Mr. K.'s book exhibits a comprehensive compilation of the respective arguments for the antagonist systems; they are stated with plainness and perspicuity, and are level to the comprehension of men of plain common sense. The perusal of them will enable those who sincerely desire to know the truth, and who earnestly implore the Divine blessing on their endeavours, to judge for themselves.

Mr. K. thinks the present period favourable to a work like his, because the present generation acknowledge the paramount authority of the Bible. They do so in words, and so far it is well; but in works how many deny it. Yet, though we perceive nothing very promising in the signs of the times, we believe that all things will work together for the eventual promotion of truth and righteousness, under the wise and benevolent administration of Divine Providence; and, although some of the self-assumed religious world have objects in view very different from those which they profess, [pra se ferunt] in raising the clamour of bigotry, and throwing the shaft of intolerance, they are come too late into the world to effect their sordid purpose. They belong to an age, thank God, long since past. Did Mr. K. augur any thing very favourable from the cry of No Christian' raised of late against the Unitarians, by a considerable party in the Church, as well as by almost all the selfassumed orthodox Dissenters, and especially by the intolerant of the Calvinists? Some time ago we looked upon this as the spontaneous ebullition of vulgar bigotry; but we have lately found that it has an ulterior object, Certain movements have betrayed an aspiring which is no longer ambiguous, and account for the unsparing misrepresentations and the unchristian denunciations, which have been as current as a watch-word in the holy camps. Does the vengeful hostility against free inquiry lead Mr. K. to expect a fair hearing? Does he not know that there are parties who dread this, to them frightful, enemy, not less than the Spanish inquisition? Does he not know that liberal books are under the interdiction of a sacred ban? Expect an impartial hearing-dispassionate examination, from them! We know them better. Having been foiled in argument, they have renounced honourable warfare, and have recourse to poisoned weapons. It is well that the contest is not in the dark, but carried on before the world;' and the world, with all its demerits, is less incompetent to judge impartially than the pharisaical partizan. The world, too, is daily gaining wisdom, and will in due time become wiser; and it will be able to distinguish pretty correctly between the avowed motive and the disguised purpose.

W. J.

Two Discourses on the Union between God and Christ and the Grounds of Unitarian Nonconformity, with a Prefatory Address to Unitarian Christians, by Thomas Madge, Minister of Essex-strect Chapel.'-Hunter, London.

THIS small volume contains noble and inspiring truths, set forth in great ease and copiousness of diction. We have not seen, for a long time, any equally good, true and eloquent exposition and defence of the distinctive opinions of Unitarians, and the great principles of religious liberty. Mr. Madge, it appears, is friendly to the principle of an Establishment, and dissents from the Anglican Church on the ground of its imposing for doctrines the commandments of men. We abstain, however, from the analysis of a performance which ought to be in the hands of all our readers.

MISCELLANIES.

THE QUAKER'S ANNUAL MEETING, for this year, held in London, from the 20th to the 30th of May, had more than an usual interest, in consequence, particularly, of the discussion of the merits of Crewdson's Beacon, written against the Hicksites, or Unitarian Quakers of America. It now appears that there are two parties, perhaps not of very unequal strength, among the Quakers of this kingdom, the one holding to the peculiarities of the genuine forms of Quakerism, and therein indisposed to any other outward standard of doctrine than the Scriptures; the other rapidly approximating to the orthodoxy of the day.

The discussion was brought on by a report from the Lancashire representatives, stating that the publication, by Mr. Isaac Crewdson, of a book called the Beacon, had produced a breach of love and unity amongst them, and that the quarterly meeting in Lancashire had taken up the subject, by appointing a committee to inquire into the cause of the disunion, and endeavour to apply a remedy, or, in other words, to bring Mr. Crewdson and his work under rebuke, if not disavowal.-Mr. Josiah Forster, of Tottenham, opened the discussion, by alluding to the value of concord and love, and to the fact that this had been interrupted by the publication of the Beacon, which had introduced a spirit of controversy into the Society, calculated to prove injurious to the young people, and to draw away their minds from the internal influences of the Spirit to external testimonies. On his motion, it was resolved that the Yearly Meeting should appoint a Committee to assist the Lancashire Quarterly Meeting in discussing and disposing of the question.'

