as has been generally supposed, antagonistic principle, that has increased in a still greater ratio. Popery reckons, at the close of the first half of the nineteenth century, about ten times the number of adherents within the two kingdoms that it reckoned when the century began. In producing a result so disastrous, Puseyism has no doubt had its share. There are but two elements in the religious world of Europe, -the Popish and the Puritanic; and when, some fifteen years ago, a zealous and influential section of English Episcopalians set themselves to re-invigorate their Church by reviving the ceremonies and doctrines of a Christianity absolutely ancient, but comparatively modern,—for it dates at least three hundred years later than the age of the New Testament,they had inevitably committed themselves, little as they might be aware of the fact at the time, to the Popish element. And we now see the fruit of the committal in the perversions which are taking place almost every day in the English Church. But these, though of mighty importance to Rome, have done comparatively little to swell her numbers. She owes the vast increase which has filled the dingier dwellings and poorer lanes of our larger towns with her votaries, to the overflowings of the miserable population of Ireland. The Romish Church has been no doubt much encouraged by the revival of the ancient Christianity within the pale of the English one; and, save for this encouragement,. it is not in the least likely that the aggression of the past year would have taken place; but there can be as little doubt that it is to the poor neglected Irish, sacrificed generation after generation to the Erastian secularities of Protestant Episcopacy, and latterly expatriated by the potato disease, that Popery owes its increase in Britain. There will be work enough in this department for all the Protestant Churches of the country for the coming half-century, if they would escape defeat and disgrace at their own doors. The last half

century has shown how difficult it is to calculate on the strength of Churches. Its first decade witnessed the dethronement of the Pope by Napoleon; its terminating decade, his flight from Rome under the terror of his revolutionary subjects. And yet Popery possesses at the present time a vast empire in the minds of men; and it has just dared to perpetrate, in consequence, one of its boldest aggressions on the most powerful empire in the world. And that aggres

sion has brought out the great strength of another Church, which, about the time of the passing of the Reform Bill, was deemed so far from strong, that statesmen of no inconsiderable calibre held that almost any sort of liberty might be taken with the status of her dignitaries, or with her property. It seems unquestionably true, that the present powerful anti-Popish movement, which has done what the zeal of Dissent could never do,-stirred the nation to its very depths, has arisen among the English Episcopalians, and has been a direct consequence of what the Dissent of England and the Presbyterians of Scotland regard as a very inconsiderable element in the matter, -the encroachment on the domains of the English bishops. We recognise in the fact the correctness of the impression made upon us when residing for a short time in England a few years ago. crossed the borders in the belief, pretty general, we are disposed to think, among Scotchmen, that the active power of non-conformity in the southern kingdom was not much less than a match for the mere passive power of its Established Episcopacy: we came away full under the conviction that the two powers are so very unequal, that it is scarce wise to name them together. Established Episcopacy in England represents the soldiers of a vast army leaning silently on their arms; whereas English Dissent may be rather likened to the handful led by Gideon, making great show and much noise, but, unless miracles be wrought in their behalf, not

G

We

destined to make a very considerable impression on the country. And so Evangelism in Scotland has a much larger stake in the doctrinal soundness of the English Church than it seems to be aware of. Judging from present appearances,

the religion of the English Church, whatever that may come to be, bids fair to be also the religion of the English Constitution; and therefore, though we respect many of the honest and good men who seem determined at the present crisis to do battle both with Popery and Established Episcopacy, we cannot think they have fallen on by any means the best way of dealing with the emergency. They will, we are afraid, find either opponent quite a match for them; and should they set themselves to fight against both at once, neither Protestantism nor themselves will gain anything by their coming into the field..

Another mighty increase has taken place during the lapsed half-century in the numbers of the poor. It is generally, and, we think, justly held, that that enormous amount of pauperism in Scotland which, at the time of the Revolution, Fletcher of Saltoun could deem so formidable, was, in great part at least, a result of the previous persecution. There can be at least as little doubt that it was the termination of the Church controversy, not in an equitable adjustment, suited to place under the control of our civil courts all the temporalities of the Church, and under her courts ecclesiastical all her spiritualities, but in the Disruption,-an event gilded by the glory of conscientious sacrifice, but not the less, but rather the more, on that account a calamity to the country, -that brought the pauper question to a crisis, and saddled upon Scotland a crushing poor-law. It is a surely not uninstructive fact, that the proprietors of the country have paid for the support of the poor, since this event, a sum as large as would have purchased all their patronages three times over,—a sum which previous to the collision they had

not to pay, and which, had they urged the question to a different issue, they would not have to pay now.

The settle

ment which the controversy received has been, economically at least, a very bad settlement for them. But there is no

party that need triumph in such a result. Free Churchmen, as certainly as Established Churchmen, suffer in consequence; aud the hard problem subjected to the country through the event it may take the whole of the next half-century to solve. It is something, however, that it is already compelling attention, and that Carlyle's "Condition of the People Question" is recognised as the great question of the day. These are but desultory remarks, and, withal, sufficiently prosaic; but the magnitude of the subject oppresses us; nor dare we attempt condensing into an article what, could we devote a whole volume to the survey, would require to be even then greatly condensed.-January 1, 1850.

THE ECHOES OF THE WORLD.

DR CHALMERS.

HAs the reader ever heard a piece of heavy ordnance fired amid the mountains of our country? First there is the earstunning report of the piece itself,-the prime mover of those airy undulations that travel outwards, circle beyond circle, towards the far horizon; then some hoary precipice, that rises tall and solemn in the immediate neighbourhood, takes up the sound, and it comes rolling back from its rough front in thunder, like a giant wave flung far seaward from the rock against which it has broken; then some more distant hill becomes vocal, and then another, and another, and anon another; and then there is a slight pause, as if all were over,

-the undulations are travelling unbroken along some flat moor, or across some expansive lake, or over some deep valley, filled, haply, by some long withdrawing arm of the sea; and then the more remote mountains lift up their voices in mysterious mutterings, now lower, now louder, now more abrupt, anon more prolonged, each, as it recedes, taking up the tale in closer succession to the one that had previously spoken, till at length their distinct utterances are lost in one low continuous sound, that at last dies out amid the shattered peaks of the desert wilderness, and unbroken stillness settles over the scene, as at first. Through a scarce voluntary exercise of that faculty of analogy and comparison so natural to the human mind, that it converts all the existences of the physical world into forms and expressions of the world moral and intellectual, we have oftener than once thought of the phenomenon and its attendant results, as strikingly representative of effects produced by the death of Chalmers. It is an event which has, we find, rendered vocal the echoes of the world; and they are still returning upon us, after measured intervals, according to the distances. First, as if from the nearer rocks and precipices, they arose from the various towns and cities of Scotland that possess their periodicals; then from the great southern metropolis, and the other towns and cities of England, as if from the hills immediately beyond; from Ireland next; and next from France and Geneva, and the European Continent generally. And then there was a slight pause. The tidings were passing in silence, without meeting an intelligent ear on which to fall, across the wide expanse of the Atlantic. And then, as if from more distant mountains, came the voices of the States, and the colonies, and the West Indian islands. It was no uninteresting task to unrobe from their close brown covers, that spake in colour and form of a foreign country, the Transatlantic journals, and read tribute after tribute to the worth and in