the session of Cathedral Street was confirmed, excluding from membership one who had married her deceased husband's brother; and appeal made to the next meeting of Synod. After some conversation in regard to the mission funds of the church, and other matters, it was agreed to overture the Synod to take into consideration the claims of Ireland, as a field of Christian exertion; and to adopt such measures as may seem most suitable for promoting missionary operations in that country.

Kilmarnock.-This presbytery met Feb. 8. A moderation was granted to the congregation of Kilmaurs, to take place on the 21st February-Mr Jamieson, of Kilmarnock, to preach and moderate. The only other business of public interest was on the report of a committee which had been appointed at last meeting, to call the attention of the congregations in the presbytery to the need for greater liberality in support of the Synod's missions, as well as for the Synod's General Fund. The same committee had been appointed to call for the financial rules of congregations, as required by last meeting of Synod-Mr Symington, convener of the committee, reported, that they had sent to each congregation a printed circular embracing both of these objects, and that returns had been received from all but two or three congregations. The conclusion on the first part. of the business was, the presbytery's expressing satisfaction that the returns received generally warrant the hope that there will be an increase in the contributions, both to the mission and general fund of the Synod; and the re-appointment of the committee to correspond with the few sessions from which returns had not been received, and to require them to be sent within ten days. Mr Thomas reported concerning the other part of the business of the committee-the rules of congregational finance, and the three following resolutions were adopted:-(1.) That the presbytery shall, as soon as convenient, take into consideration the regulations now reported, as admitting of being immediately sanctioned by the presbytery, and that the same, when sanctioned, shall be engrossed in a book to be provided for the purpose. (2.) That the committee be re-appointed, correspond with congregations whose regulations seem to require amendment befere being submitted for the presbytery's approval. (3.) That congregations having no written regulations, be enjoined to provide such without delay, and report to the committee within ten days.

Newcastle. This presbytery met on 1st February. The mission's committee reported correspondence with the Synod's home mis

The

sion board, resulting in a grant of L.15 to the station at Jarrow for six months. Messrs Lawson and M'Creath were appointed to converse with persons associated for worship there, and to report as to those whom they may deem worthy of being received as members of the church. committee farther reported their arrangements for a series of missionary services in March, which were approved. A certificate from the presbytery of Aberdeen, transferring Mr Henry Angus, student, to the superintendence of the Newcastle presbytery, was read; and the ministers of Newcastle were appointed to examine him. A letter from Mr Ker, student, requesting his transference from this presbytery to that of Dumfries, was read, and his request granted. The petition previously presented by the persons applying to be organised as a fifth congregation of the United Presbyterian Church in Newcastle was again read. A report of the committee appointed to meet with the parties in this case was heard; as also the reports of neighbouring sessions. It was found that three sessions were favourable to the proposed measure, and one deemed it inexpedient. Messrs Telford and Naismith were heard as commissioners in support of the petition. After a lengthened discussion, a majority of the presbytery agreed to grant the petitioners immediate supply of preachers. Next ordinary meeting to be held at Newcastle, on Tuesday, 1st March. The presbytery met at Hull for the ordination of Mr RomeMr Dodds preached; Mr Fraser narrated the previous proceedings, proposed the questions of the formula, offered up the ordination prayer, and gave the charge to Mr Rome; and Mr Douglas addressed the congregation.

Stirling. This presbytery met on the 1st of February. Mr John More having intimated his acceptance of the call from the West Congregation of Alloa, delivered part of his trials for ordination, which were sustained. Mr John Maclaren passed his remaining trials for license, and was appointed to preach the everlasting Gospel. Mr Anderson, Dunblane, being unable, through severe indisposition, to discharge the duties of his office, the presbytery agreed to supply his pulpit once a fortnight. Mr Frew was chosen moderator for the ensuing year. Next meeting is to be held on the 5th of April.

PROBATIONERS LICENSED.

In addition to the list of probationers licensed, published in January Magazine, the following have received license within the last three months:

Mr James M. Erskine, by Dumfries

the direction of the Evangelical Society of France, have existed for the last twelve years; they have moreover been acknowledged by former governments, whose inspectors had frequently visited them, and examined the pupils.

