can be seen as they are. This will excite you to nobler deeds. A world of captive spirits implores your help. Oh, regard their cry. Seek their deliverance. Live for their salvation. Act thus, and to you this must prove a happy year. Every hour will bring its tribute to the world's Redeemer-every day will enrich his cause; and, as years roll on, his interests shall triumph. The spiritual splendours of the truth shall beam on a benighted world. "Men will be blessed in" Jesus-"all nations shall call him blessed."

And should you this year die, having so lived, you "shall never see death." Its shadow only shall rest on your couch; angels shall minister to your dying wants; and the Lord of angels and of men shall raise your happy spirit to join "the nations of the saved" in the realms of "the ransomed." And as to your body, that

-"shall slumber in the ground Till the last trumpet's joyful sound; Then burst the chains with sweet surprise,

And in your Saviour's image rise."

B. E.

PLAIN TRUTHS FOR PIOUS
CHURCHMEN.

Dissenters are not the Enemies of the
Church.

FELLOW CHRISTIANS,-Some of you, I know, read the PENNY MAGAZINE. That, so far as it goes, is a hopeful sign. You will thus be enabled to judge for yourselves what sort of people Dissenters really are, and what it is they are aiming at. We are often called hard names, and very hard things are said of us. Among other things, we are called "the enemies of the church;" and it is said of us, that we are "making wicked attempts to pull down the church."

As you are members of the church, and love the church, and wish to see it prosper, you are not likely to think very well of those who are supposed to hate it, and to be determined on its overthrow.

Before, however, you conclude that

we are the church's enemies, and that we seek her destruction, just hear us in our own defence, and let us tell you what it is we do mean.

It is not a very easy thing to deter mine how to set about answering the charge, because the term "church" is used in so many senses by our opponents. Sometimes they use it in the sense of the building in which they meet for public worship; sometimes in the scriptural sense of "a congregation of faithful men;" sometimes of the bishops and other dignitaries of the denomination; and sometimes of the articles, creeds, canons, homilies, &c.

Now, if any of you good church people are afraid that Dissenters want to pull down the buildings called churches, you may dismiss your fears without a moment's hesitation, and rest perfectly satisfied that we desire no such thing. We have been taught to attach neither sanctity nor profanity to a mere building. Whatever may have been the delusions that have been taught in some of these buildings, we do not hold the stones and timber, or bricks and mortar, responsible for them. We should deprecate the destruction of any house that has been erected for the worship of God where it is really needed; and if churches be erected on right principles, and occupied by holy and enlightened men, and employed for the advocacy of pure scriptural truth, we say, "the more the better." Be quite at ease, therefore, on this point; and believe us when we say, we have no wish whatever to engage in a war of architectural spoliation.

Nor is it true that we wish to extirpate Episcopalians as a section of the universal church; or that we wish to prevent the increase of your numbers, the spiritual prosperity of your members, or the success of your various voluntary religious enterprises. As Episcopacy is the established religion of this country, nothing is more common than for persons to mix the two things together, and to identify Episcopacy with the establishment principle, and then to imagine that because we oppose the State-church principle, we are declaring war against Episcopacy. Hence they come to look at the conduct of

Dissenters in no other light than that of one religious sect uncharitably opposing and endeavouring to destroy another. But the two things are quite distinct, and ought to be kept distinct in our minds; and then you would see that we may have a strong aversion to the State-church principle, and yet at the same time may love Episcopalians as brethren, and be willing to unite with them "in every good word and work." We do think that the government of the church by diocesan bishops is not the government taught and sanctioned by the Scriptures; but then we do not blame those who think otherwise for adopting it, nor do we feel any ill-will towards them for doing 80. On all such points our motto is, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." There are differences of opinion existing among ourselves; but this does not prevent us from loving one another, from fraternising with each other, or from rejoicing in each other's success. We can in the same manner love Episcopalians as Christians, and desire to do so; and if you were enjoying the spiritual independence which a church of Christ ought to enjoy, we should rejoice in your accessions and progress.

When, therefore, you hear it represented that we are the enemies of the church, that we are actuated by hatred of all its members, and that we are bent on the destruction of everything good in it, you will know that we are greatly misunderstood, or falsely accused. What we really do wish is, to deliver your church from its bondage, and to see it in possession of the privileges which it ought never to have relinquished. If you rightly understood us, you would rank us among your best friends; and would feel that you not only owe us a debt of gratitude, but that you ought to unite with us in helping to work out your ecclesiastical emancipation. A FRIEND.

