ship, who acts as chaplain throughout the voyage. By the bye, I am much in need of good practical ser

mons.

“ I may as well inform you how I manage with the Irish, who are almost all Roman Catholics.

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The Trafalgar had on board between 200 and 300 Roman Catholics. I visited her on the Sunday, performed Divine service and preached. The greater part of the Roman Catholic emigrants did not attend the service. On the Monday I went on board again, about eight o'clock in the morning, and continued with them till six at night; and continued talking and working the whole time.

"I found them extremely ignorant, I may say brutally so-they knew little or nothing of Christianity; and some of the more enlightened amongst them came to me and said, 'O sir, they are very ignorant, they know nothing,' and literally they did.

Mr. C

came to me, and spoke to them of my object, that it was for their good.

“ I told them that I did not come to tamper with their faith, nor was I come to dispute with them about their religion. They were Roman Catholics, I a priest of the Protestant Church; but I came to them on the common ground of Christianity. Christ was the founder of our religion-the Bible was the Word of God, and our only guide-and therefore we must test our religion by the Bible. I then asked, Will you take it? I offer it to you without money and without price.' 'We dar'n't, your reverence,' was the reply, our priests won't

allow us to read it.' I made no remark on this objection, but said, ، Now you all have heard of St. Peter. I here have a letter which he wrote, and can vouch to you, that what I now read is a true translation, because I have read it in the language in which he wrote it. Will you hear what he says?' 'Yes.' I read to them various passages, marking 1 Pet. ii. 2.

'You observe what he says that you are to aim at.' I then enlarged on the subject, asked them to hear what Christ said, and read from various parts and then again offered the Book-'Will you take it?' Thank your reverence-God bless you,' was the reply, very good instruction; I should like very much to have it.' And thus I induced them, by talking to each one in this manner, to take the word of God and search for themselves. Only two or three were frightened, and brought it back, fearing to keep it; they were very thankful, how

ever.

I also selected a schoolmaster from amongst the Cornish people, and introduced him to the parents. "Thank your reverence,' said some, I shall become a scholar myself.' They were anxious to know whether the master could write, and on hearing that he could, they wished him to become their scribe; and before I left the ship, he told me he had full employ. May the bread thus cast in faith upon the waters be seen after many days. Paul may plant and Apollos may water, but it is God alone who can give the increase.' O may we all fall low before the footstool of our Anointed Jesus, and say, “not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the praise.'

"I have thus given you a slight sketch of this, to me, work and labour of love. It has been a heavy expense to me hitherto, but I trust the Christian public will come forward and assist."

But we must leave this subject for the present, and will only add, that we most strongly commend the cause of emigrants to the liberality of our readers. Donations of money or tracts will be thankfully received by the Rev. W. Carus Wilson, Casterton Hall, Kirkby Lonsdale, either for general Emigrant purposes, or specially for Mr. Child's labour of love at Devonport. Or either may be sent to the Rev. T. C. Child, St. Mary's, Devonport, direct.

I WALKED to-day to take a survey of three new churches, now in course of erection, to the north-east of this great city. They are all erected in what may be called new, but already densely peopled, neighbourhoods; and if the patrons shall place in these churches right-minded men, there is reason to hope that many may be reclaimed from a state of religious indifference and ungodliness. The churches will hold from 700 to 1000 people each.

It gave me great pain, however, to observe how very much the dominant errors of the day stand forth in the characteristics of these new buildings. Whether it be the prevailing rage of the modern school of architecture to follow closely the antiquated style; or whether it be that a higher influence is controlling the erection with a view to encourage the Romish tendency of the day, I cannot decide; but it is really a great pity, whichever is the principle, that modern buildings. should, by a slavish copying of antiquated models, be made very unfit for their professed object of usefulness, compared with what they might

have been.

They are built without side galleries, by means of which they might have accommodated many more sitters. They have each a large campanile, or bell-tower, stuck on at a side or a corner, in the foreign style, which has swallowed up a large portion of the money. They are kept exceedingly dark and sombre; the roofs being of dark-stained wood, and the windows generally single, narrow, lancet arches, very high up from the ground, as if they were built in those days when churches were intended to be fastnesses against inroads of the enemy, as well as places of worship. These windows let in very little light, and give quite a murky, superstitious gloom to the place. The pulpit and desk are scrimped in dimensions, and made quite subservient to the exhibition of the holy table; and even within the

communion rail there is a rise of two or three steps to the table, or as it is now usually called, the altar, which is thus thrown high up as an object of universal contemplation to the congregation; and over the table, the commandments, creed, &c., are written in the wretched taste of the olden time, in all the colours of the rainbow, and in that outlandish character which assuredly none of the common people can decypher. All the seats are to be free, no income being to be raised from them; and consequently the opportunity has been taken to throw them all open. And to carry that contested point in favour of the Puseyistic controversialists, what possible benefit is to be derived from exposing the legs of all the worshippers in cold weather to incessant drafts, would not be easily ascertained; but certainly we have here a total abrogation of that custom of pewing which has so long obtained amongst us.

