the unhappiest piece of policy that Pio Nono could

pursue.

But let us look now at the countries of Europe. There is no seat in Europe at this moment so insecure as the throne of Pio Nono; for we all know that if he had not French soldiers to guard it at this moment it would explode in twenty-four hours; and yet that city, Rome, ought to be the model capital of the world. There are no heretics to disturb it; there are no Bibles allowed there to endanger the dominant religion. The Protestant chapel is outside of the walls. In Rome there is a priest for every eighty people, and a teacher for every thirty people. There are in Rome, with a population not half that of Manchester, not nearly equal to that of Edinburgh, three hundred and sixtyfive churches, besides chapels in convents and other places. If ever a city had adequate teachers, a surfeit of priests, plenty of churches, and convents also, it is the city of Rome; and if the system has failed there, it is because it is bad at its core, not because there are not means to carry it out into practical development. Yet in that city there is a population ready to break loose every moment. I admit there may be among them advocates of disorder, there may be democrats anxious to do mischief, and I suspect that many of them are Jesuits who act thus in order to bring discredit upon Protestantism, and upon the circulation of the Bible. No doubt there may be men among Italian reformers with whom we have no sympathy whatever; but, unquestionably, all over Italy real religion is at this moment rolling in silent and subterranean currents that will ultimately meet and deepen into a mighty ocean, and gain universal ground right rapidly. All the

attempts that have been made there to arrest the progress of true religion have only recoiled upon those who made them. In Sardinia, Dr. Mazzinghi, in company with Captain Pakenham, was discovered reading the Scriptures, and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. A very excellent member of the Sardinian Parliament intimated he would put a question with reference to this to the chief minister of the crown; but that minister saw that the effect of that question would be so terrific that he anticipated it by saying that he totally disapproved of what the ecclesiastical authorities had done, and that he was armed with the royal pardon for Dr. Mazzinghi for the crime of reading God's holy word. We read that matters did not improve, for the Madiais were cast into prison, as I can prove from official documents, for nothing else but reading and instructing others in the Bible. But what has been the result? That deed has awakened the echoes and reverberations of righteous indignation over the length and breadth of Christendom; and such suffering was worth enduring, if it was only to provoke that magnificent letter which a recent prime minister addressed to our representative in that country, denouncing the conduct of those who imprison men for reading God's holy word and trying to tell others the way out of darkness to heaven and happiness. And the very pleas-and I have read them with the greatest care that have been urged in defence of the conduct of those who imprisoned the Madiais, have only laid bare the greatness of the original sin. It is an unwise thing in the Church of Rome ever to attempt to defend what she has done; for generally when she attempts a defence, she makes matters worse. The

Cardinal in this country delivered a lecture, in which he endeavoured to satisfy the literati of Leeds that Galileo was not imprisoned for his discoveries; but he forgot that what was spoken in a literary room is reported in the newspapers. Well, Galileo was imprisoned, and the Cardinal says, not for his scientific discoveries. It was therefore for his religion. This was Dr. Wiseman's defence. Here is the Church of Rome avowing that she persecutes for religious opinions, surely a very poor apology for the Church in imprisoning Galileo. If he was persecuted for his scientific discoveries the literati will be offended; if he was persecuted for his religion the whole Church of Christ will be outraged. The best way is to leave it untouched, for the more it is brought to the light the worse it becomes. But in all this gradual decay of Romanism in the whole world, and the insecurity of those who are its greatest advocates, I think I trace the finger of God.

Let us turn to another most interesting country, France, and there we shall find proof of the presence of the finger of God. Whole communities have renounced Romanism and embraced the Protestant religion, and such men as Monod, and Grandpierre, and Puaux, are, at this moment, creating a very deep and powerful impression amongst the Roman Catholics of France. "Never," says M. Roussel, "have the Roman Catholic population been more disgusted with the superstition of their Church, and the offices of their priests, than they are at this moment." And in the Oratoire at Paris I heard myself the most excellent ministers of the Protestant Church give an account of Protestantism in the provinces; and while there was

not what we could wish, there was enough to indicate the finger of God, and to show that in that land pure and undefiled religion is making way.

I see in all these facts the wasting of the Church of Rome prior to its destruction at a blow. The prophecy is that the Lord shall consume it with the Spirit of his mouth-that is, his Word; and then, when it has been consumed to the utmost, he will destroy it with the brightness of his personal coming.

The last obstruction to the spread of the Gospel I will refer to, is Judaism. The present state of the Jews, the expectations that we cherish, and the progress that is made in enlightening them, deserve attention. First of all, I will look at the evidences of a movement in connexion with them from certain civil occurrences; and, secondly, at the proofs of a movement evidently from the finger of God in relation to their spiritual condition.

In their civil relations (I am not pronouncing whether it be right or wrong) there is indicated returning favour of the nations to a people they have persecuted, oppressed, plundered. I am not stating whether that movement be right or wrong, but simply that as a movement it is the evidence to me of returning favour to a people who heretofore have been the objects of their hatred and their proscription. The very first proclamation that the Jews had rights at all was made by Napoleon the First; and in Turkey, Arabia, Algiers, Prussia, Austria, and Germany, what they believed to be their civil rights have been restored to them. In this country they are at least tolerated; and the question of the day is their condition with reference to the civil constitution of the land.

In only one country, Italy, are they literally persecuted, treated like swine, driven to a miserable Ghetto, out of which, except at certain hours, they are not permitted to show themselves at all. Now, except at the seat of a system which is tolerant nowhere, we find the Jews in favour amongst the nations of the earth in a manner unprecedented in their previous annals. This is a foreshadow of their deliverance, a proof that the set time to favour them, in the language of the 102d Psalm, is coming.

In reference to their spiritual condition, we find that the best supported Missionary Societies are those which have taken up the cause of the Jews. In Constantinople, I am told, the Rabbi frequently converses with the Christian missionaries, and discusses the difference between the Old and New Testaments. In Berlin there are, at this moment, 1,000 Christian Jews, and some of the most celebrated professors in the German universities are Christian Jews. The Church of England has twelve ministers who are Jews; and the Church of Scotland has employed as missionaries at least three or four ordained converted Jews. And what is singular, the Jew is accessible everywhere. Even in Tuscany, where we dare not read the Bible to an Italian, we may read it to a Jew as long as we like; and many missionaries read it to the Jew in a place where an Italian stands by and catches the echoes of the words, and even the echoes are often made the elements of conviction and conversion.

Let us remember, in the next place, the interest which the Jews take in their own land. They all expect the speedy advent of the Messiah. To be buried in Jerusalem is the last wish of a Jew's heart,