worthlessness, but its glaring inconsistency: for although the pious, conscientious, and upright parish priest, is traduced and vilified if he ventures to speak one word in favour of all that he holds dear,-the apostate and sectarian who follows in the wake of the republican, is held up to the public gaze as a character worthy of imitation and

respect.

We regret that we are unable to follow Mr. Bowles through the latter part of the career of Bishop Ken, especially as his conduct in retiring from his see is ably defended from the disingenuous charges of Burnet. He died, after a residence of twenty years, in his chamber at Longleat, the seat of his attached and permanent friend, Lord Weymouth; and was buried in the churchyard at Frome. For any further vindication of his character, and the more minute particulars of his varied history, we would say, consult his biographer, to whom we offer our warm thanks for an entertaining and instructive work, and for having afforded us an opportunity of saying a few words on the state and prospect of the Church at the present crisis.

The history concludes with the following beautiful and appropriate lines from the pen of Mr. Hoyle, a friend of the author, which we make no apology for submitting to our readers.

BISHOP KEN.

Dead to all else, alive to God alone,
Ken, the confessor meek, abandons power,
Palace, and mitre, and cathedral throne,

(A shroud alone reserved,) and, in the bower
Of meditation, hallows every hour

With orison, and strews, in life's decline,

With pale hand, o'er his evening path, thy flower,
O Poetry! pouring the lay divine

In tributary love, before Jehovah's shrine.

"Farewell," he cries, "bewildering world! farewell
To rank, to grandeur, to the pastoral care
Of Avon and of Banwell! lightly fell

The fetters from my hands; while to free air,
From pomp and wealth, the fowler and the snare,'
Deliver'd, and exulting in release,

I gazed aloft, that purer bliss to share,

Where faith and hope, in full possession, cease

In one eternal Now of charity and peace.

"A little while, and to the last long home,
My weary journey ended, I retire

From the kind friend, the hospitable dome;
And feel my ashes kindle with the fire
Of immortality, and hear the quire
Hierarchal; and, unhurt amid the roar
Of shipwreck, look on the commotion dire
In idle fury tempesting the shore,
And everlastingly the God of gods adore.

"O Thou, whose lonely contemplation trod
Gethsemane and Tabor, there to pray,
And in communion see the face of God,
Let me not linger in this house of clay
Without thy visitation, and the ray
That from between the cherubim of light
Illumes the path from darkness into day:
Nor only guides, but strengthens for the flight,

The spirit that aspires where Thou and heaven unite.

Age, want, infirmity, have yet a calm

That brings the servant nearer to the feet
Of Him who shall award the crown and palm;
When with his angels to the judgment-seat
He comes, and all earth's generations meet
Messiah, generations of the dead;

While worlds to worlds the jubilee repeat
Of saints in triumph to their kingdom led,
Jehovah their defence, Immanuel their head.

"Rejoice, disciple of the Lord, in loss,
In pain, in age, in tribulation blest;
More closely to thy bosom press the cross,
And thankfully acknowledge all is best
As Providence hath ordered, whose behest,
Then most benign when seeming most severe,
Protects us from ourselves, nor offers rest
Till time, dissolving in the eternal year,
Proclaims our full repose, from sorrow, sin, and fear.

"Our days are registered, and every hour
Gives warning; nor a moment ever rolled,
Without a testimonial to the power
That spread abroad the firmament of old,
Appointed summer's heat and winter's cold,
The fruits of autumn, and the bloom of spring,
Call'd forth the sun, the stars by numbers told,
And bade all ages, all creation sing

The constellations' birth, the glory of their King.

“Behold, how nature's volume is to all

Laid open, there the record to peruse
Of Him by whom earth's kingdoms rise or fall,
The seasons change, the clouds distil their dews,
The garden and the mead display their hues;
The sky's illimitable circuit feels

His guidance, and the destined course pursues,
And day to day, and night to night reveals,

What hand each insect feeds, each star and planet wheels.

"Then turn not from the melodies of morn

In cold abstraction, nor refuse to hear
The early echoes of the hound or horn
Blend with the song of lark and chanticleer.
No; let them wake Devotion to revere
The Giver of all good, and pay her vow,
When first day's eyelid opens on the sphere
Terrestrial, and transfigures all below;
Till, fair as Paradise, earth, ocean, ether glow.
VOL. XIV. NO. II.

L

"Nor may we pass the mystery of noon
Unsolemnized: then was the ransom paid
That purchased for the world salvation's boon:
Then trembled earth, the sun went back dismayed,
The firmamental vault was wrapt in shade,
And height and depth, convulsed, the signal gave,
By what a victim was atonement made:

By Him who quell'd the whirlwind and the wave,
Death, and the sting of death, the serpent, and the grave.

"But morning and the noon of life are fled,
And glooms of eve to sudden musing call,
Ere night prepare the pillow for my head
On that sepulchral couch ordained for all
Earth's progeny, that soon or later fall

Like withered leaf; yet though we seem to die,
Though dissolution and decay enthral

Our mortal frame, the soul shall upward fly,

Ever from strength to strength, to meet its God on high.”

ART. II.-Churchmen and Dissenters; or, plain, popular, and impartial Remarks on the Church of England. In a series of Essays. No. I. By the Rev. JOHN HAMILTON GRAY, M. A. of Magdalen College, Oxford, Curate of Bolsover. Recommended to the particular Attention of all who have read the Essays on Church Polity contained in the Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge. 8vo. Pp. 53. Chesterfield: Roberts. London: Longman & Co.; Rivingtons; Hatchard.

