ness for the sake of minds in grief. I would invoke whatever friendly spirit has power to shed balm on anxious or desponding cares, and, unobserved, steal a part of the bitterness away. I would also attempt a train of vigorous thinking. I would not despair of some advantage from the application of reasoning. Indeed, it is known too well that there are moments when the heart refuses all control, and gives itself without reserve to grief. It feels and even cherishes emotions which it cannot yield up to any power less than that of heaven or of time. Arguments may vainly sometime forbid the tears that flow from the affecting events of remembrance or anticipation. Arguments will not obliterate scenes whose every circumstance pierced the heart. Arguments cannot recall the victims of death. Dear affections! the source of felicity, the charm of life,-what pangs can they cause! You have loved sensibility, you have cultivated it, and you are destined yet, I hope, to obtain many of its sweetest pleasures; but you see how much it must sometimes cost you. Condemn, as it deserves, the pride of stoicism? but still there are the most cogent reasons why sorrow should sometimes be restrained. It should acknowledge the limits imposed by judgment and the will of Heaven. Do not yield up your mind to the gloomy extinction of utter despondency. It still retains the most dear and valued interests which required to be saved from the sacrifice,

"Before the present circumstances took place, the wish of friendship would have been, that you might be long happily exempted from them. Now it is that you may gain from them as high an improvement and triumph, as ever an excellent mind won from trial. From you an example may be expected of the manner in which a virtuous and thoughtful person learned to bear the melancholy events of life. Even at such a season it is not a duty to abandon the study of happiness. Do not altogether turn away from sweet hope with her promises and her smiles. Do not refuse to believe that this dark cloud will pass away, and the heavens smile again; that happier days will compensate those hours which move in sadness. Grief will have its share, a painful share. But grief will not have you all. Caroline,-there is good in existence still,-rich, various, endless,-the pursuit of which will elevate, and the attainment of which will crown you. Even your present emotions are the distresses of tender melancholy:-how widely different from the anguish of guilt!

"Yours are such tears as innocence might shed, and intermingle smiles,-pensive smiles, no doubt, and transient, but expressive of a sentiment that rises towards heaven. The most pathetic energies of consolation' could be imparted by religion only. The never-dying principle of all that is happy in the creation, the firm persuasion that all things that concern us are completely every moment in the hands of our Father above, infinitely wise and merciful, that he disposes all these events in the very best possible manner, and that we shall one day bless him, amidst the ardour of infinite gratitude, for even the most distressing visitations:such a sublime persuasion will make the heart and character sublime. It will make you to assemble all your interests together,-your wishes, your prospects, your sorrows, and the circumstances of the

persons that are dear to you; and present in one devout offering, to the best Father, the greatest Friend; and it will assure you of being, in every scene of life, the object of his kind and perpetual

care.

"Permit me, Madam, to add, that one of the most powerful means towards preserving a vigorous tone of mind in unhappy circumstances, is, to explore, with a resolute eye, the lessons they teach.Events like those you have beheld open the inmost temple of solemn truth, and shine around the very blaze of revelation. In such a school, such a mind may make incalculable improvement. I consider a scene of death as being, to the interested parties who witness it, a kind of sacrament inconceivably solemn, at which they are summoned by the voice of heaven to pledge themselves in vows of irreversible decision. Here then, Caroline, as at the high altar of eternity, you have been called to pronounce, if I may so express it, the inviolable oath, to keep for ever in view the momentous value of life,-and to aim at its worthiest use, its sublime end, to spurn with lasting disdain, those foolish trifles, those frivolous vanities, which so generally wither our sight, and consume life as the locust did Egypt; and to devote yourself, with the ardour of passion, to attain the most divine improvement of the human soul; and, in short, to hold yourself in preparation to make that interesting transition to another life, whenever you shall be claimed by the Lord of the world.

"Yours very respectfully and affectionately."

BRIEF STATEMENT OF THE CASE OF
PROTESTANT DISSENTERS.

THE Committee of Deputies of the Three Denominations of Dissenters, Presbyterian, Independent, and Baptist;-with Deputations from the General Body of Ministers, from the Protestant Society for the Protection of Religious Liberty, and from the United Secession Presbytery of London; having formed themselves into a 66 United Committee to consider the Grievances under which Dissenters now labour, with a view to their Redress;" think it expedient to state the present legal position of Protestant Dissenters, and some of the Reasons and Principles on which the Committee recommend united Applications to the Legislature for Relief.

