arising in the very heart of a Christian land. Almost all the 'social evils under which Great Britain is now labouring, may 'be traced to this fatal and most iniquitous spoliation, under the 'mask of religion, of the patrimony of the poor, on occasion of the Reformation. But for that robbery, the State would have 'been possessed of lands amply sufficient to have extended its religious instruction for any possible increase of the people; 'to have superseded the necessity of any assessment for parochial relief, or general instruction; and to have provided, without burdening any one, for the whole spiritual and temporal wants of the community. When we reflect on the magnitude of the injustice committed by the temporal nobility in the seizure at that period of so large a portion of the funds of the Church, and observe how completely and the evils which now threaten 'the social system in Great Britain, would have been obviated, if that noble patrimony had still been preserved for the poor, it is impossible to avoid feeling, that we, too, are subject to the same just dispensation which has doomed France to oriental slavery for the enormous sins of its Revolution; and that, if our punishment is not equally severe, it is only because the confiscation of the Reformation was not so complete, nor the inroads on property so irretrievable.'

6

6

6

We have, on a former occasion, expressed our opinion-and not disparagingly--of Mr Alison's voluminous work; but with respect to the above passage, we must say that we have hardly ever happened to find so great a number of questionable doctrines collected within so small a space, and expressed in so confident

a tone.

We must remark, in the first place, that the Church and Abbey lands, at the time of the Reformation, were not, in any intelligible sense of the expression, the patrimony of the poor. They were appropriated exclusively to the payment of Ecclesiastics and the service of the Church; and if the wealthy monasteries gave alms freely to the poor on their lands, so did likewise the great lords and lay proprietors. If, therefore, the rents of these lands were to be applied, in part, to the relief of the poor, this destination of them would have implied a forcible interference on the part of the State, and a total change in their application. Mr Alison does not state whether he would have separated a portion of these lands, and vested them in the hands of trustees for charitable purposes, or whether he would have left them in the hands of the clergy. We presume that he does not reprobate the extinction of the Monastic establishments, and that he contemplates the confiscation of their property at least by the State. In whatever way, however, he would have settled the matter,

a large part of the soil of England (nearly a third, according to his statement) would have been held in mortmain; and its rents collected by government agents, and applied to various public purposes. Now, we confess that this is a state of things which, far from regretting, we think would have been deeply to be deplored. We can discern in it nothing conducive to the interests of society. The government, as in Oriental countries, would have been the great landlord; the rents of lands would, to a certain extent, have supplied the place of taxes. The lands thus appropriated to charitable purposes would probably have been managed by negligent trustees: the thirty-two volumes of Reports of the Charity Commissioners give some insight into the probable abuses which would have attended a more extensive system. Moreover, who would have decided as to the local distribution of the produce of such vast endowments, capriciously distributed over the country? A large part of Westminster belonged, we believe, to the Abbey at the time of its dissolution. The value of that property is now immense. If the rents of it were applicable to the relief of the poor, on what principle would their distribution, as to locality, be regulated? We confess that we are not favourable to large endowments, of either Land or Money, for purposes of a public nature. time, the purpose to which they were originally devoted becomes useless or mischievous; and then a compromise is effected between the will of the founder and the exigencies of the present generation, according to a sort of cy pres doctrine, by which neither object is really attained. Besides, land in mortmain is always managed by a non-resident landlord, who renders no public services in respect of it, and its inalienability is an evil to the neighbourhood. Nor can the appropriation of a part of the rents of the country to charitable purposes increase its annual produce, and power of payment; though it may possibly diminish the national wealth.

After a

In our opinion, the Government ought to be the Great Endowed, and its endowments should be derived from the annual taxes, and their application subject to the perpetual revision of the legislature. If the poor are to receive relief to the amount of five or six millions a-year, it is best that this sum should be levied equally over the whole kingdom by annual taxation, and disbursed and accounted for by public responsible officers. The relief of the poor, when conducted on a large scale, necessarily connects itself with innumerable questions of civil economy and municipal administration; and is in its nature essentially a secular business. In England it has always been administered exclusively by civil authorities. Even in this part of the Island, where it

VOL. LXXXIII. NO. CLXVII.

G

has been partly founded on the church collections, and administered by the kirk-session, it has now, by the recent statute, been placed under the control of an exclusively Lay Commission. The views favoured by Mr Alison seek to transfer all the benevolent functions of society, such as relief of the poor and education, to the Church; and to leave to the State merely the task of protecting its subjects against foreign and domestic enemies. It would be our desire, on the other hand, that the State should sometimes appear in a gracious as well as a stern attitude; that it should relieve suffering and diffuse knowledge, as well as punish crime and wage war; that, for example, while it maintains the integrity of the Empire against those who seek to detach Ireland by intimidation or force, it should assume the duty of averting starvation from the famishing peasantry of that country.

If, however, the relief of the poor is to be a secular business, founded on compulsory taxation, it must be administered like other legal systems." It cannot be made a matter both of feeling and compulsion. If taxes are levied, there must occasionally be distress and sale of goods; if they are received and disbursed by public officers, there must be a regular accountability and audit. Trustees of public money must execute their trust according to the legal regulations and conditions.

