settlement of Protestants, amounting to about sixteen persons. As they lay remote from any Church, and surrounded by a Roman Catholic population, they solicited and were in the contant habit of receiving the visits of the clergyman of the neighbouring parish (the Rev. John Studdart), who assiduously afforded them spiritual instruction and consolation for some time past. This, however could not be endured by the neighbouring Roman Catholics, and, accordingly, they have chased the rev. gentleman from the scene of his labours, and amidst the yells and execrations of these miscreants he was glad to have escaped with his life. The expulsion of the clergyman, however, did not satisfy them; but the ejection of the Protestant inhabitants became their next object; an we are sorry to say such was the system of persecution pursued, that ten out of the sixteen have been glad to abandon their native land, and seek in a foreign clime that toleration towards Protestantism which Protestant England could not give them; and the remaining six, in order to escape further persecution, have requested Mr. Studdart, if he values his own and their safety, to discontinue his visits to them. This is a specimen of what we might expect, if Popery once got fixed in that ascendency which, we are sorry to say, it now has in our unfortunate land, and this is but one of many instances. But this must not be. Our patient quiescence hitherto must be discarded, and with the blessing of God, Irish Protestantism will yet right itself, despite the frowns and oppression of a government, Protestant but in a name."

The number of Jesuits in our dominions is another reason for parliamentary caution. D'Alembert maintained their institutes to be contrary to the laws of kingdoms, to the obedience due to sovereigns, to personal safety, and the tranquillity of any state; and history proves him to have been correct. So secret are they that the provincials among them are not acquainted with the mode of government, and the machinery of chicanery, which the general adopts; and the custom of conducting the correspondence by means of mystic cyphers, and of immediately securing at the death of a brother, the letters in his possession, shows the intricacy and danger of the confederacy. None of the professed, or coadjutors, or scholars may be examined in a civil or criminal court, without the licence of the superior; which licence he will only grant in causes likely to benefit the Roman Catholic religion. The minds of all are probed deeply ere admission be granted to the society, and the confessional is employed to extort unflinching obedience. They are taught to regard the superior, whoever he may be, AS CHRIST THE LORD," and they have particular instructions to obtain property from persons at the point of death. As to moral agency, the Jesuit is taught to consider himself a mere corpse," to be passively moved about at the will of the superiors. There is also a blasphemous salvo in the Jesuitical constitutions, which allows the practice of any serviceable iniquity, without incurring sin.

With these facts, capable of absolute proof, before us, is it not evident that the support of Maynooth College has a tendency to encourage Popery, to assist the Honourable Mr. Spencer's desired change of the national religion, and to introduce all the horrors and enormities of which Papists are guilty in Ireland and other countries, and have been guilty in this, into our hitherto favoured land? We trust that the expression of feeling on the subject will be deep and general, that throughout the empire Protestant Associations will be formed, and Protestant petitions against the unhallowed grant will be sent to the Parliament; that if our religious rights be not protected by the proper protectors of them, we of the faith once delivered to the saints will form ourselves into a phalanx sufficiently strong to defend ourselves, when the time for such a defence shall arrive.

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MINISTERIAL SCHEME OF NATIONAL EDUCATION.

THE new scheme of innovation devised by Ministers is now before the public, as explained in the speech of Lord John Russell in the House of Commons. This new production of the reforming cabinet, so long announced and so anxiously expected, consists in the establishment of schools throughout the country, which are to be divided into two classes--one class for members of the Church of England, the other for Dissenters. To denominate this a scheme of National Education is absurd. That is a palpable misnomer. When the business of the Court of Chancery was divided, and a Court of Bankruptcy established, the division could have been, with equal propriety, called a new scheme of National Jurisprudence, the absurdity of which requires no comment. But empirics of all sorts attach great importance to a pompous and high-sounding title. Were the choice of a proper one left to us, we would denominate it the New Ministerial Schismatic and Anti-christian Scheme of National Education.

To love one's neighbour as one's self is a precept of divine origin. Its spirit pervades every part of the Christian religion, which inculcates mutual kindness and forbearance, harmony, unanimity, universal philanthropy. The Christian religion is an essential part of the constitution. From it our laws derive their strength and efficacy, and the safety and prosperity of the state depends upon, the concord of its members. Concordia res parvæ crescunt discordia maximæ dilabuntur. These are simple truths, known to every schoolboy. What then is to be said of a British legislator who is ignorant of them, or who, knowing them, wilfully and advisedly rejects them? Who, instead of cultivating harmony, purposes to divide the community into two distinct classes, and to keep them asunder by a wall of partition founded upon religion? Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, and many other prelates, orthodox and resolute champions of the Church of England, were friendly to toleration and conciliation towards Dissenters: Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, cultivated a good understanding with them, and maintained a friendly intercourse with their leaders, considering them only temporary separatists from the Church, whom conciliation, he hoped, might induce to return to her bosom. Confident in its intrinsic merits, they feared no danger except through the state, a quarter from which it has been, and is assailed by the present Ministry. How great would have been the mortification of these good and pious men to find all these hopes of conciliation and harmony blasted? the estrangement between different creeds confirmed, and the breach widened by a scheme of exclusiveness, directly opposed to the theory and practice of a really liberal Government?

