what is radically bad has, through our wicked neglect, taken root, and well nigh usurped the soil, to the extirpation of many a delicate plant that was thrust out to make way for its noxious growth. Ireland is a garden, where he who only lounges for his amusement, or dwells for his convenience, will be-ought to be scratched, and stung, and tripped up, and bemauled; but where he who, with axe and pruning-hook, assails the bad root, and dresses the good tree, who gathers up, and binds together, and weeds, and plants, and waters, looking to God for the increase, may, and will behold his share of the desert transformed into a blooming Eden, the wilderness into the garden of the Lord. Furthermore, he shall find, when his work is ended, a resting-place, where the ocean of eternity shall lie before him in all the unruffled majesty of bright repose, while the winds are held fast in the hollow of God's band, and the Sun shines forth, even the Sun of righteousness, to beautify with celestial splendour the intermediate prospect of delight. "Not of works," God forbid no, but of that grace which alone, in the face of Satan and all his hosts, can gird us to the mighty work of hurling great Babylon from her usurped seat: and which does not choose and sanctify an instrument here, to cast it into the fire when the work is accomplished.

THE PROTESTANT CHURCH OF

FRANCE,

DURING THE REIGN OF LOUIS XV.
BY THE REV. JOHN G. LORIMER,
Minister of St. David's Parish, Glasgow.

PART II. FROM 1755 TO 1774.

THE history of the Protestant Church of France, which I am at present rapidly tracing, is very painful. It is the unbroken history of persecution. In earlier papers I had the satisfaction of presenting the pleasing evidence of the spiritual character and undertakings of the Church; but, however excellent her spirit and exertions may have been at the period under review, we have no record of them. The Protestants were wholly occupied with their sufferings; they were seldom allowed to assemble in Church courts. They were not permitted to publish books or documents. Hence their present history may almost be called a blank. The only traces of it are in the blood of persecution. Sickening as these traces are, we must not shrink from them. It is well to see the true character of Popery, and to remember the sufferings of the saints of God. Thus only can we value aright our own inestimable privileges. It is sad that France, which boasts of her civilization and refinement, of her literature and the arts, should have been, we may say, the latest country in Europe to abandon persecution, and that on a great scale, and in a legal form. At the middle of the eighteenth century she was still pursuing her course of cruelty and oppression; and, what is singular, her bitterest persecution may be said almost to run parallel with the most brilliant days of her literature. Does not this show, at least, that science, and polite learning, and civilization, cannot change the savage dispositions of men-their batred to the truth of God, and that it is vain to look to them as the safe-guards of liberty, whether civil or religious? How idle, then, the expectation that they

are to introduce into society a new era of brotherly love and universal happiness.

In the former paper I brought down the history of the Protestant Church to 1755. Immediately before there had been a most violent persecution, and though it was now abating, the waters were still restless and disturbed. In 1758 Oliver Goldsmith translated from the French the account of a Protestant gentleman, who had been condemned to the galleys and detained in slavery for thirteen years. He was freed by the intercession of the Court of Great Britain. The original work had very recently been printed at the Hague in two volumes. The biographer of Goldsmith declares it is full of horrors, and the fact that the poet translated so large a work is a proof of the interest which was felt on the subject in this country. Down to 1761 there was a relaxation in the violence. Though the laws of persecution were in full and unaltered force, yet the breach of them was, to a considerable extent, connived at by the civil authorities. The severity of the proceedings, especially in connection with Protestant baptisms and marriages, from 1751 to 1753, seems to have driven such multitudes from the country that the Court became alarmed, and was glad to permit something like an intermission. This, however, was short-lived. The rest was but a breathing time. In less than ten years these persecuting measures were revived with great severity. The author of a pamphlet, entitled, The Very Humble and Respectful Prayer of the Protestants of Languedoc to the King,' speaking of them, says, "It is not the cause of one, but of more than twelve thousand families in the diocese of Nismes, and more than eighty thousand in the Province of Languedoc, who implore justice from the king." These numbers indicate a Protestant population in two districts alone of nearly five hundred thousand; showing that the Protestants were still a large and respectable body. Shortly after, in the account of the Protestant marriages of France from the work of Walch, it is stated, that a suit in the Presidial Court at Nismes involved the fate of six hundred thousand married persons, and of three and a half millions of children. Thus completely did Popery in this case fail to exterminate the objects of its hatred and persecution; but how dreadful that the domestic comfort and happiness of so large a body of men should still be at the mercy of enemies, whom eighty years of cruelty could not assuage!

