simple dependence upon Christ to work in us by the Spirit every grace we need. Blessed things are prayer and sacraments, and watchfulness, and rules of life, and self-discipline, and self-denial, when they occupy their right place in the spiritual system, as means, channels, and instruments; but if they be unduly magnified, so as to cover the whole field of view; if we for a moment allow our minds to regard them as sources of grace, and trust to them to work in us sanctity, we shall be as utterly disappointed in them as the poor woman who had the issue of blood was with the many physicians from whom she had suffered many things, but never brought away a cure.

"Mark me, reader, our sanctification is in Christ, not independent of Him; and, therefore, not to be had independently. Touch His sacred person, in simple faith that in Him doth all fulness dwell-fulness of light and love, of holy tempers, holy impulses, and of all the fruits of the Spirit,-and the virtue which is in Him shall instantly begin to flow through the channel which faith has opened into your soul."

The italics are my own. I could find many more similar extracts, but think the above amply prove that Dr. Goulburn has a true sense of the believer's union with, and completeness in, Christ Jesus.-I am, obediently yours,

A READER OF THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

WITHIN the last few days we have been startled by the sudden, but, as it now seems, by no means premature, action of Government in consequence of an extensive conspiracy in Ireland. We had all heard of the Fenians, and their childish but impudent sedition, and thought that neither the men themselves, nor their treasons publicly avowed, deserved any farther notice than ridicule and sheer contempt. But Government, it seems, were in possession of much fuller information. Their organization was far more extensive, their plans were much more complete; Fenianism, in short, was more dangerous than the public either in England or in Ireland supposed. Government acted wisely, with secrecy and dispatch. They made a considerable number of arrests, and discovered, it is said, sufficient materials to prove that the conspiracy was of the most formidable character. There is no doubt that it originated in America, where public meetings have been held and subscriptions opened for the avowed purpose of wresting Ireland from the English Crown, and establishing a republic. Several American agents, with treasonable papers, have been seized; and, what is far more serious, some of our English soldiers are amongst the disaffected. A sergeant, and several others, have been seized. Not one Irishman of respectability or influence seems to have been connected with the senseless plot; nor has one Irish priest-let us do them justice-given it, as far as we know at present, the slightest countenance.

We hope that the countenance this contemptible treason has received in America, will not cause the slightest coolness between the two governments. In free States, boasting what we proudly call a

constitution, it is very difficult for the government to interfere upon the mere suspicion of a treasonable plot against a foreign State. We should not forget that in England the plot was laid which so nearly terminated in the assassination of the Emperor at the door of the Opera House in Paris. The shells, some of which we have seen, were cast by English manufacturers, and filled with their explosive materials by a desperate Frenchman, who resided in one of our manufacturing towns. They were of the most murderous description, and no secrecy was observed; but as the manufacturers were not made cognizant of the plot, our Government was powerless to interfere, further than to inform our ally, the Emperor, that suspicious proceedings were on foot.

The state of things in America is just what was to be expected after so tremendous a convulsion. It is difficult to arrive at the truth; there is no doubt, however, that the Southern States present an awful spectacle. Desolation and misery, hunger and nakedness, stalk abroad. The horrors of war are depicted, by reporters on the spot, in stronger colours than novelist or historian would dare to use. To these must be added the special, and yet in some respects ludicrous, condition of the millions of emancipated slaves. What should we think in England, if a starving population of agricultural labourers, to whom food and work were offered with fair wages, refused employment, and hesitated to accept of wages, being chiefly concerned to know whether they should be entitled to a county vote? Yet this is the condition of the emancipated slaves. Emancipation itself seems poisoned, unless they are placed on a political equality with the white man. In America manhood suffrage is the great idol, which they too must fall down and worship. To them this appears the only test of freedom; and the probability is that it will be conceded. To our minds this is supremely ridiculous; but in their circumstances perhaps it is but natural. It may at least have the good effect of teaching Americans in general, what their wisest men have long felt, that manhood suffrage is the curse of the Republic. In other respects, the restoration of the Union proceeds, slowly indeed, but yet more rapidly than we in this country, at any period of the war, should have thought possible. The South is utterly prostrate; they regard slavery as utterly extinguished, "as dead," as dead," says one of their writers, as a red herring; and they accept the union with all the submissiveness of a conquered province. The bright vision of one vast republic extending from Canada to the gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, dazzles once more the bewildered imagination of the Northern States.

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Lord Russell has issued a despatch to our representatives abroad, in which his sense of the injustice of what is called the Gastein Convention is expressed with becoming indignation. This convention between Prussia and Austria is equalled in bare-faced injustice only by the partition of Poland. The two powers, in defiance of the treaties of 1815 and 1852, to which they themselves were consenting parties, and from which indeed both of them received considerable advantages, now assert their determination to seize upon the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, and to divide them between themselves. "All rights," says his Lordship, " old or new, whether based upon a solemn

agreement between sovereigns, or on the clear and precise expressions of popular will, have been trodden under foot-the authority of force is the sole power which has been consulted and recognized. Violence and conquest-such are the only bases upon which the dividing Powers have established their Convention." We can add nothing to the expressive comment of the Times upon this iniquitous Convention:"As we are certain that no State was ever yet established by iniquity, or has prospered by violence, we are equally sure that some signal retribution will sooner or later vindicate the supremacy of law, and teach Europe that it must be observed and upheld."

