ceed from a system founded on dogmas | the minds of many professing Chrissuch as these :-That man is a mere tians. machine, wholly the creature of circumstances; that he cannot be any thing but what he is; that he is not responsible either for his opinions or his conduct, and cannot therefore be the object of praise or blame, of reward or punishment; that to discard all religion is the first step to intelligence and social improvement; that the soul is mortal; that the institution of marriage is an accursed thing; and that Christ was an impostoran ignorant pretender, who knew nothing of the real nature of man-a proud and deceitful seducer of mankind, who propagated among them false doctrines and empty fables. These salient points of Socialism, or Owenism, mingled with coarse ribaldry and furious invective, having been presented to society in thousands of publications, must have destroyed the consciences and debased the hearts of myriads of the young, the ignorant, and the unwary; while they have furnished a deceitful sanction to the dissolute and the immoral. The evil fruits of such maxims cannot be estimated. Of Combe's" Constitution of Man," in which many or most of these doctrines are contained, a hundred thousand copies are understood to have been circulated; and the popularity and rapid sale of such works as the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," indicate to what extent the poison has been received, and call on all who know and love the truth “as it is in Jesus," to be upon the alert. For let the hand of God, as seen in Creation and Providence, be thus veiled; let his presiding care over his visible or invisible works be denied; or let the only recognitions of his power and wisdom in the arrangements and operations of nature be carried far back into the depths of the mysterious and unrecorded past, and the corrupt heart will soon find little difficulty in forgetting or denying his existence altogether, and so sinking into unmitigated Atheism. The truth and authority of scripture are already, by this system, discarded, and even the possibility of a revelation well nigh disavowed. Of the measures which our association may be led to adopt to oppose these errors, we cannot yet very fully or definitely speak. We feel the need of prudence and caution; and our desire is, in the first instance, to collect information, and by means of auxiliary associations or committees throughout the country, to watch the progress of the evil, and adopt the most safe and effective means for its cure. We have, however, begun to do something, in the way of preparing and publishing reports on Popery, Puseyism, and Infidelity— of inquiring after and selecting tracts to be reprinted—and of seeking the wider circulation of approved treatises on the christian evidences. We have already sold at a reduced price, in various quar Now are open mouthed blasphemy and ribaldry the only means by which infidelity has been assailing and endeavouring to overthrow the defences of truth and virtue; it has been, perhaps, still more widely successful in sapping their foundations by a refined species of materialism now in vogue. That the world has within itself the elements of improvement and perfection; that supernatural influences for transforming human character are neither necessary nor to be expected; that obedience to natural laws, under the guidance of phrenology, is all that is required for the improvement of the human race—moral laws being of little value, and revelation, except in so far as appears to harmonize with reason and science, to be rejected; that man was created mortal, and with the same dis-ters, especially in Edinburgh, several positions and tendencies as now govern hundreds of copies of Bogue's " Essay on him; and that a remedial economy must the Divine Authority of the New Testatherefore be a dream, faith a delusion, and ment;" we have issued a small treatise, devotion a mark of folly,—these, and entitled “Nature and Revelation Harsuch as these, are the seminal principles, monious," in refutation of the dangerous or direct and obvious conclusions of this principles of Combe's "Constitution of popular system of materialism, or anti-Man ;" and several tracts on Socialism supernaturalism, which being taught in very insidious forms, and mixed up with much interesting and useful knowledge, has been diffused extensively in general society, and even found its way, there is reason to suspect, to some extent, into are ready for gratuitous circulation. Other measures are also in contemplation ; but, in the meantime, we earnestly solicit your countenance to the association, in the way of imparting to us whatever information and advice on the above topics, and whatever pecuniary assistance, of those holding sentiments usually known you may have it in your power to afford: under the name of Evangelical; and the and you will permit us to suggest the principle on which new members are adpropriety of your using measures to induce mitted shall be, that they are nominated a number of the known and tried friends by five of the Committee, whose names of evangelical truth, in your neighbour- are hereto appended, or of their suchood, of different denominations, to form cessors in office. themselves into an auxiliary