Νου. 21, 1847.

de Lecalde, generally called Ignatius Loyola. His first companions were, Le Fevre, Francis Xavier, Lainez, Salmeron, Bobadilla, and Rodriguez. They vowed implicit, blind, and unlimited submission and obedience to the pope.

Pope Paul III. established them by a bull, dated September 27, 1540. This bull limited the number to sixty. The same pope abrogated this limitation by another bull, dated March 14, 1543, which gave to the society unlimited extension all over the world.

It is worthy of particular attention, that at the time the Jesuits were established the power of Rome was shaken to its very base. Let us glance at the progress of the Reformation.

In

In 1517, Luther first attacked the system of indulgences. In 1527, the Imperialists under Colonna made the pope prisoner, and obliged him to accede to their requests. In 1530, the diet of Augsburgh published the confession known by the name of the Augsburgh Confession of Faith; in favour of which there were three electoral princes, twenty dukes and princes, twenty-four counts, four barons, and thirty-five free imperial towns. 1532, a statute was made in England against paying first-fruits to the pope, and for consecrating bishops, though bulls were denied at Rome. In 1534, England threw off the supremacy of the pope. In 1535, that powerful antidote to popish poison-the English Bible-translated by Miles Coverdale, was completed. It was also about this time translated into German by Luther, and into the Swedish by Olaus and Lawrence. The pretensions of the pope were treated with contempt even in Italy and Spain, so that his dominions were abridged, and his revenues considerably diminished. Those countries that had furnished the largest sums of money to the popish treasury having declared in favour of the Reformation. The bulls and threats of the pope, once such objects of dread, were now despised, and papal authority was as a thing of nought in those very lands where it had been most regarded. Such was the condition of papal power at the time the Jesuits were esta

DIALOGUE ON DISSENT.

C. My dear friend D-, you know I entertain great respect and affection for you; but there is one thing about you which grieves me very much: I'm told you 're a Dissenter! I had hoped you were a good Churchman, but was indeed shocked to find you were mixed up with such a set as Dissenters. It surely cannot be true.

D. Perhaps I may not understand your question. You speak of" such a set as Dissenters." What sort of a set do you think them to be?

C. Why, Dissenters are anything and everything. There's no telling what they are. There's all kind of heresy and schism amongst them. There are Methodists, and Quakers, and Socinians, and Socialists, and Baptists, and Independents, and Deists, and Atheists, and Infidels of all sorts. As to their sects, there's no end to them. There may be a few good people among them, but they must be very much in the dark to mix themselves up with such a set of folks of all religions and no religion. Does not the Scripture say we are to "avoid the appearance of evil;" and to "come out from the wicked, and be separate ?" How, then, my dear friend, can you, who are a wellmeaning man, and, I believe, a good Christian, reconcile it to your conscience to remain among such people?

D. Don't be alarmed, my good sir; I am no more a Dissenter than yourself!

C. How is it, then, that you don't attend the parish-church? I was certainly told that you went to the Independent chapel.

D. What church?

C. Why, my church-the parishchurch!

D. And you, then, are as much a Dissenter for not coming to mine. If you call me a Dissenter because I dissent from you, why, have I not an equal right to call you a Dissenter because you dissent from me?

C. Ah, but my church is the church, and all who do not belong to it must be Dissenters.

D. What do you mean by the church?

C. The true church, to be sure-the scriptural church.

D. That is, the church you think to be true and scriptural. Pray, are you a Protestant?

C. Of course I am! ask such a question ?

How can you "No Popery!"

D. Then you know that one of the chief principles of Protestantism is that every one has a right to judge for himself in matters of religion. If yours is the true church, because, exercising this right of private judgment, you believe it to be true, my church is to me the true church because I believe it to be so. I am as conscientiously persuaded that my church is more scriptural than yours, as you are that yours is superior to mine. I may, therefore, say that you are a dissenter from the true church just as reasonably as you can bring the same charge against me. And I have as much right to ask why you dissent from me, as you to ask why I dissent from you. In truth, I'm not fond of the word dissenter at all.

C. Why not?

D. It seems to assume a prior claim

all others, is an invidious distinction in society, and often causes persons of totally different principles to be classed together as if resembling each other. You just now spoke of dissent being an evil thing, because of the number of sects it contains, and because it includes many parties of very erroneous as well as of infidel principles. This is unfair. I am an Independent; Mr. A. is a Socinian; Mr. B. is a Socialist, and disbelieves the Bible altogether; but are we, therefore, alike, just because we