not be, so we have not yet learnt to ridicule the woe which Jesus Christ pronounced against those through whom these offences should come. If the Test Laws answer not then the end for which they are supposed to be destined, if the repeal of them would open the door to offices no wider than the infirmity of Dissenters at present opens it; we are at a loss to conceive for what wise end they can be preserved, even though we should admit the wisdom of this world to be the sovereign wisdom. Is the spirit of party, are the provocations to hatred and jealousy on every ground which can stir the unpleasant passions of men, among the blessings of worldly wisdom? Alas! the world is at length sick of such blessings; and every nation almost but England is hastening to cut off the sources of them, to remit them to that Hell, from which they first issued to poison the streams of social and of civil peace, to pervert the better heart of man, and to pervert the best operation.

of the mild, the pleasant and friendly reli gion of Christ.

But for these ill-tempered, insulting and irreligious acts, the bonds of a common country, a common patriotism, a common law, and we will add a common religion, would blend the Dissenter and the Churchman in a frank and unsuspecting intercourse; the pride of an establishment and the jealousy of a sect would pass into oblivion ; and Britons would be no more offended with each other for the differences of religious faith and worship, in which the mind of each is gratified, than for the differences of taste in food and dress. Each molesting not each other, each would enjoy the common felicities of their country, and enjoy all the liberty which God designed for them, without finding any provocation to injury or to envy. If the magistrate had in every period meddled less with the differences of religion, nor dandled with such open fondness on his knee the child of his predilec

tion; had he been more temperate in his indulgences to her, nor with such rudeness and harshness thrown every other form of religion out of his countenance and protection; he would have better secured the quiet and prosperity of his state, less stirred the dæmons of anger and discord, and excited fewer of those convulsions which have shaken the most potent kingdoms to their base. Equal, or at least a decently equal treatment invites equal attachment and incites to equal services; but excessive partiality, in governments, as well as families, engenders strife and jealousy and hatred, and produces the two extremes of insolent favouritism and alienated affection.

There are who ask, with what view we solicit the repeal of these laws, if the more conscientious Dissenters decline the preferments of the state with the humiliation of their religion, and the less conscientious will not be repelled from them, though on the terms of a sacramental test. Whoever asks this question, subjects himself to a very se

rious dilemma: he admits that a sense of justice, a sense of honour, and a sense of religion are strange to his own mind, that they are things of whose operation he has no conception. As the act of their own will, it is no punishment to thousands to confine their movements within the limits of a single town; but all would feel the disgrace and the injury of being prohibited by law from visiting any part of the kingdom. A civil brand is that which no generous citizens can bear without complaining, without meditating redress, and least of all the citizen who can take his place upon the highest ground of civil merit.

The religion of a Dissenter must be the religion of his disinterested choice, as no other motive can be suggested where his country presents so many motives to a more accommodating conduct. And can a Dis

senter be expected to bear with patience that the religion of his conscience should be considered and treated as his crime, that his country should be his tempter to betray his conscience,

conscience, and that he should be secluded from the common rights of a citizen, under such penalties as are not inflicted on the worst of criminals, as in truth are worse than death itself? Let the Churchman, who, possessed of all that the state has to bestow, boasts of his indulgence to the Dissenter, and affects to wonder at his complaints, bring the question home to himself; let him ask himself how he would feel, if, with the same conscientious choice of his religion, he were treated by any civil government as the Dissenter is; and if he can plead no authority from the Almighty for his partial actings, let him learn to sympathize with the injuredand insulted Dissenter.

We trust therefore that our Appeal to our countrymen will have the desired effect, unless, honour, justice, and religion, and liberal policy be departed from this island. A cause more destitute of argument than. that of the Test Laws has never been embraced by men: impotent have been all the attempts of its ablest advocates to set them

forth

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