good and sound, and that it is only shops are gravely told, that so much necessary to act up to the conception wealth is not good for their souls. of those by whom it was framed, in Now, if this objection were made by order to accomplish every thing prac-individuals who practically evinced, ticable for the benefit of religion. in their own persons, any real appreIf the thinking and worthy part of hension of the danger of riches, howthe public feel an objection that large ever we might dissent from their revenues should be appropriated for opinion, we could not but respect the use of Bishops, it is chiefly be- their sincerity. To them we should cause of the improper appointments be contented to say, that if the indi that have been hitherto made. Let viduals who were appointed to fill the Bishops be but what they ought to office of Bishops, were not above the be, and it will be acknowledged that temptations which riches imply, they large revenues could not be in better would be unfit for their stations; and hands. Even as matters stand, I am that, if they did stand above such persuaded that they are better em- temptations, riches could not be in ployed than they would be, if they better hands. If they were useful for were confiscated, and handed over no other purpose, they would be emito lay proprietors. Take any bishop nently useful for this, viz. shewing ric either in England or Ireland, how to use without abusing the gifts of and let a fair comparison be institu- Providence. But your Lordship very ted between the manner in which its well knows, that the objectors are, revenues have been employed for the generally speaking, a class who are last hundred years, and those of any by no means over solicitous about other lay property of the same exemplifying the Christian virtues ; amount, let it be enquired which and no one of whom has ever yet has cherished most worth, which taken a fancy to prove the reality of has relieved most poverty, which his fears by a life of voluntary pohas given to industry the most be verty. On the contrary, they make neficial stimulus, and if the very as much money as they can; and worst managed bishopric during seem to have no fears but lest they that period be not proved to have should lose it. Now, if they reasonbeen more advantageous to the ed thus, and said, "Riches are dancountry, even without any reference gerous even for a Bishop, how much to its spiritual uses, than the very more dangerous must they be for a best managed private property, I sinner like me?" they would be only have not read aright the lessons of consistent; their words would square history and experience. This I say, with their conduct. As matters stand with a full knowledge of the value at present, their conduct says one of the statement which has been so thing, their words say another. And, ostentatiously put forward by the as practical men, the only conclusion enemies of our establishment, that to which we can possibly come is Church lands have been always this, that as they find riches very imperfectly cultivated. That such compatible with their spiritual wellhas been the case, is owing, chiefly, being, it is to be presumed, that they to the state of insecurity in which may be compatible with the spiritual Church property is placed, in con- wellbeing of Bishops also. sequence of the clamours excited by In truth, my Lord, no one of the those who are the enemies of the evils connected with our establishChurch. But even taking in their ment, and which it should be the obwidest latitude the statements which ject of Government to remedy, is rehave been made to this effect, all ferable either to its wealth or its the drawback which this implies, poverty. For their correction, there good which has been done by the turb the present arrangements of the clerical possessors of ecclesiastical revenues, to the level of that to which rence with them must be to unsettle any similar number of lay proprie the foundation on which they at pretors may lay claim as their contribution to the public advantage. Church. The effect of any interfe sent rest, and to afford an opening, and give an impulse, to the rapacity But the objection to church pro- by which they would be invaded. I perty takes another form. The Bi VOL. XXXI. NO. CXC. am myself no stickler for the main N tenance of the prelates' incomes precisely at their present amount; and I can, perhaps, recognise a certain advantage as likely to accrue from a more perfect equalisation of their preferments. But I cannot say, that this advantage would not be too dearly purchased by the admission of a principle which must make all Church property precarious. And it is not a slight improvement in the theory of our establishment, which should reconcile any of its sincere well-wishers to a project which would render its possession insecure. Let our establishment be rendered as efficient as it is possible to be, and we will hear no more, at least in the