PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

WE have still to congratulate our readers on the happy contrast between the state of things at home and the turmoil of other nations. After three indifferent harvests; after two years' exclusion, by the tariff in the North and the blockade in the South, from our usual commerce with America; and after an almost total suspension of our staple manufacture in the cotton districts of Lancashire and its neighbourhood, the resources of the nation seem wholly unimpaired. The Chancellor of the Exchequer announces a surplus of four millions, and promises a reduction of the income-tax; which will be welcome to most of us; and of the duty on tea, which will be a boon to the poorest old woman in the almshouse.

But the horizon is not without its clouds. The insurrection in Poland is not quelled; and England and France have expressed in diplomatic form their strong disapprobation of the conduct of Russia towards her Polish subjects. France is preparing her formidable fleet, as if for immediate service; but whether she means to threaten Russia, or America, or both at once, we are uncertain. The provocation which the Federal Government is now giving both to England and France by the seizure of their vessels trading between neutral ports in Europe and Mexico, is what neither of them can long submit to. The reluctance of England to fight with America is all but invincible. This the Federals know, and they take advantage of our forbearance; but they must not calculate on the same impunity from France. Their own affairs are in a dreadful state; though her language at New York and Washington is, "I sit as a queen and shall see no sorrow.” Yet her conscription is not levied, her tax-gatherer has not shown himself, her often promised victories are not yet in her Gazette. At least, they are nowhere else.

The Prison Ministers' Bill has been read a second time in the House of Commons, and carried by a majority of thirty; in the face, as Sir George Grey and Lord Palmerston acknowledged, of "very strong feelings of objection in many quarters." We presume we must speak with respect of the debates in our House of Commons, otherwise we should be disposed to say that we never read a weaker and more inconsequent discussion. Such a measure was worthily prefaced by such a debate! The chief argument by which the Government and their supporters defended the measure was, that it was only just that Roman Catholic prisoners should be placed on the same footing with Protestants; and the Bill, the House was told, aimed at nothing more. Mr. Henley, who came to the support of Sir George Grey, with great simplicity told the House, that if the question was treated with mutual forbearance," the Roman Catholics not pressing for too much, and the other side meeting them in a fair spirit, he saw no difficulty which might not be satisfactorily overcome." Mr. Henley must know little indeed of the subject on which he spoke, if he does not know this at least: that there is not a Roman Catholic in England, certainly not a priest, who thinks that he can possibly demand too much. He is bound to demand supremacy for what he believes to be the only true Church. He feels that he would be a traitor, if he were to make a compromise. Every

gain is to him but an instalment of his rights. If this Bill should pass, he will have inserted the wedge; for the first time since the Reformation Roman Catholic priests will be supported in Protestant England at the national cost. What the next step will be Mr. Henley will soon discover. But throughout the whole debate every attempt was made to conceal the real features of this most dangerous measure. We explained in our former article that it allowed the priest to force his services upon a reluctant Roman Catholic, who might perhaps have begun to read his bible, and to be no longer willing to listen to his ghostly counsel; while, at the same time, a Protestant prisoner in the samo jail, on the pretext of belonging to some other denomination, might claim to be excused attendance upon the service in the chapel, and defy the intrusion of the chaplain into his cell. And this by the enactments of a Bill which the House were again and again assured was meant only to place the Roman Catholic prisoner on the same footing with the Protestant. The Bill was argued, too, on the ground that the Roman Catholic is now excluded from the spiritual assistance of his priest. This is not the case; no priest is ever forbidden to visit Roman Catholic prisoners. Colonel Bartellot, in seconding the amendment, asserted, that no single complaint had ever been made against the visiting magistrates by a Roman Catholic prisoner. Mr. Newdigate closed the debate in a short speech which did him the greatest honour; but he was heard with impatience, and could he have been clamoured down would not have been heard at all. He told Mr. Disraeli, "that he seemed incapable of regarding the Church as anything but a wealthy corporation, instead of the sanctuary and exponent of that Protestant and Christian truth to which the people of this country were deeply attached." He told Lord Palmerston, who talked of prejudice, "that prejudice in such questions was but a nickname for sincere opinions." And he told the House of Commons, "that the proportion of Roman Catholic criminals to the Roman Catholic population was double that of Protestant prisoners to the Protestant population." He refused to debar the Roman Catholic prisoner from Protestant teaching, both for his own sake and that of the community. "That might be prejudice, but it was a prejudice which reached wide and deep; a prejudice upon which the Constitution was founded, and by virtue of which alone her Majesty and her family were entitled to the throne. And then this feeling was flouted and spoken of with levity; and, forsooth, hon. gentlemen were so full of charity for those Roman Catholic priests (for he maintained it was not a question about the prisoners) that they were will ing to insult the loyal people of England."

