ploying 729 clergymen and lay assistants in populous parishes; and the latter with an income of £24,445, expended in preaching the Gospel by thirty-one Missionaries in thirty-nine Mission churches and licensed schoolrooms, as well as in the support of 127 day and Sunday-schools, and in the distribution of an immense number of leaflets and handbills (embodying Scriptural truths) in the Mission districts of Ireland.

One particularly interesting fact connected with the recent meetings was that at one of them (on behalf of Christian Missions in Egypt), the chair was taken by the former king of the Punjaub,-the lord of Northern India-His Highness the Maharajah Duleep Singh. His opening speech was brief, but well worthy of notice: he said, "It is with the greatest diffidence that I have ventured to accept the honour of being your chairman, and my excuse is, that I earnestly desire to help forward the great cause for which we are assembled to-day. It is now about nine years since, by God's grace, I, a heathen, was brought out of darkness into the knowledge of our Saviour Jesus Christ; and since my conversion, each year as it has passed, I have attached more and more value to God's inestimable gift to sinners. Must I not then earnestly desire and pray that the souls of others may be delivered from the state of darkness in which I once was? It is because I have witnessed the great work for the salvation of souls now being carried on in Egypt, and can myself testify to the true Christian character and conduct of the missionaries there, to their unremitting labours, their self-denial, and their zeal, that I am here to advocate the cause, and to commend to your support the American missions in Egypt."

A debate has recently taken place in the Spanish Cortes, which was of a very remarkable character. It was on the question of religious equality and liberty. Senor Manterola, a Roman Catholic canon of Vittoria, made a powerful, but very anti-Protestant speech. He affirmed that "religious equality and liberty of thought was "an absurdity "(!) "What blasphemy!" he exclaimed, "what a satanic idea "(!) He stated that the fearful cruelties perpetrated by the Romish Church in Spain had not been done by her, but by the civil power. And he declared that the recognition of the Catholic religion as the only true one was "the sole base of all moral and social order," predicting that on that fatal day "when she has the misfortune to launch herself into the unnatural arms of freedom of worship, the Spain of the memories of the past, the Spain of the ancient glories, will have died." But his speech found little favour with the Cortes; and it was splendidly replied to by the great Republican orator, Senor Castelar. One by one Castelar demolished the arguments of the canon. He charged the Roman Catholic Church and its intolerance as having been the cause of the backward position of Spain in progress of every description. The assertion that the Roman Catholic Church never dealt in persecutions, never killed the heretics, but that the civil power did, he characterized as childish, and equivalent to the assassin saying he did not kill his victim, but his dagger did. Inquisition had been the dagger of the Church. He exposed the souldegrading character of the tyranny which Rome claims to exercise over the minds and the bodies of men, and, replying to the taunt of the ecclesiastic, that, although he had been "at" Rome, he had never been "in" Rome, in the sense of catching the spirit of its system of polity, he said: "Yes, I have seen Rome; I have visited its ruins; I have contemplated its three hundred domes. I have admired the gigantic Sibyls

The

of Michael Angelo which seem to launch eternal maledictions. I have seen the sun penetrate into the basilica of St. Peter's. I have sought in those an atom of religious faith-I have only encountered deceit and doubt. Yes, I have been in Rome, and I have seen, in the Sala Regia,' painted by Vasari, a fresco of the emissaries of the King of France, who sent to the Pope the head of Coligny. I have seen the apotheosis of the great ecclesiastical glories of the executioners-the assassins of the night of St. Bartholomew." This speech is said to have given a blow to the power of the priests in Spain which they will never get over. It electrified the House to such an extent that when the orator resumed his seat, almost the whole of the deputies on both sides crowded round him, embracing him, patting him, shaking his hands, and even kissing him. Ministers, majority, and even the President Rivero, were quite as enthusiastic in these expressions of approval as the Republicans. The excitement has spread all over the country. It is also a singular coincidence that just at the time at which this discussion was being carried on, a fearful discovery was made at Madrid. While levelling the ground for the new square of the Dos de Mayo, the labourers hit upon the vestiges of the old Quemadero de la Crus, the place where the bodies of heretics and other public enemies by hundreds were burnt in olden times by the tribunals of the Inquisition. Layers of black dust, with remnants of bones and other relics, turned up at every stroke of the spade, and the whole scroll of that darkest record in human history stood unfolded and broadly revealed before the astonished gaze of the present generation. People repaired to the spot as in a pilgrimage, and the grim Quemadero, with its ghastly "diggings," became the theme of the world's talk. Senor Echegaray, a young man of genius, whose voice has just been heard for the first time in the Chamber, took hold of the fearful topic, and dwelt upon it with extraordinary vividness and minuteness. "Go," he said, "to the Calle Ancha de Sao Barnardo, turn to the right, and there, near the statue of Daoiz and Velarde, you will see the Quemadura of the Cross. I could have wished that these discussions should have taken place over that horrible spot, so that those who defend religious unity might see it. The Quemadura of the Cross is a grand geological cutting. Nature is a grand book, and it opens its pages to us in the geological strata. The Quemadura is a grand book, and it opens its pages to us in the strata of calcined human bones, earth, coal, then earth, bones, coal again, and so on. Not many days since I saw a boy turning over that rubbish with a stick, and he drew from it three grand discourses in defence of religious liberty, three objects of great eloquence-they were a piece of oxidized iron, a human rib almost all calcined, and a plait of hair, burnt at one of its extremities." In this strain the young orator proceeded and carried the sympathies of the assembly with him in his vehement protestations in favour of religious freedom.

