traffickers that are the honourable of the earth. The times in which their fortune and influence have been acquired have not demanded the renunciation of their faith and worship; and the still growing liberality of the age holds out a prospect of their continuance in their religious profession, and of their families being a counter-balance to the numerous secessions which in less propitious days weakened the Dissenters in political importance. It may be thought to give some plausibility to this speculation, that there is at present as great a number of Protestant Dissenters in the House of Commons as have appeared there since the Revolution, and as marked a disposition in the House to listen with indulgence and respect to the Dissenting claims, whenever those claims are brought before the Legislature; though it must be admitted, and the admission is not creditable to the Dissenters, that a Dissenting grievance is rarely represented even in the House of Commons, and never directly and always faintly.

Numerically, the Dissenters of England are an important body. No census has been taken of them, nor are there any tables of their congregations to which we can refer; but they were many years ago computed by some of their well-informed leaders to consist of not less than two millions of persons, and of late they have increased far beyond the ratio of the growth of the population of the country. Every Dissenter is a religious worshiper ; his character is derived from his place in some congregation. In common parlance, all that do not frequent meeting-houses are Churchmen. This, however, is a very unsatisfactory criterion of strength for the Church of England. The unclassed absentees from her communion consist of unbelievers and scoffers, of immoral men, of those that are indifferent to all religion, and of the lowest orders of the people, whose ignorance and wretchedness incapacitate them for opinions and moral feelings, and banish them from all the assemblies of their decent and serious countrymen. Of those that attend the Established worship, multitudes are led by habit rather than by any preference for which they can assign a reason; a considerable number are disaffected to the political constitution, the discipline and the doctrines of the Church; and not a few are accustomed to join occasionally and with approbation in the worship of some one or other of the numerous sects of Nonconformists. Measured by actual and stated attendance upon religious services, the number of Dissenters is equal to that of Churchmen; and taking man for man we should say that the Dissenters form by far the more active and influential part of society in the middle ranks of life. Amongst them religion is considered as a personal concern, and the terms of their communion, the style of their preaching, their forms and orders, and the spirit of their social intercourse, tend to interest the individual in the business of the party, and to excite him to zeal, and to move him to undertake his proportion of labour for the common object. The circumstance, besides, of his being relatively to his country and to a considerable number of his neighbours a Nonconformist, puts him of necessity into an attitude of defence, and obliges him to arm himself with texts and arguments. A sectary (we use the word of course innocuously) is likely to become a proselytist; in some cases, he can defend himself only by carrying the war into the enemy's territories. In the degree that he is sensible of suffering injury for his opinions or worship, will self-interest prompt him to strengthen his own position by drawing over converts. Higher motives may also sway his mind, and he may feel it to be an imperative duty to promulgate what he believes to be divine truth, and to assert the claims of pure scriptural worship. From whatever cause it originates, the habit of thinking for himself, and of main

taining an individual character, and of prosecuting seriously some important object, will inevitably raise a man to a state of superiority amongst the thoughtless and indifferent. In point of fact, we apprehend it will not be disputed, that throughout England a great part of the more active members of society, who have most intercourse with the people and most influence over them, are Protestant Dissenters. These are manufacturers, merchants and substantial tradesmen, or persons who are in the enjoyment of a competency realized by trade, commerce and manufactures, gentlemen of the professions of law and physic, and agriculturists, of that class particularly who live upon their own freeholds. The virtues of temperance, frugality, prudence and integrity, that are promoted by religious Nonconformity and sectarian peculiarities, assist the temporal prosperity of these descriptions of persons, as they tend also to lift others to the same rank from the humbler classes of society. If the wealthy soon quit the Dissenters, they are Dissenters whilst they are becoming wealthy, and this is the period during which they are most valuable members of any communion. When their moral energy is exhausted, they may settle into habits of conformity, without subtracting any weight from the church which they quit, or adding any to that which they join. Churchmen are often surprised at the sight of the numerous Dissenting places of worship that rise up in the streets of populous towns and along the road-side of villages; but they would be still more surprised if they could look into the interior of society and see at one view the rank which Dissenters hold, and the part which they act in all those institutions that exercise the strongest influence upon the mind and character of a people. They have innumerable charities of their own, and their names are enrolled in almost all other charitable lists. Amongst them originated those little knots of readers, called Book-clubs, which have done so much for the spread of intelligence during the last half-century, and through their means these circles of knowledge are multiplied daily. They take the lead in more permanent literary and scientific institutions. To them is mainly owing the establishment of Schools for All. In all but the highest branches of education, their teachers are as numerous as those that are in communion with the Establishment. They have in their hands far more than their share of the popular press. Their funds for charitable and religious uses are not inconsiderable, though their carelessness in some cases and their liberality in others have suffered many of these to be alienated from them. Their division into sects, like the division of labour in political economy, is in one sense favourable to their influence and power; for the amount of zeal in those sects is greater than could have been excited in the united body, and in every one of them a principle is at work which tends greatly to the prosperity of each and of the whole, namely, that being in some degree proscribed by the State, the individual Nonconformists ought to support and cherish one another. The action of this principle is different in these sects, according to their numerousness, the relations of their members to general society, and even their theological faith; but in all it is incessant, and the result is of great moment to the civil and political importance of the Dissenters.

