"But there is no evidence that the Roman Catholic clergy bestowed their attention upon, or evinced an anxiety to improve those common schools, which thus abounded previously, or to introduce such books, and such kinds of instruction, as would have been beneficial to the understandings and the morals of the people. I mean the practical influence of Roman Catholic education upon the moral feelings and consciences of the people. Iu reality the same causes operate in both cases. The authority of the church supersedes, in one case, the exercise of individual judgment, and dispenses in the other with the obligation of private conscience. By undertaking the responsibility in both instances, the spiritual superior acquires domi. nion at once over the reason and the conduct of his disciple, and has possession of all the springs by which he is governed.

"In truth, the situation of the clergy of that church calls for the greatest sympa. thy and commiseration from those who differ the most widely from her tenets, and most condemn her practice, If the Romish church loves darkness, because she fears the light, her clerical sons are the first, perhaps the greatest victims of her degrading policy. Their situation is, in this respect, more hopeless than that of the meanest and most ignorant of the people over whom in turn they exercise their rule."

If this be a just view of the fact, how important a question arises. Is the legislature to give to such a body of men, the victims certainly, but as certainly the votaries of this destructive and demoralizing system-is the legislature which professes to feel such to be the case, to afford facilities to these men to propagate that system, to bind still closer its folds around the mind of its subjects, until every intellectual and every moral struggle is stilled in passive and inanimate acquiescence? Mr. Glassford feels upon this subject, almost as strongly as one condemned to pass his days in the faction-inspiring atmosphere of Ireland; he says,

"If this be truly the great evil of Ireland, it follows, that of all the means which are likely to effectuate a remedy, there can be none more promising than a general diffusion of knowledge among the Roman Catholic people, by the extension of the common schools, co-operating with the labours of the Protestant clergy, and of the Societies instituted for disseminating the Scriptures in the vernacular languages of the country."

In this we most cordially agree with him, and that not only because we are convinced that the rising population will by this means be withdrawn from the thraldom of ignorance, and therefore of superstition and error, but because, as we have remarked, information radiates from the school-room and its inmates, to the cottage and the hamlet; and the lessons of divine wisdom imbibed by the child, become involuntarily and imperceptibly, and therefore, more effectually influential upon the parent and the adult. Truth cannot remain in contact with error, and light with darkness, without a contest arising, and the issue must be beneficial; and as Mr. Glassford remarks, (p. 29,) the existence of the Papal system has been prolonged in other countries in Europe, partly by the difficulty of applying such instruments, and partly by the connexion of their governments with the Church of Rome; so in this country, the priests have always had recourse to the demagogue, to arrest the progress of the bible, or to employ the heretical school. We speak our conviction from experience and observation, that a quarter of a

century of political tranquillity would effect a change in the moral and religious character of the Irish peasantry, that a century of the interrupted and desultory instruction now received, must be ineffective to produce, and which all the powers of unassisted Popery never could efface. That Ireland is to be without agitation, is however, we fear, hopeless; at least we have no reason to conclude, that the quarter of a century we look for, will take place very soon, and we must, therefore, look again to our resources and ask, what is to be done to counteract and repel that agitation; and again we reply, Education.

