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from end to end , the whole world is sanctified by these agencies , heyond the blessings or the curses of priests ! God ' s sunshine flows over it , his providence surrounds it ; it is rocked in his arras like the child of his eternal love ; his faithful creatures live , and toil , and pray in it ; and in the name of heaven who shall make it , or who can need it holier for his last resting couch ? Bat the greediness of priests persists in cursing the poor with extortionate expenses , and calls them blessings . The poor man , who all his days goes groaning under the load of his ill-paid labours , cannot even escape from them into the grave , except at a dismal charge to his family . His native earth is not allowed to receive him into her bosom till he has satisfied the priest and his satellites . With the exception of Jews , Quakers , and some few other Dissenters , every man is given up in England as a prey , in life and in death , to the parson , and his * echo , and his disturber of bones . * The following , from the Leeds Mercury , is a fair example of the expense incurred for what is called consecration of the smallest addition to a burial-ground ; and wretched must be the mental stupidity of a people who can believe that such fellows can add holiness to the parish earth . ' pp . 239—242 .
? Chap , xviii . is chiefly on Patronage . It contains some impressive illustrations of the working of the present system , in the class of characters who are made the spiritual guides of the people . Chap . xix . is the picture of a Confirmation , portraying what it seems to be , what it might be , and what it is . We much regret that our limits will not allow us to extract this noble piece of composition . Its poetry and its power amply illustrate the kind of writing which was alluded to at the commencement of this Article as that which the political circumstances of the age require . Chap . xx . contains the recapitulation and conclusion . The author has passed over the Dissenters altogether , as if there were no priestcraft amongst them . Some might have been de tected , we think , and that even by a less observant eye . We could indicate some sources whence materials might be derived for this supplementary chapter . Is not the dissenting ministry a craft when it is taken to merely as a respectable profession ; when even its humble dignities and emoluments are a rise in society , for attaining which no equal probability offers itself to the aspirant ; when its influence is made subservient to personal objects , a
wealthy marriage , or a legacy earned by sycophancy ; when the possessors of the office arrogate the exclusive right of investing others with it , by the imposition of their sacred hands ; when the people are led to regard the preacher ' s interpretations as authoritative ; when opinions and feelings are suppressed , and the actions regulated with a view to that ascendency , for which subserviency must be part purchase ; when sectarian interests are pursued at the expense of political right , social improvement , and even of
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History of Priestcraft . 505
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No . 79 . 2 N
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1833, page 505, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2618/page/65/
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