Stirling's system is in full operation; in other words, where the old Moderatism and Jacobitism of Scotland have eaten out the religious heart of the people. This is notoriously the case in those northern and southern counties which are alone prominently marked by illegitimacy; whereas such strongly Presbyterian and Sabbath-keeping counties as Ross, Sutherland, and Orkney, and even the western and midland counties, are comparatively free. Let Mr Stirling ponder this undeniable fact, and answer it if he can.

4. But to come still closer to Mr Stirling. A part of his own county presents a social scene of a very degraded kind, well-fitted to arrest attention-we refer to the bothies of the Carse of Gowrie, fruitful in every vice. Has he ever exposed this in the House of Commons? We trow not. Has he ever remonstrated with the proprietors? It is too bad to speak in a cowardly way, where the facts are unknown, of the social degradation of the Scotch people, when he knows that they are, as a general rule, “more sinned against than sinning," and that the true blame lies at the doors of some of those whom he represents in Parliament.

"GOOD WORDS" AND POPERY.

We recently called attention to this publication as having a strong tendency, in its present form, to promote the desecration of the Sabbath. Since then a series of able articles have appeared in the London Record, in which many of the articles in the same popular journal are proved to be of a very dangerous description in point of doctrine. An article appears in the January number of so-called "Good Words," entitled, "The Monks and the Heathen," by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, which is powerfully fitted to advance this swelling tide of Romanism, and to minister to the loose and unscriptural views in regard to "this mystery of iniquity," from which the country has so much to dread. It is Popery viewed from a rationalistic stand-point. The light in which it places Popery, is, that it was God's ordinance for civilising and Christianising Europe in the middle ages-the bridge betwixt Judaism and Christianity; that but for Popery we could not have had the Bible and the gospel; that the gospel could not have acted on men then-which implies that it is not divine; that it is right to worship dead men and dead men's bones, and teach others so to do, provided we turn the power thereby acquired to some beneficent temporal end. It ignores the fact that it was the corruption of the gospel-in other words, Popery-which plunged Europe into darkness, and kept it in darkness; and as a set off against this great crime, the writer pleads that the Monks did not permit that darkness to be utter and total. In other words, one is to be held to be the saviour of society, not when he does it all the good in his power, but when he does not do it all the ill in his power. Its style is exquisite, and its painting intensely vivid, and the young person who reads it will carry in his mind for half a life time the beauteous picture it presents of monks and monkery. It cries up childish fables, while the writer would probably not speak with such earnestness in regard to the verities of revelation. We can imagine nothing more fitted to unsettle one's faith in the gospel, and to incline him towards superstition.

Scotland as if it were Jewish, when they themselves, every Sabbath, repeat, in their churches, the fourth commandment, and cry aloud, "Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law." If it be not a solemn mockery of God to use such a prayer when no real meaning is attached to it, and when the great mass of the men who use it regard the fourth commandment as only an obsolete Jewish precept, we do not know what lying unto God means. True-hearted English Christians, who really honour the law of God, fully comprehend this question, but the mass do not understand that the Scotch, with a good deal less of outward pretence, are far more honest. Perhaps, indeed, no more flagrant instance of hypocrisy, almost national, can be found in the world than this conduct of the great body of the people of England in regard to the Sabbath-day.

The battle of the Sabbath and of the Bible must now be fought against the combined forces of Romanism and Infidelity, and in regard to both we have one remark to make. It is utterly useless to be always thus fighting a mere retreating battle. In other words, when a victory is gained by the enemy, as in the case of the Kew Gardens, the Dublin Gardens, the music on Sabbath in Hyde Park, maintained by the public authorities, it is disgraceful tamely to give up the struggle in these instances. This only emboldens the enemy, and is clearly opposed to duty. Every inch of ground thus lost should be struggled for by the whole influence of our Lord's Day Societies and Sabbath Alliances. The public sins of our rulers in these respects, as well as of the Sabbath-breaking people, should be unsparingly exposed, and they should be called to repentance and humiliation, aye and until they actually "repent, and do the first works." Our pulpits should give forth clear notes of warning on the subject, our religious periodicals, especially those which speak of revivals of religion, should boldly "cry aloud and not spare" against the counter-current of infidelity and sin. Unless this is done, we cannot expect the Divine blessing, and God will, in all probability, leave us to "reap the fruit of our own ways, and to satisfy ourselves with our own devices."

