mence the re-publication of the standard works of the English divines.

There are in the United States seven Colleges, more or less under Episcopal influence: Washington College, Hartford; Columbia, New-York; Geneva, NewYork; University of Pennsylvania; William and Mary's College, in Virginia; the College in Charleston, South Carolina; and Kenyon College, Ohio; besides the General Theological Seminary in New-York, a Theological Seminary in Alexandria, and another connected with Kenyon College.

The Puritan founders of Massachusetts colony, when they left their native country, made an address to their brethren of the Church of England, from whom they had separated,in which theysay,-"We esteem it our honour to call the Church of England our dear mother; and cannot part from our native country, where she especially resideth, without much sadness of heart, and many tears, ever acknowledging that such hope and part as we have in the common salvation we have received in her bosom, and from her breasts; we leave it not, therefore, loathing the milk which has nourished us, but blessing God for our parentage and education. As members of the same body, we shall always rejoice in her good, and grieve for her sorrow, desiring her welfare, and the enlargement of her bounds. Commend to the prayers of your congregations the necessities of your neighbours, the church springing out of your own bowels. We conceive much hope that your prayers will be a prosperous gale in our sails. We also entreat of you, that are ministers of God, we crave it of our private brethren,

at no time to forget us in your private solicitations at the Throne of Grace."Did ever children leave a parent's house in a more affectionate manner?

Elliot's Indian Bible has become a literary curiosity, and there are, probably, not three persons living who can read and understand a single verse in it. That

celebrated missionary, so honourably styled "the Apostle to the Indians," went to Boston in 1631, but settled at Roxbury, where he was greatly beloved and revered throughout his long life. Being gifted with quick perceptions and a strong memory, to which was added the most untiring industry, he became an admirable linguist, and soon made himself master of the Indian language. He preached to the Indians, who readily understood him; and, with immense labour, he succeeded in translating the Bible and several religious tracts into their vernacular tongue. He was a man of great simplicity of character; zealous in his profession, and ardent in his desire to convert the Indians, In the Pequod war, these "praying Indians," as those converted by Mr. Elliot were called, were either neutral or friendly to the Whites; when a different feeling towards the colonies would have been dangerous to the new settlement.-Elliot wrote the first political pamphlet published in America, entitled “the Christian Commonwealth." This work is full of free and noble principles; but the magistrates took alarm at it, and the good man had to recant his opinions, or rather apologize for their publication. He lived to the age of eighty-six; to a time when the colonies had grown to a large and flourishing people. The tribe of Indians which he instructed is now nearly extinct: there are not more than a dozen of them left. The Indians are every where melting away before the White population; and must soon become extinct, if not better protected than in days past.

MEXICO.

An official report upon the finances of Mexico states, that the mint of Mexico coined, between 1733 and 1828, 64,064,779 perosa piastres, in gold; and in silver, 1,323,851,510 pesos. The other mints, which have been established since the Revolution, have together coined in gold and silver the sum of 67,662,737, making a total equal to 318,408,5681. sterling.

Christ's Return to Glory. By the Rev. Mr. Begg. 3s.

The True Plan of a Living Temple. 3 vols. 1. 2s. 6d.

Essays on the Principles of Morality. By J. Dymond. 2 vols 18s.

The Psaims metrically and chronologically arranged. 4s. 6d.

Letters of a Recluse. 3s. 6d. Church Establishments considered. By W. M'Gavin. 2s.

MEASURES FOR THE OBSERV.

ANCE OF THE LORD'S DAY. WE rejoice to witness the efforts in progress, in various parts of the kingdom, to procure a better observance of the Lord's day. In several places committees have been formed, or are forming, upon the subject; and we hope before long to witness one general and overpowering expression of sentiment from the whole of the Christian part of the community. Sunday newspapers seem to be given up in despair, as an evil too formidable to be put down, either by legislation or private remonstrance. We trust, however, that zealous and persevering, even should they prove fruitless, efforts will be made upon this apparently hopeless part of the subject. But Sunday travelling, at least by public carriages, has of late engaged much attention; and on one road, the Southampton, by the zealous exertions of the Rev. Herbert Smith, the stage-coach proprietors have stipulated provisionally to discontinue running their vehicles on the Lord's day. But grateful as we feel for the pious exertions of individuals who are devoting themselves to check this evil, we perceive increasingly that nothing short of a legislative enactment can be at all effectual. The Southampton coach-proprietors engage, it seems, provisionally, to stop their Sunday coaches; that is, on the condition that no other coach begins to run on that day. Such a resolution is mere hypocritical mockery; it is sordid interest assuming the form of religious decorum. The truth is, that Sunday is on the average a losing day; the whole of the current travelling on the road might be easily comprised in six days, and thus the gains of seven be received with only

