I HAVE been to the "Holy City "-I have seen its Pope, cardinals, and priests-I sought their information as to its civil, social and religious state; and from personal examination, and from testimony received from the most credible witnesses, both natives and foreign residents, I am prepared to say that, from the extent of its population, there is not a worse governed, less religious, or more immoral people in Christendom. And, tried by its fruits, where there are no obstacles to prevent its natural results, Romanism should be the abhorrence of all flesh.

There is no personal liberty in Rome, Since the return of the Pope from Naples to the Vatican, the reins of despotism have been tightened by a powerful hand. The patriots that could escape have fled; and you find them in Genoa, Turin, Geneva, France, and Britainhomeless, yet hopeful exiles-strong in faith that the sun of liberty will yet rise, even over Rome. The suspected are in prison, and the prisons are crowded. Spies, by day and by night, surround those who show any lack of confidence in the priests. While I was there, the plan was completed of dividing the city into small sections of about twenty families each, and of placing a priest over each of these sections; nominally to look after their religious wants, but really to act as the spies of the government! And through the vigilance of these spies, and the information which they wring from wives and daughters, and servant-women at the confessional, the sigh breathed after liberty by the most obscure man, in his most obscure and humble dwelling, is reported in a few hours to the head of the police! And if a Roman desires to visit other countries, before he can get permission, he must first get a certificate from the magistrate of his district that he is a good citizen-then from the priest of his section, that he is a good Papist: with these he goes to the head of the police, and if there is no information fodged there against him, he receives a passport. Take one occurrence as an illustration. A young Roman, a few years since, went to Sardinia, where he married. Business failed him, and he returned to Rome to seek employment, leaving his wife and children behind him. He entered the

employment of a person who, in the Revolution, took part against the government. Within the present year, that man wished to return to his family, and with the certificate of the magistrate of his district, and of the priest of his sec tion, he presented himself to the head of the police, who, I learned, is a priest. And simply because he was recorded as having been in the employment of an enemy of the old government, instead of getting his passport he was ordered to prison; and where imprisoned none knew but God and the priests!

Nor is there any security for property in Rome, It is constantly confiscated, on the merest pretexts, to the Church; and when not confiscated, it is alienated

to the " Holy See" in a great variety of ways. Two instances, in proof of this, were narrated to me there, and by a man of high position. A Roman of wealth married a lady of foreign birth, and by whom he had a large family of children. After a life of love and harmony, he died, leaving his property to his widow and children, by a will duly authenticated. Although regardless of the priests in health, he sent for one when dying-who confessed him, and anointed him, and "fixed him off" for purgatory or Paradise. A few days after his death, that priest swore before the tribunal having jurisdiction in such cases, that the dying man confessed to him a great sin, and to atone for which he wished his entire property, contrary to his will, to go to the church. And, on the oath of that priest, the will of the deceased was set aside-his property was turned into the treasury of the church, and his widow and children were turned out penniless on the world! Thus nothing is necessary to deprive any family in Rome that has lost its head, of its property, but the oath of a priest! And if you had seen them in crowds, as I have, you would conclude, as I have, that it would be an easy matter to get a priest in Rome that would swear anything. Absolution from perjury that enriches the church is easily secured.

Nor is there any religion in Rome. I do not mean to say that, among its thousands of ecclesiastics, there are none that love God, nor do I mean to say that the Lord has no chosen ones hidden amid the chaff and the trash that are every

where visible there; but I do mean to say, and to affirm as strongly as language can do it, that among the masses of the priests and people there is no fear of God, and no knowledge of the doctrines of our religion. And how could there be, in the absence of the means instituted by heaven to sustain and to extend religion among a people?

There is no Sabbath in Rome. The only apparent difference there between the Sabbath and other days of the week is, that the shops are more gaily dressed -the markets are more full,-and more people are engaged in buying and selling. On my way to St. Peter's from the Hotel d'Angleterre, I saw monks and priests in all the shops and markets, buying as on other days, and chattering like magpies. In Naples the shops are closed, and all business suspended on feast-days, but on the Sabbath all business is brisker than usual. Romanism knows no Sabbath.

