that his friends and benefactors are chiefly a few excellent persons. But here are some of his perplexities.

In the first place, he is absolutely dependant upon them for all he has, or hopes to have; and an offending word might, we suppose, be followed by his expulsion from the pulpit.

In the next place, he is placed in the very unsatisfactory position of receiving everything as an act of bounty; and therefore corresponding liberty is given to his benefactors, to subject his sermons and himself to the cross-fire of all sorts of different minds. and tempers.

Next, he is harassed by incessant interruptions, and is afraid to refuse any request, lest he should have his congregation in arms against him.

Now all this may be endurable while congregations are in a right mood, and no upstart theologian or reformer, with a long purse, an empty head, a bad temper, or a cold heart, arrives to assert his own will in the congregation. But woe be to the poor minister, if he does. Other factions and fractious spirits are sure soon to flock to the standard of discontent, and the best man and minister may find the foes of his own house infinitely too much for him. In such circumstances, it appears next to impossible that any but a few very unusual men should honestly and fearlessly discharge their sacred duties. The minister is called especially to set his face like a flint against the corruptions of society; and therefore, folly, vice, self-will, self-conceit, if he is a true man, will find him assailing them in front, in flank, and in the rear, and giving them no quarter. In such a state of things, it is next to hopeless that a body which can resist will not do so; and then down goes the poor minister. Of all ministers, it would seem to us that the least independent is the minister of an "Independent" congregation. Such an assembly may be often considered as made up of a hundred tyrants and one slave. This little work may serve two good purposes; first, that of teaching ministers of an Established Church, without abusing their liberty-and of this there is considerable danger-greatly to value it; and secondly, that of warning the congregations of other religious communities of the mischief and misery they may easily inflict upon ministers by the rash and cruel putting forth of their own inherent powers. If we could hope that any counsels from ourselves would be acceptable to such congregations, we would earnestly advise them, first, to be as careful as they please in the choice of their ministers; but, having chosen them, to put it out of their own power to interfere with the free discharge of their all-important duties.

We feel it right to refer to one painful feature in the volumethat the person represented as the main annoyance to the minister is an "abolitionist;" so that here, as in a thousand instances, that American taint discloses itself, which is so foul a blot on the Christian character in that country. Religion is too apt there to go forth

in the half-livery of slavery; and if she is not found to do such violence to her principles as actually to lengthen the whip and strengthen the manacles of the slave, yet she does not encounter that horrible system with the whole-hearted detestation which it calls for in the sight of God and good men.

VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

THE affairs of the Danubian Principalities have advanced another stage. The Divans of Moldavia and Wallachia have voted for the union of the Principalities under a foreign Sovereign, but yet recognise the rights of the Porte as established by former treaties; and ask for a Representative Government. The union of the Principalities is supposed to involve the introduction of a foreign. sovereign. But where is such a sovereign to be found? Is he to be Greek, or Mohammedan, or Protestant, or Roman Catholic? Is he to be an emissary of Russia, or England, or France? Is he to be a man of no assignable religious faith-an Atheist, a Universalist, or Pantheist? Would Mr. Robert Owen do for them? This, however, is a question of the deepest religious and moral, as well as political import? The eyes of some persons have been directed, in despair of fixing on any other person, on the Duke of Oporto, the brother of the King of Portugal. He is young, and, as it is said, carefully educated, and has been bred up under what may be called a Constitutional Government. But the fact of his being a Romanist, and his family more than usually bigotted members of that Church, and that he would be called to rule over a country where men of his own faith are very few in number, is surely an almost invincible objection. We have two examples in our own days of men called from without to reign over strange countriesand countries in which their own faith does not prevail-the Kings of the Belgians and of Greece-the one a successful example, but the other the most objectionable. So that from existing precedents little is to be learned; but that little is in favour of Protestantism; and we should think that a German Prince of Protestant principles would be the least exceptionable of all appointments. Or, if they would receive an Englishman, could we not spare them Lord John Russell? Sidney Smith pronounced of him that he would undertake the command of the Channel Fleet at two hours' notice. We might give him even a week's notice for the throne of the Principalities. On the whole, our own conviction is, that the Provinces must remain attached to the Porte; and the influence of other Powers be exerted with Turkey to secure a good government for them.

The rest of Europe seems to be lying by, and contemplating, through glasses of various colours and powers, the conflict of England with her Indian Colony. All of them, except a few Ultramontanes, contemplate with horror the enormities of the mutiny; and it is not likely, except among men familiar with the Inquisition, that such atrocious and disgusting cruelties should meet with any apologists. But foreign Journals, in many instances, where they condemn the rebels, cannot find a single good word for their English rulers. Some assert that the retaliation does not transcend the provocation; and that the Great Arbiter, having used us as a rod for Oriental Idolatry, will now break the rod of the oppressor. Is such language the result of jealousy? If so, it must be endured. Let us take care to have the right on our side. Let us tenderly watch over our colonies till they can walk alone; and then send them forth with a pure faith, a love of freedom, a respect for law, a deep feeling of attachment to the mother-land, and a resolution to stick to us with filial love, even when all the world is against us. Such feelings, we believe, are strong both in Canada and Australia; and if they are not universal in America, it is mainly because we endeavoured to keep her in leading-strings long after she was strong enough to go alone, and because an obstinate Administration-and, shall we add, Sovereign-saw nothing unnatural in endeavouring to drain the child in order to supply the cravings of the mother-country.