shape of objection, of the wealth of one class of its clergy, and the poverty of another. When a man has been thirty or forty years before the public in his professional capa. city, his character must be pretty well known; and if any taint of avarice belong to him, he should be deemed unfit for the office of Bishop. If, on the contrary, he should have, for such a period, exhibited those virtues which mark him as a follower of his Divine Master; if his affections have been so long "set on things above, not on things of the earth," it is but reasonable to presume that the same simplicity and singleness of heart will attend him in a higher station. To such a man, therefore, more ample funds will only be more ample means of doing good; and although he may not keep so many dogs or horses as this lord, or that squire, yet will his expenditure not be less creditable to himself, or less beneficial to his fellow creatures. If such and such only were appointed Bishops, we would hear but few complaints of the poverty of the inferior clergy; for they would all be promoted according to their worth and services. I am against any regulation which should prescribe that a certain standing- entitled a clergyman to promotion. By such a rule no distinction would be made between the drones and the bees. It might, indeed, be very well to provide, that a clergyman should be some years in the ministry before he was entitled to become a rector. Under the eye of a vigilant and discriminating Bishop, however, all would go on well even without any such provi for sion; but it would be necessary, Thus, by providing good men for the higher offices, we would cause that good men in the lower offices should never be, for any length of time, unprovided. This, surely, will be admitted to be a better mode of remedying an evil which every one must acknowledge and deplore, than a regulation which, by raising the stipends of curates, would have a tendency to banish useful labourers from the Church, and this, by an interference with vested rights which must bring all ecclesiastical property into danger. The State, my Lord, cannot at present too jealously guard against every project which bears even asemblance of spoliation. These projects may begin with the Church, but, depend upon it, they cannot end there. If possessions, the most ancient, the most sacred, and the most im prescriptible, are invaded, upon what principle can any other species of property be deemed secure? If the clergy, from usufructuary proprietors, are degraded to the class of mere stipendiaries; and if their property is to be commuted for salaries to be determined by a quantum meruit" consideration of the services they perform, these services being estimated by those who despise their office and character, we may easily conceive the species of estimation in which the ministers of religion will be held. And when we consider, that, by such a course, the populace will have got but a taste of plunder, what is to prevent the appetite which shall be thus excited from gratifying itself at the expense of the possession of the hereditary proprietors, whose titles cannot be considered better than those which they have themselves contributed to destroy, and who, when they thus, in their turn, become the victims of popular caprice, can scarcely be said to suffer any thing more than the awards of evenhanded justice? But I have already detained your Lordship too long, and will conclude for the present by assuring you, that if I did not feel much respect for your talents, and was not led to believe, by many of your acts and expressions, that you are a sincere well-wisher of our venerable Church, I never would have so far trespassed upon your attention. SCRUTATOR. TOM CRINGLE'S LOG.* THE only other midshipman on brown-haired, girlish-looking lad, as board the cutter beside young Wal- he lay in his narrow hammock. When colm, whose miserable death we had we entered, an old quarter-master witnessed, was a slight delicate little was rubbing his legs, which were fellow, about fourteen years old, of jerking about like the limbs of a galthe name of Duncan; he was the vinized frog, while two of the boys smallest boy of his age I ever saw, and held his arms, also violently convulhad been badly hurt in repelling the sed. The poor little fellow was cry attack of the pirate. His wound was ing and sobbing most piteously, but a lacerated puncture in the left shoul- made a strong effort to compose der from a boarding-pike, but it ap- himself and "be a man" when he peared to be healing kindly, and for saw us." This is so good of you, some days we thought he was doing Mr Cringle! you will take charge of well. However, about five o'clock my letter to my sister, I know you in the afternoon, before we made Ja- will? I say, Anson," to the quarmaica, the surgeon accosted Mr Dou- ter-master, "do lift me up a little glas as we were walking the deck till I try and finish it.