|

teacher at Berne, to return to the Canton, and
fill one of these posts. M. Archinard, who
did not know the real state of things, was at
first disposed to accept of this offer, and came
to Lausanne, and after particular inquiry, he
replied to the invitation of the Council of
State, by sending in his demission as an impo-
sitionaire minister. This is not the only cir
cumstance which shows that beyond the con-
fines of our country there are many who form
the most false notions of our religious affairs.
L'Avenir, Vaudois Journal.

A FREE GOSPEL.

door, shutters, and upon the roof, amidst wild
cries from a troop of men collected in the
road. The first precaution used by the con-
gregation was, to close every passage and the
shutters of the house; then the men went
out and made upon the road a fence, behind
which about forty people could, in the midst
of the most frightful insults, retire on the side
of the town, without being injured by the
stones which were thrown at them. Several
of them were pursued far, and one was mal-
treated. When the house was vacated, the
men who had made the fence followed as the
rear-guard, but overwhelmed by a shower
of enormous stones, from which their um-
brellas could not protect them, and pursued THE reason why we so often find the awaken-
by a troop of twenty or thirty men armed ed sinner so slow in apprehending the simple
with sticks and clubs, they not having any Gospel of the grace of God, is, that he cannot
means of defence, were obliged to hasten their understand its freeness or fulness. He con-
flight. About twenty of the last to leave took founds it with thoughts about righteousness,
refuge in a house, of the door of which the and, therefore, is set upon searching for a
assailants took possession. It was impossible reason for it. He wants to find a something
to go out without endangering their lives, for in himself which, in some way may distinguish
the stones continued to fly, the insults, cries, him from other sinners, and thus make him,
and the sound of a horn, by which the assail-
as he thinks, a fit object of this grace. And
ants called each other, the number of the ag- when he cannot find this in his works, he
gressors always increasing, these all caused would fain search for it in his feelings. He
them to fear that their imprisonment would wants to find a certain state of mind and feel-
last a long time. Some of the men escaped by ing in himself before he can think himself
the shore of the lake and ran to the town. entitled to lay hold upon the blessing which
They demanded assistance from the authori- the Gospel of the grace of God presents. But
ites; only two policemen were sent; during this is absurd; since to him that worketh not,
this time the fathers and the brothers of the but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly,
persons who remained blocked up in the house his faith is counted for righteousness. Now,
hastened to their aid. They arrived just as
such grace as is here found, is the most diffi-
the besieged,- not wishing to expose the cult thing for a man to perceive and appre-
house where they were receiving hospitality hend; and this just because of the darkness
any longer, were going out, believing the which is in him, and of its exceeding fulness.
road safe, because they heard no noise. The It is the outflowing of the gracious mind of
aggressors, however, had concealed them- God. It is according to the infinite greatness
selves. Happily assistance came. They could of God's own mind, and, therefore, the man-
now return by the road under the protectionner in which it meets and deals with the sin-
of a guard not very numerous, but very deter-
mined and courageous. However, this hand-
ful of men would have been soon overpowered,
had it not been for some persons who came
in haste from the town and joined them.
Overwhelmed by a shower of stones, they
were obliged to face the assailants, several of
whom they put to flight. They had an en-
gagement of some minutes, and several of
them received pretty severe bruises. The ar-
rival of two policemen put an end to the fray.
Several of the assailants were taken up.

VILLUZEL. The Free Church meetings have been recently the objects of brutal attack. A number of bad citizens, at the head of whom was an official,-wished to imitate the shameful example of the disturbers of Montreux, in assailing some religious assemblies with a fireengine. We have heard, but can scarcely believe it, and we shall be happy to find our selves misinformed, that, desirous of the support of the corporation, our fire-men asked permission to make use of the engine, and the permission was granted to them "provided," said the corporation," that you make a proper use of it!!!" The engine was made to play, and the first stroke of the piston broke the window of the kitchen of the house where they were assembled. The wicked people then continued to inundate the house, when the proprietor went out and cut the hoes, rushed upon him, and maltreated him. Will justice still remain mute under this attack on the privacy of a house? When shall we see an end to such anarchy?

DEMISSION.-The governors of the National Church, frustrated in the result which they expected from their appeal to ecclesiastical strangers to take possession of the numerous vacant livings, have invited M. Archinard, Vaudois minister, appointed in 1836, and

A GLANCE AT THE MISSION
FIELD.

