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FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND. It would seem as if the friends of evangelical religion on the Continent were awake to the difficulties and dangers which threaten them from the opposition and machinations of Papists. It would seem, also, as if Popery were putting forth strenuous efforts, and making a desperate struggle to regain its ascendancy over the civil powers. A crisis will come, and the conflict between Protestantism and Popery is approaching, when the battle of the Reformation must be fought over again, not with carnal weapons, but with the weapons of truth, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. The

sooner the friends of evangelical religion arm themselves for the conflict the better. The existence and influence of Popery is incompatible with civil and religious liberty, and with the renovation and conversion of the world to God, because Popery ever has been and still is, the enemy and opposer both of civil and religious liberty. And when this contest comes, as come it will, if Popery exists in sufficient strength, Popery will resort to its old weapons, and dip its hands in blood. A recent letter from M. Monod, of Montauban, to the Free Church of Scotland, after alluding to the decided revival of true religion in France during the last twenty years, speaks of the serious obstacles to its spread arising from revived Popery. M. F. Monod, in another letter, speaks of the solemn impression, that such is the rising spirit of Popery, and its ascendancy over the civil power, that soon the door of usefulness will be closed, and violent persecution begin.

A late circular of the Geneva Evangelical Society says of France: "The union which is forming between the Roman clergy and the civil authorities, turns the ambiguity of the laws more and more to the advantage of the Papists. In many places congregations would be formed, if a guarantee for peaceable, regular worship had not been refused. We must expect a new state of things to be seen in France, from the bonds with which the Court of Rome seeks every where to entangle governments."

Professor Gaussen, an eminent member of the Evangelical College of Geneva, addressing his students on the prospects of France, &c., after speaking of the Popish and Protestant forces, says: "I do not allude to a battle of argument and controversy, but to a violent assault on the faith and patience of the saints. It seems clear to me, that we are on the eve of times when, like our fathers, we must hold our lives in our hands, as an Jesus offering to Christ. The Church, apparently vanquished, dispersed, reduced to the smallest number, will begin to conquer again by the preaching of the cross, by patience, and by faith."

Prof. Monod bears a similar testimony: "We live in a time in which God does great things. But we cannot but take notice that this happy movement meets with great obstacles, and that we are in the epoch of crisis and transition, whose results it is impossible to foresee.

"The first obstacle arises from the Romish Church. Although that church had rarely descended more low in doctrine, and although there reigns almost every where a great incredulity regarding her and the Gospel which she compromises, it is certain that the influence of that church here, as elsewhere, increases in a frightful manner. A strange fact! without reigning over the heart, it enslaves the mind. Even indications of persecution manifest themselves here and there. More than one young person has been carried off and put into a convent, in particular the young Abbe de L-; and his parents have recovered him only after great difficulty. You will have observed that the daughter of the Dutch Minister at Turin has been carried off for a similar purpose. I understand that the daughter of one of the most distinguished of the Evangelical pastors in French Switzerland is about to enter a convent of her own choice.

"By the law-suit instituted by the Abbe Maurette, we are threatened to lose the liberty of controversy. In seeing what is passing in France just now, we rub our eyes, and ask if we are really awake."

MODERN POPERY.-We all know what Popery was in the days of the Inquisition and the dark ages; the following incident, told by an intelligent traveller, will give us an idea of its spirit in these latter days, which may help us to judge whether, if it was blood-thirsty, oppressive, and intolerant then, it is now adapted to promote the progress of civil and religious liberty among ourselves.-"A poor Protestant village named Felsberg, in Switzerland, has lately been so imminently threatened with destruction from an overhanging mountain, which is beginning to fall, that the government sought negociations with a neighbouring village called Ems, the inhabitants of which are Romanists, with the intent to translate the commune of Felsberg within the limit of the Ems territory. The people of this village refused their consent, except on condition that the Felsbergers should embrace the Romish religion; a proposition which they refused with the utmost energy and unanimity. They would rather remain under the falling mountain than renounce the Gospel and embrace the Pope."

