rostrum amantissimam matrem, immaculatam Virginem Mariam absque labi originali fuisse conceptam." The Holy See has, it seems, been besieged by incessant petitions upon this subject; and the illustrious order of Preaching Friars have been especially urgent in soliciting permission to use the word "Immaculate" in the worship of the Virgin. Multitudes are astonished that the apostolic see has not yet decreed this honour to the Blessed Virgin!

To those of our readers who are not versed in the varieties and polemics of Romanism, it may seem almost incredible that any agitation or even interest should, in the nineteenth century, exist in reference to this moot point of Marian orthodoxy. The disgusting controversy sprang up about the year 1140, in the Gallican Church, the Canons of Lyons taking the lead in adopting the new festival in honour of the dogma, and St Bernard distinguished himself in opposing the innovation. The affirmative was zealously maintained by the Franciscans, and as fiercely combated by the Dominicans. The Council of Basle, in 1431, decreed this dogma to be an article, the belief of which is necessary to salvation; but the authority of this decision was not generally acknowledged, and, in 1483, Pope Sixtus IV. issued a decree commanding the disputants on both sides to refrain from condemning and reviling each other, since the Church had left it an open question. The Council of Trent, although adopting language which may be thought to favour the Franciscan dogma, left the point still undecided, and renewed the constitutions of Sixtus IV. In 1708, Pope Clement XI. went a step further, and appointed a festival in honour of the conception of the Virgin Mary, but without using the term "Immaculate" in the enactment. The Dominicans, however, refused to observe this festival. In the seventeenth century, the kingdom of Spain was so miserably agitated by factions taking opposite sides in this controversy, that solemn embassies were sent to Rome, both by Philip III. and his successor, urging the Pontiff to put an end to the dispute; but they could obtain only an ambiguous answer from the oracle. The Franciscan creed was the popular one. Bourgoyne states, that "on entering a house in Spain, unless you wish to be regarded as impious, you must pronounce the words," Ave Maria purissima;" to which you will be sure to receive the response, "Sin peccado concebida" (conceived without sn). Subscription to this tenet was formerly exacted, previously to graduating at the Spanish universities; and the oath was even administered to mechanics upon their being made free of a guild.

The willing ignorance and charitable credulity of many Protestants lead them to imagine, that Popery has undergone a marvellous transformation of late years, and that Jesuits, Franciscans, and Dominicans are but historical personages, or, if their actual existence cannot be denied, that they bear no like ness or relation to those of the eighteenth century. We have no doubt that, in the House of Commons, a reference to the subject of this Papal Encyclical Letter, as having the slightest importance attached to it in the judgment of Catholics, would be met with shouts of derisive laughter, or resented as an impu

tation, originating in Exeter Hall bigotry. At all events, it would be said, we have nothing to do with it. The Roman paper, the Tablet, is not of this opinion. "To us in this country," he says, "the decision of the holy see will be matter of more than ordinary interest. Our own Archbishop, St Anselm, was distinguished for the zeal with which he urged the celebration of the Feast of the Conception, and for his devotion to the Mother of God; it was to St Thomas that she revealed her Seven Heavenly Joys; and our great schoolman, Scotus, maintained agair st those who denied it, that her conception was immaculate, without stain of original sin." Both the original Latin and an English version are given, in order that all the readers of the Tablet "may participate in the common joy!”

It is, assuredly, no unimportant or insignificant fact, little as it may appear to concern us immediately as Protestants, that millions of professed Christians should be so besotted as to receive with implicit faith, as an article of religion, the dictum of a fallible, weak, and misguided priest; and that the doctrine which excites so intense an interest, should be one invented in the darkest period of the apostasy, for the purpose of exalting a creature to the place and office of the only Mediator and Saviour-even to the "throne of God." We had hoped better things of Pius IX., who, in many of his more private letters, has contrived to keep his Mariolatry in the background; but, in this official document, he uses the following unequivocally blasphemous language:

