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Before we conclude, there is another subject which presses heavily upon our spirits. It is the financial state of the Church Missionary Society. We fear that this is an indication of something wrong amongst us. There is a worm at the root of our gourd. God raised it up in a night-the dark night of irreligion and formalism; and if we were to give way to unbelief, we should be almost disposed to say that it is likely to perish in the deeper gloom of infidelity and semipopery. Unless assistance, to a very large amount, is immediately given, the committee will be compelled to reduce all their missions. And this, too, as the last report shows, when the blessing of God is crowning their missions with unexampled success. Plausible reasons for this sudden failure in their resources are easily given; substantial reasons there are none. The press has pursued them with poisoned arrows; and at length the friends of the Society seem disposed to believe the revilers of missions at home, who write with a wit and perseverance worthy of a better cause, rather than the simple, uncoloured statements of the servants of God, who write from the very field of battle. The multiplication of new societies is doing great harm; it draws off old friends, and prevents the accession of new ones. do not profess to feel the same interest in each, but we say that the four well-tried societies are sufficient for evangelical churchmen on the one hand, and orthodox high churchmen on the other. Yet we believe all of these are suffering. The Church Missionary Society and the Pastoral Aid Society on the one side; the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and the Additional Curates' Aid Society, on the other. The founders of the Church Missionary Society were also the first promoters of the Christian Observer, and an affectionate and confidential intercourse has always existed between the two; and the Pastoral Aid Society, for similar reasons, has always claimed a high share of our regard. But we must go further than the needless additions made to our Missionary Societies before we come to the root of the evil. Evangelical religion has increased tenfold since the Church Missionary Society was founded; the wealth of England has more than doubled itself twice over; yet the bravest of our societies has never yet been able to venture on an expenditure of 150 0007. We could count upon our fingers a score or two of merchants in London, cotton spinners and speculators in Manchester, and cotton brokers in Liverpool, who, to use the mercantile expression, have "realised" that sum during the American war. Surely there is something sorely wrong. Is it without reason that the Evangelical party is said to have lost much of its first love? A contributor in our present month says hard things of us; can we dare to say they are undeserved? And if true of the clergy, they will of course affect the laity more than their spiritual guides. "Ephraim hath mixed himself among the people. . . . Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not. Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not." It is not yet too late. We can afford to say as hard things of ourselves as our bitterest enemies can say of us; for we know that God is on our side; we feel assured that He will revive His work, and that speedily. Let us wait upon Him in deep contrition, and with much earnest supplication and prayer; and let our

petition be that of the penitent Jews at their wailing-place at Jerusalem; Lord, revive thy work AMONGST US SPEEDILY; Lord, speedily. Have mercy upon Sion, and build her towers again. Speedily Lord, speedily.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A LADY suggests that Isaac Taylor's "Ancient Christianity" is the most valuable of all his writings; but that it is too diffuse and wordy. She tells us, that he himself was conscious of the fault, and would have made an abridgment, but did not live to do so. She wishes that it could be now done, as the work would be exactly suited to the present times. "The repetitions are numerous; and if they were all left out, the pith of the matter would come into a small compass." The suggestion deserves attention from the owners, whoever they may be, of the copyright.

Another Lady tells us that she has been reading Faber on "The Pre-existent State of Man," a subject which has bothered many brains ever since the days of Soame Jenyns, and probably long before, and wishes us to write, or admit, an article upon the subject. Does it not occur to our friend that, if we ourselves are not conscious of having lived in this pre-existent state, it is utterly impossible for anyone else to prove it; and that if it could be proved, it would still be a matter of profound indifference to us? The identity of a stone may be proved, for all useful purposes, by the observation of others; that of a sentient being can be proved only by his own consciousness, or at least cannot be proved without it. For, in fact, this question, wherein consists the identity of sentient beings, is an old metaphysical puzzle, very amusing and quite worthless, and the pursuit of it is now quite abandoned. The reviewer of Dr. Pusey's "Irenikon," in our present number, wrote to us after his proofs had been struck off, requesting us to say whether Bishop Latimer had in fact, as far as we could ascertain, justified the worship of the saints in any degree, or not, a few years before his death. We felt assured that he had not done so, seeing that his plain, wholesome teaching at St. Paul's Cross, before Edward VI., was totally inconsistent with such a return to Popery, though we were not prepared to point out the passage which would at once have settled the question. The Record of December 18th contains two letters which decide it. The first is from Dean Goode. He says, the words quoted by Dr. Pusey, "written shortly before his death," were written by him in the reign of Henry VIII., more than twenty years before his death, before he had fully embraced the doctrines of the Reformation; and in his published sermons, preached during the reign of Edward VI., he repeatedly speaks against the invocation of saints, using such language as the following:-"Beware that thou call not upon any creature or saint, for that is a great wickedness before God, in praying to saints; for with the saints we have nothing to do but to keep in memory and follow their godly life." This was in a sermon preached January, 1552, about three years only before his martyrdom in October 2, 1555. Mr. Roberts, of Wood Rising, adds,-" Now I am sorry to observe that Dr. Pusey has quoted 'honest Master Latimer' dishonestly. True, he has given the words correctly from the letter, but the letter, instead of having been written shortly before the martyr's death, appears to be as ancient in its date as May or June, 1533, two and twenty years before the martyrdom. Dr. Pusey quotes the passage out of Foxe. Now, had he but transferred his eye to Foxe's margin, he would have read there this remark, Maister Latimer's errour in those days.' Such tricks are not at all unfrequent amongst the Anglo-Roman school. We thought Dr. Pusey in capable of them, and must leave him to offer his own explanation.

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A CONTRAST; OR, OUR LORD'S ESTIMATE OF RICHES, AND OUR ADULATION OF RICH MEN.

