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munion to this respectable old planter, who had for many years been desiring such an opportunity.-Pp. 39, 40.

I was much struck here with the homely, but touching remark of one R. W., in whose house I had officiated :-"Ah! Sir, if any of us be sick or sore, there is no one near to visit us, or to care for our souls."-P. 46.

The style of singing here, as well as at Piper's Hole, gratified me much. I read the prayers from a fine 8vo. Prayer-Book, of the "Prayer Book and Homily Society," presented to old Mr. Hollett, by the Reverend Charles Norman, Manningtree, Essex, April 1834. This generous individual Hollett has never seen; but his name had been mentioned to Mr. Norman by a servant, whose brother, a fisherman in Newfoundland, had been in the habit of attending Mr. Hollett's reading of the church service on the Lord's Day, in his house on Sound Island; and Mr. Hollett has, for some time, received from him a packet of books each year. These he is humbly endeavouring to make instrumental to the spiritual improvement of his neighbourhood, and his efforts, I should say, judging from the demeanour of the congregation which I was gratified to meet at his house-and their response, and the manner in which they join in the psalmody, have been blessed by God's Holy Spirit.-Pp. 48, 49.

I lost no time, on my arrival at Chick's, in assembling fourteen persons, from his and the adjoining tilts, to full service; and after some very seasonable refreshment, slept soundly, on a bed which my kind hostess had spread by the fire upon the floor for me. She begged me to send her some books, observing, "I am fond of church books; a neighbour of mine faults' the Church Catechism in his talk, sir; but to my belief, though I am no scholar, there is not like to be a better."-Pp. 59, 60.

Here I met I. W., an old man from Sturminster, in Dorset, who reads the church prayers to his neighbours on the Lord's Day, and begged of me to send him a supply of plain sermons, or, as he expressed it, "not too high learnt." "I have often dropped tears on Sunday," said he, "to think of the church at home, which I thought too little of when I was there; and often I have felt that I would have given the heart out of my body, sir, to hear the church prayers on the Lord's Day."-P. 67.

Baptized a child and churched the mother before leaving Bay d'Este for Shelter Point, where I proposed holding prayers, that an aged woman of eightysix, a native of Placentia Bay, who had never seen any Clergyman, might have the privilege of joining in common prayer, which she seemed to value much. Here, a mile and a half up the ice, I found James Miles, from Shaftesbury, Dorset, the father of the settlement. He had been fifty-six years in Newfoundland, and had never before seen a Clergyman.-P. 69.

Good old Miles, in the freedom which the most devout will feel, during the performance of a religious service in a humble tilt, when I came to the charge which closes the office of baptism, respecting the bringing of the children at a proper age, and on their obtaining a proper proficiency, to be confirmed by the Bishop, devoutly exclaimed aloud, "Ah! there's no possibility for that in these parts; the more's the pity! but, please God, we'll do our best."-P.71.

Found that the wife of John Cluatt, my host, was an old correspondent, who had assisted her grandfather Beck, and her father Tulk, late readers under the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in keeping school at St. Lawrence, in Placentia Bay. She told me with tears, that next to the death of her father, she had felt it the greatest calamity in her life that, on her removing at marriage to her present place of residence, she had not been permitted, so great was the scarcity of books in her native settlement, to take with her her Prayer-book and some other works of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, with which I had supplied her some years before.-Pp. 75, 76.

I was glad to find here a few copies of "Bishop Blomfield's Prayers," and some other books of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge. A Clergyman in the neighbourhood of Sturminster had sent them out to one of the planters, who had very profitably dispersed them among the settlers around

him. How much, under God, do this and similar societies effect towards keeping up a knowledge of christian doctrine and christian requirements in these spiritually destitute settlements! I left this place at four, and got to Furby's Cove by five P.M. I held full service to sixty persons, baptizing fifteen children. The people of this neighbourhood are very warmly attached to the church of their fathers, and, when asked respecting their creed, say, they belong to" the good old English religion."- Pp. 80, 81.

