and no monopoly " is inscribed upon the standard which ten years ago used to be carried by Mr. Wyse, and his colleagues of the Central Education Board;" when the Evangelical Dissenters, though they opposed the union of National Education with the Established Church, yet earnestly contended for the reading of the Holy Scriptures, as a regular portion of scholastic teaching; a practice which Dr. Hook now says must no longer be tolerated; the Scriptures must not be used as a class-book, but reserved for separate religious instruction. Dr.

Wiseman, in his evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons just ten years ago, urged that the Scriptures should not be used in National schools. His reason was that "The Catholic principle of faith does not consider it necessary for each individual to have that personal knowledge of the Bible which the Protestant rule requires." In the year 1790, Citizen Talleyrand planned the system of French National Education, from which he excluded religious instruction, so that the next

generation of Frenchmen was a race of atheists. Thus extremes meet; and the result is likely to be, unless the great body of religious persons throughout the land come to the rescue, that we shall have a system of Godless education established under the auspices of the legislature, and at the public ex

pense.

That Lord John Russell would sanction such a measure we make no question; for he formerly expressed himself to the effect that such a system was desirable, though he doubted the expediency of attempting to effect it. He in like manner holds to his opinions respecting the endowment of Romanism in Ireland; but does not consider the public prepared for it.

The signs of the times show that great contests are approaching, and every earnest Christian ought to be preparing for them. But this important topic we must not open in a closing paragraphit is too large and weighty.

Oh, for united grace. and strength, and love, and zeal for the crisis!

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

J. H.; H. G.; M. J. M.; C, H. D.; C. O. N. P.; R. H.; J. D.; C. K.; and A Constant Reader, are under consideration.

Assuredly "An Admirer of the British Army" is right in saying that Dr. Wolff ought not to have published, nor ought we to have transcribed, the grievous charge alluded to at Page 376 of our June Number, unless there was reason to believe that it was more than an idle report. But Dr. Wolff's statement is specific, and relates to a fact within his own knowledge, namely, that "Affghans from Cabul at Bokhara," and "through the desert of Meshed," ascribed the indignation of the Affghans at Cabul against the British army to the conduct of several British officers," (the names he knew, but withheld,) "who shocked the feelings of the natives by introducing into the country the vices of Europeans," especially by their licentious conduct towards Affghan women. The general idea around Cabul, adds Dr. Wolff, "Was that most of the British officers did not believe in a God." Dr. Wolff adduces the statement as due to truth, and also to charity, seeing that such conduct repels heathens and Mohammedans from the Gospel, and accounts for those prejudices and persecutions which false-accusers unjustly impute to the misjudged zeal of missionaries. Dr. Wolff confined the statement to Cabul, the scene of the defeat and disgrace of the British forces. We could not deny, or doubt, the facts; all that we could add was our hope that the conduct alluded to was the exception, not the rule.

Since the above statement appeared in our pages, the Rev. G. R. Gleig, Principal Chaplain to her Majesty's Forces, has published a narrative of "Sale's Brigade in Affghanistan, with an account of the seizure and defence of Jellalabad," in which occurs the following passage, unhappily confirmatory of Dr. Wolff's statement. Mr. Gleig compiled his interesting narrative from authentic documents, and from personal intercourse with officers engaged in the campaign; and his official station would render him very careful as to putting forth any doubtful charge. Having praised the general good discipline of the European invaders, which prevented collisions between them and the natives, he reluctantly adds: "In one respect, however, a regard to historical truth compels us to acknowledge, that less regard was paid to the prejudices of the inhabitants than could have been wished. Though they do not, like other Mohammedan races, universally shut up their women, the Affghans are as open to jealousy as Orientals in general; and treating their wives often rudely, the latter could not but be pleased with the

attentions which the Feringhees (the Europeans) showed them. It is much to be feared that our young countrymen did not always bear in mind that the domestic habits of any people ought to be sacred in the eyes of strangers; and hence arose, by degrees, distrust, alienation, and hostility, for which it were unfair to deny that there might be some cause. However, it is not worth while to touch upon a subject which cannot be approached without seeming to condemn where condemnation could serve no good purpose. Whatever errors they may have committed, the garrison of Cabul atoned for them terribly; and the survivors, as years pass over them, will doubtless more and more become convinced, that the gratification of the moment is purchased at too high a price, if it occasion deep or permanent suffering to others." Under these cautious words much is

couched.

