cation. Would this be to put an end to jour age memorable, is this one of them— class power, or to class law-making? In that the richest boon which may be conferthis case, would not class domination be red on a people would be to deliver to more glaring, more mischievous, and more them a law which they will be sure not to monstrous than ever? obey on account of its supposed wisdom, Nor are there wanting symptoms to in- but which they will be sure to disregard dicate the sort of use which would proba- because of its known folly? The letter of bly be made of this new machinery. Un- the law is to place all men on the same levless they are greatly belied, no.class of men el in the matter of suffrage, but society is have shown themselves more adverse to the to take care that this weakness and viciousspirit of real freedom than the men who are ness on the part of the law is every where loudest in the cause of this extreme form neutralized by its own better influence. of theoretic freedom. Of what moment Would not this be to mock the multitude is it whether the expression of public opin- rather than to benefit them,-to grant them ion be put down by the yells of a faction, or the show of franchise in the statute-book, by the point of the bayonet-is not the tyr-only to deny them the reality at the hustanny the same? When men scarcely knowings? Influence, bribery, coercion, as put how to speak of the property and privileged forth upon them, in that case, from the classes, except as so many banded plunderers, is there no room to fear that, had they the power, they would not be wanting in the inclination to chastise these plunderers by plundering them in return? Would it require any peculiar hardihood at such a crisis to allege, that restitution is not confiscation, that retribution is no robbery? At present, the choice instruments of these persons are noisy violence, fierce invective, and the most bitter denunciation of all men who venture to question their dogmas-but if these things be done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry? In short, the men who insist on this extent of change, and who do not avow themselves as hostile, not merely to the existence of the church of England, but to the peerage, to the monarchy, and to every thing short of the most exclusive and absolute democracy, are either very shortsighted, or very insincere, for to that issue their policy naturally and necessarily conducts them. It may be said, indeed, that all this danger is imaginary that wealth, knowledge, and moral worth will always have their influence, and will be sure to fix their impression on the movements of society. But is it, then, come to this, that the wisdom of legislators is to consist in enacting laws which they do not expect, which they do not even intend that society should obey? Is it to be their duty to see that the provisions contained in our statutes flow in one direction, while they are fully aware that the stream of social opinion, and feeling, and usage, will flow, and ought to flow in another direction? Is it thus that the laws and the people are to dwell together in unity? Among the new lights which are to make classes above them, would no longer expose men to any reproach, but must all become so many forms of high social virtue, inasmuch as they would then constitute the only means of self-preservation left by the law to those classes-and, indeed, the only means by which the nation itself could be prevented from falling into anarchy through the folly of its own legislation. The moral mischiefs of such a state of things must be boundless. Society, with such disparities of wealth and station as exist among us, must be at once divided into two great classes-the corruptors and the corrupt; and this unscreened immorality, practised on a scale of which at present we have no example, is to be accounted as nothing, so that a clause may be thrust upon our statute-book, declaring the same franchise to be common to the lowest and the highest. If the condition of obtaining favor from the hands of the English nonconformists be the adoption of opinions of this crude and mischievous description, and the approval of such a course as that which it has appeared good to them in other respects to pursue, then I must confess there is little prospect of my ever becoming a favorite in that quarter. In place of its having been the duty of the late whig government to attempt more, it fell in consequence of attempting too much. It may have been less disposed to innovation than a portion of the British people, but it was in advance of a much greater portion, and it ceased to exist, as being left in a minority. Our readers must not hold either ourselves or his lordship as responsible for every thing contained in this 'Imaginary' oration. It sets forth much truth, which it expectant of so much? If these considerations are not enough to excuse the utterance of some extravagant speeches, and the doing of some extravagant things, is there nothing in them that should be allowed to extenuate such indiscretions-at least, in the view of a statesman, who has it as a vocation to be studious of the ebbs and flows of popular feeling, and whose wisdom it must always be to judge such changes with the greatest forbearance? Where there has been the alleged extravagance, there let the fault of it rest; but let it not be overstated, and let it not be judged apart from its circumstances. Lord John Russell has sometimes complained of the agitations on ecclesiastical questions which have been originated by nonconformists of late years, and which have been sustained in a great degree by nonconformist ministers. His conclusion seems to have been, that the religious character of these parties has been in some degree compromised by such