neither sacrilege, nor robbery. Religious consistency certainly demands at the hands of those who from principle, not mere expediency, are the opponents of all entangling alliances between church and state, and all prospective endowment of the former by the latter, that they should equally repudiate what has already been wrongly done in this matter, as well as guard against the like perversions in future. If we interrogate the experiments already made, in reference to the safety, yea, the beneficial influence of such a change, the answer will be found most satisfactory. Even in Virginia, this same Episcopal Church, which anticipated complete ruin by the loss of its establishment, and especially the forfeiture of its endowment, and where the elements of entire destruction seemed all combining for that catastrophe, the change from reliance on state patronage, to the vigorous endeavors for the faithful performance of evangelical ministrations, has been most salutary. A change, scarcely less favorable and marked, has been witnessed in some of the New England States, where Congregationalism has been made more condescending, more spiritual, zealous and self-denying, by the deprivation of the secular arm, and hence has become eminently more useful to the community, more successful in the furtherance of its own most laudable and important objects. Dr. Hawks clearly perceives, at times certainly, the folly of attempting to promote genuine religion by compulsory laws. His just and well-expressed opinion, on this point, is thus given :-"To coerce men into the outward exercise of religious acts by penal laws, is indeed possible; but to make them love either the religion that is thus enforced, or those who enforce it, is beyond the reach of human power. There is an inherent principle of resistance to oppression, seated in the very constitution of most men, which disposes them to rebel against the arbitrary exercise of violence seeking to give direction to opinions; and it is not therefore to be wondered at, that one sanguinary law to compel men to live piously, should beget the necessity for more." The zealous burgesses of Virginia, moved with scrupulous fear that some parents would refuse or neglect to bring their unconscious babes to what they called "the divine sacrament of baptism," sagely decreed in 1662 that for every such offence (when the parent might bring his child to a lawful minister within the county), he should be fined 2,000 pounds of tobacco, half to the parish, and half to the informer. No wonder that such compulsion rapidly multiplied Baptists in that colony. In the year 1696, the legislature, fearing there would be a too scanty supply of good ministers, generously raised their annual stipend to 16,000 pounds of tobacco, with the use of the glebe, generally an extensive farm, with an eligible mansion. It was the attempted enforcement of this claim for tobacco, which brought out Patrick Henry's first display of forensic eloquence, a century and a half later, and laid the foundation for his future renown. The character of many of the clergy of the Episcopal church in that day, especially of some who then emigrated to the colony, is thus described:-" Many came, such as wore black coats, and could babble in a pulpit, roar in a tavern, exact from their parishioners, and rather by their dissoluteness destroy than feed the flock." Nearly a century later, viz. in 1755, it is lamented that so many who are a disgrace to the ministry, find opportunity to fill the parishes. Under such circumstances, it is no wonder that the colonists, in whom any sense of the importance of religious ministrations still lived, should actually send, as some of them did, an humble petition to Massachusetts, both to the legislature and gentlemen of influence in the community, beseeching them to send ministers of the gospel into that region, that its inhabitants might be privileged with the preaching and the ordinances of Jesus Christ. In answer to this request, three of the puritan ministers went to Virginia; and though they found little encouragement from the rulers (being in fact interdicted by law and threatened with banishment if they persisted to preach), they nevertheless had a kind entertainment from the people. Governor Winthrop says, that "though the state did silence the ministers, because they would not conform to the order of England, yet the people resorted to them in private houses to hear them." About the middle of the seventeenth century, Harrison, the pastor of an Independent or Congregational church, was banished from the colony, and perforce returned to Massachusetts. This was meting out to that colony the same hard and unchristian measure which she had visited just before on one of her own ministry, the pious and learned Roger Williams. But pedo-baptists, whether Episcopalians or Puritans, had not then learned, and for a long time afterward failed to perceive the sacredness of the rights of conscience. The true light of religious freedom* had dawned in Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations; it shone upon their darkness, but the darkness would not yet receive it. But we must not detain our readers longer on these interesting volumes. They are models of their kind, well worthy of general imitation. The contrast between their spirit in several respects above commended, and that of the assuming little pamphlet called "THE CHURCH Almanac," is really amusing. Judging from the lofty pretensions of this Manual, there is no other church but theirs. Each of their diocesans is bishop of the State, with which his name stands connected, not of the Episcopal churches in it, as others less haughty would with more truth denominate them. As if to show the certainty of this lordly and exclusive claim, in the summary prefixed to each state, the clergy, the square miles, the population, and the bishop, are all put down, as