There is no Bible in Rome. I made many inquiries there for a Bible, but without success. The people have no Bible. They know nothing about it, An intelligent man of fifty told me that he never saw one. Multitudes of the priests know nothing about it. And when asked why they have none for sale, the booksellers will tell you that it

is prohibited. Captain Packenham, once a banker in the city, and a most respectable gentleman and devout Christian, is now in banishment for circulating the Scriptures there during the short existence of the Republic. Much of true religion consists in knowing God and Jesus Christ; and how can they be known by a people from whom the Bible is excluded?

There is no preaching in Rome. Now and then, a foreign priest or ecclesiastic visiting there, in search of a pallium, or of a cardinal's hat, may get up a brief course of lectures for the edification of the strangers wintering there; but these are usually vain and ambitious men, who seek in this way to gain favour at court, and to promote their self-interests. There is no preaching to the Italians; and when there is an occasional exception to the rule, it is not the Gospel that is preached it is either a eulogy upon some Popish saint, or a vehement harangue against the Reformation and Protestants. Popery treats as a nullity the ascending command of the Saviour, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." one crime is enough to subject it to the curse of "Anathema Maranatha."

This

KIRWAN.

BELOVED AND HONOURED BRethren,— Having consented to occupy the chair of the Congregational Union, in compliance with your request, I am desirous, first of all, to acknowledge, most gratefully, the honour which you have conferred upon me, by calling me to this important office; and, secondly, to assure you that, however imperfectly I may discharge its duties, I will cheerfully serve you to the best of my ability. Most earnestly and affectionately do I entreat your co-operation and prayers.

More than twenty years have passed away since the Congregational Union was formed; and, during those years, sufficient evidence has been afforded that

our several churches, though entirely. independent of each other, in the management of their internal affairs, can nevertheless unite together, cordially and compactly, on those great evangelical and ecclesiastical principles which are common to us all, and which we have gathered from Christ's Testament. This successful effort has entirely frustrated all the gloomy apprehensions which some of us entertained when the Union was projected; and it has equally exceeded the brightest anticipations of its most hopeful originators. Sad, indeed, it would have been, if, after a sufficient trial, the result had been otherwise; and if we were assembled to determine

whether we should give up our Union or our Independency. During the years in which we have met together, many diffi cult and delicate questions have been discussed; yet the wisdom and temper with which the discussions have been conducted, have strengthened, rather than diminished, our attachment to both Independency and Unity; and have taught us that freedom of speech and freedom of action, among those who love as brethren, may not only accord with Independency, but render union itself more intimate and affectionate.

Our jealous attachment to Independency is cherished, however, not merely for its own sake, but because we believe it to be the will of Christ that his churches should be so constituted; and because we believe that such churches have within them the best means for promoting the spiritual edification of their own members, and for propagating the Gospel among mankind. The religious welfare of our churches must, therefore, be our first and chief concern. It is, indeed, possible for us to have Independency without piety; though an assembly of such persons could not with propriety be called a church; for, in the New Testament sense of the word, a church, whatever be its polity, is a congregation of believers; and it will always be found that the ecclesiastical system which we have adopted, can be properly and efficiently worked only by spiritually minded men, who are "saints in Christ Jesus." Without a renewed and sanctified heart, a man's name may be enrolled among us; but he is not of us; and he is morally disqualified for the communion and co-operation which church membership requires. He cannot present the prayer of faith, or the song of grateful praise. He cannot love the brethren. He cannot sympathise with them in their spiritual conflicts. He cannot discern the Lord's body when he is at the Lord's table; nor can he hold forth the Word of Life for the instruction and edification of them that are without. The spiritual condition of our churches ought, therefore, to be a matter of solicitude at all times, and especially now, when an eminent rather than ordinary degree of personal and social piety is needed for our prosperity and peace, and for the efficient discharge of those duties which the present times demand, and which we owe to the world. To this subject, therefore, I desire to direct your attention.

