temporal affairs of nations does England present at the present crisis ! To what do we owe her calm amid the storm, her stability amid the shock of nations? Why is it that, whilst Italy, Hungary, Austria, Prussia, and France have all been convulsed, and reeling to and fro like a drunken man, England has sat serene, menaced but not alarmed, assailed but not injured? What has been her palladium? What the secret of her tranquillity? The Bible-the Bible, acknowledged as the Word of God by the mass of the people—the Bible, which proclaims in their ears, "Fear God; honour the Queen!" Hence Britons have had no heart to cabal against their sovereign. Hence they have been bold as lions in the maintenance of law, order, and authority, dastardly as deer when moved to lift their hands against God's ordinance and God's anointed.

Not to our fleets, however matchless; not to our armies, however indomitable; not to our laws, however wise, free, just; not to those, but to the Word of God we owe our peace. Tell it out among the nations, The Bible is England's strength and stay. And has not our beloved Queen given a pledge to the nation, that she owns and honours the Bible as the stability of her times, and the pillar of the throne, by allowing herself at this juncture, in the face of Tractarian antipathies and Papal denunciations, to be announced as patroness of the Windsor branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and as a contributor to its funds? How modestly, how gracefully done! Had she given her name to the Parent Society, in her capacity as Queen, it might have been interpreted as a merely official act; but doing it quietly and privately, at what may be called her own parochial town, there was more of the woman and less of the queen in the deed. It more unequivocally bespoke her personal sentiments, the feelings of her heart.

Pardon the digression, if I add, that, prizing the Bible for herself and her people, she naturally desires that others should

possess and prize it too, and as a consequence, she, in conjunction with her noble consort, has just presented £100 to the Church Missionary Society, and sure I am there is not a largeminded dissenter who does not hail the boon as warmly as though it had been bestowed on the London Missionary Society.

Finally, brethren, how glorious it is to behold the Bible converting everything into fresh evidence of its own truth! Its mockers verify its predictions, and its enemies accomplish its purposes; the revolutions of empires, the madness of the people, the machinations of heresiarchs, and the gates of hell, alike do homage to its authority. It writes its truth on the ruins of dynasties, and the fragments of cities: Egypt, Assyria, Jerusalem, Babylon, all avouch the verity of the Bible; and so shall France, and Italy, and Antichrist; and every land and every adversary : "Heaven and earth shall pass away," but

"the word of our God shall stand for ever."

THE POSSESSION OF SPIRITUAL RELIGION

THE SUREST PRESERVATIVE FROM THE SNARES OF INFIDELITY AND THE SEDUCTIONS OF FALSE PHILOSOPHY.

BY

THE REV. JOHN ANGELL JAMES.