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at least among all candid, well-informed, and especially all religious, persons in both countries. Neither indeed must expect that the people of the opposite hemisphere will prefer its institutions, political or religious, to their own; but each may safely and honourably cherish a close international friendship, and, by their mutual influence, promote throughout the world those principles of hightoned morality, and of civil and ecclesiastical freedom, which, almost wherever found, have more or less derived their origin from the example and long-established institutions of our own highly favoured land. We feel much satisfaction in believing, that, although the intercourse of science, commerce, and civil business, has done much towards bringing the people of the two countries into a better state of mind towards each other than was visible a few years since; yet, that even more perhaps of this increase of right feeling on both sides has arisen, at least in many quarters, from the union of heart promoted by a mutual zeal in plans of philanthropy and religious charity. In this as in other respects, the influence of our Bible, Missionary, Educational, Tract, Prison-discipline, Anti-slavery, and other kindred societies, is of inestimable value. They convey with them a balm for the healing of the nations; and their constant effect, in addition to the promotion of their immediate objects of benevolence, is, "where they cannot reconcile all opinions, to unite all hearts;" the hearts at least of all who wish well to the common object of glorifying God and benefiting mankind.

DOMESTIC.

We fear that we cannot state, that the distresses of the country, especially of the manufacturing districts, though there may be a silent progress of amendment, are hitherto very materially lessened; and we lament to add, that a deficiency in the produce of the crops of barley and oats, in consequence of the long-continued drought, is likely to aggravate the afflictions of the poor, though this calamity may be in some measure diminished by the introduction of foreign grain, which, we presume, Government will permit as soon as the necessity for it shall be considered sufficiently proved. In Ireland, the failure of the potatoe crops is likely to be felt still more severely than any deficiency that has occurred in England. Under these painful circumstances, the question is every where asked, What remedy can be devised for the embarrassments of the country? To answer this, the causes of those embarrassments must be first ascer

tained; and if we may judge by a Report of the House of Commons, just printed, the opinion of our wisest statesmen and political economists on this point is, that the country is overstocked with a population beyond what can be maintained by its ordinary resources. The Report, in consequence, strongly urges extensive emigration to those of our colonies in which land is plentiful, and the means of ample subsistence within the grasp of all who have the will and the ability to work. The committee particularly recommend that parishes should pay the expenses of emigration for such of their needy and superfluous population as may voluntarily embark on the scheme; and a plan is pointed out by which the sums of money requisite for the purpose may be raised and gradually repaid. We doubt not the utility and true humanity of this measure, so strongly urged by the House of Commons' Committee: but it is not, we imagine, likely to be carried so extensively into execution as to prove an effectual remedy; and even if it were, the benefit would be but temporary, so long as the original causes of the evil continue unremoved. Some of these may indeed be beyond the reach of legislative controul: a local or temporary successful trade, for example, will congregate a numerous population, which will prove redundant, and be reduced to inconvenience, when that trade happens to fluctuate; but it would not be advisable that a government should interfere with the free volitions of its subjects, in choosing their occupation or abode, in order to check such an evil. But there are other and greater causes of evil, strictly within the controul of legislation; or which may even have arisen from its misapplication. This, we scruple not to avow our opinion, is the case in England with regard to the poor laws, which, honourable as they are to its intended humanity, are in truth most injurious to its welfare, since they create an overplus of population, which on an emergency it is found cannot procure the means of maintaining itself. Vice and improvidence are the natural accompaniments of a system of compulsatory official relief; for charity, in the just sense of that benign virtue, it cannot be called. When labour is plentiful, the system is not only superfluous, but is a bounty on indolence and extravagance; and when it is deficient, and the hour of serious and wide-spread distress arrives, it is incompetent to its professed objects, as we see at the present moment in the manufacturing districts, where the voluntary charity of

