of other witnesses, as unimpeachable as honest. Kirkton. They tell us what fell under their own observation; and those must have been no mean attainments, either in piety or morality, which came up to the standard of Presbyterian ministers in these times. No doubt, many hypocrites may have been concealed under the mask of rigorous devotion; but, whatever might be the case in England during the same period, it is certain that hypocrisy was not then the reigning vice in Scotland. We grant that crimes and outbreakings of a very flagrant nature, some of them almost unknown in our day, were occasionally taking place, Good night-go say the prayer she taught, Beside your little bed; The lips that used to bless you there Are silent with the dead. A father's hand your course may guide His care protect these shrinking plants Shall like that mother write? SIGOURNEY. which some, not considering the rude state of society A LETTER TO HIS PARISHIONERS. BY THE REV. ANDREW A. BONAR, Assistant Minister of the Parish of Collace, Perthshire. at the time, would set down as a proof of its general demoralization. It would appear too, that, immediately before the Restoration, a sad declension MOUNT CARMEL, June 29, 1839. became apparent, which was the more marked MY DEAR PEOPLE, BELOVED AND LONGED for,— from its contrast with the previous prosperity. But there can be no question that the piety of The last time I wrote you we were at Alexandria in that period was both more intense and more widely Egypt. Since then we have been in many various and diffused than it has ever since been in Scotland. new scenes, but the Lord has carried us safely through It is not by looking into the records of church all. During the last two months we have been dwelling courts, which indeed almost supplied the place of in tents, and travelling on asses and camels from place to place. Acknowledgments courts of police, nor into the of Sins,' published about that period, that we can form a proper estimate of the moral state of the country. Such documents only serve to show that, in these days, the discipline of the church was administered with a fidelity which is now too little known, and that our fathers were affected with the existence of public evils, which are no longer so candidly acknowledged, only because they are not laid so deeply to heart. You're weary-precious ones-your eyes 'Tis time to sing your evening hymn, Begin, sweet birds, the accustomed strain, The heat in this part of the world is very great at mid-day, so we set out on our journey early in the Morning-sometimes before sunrise-and rest several hours when the day gets hot, under the shade of a tree-either olive, or palm, or fig. In the Afternoon we travel on again some hours, and then pitch our We never travel on tents and sleep for the night. Sabbath; but on that day we rest; and though we have no public ordinances, yet we find it a happy season, while we read and meditate, and pray;—it is a time when we especially remember the Church at home, and our Parishes, and ask the outpouring of the Spirit to accompany the preaching of the Word throughout the day. You will remember that living in tents was the manner in which the Patriarchs lived. I have often thought of Abraham pitching his tent under the oak of Mamre, and of Deborah under the palm-tree, and of many others -and I feel that God is explaining to me many things mentioned in Scripture, that I may explain them to you when I return. I trust that through your prayers He may so fill my soul, that when I see you again you may rejoice the more. I do not feel that distance, and new scenes, have made me forget you; on the contrary, the countries where we are shown to our very eyes the fulfilment of what God spoke, and the places where we have lately been, are places wherein most of the mighty works of Jesus were done; and when we are thus feeling the truth and reality of the things set before us in the Scriptures by the Holy Ghost, then we desire more than ever to come and bear witness of them to sinners. There are few people who believe that God is sincere, and really intends to do every thing He says. Thoughtless, unconverted men, will not be persuaded that He will do all he threatens, and will take their soul out of their body, and plunge it into hell. many indolent and self-sufficient Christians will not believe that they might receive a hundred fold more joy and holiness than they have yet attained to, if they would only make better use of a full Saviour. Now I And wish I could take such, and lead them to the village Emmaus, which lies on the side of a hill we saw near Jerusalem-for it was on the road to that village that Christ reproved two of his disciples, saying, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken." In our journey through the Desert that lies between Egypt and the Holy Land, we were often fatigued and exhausted by the heat and the burning sand; yet the Lord preserved us, and brought us to the end. Part of that Desert is the Wilderness of Shur, where Hagar, Sarah's maid-servant, had a vision from God, and was sent back to her mistress by God himself-teaching us that in the lowest station of life we may be near to God. Let servants among you remember this, and read over all about Hagar in Genesis xvi. and xxi.; you will thus see that God requires you to submit yourselves to your masters, and at the sametime He