1

ARTICLE VIII.

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE ECCLESIASTICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF ENGLAND.*

A WORTHY governor of one of the New England States, in a proclamation issued during the last war with Great Britain, called upon his fellow-citizens to offer prayer for England, as "the bulwark of our holy religion." In this last clause there was, doubtless, more of truth than of prudence. Yet the blindest partisan, who was scandalized by that unfortunate phrase, might have admitted its substantial correctness. If any nation can be termed the bulwark of Protestant Christianity, it is England. This has been the case for several centuries. When our common faith has been assaulted, we have not looked to Holland or Denmark, but to England. On more than one occasion, she has stood in what seemed to be the last breach, has marched firmly up in the forlorn hope. In the field of argument, what nation can furnish so many Chillingworths, Barrows, Cudworths, Butlers? So it is now. True, indeed, she has not the mathematical or the medical science of France. She has not the multifarious and profound learning of the Germans. Possibly, in biblical criticism, she is behind us in the United States. But in the defence of Christianity, on general grounds, the whole Christian world, we apprehend, would look to England, spontaneously, for well-trained and

*This is the second of a series of articles which was commenced in the Repository for April last, (page 426,) with an essay on "Some of the Characteristics of the Present Age." Our reasons for consenting to withhold the name of the writer are stated in a note introductory to that article. The present communication has been made in pursuance of the design which was then intimated. The talent and research which it exhibits, we trust, will more than answer the reasonable expectations of our readers, and fully justify the confidence which we have expressed in the ability of the writer.

EDITOR.

trusty champions. We can confide in her good sense, in her well-grounded views, in her enlightened piety, in her freedom from hazardous speculation. Where, also, could we look, with equal confidence, in respect to the propagation of Christianity? Is the light to go forth from France? What can the feeble Protestants there do for the Pagan nations, cursed as they are with the atheistic capital, and fettered and hedged in, by millions of ignorant and bigoted Romanists? We fear that Germany will furnish, at present, but small assistance in the general diffusion of Christianity. Though we cherish more hope in relation to her piety and ultimate soundness in the faith than many around us are disposed to do; though we are aware that the German temperament and character, when pervaded by the spirit of the gospel, furnish excellent materiel for the Christian missionary, yet we cannot now depend on Germany for any considerable amount of aid. She is passing through a transition state, or rather through many transition states. We fear that a firm foundation is not yet laid. Much learning is making the Germans mad. While they are investigating the condition of all other nations, they have not kept their own vineyard. There is not homogeneousness enough. Their innumerable geographical divisions are a type of their religious and ecclesiastical state. To England, therefore, mainly, must the Christian and the philanthropist look for leaders in the great battle which is to be fought with the hosts of ignorance and superstition.

This prevalence of vital Christianity in Britain, and her means and desires to communicate it to the world, are a cogent reason why the people of the United States should become well acquainted with her character and resources, with her divisions, her principal ecclesiastical disputes, the main points in the intellectual development of her character; in short, we ought to know what we have to hope and to fear in respect to her co-operation, or her want of co-operation with us in enlightening and saving the world. We must become more familiar with the features of our ancient and venerable mother. We must study her capabilities, her tendencies, her prospects.

Another argument in favor of a more accurate knowledge of our English brethren is found in our increasing proximity to them. We do not refer here simply to the

augmented intercourse which has been effected between the United States and Great Britain by new modes of intercommunication. The inhabitants of the two countries are brought into contact in all parts of the earth. The two flags are waving, side by side, in almost every port. American missionaries are penetrating the immense colonial possessions of England in South Africa, in Western India, and in Burmah. The two nations are rival traders in the China Sea, in the North Pacific, at the mouth of the Columbia River. Collisions which may terminate in a war have unhappily occurred along our whole northern frontier. The emancipated British colonies in the West Indies will be, of course, objects of increasing, if not of painful, interest to our Southern States and Territories. In short, go where we may, colonize where we will, we shall find the anchor, or the harpoon, the tea-chest, or the Sheffield cutlery, the consul or the trapper, the commercial agent or the literary adventurer of the "mistress of the seas." In the holy city, and on Mount Lebanon, at the foot of Ararat, and on the ruins of Nineveh, the tracks of the English and American pilgrim are alike seen. Well, therefore, should each nation know the peculiarities of the other. Intimately associated as they are, under almost every climate, they should not come together in mutual ignorance, and consequently with mutual distrust and jealousy.