From a report of the meeting, we also learn, that their refusal to pay tithes, church-rates, &c. cost the Quakers £12,000. in the last year; that the meeting agreed to recommend Friends to use their efforts to check intemperance, and to abstain from dealing in intoxicating liquors; and that Elisha Bates, who, on the division of the Friends of the United States, came to England as the advocate of the Trinitarian section, had, on his return to America, been refused the usual certificate of good conduct and sound doctrine.

THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION SOCIETY' is sending its agents round the country for the alleged purpose of promoting the principles of that Reformation, but with the real intention of decrying the Catholics, and raising the old party watch-word of 'No Popery,' in order to prevent the present Ministry from carrying into effect the great measure of reform in the abuses of the English Church established in Ireland. That this is the true object of the Reformation Society, is evident from the abuse which its deputation, Messrs. Farrel and Wilson, with their local coadjutors, the Evangelical Clergy and the Wesleyan Methodists, are every where heaping upon the Catholic Church, denouncing its members as idolaters and heathens. These charges, with others of an equally opprobrious kind, have roused the just indignation of the Catholics, and their ministers have in some places boldly stood forward to repel them. This they have lately done at Louth, where the deputation received a signal defeat from the able speeches of Mr. Simpkiss, who, for three successive nights, triumphantly opposed and refuted the maligners of his faith. His arguments, as far as regards the Church of England, are unanswerable; he clearly proves that that Church has been guilty of the worst crimes attributed to his own; and is, even at this day, hostile to both civil and religious liberty. In proof of this last

assertion, we shall quote the close of his admirable address on the third night of the diccussion, which was received with rapturous applause by the large assembly who heard it :—

I now come forward to answer a charge that the doctrines of Catholicism are hostile to civil freedom, and tend to encourage persecution. If these gentlemen say that they advocate the general principles of the Reformation, and especially the right of private judgment in religion, then I deny the truth of their pretensions; and I confidently appeal to you, Dissenters, to say whether the church to which these gentlemen adhere, allows to you (hear, hear) the exercise of that right, without compelling you, at the same time, to forfeit some of your political and civil rights? You know that it does not: and the whole history of this reformed Church proves that it has ever been fatally hostile to this principle; as a proof of which assertion, I specify the following undeniable facts:-That, in 1683, the time of the infamous James II., the Quakers in Bristol alone were fined, for 11 months' non-attendance at the Episcopal Church, £16,440; that, from 1655 to 1833, this Episcopal Church has robbed the body of Quakers of £1,192,820, besides £14,000 a-year, of which it still robs them, for church rates, Easter offerings, and similar imposts (hear, hear); that in the reign of Charles II., nearly 8000 Protestants of various sects perished through the intolerance of this Episcopal Church, and tens of thousands of the conscientious members were driven into banishment and robbed of upwards of 12 millions of their property; that in the days of Charles II., this most tolerant Church of England excommunicated above 2000 of her own very best ministers (hear, hear,) because they would not swear assent and consent to every expression in the Common Prayer Book, before they could have had an opportunity of seeing it; and, after having turned out these conscientious men, forbade them to teach schools, except they changed their faith, on pain of death; and that, from 1577 to 1603, 187 Catholics were actually ripped up and boiled, simply for not going to church to hear the Common Prayer. Thus you see that if Popery has had its Inquisition, the Protestant Episcopal Church has had something as bad, (cries of hear,) its Star Chamber or Court of High Commission, or some similar engine of oppression! Do I charge all these enormities upon the principles of Protestantism, as these gentlemen have charged similar enormities upon those of Catholicism? No. I ascribe both to the corrupting influence of secular ambition and power, (immense applause), joined in incompatible alliance with religion, and which power is actually posssssed by that form of Protestantism which these reverend vituperators acknowledge at the present day. (Renewed cries of hear.) And now permit me to exonerate my religion from what I deem one of the gravest of all the imputations which these reverend slanderers have dared to throw out against it. The reverend gentleman who seconded the resolution on the first night, pointed out Ireland as affording a striking proof of the degrading influence of what he calls Popery, and he appealed (I presume thoughtlessly) to the friends of freedom to say whether Catholicism is not the sole cause of the misery and degradation of that country? I boldly answer 'No' to that question (cheers); and, in return, I appeal to the friends of liberty to say whether the real and the grand cause of that misery and degradation be not to be found in the persecution even now inflicted upon that unhappy country by that form of self-styled but falselynamed Protestantism which is there established by law? The Rev. Mr. Farrell last night, in reply to my recrimination of persecution against his church, lamented that it had been a persecutor in former times; but he exclaimed, Happily the age of persecution is, with regard to us, gone by! Now, I will show you that this Protestant Episcopal Church not only originally obtained its property, which it deems its bulwark, by an act of wholesale plunder committed upon the Catholics, but that it does not scruple, at the present day, to maintain that property by acts of savage persecution-aye, even by shedding the blood of the Catholic people of Ireland, whenever it deems so foul a sacrifice necessary to maintain its horrid supremacy. First, however, let me glance back at the history of the persecuting conduct of Protestantism in Ireland, by selecting a few points from the penal code in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who was wholly Protestant, at all events. In her reign, it was death to make a new Catholic Priest within the kingdom; it was death for a Catholic Priest to come in the kingdom from abroad: it was death to harbour a Catholic Priest coming from abroad: it was death to confess to such Priest: it was death for any Priest to say mass it was death for any one to hear mass: it was death to deny, or not to swear, if called on, that Queen Elizabeth was the head of the Church of Christ: it was an offence not to go to the Protestant Church, punishable by a fine of £20 a lunar month on every offender, or £250 a year in the money of that day, equal to £3250 of our present money; and, under this law, the poor conscientious Catholics, who had no money to pay fines, were crammed into jails in such numbers that the counties petitioned to be relieved from the expence of keeping them! Now, bear in mind that all this horrid suffering was the work of law-established Protestantism in Ireland; and was not this an all-sufficient cause, think ye, to account for the misery and degradation of that country in past days? But, not to dwell too long on the past, I will now show you how false is the reverend itinerant's boast that the age of persecution by the Protestant Episcopal Church is gone by; for I can clearly

