At the Office of R. W. Moore, 5, Bank Chambers, Lothbury.

The following table will shew the fluctuations and variations in the average prices
of wheat for every month during the year 1832:-

...

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The Editor trusts that the gentlemen who have so obligingly sent him fresh editions of their works, or works published two or three years ago, will not think that those works are undervalued because they are not noticed. It is very difficult to keep up with those published since the Magazine itself commenced. He particularly regrets not being able to notice, and at length, a Charge of Archdeacon Bather.

A Pamphlet against Oxford, from which the Morning Herald and other papers have been giving extracts, has been sent to the Editor. It is called Academical Abuses, &c. &c., and proclaims its intent at once. It is simply to collect every low, base falsehood possible, in order that the daily papers may have something at hand with which to revile the Universities, and a very proper person has been selected. His taste is quite of the right standard, as he can neither spell nor write English. Among other things which this miserable person says, he alleges that the Dons' make profits from the furniture of the young men's rooms! and from the dinners and breakfasts! One great source of complaint is the badness and unw holesomeness of the bread, butter, and joints of meat on which the young men are kept! This is the matter thought fit for the public of the enlightened and amiable nineteenth century! H. H's valuable letter on Sunday Schools shall be given very shortly.

Mr. Allport would be exceedingly glad to have communication with the gentleman who gave an account of the Catholic Magazine in the last No. of the British Magazine, and to receive any suggestions from him. It seems quite an imperative duty not to let a work like the Protestant Journal, devoted exclusively to the controversy between Catholics and Roman Catholics, drop for want of support.

Many thanks to Dorcas for a very sensible letter.

S. S.'s communication on Rom. xii. 20, shall be used as soon as room can be found; but perhaps S. S. will not take offence at being told that a little patience as to insertion of very long letters is necessary, at a period when the press of temporary matter of importance must obviously be so great. It was not from neglect or disrespect that this paper was kept back. A letter from Oxford (the writer gives his name) mentions that in a Club of 150 Undergraduates and B. A.'s, the New Monthly Magazine was expelled, without a dissentient voice, as soon as the detestable article on Lord Tenterden had been read. Facts like these (and many such have occurred in both Universities within the last two or three years) supply proofs of a state of feeling in the young men of the country which gives one hope for it, even in its present condition.

A Dissenter's Letter has been received. The peculiarly amiable and Christian tone in which it is written, so entirely free from all uncharitable insinuations, gives it claims to insertion, which are only overcome by its having arrived too late for this month.

W. M. is quite right in urging that baptisms should take place after the second lesson, according to the rubric, wherever it is practicable. It is good for all parties. But he is mistaken in thinking that this is never done. The Editor knows many country churches where it is the regular practice, and others where it is the practice on holidays, the situation of the font making it impracticable when the church is full."

J. S.'s remarks on the Romanist's endeavours to appropriate the name of Catholic are very just; but Protestants are tolerably on their guard on this point.

E. N.'s very sensible letter on Tithes is received, and shall be used as soon as possible. Persons who send communications are requested to give a choice of using or destroying. The returning is a very troublesome condition.

If Dr. Rudge will have the kindness to look at the three or four last Numbers of the British Magazine, he will find that the subjects he mentions have been fully canvassed, particularly in a note on the letter of G. W. R., and in the article on Church Reform in the last Number. "Observator" is received.

R. W. B.'s Letter is most acceptable. The Editor had got through some of the hideous labour, but not so well as R. W. B.

The Editor deeply regrets still being unable to notice the Factory Bill proceedings, and those respecting the Observance of the Sabbath. He owes a heavy debt to humanity and religion on these points, and will earnestly endeavour to discharge it.

The Editor hopes that T. D. A. got a letter addressed to him at Mr. Parker's. Will the gentleman who wrote about Sir James Mackintosh's remarks (vol. iii. p. 60) send a short paper on them?

"A Subscriber" observes that the lengthy writers on Tithes in this Magazine have not suggested that one-fourth or one-fifth of the estimated or actual rent would be a good substitute for Tithes.

The Editor would be glad to know where he may direct a private letter to A.

