without recognition, to see without being seen, placed herself on a ladder standing against the wall behind a window near the pulpit, so that her head was not far from mine, a single pane of glass only separating us. Her husband, more bold, but likewise more tardy, endeavoured to enter the place of worship, but being unable to do so, made the circuit of the building, reached the ladder, ascended it, and found himself by the side of his own wife!

Another fact will give you an idea of the amount of favour which our Protestant cause enjoys in this so-called Catholic district. In a neighbouring town the clergy have issued pamphlets, in reply to each of my tracts, of which here is a sample: "What confidence can you have in this Protestantism, which spreads out before your eyes only infamous libels, provocations to perjury and apostasy, and compilations of calumnies and falsehoods, under the simple proof of Roussel? What shall we think, I say, of this pretended apostle of the gospel, who under an evangelical gloss conceals an appeal to every vice; whose tongue swells and undulates like the folds of a serpent, that it may slide into your consciences, and whose pen is more nimble than the hands of the robber, that it may reach into your pockets?" These few words will suffice to show you the rage and anger of the Romish clergy, who hope by scandal and injury to arouse the animosity of the people, who will no longer listen to their masses. I will give you an instance of the favour which our cause enjoys, compared with these Romish writings. A merchant offered some of them for sale in Mansle, but as nobody would buy them, he was obliged to procure some copies to make purchasers believe they were Protestant writings.

I have alluded to the seriousness which may accompany or arise from curiosity; here is an example: Last week I went into the country to visit a sick old man, who presented himself to us as our friend, and as an enemy to the priests. I expected to find him in possession of nothing but that negative faith which is contented with rejecting and hating Romanism, but I was agreeably surprised to see several pages of notes and questions which this man had written gradually as he had read and re-read his Bible, and I was still more rejoiced when I saw that he had himself found in the Bible well-chosen refutations of the pretensions of Rome.

This same old man is an example also of the Protestant remembrances of these districts. One of his relatives, having learned that he had attached himself to our faith, came to him several times in order to persuade him that he ought not to change his religion, and recommended him to keep the faith of their ancestors. The old man, without replying, arose, and sought for an ancient document left by his grandmother on her deathbed; he read the paper it was an injunction from the grandmother, who was a Protestant, to all her family, never to abandon their religion. "You see," said the old man to his relative, that in becoming a Romanist it is you, not I, who have changed your religion."

As at the period of the great Reformation, so now, the establishment of the gospel in the midst of a Romish population is beneficial, not only to those who embrace it, but likewise to those who reject it. Thus the Romish clergy in France have always been reproached with receiving payment for everything; for baptism, for marriage, for interments, for dispensing the youth, &c.; while we have wielded a powerful weapon by doing everything gratuitously. Well! my arrival here has resulted in causing the priest to announce that in future he would perform his offices without pay! Be it so! in this manner we shall destroy abuses in the bosom of the Romish church.

The influence of the clergy is decidedly on the wane; no one listens to them; everybody laughs at them. I will give you another example of the manner in which they condescend to make themselves acceptable, and to preserve a seeming authority. Some time since, the servant in a rich family was met by a Romish priest, who said to him: "Do your masters eat flesh

during Lent and on Fridays and Saturdays?" "Sir, I do not know, for I have not served long in the house; but I have observed that they do not care much for the observances of the church, and that they eat meat or vegetables not according to days, but as it suits them." "Very well," said the curé, "tell your masters that I authorise them to eat meat during Lent!"

But enough of this poor Babylon, which is falling into ruins. I have thought proper to enter into these details for the inhabitants of your land, since Romanism, to make itself acceptable among them, seeks to present itself under a new aspect. But be assured that it is the essence of Romanism; that it does not change its spirit, even though it change its habiliments. Sooner or later we shall see the claws of the tiger, now concealed, more or less, under the soft and pliant hair of its brilliant skin. You can tear away its hair, but not its claws; they are sunken, fastened to and inrooted in its very system; the tiger lives but to rend; such is Romanism, by which a sacerdotal caste lives on the earth on the substance of the people, in the name of heaven.

But to return to Mansle: Yesterday, the second Sabbath, we had a second service still better attended than the former, but as we had taken measures previously, every one could both see and hear. During the week I wished to hold some singing schools for the children; the crowd again came, and took much pleasure in the prayers and explanations. It was peculiarly interesting to know of the secret attendance of some devoted Catholic females, whose curiosity prevailed over their obedience to the curé. They came with such exaggerated prejudices, that they were so much the more astonished to hear from our mouth a Christian discourse; and they did not conceal themselves, but came openly to hear us a second time; these souls are so much more precious, since they seem to feel more than others do their own spiritual wants.