the public is constrained, and most laudably so, to step forth to afford that relief which compulsatory parochial assessments cannot bestow. If then our legislature should seriously attempt to encourage emigration on an extensive scale, we trust they will not shrink from considering whether, by some great and thorough reform of the poor-law system, they might not do much to prevent the necessity for such a measure in future years. To encourage expatriation on the one hand, except as a temporary expedient, and to uphold on the other a system which burdens the country with an onerous mass of pauperism, is an inconsistency which we trust will not remain many years longer uncorrected, however difficult or invidious may be the task of correcting it. It is not the least evil of the system, that it impedes the liberality of voluntary benevolence, and makes both the public and individuals, to the detriment of real charity, transfer the burden of relieving applicants for assistance from themselves, to the parochial rates, which are always the most burdensome on the payers, and the least productive, in proportion as the local distress is severe. Still, even with this millstone around the neck of the country, the necessity for future emigrations might be more efficiently coun-teracted than at present, by an increased attention on the part of the legislature, the government, and of persons in authority, of our nobility, gentry, clergy, and benevolent and enlightened persons of every rank, to the inculcation of moral, religious, and provident habits among our labouring classes. It is the too-frequent history of our mechanics, that, commencing life with an early and improvident marriage, they trust to parochial assistance for relief for their rising family as often as work is scarce or bread dear; and that, when the contrary is the case, they spend a large portion of their time in idleness and disorderly living, subsisting on the surplus gains of the remainder; so that a few days or weeks of real calamity plunge them into necessities for which they have made no provision. Much indeed is already done, towards lessening these evils, by the labours of a truly enlightened benevolence in promoting education and various useful institutions; but far more remains to

be accomplished. To this hour the legislature has considered it expedient to decline adopting any plan for public instruction; and spontaneous benevolence, great as it is, has been but partial in its application. Were the population of the land every where trained to moral and religious habits, and to a life of diligence, forethought, frugality, and prudent selfdenial, though occasionally severe calamities might be permitted by an all-wise and gracious Providence, unavoidably on their part, to fall upon them, they would be far better prepared than at present to bear up under the stroke, by those timely precautions which are neglected where no restraint is placed upon the disposition to vice or thoughtlessness, and where systematic parochial relief is looked to as a last resort in every disaster. The simple disuse of ardent spirits by our working classes, would, of itself, if it became general, and the produce of the retrenchment were deposited in Savings' Banks, enable many a poor family, after a season of prosperity, to stand out a considerable period against a reverse, hoping for better times; and private charity would doubtless be far more active in relieving real distress under such circumstances than under the present system. And if in any case, according to the suggestion of the House of Commons' Committee,emigration became necessary, most families might, during a few years of full work, save at least sufficient to discharge the expenses of an outfit and voyage to one of our colonies, where their industry would be more in demand than at home. The result then of our remarks is simply this, That, while on the one hand the present pressure demands the most prompt and most charitable attention, the legislature, while it attempts to palliate a temporary evil, either by means of emigration or eleemosynary assistance, ought to direct its efforts to remove those causes, as far as they are within the reach of their agency, by which such evils are either produced or greatly aggravated *.

the perusal of every statesman, and of every • We most strenuously recommend to individual indeed who interests himself in the happiness of his species, Dr. Chalmers's work on Civic Economy, and especially his third volume lately published.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A-A; AN INQUIRER; A. R. C.; and THEOGNIS, are under consideration,

THE

CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

No. 297.]

IN

SEPTEMBER, 1826. [No. 9. Vol, XXVI,

RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

For the Christian Observer.