THE field is the world.
sionary command is, "Go ye into all the
The great Mis-
world and preach the Gospel to every crea-
ture." It is more than eighteen hundred
to the disciples of Jesus Christ, and it is a
years since this command was first addressed
sad and humbling thought that so little of
the work assigned to the Church has as yet
been accomplished. There are, indeed, here
and there spots which have become bright
and lovely through moral cultivation; but
these, like the oasis of the desert, are sur-
rounded by an arid waste, in which no
plants of holiness are found. How long, O
Lord! how long! When wilt Thou arise,
and cause righteousness and praise to spring
forth before all nations!

There

The population of the world is, on the lowest estimate, about eight hundred million persons. Among these there are about two hundred millions of nominal Christians, inclusive of Roman Catholics, the Greek Church, and all other sects, but, alas! how few even of these can be regarded as in truth the disciples of Jesus Christ. remain about six hundred millions of human beings, or three fourths of the entire population of the globe, who have never heard of the way of salvation; and who are living in all the guilt, impurity and wretchedness of Pagan idolatry, or of Mohammedan superstition, How appalling the thought, that on the supposition that the average length of human life is thirty years, nearly fifty-five thousand of these die every day, two thousand two hundred and eighty every hour, and thirty-eight every minute!

but

What then, is the Christian Church doing ner, is of necessity quite contrary to all the that the Gospel may be sent to those bethoughts and ideas of man's heart. It is only nighted myriads of our race! It has been quite natural, of course, that man should seek computed that about fourteen Missionary to measure the character of God's dealing by Societies are in operation, and that they suphis own; and, although in doing this, he can- port about fourteen hundred missionaries in not but allow it to be far more perfect and different parts of the heathen world. This excellent than his, inasmuch as he knows God gives only one missionary for every four is above himself, yet still he makes his own hundred thousand persons, being in the procarnal apprehension of what favour is, the portion of one minister to the united populabasis of his judgment about God, and, there- tion of Edinburgh and Glasgow, or of about fore, his judgment about it of necessity goes six for the whole of Scotland. But "what wrong. God's gracious way of meeting the are these among so many?" The annual sinner is the outflowing of his own mind; and, expenditure of all these Societies is about five therefore, far above the highest range of man's hundred thousand pounds sterling; of which thoughts. He meets the sinner just in his sum the Churches of Great Britain contribute own position as a sinner. Like Saul, he may about four hundred thousand pounds. This be "a blasphemer, a persecutor, and inju-may at first sight appear a large amount; rious," but God, without requiring any ex- it is small if we compare it with the resources ercises of mind, any courses of humiliation for of the nation, or even with the aggregate sin, or any predisposing qualification of any wealth of British Christians. During sixtysort, meets him just as he is-A SINNER, with five years of war, Great Britain expended in all the free abounding blessing of the Gospel the work of desolation and bloodshed, two of his grace. Be assured, you will never find billions twenty-three hundred thousand in yourself any title to believe: the grace pounds, being upwards of thirty-one millions which I perceive in Jesus, and not the sorrow of pounds sterling per annum, or nearly I may have felt for my sin, is my ground for eighty times the total annual expenditure of believing and resting upon him. I believe all our Missionary Societies. Where is not because I have passed through any pre- boasting then? If the nation has expended vious state of feeling about my sin, but be- so much wealth to gratity its ambition and cause I can perceive something of the fulness love of fame, can Christians say that they of the love and grace of God in Christ. Oh, have done too much, or that they have done that men should bound the riches of God's what they could, in the work of evangelizing free grace by their own poor thoughts of that the world! May the generous ardour of scanty favour which is practised among men. British youth be henceforth more abundantly Your case, poor sinner, is really a desperate consecrated to this sacred enterprise; and but it is so before God. Nothing can meet it in carrying that Gospel, which secures the one. It may, or it may not, appear so to you, may they be more zealous than their fathers but free grace; and this in all its character- glory of God and the happiness of men, to every part of the field of missions, to every region of the globe.-Magazine of the Rising Generation.

istic fulness is to be found in Jesus. His own
words are "Him that cometh unto me, I
will in no wise cast out."

