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committee congratulates the society on its wide increase and diffusion. Two hundred additional schools have, since the last meeting, been set on foot: nor have the benefits been confined to England. Ireland has also began to partieipate in them. Mr. Wilderspin has lately visited that country, where he met with a cordial and encouraging reception; and the committee are sanguine in the expectation, that before long Infant Schools may be widely diffused in Ireland, as well as in England. The society have taken under their immediate charge, and adopted as their own, the Infant School in Vincent Square, Westminster, to serve the purpose of a model school. They have also appointed Mr. Wilderspin, who formerly conducted Mr. Wilson's school in Quaker Street, Spitalfields, their travelling agent. The object of Mr. Wilderspin's visits is to assist in forming, on the most approved plan, the Infant Schools, which may be projected in any part of the country. The founders of such schools may obtain his attendance for that purpose on applying for it, and without any charge beyond that of defraying his travelling expenses. The committee are happy to add, that his exertions have hitherto been attended with uniform success. When the society met two years since, there was a balance in its favour of 9937. Since then, there has been received 2431. The expenditure of the society during the two years has been 10477. The committee therefore forcibly appeal to the friends of Infant Education, to assist them in their future exertions; and they fully believe that this appeal, after the deep interest excited in favour of this institution, will not be made in vain."

ABERDEEN AUXILIARY BIBLE SOCIETY.

At a late meeting of this society, it was moved, "That this society highly approve of the candour, patience, and whole conduct of their committee, in reference to the British and Foreign Bible Society; and as that society has now abandoned the circulation of the Apocrypha, they see no reason for a further suspension of remittances." The votes were thirty-seven for the motion to adhere to the British and Foreign Bible Society; four for the motion to separate. Eight members did not

vote.

BASLE MISSIONARY INSTITU

TION.

The deputation of the Church Missionary Society appointed to visit the Missionary Institution at Bâsle, report, that, with reference to the laws which re

gulate the admission of students into the Bâsle Institution, great caution appears to be employed. The probationer's first year is called the elementary year. After he has resided in the Institution during that period, he undergoes another examination, in order to decide whether he shall be admitted to a second year's probation. After having finished the second year he is admitted as a scholar: from this period, a course of three years commences, which are called the theological years. There are four teachers connected with the Institution, who are ministers of the Lutheran Church. With respect to discipline, the system is rather one of principles than of regulations. The great principle is, "that the heart must be constrained by the love of Christ, freely and cheerfully to devote all to Him." Each student is allowed the largest practicable sphere of Christian liberty: he is informed, "Your state here is a state of trial; the gift which Christ has given you is Christian liberty, and of this you are expected to make a right use; and we shall judge, by your use of it, how far the law of Christ has power over your heart and life.”

In reference to what is called Neology, the deputation were informed, that the description given in Mr. Rose's discourses on the "State of the Protestant Religion in Germany," is rather true of the condition of things some years ago, than at present. It was alleged, that, since the year 1815, there has been a considerable return to right sentiments, not only among the people, but also in the universities and among the clergy. Before that period, there was scarcely a university untainted by Neology. Some universities, indeed, and many clergymen, remained faithful; but Neology was the prevailing system. Now things are much improved, and a more scriptural system begins to prevail. Formerly there was little or no opposition to the prevailing false and heretical opinions: now there is an earnest and extended opposition to them. The pious ministers are yet the smaller party; but they are, through the blessing of God, growing in numbers and decision of character.

With regard to the Bâsle Institution, the deputation were assured that the committee have uniformly held the Neological system in abhorrence: they consider the inspired Scriptures to be the only foundation of Christian doctrine; all the instructions delivered in the Institution are founded on their Divine authority, and derived from their contents: every other foundation but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, as revealed in the Scriptures, they entirely disclaim.

VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

FOREIGN.

FRANCE. The chambers have been dissolved, and an ordinance issued for the election of a new house of deputies. The ministers have exerted themselves with great diligence to procure an overwhelming list of ministerial and ultraroyalist deputies; but hitherto with little success, as the elections, in those places where public opinion has most sway, have been strongly against them. They have, however, by royal prerogative, introduced no fewer than seventysix new peers, favourable to their measures, into the upper chamber, with a view to outvote its majorities, which of late have been almost the only practical check upon their obnoxious proceedings; the expression of the public sentiments being as much as possible silenced by means of the censorship. It cannot, however, surely be long, in the present state of intelligence in France, that it will be a safe or politic experiment to try how much of bigotry, civil or ecclesiastical, can be forced upon the nation by the directors of the public councils. To a religious and Protestant mind, it is deeply afflicting to observe the effect of this unwise course of policy upon the interests of Christianity, by leading the body of the people most unjustly to identify religion itself with Jesuitical priest-craft and arbitrary government.

