it would be very unwise at present to NEW-ZEALAND MISSIONS. "Several captains who have lately visited some distant parts of New Zealand declare, that the labours of the missionaries have spread among the natives far and wide; and that many of the prayers learned by the tribes, are well known by other tribes and native people, hundreds of miles distant; that the one desire of the chiefs at the places they have visited, is to have missionaries; and that they have offered to give the captains any quantity of pigs, potatoes, or flax, for a missionary who can pray, and teach them the way to their God and heaven. Such language and feelings as the above, I have heard and seen myself, at a great distance from any missionary station in New Zealand; and I therefore give credit to what the persons I have seen, say on these subjects." IRISH SOCIETY. We feel much gratified in finding that this excellent society, the objects of which have been often explained in our pages, has adopted the plan of preaching to the many thousands of Irish in London, in their native language. We trust, by the blessing of God, to witness great benefits resulting from this measure. We purpose appending to one of our next Numbers the society's very interesting circular on the subject, and shall rejoice if we can promote this interesting and important object. VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS. FRANCE.-Algiers has submitted to the French arms, after a brief and ineffectual struggle. What the conquerors purpose doing with their acquisition, and in what light their proceedings are contemplated by other governments, have not transpired. Whatever may be the result in other respects, we should trust that the weakening of the Turkish power on the shores of Africa, will open a way to the entrance of civilization and Christianity into those long barbarised regions. The French government will need all the eclat of this military triumph to enable them to meet the new house of Deputies, in which there is a far larger preponderance of the popu lar or liberal party, than even in the last, which they were obliged to get rid of as too liberal. It seems clear that the king and his ministers must before long either yield to the public feeling in the general cast of their policy, or come to an open and perhaps fatal collision. We greatly dread, whichever party may succeed, the ill effects upon the interests of religion. The liberals are too generally pupils of Voltaire, and the ultra royalists the devotees of Rome. There is, however, happily a somewhat small number of persons of truly liberal and enlightened mind, who are genuine constitutionalists in politics, and sincere friends of religion; and to the hoped-for increase and ultimate influence of persons of this description, would we chiefly look, to avert the evils which impend over their country, and to preserve her from the opposite calamities which threaten her. taken place on the subject, in consequence of a motion for inquiring into the expediency of withholding ardent spirits from the navy. The resolution at length passed, and we trust will be followed up by an amendment of the present practice, which allows half-a-pint of spirits daily to all on board, even to mere boys. Something has been effected in our own army and navy, of late years, to discourage spirit drinking; but by no means enough. Why not at once place the spirit cask among the surgeon's stores, to be dispensed only as needed? The health and morals of the men would be greatly benefited by the measure; nor would they be worse seamen, or less brave defenders of their country. UNITED STATES.-The course of temperance has at length obtained a hearing in Congress; a lengthened debate having The poor Cherokees, it seems, are to be expelled from their country, notwithstanding the strong remonstrances of justice and humanity on their behalf. The agent for Indian affairs gravely proposes to the secretary of war, that a military force should be stationed in the Cherokee country, to enable the Indians to act freely on the subject of emigration! Great numbers of petitions continue to flow into Congress, against the transmission of letters by the public mails on the Lord's day; and a committee has been appointed to consider the subject, who have brought in one of the most extraordinary reports that ever disgraced a Christian legislature; not Christian, however; for they repudiate the charge of being, in their corporate capacity, Christians. DOMESTIC. The last few weeks have been chequered with the alternately mournful solemnities and glittering pageants which attend a royal demise and accession; the transfer of the evanescent splendours of a throne, and the exchange of the kingly sceptre for the tomb. The Christian, whose duty is at once to fear God and to honour the king, cannot contemplate passing events of this nature without mingled emotions. He will see much to be grateful for; he will see much to mourn over. While he looks back with thankfulness for the many national mercies which distinguished the late reign; and to whatever of an estimable and praiseworthy nature was blended with the personal and public character and