only veiled themselves, to avoid, probably, the disgrace of ever being recognized, or personally known: while modest females exposed their features to public view. In the story of Judah's unconscious incest with Tamar his daughter-in-law, it is said, that "she covered herself with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place by the way-side: and when Judah saw her, he thought her to be an harlot, because she had covered her face," Gen. xxxviii. 14, 15. After his communication with her in the public road; it is said, “ she arose, and went her way, and laid by her veil from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood." When it was told him afterwards that this same daughter-in-law “had played the harlot, and was with child by whoredom;" as she was one over whom he had the power of a parent, he exclaimed, "Bring her forth, and let her be burnt," so that the same jealousy of injured honour, and the same openness with which women appeared before men, existed then, as are still found here among the_people now."- Buckingham's Travels in Mesopotamia, p. 44.

18. Councils, Judges ix. 6. "And all the men of Shechem gathered together, and all the house of Millo, and went, and made Abimelech king, by the plain of the pillar that was in Shechem-(marg.) by the oak of the pillar." "English councils were formerly held under wide-spreading oaks. Thus Augustine, the first archbishop of Canterbury, met the British bishops under an oak in Worcestershire, which was therefore called, as Bede tell us, Augustine's oak. And Barkshire has its name, as it were, Bare-oak-shire, from a large dead oak, in the forest of Windsor, where they continued to hold provincial councils near its trunk, as had been done more anciently under its extensive and flourishing branches." Hody's English Councils,

p. 34.

19. Shaving of Beards, 3 Sam. x. 4. "Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards." -This treatment, so disgraceful and contemptuous in its nature, is still practised by some nations. The following is a very recent instance of its occurrence. "Ipsara was taken by the fleet of the Capitan Pacha, on the 3d instant, at 6 o'clock, A. M. The fleet appeared before the island on Friday, and the Capitan Pacha sent in two flags of truce before he commenced the attack, promising a free and full pardon to the island, if they would lay down their arms. The first man was sent back with a message, that, sooner than submit, every man was determined to die. The second fared worse,

and was sent back with his beard half shaven off, and with a message, that they were waiting his attack with anxiety."Extract of a Letter from Smyrna, July 5, 1824. Morning Herald, Aug. 11, 1824.

20. Tears wiped away, Isaiah xxv. 8. "The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces." In July 1803, the Stockbridge Indians, in America, delivered a speech to a Protestant Missionary, of which the following remarkable extract forms a part. It will be found applicable to several passages of scripture. "Fathers, when I look upon you, I see your tears are falling down your cheeks on account of many dismal objects you have seen: Now, according to the ancient custom of our forefathers, I stretch forth my hand, and wipe off the tears from your eyes, that you may see clearly. And likewise I see your ears are stopped by the dirt that flies about: I now clear your ears, that you may hear distinctly. I also loosen your tongues, that you may speak freely. Having done this, I see your legs and feet are muddy by reason of the wet path through which you travel: I likewise wash your legs and feet. While I do this, I feel some briars stick in your feet: I pluck them out, and take the healing oil, which our forefathers used to keep for that purpose, and oil them, that they may feel comfortable while you sit by the side of our fire-place."-Literary Panorama, vol. i. p. 1262, for 1807. See Rev. vii. 17. xxi. 4. Isaiah xxxv. 5. Mark vii. 35. Luke i. 64. Gen. xxiv. 32.

21. Resurrection, 1 Cor.xv.22. "And the dead shall be raised incorruptible."-When a man dies among the Chinese, the relations and friends wait three days, to see whether he will rise again, before they put the corpse into the coffin."-Maravelle's Travels, vol. iv. p. 92.