In reply to R. L., if we have any where spoken-for we cannot call to mind the passage to which he alludes-of persons referring to their parish register instead of to the Scriptural evidence of the tree being known by its fruits, in order to ascertain whether they are converted to God, and their names are written in "the Lamb's book of life," most certainly we did not so speak in lightsome mood; but as enunciating a simple fact. Read the Tracts for the Times from beginning to end; or read scores of discourses by clergymen who disclaim the appellation of Puseyites; and see if the baptismal register is not made the evidence of a person's spiritual state. We lately met with the following_extract from a Funeral Sermon by the Rev. A. Spooner, of New York, for the Rev. P. Dyer. A transatlantic quotation, besides being less invidious, may strike our Correspondent more forcibly, than one of home growth. "He was baptized. The record and proof of that his conversion is in the church-book at Granville, New York. At the sacred font there, his sins were washed away, and he was regenerated. He was Confirmed. That gift (of the Holy Ghost) was imparted to him in the Church by the laying on of the hands of Bishop Brownell; and the record of it exists. The heart before cleansed in baptism, now made the tenement of the Holy Ghost in the lesser sacrament of Confirmation, had double certainty of improvement." How are we to know that Mr. Dyer's name is written in the Lamb's book of life? Answer: "The record and proof of his conversion is in the church-book at Granville, New York;" there is also "double certainty" in Bishop Brownell's registry. Such unscriptural, such fanatical, such soul-deluding doctrine, and which is inculcated, unchecked, in multitudes of Anglican pulpits, is too fearful to be made sport of ;—though if ridicule were in place upon so solemn a subject, what can be more ridiculous— more calculated to excite the public scoff-than to send an inquirer to “the church-book at Granville, New York," for proof of Mr. Dyer's "conversion." Is that the book which will be opened at the day of judgment?

C. G. will see that we have complied with his suggestion to compare the Tract Society's Editions of Adam's Private Thoughts (up to the present month) with the genuine text; but we have omitted his strictures, as we have no wish to re-open the controversy. The Society's Editors leave out or alter-what they consider "not important;" and the subscribers and the public trust to their judgment. Our preference for genuine books is considered a crotchet; and the discomfort which we feel from the incertitude in every page and sentence as to whether we are reading what an author wrote, or whether anything, and what, is left out or altered. and why, is only a nervous fidget. We are to take a book as it is, as a useful book; asking no questions as to what it is not. There rests the matter. In the collation we observe some errata, owing to the collator's marks being mistaken. He had written. "Passage beginning, I go to the sacrament;' not observing that two paragraphs happen to begin with the same words. It is the second only that is omitted. The collator had marked as omitted the passage from "Ruling slothfulness" down to "under their misery;" but the line and a half "Let no man, &c." is inserted. Nothing hangs on these differences. We marked some words in the sentence " Sin against my retirements," for Italics, as seeming to us special, but the whole sentence, not these words only, is left out. Our reason for particularly noting those words was that we do not consider the different manner in which Churchmen and Dissenters are respectively accustomed to speak of the obligations arising from the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper as "not important.” Dissenters often say that a child contracts no obligations, and enjoys no privileges, by its parents having caused it to be baptised. (See p. 500 of our present Number.) Very differently thought Mr. Adam.

HAT

ON ANTEPASTS OF THE FUTURE STATE.

For the Christian Observer.