I had one baptism, and was much pleased with their simple manner of singing. Sir Thomas J. Cochrane, the late excellent governor of Newfoundland, having put into Deer Island, White Bear Bay, while W. Strickland and his brother John lived there, found them engaged, as is their custom, in reading prayers to their own and the neighbours' families on the Lord's day, and his Excellency presented him with a fine octavo Prayer Book, with the stamp of the Prayer Book and Homily Society. Strickland is very proud of this treasure. When he showed it to me, he begged with much humility that I would point out to him those parts of the public service which a lay reader might use in a congregation. "We never saw a church," said he, “or were where a church was, or got any schooling, for reading is hard to be got in these parts; but we taught ourselves, and go through the prayers alternate,” (he and his brother, he meant) "morning and evening, each Sunday."-Pp. 114, 115.

Some of the poor people into whose hands the books have fallen, [religious works saved from a wreck] are unable themselves to read, but then they bring out the precious bundle of highly-valued tracts from the sanctuary of their house chest, and, unrolling the piece of cotton or cloth in which they are carefully wrapped, they beg any temporary sojourner, or travelling bird of passage, who is a scholar, to read them to their assembled household. They availed themselves thus of my services between the hours of our public devotions; and, as I have frequently been on other occasions, I was pleased to see that they had much feeling.—Pp. 130, 131.

When I had performed full service at Bay Chaleur, and baptized his [Reuben Samms] four children, his wife humbly offered herself also for baptism, as did als his mother-in-law, who was sixty-two years of age, but had never before had an opportunity, though well read and instructed, and of pious conversation.-P. 132. It has more than once occurred, that, through the thin partition which separated my sleeping cabin from that of a nest of children, I have heard, for an hour or two after I have retired to bed, the little voices of the younger branches of the family, strained to an unnatural pitch, repeating the ten commandments, the duty to God and our neighbour, the Belief, and other portions of the Catechism, and perhaps a hymn or two of Dr. Watts, (all, in fact, which could be brought from their scantily stored memory,) all as prayers.-P. 139. The superior demeanour of this person, compared with that of the people by whom he is surrounded, and his superior religious intelligence, were most gratifying. It may stimulate the exertions of those engaged in Sunday schools, to know, that he attributes it himself to the attention which he received when a cabin-boy, from a worthy Clergyman in England. He was a native of Newfoundland, and received as fair an education as his highly respectable parents could themselves give him in a little out-harbour. He went home, however, when young, and while waiting for the sailing of his vessel, he was seen at church regularly on Sundays, and weekly prayer days, in his sailor's clothes in the pew of some English relatives in the port: the Clergyman, on observing this, noticed him, and took pains to give him instruction in his Sunday school, and on other occasions. He is now able to assemble a congregation, or to read by a sick bed, and has taught several of his nephews and nieces, and other neighbours, to read, and he has told me that he knew he could never forget the kindness of that Clergyman, he trusted he never should forget the advice which he had given him.

How many grateful testimonies of this nature has it been my happiness to bave had mentioned to me at different times in the last nine years, by the

settlers in these distant colonies! The parish boy, or the giddy girl, the impression or improvement of whose heart the village pastor has thought hopeless, as he presented the case in his private addresses to the throne of grace, has returned in a foreign land some portion of the obligation under which the kindness of the pastor of their youth has laid them to the church, by entertaining and introducing into their neighbourhood one of that missionary church's missionary clergy; and, as after the dismissal of the settlement from his more public ministrations, confidence has been encouraged, and reserve has been removed, tales have been told of the village school, and of the catechizing in the aisle of the church, and of the pastor's affectionate stroke upon the head of my host, rugged and weather-beaten now, but then a sleek curly-headed youth, and the reward-book with the pastor's valued autograph has been brought forth, and the clasped Bible and the torn Prayer Book, which he would not by any means part with, but would wish for another,-till-O! the missionary and the man of rugged features have both become children! and on the thought of home, and of the church-yard stile, and the village spire, and the intervening sea, and the present sad, sad wilderness in which they are wandering, or wearing away life far from the privileges of which such fondly recollected scenes remind them, they are both in tears, and both upon their knees praying for a blessing upon the dear church of their fathers, that God would keep it with his perpetual mercy, cleanse it and defend it with his continual pity, and because it cannot continue in safety without his succour, preserve it ever, evermore by his help and goodness, through JESUS CHRIST our LORD!-Pp. 178-181.