Mr. Whalley would have concluded the debate, but, as the Times tells us, met with a reception such as the House of Commons has seldom given to any of its members. "He was received with a perfect storm of interruptions, which prevented a connected sentence being audible during nearly ten minutes. The clamour was distinct from the ordinary chorus of impatience, and the irritating cry was raised of 'Divide, vide, vide;' it rose and fell in regular cadences, one of these resembling the moaning of wind through a ship's cordage." Such was the dispassionate mood, such the calm judicial temper of the House, when it proceeded, as Mr. Newdigate well said, "to insult the loyal people of England," and to throw another sop to the Roman

Cerberus. Whether the Bill will pass the House of Lords, is yet to But after such a display, we may well fear the worst.

be seen.

Mr. Charles Buxton has given notice of three Resolutions on Clerical Subscription, on which he is determined, he says, to divide the House. By the first he would put an end to the subscription to the Thirtynine Articles. By the second he would do away with the unfeigned assent and consent, &c., to the book of Common Prayer. And by the third he would make the declaration to conform to the ritual alone sufficient. To the first of these proposals it is impossible to consent; it would leave the Church absolutely without any standard of doctrine. Whether all of the minor Articles demand the same implicit deference as those on doctrinal points, may be reasonably questioned. We would make very large allowance for the crotchets of good men. If, for instance, an otherwise promising candidate for Orders or for preferment thought it wrong "to punish Christian men with death," we would not on that account exclude him from the ministry. Nor if he thought it unlawful for Christian men "to wear weapons, and to serve in the wars." Provided he would be silent on these subjects in his public ministrations, it might be wiser, in the few cases in which they would occur, to bear with his eccentricities than to lose his services. There are excellent men in the ministry at this moment, who have their misgivings on both these subjects. But to demand no subscription to the great doctrinal Articles, would be to declare that the Bishop of Natal and the highest Romanizer were equally at liberty to remain amongst us. A Church thus divided against itself would soon burst asunder. We should have Bel and the Dragon acted over again in the Church of England. The second proposal stands on rather different grounds. For ourselves, we feel no great hardship in it. A book may be imperfect, ambiguous, or in some parts ill-judged, and yet in no single instance contrary to Scripture. It is a human composition, and therefore imperfect. Robert Hall uttered the noblest eulogium upon the Prayer-book which it ever received. "I believe," he said, "that the evangelical purity of its sentiments, the chastised fervour of its devotion, and the majestic simplicity of its language, have combined to place it in the very first rank of uninspired compositions." Yet Robert Hall could not have given his unfeigned assent and consent to all that it contains, even if he had not been a Baptist and an Independent. In short, the Declaration was imposed in evil times, the times of Charles II., and with the express purpose, as the Bishop of London said in his Charge, of excluding from the ministry of the Church such men as we should now be glad to welcome among us. It may safely be repealed; and since it is a stumbling stone to many, perhaps in Christian charity it ought to be removed.

