ot want any such thing.
This is, very possibly, in great measure true; for _the people_,
who are urged and excited by the Radical leaders, will be sure to
grow indifferent about such reforms as they can obtain by
legitimate means, and with the concurrence of legitimate
authority, and be invited to agitate for those which may be more
difficult or slow of accomplishment. Sydney Smith said last night
that he hears from those who know that it will be very sweeping;
but he thinks it will not touch the great livings, nor meddle with
advowsons. He concludes that at the same time the Dissenters will
be relieved from Church rates, that tithes will be extinguished,
and the question of Dissenters' marriages settled. This has been
an enormous scandal, and its continuance has been owing to the
pride, obstinacy, and avarice of the Church; they would not give
up the fees they received from this source, and they were
satisfied to celebrate these rites in church while the parties
were from the beginning to the end of the service protesting
against all and every part of it, often making a most indecent
noise and interruption. All these grievous abuses must be done
away with; and deeply responsible are those who never would hear
of their being done away with before. These guilty parties are the
clergy and the Tories, both of whom, now that it is almost too
late, have consented to drop their arrogant pretensions, and to
submit to those necessary and reasonable reforms against which
they have so bitterly inveighed, and so resolutely fought. We are
disgusted and shocked at reading Croly's account of the scandalous
conduct of the Catholic clergy in Ireland, with regard to the
emoluments they extort from their miserable flocks, and at the
systematic desecration of holy things which they countenance and
practise; but when the difference is considered between their
spiritual condition and their moral composition as a class, the
conduct of the clergy here appears just as revolting. The Irish
clergy are generally sprung from the lowest class, and have
received a bad education at Maynooth; they depend for subsistence
upon the voluntary liberality or devotion of their people, they
have few motives or principles of restraint, and every incentive
to follow the shameful course which they do; but the English
clergy are generally respectably born, well educated, and amply
endowed, and yet they are content to be the ministers of a
scandalous system, whi