personal opponents of bishop Wilson, or of blind and therefore suspicious panegyric of the friend whom he so dearly loved. But he has written forbearingly, wisely, charitably, discrimi nately. He does not shrink from honestly exposing what he conceives to be faulty in the mind, manner, or temper of the bishop; but he treats of these defects, as he justly ought, as the abiding testimony to the power of original corruption, even in the regenerate mind. Bishop Wilson, if he could now speak of himself, would be infinitely far from wishing the good to be exhibited without the defects in his own character. On the whole, it may be confidently affirmed, that if Mr. Bateman has not paraded before us a faultless character; he has exhibited a lofty example of zeal, holiness, self-humiliation, and self-devotion, of high aspirations and large performances, of unswerving and joyous confidence in the holy Master who lived and died for him-which we cannot fail to admire, and which we shall do well to imitate.

We cannot conclude this review without apologizing to our readers for the length to which it has been extended. If we do not again thus transgress till two volumes of as deep interest present themselves, our readers will be in no danger of an early repetition of our offence.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

THE proceedings in parliament have occupied attention during the month almost to the exclusion of foreign affairs and Italian difficulties. Sir John Trelawney's bill for the abolition of church rates, which has now become an annual triumph to political dissenters in the house of Commons, was carried, on the second reading, by a majority of twenty-nine. The division shews that a reaction has set in; the numbers voting for the bill are precisely what they were twelve months ago, but the minority has increased. So that the division wears a much less formidable front. Still the bill has passed its ordeal; no doubt it will be read a third time, and sent up to the house of Lords, there to be again rejected. This result is owing in some measure to a general disposition to take a calmer view of the question, and still more to the disgust occasioned by the arrogance of the Liberation Society, who, in the same breath, tell the members of the church of England to regard the overthrow of church rates as the knell of the establishment, and the members of parliament who dare to resist their fiat and uphold a church rate, that they are doomed men at the next election, come when it may. We should be more hopeful, however, if we could perceive more unanimity in either. house amongst the friends of the church. Could they but be brought to agree on some moderate plan, by a commutation of the rate, or

making it a rent-charge, or transferring it to the county rate, the agitation might still perhaps be set at rest, and the great principle of a church-rate saved. But so long as the friends of the church of England will persist in regarding the recent division as a triumph instead of a defeat, and aim only at retaining the rate as it now stands, we confess we are almost in despair. The way to lose all, is obstinately to demand too much.

This debate, however, will interest comparatively but few. Another followed, which has let loose the tongues of thousands. We need not say that we allude to Mr. Gladstone's budget, and, in connection with it, the commercial treaty which our government has recently concluded with France. It is evident that Mr. Gladstone's financial statement, with some important alterations, will be accepted, and that the commercial treaty will be generally approved. Indeed a majority of 116 in a very full house of 562 members has rejected a motion for amendment, and, in effect, confirmed the principle, both of the budget and treaty. We shall not be guilty of the pedantry of offering our own opinions on subjects upon which the most scientific of our merchants and financiers and political economists differ. It is with public affairs, chiefly in relation to their bearing on public morals and religion, that we are concerned. Looking at the budget and the commercial treaty in this point of view, we are willing to accept them as a whole, if not cordially, yet with some degree of satisfaction. We do not anticipate that the introduction of French wines will have the slightest effect on the drinking habits of our working classes; but it will be a great boon to the middle ranks, and a comfort to the sick and delicate, of which those only are competent to judge who are more conversant with the sick chamber than either public journalists or legislators in general. The opposition which this part of the treaty, and of the budget in connection with it, has raised amongst the licensed victuallers, is a strong testimony to its worth; for though, as we have said before, it will have, we believe, but little effect for good or ill on their chief customers, the working men, it will afford a cheap and agreeable refreshment to great numbers of another class, who would much rather visit the confectioner's than the bar of the public house. Whatever cements two great nations by the bonds of commerce is beneficial to mankind. It is of the utmost advantage to ourselves that it should always be for the interest of the French nation to live at peace with us, whatever be the form of their government or the ambition of their rulers. We respect the feeling which grudges England disembowelled to light the fires of France; but, on the other hand, if English colliers crowd the seaports across the Channel, and commercial ties are formed amongst the moneyed classes, we shall soon be in less danger of invasion; and we may even hope that something of our English spirit of independence without anarchy, and of freedom without love of change, may be conveyed to our too fretful neighbours. It is in the seaports of France and their neighbourhoods that French protestantism has found its refuge an English commerce will surely contribute to its protection and revival. On other points of the treaty we must speak with less confidence, and of the budget as connected with it. We are no foes to cheap literature; but why Mr. Gladstone should sacrifice a million a-year by

removing the duty on paper—a hardship, if it be one, of which only the penny press have reason to complain-and, at the same time, impose upon us an income tax of tenpence in the pound, we do not at present comprehend.

Explanations have been asked and freely given in both houses of parliament on the subject of our foreign relations. There seems reason to hope that the emperor of China may yet listen to the voice of remonstrance, and make concessions, and thus that another war, which we all deprecate, may be avoided. But we cannot reason of China as of other countries. What is sense at home is nonsense there, and the contrary. "The only thing of which I can be sure," said a naval officer of high rank to us, and one who knows them well, "is this: Whatever after full consideration we Europeans conclude that the Chinese will do, that is the very thing they are sure not to do." So here we must leave the matter; but even their mulish dispositions are under the control of an Almighty hand, and we will still hope for the best.

