From 1765, when the Jesuits were first expelled from Spain, to this year, 1868, the most enlightened part of the Spanish nation has been labouring after civil and religious liberty. Publicists and theologians also have studied the principles of good government, and the laws of Christianity; and a library of Spanish literature might be collected, that would command the admiration of our wisest men. There have been considerable periods of constitutional government, each ushered in by times of public excitement, and each followed by deportations of earnest Spaniards, in the character of political criminals, to other parts of Europe, and especially to England; and, consequently, there has not been a month, during much more than a century, in which many minds have not been under culture, and many hearts filled with thoughtful care, for Spain. This practical education has, under God's blessing, produced an entire change of public sentiment. The change extends to Spaniards of all classes, even the humblest, and penetrates into the remotest districts; not less in the wild villages of the Sierras, where civil war often stained the soil with blood, than in the "Court" of Madrid, the commercial town of Barcelona, and the impulsive populations of the South. Let us briefly note the periods of moral renovation, which priestly and Jesuit writers would have us to mistake for intervals of anarchy.

1. The reign of Charles III., when Spaniards were first instructed in their right to possess, and duty to read, the Holy Bible; when the monastic orders were reduced, the laws of mortmain studied, the Jesuits expelled, and the Inquisitors restrained.

2. From the cowardly flight of Charles IV. to France, to the return of his son, Ferdinand VII., to Spain, in 1814. A nobly patriotic government, without the authority and even against the will of Ferdinand, proclaimed him King in his absence, made many reforms in his name, and, by solemn enactment of the Cortes, abolished the Inquisition. 3. From 1820 to 1823. In this second constitutional period, in spite of the King's dogged reluctance, in the teeth of the most strenuous priestly opposition, and in contempt of the denunciations of the clergy, the restored Inquisition was cast down. The hands of the people opened the doors of the "Holy Offices," and the Inquisitors fled. During three or four years, every Spanish child was taught to read, under the obligation of a law to that effect, and religious liberty began to be openly advocated. It was found that the numbers of friars and nuns were, in consequence of measures previously taken, reduced to one half. Ordinations were suspended, to reduce the number of priests. The clergy, both secular and regular, were made subject to civil authorities. All interference of Rome in Spain was legally prohibited. The ministrations of the clergy, who were most of them openly opposed to these reforms, were placed under the restraining power of the civil magistrate. Numerous reforms were made, which cannot be stated here in detail; but the constitution of 1820, signed by Ferdinand, was crushed by help of a French army; which, at his invitation, invaded Spain, and stood by him while he retracted every concession, reinstated the priesthood in wealth and power, restored his own worst form of absolutism and superstition, and set up the Inquisition again.

4. From 1833 to 1844,-the third and longest Constitutional period. All the monasteries suppressed. All the Jesuits banished. Ordinations utterly forbidden, until priests should cease to be too numerous. The laws on religion were not yet reformed, but such reform was openly advocated. The Wesleyan Mission in Spain flourished under the favour of the Queen's ministers; with whom, aided by the British Ambassador, the Missionary was in personal correspondence. The vast possessions of the Church were all confiscated, except so much as was necessary for the parish churches, and for burial of the dead. Protestants were welcomed; a Wesleyan-Methodist Society was established in Cadiz; some priests were obedient to the truth; and Queen Christina, unable to resist, signed a royal decree, that tacitly set aside the religious test on education, and threw open the Universities of Spain to students from the intended Protestant colleges. Against that constitution, Christina, aided by all the power of the priests and their partisans, and by material aid from Russia and elsewhere, corrupted some, intimidated others, and cunningly provoked sedition against her own government. She expelled the Missionary, but her next act was to abdicate, and flee to Rome. The Constitution survived until 1844, when Espartero succumbed, and retreated. Meanwhile, Spaniards became familiar with Divine truths, and learned to appreciate religious liberty.

