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The Emancipation bill of 1829 forbade the very things which the present bill afresh prohibits;- the like penalties and the same process of recovery was provided. The provisions of that bill have remained a dead letter to this day, and the Irish Roman Catholics have laughed to scorn alike our concessions, our securities, and our penalties. What has been will be again with a bill fashioned, or rather emasculated, like that of Lord John Russell's. Many think, that the population of Ireland being for the far greater part Romanist, and having had a long and uninterrupted succession of bishops, it is not only unwise but unjust to meddle with an order of things so long established among themselves, if not recognized by us. For ourselves, we cannot understand how we can, on this question, nationally, separate Ireland from England, and tolerate aggressions and assumptions in the former country which we protest against and forbid in the latter. If the Romanists and their so-called Protestant allies succeed in taking Ireland out of the range of the bill, we can only say that it places the Protestant Church of Ireland in such an equivocal, not to say so false a position, that it will behove her sister Church to protest against such a manifest injustice. A second probability is,―That the truly Protestant party in the House of Commons will make a vigorous effort to restore the bill to the shape in which Lord John Russell introduced it; and to make it something more than a empty parliamentary declaration against an aggression which it is assumed that England is not able to carry into effective operation. To these efforts of our christian senators, our Protestant brethren must add their prayers, and their most energetic co-operation, that the people of England may again speak their determination not to be over-ridden by a foreign and most anti-christian power, and not to be parties to a measure which may annoy Romanists, but which will not put down their assumptions and aggressions.

We must say but a word or two concerning Mr. Drummond's speech, and the storm of passion it caused

amongst the men so aptly termed by a respectable newspaper, "the members for Rome." Mr. Drummond contrived to bring into the compass of his speech some strong remarks respecting false miracles and conventual proprieties. The Irish Romanist members were roused almost to madness, and the propriety of Sir James Graham, and other half-hearted Protestants, was shocked at hearing what well educated and politically unprejudiced people too well knew to be palpable truisms. We can only say, that we think Mr. Drummond neither outstepped his right as a legislator, or his duty as a Protestant, when, on discussing the provisions of an antipapal bill, he deprecated the spread of a creed which begets and nurses such impious absurdities as the old or modern Romish miracles; or delights in the unscriptural, cruel, and foul deeds notoriously practised in monastic and conventual institutions.

ADDRESS TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF

CANTERBURY.

An admirable Address, emanating from the recent Meeting of Laymen, at Freemason's Hall, and presided over by Lord Ashley, was, on Wednesday, the 19th of March, presented by his Lordship to our venerable Primate. It was signed by 239,860 clerical and lay members of the Church of England, and embodied a strong declaration against Romish aggression, and a faithful remonstrance against the fearful heresy of Tractarianism, and a respectful entreaty that the archbishops and bishops would exert all the power of the episcopal office to avert the threatening dangers which so wide spread a movement has brought upon the Church and Protestantism of the country. The reply of the Archbishop was everything that could be anticipated from so justly revered a prelate; but his Grace evidently felt that "through the uncertainty of rubrics, and the intricacies of ecclesiastical law, power has been wanting to prevent or prohibit" "such practices and innovations in public worship as have their origin in error and superstition." Surely if

INTELLIGENCE-THE PROSPECT OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

this be so, the bishops ought to take counsel with each other, and the Church generally, as to the complete remodelling of services, rubrics, and laws, under colour of which our Tractarian perverts fight with Rome, against the Protestantism of the Church.

THE DEATH-BED OF A ROMANIST. Two remarkable instances of the practices of the Church of Rome have been most opportunely brought to light during the discussion of the measure to be adopted against its recent aggressive insult to this conntry. The first is the case of what appears to have been a base conspiracy to wring from a dying miser the longcherished bag of gold which he could not take with him to an eternal world. The instant so rich a prey was discovered to be in the possession of one who was thought to be only a dying pauper, the vultures gathered round the bed of death, eager to wrest what seemed to be the sick man's only portion for time and eternity. No one knows what passed between the priest of Rome and the spirit just lingering on the confines of earth; but the strange and infamous process by which the thousands were reluctantly signed away, and that for the education of the sex which, during a long life, had excited the antipathies of the unwilling but almost forced donor, has been brought to light, and is now before the proper authorities for judgment. Enough has been brought before the public, to make them clearly

understand that Rome is still unchanged, and that her priests haunt the houses of the living, the beds of the sick and dying, to extract from their wretched devotees all the spoil they can, in exchange for ministrations which are false and profitless, here and hereafter. God keep us, our houses, and our families, from the visits of those who affright by the false terrors of purgatorial fire, and attempt to calm the troubled soul by vain promises of vainer masses to be offered for the release of a soul far beyond the reach and help of mortality!

