and those on whom you formerly imposed, no longer believe what you say. When you quitted Rome, the Bible entered it - the Bible, so long persecuted by Popes. Both the Gospel of Christ and the holy letters of the Apostles, faithfully translated into Italian, are now in the hands of the people, who read them, and there they find neither Popery nor Pope. Take care that you do not meet with the same fate in Italy which your predecessors met with out of it, who, aiming at too much, lost all. The men who in February last deprived you of temporal power intended to better your condition in spiritual things. From the 30th of April, up to this day, you have laid aside every pledge, broken all friendship, and violated every law, by presenting yourself before the walls of Rome amidst muskets and cannons; and you have announced to this city your return, your solemn ingress, with shells and incendiary violence, in the midst of the dead and wounded. Is this the duty of a bishop? this the return amongst us of the pretended vicar of Jesus Christ? Would he retain such a vicar at his post ?-should the Church of Rome receive such a bishop?

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"In vain do you exaggerate the disorders of this our government, and with foul language descend to words of contumely, calling Rome a den of raging beasts,' and those who inhabit it, 'apostates, heretics, teachers of Communism and Socialism, who endeavour to disseminate pestiferous error of all kinds, to corrupt the heart and the mind of all men.'

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"To apostatize from you, and to return to Jesus Christ and his Apostles, is that which we desire for ourselves and for our children; and if these are the errors which corrupt the heart and the mind of all men,' blessed are we who from such error are able to learn truth, and from such darkness to receive light. 'But woe unto you, hypocrites and pharisees, who call evil good, and good evil - who call light darkness, and darkness light.'

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"Giovanni Mastai, how long will you insult your country, and she bear with you? You, allied to kings in order to betray the people; bound in special amity to the Neapolitan Bourbon, to learn from him how to oppress every generous soul, and to extinguish in the sons of Italy every noble sentiment. Oh, senseless

If

we! that we should ever have believed you, ever have applauded your feigned promises and ephemeral concessions, to find ourselves. now deluded in our hopes, and cheated of our happiness! you appeal to the religion of the canons, we stand by the holy religion of the Gospel: you belie it, we are faithful to God and to his Christ. Yes, we believe in the Christ of God, and our faith daily increases on comparing his doctrine with our practice. The more we disbelieve you, the more we are led to see that we ought to believe him! He is the free Saviour of his people; you, an oppressor and a destroyer. He taught us to bless those who curse, and to do good to those who hate us, to pray for those who despitefully use us and persecute us. (Matt. v. 44.) He was given by God not to condemn the world, but that the world by him might be saved. (John iii. 17.) He declares that he is not come to destroy, but to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke xix. 10.) You began by cursing those who, to the last, had blessed you; by hating those who had done you good, and by despitefully using and persecuting those who had prayed for you. You, who alone might have saved our country, and redeemed it from its lost condition, have joined yourself to her enemies to condemn and to destroy her."

PROTEST OF ITALIAN RESIDENTS IN LONDON AGAINST

POPERY.

"Last evening, August 5, 1849, a meeting of Italians resident in the metropolis was held at the Western Literary Institution, Leicester-square, for the discussion of the religious questions involved in the present state of Italy, and of urging the Italian people to protest no longer against the Pope merely, but against the system of Popery itself.' The proceedings were conducted according to the rules of public meetings in Italy, and were throughout of the most remarkable character. The speakers addressed the audience in the Italian language. The ladies, of whom a large number were present, took an active part in the discussion of the questions brought under consideration, many of them rising to make observations on the respective addresses. Signor G. T. Vignati took the chair, and the meeting was addressed by the Cavalier Fenzi, Signor Raffaello di Roma, Pro

