Note 24 — SIX SUNNY MONTHS. BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC. CHAPTER XI. A MORNING WITH ST. PETER. (continued 5)

A writer in the London Times gives the following answer to the ecclesiastical assumptions of Mr. Tooth: “I will enumerate some of the acts on ecclesiastical matters which have become law without the consent of the priesthood, and which therefore the present agitators bind themselves to disallow and disobey: The act of Edward VI. on the Sacrament, on Chantries, on Images, on Fasting; the Acts of Uniformity, both of Edward VI. and Elizabeth; the Act of Toleration; the act abolishing the burning of heretics, under William III.; the acts, both of Charles II. and William III., for the observance of Sunday; the various Marriage Acts of William III., George II., and Queen Victoria; the various acts both for the repression and the relief of Roman Catholics during the same range of time; the acts during the late and present reigns against pluralities and against non-residence; the acts suppressing the Irish bishoprics, suppressing half the cathedral dignitaries in England, and, finally, revolutionizing the Irish Church; the act for abolishing the services drawn up by Convocation for the political anniversaries of the seventeenth century. These and many other laws, many of them of unquestioned beneficence, most of them of unquestioned obligation, all of them passed by Parliament, and by it alone, must be set aside by those who make it a point of conscience to disobey any law which has been imposed on the church by secular authority.”