description, and the houses of receivers of stolen goods, hold out the greatest encouragement to the perpetration of the most desperate villanies; and it is well known to the police magistrates, that an effectual check can be given to both sorts of abominations. If inspectors, with good pay for the performance of their duty, are appointed to examine and report the public-houses which are known to harbour the abandoned, the cribs' must be knocked up; and if, on occasions of robbery, a reward was offered for the receiver instead of the thief, Petticoat Lane, and Houndsditch, and Whitechapel, and the Jew streets and alleys in the neighbourhood of the Strand, would no longer be places of refuge and barter for the prosperous ruffian. A perpetual watch would be kept upon the numerous houses where the police are aware'swag' is hourly conveyed. Many of the old-clothes shops would be ransacked, and a general rout would take place amongst the Jews, very few of whom, in that line, ever refuse to purchase stolen goods of whatever description. The principal officers of the police are convinced of the efficacy of such a system, and that robberies cannot be checked without a determined effort to spoil the business of receivers. The gambling houses at the west end of the town are to be put down upon the above-mentioned plan for clearing flash houses. No respectable man, who saw an officer prowling about the neighbourhood, would venture to enter a hell. In fact, there is no dreadful evil with which the metropolis abounds that is not capable of being greatly abated, if the magistrates would but perform their duty." Smith, pp. 119-121.

We proceed to consider what should be done to stem the torrent of iniquity, which appears to be sweeping the nation into an abyss of moral ruin. We say the nation; for although the picture displayed above is chiefly taken from London, yet who is ignorant of the vital connection that subsists between the metropolis and the provinces? The one cannot be morbid and the other healthy; but the whole system, to its remote extremities, will answer to the state of the heart. Now the question is, how to remedy the deplorable evils which it is vain to deny or disguise. Have they reached the point beyond which remedies are hopeless; and are we justified by the hopelessness of the case, in shutting our eyes and holding our peace? If we looked to human probabilities, we must confess that we should weep over our city, in despair of its threatened catastrophe being averted. But there is in it a holy seed; and we cherish a confidence that God, who has so long blessed it extraordinarily for his own 'name's sake, will still remember it with mercy, and render it as conspicuous for religion as it is for commerce, arts, and arms. We trust that England is yet reserved to bear a noble part in the triumphs of the Gospel. Her present, we venture to believe, is not her final stage. We, at least, will not chant over her the funeral dirge, until we have done our utmost to discover the causes of her diseases, and their cure.

In glancing at the causes of the vice and irreligion which deluge the metropolis, we must faithfully declare what we esteem the capital one, though it be to announce a startling proposition. We do allege then, after long and serious and deliberate

thought, that one principal source of the national corruption is, the unchristian principle of our Government. The government of this country, and the same is doubtless true, in perhaps a greater degree, of all existing governments,-puts the interests of Christ's kingdom in subordination to secular interests. Religion is tolerated, sanctioned, and encouraged, just as far as it seems to coincide with state policy, and no further. The rulers are perfectly aware that Christianity is the best possible instrument for curbing the passions of our nature, and for rendering men pliant to authority, and useful members of society and to this end Christianity has their countenance. But as the great instrument of bringing the world into subjection to the King of Heaven, it is never, we fear, regarded with any honour and approbation. For our part, we are persuaded that sound state policy will always be found to run parallel with true religion. It will be found, that righteousness exalts a nation; and that to obey the dictates of religion in the administration of public affairs, is to pursue a course that eventually produces the largest measure of civil welfare. Yet this principle, though far superior to any that animates the councils of evangelized Europe, does not come up to the mark we are contemplating. The true character of a Christian government, in our estimation, is this: that it make the prosperity of the Redeemer's empire its paramount object. We expect the sneers of the worldly wise for advancing this position; but it will approve itself to every one whose standard of truth is the Bible. A truly Christian government is one that makes all its political measures subordinate, and if possible subservient, to the establishment, increase, and well-being of the kingdom of Messiah.

And where, alas! is such a government to be found? It was the grand peculiarity of the Mosaic polity, that religion lay at its basis. Religion was not taken in merely to bind together and strengthen the political fabric; but the whole frame-work of that consummate piece of legislation was expressly contrived to enshrine the knowledge and worship of Jehovah. And "happy is that people that is in such a case; yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord." Let our rulers copy this sublime system, and we shall quickly find, in addition to the special blessing of the Almighty, a great improvement of the national character from purely moral causes. Such an alteration will take place in our laws, and in the administration of them, as must inevitably produce the most salutary effects on the manners of the people at large. We shall not then have Sunday made almost a curse, instead of a blessing, by the newspapers alluring people from church to the public-house, and stage

coaches tempting simple ones to the tea-garden and bowlinggreen. Prostitution will be driven from the streets into its garrets, its cellars, and its holds of congenial darkness; and the youth, who is not deliberately seeking after criminal gratification, will not meet at every corner with a sly and impudent wanton on the watch to kindle his passions and take advantage of his weakness. The publication of the Gospel, though it be in a way not strictly regular, will then be more easily pardoned than the organized dissemination of blasphemy: a pious man, though tinctured with a little enthusiasm, will be less jealously regarded than a profligate infidel. We cannot applaud the timid tenderness with which the reprobate apostles of impiety are treated. God forbid that any man should be amenable to human tribunals for the opinions he silently maintains, be they ever so objectionable but we loathe and detest the canting liberality, the insidious atheism lurking under the guise of charity, which cannot bear the thought of restraining with a strong hand the indefatigable blasphemer from infecting all parts of the country; which is too tender-hearted to chain up the maniac or incendiary from poisoning the public wells, and scattering about firebrands and death. Shame on us, that, while a seditious word uttered against an earthly prince is visited, and rightly visited, with exemplary punishment, the most treasonable practices against the King of Heaven are carried on with impunity, or slightly avenged! The pretence of not prosecuting the miscreants who engage in such practices for fear of augmenting the evil, is absurd and base. Let the defamation of Christ and his religion be treated as a heinous crime against the commonwealth, and it will quickly appear that in very few cases are the tenets of the infidel so incorporated with his conscience as to impel him to rush upon the sword of the law, when he has ascertained that sword to be held with a steady hand.

