with his accustomed moderation; but with this exception, the leading advocates seem to disdain a compromise; and the defeated party disdains to offer one. Thus the question, after all, remains unsettled, and the battle, we suppose, will be joined again, and probably with the same results next year. Meantime the question becomes more serious. Every year the settlement is delayed, a triumph is gained to the enemies of the church; for there is now no power to enforce, or even to make a rate, and if there were, the courts of law would be reluctant to interfere. The reform bill has wisely been withdrawn; for whatever its merits, no urgent necessity calls for it, and there are other questions which may perhaps affect our very existence as a nation, which demand immediate attention. To begin with our island home. The commissioners appointed to investigate the state of our national defences, report that extensive works are required which will cost us ten or twelve millions sterling. Then the state of India, both in its civil and military bearings, presses for consideration. Again, national education at home has yet to be discussed; though we conclude that it will not be pressed upon us till the commissioners' report appears.

It is proposed, amongst other measures, that no child shall be permitted to work in certain hazardous callings until he can read and write. Many difficulties will obstruct the working of this scheme at first; but the idea is a good one. It might be carried further with great advantage, and no child permitted to be apprenticed until he had passed a simple examination in reading and writing, and we should like to add, in the first part of the catechism, "the creed, the Lord's prayer, and the ten commandments,"—that is, the whole of the original catechism of the church of England till the year 1604.

Besides these, there are of course a vast number of questions, some local, some of general interest, which ought to be dealt with before the session of parliament closes. Above all, our foreign affairs are a source of deep anxiety. What can be more significant than the fact, that in a time of peace the Queen of England reviews an army of volunteers in Hyde Park of twenty thousand men; that these troops are gentlemen, tradesmen, men of business, to whom "time is money; and yet they squander it profusely under the conviction that without the sacrifice Eugland is no longer safe?

The Lord's-day bill introduced by Lord Chelmsford has been carried through the upper house by large majorities. On a question of form, its discussion in the lower house has been delayed another fortnight. This happily affords time for consideration; and convinced as we are that the bill, though well meant, is mischievous, we hope that no efforts will be wanting to oppose its further progress. By legalizing the sale of many articles till ten o'clock, and of not a few again after one o'clock, it professes to secure the remainder of the day for sacred purposes. We object to it in toto; first, because we believe in the divine obligation of the Lord's-day, and cannot admit the right of any legislature to tamper with its sanctions; secondly, because many of the articles to be soldpastry, cigars, and newspapers for instance-are neither admissible under the plea of necessity and charity nor of reasonable indulgence; and thirdly, because the attempt to draw a line between different commodities, some of which may be sold while others may not be sold, is utterly futile. "The shop," that important institution in the country town, sells every

thing from a farthing candle or an ounce of snuff, to black hats, made wines, British brandy, and new ribbons. What system of sabbath-day excise, what Lord's-day police, shall compel the ploughman or his wife, once within the shop, with their week's wages in their pocket, to purchase only those articles which are not contraband of the act of parliament ? Wise men do very foolish things. And to say no more, this is a very foolish bill; and in practice it will be found, if it should unhappily pass into a law, a very dangerous one. Magistrates will not venture to enforce it; for public opinion will not endure that A and B shall be punished for following their trade on Sunday morning, while C and D across the street are protected by an act of parliament. Nor will they

for any length of time persist in fining tradesmen whose shops are open a few minutes after ten o'clock, or a few minutes before one o'clock. Trading, once sanctioned on the Lord's-day, will, within ten or twenty years, become, we fear, the universal practice. The religious tradesman, with his closed shutters on Sunday, will be an object of remark as rare in many a district, as the Jewish tradesman is now, who devoutly, and much to the shame of his Christian neighbours, observes his sabbath amidst the bustle of our Saturday.

Half the year has flown, and as we pause in our midway career and look round us, the prospect seems upon the whole like that of which the prophet speaks; "Not clear nor dark," "not day nor night." Yet God is working out some great, and we doubt not some gracious purposes. "It is one day known unto the Lord," and the clouds will shortly disperse, and "it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light." At present gloom prevails on our horizon; the political atmosphere is full of the elements of disturbance; in the material world we have wintry skies at midsummer, with the prospect of an indifferent harvest; and we have a nation and a legislature to a sad extent governed by low considerations of expediency, and unobservant of "the signs of these times." Yet, on the other hand, we have more faith, more prayer, more union amongst real Christians; and with these more of that calm serenity which prepares the church of Christ for whatever may betide her in this changing world. And this bodes well for the cause of God.

We cannot close without expressing our gratitude for the appointment of the Hon. Mr. Waldegrave to the see of Carlisle, vacant by the removal of its late excellent bishop to Durham. The premier who makes such appointments may be assured that while he is rendering high service to the church of England, he is using the best means to consolidate his own power as a statesman, and to hold the respect and confidence of a Protestant people.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Communications from Taunton, Worton, and Bedford, are acknowledged. Complaints have reached us of the irregular delivery of the Christian Observer in the country. The fault does not rest with us. It is invariably ready for delivery in London in the last day of the month, and ought to be delivered through the kingdom with the other magazines on the 1st of the following month.

K. would have been inserted, had the writer favoured us with his name.

THERE is in human nature a craving for excitement, which renders commotion, war, and even the destruction of each other, a matter of gratification. But ere long, men grow weary of this unholy pleasure, or they taste the bitterness of its consequences, and then they sigh for peace. They even profess that peace is the ultimate object of all their conflicts and contentions. Glory is a word that has wondrous charms; but even glory seeks its perfection in the idea of peace.