Political is, we are aware, a term at which, as applied to Dissenters, some of this body are apt to start. It is, nevertheless, in our usage strictly correct. The State places Nonconformists in a different relation to itself from that of Conformists, and a relation very unfavourable to some of their dearest interests as free-born Englishmen. It would be worse than ridiculous to deny that this relation in which Dissenters stand to the governing power, is

political. Protest as some of them may against the word, it will belong to them whilst the State takes any notice of them and shews any partiality towards another class of believers and worshipers, and whilst there is any civil right withheld or abridged on account of Nonconformity, and privileges are granted to other religionists which are denied to them on the sole ground of religion. They assume, in fact, a political character whenever they petition Parliament or address the Throne.

This dread of being regarded as a political party may have sprung either from an apprehension of being maltreated if they looked to the bettering of their condition, just as the slaves in the West Indies keep the word freedom under their breath, lest its utterance should bring down upon them the whip ; or from a fanatical notion that the spirituality which it behoves true Christians to aim after is inconsistent with an anxious regard to national measures and a serious attention to the duties of patriotism. The sentiment is alike mischievous in either case, and in both cases it is contemptible.

Whatever ground there may have been for the silence of fear in the reigns of the Stuarts, there has been certainly none for the last hundred and forty years, and it is our fixed opinion that the pusillanimity of the Nonconformists at the Restoration, and from that era to the Revolution, so far from disarming a persecuting government, only provoked its hostility: a weak enemy is crushed, a strong one is respected. Since the accession of the House of Brunswick to the British Throne, the state of the Dissenters appears to us to have depended wholly upon their own temper and conduct. Every enlargement of their liberties has been the result of their united and firm but temperate application for their rights. When they have slept, they have been forgotten. It is not to be supposed that government will do any thing for a people who do nothing for themselves, or remove grievances which are not galling, or confer benefits which are not valued. There have been feverish moments within the period which we have described, when it might have been inexpedient for the Dissenters to put themselves before the country; but with these exceptions, what man amongst them does not see and lament that numberless opportunities of improving their condition and that of their children have been lost? Instead of rising, they have sunk in political importance; for time gives to a wrong the colour of a right, and intolerance is riveted by prescription and usage. Many of their best families (in a worldly point of view) have slidden into the Establishment to escape from civil proscription. Their parliamentary friends have been disheartened, and their enemies encouraged, by their supineness. A generation has grown up without hearing a complaint from their lips. A few years' more folding of the hands to sleep and their case will be hopeless; for a party may brave hate and struggle through oppression, but never yet did it live long under contempt.

It may seem paradoxical that so numerous, wealthy, intelligent and active a people as we have described the Dissenters, should be regardless of their civil condition and acquiesce in the denial of their political rights; but the second cause that we have assigned of their fear of being accounted a political body will explain the mystery. A large proportion of them have been unnerved by the apprehension that they should lose their spirituality if they stepped out into the world and manifested any zeal but that which has religion for its object. This state of mind has been encouraged by certain ministers that have aspired to the distinction of being peculiarly heavenlyminded, and of enjoying a more than common share of Divine influence. When rights and liberties and parties have been spoken of, these lofty spi

ritualists have said, "Let the potsherds of the earth strive together." One of them, a quaint writer not long ago deceased, who had considerable power in the religious world, wrote a treatise on what is called amongst "Evangelical" persons, Backsliding, and along with other symptoms of backsliding described by the author, who well knew what would exalt his own reputation for sanctity, is set down "an eager attention to politics." This un-english and unmanly sentiment has been kept up mainly of late by the extraordinary passion that has prevailed for foreign missions; which being in some measure dependent upon the government for the time being, have led their supporters to court the favour of ministers of state by assuming the character of government-men. The Bible Society may also have tended the same way. The leaders in this institution have been from the first exceedingly ambitious of the patronage of the great, and have accordingly flattered them by declamation upon the influence of the Bible in promoting loyalty; by which is always meant upon anniversary platforms a devotedness to the will of the reigning party in the State. Many of the active Dissenters have, we know, secretly disapproved of this temper and these practices, but have remained silent lest they should provoke dissension and throw a stumbling-block in the way of " Évangelical" schemes.

