OPPRESSION. The whole system of tithes and church rates is one of oppression. The London Times of July 25th, 1831, says, "If venality be imputed to any class of Englishmen, look not to the columns of a newspaper for your proofs-look to the Red-Book-to the Reports of Parliamentto the list of pensions and sinecures to colonial functionaries-to mercenary lords-to pamphleteering, jobbing, mitre hunting dignitaries of the church-to the innumerable tribe of vermin bred within the folds of that poisonous mantle which has wrapped for ages and gradually numbed the Herculean power of England." Two years after the same paper said, "The church of Ireland is finally one which has for centuries in any measure of severity, of exaction, of oppression, signalized itself by more than concurrence with the tyrannical spirit of the civil government. It is felt at once to be a weight upon the country and a degradation."

The church arrogates to herself the control of the universities where a son of a Dissenter is forbidden to enter; because he cannot subscribe to the thirty-nine articles, he must be shut out of the highways of learning. The church takes the property and the education of the land under her own control. Not satisfied with this, she claims the receptacles of the dead. A Dissenting minister is forbidden to perform the funeral rites over his own dead in the consecrated burying ground. The child that has been baptized, educated,

brought to the truth by a Dissenting minister, grown up under his care; been consoled by him in sickness, and cheered by him in the last fearful hour, must die with the certainty that he will be interred by a stranger, if he wishes to sleep in the old burying ground where his fathers rest; or, (if no Dissenting burial place is near,) be buried on · the world's wide common by his own minister. If his friends will consent to have the hours of their bereavement embittered by the presence of one who insulted and wronged their dead while living, and treats them in their distress with scorn, then indeed they can bury their loved and lost one in the old church yard. But if, as it often happens, the clergyman of the parish is a foxhunting, wine-drinking, godless man, and the Dissenter under the keen sense of oppression and insult, under the deeper consciousness of the man's unworthiness and heartlessness, refuses to have him minister at the burial of his child, if he would have him rest with the ashes of his ancestors-" with pious sacrilege," a grave he must steal. And if the minister who has prayed with him-bound up his broken heart, and spoken the words of truth and earnestness to him, perform the services over the stolen burial, he is compelled to do it standing without the paling of the churchyard, while the suffering friends listen from within!! And this is the charity of the church of Christ-these the shepherds of the flock, whose office it is, like their Great Master, "not to break

the already bruised reed!" This is christianity! The wild Indian of the wood has more humanity -the savage of the desert shows more sympathy for bereaved men. They will not invade the dead; even the jackals wait till the living have retired to their dwellings—but not so with the church of Christ—it casts out the dead before they are interred, in the very face of the living—if they never subscribed to the 39 articles!! Dissenters are obliged to sustain their own churches and clergy, and pay just as much to the established church as its own members. Hence to obey both his conscience and the government, the Dissenter must first pay a tenth of his entire income to the establishment, besides being called on frequently for church rates, which are taxes levied for the purpose of keeping churches in repair, &c. to the extent of about $3,000,000 per annum; and finally, he must erect his own chapel and support his own minister. It is no small compliment to the Dissenters to say, that in addition to all these expenses, they raise more to support missionaries abroad and benevolent enterprises at home, than the churchmen of England. The author of the "Natural History of Enthusiasm," passes upon them the following just tribute of admiration:— "The sums yearly raised by Dissenters for benevolent objects, reflect a lustre upon England' brighter than all the glory of her arms."

I might here record many instances of generosity among Dissenters, illustrating this remark-I will

only allude to one. I was told by two highly respectable maiden ladies, in Liverpool, that the va rious sums they were required to pay annually to the Church and the State, amounted to $123-no inconsiderable part of this sum going into the pockets of the clergyman of the church, from whose ministrations they received not the least advantage, since they attended a Unitarian chapel. To me this seemed the more oppressive, for every shilling they were thus taxed for the Church, left them one shilling less to pay to their own minister, who devoted himself with great fidelity to his congregation. These ladies had long maintained themselves by keeping one of the most genteel boarding-houses in the upper part of the town; and although their means could not be supposed to be so ample as to admit of any large offerings to the cause of benevolence, yet I had occasion to know, that the poor who came every day to their door were not frowned empty away,—and that they contributed generously to the support of their own minister. All this was done with a christian spirit, inspiring two sisters, who stand alone in the world, to deny themselves, that they may know the luxury of doing good to others. I was sitting with them one morning, as a friend entered to solicit charity for a family in distress; what they had was freely given. After the person was gone, they spoke of the trials to their feelings they often experienced, of not being able to select for themselves 13

VOL. I.

the objects of their benevolence, rather than have those objects dictated by ecclesiastical law.

It often happens that Dissenters refuse to pay the taxes levied on them to support the Church, since they regard it as helping to uphold a worldly and corrupt institution. They then suffer distraint on property. Anything on which the officer can lay his hands, be it the last means of subsistence, the last comfort procured for a sick family, is taken. The distress thus caused is often very great, and such scenes are witnessed every day.

Last year a man by the name of John Cockin, suffered distraint on his property for refusing to pay 1s. 10d. for Easter offerings, in addition to his tithes. He declared this was a tax never imposed on him before, and he would not pay it. The warrant for attaching his goods, process and all, swelled the amount to 11s. 10d. which the magistrates took in dried bacon. This was done by the agent of the Vicar of Almondbury, Rev. Lewis Jones.

The claims of the Church are never outlawed, although not enforced for years before. Unless they can be shown to have been abolished before the year 1180, they can be enforced with the certainty of being collected. Thus any titheable property, that has been suffered to go exempt for a long period, can be subjected to the tax when the clergyman pleases. These clergymen cannot even pay for the washing of their own surplices-even the poor Dissenting minister himself, is equally