have now been more or less thoroughly organized throughout Germany. All this, be it remembered, has been the spontaneous doing of the people themselves, headed by a few humble priests; and that, too, in spite of the most determined opposition on the part of the hierarchy, assisted but too successfully by secular authority. Yet, so general has the movement become, as at present to form the matter of an earnest diplomatic correspondence between the Pope and the leading Catholic and Protestant States. The strictest injunctions have been issued from Rome to the two great Catholic powers, Austria and Bavaria, who have shown themselves ready to act in accordance with the strictest principles of ultramontanism. Accordingly, in both countries everything has been done which civil or spiritual despotism could suggest, to prevent the extension of the movement among their subjects. Along the frontier of Bohemia, the strictest surveillance has been exercised over all travellers passing from Silesia or Saxony, lest among them there should be any missionaries of the new Church, or lest any documents should be circulated which attacked the ancient faith. In Bavaria, in like manner, the king has repeatedly warned his subjects in the severest manner against giving any countenance to the new Church, and done everything to prevent even ordinary information on the subject being conveyed through the press. In Saxony, the Government at first seemed disposed openly to countenance the movement, although the Court is Catholic. Afterwards they remained neutral; but, latterly, they too have issued their restrictions in various forms. Public meetings for conference were prohibited, the legal validity of their ordinances in the case of baptism and marriage was denied, with a great number of other petty and vexatious prohibitions. In the middle of July, a document was published by the Government, stating that, while no subject of Saxony was denied the full liberty of conscience in religious matters, still the present movement was not to be judged of as a mere matter of religious toleration, seeing that it seemed likely to give a death-blow to the unity of the Church, and virtually overturn its constitution, as settled by the Augsburg Confession, by the establishment of an indefinite number of small and contending sects.*

In Prussia, the Government have declared their determination to preserve a strict neutrality, and allow the movement to take its course, without interfering for or against it; as, from its yet undetermined character, the period had not yet arrived for the State being called on either to recognise the Church as a legal institution to be embodied in the constitution, or still less to suppress it by force, as opposed to the wellbeing of the country. Freedom of conscience is a fundamental principle of the Prussian constitution; and in this matter, at least, the Government seem disposed to see it fairly carried into effect. Remonstrances have been addressed to them by the Catholic powers, requiring nothing short of the forcible suppression of the whole movement.

* The reader will observe that this was written before the late outbreak at Leipsic (August 12), which will be afterwards noticed.

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To these a manly reply has been given on the principle stated-referring, in addition, to the fact that when, some years ago, these same Catholic powers were petitioned by the Protestant chiefs of Germany to use their influence against the increasing power of the Jesuits, as inimical to the peace and best interests of Germany, no reply was given to the demand made; so that still less could a favourable answer be expected now to the demand made by those States who had acted in such a manner towards Prussia. At a public banquet given in Magdeburg, Ronge proposed the health of the king, and stated that, from his personal interviews with him and his ministers, they were fully prepared to defend full freedom of conscience to all their subjects.

Still, notwithstanding all this, the kind of direct influence which the State uses in all ecclesiastical matters is such as to prove the greatest clog and hindrance to a free religious movement; and there can be no question, that where the formal recognition and full sanction of the State are withheld, and a bare toleration is substituted, such a movement is retarded to a degree of which, in this country, one can form no conception. We do not say that the mere countenance of the State ought of itself to weigh at all in the mind of any one; but that the suspicion which is superinduced in all cases where the Government does not openly declare its sanction, united with the numberless legal obstacles that stand in the way of such a body constituting themselves into a Church, with full power to develop the religious principles that gave rise to it-all this tends to operate prejudicially among the subjects of a Government who have been taught to submit to this subjection, if not to believe it indispensable and actually beneficial. This is plain from the resolution of the State that there shall of necessity be no more than the two great antagonist Churches and Confessions, and that all differences on religious matters, on the side of one or the other, must not be allowed to form a ground of separation and dissent, but be somehow or other settled within the Church in which they have occurred. Such things operate most unfavourably in the case of a new Church organizing itself, and cannot fail to place it in a disadvantageous position, as compared with the old institutions which have so many constitutional privileges on their side. It must at once be seen that, to a Government acting on the principle supposed, this must seem a dangerous precedent-as breaking up that outward unity which makes the supremacy of the State over the Church a comparatively easy matter, and as giving a freedom to the religious element which would soon make it more than a match for a secular despotism.