-It will be a together. "I fear little Duncan is sore heart to poor Sarah; she has no going to slip through my fingers after mother now, nor father, and aunt is all, sir."-"No!-I thought he had not over kind,"-and again he wept been better."-" So he was till about bitterly. "Confound this jumping noon, when a twitching of the mus- hand, it won't keep steady, all I can cles came on, which I fear betokens do. - I say, Doctor, I sha'n't die lock jaw; he wavers, too, now and this time, shall I?" "I hope not, my then, a bad sign of itself where there is fine little fellow."-"I don't think I a fretting wound."We went below, shall; I shall live to be a man yet, in where, notwithstanding the wind-sail spite of that bloody Bucaneer's pike, that was let down close to where his I know I shall." God help me, the hammock was slung, the heat of the death rattle was already in his throat, small vessel was suffocating. The and the flame was flickering in the large coarse tallow candle in the pur socket; even as he spoke, the muscles ser's lantern, that hung beside his of his neck stiffened to such a degree shoulder,around which the loathsome that I thought he was choked, but the cockroaches fluttered like moths in violence of the convulsion quickly tween decks with a rancid oily smell, he could no longer open his mouth, a summer evening, filled the be- subsided, "I am done for, Doctor!" and with smoke as from a torch, but spoke through his clenched teeth while it ran down and melted like "I feel it now!-God Almighty fat before a fire. It cast a dull receive my soul, and protect my poor sickly gleam on the pale face of the sister!" The arch-enemy was indeed November last. advancing to the final struggle, for he now gave a sudden and sharp cry, and stretched d'out his legs and arms, which instantly became as rigid as marble, and in his agony he turned his face to the side I stood on, but he was no longer sensible. e." Sister," he said with difficulty" Don't let them throw me overboard; there are sharks here."" Land on the leebow-sung out the man at the mast head. The common life sound would not have moved any of us in the routine of duty, but bursting in, under such circumstances, it made us all start, as if it had been something unusual; the dying midshipman heard it, and said calmly Land, I will never see it. But how blue all your lips look. It is cold, piercing cold, and dark, dark" Some thing seemed to rise in his throat, his features sharpened still more, and he tried to gasp, but his clenched teeth prevented him he was gone. I went on deck with a heavy heart, and, on looking in the direction indicated, I beheld the towering Blue Mountain peak rising high above the horizon, even at the distance of fifty miles, with its outline clear and distinct against the splendid western sky, now gloriously illumined by the light of the set sun. We stood on under easy sail for the night, and next morning when the day broke, we were off the east end of the magnificent Island of Jamaica. The stupendous peak now appeared rise close aboard of us, with a large a defined line, beyond which and be tween it, and the influence of the land-wind, there was a belt of dull lead-coloured sea, about half a mile broad, with a long heavy ground. swell rolling, but smooth as glass, and without even a ripple on the surface, in the midst of which we lay dead becalmed.9 1.954956mm, you mi The heavy dew was shaken in large drops out of the wet flapping sails, against which the reef points pattered like hail as the vessel rolled. The decks were wet and slippery, and our jackets saturated with moisture; but we enjoyed the luxury of cold to a degree that made the sea water when dashed about the decks, as they were being holystoned, appear absolutely warm. Presently all nature awoke in its freshness so suddenly, that it looked like a change of scene in a theatre. The sun, as yet set to us, rose to the huge peak, and glanced like lightning on his summit, making it gleam like an amethyst. The clouds on his shaggy ribs rolled upwards, and enveloped his head and shoulders, and were replaced by the thin blue mists which ascended from the valleys, forming a fleecy canopy, beneath which appeared hill and dale, woods and cultivated lands, where all had been undistinguishable wominute before, and gushing streams burst from the mountain sides like gouts of froth, marking their course in the level grounds by the vapours they sent up. Then Breere mill-towers burst into light, and cattle mills, y star sparkling on his forehead, with their cone-shaped roofs, and " reared his forest-crowned summit high into the cold blue sky, impending over us in frowning magnificence, while the long dark range of the Blue Mountains, with their outlines hard and clear in the grey light, sloped away on each side of him as if they had been the Giant's shoulders. Great masses of white mist hung ung on their sides about half way down, but all the valleys and Coast as yet sle slept in the