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TRUTH IS POWERFUL,
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VOL. I.
CORBETT ON THE REFORDIATION.
(Continued from No. 39.)
ilistory ef the Protestant ‘ Reformation,” in England and Ire-
land: ina series of Letters addressed to all sensible and just
“Englishmen. By Witi1am Cospert.
LETTER VI. ,
“479: But there were, at Canterbury, two objects by which
‘the “Reformation” birds of prey were particularly attracted;
namely, the monastery of Saint Austin, and the tomb of THo-
mag a Becxet. The former of these renowned men, to_whose
preaching, and whose long life of incessant and most disinter-
ested labour, England owed the establishment of christianity
in the land, had, for eight or nine centuries, been regarded as
‘he Apostle of England. .. His shrine was in the monastery de-
dicated to him, and as it was, in all respects, a work of great
magnificence, it offered a plenteous booty to the plunderers, who,
ifthey could have got at the tomb of Jesus Christ himself, and
“oi "2> hag found it equally rich, would, beyond all question, have torn
it te pieces, But, rich as this prize was, there was a greater in
the shrine of Thomas a Becket, in the Cathedral church, Becr-
x7, who was Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of Henry
IL, who resisted that king, when the latter was manifestly pre-
paring to rob the church, and to enslave and pillage the people,
had been held in the highest veneration all over christendom
‘for more than three hundred years, when the Reformation plun-
derers assailed his tomb; but especially was his name venerat-
ed in England, where the people looked upon him as a martyr
to their liberties as well as their religion, he having been barbar-
ously murdered by ruffians sent from the king, and for no other
cause than that he persevered in resisting an attempt to violate
the Great Charter. Pilgrimages were continually made to his
tomb; offerings incessantly poured into it; churches and hospi-
tals and other éstablishments of piety and charity were dedicat-
ed to him, as, for instance, the church of St. Thomas in the city
of London, the Monastery of Sende, in Surrey, the Hospital of
. St, Thomas, in the borough of Southwark, and things of this sort,
in great numbers, all over the country. The offerings at his
,shrine had made it exceedingly rich and magnificent... A king
of France had given to it a diamond, supposed to be the most
valuable then in Europe. Hume, never losing sight of the double
object of maligning the Catholic religion and degrading the En-
giish nation, ascribes this sort ef half-adoration of Becker to
the craft of the priests and to the folly and superstition of the
people. He is vexed to death to have to relate, that more than
a hundred thousand pilgrims to Becxsr’s shrine have been as-
cembled at one time in Canterbury. . Indeed! why, then, there
must have been some people living in England, even in those old
times ; and those people must have had some tcealth too; though,
according to the whole tenor of the lying book which the Scotch
call our Aistory, this was, at the time I am now speaking of, a
poor, beggarly, scarcely inhabited country. - The city of Can-
terbury does not now contain men, women, and children, all
counted, aud well puffed out, more than {welre thousand, seven
hundred and twenty souls! How could they find lodging and en-
-tertainment for a hundred thousand grown persons! And thir,
“too, observe, at one corner of the Island. None but persons of
some substance could have performed such a journey. Here is
a fact that just slips out side-ways, which is of itself much more
than enough to make us reflect and inquire before we swallow
«What the Scotch philosophers are now presenting to us on the
subjects of national wealth and population. And, then, as to
the craft and superstition which Hume says produced this con-
course of pilgrims. Just as if either were necessary to produce
unbounded veneration for the name of a man, of whom it was
undeniably true, that he had sacrificed his life, and that, too,
in the most signal manner, for the rights and liberties and reli-
gion of his country, Was it “folly and superstition,” or was it
wisdom and gratitude and real piety to show, by overt acts, ve-
neration for such a man? The bloody tyrant who had sent
Moore and Frsuer to the block, and who, of course, hated the
name of BrcKet, caused his ashes to be dug up and scattered in
the air, and forbade the future insertion of his name inthe CaLEse
NEW-YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY, 7,
par. We do nol, therefore, find it in the Calendar in the Com-
mon Prayer-Book ; but, and it is a most curious fact, we find it
in Moore’s Atmanacx; in that Almanack it is for this year 1825;
and thus, in spite of the ruthless tyrant, and in spite of all the
liars of the “ Reformation,” the English nation has always con-
tinued to be just and grateful to the memory of this celebrated
man. .
