perpetual inheritance for the dead. The Legislature, therefore, has assumed a right to dispose of ecclesiastical property as its wisdom may decide.

The whole question concerning the power of the state over Church property is resolved into this; Is the property at present in possession of the Ecclesiastical establishment, at all analogous to private or ordinary property? This question has been answered in the Edinburgh Review, (vol. 65, pp. 185-7,) by one who upholds the expediency of a Church Establishment, in the negative. Because, first; "the proprietor is wanting." There is no such thing as a Church apart from the community. The property is not vested in the clergy, nor in parishes, nor in corporate chapters; for it is transferred by the state from one body to another. But, if it is said, this is not diverting, but distributing the property, we ask if the state can distribute, in this manner the property of other than Church corporations? Secondly; "There is nothing like private property in the Church.” The mode in which the funds are dealt with shows that the ordinary conditions, on which property is held, are wanting. The clergy do not hold property in possession, or in trust, but are remunerated or their services. Therefore, Church property is public property.

Finally, an Ecclesiastical etablishment necessarily involves an interference with civil rights. The idea suggested by the word "Toleration "is humbling and oppressive. We "tolerate" a nuisance, or a grievance, which we cannot abate; but it is cruel to speak of "tolerating" the sacred rights of the human soul.

Chapter IV. treats of the Tendency of Ecclesiastical Establishments. Based on error, their operations and tendencies, of course, are bad. The connexion between the clergy and the government necessarily leads to favoritism, to tyranny, to aristocratical pretensions, to a discountenancing of popular efforts, to a blind adherence to the past. It creates a splendid hierarchy, with grades and high emoluments, and their adjuncts, pride and sycophancy. It permits the clergy to interfere in the councils of the nation, and makes them the instruments and tools of political action.

The favored sect nourishes a haughty and intolerant disposition towards other sects; it enjoys a monopoly of public instruction, and thus looks coldly on others, who interfere with them. It presumes on its legal dignity, apart from individual Christian worth, and thus becomes of a persecuting spirit. It

thus interferes both with religious and civil freedom; for it insults honest convictions, and multiplies legal restraints upon them. The favored sect injures the cause of true religion, by making certain observances fashionable. Princes and rulers, the noble and the prominent, must show it an outward respect, and the silly multitude follow them. Thus is religion secularized. An establishment tends to create skepticism in the minds of the poorly informed, by turning them from the true evidences and power of religion, to the law, as its chief friend. As if Christianity would become extinct, were it not for the civil power, which appears to the uneducated and superficial as its chief support. Finally, an establishment is sure to be the cause of various strife. The struggles and animosities now prevalent in England exhibit its dividing and alienating disputes, its bitter root, and its unwholesome branches.

Chapter V. discusses the Actual Operation of Religious Establishments. The blending of the civil and religious powers has always been attended with intolerance and persecution, with a perversion of truth, an outrage and oppression of conscience, and has never made willing concessions to the spirit of progress. Constantine began, and the Roman Church completed, a system of aggression and grievances, which have brought misery and slaughter upon millions. The power of the magistrate has become entirely subservient to that of the ecclesiastical functionary, and the fruits of this error have ripened in every generation. The persecution of the Arians, the slaughter of the Albigenses, the Vaudois, and the Waldenses, of fifty thousand Protestants sacrificed to the edict of Charles V.; the eighteen thousand murdered by the Duke of Alva, in the Netherlands; the eighty thousand French Protestants that fell on St. Bartholomew's eve and day; the fierce persecution following the revocation of the edict of Nantes; the martyrdom of Servetus; the strife and the imprisonments between the Calvinists and the Lutherans in the Low Countries; the resistance of the philosophy of Descartes in the Dutch Churches; the contests between Calvinism and Arminianism in the seventeenth century; these are some of the melancholy monuments that mark, upon the Continent, the interference of the civil power with the conscience, which belongs only to man and to God. The history of the same aggressions in England, on the part of Catholics, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, is familiar to all; it is written out in martyrdoms. Whatever lenity English Dissent

rily pay for the instruction they themselves receive; external, where they voluntarily contribute for the instruction of others. Dr. Chalmers adds, that there is no distinction between the latter principle, and that by which the state contributes to its aid. This is a strange delusion. Is there no distinction between free-will and compulsion? Again, he evades the argument drawn from political economy, that the supply and the demand mutually regulate each other, and that a state has no right to interfere, by saying, that while the desire of food, being proportionate to the want of it, may be allowed to regulate its price, it is the reverse with man's religious nature; for the less he feels the want of religion the more he needs it, and, therefore, the hardened and the ignorant must be left destitute unless aid is offered them by state interference. Very true; but that interference need not be by the state, nor by the law, while charity survives.

