the complete protection of the British residents there, and to prevent a Papist crusade against the Protestant missions in the Georgian, Friendly and Navigators Islands.

It appears to us most desirable, therefore, that the friends of Protestant Missions should, without delay, hold public meetings to encourage and strengthen the government in this purpose. Let respectful memorials be prepared, and, if possible, forwarded through members of parliament to the Foreign Office-and let it be seen throughout Europe and the world, that the Protestant churches of Britain are not insensible to the maintenance of Scriptural Protestantism wherever it is menaced. At the same time let us not forget to pray our Heavenly Father to enable the converts to Christ in Tahiti to contiuue stedfast "in the apostle's doctrine, and breaking of bread, and in prayer," and to grant that our missionary brethren in the Society Islands may be "as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves."

We should omit an important duty if we did not express the living gratitude that is felt by the members of the London Missionary Society to our Protestant brethren in France, Switzerland, and Germany for the for their fraternal sympathy and vigor. ous co-operation. The conductors of the Semeur and the Archives have fearlessly expressed their indignation at the conduct of their own government, which must go far to show the king of the French that it will not be advisable for him to turn Propagandist to please the priests.

AN ANGLICAN BISHOP DOING HOMAGE AT ROME.

A CORRESPONDENT of the Tablet newspaper informs the readers of that journal, (April 15, p. 232,) that the Protestant Bishop of Tuam (Honourable T. Plunket, D.D.,) has been at Rome, and was presented to his holiness at his own request. He wore his apron, and knelt three times according to usage. The pope almost anticipated the ceremony, by rising in the most cordial manner; and shaking both his hands, told him, through his interpreter, that he was pleased to meet the son of Lord Plunket, and added, that he felt a lively and grateful recollection of the ser. vices rendered to the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland, by the eloquence and reasoning powers of his illustrious father. The bishop retired greatly pleased, and begged the Rev. Rector of the English College to convey his thanks to his holiness on occasion of so complimentary a reception. This is the first instance on record of a Protestant bishop asking an interview in half canonicals of the Anglican denomination. May we hope that it will not be the last!"

OPPOSITION TO THE EDUCATIONAL CLAUSES OF THE FACTORY BILL.

CONTRARY to our expectations, we have another opportunity of referring to these insidious provisions before they are discussed in the committee of the House of Commons, and we must say the more we have considered how they would "work," if enacted by parliament, the more are we convinced that they are amongst the most subtle and slavish clauses that have been proposed to parliament since the Restoration. Let them pass, and parents and children, Dissenters and Roman Catholics, parishes and proprietors, would soon learn the blessedness of being placed under the ecclesiastical yoke of the church of England.

But thanks to God, a free press and free discussion have roused the nation from the Scilly to the Shetland Isles, and Methodists, Dissenters, and Catholics-aye and not a few Churchmen too, are labouring by every constitutional means to secure the rejection of this hateful measure.

If any reader yet wants information on the question, we recommend to his immediate attention the valuable Tracts of Messrs. Dunn, Hare, Hinton, Thorn, and Dr. Cox, on the subject. If any church or school has not yet petitioned, we beg them to forward one to their representatives in parliament without delay. Let the government be made to understand that there is a body in these realms that will not bring their neck under the yoke of the clergy, nor submit to them as the only lawful instructors of the British people.

And if any should be still apathetic on the question, let us warn them that, should this bill pass as it is, they will not only have to support the schools that are projected, but to bear the expense of existing church-schools, now sustained by the subscriptions of their friends, being put on the poor-rates; while those funds may be employed for the purposes of bribing children to leave the schools of dissenters, and to attend at the church-schools. If any slumber we would rouse them by the assurance that it is indeed "high time to awake out of sleep."

RECENT DEATHS.

DEATH OF H.R.H. THE DUKE OF SUSSEX.-We deeply regret the loss which our Queen and country have sustained in the death of His Royal Highness Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, Earl of Inverness, &c., &c. This mournful event occurred at Kensington Palace, on Friday, April 21st, in the 71st year of his age.

As a prince devotedly attached to the cause of civil and religious liberty we owe his memory a debt of gratitude which we cannot hope to pay. Some of our correspondents, who were honoured with the friendship of H.R.H., may perhaps be disposed to supply us with memorabilia of the only British prince that has dared, "through evil report and good report," to profess the principles and vindicate the rights of Nonconformists. We shall gladly record a memorial of his patriotic and high

minded efforts.

It is an occasion of national gratitude that this mournful event, which Her Majesty the Queen was likely to feel with an emotion not common in courts, has not been permitted to affect her health, but that Her Majesty was safely delivered of a princes at Buckingham Palace, on Tuesday morning, April 25th, at four o'clock.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a form of thanksgiving to be used in the Church of England. Those dissenting ministers who have not failed to pray for her majesty iu the prospect of her trouble will, we are sure, thankfully join in praise that that trouble has so safely passed away.

On the 3rd of March, after a very short illness, and in the midst of his days and his usefulness, the Rev. JOHN WEST, Pastor of the Congregational Church at Bethnal Green, Middlesex. He was educated for the Christian ministry in the Hackney Theological Seminary, which he left in 1819, and was settled at Barking, in Essex, where he continued to labour till 1836, when he was invited to undertake the pastorate of the church and congregation at Bethnal Green, for many years under the care of the venerable and Rev. John Kello. It is our painful duty to add, that he has left not only a widow and eight children, but an aged father, more than fourscore years old, who were all dependent upon him for support, in circumstances of the greatest destitution. It is due to the memory of our deceased brother to state, that their calamitous position is not in any way the result of improvidence on his part, the insurance offices having refused to grant him a policy because he had twice suffered from hemorrhage of the lungs in the early part of his ministry. A subscription is, there

fore, opened on behalf of this lamentably destitute family, and any remittance made on their behalf to Messrs. Hankey & Co., Bankers, London, will, we conceive, be most worthily bestowed. We may add, that subscribers to the Orphan Working School, City Road, may serve the family by voting at the autumnal election for their youngest daughter, Julia, who is a candidate for admission into that excellent insti. tntion.