With a system such as this, it is impossible to combine effectually a distribution of voluntary alms, collected under the influence of the Church. The collections at the Offertory can never be renewed, or rather introduced, so as to form either a substitute or a companion for the English Poor-law. As Sir Littleton Powys observed, (in his letter to the Chancellor Lord Parker upon the case of Rex v. Hendley † in 1719,) these collections, if made

*The money expended for the relief of the poor in England alone, from 1813 to 1844 inclusive, amounted to no less a sum than L.190,369,632; in the ten years since the passing of the Poor- Law Amendment Act, (1835-44,) the amount has been L.47,252,812. Probably all the nations of the world put together, (including Scotland and Ireland,) have not expended so large a sum for this purpose. (See Parl. Paper, No. 30, session 1845.) Of the number of persons relieved in England, the proportion receiving out-door relief since 1834, has varied from eighty-nine to eighty-five per cent; and those receiving work-house relief has varied from eleven to fifteen per cent. In no year has the number of paupers relieved in the work-house exceeded fifteen per cent of the whole number receiving relief.—(Eleventh Annual Report of Poor-Law Commissioners, p. 168, ed. 8vo.)

† See 15 Howell's State Trials, 1407. In this case a collection had been made during the reading of the Offertory sentences at Chislehurst

constantly, would be semi-compulsory on the persons attending church. And if a large compulsory tax was exacted in the form of poor's-rate, and an additional contribution, the payment of which could scarcely be escaped, was likewise obtained, resistance would infallibly be made to the double burden, and one impost or the other would be modified.

With respect to Mr Alison's belief, that the ills in the present social state of England are a temporal visitation sent by Providence for the grants of Abbey lands in the reign of Henry VIII., we can only say that he appears to us, taking his own view of history, to be rather capricious in his choice. May not the nation, we would ask him, rather be expiating the guilt contracted by their ancestors, in the execution of Charles I., or perhaps in the expulsion of their rightful Prince, James II.? Possibly, however, Mr Alison preferred the earlier event,―remembering that passage of Virgil, in which he supposes the civil wars of the Romans to have been a punishment, not for any recent misdeed, but for the perjury of their ancestor Laomedon in deceiving the Gods who built the walls of Troy.

church in Kent, for the children of St Ann's, Aldersgate, with the anthority of the rector. A disturbance took place during the collection; and the preacher, with some other persons, were tried at Rochester assizes for illegally collecting alms in church, and were, under the direction of the judge, Sir L. Powys, found guilty. In his Letter to Lord Parker, Sir L. Powys says:- This case, if under a general consideration, is of a vast extent, and mighty consequence to the King and People, and at which the very legislature may take umbrage. The levying of money is the tenderest part of our constitution; and if it may be done arbitrarily, under the show and form of charity, (which may comprise all good works and all good intentions,) it cannot be said whither it may . And though it be said, it is all but voluntary giving, yet it is a sort of compulsion, by the solemnity in the church, and vying with others, and being marked out, if refusing, or giving meanly.—(P. 1418.)

go.

ART. IV. 1. Zwei Bedenken über die Deutsch-Katholische Bewegung. (Two Series of Remarks on the German Catholic Movement.) By Dr C. ULLMANN, and ALBERT HAUBER. 8vo. Hamburg: 1845.

2. Die Geschichte des Heiligen Rockes unseres Heilandes, welcher in der Dom Kirche zu Trier aufbewahrt wird. (The History of the Holy Coat of our Saviour, which is preserved in the Cathedral at Trèves.) By JOSEPH VON HOMMER.

Bonn: 1845.

12mo.

3. Der Helige Rock zu Trier, und die Zwanzig andern Heiligen Ungenähten Röcke. Eine Historische Untersuchung. (The Holy Coat at Trèves, and the Twenty other Holy Seamless Coats. An Historical Inquiry.) By Dr J. GILDEMEISTER, and Dr H. VON SYBEL. 8vo. Bonn 1845.

:

By

4. Geschichte der Gründung und Fortbildung der Deutsch-Katholischen Kirche. (History of the Origin and Formation of the German Catholic Church.) By Dr EDWIN BAUER, a Clergyman of the German Catholic Church. 12mo. Meissen: 1845. 5. Notes on the Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Schism from the Church of Rome, called the German Catholic Church, instituted by Johannes Ronge and J. Czerski, in October 1844, on occasion of the Pilgrimage to the Holy Coat at Trèves. SAMUEL LAING, Esq. 12mo. London: 1845. 6. The Apostolic Christians, or Catholic Church of Germany: a Narrative of the Present Movement in the Roman Catholic Church; comprising Authentic Documents with Reference to the Coat of Treves; the Confessions, Protests, and Organization of the First Seceding Congregations; and the Acts of the General Assembly of Leipzig. Edited by HENRY SMITH, Esq., With a Recommendatory Preface, by the Rev W. GOODE, M.A., F.S.A. 12mo. London: 1845.

7. A German Catholic's Farewell to Rome: a Short Account of the Religious Movement actually taking place in Germany. Dedicated to all who interest themselves in the Abolition of Popery. By an English Resident in Germany. With a Portrait and Memoir of Johannes Ronge, the Luther of the Nineteenth Century. 12mo. London: 1845.

TH

HOUGH it is not very pleasant to speculate on the magnitude or importance of changes yet in progress, the recent religious movement amongst the Roman Catholics of Germany is an