nature can hardly restrain from offering to Heaven a prayer for mercy on those who on earth must have drunk so deeply of the gall of despair and wretchedness.

Another tragedy is that of the loss of the Atlantic steamer' Arctic,' run down, in a Newfoundland fog, and sinking, with a loss of nearly 300 lives. A letter from New York, dated before the intelligence of the disaster could reach that place, refers to the deep anxiety for her fate, and states that scarcely a family in that great Empire city' is without friends or connexions in the vessel.-The Newcastle and Gateshead fire is to be added to the list of catastrophes. By it other fifty lives, and upwards of 600,000l. of property, have been lost.

Ecclesiastical questions are again 'looking up.' The Canadian Clergy Reserves, it is now pretty certain, will be secularized before another six months has passed over our heads. Sir Allan M'Nab, like a wise man, has committed himself to the measure in all its fulness.-At the other extremity of the empire, Sir Charles Hotham, the new Governor of Australia, is winning laurels which will never die if he bear himself always in the manly, frank, and courteous manner with which he has recently met the Colonists. At his first levee the Church,' amongst other bodies, offered him its congratulations. The Archdeacon of Melbourne was the spokesman on the occasion, and took advantage of the opportunity to state, in most explicit terms, that the Episcopal Church in Australia desired to be only on an equal footing with the other Christian sects; it would ask for no special immunities, and for no exclusive privilege. Thus, from two of the greatest dependencies of Britain at two extremities of the globe -the children of the mother country send word of their determination to be for ever free from the bondsman's yoke. They know and feel their strength; they have outgrown the swaddling bands of infancy; they can stand without support; they are healthy, and disdain the crutches which Mother Church can never walk without. They are for a period of decrepitude the period which the Establishment in this country is fast passing through, one day to drop into the grave, 'unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.'

The second of William Wilberforce's sons has this month borne testimony to Rome's supremacy. In prospect of a citation before an Ecclesiastical Court, he has resigned his preferments, and ended, for the present, a dishonest enough career, by protesting against Royal supremacy, and avowing his belief that the ultimate court of appeal for Christendom on all spiritual questions is the 'Scarlet Lady.' The same 'scarlet lady' the farmers of Buckinghamshire, in clod-hopping loyalty, have determined to be the most dangerous foe of these happy realms; and have, accordingly, summoned the Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli to put on his spurs and do battle for his (sic) Church and country against the powers of Wiseman and Pope Pius. Benjamin forthwith, with traditional ease, assumes the character of an outraged Protestant, and is hailed as the deliverer of his country from the power and persecution of Popery. Failing his success, Colonel Garrett, or some equally respectable character, will most probably be elected as the next champion of the Protestant interest.'

Three or four encouraging meetings of different sections of the Christian

Church have been held during the month, at which the interests of vital Christianity have been largely dwelt upon, and reverently discussed. The first was a special meeting, held at the Congregational Library, to take into consideration the spiritual condition of the metropolis as revealed by the Census Returns.' It appears to have been largely attended, but great differences of opinion existed amongst the speakers-differences, however, in many cases traceable to their position and standing. Mr. Binney, who preaches to a respectable and intellectual audience, condemned open-air preaching, and thought the great deficiency in our present services was their want of taste.' Mr. Newman Hall, with a practical knowledge of the condition, wants, and prejudices of the working classes, rightly considered that open-air preaching was one of the best means that could be adopted, and earnestly advocated the employment of lay talent. Mr. Tyler made an excellent suggestion, that some discourses might be illustrated by pictures and diagrams, and so be made more attractive to working men. The resolutions passed suggested to the churches their responsibility, and urged the adoption of the following means:-'It would, therefore, urge upon the brethren generally the importance of local meetings for conference and prayer, in relation to the wants of their own neighbourhoods,—the revival and increase of Christian Instruction Societies, the increase and invigoration of home missionary operations,-the employment of additional Congregational missionaries by churches capable of this outlay, the establishment of prayer-meetings in outlying districts, the greater encouragement of lay preaching, the employment of the mechanics'-halls, lecture-rooms, and theatres, for the stated or occasional preaching of the gospel therein, as well as in the open air,-and the more vigorous and systematic use of all means likely, under the Divine blessing, to teach the ignorant and to save the lost.' These are just the means suggested some four years ago by the author of the British Churches-a book which, for its very remedial suggestions, was unsparingly condemned by very many of those who held up their hands for the above resolution. We are afraid that Mr. Kennedy touched the secret spring of all the wants of proper success in Christian effort in moving the following resolution: That the great evil now lamented calls not only for additional efforts, but for increasing prayer, on the part of the churches, that they strive to awaken among themselves a sense of their obligations, in the midst of such circumstances, to perform their duties in diffusing Divine truth among the multitude.'-The members of the Congregational Union meeting at Newcastle discussed the same subject, Mr. Baldwin Brown dwelling on the necessity of each existing church being instigated to do the work requiring to be done in its own locality; and Mr. Charles Reed calling attention to a fact which has been altogether forgotten or overlooked, that the Church, by means of Sabbathschools, has the great bulk of the children of the working classes, at one time or other, under its influence. He added:-'Let efficient means be employed to keep the elder scholars of our Sabbath-schools up to the ages of sixteen or seventeen, and depend upon it, that large numbers attending these schools, who, under the present system, go off again into the world, would become the pillars and ornaments of the churches.'

