in Jerusalem, and who at that very time was destroying the idols that had been erected by former idolatrous kings; and doing all in his power to restore the true worship. (2 Kings, chap. xviii.) With respect to the point of time, Sennacherib's punishment was to be almost immediate; the Assyrian's was to be after a long interval; the army of the former was punished upon the spot at the time, and he himself fell soon after by the hands of assassins; but the punishment of the Assyrian is to take place, when God shall have performed all his work upon Judah and Jerusalem; that is, as I understand it, when the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled, or, in the words of Daniel, chap. xii., at the expiration of time, times, and a half, when God shall have accomplished to scatter the power of his holy people; for before that he cannot be said to have performed all his work upon Judah and Jerusalem.

If you think proper to admit this criticism into your publication, I shall be ready, if you approve it, to send you a further comment on the Assyrian, giving him what seems to me his proper place in the order of events. MILLENARIUS.

ON DIVORCE.

THOUGH in particular cases the repugnance of the law to dissolve the obligations of matrimonial cohabitation may operate with great severity upon individuals; yet it must be carefully remembered, that the general happiness of the married life is secured by its indissolubility. When people understand that they must live together, except for a very few reasons known to the law, they learn to soften, by mutual accommodation, that yoke which they know they cannot shake off; they become good husbands and good wives from the necessity of remaining husbands and wives; for necessity is a powerful master in teaching the duties which it imposes. If it were once understood, that upon mutual disgust married persons might be legally separated, many couples who now pass through the world with mutual comfort, with attention to their common offspring, and to the moral order of civil society, might have been at this moment living in a state of mutual unkindness; in a state of estrangement from their common offspring; and in a state of the most licentious and unreserved immorality. In this case, as in many others, the happiness of some individuals must be sacrificed to the greater and more general good. Per Sir W. Scott (Lord Stowell), 1 Haggard's Reports, p. 36.

SECOND LETTER ON THE DOMESTIC MISCHIEF OF

FANATICISM,

MY DEAR SISTER,-If I understand you aright, your arguments chiefly rest upon the supposed fact of a great revival of religion having taken place, in consequence of the exertions of a certain party in the Church connected with the labours of the Dissenters. You

seem to regard this as so evident as to require no proof, and appeal to what we see and hear as decisive on the subject. I am, however, by no means disposed to pass over this alleged fact in a cursory manner, nor to grant so important a concession as that those of the party whom you so much admire have been the chosen instruments of effecting the greatest good, to the exclusion of all who do not pursue the same course.

In the first place, there is no such supernatural revival of religion as you imagine. There has no such change taken place in our days as may not be accounted for on the general principles which are apparent in the divine government. I would by no means deny or undervalue that control of Divine Providence, and that influence of the Holy Spirit, which produce the most beneficial results in the Church; but it does not appear to me that the present commotion in the religious world can justly be traced to other than ordinary causes, producing their usual effects. There is nothing miraculous in the present state of things; nothing which might not in some measure have been anticipated by human foresight and produced by human agency. This is not the first, nor, in all probability, will it be the last time, in which a more lively interest is manifested on the subject of religion than at others; and I can easily conceive the possibility of the present agitation of men's minds sinking into as profound a calm as ever existed at any former period. Yet you, with others of the same cast, seem to regard it as a special and final exertion of divine power, by which the present differences of opinion are produced. You consider it as calling upon all mankind to determine of which party they will be, and insist that all minor things must be lost sight of in one great effort to continue and increase this excitation. If you do not say in so many words, you at least imply, that the present state of things denotes the end of the world to be near; that a final distinction will soon be made between those who serve God and those who serve him not; and that all must then be condemned who do not make the same exertions as yourselves in behalf of the promulgation of your opinions by means of the various religious societies which have been established since the beginning of the present century.

