licence to marry with the observation, that the POPE signed it without making any alteration.' If there were any criminality in the marriage, the POPE was decidedly the principal offender; for unlike HENRY with his unruly passions, he rushed into it in cold blood. If we do not forget, the whole dispensation is preserved by Lord HERBERT.

The divorce from CATHERINE was the entire work of Romanists. The ministers of State and Prelates who advised it were Romanists, and so was the Parliament which passed the act for the purpose. The petition to the POPE for the divorce is still extant; and it is signed by two Archbishops, four Bishops, and twenty-four Abbots. The only party who disapproved were the Puritans, who held that the marriage with CATHERINE was an indissoluble contract. A Protestant would leave this ill-fated lady to rest in her bloody grave; but the malignity of these writers is such as to defame the innocent and unfortunate, so that at any price they can wound the magnanimous daughter.

Another great crime in HENRY was the suppression of convents; but it was a stroke of the wisest policy. The crimes, as we know from the evidence of the Royal visitors, who were Roman Catholics, turned each of these secret dens into Sodom and Gomorrah. Cardinal WOLSEY advised their suppression with a view to encourage learning and science, and applied for the consent of Pope JULIUS II. The monks had got nearly all the broad lands and wealth of England in their own hands, and, moreover, that wealth was plundered from the Church; for the Abbots had long before seized upon the tithes, which belonged to the secular clergy, and obliged the latter to subsist on very small pensions.

It is useless to notice any more of Dr. CAHILL's vulgarity and violations of truth. They may be of great service, if Protestants will consider what that system must be which rakes up the exploded fibs and scandals of a distant age, and does not hesitate to present them to the world as belonging to books of accredited history. Morality in such a school must be a curious monster.

THE SARDINIAN QUESTION.

POLITICAL principles are frequently supposed to have nothing to do with the purity of the Christian faith, or its progress in the world. No topic is more commonly handled in the pulpit, no subject more frequently promulgated by the clergy, both in church and out of it, than abstraction from the world and a careful abstinence, so far as spiritual interests are concerned, from everything of a secular character. But this is a great mistake, a gross and mischievous misdirection. Did the Saviour thus abstract Himself? Did He not continually intermix in society? Did He not preach to multitudes ? Was He not found in the Temple, mixing with the multitude, and in his place at the marriage feast? Was he not defamed for dining with publicans and sinners? Did he withdraw his foot from the harlot's touch? Was he not persecuted by the Sanhedrim to a cruel, and in their sight to an ignominious, but in ours to a most glorious death, for interfering with their boasted theocracy. Was it not his constant injunction to his disciples to go forth to all the world and preach the gospel? and did they not suffer cruel mockings, Scourgings, and death in every variety, torture at the hands of statesmen and rulers, because the tenets they professed and the principles they declared, were considered injurious to the religious and political establishments of the time? Where is the Christian soldier to fight, but in the world, and how can he do this without mixing intimately with men, and that, too often, among even the worst of men? Who is the bravest, the best, the noblest contender for the truth as it is in Jesus? —he who lies in the rear of the fight, and contents himself with looking on the contest afar off, in the firmness of his personal holiness, and hides himself behind the ramparts, feared by the seclusion of his domestic piety-or he who, bravely risking the danger of that pollution which is everywhere to be found in the world, boldly breasts the war in the front ranks of the fight, suffers, it may be, many a wound of the spirit, endures many a thrust from the adversary, and not always without an injury to his dearest and most enduring interests, for the love of God and truth, and an earnest regard for the welfare of men-stays his soul on Him who is

mighty to save, and bravely battles on in the van of the conflict to the very last, until, with a conscience-satisfying retrospect of noble deeds, he resigns the sword of the Spirit at the divine command-Come, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord;' and only leaves the field, where he has fought so well, when, with his last breath, his soul exhales to heaven.

The very constitution of England rests for its strength, on its foundation of Christianity, and all the leading political acts which have given it the peculiar character which it has, arose out of religious considerations. To say, then, that the Christian has nothing to do with political topics, is neither more nor less than to leave the field of contention where the principles earned for us by our ancestors, through suffering and death, are to be defended against attack, and secured for the happiness and salvation of future generations. Public duty is as sacred an obligation as that which private necessity involves; and the latter is only paramount in importance, so far as principle is concerned, because, without the discharge of it, public duty cannot be performed.