180, But to return to the “Reformation” robbers; here was
a prize! This tomb of Becket was of wood, most exquisitely
wrought, inlaid abundantly with the precious metals, and thick-
ly set with precious stones ofall sorts, Here was an object for
“ Reformation” piety to fix its godly eyes upon! Were such a
shrine to be found in one of our churches now, how the swadiers
would ery out for another“ Reformation!" The gold, silver,
and jewels filled two chests, each of which required six or eight
men of that day (when the labourers used to have plenty uf meat)
to move them to the door of the Cathedral! How the eyes of
Home's “high-minded, magnificent, and generous prince” must
have’ glistened when the chests were opencd! * They vied, I
dare say, with the diamonds themselves. No robbers of whom
we have ever had an account, equalled these robbers in rapaci-
ty, in profligacy, and in insolence. ~ But, where is the wonder?
The tyraut’s proclamations had now the force of laws ; he had
bribed the people’s natural leaders to his side ; his will was law;
and that will constantly sought, ptunder-and bloed. -- ~
181, The monasteries were how plundered, sacked, gutted;
for this last is the proper word whereby to describe, the deed.
As some comfort, and to encourage us to endure the horrid re-
lation, we may here bear in mind, that we shall, by and by, see
the base rufian, Cromwe.t, after being the chief instrument
in the plander, laying his miscreant head on the block; but to
seize the estates, and to pillage the churches and apartments of
the monasteries was not all. ‘The noble buildings, raised with
the view of lasting for countless ‘ages; the beautiful gardens;
these ornaments of the country must not be suffered to stand, for
they continually reminded the people of the rapacity and cru-
elty of their tyrant and his fellow-plunderers and partakers in
the plunder. How the property in the estates was disposed of,
we shall see further on; but the buildings must come down. To
go to work in the usual way would have been a labour withouy
end; so that, in most instances,’ GUNPOWDER was resorted
to; and thus, in a few hours, the ufost magnificent structures,
which it had required ages upon ages to bring to perfection,
were made heaps of ruins, pretty much such as many of them
remain even unto this day. In many cases, those who got the
estates were bound to destroy the buildings, or to knock them
partly down, so that the people should, at once, be deprived of
all hope of seeing a revival of what they had Jost, and in order
to give them encouragement to take leases under the new owners,
182, The whole country was thus disfigured; it had the ap-
pearance ofa land recently invaded by the most brutal barba-
rians; and this appearance, if we look well into it, it has even
tothisday., Nothing has ever yet come to supply the place of
what was then destroyed. This is the view for us to take of the
matter. : It is not a mere matter of religion; but a matter of
rights, liberties, real wealth, happiness, and national greatness.
If all these have been strengthened, or augmented, by the “ re-
formation,” even then we must not approve of the horrible
means; but, if they have all been weukened, or lessened, by
that “ reformation,” what an outrageous abuse of words is it to
call the event by that nue! And, if I do not prove, that this
latter has been the case; if | donot prove, clear as the day-
light, that, before the “reformation,” England was greater,
more wealthy, more moral, and more happy, than she has ¢ver
been since; if 1 do not make this appear as clearly as any fact
ever was made to appear, I will be content to pass, forthe rest
of my life, for a vain pretender, oe
183. If look at the county of Surrey, in which I myself was
born, and behold the devastation of that county, Iam filled with
indignation against the ruffian devastators. Surrey has very
little of natural wealth in it, A very considerable part of it is
mere heathJand. Its present comparative opulence is a crea-
ture of the fictitious system of funding. Yet this connty was,
from one end of & ta the other, ornamented and benefitted by
the establishmeois which grew out of the Catholic Church, At
‘ .
