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tut ^ on , and of their disregard of any provision but what arises fiom the voluntary contributions of their flocks : and in the same resolutions they expressly declare the impropriety of lay interference in their spiritual concerns . These resolutions have received the applauses of many lay associations , and several petitions have been presented to parliament to reinstate them in the rights which belong to all subjects who are willing to pay civil allegiance , and to perform civil duties . It is curious to see how truth and error are continually blended . The Catholic bishops are right in their opinion , that a christian community is , as far as its spiritual concerns extend , independent of the state , and the election of any of their bishops notnore belongs to the crown than the election of a minister of a
dissenting congregation in England . But we think that neither the episcopal nor the lay Catholic meetings , have duiy considered the nature of a Christian society . They divide it into two classes laity and clergy , a distinction , which is a mere
fiction of men , and completely without foundation in the scriptures . The bishops and elders , whose offices are described by St . Paul , are as much laymen as the rest of the society : they were no more separated from the rest than the chairman and members of a
committee of the House ; of Commons are from the rest of the House . The committees are formed for peculiar purposes , and the committee of bishop and ciders in a Christian community , when it arrogates to itself any pretended
spiritual claims ., not derivable from the particular meeting to which it "belongs , and not dissoluble by that meeting , advances claims , which may tend very much to their worldly interest but which receive no countenance from
the Christian dispensation . The Pope in the mean time , who is thus the subject of so much civil discussion in the two countries now at war with each other , whose power is completely curtailed and defined in the one , and is not allowed at all in the
other , is living the life of a prisoner in St . me fortress in the Alps . It is said , that he was brought into Dauphiny , but so great a concourse came after him that it was thought : ad ^ iseablc to remove him . A delegation of Irish Catholic ^ would find it now difficult to lay before him the names of three can-
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didates for a vacant bishopric and their sees may remain same time without this supposed requisite part of their body . Perhaps a requisition has been made to the holy father to bles 3 thc approaching nuptials , and he may have refused ; but at any rate , as his place is now fixed in the empire , he cannot be kept long in a state of obscurity . We should not be surprised at his appearance in the French metropolis to grace the altar , at which , the emperor and empress are to exchange reciprocal vows . Great preparations are making for this solemnity . A temporary akar is to be erected in the l , ouvre , and the extent of that superb gallery is to be lined by four thousand gentlemen and ladies dressed in the grandest stile 5 andbetvyeen them in the open space tlie emperor , followed by his kings and princes , the empress , followed by her queens and princesses , are to walk in solemn procession . Fire works ,, illuminations , balte , plays , every thing that a worldly fancy a can desire are to
mark this memorable day . France and Austria have been united already by a similar marriage . What this will produce time must shew ; one thing is certain , that it cuts off England completely from any alliances with the continent , and in this respect even it may be viewed with a great degree of indifference .
In the midst of these preparation ^ Buonaparte has issued an edict , which condemns to years of misery a great number of our fellow-creatures . We should have hoped , that so much appearance at least of joy would have turned his heart * and that he would have made it an occasion of a general
amnesty . But so far from this being the case he has revived the old system of the French Bastilles , and various , prisons are fixed upon 3 where are to be immured various dcsciiptions of state prisoners v , horn he does not think proper to bring before the tribunal of the laws . This is a subject , which has
excited severe remarks in our public papers , and doubtless we cannot contemplate the vengeance , inflicted by man upon his fellow-creatures , without extreme sorrow * Yet what country is free from similar imputations . In our own country a few years ago a number of our fe } low-sabjects were immured in the same manner by the minister of the
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152 Slate of'Public Affairs *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1810, page 152, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2402/page/48/
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