Religious liberty has been brought to its present favourable state by the slow, but certain, advancement of Society in knowledge, truth, and justice. And the removal of penal Statutes, affecting Religion, from the Code of our Country, will shew the extent of those improvements which have been successively effected by a liberal and enlightened policy.

Non-conformity had its origin in the principles maintained and acted upon at

the Reformation; principles of the highest importance to the true prosperity of States, and the legitimate interests of Religion. These principles respect the sole and exclusive sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures, the Right of all Men to judge for themselves in the interpretation and use of that Divine Standard, and the correlative Right to act according to their judgment in matters of Religion, so long as its Exercise interferes not with the Rights of others. As such Rights do not originate in human Laws, no human Laws can justly abridge them.

The exertion of political power, for the suppression of Error, or the Establishment of Truth, is presumptuous and unjust. To the exercise of this power there are no definable limits; and it invariably secularizes every form of Christianity with which it is associated.

Whenever the Authority of Law is brought to bear on the promotion or the suppression of theological opinions and plans of ecclesiastical polity, it must operate injuriously, whether by rewards or penalties. One religious Denomination is unjustly exalted, while the Members of other Denominations, equally entitled to the esteem and confidence of their fellowsubjects, are unjustly depressed.

A deep Impression felt by the Committee has impelled them thus to state their principles on this primary ground of Religious Non-conformity-They have specific Grievances of which to complain, and the early removal of which they anticipate on the ground of impartial Justice: But they feel that it would be a violation of their duty, did they not express their conscientious Objection to the alliance of any Ecclesiastical Systems with the Civil Power, and their conviction, that all Religious Denominations should be left to their own Resources and Arrangements.

Having recorded their deliberate and solemn Testimony, they leave the decision of the great Question to the Progress of Events and the determination of an enlightened Legislature, under the Providence of the MOST HIGH.

The Committee now proceed to state the practical Grievances, which directly, press on Protestant Dissenters, and require immediate Redress.

1. The Want of a legal Registration of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, without submitting to Religious Rites to which they conscientiously object.—The validity given to the parochial Registers, while those of Dissenters are rejected, has created invidious distinctions, and subjected the whole Dissenting Body to great inconve

nience, and in some cases to positive wrong.-As all Registrations of Baptism are defective, not being Evidence of the time of Birth, and as many hundred Congregations of Non-conformists do not practise Infant Baptism, and consequently cannot avail themselves even of a Baptismal Register, some comprehensive measure, of a civil, and not Religious, Character, is absolutely necessary, to place all the Subjects of the Empire upon a footing of just equality, and to furnish an efficient Registration of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, for the whole Community.

2. Compulsory Conformity to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Established Church in the Celebration of Marriage.

-The Committee consider the demand of such Conformity an interference with natural and social Rights, and a direct violation of Liberty of Conscience, aggravated in Cases where the Doctrines, as well as the polity and discipline, of the Church are grounds of Non-conformity.-If Marriage be regarded as merely a civil Contract, they deem it expedient that the Legislature should adopt proper means to establish the formation of the civil Contract before a civil Officer and competent Witnesses, with an efficient Registration.— If it be a Religious Contract, then they claim that their own Ministers should be allowed to solemnize it.-If it be both civil and religious, they contend that the civil Contract should be according to the civil Form to be established by the Legislature, and that the Religious Exercises should be left to the parties concerned.— The very Right, for which the Committee now contend, has been long exercised by Dissenters in Scotland and Ireland, and even in this Country by the Society of Friends.

3. The Denial to Dissenters of the Right of Burial, by their own Ministers, according to their own forms in parochial Cemeteries.- -This grievance has been removed by Parliament in Ireland, and no difficulty has occurred in the operation of the measure. The Committee, therefore, see no reason why similar relief should not be extended to English Dissenters.

4. The Exclusion of Protestant Dissenters from the Privileges of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The Committee regard it as an unrighteous restriction, that Dissenters are prevented from enjoying the full benefit of Education at those seats of Learning unless they become Members of the established Church.

Is it right, that the Dissenter, whatever his Intelligence or Fortune, should be com