himself takes as much concern in your souls as in the souls of your masters. The people who drive our camels and asses are descendants of Hagar's son, Ishmael. They are ignorant and unhappy. But there is a prophecy, that when the Jews are converted, and settled again in the Holy Land, these sons of Ishmael also shall be saved. Isaiah foretells it in chap. lx. 6, 7; and this should be another reason why you ought to pray much for the conversion of the Jews, there will be so many other nations converted after they have been brought in. people are mostly Jews or Mahometans. The Jews have here six synagogues, all of which we visited in turn; but the people are very poor and unhappy. If you saw them and their children growing up in ignor ance, and the women not taught even to read; and if you saw how little they care about their salvation, you would pity them, and long to send a Missionary among them. No real Christian can live in Jerusalem without being deeply affected by all he sees. He walks in the very streets over which Christ passed so often; he may climb Mount Zion, where the Tabernacle stood; he may go and look on Calvary, and remember that "the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin; " he may go out a little way from the town and see the Garden of Gethsemane, which is still marked by seven old olive trees; he may stand on the spot where Jesus wept over Jerusalem; and he may ascend the Mount of Olives, from which Jesus went up to Heaven, and where he foretold his second coming, and the end of the world, and bade "watch." us We were twice at Bethany, where Christ so often went in the evening, and where he comforted Martha and Mary when Lazarus died. Are any of you afflicted? Have any lost friends since I was among you? Go to night to "that same Jesus," and he will wipe away all tears from your eyes. Many of my young people will remember the Dead Sea, and how Jesus never visited it, because it is a type of hell, and no soul ever is redeemed if once in hell. Now, we see the Dead Sea from the Mount of Olives; and are thus, on the one hand, reminded of the way of salvation, when we look at the places where Jesus did his works of grace; and. on the other hand, are reminded of the utter hopelessness of deliverance if we turn away from him. One glad tidings to the Shepherds, that there was a Saviour born for them. I am afraid that there are some among you so inattentive to your sinful state and wicked heart, that you never yet were really glad at the thought of a Saviour; if so, you are "dead in sin," and are like the devils, who are troubled when they hear of Christ, and wish he were away. It was on June 1st that we entered the land of Israel. We crossed the channel of "the River of Egypt," and found ourselves in the Plains that used to belong to the tribe of Simeon. It is a region for flocks and herds. We then went northward to Gaza; and in the olive groves and gardens near that city first heard the turtle dove, and the voice of other birds uniting with it,-for-day we visited Bethlehem, where the Angel told the ming the very scene spoken of in the Song of Solomon, chap. ii. 12, "The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land,”—in which words God tells the joy that Christ's coming will give to his people. From Gaza we travelled to Jerusalem, through the valley of Eshcol and the plain of Zephathah, famous for king Asa's victory. And here I wish to put you in mind how remarkable it was that God should cause our way to lie through Gaza, so that we came to Jerusalem by the very road which the Ethiopian Eunuch traversed, when "he went on his way rejoicing;"—for you remember that was the last text I preached upon to you: the place, therefore, brought you all to my mind, and made me pray that you might in truth have that same joy in you for ever. One night on this road we heard the howling of a wolf; and, another morning, a wolf sprang across our path; which brought to my mind our Lord's parable, wherein he represents his people as safe in his fold from all such enemies. If any one, young or old. in all the parish of Collace, is not in Christ's fold, then that poor weak soul may become the prey of the wolf of the Devil-this very night. We were two Sabbaths in Jerusalem, and worshipped with the few Christians that are there, and I had also the privilege of preaching to them on Sabbath evening in an Upper Chamber on Mount Zion, where they met. There are indeed but few Christians here; for the Roman Catholics, who have a large Church here, are not Christians, except in name; and the rest of the We have visited the Jews in almost every town of this country; they are all poor and none of them seem happy. The reason is, they have not the joy that Christ gives his blood is upon them-they try to save themselves. Oh remember it is written, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus, let him be Anathema Maranatha." After leaving Jerusalem, the most interesting place we went to was Sychar, where Christ conversed with the woman on Jacob's Well. When looking at it, and sitting by it, I remembered that John iv., wherein the story is given, was the last chapter I read with my Sabbath Morning Class, and I asked for them all "that living water, which springs up to everlasting life." Ask the same for me in this dry and thirsty land. A few days after, we arrived at Mount Carmel, and I did not forget my promise to pray for you there. We pitched our tent on the sea-shore, close under the hill, which is by the sea, as Jeremiah xlvi. 18 mentions. It is not high, but once it was covered with vines and every fruitful tree to its very top, until the curse came on account of the sin of the land-" the top of Carmel shall wither."