Guardian. I think there is; at all events, I think it is a duty to look into the thing.

Chairman.-Very good; let the boy be called in.

M'Manus, a boy whose mother is dead, and whose father had deserted him, came into the room, and was questioned as follows:

Chairman. Have you ever been to school, my boy?
Boy.-Yes, sir; I have been in the school at Garth.

Chairman. That is a British school, is it not? How long were you there?
Boy.-Six weeks, sir.

Chairman.-Have you been accustomed to attend any place of worship?
Boy.-Yes, sir, I have been going to the Welsh chapel.

Chairman.-Have you seen the Popish priest lately?

Boy.-Yes, sir, he came to me.

W. Buckley Hughes, Esq.- Did you in any way manifest a desire to see the priest?

Boy.-No, sir; never.

Mr. B. Hughes. Did you hear the priest say anything to one of the other children? Boy.-No, sir.

Chairman.-To what place of worship would you prefer to go on the Sabbath? Tell the truth, you must not be afraid of any one.

Mr. B. Hughes.-I am of opinion we should warn the priest not to approach this boy again. We are, as guardians, answerable to the public, and to God, not to permit a spiritual evil any more than a temporal evil, to hurt this innocent boy. No one is more liberal in his religious views than myself, but here is a priest, in a disingenuous manner, coming to the house, and claiming one who does not belong to him.

The Chairman observed that the boy had not asked to see the priest, and therefore he had no right to speak to him.

It was said that the priest was visiting an old woman, a Papist, and that he turned to question the boy, because some one had given him to understand he was a Papist.

The Clerk was ordered to inform the priest, that the Board refused his request, and that he would not be permitted to see the boy again.

ROMANIZING LITERATURE.

(To the Editor of the Bulwark.)

SIR,-A short time ago you were kind enough to insert in the Bulwark a letter, in which I pointed out that the popular literature of the day was largely impregnated with the leaven of Popery. This is a master-stroke, having probably its origin with those schemers, who well know the power of the press, and seek by this means to reach those who would otherwise be safe from their insidious machinations. As an illustration of what I mean, I append a couple of extracts taken from two popular novels which came into my hands quite accidentally during the past week. The first extract is from The Sea Lions; or, The Lost Sealers, by J, F. Cooper, the celebrated American novelist. In vol. iii. p. 245, we read,—" Mary Pratt no longer mentioned Roswell in her prayers. She fully believed him to be dead; and her puritanical creed taught her that this, the sweetest and most endearing of all the rites of Christianity, was allied to a belief that it was sacrilege to entertain. We pretend not to any distinct impressions on this subject ourselves, but most devoutly do we wish that such petitions could have the efficacy that so large a portion of the Christian world impute to them." This passage was pencil-marked in the margin by the hand of some admiring reader.

The second extract which, by a strange coincidence, is on the same sub

ject, is taken from a work entitled Leonard Harlowe, by Waters, author of “Recollections of a Detective":

"It thus came about, my dear Mrs. Bradley. For many months after Leonard Harlowe's death my mind was in a state of pitiable distraction, and the giant horror which incessantly haunted me with afflictive images of eternal retribution was the state of sin and impenitence in which I believed he had passed from mortal life. Excellent Protestant divines visited me, but they were too honest to suggest a hope they did not feel. As the tree falls, they told me, so it must lie for ever, ever, ever! One afternoon, a Catholic priest, who had heard of my affliction, called" (we wonder whether this is an isolated case), "and, at his request, I related the exact circumstances attending the poor fugitive's death. To my surprise he assured me that some words which Leonard had uttered, expressive of a wish to see a priest, had made him, in a sufficient sense, a member of the Roman Catholic Church! That touched me faintly; but when the good man went on to quote the passage in Maccabees, 'It is a wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins;' and showed to me that it had been in all ages a Christian doctrine, that faithful members of the Church, who themselves lead pure and holy lives, can help the sinful departed with their prayers, a new light seemed to break in upon my troubled soul. I joined the Catholic Church, and gradually that which at first was a trembling, doubtful hope, grew, widened, brightened into a living, fervid faith, which has not only placed a lamp in that poor, contemned outcast's gravedepriving it of all its gloom and terror, but has shed a cheering, and, I humbly trust, a sanctifying influence over my own life. I can bear now to hear Leonard Harlowe's name scoffed at by worldlings; for I utter it to saints, to angels, to the omnipotent God himself, and in my inmost soul believe that all-gracious answers are vouchsafed to me; and oh, when I hear the priest say,The prayers of the faithful are requested for the repose of the soul of Leonard Harlowe, whose anniversary occurs about this time,' and I know that, from thousands of pious hearts, prayers for mercy to the lost one, as I once feared, will ascend to Christ, my heart swells with an ecstacy, a rapture, that words are all too weak to describe. And thus it was, my dear Mrs. Bradley, that I became a Papist." Comment on the above is needless.

