of the high prerogative school. I have been educated to believe that in the popular privilege, as understood in English history, are to be found the true principles of free government. I do not blame any man for differing from me. It may be the result of education, temper, complexion of mind; and I freely accord to the reviewer the utmost sincerity in his partiality for the prerogative side. I have shown that Calvert, invested with all this power, had no disposition to abuse it; I still repeat, however, that such powers do not accord with the more generally received notions of the present time as to what constitutes free and safe government.

I forbear saying any thing, at present, on the subject of the act of 1649. That I propose to examine on some other occasion, when, I think, I shall be able to show that it was a constrained act, contrived as a measure to protect the lord proprietary and his friends at a very critical period; that it was the act of a Protestant legislature, with a Protestant governor at their head and that it did not establish toleration in Maryland. I think I shall be able to show that the act itself, in many respects, is exceedingly intolerant, and is of such a character as the present day would not endure upon the statute book. But I will not bring it into this discussion.

I find that I have unwittingly fallen under censure for speaking in the Discourse of the "Romish" church. The reviewer does me no more than justice in supposing I would not use this phrase where it might be construed into disrespect. I was not aware that it had such an import. It is in constant use by the most liberal and impartial Protestant writers, and I have met it even in the works of Catholics. It is sufficient for me to say that I am too Catholic in all my feelings to apply a term of derision or reproach to any Christian sect; and I am sure I have afforded more than one proof to the Roman Catholics of Maryland, that, although differing from them in my faith, I cherish for them, and their connection with our history, all the respect due not only to their most sacred rights of conscience, but also to their noble efforts in times past, to secure

to all others the same invaluable privileges. The term I have used, the reviewer remarks, is "quite innocent in itself," and, as he certainly had no reason to believe it was used otherwise than innocently by me, it was scarcely worthy, it strikes me, of so grave a comment as he has made upon it.

I have now fulfilled my design of answering the principal objections raised against my Discourse by the review.

In concluding, I take occasion to say that the critic has somewhat misapprehended the moral of my story—for it is mine of the Student of Gottingen. If he will examine it again he will find that the scholar was damned, not for writing in opposition "to the unquestioned history of two centuries," but for writing truths that were unwelcome to his readers. He will discover that the devil had the wit to see that he could set the world against the poor student who should be so bold as to write upon topics that did not flatter their selflove. I have no fear that this will be my case, for I cannot doubt that the reviewer himself will be pleased to be rescued from a path of error even by my aid. If he shall persist, however, to walk in darkness, I hope he will show some sympathy for the hardship of the dilemma of one who, like myself, is placed between the hazards of offending men by the truth and his own conscience by misstating it. In this I share the misfortune bewailed by the Venerable Bede: "Dura est enim, conditio historiagraphorum; quia, si veridicant, homines provocant; si falsa scripturis commendant, Dominus, qui veradicos ab adulatoriis sequestrat, non acceptat."

Baltimore, May 15th, 1846.

J. P. KENNEDY.

THE LIFE OF WILLIAM THOM:

A LECTURE DELIVERED FEBRUARY 4, 1846, BEFORE THE

MY

ASBURY SABBATH SCHOOL.

Y subject is drawn from humble life. It relates to the hopes, the morals, the genius and the ambition of the poor. I have chosen it not only because it has intrinsically a claim to the consideration of every true-hearted man, but chiefly because I desire to introduce to your notice a very extraordinary person, in whose history may be found at once an exposition of the extreme hardships and sufferings of poverty, and a beautiful illustration of the genius that commends its cause to the sympathy of mankind.

I thank my God, the story I have to tell is, in no wise, American. It belongs to a foreign land; and the telling of it will suggest to your minds and hearts a daily motive for gratitude to Heaven, that our lines have been cast in more pleasant places-that on this shore of the Atlantic, misery and virtue hold no frequent companionship-that patriotism has no call to the duty of asserting the rights of an oppressed people.

From what causes, it is needless for us to inquire, social life, on the opposite coast of the great ocean which divides us from Europe, has long ago fallen into an organization that has made a sad difference between rich and poor. A difference not temporary—not of a generation nor an age-not mitigable by bringing rich and poor, through successive shades, each to the confine of the other-but a permanent, broad, organic difference-a difference made perpetual by caste, heritable

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and by no means to be obliterated; made sorrowful to the poor man, not more by the huge toil necessary to gather little food, than by his near view of the riotous living and uncharitable pomp of the rich man who prescribes to him his law and compels him to obey it. From whatsoever causes, operating in the beginning and still operating in the sequel, this difference has become a badge of European polity as distinguished from our own.. It has, therefore, presented to us a world of adventure of which we have no type in America. scarcely believe the tales of wretchedness that reach us from that further shore; with greater difficulty still, believe that these sufferings are without remedy. At first we thought them overwrought narratives-exaggerations of those prone to make bad appear worse. But the proof came in so many ways— from the lips of the emigrant, from government reports, from artless statements of fact, and from not less true fiction, that our once incredulous community have come to familiar conviction of the truth, and bless themselves that God has given us "a world so bright and fair," and shielded us against the wrong and wretchedness of these unhappy foreign lands.

When I say this difference between the rich and the poor is the badge which distinguishes European polity from our own, I do not mean to assert that there are no exceptions in European society from that severe condemnation which makes the lot of the man in humble life perpetual through his children. There are great and noble exceptions--great and noble from the very conquests they have made over the rigorous prohibitions of their estate. Men are sometimes gifted with a bold and enterprising genius which no barriers can confine —with a virtue so heroic, with a mind so expansive and irrepressible that no conventions of society can restrain them. The sacred fire has often been kindled in the censer of an humbly born heart, whence it has sent forth the richest perfume that has been offered at the altar of human greatness. Fortune, even, has sometimes in its caprices elevated to high rank and influence those whom virtue, wisdom and genius

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have disowned. These are exceptions, and only attract our attention the more painfully to the state of the millions they leave behind.

Perhaps in the name I am about to mention, one of these exceptions will hereafter be acknowledged. Few persons, in this assembly, I presume, have ever heard of William Thom --still fewer know any thing of his history. I know him only from a book which has excited some sensation in England and Scotland-" Rhymes and Recollections of a Hand-loom Weaver"-a book which has found but little access as yet to American readers. From that volume I gather some loose fragments of a life worth a most earnest study; and out of these I design to make up this evening's lecture. William Thom is now forty-seven years old. of these years have been spent at the loom. A poor Aberdeen boy, pent up at ten years of age, and consigned to the everlasting ply of the shuttle and monotonous dance of treadles, to find his way through this world with such amount of comfort and luxury as might be purchased out of a stipend varying between twelve shillings a week and five shillings, and with all the leisure left to him after fourteen hours a day given to the fabrication of cotton cloth!

Thirty-seven

Thirty-two years thus employed brought him to the scale of comfort, described by himself in these words; it is in the year 1844: "I occupy two trim little garrets in a house belonging to Sir Robert Elphinstone, lately built on the market stance of Inverury. We have every thing required in our humble way. Perhaps our blankets pressed a little too lightly during the late severe winter-but then we crept closer together. That is gone 'tis summer now, and we are hopeful that next winter will bring better things."

This is a cheerful note from a patient, resigned, Christian man, with three children, in his "two trim little garrets," and with his light blankets "during the late severe winter”—hopeful for the next year.

His estate, you may infer from this, was not greatly to be