What may be the issue of a few years is not easy to say. Evil may prevail, or a large and renovating blessing may yet descend on this church of the Reformation; but certainly the aspect and air of these buildings is that of a preparation for return to the days of superstition and idolatry-for the abject reverence of a scenic ceremony performed in the dark, rather than for the hearing the exposition of the word of God, and following it in the reading of its quoted passages. The aspect of these erections is precisely Romish; and one of them, especially, has its side aisles so extended as to form two small chapelries, ready to receive additional altars, one to the virgin and the other to the patron saint.

I would not charge the controlling parties with a tendency Romeward. As Mr. Newman said, "It may be something in the air;" but anyhow, the aspect is most depressing and discouraging. Why such heavy buildings are to burden the earth, and shut out the blessed light of day from

divine worship, and invest the worship of our blessed Redeemer with gloom, I cannot imagine. If such churches were built in troublous and marauding times, that can be no reason for the adoption of such undesirable models now; and it is very painful to see such edifices rising up on every side, which evidently only want the idol upon the altar, and the confessional in the corner, to make them all that Antichrist could wish. If this originates in a false regard to ancient architecture, may the providence of God prevent it from having an evil influence on the minds of the people. If there is behind the scenes a deep-seated purpose of anti-protestantizing the English Church, may the Great Author of revealed truth signally and totally defeat it. Time must decide this question. The conjectural imputation of motives is unjust. There are many who avow a nefarious purpose towards the Church, and agree with Lord Surrey, in seeking the extinction of Protestantism !" There is enough, however, on every side to generate serious alarm; and I think that a deliberate

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and impartial mind would conclude that the aspect of these edifices is towards that consummation. Their whole arrangement smacks strongly of the once exploded, but now returning superstition; and if some young adept of the Oxford school shall receive such an appointment, every thing around him is well prepared to further his object, and to encourage that class of errors which he would be desirous to spread. What an awful responsibility lies on those who have control in these matters! God, in his mercy, give them the gracious influence of evangelical truth; and instead of a slavish tendency to will-worship in an undue reverence for forms, give them the true and living spirit of the Articles, the Common Prayer, and the inspired Word of God.

LATIMER.

P.S.-Many would be disposed to condemn these complainings as querulous, and making a fuss about a trifle; so would some others respecting a rat-hole in the raised bank of the Missisippi; but experientia docet.

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WE have had sent to us "The Christian's Penny Magazine," for March, with a special reference to an article at p. 74, as worthy of the consideration of supporters of the Evangelical Alliance. That article contains one of the most unjust and abominable attacks on the Church of England that could well have been penned; and most certainly it is safer in such a case to be the accused than the accuser. We know not where the conscience of that man can be, who can deliberately put on record such a tissue of lies, and deal so lavishly in bitter invectives and railing accusations. We cannot expect a dissenter to be regardless of the points of difference between himself and other religious bodies; but we have a right to expect that a truly Christian dissenter will quietly pur

sue his own conscientious course, and leave others to do the same.

But how easy it would be to take the "Twenty good reasons for not being a churchman," in the article we refer to, and find in them the materials for not being a dissenter. "Not a churchman, because we love unity and brotherly love !" And shall we, for this reason, become dissenters ? What! does unity dwell with them? Let their constant splittings and divisions testify, the bickerings and disputings in the bosom of dissenting churches. Or, shall we become dissenters, because the Gospel is more faithfully held and preached amongst them than churchmen? Let Mr. James, of Birmingham, and other competent witnesses and judges, be listened to in the honest avowals they have made, of the many instances in

which the fine gold has become dross, and I-chabod is written on dissenting churches. Or, need we cease to be churchmen because many leave the Church for Rome? And have no dissenting churches left the pure Scriptural truth for Socinianism? Are there no leading dissenting ministers of high and long standing whose families have gone over to Popery in our own country? and, in America, has not Dr. Cox, perhaps, been irritated to use the intemperate language which he has subsequently so much regretted in his correspondence with Sir Culling Smith and Mr. Bickersteth, by the circumstances of his own son's becoming a Tractarian clergyman? Can it be said, then, with fairness, that there exists in the Church of England a tendency to help men into error which exists not elsewhere? But shall we form our estimate of a Church by the unworthy and false members that it may contain? Then, indeed, there is not a dissenting communion in Christendom which we may not renounce, as well as the Church of England. We should be sorry thus to go to work with regard to those who differ from us; and the dissenter should be ashamed of pursuing such a course. As well might they proclaim it to the world, that there must have been something radically and fundamentally defective in the original constitution of the Church of Christ, because there was a Judas amongst the twelve apostles. Oh! that men would revert to sound Scriptural principle, and honestly act upon it. They would then not fail to bear in mind that all Christian enclosures may expect the entering in of ravenous wolves, not sparing the flock; and instead of unchristianizing each other because of such ravages, they would only be drawn closer together in brotherly sympathy and pity! We should be ashamed of ourselves if we thought worse of Methodism because any of the Rev. Mr. Newton's family have become Papists, or of the Independent Church because Dr. Cox's sons have become Tractarian clergymen. We have known as many instances, too, of gross immorality amongst dissenting ministers, as

amongst the clergy of the Church of England; and we know, too, that there is an abundance of dissenting chapels, in which anything but the plain simple Gospel of Christ is preached, and we know it from competent judges amongst dissenters themselves; but we dare not, and we will not, on that account, anathematize the dissenters.