conduct of the departed monarch, he will fear to overcharge the picture with indiscriminate unhallowed eulogy, or to weigh character and conduct, so far as they inevitably come before him, in any other balance than that of the sanctuary. In this honest and Christian view, there are many retrospects that cannot be otherwise than painful; but on these we shall not dwell: rather would we urge our readers to turn to the many brighter memorials on which they may indulge their recollections with conscientious pleasure; to thank their God for the great public and private blessings which we have so long enjoyed under the reigning race of princes, and not least under our late beloved monarch; and to cherish, not for wrath but for conscience sake, a hearty, generous, Christian spirit of loyalty, the very reverse of that coldblooded, disorganising, and irreligious system of semi-radicalism which is fast fretting away the best impulses and feelings of a peaceful and contented community. With similar sentiments of Christian loyalty would we urge them to hail the commencement of another reign. It would indeed be untrue to our feelings, and not consistent with Christian simplicity, to say that all our hopes are bright, and that we dread no possible cloud. Our readers might, for instance, turn to our own pages, and ask us whether we have forgotten our somewhat recent remarks upon the measures and conduct of his present majesty while Lord High Admiral of England, particularly (see Christian Observer for 1828, pp. 535 & 581) the ill-judged, and, as it seemed to us, unprotestant and unconstitutional measure of forbidding the admission of any religious book or tract on board any ship in his majesty's navy, till it had undergone the revision and received the sanction of a Mr. Cole, chaplain of Greenwich Hospital: the unhappy countenance which we understood that the Lord High Admiral had given to the use of ardent spirits among the sailors, in the place of those more wholesome and non-inebriating substitutes which our naval authorities had so wisely and beneficially introduced; and the lamentable example exhibited to the Navy and the public at large by the official travelling and entertainments to which the Lord Admiral devoted that sacred day, and which were beheld with extreme affliction by every true friend of religion and his country. We readily confess that we have not forgotten these remarks: nor have we read without much pain some of the announcements in the newspapers, which would indicate that his majesty has not at once, on commencing his reign, exhibited that determined resolution to devote the sacred day to sacred duties, which would have discountenanced the prevailing practices around him, and gladdened the hearts of those who are seeking to restore to the Christian Sabbath its honours, and to their countrymen the benefits temporal as well as spiritual which attend the religious observance of that divinely-appointed solemnity. We might allude to other points; and among them to the ostentatious publicity which our journals are giving to names which true loyalty and Christian virtue would wish to keep in the shade; an obtrusion, we must say, better becoming the days of the Second Charles than the severe and virtuous court of the house of Brunswick. But admitting these and some other occurrences which our love for our country, our God, and our king would make us wish otherwise, we still think that the Christian should hail the new reign, if not without fears, yet with a generous heart-felt loyalty; an open, free, and manly confidence. Our sovereign is conciliating the hearts of his people by his kindly bearing and open manners; his speech at the close of parliament, which though responsibly that of his ministers, yet we cannot doubt expresses his own real sentiments, is favourable to the best interests of the country. In it his majesty prays to Almighty God to prosper his efforts to promote the happiness of his people, pledges himself to protect the Protestant faith, and urges his subjects to mutual peace and conciliation. His proclamation also, "for the encouragement of piety and virtue, and the preventing of vice, profaneness, and immorality," though it may be viewed only as a customary official document, couched we believe in the same words, or nearly so, from reign to reign, is yet a public testimony on the side of truth and righteousness which we should not be willing to forgo. It is a document to which both the king and his people may refer hereafter with mutual benefit; for we cannot think it possible that such solemn statements and asseverations as it contains can fail to strike with awe either the monarch who issues it, or the humblest peasant who reads it. "We most seriously," says his majesty, "and religiously considering that it is an indispensable duty on us to be careful, above all other things, to preserve and advance the honour and service of Almighty God, and to discourage and suppress all vice, profaneness, debauchery, and immorality, which are so highly displeasing to God, so great a reproach to our religion and government, and (by means of the frequent ill examples of the practices thereof) have so