But expediency, political expediency, and commercial advantage!—these are the great adversaries of religion. It is these which keep down goodness, and nourish abuses and crimes. To what else can we attribute the obstinate adherence of our legislature to the infamous Slave-Trade?-a traffic which would probably have lasted to this day, if a verdict against it had not been obtained from Political Expediency. What else perpetuates Slavery in the West Indies, and renders our ministers so weakly patient of the rude contempt with which the planters trample on every plan for the religious culture and gradual emancipation of their slaves? Does not all this huckstering, truckling, time-serving diplomacy result from a sordid unwillingness to sacrifice apparent utility to clear imperious duty? We are not for reviving

the sanguinary absurdities of the Fifth-Monarchy Men. We are not going to preach a new crusade against the Turk; nor wishing our officers of state to become spiritual knight-errants: neither do we imagine that vice is to be put down, and religion to be brought in, by legislation. Our anxiety is, that state-craft should bow before Christian morality; that it be a recognised principle of our government to adopt no measures, in our domestic or foreign relations, to which the spirit of the Gospel is adverse; and that all the legal sanction be given to virtue and religion, and all the discouragement to irreligion and vice, which can be given without entrenching upon the civil and natural rights of the people. In the present day, it is impossible to read the discussions in Parliament, without observing what a bitter feeling prevails against vital and practical piety. Under pretence of decrying hypocrisy and priestcraft, the members of that great assembly often vent themselves in language which clearly shews how much they are disgusted with any approach to the example of our Lord and his Apostles; and which would justify a suspicion, that, except for its social utility, they would not regret to see Christianity itself exterminated. With such symptoms of inveterate disease in the head, we cannot wonder at the corrupt state of the body. But we anticipate a better day; a day when religion shall sit upon the throne, and preside in the cabinet, and shall make her awful voice to be heard in the great councils of the empire. And we may venture to predict, that if ever such an epoch should arrive," truth" (to employ the noble imagery of Scripture) will forthwith "spring out of the earth," and the moral "desert will rejoice and blossom as the rose;" the land of our birth, of our affections and vows, will attain unprecedented grandeur and prosperity, and will be for a praise and an honour before all the nations of the earth."

The next point to which we must advert, as a principal cause of the wide-spread depravity of the commonalty, is, the example set in the highest ranks of profaning the day of God. It is a fact, not more lamentable than notorious, that a Monday newspaper seldom comes before us which does not record the political or courtly visits paid and received by ministers of state, and by nobles of the highest order. Nay, that day in which we are divinely enjoined to honour the Lord God, by not doing our own ways, nor finding our own pleasure, nor speaking words, is so grossly dishonoured by some of our grandees, as to be selected for an extraordinary display of worldliness, for travelling, for dinner-parties, for concerts, and other entertainments. We would not repel scorn with scorn;"

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difficult to abstain from using terms of the keenest indignation, in denouncing the hypocritical impiety which pretends that banqueting and jollity fall in with the purpose of the Sabbath, as a holy-day, a day of rest; and which brands with bigotry and enthusiasm the doctrine that appropriates one day in seven to religious occupations. It is our firm belief, that, if veneration for the Sabbath were inculcated on the populace by those who fill the most elevated stories of the national fabric, a general and important emendation would ensue in the national character. But if the highest personages in the realm-if princes of the blood royal, if state ministers and judges, if peers and members of parliament, who altogether form a very numerous body, and are conspicuous as "a city set upon a hill"-if these powers and dignities evince a contempt of the Lord's-day; are rarely, if ever, seen at church, but are heard of for the brilliant entertainments they were giving, while humble Christians were adoring God in his temple, or in their chamber; what can be expected but a general laxity of religious principle, which must rapidly increase into universal dissoluteness? We have lately met with a Letter addressed to the King on this momentous subject, by a "Presbyter of the Church of England;" and we must express our approbation of the Christian fidelity which characterises this performance. The tone of it is in the highest degree loyal and respectful; but it plainly reminds his Majesty of what we fervently pray he may be induced to consider, that God "has promised peculiar blessings upon princes and nations who do honour to this day, and has denounced tremendous evils upon such as neglect or pollute it." If our gracious Sovereign would deign also to listen to the prayer of "the Presbyter," that he would place himself at the head of religious societies, as their zealous protector and promoter; and if, superior to the counsels of political interest, he would refuse to nominate to bishopricks any but men of approved piety, moderation, wisdom, and zeal; he would not fail of drawing down upon himself and his people a peculiar blessing, and he would add the splendours of the eternal world to the brightest of earthly diadems.

But we must proceed to consider those proceedings of Mr. Smith which have occasioned, owing to the threat they drew upon him from the late Lord Mayor, the pamphlet from which we have transferred to our pages some valuable extracts. This gentleman, it appears, was formerly an officer in the Royal Navy; but several years have elapsed since he exchanged the sea-service for the occupation of an Independent minister. It has not fallen in our way to see any thing, nor even to hear much, of this zealous individual; but we perfectly well recol