many are prevented by circumstances from knowing what God is doing among the heathen by any Christian community but that to which they belong. Yet the hearts of a multitude in various societies would rejoice at tidings of success wherever it occurred, and would increase their zeal and efforts by contemplating the miseries of a perishing world. Is it not desirable, then, to avail ourselves of the means of extending such information?

2. Such a communication of what is done by kindred societies would promote a catholic spirit. The knowledge which Christians possessed of the missionary proceedings of others, would enlarge their hearts; and while they felt that they had interests, labours, and tokens of the presence of God in common with them, they would realise and cherish mutual family affection. The boundaries erected by prejudice would disappear; and in contrast with the darkness and degradation of heathenism, the shades of difference between genuine Christians of every name would be regarded as nothing. The various sections of the Church of Christ resemble the tribes of Israel in the wilderness, which, though distinct, were united; and, with the ark of God in the midst of them, were advancing towards the same land of promise. So Christians of all classes, who know each other, feel themselves to be one people, and rejoice to be "workers together with God," and one with another, in promoting the Divine glory and the salvation of mankind.

3. If such information be communicated at the monthly missionary meetings, it would furnish ample materials for the devotional parts of the service. Perhaps an encouraging fact, or an eminent token for good, has been mentioned, which is calculated to animate the faith, and call forth the grateful expressions of him who speaks to God in behalf of the people. Or possibly some affecting instance of ignorance, crime, or misery, has been referred to, which awakens the tenderest and deepest emotions, and constrains the "seed of Jacob" to wrestle with God for his blessing. Thus information derived from various sources is useful; it produces something more than momentary impressions; and, beyond the limits of the sanctuary, increases the fervour of the Christian's prayers and praises, and strengthens his future endea

vours.

Our missionary anniversaries are highly beneficial; and many an interesting fact and important truth mentioned on these occasions are as "nails fastened by the masters of assemblies." Such services, however, are "far between." But if missionary information be more frequently imparted, I believe that more zeal and compassion would be exerted, more earnest and believing supplications be pre

sented to God, more love among Christians, and more co-operation be exhibited, and, under the blessing of God, the kingdom of Christ be more widely extended. OBSERVATOR.

FRANCE.

THE PROTESTANT ANTI-STATE CHURCHES OF FRANCE.

(To the Editor of the Evangelical Magazine.) SIR, I am gratified to find the document of the "Evangelical Anti-State Churches of France" in your excellent Magazine for December. It was my great privilege to be present at the discussion of the several articles of their ecclesiastical constitution, and an occasion of deeper or more instructive interest it has never been my happiness to witness. The assembly (only a third of the number of that which was held in Jerusalem) met in an upper room at the corner of an obscure court, 12, Rue Dephôt, near the Madeleine. I was much struck with the order, amenity, and yet earnest freedom of the brethren. Their dignified simplicity of manner, firmness, kindliness, mutual confidence, and mutual submission, interested me most thoroughly. The sentiments, in particular, uttered by M. Fishe, M. Audebez, M. Delaborde, and Count Gasparin, were of the most elevated character. As pastor of the oldest Nonconformist church in our own country, I listened with intense emotion to the debate on the 4th article, section 5. The deputation from the Free Church of Scotland strongly urged the Synod to adopt their peculiar views in reference to State support, and were evidently disappointed in the more advanced, and (as we should say) more Scriptural opinions expressed on this subject by the French brethren. The unanimous resolution of the assembly in favour of the Voluntary principle, and the explicit avowal of their opposition to the State Connexion, filled me with grateful surprise. My recollections of the Synod will long remain as a source of the purest gratification. Some incidents connected with it were of touching interest, but I must not trespass on your space in the narration of them. My object in writing this brief note is to request permission to acknowledge, through your pages, the Christian courtesy of the Rev. F. Monod, the president of the Synod, and to express to the brethren my deep and abiding sense of their kind attention. I sincerely regret that some minister of our denomination was not present, more competent than myself, to exhibit their claims to the affectionate sympathy, fraternal confidence, and fervent prayers of the British churches. I am, sir, yours faithfully,

JOHN WADDINGTON.

Southwark, Dec. 5, 1849.