In the various schools now existing in England, there is no doubt a mixture of members of the Church of England and Dissenters. In these schools, friendships are formed between children of different creeds, which constitute a source of happiness through life. Did these schools subject themselves to a charge of proselyting, which has ever proved a fruitful cause of discord, there would be ground for a change; but there exists no charge of the kind, nor any foundation for it: the

present attempt, therefore, to keep the two creeds separate and distinct to alienate them from each other in friendship and affection, and commit them in direct hostility, is without even a pretence for its expediency or necessity.

Is then, the Christian religion, which was intended to be a bond of peace, to be made a sword for cutting society asunder-to be thus insulted, abused, and perverted without a cause? Is this new scheme, pregnant with every bad feeling, which is to alarm the Church of England, and enconrage and support Dissenters in their encroachments and demands upon it-is this mischievous proposition to be considered a mere act of wantonness, conceived in the disordered fancy of some little vain pigmy politician, who would aspire to the dignity of a national legislator? Oh, no! The putative father of this abortion does not labour in his vocation for nothing. By some fatality or freak of fortune, it happens that no scheme is ever advocated by Ministers that is not in some way calculated to advance their own interest, that is not, in fact, downright and purely selfish, no matter how dear the price the country must pay for it. Look at this new scheme: there must be commissioners to ascertain the proper sites for schools over the country; then there must be for these schools masters of approved talent and exclusive principles; and then there must be visiters to go their annual circuits, and see that these schools are properly conducted, and that the masters perform their duty; and then there must be a permanent board sitting in London, to which these visiters are to make their reports, and which is to carry the whole national scheme into effect. Only look at this detail and see what a glorious prospect of patronage it opens to a Ministry that lives only upon patronage and court favour! Why, all the commissions hitherto invented by Ministerial ingenuity are insignificant in extent and in the production of that most essential and vital commodity so eagerly sought by Ministers, compared with this new device.

With all his parental yearnings for his offspring, Lord John Russell admits that it is defective, that in confining it to the Church and Dissenters it is not sufficiently comprehensive, and, consequently, deficient in catholicity. No doubt it is: and that is a very good reason why he should not have brought it forward. What monstrous presumption must it be to recommend to the House a measure avowedly defective? Why did he not wait a while to mature and perfect his scheme before he obtruded it upon the legislature and the public?

It would be an insult to the good sense of Parliament to suppose for a moment that it will sanction a measure so manifestly mischievous, so bigotted, and subversive of social concord and unanimity. It would be absurd to suppose that any legislature could be weak and dull enough o adopt it: but still to Lord John Russell it will not be a total failure; there will be still something to console and reconcile him to his loss. The Dissenters have been, and are, active in their demands and encroachments upon the Church. This scheme for arraying them in open and direct warfare with it, as a proof of the sympathy of the Cabinet, must give them fresh strength and spirit to persevere. It is, therefore, although it prove unsuccessful, well calculated to conciliate

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the whole body of Dissenters; but to Lord John Russell, individually, it is full of golden hope and promise. His Lordship is member for the borough of Stroud, in which the Dissenting interest is all-powerful. After this proof of good-will, what Dissenter can be base and ungrateful enough to refuse his vote, upon a new election, to his Lordship? Lord John has uniformly devoted his services to the advancement of the Dissenting cause. This last act of homage must fix him in his seat for life.

Anecdotes, Biography, &c.

INTERESTING ANECDOTES OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.-On one occasion, when one of the Bishops (Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle) was proceeding to perform the mummery of elevating the host at the Royal Chapel, he received an interdict and express order to desist.

Queen Elizabeth's Piety.—When a captive at Woodstock, by order of her sister, Queen Mary, of bloody memory, Elizabeth found a delightful solace in her studies: and in a translation of St. Paul's epistles, now in the Bodleian library, on a blank leaf, is the following passage, written with her own hand :-"I walk many times into the pleasant fields of the Holy Scriptures, where I pluck up the goodly herbs of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, chew them by musing, and lay them up at length in the high seat of memory, by gathering them together; that so having tasted the sweetness, I may the less perceive the bitterness of this miserable life"-words which deserve to be written in letters of gold.

