regularly admitted into the Church of England.

These were important facts at that time; and I have entered more largely into the subject than perhaps I otherwise might, under the conviction that they are not unimportant now. It is the full persuasion of my own mind, that the Catholics in this country, whatever may be the case in Ireland, are content with the liberty of maintaining their own doctrines, and their own forms of worship, without endeavouring to proselyte others; that their numbers only increase in proportion to the increase of population; and that in the present advanced state of public knowledge, Protestantism has nothing to apprehend from the toleration of Popery. In fact, the real evils to be dreaded, and on which the attention of every man zealous for the preservation F 3

and

and the honour of Christianity should be incessantly fixed, are dissoluteness of manners, and the diffusion of infidel opinions. These, if I may use the term, are the PYTHONS we should strive to crush. They are destructive monsters, which assail the vitals of religion. They strike at the very foundation and root of all social virtue and all social order; and it is therefore against these, above every thing, that our penal laws should be framed, and the power of the magistrate directed. The great Prelate, whose life is the subject of these pages, undoubtedly so thought and acted. He was never wanting in zeal for the Church; but as one of the guardians of that Church, he was persuaded that zeal could never be so well employed as against vice and infidelity.

The following statement I insert exactly

as

as I find it. It marks in the strongest manner his vigilant, firm, and persevering mind, and the unremitting assiduity with which he ever laboured to discharge the high and sacred duties of a Christian Bishop.

"The beginning of the winter of 1780," he observes, "was distinguished by the rise of a new species of dissipation and profaneness. A set of needy and profligate adventurers, finding every day and almost every hour, of the week occupied by some amusement or other, bethought themselves of trying what might be done on a Sunday. It was a novel and a bold attempt, but not the less likely to succeed in this country and in these times. They therefore opened and publicly advertised two different sorts of entertainment for the Sunday evening. One of these was at Carlisle House, and was called a Promenade.

F 4

menade. The other was a meeting at

public rooms hired for the purpose, and assumed the name of Christian Societies, Religious Societies, Theological Societies, Theological Academies, &c. The professed design of the former was merely to walk about and converse, and take refreshments, the price of admission being three shillings: but the real consequence, and probably the real purpose of it, was to draw together dissolute people of both sexes, and to make the Promenade a place of assignation: and, in fact, it was a collection of the lowest and most profligate characters that could possibly be assembled together from every part of London. It gave offence, not only to every man of gravity and seriousness, but even to young men of gaiety and freedom, several of whom I have heard speak of it with abhorrence. Nay, even foreigners

foreigners were shocked and scandalized at it, considering it a disgrace to any Christian country to tolerate so gross an insult on all decency and good order.

"The business, or, as it should be rather called, the amusement, proposed at the Sunday Debating Societies, was to discuss passages of Scripture, which were selected and given out for that purpose; when every one present, ladies as well as gentlemen, were to propose their doubts, receive explanations, and display their eloquence on the text proposed. It was to be, in short, a school for Metaphysics, Ethics, Pulpit Oratory, Church History, and Canon Law. It is easy to conceive what infinite mischief such debates as these must do to the younger part of the community, who, being unemployed on this day, would flock to any assembly of this sort; would look upon every doubt

and