"Thus, from the commencement of our pontificate, we have directed with an extreme interest our most serious cares and thoughts towards an object of such high importance, and have not ceased to raise unto Almighty God humble and fervent prayers, that he may deign to illuminate our soul with the light of his heavenly grace, and make us know the determination which we ought to make upon this subject. We also repose all confidence in this, that the blessed Virgin, who has been raised by the greatness of her merits above all the choirs of angels up to the throne of God, who has crushed, under the foot of her virtues, the head of the old serpent, and who, placed between Christ and the Church,' full of graces and sweetness, has ever rescued the Christian people from the greatest calamities, from the snares and from the attacks of all their enemies, and has saved them from ruin, will in like manner deign, taking pity on us with that immense tenderness which is the habitual outpouring of her maternal heart, to drive away from us, by her instant and all-powerful protection before God, the sad and lamentable misfortunes, the cruel anguish, the pains and necessities which we suffer, to turn aside the scourges of Divine wrath which afflict us by reason of our sins, to appease and dissipate the frightful storms of evil with which the Church is assailed on all sides, to the unmeasured grief of our souls, and, in fine, to change our sorrow into joy.

"For you know perfectly, venerable brethren, that the foundation of our confidence is in the most Holy Virgin; since it is in her that God has placed the plenitude of all good in such sort, that if there be in

Cited from "St Gregory," Exposit. in Libros Regum.

is any hope-if there be any spiritual health-we know that it is from her that we receive it, because uch is the will of Him who hath willed that we should have all by the instrumentality of Mary."

Such is the Romanism, the paganized Christianity, of the nineteenth century! How truly described as placing "between Christ and the Church," between he body and the Divine Head, between the sinner ind his Saviour, the believer and his Lord, an object of idolatrous worship, alike unable to hear or to save. 'n this daring and dreadful corruption of the gospel, here is, indeed, no room for Christ as an object of worship or of confidence. The Virgin is "on the hrone," the successor, in the Papal Pantheon, to Him who has sat down at the right hand of the 'ather a mere figment fictitiously substituted for hat eternal life which is in the Son.-Patriot.

ANDRIA SERETSE.

THE Rev. Robert Moffat has transmitted to the London Missionary Society, the subjoined interesting lescription of the character and sufferings of a Bechuana Christian, who died in the triumph of the gospel in the month of April last year:

"The following sketch not only exhibits the power of the blessed gospel in the conversion of a sinner, but the soothing consolation it affords under circumtances the most afflictive. The untutored heathen lies as the beast dies, without those emotions of error or remorse which not unfrequently mark the leath-bed scenes of those who have been brought up Ander the sound of the gospel.

"Being considered no longer good for any thing, hey seldom receive in old age those tender attentions which they so greatly need, and are even denied the cear of sympathy to alleviate the gloomy forebodings of annihilation that reign within. But they are urtured from early years to hate sorrow. The oarse voice of the war-song, and the sound of the lance, are the only soothing accents which the dying chief requires. Why so merry,' I asked a dancing party, and your chief so ill? He likes it,' was the reply.

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"Andria Seretse, whose brief history I now present, was the son of a chief man, who, when the cospel was first introduced in these regions, gave good promise of becoming one of its earliest converts. But time has not realised our hope, and he is a heathen to this day. The mother of Andria, a woman who always ridiculed the Word of God, and idvocated heathen customs, also continues the dupe of ignorance and the slave of sin.

"When about to commence a course of instruction to prepare him for future usefulness, an affection of the spine commenced its slow but fatal attacks. He lied in April last, after having been a sufferer for shree years, the greater part of which time he lay in nfant helplessness.

"As he could read and understand English, he spent much of his time in perusing simple books in chat language; but the English Bible was his daily companion. So long as he could use his fingers, he

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was in the habit of writing letters on a slate, first to one and then to another of the members of the mission families, and especially to Mrs M-, to whom he seemed to feel an affectionate obligation and esteem. But long before he left his frail tabernacle every limb was powerless: he became incapable of moving a single muscle, and the tongue ceased to articulate. His eyes alone retained language, and those told eloquently the emotions of his mind.