"While I am writing this letter, the Supreme Court in Paris is deciding another case. In the commune of Estissac, a number of Roman Catholics embraced the Protestant faith, and were visited by a pastor of the Protestant Establishment. Well, his ministrations are deemed illegal, and are forbidden. And why? Because it is said that there are no Protestants at Estissac;—that the people who have become professedly Protestants remain, in the eyes of the law, Roman Catholics, because they were not born and bred in the Protestant faith.

66

Lately, on one of the Methodist stations in Normandy, a schoolmaster was refused the authorisation for opening his school; and the reason put forth was-that he was an immoral person; because, being a Catholic by. birth, he had become a Protestant!'"

What is doing by the small remnant of evangelical ministers who continue in the thoroughly Erastianised Protestant church establishment of France? M. Adolphe Monod, brother of our own honoured M. Frederick, remains in that body, and is a member of the Evangelical Alliance besides. M. Adolphe may rest assured that it will cost an effort, on the part of some Alliance brethren, to refrain from some demonstration of their feeling as to the incongruity of these two characters, should he present himself in both at another Alliance meeting in Scotland.

POPISH PERSECUTION FRUSTRATED AT

GENOA.

THE priests of Rome have been attempting to extinguish the light of Bible truth in the kingdom of Sardinia, by the same means which have so utterly failed them at Flo. rence. A young surgeon, Dr Mazzinghi, was charged in January with preaching against Romanism, and in favour of Protestant doctrine, in company with Captain Pakenham, of the British navy. The charge was proved; and, in virtue of an old law, of which, apparently through some oversight, the penalty had not been formally abrogated when the free constitution of Sardinia was enacted some years ago, the prisoner was condemned to three years' imprisonment. Short, however, was the triumph of the persecutors. The King of Sardinia, though himself a Roman Catholic, immediately exercised his prerogative of pardon in Mazzinghi's behalf; and at the same time, after consultation with his government, which, though still professing the Catholic faith, has learned by recent

experience how to resist the encroachments of the priests, an order was issued by the Minister of the Interior, directing the various magistrates in the state to proceed with less rigour against dissenters from the Romish Church.

POPERY THE PATRON OF SCIENCE! It has been found out that Popery is, and ever was, the best patron of science! We have it on the word of a cardinal, that "science has nowhere flourished more, or originated more sublime or useful discoveries, than where it has been pursued under the influence of the Catholic religion." So said Dr Wiseman to the Leeds Catholic Literary Institute, at a soiree held on the 4th February last; and he pointed for his proof to the achievements, scientific and artistic, of Italy and Spain in former days. Now, why has he to go back so far to make out his point? Is he conscious that his church has so much degenerated since those days, that he cannot find a modern instance to suit him? But he should remember that the church, of which he is a cardinal prince, became what it is only at the Council of Trent, when its present articles were last authoritatively determined; that consequently it was not unmixed Popery which prevailed in the times to which he refers, but that what afterwards came to be Protestantism, was all, with a small exception, in the bosom of what he calls the Catholic church; that this latent Protestantism had its share of influence on the minds of the people on the mind, for instance, of Galileo, who was certainly protestant, if that word be understood to mean dissentient from the doctrines propounded by the Pope and his counsellors; so that to know what Popery really is, we must look at it when, this Protestant element being removed, it was allowed to develop itself in its true character and proportions.

But certainly there was Popery in the days of Galileo; and that he found to his cost. We have said the spirit of latent Protestantism moved him to his inquiries and discoveries: and what was the operations of Popery in relation to these? It sent him to a dungeon for their sake. Cardinal Wiseman asks us to believe, that

as to the persecution of Galileo by the church, it was not until he made his discoveries a theological question that the church interfered." The terms of the sentence passed on him disprove the cardinal's assertion. The sentence is recorded in these words :-"To maintain that the sun is placed immoveably in the centre of the world, is an opinion absurd in itself, false in philosophy, and formally heretical,

