Mr. Justice PARK summed up in a comprehensive charge to the Jury, in which he stated the law as applicable to the case, and said, if the forgery had been committed in a Parish Register of a date subsequent to the Marriage Act in 1753, it would have constituted a capital offence; but that, in the case before the Court, it was only a misdemeanour at common law.

The JURY retired for about a quarter of an hour, and returned with a verdict of GUILTY; whereupon Mr. Justice PARK sentenced the prisoner to pay a fine of £50, and to be imprisoned in York Castle for the term of three months.

SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE. The Committee of this Society have put out an appeal to the public, for pecuniary aid, in which they state"that within the last four years, they have been compelled, in order to preserve the public morals from further contamination, to institute no less than Eightyfive Prosecutions against offenders of various descriptions, ALL of which have led to conviction, or to recognizances by the respective parties, that must prevent the "repetition of similar," (the Committee evidently mean, "the repetition of the same")" crimes. They have checked the sale of Toys and Snuff-boxes, with abominable devices, which were imported in immense quantities, from France and other countries. They have

caused the whole stock in trade of some of the most shameless and abandoned

traffickers in obscene Books and Prints, amounting to some thousands, to be seized; and have also destroyed no less than fifty expensive copper-plates, from which impressions of the latter were from time to time supplied: and, lastly, they have brought to condign punishment that most audacious offender CARLILE, who, notwithstanding repeated indictments found against him, still persisted in selling works of the foulest sedition, and the most horrible blasphemy that ever disgraced a Free Press, or outraged the Principles and Feelings of the British Public."

The New PARLIAMENT assembled on Friday the 21st inst., when Mr. Manners Sutton was rechosen unanimously, as Speaker of the House of Commons.

On Saturday the 22d inst. the CONVOCATION of the Bishops and Clergy of the Province of Canterbury assembled at the

LITERARY.

Captain Gifford, R. N., has in the press, and nearly ready for publication, a new edition, with considerable additions, of his "Remonstrance of an Unitarian, addressed to the Bishop of St. David's."

THE theological student will be glad to hear that Bishop MARSH has announced a Fifth Part of his Divinity Lectures.

WE long felt surprise (says the Gent. Mag.) that Mr. CoxE's excellent History of the House of Austria has not reached a new edition, particularly as the work is no less interesting than elaborate, and much admired abroad, being in fact the only regular history of that family in any and authenticity has been given by those language. A strong proof of its merit who must be considered as competent judges; for the Archdukes JOHN and Louis, in their passage through Salisbury honoured the author with a visit, and thanked him, not only in their own names, but in those of the Emperor and the Archduke Charles, for the able and authentic manner in which he had illus

trated the History of their House. At tion to announce a new edition, in five length, however, we have the satisfacvolumes 8vo., of a work which ought to

undergo the attentive perusal of every one who professes to understand the History of Europe, and the political relations of its different States. It embraces a period

of 800 years.

NOTICE.'

THE Annual Meeting of "The PROTESTANT SOCIETY for the Protection of RELIGIOUS LIBERTY," will be held at the London Coffee House, Ludgate Hill, on Saturday, May the 13th, at Half-past Ten, Illustrious Friend to civil and religious for Eleven o'clock, precisely, when some freedom will preside.

FOREIGN.

FRANCE.

The Minister of the Interior (says the Annales Protestantes) has addressed to the Consistories of France, dated March 14, 1820, a circular drawn up in the true principles of religious liberty, and of the equality of the established sects, (des cultes, on occasion of a funeral service for the death of His Royal Highness the Duke de BERRI. We have observed this passage in it: "Although the customs

of the Protestants differ from those of the Catholic Church in the religious duties paid to the dead, their zeal and concern ought to be the same to consecrate in a funeral ceremony, conformable to the rites of their worship, the testimonies of their sentiments, and the expression of a grief common to all the French. The intention of his Majesty is, that you assemble the faithful of your communion, the 24th of this month, in order to render this mournful homage to the memory of the Prince whom we deplore. You will choose the lessons, the hymns and the prayers that shall appear to you most fitting to this melancholy ceremony. No discourse needs be delivered."

