their demand limits itself for ever. They only ask to be left where they and their ancestors have been for nearly two centuries. The remonstrant Churchmen, indeed, give the best possible proof of their contentment with, and deep affection for, the Church, in earnestly praying that its practical order and ritual may undergo no change. Arguments and answers fit to be used towards importunate aggressors undoubtedly do not apply to them.

The second case where trifles may be obstinately maintained with some colour of reason is when the concession of the trifle gives a party triumph, but the bishops will scarcely treat the whole laity and forty-nine-fiftieths of the clergy as a party to balance against a few hundred Tractarians; to put them at all into opposite scales would be a triumph to the Tractarians immeasurably disproportioned to their real importance. No, the Church can have no triumph in being left in the peaceful enjoyment of her timehonoured usages; but the least concession of the least of these usages would be indeed a triumph to the Tractarians- -a gross insult to the Church-an insult, we do not hesitate to say, fatal to the Church as a temporal establishment. This may be thought the language of exaggeration

it is, however, the language of our deliberate and sincere conviction. We confess the utmost alarm for the Church as a temporal establishment.

A very few months have passed since every hand and purse of the nation were cheerfully opened for Church purposes. Money was collected for building of churches, for endowments, and for the erecting and support of Church schools, by hundreds of thousands of pounds. How is it now? The very men most active in promoting these noble contributions, and most liberal in contributing themselves, are now the very men who oppose any grants for Church use. See what passed lately in the

London Common Council. We are no admirers of this City parliament; but it sometimes does good things upon the suggestion of the good men, many of whom may be found in it. The Common Council, a year or two ago, upon the motion of Sir Peter Laurie, seconded, we believe, by Mr. Corney, voted £1000 to the Church Building Fund. Well, the other day a grant of one-fifth of the former sum was moved for a like purpose, and the grant was opposed by the same Sir Peter Laurie and the same Mr. Corney, expressly on the ground that the Church has been defiled by Popish and Tractarian ceremonies. Mr. Pewtress, Mr. Wire, and the other Dissenters, were but too happy to find themselves leagued with two of the best Churchmen in the City against a vote for a Church grant, and the motion for the grant was ingeniously withdrawn upon a point of form-in order to save it from an unanimous rejection. Sir Peter Laurie spoke harshly and unjustly of the Bishop of Exeter-we do not concur in Sir Peter Laurie's ill opinion of the Right Reverend Lord-but we like him nothing the less for having given free expression to that opinion; because we know that he spoke from his own manly heart, and we cannot regret that he said what he did. Such strong feeling as causes men to forget the most precious services, and blinds them to the purest private virtues and most splendid talents in such as they believe to have deserted them, is a warning symptom of an approaching dangerous fever in the public mind. Let no man, after such a warning, doubt that the people are in earnest. If the bishops disappoint the people, the whole order will be to the people as the Bishops of Exeter and London are to Sir Peter Laurie. Let the bishops disappoint the people, and we would not give five shillings for the all church rates to be voted next Easter-we, however, hope for better things.--St. James's Chronicle.

THE LONDON CITY MISSION.

It is a startling and painful fact, that there is church and chapel accommodation for little more than 600,000 of a population exceeding 2,000,000. It is a more startling and painful fact, that even this inadequate provision which has been made for the religious instruction of the people is far more than what is used, and that not more than 400,000 individuals can be reckoned as at any time present in all our sacred edifices. But the most startling and painful fact of all is, that our churches and chapels scarcely seem to work on the masses of our poor at all.

By the poor, we mean, not simply the half-starved members of the community, such as the beggar, the costermonger, or the menial classes of society, but we mean also the more respectable artisan, mechanic, and labourer-all that class of the population, in short, which is accessible to the visitation of the London City Mission. We are certainly below the mark, if we estimate the number of this class at 1,000,000, or one-half of the entire population. And the more intimately individuals become acquinted with the condition of this sportion of London, the more they will be impressed with the sad neglect which it has received, and the urgent necessity for some far larger exertions to be made on its behalf. It has often been said, that the one half of the population is ignorant of the condition of the other half; and we believe that it is simply because the condition of the poor is not known by others, that others are so little moved to ameliorate it.