-Amos i. 2. The brow that overhangs the sea, is the spot where Elijah prayed so persever ployed to silence all inquiry into its origin, and to crush all opposition to its verdict. Within her vast inclosures the voice of reason remained for centuries unheard; or, if occasionally it was raised in indignant rebuke of her enormities, it was soon drowned amid the angry crack came at last to be tainted with rebellion, she set up that terrible apparatus of persecution, whose nature, in a former Paper, we endeavoured to explain. ingly till the cloud appeared. Reminded by his example, | and as next day was the Sabbath, I spent a season, just under that hill, in supplications for you-for the Parish in general, and for those that now minister to you;-in particular my Sabbath Morning Class came into my mind,—then the assembled congregation-andling of her vengeful fires. And when whole provinces after it the Sabbath School, where God's spirit specially strives with you, my dear children, who are beginning your days and, lastly, came the thought of you all on Sabbath Evenings, gathered in your families to talk over the word preached, and to help each other to apply it, as well as to teach it to your children, and unite in prayer. It would be glad tidings, indeed, to hear that the Holy Spirit is poured out on you, and that you are striving together for a full blessing, both in your closets and in prayer-meetings. We here see the palm-tree flourishing in strength and beauty. May each believer among you inherit the promise of Psalm xcii. 12, "The righteous shall flourish like the palm:" even in this life may you have the victory over sin in the strength of Christ, which is signified in Revelation vii. 9, by the glorious multitude who, because they had put on the white robes of the Redeemer's righteousness, were waving palms in their hands. I hope that it is but a little season ere we shall see each other face to face, and recount the doings of the Lord. But, meanwhile, remember once more that God is dealing peculiarly with your Parish, even in this very fact, that He is sending you the voice of entreaty and of exhortation from the mountains of Israel. Oh, my dear people, how often would Christ have gathered you! Are you willing to come to him that you may have life—are you ALL willing-and do you close with him for ever? He will soon appear in the clouds of Heaven, and will name each of you. He will declare that ALL had a free salvation offered them, and if he needed a witness, he may summon even me to testify that it was so. Commending you now to the Spirit of Truth and Grace, I am, my dear People, Yours in the Lord. Wherever it was erected, the Inquisition was found most effective. It might not be able to convince, but it converted many; and those whom it could not convert, it silenced. Opinion cannot be forced, but its semblance may; and, however much men might detest the power which thus controlled their belief, they were soon induced to pay to it the external homage it demanded. With this the inquisitors, for a time, were satisfied. They had cut down the noxious tree whose pestiferous breath bad polluted the atmosphere of the Church, and they imagined they could excavate its roots at their leisure. Fatal mistake! Soon there sprung an hundred twigs from that prolific stem. In vain did they use the axe and the fire in their attempts to destroy them. The greater the havoc made, they seemed to grow the more rapidly, until it became evident that the stock itself, with all its ramifications, must be torn from the earth. But how accomplish this? The old apparatus, formerly so effective, must be again employed, with such additions and alterations as its new functions might require. The Inquisition was accordingly remodelled and improved, and recommenced operations on the 2d of January 1481, in the Dominican Convent of St Paul's at Seville; and most nobly did it execute the intentions of its projectors. In the first year of its operations, it committed two thousand persons alive to the flamesburnt as many in effigy-and condemned seventeen thousand to different penances. By a computation, supposed to be much below the truth, made by the Roman Catholic writer Llorente, who was for some years Secretary to the Spanish Inquisition, it appears that, between the years 1481 and 1517, there were burnt alive thirteen thousand human beings-eight thousand seven hundred burnt in effigy-and one hundred and sixty-nine thousand four hundred and twentythree were condemned to suffer various penances. Amounting in all, to one hundred and ninety-one thousand four hundred and twenty-three persons, sentenced by the several Inquisitorial Tribunals of Spain alone, in the short period of thirty-six years. And, down to the commencement of the seventeenth century, absolution was granted to scarcely one out of a thousand victims; the inquisitors having determined that, if possible, none should escape their censure, who was in the least degree suspected of opposition to their authority. THE INFLUENCE OF THE INQUISITION. Ir is a