The Irish Church Bill has passed through Committee in the House of Commons, and is about to be laid before the House of Lords. It has undergone no material changes; certainly no change for the better, but rather some slight changes for the worse. It is, in fact, more unjust, more severe, than it was at first. As a writer in the Quarterly Review has pointed out, notwithstanding Mr. Gladstone's distinct assurance last year that his course, and the course of his colleagues, should be to "respect every vested interest, every proprietary right, every legitimate claim, and, in every case of doubt that may arise, honestly to endeavour to strike the

balance in favour of the other party, and against ourselves;" yet in the Bill as actually framed, in every case of doubt a decision has been strained against the Church. And so pitilessly severe are its provisions, that its advocates found it impossible to make any professions of generosity. "The Bill is sweeping and severe," said Mr. Chichester Fortescue, “and it would be weakness and folly if it were anything else." And Mr. Lowe observed, "There is no pretence for saying that we have been generous, as I cannot understand people being generous with other folk's money." On the clause respecting Maynooth, where a considerable split was expected in the camp of Mr. Gladstone's followers, considerable discussion occurred, and Mr. Gladstone was repeatedly reminded that at the elections the country had distinctly understood that no part of the revenues of the Irish Church should be given to the support of that institution; but eventually the clause was passed by a large majority. Consequently, if this bill passes into law, the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth will (as it was too justly feared) be really and permanently endowed out of property stolen from the Protestant Church! Well was it observed by a Scotch Presbyterian member, Sir J. Elphinstone, that "had it not been believed, especially by the Scotch members, from the whole tenour of the speeches made by members of the present government, that not a single farthing was going to Popish purposes, the Government would never have obtained the majority they had obtained. If the designs of the Government had been known, the Government would never have existed. He would say to the Scotch members opposite, that by their conduct they were flying in the face of every tradition of their forefathers. He was a Presbyterian, and he considered that whatever grant was made from this Protestant fund should be made to Protestant sects, Presbyterian or not, and he would support all who opposed spoliation and robbery." The injustice also with regard to the difference in the compensation awarded to the professors of Maynooth and the Protestant clergy (which we pointed out in our April number) is still perpetuated in the Bill as it at present stands; and the arbitrary date of 1660 for private endowments is still adhered to, thus confiscating all the private gifts (including the noble one of Archbishop Bramhall, said to be now worth £400,000) bestowed on the Church previous to that date. What is this but wholesale robbery? May we not expect that the Divine displeasure will be shown towards so unjust a measure as this? It is already, we think, being so. See the fruits which it is now producing. Instead of pacifying Ireland, as it was said it would do, it has disquieted it from end to end. A riot at Londonderry, during Prince Arthur's visit, at which two persons were killed, and for which the city had to be proclaimed; several additional murders; seditious language publicly used by the Mayor of Cork, of such a nature that even the Government was compelled to take notice of it, and to bring in a special bill upon the subject; together with general depression of spirit, and universal depreciation of property;-such are some of the untoward results of this unjust and revolutionary scheme. The Times newspaper even confesses that "an extraordinary alarm has possessed Irish landowners and tenants of the better class ;" and this, it "is a very grave evil." And a Liberal nobleman, Lord Westbury, stated in the House of Lords: "The agitation began with the introduction of the Suspensory Bill. Men of property in Ireland knew not upon what conditions they were to hold in future. The alarm increased-increased to an enormous extent-owing to the speeches made on the hustings by