association, for the more effectual accomplishment of the ends in view, with which we may have the privilege of corresponding from time to time, as circumstances may render desirable. The following is the proposed constitution of the association : CONSTITUTION: I. The name of the Society shall be THE SCOTTISH ASSOCIATION FOR OPPOSING PREVALENT ERRORS. II. The object of the Association shall be to counteract the efforts which are making, or may be made, to diffuse opinions at variance with Christianity, whether in support of Superstition, as Popery and Puseyism; or of Infidelity, as Pantheism, Anti-supernaturalism, and Socialism. III. The instrumentality employed by the Association shall chiefly consist of the issuing original publications, and promoting the extensive circulation of works already existing, which may be deemed peculiarly fitted to gain this object. IV.-The Association shall consist only V. The business of the Association shall be managed by said Committee in Edinburgh-who shall have power to add to their number-and who shall employ the services of a Secretary to conduct their correspondence, and keep a record of all their transactions-five members of Committee to be a quorum. VI.-It shall be the duty of the Committee to open a correspondence with friends of Evangelical truth in the various parts of the country, for the purpose of encouraging the formation of auxiliary, or sister Associations, with which the central Association may communicate regarding their common objects. VII.-The Association shall have a depository in Edinburgh-and, if practicable, in other towns in Scotland-in which its publications shall be disposed of on reduced terms. VIII. There shall be an Annual Meeting of the Members of the Association, at which the Report of the proceedings of the Committee throughout the year shall be presented, and office-bearers chosen. MONTHLY RETROSPECT. STATE OF THE COUNTRY. IT is with deep regret that we see the affairs of the country getting into an unsatisfactory condition. The corn bill, with which the welfare of the nation is so closely bound up, has of late been making absolutely no progress. The ministry themselves, apparently with the view of conciliating their opponents, have adjourned its discussion on the plea of expediting the Irish coercion bill, which, after all, is not expedited in the least, and the provisions of which are of a very questionable, and several of them of a highly obnoxious description, as is readily admitted by many who hold that some measure is absolutely necessary, for rendering life and property more secure in the sister isle. Trade, in the meantime, is becoming decidedly bad, partly in consequence of the uncertainty respecting the tariff, partly owing to so large anamount of capital being absorbed by railways, partly as the result of the price of provisions, which, though far short of what it has often been, is incompatible with a flourishing condition of manufactures, and perhaps in some measure also as the effect of our still dubious relations with America. In Ireland the people are now nearly destitute of potatoes, the staple article of food, and, as might naturally be expected, disease is becoming prevalent, and symptoms of turbulence are occasionally manifesting themselves, and putting on an alarming appearance. Government, however, have most opportunely, by an order in council, admitted maize at a nominal duty; and we trust the happiest consequences will follow, both in the preservation of life in that wretched part of the empire, and also in moderating the cost of food throughout Britain. Maize is universally acknowledged to be wholesome and nutritious. We reckon it not unpalatable; and, making all due allowance for diversity of taste, the man is too fastidious who deems it a hardship to be reduced to such an article of diet. We hope, that under providence, this plant is destined to be of essential advantage to this country, by furnishing us with a low priced kind of food, which is vastly more substantial, and in almost every respect better than the potato. REGIUM DONUM. * * * ring which have agitated the minds of men since the Revolution. That the priests will accept of endowments, provided they are offered sufficient in amount and in their own way, we have no doubt. But should this event take place, on whom will the blame rest? We answer emphatically, on the endowed Presbyterians of Ireland. Their regium donum has furnished the type of the endowment of the priests, and it is in their power, by the timely rejection of their own endowment, to prevent the endowment of the latter now and for ever. The dissolution of the connexion of the Presbyterians of Ireland with the powers We have repeatedly given expression to that be,' would be an event of the highest our opinions on this subject, and have no importance to religion, and the interests doubt that our readers, nearly all, hold of civil and religious liberty. We know these opinions as decidedly as ourselves. the body, and though enervated by their Last year we duly noticed the attempt present connexion with the state, we can that was made by means of two memo- confidently affirm that the elements of rials, one from Belfast, and another from greatness are in their nature. They are Londonderry, to