Democracy. What wonder, then, that the same organs, the same individuals, the same organisations, are enlisted in the common service of both? -that the Anti-State-Church Dissenter is invariably a Democrat, and the Democrat is as invariably an Anti-State-Church Dissenter?

But the inner mysteries of dissenting policy have also been disclosed. We have been admitted not to any partial glimpse, but to a full broad view of the secret workings of the Anti-State-Church party. When the Nonconformist preached up the new crusade in 1841, the enterprise appeared desperate. Sir R. Peel had just reached the topmost pinnacle of a noble and supreme ambition. The Church and Constitutional party were exalted to greatness, only too high to be safe. Dissent and Democracy emitted but faint and fitful gasps, the flickering flashes of quivering decay. The spirit seemed departing; first of all, therefore, it was Mr. Miall's mission to tend the invalid, to minister fit medicine and sustenance, to restore vigour and strength, and then summon the new powers to their high vocation. With this view he devoted himself to the circulation of democratic principles, the first elements of the new confession, which was to embrace all the articles of the common creed of Dissent and Democracy. Up to the year 1853, even, the mission of

the British Anti-State-Church Association was but to complete the work of tuition and organisation, dictated by Mr. Miall in the Nonconformist of 1841, 1842, 1843, and 1844. When that work was done; when the new creed had been propagated in all the large and populous districts; and when its promoters had satisfied themselves that the masses were on their side, and would, if they had power, support the Anti-State-Church movement; then Mr. Miall and his coadjutors established a parliamentary and an electoral committee, in connection with the British Anti-State-Church Aasociation, to manage Parliament and the constituencies. But their main object was the extension and reduction of the franchise, and the lowering of the standard rather than the extension of the suffrage. Thus, power was to be conferred on the multitude-on those classes, in particular, who had imbibed Anti-State-Church principles, as it was believed, and who had been instructed beforehand to use power, when acquired, in vindication of such principles. Not to alarm those already the depositaries of power, the old system of organic reforms in Church and State was abandoned; instalments were asked for,-such, however, as not to satisfy, but to beget a craving for more, and such as would confer both the will and the power to effect other changes. It was no longer

against the Established Church as a whole, or against the Bishops, that Dissenters and Democrats bent their energies, but against Church Rates. Mr. Hume's schemes of reform were discarded, and Lord John Russell's were adopted. For Lord John and the Whigs surrendered "finality" in 1852; but this surrender of the permanent settlement of 1832 was not the first nor the last act of apostasy of Whiggism. On the question of Church Rates, however, the Whigs, or, at all events, the Whig chiefs stood firm, and if the cause of Church Rates stood in need either of defence or elucidation, I would commit its safe custody to the guardianship of Lord John Russell's speeches, between the years 1833 and 1859. Whilst, then, the principles and objects of Dissent were essentially democratic; whilst indeed Dissent and Democracy were identified and allied together in the British Anti-State-Church Association, and were, in fact, but different names for the same principles and the same objects; the policy of Dissent underwent a change, between 1844 and 1859. The wholesale principle of innovation was exchanged for the retail principle. No one of the six points of the Complete Suffrage Union or of Chartism, not a single article of the Anti-StateChurch creed was abandoned; but the whole were no longer demanded at once. A £6 franchise

was substituted for the six points, and ChurchRate abolition for State-Church abolition. And by conceding the former, the Whigs became accomplices in the plots of the Democrats, for a £6 franchise is only a means to an end, the first step down the inclined plane which leads to Chartism and Democracy, as well in ecclesiastical as in civil affairs. But, as was before observed, the apostasy of the Whigs from the settlement of 1832, was not their last act of the kind. The events of 1859 will introduce us to another repetition of that renegadism, which in 1835 turned its back upon the Irish Church, and in 1852 turned its back upon the final settlement of 1832, on reform. That third act of apostasy, however, marks another epoch in the history of Dissent and political parties. I shall, therefore, reserve my account of it for the next chapter.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM 1859 TO THE PRESENT TIME.

DISSENT BOTH IDENTIFIED WITH, AND ALLIED TO, LIBERALISM.

I HAVE now arrived at a period so recent, that I may safely appeal to the memories of my readers to fill up any hiatus in my own narrative. Nothing is more curious and instructive, however, than the strange eventful history of 1859. In the first place, Lord Derby's Ministry made a fruitless effort to settle the church-rate controversy. The Abolitionists could hardly be expected to support a compromise; the Whigs were in opposition, and therefore factious; and the extreme section of the Conservative party held aloof. The consequence was the rejection of the Ministerial Bill by the majority of eightythree. Soon after, in accordance with the sentiments expressed by Mr. Disraeli in 1851, a Conservative Reform Bill was introduced, the chief provisions of which were to retain the £10 franchise in boroughs;