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so alike in character and situation, eagerly imbibed the truth for which his soul panted. It is not wonderful that Lambert conceived a warm affection for his disciple, who, with the fervour and generosity of youth, (for Hamilton was not much more than twenty) resolved to return home to proclaim the glad tidings to his oppressed and benighted countrymen, and to deliver the emphatic message with which he felt himself intrusted. This design was combated by his friend and instructor, who in vain represented to him the danger of so perilous an attempt. Hamilton was not to be dissuaded; and he no sooner reached Scotland than he began openly to teach the doctrines he had imbibed in Germany, and the truths he had found in his Bible-truths he was soon honoured to seal and to disseminate with his blood. The Clergy hoped to strike universal terror by the sacrifice of so illustrious a victim, and at once to root out the new "heresy." He was ensnared into the power Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrew's, under a pretended challenge to a free conference; and pleased with every opportunity of maintaining his belief, which he had already done with success, having shaken the faith of his opponents by arguments drawn from Scripture and reason, he accepted the challenge. A pretext was not wanting, where the purpose was fixed, to throw him into prison. On his trial he defended himself and his opinions with that blended modesty and firmness, which made a deep impression on all, save those who were resolved on his sacrifice. He perished in the flames in his twenty-fourth year, with a spirit worthy of the first martyrs. His last words were, "How long, O Lord, shall darkness cover this land! How long wilt thou suffer this oppression of men!” “The flames" says Pinkerton, "in which he expired, were in the course of one generation to enlighten all Scotland, and to consume with avenging fury the catholic superstition, the papal power, and the prelacy itself." Patrick Hamilton's martyrdom occurred in the year 1528. His family were suspected to have imbibed the new heresy. His brother, Sir James Hamilton, Sheriff of Linlithgow, was advised by his royal relative, King James V., to flee, as the monarch himself was so completely priest-ridden, that he durst not extend his prerogative of mercy to the victims marked out by the Bishops and Churchmen. The lands and moveables of Sir James were confiscated, and himself condemned as a heretic. Catherine, the sister of Patrick and James, also fled to England for a time. On her trial she maintained her opinions; but the king prevailed upon her to recant, and she escaped. Many fled, and some within a few years after suffered the same cruel death, in maintenance of the faith they had embraced.

THE POET LAMARTINE.-The Quotidienne relates the following particulars of M. de Lamartine, as admitted by the bard to be habitual with him when under the influence of a poetic fit :—“ When at St. Pont, I walk about in my park, or take a ride in the country, with a pencil and a few slips of paper in my pocket. After a little reflection I produce a scrap of paper, on which I scribble a few verses in pencil, then another scrap, then another, and another. When I return home, I throw all these scraps on the table of my secretary, who is an intelligent young man, and who takes the whole down in ink, arranging it into a regular poem. I then send for Gosselin, who pays me 40,000f. for it, prints it, and I see no more of it." "What," said a friend, "do you never re-peruse your own works?" "I never read them at all," replied the poet; "I have never read the Chute d' un Ange, but Madame de Lamartine has, and recommends me to do so. I will next summer at St. Pont, should politics leave me sufficient leisure." We ask, has not the secretary an almost equal claim to the

authorship?

166

NATIONAL BOARD OF EDUCATION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHURCHMAN.

SIR,-The establishment of a Government-board for the purposes of national education is one of the most dangerous parts of that complicated machinery which is now put in action against the Church. It seems as if this Government only lives to pluck up, to root out, and to destroy; as if ingenuity was worked at high pressure to do the greatest conceivable mischief in the shortest conceivable time. Our Church being a portion of the State, guarding the professed religion of the State, and protected by¡ancient laws, should decidedly have a leading influence in this important scheme: but, as if national education were a consideration separate from the national religion, the Church has no representative in the board. The first demand of the chairman of the central society was hailed by a responsive energy on the part of this Government; and the board being one of five laymen, we have no security that national education will not be employed to draw the rising generation from the Church, not only to draw them from it, but to instil into their minds bitter enmity to it, not only to effect these purposes, but to embue them with convenient politics. In this point of view, not only the Ecclesiastical, but the whole Conservative interests are concerned not only should the Bishops in their Parliamentary places, but all that have the REAL amor patriæ in Parliament, all who prefer the public good to individual or party-objects, all who are not the base slaves of that blustering Irishman O'Connell, should agitate in return, until this scheme shall become frustrated, and the contemplation of it alone stand on record, as an evidence of what men will do to further general objects.