With this impression, we venture on a few plain facts, to shew that the state of this half of the population of London is, to speak generally, HEATHEN. In the present article, we propose to confine ourselves to an inquiry into their attendance on public worship. Subsequent articles will contain other illustrations of their heathen condition.

It is a notorious circumstance, that in a large number of our churches and chapels the labouring classes of

society are not to be found at all, while in very few of the other churches and chapels is there more than a mere handful of them. This is even the case in the very midst of the abodes of the poor. We have no doubt that if it were possible to ascertain the numbers of the adult part of this 1,000,000 of London who attend public worship, its insignificance would be scarcely credible. But some illustrations may be given from the reports of our missionaries on the subject, upon their respective districts. extract from reports made three years since, but we have no reason to apprehend that they differ generally from what would be their reports now.

We

Lest, however, it should be thought that our statements are prejudiced, we will introduce them with a quotation which appeared a few years since in the pages of the highest High Church publication of that day, conducted by parties who were peculiarly zealous in the good cause of church erection, and who would, no doubt. have been foremost in their eulogy of the benefits of churches to the higher, the middling, and the better portion of the poorer classes of society. But, with reference to their bearing on the great mass of our metropolitan working classes, the testimony is as follows:

"It is scarcely possible for people of regular religious habits to conceive the helpless and reckless spiritual state of those who make up the thousands and tens of thousands in the census of our town population..

The ten thousand wretched beings who are said to rise each morn in London, not knowing where at night they shall lay their heads, have not a more aimless course, have not less local attachment, than have the bulk of our manufacturing poor in the matter of their eternal welfare.

"The accounts which the various little periodicals before us give of the religious wretchedness of our large towns, would be incredible to us, if we had not taken great pains to ascertain the real state of the case by personal observation and inquiry.

"It

may be truly said, that the

whole of our manufacturing people, the whole of the poorer classes in our towns, are alienated from the Church [of England]. Yet this does not express, by any means, the sum of their misery. An enormous proportion, three-fourths or nine-tenths, are neither Church people nor of any other religion. It is of the grown-up people we are speaking; and in estimates of this painful sort, they are what we should look to. Nothing

can be more transient than the workmanship of our schools. Why it is we will not venture now to say. We are only speaking of its results. Out of the hundreds and thousands of children in our large towns, that are taught in our National Schools, with some labour and some skill, and certainly at much expense, there is only here and there a solitary exception to the following startling and lamentable fact:-The moment they have outgrown the school they cease to attend church.

"Go to the seven or eight churches of a large town, or metropolitan parish; let the clergy be busy on the week-days and eloquent on the Sundays; let there be schools, and money, and abundance of pious ladies and gentlemen, and, if you please, pious manufacturers; let three or four of the churches have been built within a dozen years expressly to relieve the spiritual destitution of the poor,' out of Parliamentary grants and subscriptions collected from pious people at the other end of the kingdom, on the ground of certain awful numercial statements of the poor without sittings;' let everything in the church, beauty, order, and decency, be sacriReed to accommodation; let the clergyman be chosen on the principle of attracting the poor. We will

give you the result from our own experience. You may perhaps not see one single man of the working classes. You may see very small shop-keepers and tradespeople, clerks, and one or two superior artisans, and a few footmen in livery; a few old men, most of them from almshouses; you may see some poor women; but the great mass of the congregation, putting the children out of the question, (for they are merely what builders call fill up

in an inquiry of this sort), consists of of those who are so well off as to be fully able to build and maintain splendid churches for themselves."-British Critic, October, 1840, p. 338.

This extract is not very much exaggerated with reference to those parts of London in which the large masses of the working classes are congregated together, and in which the chief part of the 1,000,000 of the metropolitan population of whom we are now treating are to be found. It is borne out by such a statement as that contained in our last Magazine, from one of the Spitalfield missionaries, "On my appointment to the district, I found, of more than 800 families, only 19 individual adults who attended public worship, and 7 communicants." One of the Westminster missionaries reports, from the west, to the same effect as the missionary from the east, "Of the 654 families on my district, I know but of 10 adults who attend the preaching of the Gospel, and of a still less number who are communicants." We have reason to apprehend that there would be no very material difference in the reports of all the denselypopulated poor parts of London, and we believe we may safely say, that instead of the church and chapel being the place in which the Gospel is brought home to their hearts, it is seldom listened to within such places, until its power has been, to some degree, felt by listening to it els where.