But we turn from the strife of tongues and the conflict of opinions, to a scene which we hope will be again, as it has often been, a jubilee of charity and peace. The May Meetings are at hand. Upon the speakers may there rest the Spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind; and upon the vast audiences that will assemble the same Spirit of charity, with zeal for God, and earnest desires not only for intellectual enjoyment, but for lasting impressions, such as human eloquence effects only when the speaker and the listener are both alike "taught of God," and have come together in dependence on His gracious aid.

THE APOSTATE JULIAN, AND THE APOSTASY OF ROME. FIFTEEN centuries ago an illustrious Roman lay dying on the field of battle from a wound received in an engagement, fought June 26th, A.D. 363, with the Persians, at Maronga, in the neighbourhood of the river Tigris. The dying warrior, commonly known in subsequent ages as "Julian the Apostate," thus addressed his sorrowing friends, as they stood beside his couch, with the calmness of a philosopher, and the consciousness of having once known the Christian faith, which he had rejected for the allurements of paganism, and the greater charms of the mysteries of Eleusis:-" Friends and fellowsoldiers, the seasonable period of my departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness of a ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have learnt from philosophy how much the soul is more excellent than the body; and that the separation of the nobler substance should be the subject of joy rather than of affliction. I have learnt from religion, that an early death has often been the reward of piety; and I accept, as a favour of the gods, the mortal stroke that secures me from the danger of disgracing a character which has hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die without remorse as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased to reflect on the innocence of my private life; and I can affirm with confidence, that the supreme authority, that emanation of Divine power, has been preserved in my hands pure and immaculate. Detesting the corrupt and destructive maxims of despotism, I have considered the happiness of the people as the end of government. Submitting my actions to the laws of prudence, of justice, and of moderation, I have trusted the event to the care of Providence. Peace was the object of my counsels, as long as peace was consistent with the public welfare; but when the imperious voice of my country summoned

me to arms, I exposed my person to the dangers of war, with the clear fore-knowledge (which I had acquired from the art of divination) that I was destined to fall by the sword. I now offer my tribute of gratitude to the Eternal Being, who has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty of a tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow tortures of a lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst of an honourable career, a splendid and glorious departure from this world; and I hold it equally absurd, equally base, to solicit, or to decline, the stroke of fate. Thus much I have attempted to say; but my strength fails me, and I feel the approach of death."

After having said these words, and reproved the immoderate grief of his friends, the Emperor Julian entered into a metaphysical argument with Priscus and Maximus on the nature of the soul. He exhorted them not to lament the fate of a prince who in a few moments would be united with the stars; and calling for a draught of cold water, as soon as he had drank it, expired without pain in the full possession of his faculties, and a few hours after having received his wound.

It will be interesting to consider some of the salient points in the history of this remarkable man, which may be briefly stated as follows:-Nephew of Constantine, the first and greatest of the Christian emperors, his nearness to the throne made him the natural object of jealousy to his cousin Constantius, who had inherited the empire on the death of his father. Educated by his maternal relative Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, and on friendly terms with those eminent Christians, St. Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, he was admitted to the inferior offices of the ecclesiastical order, and publicly read the Holy Scriptures in the Church. During his subsequent banishment to Athens he became initiated into the bewitching mysteries of Eleusis, and then publicly renounced the religion which he had once professed to love.

On his accession to the empire, and a few weeks after he had celebrated the Christian feast of the Epiphany, he put forth a laboured apology for his apostasy, the nature of which may be properly estimated by the admission of his great defender, the historian Gibbon, who avows that the Christians had "much more to fear from his power than his arguments." He speedily granted permission to the heathen to open all their temples, and endeavoured to resuscitate and propagate Paganism, which was almost defunct, under the convenient plea, which James II. of England in similar circumstances adopted, of universal toleration.

The most remarkable act of his reign with regard to religion was his vain attempt to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. In a public epistle addressed expressly to the Jewish people, he avowed himself their Protector,—a title which charity does not