But whatever uncertainty there may be in some things, there is the melancholy certainty that when St Molios arrived in Arran, the natives were benighted Heathens. He was the disciple of a man of God of apostolic character, St Columba, who, in the year 563, landed in Iona, which he had received in a gift from the King of Argyle, and which he made his chief place of residence. By making excursions himself, and by sending forth his disciples to preach the Gospel-God blessing their labours-a great and rapid change took place; for it is said that before his death, the whole of Scotland was converted to Christianity. St Molios being sent to Arran, engaged, it would appear, with ardour and success in the work of his mission. The Holy Isle, it is probable, was only a place of occasional retirement for meditation and prayer. All who have been very successful in converting souls have not only been zealous and ardent in preaching the Word, but frequent, and fervent, and instant in prayer. After devout converse with God, when they returned to the work, their faces shone, their hearts glowed, their words burned, and their tongues delighted to speak of Jesus, and to proclaim the wonders of divine love. St Columba, it would appear, came to encourage his devoted disciple; for a moss-covered cairn in the west of the Island of Arran, is pointed out as the spot where St Columba sat down with St Molios to refresh himself when travelling from place to place evangelizing its Heathen inhabitants. St Molios afterwards made Shiskin his chief residence, and there he died, at the advanced age of one hundred and twenty years.* Blessed was the change that took place when the darkness of Heathenism fled before the light of the Gospel; but the remains of a monastery lately to be seen near the landing-place in the Holy Isle, remind us that in process of time that light was greatly obscured. Scotland withstood the progress of Popery much longer than England did. The doctrines of the Gospel preached in their purity by St Columba and his disciples, and beautifully reduced to practice in the lives of these holy men, told on the understanding and the hearts of those among whom they laboured; and the successors of these pious teachers being men of kindred spirit, our blessed religion, in an outward form nearly allied to Presbyterianism, took deep root and flourished for several centuries in Scotland. It was not till the twelfth century that the usurpations of Rome were in any degree successful. Popery then began to be countenanced at Court, and, under several successive monarchs, it continued stealthily to creep in, till, having risen to power, it tore off the mask, and brought all under seeming subjection. Even then, however, the Lord had his hidden ones in our land; and soon after this we hear of the Lollards of Kyle—the forerunners of the Reformation. It would lead us much too far from our present purpose to speak of the downfal of Popery at the blessed Reformation;-of its partial rise afterwards, in the form of black, persecuting, Prelacy, when the whole land was made a scene of desolation, and the heath on the wild mountain side was often changed into a deeper purple, by the blood of the New Statistical Account. saints, shed for the Word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. Neither must we speak of the blessings of the Revolution period, and of the spread of the Gospel, till a race arose regardless of Gospel blessings, living carelessly and at ease in Zion. As little may we wait to mourn over the long reign of spiritual deadness. Let us, however, express our joy that better days have at last come. A chapter has been added to the wonderful history of the Church of our fathers, which posterity will not blush to read. But let us remember that the signs | of the times, and the more sure light of prophecy, speak of the approach of still more wonderful times, and still more wonderful events. God has already done great things for us, whereof we are glad; but if our gladness be holy joy, it will lead us to show our gratitude by being up and active in God's service; grudging no labour-sparing no arrows-girding on the whole armour of God, that in the evil day we may quit ourselves like men, being strong in the Lord and in the power of his might; so that when the shout is raised, "Babylon is fallen-is fallen-is fallen!" we may lift up our heads and rejoice with exceeding great joy. After our ejected party returned to the boat, as the evening was very fine we ventured on one haul of the dredge, that they might not be altogether deprived of the pleasure we had enjoyed. We got some more Pectens, with interesting parasites; Furus | corneus, and what was much rarer, Fusus purpureus; a little shell also that I had not got before, Rissos rubra; Exolota orbiculata of Brown; Trachus tumidus, and T. cinereus; Hiatella præcisa; Anomia undulata, and an Anomia that does not tally with any one described by my scientific friend, Professor Fleming, in his " British Animals." It comes nearest to his description of A. cylindrica, only that it is not in the least cylindrical. It has, however, the rough transverse marks like ribs. I may mention, for the sake of some, that Anomia is like a small oyster with a perforation in the under valve. rare. We brought up several crabs, one or two of which were new to me; but it is often more generally interesting to dwell on what is common than on what is The hermit crab (Pagurus Bernhardus) is