for themselves—more especially, when they stamp with their illinformed censures, the decisions of the Courts, as oppressive and cruel to large masses of citizens, whom they arrogantly call the saints the elect of the earth, and whom they intimate to be as far superior to ordinary men, as heaven is above earthwe may well pause, and we do pause, to ask, whether there exists in this country, or in any country not Papal, such a power to denounce whole masses of professing Christians. Heaven forbid that we should deny the right of any citizen to call in question the decisions of the highest Court of Law. There is no power so high, in our country, that its acts may not be the subjects of free discussion. But there is a manner and a moderation in everything. The decisions of the Supreme Court are the law of the land. In common cases, the Legislature may change the law, if the Judges decide against the public will. In the present case, the decision was founded on a construction of the Constitution, and no power, but the people, by an amendment of the Constitution, can change it.

The singularity of the present case consists in this, and it is indeed unique, and without example. Some Connecticut casuists, accustomed to a state of things, in which, we had almost said, the clergy hold all the power, and the people are accounted as nothing, have been in a time of excitement imported into this State. Bringing with them their own ideas of the supremacy of the clergy, they quarrel with the liberal and ingenuous feelings of our people, and wish to persuade them, that the chains and fetters of Connecticut are indeed very comfortable things, and well suited to the wrists and ancles of the stubborn freemen of Massachusetts. They tell us, in plain terms, that the liberty which we have acquired, with great toil and suffering during a contest of two centuries, is no liberty at all, and that if we would only quietly consent to the easy handcuffs, which they, from long experience, have learnt to forge, we shall be more at our ease than we were before. These imported directors of Massachusetts consciences, assure us, that we are anxious for this change from freedom to slavery-that tens of thousands of our people really groan under the liberty, which our excellent Judges, by a correct and manly exposition of the Constitution, have opened to us. We challenged them in our review of the Groton Result, to explain why, if such are the sentiments of our people, and if, at heart, they do really prefer slavery to freedom, why, when this specific article was discussed at the noblest and fullest collection of the intellect and wisdom of Massachusetts, the late Convention for revising the Constitution, the Orthodox did

not dare to move the question, although Judge Parsons's decisions were then of old date, and Judges Parker, Wilde, Jackson, and Putnam's judicial sentences were recent and festering sores in the bosoms of the Exclusive and intolerant sect? We have had no answer to this question, except the repetition of the same idle boast, the more loud because there is a consciousness of its idleness, that the people are alarmed, and uneasy. Now, we challenge them, after both parties have been fully heard, to move this year, at the winter session, an amendment of the Constitution, restoring the churches to their usurped power, and we promise our support in the attempt, confident that the people would reject it with disdain.

Before we proceed to examine the argument, if it deserves the name, of the writer in question, we shall notice a particular attack on Chief Justice Parker, which, as it was very amusing to us for its modesty, so we doubt not it will be equally so to our readers for its novelty, and accuracy of thought.

'We object,' says this learned divine and still more learned lawyer, 'to the views expressed in the decision of the Dedham case, that they are too evidently of a sectarian character.'-'We do complain that the highest judicial officer in the State, while seated on the bench of justice, should allow himself to go into a discussion of theological questions, and make them a ground of his decision, in a way to favor one religious denomination, and to prejudice others. The Constitution wisely provides, that "no subordination of any one sect or denomination of Christians to another, shall ever be established by law." We would inquire, then, whether it can be constitutional for an officer of the government, whose decisions are to have the force of law, to attempt determining points of theology which are at issue between different denominations of Christians.' p. 38.

This then is the charge, that Chief Justice Parker, unconstitutionally, by a solemn decision, established by law' a subordination of other sects to some one sect, and this the writer declares to be the Unitarian sect.

What, in the language of Courts Martial-for this is a belligerent attack on the Chief Justice-what is the specification to support this charge? It is in these words, that he took upon him to say, that the " practice of the Episcopal Churches," in regard to the Sacrament, "is more conformable to the practice of the primitive Christian churches, than that of most of those who dissent from their mode of worship." That is to say, that Chief Justice Parker, himself not an Episcopalian, by his decision, made the other churches subordinate to the Episcopalian; for, if he did not effect this, it could not be unconstitutional. Does this anonymous vindicator of the churches believe, that the Court decided, as a point of law, that the Episcopalian mode of ad

mission to the sacrament was the primitive one? If so, it is the law of the land! and must be obeyed till changed by legis'lative enactment. We know well, that this is too ludicrous for refutation, and yet it was not too ludicrous for our divine seriously to urge. What sort of readers did the vindicator of the rights of the churches mean to address? Must he carry into his legal arguments, the same strain of dogmatism, to which his theological connexions have accustomed him, and does he expect, from an enlightened public, a blind submission to his legal dicta?

