&c., to the members of which is specially committed the task of praying for the restoration of the apostates. Various high privileges, and promises of temporal and spiritual good, are bestowed on such as distinguish themselves by success in this good work; and the (at least) equivocal expedient was resorted to of sending an ecclesiastical embassy, composed of the Roman Catholic clergy of Leipsic, conjoined with those of Dresden, to implore the King of Saxony to employ his authority to check the progress of this inroad on the papacy!

The application to Frederick Augustus, himself a Roman Catholic, to his eternal honour, put and end for ever to all hope of assistance from him; for he is represented to have -expressed his utmost astonishment that he, nineteen-twentieths of whose subjects are Protestants, should be applied to against them, and that, too, at a moment when their conciliatory conduct towards their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects was so grateful to his heart. "You know, moreover, said his majesty, "that I, as King of a constitutional state, have sworn to afford full freedom of conscience to the professors of every creed; I therefore will not lay any hinderance whatever in the way of the present movement, but leave it to take its own free course; for I neither would nor could try to turn any one aside from the ritual he deemed conducive to his salvation. This," added the King, "is my unalterable resolve;" and, with the unpalatable declaration, the disappointed clergy were graciously dismissed. Their attempt and its result soon got wind, and the noble reply of the Saxon monarch rang in notes of joy and triumph through every street in Leipsic.

Even where the spirit of reform does not extend to the abandoning of Rome altogether, it has excited and encouraged the hope of getting

rid of some of her shackles; and thus not only have several Koman Catholic congregations applied to their bishops to take the initiative, ex officio, in throwing off the later exactions and devices of Rome, but more than one Romish clergyman has, through the medium of the press, manfully exhorted the German bishops and higher clergy to "imitate their noble predecessors in the last century, especially Bishop Houtheain and the members of the congress of Ems, and by forming a free German Roman Catholic Church, get rid at once of the Roman yoke, and the dangers of a schism which now threatens not only the errors, but the existence of the Catholic Church. Such are the sentiments of Edward Duller, whose "Public Letters to the German Bishops," his "Address to German Catholics, whether Priests or Laity," his "Addresses to German Princes,' but above all his "Jesuits as they are and were," written for and dedicated to the people of Germany, are bought up almost as fast as they can be published; while the historical examinations into the pretensions of the unseamed coat of Treves (now, by the way, discovered to have a seam!) and twenty-four other unseamed coats, by the Bonn professors, Drs. Gildemeister and Sybel, is passing through its fourth edition! The king of Prussia is highly favourable to the Protestant movement, and leaves all his subjects, even the military, at full liberty to join the new Catholic Church. Even in Prague, symptoms of a revival of John Huss's sentiments are beginning to appear.

The following extracts from a more private communication of the same correspondence, will no doubt interest our readers. The facts that are mentioned, and the opinions expressed by the writer, show that a great work is rapidly advancing in Germany.

"It is of course impossible to crowd into the small space I have allotted myself, any notice of the many interesting publications on this engrossing theme, which issue almost daily from the German press, and find their way despite ecclesiastical warnings and denunciations, even into the most exclusive strongholds of Popery. Yet I may add in addition to those named in the enclosed, Ronge's numerous addresses; the Conciliatory Letter of the Roman Catholic Bishop Kaiser; the address of priest Licht against the superstitions connected with the Holy Coat, which has drawn down upon him deposition from the priestly office, but has not prevailed on him to retract; and the various 'confessions of faith,' published by the several newly-formed churches, in which shades of difference, involving more or less adherence to old prejudices, appear but all breathing abhorrence of Rome, and an excellent spirit of toleration towards each other's differences, referring in most cases the final settlement of Church order, for the future German Catholic church, to the deliberative wisdom of the council, consisting of lay, as much as priestly members, for which a general longing seems to be felt by the reformers. It is said about 20 priests have given in their adherence to Czerski (besides those who have joined his standard in conjunction with their flocks), and declared their readiness to take the oversight of the new churches everywhere starting up. Nor are these communi.. ties so despicable in point of numbers as the Roman Catholics try to represent. The Church in Breslaw numbers 600 members, that of Berlin, about as many; Schneidemuhl 500, Annaberg 200 families, and 8 or 10 other places average 400 reformers, which in less than six months, and with so slow a people as the Germans, is wonderful! Indeed, that a very great

and important fermentation is now running through the length and breadth of the German empire, is undeniable; that much, very much of it is not of a purely evangelical character, is, I fear, equally certain; but, considering the spread of rationalism, that is Socinianism, more or less modified, among all classes, and from which Roman Catholics are as little free as their neighbours (though, so long as all outward forms were complied with, the hierarchy winked at, where they did not share it), it may well consist with Divine wisdom to overturn, overturn, overturn' long established spiritual tyranny, by means of re-awakened human reason, and make its triumphs the pioneers of the better triumphs of the truth as it is in Jesus." It is evident to all who bestow a careful attention on the signs of the times, that the present movements in Ger many are twofold, both in their source and aim. Czerski and his party are, I believe, truly in earnest for the advance of religion, and abjure Rome because the Bible bids it, although they need much increase of light as a body. Czerski, it is known, is more advanced in knowledge, but prudently feeds his flock with gradual additions of strong meat, as they are able to bear it. Ronge and his party, though actually more Protestant in their avowed creed than the Schneidemuhleans, have kicked against Rome on account of her presumptuous interference with the rights of man; and both will no doubt be overruled by God to work together, so as to give a more deadly wound to the beast than it has ever yet received. In Luther's days, there was probably more piety but likewise much more superstition, among the bulk of those who threw off the Romish yoke, than at present; and so they retained from conscience much which has fettered the progress of Protestantism to this