BAPTISM OF BELLS AT TOURS. -We have just been present at a signal parody on the fundamental rite of Christianity; a Pagan ceremony has just been celebrated by the ministers of Christ, in a chapel consecrated to his worship. The two bells presented to the hospital have been baptized! This solemnity was conducted with great pomp by the archbishop, assisted by his clergy, and aided by the giver of the bells, who played the double part of father and godfather. A mass, distinguished by the union of admirable musical powers with the generous spirit of charity, and an edifying sermon, preceded the baptism: and then the ceremony commenced. The two bells were hung a little above the ground, in the midst of the chapel. A somewhat profane coquetry presided at their toilette. They were dressed in gowns of rosecoloured satin, with robes of lace, and trimmed with ribbons and flowers. The archbishop, (Monseigneur Morlot) solemnly approached these two

innocent sisters. M. Viot Prudhomme, their godfather, and a distinguished lady, their godmother, were placed at his right hand. After the accustomed words, the archbishop proceeded to their purification, par attouchements; their dresses were raised with due regard to decency, so as to expose the native material, and in this condition they received the holy anointing within and without. Then Monseigneur, pulling a ribbon, struck the clappers against the two bells in succession, which answered in different tones; the godmother did the same, with perfect grace, and the godfather with his accustomed dexterity. All this accomplished, behold two Christians more in the world, bearing these inscriptions the one, "Je m'appelle Anna-Valerie;" the other, "Je m'appelle Julie-Caroline." It is with a lively sentiment of pity that we have witnessed this profane spectacle. A baptism of bells! What, then, is the original sin of these poor creatures? what stain have you washed away? Have these twins of M. Viot Prudhomme any fault which they derive from their paternity? Yes, your bells have a fault; we have told you of it before now, and your baptism will not efface it. The Church has given them its blessing, but they will soon receive the curse of the sick and the poor. The pretty allusions of the sermon to the poetry of bells, and their happy influences, have a bitter irony when applied to the abode of pain and misery. You speak of their welcoming the newly-born with joyous peals, and of their adding solemnity to the mourning for the dead! But at the hospital children are brought forth in shame, and received with mystery; and compassion for the dying bids us mourn for the dead in silence. The hospital demands for its inmates food, and care, and rest, and you give them-bells!

POPISH BIBLES.-Changes are going on silently in these times of peaceful discussion, which will make all things new. Among these changes nothing is more remarkable than a sudden desire to read the Bible, which has seized the Roman Catholics. An edition of 1000 Douay Bibles, pub

lished in this city (New York) ten years ago, was disposed of with difficulty. Recently a quarto edition of 5000 was all sold in a few months, and large numbers of various editions are constantly selling. In fact, the Catholics have suddenly become a Bible-reading people. It is the Douay translation, to be sure, with notes not the very best, though many of them are excellent, and the translation of some passages is palpably sectarian and untrue. Yet the great truths of inspiration are so plainly taught, that praying to saints, the miracles of saints, and the whole lumber of such superstitions, must soon disappear under its influence. What has waked up this wonderful desire for the Bible we know not, unless it be the controversy about its exclusion from the public schools. Nothing could have been more likely to produce this effect than such a discussion. The tendency of every thing, however, is to discussion. The Bible is certainly coming to be more properly appreciated by Protestants than it used to be, and why should not the same change go on amongst Catholics? The craft of their demanding belief without proof has had its day, and now every man demands of whoever makes a proposition that he should prove it.

GOOD WORK IN IRELAND.

