These worse than charlatans, these blasphemers, dare to declare, not only that the clergy of the Church of England, but even that their own dissenting friends, of more respectable and religious character and life, "do not preach the gospel," and impose on their deluded, blind, and dissolute followers, a false system of belief and practice. Alas! that the more virtuous and religious portion of dissenters should encourage, by their continued and vehement separation from the Church, these traitors to that gospel from which we can all alone expect salvation and heaven.

Of f my mother it is necessary I should here speak. Although she was a Baptist first by education and early habits, and then by what she called conviction, yet she had a kindly feeling towards those who differed from her, and avowed great respect for the pious and devoted portion of the clergy of the Church of England. Disgusted with the wranglings in the Baptist congregations; alarmed by the then progress, in varied forms, of Antinomian error; impressed by the facts that Mr. Rawston, sen., and Mr. Chapman had both admitted in their last hours, that THEIR dissenterism had been injurious to their spiritual progress; and above all, satisfied that dissent contained within itself

not the elements of stability, but of ceaseless changes and multiplied separation, she grew increasingly averse to all measures of hostility against the Church of England, and simply desired to live in peace with man, and die with confidence in God. She, who had been some years previously a zealous Baptist, had been so shocked by the unhallowed death of her brother, the strict communionist, that she at last declared, "for her part, she could hold out the right-hand of fellowship to the Rev. Mr. Montague, the rector of the parish, and receive from him the sacrament of the Lord's Supper." And here I may mention a fact, which had likewise made a deep impression on her mind, and led her to review some of the "positivism" of her prior life.

A young woman, an attendant at the Independent meeting-house, of which Mr. Hawthorne was minister, had, soon after his appointment to the post of pastor, been taken ill. It would seem that during several months she had been the subject of religious impressions, but that she had been deterred from becoming a member of the Independent church, from a very natural fear of explaining either to the deacon. or before the members, her religious experience and spiritual state. To her mistress, who was

a member, and a rigid Independent, she spoke of her views and feelings, and the latter endeavoured to prevail on her to receive the visits of the deacon and minister, and to make a confession of faith and religious experience to the church. But, much as she desired to receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, she could not get over her feeling of Christian modesty, and remained, therefore, without the enjoyment of this communicating act of the love of God to her, and of the death of Christ for her. At last she was taken ill. Mr. Hawthorne was sent for. He conversed with, and prayed for her. She expressed an earnest wish to receive the sacrament. He stated, that, He stated, that, "as she was not a member, he could not administer to her the elements of an ordinance established only for the members of the church." She wept bitterly. He promised to consult the deacon. The deacon proposed to convene a meeting of the church to admit her as a member. The poor girl was much distressed by the delay: she begged her mistress to send for the clergyman of the parish; "for," she said, “I am sure Mr. Montague will do for me as he did for a friend of mine, who, when she was converted in even her long last illness, on being satisfied as to her state of mind, gave her the sacra

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ment." The mistress assured the poor girl that a church-meeting had been called, and that she would be admitted as a member, and then would be entitled to communicate. The meeting was called. The deacon made his report, and Mr. Hawthorne urged her instant admission; but a discussion was raised by some of the female members, and just as it was about to be put to the vote, the mistress of the poor girl entered the vestry-room, and said, “It is too late, Mr. Hawthorne-poor Susan is dead!" In answer to some questions put to her, she added, "Yes, Sir, as long as she was sensible she expressed an earnest desire to receive the sacrament, and even wept that she could not do so. I was often tempted to send for the clergyman, but I could not bear the idea of her dying a Churchwoman!" This incident was never forgotten by my mother, and produced a considerable effect on her future life.

My maternal grand-parents were zealous Baptists. The Church of England was their abhorrence. "Any religion but the State religion." I do think they had a greater respect for Popery, than they had for Episcopacy. If the creed of their own sect had been that of the Established Church, I feel assured they would have given up their profession of Bap

tists. They neither could nor would discriminate between a religion contrived by the State, erected by the State, the work of the State--and a religion which had been adopted by the State, to secure to it a moral action, Christian energy, and true liberty. If they were told at any time, that, but for the connection of the Church with the State, the State would be Atheist, or Deist, or Infidel-they replied, "No matter what the State is, so that the people are not." If they were reminded that the State exercised a great and necessary influence, as well over the minds and hearts, as the bodies of the people, they replied, "The State is only an imaginary thing, it has no real existence, and can exercise no influence at all if the people are well instructed." If they were assured that "the State made the laws, created magistrates, directed the administration of justice, and even in constitutional monarchies exercised an immense influence over all that was intellectual, moral, and religious in a country, and that the connection of a religion with the State was a necessity in a Christian land," they had no other reply than this: "The clergy, for their own profit, have connected the Church with the State, that they may enjoy the loaves and the fishes." It was