But if there be a primary obligation on every citizen of the state, whether of the stronger or the weaker sex-for the interests of both are equally affected, and the influence of the latter, it has been affirmed by many wise men is even superior to the former-if, then, it be a primary obligation, incumbent on every citizen of the state, to preserve, to uphold, and to perpetuate, in our own country, and for the benefit of ourselves and our descendants, those great civil and religious liberties without the enjoyment of which, Christianity will become a form, and piety be dead amongst us-how deeply is it not incumbent upon us, from gratefulness and honour to God, and love to our fellow men-to say nothing of the wisdom of keeping a widely restricted boundary of defence for ourselves to support abroad, that which we estimate so highly at home.

At this moment, Sardinia is contending most gallantly for the truth. Piedmont is exhibiting a dignified and noble bearing, in the very teeth of error, and resisting with a fortitude worthy of all admiration, the encroachments of enormous and corrupt despotisms. The array against her is of the most formidable description. Austria, in alliance with

Russia, and connected still more intimately with Rome, is increasing her armed legions on the north and east, and is ready, as soon as a fitting opportunity shall arise, to crush her into the dust.

The real cause of this antagonism is not so much political as religious. Popery is making rapid increase of the peculiar power which it has always exercised for cramping the intelect and blighting the truth. No arts are too strange, various, or remote, for it to use; no efforts too bold for it to make. Simple Christianity has not been idle in the world, and the Greek and Latin Churches-for so many centuries violently opposed to each other are coalescing to resist and suppress it. A concordat has been entered into between the Czar and the Pope, and one, the absolute exemplar with mighty military power of political despotism, has become closely allied with the other, who is the awful incarnation of spiritual tyranny, while to aid and abet them as their tool and instrument, Austria, who has everything to apprehend from the former, and has become the very slave of the latter, is ready, with vulture eagerness, to annihilate Christianity and Sardinia, at one

grasp.

The combination is a fearful one, perhaps one of the most fearful that the world ever saw, and unless frustrated, and that speedily, must result in a bloody conflict, which can only end in the destruction of a noble race, and the spiritual slavery of the whole of continental Europe, and a demonstration against Britain which it would require the whole resources of the empire to resist, and against which the inherent outspringing patriotism and truly Christian intrepidity could successfully combat.

But the danger may be avoided. Sardinia may be saved, revolutionary violence in Italy suppressed, and the plea thereby obtained for their violence by the aggressors, taken out of their hands; freed from the trammels by which she is now confined, to take her benignant flight, and cheer with the light of her presence those beautiful regions of the earth where struggling intellect strives in vain to burst its bonds, and where darkness is moulting into the depths of a deathly night. England, all potent England, has but to say the word, and the spell is broken, and the nations will be free. The strength of England is in her Christian population. No

ministry could resist, that dares to resist, could for a day hold power against, the united voice of those amongst us who deem the truth a sacred pledge, for the care and use of which we shall one day have to answer at the bar of Christ.

It requires but a full expression of the country to strengthen the ministry in their known feelings, through prayer in private, and action in public, and England would at once assume such a commanding attitude as would effectually, through the blessing of God, ensure this great moral victory over a tyrannical oppression which threatens to reduce and enslave the world. What Elizabeth effected by her strength and courage, and Cromwell accomplished, is alike the duty and within the power of Britain at the present moment. Our national sins of omission are numerous enough-Oh! let not the neglect of this great duty be also added to the list. B. C.

SECULAR MARRIAGES.—During the Commonwealth it was customary for the Marriage Banns to be proclaimed on three market days in Newgate Market, and afterwards the parties were married at the church; or, as the Register of St. Andrew's, Holborn, states, at the place of meeting called the church.

ESQUIRES.-Macklin, the player, going to one of the fireoffices to insure some property, was asked by the clerk, how he would please to have his name entered? 'Entered?' replied the veteran, 'why, I am only plain Charles Macklin, a vagabond by act of parliament; but in compliment to the times, you may set me down Charles Macklin, Esquire, as they are now synonymous terms.'