We are compelled to omit many similar anecdotes, which we do with the less reluctance, because we trust that our readers will be induced to possess themselves of the work itself. We have read it more than once, and with increasing interest. The good taste of the dedication to Mrs. Wix may be questionable; this, however, is a small blemish, and detracts in no degree from the value of the book.

One painful, nay, indignant feeling, has been awakened in our minds by the perusal, that the missionary who exposes himself to such toil, privation, and danger, and the poor people who thus prize and cling to the faith of their fathers and their father-land, should find their worst énemy in the Government which ought to cherish them. The funds by which the missionaries in our North American Colonies have hitherto been chiefly supported, are withdrawn! and withdrawn by a government which is ready to squander hundreds of thousands of pounds to furnish the loyal and peaceable popish priests of Ireland with the means of educating the rising generation of that country, after a manner upon which these ministers DARE not meet an inquiry, and against which the Established Protestant Church, which they have sworn to uphold, has solemnly, and repeatedly protested. These remarks will not be deemed out of place here, when it is known that Irish agitation, and the struggle for popish ascendency, have extended to Newfoundland, A fact, from the work before us, with which we shall close this article, will afford the proof and illustration.

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I was exceedingly grieved, on my return to St. John's, to find that a factious party under the influence to which allusion is made at the date of March 3

had, in my absence, occasioned much apprehension to the more orderly inhabitants of St. John's, and the island at large. They had openly declared from the altar, that the sword of the church was unsheathed. Mr. Henry Winton, the editor of one of the public newspapers, who had rendered himself obnoxious to the Right Reverend Bishop Fleming and his seditious political colleagues in the priesthood, by his simple remonstrance against their interference with the political rights of the people; who never, moreover, had written a syllable in the way of reflection, except respectfully, upon their religion, had (besides other attacks on his person,) been savagely assaulted in open day, and his ears mutilated, to the danger of his life; those who subscribed to his paper, or dealt with him, and other Protestants who were named, were denounced from the altar, and if Romanist, were excommunicated; under which sentence I found some of the most respectable of that communion on my return, and know that the same sentence is on them at the moment of my writing -Pp. 224—226.

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Sermons, preached in the Parish Church of Falmouth. By the Rev. W. WOODIS HARVEY, M.A. Joint Curate of Falmouth. London: Rivingtons, 1835. Pp. 366.

THESE Sermons, fifteen in number, are printed at the request of the author's congregation, who engaged to secure him against loss, should any arise from the publication. This testimony of approval from the persons most competent to judge of the merits, as well of the Sermons as of their author, makes our tribute of praise unnecessary. There is a circumstance, however, connected with one of these discourses, and upon which we can speak from certain information, which ought not to be overlooked: it shows what measure of justice and mercy faithful Clergymen may expect, if the powers who now occupy the high places in our land should ever break the fetters which restrain their disposition to mischief. We shall state the facts without comment.

In the fourth sermon, of which the subject is "On the Efficacy of the Gospel;" and the text, Rom. i. 16, the following passage occurs:

If it were matter of doubt whether Christianity has a just right to the superiority, which she claims over the superstitions and impostures of men ;--whether Protestant Christianity has any pre-emi

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nence over that corrupted form of the christian faith which prevails in some lands:-if we could be reasonably required to abjure, and to treat as a thing of nought the religion on which we have staked our everlasting interests;-or to consider it a needless sacrifice in those who, in the struggle which at length liberated the land from a gross spiritual usurpation, counted not their lives dear unto them. If, on these matters, there was any room for doubt or indecision, the case might stand differently, and our duty be less obvious and imperative. But is it so? Is it dubious that "the gospel is the power of God unto salvation?" Is it dubious, that as taught by the Protestant Church of these realms, it is presented in its purest, its holiest, its most efficacious form? So, I deem, it will not be said.