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THE CASE OF MISS TALBOT. Akin to the foregoing is a singular narrative, also before the public and the Court of Chancery. We refer to the case of Miss Talbot, and the strange and contradictory statement as to the nature of her residence in the convent at Taunton. Here again the parties and the object to be gained are identical. Rome is plotting for a prize of £80,000, and the attempted victim is a young girl of high family, and who, from some imperfectly explained circumstance, appears to have been abandoned by her guardians, the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, to the intrigues of priests and the inmates of a nunnery. It would be improper to say more about this matter, while the whole business is sub judice; but Englishmen may learn, from this timely revelation, what will be the constantly recurring events in families with pecuniary expectations, if ever the Church of Rome gains power and ascendancy in the land which once too well knew her malpractices to be abominable.

THE POSTURE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

The existence of the present government must be considered as simply shall arrive for its permanent distolerated until a convenient season placement. The questions the country has to prepare for, are, first, the result of a general election, which character of its successor, and then the appears to be the inevitable consequence if Lord John Russell retires from the helm.

The late attempts to form a Cabinet have led us to imagine that it is upon Lord Stanley and the Protection party that the lot of government will most probably fall; and the struggle in the elections, consequent upon such an event, will, of course, be for the greater part between that party and the supporters of free trade. In such a case, the Christian Guardian seeks not to influence a single vote its one object is, that which ought to be uppermost in the hearts and minds of all Englishmen in this crisis of their country's history. Two

deadly enemies to the welfare of Eng land are now fighting in close alliance, -Popery and infidel latitudinarianism. We have seen that the former has power to upset governments, embarrass the progress of public business, and engage a Protestant legislature weeks, if not for months, in repelling its premature, but most cunningly devised attack. We now see clearly in its results what a vast number of old-fashioned Protestants predicted would be the natural consequence of the Act of 1829, that the admission of Romanists into the legislature would prove but the commencement of a ceaseless struggle for the overthrow of Protestanism. earnestly advising our readers to prepare vigorously for the coming combat between Popery and Protestantism, we cannot use words more powerful, or more profitable for the urgencies of the times, than those written, four years since, by one now entered into rest, who then saw the working of that plot for Romish aggrandizement which has now burst in

upon us :

In

"Protestant brethren, of all denominations, there is one measure of safety which is yet in your hands-the only measure now which, humanly speaking, can save the country; it is to secure a numerical majority of Protestants in the next Parliament. *

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Say, brethren, that this shall not be! -say that no interest shall divide or divert you for a moment. Wesleyans, Independents, Baptists, Presbyterians, Churchmen, look you out in every electoral department a man whom you can trust- a godly man-a man that reverences the holy Scripture as the word of God. There are thousands of such men to be had. You do not want men of extraordinary talent; you have not had such before. On such grounds one half the men of the former House had no business there, and will only be missed by their votes. We do not want so much new legislation as the keeping by the old. We want passive resistance more than palaver; principle more than pretension; the persistency of heartfelt religion, not the never-ceasing changeableness of political libertinism. Find a resolute godly Christian of common sense business habits; put the sacred trust solemnly upon

him as a matter of prayerful devotion; in the crisis of a vital struggle send him forth with an unanimous vote to the Thermopyla of the Constitution; let him be a man of one idea-one purposeresistance to the encroachments of this threatening and freedom-crushing apostacy-determination that Protestantism shall not be extinguished, and that the fire of martyrdom shall not be rekindled ; that the right of the Protestant churches and the paramount authority of the written Word shall not be trampled on, nor the idol again set up by national hands in the holy place, from which a scripturally enlightened nation had cast it out, and kept it out for 300 years."

THE NEW BISHOP OF NOVA SCOTIA.

Our readers will be sincerely gratified to learn that Dr. Binney, the successor of Dr. Inglis in the see of Nova Scotia, is a man of the right stamp, both as regards the possession of true evangelical principles, and as admirably fitted, in other respects, for the arduous work of a colonial bishop. The consecration of this new prelate took place, on Tuesday last (March 25), at Lambeth Palace, when the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the Bishops of London, Chichester, and Oxford, performed the beautiful service of Consecration in the usual simple manner which has been customary for so long a period in the chapel of Lambeth Palace ;-a simplicity, at head-quarters, which is the Tractarians to make the services in strong contrast with the efforts of of our Reformed Church approximate as closely as possible to the histrionic ritual of Rome.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We are compelled to postpone a further notice of "Madden's Thoughts on Baptism" to a future number.

