Pardon me, my friends, but I cannot pursue the theme. I cannot utter common-place warnings, in the presence of that awful Admonisher. Alas! that all that I can do is to speak-when others have died! Alas! that I can only meditate here when the hearts of many are rent with agony! Oh! poor and unavailing it seems, only to take part, in weak sympathy, with their bitter sorrow. But human help cannot avail, and we can only say in our impotence and grief-May God comfort them! wwwwww MONTHLY RECORD. VARIOUS articles of Review, Intelligence, and Obituary, were intended for insertion in the present Number of the Christian Pioneer; but having received, through the kindness of a respected friend, a copy of the New-York newspaper, in which Mr. Dewey's pathetic and beautiful reflections on the loss of the Steam-vessel Lexington, were inserted, we felt desirous that our readers should share the instruction and gratification we experienced in their perusal. The articles referred to will appear in the Number for April. ON Sunday, Feb. 16. the Rev. B. T. Stannus of Sheffield preached in St. Mark's Chapel, Edinburgh. As that City was for several years the sphere of his labours—as it was mainly through his exertions, that the present very comfortable and elegant chapel was reared in the Scottish metropolis-and as many through attendance on his ministry, had been led to prefer the oracles of the living God to the traditions of men, and to become worshippers of the Father in spirit and in truth-the visit of Mr. Stannus was regarded with much interest and pleasure, and large and highly respectable audiences assembled at both the morning and afternoon services, which, it is scarcely necessary to add, were conducted in his usually able and impressive manner. From the Rev. J. Taylor's work, "National Establishments of Religion considered in connexion with Justice, Christianity, and Human Nature." (Concluded from p. 112.) "AFTER the Restoration, what has been called by some divines, the golden days' of the Episcopal Church commenced. In spite, however, of the declaration which Charles II. had issued at Breda, in which he promised to protect and secure liberty of conscience, the work of persecution was again resumed. In the year 1661, the Corporation Act was passed, by which it was enacted, that 'no person should ever be placed, elected, or chosen into any corporation, who should not within one year next before such election, have taken the sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the rites of the Church of England.' In 1672, was passed the Test Act, avowedly for the purpose of preventing dangers which might arise from Popish recusants; but it was afterwards used equally for the purpose of depressing the Non-conformists. By this law, it was provided that every person who should take any office civil or military, should receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper after the manner of the Established Church, within three months after their admission to such office; and any person convicted of offending against the provisions of the Act, should be disabled from ever after suing in any court, from becoming guardian, executor, or administrator, from profiting by any legacy or deed of gift, or from bearing any office within England or Wales, -in addition to which he was to forfeit five hundred pounds. It is to be remembered, that these acts entirely excluded conscientious Dissenters from many valuable privileges, which they had an undoubted right to enjoy as freely as any of their fellow-subjects; and that, though repeated efforts were made by Dissenters, from time to time, to effect the repeal of these statutes, their efforts were continually defeated by the members and advocates of the ecclesiastical establishment, and that it was not until the year 1828, that these enactments ceased to disgrace the statute-book! It ought also to be remembered that, under these Acts, Dissenters were often nominated to corporate offices by their opponents, because it was known that they could not qualify to execute them! and by-laws, inflicting penalties on those who refused to serve, were expressly made to enrich corporations at their expense. The produce of these unjust exactions served, or nearly served, to build the Mansion-house of the City of London. In 1736, it appears that no less a sum than £20,700 had been raised from fines paid by persons to be excused serving the office of sheriff; and out of that money it was resolved to erect the Mansion-house, the first stone of which was laid in 1739. At length this system of oppression was overthrown. An action was brought by the Chamberlain of London against Allan Evans, Esq., a Dissenter, for the penalty of six hundred pounds, for refusing to serve the office of Sheriff of the City of London; but the House of Lords, to whose tribunal it was carried in the last resort, determined unanimously, in 1767, that Dissenters who could not conscientiously take the Sacrament in obedience to the test laws, were excused from serving corporate offices.' "In the year 1662, the celebrated Act of Uniformity was passed, by the operation of which two thousand ministers of the Established Church were ejected from their livings, and