to the re-establishment of the monastick system, what does it advantage us to dwel on its beauties? If we are equal to it; how comes it to pass that it has never been tried? And why do we not find it alluded to with approbation in the works of our standard divines?'

"Its re-establishment,' replied Sir John, 'is far too long a subject for us to consider when just at our ride's end. But it has been partially tried: I of course refer to the Little Gidding establishment under Nicholas Ferrar. And commended it has been by such writers as Thorndike, Bramhall, and Jeremy Taylor. Nay, do you not know that Burnet (whom I would only quote to the opposers of the system, as an argumentum ad hominem) speaks of the re-establishment of nunneries as a work that Would ADD HONOUR TO A QUEEN'S REIGN? And does not Bishop Andrewes express in the strongest manner his approval of the system, when he blesses GOD for the holiness of monks, aud asceticks, and the beauty of virgins?'

"If, however,' returned Col. Abberley, 'monasteries were of such benefit as you appear to think, it does seem to me incomprehensible that their dissolution should have been submitted to so tamely, and that so few voices should have been raised in their defence.""

"Why,' answered Sir John, there were many reasons for this; but the two principal causes are to be looked for in the corruptions-not of the practice, but of the principles of the system. No one will now deny, for even Romanists, by their present acts, confess it, that religious houses must be under the controul of the bishop, in whose diocese they are situated. The heart-burnings and jealousies of which the contrary practice had been the source, had alienated the minds of the bishops from those whom, not without cause, they regarded as rivals. The mitred abbat of such a house as S. Alban's in exterior splendour and deportment was quite the equal of a prelate: he gave the blessing in the same way; he wore the same mitre, ring, gloves, and sandals: he carried the same pastoral staff; the only difference being that its crook was turned inwards instead of outwards, to denote that his jurisdiction related only to the internal management of his own house. It was really preposterous that the Easter offerings of the county of Hertford should be made at S. Alban's instead of at Lincoln. And not only does this system of rivalry render the regular clergy objects of jealousy to the bishops; but the means by which this rivalry was supported with success; namely, constant appeals to, and constant dependence on, Rome; rendered them objects of dislike to the people when the corruptions of Rome became too flagrant any longer to be hidden. Of course, it is only human nature that a slight fault should, in popular estimation, far outweigh the greatest benefit. So the abbeys were, in a certain sense, isolated from the rest of the Church, and accordingly the rest of the Church (partly, perhaps, induced thereto by a promise of eighteen new bishopricks) were quiet spectators of their ruin. Another reason which helped their downfall was, the length to which the system of appropriation had gone among them. The abbey became, so to speak, rector: an ill paid vicar was set over the parish; and he, naturally enough, preferred the life of the religious house to the solitude and poverty of his village home. However, this was not the case everywhere, and some abbeys set a very different example. Witness that of Glastonbury. Many of the most magnificent churches of the west owe their foundation to the liberality and skill of this house and the parsonages, which, in many instances (though with some mutilations,) still remain, shew that the clergy presented to these cures were not non-residents. And the same thing may perhaps be said of S. Edmund's Bury. I know nothing more affecting than the petitions of some of the smaller houses against their dissolution: we have a notable example extant in that of Leyborn, in Leicestershire.' "Ibid. Pp. 136-140.

:

2. We have left ourselves little space to speak as forcibly as we could desire on the great sacrilege and sin which the suppression of these sacred foundations involved. Sir R. Atkyns calculates, and this has never been disputed, that the 100,000 religious houses-ranging of course from Cathedrals to single cells-which existed in Henry VIII.'s time, were reduced at once to 10,000: this fact is perfectly horrifying. We are far from undervaluing the doctrinal benefits of the Reformation, but surely this sin was enough, more than enough, to blast the fairest and holiest work. It has often struck good men with surprise, that