We trust to insert in our next, an article on The Communion of Saints," with especial reference to the bond of union at present existing in our Church congregations.

It has been found necessary to defer, for another month, the insertion of a further extract from "Elliott's Hora Apocalypticæ," to which a kind Contributor has drawn our attention.

LONDON: J. H. JACKSON, ISLINGTON GREEN.

THE CHRISTIAN GUARDIAN,

AND

CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE.

APRIL, 1851.

THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.

In our last number we promised a few remarks upon the above subject, which is one of no ordinary importance, whether it may be considered as affecting the honour of our Lord Jesus Christ, or as manifesting to the world that union and communion which should exist between the members of His household, the Church.

As often as we use our Common Prayer, we are all led to declare that we "believe in the Communion of Saints;"-but a life and sphere of some experience has forced the conclusion that in our own branch of the Church Catholic, the declaration of the belief is all that we can lay claim to possess. Of course this remark is limited to that peculiar meaning of the term, Communion, by which we understand that union with each other, that kindness and reciprocity of feeling, that exhibition of lowly, courteous, and friendly demeanour carried out into the active principle of words and deeds of christian love, which the Scriptures point out as the characteristics of Christ's disciples," By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."

APRIL-1850.

It is not the purpose of the present paper to touch at all upon that oneness and fellowship, either as regards communion with God, with Christ, and with the Spirit, which all true believers have in common; or that communion arising from a oneness in point of doctrine and belief;-our sole object is with that specific character of communion which should, but does not, mark the members and communicants of our Churches as members of one great loving family, redeemed by the blood of One who came to be our Elder Brother; and so to reconcile us to God, that led by one Spirit within our hearts, we might all be enabled to call Him " Abba, Father."

It should not seem therefore an unfitting theme for the pages of the "Christian Guardian," to see how far we, as members of congregations in the Church of England, at all realize the idea of being members of the redeemed family of God.

One feeling must pervade every breast upon attempting to give an answer to the question here proposed. The minister of the most united and actively laborious congregation, can

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not sincerely entertain the subject,— taking the fulness and simplicity of Scripture precept as his guide,-without at once discovering where much, if not all, is wanting, to exhibit the picture of brethren worshipping, working, and dwelling in love. He may continually see the pews beneath him, around him, and above him, filled with devout and attentive hearers, who may be ever ready with their time and purses to help forward his numerous and varied plans for charity and usefulness, at home and far off; and yet, as he sees them Sabbath after Sabbath depart from his church, does he not sometimes propose our own query to his mind, if not to his conscience,— What communion have these people with each other, and by what bond of union are they cemented in the brotherhood of christian love? It will require but a very little reflection to convince him that the response he hears to his own voice in those words of the creed, "I believe in the communion of saints," has but a partial and limited meaning. We cannot disguise the fact that the vast majority in our congregations meet and separate almost as entire strangers to each other. Some faces, or even many, may be familiar to us, and we may know the names of those around us; we may worship Sunday after Sunday together, contribute to the same religious and charitable purposes; few of the wealthiest may meet occasionally in committees for various objects';-but apart from all this, the body are as much strangers to each other, and the vital principles of christian communion, which should bind them together in living and friendly union,-as though they were people casually meeting, and who cared to know but little,

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if anything, each of the other. This is no harsh, over-drawn, or unfriendly description of the state of our Church congregations.

A glance or two around us, as we sit in our pews, or go into or out from our respective churches, will tell us how much we know of or care for our fellow worshippers. What are the causes of this strange, unscriptural condition of God's professing people, outwardly joined in one band, and under the guidance of one ministry? They may be classed under two heads, First, A want of knowledge as to the reality and nature of what christian communion was intended to be; and, Second, The influence which the world, and the principles and the practice of society, exercise upon those who profess not to be conformed to the world; and who are supposed to be members of one common body, having one Head, one hope, one way, and one eternal home.

For the first cause the ministry is in a great degree answerable. The real subject is rarely brought before our congregations, and then too frequently in vague generalities; and treated as almost altogether referring to what we have before described, as a oneness in doctrine, belief, and worship;a union, in harmoniously attending the same ministry, and in pursuing the objects usually connected with active christian congregations. The communion of believers with God, with their own hearts, is often faithfully and powerfully described; and not seldom is a beautiful picture drawn of the perfection of this communion, when we shall have exchanged earth for heaven, and are admitted to commune with uninterrupted purity and felicity with the whole company of the redeemed in glory.

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