m. In fact, such was the
spirit, and so profligate the condition of the Established Church for a
long lapse of time, both before and after the Union, that we may lay
it down as a general principle, that everything was rewarded in it but
piety and learning.

If there were anything wanting to prove the truth and accuracy of our
statements, it would be found in the bitter and relentless spirit with
which the Established Church and her pastors were assailed, at the
period of which we write. And let it be observed here, that even then,
the Church in this country, in spirit, in learning, in zeal, and piety,
was an angel of purity compared to what she had been twenty or thirty
years before. The course of clerical education had been defined,
established, and extended; young profligates could not enter the Church,
as in the good old times, without any earthly preparation, either
in learning or morals. They were obliged to read, and thoroughly to
understand, an extensive and enlightened course of divinity--to attend
lectures and entitle themselves, both by attendance and answering, to
a certain number of certificates, without which they had no chance for
orders. In point of fact, they were forced to become serious; and
the consequences soon began to appear in the general character of the
Church. Much piety, activity, learning, and earnest labor were to be
found in it; and indeed, we may venture to say, that, with the exception
of her carnal and debasing wealth, she had been purified and reformed to
a very considerable extent, even then. Still, however, the bloated mass
of mammon hung about her, prostrating her energies, secularizing her
spirit, and, we must add, oppressing the people, out of whose pockets it
was forced to come. When the calamity, therefore, which the reader
may perceive is partly upon and impending over, the Protestant clergy,
actually occurred, it did not find them unprepared, nor without the
sympathy of many of the very people who were forced by the tyrannical
influence of party feeling to oppose them publicly. To their sufferings
and unexampled patience, however, we shall be obliged to refer, at a
subsequent period of our narrative; and for that reason, we dismiss it
for the present.

Such, then, was the state of the Protestant Established Church for
a considerable length of time before the tithe agitation, and also
immediately preceding it; and we deemed it necessary to make the reader
acquainted with both,