poverty to account! The desolate widow of fourscore, the homeless, friendless, forlorn wretch, who has survived every thing but his misery, and the pauper infant born but to die, and happy in its lot,-all must be taxed on their way to the only place where the weary are at rest from clerical oppression, to pamper the pride and nourish the luxury of an Established Priesthood!

But, Sir, in this Act there is another feature which fearfully distinguishes it from all its predecessors. While, like the other Acts, it starts with the plan of consecrated and unconsecrated ground, it contains the extraordinary provision (clause 180), “That it shall be lawful for the Bishop of London, for the time being, if the same shall be deemed expedient by the Directors for the time being, to consecrate the whole of the Cemetery." This is a most ominous clause! The spirit and the principle of it extend far beyond these cities of the dead. Let those Dissenters who have purchased graves and vaults in the unconsecrated ground look to themselves. Let them mark the consequences of this clause, when it comes to be acted upon, to themselves and to their descendants.

But to return to the "mystery." The Act of Parliament Cemeteries have all lent themselves most basely to further the Bishop's ends. They not only charge Dissenters more than is just, to conceal the fact of the enormous clerical taxes to which he has subjected them, but are positively guilty of deceiving the public. In all the scales of fees which lie before us, with a single exception, the Companies are guilty of this charge. That of Kensal-green, for instance, contains this notice: "No fees whatever are payable by the parties, to any parish FROM OR THROUGH which bodies may be removed for interment in this Cemetery." The same declaration, verbatim, occurs in the scale of the Norwood Cemetery. Nay, incredible as it may seem, even the West of London and Westminster Company, the Model Company, that on which the parson-and-clerk tax of eleven shillings per corpse has been imposed-even they have the impudence to employ the very same terms verbatim et literatim. Contemptible fiction! "No fees whatever are payable by the parties to any parish." What then? In all cases, large fees, and in some cases enormous fees, are payable and paid to every parish by the

"The parties," to

Companies? And who reimburses them? be sure! Was there ever a more discreditable collusion among bodies of persons claiming to be gentlemen, men of truth and honour? Instead of resenting a vile vassalage to the Bishop, bidding him bold defiance, and appealing to the nation, they have meanly bowed to his yoke, and become his associates as well as instruments in oppressing the British public. This prudence and caution are, no doubt, indispensable to the success of the measure. Were the clerical tax to be honestly set down as a separate item in the bill of dues at the Act-of-Parliament Cemeteries, we should soon want an Abney Park at every point of the compass, where the dead might descend into the grave at least without taxation! Sir, the Liberal Members of your Honourable House have taken too much for granted. They have silently allowed you to go thus far without interruption; but they will ere long explode your machinations in a voice of thunder!

Sir, before we conclude we must record a significant circumstance. We have proved that the presumption and rapacity of the clergy have gone on increasing from year to year, and that each new Cemetery Act has been, in some feature, an advance on all its predecessors. There is yet, however, another feature in the Tower Hamlets Act, which merits especial notice as an illustration of their growing confidence and rising pride. In the Acts for Kensal-green, Highgate, Nun Head, Norwood, and Westminster, while the several Companies are compelled, at all times, to show their books, the incumbents are uniformly bound to pay "one shilling for every such inspection." But the Act for the Tower Hamlets, the last Act passed, provides that "such books shall be, at all seasonable times, open to the inspection of the incumbents of the several parishes or ecclesiastical districts, or any person employed by them, without fee or reward." How exactly do the modern apostolicals correspond to the ancient Pharisees! "They devour widows' houses, and, for a pretence, make long prayers. They bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." They pour taxes like a shower upon the Cemeteries; and all

the family of the dead must submit to the hard necessity. They alone rest in the midst of labour; they alone are free where all are fettered. Will they pay?—NO, NOT A SHILLING!

October 27, 1842.

LETTER VI.

THE PROPRIETY OF SUPPORTING THE CLERGY BY TAXES UPON DEAD BODIES, CONSIDERED.

