to the Assembly at next meeting, if that Presbytery shall see cause. The purpose of the delay seemed, from the speeches on the subject, to be, that Dr Craig's zeal for the communion of saints, and against the use of the sword in religion, may have time to cool down to the proper point, ere he be admitted into a compulsory and partycommunion church. The guardians of the Church of Scotland have a due regard to Solomon's caution, "Can a man take fire into his bosom and his clothes not be burned ?"

FREE CHURCH ASSEMBLY.

THE annual meeting of the Free Church Assembly was held at Edinburgh on Thursday 18th May, and following days,-Dr Clason, Edinburgh, moderator. The proceedings were of deep interest, showing an increasing degree of strength and prosperity in the Free Church, notwithstanding the pressure of the times. For missions and education, the sum raised throughout the year was L.47,424, being above L.4000 more than last year's contributions under the same head. To this there fell to be added about L.7000 raised for kindred objects. The manse building committee reported the amount of their subscriptions uplifted during the year, to be L.16,835, which was within L.3000 of the expected amount. The sum paid as grants for building manses was L.16,825. Since the fund was instituted 241 manses had been built, and fifty-three were now in progress. Not a single application from a minister "outed" at the disruption had been refused. The amount received by the church building committee, during the past twelve months, was L.1125. Twenty-five new churches had been erected during the year, making the number of Free Churches 701. After defraying all expenses, L.600 remained in the hands of the committee, with all the churches free of debt. The sustentation fund amounted to L.88,974, showing an increase of L.5856 on the year as compared with the preceding. Of the 701 congregations, thirty-one contributed less than L.25 annually; 158 contributed less than L.50; 450 contributed less than L.100. Two-thirds of the number of congregations raise less than one-third of the fund. To supply the deficiency of these two-thirds (450 churches) required L.30,728 for the year. To each of the 596 ministers entitled to the equal dividend, the stipend yielded by the fund for the year 1847-8, was L.128. It was agreed to prosecute immediately and vigorously the scheme to raise the minimum of every ordained and settled minister in the church to L.150. The home mission committee had in their employment, the

previous year, 110 probationers and 116 catechists, but at present they had only ninety-eight probationers and ninety-three catechists. The stations occupied are ninety-six, and the charges sanctioned by the committee twenty-eight. Of these stations there were opened in 1843, forty-four; in 1844, eleven; in 1845, twelve; in 1846, ten; and in 1847, nineteen. The number of adherents at these stations amounted to nearly 70,000. Upwards of 400,000 square miles of territory were at present under the superintendence of their agents. The number of parishes in Scotland in which the Free Church had neither church nor station was 232; but every old original parish had a counterpart in a Free Church or station. The burden of sustaining these preachers was very disastrous in a pecuniary point of view. The debt had gone on increasing during the year. The salaries of preachers for 1846-7, amounted to L.6721, whereas the expenditure last year was L.8668; while, in 1846-7, the amount of the collections was L.3818, and last year, L.3733. Considerable discussion was excited by a proposal to extend the system of theological teaching beyond the central institution in Edinburgh, the advocates for extension pleading especially for the establishment of a Free Church college at Aberdeen. It was agreed, however, by a majority of 189 to 127, that the church was not now called upon to institute another college besides the one at Edinburgh. Various other matters of great interest, as affecting the Free Church itself, and the welfare of religion generally, were discussed and determined on by the Assembly; but these our space forbids us to notice.

THE VOLUNTARY CONTROVERSY.