For a demonstration of the popular feeling against the Established Church of England, we are referred to the many editions through which Mr. Beverley's "Letter" has, in a few months, passed and we are told, mirabile audita! that no less than 30,000 copies have been sold; of course, this includes the 10,000 distributed by the Birmingham Political Union. Now, to us, the number of copies seems but small, compared with what might be reasonably expected, from the zeal and activity with which infidels and dissenters have propagated the pestiferous morsel; a morsel, however, sweet to "the carnal mind." But, admitting the number distributed to be great,-admitting that the "Letter" has met with an unprecedented sale,-admitting that its contents, like sweet poison, have been greedily swallowed by the motley and combined group of religious sectarians, deists and atheists,— admitting all this, what does it prove? Does it prove that the "Letter" contains the wholesome food of truth, of reason, or of candour? By no means. It proves no more than is proved by the vast consumption, by our lowest and misguided populace, of arduous and deleterious spirits, which, though gratifying to the man of depraved habits, undermine the constitution, destroy the comforts,

All that the

and too frequently shorten the days, of the consumers. boasted circulation of the pamphlet proves is an old truth, that "the carnal mind is enmity against God," and that the carnal mind still delights to "prey on garbage:" and so far as the extent of this sad "enmity" of the heart is discovered, have we, as Christians, cause for sorrowing.

Our readers will, we trust, excuse us commencing this article with an allusion to an author whose language is not only painful to a Christian mind, but disgusting to men of taste and moral feeling. We cannot dismiss the apprehension forced on us by the perusal of such productions as those of Mr. Beverley, that such obscene expressions as are found in the "Letter" and "The Tombs of the Prophets," fix upon the author a suspicion of his being too conversant with scenes and habits, the bare mention of which would tarnish our pages. We have, however, introduced once more on the stage, Mr. Beverley, of Beverley, that we may openly label his os frontis with our opinion, that the friends of the Church and religion have no cause of alarm as to any serious evils likely to be produced by such antagonists. Publications like his not only carry their own antidotes, but, happily, elicit sentiments, arguments, and facts in defence of the Church, which would otherwise lie concealed, unknown, and inoperative. These publications have already called forth from their hidingplaces men who are clothed with "the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,"-men who wield not the unholy weapons of slander, falsehood, malice and envy,-not the weapons with which the public or private spoliator may attempt to defend his rapacious and sacrilegious exploits, under the specious covering of primitive zeal," "primitive simplicity," "voluntary Churches," "rights of conscience;"—but the inflexible weapons of truth, attempered with Christian compassion and forbearance towards their erratic and visionary adversaries. From a fair, legitimate contest, the Church of England has nothing to fear for she has no lack of defensible principles, or of talent to defend those principles.

The title-page of the pamphlet standing at the head of this article reminds us of a species of warfare carried on, with such unholy weapons as those which we have mentioned above, by the conductors of an insignificant periodical, pompously styled, "The Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge." "The Library of Ecclesiastical Ignorance" would have been a more appropiate designation. We have hitherto carefully refrained from noticing the "Library;" not only because its mistatements and acrimonious temper reduce it beneath contempt, but because we conceived, and still conceive, that the asperity of its spirit, its perversion of notorious facts, and the sophistry of its arguments, are quite adequate to defeat its object. That object evidently is, to

excite the populace to re-echo the Edomitish clamour against the Church," Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation;"* to overturn the best institutions of the country; and to pillage the sanctuary of the Most High: and, doubtless, a conflagration " of all the houses of God in the land"† would be an exhilarating sight to such men as the writers and admirers of "The Library," "Beverley's" reveries, "The Age of Reason," "The Black Dwarf," &c.

For a considerable period of the ecclesiastical warfare conducted by the heterogeneous sectaries, the constitution and services of our Church formed the point of their attack: thither they concentrated their forces. But it proved not an advantageous point. For a large portion of the community, professing to be of the Church of England, was attached to the scriptural services of our Zion, partly from habits, partly from conviction of their excellency. Another portion of the community did not enter into the question of ecclesiastical constitutions, being content to worship God after the manner of their pious and wise forefathers. Another considerable portion of the British population, Gallio like, " cared for none of these things," but discarded all religion, under any modification. To this extensive class of our fellow-countrymen, the controversy about the constitution and public service of the Church presented no interest, so as to excite their feelings or engage their efforts against the Church. The dissenters found that in attacking the Establishment at that point, they would be left to fight their battles without any foreign aid, and at fearful odds. Abandoning this point, therefore, they sought another on which they might engage the alliance of the careless infidel, the half-hearted and nominal Churchman: and the new point of attack is the revenues of the Church; and appeals are made to the cupidity which dwells and revels in the worldly mind. Hence, the Church property is held up to the multitude as a prey to satiate their lust; and a spoliation of the Church is cried up and echoed in many dissenting and infidel publications, as a panacea for all the evils, real or imaginary, under which the country groans. In this sacrilege the avaricious miser anticipates a golden harvest; and the infidel, in addition thereto, anticipates a triumph of his principles, being well aware that the overthrow of the Church will be the demolition of the strong bulwark which, under the "Captain of our Salvation," surrounds and protects the blessings of the Christian religion; while each sectary anticipates the elevation of his own system above every other. And this accounts for the strange and anomalous combination of men whose professed principles are antipodes: and by appeals to the base passions of our nature, have the religious adversaries of the