STRONG IN THE LORD.

How sweet it is thus restfully to lean
On the Beloved's arm! He calms my fears,
And through eternity's unending years
He will be all that He hath ever been;
And more, for then no veil can come between.
Now oft I cannot see my way for tears,
And oft my sky all lightning-wreath'd appears;
But what a change at once comes o'er the scene
When the upholding of that Arm is given!

Then I can smile upon the howling storm,

Though thunder-bolts across my path be driven !
The Arm that brought salvation shields from harm;
The Arm that beareth sway in earth and heaven
Will hold my helpless soul in death's alarm!

J. C. K.

M.M.

THE LATE DR. CUNNINGHAM.*

THE Church of Christ has lost one of her most powerful champions by the death of the late Principal Cunningham. Perhaps the best proof of this to which a stranger could be directed, will be found in the three noble volumes of his works which have lately been issued from the press under the able editorship of Drs. Bannerman and Buchanan. To those who were acquainted with Dr. Cunningham personally, such evidences of his logical vigour and extensive learning were unnecessary, although all, even in other lands, must read the volumes with admiration and delight, even if they cannot agree with all the views maintained.

In the Popish controversy, Dr. Cunningham was peculiarly learned and accomplished. Unlike those spiritual triflers who look merely at the surface of the subject, he had comprehension to grasp and vigour to penetrate the true nature of the vast machinery of the Romish system as the grand antagonism which Satan has set up under the Christian economy to counterwork the great plan of God for the salvation of souls. He saw clearly that the great battle with Rome, instead of being ended, could only terminate in the total overthrow of the Popish system, and that one great duty of the true Church of Christ is to contend against and expose the machinations of the Man of Sin. He rightly judged that the history of the Church of Christ could be best read in contrast with the co-ordinate history of the great mystery of iniquity. Church history, therefore, in his hands, is not a mere dry detail of facts, but an exhibition of living principles-a picture of the struggles of truth and falsehood on the stage of time, with a vivid analysis of each. The three volumes published are thus distinguished. The first contains a series of essays published originally in The British and Foreign Evangelical Review, of which Dr. Cunningham was for some time editor. These essays are chiefly historical, and present a series of powerful sketches, chiefly referring to the period of the Reformation and the great principles maintained by the Reformers. They contain very powerful exposures of the mistakes and misrepresentations of recent writers, and are exceedingly worthy of careful study. The second and third volumes contain Principal Cunningham's lectures to his students, and are very mature and elaborate. Indeed, if they have a fault, we should say that they are scarcely sufficiently elementary for the use of mere students. They contain an admirable and luminous review of the main controversies which have agitated the Christian Church since the Apostolic age, but they imply for their profitable study some considerable previous knowledge.