THE spirit of agitation against church establishments has revived in its strength, after its recent lull. The British AntiState Church Association, resolved to carry their light on this question to the darkest corner of the land, held a meeting on the 8th June, in Hanover Square Rooms, the most aristocratic and fashionable quarter of London; and the demonstration of talent and influence on the occasion, marks a decided accession of strength to the Besides Mr Miall, Mr Burnet, and Dr Price, the long-tried and wellapproved advocates of the association; Mr Gardner, late M.P. for Leicester; Mr Kershaw, M. P. for Stockport; Mr George Thompson, M.P. for the Tower Hamlets; Mr Sharman Crawford, M.P. for Rochdale; Mr Lushington, M.P. for Westminster; and Dr Archer of London, were present, and, in able addresses, gave in their adherence to the society. We cannot doubt that the

movement.

summer campaign, thus favourably begun, will be followed up extensively throughout the country. Mr Bright is under promise to bring the subject before the House of Commons at the first opportunity; having given notice of his intention to oppose the customary votes for the Irish Regium Donum, and for ecclesiastical purposes in the colonies, whenever the grants shall be proposed. The question, in some of its principal elements, will occupy the attention of both Houses, in the discussion which must follow Lord John Russell's pledge on the part of Government to re-introduce the Jewish Disabilities Bill early next session. Our Scottish metropolis, with its disgraceful exhibition of state churchism, in the roupings for ministers' stipend which have been going on last week, amidst the hootings and execrations of the public, is furnishing its quota for the successful agitation of the controversy. Altogether, therefore, there is no likelihood that the Voluntaries, whether of Scotland or England, will, with all their desire to live at peace, be permitted to fall into the state of quiescence from which, in some districts of the country, they have but recently been roused.

Nor is the discussion to be confined to our own country. We have formerly noticed how it has spread in France, amidst the sifting times of the Revolution; and we learn that the same feature has marked the political agitations in Germany. In a Paris paper-Ere Nouvelle-understood as representing the sentiments of Father Lacordaire, the famous priest-deputy to the National Assembly, it is said,—“ A meeting has been held at Bonn, with the object of considering the subjects which affect the different reformed communities. So far there has been shown a general tendency in favour of a complete separation between Church and State. Those who take the opposite side, can hardly obtain a hearing; they are at once repulsed in the name of freedom."

THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT AND IRELAND.

THE difficulties which beset the Whig Government are thickening every week, and the incapacity of the ruling party to deal with them becoming evermore apparent. By a flagrant violation of justice on the part of the British Government, the millions of Ireland had been condemned to degradation and toil for the support of an aristocratic and alien church. The wretched results of this oppression, as affecting the intellectual and moral character of the people, had been too often manifest; and, latterly, had shown themselves in a way which gave much mortification and chagrin

to the Government. By a violation of justice almost as flagrant, though not on the same magnificent scale, as that under which their country had been suffering, some of the oppressed caste refused, the other day, in their capacity as jurymen, in the trial of certain political offenders, to bring in a verdict of guilty, where the facts proving the issue were as plain as evidence could make them. Not to be outdone in this fashion, the Government proceeded, in another case, to gain their purpose by a piece of legal dexterity. On the 26th May, John Mitchell, the editor of a Dublin Repeal newspaper, was found guilty of sedition, by a jury from which the prosecutors had carefully struck off the names of every man professing the religion of the mass of the Irish people; and the prisoner was condemned to fourteen years' transportation beyond seas. That Mitchell and his party have any right to complain of this treatment, we by no means allow. They had succeeded in defeating the authorities, by abusing the law of trial by jury; and if they, in their turn, have been defeated by a dexterous working of the same law, they have merely lost the game to which they had challenged their enemies, and lost it on their own avowed rules. That the verdict so procured will be of any service, as a measure of government for Ireland, we hold to be a very different question. It is causing deep regret in many lovers of fair play, notwithstanding they were well persuaded that Mitchell deserved his sentence. It reveals, in a new and horrible aspect, the sad misgovernment of Ireland, and the wretched fruits of her church establishment; which, for all the wealth it has devoured, has left, as this verdict would seem to imply, the whole Roman Catholic population-seven millions of people-in such a condition of abject ignorance and utter godlessness, that not one of them can be trusted by British rulers to declare the truth upon their oath! It has served to scatter the seeds of disaffection more widely than before, both in Great Britain and Ireland, and seems to be uniting the two classes of Irish Repealers, whose former divisions were a source of weakness to their common cause. At numerous meetings of a seditious character, held in London and some of the larger towns, Mitchell's transportation has been made the most of as a theme of popular excitement; and various apprehensions of leading orators at these meetings have taken place, furnishing the materials of future political trials, from which no good can be expected to the interests of the Whig Government. It is alleged, that offers are made to purchase the abandonment of the Repeal agitation, by surrendering the Established Church,

