This union and purpose must also be more concentrated than it has hitherto been. If ever the world is to be evangelized (we say it with all deference to their talents, and fully appreciating their excellences), it must be by other means than those supplied by the regular clergy. All history, sacred as well as profane, ancient or modern, teaches that for extraordinary effects ordinary machinery is ineffectual. This is the true solution of modern Methodism. The fire on the altar of the church had almost died away, but Wesley and Whitfield blew upon the smouldering embers, as by the breath of the Spirit, and suddenly the flame burst out. Again, the spirit of prayer and supplication was poured out upon the people of these lands; the sons and daughters of the ignorant and embruted peasantry and mechanics became as the prophets of the living God. "The Lord gave the word, great was the company of those that published it." England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, nay, even the vast continent of America, was stirred by the silvery or thundering tones of the gospel trumpet, and there were heard from many lands, amid tears of joy and thanksgiving, the voices of the redeemed, singing

"The year of Jubilee is come;

Return, ye ransomed sinners, home."

More than a hundred years have elapsed, and without stopping to specify causes, without at all depreciating the measure of past successes, we may say that it is now more necessary than ever to pray, "Wilt thou not revive us again?" Wilt thou not give us to feel individually and collectively, that "now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation?" Brethren and Fathers! the whole land is before you; the fields are white to the harvest; your instrumentalities are multiplied a hundred-fold to what they were even in the beginning of the present century. Society is awakening also to the necessity and propriety of your office and efforts as "heralds of the cross;" from your ranks, ye Local Preachers of Great Britain, have the pulpits of the establishment as well as of every other section of Christ's church been filled at home, and in the missionary field, the posts of danger and of honour are occupied by the volunteers your bands have furnished; and from the lips of the titled and the learned it is enunciated, that to other than mere clerics is it permitted to unfold the manifold mysteries of the kingdom of God.

that

There is not wanting, moreover, sufficient opposition to make you yet feel the cross a reproach and a burden. There are who dream of apostolical succession and ministerial infallibility. As if it were the office instead of the work which constituted the dignity and honour of the service of God. To canons, whether from within or without the establishment, we need give but little heed. Be it ours to show ourselves approved of God; in all simplicity and sincerity discharging our duty as those that must give an account, working

"As ever in our great taskmaster's eye."

Still let these things, like force centripetal, make us cleave closer to God

and to each other. In the noble institution whose claims we advocate, from a sacred conviction of their mingled justice and benevolence, we have a bond of union which can be broken only by our own neglect and criminality. "To do good and to communicate," we must not forget. The command is of God. Let us resolve this coming year

"We will no more our God forsake,

Nor cast his laws behind."

To the world we are largely indebted. We have the unsearchable riches: they are for the poor, the blind, the halt, and the lame, at home. and abroad. All souls are Christ's! Our past success shows how ready and willing he is to gather in the outcasts. But the harvest is great. Our land is still polluted with sin: blasphemy and cursing are not banished from our shores; sabbath-breaking and mammon-worship are still awfully rife among us; the armies of Satan are still strong in numbers and audacity. "But their rock is not as our Rock, our enemies themselves being judges." "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith." "Quit you like men, be strong! Let all things be done in charity;" but let all things be done. In the ancient camp of Israel there were to be no unclean or imperfect ones. Be it ours to strive more than ever to come up to the standard. It is high, but Christ hath left us an ensample that we should follow his steps; and it is as free to each, to all of us, as to the great apostle to say, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

We

Hitherto we have spoken in general terms; chiefly our remarks apply to our brethren the preachers; to those especially who are engaged with us in association for the benevolent purposes which our Magazine is intended to subserve. But all are not with us in this work. would venture to hope that those who are not against us are for us; but, why any longer hold aloof? Our "Mutual-Aid Association" is now established, whatever you may have thought of our designs originally. Now that we are a reality, an element of usefulness under our common Lord, examine for yourselves, beloved brethren: "The works that we do they testify of us." If to the merciful God will show himself merciful; if to the household of faith we are particularly commanded to do good; if when one member suffers the whole body should suffer and sympathise with it,-why halt ye between two opinions? True, we are nearly three thousand strong. It is not, however, how many fill our ranks, but what numbers still remain unbanded in this friendly cause. There is a moral as well as a social principle to be developed and demonstrated by our union. Of old it was said by the Pagans, as they looked upon the Christian ranks, "See how they love one another!" And is modern Christianity less cohesive, less unique in its character, than that of primitive times? We are fourteen thousand, and only one-fifth of our "called, and chosen, and faithful" ones, are as yet arrayed with us in this corporation, of which the charter is the word of God, and the object the aid of his afflicted servants. If useful and right for the

minority, why not for the majority? With a part the benefit is great; with the whole it would receive a five-fold increase.

