Russia, which is her duty, because it is her interest; and, besides, M. de Warren says that we deserve it. Our egoism is so great, that France, who claims the monopoly of selfishness, is determined to deprive us of all the stock we have in hand: therefore, our egoism and India are to go together. Russia will not be equal to the great achievement single-handed; but, as we have just intimated, she is to acquire the aid of France by giving her own share of Poland to Prussia and Austria, in order to induce the two latter powers to abandon the Rhine to the French, and by guaranteeing the possession of Egypt to the latter as a necessary addition to the security of Algeria ! And this is the man whose gall rises at the idea of English wickedness, as displayed in seizing upon property over which England has no claim. With him, to establish a British empire in India-to propagate the true faith there-and to manumit certain nations from the thraldom in which they have been long held, are execrable enormities. But to rob Germany of the Rhine, and Egypt of her possession, in order to facilitate the up-heavings of French ambition, are acts estimable in themselves, and worthy a divine blessing. The hypocrisy is too bare: after all, the man is merely imbecile.

In conclusion, M. de Warren entertains a lurking suspicion that Russia may not be so very ready to accept the French alliance which he is so very ready to offer. But what of that? The object of the writer is still the same. If he cannot injure England by a Russo-French alliance, he will injure Russia, and England too, by a fraternization between ourselves and the French, whereby we may be deluded, and the Czar be made to let his beard grow with intensity of vexation. On our parts, the terms upon which we are to be politically cheated are the sacrifice of the right of search; the official acknowledgment of French sovereignty in Algeria; and the surrender of Malta and the Ionian Isles, in order to ensure to the French the absolute empire of the Mediterranean! It is really giving you English the benefit of our alliance dirt cheap! Such is the substance of M. de Warren's opinions upon this trivial subject, expressed with a jaunty air of assumed simplicity, which cannot, however, conceal the impudence that lurks beneath it. It is a terrible sacrifice upon our part (says he); but we are rather disposed to like you still more disposed to have what we like-and you will find us excellent friends, if we are only permitted to have our own way; and easily led, when you leaves us to act as we please. But here we pause. A voice more potential than that of France or Russia forbids us extending our own limits beyond their present term in view. Nor is it necessary that we should.

VOL. XVII.I

We have, we hope, given a tolerable idea to our readers of the contents of a book treating upon religion and society in India. Of its writer we can only say, in conclusion, that with all his talents, all his agreeable qualities, and, doubtless, his many virtues, he has sins of vanity and ingratitude whose enormity buries beneath it the better portion of his character. He came uninvited to our shores; was only one degree removed from penury and famine; was treated roughly by the crowd, but yet was taken by an English hand, and through English patronage raised to comfort-nay, opulence. In return for this, and while professing some admiration for our country, her people, and her institutions, he does his little best to wound the hand which fed him when hungered, and clothed him when naked. It was even thus that, in the days of the old fabulist, the honest woodman, Albion, one frosty night, by the side of his cottage door, picked up a glittering serpent, half dead with cold and hunger. Touched with his condition, he put the brilliant stranger into his bosom to recover warmth and life. To both, through the hospitable woodman's means, was the snake restored. And as the reptile prepared to glide forth again to his native home, he turned upon his benefactor, and stung the breast that had warmed his venom with his vigour. Now, the name of this reptile was de Warren.

ART. V.-The Bishop of Exeter's Pastoral Letter to the Clergy of his Diocese.

2. Difficulties of a Young Clergyman in times of Division. London: Seeleys. 1844.

THE history of the past is the history of human nature in detail. It is either the record of tribes as distinct branches of the great family of man, of the contentions of separate classes, or of some one prevailing passion-some one peculiar development of humanity in action amongst the masses of society, characterizing distinct eras, and marking the successive steps by which man has arrived at the condition, both spiritual and intellectual, in which we find him at the present day. The leading events of history are each to be regarded as having placed mankind in positions in advance of the past, from which it was impossible for them to recede; which opened to them prospects theretofore unknown; and from whose results they have gathered, as they proceeded, fresh strength and energy for the increasing exigencies of their onward progress. Thus, the transition of power from the east to the west-the subjugation of the enervated Roman by his barbarous brother of the north-the ultimate civilization of the

conqueror, by the gradual acquirement of the habits and knowledge of the conquered-the crusades of Christendom against the infidel-the revival of learning, with all its adjuncts-the Reformation, and the like-are each, in their kind, examples of the facts on which the mind may rest in tracing the progress of man, through the journey of ages, to the final fulfilment and consummation of the purpose of his creation. Though much to deplore and much to mourn for-much to admire and much to instruct-will ever be found in the individual scenes which make up the great drama of the world's events, yet, for our greater profit, it is with the connexion of these events one with another, their ascertained results and their evident tendencies as a whole, that we have to deal, rather than with the isolated interests of any one in particular; and it is in remembering this that we would endeavour to judge of the present, or the future, by the past.

