deteriorated in principle by prosperity. Count, my lords, those thousands and tens of thousands, enjoying luxuries, comforts, houses, blessings, favours, liberties, any one of which is as gold to a feather, when compared with the circumstances of their fellows in prosperity a thousand years back. Our forefathers felt and acknowledged that in God they lived, and moved, and had their prosperity—and gratitude for their own abundance sprang up from that feeling, and lead them to that sympathy in the spiritual wants of others, of which the testimony survives to this hour!!! Yes, my lords, "to this hour:" TITHES, odious as their name may be, have been rendered from generation to generation, from century to century, that the people “might have the Gospel preached unto them :" and what is the result?-an hatred of tithes? they are HATED only by those who are shamed by the deeds of former generations, and those who FEAR THE INDEPENDENCE WHICH THEY

IMPART. A protection for the farmer from constant variation is wanted and ought to be conceded: but let not a few levellers of our day persuade the legislature that the principle of tithes is abhorred—that the independent provision for God's ministers is hated in the country. Surely there is too much intelligence, too much observation in the members of the two Houses of Parliament to allow themselves to be so deluded and duped contrary to facts. The farmers are those who pay the tithes-let them be heard throughout the country-they are too sensible to lay a claim to the tithes, they recollect that their own property is on the sea, and if that of the clergy is once seized by pirates, their own is no longer safe. The farmers want no destruction of the property of the clergy. Why?-because they see the advantages of religion as a check upon immorality around their dwellings; because they see the respectful, peaceable, and loyal

D

growth of the agricultural population compared with their opposites amidst the dense and discontented people of the manufacturing districts. Who doubts these facts? "To "him I should not need to urge the foul barbarities which "prevail elsewhere: but I would gently lead him by the “hand through all the lovely fields of England; there, in "many a spot where late was barrenness and waste, I would "shew him how now the opening blossom, blade, or per"fumed bud, sweet bashful pledges of delicious harvest, "wafting their incense to the ripening sun, give cheerful pro"mise to the hope of industry. This, I would say, is done "in spite of TITHES!-Next I should tell how hurtful "customs and superstitions, strange and sullen, would "often scatter and dismay the credulous minds of "these deluded innocents; and then would I point "out to him where now, in clustered villages, they "live like brethren, social and confiding, while through "the burning day Content sits basking on the cheek of Toil, "till laughing Pastime leads them to the hour of rest-this "is the work of TITHES!!-And prouder yet-at that "still pause between exertion and repose, belonging not to "pastime, labour, or to rest, but unto Him who sanctions "and ordains them all, I would shew him many an eye, "and many a hand, by gentleness from error won, raised "in pure devotion to the true and only God!-This too "I could tell him is the work of TITHES!"

Thus has God prospered tithes in their effects upon the rustic population of this country: verily he has fulfilled to us his promise that "righteousness exalteth a nation.”

Now then, my lords, contrast the operations of our days with those, when tithes were first born :-tithes were as the first fruits of British Christianity: do not, then, these first fruits rise up in judgement against our nation, or at least against that part of it called the Church of England:

66

"honour to whom honour is due !!" Dissenters and Nonconformists have acted up to their opinions more than the Established Church: here and there is to be found a Church or an Episcopal Chapel built, and perhaps endowed by individual piety, and Christian virtue: but the very rareness of such a thing shews that it is the exception; shews, my lords, and nobles, and commons of the land, that we have "departed from our first love;" that we are not seeking first the kingdom of heaven; that we are deficient in that confidence which our forefathers felt, which our God has literally by his tradition of tithes through so many generations strove to confirm: the confidence "that all other things shall be added unto us," if we trust in Him." Let the rich and noble of our land, possessing thousands where their forerunners owned only hundreds, turn to their accounts, like men to be called at any moment to give up their stewardships, and ask themselves what they have done for God's service deserving to be mentioned in the same century with THE TENTH WHICH THE OLD BRITONS DEDICATED FOR EVER AND EVER "to the extension and preservation of the knowledge of true religion:" let them not flatter themselves by saying, "WE give the tithes · of our estates:"-THEY GIVE no such thing: they no more gave or give them than the sumptuously faring Dives gave purple and fine linen to the starving Lazarus : let them not say that they have endowed our Churches for "the edification of the people:"-THE ASSERTION CARRIES FALSEHOOD ON THE FRONT: our Churches were built before their fathers were conceived:—and they themselves from one end of the island to the other are reaping the benefit. Is it thought of to abolish the property of the Establishment, to seize the estates of the Church-"Give me a tenth :" Whose image and superscription is this? "Pro Ecclesiá Dei." Is it possible that