5. From 1854 to 1856. After suffering under a fierce reaction, Spain rallied for a little, and seemed to be nearly free again. In the Cortes of 1854 the question of religious liberty was warmly debated, and the minority in favour of it was so large that it was almost gained; but we had ourselves retreated: we had no representative in the country, and Spaniards who had received benefit by residence in England, and by the influence of our former mission, were unsupported in their efforts. There was not one Protestant congregation in the country that could claim recognition. By what is called a coup d'état, that is to say, by military force, General O'Donnell overthrew the Cortes and the Constitution. Isabella and her friends rioted undisturbed. The Tribunals of the Faith recovered power and used it: but the excesses of the so-called Government wrought its ruin, and led to the Revolution just accomplished. The present state of Europe is so different from what it was in 1844, when a military despotism was established in Spain by foreign aid again, and the spirit and circumstances of Spain itself are now so far changed that the alternations of power between a despotic sovereignty and a discontented people cannot be repeated after the same fashion; and we who desire for Spaniards the only true and abiding liberty, have to pray for their entire deliverance,-yet not idly pray, but to remember with gratitude former successes, and prepare ourselves for the prompt resumption of endeavours which it is our duty still to make for spreading the Gospel among them.

This brief review may show what is meant by the restlessness attributed to Spaniards. They have been reasonably restless, restless to good purpose, for more than a hundred years; and it is pretty certain that they will never be at rest again until the spirit that once emancipated us from Popish thraldom shall make them as free.

W. H. R.

1017

METHODISTS AND THEIR WORK: THOUGHTS FOR

THE DAY.

It is a truism to say we live in eventful times. In our day the stream of life has sensibly quickened its current; we pass through a larger experience in a decade, than our ancestors seem to us to have done in a century. Landmarks by which, till lately, civilization has long directed its course, rapidly disappear; and the eye has scarcely for a moment rested upon a truth, a principle, an institution, which seems to be tolerably fixed, when we are hurried on to the contemplation of some new thing," the novelty of which is too seldom a compensation for the uncertainty and general restlessness to which in its turn it contributes. Religion, politics, science, commerce, all alike share in the perturbation. There is no student of Holy Writ who does not now recall with devout admiration the prophetic spirit that, in the ancient time, to certain periods of the world's course, near or remote, attached descriptive epithets, which events more and more fully justify. Our own times, evidently, were not out of the direct line of prophetic vision.

While this is true of the wide stage of the world at large, it is especially true of ourselves as a nation. Long the chief depositary of the light and moral power by which humanity is to be elevated, in accordance with the Divine purposes, and still may we remain such a depositary, Great Britain is now more clearly than ever becoming the scene of the struggle between the forces which, for the race and all its destinies, are in necessary and constantly-increasing antagonism. No part of our social system that is not at this moment subjected to close scrutiny. From the foundation to the top-stone of the structure,—from the cottage suddenly invested, for the time bewildered, with electoral rights, to the palace whose occupant wears a crown, the ancient functions of which are being rapidly superseded by the action of the people,every class among us is in agitation: the politician, uncertain of his course, and taking "leaps in the dark;" the merchant, seeing Pactolus roll by, but unable to arrest a portion of its glittering wealth-capital idle or 66 on strike," which is the true meaning of money being at one per cent. at the Stock Exchange; the ecclesiastic, whether Churchman or Nonconformist, in doubt as to his real relation to other churches, and ministers, and congregations around him. Meanwhile, a continental war ever and anon threatens to sound its tocsin; and while we write, revolution, with all its perplexities, lifts its stormy head in one of the old monarchies of western Europe.

One is ready to ask, Whither are fled the days in which one scheme used to be fairly looked at before another was launched; when men mastered one problem of State life, ere they thought themselves justified in turning to another, different, remote, contrary; when even political combatants observed rules of honour, and counted it ignominy to be thought capable of espousing principles so much as suspected to be opposed to long-avowed convictions, for the sake of defeating a party adversary? Whither are fled the patient hours when men could write,

and men could read, loving wisdom for its own sake, far from the bluster with which knowledge, and too often, now-a-days, religion itself, must strut and stare, or it passes with the great world for little? The wide "upheaving," discernible in modern society, is everywhere felt, is everywhere spoken of; with few, we fear, are its causes and momentous issues a subject of careful consideration; with fewer still are they the motive to earnest prayer to Him who alone can overrule these revolutions, in the opinions of men and the life of States, for ultimate good, and for the steady growth of His own cause.

