are tolerably well acquainted with the best of our old divines. I don't mean mere collectors-a man might just as well take to collecting China tea-pots-but readers of them.

Friend. I grant it. And you might add another favourable sign: I mean, the success which attends good volumes of sermons. But what was that lighter plan which you had been thinking of? You must write for all classes of readers.

Editor. What do you say to a dialogue?

Friend. Just the thing. For instance, a dialogue between the Editor and a Friend from the country.

Editor. Exactly.

Friend. There is one thing. You will be accused of borrowing the idea.

Editor. From Lucian, I suppose.-Talking of public meetings, what do you think of the new turn, which some of them have taken during the present year ? Friend. For my own part, see no great harm in it. Editor. Nor I. The idea that every thing was to be kept quite quiet, and that nobody was to come forward and tell us his mind, was beginning to be carried a little too far. I am for honest men's speaking out, especially when I differ from them. And I think we shall often see, that this mode of proceeding has only the effect of calling forth the Christian feelings of the assembly; as it has done this year, in more than one instance that I witnessed; and that, so as, without these slight and amicable collisions, they would not have appeared.

Friend. Our being so very sensitive, and our attaching so much importance to these little matters, is, I take it, a proof that we are in a weak and low condition; and the sooner we get out of such a state the better.

Editor. If I had said so, it would have been a hard hit, as you call it. One thing, I think, must have been clear to our Northern friends; namely, that, though we are willing to take advice, and to go all allowable lengths, for the purpose of conciliation, yet they will find it in vain to attempt dictation. Besides, committees should be supported.

Friend. Yes; that I take to be a fixed principle. Committees should be supported.

Editor. Besides, it is contrary to our English mode of fighting, to strike a man when he is down. Indeed, I said, throughout the whole of this contest, that the party that first gave in would gain the victory.-What is your opinion of the new views upon prophecy?

Friend. What is yours?

Editor. I never can make up my mind upon these things,

till I see them in print. Ask me then, and perhaps I will tell you. There is often much exaggeration.

Friend. Why, you have them in print, word for word. Of course you have read

Editor. Was that a fair publication?

Friend. I hardly know. If the real names had been given, I should say, Certainly not.

Editor. Well, when we have got the thing fairly before us, it will be time for me to direct my editorial attention to the subject.

Friend. There is something about it, in those sermons which you have already reviewed.

Editor. True. But I did not then think that we should have the matter so publicly brought before us. Nevertheless, I have an eye to the subject; and may very possibly offer a few hints upon it, in my number for July. By-the-bye, a correspondent has sent me a letter on that very topic. He appears very much alarmed; and says something about neologians, and modified views of eternal punishment.

Friend. That would be alarming indeed. I conceive the suppressing or modifying of this doctrine to be a prime artifice of the devil's, by which he labours to bring men to the fatal and endless experience of it. Doubt of eternal punishment, and it is the way of all others to partake of it. Opinions which led to such results would be no longer harmless, but fatal in the

extreme.

Editor. Yes; and I think I should be pretty plain in opposing them. But mind, I do not mean to But mind, I do not mean to say that any thing of the kind has yet appeared before the public, or is likely to do so. People may be over-suspicious. And, as I said before, there is often much exaggeration. What an outcry was raised against that anniversary sermon last year, merely upon the report of those who had heard it: and, when it came to be printed, it did not half bear out the accusers. Therefore let us wait and see. I, at least, am no prophet.

Friend. Some people say otherwise.

Editor. Indeed! How is that?

Friend. There is certainly something prophetical in the strictures in your last number, whether yours or your contributor's, on the late government.

Editor. Certainly it was a remarkable thing. But I assure you, I have no means of getting private information. Nor had I the least idea of such important changes, till I learnt, through the ordinary channels of intelligence, how many resignations had actually taken place.

Friend. When did you first learn this, then?

Editor. Rather more than a fortnight after my last number was published and out; and not till a day or two after the political changes were known to all London: for it so happened that, just then, I was very much engaged, and had no time for reading newspapers. I have no secret communications with those conversant in state affairs, you may rest assured.

Friend. It will be no easy matter to persuade my aunt of that. Nevertheless, I have no doubt it is as you say. But that only makes the matter so much the more extraordinary. At the beginning of April your Magazine makes its appearance, charging the late government, then in full possession of power and with every prospect of keeping it, with abandoning_the country:-those were your very words:-and within thirteen days after, a large portion of them do actually abandon the country, in its present most perilous and unexampled situation, by resigning their places! I have read over the paragraph again and again, and it sounds to me like that administration's passing bell.-Really, to think that you should so have expressed yourself; and that then, in less than a fortnight, with a crash like the tumbling of the tower of Babel, that strong, that popular, that long-established government, should actually fall to pieces! It seems as if the sentence had only to be pronounced, and then, execution at once took place! The words yet ring in my ears, like the tolling of the great bell of St. Paul's.

no.