In calculating the efforts of the individuals, and societies, that have been labouring in Ireland, we certainly think a little injustice is committed, when we forget the short time that they have been in operation,-and that there has scarcely elapsed a period sufficient for the child placed in one of these schools to grow up to manhood, since they have endeavoured to scatter the word of truth. We cannot expect to have our harvest at the moment we commit the seed to the bosom of the earth, or that "a nation should be born in a day ;" and when we call to mind the counteracting influence of Popery,-the exertions made by the priests to promote their power, the habits of submission in which the people are reared, the opposition, frequently successful, and always restless, against Bible Schools, we can only wonder that so much has been done; and that in spite of demagogues and priests, there exists so strong a desire to learn, and so many fruits of the information communicated; we can only rejoice that the Protestant Schools are still in existence, nay that the wise and persevering and conciliatory conduct of the patrons of the Schools, has produced even in the most agitated parts of the country, a return of the scholars; and deeply do we rejoice that the public discussions held in different parts of the country by the Reformation Societies, though denounced by the priests, and ridiculed by the demagogues; though in some instances the priestly emissaries have succeeded in producing a riot, and in others have kept away the people by main force, yet generally they have been attended by the peasantry, who in spite of maledictions have thronged to them, have listened attentively and respectfully when their teachers have been confuted and their prejudices impugned; and have gone away in peace, to meditate on what they had heard, and to search the Scriptures for themselves. These are symptoms that we rejoice to see, which we do not wonder the Romish Clergy shudder to perceive, which we value the more, because we feel that they are results in spite of the political agitation of the country, and the prejudices against Protestantism implanted in the people's mind.

Agreeing perfectly with Mr. Glassford in his view of the importance of education, we would enquire how it can be made most effectual. We do not think that Ireland is prepared for a national education; the divisions in the country prevent it: the very doubts upon its expediency prevent it; the party medium through which every thing is seen by those who would have the disposal of the means,

imperiously forbid it. That government is interested in the work, we confess, but we doubt if the government can possess either the local knowledge or local influence that would render such a plan effectual; and while we fear that the people would distrust every thing that had the stamp of authority upon it, and the multitude of agents intervening between the exchequer and the school-room would intercept the bounty necessary to support such a system, we believe that the best mode of treating such a country as this, is to leave the business to the unpaid and unpurchaseable exertions of benevolence, to those who know the want and the means of supplying it, tothe different Societies, each adapted to some local demand and necessity, and to the agents of such institutions; aud if the government has the wish to co-operate in the work, let it give the means of filling up the deficiencies of private contributions, by committing a portion of its funds to the care of the several committees, over whose disbursements there are as many overseers as subscribers, and who are not protected from public enquiry by the shield of official forms or sanctions.

We had hoped to have concluded our observations on this subject in our present number, but our Correspondents' pressing claims and our limited space compel us to postpone its further consideration to our next.

RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

ON INCONSISTENCY IN RELIGIOUS PROFESSORS, AND THE REPROACH OF THE WORLD THEREBY INCURRED.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

SIR, On taking up your Number for June last, which has only just circulated into my hands, my attention was called to the article subscribed H. "on the Christian Character." And on perusing that article, finding myself disposed to unite with your correspondent in his desire to analyze and provide an antidote for the phenomenon which forms the subject of his investigation,-The inconsistency observable amongst professing Christians-but unable to enter fully into the views by which he attempts to explain it, a train of thought commenced, which, seeming to promise a more satisfactory solution, or, at least, a more remedial exposition, of the difficult problem before me, gave birth to the following remarks, which it

The importance of this feature of public institutions will be manifest to any one who looks at the late proceedings of the two valuable English Societies, that for the propagation of the Gospel, and for promoting Christian knowledge

is left to your discretion to deem worthy or unworthy of a place in your useful Miscellany.

By way of preface, I must begin with excepting against the apparent sense in which your correspondent employs the term "professing Christians." Does he mean by this term to designate those in whom the distinguishing peculiarities of God's people are manifest to the view of the world, and who avow sentiments, and observe a line of conduct, which mark them as a distinct class, even within the pale of the visible church? I presume, from the general tenor of his argument, that such must be the signification which the term in question bears in the use that he makes of it; and that by the terms, "the mere moralist," and "the world," he intends to denominate another party, who, deserving as they may be of the titles assigned to them, do, notwithstanding, "profess and call themselves Christians," as well as those from whom they are intended to be distinguished. I would take the friendly liberty, therefore, of suggesting to your correspondent, the propriety and importance of being somewhat more precise in selecting a term of distinction, the ambiguity of which, besides the want of perspicuity occasioned by it, appears to invest many of his ideas with an air of prejudice and partiality.

