never wanting, and many of these familiars of the tax-office are amassing fortunes by this infamous business. The most lucrative method of practice is as follows: A fellow surcharges half the people in the district; that is, he informs the tax-commissioners, that such persons have given in a false account of their windows, dogs, horses, carriages, &c. an offence for which the tax is trebled, and half the surplus given to the informer. A day of appeal, however, is allowed for those who think they can justify themselves; but so many have been aggrieved, that when they appear to gether before the commissioners, there is not time to hear one in ten. Some of these persons live two, four, or six leagues from the place of appeal: they go there a second, and perhaps a third time in the hope of redress; the informer takes care, by new surcharges, to keep up the crowd, and the injured persons find it at last less burthensome to pay the unjust fine, than to be repeatedly at the trouble and expence of seeking justice in vain.

There is nothing, however dishonourable or villainous, to which these wretches will not stoop. One of them, on his first settling in the province which he had chosen for the scene of his campaigns, was invited to dinner by a neighbouring gentleman, before his character was known; the next day he surcharged his host for another servant, because one of the men employed about his grounds had assisted in waiting at dinner. Another happening to lame his horse, borrowed. one of a farmer to ride home; the

farmer told him it was but an uneasy going beast, as he was kept wholly for the cart, but rather than that the gentleman should be distressed he would put the saddle on him; he was surcharged the next day for keeping a saddle-horse, as his reward. Can there be a more convincing proof of the excellent police of England, and, what is still better, of the admirable effect of well-executed laws

upon the people, than that such pests of society as these walk abroad among the very people whom they oppress and insult, with perfect safety both by day and by night!

Government do not seem to be aware, that when they offer premiums for treachery, they are corrupting the morals of the people, and thereby

weakening their own security. There is reason sufficient for pardoning a criminal, who confesses his own guilt, and impeaches his accomplices; the course of law could not go on without it, and such men are already infamous. But no such plea can be alleged in this case: it is a miserable excuse for encouraging informers, to say, that the taxes are so clumsily laid on, that they can easily be eluded. A far worse instance of this pernicious practice occurs in the system of pressing men for the navy, which the English confess to be the opprobrium of their country, while they regret it as inevitable. In the proclamation issued upon these occasions, a reward is regularly offered to all persons who will give information where a sailor has hidden himself.

The whole system of England, from highest to lowest, is, and has been, one series of antagonisms; strugglestruggle-in every thing. Check and countercheck is the principle of their constitution, which is the result of centuries of contention between the crown and the people. The struggle between the clergy and the lawyers unfettered their lands from feudal tenures. Their church is a half-andhalf mixture of Catholicism and Puritanism. These contests being over, it is now a trial between the government and the subject, how the one can lay on taxes, and how the other can elude them.

SIR,

[To be continued.]

April 24, 1817. Mties of Popular Essays," pubRS. HAMILTON, in “ a Se

the

lished about three years before her lamented death, directs the attention of her readers to what she calls selfish principle," or "the propensity to enlarge the idea of self," which she supposes to be a part of the human constitution, and to the indulgence and excess of which she justly ascribes much of the errors, follies and crimes of mankind. I am not disposed to assert that throughout these amusing and instructive volumes the excellent author is always correct in the use of her terms and arguments; but here as in every other part of her works she displays her good sense, her admirable talents in observing and delincating human characters and dispositions, and above all, that constant and

earnest desire to do good, which was the distinguishing feature both of her writings and her life. In the tenth chapter of the fourth of these Essays, the author considers the influence of the selfish principle as connected with the belief and profession of certain religious opinions, and on this subject she has many observations which well deserve the attention of zealots of all sects, parties and systems.

Your extensive and accurate acquaintance with life and manners, Mr. Editor, must have brought before you instances of the great variety of forms and modes under which the selfish principle shews itself and operates. In most instances it disposes a man to regard with peculiar favour those of his own kindred, name, or party, to magnify their virtues, and to overlook or palliate their imperfections. I am sorry to say that, with myself, the case is different. I have the misfortune to be liable to regard the mote in my brother's eye with more attention than that in the eye of a more distant relative or stranger. Whether this be owing to the bulk and shape of the beam that is in my own eye, to the influence of temperament for which I am not altogether accountable, or to the effect of habit, the fault of which is all my own, I do not pretend to determine. The fact I am obliged to acknowledge and lament, and to this infirmity I must request you to be so candid as to ascribe the desire I now feel of obtaining a place in your pages.