The Shah of Persia has most honourably fulfilled his pledge to evacuate Herat, and has thus released a considerable English force for the Indian warfare. How strangely the wheel of the world's history rolls on! It is probable that Persians were the first conquerors of India, and that a large population of the present Mohammedan mutineers had their origin in that country. Now, Persia sits with her hands tied, and sees the ultima thule of antiquity, or at all events a tiny island in the remotest point of the Western horizon, give the law equally to two hundred millions of the Mohammedans and Hindoos. The East and West have changed places.

The intelligence from America, as respects the money market, is every day more alarming. This is a sort of disease in the body politic, which is in the highest degree contagious; and in which it is especially true that, if one member suffers all the members suffer with it. The failure of a bank in America with almost electric rapidity flashes embarrassment on the commercial markets of Europe. The numerous stoppages on that side the Atlantic must try many houses here. But, at present, the English houses stand firm, and there is no reason to fear for them.

Our own Colonies, with the exception of India, are at rest; some of them sufficiently secure to allow of their despatching regiments to India, and all apparently busied with their own home concerns -after all, the most important occupation for all States, families, and human beings.

And what is to be said of India? The Telegraphic dispatch has just arrived, which announces the fall and occupation of Delhi, and the advance of General Havelock with a commanding force on Lucknow, so as to leave us the strongest hopes that the supposed eleven hundred Europeans in that beleaguered city are safe. Deep indeed ought to be our own gratitude for our certainty in the one case, and our well founded hopes in the other. The reoccupation of poor, shattered, impoverished, blood-stained Delhi must appear to every one a turning point in the war. The whole prestige must be on the side of those who reign in the capital of the Mogul Empire. It is the key-stone of the arch, and, with it, the whole fabric of the insurrection must fall to pieces. The details of the assault will not reach us before this Number has gone to press. But we are prepared to expect that much precious blood has been spilt, and that many a heart will, in our own land, receive deep and abiding wounds. The picture of Rachel sitting desolate, and refusing to be comforted, because her children are not, is one which will easily find its counterpart here. May God heal the mourners, and pour forth His special blessing on their bodies and souls! In the mean time, it is a great happiness to know that the afflicted will have many and deep sympathisers; and that already large provision has been made to meet the pecuniary distresses of certain classes of the sufferers. We have spoken at large, in this Number and the last, of the more prominent causes of the mutiny, and of, at least, a portion of the remedies to be applied. On one of these remedies we have not said much; but it grows in importance upon us as we template that scene of treachery and blood. Why has the East India Company been so long allowed to exercise a power contrary to the policy of all nations in all ages-that of excluding all Colonists but those whom she approved? Greece and Rome colonized almost every where that they conquered. So the Saxons and Normans in Britain. So the whole of the Oriental nations-the Arabs, the Turks, the Tartars. But, as late as 1813, any attempt to purchase land or settle in India, without the consent of the Company, was legally pronounced to be a "high crime and misdemeanor," and the offender sentenced to imprisonment, forfeiture, expulsion. Even now that the law has been modified, such are the clogs on colonization, that only 10,000 persons, independent of the Company, have settled in India; and few of these live out of the capitals of the Presidencies, where alone they are sure of such administration of law as is essential to the successful conduct of agriculture. Surely this is a subject which will soon be taken into serious consideration. How different would have been the state of things in India now, if there had been a large body of European settlers mixed up with the population, and united to them as proprietors and employers! However, these are subjects scarcely beginning to rise on the troubled horizon. English prin

con

ciple and feeling are alive. The public mind is all awake to a subject it has long slumbered over; and bright sparks, we may hope, will arise out of the ashes of Delhi.

Our Home news is not of special importance. Men have, of course, been intensely occupied with India. We have, in another part of this Number, called the attention of our readers to the Public Meetings to assist the sufferers from the mutiny, of the general spirit of which we have reported most favourably. It is obvious that the mass of Englishmen are far from adopting the views of that party among us who demand for the Indian ravishers, traitors, and assassins, only the ordinary measure of retributive justice; and that even the proclamation of Lord Canning, designed to allay everything like military fury and wholesale retaliation, finds few supporters. It is, however, the duty of a Government to ward off what would be the worst consequence of the insurrection, viz., the demoralization of our own countrymen; and take care that, while shedding the blood of the mutineers, we infuse no portion of it into our own veins.

Even India, however, has not so absorbed the general attention as to prevent a large assembly of considerable persons in their various departments at Birmingham, to consult on the means of ameliorating the condition of the great masses of our countrymen. Lord Brougham, Lord John Russell, Lord Goderich, Sir J. Pakington, and other celebrities, have figured largely at these Meetings; and it must be admitted that all these persons have laboured so earnestly in their respective fields of usefulness, as to have a right to be heard when they are pleased to speak. Nor can we doubt that much fruit will be gathered from these discussions. The point to be deplored, as to some of the most conspicuous of the speakers, is, that the idea is too prevalent with them that Reformatories, and other moral contrivances, are able of themselves, and without the aid of the Gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit, to effect a radical change in a human soul. What did refinement accomplish in ancient Greece or Rome? Corruption seems to have advanced hand in hand with it. The most splendid ages in those countries were the most profligate. And what have the Koran and the Vedas done for India? The Meetings, however, were not without those who knew the true remedy for corruption, and who were bold to propound it. And, on the whole, it is not for us to quarrel with those who suggest the best remedies which they know for a moral disease. Let them, then, build the reformatories and prisons; and let the servants of God stand, like Solomon, with outspread arms, to invoke the descent of the sacred Shechina upon the otherwise sunless walls.