FEW productions more frequently disappoint our expectations, than those professedly written for children. They are very commonly printed in a suitable type, a convenient size, at a moderate price. Every thing external is well adapted to the proposed end; but the style, the language, the line of argument, the literary part has often no reference at all to those for whom it is professedly intended. Mr.

Wilson's publication, however, presents a striking contrast to the general rule. The Discourses which are in number Twenty-two, are plain, short, well-arranged, intelligible to children of a tender age, at once instructive and interesting. We therefore recommend them most strongly to the attention of our readers, as admirably calculated for the use of the young, whether in Sunday or National Schools, or in private families, and we earnestly hope that their pious author will produce a series of similar volumes, and thus increase the obligations already owing to him from the Christian world, on account of his valuable labours in the cause of Infant Schools, The following specimen will, we think, fully establish the correctness of our commendation.

THE TRIAL OF ABRAHAM'S FAITH. And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham, and he said, Behold, here I am.-GEN. XXII.

How happy was Abraham when God had given him a son! While the child was young, like Hannah, he lent him to the Lord for all the days of his life. And now days and years had passed away, and the child had grown, and Abraham loved him. Isaac was his son, his only son, whom he loved. The child must love his parent, and the parent must love his child; but we must love God more than we love each other. Did the holy man begin to love his child more than he loved

God?

Part I. By Dalton.

God tried Abraham to see what

I was in his heart.

Now let us think of what took place. I. GOD TOLD ABRAHAM TO OFFER UP THE SON WHOM HE LOVED, UPON AN ALTAR.

Before Isaac was born, God had told the holy man that he should have a son, and that his son should live to be a man, and should see his children after him. But now God bids him to slay his son. God tried Abraham to see if he trusted him with his whole heart. God tries all whom he loves. He gives us what is good, and then he seems as if he would take it away again. And then it is seen whether we love God, and trust in God. You are well. God has given you health, and your heart is happy and joyful. If God sends sickness upon you, it will be to try whether you love your health better than him. He will try whether you trust in your health more than you trust in him. You have kind friends. You love your friends, and you are happy. If God send sickness upon your kind friends, it will be to try whether you love and trust in your friends more than you love and trust in him. If God loves you, he will try you that you may love nothing so much as you love him.

II. ABRAHAM BEGAN AT ONCE TO DO WHAT GOD TOLD HIM.

Fearful thought! The sun is not yet up in the heavens. The birds are now awake, and begin their morning song. The cattle are moving from their dewy beds. The air is cool and fresh, and all around is smiling with the rising day. Who comes forth from the tent? It is the holy Abraham. He is cleaving the wood for the altar. Where is the lamb? No! he has bound the wood, and laid it upon the ass, and the young men laid onward in the way. Who comes next from the tent? It is Isaac-the son whom he loved. Where is the lamb? They are gone far away from their home. They have come to the foot of the mountain. There is the holy Abraham. He walks on in silence. The knife is in his girdle. He thinks he prays. There is Isaac his son ; and there is the wood and the fire;-but where is the lamb? They are gone upward and they are alone. The wood is taken from the ass, and is bound upon the child. See! they stop! The burden is on the ground; the wood is heaped up in order; the cord is bound on the arms and the feet of the child. He is laid upon the altar, upon the wood; the dreadful knife is in the hand of Abraham? Oh! why?

Did he not love Isaac? Yes, but he loved God more. God had said, "take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of;" and what God said, Abraham did.

III. WHEN ABRAHAM WAS TRIED, HIS FAITH DID NOT FAIL.

What did Abraham think when God told him to offer Isaac upon the altar? God had said that Isaac should live, and his children should be many. But now

God said that Isaac must be given up. Abraham knew that what God said must come to pass. He thought in his heart God can raise my son from the grave, and give him life again. He trusted in God and did His will. He did not think of what he saw or what he felt, but of what God had said, and that was all he wanted to know.

And Abraham knew something more than all this: "God shall provide himself a lamb." Abraham looked for better things than those which God had said about Isaac. He thought of the Lamb, God's own Son, whom he would give for the sins of the world; and then his heart was at rest. There are many things, little child, which you know not; but God is true. Perhaps you are sick, or poor or sad; but God is true. He is kind to all who love him; and if you love him he is kind, though you are sick, or poor, or sad.