In looking back at the history of Independent Churches, from the period when the Toleration Act gave them security and liberty, we find them passing through various degrees of prosperity and adversity, decline and revival. In the early periods of the last century, many of them were brought into a comparatively low and languid condition, by the doctrinal and ecclesiastical controversies which prevailed; by the various annoyances which they, in common with other Dissenting Denominations, endured; and, especially by the infectious influence of the formalism and heresy which existed in the Episcopal and Presbyterian communities. The leading ministers of the Independent Body, in those days, recorded, most faithfully and affectingly, the depressed condition to which spiritual religion was reduced, and accompanied their descriptions with bitter lamentations and awakening appeals. This was done, most impressively, by both Watts and Doddridge. The former, in his "Serious Address to the People,' condemns most loudly the disorderly and worldly practices to which many of the Nonconformists had become addicted. He says, for instance, to parents and governors of families, "Are you as solicitous to keep up the seasons of worship

in

your households as your fathers were? Do you not suffer every little pretence, now-a-days, to break in upon the appointed times of family religion, and oftentimes to prevent it entirely? Nay, are there not too many among you who scarce ever call upon God in their families at all, unless it be, perhaps, on a Lord's-day evening? Are you so careful to keep regular hours for the various parts of the business of the day, or have you learned to change the course of nature, to turn night into day, and day into night, and to confound the order of things? Can the seasons of family worship be well maintained, or can the master perform it with a clear head and a pious heart in the evening, if he indulges his amusements in public drinking-houses till near eleven o'clock at night, or till the hour of midnight approaches? Is not evening worship very often utterly neglected by this means? Is there any such thing as devotion paid to God in the morning, even in those families whose affairs and circumstances would admit of it, if there were a sincere desire in the masters to maintain it?" "Can you not name the Dissenters who waste that time at a play-house or a vain

assembly of merriment, at a public gaming-table or a dancing-room,-that time, I say, which belongs to God or their families,-who spend those seasons in late visits and private balls, or at cards, whereby evening devotion is excluded entirely? Can you point to no persons, who are members of Dissenting Churches, who entice their acquaintance to these vanities? The loss of religion, the loss of time, the loss of virtue, the loss of reputation, the loss of estate in many families of the nation, bear a loud and lasting testimony to the dismal influences of these practices." "Is not bankruptcy reckoned too small a crime among the Dissenters, as well as among their neighbours? And that, when there can be found no other reason for it, but that they have lived too fast, they have affected the luxuries of life in their dress and furniture, food, equipage, and attendance, and would vie with their neighbours in splendour, grandeur, and expense, when the circumstances of their estate or trade have not been able to afford it." Ten years after Dr. Watts had published this "Serious Address," Dr. Doddridge published his impressive sermon on "The Evil and Danger of neglecting the Souls of Men," in which he says, "Let us look around, I will not say upon the nation in general, but on the churches under our immediate care; and say whether the face of them is such as becomes the societies of those whom the Son of God has redeemed with his own blood?" From that sermon, and from his "Thoughts on the Means of Reviving the Dissenting Interest," many quotations might be made confirmatory of the statements which I have read from Dr. Watts; but, omitting them entirely, I shall merely add the testimony of Job Orton, who says, in one of his letters, "It grieves me to hear of a growing spirit of levity and dissipation among the people, which is very unfavourable to the interest of religion and the comfort of ministers, and which every good minister should exert all his power to restrain; though, unhappily, some of our divines have set themselves to plead for such a compliance with fashionable amusements as tends to the utter ruin of our interest."

Lamentable as was this condition of the churches in those days, it was well that such men as Watts, and Doddridge, and Orton, were to be found, who, amidst surrounding pollution, had not defiled their garments, and who loudly lifted up

VOL. X.

the voice of admonition and warning. It is, however, an instructive circumstance, that, amidst the deep declension of those days, the Independent Churches still adhered, in profession, at least, to the great doctrines of the Gospel, and were mercifully preserved from the Arian and Antinomian heresies which then began to circulate. Their orthodoxy, as we have already seen, was connected with much formality and worldliness. They had left their first love. The spirit which animated the earlier Nonconformists had well nigh departed, and the "few things which remained were ready to die." But this evangelical orthodoxy, obscured and uninfluential as it had become, was still there; and when the faithful and energetic preaching of Whitfield and Wesley breathed over them its vital warmth and power, our churches, as well as others, began to feel its awakening and reviving influence. The "Spirit of truth took of the things of Christ, which were still retained, and showed them to their minds with distinctness and power. They began to rise and live; and the life thus restored became so vigorous, that it inspired a zealous concern for the spiritual welfare of others as well as of themselves, and gave birth to those missionary efforts which, from that time to the present, have gloriously distinguished our churches, and have conveyed the Gospel to the

ends of the earth.

