throughout Europe, and the levelling principle of democracy. That principle is actively and indefatigably at work in these kingdoms, allying itself as occasion may serve, with Popery or with Dissent, with profligacy or with hypocrisy, ready confederates, each having its own sinister views, but all acting to one straight-forward end. Your rulers meanwhile seem to be trying that experiment with the British Constitution, which Mithridates is said to have tried upon his own: they suffer poison to be administered in daily doses, as if they expected that by such a course the public mind would at length be rendered poison-proof!

The first of these struggles will affect all Christendom, the third may once again shake the monarchies of Europe. The second will be felt widely; but nowhere with more violence than in Ireland, that unhappy country, wherein your government, after the most impolitic measures into which weakness was ever deluded, or pusillanimity intimidated, seems to have abdicated its functions, contenting itself with the semblance of an authority which it has wanted either wisdom or courage to

exert.

There is a fourth danger, the growth of your manufacturing system; and this is peculiarly your own. You have a great and increasing population, exposed at all times by the fluctuations of trade to suffer the severest privations in the midst of a rich and luxurious society, under little or no restraint from religious principle, and if not absolutely

disaffected to the institutions of the country, certainly not attached to them: a class of men aware of their numbers and of their strength; experienced in all the details of combination, improvident when they are in the receipt of good wages, yet feeling themselves injured when those wages, during some failure of demand, are so lowered as no longer to afford the means of comfortable subsistence,-and directing against the government and the laws of the country their resentment and indignation for the evils which have been brought upon them by competition and the spirit of rivalry in trade. They have among them intelligent and daring minds; and you have already seen how perilously they may be wrought upon by seditious journalists, and seditious orators in a time of distress.

On what do you rely for security against these dangers? On public opinion? You might as well calculate upon the constancy of wind and weather in this uncertain climate. On the progress of knowledge? It is such knowledge as serves only to facilitate the course of delusion. On the laws? The law, which should be like a sword in a strong hand, is weak as a bulrush if it be feebly administered in a time of danger. On the people? They are divided. On the parliament? Every faction will be fully and formidably represented there. On the Government? It suffers itself to be insulted and defied at home, and abroad it has shown itself incapable of maintaining the relations of peace and amity with its allies, so far has it been divested of

power by the usurpation of the press. . A press which is not only without restraint, but without responsibility; and in the management of which those men will always have most power who have least probity, and have most completely divested themselves of all sense of honour, and all regard for truth.

'The root of all your evils is the sinfulness of the nation. The principle of duty is weakened among you, that of moral obligation is loosened; that of religious obedience is destroyed. Look at the worldliness of all classes: the greediness of the rich, the misery of the poor,-and the appalling depravity which is spreading among the lower classes through town and country.'-ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq. See Colloquies.'

'The moral deluge has begun; and though the dry land still appears, and though the mountains and hills are still uncovered, yet the waters rise higher and higher every day; and many heedless and thoughtless until now, acknowledge that the only sure refuge is the ark of true religion.'-REV. H. WOODWARD'S ESSAYS.

'It is impossible for any person to look on the present aspect of providence, with an observing, and especially a religious eye, without being persuaded that our lot has fallen on critical times; times which teem with important events, affecting the interests of society in general, and of the

church of God in particular. At no distant period, good men were inclined to hope that the existing agitation was on the surface of society, and that it would soon subside, and leave things in their former state of tranquillity. That day is gone by; and there are few, I believe, how opposite soever their opinions may be of the moral character of the times, who are not now come to the contrary conclusion, and who are not convinced that this ferment is increasing, that its exciting causes are deep and widely extended, that they are as yet but partially developed, and that many days must elapse before the storm shall have spent its rage, and the agitated waves wrought themselves into repose.'-REV. DR. MC CRIE'S SERMONS.

The state of our country cannot but occasion much anxiety. When Lord Stanley, so likely from his previous situation to know the truth, stated the present (Jan. 12, 1835,) as a period which he considered to be a crisis of fear, of anxiety, and of danger,' and when Lord Grey in a letter to Lord Ebrington, had previously stated the serious difficulties of governing the country, and the importance of not being urged by a constant and active pressure from without to the adoption of measures, the necessity of which had not been fully proved,' and in the present feverish state of the public mind, who can be without fears for his country.'-REV. E. BICKERSTETH'S "Guide to the Prophecies."

It seems at first sight very improbable, that at the time when there is an extended revival of religion, and a vast increase of faithful ministers, and growth of all kinds of exertion to spread the Gospel, and to do good; such things should be the prelude and preparation for judgments and wrath upon the nations. But the growth of wickedness with the growth of good; and the plain predictions of God's word (Rev. xiv. 6, 7. Isai. xi. 4, 9.) and the past history of Noah's preaching before the deluge, and the prophets raised up before the first destruction of Jerusalem, and the Apostle's going forth from Jerusalem before its second destruction, may lead us to see that this is the thing which God has foretold, and the past history of the Church has illustrated.'-Idem.

. Even the most careless observer cannot refrain from noticing and acknowledging the existence of a general fermentation certainly throughout all Europe, perhaps, indeed, well nigh throughout the whole world. When the spirit of innovating anarchy is thus distinguished by its close alliance with the blasphemous spirit of infidelity; and when, by his ominous junction with such associates, the Roman Man of Sin once more vindicates to himself the accurate prophetic description of the lawless one,' we cannot but suspect that matters are in a state of preparation for that final tremendous overthrow of God's enemies, which is the theme of so many inspired prophecies. The very politician of the world,