Protestant marriages, it will be recollected, after the Edict of the Revocation, and particularly after the declaration of Louis XV. in 1724, were rigorously forbidden, except upon terms which no consistent Protestant could agree to. In short, they were made Popish ceremonies, and means of educating the young for the Church of Rome. The penalty, however, of disregarding these persecuting decrees was very serious. The conjugal relationship was pronounced concubinage. The children were illegitimatized, and declared incapable of inheriting the property of their parents. Still did the poor Protestants continue to marry according to their own forms. From now having no churches in which to solemnize them, and from their being therefore conducted in the open fields, they were called marriages of the desert. Through few instruments of oppression did their enemies more grievously

Before thy God's pure vision now

Yet pure thine infant soul appears; For thus we read, even such as thou Possess the high and holy spheres.

A child of sin, from stain yet free,

A flower of earth, thy home above, How strange the mystery meets in thee Of human guilt and heavenly love! Ah! beauteous bud of earliest spring, No loftier aim can fill the heart, With all the wisdom ages bring,

Than just to be what now thou art!

But say, when years have o'er thee sped,
And brought thee to thy manhood's prime,
And I, perchance, am with the dead,

What then wilt thou have reaped from time?

A thousand hopes, a thousand fears,
My boy, thy mother's bosom fire;
Yet, rainbow like, my smiles and tears
All mingle in one deep desire.

Not length of days, nor fame, nor power,
My spirit burns to make thine own;
Not riches dazzling as a shower,

The pride, the splendours of a throne.

Not even mind's more exalted might,
To teach, to startle, or to please;
For thee hope dares a nobler flight,
My boy, than after toys like these.

Oh! would that He who once on earth
The children in his arms upraised,
And bless'd them for their guileless worth.
While on each cherub face he gazed;
Even Christ himself for aye might keep
His everlasting arm round thee!
Thine earthly eyes might smile or weep,
When joy were thine eternally!
The Lord thy shepherd be for ever!

His Word thy lamp on life's dark road,
His faith the shield that fails thee never,
Thy strength, thy portion, all in God!
No fonder prayer, no prouder aim,

Beloved child! this heart can move; Thine be the Christian's hallowed name, And thine the Saviour's deathless love! JANE C. SIMPSON.

PROPOSED PLAN FOR THE REFORMATION OF THE GIPSIES IN SCOTLAND. BY THE REV. JOHN BAIRD, Minister of Kirk Yetholm, Roxburghshire. Extracted from the "Scottish Gipsy's Advocate." "UNQUESTIONABLY, the first thing to be attempted is, to induce them to settle at home. It is, no doubt, possible for them to wander, and, at the same time, to be honest, peaceable, and industrious; but the truth is, that in very few instances is such the ease. So long as they continue their present wandering life, their character and habits will remain unaltered: they will continue a distinct and peculiar race. The first and great thing, then, to be kept in view, in any attempt to be made for their improvement, is to put an end to their present wandering life, the source of all their evils, and get them to remain at home; and if this cannot be accomplished with the adult population, who have never been accustomed to any other kind of life, and most of whom are obviously

much attached to it, it should be next attempted to get them to part with their children during their wanderings, that they may be kept at home and instructed, and never allowed to travel with their parents, that thus they may become, from habit and constitution, both unwilling and unable to follow the wandering life of their fathers,-to find situations as servants for the girls, and to put the boys to trades, or some other regular employment. There are two things, then, to be kept in view, in the plan proposed to be adopted; 1st, With the parents; and 2d, With the children.

