There is a Committee sitting at my office to arrange the Church Bill--Rosslyn, Wharncliffe, Ellenborough, and Herries. It is generally believed they mean to bring forward some very extensive measures. Allen says, 'The honest Whigs cannot oppose it with honour, nor the Tories support it without infamy,' that all the honest Whigs would support it, the honest Tories oppose it, the dishonest Tories would support, and the dishonest Whigs oppose it. He told me an anecdote at the same time which shows what the supineness and sense of security of the Church were twenty years ago. An architect built a chapel on Lord Holland's land, near Holland House, and wished it to be appropriated to the service of the Church of England, and served by a curate. The rector objected and refused his consent. There was no remedy against him, and all that could be done was to make it a Methodist meeting-house, or a Roman Catholic chapel, either of which by taking out a licence, the builder could do. However, he got Lord Holland to speak to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Sutton), to tell him the difficulty, and request his interference with the rector to suffer this chapel to be opened to an Orthodox congregation. After some delay the Archbishop told Holland that he had better advise his friend to take out a licence, and make it a Catholic or Dissenting chapel, as he thought best. The builder could not afford to lose the capital he had expended, and acted upon the advice of the Primate. The chapel is a meeting-house to this day. I shall be very glad if this reform of the Church is well done and gives satisfaction, and I do not know that any of the present Ministers are pledged against a measure which improves the discipline without diminishing the revenues of the Church, but certainly reforms, and especially ecclesiastical reforms, do come with a bad grace from them. It is ludicrous to see the 'Standard' writing Church reform articles; and the other day I looked back at Knatchbull's speech at the Kentish meeting, a week after the dissolution of the late Government, in which he expressed an earnest hope that he might leave this country 'without _any change_ in _Church_ or _State_.' He has been Anti-everything during his whole life, and now he is come into office to carry into effect 'safe and necessary reforms,' which he never could perceive the slightest occasion for while he was out. All these things are disgusting; they disgust one with political life, they lower the characters of public men. One strains one's eyes in vain to catch a sight of sincerity, straightforwardness, disinterestedness, consistency; each party we have constantly acting with a view to its own interests _as a party_, and always disregarding consequences with miserable shortsightedness. February 2nd, 1835 {p.201} [Page Head: INSECURITY OF THE TORIES.]