As to Italian affairs, they remain nearly in statu quo. The pope gets more angry, and Napoleon becomes more firm; as the one is more conscious of his impotence, the other of his power. The French troops are still at Rome; for the day on which they take their leave will, unless their place be filled by the Austrians, be the last of the pope's existence as an Italian sovereign. It now appears that the emperor of France has driven a hard bargain with the king of Sardinia. As the reward of his Italian campaign, he demands the transfer of Savoy and Nice, or at least of the former, to the French empire. The inhabitants are indignant. England, and indeed all Europe, protests against the flagrant outrage; and the most powerful of absolute European sovereigns stays his hand in submission to that public opinion which even absolutists are learning to respect. Its voice has penetrated Austria. Some concessions have been made which afford a partial liberty of worship to the suffering protestants of Hungary; and the Austrian Jews have been relieved of a part of that frightful load of insult and oppression under which they have groaned so long.

Our venerable friend Mr. Spooner has again brought forward his annual motion against the Maynooth grant, and has of course been again defeated. He never spoke better, and never encountered so feeble a debate. In the face of crowded meetings of Roman catholics in our great towns, madly enthusiastic in their professions, not only of sympathy for their sovereign lord the Pope, but of the highest admiration for the wisdom and moderation of his civil government, no protestant member had the courage to defend the grant on the old ground of justice to the Roman catholics. Two popish members answered him; one of whom dealt in hackneyed and vague statements of Romish loyalty, which mean nothing; and the other in personal insults, which drew down the reprobation of the house on the speaker. Something, indeed, was said upon the right of Roman catholics, in virtue of the taxes they pay, to receive their £30,000 a-year as an equivalent, but no attempt was made to answer the charges brought against the teachings of Maynooth by Mr. Spooner, and well sustained by his colleague Mr. Newdegate. In our humble

opinion the share of taxation which Roman catholics contribute does not quite amount to a sufficient sum to justify us protestants in educating their clergy in the pious belief that rebellion, whenever it can be safely practised, is a sacred duty, and the queen's children (do not be startled, kind reader) are illegitimate, nor she herself our rightful sovereign. But we feel that we speak in vain, and may as well desist.

There are other topics on which we are anxious to enlarge; but our number already swells beyond its usual limits, and we must withhold our pen. Under the protection of a guard of policemen, and the terrors of an act of "bloody Mary," passed in order to restrain the indignation of protestants which broke out against the "massing priests" of that day, the parish church of St. George's in the East is still open, and divine worship is still performed, in defiance of an insulted and indignant parish. In both houses of parliament the painful subject has been more than once discussed; and all parties, with a few exceptions, spoke with reprobation, not only of the riot, but of the Romanizing practices which provoked it. It is now felt that the danger is becoming both imminent and alarming. Lord Brougham threw out a remark in the house of lords that may perhaps one day receive more attention than it has yet met with. "There was," he is reported to have said, "great excitement on this subject, and, if not put a stop to, it would spread. There was nothing more to be deprecated than the introduction into this country of that which in the United States had now lasted long enough to receive the name ofadomestic institution--he meant Lynch law." We will add, that the mere punishment of riotous apprentices is not a remedy. To drive in the irruption is not to cure the fever. And we shall brave many an "indignant denial" in certain quarters to utter a plain unwelcome truth :-The respectable churchgoing people of England will not feel that justice has been done if the rioters are punished before the Romish exhibitions have been suppressed. They are afraid that if order be restored, Tractarianism will be allowed to triumph in St. George's in the East; and, of two fearful evils, they prefer the least.

ERRATA.

THE family of the late Rev. M. M. Preston, whose posthumous sermons we noticed in our last number, wish us to state that he was not one of Mr. Simeon's converts. He was an intimate friend of Mr. Simeon from the time of his introduction to him at college. His first curacy was also under Mr. Simeon. But he was a young man of decided piety when he entered at Cambridge. He was, they add, a signal instance of the blessing of God on parental instruction.

Nor do they think it quite correct to say that he was Lord Macaulay's private tutor; though Lord M. was a pupil of his for several years when he resided near Cambridge and took pupils. But as he was only one of some fourteen or fifteen pupils, they think the form of expression in the review might seem to make Mr. Preston more respon sible than he really was for the training of Lord Macaulay's mind. Probably the friends of that gifted nobleman would also demur to it.

An unaccountable mistake appears on page 88 of our last Number, where St. Paul's visit to Rome is made to precede the date of his Epistle; we can only express our vexation at so palpable a blunder. It was not discovered till it was too late to cancel the leaf, which we should otherwise have done.

THE LORD JESUS: THE FRIEND OF HIS PEOPLE.—II.

LOVE and compassion are blessed elements in the character of the Lord Jesus, regarded as the Friend of his believing people. Without love, deep and intense, real friendship cannot exist; without compassion the pure love of a perfect and Divine being would soar upwards into higher regions than those of earth, and concentrate itself upon nobler objects than fallen and sinful man. These, however, are but two of many characteristics which mark the friendship of Jesus, and complete its adaptation to our infirmities and necessities. In following out this subject, then, on which we entered in our last number, we may further remark, that, III. He is a constant Friend.

Inconstancy has been the bane of many earthly friendships; hence friends, using the term in its ordinary sense, have been likened to summer birds, which visit us in our long bright days, when all is cheerful and inviting, but depart with the first warnings of the approaching storms and pinching cold of winter. In the hour of sore trial, Job's friends stood aloof from him; and he compares them to the mountain stream, which fails and disappoints the weary traveller in the time of drought and necessity: My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away; which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid. What time they wax warm they vanish; when it is hot they are consumed out of their place. .. The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them. They were confounded because they had hoped, they came thither and were ashamed. For now ye are nothing; ye see my casting down and are afraid."* The perfect friend is de

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