The Protestant; a Weekly Paper on the principal Points of Controversy between the Church of Rome and the Reformed. Sixth Edition. Four Volumes. 8vo. £1. 10s.--Glasgow: Chalmers and Collins, 1823.

IN our number for March 1820, we reviewed the first volume of this interesting and valuable miscellany, and our perusal of the remaining volumes has confirmed the favourable opinion which we then felt and expressed. There are, in abundance, controversial treatises on specific points, as well as on the general question, but there was, until the present publication, a rather urgent expediency for the appearance of a work which should adapt itself to the peculiar character of the times, embody the scattered circumstances of the day, meet Popery upon its own ground, and hunt it through all the windings and shiftings of its artful and circuitous course. It was of the greatest importance that a writer should be found, intelligent and intrepid, sound in the faith, and resolute in its assertion, who would enter fairly and perseveringly upon this formidable labour, and we are glad that it has been taken up and resolutely pressed forward by so competent an individual as Mr. M'Gavin. The energy and spirit with which he addressed himself to his task, has never yielded to lassitude or apprehension; he has acquired fresh knowledge as he proceeded, and we trust that he will not be lightly influenced to abandon a career in which he has so honour ably distinguished himself.

The emissaries of Rome are exerting themselves, at the present moment, with a dexterity which manifests the same steady CONG. MAG. No. 71.

eye to advantageous occurrences, the same skill in turning contingencies to account, and the same recklessness of principle in the furtherance of their cause, which have ever distinguished the agents of that fell and withering superstition. They are on the alert; they are employing every engine that can assist them in their attack on the public mind; and among the most effective of their schemes is to be reckoned the successful efforts which they have been making to obtain an extensive control over the education of youth. In France, all seminaries, private or collegiate, are subject to an authority of the most arbitrary and irresponsible kind, The system of licensing is so accurately adjusted, and so unrelentingly exercised, that institutions for the training of youth must lose all taint of liberality, and their directors become the mere drill-serjeants of a degrading and enslaving discipline. No one can teach without official permission, and, however prosperous an educational establishment may be, however acceptable to parents the character and the conduct of its principal, if he offend against the arbitrary requisition of the secret code, his license is immediately withdrawn. Even in this country, though they have no exclusive dominion over the instruction of youth, the Romish clergy have directed their exertions, with considerable success, to the establishment of schools and colleges, many of which are in existence, efficiently supported and numerously attended.

The press is not neglected. Wherever the " powers that be" are graciously inclined to lend their aid to the grand conspiracy against the present and eternal 4 F

happiness of mankind, it is eagerly accepted, and the vigorous arm of secular power is employed in the salutary work of repressing and correcting all irregularity of public or private sentiment. Where this desirable state of things does not exist, an active system of publication is carried on in behalf of the good cause, and in counteraction of heresy. It is, we have reason for believing, imagined by many that the well known antipathy to the press cherished by Papists, gives them a disinclination to its employment in their own behalf. That they would be heartily glad to get rid of it altogether, to suppress so dangerous a disturber of the public mind, and to obliterate its fatal protest against their own destructive usurpations, there can be little ground for questioning; but since there is no hope of a consummation so devoutly to be wished, they are content to take the only remaining alternative, and, as far as possible, to convert the enemy into a friend. They make an ample provision for all classes of their disciples. For those who are accustomed to reason, they have the higher efforts of their most subtle sophisters, their Bossuets and their Lingards; to readers of a more average class, they furnish a competent portion of common-place wrangling, from the ready manufactory of Hayes, Milner, and Curr; they even condescend to cater for the appetites of children and the ignorant, and a large supply of monstrous legends, and egregious miracles, is in constant circulation and high request among the lower orders of their votaries.

They have, moreover, of late years, shown a disposition to drag out of the dusty and dilapidated lumber-room in which their shattered machinery and unsaleable stock in trade had been laid up for centuries, some portion of the

tarnished pageantry which, in those flourishing periods of their church which have been aptly denominated obscurum, ferreum, plumbeum, set the dazzled populace so effectually a-marvelling. Processions, and stations, and the erection of crucifixes, have been performed in other countries with prodigious eclat; and, as in this kingdom, such matters might stand some small chance of being laughed at, beside being, at least equally with field preaching, liable to abatement as obstructions and nuisances, we are to be silenced and converted by signs and wonders, and accordingly miracles are with us the order of the day. Enough has been said, in former numbers, respecting the miraculous cures effected by Prince Hohenlohe, and we shall not recur to the general subject, in this place, any farther than to introduce the following illustration with which Mr. M'Gavin was furnished by "a reverend gentleman."

"About seventeen years ago,' says my correspondent, a lady, now living in Edinburgh, had occasion to be in Dublin, and through means of a gentleman from this country, was introduced to a Popish chapel, on an occasion when a number of souls were to be translated out of purgatory. The place was very brilliantly lighted. The priest was seated on an eminence, with a table before him. The audience was in expectation, when a relation of each of the deceased persons,

whose souls were that night to be released, appeared, and in passing before the priest, each laid an elegant and well filled purse on the table before him, who, after nodding satisfaction, most readily conveyed it to a receptacle, where it might be preserved till a fit opportureceived his wages, the priest immedinity of otherwise disposing of it. Having ately began his operations, and soon intimated that the souls were trans

lated, and would immediately make their appearance. Immediately a moveable part of the floor, unoccupied of course, opened, and there issued forth from it living creatures, as black as jet. When the little creatures began to move from being detected, the lights were all about, in order to prevent the deception extinguished, as if by magic. The lady

had eyed the souls' representatives very narrowly, and had observed that there was one of them within her reach; and

portion of it consists in a series of strictures on Bishop Milner's much vaunted "End of Controversy," a book which we have not seen, but which appears, from the spe

the creature, and maintain secrecy, at least in Ireland, as she valued her own life. I have the story from a daughter of the lady who laid hold on the emancipated spirit, and I believe her entitled to the highest credit, otherwise I would not have troubled you with the story.'" --Vol. 2, p. 219.

