passions of hatred and revenge sowed the seeds of a new and bitter harvest of evil. These new Apostles of the Gospel were represented as disturbers; the possessors of temporal power were made to believe that they had an interest in their ruin; they were denounced as enemies of all authority; and nothing was left unattempted to extinguish the spark of life which they had re-lighted in the Church. Oh, Mezendol, Cabriére, Vassi! places too celebrated in the history of crime, why can I not draw the veil of oblivion over your names, with the harrowing recollections they recall? And thou, that wilt go down to the latest posterity charged with infamy and all loathly with blood, abhorred night of St. Bartholomew! whose horrors my heart dares not contemplate, whose miseries my lips refuse to utter-horrors and miseries perpetrated and inflicted on behalf of a religion of love, and in the name of a God of peace!why can I not blot out thy name for ever with my tears, and propitiate towards thy authors the great Avenger of wickedness?

At length, baptized in blood, but supported

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from on high, the Reformation was extended and established; the maxims of the Gospel, no longer an unknown and forbidden book, were generally promulgated; Christianity once more raised its head; and, as on the banks of Jordan, the answer to those who inquired, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" was-" LOVE GOD AND YOUR NEIGHBOUR: THIS DO, AND YE SHALL LIVE." Well had it been for the Reformation, if, true to their principles, its champions-as, after the cry which they had raised against persecution and intolerance, and after the declarations which they had solemnly published in favour of freedom of examination and research, they might reasonably have been expected to do had always, inscribed upon its banners, "LOVE TO GOD AND MAN.",

גי

But, what is there that the perversity of man fails to corrupt? The activity of the human mind, sharpened by the Reformation, was presently directed to unworthy objects. Disputes which had been forgotten from the earliest ages of Christianity, were eagerly revived; pains were taken to draw the line

between different opinions, all distinctions between which ought to have been effaced; men appeared anxious to promote divisions, rather than the love and glory of God; and the same ostentation and arrogance in religion, the same exclusive and intolerant disposition, against which they had raised their standard, appeared among the Reformers themselves.

In vain has experience proved to demonstration, what evils are the fruit of the exclusive spirit of fanaticism. It is a melancholy but an undeniable fact, that in modern times, in the nineteenth century, in which we are living, there are those who scruple not to proclaim, in opposition to Christ's words, "Love God-love thy neighbour THIS DO, AND THOU SHALT LIVE," that it is not enough to love God and one's neighbour that it is not enough to confess Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of mankind, the only Author of salvation;-who assert that some further conditions are required, of which Jesus never speaks, and which his Apostles never exacted; and that, upon pain of not being acknowledged as a disciple of Christ-upon

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pain of becoming an object of hatred, suspicion, and intrigue upon pain of being arraigned as an infidel, before all the world! What-with grief I again ask-What is become of the Gospel? What is become of charity? What is become of the love of God? Alas! for ages those divine affections have been sacrificed, under the pretext of piety, upon altars ostentatiously erected by the carnal passions of mankind. The heart of the true Christian is pained to see the spirit of the Gospel forgotten, and the Reformation perverted.--No: a Religion of charity, a religion of salvation and of peace, ought not to be announced in a manner calculated to become a source of division and animosity. No: that most sweet and engaging law of love ought never to be converted into a ground for raising the standard of intolerance and exclusion. No: not in the name of the meek, forgiving Jesus, ought men to make a presumptuous boast of their own perfection,-to shut the gate of heaven, and throw open the abyss for others. Do'we find that He-the mild Saviour→→ the tender friend of man-had always upon his

gracious lips menaces and terms of condemnation? No: it was not to alarm and terrify, that he promulgated the word of life. Instead of deterring mankind by displaying the avenging Scourge and the fetters of slavery, he raised their hopes he infused into them the love of virtue— he spoke to them as to excellent and immortal creatures: 'My yoke is easy, and my burthen is light," were his encouraging words: "Love one another, as I have loved you:"-" Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." No! the covenant of pardoning mercy ought not to be proclaimed with maledictions and anathemas, or accompanied by the sound of thunder, and the clanking of the chains of the damned. Methinks, at sight of a proceeding so monstrous, I behold Jesus, the Lamb of God, stooping from the highest heaven, and hear him repeat that benignant reproof which he addressed to his Apostles, when they required him to call down fire from heaven to consume the inhospitable inhabitants of the Samaritan village: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of; it is not thus that men can be