The scattered events of the month are the Frome Election, where

Mr. Donald Nicoll, through want of that local influence possessed by his more fortunate opponent, lost the day by three score votes-the decrease in the weekly mortality from Cholera to 113, to which may be put as a set-off the unexpected increase in the price of provisions-corn having got to eighty shillings a quarter, and coals to thirty-three shillings a ton, with a prospect of famine prices in the midst of plenty-the pass of arms between the Netherby baronet and W. B.,' in which W. B. went through ancient Pistol's part, and eat the leek'-and Lord John Russell's speech at the Bedford Literary Institution, where his lordship, as a philosophical historian, took the part of England against the historical theorists of the decline of empires. The speech was a happy one, but the noble lord omitted from the statement of his reasons for believing that England was still in the prime of manhood's strength and prosperity, one which to us is more convincing than any he assigned-the growing SELF-RELIANCE of a people who, after a thousand years of national history, are still progressing in liberty, intelligence, moral virtue, and religion,-who can look on no past period, and say that the former days were better than these.'

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The following explains itself:

'To the Editor of the Christian Spectator. 'Sir, I request your attention to the following passages:

Baptist Examiner, 1844, page 171. "Here in the inverted mirror of memory we behold the brilliant perspective of youthful hope--the patience and crises of virtue-the bursting buds of genius-the first flashing and skirmishes of passion-the forcing-bed of character-scenes now pantomimic of states, now tragical with genuine sorrow, and always dramatic."

'Christian Spectator, August, 1854. "The diamond-lined perspective of youthful hope-the patience and crisis of virtue-the bursting buds of genius the first flashes and skirmishes of passion the forcing-bed of passions-now its scenes are pantomimic of states, then tragical with genuine woes, and always dramatic.'

.

"The plagiarism is trifling to be sure-only that of a few phrases-yet would it not have been more graceful and more honest to have used the distinction of inverted commas? especially as the writer in the Spectator' has no need to borrow anybody's verbiage if the other parts of the composition are his own.

Yours truly,

SCRUTATOR.

The writer of the article has returned the following answer to this charge. My dear Sir,-In 1844 I lived in Sheffield, but I believe on my visit to London I delivered the substance of the paper in question in a Baptist chapel, Commercialroad, to a few young men. I did not, but somebody else may have sent the piece in question to the "Baptist Examiner." At all events, I'll swear to the language and ideas, such as they are, being my own. Faithfully yours, R. S. B.'

We trust 'Scrutator' will be satisfied with this explanation.' 'G. P. Ivey, Swansea.'--We are obliged for the letter, as well as for the writer's flattering testimony to the merits of the Christian Spectator,' but we cannot reprint the article.

Box 765, Manchester.'-Many thanks.

Reader, to the, 855.

Red-hill Schools, 708.
Religious Societies, the, 379.

Response of Man to the Gospel, 789.
Restoration of Belief, 535

Retrospect, Monthly, 60, 189, 256, 32 4,
398, 462, 531, 595, 659, 726, 847.
Ronge's English Kinder Garten, 497.
Ruth, authoress of, 689.

Samson and his Times, 545.
Samuel, the prophet, 760.
Societies, the religious, 379.
Solomon's Song, 82.

Statistics, ecclesiastical, of England and
America, 36.

Swedenborg, Emanuel, 270.

Thackeray, W. M., 609.

Toller's, H., Lecture on Philippians, 834.