have saved Sodom from destruction, who have either the fear or love of God in their hearts. Such being the root of the evil, its tokens are various. Drunkenness prevails generally. Swearing is heard from every mouth. The fields are tilled, vehicles pass through the streets, goods are bought and sold in the market-place, buildings advance from their foundations to their top-stones, to sounds of blasphemy. Blasphemy is the language of husbands conversing with their wives, and of wives conversing with their husbands. A stranger passing through, might think it was the language of the place. Children adopt the imprecations of their parents, and learn them as their mother-tongue. Fighting and quarrelling prevail on all sides. Stealing is so generally practised, that no man's property is safe. Impurity is not deemed a sin. Sabbathbreaking is the standing practice of every class. The shops continue open on the Lord's day; buying and selling proceed as usual; nay, that day seems marked out for particular disorder and disgrace. The Sabbath is the day when the greatest numbers flock_to_the_public-houses, the resorts of gaming and drunkenness, the ruin of our land. The Sabbath is the day when we hear the greatest noise and disturbance; the day for idling, fighting, and rioting in the streets. Some of the inhabitants are so used to these enormities, they think there is no harm in them. Many complain of the wickedness of the place; but there is scarcely one, who has not in some measure a share in it. The few who are better disposed, think no neighbourhood can be so bad as theirs. Meanwhile the multitude go on robbing, slandering, fighting, cursing one another; while a general and constant cry of sin ascends from the place to heaven.

Suppose its present state to be as bad as this. Is there no hope of future amendment? God forbid that we should say so. God forbid that we should despair, with all his promises written in the Bible for our comfort and encouragement. God forbid that we should transgress against him, by ceasing to pray for such a place, and by ceasing to exert ourselves for its improvement. No. Let us rather find hope in his word. Let us rather believe that where sin has abounded, there grace may yet much more abound. A great change indeed is required; but yet we have encouragement to hope that such a change may be wrought.

-The change required, no doubt, is great: that "there," in such a place as this, "there they should be called the children of the living God." Great indeed would be the alteration -Yet is it not impossible that such a change should be effected. "It shall some to pass," says the Apostle. Not even his people before, they shall now be called his children. It is a promise for the world. It is a promise for the heathen. But it is also a promise for our own neighbourhood. It belongs not only to the heathen of distant climes, but to the heathen on the opposite side of the way. We must believe this of the Gospel, or we believe nothing. We can see that the promises of future regeneration and conversion to be wrought in the world, belong to mankind in general; but we cannot see that the same promises include similar hopes for our own place and country. Let us then believe these promises and act upon them. The same God who made them, has made other promises and has performed them. If he will give his Anointed the uttermost parts of the earth for his inheritance; surely he will give him those parts where his name is already known and loved by some, and proclaimed in the ears of all.

The reflection affords encouragement to the faithful pastor. The overflowings of ungodliness surround him, perhaps, on every side. He sees little fruit of his labours. Wickedness flourishes in rank luxuriance; few, if any, support or countenance him in his endeavours to repress it; and, openly or secretly, many are opposed to him. Yet let him not despair. Let him continue to sow in hope. Let him persevere in standing up in his place, and scattering

the seed of the same word, from Sabbath to Sabbath: trusting that though some grains fall by the way side, some on stony places, and some among thorus, yet in due time there shall be, under his own observation, a plenteous harvest of good fruit unto eternal life; or that, at any rate, his labours shall be found in the end to have contributed their share, in promoting the general harvest of the world.-Nor are the same reflections without encouragement to the Christian zeal of private individuals. Many a believer, dwelling among the wicked, like Lot in the cities of the plain, in seeing and hearing, vexes his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. But let him consider and try what he can do. Let him make this a matter of self-humiliation and of prayer. Has every house a Bible? Are all able to read the Bible? He is the individual, having received the light, who is bound to communicate it to others. If there be any place for which we might adopt the wish of Moses, it is a vicious, disorderly, and neglected neighbourhood:-" Would God that all the Lord's people," many or few, "were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them!" Boys, Romans ix.

