e second is impracticable, inasmuch as
the establishment could not be extended, on the basis of taxation, so as
to meet the wants of the population, and the sects could not be merged
or put down. The choice is, therefore, between the first, which
renders the Dissenters necessary as auxiliaries, and therefore to be
conciliated; and the third, which would reduce the church of England
to the dimensions of an episcopal, but non-established, church. Such
frenzied partisans as "L. S. E." would be more likely to bring about
the third alternative than the second.

EXTRACT FROM A CORRESPONDENT'S LETTER, ADDRESSED TO THE RIGHT REV. THE
LORD BISHOP OF LONDON.

My Lord,

In the notes appended to your Lordship's Charge, delivered at the
last visitation, reference is made to a work, entitled, "Letters to a
Dissenting Minister, &c., by L. S. E." It is most prudently admitted,
that the work contains "too much sharpness of invective against the
dissenters;" your Lordship has, however, added, "I recommend the
publication as containing a great deal of useful information and
sound reasoning."

It was prudent in L. S. E. not to attach his name to a work that would
give him a notoriety for impudence and slander which no future penitence
could by any possibility remove. How far it was wise to sanction with
the authority of your Lordship's name, the work of an author who had not
the rashness to reveal his own, remains for the effects it will produce
upon society to determine.

L. S. E. has stated in page 360, that "the late Mr. Abraham Booth,[B] an
eminent dissenting teacher in London, would never pray for the King
(George the Third) at all." Allow me, therefore, to inform your Lordship
and the nameless individual who enjoys your patronage, that the
assertion is entirely false. During the thirty-seven years in which he
administered the ordinances and truth of Jesus Christ in Prescot-street,
he not only never refused, but made it his uniform practice, to pray for
"our rightful Sovereign the King, his Royal Consort the Queen, and every
branch of the Royal Family;" of this many living witnesses may be
brought, who still remain the fruits of his exertions. Much sympathy is
due to your Lordship on account of the present intensity of professional
excitement; but the injunction laid by inspiration upon a Bishop must
not be forgotten, "Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be thou
partaker in other men's sins: keep thyself pure."

With since