At the present time, the parish of Paddington is divided into five ecclesiastical districts; and the episcopal form of church-government and the present forms of the state-religion, are supported by accomplished clergymen, attached to the various places of public worship. The people of Paddington see in their own parish an exemplification of that state of church economy, which is more or less prominently exhibited all over the country; they know the extent of the church-lands here; they know how they were acquired; they know for the performance of what duties these lands were granted; they see how the income from these lands has been disposed of; they know that the duties of providing for religion, and for the poor, have been transferred from the holders of this church-land, to those who occupy the houses which have been built on it; and they know that a second Reformation is inevitable. So that, if the church ministers of this parish could report to their bishop, that no dissenter lived in this very profitable part of his diocese, it would convey to him no more accurate notion of the feeling of the people respecting the management of the state-church than the bishops conveyed to Laud “on the very eve of troubles, fatal to himself, and to his order,” when they reported to him “that not a single dissenter was to be found within their jurisdiction.” {161} That those dignitaries of the church, who have taken upon themselves the disposal of the church-lands in Paddington, should have made such sorry provisions for the promulgation and protection of their own creed in this place, is much more surprising, than that they should have looked with no favourable eye on the diffusion of doctrines which differed, in any respect, from their own. To prevent, so far as in them lay, the erection of any places of worship, save those in which were taught the particular dogmas they reverenced, is but what experience teaches us, might have been expected, as it is well known to be the common practice of every dominant sect to permit no rival near its throne; or, if a rival is to be tolerated without a systematic opposition, it must be one that is not seriously antagonistic to its principles. The Bishop of London, in his last Charge to his clergy, while guarding them against a too great leaning to Popish practices, told them there was less danger to fear from Rome, than from Germany. And, so far as danger to the peculiar dogmas, and the histrionic ceremonies we have seen spring up within the last few years, is concerned, all who know anything of the “Reformation of the nineteenth century,” as it is being developed in Germany, will readily admit. To get a good insight into the “Humane Reformation” now in progress not only in Germany, but in England and America, I must refer my readers to the little Work which has been published for the English reader by the great apostle of this Reformation, Johannes Ronge, and to which I have before alluded.