the amount, I believe, of about fifty men, being Romanists, were accustomed to be marched to mass at this very chapel. I have this fact from the captain of that detachment, and therefore I am perfectly safe in making this statement. The officer, who usually accompanied them, waited upon the captain, and asked his counsel under these circumstances. The captain said, "Make it a point to be with your men; and if anything transpire, or if anything be said, that they ought not to witness or to hear, march them out." Accordingly, the men went as usual to mass; and high mass was celebrated with more than ordinary splendour, and prayer for O'Connell was offered up; and then the leading priest stood up at the altar, and began a harangue about Ireland's wrongs, and Ireland's woes, and got as far, I am told, as to say, that O'Connell, had he his due, would be king of Ireland. And, just at this juncture, when all was hushed and breathless attention, up started the British officer, and said, "Attention-face about-march;" and with slow, steady, measured tread-no very melodious music, or cheering to the ears of the astonished priest and of the confounded congregation, out walked the soldiers and proceeded to their barracks. Sir, this is a little specimen of what Rome is beginning to do in England. We used to bless ourselves, that the channel was between us and old Ireland; but you may depend upon it, there are things going forward on this side of the channel, which are almost as extravagant as anything on the other side. It is a fact, which I can prove on incontestible evidence, that a poor Romanist, who dares to read his Bible, and to avow his faith in that Bible, in the face of the mummeries of Rome, has his life in danger in England, even as in Ireland. I have a Romanist, at this moment, employed as one of the subordinate officers in my Church, whose life has been attempted two several times, but it has always been providentially preserved; and this, for no reason whatever, than that he dared to follow his conscience rather than his priest, and to have Christ instead of antichrist to reign over him.

And as Romanism is thus appearing with bolder front amongst us, so is she appearing with more monstrous and unblushing superstition. She is too wise and too wary, to unmask more of her hideous features than she thinks the Protestant mind will bear; and it is a sad indication that the Protestant mind is becoming vitiated and perverted, that Rome will dare to unmask so much as she does. What are we to think of the monstrous way in which the idolatrous wor

ship of the Virgin Mary is again showing itself, with such unblushing effrontery? What are we to think of the modern miracle wrought by Mary, which a priest of the Church of Rome declares to be ascribable to her prevailing intercession-even that a set of British senators gave over their right to a set of law judges, whose verdict might have been anticipated? that this is all owing to an infatuation, thrust upon the minds of Protestant rulers and senators, through the prevalent intercession of the Virgin Mary? Why, really I think, in the calendar of Popish miracles this deserves to stand as the most miraculous of all. But what are we to think of the credulity and the prostration of an assembled congregation, who, when this miracle is announced, and they are bid to adore Mary, fall prostrate, the whole multitude, upon the ground, to offer adoration and thanksgiving to a poor mortal, that was saved as entirely through the blood of Him, that after the flesh she gave birth to, as you or I? I say it, Sir, with all firmness, whilst with all reverence. I respect her, and "call her blessed," as the mother of the flesh of the human nature of my Lord; but she herself said, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." Mary is in heaven, through that one Saviour, and His one intercession, as much as the lowliest, humblest penitent that ever came nigh to God; and Mary, could she speak to her poor infatuated votaries, would speak to them with tears of agony, intreating them not to deify a creature, and dethrone the Creator; for it is little better. Yes, yes; they have hidden the blessed Babe in the arms of his mother, and Jesu's glory is shrouded often in the glories, the idolatrous glories, ascribed to His mother.