Other considerations of a more local character make the position of Prussia, in relation to this movement, a doubly difficult one. As stated, this movement had its occasion in an event which took place in the Rhine provinces. These are well-known to be intensely Catholic, and to be disaffected towards the Protestant rule of the Prussian monarchy. Prussia actively to give its support to the German Catholic Church and constitutionally to recognise it, it is very clear that this would but lead to greater estrangement between the two parts of the kingdom,

But were

and be interpreted as the crowning act of their Protestant ascendancy; so that, with their proximity to France, and enjoyment of the greater freedom of French law and justice, it might no longer, in the event of a war, seem problematical what course was best suited to secure their religious independence as a separate kingdom. It cannot, however, be questioned, that very much of the recent revival of Popery on the Rhine is to be attributed to political causes. The people have, in fact, thrown themselves back on the Church, which had been forced to take up a new position with regard to the State; and thus political feeling has centred round the Church, seeing that its treatment, at the hands of the late Prussian monarch, afforded a specious pretext and occasion for the quasi-religious phase of a movement which was at first almost purely political, and then became politico-ecclesiastical. But, on the other hand, that the recent energy which has been shown by many sections of the Protestant Church, united with the late events over Germany, must react upon the Catholic Church, and, of necessity, call forth a new life and zeal-this is not only undeniable, but is gaining additional proof daily.

In

But, to return-one or two of the smaller States have already recognised the new community. Brunswick, a considerable sum has been voted to them from the public treasury for three years; a similar course has also been followed in Hesse Darmstadt: while in Hesse Cassel, and, though less decidedly, in Hanover, their meetings have been pronounced illegal, and their standing as a Church | denied, and this, too, at the very time of a successful struggle with the Jesuit bishop of Hildesheim. In many parts of Germany, liberal contributions have been made on their behalf by Protestants and Catholics alike. Several of the journals devote special notices daily to the report of their movements; and the unprecedented number of publications on the subject at the late Leipsic fair-all betoken the interest which the movement excites, and the progress which it is steadily making.

As to the immediate occasion of the secession in the exhibition of the Holy Coat, we may state, that the historical investigations which have been published on the subject have lowered a good deal the tone of confidence, even of the more bigoted of the Romanist party, as to its genuineness. Indeed, it turns out, on inspection, that the Coat is not a seamless one, that there are figures on the front of it, though these have almost entirely faded; nay, it has even been stated, that the representations which have been woven on it, have manifest reference to the rites of heathen worship. We before stated, that there were at least between twenty and thirty other Holy Coats, preserved with equal veneration in different cathedrals. Not only so, but such is the shameless effrontery of the whole matter, that in 1631, Pope Urban VIII. gave the full sanction of his infallibility to one of these as the genuine garment of our Lord: and, still further, the present Pope, Gregory XVI., no farther back than August 1843, elevated one of the altars in the Church of Argenteuil in France to the dignity of an "altare privilegiatum," on the professed ground of its containing the "Tunicam nostri Salvatoris Iesu Christi."

Nothing, surely, can give one a clearer idea of the awful bondage in which the Church of Rome holds not merely the souls, but also the very understandings of men, seeing all that has taken place, notwithstanding these plain and palpable contradictions between different Popes, both equally infallible, and even between the same Pope at different periods. For the present Head of the Church, who, but two years ago, gave his verdict in favour of the Coat of Argenteuil, now comes forward to throw the shield of his pretection over the hierarchy of Treves; and, fearing that the Church is in danger, enters the lists as a cunning diplomatist to prevail on the secular powers of Europe to carry his spiritual censures into effect against those very men who, to say the most, are not more heretical than his Holiness himself was in August 1843.

To complete this picture of cunning in union with superstition, it needs only to be stated, that, seeing the historical argument in favour of the Coat of Treves must be given up as groundless, one section of the Popish party have actually declared that the spiritual value of the exhibition of Treves depends not so much on the genuineness of the relic, as on the generally solemnizing character of the circumstances under which the display took place. And thus those countless hosts of pilgrims, who came to worship a gar ment which was then, without any reservation-nay, with all the parade of a successful historical proofdeclared to be the Coat of our Lord, are now made to believe that the historical element is of small value, and that it was the presence of the Church, in the full pomp of ceremony and prerogative, that elevated into sacredness the merely human elements of the scene!