FENELON'S MISSIONARY SERMON. N the two-and-twenty octavo volumes of the Works of Fenelon, is to be found a missionary sermon, which it is believed has never appeared in the English language, and is scarcely known to the readers of French theology, but which, on various accounts, deserves to be ranked among the most splènded and extraordinary effusions of the Christian pulpit. It was preached on a day highly appropriate to such a subject, the feast of the Epiphany, in the year 1685; and in a place equally appropriate, the Church for Foreign Missions in Paris, then in the zenith of its celebrity; and before an audience which doubtless comprised a crowd of persons of distinction, many of the French clergy, and, what must have been an object of great popular curiosity, the ambassadors from Siam, who had been dispatched to the court of France, to pay the high considerations of their sovereign to Lewis, surnamed (or shall we say, misnamed?) the Great. The whole soul of Fenelon seems to have risen to the magnitude of the occasion. He was at that time in the full vigour of life, being at the age of thirty-four; and was known only as M. l'Abbé Fenelon, not having then arrived at the higher rank of the prelacy. He first published this sermon in 1706, in a collection of his select discourses. The Cardinal Maury, in his celebrated work on pulpit eloquence, says, that when, a century afterwards, he discovered this master-piece, then utterly unknown

CHRIST. OBSERV. No, 297.

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to the French divines and literati, he was so enraptured with its oratorical beauties that, in his enthu siasm, he read it to the French academicians as a newly discovered discourse of Bossuet, in order the more to enjoy their surprise and raptures. His auditors interrupted him with frequent exclamations of, "Yes, the brilliant eagle of Meaux alone could have aspired to so sublime an elevation." They discovered in the discourse the imagination of Homer, the vehemence of Demosthenes, the genius and pathos of Chrysostom, the nerve and majesty of Corneille, the energy and profundity of Tacitus, the sublime bursts and elevation of Bossuet, united with an extraordinary purity of taste, and an inimitable perfection of style. On being informed, after the reading, of the real name of the writer, their admiration was redoubled; and their only wonder was, that such a discourse, of such a man, should have lain so long in oblivion. Maury attempts to ac count for this by the unhappy circumstances of the times at the period of its publication. It was the very year when France met with her reverses in Spain, Italy, and Germany; and when nothing was thought of in Paris, but the disasters of Ramilies and Turin, One only of the publications or reviews of the day seems to have noticed it, the Journal des Savans, in which it was highly lauded, Fenelon was in disgrace at court; and either his friends could not, or his rivals and enemies would not, do justice to his splendid talents, and still more splendid virtues,

3 U

But

But it is not for the sake of the oratorical recommendations of this discourse, powerful as they are, that the present translation is laid before the public these must of necessity be greatly diminished in a plain literal version; but there are higher qualities in it, which deserve to be commemorated. We find Fenelon, a century and a half since, recommending Christian missions in a spirit and with an energy which, even in this age of religious zeal and benevolence, have not been surpassed, and are not often equaled. His view being particularly directed to the East, and more especially to the Catholic missions in Siam, must add greatly, at the present moment, to the interest which his discourse is calculated to. excite. The Burmese war has of late familiarized us only to scenes of blood and terror, in that distant vicinity; but it is refreshing to learn, that even Siam has had its confessors and martyrs for the cross of Christ. The allusions also to India cannot but awaken, at this moment, the deepest regrets, connected with the name, and early departure to his reward, of one who seemed to be a special instrument in the hand of Divine Providence for promoting the faith of Christ in that now vast empire. With the same spirit, and in nearly the same language, in which Fenelon exclaimed, "The wild and inaccessible regions of the north, which the sun scarcely enlightens, have seen the celestial light; the burning climes of Africa have been watered with the torrents of Divine grace," did the kindred spirit of Heber utter its devout aspirations:

From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,

Where Afric's sunny fountains,

Roll down their golden sand;

From many an ancient river,
From many a palmy plain;
They call us to deliver

Their land from Error's chain. What though the spicy breezes, Blow soft from Ceylon's isle, Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile;

In vain with lavish kindness

The gifts of God are strewn;
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone.
Shall we, whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,
Shall we to men benighted
The lamp of life deny?
Salvation! oh, salvation!

The joyful sound proclaim,
Till each remotest nation

Has learnt Messiah's name!
Waft, waft, ye winds, His story,
And you, ye waters, roll,
Till, like a sea of glory,

It spreads from pole to pole;
Till o'er our ransomed nature
The Lamb for sinners slain,
Redeemer, King, Creator,
In bliss returns to reign.