"Some of the Greenlanders assert that the soul stays five days by the grave where the body lies, then the person rises again, and seeks his maintenance in the other world, so as he did in this: therefore the hunting implements of the deceased are deposited by his grave. They say that, in distant future periods, when all mankind shall have died, and become extinct, the terrestrial globe shall be dashed to pieces, and purified from the blood of the dead by a vast flood of water. Then a wind shall blow the clean-washed dust together, and replace it in a more beautiful form than ever. From this time there will be no more bare and barren rocks, but the whole will be a level champaign overspread with verdure and delight."-Crantz's History of · Greenland, vol. i. p. 905.

S. B.

MR. EDITOR,

SIR, I was much gratified by reading in your valuable Magazine, a few months back, (page 391) a paper on Popular Education. The pleasure I experienced arose, not so much from any thing new or striking in the article referred to, although it was very good, as from the fact of its being a meritorious attempt to call public attention to a greatly neglected subject.

There is an unaccountable apathy in England, at the present time, with regard to the instruction of the lower orders. Every person allows that they ought to be educated, but no one seems disposed to make any considerable effort towards the accomplishment of so desirable an object.

The facts brought to light, in connexion with the late special commission, were of the most startling description. Scenes were laid open, which disclosed an amount of ignorance absolutely unparalleled in any other protestant country. Whole districts were found to possess a peasantry as degraded and brutalized as ever were the serfs of the middle ages. These things were not kept secret. The newspapers of every day, at that period, teemed with fresh illustrations of this melancholy state of things, and demonstrated its connexion with crimes of the most awful character. Benevolent societies gathered up these facts, and almost every report read from the platform of Exeter Hall, in May last, alluded to them in terms of strong reprobation.

The British and Foreign School Society entered into an extensive correspondence with the local authorities in the disturbed districts, and embodied the heart-sickening detail in a circular, which was extensively distributed. Advertisement after advertisement appeared in the newspapers which circulate in the counties of Berks, Bucks, Kent, Hants, and Sussex, from the same society, offering a bonus (small indeed, but liberal, when the limited state of their funds is considered) for the establishment of schools in which fifty or one hundred children should be educated. Sermons, charges, and pamphlets in abundance, have agreed in bearing testimony to the truth of their statements, and there the matter has tended.

What has been done? Absolutely nothing! Who can point me to the new schools which it might have been expected would have risen up, on the right hand and on the left, to meet the evil? I have inquired, but I cannot find them. I know

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that scarcely any applications have been made to the School Society: and why is all this? Is the thing undesirable? No. Every person allows that education is greatly needed, and that new schools of scriptural instruction would be a great blessing. Is it, then, impracticable to establish such schools, without assistance from Government? By no means; the contrary has been demonstrated: only let a suitable room be obtained, say, one of forty feet by twenty, which will contain one hundred and sixty children; let this place be fitted up with slates, desks, forms, and lessons, which, according to the manual of the British and Foreign School Society, will cost about £25, and the chief difficulty is

overcome.

A teacher will, indeed, be necessary, but he may be procured from the same institution. Let him receive two pence a week from as many children as he can procure or, if the population be not large enough to furnish one hundred and fifty or two hundred children, let him receive an extra sum from those whose parents may choose to have their children instructed in the higher branches of education, and still he may be respectably supported. It will readily be perceived, that by this plan, which unites the teacher's interest and duty, a school, in a large town, may be made to support itself. In villages, a few annual subscriptions would make up the deficiency.

Where, then, is the difficulty? How is it that so few schools are established? I know of no reason, excepting this-that an unaccountable and unchristian apathy prevails, with regard to the moral and intellectual condition of the children of the poor. On this ground, then, I rejoice that the subject has been taken up in your pages; and I trust that neither you nor your correspondents will allow it to sleep.

I am, sir, yours,

A FRIEND TO THE EDUCATION OF THE POOR.

THE ABSENT SISTER'S DYING ADDRESS. HELEN! thou knowest I have loved, and do still love thee, with all the tenderness of a sister's affection; but the drooping energies of my frame seem audibly to pronounce, that I shall soon be summoned by death's hollow voice, (start not at the sound!) from this terrestrial ball, to, I trust, the celestial abodes of heaven; when I shall exchange my earthly habiliments for the unspotted robes of blessedness; when this corruption shall put on incorruption; when this mortal

shall assume its immortality, and prostrate itself before the visible throne of the King of kings, and Lord of lords.