Queen Elizabeth's Education.-Next to the Holy Scriptures, there was no work of which Elizabeth was more fond than the writings of Cyprian. She spoke the Latin language with extraordinary fluency, and classical propriety, and could converse in Greek with great facility; and with her tutor, the well known Roger Ascham, she often argued in both languages, and used to astonish foreigners by the ease and purity with which she spoke to them in the Latin tongue. Her English style was less pure and chaste, but it was the style of the times, as may be seen by the writers of that period.

Queen Elizabeth's Prayer.-It is well known that Elizabeth was confined by her sister in the tower. On her coronation, she had occasion to visit the place of her confinement, and on leaving the place to step into her carriage, she uttered the following prayer in the hearing of many around her :-"Oh Lord Almighty! everlasting God! I give thee most hearty thanks that thou hast been so merciful unto me, as to spare me to behold this joyful day! And I acknowledge that thou hast dealt as wonderfully and as mercifully unto me as thou didst with thy true and faithful servant Daniel thy prophet, whom thou didst deliver out of the den from the cruelty of the greedy and raging lions! Even so was I overwhelmed, and only by thee delivered! To thee, therefore, only be thanks, honour, and praise for ever. Amen."

Queen Elizabeth's Person.-The following is the minute account of the person of the Queen, transmitted to his court by the Venetian Ambassador in 1557:-"The Lady Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, is a lady of great elegance, both of body and of mind, although her face may rather be called pleasing than beautiful. She is tall and well made her complexion fine, though rather sallow: her eyes, but

above all her hands, which she takes care not to conceal, are of superior beauty. In her knowledge of the Greek and Italian languages, she surpassed the Queen (Mary): her spirit and understanding are admirable : she is proud and dignified in her manners." So far the portrait of the Italian, which in all probability is an accurate one. She had her weakness as a woman, and who has not? but as a Queen, she was the beau ideal of excellence—and her memory lives in unfading bloom in the minds of Englishmen, to whom the principles of the Reformation are dear, and who remember the noble stand she always made against the mummery and abominations of the Roman priesthood.

CLERICAL ANECDOTES.-NO. II.

ROBERT SOUTH, D.D.-This eminent divine was a canon of Christchurch, and rector of Islip, in Oxfordshire. He was a zealous and unconpromising Churchman, with religious principles so pure, and a mind raised so far above worldly views, that he declined the offer of a bishopric, observing, that "such a chair would be too uneasy for an infirm old man to sit in." In 1681 he preached a sermon before Charles II., upon the vicissitudes of human life; and having illustrated his subject by examples cited from history, he thus proceeded, “and who that beheld such a bankrupt beggarly fellow as Cromwell, first entering the Parliamentary House with a threadbare torn cloak and greasy hat, perhaps neither of them paid for, could have supposed, that in the space of a few years he should, by the murder of one king and banishment of another, ascend the throne and be invested with royal authority?" The King was pleased with the bluntness and plainness of this language, and the freedom of the preacher in the allusions applying so directly to himself. It is superfluous, perhaps, to add, that Dr. South was, in political principles, a decided and resolute Tory. From the glimpse of his character afforded in the above anecdote, an idea may be formed of the boldness with which he would censure the clamour and revolutionary proceedings of the would-be Oliver Cromwells of the present day.

THE REV. WILLIAM WHISTON.-This celebrated divine was presented to the living of Lowestoffe, in Suffolk, in 1698, and was author of a highly imaginative work, entitled A Theory of the Earth, An Essay on the Revelations of St, John, and various other tracts. At Lowestoffe he devoted himself assiduously to the duties of his cure: whilst residing there, it is related of him, that being requested to sign the necessary document for opening a new alehouse, he said, "Had you brought me a paper for pulling an alehouse down, I would certainly have signed it, but I will never sign one for setting an alehouse up." His contempt for worldly wisdom at length reduced him to depend, in some measure, upon the kindness of his friends, among whom was Queen Caroline, consort of George II., by whom he was highly esteemed, and who made him a present of fifty pounds yearly. Her Majesty usually invited him once in the summer, whilst she was out of town, to spend a day or two with her. Pleased with his free conversation, she asked him at Richmond what people said of her? he answered that they justly esteemed her a woman of great abilities, a patroness of learned men, and a kind friend to the poor. "But (replied the Queen) no one is without faults; pray, what are mine?" Whiston begged to be excused upon that subject, but she insisting, he said, "her Majesty did not behave with proper reverence at Church :" she replied, "the King would talk with her." He said, "A greater than kings was there only to be regarded:" she owned it, and confessed her fault." Pray