guished his dynasty, and placed a Protestant upon the throne.

If the heart sickens over the pages of Popish history—if we turn from the detail, as we would from the dissection of a malefactor's corpse-if we walk through these gloomy remembrances, as if we were walking through a catacomb, with nothing round us but the hideous processes of decaymust we not ask, shall these scenes ever be suffered to return?

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Is it not full time, also to ask the question next in importance, whether schism is to be perpetual? Whether no effort can be made to relieve the popular mind of that immense load of extravagance and error, which now not merely cripples its understanding but alienates its heart? Is the solemn rebuke of the great apostle, 'I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Christ,' to be the standing law of Christianity in England?

We need have no controversial bitterness.' Argument is not malice, nor learning hostility. We will have no Popish unity-the unity of the chain! But, shall we suffer the sacredness of truth to be for ever deformed by every disguise of fanaticism? Is Christianity to be but a huge hospital, nothing but beds, and every bed exhibiting a new disease? Are we to have our Hymenæus and Philetus in every village?

With three great Universities; with a vast staff of ecclesiastical fellowships, with forty dioceses under the care of distinguished men, a 'cloud of witnesses,' with all the appliances of learning and leisure at her command, is it too much to expect, that the Church of England shall come forth, in renewed panoply, as the champion of the singleness and simplicity of the gospel? Would it not be a generous, a necessary, and a Christian act, to appoint in every diocese and seat of learning, a select number, whose especial duty it would be, to reclaim religious error, traverse the whole field of fanaticism, and meet wilful ignorance and passionate perversion with the gravity and power of the accomplished understanding?

My purpose is merely to state Protestant principles. Once for all, Protestantism, in its most majestic form, the established church, disclaims all coercion of the consciences of men. If Protestants ever have persecuted, she disclaims them.

If

Rome left the rust of her fetters rankling in the spirits of the early Reformers, Protestantism washed away the poison, as she healed the wound. That day is done. If England was rocked in the cradle of an anile superstition, she has long outgrown her infancy, and no power on earth can dwarf her noble proportions into that cradle again.

EXTRACTS

ON THE BLESSED RESULTS OF GODLY SORROW. FROM A SERMON PREACHED AT ILLINGWORTH CHURCH, YORKSHIRE, ON SUNDAY, THE 20TH JANUARY, 1856, BY THE REV. WILLIAM GILLMOR, M. A., PERPETUAL

CURATE.

'Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.' (Matt. v., 4.)

It is, I believe, quite unnecessary to intimate to those whom I now address, what has suggested to my mind the reflections to which I have just given utterance, and on which alone, in the existing state of my feelings, I could arrange my ideas, so as to enable me to occupy the pulpit on the present occasion. None of you, I trust, will imagine that the remarks I have made, and still intend to make, are unseasonable intrusions upon those who (unlike myself) are in comfort or at ease. There is, I well know, no danger whatever, in their producing too deep or too painful an impression. Any gloom which they may occasion will only be transient, and will only too soon be dispelled by the business and the pleasures of the world. Suffice it now, on this head, to observe that once more within the brief space of eight months, I appear before you in an especial degree as a mourner, not merely for my own sins and yours, but bowed down with the acutest sorrow under one of the heaviest bereavements which it was Unlike the

in the power of the 'last enemy' to inflict.

former case to which I have referred, the sad change (to me) was long anticipated; and one of the very best daughters * God ever gave to man, has been removed from this valley of tears, and her beautiful spirit has entered the 'rest' prepared for those who have 'washed their robes and made

Miss Mary Greenwood Gillmor, aged 20.

them white in the blood of the Lamb,' and is now the joyous companion of her sainted sister, in the Paradise above.

'Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives, and in their death they were not' long 'divided!'

Beloved, I am unmistakeably aware, that the extreme diffidence and modesty and distrust of herself, which so remarkably characterised my dear departed girl,-one who took so lovely a position at the foot of the cross, would not approve of any repetition in this place of those numerous penitential and scriptural expressions of trust in her Saviour God, which constitute the sole, yet, withal abundant source of consolation to me (I can require no more) under this heavy mourning. I shall then, merely observe that her patience under, and submission to, her Heavenly Father's will, during her long debilitating and most trying illness, I (with my nearly twentyseven years' experience in the ministry of the Church) have certainly known equalled, but never surpassed. So far as her character and conduct were concerned, she has never subjected me to one minute's uneasiness. Her trust for salvation

in the merits of her Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ' was sure,—more matured than her happy sister's-the very sum and substance of the Gospel; but, like her mild unassuming character, humble and filial. God mercifully preserved and continued her in the unity of the Church,' and she has 'departed in the true faith of His Holy Name.' Bitter-oh! bitter, as is to me this second bereavement, and so soon ajter the former, (and let me tell you, none can really know the unspeakable depth, the keen and penetrating anguish of such wounds, but they who have endured them) nevertheless I need not sorrow, even as others which have no hope.' Mourner at my 'loss,' I certainly am; but when I reflect on the inexpressible 'gain' of my much loved daughter, I cannot, as I ought not, feel otherwise than 'comforted.'

