mighty, and found in its practical operations injurious to great social and national interests.

Possibly in the gracious providence of Him whose wisdom ruleth over all, good even upon this long vexed question may result from the appalling proceedings in our Eastern empire.

Pandering to idolatry there, supporting systems opposed to the glory of God and the welfare of mankind, has been met by most terrible retribution; contempt and not respect, disloyalty, not attachment, have followed as some of the natural results of such a course.

Can we doubt what might be the results, if a system animated by such principles and motives as have distinguished certain writers in the press, and even the productions of such eminent persons as a Wiseman and a Cullen, were paramount? What the Sepoys have done is applauded by certain portions of the Roman Catholic press, or by writers in Roman Catholic journals. Is not the inference natural-mutatis mutandis-that what the Sepoys have done in India, Irish Sepoys would gladly do or see done with reference to those whose faith they abominate, and whose Government they despise ?

Are not the two cases so far parallel, that if it be unwise in the East to educate men in a system subversive of the Christian faith, subversive of moral obligations, and dangerous to Government, it must also be

unwise to educate at home those who though possessed of a purer faith than their's, are the avowed enemies of our faith, and would rejoice in the diminution of our prestige, and the ruin of our polity, whether ecclesiastical or civil?

We sincerely hope that Mr. Spooner, to whose bold and unflinching championship in the House of Commons the Protestant cause is so much indebted, will avail himself of the earliest opportunity of giving notice to move for leave to bring in a Bill for withdrawing the grant to Maynooth College.

PRIVY COUNCIL SCHOOLBOOKS; GRANTS TO ROMISH INDUSTRIAL AND REFORMATORY SCHOOLS.

Ir is asserted that in the official list of school-books issued by the Committee on Education, as suitable for use in all schools, there are no fewer than sixteen volumes, the teachings of which are decidedly Popish. In other words, that, besides the support given to Popery in Ireland, we are giving our national sanction to the teaching in England of Popish dogmas, under the delusive idea that we are merely promoting general education!

It is also asserted that, with the adroitness which has ever characterised the disciples of Loyola, Romanists are availing themselves of the reformatory movement, and that many schools and conventual establishments have been formed," ab ovo, "calculating upon the Privy Council money for their

means of support;" and that "to these the Privy Council is, as it were, their life-blood." Something on this will be found in our November number, commencing at page 153.

Our object in thus briefly grouping together these two matters is to put our readers, and the subscribers to the Protestant Association, on the qui vive, that so they may draw the attention of Members of Parliament to the subjects. They may do much good by such a course of proceeding.

Is there no Member in the House of Commons who can ask of the Prime Minister, or of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether these things be so? Whether it was intended they should be

Whether they approve of things being so? and, at the same time, to express the sense of their constituents, that things ought not to be so; and that, by the Divine blessing upon their efforts, things shall not continue to be so?

The future men and women of England ought not to be trained up at the public expense in the faith and practice of the Church of Rome.

THE EXETER HALL SERVICES. OUR November number contained remarks on the subject of open-air preaching, and the attempts made to put down those who by such means endeavoured to bring home the Gospel to the perishing multitude.

All lawful efforts which have

in view the glory of our Lord and Saviour ought to be countenanced and supported.

Eternity outweighs time, and the life of the soul is more precious than the life of the body. Hence we must ever regard the instrumentalities used for the glory of Almighty God in the salvation of sinners as of the very highest interest in the estimation of those competent to form right opinions upon such important matters.

Is it not notorious that, notwithstanding all the efforts made by the various religious bodies in England, and especially in the metropolis, there is yet a vast portion of our population living in almost heathen darkness, without Christ, without hope, and without God in the world?

So deeply has this been felt, that earnest-minded men have turned their attention to various plans for providing a remedy.

As one plan, it has been suggested that services on the Lord's-day in public buildings such as Exeter Hall might be instrumental in effecting much good.

The plan accordingly was tried. Some of the most popular divines of the Church of England, Sunday after Sunday, preached to crowded congregations in Exeter Hall. Of those who attended, a very large number consisted of the working classes.

All this, however, was but an experiment; but, as an experiment, it was found to answer; and so many points

most striking illustrations of the ingratitude of men to the bounteous Giver of all good. Nations, as such, not less than men, are called on to recognise the overruling providence of the Most High, and to be thankful for national mercies.