prove that that church, in Ireland, is no changeling, but that, as far as she can, she acts under the same spirit of persecution at the present hour. The tithes are collected in the most rigorous manner by men called tithe-proctors, who go armed on the business, and have frequently troops to assist them; and the poor Catholics are sometimes stripped of every thing they have in the world, so that the air resounds with the cries of their misery; and then, thirsting for revenge, they break out into acts of violence and blood, and the gaol and the gallows finally settle the dispute between them and their Protestant pastors.(Groans). You will bear in mind, too, that there are no poor-laws established in Ireland (hear,) in lieu of that support which the Catholics formerly obtained from the property of the Church (renewed cries of Hear) when it was in Catholic hands; and therefore the people frequently perish, in thousands of instances, from hunger; and you, the people of England, are taxed to pay an army (immense cries of hear) which is employed to keep the peace between the law-established Protestant Church and the Catholic People. Now, then, let me appeal to you, ye friends of freedom, to say whether this Episcopal Protestantism, which is thus daily plundering and persecuting the people of Ireland, be not the really guilty cause of the misery and degradation of that country? Twice have the reverend slanderers who have spoken in support of the resolution preferred against Catholicism a charge that it tends to urge the Catholic people to the commission of even the murder of Protestants. If I were to follow the illiberal example which these gentlemen set me, 1 should retort upon Protestantism the same monstrous charge; for, is it not a fact, noto rious to you all, that, within the last few months, a verdict of murder was recorded by a coroner's inquest against a clergyman, an Archdeacon of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland (tumultuous cries of hear)—a murder, too, committed in the collection of about 50 shillings of tithe money due from some poor Catholic widow? Do I charge this foul murder upon the principles of Protestantism? No, but upon that Episcopal form of it which is cursed by an alliance with the state-an alliance which is just as corrupting to Protestantism as it used to be to Catholicism itself. Gentlemen, you will please to observe that these Episcopal Protestants make it a matter of principle to employ force in defence of their doctrines; for the 37th article of their religion contains these words: 'It is the prerogative of all godly princes that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil doer.' Now, this is no dead letter; it was awfully realised at Rathcormac; and I believe that you yourselves have been once called upon, by the reverend mover of the resolution (Mr. Collison) to draw forth ten thousand times ten thousand swords in defence of his church! But my time is nearly run out; I would say to you, Protestants, if you must convert us from Catholicism, or maintain your ascendancy in Ireland, do so by Christian means--by employing charity, humility, and forbearance by propagating what you consider to be sound doctrine amongst the Catholics of Ireland. I would say to you, almost in the very words of the eloquent Grattan, let bigotry and schism, let the zealot's pride and the high-churchman's intolerance, shrink back into their darksome recesses, and at last give way to the genial influence of the operations of a benignant and enlightened legislature. And let that legislature overarch the whole community-Protestant and Catholic alike-with the arms of a general protection, and root the Protestant ascendancy in the sovereign charity of its nature, and in the principles of genuine religion. You have long enough tried coercion, and you have tried it in vain; but there is one engine which has hitherto been kept back-that engine which neither the pride of the bigot, nor the spite of the zealot, nor the ambition of the high, nor the arsenal of the conqueror, has ever thought of that engine which comes forth, armed with physical and moral blessings, to elevate mankind by its services-I mean the engine of redress-redress for the wrongs of ages, the accumulated injustice of centuries of misrule, Until that engine be firmly planted and efficiently put into play in Ireland, there will be neither peace nor harmony, nor any chance of a reception for your Protestant doctrines in that unhappy country!