Part of M. MARRON's prayer on this occasion is inserted in the Annales. It is very oratorical and very loyal.

Duchess of BERRI's Vision.-We copy and translate the following curious intelligence from a French newspaper of April 22-"The Duchess of BERRI has received consolations in a truly miraculous manner in her deep and just sorrow. The loss of her husband had thrown this Princess into a sort of despair which threatened her existence, when a benevolent vision (rêve) came to assist her. During her sleep, she saw St. Louis approach her, leading two children, a boy and a girl. The King gently touched the eyelids of the Princess, who awoke, and saw the holy Monarch place a crown upon the head of the girl, and another, more brilliant, upon that of the boy, on which the vision vanished. From this moment the Duchess has been persuaded that she will give birth to a boy, whom the highest destinies attend. It is said the Duchess of Angoulême has taken advantage of this circumstance to restore calm to the spirit of her sister-in-law, and to give her strength to discharge the maternal duties."

SPAIN.

The Revolution of Spain proceeds auspiciously. The press is in a state of great activity. Various little Spanish publications have been put into our hands by a friend, and amongst the rest a political parody on the Apostles' Creed, which, though we disapprove of such parodies, we insert in a translation, as a great curiosity, considering that it comes from Madrid, and from the site of the Inquisition, and as a better proof than larger publications of the actual state of mind of the Spanish people.

Political Creed of the Constitution. I believe in the wise and powerful

sovereign national Congress, creator of Spanish liberty and of the present constitution which governs us with so much success and energy: I believe in Ferdinand the VII., our only King; that he was begotten by his father Charles the IV., born of his mother Maria Louisa; that he suffered under the power of the tyrant; was outraged, oppressed and enslaved; that he descended from the throne, and on the third day was carried into France; that his innocency rose to heaven, and he is seated on the right side of the hearts of his subjects, from whence (France) he came in spite of rebels and traitors. I believe in the spirit and union of generous Spain,-in the holy cause she defends,-in the communion of Spaniards, and forgiveness of those who repent and become faithful. I hope in the resurrection of ancient Spanish virtue, in the ruin of selfish men, in the triumph of our enlightened constitution, in the punishment of those who kindle the fire of discord, and in the life and bliss everlasting of the Peninsula. Amen.

AUSTRIA.

The Emperor of Austria has recently adopted a most liberal system of treatment with regard to his Jewish subjects. He has given orders that Rabbies, previous to their being appointed to particular synagogues, shall be examined as to their proficiency in the philosophical sciences and theology, and that stipends shall be assigned to them on a scale corresponding with their acquirements. The Jewish youth are entitled to all the benefits of instruction at the public seminaries, without any violation of their religious tenets or observances. On the other hand, it is ordered that the Jewish Prayer Books shall be translated into the Vernacular tongue, and their religious discourses be delivered in the same language. In the ordinance issued on this subject, a confident expectation is expressed that the Israelites will, by their morals, talents and other qualifications, expedite the period when it may be no longer necessary to maintain any distinction whatever between them and the other subjects of the Austrian monarchy.

AMERICA.-UNITED STATES.

Unitarianism in America.-The readers of Dr. Evans's Memoirs of Dr. Richards must have seen with great satisfaction the account of the liberal construction of the Baptist church in Providence, Rhode Island, founded by the eminent Roger Williams. That church has no test but the Scriptures. We are sorry, however, to state that under so fair a form lurks intolerance. For about two years a vio

lent contention has been raging on the subject of the Trinity, occasioned by the known sentiments of Mr. Samuel Eddy, a member of the ancient Baptist church. This gentleman is of great respectability. He was educated at Brown University, (R. I.,) and twenty years ago received at that institution the degree of LL.D. Twenty-two successive years he was the Secretary of the State of Rhode Island, and now he is a representative of that State in Congress. His learning and talents, as well as character, are highly spoken of. The church with which he was connected, called upon him to state his religious views. He did so, and chiefly in Scriptural language; but protesting against the right of his brethren to make inquisition into his creed. This paper not giving satisfaction, he drew up a longer and more argumentative statement, in which he avowed and defended the general principles of Unitarianism. He was, in consequence, forced out of the church by a vote of the majority. This we learn, through the kindness of Dr. Evans, from a private letter and from a pamphlet, of which the second edition is before us, entitled "Reasons offered by Samuel Eddy, Esq., for his opinions, to the First Baptist Church in Providence, from which he was compelled to withdraw for Heterodoxy." With this gentleman the controversy will not stop; other persons are suspected; and we confidently hope, that on a spot where Liberty has been long planted, Truth also will at length and for ever take root.

