the characteristics of its people. Of this sort, Stanley's Sinai and Palestine is one of the best, as it is one of the most recent. Now the great and important use of such books is to enable us to see the English equivalent for an oriental idiom or phrase founded on some habit native to the East. These books enable us to go back to the East with our Bible, and to read it there amidst living men and prevalent customs, which are those it speaks of. These books bring us back to England again, and enable us to interchange, for the florid speech of the East, glittering with figures, (like one of its gorgeous dresses with precious stones,) the plain Saxon of our homely forefathers. Nor is this all; these books, in some cases, help to clear from obscurity some passage in which an important doctrine is involved, even as the first class of Eastern books tended to confirm the Bible's historic veracity. Had it been commonly understood in previous ages of the history of the Church that the anointing of the sick with oil was a usual medicament prescribed by the physicians of the East-had it been understood that the Western or European or English equivalent of this practice was the giving of suitable medicine to the sick amongst ourselves-had it been understood that in all cases of ordinary sickness, common sense tells us we should use the doctor's prescription, and ask God's blessing on the means for recovery of the sick; in other words, had the injunction of the apostle James been so understood, then we should have had no such absurd sacrament as that of extreme unction taught by the Church of Rome. These books, therefore, of which we speak, thus do good service in establishing the plain doctrine of Scripture. In a word, their great value may be summed up in thisthat they give novelty and freshness to the Bible, the text-book of our common Protestantism. And he who succeeds in any measure in making the Bible an interesting and readable book, does God's service, especially to the present generation, which asks above all things that everything be genuine and true. Perhaps we have had, in time past, too much of what is called doctrinal preaching in our churches; whereas, the Bible, wisely considered, is much more a method than a system. In other words, he who will persist in making the Bible a set of abstract dogmas, instead of the revelation of a divine will, or the method of a divine government, will be in danger of ending in a philosophical necessity which may command the assent of men's reason, but which will not suffice to touch their affections or move their wills. He rather is the wise teacher, in modern days, who will shew the Bible to be a true book still, with a novelty and originality for ourselves as great as for those for whom it was originally written, and who will proclaim it to be most emphatically the voice of a Father entreating us by His Son to be sanctified by His Spirit. Whatever else the Bible may truly prove, this is its significance chiefly for us of these times. The dawn of civilisation began in the East, as the sun begins his race from the same quarter of heaven. The dawn has become day all over the West, even to the shores of America. American evangelists especially are returning from the far West to the primal East. The thoughts and regards of all good men have been returning thither also. The sacred land and the sacred book mutually reflect light on each other. The fact is fraught with a most necessary teaching for us. Let us lay aside our systems more-let us learn to think more highly of our Bibles than of our Confessions of Faith, or our forms of Church government-and then shall we see face to face, the wounds of Christendom will be healed, we shall present a more united array to the common enemy, and, while we prize our Calvinism and our Church, we shall estimate yet more the Bible, which reveals both to us, (as we understand it,) but which also commands us to regard as brethren all those who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth. G. "The world will certainly continue to the foolishness of man, and the wisdom be governed, as it always has been, by of God."-Bishop Sandford. CORRESPONDENCE WITH REFERENCE TO THE PROPOSED CHURCH UNION. TO CORRESPONDENTS. THE "Union" proposed in these pages will, by God's blessing, be soon realized. We hope, in our next Number, to be able to give definite information as to its plan and progress. IV. From a Minister in Stirlingshire. "We have read with such deep interest your remarks on the above subject in the Edinburgh Christian Magazine for September, that we cannot refrain from giving our hearty though humble response to all you have so ably and, withal, 80 charitably said. We trust that you have struck a chord that will vibrate through the heart of the Church of Scotland, and awaken sounds, and call forth sentiments, that will mingle in beauteous harmony to the praise of our common Lord and Saviour. And "That there does exist, at the present moment, among the office-bearers and members of the Church of Scotland, a sad want of that cordial sympathy-that brotherly kindness and charity -that lively interest in each other's wants, and each other's progress, which constitute the strength, beauty, and usefulness of all churches, few, we