desolation, and the ferocious spirits of abused and brutalized hordes. "What is all the history of this wretched planet," exclaims Mr. Howitt, "but a mass of its bloody wrath and detestable oppressions, whereby it has converted earth into a hell; men into the worst of demons; and has turned the human mind from its natural pursuit of knowledge, and virtue, and social happiness, into a career of blind rage, bitter and foolish prejudices; an entailment of awful and crime-creating ignorance; and has held the universal soul of man in the blackest and most pitiable of bondage?"

Then, again, speaking of priestcraft,' he states that its object is self-gratification and self-aggrandizement, and that its means of gaining these pernicious ends are the basest frauds, the most shameful delusions, and, when the power is obtained, the most fierce and bloody exercise of it, in order to render it at once awful and perpetual. Such being the temperate, the serene, the truly deliberative manner in which Mr. Howitt commences his historical investigation, we should be very much surprised indeed were he to arrive at any other than one particular conclusion. At all events, though we do not propose to place much confidence in the results which Mr. Howitt will be found to have collected in this voyage of discovery, still we entertain no doubt whatever that we shall see an exposition of human nature in its most depraved and degraded condition; we shall see the human mind, we are certain, given up to the most fierce and vindictive passions; and we shall see it dead to every other feeling than that of a malignant impatience of mental freedom all this we are sure of meeting with in Mr. Howitt's book; but the quarter from which it proceeds will be a very different thing from that which Mr. Howitt would like to acknowledge.

The work commences with an account of the origin of paganism; the mythology of the Assyrians and Syrians next follows; and several subsequent chapters are devoted to the exposition of kingcraft and priestcraft, down to the era of the Divine mission. Here Mr. Howitt enters upon the theme of popery, which he treats with all the indignation and horror which such a system deserves from the hands of a Quaker. First, he renders an account of the means employed by the popish church to obtain the power which she possesses; then the way in which she used that power is amply expounded, as is also the arrogance of the popish priesthood, while in the possession of its influence, and the historical picture is completed by a series of atrocious scenes, which are placed in powerful relief by the animated artist. All this portion of the work, however, is much too familiar to the English reader to permit us to dwell upon it; besides, any of the useful inferences or conclusions to which it could possibly lead, so as to enable the state to counteract the hellish doctrines of Catholics, have already been derived by the country from the great legislative measure which has placed these adorers of the Pope of Rome on the same footing as their

Protestant fellow-subjects. The priest craft of the church of England is by far a more novel subject of interest, and may, therefore, with 'much greater propriety claim a preference to our

attention.

It is a subject of great surprise with Mr. Howitt, that as the horrors and enormities committed in the long night of the spiritutal slavery, maintained by the infamous papal hierarchy, had roused a great part of Europe to scotch the old serpent, still the reformed churches did not act up to the lesson which they received, and take effectual steps for preventing temporal power from again enslaving religion. But this was not the case; and the church of England, in particular, was commenced and continued under the most unfortunate circumstances: it was far from being the result of a deliberate and virtuous project, but was, says Mr. Howitt, brought about by the arbitrary passions of a monster, one of the most libidinous and bloody wretches that ever disgraced a throne. What could be expected, he asks after proceeding with the progress of the church to the time of Elizabeth-what could be expected from a church thus born in the throes of the most evil passions, cradled in arbitrary power, and baptized in blood? Elizabeth did not stop until she set up an inquisition as dark, as vindictive, and as unjust as any that ever flourished in Italy or Spain. After some further observations in this strain, Mr. Howitt makes the following reflections:

Such was the formation of the church of England! such it remains to the present hour! After such an origin, can any one wonder that it needs reform, not merely of its abuses, which are, as might naturally be expected from so absurd and despotic a constitution, become monstrous, but reform and entire remodeling of its canons? While all around it has been progressing in knowledge and better understanding of the rights of conscience and the true nature of Christianity, here has this eldest daughter of popery been standing still in body, covered with all her deformities, with the mark of the beast blazing on her forehead, and the filthy rags of cast-off popery fluttering about her; and while every clearer eye has been regarding this patchwork progeny of priestcraft and barbarism with mingled wonder, ridicule, and abhorrence, she has been hugging herself in the fond idea, that she was the queen of beauty, and the perfection of holiness! While the civilized world has been moving about her, casting off the mind, the manners, and the harsh tenets of feudal rudeness, she has lain coiled up in the bright face of advancing day, like some huge slimy dragon cast up by the sea of ages in the midst of a stirring and refined city; and has only exhibited signs of life by waving her huge scaled tail in menace of her foes, and by stretching out her ten-talloned paws to devour a tenth of the land. Can such a monster longer encumber the soil of England? As soon might we expect St. George to come leading his dragon into London, or Dunstan present the devil, pincered in his fiery tongs, at the door of Lambeth Palace.

