itself almost a work, consisting of upwards of 200 closely printed pages. In these, after noticing that "as St. Paul had been slanderously reported to be a preacher of antinomian doctrines," it was "no wonder that Luther, who was sent to re-proclaim St. Paul's doctrine, should be assailed by similar reproaches," our author commences an immediate assault on Hallam, who has brought this accusation against Luther. He examines Hallam's words, and proves distinctly that they are Bossuet's words,-borrowed from the Romish bishop's " Variations of Protestantism." He leaves no doubt that Hallam has never read Luther's works. He hesitates not to reproach him severely for assuming the chair of the historian or the censor, and passing judgment on the testimony of a declared enemy of Luther, without hearing Luther himself. Mr. Hallam is, by his own confession, an inordinate admirer of Bossuet. The Archdeacon tells him that were he personally acquainted with Luther, he would, if he regarded "the highest qualities of eloquence," far prefer the German to the Frenchman. To me," he says, "Luther appears incomparably superior to Bossuet; almost as superior as Shakespeare to Racine, or as Ulswater to the Serpentine. In fact, when turning from one to the other, I have felt at times as if I were passing out of a gorgeous, crowded drawing-room, with its artificial lights and dizzying sounds, to run up a hill at sunrise." Having identified Mr. Hallam, as an accuser, with Bossuet, he proceeds at once to a particular investigation of the charges brought by the latter in his "Variations." There has been no such investigation properly and thoroughly made before. The result is, a complete vindication of the accused-a triumphant acquittal-a verdict which heaps shame on his enemy. We cannot go into the particulars. Suffice it, that they stand before the public in the Archdeacon's Note. Of course, he grants that Luther had his faults-who is not ready to grant this? But advantage is not to be taken of this admission, to bring false charges against him-especially that which touches the Pauline doctrine of Justification by Faith, revived by the Reformer, the charge of antinomianism. This same charge, in a more offensive manner than was done by Hallam, has been brought forward by Mr. Ward, in his "Ideal of a Christian Church." That petulant person had attacked "the Lutheran doctrine of Justification by Faith" in repeated articles in the British Critic, showing an utter ignorance of what that doctrine is-such an ignorance as Mr. Gresley seems to display in his late pamphlets. The Bishop of Ossory, Dr. O'Brien, did him the honour to notice his splenetic effusions; though he could not forbear characterising their language as "rabid." To the Bishop's remarks in his

Charge" Mr. Ward attempted an answer in the "Ideal;" upon which the Archdeacon animadverts, especially on a Note accompanying it. Mr. Ward had been reproached with accusing Luther without having read his works, even so much as his Commentary on the Galatians. To this he replied in the " Ideal," that he had "looked at " the Commentary-at "great part of it "-in the interim; and in his Note he makes this gracious confession: "I now perceive in one place (and very likely the same may be found in other passages), that Luther distinctly admits, that Christians after justification continually advance in conquest over sin." To this extraordinary discovery and stretch of candour, the Archdeacon makes a fitting acknowledgment, by producing a parallel case: "A man is reported to have walked from Whitechapel to Hyde Park Corner, and to have said at the end of his journey, I think I saw a house somewhere on the way." As if Luther's Commentary were not full of such passages as the one which Mr. Ward speaks of! But alas! the love of truth, as the Archdeacon observes, must needs flag and wane, "where Romanizing principles are gaining ground." He proceeds, with patience that cannot be sufficiently admired, to refute Mr. Ward's most unjust representation of "Lutheranism"-incidentally scattering most valuable and interesting truths on collateral points. He also repels the charges which Mr. Ward and others have brought against Luther on account of his language "De Matrimonio"-not denying coarseness of expression, but absolving the Reformer from all real indelicacy. We cannot, however, pretend to give even a sketch of what this invaluable Note contains. We wish we could give the excellent and temperate remarks with respect to Moehler's "Symbolik," which occur, pp. 776, 777. One of them we will present to our readers. Our author, after acquitting Moehler of intentional misrepresentation of Protestantism (of which he by no means acquits Bossuet), observes, that to judge correctly of the various professions of Protestant faith is "a task which a Romish divine cannot possibly perform;" on account of the entire slavery of his mind and judgment. But besides this, he goes on to say: "though from a higher point on the hill of knowledge one may look back on the lower steps, and discern their relative bearings, no one standing at a lower point can survey the higher. In fact, a Romanist could not attain to an intelligent apprehension of that higher and finer manifestation of divine truth which was vouchsafed to the Church at the Reformation, and by which the corruptions and errors of the previous centuries were dispersed, without ceasing ipso facto to be a Romanist. It is a moral impossibility." The chief reason why it is so, is this;