fatal a tendency to the corruption of many of our loving subjects, otherwise religiously and virtuously disposed, and which (if not timely remedied) may justly draw down the Divine vengeance on us and our kingdom; we also humbly acknowledging that we cannot expect the blessing and goodness of Almighty God (by whom kings reign and on which we entirely rely) to make our reign happy and prosperous to ourself and our people, without a religious observance of God's holy laws; to the intent, therefore, that religion, piety, and good manners may (according to our most hearty desire) flourish and increase under our administration and government, we have thought fit, by the advice of our privy council, to issue this our royal proclamation, and do hereby declare our royal purpose and resolution to discountenance and punish all manner of vice, profanenees, and immorality in all persons of whatsoever degree or quality within this our realm, and particularly in such as are employed near our royal person; and that for the encouragement of religion and morality, we will, upon all occasions, distinguish persons of piety and virtue by marks of our royal favour; and we do expect and require, that all persons of honour or in place of authority will give good example, by their own virtue and piety, and to their utmost contribute to the discountenancing persons of dissolute and debauched lives, that they, being reduced by that means to shame and contempt for their loose and evil actions and behaviour, may be thereby also enforced the sooner to reform their ill habits and practices, and that the visible displeasure of good men towards them may (as far as it is possible) supply what the laws (probably) cannot altogether prevent.' proclamation goes on to denounce “excessive drinking, blasphemy, profane swearing and cursing, lewdness, profanation of the Lord's day and other dissolute, immoral, or disorderly practices;" and particularly enjoins a "decent and reverent attendance upon the worship of God on every Lord's day, on pain of our highest displeasure." His majesty has but to act up to his own admirable proclamation to ensure him as much the reverent esteem of the religious and best part of his subjects, as his frank affable manners will secure the popular suffrage. And earnestly would we trust, and generously would we hope, that such solemn assurances are not words of course; but that, under the sense of his own high responsibilities, his majesty, and his wise, amiable, and excellently-disposed queen, will render their court what every religious and moral man, and every true patriot would wish it to become. In his high and arduous office, surrounded with the evil examples of too many who would The These rather have a precedent than a check in the royal carriage, and subject to have every word and action commented upon and misrepresented, his majesty needs much the prayers and sympathies of all good men, that it would please God to "replenish him with the grace of his Holy Spirit, that he may always incline to his will, and walk in his way.' prayers will be earnestly and affectionately offered to the Throne of Divine Grace, by all who have at heart the glory of God, the best welfare of their sovereign, and the highest interests of their country. These are not times for Christians to slumber at their post. Their zeal, their good example, and their benevolent and enlightened efforts in every good cause, if consistent and united, will have a powerful effect upon all classes of the nation. Let them not become lax by the laxity of others, but raise the average standard of national morals by their constant efforts and unostentatious example. With the royal proclamation in their hands, let them shew that he is the true loyalist, the best subject to his prince, and the best friend to all classes of his countrymen, who acts up to the spirit of that document, and shews his allegiance to his earthly sovereign by his reverence for the King of kings. In particular would we urge one subject before adverted to, and which has of late impressed itself strongly, as is due to its importance, upon the hearts of Christians-the better observance of the Sabbath, at present so flagrantly violated by Sunday travelling, Sunday newspapers, Sunday business, and Sunday festivities. Committees have in various places been formed, to promote this object; and we trust that the next session of parliament will witness many powerful efforts made, by petition to the legislature and the throne, and in all other proper ways, to diminish the existing evil. Even should they not succeed to the extent of their wishes, they may at least be a means of preventing its further increase. The dissolution of parliament has left most of the great questions of public interest in abeyance. The approaching crisis of a general election opens an important field for the exertions of all rightminded and religious persons, to promote the return of suitable representatives in the ensuing parliament; men, if possible, of known good faith and tried character; men pledged to a just and fearless discharge of public duties, as in the sight of God, and not as adherents to a party; religious men, if otherwise suitably qualified; but, at least, men whose sentiments are known to be firmly favourable to moral, religious, humane, and enlightened objects, and who, on all questions, will lend their whole influence to what they wisely and honestly consider calculated to bring glory to God, and peace and good-will to man." ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. M. E. W.; G. J.; SIMPLEX; PHILO; THEOGNIS; P. G. H.; G.; are under consideration. We cannot inform SCRUTATOR why Ephesians ii. 1-10 does not happen to have been selected for one of the Epistles in our church service; but it is most unjust and uncharitable to suppose, as he does, without a shadow of proof, that it was expressly passed over from some alleged addiction to Popish doctrine on the part of the compilers of our Liturgy, and their consequent dislike to verses 8, 9, 10. The passage is eminently beautiful and expressive, but many others also eminently beautiful and expressive are not included, the plan of the Epistles and Gospels comprising only a few verses for each Sunday and holiday; and whatever portions had been selected, there would have been the same liability to objection. The tastes and judgments of persons may differ as to the most suitable passages; but to construe inevitable pretermissions into intentional disparagement is most unreasonable. Who more gloried than our Reformers in those blessed truths which Scrutator (we think his signature not well chosen) supposes them inclined to sophisticate? We cannot admit that our church is guilty of the crime, charged by CANONICUS, of offering to the people a mutilated Bible. For their private perusal she presents the whole; and for public instruction she appoints the whole to be read through publicly, from day to day, with only such omissions as in the main are discreet and well-judged; and the selection of lessons for Sundays and other particular days is only because, as all cannot be read, it appeared to the compliers of the Liturgy desirable, and we think it was quite justifiable, to select such portions as seemed peculiarly fitted for general edification,-not, however, meaning that others are not for edification also. Does our correspondent, in his own family, read the lists of names in the Chronicles, or some peculiar passages omitted by our church lest they should not be received with simplicity by a mixed public audience, as often as he does the writings of the Evangelists or Apostles? We speak only of the general principle, without, at present, discussing whether or not the selection is always the best. We are, however, quite sure, that if the church directed, as Canonicus and some other of our correspondents wish, that the whole Bible should be read in regular order without any omission or selection whatever, both clergy and people would soon complain that for several Sundays together they had not been edified so much as they might have been by an appropriate selection. Our correspondent's argument, that selection, with a view to a particular object, is disparaging to the word of God, appears to us quite groundless. If the rule were valid, it would apply to the sermons of the clergy, who ought to go through the whole Bible in succession, giving as many months to the Books of Chronicles, for example, as to the same number of pages of the New Testament. AN OLD READER's letter on political economy is written in so candid and Christian a spirit that we should gladly enter into the discussion he desires, if it were not that it would have the effect which he deprecates of employing too many pages on a subject which he justly thinks ought not to engross much of our space. We have the misfortune to differ from almost all his facts and inferences, even to the Beer Act, which he requests us to notice, but which he will find we have already alluded to in a former Number. His whole argument about trade is, that it is wise and politic and Christian to tie men's hands to prevent their doing what they will with their own our view is quite the contrary. Every man ought to be at liberty to do what he pleases to better his own condition, provided he does no injustice to others; and we do not reckon it injustice to the dear shop that he prefers buying at a cheaper. If our correspondent, with his calm and liberal spirit, will examine more fully into the whole question, we feel persuaded he will gradually, but decidedly alter his views. He will not, with his sense of Christian justice, advocate monopolies that benefit a few at the expense of many. The abandonment of them may for a time injure the monopolists, but their continuance is an injury and injustice to all. What he says about the higher taxation of this country, the price of labour, continental habits, and so forth, has, when justly investigated, nothing whatever to do with the question. If a man honestly manufactures lawful goods, surely he ought not to be prohibited doing what he pleases with them. How our correspondent can suppose that tying his hands, and shutting his market, benefits him, or raises the wages of his workmen, we cannot conceive. The buckle-manufacturers were greatly distressed when shoe-strings