No doubt Mr Stirling, M.P., in his singular and offensive speech, set forth that the Scotch were more anxious about the fourth than about the other commandments of God. This is the frequent slang of a party of innovators, and comes with a bad grace from Mr Stirling, but it embodies one of the grossest misrepresentations that ever was uttered.

1. The true supporters of the Sabbath in Scotland are equally earnest in support of every other part of the Divine law. The Sabbath-breakers are, generally speaking, also the sinners against every other Divine precept. There is every reason to believe that an ill-spent Sabbath is always a day of special vice, and we have the highest authority for saying that, in regard to the law of God," he that offendeth in one point is guilty of all." But

2. It is not true that Scotland is, in respect of social morality, more wicked than England. The registration in Scotland is compulsory, whilst it is not so in England, and thus the evils of Scotland come more clearly out. Those who know the two countries are persuaded that if a compulsory system of registration of births existed in England, the social immorality of that country would be found greatly to outstrip that of Scotland. A lax Sabbath therefore does not make a high morality. This is abundantly proved also by Vienna, Paris, and every continental Popish country.

3. It is very important to notice, that in so far as social immorality prevails in Scotland, it is almost exclusively in the very districts where Mr

Stirling's system is in full operation; in other words, where the old Moderatism and Jacobitism of Scotland have eaten out the religious heart of the people. This is notoriously the case in those northern and southern counties which are alone prominently marked by illegitimacy; whereas such strongly Presbyterian and Sabbath-keeping counties as Ross, Sutherland, and Orkney, and even the western and midland counties, are comparatively free. Let Mr Stirling ponder this undeniable fact, and answer it if he can.

4. But to come still closer to Mr Stirling. A part of his own county presents a social scene of a very degraded kind, well-fitted to arrest attention-we refer to the bothies of the Carse of Gowrie, fruitful in every vice. Has he ever exposed this in the House of Commons? We trow not. Has he ever remonstrated with the proprietors? It is too bad to speak in a cowardly way, where the facts are unknown, of the social degradation of the Scotch people, when he knows that they are, as a general rule, 66 more sinned against than sinning," and that the true blame lies at the doors of some of those whom he represents in Parliament.

"GOOD WORDS" AND POPERY.

WE recently called attention to this publication as having a strong tendency, in its present form, to promote the desecration of the Sabbath Since then a series of able articles have appeared in the London Record, in which many of the articles in the same popular journal are proved to be of a very dangerous description in point of doctrine. An article appears in the January number of so-called "Good Words," entitled, "The Monks and the Heathen," by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, which is powerfully fitted to advance this swelling tide of Romanism, and to minister to the loose and unscriptural views in regard to "this mystery of iniquity," from which the country has so much to dread. It is Popery viewed from a rationalistic stand-point. The light in which it places Popery, is, that it was God's ordinance for civilising and Christianising Europe in the middle ages-the bridge betwixt Judaism and Christianity; that but for Popery we could not have had the Bible and the gospel; that the gospel could not have acted on men then-which implies that it is not divine; that it is right to worship dead men and dead men's bones, and teach others so to do, provided we turn the power thereby acquired to some beneficent temporal end. It ignores the fact that it was the corruption of the gospel-in other words, Popery-which plunged Europe into darkness, and kept it in darkness; and as a set off against this great crime, the writer pleads that the Monks did not permit that darkness to be utter and total. In other words, one is to be held to be the saviour of society, not when he does it all the good in his power, but when he does not do it all the ill in his power. Its style is exquisite, and its painting intensely vivid, and the young person who reads it will carry in his mind for half a life time the beauteous picture it presents of monks and monkery. cries up childish fables, while the writer would probably not speak with such earnestness in regard to the verities of revelation. We can imagine nothing more fitted to unsettle one's faith in the gospel, and to incline him towards superstition.

It

REMAINS OF GLASTONBURY ABBEY-SCENE OF THE CHIEF LABOURS OF THE SO-CALLED SAINT DUNSTAN.

Or all the primates of England, none has obtained greater notoriety than the celebrated Saint Dunstan, so famous, or rather so infamous for his zeal in the cause of priestly celibacy, and for his pretended wonderful miracles. Dunstan, we are informed, was born in the year of our Lord, 925, near Glastonbury, and was descended from a respectable family who resided there. He was put to school, and his parents encouraged his application