THA one blind from his birth can have no idea of light and colours,

is a point almost universally agreed upon; and this at least I am sure of, that if he had, there is no possible means by which he could convey the knowledge of that fact to us. Indeed it must be a thing hidden to himself as well as to others. We know, however, that in the dark we have often the most vivid perceptions of colour; we know also that a concussion of the head, which violently affects the optic nerves, will produce the sensation of a flash of fire. Thus the idea of light and colours may be present to the mind, when nothing has been painted upon the retina of the eye. And that the blind may often, by some accidental means, be the subject of such impressions, is, I think, from the nature of the case, highly probable. But suppose one unblessed with sight, by a sudden stroke upon the head, to have a bright and clear display of light and colours, how could he suspect what the nature of this perception was? He would know that he had felt something unusually exciting; but there would be nothing to guide him to the conclusion, or even to excite the suspicion, that these were the things which persons around him understood by the terms of light and colours. There would be no common standard to which he could refer them; no means by which he could compare his impressions with those of others; and thus he might be well acquainted with visible phenomena, without knowing what they were, or by what name to call them.

In the same way, it has sometimes struck me, that we may have glimpses and transient foretastes of the life to come, which nevertheless, from the very same causes as operate in the instance of the blind, we can neither point out to sympathetic witnesses, or even, if I may use the expression, identify ourselves. I do not here speak of the spiritual communion of the soul with God, nor of the devotional aspirations of the heart to Him. In acts of direct religion, the wall of partition is thrown down, and heaven and earth are one. In our more immediate approaches to that God who fills both worlds, we stand on ground which is common to the Church above and to the Church below. In such acts we know and are sure that "this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 105. 3 U

Hence, I cannot help observing, that many persons are disposed to place the main distinction between our present and our future state, in the very thing in which that distinction least consists. Not having themselves "tasted of the heavenly gift, nor of the powers of the world to come," they have no earnest "of the inheritance of the saints in light;" they know not the life and spirit of those words in which the Church below re-echoes the high worship of the Church above: "Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name; evermore praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy." They have no foretaste or anticipation of that which is the very soul of future blessedness; and therefore their own experience can bear no testimony to the fact, that the substance of heaven commences here. They look then for a changenot in degree, but in kind-where no such change can be. They have some vague and floating notion that their happiness will consist in the meridian glory of that light from whose early dawning they instinctively turn away; in an overflowing flood of those spiritual joys for which they have neither taste nor relish; in genuflexions before the footstool of that God from whose presence they fly, and with whose nature their hearts are at enmity here below.

Such is the strange fatuity of earthly minds; they "err because they know not the Scriptures, nor the power of God." They have not experienced that great renewal which translates the soul from the darkness of its natural state, into the dawning of a never-ending day. They vainly think that death will work that change which, unless it pass upon us "while it is called to-day," will never come. They lose sight of the solemn truth that the soul, before and after death, remains the same; that if we worship God in spirit and in truth, the substance of that worship, whether in the body or out of the body, is all one ;-that if He who called the light to shine out of darkness, shine in our hearts, it is the same sun as that which warms, and cheers, and gladdens, with still brighter beams, the souls of the faithful in their blessed abodes.

Again, it is a part of the same false system, to exclude from our notions of heaven all those accidents, those secondary qualities, or lesser properties, in which, nevertheless, the difference between heaven and earth does mainly and essentially consist. All these they reject as visionary, fanciful, and presumptuous speculations. Resolving every thing into an all-absorbing expectation of the beatific vision, they feel and reason as if the Deity were in reality some material glory, some localized object to which we could point one another's attention, and say, "There is God." In spite of all such vain delusions, I believe that the happiness of heaven will consist, not merely in increased degrees of spiritual joy, and in intenser exercises of direct religion, but in circumstances of another nature, and in pleasures of another kind. And of these it is, I suspect, that we may have glimpses and prelibations, of whose real meaning and character we are ourselves unconscious.

There is a natural, as well as a moral, heaven; pleasures at God's right hand for the glorified body, no less than for the spirits of the just made perfect. Of pleasures of the former class I now speak, and of these I often feel as if we had some strange foretastes here. How far indeed they may be merely corporeal, or how far partly mental, I do not say. The characteristic distinction does not lie there; that is not the point. What I principally mean, is that, though pure and peaceful, and associated with calmer scenes than earth, they are not in their