Christian friends, there are further grounds why we should be active, and at our posts, at this juncture. If our Protestant Associations and machinery become disbanded, if they get into such a condition that they will not be in working order, and prepared for action, when the time of need arrives, I wish to know what machinery is there, to meet an emergency in Protestant affairs. Not our Conservative Societies; they are, for the most part, tied and bound to the present administration, whatever they may carry: I speak advisedly. Not our associations of a political character, of any kind. Alas! in the House of Commons, though we have a few faithful and good men, among whom stand foremost in the front of the battle my Lord Ashley and Mr. Plumptre-alas! how few they are!-there are parties enough springing up in wild collision. There is the great

Conservative party; the half-extinguished Whig party; the Chartist and extreme Radical party; the Romish party; and "Young England," to crown the whole, with its fopperies and its follies. But, my Christian friends, when we look for a PROTESTANT PARTY; when we look for a party that a Wilberforce once so nobly headed-a man who counted political place and political influence but as dust in the balance, when compared with influence for the truth, influence for humanity, influence for Christ; when we look for the party which was once led on by him, and which formed such an antagonist to every party, that would betray the truth, and sacrifice principle-a party so compact, and so well organized, that whenever the balance trembled between right and wrong, they were prepared, whether the balance were held by friend or foe, to throw themselves into the scale of right; when we look for such a party in the House of Commons, alas! how small it is, and sometimes, I fear, how disunited! My christian friends, an election is coming on; it cannot be far distant. The period of the present Parliament's existence is hastening to a close; and whilst some are combining to oppose corn laws, and others to uphold them, whilst some are combining for the seven points of the Charter, and others are treating the combination with contempt, whilst some are only anxious to keep in the Conservative party, and others only are eager to thrust them out of power, that they may succeed to their places,--whilst men are thus combining and uniting, for their various secular and secondary, and transient purposes, shall not the faithful people of God unite and be as one man, that they may endeavour to add to the faithful Protestant party, that will stand by their Bible, their Church, their Queen and their God, in the face of truckling expediency, as well as of open hostility and rebellion? Our question, my Christian friends, if question we put—and by letter the quietest and most retired clergyman may put a question-our question to candidates for our votes let it not be, 'Will you support this Administration, or will you oppose that Administration?'-let it not be, Will you vote for the corn laws, or will you vote against them?'— but let it be, Will you stand by the Protestant Constitution, that our martyred forefathers have handed down to us? will you oppose the man, whether professed friend or open foe, who endeavours to mutilate and mangle its fair proportions, already lacerated and torn so fearfully? will you take up as your watchword—Not one concession more to Rome, not one step further down the precipice of concession ? "will you put party, and

self-interest, and place, and pelf, and the favour of the great, and the frown of the hostile, all under your feet, and dare to fear your God alone, and to seek His smile, and steer by the chart of His eternal truth, and say, We cannot compromise our principles to please man or devil, or the whole universe we must please GOD, and do that which is right in his sight?'

And, Christian friends, this is all the more needful, because of the lull and the calm, that has come over the face of the lately troubled deep, which seemed heaving from its very abysses, and threatening some fearful convulsion. I believe, that there is more to be feared often in the treacherous calm, than in the awakening storm. For you may depend upon it, Jesuits are not asleep; Rome is not at peace, though she seems to say 'peace.' You may depend upon it, the agitators for Rome in Ireland would not be so tranquil, but that there is some concession in prospect; they see far a-head, and we Protestant mariners do not keep a sufficient look-out. You may depend upon it, there are storms for us gathering in the horizon; and the storm to us, is the calm and the sunshine to them. You may depend upon it, that there will be concessions made to Ireland; if the right-minded in this country do not lift up their voice as one man, and say 'We will have no more concessions,' assuredly, concessions will be made. And are we to be blinded by men's names? are we to be lulled into tranquillity, because they are professed friends, who betray us? No; give me the open enemy, rather than the treacherous friend; give me the high priest's servant, that smites the Saviour on the face, rather than the Iscariot, that " dips his hand with Him in the dish, and lifts up his heel against Him." If men, professing to uphold our Church and State, will tamper with the interests of the Church of Ireland, and talk of giving her over to Popery, or putting Popery on a level with her, I say, whatever be their names, or whatever be the mask of friendship which they wear, with them we may have peace, but with their principles and measures we can have none-none whatever.