The Rev. THOMAS JACKSON, of Stockwell, Surrey, departed this life after an illness of about two hours, on Saturday night, March 17th, 1843. He had made his usual preparations for the services of the approaching Lord's-day, but feeling slightly indisposed with a cold, retired to rest between eight and nine o'clock. After some sleep he awoke in great pain about the region of the heart, and soon after midnight he died, to commence, we trust, an eternal Sabbath-keeping with the blessed. He was ordained at Stockwell February 16th, 1801, and had, therefore, been minister there forty-two years. During the greater part of his public life he was closely associated with the Rev. R. Hill and the Calvinistic Methodist body, but as years advanced he inclined more decidedly to the principles of the Independents, and in 1837 was received as a member of the Congregational Board. He was a zealous friend and advocate of the London Missionary Society, and was one of its directors from an early period of its history. This sudden removal produced a deep impression in the neighbourhood, and the greatest marks of respect for his memory were shown in the parish and neighbourhood by persons of all denominations.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Favours have been received from the Rev. Drs. Hoppus-Alliott.-Mattheson. Rev. Messrs. J. Jennings--R. Hunter-Thomas Milner-J. Richards-James Sherman-Edward Price-George Taylor-Joseph Morrison-John Burder-H. J. Harris-Thomas James-Mark Wilks-R. Slade R. Chamberlain-Kerr Johnston -T. G. Potter-A. Wells.

W. Stroud, Esq., M.D.-Sir J. B. Williams, LL.D.

Messrs. J. C. Medcalf-George Offer-John Rogers-E. Sanderson-John Brown. R. A. V.

THE

CONGREGATIONAL MAGAZINE.

JUNE, 1843.

CHRISTIAN ZEAL.

Ar the last Anniversary Meeting* of the members of Airedale College, Bradford, the Rev. James Parsons, of York, delivered an address to the students on Christian Zeal. That gentleman has recently sent us a copy of it, which we gladly insert on account of its enduring excellence, though, as the record of a public proceeding, it be somewhat out of date:

MY DEAR BRETHREN,

I now endeavour to fulfil the office which I have undertaken in connexion with the engagements of this day. I am to address to you some reflections which may assist you in the establishment of the habits and character you should be desirous, in your future exercise of the Christian ministry, to display. It is my purpose to speak with simplicity and with seriousness, and I trust I shall be heard with candour and with prayer.

The topics which, on such an occasion, might be commended to your attention, are varied and numerous; and there is a danger on the one hand, lest, by attempting to include many, our remarks should become too miscellaneous and desultory,-and on the other, lest, by the selection of one, they should be rendered too individualized and contracted. Yet the latter is the course I shall venture to adopt. I shall request the occupation of your thoughts on one prominent theme,-trusting, at the same time, that your due estimate of it will be found associated with all the elements of your public existence, will impel your most devoted diligence, and will secure your highest usefulness. The theme is comprehended under the one word-Zeal.

Your own studies have doubtless informed you, that the term in the ancient language from which our word zeal is immediately derived, relates to and signifies intense physical heat produced by the action of fire. When it applies to and is intended to describe human character, it signifies mental eagerness and vehemence, or ardour, either against or on behalf of any person, object, or cause. According to this general definition, zeal is not necessarily virtuous: its moral aspect depends on the source from which it originates, the end which it desires to obtain, and the manner in which it is regulated; it may be pure, noble, and useful, or it may be a mighty instrument of evil,-its energies only adding new crimes and new sorrows to the world.

Directing our contemplations to zeal as a Christian attribute, we must remember that it is always and essentially a virtue-morally excellent and valuable. This will appear at once by adverting to the data according to which we have stated its character is decided. If we advert to the source in which zeal originates, as assisting to decide its character, Christian zeal results from the influence upon the mind of the Spirit of God, powerfully applying certain departments of sacred testimony, the belief of which he has inspired, and instrumentally adapted to excite it. Its origin is exclusively here; it is distinctively "the fruit of the Spirit." If we advert to the end which zeal desires to obtain, as assisting to decide its character,—the end of Christian zeal is the vindication of the revealed truth of God against the efforts of those who attempt to injure it, and the extension and diffusion of that truth among mankind, until it shall bring the entire race beneath its power. If we advert to the manner in which zeal is regulated, as assisting to decide its character,-Christian zeal, in all its animations and ardours, is attended and governed by other principles and emotions, arising from the same source in which itself originated, preventing those excesses into which it might often be betrayed, and causing it to operate only in harmony with what is right, and what is heavenly. We must always view it as identified with the fruits of the Spirit, commemorated by the apostle Paul-" love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against which there is no law;" and apart from these, zeal is not Christian,—it is spurious, false, and vain. When these facts are estimated as they require, the place of zeal in the range of moral attributes cannot remain for a moment equivocal: it must be, as we have affirmed it, a virtue : it is an excellency which God has willed shall constitute one of the highest ornaments of the human character, and its operations and results are the noblest which, within the range of human existence, can be secured.

The cultivation of Christian zeal is manifestly incumbent on all who bear the Christian name. Their duty is as much to cherish and foster zeal, as it is to cherish and foster repentance, or faith, or love,