common; it may be seen, by every person who makes use of his eyes, on the shore, as it is very often drifted when there is a breeze, and left by the tide on the sand. It is called hermit crab, because it takes possession of an old univalve shell, dwelling in the cavity as in a cell. In its young state, it is often to be found in a little Trochus or Silver Willie, as the children call it; and when it is full size it ensconces itself in the large roaring buckie (Buccinum undotum). The goodness and wisdom of God are seen in the instincts of animals. The hermit crab is like a little scarlet lobster, whose body and claws are defended by a strong crust, but whose hinder parts have but a thin covering. Knowing this, it thrusts its defenceless parts into the cavity of a shell, and it takes care that the shell be sufficiently large as a place of refuge for the whole hermit in the time of danger. There is a foreign species in which the spirit of the soldier is combined with the seclusiveness of the hermit. It shows ambition, and courage, SPAIN-POPERY. and pride. It may be seen contending with other free-booters on the shore for the largest shell; and, having obtained the mastery, it proudly parades, with its palace at its tail, in the presence of its unsuccessful competitors. Many naturalists have observed that there seems to be a treaty of union betwixt the hermit crab and the spotted sea anemone (Actinia maculata). I lately kept one of these pretty sea-anemones for some days in sea-water. It had fastened itself to a little fragment of a screw shell (Turritella), but its cotenant in the inside was not a hermit crab, but a pretty red annelide. Be this as it may, certain it is that, on this occasion, we found that the spotted anemone had fastened itself to the outer lip of many of the large roaring buckies brought up, and whereever there was an anemone without, there we found a hermit within. In all likelihood they in various ways aid each other. The hermit has strong claws, and while he is feasting on the prey he has caught, many spare crumbs may fall to the share of his gentle-looking companion. But soft and gentlelooking though the anemone be, she has a hundred hands, and woe to the wandering wight who comes within the reach of one of them, for all the other hands are instantly brought to its aid, and the hermit may soon find that he is more than compensated for the crumbs that fall from his own booty. Union is happiness and strength. "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended on the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore." THE LAME AND THE BLIND. The great estate must not despise the poor; SPAIN-POPERY. NO. I. NOTICES OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT. 355 WHEN one is compelled to hear so much, and so sadly, Of course we do not pretend-the reader would not thank us for the attempt to go into the complicated, and almost unintelligible civil and ecclesiastical politics of Spain, from the commencement of the present century. It would be no easy matter merely to unravel its endless parties and factions, and set them clearly before the public eye. In six short years after 1814, there were not less than twentyfive changes of ministry, and these of a sudden and serious character; while during the whole of the He works, and toils, and makes his shoulders bear-present century the country can scarcely be said to And without rich, the poor are like the blind. Let rich lend eyes-the poor his legs will frame. Thus should it be; for so the Lord assign'd, Who at the first, for mutual friendship's sake, Not all gave one, but did this difference make. Whereby, with trade, and intercourse, in space, And borrowing here, and lending there again; Such love, such truth, such kindness, should take place, That friendship with society should reign: The proverb saith, " One man is deemed none, And life is death, where men do live alone." WHITNEY. have been free from the turmoil and severities of war, internal or external. Nor would anything be gained though the task of exposition were as easy as it is arduous. All that we propose is to give a brief view of the present religious condition of Spain, drawn from Mr Rule's volume, and other sources of information, chiefly in the shape of facts; and to leave it to Christians, individually and as Churches, to consider whether, in their many and praiseworthy labours, Spain should be altogether passed over as unworthy of care-whether British Christians do not owe an important duty to the Peninsula as well as to other kingdoms of Europe. The decline of Popish influence, within its borders, particularly as a secular and political institution, should surely be regarded as a call, in Providence, to assail the Church of Rome, in its religious character, and so to turn national events to the furtherance of living Christianity. Before proceeding, however, to say anything of the present condition and prospects of Spain, it may not be uninteresting, and it will conduce to our object, to advert for a little to the past. There are few countries whose history is more full of solemn moral and religious lessons. In the Word of God there are some interesting notices of Spain. There is reason to believe that it was early colonized by the Phoenicians, the earliest and most distinguished navigators of Old Testament times, fifteen hundred years before the birth of Christ. Previous to the Trojan war, this enterprising commercial people