His sermons, both that of Derby and that of St. Paul’s, were published. The Tories ran after them eagerly, cried them up, ordered everybody to buy them, with the result that 40,000 copies were sold throughout the kingdom. The number, to us who are accustomed to see popular papers sold by millions, does not seem large, but think what it really meant at that time; it meant about two copies for every parish in the kingdom. In the town parishes the pamphlet was handed about from one to the other. Forty thousand copies of a sermon represent ten times that number of readers; it means the whole nation moved and agitated. All who could read did read these sermons; all who could not listened to the discussions on them. They were considered by the Council. All were of the opinion that the preacher ought to be prosecuted; there were differences as to the method and as to the court by which he should be tried. It was finally resolved that he should be impeached before the two Houses of Parliament. There were delays before the impeachment could be carried out. Meantime the High Church party and the clergy in general were actively engaged in proclaiming that the Church was in danger, and in inflaming the minds of the people against the Dissenters. And then occurred one of those strange tumults in which the lowest classes in London have risen up, from time to time, in favour of religion and morality, as if they understood in the least what these words mean. The ’prentices waging war against disorderly houses, the craftsmen destroying the Savoy in defence of their Bishop, the mob tearing down Mass-houses, the mob throwing up their hats for Sacheverell, the mob following Lord George Gordon—all these are risings of the same kind. Other reasons are assigned in each case; the one and only reason, apart from the general love of a fight, which lies always in the heart of the Londoner, was a blind desire for truth and justice. Who were the Dissenters? They were Puritans; they were the people, who, when they had the power, forbade the old sports, and persecuted those who would still play them; they were the masters who commanded the way of their people in matters of religion as in matters of politics; they had turned merry London into morose London. It is generally believed that the common people did not go to church, and therefore had no love for the church. This is most untrue. The City was still full of the craftsmen; all those who lived in the City went to church. How many of those who lived outside the walls, what proportion of those who were settled beyond the walls, went to church one has no means of ascertaining. But within the walls all the people went to church. So that when we hear that ’prentices, butchers, chimney-sweepers, scavengers, fellowship porters, and the like made up the mob which bawled in the streets the cry of “The Church in danger,” we need only remark that respectable people never join a