The next specimen is of a similar character.  I had said, in my Letter, that as the promoters of the public examination in St. Andrew’s Hall had, in order to effect it, “received assistance from their dissenting fellow citizens, as well as from others,” our “friendly proceedings” would be “used against ourselves,” if they “were to be rewarded by our utter exclusion from all future participation with Churchmen in the system of Infant Education.”  “Brethren!” exclaims p. 26Mr. Perowne, “Brethren! here you have a truth of the utmost importance, plainly told you from the pen of a Dissenter.”  And what is the truth that my dissenting pen has told?  Why, that the conduct of the church, in excluding Dissenters, would be “against” those “friendly proceedings” which we had shewn towards the church.  But because it would be against our courtesy, Mr. Perowne, in the might and majesty of his logic, jumps to the conclusion that it would be against our nonconformity!  And then, having made this notable discovery, for which he certainly deserves a patent, he blows his “penny trumpet,” and summons the whole hierarchy to listen to his proclamation, that if the church will uniformly treat Dissenters as they have been treated in this business, the “venerable Establishment” is secure.  “Brethren! here you have a truth of the utmost importance!”
 
Mr. Perowne complains of the pain which I have produced in him, by what I have said “about love and union.”  “Such things,” says he “painfully remind us of the days of Charles the first.”  This Charles, it will be remembered, as the “head of the church,” in his days, and “out of a like pious care for the service of God, as had his blessed father,” published the “Book of Sports,” which authorized the people to amuse themselves with all sorts of games, &c. on the Lord’s day, and which the clergy read to their congregations after divine service.  I have no wish, however, to mention “Charles the first” to any man of acute sensibility, and I was not aware that my recommendation of “love and union” would remind any one of that ill-fated monarch.  Mr. Perowne’s peculiar sensibility on this subject, and the remarkable fact that, in writing a pamphlet on Infant Schools, he p. 27should twice refer to “Charles the first,” and “our martyred Charles,” is calculated to excite strange suspicions in the mind of a believer in the doctrine of metempsychosis.  Why should Mr. Perowne feel pain when he is reminded of “Charles the first?” or why should “love and union” remind him of “our martyred Charles” at all, except on the principle of the Bramins, that “we should never kill a flea, lest we inflict pain on the soul of some of our ancestors.”  It is true that Charles frequently boasted that he was “a true son of the church.”  It is true that Charles entertained the very same feelings against Puritans, as Mr. Perowne does against Dissenters.  It is true that some of the sentiments in Mr. P’s. pamphlet are as precisely Icôn Basilikè as if they had been dictated by the soul of the headless monarch.  It is true, as Bishop Burnet says, that Charles the first “loved high and rough measures, but had neither skill to conduct them, nor height of genius to manage them.  He hated all that offered prudent and moderate counsels; and, even when it was necessary to follow such advices, he hated those that gave them.”  It is true—but, to use Mr. Perowne’s language, “I forbear to finish a picture so painful to contemplate,” and shall only add, that David Hume, in his history of England, states that the last word the king said, was, “Remember”—and that “great mysteries were supposed to be concealed under that expression.”
 
Mr. P. appeals to the Collect which I quoted, and which he says I have “mutilated,” as affording evidence that “exclusive Churchmen, are consistent Churchmen;” thereby leading us to infer that the church teaches her members to shew their consistency by their exclusiveness, even in the exercise of prayer, and p. 28in the presence of Deity!  Supposing, however, that the Collect afforded evidence of the charity of the church, rather than of her bigotry, I advised her members to act in accordance with its spirit, and thereby to “add practice to profession and to prayer.”  This advice, Mr. P. intimates, is, on my part, an assumption of infallibility—as if none but a Papist could consistently enjoin practical piety, or admonish his hearers to shew their faith by their works.  “Is Mr. A. infallible?” my inquisitor asks, and immediately adds, “The Pope of Rome could not have gone further!”  I have not heard much of the Pope lately, but in former times he was a tolerably far traveller, especially when he was in the pursuit of Dissenting heretics.  But as Mr. P. may perhaps claim an acquaintance, as well as a relationship with his Holiness, I shall not dispute the matter, but humbly submit to the decision, that the Pope of Rome never went further than I have gone in my “Letter.”
 
The next paragraph, in Mr. P’s. “Observations,” is chiefly historical, and he has contrived to give us “a bird’s eye view” of the state of religion in this country, from the days of “our marty............