The following is a powerful testimony to the boldness and perseverance of the city missionaries. "A gentleman was walking about a fortnight ago, one Sunday afternoon, among the projected new buildings across the Canal towards the Thames; some boys and girls, evidently of the very lowest sort, were scampering about; he accomplished speaking to one boy, and asked him where he lived; the boy said in Orchard-street, (one of the worst in Westminster) but said he, "you could not go there, you could not bear it." The gentleman replied, "Do not the City missionaries go there?" Oh said the boy, "they can bear anything, but you could not bear it." Yes, they go, they can bear

it."

THE BIBLE IN SYRIA.

"Bread cast upon the waters."
ECCLES. xi. 1.

WHEREVER I went in Syria, I found the laity of the Greek Church anxious to obtain copies of the Bible, and not unwilling to receive publications pregnant with the statements of evangelical truth. Having taken with me a large supply, I was able to make a pretty extensive distribution throughout the country, except at the places at which the missionaries usually labour. At the town of Hasbeiya, near the farthest source of the Jordan, I was engaged for some hours in meeting the demands which were made upon my stores. Among the Arabic books which I distributed, were several copies of a Life of Luther, and other Protestant publications. When the Greek priests saw them in the hands of the people, they became quite infuriated, and sent an agent to beg me to order their restoration. I told the people that, as a friend of religious liberty, peaceable discussion, and prayerful inquiry, I left the matter entirely in their own hands. They declared that they would keep what they had received, at all hazards; and they heard the threats of the agents of the priests without being moved. Mr. Smith, my fellow-traveller from Bombay, who took a deep interest in the affair, and who strenuously defended the rights of the people, remarked to me that more would afterwards be heard of this matteran anticipation which has been most remarkably fulfilled. Before we left Hasbeiya, a Druse of considerable intelligence told us, when we were quietly seated with him on the roof of his house, that a considerable number of persons in the town had for some time been anxious to declare themselves Protestants; and that, if we could promise them protection from England, a hundred families, he was sure, would immediately join our communion. The effects of the ministrations of the excellent missionaries at Beyrout, who had occasionally visited the town, and at one time maintained a school for the instruction of its youth, had thus begun to

appear. Some months after our visit, a considerable number of persons actually declared themselves Protestants, and one hundred and twenty of them were formed into a religious community by the Rev. Eli Smith, who hastened to visit them from Beyrout. Connected with this transaction, I solicit your attention to the following extract of a letter from my excellent friend, and for some time fellow-traveller, the Rev. William Graham, missionary of the Irish Presbyterian Church at Damascus. On the 17th of May last, he says: "One hundred and fifty of the Greek Church have become Protestants. They wrote a petition to the British Consul in Damascus, praying to be taken under the protection of England, and vowing before God and man that, rather than return to the superstitions of their ancestors, they would suffer to be chopped like tobacco. This protection the Consul could not give, as the Protestant religion is not recognized nor tolerated legally in the Turkish empire. The Greek Patriarch (of Antioch,) who has his residence in Damascus, was furious, and threatened to force them to return to the Church. The Turkish authorities also took the alarm. They held their secret councils, and discussed what was to be done. Some did not think much of the matter; others were clear for compelling the people to return; and several saw in it the design of England to gain a party in the country, that she might have some plea for taking forcible possession of it. In this state of matters, the affair was, by common agreement, referred to Constantinople." The English, Prussian, and, I believe, French authorities, much to their credit, recommended that these Christians should not be persecuted for their opinions; and the Government of the Sultan granted them permission to return to Hasbeiya, with the promise of protection, on condition that they should pay the usual taxes and conduct themselves in a peaceable manner. The Greek priests were greatly incensed at this result; and, under the instigation of Russia, it is alleged, they induced the adherents of the Greek Church to make a show