NOTHING, probably, while the present dispensation lasts, will ever cure men of that habit, which is almost universal, of estimating their fellow-creatures, and of paying honour to them, chiefly with reference to the wealth which they are known or supposed to possess. Were this the case with men of the world merely, it might excite little surprise. It ever has been thus. As far back as in the days of David it was remarked that "So long as thou doest well unto thyself, men will speak good of thee." But this practice, this habit of mind, pervades the Church almost as much as it does the world. It was not in a fashionable circle, but among "high professors," that Henry Martyn spent an evening which, in his Journal, he thus records:"I felt, more than I ever had done, the shame attending poverty; nothing but the remembrance that I was not to blame supported me. Dined at- where I could plainly see I was scarcely a welcome guest: the neglect of me was too plain to be unnoticed. The weakness of my human nature would have expressed itself, had I not looked up to God, and prayed for a sense of my desert of the scorn of men." We could not help contrasting with this some recent instances in which "high professors" have been seen bowing down to purse-proud inanity; and then excusing themselves by observing in a whisper, "He is worth a million!" Almost simultaneously, however, a remark was made in our hearing which struck us very forcibly; and in thought we soon followed it out into a few particulars.

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There stood, one day, more than eighteen hundred years ago,

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on a mountain in the land of Judea, two persons, especially distinguished from most others,-the one, among other features, for his boundless wealth; the other, for his deep and abject poverty. To speak first of the latter. The poor man, of whom we are attempting a description, was one of a family of the meanest rank, who earned their bread as mechanics in a village held in the lowest estimation among the Jews. He described himself, on one occasion, as destitute and homeless. At the moment of which we are speaking, he had been long without food; he was hungry, poor, unsheltered. Viewed as a man, and considering his despised origin, and his extreme penury and destitution, it is scarcely possible to depict to the mind's eye an object more utterly helpless and forlorn.

Turn, then, to the other person, who has but recently met with him, and addressed him. If the first was in the lowest depth of poverty, the other possesses riches beyond all count. For, what are the most aspiring and ambitious of men constantly seeking to gain? Take one in the middle rank of life: what is he pining after? Why does he so early rise, and so late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness? "Oh! if he may but, before he dies, get a piece of land,—an estate,—something, if it be but a few hundreds of acres, that calls him 'lord!'" For that object, his whole life is spent. And what is the man of higher rank doing;-he who inherited broad lands and ancestral honours, how has he spent his days? Perhaps in wasting (called "enjoying") his abundance; but in many cases in eagerly adding field to field and house to house, in order that he may become greater, richer, more powerful, and gain a higher rank among the grandees of his native land.

Or look still higher, to the conqueror, the so-called "hero:" -an Alexander, weeping that he had no more worlds to conquer; or a Napoleon, grasping at kingdom after kingdom; until all Europe, alarmed, gathered together against him, and chained him to a rock!

But what are all these, in the presence of him we are now observing? He approaches the poor destitute man of whom we have just spoken, and he opens to his view "all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them:" and he says to him, "All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them; for that is delivered unto me, and unto whom I will I give it. If thou wilt therefore worship me, all shall be thine !"

But was all this a vain pretence-a lie? At first sight we might be induced to think so; but a little further examination shows that this proud pretender has but too solid a foundation for his assertions. He who was "the truth" afterwards declared him to be, in verity, "the Prince of this world." In the case of Job, we see him sending the Sabeans here, and the

Chaldeans there, and ruling even over the elements, and "the fire of God." And when the faithful in Smyrna are cast into prison, it is this "Prince of this world" who so troubles them. We may hardly say, therefore, that he spoke falsely, when he said, "All this is delivered unto me, and unto whom I will I give it." We know, indeed, that when this "strong man armed keepeth his palace," there is yet "a stronger than he;" but, nevertheless, we must not deny, that over the length and breadth of the earth the sway of this Prince is but too manifest. And what a conqueror, what a rich man, is this! "All the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them :"-" to whomsoever I will I give it!" Oh! what puny creatures are the mighty ones of the earth, after this! How would the eyes of a Charlemagne or a Napoleon have sparkled, could they but have had such an offer! Not many moments would have passed over before they had eagerly paid the prescribed price. Compare, then, these two persons once more. How deep, how utter the destitution, on the one side; how boundless, how prodigious, the wealth on the other! So appeared the case to mortal eye; and it was true, to a certain extent, that in this case, as in most others, " appearances are facts." The one was, in truth and reality, hungry, without a morsel of bread to eat; clothed, as the son of a poor mechanic, in coarse, perhaps tattered, garments; weary, but with no home to receive his sinking frame; and, like all poor outcasts, viewed with the greatest scorn and loathing by the sons and daughters of affluence and luxury. The other, the king of pride, commanding, not creatures merely, but the very elements ;-bringing to view, by angelic power, "all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them," and vaunting himself in the thought, "All this is delivered unto me, and unto whomsoever I will I give it." When did such poverty and such wealth ever again meet on a single spot of earth?

But this is only the half, and the least wonderful half, of the truth. That which is "not seen" is of a thousand times more importance than that which "is seen." For, in truth, this mighty prince, who commands and can give away all the wealth of the world, is, after all, the poorest wretch in all God's wide creation; while that abject, hungry, homeless man, is, at the same time, the Creator and the Proprietor of all worlds! The one is utterly destitute of the only true happiness, because he is "without God"; the other is calmly indifferent to physical wants and sufferings, and to the world's contempt and scorn, because He has the consciousness that He "is not alone, because the Father is with Him," and that in Him "the Father is always well pleased." One real source and fountain of blessedness exists in the whole universe, and

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