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are supplied with schools by the dissenters! Not a twenty-fifth part of the whole owes anything to them! These are stubborn facts: let the dissenters say what they will.-Cambridge Chronicle."

FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE WHO! CHURCHMEN OR DISSENTERS ?

The preceding article shews the deeds of Dissenters in education, about which they boast their wonderful zeal, and with obstructing which they have the assurance, in the face of such facts, to accuse the Church, In addition to this, their factious and envious opposition to the factory education bill speaks volumes, as to the question of their real, or pretended regard for the welfare of the working classes. They know very well that education without religion would be no blessing, but rather a curse; that religious education must have religious control; and that no sect of dissenters could claim for its Ministers to be intrusted with such controlthat, in short, if the Ministers of the Church were not to direct it, there could be no direction at all, but universal confusion and wrangling. Yet, rather than let those Ministers have a general direction, though carefully guarded from interfering with dissenters, they would altogether deprive the people of the proposed education. In all other respects they are the same. They will give nothing to objects of general benefit, even relating to temporal matters, unless it be to serve their own narrow, bigotted, and envious, sectarian purposes. In proof of this we quote from our Memoranda, two cases, shewing how (when no party object, but only general benevolence, can be the motive) Churchmen and dissenters respectively act. "By their fruits ye shall know them" Jesus-and by this test we wish the Church and Dissent to be tried.

said

"In the year 1832, the funds of the County (Salisbury) Infirmary were found deficient. On the day of the fast, an appeal was made generally, through this great county, and the cause of charity pleaded alike, and I have no doubt with the same sincerity, in the Churches of the Establishment by the clergy, and in the chapels of dissent by the respective ministers, with this only difference, that the collection was made in most of the [churches only after the morning service, and generally in the Dissenting chapels morning and evening, and this I mention to the credit of the several Dissenting ministers, and what was the result?

Collected at the cathedral..
At different churches..
At different chapels

....

d.

£ s.
79 19 8

1124 6 6

73 8 11

"So that eighty pounds, wanting fourpence, was collected at the cathedral alone, at one morning collection, that is nearly six pounds more, than was collected through the whole county from various and numerous Dissenting chapels, morning and evening! and a very considerable part of the above sums was found to be in halfpence!"

In our Memoranda the date of this is omitted. But we believe it to be about 1834 or 1835.

66 TO THE EDITORS OF THE BUCKS HERALD."

"You ask, 'What is the proportion subscribed by the Dissenters to the Bucks Infirmary? To afford you this information, for the edification of the Honest and Conscientious Dissenters of Aylesbury' in particular, as well as for your readers generally, I have procured copies of the various reports of the Infirmary to this time, and having analysed them, I subjoin the particulars. I have the greater pleasure in doing this, because I know it will gratify brother Samuel, who, as I understand, favoured the vestry with a very eloquent and pathetic appeal on behalf of the voluntary system, and made free and repeated offers of his money for the furtherance of every good work, founded on such principles. Finding, however, that only two of the church-rate opponents have yet subscribed, I would therefore, recommend him and all his friends instantly to become subscribers to this excellent institution, which is not only open to patients of all parties and of all creeds, but is supported wholly by 'Voluntary Contributions.'

"I am, Sir, Your obedient servant,

"FAIR PLAY.

"SUPPORT TO BUCKS INFIRMARY FROM CHURCH AND

DISSENT.

“Amount received from Aylesbury parish from opening of Infir

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"In Donations and Collections-Church Members. 6348 7 4

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These voluntaries make a great talk of the Bible; we could wish that they would practice as well as talk. Their professed friendship for the poor would cut a more respectable figure, if the foregoing subscriptions for the poor sufferers under disease had agreed a little better with St. James's touchstone of such professions:

"What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him! If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone?" (James, II, 14-17).

"TO THE EDITORS OF COMMON SENSE.

"Gentlemen,

"As the Dissenters of all classes pride themselves on their descent from the Puritans or old Nonconformists, it has occurred to me that some of your numerous readers of those classes may be instructed, if not edefied, in having their attention called to an interesting and useful work lately published by Mr. Hunter. I allude to the Life of Oliver Heywood. For the first time since the Restoration, the Church

has been impartially dealt with, and her usages, forms, and whole polity, temperately viewed by a Dissenting Minister. That such a work should have appeared in our day, may occasion little surprize when we reflect that a reaction always succeeds unnatural excitement, and especially religious anarchy. It is not the work of a political agitator, nor of a bitter and contentious theologian; but of a calm, sensible, and thoughtful mind, on most subjects in unison with the Church, though unhappily separated from her communion. I need hardly say that Oliver Hey. wood was an old Presbyterian, stoutly maintaining the right of private judgment against the judgment of all Christians in all ages, and, according to the novel usage of the Puritans, was Ordained by Mr. Bath, the Vicar of Rochdale, Mr. Peter Bradshaw, Minister of Milnrow, (afterwards of Ainsworth) Mr. Scholefield, Curate of Heywood, and some others of the same party, a little before the Restoration. He was not without learning and talent, and his deep and fervent piety is unquestionable. He left the Church, which he and and others usurped by ejecting the regular Clergy, and thereby subjected himself to many hardships from the civil powers, whose laws and statutes he thought it no sin to violate. It is not less curious than admonitory to find Mr. Hunter maintaining that Heywood and his fellow Dissenters, both ordained and lay, were without principles, rules or government'; but Hunter's generous feelings appear to have got the better of his cool judgment and extensive knowledge of the subject, when he adds, that it is greatly to the credit of the NonConforming body that not more clashings have occurred in the Congregations, during the hundred and fifty years of their existence '.

"From Mr. Heywood's connection with Rochdale and his frequent visits to families in the Parish and Neighbourhood, of whom some notices occur and many others might be added, the book cannot fail

to be popular with your reading parishioners. As a specimen of the style and of the just and enlightened views of Heywood's biographer, I send you the following extract, which being placed in juxta-position with the written opinions of the Rochdale Dissenters of the present day, on the same subjects, will suggest much useful matter for serious thought amongst the more intelligent and respectable of them.”

Z.

THE CEREMONIES AND CONSTITUTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH DEFENDED BY A DISSENTER.

"Nor can it perhaps be denied that they (the Puritans) 'walked not charitably' in laying so great a stress on points in which they differed from their neighbours. Where men must act in concert, it is manifest that something of individual opinion must be given up, out of regard to the feelings and wishes of others; and there may be quite as much intolerance in a singularity of practice as in the at tempts to enforce uniformity, and quite as much superstition in rejecting as in adopting a ceremony. It is however one of the most difficult problems in morals to draw the line which shall separate things which may be lawfully given up out of deference to others, or of regard to the maintenance of religious union and order, and those which a conscientious man must retain at all events, and embody in his practice; nor is it less difficult to ascertain the amount of knowledge and strength of conviction required to make a peculiarity in religious practice a duty. But surely the peace and unity of the newly formed Church needed not to have been disturbed about the shape and colour of a robe; the ring in marriage, a custom which had descended from a very remote antiquity; the sponsors in baptism, which are at least another link of piety, of which we have far too few, in the frame of the social state; the cross in

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