The opportunity of diverting the reader from myself to characters more worthy of his attention, has led me far beyond my first intention; but it is not unimportant to expose the false zeal which has occasioned these attacks on our elder patriots. It has been too much the fashion, first to personify the Church of England, and then to speak of different individuals, who in different ages have been rulers in that church, as if in some strange way they constituted its personal identity. Why should a clergyman of the present day feel interested in the defence of Laud or Sheldon? Surely it is sufficient for the warmest partizan of our establishment, that he can assert with truth,-when our Church persecuted, it was on mistaken principles held in common by all Christendom; and at all events, far less culpable were the Bishops, who were maintaining the existing laws, than the persecuting spirit afterwards shewn by their successful opponents, who had no such excuse, and who should have been taught mercy by their own sufferings, and wisdom by the utter failure of the experiment in their own case. We can say, that our Church, apostolical in its faith, primitive in its ceremonies, unequalled in its liturgical forms; that our Church, which has kindled and displayed more bright and burning lights of Genius and Learning, than all other protestant churches since the reformation, was (with the single exception of the times of Laud and Sheldon) least intolerant, when all Christians unhappily deemed a species of intolerance their religious duty; that Bishops of our church were among the first that contended against this error; and finally, that since the reformation, when tolerance became a fashion, the Church of England, in a tolerating age, has shewn herself eminently tolerant, and far more so, both in Spirit and in Fact, than many of her most bitter opponents, who profess to deem toleration itself an insult on the rights of mankind! As to myself, who not only know the Church-Establishment to be tolerant, but who see in it the greatest, if not the sole safe bulwark of Toleration, I feel no necessity of defending or palliating oppressions under the two Charleses, in order to exclaim with a full and fervent heart, ESTO PERPETUA! Fire, Famine, and Slaughter. A WAR ECLOGUE. The Scene, a desolated Tract in la Vendee. FAMINE is discovered lying on the ground; to her enter FIRE and SLAUGHter. FAMINE. SISTERS Sisters! who sent you here? SLAUGHTER (to Fire.) I will whisper it in her ear. FIRE. No! no! no! Spirits hear what spirits tell : "Twill make an holiday in Hell. No! no! no! Myself, I nam'd him once below, And all the souls, that damned be, Clapp'd their hands and danced for glee. They no longer heeded me; But laugh'd to hear Hell's burning rafters Unwillingly re-echo laughters! No! no! no! Spirits hear what spirits tell : FAMINE. Whisper it, sister! so and so! SLAUGHTER. Letters four do form his name And who sent you? Both. The same! the same! SLAUGHTER. He came by stealth, and unlock'd my den, And I have drank the blood since then Of thrice three hundred thousand men. |