But here is the grand mistake which the dissenters make in their virulence against the Church. They are guilty of the gross unfairness of judging of the merits of a church by the exhibitions of its unworthy members; while, if they themselves were so judged, they would immediately raise the cry of intolerable bigotry.

But we must come to the point we specially have in view. The good friend who has sent us the "Penny Magazine" probably intends to intimate that churchmen have no business to unite themselves with such rabid spirits in the Evangelical Alliance; and we readily admit it, if the Evangelical Alliance can be proved to countenance and sanction such characters and such language.

The writer of the shameful article is unknown to us; he may or may not be a member of the Evangelical Alliance; still the "Churchman's Penny Magazine" is stated to be issued by the Congregational Union of England and Wales.

It would thus appear that the dissenters, as a body, are responsible for its contents. We cannot, therefore, but hope that Sir Culling Smith and Mr. Bickersteth will act as faithful and as brotherly a part towards the Congregational Union in England, as they have so successfully done towards Dr. Cox in America; and that if such unchristian articles are persisted in, containing sentiments and language so diametrically opposed to the proper exercises of brotherly love, they will not fail to require an assurance from all dissenters joining the Evangelical Alliance, that they repudiate with abhorrence the sectarian bigotry of the " Christian's Penny Magazine." If the dissenting members of the Alliance, directly or indirectly, sanction such language, we do not hesitate to say, that they

are cultivating a spirit, and pursuing a course, which is at the very antipodes of brotherly love; and we candidly admit, that to be associated with them for such a hallowed purpose is a ridiculous farce, or rather criminal hypocrisy, to which we could not undertake to subject ourselves. Still, we maintain, as fearlessly as ever, that the object of the Evangelical Alliance is truly blessed and Scriptural.

We will not therefore hastily

abandon the hope, that it is destined to become a mighty engine for good; and in that hope we will cling to it till the last, believing that fiery spirits will be less and less disposed to come into so incongruous an affinity, and that the alliance will more and more become an uniting bond of all who honestly and heartily desire to act upon the apostolic rule, in-doors as well as out-of-doors, "forbearing one another, in love."

Ir is a call for special thankfulness that the anniversaries of our principal religious institutions have passed off so satisfactorily, and that the financial reports are so prosperous. We could not have wondered, if under the singular and varied pressure of the times, and the efforts making in every practicable manner for the relief of Ireland, the receipts of our societies had been somewhat impaired. Yet, it has generally been found that the most prosperous times are not the most productive in the cause of charity. Trials and adversity are in all respects the most fitting soil for growth in Christian faith and practice; and when principle is in the most healthful exercise, the due proportions of duty are best understood and acted upon, and Christians find resources even in the depths of their poverty, which abound to the riches of their liberality. How cheering it is to hear reported from that most noble institution, the British and Foreign Bible Society, the receipt of £117,440 9s. 3d. being an increase of £16,134 14s. 3d. on the receipts of the year before, and nearly £6,000 more than those of any preceding year. Not less gratifying is the report of the Church Missionary Society, the receipts of which last year were £116,827. Then the Wesleyan Missionary Society with its £115,762, being an increase of £28,382 on the former year; and the London Missionary Society with

its more than £90,000, and nearly all the kindred institutions whose anniversaries have recently taken place, present a similar aspect of prosperity. God be praised, from whom every good and perfect gift cometh! And yet it is all as nothing compared with what the work of Christ throughout the world requires, and nothing compared with the means that are locked up in the hands of the wealthy and prosperous. We are not disposed to go the length which some speakers at our recent anniversaries have done, in making comparisons or rather contrasts between the Romish Propaganda and our Missionary efforts. It is not fair to single out one institution, or even all the institutions of our church for this purpose. As the Propagandas are supported by Romanists throughout the world, and the whole world is their field of operations, we can only make a just comparison by taking into account, not merely the public religious societies existing in our own church, but in all the dissenting_bodies likewise; and, moreover, all existing missionary religious institutions, not merely in Britain, but throughout the world. We are much mistaken if the result of such a scrutiny will not be immensely in favour of Protestant churches. But better indeed should we deem it, that Protestantism was in the rear of Popery in this respect, than that money should be collected by dint of such