5 FEBRUARY 1853, Page 10

RIGA TORY SERVICES IN TIIE CHURCH.

'Oxford, 30th January 1853. Sin—How long will it be before ieople are thoroughly a-wakened to see the great evil of our -"State services" ? Today we have heard the worst of them, that for the 'Martyrdom of the blessed King 'Charles the First." Surely there is something almost blasphemous in applying to Charles such words as these—" The people Stood up, and the rulers took -counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed" : -words of -which the ori- ginal application is to sacred to be 'thus -miserably parodied. Surely, too. it is incensistent to thank God on the 30th of Jan-miry and 'the 29th -of May for the Restoration of the-Stuarts, and on the 5th of November for their expulsion. The truth is, 'that we ought not to make the Prayer-book -a means of teach- ing steeple high Toryism and Divine Bight; nor to retain in the services of a Church called national, prayers in which none but a small section can conscientiously join, and expressions calculated only to rake up old feuds. Let us by all means have a sufficient acknowledgment of God's superintend- ing providence in guiding the destinies of our nation; but let us not call men who, however -mistaken, were at least in intention the most honest and puresminded patriots -of -their day, ungodly men, barbarous murderers,. and sons of BeliaL

I Arnow that this is no new complaint; but it is only by continual agita- tion that we can hope to succeed.