the outlay of six: if therefore the Sunday travelling is stopped, the proprietors are considerable gainers provided no other coach starts for the Sunday business; but they are not willing to sacrifice a single passenger or parcel for conscience sake, and will therefore all resume the unhallowed traffic if only one is found to do it. Our only object in speaking thus, is to prevent the eyes of the Christian part of the public being blinded by hollow compacts which have nothing of principle in them, and which will never really check the evil. A newspaper vender, who should sell seven hundred papers in the seven days, would be glad to sell the same number in six, and save the expense and trouble of carrying on his business on the Sunday, provided all other venders would do the same; but he will not give up one seventh-probably much more-of his sales; that is, he will shut up his shop on Sunday, so long as it is for his convenience and pecuniary interest to do so; but not one moment longer. It is clear that nothing effectual is to be done by compacts such as these, which the rivalry of commercial enterprize will instantly set aside. If A. B. and C. stop their coaches, or shut up their shops, D. will start for the lapsed gain, and then conscientious A. B. and C. will renew their occupation. We are anxious to see a far higher principle than this go abroad among us. The reform must be a matter of conscientious feeling with individuals, accompanied by adequate protection of their interests on the part of the legislature. The newspaper venders came before parliament a few years ago, with a petition, stating the inconvenience of their Sunday business, and saying that they would gladly

it on.

relinquish it, if parliament would protect them by preventing others from carrying The petition was treated with the utmost contempt, as utterly selfish and hypocritical. If these men, it was said, are sincere, let them first make a sacrifice to principle, and then they may honestly ask for protection; but if they only make principle a stepping-stone to convenience, they have no right to expect the legislature to curb others for their benefit. We wish then to see the question taken up seriously, as a matter of conscience. Let every clergyman, every private Christian, speak honestly to his neighbours on the subject: let him not disguise the matter: "It is at the peril of your soul," let him say," that you keep open your shop, or vend your goods on the Lord's-day.' "But I am poor; I shall lose my customers; I shall make a great sacrifice." I doubt it; for you will be far happier, and I believe in the end quite as rich: but if not, if your loss be ever so great, your duty is clear, it admits of no compromise; you cannot serve God and mammon; you must be willing to give up all, and not least this, for Christ." Many thousands, blessed be God, do so; and if more earnest and heart-reaching appeals were made upon the subject, more would be led to join their number. And are such to be left unprotected? No: let the whole of the Christian community rise as one man to do them justice; let them send in earnest and unanimous petitions to the legislature; let them represent how cruel and inequitable it is that those who obey the laws of God and man should find their worldly interests in a Christian community injured by their conscientiousness. One newspaper vender, or stage-coach proprietor, or innkeeper, or shopkeeper, or even a petty huckster, thus suffering for conscience sake, has a claim upon the whole community. We wish to see petitions, not from those who say they would keep the Sunday if their neighbours were made to do the same, and their own interests were thus secured; but from those who do keep it, and make pecuniary sacrifices by so doing; er rather from their neighbours claiming for them justice, and the protection of the laws, for their obedience to which they are suffering. If Mr. H. Smith, whose zealous and pious labours have earned for him the gratitude of all who venerate the laws of God or man, can induce any one coach proprietor to make, not a selfish provisional, but a positive and conscientious, determination

to honour the Lord's day, at whatever risk, there will be more moral force in one such instance, than in ten thousand hollow and hypocritical compacts, fair upon paper, but meaning nothing. The legislature will see that the Christian part of the public are in earnest when they thus take the matter up upon principle, in the same spirit in which in earlier days confessors submitted to the spoiling of their goods, and martyrs went to the stake. It behoves us to be in earnest; let us go to the legislature in behalf of the law and the rights of conscience. We are told of the cruelty of not suffering the poorer classes to earn a trifle on the Lord's day but far more cruel is it to make restrictive laws, and to give a bonus to those who break them by the sacrifices of those who obey them; far more cruel to say to the open violator of the laws, both of God and their country, "You may pursue your base course with impunity, while the conscientious man who obeys both is left without sympathy or protection, to suffer personal loss, and the affliction of seeing the wicked triumph in their wickedness."