GREECE.

Athens Bible Society. (From the Correspondence of Dr. Pinkerton with the B. and F. Bible Society.)

"At the first sight of Athens, the birthplace of those arts and sciences which have contributed so much to meliorate the condition of Europeans, and render their quarter of the world superior to all others, one is filled with sensations of wonder and regret at the view of the Acropolis, the Academic Groves, the

Temples of Minerva and Theseus, the Areopagus, with the surrounding mountains of Hymettus, Pentelicus, Parnes, Egaleos and Citharon; the mind retires into the ages of antiquity, and the memory brings up before it a multitude of images of the greatest men and the grandest events recorded in profane history. But it is not in an epistle of this kind that I can indulge in feelings and reflections on these remembrances of Attic greatness: I have a theme of a different kind, and one which is still dearer to my heart than even that which I have now touched. I have news to communicate which will fill your hearts with joy: Athens also is become the seat of a Bible Society!

"This was an event which I dared not anticipate before my coming here! and which I did not even find myself at liberty to propose to a single individual, until the third day after my arrival. But the God, whose we are, and whom we serve in the cause of the Bible, can make all hinderances give way, and erect monuments of his mercy wheresoever he pleases.

"The Athens Bible Society was formed yesterday. The Committee is composed of twelve of the most respectable men in the city-all Greeks. The Archbishop, though absent at Constantinople, was nominated President of the Institution, which honour, it is hoped, he will not refuse to accept; Mr. Logotheti, the British Consul, and Mr. Tirnaviti, were elected vice-presidents; with six directors, two secretaries and a treasurer.

"The immediate sphere of this Society's usefulness includes Attica and Boeotia, with the neighbouring isles of Eubea, Salamis, Egina and others. The Directors seem impressed with the necessity and utility of making the modern Greek Testament a school-book, and of supplying the clergy, who are greatly in want of the Scriptures, both for their churches and their people, with the ancient and modern Greek Testament."

THE

HE recent fate of the leaders of a sect, which arose within the last century, to impugn the rule of faith maintained as orthodox by the Established Mahometan Church, and to shake the power of the state with which that Church is identified, attracted the attention, perhaps, of many of us, and has induced me to think that we might usefully devote a little attention to the affairs even of parties so widely removed from the sphere of our relations, if it were only from a feeling of commiseration with resistance in any shape to the combined horrors of political and spiritual despotism, and a desire to trace, however faintly, the too apparent effects on the destinies of mankind, which arise from the union of Church and State, whatever be the intrinsic merits of the system which the coalition is meant to support.

The consideration of the subject suggested rather a wide field of inquiry into the nature and details of the Moslem Establishment, its conduct towards Nonconformists, and the principles by which that conduct seems to have been governed; but towards satisfying our curiosity on these points there is not much accurate information; and in general under a despotic form of government, apostacy from its faith is so necessarily and intimately connected with a rebellion against its civil policy, that it is difficult to discover the real motives of either party, under the veil which the conqueror, at any rate, thinks proper to throw over them.

The whole system of Mahometanism,-whether we consider the extra ordinary character and history of its founder, its rapid progress, or its influence for so many ages on the habits, religious, political and moral, of so large a portion of the civilized globe, (so large, indeed, as to startle a mind regarding the comparative influences of Islamism and Christianity,)—has always seemed to me a subject of great

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interest, and open to much speculation and inquiry, the materials for which are proportionably scanty.