* * * Need I observe, that hardly a day passes without calling us to experience some degree of trial. We are broken by breach upon breach. One trouble frequently becomes the precedent of another; and we have scarcely begun to think ourselves fairly without the limits of one affliction ere we are plunged into another. It has frequently (and I believe, correctly) been remarked, that when death enters into a family, he is seldom contented with only one victim. When

he receives into his cold embrace one precious portion of a household, he generally intends to take another, and (it may be) another; and whose turn it next may be, is, and can be known only to the Omniscient God, 'from whom no secrets are hid.' Therefore be ready also.' Look forward to the issue of all things. For the day cometh, when the congregated universe shall stand before a discerning judge and an impartial tribunal. Yea, the day cometh, when the Lord Jesus Christ shall descend from Heaven in all the surpassing glory of His Father, to unveil every character, and to render to every man according as his work shall be.

And, finally, my fellow-mourners, where can the word of consolation be better found than in the language of my text? If only you have reason to believe that the glorious light of the Gospel hath dawned upon your renovated souls, shall you be utterly cast down because affliction hath come upon them? Surely affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground.' You are not forbidden sensibility, when you are called upon to attend upon the dying beds and the opening graves of those whom you dearly loved. No; it is allowed; yea, it is required. You are called upon to mourn,' but not as those who are destitute of hope. For they who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.' A dying Christian-dying in the Catholic faith, may say to survivors even as our Lord said to his disciples; 'If ye loved me, ye would rejoice because I go to the Father.' 6 What,' he might say, 'ye weep, because I have done weeping!-ye weep, because my sorrows are all at an end!'

Indeed, beloved, we who survive are the objects of pity; not the blessed spirit who hath gone to glory. We, who every morning arise to anxieties that corrode us to troubles that depress us-to fears that torture us-to infirmities that press us down-to sorrows that cause us to 'mourn,' are in honest truth the objects of compassion, not they who being 'delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity.' We who are still amidst the howling of the winds and the roaring of the waves, are the persons for whom our mourning tears should flow; and not for those happy voyagers who have cast anchor within the haven where they would be,-where storms and tempests are for ever unknown. Oh! then, if

'in patience ye possess your souls,' ye shall soon arrive at the haven of immortal rest, conducted thither by Him who 'plants His footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.' And as the sweeping tempest and the beating surge teach the mariner to prize the haven, where undisturbed repose awaits his arrival, so, beloved, let all your cares, anxieties, sorrows, and persecutions, teach you to long for those happy mansions where mourners and comforters shall at last meet together— where no groans are heard, no hopes frustrated, no holy connexions dissolved;-where the bonds of your heavenly kindred shall be revealed;—where all anguish shall be eternally banished from the mind;-where the house of mourning shall be shut up for ever;-where you shall be everlastingly comforted; where 'God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes,' and where the days of your mourning shall be

ended.'

CARDINAL WISEMAN.

THE London correspondent of the 'Aberdeen Free Press,' gives the following matter-of-fact-sort of information respecting that intruding Schismatic. He is welcome to go; but his absence will not cure the schism and the evil he has done. 'I am informed on the authority of a [Roman] Catholic priest that Cardinal Wiseman is about to vacate his so-called Bishoprick of Westminster, and leave this country. The reason for this step is the growing dislike with which the [Roman] Catholics of this country regard his Eminence on account of his conduct in the case of Mr. Boyle. I am personally acquainted with Mr. Boyle, and I know that his cause has been warmly espoused by the higher classes of [Roman] Catholics, and that some of the aristocracy have given him substantial support in prosecuting the case against Dr. Wiseman. The Cardinal, as I understand, will go to Rome.'

THE MOTHER.

Ir has been truly said, 'The first being that rushes to the recollection of a soldier or a sailor, in his heart's difficulty, is his mother. She clings to his memory and affection in the midst of all the forgetfulness and hardihood induced by a