They were obliged to read, and thoroughly to understand, an extensive and enlightened course of divinity--to attend lectures and entitle themselves, both by attendance and answering, to a certain number of certificates, without which they had no chance for orders.

In point of fact, they were forced to become serious; and the consequences soon began to appear in the general character of the Church.

Much piety, activity, learning, and earnest labor were to be found in it; and indeed, we may venture to say, that, with the exception of her carnal and debasing wealth, she had been purified and reformed to a very considerable extent, even then.

Still, however, the bloated mass of mammon hung about her, prostrating her energies, secularizing her spirit, and, we must add, oppressing the people, out of whose pockets it was forced to come.

When the calamity, therefore, which the reader may perceive is partly upon and impending over, the Protestant clergy, actually occurred, it did not find them unprepared, nor without the sympathy of many of the very people who were forced by the tyrannical influence of party feeling to oppose them publicly.