hour, and blunted the edge of their weapons, when attacking Rome's unscriptural usages; now, on the contrary, the greater proportion of the dissentients have long rebelled in heart against the impositions now thrown off; and although it were much more delightful to think all who are now casting off Rome were really putting on Christian instead of patriotic armour, still I trust God will work, and who can 'let Him ?' "'

and breaking their resolutions, and rifling their vows; and all these things being drawn into an entire representment, and the bills clogged by numbers, will make the best men in the world seem foul and unhandsome, and stained with the characters of death and evil dishonour. But for these is appointed a defender; the Holy Spirit that maketh intercession for us, shall then also interpose, and against all these things shall oppose the passion of our blessed Lord, and upon all their defects shall cast the robe of his righteousness; and the sins of their youth

AT THE JUDGMENT SEAT.

THE Holy Spirit is a defender, the evil spirit is the accuser; and they that in this life belong to one or the other, shall, in the same proportion, be treated at the day of judgment. The devil shall accuse the brethren, that is, the saints and servants of God, and shall tell concerning their follies and infirmities, the sins of their youth, and the weakness of their age, the imperfect grace and the long schedule of omissions of duty, their scruples and their fears, their diffidences, and pusillanimity, and all those things which themselves, by strict examination, find themselves guilty of and have confessed, all their shame and the matter of their sorrows, their evil intentions and their little plots, their carnal confidences and too fond adherences to the things of this world, their indulgence and easiness of government, their wilder joys and freer meals, their loss of time and their too forward and apt compliances, their trifling arrests and little peevishness, the mixtures of the world with the things of the Spirit, and all the incidences of humanity, he will bring them forth and aggravate them by the circumstance of ingratitude, and the breach of promise, and the evacuating of their holy purposes,

pentance of their age; and their omissions be excused by probable intervening causes, and their little esdisunion, because they were always capes shall in appear single and kept asunder by penitential prayers and sighings, and their seldom returns of sin by their daily watchfulness, and their often infirmities by the sincerity of their souls, and their scruples by their zeal, and their passions by their love, and all by the mercies of God and the sacrifice which their Judge offered, and the Holy Spirit made effective by daily graces and assistances. These, therefore, infallibly go to the portion of the right hand, because the

Lord our God shall answer for them. Bishop Jeremy Taylor.

CHRIST'S ASCENSION.

So use we commonly to say of him, that hath attained to any high degree of dignity; that he is ascended up or advanced into some high room; some high place or state; because he hath changed his former case, and is become of more honour than the rest. In such case is Christ gone up, as he before came down. He came down from highest honour to deepest dishonour,

THE HELP OF THE SPIRIT.

There are means of God's appointment by which that help may be obtained; but the help must be sought for, and the means must be used with all that earnest anxiety and determined perseverance, which result from a deep and overpowering sense of our infirmities. The pure word of God may be preached by faithful ministers, with the serious and persuasive eloquence of truth and affection; the sacraments of grace may be rightly administered and regularly received; the ordinances of devotion may be so performed, as to produce for a time a decent seriousness and a favourable impression of religion; the Spirit may be round us and close at hand, and waiting to be called upon, but yet he is not called upon, he is not implored; he is not earnestly sought "with groanings that cannot be uttered; and what is the result? The word preached passes across the mind, as the shadow of a cloud, and is forgotten; the sacramental communion with Christ's body and blood is a communion only as to the outward and visible signs: the seriousness pro、 duced by the solemn forms of holiness, is a seriousness of demeanor only, and that but for a time; and the whole impression produced is of the same kind with those undefined and unprofitable emotions, which are excited by the concord of sweet sounds: "And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument; for they hear thy words, but they do them not." "The Spirit helpeth our infirmities." What would become of us were it otherwise? for there is a Spirit of evil who is always exercising a malignant activity, to aggravate those infirmities; the more malignant and the more active, be

cause he knows that the help and the remedy are close at hand. He strives, often, alas! too successfully, to avert from our eyes the brightness of the light in which they are placed by the revelation of God's will; and if a transient gleam of truth shoots across the darkness of a passive uninquiring soul, he straitway interposes some object of present interest, some glittering bauble or some attractive delight, and effaces the impression almost as soon as it is made. There is thus a contest for predominance and mastery in the moral world, between the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Evil.-Bishop Blomfield.

THE OPERATION OF THE SPIRIT.'

Ir must be acknowledged, that the Spirit doth not now work upon men in that sudden and sensible manner, as it did in the first times of Christianity;

because then men were strongly possessed with the prejudices of other religions, which they had been brought up in; and therefore, as more outward means of conviction were then necessary, so likewise a more powerful internal operation of the Spirit of God upon the minds of men, to concur and bear down those prejudices, and to subdue them to the obedience of faith. But now the principles of religion and goodness are more gradually instilled into the minds of men, by the gentle degrees of pious instruction and education; and with these means the Spirit of God concurs in a more human way, which is more suited and accommodated to our reason, a way which offers less violence to the nature of men. So that the promise of God's Holy Spirit is now made good to us as the necessity and circumstances of our present state do require.