"Every step of withdrawal on the part of the state, whether by acts directly affecting the Church, or by the admission of all religious communities into an almost co-ordinate relation, has been followed by an inward awakening of its own dormant laws, a necessary, but in part an over-active, and therefore morbid self-introspection, by which individual minds have suffered, and some have been lost to us. In the violent sway of intellectual and spiritual causes which have been upon us, it is a miracle of God's mercy that multitudes have not been hurried away. It is probable that we are upon the first launch of a reaction, equal in reach and duration to the period which has just come to an end. And let us not shut our eyes to any facts of an anxious kind. The condition of theology on the Continent, especially in Germany and France (I mean both Roman and Protestant), must, intimately and more actively, every day affect the state of theology in England; and this, combined with the systematic exertions of communions, whose members sincerely think they do God service in assailing the English Church, must every year render more anxious and difficult the exercise of our pastoral office.

"All this has been advancing in the last fifteen years. Now it is precisely during that period of time in which more adverse public events have come upon the Church, and greater inroads have been made into its political establishment, and in one sense even its religious peace, than during the whole century and a half preceding, that the greatest energies have been put forth, and the greatest works have been accomplished.

"Fifteen years ago the Church of England rested upon its old constitutional foundations. It was privileged and protected by the whole force of the Statute Book; Acts of Parliament were passed; grants of public money voted for its extension; the whole weight and influence of the State went with it; and there are many who look back to those times with a fond regret, as to the period of its highest security and strength. And yet up to that very time secessions to every form of dissent were numberless; conversions from among Dissenters comparatively rare; multitudes nominally in the Church were really members of dissenting communities; the number of churches built exceedingly small; the increase of clergy hardly appreciable; the standard of almsgiving, especially to spiritual works, not only low in itself, but acknowledged only by a few; our missions languished; our colonial churches hardly existed; public opinion was estranged and hostile; the hearts of the poor, if with us at all, were but faintly attached to the pastors of the Church. Such, of course with local exceptions, in the times of its external apparent strength, was its real internal weakness.

"Fifteen years, certainly adverse to the external clothing of the Church, have passed over us, and the phenomena of our condition are exactly reversed: The Acts of 1828 and 1829 reduced the old theory of establishment almost to a name; every successive year has brought fresh departures from our ancient principles, such as the recent laws relating to marriage, registration, tithes, relief of the poor, and the like; this is so much of public recognition withdrawn from the Church; grants for the building of churches for our destitute millions have ceased; the few paltry thousands to maintain clergy in the colonies withdrawn; the whole active theory of the regale, as defined at the Reformation, has been abdicated in silence; and direct countenance and support extended both abroad and at home to religious bodies in perpetual conflict with the Church.

And yet, despite of all this, there has arisen within the Church, our enemies themselves being judges, an energy and power of expansion never seen before. I am speaking not of the work of any one body or party within the Church, but of all men, of whatever hue or form of opinion, who have spent and been spent for Christ and for the souls for whom He died. We have the issue of all their labours now. What have been the fruits of these fifteen years of adverse events? A thousand churches; a work of almost universal restoration, never to be estimated; an increase of clergy, probably far exceeding the increase of churches; a number of congregations newly formed,

exceeding the number of individual minds which have been drawn from us; more than half-a-million of money in the last five years offered to the work of national education a whole system of institutions for training school teachers; the reorganization of almost every diocese on the principle of its spiritual unity and government; the founding of ten colonial churches, pregnant with works of faith and of the Spirit; colleges and cathedrals rising in the far east and west; a twofold and growing number of missionaries and catechists among the heathen; and now, to give an unity and head to our work of missions, a college for missionary pastors, founded by the side of the Metropolitical Church of Canterbury, a main source of restored Christianity to ourselves, by acts of private munificence on a scale worthy of a work so noble. If such be the comparative benefits of a state of external peace and of external conflict, may the shadows of worldly adversity for ever hang upon the Church of England!