"1. Those parents who are willing, or can be induced, to remain at home, and betake themselves to some regular employment, ought to receive every encouragement to do so. Individuals resident upon the spot, or in the neighbourhood, friendly to the object of gipsy improvement, should regard this as a duty peculiarly incumbent upon them. They should, when able, give, or endeavour to procure for them, regular employment, assist them by their advice, perhaps visit, encourage, and take some notice of those who show a disposition to remain at home, and conduct themselves with propriety. But, in addition to this, it might be attended with good effects, to make it a part of the plan or scheme to be adopted, occasionally to make a present of Bibles, books, tracts, perhaps of tools, clothing, or some articles of furniture, to those who, upon trial, had shown themselves willing to maintain themselves by their own industry; who have remained for any considerable period at home at regular labour, without resorting to their former idle, wandering habits. It is probable that but few will, at first, be found, who can be induced thus to settle at home; but there is little doubt that there are some: and if these be distinguished by the notice and approbation of those whom they have reason to regard as their friends, by presents, or in some other beneficial way, it is more than probable that others, by and by, will be induced to follow their example. The children of these individuals ought also for some time to receive gratuitous instruction. It appears undeniable that, if those parents who are merely willing to leave their children at home to be instructed, are to receive encouragement and reward, by having the expenses of the board and education of their chil dren in their absence partly or wholly defrayed, much more ought those to receive encouragement, who are not only willing to leave their children, but to keep both themselves and their children at home: by which means the expense of boarding the children in the ab. sence of the parents will be saved. To assist and encourage only the former to the neglect of the others, is something like setting a premium upon wandering; making the worst of the class the sole partakers of the benefits of the scheme, to the neglect of the better disposed.

"That this part of the plan ought not to be neglected, may appear farther from this. (1.) Because, by such encouragement, some may be induced to remain at home, who otherwise would never think of it; and (2,) though it may appear that individuals who have betaken themselves to regular work, and are in receipt of their nine or ten shillings per week, the usual rate of labourers' wages, are in a condition to need assistance no more than other labourers with a similar income, yet let it be recollected that the present cireumstances of the gipsy, when he makes up his mind to settle at home, and of the ordinary day-labourer, are widely different. The latter, even at his first commencement of house-keeping, had his house fully and comfortably furnished, from former savings; he had a good stock of clothes, and if so disposed, he might have been able, before his family expenses increased, to save a little money. He is now, therefore, but for his own fault, or in consequence of distress, in compara tively comfortable circumstances. But the situation

of the gipsy, at the time when he makes up his mind to settle to regular employment at home, is very different. He has probably a wife and half a dozen children, and not a farthing of money in the world. He has a house with hardly an article of furniture in it. The clothes of himself, wife, and children, are absolute rags. He cannot expect immediately to receive the full rate of a day-labourer's wages, and before he can begin to work at all, he has his tools to purchase. Suppose that he is so fortunate as to receive his nine or ten shillings per week; after supporting, out of this, his family, paying house rent and fuel, how much is it likely that he can spare for the purchase of tools, furniture, and clothing, to place himself in something like the circumstances of the day-labourer? And unless he sees some prospect of ere long attaining to the situation and comforts of the class with which he has now connected himself, there is no little fear that, discouraged and disappointed, he will betake himself to his former idle wanderings. Indeed, when, fatigued with his unwonted labours, he looks around him on his miserable dwelling, comparing it with those of others, is it not probable that recollections of his past life will sometimes rise up before his mind, and that he will once more long for the green fields, and the license and idleness of former days? Now, the only assistance which it is at all proposed to grant to such individuals is, in the purchase of tools, perhaps of some necessary article of furniture, of blankets or clothing; and this chiefly by way of encouragement and approbation of their present good intentions. It is easy to say, Let them suffer for their past misconduct and idleness. But, besides that much might be said in palliation of the poor gipsy's past misconduct, the object of our present plan is, not to punish for former bad behaviour, out to encourage them to better conduct for the future; not to visit upon them their past sins, but to show then a better way, and to hold forth to them the rewards that wait upon a life of industry, honesty, and virtue; and every plan that could be proposed and adopted in these days, for the improvement of the gipsy, is equally liable to the objection, that it is a system of encouragement and reward to the worthless and the vicious, to the neglect of the better behaved members of the community. We think then, that, for the first two or three years after a gipsy parent has renounced his wandering life, a little assistance, or an occasional present, by way of encouragement, would be useful, and sufficiently important to be attended to as one of the objects of the scheme: and let it be recollected that a very moderate annual expense is all that would probably be required for this purpose; and the more families that could be induced thus to remain at home, the other expenses would be most materially diminished, and a far greater amount of good would be done.