During the last two years, I have been instrumental in the erection of three church edifices in Haute-Vienne, but for the most part with the assistance of Protestants abroad, and even the remainder has been furnished by those of the neighbourhood. I did not dare to ask the Catholics who came to us to aid even in the construction of buildings for their own use, lest interested motives on our part should be imputed to us. But here in Mansle I have had better success, and the inhabitants have already offered half the sum necessary to build a church; there is still wanting about four thousand francs, which may the Lord enable me to find; while waiting, I shall commence building, and in three months we shall have a temple capable of holding seven hundred persons, and if need be, a thousand, by the addition of galleries. Are there none of your Christian readers who wish to aid in this work? N. ROUSSEL.

THE CHRISTIAN'S CARE FOR SOULS.

THE soul is always equally precious, equally in danger. The good Christian will endeavour at all times to realize its value, and to labour for its good. But sometimes there comes over the church, and over the individual heart, a season of strange and deep insensibility, when all eternal things are lost sight of, or, if seen at all, seen invested with a dim haze, and deprived of their brightness. At such times there is but little care for souls, and those who have looked into their hearts at such seasons have been amazed and alarmed to find how much their own view and sense of eternal realities depends upon the

prevailing feelings of Christians around them. They have been led to question the truth of their own piety, by discovering how the tone of feeling and action rose and fell with the measure of religious life observed in their fellowpilgrims.

And this indeed is cause for alarm. A Christian may well ask himself, What does all this mean? What am I in God's sight, if my religion depends not upon God as He is, but upon my neighbours as they are? What right have I to the hope that I am a Christian, if sympathy and example prevail with me, when the Word of God, and the love of Christ, and the sense of eternal things, will not? What is my piety, if it is founded, not upon eternal realities as they are, but upon the feelings of my fellow-Christians? During the last revival of religion, which I was happy enough to witness, I had a deep sense of the value of the soul, and I felt deep anxiety and earnestness in prayer for the conversion of man; but now that others do not seem to be anxious, I myself have lost my own sense of the soul's preciousness, and no longer feel a disposition to wrestle with God in prayer for the conversion of my neighbours. What does this mean?

A Christian may well make this soliloquy within himself. And the only cure for all this, is an eminent watchfulness, and perseverance and earnestness in prayer. A Christian must go to God, to Christ, to the Holy Spirit, and not to the church, for the supply of his gracious life. Christ must be his fountain, and not the feelings of Christians around him. If the Christian always felt in its full depth the meaning of the solemn question of our blessed Lord, “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" certainly he would not wait for a revival of religion around him before engaging in earnest prayer and effort for the souls of others. Whatever other business in this world he might be engaged in, and engaged sometimes with more and sometimes with less activity and fervour, he would always be awake, always alive, always fervent, always active, in this great business of the care of souls. And this is the kind of Christianity needed in our churches. This is the piety, drawn from Christ, not from the church, that invigorates and refreshes the church and makes it powerful. Every Christian's heart should be a rill of warm feeling running directly from Christ into the church. When these rills are frozen, or when the connexion between them and Christ is interrupted and infrequent, then there is a declension of piety in the church, and all the rills that flow from the church, as well as those that flow into it, partake of the coldness. We must go to Christ for the cure, and to none but him.

"What various hindrances we meet,

In coming to a mercy seat!

The greatest of hindrances is our spiritual indolence and insensibility. This must be overcome, or our state is alarming indeed. And if a Christian finds that he depends upon a revival of religion to overcome, but can do nothing of himself to promote a revival of religion, he has reason indeed to question himself severely, and to come to God with supplication and with weepings on his own account.

ENDEAVOURS AFTER TRUTH.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "BAPTIST RECORD."

DEAR SIR, The following inquiries arise out of the perusal of your corre spondence for the month of July, p. 191, 2. Some of them may seem very puerile, and of course might easily be answered to one's own satisfaction. I do not, how

ever, feel sure that a satisfactory answer to many of them could be easily reconciled with the principles expressed or implied in the letters of some of your respected correspondents. With your permission, therefore, I beg to submit them to their consideration, and to that of your readers.

1. In what sense may we, as individuals, speak of God as our Creator?

2. In what sense, and how far, may God be said to be the Author of the moral constitution of which man is at present the possessor?

3. Is human reason affected by man's lapsed condition in other respects?

4. Is human reason as true a standard of judgment now as if man were not a fallen creature?

5. Can the decisions of human reason, as it is at present constituted, be in all cases relied on?

6. The Scriptures having been ascertained to contain a Divine revelation, do they admit human reason to any other province than to that of interpreting their statements?

7. Does a doctrine, once ascertained to be taught in the Scriptures, submit to be judged by any other standard?

8. May not some doctrines, with all the certainty of which moral truths are capable of being ascertained, be found in the Scriptures?

9. May not half-a-dozen individuals be agreed in these certainties; and if half-a-dozen, may not any number?

10. Do we mean, by a denomination of Christians, anything else than a body of men professing such an agreement?

11. Have those whose minds are not made up on the leading certainties in reference to which any body of Christians are agreed, the right to throw themselves upon the funds of an institution which that body supports ?

