profess to seek, not by any civil laws, nor by the State, nor by man at all, but by Almighty God himself. The phrase religious equality" is, for us, about the most fortunate that these dissenters could have chosen, because it comprises the sum and substance of the whole dispute between themselves and the Church, and induces us to discuss and point out the religious inequalities and evils which rest upon the dissenters, and of which they can never rid themselves but in God's own appointed way, namely, by renouncing dissent altogether and uniting themselves with the Church of Christ. To band themselves together and to agitate the country, and to memorialize the State and petition the Houses of Parliament, for the purpose of procuring religious equality," is the absurdest thing in the world. If they were not already in possession of it, the government or legislature might grant them political equality; but to raise them to "religious equality," or to render them essential assistance in obtaining it, is not only far beyond all the wisdom, power, and enactments of the British Government, but absolutely beyond the united power and decrees of all the governments on earth. The Church is the Church, and will ever remain so, in spite of all the enactments and all the rage and malice of all the powers on earth; nay, the very "gates of hell shall never prevail against it" to destroy it, for Christ has promised to be" with it always, even unto the end of the world," to uphold and preserve it. And dissent being highly offensive in the sight of God, and strongly condemned in his holy Word, it is essentially unequal with the Church, and nothing can make it otherwise; nor can its adherents ever obtain or be put in possession of " religious equality," except by abandoning dissent and entering the Church as aforesaid. The Government may, as it did in the time of the dissenting rebellion, oppress and pillage and persecute and banish the Church, and put the dissenters in possession of her churches and her endowments, and exalt them to the highest position imaginable in the country, but after all they would be utterly destitute of religious equality." They might be established, and enriched, and favoured, and their teachers might call themselves bishops, and wear mitres and lawn sleeves, and take their seats in the House of Lords, but notwithstanding all this they would be dissenters still, and as far off as ever from " religious equality." In the reign of King Charles I. the dissenters gained not merely political equality but political ascendency in the kingdom, and after encompassing the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury, murdering the

king, persecuting and robbing and banishing the clergy, numbers of whom they imprisoned and murdered, they had the whole power of the government and the kingdom in their own hands, and them made it a crime to be a Churchman, and visited that pretended crime with fine and imprisonment. Many will be ready to say, well, surely, the Church was inferior to dissent then, and that dissenters then enjoyed more than “religious equality; but no; the dissenters were still destitute of " religious equality," and in that respect were as far inferior to Churchmen as they are at present; and thus they must ever remain while they continue dissenters. Thus have we briefly but clearly shown that these sectaries cannot possibly obtain "religious equality," save only by the abandonment of their respective sins of heresy and schism, and becoming members of the churches of England and Ireland, which are the ancient churches of these islands, and therein the sole representatives of the Catholic Church of Christ. Such being the case, how vain is it for the dissenters to seek by agitation and clamour that "religious equality which they can never by any possibility obtain. The naked truth of the matter is, as we have before said, that "religious equality is the plausible pretence, while political ascendency is the real object sought."

THE STYLE OF PREACHING FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO. The following short extract is from an original manuscript sermon "On the Rich Man and Lazarus," dated 1432, and affords a specimen of the style of preaching at that time:-" Heres now cristen peple that hau riches and vnderstondes in this world lokes how straitly god vndernymmes yow! Takes ensample of this riche man that was biried in hell. that ye may delyuer yow fro pyne Bes not to gretly holdande yf that ye wil plese god? Gyues of youre godes to the nedeful that in tyme of nede ye may be holpen thorgh hom Lokes that ye know the pore with god ffor god knowes hem forsoothe Takes ensample of this riche man⚫ that crist spekes of and nemes not his nome ffor witte ye wel that for hys yuel dedes god ne helde no tale of his nome for that mannes name men nemen gladly that a man loues wel! But [h] is nome crist saide noyt for he had done no gode dedes whi that god shule loue hym

IMAGE WORSHIP.-The objections which Protestants urge against the worship of images, as taught and practised in the Church of Rome, are principally these four :

1. That it is expressly forbid in the Second Commandment, without any limitation or exception.

2. That the Heathens are, in Scripture,

charged with idolatry in the worship of images.

3. That it is a violation of the Divine Majesty, crimen læsæ Majestatis, to represent God by a material and senseless image or picture.

