justly, the decease of the Princess Charlotte more affecting than any event of a similar kind with which we are acquainted. The rank and personal attractions of her Royal Highness, her recent marriage, and all the touching incidents connected with her life and death, have cast around her tomb a melancholy interest beyond what could have been expected to arise from a merely national calamity. But, even independently of those parts of this dispensation of Providence which more immediately apply to the feelings and the heart, and which, perhaps, have been a principal cause of the national sympathy so feelingly exhibited on the occasion, we think, that, upon the inost fair and unexaggerated estimate, the loss of such a Princess, at such a season, is far beyond the measure of a common deprivation. In a moral point of view, we had augured much benefit to the country from the future influence of those virtues which have endeared the youthful pair to the nation at large; and had hoped, that, under such exalted patronage, a taste for retired and domestic pleasures, and all the amenities of a truly rational, and peaceful,, and charitable life, might have become even fashionable in the higher ranks of the British court.

In a political point of view also, we looked forward with great hopes to the future government of a Queen who, in many very important respects, bade fair to dignify and adorn the throne of her ances tors. The inconveniences, also, which may eventually arise with respect to the succession to the Crown (though they appear to have been greatly magnified) are by no means unimportant. In a family so numerous as the royal household, many of whom are not be. yond the middle stages of life, it is not probable that the country will ever require to be indebted to a foreign nation for a king to sway its sceptre; yet, on the other hand,

a succession of short reigns, or even a long minority, is no inconsiderable evil; to say nothing of the keen disappointment of exchanging such a certainty as appeared before us, for an uncertainty, which, though it may be eventually overruled by Providence for good, cannot fail in the mean time to afflict the mind of every wise and disin terested lover of his country. We certainly do not ever expect to see Red and White Roses disputing the throne of Great Britain the laws and usages of the nation are too well settled and recognised to render such ominous forebodings at all probable; -and we think much that has been said respecting the difficulties attending the succession, at once visionary and mischievous yet, after all, the calamity is doubtless most serious in its aspect; and, if we were specifically called upon to conjecture one of the probable causes of this Divine infliction, we should scarcely hesitate to enumerate the late public discontents and symptoms of dis. affection to the government of the country. At a time when the nation had risen to the height of its splendour, and when the return of universal peace called for the most grateful acknowledgments for the Divine mercies, we perceived on every side a rebellious murmur, which, not content with venting itself upon a few real or supposed grievances, went to the full and awful length of desiring a complete revolution in the government of the country. Perhaps some of those misguided men, who "would not have a king to reign over them,” may be induced, by the general terror expressed at the very apprehension (certainly a most groundless apprehension) of such a calamity, to consider at once the absurdity and the wickedness of their seditious machinations. Possibly these alarms of the public, with what has appeared from the press, as well as the numerous and weighty discourses which on the day of

general mourning were delivered from the pulpit, falling on minds already prepared and softened by sympathy, may create more deep and lasting reflections respecting our true duties and our solid interests, than would have occured to us during years of uninterruped prosperity. If what we have lately felt and heard shall have tended to invigorate sound and truly British principles, even the present blighting of our hopes may become the promise of a new spring to our greatness, and a blessing of no vulgar or transient magnitude.

But there is still a more important view in which a Christian observer must regard this national calamity. What a lesson has it taught us of the vanity of all earthly grandeur, and the supreme importance of securing a blissful entrance into a world where chance and change are unknown! With what new interest, if possible, has it invested every thing relating to death and to eternity!-Of what service at this moment are all the distinctions of birth, and the trappings of a court, to her whom we deplore, and who, at the Eternal Throne, can have nothing to plead but that same "Blood of Sprinkling" which was shed as much for the peasant as the prince. Arrayed in the righteousness of a Redeemer, how blessed the summons, even thus in early youth, to meet the Omniscient Judge, and to enter into the joy of our Lord! Destitute of this, how awful and irremediable the reverse! We have witnessed an event which comes home to every heart, and which we are seriously disposed to hope will not be suffered to plead in vain. If ever any national calamity called upon us" to remember our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom," it is this. To the immediate members of a court, who, enveloped with worldly fascinations, are, perhaps more than almost any other class of persons, liable to be tempted to seek their happiness CHRIST. OBSERV, No. 191.