M. THIERS'S MODE OF ESTIMATING THE VALUE OF THE POPE.

THE Catholic party, of which this French statesman is the organ, may be thoroughly comprehended by the following passage in his report on the subject of French intervention for the restoration of Pius IX.

"Without the authority of the sovereign Pontiff," said M. Thiers, “Catholic unity would be dissolved; without that unity Catholicism would perish in the midst of sects, and the moral world, already so deeply embroiled, would be subverted from its very foundations. But the Catholic unity, which demands a certain religious submission on the part of Christian nations, would be unfeasible if the Pontiff, who is the depositary of it, were not completely independent, if, in the territory which ages have assigned him, which all nations have maintained for him, another sovereign, prince, or people, should rise up to dictate laws to him. For the Pontificate there can be no independence but in sovereignty; here is an interest of the first order, to which the particular interests of nations should give place, as in a State the public interest takes precedence of private interest, and that would sufficiently authorise the Catholic powers to re-establish Pius IX. on his pontifical throne." "Thus," writes a correspondent of the New York Independent, "you see what is clear; Catholic unity demands the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff; that authority requires the temporal power of the Pope, and that temporal power cannot be maintained but by the aid of foreign bayonets. The Roman people are thus devoted (as a safeguard for the system) to perpetual servitude. Could there be a more sanguinary criticism of Catholicism itself than this apology of its new defender? and one asks himself if M. Thiers did as much harm to Catholicism when he attacked it with his impious sarcasms as he has done now that he has given it the aid of his insidious logic."

SOUTH SEAS-FRENCH AGGRESSION IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.

(From the New York Independent.) THE recent proceedings of the French at the Sandwich Islands demand the attention of the civilised world. Such a government as exists in those Islands having once been recognised by the leading powers as an independent, civilised government, and having professed its own responsibility to the international system of the civilised world, is under the protection of the law of nations. All

nations have a common interest in securing for such a government, in its weakness, the protection which it had a right to expect when it voluntarily entered the great commonwealth

of nations, and was recognised by the leading powers of the two hemispheres as having the rights of other independent and sovereign states. If the French may interfere, as they have now interfered a second time, with the internal affairs of the Hawaiian Government-if they may assume to determine for that government what duties it may or may not levy upon imports at its own custom-houses, and by what regulations it shall conduct its own system of public instruction-then, by the same principle, they may interfere with the tariff of duties established by the Congress of the United States, and with the common school system in the State of Massachusetts.

When the Russian Emperor, a few weeks ago, was violating the law of nations by demanding of Turkey the surrender of the Hungarian fugitives, the governments of Great Britain and France united in an expostulation of so decided a tone, that the autocrat receded from his arrogant demand, and the independence of Turkey was secured. So far as the principles of international law were concerned, all the reasons which there were for such an expostulation on that occasion, demand, in this instance, that a similar course be taken with the French president by the governments of Great Britain and America. The government at Paris should be required, with all diplomatic courtesy certainly, and yet with all the earnestness necessary, to disavow the outrageous proceedings at Honolulu, and to make a suitable indemnity. The weakness of Hawaii, its loneliness and distance from other civilised nations, all the peculiarities of its condition, only make such an interposition, on the part of leading powers, the more appropriate.

But aside from these general views, Great Britain and the United States, and, indeed, all maritime nations, have a special interest in guarding the independence of the Hawaiian Islands. The growing importance of those Islands as a station and resting-place for the immense commerce of the Pacific Ocean, is a sufficient reason why their national independence should be maintained if possible. To the American people those Islands owe their civilisation and Christianity. To the American government they owe the earliest formal recognition of their nationality. Since our acquisition and occupation of California, we are their nearest neighbours. To no government in Christendom, so properly as to ours, can they look for a friendly mediation in an emergency like the present.

THE MILLENNIUM.

THE following splendid extracts from the Rev. Dr. Cox's late sermon before the American Board of Foreign Missions, will be read

with interest by all who long for the coming period of renovation and happiness:"Whatever the millennium may be in future history, we now view it as a predicted state of piety for long enduring ages, in which the truth of Christ, and the grace of Christ, shall predominate among all the nations of living men, making them Christians, restoring them to goodness and to God, as his worshippers and his children-pacificating all the world-banishing irreligion and false religion, superstition, bigotry, fanaticism, heresy, false philosophy, infidelity, ignorance, indolence, oppression, persecution, and every false way, with mainly every wrong practice, from the world. 'Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.' This consummation must occur in this world, since in that better country, to which we go, there is no such plant.