What is there in history (if any thing like history of the early or indeed any portion of the life of Mahomet can be said to exist *) that forbids us, or rather what is there that does not induce us to believe, that, at least in the first conception of the bold project of reclaiming his country to a purer system of theology, and restoring the faith taught, as he conceived, by the divine missions of the Hebrew prophets and Jesus Christ, to its primitive simplicity, the man who afterwards stooped to base imposture, was actuated by a generous feeling of abhorrence of the degeneracy and superstition of the Jew and the Christian, and the degrading idolatry of the Heathen by whom he was surrounded?

It will not be in my power here to enter into any particular detail of the history and doctrine of Mahomet, nor is it my purpose to palliate the arts of imposture and tyranny by which (as far as our accounts can be depended upon) it certainly appears that his plans were eventually carried into effect; but I cannot help observing, that the nobleness of his birth, his unquestioned descent from princes who had long ruled their country by the sole title of approved wisdom and integrity, the unvarying testimony to his talents and possession of the kind and generous affections of the heart, his situation, by common consent, as the chosen guardian of the existing religion of the country, raise a strong presumption that the project which first presented itself to his mind was that of earning to himself an honourable name, and deserving well of

"Gibbon has hardly apprized the reader sufficiently of the crumbling foun-dation upon which his narrative of Mahomet's life and actions depends."Hallam's Middle Ages, II. 163, 8vo.

And, situated as the world then was, who was there of the surrounding varieties of idolatrous Jewish or even Christian sects, that was authorized to cast the first stone against the new pretender to inspiration, or even to deprecate the propagation of his opinions, by that force to which it was so common with all to have recourse? Adverting only to the state of Christianity;-can any cause, so pure in its origin, be imagined more debased and corrupted by its professors than that which now assumed the name and form of the pure and humble doctrines of the gospel? Its votaries had greedily sought the patronage of a court, which was to raise them to temporal honours and enable them to tyrannize over the consciences of their brethren, and for a time their objects of ambition, secular and religious, were gratified; but the new Establishment soon found itself identified with the interests of a weak and profligate government, disgraced by the vilest superstitions, and a prey to the bitter animosities and discussions of the opposing sects, who, under the various forms of the Nestorian, Eutychian, Monophysite and other heresies, filled the East "with carnage, assassination, and such detestable enormities as rendered the very name of Christianity odious to many." +

I have not met with any information satisfactory to my mind concerning the connexion which appears to have been always preserved between the Arabian and Jewish theology. The Pentateuch, or rather the facts recorded in it, seen to have formed as important a part of the history and faith of the one as the other, and the genuine religion (as Mr. Mills, in his History of Mahometanism, observes) of the sons of Ishmael was always a strict belief in the Unity of God, as afterwards laid down in the Koran.

+ Mosheim's Eccl. Hist.

With such a prospect, with a mind capable of detecting and despising the impositions which were practised under the mask of religion, the vices of its professors, and the incapacity of those who pretended to minister to the spiritual wants of his countrymen, and, above all, deeply impressed with the Monotheistic abhorrence of Idolatry and Polytheism, Mahomet may, without any extravagant stretch of charity. be considered as entering on his career of reform, with ardent desires for the restoration of his nation to better hopes, with feelings that would do honour to his heart and his understanding.

To favour his design there were several concurring causes, arising principally from the existing state of religious opinion in the East, and all these advantages Mahomet perceived and embraced, as the basis of his meditated reform, knowing well how to turn them to the best account.

Whatever praise belongs to him for his scheme itself, or the mode of its execution, it is that of a skilful leader taking advantage of favourable circumstances and feelings to turn them to his purpose, rather than that of an original projector. The more one considers the basis of his system, and the whole detail in which it was ultimately developed, the more one is convinced of this. The grand principle on which the whole was built, the Unity of God, was one which, there is every reason to believe, had for ages been deeply rooted in the better part of the population of the Eastern nations, and had been in later times strengthened by the intercourse which had taken place to a considerable extent, first with the Jews, in consequence of their captivity and dispersion, and next with the Christians, while their This principle only required a mind of faith was yet pure and unadulterated. energy to develope it, and lead it on to action against any faith whose professors leaned towards Polytheism and Idolatry, in which charges it is evident Christianity began to be considered as deeply implicated. * It had been

"Verily, Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, is the apostle of God and his word which he conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit proceeding from him. Believe, therefore, in God and his apostles, and