thoughts upon themselves, and considered the reproaches which they deserved for being the instruments of shortening the lives of so many millions of their fellow-creatures by unjust and unnecessary wars. GILDRIG'S EYES ARE OPENED, AND HE DISMISSES THE DISTURBERS OF HIS PEACE. ALREADY as drunk with popularity, as the Bantam was with victory,-little matters affect light heads) the Brushites were in the situation of men, who, being far gone with liquor, still thirst for more; and, like the Bantam, too, they at length discovered their nakedness. The arrogance of the former keepers of St. Peter's Keys, in claiming a spiritual and even temporal supremacy over all earthly kingdoms, is well known, and too often repeated in former Romances to find a place in this. place in this. The claim, however ridiculous, had been formerly allowed in Freeland, and in Bogland, which we have already mentioned as one of its dependencies. But it had been long since disclaimed, and, after the papal yoke had been thrown off, the Protestant religion was declared the established religion of the manor and its dependencies. Still, at the present day, the number of the papal followers in Bogland, was equal to one half or more of the whole population. By the act of Reformation, the lord was declared to be the supreme of the church, as he naturally was; and every one, who entered upon an official situation, was to be obliged, previously to taking it upon him, to make an oath to that effect, which was reasonable enough. The Catholics, however, were galled by their exclusion from all public offices, as they would not submit to take the oath, and exclaimed that it was hard that so great a number of the tenants should be placed under the law of the manor, and whilst they were denied an equality of protection, be called upon for an equality of allegiance. But this was mere sophistry; as, if they had clubbed an equality of allegiance, they might have enjoyed an equality of protection. The Protestants, on the other hand, observed that the Ro manists had been the most intolerant sect in the world whilst they had the sway; that they would be so again if ever they could resume it, and that they had never heard of such a thing as toleration till they had experienced a trifle of what they had made others feel in abunlance. Much profound argument was made use of on both sides of the question, and the ball was kept up by ignorance, bigotry, and superstition, three wights which, with well-informed and moderate persons, reason had long ago put to flight. True religion Is always mild, propitious, and humble; Bogland had been, for years, a thorn in the side of her sister Freeland; and we have seen in what manner the former took advantage of the distresses of the latter during the war with the Thirteen Acres. She insisted that, though she acknowledged the lord of Freeland to be her lord; yet that she was entitled to a separate court of judicature; and, during the short stewardship of Brush and Boreas, the claim was allowed, chiefly through the influence of the former. In the depth of the pressure of the war with the Gulls, the Boglanders again became troublesome, through the insidious conduct of the Gulls, who had inscribed the words, Civil and Religi ous Liberty, on their standards, to entrap the ignorant of all countries, and particularly to sow disunion between the Boglanders and the Freelanders. Several insurrections ensued in Bogland, principally through the instigation of the Roman Catholic priests, which were quelled by the Bogland Protestants and the Freelanders in conjunction. At length, in order to put an effectual stop to those disorders, Vortex formed the design of uniting Bogland under the same laws, as well as under the same lord, as Freeland. Vortex ably carried his point, but not without the most strenuous oppostion; and it was said that he prevailed upon 'several of the Roman Catholic members of the Bogland judicature to consent to the union by |