carried on an extensive commerce with the shores of the Mediterranean, and at a later day planted colonies, both to the north and south of that great central sea, whose borders long proved the grand seat of knowledge and civilization. Hence Kittim or Cyprus, in the Mediterranean, Carthage on its south side, and Torshest or Tortepus on the Gaudalquiver, and Gades or Cadiz, belonging to the same country, on the northern border of the Mediterranean, were all colonized from Phoenicia, itself on the eastern border of the same sea. The vast extent of Phoenician commerce, and we may believe of Phoenician colonization, is no matter of doubtful conjecture, resting on remains of classical antiquity. It is graphically described by inspiration, in the 27th chapter of the Book of Ezekiel. It is only necessary to remind the reader that ancient Tyre was latterly its leading mart, and that of it it is said "Whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth," to show the importance of Phoenicia. It would seem from the same authority, that the mother country had grievously oppressed the colonies which she had planted; for in the conclusion of the 26th chapter, they are represented as rejoicing in the judgments which were destined to overtake, and which actually did overtake that proud, luxurious, and despotic kingdom. It is a curious coincidence which is marked by Gibbon, that the great objects of attraction in Spain to the Phoenicians were its gold and silver, and other valuable mines the very objects which, in the New World, were the sources of delusive gain to Spain at a later day. The Phoenician colonists miserably oppressed the natives in compelling them to labour in the mines, and untaught by her own national history, professedly Christian Spain compelled the South Americans to the most wretched unrequited toil in the mines of their own country. Was there no moral government of heaven in the punishment which has attended both crimes, in the judgments which have descended, both upon Phoenicia and Spain? Surely the guilt of the latter, after the example of the former, and with the light of Christianity, was more aggravated, and deserved a heavier infliction than the former. In the New Testament we read of Paul's purpose to visit Spain, in one of his missionary tours; but we have no evidence that he fulfilled his intention, or rather it seems pretty clear that the purpose was not realized. We have evidence, however, in ec clesiastical history, of the early and extensive reception of the Gospel in Spain. There are many pleas ing traces of the strength of its Christianity in the severity of the persecution for the truth, which it was called to endure, and which the faithful nobly sustained. Few, if any, provinces of the Roman empire were more populous, or more wealthy and prosperous, than the Peninsula. The number, strength, and riches of the Roman remains still existing in the forms of bridges, aqueducts, &c., show the high value which was attached to it, and the extent of its prosperity. The very ferocity of the invasion of the northern barbarians, and the indescribable carnage and devastation spread over its fair territory, proclaim the same. Nowhere was the irruption more terrible, for the obvious reason that nowhere was the prize more tempting. When this moral retribution on persecuting Rome-Pagan had exhausted itself, and an apostate Christianity usurped the place of the truth in Rome-Papal, a new instrument of retribution was prepared and let loose, not in barbarians from the north, but in Mohammedans from the south. The Moors of Africa crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and speedily overrun and held the sway of nine-tenths of Spain. So degenerate had the Christian Church become before, and so severely had the country suffered in the convul sions which broke up the Roman empire, that the Mohammedan rule was, in many respects an improvement on the Christian. At least the fierce followers of the Prophet of Mecca, when their government was fully established, became the friends of literature and learning. Almost all the leading towns of Spain could boast of colleges, of a large attendance | of students, and of extensive libraries with which to prosecute their studies. The Moors were at length expelled, leaving, however, many traces of their greatness behind, which survive to the present | day. In the centuries immediately preceding the Reformation of the sixteenth, faithful persecuted Frenchmen betook themselves as refugees to Spain. There were Christian communities on the Spanish, as well as the French side of the Pyrenees; and when the Reformation appeared there was a promise of evangelical fruit peculiarly encouraging, Spain seemed as if she were about to become Christian in the best sense of the word. Even the Institutes of Calvin were translated into Spanish, with an address by the translator "To all the faithful of the Spanish nation who desire the advancement of the kingdom of Christ." But Rome was aroused-she put forth her persecuting strength-the faithful gave way, and the Reforms tion was suppressed. Ever since, the name of Spain! has been unknown in Protestant Christendom. Important religious changes have taken place in other, and not distant lands; but she has remained immutable, or rather, putting away from her the light of divine truth, she has been left in deeper darkness—the very partisan and tool of Popery-the last to mitigate or abandon the most atrocious of