near we tread on the verge of those awful events, few among us seem disposed to realize. There is a covering cast over all people, and a veil spread over all nations, that blinds them greatly to the simple truth; and among ourselves the exceedingly erroneous, ensnaring systems that prevail in the important operation of moulding the mind of youth into such shape as it is intended to retain through after years, have essentially wrought to weave that covering, and to bind on that veil. False views of matters of fact are among the most dangerously effective of these harmful influences, and under that conviction, more especially impressed with the importance of promoting historical accuracy, not merely in reference to the chronological, geographical and narrative branches of the subject, but to its moral and spiritual bearings, when measured by the only safe chart-the word of the living God, we took up the matter; and have so far proceeded in tracing out a few of the more glaring evils that have grown upon, or resulted from, a very imperfect and inconsistent plan of tuition. Little did we anticipate, deeply do we deplore, the practical illustrations that have accompanied our progress, furnished by the proceedings of the British legislature; every member of which has, at some period of his life, been more or less influenced by the course of study that we so earnestly deprecate a course that may be aptly characterized as perverting history from its right use, and setting scripture at defiance.

That parent must indeed be of a sanguine temperament who, with his eye fixed on what has been done and what has been undone in the frame-work of the British Constitution within the past year, an

ticipates for his children a position answerable to that which he himself holds in society. Be he peer, or be he peasant, he has hitherto enjoyed the blessings of civil liberty, national tranquillity, and the undisputed ascendancy of scriptural religion. That Eng-, land may, some fifteen years hence, be equally free, equally peaceful, and equally Protestant as now, we must desire, we may hope, but believe it we cannot. God is NOT recognized among us as the Supreme Ruler: His laws are not held of paramount obligation, His sabbaths are not hallowed, His Name is not honoured, as they must be by a people who could conscientiously proclaim "The LORD is King."

This public declension has long been silently but rapidly progressing; and now we stand for the first time, in a position of open hostility "against the LORD and against his Anointed." Casting His word behind them, our legislators have perpetrated some deeds of no questionable character: they have perpetuated the oppression of the poor, not that they considered it to be no oppression, but, avowedly, because a menace was breathed to withdraw the weak and worthless arm of flesh in which they vainly trusted, forgetful that on such dependence God has breathed a curse. They have set Socinianism on high, and given a great triumph to the blasphemers of the Lord, while also violating a principle of justice heretofore held sacred among men; perverting to a use the farthest removed from its testators' declared will the money bequeathed by pious Christians, for the propagation of scriptural truth. They have declared war against the Bible, throwing the whole weight of government authority and influence into the scale that contains partial, false, mutilated

fragments of God's word, farther rendered void by the glosses of Popery, prepared to act at once as a substitute for and an antidote against the Holy Scripture; rendering it, indeed, compulsory on all who have not wealth sufficient to support schools at their own expence for the youthful poor in Ireland, to innoculate them with this anti-christian virus. And, lastly, they have, with a high and wanton hand, rent down and scattered to the winds the few defences round which Protestantism might yet have rallied; discouraging by every possible means the hearts, and weakening the hands of God's people, while setting on high the avowed enemies of that faith for which our fathers laboured, legislated, or bled, according as events called on them to manifest their deep attachment to the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That man may even yet build up again what man has thus impiously cast down; that repentance may be given, where sin so deep, so daring, so presumptuous has been committed against God and his Church, we do not deny; for we cannot limit either the power or the goodness of the Most High: but certain it is that England has fallen from a comparatively high estate to a singular depth of degradation. Some darling delusions have been rudely dissipated: some confident boastings have been turned into blushing shame. Foreign espionage, the licentious liberty claimed and abused by other governments of clandestinely prying into domestic and personal matters by means of forged impressions in wax, and so forth, have furnished a contrast of which we have been exceedingly proud, and on the strength of which we have vaunted ourselves and our supposed privileges not a little. This is now at an end; public confidence is annihilated;

and the Parliamentary reports recently published on the use and abuse of a power that Englishmen in general could not believe to have a recognized existence among us, leave us to bear the brunt of universal scorn and indignation. There is many an English gentleman who would have been ashamed to walk the streets had he known that the confidential communications of foreign governments to their ministers and envoys in London were habitually sent to the foreign office, to be opened, read, and artfully re-sealed by the heads of the British Government; then returned to the Post Office, and forwarded as though they had but just arrived from abroad. It has pleased the Committees of the two Houses of Parliament to report this, and other almost equally revolting breaches of national faith, to print their reports, and give them circulation throughout the world. What then, can those say, whose souls mourn over the national degradation, but who stand involved in it because they bear the English name? They must lay to heart the lesson, and draw the inference for the sake of which, principally, we have adverted to these mortifying facts-that the high heroics of honour, patriotism, and the like, which are drilled into the minds of our youth in virtue of their early familiarity with the lore of ancient Rome and Greece, are less than the tinkling of a cymbal, less than the hum of a beetle amid the roar of cannon, when brought into the conflict of actual life: insufficient to preserve unbroken the simplest tie of mutual confidence that can bind man to his fellow; and operating only to the whitening and garnishing of a moral sepulchre, full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

Again, and with feelings at once roused and depressed, wounded and soothed, we urge upon our friends the adoption of that one unerring standard, the pure, unmutilated word of the Living God, AND

OF THAT ALONE.

A part even from that which is directly addressed to the spiritual principle, the renewed heart of man, there is a high strain of what may in contradistinction to this be called sound worldly wisdom; elevated, yet most practical morality, adapted to the daily requirements of human nature as it is. Nothing is lacking, in that treasury of knowledge, to fit man for any station, from the most despotic throne to the lowliest servitude, yea, to a state where hunger and thirst and nakedness are his lot. The root alike of our sins and miseries is to be found in our low appreciation of this universal, unerring guide; and our perverse gropings in the dark for soiled fragments of the ruins where once, for a little time, some system of man's building up contrived to stand. The word comes with power to hearts prepared to receive it: "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding." To look on the LORD's anger as being of all things most terrible, to regard Him as a Judge taking cognisance of every deed and word, sure to bring all into judgment, and to take vengeance on the transgressor, this, as many a pardoned sinner knows to his soul's comfort, is often "the beginning of wisdom," as elsewhere it is called knowing, weighing, duly appreciating "the terrors of the Lord;" men are in a frame to be persuaded to "flee from the wrath to come," by taking refuge in Him in whom indeed are hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. It is also wisdom, true,