up riches, not knowing who shall gather a very lively interest in Sunday School them, and by their inordinate love of institutions, and would often detail, in a money prevent themselves from enjoy- very interesting manner, the circuming "the luxury of doing good," and stances connected with the formation of bring reproach upon themselves as pro- the Society of which he was the founder. fessors of religion. Should this brief A funeral sermon was preached on the and simple history meet the eye of a occasion of his death in the Baptist covetous Christian, let him pause and Meeting, Cirencester, from Psalm 1. 15, consider, and from henceforth learn, by a passage which was selected for the the example of Richard Wareham, to occasion by the deceased. make the widow's heart to sing for joy. London.

J. W.

REV. JOHN LAWSON, OF CALCUTTA.

We announce, with deep regret, the death of the Rev. John Lawson, one of WILLIAM FOX, ESQ. our Missionaries at Calcutta, and author April 1st, died, at Cirencester, in the of "Orient Harping," "The Lost Spirit," 91st year of his age, William Fox, Esq. &c. The event took place October 22, formerly a Deacon of the Church under 1825. Particulars will be found in the the pastoral care of the Rev. Abraham Missionary Herald. In a subsequent Booth, and the originator of the Sunday number, we hope to furnish our readers School Society. He had long been in a with some account of Mr. L.'s life and state of great weakness and infirmity, labours. having realized the striking representation of old age, given by the wise man, Ecclesiastes xii., and which was the very frequent subject of his conversation. He continued to the last to take

THE BIBLE.

REV. MR. MACFARLANE.
Died, on Lord's day, March 26, the
Rev. Mr. Macfarlane, of Trowbridge,
aged 46.

GLEANINGS.

to the latter. It teaches a man how to set

departing husband and father; tells him with A nation must be truly blessed if it were whom to leave his fatherless children, and governed by no other laws than those of this in whom his widow is to trust; and problessed book: it is so complete a system that mises a father to the former, and a husband nothing can be added to it or taken from it; his house in order, and how to make his will: it contains every thing needful to be known it appoints a dowry for the wife, and entails or done; it affords a copy for a king, and a rule for a subject; it gives instruction and the right of the first-born; and shews how counsel to a senate; authority and direction the younger branches shall be left. It defends the rights of all; and reveals vengeance for magistrates: it cautions a witness; requires an impartial verdict of a jury, and to every defrauder, over-reacher, and opfarnishes the judge with his sentence: it pressor. It is the first book, the best book, sets the husband as lord of the household, and the oldest book in all the world. It and the wife as mistress of the table: tells contains the choicest matter, gives the best him how to rule, and her how to manage. instruction, and affords the greatest pleasure It entails honour to parents, and enjoins and satisfaction that ever was revealed. It obedience to children: it prescribes and contains the best laws and profoundest myslimits the sway of the sovereign, the rule of teries that ever were penned. It brings the the ruler, and authority of the master: com- best of tidings, and affords the best of comfort to the enquiring and disconsolate. It mands the subjects to honour, and the servants to obey; and promises the blessing exhibits life and immortality, and shews the and protection of its Author to all that walk way to everlasting glory. It is a brief reby its rules. It gives directions for weddings cital of all that is past, and a certain preand for burials; it promises food and raiment, and limits the use of both it points out a faithful and an eternal Guardian to the

Deut. xvii. 18.

It settles all matters in debate, resolves all doubts, and eases the mind and conscience of all their

diction of all that is to come.

