THEN AND NOW.-JOHN HUSS BEFORE THE

COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE.

goose, but in another century will come a swan that you will not be able to slay." And true to his time, Luther came.

And what said the martyr's staunch friend, the noble Chlum ? "Be comforted, brave teacher, for truth is of more value than life!"

FOUR hundred and thirty-two years have passed over this earth, since the scene depicted in our engraving In the four hundred years that have rolled over the took place. The great dawn of the Reformation had broken. Our venerable Wickliffe had lived and died, world since that remarkable bonfire blazed forth in Conpursued by the howlings of the wolves of priestcraft, stance, and the paper cap and its three capering devils but untouched by their fangs. John Huss, the noble flared high into the air, how many martyrs and how Bohemian, had imbibed the spirit of the British Re- many triumphs have Truth, Liberty, and Knowledge former, from his translation of the Bible. The church had in it? We have made great marches into unknown under John XXIII, sunk in the vilest immorality, began regions, effected huge inroads into the strongholds of to be alarmed at the daring doctrines of the Professor craft and despotism; have seen many a beautiful and of Prague, and summoned him to the Council of Con- wonderful thing brought forth by science and converted stance. His progress thither was like the triumph of into the ordinary possession of the ordinary multitude. a conqueror rather than that of a man arraigned for The clown ruminates over his spade on government and heresy and contempt of Holy Mother Church. He the foundations of law and justice; the workman reads; went protected by the safe conduct of the Emperor the workman preaches; the workman harangues his felSigismund. In the ancient city of art and commerce, lows and his rulers; the workman is become poet, phiNuremberg, he defended his doctrines against the advo-losopher, statesman, and the fearless denouncer of precates of the old superstitions amid enthusiastic applause late and of priest. Even in his rags and his misery-if he from the multitude. The people followed his steps as have won nothing else, he has won that-the enfranchisehe pursued his journey through the country as those of ment of his mind; if he have not yet achieved his politia second saviour. cal freedom, and is therefore gregarious in squalid tenements, and ragged and lean with-hungry labour, he is free from the empire of the stake and faggot-and nigher to a still greater freedom than he dreams.

But amid all this advance one thing remains unchanged, unprogressive, and that is-Priestcraft. True its dragon wings are clipt, its talons are cut close,--but its maw is capacious as ever-and its nature and characteristics are the same-they are immutable. At this moment what is the spectacle exhibited by the State Church? for it matters not whether such a machine be Roman or Anglican-it is all one. Is is the old story

He arrived in Constance, and the scene was changed. That ancient and ever-ready cry of the crafty, of the Guild of Ghostly Shepherds, of the lovers of fat sheep and heavy fleeces, was gone forth.-"THE CHURCH IS IN DANGER!" True, the cry betrayed what church it was for CHRIST'S CHURCH IS NEVER IN DANGER. He himself has declared that it is founded on a rock, and that the gates of hell itself shall not prevail against it. But the Church of the Ghostly Shepherds, of the Hirelings, always has been and always will be in danger, till it ultimately fall, and the true and universal church be left standing alone. The Church was in danger-new fangled. Dr. Hampden and the Church in danger! but what church? The church of state-craft--the only We have one man accused of liberal opinions, and yet church which can be in danger. That was a great himself half ashamed of them; and all the other mob of and manifest truth, and its crafty ones instinctively paid priests crying-"Away with him, for he is not fit knew it. Therefore-when the Man of the People to live-in a bishop's palace." the Man who read and expounded the Bible, the Man who, like Moses descending from the Mount of God, had made his face bright as a sun, by gazing on the immortal splendour-when this man cast his light on the dark places of Roman licentiousness-the owls and the bats shrieked, the serpents and the scorpions writhed and hissed, all the creatures of carrion and corruption ran together and spat fire and poison. The Man of Truth offered Truth and Knowledge for nothing, and all those who had grown fat on the sale of lies-came round him, and gnashed their teeth, and howled him down.*

There stands the noble man and martyr! He will defend the truths of God against the selfish lies of men, but the Pope and Cardinals and Priests will not hear him. When he speaks of the eternal dominion of Truth, Liberty, and Knowledge, they stamp, and groan, and bellow; when he charges them with their beastliness, their crimes and oppressions, they laugh uproariously.