"When he lost the power of articulating, he spent most of his remaining time, which was more than a year, in reading the Bible. Mr Hamilton made a stand on which to lay the book: he was daily raised upon his couch, and there he would sit the livelong day, perusing the passages of Divine inspiration, which contained all his hope and all his desire. When he wished a leaf to be turned, or to read in another place, he gave a sign with his eyes, which retained their animation to the last. He evinced a lively interest in the progress of translation, and eagerly read every new production from the press.

"Though the progress of the disease was sometimes painful, his countenance never lost its wonted smile, while it would brighten, as if a ray of divine glory had fallen on it, when a Saviour's love became the theme; and thus smiling, when seized by the last paroxysm which loosed the silver cord, he fell asleep in Jesus."

PASSAGES FROM JOHN FOSTER.

I. ZEAL WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. "For I bear them record, that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge."

THE first good use of some texts is to endeavour to prevent a bad one. To an evil-disposed mind it is exceedingly gratifying to find Scripture that can be quoted with a specious appearance of sanction. This sentence is an example; for it has very often been cited for the purpose of deprecating zeal itself, of the genuine kind, and in its best applications. Think on how many excellent projects, and efforts, and men, this has been pronounced-"Zeal without knowledge." How many excellent and eventually successful designs would have been abandoned, if this had always been listened to as a right application of the text. What would have become, for instance, of most of the missionary projects which are now in hopeful, or eminently successful operation? of many designs for enlightening, reforming, Christianizing, dark parts of our own nation? of many venturous experiments for good, hazarded upon the strength of one circumstance in favour, while there appeared many against? of any project of hostility to a prevailing evil, boldly conceived and undertaken? In every such instance, the cry has infallibly been-" Zeal without knowledge."

With men of indifferent, frozen, temperament,| this has been about the most favourite sentence in the Bible. Timid, cowardly men, though otherwise well disposed, very naturally take refuge here-the parsimonious are always ready with this good textthe idolaters of custom, and of every thing established and old-an intellectual class, content with mere speculation, and regarding scarcely any thing as worth being attempted to be done. With most of these classes of persons, however, it is not that zeal itself for some use or other, is denied to be a most excellent thing. No, certainly; they extol it, and

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none would be more zealous than they, on a proper occasion." But when can that occasion come? Is it to be an occasion expressly devised and brought on by Providence for the one simple purpose of enabling them to show that they really possess this high virtue? Or, is it to be when the world, and themselves, and all things, are great deal mended, so that there shall be less difficulty, less to be done, and to be resisted? But who, then, or what, is to do all this that is to be accomplished in the mean time? There are immediately and constantly at hand plenty of such things as have always been deemed by zealous men the objects worthy of zeal. But the deficiency of this right spirit never fails to be supplied by ingenuity enough to make out, that these are not the proper objects and occasions. How evident it is, therefore, that every thing which may be said in the way of disapproving and repressing zeal, should be said cautiously and discriminatively.

II. GOD'S CONTROVERSY WITH THE NATIONS. [Our readers will find the following passage full of striking thoughts and statements. It was written upwards of twenty years ago; and while the correspondence between its anticipations and the actual results as they are now passing before our eyes is rema kable and interesting, the general views which it presents of the principles of the divine dealings with nations are full of solemnity and importance.-ED C. T.]

Ir cannot be that God has appointed the general numan mind to subside in quiet enslavement and stagnation. There will be mighty commotions-a *shaking of the nations" in all probability. But the omens are very dark as to any speedy results from them, of a kind to satisfy a Christian and philanthrobic spirit. The gloomy omens arise from this, that (od has his own controversy with all the nations. The assemblage of nations over which the portentous sins are darkening and thickening, with the gloom of thunder, are nominally Christian nations; but for the far greater part sunk in actual idolatry, mingled with infidelity. If some of these be excited to a grand commotion against overwhelming tyranny, the simple point of right, so far, may be plain. But this is not all. When there is a conflict between a nation of idolaters on the one side, and of mingled idolaters and infidels on the other, there is much more in the case for the jurisdiction of the Supreme Governor than a mere question of relative right in the particular matter immediately in question. He may set that question aside for a while, and, in his sovereign justice, make such nations the equal scourges of one another; and, in such a process, there may be a succession of overturnings, each apparently reversing the preceding. And when we survey the superstition and the irreligion, and the moral depravity equally combined with both, through the nations of Europe, we have cause to apprehend a long train of convulsions and calamities before either liberty or religion can prevail.