indications of feeling in regard to questions adjudged as political. Concerning the extent in which ministers of religion, as such, may be consistently thus employed, there is room for difference of opinion. We should be disposed ourselves to draw the line within somewhat narrower limits than many of our more zealous brethren. But the views of Lord John Russell on this point, as on those before mentioned, are not, as we humbly think, either so accurate or so expanded as they might have been. But those times were not times of sobriety with any party. We all remember that, during the Reform Bill agitation, the defenders of Gatton and Old Sarum were on the borders of delirium. The clergy, and the more zealous adherents of the established church, were alarmed and excited in the Let ministers of state restrict themselves, highest degree. The radical section of poli- as such, to questions of state, and they may ticians, whether giving their oath of fealty then complain, with some grace, of ministo Willam Cobbet or to Jeremy Bentham, ters of religion, if these shall fail to restrict were all filled with high expectation as to themselves, as such, to questions of religion. the many changes which were to follow in But if the statesman must often turn priest, the wake of that one great change. Whig he has no right to complain if the priest members, breaking through the grave re- should sometimes turn statesman. If governstraints naturally imposed by the possession ments will meddle with religion, they must of office, delivered speeches from the Treas- not be surprised if religious men sometimes ury Bench, fraught with the most popular meddle with governments. In this case it is opinions and feelings. Even from the intrusion which generates intrusion. So long throne itself expressions of that nature pro- as the secular power shall invade the provceeded. What wonder, then, if the pas-ince of the religious, according to our pressions of society were moved as from their ent usage, so long there will be occasions on very depths? On the one side were all which the religious power will invade the the signs of fear, on the other were all the province of the secular. The strength of the signs of hope. Can it, then, be wise or aggression, too, on the one side, will detercharitable to expect that nonconformists mine the strength of the reaction on the othshould have been every where cool and self-er. That both powers should be at peace, it possessed, while all about them was thus heated and disordered? Is it reasonable to exact that they should have been expectant of nothing, while all other men were is necessary that one should be the willing slave of the other, or that each should be confined to his own sphere. If any lesson may be gathered with certainty from ecclesiastical history, it is this lesson. In our own country, in social life by a little considerateness, collision of this nature is unavoidable, not on-courtesy, and good temper,-especially in ly from the relation of the government to the relation to large bodies of men, which are established religion, but from its frequent generally under the influence of a few contact, as the consequence of that particu-minds, and take their tone from those miuds. lar relation, with a large portion of religion In such relations, very little forethought which is nonestablished. So long as this and effort, with a view to conciliate or to state of things shall continue, those junc-preserve amity, might often suffice to pretures will often come round in which the vent great mischiefs. The love of freedom course of proceeding so little acceptable to is inseparable from a large measure of selfLord John Russell will be sure to recur. esteem; and we need neither ghost nor The fault, however, in this affair, is not so poet to assure us, that— much with the men whom his lordship has censured, as with the nature of his own policy. The evil deprecated must be unavoidable, so long as those Erastian principles, to which our statesmen are so much attached, shall maintain their ascendency in the constitution of this country. But it does not follow, because a statesman is not powerful enough to carry great measures, that he should seem to have become indifferent to great principles. We think, rather, that the strength of impediment in the way of any practical good, should be felt as so much motive to the more frequent and earnest enunciation of the grounds on which that good is demanded. We judge that, in most cases, men should be only the more determined to be heard on the side of truth, in proportion as they feel that to speak in its behalf is all that, for the present, is permitted to them. Lord John Russell may not deem himself in fault in this respect, but there are men holding him in high esteem who are of another judgment. That pleading in behalf of truth, which seems only to grow stronger as the tide of opinion is setting in against it, may result in some men from mere obstinacy, or resentment, or from an indiscreet zeal; but that is the course, nevertheless, which will mark a real magnanimity. 