There stands the undaunted man, and reminds the Emperor of his safe-conduct, and the craven Emperor, blushes and stammers out, that he can give no real protection to a Heretic. The power of civil government sinks before the baleful breath of Priestcraft. The armed monarch, the victorious Sigismund quails before a mitred monk. He stands, monarch as he is, branded as a traitor before his country and his age And John Huss goes to the dungeon, and to the fire, with a paper cap, and three capering devils on his head! But what said he brave martyr at the stake? "To-day you roast a

Fact.

The well-paid, well-fed .clergy of the English State Church are zealously labouring to undo what Huss and Jerome of Prague, and Luther and Melancthon, thought it high time to do three and four hundred of years ago. The old leaven of Popery left in the English Church by its royal reformers has worked as it was sure to do, and Popery under the black-gown of Edward Pusey has once more raised its head, and stretched forth its long fingers towards the titles and rich glebes of England.

The exhibitions of priestly greed, ambition, envy, jealousy, bluster, haughty menace and mean retraction, which have just passed before our eyes, are most unseemly. They are a scandal to the age and the nation. They are an opprobrium to the English people who have so long suffered the opportunity and the occasion for them to remain. The cure for them is simple and palpable-take away the bone of contention. We complain that these men bring religion into contempt by their brawls; that they desecrate the temple of Christianity by their selfish wranglings. Carry the bone out of the temple and the hungry dogs will follow it. No priests will quarrel about nothing. Take away the filthy lucre and the filthy animals will trot away in silence. But you have conferred on those men the monstrous property of TEN MILLIONS A YEAR. You have planted "the root of all evil," and gilded its branches with bishoprics and arch-bishoprics, with lordships and things that "show their mitred fronts in courts and parliaments," and then you look for Christian humility and disinterested virtues. It is in vain that millions of Dissenters flourishing on

Fact.

35

their own resources, have demonstrated that Christianity has an innate vitality. TEN MILLIONS A YEAR-and the solid property, the tithes, the fertile acres, the noble lordships, the proud palaces, out of which this princely income springs, and in which it is spent, are enough to ruin the most orthodox church, to corrupt the purest clergy, to destroy the most fervent zeal that ever existed. TEN MILLIONS A YEAR-and we do not speak of a gorgeous fable but of a monstrous fact. The clergy themselves have returned their tithes alone in order to commutation, at six millions. TEN MILLIONs a Year, we repeat it, would utterly ruin, effeminate, feed up into lethargic fat, and drive to an ignominious fate the finest church in the universe-while better employed-it would, in EIGHTY YEARS, DISCHARGE THE WHOLE NATIONAL DEBT, and leave the magnificent principal "with all its lands and towers," to do great and magnificent works for the public relief, solace and enlightenment of a great and magnificent people.

This, surely, is a significant hint, and well worth taking. In this case it would be the highest wisdom, where so much scandalous noise is created by too much fullness of living, to "make a solitude and call it peace.' While so many thousands in this country want the commonest elements of instruction-while it has been shown that there are vast numbers of children that never heard of Christ, of a future life, or scarcely of God; while such tens of thousands starve for want of work, or for want of its due wages; while commerce fails, and foreign nations beat down our manufacturers with cheap competition; while misery and sensualism stalk through our cities hand in hand; while famished men, and women and children, haggard and livid with want, are beginning to mutter together of the lost rights of nature, and of revolution-it is time to apply the wealth which was given for the poor to the poor; for the spread of knowledge to that end; for ghostly comfort to the convincement of the people that religion, charity, Christ and God are not names and mockeries, but eternal and most comfortable things. The great machinery of State Religion has failed! It has produced, instead of knowledge, virtue and happiness only vile wrangling, and a godless lottery of great prizes. We have TEN MILLIONS A YEAR, appropriated to that which the Dissenters demonstrate grows better of itself, we have a paid and wrangling priesthood-and a people unfed, uninstructed, and unhappy. If we are worthy of the name which Milton, Hampden, and Sidney bore, or of the country which God has given us, we shall not be long ere we call to mind what it is for which the martyrs and the patriots have lived and died-we shall avenge religion of its insults, and the people of its wrongs.

When night's cowl darkest glooms upon its brow;
While spectral shades, sink into the deep grave,
Shimmering and melting like thin flakes of snow,
On the dark waters where the eddics rave-
Though all the buds of earth rise up to blow.