Nay, as if this were not enough, and as if the Church, in the plenitude of its power, needed but to command, in order to be obeyed, the Archbishop of Treves has lately instituted a festival in honour of the holy coat, lance, and nail; and this, too, to be celebrated in lieu of the national fast of Prussia. It would indeed seem, that in this whole matter Jesuitism has outwitted itself, blindly leaning upon the superstition of a people who, when fairly roused and quickened by spiritual influences, have performed deeds of Christian heroism, which all the machina- ! tions of Roman power and policy could not bear down. It is a striking historical coincidence that, but a week before his death, the great Reformer himself denounced the exhibition that was being made of this very Coat, then, as now, paraded as the occasion for a display of the might of the Church against all her adversaries. Let us hope and pray that, with outward circumstances so similar, the spirit of those times may be awakened, and Germany again become the scene of a new and glorious struggle for the faith once delivered to the saints! (To be continued.)

E

whose habits of thinking and reasoning are very different from ours. When discussing religious subjects, he employs images and metaphors-every object in the visible world is laid hold of to illustrate the point on which he argues.

We must therefore bring our arms from the camp of the Philistines, and learn from the Brahmans that mode of speaking and reasoning which is most intelligible and agreeable to the people. Materials for imagery to illustrate religious truths cannot be wanting in a tropical climate, where nature is at work during every season of the year, and exhibiting new charms every day in a luxuriant vegetation-where majestic streams are rolling down to the oceanwhere the lofty summits of the Himalaya are seen towering forth in the back-ground-where the animal as well as the vegetable world is developing its wonders, and involuntarily exciting the imagination of a contemplative mind.

I was preaching one evening in the town of Burdwan, at a time when the rice fields were dried up from want of rain, and the people of the country began to foretell dearth and famine; I spoke on the words, John vii. 37: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." "You are watering your rice fields," I said, "because God has commanded the clouds not to rain; but your rivers and tanks are almost dry; and if he should not send rain, your efforts must, after all, prove fruitless, and your harvest will fail. Here is a faithful representation of your spiritual state; you are seeking water of life for your immortal Souls you trouble yourselves unceasingly in your idol services; but, behold, instead of the wholesome water of divine truth and knowledge, there is, as in your tanks, nothing remaining but mire and dirt. I know a fresh fountain of pure water of life; allow me to direct you to it; and if you drink of it, you will find refreshment and peace." I then proceeded to describe to my hearers the character and blessings of the Christian religion, which, resembling the clouds that fertilize the earth, is fully calculated to satisfy the spiritual wants of man. The people listened with intense attention; I could perceive by their countenances that they were affected; and many gave vent to their feelings by expressing assent, and left the chapel under these solemn impressions.

An excellent missionary brother thus relates one of the last sermons he addressed to the Hindus at Benares: "I spoke on the words, Enter ye in at the strait gate: the chapel was full, and great attention prevailed among my hearers. I explained to them the signification of the strait gate, and what they must do in order to get through. First, I represented, according to Hindu ideas, a worldly-minded person, who cares nothing about religion; and who hopes nevertheless, at the end, to get to heaven. There, I said, is one coming along riding on an elephant; he 1 appears in grand style; he cares nothing for God and eternity; he wants to enjoy the world; and yet he hopes to get to heaven in the end. Thus he is riding on towards the strait gate, hoping he may get through. While speaking thus, one of my hearers called out: He must come down from his elephant, or he will never get through.' You are right, I replied; yes, he must forsake his worldly mind, and descend from his height, and humble himself, or else he will never enter heaven.

