The People's Palace and the Religious World; or, Thoughts on Public Agitation against the promised Charter to the New Crystal Palace Company, and on 'Sabbath Desecration.' By a Layman. London: A. Hall, Virtue, and Co. WHOEVER the writer of this pamphlet may be, we cordially thank him for his "Thoughts.' The attempt to interfere with the promised charter of the New Crystal Palace, simply because it allows of a portion of the grounds being opened on Sunday to the visits of such as may wish or prefer then to wander in this new Hesperides, we look upon as a very mistaken act, prompted by a very mistaken zeal. Perhaps, however, a greater mistake was committed by the company in bringing the Sabbath question at all before the Premier or the public. As a private corporation, like every other private corporation, the company had and has an undoubted right to open its grounds on the Sabbath. We may lament that it should do so, and deeply regret that the institutions of religious worship should not be found sufficiently attractive to prevent the multitude from availing themselves of the liberty to visit its grounds; but we apprehend that no doubt can exist, in any right-thinking mind, as to the liberty the company would enjoy in this respect. Much and angry declamation has been used in condemnation of the company's intentions, and to prevent their obtaining the promised charter, and Dissenters, amongst others, have joined in the outcry. If these parties clamoured as loudly for the interference of law to compel the observance by the multitude of other religious institutions-if they demanded a new Act of Uniformity, a new Test Act, and the repeal of the Catholic Emancipation Bill, we could understand their principles, and appreciate their consistency. At present we are at a loss to know how they can reconcile their demands with their present position, as Christian freemen and Protestant Dissenters. But the author of this pamphlet has so clearly stated and convincingly argued the question at issue, that we may safely leave our readers with him. We are glad that this task has been undertaken by one whose reverence for Christian truth appears on every page, and whose sympathy with real religion cannot be questioned.

Emigration, in its Moral and Religious Aspects. A Sermon. By W. G. Barrett. London: A. Hall, Virtue, and Co. Pp. 16.

WE owe an apology to the author of this sermon, and to our readers, for allowing it to remain so long unnoticed. It is an earnest and thoughtful discourse, not merely in the cant terms of the day, adapted to the times,' but altogether for the times. Mr. Barrett is not content with recognising the existence, and assenting to the importance, of the present emigration movement; he would, as a Christian preacher, influence it. We wish such subjects as these were more frequently brought forward in the Christian pulpit. Mr. Barrett has well and forcibly expressed the duty of the public teacher of Christianity in relation to this and kindred topics:

Can it be right for us in the pulpit to ignore the existence of these things, and to go on preaching in the regular routine, and upon the old topics, while a new state of things is growing up around us, which we do not hesitate to recognise as one of the instrumentalities of the mediatorial dispensation-a state of things that will, in many parts of England, completely change the character and circumstances of towns, villages, and congregations? If the Christian Church is wise, if the Church of Christ is as wise as the men of this generation, it will avail itself of this resistless current, this onward flowing tide of human mind and purpose; and, like the monks that accompanied the Crusaders to the Holy Land, priest and warrior both, so will the Church send out its energetic, its intelligent men, its men of vital heat and of common sense, imbued with Christian prudence as well as Christian principle, men of tact as well as zeal, men that know human nature as well as the Bible; men that are men, and not simply ministers; and by them will be realized for God, for Christ, for the Church, and for humanity, the splendid vision of our text, and Christ's everlasting Gospel be heard, on quiet Sabbaths, amidst the hush and beauty of Colonial wildernesses.'

Moral Portraits; or, Tests of Character. By Rev. W. Leask. London: J. Blackwood. Pp. 102.

THESE are graphic and truthful sketches of several classes in the world and the Church-the Proud, the Humble, the Sluggard, the Diligent, &c. Mr. Leask always writes fluently, and very frequently with much force and elegance. These characteristics of his other writings will be found to attach to the present work.

Monthly Retrospect.

