earnest convictions and strenuous efforts to correct those abuses. The Baptists, no doubt, had this and kindred faults, in common with Luther, Calvin, and other men of that stamp.

In October, 1776, the salaries of Episcopal ministers were suspended, not finally taken away. All dissenters petitioned for this; the Methodists, as irregular members of the Establishment, against it. Hawks sneers at the not "holy union between Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, Deists, and the covetous," in favor of this measure. Was it wrong to seek what he admits to be justice, because irreligious men happened to advocate it? Would the gentleman have refused to unite with even the apostate Julian, in tearing from the neck of the young Christian Church that State tyranny, which, like the old man of the sea, would certainly have strangled it, had not the Providence of God partially relaxed its grasp? Would he have hesitated to aid the dissolute Charles the Second in striking down, if he had wished it, the spiritual despotism which his purer father had fallen in trying to establish? Indeed, able and disinterested men sometimes judge more correctly of controverted questions than the truly pious, whose feelings and interests are deeply implicated. The unanswerable arguments of Madison's Memorial, and Jefferson's "Bill for the Establishment of Religious Freedom," only confirmed, by an appeal to experience and the highest reason, the convictions which the Baptists and others had derived from a simple and honest interpretation of the New Testament. We care not to deny Hawks' assertion, that "The Baptists, though not to be outdone in zeal, were surpassed in ability by the Presbyterians." It is enough honor for the former, that they saw with equal clearness, and vindicated with equal earnestness, on both sides of the Atlantic, a great truth, which nothing but a sea voyage, and the bracing influence of the revolutionary breeze, enabled the other denominations to see even imperfectly. Times have changed since Horace said,

Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.

The Baptists alone, of religious denominations, unflinch

ingly pursued the claims of freedom to the end, Dr. Hawks may think, a "bitter end." In 1779 the salaries of the Episcopal ministers were forever abolished. The "Declaration of Rights" and "Constitution" of 1776, declared, in general terms, religion to be directed by reason and conviction, not force and violence, and "all men equally entitled to the free exercise of religion."

Dr. Foote (i. p. 323) tells us, that in their petitions the Presbyterians that year, "were for an ill-defined liberty of conscience, and the disseverance of religion from the civil power," and said, "that something ought to be done for dissenters, but what should actually be done was a matter of contention." "They opposed all taxes for the support of any Church whatever, further than what might be agreeable to their private choice or voluntary obligation," pointing, no doubt, to the modified plan of assessment, which they afterwards advocated. The Baptists, from the first, clearly defined their position, which Catholics and Protestants in the United States now, however, equally desire to stand upon with them. Episcopalians and Methodists begged, "that the efforts made to injure what was left of the Establishment might be checked." The Baptists maintained "that no established religion ought to exist." In 1776, the General Assembly freed the "dissenters from all taxes, levies, and impositions whatever, towards supporting and maintaining the said Church." The Church, however, was still invested with power to tax its own members, and enforce payment by public authority. The famous act of "Religious Freedom" was soon afterwards prepared, and was cordially approved by Baptists, while others were not exactly ready for its adoption. The Episcopal Church still had the glebes, churches, and exclusive right of performing the marriage ceremony. In 1784 a resolution was passed, under the influence of Henry, for incorporating any religious denomination, and the Episcopal Church was actually incorporated, others not applying. The subject of assessment was postponed until another year. It was then advocated decidedly by Episcopalians, and as decidedly opposed by Baptists. The Presbyterians seem to have wavered on

the subject. In 1777, (see Foote, p. 327 of First Series,) the Hanover Presbytery, in a memorial, used the following decided language: "We do again most earnestly entreat, that our Legislature would never extend any assessment for religious purposes to us, or to the congregations under our care. In October, 1784, a memorial was prepared by Messrs. Smith and Graham, and approved by the Presbytery, in which assessment is favored, and an intimation given, that an incorporation of religious communities, not clergymen, would be acceptable. A plan of assessment, such as they could approve, was actually prepared. They are said to have been influenced, for the time, by the views of Patrick Henry, and, no doubt, felt that distrust of the voluntary system, then so common, and which even the great and liberal soul of Dr. Chalmers could not shake off. In May, 1785, however, when "the opinion of Presbytery was taken-whether they do approve of any kind of assessment by the General Assembly for the support of religion, Presbytery are unanimously against such a measure. A memorial in accordance with this unanimous sentiment was prepared, and the Rev. John B. Smith, President of Hampden Sydney, spoke for three days against the assessment before the General Assembly.