* Jer. xlix.

common succour against the calamities of nature; the great ally which every power threatened with war, labours first to secure, or to appease; the centre on which is suspended the peace of all nations; the defender of the wronged, the acknowledged origin and example to which every rising nation looks for laws, and a constitution. For whose opulence and enjoyment are the ends of the earth labouring at this hour? For whom does the Polish peasant run his plough through the ground? For whom does the American with half the world between, bunt down his cattle, or plant his cotton? For whom does the Chinese gather in his teas, or the Brazilian his gold and precious stones? England is before the eyes of them all. To whose market does every merchant of the remotest corners of the world look? To whose cabinet does every power, from America to India, turn with interest surpassing all other? Whose public feeling does every people, struggling to raise itself in the rank of nations, supplicate? The answer is suggested at once. At this hour England stands holding her shield between the anxious and angry powers of Europe, and the young independence of South America. At this hour a British cannon fired, would be the sigual for every kingdom of Europe to plunge into

scruples. It reveals the only living and true God, and shews the way to him; and sets aside all other gods, and describes the vanity of them, and of all that trust in them. In short, it is a book of laws to shew right and wrong; a book of wisdom, that condemns all folly, and makes the foolish wise; a book of truth that detects all lies, and confutes all errors; and a book of life, and shews the way from everlasting death. It is the most compendious book in all the world; the most authentic, and the most entertaining history that ever was published: it contains the most early antiquities, strange events, wonderful occurrences, heroic deeds, unparalleled wars. It describes the celestial, terrestrial, and infernal worlds; and the origin of the angelic myriads, human tribes, and infernal legions. It will instruct the most accomplished mechanic, and the profoundest artist; it will teach the best rhetorician, and exercise every power of the most skilful arithmetician;* puzzle the wisest anatomist, and exercise the nicest critic. It corrects the vain philosopher, and guides the wisest astronomer: it exposes the subtle sophist, and makes diviners mad. It is a complete code of laws, a perfect body of divinity, an unequalled narrative; a book of lives, a book of travels, and a book of voyages. It is the best covenant that ever was agreed on, the best deed that ever was This supremacy contains all the essentials sealed, the best evidence that ever was pro- of the old dominion without its evils. It is duced, the best will that ever was made, and empire without the charges, the hazards, the the best testament that ever was signed. To profligacy, and the tyranny of empire. Noanderstand it, is to be wise indeed: to be thing but despotism could have kept togeignorant of it, is to be destitute of wisdom. ther the mass of the Roman state. It is the king's best copy, the magistrate's ture of its parts was repulsion, and the combest rule, the housewife's best guide, the mon band a chain of iron. The supremacy servant's best directory, and the young man's of England is of a more elevated kind; the best companion. It is the school-boy's supremacy of a magnificent central luminary, spelling-book, and the learned man's master-round which all the rest revolve, urged by piece: it contains a choice grammar for a novice, and a profound treatise for a sage: it is the ignorant man's dictionary, and a wise man's directory. It affords knowledge of witty inventions for the ingenious, and dark sayings for the grave; and it is its own interpreter. It encourages the wise, the warrior, the racer, and the overcomer; and promises an eternal reward to the conqueror. Aud that which crowns all is, that the Author is without partiality, and without hypocrisy, -in whom is no variableness, nor shadow of a turning.'

war.

The na

impulses suitable to their various frames, and following their common course, with a feeling that it is the course of nature.

The population of the British isles is worthy of a great dominion. It probably amounts to twenty millions; and that vast number is generally placed under such fortunate circumstances of rapid communication and easy concentration, as to be equal to perhaps half as many more in any other kingdom. This facility of intercourse is one of the greatest elements of civilized strength. The rapid returns of merchandise are not more indicative of prosperous trade, than the

EXTENT AND INFLUENCE OF THE BRITISH rapid intercourse of human kind is essential

DOMINION.

ENGLAND is now the actual governor of the earth, if true dominion is to be found in being the common source of appeal in all the injuries and conflicts of rival nations, the

* Rev. xiii. 18.

to national vigour. For whatever purpose united strength can be demanded, it is forwarded to the spot at once. If England were threatened with invasion, a hundred thousand men could be conveyed to the defence of any of her coasts within four and twenty hours.