were introduced, large capitals fell to nothing, thousands of working buckle-makers were ruined, and hundreds perished in workhouses, not being able to obtain other employment; but would it have been therefore right to make a law that no person should wear shoe-strings? Yet our correspondent's argument comes directly to this. Suppose our publisher had petitioned parliament to the effect, that a quarter of a century ago the Christian Observer was almost the only religious periodical publication in Great Britain, at least in the Church of England, and prayed that no Christian Guardians, Christian Remembrancers, British, or Quarterly, or Theological, or Clerical Reviews, should be allowed to intrude into the market because new works and new capital would injure the old. Would not this have been a most selfish and absurd petition? Yet it would have been just as good a case as that of our correspondent. We do not, however, hear any complaints that the Christian Observer has been driven out of the market: it goes on its way very smoothly; and the public have the advantage of selecting where they choose; and even if they preferred procuring French or American periodicals, there is no law, and should be no law, to prevent them. We apply the parallel throughout. But, says our correspondent, "I do not plead for prohibition, but protection;" that is (we do not say it offensively), not for complete injustice, but only for partial injustice. An article at the market price wants no protection; it protects itself: to raise it beyond that price by upholding it against others who have a better or cheaper article, is simply cheating the purchaser for the benefit of the vender. The matter, twist it as we may, does, and must come to this. Our correspondent lays it down as the first duty of a British statesman, to protect British interests; but is not London, is not Bristol, is not Liverpool, are not Leeds, and Manchester, and Birmingham, and Sheffield, and all our other commercial and manufacturing towns, with their many millions of population, as much Great Britain and British interests as the rural district of -? Why should not A. B.'s manufacture be as much "protected' as C. D.'s? We can only view these matters as simple-minded, old-fashioned Christians; and Christianity comports with the most enlightened political economy. Let our correspondent, who we are sure writes in the sincerity of his heart, ask himself whether if he were to find himself to-morrow a merchant, or manufacturer, or shopkeeper, or one of the working population, he would argue precisely as he does at present. He has a barn full of corn, we will suppose, or a shed full of wool, and nobody prevents his doing what he likes with it; and why, if he happened to have a warehouse of cottons, or a cargo of hardware, should he not be equally free? There might be persons who objected that Jacob's sending his sons to buy corn in Egypt for the famine of their houses, injured the landowners of Canaan, and was very unpatriotic, particularly as they paid in bullion but our correspondent assuredly will not abet this reasoning, as respects the dearth in Canaan, though he virtually applies it to the dearth among the operatives of Birmingham or Manchester. SUPPLEMENT TO RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE. BRITISH AND Foreign bible SOCIETY. THE Bible-Society intelligence, we need not say, is always valuable and important. ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. Besides the current Number of the Anti-Slavery Reporter, No. 62, our readers will find affixed a Supplement to No.61, containing several important papers, and the Society's Address to the electors and people of the United Kingdom, strongly urging them to give their vote or countenance to no parliamentary candidate who will not unequivocally pledge himself to advocate the utter abolition of slavery. We need not repeat how heartily we concur in this suggestion. We conscientiously think that this question ought to constitute one of the chief features of the approaching ordeal. Catholic emancipation is gone by; and many other important questions will take care of themselves by exciting sectional feelings and party zeal; but this simple cause of truth, humanity, and religion, against sordid solidly-compacted interest, needs many zealous and disinterested advocates, otherwise another parliament will commence and end, as unhappily the last has done, without one decisive step towards the extinction of the abomination. And will the British public, will true Christians especially, permit this without an effort to prevent it? REPORT OF THE PEACE SOCIETY. We are not members of the Peace Society but as Christians we are firm friends to the principles of peace, and we have thought it but justice to the society to allow it to speak for itself; and the detail of its benevolent proceedings cannot fail to prove interesting to our readers, even though, like ourselves, they should not be prepared to maintain with the society, the utter unlawfulness of every species of military proceeding. IRISH SOCIETY. The Society's interesting appeal (alluded to p. 448) has arrived in time for the present Number. |