SIR, It is doubly cruel in you, a Scotchman, and by birth, we may presume, a Presbyterian Dissenter from the Episcopal Church, to put yourself forward, not only to wrong and oppress us, the Dissenters of England, but also to deepen the already deep degradation of her Established Clergy. If you love them, you act unwisely. Can their worst enemy wish to see them further humbled? Their position, for many ages, in relation to the sepulture of the whole country, but especially in regard to that of the great towns and cities, and, above all, of the Metropolis, has been most unseemly in itself, and most pernicious in its effects on religion. It is clear, that, when you began your inquiry, you knew nothing about the subject; else you would have conducted yourself very differently, when your foolish witness, Whittaker, told you, that the "Dissenting ministers make more by the dead than by the living." The point and antithesis of the allegation exceedingly captivated you. You were deeply vexed, when, under cross-examination, the fellow was obliged to retract his words, and the thing was spoiled. Nevertheless, you thought it decent, even after the retraction, to repeat the falsehood to your witness Walker, as a fact, and to inquire if he could explain the puzzle! Will you have the goodness to tell us the ground of your surprise and anxiety on these occasions? Were you shocked at the alleged fact, as disclosing a revolting means of subsistence for men sustaining the character of Christian ministers? Or, were you offended and astonished to find, that the Dissenting ministers had the temerity to claim and seize a share of the spoils of Death, as well as the "lawful" lords of

the land of forgetfulness, the Established Clergy? It appears to us, that the former was your feeling. Your pure Presbyterian taste revolted from the disgusting idea, that Christian Pastors should be mainly supported by a poll-tax upon the dead! It would seem as if, for the moment, you deemed that such an enormity, even had it stood alone, was sufficient warrant for the introduction of a Bill for its suppression. You had not advanced much further, however, when you discovered, that the parochial clergy were themselves in the alleged predicament. Your professed desire from the first, indeed, to respect their "rights," shows that you knew that they had some interest — a genteel sort of claim, of course,-a pretty picking-in the matter; but you never dreamed that, in the Metropolis, death was, in numerous cases, the source of nearly all their living. What were your thoughts, when Parson followed Parson, each telling you that he was mainly dependent for the supply of the wants of every passing day, upon the sickness, sorrow, and death of his Parishioners? What were your feelings when the Mitred Lord himself, in the capacity of a Witness, as we have already stated in a former Letter, looked you calmly in the face and said: "You cannot expect men, the principal part of whose subsistence, in some cases, depends upon the fees arising from a practice that has hitherto not been complained of, willingly to give up the whole source of that income without some compensation?"

How did you relish this intimation? Did it teach you the imprudence of your course relative to the Dissenters? Sir, we beg now to assure you, that the shame or the glory of such a state of things belongs exclusively to your clients, the clergy. The words of the Bishop, just cited, could not be spoken with truth of a single pastor of any class of Protestant Dissenters. No! They live by the living, not by the dead. True Protestant Dissenters rejoice to walk by the Scripture rule, which injoins that " He who is taught in the word, shall communicate to him that teacheth in all good things."

His Lordship also showed you, that this state of things, whatever be its character, was not limited to pauper parishes, but largely obtained even in districts chiefly inhabited by the aristocracy. He proved to you, that, in 1838, the burial-fees in St. George's, Hanover-square, amounted to the large sum of

H

5977. 17s.; in St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, to 7647. 16s. 6d.; in St. George's, Bloomsbury, to 2731. 7s. 6d. ; in St. Andrew's, Holborn, to 3067. Os. 1d.; in Paddington, to 4947. 14s.; and then summed up all in the general proposition, "that a large part of the Clergymen's income depends upon the result, in some shape or other, of the Burials." This phrase, "in some shape or other," is significant, and receives its interpretation from other parts of the Bishop's evidence. In addition to the "regular fees," he told you, there were "the complimentary fees," and likewise "what are called 'the fittings,' which in some parishes amount to a considerable sum annually." This is not all: his Lordship further told you, that, by the shutting up of the Metropolitan Burial-grounds, "the clergy would lose the fees upon monuments, and grave-stones, and tablets."

Sir, have ye considered this system, and pondered the facts by which it is upheld and characterised? Is it congruous with the feelings of an enlightened age, with the spirit of the institutions of a free country, and with the principles of the Gospel of Christ? Will it abide the scrutiny of thinking men? Would the inquiry end in praise or in execration,-in the maintenance of the system, or in its destruction? Your adopted or adopting Mother claims to be the Church, the Apostolic Church: and her surpliced sons call themselves the successors of the Apostles! Surely, Sir, in such claims, burlesque has attained its climax! But we forget ourselves. It had almost escaped us, that Paul has actually left a description of his "Successors," which but too well harmonizes with much that we hear and see. You will no doubt remember his awful words: "I know this, that, after my departure, shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock." In recent controversies, men have too much confounded Apostolic semblance with Apostolic succession. Let the error be corrected. We concede the claim to those who clamour for it. The honour or the infamy is their own. We envy them neither their success nor their Succession. Was it thus that the Apostles and their co-adjutors were supported? Did they, throughout heathen lands, tax the youthful pair, when their plighted troth was sealed by matrimonial union? Did they tax the trembling mother on each first appearance after childbirth in the sanctuary of religion? Did they tax the dust of their