induce the General the descendants of Knox and Melville. Assembly of the Irish Presbyterian The spirit of freedom slumbers in their Church to repudiate the donum; as well breasts. Their emancipation would be, as the strong and faithful remonstrance in the full sense of the terms, the grand of the Eastern Reformed (Cameronian) prelude to the emancipation of the sister Presbytery of Ireland, in which they ex-isle. It would speedily elevate the press their conviction on the subject in standard of piety among themselves, open the following terms:-" The balance the founts of christian liberality, and pre of power is in the hands of the General pare them for uniting with other bodies Assembly. On them it depends, under of Christians, in giving to their country providence, whether the Roman Catholic the blessings of a pure Christianity. They religion shall be the established religion would at once become resolute and bold of Ireland or not. If they give up the asserters of anti-state church principles, royal bounty, it cannot be established. and before the mighty onset of their comIf they do not give up that grant, it will bined energies, the Irish state-church, be established. This opinion we expressed that source of everlasting irritation, would ten years ago in our Signs of the Times.' be subverted. This would be the deathIn this opinion we are now confirmed." blow of the establishment principle. Our attention has been directed afresh to Romanism would not, could not, dare not this subject, by an article in the Eclectic attempt to revive it. for April. "The dissenters of England have not "If we may judge," says the reviewer, discharged the duty they owe to their "from the signs of the times, the period endowed brethren in Ireland,—that of is not distant (indeed we may say it now faithful remonstrance. The conduct of is) when the Presbyterians of Ireland some leading ministers in the ranks of will be called to give up their endowments English dissent, in regard to that paltry on other grounds than those on which affair, the English regium donum, has, on they have been generally appealed to the contrary, tended to justify the Irish from love to their country, to avert a presbyterians in the acceptance of theirs; great national calamity-the civil endow- and one learned name in the theological ment of Romanism. We are fast ap- world [Dr Pye Smith], has, we know, proaching a mighty crisis in the history of been frequently appealed to as affording Ireland, perhaps in that of the empire. a complete sanction for their conduct. A storm threatens. The cloud already By this means the hands of the little thickens, and the thunder is heard in the band of men in the sister island, who are distance. The question of the endowment striving by word and deed to vindicate of the Roman Catholic priesthood of the scripturality and justice of the voIreland, will prove one of the most stir-luntary principle, have been greatly "A valued friend of mine, in America, weakened. The dissenters of Britain will only have discharged their responsi- who was once a slave-holder, but under bilities to Irish presbyterians, when they the ennobling influence of Christianity have scattered, over the length and had emancipated his slaves, told me, that breadth of the land, addresses and re- on going once into a slave-mart, he saw monstrances, exposing the evil of this among those to be sold, a remarkably grant. fine slave. When put up for sale, the 'Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks auctioneer described him as a man of In Vallombrosa.'- " To these sentiments of the Eclectic we are disposed in the main to subscribe, and deem it not unseasonable to ask whether the dissenters of Scotland have done their duty to the receivers of the donum, either in England or Ireland? The former class consists of Baptists, Independents, and Socinians, under the name of Presbyterians. On these last, remonstrance would be thrown away; but possibly the case of the two other sections might not be equally hopeless. The fact, we believe, is, that they keep the Irish presbyterians in countenance, just as the latter, it is alleged, furnish a plausible pretext for the papists. Some of our English brethren, we observe, are anxious to institute a sustentation fund, after the manner of the Free Church, with the view of getting rid of regium donum. Others, and we believe, a much greater number, deprecate such a measure, as necessarily tending to centralization, and destructive of ministerial independence. Whatever be the proper remedy, the evil is flagrant, and ought to be instantly and uncompromisingly put away. AMERICAN SLAVERY. much physical power, and besides a skilful worker in iron. Such a man, it was expected, would bring a large price, and such was the case. There was a slavepurchaser present, who, as the bidding proceeded, kept ahead of the rest, which the slave observed. After a time, the slave stepped off the block, and said to this bidder: "Well, sir, I perceive that you will be my master; but, massa, you must not only buy me, you must buy my The I am a skil wife too." "I don't know that I shall THIS subject we understand will be which he drew from under his garment. When I say "wife," I mean the woman he called so, for by the law of the United States, the honourable relation of husband and wife is forbidden to the slave. The same friend, (continued Mr Scoble) also told me, that he was present at the embarkation of several slaves; and a few minutes' delay was occasioned by one of the poor women, who remained behind to perform a necessary act of maternal care for her infant. This so excited the anger of the master, that when she came up he inquired in a rage the cause of her detention. She explained to him the reason, but his rage was such that, for the delay of only a few minutes, he took LAW OF LIBEL.