4. That a visible object of worship, though considered only as a representation, is expressly contrary to the law of Moses, and especially to the spiritual nature of the Christian worship.

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THE CHURCH IN UPPER CANADA.-The Editor of the Christian Guardian states that thirty years after the passing of the Constitutional Act, that is, in the year 1821, there were but ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-ONE Communicants of the Church of England in Upper Canada? If this be true, then the present number of the communicants of that Church in this Province, contrasted with that small amount proves an increase in the members of her communion scarcely paralleled in the annals of any Church. At the present moment, there are not less than TEN THOUSAND communicants of the Church of England in Upper Canada; so that in seventeen years, if such was her real position in 1821, they have increased more than fifty-fold! Ordinary calculators affirm that to double our number every ten years, were a wholesome evidence of increase; but that in less than twice ten years we should be enabled to witness a fifty-fold augmentation, is far beyond what the most sanguine usually anticipate. Assuming, then, the data furnished by the Christian Guardian to be correct, we ask, do facts prove that the Church of England is a declining Church in this province, that it is one of whose future progress we are to despair,-one which ought to be abandoned as fruitless and unprofitable? A glance at the statistical tables we have, from time to time, published in our columns, will shew that in several single parishes in this Province there are now a greater number of communicants than were ascribed to the whole of Upper Canada in 1821; yes, even in places, which in that year, were not furnished with a Clergyman, and consequently did not report any communicants at all. But we are not so disingenuous as to take the literal benefit of this argument: we deny the correctness of the premises, although, in doing so, the conclusion drawn should, in an inverse ratio, be unfavourable to ourselves. We deny that in 1821, there were only 181 communicants of the Church of England in Upper Canada; and we deny that the Report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel stated that to be their amount! It merely published the number as reported; and where no reports were received, a blank was placed opposite the name of the parish or mission. Moreover, it was not the custom to report the whole number of communicants within any given charge, but the greatest

number at any one time; a mode of reporting which would by no means convey an accurate statement of the full strength of that particular communion. On the contrary, we know of many instances in which the whole number in one year, often more than doubles the greatest number at one time. We have said that the Church of England in this Province numbers now at least 10,000 communicants; and we have to add, that were clergymen of that Church planted throughout the country, wheresoever they are needed and desired, that number would, in a very few years, be increased three or four fold.- From The Church, published at Cobourg, Upper Canada.

DISSENTING CONSCIENCES. Our readers will have heard or seen accounts of the imprisonment of a Mr. James, virtually for not fulfilling duties which he had undertaken as churchwarden of the parish of Llanelly. Mr. James is a dissenter, a member of a dissenting congregation of the Independent or Brownist denomination, and pleads that his conscience would not allow him to fulfil duties which he had engaged to perform; but if he be so conscientious a man, why did he accept of the office of churchwarden, the duties of which, if he be as conscientious as he pretends, he knew and felt he could not conscientiously fulfil. Mr. Rees, the teacher of the congregation to which Mr. James belongs, states, "that it had been the uniform custom of the parish to elect for its churchwardens a churchman, who is officially styled the vicar's warden, and a dissenter, to represent and protect the interests of the dissenters." This develops the real character of the whole business, and shows most clearly what sort of consciences the dissenters keep and talk so much about. The duties of a churchwarden, as the "conscientious" know perfectly well, are not "to protect the interests of the dissenters," but to protect the interests of the Church. We repeat the dissenters know this-they know that every churchwarden is solemnly sworn, or which is the same, made solemnly to declare in the church, in the presence of God, that he will protect the interests of the Church. And if, as is now generally the case, the dissenters, in the prosecution of their interests, should oppose the interests of the Church, it is the bounden duty of a churchwarden to oppose them, and thus to fulfil the obligations of his oath or solemn declaration. But that any man who is really a conscientious dissenter can conscientiously fulfil the duties of churchwarden, is utterly impossible; and it is equally impossible for any dissenting churchwarden to be ignorant of this, because on entering upon his office his duties are clearly laid before him, and he is required to declare, with all possible solemnity, that he will faithfully perform them, and his not thus faithfully performing them is an act of