Dim porch of Time! amid God's shadowy wood,
Pillared with moonstone, indistinct and thin,
And branched around with a cloud-woven screen,
Slim as a mist-bower morning's sky within,
Impalpable as void, thou long hast stood;
While through thee bards have rather felt than seen,
As over thee a web-winged Instant hung
Bat-like and weird thy filmy mists among
A fading shade! A spectre like a wind!
Failing in ebbing gust, and like a lung
Drawn inward, by a respiration blind
As though a fainting breezy look was flung
By that vague Ghost of the Old Year behind-
While by it passed, as two thoughts in the mind
Flit by each other; a bright spirit fair,
Like a fresh breath of odorous sun-filled air,
With hastening eyes, and front-blown tresses bright;
And with a gush of music rising higher,
And softly floating nigher and yet nigher,
The soul of the New Year arose in light.

Through its fond eyes so sweet in its bright hair,
I see the larches tassels waving fair,
The old oak sprouts of green, the pines red births,
The sycamores rich gummy growths so pale-
Its pulse has quickened all things of the earth's,
Made dew from snow and soft rain from the hail.
Through its fond eyes I see the bell of the vale
A bud and then a bloom, within that dell,
Where in that nutty copse I hear the tale
The blackbird yet shall pipe in mellow swell.
The pink buds of the briar I smell them blow:
I see the spotted cowslips gild the croft;
I hear the lark singing from heaven aloft;
The very bee-flower blooms, and bending low
I strive to catch the insect form, and lo!
A blossom lovely in my hand doth glow;
I see the dark moss greened upon the eaves;
I find the violet hid amid its leaves;

I scent the grasses in the new-mown hay;
I bind the golden sheaves;
My fancy rushes weaves,
Even as I sit and think on New Year's day.

I sit alone, far, far from thee O World!
Thou tyrant and thou slave! thou base deceiver
From nature and her ways, whose lip is curled
Even at thy mother's bosom! thou bereaver!
Both false and foul, of all pure sweets of life!
I sit alone, even at thy midst, in strife
With thee and thine. I would I were a bird
To fly away far in some copse of nut,

And there amid the dim still evening shut,

Where naught but God, and some fond traveller heard,
To pipe a mournful ditty,

Such as might move to pity

Of thee and thine, all whom thy woe had stirred.

Such song may sound, if not by me be sung-
God never yet hath lacked the thrushes tongue;
Yet while I sit alone on this New Year,
Like Crusoe notching at my tree of woe,
My thoughts like his, in this my isle so drear
Must back into my own lone bosom flow-
Reflect on time misspent, on time forgot,
On moments lost and hours I yet must gain,
And while I bless the white days of the lot,
Reckon the long years I have spent in vain ;

7

37

charged you will find on this paper under the head
“Money Order-office. ”
justify your sending any of the articles above-named by
Absolute necessity only can
post; there are plenty of other modes of transmitting
them, without tempting badly paid officers to commit
felony.

AS TO NEWSPAPERS.-1. Stamped papers, duly authorized by the Post-Master-General, may pass at any time free by post, whatever the date of their publication may be.

2. Use no envelope: tie up the paper with string or tape, and write the address plainly across the top, on the margin.

3. If you find a newspaper you ought to receive regularly, fails frequently, ask the Inspector of Lettercarriers, by note, to put it "on check" for a short time. You will soon find out who is tampering with it, or

where the fault lies.

ficers are on duty all day; and the guards, who attend sent out by day or by night, as their services may be to the delivery of the bags throughout the country, are required.

66

THE MONEY ORDER OFFICE.