darkness. We could see that the land-wind was blowing strong in shore, from the darker colour of the water, and the speed with which the coasters, only distinguishable by their white sails, while astern of us, out at sea, yet with a cable's length, for we had only shot beyond its influence, the prevailing trade-wind blew a smart breeze, coming up strong to glid 9 overseers' houses, and water mills, with the white spray falling from the wheels, and sugar-works, with long pennants of white smoke, streaming from the boiling-house chimneys in the morning wind. Immediately af"ter, gangs of negroes were seen at work; loaded waggons, with enormous teams of fourteen to twenty oxen dragging them, rolled along the roads long strings of mules loaded with canes were threading the fields ; dragging vessels were seen to shove out from every cove; the morning song of the black fishermen was heard, while their tiny canoes, like black specks, started up suddenly on all sides of us, as if they had floated from the bottom of the sea; and the smiling scene burst at once, and as if by magic, on us, in all its coolness and beauty, under the cheer inscription, setting forth that the was the pilot, a slave, as I knew, and, the men laid them in. "What sort in my innocence, I expected to see of nuts be them, Peter Combings something very squalid and miser- said the coxswain to a new hand who able, but there was nothing of the had been lately impressed, and was kind for I never in my life saw a now standing at the bow ready to more spruce salt water dandy, in a fend off. i en to us bsom ved 100 small way. He was well dressed, 19 Peter broke off one of the branches according to a seaman's notion from the bush nearest him.- Smite clean white trowsers, check shirt, my timbers, do the trees here bear with white lapels, neatly fastened shellfish ?" The tide in the Gulf of Engine at the throat with a black ribbon, Mexico does not ebb and flow above smart straw hat and altogether he two feet, except at the springs, and carried an appearance of comfort the ends of the drooping branches was going to write independence of the mangrove trees, that here coabouts him, that I was by no means ver the shore, are clustered, within prepared for. He moved about with the wash of the water, with a small aswaggering roll grinning and laugh- well-flavoured oyster. The first thing ing with the seamen, I say, Blackie," the seamen did when they got ashore, said Mr Douglas John Lodge, was to fasten an oakum tail to the massa, if you please, massa; Blackie rump of one of the most lubberly of is not politeful, sir," whereupon he the cutter's crew; they then gave shewed his white teeth again. "Well, him ten yards law, when they startwell, John Lodge, you are running ed in chase, shouting amongst the us in too close surely" and the re- bushes, and switching each other mark seemed, seasonable enough to like the veriest schoolboys. I had a stranger, for the rocks on the bold walked some distance along the shore were now within half pistol- beach, pelting the amphibious little shot" Mind your eye, shouted creatures, half crab, half lobster, old Ansons You will have us called soldiers, which kept shoulderashore, you black raseal!"" You, ing their large claws, and running out sir, what water have you here?" and in their little burrows, as the sung out Mr Splinter. Salt water, small ripple twinkled on the sand in massa,rapped out Lodge, fairly the rising sun, when two men-ofdumfounded by such a volley of wars' boats, each with three officers questions-You hab six fadom in the stern, suddenly pulled round good here; massa" but suspecting a little promontory that intercepted he had gone too far I take de my view ahead. Being somewhat Tonnant, big ship as him is close to out of the line of my duty, so far dat reef, sir, you might have jump from my boat, I squatted amongst ashore, so you need not frighten for the brushwood, thinking they would your aleetle dish of a hooker; be-pass by; but, as the devil would have side, massa, my character is at take, ait, they pulled directly for the place you know then another grin and where I was ensconced, beached bow. There was no use in being their, boats, and jumped on shore. angry with the poor fellow, so heHere's a mess, thought I be was allowed to have his own way as I soon made out that one of the until we anchored in the evening at officers was Captain Pinkem of the Port-Royal. The morning after, we Flash, and that the parties saluted arrived, I went ashore with a boat's each other with that stern courtesy, crews to perform the magnanimous, which augured no good. So, su, pulled ashore for Green Bay, under operation of cutting brooms; we my masters, not enough of fighting the coast of America, but you the guns of the Twelve Apostles must have a little private defacing where there is a tombstone with an Pinkem spoke first. "Mr Clinch," a heavy battery of twelve cannon, of God's image amongst yourselves? |