The prospect is grand, but awfully distressing. Nature would willingly wear, yet a little while, her "mortal coil," but the mandate of God appears to be issued, and I must go. And, oh! my dear sister, for whom my heart throbs with tenderest love and keenest anguish, I am distant from thee; oh! that thou wast here, and folded in the embrace of these pale thin arms; through which life's crimson fluids have almost ceased to flow! Methinks it would bid my spirit fly on lighter wing to the mansions of bliss, could these pale and livid lips imprint their last pious kiss on thy lips, and breathe their last, faint, farewell sigh upon thy bosom !

Long as thou remainest on thy earthly pilgrimage, may the immortal God protect thee, and imbue thee with the spirit of Christian holiness; and may heaven bless thee with as full a fruition of felicity as can be enjoyed on earth.

And, oh! if, after I am gone, thou seest death approaching, tell him not that he is come too soon; tell him not that he is an unwelcome messenger, but embrace him as a cordial friend! Hesitate not to flee from the deceitful and finite visions, and the fleeting shadows, of earth, to the boundless plains of paradise, where ALL is substance and reality; and where she, who now writes, and is breathing hallowed aspirations for thee, will rejoice in being among the first in the deputed company of angels, that will descend to guide thy spirit up to

heaven.

Oh! haste to join her, dressed in seraph's robes, where bliss is consummate; and, O rapturous reflection! perfectly immutable; and where the symphonies of heaven echo, re-echo and re-echo through boundless and glorious infinitude, round the throne of God and the Lamb, where there are joys unspeakable, and full of glory!

I know thou wilt mourn; it is an oblation which nature requires; and I will not forbid thee; but, be comforted by the animating assurance that I am happy, and that thou wilt soon exchange the dark vestments of earthly woe, for the white robes, the blooming flowers, the pure rivers, and the verdant vales, of heaven!-"Peace and repose" are not for earth; and oh ! remember, this bereavement thou must accept from the hand of Him who is just, but merciful; and who will give unto them that mourn in Zion, beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness!

Oh! lean not on the world, lean on the arm of Jehovah alone, as on an immoveable rock; for every thing less is unstable as water, and more fickle than the changing moon. Adieu! be virtuous, be holy, be devoted to God; supplicate the redeeming and renovating grace of the omnipotent Immanuel, and the tempests of a corrupt world will beat against thee in vain. And, finally, when thou approachest the bounda→ ries of time, and standest on the tremendous verge of eternity, thou wilt close thy career with this triumphant exclamation, amid the last pangs of earthly agony, and the first faint rays of beatific vision, "O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory? J. B. B.

Leicester, August, 1830.

CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS INCAPABLE OF

VINDICATION.

MR. EDITOR,

Sir,-As I have not till very recently had an opportunity of perusing the "Remarks" of a correspondent in your Number for April, p. 170, on the above question, you will doubtless excuse the lateness of the following observations in reply.

Fully concurring with him as to the vast magnitude of the subject, which, I feel confident, must, at no very distant period, command the attention of the legislature with an irresistible voice, and conceiving that in the mean time nothing is so calculated to impress the public with correct views, and ensure a right decision, as a full and candid discussion of the whole matter, I hasten to notice those points of the argument upon which alone there seems to be any material difference of opinion between us. And I am convinced that, although Mr. T. concedes the main ground of controversy, he will find in the issue that these points involve the very principle of the question.

I trust I have unanswerably shewn in my preceding paper, that even "where dissenterism is tolerated, the injurious effects of uniting church and state are only qualified" by that circumstance, and that "it is just the same in principle, whether the state merely compel dissidents to provide a main, tenance for the hierarchy, or enforce an adherence to its creed and forms." I am also of opinion, that your correspondent will not deem that I have exceeded the truth in saying, “that the gospel can never reassert its primitive power, till so unnatural an alliance be dissevered, wherever it exists," if the terms are understood in the sense which alone they are designed to convey,

viz. that Christianity can never so thoroughly and fully evangelize a community oppressed by the incubus of a national church, as where its energies are uncramped by the withering and paralyzing influence of secular policy.