"But these are only material and external fruits, capable of being produced by mere excitement, false zeal, political rivalry, ambition, and the like and even if they be purely christian in their source, they are no more than fruits meet for repentance after long and sinful neglect of Christ's flock both abroad and at home. Yet, as fruits of repentance, they are, we humbly trust, acceptable to Him, and tokens that He is with us. But they are not all that He has given us. And yet, Brethren, I do not know how to speak of deeper things. We can hardly trust ourselves to say more than this, that He has been pleased, by manifold indications, to show us that there are realities more vital than all that I have spoken of. By the labours of many, diverse in many things while on earth, but now all one in Him, He has taught us that the standard of a conventional religion is a poor substitute for the Sermon on the Mount; and that the proprieties of personal and domestic life are but cold approaches to the Communion of Saints. May we not trust that He has revealed to unknown multitudes among our flocks a broader rule of sanctity, and stirred them with a higher aspiration after the life that is 'hid with Christ in God?'"'—(p. 46-54.)

All this,―with some allowance for the colouring given by a fervent mind, may be admitted to be true; and yet the fearful, hidden declension of which we have before spoken, may still exist. Various passages in the Church's history, in former days, will remind us that periods of apparent progress, bustle, and activity, have often been periods of real declension.

What an apparently prosperous change must that have been, which occurred at the period of Constantine's quiet settlement on the Roman seat of empire? And the steps he took, to put down idolatry, and establish the true worship of God, were lawful and right. But Satan saw his opportunity, and he soon filled the Church with crowds of courtiers and fair-weather Christians, and thus began a mighty declension.

From about the year 1000 to the very days of the Reformation, a great zeal for building churches must have existed in England. To that zeal we owe many hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of really beautiful and costly churches. But, during the greater part of this same period, to be a sincere Bible Christian was the surest road to the stake or the dungeon!

We must not confound, then, external activity or progress, with

real spiritual life. There seems to be no necessary connection between the two;-although, indeed, the kind of life and vigor which does exist in the Church, may be traced, at last, to the revival commenced by the Whitfields and Romaines of a century back.

The name of Whitfield cannot be written or spoken without exciting a train of thought intimately connected with the present discussion. Whitfield was honoured in being a main instrument in raising the church almost from the dead. What was the cause of his extraordinary success? In what did he differ from the preachers of the present day?

Chiefly in this, that his whole course and system of action, was Aggressive. He looked upon the world around him, as "lying in wickedness," and he laboured vehemently to call men out of it. He saw on every side, "a valley of dry bones," and he prophesied, "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these dead, that they may live! "

Who preaches now, as Whitfield preached, or who feels, as Whitfield felt? Who strives, or expects, or seeks, to convert, by a sermon, some dead souls? How much of earnestly aggressive preaching is heard in London every Sabbath-day?

So much is this point impressed on our minds, that we never can behold a man preaching to a gaping crowd in the streets, without stopping to hear him. We long for another Whitfield, "in the spirit and power of Elias." But we have never yet found one. We have heard open-air-preachers, on Hampstead-heath, in Islington, in St. Giles's, and in a Yorkshire town, but we have never yet heard from them anything better than poor and spiritless common-places; -vociferation without unction or power.

But we cannot go further, at least at present. Let those who have discernment of the times, lay these things to heart; and at their clerical meetings, and on other suitable occasions, enquire, whether the work of the Lord is advancing or retrograding;—and let them ask, with Joshua, "Wherefore is it that Israel turneth their backs before their enemies?"

THE THREE CONFERENCES HELD BY THE OPPONENTS OF THE MAYNOOTH COLLEGE ENDOWMENT BILL, in London and Dublin, during the months of May and June, 1845. Containing a Vindication of the Author from the aspersions of the Dissenting press. BY JOHN BLACKBURN, Minister of Claremont Chapel, Pentonville, London. London: Jackson and Walford. 1845.