the principles of the English Reformers being so sound, so little practical advantage has accrued to the nation (for mere temporal prosperity is no sign of God's favour, rather the contrary) from the great religious change of the sixteenth century. Is it too much to assume that as a kingdom we have been under a curse ever since? Even heathen* piety could trace to the third and fourth generation Divine Wrath punishing men for allowing the temples to fall by silent neglect; how much is a Christian nation bound to recognise in our present divisions and distresses, the avenging arm, not only for religious neglects, but for actual sacrilege and robbery? To pull down churches, forcibly to banish the Holy Angels from God's chosen dwelling places, to spend upon rioting and gluttony, upon the prodigal and the harlot, endowments which ancient piety had consecrated; to appropriate Abbey lands to court minions; to visit with the curse of desolation those sacred places where the Holy Mysteries had been daily celebrated for centuries, to say to them, "wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there;" to summon "The green lizard and the gilded newt"

to the shrines of the Most High; such sins have their accusing angel, and already His heavy judgment is upon us. Let no supposed difficulties, or what the world calls impossibilities, daunt us; as a people we have grievously sinned, as a people we must restore to God that of which our fathers have robbed Him. "We are cursed with a curse, for we have robbed Him, even this whole nation."

"In the first place,' replied Sir John, 'there is not any other crime which can implicate one generation after another as this does. In the second, you know that at the foundation of any Church or Religious House, a solemn curse was pronounced, with the most dreadful formalities, on its violators or destroyers. And with respect to the voice of the Church, verily, 'he whom She blesseth is blessed, and he whom She curseth is cursed.' And so it is in the present case. You see some family with broad lands and high honours; from age to age they struggle on through all the changes and chances of revolutions, and the vicissitudes of governments. Sometimes its existence depends on the life of a sickly child: the sickly child becomes a healthy man, and his children multiply. Sometimes the only male heir is exposed to all the dangers of war: and among them all he seems to bear a charmed life. He returns to a happy home, and in a few years the family seems more securely established than ever. While in its most flourishing condition, in an evil hour it acquires Church property. The curse descends at once: thenceforward strange accidents and losses occur: fire, and robbery, and sickness do their work; male heirs fail; jealousy springs up between man and wife; unnatural hatred between parents and children; a sickly season carries off one, a violent death, another; a third sails to a foreign land and is never more heard of. Whatever scheme is undertaken fails; wealth makes itself wings, and flies away; moth corrupts, and the thief destroys. And all this while, the curse, with its tearless eyes, seems to watch every motion of its victims; crosses them in their best laid plans; entraps them in an inextricable web; perplexes, and harasses, and impoverishes, and weakens, and ruins, and only leaves them when the last heir is laid in the family vault. Then the crime of sacrilege seems expiated.'

"This is a fearful picture, Sir John. Is it not an overcharged one?'

"For that,' replied Sir John Morley, 'I will boldly appeal to English History; especially to family history. But look at the case à priori. What has ever been the

* And to convert to other purposes those edifices which had once been consecrated, they looked upon as sinful impiety. Lampridius relates, that the heathen Emperor Alexander Severus refused to grant a Christian oratory to an idolater, who applied to use it as a shop, adjudging it to the Bishop, and declaring, "that it was better that it should serve for any kind of worship, than for secular uses."