My Christian friends, the clergy of the Church of Ireland, at this moment, have serious apprehensions, that five or six years will not elapse, before, as an establishment, the Church of Ireland will cease; and if the progress of events be such in the next five years, as it has been in the last ten, I do not see that their apprehensions are in the least exaggerated. But shall it be so? We have a Bench of Bishops, thank God, amongst whom there is not one avowed Tractarian,

and as a body they have stood nobly by the truth as it is in our Church, crippled though they are in many ways that we do not understand, and without the power the laity fancy they have and we ought to judge with great leniency our spiritual rulers, and pray for them, and uphold them, and not be rash to censure and discourage them. I do trust, that our Bench of Bishops will not forget their forefathers, who in the days of King James II. walked fearlessly to the Tower, rather than concede the rights of Protestantism. I trust, that, led on by the two venerable Primates, they would wait upon any Administration, of whatever political creed, who would go to swamp the Establishment of Ireland, and say 'My lords and gentlemen, it is not, you will remember, the United Churches, but the United Church of England and Ireland; we are one, and we stand or we fall together; discard the sister Establishment, and in doing so you discard ours; if you dare encounter the peril and the hazard of the terrific experiment of dissevering the Church and the State, do it, but we will fall or we will survive together.' That would be a noble part for the Church of England to act; and that part, we trust, she will be prepared to act. We are not going to give over our brethren in Ireland to the tender mercies of the Papacy. We are not going to let the faithful, fearless men, who are so nobly carrying on the battle of the Reformation there, say 'Our stronger brethren in England forgat us in the hour of our danger.' No, no. And whatever were the faults of the Irish Establishment in former days, however "the fathers ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge," I am bold to say, that the English clergy would do well to learn a lesson from the Irish at this moment; for whilst we alas! have a stream of clergymen and young candidates for the ministry going over to Rome, they have a stream of Romish priests and laymen coming into the Irish Protestant Church. Surely it ought to suggest to our reverend brethren on this side the Channel, that that antagonist mode of ministration, from which they recoil with such sensitive horror, must be, after all, the wholesomest and the best; since, while we, who are content with simple defensive warfare, are losing from our ranks, they who carry on an offensive warfare, are winning continually from the ranks of their foes.

I would that the clergy of the Church of England would look well to it, and see whether they ought not to imitate their brethren in Ireland, and begin to treat Popery as the old Reformers treated it; not in

the way of a controversial ministration, which would be unwholesome for our own people, but setting forth the bright foreground of evangelical truth, by contrasting it with the dark back-ground of Popish superstition and perversion. In this way can a faithful minister of the Church preach justification by faith in Christ; preach on good works, as the necessary evidence of a sinner's faith, and yet valueless for such a sinner's acceptance with God; preach on baptism, as the sign and symbol of regeneration; preach on the Lord's supper, as a blessed, lively and significant source of aliment to the believing soul; preach on any one cardinal truth, that he must bring before his flock in constant reiteration, and not have occasion to advert to the antagonist error, with which Rome has darkened that cardinal truth? And thus, without a controversial tone of ministry, he may be continually fortifying and establishing the minds of his people, so that they will regard Romanism with that instinctive horror, that used to characterise an Englishman. For an Englishman, wherever you met him, used to be startled at the name of Popery; and our very children thought Popery a bugbear, and would be almost frightened in the dark, if the name of the Pope was sounded in their ears. Alas! alas! it has no terrors any longer; and instead of the Pope being regarded with such antipathy by Englishmen, there are those, I am sorry to say, who begin to speak of him as our forsaken father, to whom we ought to return. One is our Father, even GOD; and "one is our Master, even Christ; " we know none else, and none else will we serve or acknowledge.

But, my Christian friends, it is time that I should give you some of the cheering and encouraging, as well as some of the discouraging aspects of the times.

And first of all, to do justice to the present Administration-and glad should I be to speak solely and simply in the language of approval of the measures of "the powers that be"-their appointments to the English Episcopal Bench, and still more their appointments to the Irish, have been truly satisfactory and delightful. Not a Tractarian has been appointed to any post in the Church of England; and I am thankful to say, that every one of the Bishops they have appointed, has been, directly or indirectly, the known antagonist of that heresy.