and by endowing the Romanists of Ireland; and that these offers have been rejected by the heads of the Romish Church, to whom -as if the price exacted were in their keeping-it is affirmed the proposition had been made. We cannot say we believe in this report, so far as concerns the abandonment of the church revenues by the Whigs; but that such surmises are affirmed as truths, and apparently believed, shows the opinion held as to the consistency and talent for contrivance possessed by the present Government. The depression and weakness of the Pope having caused a postponement, sine die, of the bill for diplomatic relations with Rome, as if all hope of quieting Ireland by Papal rescripts were for the present at an end, no one can say to what desperate expedient the ministry may be driven.

AGITATION FOR PROGRESSIVE REFORM.

Ir has often happened that, when the issue of a battle was trembling in the balance, a slight blunder, a trifling oversight, on the part of one of the leaders, has opened the way for securing the triumph to his adversary. The Prime Minister seems to have made one of these little mistakes, in resisting the demand for progressive reform. In the course of a discussion in the House of Commons, two or three weeks ago, when certain claims were urged by one speaker in behalf of what is called the people's charter, and by another in behalf of the new reform movement-each claiming to speak the sentiments of the working classes -Lord John Russell, as if seeing a capital opportunity for raising a laugh against both sides, ventured to affirm that the working classes were in favour of neither, but supported the measures of her Majesty's Government! If his object was to raise a laugh, he succeeded; for the House, as if determined to resist the influence of these gloomy times, has been particularly mirthful of late when great questions have been discussed, "whistling whistling aloud to keep their courage up; but the speaker forgot how much a joke depends on the way in which it is uttered, and the trim of the party hearing it. The people out of doors, not hearing the speaker, and not appreciating the wit, have understood the Premier's declaration as a statement of the Government idea in respect to the state of the country, and are every where taking means to point out the grievous delusion under which they presume him to be labouring. We have no doubt that the multitude of representations forwarded to Government within the next month, will be sufficient to make the Premier wish that he had resisted the temptation to perpetrate that memorable joke.

REJECTION OF THE JEWISH DISABILITIES

BILL.

THE House of Lords, in the exercise of its function of obstructiveness, has rejected this bill on its second reading (May 25) by a majority of 163 to 128. No one acquainted with the consuetudinary practice of the House in matters of reform will be surprised at this result. With a bench of bishops drawing immense revenues from an established church, and a multitude of peers, of every grade, directly interested in its continuance as they value the prosperity of their families, it is not wonderful that a measure involving in it the principle of religious equality, and, by consequence, inferring the overthrow of a church establishment, should be viewed, in that House, with trembling reluctance. The rejection of the bill on this occasion no more distresses than surprises us. We expect more good from the continued discussion of the question than we could from its immediate settlement; and as their lordships have determined that it shall run the gauntlet of another Parliamentary debate, we, as sound voluntaries, trusting in the power of the truth, and the efficacy of open enquiry in eliciting truth, do heartily rejoice in the favour they have unwittingly yielded us. Much valuable doctrine, closely bearing on the voluntary question, was uttered in the House of Commons when the bill was in progress there; and though the scintillations have not been so brilliant in the Upper House, they too are not without some importance. Lord Canning proclaimed to the bishops and the peers at large the growing aversion of all classes in this country, not excepting churchmen themselves, towards the practice of excluding men from rights and privileges on any ground of religious opinion. Our young Scottish duke, Argyll, in his maiden speech, gave promise of a useful and practical career as a legislator; not indeed grappling with what we deem the higher merits of the case, but at least exposing the inconsistency of those who, on professedly religious grounds, would exclude the Jew from political privileges while they admit the Unitarian, who robs the Saviour of his divine honours, and reduces him to the level of a creature. The House of Lords, if we mistake not, will soon find that they have gained little for the cause of exclusive churchism by allowing this bill to hang in the wind so long.

