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(Cheers.) Let them, then, contribute their mite, which, with the blessing of God, 'would make rich, and add no sorrow. Riches alone might raise up a mountain of Bibles, but the mite of the Christian, given from love to the Saviour, and from a desire to promote his glory, would be favoured with the Divine blessing, and would assuredly not lose its reward. (Cheers.)

"The Rev. William Marsh, of Birmingham, came forward to second the resolution; and, after stating his former connexion with the military service, as one among many private reasons for the support which it had ever been his greatest pleasure to give, to the utmost extent of his abilities, to this society, observed, that there were two circumstances which strongly operated upon his mind, as public reasons for doing so, viz., that the institution of the Naval and Military Bible Society was both a patriotic and a Christian institution. (Cheers.) For surely there could be no purer principle of patriotism, than to afford the greatest possible comfort, both as regarded religious instruction and spiritual strength, to those who were ever engaged in the cause of our common country, and in the defence of the British constitution. When he considered the beautiful system of the constitution under which they lived, and all the civil and religious privileges which they enjoyed in this favoured land, he could not help feeling how thankful he ought to be to those who spent their lives in the service of their country, and preserved to him the enjoyment of such privileges and such blessings."

The darkness here is so thick, that it may be felt. That the speakers should be thus anxious to give the Scriptures to the soldiers and sailors, and so make them Christians, and yet never have discovered that these same Scriptures have, in the gospel of peace, laid down such truths, and divulged such principles, as will not allow a Christian to take up the sword for purposes of destruction, is an instance of mental blindness not to be exceeded. Captain Clark can talk of "the wounds of the fallen and corrupt nature of man," and yet cannot perceive that war is the greatest public sin of which a man can be guilty. He tells us of " true Christian soldiers in barracks ;" but has never taken into consideration the crime of which"that true Christian soldier

in the barracks" is made to be guilty. Such a one is set apart from his fellow-citizens, placed under a new code of laws, and disciplined by a peculiar government, for the purpose of scientifically learning, to the utmost possible degree of perfection, the art of killing his own species. He has no longer a will of his own; his reason is held in abeyance, so that the nearer he can be reduced to the state of unreasoning obedient animals, the better soldier will he be. He must not inquire into the motives of those actions which he is compelled to perform. The merits of the bloody quarrel in which he must needs take an important part he may not investigate. Why he is to march hither or thither, and for what object, he may not know. The sum of his knowledge is to understand the word of command, and to receive it with blind obedience; and being commanded to fight, to fight furiously, and to do his utmost to destroy those who are set in array against him by a law as despotic as that which has brought himself into the field of battle. If he regards his military duty, the more fiercely he fights the better soldier will he be the more he slays, the higher will be his merit. We have heard of a vigorous swordsman in the Guards cutting down more than seven cuirassiers, handto-hand, in the battle of Waterloo: another Guardsman has, with one blow of his sword, cut off the head of his adversary, and many personal feats of carnage we could report, from persons who were either the eye-witnesses, or the actors themselves. But is it possible that Christians can deliberately appear public meetings, and talk of this bloody occupation, not only with toleration, but complacency? O, how great must be the delusion which can allow "a true Christian soldier" to direct the instrument of destruction, or raise the sword against his fellow mortal, who, by these acts of his arm, may perhaps be sent forthwith into the presence of the eter nal Judge. What! a true Christian" shrink from doing harm to any one in his private capacity, refuse to return a blow, and if smitten on one cheek, meekly offer the other, and yet, in his public capacity, with an unruffled conscience, murder men by scores, if need be, and flesh his sword in the blood of poor human creatures, falling beneath the energies of his sanguinary arm? A Christian on the field of battle, a conqueror! the country for miles round strewed with the

