THE

CHRISTIAN OBSERVER,

CONDUCTED BY

MEMBERS

OF THE

ESTABLISHED CHURCH.

FOR THE YEAR 1820.

BEING

THE NINETEENTH VOLUME,

LONDON:
PRINTED BY ELLERTON AND HENDERSON,

Johnson's Court, Fleet Street.
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PRE FACE

WE entered upon the year which has just closed with hopes, we lament to say, that have not been realized. At its commencement, the alarm excited in every Christian and patriotic mind, by the tumultuous meetings and other inflammatory proceedings of the dişaffected, had begun to subside; and we ventured to hope, that the laws which had just passed for repressing these evils, and especially for checking the licentiousness of the press, would afford a salutary, respite, until the wisdom and paternal care of the Legislature and the Government should, by the blessing of God, be enabled to adopt remedial measures of a more permanent and efficient character.

Scarcely, however, had the past year opened, when the revered Monarch who had so long swayed the sceptre of these realms was called, as we trust, to a brighter crown. The new reign was ushered in under circumstances of a very distressing kind. It had scarcely commenced, when a severe though short illness threatened the life of the King, and a band of assassins had nearly effected the murder of all the members of his cabinet, with a view to the entire overthrow of the government. se budo u

That most perplexing domestic question was then also raised, which has since so greatly agitated the Nation, and which has produced this injurious effect, among others, that almost all those great measures, for the general benefit of the country, to which we have so often alluded, continue iu abeyance. Besides this, serious mischiefs of a moral kind must have resulted from the painful inquiry which has been the popular subject of conversation for so long a time. The blasphemous pages of Carlile, whose conviction towards ritbe close of the preceding year had given general satisfaction,