indicating their assumed relation of sole proprietors of the entire domain. To carry out this farcical pretence, after summing up the whole number of bishops and clergy belonging to "the Church of the United States," amounting to 1,463, and omitting to state the number of their members or communicants, they add, as the closing line of this pompous and baseless assumption, that "The population of the United States belonging to this church is estimated at 2,000,000." Though this is one cipher too many, a boast at least ten times too large, as we will presently show, yet it is somewhat consoling to be allowed to infer from this doubtful admission, that possibly there may be some of the remaining eighteen millions of our population, who have connection with some other pretended churches; thongh of the existence of any such, the remainder of the pamphlet is studiously oblivious. The number of churches or parishes of this denomination, in the Union, is something over 1,200, and the entire * Not mere toleration, the boast of the Maryland Colony,-which falls immeasurably short of soul-liberty. membership is set down, in their last returns, as about 67,000. In the Methodist Episcopal Church in this country, it is not pretended that the entire adherents of the population are more than three times as large as their communicants, or church members. But the discipline of the Methodists is doubtless far more stringent and faithful than that of the Episcopalians, and the facilities for joining the latter and remaining in nominal union with its communion, are greater than in the former. It may therefore be justly regarded as a large allowance, if we admit the population of the United States belonging to this church to be three times as great as its communicantsin round numbers 200,000. This would give, on an average, to each one of their parish churches, 56 cominunicants, and 166 hearers: and from what we have witnessed of them in four fifths of all the states, we should think the estimate a reasonable one. So little foundation is there for this wild vaunting of two millions of our population attached to this church! Such swellings in this little body can scarce fail to remind one of the ambitious endeavors of Esop's frog. With fraternal kindness, we beg leave to remind the compilers of this Annual of the great desirableness of their copying hereafter the model of one of their own presbyters, above commended. The next denomination, in the order of their appearing in the Union, is the Congregationalists. As descendants of the pilgrims, their landing on Plymouth rock in 1620— more than a dozen years after the setting up of the Episcopal standard in Virginia-is an event the world will not care to forget; or if it did, their own declaration of the importance and value of their agency, has not been omitted. Their history, however, for the first century and a half of their career, is so mixed up with the state affairs, and the record of the latter has so fully embraced that of the former, that it has not been thought requisite to give it in separate form. The materials are ample, yea redundant, for the composition of the history of the Congregationalists, by itself; and such a work, written in a candid and liberal spirit, meting out blame when deserved, as well as the honorable award of many sterling excellencies, would be eminently deserving of attentive study. No doubt those who suffered wrong and injury at their hands may have been prejudiced against them VOL. XIII.-NO. L. 16 and the brazen attempt recently made in several instances to falsify all history, by maintaining that they did not persecute for religious opinions, will only perpetuate such prejudices. Better for both parties, it certainly must be, to admit what the truth so clearly demands, that exclusiveness and intolerance were the easily besetting sins of these otherwise noble men. The writer of such a history would find many instructive lessons derivable from the relations of these Congregational churches, to other branches of the body of Christ. In tracing the causes which led to the simultaneous defection of so many of them to Unitarianism, while of the Baptist churches, side by side with them, not one followed so bad an example,a thorough, earnest purpose to find the truth, would scarcely fail to develop the malign influence of infant baptism, and its corrupting tendencies. Another interesting inquiry, which such a history should furnish the means of solving, would relate to the effect of those affiliations of churches, the consociation system, which so largely assimilates them in practice to the polity of the Presbyterians, -with whom indeed, in most things they harmonize, -on their progress in states where the Presbyterians were earliest planted. It would strike the mind with some surprise surely, that Congregationalism, at this late day, has not established itself in quite one half the states of the Union. Considering the wealth, intelligence, zeal and early planting of this denomination in our country, and the adaptation of their system to our democratic institutions, it would at first sight seem strange that they have not spread more widely, and witnessed a larger increase. But to a great extent they have doubtless given their efforts to build up Presbyterianism, instead of perpetuating their own system. Whether this has been wise and well, some of their 1,800 churches and 1,600 ministers may now begin to doubt. The entire membership is now 177,668. The adhering population may be four times as great, or three fourths of a million. The next place, in the order of time, belongs to the Baptists; but wishing, in the sequel, to give to their history an ample consideration, we will now pass to the Friends or Quakers, who were but little later in their planting in the country than the Baptists, and experienced similar persecutions. George Fox, their founder, person |