palpable perjury, for which he ought to be indicted. In the present case Mr. James is put into prison, virtually for not performing his duties, and his excuse is that he could not conscientiously perform them; and he says he is "a prisoner for conscience sake;" but in the name of everything that is Christian, that is consistent, that is reasonable, that is moral, nay, that has common decency about it, why did he solemnly swear or declare that he would execute the duties of churchwarden, which he now says he cannot conscientiously perform? If he were conscientious in declaring that he would perform those duties, he cannot be now conscientious in refusing to perform them; or if he be now conscientious in refusing to perform them, he could not be conscientious in declaring or swearing that he would faithfully perform them. This is the plain and common-sense view of the matter, and places Mr. James, and every dissenter similarly circumstanced, in a dilemma from which they cannot extricate themselves. And in making so much noise about so scandalous a business, the dissenters are only proclaiming their own shame, and making it evident, beyond all manner of doubt, that their talk about their consciences is the most arrant hypocrisy ever resorted to.

We may

talk of the perjury of the papists, but where, we ask, is there anything to surpass such conduct as this on the part of dissenters? Alas, alas, what times we live in, and how grievously is religion wounded in the house of her professed friends! We have reason to pray continually, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," and especially from an evil conscience.

THE POPISH INQUISITION.-When the Inquisition was thrown open in 1820, by orders of the Cortes of Madrid, twenty-one prisoners were found in it, not one of whom knew the name of the city in which he was; some had been confined three years, and some a longer period, and not one of them knew perfectly the nature of the crime of which he was accused. One of those prisoners was condemned, and was to have suffered on the following day. His punishment was death by the pendulum. The victim is fastened in a grove upon a table, suspended above him is a pendulum, the edge of which is sharp, and so constructed as to become longer at every movement. The wretched victim sees it swinging to and fro above, till it begins to cut, and it cuts on till life is extinct. In the year 1820, by a Court Ecclesiastical, constituted by papal authority, and directed by the priests of Rome, this dreadful engine of fiendish cruelty, was employed to destroy human be. ings for presuming to think for themselves; and yet within sixteen years, we are gravely told, that this is the most mild and tolerant of christian communities, and we are deemed the most illiberal of men, because we hesitate ere we can acquiesce.

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AN ESTABLISHED CHURCH.-A Church established upon Christian principles, is this; that it provides an edifice sufficiently spacious for the assembling of the people in every parish; that it provides a spot for the interment of the dead; that it provides a priest, or teacher of religion, to officiate in the edifice, to go to the houses of the inhabitants, to administer comfort to the distressed, to counsel the wayward, to teach the children their duty towards God, their parents, and their country; to perform the duties of marrying, baptizing, and burying, and, particularly, to initiate children in the first principles of religion and morality; and to cause them to communicate, that is to say, by an outward act of theirs, to become members of the spiritual Church of Christ; all which things are to be provided for by those who are the proprietors of the houses and the lands of the parish; and, when so provided, are to be deemed the property or the uses belonging to the poorest man in the parish, as well as to the richest.---Cobbett.

LIVING FAITH.-There is a general faith which all that be christened, as well good as evil, have, *** but they have not the right Christian Faith,-that their own sins by Christ's redemption, be pardoned and forgiven; that themselves by Christ, be delivered from God's wrath and be made his be loved children and heirs of his kingdom to come.-Archbishop Cranmer.

EFFECTIVE PREACHING." In 1104, when Henry I. was in Normandy, a prelate named Serlo preached so eloquently against the fashion of wearing long hair, that the monarch was moved to tears; and taking advantage of the impression he had produced, the enthusiastic prelate whipped a pair of scissors out of his sleeves, and cropped the whole congregation." Such a preacher is very much needed at the present day for some of our young gentlemen who perambulate the streets of London, with most unscriptural heads (1. Cor. 11. 14.) Why do not the Churchrate Abolition Society, take them in hand, for it must surely be a sore grievance to their "tender consciences."

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.-One day in which there happened a tremendous storm of lightning and thunder, as Archbishop Leighton was going from Glasgow to Dumblain, he was descried, when at a considerable distance, by two men of bad character. They had not courage to rob him, but wishing to fall on some method of extorting money from him, one of them presently said, "I will lay down by the way side as if I were dead, and you shall inform the Archbishop that I was killed by the lightning, and beg money of him to bury me." When the Archbishop came up the infamous wretch told him this fabricated story, and the holy, unsuspicious man believing it, sympathised with the survivor, gave him money, and proceeded on