In one instance, the wife of one of the combatants rushed in between them, with her infant in her arms. A blow, which one of the ruffians meant for the mother, killed the child; and this was accidental death, on the oath of twelve English jurors. In a legal point of view, the famous verdict of the Welsh jury, who found the sheep-stealer guilty of homicide, was not more preposterous. It set every principle of English law at nought. This is a great moral evil, and it is increasing. Nothing has so much tended, of late years, to diminish our English horror of spilling human blood, as the culpable levity with which coroners' inquests excuse the most abominable neglect, and sometimes even the most wilful violence. Lord Palmerston has intimated his intention of bringing in a bill to amend the law with regard to the election of coroners; and we hope he will do something at the same time to raise the standard of coroners' juries. Is it unreasonable to require that none shall be eligible for the office of coroner until he have passed an examination before the lord chief justice; and that none but persons of some education and of well-known character shall be competent to act as jurymen?

The unusually severe contest for the Boden professorship of Sanscrit, which has just occurred at Oxford, demands at least a share of our attention. Amongst the members of the university, there are those who, displeased with the repeated efforts to disturb the seat of Mr. Gladstone (whilst they deplore the fact, that a man of his unsatisfactory opinions should have been ever chosen to represent the university), are disposed to shelter themselves under the almost prescriptive right of a once-elected member to retain his seat. We have now, however, enjoyed the unwonted pleasure of witnessing a different division of opinion, and one which, if we mistake not, will do some. what to restore a healthier feeling to the university at large. New combinations have been formed, and old ones strengthened. On the one side were ranged those who appreciated great industry, high character, and success in tuition, and who respected, moreover, the voice of his ancient pupils. Mr. Williams' claims were of a high order, and it is satisfactory to know that they were the hard-earned advantages of one whose religious sentiments leave nothing for us to desire. On the other hand was put forward a man of singular grasp of intellect, deep philological erudition, and great university influence. Connected at once with two of the most important colleges in Oxford, he could not but be very powerfully supported. And there were those who gave their votes for his successful opponent who felt, as they did so, how large a debt England owes to Germany in connection with the mission field, and with whom the names of Swartz, and Gerike, and Weitbrecht seemed to plead, and with whom, moreover, such pleading would have prevailed, had sufficient evidence been at command of the soundness in the faith of him who solicited their suffrages. As it is, the university has gained the presence of Mr. Williams, and has not lost that of Mr. Müller; and most sincerely do we pray, that whilst the former may exercise at Oxford a daily increasing degree of christian influence, the latter may so consecrate his vast talents to the service of Christ's church, that the highest, holiest theme upon which human tongue can dilate, may be illustrated and enforced, although it cannot be advanced, by his lofty intellect.

The last mails have brought us strange tidings from abroad. In New Zealand, a few savages keep our troops at bay, and spread terror through the colony. In China, a few English and French regments march into Pekin, after an easy victory over the Tartar army, and dictate a peace on their own terms, in his own capital, to the sovereign who boasts himself the master of one-third of the whole human family. Of the merits of the treaty, we say nothing till more is known. A boundless field, however, seems to open, not less to British enterprise than to missionary exertions. From America the tidings are gloomy. It seems now to be almost past a doubt that some at least of the slave-holding states will secede. Nothing can exceed their violence, and we regret to say that the ministers of religion are doing their utmost to aggravate the mischief. We give an extract from a thanksgiving sermon, preached at New Orleans in the "First presbyterian church," by Dr. Palmer, on the 29th of November, as reported in the New Orleans "Witness and Sentinel," of the 1st of December. Having proved by various arguthat slavery is "a solemn trust which they are bound to conserve and perpetuate," he proceeds to say:-

"Now, in justice to myself, I must be permitted to make a remark before I close. But a few weeks ago, I counselled you, from this place, to avoid all precipitate action; but at the same time to take determined action-such action only as you felt you could take with the conscious support of reason and religion. I give that counsel still. But I am one of you. I feel as a Southerner. Southern honour is my honour-Southern degradation is my degradation. Let no man mistake my meaning, or call my words idle. As a Southerner, then, I will speak, and I give it as my firm and unhesitating belief, that nothing is now left us but secession. I do not like the word, but it is the only one to express my meaning. We do not secede -our enemies have seceded. We are on the constitution-our enemies are not on the constitution; and our language should be, if you will not go with us, we will not go with you. You may form for yourselves a constitution; but we will administer among ourselves the constitution which our fathers have left us. This should be our language and solemn determination. Such action our honour demands; such action will save the Union, if anything can. We have yet friends left us in the North, but they cannot act for us till we have acted for ourselves; and it would be as pusillanimous in us to desert our friends as to cower before our enemies. To advance, is to secure our rights; to recede, is to lay our fortunes, our honour, our liberty, under the feet of our enemies. I know that the consequences of such a course, unless guided by discretion, are perilous. Peril our fortunes, peril our lives, but, come what may, let us never peril our liberty and our honour. I am willing, at the call of my honour and my liberty, to die a freeman; but I'll never, no never, live a slave; and the alternative now presented by our enemies is secession or slavery. Let it be liberty or death!"

On the same day, Dr. Leacock, of "Christ's Episcopal Church," preaches in the same city, in the same strain; and he thus concludes. We copy from the "Daily Delta," a New Orleans paper, of the 30th of November last :

This argument, then, which sweeps over the entire circle of our relations, touches the four cardinal points of duty to ourselves, to our slaves, to the world, and to almighty God. It establishes the nature and solemnity of our present trust, to preserve and transmit our existing system of domestic servitude, with the right, wachanged by man, to go and root itself wherever Providence and nature may carry it. This trust we will discharge in the face of the worst possible peril. Though war be the aggregation of all evils, yet, should the madness of the hour appeal to the arbitration of the sword, we will not shrink even from the baptism of fire. If modern crusaders stand in serried ranks upon some plain of Esdraelon, there shall we be in defence of our trust. Not till the last man has fallen behind

the last rampart, shall it drop from our hands; and then only in surrender to the God who gave it."