To keep alive feuds and animosities, merely as such, is neither wise nor Christian. But to commemorate signal national deliverances seems a bounden duty. And what, we may ask,

would have been the natural

consequences of statedly observing the Fifth of November? Why, if in every pulpit the trumpet had given no uncertain sound as to Popery, its nature and objects, the people of this country would have been far better able to have resisted, in times past, the various aggressions of that system.

If Dr. Croly's example were followed in all the churches of the land, it would be a token for much good. Great principles alone make great men and great nations. Confiding in God our ancestors confronted the Pope, and his emissaries and satellites. Mistrusting God, our statesmen have lowered the flag of our national Protestantism, and imperilled the sacred ark of our Constitution. But we will not further anticipate the arguments so ably and so forcibly urged by the Rev. Doctor

himself.

The text was :"Thou shalt have no other gods be

fore me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth

The commemoration of great events by national anniversaries is established on the fullest authority of Scripture. The Passover, the giving of the Law, the sojourn in the wilderness, were divinely

commanded to be held as memorials of national

gratitude by the Jews during the whole period of their national existence. But commemorations

of inferior events were also observed with sacred solemnity. The Feast of Purim, in gratitude for the rescue of the people under Mordecai and Esther, and the Feast of the Dedication, in gratitude for the renewal of the national worship under Judas Maccabeus, are held to this hour.

The deliverance of the English Legislature from massacre is entitled to the sacred observance of

the
country, by the same title of
national gratitude. I am fully
aware of the unsuitabless of intro-

ducing painful remembrances into
the pulpit. But, if there is a
delicacy due to man, there is the
higher claim of the acknowledg-
ment due to God. On the de-
liverance of that day may have
depended the existence of the
Church, the Constitution, the civil
liberty, and the imperial greatness
of England. The commemoration
was commanded by Act of Par-

liament, was appointed by the Crown, and was authorised by the Convocation, thus exhibiting every. sanction that can be given by English law. This sanction is binding on the ministers of the Church, and, in the obligation of that office, I proceed to the performance of that duty.

on.

The Popish plot of the year 1605 is so well known that I shall give but the outline. The accession of James the First, the son of a Popish queen, had excited strong hopes of the Royal partisanship among the Popish body in England. But James, although evidently inclined to compliance, had learned a salutary fear of breaking his pledge to Protestantism. A conspiracy was instantly formed, and his overthrow was resolved The conspirators formed connexions with the Continent, obtained the sanction of the Pope, and were promised an army by the King of Spain. But the political machinery was too slow for the impatience of men inflamed with fanaticism, and they resolved on indiscriminate massacre. In the history of modern nations there never was a scheme of blood so broad, so sudden, and so merciless. It has but one example, the massacre of the French Protestants in 1572, on St. Bartholomew's-eve.

The Commons, numbering 464, the Lords, numbering 78, the King, Queen, and Heir-apparent, assembled on the first day of the Parliamentary session, were to have been blown up-the Princess Elizabeth, a child, was to have been seized, and a Popish Government was to have been formed. Garnett, the principal of the English Jesuits, with three of his Society-Oldcorn, Gerard, and Greenway-conducted the religious ceremonial of the plot. Gerard administered the sacrament to the five principal conspirators, after they had taken the oath of secresy. Secresy was preserved for nearly three years (from the spring of 1603 to the winter of 1605). During this period they worked with indefatigable toil at

the mine under the Parliamenthouse. Often as the subject of the massacre must have been discussed in their gloomy labours, no touch of conscience seems to have awoke them to a sense of the desperate crime which they were on the point of committing-the horrible havoc of five hundred human beings blown at the moment into cinders, or lying mangled under the ruins; the misery of families, the desolation of all the chief houses of England; and the exposure of the country to invasion. Such is bigotry ; such is the frozen eye and such the iron heart of superstition— the hideous perversion of head and heart, that makes murder a merit, and treason sanctity.

On the trial of the conspirators, it was proved that Garnett had full knowledge of the treason; but he defended himself on the plea that it was revealed to him in the confessional! Such are the fallacies with which we have to deal. Nothing but the fact could make it conceivable, that a human being could have direct knowledge of intended massacre without making an effort to avert so horrible an act of blood. Thus the confessional relieves the conscience of the villain; thus the deadliest guilt may be connected with the ritual of religion. It is well worth remembering that we find no Popish protest against this principle, no Popish expression of horror for the treachery, no Popish palliative of the remorseless design. Rome actually canonised the confessor as a martyr, and Garnett, the traitor, is now a saint of Popery.

It is remarkable that the chief conspirators had been Protestants but perverted some years before to Popery. The first step over