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND has refused to send deputies to the great Jubilee of the Reformation to be held at Geneva, on account of an alleged difference of views regarding Christianity.

The Provincial Meeting of Presbyterian and Unitarian Ministers was held at Warrington on Thursday, the 18th of June. An ingenious sermon was preached by the Rev. J. Wickstead, of the Park Chapel, near Liverpool.. After the service, the Committee appointed at the meeting in 1834, to take measures for relieving ministers of narrow incomes deprived of aid from Lady Hewley's Charity, was renewed, with

the additional duty of protecting Presbyterian Foundations in Lancashire and Cheshire. The ministers and friends dined together; but no preparations for an intellectual entertainment having been made, we have nothing of importance to report, except, that during the whole day, a strong feeling pervaded the assembled friends in favour of religi ous liberty, and of condemnation against certain reported infractions of it in connexion with Presbyterianism in the metropolis.

The Annual Meeting of the Presbyterian Ministers and of the Unitarian Tract Society of the West Riding of the County of York, was held at Leeds, on Wednesday, the 15th of April last; the Rev. James Martineau preached. In a very eloquent, ingenious and masterly discourse, the preacher endeavoured to show that the superhuman powers of Jesus Christ were not communicated to him all at once, but were gradually developed and increased as occasion required, he himself being previously unconscious of their extent. After the devotional services were concluded, the meeting for business was held in the chapel. It may be desirable for poor congregations and infant societies to know, that as there are upwards of four thousand tracts in the depository, the Secretary was empowered to make grants of tracts to an amount not exceeding five pounds, to any such societies as should apply for them. At the subsequent social meeting, Mr. Martineau, in acknowledging the toast which alluded to himself, gave, in the course of an eloquent speech, a most interesting account of the conversion to Unitarianism of the talented author of the Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion,' Blanco White. The meeting was held a month earlier than the usual time, in consequence of the society being about to lose the services of its principal Secretary, Dr. Hutton. The loss which the removal of the Doctor would occasion not only to the society and the congregation, but also to the cause of Christian truth and of civil and religious liberty in this part of the country, was feelingly alluded to by the Vice-Chairman, Mr. H. H. Stansfield, who exhorted the company to show their respect for their amiable friend by cherishing those institutions, the success of which he had so zealously endeavoured to promote, and which were calculated to extend those principles of Christian charity and truth which he had laboured to infuse into the hearts and minds of all with whom he was connected. The Health of Dr. Hutton,' was drank by all the company standing. The compliment was acknowledged by the Doctor, in a beautiful speech, in the course of which his utterance was frequently overpowered by the fulness of his heart. The Doctor enlarged on the reciprocal duties of ministers and people, and exhorted them mutually to cultivate a good understanding, and a more intimate communion with each other. In alluding to his removal, he said, that by a residence of seventeen years amongst them, he had become as much a Yorkshireman as he was an Irishman, and whether the trunk would flourish or not, on being transplanted to another soil, he knew not, but he felt that the roots had received a wrench.

On Wednesday, June 10th, was held the Anniversary Meeting of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association in the Rev. E. Tagart's Chapel, Little Portland-street. The introductory service was conducted