And then think, "There is something beyond all I see. God has given his Son, I will think of that and be happy.'

IV. THE CHILD ISAAC, TOO, BENT TO THE WILL of God.

From his birth, the holy father had taught him the ways of the Lord. The child Isaac had learned to trust in God, and to do or to suffer His will. And now the bitter trial is upon him. He sees the fire and the wood? but where is the lamb? What thought he, when his parent who loved him bound him with cords and placed him upon the altar? Did he look at the big tear which fell from the aged man's cheek? Did he listen to the prayers which burst from his bosom? Did he hear the words which bid him submit to the will of God? It is enough; God has said it. He lies silent upon the altar.

Learn, little child, whilst you are young, to submit to the will of God; and let your parents tell you what that will is. You are never too young to show forth the fruits of his grace.

V. GOD WAS VERY KIND TO ABRA

HAM AND TO HIS SON.

All was ready; and then Abraham took the knife to slay his son. And did God let Abraham slay his son? No! his faith was tried. He was ready to do God's will. An angel speaks to him from heaven. It is enough. God is well pleased. The cords are taken from the child; the I will of God is done. Isaac still lives. Isaac is given back again to his holy father, as it were from the dead.

But is the altar taken down? In the thicket which is near, a ram is caught by his horns, and that ram is placed on the altar where Isaac lay; and the ram is slain, and the blood flows down, and it is burned upon the altar in the stead of the child. Was it because Isaac did not deserve to die? All of us have sinned, and we all deserve to die; but God has found a ransom; God has sent his Son, and, like the ram, he has died for Abraham and Isaac, and for all of us. How kind is God! The ram died in the stead of Isaac: Jesus Christ died in our stead. When we think of Jesus Christ, let us think, too, if Jesus Christ had not died upon the cross, we must have died for ever.

VI. WHEN GOD HAD TRIED ABRAHAM, THEN HE SPAKE KINDLY TO HIM, AND AGAIN GAVE HIM A PROMISE OF GOOD.

Abraham gave his child to God and then God told him that his children's children should be as the stars in heaven for number. And he told him, too, what it meant that when the time came Jesus Christ should be born of one of his children. If we gave him all we have, we give but little to God-but how much can he give to us! and the best he gives is the pardon of our sins, and his Holy Spirit to teach us what is good, and help us to do it. Little child, give all you have to God-give him your heart; love him; read his word; try to do his will; trust only in Jesus Christ. There is a promise for you. God loves you now; God will take you to heaven at the last, to be with him for ever and for

ever.

that it would be a righteous thing with God to wrest from our hands that mighty empire, where his name has been by us so long and so grievously dishonoured.

We shall not however enlarge on our national policy in India; for though our government of that country has, humanly speaking, a very material effect on the propagation of Christianity abroad, and by its reciprocal operations, a considerable influence on the established Church in this country, yet our pages seldom perhaps fall into the hands of those who have much influence in Indian affairs; and we can only hope to produce any good effect upon them, by earnestly entreating that God who has all hearts in his hands, to dispose the minds of our rulers to such measures as may promote his glory, and by urging upon our readers the duty of uniting in such entreaties, and of preparing and forwarding from time to time, petitions to Parliament, against the encouragement now given by our Indian governments to Idolatry and all its accompanying abomina

tions.

From these general remarks we proceed briefly briefly to notice the several works before us, all of which contain much that is highly interesting and instructive, and deserve serious perusal and attention.

We have already had occasion to speak in favourable terms of Mr. Hough's Reply to the Abbe Dubois on the state of Christianity in India, and we have therefore great pleasure in meeting with him again. His present work is highly valuable, and contains a mass of information on the propagation of Christianity in India with which very few persons are acquainted. The two volumes now published include the history of the Syrian church and the Romish missions to the commencement of the present century.

The author purposes in

two remaining volumes to give the history of the Protestant missions.