think, among the reflecting and unprejudiced will venture to deny. And that such a state of things should be found to exist at a time when the Church is blessed with peace within her borders,-when all the rancour and bitterness of controversy have been purged out of her, makes it still more astonishing and not a little alarming :- For the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart." though we have not to complain of positive divisions in the Church, yet we have something that equally retards her progress and dims her lustre; a lukewarm indifference, almost amounting to estrangement, exists among our ministers and members, and paralyzes almost every Christian enterprise. This demands great searchings of heart. It ought to form the subject of im. mediate, solemn, and united inquiry, humilia. tion and prayer before God. Whoever takes an impartial survey of the present internal condition and external operations of the Church of Scotland, must come to the conclusion that, amid all appearances of life and activity which she manifests, there is something wrong at heart, and he would be a traitor and no friend of hers, if he tried to conceal what will not hide. "The Church of Christ is a missionary church, and it is only when she acts up to the terms of her high and holy commission,-'to make dis. ciples of all nations that she is watered from above and made fruitful and flourishing. Whenever she gives herself up to indolence, or wraps herself up in the icy mantle of selfishness, and looks abroad upon a perishing world, exclaiming, Am I my brother's keeper?' then is she, in just judgment, left to feel her own weakness and desolation, and gradually she becomes a leafless, fruitless, withered branch, fitted only for destruction. Now, who will be bold enough to say, after looking at the facts as you have stated them -and many more of a similar nature might be pointed out that the Church of Scotland has, at any period of her history, much less of late years, occupied the position assigned to her as a missionary church! Even prior to 1843, it could not be affirmed, with any approximation to truth, that the Church of Scotland acted up to her high destiny and privileges in regard to the conversion of the world. And those fine speeches we have sometimes listened to with painful interest, representing the Church of Scotland as being at present in as efficient a condition as at any former period of her history, can only be regarded as flights of fancy or flashes of elo quence, designed to entertain but never enlighten the public mind. It is useless-nay, we think it is mischievous-to make such statements in the face of such striking evidence to the contrary. Statements such as these, coming from men of high standing in the Church, come to be believed by the unthinking community as descriptive of the true state of the Church in all her branches and operations. That the Church of Scotland recovered from the blow aimed at her destruction in 1843, in a manner calling for unfeigned gratitude to the Church's spiritual Head, we most thankfully admit, and that, in some few instances, and in certain districts of Scotland, her ministers are more faithful and her members more numerous than before the Secession, we also gladly acknowledge; but that she occupies the standing and commands the influence now that she then did, it would be worse than folly to assert. Look at her condition in the greater part of the north and west high. lands. How painful the revelations on this subject that are from time to time brought before the General Assembly! Congregations merely nominal, and the dispensation of the Lord's Supper neglected for several years! Look to Ireland, lying at our very door, and connected with us by innumerable ties-the Church of Scotland has disowned that fair but unhappy country. She has not a single missionary in it. Other religious denominations in Scotland are feeling Ireland's claims, and responding to her calls, but the Church of Scotland has stopped her ears, and is doing nothing. We have some reason to know that she has there many strongly attached to her-that she would find there a wide and hopeful field for missionary enterprise. But will she occupy it? "But why dwell upon details so painful to every true friend of the Church of Scotland, to shew that she has fallen far short of being designated a missionary church. This her most zealous apologists must admit. But in mercy the call is still given to her, Arise, shine. Give glory to the Lord God before He cause darkness. The means you propose for the purpose of arousing the Church and remedying the evils referred to are,-frequent communings, fellowship meetings of those within her pale, whether lay or clerical, who have become alive to her state and are zealous for her safety and glory. In this proposal we also heartily concur. Such meetings are much needed, both for our individual encouragement and social progress. It is one of the first and most precious lessons of our common faith, that the Eternal God will not look down upon such assemblies of His people and listen to their pious consultations, humble confessions, and earnest prayers, without richly rewarding them. God is faithful, who hath called us unto the fellowship of His Son, and the