hensions. And in this respect the conduct of her majesty's ministers is much to be censured. If they wished to extend the suffrage, they should have brought in a bill for that purpose, and not have attempted to do so under colour of regulating the registration. If they meant only, at all risks, to win golden opinions and solid votes from the followers of Mr. O'Connell in Ireland, and the Radicals of England, well knowing that their £5. clause would not pass through Parliament, such a proceeding is not statesman-like, honourable, or moral.

The acquittal of Lord Cardigan, upon the grouud that the Captain Tuckett whom he encountered was not legally proved to be the Captain Tuckett named in the indictment, while it shews the carefulness of the law to prevent persons being tried for one offence and condemned for another, shews also the need of some regulation to prevent the escape of prisoners clearly proved to be guilty. It would be no injustice to accused persons, where the stringent facts are established, to allow a brief remand by direction of the court, in order to clear up some merely technical point unexpectedly raised, and not involving a new accusation. Magistrates may remand, and often find it necessary to do so; whereas when the case comes on for trial, the ends of justice are often defeated by some trumpery objectioh wholly unconnected with the merits of the question.

The trial was remarkable, among other things, for the declaration of the Attorney-General, that the act alleged against the accused was not one of moral turpitude; which declaration was justly reprobated by Lord Eldon and the Bishop of London. It is earnestly to be wished that the proceedings against Lord Cardigan may have the effect of causing the law to be more strictly enforced in future against this crime; and also that some plan may be devised for rendering duelling, in public estimation, a disgraceful act. The alleged necessity for it (there can be no real necessity for breaking God's laws and incurring his anger) might be set aside, by establishing a court of reference for points of what is called "honour."

The Bishop of London in the Lords, and Sir R. H. Inglis in the Commons, are zealously addressing themselves to the Indian idolatry question. Sir J. Hobhouse has given an explanation, upon the whole candid, yet betraying ignorance upon some important parts of the subject; and though fair hopes may be entertained that the authorities both in England and India now feel the necessity of settling the question, they work so slowly and reluctantly, that much vigilance, prayer, and a strong and persevering expression of public opinion, will still be requisite to complete the issue.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A Christian Observer; A Country Clergyman; J. S.; E. P. E. T.; F. S.; Clericus G.G. S.; H. I.; P. P. P.; Oxoniensis H.; O. C.; G. M.; and Z. are under consideration,

We submit to T. B. that our plan is the most delicate: and why employ a printer to print, and ask numerous readers to peruse, " An Explicit Statement," interesting only to one correspondent, and which could be sent to him for one penny, if he had inclosed an address? We consider replies which do not contain some point of general interest, or of justice to individuals, an encroachment to be avoided; and for this reason we do not reply in print to numerous question respecting societies, subscriptions, local occurrences, and many other matters of private inquiry.

In reply to H. A.; we more than doubt the expediency of the project for introducing the Bude Light into churches.

G. E. O. was probably not aware that efforts are in progress towards supplying the dreadful destitution, both moral and religious, of the wretched convicts on Norfolk Island.

Mr. Jenour's defence of his Translation shall be inserted.

THERE is scarcely a chapter of the New Testament that does

not contain precepts, promises, and privileges, which painfully force upon us the striking contrast that exists between the religion of the Bible and the religion of the world. The Bible abounds with precepts, against which the vast majority of those who assert that the Bible is the depository of their creed firmly protest, with heart, and life, and voice,-with promises of sanctification, from which they revolt with abhorrence, and privileges of peace and joy in believing, which they think it pride and presumption, enthusiastic and fanatical, that any should profess, or hope, to experience. And to complete the proof of man's apostacy from God, and from the spiritual nature in which he was originally created, the Bible carries a battery of terrors, levelled by the hand of infallible Omniscience against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, and within whose deadly range the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, incessantly prosecutes its earth-born cares, or enjoys its worldly pleasures, in careless indifference and security; or even riots in the bold defiance of insulting sin.