This is cheering. But still more cheering I consider it to be, that Tractarianism has received a signal defeat on its own chosen battle field. We had the trumpet sounded through the land, stealthily at first

as their wont is, and more overtly afterwards as is their mode of warfare, summoning the Tractarian ranks, however motley and however mixed, to come together, to break through the precedents, and to interrupt the order and the usage of their alma mater; for these men, such sticklers for form and for order and for decency, when it suits their purpose, are the most outrageous tramplers on all form, and forget apostolical order, when that suits their purpose. But what was the result? I believe, many of our lay friends listen to what Dissenters tell them that the mass of the clergy are gone, that they are little better than Romanists in disguise; and yet in the hot-bed of the heresy, there is only found a minority of 183, to a noble majority of 882. Surely, my Christian friends, this ought to convince the laity, that their clergy in the mass are simple sound-hearted men, who stand by the Thirty-nine Articles they solemnly subscribed, and mean what they swear, when they abjure the Pope of Rome with all his superstitions. It was my privilege, to give my vote on the spirit-stirring occasion, and I can assure you, as an eye-witness of the scene and a partaker in the struggle, it was Protestant spirit, that actuated and animated the great mass of the majority; insomuch that moving as I did amidst the waving crowd, I could hear Protestant sentiments, that made my blood run the quicker in my veins, and I thanked God that there was such Protestant spirit still. And if evidence had been wanting, that it was Protestant spirit, it came forth in bold relief-I must say almost irreverently and indecorously, yet we may pardon this for the zeal that gave it birthwhen Dr. Symons, the newly-elected ViceChancellor, took the oath of abjuration, which he did very distinctly and very emphatically, in a way that could not be mistaken; when he got to the strongest portion of the oath, there burst a spontaneous cheer from the whole mass of Masters of Arts, that filled the arena of the theatre. I could not help thinking, it was the first time in my life, that ever I heard an oath cheered; but as I said, we may forgive the indecorum, for the noble testimony it gave, that the mass of the clergy, aye, and the laity of our Church, are ready to swear, that the Pope of Rome hath not, and ought not to have, any jurisdiction in this realm of England.

My Christian friends, you may depend upon it, that Tractarianism, as a body, has seen its zenith; though Tractarianism as a secret, covert band of sappers and miners, I fear, will long haunt our Church, and long try to sap the foundations of that noble ram

part, which they could not carry by storm. Already many are going over to Rome. And let Rome have her own; we do not want them; we can afford to give her a few traitors from the camp-we have true men enough left. I only pray to God, that if they are honest men, they may, like the misled, but I believe sincere-minded Sibthorp, discover the haven they sought to be so miry, that they will rejoice to shorten sail, and hasten back into the haven of the Reformed Church again. It is the worst wish that I indulge for them; my heart's desire and prayer to God is, that they may see their error, and may bitterly repent for the wounds they have inflicted on the truth, and through the truth on the Saviour that they have betrayed. I am thankful to say, that I know several clergymen, who have held Tractarian opinions, but who have wholly renounced them. I am thankful to say, that we have clergymen in our own neighbourhood and our own parish, preaching as sound and faithful evangelical doctrine, as any one perhaps in the kingdom, that once went all lengths with Tractarianism; but they were honest men, and an honest Tractarian cannot long stand midway; he must 'go to his own place"-to Rome, or he must come back, and renounce the errors that led him to the verge. And how much better, that these men should be fairly out of the vessel, than that they should serve as a kind of bridge, over which wavering and weak young men may pass, insensible of the transition, into the bosom of the apostate Church.