Some common, yet curious calculations

4

*

Conscious guilt suggested the suspicion that they knew and reproached me for my neglect; but my friend soon poured into my bo om her lamentations for the loss of au

is gone; but three days ago he was in full health, and he has this morning breathed his last!"

evince the singular facility and frequency of
this intercourse. The mail-coaches of Eng-
land run over twelve thousand miles, in a
single night-half the circumference of the
globe? A newspaper published in the morn-only child. "Alas," cried she," my Henry
ing is, by the same night, read a hundred and
twenty miles off! The twopenny post revenue
of London alone, is said to equal the whole
post-office revenue of France. The traveller
going at night from London, sleeps, on the
second night, four hundred miles off! The
length of canal navigation in the vicinage of
London, is computed to equal the whole canal
navigation of France!

"I

I struggled with myself, summoned up resolution, and made an awkward attempt t consolation, while my own heart hung heavy in my breast; but I was struck dumb when the afflicted parent, fetching a sigh from the bottom of her heart, exclaimed, "Ah! sir, But the most important distinction be- these consolations might assuage my grief tween the material of British strength, and for the loss of my child, but they cannot that of the commercial republics, is not blunt the stings of my conscience, which are merely in the extent, but in the diversity of as daggers to my heart. It was but last its population. The land is not all a dock-week that I was thinking my Henry is now yard, nor a manufactory, nor a bharrack, nor twelve years of age; his mind is now rapidly a ploughed field: our national ship does not expanding: I know he thinks and feels besweep on by a single sail. With a manufac-yond the measure of his years; and foolish taring population of three millions, we have backwardness has hitherto kept me from ena professional population, a naval population, tering so closely into serious conversation and a most powerful, healthy, and super- with him as to discover the real state of his abundant agricultural population, which sup- mind, and make a vigorous effort to lead his plies the drain of them all. Of this last and heart to God. I then resolved to seize the most essential class to permanent power, the first opportunity to discharge a duty so famous commercial republics were wholly weighty to the conscience of a Christian destitute, and they therefore fell. England and the heart of a parent; but, day after has been an independent and ruling kingdom day my foolish and deceitful heart said, " since the invasion in 1066, a period already will do it to-morrow," till the very day he longer than the duration of the Roman em- was taken ill. I had resolved to talk with pire from Cæsar, and equal to its whole him that evening, and when he first comduration from the consulate, the time of its plained of his head, I was half pleased with emerging into national importance. the thought that this might lead him to listen But if the moment of arriving at pre- more seriously to what I should say. But eminent prosperity should always be the O, Sir! his pain and fever increased so radestined moment of a nation's descent, Eng-pidly, that I was obliged to put him to bed; land would be, beyond all existing nations, and as he seemed inclined to doze, I was in peril. Her king at this hour commands a glad to leave him to rest. From this time population more numerous than that of any he was never sufficiently sensible for conother sceptre on the globe (excepting the versation; and now he has gone into eterprobably exaggerated, and the certainly in-nity, and left me distracted with uncertainty effective, multitudes of China.) He is monarch over nearly one hundred and twenty millions of men. With him the old Spanish beast is true“ On his dominions the sun never sets." But the most illustrious attribute of this unexampled sway is, that its principle is benevolence, that knowledge goes forth with it, that tyranny sinks before it, that in its magnificent progress it abates the calamities of nature, that it plants the desert, that it civilizes the savage, that it strikes off the fetters of the slave!-Monthly Review.

TO-MORROW A FRAGMENT.

With all the bitterness of self-reproach, I lately turned my steps towards the house of a Christian friend. On entering the abode where I had ever been greeted with smiles, I was surprized to find nothing but sadness.

concerning the salvation of his precious soul. I know he had arrived to the period when he must be judged as an accountable creature; for I have several times observed in him such efforts of reason and conscience as surpassed many who had seen twice his years. I recollect the favourable symptoms I have discovered, and for a moment hope that the good Shepherd has gathered the lamb into his bosom. But then, again, I cry, if it should not have been so! That thought plunges me back again into the depths of distress. Dilatory wretch! had it not been my own sin, I might now have been consoling myself with the satisfactory conviction of having discharged the duty of a Christian parent, and enjoying the delightful assurance of meeting my child before the throne of the lamb! O! the sin of procrastination! O! the delusion that lurks in the word TO-MORROW!"-New York Observer.

INTELLIGENCE.

IRELAND.