I am drawing fast to the close of a long life. From the earliest years of it in which I could institute any inquiry or form any opinion on the subject, I have never ceased to possess the full conviction that Unitarianism is the doctrine of the gospel. The times when the open profession of this persuasion exposed him who made it to great and general obloquy, is fresh in my remembrance. I have lived to see the hostility which this obnoxious system has always had to encounter, not indeed, less violent, but certainly more adequately opposed by numerous and able defenders. Of the present state of Unitarianism, so far as respects its external relations and internal increase, I conceive that few of its patrons can complain, except such as are not easily satisfied. The repeal of the penal statutes, which till within

a very few years hung over them, is an event of very great importance, not less honourable to the distinguished individual that procured, and to the government that conceded it, than advantageous to the class of Dissenters favoured by it. The laws in question were, indeed, become alniost a dead letter, however distinctly it may since have appeared that there are not wanting persons of no small authority and influence desirous of restoring them with all their original life and activity, and of arming the magistrate with the means of defending the faith, and inflicting salutary chastisement on obstinate and unrepentant heretics.

The old Unitarians, I believe, to a man, join with Mr. Belsham in thankful acknowledgments to the executive and legislature for so readily consenting to annul laws inconsistent with the spirit of the British constitution, and disgraceful to the statutebook. They well remember that, less than thirty years ago, petitions, although numerously and respectably signed, failed of obtaining the desired repeal, which has at length been brought about with little difficulty by the representations and exertions of the individual above alluded to.

But a new class of Unitarians has arisen, whose gratitude for this boon (if we may judge from appearances and from the language holden by some of them) is less than problematical, and to whom the repeal in question has proved very little acceptable. They have expressed themselves as it they were ambitious, not perhaps of the crown of martyrdom, but of some of the inferior honours to be conferred by persecutors for conscience' sake on the objects of their unhallowed and antichristian zeal; forgetting no doubt, that such distinctions so obtained imply the greatest possible wickedness on the part of those who grant them. This is an inordinate exercise of the selfish principle, which, I believe, has escaped the animadversions of Mrs. Hamilton, probably from that amiable writer not conceiving the existence of such an extravagant egotism possible in this (as it is called) liberal and enlightened age.

History has in too many instances shewn that those, who have proved themselves capable of suffering with the most heroic resolution in the cause

of what they deemed to be the truth, have not always been the least willing to make others suffer on the same account. In like manner those of our own times who have so little objec, tion to persecution that they are almost prepared to invite its attacks on themselves, are, in their turn, not at all averse to manifest that degree and measure of intolerance which they have it in their power to exercise. They do not wield the sword either of civil or ecclesiastical authority: they cannot imprison or excommunicate; but they are not content with thinking Unitarianism a good thing: they will have it that there is nothing good besides. Justly provoked at the foolish and unchristian atteinpts of their opponents to prove that Unitarianism is unfavourable to morality and piety, they fly to the other extreine, and are disposed to contend that the only morality and piety deserving regard is inseparably connected with their own views of religious truth. They forget that devotion is scated in the heart, and moral virtue in the habits of man, and that the former may be deeply and permanently affected, and the latter immoveably fixed, whatever may be the speculative opinions of the individual on points which have long been, and will long continue to be, subjects of doubtful disputation. I request you, Mr. Editor, to pardon any unseemly warmth in my expressions; but I must declare that, to my mind, this is the most intolerable species of intolerance. With the foolish violence of the orthodox may be joined a compassionate -olicitude for the eternal welfare of its object, and there must be joined a painful apprehension of his everlasting nisery; but the intolerance of the heretic is a cold, philosophic pride, connected (so far as I can perceive) with no social affection, with no hope, and with no fear, save the hope of victory and the fear of defeat, in the war of controversy.