This is not all. He adds, in a tone of selfcomplacent triumph-' The learned Judge will pardon us, if we think these subjects not a little out of his professional sphere.' We really think he may better leave disputed points in theology to be determined in their proper place.' Is any place improper for Christians to examine disputed points on the most important of all subjects? But how modest and delicate this reproof of a Court of Law, on the part of a divine who is discussing and reviewing the decisions of eminent jurists of a divine, who quotes Coke upon Littleton, and prates al out prescriptions and

que trusts, with the confidence of a barrister of fifty years' standing! It was, however, no point of theology, upon which Chief Justice Parker, in a course of reasoning, expressed a private sentiment. It was simply a question of history, to which he was as competent as his reverend reviler. Lawyers may study what they are bound to study by the most momentous of all motives, and though this writer, a stranger in this vicinity, may be ignorant of it, we can assure him, that the predecessor of Judge Parker, Chief Justice Parsons, was one of the most learned theologians in our country, and if he ever heard of Lord Chancellor Sir Peter King, we can assure him, that he wrote a treatise clearly establishing the right of all professing Christians to partake of the sacrament, which if he has an inclination to answer and the ability to refute, we have certainly underrated his presumption as well as his powers. But before he undertakes the task, we advise him to read a little more, and to reason not a little better. He ought to know, that the authority of the early fathers, who were nearly cotemporary with the apostles, is not so clearly in his favor, and that the learned Chancellor did not differ so much from Chief Justice Parker, as he did from this critic on this point. But it is alleged, that the Chief Justice went out of his professional sphere' in giving out this suggestion. How does the writer know that? Was he present at the trial? Does he not know, that this very point was a part of the argument,

of which it was proper to take notice? Yet it was no decision— and nothing but gross ignorance of the course of judicial proceedings, can apologize for attacking it as such.

We have made this introduction longer than we proposed, and yet less could not have been said, in justice to the memory of the dead, or the character and merits of the living. The habit of abuse has been so confirmed by long indulgence, on the part of the Exclusive sect-they have so freely and so incessantly arraigned the clergy and the flocks of the Liberal party, that they cannot check the disposition to it. The highest tribunals have become the objects of their scorn and contempt. The very fountains of justice are attempted to be disturbed, and instead of honoring, as the apostle of their Lord and Master commanded them, those in rule and authority, they invoke upon them the maledictions of the whole community. To that sovereign tribunal we appeal with alacrity and undoubting confidence.

There are three distinct classes of readers in our community. The first estimate the value of an argument principally according to its length. The greater the number of pages, the more convincing, in their view, is the work. They are in a state of wonder and admiration, when they perceive a long array of quotations from books which they have never heard of. They never dream of inquiring whether the passages quoted have any bearing on the question. Especially are they moved if the quotations are made from the holy scriptures. Their deserved veneration for the sacred volume induces them to believe, that, if the writer cites chapter and verse, his argument must be sound. Though the text may prove the directly opposite proposition from that for the support of which it is cited, they never trouble their heads about such a trifling objection. The author quotes scripture, and it must be true. This class of readers think that ten weak arguments are more than equivalent to one unan-. swerable one. There are certain writers who perfectly comprehend this weakness of human nature, and they studiously avail themselves of it. They know that the impression once made on such slow and feeble understandings, can never be effaced. The very defect, which disabled them, in the first instance, from detecting the fallacy in reasoning, or the inapplicability of an authority cited, makes them obstinate in resisting an attack on their once settled opinions.

There is a second class, who read with the view and the capacity to understand a question; to whom mental exertion is a pleasure; who feel it a duty to exercise the noblest gift of God to

man in the investigation of truth. Such men value a work on any subject, precisely in proportion to its claims on their respect as rational beings. A multitude of words, and declamatory appeals to their passions, put them on their guard. They distrust those who make a great parade of their learning, when the occasion does not require it. If they detect a disposition to sophism, and fallacious reasoning, they examine the work with a natural and just suspicion. This class of readers have a most thorough contempt for inapposite, random quotations, and they prefer one sound solid reason, which approves itself to their enlightened understandings, to a volume of questionable and feeble arguments.

The third class of readers are your enlisted party men, who bravely resolve to praise whatever their party leaders may please to say, be it right or wrong, and who resolutely refuse to read anything which may be offered against it. Such persons, and they constitute no inconsiderable proportion of some sects, are beyond and above, or below, reason. They have a thorough dread of it—a very natural dread of it, because it is a faculty of which they have but little conception, and we always have a` superstitious fear of the unknown. It need not be said, that we do not address this well disciplined Macedonian Phalanx. We know very well that they will abuse us, without knowing why.

To the second class of readers, who peruse with willing and intelligent minds, we shall present a brief and condensed view of the question at issue, for there is but one question in the case; and we advise them to stop and read no more, for the rest of our remarks are not intended for them. They are designed to show the first class, the ignorant and undisciplined minds, that all which appears to be gold, is not such.

The only question at issue between the nine Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, dead or living, who are attacked, on the one side, and the vindicator of the churches, on the other, is merely a question of property, and that comparatively of little value. Nine tenths of the churches in this State have no property whatever, except the communion plate, and that frequently has been purchased by the parish, or given by opulent men, often non-communicants. The Courts of Law have, in all their decisions, expressly admitted, what this writer and his coadjutors have so much labored to prove, that the church is a body, not a corporate one, known to our laws; that it is entitled to high respect as a religious body; that the usages of our ancestors, in giving a preference to that body in church affairs, especially in the election of officers, pastor and deacons, are to be held in veneration, and to be preserved-subject, however, to be so overruled