fate of sacrilege? Look at the Holy Scriptures: take Belshazzar's case. There you see an idolatrous and vicious prince, giving himself up to his own heart's lust— exceeding his predecessors in wickedness; selling himself to do evil—and yet spared. How often, in all likelihood, had he praised the idols of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone!' And yet he had time and space afforded him for repentance. At last, he sends for the Temple vessels, and prostitutes them to his idol worship. What follows? IN THAT NIGHT was Belshazzar, king of the Chaldæans, slain.' Look again at Pompey. An experienced general, strong in the affection of his country, relying on a prosperous army, engaged, on the whole, in a right cause, he entered into the holy of holies, and he never prospered again. And where does the infidel historian date the commencement of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? With the reign of him who destroyed the temple at Jerusalem! Now look back to our Reformation. Is it not notorious that of the families enriched by the abbey spoils very few remain to the present day; and those, after having passed through severe losses, and fearful judgments? Is it not also certain that abbey lands very seldom continue more than two, or three generations at most in a family? Can any one deny that, where more grievous judgments have not befallen the occupiers, the failure of heirs male has been as singular as it is inexplicable? Is it not a fact, so deeply has sacrilege eaten into our families, that scarcely any are now in possession of the same estates which they held at the Reformation, while a period of five hundred years was, before that time, no unusual term of occupancy for one family? If any one denies these things, I would refer him, first, to Sir Henry Spelman's History of Sacrilege.' If he says that this is the production of a special pleader for restitution, then I would ask him to look at any county history. Examine, I would say, the list of the families, once of note in it, now extinct, and see if nine-tenths of these were not implicated in Church property. Then look at the history of the succession of families in abbey estates, and see if these do not change their owners ten times, for one change in other property, and if the decay of any family is not consequent on its touching Church possessions. I ask any candid person to examine the matter for himself; if facts ever proved any thing, they prove what I am saying. And do not imagine that I look on the Reformation as the only time in which sacrilege has polluted England: William the Conqueror and William Rufus are fearful instances of GOD's judgments against church violations. The first lays waste twenty villages to form a hunting forest. He dies by a strange disease, neglected, deserted, despised his corpse becomes intolerable to those who would have attended it; it is at first denied hallowed ground; and at length hastily and dishonourably committed to its resting-place. The second, hunting in that same forest, is shot, under mysterious circumstances, by a hand unknown, with the name of the enemy of mankind in his mouth; is buried with the burial of an ass;' and leaves his name as a curse. Indeed, I know no more terrible illustration of the truth of what I have been saying than The last Hunt of William Rufus.' Again, I will not say that the death of Lord Brooke was, strictly speaking, supernatural; but the inveteracy of his hatred to the material fabric of the Church; his being given over to a strong delusion that he was doing GoD service; the arm by which he was shot; the distance at which the aim took effect; the circumstance that the bullet entered that eye with which he had hoped to see the destruction of all the cathedrals; all these things seem to say distinctly, This is the finger of GOD! No, no; it is of no use saying that by the analogy of earthly justice we are not compelled to restore Church property. He has taken the matter into His own hands. His servants, in founding their religious houses, denounced, with fearful solemnity, a solemn curse on those who should alienate them; He has fulfilled that curse; He is fulfilling it. May He open men's eyes to discern their danger.'"-Ayton Priory, pp. 87-92.

It has often been a matter of just surprise that the body of the English people submitted almost without a murmur to the suppression of the abbies, the sources from which all the comfort and most of the prosperity of the common people flowed; but it must not be forgotten what fallacious hopes were held out to them. Schools, colleges, and an increased number of bishoprics were the lure to Churchmen which procured silence, if not consent on their part. And

Sir Benjamin Rudyard, in a speech preserved by Nalson, ii. 300, mentions it as the principal parliamentary motive for seizing the religious houses by Henry VIII. that they would so enrich the crown as that the people should never be put to pay subsidies again; and an army of 40,000 men for the defence of the kingdom should be maintained with the overplus. How did the matter turn out? Sir Benjamin tells us "God's part, religion [that is, doctrine], by His blessing, has been tolerably well preserved; but it hath been saved as by fire; for the rest is consumed and vanished." The immediate saving to the state was, the compulsory poor-law-standing armies and the balance of power, doctrines which, from embroiling us with foreign politics, have saved us-eight hundred millions of debt!

We must bear in mind, however, that Pope Clement set the example of confiscating church lands, and that while the English clergy, throughout James', and Elizabeth's, and even Edward's reigns, attri buted much of the distress of the country and the little progress of the Reformation to Henry's confiscations, and constantly demanded the restoration of the sacred property, it was a Bull from Rome which confirmed their possessions to the lay robbers, and this issued with Pole's consent, even though Queen Mary-and among many painful memories of her reign, it is right to mention it-did what she could to restore the crown impropriations.

Sir

It would be perhaps bootless to inquire in whose possession the broad lands of St. Alban's are vested: some perhaps may think that a subsequent dedication of them to a religious purpose might veil or sanctify the original sin; to some extent this might be the case. Thomas Pope was one of the commissioners who took the surrender of this particular foundation of St. Alban's, and among the Oxford worthies, we find him as founder of Trinity College, described as "of Tittenhanger, Knight;" this Tittenhanger was the country residence of the Abbat of St. Alban's, and the commissioner, though he afterwards founded a college, thought no scorn it seems to lick his fingers, while the sweet spoils of the Church of God passed through them: perhaps like another noble knight,

Sir Thomas robbed St. Alban's to pay Trinity, a noble example, which ecclesiastical commissioners have found it convenient to imitate even at this remote period. But we suspect that the casuists of Trinity will not from dutiful reverence to their founder, quite approve of the means by which he was enabled thus

"To die, and endow a college."

