themselves and their application properly understood. It would have been barbarous, after the die was cast, to have thrown any discouragements in their way but I was of opinion, from the beginning, that they were come too soon: more preparation was requisite than they were aware of. The penal laws had reduced the Scotch Episcopal Church to a condition so depressed and obscure, that it could scarcely be known to exist, but by such persons as were previously acquainted with its history. Among these, none entered more willingly and warmly than the then good Dean of Canterbury. As soon as he heard of the arrival of the Scotch Bishops at London, he was anxious to let them know how heartily he approved of the object of their journey, and kindly offered every assistance in his power to bring the matter to a happy conclusion. He paid them every mark of attention both at London and Oxford; and, when they set out on their return to Scotland, without having attained their object, he expressed, in very affectionate terms, his concern at their disappointment, and told them at parting not to be discouraged; for, said he, "your cause is good, and your request so reasonable, that it "cannot long be denied."

In February 1791, after having taken his seat in the House of Lords as Bishop of Norwich, he wrote a friendly letter to Bishop Skinner of Aberdeen, assuring him and the other members of the Committee for managing the business of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, that any help in his power should be at their service: and speaking of their applying anew to both Houses of Parliament, he said, "It grieved him to think "they had so much heavy work to do over "again; but business of that sort required pa"tience and perseverance."

It was said about this time, that the Lord Chancellor, Thurlow, withheld his consent to the Scotch Episcopal Bill, till he should be satisfied by some of the English Prelates, that there really were Bishops in Scotland. When Bishop Horne was waited upon with this view by the Committee of the Scotch Church, and one of them observed, that his Lordship could assure the Chancellor they were good Bishops, he answered, with his usual affability and good humour, "Yes, Sir, much better bishops than "I am."

A clergyman of Scotland, who had received English ordination, applied to him, wishing to be considered as under the jurisdiction of some

English

English Bishop; that is, to be, in effect, independent of the Bishops of Scotland in their own country; but he gave no countenance to the proposal, and advised the person who made it quietly to acknowlege the Bishop of the diocese in which he lived, who, he knew, would be ready to receive him into communion, and require nothing of him, but what was necessary to maintain the order and unity of a Christian Church; assuring him, at the same time, that, if he were a private clergyman himself, he should be glad to be under the authority of such a Bishop. One, anecdote more upon this subject, and I have done.

From the present circumstances of its primitive orthodoxy, piety, poverty, and depressed state, he had such an opinion of this Church, as to think, that, if the great Apostle of the Gentiles were upon earth, and it were put to his choice with what denomination of Christians he would communicate, the preference would probably be given to the Episcopalians of Scotland, as most like to the people he had been used to. This happened, as I perfectly recollect, while we were talking together on the subject of the Scotch Petition, on one of the hills near the city of Canterbury, higher than the pinnacles of

the Cathedral, where there was no witness to our discourse but the sky that was over our heads; and yet, when all things are duly considered, I think no good man would have been if he had overheard us.

angry,

If the reader should wish to know more of the people of this communion, let him consult an Ecclesiastical History of the Church of Scotland, by Mr. Skinner, father to the present worthy Bishop of Aberdeen; a history comprehending a plain and unaffected detail of facts very interesting and amusing: and I hope he will also be convinced by the narrative I have here given, not only that the Bishops of Scotland are true Christian Bishops, but that the Bishops of England, from the part they kindly took in the affair, do little deserve the clamour which some have raised against them, as if they were so dazzled by their temporalities, as to lose sight of their spiritual character, and bury the Christian Bishop in the Peer of Parliament.

The year 1789 was the fatal period, when French infidelity, with all the enthusiastic fury of fanaticism, which it had affected to abhor, rose up to destroy all regal authority, to extirpate all religion, to silence with the halter or

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the

the axe all that were not with them; and, in consequence of their success at home, undertook to shake, and dissolve, if possible, all the kingdoms of the world. When this tremendous form of wickedness first appeared, it happened that I was at Canterbury, on a visit to the Dean; and being called upon to preach in the Cathedral, I took the subject of the time, and freely delivered my own sense of it; which is now, I believe, the universal sense of all that are true friends to this country. But some persons, to whose affairs a similar Revolution in England would have been of great service, were very much offended; and one of them abused me grossly for it in a Newspaper. Not many weeks after, the Dean himself, on a Court holiday, took the same subject in the same. pulpit; in consequence of which, the same person that had reviled me was heard to declare, that his sermon ought to be burned by the hangman. When he informed me by letter of this accident, he observed upon it in his easy way, that, as our doctrines, in bad times, would certainly bring us both to the lamp-post, it might then be said of us "in their death they were "not divided." The character of the man, who had treated us with all this insolence, was