Compare the triumphant progress of the gospel in the primitive ages with its effects at any period subsequent to its civil establishment by Constantine, and the position will, I think, be indubitable. If, as all admit, that unnatural coalition of the civil and ecclesiastical power laid the foundation of those corruptions which issued in the daring assumption of the papal power, is it not clear that while the same cause in any degree exists, it must produce corresponding effects, and that its removal is essential to the revival of the full power and glory of the gospel dispensation? Can the same cause produce one sort of effect in the fourth and fifth centuries, and be either inoperative, or occasion totally opposite ones, in the nine teenth? Impossible!

To refer me to numerous cases generally out of the pale of the establishment, in which "the gospel has reasserted its primitive power," strongly confirms the truth of my statement. For Mr. T. tells us, it has been "in spite of the paralyzing influence of two national churches;" though, as I shall have occasion to shew in another place, the term is not correctly applied in this argument to any religious system which has not the exclusive support and patronage of the state. Hence, he would have more properly said, "in spite of the paralyzing influence of our Protestant ecclesiastical establishment." Comparing the religious condition of the United States and that of this country, the balance appears decidedly in favour of that community which is untrammelled with the cumbrous machinery of a national church.

Your correspondent must be aware that we cannot fairly argue from the characters of such of the clergy of our national church as were notoriously very rare exceptions to the general rule, to the natural or the innocuous effects of the system upon the clerical body. If so, I might just as plausibly contend, that because the Romish church can boast of a Fenelon, a Pascal, a Kempis, or a Madame Guion, there is nothing in her system unfavourable to the general produc tion of such characters, as Mr. T. urges that the system of the church of England has nothing in it unpropitious to the extensive prevalence within her pale of such divines as a Hall, a Taylor, a Fletcher, or a Wesley. He will, I am sure, immediately perceive the illogicalness of such a conclusion, and acknowledge that as "the characters of

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men are much more likely to be formed by the temptations than the duties of their profession," it is necessary for a church not only to render possible the admission of such ministers into her bosom, but strenuously to encourage their increase, while she discountenances, by every possible means, clergymen of an opposite description.

As to Methodism being the offspring of the national church of this country, I apprehend the assertion is as incorrect as to say the latter is the offspring of the church of Rome. It is, in fact, altogether to confound cause with antecedent. For certain it is, that both the alleged parents did their utmost to strangle their respective progeny in the birth.

To say that the combination of the civil and ecclesiastical power, or the papal superstition, may be overruled for the best purposes, is no justification of either, unless we would altogether confound the providential with the moral government of the Deity'; and as for the united energies of church and state having been employed in the reformation of the sixteenth century, we are to remember, that such an event would have been wholly unnecessary, had not the pure and spiritual system of the gospel been adulterated by the very means to which your correspondent now most logically ascribes its partial restoration.

And so far from their combined influence having been necessary to subdue heathenism, we know that ere Christianity had acquired any civil establishment, it had effected what was made the pretext for giving it political power,-changed the aspect of the Roman empire by its moral energy alone, and "turned her people from dumb idols to serve the living God." To imagine then that but for the union of the church and civil power, “ Thor and Woden might still have been the deities of this country, or that, but for the state's having adopted a branch of the reformation," we might have been still feeding on a wafer god," is, I conceive, vastly to underrate the power of the gospel-to attribute to an effect or an accident what is due solely to its divine efficacy; and to infer that it is not now as able to conquer all opposition, and achieve universal ascendency, as in the primitive ages of the church.

Look at the great moral transformation it has wrought in the South Sea Islands, where literally "a nation hath changed its gods," among the aborigines of America, and the savages of Africa; and, in proportion to the agency employed, we see that the gospel is still omnipotent to subdue the world.