In entering upon a familiar consideration, however brief, of the important question, What is the religion of society? what its deficiency from the great standard of God's requirement, which the Gospel, under a penalty of everlasting death, holds up to our practice? we enter upon the discharge of a most necessary, but at the same time of a most invidious duty. To deal in vague generalities were indeed easy. While every charge bore directly upon the practice of the vast majority, so to obscure and mystify those charges in a cloud of words as to conceal the point of their application to the individual soul, this too were easy. By such means, to leave men thoroughly satisfied with themselves, than which no stronger proof could exist, in the present state of society, that the work of God, in awakening the slumbering conscience, and convincing the guilty soul of sin, was not in progress, all this were easy, but it were unfaithful and unprofitable. In entering therefore upon this subject, the preacher, or writer, claims this fair and reasonable indulgence, that his charges CHRIST. OBSERV. No 40. 2 C

should not be deemed indiscriminate, or his statements as intended to be universally applicable. In taking up any subject for the purpose of conviction he addresses himself to the consciences of inen; and therefore claims, on the one hand, that each should strive to bring a tender and enlightened conscience to the controversy of the Lord; and, on the other hand, that none should apply to himself, with offence, any statement, inference, or charge, which conscience does not bring home to his mind.

With this preface, I would again ask, What is the religion of the world? or, to put this inquiry into the form in which alone any religious question can be practically useful, that of personal appeal, let the reader ask himself, What is my religion?

You can thank God that, as to the letter of the commandment, and in the judgment of man, you are not an extortioner, unjust, an adulterer; or even as the ignorant and deluded disciples of the church of Rome, to whom it is not permitted to inspect the charter of their salvation: who are blinded, that they may follow blind guides; and are then led hoodwinked through all the mazes of superstition, so that they know not at what they stumble. You attend, with tolerable regularity, the public worship of God on the Sabbath morning; and though your general habit is to turn your back upon the sacrament, yet occasionally, perhaps at the two great festivals of Christmas and Easter, you partake of the memorials of a dying Saviour's love. But remember that you live in a land professing Christianity, where the forms at least of religion and morality are sanctioned by the statute law; and by the still stronger law of opinion, under the penalty of forfeited character, so that not only to these moral restraints, but also to those religious observances, the law of the land, were it strictly enforced, as well as the law of opinion, obliges you. And remember that hence, and from these motives alone, without any mixture of devotion, or reverential feeling towards God, many an abandoned profligate, many a secret and many an avowed infidel, does the same. A very few indeed of those who crowd the morning service of our churches, when domestic arrangements happen not to interfere, or some innocent amusement to present its more powerful attraction, appear there occasionally on the Sunday evening also. To this perhaps you add, God and your own conscience can tell with what regularity, a few-shall I say formal and heartless prayers? I do call them, with respect to the majority of society, formal and heartless, because it is morally impossible for that man to pray spiritually whose life is levity or worldliness. It is the same spirit which the same man bears with him to the shop and to the closet, to the theatre of business or pleasure, and to the throne of grace. In all places the spiritual and holy God is equally present, and therefore equally demands a spirit of recollection and watchfulness, of reverence and godly fear. Hence, that man who does not at least strive that his whole life should be a prayer; who does not aim at the fulfilment of the apostle's exhortation (and to aim at it is in some degree to fulfil it), "Pray always, Pray without ceasing,"--this man may, at stated intervals, repeat words, but does not, and cannot, pray. I will not speak of the weekday services of our church, because these find no place in the religion of the world: the vast majority of men have probably never entered a church on ordinary days for the worship of God. I will

not speak of the private study of the Scriptures, which it is the privilege and boast of the Protestant that he can search and interpret for himself, but which boasted privilege, not merely conceded, but enforced by the exhortations of those who are providentially appointed to watch over their souls, men in general as little dream of exercising, as though the Bible were closed against them by the prohibitory seals of papal domination, infallible authority, and an unknown tongue. I do not speak of family-prayer and familyreligion, because without personal religion these cannot exist; and because most men would at once admit that they are not cultivated, nor even thought of by them.

To this spiritless and mutilated body of religious observances most men add, in different degrees, certain moral restraints and moral duties;—an abstinence from those vices which society has branded with a mark of infamy, or which are injurious to their temporal interests, to health or domestic comfort, to prosperity and advancement in life; and a ready discharge of those amiable courtesies and proprieties which social life demands; of that honesty and liberality which honour and gentlemanly feeling claim; of that benevolence which the instinct of nature suggests, or which the voice of public opinion sanctions.