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dying and the dead!-the shattered limbs, the oozing wounds, the fractured skulls, the deadly streams of gore, the groaning men and horses, confusedly dying together; the bowels, the brains, "the garments rolled in blood," "the thundering of the captains, and the shouting!" But all this is not enough ;—the bugle calling on to deeper carnage, the cavalry galloping along the roads and down the lanes, and across the open country, to cut down the shrieking fugitives-the wounded combatants lying on the earth, with gashes never to be healed, and parched with a burning fever, calling in vain for a draught of water to cool their burning tongues, and looking around for some friend to convey a last message of love, a last word of remembrance to a parent, a wife, a child! But no friend is near, no messenger, no one that has not thoughts of cruelty glaring in his eyes, no one that is not either seeking to escape or inflict death. But who is he that passes by the dying man? Who is he that is thundering o'er the plain on a charger, mad with the rage of battle? Who is that victor hero, with a sword stained with blood, mowing down the human harvest, and reaping for himself laurels of military renown? Who is he? That man is "a true Christian !"-he has redemption in his heart; he thinks he has been purchased, by a great price, out of a world that lieth in wickedness, and that he hath been "created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that he should walk in them." That terrible warrior is a professed servant of the Prince of Peace, and it is his high privilege to manifest that God is love, and that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." But he is a Christian, and will he not stop to help the dying? O, no; he gives the death-wound himself, and he is scouring the country, with his fell associates, to cut down in the pursuit all who are endeavouring to escape from the sword. But where, then, is the gospel? where are the glad tidings of great joy? where is the happy news, 66 on earth peace and good will towards men"? The soldier cannot have ever heard of that. O, yes! he has it all in his pocket; he carries the gospel about with him wherever he goes; he is a praying pious man; the Naval and Military Bible Society gave him the Scriptures, before he went

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to the wars and that destroyer of mankind, when off the march, will take a turn in the fields, with his Bible in his hand, and find that God is with him." Pious captains have told him that "praying soldiers must not be milksops, but be as valiant as any that can be found;" and see how valiant he has been! He is conspicuous amongst the conquerors, and he will return with laurels from the slaughter, fully persuaded that piety and war, prayer and battle, bloodshed and spirituality, may all go hand-in-hand, and each become the true Christian soldier."

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Such being the relationship in which I stand towards the Queen of Tahiti, it becomes my duty to state, on her behalf, the character of that war which the French nation threatened to declare against Tahiti.

Your Majesty's flag had received no insult; your Majesty's civil or military subjects had received no personal injury, sustained no spoliation of property; and to evince that national prejudice did not exist against the French as a nation, a Frenchman, Mr. Tessier, a missionary, lived for many years without molestation, and died at Tahiti!

The Roman Catholic priests, on whose account the hostilities were threatened, came to Tahiti, not as civil subjects of your Majesty the King of the French, or as representatives of your Majesty; they came as priests of the Pope of Rome, subject to him alone, as emissaries of the Romish Pontiff; not to promulgate your Majesty's commands, but those of the Pope; not to subjugate the Queen of Tahiti and her subjects to the throne of France, but to that of a foreign despotic prince of the court of Rome! This insidious attempt at subjugation the Queen rejected, and in commanding the departure of the priests, exercised that right which, according to the law of nations, all "the powers that be" exercise in their own territories towards aliens. A British subject, a Mr. Giles, was prevented, through the influence of an American captain on the mind of Pomare, the King of Tahiti, from remaining on the island, although sent out by the London Missionary Society, for the purpose of benefitting the King! His Majesty exercised his own legitimate right; nor did Great Britain attempt its invasion. Had Mr. Giles resisted the intimation of the king to leave Tahiti, and subjected himself to be forcibly removed from the island, no human, no divine law, would recognise his expulsion other than the deserts of his own temerity. History records a similar line of conduct in the Queen of England, who suffered not Parapaglia, with his courteous letters from the Pope, to land in England; and in the following year, the Pope's nuncio received a similar refusal, when a second attempt at the conversion of England was made.

To compel the re-admission of those aliens, the priests-the emissaries of a foreign potentate - the French nation has been solicited, and has given its strength and power to make war in behalf of the Romish Pontiff! and a liberal king has compelled a queen, who had not twenty-one guns, to comply with the enforced salute to your Most Christian Majesty's flag; and 2000 dollars were demanded of a sovereign who had no revenue, and whose exchequer was nought! Your Most Christian Majesty has received the 2000 dollars from a queen who had but just emerged from barbarism and idolatry to the profession of the Gospel of peace! and, but for British Christians, who instantly supplied the sum to prevent bloodshed, the

pages of history would be sullied with the record of a victory to the dishonor of your Most Christian Majesty's fame.