MY DEAR -I am sure you will be rejoiced to hear of the great success with which the Lord has been pleased to prosper the teaching of His own Word in the Irish language amongst our poor R-C- fellowsinners in this country, and especially in the county K-. In six parishes that are adjoining, there were, in June last, 821 converts; and since that, several others have joined their party, amongst which may be numbered the priest of one of the parishes, and another most influential personso influential, that when her confessor heard that she had left the Church of Rome, he fainted: and all the priests and nuns of that locality declared, that they "would rather that six priests had left them, than her, of

whom they had so long boasted as the intelligent and devoted champion of their Church."

But my principal reason for now writing to you is, the hope that you will assist in making known to those who wish to help forward the Redeemer's cause the dark side of the picture; the awfully tremendous persecution at this moment raging, more or less, in every spot where there have been any conversions from Popery. In some places the old priests who were thought not sufficiently active in stopping the reformation, have been removed to other parishes, or pensioned off, and young men, newly sent from Maynooth, have succeeded them; and now the most awful curses ring from every Romish altar against the converts, or any who in any wise help or aid them. They charge their congregations not to speak one word to their nearest and dearest friends, and to hold them guilty of mortal sins if they read, or countenance the reading of, the Bible; they are commanded to shut their eyes, if they meet them on the road, and to turn their heads another way until they pass. They are not permitted to sell any article to a convert, and the distress that this occasions, is perhaps far greater than you may think, for I would just remind you that the poorest class of peasantry have no stock of provisions of any kind laid in for the winter. Potatoes are the only food they use, and the R- C-s will not now sell them any. In other places, too, the buyer might turn to another person, or procure what he wanted by the slight personal inconvenience of walking a mile or two to another town; but in those remote districts they would have to travel twenty or thirty miles ere they would reach a large town, where the ban of the priest's curse would not follow them, and there are no Protestant families able to assist them. There are no resident gentry in most of the parishes, not even a comfortable farmer. In some there is not even a resident clergyman; and even where there is, he is generally himself a very poor man, whose heart is wrung with the hard necessity of injuring the cause

he loves, by being forced often to say, "depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled." In cases of sickness, their sufferings are greatly aggravated: no sum of money will procure a pint of milk to cool the parching thirst of fever, and in some cases the patient has fallen a sacrifice in consequence of the refusal of nurses to go and attend them at their house. I could tell you instances that would touch the hardest heart; yet I am happy to say, that though large bribes are offered, only one boy has been induced to return to Popery, and we hear that he is wretched; but a new suit of clothes, a sum of money, and the privilege of dining at the priest's table, have led him to this step, which it is most likely he will retrace ere long. In another part of K—, an intelligent young man who was clerk to an attorney, listened one day to the Scriptures, and, in consequence, was denounced from the altar. Still, however, he went to hear, and became so impressed by the truths he heard, that in a very short time he went to church. The next day his employment was taken from him; his father, who had a large family, and was in a

trade, the success of which depended much on the feelings of his neighbours towards him, lost his customers; and a large family, who were in independent circumstances, are now left beggars. Yet the young man is firm; and what is still more cheering, his friends continue to send the younger members of the family to the Scriptural school of the village: and may add, that all the schools in the places connected with the Reformation, are increasing in the number of the scholars, and the attendance of the converts at divine service is more regular than before the persecution began. Therefore we have great reason to rejoice, even in this fiery trial, as it proves the reality of their precious faith: and it will, I feel assured, but help to purify that faith, so that it will be "found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

I remain, yours faithfully,
J. C

[Protestants are indeed loudly called upon to help this good work. The Editor will be glad to forward any contributions.]

TRACTARIANISM.

IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

SIR, I have just risen from the perusal of Mr. Ward's "Ideal of a Christian Church;" and it would not be easy to tell the amount of pain and distress to which it gives rise in an honest mind. Not that the line of argument is at all likely to be influential with those who are Scripturally informed; not that you feel at all that wretched sensation of inextricable entanglement which some artful Jesuitical writings produce, and which Mr. Ward has evidently aimed at producing; but that you do become conscious of a measure of melancholy pity for a mind so completely astray, so lost to every sense of honourable feeling which should guide us in the labyrinth of life. You feel as you go onward, that you are in contact with an enslaved, debased,

and degraded mind. There is in his whole system and endeavour, such a manifest attempt to puzzle and cloud rather than to argue for and establish truth, that you soon begin to suspect every succeeding sentence of trickery and chicane; and too frequently such suspicions are more than realized, when the whole drift of the argument is understood.