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fessor Gabriele Rosetti, Signor Boccalossi, Signor Sussanni, and other gentlemen. Signor Mappei thought it was no longer of any use to oppose the Pope as an individual or as a temporal prince, for he believed that the whole system of Roman Catholocism tended to degrade the people, and obstruct the progress of their political independence. They wished to be unfettered in their acknowledgment of one faith, one Lord, one baptism.' In fact, they wanted to get rid of the whole political machinery of the Church of Rome. Signor Mappei enlarged upon these topics amidst constant interruptions. So great indeed was the disturbance, that the police were frequently called in to quell it. Several gentlemen (zealous Roman Catholics and advocates of the present system) were forcibly expelled. In the midst of the confusion the following resolution was adopted :- "That this meeting, highly condemning as tyrannical, infamous, anti-evangelical, and impious, the conduct of Pope Pius IX., invites all the Italian patriots to follow the true Religion of Jesus Christ, as followed by their ancestors, throwing aside their Papal Church, which is conspiring against the liberties of the people.'-A vote of thanks to the chairman closed the proceedings. This is certainly not one of the least significant of the signs of the times.""

Thus events thicken; the foundations of Babylon are being undermined, freedom is finding access to its dungeons, and its own children, weary with their bondage and its crimes, are rising up against her.

LECTURE XX.

SPIRITUAL DEATH.

"I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead."— REV. iii. 1.

HAD we to appear at the judgment-seat, and to receive the sentence of doom from the lips of an imperfect and erring man, we could have little encouragement to seek by well-doing, glory, honour, and immortality. We take up such misapprehensions of the actions and motives of other men; we are so liable to be deceived by outward appearances, and thence to deduce erroneous conclusions, - that we all feel convinced that our lives never can be judged correctly, nor our actions justly weighed, nor our appropriate condition in eternity assigned us, by any one who has not the omniscience of Godhead to discriminate and weigh, and the sympathies of manhood to feel and to commiserate. The perplexed woof of human life in its simplest estate is composed of threads so chequered and intermixed, that none but he unto whom the essence and the structure of all that constitutes the moral and the physical world are thoroughly open, can separate the good from the bad, and determine what is fit to be burned and what is worthy of being preserved. What consolation ought it then to administer to them who have chosen that better part, that Christ their Saviour, who is soon to be their judge, needs not to be told what is in man, because unto him all hearts are open and all desires known that he is by them to strengthen their good resolutions, and to assist their weak attempts to serve him that the smallest and most hidden act of charity done to a believer, the faintest aspiration after a holy life, shall receive from him by grace the appropriate blessing and reward. His assertion of himself is, "I know thy works." Though this is addressed

to the moderator and bishop of the Church of Sardis, yet is it meant for the ear of every bishop also in the Church of Scotland, and in every Church; yea, for all men and for all churches.

Could our eyes be opened this day as were the eyes of Elisha's servant, could the veil that intercepts the spiritual world from our view be for a moment withdrawn, we should see that the Lord of Glory was bending over his flock with a brother's eye, and yet with Godhead's intention, and watching the motions of every heart, and hearing the accents of every psalm, and the words of every prayer and, alas! he is also privy to every thought you harbour about earth and forbidden things; and while he hears and abundantly blesses the needy's humble supplication, he is vexed with, and will assuredly punish the callousness of them who forget that they are in the presence of the living God. To the child of God this presence and perfect knowledge of Christ ought to afford the strongest comfort; while to you who make the house of God little else than a convenient place for helping you to kill an hour or two you cannot otherwise dispose of, it ought to impress the most solemn fears of your fate at that day, when the secrets of the closest heart shall be laid bare and unmasked in the presence of a deeply interested universe.

But the expression, "I know thy works," I would view in the moral import of the words. It is as if he has said, When I blame thee and lay before thee thy deficiencies, when I tell thee of thy carelessness and inattention, do not suppose that I entirely overlook the good deeds you may have done. I know them all; I have estimated them all; I have weighed them in the balance, and have found them yet wanting. In this passage there is a decided recognition of something in its way good still remaining among men; there is an admission on the part of the unerring God, that in man there are yet some expiring embers of that fire which came at the first from heaven's altars, some fragments of that glorious edifice which Adam's breast presented in its unfallen ́ condition. Christ does not condemn man as if he were in all his actions as impure, in all his words as untrue, and in all his thoughts as corrupted, as the devil endeavours to make them; for he can yet appreciate in man some of the scattered flowers of the crown that fell from his head, which time hath not utterly