"Then violence shall never lift the sword,

Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong,
Leaving the poor no remedy but tears.
Then he that fills an office, shall esteem
The occasion it presents of doing good
More than the perquisite; then law shall speak
Seldom, and never but as wisdom prompts
And equity; not jealous more to guard
A worthless form than to decide aright;
Then fashion shall not sanctify abuse,
Nor smooth good-breeding, supplemental grace,
With lean performauce ape the work of love.'

"What a blessed transformation of society will be everywhere effected by the preponderating righteousness of those happy times! 'Righteousness exalteth a nation,' as nothing without it can. In every department of human interest, social and individual, what a reformation, what a melioration, what a metamorphosis! truly a new creation of sentiment, and character, and action! Think of those monster evils that continue for chiliads of time to haunt and mar our social welfare, and which law, and police, and jails, and gibbets, and military power, and worldly education, and worldly legislation, can never coerce or cure-they will all disappear and vanish from our view. Nothing is wanting but sincere and enlightened faith in the gospel of Christ, among all nations, to introduce the millennium and regenerate the world. The spirit of love to God will diffuse that of love to man-the very way for the development of true piety. Hence each will feel an interest in the weal of every other member of the species. The colour of the skin will not then be the criterion of duties or of rights. Education will be honest, and Christian, and universal, in the main. Mind will be everywhere informed, developed, invigorated, and matured. The only monarchy on earth will be, properly, the theocracy of God our Saviour; and under him, like Israel before monarchy was given them in his anger, every state will be a homogeneous and worshipping republic, a common

wealth of Christians. It is probable that a qualified and virtuous democracy, without ambition, usurpation, envy, or military coercion, will generally prevail and endure. Laws shall be few, reasonable, useful, and well administered. Wars shall cease; slavery be no more; no duelling, no gambling, no infernal profaneness, no lewd pleasures, no intemperance, no idleness, no calumnious assassination of character, no corrupt merchandising or commerce, no sectarianism-CHRISTIAN will be all, the brotherhood of human nature will be restored, and physical comforts, it is supposed, will abound. The age of man will be lengthened; disease will be lessened; the productions of the earth will be abundant; marriage will be honoured universally as the institution of God; the population of the world will be tenfold, and earth itself will reflect the countenance of heaven. The Lord's-day will be everywhere honoured and obeyed. It will be richly enjoyed, appreciated, and blessed. What Christians will those ages produce, when men shall show themselves Christians, and Christians shall show themselves men! How omnipotent will be the truth! no madness left on earth to doubt it! Children will be generally converted early, will grow in grace as they grow in years; and rare will be the mother, the sin of whose son, and perhaps his violent death, will break her heart! What a procession of glorified millions, in those ages, shall crowd the brightened way to the open portals of the realms of glory! What a colony of multitudes, countless and beatified, will earth remit to heaven, fixing there at last the grand majority of the species, the glorious peculium and the proper premium of the Son of God!

"Theology will be improved- that is, the truth of revelation, in itself unchangeable, will be more simply and fully studied, more perfectly understood, with more purity inculcated, and with more wisdom used and applied. No impious hypocrite will ever attempt to supersede the truth, or alter it, or modify its heaven-descended unity, or dare to prostitute it as the mere medium of his own vapid self-glory. No elaborate simpleton will ever aim at originality for its own sake, or make it an end instead of a means, in appearing as the exponent, or the advocate, or the oracle of the truth, vaunting himself to be somebody; and none will be so squalid as to make a party, or even desire the pre-eminence among his peers; humility, that signal of wisdom, will then predominate, qualifying all, and making demonstration in all, of simplicity and godly sincerity, not fleshly wisdom, by the grace of God,' characterising his ministers and all their works.

"O, scenes surpassing fable, and yet true!

Scenes of accomplished bliss! which who can see,
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel
His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?""