subject of no little triumph to a Romanist that, in contradistinction to the divisions which obtain among Protestants, his Church is one and undivided. No commotions appear to disturb her tranquillity. No contentious sectaries destroy her repose. Enemies she may have, but they are without her sacred inclosure; within all is harmony and peace. And when we consider that Truth is "one," that Faith is "one," and that the true Church of Christ is also "one," "even as his body is one," this unity of Romanism may seem rather alarming; more especially if it shall appear that this unity of her disciples is real, and preserved by "the bond of love." A very little acquaintance with her past history, Nor was it an easy matter to live within the jurishowever, will afford abundant evidence that such is not diction of the Holy Office without being, in some dethe tie which has maintained the unity of Romanism. gree, exposed to its suspicion. In some provinces, Even the writings of her own historians warrant us in hardly a family escaped the taint of its censure. Its asserting, that hers is a unity of fear, not of faith-a vigilance seemed almost omniscient. No concealment, reign of terror, not of truth. It took not its rise from however secret, could elude its penetration; no darka universal belief in her doctrines, nor has it been pre- ness, however profound, could hide from its knowledge. served by an enlightened and voluntary consent to her The whispers of the closet echoed through its halls; dogmas. Her power, gained gradually and by a long and the very thoughts of the heart seemed to lie open series of deceptions, has ever been unscrupulously em- to its inspection. Its power, too, was irresistible the peasant and the peer alike felt their impotency, when opposing it. Even cardinals and kings did hom. age to its throne. Its eye never slumbered; its arm never wearied. In all places, and at all times, you were liable to its seizure. In the beggar's hut and in the emperor's palace its chilling presence was felt. Its spies were every where; and the moment of your fancied safety might be that of your greatest danger. By the inquisitorial method of taking evidence, your own son might be your innocent accuser; nay, the very wife of your bosom might inadvertently afford the proof which was to condemn you. Silencing the dictates of reason, and stifling the purest sentiments of humanity, it listened even to the accusations of the infamous. Trampling alike on the rights of justice and the tenderest ties of domestic life, it sought to establish its supremacy upon the ruins of every noble principle which the fall" had left us. To exasperate and embitter the mind-to fill the heart with duplicity -to carry dread and terror throughout the land-to spread turbulence among nations, and misery among families have been the bitter effects of this baneful Inquisition. The mind is lost in painful reflection when contemplating this tremendous engine of terror; and a sigh is forced from the breast, even of the most thoughtless student of history, when he reflects that it was erected to preserve the religion of Jesus. It is impossible to conceive a greater outrage than this on that divine system of worship transmitted to us by a beneficent Creator. If astonishment is excited by the immensity of the apparatus which the Inquisition possessed for the discovery of heresy, it will be no less so at the appalling rapidity with which its vengeance overtook the heretic. Notwithstanding the vastness of the machinery, its parts were so well adapted to each other, that its operations were almost unheard. Don Manuel Abad y Lasierra, Archbishop of Selimloria, who long enjoyed every opportunity to acquaint himself with the structure of the Inquisition, when speaking of the ease with which any one could be entrapped in the snares of this tribunal, and of the secresy and speed of its vengeance, declared, that he had never dreaded its power until he was made Inquisitor-General. And well might he say so! for never, even under Fouché, was police so skilfully organised! Friend after friend was lost suddenly from your side, and you hardly dared whisper to your own heart the cause of his disappearance. To look as if you knew where he had gone was dangerous-to condemn the reason of his seizure was death. The Inquisition tolerated no censure on its proceedings, nor suffered any one, with impunity, to question its decrees. Victim after victim was drawn within its power, and folded in its suffocating embrace: but all was done with such promptitude and silence, that they seemed to be smitten rather by the lightning of heaven, than punished by the agency of men. At times, indeed, there were nade, publicly enough, most appalling manifestations of its zeal to preserve entire the "unity of the faith." The autos da fe of Valladolid and Seville will not soon be forgotten. They are written with blood on the pages of Spanish history, and all the waters of the Tagus will not expunge them. It still remains true, Lowever, that it was in the Inquisitorial prisons where the vengeance of the Holy Office was chiefly felt. Could their cheerless and gloomy walls speak out, they would tell us many a tale of suffering and death, of which history is silent-many a dismal scene of mental and bodily torture, too appalling to be recorded even by the pen of an inquisitor. It is hardly possible to