"Then I described another character, belonging to those of whom our Saviour said: Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.' Here, my friends, said I, comes a man who appears desirous to go to heaven; he has his eyes fixed on the strait gate, and is walking up to it; but on his back he carries a large bundle of various things-see how he groans under it! Will

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he succeed? No,' said another man, 'he must leave his bundle behind, or else he will never get through.' You are perfectly right; if we wish to get through the strait gate into heaven, the heart must be wholly given up to it; a divided heart God will not accept; he will either drive sin out of the heart of man, or sin will drive him out. The people understood this very well, and applauded. The third class I wished to represent were the proud and self-righteous. Here I had nothing to do but to allude to a certain class of people who are constantly seen at Benares-I mean the haughty Mohammedans. Without mentioning names, however, I continued: There comes another-you see he gives himself the air of a great and holy man; he says, I do no man any wrong, I repeat my prayers daily, I fast often, and give every one his due; thus conscious of his righteousness, he lifts up his head, and with firm step you see him walking up to the gate. A man called out: 'He must stoop down, he must bow down, or else he will break his head.' I replied Do you understand what you say? 'Yes,' said he, he must leave his pride behind, and come as a poor sinner; stooping signifies humility, and if he is not humbling himself, he will never enter through the strait gate." Thus we see that the Hindus understand our preaching, and the word enters into their hearts.- Weitbrecht's Missions in Bengal.

HOW TO TEACH CHILDREN.

IN all your instructions, most carefully avoid all tedious prolixity. Nothing more disgusts a child's spirit than long and tedious discourses. Make up the shortness of your discourse by frequency--a little now, and a little then, not all at once-drop by drop, as you pour liquor into narrow-mouthed bottles. As you do when you first begin to feed their bodies with a spoon, so must you do when you first begin to feed their souls with instruction. Long speeches burden their small memories too much; and, through men's imprudence, may unhappily occasion them to loathe As physicians, therefore, in their spiritual manna. dietetic precepts prescribe to children, "Little and often;" so must we. Young plants may quickly be even over-glutted with rich manuring, and rotted with too much watering. Weak eyes, newly opened from sleep, at the first can hardly bear the glare of a candle. "Line upon line," therefore, "and precept upon precept; here a little, and there a little."

Isa. xxviii. 10. You must drive the little ones towards heaven, as Jacob did his towards Canaan, very gently. Gen. xxxiii. 13. Fair and soft goes far.-Samuel Lee.

Fragments.

IN wonder all philosophy began; in wonder it ends; and admiration fills up the interspace. But the first wonder is the offspring of Ignorance: the last is the parent of Adoration.-Coleridge.

As is a moment, compared to the life of man, so is the life of man, compared with the continuance of the world; and the world's continuance is but a moment in respect of eternity.-Jeremy Taylor.

THE best way to make men good subjects to the king, is to make them good servants of God.-Jeremy Taylor.

WHEN Worthy men fall out, only one of them may be faulty at the first; but if strife continue long, commonly both become guilty.-Fuller.

IF we justly look upon a proneness to find fault as a very ill and a mean thing, we are to remember that a proneness to believe it is next to it.

Baily Bread.

FRIDAY.

taken with these vanities? Do not the visions of God veil the tempting splendour of the creature? Is it not dishonourable to God, and a justification of the way of the world, for me, who profess myself a

-1 COR. X. 12.

Give me on thee to call,

Always to watch and pray, Lest I into temptation fall, And cast my shield away.

When men think they have grace enough, and holiness enough, and have gone far enough in the way to heaven, this is the root of apostasy. It was Peter's presumption that was one principal cause of his fall. Lofty cedars are down with a tempest, when the lower trees in the valley stand firm and fast; so likewise lofty Christians, high in their own conceits, many times nestle themselves on high, and their fall is great; whereas Christians that walk humbly, are supported and preserved. Like as a man that gazeth at the stars, and looks up on high, quickly catches a fall, because he looks not to his feet; so a man that is highly conceited in his own opinion, and lifts up his head on high, many times catches a fearful fall.— Nalton.

SATURDAY.

"Demas hath forksaken me, having loved this present world."-2 TIM. iv. 10.

Still thy timely help afford,

And all thy loving-kindness show:
Keep me, keep me, gracious Lord,
And never let me go!

Apostates crucify Christ afresh, and put him to open shame; for by falling away from him, we do as much as tell the world, we have found his service that it was an unprofitable service; that the service of the world is better than his service; and that we have not found in Christ what we expected. When we turn our backs on Christ and go to the world, we do as much as openly proclaim, the world is a better master than Christ is. When soldiers forsake their general, it is a dishonour to him.-Ibid.