'The proud are ever most provoked by pride,' or by the conduct which they interpret as proceeding from that cause. What meaneth this language? Truly it hath a meaning-and a history, too-which some men will readily understand. The great Lord William Russell was a decided churchman and a zealous whig. But when his lordship lay under sentence of death, none of his clerical visitors could forbear to urge upon him a grave consideration of that sin of resistance which had brought him to his present circumstances. His lordship had no misgiving, either of understanding or heart, in regard to the justice of the course which he had pursued, and avoided entering into the casuistry of that question. But the fact is remarkable, that his creed as a politician should have been thus utterly disowned on the part of the establishment which he supported with so much zeal as a Christian; that in those solemn hours this antagonism between the faith of a good churchman—as expounded even by such men as Tillotson and Burnet-and his own faith as a statesman, should have been so forcibly presented to him. His lordship, we must suppose, saw no great inconsistency in professing himself a true member of the church of EngThe impression is very general among land, notwithstanding this discrepancy of observing men, that the temper and manners doctrine between himself and his spiritual of conservative statesmen are less open to advisers. He, no doubt, regretted this discomplaint, as regards attention to personal or crepancy, and in other circumstances might general feeling, than those of liberal poli- have been disposed to inquire how it came ticians. The former seem to be aware to pass that an institution, which, in his that there is a want of the popular in their view, was so adapted in all other respects principles, and that this deficiency must be to its office, should be found an inculcator supplied by a more careful attention to what of lessons on one of the greatest questions is personal, and to the claims of popular of human duty so little in accordance with feeling in other forms. But our whig leaders his own judgment. But his lordship's perseem too often to lean on their principles plexity on this subject, if perplexity he felt, with so much confidence, as to be compara- was reserved to his own bosom. tively negligent of the subordinate means This discordancy, however, between the of influence. It is true of statesmen, how-professions of the churchman and the paever, as of other men, that nothing is lost triot, in the case of Lord William Russell with general freedom. Civil liberty is good, but the civil establishment of religion is a greater good. Promote the former so far as you have the power, but, at all costs, preclude every kind of danger from the latter. We regret that there should have been any thing in the conduct or language of Lord John Russell that may seem to warrant such imputations. But it is unques while in prison, is a form of inconsistency j and generous political principles, is preobservable in Lord John Russell through ferred to the nonconformist minister, nothis whole career. In the church, which withstanding his adhesion to such princihis lordship so much deligheth to honor, he ples. Thus, even in the case of Lord John has found his great antagonist. Whatever Russell, the ecclesiastical is placed before he most values as a statesman has been op- the civil, and the sympathies of his lordposed, in the greatest degree, by the min-ship with an established priesthood, are isters of the church which he upholds in manifestly stronger than his sympathies that capacity. In his lordship's view, no tree of its kind is so good as that tree. Did it never occur to him to inquire how it has come to pass that a tree so good has borne fruit, to the experience of his lordship, so much the reverse of good? Whoever else may have failed to cross his path, the clergy of the established church have not so failed; and the measures which his lordship has prosecuted with the greatest solicitude, are those which have been always resisted tionable that his lordship has often acted inwith the greatest determination from that consistently, that he might do favor to quarter. Unless our reasoning on this sub-churchmen; and that there have been ocject has led us greatly astray, it would seem casions on which he has so acted, much to that the measure of the good which his lord- the injury, rather than to the advantage, of ship would do as a politician, must be the protestant dissenters. When men become measure of the evil which he perpetuates inconsistent that they may conceal the in regard to every thing political as a church- faults of their enemies, we can place an man. Nothing can be more plain, than that honorable construction on their conduct; the religious system and the political sys- but when they forego consistency, appatem, in this case, are opposites, and can- rently that they may magnify the real or not be made to amalgamate. This opposi- supposed errors of their friends, the moral tion must be that of the true and the not conclusion is of another complexion. Lord true; and which must we account as the John Russell once volunteered a defence not true? In the case of Lord John Rus- of the principle of compulsory support for sell, then, as in that of his martyred pro- the ministers of religion, alleging, from his genitor, attachment to the church of Eng-place in the House of Commons, that where land must be supposed to rest on grounds no such provision is made, it must be true almost wholly distinct from the political ten- of religious teachers, as of all other servants dencies of that institution. What those of the public, thatgrounds are is a question of some compass, on which we shall not at present enter. Those who live to please must please to live.' His lordship was not left in ignorance of the pain which this allusion had given to the mind of nonconformist ministers through the kingdom, but he never deigned, so far as we remember, to recall, or in any way to soften his expressions. It may be much to the credit of his lordship's Christian forbearance thus to repay good for evil. We know not that we have any right to indulge in censure, if it should be his pleasure to show so much affection in a quarter from which he must know it will be utterly vain to expect any grateful If his lordship's language on that occareturn. But such displays of generous feel- sion has any meaning, it must mean that, ing in one