And now, in Christian simplicity, I would ask the reader-and I entreat of him this moment to answer to his own conscience and to God-Have I omitted in this summary of your religion a single item which, if called upon for a full statement of it, you yourself would add? Some, blessed be God, there are, who could meekly but firmly protest against this meagre skeleton as exhibiting the body and substance of their religion; and, in telling what great things the Lord had done for their souls, could record manifestations of Divine love and power, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of the natural man to conceive. But surely many must admit the charge. I would then ask such, What place in this summary of your religion, even curtailed and meagre as it is, does God occupy ? How much has been performed in a spirit of prayer, of filial obedience, of confidence, of gratitude, of holy love? How much has been performed, simply and wholly, with a view to the Divine command, with a single eye to the glory of God? What would be the answer of conscience were the heart-seeing God this moment to appeal to you with the searching question, What hast thou done unto me? Perhaps conscience now falters or equivocates in its reply to this vital question, yet you live in perfect ease, in undisturbed and disengaged security, as though God were propitious, and eternity assured to you. And while common prudence would require of you to look well to the foundation on which an edifice rests that you are building for eternity, you are ready to base your hopes of happiness and heaven upon this sandy and insecure foundation. From this induction of particulars wholly inadequate, you are ready to conclude a fact of such vital importance as the eternal salvation of your immortal soul,—a fact which nothing but the full current of your affections, purified from the contaminating dross of earth, and the pollutions of the world, and flowing into the bosom of eternity and of God, could realize, or even satisfactorily evidence. You are content to live as if God and eternity were indeed but the visions of a dream, until

some disastrous providence or some dangerous illness awakens you, when perhaps it is too late, to all the horrors of recollection, and all the realities of your awful position. You live just like the man who, walking in a troubled sleep, has mounted upon the ridge of some giddy eminence, and there to the horror of every waking eye, heedless because ignorant of his danger, acts over the sports of his waking hours, manages the racer or pursues the chace, until at length he awakes to all the trembling horrors of a situation in which but a moment before he exultingly rioted; and alarmed, unnerved, stupified, without an effort sinks to destruction.

And here I would offer one brief exhortation, which to me appears important, and strictly practical. Let not your religion, whatever its extent may be, consist merely in action, but sometimes think. This may appear a strange practical exhortation; but let it be remembered that many are impelled by unsound principles, whether of compromise or of slavish fear, to much that appears religious in action,-are impelled to the fulfilment of many religious observances and moral duties, and even of many self-inflicted and voluntary austerities, by low motives, which the Gospel refuses to recognize, perhaps even classes in the catalogue of sins. Such persons would therefore dread, in the midst of all their boasted performances of a self-justifying righteousness, to be confronted with their own consciences.

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In the silent watches of the night, hold some such converse this with your own soul. I have now closed my eyes upon the light of day, and the pageant of the world; and darkness, and silence, and the presence of God surround me. The eye of Him who seeth in secret, and discerneth the thoughts and intents of the heart, is this moment fixed upon me. He who knoweth my down sitting and mine uprising, and understandeth my thoughts long before, is about my path, and now about my bed, and spieth out all my ways. With Him the night is as clear as the day, and darkness and light to Him are both alike. Let me then examine myself with sincerity, as in His presence. Let me, in this calm and solemn hour, cease to silence the still small voice of conscience; to shrink from the knowledge of my true state; and to close my eyes against the view of my true character: and, since God cannot be mocked, let me now cease to impose upon and deceive my own soul. Let me seriously endeavour to ascertain what are my state and character now, in the sight of God; and what is to be my destination for eternity. Let me sincerely endeavour to know myself even as I am known of God. Were I to open my eyes for the next time upon the 'light of eternity; were the first object upon which they rested Christ, coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory to take his seat upon the throne of final judgment: were the first sound which met my ears my own name, repeated by the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, ringing through the illuminated vault of a flaming and dissolving universe, as he summoned me to the judgment, is there any assured hope to which my astounded spirit could rally with confidence, amid those complicated terrors? Could I meet all this in the spirit of the Saviour's exhortation to his two disciples, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh?" How would it then fare with my soul?