SABBATH.

"Who maketh thee to differ ?"-1 COR. iv. 7. O render thanks to God above.

The fountain of eternal love,

Who hath thee, more than others, blessed
And hath thy soul with peace possessed.

Which way, O Lord, which way can I look, and not see some sad examples of misery? One wants his limbs, with Mephibosheth; another, his sight, with Bartimeus; a third, with Lazarus, wants bread and a whole skin: one is pained in his body; another, plundered of his estate; a third, troubled in mind: one is pined in prison; another, tortured on the rack; a third, languisheth under the loss of a dear son, or wife, or husband. Who am I, Lord, that for the present, I enjoy an immunity from all these sorrows? I am sure none groan under them, that have deserved them more. Oh! make me truly thankful for thine infinite goodness; and yet only so sensible of thy gracious indulgence this way, as that when any of these evils shall seize upon me, I may be no more dejected in the sense of them than I am now overjoyed with the favour of their forbearance.-Hall.

MONDAY.

"Love not the things that are in the world."-1 John ii. 15.
Hapless the votaries of the world,
Soon on rocks of ruin hurl'd,
Who, admiring it untried,

Court its pleasure, wealth, or pride.

Is not this a sad symptom of a declining state of soul, to be so hot, eager, and anxious about the superfluous trifles of this life? Thinkest thou, O my soul, that one who walks in the view of the glory above, and maintains a conversation in heaven, can be much

If I had no Father in heaven, nor promise in the world, it were another matter. Let me henceforth learn to measure and estimate my condition, rather by its usefulness to God, than its content and ease to my flesh.—Flavel.

TUESDAY

"Be not weary nor faint in your minds."-HɛB, XÜ, 3.
As when the weary trav'ller gains
The height of some o'erlooking hill,
His heart revives, if 'cross the plains

He eyes his home, though distant still. A traveller after a long journey, when he is weary and faint, and sits down, if he see the town before

him, it puts life into him, and he plucks up his feet, and resolves not to be weary till he be at his journey's end. O look at the crown and white robe set before you, and faint if you can; get on the top of Mount Nebo-look on the land of promise-those good things set before you: taste the grapes of Canaan before you come to Canaan.-Nalton.

WEDNESDAY.

"My heart is fixed."-Ps. lvii. 7. Come, and possess me whole; Nor hence again remove: Settle and fix my wavering soul

With all thy weight of love.

Say not, it is impossible to get the mind fixed. It is hard, indeed, but not impossible. Grace from the Lord can do it agreeable objects will do it. A plea sant speculation will arrest the minds of the inquisitive. The worldly man's mind is in little hazard of wandering when he is contriving of business, casting up his accounts, or telling his money. If he answer you not at first, he tells you he did not hear you-he was busy-his mind was fixed. Were we admitted into the presence of a king to petition for our lives, we would be in no hazard of gazing through the chamber of presence; but here lies the case the carnal mind, employed about any spiritual good, is out of its element, aud therefore cannot fix.-Boston.

THURSDAY.

"It is good for me to draw near to God."-Ps. Ixxiii. 28.
Stedfast let us cleave to thee-
Love, the mystic umon be;
Union to the world unknown-
Joined to God-in spirit one:

Wait we till the Spouse shall come-
Till the Lamb shall take us home.

O beloved! let wicked men fall out with us, and hate us, and reproach us, as much as they will-they cannot hurt us, if we keep in with God; therefore, my beloved, above all things get communion with God, and keep communion with God. Communion with God will yield you two heavens a heaven upon earth, and a heaven after death. All saints shall enjoy a heaven when they leave the earth; some saints enjoy a heaven while they are on the earth. He cojoys nothing that wants communion with God.-Dyer.

WE omitted to state that the paper entitled “The Unanswerable Argument,' ," which appeared in Number 17, was taken from a Tract re-published by the Rev. Mr Bonar of Kelso, from an American periodical.

Edinburgh: Printed by JOHN JOHNSTONE, residing at 12, Windsor Street, and Published by him at 2, Bunter Square. London: R. GROOMBRIDGE & SONS. Glat gow: J. R. M'NAIR & Co.; and to be had of any Bookseller throughout the Kingdom.