Justly is the Calvinist reproved for attaching to his particular creed an unreasonable degree of importance, and for almost refusing to admit that those who differ from him have any claim to the appellation of Christians, Nov, as something to balance this, I have heard it asserted by a young heretical minister of the new discipline, to which his language may be supposed

not to do less justice than his talents and attainments do honour to it, that unless Christianity be professed under some particular form, it is in itself but a name; the plain English of which seems to be, that, if we take from our holy religion the subjects and matters about which its votaries have always disagreed, and will probably always disagree, that which is left, and in which they agree, is of little or no value. I flatter myself that many Unitarians will not be found to concur in this sentiment, or to adopt this language. Such as are disposed to do so I would refer to the preface to the late Bishop of Llandaff's Collection of Theological Tracts. We as Christians," says this excellent prelate," are under no uncertainty as to the being of a God; as to his moral government of the world; as to the terms on which sinners may be reconciled to him; as to the redemption that is in Jesus Christ ¡ as to a resurrection from the dead; as to a future state of retribution; nor with respect to other important questions concerning which the wisest of the Heathen philosophers were either wholly ignorant, or had no settled notions." I would ask, are these points of no value? Does the man who, withdrawing his attention from every other subject, yields a cordial and practical assent to them, adopt only a name? I am so much shocked at this imputation, that I scruple not to use the indignant language of the enlightened and truly catholic writer I have just cited."What! shall the Church of Christ never be freed from the narrow-minded contentions of bigots; from the insults of men who know not what spirit they are of?Shall we never learn to think more humbly of ourselves, and less despicably of others?"

:

Further it is objected, and, I believe, with reason that the system of Calvinism indisposes its professors to set a proper value on moral qualities and distinctions. This will not sur prise any one who considers attentively the leading tenets of that system; but I am much mistaken if I have not observed something of the same kind in Unitarians of the new school. An attention almost exclusive to any particular object, and an ardent pursuit of it necessarily enlarges its dimensions, enhances its importance, brings it for ward into the strongest light and

throws every thing else into the shade. Accordingly, proselytes are eagerly received among these modern heretics without much inquiry being made into any thing beyond their faith and zeal. Talents, however employed, and men tal energy, however directed, are held in the highest estimation. Licentiousness, both in principles and practice, is not indeed justified, but it is candidly palliated. Crimes are represented as objects rather of pity than of abhorrence. A system of ethics drawn chiefly from the German drama seenis to have superseded the old fashioned English morality. Purity and correctress of life and manners is undervalued. A fantastic, false, and, in my apprehension, a most pernicious standard of morals is exhibited, so that every thing tending to the amelioration of the world is hoped for from every thing, save from orthodoxy, and (what in these eventful times is its usual concomitant) loyalty.

If the young and ardent Unitarian happens to be a convert from Calvinism, the danger of his becoming the victim of these delusions is much increased. The lessons of his earlier instructors having for the most part been directed to infuse a theological system and a vehement zeal, were not likely to fur nish his mind with any very correct or vivid ideas of moral truth and beauty. The change produced by subsequent inquiry (honourable as it may be regarded to the talents and spirit with which it was pursued) may well be conceived to be a change in the speculative system, but no change in the temper or in the moral feelings. This evil, great as it is, seems to me to be very possible: that it has actually happened in the case of any individual I would not positively assert; but the intemperate zeal usually found in proselytes is, in circumstances like these, hardly to be avoided. To be zealously affected in a good thing is, indeed, a state of mind recommended by a very high authority, but the connexion in which the recommendation stands makes it extremely obvious that the diffusion of opinions merely speculative was not the good thing in the contem plation of the writer.

But without zeal (it may be asked) what great good has ever been effected in the way of reforming a corrupted religion? While I admit the usefulness, or rather the indispensable

necessity of zeal in this important work, I would remark that changes the most beneficial to mankind have been brought about by actions and characters which we would by no means propose as models for imitation. Luther did much more towards rescuing Europe from the debasing chains of superstition and imposture than Erasmus either performed or approved; but this is totally unconnected with any opinion we may be led to form of the personal qualities and Christian dispositions and virtues of these great men.