relation, naturally dispose men in his view, there is something dependent, to look for indications of similar magna- and greatly the reverse of the dignified, in nimity in other relations. In so looking, popular suffrage, especially as affecting rehowever, many nonconformists have been ligion. Nevertheless, in his lordship's thedisappointed, and have sometimes declaim- ory as a politician, the House of Commons ed with much warmth on this unreasonable is the life-blood of the English constitution. and inconsistent favoritism. Even toryism It is that assembly which places the governin a churchman, it is alleged, is manifestly ment in wholesome relat on to the people, more acceptable to his lordship than liber- and upon which, in its well-regulated influalism in a dissenter. The clergyman, not-ence, depend the prosperity of the nation, withstanding all his repugnance to large and the safety of the church, the peerage, and the throne. In that house, however, [ the lowest point above pauperism, the subwhat do we see but an assembly deriving jects of the British crown, in Great Britain its existence and all its authority from popu- and Ireland, who are not franchised, are, lar suffrage? What was the Reform Bill, in comparison with the franchised, as nine but a measure intended to base the authori- to one. Is this a state of society with which ty of that house on the wider extent of pop- to be satisfied? And these proportions beular suffrage? What has been the great re- tween the rich and poor are not diminishing, form effected by his lordship in our munici- but increasing. Land and property conpal corporations-has it not been to wrest tinue to pass into fewer and still fewer the election of magistrates from the hands hands; and thus the fearful breach in of so many political clubs, and to make it which nations have been so commonly independent on popular suffrage? Is it not gulphed, is constantly widening before us. the boast of the whigs, that the tendency of The land of this country, which, in 1815, their administration has been to break down was in the hands of some thirty thousand exclusiveness and monopoly, and every proprietors, had been in the hands of some where to give greater power to the free eight times that number only forty years voice and free action of the people? That before. From that time to the present the a tory of the school of forty years since momentum has been in the same direction. should cast popular suffrage away from him The greatly wealthy and the moderately as an unclean thing we can understand; but wealthy have increased, but the classes that Lord John Russell should do this is who may be said to be without substance not so intelligible. It may be said, indeed, of any kind have increased in a much that popular suffrage in religion is a very greater proportion. Thus the circumstandifferent matter from such suffrage in secu- ces have been long gathering strength, lar affairs. But the principle is the same which, on the one hand, render the demand in both cases; and the objects are not so of a much more extended suffrage increasdifferent as to warrant his lordship in as-ingly natural; and which, on the other suming, that a principle which is set forth hand, tend just as strongly to render comas of the greatest value in the government pliance with that demand increasingly danof the world, must be not only valueless, gerous. but mischievous, as applied to the government of the church. We have been accus- of the Roman republic; and as it was tomed to regard the representative princi- found impossible to resist the great extenple as a principle adapted to the wisest; and sion of the suffrage then demanded, the the church which is not competent to work mass of voters soon became the bought meout that principle much more wisely than nials of the patricians, being openly fed, the world has ever done, must be thus at and otherwise bribed, that their votes might fault as being wanting in the characteris- be the property of their masters. To have tics of those churches of which we read in resisted the franchise would have been to the New Testament. destroy the state, by surrendering it to the On the question of suffrage, it may be, passions of a poor, an unprincipled, and an as stated, a great sign of weakness to sup- excited populace; to concede the franchise pose that any possible change in that re- was to do the work of destruction no less spect would suffice to correct our many certainly, but to bring on that event by social disorders. But, on the other hand, subjecting the body politic to the influence the politician who denounces the theory of a lingering disease, rather than to a more which assigns the same vote to every man, speedy dissolution by the hand of violence. as being in our state of society not only To such pass affairs had come as the fruit unwise, but unjust and most dangerous, of aristocratic wisdom and delay! In the and who supposes that having so done he reign of Augustus, two hundred thousand has done enough, is not a person, as we franchised persons are described as obtainventure to think, to be commended for his ing their food by means of corn-tickets, sagacity. What is it that has made the which gave them bread-in the manner of thought of an equality of suffrage so alarm- our soup-tickets-without cost. Cæsar, on ing? Manifestly the great inequality one occasion, purchased the adhesion and the amongst us between the rich and poor, plaudits of that honorable constituency, by between the numbers of those who have and distributing to each man a sum of money, those who have not. We have seen that, ten pounds of oil, and ten bushels of corn. by means of a property test, taken at almost | In the struggle of factions which mark those It was precisely thus in the later times |