But what is all this but the puritanism of the seventeenth century revived and adapted to the manners of the nineteenth? Did not the same confidence then exist as to the rapid promotion of the kingdom of Christ, by means of similar exertions made by the union of some in the Church with those without its pale? Numbers then believed (as confidently as any now believe) that the time was rapidly approaching when by means of their efforts the kingdoms of this world should become the kingdoms of our Lord. The commotions which they had themselves raised they ascribed to divine agency; they were as certain as you can feel that all with them belonged to the Lord, and all not with them were against him. There was the same readiness to ascribe common events to supernatural causes; the same willingness to believe in an especial outpouring of the Holy Spirit; the same proneness to condemn all, without mercy, who differed from them in opinion. Can you then be so sure, that this new light may not, like that which then shone, prove a mere ignis fatuus? Can you be so

certain that the effects of the present commotion shall be permanent as to the establishment and promulgation of your tenets? Believe me, it is too much to ask of any one not already blinded by zeal in your cause, to regard the present state of religion as an interposition of heaven in your behalf-And, after all, what is the revival of religion of which you write? I suppose you mean by it a revival of those opinions which you regard as constituting the essence of religion. But what is this to others? they have no such notion of the real nature of religion. A great deal of what passes, with the party you admire, for religion, is, in my opinion, very far from that taught in the New Testament. Taking my idea of a revival of religion from thence, I should conclude it to be manifest in great personal anxiety to secure the mercy of God, implicit obedience to his commandments, and faith in his word, in unfeigned humility, in godly fear. I should think those who were much alive to the importance of religion would be most careful to neglect no relative duty; would, conscious of their own errors and failings, be merciful to those of others; would be doubtful of themselves; would adhere stedfastly to the ordinances of God. Were I, however, to take my idea of a revival of religion from what you so much admire, very different would be the impression on my mind. In this latter case, it seems more generally known by thoughts on the spiritual state of others than a man's ownself; great profession and display; confidence approaching to presumption; an assumed licence for the neglect of common duties in pursuing great objects; indifference to what is near, and regard to what is distant; severe judgment on others who differ from them, and great readiness to forget all differences, however important, in those who will agree with them in a few subjects against their brethren.

It seems a strange thing that a revival of religion should be characterized by a union with those who deny what all Christians regard as essential to the Gospel, by the very men who accuse their brethren of not preaching the Gospel. It seems not very agreeable to the doctrine of the New Testament, that a revival of religion should make Christians indifferent to the repeated injunctions of Holy Writ, to mark those that cause divisions and avoid them.

If, however, you relinquish this ground, and only insist that to the exertions of persons like-minded with yourself, is owing that real conscientiousness and concern for religion which may now exist, without respect to the manner in which they may be developed, I altogether deny the fact, being confident you can bring forward no proof of its existence.

A

Many, no doubt, among the party in question, are truly conscientious; but you are most egregiously mistaken if you think all are so, or regard conscientiousness as its distinguishing characteristic. Many, also, have a deep interest in religion, but this is not peculiar to them. plain practical clergyman, endeavouring, to the utmost of his power, to bring all in his own parish to the acknowledgment of the truth, or to retain them in the unity of faith, and at the same time to preserve the spirit of real charity towards all mankind, is, according to my ideas, quite as conscientious, and manifests as deep an interest in religion, as he who wanders about from town to town, invited, admired and caressed,

leaving his parish to the care of a stranger. The calumnies which have been heaped upon many of the clergy on account of their not having joined the societies you most admire, shew little of real conscientiousness, little of real regard to religion. You know, well know, that those societies have often been advocated as if they were the only societies which were formed for the diffusion of Christianity. It has not been once or twice, but repeatedly, that the real question at issue has been misrepresented, and numbers have gone away from public meetings with the impression that those who did not advocate them were adverse to the promulgation of religious truth, when it certainly was in the power of the speakers to have informed them that they only objected to that method of promulgating it which they looked upon as least beneficial, but were anxious and diligent in that which experience had proved was safe and effectual.