because it is expressly contrary to the Scriptures; to maintain that the earth is not placed in the centre of the world, that it is not immoveable, and that it has even a daily motion of rotation, is also an absurd proposition, false in philosophy, and at least erroneous in point of faith." So far from making his discoveries a theological question, Galileo held that the Bible does not teach astronomy at all, and therefore cannot come into conflict with that science. He says:-"The intention of the sacred Scriptures is to give mankind the information necessary for their salvation, and which, surpassing all human knowledge, can by no other means be accredited than by the mouth of the Holy Spirit. But I do not hold it necessary to believe, that the same God who has endowed us with senses, with speech, and with intellect, intended that we should neglect the use of these, and seek by other means for knowledge which they are sufficient to procure for us." Plainly, therefore, Romanism has no connection with the discoveries of Galileo, save that it persecuted him on their account, and forced him to pronounce a recantation of them. The only scientific discovery he made under the sweet influence which-as the cardinal boasts-the Roman Catholic religion exerts in favour of science, is that propounded in the words put into his mouth by his persecutors:

I abjure, curse, and detest the error and heresy of the motion of the earth.” But for Popery, he would never have found out that the truth he had taught and demonstrated was either unscriptural or unphilosophical.

Since Galileo's death, the progress of

astronomical science in the Romish church seems to have been a faithful following up of this last discovery-that we mean which the venerable philosopher made when his intellectual vision was sharpened by the fear of the dungeon and the rack. What is the astronomy taught at Rome, and, we may presume, at Maynooth too, till this day Let Archbishop Paul Cullen anIn a scientific periodical published under his superintendence at Rome, and bearing on the cover his name as editor, he or one of his staff is reviewing a work called Anticopernico, in which Galileo's theory is attempted to be disproved. Thus eloquently does the Primate or his substitute expound Romish astronomy:

swer.

"There was no lack of historians, philosophers, and writers of every sect, in imputing fanaticism to the Inquisition for not closing its ears to the petulant imprudence of Galileo when he obstinately sought to conciliate the phraseology of the Bible with the Copernican system. But now a new plan of astronomy is given to the public, by means of which it is

evidently proved that the systems both of Ptolemy and Copernicus are equally false; that the sun is but one meter (six feet) in breadth; that the earth is in size six times larger than all the heavenly bodies united; that it has but one motion, the diurnal; that it occupies the centre of the planetary system, sitions repugnant to the prevailing theory of and of all space; with other similar propothe globe and stars. Indeed, if all things were created with a view to man-if man be the king of creation, it is not absurd to believe that at the centre thereof the Eternal should place in the vastness of space the earth which He hath given to the children of men. What may not turn out if in more tranquil times the learned, resuming their usual contemplations, begin to find that they must go back, not indeed to Ptolemy, but most certainly to Moses and the son of Sirach? The thing will always belong to the domain of uncertainty. Whatever be the evidence demonstrating similar statements, nothing can protect them from the doubts of men. In proportion as the arguments pro and con entitle by their cogency the question to remain doubtful, so will the guilt be greater of certain light-headed philosophastres and proud men of learning. It well becomes them to explain away the Word of God without even knowing the degree of credit due to human inquiries, and to open their mouths against Heaven without knowing anything of the earth they tread !"*

One would be amazed at the calm assurance of Dr Wiseman's speech at Leeds, were it not so entirely in keeping with the brazen imposture of Rome. One sees here, however, and it is interesting to see it, in the leader of the English papists, some

faint semblance of a blush at the charge so

commonly made, and so fully established against his church-that it is the enemy of human enlightenment.

ACHILLI versus NEWMAN.

DR NEWMAN, who, it will be remembered, had been convicted by a jury of publishing a criminal libel on the character of Dr Achilli, was brought up to receive the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench on 31st January. He had moved for a new trial, on the plea of having found additional evidence in justification of the libel; but the application was rejected on the ground that the new evidence alleged was insufficient to change the conclusion at which the jury had arrived. Affidavits were now put in and read in mitigation of punishment. One of them set forth the published materials which Dr Newman had followed in writing his libellous lecture, and alleged that as Dr Achilli had not at that time

"Annali delle Scienze Religiose," vol. vi., No. 18, p. 461, June 1848; quoted in the Globe of Friday, 13th September 1851.