ITALIAN PRIESTS AND CELIBACY.

In the May number of L'Eco di Savonarola, a Protestant monthly periodical published in Italy, it is declared that there are up

wards of fifty Italian priests who intend to leave the Church of Rome, if the Pope will not permit them to take lawful wives. When it is remembered how much the law of priestly celibacy was concerned in the great reformation from Popery, when the scandalous character of ecclesiastical houses raised the fury of the multitude, and compelled the purer minded among the clergy themselves to abandon an order so infamous, the announcement of this intention on the part of fifty priests, is a fact of much significance as to the cause of reformation in Italy. That the Pope will concede the demand made upon him is not to be imagined. Were he to yield it in the case of fifty, he might soon have a similar demand from as many thousands, and he knows well, that once the kindly influences of the domestic hearth, and the legitimate bonds of conjugal and paternal affection are permitted access to the priest's heart, the sacerdotal order could no longer be trusted to serve the ends for which it is needed by the despotism of the Papacy.

LADY HEWLEY'S CHARITY.

66

THE Vice-chancellor of England, on the 7th June, pronounced judgment in this case, excluding the orthodox Presbyterians in England who have any ecclesiastical connexion with Scotland, from participating in the benefits of the charity. The original deed of the testatrix prescribes, that the fund be expended in assisting poor and godly preachers of Christ's holy gospel" in the six northern countics of England. By a decision of the Court of Chancery in 1836, it was ruled that the assistance should be confined to orthodox dissenters only, in distinction from the Unitarians, who previously enjoyed it. At the time of this decision, the congregations of Presbyterians holding connexion with the Church of Scotland, and with the Secession and Relief Churches, claimed to participate in the funds, inasmuch as their position answered the description of the original deed; but this was resisted by the English Independents, and a suit commenced in which the judgment of the Vice-chancellor has only now been pronounced. There is still an appeal open to the Lord Chancellor, and we cannot doubt but that this appeal will be taken. Some of the congregations whose claims the Vice-chancellor would reject, can trace their history as far back as the times of Lady Hewley; and if, when the socalled Presbyterians around them were lapsing into that heresy, for the sake of which they were, in 1836, compelled by law and justice to surrender funds left for the support of a pure gospel, these congregations sought to strengthen their faith by alliance

with a body north the Tweed, holding views in doctrine and government corresponding with their own, it is surely unjust, and we trust it will not be found lawful, that for this they should now be set aside in favour of the Independents-a body to which Lady Hewley did not belong, and with whom she had far less in common than with the parties sought to be excluded.

STATISTICS OF RELIGIOUS AND BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS.

(Collected by the PATRIOT from the Last Annual Reports.)

THE respective incomes are calculated upon an average of the last three years. During the year 1847-8, the receipts of nearly all the Societies show a decrease as compared with the preceding year—a circumstance attributed to the monetary pres

sure.

British and Foreign Bible Society.-Established in 1804. Has circulated more than 20,000,000 copies of the Scripture in nearly every known language or dialect. The gross expenditure has exceeded L.3,000,000. Average annual income, L.115,000.

Church Missionary Society.-Established in 1800. Has stations in East and West Africa, India, China, the Mediterranean, North West America, the West Indies, and New Zealand. Annual income, L.116,000.

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.-Incorporated in 1701. Has stations in the East and West Indies, the Canadas, Australia, New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Cape Town. Average income, L.95,000.

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.-Established in 1698. Circulates about 4,000,000 a-year of Bibles, Prayerbooks, Tracts, and other approved works. Average annual income, L.90,000.

Society for Building, Enlarging, and Repairing of Churches and Chapels.-Established in 1818. Has expended L.327,000 in grants, by which additional church room has been provided for 575,000 persons. Average annual income, L.24,000.

Church Pastoral Aid Society.-Established in 1836. Contributes to the stipends of poor curates, and provides lay assistants. Average annual income, L.45,000..

