The incidents of Dr. Webster's life after the publication of the second edition of his Dictionary, in 1840, were few and unimportant. Indeed, with that effort he regarded his public life as brought to a close. He passed through a serene old age, which was terminated by a peaceful death, on the twenty-eighth of May, 1843, when he was in the eighty-fifth year of his age.
DR. MERLE D'AUBIGNE AND THE ENGLISH CHURCH.
The celebrated German historian, Dr. Merle d'Aubigne, is now in England, and in consequence of certain proceedings growing out of his occupation of an Episcopal pulpit recently, he has published a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning the general subject of the exclusion of continental Protestant ministers from the pulpits of English churches. He is aware that, in consequence of the Act of Uniformity, there are churches which cannot be opened to those ministers, but he hopes that this law of exclusion will be repealed. "It is no longer in harmony with the spirit and the wants of the church in the age in which we live." The Calvinistic historian expresses his conviction that the reëstablishment of the Annual Convocation would not reform the Church. The Convocation has been for more than a century deprived of its powers, and it is to Parliament that the question now belongs. He says:
"Why should I not express to you, my lord, a desire which I have long had in my heart? This desire is, that being surrounded by ministers and members of the Church the most enlightened and most devoted to God and to his word, you should digest and present to Parliament a plan, not to effect (sic) a reform of the Church, but to establish the authority (sic) which should be charged with its reform and government. It seems to me that the best way would be to establish a body similar to that which governs the Episcopal church of America, composed of three chambers, that of the bishops, that of the presbyters, and that of the members of the Church, the two latter being ordinarily united in one. The Americans of the United States have received so much from you (they have received every thing, even their very existence), why should you not take something from them? I am convinced that sooner or later a reform must take place in the government of the Church of England: it is important that it should be done well. I think that there would be some hope of its being accomplished in a good sense, if it were done while you, my lord, are Primate of the Church, and while Victoria is Queen of England."
Every thing seems to tend to an entire revolution in the British ecclesiastical system, and the coöperation of Dr. Merle and other continental writers with those who are agitating the subject in England—demanding the separation of the church from the state—makes the prospect of such a separation more imminent than it has ever been hitherto.