when they become overbearing, dictatorial, proud of their chains,
and desirous of ejecting others, does it seem right to press them with
the topic of inconsistency. There in, besides, in the ministry of
the Established Church a sprinkling of original minds, who cannot
be included in either of the two great divisions; and from these _a
priori_ one might have hoped much good to the Church. But such persons
no sooner speak out, than the two hostile parties hush their strife,
in order the more effectually to overwhelm with just and unjust
imputations those who dare to utter truth that has not yet been
consecrated by Act of Parliament or by Church Councils. Among those
who have subscribed, to attack others is easy, to defend oneself most
arduous. Recrimination is the only powerful weapon; and noble minds
are ashamed to use this. No hope, therefore, shows itself of Reform
from within.--For myself, I feel that nothing saved me from the
infinite distresses which I should have encountered, had I become a
minister of the Episcopal Church, but the very unusual prematureness
of my religious development.

Besides the great subject of Baptismal Regeneration, the entire
Episcopal theory and practice offended me. How little favourably I was
impressed, when a boy, by the lawn sleeves, wig, artificial voice and
manner of the Bishop of London, I have already said: but in six
years more, reading and observation had intensely confirmed my first
auguries. It was clear beyond denial, that for a century after the
death of Edward VI. the bishops were the tools of court-bigotry, and
often owed their highest promotions to base subservience. After the
Revolution, the Episcopal order (on a rough and general view) might be
described as a body of supine persons, known to the public only as a
dead weight against all change that was distasteful to the Government.
In the last century and a half, the nation was often afflicted with
sensual royalty, bloody wars, venal statesmen, corrupt constituencies,
bribery and violence at elections, flagitious drunkenness pervading
all ranks, and insinuating itself into Colleges and Rectories. The
prisons of the country had been in a most disgraceful state; the
fairs and waits were scenes of rude debauchery, and the theatres
were--still, in this nineteenth century--whispered to be haunts of the
most debasing immorality. I could not learn that any bishop had ever
taken the lead in denouncing these iniquities; nor that