Indeed, how should there be any such thing as genuine liberty in combination with the slavery of superstition, and the license of irreligion and vice? And it is awful to think with what a measure of calamity these may first be visited, partly to punish and partly to shake and loosen their hold. If we look at superstition alone, the Popish superstitionthat has, in some of the countries, taken such entire possession of the people's minds, so wholly pervaded and conformed their habits of thought, and is so intervolved in all their institutions, that a confusion and upsetting of their whole national economy may be absolutely necessary to shake this odious despotism of error and delusion. Something may be neces

sary to disturb, confound, and distract their mindsto drive and tear them out of their ancient position— to force thoughts, and doubts, and new apprehensions upon them-to ma e a convulsive wrench of their mental fetters-to shake, and crack, and rive their prison-house. It may be necessary that the regular order of their superstitious ceremonies should be violently interrupted and broken up. It may be neces sary that many of their institutions be ruined; and their ecclesiastical tyrants be rendered objects of suspicion, hostility, or contempt. This may be the required overturning; and this may be effected by political commotion- by war and revolution, backward and forward. Necessary, we said, not of course! that God could not cause a nation's deliverance from superstition by milder means; but mild means ave not been his method with corrupted. superstitious nations (the Jews for example), and are very little likely to be so now. Therefore, if the Almighty be really going to accelerate the progress of his cause, and of human improvement (and the thickening shocks and commotions of the moral world, corresponding to the images and predictions of prophecy, warrant us to hope so), we have yet a dark and fearful prospect before us. But the consolation is, that all these overturnings are to displace and destroy what obstructs the cause of heaven, and of human happiness. And the object is worth all that the Sovereign Governor has doomed that it shall cost. To hasten the destruction of the spiritual reign of the Man of Sin, and of the stupifying dominion of ignorance, and of the oppressions of despots and tyrants, it is worth that there should be wars, invasions, and revolutions, dreadful as they are. Dreadful indeed! and thus we see what nations that forget God, and grow inveterate in evil, entail on their posterity.

"I will overturn, overturn, overturn!" The repetition of this word of solemn denunciation has a strik ing sound and import. How strongly it intimates the reluctance of mankind to change to what is good, to what is finally right. They and their affairs change only to what requires to be changed again; and a third time changed, and still again! What a race it is that when driven from one position by Divine judgments and calamities, is sure to go in a direction where it must be encountered by more such judgments! so that they cannot at the first turn have the good that is intended ultimately from violent changes; there must be more changes first.

Men of easy faith and sanguine hope have sometimes, after one great commotion and change, joyously assured themselves that this would suffice"The grand evil is removed, we shall now happily and fast advance with a clear scene before us." "But, after a while, to their surprise and dismay, another commotion and change has perhaps carried the whole affair back, apparently, to the same state as before! Recollect the Listory of the Reformation in this land, begun by Henry VIII., established, it was gladly assumed, in the reign of his son. But that youth dies, and then we have the instant return of Popery in all its triumph, fury, and revenge. After a while, Queen Mary departs; and all the pious souls exult in liberation and Protestantism. But then again, in Elizabeth's time, there comes a half popish, severe, spiritual tyranny. Later down, after the overthrow of the tyrant Charles, there arose for the first time a prospect of real religious liberty. But his son resumes the throne, and all such liberty was utterly abolished, and so continued long; and another revolution was required, that religious faith and worship might be free.

In human affairs there have sometimes been great overturnings, which did give a rare and glorious oppor