Mr. Curtis's book on the Typographical Errors in the Bible, is recommended to all who can find any interest or amusement in a curious exhibition of retributive justice, in which a man who assails the characters of others, draws, quite unconsciously, a very faithful picture of the selfish and interested motives which actuated his own conduct. Mr. Curtis's faithfulness in not leaving out a line of his own picture is unrivalled, and (as will be shewn next month) the picture is not an ordinary one.

THE

BRITISH MAGAZINE.

MARCH 1, 1833.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

ON THE CONNEXION OF THE CLERGY OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH WITH THE JUDICIAL AND LEGISLATIVE FUNCTIONS OF THE STATE.

I NOT only am averse to ascribe hostile dispositions to all those who view the questions relative to church reform in a different light from that in which they appear to me, but I am fully persuaded that a very large proportion of them are actuated by most friendly intentions towards her, and imagine that the alterations they propose will avert her destruction, if not fix her establishment upon a firmer foundation. Yet I cannot see any reason in the circumstances of the case to abandon my own conclusions upon the danger of the proposed reforms, especially of the ulterior movements to which they are made the stalking horse; and I am still more startled by a comparison of the alleged reasons, given by church reformers of all denominations, from Lord Henley to Mr. Hume, with those by which one party deceived others, and another deceived themselves, at that period of our history when the people were betrayed into a calamitous delusion, and the Church and State of England were subjected to the terrible scourge of democracy and fanaticism. In the present day we have the same loud and bitter cry raised against the ministers of the church, accompanied by the same pretext of concern for its purity, and supported by the same arguments against the practices of the clergy, and the institution and privileges of the church.

The notorious object of the violent and movement party in its advance to the civil war was to lower the body of the clergy in the eyes of the people, and to deprive them of those offices connected with the state which gave them power and influence to support their church. Yet all this was to be done under plea of a tender and reverend regard for its purification. An ostentatious display was made of distinguishing between the functionaries of the church and the church itself. The desire of the artful and VOL. III.-March, 1833. 21

active party to overthrow the church altogether cannot now be a secret. It is evident to demonstration that, though they were loudest in putting forward the promised advantages which were to accrue to the discipline and stability of the church, they desired nothing so eagerly as its downfall. The above argument was used by them as an allurement to the well meaning, but enthusiastic or rash friends of the church. It was by their aid and junction alone that the design of its bitter enemies could be accomplished. Arguments and assertions, however false, were adapted to all parties, and if we are astonished at the facility with which really good and sensible men were led into the snare, that astonishment must be diminished when we see equally good and sensible men treading in the very same steps, while the example of these persons and the fatal consequences of their infatuated credulity and experiments are on record, for the instruction of their posterity. If the most outrageous calumnies against the loyal part of the clergy were circulated and believed then, are there no such efforts, and is there no such credulity now? If they were then slanderously decried as enemies of the people, and especially of the poor, are they not, with equal falsehood, equal shamelessness, and equal malignity, so represented now? If every act of a clergyman in support of the church or state was then denounced as undue or improper meddling with politics, and an act of almost hostility against the people, while the treasonable harangues of the seditious preacher were encouraged in the most bare-faced manner, is it very different now? Who can read some of the daily papers without seeing the most reckless misrepresentations and partiality -one clergyman abused, and another praised for their interference in politics with no other reason for the distinction than their taking different sides on the same question? Who has not seen the cowardly and assassin-like falsehoods which pander to the depravity and ignorance of the disaffected, giving neither name, nor date, nor place, but in some such form as this-"The Rev. Mr. -, not an hundred miles from such a place, asked an honest farmer to give his vote to Mr. B, and upon his refusal said, 'I am very sorry; but I find your name in my tithe book in arrear: I must have the money immediately or proceed against you'"? What an effect have these shameless and reiterated fabrications on the poor; and how is the slanderer to be dragged to light, and the credulous to be disabused?

Who, again, has not observed the complacency with which dissenting ministers or papists are mentioned as using the most violent and exciting language to an inflamed and ignorant multitude, while a clergyman may not even argue through the press, or use his privilege of a citizen, without being stigmatized as a "political parson," or held up to revolutionary fury, as an enemy to