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But there is another animating and delightful feature in the times. The Church of England, though she is "troubled on every side, is not distressed;" though she is

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perplexed, she is not in despair;" though she is "persecuted, she is not forsaken;" though she is "cast down, she is not destroyed;" but rather, like the trampled camomile bed, she spreads the more, the more she is trodden upon. However little she may be favored or befriended by those in place or in power, the Church of England is enlarging her borders, "lengthening her cords and strenthening her stakes." If the Romanists in the last ten years have built fifty mass-houses, (and I believe I have taken an exaggerated statement,) she in the last ten years has built near six-hundred new churches. Let our friends who cheered a little while ago the six-hundred masshouses for the whole kingdom, set the fifty on the one hand, and nearly six-hundred on the other; and if they are arithmeticians enough, I will leave them to subtract, aud

But more than this: if they have built in the last ten years some thirty schools and colleges, the Church of England has built some three or four hundred daily schools. Let any man look to the appropriation of the grant made by Government, and open to the Romanists as well as to the Church of England; I am sure they would not be backward in applying for the money, if they had schools erecting, that were entitled to it, and yet if I recollect the numbers rightly, the Romanists applied for aid in building one or two schools, the Methodists one or two, the British and Foreign School Society some thirty or forty, while the Church of England had applied for and received grants for five hundred. We have been told, that the Church of England is inimical to education; we have been told, that she would keep the poor in darkness, that she may keep them in bondage; we have been told, that the want of education in the land is owing to her opposition to it. Look to deeds-not to words. Five hundred schools built, while all other denominations have built only forty or fifty-does this look as if the Church of England was heartless and cold in the cause of national education? No, sir; the Church of England is not cold, but hearty and warm, though she is opposed to an unnational system of education-a system devised in contrast to the Church it ought to support; and I trust, if there be any attempt made, (as I fear from Lord Wharncliffe's speech is by no means an unlikely thing,) to amalgamate a system of universal education, the Church of England will rise as she did in the days of Whig Administration, and compel any minister who may be in power, to arrest the progress of such a fatal measure. I would rather have the most sectarian education in the world, than the unsectarian, latitudinarian education, that so many of our modern political economists are dreaming and doting about; an education, where there is to be every religion, and therefore no religion; where there are to be morals without motives, precepts without principles, virtues without foundations. And just as well might you expect, that such an education should produce life, and light and holiness in the land,

shrivelled mummy to perform the actions of a living man. Such a dry, soulless, heartless, nerveless, powerless system never can do for Old England. Unpervaded as our masses are by true religion, little alas! as practical godliness does obtain in the country, yet in morals what country can compare with us as a whole? In godliness what country can compare with us as a whole? What country, in moral ascendancy and influence? What country, in commercial enterprise? in boundless wealth? in liberty and freedom, whatever abuses and oppressions there may sometimes be? England sits the admiration of all lands, and the envy of all her enemies. And what has made her so? Her Christian education; her Church; her Bible; and the blessing of her God upon the preservation of His own truth. And are we to be cajoled and cheated out of our principles, and out of our education? No; let the Church of England alone. The State shall not meddle with her, if the State will try to coerce her into any unhallowed amalgamation with all sects and parties. The Church of England has her own fixed, unchangeable principles: those who hold her principles, while they dissent from her discipline, she lets alone, and she wishes them God-speed, so far as they have truth; but she cannot come down from her high vantage ground, and mingle herself up with every kind of schisms and division. Her strength is in her unity, her compactness, her faithfulness to her principles; and compromise, and concession, and truckling and trimming will be her bane, and her curse and her destruction.

I must, however, ere I sit down, give you a very few suggestions, with regard to the spirit and the way, in which we should carry on our hallowed warfare.

Let us never forget, then, let us never lose sight of the great principle, that it is a religious struggle, and that it must be carried on in a holy spirit-a spirit of meekness, a spirit of watchfulness, a spirit of prayer; that we must not lean on arms of flesh," that we must not be asking what this man does, or what that man counsels, but we must look to God, follow the Captain of our salvation, and fight His battles in His own name, and with His own weapons, which are "not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds."

My Christian friends, we must further remember, that if it be a religious movement, then the conversion and rescue of our dear Romish brethren ought to be one of the great and prominent purposes of our asso