sure of the Conservatives to out vote the Radicals, sought favour with the latter, by making it an open question among themselves; and thus, by temporary expedients, they flit on from day to day, and from measure to measure; so that what ought to be a Government, carefully maturing its plans before they are brought forward, and then calmly carrying them through for the public welfare, is but a thing of incongruous short-lived expedients, which

purposes; and there was therefore the more reason that they should not abuse their power. They should also have considered, that the very question of monarchy is being tried in the person of our gracions queen; for though she is strong, not merely in hereditary right, but in the warm and devoted loyalty of her subjects; yet wild republican theories of government are struggling for mastery; the inexperience of youth and the feebleness of sex, though amply compensated for by the settled institututions of our well-beloved constitution, yet offer inflammatory topics for the declamations of levellers and revolutionists; and it is no joyous spectacle to considerate and loyal men, to see a court made an object of contempt or indignation to Chartists and the very refuse of society, who cannot, or will not, distinguish between the excellence of an institution and the casual temporary defects of its administration.

Under all these circumstances, then, we cannot but think that the Melbourne ministry ought, upon their own showing, to have resigned office; but they have preferred their accustomed plan of living on upon sufferance; taking no decided line of policy, but trimming their measures right and left, to make them narrow enough to slip in between the crevices of opposing parties. In the Canada question, the Jamaica question, the Education question, and many others, they have first launched one measure as a sort of pilot balloon, to see which way the wind blew, and this point being ascertained, they have tried to adapt their ulterior flight to the eddies of the current. A make-believe correspondence was got up between Lord John Russell and Lord Lansdowne, to exhibit a befitting scheme of National Education; and the measure being duly inflated, with only five Privy Councillors as ballast, it was hoped that it would prove buoyant enough to float in the atmosphere of the House of Commons, since being a money-matter it would not have to rise to the region of the House of Lords; but such alarming gales sprang up in all quarters; such hurricanes of public displeasure; such storms of petitions, such tornadoes from cathe drals and conventicles, from Willis's Rooms and Exeter Hall, from the domes of Oxford and the Methodist Conference-room, that a less ostentatious, but it was hoped a more substantial, bubble was blown up; which, in its turn, has all but burst at the first gust of opposition, and is now trailing in the mire. In the Ballot question, the same sufferance plan was adopted; the leading ministers, who are hostile to it, being

O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,

With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues its way,

And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.

The National Education question is the most important of all the measures now under public discussion; but we have so often viewed it in its various bearings that we need not dwell largely upon it at present. When, several years since, the plan was proposed of making grants to the British and Foreign School Society, though we rejoiced that the Scriptures would be read in the schools thus aided, yet we warned our readers that the aid offered to them was an infringement upon the system of a National Church, and might lead to more serious innovations. We had frequently been obliged, during the controversy on the claims and systems of Bell and Lancaster, to complain of the sectarian spirit of some plan, who were always nibbling at the of the advocates of the alleged neutral Established Church; and in our Volume for 1833 (p. 444) we remarked that it was "gratifying to observe how strongly the friends of the Society insist upon that important principle, that the education given to the poor as well as the rich should be Scriptural;" but we lamented that the Rev. Mr. Burnett, in his speech for the Society, should have "mixed up political allusions with the business of charitable and religious institutions;" or sneeringly said that "the Society looked not on a steeple to frown on a chapel, or help a Churchman to pass by a Dissenter." We added: "Another man might have transposed the words and made an excellent good quarrel. If three or four Dissenting ministers, at the peaceful meetings of religious and charitable societies, will always be flinging their gibes at the Church of England, they will do much evil to the cause both of religion and charity." They have done so; and the Government scheme of education is one frightful result of their labours. The " quarrel" which we anticipated, has occurred, in consequence of such intemperate proceedings, and of the

meddlesome petition of the British and Foreign School Society against the plan of the National School Society-though the friends of the latter did not oppose the public grants to the former. - and the discussion which has ensued, has shewn in the clearest light the impossibility of devising any legislative scheme which shall efficiently embody religious instruction without calling in the instrumentality of the Established Church.

The formidable opposition so justly exhibited towards the first ministerial project, induced the cabinet to relinquish it, and to substitute another; which however partook so decidedly of the essential vices of the former, that no person who intelligently and concientiously opposed the one, could countenance the other. Five privy councillors were still to be in effect the arbiters of National Education; the grants hitherto distributed through two wellknown societies, were in future to be awarded at the sole pleasure of the commissioners, to whom, and in what manner, they pleased: the National Society was no longer to receive public aid in proportion to its own exertions, and hence while churchmen largely ex pended their own money, they might see some of their neighbours, who contributed little or nothing, supplied at the public cost; the church was passed by as a nonentity or a nuisance; but chiefly it was admitted, that a main object of the measure was to aid Romanist schools from the national purse; and if so, why not Jewish or Socinian ? and why not pay for and use the Socinian Bible as well as the Romanist? After three nights' protracted debates, the scheme was approved of by a majority of only five, in a house consisting of 559 members; and upon the recurrence of the question, the majority was only two. In these memorable discussions, most of the leading members on all sides expressed their sentiments, and never in the modern debates of the house of Commons has there appeared a higher-toned and more scriptural mass of argument than in the speeches of some of the opponents of the scheme; among whom appear the names of Lord Ashley, Lord Stanley, Sir Robert Peel, Sir R. H. Inglis, Mr. Goulburn, Sir J. Graham, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, Mr. Plumptre, Mr. Acland, and Lord F. Egerton; several of whose addresses were eminently powerful. The religious cast of much of this and other recent discussions, and the considerable extent to which arguments of a theological character have of late been urged in both houses of parliament, indicate the increasingly extensive interest taken