12. Do young men, admitted into our colleges, previously profess the opinions of the bodies to which those colleges belong? If so, how can it be said, that the object of their training is to initiate them into the doctrines and practices of a sect?

13. If a man renounces the opinions of those with whom he formerly held an agreement, has he any right to complain of their forsaking him? May not they rather complain of his having deserted them?

I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully,

D. J. E.

PASSING LITERARY NOTES.

THE INQUIRER DIRECTED TO AN EXPERIMENTAL AND PRACTICAL VIEW OF THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. BY OCTAVIUS WINSLOW, A.M. 4th edition. pp. 428. Shaw, London.

THERE are many pious persons who have an aversion to anything in the shape of polemical reading, and to whom the fundamental doctrines of the gospel are less acceptable when stated argumentatively and in simple outline, than when viewed through the medium of the feelings, and in their application to personal experience. Mr. Winslow is a writer specially adapted to this class of minds. The doctrine of the Spirit is here set forth, not in a dry and dogmatical manner, but in close connexion with its bearings on the religion of the heart and the conduct of life. The topics of which the ten chapters treat are the personality and Godhead of the Holy Spirit; the Spirit a quickener; the indwelling of the Spirit; the sanctification of the Spirit; the sealing of the Spirit; the witness of the Spirit; the Spirit the author of prayer; the Spirit a comforter; and the inbeing and operations of the Spirit in Christ. This is, we think, the best of all Mr. Winslow's excellent publications. We doubt not it will promote the comfort and spirituality of many a believer, and are truly glad to find it has reached a fourth

edition.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE LATE WILLIAM JONES, A.M., Author of the "

"History of the Waldenses," &c., &c. 8vo, pp. 166. Edited by his Son. London, Snow.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY is always the most effective kind of memoir-writing. Whatever a work may lose in other respects, it will ordinarily gain in intimacy and thorough knowledge of the subject. The narrative before us is simple and pleasing; there is that occasionally which reminds us of the innocent garrulity of old age, but it will be read with great interest by all who admired the acuteness of intellect, and the integrity of character for which the venerable author was remarkable. In our opinion, if the editor had taken the Memoir thus left by Mr. Jones as a basis, and illustrated it by extracts from the correspondence, and an exhibition of the opinions of the author selected from his published works, it would materially have enhanced the value and the interest of the volume. Or otherwise, if such materials had been wanting, or it were improper to adopt that course, we should have liked the work better had it been reduced in size, and whilst making the autobiography the staple of the book, to have culled out those long and barren lists of the contents of magazines of which Mr. Jones was the Editor, as well as the lengthy critiques of his works from various periodicals, pages which will by most persons be considered weari

some.

THE CHURCH IN THE NAVY AND ARMY; including Original Autobiographies of Officers in both Services. By WILLIAM INNES. A New Series. pp. 350. Hamilton, London.

THIS admirable volume deserves an extensive circulation. We scarcely agree with the venerable author's view of the honourableness of war, as expressed with both skill and elegance in the preface; but the very circumstance that we do not, renders us the more anxious to have such a volume circulated among both tars and soldiers. These are the weapons and these the victories that we desiderate. A few more such conquests as are detailed in this thrilling volume, and men will beat "their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks." All Seamen's Friend Societies, all owners and captains of vessels, whether in the Queen's or in the merchant service, and all officers and persons interested in soldiers, whether by profession or by relationship, may do execution in this peaceful warfare by seeing that this volume reaches its destination.

A VISIT TO THE ANTIPODES. Smith, Elder, and Co.

THERE are good principles in this author's mind, and as we presume he is yet young, they may hereafter rise into vigour. We are glad of opportunities to encourage youthful authorship when it is entered upon with discretion, and a just sense of responsibility, but we must deprecate hasty and fragmentary publications, of which we fear we must pronounce this to be one. A little more industry in the acquisition and arrangement of information, and a little less admiration of a Dickensonian minuteness and smartness of description, with, moreover, a bolder utterance of religious convictions, would have made this a highly superior volume. It is neatly got up, and will form a pleasant companion for a few hours by the sea side. Let the author continue his studies, and gird himself to the accomplishment of a still higher object.

LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION. A Lecture by the Rev. JOHN CUMMING, D.D. THE EXTENT And the MORAL STATISTICS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. A Lecture by the Rev. WILLIAM ARTHUR. Aylott and Jones.

BоTH these lectures were delivered to the London Young Men's Christian Association, which was formed in 1844, for the improvement of the spiritual condition of young men, by the introduction of religious services, the formation of mutual improvement societies, and such other means as may commend themselves to the committee and members. The subjects of these lectures are important, and they are treated in a comprehensive, intelligent, and interesting manner. The whole movement well deserves encouragement.

THE CHRISTIAN PREACHERS' POCKET COMPANION. By JABEZ BURNS, D.D. 18mo. pp. 324. Houlston and Stoneman.

We have here, first, select essays on the work of the ministry, from various quar