A Summary of the Laws peculiarly affecting Protestant Dissenters. With an Appendix, containing Acts of Parliament, &c. By JOSEPH BELDAM, Esq. 12mo. London: Butterworth and Son. 1828.

Ir will, we apprehend, be expected of us, that we should express some opinion on the question, now before Parliament, relative to the wish of the Dissenters to be relieved from the operation of the Test and Corporation Acts; and it is rather in deference to this expectation, than from any other motive, that we take up the subject; being sincerely of opinion, that the matter in dispute is in this, as in most other cases, of less moment than it appears to either party.

In order to understand the subject, it is necessary that we first take the trouble to see what the enactments, so much complained of, really are: for which purpose, we shall here copy those clauses of the Corporation and Test Acts which it is proposed to repeal.

The 12th section of the statute 13 Car. II. st. ii. chap. 1 (commonly called the Corporation Act), is as follows:

Provided also, and be it enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the expiration of the said commissions, no person or persons shall for ever hereafter be placed, elected, or chosen, in or to any of the offices or places aforesaid, that shall not have, within one year next before such election or choice, taken the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the rites of the Church of England; and that every such person or persons, so placed, elected, or chosen, shall likewise take the aforesaid three oaths, and subscribe the said Declaration, at the same time when the oath of the due execution of the said places and offices respectively shall be administered: and in default thereof, every such placing, election, and choice, is hereby enacted and declared to be void.

And the 2d section of the statute 25 Car. II. chap. 2 (commonly called the Test Act), is as follows:

And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That all and every person or persons that shall be admitted, entered, placed, or taken into any office or offices, civil or military; or shall receive any pay, salary, fee, or wages, by reason of any patent or grant of his Majesty; or shall have command or place of trust from or under his Majesty, his heirs or successors, or by his or their authority, or by authority derived from him or them, within this realm of England, dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, or in his Majesty's navy, or in the several islands of Jersey and Guernsey; or that shall be admitted into any service or employment in his Majesty's or Royal Highness's household or family, after the first day of Easter term aforesaid; and shall inhabit, be, or reside, when he or they is or are so admitted and placed, within the cities of London or Westminster, or within thirty miles of the same; shall take the said oaths aforesaid, in the said respective court or courts aforesaid, in the next term after such his or their admittance or admittances into the office or offices, employment or employments aforesaid, between the hours aforesaid and no other, and the proceedings to cease as aforesaid: and that all and every such person or persons, to be admitted after the said first day of Easter term as aforesaid, not having taken the said oaths in the said courts aforesaid, shall, at the quarter sessions for that county or place where he or they shall reside next after such his admittance or admittances into any of the said respective offices or employments aforesaid, take the said several and respective oaths as aforesaid. And all and every such person and persons, to be admitted as aforesaid, shall also receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the usage of the Church of England, within three months after his or their admittance in or receiving their said authority and employment, in some public church, upon some Lord's-day, commonly called Sunday, immediately after Divine service and sermon.

And the 4th and 5th sections of the same statute affix the penalty of disability for holding all such offices to such persons as neglect or refuse to take the said oaths and sacrament."

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We shall not enter into the inquiry, what the intent and operation of these Acts might be in the period during which they were passed; but shall proceed to remark, that about seventy years after there began a regular series of annual Indemnity Acts, running in the following tenor (we copy from that of 1827):

That any person or persons having neglected to qualify for office by taking the aforesaid oaths and sacrament, might, by taking the same before the 29th of March 1828, become as fully qualified as if he had originally, conformed to the statutes, and might be fully indemnified from any penalties, being entitled to plead that Act in abatement of any legal proceedings.

This Act thus fully abrogates the effect of the Test and Corporation Acts, during the term of its existence; and on its expiration, another annual act is immediately passed, to succeed in its place, and maintain the same indemnity for the following twelve months.

