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upon these subjects. I am glad, however, you go with me. If ever one individual may be justified in speaking ill of another, I think in this case it must be allowable. He has pierced me through with sorrow upon sorrow; and now he adds insult and contumely. If there be a worthless fellow in this world, that fellow is Glosenfane."

Though uttered for my own ear alone, these remarks were heard by Dr. Shoveller. Excited as he had been in argument, and still more annoyed by the sudden silence imposed on him through the entry of Mr. Singleton, he was just ripe for explosion. He rose, when his friend's name was mentioned, and as if to give his short spare figure more importance, lifted himself on his toes, and looked hard at the last speaker. Mr. Singleton, unaware of the meaning of this movement, rose also, as if instinctively, and smiled on his opponent.

"Glosenfane," said the doctor, in a shrill, petulant tone, "is a friend of mine."

"I am sorry for it," replied Mr. Singleton," he is no friend of mine."

The doctor's eyes dilated, and as he stood on tip-toe, with lips apart, and drawn down at the corners, he looked very like an inquisitive bantam, measuring the prowess of his feathered foe. "He shall not be maligned, sir," said he, "and I must consider that you owe me an apology."

"You shall have it," my dear sir, said Mr. Singleton, in a tone of conciliation-" so far as you are concerned, I am sorry I should have used any expression calculated to give pain; but you are at perfect liberty to tell Mr. Glosenfane that I regard him as altogether wanting, not only in the amenities and courtesies of life, but as sadly deficient in right feeling and common honesty, to say nothing of Christian principle."

Perhaps nothing is so easily made as an apology. It may be nothing, anything, or everything. We do not undertake to decide to which category it should be referred in the present case; but if it did not satisfy the doctor, it at least silenced him; and he took his leave of Mr. Singleton and ourselves, not long after, with an astonishing appearance of cordiality.

Mr. Singleton then opened out his plans at length; and it was arranged, much to our real regret, that Emma should leave us in

about ten days' time, to reside in future-there is always a pleasant contingency in the "future" of a young lady with her uncle on a living to which he had just been inducted, with every prospect of comfort and usefulness. As we have no wish to describe at any length the painful hours of parting, we shall here anticipate the scene by saying all we mean to say about it, which is just this-that it actually took place at the appointed time, and that we hope by and by to hear again of our beloved Emma.

'The doctor," said I, when Mr. Singleton had left us, "has just dropped into the niche we had prepared for him. We wanted an illustration of the theory of thick sowing, and he has furnished it. But the knowledge with which his mind is filled has, I fear, choked and made unfruitful the better seed that might have flourished there. We shall have him turning Puseyite like the rest."

"Never," said my wife, "never-he laughs at all religion." "Well, we shall see."

"We shall."

And

pray what thinks the reader?

(To be continued.)

H. R. E.

THE DARK SIDE OF INFIDELITY.

A few days since, on a visit to the Strangers' Hospital, I met with a Scotchman, of respectable connexions, a sailor who had left an American ship. He was sitting on the bed somewhat poorly. As soon as I opened the door he thus attacked me, “You are the man I wish to see. I'll give you a tickler."

"What do you intend doing with me? I hope you don't mean to knock me down?"

"By argument, sir, that is all. I'm an Owenite," he continued, “I have heard Owen reason down eleven clergymen in one night."

"They were greatly to be pitied then; but he did not reason God out of the world I suppose?"

"Now look here," said he, "how could there be light before the sun was created? How could God create something out of nothing?"

Having received a satisfactory reply to these interrogations, he paused and looked very inquiringly.

I saw it was time to ply him with "the sword of the Spirit,”and accordingly gave him a thrust from the Psalms :-"The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; " and another from the Apostle, "There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts." I followed up the blows with passages from the law, and from the gospel, closing with an urgent invitation to come to Christ by faith and repentance Taking my arm, with a changed countenance and tearful eye, he said, "I will be honest, sir: since I became an Atheist I have not slept well. I left some tracts with him, and commending him and the others to God, bade him good morning.

Again we met. He had been drinking brandy, I asked him why he drank. "To drown my feelings," was his reply. It only rendered him tenfold more miserable. By former dissipation he had well nigh ruined his constitution, and he could not bear the burning history of his life, revealed as it was by the words he had heard in the hospital. His potations, instead of easing his mental agony, only changed it into horror. He thought himself surrounded with ministers of vengeance. "They will cut off my head; they have made ready. They mean to put me into the guillotine!" were his painful exclamations.

