Part 11 (2/2)

As Birmingham abounds with new streets, that were once private property, it is a question often discussed, In what point of time the land appropriated for such streets, ceases to be private? But as this question was never determined, and as it naturally rises before me, and is of importance, suffer me to examine it.

When building leases are granted, if the road be narrow, as was lately the case at the West end of New-street, the proprietor engages to give a certain portion of land to widen it. From that moment, therefore, it falls to the lot of the public, and is under the controul of the commissioners, as guardians of public property. I allow, if within memory, the grantor and the lessees should agree to cancel the leases, which is just as likely to happen as the powers of attraction to cease, and the moon to descend from the heavens; in this case, the land reverts again to its original proprietor.

Though the streets of Birmingham have for many ages been exposed to the hand of the encroacher, yet, by a little care, and less expence, they might in about one century be reduced to a considerable degree of use and beauty. In what light then shall we be viewed by the future eye, if we neglect the interest of posterity?

RELIGION AND POLITICS.

Although these two threads, like the warp and the woof, are very distinct things; yet, like them, they are usually woven together. Each possesses a strength of its own, but when united, have often become extremely powerful, as in the case of Henry the Third and the clergy.

This union, at times, subsisted from a very early date.

Power is the idol of man; we not only wish to acquire it, but also to increase and preserve it. If the magistrate has been too weak to execute his designs, he has backed his schemes with the aid of the church; this occurred with King Stephen and the Bishops.

Likewise, if a churchman finds his power ascendant in the human mind, he still wishes an addition to that power, by uniting another. Thus the Bishop of Rome, being master of the spiritual chair, stept also into the temporal.

Sometimes the ecclesiastical and civil governors appear in malign aspect, or in modern phrase, like a quarrel between the squire and the rector, which is seldom detrimental to the people. This was the case with Henry the Eighth and the church.

The curses of a priest hath sometimes brought a people into obedience to the King, when he was not able to bring them himself. One could not refrain from smiling, to hear a Bishop curse the people for obeying their Sovereign, and in a few months after, curse them again if they did not; which happened in the reign of King John. But, happy for the world, that these retail dealers in the wrath of heaven are become extinct, and the market is over.

Birmingham, in those remote periods of time, does not seem to have attended so much to religious and political dispute, as to the course music of her hammer. Peace seems to have been her characteristic--She paid obedience to that Prince had the good fortune to possess the throne, and regularly paid divine honours in St. Martin's, because there was no other church. Thus, through the long ages of Saxon, Danish, and Norman government, we hear of no noise but that of the anvil, till the reign of Henry the Third, when her Lord joined the Barons against the Crown, and drew after him some of his mechanics, to exercise the very arms they had been taught to make; and where, at the battle of Evesham, he staked his life and his fortune, and lost both.

Things quickly returning into their former channel, she stood a silent spectator during that dreadful contest between the two roses, pursuing the tenor of still life till the civil wars of Charles I. when she took part with the Parliament, some of whose troops were stationed here, particularly at the Garrison and Camp-hill; the names of both originating in that circ.u.mstance.

Prince Rupert, as hinted before, approaching Birmingham in 1643 with a superior power, forced the lines, and as a punishment set fire to the town. His vengeance burned fiercely in Bull-street, and the affrighted inhabitants quenched the flames with a heavy fine.

In 1660, she joined the wish of the kingdom, in the restoration of the Stuart family. About this time, many of the curious manufactures began to blossom in this prosperous garden of the arts.

In 1688, when the nation chose to expel a race of Kings, though replete with good nature, because they had forgot the limits of justice; our peaceable sons of art, wisely considering, that oppression and commerce, like oil and water, could never unite, smiled with the rest of the kingdom at the landing of the Prince of Orange, and exerted their little a.s.sistance towards effecting the Revolution, notwithstanding the lessons of _divine right_ had been taught near ninety years.

In the reign of Queen Anne, when that flaming luminary, Dr. Sacheverel, set half the kingdom in blaze, the inhabitants of this region of industry caught the spark of the day, and grew warm for the church--They had always been inured to _fire_, but now we behold them between _two_.

As the doctor rode in triumph through the streets of Birmingham, this flimsy idol of party snuffed up the incense of the populace, but the more sensible with held their homage; and when he preached at Sutton Coldfield, where he had family connections, the people of Birmingham crowded in mult.i.tudes round his pulpit. But it does not appear that he taught his hearers to _build up Zion_, but perhaps to pull her down; for they immediately went and gutted a meeting-house.

It is easy to point out a time when it was dangerous to have been of the established church, and I have here pointed out one, when it was dangerous to profess any other.

We are apt to think the zeal of our fathers died with them, for I have frequently beheld with pleasure, the churchman, the presbyterian, and the quaker uniting their efforts, like brethren, to carry on a work of utility. The bigot of the last age casts a malicious sneer upon the religion of another, but the man of this pa.s.ses a joke upon his own.

A sameness in religious sentiment is no more to be expected, than a sameness of face. If the human judgment varies in almost every subject of plain knowledge, how can it be fixed in this, composed of mystery?

As the true religion is ever that which a man professes himself, it is necessary to enquire, What means, he that is right may use, to convert him that is wrong?

As the whole generations of f.a.ggot and torture, are extinct in this age of light, there seems only to remain fair arguments founded in reason, and these can only be brought as evidences upon the trial: The culprit himself, _by indefeasible right divine_, will preside as the judge. Upon a close enquiry it will be found, that his sentiments are as much his private property, as the coat that covers him, or the life which that coat incloses.

Is there not as much reason to punish my neighbour for differing in opinion from me, as to punish me, because I differ from him? Or, is there any to punish either?

If a man's sentiments and practice in religious matters, appear even absurd, provided society is not injured, what right hath the magistrate to interfere?

The task is as easy to make the stream run upwards, as to form a nation of one mind. We may p.r.o.nounce with confidence, an age of bigotry is no age of philosophy.

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