FRANCE is content.' That is the reigning fact-or, at least, phrase-of the day. She whose name among the nations is, Inconstancy-who has adored and trampled on in turns every form of conventional and personal greatness-who has passed, within the memory of one generation, through more frequent and violent changes than can be paralleled in the whole lifetime of any other nation-this unhappy victim of impulse, or restless votary of progress, is proclaimed at length content.' Wherefore this phenomenal satisfaction? Because Louis Napoleon Bonaparte has consented to add the titles of Emperor and King to his despotic power-to give the lie to history by calling himself Napoleon the Third-and to promise, though childless, a repetition of the Twelve Cæsars. Marseilles, whose republican memories are perpetuated in a national song, and Bordeaux, the first, in 1814, to hoist the white flag, have pronounced, decidedly as public fêtes and official voices can pronounce, for his assumption of the people; and Paris has given her assent by these same organs. If the unanimous concurrence of all things which, in a free country, express the will of the people, be trustworthy, France is certainly in a state of rapturous self-satisfaction. But that condition-the freedom of the people-is just the little circumstance that is awanting. Such demonstrations in London, Manchester, and Liverpool, as have been made in Paris, Marseilles, and Bordeaux, would be compatible with a considerable popular dissent-for the votes of our municipalities are not the voice of the nation, and the class who illuminate and make triumphal arches are not the people. Here, however, the dissentients would find representation through the press and public meetings. But neither of these exist in France-not only are the functionaries all flunkeys, the right of meeting is traditional, and the newspapers are mere Government gazettes. Yet must it be admitted, we fear, that the majority of Frenchmen have given themselves up to that 'pagod thing of sabre sway' who is about to crown himself their emperor, as a saviour from imaginary terrors, notwithstanding the frightful cruelties and worser insults he has inflicted on the country.

The Derbyites evidently hope to prolong their tenancy of Downingstreet by a device similar to that which has gained Louis Napoleon the Elysée. They, too, set up for the saviours of society.

'Resistance to the

encroaching current of democracy,' is the last card left to them, of the handful with which they opened the game; but they appear resolved to make much of that. Sir James Graham and Lord John Russell having, in their speeches at Carlisle and Perth, applied themselves to the defence of democratic concessions, the Government organs set up a cry of conspiracy between these chiefs-a conspiracy for the regaining of power at the expense of the constitution. Mr. Henley, President of the Board of Trade, has proved to his Oxford constituents, by historical induction, that the conservatism of our institutions is the definite principle and policy of his colleagues. Mr. Milnes has formally renounced, in Somersetshire, the hope of restored Protection-in the defence of which he enjoyed ludicrous odium.

And Mr. Hume having written one or two letters expressing distrust of Lord John, and urging to independent union among the Radicals, the aforesaid Government organs congratulate themselves on the salvation of society as already a fait accompli

The election of Lord Derby to the Chancellorship of Oxford-effected without opposition, but not without a vigorous personal protest—is probably considered a quiet coup d'etat for the salvation of ecclesiastical society. Certainly the Church is increasingly in need of some such interposition. From within and from without, her perils multiply. Dissension and scandal threaten her hourly with destruction. Week by week, the gap between Puseyite and Evangelical yawns more widely; and every now and then, some flagrant case of capitular corruption or episcopal nepotism is disinterred and blazoned forth to an indignant world. The Tractarians have lately made an addition to the sacraments of the English Church, and, consequently, the Evangelicals have a new cause of quarrel. The Rev. G. R. Prynne, of the diocese of Exeter, has thought proper to set up a confessional-or, at any rate, to practise confession-in his church. The operation of this system seems very early to have developed some of those revolting circumstances which are believed to be its ordinary results in Roman Catholic communities. An inquiry instituted and conducted by the bishop, ended in Mr. Prynne's acquittal of these incidental charges, and a virtual approval of the thing itself. Public excitement was consequently rather aggravated than quelled. A very influential and numerous meeting was held, to declare the practice of confession by Mr. Prynne contrary to the spirit and laws of his Church, and to invoke the interference of the Queen, Parliament, and Primate. One of the principal speakers at this meeting-the Rev. H. A. Greaves-has been called upon by his bishop to prosecute Mr. Prynne for his alleged offence, either before a diocesan commission or in the Court of Arches an alternative that is respectfully declined. The malcontents are bent upon appealing to Cæsar. Victorious in the person of Mr. Gorham, they determine to reach the authority that decided in his favour by a shorter and cheaper route than the ecclesiastical courts. These good Churchmen, that is, repudiate the tribunals which the Church has provided, and cry for redress to a mixed assembly, like the House of Commons, or a board of lawyers, such as the Committee of Privy Council. Disruption from the State is the goal to which this path inevitably leads. Sooner or later, the vanquished party must go out; but neither is strong enough to gain acceptance with the nation as the Church.-A month or two

since, it was discovered that a Mr. Moore, son of a late Archbishop of Canterbury, had long been in the receipt of ten thousand per annum from an important public office, the business of which he did not even profess to perform. Within the last fortnight it has come out, that the Revs. G. and R. Pretyman, sons of a Bishop of Lincoln, have absorbed between them three hundred thousand pounds of public property-chiefly, of course, from offices absolutely sinecure. Still more recently, Mr. Whiston, the publicspirited and faithful master of Rochester School, has been restored to his office; but his celebrated pamphlet is pronounced libellous, he is precluded from compensation, and forbidden to interfere again in the appropriation of the capitular revenues-an obvious admission of his damning charges, and of a desire, without the power, to crush him into silence. It wanted but the revival of Convocation to granulate and interpenetrate, so to speak, these sulphurous elements; and that the world has believed for a week Lord Derby intended. The 'Times' announced on Monday, the 19th, that it had been informed on good authority of the Premier's intention to advise that Convocation sit for business. The Chronicle' added, that its functions were to be limited to its own reconstruction. Not till Friday was the allegation distinctly denied by the ministerial journal, and then with the blundering admission that even the Primate credited the rumour. It is still believed that such was Lord Derby's intention, and that he has only thrown over his High Church friends in consequence of intended demonstrations, by clergy and laity, against the project. There is no exaggeration in the 'Examiner's' comparison of a constituent convocation to the setting up of a smithy at the gate of a powder-magazine for the repair of its hinges.