The

The whole subject we have the satisfaction of adding, is increasingly commanding attention in high and influential quarters. The Bishop of London in particular has nobly thrown himself into the breach by his pastoral letter to the inhabitants of his diocese, the publication of which has gained him the honour of the most virulent abuse from the irreligious and immoral portion of the press, especially the Sunday newspaper interest. In this he may rejoice; it is a portion of his reward; good men will esteem him the more for it, and bad men will see that good men are beginning to be in earnest. religious world wanted a nucleus around which to agglomerate their efforts; the Bishop of London's letter supplies this: it has excited public attention; the opposition and abuse which it has met with have given it wings; the righteous and the wicked have had their attention roused: let not then the favourable moment for action be lost; but let Christians in every part of the kingdom act promptly upon it, by remonstrance, by legislative petition, by prayer, by serious warning, and by forming local committees to carry the object into effect. It is never too late, and never too soon, to begin. We shall not recapitulate the violations of the Lord's day which the bishop exposes, as our readers may turn to them in lamentable detail, in the paper of the Christian In

struction Society, stitched up with our Appendix for 1829; from which document the bishop states that he has chiefly derived his information, though confirmed by his own experience. The bishop's letter has been already widely circulated, and we wish that a large edition were thrown off at the mere cost of the paper and print, that it might penetrate every village in the kingdom. On two points, we could have desired that it had been drawn up somewhat differently: first, that his lordship had not condescended to argue the subject on lower principles than those which he himself avows; for, after all, it is not expediency, but the authority of God, that alone can bring men back to a due veneration for the Christian Sabbath; and secondly, that the address had been more directly pastoral, beginning and ending with the holy and endearing compellations of primitive days, and not grounded so much on "authority," which the temper of the times is prone to despise, as on that affectionate solicitude which wins its way to the heart, and produces obedience by the persuasions of love. We feel indeed assured on both these points, that his lordship has acted as conscientiously, as his letter proves him to have acted boldly; as in the sight of God, heedless of the opinions of men. He might think that in taking the lower ground, without surrendering higher, he should gain more suffrages, especially among the more influential classes of irreligious society; and he might also think that he could not with propriety address as "his dearly beloved in the Lord," and in a similar strain, a miscellaneous community whose vices he was exposing. But such addresses are used in the apostolic writings, and by our own church, to the professed body of the faithful, however faithless individually; and though fools might scoff, and would have scoffed, at this pastoral style, it would have been grateful to all true Christians, and have been a suitable rebuke to that sceptical refinement by which the language and the sentiments of the Gospel are being rapidly banished from all our public forms, even from the speeches from the throne to parliament, which have of late been negatively deistical or atheistical. May our revered prelates be the last to forsake pastoral and apostolical, for popular and newly-fangled forms.

MEETINGS OF RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.

The meetings of the societies have not declined in interest this year; and to our

minds it is not the least pleasing feature of them, that oratory, splendid imagery, and human compliment, have been increasingly felt not to be the objects of such assemblies, but infinitely higher and holier aims; to provoke one another to love and to good works, and to implore the grace and effusion of the Holy Spirit to promote the glory of God, and the eternal interests of mankind. Most of the meetings have opened with solemn prayer; while in others, in which from the admixture of those differences of opinion among Christians which unhappily too often prevent their even praying together, prayer has not been introduced, a prayerful spirit has been evidently cherished and acted upon by the speakers and the assembly. The meetings have also been remarkably peaceful: matters of doubtful controversy have been scarcely alluded to; brotherly love has widely prevailed, and the common enemy of all that opposes his kingdom of darkness, has failed in his machinations to render these hallowed solemnities a scene of alienation and discord. societies have been, generally speaking, prosperous; not indeed in the way which some expected, with almost miraculous success; nations born in a day, and the visible triumphs of the cross of Christ equalling those of the apostolic age, (though even these have not been without much that is analogous, especially in the SouthSea Islands); but in a preliminary, settled, and solid manner, by laying an ample foundation for further labours, by which, through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit, we doubt not the church of Christ will be built up to future ages in many a heart, in many a nation, and throughout the world.