America sent not her fleet to liberate her missionaries when held captive by the Burmese; nor did England unfurl her flag, and dispatch a ship of war, when the British missionaries were driven from Tahiti; and some of our number were martyred, in the attempt to introduce Christianity amongst the islanders; nor, more recently, when New Zealand ferocity drove English missionaries from their settled residence, plundered their habitations, and spoiled them of all their goods, no Christian missionary ever thought of soliciting for the cannon of England to thunder against their then persecutors, to enforce re-entrance. They knew that their Master's kingdom was not of this world, else would his servants fight; they asked not for fire from Heaven, nor do their Master's precepts allow them to solicit the fire from earthly kings. No, your Majesty, England and her Christian missionaries have not so learned Christ.

When the blessed Saviour, our divine Lord and Master, sent forth his disciples to preach his Gospel of peace, his precepts were, "Go forth as lambs amongst wolves." "When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another." "Into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go ye your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth unto us, we do wipe off against you." And faithful ministers of Christ believe in and dread the denunciation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Apostle Peter, that "They that take the sword shall perish by the sword." But when Mahomet, with his emissaries, went forth to convert the East, "The sword was the key of heaven," and war or the Moslem fuith the alternative!

Your Majesty is aware that the Roman Catholic priests, the emissaries of the Pope of Rome, went to the South Sea Islands, not to convert to the Gospel of Christ, for that had been already received in truth, and idolatry overthrown. It was known that their object was not to represent your Majesty, not to reside as civil subjects of the French nation, but avowedly to subjugate the Tahitian nation, as well as every other nation to which they can gain access, to the assumed despotic power of the Pope of Rome! The Queen, therefore, pro

hibited their entrance, not as Frenchmen, your Majesty's civil subjects, but as Roman Catholic missionaries from the Pope; and in exercising that right on Christian principles, and according to the law of nations, doing no personal violence, your Most Christian Majesty will, it is hoped, be induced to consider that the subject is purely a question of religion, and not a matter of state, and to perceive the justice of returning the money levied on the Queen of Tahiti, and exacted at the point of the sword.

Praying that your Majesty may be preserved, blessed, and directed by Him through whom " kings reign and princes decree justice," I remain, Sire, your faithful servant in the Gospel of Christ,

LANCELOT EDWARD THRELKELD.

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"Sir, I should be glad to obtain from some of your correspondents information on the following points, namely:—at what time, and on what grounds, it became usual for clergymen to claim and receive the style of Reverend; whether it belongs to them (if at all) by virtue of their orders, or of filling ecclesiastical offices; or, thirdly, whether the proper claimants of it be gradually in the faculty? and, if by virtue of their orders, whether deacons have a claim to it?

"Of the few books written by clergymen which I have at hand, printed a hundred years ago, or upwards, not one prefixes that title to the name of the author.

"If it be a title of recent use, neither sanctioned nor required by any law or canon, it may be the more easily put aside, and the growing inconveniences that attend its use removed.

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Yours, &c. H."

It is curious to observe uneasiness on this point manifested in a quarter where clerical feelings are openly avowed, and clerical prerogatives are openly asserted. The high church clergyman is not content with this peacock feather with which other birds, that have still less claim to it, can ornament themselves to their own entire satisfaction, insensible of the ridicule excited by their borrowed plumage.

VOL. II.

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The style of "Reverend " is easily defended by a clergyman of the establishment:-he derived it from Rome, whence also he took his three orders, Bishop, Priest and Deacon, and two-thirds of all other materials of his church. The dissenting minister dared not put in this plea: his defence is this," It is an insignificant style-it means not that which the word expresses-it means only a minister of the gospel-the people are accustomed to it," &c.