GREECE AND TURKEY.-A most signal and complete victory has been gained, by the British, French, and Russian fleets, over the combined Turkish and Egyptian squadron, in the harbour of Navarino, the ancient Pylos. The engagement took place on the 20th of October, under the chief command of Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, and ended in the almost total destruction of the enemy's fleet. The allied commanders-Admirals Codrington of the British, Heiden of the Russian, and De Rigny of the French squadrons, having learned that Ibrahim Pacha, in violation of his agreement, was carrying on a brutal war of extermination among the Greeks-moored in the barbour of Navarino, with a view to renew and enforce the negociation. Some shots having been fired by the Turks, a general engagement soon commenced; the result of which was, that of the whole TurcoEgyptian fleet, amounting, it is said, including the smaller vessels, to seventy

in number, only a few small ships escaped; all the others being wrecked, burned, sunk, or driven on shore. The loss of lives on the part of the Turks, we regret to say, is characterised by Admiral Codrington as " immense.' We grieve to add, that it was very great also on the part of the allies; seventyfive British and forty-three French being killed, and one hundred and ninety-seven British and sixty-five French wounded. The loss on the part of the Russians is not stated. Considerable apprehensions have been entertained for the safety of the European residents in Constantinople, and other parts of Turkey; but, as it now appears, without foundation, as the intelligence at length received from Constantinople shews that the Turkish government had not been excited to any act of violence by the news of this irreparable defeat. We trust that this victory will be found to have been eminently favourable to the interests of Christianity and humanity, by putting an end to the fearful atrocities which for several years have devastated Greece, and laying a foundation for a state of civil and religious freedom and stability.

DOMESTIC.

We deeply lament to state, that while our arms have been so honourably and humanely-for we will not, where the effusion of human blood, even in a just and necessary war, is concerned, say brilliantly-engaged in defending the liberties of the Greeks in the East, our own high court of admiralty has been rivetting, on a large class of our fellow-subjects in the West, a far heavier chain than even Turkish despotism had ever forged for its unhappy Christian slaves. Our readers will anticipate that we allude to the decision in the case of the slave Grace, who, after being allowedly free in England, had been enticed back to the West-India colonies, where her owner reclaims her as a slave, and is upheld, by the decision of Lord Stowell, in the claim. This decision, which has already been acted upon in other cases, consigns to interminable slavery every unhappy individual similarly circumstanced. The child of a White planter, by a slave woman, brought to England in infancy, educated with tenderness, accustomed to

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DEATH, CHARACTER, AND WRITINGS OF MR. S. M. WARING. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. ON Wednesday, the 19th of last September, the above-mentioned highly re. spectable and amiable gentleman, taking an occasional ride in a two-wheeled carriage with a pupil who was driving him, and who survives to lament his loss, was carried away by an ungovernable horse at full speed; and having thrown himself out, as it is supposed, backward from the vehicle to escape the danger, was killed on the spot. The suddenness of the event -though suddenness applies in its proper sense only to the death of the unprepared -precludes any notice of its immediate circumstances, except to state, that the particular motive which had prompted him to accompany his pupil in his ride, was the amiable design of winning him from an over-addiction to the coachman's art, which has proved in its effects so injurious to the habits and morals of many young men of rank and property, by com plying for once with his ruling passion, whilst he insinuated his admonitions against it. A firm though friendly disclaimer from the first of such an intrusion upon youthful education would, perhaps, bave been a more judicious proceeding.

This excellent young man, thus suddenly and unexpectedly summoned to his heavenly reward, was born in 1792. He was the son of Mr. J. Waring, of Alton, Hants, a member of the society of Friends, and was brought up in the strict morality and general habits which characterize that much-respected body. He was intended for trade; but, evincing a marked designa. tion for superior attainments, which his friends had the discernment to educe and to patronise, he soon became, under judicious guidance, a proficient in classical and general erudition. He went abroad at the age of twenty-nine years, in the capacity of a private tutor, and also com

pleted his own studies at the University of Geneva. From that ancient and once Protestant university-scarcely now to be so designated, except as simply not Popisk

he finally, after various other movements, returned home in 1823, untainted by the numerous and lamentable errors prevalent at Geneva, and attached to the principles of the Church of England. Of this he soon after became a member, and in his "narrower sphere," to the eye of friendly and close observation, a bright ornament. His quick announcement of this change may be given without breach of confidence, in the following extract from a private letter:-" I think it proper," he says, at the risk of telling you what you may already know, to announce my younger sister and myself as regular members of the Church of England. We received together the ordinance of baptism on the first day of the present year (1824), from the hands of our good friend I think I have had for my own part reason thankfully to acknowledge a spiritual blessing in it."