says,

gentlemen who have since become members of Her Majesty's Government. The alarm has reached its acme by reason of provisions in the Irish Church Bill and the discussions which have attended that measure." The value, too, which the Roman Catholics put upon it is manifest by a remarkable article just published in one of their chief papers, the Westminster Gazette. It says, "The disposition to do justice to Ireland on the part of the people of England is shown in the manner in which the Irish Church Bill is being carried. But will the abolition only of Protestant ascendancy satisfy the people of Ireland? It is already but too evident that it will not. Its highest value is that it is an indication and pledge of a radical change in the policy of England towards Ireland. The legitimate object at once capable of satisfying Irish national feeling and possible of attainment is the Repeal of the Union, as advocated by O'Connell and supported by the bishops and priests of Ireland. Now that the Irish Church is on the point of being abolished, the great obstacle in the way of Repeal is removed." The writer then goes on to show what is the still further aim and hope of his party, viz., to have an Irish Parliament wherein should be " a lower house elected by manhood or universal suffrage, and a house of peers, in which the bishops of the National Church should be entitled to sit." This, he says, "might do much to satisfy national aspirations as well as to pass laws regulating the tenure of land and settling the great and vital question of national education in accordance with the wishes and principles, not of a dominant faction, but of the nation. The Times admits that although after the passing of the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act of 1830—from which so much was expected by its promoters-a favourable change seems to have taken place for a few years in the condition of Ireland, yet that this favourable change was not permanent; and the succeeding_ten years, beginning with 1840, are perhaps the darkest in the modern history of Ireland.” We shall be very much mistaken if a similar admission will not have to be made in the future, should this unrighteous bill pass into law. We doubt very much whether it would be followed by even a temporary improvement in the state of Ireland; but, however that might be, we have no doubt whatever that the future of Ireland would be eventually dark in the extreme. We have hope, however, even in the very manner in which this measure has been driven through the House of Commons; for, had it been met there in a just and conciliatory spirit, it would in all probability have been so considerably modified as to have met with little opposition in the House of Lords; but in its present form it is so palpably dishonest and impolitic, that there is every reasonable expectation that the lords will either immediately reject it altogether, or throw it on one side until fresh developments of the government's policy towards Ireland are made, by which time the whole aspect of things may be completely altered, and the House of Commons may be more disposed to listen to reason.

The falls of real believers become occasions to them of deeper humility -more simple dependence on the Saviour-more ardent love-admiring gratitude-more compassion for their fellow-sinners-more fitness for many kinds of service on earth, and greater meetness for the occupation of the saints in glory.

Reviews and Notices of Books.

The Religious Tendencies of the Times; or, How to deal with the Deadly Errors and Dangerous Delusions of the Day. By JAMES GRANT, Author of "God is Love,' ," "Our Heavenly Home," &c. Second and Concluding volume. London: William Macintosh.

He

And

The first volume of this work having created a great sensation, and met with so rapid a sale, that in a few months a second edition consisting of a second thousand copies has been published, Mr. Grant has been called to complete his task at the earliest possible period by the publication of his second and concluding volume-which is now before us. states in his preface to this second volume, that not one single charge of the many grave charges which he has preferred in his first against particular individuals of entertaining God-dishonouring and soul-destroying errors has been disproved,-nor, indeed, even denied. he refers with evident gratification to the other fact that not one of his arguments has been answered in relation to that most momentous question, the question of the duration of future punishments. He holds, therefore, that the awful doctrine of the eternity of misery in the world to come is placed beyond doubt. On this solemn subject he has published his correspondence with the Rev. Samuel Minton, the Rev. Dr. Leask, the Very Rev. Dean Close, the Rev. Andrew Jukes, and the Rev. T. R. Birks. This correspondence forms a great part-extending to upwards of 130 pages of the volume. The doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul comes next, the denial of the immortality of the souls of the wicked being one of the great and growing errors of the day. The astounding and most pernicious opinions of Baron Bunsen are next enunciated and answered. So, in the chapter which follows, are those of the Rev. T. R. Birks, the son-in-law of the late Rev. Edward Bickersteth, relative to future punishments. Mr. Birks believes that the punishment of the lost will be everlasting; but, while believing that it will be of endless duration, he is no less fully persuaded that there will be so many qualifying circumstances connected with it, that it will in reality be, compared with the general views on the subject, hardly any punishment at all. Mr. Grant meets Mr. Birks' extraordinary views-so extraordinary that it may be doubted whether another person could be named who shares them-at great length. "Prevalent Practical Errors," is a subject to which a chapter is devoted, Mr. Grant feeling that some of this class of Errors are most dangerous, though largely, indeed, generally, overlooked. But the subject to which Mr. Grant devotes the greatest space in this new and concluding volume of "The Religious Tendencies of the Times," is the History and Heresies of the Plymouth Brethren. He states in his preface that he has been at great pains to make himself thoroughly acquainted alike with their history and their heresies, the latter being numerous and vitally at variance, in several instances, with the doctrines of the Gospel. Mr. Grant points out copiously and explicitly the pernicious effects of Plymouth Brethren principles in family and social circles, wherever they obtain a footing. Some of the illustrations of this fact which Mr. Grant has given in the volume before us will startle those who are not acquainted with Plymouth Brethrenism.