We do not blame the Presbyterians for their hesitation; they were consistent, conservative, afraid to try the experiment of complete religious freedom, as many wise and good men shrank from our experiment of civil government. We only complain that, notwithstanding their cautious discretion, they claim equal credit with those always ready to press, with unhesitating valor, into the forlorn hope.

The deadly struggle terminated in the defeat of the assessment bill, and the passage of the most glorious monument of legislation, "The Act for the Establishment of Religious Freedom." Hawks may cavil as he will at its phraseology, and the motives of its advocates; he cannot deny its justice and truth, or that "our holy religion" needs not now, any more than in apostolic days, the stamp of human legislation. Differing from our friends, we wish the advocates of freedom had stopped here and left the Episcopal Church its glebes, par

sonages and churches, with the necessary corporate authority for their preservation. We have no fancy for stripping a fallen enemy, deprived of all real strength, and thereby incurring the imputation of injustice and cruelty. Those who acted otherwise than we wish they had done, were smarting under grievous wrongs, and conceived themselves justified by the strongest reasons in guarding against their repetition, while indulging their natural feelings of resentment. We believe the Episcopal Church is stronger at this moment, than if it had retained the glebes, which were far less valuable than Dr. Howell supposes. Even if he were right in his estimate, it would still have been injured, far more than benefitted, by the retention of property, inseparably associated in the minds of the people with monarchy, monopoly and intolerance, while the other sects would have had all the credit of magnanimous forbearance. Be that as it may, the glebes were taken by the public, and the close of the eighteenth century witnessed a complete, we hope an eternal separation between Church and State.

Why this retrospect? To revive old feuds? By no means. We trust that we have been actuated by an honest desire to learn and state the truth, and deduce from it lessons useful to all parties.

One of the most obvious of those lessons is, that a religious Establishment is, semper et ubique, injurious both to those within its pale and to dissenters; and that ecclesiastical, like civil tyranny, always engenders habits and passions, both in the oppressors and the oppressed, injurious to virtue, religion and happiness. To every civil government approaching the ark of religious freedom, let us say :

Procul, procul, este profani.

Again we learn that earnest men, preaching the great truths of Christianity to the hearts and consciences of sinners, need not the "foreign aid" of general education, birth, social position and refinement, to make them eminently successful in winning many to Christ. Witness the prodigious increase of Baptists, and Methodists too, who, going out into the highways and hedges," have "compel

led' men "to come in," until the number of each denomination is some twenty-fold greater than that of Episcopalians. These two denominations now need no exhortation to fortify the positions which they have won, by an earnest emulation of their Episcopalian and Presbyterian brethren, in promoting thorough education. At the same time, let them not forget to "do their first works," nor allow themselves, like the giant of fable, to lose their strength by being lifted up from their mother earth.

To all denominations we would say: "Let by-gones be by-gones." You all have enough to do, and ought to remember that, while legal persecution is ended, the want of charity in the heart may lead to much actual persecution by word, and deed, and pen. It must be said to the honor of Virginia, that nowhere are all the religious denominations less inclined to wild and dangerous aberrations from the cardinal truths of Christianity. We trust they may be always equally distinguished for the cardinal Christian virtue of true charity.

ART. III.-JAMES MONTGOMERY.

"Life of James Montgomery. By Mrs. HELEN C. KNIGHT. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 12mo. 1857.

ALMOST every hymn-writer has his peculiar characteristics, which perpetually manifest themselves, whatever the topic of his hymns may be. Not more surely does the azure adorn the sky, and the red and the gold furnish the garniture of sunset, than certain mental forms appear, imprinting themselves on the graceful and flowing lines of the sacred minstrels. Newton is sober, sound, prosaic. Cowper is mournful, but trusting. Mrs. Steele is affectionate and deeply devotional. Doddridge is tranquil, full of faith, sometimes ecstatic, occasionally grand. Medley is absorbed by love