British and Foreign School Society.-Established in 1808. The Lancasterian system is pursued. Young persons of both sexes are trained in the central school, Borough Road. Upwards of 30,000 admitted since the foundation. Average annual income, L.15,000.

Religious Tract Society. - Established 1799. Circulates about 25,000,000 cheap

books and tracts every year. The sales produce generally L.50,000, which, with donations and subscriptions, give an average annual income of L.57,000.

Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society.Commenced in 1786, but not organized till 1816. Has Missionary stations in Northern and Western Africa, North America, Australasia, China, British India, New Zealand, the Canadas, and some of the Continental States. Average annual income, L.116,000. London Missionary Society.-Established in 1794. Has nearly 500 stations in various parts of the world, and fifteen printing establishments. No peculiar formula is insisted upon. Average annual income, L.75,000.

Baptist Missionary Society.-Established in 1792. Has Missionary stations in Asia, Africa, America, and in most of the European States. Has printed, in whole or in part, nearly 1,000,000 copies of the Scriptures. Average annual income, L.28,000.

London City Mission.- Established in 1836. Circulates the Scriptures and visits the poor in London of every religious denomination. Average annual income, L.14,000.

Methodist New Connexion Mission.-Operations confined strictly to Ireland and the Canadas. Has 54 Missionaries. Average annual income, L.3000.

Newfoundland's School Society. — Esta· blished in 1822. Average annual income, L.4000.

London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews. Established in 1808. Average annual income, 1.28,000. British Society for Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Jews. Established in 1842. Has sixteen missionaries. Has founded a Missionary Jewish College, where eight young converts are in training. Average annual income, L.2300.

Colonial Church Society.-Established in 1832. Has forty-eight missionaries in the West Indies, Malta, France, Spain, Western Australia, Nova Scotia, Cape of Good Hope, New Brunswick, Prince Edward's Island, the Canadas, and New Zealand. annual income, L.4000.

Average

Foreign Aid Society.-Established in 1841, in aid of the Sociétes Evangeliques of France and Geneva. Average annual income, L.5250.

Home Missionary Society. - Employs forty-eight missionaries, and has 125 stations in England and Wales. Average annual income, L.8000.

Irish Evangelical Society.- Established in 1834. Average annual income, L.2500. Naval and Military Bible Society.-Established in 1780.-Circulates authorised versions of the Scriptures amongst soldiers, sailors, and canal boatmen. Has issued 500,000 Bibles and Testaments since its formation. Average annual income, L.2500.

Colonial Missionary Society.-Has stations in Canada and Australia. Average annual income, L.2500.

Christian Instruction Society.—Established in 1825. Average annual income, L.600. Indigent Blind Visiting Society. — Established in 1834. Average annual income, L.650.

Protestant Association. -- Established in 1835. Average annual income, L.1500.

Sunday School Union.-Established in 1803. Average annual income, L.1600.

Adult Deaf and Dumb Institution.-Established in 1841. Average annual income, L.900.

British and Foreign Sailors' Society.Established in 1818. Employs fifteen agents in the port of London. Average annual income, L.1200.

British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. -Established in 1839. Average annual income, L.1850.

Orphan Working School.-Established in 1758. There are at present 180 orphans of both sexes in the school. Average annual income, L.12,500.

New Infant Orphan Asylum.-There are seventy children on the foundation. Average annual income, L.2800.

Clergy Orphan Corporation.-Established in 1725. Upwards of 200 children of both sexes are on the foundation, where they are fed, clothed, and educated, until of an age to be apprenticed. Average annual income, L.4500.

Friends of Foreigners in Distress.—Established in 1828. Relieves poor foreigners of all nations. Average annual income, L.2500.

Trinitarian Bible Society.-Established in 1831. Average annual income, L.1500.

Cheltenham Training Schools.-Established in 1845, for the instruction of masters and mistresses upon principles conformable with the liturgy of the Church of England. The association has received L.6500, including a grant of L.3000 from the Educational Committee of Council; but L.2500 more is required for the erection of the proposed schools.