conceive any thing more dreadful than the state of an individual confined in the dungeons of the Holy Office. Kept in total ignorance of both his accuser and his crime,-knowing nothing of the process against him,deprived of every friend,—denied any consultation, even with the person who is to conduct his defence,-allowed the use of no books, to cheer his solitude,—plunged in total darkness for fifteen hours a-day,-permitted no fire, even in the depth of winter, and haunted by the melancholy conviction that, though he might escape the condemnation of his judges, he would yet re-enter the world he had left with a blasted reputation, and a name loaded with an infamy which should descend to his children's children. Superadd to all this, the oft repeated bodily torture to which the prisoners in general were subjected, and you have a consummation of human suffering too appalling to be contemplated. Of the dreadful nature of this infernal operation we need say nothing. We are unwilling to harrass the feelings of our readers, or we might describe such scenes as would make their blood run cold, and their every nerve to tingle with horror. We might speak of the rack, which moved every bone from its socket, and caused the blood to start from every vein in the body, -or of the torture of fire, which convulsed the whole frame with the intensest agony,-or of the yet more dreadful torture by the pendulum, whose sharp edge, swinging backwards and forwards before the eyes of the prostrate prisoner, and approaching nearer at every vibration, until it entered his shivering frame, warned him of the dreadful death to which longer silence would expose him. But, why dwell upon such sickening scenes? Let us close this article with the testimony of Llorente, the historian and ex-secretary of the Holy Office: "I do not stop," says he, "to describe the several kinds of torture inflicted upon the accused by order of the Inquisition; this task having been executed with sufficient exactness by a great many historians. On this head, I declare that none of them can be accused of exaggeration. I have read many processes which have struck and pierced me with horror, and I could regard the inquisitors who had recourse to such methods in no other light than that of cold-blooded barbarians.” "My pen refuses to trace the picture of these horrors, for I know nothing more opposed to the spirit of charity and compassion which Jesus Christ inculcates in the Gospel, than this conduct of the inquisitors; and yet, in spite of the scandal which it has given, there is not, after the eighteenth century is closed, any law or decree abolishing the torture." Let the Romanist study these, and such like doings of his Church, and then let him longer boast of her unity-if he can! THE BELIEVER SLEEPING IN CHRIST. HE sweetly sleeps! the man of God, Sweetly he rests! the soldier now From battle, wounds, and strife; Sweetly he sleeps! the pilgrim worn, Leaving his weary road, In peace he waits a glorious morn, Sleep on, ye saints, and sweetly rest Soon shall ye wake, for ever blest, DRUMMOND. THE NECESSITY OF HOLINESS TO PEACE ON EARTH A DISCOURSE. BY THE REV. NATHANIEL PATERSON, D.D., (Continued from page 731.) "Follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord."-HEB. xii. 14. "Out plainly written in the conscience of man. The providence of God, in like manner, bears witness to the truth of our text; so that, having the Word before us, and a testimony within, we may yet farther see, by the work of God's hand, that he so rules the world as to confirm the declaration that, "without holiness, no man shall see the Lord." "Great peace have they that love God's law,""-a law that is the rule of holiness; and though this be written in the Word, yet is it recorded as characteristic of a ruling providence ; for an appeal is thus made to the experience of men according to the results they find in the provisions of an actual economy. Again, it is experimentally known under that providence, whose conduct in time is part of an eternal plan, that "godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come;" the demonstrated prosperity thus serving as an invitation to unholy wanderers, and as a motive to perseverance in the path of Zion. And, besides, what is thus manifested in the ordinary course, there are in providence frequent judgments of correction as well as judgments of wrath; by all which divine training the world is taught the necessity of holiness as a preparation for heaven. Judgments are prepared for scorners, and stripes for the back of fools.' Again: "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth; and that not for his pleasure but our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness." But the judgment of wrath descends as a sign of that which shall be in eternity, and takes away the impenitent when the patience of God will endure no longer. Thus it was when "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth," and said, "The end of all flesh is come before me; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth:" so when he rained fire on Sodom and the cities of the plain: so was it with Jerusalem, "when she had wearied herself with lies, and her great scum went not forth out of her;" when That which is so peremptory in the text, is many tokens of love and judgments of correction WE now proceed to the consideration of the | " |