"2. But still, no doubt, the great thing to be attempted, and which promises better results, is that part of the plan which respects the children. It is proposed with the parents' entire consent and concurrence, of course-to keep the children at home through the whole year, not to separate them from their parents when the latter are at home, but when they take their departure, to have the children left behind, to board them in the village, and to educate them. It is expected that, in consequence, having never been accustomed to the wandering life of their parents, they will have no desire to adopt it; that new tastes and habits will be formed in them, especially from a constant intercourse at school with the other boys and girls of the village, whose views of men and manners, of trades and occupations, they will be led insensibly to adopt.

"The parents leave home by the first fine weather of spring, and, with the exception of occasional days, sometimes of a week or more, when they return to

attend to their potato gardens, or some similar concern, continue their wanderings till winter weather commences. Even during the winter months, if the weather be mild and open, they will take an excursion-and this frequently-of several days, or even a week or two in continuance. On the 20th of December last, there were no less than ten families from home. At this season they do not in general calculate upon travelling far, or remaining long from head-quarters, and the younger members of the family seldom accompany them. Some of their neighbours who are at home, or a grown up member of the family, is left in the meantime with the care of the children.

"From this it appears, if the children are to be kept at home and boarded in the absence of their parents, we cannot calculate upon less than forty weeks in the year, during which the children would be separated from their parents; from forty to forty-five, say fortytwo weeks. The expense to the subscribers of boarding the children, would vary in different cases, according as the parents were able and willing, or otherwise, to assist. The expense of board per week of each child would be probably from two shillings to two shillings and sixpence. Of this the parents would give, in many cases, at least one-half; in others more; in some less; and in others nothing at all. The average expense of the board of each child weekly to the fund, ought not to be calculated at less than one shilling and sixpence. It might be, however, considerably less. Much would also depend upon how they were boarded. In some cases, this might be done in their own houses, with an older member of the family left in charge of the younger ones. In these cases, the expense would be less than when boarded in other families. However they were left, it would be proper and necessary that some person or persons should consider themselves as especially called upon to watch over the conduct, and superintend the moral and religious training of these children as far as possible, and to visit them frequently for this purpose. And for this we would naturally look to the teacher or teachers of the schools they attended, and the minister of the parish; and none of them want either zeal or inclination to undertake the task. In addition to these, it were desirable that an elderly and respectable female could be found, to look after the clothing and comforts of those children who were left in their own houses; and to see that all was right with them; and to such person a small remuneration might occasionally be given.

"The school wages of each child would amount to about ten shillings per annum, which, in almost every case, the subscribers would be expected to pay. So that the annual expense of the board and education of each child, one with another, could not be calculated at less than three pounds ten shillings. At the age of from twelve to sixteen, endeavour should be made to procure for the girls good situations as house-servants, and to have the boys engaged to trades, or hired out as servants. And it would be desirable, perhaps, if there were funds for this purpose, to assist in providing the girls, of the poorer families at least, with some suitable clothing when going from home, and in paying some apprentice-fee with the boys. Some difficulties may be experienced here; for the Gipsy, even the most youthful of them, is still regarded with suspicion; and few families may be disposed to receive them into their houses as servants. But some in the neighbourhood, and friends of the race, even at a distance, may be found willing to give them a trial, and who may even make application to receive into their families one of the outcast despised Gipsy race, who, if treated with kindness, would, there is reason to believe, become an attached and faithful domestic.