I saw him once more. He had in his hand two sheets of paper and a pen. He hurried past, crying, "They will have me, they are determined."

I have not seen him again, but learned that he had shipped on board a vessel for New Orleans. He may have jumped overboard before this, as others have done.

He had a splendid education. His parents live in Scotland, and were members of the Presbyterian church. He assured me that he had never seen, or felt so much depravity in all his life before, as he had since he had become an Owenite. Let Owen answer for the sins of his blinded disciples. "Let every man bear his own burden." I have often heard it said, that sailors are never Atheists, but this is not the fact.

E.E.A.

FOLLOW PEACE.

DEAR SIR,-At the present time, when so many states are embroiled in domestic or foreign wars, we have great reason for devout gratitude to God, that England is exempt from the scourge. In the following paper with which I opened a discussion on the question-" Is War under any circumstances justifiable?"-the subject is, perhaps, treated with sufficient originality to secure for the essay, admission to your pacific pages; if so, it is much at your service. Yours,

PAX.

Before attempting a solution of this important question, let us endeavor to determine its exact meaning. How are we to define the term "War ;" and what is meant by the epithet “justifiable?” Dr. Johnson, (on the authority of Raleigh,) defines the leading ideas of War to be Authority, Force and Resistance.

Somewhat amplifying this definition of War, then, we may describe it to be physical force opposed to physical resistance, and acting under some authority out of, and superior to, itself. By thus understanding the word, we might get rid of a very difficult question-the right of resistance or defence in cases of individual attack. As in such instances neither the aggressor, nor the party attacked, act under any other authority but that of their own feelings, one important element is wanting; and, consequently, no act of warfare, strictly speaking, is committed.

If, again, we take the term "War," in its larger sense, and apply it to all outward violence, whether organised or directed by any superior power or not, we may fairly evade the most important part of our argument, inasmuch as outward violence does not always imply that malice aforethought, which constitutes the very soul and spirit of war, as commonly understood. An Irishman is said, with some justice, often to knock down his friend out of sheer love and goodwill; and even in national wars, all outward civilities and courtesies between the contending parties are scrupulously observed, and neither officers nor men cherish any real ill-will towards their opponents.

In the latter case it may be said, that the contending armies referred to, are merely the machinery of war; that the war spirit,

T

which is what we mean by war, emanates from a higher source; and that the rival powers who originate that war are really, and in heart and soul, at enmity the one with the other.

Now, absurd as this idea of fighting by proxy must appear to all thinking minds, it seems to be the only principle upon which the quarrels of nations can be explained. For it is certainly more absurd to suppose that any mortal hatred can exist between the combatants-between men who have never before seen each other; men often of the same nation, and oftener of the same religious creed ; men entirely ignorant of the principles for which they are contending, and who, if they know the cause of quarrel, have no means of forming a correct opinion upon it. We must therefore, I think, of two absurdities, choose the least, and allow that war is the development of a spirit of envy, anger, or revenge, conducted upon certain principles systematized under that conveniently ambiguous phrase" the Law of Nations."

Passing over the absurdity of war, let us now consider whether it is under any circumstances justifiable. By "justifiable,” we mean "defensible by law or reason."

Now, with all due deference to Reason, we think with Bishop Horne, that it was made to learn, and not to teach; to be ruled, and not to legislate. And this opinion we believe to be confirmed by history and experience. What was reasonable under feudalism, is not reasonable under our present constitution. What is reasonable to the barbarian in the present day, is not reasonable to the civilized or the christianized man. Reason even on one side of the Atlantic, and reason on the other, are two very different things; and yet this reason is to regulate the machinery of war!

True it is that Reason, schooled by Revelation, is a safe guide; but abstract reason is no guide at all; or, at all events, such a guide as will be followed only by those who place the pupil above the master; the servant above the mistress; the child above the parent, or the people above the government.

If then we have shewn that Reason is not a safe guide in regulating our duty with regard to war, we have nothing left by which to determine whether it is justifiable, but an appeal to law.

Now, law is a large term; but as we are all met here to-night, upon the common ground of Christianity, it may, perhaps, be

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