communion of all who live godly in Christ Jesus." The most godly in the Church will be the first to seek closer and more cordial intercourse with one another than they have any opportunity af forded them of holding at present. Let the live coals, then, be brought together, that they may mutually impart light, heat, strength, and usefulness. Let the faithful and devoted servants of Christ meet together and unbosom their anxieties, express their views and wishes respecting the Church's present position-her duty to herself and to the world Let them thus endeavour to strengthen the things that remain that are ready to die. Let there appear in our Church such a holy confederacy as thisthose who will enter boldly into the holy of holies with an humble, penitent, and interceding spirit, and then will she arise in all her strength and glory, and come forth clad in her beautiful garments, to be hailed as a blessing to a weary and wailing world. "It is only by such means as these that the Church can be prepared for that crisis in the world's history that has come upon us. After twelve centuries of dismal triumph, the False Prophet, that desolated and deceived so many nations of the earth, has met with a sudden and unexpected check. Twenty millions of his degraded victims now cry, from their dreary habit. ations of darkness, delusion, and death, to the Christian world for light and salvation. Other churches in Christendom are responding to their call. But no church was placed by the provi. dence of God in a more favourable position than the Church of Scotland for giving an immediate and effective response, yet she has remained silent. At the last meeting of our General As. sembly, the cry of these millions of Mohamme. dans was loudly heard, but it was disregarded. Notwithstanding that two of our ministers offered their services cheerfully and gratuitously to undertake a mission of inquiry to Turkey, in order to ascertain in what way the Church of Scotland could best fulfil her destiny in this part of the world, their services were declined. The Church refused to sanction even an inquiry into a subject that is now engrossing the attention of the whole Christian world-the evangelization of Turkey. We are well aware that individual members of the Church take a deep interest in this subject; but the Church, as a body, must be aroused and take her place among the other churches of Christendom in this great and glorious enterprise. But it is evident she is not yet prepared for such labour and such honour. Eminent piety is essential to eminent use. fulness, and we have been trusting more to our privileges than our piety. We have sat in inglorious ease or culpable negligence under our vine and fig-tree, instead of labouring to render it more healthy and fruitful. The result is, that it has now become dried, parched, and stunted. We must then be in earnest in beseeching God again to visit this our vine with a refreshing from His presence. We must fall down before His footstool and plead with Him to revive us yet again.' We acknowledge, O Lord, our sins and the iniquity of our fathers, do not abhor us for thy name's sake. Our sins of hypocrisy we especially confess, in that we have so often prayed,Thy kingdom come," and yet have done so little to hasten its advance." V.-From a Minister in Lanarkshire. "I do not know the person who has assumed the name of Unionist,' but I thank God that He has bestowed on him the high privilege of giving a voice to the deeply-seated convictions of many hearts. My own heart responds warmly to your sen. timents, Sir. I have long felt the urgent necessity that existed for sincere union amongst the earnest-hearted members and office-bearers of our Church, and on more than one occasion I have ventured to express this feeling. "To me Presbyteries and Synods possess little attraction. They seem to have degenerated into mere business platforms. They are skeletons without spiritual flesh, or blood, or life. In their present position they repel, instead of encour. aging, the expression of spiritual sentiment, and it is obvious, therefore, that they cannot take action in the highest sense of the term. An opportunity is wanted for the expression of the solemn, burning language of the heart, an expression which ought, in the first instance, to emanate from the lips of those who have been long working, with their sword in one hand, and their building instruments in the other. The hearts of the earnest-minded, but less experi enced, will take fire; and never until the church is spiritually on fire-a fire kindled at the altar of the Lord-will she rise to her true dignity, or wield her mighty influence. "A conference is, therefore, the grand desideratum, and I doubt not but that the ability and the Christian earnestness of its members would be able to devise wisely for future action. "I most solemnly believe that, apart from such spiritual conferences-extensively ramified by-and-by-and apart from what is the true lever power of the church-fervent combined prayer-the church can never become spiritually prosperous. The church, in a collective capacity, must acknowledge and wrestle with God State has its collective duties, as a state, apart altogether from the individual responsibility of its component