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Under the anxious suspense attending his subsequent establishment at Bath, with a view to receiving pupils into his house, for which he had but the recom mendation of his modest and unobtrusive deportment, a finished mind, and a fast integrity, he never expressed any feeling but that of an unaffected reliance on the course of an overruling Providence. His first pupil was taken from him, or rather from the afflicted and bereaved parents, by a sudden stroke of fever. His expressions at a particular moment, coming warm from his affectionate mind, which was tenderly attached to this youth, will give a further and pleasing insight into his character. "What an affecting contrast,' he writes, "was there to the sad feelings of the moment, as I approached the house of mourning, and passed by —, the place to which poor W. was heir! May he have obtained a more lasting inheritance!

The evening sun was shining in all its sweetness on the elegant mansion and the grounds; and the sheep were feeding by the calm stream that winds through them. There is an indescribable pang in these smiling accompaniments to a scene of woe, and no doubt the more bitter from their forcing on the senses 'the things which are seen, and which are temporal,' when the mind should be seeking its only stay on the unseen things which are eternal.' The beauty of the evening, however, passed away, and it was an awful night. The air became close and gloomy, and the thunder was rolling and the lightning flashing without, whilst the poor dear sufferer lay gasping in the arms of death. The lightning seemed to play round the head of the afflicted father, as he paced in the gloom about the law. Between two and three in the morning, came to the

sofa on which I had thrown myself, to tell me the struggle was over; or rather, that he had sunk away without any struggle. I confess I had cherished hope to the last, and had been secretly pleading with Him who hath the keys of death and of the invisible world, for a respite, if such might be His will."-The same letter contains a notice of a course of classical reading conducted or contemplated with his pupil, together with the following piece of information, which may be left for those whose consciences it may concern. This youth, who had been educated at a great public school, Mr. Waring continues, "assured me he had never learned a lesson His regular Sunday morning business was Catullus, Tibullus, &c. Surely no man careth for their souls!"

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About the same period, in answering some inquiries respecting his plans of education, he most judiciously observes :Among principles, none is more prominent than that of drawing out and interesting the mind of the pupil. I have had this particularly in view in the engravings, maps, &c. which I have collected abroad and in England, illustrative of ancient history and antiquities. A large print by Rossini, of that grand centre of political interest in the Roman history, the Forum Romanum (in its present state), is designed to form, with some other leading historical monuments, the decoration of my pupils' study; for which I have set apart a comfortable parlour, fitted up in parlour or library style. This last is an experiment towards the establishment of gentlemanly and parlour habits. Quiet, unperceived motives operate far more than rules and precepts. You may smile at this unintended digression on furniture, and cares, so trifling in detail, and so important in the aggregate. To be brief, my own sad experience rouses me almost to indignation against those Cartesians (sit venia verbo) in education, who make boys mere machines, unintellectual automata. Much repeating by rote I parti

cularly object to: nature would seem to have given the faculty to pies and parrots, to satirise the practice. Indeed a very ready memory of this sort must be injurious, if it spares the necessity of calling things to mind by the more intellectual concatenation of cause and effect."

It is much to the credit of our rightjudging age, that the simple recommendation of a mind in perfect agreement with the above remarks had speedily operated in succeeding years, from 1824 to 1827, in providing Mr. Waring (in addition to other offers) with his allotted number of pupils, on terms of suitable remuneration. In this pupilising age, this information and the deep regret expressed by the parents of his pupils at an event which has so unexpectedly deprived their children of the benefit of his instructions, may not be without their use as a stimulus and an encouragement for other persons similarly cireumstanced.

Previously to the catastrophe, which it is humbly hoped removed him to that rest which yet remaineth to the people of God, Mr. Waring had of late frequently urged upon his family the necessity of being always ready for that awful, though to him blessed, change. His Pastoral Hymn, in a little volume which he published, entitled "Sacred Melodies," shews how carefully he had provided for himself the best preparation, and for his friends the best consolation, in reference to an event, of all others, oftentimes the most overwhelming and mysterious.

The two following stanzas, in another
Melodies," entitled "Libera nos
of his "
Domine," from the Litany, exhibits a
beautifully appropriate prayer.
"Sweet is creation's incense, given
Back to its source, all-bounteous Heaven.
Lo, flowery vales break forth in song,
And sunny hills the strain prolong!
Whence heard we, then, the note of pain,
Or groaning elements complain?
Child of mortality, for thee,
'Tis nature's voice of sympathy.
From thine, her kindred sorrows grew;
For she has lost her Eden too.
Hark! that sigh from sea to sea!