Of the political movements which have recently taken place, the extension of the franchise, to a low point in the social scale, is by far the most important. All other public questions must be largely settled by the results of this one measure; a measure the surprise of which has not yet ceased to affect both the advocates and the opponents of it. To the voice of new constituencies are now to be put not a few weighty problems of which former statesmanship has given no solution, but which call imperiously for a settlement. To the same voice must be submitted those comparatively new questions of national policy, internal administration and reforms, the status of ecclesiastical communities, which recent events have brought to the front. And to the same tribunal, it is more than possible, will ere long be referred the question of the supremacy of the Crown, and of the Protestant succession, as against the claims of Popery,—a system of spiritual despotism which brings evils in its train that no single age can fully understand, and which seems, at the present hour, to grow in the most Protestant of all communities in proportion as it is losing its place, in its capacity of a temporal power, in the councils of modern nations. Who that considers to how slight a depth the educational influences of the last thirty years have really penetrated those strata of society which political leaders are now reduced, for party purposes, to operate upon; that reflects how little one generation can do towards the elevation of the mass of any people, towards educating its eye to the true proportions, and mutual obligations, of the component parts of the community; towards tuning its ear to the voice of the wisdom gained by the experience of the past, not to speak of yet higher voices;—who that thus reflects can look upon the future of our country without solicitude, both for her own sake and for the sake of that light to the world which, in no trifling degree, it has been, for some generations, her honour and her safety to hold forth?

As is natural, the respective Protestant Churches in our land must feel these quickened pulses of the national life most widely. Their relations to each other, to that around them which is still, in distinction only too valid, to be called "the world," and to the unevangelized portions of our race, are all in immediate question. Is the Church of Christ, as a whole, about to experience a signal impulse towards the "accomplishment of her warfare," or to meet with a check which shall postpone triumphs that for some time past have seemed almost within her grasp? Is her faithfulness about to receive a reward, in new doors opened to her zeal, or are her shortcomings about to be visited by her seeing even the old ones closed to her tardy spirit of enterprise ? For

ourselves as a nation professing Christianity, are the people to become "all righteous?" Is at least the new political life to be pervaded and hallowed by a large infusion of religious truth and principle, the salt to the whole social system? or are the safeguards of the empire-our Protestantism, our religious education, our national observance of the Sabbath-to be cast aside for the behoof of Popery, Secularism, and the worship of mammon and pleasure? If we look hopefully on the future, it is not because we shut our eyes to inquiries like these; or because we do not feel the necessity of manfully looking them in the face, and preparing practically to answer them.

We may be pardoned if we confess that we are most anxious that our own section of the Christian Church, British Methodism, should just now clearly discern her position, determine her part, and wisely play it. When we speak of Wesleyan Methodism, we do not forget how many flourishing Churches may be fairly taken as branches of it. The mustard-seed has become a wide-spreading tree, whose roots have struck here and yonder into good ground, and whose offshoots have been already sent forth to the ends of the earth. Nor do we lose sight of the fact that Churches even not designated by our name are in a sense entitled to it, if we contrast their zeal and Christian activity of to-day with the apathy which prevailed in them a hundred and thirty years ago. But our attention is mainly fixed upon the "old" body, assured as we are that upon its action more will depend than upon the proceedings of all other sections of the Methodist family, at home or abroad, put together. Changes in the body politic are taking place, have in fact taken place, to the import of which our eye cannot too soon be directed, so that they may be duly dealt with, so far as they are found to affect ourselves and our proper work. Whether we sit still or bestir ourselves, hold on our own course steadily, or see reason in any way to alter it, others-we mean other Churches-are for good or for ill on the alert, and our attention cannot but be drawn to the objects they pursue, the attitude which they assume or seek to disavow.

If slowly, yet surely, is the true nature of the Methodist revival of the last century coming to be recognised by the country,-by Dissenters and Churchmen, statesmen and philosophers,-to be courted or feared, where till of late we were shunned or despised. Methodism is in fact at length forced into a prominent position by events which cannot be recalled, and by the far-reaching consequences of such events which are felt by all men to be inevitable. Our doctrine has had one great contest with error, and the fruit of victory is embodied in the candid remark of Dr. Chalmers, that "the man who preaches Calvinism is mad," in the tacit abandonment of active opposition to the tenets of evangelical Arminianism, both among Church men and Dissenters. Another conflict is still before Methodism as well as other Churches; for the spirit of the Rationalist will be exorcised neither by reason, nor declamatory invective, nor metaphysical disquisition, but by such an exhibition of the Christian principle, a consistent presentation of the religious life, as shall compel even the adversaries to exclaim," See how these Christians live!

And yet another fight has the spirit of Methodism to openly wage