have ſcraped together. No, wiſe in their generation, they venerate the preſcriptive right of poſſeſſion, as a ſtrong hold, and ſtill let the ſluggiſh bell tinkle to prayers, as during the days when the elevation of the hoſt was ſuppoſed to atone for the ſins of the people, leſt one reformation ſhould lead to another, and the ſpirit kill the letter. Theſe Romiſh cuſtoms have the moſt baneful effect on the morals of our clergy; for the idle vermin who two or three times a day perform in the moſt ſlovenly manner a ſervice which they think uſeleſs, but call their duty, ſoon loſe a ſenſe of duty. At college, forced to attend or evade public worſhip, they acquire an habitual contempt for the very ſervice, the performance of which is to enable them to live in idleneſs. It is mumbled over as an affair of buſineſs, as a ſtupid boy repeats his taſk, and frequently the college cant eſcapes from the preacher the moment after he has left the pulpit, and even whilſt he is eating the dinner which he earned in ſuch a diſhoneſt manner.
Nothing, indeed, can be more irreverent than the cathedral ſervice as it is now performed in this country, nor does it contain a ſet of weaker men than thoſe who are the ſlaves of this childiſh routine. A diſguſting ſkeleton of the former ſtate is ſtill exhibited; but all the ſolemnity that intereſted the imagination, if it did not purify the heart, is ſtripped off. The performance of high maſs on the continent muſt impreſs every mind, where a ſpark of fancy glows, with that awful melancholy, that ſublime tenderneſs, ſo near akin to devotion. I do not ſay that theſe devotional
