False the advice to us was brought- This bold Sir Hugh was married man- "I'll not believe," Argyle replied, If thou the least respect wouldst claim “All false! All false, my lord, in faith," Sir Hugh replied, with stifled breath. "A hoax, a filam your Grace to gall; To prove it. I defy them all." "The proof, Sir Knight, shall soon be brought Home to your heart, with vengeance fraught. Your former spouse, from Highland wood, Hast thou not seen the morning ray Thou hast. Yet thou can'st never view The dead blank look of brave Sir Hugh. Two wives at once to deprehend him— And Highland wives-The Lord defend him! Argyle was wroth, it might be seen, Yet still preserved his look serene. He saw the guilty deed confess'd, By signs which could not be repress'd; And studied in his lordly mind, The sharpest punishment assign'd, When Duncan, with broad Highland face, Came with bow and "Please her Grace, Tere pe fine lhady at her gate, Whose grhief of mhind pe very grheat; And pretty poy upon her hand, As was not porn in any landPrave Highlander so prave and young, And spaiks in her own moter tongue; What shall her nainsel say or dhoo? She cries to speak with prave Sir Hugh." Sir Hugh then thought without a doubt That evils compass'd him about. "O Lord!" he cried, in fervent way, Then turn'd in manifest dismay— “I'll go,” said he, "straight to the gate→→ I must not let the lady wait.""No," cried Argyle, "you 'scape not So. Guards, keep the door, till once we know In came young Mora, blushing deep, The astonish'd group stood moveless And neither utter'd good nor ill. He was the first that silence broke. Taking her hand, these words he spoke : "Fair lady, I have heard a part Of how much wrong'd and grieved thou art. What share I had by suit or sway, But this I promise, that thy right "My honoured liege, thy handmaid I, And of M'Calan's lineage high, Glen-Lyon's verdant hills I claim, "But when the order questionless "My brother charged Sir Hugh in Fought him, and met untimely death; For all the injuries I received, I've braved the Frenchmen's serried might At morn, at eve, at middle night; A chariot's to an earthquake's shock. me Is an unfathom'd mystery; The devil himself that urged me on; The tears ran down young Mora's She turn'd away, but could not speak, Of truth and honour quite o'erpowers She cannot bear to see you hung, Where you may take a score or two, Mattam Te-fane waits here pelow, Wild as a maniac looked De Vane; "Cheer up, Sir Hugh; for, on my life, Your first, your last, your only wife, And happy be you and your line; The crystal tears from his blue eyes Pour'd bright as dew-drops from the skies; His manly frame with joy was shivering, THE CHURCH AND ITS ENEMIES. LETTER FROM A LIBERAL WHIG. SIR,-I have already, on more than one occasion, addressed to you such suggestions as have occurred to my mind at periods of great popular excitement, with a view of correcting erroneous impressions, and uniting (as far as possible) the moderate and candid of both parties in the same view of the common danger. The last occasion on which I attempted this (as many are too apt to term it) Quixotic enterprise, was that of the first announcement by Government of its great measure of "Reform" in the Commons' House of Parliament. Of the many consequences then predicted as sure to follow from the adoption of that measure, the first rank in importance must be assigned to its effects on the interests of religion as involved in the maintenance of a Church Establishment; and with our ordinary national proneness to rush blindfold to the adoption of party names and distinctions, all the momentous questions now at issue, as more or less affecting the present condition, and future existence, of the Church of England, are confounded together in the vulgar language under one common head of assumed warfare between Church and Dissenters, while the violent and unthinking partisans of either side strengthen the delusion by exaggerated representations as to the actual numerical force, or the relative wealth or intelligence, of the two rival bodies; whereas, in point of fact, even if it were possible to ascertain the exact proportions, they would not furnish us with any thing like a just estimate of the only real point at issue. It is a fallacy to suppose that the question lies between the Church as a body, and the Dissenters as a body. The Church, which has obviously most pretension to be considered in a corporate capacity, notoriously nourishes in her own bosom two great and general, besides a number of lesser, contending, and (perhaps) irreconcilable parties; while to speak or think of the Dissenters as a body, either as united in point of general sentiment, or even as having one common object in the overthrow of the Establishment, is quite preposterous. A very large number, forming altogether one of the most respectable and influential of the several denominations of Dissenters, are, by their own profession, the sincerity of which has been manifested by recent conduct, not only not adverse, but friendly, to the continuance of the Establishment, from which they are themselves separated only on the ground of sincere, however much to be regretted, scruples in matters of small practical importance, and the distinction between whom and those members of the Establishment itself whom they most nearly approach and resemble, is so minute and subtle as, to any but the nicest religious eye, to be utterly undiscernible. Many, again, of those who are hostile, are actuated in their hostility by no opposition to the Church, either in respect of doctrine or practice, but by an honest persuasion that the free exercise of religion ought not to be shackled by any restrictions of creed or discipline; and in this opinion many pious and sincere men also, who are included within the pale of the Establishment, concur with them. The number of those Dissenters who, from irreconcilable difference as to matters of fundamental belief, or from obstinate attachment, or adhesion, to some one exclusive form of Church Government, seek the overthrow of the present Church Establishment, with a view to substitute their own, as the dominant, sect, in the room of it is so comparatively small (if, indeed, any such exist), that it may be altogether disregarded in a practical view of the subject; and yet, in forming any estimate on the basis of setting the Church and Dissenters in array against each other, these are the only classes which deserve to be ranked as opponents of the Church because Dissenters. If, therefore, the Church had no other enemies to fear but the Dissenters, (meaning by the term those who separate themselves from the Church