On the ground, then, that we hold the only true religion, that we hold it in its purest form, let us guard it from those dangers which may at any time threaten its safety. At a season more especially of a struggle between opposite principles so general and violent as to press itself on the serious attention of men, of the most retired feelings and habits,-at a moment, I say, in which a fierce assault is making by an unnatural combination of unbelief and superstition, against the truth and purity of the gospel,-against its stability and continuance amongst us,-let us not be forgetful of our duty. Let us beware how we support, or even countenance, directly or indirectly, whatever has a manifest or probable tendency to deprive those who come after us of the knowledge, which we

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happily possess, of the gospel of the grace of God, and of the benefits resulting from it. Pp. 103-105.

This is not only the strongest passage in the sermon, but almost the only one which can be tortured into a political meaning. It was preached on Sunday, April 26, 1835. On the following Wednesday the SolicitorGeneral was returned for the united borough of Penryn and Falmouth, after a very severe contest, and by a very small majority. As the feeling against him was very strong at Penryn, the magistrates requested him to prevent the chairing procession from passing through that town, declaring that they could not otherwise be answerable for the public peace. The Solicitor-General readily promised this; but he could not control the violence of his party. Their leaders urged it upon them, and the advice too well accorded with the dispositions of a violent and excited nob, that they should not be prevented from triumphing to the uttermost. At the same time a most scurrilous invective was uttered against Mr. Harvey, for presuming to make political allusions in his sermon of the preceding Sunday. The parties who were thus prominent in provoking a breach of the peace were, and are, corporate magistrates! The result is soon told. A mob of rioters went to Penryn, next morning, in procession, with revolutionary emblems, tricoloured flags, &c.; they were met by a party from that town, and a general battle took place, so long and so violent that the magistrates found it necessary to read the riot act. That evening the church at Falmouth was attacked, and several stones were thrown through the windows during divine service. Notwithstanding this, a provincial paper, the organ of the revolutionary party, repeated the libel on Mr. Harvey, and in language of still grosser scurrility, on the following Saturday. Mr. Harvey was consequently called upon, in two very flattering letters, the one signed by four of the oldest and most respectable inhabitants of the town, the other by the churchwardens and many of his congregation, to shame his calumniators by immediately

printing the Sermon. This discourse, therefore, has already appeared in a separate form.

One more fact may close the disgraceful story. A very few weeks after, a dissenting minister, of consideration with his party-for he was then officially employed to travel through the country, and hold public missionary meetings at the different towns, at one of these missionary meetings, held in a dissenting meeting house at Falmouth, delivered a violent political harangue, amidst the loud applause of his party, and it should be added, to the disgust of the Wesleyan Methodists present. He declared that the Municipal Reform Bill must pass unimpaired; that the Church must be severed from the State; and after complimenting his audience on their own exertions in the cause, he assured them that their praise was gone abroad, and urged them to go on and prosper. Praiseworthy conduct truly, and much to be commended by a minister, and an advocate of christian missions ! to go out to riot and fight under revolutionary banners; to vilify the Clergy; and to outrage with violence and mischief the house of God!

The Life, and a Selection from the Letters, of the late Rev. HENRY VENN, M.A. successively Vicar of Shuddersfield, Yorkshire, and Rector of Yelling, Huntingdonshire, Author of "The Complete Duty of Man," &c. The Memoir of his Life, drawn up by the late Rev. JOHN VENN, M. A. Rector of Clapham, Surrey. Edited by the Rev. HENRY VENN, B.D. Incumbent of Drypool, Yorkshire, late Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge. London: Hatchard, 1834, (4th ed. 1835) Pp. xxviii. 585. WE take some shame to ourselves for having suffered this volume to pass into a fourth edition without a notice in these pages. The truth is, it was committed to the inspection of one of our collaborateurs, who intended to do it justice long ago; but illness occurred of a tedious continuance, and it was for

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