Editor. What makes the matter still more remarkable is, that I was almost persuaded to leave them out altogether. But One thing after another happened to prevent it, and at length they stood their ground, and came forth. Consequently, if there is any thing prophetical, it must be in the words themselves, not in me.

Friend. If nations are destroyed for their sins, why may not the case be the same with particular governments and administrations? Let us learn to view political changes in this light. Editor. That extends the warning to others, besides those who have already fallen.

Friend. It does. You bring a serious charge against three orders of persons; of which three, one has since experienced the catastrophe. We read, I think, in the ninth chapter of Revelations, how, after the sounding of a certain trumpet, the third part of men were killed but "the rest of the men," that is, the other two parts," which were not killed," " yet repented not." I hope the event may not prove the same, in the present

instance.

Editor. Amen, say I, with all my heart. We have all need of repentance, and none more than the parties to whom you refer. When do you publish your work on prophecy?

Friend. 1 must first establish my principle. When I can get people to receive that, the way will be open, and not before. Editor. What principle?

Friend. In regard to prophecy, as in regard to every thing else indeed, Scripture is its own interpreter. I mean, to a degree that no person, in the present day, seems to be aware of. Every thing in the Bible is double. Thus God has provided a marvellous way of explaining his word, in that word itself. Till they fully receive this principle, our prophets, I can tell them, will go floundering on, following their own Will-o'-thewisps through brake and quagmire; sometimes for a moment getting a glimpse of the true light, but then immediately after losing it again; and all because, while they are seeking the hidden sense, they do not choose to take the trouble of making themselves acquainted with a plain principle of technical composition, which is the key

Editor (aside). How unfortunate that I should ever have asked the question! When once he is fairly mounted on this hobby, he is sure to go on for an hour at least.

Friend. The key to the whole book: a principle according to which Moses wrote: a principle according to which the Psalms of David were composed; and not only composed, but sung in the temple from the days of Solomon downwards: a principle according to which every prophet spoke, and without the knowledge of which no prophet ever was, or ever can be, I mean as a whole, correctly interpreted.

Editor (aside: much alarmed). I should not wonder if he goes on jogging my elbow, and whispering to me about it, all through the meeting.

Friend. In the New Testament the same principle appears throughout; and is, indeed, the only principle, on which any passage can be soundly interpreted, as to its general bearing. Men are correct, often, in their views of particular verses: but as to any clear views of the drift, purport, and aim, of longer passages, paragraphs, and chapters, they never get upon this ground but they make shocking blunders; and all for the neglect of the aforesaid principle. It prevails throughout the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles; and no where appears more visibly, or throws greater light upon the meaning, than in the Revelation of St. John.

Editor (aside: with a look of great consternation). My best plan will be to make a rush, and get away at once. It will be quite impossible for me to think of my speech. People that take up strange notions, are always so dogmatical in enforcing them.

Friend. The thing that vexes me is, that while many of my friends commend my views in private, writing me very encouraging letters, or telling me in a whisper that they think I am quite in the right, there are very few of them, not to my own knowledge above two or three at the utmost, who have the honesty to say so openly. But I forgive them, nevertheless; and would lay the blame rather to the times in which we live, the great principle of which is, Take care not to commit yourself, than to them individually. And this reminds me of your Magazine.

Editor. Exactly. My Magazine. What were you going to say about my Magazine

Friend. There are some of your acquaintances, who will tell you, perhaps, when they like your Magazine. But when they are displeased with it, they will not tell you a word.

Editor. Well, then I can learn from their silence. And this, according to you, will be a good sign. Will you help me in the work?

Friend. Why?

Editor. I will tell you why. People will not tell me my own faults, but they will tell me yours. And, vice versâ, they will tell you mine. Let us, therefore, start together. You can then communicate what they say of me, and I what they say of you; and so, between us, we shall know what they say of both.

Friend. Well, after all, what people say of one is of no very great consequence. Add to this, I am quite sure, brother, that you have some friends, who, if they think you in the wrong, will tell you so in a brotherly spirit. Do try and offend them a little, by putting more powder and shot into your next number.

Editor. Really, now, I am quite at a loss to understand you. What can be stronger than the last number? I mean to be strong. I am strong.

Friend. Why, look at the radical part of the press: Cobbett, Blackwood, John Bull, Carlile, &c. How those fellows write! Editor. You would not have me imitate Carlile ?

Friend. Did I say Carlile? Well, that was only a slip of the tongue, arising from the affinity of ideas. People that are right opposite to one another, are sometimes very near neighbours. Yet, even from the case of avowed infidels, you may learn something. Consider how these people are tolerated in the present day, and learn what you may do. If they are borne with, surely the least you can expect is, to be borne with also. Here are a set of cruel, malignant ruffians, leagued, in a hellish compact, against God and the Gospel. Here are you, on the other hand, the decided advocate of that Gospel, an avowed believer in that God. Your principles are those of sterling