We have a right to demand the definition of limits, within which this board shall act we have a right to demand that the inculcation of the doctrines of the Church be an indispensable condition of its existence. The effects of the board of education formed for Ireland in 1831, are sufficient to show what may be the effects of such a board formed for England. In the three provinces of Munster, Leinster, and Connaught the pupils were 71,788 Romanists, and only 1,136 Protestants: is not this fact a warning to the Church? Further, as Churchmen have contributed for educational purposes far more largely than Dissenters, their right to a share of dictation is proportionably stronger; yet with this Government their right is denied. Why exerts not the Archbishop of Canterbury on such an occasion the feared powers of his Archiepiscopacy? In Ireland the plan of education has worked injuriously to the Church; but as, with free scope, this would not be the case in England, the Church is removed from all participation in the direction. It is to be hoped that all the diocesan boards in England, and all societies belonging to the Church, will vigorously remonstrate against the plan; and that there will be such an expression of Church-feeling as to force the Ministers to slink away from their project, as they slunk away from the City Police-bill. I am, Sir, yours,

ECCLESIASTICUS.

PRETENSIONS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME.

LETTER III.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHURCHMAN.

SIR,The conclusion of my last letter was rather abrupt. There is a certain extent to which I wish to limit each of my epistolary communications respecting the pretensions of the Church of Rome; and but for that rule, it is more than probable I should have indulged in some further remarks on the subject with which it was concluded. I shall not now, however, resume the train of reflection to which it gave rise, as in the course of my correspondenee I shall have other opportunities of stating my views, and offering the result of my judgment.

My object is to collect, and place before your readers, the bulls of Popes, and the decrees of Councils, accompanied with such observations as are suggested at the moment, and which I shall submit with all freedom of language, and without any equivocation of mind; for the times are such as warn us not to mince matters, nor to compliment away the faith of our reformed communion. From these bulls and decretals, Protestants will be able to form their own opinion upon matters on which there is but too much reason to believe that the generality of them are but little informed. For Protestants must bear in mind this most important fact, that none of their bulls and decrees have ever yet been annulled; and that, therefore, from these public documents of the Church of Rome, and not from the private representations of individual members of that communion, are its doctrines or dogmas alone to be ascertained. Individuals, for instance, may assert-and I have often heard such a declaration from their lips-that it is not a doctrine of their church, that no heretic, no Protestant, can be saved. The Church of Rome does, however, advance the position, and pass a sentence of condemnation upon all who are out of the pale of its communion: and not in one, but in many of its bulls or public documents, the words are sufficiently clear and explicit-extra sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam nulla est salus! (see in particular the bull of Pius V. against our Queen Elizabeth, cum multis aliis). Every private member of the Popish communion is instructed from his earliest infancy in this belief, and would avow, as a Papist did to me some time since, that the only ground on which a Protestant could be saved would be through his ignorance.