66

it has entered into the head of any man to debase this coin and God still suffers him to live! "Father, forgive him, for he knoweth not what he doeth."-Will à revolution which begins in sacrilege, end there? DENY UNTO GOD'S THAT WHICH IS GOD'S :" and then establish, who can, a principle on which men are bound to pay to "Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's."

But my lords, tithes are not abolished: a commutation, let there be, if Parliament think well to decide so: but as to tithes, they yet are safe and if we go to work in the right way, I verily believe that so far from the old being decreased, new endowments may be brought to the birth :the error which has prevented the decided co-operation of our modern luity in building, and supporting episcopal chapels, is I verily believe, that their consciences have been satisfied by the perpetual interference of Acts of Parliament.

Let us try a new system; the old one is evidently worse than a failure: behold THE DISSENTERS, they have no "building society," have no "grants from parliament," no one body of them in the aggregate is half as rich as the community professing agreement with ourselves. Yet they can manage chapels,-they can find among their laity means to build them, and not only them, but houses for their ministers too:-and why should we presume failure?-Are our laity less liberal than theirs?-Are they less able to spare from their abundance ?-my experience forbids the notion! Look, my lords, to the wealth, and influence of our nobility, and commonalty. Are their funds closed against your lordships? will they do nothing? Look at the thousands, and tens of thousands, and millions realized by the labour of the bodies of the people and can we find no sympathies for the souls of that people among the gentry enriched by the sweat of their brow? can men grow rich by the hands of the people during the day, and not try to smooth their pillows when the night

cometh, when no man can work? We have no right to presume it, and I believe those wealthy individuals are now beginning to see the necessity of religious principle, as the best temporal policy, as "the one thing needful" to check the growth of discontent, to extinguish the flame of sedition, and prevent the volcanic eruption of infidelity. Strike, my lords, while the iron is hot,-but do not content yourselves with sending a commission for the purpose. Correspond, yourselves—yea, wherever possible, personally confer—with the leading individuals in the different districts. They are entitled to it, and while they think any scheme visionary, and delusive if proposed by an inferior, ANY PROPOSAL COMING FROM YOUR LORDSHIPS, evidently from a regard "to the extension of the knowledge of true religion, evidently with an anxiety to promote the Christian edification of the respective operatives, on whose labour, peace, and good will, their own profits and prosperity, by God's furtherance depend, WOULD BE ACCEPTABLE: yes, my lords, acceptable : for enthusiastic, or fanatical, or puritanical as it may be represented to be, I venture to predict for your lordships the furthest opposite of disappointment,-and my lords, if without adding to my offences, already, I fear, too many for your indulgences, I may call your lordships to place yourselves in the situation of Dissenters, just to ascertain what their natural, and by no means unchristian feelings are, when they find grants made by parliament in partial favour to ourselves,-you will then see that we have in many instances drawn from a private well, waters-sweet, perhaps, in their first taste-clear, perhaps, to the eye of the hasty passer by-but bitter in their operation, and prejudicial to the very body for whose health they are administered. "Do unto others as we would that they should do unto us," is a maxim too conciliatory in its nature, too charitable in its effects, too divine in its origin,