It is painful to track such a writer through all his windings, but sometimes it is needless. Mr. Ward is one of a school; and one of the most audacious of the party. He is, like Frowde, a thorough disciple and eleve of Mr. Newman; and put forward by him to bear the brunt of the battle for a series of sophisms which are really originated by Mr. Newman. And it is desirable that the errors of that school should be touched where they are really tangible; and that the

Christian public should now be put upon their guard against a mode of argument, which must find its way, under present circumstances, to persons who are little prepared for such argumentation. These artful statements will now be forced upon the public. Like the frogs of Egypt, they will find their way into the secret chamber. Like the locusts, they wither every green thing they touch. And, like a still more distressing plague, they mystify men's minds with a darkness that can be felt."

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I purpose, therefore, with your leave, to take up, in a series of letters, several points in Mr. Ward's argument; and to put them in a right light before the Christian public, that the fallacy may be discovered of the mode by which he endeavours to seduce the simple believer in the Holy Scriptures from his happy allegiance to his God.

But at the outset there is one manœuvre, which holds a prominent place throughout the whole work of 600 pages, to which I would call attention.

In the first place, his wrath against the old school of the Evangelical clergy is very great; for he is fully conscious that their position is quite impregnable: and that if the great body of the clergy were in real alarm to take refuge in true Reformation principles, he and his friends might sophisticate in vain. He fires off, therefore, most copiously, all the common places which the prejudices of high churchmen have led them to entertain against the "Evangelicals." He pours them out ad nauseam, in the hope to carry with him the feelings of a large body of men, who have been accustomed to shrink from the strong statements of our doctrinal articles; and he labours, in language stronger than the high church school have ever used, to awaken their fears and confirm their dislike of the Scriptural doctrines of grace.

He says, 66 no consecutive thinker

could adopt the doctrine of Justification by Faith only, without being prepared to plunge, theoretically, at least, into the lowest depths of depravity." "He looks on open and undeniable habits of profligacy and

depravity, as the natural, and direct, and even unmitigated consequences of the doctrine of the 11th Article." "It is the master-piece of Satan's craft, holding out a promise to selfdeceiving men, of enjoying, at once, carnal security and spiritual peace.'

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He knows quite well the strong prejudices with which such statements as these will accord; though many men would startle at first to put their own objections so strongly and so coarsely. But he counts on thus gaining partizans with him, who will join on this ostensible ground in condemning, on a special point, the evangelical body, and are thus scaring them from taking the Scriptural and only safe ground which the Evangelicals occupy in other respects.

But then having, as he hopes, succeeded in frightening men off Reformation and Scriptural ground; having brought, as he hopes, the clergy of the Reformed Church to shrink from Reformation principles, and to take refuge from evangelical truth in antiquity and tradition, he assails the high churchman on that slippery ground with a vehemence which he is not likely to repel; he gives him an impulse there which can hardly fail to drive him down the inclined plane of Romish mystification.

Nothing can be well more evident than his triumphant consciousness of victory over these high church opinions. He feels that there he has no

difficulty. The prey is in his toils. Finding them off their own ground, he has only to draw round them the meshes of his entanglement, and if they are sincere and straightforward in their professions, they must fall into his hands. And he is right in his anticipations. It is impossible to read those portions of Mr. Ward's book without a conviction that against high churchmen he has certainly the best of the argument. Only let the high churchman concede, what for the sake of priestly power, he has been willing to concede towards Romanists, and he has surrendered the key of his position.

The essential features of his system are those which gradually effloresce into Romanism. And though, in times when controversy was not

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