.

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sages than one of his works, pays due homage to their useful and unpretending virtue."

When You have read this passage, I wish You to say, if the comparison between your and our parochial clergy is unfavourable to the latter?

Against your description of the Pope, (page 148), I absolutely protest.

When you commented (p. 148) on my mention of "the interruption of the night by the psal

mody of the monks," You surely forget that it was an imitation of our Saviour; an imitation also of the son of Jesse, who so often and so feelingly mentions, in his Psalms, " his rising in midnight, to confess to the Lord."

XII. & XIII. 1.

Has the Reformation produced an Increase of Temporal Happiness in the Nation.

1. You next inquire, whether there has been an increase of temporal happiness in the nation, since the era of the reformers. I admit all that can be said of its great advances in agriculture and commerce, and the useful or ornamental arts: but, when I consider its eviscerating national debt, its pauperism, and the numbers exanimated by premature, excessive, consuming and exhausting labour, I greatly doubt its increase in happiness.

XII. & XIII. 2.

Has it produced an Increase of Spiritual Happiness. 2. As to the national increase in spiritual wisdom,-place to our account the superstition, which You can justly impute to us, and to yours, the actual socinianism, deism, infidelity, and general indifference to religion ;--then gravely say, whether You really claim any increase in true religion?

A late Bishop of London * informed us, that " in " several parts of his diocese, there were many hun"dreds of wretched, ignorant young creatures, of

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both sexes, totally destitute of all education, totally unacquainted with the very first elements " of religion, and who perhaps never entered a "church." Mr. Colquhoun † says, "that in the

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population of England alone, 1,170,000 chil"dren, it is much to be feared, grow up to an "adult state, without any education at all, " and also without any useful impressions of " religion or morality. To these are to be added,

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many of those, who have had the advantage of " some education, but in ill-regulated schools, in " which proper attention is not given to religious " and moral instruction. So that, in the present ""state of things, it is not too much to say, that "every thirty years, (the period assigned for a

new generation), at least four millions and a " half of adults must, in case a remedy is not applied, mingle in the general population of the " kingdom, without any fixed principles of recti" tude, and with very little knowledge either of religion or morality."

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Even in this country," says the most excellent Bishop of Durham, * " there is an almost universal lukewarmness and indifference respecting the " essentials of their religion." "The character"istics of the present times," says another most distinguished prelate of your church, † "are confessedly incredulity, and an unprecedented indifference to the religion of Christ."

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3. As to the increase of morality, you have not disproved, and I see no reason to alter what is said upon this subject in "The Book of the Ro

man Catholic Church." If you compare the present English morals with the English morals of any æra antecedent to the Reformation, I am convinced you will not find the balance in favour of the present day.

You ask, (page 152), "If France, Spain, Portugal, or other Romish countries, are more or " less moral than Protestant England?" I have no personal knowledge of any of these countries, except France; but I must observe, that the honour of the Spaniards, and the decency of the Brabanders and Belgians, were proverbial.

Of France, I know much: You will probably be surprised when I say, that before the Revolution, the morality of France was not inferior in any respect to the morality of England. People are too apt to judge of the morality of a country, by the manners and habits of those who generally attract the notice of strangers: these are too often the least respectable portion of the community. Vice courts notice, and tilts at all she meets : virtue seeks retirement, and must be pursued into her retreats to be discovered. To these, English travellers seldom followed her; if they had, they would have found, in every rank of life, a due proportion both of common and exemplary virtue. I request you to peruse the " Essai Historique sur " l' Influence de la Religion en France, pendant le " dix-neuvieme Siecle, 2 vols. 8vo."

You will find by it, that France abounded throughout that period, in persons both secular and ecclesiastic, and of each sex, whose virtue was pure, and whose habits were regular and edifying.

At one time this country was the charitable asylum of 8,000 ecclesiastics. How pious, how humble, how unoffending, and, in every account how truly respectable was their demeanour. Our country was also at the same time the receptacle of about 2,000 lay emigrants. How patiently did the great majority of these submit to their severe trial! How cheerfully did the father and the son engage in any occupation, and the mother and the daughter become servants of all work, to increase the family means of subsistence, and render it as comfortable as possible. Surely, persons who have borne adversity so well, must have been deeply principled in Virtue's book."

Nothing could be more beneficent or more

honourable than the conduct both of the British government, and of thousands of British individuals, to these unhappy emigrants. I have transcribed in a note to my preceding letter, what I have written upon it in three of my works: this passage has often been translated into French, and never without an expression of gratitude by the translator to the British nation. In fact, it was a deed,

"Above the Greek, above the Roman name."

YOUNG.

How pleasing is it to dwell on these themes!

XII. & XIII.

Is the Reviva of Letters owing to the Reformation.

4.

What you say upon the diffusion of learning before the Reformation, rather confirms than weakens what I have writtten upon that subject. As an Englishman, I am proud of the names of Bacon, Locke, Newton, Shakespeare, and Milton, which You hold forth to view; but, when in your production of these names, You exult over us, I must observe, that the Church of England cannot claim the Arian Newton, the Socinian Locke, or the Anti-prelatic Milton. Shakespeare was probably a Roman Catholic; his father certainly was.

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You desire me (page 154) to compare the "state of knowledge in the countries which are

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subjected to the influence of Romanism and Pro