object of assisting Pius the Ninth in his merciless warfare against his own children. The only hope of Ireland is in the introduction of a purer faith; and we trust the time is not far distant when the protestant church in Ireland will assume its true position, which is or ought to be that of one vast, united, and constantly aggressive mission to Roman Catholics. It was instituted for this purpose; and we must remind our Irish brethren, with all conceivable respect, that this is their bounden duty, and that this only will save the Irish church. It was never meant that the established church in Ireland should confine its labours to Irish Protestants. The Ordination charge which we have received in England is no less binding upon them. "They are to seek for Christ's sheep who are dispersed abroad. They are to see that they never cease their labour, their care and diligence, until they have done all that lieth in them, according to their bounden duty, to bring all such as are, or shall be committed to their charge, unto that agreement in the faith and knowledge of God, and to that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, that there be no place left among them, either for error in religion or for viciousness in life." On this principle Bedel bishop of Kilmore acted in 1630. He found his diocese, "saving a few British planters here and there, entirely popish;" he determined to attempt their conversion, and "as the readiest way to the hearts of the people, began with the priests," and in modern times his steps have been followed by "Peter Roe of Kilkenny," and since his day by many excellent men. But the Irish church at large has never addressed itself in earnest to this magnificent, though, no doubt, difficult and even perilous, task.

Speaking upon Irish affairs, we cannot pass by the address of the two archbishops and ten bishops of Ireland to the Queen. It is one consequence of the English convocation-a consequence little expected; and it may be destined to bring about changes the most important the church of England has witnessed in recent times. By the statutes relating to the union of the two kingdoms, the churches of England and Ireland are united in "one Protestant Episcopal Church, to be called, the United Church of England and Ireland ;" and the statutes provide "that the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the said United Church shall be, and shall remain in full force for ever, as the same are now by law established for the Church of England." The Irish prelates, therefore, feel constrained to lay their anxieties before the Queen; and the proceedings of the Convocation of the province of Canterbury, in attempting to repeal the 29th canon, and substitute a new one, are, taken alone, enough to justify these anxieties. And this is but the first of many steps which it has taken, all tending to disunion; or, in the words of the Irish prelates, "to disturb the uniformity of the Church, and violate the spirit of the Acts of Union." For instance: " steps," say the right reverend petitioners, "have been taken (as we have been informed) towards the preparation of new forms of divine service, to be used after harvest, and on other occasions, thereby adding to the services prescribed by the Acts of Uniformity. And the heads of a measure for regulating the discipline of the clergy have also been the subject of deliberation in that assembly." The Convocation of York has likewise asked for and received the royal license in the same terms in which it was granted to the southern Con

vocation. Thus the Irish church must either follow in their wake and sacrifice its independence, or else expose itself to the charge of schism. We entreat our readers (those of them especially who think we are driving too hard in our frequent protests against the revival of English convocations) to weigh well the following considerations; bearing in mind, first of all, that the Queen's advisers have not yet ventured to recommend Her Majesty to put her hand to the new canon, which still awaits her sanction; for, in fact, they have gone too far already. They are now, we believe, fully aware that the sanction of parliament is necessary, and they flinch, as well they may, from bringing the discussion of such a question as the reformation of the canons before our House of Commons. The right reverend petitioners pray Her Majesty by no means "to refer questions in which all the provinces of the Church are equally interested, to the consideration of separate and independent Convocations, which have no sufficient opportunities for mutual conference and explanation, such as ought to take place amongst the prelates and clergy belonging to one and the same church, in reference to matters affecting the whole body. For if real freedom of action be conceded to each Convocation, there would be a risk of the unity of the Church being impaired and schism generated. Or if, on the other hand, equal freedom of action be not conceded to each Convocation, but all the provinces are expected to acquiesce in the decisions of one, this would be an assumption of authority for which there is no foundation in law or justice."

The prayer of the petition further is, "that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to refer all matters involving any alteration in the doctrine, worship, discipline, or government of the Church, to the consideration of a GENERAL SYNOD of the UNITED CHURCH of England and Ireland, in order that such measures may be framed as, if approved of by your Majesty, may receive your Majesty's royal assent, or (if the sanction of the Legislature be likewise needed) may be suitably re

commended to Parliament."

We are not prepared, at present, to pursue the subject, nor shall we presume to express a hasty judgment upon it. Such an address, from such a quarter, cannot fail of receiving the most serious consideration. In the face of this protest, our English convocations cannot safely be revived; and we suppose the unwise attempt will not be repeated. A national synod is now the only alternative. It is that or nothing. We can only adopt the concluding sentence of the petition, and earnestly commend it to our readers; and "devoutly pray that, in all the affairs of the Church and kingdom committed by Almighty God to Her Majesty's care and government, she may be guided by the wisdom that is from above.'

We have much to add on other subjects, did time and space permit. Continental affairs; New Zealand difficulties; the position of Australia, where an English constitution struggles hard for life under the throes of a feverish democracy; and the American civil war. All these afford matter for serious and profoundly interesting reflection. Information we do not profess to give: of that we suppose our readers to be already in possession.

