We take up the subject at the epoch when the Episcopal became a dissenting a,nd voluntary church, viz., the Revolution of 1688. When that event took place, “thppersecuted remnant” felt that the day had come when their enemies were to be delivered into their hands,—and terrible hands they would have been for any persons of a different opinion from their own to be delivered into. But William III. was not a man to be easily turned to such purposes; and when a deputation of zealous priests waited upon him to tell him that they hoped he would exterminate Prelacy and Heresy, he intimated to them, that extermination was not a word in his political vocabulary. The Dutch king had a curious mixture of political elements to deal with. There were the High English Churchmen, who would rather go to the Tower than promulgate James’ declaration of indulgence, yet would have no other king but him; the dissenters, who had been the real moving engine in the Revolution, yet to whom, at the risk of getting even the Low Church party of England against him, he dared give no higher boon than that of mere existence. In Ireland, a couple of millions or so of Roman Catholics thought it not quite reasonable that they should be saddled and bitted by a hundred thousand English Churchmen; but the latter said, Is not Popery a false religion, and shall we not put it down? a vaunt hardly uttered, when Presbyterianism appears at its back, and says, Nay, nay, yon are nearly as far wrong as the Papists: we are the truth, our king is a Calvinist, and he will assist us to extirpate error. In Scotland, however, there was not that overwhelming preponderance in favour of Presbyterianism which is generally supposed to have existed. Probably there was a majority, certainly not a very large one, in favour of that form; and it certainly had on its side the portion of the population most zealously religious, while the other had the preponderance in rank and wealth.

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