REPENTANCE AND FAITH ARE EVI-
DENCES AND NOT GROUNDS OF
SALVATION.

LEGH RICHMOND, writing to his mother, says, "Your occasional doubts and fears arise from too much considering faith and repentance as the grounds, rather than the evidences, of salvation. The truth is, that a weak faith makes the soul as sincere, though not so happy, as a strong one; and an imperfect repentance, as we deem it, may be sincere, and, therefore, a work of grace. Our salvation is not because we do well, but because He, in whom we trust, hath done all things well.' The believing sinner is never more happy and secure than when at the same moment he beholds and feels his own vileness, and also his Saviour's excellence. You look at yourself too much, and at the infinite price paid for you too little. For conviction you must look at yourself, but for comfort at your Saviour. Thus the wounded Israelites were to look only at the brazen serpent for recovery. The graces of the Spirit are good things for others to judge us by, but it is Christianity as received, believed in, rested upon, loved and followed, that will speak peace to ourselves. By looking unto Him we shall grow holy; and the more holy we grow, the more we shall mourn over sin, and be sensible how very short we come of what we yet desire to be. While our sanctification is a gradual and still imperfect work, our justification is perfect and complete: the former is wrought in us, the latter for us. Rely simply as a worthless sinner on the Saviour, and the latter is all your own, with its accompanying blessings of pardon, acceptance, adoption, and the non-imputation of sin to your charge. Hence will flow thankful obedience, devotedness of heart, &c. This salvation is by faith alone, and thus saving faith works by love. Embrace these principles freely, fully, and impartially, and you will enjoy a truly Scriptural peace, assurance, and comfort."-Bickersteth's Life of Richmond, p. 119.

IT is meet, indeed, that Christians be an elegant and amiable people, but therewithal grace; that there may be seen in them a severe gentleness, and a gentle severity, as the life of Christ is described to us in the Gospel.--Luther.

SITES FOR CHURCHES IN SCOTLAND. | presence of some visible majesty, but that he
might effect a true and vital reconciliation of
WE subjoin a form of Petition to the mind and nature between the Creator and
House of Commons in favour of the Right the creatures; that the dark cloud of offended
Honourable Fox Maule's Bill, which we justice might no more veil the heavens, but
earnestly entreat all our Presbyteries, Ses- that the warm beams of the eternal sun, the
sions, Deacons' Courts, and Congregations, gladdening emanations which issue from God,
to transmit in due form with the least might again flow down upon the soul of man,
possible delay. Let Petitions also be sent to and touch the springs of happiness, and
the House of Lords. In the latter case also, quicken the seeds of immortality within it.
the subjoined form will answer, merely Such is pure and undefiled religion-a pre-
changing the preamble into "Right Honour-sent salvation-the dawning of an everlasting
able the Lords Spiritual and Temporal" in- day.
stead of "Honourable the Commons," and
prefixing "Right" before "Honourable"
wherever the latter word occurs. The Peti-
tion is as follows, viz. :—
"Unto the Honourable the Commons of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland in Parliament assembled: the
Humble Petition of the undersigned, being
the [here designate the parties sending
the Petition],
"SHEWETH,-

"That your petitioners have always been
warm and consistent advocates of the rights
of conscience and at the same time of the
rights of property, and would exceedingly
deplore and deprecate even a seeming col-
with most disastrous consequences.
lision between these two rights as fraught

as

"That your petitioners regard a Bill at pre-
sent before your Honourable House, entitled
A Bill to enable Christian Congregations
in Scotland to obtain Sites for Places of
Worship, Manses, and School-houses,'
well calculated to harmonize the exercise of
the rights of conscience and of the rights
of property in that part of the United King-
dom to which its provisions are intended
to apply.

66

May it therefore please your Honourable
House to pass said Bill into a law, and so
to enable Christian Congregations in Scot-
land to obtain sites for places of worship,
manses, and school-houses:
"And your petitioners will ever pray, &c."

SPIRITUAL AND EXPERIMENTAL

RELIGION.