Our present inquiry, however, does not regard peace in general, but Christian peace. For other kinds of peace there are, which do not range themselves under this title. There is peace in the sandy desert, trodden but seldom even by the camel's foot. There is peace on the bosom of the largest ocean of our world, or its name is inappropriate. There is the peace of sleep, when the tiger lies quiet as the lamb, and the army of fifty thousand silent as the babe. There is peace in the battle-field on the morrow of a victory, where hundreds lie who fight no more.

But such is not Christian peace. It was not such peace that the angels sang, and the incarnate Saviour came to bring. Let it be observed, in the outset, that peace is not so much a principle as a result. And here, if we mistake not, lies the mistake of Peace societies, and of those who advocate the doctrine of "peace at any price." They maintain that peace is a duty. It is not enough, in their view, that we should aim at peace, labouring "as much as lieth in you to live peaceably with all men;" but they account the non-attainment of it a sin. We are not about to discuss this point; but we may be permitted to suggest where the fallacy of such a notion lies. Peace, then, would seem to be not a principle, but a result. It is the result of order. The experience ages has demonstrated that where there is disorder, there can

of

not be peace. Even in the different kinds of peace just mentioned, it will be found that there is either the absence, as in the sandy desert, or the temporary suspension, as in sleep, of disorder. The churchyard peace, what is it but the cessation of that disorder which sets man against man in the mutual intercourse of the living? When God created our world as the abode of man, everything was in perfect order, and there was peace. From the moment when that order was disturbed by the entrance of moral evil, disquiet, aversion, antagonism and strife arose; and peace was gone. Now, just as in the human frame restlessness and pain are the result of some disorder in the system, so disquiet, strife, and war in the soul, and in the body social and politic, are the result of moral disorder, indicating that sin is there. Such at least is the Scripture account of it: "The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." (Is. lvii. 20.)

Christian peace is to be explained upon this view of the world's condition. It is the result of a remedy applied to the world's disorder. That remedy, the gospel of Christ, announces peace as possible to man, nay, as attainable by him here: "Peace on earth." Thus it creates a desire for it in the agitated and weary breast. It then does, what nothing independently of its teaching ever has done, it shows how peace has been and can be attained. Revert again to the angels' song, and let them disclose the remedy. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace." The Prince of Peace, whose advent they announced, came to accomplish both these ends; but in their proper order, as here intimated. During his sojourn on earth he was not, strictly speaking, a man of peace, though he taught and trod the way of peace. He himself said: "I am not come to send peace on earth, but a sword.” His first work was to establish the remedy for the world's disorder. "Glory to God in the highest" must be accomplished by making reconciliation between God and man; and for this end "the chastisement of our peace" must fall upon him. By His sacrificial death, closing a life of perfect holiness and obedience to the law, He removed the impediment in the way of peace. Taking away, as the Lamb of God, the sin of the world, He vindicated the justice, manifested the holiness, and secured for us the mercy of God. Then was "Glory to God in the highest," and He became "OUR PEACE." Thenceforward His ambassadors went forth with the offer of reconciliation to the whole world: "We are ambassadors," say they," for Christ-we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God; for God hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Cor. v. 26.) And as they went not in their own name, so neither did they fulfil this embassage by their own strength; they went accompanied by the power of the Spirit

to ensure its success. Their message is called "the gospel of peace." (Rom. x. 15.) As they proclaimed it everywhere, they only repeated, amplified, and illustrated by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the angelic song: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace: goodwill towards men."

But, it may be asked, how is the work of Christ, in making reconciliation between God and man, to correct the disorder before mentioned, and restore peace to our world of perturbation and misery? How is the actual evil to be approached and overcome? Take the individual first; for the root of the disorder lies in the individual. Here, then, is a sinner. He has broken the law of God; the rule and guardian of order to His intelligent creatures. He breaks it every day. He regards it not with that reverence which he ought to feel. He loves it not. He has no sympathy with its object and requirements. He even dislikes it. "His carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." (Rom. viii. 7.) Here, then, lies the moral disorder. Now, this man knows, though not so fully as he ought, that he is a sinner. He will not venture, with all his selfconfidence, to say that he is pure and good; and yet God's law can require nothing short of this. His conscience, too, oftentimes uneasy, tells him that he is a sinner, at war with God. The dread of death tells him so. The thought of future judgment tells him so, and he has no peace within. How can the man have peace, who perceives that the wrath of God abides upon him? "The way of peace he hath not known."

There is, moreover, another source of disquietude within him. His mind is agitated by disordered and fierce passions. He is selfish, and wants what he cannot have. He is irritated and angry with others, because their interests or their wills cross his. He wishes to do what they will not tolerate, to grasp what they will not resign. Their selfishness, pride, and wickedness vex and disturb his mind. Disappointments and failures sting him. He resorts to fruitless, and even forbidden, resources for relieving his agitation of spirit; or he seeks to forget it in sinful indulgences. Feelings of hatred and revenge towards those who have thwarted or injured him are nourished, and schemes of retaliation are entertained-all these things inflaming the excitement which he strives to allay. Can these, we ask, be peace in the heart where such disorder reigns? "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."

Now let the message of reconciliation reach that perturbed spirit. Let the Gospel, as the power of God unto salvation, establish its rule within. That which is born of the Spirit thenceforth wars against that which is born of the flesh; and though there be fierce conflict, the man is in the way to peace. He now acknowledges as good, and longs to obey, the will of God. He delights in the law of the Lord after the inner man. His principle