on the ground of some express difference of religious opinion,) it is probable that her friends would have no great cause to be solicitous about her security: but if to the number of professed Dissenters, be added all who, whether nominally within or without the pale of the Establishment, are really of no religion whatever; who hate the Church, as hating religion; or who, in other respects indifferent, would nevertheless get rid of a Church Establishment, from mere sordid and selfish views, either of political economy or personal exemption-then, indeed, the question assumes a far more formidable appearance, and our means of calculating the comparative strength of attack and resistance altogether fail. Yet even here also we should be in an error if we imagined that all who openly profess unbelief, or who even scoff at religion, are necessarily opposed to the Establishment, since there are numbers who would support it from political motives only, whose names are yet to be found in the list of avowed champions of infidelity. As, therefore, the number of professed Dissenters affords us no test whatever, so neither does the number of professed unbelievers, or even revilers, of religion, furnish us with any, as to the true amount of the forces actually in array against us. The only estimate of practical utility which appears to be at all attainable, is as to the number of those, Dissenters or otherwise, who are actual believers in the great fundamental truths of the Gospel, together with the true proportion of those who, being such believers, are, over and above, impressed with a conviction that religion is properly an affair of State, and that the interests of religion are inseparably connected with, and dependent upon, the Established Government; and if it shall be made appear that this number, and that proportion, are not only at present very considerable, but are from day to day considerably increasing, the ascertainment of this fact may well inspire a high degree of just confidence in the firmness of the Church herself, and the impotence of her motley and disunited assailants. Let us dissect any one of the various numerical arguments which have been arrayed against the Establishment, and it will be found to be wholly without force or consistency. Let us take, for example, the statement made a few nights ago by Mr Hume, without even questioning its accuracy-namely, that in twentynine large manufacturing towns, the members of the Established Church form only one-fifth of the population-What then?-unless he is able at the same time to inform us of what the remaining four-fifths are composed-how many are strictly orthodox believers, who, although on some minor points of practice or discipline dissenters from the Church, would rather shed their blood in its defence than become the instruments of letting in the flood of irreligion and impiety which would too surely follow its demolition-how many more of no religion but that of Mammon-how many more who, grovelling in the lowest depths of vice and infamy, must be counted as nothing in the computation-how many more, whose absence from the church is occasioned by no disaffection, but by the want of means and opportunity to frequent it, arising either from want of room within the churches themselves for their reception and accommodation, or from the multiplicity and urgency of their own domestic necessities? It matters not that neither of the last-mentioned causes ought to exist the question being whether they do not exist, in fact and whether the fact of their existence be not of importance in respect of the validity of Mr Hume's mode of reasoning; whether, in short, it be not quite enough to account, together with the other grounds of deduction already enumerated, for the phenomenon itself, even if the statement had been that one-tenth only, instead of one-fifth, of the population of these busy places were members of the Church, in the sense (in which alone such a fact is capa. ble of ascertainment) of Churchfrequenters. Nothing, it seems to me, can be more efficacious than the application of this same mode of discussion towards the exposure of the fallacy which lurks in that grand discovery of modern liberalism—namely, that if any form of religion is to have the support of the Government in preference to others, it ought to be that which is professed by a majority of the nation-a position which would have something at least plausible to recommend it, if it were restricted to the number of those, not only who profess, but who profess upon certain grounds of belief or conviction, a particular form of religion, and if it were possible, by any process of enquiry whatever, to ascertain the proportions. The utter impracticability of making any such estimate is the best answer to the suggestion; and in the meanwhile it is best and safest to go on with the old understanding upon which all State religions have hitherto been supported-namely, that (to use the words of another speaker in a late debate on the subject) "the Government of the country, believing a religion to be true, is bound to endeavour to promote and protect it." Another fallacy, no less detrimental to the Church, and no less indus triously propagated by its enemies, or weakly and incautiously admitted by some among its professed friends and adherents, but which is equally incapable of standing the test of en, quiry, is that which represents it as an antiquated and now useless, al. though venerable, institution, calcu lated to answer the purposes of its founders, adapted to the actual exi. gencies of the age which gave it birth, and advantageous, or even in. dispensable, to the cause of true religion in its origin, but at variance with the spirit of the present time, and doomed by the irreversible decree of Fate, to fall amidst other monuments of obsolete and explo ded reverence. But the fallacy here pointed at consists in confounding matters of divine, with matters of merely human ordinance, the great truths and interests of religion with questions of government and state expediency, the preservation of the vital principles of Christianity with the retention of rotten boroughs or sinecures. The truth is, that no greater disservice can be rendered to the cause of religion, than by representing it as essentially at variance with that of political improvement and regeneration, or by classing its advocates as necessarily hostile to all measures of reform, or to the removal and abolition of needless restrictions and distinctions. No two principles either are in effect, or ought to be kept, more rigidly separate from and independent of each other, than those of the free admis |