Christians, or mere non-doing, self-seeking, and Mammon-serving professors. It seems as if they based their faith on palaces and mansions; on cathedrals, churches, and chapels ; on ordinances and sacraments; on forms and ceremonies; rather than on the rock of ages, the fundamental principles of the Messiah's kingdom. By their fruits we venture to judge of them. Our Divine Teacher has removed all obscurity from this inquiry, "If any man will do he shall

know."

We are always perplexed and much puzzled when we behold, and when we hear of, the elegancies and luxuries which surround the persons of our great ecclesiastical leaders. We cannot help drawing a contrast in all these things, between their lives and that of the Divine Exemplar, whose ministers they are called, and whose followers they profess to be. The great sorcerer Mammon has surely bewitched them; so that instead of making their lives subservient to the Christian cause, they appear to us to be even more the slaves and worshippers of the evil one than other men are. Long prayers and much preaching are, to our eyes, but as a specious show; a deceitful varnish. Indeed it appears manifest to us that the Church

itself, in some of its formularies, repudiates that hope of our calling, of which we have spoken, that temporal triumph of Christianity over all opposition. The collect tells us that the second advent of the Messiah will be at the day of judgment. None of the creeds even touch upon the great consummation we anticipate. Ancient prophecy seems, to our most orthodox priesthood, as a sealed book. Insomuch that if our Divine Master himself had not plainly predicted such a state of things, in futuro, for us, the hope and expectation itself would, ere this, no doubt, have been entirely obsolete. Yet so long as the sincere Christian continues to pray for it,-to pray that the Messiah's kingdom may come; and that the WILL OF THE MOST HIGH may be done on earth; of the world will not relinquish the expectation.

It is manifest that you, Sir, as the great State Physician, do not perceive the leading phenomena of that mortal malady, which shakes the commonwealth of this kingdom to its heart's core. You do not observe the enormous and unnatural disparity which prevails in the distribution of nature's gifts. A gracious Providence sends abundance for each and all; whilst cunning men have made laws which produce plethora in the few and leanness in the many.

Thousands are gloated to repletion, whilst tens of thousands are languishing in penury and destitution. The malady stops not there; our case indeed is far worse; who can tell to what extent crimes of every description have been first engendered, and then multiplied, and are still multiplying, by this most unnatural and horrible state of affairs? The Rev. Sydney Smith once told Lord Liverpool to his face, when he was Prime Minister, that at the great day of Assize, the Government, tolerating these things, will be made to answer for very much of that crime, which they punish on the governed.

In conclusion, Sir, we urge you to consider whether you have not been altogether mistaken in your views of the malady under which your patient, the State, is now labouring; and that, whilst you have been providing very elaborate means for a very complicated case, mere common-sense measures and common honesty, in the use of means, were all that was wanted. Thus: Will you admit one great preliminary fact, to wit, that Providence does send into the world such a plenty of the necessaries and good things of life, that every living being may have a competency?

And that a competency with content is happiness

to man.

2. Is it not manifest that if one man has contrived to possess himself of the shares of one hundred, that the ninety-nine must be destitute?

3. Is not this the malady-the great political evil of our times? And is not the natural remedy obvious at once to every man of good sound common sense, and common honesty of purpose?

We ask, Sir, at least a competency for every willing labouring man; that is, enough to maintain a home, a wife, and as many children. as it may please Providence to bestow upon him. Thus much we assert he is entitled to, by a law that is more sacred, more ancient, and more irreversible, than any by which you hold your large possessions. A competency for every one, from the Sovereign to the humblest artificer, and this we insist the bounty of God has provided.

Mr S. Crawford, in the House of Commons, 19th July, 1842 (see Times' report), said, “The

income of England was 166,000,000l., which was derived from the labouring poor; surely it was just, that out of this enormous sum a sufficient provision should be supplied to protect them from starvation. One shilling in the pound on that sum would raise 8,300,000l."

The means of effecting this more equable, more healthful, and more natural state of things, are under your own control. In the first place, tax every rich man according to the superfluity or overabundance of his wealth; and apply the resources so obtained to “lift the poor out of the dust, and the beggar from the dunghill." And in the second place, legislate so that all the working classes shall have restored to them that participation in the profits of their labour, which nature, and the God of nature,

gives to them. [Deut. xxv, 4.] You may then make soldiers of your policemen, and turn your workhouses and prisons into warehouses. "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox which treadeth out the corn."

These remedial measures, set about in right earnest, and carried on in a true Christian spirit, with a full dependence of grace from above to guide you in all difficulties, would, we are per