members, so has the church in its collective capacity-and this-is it not virtually ignored? If the "I myself have felt the bitterness of isolation since my gracious Lord placed me here, and I doubt not many others feel similarly Nothing more powerfully than the sympathy of the faithful servants of the Lord, stimulates to duty, supports under embarrassments, or awakens holy joy. "I don't much care to measure our church's prosperity and life by those of surrounding churches. Let us have only one idea before usthe realization, by the grace of God and the outpouring of His Spirit, of that holy unity which the blessed Redeemer (John xvii.) declared to be the end of His manifestation in the flesh, and we shall-nay, must prevail-prevail, not over churches, but against the devil, the world, and the flesh. "I have written the thoughts of my heart in the simple order in which they have presented themselves to me-and this not with the view of their ever meeting the public eye, but solely to stimulate you to immediate and vigorous action -if a testimony, indeed, from so humble a source, can produce this effect. "Believe me to be, with every earnest prayer faithfully." for your guidance and encouragement, Sir, yours VI. From a Layman. "I think it right to mention how much pleasure was afforded to me and others by your article in the Edinburgh Christian Magazine of this month. However humble, the expression of sympathy from others is encouraging, and what you seem to have taken up is deserving of all encouragement. Further opportunities of com. munication may, I trust, be afforded me." POPERY IN TWO ASPECTS. POPERY is unchanging. Every year we have new proofs that the same spirit is animating her as in the days of her fiercest persecutions. Now, the voice comes from the dungeons of Tuscany, telling us of new victims, who have been guilty of reading the Word of God. | Now, the light of burning Bibles in Dublin, is permitting us to see down amid her secrets of iniquity. Now, her lordly assumption of ecclesiastical titles of honour in England, and the parcelling out the country into her dioceses, and her introduction of the Canon Law,-all contrary is? Let us hear no more of worshipping God through the image. The images themselves are sanctified for worship.” (!) "Holy graven images!" "Sanctified graven images!" Heretics who come forward and recant, confessing their sins against the Church, are to "be received into the ample bonds of her charity, and treated with singular clemency and mercy." What unhappy fate is to overtake those who are denounced, the "general edict" does not specify, save that it declares that no former edicts or ordinances are repealed by it. Not a whisper of the rack, not a sign of the wheel, not a syllable of the drop of water incessantly falling on the head of the sufferer, no hint of the slow fire, nothing of the living graves in which heretics are built up into the prison wall. These are only for the dark dungeons beneath the Vatican; these are breathed not beyond the courts of the vehm-gericht of Popery. It is only said, that no former edicts or ordinances are repealed. No former punishment done away. Not one mode of destroying heresy abandoned. to the common law of this land, shew us for which the holy Inquisition has been how determined are her efforts to gain a ever memorable." (!!) But we are not footing in Great Britain. Now, a Con- yet done with our list of heretics to cordat, authorising persecution whenever be denounced. The decree includes all Rome sees fit to carry it out, proclaims those who "shall have insulted or caused both her spirit and her power. And to be profaned the holy graven images, now, (as within the last three months,) set up and sanctified for worship." If the re-establishment of the Inquisition, over this is not the idolatry of images, what Roman Catholic countries, to extend to all heretics, whatsoever, shews that the rage, the intolerance, the thirst for blood, is as strong as ever in the breast of the Church of Rome. This last act deserves all attention. It is contained in "a general edict of the Holy Office," is dated "Ancona, this 8th of August, 1856," and is signed by "P. R., Tommasso Vincengio Airaldi," who describes himself an “inquisitor general of the holy apostolic see." What does this solemn edict enjoin? Its object is "the extirpation of heresy." (!) The reason of its publication is "that there are diverse perverted, malicious, sinful and disobedient persons, who do not, as they are bound to do, denounce heretics to the Holy Office." It "orders and decrees," that "each and every one shall denounce to us, to our vicars of the Inquisition, or to the other officials of the Holy Office, regular and secular, those who are heretics to the Catholic faith." Among heretics, it specially notices those "who shall have made a compact with the devil, in order to exorcise," &c., and "those who shall be familiar with the acts of necromancy." (!) And this the decree of Rome in the year of grace, 1856! It specially singles out, as heretics to be denounced, all Protestant ministers, all "who have sacrilegiously usurped the privilege of administering the holy communion of our Lord Jesus Christ, be they who they may, not Catholics," and "those who shall thus defile, by