This society has one startling memorial of their founder's sin, and this presented to them for the most sacred occasion. The magnificent silver gilt chalice (which has been figured by Shaw, and lately again in "the Illustrations of Church Plate, &c.") belonging to Trinity College, Oxford, and presented by their founder, was stolen from St. Alban's Abbey, and we wish the President and Fellows all joy of the * There is, however, a sort of tradition, though Warton mentions it doubtingly, that it was through Pope's influence that the Abbey was not demolished.

credit which its possession under such circumstances can afford them. If it be right to restore Church lands, it is right to restore Church plate, especially when, as in this case, the plundered church exists, however depressed and dismantled. Testimonies to this sin abound; we extract an unprejudiced one.

"The merciless destruction with which this violent transfer of property was accompanied, as it remains a lasting and ineffacable reproach upon those who partook the plunder, or permitted it; so would it be a stain upon the national character, if men when they break loose from restraint, were not everywhere the same. Who can call to mind without grief and indignation, how many magnificent edifices were overthrown in this undistinguishing havoc!-Malmsbury, Battle, Waltham, Malvern, Lantony, Rivaux, Fountains, Whally, Kirksdale, and so many others; the noblest works of architecture, and the most venerable monuments of antiquity: each the blessing of the surrounding country, and, collectively, the glory of this land!-Glastonbury, which was the most venerable of all, even less for its undoubted age, than for the circumstances connected with its history, and which in beauty and sublimity of structure was equalled by few, surpassed by none, was converted by Somerset, after it had been stript and dilapidated, into a manufactory, where refugee weavers, chiefly French and Walloons, were to set up their trade. The founders had denounced a perpetual curse upon any one who should usurp, diminish, or injure its possessions. The good old historian, William of Malmsbury, when he recorded this, observed, that the denunciation had always up to his time been manifestly fulfilled, seeing no person had ever thus trespassed against it, without coming to disgrace, without the judgment of God. By pious Protestants, as well as Papists, the Abbey lands were believed to carry with them the curse, which their first donors imprecated upon all who should divest them from their purpose to which they were consecrated; and in no instance was this opinion more accredited, than in that of the protector Somerset.

The persons into whose hands the Abbey lands had passed, used their new property as ill as they had acquired it. The tenants were compelled to surrender their writings by which they held estates, for two or three lives, at an easy rent, payable chiefly in produce; the rents were trebled and quadrupled, and the fines raised in even more enormous proportion-sometimes even twenty-fold. Nothing of the considerate superintendence which the Monks had exercised, nothing of their liberal hospitality, was experienced from these Step -Lords, as Latimer in his honest indignation denominated them. The same spirit which converted Glastonbury into a woollen-manufactory, depopulated whole domains for the purpose of converting them into sheep-farms; the tenants being turned out to beg, or rob, or starve. To such an extent was this inhuman system carried, that a manifest decrease of population appeared." Book of the Church, vol. ii.

Such, according to the unprejudiced testimony of Southey, was the immediate effect of the great sacrilege upon the comforts of the people; and who shall dare to doubt that the curse still lives for us in the dead founders of the English abbeys:

and that on us

"An orphan's curse would drag to hell,

A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that,

Is the curse in a dead man's eye!"

even of the third and fourth generation will be visited our fathers' sins.

It is with no dark and fanatical spirit that we pray, may God in His mercy remember those who retain the lands of His Church; it is with shame that we own that in our own times one alone, and he an apostate from our Communion, has in some degree began the work of restitution we allude to Mr. Ambrose Phillips, of Grâce Dieu, a foundation of Augustinian nuns; but Newstead, Studley, Furness, Holm-Cultram, Kenilworth, Axholm, Croxton, De-la-Prè, Sulby,