done anything to vindicate his character, the writer had reason to believe the charges true; that he had no personal knowledge of Dr Achilli; but that when Dr A. came to lecture against Popery at Birmingham, he thought it right to call public attention to those charges. Medical certificates were read to the effect that Dr Newman's health was impaired, and that he could not endure imprisonment. Counsel having been heard on both sides, the presiding judge, Justice Coleridge, after a long and somewhat irrelevant address, in which his Anglican churchmanship, and his former intimacy with Father Newman, were as conspicuous as were the true merits of the case, sentenced the defendant to pay a fine of L.100 to the Queen, and to be confined in the Queen's Bench prison, in the first class of misdemeanours, till the fine was paid. The fine, of course, was paid at once,—the little mouse which this mountain of a case had produced, causing much laughter among the audience. The true penalty, however, is the costs of the trial, which some estimate at L.15,000, and the humiliation of the father of the oratory.

This Achilli case has been a very damaging one to the Romanist party, in every point of view. The chief evidence with which they have sought to criminate Achilli is a crimination of themselves. If he was a "wolf in sheep's clothing," as they love to call him, it was clothing which they themselves knowingly put upon him; and though, as the evidence bears, they saw the wolf under it, they treated him as an innocent sheep still-the chief shepherds sending him out loaded with ecclesiastical honour and authority, to ravage the simple flock, which they knew was ignorant of his dangerous character. If Achilli be the guilty man they tried to prove he was, then it stands proclaimed that licentiousness, lust, and perjury are no barrier to preferment in the Church of Rome, provided only the criminal do not call in question the supremacy of the Pope. That, according to Romish theology, is the one unpardonable

sin.

MOVEMENT AMONG THE ISRAELITES.

THOSE who are conversant with the present state of Judaism report symptoms of a stir in that valley of dry bones. A remarkable change, it is said, is in progress at the present day, among the Jews in almost every country. Rabbinism, which has enslaved the minds of that people for so many ages, is rapidly losing its influence. Multitudes are throwing aside the Mishna and the Talmud, the great Rabbinical authorities, and betaking themselves to the study of Moses and the Prophets. Among

the Jews in London, it is observed, there is a great demand for copies of the Old Testament. It is not supposed that this arises from any increase of attachment to spiritual religion, but anything which will break the spell of the Talmud, and set the Jewish mind free to interpret the Old Testament for itself, is most directly in favour of the Gospel. The subject of their restoration to Palestine and the nature of the promises on which the expectation is founded, are extensively engaging their attention. In examining into these matters the London Jews have obtained considerable assistance from a continental Rabbi who has lately arrived among them, and exhibited a manuscript in which he has endeavoured to prove from Scripture that the time has come when the Jews must set about making preparations for returning to the land of their fathers. The said manuscript has been printed in Hebrew and English, and a society has been formed to further the movement proposed by the learned Rabbi.

POSITION AND DUTIES OF DISSENTERS-THE MILTON CLUB.

THE formation of the Milton Club-an association of members of parliament, and other gentlemen, holding the principles of evangelical Dissent-promises to be the starting-point of a new era for Protestant Nonconformity in the British dominions. The club is to have extensive premises in London, where the members can meet in friendly intercourse; where those of them who reside at a distance can take up their abode when visiting the metropolis; and where united deliberation can be held, and public action taken, on questions affecting the interests of the Dissenting community. A kind of inauguration of the new institute took place on Wednesday, 16th February, when a public dinner was given by the Milton Club to the Dissenting members of parliament. Samuel Morley, Esq., well known and greatly esteemed in religious society in London, occupied the chair. Nearly 400 gentlemen attended, gathered from upwards of seventy different towns; and out of the eighteen members of parliament invited, the following were present:Sir James Anderson, Stirling; Messrs Ball, Cambridgeshire; Barnes, Bolton; Bell, Guildford; Cheetham, South Lancashire Crossley, Halifax; Sir George Goodman, Leeds; Messrs Hadfield, Sheffield; Hindley, Ashton; Kershaw, Stockport; Miall, Rochdale; Milligan, Bradford; Pellatt, Southwark; Peto, Norwich; Pilkington, Blackburn.

From the chairman's opening speech we glean the following facts respecting the position of English Dissenters. In England

;