Bunting should ultimately be called to take one of the highest dignities of the Established Church."

I would reply to this insinuation or hope, that I believe the leading Methodist preachers are too much attached to their system to be bribed into your Church, and that, knowing how useful they can be as members of Conference, and how useless they must be as Deans or Bishops, they would decline these honours even if they were offered to them.

Jabez Bunting may have his own views, in which I do not wish to inquire or interfere, but I take him to be too wise a man ever to think of a mitre, and that for two reasons. 1. The power, wealth, and dignity of your Prelates are a precarious tenure at present, and therefore a wise Iman will think a bird in the hand worth two in the bush. 2. Jabez Bunting has power enough already in Conference to satisfy a reasonable man; and although he is an aristocrat amongst our people, he would be nobody amongst your aristocracy it is far pleasanter, I should suppose, to be worshipped and obeyed in Conference than to be sneered at in the House of Lords. But I do not think the day will ever come when they will propose to elevate Dr. Bunting to the bench-at least, if they do, I am sure the bench must be breaking down; in which case nobody would wish to take a seat on it.

Allow me, Sir, to say, in conclusion, that I had

not expected the honour of a letter from you on this or any other subject, for the last letter I wrote to you, in conjunction with the Dissenting ministers of Tuddington, was answered with repulsive haughtiness, scorn, and contumely.

In other matters you must allow me to assure you that I cordially sympathize with the Dissenters of this parish.

I am, Reverend Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

ELISHA DRANCE,

(Wesleyan Superintendent.)

LETTER XXXII.

From the Reverend RABSHAKEH GATHERCOAL

to L. S. E.

Он, my dear brother! the plot thickens, the tragedy is drawing to a conclusion, and I begin to wish for Medea's chariot to escape from the catastrophe. But to clear the stage first of minor calamities, my letter to the Wesleyan Superintendent has proved a total failure; the fellow declines a coalition, and has written a saucy reply, in which he takes the tone of a superior, pities the fallen state of our Church, and recommends the Bishops to become Methodists, and to take quarterly tickets! One advantage, however, I have got by writing to him-a proof indisputable that this odious sect is as dangerous as our Clergy declared it would be when John Wesley first began tramping about the country. For my part, I believe the Methodists have done more real harm to us than the Independents, for the Methodists are sapping and mining under the bulwarks, whilst the Independents are laying close siege to us above ground. We know how to oppose the one, but we cannot tell where to meet the other. But to pass on to matters of greater moment-we

have had our meeting for the Church rate, and are defeated!!!

Before I went to the meeting I was closeted with Dr. Birch and Mr. Scrope. Mr. Scrope, who is not so sanguine as the Doctor, had serious apprehensions of the result of this struggle, and begged to know my reasons for calculating on a majority. Churchwarden Stubbs was with us, and laid before us his list of votes, by which he said he was sure of a majority of near thirty.

But," said he, "if we have a majority of one it will be sufficient." When Stubbs left us, Mr. Scrope said I was very imprudent to take any calculation from such a sot as Stubbs, who was always drunk, and did not know what he was about. It would have been much better to have had the opinion of lawyer Squeeze. I assured him that I should have applied to Squeeze if he had been at home, but he had gone to Cornwall, to take possession of property left him there by a distant relation; that I did not know his direction, nor when to expect him again; but I had heard him say that the property of the parish was with the Established Church, and that we could outvote the Dissenters. To this Scrope replied very significantly-"This opinion was pronounced before you had sold the Quaker's sheep."

There was, however, no time for a change of policy; we had gone too far to recede; I had mustered all the friends of the Church, and we

must go on with the business as well as we could.

When we went into the Church, we found a vast crowd already assembled there, and filling every part of the building. The Dissenting ministers were all seated together, and I could clearly see that we should have a stormy debate.

I took the chair, ex officio, and Dr. Birch, who had house property in the town, sat at my elbow. There was no disturbance at the commencement, but rather, I should say, an awful stillness. I began the business, by explaining the actual condition of the church fabric, and the absolute necessity of raising funds to keep it in repair: all the details and estimates I laid before them. I proved the decay of the timbers in the roof, the deficiency of the lead, the want of new spouts, the crazy state of the organ, and the want of a drain to take away the water from the churchyard. We had put the estimates as low as possible, and I took good care to avoid every topic which could give offence.

The Churchwardens then proposed a rate to defray the expenses of repairing the church and organ, and draining the churchyard.

Mervyn, the Independent Minister, then got up and made a long harangue about the voluntary principle and the rights of conscience-such stuff as the schismatics usually talk-and, therefore, I leave you to imagine what he said. His speech, which