But taking the term, in the sense in which I suppose it was intended to be taken, to denote those who, besides professing themselves Christians, put forth certain pretensions to a soundness in principle, and a vitality in religion, of which" the mere moralist," and "the world" are destitute; by what test, or what kind of evidence, I would ask, are these pretensions to be judged? It will not avail any thing to reply, by new views of Evangelical truth; or by a decided change of mind; or by a person's coming out and being separate from the world, and identifying himself with that more excellent part of the Christian community for whom your correspondent undertakes the office of an apologist. Because in all the religious peculiarities bere specified, and in many others of a like nature, there may be the pretence without the sterling reality, the shadow without the substance. But the proper test by which the worth of our religious pretensions is to be tried, is thus prescribed by our Lord himself, " By their fruits ye shall know them." By what fruits? By "the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the praise and glory of God." Phil. i. 2. By "the fruits of the spirit, which are love, peace, joy, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." Gal. v. 22, 23. What, then, are we to understand by an intimation, which I give your correspondent full credit for not intending, but to which his hypothesis seems to be in danger of giving some sort of countenance-namely, that a Christian may act inconsistently with his religious pretension, and may deviate, not only through ignorance or inadvertencey, but "more widely from the path marked by the footsteps of the Redeemer's flock." without bringing discredit on his religious profession, or giving reasonable occasion for reproach? If we are to know the true Christian, from the mere professor, by

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their respective fruits, we must estimate the soundness of their pretensions, by the practical influence which their professed principles appear to exert, or not to exert, in their temper of mind, their character, and their conduct in all the details of life. To discredit a person's religious profession altogether, and pronounce him a hypoerite for one failure, or for many, of a venial description, and not involving any positive criminality, even the world itself, out of love to its own, would deem most unjust and uncharitable. Especially, in an early stage of religious experience, a considerable degree of ignorance, error, prejudice, and practical inadvertency, is often found associated with integrity of principle, and reality of grace. But here another question suggests itself: by what rule of Christian wisdom or equity; by what Scriptural canon, shall we undertake any thing like an accurate confinement of this charitable allowance, to a specific and more excellent class of professing Christians, so as to withhold the benefit of it from another inferior class, who profess the same religion; but whose pretensions and whose character, though respectable in a moral point of view, are shrouded in a worldly atmosphere, and shorn of those heavenly beams of Gospel light, which ought to illuminate the path, and irradiate the walk and conversation of the followers of Jesus? I cannot help thinking, that the want of a charitable spirit, candidly, considerately, and impartially exercised, is a greater and more prevailing fault amongst professing Christians of every class, and more worthy the name of inconsistency, because more opposed to the genius of the professed religion, than most others which ever become the subject of reproach or recrimination. Surely it is too much forgotten by one party, as well as the other, by the truly religious, as well as the more questionably religious, that the purest, the most excellent, the most genuine, and the only decisive, mark of distinction in the Christian character, is charity. 1 Cor. xiii. Surely the critical, censorious, exclusive, decisive tone, in which professing Christians of higher pretensions are often heard passing judgment on those of a lower class, bears too near a resemblance to the reproachful temper of the world towards themselves; and actually approximates them in spirit and in character, to the very party, from whose society they feel bound to keep themselves as separate as may be compatible with the duties which they owe to the community at large. At the same time, this critical spirit forms one of the most prominent causes, and buttoo reasonable a cause of provocation to those prejudices and unfavourable constructions, with which the mere moralist and the world arm themselves against the saving power and practical influence of the Gospel.

Inconsistency must, at least it ought to affect the view which the Christian takes of his own character, with darker or lighter shades of obscurity, discredit, and discomfort. Even sins of ignorance or negligence, will necessarily be productive of dissatisfaction and disquietude in the mind of a conscientious and reflecting person; and if he offend more considerably against the law of God written in his heart, the rebukes of conscience will be proportionably strong and loud,