But is it in private life you think the effects of a revival of religion, through the instrumentality of this party, is best displayed?—In this case, I beseech you, look to facts and not words. Where is it that yon find better sons and daughters, better brothers and sisters, better wives and husbands, better friends and relatives are thus made? Where is it that this revival produces greater reverence for the sacraments and services of the Church, greater attachment to its interests, greater anxiety to promote its usefulness? On every side do not we hear the complaints of many who suffer from the conduct of those led away by the idea that they are doing great things for the cause of God and religion in the world? You know as well as I do, that a new set of connexions are generally formed, and that these supplant those which formerly existed. The best affections of the heart are often transferred to strangers of whom little is known, except that they advocate the same cause,-and it is in vain for the parent or friend to expostulate. A person is carried away by a new set of ideas which did not strike him before, which charm because they are new, and are deemed true because they charm. So long as the illusion lasts, entreaty and remonstrance, opposed to inclination, are vain;-a new world is opened, and it is a religious world,-therefore it must be that to which all the best days of life should be given;--the mind is thrown into an unnatural state of excitation, and rejects its former pursuits, not because they are bad, but because they do not minister to its present feelings. Common pleasures and consolations are disregarded, and common duties also; and because this is the case, it is concluded that higher pleasures and higher duties occupy the mind,-and this is regarded as a proof of a revival of religion.-That you may never be deceived by such an imaginary proof, is the earnest wish and prayer of Your affectionate Brother.

GAMING.

THE fatal consequences of Gaming, the inevitable ruin which it entails on those who yield themselves up to its delusions, have long been felt and acknowledged by all who have escaped its wretched fascination. To strengthen our experience, science had also explored

this region, and the most distinguished philosophers of modern times, from Bernouilli and Demoivre to Garnier and Laplace, have concurred in determining, as the result of the most elaborate analysis, founded on the simplest and most obvious rules of human action, that he who gives himself up to gambling, must, in the long run, be ruined.

The following striking details, furnished by an ex-farmer of the Parisian gaming-houses, will throw a new light on this miserable pursuit, and may perhaps produce a conviction of its folly on some who are alike inaccessible to the dictates of science and religion. Into what a vortex they plunge who stake their property in these establishments, rightly termed Hells, will appear from the immense gains which enable them to meet the following expenditure:

Francs.

The farmers of the public gaming-houses, who are exclusively privileged, pay the city of Paris the annual sum of...... 5,500,000 The Pots de vin and presents that they take upon themselves,

1,500,000

or that are put upon them, amount annually to The farmers are allowed, out of the profits, for expences of administration and service.....

1,800,000

The profits of the farmers, per month, are estimated at 200,000, which give for the year..

2,400,000

The city of Paris, besides 5,000,000 mentioned above, takes 3-4ths of the profits, which yield annually ...

7,200,000

18,400,000

From this sketch it is evident that the gaming-houses of Paris cost annually, to those who pay them-that is, gamesters-the enormous sum of 18,000,000 francs, which is a larger amount than is received by all the collectors of direct taxes in the capital.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE 7th VERSE OF THE XVIIIth CHAPTER OF ST. MATTHEW.

To the Editor of the Christian Remembrancer.

SIR,-Believing that you think nothing unimportant which affects the exposition of the Sacred Volume, I venture to send you this.

At the 7th verse of the 18th chapter of St. Matthew, in our authorised version, the usual mark is placed which denotes a change in the subject. I think the mark in this instance is likely to mislead the reader, for the 7th verse appears to me to be a natural continuation of our Saviour's discourse. In reply to the enquiry of his disciples, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?' our Saviour answered,' he who shall humble himself as this little child,'-referring to a child who stood amongst them. The meaning of this evidently is, the humble believer, he who rests not upon his own works, he who no more claims a reward for his own merit than a child can,-is the greatest favourite of Heaven. In the 5th verse our Saviour declares, that he who should receive one such little child, that is, one such believer, in his name, received him; and in the 6th verse he shews the greatness of