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A little reflection would, we think, satisfy the most zealously religious Dissenters that nothing is really gained to the cause of religion by the abandonment of patriotism. They do not think it necessary to close their shops or counting-houses, or to throw up their farms, for the sake of spiritual attainments; and is it the proof of a more worldly mind to pursue public than private and selfish ends? The money-getting spirit is tolerated amongst the warmest professors of sanctity, and it is hard that a generous zeal for the good government of a community and the temporal interests of posterity should be alone stigmatized and marked with reprobation. St. Paul did not judge it inconsistent with his apostleship to assert his rights as a Roman citizen, and to demand satisfaction for wrongs inflicted upon him by insolent and tyrannical magistrates: and the best of the Puritans and early Nonconformists, who were sufficiently spiritually-minded, regarded it as no impeachment of their Christian character to watch the proceedings of rulers, to guard their civil rights, and to make conscience of their political duties. They saw clearly enough that all misgovernment has an immoral influence upon a people; that the doctrine of passive obedience holds out a temptation to bad laws, and that the habit of non-resistance is an invitation of op pression; that the reformation of religion is helped by all other reforms; that every man has a deep interest in every other man's liberty; and that, as John Milton, the purest and noblest of the first race of Nonconformists, has expounded his sense of Christian politics, " Any law against conscience is alike in force against any conscience."

In spite of casuistry and hypocrisy, the Dissenters must know, for all the world knows, that whilst they maintain consistency of character and cherish the spirit of Nonconformity, they never can be favourites with the HighChurch and Tory party in Great Britain. They may be used as tools; but the baser the work in which they suffer themselves to be employed, the sooner will they be thrown away when the work is done. The high Protestant principle asserted by the Dissenters is naturally looked upon with jealousy, if not with hatred, by the enemies of public liberty. This party see with instinctive sagacity that all men of independent opinions and character are their opponents, and that there is an inseparable connexion between civil and religious freedom. They are not deceived because they

are fawned upon; on the contrary, their hand, even when it is licked by sycophancy, is ever ready to smite those that make the least reserve of obedience and submission. However the Dissenters may regard themselves, these politicians know that they properly belong to that class of public men who contemplate in all their measures the amelioration of our laws and institutions; and they hate them from dread of this natural, which is also a moral, connexion. The Whig party in return bear the odium amongst High-Churchmen of being Dissenters in their hearts; and it is really a public scandal that so enlightened and virtuous a body of men as the Dissenters, should seem for a moment not to distinguish between their enemies and friends, and even to requite long services with ingratitude and neglect, and to seek to strengthen the hands of a faction who may use their power in the first instance to put and keep down their political antagonists, but who will never cease, so long as their power lasts, to watch and curb those religionists in whose Nonconformity they discern the elements of political freedom.*

Z.

SIR,

DISSENTING COLLEGES.
To the Editor.

THE paper in your last Number in recommendation of the London University, is one in the general sentiments of which most of your readers will doubtless concur, and which is manifestly the work of a man of talent and reflection; but it is equally evident to me that, whoever he may be, he is not

The writer is reminded that he has been partly anticipated in the above reflections by the Edinburgh Review, from a late No. [LXXXVIII.] of which the following excellent passage is extracted:

"Every measure of government, every act of legislation, every vote of an individual, which, upon the whole, and in the end, tends to lessen the influence of the opinion of those classes who must be orderly and provident, over the conduct of the rich and great, is an aggression against public morals, which, as far as its power reaches, impairs their best human security. The neutrality of the zealously religious party among us, in all late contests between authority and liberty, and the partiality shewn by a large body to the side of power, seem to indicate that they no longer perceive that important relation of civil institutions to domestic morality, which contributed to make the ancient Calvinists the most zealous friends of human freedom. From whatever causes this remarkable deviation from the example of their predecessors may have arisen, it will be strange if they should persevere in supporting principles favourable to a state of society the most fruitful in vice, and the most incompatible with every disposition towards religion. Other considerations, perhaps, of a still higher order, present themselves, which, from their importance aud their peculiar nature, would require (if presented at all) to be more fully unfolded than they can be at this time and in this place. It will be sufficient, for those who have much considered such matters, to observe, that all ardent and elevated feelings have a strong, though frequently a secret, connexion. They often combine for a time with other principles. They are disturbed by accidental circumstances. They may be made to counteract each other. But their natural affinity is always discoverable, and most generally in the end prevails. They prepare for each other-they succeed each other-they combine together. There are no principles which have so often and so clearly exemplified these observations, as the zeal for religion and the love of liberty. But if the friends of religion should be blind to this affinity, they may be well assured that it never escapes the watchful jealousy of the possessors of power; who, however they may be pleased with an obedient clergy and a religion which teaches quiet, yet, as politicians, (whatever may be the exceptions of individual character,) regard zeal as an ungovernable quality, tremble at the approach of every species of enthusiasm, and have a natural dread of whatever breaks upon them from that higher region of human feeling where piety and patriotism are kindled."