-CLERICAL IMMUNITY. the child abruptly from the woman's to be remembered that many of them are arms, and holding it up, asked who would public funds, to which the parishioners take it. Unnatural and revolting as was have an equal legal right, irrespective this offer, yet one was found to take the of their religious profession. Unhappily child; and the poor mother had to em- these are, in many cases, like the poor bark in the steamer without her child." funds in Scotland, too much under the control of the clergy, who it seems may be guilty of what malversations they THE editor of the Nonconformist news- please, liable perhaps to a costly action paper has just been prosecuted for libel at law, but not amenable to the cheap, by a clergyman of the Church of England, and prompt, and salutary awards of public on account of an article which appeared opinion. The established church is to all in that paper, and the jury have given a intents and purposes, a national instituverdict for L.200 damages, together with tion. Its office-bearers are consequently expenses. With calumny and defama- all public functionaries. But, unlike all tion we have no sympathy; and with the others, they are exempt from the supermerits of this individual case we are not vision and animadversion of the public concerned. We have frequently heard in the discharge of their official duties, the article in question represented as not so long as they take care not to publish altogether justifiable. The editor declares their sermons. Such a state of the law that it was not written by him, and that is unendurable. We are glad to underit contains expressions of which he does stand that a new trial is to be applied for, not entirely approve; but having pub-in order more fully to ascertain how the lished it, he honourably took on himself matter stands, and if this shall prove unthe whole responsibility. The affair, satisfactory, we hope the legislature will however, has excited, and we think next be appealed to. Considering the reasonably, a very considerable degree of number of cases which have lately come interest among the friends of the freedom before the courts, in which clergymen of the press, in consequence of the charge delivered to the jury by the presiding judge, Mr Justice Parke. That learned person is reported to have laid down the law from the bench in the following terms:-"I have yet to learn that there is any right in the press to publish an opinion of the conduct of a clergyman in his parish, and the method in which he may see fit to administer its charities. If indeed a clergyman publish a sermon which he delivered to his parish, he makes it public property, and confers thereby on the public the right of observing on it, and criticising it, if done fairly, and without malicious motives. Short of this, there is nothing in the conduct of a clergyman which can confer on the press any ground for commenting on him." We entirely concur in the opinion which has been expressed in many of the public journals of different political principles, and at a number of meetings in London and elsewhere, that if this be the law, it is high time it were mended. Under such protection, what may a clergyman not perpetrate with impunity, under the abused name of preaching? The parish churches, it seems, are privileged places for the utterance-provided it be by men in socalled holy orders-of every sort of outrage on truth, decency, and right feeling. As to what are miscalled the "charities," it is have been not only charged with, but convicted of, most gross and scandalous crimes, such as seduction and adultery, it seems highly expedient that they should be specially open to the surveillance of the public. In the meantime a subscription has been commenced for defraying the expenses of the editor of the Nonconformist, who is so well known as the able and zealous advocate of civil and religious liberty. We hope a sum fully adequate to the object will be realised, especially as the damages are almost universally admitted to have been excessive, even on the supposition that damages were due. RAILWAY LABOURERS. THESE are now in many districts a very numerous class of people; and from the peculiarities of their case, plainly demand no small degree of attention from the benevolent and pious. They are in very great danger not only of becoming fearfully corrupt and debased themselves, but of diffusing their contamination far and wide. Besides being exposed to all the temptations and disadvantages of being from home-always from home-in fact, having no home-and probably some of them fugitives from home-besides all this, it is invariably found that where numbers of labourers are congregated to |