As connected with the zeal and animation of the pupils of the new Unitarian school may be considered their fondness for assembling together for the purposes of praying, preaching.. eating, drinking, toasting, &c. with all the concomitant exhibition of eloquence whether sacred or convivial. Far be it from me, Mr. Editor, who am an old recluse, wishing indeed well to the world, but not mixing in it, to blame or ridicule the social enjoyments of enlightened men; but I conceive the great cause of the diffusion of religious truth is not likely to be much assisted by these means. The societés ambulantes of our modern heretics, their visitations at different places in a district in succession, their public preachings and advertised festivities, accord ill with that reserve and modesty which is most suitable to the introduction of unpopular notions into a large community, of which a great majority are either hostile or indifferent. Public attention may, indeed, be somewhat excited, and occasional recruits are doubtless obtained to extend the ranks of the societies alluded to; but it may be questioned whether any number worth mentioning have been induced by these public efforts to review calmly the foundation of their religious belief, to discard former prejudices and to adopt from conviction the system recommended by an apparatus, of which it may be truly said that the expence and show of it are much more obvious than the utility, and by which persons of reflection and moderation, who are of a different way of thinking, are extremely disgusted. It is not at all unlikely that some very respectable individuals may be thus irrecoverably lost to the cause, and it is next to certain that the tongues of not a few controversial coxcombs have been thus let loose to its very great injury and disgrace. We

must be careful to distinguish between an actual change of sentiment and system from orthodoxy to the belief and profession of Unitarianism, and the mere enrolment of names of such as were previously Unitarians in the fist of the associated members. The former only is of any consequence. The number and importance of conversions of this description accomplished by the efforts of Unitarian societies travelling from place to place is a question of fact, which perhaps might be ascertained without much difficulty, but which, until ascertained, it would be impertinent to discuss on merely conjectural grounds.

To Unitarian missionary-preaching conducted ou a proper plan, such as that of the able and eminent Mr. Wright and others, I should be disposed to ascribe much more of useful officacy. Certainly many congregations professing Unitarianism have been lately formed, and their number seeins to be increasing; but whether the individuals composing them have been reclaimed from an opposite system, or, having experienced some deflection from a faith not very dissimilar, have merely assumed a different name, I have no means of determining. Whatever the fact may be, I conceive that if a late very distinguished advocate of our common Christianity has reference to Unitarians in the following sentence, very few of that description of heretics will be able to read it without a smile. Speaking of Sir Isaac Newton and his theology, Dr. Chalmers says, "I do not think that, amid the distraction and engrossment of his other pursuits, he has at all times succeeded in his interpretation of the book; else he would never, in my apprehension, haye abetted the leading doctrine of a sect or a system, which has now nearly dwindled away from public observation."

*

The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say lo, here, or lo, there. I have long persuaded myself that the same may be said of religious truth; and this persuasion has led me to view without alarm the apparently rapid growth of absurdity and intolerance assuming the titles of evangelical Christianity, vital religion, &c. &c. and not without pain the

* 4 Series of Discourses on the Christian Religion viewed in Connection with the Modern Astronomy. Preface, pp. 7, 8.

quackery and ostentation of some late. attempts to render an opposite system of speculative doctrines popular.

I

Happening to live on terms of familiarity with several persons zealously attached to the communion of the Church of England, I have no hesitation in affirming that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, they shew the marks and bear the fruits of pure and undefiled religion in as eminent a degree as can any where be found, at least if we agree with the Apostle James in his definition of these terms [chap. i. ver. 27]. Persons of this description have a claim to much consideration and respect. Many of them, holding the institutions of their fore, fathers in great veneration, are afraid to inquire, lest they should find cause to give them up as indefensible, conceive that much tenderness is due to these worthy but mistaken indivi duals. To liberate them from speculative error and from the slavery of prejudices, which, when pursued to their consequences, must materially injure their mental peace, is a most desirable object. Now this object is set at an immeasurable distance by the language and deportment of several modern champions of the Unitarian faith, who, when they cannot persuade, appear to think that they have done something by producing irritation and alarm. If they entertain the hope of spreading their heresy through the world by dint of numbers and physical force, their plan of operation, although not very promising, might be considered as not wholly unsuitable to the end in view, inasmuch as the generality of mankind are more disposed to yield to vehemence than to any other attribute or quality in a speaker or writer; but on the supposition of a different object, it is of all others the least likely to succeed. The means that are best fitted to infuse into the minds of moderate and well-informed lay-members of the Church of England an attachment to the pure and simple doctrines of the New Testament, and to rescue them from the influence of a priesthood either on the one hand fanatical, and, from principle, intolerant, or, on the other, secular and crafty, are also the means most likely of bringing them to the adoption and profession of Unitarian principles, and ultimately of diffusing these through the land, and, by inevitable consequence, of sweeping