The next public document to which I shall now refer, as declaratory of the pretensions of the Church of Rome, is a most important one, and will appear to your readers to be the more striking, if they bear in mind what is passing at this very moment in Prussia-the opposition of the Archbishop of Cologne, Cologne being one of the very places to which this bull of Pope Nicholas I. applies. The words are-" We, by apostolical authority, enjoin thee (the reigning Emperor Lotharius) that in Triers and Cologne thou shouldst not suffer any bishop to be chosen before a report be made to our apostleship-ut in Treverensi urbe et in Agrippina* Colonia nullam eligi patiaris antequam relatum super hoc nostræ apostolatui fiat; and in case the Emperor should evince any reluctance or backwardness in admitting and recognizing this apostolical pretence, and in obeying the imperative mandate, he is reminded that 'very soon thou shalt be struck with the ecclesiastical sword,'-te citissime mucrone ecclesiastico feriendum.” (Vid. p. Nic. I. epist. 4). When we read these words, well may our wonder be excited, and our indignation be aroused particularly at the assumption of apostolical authority so alien from what the apostles enjoined in their epistles, who never presumed to hold such arbitrary language, nor to utter such insulting threats to earthly potentates: their teaching was that of peaceable submission to lawful sovereignty-be subject to the king as supreme-let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for the powers that be are ordained of God-resist them not, therefore, for ye must need, be subject for conscience sake. This was the matter of their teaching, and the substance of their doctrine, both to the priesthood and to the people, in order that, under legitimate authority, all might be godly and quietly governed, Here another instance is furnished of the necessity of keeping closely and faithfully to the written word, and that we should not have aught to do with the traditions of men, which, as I have observed in a former letter, may be made to speak any language, to assume any right, and to put aside any one, or all, of the written and revealed commandments of God. And how any Protestants can be found to support, even indirectly, a church which wields such an instrument of despotism, and of all deceivableness, would excite wonder if we were indeed thoroughly made acquainted by God's written word with what is in man -the aberrations of his intellect, and the obliquity of his judgment. The longer we live, and the more we reflect on the passing scenes, and the vain and fluctuating opinions of this world, the more vividly should we be struck

* It is so termed by Tacitus in his history. Vide Hist. prim. lvi.

and influenced by that particular injunction of old, "to cease from man," and to see the profound maxim embraced in the question, “ for wherein is he to be accounted of?" But no, the members of the Popish communion reverse the maxim; and by following "the cunningly devised fables" of Popes and Cardinals (2 Peter i. 16), and by giving heed to the more than Jewish traditions and commandments of men, turn from the written Word] (Titus i. 14),' and account a human and an equally erring creature with themselves as worthy to be the keeper of their conscience, the depository of their faith, and the arbiter of their judgment. It is through tradition alone (which invests the Pope with all his supremacy and power) that he dared to use such language to an earthly potentate; and it is through tradition that, for a period of fourteen centuries, the Italian Bishops have usurped and exercised their dominion over the faith and consciences of the members of their communion; and we have lived to witness in this, the nineteenth century, that monstrous power abetted by a portion of our own Protestant priesthood! See the complimentary terms with which that semi-adhesion to Popery is rewarded, and their apostasy from the written Word, which they have avowed, in the face of their God and before the holy table of their Church, contains alone the things necessary to be believed for salvation; and that as touching the ceremonies and rites, and the traditions and ceremonial laws, given by God to Moses, no Christian men ai e to be bound thereby, nor are the civil precepts thereof to be received in any commonwealth (Articles vii. xx.). See, I say, how such apostasy is commended. I know not what other Protestant ministers may think at reading such encomiums: I know how I should feel, and I pray God that I may never have occasion to apply to myself anything of what I shall now quote from the last number of the Papist's Magazine, "Some of the brightest ornaments of the Protestant Church have advocated a re-union with the Church of all times and all lands, and the accomplishment of the design is fast ripening. The maternal arms of the Church of Rome are ever open to receive back repentant children; and as when the prodigal son returned to his father's house the fatted calf was killed, and a great feast of joy made, even so will the whole of Christendom rejoice greatly when so bright a body of learned and pious men as the authors of the Tracts for the Times shall have made the one step necessary to place them again within this sanctuary, where alone they can be safe from the moving sands (the Protestant Church), beneath which they dread being overwhelmed. The consideration of this step will soon inevitably come on; and it is with the utmost confidence that we predict the accession to our ranks of the entire mass of the Protestant population."-(Catholic Magazine for March). When one reads such language as the above, avowed in the public organ of popish opinions, and which, to my certain knowledge, contains the sentiments entertained by many of the private members of the Popish communion, shall our regrets be disguised at the concession made to the Popish doctrine of tradition by a certain portion of our Protestant priesthood, who are eating the bread and enjoying the dignities of our Establishment? Seriously, are they aware of the certain end to which such admission must lead?-that the time through them may come, and may be now at hand, in which the question will be mooted, whether it would not be advisable to re-model and re-construct our ecclesiastical Establishment? This is the state to which the minds of many will be brought by the unwise proceedings and impolitic admissions of some of our Clergy. At the Reformation there were many who thought and time and experience have proved the soundness of those views and the excellency of their judgments, and that they were wise in their generations-that the Reformation to do good should not be a half and half, a milk and water measure, as it was then termed; and in an assembly · which was holden, the subject was discussed, and they lost the question that the Reformation should be pure* and entire, by one vote only; fifty-nine having voted for, and fifty-eight against any conformity whatsoever to the Romish ritual and discipline! According to Strype and others, the minority, who were anxious for a simple ritual, was composed of the most learned and distinguished