One of the most valuable branches of the Post-Office

difficulty exists in obtaining either an issue or the payment of money orders.

service is the Money Order Office. Commenced as a private speculation by Robert Watts, Esq. about half a year in importance, until it has at length become the century since, it has continued to increase from year to when at a distance, his earnings to his wife and family. 'working man's bank," through which he may send ment and the high estimation in which it is held, for us It is enough with reference to the utility of this departto say, that since its establishment the number of orders of thirty-fold. Its branches have been extended to every issued and paid within the year has increased upwards 4. Do your part to help the Post-office, and every-parative substance is to be found, so that now but little thing will be done to help you. town in the United Kingdom where a Post-Office of comBesides these officers, necessarily engaged in advancing the subsidiary duties from day to day, there are others, employed in the Accountant and ReceiverGeneral's offices, and also in the office of the Superintending President, at the London district office. În the Accountant General's office, a large amount of business The Accountant has the general controul and superintendence of the accounts, and checks, relating to and provides for their production at the Audit-office once He furnishes the items of expenditure, a year, where they are examined and allowed. The clerks are employed in superintending the bye and cross road accounts throughout the kingdom; examining the accounts of the inland and London district office, and those of the letter-bill, postage stamps, rural posts, and the colonial and foreign accounts with the office, and in the entry of remittances. There are employed in these duties about forty officers daily.

is done.

the revenue.

and several others at the Branch Offices in the Metro-
Nearly three-hundred officers are employed in this
service in the London Office in Aldersgate-street alone,
polis. The hours are from ten to four, and the amount
charged for commission is 3d. for sums under £5, and
6d. for amounts transmitted beyond that sum.
orders were issued and paid, the total amount of money
year, ended the 5th of January, 1847, 7,024,882 money-
represented by which, reached the enormous total of
£14,115,153. 19s. 9d.

In the

same manner as those for missing letters. *
Enquiries for money orders lost may be made in the

THE GENERAL POST EVENING DUTY.

ing duty, which consists of the reception of the vast body Perhaps the most interesting of all the manifold duties of correspondence posted in, and for twelve miles round performed at the Post-Office, is what is called the evenLondon, besides the large despatch into the Provinces of the morning, evening, and weekly papers.

The Receiver-general's office is one entirely independent of the Post-office, though connected with it. As the operations performed therein are a check upon the Post-office, the chief officer takes his appointment not under the Post-Master-General, but by warrant from the Lords of the Treasury. The Receiver-general a complete idea of this gigantic work: indeed such a is responsible for the gross receipts of the revenue. It is scarcely possible to convey to the general reader pays all salaries, and other expenses; signs all drafts spared in a serial publication. He description would far exceed the limits which could be upon the Bank of England both on revenue and money endeavour, so far as convenient, to present a bird's-eye order accounts; pays into the Exchequer the net re- view of the duty which, it is hoped, will prove interestWe will, however, venue, signing the specifications and "write offs" for ing inasmuch as it will show what system will do even that purpose. The requisitions to the Stamp Office for in the most gigantic of all our public institutions where postage stamps he also signs, and it is he who is respon- the greatest amount of duty is to be performed in the sible for the general accounts of receipts and payments smallest allowance of time, before the mass of corresto the Commissioners for auditing public accounts. pondence must be on its way in every species of conTo the Treasury, this officer sends a weekly account of veyance, hastened forward by all the kinds of motive receipt and expenditure: and for the safe custody of the power with which we are at present acquainted. large amount of gold required for the daily service, from the Bank, he is also responsible. Thirteen officers (chief clerks, and others) assist daily in this duty.

Enquiries, applications, and complaints of all kinds, either with reference to letters or newspapers sent through the London District Post-Office, are examined and replied to in the Superintending President's Office, as well as all the "rides" Surveyor's work, which requires careful and, indeed, that department, and the unremitting attention.

in the

the several branch offices throughout the Metropolis,
The evening duty in the General Post-Office and at
first process at the chief office is the reception of the
commences about four o'clock in the afternoon. The
contents of the several mail carts employed throughout
London, the collection of the different bags from the re-
ceiving houses and the pouring out the letters and news-
inland and newspaper offices. This preliminary business
papers upon what are called the "facing tables
The mid-day mail is superintended by the President letters with the directions uppermost, that the obliter-
of the Inland Office. Several of the General Post sub-ators and the other stampers may have easy access to
is performed by the junior hands, who place all the
sorters assort the letters daily, and the delivery in the
central parts of the metropolis is effected by the General
Post letter-carriers, while those of the District Post-
Office circulate the remainder of the correspondence,
which now begins to be very considerable.

them. At this moment the interior of the receiving
rooms where the boxes are placed, communicating with
the hall, presents a most busy and animated appearance,

The mail-guard service is separately regulated. Of the Office, Aldersgate Street, City, London."

Direct"W. Barth, Esq., Money Order Department: at