Having thus stated the enactments actually existing at the

present time, and now proposed to be repealed, we shall next proceed to inquire into the operation of these enactments; premising, however, that it is important to bear in mind that statutes of ancient date will not unfrequently grow into partial or entire desuetude, from the mere alteration of public feeling. To instance an extreme case, we may remark, that there was once, it is said, an old law on our statute-book, inflicting a penalty" on any person harbouring a hobgoblin.” Now, whether such a statute has latterly existed or not, signifies little; for it would be impossible to find, at this time of day, either an informer to prosecute, or a jury to convict, such an offender. More recently, it will be recollected, there existed a law against the forgery of bank-notes, so severe that juries began to make it a regular custom to acquit prisoners charged under it, either under some trifling objection, or even without it: and we believe that law has been repealed; or, if not, discontinued in operation.

Keeping this in mind, let us look at the operation of the enactments we have just quoted at length. They are two in number; the one levelled against persons serving his Majesty; the other, against persons becoming members of Corporations. We will consider them singly.

Persons appointed to offices under the Crown are removable, under the Test Act, if the legal steps be taken within six months after their appointment or admission, except they have taken the oaths and sacrament prescribed by that Act. But then the Act of Indemnity abates and nullifies such proceedings immediately on the conformity of the party complained of. How, then, does this work? There are two parties concerned, besides the individual whose conformity is in questionnamely, the person who placed him in the office he holds, and the public in general; any one of whom are at liberty to enforce the law. Now the first, who probably appointed to the office without any reference to the sacramental test, will certainly not remove his nominee on account of any such omission; and of the other party; the public, nothing can be expected, because the Indemnity Act throws the law expenses of any complaining individual back upon himself, the moment the party complained of conforms to the statute.

Let us illustrate this by example. The Duke of Wellington at this moment holds the highest "place of trust " under his Majesty we do not wish to pry into the domestic movements or habits of his Grace, but his out-of-door and public acts are matters of daily chronicle; and, among his various movements and engagements, we have never observed any report of his

attendance at the Lord's Supper. Suppose then, for argument's sake, the fact to be, that his Grace is a recusant under the Test Act, how will that Act operate? In the first place, we may suppose that a conformity with this Act was not particularly stipulated, on the part of his Majesty, when the Noble Duke was appointed; and therefore, that, if the fact were really found to be as we for argument's sake have supposed, it would not be felt a sufficient reason for an immediate change of ministry. In the next place, although it might be open to any person to institute proceedings against his Grace, on the ground of the admission we have presumed, yet no person in his senses would ever think of instituting such proceedings, in the knowledge that his Grace might, at any time, throw all the costs upon the complaining party, by simply remedying his neglect.

It may be said, that this is an extreme case. Let us, then, take another instance; that of any little holder of a patent, commission, or place of trust under his Majesty. The influence of a county member, perhaps, has procured him this appointment: he has not conformed: who will put the law in force against him? Not the source of all patronage, the Treasury the officers there know little, and care nothing, whether the poor man has taken the sacrament or not. his patron he recommended him on other grounds, and leaves his conscience in his own keeping. Not any one of the public; for every man knows the probability of his having to pay a long lawyer's bill. And thus the statute remains, by common consent, a dead letter.

Not

It may be said that we have, on our own shewing, admitted one beneficial operation of the Test Act; in concluding that any person informed against under its provisions would take the benefit of the Indemnity Act, by then conforming; and that thus it appears, that only those who, upon compulsion, did conform, could benefit by the Indemnity Act; while all others would, by the Test Act, be dispossessed of their offices. We answer, that not even this kind of operation, beneficial or otherwise, remains for, in reality, no such distinction between those who will and those who will not, upon compulsion, conform, can be made; because the effect of the Indemnity Act is to deter all persons from any proceeding whatever under the Test Act. And thus it is obvious, that the Indemnity Act does really throw its shield, not only over the neglectful, but also over the contumacious contemner of the Test Act.

The other branch of our subject relates to the operation of the Corporation Act. This statute rendered every person in