The

The particulars of the labours of the societies, and some of the speeches delivered at their anniversaries, we defer as usual till the publication of their Reports and official documents, many of the principal of which will be appended in full to our future Numbers. We have much satisfaction in knowing that this method of communicating with the public has been found of much utility, and in some instances has greatly promoted the objects of societies. We earnestly lay it upon the consciences of our readers to make the best use of these valuable and interesting documents, not only by their own perusal, and to augment their own exertions, but by lending them in quarters where they may subserve the cause of these important institutions.

FOREIGN.

THE French chambers are at length dissolved, and the ministry seem determined to stand or fall by those unpopular views of policy which they have espoused. The expedition to Algiers is a most formidable armament; but its ulterior objects do not appear to be very satisfactorily explained.

Having lately reprehended the past conduct of the United States, in secretly bribing Indian chiefs, to induce them to sell the lands of their tribes, we are happy to add that a clause has been adopted in the senate, forbidding such practices in future. Measures are in progress for abolishing the use of ardent spirits in the army. It is proved that spirit drinking is a chief cause of the desertions and degradations which occur in the army.-A powerful and eloquent memorial has been presented to the government by the Cherokee nation, against the aggressions of Georgia. The document is a literary as well as political curiosity, having attached to it nearly three thousand Cherokee signatures, almost all in native characters. DOMESTIC.

We have the satisfaction of stating that his Majesty's health has somewhat amend. ed since last month, though he still continues in a very weak, not to say precarious state.

Lord Mountcashel has brought forward his promised motion for an inquiry into the abuses of the Established Church of England and Ireland, but with so little success that it does not appear to have been even seconded. We desire to see the fullest investigation of this and all other subjects of public interest, civil or religious; but the statements of the noble lord are too vague, too indigested, too sweeping, to lead to a favourable hope of the issue of an inquiry begun under such auspices. At the same time, these important matters should be settled, not by mere votes and numbers, but by the real merits of the question; and with this view we purpose, before long, bringing before our readers a notice of the chief propositions which have of late been urged upon the public in various books and pamphlets for church reform, either as respects our doctrines, our services, or our external economy. On this last point we hail with much pleasure, a bill brought into parliament for the voluntary com. mutation of tithes upon those safe and equitable principles which we have so often advocated, and which have been most beneficially introduced in Ireland; namely, by means of a fixed rent charge for a specified period only (twenty-one years are proposed), and grounded on a fair corn valuation of the tithes. We augur incalculable benefit to the church,

the interests of religion, the pastoral happiness of the clergy, and the welfare and friendly regard of their flocks, from this salutary measure.

We lament to find that nothing effectual has been yet contrived on the subject of church building. The short clause which passed three years ago has never been acted upon by the commissioners, and though we readily admit that it was too loosely expressed, and that some further specification or limitation might be necessary, we fear that there is in some powerful quarters a strong jealousy upon the whole subject. Not only alleged rights, but personal feelings and private interests are allowed to stand in the way of the great paramount duty of affording the means of Divine worship to the people; and even the modified bill, which was to give the commissioners power to open new churches under more considerable restrictions than those in the late act, seems to be sleeping in the cabinet of the chancellor of the exchequer. It is a lamentable evil, resulting from the abuses of church patronage, that even so palpable a duty as that of providing for the efficient preaching of the word of God, and the administration of the sacraments, is thwarted and impeded by rival interests; for we are convinced that there are no real difficulties which may not be wisely and equitably surmounted, if only there is an honest and persevering wish to effect the object.

We rejoice to perceive that numerous and highly respectable petitions for the abolition of capital punishment for forgery, are flowing into parliament. To our minds it would be sufficient that their prayer is grounded upon plain Christian principle and duty; but we are happy to add, for the sake of their influence upon those who might not be swayed by this higher argu ment, that they are strongly supported by the commercial and moneyed interests of the country, on the ground of the impolicy of a system of punishment which holds out impunity to offenders, by deterring humane persons from prosecutions. We feel confident, that government and parliament must before long listen to this suggestion; but we trust that the mitigation of our criminal code, as respects the infliction of death, will go much further; we scarcely know where it should stop short of actual murder. The abolition of capital punishments, except in extreme cases, adds another to the many questions on which Christians, guided by the instincts of the Gospel, have discovered what is right; and political men, after much opposition, have at length found out that it was also expedient. Let Christians take courage from such results;