We have read this pamphlet with the sincerest pleasure. The Author is a Protestant Dissenter, and he avows fully and frankly several opinions on which, of course, we are directly at issue with him. But to judge him by his pamphlet (with which alone we have to do) we should conclude him to be one of those, with whom we could talk over the points on which we differ from him, with as much calmness and friendliness,-with as little danger of any disturbance of temper, as those on which we agreed with him. Strong and decided Churchmen as we are, we could have no difficulty in recognizing such Dissenters as our brethren in Christ.

There are evidently two very distinct classes among the Dissenters: those who have merged their Protestantism, if not their Christianity, in their Dissent and Voluntaryism; and those who, however decidedly and conscientiously they hold their Dissenting and Voluntary principles, yet hold them in due subserviency to the great and all-important principles of Protestant and Evangelical Christianity; and who therefore feel that, however widely they differ from their Protestant brethren in the Church of England in regard to circumstantials, they are yet united with them in the great essentials of the Protestant faith, and can cordially act with them when the Protestant faith is at stake.

This pamphlet has both originated from, and clearly points out, the difference between these two classes. Mr. Blackburn is a thorough Protestant; and as such, he cordially united with the Central Anti-Maynooth Committee, and consistently and zealously acted with it from first to last. And when circumstances arose, which called upon him to choose between acting as a consistent Protestant, with his fellow Protestants, in the cause of our common Protestantism, and acting as a mere Dissenter in an untimely crusade against all Endowments-he nobly and resolutely chose the former course. Hereupon the mere Dissenters fell upon him in a ruthless manner. The Dissenting press heaped all manner of abuse upon him, and represented him as a traitor to the sacred cause of Voluntaryism and Dissent.

The pamphlet before us is Mr. Blackburn's vindication of himself against these attacks. That it is a full and ample Vindication, may be safely inferred from the fact, that the Dissenting Periodicals, with whom the writer is at issue, have taken good care to pass it over in silence. This is the safe rule which is commonly observed in all such cases. When you find that you have roused an adversary which you are totally unable to grapple with, take special care not to give the most distant hint of the existence of his book. This prudent course may lead many to suppose, that you remain the undisputed masters of that field on which, in fact, you have been thoroughly beaten. A defeat which your own party never hear of, is almost as good as a victory.

The pamphlet consists of three Parts: I. The Narrative-in which we have a brief historical account of the Anti-Maynooth Conference in London, the Dissenting Conference held at Crosby Hall, and the Anti-Maynooth Conference in Dublin. This portion of the work is particularly valuable, as exposing the manner in which the mere Dissenters took advantage of the excitement produced by the Maynooth Bill, and of the proceedings and exertions of the Central Anti-Maynooth Committee in calling together deputies from all parts of the country, to make a Dissenting demonstration in behalf of the Voluntary Principle, without the least caring how far the effect of the Protestant demonstration against the Maynooth Bill might be perilled thereby. On this point Mr. B. well observes,

"Had these gentlemen been the spies of government, or the hired emissaries of Rome, they could have done nothing more effectual to destroy the moral influence of the Conference on the mind of Parliament."—(p. 16.)

This is plain speaking: and we hope that this faithful testimony, coming from such a quarter, will have some weight. The following passages point out, very clearly, the Unprotestant character of this Dissenting Conference. Mr. B. quotes among others, the following passages from the address of one of the Secretaries for convening the Crosby Hall Conference :

"He said:-Some weeks ago a few eminent ministers and laymen happened to meet in London, on other business; and after it had been disposed of, the conversation naturally turned to the question of the Maynooth endowment. Some allusions were made to what had been done by a few Dissenters in London; and it was felt that the Dissenters, to be consistent, could not unite with persons who opposed the endowment merely because it was given to Popery.

This Conference will, no doubt, have a great effect in our respective churches; and if we make this occasion a great text from which to preach our principles efficiently, we shall accomplish a more important object, than if we could merely secure the defeat of any particular endowment. We avow the spiritual theory of the Christian Church-your appearance implies your sympathy with our views; and, as it becomes the advocates of truth, we await calmly the result.'