abuse, both the holy elements and the holy places." The holy places are of course the old cathedrals and churches that have passed out of the hands of Popery, into those of Protestants. What does such a decree point to, as the probable fate of Protestant ministers in Hungary, in Portugal, in Spain, &c.? They will be delivered over to "that singular clemency and mercy While such is the wild rage of the church of Rome in one field, it is pleasant to look at another, in which her superstition is fast losing its hold. We allude to Ireland. Our readers cannot be ignorant of the great work that has been going on there for the last six years, a work that has hardly a parallel among missions for the last thirty or fifty years. The activity and the success of Protestant agencies in Ireland have been unexampled. And, as to the truth of the statements made, we are not confined to Protestant testimony. The work is so alarming to the Church of Rome that we have, week after week, writers coming forward in newspapers, speakers on platforms, Archbishops and Bishops in pastoral addresses, lamenting Protestant success, making it known to one another, and devising schemes for restraining it in future. There are various Protestant missions extending over the entire surface of the island, and operating by every means which wisdom can suggest for the overthrow of the Church of Rome. There is, for instance, a Sabbath School Society, which had, last year, under tuition, on Sabbath evenings, 213,909 scholars, many of whom were Roman Catholics. There is a mission of the Presbyterian Church of Ulster, which had, last year, in the province of Connaught alone, 8,000 children at Sabbath school, most of them Papists. There are the Irish Church Mission Society, and another society, whose head-quarters are, or were, in London, which have, together, expended in Ireland, during six years, about £90,000. And now, for the success which has attended these labours, as attested by Roman Catholics themselves. Let us select two localities as instances. One of these shall be the far west, the province of Connaught; and the other shall be the centre of Irish civilisation and the heart of Irish life, the city of Dublin. The province of Connaught is the seat of the noted Archbishop M'Hale, and the city of Dublin of the well-known Dr Cullen. Connaught was formerly one of the most bigotted parts of Popish Ireland. The neighbourhood of Tuam, and the whole county Galway, was at no distant date the most Irish district in the island, dark, superstitious, enslaved-in one word, Papist. Crime was formerly spread as widely there as in any other province. The Archbishop, "good Dr M'Hale," was well-nighed worshipped as he passed from place to place. And now, think of the change. From the labours of one Protestant Society alone, Lord Plunkett, the Bishop of Tuam and Killala, has confirmed 3,015 converts from Popery. In the Bishop's tour of visitation, in 1855, he consecrated (if we remember right) 17 new churches, for the use of converts alone. His testimony, at that date, (far above suspicion,) is, "there never was a time when the missionaries and Scripture-readers found a more ready access, and general acceptance, among the Roman Catho lics." The testimony of the Roman Catholic newspaper, The Lamp, (Dec. 4th, 1852,) is, that "the desolate places of Connaught are the strongholds of Proselytism. It is unquestionable that many are falling away from the faith." And, as a remarkable result, the police commitments in the province, formerly as high as any other, or even the highest, are now the next lowest to the Protestant province of Ulster. The proportion of criminals to the population is now, in Connaught, 1 in 701, in Leinster, 1 in 432, in Munster 1 in 484. In county Galway, the head-quarters of the mission, and also of the count. eracting influence, the proportion of criminals is now only 1 in 855. In no other district in Ireland are such results to be traced, and in none are such causes to the same extent in operation. On the one hand we show the success of Protestant missions, and on the other the once criminal province becoming, at the same time, (comparatively,) free from crime. We have long pointed to the coincidence of true religion and sound morality in Ulster. Here is another case. Who can account better for the change? To look now at the Metropolis. Here we have the minute and circumstantial testimony of an earnest and able Roman Catholic witness. A gentleman, writing in the Roman Catholic newspaper called the Freeman's Journal, in April 1856, and signing himself Testis, endeavours to rouse his co-religionists to united action, to meet the progress of "Proselytism in Dublin." We shall make a few extracts from his letters: "We hear, occasionally, neighbour asking neighbour, 'what is to be done with the nuisance of Proselytism in this city of Dublin?' Your staunch upright Catholic sees the whole evil, admits that there are hundreds of poor Catholics either perverted or in the process, he asks, What is to be done?" Again he says, in stronger language, giving a summary of results, “In my last communication I made out, I think, a prima facie case, very much to be deplored by us Catholics. I enumerated about eighteen establishments at work in |