of the People for ever! France is free, the Bastille is taken: William was there, and helping. I have just got a letter from him. He has put up the picture of the Bastille, and two stones from its ruins, for you," (addressing himself to me,) "which you will soon receive; but come, you must hear his letter." We all stood thunderstruck. After composure was a little restored, he read an account of the event. Such was the first announcement to us, of the bursting of that tempest which had long been gathering in France, and which finally overthrew the monarchy and the church, which destroyed public property, which levelled the altar with the dust, but which also was the means of ruining, in its actings, the earthly peace of so many thousands of private families; and, in its principles, of laying low and annihilating that Divine trust which might have proved their shelter of refuge from the ruthless storm. The revolution in France was to be considered not merely as a political movement affecting that country only, but rather as a vast experiment of which France was the principal theatre. I am not now about to speak of public events, with which I have nothing to do, but of the effects they produced on the domestic sphere with which I had experience. I have seen the reception of the news of the victory of Waterloo, and of the carrying of the Reform Bill, but I never saw joy comparable in its vivid intensity and uni

versality to that occasioned by the early promise of the French revolution. It can only be explained by that deeply latent heresy of the human heart which, while it asserts that knowledge is power, ignores that power is both fratricidal and suicidal to happiness, till laid at the foot of the Cross, and till the heart that wields it is baptized and regenerated by the love of God.

How varied, in the course of time, have likewise been the changes wrought in the face of society by new developments and applications of intellect, for I lived when steam-power, vaccination, and the electric telegraph were not; yet at the end of all, how does nothing remain as an addition to happiness, but in so far as it has been of God! And how little have the greatest misfortunes had of a venomed sting, when the peace of God has been truly in the soul!

Every one of the great changes which have been wrought of men has been hailed by them as though a new millennium were about to dawn, and every political misfortune has been dreaded as though an utterly crushing extinction were at hand; but how different has been the result! The brightest imaginations of fallen man have ever ended in darkness, like a fair morning speedily overcast; while the darkest and most gloomy prospects have gradually brightened into light. Compare the universal joy and glowing hopes which hailed the French

Revolution with the bloody night of the Reign of Terror which so soon succeeded; compare the colossal power of Bonaparte with his silent tomb at St. Helena. Such were the progress of man and the power of man. Contrast with this that word spoken, in a remote mountain of Galilee, to a few fishermen ; "Preach the gospel to every creature." That eternal Word was the same which had before said, "Let there be light: and there was light." So is this second word of power still running its course of blessing, after the lapse of eighteen centuries.

I have seen the two or three originators of African emancipation opposed and derided by the whole world, but the word of God was with them, and it did not return unto Him void, but accomplished that for which He sent it. In my own time did a few men originate the Bible Society, and now those waters of life seem almost to overflow the habitable globe. Oh, that our Lord may give us a heart to be deeply penetrated by their inestimable value, and to drink of them freely to the refreshment of our souls!

How has every great popular movement generally begun in a real and sincere wish to rectify some flagrant evil, or the accumulated abuses of ages; but how, in its progress, unless the leader-yea, and every individual enlisted under him continue to take counsel of Divine truth and wisdom, are their

ranks soon filled up by successors of a very different stamp, and the original object which once so dazzled the view becomes wholly clouded or merged in darkness.

Thus did the real and deep corruptions of the Church of Rome call forth the Reformation, and thus did the early reformers soon find themselves overwhelmed by the blind fury of those who professedly set out as their partisans. Were the causes of Luther and Calvin most injured by the popes whom they opposed, or by the fury of the Anabaptists and other lawless ones, who were originally enlisted as their followers?

When any great corruption becomes universal and glaring, it calls for redress; but with this the temptation urgently arises, both to reform according to our own unassisted view, and to use our own unassisted means; and hence it is that the dreadful shipwrecks in the times of revolution arise. In the pressure of the temptation, we forget that with every temptation God will make a way of escape; that He is both a Counsellor and a Mighty God, He who can give wisdom to discover ends and power to wield the right means. How beautifully does the abolition of slavery in the British dominions exhibit the power that accomplishes a work both begun and carried on in God!

But to return. Though all the consequences of the French Revolution were then unimagined, the

joy its first tidings occasioned was of short duration. The horrors of the 10th of August, and other succeeding scenes, formed a sort of dark cloud; yet still, hope was rife that however atrocious the ebullition of popular fury, such would prove transient, and faith in the cause was not essentially weakened.

I can look back on my surprise at the total change introduced at this time in the subjects of conversation. Even with my father's scientific friends, politics became all-absorbing; from his philosophical friends we heard continually anecdotes of the profligacy of kings and nobles, and of the shackles imposed by the privileged orders; of the abuse of parental authority, the dungeons of the Bastille, of Vincennes, and of lettres de cachet. From the religious party of whom Dr. Priestley was the head among us, we heard of the fraud and superstition of the Roman Catholic Church, the inordinate power of the priests, the vast revenues of the English clergy, and the grievances imposed by the Oath of Supremacy and the Corporation and Test Acts, so that those who had hitherto fancied themselves free, and had moved about in perfect liberty, began to feel their necks galled by heavy chains. Nor was it long, and especially about the day of Federation, before France was universally held up as an example to England. Much was said of the empire of reason and benevolence, of the rights of man, and of tracing things to first principles,