many of them subjected to great distress. They chose rather to resign the means of subsistence for themselves, their wives, and children, than to violate their consciences by subscribing declarations, and submitting to an ecclesiastical authority, of which they disapproved. It is worthy of notice, as a fact not generally known, that of the seven thousand ministers who did conform by taking all the oaths and declarations appointed by the Act, and who, among other things, declared their unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book of Common Prayer, very few of them could have seen the book to which they declared their assent and consent, at the time when they were required to make the declaration. The Common Prayer-Book, with the alterations made by the Convocation, did not come out of the press till a few days before the 24th of August, when the act took place. So that of the seven thousand ministers in England who kept their livings, few but those in or near London could have a sight of it till after they had declared their assent and consent to it. On which account it is rather to be wondered at, that so many could act in so weighty a matter, upon an implicit faith, than that such a number should in such circumstances stand out.' "As the ejected ministers, however, began to hold private assemblies for worship, an Act was passed in the next year (called the Conventicle Act), by which it was declared that every person above sixteen years of age, present at any meeting under pretence of any exercise of religion, in other manner than is the practice of the Church of England, where there were five persons more than the household, should, for the first offence, by a justice of the peace be recorded, and sent to jail three months, or pay five pounds; and for the second offence, six months, or pay ten pounds; and the third time, being convicted by a jury, should be banished to some of the American plantations, excepting New England or Virginia.' "Another severe Act was passed in the year 1665, by the Parliament which sat at Oxford, during the time that the plague raged in London. By this Act, called the Five-mile Act, every minister who should refuse to swear that he would not at any time endeavour any' alteration of the government either in church or state,' was prohibited from settling within five miles of any city or corporation, of any place that sent burgesses to Parliament, or of any place where they had been ministers.' 'When this Act came out,' it is narrated, 'those ministers who had any maintenance of their own, found out some dwellings in obscure villages, or in some few markettowns that were not corporations. Some who had nothing, left their wives and children, and hid themselves abroad, and sometimes came secretly to them by night. But the most resolved to preach the more freely in cities and corporations, till they went to prison. Their straits were great; for the country was so impoverished, that those who were willing to relieve them had generally no great ability. And yet God did mercifully provide some supplies for them; so that scarce any of them perished for want, or were exposed to sordid beggary; but some few were tempted, against their former judgments, to conform.' "All these statutes were enforced by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities so rigorously, that it is computed that from the time when the Act of Uniformity was passed down to the Revolution in 1688, not less than eight thousand persons perished in the prisons to which they had been committed, on account of their conscientious convictions; and the property of the Non-conformists was confiscated and plundered to an immense amount. 6 "After the crown was settled on William and Mary, the Toleration Act was passed, by which some of the oppressive statutes of former reigns were repealed; but the Test and Corporation Acts were still retained, by the influence of the ecclesiastical establishment, against the personal exertions of King William: and it was provided in the Toleration Act itself, that nothing therein contained should extend, or be construed to extend, to give any ease, benefit, or advantage, to any person that should deny in his preaching or writing the doctrine of the blessed Trinity.' By a statute afterwards passed in the same reign, it was also enacted as follows: that if any person having been educated in, or at any time having made profession of, the Christian religion within this realm, shall by writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking, deny any one of the persons of the Holy Trinity to be God, or shall assert or maintain that there are more Gods than one; and shall be thereof lawfully convicted by the oath of two or more credible witnesses, such person, for the first offence, shall be adjudged incapable, and disabled by law, to have and enjoy any office or employment, civil or military: and if such person shall be a second time lawfully convicted as aforesaid, that then he shall from thenceforth be disabled to sue, prosecute, plead, or use any action or information, or to be guardian of any child, or executor or administrator of any person, or capable of any legacy or deed of gift, or to |