When the new Parliament sits, we may expect that the crusade against the Irish Church will be renewed; whether with the bitterness and unblushing misrepresentations of some speakers in the last Parliament, will depend in no slight degree upon the wisdom and courage of those who may, on the right grounds, undertake her defence. The right grounds are these, that it is the duty of a Christian State to provide a national religion of the purest form, in doctrine and in discipline, within its reach. Men are ashamed to avow this principle; yet we do not hesitate to say, that neither in England nor elsewhere can a national church be justified upon any other plea. Again, the assertion, that the Irish Church is a burden upon the Roman Catholic population, ought to be met with a firm denial; and those Protestant members are disgracefully ignorant, who cannot bring forth proofs, as well as assertions, to the contrary. Nor, thirdly, is it true that the Church in Ireland is now a slothful inefficient body. While it was so, Roman Catholics did not discover that it was 66 a nuisance;" nor ultraliberals that it was 66 a burning shame." It is because it is now waking up, assuming the character of a missionary church, and making its presence felt in Ireland, that it has become exposed to these explosions of wrath and bitterness. The warmer champions of our English Convocation are but cold in their defence of the sister Church. She stands upon her rights. She says that she will not submit to the dictation of a Convocation which sits at Westminster, in which she is not represented, and to whose proceedings her sanction has not been asked. She demands that the Act of Union be observed; and it is said that there are those on the Episcopal bench who would willingly see the Churches severed, and leave the Church of Ireland to stand alone. But if the Act of Union may be so lightly dealt with when the Church is concerned, why not in secular matters of possibly much slighter moment? Why not propitiate the shade of O'Connell, and restore an Irish parliament to College Green? At present, however, we are in danger of no such folly. No ministry, nor any politician worthy of the name, will listen to either of these proposals. Yet we hope that some Protestant members will undertake the defence of the Church of Ireland on the highest ground, and that she too will arouse herself more fully to her duties, and become, what she ought to be, a great missionary church; less than this she was never meant to be; though evil influences have for centuries encumbered her path, and sorely hindered her in her work.

Ir is extremely difficult to stand in the midst of a flood of fresh, and perhaps transitional materials, and judge impartially concerning them. We ourselves, whilst pretending to criticise, may be carried away by the torrent, and led to treat the matter too lightly. Or, on the other hand, we may be induced to give too great a prominence to what is present and pressing at the moment, and is yet only another of the world's changing fashions. Or, again, supposing the importance of the question confessed and settled, it may still be difficult to know exactly where the evil lurks; whether the crisis is come at which it is best to raise the voice of protest; and then how to do it without prejudicing a world that is infinitely to be pitied, even while it is being exposed and rebuked.

We think the Archbishop of York has done good service to the Church and country by calling attention to the rapid increase of sensational literature; and we think also that he has done a thankless task with considerable address. It was time to speak; and he has spoken decidedly and yet discriminately.

The view taken by the "Christian Observer" for many years is essentially the same as that of Dr. Thomson. It is an important subject-a question of the morals of a country. If so much stress has been laid upon the ballads of a country, how much more must be thought of that which includes all its light reading, and tinges more or less the whole of its literature?

That we may not be misunderstood, we will state first, as distinctly as we can, what we consider the evils of sensational literature, and then offer a few suggestions by way of remedy. Fiction is not an evil in itself. It may, no doubt, be readily

abused, and made a vehicle for conveying poison to the mind; but a good story may be invented or feigned, and then employed for the benefit of society. The Holy Scriptures sanction the use of fiction in the form of parables and allegories; and who would venture to deprive us of the "Pilgrim's Progress," or even "Robinson Crusoe"? Nor is sensationalism in itself a necessary evil. We fancy the word is of American origin, and so comes to us laden with suspicion. But surely it is often a close associate of truth-proverbially stranger than fiction. Do not the plots and episodes revealed every day in our courts of law excite "sensation"? And even in the presentment of Divine truth in our pulpit exercises, we cannot help thinking that, were sensationalism altogether ostracised, many a strong and telling method of impressing men and moving the conscience would have to give place to tame platitudes and intolerable iteration.

Nevertheless there are real evils connected with a sensational literature. There is, of course, an enormous evil when the story has an immoral tendency. Every instinct of our nature agrees in condemning wickedness, especially when covered with an elegant veil or half-concealed inuendo. Such writings are more dangerous than those openly profligate, because they tempt the innocent, and contaminate their minds, without being felt to do so. The state of France, where this kind of romance prevails, is a lesson to us. A fiction of the late M. Balzac is so utterly vile, that even Parisian taste, we are told, has sickened, and the work has been peremptorily suppressed by the State as corrupting to public morals. It is perfectly shocking to think that, in our own country, the annual issue of publications of an immoral tendency should be some millions more than the issue of all our religious publishing societies. So far as sensationalism, directly or indirectly, assists in swelling this awful tide, its tendency is infamous.

It is an evil where it represents exaggerated and false views of life. We cannot be too careful about speaking the truth, and encouraging habits of truthfulness. It is an evil to have society painted in false colours, partly because it opens the door for mendacity in general, and partly because it leads our youth to disappointment, despair, and sometimes to crime. Not long since, a boy confessed that he had been tempted to steal by perusing the adventures of some Dick Turpin. Even in its better aspects, novel-reading of the modern stamp is a wretched business. Mr. Dickens and his class have done no little injury by multiplying unnatural, and morbid, and altogether one-sided views of society, overlooking for the most part the homely and the virtuous, for the tragical and humorous. But others are far outdoing these well-meaning writers by dishing up at second-hand what is merely sensational