Where all is so connected, it is not very easy to make separate quotations, but a few examples may give our readers some idea of the style of the work, and perhaps induce them to procure the whole for themselves. The following extract is in regard to the heathenism of Rome :—

The leading features of heathen polytheism and idolatry stand out palpably to our observation, even upon the most cursory survey. No one can mistake them. They are manifestly these two, viz., first, the giving of religious worship and homage to a number of inferior beings along with the one Supreme God; and, secondly, the use of images, or outward visible representations of these beings, supreme and inferior, in the religious worship and homage which are rendered to them. These

*Historical Theology. By the late William Cunningham, D.D. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

two features of the common heathen idolatry, as thus generally stated and described, manifestly apply to the doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome, with respect to saints and images; and her advocates have, in consequence, felt the necessity of pointing out clear distinctions between their case and that of the heathen, in order that they may escape from the charge of idolatry, a crime so frequently and so severely denounced in Scripture. They are the more anxious to effect this, because it is undeniable that the fathers, to whom they are so much in the habit of referring as authorities, are accustomed, when they are exposing the idolatry of their heathen adversaries, to make statements which, as they stand, decidedly condemn as irrational and anti-scriptural what is now taught and practised in the Church of Rome. The distinctions which they attempt to set up are chiefly these: First, that the heathen give to these inferior beings the same worship and homage which they render to the Supreme Being-that they worship them all equally as gods; whereas they (the Romanists) give to saints and angels only an inferior or subordinate worship or homage, and reserve to God a higher kind or species of worship that ought to be rendered to no creature; and, secondly, that the heathen worshipped the images of false gods,-i.e., of beings who had no real existence, or were not entitled to any religious respect, or worshipped them in the belief that the images themselves were gods, or that some divinity resided in them, which could hear prayer and confer blessings; whereas they (the Romanists) worship or venerate only the images of Christ, His mother, and the saints now reigning in heaven,-do not regard these images as possessed of any power of hearing prayers or conferring blessings, and merely employ them as aids or auxiliaries in rendering aright the worship and homage due to those whom they represent,-honouring and venerating the images on their account.

In regard to these allegations of the Romanists, we maintain,-first, that the representations here given of heathenism are not true in fact, and that the alleged distinctions between heathenism and Romanism in these matters cannot be established by satisfactory evidence; and, secondly, that these distinctions are insufficient to shield the doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome from the denunciations of heathen polytheism and idolatry contained in the Sacred Scriptures and the writings of the fathers. There is good ground to believe, that the more intelligent and reflecting among the heathen, both in ancient and in modern times, perceived and admitted a distinction between the Supreme God and the inferior deities whom they worshipped, and that they paid some regard to this distinction in the kind or degree of worship which they rendered to them; that they had in their minds a distinction between the highest worship and homage due only to the one Supreme God, and an inferior worship or homage rendered to many other beings,-a distinction substantially the same as that which Papists employ in their own defence, though not so fully enunciated or so carefully explained. And with regard to images, there is equally good ground to believe that the more intelligent and reflecting heathens did not ascribe to them any divinity, or expect from them blessings, any more than the Church of Rome does, and would say little or nothing more about the honour and veneration due to them than the Council of Trent has done. With respect to the allegation that the heathen gave religious worship to beings who had never existed, and to their images, this, in so far as concerns the conviction and belief of the worshippers, is not true, for they believed that the beings whom they worshipped had existed, and did then exist; and so far as concerns the actual reality or matter of fact, the heathens were in no worse condition in this respect than the Romanists are for it has been proved by satisfactory evidence, that some persons have been canonized by Popes and are in consequence entitled to be invoked and worshipped by all Papists-who never existed; and that others have been admitted into the calendar of saints, and have thus become legitimate objects of Popish worship, who, when tried by the scriptural standard, can be shown to be no more entitled to respect and veneration of any sort than were the inferior deities of ancient Greece and Rome. In short, the condition of heathens, in the more civilized countries, was, in this respect, substantially the same with that of the subjects of the Romish Church. The more intelligent and reflecting heathens no more confounded the crowd of inferior or subordinate objects of religious worship with the one Supreme God, and no more identified images with living and intelligent objects of veneration, than the defenders of Popery now do; and if the general state of sentiment and practice among the common mass of ignorant heathens differed from this, and corresponded more fully with the representations which Romish writers usually give of it, this is nothing more than can be easily paralleled in the Church of Rome; for there can be no reasonable doubt that, even at the present day, in countries where Romanism