Voluntaryism may proudly point to its results. It first enabled Christianity, without the stimulus of revenues extorted from the unwilling, to overthrow Paganism, and from the religion of a few fishermen, to become the religion of the Roman Empire. Even where Establishments have existed, voluntaryism has always done more than the law. In all ages, free charity_has endowed the Church most munificently. Indeed, the Emperor Valentinian and the English Parliament were obliged to restrict religious charities, lest the whole territory of the nation should be locked up in the Church. It is but about a century and a half since toleration has been formally allowed in England, even with a curtailment of many rights and privileges, yet in that time, more than a third of the population of England, and more than half of that of Wales, has come under the banners of Dissent. At least fifteen millions of dollars are voluntarily contributed each year in England to religious purposes, besides the discharge of tythes, of church and of poor rates. If the members of the Establishment had the same zeal, what would be the result?

The following comparison of towns in England and America, of similar size and importance and population, will show which accomplishes the more, an Establishment, or a voluntary support of religious institutions.

ART. V. Charles Elwood; or, The Infidel Converted. By O. A. BROWNSON. Boston: Charles C. Little & James Brown. 1840. 1 vol. 16mo. pp. 262.

THE position, that Mr. Brownson has for some time occupied in our community, has prepared us to look with interest upon whatever may come from his pen. There is much, too, in the nature of the book before us, to commend it to the attention of the thoughtful. It purports to be an account of the conversion of an infidel to Christianity. For this reason alone it would deserve serious attention. But, when we further consider that the Author gives what has been substantially his own experience, the book has a still stronger claim upon our consideration. It is written in the form of a Novel; but it makes no great pretensions to merit as a work of that class. The Author was aware that his book would not stand very high, when judged of by the rules of criticism by which productions of this kind are usually tried. It has but few characters and little incident.

It is but a short time since there was a large number of persons in our neighborhood, who professed to be infidels, and in the same state as to faith in the supernatural, that Elwood was at the commencement of the experience related in the book before us. It would be interesting to see how far Mr. Brownson's arguments have been successful in converting this class of infidels to Christianity. He came to Boston some five or six years since, with the express design of gathering around him the doubting, who were then flocking to Abner Kneeland. What has been his success? We are not aware that Mr. Brownson has converted them into his followers. But has he, or has he not, broken up and destroyed the Kneeland organization? It is the opinion of many, who know much more about

ers now enjoy has not been voluntarily proffered by the Establishment, as would have been the case, if it had desired the interests of vital religion, but has been wrung from it.

The annual income of the English Establishment is twenty millions of dollars. Some of the clergy receive two hundred and fifty, others one hundred thousand dollars in a year; and many who receive the most perform scarce any duty. Of the eleven thousand parochial clergymen, not half reside in their parish; more than half hold several livings, and stint with a pittance the curates who perform their duties. Of 1496 parishes, the revenues are enjoyed by 332 incumbents. It is remarkable, too, that while the Establishment enjoys such advantages, it has suffered Dissenters to take the lead in instructing the people, in elevating the poor and the lonely, in supporting Sunday Schools, and in providing for manufacturing districts more chapels than the state has churches. It is argued by the friends of Establishments, that "voluntaryism " may do very well in popular districts, but that in rural districts only state patronage can maintain religion. The statistics of crime prove this assertion to be false. It is to be added, that many of the clergy, who are themselves negligent of their duty, are jealous of dissenting ministers.

The History of the Scotch Church, under John Knox, in the Covenant times, and at the Union, attests the same truths. In Edinburgh and Glasgow alone, there are twenty thousand unoccupied seats in the churches of the Establishment, and the Seceders throughout Scotland are a very large proportion of the population. Yet the Presbyterians have the effrontery to demand that the Dissenters of the three kingdoms may be taxed to enable them to build more churches.

The History of the Established Church in Ireland abounds with some of the most shocking details which disgrace the annals of humanity. To transcribe it here would be a sickening office. Episcopacy there is probably the greatest abuse that ever existed in any civilized nation. Not so much as one tenth part of the population are Episcopalians, and more than six tenths are Catholics. The annual income of the Irish Establishment is about five millions of dollars, and within thirty years Parliament has given it twice that sum, and most of the annual income and the grants has been squandered among a clergy who do not live in their parishes, or who have many parishes, or who have no parishioners. There are in Ireland 839 VOL. XXVIII. 3D 3. VOL. X. NO. II.

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