"The amount of funds annually raised would determine the number of children to be kept at home. If

"By thus keeping the children constantly at home, instructing, watching over them, and seeking to implant in their youthful minds principles and habits of religion and virtue, industry, and order, from the age of six years, or as soon as their parents will part with them, till they are twelve or thirteen years of age, when it might be proper to get them hired and apprenticed, it is to be hoped that they will have no desire to adopt the hardships of a wandering life, as well as be constitutionally unable to endure them. It is by early babit they acquire a love for it; and we have said that most of the adult population are much attached to it; because, as they say, they have never been accustomed to any other kind of life. And even the children above seven years of age seem anxious for the return of spring, to take their tight for the hedge-side, where, released from the restraints of school, they may spend the live-long day in rolling on the grass, or in the more active pursuits of bird-nesting, dog-fighting, cudgelling their patient asses, or getting initiated into the more profitable occupation of pilfering and stealing. It is in early youth, then, they acquire a relish for their idle, wandering, and mischievous life; and that they may acquire other habits, a love of home and a life of industry, they must be kept at home after they have reached an age at which it may be proper to separate them from their parents, and when they can attend school to any advantage. The number of Gipsy children in Kirk Yetholm, from six to twelve years of age, who may be kept at home, and sent to school with advantage, and who would require assistance from the society, may be at present about twenty; but there appears a much greater number of children from six years old and under; so that this number will for some time be yearly increasing. The expense of boarding and educating these twenty children, at the rate of three pounds ten shillings to each child, will be seventy pounds. The other expenses of giving assistance, by way of encouragement and approbation, o parents of families willing to settle to regular employment at home, need not be estimated, during the first year, at more than from ten to fifteen pounds; for before much assistance is granted in this way, some good proof of the sincerity of such persons, in their desire to quit their wandering life, should be demanded. Some other incidental expenses, such, for instance, as ssisting to clothe some of the more naked and destitute hildren, so that they might attend the Church and the Sunday School, the purchase occasionally of books, and Home other things, not easily specified at present, might mount, it may be, to fifteen pounds more, making in all One hundred pounds. Until the plan shall have been some time in operation, it will not be possible to ascerain exactly all the expenses. And it would be desirable that the subscriptions to, or income of the society, should be something more than what we could say at present would be actually required. Supposing that even one hundred and twenty pounds a-year should be Found necessary, surely, if the object to be attained ppears an important and desirable one, little difficulty will be experienced in raising so small a sum.'

After such a statement as this it is surely unnecessary to add a word in behalf of a scheme so truly Chrisian. Means, we feel assured, will not be wanting; nd if the Christian community respond to the call with he readiness which we fondly anticipate, many an ignoant, and lawless, and unprincipled wanderer will not

PRAYER FOR THE DEAD IN SIN:

A DISCOURSE.

BY THE REV. JAMES HENDERSON, D.D., Minister of St. Enoch's Parish, Glasgow. "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live."-EZEK. Xxxvii. 9.

THERE is something singularly impressive and sublime in the passage of Scripture from which our text is taken. It is usually known by the name of Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones, and is explained, in the subsequent verses of the chapter, as an allegorical representation of the house of Israel while captive in the land of Babylon.

66

In the first aspect in which they are beheld by the prophet, this people are in a state of utter desolation. Not only are their national institutions overthrown, but their body politic is entirely dismembered; not only are they as dead,-deprived of their independence and their freedom, yet retaining the form of a political body-but they are utterly dissolved, having lost the very form of a national existence, and being scattered over the territories of the Assyrian and Persian empire, like the bones of a foreign army over the field of battle. While contemplating this scene of hopeless desolation, the prophet is thus interrogated by the Lord, "Son of man, can these bones live?" Can these disjointed, scattered members be again formed into a living body? Can the house of Israel, reduced to this state of ruin, ever be brought together, and re-established as a free, and independent, and flourishing nation? “O Lord God," replied the prophet, "thou knowest." I am, indeed, unable to conceive how a resurrection so difficult and so unlikely should be accomplished; but I will not, therefore, presume to limit the Holy One of Israel, and pronounce it to be im possible for him. Thou, Lord, knowest whether it is possible they can, and whether it is determined they shall live. Again, therefore, the Lord said to him, "Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: and I will lay sinews upon you, and I will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord." Here the prophet is instructed to teach the captive and dispersed Israelites that, by the power of the Almighty, they should one day be restored to their own land, that they should recover their political existence, and be reinstated in their former privileges as a free and independent people. And while he prophesied as he was commanded, we are told "there was a noise, and