Dissent was forced on the nation by the bigotry of the rulers and the priests; it was fanned into inextinguishable flame by continual jealousies and persecutions under every reign, till that of William and Mary; and, in

our own time, has, by the luke-warmness of the established clergy, led to its extension tenfold in the new schism of the Methodists. The history of the Society of Friends is full of the most singular persecutions on the part of the clergy, and the magistracy incited by them. At one time, according to Sewell, their historian, almost every adult of this persuasion was in prison. At a very early period of their association, two thousand four hundred of them were incarcerated. From the time of their rise, to the very day of the passing of the Act of Toleration, they were harrassed and abused in all possible manners. Their property was seized; their meetings forcibly scattered by rude soldiers and the scum of the people; they were confined in the most loathsome prisons, where many perished, from hardships and severities of winter, and of men more wintry than the elements. To escape from this state of shameful and intolerable oppression, William Penn, one of the greatest and most illustrious men this country ever produced, led out his persecuted brethren to America, and there founded one of the states of that noble country, which has now risen to a pitch of prosperity, which is the natural fruit of liberty; and stands an every-day opprobrium of priestcraft, and a monument not merely of the uselessness, but the impolicy and nuisance of establishments. In the new, but great cities of that vast empire-in the depths of its eternal forests, and on its mountains and its plains, that scorn to bear the scorching foot of despotism, millions of free men, who have escaped from the temporal and spiritual outrages of Europe, lift up their voices and their hearts in thanksgivings to Him who has given them a land wide as human wishes, and as free as the air that envelopes it. They have gone from us to escape our cruelties and indignities, and are become our practical teachers in the philosophy of religion and government.

The English church, which has been so lauded by its interested supporters, as a model of all that is pure, dignified, holy, and compact, has not only thus compelled dissent by its tyranny; but by the consent of all historians, has, from its commencement, been composed, like Nebuchadnezzar's image, of most ill agreeing materials, mingled brass and clay; and has consequently been continually rent with differing factions. The Tudors established popish rites, and Edward IV. introduced Calvanistic doctrines; and these, retained by Elizabeth and James I., Charles I., by a singular inconsistency sanctioned, at the same moment that, under the management of his domineering Archbishop Laud, he was carrying the claims of episcopal power to the highest pitch, and would not only force them upon the English, but on the Scotch.--pp. 186-189.

Mr. Howitt then traces the history of the church to the present time, and particularly dwells on the spirit which actuated the members of the established church as being an aggravation of that intolerance which had formed so repugnant a feature of catholicity. The conduct of the Stuarts in attempting to force episcopal worship on the people of Scotland, is marked out for special condemnation, as it was productive of a deluge of blood over that high spirited country. Many a solitary heath," exclaims the author, "many a scene of savage rocks in that land, where the peasant now passes by and only wonders at its wild silence, are yet loud in the ear of heaven in eternal complaints of the bloody and domineering deeds