The period at which we have arrived, it is clear, is no longer one of small warfares-the strivings of particular interests one with another, occupying the attention and absorbing the energies of the many in the selfish struggles of the few. It is one wherein great principles are brought into opposition, in contending for which every man has a stake at issue, and an interest dear to himself impelling him to action. It is no longer a contest between privileged classes, for a preponderance of power carried on in perfect indifference to the amount of suffering and misery which their quarrel inflicted upon the masses of society; but an array of class against class, opposed in the maintenance of what each believes to be absolutely necessary to its very existence, and bringing into antagonism, in the conflict, all that has ever been developed of error, against all that has ever been revealed of divine truth. It is indeed an age wherein the passions and interests of mankind are no longer exhibited in detail: all the developments are of humanity at large; and the results, whatever they may be, will be of such a nature as to leave no man unaffected, however humble his position in the scale of society.

If we take another view of the present, and endeavour to ascertain, by the experience of the past, how far man has arrived on his way to that goal where this dispensation must end and another commence, there are facts on every hand to assist us in the enquiry. Civilization seems to have approached its utmost limits, and man the boundary which separates him from the perfect intelligence of Deity: almost all that can be attained seems to have been acquired; and we are daily witnessing the accumulated knowledge of every age actively applied in the

operations of one. We know full well that it is presumptuous to specify a period wherein all that the Church longs for, as to be accomplished in the coming of the Lord, shall be realized; for "of that day and that hour knoweth no man-no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father;" but it is not presumptuous to enquire, by the aid of those signs which are everywhere revealed in Scripture, what may be the spiritual season in which we find ourselves?-whether the darkness is such as to portend the near approach of a glorious dawn?whether the condition of helplessness is such that, human effort and energy being unavailingly exhausted, we may confidently look for the manifestation of the mighty hand of God? In different forms, these enquiries, it is plain, are agitating the minds and hearts of men. What are to be the results of all that is now witnessed is a question propounded in various shapes, according to the several hopes, views, and modes of thought which influence those who ask it. The next great movement or period in the history of man is looked for with intense interest. It will solve, as many imagine, the problem-whether there are any latent powers of the human mind, yet unexercised, to be called into action-whether there are any sources of benefit and enjoyment, yet undiscovered, to be revealed to the world— whether the experience of the past has left anything to be unfolded, or the attainments of knowledge and science anything to be learned in the future? Some boldly contend that the period is near when the great volume which comprises the history of this dispensation, receiving its final record, shall be closed, and the voice of the mighty angel shall be heard, who is to "swear by Him that liveth for ever and ever; who created heaven and the things that therein are; and the earth, and the things that therein are; and the sea, and the things that are therein; that time shall be no longer." Some are dreaming of an intellectual cycle, whose termination we are fast approaching, and whose revolution, again commencing, is to involve in its progress the decadence of the nations that now are civilized, and the bringing into an existence of mental eminence and high intelligence the nations that are not whilst many assert that man is only emerging from the bondage and ignorance of childhood into the condition of riper ages; that he is but feeling in himself the consciousness of that increasing energy and power-the strivings of that giant strength of knowledge, which assure for him, in their complete development, a deliverance from past servitudes, and the extinction of every evil that has heretofore afflicted humanity. Those who thus think are contemplating a future, not far distant, wherein man

shall overcome, at his will, every obstacle opposed to the establishment of an universal social happiness. Their favourite phrase is "the destiny of man"-a destiny which they truly declare to be one of good, and not of evil; whose accomplishment is to consist in the conversion of every power and capacity, hitherto employed in the infliction of suffering, to their legiti mate purposes in the generation of mutual blessing and benefit. The holders of this doctrine are by far the most formidable class with which the Church will have to contend in her final testimony to the truth of God, however visionary this doctrine may at present seem. They are gradually gaining disciples from every rank in society; their views, advocated with the greatest ability, are the more subtle, that they contain continual reference to facts which cannot be disputed, and bear a witness to truths for which the Church has testified even unto blood; whilst the deadly error that they involve is so enfolded in metaphysical sophisms that it is very difficult to detect it. This nascent philosophy, increasing daily in vigour and influence, it is almost needless to say, is one of the numerous offspring of the French Revolution, distinguished from that which preceded and helped to engender this terrible event in the different character of its scepticism, the greater severity of its morals, and the grander though more visionary results which it hopes to accomplish. The poison that it contains is, however, more deadly because it is less palpable-the fascination greater, because, in its exposition of existing evils, it has exchanged the sarcastic philippics of heartless misanthropy for the language of pity and benevolence. The philosophy of Voltaire, and the men who thought with him, disgusted every rational mind, even though not religiously opposed to it, by the unblushing licentiousness of its results, and the sad but practical commentary it received in the acts of the revolutionists. Their scepticism consisted in a total disbelief of all the facts recorded in the Scriptures, and an undisguised contempt for all the doctrines of divine revelation. In these respects, the views of the new school are widely different; there is nothing to startle and alarm, but everything at first to attract in the philanthropic objects which are proposed; whilst the scepticism is not in the denial, but (a far more dangerous thing, we confess) in the perversion of the facts of Scripture: not in the rejection of the doctrines, but in such interpretations as reduce them to a level with heathen fables, or render them subsidiary to systems which they can never legitimately support. Thus, only such portions of the divine word are considered to be of authority as can be made, by perversion, available to the maintenance of favourite theories; whilst faith in that which is revealed as necessary to salvation