And what so calculated, humanly speaking, to extend our efficiency and usefulness in the church and the world, as our being thus banded together, a brotherhood of love, animated by one spirit, and that spirit. eminently distinguished from pride, or selfishness, or love of power? What example so salutary to those who depend upon tradition and office? What so encouraging to the faithful everywhere? What so full of affectionate rebuke and warning? What so beneficial to old Methodism? As in the natural world, when the winter of age lays the once mighty monarchs of the forest low, the wise and far-seeing husbandman beholds, as the result of his prudent preparation, young and vigorous trees shooting all around, that beneath their branches the fowls of the air may lodge and rejoice; so in the spiritual world, the heavenly Husbandman provides, for his drooping and dormant church, new and vigorous branches, united to Christ the living vine, bearing clusters rich as the grapes of Eshcol, and showing forth to all gainsayers the beauty and fertility of that soil. in which they are planted, even the vineyard of the living God.

up

May the coming year realize all we have hoped and prayed for in respect to our beloved brethren! Then shall Zion break forth into singing and flourish amid joy and gladness; and then shall all men say, "Truly God is in the midst of her, a refuge and a defence."

But will not the families of our Christian friends love to peruse this record of our warfare with self, the world, and sin? Who can doubt it that has known them? Not any local brother who has partaken of their basket and their store; who has sat at their hearth, or knelt at their family altar. Who that has sung with "the tribes" in their scattered, often humble, but always hospitable dwellings,

Can harbour a doubt that a true picture of "Working Methodism" will be acceptable, will receive a cordial welcome, wherever it presents itself, wherever its name and character is properly made known? We do not fear for our reception among our Christian families; our dread is, lest, from the modesty or supineness of our brethren, we should remain unknown and unintroduced: but, as the materials with which we work, as well as the treasures which we shall strive to impart, will be drawn from the stores of truth and sanctified by prayer, we will cherish the hope that our co-workers will commend them to the notice of all, and that before 1853 draws to a close, The "LOCAL PREACHERS' MAGAZINE AND CHRISTIAN FAMILY RECORD" will be numbered among the most successful serials in the world of religious Literature.

POPISH AGGRESSION AND PROTESTANT DUTY.—PART II.

THE MEANS BY WHICH THE ROMANISTS OBTAINED POWER IN THIS COUNTRY.

No. XII.

A MUCH larger interval than was anticipated, resulting from causes with which it would be as profitless as it is unnecessary to trouble the reader, has elapsed since our last paper upon this growingly important subject appeared in this magazine. We had continued our history of the establishment of Popery inbut, be it remembered not to the entire exclusion of genuine Christianity fromthese islands; and it was probably expected that we should follow up, or rather trace down, our account of that corrupt and cruel system, to the times when it became sufficiently dominant and powerful to demand and endeavour to compel an absolute, implicit, and universal obedience to its authority by the dungeon and the rack, the fire and the stake. We doubt not but that the exciting scenes which we might portray-the enduring patience and faith, meekness and resignation, on the one part, and the unrelenting persecutions and cruelty on the other-would have furnished themes to stir the heart, and fill the mind with indignation and horror. We are well aware that the simple pathetic relation of the sufferings of one martyr, with his (aye, or her) triumphant exit to another world in a chariot of flame, would be more to the taste and satisfaction of those for whom we write, than a volume upon that really much more important matter, a clear exposition and exposure of the means by which that power was attained, so firmly grasped, and held so long. We must beg pardon if we entreat not only forbearance, but also bespeak the most earnest attention, to that which we deem of infinitely more importance than the most stirring scenes of suffering and martyrdom, however glorious-a plain exposition of the means by which this demoniacal power was established, in the knowledge of which measures may be best taken to prevent its recurrence. Stop up the source of the stream and the river will cease to flow: an unspeakably more useful procedure than afterward to stand wondering at and admiring the patient resignation of those whom the unrestrained torrent has unhappily overwhelmed and ruined.