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THE Island of Madeira has long been celebrated for the salubrity of its climate, and many per. sons in this country suffering from disease of the chest are resorting to it as a place of sojourn during the winter months. Of late it has had an interest of another and a higher kind, from the labours and sufferings of Dr Robert Reid Kalley, and from the persecutions undergone by those Portuguese inhabitants of the island who have, by Dr Kalley's teaching, been brought out of the darkness of Popery into the light of Bible truth. Some account, therefore, of Madeira, of the Lord's work in it, and of the sufferings of the Lord's people, may not be unacceptable to the readers of the "CHRISTIAN TREASURY."

Madeira lies between lat. 32° and 33° north; and in long. 17° west; and it is about three hundred and sixty miles from the coast of Africa, to which part of the world it is reckoned to belong. We know not that there is any authentic record of its discovery; but we have a romantic story of one Robert Machin, an Englishman, in the reign of Edward III., carrying off Anna D'Arfert, a high-born lady, whom, in opposition to the wishes of her family, he loved of his putting to sea, with the intention of crossing over to France-of a great storm carrying the ship out of her course of their reaching, on the fourteenth day, a beautiful uninhabited island, where they landed, and where soon after they both died. By means of their companions information of the discovery reached the Portuguese, who were then enterprising navigators; and they immediately fitted out an expedition, and took possession of the island. They called it Madeira, or the Woody Isle, because it was then thickly covered with wood.

But when or by whomsoever it was first visited, Madeira has always (probably not much to its advantage) belonged to the crown of Portugal. It is about forty miles long, by about fifteen broad, and contains about one hundred. and thirteen thousand inhabitants. It is evidently of volcanic origin. Its mountains are high and precipitous, and it is intersected by ravines of prodigious depth and grandeur. Pico Ruivo, the highest mountain on the island, is upwards of six thousand feet above the level of the sea; and the ravine of the Coural, about ten miles from Funchal, cannot be less than two thousand feet deep. Funchal, the principal town, contains a population of twenty-eight thousand souls. It lies on the south side of the island, on the shore, in the centre of an immense semi-saucer, which the wild imagination of man has sometimes supposed to be the half of

No. 32.

an enormous crater of a volcano, the other half having fallen in, and been buried in the ocean. The chief produce of Madeira is wine. The vine flourishes all around the island, and up the mountain sides to the height of about eighteen hundred feet. The best wine is grown on the south side of the island. The grain raised is not sufficient for more than three months' supply of the inhabitants.

A number of British merchants are settled in Funchal, which is also the winter residence of our countrymen who visit Madeira on account of their health. These visitors, in 1845, amounted to about three hundred.

The climate of Madeira is exceedingly delightful-moist, rather than dry-remarkable for the small variations which it exhibits between night and day, and between winter and summer. During the summer months the thermometer scarcely ever rises above seventy-eight degrees; and during the winter months it is seldom, in Funchal, below fifty-three degreesnot within twenty degrees of the freezing point. Snow, however, frequently falls in the mountains, and from Funchal it is often to be seen as far down as within two thousand feet of the town. The feeling of cold differs considerably from what one would expect from the indication of the thermometer. Till very lately none of the houses had fire-places; now they are beginning to be introduced into the houses hired by the British, and there are many evenings in February and March when a fire is by no means unacceptable. In summer a very agreeable change of climate can be obtained by going to the north side of the island, or up to the mountains.

Access to Madeira may now be had very easily and comfortably. The West India steamers touch there twice a-month, making the passage from Southampton to Madeira in eight days. The fare by them is £30 first cabin, and £25 second cabin; the only diffe rence between the two being in the sleeping berths: in every other respect the passengers enjoy the same privileges, and receive the same attentions. There are also several fine sailing packets fitted up for passengers, in which persons in delicate health meet with every attention and comfort. These are constantly sailing between London and Madeira, and in them the fare is £20. They usually make the passage in from ten to twenty days. Invalids often go out in trading vessels from Liverpool, the Clyde, and other ports. But unless the vessel and captain be well known, this is not an advisable way, as these vessels have not usually the same conveniences and comforts for pas

* October 3, 1845.