But these excuses only conceal the fact, that Dissenting Ministers wish, by this absurd title (for absurd it must be if it does not mean what it expresses), to keep up a distinction between the clergy and the laity; and to impress on "their people," that there is a wide difference between "the people" and" the minister." It is a title of an order; and for this reason it is highly prized.

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Moreover, the custom of the country has attached ideas of respectability and gentility to the clerical character; reverend" is revered by the people; a clergyman is a sort of a gentleman whoever he may be; and whatever respect, therefore, is paid to a "Reverend" in the Establishment, may as well be paid also to a "Reverend" in the Dissenting Chapel; and it is doubtless with these feelings, undefined, perhaps, and uninvestigated by the person most concerned in the subject, that some dissenting ministers have tastefully engraved on their visiting cards, in gothic letters, "The Reverend Mr. Such-a-one."

To a Christian, instructed in the allimportant question of the priesthood, the title of Reverend" is not less than an impression of the seal of the beast; to a philosopher it will present itself as one proof of the inherent vanity of human

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By the Christian Guardian, a newspaper of the Wesleyans, published at Toronto, and dated last May, it appears that there is a most vehement strife between the Wesleyans and the established clergy in Upper Canada. The question seems to be, whether the Episcopal Clergy have a right to the favours, patronage, and bounties of the Canadian Governmentwhether, in fact, they are to be treated as the priests of the dominant and favoured sect, and refreshed, as they occasionally have been, by ample donations of land and money. The Wesleyans, a very powerful and numerous, and, we fear, a very ambitious sect in Canada, are indignant at this clerical favouritism; but that their indignation is not of the purest character, will be apparent by the following extracts from a letter in the Christian Guardian of Toronto, signed by Egerton Ryerson, a well-known Methodist Minister, and editor of the newspaper. The letter is addressed to the Marquis of Normanby, her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies :

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"2. For thirty years (up to 1820) nothing was heard of an ecclesiastical establishment in the province; the few episcopal clergymen designated themselves, and were known as missionaries. classes felt themselves equally free, and were, therefore, equally contented and loyal. 3. From the first open and unequivocal pretensions to a state establishment being made by the episcopal clergy, the inhabitants of Upper Canada, in every constitutional way, have resisted and remonstrated against it. They have not succeeded, because, with the name of a representative legislature, they have not been invested with the attributes of legislation; the utter powerlessness of the representative branch of the legislature has rendered legislation a solemn and

vexatious mockery to the whole province. And this weakness in the people's branch of the government has rendered the officers and dependents and partizans of the executive more and more despotic, overbearing, and reckless of the feelings and wishes of the country, in the measures and administration of the government. 4. Every appropriation and grant out of the lands and funds of the province, which has been made to the episcopal clergy, has been made in the very teeth of the country's remonstrances; and the conscious weakness of the high church interests, and the growing opposition in the Province to them, have prompted to the use of every possible means to promote the one and paralyse the other. Hence, this most blighting of all partyism has been carried into every department of the executive government; in the appointments to the magistracy, to the militia; in various subordinate offices; and in some instances in the administration of justice itself—several examples of which I could detail. Its poison is working throughout the whole body politic; it destroys the peace of the country, rouses neighbour against neighbour, weakens the best social affections of the human heart, and awakens its worst passions, and converts a healthy and fertile province into a pandemonium of strife, discontent, and civil commotion. From such observation and such experience, there are not a few who hate the very name of an ecclesiastical establishment in this province, and yet are earnest advocates for the Church Establishment in Great Britain, where it has existed for centuries, is interwoven with all the institutions of the nation, and the feelings, and thinkings, and habits of the prevailing classes of society, and has acquired a character for mildness in proportion to its strength and efficiency.

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My Lord, I will give you one example of the spirit and workings of the present system. In my preceding letter, I stated to your lordship, that upwards of 220,000 dollars (besides lands) have been paid to the Episcopal clergy out of the provincial funds since 1827. If your lordship were to examine the grants made by the Imperial Parliament to the North American clergy, and their expenditure, you would find that over 400,000 dollars have been received by the Episcopal clergy, in Upper Canada alone, out of the British funds. In addition, upwards of 200,000 dollars have been

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