* Hence the name of Puritans.

portion of the hierarchy. But, unhappily, at the period of which I am writing, Archbishop Parker, and some of the other prelates, either had a leaning towards the Romish Church, or perhaps they did not like to go too far in effecting a total severance from that communion. However the fact may have been, they temporized, and the result was, like all temporising measures, that disappointment ensued and disunion prevailed. The Queen herself was opposed to a total change, to which, indeed, she had but too little cause to be reconciled, when she witnessed the intemperate zeal, the puerile conceits, and the injudicious conduct of but too many of the reformers on the clerical habits and other minor and less consequential matters. It is difficult to say what might have been the result, had the Church of Rome acted with its usual policy at this period, and have conciliated, instead of exasperating the Queen and her people against it. April 16, 1839. JAMES RUDGE, D.D.

Poetry.

A CHILD'S DEATH-BED.

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Each small hand was clasped in her parents', who, kneeling,

Strove vainly their grief to repress; Down whose care-worn cheeks, fast and silently stealing,

Were tokens of bitter distress.

Not a feature was changed, but a heavenly smile

On the sufferer's lips seemed to play, As her gaze fondly turned on her parents awhile, [way.

Ere her spirit should speed on its

Yes, that lovely child died, and returned to its God

The spirit that He had not given, But lent, till released from mortality's sod[Heaven,

It winged its bright flight up so

To the preceding verses we add these by W. O. B. Peabody, an American Author,

as the subject is

And that is death! how cold and still,
And yet how lovely it appears!

Too cold to let the gazer smile,

But far too beautiful for tears.
The sparkling eye no more is bright,
The cheek hath lost its rose-like red;
And yet it is with strange delight

I stand and gaze upon the dead.
But when I see the fair wide brow,
Half shaded by the silken hair,
That never look'd so fair as now,
When life and health were laughing
there,

I wonder not that grief should swell
So wildly upward in the breast,
And that strong passion once rebel
That need not, cannot be suppress'd.

nearly the same.

1 wonder not that parents' eyes,

In gazing thus, grow cold and dim; That burning tears and aching sighs

Are blended with the funeral hymn : The spirit hath an earthly part, [flies, That weeps when earthly pleasure And heaven would scorn the frozen heart,

That melts not when the infant dies. And yet why mourn? that deep repose Shall never more be broke by pain; Those lips no more in sighs unclose,

Those eyes shall never weep again : For think not that the blushing flower

Shall wither in the Church-yard sod; 'Twas made to gild an angel's bower Within the paradise of God.

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