two volumes like these would not contain, in proof that the whole system of the English Poor Laws is at the present time characterized by great injustice and barbarous cruelty-that the labouring poor, and the worn out poor, are by oppression reduced to want, and that they are refused all relief unless they will go into the work-houses which they often regard as a harder lot than to starve in a garret, a cellar, or a street.

But my object at present was not so much to lift the veil from the workings of the Poor Law upon the pauper himself, as to contemplate the burden which is cast upon the people of raising every year from twenty-five to thirty million dollars to execute such a law. Some one may reply, that I cannot reckon the poor rates among the people's burdens, for the poor rates are taxes upon

real estate !

This reasoning is too shallow to merit a reply, were it not true that many Englishmen themselves have not yet learned that all taxes on land, must in the end, however they seemed to be evaded, fall upon those who consume the produce of land. Every tax the land owner pays, raises the rental of the land, and if the rent is high, the produce must be high, so that all these taxes reach the consumer of bread at last.

THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.-In October, 1841, "the Norwich Society for the Propagation

of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," Lord Wodehouse in the chair, was broken up by a Chartist mob. As one of the clergy stepped forth to appease the tumult, he was hailed with the shout we want more bread and fewer priests.”

In that shout was manifested the prevailing spirit of the mass of the English nation towards an institution which has for ages over-shadowed the people with its magnificence and oppression. Every where in Christendom the people are beginning to discover that they have long been robbed of the choicest gifts of Heaven. That not only have they been made uncomplainingly to surrender the fruits of the earth to the tyrannical grasp of power; but that Christianity itself, the kindest and best provision Heaven has ever made for the souls of men, has been turned into an instrument for his more complete degradation. The poor of England hate the Church of England. Its magnificent churches and cathedrals are left vacant, while the jewelled priest ministers at the altar. In the time of our Saviour, the rich were the enemies of the church,-the poor now; the titled and the luxurious are its advocates and supporters, and the lower classes its antagonists.

It may be well to inquire into the cause of this growing hatred of the poor towards the established church; why it is that "more than one-half of the whole number of those who profess serious religion," (Dr. John Pye Smith) prefer to withdraw from the establishment, and worship within

humble chapels, while they not only bear the burden of maintaining their own services, but are just as heavily taxed to support the church of England as her own members! Why it is that Dissenters are continually and more rapidly increasing in power, wealth, and influence; why it is then, when the bishop dashes by with his gorgeous equipage, the starving wretch, as he shakes the dust of the chariot from his tattered garments, murmurs to himself, "that splendor costs the sweat and toil and famine of me and my brethren?" Why is all this? "There is a reason for it somewhere." Christ came to the poor. The neglected multitude; the starving widow; the abandoned leper, were his associates. The haughty priests shook their mitred heads at him, and called him a friend of publicans and sinners. The elevation of the mass was the grand design of the Saviour and his religion-he came to heal the broken-hearted-to preach deliverance to the captive. Ancient philosophers and heathen priests had passed unheeded by the lowly dwellings of the poor and the forsaken, but the Son of God proclaimed himself the Restorer, the Comforter, the Brother of all earth's neglected children. Feeling that their Deliverer had at last come, they crowded around him, caught hold of his garments, pressed on him in his retirement, and wept at his feet, as the Gospel with its new and abundant consolations was spoken in their ears.

All this is felt by the despised and depressed

classes, and if they have read their Bibles, or heard its truth preached, how can they help contrasting "the MAN of sorrows," "the FRIEND of the poor," as he wandered in poverty through the vallies of Canaan, seeking out the dwellings of the suffering, satisfied with the shelter that covered them from the storm, if he could pour light and consolation into their souls-with the proud prelate, who rolls upon his stately coach to the House of Lords, to vote against reform, or to the doors of the massive cathedral, where once a year he tells the few noble hearers gathered there from the fox-chase, that the Dissenters are very great sinners—that the Corn Laws are a great blessing to the country, particularly to the poor; and that he (the speaker) can trace back the office of Bishop, in one unbroken chain, to the chair of St. Peter. It would be strange if the poor should not institute the comparison—it would be still stranger if they should see much resemblance between the carpenter's son, with his twelve fishermen, and the monarch of Great Britain with his princely bishops.

Christianity is the purest democracy on earth. Man as a living soul, and not as a noble or a king, receives its attention. It seeks the greatest happiness of the greatest number. In its light the peasant and the monarch stand on the same level. Now the simple reason why the lower classes hate the Church of England, is, that it reverses the entire spirit of christianity. It opposes the progress of the democratic principle in which they and the

world are so deeply interested. It is the most oppressive aristocracy in England. Its exclusiveness and pomp equal that of the nobility; while the tithes and taxes it wrings from the poor man, who is struggling to live, render it even more obnoxious than the hereditary aristocracy itself. Wherever new churches rise, new burdens are created for the people around them. And the clergyman who issues his warrants on Saturday, to force the collection of his tithes, is not very likely to win the poor man's heart to the love of that Saviour who came to preach the Gospel to the poor, without money and without price.

I wage no war against Episcopacy. Most cheerfully do I concede to Episcopalians, that freedom of opinion I wish to enjoy. Nor do I wish to be understood as applying any of my remarks, on the Church of England, to the Episcopal Church of this country. That Church I honor. But the unholy alliance of the Church with the State-the corruptions and oppressions that have grown out of that union and, above all, the Church as an enemy to the interests of the working classes; as an adversary to the spirit of liberty in England, will have my uncompromising opposition.

There are many reasons why the Establishment is odious to the British people,—many reasons why the poor hate, and will continue to hate it,—many reasons why it should go down. It is one of the last strong holds of Feudalism; and whatever may be the fate of the Government, the Establish