And all this, and much more than this, because the United States have elected an anti-slavery president, who has not yet entered on his office. We can assure our American friends of the free states, and not a few we believe in the slave-holding states, who are shocked and disgusted with this violence, that they have the deep, respectful sympathy, and what they value more, the fervent prayers, of English Christians. We pray that God in his mercy may overrule this madness of the people of the South for good. The great American Union, and its prosperity, were never so dear to England as at the present time. We are persuaded that any real injury inflicted upon her would give us ten times more concern than her declaration of independence ever gave our forefathers. It is proposed to begin the new year with a day, or even a week, of prayer. America, we are sure, will not be forgotten.

S. J. has been received.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A correspondent wishes to know whether it is a becoming thing for clergymen professing evangelical piety to form chess clubs, and meet at stated hours for the sole purpose of spending their time at chess. We leave the question with our readers. The bishop of Rochester, we perceive, has publicly censured clerical cricketers and archery men. Whether chess clubs are worse, or better, or purely indifferent, must be left, we believe, to each man's conscience in the sight of God.

ON THE HABITUAL READING OF THE WORD of God.

THE habitual reading of the Bible is one chief feature of Protestant devotion. As such it is recommended and inculcated, adopted and practised, wherever a religious life is proposed. But there are tendencies of thought in the present day, which seem not unlikely to depreciate this practice, to impair its authority, and diminish its prevalence. These tendencies are the rather to be noticed, because they might seem to be of a directly contrary kind. Theology, as a science, is less cultivated than it was. The activity of studious minds is mainly confined to the Scriptures themselves, applying to them the methods and resources of ingenious historical criticism, and interpreting their language by a painstaking and candid exegesis. We have been recently told by a writer in the "Essays and Reviews," that the study of the Bible is the great work of the coming age; and in so saying, he has told us the truth. The conviction of this truth is, however, perfectly compatible with the apprehension which has been already expressed; nay, it must itself suggest it. The use of the Scriptures for devotional purposes, and for the sustenance of spiritual life, is a totally distinct thing from their critical and exegetical study: and the turn which the latter study has now taken is calculated, in its immediate influence, to injure rather than promote the devotional use of the Bible. While the human element in the Scripture is undergoing a far more extended and searching investigation than heretofore, it is certain that, in some quarters, the recognition of the divine element has become more faint, and that there are, in consequence, indications of diminished confidence in their application to personal life, and to its daily spiritual necessities.

If these indications are not yet observed in the general Christian body, they are nevertheless too evident in those parts of it which are first affected by the ideas of the day, and which must in due time have the strongest influence on the rest. The rising generation of educated minds has been accustomed to

hear language in regard to the Bible, which is calculated to stimulate the interest of inquiry, but to impair the interest of faith; and the effects are not slow to appear.

In order to present the tendencies of thought of which I speak, with the greatest distinctness, I will quote a few remarkable words of an eminent French writer, a student of the history of religion and translator of the Book of Job, whose professed unbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures permits him to speak without modification or disguise.

"La lecture habituelle de la Bible, conséquence nécessaire du système protestant, est-elle donc en soi un si grand bien, et l'Eglise catholique est-elle si coupable, d'avoir mis un sceau à ce livre et de l'avoir dissimulé ?

"Non certes, et je suis tenté de dire que le plus magnifique coup d'état de cette grande institution est de s'être substituée, elle vivante, agissante, à une autorité muette. C'est une admirable littérature sans doute que la littérature hébraïque, mais seulement pour le savant et le critique, qui peuvent l'étudier dans l'original et restituer leur vrai sens à chacun des curieux morceaux qui la composent. Quant à ceux qui l'admirent de confiance, le plus souvent ils y admirent ce qui n'y est pas; le caractère vraiment original des livres de l'Ancien et du Nouveau Testament leur échappe. Que dire des personnes peu lettrées qui s'enfoncent sans y être préparées dans une aussi obscure antiquité? Qu'on s'imagine le renversement d'esprit que doit causer à des gens simples et sans instruction la lecture habituelle d'un livre comme l'Apocalypse ou même comme le livre des Rois. Sans doute il vaut beaucoup mieux voir le peuple lire la Bible que ne rien lire; comme cela a lieu dans les pays catholiques; mais on avouera aussi que le livre pourrait être mieux choisi. C'est un triste spectacle que celui d'une nation intelligente usant ses heures de loisir sur un monument d'un autre âge, et cherchant tout le jour des symboles dans un livre où il n'y en a pas." (Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse, p. 385.)

So speaks M. Ernest Rénau in his paper on Channing. Words not unlike them may here and there be heard amongst ourselves, though, for the most part, couched in the form of insinuation and implication, as being uttered in the midst of a people among whom the habit of private Scripture-reading is the strong support of piety, and a recognized influence on public opinion. It is not, however, intended, in making this quotation, to imply that opinions so advanced are common with us; but only to show, by a strong example, how the critical study of Scripture may be recognized as an object of the highest interest, while its devotional use is slighted as unreasonable, or even pitied as absurd. So, in fact, it must be while the book is regarded from its human and not from its divine side, or (to use its own language) while it is "known after the flesh and not after the spirit;" while it is contemplated as a collection of national literature, of monuments of ancient piety, and of records of the religious history of man,