All this has been, moreover, but the symbol of a greater and yet more gratifying change—the gradual rehabilitation of the Church’s character. Never since the Reformation did it occupy so high a position as that to which it had attained two or three years ago. Old scandals, and old epithets of abuse founded upon them, had alike disappeared. We read of Parson Trulliber with much the same feeling of incredulous amazement as we perused the accounts of Professor Owen’s extinct monsters; and we should have looked upon the person who indulged in the sort of Billingsgate which was common half a century ago as if another Rip Van Winkle had stood before us. The ingenious calculations in which demagogues of the last generation used to indulge, with regard to what might be done with the ecclesiastical revenues, seemed like prospectuses of the South Sea Company. The very Horsmans, like their Puritan prototypes who made war on the King in the King’s name, had begun to profess a desire only to increase the Church’s efficiency. The Anti-State-Church Society itself, borne away by the spirit of the times, adopted a clumsy euphemism for its old out-spoken title. It no longer sought to destroy “the State Church”—its object was the “Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control.” Once more, alas! the sky has changed. What the public now think of the Church, it would be difficult exactly to say; but that a strong re-action has set in, it would be vain to deny. There seems to be an impression abroad that the Church has been taking credit for far more than she was entitled to; that she has had a last trial allowed her, whether she would regain her place as the Church of the people; that her day of grace has passed, and that she has been found wanting. Political Dissent, which had fallen into a state of such ludicrous obscurity, has suddenly revived, and in a Parliament elected under Lord Derby has achieved what it could never do even in the worst times which followed the passing of the Reform Bill—it has effected a lodgment in the Universities. It has several times carried resolutions adverse to Churchrates. The demands of Mr. Pellatt are now granted almost as a matter of course; and not only so, but the very Government goes out of its way to flatter the prejudices of the Nonconformist. Thus, the Solicitor-General brings in a Testamentary Jurisdiction Bill, which would saddle the country with an enormous annual charge in the shape of compensations; the sole object being to afford Dissenters the gratification of reading at the commencement of their probates the words “Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen,” instead of “John Bird, by Divine Providence, Archbishop.” Some of the concessions which have been made to “the rights of conscience” are absolutely ludicrous. For example, young ladies and gentlemen of the different denominations complain that ill-natured people call their