that Romanists, as such, have no proper notion of sin. This explanation lets in a flood of light on the peculiar character of the Reformation-its Pauline character. The Church of Rome had lost all sense of the sins of the heart and conscience. She had absolutely invented and multiplied sins of a different descriptionwhat Luther calls ficta peccata-sins which consisted in the omission, wilful or otherwise, of any of the thousand observances which she imposed on the priests and people-sins which entirely turned the mind from the real sins which lay deep in the heart, and which were sins against God-vera peccata. The Church's absolution sufficed for the ficta peccata. Once confessed, and remitted, they burdened not the conscience. They drove not the oppressed sinner to Christ. They effectually banished faith. It was the clear perception of this (a perception derived from painful experience, and inward convictions of an agonizing kind), which opened Luther's eyes to the doctrine of justification by faith, in St. Paul's epistles. And till men perceive this, and perceive it by the working of the Spirit in them,-till they perceive that their heart-sins are innumerable every day of their lives, they will never appreciate the value of that doctrine; they will never know Christ as a Saviour; they will never love him for his free and infinite love; they will never bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. It will then be no wonder, if they make the greatest mistakes in reading Luther's writings, and call him an Antinomian, when he is the very reverse. When he is displaying the true nature of sin, in order to lead men to the true and only remedy,-union with a Saviour who can at once pardon and purify,-they will accuse him of encouraging sin. Thus when, in a letter to Melancthon, he urges him to preach, not concerning ficta peccata, but vera peccata, and says: "If you are a preacher of grace, let it be true grace, not fictitious; if it be true grace, let it have real sins to deal with, not fictitious; God does not save fictitious sinners; be a sinner, be a sinner who sins boldly" (i. e. confess yourself as one who sins against light and knowledge, and describe your hearers as such), "but believe still more boldly, and rejoice in Christ, who is the conqueror of sin, and death, and the world." When he uses this strong language, and more, still stronger, to the same effect, his enemies, unable to enter into his views of sin, and quoting only the words, "be a sinner and sin boldly," without the least intimation that it refers to what a preacher is to describe, not what an individual is to do; and moreover forgetting or concealing the fact that Luther is writing an unguarded letter to a friend or brother, who was in no danger of mistaking him; assail him bitterly as an Antinomian. The Archdeacon, however nobly defends him. Mr.

Ward, Dr. Mill, and Sir William Hamilton, are met in succession, and completely overthrown. No one will rise from the perusal of the defence without estimating Luther's intuition into the very life and soul of Christianity more highly than ever, though he may regret the occasional imprudence and intemperance of his language. We must leave our readers to draw this conclusion for themselves. We can only repeat that Note W. in the volume before us, is the most complete and able answer to all the charges hitherto brought against the great foreign Reformer, which we have ever seen. It should be published in a separate form.

We bring our labours to a close with regret, not having touched upon the half of what these volumes contain. Heartily do we thank Almighty God for having raised up such a witness to the truth in these troublous times--a witness to the power and vitality of religion-a witness to the entire coincidence between the spirit of the Reformation and the spirit of Christianity-an unsuspicious witness, because belonging to no party. If he has any prejudices, they are rather against what is called the Evangelical party, as was the case with Dr. Arnold. We pray that he may be guided by the Holy Spirit, and evermore endued with as much wisdom, as he has shown himself to be with unflinching boldness.'

We have taken the liberty, in all our quotations, of altering the original spelling, which in the work itself is not to our taste. The excellent author should give up an attempt which twenty years' experience has proved to be vain. He cannot remodel the spelling of the country.

AN ACT TO FACILITATE THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE LABOURING POOR FOR A LIMITED PERIOD IN THE DISTRESSED DISTRICTS IN IRELAND. 9th and 10th VICTORIA, C. 107, 28th August, 1846.

IRELAND has always presented the greatest difficulty to the British ministry. To satisfy a poor and half-employed people, differing in religion and excited by faction, is a task to which few are equal, even in the most prosperous days. The peasantry are described by the late Commission as

"Suffering the greatest privations and hardships; the labourer continues to depend upon casual and precarious employment for subsistence; he is badly housed, badly fed, badly clothed, and badly paid for his labour; and our personal experience and observation during our inquiry, have afforded us a melancholy confirmation of these statements."-"It will be seen in the evidence, that in many districts their only food is the potato, and their only beverage water; that their cabins are seldom a protection against the weather, that a bed or blanket is a rare luxury, and that nearly in all their pig and manure-heap constitute their only property."—(Report of Land Commissioners, pp. 12, 35.)

Thousands in Ireland have all their life existed in this way. A given portion of ground under potatoes will produce a larger quantity of food than under any other crop; the peasantry have therefore for many years trusted for subsistence to the patch of ground either attached to the cabin as a garden, or rented from a farmer as conacre. As the first necessary of life was provided with little labour, the Irish peasant has always been inclined to indulge in natural indolence; he has been in the habit of working occasionally, and spending the rest of his time in amusement; his foresight seldom extended to a year, and he always expected to find his food at his own door. His condition was little better than one of his own pigs; he subsisted on roots cultivated at little cost, and when the food was procured and eaten, he passed a great part of his time lying idly in the sun or sitting before the fire.

A cheap supply of middling food has its advantages and its disadvantages. It is a great blessing to have a year's provisions within reach of a family; to think that it cannot be affected by the casualties of the markets; that it is untaxed by the profits of the merchant, and that the supply cannot be cut off by war abroad, or impeded in coming from the mill by a snow-storm at home. Every small grower of potatoes is his own consumer; and even if the food be not the most desirable, it is a great comfort to think that it is always abundant. The potato afforded food not only to the