Mr. Hough concedes that the generally received ideas of Christianity being first proclaimed in India by the Apostles Bartholomew and Thomas are entirely unfounded; though it is probable that some of the Alexandrian disciples of St. Mark might convey the knowledge of the truth to the Indian merchants, who in those periods traded to Alexandria, or might even accompany them on returning to their native countries. Pantonus of Alexandria was probably however the first Christian missionary who actually visited India. His mission took place in the second century, though our whole information concerning it is very imperfect. Johannes, one of the prelates assembled at the council of Nice in 325, subscribed the decrees as Metropolitan of Persia and of the Great India,' which justifies the conclusion that the Indian church was at that time flourishing and governed by her own prelates; while the Syrian Christians of Travancore assert that the Syrian version of the Scriptures was transmitted to India prior to the Council of Nice.

We cannot however give even an abridgment of Mr. Hough's narrative of the introduction of Christianity into India, but must for this refer to the work itself. It is somewhat remarkable that about the close of the ninth century our illustrious Alfred sent ambassadors to visit the shrine of St. Thomas in the East, which the Romanists pretend is the same now shown in the vicinity of Madras. Alfred's real motive appears to have been of a commercial nature, but whatever was his object it is interesting to look back to this first opening of the Eastern continent to the enterprize of the British Isles.

The greater part of these volumes is necessarily occupied with the Romish efforts in the East; and

our Author's narrative is here at once most interesting and instructive. Rome has ever been the same, tyrannical and treacherous. The annals of her proceedings in the East exactly correspond to her oppressions in the West. In each her object has ever been to advance the Romish power and authority by any means, and with an utter neglect and disregard of the interests of religion or humanity. Where she can rule, it is with a rod of iron; where her power is less formidable, she strives by deceit, hypocrisy, and subtlety to obtain the empire. No oath can bind; no engagements are of any avail, when once they interfere with the real or the supposed interests of the Romish See. It is this FACT which the partially informed liberals and conceders of the present day cannot comprehend, which renders all attempt at concession or compromise utterly nugatory. Yet this FACT is recorded in the history of every protestant church, and is fully demonstrated in the volumes before us.

Mr. Hough has entered at some length into the mission of Francis Xavier; but the grand efforts of the Romanists were employed in bringing the Syrian churches of Malabar under Romish subjection. Prior to the sixteenth century the Syrian churches were connected with the Patriarch of Mosul and were entirely independent of Rome -but in 1545 some Cordelian or Franciscan Friars proceeded to the coast of Malabar; these were soon succeeded and eventually superseded by the Jesuits; who with their accustomed subtlety and artifice at length contrived to bring a considerable number of the Syrian churches under their control. The history is long and painful, though highly instructive; and it is especially important as being principally derived from Romish writers. indeed scarcely any other authorities exist. It was a part of the

Jesuits' system to obtain possession of all the antient writings and documents of the Syrian churches; to mutilate those works which might be made available, and to destroy all those records which might interfere with their own arrogant claims and unwarrantable assumptions; and hence as far as the Romish influence extended, every historical document was falsified

or destroyed. Sufficient however is left to show a most unparalleled system of violence, fraud, and oppression, extending from the first Jesuit mission to the Synod of Diamper in 1599, and thence to the detection of the impostures of the Jesuits and their suppression in 1773.

One of the principal actors in these transactions, was Don Allexio de Menezes, Archbishop of Goa, under whose superintendance the Synod of Diamper was held. At this Synod the Syrian churches were more formally subjected to Rome, and Mr. Hough has deemed its acts so important, as to print them at full length in his Appendix. After some judicious remarks in the body of his history, on the acts and proceedings of this synod, Mr. H. introduces the following valuable observations, which we insert principally for their intrinsic worth, but partly also as a specimen of his style.

Had the achievement of this Archbishop and his Jesuits been a triumph of divine truth, all faithful Christians would have rejoiced in their success. The first wish of those who have learned to appreciate the word of God, is, to have it diffused through the.earth; and to hear of its progress fills them with delight, by whomsoever it has been proclaimed. Whatever importance each individual may attach to the communion to which he belongs, yet in things necessary to salvation, there will be but one heart and one mind in the Lord," among all that follow his steps. Devout and peaceable Christians of every land will cordially unite in prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to prosper their respective exertions, and in praise to the great Head of the Church