on earth, and to forget a hereafter, this mournful scene appeals as with the voice of inspiration. If youth, or health, or the anxious love and solicitude of a parent and husband, if the tears and affections of a nation, could have saved her, she had not fallen who then shall plead exemption from a certain and speedy, and perhaps, like hers, an untimely, grave? But a few weeks since, amidst all the gay and sparkling lovers of pleasure, of grandeur, or ambition, who but would gladly have exchanged places with her who now lies lifeless in the tomb of her fathers? Alas! how soon is the phantom dissolved! Youth, and rank, and vigour were unavailing. Without notice or warning, though we would trust not without preparation; "one was taken and the other left." We looked, and all was gay and hopeful and enchanting;-in a moment the illusion vanished, and a pallid corpse only remained of all that we had so loved and envied and admired. Perhaps such an extraordinary providence, such a palpable proof of the frail and transitory nature of all earthly blessings, such a public and overwhelming appeal to our hopes and fears and sympathies, was wanted to teach us a lesson which it is the great object of the world at large to forget. We cannot easily forget this. wish we were as certain that the warning conveyed by it would not be neglected; and that the young, the gay, the thoughtless-and how much more the sick and the aged!— may be excited to serious reflection upon the most important, because the only permanent and eternal, object of human concern. Happy is it for man, amidst all the uncertainties of life, that the Blood of a Redeemer is still availing to pardon sin, and to cleanse from its impurities! Happy is it that no one, who penitently applies for mercy through faith in a crucified Saviour, shall be excluded from its enjoyment! The world

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may, and must, disappoint its votaries; its grandeur must fade; the band of death must obliterate all its glories; its highest hopes and prospects must be soon bounded by those confines which none can pass to return again, and which the present solemn event proves may be infinitely nearer than in the gaiety of youth and health we are apt to suspect. But, amidst all, it is a blessed consideration, and in fact it is the only legitimate source of true satisfacration and repose, that "the kingdom of heaven is opened to all believers ;"-a kingdom accessible to all, and beyond the power of those uncertainties which disturb earthly successions, and oftentimes in a moment snatch the crown from the expecting wearer.

It is this contrast of earth with heaven; of change and disappointment and mortality, with "glory and honour and immortality and eternal life ;" and the consequent necessity and importance of making a right choice, amidst the daily and hourly seductions to a wrong one, that we wish to impress upon our own hearts and those of our readers. We feel unwilling to leave a theme so fraught with awful monition; we would reiterate again and again, the momentous warniug, "Prepare to meet thy God!" a warning the importance of which every thing in life impresses more

deeply each succeeding hour upon our hearts; and which at this moment sounds from the royal tomb in accents which have reached the remotest corners of the land. And shall it be heard in vain? Shall we part with what was so lovely and pleasant to us as a nation-shall the voice of providence sp ak so forcibly at once to our understandings and our heartsand all in vain? Sincerely do we trust otherwise: devoutly do we hope, that He who has afflicted us, for reasons infinitely wise and merciful, may dispose our hearts to receive the solemn warning; and that every family and individual which have mourned at the tomb of our beloved and lamented Princess, may be induced to inquire more seriously than ever into the necessary preparation for an eternal change, and receive, through the death and merits of a gracious Redeemer," an abundant entrance" into that heavenly world where "mortality shall be swallowed up of life."

There were two or three other subjects of public intelligence, which we had intended to notice; but the length to which we have extended our remarks upon the present mournful topic forbids us to enter upon them in the present Number.

REV. PHILIP GURDON. SOME account of so great and eminently good a character as the late Rev. Philip Gurdon, of Assington Hall, in the county of Suffolk, seems due to the Christian world.

He was descended from a very ancient and respectable family in the county of Suffolk, being the

eldest son of the Rev. Philip Gur don, vicar of Bures St. Mary and rector of Mount Bures, in that county. He received his classical education at St. Paul's School, and was afterwards fellow of Magdalen · College, in the University of Ox-. ford. It was during his residence in this seat of learning that he first imbibed those religious views which