RELIGION is experience, and not speculation; and therefore the true knowledge of Christ Jesus is the personal and self-appropriating conviction that he is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.' If we are strangers to NOVEL ARGUMENT FOR THE TRUTH that life which the soul derives from God, OF CHRISTIANITY. what can all our notions of the work and righteousness of Christ amount to, but to a senseless value placed on means without an end-a new and living way, which leads we know or ask not whither? If we breathe not after holiness and God, what has redemption brought us? What has the great salvation saved us from, but from a material hell, which has no existence but in the carnal mind? What has it purchased for us, but a heaven, which is a mere barren notion or an empty name? For my own part, I have no hope for time or for eternity which is not grounded upon the alone merits of that Saviour who offered himself once for all to save, without money and without price, the guilty and the lost. But, if I can say, as I trust I can, with my whole heart, "God forbid that I should glory, save only in the cross of Christ," my rejoicing is only in this, that on the cross my Saviour unbarred the gates of everlasting life, and died, "the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God;" not that he might take us by a hand of flesh, and lead us in the

BOCCACIO, the famous Italian writer, relates the tale that two persons-a Christian layman and a Jew-lived together in a retired spot in the northern boundary of Italy. The Christian had long piously laboured to convert his neighbour, and had succeeded so far as to be in daily expectation of his submitting to baptism, when all at once the idea struck the latter that he would previously visit the capital of Christendom. Dreading the effect of his journey, the Christian endeavoured to divert him from it, but in vain. After an absence of some weeks the Jew returned, and repairing to the house of the Christian, who had given up his convert for lost, surprised him with the intimation that he was now ready to be baptized; "for," added he, "I have been at Rome, and I am convinced that if Christianity had not been divine, it would have been ruined long ago under the care of such guardians."

FIVE NEGATIVES.

The case

IT is known that two negatives in English
are equivalent to an affirmative. They
destroy each other. But it is not so in Greek.
They strengthen the negation; and a third
negative makes it stronger still, and so a
fourth, and a fifth. How strong fire negatives
must make a negation! But do five ever
occur? Whether they ever occur in the Greek
classics, I do not know; but in the Greek of
the New Testament there is an instance of the
kind. And what is that? Are the five ne-
gatives used to strengthen any threatening?
No. They are connected with a promise, one
of the " exceeding great and precious pro-
mises," which are given unto us.
will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."
occurs in Heb. xiii. 5, "for He hath said, I
There five negatives are employed. We trans-
late but two of them; but there they all are
as any one may see who looks into his Greek
Testament. Now, they need not all have
been there. They are not all necessary to
express the simple idea that God will never
forsake his people. There must have been
design in multiplying negatives so. I do not
believe the phraseology was accidental, and I
think it not difficult to guess the design. God
meant to be believed in that thing. He
in that particular. He knew how prone they
wanted to gain the confidence of his children
clined to that form of unbelief and how
were to doubt his constancy-how strongly in-
liable to be harassed by the dread of being
forsaken by him; and he would therefore
make assurance more than doubly sure.--
New York Observer.

STEDFAST PIETY IN YOUTH.

"THE wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.” Let no ridicule, no taunts, or reproaches, make you ashamed of Christ or of his words. Let the wicked be ashamed who transgress without cause but glory ye in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Seek to obtain a deep-felt conviction of the truth of God, and a growing perception of its transcendant excellence; and, in the overflowings of a heart rejoicing in the possession of this invaluable treasure, hold forth the Word of Life to an unbelieving world. Put not your light under a bushel, but cause it so to shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Let the beginning of your Christian course and your Christian warfare be signalized by the ardour of piety, as well as the ardour of youth-that, whether your course shall be short or long in a present world, you may obtain at last the approbation of your Divine Master, and may receive the crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge shall give, at the last day, to all them who love his appearing." -The Sins of Youth, by the Rev. Dr. M'Farlan, Greenock.

THE ACCOUNTS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN ENGLAND, FOR THE
YEAR ENDED 31ST MARCH, 1846, WITH THE TREASURERS' REPORTS.

REPORT OF THE TREASURER OF THE FUND FOR FOREIGN AND JEWISH MISSIONS
The amount of Contributions received during the past year, as will be seen from the General Statement, is
From which deduct share of salary of the Editor of the "Presbyterian Messenger," and of Professor Lorimer's
travelling expenses

And there remains, lodged with the Edinburgh and Glasgow Bank"

In the hands of the Treasurer

London, with 16 Churches, only 7 have, in the sum of
Lancashire,