The allusions to the fallen churches of the East; the warning which their abject condition holds out, to those who enjoy the light of truth, to treasure it and to propagate it; the faithful denunciations of God's anger against those who, having the Gospel, disgrace it themselves, or neglect to communicate it to others; the solemn identification of a true church with a church endued with a missionary spirit; the reproaches hurled against Protestants, because they had not at that period given this proof of their belonging to the community of Christ; the preacher's powerful plea for missions and missionaries; his sublime self-abasement; his awful warnings to worldly and indolent pastors; all these, and numerous other points in his discourse, must greatly interest every Christian heart. The charm of love and piety which pervades the whole, is even more conspicuous than its sustained blaze of varied eloquence.

But there are passages of a less pleasing kind. The customary invocation to the virgin Mary, following a most sublime prayer to the Holy Spirit, falls as a grating discord on every ear attuned to. Christian sentiment. The praises of the Jesuits and their missions are stained by the remembrance of the dark blots on their history; and not least by their corrupting, even in the very scenes of those missions,

the pure revelation of sacred truth, to adapt it, as they supposed, the better to particular parallels and meridians of latitude and longitude. The censures on Protestantism are harsh and uncandid, and in great part undeserved. Some of the arguments in favour of Popery are almost puerile. The pane gyric on Lewis is, to say the least of it, exaggerated, and out of place. An English reader may also think the whole discourse too declamatory; and in part it is tinctured with false doctrine. Yet, upon the whole, the falsehood bears a surprisingly small proportion to the truth: the cross of Christ is the main object of the preacher's regard; and all his warnings, descriptions, and exhortations are well calculated, by the blessing of God, to excite and increase a truly catholic and missionary spirit in a purer church than that to which he unhappily belonged.

W.

On the Calling of the Gentiles.

ISAIAH IX. 1.-Arise, shine, [O Jerusalem !] for thy light is come; and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

were to be broken, and the knowledge of the true God was to cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea. I see the people, I see the princes, who in the course of ages worship Him whom the Magi came as on this day to adore. Nations of the East! you also shall approach in your turn: a light, of which that of the star of Bethlehem is but a faint emblem, shall beam upon you, and dissipate your darkness. Approach, approach: hasten to the house of the God of Jacob. Oh church! O Jerusalem! rejoice; utter shouts of joy. Ye who were barren, ye who brought forth no children, ye shall have, in this latter day, children without number. Your fruitfulness shall astonish you. Cast your eyes around and behold; satisfy them with your glory; let your heart admire and overflow with joy. The multitude of the people turns towards you, the isles are coming, the strength of the nations is given to you: new Magi, who have seen the star of Christ in the East, are coming from the distant part of the Indies to seek him. Arise, O Jerusalem! arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

Blessed be God, my brethren, for this day putting his word into my mouth to extol the work which he executes. I have long wished, by means of this sacred institution (the mission church), to pour out my heart before its altar, and to declare, to the glory of his grace, all that it does to enlighten the East by these apostolic men. It is there fore with delight that I to-day speak of the calling of the Gentiles, in this house, whence those men depart through whom the remnant of the Gentiles hear the joyful tidings.

Scarcely was Jesus, the expectation and desire of all nations, born, when the Magi, worthy first-fruits of the Gentiles, conducted by a star, came to acknowledge him. Soon the agitated nations were to follow them in crowds; their idols

But I feel my heart disquieted within me it is divided between joy and grief. The ministry of these apostolic men, and the calling of these nations, are the triumph of Divine grace: but perhaps they are also the effect of a fearful state of reprobation which hangs over our own heads. Perhaps these people will be raised up on our ruins; as, in the first age of the church, the Gentiles were raised upon those of the Jews. This is a work which God has done to glorify his Gospel : but is it not also to transfer it? We could not love the Lord Jesus Christ, if we did not also love his work; but we should forget ourselves, if we did not tremble at it. Let us then rejoice in the Lord, my brethren; in the Lord, who glorifieth his name; but let us rejoice with trembling. These two points will

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