the country! Are all to be drawn into this mighty Maelstrom? The tables are drawn up for all.

Candid warnings are not withheld. Some of his sources of supply have a tendency to dry up voluntary contributions.' The systematic training of the great mass of the people is an essential part of education.' 'They would require a recognition on the part of the state of the solemn importance of religious training. These points are not lost upon us! We understand them well!

What we relish the least in this letter is the disclaimers which are made of the alliance of church and state. They may mean every thing or nothing. Is not the episcopal church in England established? Does not the sovereign at his coronation swear to uphold it? Is he not head of it in all causes ecclesiastical as well as civil? Is not with him the appointment of all its bishops, and generally of other important dignitaries? Does it not hold its courts? The following scarcely sounds to us sincere: To call upon parliament to vote any money for the exclusive support of the Church of England, is to call upon parliament to do what is unjust. The taxes are collected from persons of all religions, and cannot be fairly expended for the exclusive maintenance of one.' Has not this been the complaint of dissenters? They objected not that the church retained full power, like any other corporation, over its own endowments. And now here is the full admission, by one whose voice was never raised against the million and half acts for building episcopalian sanctuaries! Whence was that money drawn? Shall such robbery be left in its guilt, and its shame, upon that church? Shall not 'the high churchman' preach restitution? Dr. Hook, in this brochure, speaks in so liberal a manner,

that they who do not know him might imagine that there were two of that name: a game of the Sosias' and the Antipholis.' Utrum horum? But we must vindicate him. His high-church doctrine uniformly appears. Why does he condemn the National Society? Because it admits the children of the dissenters to its schools, because these children are under its sanction allowed to attend their own places of worship, and because he finds his own Puseyite opinions rather retarded than helped by the system. He is fierce against that which was supposed to be perfect, the movement in whose favour brought in the late Premier with his blind majority, to speed which the tourist flew back from the wonders of Italy, and was hailed with shouts at the Becket electioneering breakfast at Leeds. How sudden is the reverse! The National Society is spoken of with termagant contempt. Its reports are not to be believed. It has neither theory nor principle, nor any thing else to kindle zeal !'

Nor do we fail to recognize the Rubricist in his recommendation of Wednesday and Friday as furnishing the time for religious instruction. It might be a random stroke. We divine it. It is superbly cool. These are not ordinary days. He a few years since signified his willingness to relax the strictness of the English sabbath, provided that Friday could be made a sacred day. Some of his clergy make it a rule never to dine out on that day. There can be no doubt that he and his party are anxious to clothe it with a superstitious awe. It will seem only a small prognostic and symptom: those who have studied the Oxford heresy long, and know it well, cannot call these indications indifferent.

The National Society, long supposed to be the glory of the epis copacy, the church, and the country, is now to be hunted down. We feel no little favour towards it. It has generally borne its faculties meekly. Why must this noble quarry be pulled to the earth? Why do Puseyites halloo the pack? We have adverted to some reasons; it is too liberal for their taste. But chiefly, it is not an ecclesiastical incorporation. The poor treasurer suffers for his searching intrusions. Sinclair (one of the first writers of our day) is its active officer, constantly in his manly letters making it to speak sentiments English and Christian. The desire of those who now openly decry it, but who hitherto have insincerely supported it, is to get a system more subservient and supple, less under metropolitan knowledge and expansive feeling, to be allied to the sees, to be coextended with the parishes. Who will then rule? The magistrates are to be assessors of certain points are they generally on the side of the dissenters? Popular election is deprecated, that the justices may do it more quietly. Whatever there might be of

check, remonstrance, impatience, resistance, will be swamped: and that church whose model Sancroft found in Crete, others may make paramount in England. Only if, like its Icarus, it will attempt to fly, it may find that wings can melt, and it can fall from its giddy elevation!

He speaks with much slight of an Establishment. This seems to many amazingly liberal. But the tracts which he generally approved, binding himself to number 90, by a special embrace, all proceed on this. The establishment of his church is a mere incident. He would not place it so low. It is a branch of the catholic church. Therefore it sways him. We should little doubt that he believes at heart that the church is the supreme power, not the minister, not even a fourth estate, as it is called in the fifth of November service,-anointing sovereign, summoning parliament, allowing law, tolerating toleration! he demonstrated to his differing brethren that candour which he professes? When he speaks of their 'places of worship as legally licensed,' is not this harsh? Does he not know that such phrase is wholly contrary to fact? No minister is now licenced, but obtains a certificate, if he likes to incur the trouble, from any magistrate, that he has taken certain oaths. house of prayer is now licensed, but is simply registered in the bishop's court. If these insignia of persecution did rest on us, he ought to have known that they are now removed, and to have rejoiced in their removal. He perfectly understands, and is convinced, that the dissenting ministers, congregationalists, and anti-pædobaptists, in his town and county, are thoroughly loyal to evangelic verity, to all the substantive faith of his own creeds and symbols: he will not in any sense, or any wise, treat them but as heathen men and publicans. He casts them out of the church. Were they impugners of the deity of Christ and of his expiatory sacrifice, were they deniers of the Holy Ghost, were they scorners of divine worship and ordinances, were they atheists, he could not more practically disown them, nor cleanse himself from them. The agreement in papal episcopacy, Eutychian, Nestorian, Abyssinian, Syrian, would give them a title to his brotherly regards-their belief that all pastors are equal, is the poisonous taint and damning spot. All besides he could endure, perhaps forgive; pity, until pity moved to love. But such an error ! Take any shape but that!'

It is because we wish to see the people educated, because we do see the availing means of educating them, that we cast from us all charlatan attempts. Our author lies under no small suspicion of loving the fickle breath, the sweet voices, of popular applause. We read no man's motives. But how much better for his fame would it have been, if he had published this pamphlet