Within a month I got ad apponendum; And then I got-how call ye it ?—ad replicandum; And then, their rooks, they croaked wonderous fast Of pronunciandum they made me wonder fain, But I never got my good gray mare again! This is spoken in the character of a poor man: another character then adds, My lords, we must reform these consistory laws, I knew a man, in sueing for a cow, Ere he had done, he spent full half a bow.* Satyre of Three Estaites. Whoever would see what troublesome and extortionate nuisances these courts are has only to consult the returns made to parliament in 1829 on this subject. Among the lesser evils of the system are the consecration of burial-grounds and surplice fees. Nothing is more illustrative of the spirit of priestcraft than that the church should have kept up the superstitious belief in the consecration of ground, in the minds of the people to the present hour, and that, in spite of education, the poor and the rich should be ridden with the most preposterous notion that they cannot lie in peace except in ground over which the bishop has said his mummery, and for which he and his rooks, as Lindsay calls them, have pocketed the fees, and laughed in their sleeves at the gullible foolishness of the people. When will the day come when the webs of the clerical spider shall be torn, not only from the limbs but the souls of men? Does the honest Quaker sleep less * Half a fold of cows. sound, or will he arise less cheerfully at the judgmentday from his grave, over which no prelatical jugglery has been practised, and for which neither prelate nor priest has pocketed a doit ? Who has consecrated the sea, into which the British sailor in the cloud of battlesmoke descends, or who goes down, amid the tears of his comrades, to depths to which no plummet but that of God's omnipresence ever reached? Who has consecrated the battle-field, which opens its pits for its thousands and tens of thousands; or the desert, where the weary traveller lies down to his eternal rest? Who has made holy the sleeping place of the solitary missionary, and of the settlers in new lands? Who but He whose hand has hallowed earth from end to end, and from surface to centre, for his pure and Almighty fingers have moulded it! Who but He whose eye rests on it day and night, watching its myriads of moving children the oppressors and the oppressed— the deceivers and the deceived-the hypocrites and the poor whose souls are darkened with false knowledge and fettered with the bonds of daring selfishness? and on whatever innocent thing that eye rests, it is hallowed beyond the breath of bishops, and the fees of registrars. Who shall need to look for a consecrated spot of earth to lay his bones in, when the struggles and the sorrows, the prayers and the tears of our fellow-men, from age to age, have consecrated every atom of this world's surface to the desire of a repose which no human hands can lead to, no human rites can secure? Who shall seek for a more hallowed bed than the bosom of that earth into which Christ himself descended, and in which the bodies of thousands of glorious patriots, and prophets, and martyrs, who were laid in gardens and beneath their paternal trees, and of heroes whose blood and sighs have flowed forth for their fellow-men, have been left to peace and the blessings of grateful generations with no rites, no sounds but the silent falling of tears and the aspirations of speechless but immortal thanks ? From side to side, from end to end, the whole world is sanctified by these agencies, beyond the blessings or the curses of priests! God's sunshine flows over it, his providence surrounds it; his faithful creatures live, and toil, and pray in it; and who shall make it, or who can need it holier for his last resting couch! But the greediness of priests persists in cursing the poor with extortionate expenses, and calls them blessings. The poor man, who all his days goes groaning under the load of his ill-paid labours, cannot even escape from them into the grave except at a dismal charge to his family. His native earth is not allowed to receive him into her bosom till he has satisfied the priest and his satellites. With the exception of Jews, Quakers, and some few other dissenters, every man is given up in England as a prey, in life and in death, to the parson, and his echo, and his disturber of bones. The following is a fair example of the expense incurred for what is called consecration of the smallest addition to a burial-ground-and wretched must be the mental stupidity of a people who can believe that such fellows can add holiness to the parish earth. To the churchwardens of Tadcaster was sent the following letter: Gentlemen,-I send you enclosed the charges on the consecration of the additional churchyard at Tadcaster. York, 26th March, 1829. JOSEPH BUCKLE. Fees on consecration of the additional burial-ground 1828. consecrate Drawing and engrossing the sentence of consecration Registering the above instruments and the deed at length, and parchment The Chancellor's fee The principal Register's fee The Deputy Register's attendance and expenses The Secretary's fee The Apparitor's fee Carriage Fee on obtaining the seal 0 13 6 423 20005115 00000000 3 15 6 1 1 0 For burying a poor man this is the common scale of charge in this town :-For the burial of a pauper 7s. 6d. for a child six months old, the same-if the child be not baptized, 1s.; for in that state, by clerical logic, it is deemed not a human being, but a thing, until their mummery has ennobled it—a thing beneath God's notice-it is therefore thrust into any hole by the sexton.. In the principal churchyard, a man who wishes to choose the place of burial must pay 107. for the size of a grave; and for opening such a grave, about 21. 15s. 6d. For opening a vault, even in village churchyards, 5l. is commonly demanded; in the church 107.; and, what is worst, after all, it has been proved by more than one legal decision, no man's family vault is sacred and inviolable. The church and churchyard are the parson's freehold. In them, during his life, he can work his own will, but he cannot sell a right of vault beyond his own life. There are numbers of families who flattered themselves they had a place of family sepulture into which no stranger could intrude; but let them excite the wrath of some clerical parish tyrant, and he can show them that not only can he refuse to permit the opening of their vault to receive their dead, till his demands, however exorbitant, are satisfied, but that he can refuse to have it opened at all; and moreover can thrust in, at his pleasure, the carcasses of the vilest wretches in the parish. Thus, by dealing with priests, the people are served as they always have been-juggled out of their money for "that which is naught;" and thrown into the absolute power of the most mercenary order of men. They are suffered to buy that which cannot be really sold; and when they look for a freehold, they find only a trap for clerical fees. From root to branch the whole system is rotten; GIVE! GIVE! GIVE! is written on every wall and gate of the church: and though a man quit it and its communion altogether, he must still pay, in life and in death, to it. By a recent case in the diocess of Salisbury, it is shown by the bishop that a man once having taken orders can never lay them down again. A Mr. Tiptaft, having resigned his living from conscientious motives, began to preach as a dissenter; but the bishop attempted to stop his mouth with menacing the thunders of the church; and, on his astonished declaration that he was no longer a son of the church, the prelate let him know that he was, and must be,—for clerical orders, like Coleridge's infernal fire, must Cling to him everlastingly. To this church, which empties the pockets of the poor, and stops the mouth of the conscientious dissenter, let every Englishman do his duty. CHAPTER XVIII. CHURCH PATRONAGE. Evils of the system of Church Patronage-Simony-Defence of the Church-Moderate clerical Incomes-Scotch and German Clergy -False notions of Gentility-Christ a true Gentleman-What Clergymen might be-Private Patronage-Surplice Fees. The Church of England is unpopular. It is connected with the crown and the aristocracy, but is not regarded with affection by the mass of the people; and this circumstance greatly lessens its utility, and has powerfully contributed to multiply the number of dissenters. Edinburgh Review, No. lxxxviii. We are overdone with standing armies. We have an army of lawyers with tough parchments and interminable words to confound honesty and common sense; an army of paper to fight gold; an army of soldiers to fight the French; an army of doctors to fight death; and an army of parsons to fight the devil-of whom he standeth not in awe! Fox. BUT while the nation demands those alterations just enumerated, the internal prosperity, nay the very existence of the episcopal church, as a vital and fruitful Christian community, demands others. First, that it |