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ordinances; instead of beginning with conversion, and going on to perfection; leaves the mind open and unguarded, to every infidel suggestion.

The preachers who either deny, or keep back the Scripture doctrine of human depravity, and original sin, do, in effect, help forward the scheme of infidelity. It is incumbent upon the English state clergy to learn, how essentially necessary is a knowledge of the extent of man's natural corruption, to the right inculcation, even of the most common moral virtues. Every evil being thus traced to its true source, the value and appropriateness of the Scripture remedies would be more fully felt; and, as with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, with the heart would every minister begin, both in urging the truth, and in enforcing the spirit of Christianity.

Another cause of the present prevailing infidelity, is stated to be the extensive circulation of irreligious and seditious publications. Infidelity and rebellion are natural companions. Bible Christians are not apt to be disturbers of civil government. Hone, in his parodies, struck, alike, at the religion and the policy of England. And so, throughout the whole mass of blasphemous and seditious publications, lately steaming their hot infection from the British press, the principles of duty to God and to temporal rulers, were indiscriminately assailed; and the book that inculcates them, was reviled and ridiculed. Christians, they found, could not be seditious, in accordance with their professed principles; and the religious part of the poor was proof against all incitements to rebellion. The business of the English infidels, therefore, was to endeavour to put down the Bible; as preparatory to their subversion of the British government.

True

Christianity has been always assailed, ever since its first promulgation; but, of late years the opposition to it has been more injurious, because it has been spread over a larger surface. It is no longer confined to men of education, and soi disant philo

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sophers; but infidelity now appeals to the passions of the populace, and labours to array the physical against the moral force of nations. The antichristian efforts of the French infidels are well known; and the contagion spread into Germany, and other parts of continental Europe; and plays, novels, scientific journals, periodical publications, and children's books, were all pressed into the service of infidelity. In England, also, sedition and irreligion have had their numerous, and most audacious advocates, from Thomas Paine down to Carlile.

Another cause of the prevailing modern infidelity, in Scotland, Mr. Ramsay states to be, the defective religious and moral education of the poor. He says: the higher classes are trained up in the fear of God; and taught good morals, and an abhorrence of impiety and revolution. We presume, this must be at home, under the parental roof; for the Scottish colleges, and higher seminaries, have not been very remarkable, of late years, for inculcating the principles and precepts of Christianity.

But, however it may be in Scotland, the higher classes in England, are not so well instructed in religion, even as the half educated poor. Very few of the sons of the English nobility and gentry, at the great academical institutions, could contend successfully, upon the elemental points of Christianity, with the children of their father's tenants and labourers, at a well conducted national school. And be it remembered, that these great academical institutions are, altogether, under the control and guidance of the established Anglican Church clergy; who find their way from these seminaries, into the high benefices and bishoprics of the establishment; or, sometimes, unite in their own persons the academic masterships and the church dignities; as, for example, Dr. Huntingford is, at once, warden of Winchester college, and lord bishop of Hereford.

The romantic fondness acquired for the civil and ecclesiastical establishments of England, at her pub

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

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lic seminaries, is often far removed from an humble and ingenuous reception of the Gospel, as the rule of faith and practice. In most of the large English schools, whether for rich or poor, religious knowledge, not duty, is the object of instruction. A momentous consideration, now, that so large, and continually increasing a portion of the British population, is under the process of elementary education; for on the character of this wide spread education, depends its good or evil. For the poor to be able universally to read, is not, necessarily, a benefit to themselves or others. The result must depend upon the way in which knowledge is acquired; upon the principles inculcated, and the habits formed, during its acquirement; and upon the ends to which it is directed.

To know, as a mere fact, who was Jesus Christ, will no more moralize, or Christianize the human soul, than to know who was Pharaoh, or Nebuchadnezzar. A religious education, the exigence of these, nay, of all times, demands. Whence, the immense importance of Sunday schools. The Christian Observer cites with approbation, some emphatic passages from a little pamphlet, lately published by the committee of the Sunday school society for Ireland. These passages fully prove, in spite of all the objections urged by the formal enemies to Sunday schools, in the English and Irish state church establishments, how much benefit these institutions have, already, actually conferred upon the population of those countries.

An education, of which religion is not the basis, only prepares the soil for the worst seed, and the growth of a poisonous crop, baneful to man, and offensive to God. A truly Christian education, such as is, generally, the substratum and the summit of Sunday school instruction, is the best possible, nay, the only guarantee, for the principles, the morals, and the good conduct, of the rising generation; amidst the many dangers, to which they are constantly exposed, in an age of free opinions, and under the in

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fluence of a licentious press, perpetually inculcating infidel notions, and a revolutionary spirit.

After examining some other causes, assigned by Mr. Ramsay, for the present alarming prevalence of infidelity and profligacy, in Britain, the Christian Observer asks the following pithy, and pertinent questions.

Have our legislative and executive bodies been altogether free from blame? Has all been done, that might have been done, in these quarters, to check the progress of infidel and immoral principles? Have new churches been built equal to the increased wants of the population; or sufficient facilities and inducements afforded for building them? Have the public patrons, of lay, and still more, of ecclesiastical preferment, been sufficiently attentive to making their appointments an active check to the prevailing evils; and particularly, by nominating to the cure of souls, such men only as have deeply at heart, the eternal interests of mankind?

Has due care been taken to rescind every public law, or regulation, that tends to demoralize the people? Are the numerical items of our customs and excise deemed of less moment than the sober and virtuous habits of the community? Is the increase of the revenue by lotteries, dram-shops, and other polluted sources, felt by our public men, to be, as it is, a curse, not a blessing to the nation? Has the sleepless vigilance of parliament contrived and enforced adequate measures, for giving the whole mass of the people a plain Christian education? or, are many of them still left, as to all preventive legislative remedies, to the unmitigated influence of infidel and other mischievous publications ? Have our poor laws, and our laws respecting various moral offences, been duly investigated, with reference to their bearing upon the principles and character of the people? But we forbear to press our queries.

The Christian Observer cites a splendid paragraph from Dr. Chalmers, in praise of the erudition of the

English church; to the justice of which we most cordially assent; because we fully believe, that, as a body, a more learned community has not appeared in Christendom, than the Anglican state clergy have shown themselves to be, ever since the blessed era of the Reformation, to the present hour. The Christian Observer adds some able remarks on the importance of a learned clergy, and on the high theological claims of the English church; in which we mainly coincide. The following passages are recommended to the attention of the serious reader.

We know of no church which has equal claims, as far as the exterior defences of religion are concerned. Nor has she rendered less assistance to the right exposition and interpretation of Scripture. Her formularies are, perhaps, the best human exposition of Scripture; exhibiting the strictest regard to truth, and the most marked spirit of moderation; an exposition, which casts debatable points into the shade, and gives the highest prominence to the undebated principles of Christianity; and, consequently, supplies a common ground, on which opposing parties may meet, and proceed forth, in the whole armour of God, to contend with the common enemies of their faith.

And if there has been, as we are bound to admit, a painful abandonment of these formularies, by many individuals; there have not been wanting, at any time, and especially now there are not wanting, a large body of churchmen, true to the spirit and temper of the illustrious parent, from whose lips they draw the lessons of life; and under whose banner they go forth to conflict with the world, the flesh, and the powers of darkness.

May the great Head of the church be graciously pleased to augment the number of these evangelical ministers in the Anglican establishment; which never more needed the services of such men, than at this trying crisis of her career.

The Christian Observer, in the midst of his eulogies upon the erudition of the church of England,