We find the chartered societies professedly established for the dissemination of Christianity, whether at home or abroad, almost completely paralyzed or inert as means of doing good, while the purely voluntary Christian associations are in the full activity of healthful and beneficent operation, and which would be abundantly increased, were the monopoly of the former altogether abolished.

Shall we then contend that the very cause of the debasement and obscuration of the Christian system could have been, or can be, necessary to ensure its primitive triumphs, or give it additional efficacy? No: rather let us aim to restore its original purity of discipline, by disconnecting it from all the alliances of secular power, and, this dead weight being removed, it will speedily reassert its ancient power and glory.

If the whole spirit and design of the gospel are altogether foreign to the employment of the civil power in its cause-if the only weapons authorized by Christianity for its extention and support be argument and persuasion, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, it is clear that whatever savoured of a political nature in the Jewish economy, can afford no warrant for the usage of the new testament church. And therefore your correspondent's appeal to the authority of St. Paul, as favouring such a view of the case, is altogether mistaken and irrelevant.

The apostle's argument, in the passage referred to, is from the justice of providing for the sustenance of those who labour for human welfare, as recognized even by the Mosaic law, to the moral obligation of contributing to the supply of the temporal necessities and comforts of the gospel minister; not from the coercive sanctions which the former dispensation authorized to enforce such claims, to the propriety of adopting similar ones under the latter. A most important distinction! And hence we have a far more satisfactory and permanent reason why the argument was addressed to the church, and not to the state-to the conscience, and not to any inferior motive of the believer in Christianity.

To prove the Jewish economy of any authority in the matter, it would be necessary to shew that we are, as Israel of old, living under a theocracy, and that that dispensation was designed to be a permanent instead of a temporary system, which was to continue only "till the times of reformation." And in that case, we are not at liberty to select any favourite parts of that system for adoption, to the exclusion of the rest. If any of its institutions are retained

by the gospel, they are all equally so; if tithes and church establishments are to be held sacred by us, so must animal sacri fices, circumcision, and the other rites of the ceremonial law. But the grand princi ple, to remove every doubt and difficulty on the subject, and which alone can extricate us from interminable error and perplexity, is, that the only part of the preceding dis pensation which has not been superseded by Christianity, and which is of eternal and immutable obligation, is the moral law. This is a cardinal pillar of Protestantism: preserve it, and the cause is unassailable;→→ abandon it, and we are immediately shifted upon the quicksands of judaical and popish

error.

If, then, the foregoing argumentation is correct-if no man, or body of men, can claim union with a gospel church in virtue of their civil capacity-if Christianity admits only of argument and persuasion for providing the means of its support and propagation-and civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction are altogether distinct from, and incommunicable to, each other, it is clear beyond dispute, that officially the state can never become a part of the church. Here is another cardinal pillar of Protestant truth:—maintain it, and you may defy every assailant ;-surrender it, and you are immediately shifted upon the quicksands of judaical and papal error.

Once allow the civil magistrate a coercive authority in matters of religion, whether for the suppression of heresy, or maintenance of truth, and you open a door to abuses of the most flagrant description, and to an influence which has far more generally been exercised on the side of evil than good. Religion being purely a matter of individual and moral responsibility, cannot be adopted by a nation, as a sovereign-a form of government-or a code of laws, may be. National Christianity of such a kind is a mere worldly contrivance, and has contributed more than any thing else to the cor ruption and dishonour of religion.

If, as I think has been incontrovertibly proved, no state, or its rulers in their cor porate capacity, can be a part of the church, since a gospel church admits not the interference of civil authority in its concerns, it is undeniable, that "officially,” the members of a government are not amenable to the discipline of, and conse quently cannot control, the church. Every genuine professor of religion has adopted Christianity, from a personal conviction of its truth, and importance to his own, and the present and eternal happiness of mankind; and by consequence, is zealous to