of the English church, wrought by its advice, and by the hireling murderers of its royal head. To such a pitch has the corruption of their church now arrived, that all the chief features in its character, which are visible to the world, are those of disparagement and degradation, for it is a church whose clergy are, as to one part, overpaid and inactive, and as to another part overworked and ill paid; it is loaded with opulent sinecures and shameful pluralities ; the greater portion of the members performing, for inadequate renumeration, the duties which ought to be fulfilled by the lazy and the absent; its shepherds are lukewarm in the ministry, and proudly cold in their intercourse with their flocks; and the general clergy forming its hierarchy, are doggedly adhesive to the establishment as it is, in spite of the progress of public opinion. So intolerable (continues Mr. Howitt) is the state of this church at the present moment, that the public is loud in demanding its reform ; and what proves the necessity of a change is the consent, however reluctant, of the clergy themselves, that the public voice should be heard." The author then proceeds to consider the condition of the established church in Ireland; and its monstrous disproportion in respect of revenue and numbers; and shows, that instead of peace, the natural product of religion, we have only horrible anarchy; instead of the milk of human kindness, there are substituted deadly exasperation and relentless murder. Returning to England, Mr. Howitt points out the moral and political absurdity of any longer requiring the dissenters, now a great body of the people, to contribute to the support of an established church in which they take no interest. "To tell us" says Mr. Howitt, "that we may all enjoy our own opinions, and celebrate our own worship in perfect freedom, and yet to compel us to support another mode of religion, and another set of opinions, in our eyes erroneous and unchristian, is at once an oppressoin and a bitter mockery. It is not so much the sum of actual money that we pay which constitutes the grievance, that might be borne; but the gravamen lies here, that by supporting an establishment, we support what, in the abstract, both religiously and politically, we believe ought not to exist. believe it is the duty of a government, and especially of a Christian government, which acknowledges the sacred rites of conscience, to protect every modification of the Christian religion; but not to support one in preference to, and at the expense of, the rest. This is not to patronize religion, but a party. That an establishment, unjust and impolitic in itself, never can, and never has, promoted true religion, is shown abundantly by this volume: it is testified equally by the apathy of the established church, and the activity of the dissenters. Is it not a source of continual complaints and bitterness amongst clerical writers, that the dissenters are for ever intruding themselves into their parishes; and, with what they are pleased to term their fiery fanaticism, continually turn the heads of their parishioners, and seduce them to the conventicle? Now

We

whether this zeal be healthful or not, whether it be pure or alloyed, refined or coarse, rational or fanatic, it matters not to our present question,-it is zeal,-and the vital question is, whence does it arise? how is it maintained? Not, certainly, from a state establishment!-not by charters and endowments. It springs from the soul of the people, and asks no breath of life but their approbation. Here, then, is an acknowledged principle of religious propagation, more efficacious than all the boasted influence of canonicals and mitres; of cathedral piles and sounding orchestras ; of all the political machinery of tithes, and glebes, and churchrates, and forced payments, called by the sarcastic name of gifts and offerings, as if the imposition were not enough, but we must suffer the mockery of being placed in the light of free donors and bowing offerers of gifts at a shrine that we inwardly abhor."

The conclusion which the author urges that we should come to, and which, he says, we must necessarily have, is the abolition of church rates, together with the tithes, and then the church must submit to be utterly divorced from the state. A mere separation a mensa et a thoro between the members of this sad example of conjugal misery will not do; it must be a vinculo. Milton describes the church as a beast of many heads and forms; and as she still retains all her monstrous peculiarities, Mr. Howitt is of opinion that she should be deprived of her ill-got maintenance, her traffic with the state must be stopped, and that property which was made over to her by the nominal owner, in a state of temporary aberration, should now at last revert to those who are entitled to the inheritance, and who, it is not to be concealed, stand considerably in need of such a succour.

66

On the necessity of abolishing the ecclesiastical courts, Mr. Howitt makes some striking observations. Among the abuses resulting from the possession of jurisdiction over civil matters on the part of the clergy, is the system of the consecration of burialgrounds and surplice fees. Nothing," says the author, " is more illustrative of the spirit of priestcraft than that the church should have kept up the superstitious belief in the consecration of ground in the minds of the people to the present hour, and that, in spite of education, the poor and the rich should be ridden with the most preposterous notion that they cannot lie in peace except in ground over which the bishop has said his mummery, and for which he and his rooks, as Sir David Lindsay calls them, have pocketed the fees, and laughed in their sleeves at the gullible foolishness of the people. When will the day come when the webs of the clerical spider shall be torn not only from the limbs but the souls of men? Does the honest Quaker sleep less sound, or will he arise less cheerfully at the judgment-day from his grave, over which no prelatical jugglery has been practised, and for which neither prelate nor priest has pocketed a doit? Who has consecrated the sea, into which the British sailor in the cloud of battle-smoke descends,