Rome's principles and proceedings. From her na tural position, occupying the most western part of Europe, and, with the exception of one hundred miles of land, her insular and so maritime character, she SPAIN-POPERY. held a peculiarly favourable place for exerting a great influence on the New World recently discovered. She was relatively powerful among the nations of Europe at the time-far more so than now; and she did exert a powerful influence. The vast diffusion of the Spanish language in Central and South America, at the present hour, is a proof of her wide-spread influence. But, alas! an influence of what kind?an influence on the side of the detestable love of gain, and unexampled cruelty-a disgrace to the Christian name. Religiously, all her strength was given to the Beast-through her the Church of Rome laboured to repair, in the New World, the losses which she had sustained in the Old. In the righteous moral government of Heaven, Spain was no real gainer by her American colonies. Judgment overtook her crimes. She was injured at home by the false principles of political economy which she pursued abroad. She underwent a long but sure decline, doomed meanwhile to the mortification of seeing nations, once far behind, start before her in the race. At length she was deprived even of her colonies. Her vast colonial possessions are now reduced to a rule over three and a-half millions of people; and there has been no corresponding improvement in the mother country. She has continued the prey of national disorganization - a picture of dissension and weakness-an object of pity-as if doomed to speedy death. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between Spain in the days of her greatness and glory, and Spain in her present condition of helplessness and disgrace. The changes in her historical map, from enlargement to contraction-from strength to weakness, are instructive indeed. Does the reader ask what the cause of it all? The brief answer, as in other cases, must be, Popery. Not Popery alone, or in general, however, but Popery in particular-Popery after there had been an offer of evangelical truth-Popery which suppressed the Gospel at home, and Popery which then proceeded in blended covetousness and fanaticism to propagate itself over a new world, with atrocities almost unknown in the bloody history of man. It might be added-Popery which massacred one hundred and fifty thousand Protestants in the Netherlands, and by its Armada aimed an exterminating blow at Britain. These things sufficiently explain the present condition and prospects of Spain. She is given up in retribution to the very Popery which she loves so well, and for which she has made so terrible a sacrifice; and what benefit does it bring her? Let a few facts declare: Externally her Popery is still powerfuldividing opinion, not with Protestantism, but with Infidelity, extensive and often avowed. Her annual ecclesiastical revenue (which, of course, implies a multitudinous host of ecclesiastics), is equal to twelve and a-half millions sterling-more, by two millions, than the entire yearly revenue of the State. After the suppression of hundreds of convents of late years, there are still about two thousand inhabited by Here is an immense thirty-one thousand monks. ecclesiastical force-prodigious religious resources. Surely the nation must prosper, in all its relations, under so blissful a sway. What is the fact? The 357 population of Spain, though its climate and fertility The character and employments of the Spanish THE BIBLE IN SYRIA. "Bread cast upon the waters."—ECCLES. xi, 1. WHEREVER I went in Syria, I found the laity of the Greek Church anxious to obtain copies of the Bible, and not unwilling to receive publications pregnant with the statements of evangelical truth. Having taken with me a large supply, I was able to make a pretty extensive distribution throughout the country, except at the places at which the missionaries usually labour. At the town of Hasbeiya, near the farthest source of the Jordan, I was engaged for some hours in meeting the demands which were made upon my stores. Among the Arabic books which I distributed were several copies of a Life of Luther, and other Protestant publications. When the Greek priests saw them in the hands of the people, they became quite infuriated, and sent an agent to beg me to order their restoration. I told the people that, as a friend of religious liberty, peaceable discussion, and prayerful inquiry, I left the matter entirely in their own hands. They declared that they would keep what they had received, at all hazards; and they heard the threats of the agents of the priests without being moved. Mr Smith, my fellow-traveller from Bombay, who took a deep interest in the affair, and who strenuously defended the rights of the people, remarked to me that more would afterwards be heard of this matter an anticipation which has been most remarkably fulfilled. Before we left Hasbeiya, a Druse of considerable intelligence told us, when we were quietly seated with him on the roof of his house, that a considerable number of persons in the town had for some time been anxious to declare themselves Protestants; and that, if we could promise them protection from England, a hundred families, he was sure, would immediately join our communion. The effects of the ministrations of the excellent missionaries at Beyrout, who had occasionally visited the town, and at one time maintained a