Se cee
AND WILL PREVAIL.
isa¢ -. -NO.AI
Bermondsey there was an Abbey; at St. Mary Overy there was
a Priory, and this convent founded that very St. Thomas’s
Hospital which now exists in Southwark. This Tfospital also
was seized by the ruffians, but the building was afterwards
pital, and, after its revenues were selzed, the master obtained a
licence tobeg! At Merton there was a Priory. Then, going
across to the Sussex-side, there was another Priory at Reigate.
Coming again near the Thames, and more to the West, there
was a Priory at Shene. Still more to the West, there was an
Abbey at Chertsey. At Tandrige’ there was a Priory. Near
Guildford, at Sende, there was a Priory. And, at the tower *
end of the county, at Waverley, in the parish of Farnham, was
an Abbey. To these belonged cells and chapels at'a distance
from the convents themselves; so that’ it would have beena
work of some difficulty for a man so to place himself, evea in
this poor, heathy county, at six miies distance from a place
where the door of hospitality was always open to the poor, to
the aged, the orphan, the widow, and the stranger, Can any
man now, place himself, in that whole county, within any num- '
ber of miles of any such door? No; nor in any other county,
is now no hospitality in England. Words have changed their
meaning. We now give entertainment to those who entertain
sonally; and, very scldom, because they stand in weed of en=
tertainment, .An hospital, in those days, meant a place of free
entertainment; and nota place merely for the lame, the sick,
and the blind® and the very sound of the words, “ Old English
Hospitality,” ought to raise a blash on every Protestant check.
Bat, besides this hospitality exercised invariably in the monas-
teries, the weight of their example was creat with all the opu-
lent classes of the community; and thus, to be generous and
kind was the character of the nation atlarge; a niggardly, a
base, a money-loying disposition could vot be in fashion, when
those institutions {> which all men looked with reverence, set
an example which condemned such a disposition. . .
184, And, if Lamasked why the thirteen monks of Waverly,
for instance, should have had 1901. 13s. 11d. a year to spend, +
makinng about four thousand pounds a year of the money of
the present day, I may answer. by asking why they’ should
not have had it? And, [ may goon, and ark, why any body _
should have any property at all? Aye, but, they never worked .
they did nothing to increase the nations store 7 Let us see how;
this is. They possessed the lands of Waverly,a few bundred
acres of very poor land with a mill, and, perbaps, about twenty *
acres of very indifferent meadow-land, on one part of which,
sheltered by a semi-circle of sand-hills, their Abbey stood, the
river Ifey (about twenty feet wide,) ranning close by the out:
wall of the convent. Besides this they possessed the impra--
priated tithes of the parish of Farnham, and a pond or two on *
the commons adjoining. This estate in land belongs toa Mr.
Thompson, who lives on the spot, and the estate in tithes toa Mr.
Halsey, who lives at a distance frem the parish. Now, without
any disparagement to these gentlemen, did not the menks —
work as much as they do? Did not their revenue go to aug.
ment the nation’s store as much as the rents of Mr. Thomp-
son, or the tithes of Mr. Halsey? Aye, and which is of vast
importance, the poor of the parish of Farnham, having this
monastery to apply to, and having for their neighbour a Bi-
shop of Winchester, who#id not sell small beer out of his pa-
lace, stood in no need of poor-rates, and bad never heard the
horrid word pauper pronounced. Come, my townsmen of
Farnham, you, who as wellas I have, when we were boys,
climed the ivy-covered ruins of this venerable Abbey (the frst”
of its order in England); you, who as well as I have, when
looking at those walls, which have out-lived the memory of |
the devastators Luttot the malice of those who still taste the
sweets of the devastation; you, who, ag well as I, have many -
times wondered what an abbey was, and how and why this one
came to be devastated; you shall be judge in this matter. —
You know what poor-rates ‘are and you know what church
rates ave. Very well, then, there were no poor-rates aud ne.
church-rates as tong as Waverly Abbey caisted, aud as long!
given to the city ef London... At Newington there was an Hos- °
Allis wholly changed, and all is changed for the worse. There + |
usin return, “We eatertain people Yccause we luke tum pers
a
eal
~