of truth, and that is, not to rest until a Church speaking so uncertainly be again reformed, and brought
nearer to the principles of the Reformation: that is, to the principles of the pure, sincere word of God.
There is a great contest going on in the world; we have not only to contend against Roman Papacy, but we
have to contend against Anglo-Papacy." With the comment of these admirable sentences let the reader
compare the Bishop of London's charge; and still more the recent public addresses of such men as
Dr. Philpotts, Dr. Bagot, and Dr. Wilberforce; and say whether the indignation so expressed against
Popery be not simply the irritation of a would-be rival popedom. They advance the most insolent
pretensions, in the very act of repelling the insolence of others; and would resist an organisation against
human liberty, by an authority as powerful, compact, exclusive, and domineering. They deny the
spiritual supremacy of the Queen, they affirm the sacredness of the Episcopal office, they claim
unbroken descent from Apostolic times, and they challenge for the "Anglican" priesthood the precise
authority and power which it possessed in the three first centuries of Christianity. In short they
ignore the Reformation altogether, except so far as it secures them their benefices; and set up in its
place those preternatural pretensions, and that mystical character, which, during the whole of the present
agitation, has been more heartily denounced than even Popery itself by the manly intelligence and
spirit of Englishmen. These are the men that now require watching yet more than the Cardinal and his
master. These are the men to be now, if ever, dispossessed of the power of future mischief. Our danger from
them is not the less because their outcry is just now loudest against the common danger. The more they
bully the Pope at present, the better their chance of escape from what is so richly their own due. Perhaps
no man ever said more insulting things of Popery and its advocates than the Bishop of Oxford, the other
day, to his clergy; and this at the very instant when he was claiming for his own Church precisely that
for which all freemen hate the Church of Rome. He called Popery by every evil name; charged it with
all abominable and hypocritical practices; and, himself the brother of a Romish convert, with marvellous
taste selected a particular Romish convert for the special vials of his wrath and scorn. Father Spencer, it
seems, has lately been recommending a general conversion of the families of England, by means of the
scullery-maids; and this proposition, which one would have thought harmless enough, Dr. Wilberforce
protested had made his heart's blood run cold. "To think," he exclaims, "that such words should be used by
one bearing one of the noblest names in English history, and born in all those particulars of freedom which have
so long given to the English mind that frankness of character, honesty, and openness of purpose, and the
firm determination to hate and oppose all that is subtle and unclean, because untrue, for which it is
distinguished!" Wondrous that the indignant speaker did not think of the mutato nomine, &c.! It is for
others to do so. It is for Englishmen generally to examine into the nature and power of the influence
which has converted no less than three members of a family "bearing one of the noblest names of English
history" into allies and furtherers of Romish superstition, open or concealed. The first and greatest of the
family knew it well, and his life was, for the most part, devoted to open antagonism with it. No man more
resolutely opposed High Church pretensions than William Wilberforce. No man more hated priestcraft, or
preached with a more ardent zeal the necessity of breaking down the organisation by which alone its evil
potency is continued in England.

The conclusion of the great task, in whose commencement he was one of the leading workers, is the duty
that now waits the people of England. They are called to a new Reformation, and ought not to shrink
from that glorious labour. They will thus prove that love of the Church and love of freedom may be one
indeed; and that English history, which has but one such example to show in the past, may for the future
be filled with its triumphant manifestations.

NARRATIVE OF POLITICS.

The following Letter from Lord John Russell to the
Bishop of Durham has been published. It is dated the
4th inst.

MY DEAR LORD,—I agree with you in considering "the late
aggression of the Pope upon our Protestantism" as "insolent
and insidious," and I, therefore, feel as indignant as you can do
upon the subject.

I not only promoted, to the utmost of my power, the claims of
the Roman Catholics to all civil rights, but I thought it right,
and even desirable, that the ecclesiastical system of the Roman
Catholics should be the means of giving instruction to the numerous
Irish immigrants in London and elsewhere, who without
such help would have been left in heathen ignorance.

This might have been done, however, without any such
innovation as that which we have now seen.

It is impossible to confound the recent measures of the Pope
with the division of Scotland into dioceses by the Episcopal
Church, or the arrangement of districts in England by the
Wesleyan Conference.

There is an assumption of power in all the documents which
have come from Rome—a pretension to supremacy over the
realm of England, and a claim to sole and undivided sway, which
is inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, with the rights of
our Bishops and Clergy, and with the spiritual independence of
the nation, as asserted even in the Roman Catholic times.

I confess, however, that my alarm is not equal to my
indignation.

Even if it shall appear that the ministers and servants of the
Pope in this country have not transgressed the law, I feel
persuaded that we are strong enough to repel any outward attacks.
The liberty of Protestantism has been enjoyed too long in
England to allow of any successful attempt to impose a foreign
yoke upon our minds and consciences. No foreign Prince or
Potentate will be permitted to fasten his fetters upon a nation
which has so long and so nobly vindicated its right to freedom of
opinion, civil, political, and religious.

Upon this subject, then, I will only say that the present state
of the law shall be carefully examined, and the propriety of
adopting any proceedings with reference to the recent assumption
of power deliberately considered.

There is a danger, however, which alarms me much more than
any aggression of a foreign Sovereign.

Clergymen of our own Church, who have subscribed the
Thirty-nine Articles, and acknowledged in explicit terms the
Queen's supremacy, have been the most forward in leading their
flocks, "step by step, to the very verge of the precipice." The
honour paid to saints, the claim of infallibility for the Church,
the superstitious use of the sign of the Cross, the muttering of
the Liturgy so as to disguise the language in which it is written,
the recommendation of auricular confession, and the administration
of penance and absolution—all these things are pointed out
by Clergymen of the Church of England as worthy of adoption,
and are now openly reprehended by the Bishop of London in his
Charge to the Clergy of his diocese.

What, then, is the danger to be apprehended from a foreign
Prince of no great power, compared to the danger within the
gates from the unworthy sons of the Church of England herself?

I have little hope that the propounders and framers of these
innovations will desist from their insidious course. But I rely
with confidence on the people of England, and I will not bate a
jot of heart or hope so long as the glorious principles and the
immortal martyrs of the Reformation shall be held in reverence
by the great mass of a nation which looks with contempt on the
mummeries of superstition, and with scorn at the laborious
endeavours which are now making to confine the intellect and
enslave the soul. I remain with great respect &c.

Many addresses to the bishops from the clergy of their
respective dioceses have received replies from the
reverend prelates:—

The Archbishop of Canterbury briefly thanks the
parties who had addressed him, for "protesting against
the unexampled encroachment upon our constitution in
Church and State attempted by the Pope of Rome:"
the spirit roused is gratifying to him, and he hopes
that the assault will only confirm more strongly the