Now, the question has actually oning must come, were reviled been brought forward in Parlia- by you. You, and your whole

ment. Yes, in that very parliament which you asserted was the best thing in the world, it has now been plainly proposed to touch

your temporalities; and, that they

body, were always for the war. Even the seat-fillers seemed, at times, to be alarmed at the consequences; but, you were always for fighting on!

no

For more than a quarter of a

A

century all your petitions, ad

will be touched, and pretty deeply too, no rational man has any doubt. That this is just in a legal dresses, charges, and sermons point of view nobody can deny; breathed vigorous prosecution of and, that it is just in a moral point the war abroad and rigorous treatof view is still, if possible, more ment of the "disaffected" at evident. The Debt was con-home. You had been heard by tracted to carry on the late wars; us, from our infancy, denouncing those wars were carried on at the the Catholic religion as idolatrous instigation of several classes of and damnable; we had heard you persons, but the persons who denominating the Pope as Anti

Christ; we had heard you call him the Whore of Babylon; the Scarlet Whore drunk with the blood of the saints; we had heard you going on at this rate from our

wars; all those who represented the evil consequences that must infancy; what were we to think, arise from the Debt that the wars then, when we found you mad were creating; all those who re- with zeal, burning with rage, fused to rejoice at what were called for war against those who had victories purchased with the loans put down the Catholic religion that constituted that Debt; all and the Whore of Babylon? those who said, that a day of reck-What were we to think of your

motives? Here, if you had told it were true, that the French had

us truth from our infancy; here was a great good accomplished.

become Atheists, it did not seem possible, that the change, accord

1

could have been for the worse; for, though Atheism might be very bad, it remained for you to prove,

You had been preaching and ing to your former teachings, praying against this Anti-Christ for about three hundred years; and, when some men arose, and put him down, actually unhorsed that it could be worse than that him, you cried out for a war of "damnable" thing that existed extermination against those men! before it. Atheism might cause And, what is more, you supported, with all your might, those who voted immense sums of money out of English taxes to be given to

support the fugitive priests of "Anti-Christ."

It was impossible that we should behold a thing so singular and so striking as this without reflecting

men to be damned, but what could it do more to them? And, therefore, it seemed the strangest thing in the world, that you should imbibe so implacable a rage against the French people. They had a "damnable" belief before, and they had no more now; and, as they had begun to change at

on it; without looking a little the end of twelve hundred years, deeper than the surface. You they might go on changing pos

sibly till they came right at last.

And yet, you, upon their very

called the French people rebels and atheists, and reviled them particularly for having abolished first change, upon their very first the "Christian religion;" and shaking off Anti-Christ, denounee you called on us to make war against them the vengeance of against them on that account. It exterminating war!

was curious enough, that the reli

To find a solution of conduct

gion of "Anti-Christ" now be- so strange would appear imposcame Christian religion; and, if sible; but, let us try it. The

priests of "Anti-Christ" had false religion, there could be no

tithes; (Ah!) and those tithes reason, no good cause, for taking were abolished by the "Atheists!" the tithes from them and giving Oh, naughty" Atheists!" But, them to you. But, seeing that here we must go back a little. they followed" Anti- Christ,” Read my 12th Sermon; a better there was quite sufficient reason sermon than any of you ever for this memorable transfer.

But (and now we come to the touchstone?) the French made no such transfer! They put down Anti-Christ," but they put down tithes too! This was their crime.

more productive of effect than all that the whole of you have preached during your whole lives; a sermon that shows, that tithes are not necessary to produce ser- They abolished tithes; they turnmons. Read that Sermon, which ed out the lazy impostors called has been circulated to the amount regular clergy," who were reof twenty thousand copies, not-gular in nothing but in gormanwithstanding Sidmouth's Circular dizing, drinking, and wallowing and the Six-Acts. Read that in all sorts of luxurious vices; Sermon, fire-shovel-hat men; read they freed the land of its greatest that, and then you will discover, that the whole nation sees pretty clearly, that the tithes in England and Ireland were given, origi- these things the French people nally, to the priests of what you did, and they were called “ AtheA called an “idolatrous and damna-ists," and their former priests, ble" religion, which priests were instead of being still called priests supplanted by you in the enjoy-of the Whore of Babylon, became ment of those tithes. If those all of a sudden, Christian priests had not been very bad, Priests!" That religion, which had not been the teachers of a was before" idolatrous and dam

curse; they drove away the vile drones and left the bees to enjoy the honey of their own collecting;

nable," now became an object off of reckoning is, however, now affection with those who had so come; and (oh, how just is God!)

it is come while the French people are enjoying the abolition of

foully abused it, and we were to be at the expense of a war of extermination to cause it, and all tithes, and also the abolition of all belonging to it, to be re-esta- those privileges which made noblished! The French were ene-bility a curse. The French namies of all religion; that is to tion is enjoying all the fair fruits say, enemies of all tithes; and, of its valour and wisdom; all the whoop! for war until they were fair fruits of its wise and just punished! abolitions, while this nation is There is not a man in England torn and distracted by the Debt who has only a moderate portion and the other intolerable burdens of common sense, who needs to of that very war, which was have said to him another word kindled and persevered in to cause upon this part of the subject. the example of those abolitions to be of no effect here.

Well, then, on went the war. To carry it on without loans was impossible. To suffer a nation to abolish nobility and tithes,

and to remain in that state, to be happy in that state, was a thing

not to be thought of. No matter, therefore, what the cost. No

matter what Debt, or how to be

These burdens have now to be borne, or to be got rid of. To bear them without a transfer of the land from the present owners (unless they be tax-eaters top) is impossible. The Debt is clearly ascribable solely to the war. The Waterloo charge, or what the Ministers call the dead charge, is also expressly the fruit of the

thought of; but, that was nothing tithe war. They take care to say when compared with the effect of this. They take care to disfimthe terrible example. The day guish this charge from the change

of the year: They call it, and can be disposed of, in order to Thus, then, pay the Debt without selling their

own estates for that purpose. And, what public property is there so clearly "available” as that of tithes and other things belonging

justly call it, Debt. out of the sixty millions of taxes, forty millions, at least, is due to the war. To pay in gold, or some thing approaching it, is now absolutely necessary; for, if you do to what is vulgarly called "the not, the THING is done for the Church?"{This, therefore, will other way. And yet, to pay means be applied to the purpose, of something. It means the transfer-course; and, indeed, there is ring of estates, the whole of which notice of a specific motion on the must, with the present taxes, go subject, to be made early in the to the creditors of the 'Change, next Session of Parliament! those of Waterloo, and to the This is so reasonable, so natural tax-eaters of various descriptions. a measure, and withal so populär, What, in such a state of things, that it will be sure to meet with are the landlords to do? Deduct no impediment worth speaking of. from Jerusalem or from Waterloo It is a measure that every body is they cannot without reform. De-for, except the Clergy themselves. duct from the Horse Guards they It will be curious, to be sure, to cannot, while all the rest is to be see the tithes applied to the dispaid for. Deduct from Whitehall they cannot, that is to say, from placemen, pensioners, and other Civil List people; for these are the grease and tar of the wagon of appropriate retaliation which the state. What, then, are the landlords to do? They must look about them, to be sure, to see whether way in which the French paid off there he no public property that their Debt. They gave the own

charge of a Debt, contracted to carry on a war of extermination against tithe abolishers; but, this will not be the first instance of

history of nations has presented to obstinate man. This was the