Libera nos Domine!

Bring then the solemn harp, and share
In nature's hope, and nature's prayer.
Deep draughts of more than nature's woe;
And Thou, her Lord, for whom did flow
By all the paschal moon did see,
In shades of sad Gethsemane ;
By all that was on Calvary done,

Beneath the horror-clouded sun;

By thine ascent to heaven's high seat;
By thy thence-missioned Paraclete;
Hear, whene'er we cry to thee,
Libera nos Domine!

The following imitation, from the Ita-
lian of Petrarch,-of which language, as
well as of the French, he was a complete
master,will give a specimen of his just

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My knees are failing by the way, e'en now;
And lo, my fell pursuer is behind!
I had a Friend-with countenance how
kind!

Ineffable!-and he with help was nigh:
But he, alas, has fled.-Ah, could I find
Again that gentle hand, that cheering eye!
Yet hark! Ye weary, laden heavily,

Mine be your load, and yours my yoke of love.'

It is his voice, still speaking from on high!

O give me then the pinions of a dove! That wishes here below so long unblest At length may fly away, and be at rest."

An interesting address to the Magdalen may be extracted, for the purpose of connecting with it a biblical comment, which occurs in a note to the piece.

"Yes weep, O woman frail and fair;
Though tears that fall so fast
Amid that bright unbraided hair
Can ne'er efface the past.

Though other drops, whose power divine
Can wash thy stains away,

Must plead e'en more than tears like thine;

More holy still than they.

Had He who pardons bid thee bring
Those tears, his love to buy,
That word had ne'er unsealed the spring
That fills thy streaming eye.

Ah, 'twas not Sinai's flash that taught
That frozen fount to glow:
No-milder, mightier rays it caught;
And lo, the waters flow!

The note in part is as follows:-" It is important to remark, with reference to a prevailing and a fundamental error, that our translators have been unfortunate in conveying a very incorrect impression, by a strictly faithful verbal translation, in the words, Wherefore I say unto thee that her sins, which are many, are forgiven her, for she loved much :' as though this implied that her sins were forgiven in consideration of the fervour of her love, and the intenseness of her sorrow; whereas it appears most evident from the context, to say nothing more, that her love and her tears were the result of a sense of pardoning mercy for here implying the sign, not the cause. Christ taught the Pharisee to infer by analogy, from the case of the two debtors, which had just been related, that many sins had been forgiven her, since she loved much. See Hoogeveen, De Partie. dr. Ubi Ti non designat causam; nam charitas non est causa remissionis peccatorum, sed potius effectus. Sed servator argumentatur ex mu

lieris charitate, tanquam signo, ipsi remissa esse peccata.'

"That the mistake is not that of the ignorant alone, is proved by its conspicuous appearance in Moore's elegant verses on the subject. A popular continental poet has availed himself of the same ambiguity, to a purpose truly disgusting and abominable. Thus much, to shew that the obscurity is worth noticing; and that this is not one of the justly complained of cavils at our venerable translation. Martin's is much worse here:- C'est pourquoi je te dis que ses péchés. lui seront par

donnés.'

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Partially imitated from a sonnet of Dominico Cerasola is the following. "What dost thou, O wandering dove,

From thy home in the rock's riven

breast?

'Tis fair, but the falcon is wheeling above: Ah fly to thy sheltering nest!

To thy nest!-wand'ring dove-to thy

nest!

Frail bark, on that bright summer sea

That the breezes now curl but in sportSpread cheerly thy sail, nor, though pleasant it be,

E'er linger till safe in the port. For the port!-little bark-for the port!

Tired roe, who the hunter dost flee,

While his arrow e'en now's on the

wing

In yon deep green recess there's a fountain for thee:

Go, rest by that clear secret spring.
To the spring!-panting roe-to the
spring!

My spirit, still hovering, half blest, 'Mid shadows so fleeting and dimAh, know'st thou thy rock, and thy haven of rest,

And thy pure spring of joy?—then to
Him!

Then to Him!-flutt'ring spirit-to
Him!"

The pathos of the following tempts the memorialist still to proceed. "Plead Thou-oh plead my cause! Each self-excusing plea My trembling soul withdraws,

And flies to Thee.
Where Justice rears her throne,
Ah, who, save thee alone,
May stand, O spotless One?-
Plead thou my cause!

Ah, plead not aught of mine,
Before thine altar thrown:
Fragments-when all is thine-
All-all thy own!
Thou seest what stains they bear:
Oh since each tear, each prayer,

Hath need of pardon there,

Plead thou my cause! With lips that, dying, breathed Blessings for words of scorn;

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