power more formidable. Their countenance is withdrawn,-his employment is endangered, and sometimes lost. Parochial relief, should he require it, is with difficulty obtained, or altogether withheld. From participation in village charities, his family is excluded; and all these injuries he sustains, because, acting as an honest man, he obeys the dictates of religious conviction. Cases, of this kind frequently occur in every county, and some have taken place within the writer's own knowledge. In a populous parish in London an attempt was lately made to withhold parochial relief from a family, because the children attended the British and not the National School; and in a large village near the metropolis, where the clergyman is the nagistrate, the poor have been threatened with similar privations for this offence. Not long since, several boys were actually dismissed from a National School, because the parents, after taking them to attend the regular worship of the established church on the Sunday, sent their children in the evening to a Dissenting meeting-house. In the immediate vicinity of town a subscription was not long since raised for supplying bread to the necessitous families resident in the village: and, on the suggestion of the Rector, the parents, whose children attended the Dissenting meeting and Sunday school, were to be excluded from the benefit. The proposal, having been made in an opulent village, the residence of persons of several religious denominations, was overruled; but, had the circumstance occurred in an obscure place, there is little doubt but that its injustice must have been endured."

The following is the writer's language, speaking of the intemperate attacks on the Dissenters generally for their conscientious opposition to the proposed measure :-" Because the Dissenters feel alarmed at this threatened invasion of their privileges

-at this addition to the number of their present disabilities at this attempt to narrow the charter of their liberties-because they temperately protest against a measure, the bare proposal of which is a public insult to their principles, and the operation of which will prove most oppressive, they have been stigmatized as restless disturbers, anxious to excite clamour, and prevent the adoption of a public benefit. The Dissenters repel the imputation. They had hoped that the general character of their body would have secured them from it, and they confidently ask whether their conduct since the introduction of this measure has not proved the falsehood of the charge? Some months have now elapsed since the Bill was brought forward, and they instantly expressed their decided repugnance to its main features, and their determination to oppose it; yet, in order to afford time to confer with the mover, and influenced by the hope of inducing him to withdraw the Bill, they not only abstained from holding public meetings, or preparing petitions, but sent forth a circular, tending to moderate the alarm which the measure had excited; nor is it until all hopes of its abandonment are at an end, and Parliament has assembled, that the Dissenters have determined on the adoption of active measures of resistance. Dissenters have therefore shewn no desire to agitate unnecessarily the public feeling, still less to defeat any plan calculated to promote the benefit of the community; but, on the present occasion, when the moral welfare of their countrymen is deeply concerned, and their religious liberties manifestly endangered, they would be unworthy of their privileges as Englishmen, and their profession as Christians, were they to remain tamely silent, and not to exert their utmost powers to resist a Bill fraught with injuries so serious to the best interests of society."

The

The importance of the subject

would well warrant our taking more largely from this well written and excellent appeal to reason and good sense: the limits of our publication, however, oblige us to conclude with one more extract, which will be found to contain the prominent features of objection which it is the purport of the pamphlet to promulge.

"1. Because they (the Protestant Dissenters) are convinced that, by discouraging the exertions of the public-by impeding the progress of every plan for promoting education now in active operation - by neglecting to call forth the energies of the poor-and by omitting the use of those means which are absolutely necessary to ensure the instruction of the most indigent classes -this Bill will not only fail to realize the hopes it holds forth, but will retard the very object for which it is enacted.

"2. Because, by imposing a tax for the support of the schools to be established, it will prove practically oppressive to those who desire to promote universal instruction, as they must maintain other schools for children whom this Bill will not benefit: viz.-a large proportion of the most indigent of the populationthose who can receive education by means of Sunday schools only, and others who may be driven from the "established" schools by mismanagement and oppression.

"3. Because, while it commits the proposed schools to the sole management of the clergy and dignitaries of the established church to the entire exclusion of the public at large, it provides no adequate check on the undue exercise of the power thus granted; which power experience justifies the dissenter in apprehending will be a dangerous instrument, liable to much abuse, and calculated to raise greater obstacles to the general end than the advantages which it can possibly afford will counterbalance.

" 4. Because it will prove injurious

to the interests of religious liberty, by adding to the number of those civil disabilities under which Dissenters from the Church Establishment at present labour; thereby recognizing and legislating upon a principle which is the basis of all religious persecution, and which Christianity and enlightened policy unite to condemn."

For the foregoing reasons, the opponents of the Bill are urged to make their stand, and instantly take the necessary steps for resisting its enactment, since "they may be assured that, unless their efforts be be promptly made, they will be altogether unavailing. The legitimate and constitutional course to adopt on the occasion, is respectfully to petition both houses of parliament. Let every congregation of Dissenters, therefore, throughout the kingdom, immediately prepare a temperate yet earnest petition for the rejection of the Bill, and the friends to education have reason to hope that such an appeal to the wisdom and justice of the legislature will not be made in vain."

State of the World on the Advent of

Messiah.

