many excellent men. I know of no body of Christians where, on the whole, more piety is to

be found. I know of none where the piety is of a nobler cast. I know of no services better calculated to chastise the excesses, without chaining down the free spirit, of devotion. One of the excellencies of the Church is, that the moderate generally love her. Another is this, that the immoderate usually condemn her. And a third, that her formularies contain a body of truths nearer to the opinions of all contending parties than the opinions of those parties are to each other; and that, consequently, they in a measure present a common centre to the disputants of all ages and countries. And when, to cheer my aged eyes, I conjure up those visions of universal harmony in the Church of Christ which many of my ancestors delighted to contemplate, I can fancy no hands which are better calculated to tie the holy bands of universal union and love than those of our mother the Church. It is

true that her venerable garment is not without a few spots-spots, I grieve to say, inflicted by some of her unworthy children. But let them, in the strength of their God, arise; let them cleanse her from the smallest stain of a secular spirit, of bigotry, or of indifference, which may cleave to her; let her be "brought to the King" in her own spotless and holy robe; and many "virgins "—many a community of pure and simple Christians, hitherto alienated from her community, partly by prejudice, partly by the misconduct of her professed friends-shall "become her companions," and shall "enter" with her "into the King's palace." I may not live to see the union; but my old veins seem to beat with new life, when I allow myself to coutemplate, even at a distance, the day in which my honoured countrymen will all remember they are brethren," and no longer "fall out by the way."

But I have digressed from the history of what

I was at that time to describe, my present feelings. At the point of my story where this digression took place, nothing could be farther from my mind than any such thoughts or desires. I disliked Religion, and in the same degree disliked the Church.

And here I close this chapter, in order to give the reader an opportunity of asking himself one of the two following questions:

1st, Whether his own religion does not consist chiefly in bitter hostility to the forms of the Church of England?

2d, Whether it does not consist chiefly in empty reverence for those forms?

If the reader plead guilty to the charge involved in the last of these questions, I most affectionately beg to remind him how studiously the Church herself exposes this error, and how zealously she repels such heartless and unmeaning homage.-If, on the contrary, he plead guilty to the former, I beg him to recollect, that

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a hatred of form is just as much bigotry, and just as little religion, as a mere attachment to it. And if, unhappily, he should be displeased with this information, all the revenge I will take is, to wish, and to pray, that he may become as good and as happy as the combined spirit and form of the Church of England have a tendency to render him. And happier or better than this, I expect to see no man on this side the grave.

CHAP. XII.

AN EVENT ABOUT WHICH NO SCEPTIC EVER DOUBTED.

How long, without any change of circumstances, I might have continued in the same cheerless state, or to what lower depth of infidelity and wretchedness I might have sunk, it is impossible to say: but as I was one day sitting in my rooms, in an arm-chair which was the favourite scene of my musings, and was diligently reading a celebrated work on "the hidden joys of free-thinking," an express suddenly brought me the intelligence that my aunt Winifred was dead.

"Dead!" said I to the servant: "What! suddenly, and without any warning?”

"Dead!" he replied; " and, as my mistress always said, it is a happy release.""