but to instruct by the examples which he describes. All who knew Dr. Darwall, knew that he was most zealously attached to the Church of England. Of that church his father, his grandfather, and his great grandfather, had been ministers, and his ancestors steady adherents.[1] The manner in which he sometimes avowed this attachment, was certainly such as to raise a suspicion in the minds of those little acquainted with him, that his religion was merely the religion of party, or that political religion which an acute foreign writer has severely observed to be almost the only religion known in England. Although no imputation could be more unjust, I will not affect a surprise which I do not feel, that it should have been attached to him. Of those most clamorous, in this country, for allying the church with temporal power, although some are distinguished by that habitual charity which arises from a frequent communion with their Maker, the proofs of whose mercy they delight to contemplate, there are unfortunately, many whose chief enjoyment seems to be to represent that Maker merely as a being of anger, and terror, and revenge. Take from them the hatred of their neighbours, and the privilege of “ dealing damnation” on all who differ from them, and all that they called their religion has left them. With them, a readiness to raise a party cry is a symbol of orthodoxy, and justifies the most indecent
- ↑ The father of Dr. Darwal1's great grandfather was a country gentleman, and resided in Cheshire; his son, the clergyman, is one of those “reverend and learned” men whom Nicholls mentions, in his Literary Remains, as having had personal disputes with the then rising sect of Methodists.