THIS remarkable historical fact harmonizes in so striking a manner with the peaceful character of the religion of Jesus Christ, and the annunciation of his birth to the shepherds, that it ought to be regarded with the deepest interest. That Infinite Being who in wisdom and goodness prepared a Saviour for man, was pleased, in the arrangements of his providence, to prepare the world to receive Him. The warfare of contending nations had ceased-the sword was returned to its peaceful scabbard, and the arts of agriculture and commerce chiefly engrossed attention. The power of Rome was undisputed in Europe, Africa, and

Asia. It was generally mild in its administration, and by its great extent was eminently calculated to afford facilities for the diffusion and protection of Christianity to remote and barbarous regions. But the polished and classic Empress of the Earth was unworthy her intellectual attainments, and her civil and political advantages. If the Romans were culpable in their rejection of Christianity, how much more inexcusable were the Jews, seeing that " unto them were committed the oracles of God!" "Search the scriptures," said Jesus to them, "for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me." But alas! though " he came unto his own, they received him not." Hardening their hearts against the Prince of Peace in the day of universal tranquillity, they commenced an awful opposition against him, nor ceased their unnatural enmity and persecution until they had secured

his destruction, and brought his precious blood upon their own heads. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee - if thou hadst known, even in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace, but now are they for ever hid from thine eyes."

Had the descendants of Abraham been willing to submit themselves to the humble, holy, and peaceful principles of Jesus-if, as a nation, they

had imbibed the mind that was in Him-what happy effects might not have been anticipated to themselves

and to the world? Instead of a tur

bulent factious people, upon whom the Romans could place no reliance, and whose subjugation was only to be effected by the extermination of tens of thousands, and the banishment of a wretched remnant, they might have proved themselves to be quiet and peaceful subjects. And if the love of their country required them at any time to remonstrate with their conquerors, the manner and the tem

per in which those remonstrances would have been expressed, could not fail to have proved far more effectual than their frequent and futile appeal to arms. The amiableness of their character and conduct, we might hope, would have preserved them not only from the jealousies and enmities of the Romans, but have obtained from them confidence, respect, and esteem.

Nor would the benefits of Christianity have been confined to the Israelites. The votaries of Jupiter and Saturn, Venus and Bacchus, Apollo and Mars, must have yielded to the sublime ethics and heavenly doctrines of Messiah, exhibited as they would then have appeared by a nation of Christians-The peace of the world might have remained inviolate, and an open and effectual door opened for the evangelization of the savage tribes which bounded the conquests of the Roman arms. How delightful is the prospect, which the imagination loves to depict to itself, of the unimpeded triumphs of the Gospel, which would have preserved century after century the peace of the nations, and rendered War with all its horrors unknown.or abhorred! But how then could the Scriptures have been fulfilled, and the purposes of God accomplished? By the striking exhibition of the abuses to which Christianity has been subject from the vices and artifices man, its native purity, pacific character, and sublime excellence, have been rendered more conspicuous. Like gold seven times refined in the fire, it shines forth with increased lustre, and in all its glory shall extend and prevail from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same.

of

Effects of the Human Passions. MR. EDITOR,

H.

UPON looking over a list of French Works, among others the following

met my eye: Victoires, Conquètes, Désastres, Revers et Guerres Civiles des François, de 1792 à 1815. Tom. xxi. 8vo. (Victories, Conquests, Disasters, Misfortunes, and Civil Wars of the French, from 1792 to 1815.-21 Vols. 8vo.

What a dreadful picture this, of man, when, uncontrolled by the pacific spirit of Christ, he is hurried away by his passions. Twenty-one octavo Volumes filled, exclusively filled, with a history of the slaughter of the human race in the short space of twenty-three years!! Let the Christian philanthropist contemplate on a fact so pregnant with melancholy instruction; let him exert all his energies to open the eyes of mankind to see the malignant, baneful nature of the war-spirit, the prodigal waste of human life such blood-stained annals exhibit. O ambition! O lust of power! what miseries have ye not produced! When will ye be driven by the benign influence of Christian principles from the heart of man?

[To our worthy Correspondent's comment on the above French Work, we perhaps cannot do better than make the following addition from a new and improved impression of Mr. Jay's Family Prayers.]

Prayer for Peace.

Ο τπου that stillest the noise of

the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people; we bless Thee that Thou hast made peace in our borders, and called us to adore Thee, as the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.

We lament the evils of War, both natural and moral; and confess with shame, that ever since man became an apostate from Thee, he has been an enemy to his brother, and that from the death of Abel our earth has been a field of blood. O, let thy word be speedily accomplished. Let the nations learn War no more, but beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; and only emulate each other in husbandry, and commerce, and science, and religion.

O Thou Prince of Peace, preside in every privy council. May all public teachers recommend peace. In private life, may we follow peace

with all men; and cherish the principles and the dispositions which will prepare us for that world, where we shall enter into peace, and the sound of War will be heard no more.

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