for the transaction of business, necessary to preserve the order and purity of the church. I do not, of course, expect that Mr. Perowne will believe my testimony on this subject, but I confidently appeal to the members of my church for evidence respecting the character of our meetings. Those “hallowed influences,” to which Mr. Perowne so contemptuously refers, have abundantly blessed them, nor do I expect to witness any scenes more truly “peaceful and loving,” till “the general assembly and church of the first born” appears in heaven. Another charge, which Mr. Perowne vehemently urges against Dissenters, is that they are aiming to destroy the church to which he belongs. “The leading organs of dissent,” says he, “openly avow that nothing but the destruction of our church will satisfy them.” I should think my own church destroyed, if it were to be overrun with infidelity or heresy, or if it were to be broken up and dispersed as a society of Christians. But, as Mr. Perowne is acquainted with “the leading organs of dissent,” he knows very well that Dissenters have no desire to see the Church of England brought into such a condition; and that all they wish is that the Established Church would support its own ministers, and pay its own expenses, without taxing other churches. And this, if I understand him rightly, he would call “the destruction of the church.” If so, all the dissenting churches are destroyed already. They have no connection with the state, as a controlling power—they choose their own ministers—and they pay their own expenses. They are therefore, according to Mr. Perowne, in a state of “destruction”—they are “things which are not,” and he may perhaps be aware that such things are sometimes employed “to bring to nought things which are.” But the wholesale charge which he brings against the Nonconformists is, that their system “leads men to tear in pieces the body of Christ—to set at nought the powers that be—to speak evil of dignities—to imbibe and inculcate a disloyal, republican, revolutionary spirit.” And he might have added, with equal truth, that it is productive of hydrophobia, that it brought the cholera into the country a short time ago, and that it turned all the members of our churches into cannibals. Charges such as he has brought, false and ridiculous as they are, have been incessantly repeated since the day when the Head of our churches was himself reviled by the priests, as “a fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar.” And they will no doubt continue to be repeated, till “the accuser of the brethren is cast out.” They are always freely used by those who find it more convenient to revile than to argue; and they are as useful to such persons, as the broken lantern was to the watchman, who always kept it by him to exhibit as a proof that his victims had been guilty of a riot.