school for the instruction of its youth, had thus begun to appear. Some months after our visit, a considerable number of persons actually declared themselves Protestants, and one hundred and twenty of thein were formed into a religious community by the Rev. Eli Smith, who hastened to visit them from Beyrout. Connected with this transaction, I solicit your attention to the following extract of a letter from my excellent friend, and for some time fellow-traveller, the Rev. William Graham, missionary of the Irish Presbyterian Church at Damascus. On the 17th of May last, he says: "One hundred and fifty of the Greek Church have become Protestants. They wrote a petition to the British Consul in Damascus, praying to be taken under the protection of England, and vowing before God and man that, rather than return to the superstitions of their ancestors, they would suffer to be chopped like tobacco. This protection the Consul could not give, as the Protestant religion is not recognised nor tolerated legally in the Turkish empire. The Greek Patriarch [of Antioch], who has his residence in Damascus, was furious, and threatened to force them to return to the Church. The Turkish authorities also took the alarm. They held their secret councils, and discussed what was to be done. Some did not think much of the matter; others were clear for compelling the people to return; and several saw in it the desigu of England to gain a party in the country, that she might have some plea for taking forcible possession of it. In this state of matters, the affair was, by common agreement, referred to Constantinople." The English, Prussian, and, I be lieve, French authorities, much to their credit, recommended that these Christians should not be persecuted for their opinions; and the Government of the Sultan granted them permission to return to Has beiya, with the promise of protection, on condition that they should pay the usual taxes, and conduct themselves in a peaceable manner. The Greek priests were greatly incensed at this result; and, under the instigation of Russia, it is alleged, they induced the adherents of the Greek Church to make a show of leaving Hasbeiya, on the return of the Protestant party, that the Turkish Government might have the case again thrown upon its consideration, as Hasbeiya could not contain the members of both Churches! The last tidings which I have received of this affair are contained in a letter of Mr Graham, dated Jano"to ary, 1845. "You may be interested," he says, hear more about the Protestants of Hasbeiya. They have been excommunicated by the Greek Patriarch, or his priests, in the strictest form, and all intercourse with them interdicted. Their teacher has been stoned, and fifteen families driven from their houses. They are thrown for support on the Ame rican missionaries. Notwithstanding these evils, and even greater, which may yet arise, I think it probable that the principle of the toleration and recognition of Protestantism will be established. It is interesting to know, that the children of these poor people are committing to memory the Shorter Catechism." This movement, I have no hesitation in saying, is the most important which, in our day, has taken place in the Holy Land. Fervent should be our prayers that it may be overruled for the establishment of the liberties of Protestantism in that most important locality, on the same footing that those of the Greek Latin, and other Churches have been secured.--Dr Wilson (Lectures on Foreign Churches). GREAT THINGS FROM SMALL. THE ORIGIN OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. IN 1599, a company of British merchants applied to Queen Elizabeth for permission to trade with India, and having received the royal charter, de spatched a fleet in the following year; and thus originated what has since become the famous East India Company-a striking instance of what momentous and important results spring from originally trifling causes, under the direction of the wise pr vidence of God. The Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, were each permitted to make the attempt but only Britain was permitted to succeed. This handful of merchants began their operations by building a few factories on the coast of India, one of which was established near a fishing village, about a hundred miles above the mouth of the Ganges, o that branch of the river called the Hooghly. The factory was erected in the vicinity of a celebrated Heathen temple, named by the Hindus Kalee-ghaut, or the landing-place of the goddess Kalee. That fishing village is now the famous city of Calcutta, it having received this appellation from the idol temple: it is the residence of the Governor-General of India, and has aptly been designated the "City of Palaces." The originally insignificant company of merchants have long since wrested the sceptre from the hands of the Mogul emperors, and are now governing a hundred and thirty-five millions of subjects-truy one of the most remarkable circumstances of mo dern times. Late events in the history of ludia have proved, that this Company hold the reins of government with a firm hand. Dost Mahomed, the chief of the semi-barbarous tribes in Afghanistan, having been inveigled by brilliant promises on the part of a great northern power in Europe, which was endeavouring to extend its political influence as far as the Indus, disregarded all the warnings of the East India Government, who, being thus compelled to |