Our christian friends in America are anxious to learn what we in England think of their proceedings. "The great battle," which we

were led to expect a month ago, was fought on Sunday the 21st of July, and ended, after a bloody contest, in the total defeat of the Northern States. The religious public of New York regret that it was fought on Sunday, and perhaps justly attribute the national disaster to this needless provocation of the Lord of the Sabbath. We go still further. We regret that it was fought at all. It seems to us to have been, on both sides, a senseless, and therefore a very wicked, slaughter. The North is not fighting to release the slave. They tell us so themselves. Let the South once more submit, and they will forgive the past and gladly fling them in the Missouri compromise and the Dred Scott decision; that is, they will legalize slavery in every slave state, and undertake to restore every runaway slave found in a free state without one moment's hesitation. The South, as we have all along said, has no sufficient cause of rupture with the North; certainly no casus belli. Beyond this, all England is impartial, perhaps we ought to say indifferent; except that we look upon the needless bloodshed with abhorrence. There is no exultation here in the defeat of the Federal army. Indeed our own newspapers afford as many and far better apologies for the panic which spread through the raw Northern troops,-taken by surprise, badly disciplined and worse officered,-than any which we have met with in the reports of Americans. Their defeat was the natural consequence of the presumption and incapacity of their leaders.

Yet out of all this a gracious providence is still educing good. Within two years at the utmost, England will be independent of America for her supplies of cotton, and the civil war of 1861 will have rung the knell of negro slavery.

As we conclude, the news of another fight, in which the Federalists were a second time defeated, has reached us.-But we have our own sins and our own sorrows to record. The railway which has so long been an audacious example of Sabbath profanation, has been the scene of the most awful disaster which ever happened in Great Britain, upon any line, since railways were known. Sunday, the 24th of August, will long be remembered as the day on which the Brighton excursion trains spread" lamentation, and mourning, and woe," through hundreds of families. Is not the hand of God as visible here as in the chastisement of our kinsmen in America? If England despises the awful lesson, little need have we to wonder at the insensibility of less favoured lands!

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

WE have received a second letter from FIDUs; it is written with the courtesy with which all theological controversy ought to be discussed. FIDUS is dissatisfied with our comments on his first letter, and he appeals to our Christian candour to insert his reply in the present Number. But, in the first place, we are unable to do so, our space being already occupied; and in the second, we must confess we see no advantage in prolonging the controversy. We have already, we think, sufficiently shown our candour in permitting FIDUS, in our own pages, to controvert an editorial article; and the matter had now better be left to the judgment of our readers, who will decide for themselves. Indeed, we are sure that FIDUS would be answered by one or more of our correspondents; and we must decline to open our pages to the discussion.

THE spiritual course of some of the most devoted servants of God is described in the simple but suggestive record, that they walked with God. "Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." Gen. v. 24. "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God." Gen. vi. 9. The same expression is used, although with some variety of adaptation, in respect to the saints both of the Old and New Testaments. It will be interesting to trace out its full meaning, and learn from it the gracious condescension of Almighty God in coming down, as it were, to tread this earth with the children of men, and the close and spiritual character of that communion with their Heavenly Father to which they are invited.

We need not take up the personal history of the two patriarchs who are specially said to have walked with God, excepting to remark that their lives supply evidence of the active energy and diffusive usefulness which characterises one who walks with God. Walking with God is not to desert the ordinary paths of life, to renounce the claims, the duties, and the anxieties of our social relations, for the abstractions of solitude; Enoch and Noah lived and worked amongst their fellow men; not shunning intercourse with them, but endeavouring to make that intercourse conducive to the Divine glory. In the cities and amongst the multitudes of the antediluvian world their voices were to be heard, announcing the message which had been entrusted to them of God. Enoch boldly declared to an infidel and godless people the coming of the Lord with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment upon all; and Noah built his ark and preached of righteousness for the warning and instruction of a later generation.

Here would seem to be instruction and encouragement for those whose lot is cast in these days amidst the busier scenes of human life, and especially for those who, like Enoch and Noah, have to preach for God, and labour for God, in our large cities and towns, where "ungodly deeds are ungodly committed, and hard speeches spoken against God by ungodly sinners.' They may have to be instant in season and out of season, and yet walk with God. God has nowhere taught that the busy and contemplative, and the active and devotional life are to be cultivated apart the one from the other; they are found in their most perfect developements in combination. Not only in the tracings and outlines which we have of such lives. as those of Enoch and Noah, but in the fuller details of the apostle's life, in which journeyings, and perils, and labours, and the care of all the churches, did not exclude fastings, and keeping under of the body, and prayer without ceasing, and the very highest degree of spiritual union and communion with God.* The same point stands out in the character of the Great Exemplar. After His busiest days, He rose a great while before day, for retirement and prayer, or spent the whole night in devotional converse with His Heavenly Father; so in the last stage of His life, the day was devoted to instruction in the temple, but at night Jesus refreshed His soul at the Mount of Olives.†

In

In considering somewhat fully this walk with God as constituting the highest privilege and dignity of our earthly state, our attention is first directed to the NATURE of this walk. what does it consist? what kind of life does that man lead, of whom the Holy Spirit, were He recording his character, would say,-He walks with God? Every phase of life has its marks and peculiarities; the student's life is marked by diligent pains and untiring effort in the pursuit of knowledge; the worldling's life is devoted to pleasure and personal enjoyment; the business man rises early and late takes rest, and eats the bread of carefulness in the prosecution of his schemes. We have no difficulty in classifying our fellow men by the characteristics which their daily lives present. They propose to themselves certain objects; in the pursuit of these their very existence centres. Now, we would be as real and practical in spiritual things as in earthly; a man proposes to himself to walk with God, what should we expect to be the nature of his course. The very term walking with God helps us to decide this.

There must be, first, the realization of God's presence; we may think of an absent friend, or write to an absent friend, but we cannot walk with him unless he is present; he must be at our side, going out and coming in with

* 1 Cor. xi. 23-28; 1 Cor. ix. 24-27; Gal. ii. 20; Phil. iii. 7—14.

† Mark i. 21-25; Luke vi. 12, xxi. 37.