by the public in such questions; and we trust are a token for good, as shewing that the nation is not apathetic on the solemn questions which affect the salvation of the human soul. All the arguments on the side of the measure may be summed up in one, the alleged injustice and impolicy of exclusive systems; but if so, the debate ought to be taken upon the question of national churches, and not upon schools; for that cannot be injustice in the case of children which is justice, and piety too, in the case of adults. It ought also to be taken in a mode that will enable the house of Lords to express its opinion; for to smuggle in a device for National Education, under the protection of a clause in a money bill, is neither candid, constitutional, nor just.

Whether, after the recent votes, the cabinet will persist in its plan, we know not; but assuredly it will not be able to force it upon the people. Does Lord John Russell think to rival Charles V. in trying to make watches and opinions go alike? If he does, he' will assuredly find the same issue to his labours. We can see no basis for that religious neutrality of education, of which so much is said, except latent infidelity-reckless sceptiscism as regards all creeds and "modes of faith," to" contend earnestly" for which is relegated to "graceless zealots." The doctrine enounced in the government plan about religion being "general and special," Jehovah, Jove, or Lord, is so notoriously unscriptural and antianglican, that we need not spend many words to refute it. We know but of one God, one Christ, one Sanctifier, one faith, one baptism, one name given under heaven whereby men may be saved." It was excellently observed by the Bishop of London, at the Education meeting at Willis's rooms:-"When, therefore, we contend, in the words of the Resolution, That instruction in the truths and precepts of Christianity ought to be an essential part of every Education intended for the people at large,' we mean instruction in the peculiar truths and in the characteristic precepts of Christianity. I say, peculiar and characteristic: Christianity itself is an eminently peculiar religionpeculiar in its revelations, its precepts, its motives, its promises, and its hopes! Deprive Christianity of what is essentially peculiar to itself,-take away the doctrines of man's sinfulness and corruption, the necessity of an Atonement to be made by a Divine Saviour, Justification through faith in that Saviour, Sanctification by the Spirit unto obedience, take away the doctrines, and

the doctrines of the Sacrament of Grace, and what remains? Not Christianity! not even a faint adumbration of Christianity; not even the true religion of a less perfect dispensation, but a mere caput mortuum of Deism, from which, when it has thus passed through the alembic of a generalizing philosophy, you will scarcely and with difficulty extract a few residual grains of cold and spiritless morality, utterly ineffective and useless for the great purposes of right conduct and peace of mind in this life, much more for those of preparation for a better.' His lordship added, "EduIcation is not confined to the walls merely of a school; it is a work carried on afterwards to perfection in the church; the clergyman continues what the schoolmaster begins; and if there be not a perfect harmony and consistency between the principles and the efforts of the two, you will never rear up a building in perfectness, symmetry, and strength, that building which the apostle describes as growing up into

a holy temple to the Lord,' but the inevitable result of such a want of harmony and co-operation will be weakness, imperfection, and confusion."

One remark only will we add, namely, that the Church of England ought promptly to rise to the full measure of its high duties and responsibilities. We rejoice to say that it has of late been most honourably zealous and active, especially in building new churches, and providing for pastoral superintendance and Christian education. As one striking illustration, among many, of this fact, we cannot but mention the noble proposal for building ten new churches, with schools and other apparatus of a well-ordered parochial system, in the populous parish of Bethnal Green, so memorable as a portion of the locality

in which large numbers of the persecuted Huguenots found a shelter. The Bishop of London has also summoned a meeting of the clergy of his diocese, to promote a complete system of education throughout the metropolitan see. Yet all this is not enough. We have year after year complained that the members of the church are allowing themselves to become too exclusively voluntaries; that they stand quietly to be pecked at; and that, instead of demanding in parliament the aid of the public revenues, to render the establishment more adequate to the wants of our enlarged population, they are content to raise private funds, (which indeed they ought to do, and in a greatly enlarged measure, but not to the exclusion of legislative aid,) or to clip old endowments, and to stand for ever upon the defensive, instead of boldly vindicating the claims of the church to the support of the state, for the general welfare of all classes of the people. We are happy to say, that, while we are writing, an influential meeting is being held, which purposes petitioning parliament to this effect: and we trust that the merits of the question will be practically brought to bear upon the House of Commons. If the nation wishes to abolish its ecclesiastical establishment, let it do so openly and manfully; but if it feels too sensibly its value and importance to propose its abolition, then let it be adequately supported. The Chancellor of the Exchequer laughs at the idea of a nation having a conscience; but let each of its members prove that he has one, and the result will be the same. The Church of England never, perhaps, stood higher in public feeling than at the present moment; and the blessing of God has eminently rested on its labours.