The last fifty years have therefore been to our churches seasons of abundant prosperity and increase. Many places of worship, within that period, have been erected in various parts of the country, and occupied by large congregations. In Bogue and Bennett's History of Dissenters, there is a calculation of the number of congregations belonging to the three Denominations in England and Wales about a century ago, which shows that then the Independents had about 1,024 churches, only 799 of which were in England. In 1843 a statement appeared in the Congregational Magazine, which shows that then the number was 2,406, being an increase of 1,382, besides those which, during the same period, had been raised in Scotland, Ireland, the Colonies, and various parts of the heathen world. During the same fifty years, our churches were also Divinely enriched with copious effusions of the Holy Spirit, so that they increased, not only in numbers, but in purity, and zeal, and power. Our Sunday-schools,

S

our Home and Foreign Missions, and other religious Institutions, while they have blessed others, have reacted on ourselves, and made us strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Calvinistic and Socinian controversies, in which the Independents have taken their full share, though somewhat irritating in their progress, have nevertheless rendered our Theology more clear and Scriptural, and our preaching more evangelically persuasive and powerful. The Bible-classes, which many of our pastors have perseveringly conducted, have secured to our young people a correct and influential acquaintance with the Sacred Scriptures, and with ecclesiastical history. The increased degree of social and friendly intercourse, which has been cultivated between the pastor and his flock, and among the members of our churches, has softened down and diminished the stiff formality of earlier times, and has cherished the spirit of Christian sympathy and brotherhood. The encouragement which has been given to suitably qualified brethren in our churches, to preach the Gospel in our towns and villages, has had, in many instances, a happy effect on them, as well as on the congregations they have addressed. And the spirit of union and co-operation with Christians of other denominations, which we have had many opportunities of cherishing, in connection with Bible Societies and other Institutions, has warmed and expanded our charity, and has yielded to us much spiritual enjoyment and edification.

This prosperous state of things has, I fear, in some degree declined. We are informed that the additions now made to our churches, do not equal those of former days; that conversions are less frequent, and that the tone of piety among us has been lowered. Without professing any extensive personal knowledge on the subject of the state of things in our denomination, I think that the information which has been given by persons occupying extensive spheres of labour, and capable of forming a correct opinion on the subject, must be deemed worthy of serious consideration. And though we may hope that the description has been, in some degree, exaggerated and too gloomily coloured, yet we cannot deny it altogether. We are, however, not required to equal it with the degree of declension which existed in the last century, and which was so deplored and denounced in the language I have read; nor ought we, I think, to speak of it in

tones of hopelessness and despondency. It has, mercifully, not been of very long continuance. It has followed a season of great effort and prosperity. And we can, I think, see pretty clearly some of the causes which have most contributed to produce it. The degree to which it exists is, however, quite sufficient for lamentation and prayer; and to every Christian, and especially to every Christian minister, it must be the occasion of great anxiety and searchings of heart; nor can any right-minded man be at peace within himself so long as it continues. To whatever degree the declension has taken place, there are, through the mercy of God, some hopeful considerations with which it is accompanied, and which ought not to be overlooked. Whatever may be the condition of particular churches, evangelical doctrines are more extensively preached, and are more influential in general society now, than they were formerly. The tone of public morals, too, has been improved and elevated. And the seeds of the kingdom, which, during the last fifty years, have been so abundantly sown by the Bible Society, the Tract Society, the Sunday-school, and other religious Institutions and efforts, are springing up and producing appropriate results among the people in general, and especially among the working-classes. Under such circumstances, while we acknowledge the absolute necessity of conversion to God in order to salvation, yet we may not, perhaps, expect so many instances of sudden and striking conversion, as were witnessed, when society was more demoralised, and the Gospel less extensively preached. Conversion is, in every case, the same thing, and has its precise period of accomplishment; before which, a man's heart is not right in the sight of God; and, after which, he is a new creature in Christ Jesus. But the manner and circumstances of conversion are various; and the man who is drawn to Christ gradually, gently, and imperceptibly, is as really converted to God, as Saul of Tarsus was, when, on his way to Damascus, he was suddenly arrested by the omnipotent Saviour; and while we may still expect conversions, sudden and startling as the midnight lightning, yet, as society improves under Gospel influences, they will, probably, more generally resemble the morning light, which slowly and silently rises out of darkness, and shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. This we all know to be