DECLARATION OF THE ARCHBISHOPS AND
BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC

CHURCH IN IRELAND.

THE following" Declaration" has been issued by the Roman Catholic Archbishops and Bishops in Ireland. We print it" without note or comment."

Ar a time when the spirit of calm inquiry is abroad, and men seem anxious to resign those prejudices through which they viewed the doctrines of others, the Archbishops and Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland avail themselves with pleasure of this dispassionate tone of the public mind, to exhibit a simple and correct view of those tenets, that are most frequently misrepresented. If it please the Almighty that the Catholics of Ireland should be doomed to continue in the humbled and degraded condition in which they are now placed, they will submit with resignation to the Divine will. The Prelates, however, conceive it a duty which they owe to themselves, as well as to their Protestant fellow-subjects, whose good opinion they value, to endeavour once more to remove the false imputations that have been frequently cast upon the faith and discipline of that Church which is intrusted to their care, that all may be enabled to know with accuracy the genuine principles of those men who are proscribed by law from any participation in the honours, dignities, and emoluments of the State.

I. Established for promoting the happiness of mankind, to which order is essential, the Catholic religion, far from interfering with the constituted authorities of any state, is reconcilable with every regular form which human governments may assume. Republics as well as monarchies have thriven where it has been professed, and, under its protecting influence, any combination of those forms may be secure.

II. The Catholics in Ireland of mature years, are permitted to read authentic and approved translations of the Holy Scriptures with explanatory notes; and are exhorted to use them in the spirit of piety, humility, and obedience. The Clergy of the Catholic Church are bound to the daily recital of a canonical office, which comprises, in the

course of a year, almost the entire of the Sacred volume; and her pastors are required on Sundays and festivals, to expound to the faithful, in the vernacular tongue, the epistle or gospel of the day, or some other portion of the Divine law.

III.-Catholics believe that the power of working miracles has not been withdrawn from the Church of God. The belief, however, of any particular miracle not recorded in the revealed word of God, is not required as a term of Catholic communion, though there are many so strongly recommended to our belief, that they cannot without temerity be rejected.

IV.-Roman Catholics revere the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, and piously invoke their intercession. Far, however, from honouring them with Divine worship, they believe that such worship is due to God alone, and that it cannot be paid to any creature without involving the guilt of Idolatry.

V.-Catholics respect the images of Christ and of his Saints, without believing that they are endowed with any intrinsic efficacy. The honour which is paid to these memorials is referred to those whom they represent; and should the faithful, through ignorance, or any other cause, ascribe to them any divine virtue, the Bishops are bound to correct the abuse, and rectify their misapprehensions.

VI. The Catholic Church, in common with all Christians, receives, and respects, the entire of the ten commandments, as they are found in Exodus and Deuteronomy. The discordance between Catholics and Protestants on this subject arises from the different manner in which these divine precepts have been arranged.

VII.-Catholics hold, that, in order to attain salvation, it is necessary to belong to the true Church, and that heresy or a wilful and obstinate opposition to revealed truth as taught in the Church of Christ, excludes from the kingdom of God. They are not obliged to believe that all those are wilfully and obstinately attached to error, who, having been seduced into it by others, or who, having imbibed it from their parents, seek the truth with a cautious solicitude, disposed to embrace it when sufficiently proposed to them; but leaving such persons to the righteous judgment of a merciful God, they feel themselves bound to discharge towards them, as well as towards all mankind, the duties of charity and of social life.

VIII. As Catholics, in the Eucharist,

adore Jesus Christ alone, whom they believe |
to be truly, really and substantially present,
they conceive they cannot be consistently re-
proached with idolatry by any Christian who
admits the divinity of the Son of God.

IX. No actual sin can be forgiven at the will of Pope or Priest, or any person whatever, without a sincere sorrow for having offended God, and a firm resolution to avoid future guilt, and to atone for past transgres-whatsoever;" and that they" do not believe sions. Any person who receives absolution without these necessary conditions, far from obtaining the remission of his sins, incurs the additional guilt of violating a sacrament.