The proposed alliance of Irish Catholics and Protestant Dissenters, for the overthrow of the Establishment in that country, remains only a proposition. While we write, the Religious Equality Conference announced for the inauguration of the movement, is sitting at Dublin. We know not that any English Dissenter of note has accepted the invitation, and it is believed that the Roman Catholic bishops will hold aloof. Mr. Bright, in a comprehensive and forcible speech, delivered at Belfast, has pledged the sympathy and help of the English people for the realization of genuine equality among the different sects of religionists; but it is suspected, with too much reason, that the redistribution, rather than the secularization, of the Church revenues is the real design of the new agitation. Sir Culling Eardley has contrived to place the thing at a still greater disadvantage. As Chairman of the Protestant Alliance, he wrote from Geneva to Mr. Lucas a conspicuous member of the new movement-requesting an expression of his concurrence in the object of a deputation about to intercede with the Arch-Duke of Tuscany for the Madiais, who are suffering imprisonment solely for the offence of Bible-reading. Mr. Lucas's reply showed more of the rancour of the bigot than the cunning of the polemic. It frankly avowed that were he an absolute monarch, he would repress,' by the most likely means, the beginnings of heresy in his dominions. Co-operation among men of different opinions for a common practical object, is possible, and indirectly beneficial; but not for the realization of a principle about which there is antipodal disagreement.

The autumnal sitting of the Congregational Union has been held during

the third week of the past month, at Bradford. Of the resolutions adopted, we need notice, in this place, only one-that relating to the opening of the new Crystal Palace on Sunday. Had the Union contented itself with the adoption of a remonstrance with the public, or the directors of the company, it would have done nothing inconsistent with its denominational principles. But the resolution to memorialize the Government, we deem a very grave inconsistency, and a very mischievous act. It either denies the religious character of the day, or it invokes the enforcement by law of a religious duty. It is a feeble evasion to say that it is a governmental desecration of the day which is deprecated. Government will have no agency in the matter. It is simply asked to afford to a great public enterprise the facility of a charter. The Congregational Union objects, because that enterprise involves a violation of what it calls the sanctity of the Christian Sabbath 'clearly a religious objection, taken by a religious body, and pressed upon a third party which has no religious character. This inconsistency was perceived by, and pressed by, Dr. Massie, Mr. Morley, and some other members of the Union; and the resolution was, therefore, not a unanimous one. Nevertheless, it has all the weight which the character of the body from which it emanates can give it; and will infallibly tend to deepen the popular conception of Dissenters and Churchmen as alike resolute in imposing their notions of Sabbath observance upon the nation—as alike hostile to the mental independence, and even personal freedom of the masses.

The committee of the Sunday School Union, we regret to find, have also taken this objectionable course. The Evangelical portion of the Church clergy have been sometime in motion. We are probably, therefore, about to have another religious agitation. It can hardly be expected, that the non-religious public will remain quiescent. The place for consistent Nonconformists to take in the controversy is, to our minds, clear, though not congenial. We must continue to affirm that it is the duty of rulers to disregard differences of religious opinion among subjects; and that those have a civil right to Sunday recreations who see no harm in them. We can take that course with cheerfulness as well as decision. We have no apprehensions that the opening of a pleasure-ground on a Sunday will cause religion and morality to perish from the land-for we believe that to the religious the allurement will be feeble; and that to the irreligious, it will minister less of evil than of good.

P.S. Since the above has been in type, we have read a long and claborate letter by Mr. John Bright, M.P., to the editor of the 'Freeman's Journal,' enunciating a scheme for the settlement of the Irish Church question. He proposes that the whole of the ecclesiastical revenues of Ireland lapse to a commission, who shall be authorized to divide one-third among the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics; the other twothirds to be applied to education, or other secular purposes. As all parliamentary grants would cease, the Presbyterians, he says, would have little more than they now receive-the Episcopalians as much as they could fairly employ--and the Catholics sufficient to set up in every parish a home for the priest. This, he thinks, would deliver the State from further embarrassment, and society from perpetual animosities. We have neither space nor time to comment on so grave a proposition.