To make good our ground on this point, we must spend a few words to disabuse the public mind upon a subject on which almost universal and very deadly error prevails-we mean the great evil of indiscriminate and unbounded charity. We know from experience, and have often heard it from the lips of those who have thought but superficially upon it, that the popular opinion is that no charity ought to be restrained; and that, whoever is willing to give, ought to be allowed to do so to any extent that his ability may enable and his will incline; and that it would be a sin to interpose any obstacle between him and the objects of his benevolence. Experience in all countries has shown the true interests of a state to be otherwise; and a little consideration will suffice to show that it would be very possible for unrestrained charity to give until the receivers were more wealthy and numerous than the givers; and it requires but little acuteness to perceive that, in such a case, the receivers would necessarily acquire power and dominion over the more generous portion of the community; and, in fact, that the two parties would change places, those who were the objects of such extensive charity would become the lords, masters, and rulers, and those who had so generously but unthinkingly bestowed, would become the serfs and bond-slaves of their former servants. The power of making laws, and of enforcing their execution, would follow as a matter of course, and nothing less than a violent remedy could restore the balance of possessions and power; and nothing less than the destruction of the cause could prevent the continual recur

rence of the same evil, at intervals of time, sufficient to bring the operation to perfection.

This is not mere matter of theory and speculation. It has occurred in most, perhaps all, the older civilized countries, again and again, and will in the new ones, such as the United States of America, unless stringent preventive measures be created, and a vigilant, untiring watchfulness kept up for their application. Though most, if not all, the civilized countries of Europe have felt the evil, and endeavoured to counteract it, in none of them has the struggle been so long and arduously maintained as in our own-in none of them have the permanent effects been so extraordinary and unlooked for-and in none of them has so complete a victory been gained, and, for a long time, successfully maintained against the aggressors. A course which for a time proved so successful here, and permanently so on the Continent, was not likely to be readily abandoned; and those who have not had their attention turned to this view of the subject, will be surprised to hear that, at the time we write, the hopes of Rome are built more upon a silent, insidious revival of that, their old system of aggression, than upon all the ostensible measures which palpably strike the senses, and against which all, by mouth and by pen, are ready to declaim. These seem rather to divert the public mind from the more secret measures which Rome well knows will be certainly effectual, if they can be brought about, and which are undoubtedly in greater activity, and are plied with more diligence and effect now than at any previous time during the reigns of our last three kings. We are astonished that so little attention has been paid to expose and prevent these insidious efforts; and we most earnestly beg the careful attention of all good Protestants to a brief history of this branch of "Popish Aggression," from a very early period of our history to the present time.

Nor is it on account of the mere dry importance of the subject that we desire to bespeak an earnest attention to it; but, rather, because it presents one of the most singular and protracted struggles, between the legislature of a free people and the wily and wonderfully persevering skill of aggressive Rome that the history of the world presents; by which, also, she succeeded in permanently changing the very foundations of our Real Property Laws, and in stamping them with her image, which they strikingly bear to this day, and are likely to continue to exhibit as long as our country and constitution shall last; a skill which, if ever exceeded at all, has been so only by the consummate ability with which a bold and free people turned the curse to a blessing, and formed out of it the noblest system of law which has ever been presented to the world. Let us take care that our lethargy, or our love for the marvellous, does not turn our attention from this all-important subject. With nothing would Rome be more pleased than to see us wasting our strength and attention in tearing to pieces the ostentatious fringes and furbeloes of her flaunting garments, while she employs the precious time in eating out the heart of our constitution, and secretly usurping the power which a large proportion of the permanent property of a country inevitably clothes its possessors.. To see clearly the position of the enemy, and the measures he is taking to overcome us, is more than half the means of his defeat.

The proposition which we seek to illustrate may be couched in a few plain words, namely, that the possession of a large proportion of the property of a country invariably attracts a predominant share in its legislation and government. This is the favourite postulate of Rome. To accomplish this she will

A striking illustration of the truth of this position is found in the case of the once powerful kingdom of Spain--the only great European country that has been ruled in all its depart