Again: England is now in a most interesting position. Her armies have lately crossed the mountain-barrier which separates Southern Asia from the plains of old Bactria, and they are now encamped within seven hundred miles of the Caspian Sea and of the videttes of the Russian camp. On the northeast and east of Hindoostan, Nepaul and Burmah seem to be waiting a favorable opportunity to pour down their hosts upon the British territories. A storm is apparently gathering against China which she may not be able to withstand, while the righteous Judge of the nations may have in store for her aggressor a cup of terrible indignation. It is not an impossible supposition that the British power in Asia may soon become, like the Roman, unwieldy, ready to fall in pieces by its own weight. Desirable as the continuance of the British sway may be, for the great interests of truth and righteousness, it may not be safe to rely too confidently on the permanency of that sway.

What England is in her colonies, she is, in certain respects, at home. Many things portend change. We cannot indulge either in exclusive fear or hope. Powers both of good and evil are strangely and fiercely at work. Her government is frequently called a mixed one, as being neither strictly monarchical nor republican. It is a fitting term. The elements of safety and destruction are mixed up in a wonderful degree. We read in one column of a British newspaper expressions of the profoundest reverence for existing institutions. The house of Brunswick is all but deified, Expenditures are joyfully and unconsciously incurred in order to support some worthless pageant, some shadow of the past, which would hazard the very existence of our republican institutions. In an adjoining column of the same journal, a freedom of thought and of language appears, at which we, in democratic America, stand aghast; a freedom which would lead to an instant appeal to the civil courts, or to the exclusion of him who holds the unlicensed pen from the pale of gentlemanly intercourse. To-day, England seems on the verge of destruction; to-morrow, sailing over untroubled waters; now convulsed by some outbreak of her undisciplined peasantry; now inundating the royal palace with the most loving and obsequious epistles to those who are appointed to be a "terror to evil-doers." During one session of Parliament, the three estates of the realm move on without interference; in the following session, there seems to be nothing but collision, jealousy, mutual and sharp recrimination. England is a riddle to herself and to others. We cannot solve an enigma so dark. We are unable to pry between the folded leaves of her destiny.

Who of us perfectly understands British institutions, or that complicated, evanescent, yet substantive thing, English character? Even those who have repeatedly visited the mother-land cannot unravel every mystery. Let us select one or two illustrations.

*

The British constitution is sufficiently party-colored and heterogeneous. It cannot be surveyed with geographical precision; and no one, it has been said, but a foreigner, who of course sees only the outside of things, ever attempted such a work. It glories in being anomalous and indescribable.

* British Critic, No. 50, p. 346.

It may be defined as a collection of various independent forces, a federal union, not of territorial states, but of different political powers occupying the same ground, and vested in the same population. Among these distinct powers are the Episcopal church, the monarchy, the peerage, the commons, the universities and other corporations, civil and ecclesiastical, the gentry, trial by jury, the interpretation of the law as vested in the judges, also certain principles, such as the insular jealousy of foreign interference, and, at the same time, the necessity of some peaceful understanding with other nations, the principle of democracy and voluntary combinations, the regard for prescriptive rights and personal liberty, etc. The pillars of this constitution, it has been remarked, are the gifts of as many kings, not contemporary, as the contributors to the temple of Ephesus; they are the thirty kings of thirty successive generations. Every age, every race of man, every political epoch, has contributed its quota to the whole. The names of Alfred, Edward the Confessor, the Norman Conqueror, the barons, the burghers, Thomas á Becket, Simon de Montford, the Edwards, the houses of York and Lancaster, Henry VIII. and his children, Cranmer, the Stuarts, Laud, the Puritans, William of Nassau, and the house of Brunswick, recall not merely, historical events, but existing portions of the British constitution. Who can accurately understand the mutual relations, or, what may be, salutary collisions of these diverse elements? Especially what American, whether he has seen, or has only read of, the practical working of the system, will venture very confident assertions?

Let us select one of these distinct powers or elements, the old universities. We have never seen the book or the living teacher that could satisfy our curiosity on the subject. The foreign tourist seems to be in as deep a darkness as his untravelled neighbor. The substance of his knowledge is, that Oxford is a congeries of buildings, a collection of monastic institutions, where certain fellows enjoy their otium cum dignitate, and hand down to their successors a profound regard for the apostolical succession, and a due contempt for dissenters. How can a casual visiter appreciate such an estab. lishment, a monarchy by itself, an imperium in imperio? Perhaps none of the incorporated bodies of Great Britain are so little understood, even by natives, as the universities