The work before us is by its very nature desultory; it takes up different subjects with little other connexion than that which may be afforded by the letter of a correspondent, or by some accidental circumstance; but in the course of the series few points of importance are over looked, and the great scriptural principles of faith and observance are powerfully enforced.

With

out the formality of systematic discussion, these papers are distinguished by higher qualities than the balance of periods or the stiff arrangement of heads and particulars; they are the appeals of a strong-minded and well informed. man to his fellow men on subjects of momentous importance, they are written in a clear and vigorous style, and they have impressed us with high admiration for the talents and the industry of the individual who, amid the pressing calls of mercantile, social, and benevolent engagements, could steadily supply, during the lapse of four years, the regular weekly demands of a publication like the present. He has kept up the attraction of his essays to the last, and, in some respects, we think the fourth volume even more important than any of the former sections. The most interesting

an example of Jesuitical composition as any of the effusions of Sa or Suarez. Will it be believed that any man, desirous of maintaining a character for common sense or common honesty, would make use of such an argument as the following, extracted by Mr. M'Gavin from Dr. Milner's work? The Doctor has been laying down certain marks as infallible indications of the true church, and claiming them stoutly for his own.

"Dr. Milner,' writes Mr. M'G., introduces the subject of his third mark of the true church, that is, CATHOLICITY, in the following whining and canting manner :-- In treating of this third mark of the true church, as expressed in our common creed, I feel my spirits sink within me, and I am almost tempted to throw away my pen in despair. For what chance is there of opening the eyes of candid Protestants to the other marks of the church, if they are capable of keeping them shut to this? Every time that each of them addresses the God of truth, either in solemn worship or in private devotion, he fails not to repeat;--I believe in THE CATHOLIC CHURCH; and yet if I ask him the question ;--Are you a CATHOLIC? - No, I am a he is sure to answer me ;-PROTESTANT!-Was there ever a more

glaring instance of inconsistency and self-condemnation among rational beings?""--Letter xxv. p. 103.

"I have often remarked that Popish authors make use of the strongest words when their facts and arguments are the weakest. Here Dr. Milner expresses his unutterable astonishment at our Protestant stupidity; and almost throws himself into a fit of hysterics, and his pen into the fire, because, while we profess to believe in the Catholic Church, Rome. This is all Jesuitical artifice,

we do not believe it to be the Church of

intended to confirm the men of his own communion in their blind adherence to their bigoted superstition; for he knows very well that, when we use the word Catholic, we do it in a sense quite consistent with our being Protestants; and that, so far from conceding the word to

the Church of Rome as exclusively hers, we positively deny that she has any title to it. This he must know, if he has read any of the standard works in defence of the Reformation, and yet he writes as if he did not know it."-Vol. 4, p. 345.

We shall not multiply extracts from this work, since they would answer but little purpose in conveying an idea of its contents, but we most strongly recommend it to our readers as fraught with important arguments and facts. That it has circulated widely, the number of editions is a sufficient evidence, and we hope that the reduction of its price, in consequence of the use of stereotype plates, will still farther extend its sale.

Remarkable Passages in the Life of William Kiffin: written by Himself, and edited from the original Manuscript, with Notes and Additions. By William

Orme. 18mo. 5s. 6d. London: Burton and Co. 1823. PUBLICATIONS of this kind are peculiarly to our taste, especially when, as in the present case, they have passed through the hands of an efficient editor. We have met with few instances of the kind where the task of revision and annotation has been so judiciously executed, though we have ssen many to which a much less skilful and interesting style of comment has given popularity. Kiffin's memoir is in itself a valuable document, and Mr. Orme has rendered it more attractive by a simple but excellent arrangement; he has farther contributed an admirable preface, and a series of illustrative "notes and additions," to the extent of seventy pages, drawn from authentic sources, and supplying much important infor

mation.

The public attention has of late been excited strongly, and in a very singular way, towards the

characters and the deeds of the Puritans of England and the Covenanters of Scotland. A novelist of the highest order has availed himself at once of their excellences and their defects, to give effect to his narratives; the first he has made the sources of a deep and tragic interest, the latter he has grossly exaggerated that he might derive from them the humorous seasoning of his dialogues and descriptions. Incapable of sympathy with the high principles which linked the feelings and the destinies of those fearless and conscientious men, with the truths of religion and the realities of glory to come, he has made them, for their noble rejection of this world's vanities and sins, the subjects of his ribald jest. He has done mischief by this; he has injured mankind in their best interests, since he has made mockery of vital godliness, laughed to scorn the language of strong faith and stern morality, because it did not shape itself to the classical models of elocution, but spoke of common as well as of holy things, in quaint and unusual phrase. They had no guide but the Scriptures; the Bible was their only and universally applied rule; they drew from that living spring, a constant and satisfying supply, and rejoicing in the fulness of the fountain, they were well pleased with the antique simplicity of the vessel from which they drank. These men might be austere in their aspect, rugged in their manner, unpolished in their speech, but they were unbending in their integrity, true to their profession even unto the death, and they were supported through rough conflicts and aggravated sufferings, by their fellowship with the Father and with the Son. Miserable, indeed, and deeply to be deplored, is that secular fanaticism which turns to this world as its idol, and taking the fashions thereof as its law, and the plea